David Bellamy's credibility at stake?

The Jewish Chronicle reports that:

The British Committee for the Universities of Palestine (Bricup) has urged botanist David Bellamy to pull out of a Zionist Federation event at which he is expected to speak about Israel’s environmental achievements.

Deborah Fink picked up on the JC report and suggested that his appearance at a Zionist Federation event could harm his credibility.

I remember a run-in he had with George Monbiot a few years ago on Channel 4 where Bellamy argued that glaciers are in a general state of growth so I'm wondering, what credibility?

Britain: magnet for war criminals

As the latest Iraq inquiry appears to be whitewashing the war crimes of the UK's main political leaders so a foreign war criminal is hoping for the same kind of lackadaisical treatment if she comes to the UK. Here's the Jewish Chronicle on Tzipi Livni's proposed visit to the UK:

Israeli opposition leader Tzipi Livni is planning to come to London to test the process for the issuing of arrest warrants for alleged war crimes.

Speaking exclusively to the JC, Ms Livni said: “I will do this not for me, not for provocation, but for the right of every Israeli to travel freely. I am not going to be restricted by extremists because I fought terror.”

The British system was, she said, “being abused by extremists for political reasons. Belgium and Spain have changed their laws, and the British know that they have to do so”.

Breathtaking arrogance, I know, but how will this test the law if the people who petitioned for the arrest warrant last time she was going to come, decide not to proceed this time? The article was written by Stephen Pollard, a hardcore zionist. I wonder if he will get an arrest warrant issued to help his zionist comrade "test" British law as it relates to visiting war criminals.

Incidentally, last time she planned to come over, Tzipi Livni, the former Israeli foreign minister who is so offended by being branded a war criminal, was coming to visit the, ahem, charity, the Jewish National Fund. Say no more.

Disgrace unto the Nations

Jewish community leaders who are worried sick with the thought that the suffering of the people of Gaza might be somewhat eased petition their Congresswoman against it.

Update on Blair on Gaza

I'm a little bit anxious about the way Palestine keeps getting relegated to a small part of it: Gaza. It's emerging as one of zionism's success stories that Israel has been so cruel to Gaza that Gaza has become the issue rather than one of many relating to the racist colony known as the State of Israel. Be that as it may, here is Avi Shlaim in Comment is free with an article titled: Blair: Gaza's great betrayer:

At present the British public is ­preoccupied with Tony Blair and the war in Iraq. What is often ­overlooked is that this was only one aspect of a disastrous British policy towards the Middle East, inaugurated by Blair, and which shows no sign of changing under his successor.

One of Blair's arguments used to ­justify the Iraq war was that it would help bring justice to the long-suffering Palestinians. In his House of Commons speech on 18 March 2003, he promised that action against Iraq would form part of a broader engagement with the problems of the Middle East. He even declared that resolving the Israeli-­Palestinian dispute was as important to Middle East peace as removing Saddam Hussein from power.

Yet by focusing international ­attention on Iraq, the war further ­marginalised the Palestinian question. To be fair*, Blair persuaded the Quartet (a group consisting of the US, the UN, the EU and Russia) to issue the Roadmap in 2003, which called for the creation of an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel by the end of 2005. But President George Bush was not genuinely committed and only adopted it under pressure from his ­allies. Ariel Sharon, Israel's hard-line prime minister at the time, wrecked the plan by continuing to expand Israeli settlements on the West Bank. Could Blair really not have realised that for Bush the special relationship that ­counted was the one with Israel? Every time Bush had to choose between Blair and Sharon, he chose Sharon.

Israel's withdrawal from the Gaza Strip in August 2005 was not a contribution to the Roadmap but an attempt to unilaterally redraw the borders of Greater Israel and part of a plan to ­entrench the occupation there. Yet in return for the unilateral withdrawal from Gaza, Sharon extracted from the US a written agreement to Israel's ­retention of the major settlement blocs on the West Bank. Bush's support amounted to an abrupt reversal of US policy since 1967, which regarded the settlements as illegal and as an obstacle to peace. Blair publicly endorsed the pact, probably to preserve a united ­Anglo-American front at any price. It was the most egregious British ­betrayal of the Palestinians since the Balfour Declaration of 1917.

In July 2006, at the height of the savage Israeli onslaught on Lebanon, Blair opposed a security council ­resolution for an immediate and ­unconditional ceasefire: he wanted to give Israel an opportunity to destroy Hezbollah, the radical Shi'ite religious-political movement. One year later, in June 2007, he resigned from office. That day he was appointed the Quartet's special envoy to Israel and the Palestinian Authority. His main sponsor was Bush and his blatant partisanship on behalf of Israel was probably considered a qualification. His appointment ­coincided with the collapse of the ­Palestinian national unity government, the reassertion of Fatah rule in the West Bank and the violent seizure of power by Hamas in Gaza.

Blair's main tasks were to mobilise international assistance for the Fatah-dominated Palestinian Authority, to promote good governance and the rule of law in the Palestinian territories, and to further Palestinian economic development. His broader mission, was "to promote an end to the conflict in conformity with the Roadmap".

