Guardian Opinion Editor denies all knowledge of Guardian Editorial Opinion

An utterly bogus hasbara piece on The Guardian website titled The Guardian view on the war of knives in Israel and the West Bank and subtitled Editorial prompted an interesting twitter exchange.

Here are some chunks from the editorial:

For openers:

Off-duty soldiers go jogging with submachine guns slung across their chests. Men and women who have never owned a firearm hesitate at the door of gun shops after the laws on weapon ownership were relaxed. People eat at home, and plan their trips to the supermarket or their bus journeys to avoid the places where the Palestinian stabbing attacks, which have surprised and frightened Israelis in recent weeks, seem most likely.

The issue here is "the Palestinian stabbing attacks" and the Israeli response.  Palestinian actions couldn't possibly themselves be a response.

On the Arab side, parents worry that a loved son or daughter will decide to trade their own life for that of an Israeli, or that a family member will be caught in crossfire.

Not deliberately killed by Israelis simply for being Palestinian.

at the last count, nine Israelis dead, although with more than 60 Palestinians killed as armed Israelis reacted to the attacks or tried to forestall attacks they thought imminent. The Palestinian dead include some who were demonstrators, not perpetrators, some who were killed in error, and some who just got in the way. 

Wow, a concession to the idea that Palestinians might, just might, get killed by Israelis simply for demonstrating.

Well it was only a small concession and it was soon marred by this little gem:

For one thing it is hard to imagine that the influence of jihad movements beyond Israel’s and Palestine’s borders has not played a part in inflaming young minds, a development that must be bad news for both Israelis and Palestinians.

Which brings us to Twitter and a tweet from Ben White:

.@guardian: "the influence of [regional] jihad movements" has "played a part in inflaming young [Palestinian] minds" https://t.co/hTwAnNGNp9

— Ben White (@benabyad) October 29, 2015

He quickly followed up with a question to Jonathan Freedland whose profile page at The Guardian reads:

Jonathan Freedland is the Guardian's executive editor, Opinion, overseeingComment is free, editorials and long reads.

Here's the question:

Just wondering, but perhaps @freedland can provide some insight into how such an 'observation' made it into the editorial.

— Ben White (@benabyad) October 29, 2015

And here's Jonathan Freedland's response:

@benabyad nope. Am on holiday for half term this week.

— Jonathan Freedland (@Freedland) October 29, 2015

Then David Aaronovitch appears in the thread:

@Freedland But Jonathan it must have been you because, well, you know.... @benabyad

— David Aaronovitch (@DAaronovitch) October 29, 2015

"Well, you know..", as Ben White points out, it's in Jonathan Freedland's job description and he often opines in The Guardian and elsewhere in favour of Israel.  I'm fed up with embedding, copying and pasting but you can follow the thread for yourself where you'll see that Aaro seems to be saying that there are lots of people at The Guardian with the same JD and who write about Palestine.  But I think there is only one person with the JD which states, that the person in question is the Guardian's executive editor, Opinion, overseeing Comment is free, editorials and long reads and that is Jonathan Freedland.

Now surely that makes it fair to assume that Jonathan Freedland was responsible for an editorial comment at The Guardian or if he's not directly responsible he could "provide some insight into how such an 'observation' made it into the editorial."

He claims that he can't.

Ben White in black and white

I already mentioned that Ben White's book launch last night was very successful in terms of turnout and presentation. I'd forgotten that I took some pics of the video feed in the lobby of which this is one.

The picture was taken on my phone and it shows quite a crowd. This might actually have been thanks to Zionists boasting in the Jewish Chronicle that they had bulk ordered tickets for the event to make attendance as low as possible. Their bragging about their own dishonesty undermined them. Next time they do the same thing they should save the boasts for after the event.

Another Laughable Propaganda Site sticks boot into Ben White

Ben White's book launch tonight should be good. The zionists are going full tilt to trash his reputation.  Now it's the JC on his case:

Mr White has repeatedly been criticised after he wrote in 2002: “I do not consider myself an antisemite, yet I can also understand why some are”. [a movement calling itself the Jews is persisting in the colonisation, conquest and ethnic cleansing of Palestine and a ragbag of self-styled experts on antisemitism have no clue why there is such a think as antisemitism]

He also encouraged Twitter followers to protest against an Israeli theatre company’s performance in the UK in 2012 by posting a picture of Jewish author Howard Jacobson.[this was after anti-BDSrs posted a picture of Jacobson's face on an ad opposing BDS]

He said the Booker Prize winner’s face was “another reason to support the boycott”.

