Another Christmas in Bethlehem

Donald McIntyre invites donations to the Indy Appeal for educational support and more for Bethlehem's children.

No child in the Bethlehem area is unaffected by the psychological trauma of war - bedwetting, nightmares, reluctance to sleep alone, aggression and withdrawal, are all too common afflictions here. These are, after all, the children whose infancy has coincided with the intifada. But those, like Eyal, near the worst conflict points, are the most troubled.

The article explains what various donations can achieve:

* £25 pays for a teacher to attend a trauma counselling course to help children cope with the effects of war.

* £77 buys all the training materials and equipment needed to train a teacher in the West Bank for a year.

* £100 equips a kindergarten in the West Bank with essential play and learning materials.

And where they can be made:

* A Better Place: Donate now!

* A Better Place: Full appeal links.

Dishonest brokers

This is how Al-Jazeera.com (no relation of the Qatar based tv station apparently) describes the US and EU in their approach to the Palestinian "Authority" elections.

On December 19, the EU’s foreign policy Chief Javier Solana stated, “All the political parties have the right to be part of the elections, but there is a certain code of conduct that has to be accepted by everybody.” He continued, “It's very difficult that parties who do not condemn violence ... can be partners for the future.” Solana later warned that if the Palestinian Authority (PA) let Hamas run in the parliamentary elections, the EU could cut tens of millions of dollars of funding to the PA.

The article goes on to ask why the condemnation is restricted to Hamas and not extended to the occupiers.

Jewdas Maccabeus @ Chanuka

Check out the Chanuka update at the Jewdas website.

Board of Deputies concedes defeat to Interpal

Interpal has won its libel action against the Board of Deputies over the latter calling the former a "terrorist organisation." Here's Interpal's comment on the case:

The trustees of Interpal, the UK-registered Palestinian relief charity, have today (22/12/2005) concluded a successful out-of-court settlement of libel proceedings brought against the Board of Deputies of British Jews over allegations published on the Board's website in September 2003....

.....the Board thereafter spent over two years attempting to defend that description...

The precise terms of the settlement are to remain confidential at the insistence of the Board of Deputies.

Part of the deal is that the Board of Deputies has to carry the following apology on its home page for 28 days starting from yesterday.

The Board of Deputies and the UK-registered charity Interpal announce that they have reached an out-of-court settlement of libel proceedings relating to an item published by the Board on this website in September 2003. In the item, we referred to "terrorist organisations such as Hamas and Interpal". We would like to make it clear that we should not have described Interpal in this way and we regret the upset and distress our item caused.

The case would have been heard by Judge Eady with a jury. Judge Eady presided over the Galloway v Telegraph Group case.

Palestinian elections threaten Israel's democracy

Israel is threatening to hinder Palestinian elections if Hamas is allowed to participate. According to Donald MacIntyre in today's Independent:

Israel has significantly escalated its campaign against Hamas's participation in next month's Palestinian legislative elections by threatening to prevent voters going to the polls in East Jerusalem.

Though

Senior Israeli officials were at pains last night to stress that no final decision had been taken on balloting in East Jerusalem, while acknowledging a strong possibility that the threat would be implemented.

The strong showing of Hamas in elections, and even in opinion polls has had zionists mostly in America justifying the killing of Palestinian civilians but this appears to be yet another example of the Israeli government putting the so-called Palestinian Authority in an impossible situation where they have to move against Hamas in order to prove themselves to Israel and yet if they do move against Hamas the PA will be weakened in the eyes of many Palestinians and Hamas will be strengthened.

But Israel is allowed to say who can and who cannot run in elections because it's the "only democracy in the Middle East."

Foxman meets Spielberg at Munich

The Jerusalem Post reports that the Anti-Defamation League's Abe Foxman has come to Steven Spielberg's defence over his new film Munich which had been accused of drawing a moral equivalence between Israel killing people and Palestinians killing people.

He said the movie, which recounts the murder of 11 Israeli athletes by the Palestinian group Black September at the 1972 Munich Olympics, portrays that tragedy as an act of "brutal terrorism" with no humanizing of the perpetrators.

The article continues

But Foxman - who pointed out that, unlike him, many of the critics hadn't seen the movie - said the Israelis are portrayed in human terms

So that's alright then.

Israel's other face?

Israel Shamir's other face that is. Here's an article on Indymedia UK on the various identities of Israel Shamir. The main focus of the article is on the Swedish fascist activist, Jöran Jermas.

