The Guardian, The Tricycle and Jews in Britain against Genocide

The Tricycle Theatre is coming under enormous pressure from Zionists over the UK Jewish Film Festival's decision to withdraw rather than reject funding from the Israeli embassy.

Jews in Britain against Genocide have written to express their thanks but first here's a reminder of the Tricycle Theatre's statement on the whole affair:

Now the letter to Tricycle:

Dear Indhu Rubasingham,

We write to thank you for refusing to accept Israeli sponsorship of the Jewish Film Festival.   

We particularly appreciate that you distinguish between Jews in Britain and the Israeli State. We could not be further apart from the Israeli state.  The insistence of the organisers of the UK Jewish Film Festival on including sponsorship from the Israeli Embassy, even when you generously offered an alternative, has made their priorities clear: not Jewish people or Jewish film but the hijacking of Jewish culture to disguise Israeli policies and particularly its bloodied image.  Its murder and maiming of Palestinians and others in the Middle East has been going on for many decades.  But its recent unrestrained, sadistic attack on Gaza has reinforced its genocidal intentions against the Palestinians.  

We are particularly appalled as Jews that our suffering as a people is the occasion and the excuse for the genocide of others.  We are aware of the suffering of others, which is why we have said, unlike Zionists: Never again – for anyone.  Including of course Tamils in Sri Lanka, about which you would be familiar.

Those of us said who were part of the demonstration in front of the Tricycle last November against Israeli sponsorship of the JFF, which was led by the International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network, welcome this decision of the Tricycle to respect the multi-racial nature of the community of which it is part, by refusing blood money from apartheid Israel.

We are a group of Jews in Britain including from Israel and are appalled that you have been subjected to false accusations of anti-Semitism. Zionism cynically uses the sufferings of Jews to silence critics of the Israeli genocide of Palestinians. This is an abhorrent attempt to intimidate a local theatre for refusing to be enlisted to serve the Israeli State, in order to camouflage its most recent assault on hospitals, UN schools in which thousands were sheltering, children, and civilians of all ages. 

We take this opportunity to share with you a few examples of how Israel harnesses culture as a propaganda tool.

1) Israeli artists who receive government sponsorship are contractually obligated to promote the state as a condition of their sponsorship, which includes Israeli films that are promoted as being critical; but while they might show some criticism their overall message is to present Israel as a democracy and camouflage its apartheid. 

“If they receive funding by the state, Israeli artists who play internationally are expected to be political ambassadors and must sign contracts which declare their cooperation with state marketing aims. The standard Israeli sponsorship contract states:”

“The service provider (i.e. artists) undertakes to act faithfully, responsibly and tirelessly to provide the Ministry with the highest professional services. The service provider is aware that the purpose of ordering services from him is to promote the policy interests of the State of Israel via culture and art, including contributing to creating a positive image for Israel.” Source: http://www.haaretz.com/putting-out-a-contract-on-art-1.250388

2) In 2005, Nissim Ben-Sheetrit of Israel’s Foreign Ministry emphasised:

“We are seeing culture as a hasbara (i.e. propaganda) tool of the first rank, and I do not differentiate between hasbara and culture" 

Source: http://www.haaretz.com/misc/article-print-page/about-face-1.170267?trailingPath=2.169%2C2.225%2C2.239%2C

3) In 2008 the Israeli Foreign Office identified London as one of the hubs it targeted for “Brand Israel”. It stated: "The Jewish community has to be part of it for it to succeed. It's very important for us to convey the message to them that a better image for Israel and a better performance of that image is part and parcel with Israel's national security.”  "But it's mainly it's an attempt to change the mindset of people when it comes to Israel” “”That doesn't mean conducting an advertising campaign, but the execution of a program that will support the brand identity… it could include organizing film festivals” “… the hope-for result is a change in peoples' perception of Israel”

Source: http://www.jpost.com/International/Israels-rebranding-efforts-to-focus-on-Toronto

In short, any event accepting sponsorship from the Israeli Embassy or from any other Israeli state bodies is legitimising the Israeli apartheid, ethnic cleansing and its genocidal attacks on the Palestinians, including the Gaza Strip that Israel turned into a concentration camp.

We value the Tricycle and as your loyal supporters, your audience, we ask that you will not renew your association with Israel, as long as it violates international law, and until the 3 conditions set out in the Palestinian call for boycott demanding Israel meets its obligation and comply with international law (seehttp://www.pacbi.org/etemplate.php?id=1801).

Yours, 
Jews in Britain Against Genocide

The Zionists are pulling out all the stops with this one and with the war on Gaza in general. The first Guardian report I saw on this was fairly straight forward and factual but then Jonathan Freedland seems to have taken over with this editorial listing the Tricycle affair together with attacks on synagogues in Europe and some absurd fashionista or cultural commentator, Hadley Freeman, doing pretty much the same as Freedland, though unlike Freedland, writing in her own name rather than in the name of The Guardian.

It should be noted here that for all the false allegations of antisemitism being thrown around, the only antisemitic thing I have seen said during the whole affair was this: 

"Jewish culture... is of course intrinsically connected to the state of Israel".

And who said it?  Why the spokesperson for the "apolitical" UK Jewish Film Festival.

Anyway, while this has been going on, an advert by Zionists justifying the slaughter of children by Israel was rejected by The Times newspaper presumably for being too racist even for them.  Remember The Times is owned by the very pro-Israel, born-again Christian, Rupert Murdoch. Well it turns out that one of the more disgusting manifestations of hasbara, the advert, isn't too racist for The Guardian, where their sheer lack of principle was announced by Roy Greenslade.

But, of course, it isn't mere opportunism.  As the facts of Israel's genocidal campaign speak loudly for themselves, Israel needs more propaganda cover than ever.  We've seen the establishment wobbling over this.  Longstanding friends of Israel have been distancing themselves.  Opponents of BDS are becoming supporters.  Latino states have severed relations with Israel.  Hasbara is urgent.  Freedland is always on hand to provide that whether by talking Israel up, pointing people in other directions (whataboutery) or smearing Israel's critics.  But why does the whole of The Guardian have to fall into line.  What has Freedland got that people of integrity haven't got?  Or are the latter just too few or too weak at The Guardian.

