Who's Anthony Lerman?

Well I don't really know who he is but he seems to have some prominence as the Executive Director of the Institute for Jewish Policy Research and Engage gave him a real slagging recently on account of a little blurb of his on antisemitism in the Observer. I posted on that last thing on Sunday. Anyway, Mr Lerman feels that he has been misrepresented by Dr Hirsh. Dr Hirsh misrepresent someone over antisemitism and anti-zionism? What a surprise! So here he is in full on the Engage site and the Observer has updated its little piece to post the full thing that he actually wrote. It'll become clear when you see the Engage post by the man himself. So this is something you can find on Engage, in the Observer and the Just Peace list. Check it and you'll see Oh, and now here:

Dear David Hirsh, I can see that you’re not interested in facts but just in case there are people who go to your website, and even contribute comments, who are dedicated to balanced analysis and a search for the truth, I’m pasting below the full version of what I was commissioned by Ned Temko to write for the 3 September issue of the Observer. I was asked for 350 words about antisemitism, without knowing what will be in the Parliamentary Report and without knowing what Ned Temko planned to write in his linking piece. When I saw the Observer on Sunday morning, that was the first I knew that only a tiny fraction of my piece (which follows) had been used:

‘Antisemitism today is a serious problem: both for Jews and for society as a whole. Some think it went away after the Holocaust. It did not. Although it did diminish in recent decades, in the last few years it has intensified. And there is clear evidence, stretching back more than 20 years, that increases in the number of anti-Jewish manifestations are linked to periods of heightened tension and armed conflict involving Israelis and Arabs.

‘These factors, and the high degree to which debate about antisemitism is influenced by ideological and political considerations, make the need for clear, objective, analytical thinking of paramount importance. For without clarity and accuracy, we cannot form sound policy.

‘This is especially so in connection with the vexed question of whether anti-Zionism or singling out Israel for extreme criticism is antisemitic. Certainly, much of the perceived rise in antisemitism is made up of this form of discourse. But while very many Jews feel a deep attachment to Israel, it is the opposite of clear thinking to assume that all expressions of anti-Zionism are simply a cloak for or a form of antisemitism. It drains the word antisemitism of any useful value for it confuses a strongly held political view with an undifferentiated ideologically-based prejudice against a whole people.

‘Experience teaches us that we must avoid being dismissive and underestimating the problem. But equally we must avoid exaggeration. Sometimes we have a tendency to see ourselves as eternal victims in a world that is forever hostile to Jews. And the false perception that nobody cares feeds the sense that Jews dwell alone and fuels fears that encourage Jews to turn inward. This is not conducive to the kind of cool, detached level-headedness with which we need to tackle the problem. And it makes it hard to acknowledge the fundamental point that Jews must work with other minority groups, human rights bodies, ngos and parliamentarians to fight antisemitism as an integral part of the fight against other racisms and Islamophobia.

‘It is not easy to be dispassionate about something as morally reprehensible as antisemitism, but in order to devise effective action it must be done.’

As for your gloss on the brief quote in Sunday’s paper—which you will see is made up of bits chopped from the above and altered—for your sake, the less said the better. But again, for those who are genuinely interested in facts, one remark: You might like to think that ‘Nobody seriously assumes [“that all expressions of anti-Zionism are simply a cloak for, or a form of, anti-semitism”]’, but you are wrong. For example, Abe Foxman, National Director of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) in the US, certainly the most influential—around the world and not just in the US—of the major American Jewish organizations dealing with antisemitism, said in a speech at the meeting of the ADL’s National Executive Committee in Palm Beach, Florida, on 8 February 2002: ‘anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism, period’.

And by the way, the piece I was commissioned to write for the Observer is now up on their website in full.

I must say I'm surprised that Dr Hirsh says that no one says that anti-zionism is antisemitism. I just googled the expression, "anti-zionism is anti-semitism" (note the quotes) and 18,200 sites appeared. This is the top site (at the time of writing anyway). Just plain silly, eh?

Pappe on Gaza

Here's Ilan Pappe writing about the sheer cluelessness of the Israeli government with regard to Gaza and the contrast between that and its designs on the West Bank:

The Israeli leadership is at lost of what to do with the Gaza Strip. It has vague ideas about the West Bank. The current government assumes that the West Bank, unlike the Strip, is an open space, at least on its eastern side. Hence if Israel, under the ingathering program of the government, annexes the parts it covets - half of the West Bank - and cleanses it of its native population, the other half would naturally lean towards Jordan, at least for a while and would not concern Israel. This is a fallacy, but nonetheless it won the enthusiastic vote of most of the Jews in the country. Such an arrangement cannot work in the Gaza enclave - Egypt unlike Jordan has succeeded in persuading the Israelis, already in 1948, that the Gaza Strip for them is a liability and will never form part of Egypt. So a million and half Palestinians are stuck inside Israel - although geographically the Strip is located on the margins of the state, psychologically it lies in its midst.

Perhaps the whole thing is destined to remain the one country.

Up the PLOvos!

According to the Guardian Gerry Adams is to meet with leading Palestinians to share his experiences of a peace process.

The MP for West Belfast was invited by the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas. Hamas, which emerged as the strongest party in the Palestinian elections in January, is banned in the EU and the US, where it is deemed to be a terrorist organisation.

There have long been contacts between the PLO and the republican movement in Northern Ireland.

The Israeli government has made it clear it will not receive Mr Adams because of his intention to talk with Hamas. The White House reportedly tried to dissuade Mr Adams from going.