For twenty years the Jewish Israeli journalist Israel Shamir has been living a double life as a Swede called Jöran Jermas. Official files show Shamir’s own picture and Siberian place and date of birth (11 June 1947) on the Swedish man’s passport. It’s not another of Israel (Adam) Shamir’s many pen names; it’s a completely different identity. None of this appears in the résumée promoted on his website as The Shamir Legend: so where does legend end and mythology begin?

The article itself is by Manfred Ropschitz who is a journalist and broadcaster based in the UK. He's an anti-Zionist Jew, the son of a Polish Holocaust survivor and an active supporter of Palestinian rights since the late 1970’s.

He ends the article by posing the most apposite question:

One puzzle has been solved, but questions remain: "Who is "Israel Shamir"? Is he "Jöran Jermas"? Or are they both fictional? What about his other aliases, "Vassili Krasevsky" and "Robert David" (inter alia?)? More important still, whoever he is, what's his game?"

Actually there is another question - do his many acolytes and defenders know of his double life?

Hat-tip Charlie Pottins.

Ariel Sharon dead at 77

Just kidding. But according to Voice of America his health is a bit of a worry.

The prime minister is extremely overweight, and doctors are recommending that he go on a diet. And, they say, he should get some rest.

Now on the "no-rest-for-the-wicked" principle I might have to run with the headline Ariel Sharon dead at 78. We'll just have to wait and see.

Update here.

Rachel Corrie: alive and well?

Here's a nice tribute to Alan Rickman's play My name is Rachel Corrie in today's Observer.

If Alan Rickman's The Winter Guest stroked my face softly, My Name is Rachel Corrie, at the Royal Court Theatre, London, slapped it hard with the gauntlet he threw down, as Rachel crashed into my life swishing her ChapStick and with a fire in her belly. Asked what he'd say if Rachel, the 23-year-old American peace protester killed by an Israel bulldozer in the Gaza Strip on 16 March 2003, came back, Rickman told an interviewer: 'She isn't coming back; that's the point.' I saw the play twice: he was wrong. He brought her back for everyone who walked out into Sloane Square knowing she'd just challenged us to change our world.

Di Stirling-Chow
39, housing consultant, West Yorkshire

I don't know if I mentioned in an earlier post that when I went to see the play at the Royal Court, Ruby Wax sat in the row in front of me. She had previously withdrawn from a Zionist Federation bash following protests so perhaps she was/is on the turn against zionism or, at least, the occupation. So perhaps Rachel Corrie is still reaching people.

Rant against Rance

Having said in the post below this one that the Guardian hadn't really censored Roland Rance's letter to cut it down to about 10% of the original content. It now looks like the Guardian deliberately set up Roland's letter as a scarecrow for some zionist to come along and knock down. See this:

It is grotesque to imply, as Roland Rance does (Letters, December 15), that there is a moral equivalence between the Holocaust and the Naqba - as if extermination camps were to be found dotted around Israel. Tens of millions of refugees were created during the postwar period, only the Palestinian problem remains to be resolved. Israel of course bears considerable moral responsibility but a settlement is surely only possible after peace has been established.
Sidney Jacobs
Exeter

Now as a commentor to my previous post said Sidney Jacobs's " claim .... is only possible to make because of the truncated version of his letter the Guardian published."

Compare this to the treatment of Noam Chomsky and these little "mistakes" are starting to look deliberate. Someone suggested somewhere that Jonathan Freedland would be appalled by all this but having read his own misrepresentation of Finkelstein, I'm not so sure.

State of denial?

Here's a response by Roland Rance to Jonathan Freedland's Guardian article on holocaust denial. This is what the Guardian published:

Holocaust denial is not respectable and in many countries it is even illegal. But denial of the naqba - the Palestinian catastrophe of 1948 - is all-too prevalent. As Freedland concludes: "The days of denial must end."
Roland Rance
Jews Against Zionism

And here's what Roland actually wrote:

Dear Editor

It is of course right to criticise Iranian President Ahmadinejad's holocaustdenial (The sickness bequeathed by the west to the Muslim world, Guardian 14 December 2005). The systematic murder by the nazi regime of millions of European Jews, and the attempt to eliminate the Jews from Europe, was a historic crime of immense dimensions, which should not be minimised or ignored. To do so actually plays into the hands of Israel's apologists. As Palestinian-American academic Joseph Massad noted in Al-Ahram last year, "All those in the Arab world who deny the Jewish holocaust are in my opinion Zionists".