On taking up his appointment, Blair said that: "The absolute priority is to try to give effect to what is now the consensus across the international community – that the only way of bringing stability and peace to the ­Middle East is a two-state solution." His appointment was received with great satisfaction by the Israelis and with utter dismay by the Arabs.

In his two and a half years as special envoy, Blair has achieved remarkably little. True, Blair helped persuade the Israelis to reduce the number of West Bank checkpoints from 630 to 590; he helped to create employment oppor­tunities; and he may have contributed to a slight improvement in living ­standards in Palestine. But the Americans remained fixated on security rather than on economic development, and their policy remains skewed in favour of ­Israel. Barack Obama made a promising start as ­president by insisting on a complete settlement freeze on the West Bank, but was compelled to back down, ­dashing many of our high hopes.

One reason for Blair's disappointing results is that he wears too many hats and cannot, as he promised, be "someone who is on the ground spending 24/7 on the issue". Another reason is his "West Bank first" attitude – ­continuing the western policy of bolstering Fatah and propping up the ailing Palestinian Authority against Hamas. His lack of commitment to Gaza is all too evident. During the Gaza war, he did not call for a ceasefire. He has one standard for ­Israel and one for its victims. His attitude to Gaza is to wait for change rather than risk ­incurring the displeasure of his American and ­Israeli friends. As ­envoy, Blair has been inside Gaza only twice; once to visit a UN school just ­beyond the border and once to Gaza City. His project for sanitation in northern Gaza was never completed because he could not ­persuade the Israelis to ­allow in the last small load of pipes needed. A growing group of western politicians has ­publicly acknowledged the necessity of talking to Hamas if meaningful progress is to be achieved; Blair is not one of their number.

Blair has totally failed to fulfil the ­official role of the envoy "to promote an end to the conflict in conformity with the Roadmap", largely for reasons beyond his control. The most ­important of these is Israel's determination to perpetuate the isolation and the de-development of Gaza and deny the Palestinian people a small piece of land – 22% of Mandate-era ­Palestine, to be precise – on which to live in freedom and dignity. It is a policy that Baruch Kimmerling, the late Israeli sociologist, named ­"politicide" – the denial to the ­Palestinian people of any independent political existence in Palestine.

Partly, however, Blair's failure is due to his own personal limitations; his ­inability to grasp that the fundamental issue in this tragic conflict is not Israeli security but Palestinian national rights, and that concerted and sustained ­international pressure is required to compel Israel to recognise these rights. The core issue cannot be avoided: there can be no settlement of the ­conflict without an end to the Israeli occupation. There is international consensus for a two-state solution, but Israel rejects it and Blair has been unable or unwilling to use the Quartet to enforce it.

Blair's failure to stand up for Palestinian independence is precisely what endears him to the Israeli establishment. In February of last year, while the ­Palestinians in Gaza were still mourning their dead, Blair received the Dan David prize from Tel Aviv University as the "laureate for the present time ­dimension in the field of leadership". The citation praised him for his ­"exceptional intelligence and foresight, and demonstrated moral courage and leadership". The prize is worth $1m. I may be cynical, but I cannot help viewing this prize as absurd, given Blair's silent complicity in Israel's ­continuing crimes against the ­Palestinian people.

The article appears in today's printed edition of The Guardian.

*Why be fair to Blair?

Discover your inner Kurtz with an Israeli Safari

The 'Israel Law Center,' contrary to what you'd expect from the name, is not interested in such arcane things as legal principles, or that old-fashioned and discredited idea of 'equality before the law'. Indeed, the word 'law' in its name refers most likely to that common colonial expression, 'the law of the jungle.' So it is fitting that one of its important businesses is to organize Safaris for American Jews. Come to Israel, see the beasts, smell the blood, meet the hunters! Gone are the days you'd have to choose between risking your life as an 'explorer' or 'adventurer,' or wait for some Marlow to come back home and tell you riveting stories from the Heart of Darkness. Courtesy of the 'Israel Law Center' you can now have both the thrill of immersion in Kurtz's world and the safety of a five stars hotel room. Colonialism decaf.

The Ultimate Mission to Israel

Experience a dynamic and intensive eight day exploration of Israel's struggle for survival and security against Iran, Syria and Hezballah.

Join with doctors, attorneys, accountants, programmers and other professionals from around the world on an unparalleled and unprecedented Israeli reality-check at June 8 - 15, 2009 in Jerusalem:

* Briefing by Mossad officials and commanders of the Shin Bet

* Inside tour of the IAF unit who carries out targeted killings
* Live exhibition of penetration raids in Arab territory
* Observe a trial of Hamas terrorists in an IDF military court
* First hand tours of the Lebanese front-line military positions and the Gaza border check-points
* Inside tour of the controversial Security Fence and secret intelligence bases
* Meeting Israel's Arab agents who infiltrate the terrorist groups and provide real-time intelligence.

• Briefing by Israel's war heros who saved the country.
  
• Meetings with senior Cabinet Ministers and other key policymakers.
  
• Small airplane tour of the Galilee, Jeep rides in the Golan hights, water activities on Lake Kinneret, a cook-out barbecue and a Shabbat enjoying the rich religious and historic wonders of Jerusalem's Old City.

First Class Accomodation [sic!]

