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.
Mary
10 Aug, 2014 – 11:04 am
I can feel the emotion in the letter out of Gaza from a lady doctor. My mother knew that initial despair first hand.
She would recollect as an ARP warden in 1940 witnessing a family destroyed by a ‘doodlebug’ at Crystal Palace. A baby survived after both legs, badly burned were amputated. The infant was left in a cellar cot after the air raid warning and later recovered by neighbors.
The ARP post was destroyed and a duvet my mother always carried protected her from flying glass.
Moral – First hand feeds compassion and grows intention…
The horror continues.
‘In other developments:
at least three people have been killed in Gaza by some 20 Israeli air strikes on Sunday, including a 14-year-old boy, according to health officials
an 11-year-old boy has been shot dead in a West Bank refugee camp near Hebron in unclear circumstances, Palestinian officials say
at least nine Palestinians were killed on Saturday as Israel launched 50 air strikes
More than 1,900 Palestinians – mostly civilians – been killed since violence erupted in Gaza in early July, 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-28728660
Thank you. You inherited your mother’s caring nature.
Sorry I missed out Mark’s name there.
Hadley Freeman (whose normal province is bodywaxing and shoes) ain’t gonna change anything much, anyway.
As previously suggested, the 2.5% UK Muslim population might.
http://asianlite.com/top-news/british-politics-in-turmoil-over-gaza/
Habbabkuk (La vita è bella) !
9 Aug, 2014 – 7:43 pm
“Well Glasgow flew the Palestinian flag yesterday, and although I have issues with this Labour run council, I applaud their solidarity with the poor folk of Gaza.”
_________________
“I’m sure the Palestinians are heartened beyond measure by that gesture.”
—————————-
Yes it was a “gesture” Habbabkuk but not a meaningless “political gesture”; it heartened a good many people and upset the Zionists so it was a very meaningful gesture of solidarity with the Palestinians.
Click on the picture for a hi-res pdf
http://www.anderweltonline.com/wissenschaft-und-technik/luftfahrt-2014/shocking-analysis-of-the-shooting-down-of-malaysian-mh17/
He may have been joking, but Habby might have a point about flags supporting Palestine and flags supporting CND. Thatcher had effectively killed off CND as a political influencer by 1983, and that helped her to a landslide victory that few would have predicted a year earlier.
If Cameron could similarly humiliate the fliers of Palestinian flags over the next nine months, he’d probably get a lot of the UKIP supporters to vote for him. I’m just saying this because I wouldn’t want the current wave of enthusiasm for Palestine in the UK to be shot down as easily as was enthusiasm for the anti-nuclear movement from 1982-83. People need to be cannier (good Scottish word) than that.
“A Thursday article in the New Straits Times, Malaysia’s flagship
English-language newspaper, charged the US- and European-backed
Ukrainian regime in Kiev with shooting down Malaysian Airlines flight
MH 17 in east Ukraine last month. ”
I went looking for the New Straits Times article and found this published on the 9th inst.
“Flight MH17 unlikely shot down by fighter jets: Hishammuddin ”
http://www.nst.com.my/node/21682
“It would be nice if they provided some evidence”
They did. Is there a better theory yet, based on better evidence?
Fred; Hishammuddin is just another idjit tool from a consumately corrupt government. Where is the vaunted US satellite data and APC logs?
Suspicious hearsay evidence from such, is hardly the last word.
Re MH17 speculation in “The Straits Times”: Who would you trust, a politician or an expert?
Fresh evidence of how the West lured Ukraine into its orbit:
The West is demonizing President Putin when what set this crisis in motion were recklessly provocative moves to absorb Ukraine into the EU.
A rare moment in time when an MSM journalist delivers a truthful account of the US/UK/EU skullduggery which brought about this pointless civil war.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/vladimir-putin/11023577/Fresh-evidence-of-how-the-West-lured-Ukraine-into-its-orbit.html
@Ben. Sorry, I seem to have posted more-or-less the same thing as you. It took me awhile to read all those articles.
@Mark: If true this shows a crazy level of corruption within the EU.
“Fred; Hishammuddin is just another idjit tool from a consumately corrupt government. Where is the vaunted US satellite data and APC logs?”
Well now Ben you just believe what you really want to believe and tell yourself anyone who doesn’t agree with you is an idjit and corrupt. Don’t bother me none.
However if anyone does want to weigh the evidence on both sides and consider that the Malaysian Defence Minister could just be a credible source then I have provided his testimony for them.
Hearsay is not evidence, Fred, but no it doesn’t bother me to hear both sides. I just think the accepted trope gets more than it’s share of coverage in the mainstream press.
@Mark(2): Excellent article, and very welcome… especially in The Daily Telegraph. Good, thoughtful comments as well.
Mary (to Resident Dissident re the sale of Boots plc)
“We digress but R2D2 is like a dog with a bone.”
____________________
If he is, it is because you will simply not admit that you got something wrong/gave a misleading impression. Resident Dissident is quite right to keep at you and the remedy is in your own hands!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“Some good old Anglo Saxon names here. NOT.
http://www.allianceboots.com/about-us/our-directors.aspx”
___________________
Coming from someone who has stated that she hates the UK, that comment is really a little rich.
