Do not be deceived. The murdered innocents of Gaza are not those who are really suffering. It is the liberal Jews like Hadley Freeman, victims of the new anti-Semitism.
Israel is a state openly founded on racist and theocratic grounds, in which Jews have an absolute right to live in Israel, wherever in the world they were born and their families have been for centuries, and nobody else does. The unfortunate pre-1946 occupants of the land have been mostly driven out into refugee camps, including in Gaza, while religiously motivated settlers continue apace to grab the best Palestinian land and water. The state does this for them precisely and explicity because they are Jewish. Those non-Jews who remained in Israel proper are subject to a whole raft of apartheid style legislation, even governing whom they may marry, and the quantity of this legislation is increasing. 140 Israeli laws specify treatment by race.
Israel is as a state entirely based and run on a racist premise. Its very foundation is racist. But while the Israeli state may steal land specifically for Jews, make provision for Jews, and make life difficult for non-Jews, anybody else who mentions Jews in the context of Israeli behaviour is a vicious racist and anti-Semite. This warped and ludicrous logic is enforced by political orthodoxy and the mainstream media.
It is as though, in opposing apartheid, it was taboo to mention it had been invented for the benefit of white people.
Reading Freeman’s long self-pitying self-centred whinge I was waiting to find out what had actually happened to her to occasion some distress. Had she had a brick through her window? Had she been assaulted in the street? Has somebody hurled racial abuse at her?
Apparently none of the above. It appears that she feels under unfair pressure to denounce the actions of Israel. And- horror of horrors – the Tricycle Theatre has cancelled a Jewish Film Festival in Kilburn because it was financed by the Israeli Embassy. Oh no, the agony! How can a poor girl survive in a North London which is so rife with anti-Semitism! It reminded me forcefully of the very first diplomatic social engagement of my professional career, in 1985 when our Afrikaaner hostess held forth on how she thought people looked down on her in Harrods.
I deplore racism with every part of my being, all racism. Freeman makes what is intended to be a smart observation that the Tricycle’s act “reminds me how very far I am from the States”. It is very plain that she regrets that and believes that the US attitude to Israel is better than the British one.
This then morphs into the meme that the reaction to the Gaza massacre is part of a wave of the “new anti-Semitism”. There have indeed been several deplorable anti-Semitic incidents in Europe in the last few months. But they have killed absolutely nobody in the last two years, while Israel has killed 1,500 people. There have been three terrible examples of racial murders of Jews in the past eight years, and there needs to be continued and unremitting vigilance against all hate crime. The disruption of Hadley’s cinema treats and the daubing of paint on a synagogue are in themselves bad things. But do they really compare to the massive disproportionate force being used to destroy over 1,000 women and children in a month in Gaza, and the context of the entire seventy year programme of ethnic cleansing and genocide of the Palestinian people?
You are right, Hadley. Just because you are Jewish does not mean you should be under special pressure to condemn Israel’s actions. But if you take it upon yourself to write a long article on the subject, we are entitled to expect you – as a human being – to condemn the massacre. And as in the article you write about nothing but your own angst and the evils of anti-Semitism, and manage not a single word of sympathy or regret for the victims of the terrible massacre in Gaza, we are entitled to form our own opinion.
And my opinion is that you are a wholly self-centred and self-regarding little person with an abject lack of moral perspective, who seems to think the murder of 1500 people is about the impact on your feelings.
Hadley, you are not disgusting because you are Jewish: you are just a disgusting human being.
PLEASE. PLEASE SIGN UP TO THIS. Gaza must be freed from its prison. It had an airport and a port until Israel destroyed them.
The United Nations: UN to run Gaza’s border controls (sea and air)
Opening the main gates of the prison that is Gaza will allow in a flood of humanitarian aid and assistance, and so give heart and hope to a beleaguered people.
With international agreement, the UN should gently but firmly
take the Gaza blockade out of the hands of the Israelis so that it can itself operate a humanised version of the blockade, in place of the present Israeli restrictions.
The UN would hold a international conference at which it would seek everyone’s agreement to take over the running of the blockade from th Israelis. The UN version would not be called a “blockade”, it could be referred to as “internationally mandated border controls”, or something similar. The USA would use its authority as Israel’s main source of financial aid to ensure its cooperation.
This proposed handover of responsibility for Gaza’s border controls
would offer the following advantages and benefits:
1. Humanitarian and human rights considerations would be built into the new border control regime, in a public and verifiable way This would reassure the Palestinians.