• Five-star accommodations at the Sheraton Plaza Jerusalem (Glatt Kosher);
• Personal cell phone for each participant.
• Three meals a day (all Kosher);
• Luxury bus transportation and knowledgeable tour guide;
  
• A dedicated Executive Communications Center at the hotel;
  

I'm particularly impressed with the Kosher food. Here's a thought for Dr. Simon Goldberg, Los Angeles, CA, quoted in the ad gushing over "the adventure of a lifetime" he "will never forget" from his Safari:

no matter how many Kosher meals you'll have, you and your fellow Safari tourists will always remain swine.

Israel establishes Hasbara Central

Like the nazis before them, Israel has decided to place its propaganda efforts under one roof, a kind of hasbara central. According to a former adviser to Menachem Begin, David Admon writing in Ha'aretz, even Begin baulked at the idea of so obvious a ploy as a government run propaganda machine:

I recall that many years ago, when I served as director of the celebrations for Israel's 30th Independence Day, between the visit by Egyptian president Anwar Sadat and the Camp David summit, members of Peace Now were organizing stormy demonstrations.

In response, then prime minister Menachem Begin called me in for a conversation (before the 1977 elections I served as Likud spokesman) and said: "We have to get the Likud hasbara headquarters going again."

"Mr. prime minister, sir, get the central hasbara machine going again - it's in your hands," I said to him.

"Heaven forbid. The government doesn't do hasbara - here we will not have Goebbelsism!" replied Begin, referring to the Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels, and said no more.

I believe that this story explains the meaning of our traditional skittishness toward hasbara: the memory of the propaganda in dark regimes and a sense that it isn't clear where hasbara ends and propaganda begins.

Of course propaganda and hasbara are the same thing. It was, after all, Goebbels who gave propaganda a bad name, just as Israel gives hasbara (aka propaganda) a bad name. But there is another reason why the State of Israel should not spend money on propagating lies on its own behalf. See this Hasbara Committee list of hasbaranik authors. It's a rogues' gallery of authors who donate their pro-zionist propaganda skills for free. That coupled with the lack of counter-argument in most western media suggests to me that Hasbara Central would be wasting money that could be spend on what the hasbaraniks are actually covering for, the continued dispossession and displacement of the Palestinians.

The Gaza dam of shame

This has become a very popular poster in the streets of the Middle East and on the internet. It says (on top):"The High One Built the High Dam", and (bottom): "The Low One built the Low Dam." (Angry Arab)

Law for the left, lawless for the right

Here's Gideon Levy in Ha'aretz:

Looking at the way the right acts makes one go green with envy and want to learn from them. Four hundred criminal cases opened against opponents of the 2005 Gaza Strip disengagement, people who threw oil, acid, garbage and stones at soldiers and police, were closed last week and their criminal record expunged. Fifty-one MKs voted in favor of the closure, nine against. That is the true map of Israeli politics (and society). Only about seven percent of the lawmakers believed that this was a worthless and dangerous decision. All the rest agreed with it, or did not bother to vote or take an interest.

Neither did anyone think to apply a similar rule to 800 protesters against Operation Cast Lead, who were arrested and charged, perhaps because they are Arabs, nor to the dozens arrested for protesting in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah, perhaps because they are leftists. Left-wing demonstrators never acted as violently as the settlers do, but no one thinks about pardoning them. Not even a semblance of equality before the law, not even the appearance of justice for all - that is unnecessary in a place where public shame no longer exists.

This scandalous decision did not appear out of nowhere. It is the fruit of a campaign of pressure and solicitation, bullying and extortion. From now on, settlers and Israeli society will know that they can go as wild as they want: Even if someone dares charge them - another will arise who will know how to extricate them from trouble and penalty. In contrast, left-wing protesters are orphans. They have no public or parliamentary support. Protesters against disengagement and pogromists in Palestinian villages know they will be cleared, while leftist protesters are abandoned to their fate.

Speaking of unequal treatment, how does any zionist justify this without admitting that Israel isn't simply state with racists but a thorough-going racist state?

The Interior Ministry is demanding that a Palestinian resident of East Jerusalem be deported for having spent too many years in the United States. Elias Khayyo - who holds no foreign citizenship - has been detained for three weeks at Givon incarceration facility in Ramle with other people deemed illegal residents and slated for deportation.

Khayyo, 41, was born in East Jerusalem and currently resides in the Christian Quarter of the Old City, where his parents also live. He says he has no relatives in America, nor a home, property or employment there.

The Interior Ministry, however, maintains that his permanent residency in Israel was revoked in January 2006, due to Khayyo having lived in the U.S. from 1998 to 2005 and receiving permanent-residence status there. Khayyo received bachelor's and master's degrees in biology over two extended stays in the U.S. He is now working as a translator in Jerusalem. The ministry claims Khayyo resided abroad for more than seven years, and that he returned to Israel in 2005 as a tourist by presenting U.S. travel documents.

Could this happen to a Jew in Jerusalem of the right or the left?