But I mentioned in an earlier post that the book launch at Amnesty International's office tonight was sold out.  Actually that is because a zionist group has taken up as many tickets as it could get to prevent people from hearing Ben White speak.  Here's the JC again:

Representatives of one group of Israel advocates said they had booked free tickets for the launch but had no intention of attending.

They said they hoped to ensure that the event at the 200-capacity venue took place in front of as small an audience as possible.

 Have these racists no shame?  Apparently not.

Amnesty International guest shamelessly links to racist website!

Ben White has a book launch, or relaunch tonight at Amnesty's place in London tonight.  It starts at 6:30 pm and the address is, Amnesty International UK, 17-25 New Inn Yard, London, EC2A 3EA.  That's a little too much information because there are no more tickets available.

What I want to focus on is Ben's article in Middle East Monitor about how Israel's embassy has tried to stop the book launch taking place.

Here's Ben:

Israel's diplomatic staff in London directly contacted the human rights organisation to demand the cancellation of the event. Amnesty UK naturally refused, pointing out that their building is a space where a diverse range of activists can meet, engage and debate issues relating to social justice and the promotion of human rights.

But it wasn't just Amnesty who the Israeli Embassy pressured - they also contacted David Hearst, who has kindly agreed to chair the event. Hearst, now Editor of Middle East Eye, told me about the "dramatic" change in tone in the embassy's communications with him:

One minute [embassy official] Yiftah Curiel was professing that he would love to get some coffee or lunch with me to talk about the new website, and plying me with exclusive invitations to the Ambassador's House for a discussion with the author Ari Shavit. The next he was shocked and horrified to learn that I had agreed to chair the launch of the second edition of your book.

Now here's where it gets a little murky and I worry that Ben may have inadvertently provided ammunition to his detractors:

In correspondence to Hearst, Curiel produced a number of claims about me clearly culled from laughable propaganda sites. Hearst replied, he told me, by pointing out that "the allegation of anti-Semitism should not be used casually to smear people whose views you disagreed with." Pathetically, Curiel withdrew the invitation to the Ambassador's house.

See that "laughable propaganda sites"?  Well Ben actually linked to the real life Harry's Place site.  Don't worry, I've replaced it with a cache link.  This linking to racist sites, no matter how laughable, is an easy mistake to make when you're making a point but a man with Ben White's anti-racist credentials really should be more careful.

Calling Israel an apartheid state not antisemitic but probably too polite

Here's another interesting thing that came out of the Fraser v UCU Employment Tribunal Judgment.  The tribunal clearly rejected, maybe ten times, the idea that support for the Palestinian cause or BDS amounted to racism against Jews but they avoided ruling on what constitutes antisemitism.

Here's what they said about that little difficulty:

For some sympathetic to Israel, what is seen as disproportionate or excessive attention to the Israel/Palestine conflict may constitute or evidence anti-Semitism, conscious or unconscious. For others, the determining factor is the tone or content of the language used, in particular where what are seen as anti-Semitic tropes are employed. Many sympathetic to the Palestinian cause, while not excluding the possibility that some criticism of Israel may be actuated by anti-Jewish prejudice, complain that the charge of anti-Semitism is largely raised as a device to distract attention from injustices (as they see them) perpetrated in the name of Israel.  Among the vast field of witnesses on the Claimant’s side, there was an interesting spread of opinions on where the line is, or should be, drawn. So, to take one of many examples, Mr Whine of the Community Security Trust, an organisation which provides security, training and advice for British Jews, did not consider that comparisons between Israel and apartheid South Africa were inherently antiSemitic, whereas the Claimant did. 

See that last bit?

Mr Whine of the Community Security Trust, an organisation which provides security, training and advice for British Jews, did not consider that comparisons between Israel and apartheid South Africa were inherently antiSemitic, whereas the Claimant did. 

And yet when a bunch of BICOM speakers engaged in a debate at Birmingham University participants weren't even allowed to ask if Israel is an apartheid state let alone answer in the affirmative.

