Jews sans frontieres

I smelled a rat when zionists started crowing about their great victory in the Mohamed al Dura libel case being heard in a French court just recently. The decision of the appeal court is so nuanced if you google the name al Dura you will mostly get the bragging of zionist blogs rather than zionist inclined mainstream newspapers. You saw the film purporting to be of Mohamed al Dura and his dad being shot several times by Israeli soldiers. You saw this picture:



The film was beamed around the world, Israel owned up fairly instantly and then set about destroying much of the evidence while it worked on a cover up. Sam Kiley, a very pro-Israel journalist, left Rupert Murdoch's Times newspaper because his editor wanted a story on the unit that killed al Dura but without any mention of the boy they killed. This was a definite case of Israel killing a child and by no means an isolated case.

So what's this trial business all about? Some guy accused the film makers of falsifying the film. The film-maker/s sued and won their case first time around. The accuser appealed and won his appeal. Case closed, zionists cock-a-hoop and Israel has carte blanche to carry on killing children with gay abandon and not even a tut tut from western liberal media, except, ironically, Israeli media.

Speaking of Israeli media, Ha'aretz carries a report from Reuters on the appeal. The headline is perfectly responsible:

French court: Claim that Al-Dura tape doctored isn`t libelous

You see that? The claim that the al Dura tape is doctored isn't libel. Does that mean it's true? Er no. It just means that a court has decided that it wasn't libel. Now I don't quite know how the French court can decide that a campaign to sully someone's reputation isn't libel but it looks like the film-makers were put in the position that they had to prove that the film was not doctored. I should have thought that such proof would be impossible but let's see what the report says:

The Paris court ruled in favor of media critic Philippe Karsenty, who called into question the veracity of the report, but it also said that it did not rule out that journalists at France 2 had acted professionally.

Eh? So the "media critic" did not libel the film-makers but the film-makers did not act unprofessionally. This is bizarre. The crux of the "media critic's" case was that the film-makers had acted unprofessionally so how did the court find that no libel had been committed?

Let's see what the court said:

The court said in its ruling the new footage "did not allow to rule out the opinion of (France 2) professionals," but it also rejected claims by state prosecutor Antoine Bartoli that the new evidence was "neither complete nor serious."

It seems to be saying that the original film was not doctored but if you jump through enough hoops you could present what looks like a sincere case that Israel did not kill Mohamed al Dura. I can't see any other interpretation.

So how did France 2's lawyer take it?

Francis Szpiner, France 2's lead lawyer, said he was disappointed with the decision but pointed to nuances in the ruling and said his clients would take the case to France's highest appeals court.

"One cannot make the ruling say what it did not - because the court states that Karsenty did not provide proof of his allegations," he said.

Unfortunately the full ruling isn't yet available but that hasn't stopped the bloggers for whom truth is irrelevant cheering their victory in a court in a country where any criticism of Israel is rapidly becoming illegal.

ADDITION: I just had a look at the Jerusalem Post report on the same thing and it has a quote from France 2 (the film's makers) as follows:

"the appeals court ruled that Karsenty's words were, in fact, libelous, and that Karsenty failed to prove that the news was staged and/or false."

The statement added that the case was nevertheless overturned because "the court believed Karsenty had the right to stridently criticize the [France 2] report, since it dealt with an emotional topic, and that Karsenty's investigation into the matter convinced the court he was being sincere."

A source close to Enderlin's side of the case explained that "you can get out of a libel suit either by proving you're right, or by showing you were sincere and had some research. The court found the latter to be the case."

The source also said Enderlin and France 2 would appeal the verdict, noting that they had won three out of four instances of judgment in the matter.

I also had a little look at Harry's Place. Now that really is a site for which the truth is irrelevant but I notice that David t rather smartly just ran the Ha'aretz report and linked to the Jerusalem Post one that he had reason to expect to be more stridently pro-Israel. Even Engage's Dr Hirsh is a little circumspect in his defence of the child killers. He simply links to the Jerusalem Post article without any comment of his own.

The fact is that there is still no hard evidence of the fact that the film of al Dura's killing was doctored and every reason to suppose that the child, Mohamed al Dura, like hundreds of other Palestinian children, was killed by Israel.

The only lesson I can see here is one I tend to adhere to anyway and that is, don't sue, it's a mug's game.

Well here's a turn up and proof positive that the biggest threat to zionism and the State of Israel is the truth. Norman Finkelstein has been arrested and is being held in an Israeli jail pending his deportation and a probable ten year ban:

Jerusalem - The US political author and critic of Israel Norman Finkelstein was denied entry to the Jewish state on Friday, his lawyer said.

Finkelstein landed at Ben Gurion international airport near Tel Aviv in the early morning and was told by a representative of the ministry of interior that he would not be allowed into the country on 'security' grounds, attorney Michael Sfard told dpa.

'This usually means a 10-year ban on entry,' Sfard added.

Finkelstein, who is Jewish and the son of Holocaust survivors, has written critical books on Israeli policies in the Palestinian territories and on what he called 'exploitation' of the Jewish tragedy during World War II.

Finkelstein has received with the fierce disapproval of some authors and academics, while others have praised his controversial works.

A bit garbled at the end there but that's what it said in Monsters and Critics.

There are several reports on this around the web. I got the news from the Just Peace UK list. Desert Peace refers people to Norman Finkelstein's site for updates and the Camden Abu Dis group again on the Just Peace list has sent out a plea from Sam Bahour in Ramallah for Americans and Israelis to contact their relevant state officials to do what they can/should to enable Finkelstein to get to the occupied territory he was bound for when he was arrested.

I wonder if the smear campaign against Finkelstein, now rearing its ugly head in the UK, is anything to do with all this.

ADDITION - I was just having a little natter with Mooser in the comments to this post and it occurred to me that if Israel can deny someone entry on security grounds because of what they write or say, any state signed up for the ludicrous war on terror can do it. You see whilst honest people recognise in Israel a particularly repugnant ideology at work, the western states that back Israel all the way like to pretend that Israel is "normal" by their standards. Of course that's just not true but that is the claim that is made for these war criminals. Remember the Abu Ghraib torture business? Remember how one of the lawyers for one (or more?) of the torturers said, straight faced, that these are Israeli techniques? If Israel is a role model then what's to stop other western states banning people on account of their criticism of the racist war criminals of Israel, their apologists in governments, "opposition", the media, and Israel's fundraisers?

