Robert Fisk book serialisation

Having survived decades dodging bullets from the likes of, among others, John Malkovich, Robert Fisk has published a book - The Great War for Civilisation: the Conquest of the Middle East - which is being serialised in the Independent all this week. I read the offering in Saturday's Independent magazine and I was surprised by his calmness. I often find his writing a little over-emotional but Saturday's piece, on his meetings with Osama Bin Laden, was calm, detached and factual. And yesterday's didn't disappoint either. Short versions are available on the Independent site and full versions can be acquired on a pay per view basis. Brits can easily pick up the print edition from newsagents. Non-Brits will have to try a little harder to acquire their copy. The book is available here.

State of Israel versus the Land of Israel

I've only just been sent this Ha'aretz article by Tom Segev though it was published on 12/9 and it's all over the web now. Titled "The sky did not fall down" it suggests that the withdrawal from Gaza was a potentially great psychological leap away from the messianism that gripped zionism in the wake of the '67 war. There are some interesting reported comments from '67 "legends" like Dayan who didn't want Gaza, and Rabin, who didn't want it either, to Bar-Lev who wanted it and believed he could "cleanse" it in four hours. So why did they conquer Gaza? Because they could, is the shortest answer to that. War maybe a logical way of achieving political aims but once it begins, the illogic of war itself takes over. So argues Segev anyway.

As long as the alternatives facing the state ahead of the Six-Day War were considered in a level-headed manner, most of the decision-makers agreed that most of the territory that Israel was likely to occupy shouldn't be occupied. Nevertheless, the territory was occupied, because when the battles began, the decision-makers acted on gut feelings and from the heart, and not from the head.

And so

The Six-Day War led to nationwide agreement that Gaza is not to be given back "for all eternity" - even in return for peace. Gaza and Jerusalem were one and the same. And this consent formed the basis for the logic in establishing permanent Israeli settlements in the Strip. The residents were able to believe that that they would remain there forever.

So, taking the withdrawal of settlers from Gaza as the key factor in the disengagement, and ignoring the fact that Gaza seems to be as occupied as ever in terms of Israeli attacks and control over airspace and boundaries, Segev argues that a line might have been been crossed.

The immediate lesson to be learned is that settlements can be dismantled without the sky falling down. Most Israelis support this; there is no national trauma. Hence, the withdrawal from Gaza and the dismantling of the settlements may turn out to be a landmark in the cultural war that is taking place in Israel. The limited tactical nature of the withdrawal does not yet facilitate making a declaration that it signifies the victory of the State of Israel over the Land of Israel, but it could be one step back from the messianic trend that took over Zionism in the wake of the Six-Day War, and one step toward the rational trend that characterized it before the war.

It should be noted that this article was written before Israel began its recent bombardments of Gaza and so perhaps Segev was right to express himself in ifs and buts.

Just one per cent believe that "the British media is biased in favour of Israel"

Now there's a shock headline. Who are these people that only one per cent believe that our zionist controlled media is biased in favour of Israel? Well, according to the Jewish Chronicle, they are a self-selected sample surveyed by YouGov for the scrupulously impartial StandUp4Israel. The sample size was 2,018 but, of course, size isn't important when you "self-select" the sample with a view to a specific result. The issue at hand here is whether zionists should run a specific advertising campaign in the media rather than simply relying on the ragbag of zionists they have in the media already. Overwhelmingly the respondents felt that there should be one. Wiser counsel had it that only the most pariah of states has to resort to professional PR to promote their "cause". But anyway go here to read the whole article. You'll have to click on the image a couple of times. It's typical JC. You have to get almost to the end to realise that even YouGov have criticised the methodology.