The Case of Steven Salaita

This is a straight copy and paste from Corey Robin:
 

Another Professor Punished for Anti-Israel Views

6 Aug Until two weeks ago, Steven Salaita was heading to a job at the University of Illinois as a professor of American Indian Studies. He had already resigned from his position at Virginia Tech; everything seemed sewn up. Now the chancellor of the University of Illinois has overturned Salaita’s appointment and rescinded the offer. Because of Israel.

The sources familiar with the university’s decision say that concern grew over the tone of his comments on Twitter about Israel’s policies in Gaza….

For instance, there is this tweet: “At this point, if Netanyahu appeared on TV with a necklace made from the teeth of Palestinian children, would anybody be surprised? #Gaza.” Or this one: “By eagerly conflating Jewishness and Israel, Zionists are partly responsible when people say antisemitic shit in response to Israeli terror.” Or this one: “Zionists, take responsibility: if your dream of an ethnocratic Israel is worth the murder of children, just fucking own it already.”

In recent weeks, bloggers and others have started to draw attention to Salaita’s comments on Twitter. But as recently as July 22 (before the job offer was revoked), a university spokeswoman defended Salaita’s comments on Twitter and elsewhere. A spokeswoman told The News-Gazette for an article about Salaita that “faculty have a wide range of scholarly and political views, and we recognize the freedom-of-speech rights of all of our employees.”

I’ve written about a number of these types of cases over the past few years, but few have touched me the way this one has. For three reasons.

First, Steven is a friend on Facebook, and we follow each other on Twitter. I don’t know him personally but I’ve valued his unapologetic defense of the rights of Palestinians. Often he posts articles and information from which I’ve learned quite a bit.

Second, I have no doubt that an easily rattled administrator would find some of my public writings on Israel and Palestine to have crossed a line. If you’re in favor of Salaita being punished, you should be in favor of me being punished. And not just me. On Twitter, many of us—not just on this issue but a variety of issues, and not just on the left, but also on the right—speak in a way that can jar or shock a tender sensibility. We swear, we accuse, we say no, in thunder. That’s the medium. Though I’ve never really thought twice about it, it’s fairly chilling to think that a university official might now be combing through my tweets to see if I had said anything that would warrant me being deemed ineligible for a job. Or worse, since I have tenure, that an administrator might be doing that to any and every potential job candidate.
Third, Cary Nelson, who was once the president of the American Association of University Professors, has weighed in in defense of this decision by the University of Illinois Chancellor.

“I think the chancellor made the right decision,” he said via email. “I know of no other senior faculty member tweeting such venomous statements — and certainly not in such an obsessively driven way. There are scores of over-the-top Salaita tweets. I also do not know of another search committee that had to confront a case where the subject matter of academic publications overlaps with a loathsome and foul-mouthed presence in social media. I doubt if the search committee felt equipped to deal with the implications for the campus and its students. I’m glad the chancellor did what had to be done.”

Asked if he feared that the withdrawal of the job offer could represent a scholar being punished for his unpopular political views, Nelson said he did not think that was the case. “If Salaita had limited himself to expressing his hostility to Israel in academic publications subjected to peer review, I believe the appointment would have gone through without difficulty,” he said. Nelson added that harsh criticism of Israel is widespread among faculty members. “Salaita’s extremist and uncivil views stand alone. There is nothing ‘unpopular’ on this campus about hostility to Israel.”

Once upon a time I wrote an essay for an anthology Nelson edited on unions in academia. When I was the leader of the grad union drive at Yale, he came to campus and spoke out on our behalf. I thought of him as not only a champion of academic freedom but as an especially acerbic—some might even say uncivil—commentator willing to throw a few elbows at his fellow academics. One time, he even compared a fellow English professor to a vampire bat, and proceeded to make fun of his bodily movements and facial gestures. In an academic publication subject to peer review.

But in recent years Nelson has become an outspoken defender of the State of Israel and a critic of the BDS movement. A man who once called for the boycott of a university now thinks boycotts of universities are a grave threat to academic freedom. A man who serially violates the norms of academic civility—urging fellow academics to “give key administrators no peace. Place chanting pickets outside their homes. Disrupt every meeting they attend with sardonic or inspiring public theater”—now invokes those same norms against a critic of Israel. A man who once wrote that “claims about collegiality are being used to stifle campus debate, to punish faculty, and to silence the free exchange of opinion by the imposition of corporate-style conformity,” now complains about an anti-Zionist professor’s “foul-mouthed presence in social media.” A man who once called the movement against hostile environments and in favor of sensitive speech on campus “Orwellian,” now frets over a student of Salaita’s fearing she “would be academically at risk in expressing pro-Israeli views in class.”

I bring this up not to pick on Nelson, but to ask him, and all of you, a simple question: Should Nelson be deemed ineligible for another job at a university simply because of these statements he has written? Should l be deemed ineligible for another job at a university simply because of some “foul-mouthed,” perhaps even intemperate, tweets that I’m sure I have written?

But I bring up Nelson’s case for another reason. And that is that his hypocrisy is not merely his own. It is a symptom of the effects of Zionism on academic freedom, how pro-Israel forces have consistently attempted to shut down debate on this issue, how they “distort all that is right.” Nelson’s U-Turn demonstrates that we’re heading down a very dangerous road. I strongly urge all of you to put on the brakes.

In the meantime, do something for Steven Salaita. Write a note to University of Illinois Chancellor Phyllis Wise (best to email her at both chancellor@illinois.edu and pmischo@illinois.edu), urging her to rescind her rescission. As always, be polite, but be firm. Don’t assume this is a done deal; in my experience, it often is not. We’ve managed through our efforts, on multiple occasions, to get nervous administrators to walk away from the ledge.

