Raytheon 9 are Free!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Great news. The Raytheon 9 are free! These are 9 activists who trashed the Raytheon building in Derry because Israel used Raytheon weapons in the Lebanon war. It's a great victory. It gives heart to a lot of people on this island to undertake more direct action, but it should be recalled that it was a british jurisdiction - so on ye go!


On a sombre note, they dedicated their victory 'to the Shaloub and Hasheem families of Qana in Lebanon, who lost 28 of their closest relatives on the 30 July 2006 due to a Raytheon ‘bunker buster’ bomb.'

More here.

Israel, the "pantomime villain"

Ah, it's just not cricket. According to the UK's Daily Telegraph, the man sent to lie abroad for Israel, (like there aren't enough hasbara parrots in the media, the government and the opposition) Ambassador Ron Prosor, is unhappy that 60 years of relentless zionist propaganda haven't worked in the land of fair play:

Ron Prosor claims that while the UK was once admired for its liberal fairness and decency, in recent years extremists have "hijacked" its debate over Israel.

He says his country has been turned into a "pantomime villain" by Britons who deny it has any right to exist, while terror attacks on Israeli citizens are ignored by both the media and public opinion.

Mr Prosor, a senior diplomat who became Israel's ambassador to Britain last year, is particularly scornful of the academics who want to boycott Israeli universities over the country's treatment of Palestinians.

I was reminded of Gideon Levy's Counterpunch article a couple of years back when Israel first announced its policy of starving the Palestinians:

The team, headed by the prime minister's advisor Dov Weissglas and including the Israel Defense Forces chief of staff, the director of the Shin Bet and senior generals and officials, convened for a discussion with Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni on ways to respond to the Hamas election victory. Everyone agreed on the need to impose an economic siege on the Palestinian Authority, and Weissglas, as usual, provided the punch line: "It's like an appointment with a dietician. The Palestinians will get a lot thinner, but won't die," the advisor joked, and the participants reportedly rolled with laughter. And, indeed, why not break into laughter and relax when hearing such a successful joke? If Weissglas tells the joke to his friend Condoleezza Rice, she would surely laugh too.

Now what kind of behaviour is that when people can laugh out loud at the increased suffering of an already suffering people? I'm grateful to His Excellency (yuk!!!) for bringing a new expression to the anti-zionist lexicon. Only of course, these racist war criminals aren't just guilty of ham acting.

How (not) to spot antisemitism

At the request of (a crucial part of) the audience, I raise my last comment to an entry.

According to Answers.com anti-Semitism is

1. Hostility toward or prejudice against Jews or Judaism.
2. Discrimination against Jews.

This is a very common definition. I think it is complete bull, even without the frequent scandalous addition of opposition to zionism. Moreover, it is a deeply ideological definition that takes a word coined less than 150 years ago in Germany and uses it to refer to phenomena that took place before the word 'Germany,' let alone the modern German state, came into being. The effect is to create a uniform but wholly imaginary history that effaces diversity and universalizes what is particular and tied to a time and a place. When that happens, one must asks as always, cui bono?

The priests of antisemitism often begin the history of antisemitism with Roman writers such as Pliny the Elder. This is ridiculous. privilege conscious Romans held unflattering opinions on Jews. Jews were one of the many dominated groups of the Roman Empire. They were occasionally rebellious; they thought highly of themselves, which was uppity. Romans saw themselves and themselves only as civilized. ( Actually, Romans thought of themselves as 'cives,' or citizens of Rome, a title that conferred many real privileges within the Empire. It was left to modern European intellectuals who fancied themselves Rome's successors to coin the term 'civilized' from the same root. From the get go, therefore, being 'civilized' meant a pretense to be something one wasn't.) In short, Romans' poor opinion of Jews and even the rare persecution had nothing to do with antisemitism. A much more pertinent (though still a-historical) comparison would be with the kind of attitudes American soldiers in Iraq have towards the native population.

From Rome, the priests of antisemitism take us to the next station of the cross (pun intended). Matthew the Evangelist not only tells the story of the crucifixion in a way that exonerates Roman authorities (who alone exercised capital punishments), but has the Jewish high priest take responsibility for the execution of Jesus on behalf of Jews universally. This is nasty. And if it were written today, it would probably be actionable. But it wasn't written today. Jewish authors of the time gave as good as they got. Not only does the Talmud contains unflattering references to Christians, but Jews wrote such texts as a mock "gospel" that described Jesus's mother as a whore and many other such blandishments. Jews and Christians were engaged in a family feud over who had the better key to the spiritual world of late antiquity. They vilified each other. They tried to get each other in trouble with the authorities. But they also emulated one another and many onlookers would have had trouble telling them apart. As late as the fourth century, many Christians and Jews would be unclear about the difference between Easter and Passover. Seeing that religious feud as antisemitism is reading history backwards. A closer fit would be the bad blood between Trotskysts and Stalinists.