This may well be the thin end of the wedge though. As I said above, there are people urging letter writing to stop this thing. Protest emails and faxes are being directed to:

Mr. Meir Sheetrit, Minister
Israeli Ministry of the Interior
Jerusalem
mshitrit@knesset.gov.il
Fax: 00 972-2-670-1628

I saw a couple of emails that suggested that this fascistic behaviour by Israel was bad for Israel. If I thought that was true I'd ask Israel for more of the same.

Israeli "fighter jets" almost sent Tony Blair to hell.

But hell said no can do; the tenth circle is still under construction.

I'm a little anxious that the headline to the previous post was a little, let's say, enigmatic. I wanted to write about a grotesque slur on Norman Finkelstein by a chap called Alex Brummer, media commentator of the Jewish Chronicle and Finance Editor of the Daily Mail. I also wanted an excuse to show Howard Jacobson up a bit for getting sillier with each comment he makes on Israel. So here I am repeating the previous post only I've cut to the chase.

I should say that the Brummer has a little bit of form when it comes to smearing Israel's critics. Well now He's surpassed himself by coming as close as anyone from the mainstream has to accusing Norman Finkelstein of being a holocaust denier. The wholly false allegation comes in a piece claiming that Johan Hari, in a recent Independent article, was wrong to accuse zionists of a "loathsome smearing of Israel's critics". As is so typical in these cases, the denial amounts to a confirmation of Hari's allegation.

The language used by Hari was crude, even for a “right on” tyro writer, and produced a stinging response from Israel’s defenders, including Melanie Phillips in her Spectator blog.

Most columnists would have left the matter there and moved on. But Hari, evidently, is not someone who takes criticism lightly. In a second column on May 8, he took aim at his challengers. He charges that anyone who draws attention to the plight of the Palestinian people is intimidated in order to silence them. Among those cited are the media monitoring groups Honest Reporting and Camera, who he says regard him as “an anti-Jewish bigot”.

He goes on to bracket Professor Alan Dershowitz and Phillips as “the two most prominent figures sent in to attack anyone who disagrees with the Israeli right”, as if these two writers — on opposite sides of the Atlantic — are acting in concert. Most bizarrely, perhaps, he accuses the pro-Israel lobby of hounding the American political scientist Norman Finkelstein from office.

Hari makes no reference to the fact that Finkelstein has described American Jews as “parasites” and calls Holocaust survivors “frauds and hucksters” who have exploited the Shoah for their own gains. Hari suggests Finkelstein was removed from the faculty at De Paul University “simply for speaking the truth”.

Actually there's a distortion of what Hari wrote by reference to crude language. Early in the article Hari notes that he has been accused by certain islamists of being "a "a Jew-lover", "a Zionist-homo pig" and more". There the crude language begins and ends.

But what of Finkelstein? Brummer takes a little detour to praise the increasingly absurd Howard Jacobson's response before returning to smearing Finkelstein:

Hari clearly feels very strongly about the social and economic condition of the Palestinians, as readers of his body of work can testify. What is harder to justify is Hari’s use of discredited figures like the historian Ilan Pappe and the Holocaust revisionist Norman Finkelstein to justify the positions he takes. Pappe, as Jacobson notes, has been questioned at every turn by fellow historians. Finkelstein’s views have been tested in the High Court in London and found wanting.

If he had any integrity at all, Brummer would explain just what it is about Ilan Pappe's work that has been discredited. But let's leave that to one side.

The "holocaust revisionist historian Norman Finkelstein"? What's that? This is a clear allegation that Finkelstein is a holocaust denier. Is it not? Well look at Wikipedia on the difference between holocaust denial and holocaust revisionism:

Because the term "revisionist" has become associated with Holocaust deniers, Holocaust historians today generally avoid using it to describe themselves, though they continue to study and revise opinions on aspects of the Holocaust.

Hmm, it's not quite clear what is meant by holocaust revisionist but what is clear is that Brummer does not use revisionist as a compliment. But there's more:

Finkelstein’s views have been tested in the High Court in London and found wanting.

Really? Finkelstein's views have never been tested in the High Court in London. He seems to be confusing, deliberately, David Irving, the holocaust denier, and Norman Finkelstein, who doesn't actually write about the holocaust itself. He just writes about the way various "parasites", "frauds and hucksters" have exploited the holocaust and its survivors for financial gain and to cover for the crimes of the racist war criminals of Israel.

In the final paragraph, Brummer congratulates the Indie's approach:

In this debate some credit must go to the Independent. It not only allowed Hari to embarrass himself in public, it also found the space for Jacobson’s muscular reply.

You see. You can criticise Israel, but be prepared for some "loathsome smearing."

Anyway, so much for Alex Brummer. Let's just hope that when Finkelstein is back from a lecture tour Brummer gets "tested in the High Court in London and found wanting."

I just want to take a look at the responses to Jacobson's piece on how if the zionists are trying to silence Israel's critics then they're not being very successful because people know that Palestinians are aggrieved. That's pretty much what he's saying. Cop this for a response:

Sir: Howard Jacobson's claim that there is no evidence of a campaign to silence Israel's critics is just plain barmy (Opinion, 10 May). Ask any Israeli politician why the government spends millions on campaigning groups such as Bicom, Aipac and Memri and they will tell you that it makes good PR sense. I agree that these campaigns are becoming less effective in recent years, largely because of the internet, but let's not forget that it is only relatively recently that even the basic facts of Palestinian dispossession have been aired in the Western mainstream media. They still aren't in the US.

Also, Jacobson's suggestion that evidence of Israel's ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in 1948 is merely a view of the historian Ilan Pappé is ridiculous and demonstrates either his ignorance or deceit. This ethnic cleansing is well documented by Israeli historians from left to right, anti-Zionists and Zionists.

Alex Hogg

London W10

What is it with these sane people who make claims that are "just plain barmy"?