Israeli feminism

One of the domains in which Israel is certainly a light unto the nations is the department of twisting words. Israeli culture's greatest contribution to humanity is in the perfection of the oxymoron: "purity of arms", "present absentees," "a Jewish and democratic state," and so forth. Another contribution is in linguistics. Usually, we call adjectives qualifiers because they slightly qualify the meaning of the noun. A tawny dog is still a dog, and a tall building is no less of a building for being tall. But not all adjectives are like that. The adjective 'Israeli' is one of the exceptions. Israeli socialism, Israeli justice, Israeli citizenship are examples of noun phrases in which the adjective doesn't qualify the noun but perverts it. Israeli socialism is the doctrine that Jews must drive Palestinians out of the job market, and then out of their country, in order not to oppress them as wage workers. Israeli citizenship does not make one an Israeli national, because there is no such thing as Israeli nationality according to Israeli law. Israeli law is another such noun phrase, because the law is usually understood as setting limits to the arbitrariness of power. But under 'Israeli law', the commander of an area in the Occupied Territories can make his every whim 'the law' simply by writing down an order. A 'law' was even issued once forbidding Palestinians from collecting the thyme that grows on the sides of the roads.

But the subject of today's language lesson is 'Israeli feminism'. Israel is well known for the Hasbara mileage its gets out of women. I've been told by Palestinians that women soldiers at the checkpoints are worse than the men. Courtesy of the Israeli NGO breaking the silence, we now have a confirmation and an explanation. That's feminism, the Israeli version:

Testimony 1 Name: *** | Rank: First Sergeant | Unit: Border Patrol | Location: General

Somehow, a female combatant has to prove herself more, on the ground too. Again, a female combatant who can lash out is a serious fighter. Capable. A ball-breaker. There was one with me when I got there, she’d been there long before, she was – wow, everyone talked about what grit she had, because she could humiliate Arabs without batting an eyelash. That was the thing to do.
The entry ‘ticket’?
Yes, kind of. When I got to the company they were on operations maneuvers, and I got the highest marks, guys included. I was in the top ten. They were all impressed and at first I had a really good reputation, until I was out in the field and they realized I wasn’t that tough. On the ground I wouldn’t apply my capabilities. Like, she’s fit and she can punch and she’s a ‘karate-kid’ and all that doesn’t really show when she’s out there. Not because I didn’t give a shit. No, I was too wimpy. First of all, I didn’t like to cut guard duty. I can’t say I didn’t fall asleep on any shift. We all do. But I wasn’t too keen on cutting the job and going out to do this and that. Sure, let’s take a ride to this or that village because you know, routine drives you crazy, but I wasn’t too keen on going wild. So I had a problem. But right at first people really appreciated me.
..Was it obvious or implied that this was the ‘entry ticket’ for girls, to belong?
I think guys need to prove themselves less in this respect, but it was not clearly stated. We did talk about how the tough female-combatant has no problem beating up Arabs. It’s obvious, you don’t even need to spell it out. This one means business, you should see her humiliating them – there was no problem to say something like this out loud. Take a look at that one, a real ‘ball-breaker,’ see her humiliating them, slapping them, what a slap she gave that guy! You hear this kind of talk all the time.

From Women Soldiers’ Testimonies, Breaking the Silence

For clarity sake, it should never be forgotten that the biggest payout of the ethnic cleansing and oppression of Palestinians accrues to White secular Ashkenazi men of European origins whose families founded Israel. Part of the privilege enjoyed by this group is that they can delegate the less pleasant aspects of 'Israeliness' to less privileged groups, including Mizrahi, women, Druze, etc., to do their dirty work for them, while they themselves remain invisible or even lead the opposition to the occupation. While that is not an excuse for the shocking abuse that takes place at the checkpoints, never lose sight of it!

An ideology of hate, racism and ethnic cleansing. Yes but which one?

An Arab member of Israel's parliament has made a speech on Holocaust Memorial Day condemning the holocaust and holocaust denial. Here's a piece of the speech from Ha'aretz:

"There is no more natural an occurrence than for the Knesset and all its factions to unite and mark International Holocaust Remembrance Day," Tibi said. "The forces of evil sent tens of millions of people - Jews, Soviets, Poles, Gypsies, and political rivals - to an awful death. This wasn't a simple death, but an industry of death, which was borne of an ideology of hate, racism, and ethnic cleansing."

And on holocaust denial:

"There is nothing more foolish or amoral than Holocaust denial," Tibi said. "For what purpose? What end is served exactly by those who do so? We are here in the era of realizing rights for self-determination and freedom, not dismantling states or peoples."

"People must stand courageously against instances of denial of the other, oppression of the other, denial of the Holocaust," Tibi said. "I, Ahmed Tibi, a tall, proud Arab, is happy to be on the same side as prominent Arab intellectuals who came out forcefully against Holocaust denial in the Middle East and other places around the world."

Curiously it was a Shas member of the Knesset who was removed for twigging that the condemnation of the holocaust could just as easily have been a condemnation of Israel:

Shas MK Nissim Ze'ev was evicted from the plenum after interrupting Tibi's remarks, accusing the MK of comparing Holocaust victims to those injured in Gaza.

I think these guys might be Shas supporters.

Howard Zinn, 1922-2010

Obituaries

Does the name 'Abdelaziz' rattle you?