2. Israel’s legitimate security considerations would be built into the
new border control regime, in a public and verifiable way This would reassure the Israelis.
3. US involvement in the preparations for and implementation of
this UN conference would be crucial, and would greatly improve the
image of the US in the world.
4. This handover initiative would greatly improve the image of the
UN in the world. If this isn’t the kind of thing that the UN should be
doing, what is?
https://secure.avaaz.org/en/petition/The_United_Nations_UN_to_run_Gazas_border_controls_sea_and_air/?eECxgib
Fedup 8.55
“They are not Christians and are in fact Zoroastrians (Ancient Persian/Iranian religion).”
Yazidis are not Zoroastrians either, rather heretic Muslims of a Sufi group founded in the 12th century, who went too far and left Islam altogether. Being Muslim heretics puts them more in danger with ISIS than the Christians, so I’m not surprised they fled up the mountain.
Craig writes (to Adam)
“There are just a dozen Arab members of the Knesset. There won’t be in future as the Knesset has just changed the electoral law specifically to exclude them.
http://972mag.com/knesset-approves-bill-that-could-push-arab-parties-out/76755/
Already if they open their mouths in the Knesset to protest they get chucked out
http://www.jewishpress.com/news/breaking-news/feiglin-expels-arab-mks-who-call-idf-soldiers-murderers-video/2014/08/04/”
__________________
Just a couple of comments on that.
1/. How many MPs at Westminster are of Caribbean and Asian origin?
This actually also reminds me of discussions that went on in the EU at the time the legislation on nationals from one EU country being able to vote in local elections in their EU country of residence (if this was different) was being negotiated. Luxembourg, which has a very high percentage of residents from Portugal, was very insistent that the latter should not be allowed to form a “Portuguese party” in order to contest such elections; the idea was that integration should require EU residents from other EU countries to vote for national parties (already existing or future) and not form one of their own on the basis of national origin. This notion was, I believe, accepted.
Furthermore, I believe that in no European country will you find “foreign national parties”: there is, for example, no “Italian” or “Greek” political party contesting German elections, no “Arab” party contesting French elections, etc, no “Pakistan party” contesting UK elections.
2/. Re Arab members of the Knesset using the term “murderers” and getting chucked out (I suppose, suspended): I’m not familiar with the Knesset’s rules of procedure, but I imagine they contain certain rules on what can be said and what can’t be said – “un-Parliamentary language”, perhaps? This is certainly the case in the UK, is it not, where if one MP calls another a liar and refuses to withdraw, he’ll be suspended for a certain length of time. Perhaps the same would happen if that MP called British troops murderers?
Just a thought!
I thought Hadley Freeman’s article was really offensive. She’s a good writer, of the Life & Style sort (not a fashion journalist, though she has written about that), but this really finishes her for me.
There’s no real anti-semitic movement in Britain (even the BNP and EDL types are pro-Israel, because they hate the Muslims). But anti-Israel feeling, because of what they do, is quite strong. It’s a danger, if you’re labelled as attached to a hated entity, that you may get painted. It happens all the time to Muslims, and that’s thought to be OK. Melanie Philips, to take a specific example, does it all the time on the radio. The comment pages on the Guardian are full of wild hatred of all Muslims, on the basis of what a few have done, and those posts are not moderated.
It’s highly regrettable, but people thought to be connected with Israel are indeed likely to get unfairly painted. But it’s not anti-semitism.
Mary
“I note my posts about Gaza and Mads Gilbert are immediately followed by two irrelevancies in turn.”
________________
Only irrelevant if you believe that it is you who should determine what is worthy of comment and response.
What is irrelevant about asking for sources when someone on here claims that it is against the law in Israel for a Jew to marry a Palestinian?
Remember – this is NOT your blog, so please don’t over-estimate your importance.
Good intention Fedup so let us expand out the ISIS/ISIL/SIS/IS brand.
The illegal invasion of Iraq, the gagging of Chilcot and the recent flabby US drone attacks on Northern Iraq are all deceptive components of regional change as expressed by Tariq Aziz who demonstrated the intentions of the US-Israel nexus eleven years ago in 2003.
Prior to the invasion, Iraq enjoyed a 50-50 Shiia-Sunni marital alliance and the Kurds enjoyed autonomous power within the Iraqi state under President Saddam Hussein’s leadership.