...you know what. That's what someone in the comments below called AP editors. It reminded me of something in last Friday's Jewish Chronicle that I only saw last night. Alex Brummer is the Finance Editor of the Daily Mail and the media commentator for the Jewish Chronicle. He's an old fashioned chap who seems to think that we live in the good old days when all media output on Israel was for Israel so he says the most ludicrously demonstrably false things he can think up. So a few years back when a woman on BBC's Question Time recommended that people watch MEMRI as an objective source on the Middle East and George Galloway calmly pointed out that it was an Israeli site, Brummer described that as a "ferocious intervention". Unfortunately you only have my word as the BBC's archives aren't readily available. More recently when John Mearsheimer comfortably held his own in a kind of comedy chat show, Brummer claimed that he had been subjected to "skewering" by the humour of his host, Stephen Colbert. See the video for yourself to see how far Mearsheimer was from a "skewering".

Well now Mr Brummer has surpassed himself by coming as close as anyone from the mainstream has to accusing Norman Finkelstein of being a holocaust denier. The wholly false allegation comes in a piece claiming that Johan Hari, in a recent Independent article, was wrong to accuse zionists of a "loathsome smearing of Israel's critics". As is so typical in these cases, the denial amounts to a confirmation of Hari's allegation.

The language used by Hari was crude, even for a “right on” tyro writer, and produced a stinging response from Israel’s defenders, including Melanie Phillips in her Spectator blog.

Most columnists would have left the matter there and moved on. But Hari, evidently, is not someone who takes criticism lightly. In a second column on May 8, he took aim at his challengers. He charges that anyone who draws attention to the plight of the Palestinian people is intimidated in order to silence them. Among those cited are the media monitoring groups Honest Reporting and Camera, who he says regard him as “an anti-Jewish bigot”.

He goes on to bracket Professor Alan Dershowitz and Phillips as “the two most prominent figures sent in to attack anyone who disagrees with the Israeli right”, as if these two writers — on opposite sides of the Atlantic — are acting in concert. Most bizarrely, perhaps, he accuses the pro-Israel lobby of hounding the American political scientist Norman Finkelstein from office.

Hari makes no reference to the fact that Finkelstein has described American Jews as “parasites” and calls Holocaust survivors “frauds and hucksters” who have exploited the Shoah for their own gains. Hari suggests Finkelstein was removed from the faculty at De Paul University “simply for speaking the truth”.

Actually there's a distortion of what Hari wrote by reference to crude language. Early in the article Hari notes that he has been accused by certain islamists of being "a "a Jew-lover", "a Zionist-homo pig" and more". There the crude language begins and ends.

But what of Finkelstein? Brummer takes a little detour to praise the increasingly absurd Howard Jacobson's response before returning to smearing Finkelstein:

Hari clearly feels very strongly about the social and economic condition of the Palestinians, as readers of his body of work can testify. What is harder to justify is Hari’s use of discredited figures like the historian Ilan Pappe and the Holocaust revisionist Norman Finkelstein to justify the positions he takes. Pappe, as Jacobson notes, has been questioned at every turn by fellow historians. Finkelstein’s views have been tested in the High Court in London and found wanting.

If he had any integrity at all, Brummer would explain just what it is about Ilan Pappe's work that has been discredited. But let's leave that to one side.

The "holocaust revisionist historian Norman Finkelstein"? What's that? This is a clear allegation that Finkelstein is a holocaust denier. Is it not? Well look at Wikipedia on the difference between holocaust denial and holocaust revisionism:

Because the term "revisionist" has become associated with Holocaust deniers, Holocaust historians today generally avoid using it to describe themselves, though they continue to study and revise opinions on aspects of the Holocaust.

Hmm, it's not quite clear what is meant by holocaust revisionist but what is clear is that Brummer does not use revisionist as a compliment. But there's more:

Finkelstein’s views have been tested in the High Court in London and found wanting.

Really? Finkelstein's views have never been tested in the High Court in London. He seems to be confusing, deliberately, David Irving, the holocaust denier, and Norman Finkelstein, who doesn't actually write about the holocaust itself. He just writes about the way various "parasites", "frauds and hucksters" have exploited the holocaust and its survivors for financial gain and to cover for the crimes of the racist war criminals of Israel.

In the final paragraph, Brummer congratulates the Indie's approach:

In this debate some credit must go to the Independent. It not only allowed Hari to embarrass himself in public, it also found the space for Jacobson’s muscular reply.

You see. You can criticise Israel, but be prepared for some "loathsome smearing."

Anyway, so much for Alex Brummer. Let's just hope that when Finkelstein is back from a lecture tour Brummer gets "tested in the High Court in London and found wanting."

I just wan to take a look at the responses to Jacobson's piece on how if the zionists are trying to silence Israel's critics then they're not being very successful because people know that Palestinians are aggrieved. That's pretty much what he's saying. Cop this for a response:

Sir: Howard Jacobson's claim that there is no evidence of a campaign to silence Israel's critics is just plain barmy (Opinion, 10 May). Ask any Israeli politician why the government spends millions on campaigning groups such as Bicom, Aipac and Memri and they will tell you that it makes good PR sense. I agree that these campaigns are becoming less effective in recent years, largely because of the internet, but let's not forget that it is only relatively recently that even the basic facts of Palestinian dispossession have been aired in the Western mainstream media. They still aren't in the US.

Also, Jacobson's suggestion that evidence of Israel's ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in 1948 is merely a view of the historian Ilan Pappé is ridiculous and demonstrates either his ignorance or deceit. This ethnic cleansing is well documented by Israeli historians from left to right, anti-Zionists and Zionists.

Alex Hogg

London W10

What is it with these sane people who make claims that are "just plain barmy"?

See this, it's part two of an MSNBC Special Comment by Keith Olberman on a recent George Bush interview:



Part 1's just as good but part 2 was better headline material.

Well not really but Deborah Maccoby and I did get a letter each in, respectively, the Guardian and Independent today. Deborah's was a response to Benny Morris's ludicrous article which appeared on Friday:

Benny Morris repeats the myth of Barak's generous offer at Camp David in 2000. But the offer was not that generous. The West Bank would have been cut in two by roads going to Israeli army bases; there was no equitable land swap; there would have been no Palestinian control of borders, water or airspace; the Israelis would not allow Palestinian sovereignty over the Temple Mount and wanted to keep large blocks of settlements surrounding Palestinian areas.