Update (3:30 pm)
Here is a third email to add to your list; it’s actually a direct email to the chancellor. It is pmwise@illinois.edu. Also, when you write your email, please cc Robert Warrior of the American Indian Studies department at the University of Illinois. His email is rwarrior@illinois.edu. Also cc the department: ais@illinois.edu.

UK Establishment wobbles over Gaza

Things are changing for sure.  I just saw this tweet

Long-time friend of Israel @AlistairBurtMP says Israel's actions "unjustifiable" - in @TheTimes http://t.co/M6eSI18jyu
— Tim Montgomerie (@TimMontgomerie) August 6, 2014

From a "columnist and leader writer for @TheTimes".

And see where the link leads.  Not a whole lot because of the paywall.  So here's what I could get from google cache:

• 
  Boris Johnson, the mayor of London, said that the Israeli military operation had been disproportionate Khalil Hamra/AP

Francis Elliott, Michael Savage and Oliver Moody

Last updated at 12:01AM, August 6 2014 

David Cameron was struggling to contain a growing revolt over his handling of the Gaza crisis yesterday after the dramatic resignation of Baroness Warsi as foreign office minister.

Dominic Grieve, the former attorney-general, added his voice to the chorus of senior Conservatives questioning the proportionality of Israel’s military operation and piling pressure on the prime minister to condemn the country’s airstrikes on Gaza.

Lady Warsi, a former party chairman, told Mr Cameron that she could no longer support his “morally indefensible” policy. In a strongly worded resignation letter, she warned that his failure to condemn Israel could radicalise a generation

Well it doesn't even get to the Alistair Burt bit but if Murdoch's papers are reporting to the wobbles over Israel's attack on Gaza and the wobbles are for real, Israel's latest Palestinian cull could haunt the hasbara community for some time to come.

Pushed or Pulled? Israel Embassy Funded Film Festival not to be Hosted by Tricycle Theatre

Little bit confusing this but hang in there.

For the past 8 years the Tricycle Theatre has been hosting a so-called Jewish Film Festival (UKJFF).  BDS activists have been trying to persuade the theatre not to host UKJFF on account of it being funded by the Israeli Embassy in London.  Well now, because of Israel's assault on Gaza, the theatre will not be hosting the festival.

Now this has been a very recent decision but there's already some fog about what happened.  The Jewish Chronicle wouldn't normally be the go to site for the facts of any case but theirs was the first site I saw the news on.  Here's their headline:

Tricycle Theatre refuses to host UK Jewish Film Festival over Israeli sponsorship

 So what do they say happened?

A major London theatre has refused to host the UK Jewish Film Festival because it is sponsored by the Israeli embassy.

The Tricycle Theatre was scheduled to be the main venue for the UKJFF in November, with 26 films due to be screened there as well as six gala events.

But in a statement issued on Tuesday, UKJFF executive director Judy Ironside said: “The Tricycle told us that they cannot be associated with a festival which in turn is associated with the UK’s Israel embassy”.

The embassy is a long-standing sponsor of the festival, whose programme includes Jewish-themed films from around the world.

Mrs Ironside described the decision by the theatre, which has hosted the UKJFF for the past eight years, as a “great surprise”.

She said: “That the Tricycle Theatre have shown themselves unwilling to work with what is clearly an apolitical cultural festival is tremendously disappointing.

 Ok, so they are saying that out of the blue the theatre has cancelled the event on account of its Israeli embassy funding.  In spite of the funding the director, Judy Ironside, claims the event is apolitical.  Now I can see how some people might argue that an event is apolitical even it is funded by an embassy.

But the Tricycle Theatre isn't happy with the coverage so it has issued a statement of its own:

The Tricycle has always welcomed the Festival and wants it to go ahead. We have proudly hosted the UK Jewish Film Festival for many years. However, given the situation in Israel and Gaza, we do not believe that the festival should accept funding from any party to the current conflict.  For that reason, we asked the UK Jewish Film Festival to reconsider its sponsorship by the Israeli Embassy.  We also offered to replace that funding with money from our own resources. The Tricycle serves many communities and celebrates different cultures and through difficult, emotional times must aim for a place of political neutrality. 

We regret that, following discussions, the chair of the UKJFF told us that he wished to withdraw the festival from the Tricycle.  

To be clear, at this moment, the Tricycle would not accept sponsorship from any government agency involved in the conflict. We hope to find a way to work with the UK Jewish Film Festival to allow the festival to go ahead at the Tricycle as it has done so successfully for the past 8 years.’

 So the UK Jewish Film Festival has withdrawn itself from the Tricycle because the Festival insists on being funded by the Israeli embassy even though the Tricycle offered to replace the funding.

Now its bad enough that the Festival wants to implicate all Jews in Israel's sheer criminality but to claim that the festival is apolitical is utterly bogus.

Anyway, lots of good has come out of this, not least the media coverage.  There are reports in the following mainstream newspapers/websites (in no particular order):

The Daily Mail

Yahoo News

The Guardian

The Daily Telegraph

There are bound to be more.  They're just the ones I've seen.

So, the Tricycle has certainly taken the principled stand in not hosting the Israeli embassy funded UK Jewish Film Festival but if the latter wasn't so nakedly political it could have been very different.  In fact if they didn't want this political confrontation with Tricycle they could have suspended Israeli embassy funding, taken the dough from Tricycle, and then carried on Zionist business as usual when emotions over the Gaza slaughter had calmed down.  Or maybe the Zionists know that their attack on Gaza has done lasting damage to public perceptions of Israel and that Israeli government involvement with any cultural event is a political kiss of death.

Elie Wiesel's hasbara is too disgusting even for Murdoch's Times

In an ad that has appeared in many mainstream US papers, Elie Wiesel accuses Hamas of child sacrifice over the hundreds of children killed in Israel's latest Palestinian cull.  Well Rupert Murdoch's Times newspaper has refused to carry the ad.

 Here's Ha'aretz on yet another humiliation for hasbara:

The London Times refused to run an ad featuring Nobel Prize winner Elie Wiesel speaking out against Hamas’ use of children as human shields.

The ad sponsored by The Values Network, which was founded by Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, has run in The New York Times, Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal, among other U.S. newspapers. The refusal was first reported by the New York Observer.