The no-fly zones imposed by the West in northern Kurd Iraq and southern Shiia-held regions between 1993 and 2003, following the first Gulf War solidified the lines of demarcation for the impending three divisions of Iraq to be finally carried out by this ISIS/ISIL/SIS/IS brand.
The subverted and nefarious Western media have the pieces of a picture that meshed together to unfold to the world that Iraq is on the verge of being divided into three small states: Sunni Iraq, Shiia Iraq and an independent Kurdistan. A US/UK/IS black venture woven with hateful intentions to cause horrendous regional mayhem and destruction with military might for the creation of a “New Middle East” with Israel as the regional power in control of the region’s oil, gas and water resources.
The wealth contaminated ’empty suits’ that represent us, the people, are oblivious to the carnage, the blood and guts of innocent lives extinguished by CALCULATED fire and pain.
Habbabkuk
That really is poor. You don’t get thrown out of the Knesset for using the term “murderers” applied to Hamas. It is nothing to do with unparliamentary language.
Habbabkuk
“They {ie, 1,5 million Arabs living in Israel}actually have more rights there than they have in any other Arab country.”
_________________
This, surely, is un-arguable and needs to be repeated as often as necessary.
I am not sure which neighbouring countries qualify as ‘Arab’. Some are in a bad state at the moment.
As for Palestinians in Israel, many have talked of apartheid. I read two books (not novels) by the Jewish Israeli novelist David Grossman several years ago called ‘Yellow Wind’ and ‘Sleeping on the Wire’. Both are based on a series of personal interviews and they describe the living conditions and rights of Palestianians living in the occupied territories (the first) and in Israel (the second).
According to these books in no way do Palestinians enjoy equal rights or anything like it. What comes to my mind about Palestinians living in Israel is a comparison to the south of the USA before the legislation of the sixties, separate schooling, can’t eat in restaurants etc. Its not exactly the same but the feeling is comparable. The occupied territories of course are far worse.
Of course these books are a little out of date now, but my impression, which this very informative thread has deepened, is that things are getting worse rather than better.
Je
Well at least you have shown your true colours – but might I suggest that you do criticise others who adopt such a highly selective view of history when it comes to Gaza or other events.
For most decent people an atrocity is an atrocity whoever is the perpetrator.
State funded organisation to up hold the “values” and stop assimilation right in the heart of zionistan, “rescuing girls” from the clutches of those barbaric Muslims, Arabs, Christians, and other non Jews.
Successful in their endeavour as the case of the following Knesset witness, proves;
The original piece by Freeman strikes me as measured, serious and rational. Freeman did not like simplifications and lazy thinking of one sort in New York, nor does she like it of another in London.
If you thought that article was bad the DM has this one by a different Freeman (Hilary)
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2720381/Why-British-Jew-I-m-terrified-anti-Semitism-suddenly-sweeping-country.html#newcomment
Peacewisher –
“And what do you think of the argument that the Balfour Agreement was the price of US entry into ww1?” Not something I know anything about. But saying “Zionism isn’t a Jewish movement at all” sounds a rather strange conspiratorial idea to me.
Resident Dissident –
“For most decent people an atrocity is an atrocity whoever is the perpetrator.” It is for me. Ah… you’re using the –pluck something bad totally out of your head that bears no relationship to anything I’ve said and imply I believe it — technique.
Baa! Humbug
Not sure if you are the Yezidi Peacock Angel or just a common or garden blog jester. You are the troll, not the trump card.
If a blog is a record of one’s thoughts, Mary’s will be full of compassion and understanding. As to your own detritus, please pin a copy to your daily timesheet when you clock out.
http://wp.patheos.com.s3.amazonaws.com/blogs/markdroberts/files/2011/12/Leech-Last-of-the-Spirits-5.jpg
Craig
“Habbabkuk
That really is poor. You don’t get thrown out of the Knesset for using the term “murderers” applied to Hamas. It is nothing to do with unparliamentary language.”
________________
I’m sorry you should think that, Craig.
Now, I said that I’ve no knowledge of Knesset rules of procedure and so on, so I’m not in a position to argue with you on what you say here.
Although the thought does occur that the term “murderer” might be treated differently in the Knesset depending on whom it’s used against – the country’s own forces and and organisation which at least the Israeli govt considers to be terrorist? Perhaps this also holds good for Westminster?
I wonder if you accept the point(s) I offered about the n° of Arab MKs and “national” political parties?
Bon weekend!
Je
You are using the quote one sentence out of context without reading the previous sentence technique.