Professor Morris writes of "the implacable enmity of the Arab world ... towards the Jewish state, and the serial rejections by the Palestinian Arabs of two-state proposals for a solution". The whole Arab world offered Israel complete normalisation of relations if it would withdraw from all the territories captured in 1967. It is Israel that has rejected a two-state solution. Its ever-expanding settlements and land-grabbing wall are evidently intended to put the Palestinians into bantustans and perpetuate Greater Israel.
Deborah Maccoby
London

And mine was in response to a letter in Friday's Independent:

Sir: Dr Jacob Amir is being disingenuous when he says that the Zionist movement accepted the UN's plan to partition Palestine (letter, 15 May). David Ben Gurion told his supporters to accept publicly what they truly found to be unacceptable so that Israel could build an "outstanding army" and conquer the rest of Palestine "within 20 years". This is too well documented to deny.

There is no evidence to suggest that if the Arab states had accepted the partition plan, events would have unfolded any differently from how they did. On the contrary, the ethnic cleansing of Palestine by Zionist forces began as soon as the partition plan was announced and there were already 300,000 Arab refugees from Palestine by the time the Arab states mobilised.

Mark Elf

Dagenham, Essex

So there!

Here's Mike Marqusee in the New Humanist on Israel's 60th on what it is that makes Israel stand out like a sore thumb among the states of the world.

After a resumé of the details of the conquest and ethnic cleansing of most of Palestine he settles on the ludicrous idea that Israel has a right to exist as a Jewish state and that anyone who argues against this is somehow demonic. He also gets into the lies we were told for decades before it became ok to tell the truth because some Israeli historians decided that a little honesty might be a good policy. He eventually gets to the bit that makes zionists look so silly when they claim that Israel is being singled out:

Israel is “Jewish” in a sense that no existing state is Christian, Muslim, Hindu or Buddhist. Though these religions are privileged in various states, none of those states claims to be the sole global representative of the faith; none grants citizenship to people solely because of their religion (without regard to place of birth or residence). Maintaining a Jewish state in Palestine means maintaining a sizeable Jewish majority population which enjoys privileged access to land, work and civic rights.

Actually there's an article on Israel in the New Humanist immediately below Marqusee's. It's by Eliase Glaser. Glaser wants to be a zionist. She has family in Israel. But she sees the state of denial and she's uncomfortable with it. It's interesting in an annoying sort of a way. Worth a look at but if I hear one more word about Israel's sodding "bauhaus architecture" I swear I'll....

Who would demand such a thing? Well if Israel's Foreign Minister, Tzipi Livni wasn't Israeli or Jewish maybe she would. So what's all this then?

According to Ha'aretz, Israel has protested to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon over his use of the word "Nakba" in a phone call to Mahmoud Abbas. I thought it was the Security Council that could authorise wars not the General Secretary. Obviously the zionist war on reality doesn't count. Anyway, what's Livni got to do with this:

Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni on Thursday said that the Palestinians will be able to celebrate their independence day on the same day that the word "nakba" or catastrophe is erased from their lexicon. Livni was referring to the Palestinians' "Nakba Day" which is commemorated on May 15, the day Israel was founded in 1948.

Actually, I got the "drop shoah" idea from MondoWeiss, the blog of Philip Weiss. He made the same point only about the word "pogrom".

There is of course a serious point to this. Israel having got so much from UN that it wasn't entitled to, like recognition, is now trying to have its own way on everything. Nothing new there. What is new is that Israel didn't get its way and Nakba isn't just a part of the Palestinian lexicon but that of the United Nations itself.

This time it's in the Guardian. I'm not sure if this Cif piece by Ian Jack appeared in the print edition but I think it must have because it turns up on the list when you search for Israel on the Guardian website. When the piece is only on Cif it doesn't turn up on the search. Anyway, the piece is on his and Roddy Doyle's trip to the Palestine Festival of Literature.

Apparently Roddy Doyle and Ian Jack were asked if they thought it was wrong for Nadime Gordimer to appear at Israel's International Writers Festival in Jerusalem given her stance against apartheid in South Africa back in the day. Roddy Doyle responded that:

"We don't know what she will say. Let her come and let's hear what she says before we condemn her."

Then came Ian Jack's response which you could call cowardly but it was actually brave given his audience:

I suggested that to equate apartheid in South Africa with Israeli behaviour towards Palestinians in the occupied territories was still "a big step" for most people in Europe and North America. Really, I was talking of myself: it was a big step for me and one I was reluctant to take.

He then realises that the avoidance of the apartheid analogy was becoming increasingly untenable as he travelled around the West Bank.

checkpoints are the least of it. Throughout the West Bank, Israel is steadily, relentlessly and apparently unstoppably imposing what old South African regimes used to know as "separate development". Israeli and Palestinian cars have different number plates (yellow and green) [I thought the latter were blue] and travel on separate roads (the Israeli roads newer and straighter). Jewish settlements march east into Palestinian territory in acts of illegal conquest unknown even to Dr Verwoerd. And then there is The Wall, more properly known as the West Bank Barrier, which when complete will run eight metres high for 400 miles north to south, often looping forward impudently to take 10% of the West Bank's land

Now unlike the Alan Johnson article of two days ago, comments are still open on this one.

Now it's your turn. Watch this. It's a chap called Kevin James totally humiliating himself on TV. If you're like me you'll find it excruciating at first but hang in there:



The host raises the important subject of Israel being a "speakers' corner" for American politicians. He also points out that when this word "appeasement" is hurled around it often has no substance. It means acceding to demands in breach of your own professed principles. I suppose we could say then that Israel is the world's main beneficiary of western appeasement being a colonial settler state in, indeed after, the age of decolonisation.

Anyway, back to the show. I'm indebted to Andrew r in the comments to an earlier post for drawing my attention to the youtube clip and to the Wikipedia entry on the man (Kevin James) himself.

Gabriel Ash's post earlier, justly ridiculing the Engagenik and Eustonista, Alan Johnson, for his "concern" about "antisemitism" had me looking at the (not so) original article so as to paste the whole post into the comments. By the time I got there comments were closed. The Guardian has this annoying habit of closing comments over night on the Palestine and zionist posts and closing comments altogether after 3 days but I didn't realise that they closed comments for good early. Well they did in the case of this Alan Johnson piece. Look at the penultimate comment by CifEditor:

This thread will be closing shortly

.That was 9:09 am, less than 48 hours after the article appeared. Then at 9:29 am, the final post, and guess what:

Hermine

Your impotent rage against anything Israeli has passed beyond a joke and is now thoroughly boring.