The London Times refused the ad because “the opinion being expressed is too strong and too forcefully made and will cause concern amongst a significant number of Times readers,” according to a statement from a representative of the newspaper, the Observer reported.

Headlined “Jews rejected child sacrifice 3,500 years ago. Now it’s Hamas turn,” the ad began running last week. It reads, in part: “In my own lifetime, I have seen Jewish children thrown into the fire. And now I have seen Muslim children used as human shields, in both cases, by worshippers of death cults indistinguishable from that of the Molochites.

“What we are suffering through today is not a battle of Jew versus Arab or Israeli versus Palestinian. Rather, it is a battle between those who celebrate life and those who champion death. It is a battle of civilization versus barbarism.”

Now Times owner Rupert Murdoch is a big fan of Israel so I'm guessing his staff must have run the rejection by him before letting the weasels know.

Israel killed maybe 2,000 people including over 400 children and its western backers were mostly supportive but cracks appeared as never before.

The scoreline was something like, Zionists killed 2,000+ Palestinians, 64.  A victory for Zionism?  No.  With supporters like Rupert Murdoch running for cover from racist lunatics like Wiesel, Israel's firepower deployed as it has been against a defenseless people has knocked a hole in the side of the ship of the State of Israel.  The time is coming when Israel's murderous chauvinism will hole it below the waterline.

Pics from the Jews Against Genocide demo in London

Jewish in Britain against Genocide demonstrated outside the offices of the Board of Deputies of British Jews in London yesterday, August 4, 2014. 

Quotes and pics from the group:

We are Jews in Britain outraged at the Board of Deputies’ uncritical support for Israel as it commits genocide against the Palestinian people in Gaza.

The Board of Deputies claims to speak in our name when it lobbies in defence of Israeli violence. It organises rallies with the Zionist Federation in support of Israel’s slaughter.

It cynically uses the Nazi genocide of Jews to silence critics of the Israeli genocide of Palestinians.

We Jews know, from our history, about persecution, concentration camps, starvation and murder.  Israel has turned the Gaza Strip into a concentration camp by imposing a seven-year military siege, by restricting access to food, water, fuel and medical supplies, by imprisoning 1.8 million people and squeezing them even further by imposing no-go areas within the Gaza Strip.

In the current assault on Gaza, entire families are killed and neighbourhoods obliterated. UNICEF has condemned Israel for deliberately targeting women and children.

Nearly 400 children have been murdered in less than four weeks, and more than 2000 have been injured and maimed. Gaza’s dead children are dead simply because they are Palestinians – this is genocide.

The Board of Deputies of British Jews is condoning genocide in Gaza. They don’t represent us.

At 3.30pm today, 4 August 2014, outside the London offices of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, on the 27th day of Israel’s military attack on the Gazan people, Jews in Britain Against Genocide staged a die-in to commemorate the hundreds of Palestinian children deliberately targeted and killed by Israel.  We displayed toys, clothes and replicas of mutilated children and babies smeared red to symbolise the blood of Palestinian children murdered by Israeli forces. We are Jews in Britain outraged at the Board of Deputies’ uncritical support for Israel as it commits genocide against the Palestinian people in Gaza. The Board of Deputies claims to speak in our name when it lobbies in defence of Israeli violence. It organises rallies with the Zionist Federation in support of Israel’s slaughter. It demands that John Prescott be punished for comparing Gaza to a concentration camp (Daily Mirror, 26 July 2014). It attempts to intimidate local councils for flying the Palestinian flag as an expression of solidarity with Gaza, and has written to the prime minister thanking him for his support for Israel’s massacre in Gaza. It cynically uses the Nazi genocide of Jews to silence critics of the Israeli genocide of Palestinians. We Jews know, from our history, about persecution, concentration camps, starvation and murder.  Israel has turned the Gaza Strip into a concentration camp by imposing a seven-year military siege, by restricting access to food, water, fuel and medical supplies, by imprisoning 1.8 million people and squeezing them even further by imposing no-go areas within the Gaza Strip. In the current assault on Gaza, entire families are killed and neighbourhoods obliterated. UNICEF has condemned Israel for deliberately targeting women and children. Nearly 400 children have been murdered in less than four weeks, and more than 2000 have been injured and maimed. Gaza’s dead children are dead simply because they are Palestinians – this is genocide.

At least a quarter of a million Gazans are homeless because of Israeli bombing.  There is nowhere safe to escape to -- Israel has bombed UN-protected schools, hospitals and other UN buildings, killing civilians seeking refuge. Ten thousand people have been killed or injured.  The bombardment of Gaza from the sea, land and air increasingly turns Gaza from a concentration camp into a death camp.  We support the Palestinian call for boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) and in particular we demand that the British government end its complicity in genocide by first of all ending its arms trade with Israel. The Board of Deputies claims it wants Israel to be treated fairly and impartially within British society, but in fact it demands exceptionalism. It wants Israel to be exempted from any sanctions in spite of its apartheid and now its genocidal campaign against Gaza.  We accuse the Board of Deputies of condoning the atrocities the State of Israel commits in Gaza by attempting to silence Israel’s critics.  This massive blood stain will not go away. We accuse the Board of Deputies of joining with the anti-Semites in equating Zionism with Judaism and telling the world that all British Jews support Israel. That is a lie. Jews in Britain Against Genocide 07592728397, 07880731865, 07816251377 JewsInBritainAgainstGenocide@gmail.com NOTES Genocide is defined by the United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide as any act committed with the intention of destroying in whole or in part a national, ethnic, racial or religious group. http://www.un.org/pubs/cyberschoolbus/treaties/genocide.asp Concentration camp is defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as ‘a place in which large numbers of people, especially political prisoners or members of persecuted minorities, are deliberately imprisoned in a relatively small area with inadequate facilities, sometimes to provide forced labour or to await mass execution’.

Comparing Gaza to the Warsaw Ghetto at The Guardian or not....