Jonathan Freedland, however, ignores Ahmadinejad's corollary: "If we suppose it is true, our question for the Europeans is: is the killing of innocent Jewish people by Hitler the reason for their support to the occupiers of Jerusalem? If the Europeans are honest they should give some of their provinces in Europe -- like in Germany, Austria or other countries -- to the Zionists and the Zionists can establish their state in Europe. You offer part of Europe and we will support it."

The Palestinian people should not be punished for the crimes of European racists. Holocaust denial is not respectable, and in many countries it is even illegal. But denial of the naqba -- the Palestinian catastrophe of 1948 -- is all-too prevalent. As Freedland concludes, "the days of denial must end".

Roland Rance
Jews Against Zionism

The editing wasn't censorship as such since other letters make similar points.

Engaging with MPAC UK...or not

There has been quite a lengthy, though not entirely accurate or definitive, post on the recent Muslim Public Affairs Committee's meeting titled "The Big Debate: Zionism: the real enemy of the Jews", at the Engage and Harry's Place websites so I won't bother trying to remember the whole thing here. Rather I want to explain why I thought it was necessary to engage with MPAC whilst noting that those who believe we should Engage with racist war criminals believe that we should not engage with their opponents and critics. This is a cut from my own post to the Just Peace list. The first post here is from Linda Grant.

I don't think anti-Zionism is ant-semitic. Never have done. You might even say that some of my best friends are anti-Zionists. But I do think that making up conspiracy theories about shadowy cabals of Zionists out to control the world; using language like 'cockroaches', 'parasites' etc to describe Zionists, is a re-treading of archetypal anti-semitic doscourse, with the word Zionist inserted where Jew used to be.

Now as it happens I thought that Linda was referring to MPAC but she wasn't, she was referring to some stuff at the Durban conference. Anyway, here's my response.

Are you referring to MPACUK? If so I don't think they actually make up conspiracy theories though many of them seem to believe a few and the imagery they have used whilst offensive to those of us who are well versed in European history is not so to those who are mostly first generation Brits (I believe from Pakistan). Rather than getting in their faces and accusing them of being "racist scum" I think a bit of engagement is quite helpful. Of course the zionists' propensity for exaggerating and fabricating anti-semitic incidents is no help here. And when the best that zionists can offer to explain America's largely uncritical diplomatic, military and financial support for Israel is to say that "Israel is the only democracy in the middle east" or even refer to the holocaust, then conspiracy theorists have an open field and the fact that zionists can get meetings banned with one phone call because of religious "intolerance" or some such has the same effect.

I see from Harry's Place that people who think that ethnic cleansing is perfectly acceptable if the perpetrators are Jewish think that dehumanising imagery makes for "racist scum" if the subjects are zionists or Jews. This isn't mere hypocrisy, it's a deliberate distraction.

I think Stephen Marks got it right when he paraphrased The Life of Brian - he's (some MPAC chap) not anti-semitic, he's a very silly boy.

The Harry's Place (I'm not accusing you [that's Linda Grant] of being a Harry's Placer but it makes similar reading to Nick Cohen's ridiculous "anti-semitism" article and comments http://www.nickcohen.net/?p=13) and to the Engage site) contributors at the meeting castigated MPAC for having two anti-semitic articles one of which linked to David Duke. I actually phoned the woman who posted it and she had clearly never even heard of David Duke, she simply copied and pasted what, in her naivete, she believed was a straightforward anti-zionist article that someone had sent to her. They removed the offending articles and for that they were accused of dishonesty. It was said at the meeting (I think by me) that they had apologised for the offending pieces and that they had removed them because they were wrong but, feeling they were on a roll, one of the Harry's Placers then accused them of anti-semitism for referring to Cameron's victory as "Likud wins" as anti-semitic when it was just plain silly (as Stephen Marks said at the meeting to the embarrassment of the MPAC speaker). The "Likud Wins" headline was based on celebrations at the Conservative Friends of Israel for Cameron's victory.

I think at a time when Muslims are being told by ministers that they can expect disproportionate police attention and that a man can be shot several times in the head for looking like he might be a Muslim, principled anti-racists should be engaging with Muslims rather than waiting for them to put this or that foot wrong and then sneering at them and denouncing them when they do. I feel that, at the time of writing, MPAC can be engaged with and I hope I'm not wrong. Zionists, of course, will hope that I am wrong and they will actually want a Muslim group to be anti-semitic to justify the racist rule that zionists themselves support.

