Abused academic turns to the Community Security Trust

There's something slightly disturbing about this story of threats of financial and physical abuse being made against a professor at Ben Gurion University of the Negev by a leading zionist in the UK. Here's Ned Temko in yesterday's Observer:

A battle involving money and politics, academic freedom and threatening emails has hit an Israeli university after one of its academics took part in a Channel 4 documentary which has been accused of encouraging antisemitism.

At the centre of the dispute is Michael Gross, a prominent member of Britain's Jewish community, a long-time donor to Ben-Gurion University (BGU) and a member of its international board of governors.

After seeing the Dispatches programme last month, Gross emailed Professor David Newman – a British-born lecturer who has emigrated to Israel – and wrote: "I saw your disgusting contribution to the Dispatches programme. I will use whatever influence I have at BGU to have you thrown out… I hope you perish." In a second message, he said: "The sooner you are removed from BGU and the face of the earth, the better."

Ok, a zionist turns nasty, nu? Here it gets weird:

Newman revealed that he had lodged an official complaint against Gross with the Community Security Trust (CST), the body that monitors threats against British Jews. "If someone had written to any member of the Anglo-Jewish community with words like that, it would immediately have been reported to the police, and they would have wanted to know why it wasn't being dealt with," he said.

An official complaint? What's official about the CST? Another question is, will the CST record this as an antisemitic incident?

Yo MacDonald! Finally an establishment figure turns on Blair

Blair apologists will say that the opinion of a former Director of Public Prosecutions doesn't amount to an exposé but the manner and medium (The Times) of the opinion together with its writer's former and current roles must be deeply damaging for Blair. I hope so anyway. Now read on....

The degree of deceit involved in our decision to go to war on Iraq becomes steadily clearer. This was a foreign policy disgrace of epic proportions and playing footsie on Sunday morning television does nothing to repair the damage. It is now very difficult to avoid the conclusion that Tony Blair engaged in an alarming subterfuge with his partner George Bush and went on to mislead and cajole the British people into a deadly war they had made perfectly clear they didn’t want, and on a basis that it’s increasingly hard to believe even he found truly credible. Who is any longer naive enough to accept that the then Prime Minister’s mind remained innocently open after his visit to Crawford, Texas?

Hindsight is a great temptress. But we needn’t trouble her on the way to a confident conclusion that Mr Blair’s fundamental flaw was his sycophancy towards power. Perhaps this seems odd in a man who drank so much of that mind-altering brew at home. But Washington turned his head and he couldn’t resist the stage or the glamour that it gave him. In this sense he was weak and, as we can see, he remains so. Since those sorry days we have frequently heard him repeating the self-regarding mantra that “hand on heart, I only did what I thought was right”. But this is a narcissist’s defence and self-belief is no answer to misjudgment: it is certainly no answer to death. “Yo, Blair”, perhaps, was his truest measure.

How effectively the Chilcot Inquiry, to which Mr Blair will give evidence in the new year, can expose any of this remains to be seen. Ominously for the former Prime Minister, his growing distance from power appears to be loosening some well-placed Whitehall tongues. It seems that the contempt felt by some mandarins for his fancier footwork around the weapons of mass destruction is finally showing in a belated settling of scores. Discretion is fading like toothache and the feast of revenge is as tempting as it is cold.

Yet the position of the inquiry panel is uncertain. So far, apart from some interventions by Sir Roderic Lyne, the former ambassador in Moscow, its questioning has been unchallenging. If this is born of a belief that it creates an atmosphere more conducive to truth, it seems naive. The truth doesn’t always glide out so compliantly; sometimes it struggles to be heard. Sometimes it takes cover in a shelter that is entirely self-serving.

Sir John Chilcot himself, a distinguished former Permanent Secretary at the Northern Ireland Office during the Troubles and finely tuned for years to the security services, will be key. Perhaps a great and brave struggle against instinct will be necessary. In British public life, loyalty and service to power can sometimes count for more to insiders than any tricky questions of wider reputation. It’s the regard you are held in by your peers that really counts, so that steadfastness in the face of attack and threatened exposure brings its own rich hierarchy of honour and reward. Disloyalty, on the other hand, means a terrible casting out, a rocky and barren Roman exile that few have the courage to endure. So which way will our heroes jump?

We must hope in the right direction — for it is precisely this privately arranged nature of British Establishment power, stubborn beyond sympathy for years in the face of the modern world, that has brought our politics so low. If Chilcot fails to reveal the truth without fear in this Middle Eastern story of violence and destruction, the inquiry will be held in deserved and withering contempt. This would be a serious blow to the integrity of the State. It would not restore trust.

For so many years this would not have mattered. Questions sufficiently critical and grand were decided at an elevated level, and in air more refined than most people would ever inhale. A besotted king could be skewered in the shadows and depart, or an illustrious commission twist and turn from any finding of government fault. And if the cost of the reasoning was ermine splashed in whitewash, the price would be willingly paid.

But it’s harder today and the tax on dishonesty is rising. Now our system has to prove itself again and again, it has to persuade people that it deserves their loyalty and support. Citizens believe deeply in a democratic right to know and they no longer acknowledge their unworthiness to enjoy its nourishment. Naturally, this is a less comfortable world for people in power, but it’s a much better world for everyone else. The real tragedy of Iraq, beyond all the danger and the terrible loss, is that it rendered any affair of the heart between government and people no more than a wisp, like a lie in the wind. It broke faith.

This is the gravity of Chilcot, and its broader meaning. A few months of their deliberations will tell us how well, through the solemn work of these illustrious individuals, each one of us, and therefore our country, measures up to a compromised past.

We have seen enormous acts of courage on the part of our men and women in Iraq and Afghanistan. The most heart-rending sacrifices have been made; many of them will become poetry and song in future years. But none of this sprinkles, as he might once have hoped it would, any starlight on Tony Blair. On the contrary, it is entirely the work of warriors thrust carelessly into death’s way by a Prime Minister lost in self-aggrandisement and a governing class too closed to speak truth to power.

Ken Macdonald QC practises at Matrix Chambers and is a visiting professor of law at the London School of Economics. He was Director of Public Prosecutions, 2003-2008

Ok, the language gets a bit pretentious towards the end but I don't remember enjoying an article in a Murdoch paper so much as this one. I wonder if the article would have appeared in The Times if Murdoch hadn't have decided to ditch Labour.

Will Blair lie to the Iraq inquiry publicly or privately?

I think that's the only remaining question. The Independent on Sunday has a front page "exclusive" headed Untouchable: Blair to give Iraq War evidence in secret:

Key parts of Tony Blair's evidence to the Chilcot inquiry into the Iraq War will be held in secret, sources close to the hearings revealed last night.

His conversations with President George Bush when he was prime minister, and crucial details of the decision-making process that led Britain into war, will fall under the scope of national security and the protection of Britain's relations with the US.

But there are also suggestions by well-placed sources that anything "interesting" will also be shrouded in secrecy, leaving his public appearance containing little more than is already known.

The revelation will dash hopes that Mr Blair will finally detail in public why he committed British troops to the disastrous military invasion on the basis of flimsy intelligence.

The Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg last night condemned the move, saying if a significant proportion of Mr Blair's evidence were held in private then the public would "rightly conclude that the inquiry is simply too weak to give us the truth".

It followed Mr Blair's extraordinary admission to the TV presenter Fern Britton this weekend that he would have gone to war even if he had known Saddam Hussein had no weapons of mass destruction.

He would have deployed "different arguments" to remove Saddam, Mr Blair said – undermining his long-held case that Saddam needed to be toppled because of the threat of WMD.

It will be seen as supremely ironic that Mr Blair made the confession in the cosy surroundings of a documentary about his religious beliefs, in Fern Britton Meets... to be broadcast on BBC1 today, yet the public will be denied the chance to see any difficult questioning of how he has changed his justification for war over the past seven years.

All of the evidence held behind closed doors is expected to be redacted from the Chilcot panel's final report on the war.

There are already concerns that Sir John Chilcot and his four fellow panellists have given the 27 witnesses who have so far appeared – mainly senior Foreign Office mandarins – an easy ride over their role in the war.

The former MI6 chief Sir John Scarlett, in evidence last week, distanced himself from the "overtly political" foreword to the September 2002 Downing Street dossier. Yet the panel failed to ask why it was that Mr Blair and Alastair Campbell were able to amend the document he was in charge of. Sir John will also give evidence in private.

It follows up with an extraordinary editorial, the writer of which can longer contain his or her annoyance at Blair getting away with yet more dishonesty and high-handedness:

What are we to make of Tony Blair's admission that he would have joined the invasion of Iraq even without evidence that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction, and would, as he put it, have deployed another argument to justify the war to Parliament and the public?

He has, of course, inched before towards a confession that the war was really all about regime change, stupid. Never mind that this would have made it even less defensible on legal grounds. It was all long ago, and, as he says on BBC1 today, the world's a better place without that evil man with the bushy moustache and his two nasty boys.

Even by the standards of the former prime minister's chutzpah, this I'd-have-deployed-a-different-argument approach is extraordinary. What is worse than requiring us to view very differently the presentation of the "extensive, detailed and authoritative" WMD evidence – surely the most cynical con trick of modern times – is Mr Blair's sly reference to Islam, in which he moves on to another justification, fixing the decision to go to war in the context of a wider battle over religion: "I happen to think that there is a major struggle going on all over the world, really, which is about Islam and what is happening within Islam."

This is as fine an example of Mr Blair's intellectual dishonesty as it is possible to find. As a statement, it is, of course, uncontroversial. Applying it to Iraq, though, is scandalous. There is an arguable case, and one which Blair now seems publicly to endorse, that Saddam simply had to go. In which case, why did he tell the Commons in February 2003 that it was not too late for him? "I detest his regime. But even now he can save it by complying with the UN's demand." Sir John Chilcot might care to ask Mr Blair if that, like so many things he says, merely felt true at the time he said it.

And why did he speak, in the parliamentary debate on the eve of invasion three weeks later, of rogue regimes and terror groups? It was to invite the gullible to make the inference he wanted – that Saddam's regime was somehow implicated in 9/11.

Mr Blair's comments to Fern Britton in today's programme are designed to convey that same false idea. You might – might – argue that military action in both Afghanistan and Iraq is part of the same war, to stop WMD at some distant time falling into the hands of terrorists. But that overlooks Saddam's bitter hostility to Osama bin Laden, of which Blair must have been aware, and the creation of al-Qa'ida in Iraq since the invasion.

Oh yes, the headline of the editorial? A despicable means to a dead end.

But the Independent is the only paper I can find that is reporting on this "behind closed doors" business. Look at today's Yahoo news. It's headed Blair will give Iraq war evidence in public: inquiry.

The Iraq war inquiry said Sunday that former prime minister Tony Blair would be questioned "very much in public" amid fears that crucial evidence would only be heard in private.

Blair, who is to appear before the long-awaited official inquiry early next year, said in a BBC television interview to be screened Sunday that he would have backed the invasion of Iraq even if he had known that president Saddam Hussein had no weapons of mass destruction (WMDs).

He said London would have used other ways to justify its support for the March 2003 US-led invasion to oust the Iraqi dictator.

The interview triggered concerns that when he testifies it would be heard behind closed doors.

Most evidence to the inquiry will be given in public, although closed hearings can take place for issues concerning national security or secret intelligence. Mindful of the risk, proceedings are broadcast with a one-minute delay.

The Independent on Sunday newspaper suggested that Blair's meetings with US president George W. Bush and details of the decision-making process that led to war would be dealt with in secret on grounds of national security and the need to protect London's relations with Washington.

However, a spokesman for the inquiry said: "Mr Blair will be appearing very much in public and will be questioned in detail on a wide range of issues surrounding Britain's involvement in Iraq.

"We have said right from the start that he will be a key figure in the inquiry. Mr Blair has said that he is ready and willing to give evidence in public."

Suppose he had have said that he wasn't ready or willing?

So,, we're now left wondering, will he be lying publicly or privately?

Dehumanising Jews at Harry's Place

They are so stupid it's breathtaking sometimes. Harry's Place has had a few articles by the anti-zionists' favourite zionist, Jonathan Hoffman, but this latest is priceless. It is assumed that it was Jewish settlers that torched a mosque in the West Bank village of Yasuf. Under the headline "Sub Humans Commit An Appalling Crime", Jonathan Hoffman tries on his new moderate mask. Reading the whole post which is mercifully short we see by the end of it just what leads Hoffman to so despise the perpetrators:

The culprits must be found, tried and punished according to the law. Whoever they are, their agenda is to wreck the coalition led by Prime Minister Netanyahu. If this appalling crime goes unpunished then they may well succeed.

So that's what's less than human: trying to to wreck a coalition of semi and overt fascists.

Funnier still is the fact that Lucy Lips (aka David T) has had to rush to Hoffman's defence by pointing out that HP likes to dehumanise Arabs for torching abandoned shuls - and a whole lot more besides but he doesn't go there.

The bit I don't get is how it seems to be lost on the HP faithful that using white phosphorous on children in schools is considerably worse than torching and graffitiing an empty mosque or shul. But then the assault on Gaza didn't seek to "wreck the coalition led by Prime Minister Netanyahu". Au contraire, it seems to have got it into power.

Look who picketed Carols for Gaza event

No surprise that the Zionist Federation mounted one of its ghoulish pickets in an attempt to intimidate supporters of the Palestinian cause but what was the Council of Christians and Jews doing on the picket?




Here's West End Extra:

THE rector of a West End church was warned he would “go to hell” in a series of hate emails sent in the build-up to a controversial carol singing concert.
The Reverend Simon Grigg said he had endured a “nasty week” but was pleased so many people had “braved the lobby” of Israeli demonstrators outside St Paul’s the Actors’ Church.
Jews for Boycotting Israeli Goods (J-BIG) – an organisation of Jews opposing Israeli policy towards Palestine – staged its annual parody of a traditional Christmas carol service in the church on Tuesday night.