We're sorry for the sad loss your lot suffered in 1948, in 1967 and in 1973.

But get over it. You can no more undo them than the French can undo Waterloo.

Yes, it was a pro-Israel post. Apparently you can't unlose a war after it's been lost and that was a point worth making and the CifEditor saw fit to close comments on a pro-Israel note on a piece designed to justify Israel's ethnic cleansing, its Jewish supremacy and its persistent atrocities against the civilian population of Gaza.

So anyway, that made me curious about just who this Alan Johnson character is so to the Cif profile:

Professor Alan Johnson is founder and editor of Democratiya, a free online journal of international politics. His latest book, Global Politics After 9/11: The Democratiya Interviews was published by The Foreign Policy Centre in late 2007. He is also an advisory editor of Engage Journal, a founder member of Labour Friends of Iraq, and the co-author of Unite Against Terror and the Euston Manifesto. An opponent of the invasion of Iraq, since 2003, he has supported the work of Iraqi democrats, including Abdullah Muhsin of the Iraqi Workers Federation. Their book Hadi Never Died: Hadi Saleh and the Iraqi Unions was published by the TUC in 2006.

Alan is a Professor of Democratic Theory and Practice at Edge Hill University, where he teaches a course on the Holocaust. [uh oh]

A lot of links, huh? Why no link for his opposition to the war on Iraq? People have been pilloried for that by the eustonistas.

Ach, I'm just playing here. I'm more concerned about what seems to be the manipulation of the comments of Cif in favour of zionists, not that they're ever happy of course. But let's get back to the article. Johnson has been berating the words of Hamas throughout until the last paragraph where he realises that the occupation might have something to do with Hamas's words and deeds:

Isaac Deutscher famously likened the creation of the state of Israel to a man jumping from the burning ship on to a raft. However, Deutscher also pointed out that the raft was occupied and so the survival of Israel, as well as justice for the Palestinians, demanded accommodation based on "common language". This demands much of both sides. No solution was possible with the language of "Eretz Israel". The occupation must end. Equally, no solution is possible with the language of the Hamas charter and al-Aqsa TV

Deutscher was being famously disingenuous of course. The zionist idea of a state for the world's Jews by way of the removal of the Arabs was formulated and given organisational expression in the 1890s and imperial backing certainly by 1917. The survival of Israel as a Jewish state is incompatible with justice for the Palestinians no matter how clever Deutscher was and Israel is guilty of far more than the language of Eretz Israel and there is no reason why the language of Hamas's charter should impede the withdrawal of Israel from the occupied territories. The way western commentators and governments allow Israel to use the language of its enemies, who would still be its enemies without such language, is a bigger impediment to peace than anything Hamas could say or do.

This statement prepared by leading anti-apartheid activists and organisations is doing the rounds now. I got it in an email but I could only find it yesterday on the statement on Hizbullah's al Manar tv website and that's because the original on the South African End the Occupation site is uploaded as a picture so google couldn't find it by reference to a piece of the content. That's a veiled criticism by the way. So here's the statement together with lots of signatories:

We, South Africans who faced the might of unjust and brutal apartheid machinery in South Africa and fought against it with all our strength, with the objective to live in a just, democratic society, refuse today to celebrate the existence of an Apartheid state in the Middle East. While Israel and its apologists around the world will, with pomp and ceremony, loudly proclaim the 60th anniversary of the establishment of the state of Israel this month, we who have lived with and struggled against oppression and colonialism will, instead, remember 6 decades of catastrophe for the Palestinian people. 60 years ago, 750,000 Palestinians were brutally expelled from their homeland, suffering persecution, massacres, and torture. They and their descendants remain refugees. This is no reason to celebrate.

When we think of the Sharpeville massacre of 1960,
we also remember the Deir Yassin massacre of 1948.

When we think of South Africa's Bantustan policy,
we remember the bantustanisation of Palestine by the Israelis.

When we think of our heroes who languished on Robben Island and elsewhere,
we remember the 11,000 Palestinian political prisoners in Israeli jails.

When we think of the massive land theft perpetrated against the people of South Africa,
we remember that the theft of Palestinian land continues with the building of illegal Israeli settlements and the Apartheid Wall.

When we think of the Group Areas Act and other such apartheid legislation,
we remember that 93% of the land in Israel is reserved for Jewish use only.

When we think of Black people being systematically dispossessed in South Africa,
we remember that Israel uses ethnic and racial dispossession to strike at the heart of Palestinian life.

When we think of how the SADF troops persecuted our people in the townships,
we remember that attacks from tanks, fighter jets and helicopter gunships are the daily experience of Palestinians in the Occupied Territory.

When we think of the SADF attacks against our neighbouring states,
we remember that Israel deliberately destabilises the Middle East region and threatens international peace and security, including with its 100s of nuclear warheads.

We who have fought against Apartheid and vowed not to allow it to happen again can not allow Israel to continue perpetrating apartheid, colonialism and occupation against the indigenous people of Palestine.

We dare not allow Israel to continue violating international law with impunity.

We will not stand by while Israel continues to starve and bomb the people of Gaza.

We who fought all our lives for South Africa to be a state for all its people demand that millions of Palestinian refugees must be accorded the right to return to the homes from where they were expelled.

Apartheid was a gross violation of human rights. It was so in South Africa and it is so with regard to Israel's persecution of the Palestinians!