I've just left the following comment using the name, Burgher (long story) at The Guardian's article on Ed Miliband's criticism of David Cameron's silence on Israel's attack on Gaza

burgher

03 August 2014 9:15am

Is The Guardian deleting any comments that compare Gaza to the Warsaw Ghetto, Israel to Nazi Germany or Zionism to Nazism?

Someone told me that comments that do any of the above are being routinely disappeared.

Let's see if anyone answers by saying "no" or by deleting the comment.

UPDATE: 10:00 am, Comment still in place and it's generated some replies, mostly to say that it does appear to be Guardian policy to delete such comments but none of the replies have come from the mods.  I'll check in again later.

Mark Regev's English is good but the subtitles are a real help

This is by AN Other on YouTube:



It looks like Israel's supporters at the Beeb are losing ground largely, I suspect, because the facts are speaking for themselves with or without subtitles.

Comparisons between Gaza and the Warsaw Ghetto may not be precise but they are apt and obvious

The pain, confinement, fear and premature and violent deaths of those forced to live within the walls of any ghetto under bombardment are immediately comparable and yet Zionists are beside themselves that the obvious comparison is being made between the Warsaw and Gaza ghettos.

It's a funny thing that if an Irish republican said to me that the no-go area in the Derry Bogside was like the Warsaw Ghetto I'd simply say, "Don't be ridiculous" but when the comparison is made between Warsaw and Gaza zionists can enumerate the three or four differences.  So Gaza is nicer than Warsaw because Zionists, for now, are marginally nicer than the Nazis.

I just read one miserable Zionist hasbarist effort at debunking the comparison.  It doesn't matter what it said exactly because it elicited two responses that pretty much speak for themselves.

Here they are:

Richard Armbach said...

Why is Gaza and the Ghetto not comparable ?The above arguments are ludicrous. Can we not compare a strawberry and an apple, and note that while they are manifestly not the same they are both fruits. Of course Gaza and the Ghetto are not the same, but they are both the consequence of a very similar racist, supremacist and excepionalist mind set, and therefore have something significant in common.

27 July, 2014 16:34

Anonymous said...
I'm sorry, but a comparison between the Warsaw Ghetto and the siege and blockade of Gaza since 2007 can definitely be made. I was always a blind supporter of Israel, but in the last year, my eyes have been opened by the many articles I have read about the atrocities being committed every day by the Israeli military on the citizens of Gaza. Netanyahu's aim is to completely destroy Gaza rendering the area uninhabitable thereby taking Gaza as Israeli territory. I can no longer believe any statements by the Israeli government, or for that matter,the many one-sided reports coming from the US mainstream media. Israel has lost all credibility.

The post to which these were added was linked by a Huffington Post piece by someone or other from the Zionist Community Security Trust and tweeted as a "powerful piece" by Mehdi Hasan who really ought to have known better. I'll tweet this post in his general direction and hope that he has enough sense to see when Zionists are listing a mixture of antisemitic and innocuous notions in the hope of the anti-Zionist baby being thrown out with the antisemitic bathwater.

Did less than 750 Jews attend London Zionist Rally?

Here's an interesting report in The Times of Israel about the psychos London rally for Israel on Sunday just gone.

Oh, first up, let's see what The Jewish Chronicle had to say under its headline, Thousands turn out to support Israel in London rally:

An estimated 5,000 Israel supporters – many wearing blue and white outfits for the event – held up placards that called for an end to Hamas terrorism.

Now that's already not a great turnout but now let's see ToI:

1,500, the number that the police estimate attended the rally, needs to be placed in a communal context:

Actually there's another context, the police usually inflate the numbers for the rallies they like and divide the estimate by ten for the one's they don't.  So this rally may have only attracted hundreds but less than 2,000 doesn't quite deserve to be called "thousands" as per the JC.

Now, that communal context:

• Around 200,000 Jews live in London, thus the figure that attended represents less than 1% of the London Jewish population.
• Every summer, including this one, around 1,500 16-year-olds are visiting Israel on organised summer tours. Even if we assume that each family has only 2 children, and around 10% are single parent units, this would equate to approximately 4,350 close family members who currently have a child in Israel.
• In 2008, over 26,000 Jewish children were attending Jewish schools, and with extra places opening in the subsequent half-decade, this will now be close to 30,000 students.

The point of these figures is to place into context just how small 1,500 people are within the Jewish community of the UK.

So questions need to be asked, and there are no easy answers.

All of the questions pre-suppose that Israel is a popular cause among London Jews and Jews elsewhere.  Now this may increasingly not be the case.  Also, it could be that even among Israel enthusiasts, Gaza has been an embarrassment.  And of course given the increasing frequency of Israel's war crimes against the Palestinians some supporters might just be blasé.  I mean a headline like, Israel kills civilians, is hardly shock news now, is it?

There is another point regarding the numbers.  There was a ragbag of Christian zionists at the rally so the number of Jews present was very possibly less than 750.  It would be nice to think that Jews of conscience are growing in number but statistics are fickle things.

Amira Hass on the failures of Abbas's leadership

This is from behind the Ha'aretz paywall:

Analysis || The failures of Abbas' leadership

Much of Hamas’ confidence comes from the Palestinian public, who see it standing up bravely for the national cause while Mahmoud Abbas plays the diplomatic supplicant.

By Amira Hass | 03:28 20.07.14
Shock and paralysis have taken hold of the political world in the Palestinian Authority and the Palestine Liberation Organization, in light of the continued Israeli assault on the Gaza Strip and the enormous concern over the fate of 1.8 million people living in the small enclave.
Condemnations by spokesmen for the PLO and the PA, calls to donate blood to Gaza and the establishment of a government emergency fund are “expressions of solidarity” – as if the residents of the Gaza Strip are a different people. These are not the steps of a leadership whose people are in mortal danger.

People in Gaza and the West Bank are shocked that senior leaders in the PLO and the PA – first and foremost PA President Mahmoud Abbas, or at least those closest to him – did not take the first obvious step of going to the Gaza Strip when the bloody conflict first broke out. This failure, critics say, has helped turn the conflict, as far as the world is concerned, into a face-off between Hamas and Israel, and not part of the policy of occupation and oppression of the entire Palestinian people.