They sang carols with names such as “Away and in Danger” and the “Olive and the Army” reworded with provocative lines drawing attention to the conflict in Gaza.

More than 200 people – including Cherie Booth’s sister, journalist Lauren, political activist Bruce Kent, writer Ghada Karmi and Baroness Jenny Tonge – had entered the church to a hail of abuse and chanting from members of the Zionist Federation and Council for Christians and Jews.

Ok, let's give the last word to the Council of Christians and Jews. This is from the CCJ website:

CCJ is the UK's oldest national inter faith organisation. Our primary focus is Christian Jewish relations, but we seek to relate positively to all of Britain's faith communities.

Hmm...?

Boycott Israel update

Boycotting Israeli goods should become easier in the UK following an order that goods produced in Israeli settlements in the West Bank be labelled as such. Here's the Guardian:

Britain has acted to increase pressure on Israel over its West Bank settlements by advising UK supermarkets on how to distinguish between foods from the settlements and Palestinian-manufactured goods.

The government's move falls short of a legal requirement but is bound to increase the prospects of a consumer boycott of products from those territories. Israeli officials and settler leaders were tonight highly critical of the decision.

Until now, food has been simply labelled "Produce of the West Bank", but the new, voluntary guidance issued by the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), says labels could give more precise information, like "Israeli settlement produce" or "Palestinian produce".

There see, you can boycott Israel and help the Palestinians.

The distinction doesn't have the force of law just yet but see this:

Separately, Defra said that traders would be committing an offence if they did declare produce from the occupied territories as "Produce of Israel".

And here's some comment:

The TUC general secretary, Brendan Barber, welcomed the public clarification that marking produce from illegal settlements on occupied territory as "produce of Israel" was illegal, but said the government should have gone further.

Barbara Stocking, Oxfam's chief executive, said: "Profiting from the goods produced in the illegal settlements is contrary to international law and they should be banned from sale in the European Union, as they are in Palestine. Trade in such goods undermines the viability of a sovereign Palestinian state and holds back the peace process.

"We support the right of consumers to know the origin of the products they purchase. Trade with Israeli settlements – which are illegal under international law – contributes to their economic viability and serves to legitimise them. It is also clear from our development work in West Bank communities that settlements have led to the denial of rights and create poverty for many Palestinians.".....

The Palestine Solidarity Campaign said it welcomed the new guidance but urged Defra to go further: "The government must seek prosecutions of companies which smuggle settlement goods in under false labels.

"We have received many calls from people who were distressed when they bought goods labelled 'Produce of the West Bank' because they thought they were aiding the Palestinian economy, then realised they were economically aiding Israel's illegal occupation.

"Particularly following Israel's massacre in Gaza, consumers have been shocked at Israel's war crimes and want to take action. They do not want to feel complicit in Israel's occupation by buying stolen goods."............

Toby Quantrill, head of public policy for the Fairtrade Foundation, said farmers in Palestine faced barriers to trade which jeopardised opportunities to trade internationally on equal terms with people making similar products.

And for the zios?

Dani Dayan, the Argentinian-born leader of the Yesha Council, which represents Israeli settlers, said the decision was the "latest hostile step" from Britain. "Products from our communities in Judea and Samaria should be treated as any other Israeli product," he said, using an Israeli term for the West Bank.

Israeli officials said they feared this was a slide towards a broader boycott of Israeli goods. Yigal Palmor, Israel's foreign ministry spokesman, said his country's produce was being unfairly singled out.

"It looks like it is catering to the demands of those whose ultimate goal is the boycott of Israeli products," he said. "The message here will very likely be used by pro-boycott campaigners. It is a matter of concern."

And then a little sop from the Guardian to the Obama fan club:

Israel came under intense US pressure early this year to halt construction in settlements, but has only adopted a temporary, partial freeze. Palestinian leaders say they will not restart peace negotiations until there is a full settlement freeze in line with the US road map of 2003.

Intense pressure? What intense pressure?

I've just re-read the whole article and there's no comment from the Board of Deputies of British Jews but then this is a political issue and, as we've seen, the "board was never intended to be a political organization".

Board of Deputies wobbles over settlement freeze

Cop this. The treasurer of the Board of Deputies of British Jews has told BBC Radio Manchester that he thinks a settlement freeze should apply to east Jerusalem as well as the West Bank. Apologies to Mancunians but regional BBC is kind of obscure for most listeners but the apoplexy that has broken out among the zionist faithful has reached the pages of the Jerusalem Post:

A member of the Board of Deputies of British Jews has been accused of abusing his position after he appeared on BBC radio calling for the settlement freeze to extend to Jerusalem.

Board of Deputies treasurer Laurence Brass told BBC Manchester Radio on November 30 that the treasurer is not just the person who looks after the purse but is able to influence and steer the direction of the board.

"I want to steer the board in a particular direction, although you might think the treasurer is the man that just looks after the purse, he does have the opportunity to influence the politicaldirection the board is taking and that is something I feel quite strongly about," Brass said.

Brass, who is also an adviser to the Liberal Democrat Party - a party less sympathetic to Israel and which earlier this year called for an arms embargo on the Jewish state - was asked in the BBC interview about the recent settlement freeze announced by Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu.

"That was good news," Brass said. "I would like to have seen it extended to Jerusalem."

Brass said he wanted to make sure the board is not seen as a wing of the Israeli Embassy, accusing previous incumbents of the board of being so.

"I'd be quite keen to underline with my

colleagues that we should not be seen as an extension of the Israeli Embassy, which I think previously regimes have been, and I think we would be more appreciated by our community if we are shown to be quite objective in what we stand for in that sense," he said.

In a letter to the Board of Deputies President Vivian Wineman, the chairman of the Likud-Herut UK, Zalmi Unsdorfer, accused Brass of abusing his position.

"Laurence Brass continues to abuse his position and the trust of the Jewish community which the Board claims to represent," he said.

This is an outrage, and totally incompatible with the Board's role and constitution, he said.

"The board was never intended to be a political organization and its officers should not be pontificating in this way when representing the board and presuming to 'deputize' for Jews in this country," he wrote.

Unsdorfer said that Brass should be dismissed if he cannot be prevented from making statements outside his remit as treasurer.

"Your rules expressly state that no board member is authorized to make statements to the media without your approval. Having been so effusive with his opinions in the few short months since his election, Mr.Brass should have rung alarm bells with you and your colleagues before this.

"He must be instructed to desist from making statements outside his remit as treasurer. If he will not undertake to do this, he must be dismissed. Your role and duty is to ensure that does not happen - either in our community's name or the Board's," he said.

Wineman himself was the subject of a row among board members this summer after he wrote an opinion piece in The Jerusalem Post that seemed to downplay the threat of anti-Semitism and anti-Israel rhetoric and activities in the UK.

Responding to his critics, Brass said, "It's clear to me that there are some deputies who are seeking to encourage the idea of a 'siege mentality' as part of their own right-wing agenda to persuade the Board to be less sympathetic to constructive criticism of some aspects of Israeli policy. This attempt to steer the Board towards a more hawkish approach has to be resisted."

