Go to Palestine, you'll be safe there

Linda Grant has found a French Jew who believes that Jews are safer in occupied Palestine than in France. According to the article Jews are "persecuted" in Europe. The number of Jews killed in Palestine in the last three and a half years is over 900. The number of Jews killed in France in the same period is nil.

New Statesman is arguing for an apartheid solution in Palestine. They call it a "two-state" solution but that really depends how you define a state. Here are some of the responses, including one by the ubiquitous Linda Grant.

War on Islam - The War Party at prayer
Guardian Unlimited | The Guardian | Who shalt not kill?

George Carey seems to ignore his own religion's silence on the death of thousands of innocent civilians as a result of the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq - the US administration certainly assumes it has a god on its side (Muslim dismay at Carey speech, March 27). It seems that the Christian faith operates the same double standards as all other religions: "Thou shall not kill - unless thou art going to get something out of it."
David Reggiori
London
Responses to George Carey trying to reposition the Church of England from the Tory party at prayer to the BNP at prayer have been surprisingly low key given his high profile and his outrageously disingenuous remarks. Brian Whitaker (below) provided a good response and the above letter summed up what many are saying.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The War on Palestine

See this comment on "life" in Camp Gaza: A Journey to Rafah by JENNIFER LOEWENSTEIN

The Observer | Focus | In a war without heroes, this boy was no martyr

Rather confused sort of a "six of one half/dozen of the other" type article. Sam Kiley gained fame among Palestine solidarity supporters for resigning from The Times because...... "in the war of words, no newspaper has been so happy to hand the keys of the armoury over to one side than The Times, which is owned by Rupert Murdoch's News International. Murdoch is a close friend of Ariel Sharon, Israel's prime minister." I'm not sure that this article would fall foul of Rupert Murdoch.

Good and timely response by Brian Whitaker , in the Guardian, to George Carey's sheer ignorance. George Carey has blamed Islam itself for political and economic underdevelopment in predominantly Muslim societies. So what does he blame for the underdevelopment of the non-Muslim and even predominantly Christian, Third World societies? Modern thought tends to blame Imperialism but modern thought seems to be giving way to a grotesque resurgence of one-dimensional Eurocentric thought these days.

Telegraph | News | Muslim culture has contributed little for centuries, says Carey

That lovely George Carey asks "what have Muslims ever done for us?" Next week he asks "what have Buddhists, Hindus and Sikhs ever done for us?". Most papers reported his comments but the Daily Telegraph gleefully ran it on the front page.

War crime against a child

Not sure if the Guardian should have published a picture on its front page of the Israeli army humiliating a Palestinian child.

Still Seumas Milne has a good, comment piece on Israel's assassination of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin. I'm not sure if Seumas Milne fully takes on board the Zionist need for ethnic cleansing but it's a welcome counter-position to all of the "he (the quadriplegic, semi-blind, semi-deaf man) had it coming" reports we've seen in so much of the media. Also there's breaking news on the academic boycott of Israel which seems to be picking up.

In the Guardian today, leading "left" Zionist Jonathan Freedland suggests that Sharon had Sheikh Yassin killed because he wants to be seen to be taking a hard line before withdrawing from Gaza. Though he doesn't say so this would compare to Freedland's hero - Shimon Peres's massacre at Qana back in 1996. It is true that Sharon is emulating "left" Zionist policy lately. The ghetto wall was an idea first mooted by right Zionist Jabotinsky but the placing of it to segregate Jewish colonisers from native Arabs within Palestine is a Zionist "left" idea. Incidentally the wall is causing malnutrition in parts of occupied Palestine. One is reminded of the unnamed Israeli commander telling his troops to study the Nazi liquidation of the Warsaw Ghetto so that they would know how to deal with the refugee camps.

Gilad Atzmon's article (below) offers the more likely explanation of the assassination of Sheikh Yassin. Sharon is gearing up for the final expulsion of the Palestinian people.

Sheikh Ahmed Yassin's assassination

Sheikh Ahmed Yassin's assassination dominates the newspapers today. The broadcasting has been mostly atrocious. Most broadcasts haven't mentioned his being quadriplegic. Zionists have been gifted with easy interviews. On LBC 97.3 only Zionists have been called upon to comment on the assassination. This seriously disabled elderly man who himself was a victim of Zionist ethnic cleansing has been likened to Bin Laden. See Gilad Atzmon's article below. It does seem that the only logic of killing Yassin was to provoke the Palestinians into responses that, together with media manipulation, may ready the world for Israel to impose a "final solution" on the Palestinians. If Gilad Atzmon is correct then the Israeli cabinet meeting that decided on the killing of Yassin may well turn out to be Israel's Wannsee Conference.