Unfortunately I can't access the questions now. They were here but the poll's closed. From what I can glean from the JC article, as already stated, one per cent believe that the mainstream media is not biased in favour of Israel. Applying the usual, I believe, 4% margin of error, that means no-one believes that the media is pro-Israel. Further, 92% believe the media to be "biased against Israel." The JC very kindly pointed out that YouGov issued a warning that the results may have been skewed by the fact that the poll itself was only publicised in the JC itself. I get the JC every week and I didn't notice it. That's not to say it wasn't there, rather that when I see anything alleging that the mainstream media is anything but pro-Israel I tend to switch off. Anyway, kinder still, the JC notes, eventually, that YouGov, possibly fearing for their reputation, conducted another poll with the same questions using their usual sampling techniques and found that only 14% of a 2,288 sample believed the media to be biased against Israel. Now even that seems fairly high to me but then I have just joined YouGov's panel and it makes me wonder what kind of people are on it. To what extent can they be representative? and how much does YouGov do to make sure that their samples are representative? I'm asking because I don't know, not because I think I do know.

Yet another inquiry on anti-semitism

Totally Jewish and, presumably its print version, Jewish News, report that there is to be yet another inquiry on anti-semitism.

John Mann MP, the newly elected chairman of the Parliamentary Committee against Anti-Semitism, told delegates that the group’s inquiry would see MPs and peers scrutinising the government's actions in relation to the growing scourge.

"What growing scourge?" you might ask. Consider the fact that "demonisation of Israel" is now part of an official EU definition of anti-semitism and then consider the fact that the EU hasn't actually defined the term "demonisation" and you get some idea of what these "inquiries" are aimed at. They are aimed at defending Israel from legitimate criticism. These Parliamentary buffoons seem determined to make anti-semitism respectable.

Israeli refuseniks act up

Yediot Ahronot carries news of Israeli teenagers, who are courting jail by refusing to do their military service, putting on a display of how one behaves in the Israeli army.

New IDF recruits on their way to the enlistment center Wednesday were surprised to encounter an anti-occupation display prepared by fellow teenagers.

The display included three handcuffed, blindfolded boys kneeling on all fours, with a youngster wearing an army uniform holding a bat and telling them: "You wish to pray? Pray. Whoever moves is going to get it from me."...

...The protesters handed out a "gift to new recruits," namely a small set of handcuffs with a note reading: "Dear recruit, you were chosen to serve in the State of Israel’s army. To mark your entry into the ‘most moral army in the world’ we are presenting you with those handcuffs. Through emergency orders in place in Israel, you have the authority to detain people without a trial. Please use this gift and humiliate anyone who dares resist the Israeli occupation."

Apparently there were several attempts to assault the demonstrators. The link here contains video film of the demo.

Also posted at Lenin's Tomb.

Blair states, without fear of contradiction........

Perhaps it should be "Blair's state and the fear of contradiction."

I just read this Simon Jenkins comment in the Guardian. It's about Blair's very real fear (and loathing) of debate but it includes a, presumably old, joke about Hitler's Nuremberg rallies.

As luck would have it, Wolfgang was a refugee from Nazi Germany. When he felt the hand of "security" on his collar, I wonder if his mind flashed back to his youth. The incident recalls a New Yorker cartoon of a Nuremburg rally. It has the Führer beginning his speech: "I think I may say without fear of contradiction?"

Simon Jenkins is a refugee from Murdoch's The Times. The Guardian has another lament, by John Harris, for the demise of Labour's internal democracy.

Thanks for the MEMRI

Here's an article about Middle Eastern translation services by Brian Whitaker in the Guardian. It was published yesterday and I'm guessing it didn't make it to the print edition but I don't know. In the article Whitaker admits to the primacy of the zionist website, MEMRI.org.

The pioneer in this field was the Middle East Media Research Institute (Memri), which has been circulating translated snippets from the Arabic press since 1998. It has become influential in the US among politicians and journalists, and was once described by New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman as "absolutely invaluable".

Though Memri claims to be "independent", its founders were Yigal Carmon, a former colonel in Israeli military intelligence - who is currently its director - and Meyrav Wurmser, an ardent Zionist who helped to draft the now-famous 1996 Clean Break document proposing the overthrow of Saddam Hussein as a step towards reshaping Israel's strategic environment.

"This service does not present a balanced or complete picture of the Arab print media," Rugh said. "Its owners are pro-Israeli and anti-Arab. Quotes are selected to portray Arabs as preaching hatred against Jews and westerners, praising violence and refusing any peaceful settlement of the Palestinian issue."