Samuel Hayek, chairman of the Jewish National Fund UK, said that "Laurence Brass is entitled to his views, which clearly do not represent the views of the Jewish community, which stands firm behind Israel. He is not entitled, however, to espouse his views when representing the Board of Deputies

"Mr. Brass should not making public statements that are unrepresentative and are not within the policies of the Board of Deputies."

Responding to the accusations, the board issued a statement that said: "The Board of Deputies of British Jews stands full square behind the State ofIsrael and in particular in its quest for security. The Board does not formulate positions on particular aspects of Israeli government policy, including, in this case, on the issue of a settlement freeze. These are matters for the democratically elected government ofIsrael, and for the citizens of Israel who elected it.

"As an organization representing the breadth of the British Jewish community, each of our 260 Deputies, themselves elected by their constituencies, will have their own particular views onIsrael , and on all manner of other issues. However, unless and until such individual views are discussed and endorsed by the entire Board, they cannot be taken as constituting the policy of the Board."

Jon Benjamin, chief executive of the board added: "Board policy is set democratically within the board. That process allows all deputies to set out their views and for them to be tested and scrutinized by their fellow deputies.

"There are deputies with very different, even opposing views to each other, and policy, where it is appropriate to formulate it at all, results for discussion and consensus. No single view prevails unless it is persuasive and garners sufficient support," he said.

Andrew Balcombe, chairman of the UK Zionist Federation, said: "The ZF made representations on this matter to the board and is pleased to see the board's statement. The ZF hopes that in future officers of the board will keep their personal opinions private, if they conflict with their constitutional obligation to "advanceIsrael's security, welfare and standing"

Responding to the board's statement Unsdorfer said: "If the freeze needs to be extended anywhere, it is to Mr. Brass's abuse of his position on the board. By the board's meek statement, it seems clear that Mr. Wineman is not in control of his board and that its long-standing principle of supporting the government ofIsrael, in good times and bad, is not safe in his hands."

I'm just thinking back on some of the criticisms of the assault on Gaza from Jewish establishment figures and it seems that something close to panic is setting in. Interesting that the Jewish National Fund got involved in this little spat. It's due to meet in north London. More on that in a bit.

The case of Berlanty Azzam

For Immediate Release: Wednesday, December 9, 2009

Israel's High Court Decides:

Berlanty Azzam Not Allowed to Finish Her BA at Bethlehem University

· Despite the fact that the State did not produce the requested documents, Israel’s High Court of Justice accepted the State’s refusal to allow Berlanty to complete her degree.

· Israel admits that it has no security concerns about Berlanty and that she was removed only because the address on her identity card is in Gaza.

· Since 2000, Israel has enforced a ban preventing Palestinian students from Gaza from studying at Palestinian universities in the West Bank.

· Some 25,000 people in the West Bank are at risk of being removed from their homes and separated from their families, jobs and studies.

Wednesday, December 9, 2009 – Israel’s High Court of Justice today decided not to allow Berlanty Azzam, a 22-year-old student who was forcibly removed to the Gaza Strip six weeks ago, to return to Bethlehem University to complete the final two months of her BA in Business Administration.

In doing so, the High Court upheld the State’s and the army’s position, despite the fact that they repeatedly failed to provide any real evidence for their claims regarding Berlanty’s status in the West Bank. The State insisted that Berlanty be denied permission to complete her studies, even though she was supposed to finish her degree at the end of the month and despite the fact that there are no security allegations against her.

The State’s only claim against Berlanty, an allegation that was not supported by any evidence, is that she was present in the West Bank "illegally”. However, Berlanty herself clarified in her military hearing that she traveled from the Gaza Strip to the West Bank in full compliance with the law – using an entry permit to Israel issued to her by the army after she passed a rigorous security investigation. The State admits that at the time that Berlanty applied for a permit to travel to the West Bank via Israel in 2005, there was only one kind of permit available – an entry permit to Israel. Nevertheless, in its response before the High Court, the State claimed that this permit was insufficient and that Berlanty should have obtained some other permit – even though the State admits that none other existed in 2005. The Court accepted the State's claim that Berlanty entered the West Bank illegally, even though at the time of her arrest, State representatives took from Berlanty the permit upon which the verdict was based and never produced it to the Court.

Moreover, after she entered the West Bank, Berlanty did everything she could to change her address as listed on her identity card to her new place of residence, Bethlehem. Over the past four years, she and her parents submitted numerous applications to change her address but all were summarily rejected – they were told that Israel, which controls the Palestinian population registry, refuses to register changes in address from the Gaza Strip to the West Bank.

Following the decision, Berlanty Azzam said: "I am very disappointed, and I don't understand why Israel is preventing me from continuing my studies. They don't claim that my return to Bethlehem University poses a security risk, and studying at a Palestinian university is my right and the right of every Palestinian student."

According to Gisha Attorney Yadin Elam: It is unfortunate that the Court, which in its interim decision asked State officials to permit Berlanty to return to Bethlehem to complete her degree, refrained from ordering them to do so when they refused. I cannot imagine why the State of Israel is so insistent on preventing Palestinian young people, against whom it makes no security claims whatsoever, from accessing higher education."

Since 2000, Israel has enforced a sweeping ban preventing young Palestinians from Gaza from studying at Palestinian universities in the West Bank. A 2007 High Court decision determined that students from Gaza wishing to study in the West Bank should be allowed to do so “in cases that would have positive humanitarian implications”. However, to the best of Gisha’s knowledge, since this judgment was handed down in 2007, Israel has not issued a single entry permit for the purpose of traveling to study in the West Bank to a student from Gaza. Just last summer, Israel refused to allow 12 students from Gaza to study at Bethlehem University. In the late 1990s, about 1,000 students from Gaza studied in the West Bank, most of them in disciplines that are not offered in the Gaza Strip.

Like Berlanty, an estimated 25,000 people currently living in the West Bank have been declared "illegal" by Israel solely because the address listed on their identity cards is in the Gaza Strip. These people, some of whom have lived in the West Bank for decades, are extremely limited in their daily movements due to the fear that they will be detained and deported. This is due to the fact that Israel does not recognize their right to live in the West Bank and, since 2000, has refused to allow addresses to be changed from Gaza to the West Bank. As a result, they have very limited opportunities for employment, business and studies. These policies are not only a breach of Israel’s obligations under international accords to treat the West Bank and the Gaza Strip as a “single territorial entity” but they also inhibit the healthy development of Palestinian society.

The High Court’s decision was made following two hearings during which the Court ordered the State to search again for Berlanty’s original application and permit, to conduct a military hearing for her, and to grant her rights that were originally denied to her – the opportunity to state her claims and appeal her deportation, and exercise her right to legal representation.

Berlanty was detained on October 28, 2009, on her way back from Ramallah to Bethlehem, where she has studied and lived for the past four years. She was handcuffed, blindfolded and removed to Gaza on that very same night – despite an explicit promise to her attorney that she would be able to meet with him. The High Court previously determined that this was a violation of her right to a hearing.