Resident Dissident – No I read the whole thing and was left totally scratching my head as to how the last sentence related to anything.
I know full well that this is Craig’s blog as I have reminded the trolls many times. The RI (Resident Interrogator) recently had the impudence/arrogance to tell Craig what he should be saying.
Passerby (lengthy comments at 12h30)
_____________________
Well for sure, many Jews look unfavorably at Jews marrying outside their own religion. That also applies to Muslims and even, to some extent, to various Christian religious groupings.
But your lengthy comments do not answer the question I asked you – which was to back up your assertion that “No Arabs can marry or for that matter sleep with any Jews, and those doing so will be punished for rape!”.
Please supply information – preferably by way of citing the Israeli law(s) in question – to back up that claim of yours.
Thanks.
Mary
“I know full well that this is Craig’s blog as I have reminded the trolls many times.”
_________________
Good. Then please act in accordance with that knowledge.
Disgraceful Guardian on Israel’s ‘responsive actions’
Posted by John Hilley on August 9, 2014, 10:06 am
Rockets from Gaza answered with air strikes as both sides remain dug in over conditions for a lasting truce
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/08/gaza-conflict-talks-cairo-rockets
~~
Ditto the BBC this morning.
Gaza air strikes ‘kill five’ as rockets hit Israel
Air strike on Gaza City (9 August 2014) In response to the rocket fire, Israeli forces struck 33 sites in Gaza on Saturday
Mid-East crisis
Human cost
Under fire
Faces from Gaza
Children in conflict
Five people have been killed in Israeli air strikes on Gaza, health officials there say, as Palestinian militants continue to fire rockets at Israel.
Violence resumed after the end of a three-day ceasefire on Friday.
Tensions have also been growing in the West Bank where protesters have clashed with Israeli troops. Reports say two Palestinians have been shot dead, one on Friday and one on Saturday.
At least 1,960 people have died since violence erupted in Gaza in early July.
More than 1,900 Palestinians, mostly civilians, have been killed, according to the UN.
Sixty-seven people have died on the Israeli side, including three civilians.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-28721914
‘An emergency appeal for people affected by the conflict in Gaza has raised £4.5m in less than 24 hours, the Disasters Emergency Committee has said.’
I am sending my August state pension.
Someone who shall be nameless always has to have the last word.
Some expressions of sympathy for those many Palestinians bereaved, maimed and injured would be welcomed instead.
Gilad is spot on.
Enough of Elie Wiesel and His Lies!
by Gilad Atzmon / August 8th, 20141
According to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, the London Times refused to run an ad featuring Elie Wiesel speaking out against Hamas’ use of children as human shields.
The ad’s headline reads: “Jews rejected child sacrifice 3,500 years ago. Now it’s Hamas’ turn.” Wiesel’s statement is a blatant lie and the London Times knew it.
Jews have never stopped sacrificing their children. The Hannibal Protocol is an IDF directive that orders soldiers to take ‘necessary measures’ to prevent their comrades from being captured by enemy forces. ‘Necessary measures’ include risking the life of the Israeli soldier and anyone who happens to be in his vicinity. Similarly, the Kastner Affair shows that at the peak of the Shoah, Ben Gurion and the Zionist establishment were willing to sacrifice many Jewish lives on the altar of the Zionist goal.
The growing number of genocides and massacres committed by Jews in the last hundred years suggest that at least some Jews are pretty careless with other people’s children. Wiesel should examine the Holodomor and the role of ‘Stalin’s willing executioners’ as Jewish American historian Yuri Slezkine elucidates in his invaluable book The Jewish Century. Wiesel can also read Israeli Sever Plocker’s declaration that “some of (the) greatest murderers of modern times were Jewish.” Just a few years after the Holodomor, the Yiddish speaking International Brigade murdered Catholics and burned their churches in Spain (1936). The tragic and violent circumstances in which the Jewish State was born didn’t sate the lust for violence among some of its Diaspora supporters, quite the opposite. The immoral Neocon interventionists that have been advocates for the death and carnage of millions of Muslims for the past two decades are largely Jewish Zionists. Wasn’t Lord Levy, the chief fundraiser for Tony Blair’s Government at the time we were led into an illegal war in Iraq, a proud Zionist Jew? Weren’t the Jewish Chronicle writers David Aaronovitch and Nick Cohen, who enthusiastically endorsed the Iraq war in the British media, Jewish? Perhaps the time has come for Aaronovitch and Cohen to explain their advocacy of lethal ‘moralism.’ Consider the infamous Bernard Henri Levy who admitted that “as a Jew” he “liberated” Libya. Isn’t it time for him to take responsibility ‘as a Jew’ for the sacrifice of other people’s children?