At the time, Ben White explained why the A-word was banned:

Further crucial context is the adoption by the Birmingham student union in 2010 of the notoriously politicised and discredited ‘EUMC working definition of antisemitism’. This 2005 document, left to gather dust by the EUMC’s successor body the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA), has been ably critiqued by Richard Kuper here, here, and here, and also by Antony Lerman here.

But now someone from the self-appointed defenders of the UK Jewish community against antisemitism have said that calling Israel an apartheid state isn't antisemitic.  So what was the problem?  In fairness, apartheid in South Africa meant white minority rule over the black majority whereas Jews are currently a majority in Israel.  Of course that majority is owed to ethnic cleansing which had been on-going for several decades now.

I don't suppose the CST's Michael Whine was being polite to Israel.  I think he may have taken stock of those zionist witnesses around him and decided they were so obviously lacking in integrity he didn't want to sacrifice his own reputation.

White supremacy bad, Jewish supremacy good?

Here's Ben White at al Jazeera pointing out the sheer hypocrisy of Israel advocates' shrieks of antisemitism whenever Israel is criticised:

...during the furore over an event at Brooklyn College about the boycott of Israel, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) compared the talk to the sociology department co-sponsoring an event with "members of the Ku Klux Klan who were going to talk about why America must remain a white-dominated country and how non-white people were ruining the country". 

Here, the ADL associates the demographics-obsessed racism of the KKK with a non-violent movement of solidarity with a people struggling for their basic rights. However, the KKK comparison is relevant - for understanding Israeli laws and government policies. Consider the following examples: 

• "We are the majority in this country and we have the right to preserve our image... Every state has the full right to preserve its character" - Labour and Social Affairs Minister Shlomo Benizri, 2002. 

• Palestinian citizens are the real "demographic problem" - Then-Finance Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, 2003. 

• "Prevent[ing] the spread" of Palestinian citizens is "a national duty" - Housing Minister Ariel Atias, 2009. 

• "We want to Judaise the Wadi Ara area... The state wants to put this place in order so that the Arabs won't rear their heads" - Nissim Dahan, state-appointed local council head, 2008. 

• "It is a national interest to encourage Jews to move to" places where "the Arab population is on the rise" - Chair of Knesset Lobby for Housing Solutions for Young Couples, 2010. 

• It is "a matter of concern when the non-Jewish population rises a lot faster than the Jewish population" - Then-Mayor of Jerusalem, Ehud Olmert, 1998. 

• Non-Jewish "illegal infiltrators flooding the country" could grow to a number "that threatens our existence as a Jewish and democratic state" - Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, 2012. 

Remember that these kinds of remarks do not come from a fringe hate group in Israel, but by the highest level officials. Yet the ADL, and every other pro-Israel group in the West - including self-professed "liberals" - fail to see the inconsistency in calling a KKK member's demand for America to "remain a white-dominated country" abhorrent, while Israel "remaining a Jewish country" is a "red line", consensus issue. 

Of course, apart from failing to condemn Israel's racism they also give a free pass to antisemitism when it comes from their own side.

Hasbara by smear sheet goes nearly viral as does the smearing of Ben White

The Israel advocacy sites are very excited about this hasbara smear sheet.  It's by someone who doesn't like people criticising Israel advising people who do like criticising Israel on How to Criticize Israel Without Being Anti-Semitic.  I already read it via the Fat Man on a Keyboard blog and left this comment:

The guide you recommend to Steve Bell is an obvious exercise in Israel advocacy designed to hinder not help critics and opponents of Israel.

The very first point is bogus. Very few people say that "Jews think any criticism of Israel is anti-Semitic" but there are many Israel apologists who say that any criticism of Israel is antisemitic.

The rest of the points are pretty damn bogus too since they may or may not apply to a small minority of Israel's detractors but not to the majority.

Of course it is wrong to conflate Jews, zionists and the State of Israel but since the guide does that in the first point, who's lecturing who here?

The glossing over of what zionism means is intended to justify the ethnic cleansing and other war crimes which the implementation of the zionist project has entailed. It's pointless now getting into what zionism could have meant before the State of Israel was established, except as an academic exercise in which case we might discuss feminism and futurism as early aspects of fascist ideology.

I'm not sure where the guide gets the idea that religious settlers are anti-zionist. Not all frummers are the same. It seems the writer just wants to say zionism is nice and that's that.