To read a position paper addressing Israeli policies regarding Gaza Strip residents residing in the West Bank, click here. To read the court decision (in Hebrew), click here.

For further details and to arrange interviews: Keren Tamir, Gisha Spokesperson: +972-3-6244120, +972-52-8919190, keren@gisha.org or Sari Bashi, Gisha Director: +972-54-8172103.

Golda Meir's contribution to zionist eugenics

Here's a Ha'aretz article setting out Golda Meir's rejection of Polish Jews with disabilities at a time when the fledgling state of Israel was still seeking out "good human material":

In 1958, then-foreign minister Golda Meir raised the possibility of preventing handicapped and sick Polish Jews from immigrating to Israel, a recently discovered Foreign Ministry document has revealed.

"A proposal was raised in the coordination committee to inform the Polish government that we want to institute selection in aliyah, because we cannot continue accepting sick and handicapped people. Please give your opinion as to whether this can be explained to the Poles without hurting immigration," read the document, written by Meir to Israel's ambassador to Poland, Katriel Katz.

The letter, marked "top secret" and written in April 1958, shortly after Meir became foreign minister, was uncovered by Prof. Szymon Rudnicki, a Polish historian at the University of Warsaw....

The document had not been known to exist before this time, and scholars of the mass immigration from Poland to Israel that took place from 1956 to 1958 were unaware of Israel's intent to impose a selection process on Jews leaving Poland - survivors of the Holocaust and its death camps.

Now google, Israel "good human material".

Hebron Fund update

The Guardian's Comment is free has an article on the Hebron Fund. Comments on articles on Palestine are only open for 24 hours so you'd better be quick:

The US cash behind extremist settlers

The Hebron Fund is raising vast sums for Israeli settlements that violate the Geneva convention, with little scrutiny

• Andrew Kadi and Aaron Levitt
• guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 8 December 2009 12.30 GMT
• Article history

Last month, a Brooklyn-based non-profit organisation called the Hebron Fund, which supports Jewish settlers in the Israeli-occupied city of Hebron, held a fundraiser at the New York Mets' stadium, Citi Field.

The fundraiser went forward despite calls for its cancellation from grassroots human rights organisations from the US, Palestine and Israel. The fact that the Hebron Fund likely raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for extremist Israeli settlers at a major US venue with little public scrutiny is a troubling sign for those who hope that the US can play a constructive role in achieving a just peace in the Middle East.

Perhaps more worryingly, according to Washington Post columnist David Ignatius: "A search of IRS records identified 28 US charitable groups that made a total of $33.4m in tax-exempt contributions to settlements and related organisations between 2004 and 2007." Some of the larger organisations, including Friends of the Ateret Cohanim and Friends of Ir David, both leading the Jewish settler takeover of Palestinian East Jerusalem, are based in New York City.

Israeli settlements violate the Geneva convention's prohibition against an occupying power transferring its population into occupied territory, and Israeli settlement expansion directly contradicts the US call for a settlement freeze.

Hebron's Jewish settlers, who are supported by the Hebron Fund, are openly fundraising in New York City. Under the protection of the Israeli military, they are expanding settlements in Hebron's Old City and driving out the Palestinian residents.

The Hebron Fund's extremist positions are clear. Hebron Fund executive director Yossi Baumol told The American Prospect that "[d]emocracy is poison to Arabs", "Israel must not give Arabs a say in how the country is run" and "[y]ou'll never get the truth out of an Arab". Hebron's chief rabbi, Dov Lior, a featured participant in some Hebron Fund events, recently praised a new book that says it is permitted for a Jew to kill civilians who provide moral support to an enemy of the Jews, and to even kill young children, if it is foreseeable that they will grow up to become enemies.

Settlers and the Israeli army routinely attack and terrorise Palestinians in Hebron, according to human rights groups such as B'Tselem in Israel. In 1994, Hebron settler Baruch Goldstein massacred 29 unarmed Palestinians who were praying in a Hebron mosque. One of the honorees at the 2009 Hebron Fund dinner, Noam Arnon, called Goldstein "an extraordinary person'' in 1995. In 1990 Arnon called three Jewish terrorists who were convicted of killing three Palestinians and maiming two Palestinian mayors "heroes".

Though the Hebron Fund tells the IRS that its purpose is to "promote social and educational wellbeing", in 2008 Baumol assured New York radio listeners: "There are real facts on the ground that are created by people helping the Hebron Fund and coming to our dinners."

A 2007 appeal explained: "Dozens of new families can now come live in Hebron ... waiting for you to be their partners in the redemption of Hebron."

Baumol dedicated the 2009 fundraiser to protesting at "racist limitations, led by President Barack Obama on Jewish growth".

Settlers frequently claim that preventing Jews from living anywhere they want in the Israeli-occupied West Bank is "racist", regardless of the settlers' severe infringement on the rights of longstanding Palestinian residents. Settlers justify their takeover of Hebron by invoking the massacre of 67 Jewish residents of Hebron by Palestinians in 1929. But rather than equality, Hebron's settlers aim for superior rights enforced from the barrel of a gun.

Non-profit organisations like the Hebron Fund play a substantial role in fuelling the Middle East conflict, but largely fly under the radar in the US. They brazenly hold public fundraisers, and the media generally ignore them. Major US advocacy organisations that claim to oppose Israeli settlements typically fail to criticise them. In one rare mainstream media report, David Ignatius highlighted the US government's self-defeating policy, writing that "critics of Israeli settlements question why American taxpayers are supporting indirectly, through the exempt contributions, a process that the government condemns".

Until the public, advocacy groups, media and the US government scrutinise and rein in settlement non-profits like the Hebron Fund, policy statements about peace in the Middle East will do nothing to stop the daily violence and dispossession suffered by Palestinians.

• Andrew Kadi is an IT professional and a member of the Middle East rights organisation, Adalah-NY: The Coalition for Justice in the Middle East. Aaron Levitt has volunteered as a human rights monitor in Hebron and is a member of Jews Against the Occupation-NYC

Related JSF posts:

The settlers meet the Mets

NY1: Dozens Protest Upcoming Hebron Fundraiser At Citifield

IDFistan: the mini-me of the Military-Industrial-Complex

The penny drops in Haaretz. The IDF junta runs the country for all intent and purpose.

The defense establishment is, for all intents and purposes, a distinct sector. From the defense minister to the army, its senior officers who serve in the standing army to those who leave the service, to the Shin Bet security service and the Mossad; all of these entities comprise a group which operates with full autonomy.

The defense establishment has a hierarchy, institutions, services, media outlets and its own legal system. It has nearly unlimited resources in the form of real estate (close to half of the land in the state is in the hands of the army and is managed exclusively by the army), personnel (Israeli citizens within a wide range of ages stand at its disposal without pay and are used as the army sees fit), and the largest budget in the state, a budget of which no one outside of the defense establishment really knows the details.

This is a community of the privileged, a vast majority of whom are men enjoying bloated salaries, pensions and generous employment benefits in addition to unblemished reputations as individuals who "risk their lives for the security of the state."