The Sinn Féin initiative is the latest in a series of visits to international conflict zones. Martin McGuinness, the party's chief negotiator, was in Sri Lanka and the Basque country earlier this summer.

"The Sinn Féin leadership has shared [its] experience of the Irish peace process with those seeking peaceful alternatives to conflict," Mr Adams said.

I can think of all sorts of differences between Britain in Ireland and zionism in Palestine but the one that springs to my mind is the fact that the provos got all sorts of support from America. Still, give the lad a chance.

Is Paul Bogdanor threatening me?

Goodness! This is scary stuff. I think someone's trying to threaten me. I won't bore you too much (I hope) with details of a "discussion" in the comments here. It all began when I tracked back and found a reference to me in an on-line article which was an extract from a book about Jews who criticise Israel. A small book maybe; or, who knows? a heavy tome. Check out the post. Well, because he's the son of someone who's fairly famous here in the UK, I put up with him for a while and then I got bored with it and deleted most of his latest lengthy comment to deal with something he had actually got right. There's no need for detail here and he promises to post the whole shebang on to his own website some time so I'll direct you there when he does. If I see it that is. Well, you know how zionists think that, in spite of dominating, if not controlling, the whole media here, each zionist has a right to be heard. He emailed me to complain that I had cut down his post. He actually said that I had banned him.

I wondered how long it would take you to ban me... Unfortunately for you, I've saved the entire exchange, which I can now post on my site, without censorship.

A friend advised me that in any exchange you tend to get bored as soon as you think you're losing and promptly ban your opponent - usually without alerting your readers to the fact. I was hoping that he was wrong about you...

Am I correct in assuming that there's no longer any point in replying to the communist apologists in this exchange?

This is one important guy, after all, he has a famous dad. As it happens he could have commented and I was sure I let everyone know if I banned someone's comments. But anyway, being a smartarse and wanting to go to bed I simply responded:

You've got a friend?

And he came back and said:

Alas, you're not willing to defend your own character - even in
private.

I notice that you ignore my query about whether I'll be allowed to reply on communism.

Is it true that you're a council employee in Dagenham or somewhere similar?

Now all I know about this Paul Bogdanor guy is that his dad is famous (Paul gets an entry in Wikipedia for that) and that he is associated with David Howrowitz's FrontPageMag site. That's it. I don't want to know any more. Except one thing. Why is this son of a celeb in the UK asking me questions about where I live and who I work for?

This is a clear attempt at intimidation. I hope readers who have hung in this far realise that. Now, what do zionists do? You know, those respectable types who wouldn't say "boo" to a goose. Do they complain as never before or do they accuse me of being a "conspiracy theorist" as so many do even when the accused is acting alone and when the "theory" is a fact?

Ok, to conclude, this Paul Bogdanor guy is threatening me. Why else would he be asking questions about where I live and work? His illustrious father must be proud of him. Personally I think he's a low life trading on his father's name.

Now then, to bed.

UPDATE: Apparently the celebrity's son wasn't trying to intimidate me:

I'm glad you made it clear that you banned me.

Actually my question about you was not a "threat" (more anti-Zionist paranoia and conspiracy theories - perhaps I'm planning to summon the Board of Deputies or the ADL!) but precisely that - a question asked out of curiosity, prompted by comments from other critics banned from your site.

I'm completing my own page on our exchange, which I'll send to you when ready...

Some masterpiece I have to wait for. He logged all that he and I wrote but it's not quite ready. He just took time out to let me know that he knows where I live and roughly where I work. He was intimidating me but I was supposed to be so intimidated I wouldn't mention it on my site. And didn't I say that he would accuse me of a conspiracy theory for saying this? Even David Hirsh wouldn't stoop to that.

Israel's dream of peace

Ehud Olmert has called for peace talks while his troops occupy part of Lebanon and his navy blockades it's ports. According to the Houston Chronicle:

Lebanese Information Minister Ghazi Aridi responded angrily and quickly.

"Let him dream on. ... Before he talks about peace, he is required to withdraw his troops from Lebanon and lift the blockade."

Meanwhile Shimon Peres aims for a Noble prize for hypocrisy in the Guardian:

The terrorists do not confine themselves to political boundaries. They exist like parasites in countries that are not theirs, and turn into an army within an army, with the freedom to don army uniforms or take them off, as they please.

"Countries that are not theirs?" Now where did he get that idea?

Zionists reach for the antisemitism gag

Here's a report by Ned Temko in today's Observer effectively conflating criticism of Israel with antisemitism. The article is a bit garbled but even the headline says that Critics of Israel [are] 'fuelling hatred of British Jews'. Does this mean that we shouldn't criticise Israel at all? Does this mean that Israel can do anything and remain above criticism? Surely such gagging of legitimate criticism is more likely to cause antisemitism than cure it. Thankfully not even the whole Jewish establishment is signed up for this disingenuous nonsense. Here's Anthony Lerman, executive director of the Institute for Jewish Policy Research quoted at the end of the article:

Anti-semitism today is a serious problem for Jews and for society as a whole. But what of the vexed question of whether anti-Zionism or singling out Israel for extreme criticism is anti-semitic? While very many Jews feel a deep attachment to Israel, it is the opposite of clear thinking to assume that all expressions of anti-Zionism are simply a cloak for, or a form of, anti-semitism. It drains the word of any useful value, confusing a strongly held political view with prejudice against a whole people.