The middle part of the document is a self-contradictory mishmash. It correctly states not to get hung up on the ethnic heritage of the Jews and then does so itself by invoking historic or ancient claims.

The last few points appear to be straight denunciations of antisemitism that are routine in Palestine solidarity circles. If the denunciations of antisemitism from anti-zionist sources are genuinely not known about then it could simply be that too much fretting about a marginal prejudice like antisemitism is unseemly up against what the Palestinians have been going through this past several decades.

As it happens the owner of the Fat Man blog seems like an eminently reasonable chap though my comment elicited quite a grumpy response.  But the other usual suspects are on the case too.  Engage has a separate post on it as does, of course, Harry's Place.  In fact HP took its cue from Bob from Brockley (I always thought it was the other way round) who touts it - typically - within a post where he also posts a rather nasty smear of Ben White by a blogger calling themselves The Soupy One:

Anti-Israeli boycott, disinvestment and sanctions (BDS) campaigners often claim they against antisemitism and racism, yet their actions tell another story.

London BDS as an unfortunate habit of using material from the racist, Press TV.

Recently, they praised an article by Jim W. Dean.

Astute readers will know that Dean is intimately connected to the terribleVeterans Today, not only that but any cursory reading of the article would ring alarm bells amongst any antiracist, where he argues:

“Real historians like David Irving were attacked for printing the forbidden truth and made examples of to cower the rest of the sheep. And yes, Jewish lobbies had their fingerprints all over the dirty deed. “

If London BDS and other Western pro-Palestinian activists wish to be more convincing than they should stop digesting the racist filth that Press TV puts out.

Anyone ignorant of David Irving should read Holocaust Denial on Trial and theGuardian’s special report.

The SPLC on Veterans Today.

Update 1: The PSC have put out a statement distancing themselves from the @LondonBDS account:

“Palestine Solidarity Campaign is shocked and disgusted that a twitter account @londonbds tweeted an article with clearly anti-Semitic content. We oppose all forms of racism, including anti-Semitism and Islamophobia.

Anti-racism is a core value of the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement and the broader Palestinian struggle for freedom, justice and equality. Palestinians face systematic discrimination and building opposition to all forms of racism is a key part of our campaigning.

Supporting Palestine is supporting an anti-racist struggle and we shall continue to make clear that there is no place for any form of racism in our movement.

PSC has been informed that this is not the twitter account of London BDS group, whose account is @londonbdsgroup, but an apparently lone individual. We have reported this to twitter as hate speech. “

All very laudable, however, the PSC is not adverse to the racist Press TV, as a matter of principle, any simple search shows that.

The rest of their statement is decidedly implausible, as anyone with access to Google can see.

Readers will remember how long it took the PSC to kick out a self-proclaimed Holocaust denier, Francis Clark-Lowes, from their ranks. Even then about 1/5 of the conference delegates did not think Holocaust denial was antisemitic and wanted to keep him as a member.

Moreover, the notorious Ben White saw no problem with the @LondonBDS ascan be seen.

My bet is their next gambit will be “Some of our best friends are….”

I checked out the comments policy of the blog before wasting my time commenting thus:

LondonBDS tweeted an antisemitic article and was condemned for it by PSC.  Your link in the line suggesting "London BDS as (sic) an unfortunate habit of using material from the racist, Press TV" doesn't say anything about LondonBDS or any other BDS unless in my skimming I missed LondonBDS being referred to by some other name..

And your evidence for "the notorious (ffs) Ben White saw no problem with the @LondonBDS as can be seen" is a tweet dated May 2008 which is simply addressed @LondonBDS but makes no value judgement one way or the other about it.  Even if you infer from it that he "saw no problem with" it in 2008, did you see a problem with it back then? I mean apart from the letters, BDS.  If so can you show what the problem was?  It is of course possible that Ben White thought @LondonBDS was @londonbdsgroup, same as you seemed to think when you started the post.

Also, are you saying that PSC has run antisemitic content from PressTV or just content from a TV channel that also runs antisemitic content?  I suspect, if it's true at all then it's the latter but perhaps you could confirm.

Thanks.

I left the comment before 3 this morning. I think it may have fallen foul of an unwritten part of the comments policy. But on the subject of viral smears we have one silly document by someone who doesn't want Israel criticised telling people how to criticise Israel and the people who like it are people who never criticise Israel. More specifically we have a blogger, The Soupy One, who feels that the smearing of Ben White has gone so viral no evidence is required to make a case against him. Still he (Ben) seems to be holding up well enough and I'm sure he'll have a nice Christmas, well I hope he does anyway.