In the fourth century, Christianity took over the imperial court. With their new found powers Christians wrote into law many limitations on their old nemesis. But then, for perspective, look at what they did to Pagans! Jews in The christianized Roman empire were not equal to Christians. If one wants a modern comparison, compare it to the status of Coptic Christians in Egypt, or the Falun Gong in China. To sees this as in any way like antisemitism is misguided, unless one is trying to promote a view of the world in which Jews possess some kind of a secret essence that makes everybody hates them through the ages.

From there, the story goes to medieval Europe and to the massacres of the First Crusade, conveniently passing in silence 600 years in which, except intermittently in non-Catholic Spain, hostility to Jews is practically non existent in Europe. In the 11th century, Jews and Christians in France can live in concubinage without being prosecuted (by either community), and the Bishops of German towns invite Jews to settle there because Jews have a good reputation. Later on however, beginning in the 12th century, Christianity bids to monopolize the political ideology of the nascent European state system. Europe then progressively develops an intolerant politics of otherness that affects Jews negatively, (but also and sometimes even more so lepers, "sodomites," heretics, etc.) The massacres of Jews along the Rhine during the First Crusade pale for example in comparison with the genocidal Albigensian Crusade, conducted in Southern France a hundred years later against the Christian countryside. At about this time, some Jews increasingly begin to function in Western Europe as agents of modernization, market penetration and centralization of royal power, and respectively as a fodder for exorcising the ill effects of this modernizing process. Here we can plausibly talk about the emergence of key elements of antisemitism, especially the association of Jews with the the abstract and community destroying power of money. But this is not yet antisemitism, just as the invention of the wheel is not quite the birth of the automobile.

What is missing? First, Medieval Europe is ordered by status. There are no universal subjects and therefore no uniform political community from which Jews can be uniquely excluded. Every person has rights based on where they live, their class, their profession, etc. Peasants have lesser rights than town folks. Master craftsmen have civil rights denied to journeymen. And tanners in Paris have different rights than weavers in Antwerp. Jews have their different sets of rights associated with their special status and usually negotiated between the community leaders and the local powers, just like everyone else. To call this discrimination is anachronistic. The concept of discrimination is alien to this political universe since it implies a standard of equality before the law. Second, the status of Jews is tied to their religious belief, not to their innate or even cultural character. And third, mass culture and mass politics are in their infancy. Kings occasionally whack their Jews to fake empathy towards their suffering subjects. And firebrand preachers froth at the mouth as they mention God's murderers. But the masses of industrial Europe can't be mobilized because they don't exist and neither does the political need for mobilizing them. There is no political public space that Jews can "contaminate". The people's Kingdom is still not of this world.

All this would have to change in order for antisemitism to be slouching towards Vienna to be born. In the 19th century, antisemitism emerges--not just the word but the thing itself--as a modern political tendency. Namely, it operates at the level of the newly constituted secular political community, the nation. This new body politic is born in a state of crisis, as an effect of the very economic development that threatens its cohesion. To this body in crisis antisemitism offers, just as all other modern political tendencies do, a universal (mis-)diagnosis as well as a cure. This is the essential modernity of antisemitism. What distinguishes it is the specifics of the (mis-)diagnosis--Jewish contamination of the political space of the nation (divorced from religious identity and reconceptualized biologically), and the cure--Jewish exclusion.

And even then, antisemitism was but a derided affectation, like the belief in the reign of black helicopters in some areas of rural America today. The virulent force that would stamp our mental image of this phenomenon would only come into being half a century later, with the Soviet revolution and the mass westward migration of Eastern Jews. Only then would antisemitism be reconfigured as a potent and serviceable mass mobilization strategy that could be harnessed against communism. Whenever we speak of antisemitism today, we inevitably bring up the specter of that mass folly, the first great experiment in the management of the modern demos. It is an experiment that went clearly astray. But it did not go completely in vain. The political classes learned from it a great deal. They learned to harness the energy of mass hatred and control it at about the same time, and according to the same technical principles, as they learned how to effect a controlled nuclear fission: simmer, but don't overheat!

After 1944, the particular content of antisemitism was therefore discredited. As a political tendency it is back to its pre-1917 state--a risible affectation of fools. It is even more marginal today than it was in 1870. Even neo-Nazis wash their hands off it. To be precise, we are talking about the core phenomenon, namely, about the specific antisemitic diagnosis of the ailment afflicting the body politic. The tropes of anti-Jewish sentiment, prejudice, etc., including the Christian elements such as the accusation of deicide and the proto-socialist tropes of the avaricious Jewish bankers survive, even though much discredited(1). However, these tropes were merely harnessed in antisemitism. They weren't invented by it and they did not constitute it.

We have a host of words to describe abusive inter-communal attitudes: bigotry, prejudice, stereotyping, racism, xenophobia, etc. These words apply universally. To suggest that Jews need a special word that cover these meanings only when the target is Jewish is to dehistoricize and essentialize Jews. Bigotry against Jews is just bigotry. Racism against Jews is just racism. Jews don't need a special word for it. What is good for everyone else should be good enough for everyone.