It did rattle a lot of Obama supporters who came to listen to and to applaud Obama's corporatist policies in a town hall in Tampa. Who would have believed that this name would be so unpopular in Florida? Listen for yourself. Laila Abdelaziz, a Palestinian student at Tampa University, is strongly booed by the audience after merely stating her name and affiliation: audio track. Obama then has to calm the audience down. Mind you, this blatant racism comes from the most "progressive" sector of the U.S. electorate, Obama's politically involved base, people who self-selected by attending this town hall meeting.

Things would have been so much better if she just said her name was Cohen.

Abdelaziz, who had actually volunteered for Obama's campaign, went on and asked a pointed question:

"My question is, um- Last night you spoke in your State of the Union address you spoke of America's support for human rights...Then, why have we not condemned Israel and Egypt's human rights violations against the occupied Palestinian people? And yet we continue supporting them financially with billions of dollars from our tax dollars?" (WMMF)

Good question. You can listen to Obama's reply on the track above, (or the video below, which unfortunately does not include the initial boos). It is not a pearl of wisdom, and as Abdulaziz later told the radio station, he effectively did not answer her.

But I would like to highlight the beginning of Obama flat footed, inarticulate, mendacious (a vibrant democracy? Not even a sick democracy like the U.S. is) and unintelligent answer:

"The Middle East is obviously an issue that has plagued the region for centuries...

Wow! We got used to Obama channeling Bush's policies, but here he is also channeling Bush's torture of the English language. What the hell does this sentence mean?

If I were inclined to deep parsing, I would have said that the President meant exactly what he said, namely, that the trouble with the region is itself. In other words, the region sucks, and has sucked for "centuries". The people there are just, well, the way they are. Clearly, if that's the case, one might solve the problem by taking the Middle East out of "the region", i.e., making the region (i.e., the Middle East) less Middle Eastern (for example, by ethnically cleansing it and putting there a lot of Jews from Brooklyn instead), or at least by imposing on it the oh-so enlightened dominion of Israel and the U.S. Beneath the incoherence there is a clear affirmation of crude Orientalism. Small wonder Obama doesn't mention occupation. From this orientalist perspective, occupation, far from being the problem, is in fact the solution.

Of course, one can be charitable towards Obama and read it as merely total incoherence that comes from having nothing to say after he had abdicated all pretense to pressure Israel into making the mildest of conciliatory gestures.

Bravo Laila Abdelaziz!

(UPDATED)

A couple of readers tell me that I am wrong and the booing at the beginning was because of sports rivalry. Given that, the title and first paragraph are in doubt. The audio is there, so make your own judgment. It's one thing I'd love to be wrong about.

Iraq panel's resident zionist praises Brown for supporting racist war criminals

This is a rum do. When the Chilcott "inquiry" appointed card carrying zionist and pro-Blair sycophant, Martin Gilbert, I thought maybe the historic responsibility might cause him to drop his pro-establishment sycophancy. This guy is not just a card carrying Jewish supremacist - I'm not sure if he denies Israel's ethnic cleansing or just makes excuses for it - but he is on record likening Bush and Blair to Roosevelt and Churchill.

Although it can easily be argued that George W Bush and Tony Blair face a far lesser challenge than Roosevelt and Churchill did - that the war on terror is not a third world war - they may well, with the passage of time and the opening of the archives, join the ranks of Roosevelt and Churchill. Their societies are too divided today to deliver a calm judgment, and many of their achievements may be in the future: when Iraq has a stable democracy, with al-Qaeda neutralised, and when Israel and the Palestinian Authority are independent democracies, living side by side in constructive economic cooperation.

If they can move this latter aim, to which Bush and Blair pledged themselves on 12 November, it will be a leadership achievement of historic proportions.

He got some flak for that even from a former friend, but did I say sycophant? I meant to say, sycophant and idiot. But it gets worse and more cynical.

Apparently just yesterday or the day before, the BBC reported that Gilbert was complaining that there are people objecting to his role as an Iraq war "inquiry" panellist because he is Jewish. Not because he supports Jewish supremacy or because he is a pro-establishment sycophant, but because he is Jewish. But did I say it gets worse? Cop this in The Times newspaper in an article headed Chilcot inquiry member Sir Martin Gilbert praises Gordon Brown:

A member of the official inquiry into the Iraq war has praised Gordon Brown just weeks before the Prime Minister gives evidence about his role in the conflict.

Sir Martin Gilbert said he was aware of the hard work undertaken by Mr Brown when he was asked to accompany him on an official visit to Israel last year.

The distinguished historian made the comments in an interview in which he condemned “anti-Semitic” criticism that two of the five Chilcot committee members are Jews.

He said more senior people should speak out against the “terrifying” rise anti-Semitism and anti-Israeli opinion in Britain.Sir Martin praised Mr Brown - who agreed last week to give evidence to the inquiry before the general election - for his support for Israel and Jews.

“One of the curious things about Britain today is that we have had this terrifying sort of rise in crude anti-Israel anti-Semitic feeling on the one hand, often fuelled by one or two newspapers,” he said.

“On the other hand we have a Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, who is totally committed to Israel and feels very close to Jewish people.