Having written about Memri at length before, I don't propose to do so again here. Readers unfamiliar with the organisation and the controversy surrounding it can refer to Wikipedia, where there's a page with background information, links to the relevant articles and discussion of the pros and cons. Since I first wrote about Memri, however, several other English language sources have come along, and they are worth a look.

The rest of the article provides some useful links and you'll find links within the links so please read on..

Zionism – A Major Obstacle - by Moshe Machover

Many thanks to Moshe Machover for permitting me to post his latest article on zionism to my Jews against Zionism blog. Here's how it opens:

In this article I would like to explain why Zionism, as a political ideology, is a major obstacle to resolution of the Palestinian–Israeli conflict.

Let me stress that I am concerned here with Zionist ideology rather than with the practice of the Zionist project. That the latter is an absolute obstacle to resolution of the conflict is self-evident: it is a colonizatory project, an implantation of settlers, which has – necessarily – been implemented at the expense of the mass of indigenous people and by denial of their national rights. Indeed, the Zionist project is the root cause of the conflict.

Zionist ideology is clearly unacceptable from the perspective of the Palestinian Arab people. But here I propose to consider the case against Zionism from a somewhat less obvious perspective – that of the settler nation.

Moshe argues that there is a Hebrew nation in Palestine that zionism itself does not recognise "like a father denying the existence of his unwanted child." Now read on....

Privates on Parade

Here are a couple of links to audio-viual resources on Israel's conduct in occupied Palestine. They are from the Alternative Information Centre which describes itself thus:

The Alternative Information Center (AIC) is a joint Palestinian-Israeli organization which prioritizes political advocacy, critical analysis and information sharing on the Palestinian and Israeli societies as well as on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

In the first link is to the testimonies of members of Shovrim Shtika

Shovrim Shtika (Breaking the Silence) is a group of young Israelis recently discharged from the IDF. The group defined as its mission the uncovering of the reality of the occupation through making public the testimonies and personal experiences of soldiers whom served in the OPT.

The second consists mostly of clips from the point of view of the victims.

Israel for the Security Council?

According to the Jerusalem Post, Israel has formally applied for membership of the UN Security Council.

Israel belongs to WEOG (Western Europe and Others Group), but does not have a seat in the Security Council.

Why should membership of the western bloc entitle them to a seat on the Security Council?

Ethnic cleansing in the Negev

According to today's Ha'aretz, Israel has ordered the demolition of hundreds of Bedouin "illegal" homes to be replaced by farms, presumably for Jews.

Residents say that since Israel's disengagement from Gaza, government orders to demolish illegal houses in the Bedouin sector have swelled. In honor of Monday's demonstration, Bedouin residents also called a strike at 16 Negev schools in the unrecognized villages.

When he first suggested the disengagement plan, Ariel Sharon said that "this should be seen as a punishment and not a reward for the Palestinians". It looks like a punishment for the Bedouin too, and what was their offence? The same as the Palestinians: being natives in a colonial settler state.

Also posted to Lenin's Tomb

King Abdullah I on zionism - 1947

This is a remarkable article by the late King Abdullah of Jordan who was assassinated by a Palestinian back in 1948. Written in 1947, the most striking thing is Abdullah's understanding of American support for the zionists that seems to have been as strong in the American media in 1947 as it is today. Here it is:

As the Arabs See the Jews (1947)
By: King Abdullah of Jordan

I am especially delighted to address an American audience, for the tragic problem of Palestine will never be solved without American understanding, American sympathy, American support.

So many billions of words have been written about Palestine—perhaps more than on any other subject in history—that I hesitate to add to them. Yet I am compelled to do so, for I am reluctantly convinced that the world in general, and America in particular, knows almost nothing of the true case for the Arabs.

We Arabs follow, perhaps far more than you think, the press of America. We are frankly disturbed to find that for every word printed on the Arab side, a thousand are printed on the Zionist side.

There are many reasons for this. You have many millions of Jewish citizens interested in this question. They are highly vocal and wise in the ways of publicity. There are few Arab citizens in America, and we are as yet unskilled in the technique of modern propaganda.