Antisemitism is a unique, self-described and self-labeled modern tendency with a shady beginning, a horrible climax and an ignoble zombie afterlife(2). Other political tendencies have borrowed themes made popular by antisemitism. Zionists adopted the image of the "wandering Jew" as it was fashioned by antisemites. Some Arab nationalists repackaged the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion" as propaganda in the struggle against Israel. These borrowings reflect badly on their authors, but they do not make them into "antisemites." When Bush spoke of a "crusade" to bring democracy to Iraq, he did not become Pope Urban II, and the U.S. military did not become a column of horse-riding knights in dull armor. He was just borrowing and adapting a lousy historical theme. When John Edwards speaks of the two Americas, he is not being a communist, even if he briefly activates the communist imagery of class struggle.

If there is one true claimant to the title of antisemitism's heir today, it is "islamophobia". Islamohobia recycles images, visual themes, fears and fantasies that are recognizably drawn from the antisemitic repertoire: threatening immigration, contamination, secret bid for domination, even the crooked nose. But this is just the icing on the cake. Let's look at the more substantial similarities. Like antisemitism, islamophobia reconfigures religious bigotry in secular terms (but with "cultural" replacing biological determination.) Like antisemitism, it fuses together xenophobia against immigrants with resentments towards a small and rich comprador class--Arab oil Sheikhs replacing Jewish bankers. Like antisemitism, islamophobia is both mildly disreputable and highly serviceable to the dominant power in its capacity to fuse a marginal social group and a political threat (communism, islamism). Most importantly, islamophobia offers a comprehensive thesis about how to diagnose the body politic and how to cure it--"the clash of civilizations."

But also like antisemitism, islamophobia as a term essentializes and dehistoricizes its victims. Both antisemitism and islamophobia are coined words with a political agenda. Their very morphology puts the spotlight on the victims by center-staging the victim's identity rather than the politics of the perpetrators in the name itself. How we use words to divide the word into meaningful slices is not innocent of politics. When we use the same word to describe the Gospel of St Matthew and Mein Kampf, but two separate words for Mein Kampf and Daniel Pipes' 'Militant Islam Reaches America,' we solidify a mental furniture that makes sitting in some political places more comfortable than in others. For where I wish to sit, I would like to see the very opposite type of furniture. We need one word for designating what is common to Mein Kampf and Daniel Pipes's book, and a different one for referring to the Gospel of St. Matthew. We need a lexicon of abusive attitudes that captures the common elements of both antisemitism and islamophobia and registers their common difference from cognate forms such as racism and bigotry, but that like the latter, focuses the attention on the perpetrators and not on the victims. Suggestions are welcome.

---

1. Not all tropes that antisemitism used are unfortunately discredited. Some have had a new lease on life thanks to the sad fact that prominent Jewish figures have taken old prejudices and lies against Jews as ideals to measure up against. From the politicians and the intellectuals who create the enabling mood, through the soldiers who pull the trigger, and all the way to the supreme court justices who legitimize it, Israel is a baby-killing nation, not to mention the settlers caught on tape telling activists "we killed Jesus, we'll kill you too." Don't shoot the messenger!


2. The (un)death of antisemitism should not be confused with the thesis that Jews are now safe. Practically speaking, most Jews are safe. But once the liberal capitalist state learns how to harness the power of hatred, no group can feel certain of its safety (if indeed such desire for absolute safety as often ascribed to Jews can have any meaning other than the record of a death wish), nor is the habit of reenacting dead historical forms rare enough for comfort.

Julius principle invoked to denounce antisemitic treaty on cluster bombs

I just got an email directing me to this post on the Par En Bas blog:

Hasn't it occured to anyone else how Anti-Semitic the ban on cluster bombs is? I mean, it's obvious the anti-Israel extremists are trying to take away Israel's right to deploy weapons which are, and I quote, "highly useful on the battlefield".

That's why they were used to extensively during Israel's war with Lebanon (or "Hezbollah" if you bend that way) in 2006, one presumes. In total, the Israelis dropped around 4 million "bomblets", up to a million of which may not have exploded. These unexploded bomblets are responsible for the death and disfiguration of up to 200 Lebanese since the end of the war. Children are more likely to be the victims of this since the round "bomblets" can be confused for toys.

Luckily Israel, along with other brave nations such as the U.S, India, China, Russia and Pakistan, is not a signatory to this outrageous treaty and so will continue to deploy this "highly useful battlefield device" whenever the terrorists threaten our way of life.

Well, thank god for that!

That is the Anthony Julius principle, isn't it? Israel uses cluster bombs more than any other state. A ban on their usage is therefore antisemitic because it affects Jews disproportionately.

Thanks to Stephen Marks for pointing out the post and explaining the logic.

What makes Israel Jewish?

I ask because I just stumbled on the Wikipedia entry for Israel. It says this:

With a population of about 7.28 million, the majority of whom are Jews, Israel is the world's only Jewish state.

Now that suggests that Israel is a Jewish state because it has a Jewish majority. It implies that it just happens to have a Jewish majority and that therefore it is appropriate to call it a Jewish state. In fact it is actually like saying:

Israel is a Jewish state because it has a Jewish majority.