“He asked me to come with him last year when he came to the Knesset (the Israeli parliament) and I watched in the period before his visit just how carefully he worked on the visit... I was impressed he was spending so much time and effort to get it right.”

"Get it right"? Yeah right, just the man to appear on a panel to establish the rights and wrongs of the war on Iraq.

Mohammad Khatib, another arrest of prominent Palestinian civil resistance leader

Mohammad Othman and Jamal Juma' our out of jail, but the struggle to defend the activists of civil resistance in Palestine from arbitrary arrest isn't over.  Mohamad Khatib from Bil'in is the latest one arrested.

At a quarter to two AM tonight, Mohammed Khatib, his wife Lamia and their four young children were woken up by Israeli soldiers storming their home, which was surrounded by a large military force. Once inside the house, the soldiers arrested Khatib, conducted a quick search and left the house. Roughly half an hour after leaving the house, five military jeeps surrounded the house again, and six soldiers forced their way into the house again, where Khatib's children sat in terror, and conducted another, very thorough search of the premises, without showing a search warrant. During the search, Khatib's phone and many documents were seized, including papers from Bil'in's legal procedures in the Israel High Court. Israeli Soldiers violently preventing an international solidarity worker from entering Khatib's home tonight.  Read more on the Popular Struggle Coordination Commitee Website.

Palestine and the left - a weekend conference at SOAS

THE LEFT IN PALESTINE / THE PALESTINIAN LEFT

Weekend Conference

27-28 February 2010, School of Oriental and African Studies, London Brunei Gallery

Organized by SOAS Palestine Society

and hosted by the London Middle East Institute

Tickets

Please note SEATS ARE LIMITED – book in advance

Price: £30 (£20 concessions, and £40 organisations)

All tickets include lunch and refreshments

To buy your tickets:

Online - www.soaspalsoc.org

By cheque

Send cheque payable to SOAS Palestine Society with attached note of email address to

SOAS Palestine Society

Thornhaugh Street

London , WC1H 0XG

Day One: Saturday, 27^th February

Registration and Refreshments (9:00-9:30)

Opening: Azmi Bishara (Former Knesset member in exile, writer and political leader)

Speech delivered via video (9:30-10:00)

Session One: The Left in British-Mandate Palestine

(10:00-11:45)

Chair: John Rose (SWP activist and independent researcher, London )

- Hide quoted text -

Musa Budeiri ( Birzeit University )

The Last Colonial Venture: Communists, Nationalists and Settlers in Palestine

Ilan Pappe ( Exeter University )

The Contradiction of the Zionist Left in the Mandate Era

Leena Dallasheh ( New York University )

Nazarene Labour Mobilization in Late Mandate Palestine

Coffee, Tea and Refreshments (11:45-12:00)

Session Two: The Left of the PLO-in-exile

(12:00-13:30)

Chair: Laleh Khalili ( School of Oriental and African Studies)

Leila Khaled (PFLP, Member of the Palestinian National Council)

The Left’s Social Mobilization in the Refugee Camps*

*presentation via video

Jamil Hilal (Independent Researcher, Ramallah)

The Shaping of the Palestinian Left

Gilbert Achcar ( School of Oriental and African Studies)

Strategic Deficiencies of the PLO Left

LUNCH (13:30-2:15)

Session Three: The Left of the PLO - West Bank and Gaza Strip(2:15-4:15)

Chair: Dina Matar ( School of Oriental and African Studies)

Muhammad Jaradat (Campaign Unit Coordinator for BADIL)

The Left’s Lessons from the First Intifada

Toufic Haddad (Researcher for BADIL and Journalist)

The Left in the Post-Oslo Era

Aitemad Muhanna ( Swansea University )

The Rise of Hamas, the Fall of Leftist Ideology?

Jamal Juma (Coordinator for Stop the Wall Campaign)

The Current Situation of the Left in the West Bank and Gaza Strip

Coffee, Tea and Refreshments (16:15-16:30)

Session Four: The Palestinian Left in the Israeli State

(16:30-18:00)

Chair: Bashir Abu-Manneh ( Barnard College )

Areen Hawari (Co-founder of Tajamu and former member of its Politburo)

Balad (Tajamu): Democracy Confronts Zionism

Aida Touma-Sliman (Head of the International Relations Department, Communist Party of Israel )

Title tbc

Ahmad Sa’di ( Ben Gurion University *)

Communism and Zionism: A Troubled Legacy

*speaking in his personal capacity

Day Two: Sunday, 28^th February

Registration and Refreshments (10:30-11:00)

Session Five: The Israeli Anti-Zionist Left

(11:00-13:15)

Chair: Nira Yuval-Davis ( University of East London )

Moshe Machover ( Kings College , London )

Israeli Socialism and Anti-Zionism: Historical Tasks and Balance Sheet

Sami Shalom Chetrit ( Queens College , CUNY)

The Zionist Left, the Anti-Zionist Left and the Fanatic Extremist Zionist Mizrahim in Israel

(Who Really Invaded, Occupied, and Enslaved Palestine ?)