Assassinating Sheikh Yassin
Sharon Edges Closer to World War
By GILAD ATZMON

Hamas spiritual leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin was murdered at daybreak on Monday. Israel Air Force helicopters fired missiles at the car carrying the wheelchair-bound head of the Islamic group as he left a mosque near his house in Gaza City. It also appears Ariel Sharon was in direct command of the assassination operation, not entirely surprising considering his bloody history.

For those who fail to realise, today's barbaric Israeli act is an open call for a world war. It is the final wake up call for every Muslim around the world. It is violent proof that Israel isn't only against the Palestinians but rather against Islam. Israel killed a prime spiritual leader on his way out of the mosque. I have no doubt that this Israeli act won't be forgiven. I also have no doubt that many Israelis will pay with their life for Sharon's act. Moreover I am sure that sooner rather than later many innocent non-Israelis around the world will die just for being near by an Israeli embassy, Israeli consulate, a synagogue or even an American bank...This is the reality Sharon favours the most.

This is exactly what Israel wants: to turn the entire world into a victim of terror. This might help us to realise the main difference between the Israeli left and right. While both believe in the right of the Jews to live in Zion at the expense of the Palestinian people, the Israeli right wing rely on maintaining a bloody struggle, oppressing the Palestinian people (in particular) and humiliating Arabs (in general). While the Israeli left would attempt to come up with some unrealistic righteous suggestions to appease the Palestinian people and the world community (Oslo accord for instance), the right wing Israelis will suggest that the only method to guarantee Israeli security is to maintain the conflict with the Palestinian people and to let it escalate into an international battle.

On the surface it seems bizarre considering Sharon was just recently pretending to suggest a plan of Israeli disengagement from the Gaza strip. Today he gave us a real chance to peep into his mind. The 'disengagement plan' was just another of Sharon's tricks. In fact, Sharon and the Israeli right wing need the Palestinians, they need them oppressed and humiliated, they need their terror. Israeli right wing hegemony is fed by terror. And now there is a new need emerging. Israel is facing a demographic disaster. Within five years there will be a Palestinian majority in the territories controlled by Israel (between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River). This is literally the end of the Zionist dream. Eventually Israel will have to give away its Jewish identity. While the Israeli left remains confused about this reality, the Israeli right wing is fully prepared. For years Israeli warmongers have openly discussed 'transfer': the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people. Considering the current world affairs and general opposition to Israel it is hard to believe that large scale ethnic cleansing would go ahead unless some colossal catastrophe was in place. Sharon is preparing the ground for such a disaster. He needs a war, a big one, something that will allow him to go wild, to go out of control, to initiate a campaign in which Israeli soldiers will become murderous squads ready massacre against the Palestinian civilians. Sharon wants to re-launch the 1948 Nakba. Sharon fully understands that this is what the Israeli public want. He is very good at reading their innermost desires.

The killing of Sheikh Yassin pushed the violence far beyond any recognisable measure. It is pushing the Palestinian masses towards martyrdom. According to the Israeli military doctrine, Israel would never be defeated by terror. But at the same time every Israeli realises that the Zionist adventure will be categorically defeated by a demographic crisis. The assassination of Sheikh Yassin is there to push the Palestinians towards acts that will allow the Israelis to impose the most murderous measures against the Palestinian civilians. Mr Sharon, a world acclaimed war criminal and serial murderer proved again that at least when blood games are concerned, he is one step ahead of the game.

Gilad Atzmon was born in Israel and served in the Israeli military. He is the author of the new novel A Guide to the Perplexed . Atzmon is also one of the most accomplished jazz saxophonists in Europe. His new CD, Exile, was just named the year's best jazz CD by the BBC. He now lives in London and can be reached at: atz@onetel.net.uk
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Massive demo put me off my monitoring but I did catch some good letters yesterday in The Guardian. Here's one I didn't post earlier:

From Leon Rosselson

There seems to be an eruption of self-appointed experts on Osama bin Laden's emotional responses. Anthony Hentschel (Letters, March 18) claims to know that Bin Laden will be elated by today's Stop the War demonstration. Since we're all free to speculate, I'd like to suggest he was even more elated by the decision of Bush and Blair to attack Iraq.
Leon Rosselson
Wembley Park, Middx

Couple of good letters in today's Guardian in response to a really stupid one by the increasingly rabid Frederick Forsythe:

Here's Fred:
Anyone gullible enough to believe, like the Spanish electorate, that one has to provoke al-Qaida by solidarity with George Bush or involvement in Afghanistan, Israel or Iraq, should recall one fact.