They also enjoy immunity from criticism and others meddling in their affairs because, after all, they protect our very existence. There is no more symbolic indication of this group's superior status than the fact that the chief of staff earns a salary nearly twice that of the prime minister.

Those who truly risk their lives are in the minority, and most of them do not belong to the highest strata of the group. The clique itself - like every clique - is preoccupied with first and foremost preserving its own security: its interests, its standing, its benefits and those of the individuals comprising it.

As the benefits improve, the interest to preserve them grows further. The power wielded by the security establishment grows whenever Israel finds itself in a situation where it faces "an existential threat" and "a security danger."

It is then that it pours money, its best people, its energies and its skills into defense. This is what happens when the interests of the defense sector diverge from the interests of the state which subsidizes it and which it purports to defend.

... without threats and wars, the defense establishment loses the rationale for its existence and the individuals comprising it lose their substantial clout, which is also worth a great deal of money. (Merav Michaeli, Haaretz)

Haaretz, especially through the growing importance of its business section "The Marker", which has grown into both a supplement, a chromo magazine, and even a women magazine, is the newspaper of the businessman. In this is continues its long tradition as a voice of Israel's bourgeoisie, especially attuned to the concerns of its middle managers and its intelligentsia. The conflict between this sector and the growing shifts in power in Israel (with the rise of nationalist right, the religious sector and the settlers) has been growing progressively since the eighties. It is also an ethnic tension, with the paper a bastion of Israeli Ashkenazi whiteness. At the same time, the conflict is muted by the ubiquity of the army and the importance of the army as both a consumer of business and career path. We need these contradictions to grow further, and the best way to do it is BDS. The Haaretz reader, with his or her global aspiration and consciousness, her stake in Israel's globally networked economy and her claim of enlightenment, is the most vulnerable to the pressure of BDS.

Keep pushin, folks!

A simple message: Stop Killing Children

Click on the image to read the (original) press release. They are putting up new, toned down billboards.

What part of the that message Congress doesn't understand? (My bet is on the word "stop")

Antisemitism and Israel's ethnic cleansing, how are they related?

Ben White has an article in the Guardian's Comment is free section. It appeared on 3rd December and comments are now closed. Let's see a little snippet of the article headed, Shattering Israel's image of "democracy" :

A struggle over land, home demolitions, and an Israeli government working with Jewish agencies to "develop" the land for the benefit of one group at the expense of another. It could be a picture of the illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank, but in fact, it's inside Israel – in the Negev.

The Negev, or al-Naqab in Arabic, is an area that since the inception of the state has been targeted by Israeli governments, along with agencies like the Jewish National Fund (JNF), for so-called "development".

This investment in the country's periphery is characterised by systematic discrimination against the Negev's Bedouin population, many of whom live in "unrecognised" villages or townships. Recent developments bring these policies into sharper focus, as well as pointing to fundamental problems with Israel's image as "the Middle East's only democracy".

Down the right margin of the page on which the article appears there is a list of articles headed "Related". Top of the list? You've probably guessed what it's about and you won't be surprised at the headline: Antisemitism and the reported world by a chap called Jonathan Boyd who, as clicking on his name shows, has never been published on Cif before.

Let's have a look at a snippet of his ludicrous article:

Apparently, according to Channel 4's Dispatches programme on Monday night, there are some wealthy Jews out there bent on influencing British government policy on Israel. What a shocking finding. I wonder what they will uncover next? Lobbyists trying to influence government health policy, perhaps? Pressure groups seeking to change government policy on the war in Iraq? Business leaders trying to alter government thinking on economic policy?

Aside from the shoddy research and the barely concealed antisemitic undertones (the idea of a shady, morally repugnant "cabal" of Jews seeking to control the world is a classic antisemitic myth), it was this lack of context that was most disturbing about the programme. As David Cesarani argued in his comment on the programme, there are numerous lobbying groups working with government and the media, trying to influence policy and opinion on a wide range of issues. Some of these even try to represent the Palestinian cause.

Fascinating stuff but how is it "related" to the article by Ben White. In fairness there are three more articles listed under "Related" and none of them are related to the article by Ben White but are the imbeciles that run Comment is free so terrified of the Israel lobby (that Jonathan Boyd would prefer never to be mentioned in the "reported world") that they have to "relate" any article invoking the false charge of antisemitism to any article criticising Israel?

Antisemitism at the Jewish Chronicle

Ok, essentialising Jews is an aspect of antisemitism and the JC has been doing that for years but that's not what I have in mind here. Someone has written to the Just Peace UK list to say how they are now convinced that antisemitism is being exaggerated, especially in the Jewish Chronicle:

I am beginning to think those people are right who say the amount of antisemitism in Britain is exaggerated. I always used to suspect them of downplaying a serious issue, but lately I have been reading the Jewish Chronicle and seeing how hard pressed it is for news.

I could understand editor Stephen Pollard getting upset because some passing bloke on a bike shouted "dirty Jew" at him as he came out of shul, but whereas in my childhood years such incidents were not out of the ordinary,and might have been dealt with by shoving the bloke off his bike, Mr.Pollard thought it was news, and what's more, required searching for an explanation. He figured the cyclist must have been reading some criticisms of Israel, (by Jewish writers), in the London Review of Books. There's a deduction for you.

This week I see the JC headlined an "attack" on a Hapoel Tel Aviv supporter in Glasgow for the Celtic match. I was relieved to then read that police said a man was arrested for brandishing a weapon during a confrontation between two groups of men in a Glasgow pub, and said no one had been hurt. All the same, I am sure violence and threats are exceedingly rare in Glasgow pubs, and rival football fans normally embrace in friendship and sing each other's songs, so perhaps this was an antisemitic incident, and may, as the JC seems to suggest, have had something to do with people waving Palestinian flags at the game.

The JC quotes outraged Celtic fans, who of course have never waved flags at football matches before. Still, it is reassuring to know this was the nearest thing the JC could find to a serious incident.

Worse, perhaps, was the evidence the JC was able to report of antisemitism at a pro-Palestinian carol concert. I thought they must have heard a speech or interpreted the words of the alternative carols carefully, but no, it seems that another anonymous person in the street (did he arrive on a bike?), confronted by those charming people from the Zionist Federation outside, made some anti-Jewish remarks.

You may say that is an obvious news story, but it takes a keen ear and journalistic instinct or skills to spot things like that. I mean, how many times have you heard people coming out of a Zionist event or Israel property fair giving you their opinion on Palestinians and Arabs, and what should be done to them, or tell you that "you should have died in Auschwitz"? OK, you may have told your friends about it, but I bet you didn't rush to write it up as a news story, let alone manage to get it on the JC front-page.

I once stood on a picket across the road from an Ilford shul where an obnoxious Israeli general was speaking for Jerusalem Day. An Asian woman in shalwar and khemis crossed the road, nothing to do with our demonstration, and one of the shul security people jeered "She must be one of your lot!", as though this was the most insulting wit he could think of. I remarked about his ignorance, but it never occurred to me to write up the incident as showing what sort of people were at the shul event (though the general had spoken of Palestinians as "cockroaches").