Can you be anti-apartheid but pro-zionist?

Well you can certainly try if your name's Benjamin Pogrund. You see there's been a little wave of panic sweeping over the zionist movement since a poll established that rather a lot of Israelis favour a formalised apartheid system if they found themselves in a Jewish minority situation.  This is rather like saying that if the ethnic cleansing lets them down they could get really nasty.

But anyway, Benjamin Pogrund was born and grew up in the old apartheid South Africa and now he has exercised his privilege as a Jew to live in occupied Palestine, aka, The State of Israel.  Here he is in The Guardian's Comment is Free section explaining how his personal background equips him for this rather tricky hasbara exercise:

I know about apartheid. I was born in South Africa and spent 26 years as a journalist specialising in reporting apartheid; I have also written several books about it. I only left South Africa because my newspaper, the Rand Daily Mail, of which I was then deputy editor, was closed down by its commercial owners under pressure from the government. We paid the price for being the country's leading voice against apartheid.

I also am familiar with Israel. I have lived in Jerusalem since 1997 and for more than 12 years was founder director of the Yakar Center for Social Concern whose purpose was to promote dialogue between Jews and Christians, Jews and Muslims, and Israelis and Palestinians. I was surprised by the survey's findings: could it really be true that most Jews in Israel support apartheid?

Ultimately he is saying that Israel isn't an apartheid state and that its Jewish population doesn't particularly want it to be and he should know because he lived under apartheid as a dissident working for a dissident newspaper. As luck would have it, Ben White has made quite a speciality out of exposing the apartheid nature of the State of Israel before and after the occupation of 1967 and here he is on the al Jazeera website explaining what Benjamin Pogrund ought to know. It is not addressed to Pogrund but it could be. Here's a little taster:

Firstly, a clarification about terminology. To talk about Israeli apartheid is not to suggest a precise equivalence with the policies of the historic regime in South Africa. Rather, apartheid is a crime under international law independent of any comparison (see here, here, here, and here). As former UN Special Rapporteur John Dugard put it in the foreword to my first book: "It is Israel's own version of a system that has been universally condemned."

It is impossible to understand this "system" without remembering that its foundations were laid by the ethnic cleansing that took place in the Nakba. With the establishment of Israel in 1948, up to 90 per cent of the Palestinians who would have been inside the new state were expelled, their properties confiscated, and their return prevented. As these refugees were denied citizenship and their right to return ignored, Israel passed legislation to open up the new borders to Jews everywhere.

 Benjamin Pogrund has some form for this defence of zionism using his former opposition to apartheid.

JNFUKed as regional chief made redundant

The Jewish National Fund UK seems to be in a spot of financial bother, so much so that it has made its Manchester based regional director, Jo Krasner, redundant following reports of its revenue being cut by half.  I wouldn't know of this if it wasn't for a tweet by Ben White.

After story that @jnfuk has lost "half its revenue" twitpic.com/b5979o, news its regional director is made redundant jewishtelegraph.com/man_1.html
— Ben White (@benabyad) October 19, 2012

Checking out the pic,



I googled "JNF loses half its revenue".  I found the article on Press Display though not in the Jewish Chronicle itself, where it originally appeared.  But Jonathan Hoffman is the gift that keeps on giving.  There he was on his JC blog protesting, "JC leads with crude JNF smear story".

The JC article suggests that funding had dropped because of "politicisation" though how a beneficiary and instigator of ethnic cleansing can avoid politics must be a tricky issue.  But Hoffman doesn't like the allegation:

in the article we got:

The dramatic fall in its revenues has been blamed on a perceived politicisation of the charity by Mr Hayek

Precisely WHO is 'blaming Mr Hayek', we are not told. Or how many people. Or the basis for the statement. Did Simon Rocker conduct an opinion poll? Or (more likely) is the statement simply a smear of the crudest kind...