I would like to advise Elie Wiesel that the argument that Hamas is using civilians and children as ‘human shields’ is not only wrong, it actually provides a glimpse into Zionist cultural morbidity and intellectual barbarism. Let’s imagine a volatile situation in which a bank robber failed to escape in time and is surrounded by police. Scared for his life, the robber takes a hostage and hides behind his/her back while sticking a pistol to the hostage’s head. Could you imagine a police officer ordering a sniper to kill the hostage together with the villain? The answer is, of course, NO. But Israel’s logic is very different. If it is true (and I don’t suggest that it is) that Hamas is using the Palestinian civilian population as hostages, then the IDF is clearly murdering the hostages and on a scale that has reached industrial homicidal proportions. Israeli officials occasionally admit that this is their tactic and it is consistent with Israeli military doctrine that adheres to the ‘power of deterrence.’ Israeli decision makers believe that civilian deaths discourage Arabs from entering into a conflict. The emerging number of casualties from recent rounds of violence suggests that Israel’s tactics are homicidal. They target innocent civilians and on purpose. This shows clearly that the Jewish State is an outlaw among nations and it may even be possible that the London Times realises that this is the case. The humanist message is obvious. The time is ripe for cleansing our cultural and public life of Elie Wiesels and other Jerusalemites who promote dubious non-universal ethics in our midst.
http://dissidentvoice.org/2014/08/enough-of-elie-wiesel-and-his-lies/
Tony M
ISIS is a USUKIS creation. Please never forget the utter lies of the UK governments through time
If you omit the UK involvement, you miss the fact that the UK snipers started the war in Syria and also the relevance of the ‘nest of spies in London’. Only senior managers and asylum-seeker spies can afford to live in London.
The neo/ -colonial powers could do absolutely nothing to subvert Islam or extract Muslim resources without the benefit-Britain nest of spies to consult and plan with. Such spies may not all be paid but they can obtain revenge against their former persecutors through the jihadist groups they advise.
Saudi pays for the US military equipment and the jihadist mercenaries’ wages, but in the same way as the previous Muslim dictators were put in place by USUKIS with the assistance of the spies of those countries , so now USUKIS gains all its knowledge about how to destroy the Muslim countries from its own resident nest of spies in London.
Yes the DEC is taking donations now.
I tried posting the addresses for donations to UNRWA and Palestine Red Crescent to threads in papers like the Guardian and Daily Mail, just as I did here. But a google search reveals no results. If they pulled or didn’t accept all of my posts, as looks like, then they are utter scum.
This reminds me British Jewish MP Sir Gerald Kaufmann’s anti-Israel outburst in the British House of Common during Israeli invasion of Gaza in 2008-2009. He said that as a Jew born in a Polish Zionist family, I admit: “Israel was born out of Jewish terrorism.” Listen to Kaufmann’s speech below.
Hungarian-born Canadian Jewish speaker and author, Dr. Gabor Mate’, in an Op-Ed at daily Toronto Star on July 22, 2014, said that Israel’s neoNazi crimes in Gaza have turned “Beautiful dream of Israel into a nightmare”.
http://rehmat1.com/2014/07/26/uk-jewish-mp-israel-was-born-out-of-jewish-terrorism/
Agree Guano – repeated here ’til hell freezes over’ !! – one million letters (emails) routed to empire might carry the intention in the time it takes to brew tea!
Joining the dots, UKUSIS give Hamas rockets in order to create a conflict which can be used to deny the Palestinians their rights.
UKUSIS get their own spawn, the ‘takfiri’ brand of Islam to cough up billions for jihad, so that UKUSIS can grab the resources and land.
Theologically, here is no difference at all between the UKUSIS elite who put faith in their wealth and weapons, and a Yazidi shepherd who puts faith in his dead ‘pir’/ sheikh. Political Islam has made an alliance with one load of Kafirs against another load of Kafirs.
If ISIS take power in Kurdistan, they will send the petro-dollars to Swiss bank accounts in the same old same old fashion, and they will imprison and torture their opponents in the same old same old fashion. Plus ca change…. Politics is a vastly dirtier game than mere superstition.
Mark
The election next year will surely be time to sluice out Westminster Muslim abbattoir, ready for next time…
Stupid, stupid, stupid political Islam.