Is there are special virtue accruing to Anglo-Saxon names, Mary? Are you a secret chauvinist?
*********************
La vita è bellissima, life is super-good!
So millions of pounds have been found to send aid to Iraq, which is a good thing, yet I haven’t heard much about aid being sent to Gaza, a yes the Palestinian people are sub-human, and as such, they don’t deserve aid, don’t you just love, western societies approach to who warrants and who doesn’t. Take a bow UN, EU, USA, UK, and many others.
If you don’t have a sharp mind and stay vigilant then you can easily be tricked:-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j6ei5zV2VD4
Clearly “Palestine” was geographically identifiable as something different than what post World War 11 “Israel” made it into.
Mr Scorgie
“Yes it was a “gesture” Habbabkuk but not a meaningless “political gesture”; it heartened a good many people and upset the Zionists so it was a very meaningful gesture of solidarity with the Palestinians.”
__________________-
Well, Doug, I’m sure that act of gesture politics (not a “political gesture”, Doug – please learn to quote accurately) heartened a good many of the Eminences on this blog.
I’m less sure it upset any Zionists* and I note that you have not claimed that any Palestinians were heartened, have you. Rather wise of you, I’d say, as the Gazans probably have other matters on their mind at the moment.
When in a hole, Doug, the usual advice is to stop digging. 🙂
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
* BTW, you have still not replied to the question I put to you the other day, ie,
why do you think and claim that I’m a Zionist?
*************************$
Habbabkuk eats a lawyer a day, keeps daftness away.
“Hearsay is not evidence, Fred, but no it doesn’t bother me to hear both sides.”
Well no but I know Peacewisher has great faith in the Malaysian government and has given them a glowing endorsement.
http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2014/08/forget-those-shredded-children-hadley-freeman-is-the-real-victim-here/comment-page-2/#comment-472422
Hi Mark Golding,
On the subject of totalitarianism, what are your sources telling you about the secret talks between the EU and the US for a new common market and a federal entity?
This stuff is coming thick and fast a none are even hinting at it in this country.
Peacewhisher@ 2:21pm
Well it’s good that they report it, but how typically BBC that, out of the tens of thousands present, they should select for interview a Russian and an Iranian.
People – cancel your TV licences and defund the scum
Made in Scotland: Israeli bombs used in Gaza blitz linked to arms giant’s Fife factory
Aug 10, 2014 07:26
By Billy Briggs
BOMBS with laser-guidance systems made by Raytheon’s plant in Glenrothes have been used by the Israelis during the assault on Gaza.
ISRAELI bombs inflicting death and devastation on Gaza are fitted with laser-guidance systems made in Scotland, we can reveal.
Bombs with laser-guidance systems like those made by Raytheon, one of the world’s biggest arms firms, at their plant in Fife were photographed falling on Palestinian neighbourhoods last week.
Raytheon once said: “We take a dumb bomb and make it into a smart bomb.”
And one of their huge Paveway II bombs was pictured as it fell, part of a four-week Israeli assault that has killed 1903 Palestinians, including 450 children, and injured 10,000. Sixty-seven Israeli soldiers and three civilians have been killed.
Raytheon are one of only two firms who make the Paveway II smart bomb and are one of Israel’s biggest arms suppliers.
In 2009, after another Israeli blitz on Gaza, Amnesty International found remnants of a 500lb bomb with manufacturing codes identifying it as one of Raytheon’s.
The bombs and their navigation systems are made in pieces at sites around the world – including at the plant in
Glenrothes – before being assembled in the US.
Asked if Scots-made systems are being used in bombs in Gaza, Raytheon yesterday said: “Our Glenrothes facility does component work for a wide range of our government and commercial solutions.”
The Massachusetts company have sold Paveway technology to 43 countries and, in 2012, announced a £252million contract with a foreign buyer.
Months later, Raytheon, the world’s fifth biggest arms manufacturer, said their Glenrothes plant, where 560 people work, had won a £7millon contract to make the bomb’s laser guidance system as part of an international order.
The so-called bunker-buster bombs have been laying waste to Gaza since the Israeli offensive – Operation Protective Edge – started last month, with schools, hospitals and flats reduced to rubble.
Palestinian officials claimed last week that more than 50,000 had fallen on Gaza in recent weeks. They said 6318 missiles, bombs and shells were fired by the Israeli Air Force, 13,866 by the navy and 30,581 by tanks and artillery.
Photographs last week showed a guided bomb – identified as a Paveway II – destroying a block of flats in Gaza.
The Israelis claimed the owner of the building was called before the attack and asked to evacuate the block. Three jet fighters then rained bombs on the building.
The violence continued yesterday as the UK Government came under further pressure to stop arms sales to Israel after the resignation of Foreign Office minister Sayeeda Warsi.
She said the Government’s stance on Gaza was “morally indefensible.”