The quote is sandwiched between one by the Chief Rabbi ("Israel you make us proud!") and one from Mitch Simmons of the Union of Jewish Students (which has two seats on the World Zionist Congress).

Do they mean me?

I stumbled on two articles yesterday that deal with Jewish critics of Israel. One was to denounce, the other was to applaud.

The first, from the Jewish Press, is now on Norman Finkelstein's, and many other, websites. It's titled "Jews who hate the Jewish State" and it contains all the stupidness one usually expects Engage to direct at Jews for Justice or other Jewish critics of Israel. In fact, go have a look at Jews for Justice for Palestinians, Richard Kuper's letter to three Engage contributors (Shalom Lappin, Eve Garrard and Norman Geras) who seem to subscribe to the maxim, "all Jews, one opinion." Here's what he was responding to.

My reason for posting the Jewish Press article here is the rather modest one that it mentions me. I should point out that the Jewish Press is reckoned to be quite extreme even in zionist circles but then Engage is getting more and more shrill in its denunciations of Israel's critics, especially if those critics are Jewish.

So here's the me bit of the article:

Another left-wing British Jew, Mark Elf, draws a subtle distinction: "To be rid of an Arab presence is to engage in ethnic cleansing. To be rid of a Zionist presence is to be rid of those who would engage in, or excuse, ethnic cleansing." His comrades translate these principles into action: Jewish members of the International Solidarity Movement travel to Israel in order to facilitate "the armed struggle" for the "liberation of Palestine" – a struggle whose realities can be seen in the burning corpses and severed limbs of their co-religionists.

The quote is an accurate lift from a letter in the London Review of Books and I'm not troubled by it as it stands. Arabs are an identity group based on birthright, language and cultre, if you like, an accident of birth. Of course there is nurture involved in the language and culture aspects of the identity but very little in the way of free choice. Zionists are not born, they are made. They are people who choose to support a racist ideology or to participate in a racist project of colonial settlement and ethnic cleansing. That said, they still quoted me out of context. Here's the letter in full:

Assault on Knowledge

As a non-Israeli anti-Zionist Jew, I am well aware of the need to distinguish between peoples and ideologies. It is J. Behar (Letters, 24 January) who appears to be 'morally unsavoury' when he equates Edward Said's lamenting of a 'Zionist presence' at Princeton with the wish of some Jews in Israel to be rid of an Arab presence. To be rid of an Arab presence is to engage in ethnic cleansing. To be rid of a Zionist presence is to be rid of those who would engage in, or excuse, ethnic cleansing.

Mark Elf
Dagenham, Essex

Facilitate armed struggle? At Princeton? My letter was a rejection of the conflation of peoples and ideologies and yet they tried to use the quote to do just that. The rest of the article is the same ludicrous tosh. Either trust me or read it and then trust me.

The other article appears in the Tehran Times on line. It's a gushing and patronising piece by a guy who is given to directly comparing Israel to the nazis. Read some of his stuff to see what I mean. I don't have objections in principle to the comparison but all comparisons have their limitations and behind the comparison of Israel with nazi Germany there is a suggestion that suffering and injustice don't count for anything unless they are like the holocaust. I think this detracts from the message that anti-zionists should be trying to get across.

Anyway, here's a chunk of the article:

Fact is, the equation of Zionism with Judaism is a well-known lie, and Zionist Jews who use it to justify Israel’s atrocities are finding themselves going up against increasing numbers of honorable Jews who are appalled at what is being done in the name of their religion. This schism must be suppressed at all costs, but if some mention of it manages to get out, it must be rubbished and its authors denounced as -- you guessed it -- “anti-Semites” or “self-hating Jews.” Ooooh!

For those intelligent enough not to buy into the official “Hezbollah is a terrorist group/Israel is the victim” group-think, here are some recent glimpses into what some honorable Jews have had to say about Israel, Lebanon and the Nazis:

He then lists out some Jews or groups of Jews he describes as honourable. This is why I call it patronising. It does raise the spectre of conditional acceptance of Jews and sets a standard for Jews to aspire to if they are to be accepted. This dovetails rather unfortunately with the Engage allegation against JfJfP, that they are simply trying to ingratiate themselves with certain interests. Anyway here's one item from the list of "honourable Jews."

On July 10, 300 Jews in Great Britain took out a full-page ad in the London Times to denounce Israel's aggression against Lebanon.

That'll have Hirsh and co hopping about a bit. If you read the Shalom Lappin, Eve Garrard and Norman Geras open letter you will see that they make the ludicrous claim that the reason 300 hundred Jews took out an ad in the Times newspaper was to make themselves "socially acceptable." Honestly they say that. Look:

The next time you......take out a self-abasing ad in a major newspaper designed to exhibit yourselves as socially acceptable Jews, bear in mind that you do not speak in our name.

Now to whom might we signatories be trying to make ourselves "socially acceptable?" The Tehran Times? And if criticising Israel is so socially acceptable, why did the Times have to be paid to carry the page? Why don't they just editorialise or report in that vein or get some "socially acceptable" Jews on board the flagship of the Murdoch press? Those zionists, they'll say anything.