* Ronnie Kasrils, Minister of Intelligence / End Occupation Campaign
* Blade Nzimande, General Secretary, South African Communist Party
* Zwelinzima Vavi, General Secretary, Congress of South African Trade Unions
* Ahmed Kathrada, Nelson Mandela Foundation
* Eddie Makue, General Secretary, South African Council of Churches
* Makoma Lekalakala, Social Movements Indaba
* Dale McKinley, Anti-Privatisation Forum
* Lybon Mabasa, President, Socialist Party of Azania
* Costa Gazi, Pan Africanist Congress of Azania
* Jeremy Cronin, South African Communist Party
* Sydney Mufamadi, Minister of Provincial and Local Government
* Mosioua Terror Lekota, Minister of Safety and Security
* Mosibudi Mangena, President, Azanian Peoples Organisation / Minister of Science and Technology
* Alec Erwin, Minister of Public Enterprises
* Essop Pahad, Minister in the Presidency
* Enver Surty, Deputy Minister of Education
* Roy Padayache, Deputy Minister of Communications
* Derek Hanekom, Deputy Minister of Science and Technology
* Rob Davies, Deputy Minister of Trade and Industry
* Lorretta Jacobus, Deputy Minister of Correctional Services
* Sam Ramsamy, International Olympic Committee
* Yasmin Sooka, Executive Director, Foundation for Human Rights
* Pregs Govender, Feminist Activist and Author: Love and Courage, A Story of Insubordination
* Adam Habib, Deputy Vice-Chancellor, University of Johannesburg
* Frene Ginwala, African National Congress
* Salim Vally, Palestine Solidarity Committee
* Na'eem Jeenah, Palestine Solidarity Committee
* Brian Ashley, Amandla Publications
* Mercia Andrews, Palestine Solidarity Group
* Andile Mngxitama, land rights activist
* Farid Esack, Professor of Contemporary Islam, Harvard University
* Elinor Sisulu, Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition
* Andre Zaaiman
* Virginia Setshedi, Coalition Against Water Privatisation
* Max Ozinsky, Not in my Name
* Revd Basil Manning, Minister, United Congregational Church of Southern Africa
* Firoz Osman, Media Review Network
* Zapiro, cartoonist
* Mphutlane wa Bofelo, General Secretary, Muslim Youth Movement
* Steven Friedman, academic
* Ighsaan Hendricks, President, Muslim Judicial Council
* Iqbal Jassat, Media Review Network
* Stiaan van der Merwe, Palestine Solidarity Committee
* Naaziem Adam, Palestine Solidarity Alliance
* Asha Moodley, Board member of Agenda feminist journal
* Suraya Bibi Khan, Palestine Solidarity Alliance
* Nazir Osman, Palestine Solidarity Alliance
* Allan Horwitz, Jewish Voices
* Jackie Dugard, legal and human rights activist
* Professor Alan and Beata Lipman
* Caroline O'Reilly, researcher
* Jane Lipman
* Shereen Mills, Human rights lawyer, Centre for Applied Legal Studies
* Noor Nieftagodien, University of the Witwatersrand
* Bobby Peek, Groundworks
* Arnold Tsunga, Chair, Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition
* Mcebisi Skwatsha, Provincial Secretary, ANC Western Cape
* Owen Manda, Centre for Sociological Research, University of Johannesburg
* Claire Cerruti, Keep Left

NB: Organisational affiliations above are for identification purposes only and do not necessarily reflect organisational endorsement

Organisational endorsements:

* African National Congress
* Al Quds Foundation
* Anti-Privatisation Forum and its 28 affiliates
* Azanian Peoples Organisation
* Congress of South African Trade Unions
* Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition
* End Occupation Campaign
* Groundworks
* Media Review Network
* Muslim Judicial Council
* Muslim Youth Movement of South Africa
* Not In My Name
* Palestine Solidarity Alliance
* Palestine Solidarity Committee
* Palestine Solidarity Group
* Social Movements Indaba
* Socialist Party of Azania
* South African Communist Party
* South African Council of Churches

I know from the emails I'm getting that this is generating a lot of interest. I like the way the statement undercuts the zionist nitpicking over whether it's ok to liken Israel to an apartheid state. They have analysed the analogy blow by blow. A little harder for the racist war criminals of the State of Israel and their supporters to deny.

I'm so bewildered by what I've read about John Voight I'm stuffed for a headline. Here's Ynet:

American actor Jon Voight arrived in Israel on Tuesday for a tour with Chabad’s Children of Chernobyl’s (CCOC). Voight is known best for the Oscar he received for "Coming Home," and for being the father of superstar Angelina Jolie.

His visit to Sderot began at the municipality with an entourage of Chabad representatives from the US and Sderot where they met and spoke with Sderot Mayor Eli Moyal.

Ok, Voight goes to Israel. Probably a rite of passage for Hollywood types but he's old and can't have much career left and why get involved with Chabad? Ignorance maybe. But check out more of the article:

Voight expressed his deep concern regarding the abnormal environment in which Israeli children are being raised. He also stated his views pertaining to the hatred instilled in the hearts of Palestinian children, who he believes are being instilled with values of war.

Ok, this is still fairly standard stuff that any careerist actor might come out with and the rest of the article is in similar vein.

We could take him at face value, assume that this is what he really believes and meditate on how he feels about connecting with the Palestinians so as to maybe persuade them out of "being instilled with values of war" but then we might stumble on the Jewish News coverage of the same visit:

"The Jewish people must not appease the barbarians in any way. They are facing a force which is relentless and its only looking to destroy," Voight said. "To give in to terror, to try to appease terror is not the answer, you have to be strong."

He added that he would not be visiting any Palestinian NGOs or charities "because I believe that the Jewish people have made every attempt to make peace and every attempt has been spat upon."

How clever that it is organisations he is denouncing. But it's all Palestinian organisations. He is saying that all Palestinians have "spat upon" every prospect of peace. (Oh yeah, which ones?) And they have rejected "every attempt to make peace" and by the "Jewish people" too. This is hardly true of any Palestinians but to accuse all Palestinians of this is beyond disgusting. It moves into Palestinians as Amalekites territory. But what's John Voight's beef exactly? Like I said, I am genuinely bewildered by his racism. It borders on sheer lunacy.

Let's recap on this. John Voight visits Israel. He equates the State of Israel with the, er, children of Israel (the Jewish people). He refuses to visit any Palestinian NGO or charity, not a school, hospital, clinic or nursery. And this because the Palestinians are barbarians. Be afraid, be very afraid. A worse shoah is going to hit Gaza and Hollywood is already writing the script.

Jews sans frontieres

I want to thank my blogging comrade, Gabriel Ash, for supplying a quick and much needed antidote to the sick article by Benny Morris in today's Guardian. The Morris article is about what the racist (against Arabs and Jews) Theodor Herzl would have thought of Israel today:

Herzl would have beamed at Israel's military victories in 1948, 1956, 1967, 1973 and 1982, seeing them as proof positive of his expectation that Zionism, once the Jews were re-established in their ancient homeland and sovereign over their destiny, would mould a new assertive, muscular Jew, unlike his weakling forebears of the diaspora.