A bit like calling France a Christian state because it has a Christian majority or Turkey a Muslim state because it has a Muslim majority. But France is not a Christian state and Turkey isn't a Muslim one. Both are, by their own definitions, secular states.

The UK is a Christian state because it has an established church, that is, the church has a role in the functioning of the state. It is not a Christian state on account of its Christian majority. Other things being equal, the UK would still be a Christian state if Christians became a minority. Surely that would still be the case with Israel and its Jewishness. Well, no it's not the same. In Israel's case, you can get automatic citizenship if you have a Jewish grandparent. You can't get automatic British citzenship by having a Christian grandparent or even by being Christian. Also, you can get Israeli citizenship by converting to Judaism. It think it's probably the only state in the world where you can get an automatic right to citizenship by converting to the state's official religion.

These points being the case, it is just plain wrong to say that "with a population of about 7.28 million, the majority of whom are Jews, Israel is the world's only Jewish state." It is actually the other way around. It has a Jewish majority because it is a Jewish state. It is a Jewish state because it discriminates in favour of Jews in matters of citizens' rights and rights to citizenship. It is a Jewish state because it legislates to maintain a Jewish majority based on colonial settlement and ethnic cleansing.


So how did the Wikipedia entry get to be so bland, indeed, so wrong, when it has open editing to guard against error? Just asking, that's all.

Chosen people's choice?

This is the Daily Show from yesterday. If you saw my earlier post, depending where you stand on Palestine, you will have been dismayed or delighted at Obama's crawling to AIPAC. Ok, in fairness there may be some zionists who find the idea of presidential hopefuls on their hands and knees before the main overt Israel lobby organisation just a little bit embarrassing, dangerous, bad for Jews even. Anyway cop this:



So, did you see it? Did you see the outcome? Jon Stewart handed John McCain Florida's points in the presidential contest because McCain told the "elders" that he went to Jerusalem with Senator Lieberman. But if he is serious that John McCain scored more points from a zionist organisation than Obama simply on the grounds of his performance at this AIPAC presidential beauty contest then have a look at the post before this one. Listen to Obama identifying himself with zionism, listen to him insisting that Israel must be a Jewish state and not a state like the USA and listen to him supporting the permanent occupation of east Jerusalem. Then consider what McCain must have promised this crowd that could have Jon Stewart suggesting he had an edge over Obama where AIPAC is concerned. I know the guy was joking, but many a true word etc.

Obama supports occupation, Engage supports Obama

Fascinating stuff this. An American presidential wannabe grovels to Israel. Amazing, just the change America needs. See this speech to AIPAC:





Ok, so he supports zionism, the State of Israel and it's expansion into east Jerusalem. What else can he do for Israel? In other words, what's this got to do with Engage? Well apparently he won't support the

bigoted divestment that has sought to punish Israeli scientists and academics,

This roughly, no exactly, translated into Engage-speak means "Barack Obama opposes UCU's boycott campaign." You know, for one ghastly moment I thought they were going to say that Obama actually praised Engage or named the UCU. But no, they have a shared belief in what should and should not be done with regard to the middle east. So what else will he support?

divestment targeted at the Iranian regime

Hmm, pragmatism, I like that.

Nazis for Israel? Bizarre? Not really

Well it's not, is it? Ha'aretz says it sounds bizarre that there's a group of self-proclaimed neo-nazis who support Israel (don't they all?) and oppose antisemitism. See here:

Nazis against anti-Semitism? As bizarre as that sounds, a group of Germans which calls itself "National Socialists For Israel" launched its Web site in support of Israel.

"Stop the hatred of the Jewish people," the Web site reads. "The Jews are a healthy, strong nation."

The organization - whose members have yet to reveal themselves to the public - claims that Israel's right to exist is anchored in the principles of social Darwinism, the same principles which the Nazis adopted prior to the Second World War.

"Israel earned the right to live among the nations [after emerging] from unending wars," the group writes on the site. "Israel also has a right to exist. This nation also has culture... The nation of Israel is appreciated... It is our duty, as neo-Nazis, to defend this supreme success. Not just for the German people and the European cultural sphere, but also, especially, for Israel."

As such, "Nazis for Israel" also leveled criticism at their colleagues in the neo-Nazi National Democratic Party (NPD), calling them "politicos, cowards, and reactionaries."

"Show us proof of a Jewish plot to dominate the world," they wrote in a rare manifesto which was posted on their Web site.

These unusual statements on the internet compliment the group's other public campaigns, including the dissemination of bumper stickers. One of the stickers features a picture of Reinhard Heydrich, the senior Nazi official who chaired the Wansee Conference where the Final Solution was hatched. Underneath the photo reads: "As a Nazi, I'm a Zionist."

And vice versa?

Well really, this isn't such a surprise. Most of the fascist parties in Europe support Israel. What is surprising is that this party explains why there is no contradiction between support for Israel and the nazi ideology today.