Michael Warschawski ( Alternative Information Center )

From Matzpen to Anarchists Against the Wall: Continuation and Ruptures

Adar Grayevsky (Anarchists Against the Wall)

From Tel Aviv to Bil’in: The Israeli Radical Left Joins the Palestinian Popular Struggle

Lunch (13:15-14:00)

Session Six: The Palestinian Left in Literature (14:00-15:45)

Chair: Wen-Chin Ouyang ( School of Oriental and African Studies)

Suheir Daoud (Coastal Carolina University )

Literature as Resistance

Sabry Hafez ( School of Oriental and African Studies)

Constructing Identity, Re-Claiming the Land: Palestinian Poetry debunks the Zionist Myth

Bashir Abu-Manneh ( Barnard College )

Kanafani's Revolutionary Morality

Coffee, Tea and Refreshments (15:45-16:00)

Session Seven - Roundtable Discussion: Towards a New Left Programme for the Palestinian Struggle

(16:00-18:00)

Chair: Gilbert Achcar

Aida Touma-Sliman, Areen Hawari, Jamal Juma, Jamil Hilal and Muhammad Jaradat

Defamation maker resents defamation

The maker of the Defamation documentary, Yoav Shamir, has defended his work against what he claims is defamation by one of the only heroes in the film, Dr David Hirsh. The documentary, for the third time (at least), is here. Hirsh's Comment is free piece is here and Yoav Shamir's response to Hirsh is here. In case you've read none of the previous posts on this, Channel 4 on Youtube describes the Defamation documentary thus:

Yoav Shamir's personal exploration of a sensitive contemporary issue asks "What is anti-Semitism today?" Is it a real danger that requires eternal vigilance or a tactic used by Zionists to discredit their critics?

Whenever Hirsh beefs about anything it's hard to tell for sure what the beef is or indeed where the beef is but let's try this:

Shamir makes me into the hero of the film. Normally I would enjoy being the hero but in this case he constructs my heroic status by misrepresenting what I do and what I say.

I am shown making criticisms of the Israeli oppression of the Palestinians as though this was something controversial. I am shown arguing that contemporary antisemitism is in part a mystification of the real conflict, transformed by racist language and grotesque narratives. I actually said more that day than the one-sided soundbite that Shamir wanted to hear.

There were some hard rightwingers at the conference who hated what I said and who heckled me. There were some anti-racists who liked what I said and congratulated me. Like in any other movement against racism, there are significant political differences in the global struggle against antisemitism. Dina Porat, who is shown angrily arguing with me is not all that scary! I gave a presentation at her own centre at Tel Aviv University the following day and we had a serious scholarly discussion.

Three of the key figures at the Global Forum are genuine liberals and antiracists: John Mann, the British Labour MP, Gert Weisskirchen, the veteran German Social Democrat and Irwin Cotler, the Canadian human rights lawyer and politician. The overwhelming majority of the Israelis at the conference were two-staters, people who have been committed for decades to the creation of a Palestinian state alongside Israel. Shamir preferred to present the story as a group of dishonest rightwing defenders of Israel being confronted by one heroic British sociologist. Very nice, but not a true picture.

Hirsh had another beef which I emphasis here:

Since that conference Israel has lurched to the right, as has the ministry of foreign affairs, which is currently headed by Avigdor Lieberman, a man who garnered votes in the general election by rhetorically threatening the position of Arab citizens of Israel. I suspect somebody in the ministry saw Defamation, because although I was invited to the conference this year, I was not asked to speak. Here is my report of this year's event.

Before getting to what was really on his mind Hirsh accused Shamir of aiming for all manner of "easy targets" but I think given his lamenting not being invited to speak at the latest Israeli Foreign Ministry pantomime on anti-semitism he is seeking to distance himself from what he actually said at the conference. In fairness he said that the occupation is generating anger towards Israel but that is no excuse for anti-zionism:

One of the reasons why so many people around the world are angry with Israel is because of the continuing occupation of Palestinian land and because Israel, which has state power, has not done enough to end the occupation. Such an occupation cannot be sustained without racism, violence and humiliation against the people who are occupied.

Jews are involved in a real conflict in the Middle East where not all the rights and wrongs are on one side, where neither nation has always acted wisely and where in the absence of peace, things can only get worse.

When Jews are involved in conflicts there is a danger that the ways people think about those conflicts get mystified in the language of antisemitism. Anti-Zionism is not a reasonable response to the actual situation; it is a response to a narrative of the actual situation which has become mystified by antisemitism.

Shamir's response really misses the main point but given how he portrayed Hirsh in the film, he may not have known Hirsh at all. Certainly, everyone that is familiar with his work was surprised at how he came across in the film. It's funny how he claims that opposing the occupation is uncontroversial and yet he thinks it's the most natural thing in the world to prevent him from speaking at a conference on antisemitism because he is now on record as an oppponent of the occupation.

Shamir chooses to reject the charge that he selected easy targets. His article is very informative and it shows his difficulty in being loyal to family, maybe even to tribe whilst being loyal to ideals:

In David Hirsh's critique of my film Defamation, he accused me of finding "easy targets" as subjects for my film. I can only assume that "targets" is common terminology for him; quite simply, all the subjects in my film (including him) are people who willingly chose to participate.