The results have been alarming for us. In your press we see a horrible caricature and are told it is our true portrait. In all justice, we cannot let this pass by default.
Our case is quite simple: For nearly 2,000 years Palestine has been almost 100 per cent Arab. It is still preponderantly Arab today, in spite of enormous Jewish immigration. But if this immigration continues we shall soon be outnumbered—a minority in our home.

Palestine is a small and very poor country, about the size of your state of Vermont. Its Arab population is only about 1,200,000. Already we have had forced on us, against our will, some 600,000 Zionist Jews. We are threatened with many hundreds of thousands more.

Our position is so simple and natural that we are amazed it should even be questioned. It is exactly the same position you in America take in regard to the unhappy European Jews. You are sorry for them, but you do not want them in your country.

We do not want them in ours, either. Not because they are Jews, but because they are foreigners. We would not want hundreds of thousands of foreigners in our country, be they Englishmen or Norwegians or Brazilians or whatever.

Think for a moment: In the last 25 years we have had one third of our entire population forced upon us. In America that would be the equivalent of 45,000,000 complete strangers admitted to your country, over your violent protest, since 1921. How would you have reacted to that?

Because of our perfectly natural dislike of being overwhelmed in our own homeland, we are called blind nationalists and heartless anti-Semites. This charge would be ludicrous were it not so dangerous.

No people on earth have been less "anti-Semitic" than the Arabs. The persecution of the Jews has been confined almost entirely to the Christian nations of the West. Jews, themselves, will admit that never since the Great Dispersion did Jews develop so freely and reach such importance as in Spain when it was an Arab possession. With very minor exceptions, Jews have lived for many centuries in the Middle East, in complete peace and friendliness with their Arab neighbours.

Damascus, Baghdad, Beirut and other Arab centres have always contained large and prosperous Jewish colonies. Until the Zionist invasion of Palestine began, these Jews received the most generous treatment—far, far better than in Christian Europe. Now, unhappily, for the first time in history, these Jews are beginning to feel the effects of Arab resistance to the Zionist assault. Most of them are as anxious as Arabs to stop it. Most of these Jews who have found happy homes among us resent, as we do, the coming of these strangers.

I was puzzled for a long time about the odd belief which apparently persists in America that Palestine has somehow "always been a Jewish land." Recently an American I talked to cleared up this mystery. He pointed out that the only things most Americans know about Palestine are what they read in the Bible. It was a Jewish land in those days, they reason, and they assume it has always remained so.
Nothing could be farther from the truth. It is absurd to reach so far back into the mists of history to argue about who should have Palestine today, and I apologise for it. Yet the Jews do this, and I must reply to their "historic claim." I wonder if the world has ever seen a stranger sight than a group of people seriously pretending to claim a land because their ancestors lived there some 2,000 years ago!

If you suggest that I am biased, I invite you to read any sound history of the period and verify the facts.

Such fragmentary records as we have indicate that the Jews were wandering nomads from Iraq who moved to southern Turkey, came south to Palestine, stayed there a short time, and then passed to Egypt, where they remained about 400 years. About 1300 BC (according to your calendar) they left Egypt and gradually conquered most—but not all—of the inhabitants of Palestine.

It is significant that the Philistines—not the Jews—gave their name to the country: "Palestine" is merely the Greek form of "Philistia."

Only once, during the empire of David and Solomon, did the Jews ever control nearly—but not all—the land which is today Palestine. This empire lasted only 70 years, ending in 926 BC. Only 250 years later the Kingdom of Judah had shrunk to a small province around Jerusalem, barely a quarter of modern Palestine.

In 63 BC the Jews were conquered by Roman Pompey, and never again had even the vestige of independence. The Roman Emperor Hadrian finally wiped them out about 135 AD. He utterly destroyed Jerusalem, rebuilt under another name, and for hundreds of years no Jew was permitted to enter it. A handful of Jews remained in Palestine but the vast majority were killed or scattered to other countries, in the Diaspora, or the Great Dispersion. From that time Palestine ceased to be a Jewish country, in any conceivable sense.