The suicide pilots of 9/11 were enlisting in flying schools in the summer of 1999. Bush was not even a candidate. When it comes to fanatical attacks on citizens, it is not a question of what we have done, but what we are. There is nothing we can do about that, so we have no choice but to fight back.
Frederick Forsyth
Hertford

Here are the responses:


Re Frederick Forsyth's letter (March 18): the Spanish electorate is not gullible. If my vote is being analysed in terms of bravery or cowardice, then negotiation and dialogue is much braver than cowardly terrorist attacks or unjustified wars. I had decided to vote PSOE before the Madrid massacre. It is a vote in favour of UN resolutions, of dialogue between different sectors of humanity and of Spain's role as mediator in conflicts in the Arab world. The PP has not lost, it simply has not won the elections. This is democracy.
Mercedes Munárriz Guezala
Madrid, Spain

Three short reminders from Spain for the word-processing warriors. 1) When you are attacked by A, you don't normally trust someone who promises to retaliate by fighting B. 2) On "appeasement": Munich was act two; act one was the abandonment of Spanish democracy in the face of an Italian-German intervention. Act four was US support for the resulting murderous dictatorship. 3) "What we are" is people who vote freely. And never, not even in a tragic crisis, is that on the basis of a single issue.
Carlos Piera Fernando
Madrid, Spain

In the Jewish Chronicle today, Melanie Phillips decries the Spanish people for voting lying warmongers out of office. Do a google search for her. Her articles are lunacy itself. Check out in particular her piece "on" anti-Semitism in The Observer.

Return of the old hatred

Anti-Semitism is on the increase and its roots are not in the Right but in the Sharon-hating Left

Melanie Phillips
Sunday February 22, 2004
The Observer

Let us all agree on one thing at least. The more Jews warn that anti-Semitism has come roaring out of the closet, the more people don't like the Jews. Which is a bit of a problem if you believe, as I do, that the oldest hatred has indeed alarmingly resurfaced but is hiding under the respectable skirts of hostility to Israel.
This week, the European Union finally admitted there was a problem with rising Jew-hatred. While there was no comparison with the Holocaust, said European Commission President Romano Prodi, some criticism of Israel was 'inspired by what amounts to anti-Semitic sentiments and prejudice'. Yesterday, the Community Security Trust, a Jewish charity, reported the second largest rise in 20 years in attacks on synagogues, cemeteries and Jewish people in Britain. [It was about 400 incidents in 2003, a big increase from about 400 incidents in 2002. Over 90 of these incidents were "suspicious behaviour"] Yet there were immediate moans in the press of 'grossly exaggerated' warnings about rising anti-Semitism. In an Economist debate at London's Institute of Contemporary Arts last week, those issuing such warnings were accused of being the 'new McCarthyites', waving the shroud of the Holocaust to stifle legitimate criticism of Israel. [no, please, no! but wait, it seems like only yesterday that Israel was refusing to accept UN criticism of its atrocities in Jenin on the grounds that the UN's envoy came from Norway - home of Quisling]
So when a woman said to me one evening, 'I hate the Jews', [why doesn't Melanie Phillips name her?] I should have dismissed my shock as a 'grossly exaggerated' response. When I was listed in a newspaper as one of the Jews exercising sinister control over public debate in Britain, I should have said I brought this on myself by writing anything at all. [What paper?]
When I heard claims by a radio reporter [who? when? on what station?] that the Jews might have 'poisoned the water wells of Egypt' in 1947, I should not have wondered why one of the stock libels of medieval Jew-hatred was being broadcast as if it were true, since my concern was obviously shroud-waving.

And when in the ICA debate Tory MP Robert Jackson accused British Jews of dual loyalty, saying their Britishness was conditional on their explicit repudiation of the policies of Sharon, it was obvious the reason he was singling out the Jews as second-class citizens in this startling way was because they are McCarthyites.

Let's all agree on something else. Some Jews grossly over-react to perceived anti-Semitic bias. Their campaign of insults is as bad as the kind of insults which wing their way with monotonous regularity to me.

Nevertheless, as Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks told the EU conference, an unholy alliance between the Left, the far-Right and the Islamic street means millions are being told that alone among nations, Israel has no right to exist and that all the troubles of the world are the work of the Jews.