Engage considers honesty

I'm sure the feeling will pass but Engage is having a little flirtation with honesty. First Engage posted an article rubbishing (or at least seeking to rubbish) the allegation that Israel had bombed two Red Cross ambulances. I posted the Australian report proving that Israel had indeed bombed two ambulances in Lebanon. Deborah Maccoby then posted some links to the Australian on to the Engage comments. They had acquired such an appalling reputation for filtering their critics and allowing their supporters to simply hurl ad hominem abuse at the precious few critics they allowed through that they now allow Deborah to post at will it seems. The silly thing goes and takes them up on it! But I digress. David Hirsh has now updated the original post to include the main link on my earlier post (and the first link on Deborah's comment). In the interests of "balance" he has also provided links to Melanie Phillips's site, presumably (I haven't looked) on the same subject.

Linda Grant too has got in on he act, for act is what it is, and she is urging all to "wait-and-see" what a full investigation comes up with. She also placed a comment under the same post as Deborah had. It's here:

People will believe what they want to believe, according to the beliefs they already hold. You may think that 'the IDF is the most moral army in the world' or that Hizbollah are 'a people's resistance movement fighting to overcome occupation.' Either way, you're willingly swallowing propaganda and those who do are in for a disappointing let-down.

So does Linda believe one of these? This tallies with an earlier stated position of Linda Grant's that she learned from Amoz Oz, "there is no objective truth." How convenient for zionists. Let's look at those two statements again:

the IDF is the most moral army in the world

and

Hizbollah are 'a people's resistance movement fighting to overcome occupation.'

But whilst many clearly want to believe that the Israeli army (even "IDF" is a lie) is the most moral army in the world, no one truly believes it. No one. Now Hizbullah arose from among the people and the ashes of Israeli occupied south Lebanon. Drawing support from local people they resisted Israeli occupation and the recent war was triggered by Hizbullah's solidarity action in capturing two Israeli soldiers. People don't just believe this because they want to but because it is so. There are many people who desperately don't want to believe it. But who are they going to believe, their own zionist propagandists or their own eyes?

Mission accomplished?

Here's George Galloway in today's Guardian, firming up on a few issues surrounding Israel losing the war in Lebanon:

As the smoke clears from the battlefield of the 34-day war in Lebanon, it would be a mistake to count the cost only in fallen masonry and fresh graves. All is changed, changed utterly, by the defeat that the whole of Israel is now debating, from the cabinet through the lively press to the embittered reservists at the falafel stall. Practically the only person in the world who claims Israel won the war is George Bush - and we all know his definition of the words "mission accomplished".

Here's the rest and there's a comment facility.

Israel's surgical strikes have Engage on a Downer

I already said that the bombardment of Lebanon caught the whole of the zionist movement with its collective hand in the till when, with one voice, they all supported Israel's slaughter of Lebanese civilians and destruction of civilian infrastructure. Engage was a classic example of pretend leftists going all out to support these racist war criminals.

So the headline. Private Eye ran a cartoon of an ambulance or maybe a hospital having been bombed by Israel. The caption read "surgical strike." Well Engage recently ran the above picture of a bombed ambulance with a link to an article, on a lunatic zionist website called Zombietime, that claims that Israel didn't bomb the ambulance in the picture. It's very hard to know if the Engage buffoon-in-chief, David Hirsh, really fell for the Zombietime lie or if he knew it was a lie when he posted it. What happened to expose Zombietime was that the Australian foreign minister, Alexander Downer, like Engage these days, will say anything to defend the racist war criminals of the State of Israel and to smear their opponents so he ran with the Zombietime denial. So Mr Downer denounced the Australian media for reporting that Israel had bombed ambulances. His source for the denial was Zombietime. This had the Australian demonstrating what Downer said they should have done before running the story and this is what it came up with:

Downer finds the blog to be a compelling condemnation of the foreign media's competence and ideological stance in Lebanon. Key planks of zombietime.com's allegations are that a missile would not cause the type of damage done to Ambulance 782; rust around the damaged roof showed the damage was done some time prior; neither driver was seriously injured; Shalin's injuries seemed to heal miraculously; and the Israeli apology was merely a matter of course.

I was in Tyre on the night of the attack and investigated the incident closely the next day. On July 24, with photographer Stewart Innes, we spoke to Qassem Shalin, who was recovering from a minor wound to his chin that nurses had bandaged to stop it from turning septic. We also visited Ahmed Mohammed Fawaz, whose lower left leg had been amputated and whose severe burns ironically had saved his life by sealing blood vessels and arteries. His son writhed in pain nearby, his stomach riddled with shrapnel and the rear of his scalp opened up.

We inspected both ambulances, whose mangled roofs were not rusting at the time. By the time the photos used on the blog site were taken, rust had appeared. But this is entirely normal in Lebanon's sultry summer climate, where humidity on the coast does not drop below 70per cent.

Downer's spokesman, Tony Parkinson, said on Tuesday: "Those (website) pictures do not show an ambulance that has been struck by a missile nor do they sustain the argument the ambulance was struck by a missile."

He is wrong. The damage done was consistent with ruined cars and vans that I saw elsewhere in Lebanon and earlier in Gaza, which had been hit by a missile fired from a drone. The Israeli-made drones have many types of missiles, but the most regularly used has a small warhead designed for use in urban areas. It aims not to kill anyone outside a small zone and rarely leaves a calling card outside its target.

Downer and Parkinson should know this. The Australian Government last year signed a deal to buy drones from Israel. They would surely have come with a buyer's guide.

The small warhead partly explains the driver's lack of serious wounds. But more telling is the fact that Shalin was lifting the rear ramp of the ambulance when the missile hit. His colleague was stepping into the side door. The concussion wave from the missile easily dispersed through the open spaces. Shalin was protected as he fell under the ramp. The other driver was blown out the side door.