Ooh, he's getting cross:

Then we get:

A senior communal figure said: ‘This collapse in philanthropic support is the clearest possible signal that the community no longer sees the JNF, under its current leadership, as a credible receptacle for its charitable support for Israel. On the basis of these accounts it is questionable whether the JNF can any longer be described as a major communal organisation. Its long-term sustainability looks uncertain’

So who is this anonymous "senior communal official" pronouncing on what "the community" thinks and why is he scared of commenting on an attributable basis? Is he by any chance the same person who is badmouthing Sam Hayek to Simon Rocker - who then of course reported it as if it is accepted wisdom? And what about the people in Israel whom the JNF is helping - does this "senior communal official" give one jot about them?

Now I don't know about cause and effect here but last year, David Cameron resigned as an honorary patron of the JNF. An excuse was given to the effect that it is too specific to one country rather than the objections to its charitable status, but the section in the Wikipedia entry dealing with his resignation is worth quoting:

The charitable status of the JNF-UK has come under increasing attack.^[61] British prime ministers Tony Blair and Gordon Brown had been Honorary Patrons of the JNF-UK, like all British prime ministers before them since its inception. Confounding expectations, David Cameron resigned as Honorary Patron to JNF-UK in 2011.^[62] According to a spokesman, Cameron's surprise refusal was due to the JNF-UK being an organisation that was specifically focused around work in one specific country, i.e. Israel.^[63] Cameron's decision was interpreted as a snub, in spite of the spokesman's assurances that his decision had "absolutely nothing to do with any anti-Israel campaign". However, campaigners claimed that Cameron's resignation was due to political pressures motivated by the JNF-KKL's discriminatory policies in Israel.^[64] Since then, the JNF-UK's Honorary Patrons include no leader of the main British political parties. An Early Day Motion in the British parliament condemning the JNF and calling for the revocation of the JNF's charitable status in the UK was launched in 2011 and by February 2012 had been signed by 66 Members of Parliament.^[65][66] In 2012 the Green Party called for the JNF to be stripped of its charity status and pledged to sign up to a campaign which calls the charity "racist".^[67]

I don't think it's too much of a stretch to suggest that the JNF's troubles spring from the flight of its high profile political patrons which in turn happened because of campaigning against the JNF's inappropriate charitable status.  So in a way, Hoffman was right.  It's not the politicisation of the JNF that has had funders running for cover but that politicians have been running for cover from their association with the JNF.

Jewish "refugees" and hasbara

Apparently, now most witnesses are dead or elderly, Israel is using Jews from Arab countries in a new hasbara effort.  Here's an article by Ben White from al Jazeera:

A propaganda initiative by the Israeli government is taking direct aim at the core issue of Palestinian refugees through a manipulation of the stories of Jews who left Arab countries in the years after 1948.

The main instigator of this ‘Justice for Jewish refugees from Arab countries’ campaign - the name of a recent conference in Jerusalem - is Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon, whose previous efforts have included laughing in the face of international law over dinner jazz.

According to The Jerusalem Post, Ayalon "called for the recognition of the rights of Jewish refugees from Arab countries… to counter the ‘Arab narrative’ of the Israeli- Arab conflict". Ynet called it a "new hasbara campaign".

But while some Israeli officials clearly have high hopes for this approach, talking up Jewish refugees as a way of ‘balancing out’ or neutralising Palestinian claims is a strategy long criticised by many Zionists.

Back in April, former director-general of Israel’s Foreign Ministry Alon Liel criticised the new focus, saying that "to define [Jews from Arab countries] as refugees is exaggerated". Iraqi-Israeli former Knesset Speaker Shlomo Hillelhas stated: "I do not regard the departure of Jews from Arab lands as that of refugees. They came here because they wanted to, as Zionists."

Another former Knesset speaker, Yisrael Yeshayahu, expressed similar sentiments: "We are not refugees. [Some of us] came to this country before the state was born. We had messianic aspirations." Former-MK Ran Cohen, who emigrated from Iraq, once commented: "I came at the behest of Zionism, due to the pull that this land exerts, and due to the idea of redemption. Nobody is going to define me as a refugee."  

As well as encouraging a narrative contested by many Israelis, the attempt to link the two population movements is also illogical. The expulsion of Palestinians and destruction of hundreds of villages in 1948 was a catastrophe (Nakba) for an entire society, while in the case of Jews from the Middle East, their arrival in Israel was in line with the state’s Zionist raison d’être.
In the words of Israeli professor Yehouda Shenhav, "any reasonable person" must acknowledge the analogy to be "unfounded" :

Palestinian refugees did not want to leave Palestine...Those who left did not do so of their own volition. In contrast, Jews from Arab lands came to this country under the initiative of the State of Israel and Jewish organizations. Some came of their own free will; others arrived against their will. Some lived comfortably and securely in Arab lands; others suffered from fear and oppression.