At the heart of this bitter disagreement is the conflation of the issue of Israel with the issue of Jew-hatred. The latter claim maddens people who feel they can't criticise Israel without risking being accused of anti-Jewish prejudice. The two, they say, are not connected. In theory, that's true. In practice, one issue often morphs into the other, both implicitly in the way Israel is described and explicitly in overt Jew-hatred. [psycho-babble]
Criticism of Israel is certainly legitimate, as is criticism of any country. [go on then Melanie do your worst!] I am myself critical of its policies [you mean its propaganda isn't very clever]. But a line has been crossed into something else - the demonisation and dehumanisation of Israel based on systematic lies, libels and distortions. [for example?]As a result, a lot of decent people have been unwittingly caught up in a narrative of hatred.

Former Sunday Times editor Sir Harold Evans tried to show where that line should be drawn. It was not anti-Semitic, he said, to report Israeli ill-treatment of Palestinians or Sharon's past, or to deplore the long occupation of the territories. It was anti-Semitic to present Israel as diabolical, to invent malignant outrages, to condemn actions by Israel while not condemning worse elsewhere, and to vilify Jews so as to incite violence.

In all four categories, that line has been crossed. Diabolical? Israel is routinely described falsely as an apartheid [it is] or, worse, Nazi state.[it's well on the way] While its society is far from perfect, Arab Israelis not only have the vote but serve in the Knesset, supreme court and army. [having been ethnically cleansed into a 20% minority and being confined to 8% of the surface area of Israel] To label it 'Nazi' is to delegitimise it. [delegitimising is not demonising] Malevolent outrages? Look at the so-called 'massacre' of Jenin, which has become an accepted fact even though there was no massacre: [it was Israeli Brigadier General Ron Kitrey who said there were hundreds dead. - do a Google search like Melanie should have done] 23 Israeli soldiers and 52 mostly armed Palestinians died in that incident. [54 mostly unarmed] There are some appalling and inexcusable incidents in Israel. But that doesn't explain why Israeli self-defence is systematically and falsely represented as malevolent aggression.

Double standards? British academics try to impose boycotts on Israeli universities. Yet they organised no boycotts against Kuwait, which expelled 350,000 Palestinians in 1991; or Jordan, which murdered tens of thousands of Palestinians; or Syria, which has occupied Lebanon. And increasingly, people are saying Israel should not exist at all, thus singling it out alone for destruction. [Israel is the only state that exists solely thanks to ethnic cleansing]
Inciting violence? People such as Lib Dem MP Jenny Tonge have come close [what does come close mean? did she or didn't she?] to excusing the mass murder of Israelis in a manner they would never apply to the mass murder of other peoples. [really? what about the "war on terror" or on Iraq? look at the number of civilians killed in these places]
Coverage of Israel is obsessive and disproportionate, and marked by a hysteria and malice not applied to any other conflict. [it was the same for apartheid in South Africa and minority rule in "Rhodesia"] And it cannot be divorced from the overt Jew-hatred that has now surfaced in Britain and Europe, particularly the give-away calumny of world Jewish power. The claim that Jews conspire to dominate the world is one of the oldest tropes of classic Jew-hatred. Astonishingly, claims made by the European Left are not far removed. It repeats claims that the 'powerful Jewish lobby' is now running American foreign policy. When Labour MP Tam Dalyell [European left? - he's a castle dwelling arisitocrat] observed that a 'cabal' of Jewish power was behind Blair, he was thought a loveable eccentric. [yes, by the people he was accusing] In the House of Lords, a meeting heard that Jews control the British media. One peer told a Jewish colleague: 'We've finished off Saddam. Your lot are next.'[this European left gets around. Noch! they're in the British House of Lords now!]
The outcome is that an astonishing axis has developed between Islamic Jew-haters and the Left, marching behind the banners of 'human rights' on demonstrations in Europe producing chants of 'Hamas, Hamas, all Jews to the gas'. [can the readers of the Koran really do such a clunky line in poetry?]

Why? The main reason is ignorance of both the Middle East's history and its present. [so tell us all about it Melanie] Next, the Left's hatred of Sharon is so great, along with its prejudice that America/the West is the oppressor and therefore the Islamic/Third World the victim, that it can't see what is happening. [what is happening?]
Then there's the Left's deconstruction of the very concepts of objectivity and truth, so that it has become a conduit instead for propaganda and lies;[eh?] and finally, its own history of Jew-hatred from Marx onwards. [ridiculous] The final twist is that there are some Jews on the Left who subscribe to all the above too. [who on earth does she mean? anyone who disagrees with her; these are the new anti-Semites.]
Former Archbishop Desmond Tutu said people were scared to say the Jewish lobby in America was powerful. So what? he asked. 'The apartheid government was very powerful but today it no longer exists. Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, Pinochet, Milosevic and Idi Amin were all powerful, but in the end they bit the dust.'