On the organizational level, the bloody conflict required an immediate meeting of the temporary unified leadership (consisting of members of the PLO executive committee and heads of the organizations that are not members of the PLO, first among them Hamas and Islamic Jihad). The forming of this body was agreed on as far back as the reconciliation accord in Cairo in 2005. In fact, the united leadership should have met right after the Shati agreement (the April accord regarding the establishment of a reconciliation government headed by Rami Hamdallah).

The fact that it did not meet is a failure or evidence that Abbas’ heart was not in the national consensus government to begin with. Abbas ascribes great importance to negotiations with Israel and his connections with the United States, while it is becoming clearer to ever-widening circles in the PLO and Fatah that the obligation to build a unified leadership trumps everything else.

Hamas and Islamic Jihad’s cease-fire conditions sound very logical and moderate to Palestinians, among them members of the PLO’s factions, including Fatah. The secretary of the PLO executive committee, Yasser Abed Rabbo, has said as much. Hamas’ demand to lift the siege highlights the lack of interest the PLO and Fatah leadership have in raising the struggle over the closure and segregation of the Gaza Strip. Abbas’ involvement in the failed Egyptian cease-fire initiative based on “quiet for quiet” is now considered a dangerous missed opportunity, whose costly price was more human lives. Another high price was paid in presenting the Palestinian president as a “mediator” instead of the leader of a people, thus deepening the internal rift. Abbas’ talks over the past few days with Hamas and Islamic Jihad leaders come too late and do not ameliorate the bitter impression.

On the other hand, members of the PLO do not want a full-on confrontation with Egypt or to seem like they are getting involved in its internal affairs – that is, taking a stand on the oppression of the Muslim Brotherhood. Traditionally, the PLO’s factions have been suspicious of the Muslim Brotherhood as a supranational political body that uses religion. Fatah, in particular, claimed for years that Hamas’ ideology and its politics of military confrontation are not motivated by a national agenda, but rather by that of the Brotherhood.

The small left wing eschews the kind of society to which Hamas aspires. But in recent weeks, it has become clear that Hamas has been able to present a challenge to Israel greater than any Israel has ever faced from a Palestinian organization – and, in the opinion of the Palestinian public, for justifiable reasons. This has also impressed those who despise Hamas’ political-religious path, as well as those who are not blinded by worship of the armed struggle.

The failures in the conduct of the PLO factions, including Fatah – particularly since the outbreak of this round of bloodshed – are not a local and temporary issue. Rather, they show ongoing failures, some of which are connected to the character of Abbas’ rule. In recent years he has managed to minimize any democratic process of consultation and joint decision making in Fatah, the PLO and the Palestinian Authority. The secular political factions, among them Fatah, have been sidelined as irrelevant, while Hamas and Islamic Jihad are increasingly regarded as leading the struggle against the occupation in the name of the Palestinian people. According to key people in the political factions, there must be a real change in the quality, course of action and discourse of the PLO. Otherwise a vacuum will be created that, at best, will be filled by nationalist Islamic groups, and at worst will invite social, political and security chaos.

Compare and contrast: A tale of two demos

Here's a pic from Channel 4's report of Saturday's demo for Gaza:

C4 said that "Estimates of demonstrators ranged from 15,000 to 100,000"  and that, "It took them over 30 minutes to pass Nelson's column".

Now see the Zionist demo from a pic at Harry's Place:

Harry's Place claims vaguely that the crowd numbered "thousands" whilst The Jewish Chronicle claims 6,000.  Now I am guessing that if it was thousands then there would be some pics to show this.  The fact is there probably wasn't more than a few hundred.  Again, I'm guessing, at best 900.

How ever many child-killer supporting demonstrators came out for Israel on Sunday, even The Jewish Chronicle's lower estimate of the turnout, ie 15,000, for Gaza was more than twice the claimed "estimate" for the Zionist demonstration.  And I remember when the Zionists flexed their muscles at Trafalgar Square for the war on Jenin.  Then they must have had around 50k people in the square.  When Israel attacked Lebanon in 2006 Zionists in the UK got 4,000 to hear the then Chief Rabbi say, "Israel. you make us proud!"  Now their numbers are so small they won't even let pictures tell the story.  The HP one was the only one I could find showing a crowd.

But look at the Palestine solidarity crowd above.   Does it really look only two and half times the size of the Zionist one? 

As with morality so with the numbers, there is nothing to compare, only to contrast.  Israel's periodic culls of Palestinians just aren't as popular as they used to be and clearly more and more people are finding them utterly repugnant.

WaPo toon upsets loons

Here's the Washington Post cartoon:

And here are the unhappy loons as reported by Jerusalem Post

Total Ethnic Cleansing of Gaza proposed by Israeli Parliament's Deputy Speaker

This seems to have passed below the radar of the mainstream media but it has been reported on mostly zionist sites.  +972 mag reports on it thus:

If you still see daylight between Israel’s current bloodletting and its state-sanctioned policy toward the Palestinians, have a look at what the deputy speaker of the Knesset, Moshe Feiglin, posted on his official website Tuesday. It’s a seven-point tract named, without a hint of irony, “My Outline for a Solution for Gaza.”