This was 1,815 years ago, and yet the Jews solemnly pretend they still own Palestine! If such fantasy were allowed, how the map of the world would dance about!
Italians might claim England, which the Romans held so long. England might claim France, "homeland" of the conquering Normans. And the French Normans might claim Norway, where their ancestors originated. And incidentally, we Arabs might claim Spain, which we held for 700 years.

Many Mexicans might claim Spain, "homeland" of their forefathers. They might even claim Texas, which was Mexican until 100 years ago. And suppose the American Indians claimed the "homeland" of which they were the sole, native, and ancient occupants until only some 450 years ago!

I am not being facetious. All these claims are just as valid—or just as fantastic—as the Jewish "historic connection" with Palestine. Most are more valid.
In any event, the great Moslem expansion about 650 AD finally settled things. It dominated Palestine completely. From that day on, Palestine was solidly Arabic in population, language, and religion. When British armies entered the country during the last war, they found 500,000 Arabs and only 65,000 Jews.

If solid, uninterrupted Arab occupation for nearly 1,300 years does not make a country "Arab", what does?

The Jews say, and rightly, that Palestine is the home of their religion. It is likewise the birthplace of Christianity, but would any Christian nation claim it on that account? In passing, let me say that the Christian Arabs—and there are many hundreds of thousands of them in the Arab World—are in absolute agreement with all other Arabs in opposing the Zionist invasion of Palestine.

May I also point out that Jerusalem is, after Mecca and Medina, the holiest place in Islam. In fact, in the early days of our religion, Moslems prayed toward Jerusalem instead of Mecca.

The Jewish "religious claim" to Palestine is as absurd as the "historic claim." The Holy Places, sacred to three great religions, must be open to all, the monopoly of none. Let us not confuse religion and politics.

We are told that we are inhumane and heartless because do not accept with open arms the perhaps 200,000 Jews in Europe who suffered so frightfully under Nazi cruelty, and who even now—almost three years after war’s end—still languish in cold, depressing camps.

Let me underline several facts. The unimaginable persecution of the Jews was not done by the Arabs: it was done by a Christian nation in the West. The war which ruined Europe and made it almost impossible for these Jews to rehabilitate themselves was fought by the Christian nations of the West. The rich and empty portions of the earth belong, not to the Arabs, but to the Christian nations of the West.

And yet, to ease their consciences, these Christian nations of the West are asking Palestine—a poor and tiny Moslem country of the East—to accept the entire burden. "We have hurt these people terribly," cries the West to the East. "Won’t you please take care of them for us?"

We find neither logic nor justice in this. Are we therefore "cruel and heartless nationalists"?

We are a generous people: we are proud that "Arab hospitality" is a phrase famous throughout the world. We are a humane people: no one was shocked more than we by the Hitlerite terror. No one pities the present plight of the desperate European Jews more than we.

But we say that Palestine has already sheltered 600,000 refugees. We believe that is enough to expect of us—even too much. We believe it is now the turn of the rest of the world to accept some of them.

I will be entirely frank with you. There is one thing the Arab world simply cannot understand. Of all the nations of the earth, America is most insistent that something be done for these suffering Jews of Europe. This feeling does credit to the humanity for which America is famous, and to that glorious inscription on your Statue of Liberty.

And yet this same America—the richest, greatest, most powerful nation the world has ever known—refuses to accept more than a token handful of these same Jews herself!
I hope you will not think I am being bitter about this. I have tried hard to understand that mysterious paradox, and I confess I cannot. Nor can any other Arab.
Perhaps you have been informed that "the Jews in Europe want to go to no other place except Palestine."

This myth is one of the greatest propaganda triumphs of the Jewish Agency for Palestine, the organisation which promotes with fanatic zeal the emigration to Palestine. It is a subtle half-truth, thus doubly dangerous.

The astounding truth is that nobody on earth really knows where these unfortunate Jews really want to go!

You would think that in so grave a problem, the American, British, and other authorities responsible for the European Jews would have made a very careful survey, probably by vote, to find out where each Jew actually wants to go. Amazingly enough this has never been done! The Jewish Agency has prevented it.