So Jews not only have vast power, according to Tutu, but are on a par with those tyrants. Yet it was Tutu who could publish this calumny about the Jewish people, and thus incite yet more to hate them. But of course, any Jews who call this by its proper name are the new McCarthyites.

· Melanie Phillips is a Daily Mail columnist [and a raving lunatic]

Ghada Karmi knows where the blame lies:

By any means necessary
Ghada Karmi
March 18 2004

Israel's deputy defence minister, Ze'ev Boim, recently wondered whether there was a genetic defect that made Arabs terrorists. "What is it with Islam in general and the Palestinians in particular?" he asked on Israel army radio.

Tales of Tel Aviv

Monir is a Bedouin. He is also a lawyer serving with the Israeli army in Gaza. Just don't call him a collaborator, he says

Linda Grant
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Another puff piece for the racist war criminals of the State of Israel by Linda Grant in the Guardian. Today's G2 piece is about a Bedouin lawyer who serves in the Israeli army. He says that just because he serves in the army of an anti-Arab racist state he shouldn't be called a collaborator. Maybe so but what does he call giving the Zionist Linda Grant ammunition for her Zionist propaganda?

What a result in Spain!


It appears that Aznar was ousted for lying about war and terrorism. Please god by our sorry lot! Don't hold your breath waiting for Spain's new rulers to blow the whistle on when the decision to go to war was really made. These are a "new" Socialist party after all.

According to Byers in The Guardian (UK), the holocaust isn't used to stifle criticism of Israel perhaps he was busy burying bad news when Israel invoked Quisling to silence the UN's Norwegian envoy, Terje Larsen, over its atrocities in Jenin.

You can always tell when Israel is behaving badly: the Zionists crank up the anti-Semitism allegations

More on anti-Semitism - this time by Stephen Byers - yes the ex-Minister forced out for lying:
Anti-semitism is a virus and it mutates
Stephen Byers
March 15 2004
[selected quotes]
Nobody should be asked to take a loyalty and morality oath as a precondition for protection against racism. No citizen should feel that their equality before the law is dependent on their embrace of political views that we approve of. This is a totalitarian logic that undermines the very foundations of freedom on which our society stands. [agreed but tell that to Blunkett] Yet present-day anti-semites demand precisely that of Jews.
.....When it comes to Israel, Jews are held collectively responsible [yes, by the Zionist movement]...
[continues in same vain]

Letters in The Guardian : 12/3/2004


Max Hastings complains that Zionists are demanding that people make a grotesque choice between Zionism and anti-semitism. He then falls into the Zionists' trap by complaining of the antics of "Jewish lobbies" and the lack of courage of "overseas Jews". He ends by demanding that the "world's Jews ... persuade" Israel to mend its ways.

Hastings makes the same mistake accidentally that the Zionists make deliberately. He should be focusing on Israel's ethnic cleansing, its apartheid laws and its relentless aggression towards the Palestinians; instead he focuses on its Jewishness.

Mark Elf
Dagenham, Essex

As one, albeit an atheist one, of "the growing number of Jews who express dismay about the behaviour of the Israeli government", I can only say thank God for Hastings' spot-on article. We need more on the same lines.

Brian Robinson
Milton Keynes, Bucks

Check out Max Hastings in The (London) Guardian today. Castigates Zionists for imposing "a grotesque choice" between Zionism and anti-Semitism then goes on to blame all Jews for Israel's beyond reproach status. See for yourself: http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1166637,00.html

Contact me at Levi9909@aol.com

New kid on the Blog

This weblog is intended to follow the antics of Zionists in the UK media. The list of journos willing to lie, smear or simply muddy the waters for the racist war criminals of Israel is growing all the time as new ones are coming on stream and, of course, Zionism is gaining new converts like David Aaronovitch (ex-Communist Party), Christopher Hitchens (ex-SWP) and Linda Grant (ex - Revolutionary Workers' League). Please send me any material you believe will be of interest or use to me. Email: Levi9909 mark.elf@gmail.com. This is an anti-racist site so holocaust deniers, Hitler admirers and other would be ethnic cleansers need not apply.