There are other problems. Australian professor (and supporter of Israel) Dr Philip Mendes has written how "the Jewish exodus from Iraq and other Arab countries took place over many decades, before and after the Palestinian exodus" and "there is no evidence that the Israeli leadership anticipated a so-called population exchange when they made their arguably harsh decision to prevent the return of Palestinian refugees". In other words: "the two exoduses…should be considered separately". 

Furthermore, one person’s rights are not ‘cancelled out’ by another’s: the rights of Jews to recognition of and compensation for lost properties across the Arab world are legitimate, and entirely separate from the Palestinian refugees’ rights. Yet revealingly, ask Danny Ayalon and Israel advocacy groups if they support full rights for all refugees, Jewish and Palestinian, and you will get prevarication or silence.

In the hands of Israel’s Foreign Ministry, this is yet another cynical propaganda ploy that seeks to counter growing awareness of the ethnic cleansing of Palestine with rhetoric of "the other Nakba". As the co-founder of Jews Indigenous to the Middle East and North Africa (JIMENA) put it in 2007:

Most of the people advocating campus hasbara, or to general audiences, bring good talking points, but neglect the fact that we have a good balancing narrative, namely that more Jews were made refugees than Palestinians.

In June 1948, with hundreds of Palestinian villages already ‘cleansed’, senior Jewish National Fund official Yosef Weitz met with Israel’s first Prime Minister Ben-Gurion to discuss recommendations made by the so-called "Transfer Committee".

The five specific proposals were to destroy villages, prevent Palestinians cultivating their land, settle Jews in some of the empty communities, pass relevant legislation, and employ propaganda against a return. According to Weitz,     Ben-Gurion "agreed to the whole line".                                                                        

This, to borrow a phrase, colonial present, is what Danny Ayalon’s pet project is trying to conceal, and it is particularly ironic coming from a man who unashamedly promotes the continuation of ‘Judaisation’ policies in Israel today. Perhaps he should stick to YouTube.

 We've been here before.

War on Islam?

According to Ben White and now Richard Bartholomew the UK's army and Ministry of Defence are being advised by a chap with a record of scathing condemnation of Islam and "islamisation" of the west.

Here's Ben in Electronic Intifada:

It has been revealed that a British Ministry of Defense advisor — who helped write the “religious engagement strategy” for troops occupying the Afghan province of Kandahar — believes Islam might “be the rod of God’s anger,” raising disturbing questions for the military and the UK government.

Patrick Sookhdeo, who teaches at the UK’s Defense Academy and has served in the role of “cultural advisor” to troops in Afghanistan and southern Iraq, is also a regular speaker at events held by churches and Christian organizations internationally.

Speaking in a Washington DC church in 2007, Sookhdeo wondered if “[there is a] danger facing the West, particularly with Islam, might Islam be the rod of God’s anger?” (“Understanding Radicalization and Islamicization,” Capitol Hill Baptist Church)

Jumping to more on this "rod of anger stuff", Ben White asked Sookhdeo what it all meant:

He said that the idea of Islam as the “rod of God’s anger” was “developed by the leadership of the Syrian Orthodox Church about 75 years after the death of [the prophet] Muhammad. Faced with the fact that most of the lands that had constituted Christian territory had been lost in the Arab invasions, the church leadership posed the question why this had occurred. Instead of laying the blame on the Muslims and the Arab invasions, they concluded that it was their own fault because they had sinned and gone away from their faith in God by neglecting to be truly Christian in terms of love and compassion, to be humble and not to be motivated by money and power.”

Sookhdeo said that he had used the “rod of God’s anger” concept to ask if Christian churches today are now being punished for their “lack of faithfulness to God.” He added: “Could it be that Islam, which is now seen to be the dominant religion that may well replace Christianity in the future, can be seen as God’s instrument? This is not a negative comment of Islam, but a negative comment on the Church with her intrinsic weaknesses and failures.”