Incidentally, out of the three speakers, Stephen Marks got the most applause for his insights into history, his criticisms of the Alan Hart book and for his criticisms of some of MPAC's articles, in particular the propensity for conspiracy theories and grotesque imagery.

I referred above to inaccuracy in the Harry's Place or Engage write ups. In one of them (maybe both) it is said that the only counter-argument to the panel came from the Harry's Place people and a heckler (that is three in total) and yet the first person to speak complained of MPAC's "parochialism" in only addressing Muslims and the second one complained that the MPAC speaker was "patronising". Also, as I said above, the speakers didn't all agree with each other. In particular Stephen Marks was critical of Alan Hart's book, which I would describe, from what little I have read, as rather eccentric.

UPDATE: see this post on Indigo Jo Blogs

And surely, the most important concern for a "Public Affairs Committee" is its own public affairs; if they cannot look after their own, how can they look after anyone else's? One might remember the collapse of Sophie Rhys-Jones' PR career after she told Mazhar Mahmood (in his fake-sheikh persona) what she thought of a whole load of royals and other public figures. I have never believed that MPAC are a racist or malicious organisation, but the nuances of anti-Zionist versus anti-Semite will be lost on any observer who reads continual accusations of Zionist conspiracies whenever the author experiences some difficulty or other. Unless you have evidence that there is a Jewish conspiracy, don't talk of one! And "evidence" does not mean that something did not go your way! You need to understand your audience, and in this country the audience may well be sympathetic to Palestinian rights issues, but they also know that conspiracy theories commonly emanate from malicious or unhinged people, and commonly results in one's argument being dismissed out of hand as the howlings of a moonbat. This is, in fact, how MPACUK are viewed by a fair number of observers at the moment.

That MPAC UK meeting in brief

I had intended to post something about Friday's meeting organised by the Muslim Public Affairs Committee, titled Zionism, the real enemy of the Jews, but I would have to edit down various posts to the Just Peace list. So if you want a bit of a read about the meeting then start here and see how you go. I'll do a fuller post later...I think.

Meantime have a look at these: Harry's Place, Engage and MPAC UK.

Uppity Peretz upsets Asheknazim

Here's David Shasha's intro to an article published in the very useful Sephardic Heritage Update. The article itself is here.

Moustache Pete: Israel's New Labor Commissar
By: Steven Plaut

The recent victory of Amir Peretz as head of Israel's Labor Party has exposed the fault lines in the Sephardic community here in America. For so many years Sephardim have moved to the Right and have adopted a racism and reactionary posture that mirrors what they have been taught by their Ashkenazi overlords.

In most cases, Sephardim march to Ashkenazi drummer and will even attack with no mercy those Sephardim, such as the present writer, whose perspective seeks Sephardi liberation and self-empowerment.

Amir Peretz truly understands the problems that Sephardim face a lot better than Ariel Sharon, Benjamin Netanyahu - or even Steven Plaut.

Mr. Plaut, amazingly a professor at an Israeli university, spouts the sort of racist drivel that is standard in the bottom-of-the-barrel world of The Jewish Press. What is even more amazing is that many Sephardim who read his arrogant and racist and deeply ignorant tripe will follow the argument and willingly demonize one of the first truly Sephardic leaders in Israel - a state that has done more to degrade the Sephardim and their cultural traditions than any entity in our long and illustrious history.

The article recapitulates many of the racist tropes of the hoary Zionist discourse: The authoritarian and barbaric Sephardi; the lazy Negro; the Sephardi as ignoramus; the Sephardi as hopelessly out of touch with what it truly means to be JEWISH.

That none of this racist drivel is actually true is not important - the key to this form of Ashkenazi discourse has always been to demonize Sephardi leaders by any means necessary while hiding behind the protective flag of Ashkenazi supremacy.

Plaut is effectively the equivalent of David Duke or some neo-Nazi in his rejection of Sephardic humanity and the legitimacy of a Moroccan to lead Israel.

That this vicious article will be rubber-stamped and forwarded by many Sephardim is a sign that we have lost any sense of who we are and what we stand for. We have simply become Ashkenazim and should understand what it has led - and what it will continue to lead - to. A people with no pride in who they are will be filled with the ignorance and dysfunctionalism that now plagues the Sephardim.