He then goes one by one through the subjects Hirsh describes as easy until he gets to Hirsh's real beef. For example, Hirsh took issue with Shamir using his grandmother's classic zionist antisemitism so here's Shamir:

My grandmother loved the film and was proud to take part. Hirsh sees her as an "easy target", and although I personally completely disagree with what she stated on camera, her perspective represents the very early Zionists thinkers such as Nordau, who wrote Degeneration, and Herzel, "the visionary of the [Jewish] state". This small and marginal group (representing less than 3% of the entire Jewish population at the time) were young, secular, socialist Jews who wanted to create a "muscle" Jew; a Jew who would be different from all of what they resented in their parents' generation. My grandmother is a genuine representative of this school of thought. She opens the film, not only because she is a great character who expresses what many people of her generation and, in fact, many Israelis feel toward diaspora Jews, but she is a reminder of the vicious cycle that Zionism became caught in – the state that was supposed to be a cure for what antisemitism started, as both Foxman and Finkelstein are actually saying, has ended up generating antisemitism.

I threw that in because zionist antisemitism is a theme we often return to here and Shamir's grandmother is a still living example of the genre. Now the beef:

Hirsh concludes his article by regretting that he was not invited to speak at this year's conference about how to combat antisemitism convened by the Israeli foreign office, which he attributes as probably caused by his appearance the film. But I can inform him that, at this year's conference, Abe Foxman stated that the situation of antisemitism is the worst since the second world war, just as he had said last year and just as he will probably say next year, too.

At the conference I filmed, Hirsh regrets he came out as a hero – his interpretation, of course, as I never declared him one. But in that year, he was the only one speaker who said anything disputing the general consensus and for that, I thought he deserved credit.

Nope, it's not just Hirsh's interpretation. Even a Palestinian commenter to JSF thought Hirsh came out of the documentary very well, surprisingly well. But I want to return to this idea that it was Hirsh criticising the occupation that led to his not being asked to speak at the latest Israeli Foreign Ministry conference on antisemitism. As I said, Hirsh appears to believe that being a critic of the occupation is sufficient grounds to bar someone from addressing a conference on antisemitism. But Hirsh may have stumbled on the reason he wasn't invited to speak earlier than his mention of "somebody in the ministry [who] saw Defamation".

It was his mention of the new chair of the procedings, Avigdor Lieberman. I don't know when the invites for the latest panto by Israel's Foreign Ministry went out but Hirsh had a letter in the Jerusalem Post just last month in which he berated Lieberman's "rhetoric":

Of course, it does not help the fight against anti-Jewish racism that this conference is hosted by Avigdor Lieberman, a man who has done nothing to demonstrate an understanding of how best to oppose racist ways of thinking.

Sour grapes that Hirsh couldn't speak at Lieberman's rally? Or the reason Hirsh wasn't invited? Or is it the case that people that say anything against the occupation will be barred from any conference claiming to be on antisemitism when they are run simply to silence the critics of Israel, even loyal critics like Dr Hirsh.

Hirsh exposes false report in Jewish Chronicle

Hurrah for Dr Hirsh of the Engage website! A couple of days ago Engage ran a report from the Jewish Chronicle's website by a chap called Leon Symons. Here's a piece from that JC report:

Panellist Mary Davis, professor of labour history at the London Metropolitan University, admitted she felt “isolated and, yes, intimidated” at last May’s congress because she was the only Jew present and the only one prepared to speak out against the boycott.

Well Hirsh is nothing if not a stickler for accuracy so he ran this correction beneath the post:

Note by David Hirsh:

Leon Symons is wrong to say that Mary Davis was the only Jew present at the 2009 UCU Congress. The point I have made is that there were no Jews present at that Congress who were prepared to speak against the boycott. Mary Davis is against the boycott and did make a procedural move against the boycott but did not speak against it in the debate. Of course there are lots of Jews at UCU Congress who are prepared to speak for the boycott. My piece on that Congress is here: http://engageonline.wordpress.com/2009/05/28/michael-cushman-and-the-jew-free-ucu-congress/

So there was at least one Jew there but the JC was wrong to say that there was only one. So how did the JC get it so wrong? And what did David Hirsh call the post on the UCU Congress at which he now claims "there are lots of Jews"? Michael Cushman and the Jew-free UCU Congress. And what did he say in his post containing the words, "Jew-free UCU Congress".

Michael Cushman is excited by his victory. He hasn’t noticed the significance of the fact that Congress is now free of Jews.

Except one surely? Well no, look. He immediately follows up with:

Except for Jews like him, the Jews who speak “as a Jew” but who are quite unable to recognize antisemitism. Haim Bresheeth. John Rose. Michael Cushman. These are the Jews now, at UCU Congress.

Now if Leon Symons is getting his info from Engage then he needs to brush up on his speed reading or maybe from reading Engage he is just one confused dude but something I don't get is how Hirsh knows who is Jewish and who is not when so many contributors to Engage, including Hirsh, so heartily disapprove of people who speak "as a Jew". Doesn't that mean that there could be Jews speaking against a boycott who are Jews but, like Hirsh, don't like to say? Or is Engage saying that the only people entitled to speak "as a Jew" are people who support the racist war criminals of the State of Israel or at least who oppose a boycott?