Working in the Lebanese Red Cross operations room in Beirut the night the ambulances were hit was field manager George Kettaneh. "Every ambulance that moved in Lebanon I had to know about," he said. "I received phone calls from the ambulance drivers and it took us one hour to negotiate a ceasefire through the ICRC."

The man doing their bidding for them was Antoine Bieler, the field co-ordinator for the ICRC who yesterday confirmed to Media that he had negotiated a ceasefire with the Israeli Defence Force. "Yes absolutely, that happened," he said from Beirut. The ICRC in Geneva later said there was nothing to support Downer's claim that the events of that night were an anti-Israeli hoax.

I returned to Tyre on Saturday to speak again to Qassem Shalin and inspect the damaged ambulances. "Everything I said happened that night did happen," he said. "There was not a sound in the sky before the explosions. And after that there was a battle for the next hour. We hid in a building nearby convinced we were going to die. It was only when George (Kettaneh) called me that we could leave safely."

The events of July 23 and the reporting that followed was newsworthy and important. The ICRC has documented two other occasions when Lebanese ambulances were hit during the war and to report the incidents does not reflect anti-Israeli bias. The blog site's attempts to create a smokescreen around a shameful truth fail on tests of scrutiny that Downer was happy to overlook.

Beyond serious dispute? Only if you want to believe it, Minister.

Or Doctor, in David Hirsh's case.


UPDATE - Whilst writing this post I see that Deborah Maccoby has now posted the links to the Australian to the comments on the Engage site. Will Dr Hirsh do the decent thing and post the links with the article or will he ignore them? I'm not taking bets on this, I'm just asking.

These are the links:

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,20310772-2702,00.html

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,20307128-7582,00.html

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,20308892-7583,00.html

Good lord! Janner assaulted

Here's an article from the UK's Mail on Sunday, shortened in Ha'aretz, about how two British lords came to blows over Israel's Lebanon bombardment.

Lord Janner attacked by fellow peer in row over Lebanon war

By Assaf Uni, Haaretz Correspondent and Agencies

LONDON - Lord Janner, a senior member of Britain's Jewish community, was physically assaulted last week by a fellow peer during a furious row over Israel's policy in Lebanon, sources at the House of Lords confirmed to Haaretz yesterday.

Lord Bramall, 82, attacked Lord Janner after making what witnesses claim were a series of "anti-Israel" comments.

Lord Janner, 78, a veteran campaigner for Holocaust victims, was said to feel "wronged and seriously offended" after the attack.

Currently on a visit to Israel, he told Haaretz, however, that he had accepted the apology of Lord Bramall and the he now viewed the matter as closed.

A senior source at the House of Lords said: "There was no anti-Semitic remark but the comments by Bramall were anti-Israel. It took place in one of the rooms close to the Lords chamber and it got out of hand. It ended with Bramall hitting Janner. Those who witnessed the row were extremely shocked by his behavior."

Eton-educated Lord Bramall served in the occupation of Japan.

He was later on Lord Mountbatten's staff and became a full general in 1976. He served as chief of the Defence Staff during the 1982 Falklands War and sits as a cross-bencher.

No action has been taken by the Lords authorities and Lord Janner has made no complaint.

"Lord Bramall has apologized, and, as far as I'm concerned, the matter is now closed. I'm sorry, I'm saying nothing more," he said last night.

As a comment to the Mail on Sunday article said, even at that age, "boys will be boys."

Herzl's blood and soil?

Here's a report from Ha'aretz about plans to bury the remains of Theodor Herzl's children in Israel. I never even considered whether he had children. The potted accounts of their lives are quite interesting:

Chief Sephardi Rabbi Shlomo Amar smoothed the way to the plan's implementation two months ago, when he authorized bringing to Israel the remains of Herzl's son Hans to Israel, although he had converted to Christianity and committed suicide.

In his will, Herzl expressed the wish that the Jewish nation would bring his remains to Israel and bury his parents, sister and children beside him there. Herzl's coffin was buried on Mount Herzl in Jerusalem on August 1949.

His eldest daughter, Paulina, died destitute in 1930 in Bordeaux, after the World Zionist Organization rejected her requests for financial support. A day later, her brother, Hans, committed suicide on her grave and was buried in the same coffin. In a letter to his second sister, Trude, before his death, Hans asked that his remains would be brought to Israel for burial beside his father. Trude perished in the Holocaust and her burial place is unknown.

In April 2001 Dr. Ariel Feldstein wrote about Herzl's children in Haaretz's Magazine. His research indicated that the Zionist establishment had acted to conceal the embarrassing affair and tried to erase Herzl's children's memory.

It's a curious way of ingathering the "exiles."

Racist at a peace rally?

The zionist smearsite, Engage, has run a story from the Brighton local, The Argus, saying how police swamped an anti-war demo searching for a racist and seeking to allay fears of antisemitism on the part of the local Jewish community. Here's the story:

Hunt for racists at peace protest

POLICE did not release details of a violent racist attack at a peace rally because they feared publicity would prevent them catching the culprits, it was claimed today.

Officers were accused of wasting resources by sending up to 100 officers to marshal a demonstration in Hove last Saturday involving just 150 people.

But Chief Supt Kevin Moore said the presence was a response to complaints of violence, disorder and anti-semitism at a rally in July.

A Jewish man has told The Argus he was attacked by a baying mob and branded a terrorist during the demonstration on the seafront near Palmeira Square last month against the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hezbolah. Chief Supt Moore said: "We received a number of complaints by residents of Palmeira Square who declared themselves to be Jewish, who felt intimidated and felt some aspects of the July protest were racist and anti-semitic.