I thought they lost 1982 but took 18 years to realise it. Also they lost in Lebanon in 2006. But have another slice:

A child of the European imperial age, Herzl would have been astonished at the spectacle of Arab nationalism (indeed, of any third world nationalism), though not by the barbarism of Israel's terrorist foes - after all, he always conceived of the Jewish state as an outpost of western values and modernity in an area characterised by savagery.

Enough of that though given the views he's expressed since his "new" history in the 1980s I'm guessing he toned down the racism for the hypocrites at the Guardian as Gabriel's al Ahram article demonstrates:

Israeli historian Benny Morris crossed a new line of shame when he put his academic credentials and respectability in the service of outlining the "moral" justification for a future genocide against Palestinians.

That'll do for that one but do read the whole thing if you haven't already.

I prefer the next link though. That's to Dissident Voice. Here's a chunk: Morris’s byline describes him as a professor of history at Ben-Gurion University in Beersheba, Israel and the author of "The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited,"

Here’s an alternative byline:

Benny Morris is the Israeli historian who told Haaretz that the extermination of Native Americans by European settlers was a good thing, a step in human progress, and so was the expulsion of 700,000 Palestinians in 1948. (see Haaretz, January 8, 2004)

And in common with so many others, including Israeli ministers, Gabriel can't avoid the obvious comparison:

Imagine had someone claimed that the holocaust was a good thing, because, for example, it contributed to the “progress” of Europe towards peace, the creation of the European Union, etc. Would that person be welcome on the op-ed pages of The New York Times?

Again, please read the whole thing.

I just had to go back to retrieve the link to the Morris article and it turns out it's a Comment is free piece. Needless to say the zionists are out in force but comments seem to be closed for the night.

There was a letter I missed in the Independent a couple of days ago. Here's a piece:

As a Jew living outside Israel, I think it is important we have somewhere safe to go the next time someone tries to exterminate us. When Hamas is programming its children to hate the Jews and to be martyrs for its cause, it might not be time to trust them yet.

Well, not surprisingly, there's been an objection to such insurance policy zionism (I heard Stephen Marks call it that once). And the Independent was big enough to publish it:

Sir: James Goldman says: "As a Jew living outside Israel, I think it is important we have somewhere safe to go the next time someone tries to exterminate us" (letter, 14 May).

So Mr Goldman, currently living comfortably in law-abiding, democratic Britain, believes that Palestinians, ethnically cleansed from their land, should stay as refugees while Israel keeps their land, and that Israel should keep and settle in all land gained since 1947, despite this being against the Geneva Conventions. Then if he and his co-religionists are persecuted they can go to a place where Jews have persecuted a people to make space for them; he seems indifferent to the immorality of this concept.

Yet he then complains that Hamas programmes its children to hate the Jews. But is it not natural for a people to detest the people who have kept them under occupation for 40 years while it steals their land? Furthermore, this detestation would surely, extend to those in the Diaspora who condone these unjust actions by Israel.

William Garrett

Harrow, Middlesex

Well actually I wouldn't say it's natural but it is understandable.

It appears that the Jewish challenge to the rather grotesque celebrations in the Jewish community on Israel's 60th anniversary was a stunning success. I remember when I did a post announcing it, one of Harry's Place and Engage's occasional contributors came to mock the idea that people might want to attend a Jewish Socialist Group event in preference to Judeo-Christian fanatic, Jackie Mason at the Zionist Federation's gig. Well here's the Jewish Chronicle on What a State:

Hard-line socialists and radical chic Hampsteadites are not known for their sense of humour. The world is just too serious a place for mirth, and the situation in the Middle East in particular is no laughing matter.

Yet it has to be admitted that the Jewish Socialists’ Group’s What a State event, a backhanded compliment marking Israel’s 60th anniversary, was a comedy triumph. In fact the laughter was so raucous at the Hampstead Town Hall that one enthusiast reckoned it could be heard at Wembley Arena, where the Zionist Federation was at the same time holding its official mainstream celebration.

Strangely for a programme designed to let “alternative” comedians rant about the inequities of Israel, the country was rarely mentioned. Compere Ivor Dembina opened proceedings by telling the audience that in 1967 he had been elated at Israel’s Six-Day War victory and that the only Arab he knew then was Peter O’Toole. The Israelis, he went on, should give back the occupied territories, “but we should hang on to New York”.

There was a roar of approval when surveying the packed audience — some of whom were of a certain age and adorned in their ’60s bangles and kaftans — he said: “We have sold out tonight — but not politically.”

But from then on, the comedians focused on other targets. The pick of night was the irreverent Muslim comic Shazia Mirza. Suicide bombers, she quipped, believed that when they blew themselves up they would be rewarded with 72 virgins. “When I go to the next life I want to be rewarded with 72 Chippendales,” she said.

Satirist Mark Steel did rant, but mainly about the problems of travelling from his South London home to the North London venue. What London needed, he said, was a “two-state solution”.

It was alternative comic Jeremy Hardy who brought matters down to earth with a thud when he described Israel as a “tragedy for the Jewish people”.

But perhaps the most telling, if not funny, gag of the night came from Palestinian Bassam Aramin, of the Israeli-Palestinian Combatants for Peace movement. Called up to address the audience, he joked: “I’ve been asked to speak for five minutes, which for a Palestinian is a punishment. If I go on much longer and someone shouts death to the Arab I will understand.”

JSG leader David Rosenberg said the evening, the proceeds of which were to fund Israeli and Palestinian human rights organisations, had been designed as a challenge to the Wembley celebrations. “We wanted to show that the Jewish community has differing views on Israel.”

And here's a piece of the report on the ZF do:

Jackie Mason’s non-PC....had a pop at everyone from blacks to women to gays.

“It was outrageous, racist and not very politically correct. I was embarrassed,” said Hannah Kleinfeld. “I couldn’t bare it,” said Donna Sherrington, 31, of Hampstead. “I didn’t want to watch. I can’t believe people still say things like that.”

Nice to know official Jews still care about such things.