Dubya, a spitting image of his dad

Maybe some readers remember a post I did of a Spitting Image spoof of the Mastermind quiz programme with Yitzhak Shamir in the chair answering questions on his specialist subject, human rights. Well I was just looking at the clip on youtube and I happened upon this little gem of George Bush Senior in the Mastermind chair specialising in democracy.



Like father like son.

Anthony Julius threatens to threaten the UCU

Engage carries a letter from Anthony Julius, presumably an open one, to the UCU General Secretary, Sally Hunt. I don't know if it has any serious implications but on the face of it, it's hilarious. Here's a piece of it:

The purpose of this letter, however, is not to threaten legal proceedings. Such a letter, couched in more formal terms than the present one, may follow in due course.

So this one isn't his job, it's his hobby. I don't know where he finds the time for hobbies.

More zionist antisemitism

Collaboration with antisemitism has been a recurring theme in the history of zionism. Every generation of zionist history has thrown up an antisemitic ogre for the zionists to collaborate with and our time is no different. At the inception of the movement, Herzl, the first president of the World Zionist Organisation, said that the enemies of the Jews were the people who had the main interest in supporting zionism and so it has proven down the years. Next up came Jabotinsky's collaboration with Simon Petliura while devotees of the latter slaughtered over 100,000 Jews in Ukraine. Then there was the celebration of the rise to power of Hitler, the transfer agreement and that nasty business in Hungary.

Come 1948 the zionists have got their state, what more do they want? More antisemitism it seems. Israel Shahak writes of Ben Gurion's dealings with antisemitic French generals in Algeria, who he claimed were "careful to explain that they were only against the Jews in France, not in Israel." Just like zionists don't like Jews in France, Russia, Ukraine, Germany, Argentina - oops, I forgot Israel's arming of the antisemitic Galtieri regime - and now America.

Now America? Of course, our new friends the Christian zionists. Here's a rather naive Labour MK Collette Avital in Ha'aretz:

The Israeli public is so thirsty for love that it becomes very excited by the support it gets from Christian groups; this is the case when the support comes in the form of political support or in the form of millions of dollars in cash that flows generously to various causes in Israel, some of them questionable. Several weeks ago, the evangelical leadership even held a conference in Israel, and some of our most important leaders were on hand.

The support of American evangelicals does not receive the necessary attention in Israel. The outrageous statement by Reverend John Hagee, an evangelist who disseminates his opinions not only in his church in Texas, but also through popular television broadcasts, is an example of extremist views that are being ignored by those who laud the support Israel gets from evangelicals.

Hagee is the founder of the Christians United for Israel lobby, and as such received the blessing of the Jewish lobby AIPAC during its annual conference last year. Hitler and the Holocaust, Hagee argues, were part of a divine plan to expel Jews from Europe and bring them to the Land of Israel. It was written about and prophesized in the Bible, Hagee says. How will God restore Jews to their homeland? asks Hagee. The answer: "through fishermen and hunters. A hunter is the one who comes with a gun and forces you; Hitler was a hunter."

As someone familiar with the evangelicals' views and beliefs on the second coming of Jesus, there is nothing surprising to me about his statements. It only causes me to sigh in relief because the truth is coming out. This time it was not a slip of the tongue, and the statements are documented on the Church's Web site. Do we still need to point out that Jesus can return only after Armageddon, and to this end it is best if Israel continues to be at war?

But the support of Hagee and his lobby is not impartial. This is support to specific leaders and parties, to whom he offers generous assistance. Hagee's evangelicals reject the two-state solution, which is currently acceptable for the vast majority of the Israeli public; as such, Hagee's followers direct their funding and assistance toward a clear political agenda in Israel.

In an interview with Haaretz some two years ago, Hagee said he would offer aid to hospitals and orphanages. To those who know him, this is not a likely option.

Hagee, a clear "friend" of Israel who preaches that it must not relinquish an inch of land, declared his support for Senator John McCain in the race for U.S. president. But his latest declarations, and this latest one most of all, embarrassed McCain to the point that he renounced the reverend's support.

Is it not appropriate then to expect Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni to make an unequivocal announcement that they, too, are cutting ties with Hagee and his ilk? After all, the aims of this bear hug are clear.

MK Colette Avital (Labor) served as Israel's Consul General in New York.

Unfortunately neither role has imbued her with a sense of zionist history.

As seen on Ha'aretz and Ynet: genocide!

I was reading Ynet a few days ago when I noticed a banner pop up thingy across the top of the page I was reading.  It was a paid advert for a site called Samson Blinded and it contained all sorts of wacky notions about how to conquer Palestine once and for all.  Well I didn't think too much about it until someone sent me the link to this article on Electronic Intifada about how Ha'aretz accepted paid advertising for a book called Samson Blinded:

Haaretz.com, the website of the Israeli newspaper often cited as an example of Israel's liberal, critical media carries paid advertisements from a website openly advocating the total destruction of the Palestinian people, the murder of large numbers of Muslim civilians, the assassination of the family members of Arab rulers, and the use of chemical, biological and nuclear weapons against dozens of countries.The website, Samson Blinded, claims that Google banned its advertisements from its adwords program. If that is true, it would be consistent with Google's policy that prohibits advertising promoting violence or advocating against any group based on race, ethnic or national origin or religion.