"We did not release details of the attack because we planned to take the victim to the march on Saturday to see if he could point out the culprits."

He was accompanied by two police officers but did not recognise anyone.

It also emerged an anti-semitic banner depicting a Jewish Star of David and a swastika was seized from an eight-year-old girl at Saturday's march.

But protest organisers say they are insulted at Chief Supt Moore's claim that the demonstration was an attempt to provoke and incite what he described as a large Jewish population in the area.

Organiser Glenn Williams said: "I am shocked at that.

"There was no racism or anti-semitism on either march to my knowledge.

"If there was then I would be deeply concerned and certainly would condemn it. But I simply do not believe it happened.

"This is a diversion tactic by the police because they simply got it wrong."

A 24-year-old half-Jewish doorman says he was attacked at the protest in July.

He says he was driving along Kingsway with his girlfriend, also 24, when he had to stop because the protest had spilled into the road.

He said: "Somebody clocked I was wearing a Jewish symbol on my necklace.

"All of a sudden, a crowd of people had surrounded the car and were shouting anti-Jewish chants.

"Somebody stuck a banner through the car window and I had to struggle to fight them off.

"They were calling me a terrorist and Jewish scum and insulting my family.

"They were pushing and kicking the car and caused £400 damage to the bodywork.

"This abuse was racist and highly personal and deeply offended me.

"It's not what I expected from a peace protest.

Tony Greenstein tried to post this comment on the Engage site but apparently the moderators felt that it didn't "contribute to the debate"

This is however worrying because it shows how elements of the State are prepared to use 'anti-Semitism', which I've long argued has become the 'anti-racism' of the Right in order to attack democratic protest and the left.

Tony Greenstein was one of the organisers of the march and Charlie Pottins (Random Pottins) posted this to the Just Peace list on Tony's behalf:

Anyone who bought the Argus today will have seen in the letters column an attack by Chief Supt. Kevin Moore on the organisers, including myself, of last Saturday's demonstration over Lebanon. In it he accuses us of having been motivated by anti-Semitism for choosing to march from Palmeira Square!

If Moore had any knowledge of the area concerned he would, of course, know that Palmeira Square is situated in the heart of Brighton and Hove's Arab community as a walk down that part of Western Road would demonstrate. It is doubtful that Palmeira Square contains any higher concentration of Jews than other areas of Brighton and Hove but in any case it is irrelevant. Many Jews marched on both marches because many many Jews are equally horrified by what Israel did in Lebanon on the pretext of the capture of 2 of its soldiers (having itself held Lebanese hostages for years).

The excuse for the Police's swamping of the march was what was termed a 'serious' racist attack on someone who is Jewish. We always thought this was fishy because there was no attempt by Police to ask people at the demo for information concerning this assault. In fact the 'assault' was nothing of the kind. I and others witnessed someone described in the Argus today as 'half-Jewish' (!) shouting out at an obviously Arab demonstrator 'terrorist'. If anything this was racist abuse, but no doubt the pig ignorant Moore wouldn't understand why. The person so abused became angry and in a confrontation with the motorist, which was why Idemonstrators pulled him off before there was any violence. But if Moore is so concerned about racial violence he might now start investigating the murder of Jay Abatan, whose murderers are still free thanks to the negligence and racism of Brighton Police.

It would appear that the Argus didn't bother to check the letter first, or assumed that if it came from a senior Police officer it must be ok. In fact the letter is highly libellous and I've given Chief Supt. Moore 28 days to respond before proceedings are issued in the High Court for defamation. As a Jewish member of Palestine Solidarity Campaign, which helped organise the march, the accusation is outrageous. Made even more so because the only Jewish person assaulted was me, by Moore's own officers!

To be continued...

The end of the zionist dream?

Israel has just fought yet another war "for its survival." The crucial difference this time is that it lost. So now we have proof for even the most willfully stupid that when Israel claims to be fighting for its survival it is doing no such thing. Now here's an article by Nadim Shehadi in Ha'aretz suggesting that the way in which Israel fights and endangers its citizens means that it is actually a failed state:

What is the logic that will emerge from this war? If Israel can exist only by destroying the neighborhood, then it's time to declare it a failed state. The Zionist dream has turned into a nightmare and is not viable. If the future holds more of the same, then the time has come to reconsider the whole project. Every state has a duty to defend its citizens, but also it has a duty to provide them with security and the two are different. The prospects are for more destruction, fanaticism, violence and hatred. No unilateral separation can isolate Israel from this, nor can the region or the world live with the consequences. This seems to be the only choice, and Israel must do itself and others a favor and go away.

Now read on.

Jewish Socialist in the Jewish Chronicle

David Rosenberg of the Jewish Socialist Group has a letter in the Jewish Chronicle today worrying out loud about the impact of Linda Grant withdrawing from the British Shalom Salaam Trust and Jews for Justice for Palestinians. Here's Linda Grant's letter in last week's JC:

Nameless

Last year Norman Geras and I removed our names from the list of signatories to Jews for Justice for Palestinians. I remained as a patron of its charitable arm, the British Shalom Salaam Trust in respect of the work it was doing. Having read JfJfP's statement on the Hizbollah-Israel war, I have now asked for my name to be removed as a patron of BSST.