Some time ago the American Military Governor in Germany was asked at a press conference how he was so certain that all Jews there wanted to go to Palestine. His answer was simple: "My Jewish advisors tell me so." He admitted no poll had ever been made. Preparations were indeed begun for one, but the Jewish Agency stepped in to stop it.

The truth is that the Jews in German camps are now subjected to a Zionist pressure campaign which learned much from the Nazi terror. It is dangerous for a Jew to say that he would rather go to some other country, not Palestine. Such dissenters have been severely beaten, and worse.

Not long ago, in Palestine, nearly 1,000 Austrian Jews informed the international refugee organisation that they would like to go back to Austria, and plans were made to repatriate them.

The Jewish Agency heard of this, and exerted enough political pressure to stop it. It would be bad propaganda for Zionism if Jews began leaving Palestine. The nearly 1,000 Austrian are still there, against their will.

The fact is that most of the European Jews are Western in culture and outlook, entirely urban in experience and habits. They cannot really have their hearts set on becoming pioneers in the barren, arid, cramped land which is Palestine.

One thing, however, is undoubtedly true. As matters stand now, most refugee Jews in Europe would, indeed, vote for Palestine, simply because they know no other country will have them.

If you or I were given a choice between a near-prison camp for the rest of our lives—or Palestine—we would both choose Palestine, too.

But open up any other alternative to them—give them any other choice, and see what happens!

No poll, however, will be worth anything unless the nations of the earth are willing to open their doors—just a little—to the Jews. In other words, if in such a poll a Jew says he wants to go to Sweden, Sweden must be willing to accept him. If he votes for America, you must let him come in.

Any other kind of poll would be a farce. For the desperate Jew, this is no idle testing of opinion: this is a grave matter of life or death. Unless he is absolutely sure that his vote means something, he will always vote for Palestine, so as not to risk his bird in the hand for one in the bush.

In any event, Palestine can accept no more. The 65,000 Jews in Palestine in 1918 have jumped to 600,000 today. We Arabs have increased, too, but not by immigration. The Jews were then a mere 11 per cent of our population. Today they are one third of it.
The rate of increase has been terrifying. In a few more years—unless stopped now—it will overwhelm us, and we shall be an important minority in our own home.

Surely the rest of the wide world is rich enough and generous enough to find a place for 200,000 Jews—about one third the number that tiny, poor Palestine has already sheltered. For the rest of the world, it is hardly a drop in the bucket. For us it means national suicide.

We are sometimes told that since the Jews came to Palestine, the Arab standard of living has improved. This is a most complicated question. But let us even assume, for the argument, that it is true. We would rather be a bit poorer, and masters of our own home. Is this unnatural?

The sorry story of the so-called "Balfour Declaration," which started Zionist immigration into Palestine, is too complicated to repeat here in detail. It is grounded in broken promises to the Arabs—promises made in cold print which admit no denying.

We utterly deny its validity. We utterly deny the right of Great Britain to give away Arab land for a "national home" for an entirely foreign people.

Even the League of Nations sanction does not alter this. At the time, not a single Arab state was a member of the League. We were not allowed to say a word in our own defense.

I must point out, again in friendly frankness, that America was nearly as responsible as Britain for this Balfour Declaration. President Wilson approved it before it was issued, and the American Congress adopted it word for word in a joint resolution on 30th June, 1922.

In the 1920s, Arabs were annoyed and insulted by Zionist immigration, but not alarmed by it. It was steady, but fairly small, as even the Zionist founders thought it would remain. Indeed for some years, more Jews left Palestine than entered it—in 1927 almost twice as many.

But two new factors, entirely unforeseen by Britain or the League or America or the most fervent Zionist, arose in the early thirties to raise the immigration to undreamed heights. One was the World Depression; the second the rise of Hitler.
In 1932, the year before Hitler came to power, only 9,500 Jews came to Palestine. We did not welcome them, but we were not afraid that, at that rate, our solid Arab majority would ever be in danger.

But the next year—the year of Hitler—it jumped to 30,000! In 1934 it was 42,000! In 1935 it reached 61,000!

It was no longer the orderly arrival of idealist Zionists. Rather, all Europe was pouring its frightened Jews upon us. Then, at last, we, too, became frightened. We knew that unless this enormous influx stopped, we were, as Arabs, doomed in our Palestine homeland. And we have not changed our minds.