And the zionist press doesn't have a policy against

advertising promoting violence or advocating against any group based on race, ethnic or national origin or religion.

Thank goodness, I thought rules had been breached for a moment there.

Holocaust denial at Yad Vashem?

Israel Gutman, Academic Adviser to Yad Vashem, Israel's holocaust museum, has said that Germany has made a mistake memorialising gay victims of the nazis opposite the memorial to the Jewish victims of the holocaust. Here's Pink News:

Israel Gutman of the Yad Vashem Institute in Jerusalem said that the Nazis only targeted German gay men, and that they were the victims of political battles within Hitler's National Socialist Party rather than a campaign of homophobia.

"The location was particularly poorly chosen for this monument," Mr Gutman told Polish newspaper Rzeczpospolita.

"If visitors have the impression that there was not a great difference between the suffering of Jews and those of homosexuals, it's a scandal."

Look at the differences he sets out. It was only the men, they were, after all, only German and, er, that's it. And that means that the suffering was somehow different than that of Jews. Indeed their suffering was better than that of Jews. And it's a scandal not to recognise that fact. And of course, placing a memorial for gays opposite that for Jews merely compounds the offence of memorialising the gay holocaust dead at all.

Engage does itself no favours: Jewish Chronicle

Oh dearie me, the champions of academic freedom at Engage have disgraced themselves again, it appears. Don't just take my word, it's right there in the Jewish Chronicle's report on a meeting of BRICUP the night before the UCU Congress. Here's the JC:

UCU academics called for a boycott of Israel’s universities at an unofficial fringe meeting on Tuesday despite the union’s official rejection of an outright boycott.

The meeting, held by pro-boycott group BRICUP on the eve of the UCU congress, saw Israeli-born academic Professor Haim Bresheeth and Birmingham University’s Kamel Hawwash state the case for cutting ties with Israeli universities whose academics are “complicit in the occupation of Palestinians”.

A strong distinction was made between calling for a boycott and the official motion asking union members to “consider the moral and political implications of educational links with Israeli institutions”.

LSE research fellow Mike Cushman, who chaired the event, attempted to deflect criticism that BRICUP supporters were trying to get a boycott adopted by the back door.

In the run-up to the congress, the UCU has been warned by Jewish community leaders of legal opposition to Israeli institutions being singled out in any form.

Challenging the meeting’s speakers, two members of the anti-boycott group Engage contended that antisemitic academics were among those behind the boycott call.

“There are antisemites in our union,” said Jon Pike from the Open University. He further argued that it was “dangerous” to hold academics responsible for the actions of their government simply because they had not spoken against occupation.

"There are antisemites in our union," said Jon Pike? Really, who? Let's see the rest of the article:

Mr Pike heckled Professor Bresheeth as he attempted to respond — a tactic that won little favour for Engage’s case.

Surely he didn't mean Professor Bresheet. He certainly seems to have been trying to "no platform" him, going from the JC report, that is.

“Engage should be called ‘Disengage’ and disengage from Palestine,” Professor Bresheeth declared. “All this rubbish about antisemitism is just really annoying and I disagree that a boycott adds to antisemitism.”

The false allegations might add to it though. Honestly, a principled campaigner against boycott, heckling a speaker and just as an ethnic aside, a non-Jewish heckler heckling a Jew.

Ok, here's the last bit of the article but I want to get back to this Jon Pike heckling business.

Mr Hawwash denied that he was singling out Israel.

“If Palestine was occupied by the Japanese, we would be calling for a boycott of Japanese institutions. This is about the occupier regardless of who they are.”

That last bit was just for completeness.

It's nice to see the zionist movement in the cleft stick of arguing for academic freedom while heckling and using the law not to simply prevent a policy being adopted but to prevent a policy even being discussed.

It's a funny old thing but some time back, Jon Pike gave me the impression that he thought Engage a little over the top. Alf Green, who turned out to be Dr David Hirsh, was having none of that. He usefully pointed out that Jon Pike thought that it was other people who "think that ENGAGE is a bit over the top"

Well now here's Jon Pike going "over the top" heckling speakers in the name of academic freedom, accusing unnamed people in the UCU of antisemitism and generally doing Engage no favours. Tut tut, I nearly forgot. Jon Pike has a write up of the Congress vote but not a word on the night before Congress.

Godard respects the boycott

According to Agence-France Press, May 31:

French-Swiss director pulls out of Israeli film festival

JERUSALEM (AFP) — Celebrated French-Swiss moviemaker Jean-Luc Godard has dropped out of an annual student film festival in Tel Aviv, an event official said on Saturday.

The cult film director had been due to arrive on Sunday but said he would not be attending for "reasons beyond his control," Morane Tal said.