It takes aptitude, training, and knowing the policy of your paper. If some of us had been sent to get a story about the mayor attending a gay party we'd probably have come back to the Standard office saying we could not get his comments because he was pissed and insulted us and the paper. A skilled man got the insults on tape, and the story ran and ran.

The voice of Anglo-Jewry is almost as good. Not that Stephen Pollard is taken in by false allegations of antisemitism. When a Polish right-wing politician says there's no need to apologise for a massacre of Jews because Jews did not apologise for Bolshevism, others tried to make something of this, but Stephen Pollard rejected the accusations, pointing out that Mr.Kaminski was not only leader of the Conservative group at Brussels, but a declared friend of Israel.

So short of shouting insults at Mr.Pollard as he goes past on a bike, he is certified kosher. All hail Stephen Pollard, he know's what what and what's not!

Hear! Hear!

No new antisemitism - just old-fashioned stifling of debate

There's not much in this article that needs saying but Aaron Lakoff says it so well it's worth reproducing his Link article on the "new" antisemitism here in full:

There is no ‘new’ anti-Semitism

Free speech stifled under guise of inquiry

by Aaron Lakoff

Aaron Lakoff is a communications student at Concordia University and a member of Not In Our Name Concordia, a campus-based anti-Zionist Jewish group.

The Israel/Palestine debate has been a controversial topic at Concordia in recent years. However, there is a point when discussion on a controversial issue can be used as a pretext for censorship and repression. With recent political manoeuvring within and beyond Concordia around this issue, I fear that we may be moving in that direction.

The presidents of some 25 Canadian universities were invited to Ottawa this week to testify at the Canadian Parliamentary Inquiry Into anti-Semitism, an initiative of the Canadian Parliamentary Coalition to Combat anti-Semitism. Frederick Lowy, who was Concordia’s president until 2005, testified on Nov. 24.

As a Jewish student at Concordia myself, some might find it odd that I would oppose such a forum and the participation of personalities from my university.

I would be in favour of the CPCCA if its purpose were to fight real anti-Semitism, but a closer examination shows us that this is definitely not the case. The CPCCA is merely a tool to stifle debate on Israeli apartheid at Canadian university campuses and elsewhere.

The CPCCA is by no means neutral or unbiased. The two ex-officio members of its steering committee are Liberal MP Irwin Cotler and Conservative Minister of Citizenship and Immigration Jason Kenney. Both have openly equated critiques of Israeli policy to anti-Semitism. Kenney went so far as to denounce Israeli Apartheid Week, stating the international event had no place on Canadian university campuses.

Even more troubling is that the CPCCA has made the “new anti-Semitism” a large part of its focus. This “new anti-Semitism” is an intellectually dishonest phrase used to equate principled opposition to the state of Israel’s policies as an attack against all Jewish people.

Ontario-based Faculty for Palestine sent a submission to the CPCCA criticizing the notion of a “new anti-Semitism,” stating, “this focus on the ‘new’ anti-Semitism orients the work of the CPCCA more towards targeting advocacy for Palestinian rights than to protecting the human rights of Jewish people.”

There is no “new” anti-Semitism. Anti-Semitism, much like racism or sexism, never went away, and it is everyone’s responsibility to combat it.

Last February, just before IAW, B’nai Brith (which touts itself as a Jewish human rights organization) took out a full-page ad in the National Post calling on Canadian universities to shut down the event, calling it a “hate-fest.” If anyone from B’nai Brith had bothered to attend any IAW public events in Montreal, they would have found that they were scholarly, principled, and featured many events with Jewish and Palestinian speakers.

Unfortunately, those like B’nai Brith who seek to shut down this debate have the ear of the Concordia administration. Last August, Concordia’s President Judith Woodsworth gave the opening remarks at a one-day conference entitled “Israel on Campus: Defending Our Universities,” held in the McConnell library building. For an entire day, the building was off-limits to Concordia students seeking to use the library and Woodsworth’s remarks, despite numerous requests, have never been made public.

There are no “hate-fests” happening on Canadian campuses. Acts of anti-Semitism do occur, but Lowy himself remarked at the CPCCA’s hearing that universities are not hotbeds for anti-Semitism or hate.

He curiously went on to pin vague allegations of anti-Semitism on “Islamists” who distribute “propaganda” at Concordia. Evidently, from his and other testimonies the CPCCA’s hearings are less concerned with combating anti-Semitism than they are about race-baiting and stirring Islamophobia.

I believe that Israel is an apartheid state for the simple reason that it grants preferential treatment to its Jewish citizens while denying certain rights to its Palestinian Arab population solely based on religious and ethnic identity. Some readers may not think that Israel is an apartheid state and have every right to believe so. Regardless, this is a matter of legitimate and important debate and it is fundamental that we give it space to be debated at Concordia at forums such as Israeli Apartheid Week.

I take serious offence to the persecution of my people being used as political cannon fodder for censorship and fear-mongering.

In a chilling turn of events last February, both Carleton and University of Ottawa administrations banned the IAW poster from campus. The poster depicted an Israeli army helicopter shooting at a Palestinian child.

Sadly, over 300 Palestinian children were killed by the Israeli military during the brutal assault on Gaza in January. How this poster’s message became twisted into being “offensive” or “anti-Semitic” is puzzling. It seems that the CPCCA’s formulation is that the ‘old’ anti-Semitism entailed silence in the face of ethnic cleansing, while the ‘new’ anti-Semitism means resistance in the face of ethnic cleansing.

I will not tolerate anti-Semitism at Concordia, nor an administration that censors and stifles debate around Israeli apartheid. If we head down the road that the CPCCA is leading us, even the term “anti-Semitism” will become meaningless, and we will not be able to effectively fight it in the future.

The Link is an independent newspaper produced by students of Montreal's Concordia.

"Left" Zionism showcase at Celtic Park

Here's a post from Scottish Palestine Solidarity:

Hapoel Tel Aviv - the 'left wing' of ethnic cleansing and genocide

Why the Israeli Ambassador will be supporting Hapoel Tel Aviv at Celtic Park on December 2

Hapoel Tel Aviv attracts a Labour Zionist support in opposition to Revisionism. Labour Zionism, however, has been as much a violator of Palestinian human and national rights as its Revisionist competitor. Often the competition between the two camps is in terms of degrees of harshness towards Palestinians.

The article in Not the View on ‘Israeli Football: The Politics of Play’ presents Israeli team Hapoel Tel Aviv as a progressive, anti-racist organisation in contrast to Beitar Jerusalem, which notoriously has a large, openly racist fan base that acts in the spirit of its fascist-inspired founders of the Revisionist Zionist movement.

The author, Dr. Dominic Moran, describes some of the extreme racism of Beitar fans, and refers to one disgusting example of the activities of such fans when they don Israel Army uniforms to control, brutalise and humiliate Palestinians at checkpoints. (see picture below)

The article, however, is seriously misleading in its positive depiction of the competing fans of Hapoel Tel Aviv, who, after all, joined with their Beitar rivals by serving in the Israeli Army and executing the Israeli Army’s murderous assaults on Palestinians.