I have the impression that many Americans believe the trouble in Palestine is very remote from them, that America had little to do with it, and that your only interest now is that of a humane bystander.

I believe that you do not realise how directly you are, as a nation, responsible in general for the whole Zionist move and specifically for the present terrorism. I call this to your attention because I am certain that if you realise your responsibility you will act fairly to admit it and assume it.

Quite aside from official American support for the "National Home" of the Balfour Declaration, the Zionist settlements in Palestine would have been almost impossible, on anything like the current scale, without American money. This was contributed by American Jewry in an idealistic effort to help their fellows.

The motive was worthy: the result were disastrous. The contributions were by private individuals, but they were almost entirely Americans, and, as a nation, only America can answer for it.

The present catastrophe may be laid almost entirely at your door. Your government, almost alone in the world, is insisting on the immediate admission of 100,000 more Jews into Palestine—to be followed by countless additional ones. This will have the most frightful consequences in bloody chaos beyond anything ever hinted at in Palestine before.

It is your press and political leadership, almost alone in the world, who press this demand. It is almost entirely American money which hires or buys the "refugee ships" that steam illegally toward Palestine: American money which pays their crews. The illegal immigration from Europe is arranged by the Jewish Agency, supported almost entirely by American funds. It is American dollars which support the terrorists, which buy the bullets and pistols that kill British soldiers—your allies—and Arab citizens—your friends.

We in the Arab world were stunned to hear that you permit open advertisements in newspapers asking for money to finance these terrorists, to arm them openly and deliberately for murder. We could not believe this could really happen in the modern world. Now we must believe it: we have seen the advertisements with our own eyes.
I point out these things because nothing less than complete frankness will be of use. The crisis is too stark for mere polite vagueness which means nothing.

I have the most complete confidence in the fair-mindedness and generosity of the American public. We Arabs ask no favours. We ask only that you know the full truth, not half of it. We ask only that when you judge the Palestine question, you put yourselves in our place.

What would your answer be if some outside agency told you that you must accept in America many millions of utter strangers in your midst—enough to dominate your country—merely because they insisted on going to America, and because their forefathers had once lived there some 2,000 years ago? Our answer is the same.

And what would be your action if, in spite of your refusal, this outside agency began forcing them on you? Ours will be the same.

From The American Magazine, November 1947, Forwarded by the JPLO List, September 8, 2005

Hear Galloway in San Francisco

You can listen to George Galloway's speech here. He starts a bit slowly and a little self-indulgently but hang in there for the Palestinians. It's well worth it.

I've just got this from Warszawa in a comment on Lenin's Tomb.

Jews cannnot be terrorists part II

In August just gone, the Israeli authorities ruled that civilian victims of armed political violence by a Jewish perpetrator could not be compensated under the state's rules for compensating victims of terrorism because terrorism was only committed by the enemies of Israel. Now a US court (or prosecution service) has come up with a similar notion. A leader of the Judeo-Nazi group, the Jewish Defence League has been convicted of a bomb plot against a Los Angeles mosque and an Arab-American senator but he was not convicted of a terrorist offence but a hate crime. Earl Krugel received two consecutive ten year sentences, one for each offence. According to the Herald Sun

Salam Al-Marayati, executive director of the Los Angeles-based Muslim Public Affairs Council, urged the judge to punish former dental assistant Krugel with the maximum sentence for his crimes.

"Mr Krugel should be treated like any terrorist, even though there is no mention of this term in the charges against him," he told the judge.

"To this day, we are living under the shadow of terror as a result of Mr Krugel's actions," Mr Al-Marayati said.

Curious that there are no news reports when you search the name "Earl Krugel". There is, however, a website run in his name. Whilst searching I noticed that the old JDL site - jdl.org - has been suspended so maybe that was their last gasp.

Thanks to Montag.

Washington anti-war demo: Police and organisers agree on the turnout

This never happens in the UK. The police always understate the turnout in demonstrations. In the march that even the media here say attracted one to two million the police at first said it was 10,000 then they revised it to 40,000. Anyway, from KGET.com

Washington D-C's police chief says he thinks anti-war protesters have probably hit their turnout goal of 100-thousand people.