The mere fact that this zionist fiction writer had to ask for her name to be removed should set alarm bells ringing about the nature of the Trust but here's comrade Rosenberg:

Good grief [I think they meant "good riddance!"]

So Linda Grant uses your letters page to announce to the world that she no longer wants to be a patron of the British Shalom Salaam Trust in protest at a statement by Jews for Justice for Palestinians (JFJFP).

Gosh! What will the trust and, JFJFP or the Palestinian people in general do without Linda Grant's support?

Will they ever recover?

Er, yes, I think they might.

David Rosenberg

I must say I find this whole Lebanon debacle fascinating. At first it smoked out just about the whole of the zionist movement who rushed to support Israel. AB Yehoshua, David Grossman and Amos Oz all went on record to support the onslaught before seeing it go pear-shaped and then very publicly changed their independent minds. But it's more complex in the diaspora so other zionist "peaceniks" are having to distance themselves from this or that "peace" group because they feel a need to be counted with their more openly zionist cohorts during Israel's time of "trial" (if only).

What happened here is the zionist belief in Israel's invincibility kicked in and the zionists expected a quick victory followed by a relentless campaign of media lies justifying Israel's atrocities. I was surprised by the lack of media campaigning for Israel while the bombardment was on but it's often the case that zionist media campaigns only kick in after the events they misrepresent. This happened with Barak's generous offer. It even happened in 1967. But this time Israel lost the war. It's hard now for zionists to know which lie to tell. Remember the first one they tried was about the "existential threat" to Israel. They shouldn't have led with such an implausible lie really because Israel lost and yet it still exists. So now they need new lies. Meanwhile, those outside Israel who support Jewish supremacy in Palestine have to risk alienating their cohorts in the openly zionist movement by continuing a pretence of peace-seeking. Or they have to jump back to the overt zionist camp. Linda Grant has chosen the latter course. At least it's honest.

Israel rejects Amnesty International report

Well fancy that! Israel has rejected the idea that it committed war crimes in Lebanon. This flatly contradicts an Amnesty International report.

The 20-page report, the first comprehensive one issued by the human rights organization on the subject of the recent war, accused Israel of "indiscriminate and disproportionate attacks" which displaced one quarter of the civilian population.

The report alleges that "Israel's destruction of thousands of homes, and strikes on numerous bridges and roads as well as water and fuel storage plants, was an integral part of Israel's military strategy in Lebanon, rather than "collateral damage‚ resulting from the lawful targeting of military objectives."

That strategy, in Amnesty's assessment of Israeli official statements, was carried out in part in order to turn civilians against Hizbullah. The report noted that any Hizbullah use of civilians as a means of shielding their activities constituted a war crime. But, it said, "under international law such use does not release the opposing party from its obligations towards the protection of the civilian population." It calculated that more than 1,000 civilians died, some 7,000 strikes had been carried out by the Israeli Air Force, 15,000 residences had been destroyed and at least two hospitals wiped out.

Every time Israel kills children or other civilians some zionist or other claims that they were used as human shields. Now the idea of a human shield is that the other side will hold their fire so as not to kill the human shield. Since its inception, Israel has had no compunction about killing children so who is there in the whole of the Arab world who thinks to use a child, or any civilian, as a human shield?

Dershowitz's deceptions

A new low in depravity?

No not a description of Israel's latest assault on Palestinians or Lebanon but Chomsky's description of Alan Dershowitz's grotesque smears against Norman Finkelstein's mother; his late mother.

The incident demonstrated conclusively that Dershowitz is not only a remarkable liar and slanderer, but also an extreme opponent of elementary civil rights. That is crystal clear from the correspondence, reproduced below. Dershowitz flew into a fury over the exposure, and ever since has produced a series of hysterical tirades and lies concerning some entity in his fantasy world named "Chomsky," who lives on "planet Chomsky." That is his standard style when he is exposed, reaching truly grotesque levels in his efforts to discredit Norman Finkelstein (and even his mother, probably a new low in depravity) after Finkelstein's meticulous documentation of Dershowitz's astonishing lies in his vulgar apologetics for Israeli crimes (Beyond Chutzpah).

Read the whole thing on Finkelstein's site here.

This latest spat follows publication and circulation of a letter signed by Chomsky, Finkelstein and several others, protesting Israel's recent conduct in Gaza.

Meanwhile, in Gaza.....

This article by Amira Hass in Ha'aretz is actually titled Nasrallah didn't mean to and is ostensibly about Hizbullah's rockets killing Israeli Arabs. But it soon becomes a very different narrative:

During the past month, Hezbollah's Katyushas killed 18 Israeli Arabs among the 41 Israeli civilians who died in the war. Clearly, Hassan Nasrallah didn't mean to kill them. But as someone who knows that many Arabs live in northern Israel, and as someone who knows that the launchers for his inaccurate Katyushas cannot choose the target they will hit - the fact that it was unintended is meaningless.

More than anyone, Israelis should understand Nasrallah's claims that this was "unintended," identify with the primacy he attaches to the "unintendedness" relative to the fatal results, and identify with the disjunction he creates between the rationale that is inherent in the war machine he has built and his subjective will. "We didn't mean to" is a mantra that is frequently recited in Israel when there is a discussion of the number of civilians - among them many children - who are killed by the Israel Defense Forces. To this, the claim that "they" (Hezbollah and the Palestinians) cynically exploit civilians by locating themselves among them and firing from their midst is automatically added.