"We are very disappointed because he seems to have succumbed to pressure from pro-Palestinian groups who launched a campaign for people to boycott Israel," she added, without elaborating.

Godard, noted auteur of Weekend, and Breathless, had been scheduled to attend a student film festival in Tel Aviv. Godard, known for his left-wing views, also made the film Ici e Ailleures which apparently started out as a film sympathetic to, and funded by Palestinian revolutionaries, but apparently turned into something different:

Description: Initially begun as a documentary about Palestinian revolutionaries, Ici et Ailleurs (in English, Here and Elsewhere) was ultimately transformed into an hour-long filmed essay addressing the relationship between politics and image, the problems of documentary filmmaking, and the danger of media saturation. Collaborators Jean-Pierre Gorin and Anne-Marie Melville began the film with funding from Palestinian forces, under the title Victory, intending to create a sympathetic portrait of the revolutionaries as a true people's movement. Not long after the filmmakers' return to France, however, most of their subjects were killed in warfare, and the issues behind the film no longer seemed so simple. At this point Jean-Luc Godard joined the production, helping create a series of scenes focusing on the life of a middle-class French family; this is the "Here" portion of the film, with Palestine as "Elsewhere." By editing together documentary and fictional footage, and commenting on these images through photo collages, title screens, and other reflexive techniques, the film questions the association between political thought and the structures of fiction. Ultimately, Ici et Ailleurs seems suspicious of all images, even its own; the suggestion is that all films, especially documentaries, present a false, constructed vision of reality.

That description, and bit torrent of the film is here. I'm curious to know what the politics of the finished film turned out to be.

PACBI had appealed to Godard to cancel his appearance: Open Letter to Jean-Luc Godard from occupied Palestine:Le petit soldat dancing on Palestinian graves? Coincidentally, see this recent piece in WaPo: Godard: A Revolutionary In More Ways Than One The article concludes:

Did Godard fancy himself a revolutionary? Sure, but his weapon of choice was a camera. Cinema, he once said, was not a gun, but "a light which helps you check your gun."

Dunkin' Donuts buckles to zionist hate campaign

I think that's a fair comment. The Dunkin' Donuts chain has pulled an ad which featured a woman wearing what looks like a kefiyah.




I first knew of this from one of those London freebie newspapers last night but searching the internet today I found this report in the Australian site, The Age, from yesterday:

The Dunkin' Donuts chain has pulled an online advertisement featuring celebrity chef Rachael Ray after critics argued that that a scarf she wore in the ad offers symbolic support for terrorism.

Dunkin' Donuts said today it pulled the ad over the weekend because of what it calls a "misperception" about the scarf that detracted from its original intent to promote its iced coffee.

Critics, including conservative commentator Michelle Malkin, complained that the scarf appeared to be traditional garb worn by Arab men. The ad's critics say such scarves have come to symbolise Muslim extremism and terrorism.

This is unbelievable. The zionists are so quick to judge criticism of the Israeli state to be "demonisation" of the Jews and yet here's, presumably, a prominent media zionist clearly demonising whole cultures, Arab and Muslim cultures. Of course, kefiyahs are as likely to be worn by Arab Christians as Muslims. Now anyone wearing one is denounced for "hate couture" or terrorism or extremism. What should Arabs wear, shtreimels? Oh no, of course not. I suppose Dunkin' Donuts would assume they were West Bank settlers and then, in the interests of balance, they'd have to pull any advert featuring such Jewish head gear.

But searching some more on the internet, this keffiyeh as terror garb stupidness has a bit of a nastier history than a simple knee jerk reaction from a "conservative" blogger. An hour ago (that is an hour before 5 pm) the New York Times came up with this report:

On May 7, Dunkin’ Donuts began running an ad on its Web site and others, featuring the celebrity chef Rachael Ray holding a cup of the company’s iced coffee while wearing a black-and-white fringed scarf. In the ad, which was shot in a studio, she is shown standing in front of trees with pink blossoms and a building with a distinctive spire.

On May 23, the conservative blog Little Green Footballs posted an item that likened Ms. Ray’s scarf to the type typically worn by Muslim extremists. The blog said that the ads “casually promote the symbol of Palestinian terrorism and the intifada, the keffiyeh, via Rachael Ray.”

Later that day, the conservative blogger Michelle Malkin chimed in, likening the scarf to a keffiyeh and calling it “jihadi chic.” Then the story, as they say on the Internet, went totally viral.

•

Hundreds of people posted comments, many of them condemning Dunkin’ Donuts. Ms. Malkin continued to blog about what she referred to as the “keffiyeh kerfuffle.” People who claimed knowledge of Islam weighed in, objecting to the ignorance of equating a keffiyeh with terrorism.

On May 24, Dunkin’ Donuts removed the ad from its Web site and others — and was promptly condemned by people who accused the company of caving in to conservative bullies.

Quite, except that conservatism is now redefined as racist islamophobic bigotry.