This week, NHS teams will travel to the war torn area to treat Gazans wounded in the conflict.
Ministers announced a review of arms export licences to Israel worth £8billion last week but MPs and campaigners have demanded details of UK military exports used by Israel in the current offensive. The Scottish Government have also called for a suspension of arms sales to Israel.
Glasgow North Labour MP Ann McKechin, of the Committees on Arms Exports Control, said: “The Government are right to start a review on all the individual licences for both military and dual use.
“They need to consider suspending and potentially revoking licences.”
Siobhan Reardon, of Amnesty International, said: “No company based in Scotland, or anywhere else, should be supplying the Israeli military with any arms or equipment.
“The UK’s delay in deciding to freeze arms sales is indefensible and it’s truly worrying Downing Street apparently sees no need to impose any kind of embargo on weapons to Israel, despite the killing of men, women and 450 children.
“Add to this the probability that Israeli forces have committed war crimes and it is incomprehensible we are witnessing indecision by the UK to stop the selling of arms. We should not be complicit in war crimes.”
The Campaign Against the Arms Trade also called for an end to arms sales to Israel, claiming claiming that Raytheon applied for export licences in 2010, 2011 and 2012 which remain valid.
They are among £42million of licences granted to 130 UK defence firms since 2010 to sell arms to Israel.
Raytheon supply Israel with guided air-to-surface missiles, as well as cluster bombs and bunker busters. Their radars are also used in Israel’s jets and missiles and the firm are involved in the country’s Iron Dome defence shield designed to shoot down rockets fired by Hamas.
http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/made-scotland-israeli-bombs-used-4031201
~~
Minister urges Scots to donate to Gaza emergency fund amid Holyrood appeals for ceasefire and arms embargo
Middle East
10 Aug 2014
HOURS after the Sunday Mail broke the news that military equipment made partly in Scotland was being used against residents in Gaza, External Affairs Minister Humza Yousaf has reiterated a plea for the immediate suspension of UK arm sales to Israel.
http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/by-date/10-08-2014
~~~
Mail Opinion: Scottish Gaza missile revelation reminds us how close to home war is
Aug 10, 2014 09:28
MAIL OPINION warns that David Cameron must prevent the obscenity of an arms trade which allows Britain to supply bombs to Israel to drop on Gaza, or the British people must make him do the right thing.
http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/uk-world-news/mail-opinion-scottish-gaza-missile-4031342
“He wouldn’t bomb Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s bloody caliphate when it was butchering the majority Shia Muslims of Iraq. But Barak Obama is riding to the rescue of the Christian refugees – and the Yazidis – because of “a potential act of genocide”. Bombs away. And thank heavens that the refugees in question are not Palestinian.”
Another great article from Robert Fisk comparing actions and genocidal tendencies in our leaders.
Obomber is presiding over three events that are genocidal. Those journalists arrested in Eastern Ukraine are the only one’s that can report on Kiev’s fascists genocidal tendencies.
Gaza’s ongoing cycle of destruction killing and rebuilding has come to an end, this will not carry and the moderate demand to have the economic siege dropped, James mason please take not, should be supported in kind by stopping all military support for Israel as well as those Arab factions fighting each other, thereby fuelling a possible world flagration.
Israels illegal occupation of the Golan and Sheeba farms, as well as their deliberate undermining of UN resolutions could focus the EU’s leaders, they could end Israels special dispensations and trade agreements with the EU. Israel is not a member or a state with defined borders, so a reciproke action to the violence, by our EU politicians could be a step to take.
Without ending the siege and re-instatement of the 25 mile fishing zone to Gaza, the UN/EU are failing.
ISIS powerfull backers in Saudi Arabia should also be sanctioned. For starters, their weekly delivery of best wiskey and other luxuaries from Britain, never to be seen or enjoyed by Saudi mortals, should be replaced by the delivery of gallows and barbed wires, ideally to Bahrain, where the UK has an active interest to stall and undermine the majority Shia population.
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/bombs-away-us-to-the-rescue–but-only-of-certain-minorities-not-muslims-9658058.html
‘The real threat to Israel comes from within’
A sociologist explains the need for israel to emphasize and understand its neighbours, despite having raised a militarist society.
Democracy will erode and many people will leave according to a poll conducted 2 years ago, Israel is eating itself.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/interview-with-sociologist-eva-illouz-about-gaza-and-israeli-society-a-984536.html
One of my brothers who is an architect belongs to APJP – Architects and Planners for Justice in Palestine.
A couple of re-posts on their website.
Israel’s atrocities in Gaza prompt unprecedented political fallout
Saturday, August 9, 2014
by Ben White
http://apjp.org/israels-atrocities-in-gaza-pro/2014/8/9/israels-atrocities-in-gaza-prompt-unprecedented-political-fa.html
Desmond Tutu urges UIA to suspend Israeli Architects Association
Friday, August 8, 2014
by Laura Mark
http://apjp.org/desmond-tutu-urges-uia-to-susp/
The flea in ear is to KO/undermine Vladimir Putin ‘Fedup’ – nothing else matters to the cabal.