There were also marches involving thousands of people in cities around America.

The Minyan Man March?

I found myself with a Jewish contingent, largely but not entirely from the Jewish Socialist Group, on the anti-war demo today. We thought we may have had a minyan, which is the minimum required for certain Jewish religious purposes. Then we realised there were two women among us and women don't count in a minyan. Luckily there were several tens of thousands of other people about so all was not lost.

I googled "demonstration" and all the news was from America until I got to the bottom of the page and Socialist Worker was the only site with coverage of the demo in the UK. That may well change by tomorrow. There is a report in the Guardian but it didn't appear in Google news.

In loving MEMRI

Ok, last post from the Jewish Chronicle for a while. Alex Brummer in his "In the media" column, puts up a spirited defence of MEMRI, the hard right zionist Middle East Media Resource Institute. He accuses George Galloway of shouting down an "innocent participant" in Radio 4's Any Questions because she referred people to MEMRI.org. I just happened to hear that programme and, like Alex Brummer, I can't remember the name of the law professor who recommended MEMRI. I do remember George Galloway saying, quite calmly, "it's an Israeli site". A grave injustice to those many Israeli sites that expose Israel's war crimes against the Palestinians but hardly shouting, ranting, or vicious as Brummer on this and previous occasions has said.

MEMRI is, at best, highly selective in its quotations. Some have said that its translations are suspect but that misses the point that MEMRI is a zionist site that propagates the view that you can know the Arab and Muslim worlds by their media.

A cash cow to replace the holocaust industry?

Ha'aretz reports that the American Holocaust Industry is going after one last group of countries for holocaust "restitution." This is where a group of American hucksters go after a country using all the clout of the American state and of individual American states, threaten to tie a state or institution down in years of litigation and stains on its reputation, grossly inflate whatever could have been lost in the first place, and then inflate the number of holocaust survivors so as to inflate any compensation figure. Now the target is eastern Europe. The impact of this on the countries concerned could be quite harmful but the impact on the precious few Jews remaining in these countries could be devastating. But what does the Holocaust Industry care? Of course, Professor Norman Finkelstein puts all of this much better than I could.

Anyway, when the last few dominoes have fallen, what next? You'll recall recently hearing about the "ethnic cleansing" of Jews from Arab countries, yes? It's taken the zionists a while to cobble together this myth. It wouldn't have worked if too many survivors were alive because the movement of Jews from Arab states to Israel and elsewhere is a by no means straightforward story. So now not many people are around to blow the whistle on zionist involvement in the movement of Arab Jews to Israel a new industry is born. So when the zionists have squeezed the holocuast (including its victims) for all that they can, they will turn on the Arab states. I wonder which one will be first. The clearest case of the zionists themselves using terrorism to have Jews flee to Israel was in Iraq in the early 1950s. I'm betting they'll turn to Iraq first. Iraq also has the attraction, for the time being, of having a government dependent on US goodwill. But of course, this could simply be a gambit to get Palestinians to drop their legitimate claims against Israel.

Explosive find at arms fair

You'd expect explosive finds at arms fairs but this one is more figurative than literal. An Israeli stand was closed down at the Docklands "Defence Systems Equipment International Show" because the company sold torture instruments. The company admitted that it does indeed sell leg irons, clubs and electric shock equipment but their spokesman said that, whilst the gear appears in their brochure, none was on display at the show. Priceless! But wait, it gets better. According to the JC, the company, Tar Ideal, is considering legal action against the organisers. A quick google search on Tar Ideal shows that they already have quite a reputation.

Lib Dems' Alan Beith wins the presidency

The presidency of the Lib Dems Friends of Israel that is. He praised Israel to the JC claiming that its achievements were "remarkable. Israel has made deserts bloom." Which ones? He didn't say, but then the JC didn't ask. He also said that Israel had founded "genuine democracy." I hope the Lib Dems don't try to establish such a democracy here in the UK.

Sorry I keep linking to the JC. I should point out that it's subscription only.