And here's the statement in full:

1. Ultimatum – One warning from the Prime Minister of Israel to the enemy population, in which he announces that Israel is about to attack military targets in their area and urges those who are not involved and do not wish to be harmed to leave immediately. Sinai is not far from Gaza and they can leave. This will be the limit of Israel’s humanitarian efforts. Hamas may unconditionally surrender and prevent the attack.
2. Attack – Attack of the entire ‘target bank’ throughout the Gaza Strip with the IDF’s maximum force (and not a tiny fraction of it) with all the conventional means at its disposal. All the military and infrastructural targets will be attacked with no consideration for ‘human shields’ or ‘environmental damage’. It is enough that we are hitting exact targets and that we gave them advance warning.
3. Siege – Parallel to the above, a total siege on Gaza. Nothing will enter the Strip. Israel, however, will allow exit from Gaza. (Civilians may go to Sinai, fighters may surrender to IDF forces).
4. Defense – Any place from which Israel or Israel’s forces were attacked will be immediately attacked with full force and no consideration for ‘human shields’ or ‘environmental damage’.
5. Conquer – After the IDF will complete the softening of the targets with its aerial and long distance fire-power, it will send in infantry to conquer the entire Gaza Strip, using all the means necessary to minimize any harm to our soldiers, with no other considerations.
6. Elimination- The GSS and IDF will thoroughly eliminate all armed enemies from Gaza. The enemy population that is innocent of wrong-doing and separated itself from the armed terrorists will be treated in accordance with international law and will be allowed to leave. Israel will generously aid those who wish to leave.
7. Sovereignty – Gaza is part of our Land and we will remain there forever. Liberation of parts of our land       forever is the only thing that justifies endangering our soldiers in battle to capture land. Subsequent to the elimination of terror from Gaza, it will become part of sovereign Israel and will be populated by Jews. This will also serve to ease the housing crisis in Israel. The coastal train line will be extended, as soon as possible, to reach the length of the Gaza Strip. According to polls, most of the Arabs in Gaza wish to leave. Those who were not involved in anti-Israel activity will be offered a generous international emigration package. Those who choose to remain will receive permanent resident status. After a number of years of living in Israel and becoming accustomed to it, contingent on appropriate legislation in the Knesset and the authorization of the Minister of Interior on a case by case basis, those who personally accept upon themselves Israel’s rule, substance and way of life of the Jewish State in its Land, will be offered Israeli citizenship.

Last I heard the UK prime minister, David Cameron, had phoned Netanyahu to offer his full support for Israel's attack on Gaza. Paradoxically this Feiglin guy is currently barred from entering the UK because apparently his racism is too much for even ardent supporters of the Likud like the UK government.

World turns upside down as it falls to The Daily Mail to report French ban on March for Gaza

Look at this in The Daily Mail:

France's Socialist government provoked outrage today by becoming the first in the world to ban protests against Israeli action in Palestine.

In what is viewed as an outrageous attack on democracy, Socialist Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said mass demonstrations planned for the weekend should be halted.

Mr Cazeneuve said there was a ‘threat to public order’, while opponents said he was ‘criminalising’ popular support of the Palestinian people.

Thousands were set to march against the ongoing slaughter in Gaza, calling for an immediate end to hostilities in which civilians including many children have been killed.

Cor! did you see that?  The Daily Mail condemning the "slaughter in Gaza" where "many children have been killed"?

Anyway, let's read on:

There were false claims made last week that synagogues in Paris had been targeted by pro-Palestinian demonstrators.

In fact videos showed armed vigilantes from a group called the Jewish Defence League (LDJ) baiting demonstrators into fights.

I remember reading about synagogues being attacked and then something or other about the JDL attacking Palestine solidarity people.  I'm so used to zionists lying about such things I didn't take a whole lot of notice.  Again I'm amazed that The Daily Mail (home of Mad Melanie Phillips) is breaking the news on this.

But again let's read on:

There were no arrests among the LDJ, despite them fighting and smashing up property in full view of the police.

Six pro-Palestine protestors were arrested for a variety of public order offences, but none had been anywhere near Paris synagogues, which remained undamaged.

A judicial enquiry is set to be launched into the false allegations made about the synagogue attacks – ones which people claim were made up to demonise supporters of Palestine by associating them with anti-Semitism.

On Friday night lawyers for a number of groups hoping to campaign on behalf of Palestine on Saturday lodged an appeal against the ban in a Paris court.

I don't know where to begin with my thoughts on this but let's take it from the top.  France, a country that has seen more than a few violent demonstrations over many things from Algeria to the definition of lamb (or was it sheep meat?), has banned a demo for Palestine.  It has done so on the pretext that passed violence could happen again.  The violence of the previous demos was caused by the judeo-nazis of the Jewish Defence League but it was Palestine solidarity demonstrators that were arrested.

Well let's see how the judicial review turns out but I don't hold out much hope.

Letters for BDS and a slap on the wrist for Chomsky

These letters are in today's Guardian:

It is now 10 years since the international court of justice ruled that the wall built by Israel in the occupied West Bank contravenes international law and must be removed. Israel is marking this anniversary with renewed attacks on Gaza which continue to punish the Palestinians for resisting the illegal occupation of their land (Israel turns screw on Hamas as 300 targets are hit in a single night, 11 July). The apartheid wall is still there, making any kind of normal life for Palestinians an impossibility, as well as stealing their land. It is 47 years since Israel occupied the West Bank, Gaza, East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights, thus extending the process (begun in 1948) of ethnically cleansing the indigenous population and then installing settlers.

All this is illegal under international law, which has been flouted by Israel, aided by the complicity of western governments. The media too, especially the BBC, must bear some responsibility with its grotesquely biased reporting which, as Owen Jones notes (9 July), portrays Israel as an innocent victim, exempt from any norms of behaviour. Our government will not hold Israel accountable, so we have a responsibility to do so, especially through the civil society campaign of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS).

Miriam Margolyes, Mike Marqusee, Alexei Sayle, Ahdaf Soueif, Prof Haim Bresheeth, Prof Jonathan Rosenhead, Prof Moshe Machover, Prof Nira Yuval-Davies, Seymour Alexander, Rica Bird, Elizabeth Carola, Mike Cushman, Judit Druks, Nancy Elan, Mark Elf, Deborah Fink, Sylvia Finzi, Kenneth Fryde, Claire Glasman, Tony Greenstein, Abe Hayeem, Rosamine Hayeem, Selma James, Riva Joffe, Michael Kalmanovitz, Adah Kay, Leah Levane, Les Levidow, Mica Nava, Diane Neslen, Susan Pashkoff, Roland Rance, Leon Rosselson, Maureen Rothstein, Michael Sackin, Ian Saville, Miriam Scharf, Sam Weinstein, Naomi Wimborne-Idrissi, Devra Wiseman, Ben Young
Jews for Boycotting Israeli Goods (J-BIG)

• Debate about strategy is vital for good politics. We welcome Noam Chomsky's admonitions as a stimulus to the debate and education which the Boycott, Disinvestment and Sanctions movement has enabled globally. Aside from the errors of fact in Chomsky's Nation article reported on by Ian Black (Israeli sanctions campaign: Chomsky's boycott warning, 2 July), the timing of his intervention is unfortunate since the BDS movement has now reached even American campuses, occasioned Israeli cabinet deliberations as to how to counter it, and caused reputational damage to corporations working with Israeli firms in occupied Palestine.