Well he's very young is Johann. He supported the war on Iraq partly on the grounds that his Iraqi friends supported it. I don't what happened to his friends but he eventually came out against the war. I remember too when Hari called George Galloway antisemitic because, whilst he (GG) has said that he supports a two state solution in Palestine, he doesn't say it very often. I swear it was something like that. I'm guessing he has already criticised Israel before but now he is taking a swipe at the hasbara machine with an article titled "The loathsome smearing of Israel's critics"

My own case isn't especially important, but it illustrates how the wider process of intimidation works. I have worked undercover at both the Finsbury Park mosque and among neo-Nazi Holocaust deniers to expose the Jew-hatred there; when I went on the Islam Channel to challenge the anti-Semitism of Islamists, I received a rash of death threats calling me "a Jew-lover", "a Zionist-homo pig" and more.

Ah, but wait. I have also reported from Gaza and the West Bank. Last week, I wrote an article that described how untreated sewage was being pumped from illegal Israeli settlements on to Palestinian land, contaminating their reservoirs. This isn't controversial. It has been documented by Friends of the Earth, and I have seen it with my own eyes.

The response? There was little attempt to dispute the facts I offered. Instead, some of the most high profile "pro-Israel" writers and media monitoring groups – including Honest Reporting and Camera – said I an anti-Jewish bigot akin to Joseph Goebbels and Mahmoud Ahmadinejadh, while Melanie Phillips even linked the stabbing of two Jewish people in North London to articles like mine. Vast numbers of e-mails came flooding in calling for me to be sacked.

Any attempt to describe accurately the situation for Palestinians is met like this. If you recount the pumping of sewage onto Palestinian land, "Honest Reporting" claims you are reviving the anti-Semitic myth of Jews "poisoning the wells." If you interview a woman whose baby died in 2002 because she was detained – in labour – by Israeli soldiers at a checkpoint within the West Bank, "Honest Reporting" will say you didn't explain "the real cause": the election of Hamas in, um, 2006. And on, and on.

Not bad but the real reason that I am posting this is that while I was reading Adrian Hamilton's flawed piece on why Israel should be treated like any other country I noticed that Hari's article, published on 8 May 2008 is still in the top ten popular reads on the Indie website. Not only that, he has generated over 300 comments some of which are even worth a look at.

It's the old beating up and shooting at unarmed demonstrators libel

There are two Comment is free pieces on Palestine today. The first I noticed was Ben White's Reality check and the second is Ian Black's Gaza won't go away.

What's interesting about both of the articles is that they both point to realities ignored or flagrantly lied about by the so-called quartet. Ben White highlights the difference between the rhetoric of the likes of the US, Israel and the UK (not necessarily in that order) and the reality on the ground:

What seem like irreconcilably different positions become easier to understand if one decodes the language of the peace process in recent years. It has now become par for the course to verbally support the idea of Palestinian statehood, from Ariel Sharon and Ehud Olmert, to Condoleezza Rice and Tony Blair. What it all hinges on, of course, is what that would actually mean.

Furthermore, the Bush administration's approach to peace, which has been typical of the Quartet in general, has been to view the conflict through an almost exclusively Israeli perspective, while making a nod towards Palestinian humanitarian or economic suffering. A good example is the notorious checkpoints.

Media coverage of the peace process in recent months has been littered with references to the checkpoints, with the likes of Condoleezza Rice making them one of the main issues she has pressed when meeting Israeli officials. Firstly, it is important to note that the fragmentation of the West Bank through checkpoints, closures and the permit system has actually worsened since Annapolis, while Israel plays games with checkpoint removal for PR purposes. Secondly the language used to talk about checkpoints is often supportive of the Israeli security pretence.

I've always been suspicious of Ian Black but he does make a good point about why and how Israel should talk to Hamas:

Exchanges on Cif about the Hamas charter and attitudes towards antisemitism and the Holocaust provide sobering evidence of some of the more toxic aspects of its ideology. But it is fundamentally a political not a religious movement that owes its support in large measure to the failures, corruption and incompetence of the PLO - and the absence of hope for a just peace settlement.

Ok, he manages to avoid casting any blame on Israel but see this last paragraph:

Neither Bush nor Blair dare visit the Gaza Strip but on any clear-eyed, practical view the continuing blockade can only contribute to more suffering, desperation and hatred. Gaza is a daily reminder that the Palestinians and their problems will not just go away - and a timely one as Israel marks its 60th anniversary. The elephant in the room is also the ghost at the feast.

He also provides links that, like Ben White's piece, expose the gap between the reality of Palestine and what we see in the mainstream media.

One of his links is to a Cif piece by Hamas's Health and Information Minister in Gaza, Bassam Naeem, responding to the recent ballyhoo about something or other on Palestinian tv "about" the holocaust:

In fact, the al-Aqsa Channel is an independent media institution that often does not express the views of the Palestinian government headed by Ismail Haniyeh or of the Hamas movement. The channel regularly gives Palestinians of different convictions the chance to express views that are not shared by the Palestinian government or the Hamas movement. In the case of the opinion expressed on al-Aqsa TV by Amin Dabbur, it is his alone and he is solely responsible for it.

It is rather surprising to us that so little attention, if any, is given by the western media to what is regularly broadcast or written in the Israeli media by politicians and writers demanding the total uprooting or "transfer" of the Palestinian people from their land.

The Israeli media and pro-Israel western press are full of views that deny or seek to excuse well-established facts of history including the Nakba of 1948 and the massacres perpetrated then by the Haganah, the Irgun and LEHI with the objective of
forcing a mass dispossession of the Palestinians.

But it should be made clear that neither Hamas nor the Palestinian government in Gaza denies the Nazi Holocaust. The Holocaust was not only a crime against humanity but one of the most abhorrent crimes in modern history. We condemn it as we condemn every abuse of humanity and all forms of discrimination on the basis of religion, race, gender or nationality.

Ah, so not quite the "unambiguously antisemitic" organisation they've been accused of being then.

Here's last Saturday's demo on al-Jazeera uploaded to youtube. Listen to the way the presenter, Mark Seddon, says "Jews for justice"



He also considers Neturei Karta to be non-traditional. A lot to learn. Et tu, al Jazeera.

UPDATE: 23:00