This claim is made by citizens of a state who know very well where to turn off Ibn Gvirol Street in Tel Aviv to get to the security-military complex that is located in the heart of their civilian city; this claim is repeated by the parents of armed soldiers who bring their weapons home on weekends, and is recited by soldiers whose bases are adjacent to Jewish settlements in the West Bank and who have shelled civilian Palestinian neighborhoods from positions and tanks that have been stationed inside civilian settlements.

Ok, she points up the sheer hypocrisy of zionists in condemning the modus operandi of "the other." That said, the most startling items in the article, for me anyway, are the grim statistics of death in Gaza.

IDF soldiers have killed 44 children in Gaza since June 28, when the failed campaign to release abducted IDF soldier Gilad Shalit began. That is 44 children out of the 188 people the IDF has killed in Gaza - civilians and armed men, most of whom had embarked on a doomed fight against the invading tanks. The last three who were killed, on Monday, were three farmers from Beit Hanoun who were hit by an IDF shell - about as precise as a Hezbollah Katyusha - instead of the rocket launcher it had been intended to hit.

She then rounds off by demonstrating the various ways in which Israel is choking off the possibility of Palestinian self-determination in Palestine itself.

Observe these!

I'm only just back from holiday and so my posting is still a bit sporadic. The Observer had an absurd editorial last week suggesting that Muslims generally and islamists in particular had no case against the west back in 1993. They even said that it was a lie to suggest otherwise. More, they even go so far as to imply that Bill Clinton was an honest broker between Israel and the Palestinians back then:

British and American foreign policy was focused not on the Islamic world, but on the unstable transition of former communist countries to democracy. Twice during the Nineties, Nato launched military interventions in the Balkans, both aimed at protecting Muslim populations in Bosnia and Kosovo. What Middle East policy there was focused on diplomatic efforts, led by President Clinton, to negotiate lasting peace between Israel and the Palestinians.

Well thankfully they have just enough integrity to publish letters countering their selective memory of events between the west and the middle east:

The premise underlying your editorial ('These ludicrous lies about the West and Islam', last week) is wrong. Saying that the February 1993 plot to bomb the World Trade Centre could not have been 'a response to Western actions overseas' because it took place when Western policies in the Middle East were uncontroversial leaves out the 1991 Gulf War.

In fact the terrorism of the early Nineties was closely related to Western policy, and American encouragement to armed Islamists in the war against the Soviet-backed Afghan regime in the Eighties. The military infrastructure and contacts created then provided a vehicle for the extremists to campaign against the West's military presence in the Gulf during and after the 1991 war. Their opposition was fuelled by the effects of Western policy, with more than 500,000 Iraqis dying through the effects of Western-orchestrated sanctions against Iraq in the first two years after the war.

Nor is it true that the West was busy negotiating an Israeli-Palestinian peace settlement. By February 2003 the Madrid peace process, initiated in 1991, was going nowhere. The US had shown itself unprepared to exert the degree of pressure on Israel which could have brought results.
Tim Niblock
Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies, University of Exeter

Your editorial fails to mention Palestine. The car bomb in New York took place in 1993, after the misery and injustice of the Palestinian people had continued for more than 50 years. I am deeply ashamed that the West has allowed this to go on.
Joan Machin
Leeds

In what idiosyncratic way do you apply the epithet 'bogus' to the 'sense of victimisation' of the Palestinians, deprived of their country to assuage Europe's guilt at the Holocaust and subjected to Israeli oppression; or of the Iraqis, bombed, beaten, raped and murdered by their 'liberators'?
Robin Seager
Liverpool

If it is a 'ludicrous lie', as your editorial claims, to suggest a connection between 'Western actions overseas' and anti-Western violence, surely consistency would compel you to deride any claim that the recent Israeli slaughter of Lebanese children was somehow linked to Hizbollah's actions in northern Israel? Your argument that Western interventions cannot possibly be grounds for Muslim grievance because some of them have helped Muslims is truly ludicrous. You might as well argue that Israel should embrace Palestinian suicide bombers because Palestinians have helped to build their so-called security fence.
Aran Lewis
London SW17

I should say here that I think the idea that the imperialist powers felt any sense of guilt over the holocaust is as absurd as the editorial and to suggest that the west's support for the on-going torture of the Palestinians is related to that guilt is even more absurd. Who but a racist would suggest that the on-going torture of millions of people is somehow morally superior, less guilty, than the killing of millions? Anyway, they published a couple of letters supporting their position but it's good to see them publishing such cutting demolitions of so ridiculous an editorial in what passes for a newspaper of record.

Israel covers its tracks

Here's a report from the Khiam Rehabilitation Center for Victims of Torture (KRC). I got it from Just Peace but it has its own site here.

Khiam Rehabilitation Center for Victims of Torture (KRC) branch in the South of Lebanon was totally destroyed by the Israeli bombings.

We report the distressful information from our team that went to the South of Lebanon to Der Seryan Village to check on the Khiam Rehabilitation Center for Victims of Torture (KRC) branch. We knew that the center was hit by the Israeli bombings.

The clinic, the pharmacy, the computers, the sewing machines used for training seminars of the female ex-detainees..etc...nothing survived.

It is not a surprise. The Israelis make their glory upon killing and destroying civilians, babies and all symbols of life!

Khiam was the notorious torture centre run, nominally anyway, by Israel's allies in the South Lebanon Army. After the liberation of Lebanon from Israel and collapse of the SLA, Khiam became a monument to the victims of torture and a campaign against the use of torture. No wonder Israel wanted it buried deeply in rubble.