Chomsky also ignores that BDS is fully backed by Palestinian civil society and a growing number of Israelis. In this difficult period for progressive politics and international solidarity, the BDS movement builds across the globe. In its stead Chomsky proposes nothing.

Hilary Rose Professor emeritus of social policy, Bradford, Martha Mundy Professor emeritus in anthropology, LSE, Steven Rose Professor emeritus of neuroscience, Open University, Sami Ramadani London Metropolitan University

I ought to add that whilst the first letter was organised via Jews for Boycotting Israeli Goods (J-BIG) not all of the signatories are members.

Leaflet drop at Neil Young Hyde Park Gig July 12, 2014

From International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network:

Neil Young -- Tell us Why You Would Play for Apartheid Israel

Leafleting protest, Marble Arch gig entrance, Hyde Park, Sat 12 July, 1-5pm For YOU to play Israel is to abandon both your anti-war stance and the Palestinian "people of the earth".  They have appealed directly to you to honour the cultural boycott and cancel your 17 July concert in Tel Aviv. See Neil's speech contrasted with film of indigenous Palestinian people under attack from Israeli soldiers and warplanes. Gaza is burning and children are being incinerated by F16s of the Israeli military. Tell Neil Young not to side with the bombers! Read the Gaza Union of Agricultural Work Committees letter to Neil Young; Nasser Abu Said, a Gaza farmer’s, heartbreaking letter to Neil Young; and the Open Letter from Gaza to Neil Young by Palestinian students and youth. NEIL YOUNG - Cancel your date with apartheid!

International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network: London Tuesday 8 July Protest & Film: Remembering the Hunger Strike

First Anniversary – Tuesday 8 July 2014

Remembering the Great Hunger & Work Strike
of California Prisoners
Against the torture of solitary confinement

London events highlight UK prison and detention struggles

Mon 7pm – Tues 7pm: 24-HOUR FAST in Support of Prisoners

Tues 5-6.30pm: PROTEST outside Holloway Prison. Parkhurst Road, N7 0NU

Tues 7-9pm: BREAKING the FAST with FILM of mothers and relatives of prisoners in struggle.

California Families Against Solitary Confinement, the Dallas 6 campaign, Donna Hill, mother of a woman in prison for 30 years for killing her attempted rapist.

Crossroads Women’s Centre, 25 Wolsey Mews, Kentish Town, NW5 2DX 
Soup & sandwiches

Background

On 8 July 2013, 30,000 prisoners in California, USA, began their 3^rd hunger strike – the largest and longest in US history – to end the torture of solitary confinement for years and even decades, improve their inhuman living conditions, and as an “act of solidarity with oppressed people around the world”.  

One prisoner did not survive, and after 58 days the prisoners suspended their strike to avoid further deaths. But they had already won a lot: the release from solitary of over 500 people extended visits with loved ones public legislative hearings access to canteen food (a crucial alternative to food contaminated by guards who piss and even defecate in it) and more . . .

Prisoners came together across race and other divides

In August 2012, after a previous hunger strike, prisoners issued an extraordinary Agreement to End Hostilities. It said that: “All hostilities between our racial groups will officially cease.” This set a new standard for unity within movements for justice inside and outside prison walls.

Family members ensured prisoners’ voices were heard

Mothers, daughters, partners, wives have worked tirelessly to prevent a blackout of the strike, gathering support for their loved ones, explaining the conditions inside, and what their demands are.

In London we held two protests outside the US embassy. The strikers received messages of support from around the world, from Ireland to Palestine where Palestinian prisoners, including children, are routinely detained for years without charge or trial. The day after the California hunger strike began in 2013, Palestinian Sheikh Khader Adnan, who had been on hunger strike for 66 days in 2012, sent his support. Dozens of Palestinians ended their 63-day hunger strike on 25 June this year – the longest in the history of the Palestinian prisoners’ movement.

In London we will highlight:

·         The growing number of women in prison, mainly mothers who are inside for non-violent crimes of poverty, their children deprived of their care.

·         The 30 women a year who are sent to prison after reporting rape. Women Against Rape says that many are victims of a miscarriage of justice following negligent and biased police investigations, prosecuted with more zeal and resources than rapists.

·         The targeting of Black people so they are five times more likely to be imprisoned, while the number of Muslim people inside has doubled in the last decade, many of them teenagers.

·         The hunger strikes held by asylum seekers in detention centres in the UK (women in Yarl’s Wood, men in Harmondsworth), and the 56-day hunger strike by immigrant workers detained in Tacoma, Washington (US) and elsewhere.

·         The more than 1,000 African asylum seekers who went on hunger strike in Israel this week, to protest their illegal "inhuman and unlimited" detention in the Negev Desert.

·         The anti-war protest of Margaretta D’Arcy in Ireland, due to be imprisoned again on 9 July. She has refused for the second time to sign a bond to stay away from Shannon, a civilian airport used by the US military, breaking Ireland’s constitutional neutrality. She intends to “abstain from food during her two-week detention”.

Join us to work out how the California prisoners’ strike can be a lever against miscarriages of justice and inhuman conditions in prisons and detentions centres here in the UK. We want to spread information about prisoners organizing and the Cessation of Racial Hostilities in our communities.

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Called by: Global Women’s Strike (GWS), Women of Colour GWS, International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network, Legal Action for Women, Payday men’s network. For more information: 020 7482 2496