DS

David Shasha is an interesting chap. He is enormously critical of Israel and yet he is no anti-zionist and he even finds the Chief Rabbi, Jonothan Sacks, an enlightened man. A man of catholic (well almost) tastes.

JC letter on Chief Rabbi's Christian Aid mission

Here's a letter published in today's Jewish Chronicle about Christian Aid's decision to allow a leading zionist, the Chief Rabbi, to vet their campaign literature. It appears under the heading Christian Aid: co-operation and criticism together with two others that I've posted here.

I was surprised to read that the Chief Rabbi has asked Christian Aid if he may vet potentially controversial statements on the Middle East.

I know little about Christian Aid, but it will certainly have a legitimate concern for what happens in Bethlehem. A recent Early Day Motion in the Commons referred to "the devastating impact" the combined eff-ect of the separation barrier and roadblocks was having on the city.

Bethlehem’s economy has been all but ruined, families divided and land seized. Is Christian Aid to know about such things and remain silent?

Admirable as it is that Christian Aid is anxious not to offend the Jewish community none of us can ever tolerate gratuitous offence, it is not clear from what the Chief Rabbi would consider offensive in this context. A criticism of Israeli injustice might be accurate and honest. Our shame would be if we were to think the criticism more offensive than the behaviour that provoked it.

Brian Robinson

Here's the issue that prompted the above response.

Palestine not a socialist issue?

The Stirling University Socialist Society has been banned from using students' union premises for holding two meetings on zionism. The union, on the basis of a complaint by one unnamed student, argued that zionism is beyond the remit of the group. Messages of support to the group can be sent here.

Israel smashes Palestinian armada

Ha'aretz reports that Israel has sunk a Palestinian boat off the coast of Gaza. According to Israel:

the boat had entered prohibited waters and ignored an order to stop, and when the Israeli forces fired warning shots in the air, Palestinians on the boat fired on the navy ship. The navy said its vessel was then also fired on from the shore.

According to a Palestinian source:

the Palestinian killed in the incident had been on a fishing trip. Palestinian security sources maintained that the boat had been in an area where fishing was permitted, and that the navy fired on the boat and on another boat without provocation.

Ahh, the miracle of Israel's survival in a sea of hatred.

Chief Rabbi's aid to Christian Aid

The Jewish Chronicle (subscription only) is proud to announce "Sacks to vet Christian Aid texts." The Chief Rabbi is going to check any Christian Aid statement to see if there is anything that might upset a good zionist like himself. An example of one such is Christian Aid's

"Child of Bethelehem" Christmas 2004 appeal, featuring a seven-year-old Palestinian girl wounded by an IDF [Orwellian for Israeli army] bullet, which the Board of Deputies condemned as "completely unbalanced" and demonstrating an obsession with Israel.

How dare Christians have an obsession with the Holy Land? Anyway, if you want to ask Christian Aid for further details of this collaboration with the supporters of racist war criminals you can write to Christian Aid here.

Fat old Jewish New Yorker rejects "right of return"

I'm sure there are lots of Jewish guys in New York who reject the right of return for Palestinians but this guy is rejecting his own right under Israel's racist Law of Return.

People want to know what I, a Jewish guy, think about Israel.

I want to make something clear. I live in New York. I am from New York. I do not have a right and do not want a right to "return" to Israel. I never was there. I want to skip all the arguments about whether or not today's Jews descend from the people of the Old Testament. I don't care if I do or I don't. It doesn't matter nor should it.

The territory that is known to many as Palestine had been peopled by Arabic speaking folks for centuries, mainly they were Muslims, many were Christians, and a few of them Jewish too. Most of those people were kicked out of their lands and homes in 1948 by people like David Ben Gurion and Ariel Sharon and more were expelled in 1967. They are the ones who have a right to return, not me.

Not under Israel's racist laws they don't.

Peres remains with Sharon

This is getting silly now. Newspapers worldwide it seems are trumpeting the fact that Peres has left Labour to join Ariel Sharon's Kadima party; if it's still called that. It's so hard to keep up with these superficial changes. Here's the Scotsman but it could be any UK broadsheet.

In his statement to reporters at his Tel Aviv office, Peres said that the current political set-up could not lead to Mideast peace, and a new team was needed.

"I believe the most qualified person to head this coalition, based on the test of experience, is Arik Sharon," he said, referring to Sharon by his nickname.

See this piece in antiwar.com titled The UN from Qana to Jenin to see what we can expect from the continued Sharon-Peres axis.