Sorry, there's a little bit more to be said here. On my net travels on this I happened upon the Canadian National Post. There a chap called Daniel Goldbloom justly ridiculed Michelle Malkin and Dunkin's Donuts...for their racism? Er no. For mistaking paisley for whatever pattern a kefiyah is. He said that it was akin to confusing the American flag with the Cuban one. I think that might confusing an irrelevance with a serious point. In fairness he does go on to condemn the shrill jingoism apparently pervasive in America today but he is wrong to give even a slight impression that had the scarf have been Arab and not paisley, then these hardcore on line zionists may have had a legitimate beef.

Jewish Chronicle fails to correct its "mistake"

What's with the Jewish Chronicle? They smear named individuals and deny rights of reply and they refuse to correct the most outrageous falsehoods. Last week Alex Brummer, finance editor of the Daily Mail and media commentator at the JC repeated a load of Dershowitzian falsehoods about Norman Finkelstein. I wrote the following letter:

Dear Sir

Alex Brummer proves Johann Hari's point that high profile Zionists campaign to smear Israel's critics rather than simply agree with each other.

He suggests that it is ludicrous that Alan Dershowitz could be in cohoots with someone on the other side of the Atlantic and then, from our side of the Atlantic, he goes on to repeat all of Alan Dershowtiz's smears against Norman Finkelstein. Of course, Alex Brummer could have simply read Dershowitz's work on the internet but his readiness to "agree" with various demonstrable falsehoods suggests a campaign no less than if Dershowitz wrote to Brummer personally to ask him to "agree".

Norman Finkelstein is not a Holocaust revisionist He tends not to write about the Holocaust as such but when he does he usually draws on the work of Raul Hilberg, the doyen of Holocaust historians. Finkelstein has said that zionists use the Holocaust to insulate Israel from criticism and he says that a bunch of "huckster" lawyers have exploited the very real pain and suffering of Holocaust survivors by lining their own pockets at the expense of those survivors. He is particularly incensed because his own parents were Holocaust survivors. The Jewish Chronicle itself has published on its front page, details of exorbitant fees paid to Holocaust compensation lawyers.

More scurrilous still, Brummer claims that "Finkelstein’s views have been tested in the High Court in London and found wanting." Norman Finkelstein has never been in the UK's High Court, though of course that day may come. Alex Brummer is either confusing Finkelstein with the Holocaust denier, David Irving, or hoping his readers will do the same. Disgraceful isn't the word; actionable might be.

Yours faithfully


Mark Elf

Now I'm not so precious as to think that just because I wrote in then I ought to get published but this happens week after week at the Jewish Chronicle. Deliberate mistakes are made, deliberate falsehoods are told and the victims of the smears are denied rights of reply and corrections are rarely made. And this from the paper that used to style itself, until it seemed obscene to do so, the organ of British Jewry!

Oh no! It gets worse. Brummer has a regular weekly column at the Jewish Chronicle. Well he's on his hols this week. So who's standing in? David Toube of Harry's Place. Great!

Israel's academic boycott

The International Herald Tribune reports that Fulbright grants that would enable Palestinians from Gaza to study in the US are being withheld because they might go to waste if Israel doesn't let its hostages go. I think that's the gist:

GAZA: The State Department has withdrawn all Fulbright grants to Palestinian students in Gaza hoping to pursue advanced degrees at American institutions this fall because Israel has not granted permission for the students to leave Gaza.

Israel's restriction is in keeping with its policy of isolating this coastal strip, which is run by the militant group Hamas.

The United States consulate in Jerusalem said the grant money had been "redirected" because of concern that if the students were forced to remain in Gaza the grant money would go to waste. A letter was sent by e-mail to the students Thursday telling them of the cancellation.

Abdulrahman Abdullah, one of the seven Gazans who received the letter, was in shock.

"If we are talking about peace and mutual understanding, it means investing in people who will later contribute to Palestinian society," he said. "I am against Hamas. Their acts and policies are wrong. Israel talks about a Palestinian state. But who will build that state if we can get no training?"

Might it be that Israel isn't serious about the so called two state solution?

Holocaust hack watch!

I got this little gem from Private Eye tonight. It's from a chap called Matt Dickinson, chief sports correspondent with the Times in London. The piece is headed SENSE OF PERSPECTIVE as in NO sense of perspective:

Avram Grant, the Chelsea first-team coach, has a perspective on life because of the traumas his family suffered in the Holocaust, but even he was struggling to find the words to ease the pain of Terry, who was white with shock.

I googled - "avram grant" holocaust - to see if such silliness could be found elsewhere and with 18,100 sites such silliness seems to be everywhere.

Comments down

The haloscan comment facility isn't working. I noticed on Lenin's Tomb there's a notice where the comments are supposed to be that says "comments down". Mine's even worse, it doesn't say anything. Anyway I haven't closed the comments, that's what I want to say.

UPDATE: You can now see the invitation to comment now but when I just tried to leave a comment, I completed the form, clicked on "publish" and it disappeared. So instead of wasting time typing a comment that might disappear please type the word "test" and publish that. If it the screen doesn't then go blank, it's probably been successful and I'll approve when I can. Ta