Hapoel Tel Aviv attracts a Labour Zionist support in opposition to Revisionism. Labour Zionism, however, has been as much a violator of Palestinian human and national rights as its Revisionist competitor. Often the competition between the two camps is in terms of degrees of harshness towards Palestinians.

Labour Zionism has been dominant in Israel through all the massive waves of ethnic cleansing beginning in 1948. Labour Zionists planned and carried out the ethnic cleansing of Palestine. Dr. Moran points out that Hapoel “were controlled by the Histadrut labor federation” until recently. He might have explained that the Histadrut constituted the core of the Zionist colonising project that produced the Israeli state from the first wave of the ethnic cleansing of Palestine. The Histadrut founded the Haganah ethnic cleansing militia that morphed into the Israeli Army, whose murderous crimes in Gaza this year have led to the UN Human Rights Council calling for Israeli war criminals to be tried in the International court of Justice. This call follows Judge Goldstone’s meticulous research into Israeli war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Hapoel Tel Aviv, Dr. Moran notes, started out as “as a workers' team in direct conflict with the purported bourgeois support base of Maccabi Tel Aviv”. These workers, however, overwhelmingly identified themselves as part of a settler colonial enterprise – Zionism - dedicated to the ethnic cleansing of the natives. This included the expulsion of Arabs from jobs to make way for Jewish immigrants, a vile programme termed by Labour Zionists the “conquest of labour”. Hatred of bourgeois went hand in hand with cooperation with those same bourgeois to drive out Palestinians. Labour Zionists were a classic case of “radish socialists” – “Reds” on the outside but “Whites” underneath.

Readers might be puzzled by Dr. Moran’s remark that “the team's association with the political left has led to its popular association in recent years with the Ashkenazi elite,” but in a colonial-settler state like Israel the term ‘left’ (with a very few honourable exceptions) has come to mean support for a fraction of ethnic cleansers who used “socialist” rhetoric to cover their crimes, as opposed to the harsher, Nazi-style of Israeli Foreign Minister Lieberman or current and past Prime Ministers such as Sharon.

This European Jewish Ashkenazi elite, which Labour Zionism represents, still controls the commanding heights of the Israeli military and economy and European Ashkenazi racism towards Oriental and Ethiopian Jews in Israel can be extreme, reminiscent of Alabama or Mississippi in the 60’s, but this pales besides the ongoing mass killings and dispossession of Palestinians.

The “left wing” rhetoric of Hapoel Tel Aviv fans indicates nothing more than intra-Zionist feuding. Look, for example, at the website of self-styled “anti-fascists ultras” of Hapoel Tel Aviv and you will find no reference whatsoever to Israel’s brutal massacres in Gaza in January. A strange silence from supposed “anti-fascists” at a time when British Jewish Labour MP Gerald Kaufmann referred in the British Parliament to the Israeli Army as “Nazi” for its crimes in Gaza! The reason is simple, but needs to be faced: Hapoel “anti-fascists” are actually part of the polled 94% of Israelis who support the brutal three-year siege of Gaza, and the January devastation and murder of 1,400 Palestinian souls.

You might expect “anti-facists” to refuse to serve in an army that admits to having used the same Wehrmacht military manuals that guided the crushing of the heroic Warsaw Ghetto to devastate Jenin Refugee Camp in 2002. If that was too much to expect, perhaps Hapoel’s fans could have condemned Vilnai when this Jewish military man notoriously threatened a “Holocaust “ on the people of Gaza even before the massacres of January.

The visit of Hapoel Tel Aviv to Parkhead on Wednesday 2nd December is an opportunity to show solidarity with the Palestinian people and to challenge the ‘sense of impunity’ Judge Goldstone found among Israeli war criminals. Carry a flag or wear a Palestinian scarf during the game. It will be broadcast live into Israel. You will never get a better megaphone to drown out the criminal complicity of Gordon Brown, or Celtic Chairman John Reid, in Israel’s ongoing ethnic cleansing.

Mick NapierScottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign

NOTES:1. Dr. Dominic Moran is based in Tel Aviv, Israel. He works from there as a Senior Correspondent for ISN Security Watch, an organisation that comes highly recommended by the Assistant Director of the prestigious US Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). The CFR Board is a roll call of US investment bankers and political elites, including the notorious Madeleine Albright (500,000 dead Iraqi children is a price worth paying to invade Iraq.)Not the View fanzine should have told their readers this information when they ran an article in the latest issue (178) on “Israeli Football: the Politics of Play”

2. Dr. Moran attempts to apportion blame for Israel’s apartheid equally on the victims and those who benefit from this system of state-enforced racial separation. Dr. Moran writes of the “progressive deterioration in domestic race relations with the rise of hard-line Islamic sentiment in some northern Arab communities and the political rise of Yisrael Beiteinu, which advocates the transfer of several Israeli-Arab communities to a future Palestinian state.”

3. Beitar Jerusalem has by far the largest supporter base among Jewish Israelis.

עבדים של יהודים.. למי שלא הבין - חבר שלנו ליציע בתמונה אופיינית באחד המחסומים. "נשקו את הצעיף אחר כך תעברו".“Slaves for the Jews […] to those who don’t understand, our friend from the stands in a typical picture at one of the roadblocks, ‘Kiss the scarf and then you pass.

BDS roadshow

Israel, the Palestinians and apartheid: the case for boycott and sanctions

* UK wide speaker tour 4 - 9 December *

2009 has seen a groundswell of popular support for the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel until it complies with international law.

Join a renowned panel of international speakers from South Africa and Palestine to find out more about BDS and what lessons can be learned from the struggle against Apartheid in South Africa.

Speakers include: Ronnie Kasrils - former minister in Nelson Mandela's ANC government in South Africa & anti-Apartheid activist Omar Barghouti - Founding member of the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) Bongani Masuku - International Secretary COSATU - the South African trade union confederation

Contributions from:

• George Mahlangu - Campaigns Officer, COSATU
• Prof Steven Rose - Biologist, Open University, and founder member of BRICUP
• Tom Hickey - National Executive Committee, University and Colleges Union (UCU)
• Terry Brotherstone - General Council Scottish TUC and UCUS Past President
• Yasmin Khan - Senior Campaigns Officer, War on Want

Dates and locations:

London - Friday 4 December 7pm
Khalili Lecture Hall, SOAS, University of London, Malet Street
» Click here for a map to Khalili Lecture Hall

Manchester - Monday 7 December 7pm
Lecture Theatre A, University Place, University of Manchester, Oxford Road
» Click here for a map to University Place

Leeds - Tuesday 8 December 7pm
Rupert Beckett Lecture Theatre, Michael Sadler Building, University of Leeds, Woodhouse Lane
» Click here for a map to the Micael Sadler Building

Glasgow - Wednesday 9 December 7pm
STUC Building, 333 Woodlands Road
» Click here for a map to the STUC building

Organised by the British Committee for the Universities of Palestine (BRICUP), Scottish Trades Union Council and SOAS Palestine Society.

Supported by War on Want and Palestine Solidarity Campaign.