To which Richard Bartholomew responds:

This is somewhat disingenuous: the notion of Islam as the “rod of God’s anger” clearly fits into a long tradition in which disasters are explained as being expressions of God’s chastisement; being placed into a category of calamities is hardly a positive comment. Further, the expression itself is derived from Isaiah 10, where it is applied to Assyria; the Biblical author suggests that being the “rod of God’s anger” has its downside:

“Woe to the Assyrian, the rod of my anger, in whose hand is the club of my wrath!”… When the Lord has finished all his work against Mount Zion and Jerusalem, he will say, “I will punish the king of Assyria for the willful pride of his heart and the haughty look in his eyes… Does the ax raise itself above the person who swings it, or the saw boast against the one who uses it?… Therefore, the Lord, the Lord Almighty, will send a wasting disease upon his sturdy warriors;… The Light of Israel will become a fire… The splendor of his forests and fertile fields it will completely destroy…”

Further discussion of how Christians used the “rod of God’s anger” concept in the context of early Islam can be found in a couple essays in the book Redefining Christian Identity: Cultural Interaction in the Middle East Since the Rise of Islam, edited by J.J. van Ginkel, H.L. Murre-van den Berg, and T.M. van Lint (Leuven: Peeters, 2005).

Vulgarized versions of the general concept can also been seen in contemporary American conservative evangelicalism: post-9/11, Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell notoriously suggested that God had allowed the attack to occur (which is quite not the same thing as causing it) because of liberalism in American society; a current American bestseller called The Harbinger claims that American failure to return to religion following the attack means that further disasters will occur. Last year, an anti-gay evangelist named Bradlee Dean suggested that God would “raise up” Muslims to execute gay people because of the USA’s unwillingness to implement less severe anti-gay measures.

All very unpleasant stuff. According to Richard, this Sookhdeo chap has quite a good academic pedigree and his work has won serious praise but the appropriateness of his advisory role to the UK military is surely questionable.

A word about the "A" word

Many people will have already read about the recent Question Time style debate at Birmingham University. I only just found out about the fact that a question about whether or not Israel can be described as an apartheid state was banned from even being asked.  Apparently this was at the request of the World Zionist Congress affiliated Jewish Society.

Anyway, here's Ben White, on the banning of the "A" word from the proceedings:

The whole debate can be watched on YouTube, but one of the talking points of the evening came when, barely half an hour in, an audience member asked the panel if Israel is an apartheid state. The chair’s unexpected reply was that this was not a subject that could be discussed: “I’ve been told I can’t have that as a question”, she stressed (watch here). Inevitably, all the panellists then proceeded to address the issue – Victor Kattan said he’d refer to “A”.

What the audience didn’t know is that in the run up to the event, members of the Jewish Society had pressured the Debating Society to prohibit my book ‘Israeli Apartheid: A Beginner’s Guide’ from being available for purchase. Despite the fact that J-Soc was free to make available any of their own literature without restriction, J-Soc students threatened to withdraw their official association with the event, if I brought along copies of my book to sell. Eventually, they backed down when the Debating Society refused to concede the point.

Ben smartly links the debate and the attempted suppression of one side of it to the Birmingham University students' union's adoption of the bogus EUMC working definition of antisemitism:

Further crucial context is the adoption by the Birmingham student union in 2010 of the notoriously politicised and discredited ‘EUMC working definition of antisemitism’. This 2005 document, left to gather dust by the EUMC’s successor body the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA), has been ably critiqued by Richard Kuper here, here, and here, and also by Antony Lerman here.

In fact, earlier this year, the Universities and College Union (UCU) voted overwhelmingly in favour of a motion that criticised the way in which the working definition “is being used to silence debate about Israel and Palestine on campus”.

Thus after the J-Soc attempts to prevent the sale of my book, the debate organisers were understandably anxious about encouraging a question on apartheid that could see them accused of racism, according to an interpretation of the student union policy.

This was the first time that the Debating Society had held an Israel-Palestine debate since the EUMC motion passed; it was, in effect, a test case. What transpired on Thursday not only showed the extent to which groups will go to stifle discussion of Israel’s crimes, but also how such efforts  can so often spectacularly backfire.

I presume it was the students' union's adoption of the working definition which led to the attempted ban on the "A" word. The problem here is that zionists will claim that the working definition has not been used to stifle debate because the debate was had. Of course this will be a lie as the video attests. I wonder if the WZC's affiliates in Birmingham will use their humiliation as an excuse to ban future debate on Palestine altogether.