June 15, 2014

Racism at Jewish News Contradicts "Editor's Opinion"

I just picked up a copy of Jewish News at the local beigel bakery.   I saw read an article about how a Romanian guy had admitted to murdering an Israeli woman in London.  I looked for the article on line and here it is:

Romanian admits murdering Israeli woman in her London home

A Romanian who murdered a popular Israeli woman in her home is facing life behind bars.
I don't know the relevance of the fact that the perpetrator is Romanian.  It seems like too much information.  It seems racist, particularly in the current climate.

I went to leave a comment and noticed below the comment box a cluster of other Jewish News articles including this:

OPINION: Arabs need to grow up and look after their own refugees

I left the comment asking what the relevance of a murderer's nationality was and of course I was implicitly criticising the obvious racism in providing such irrelevant information.  But when I noticed the second article I realised that racism at the Jewish News appears to be so casual they might not even understand what I was saying.

And yet they do appear to recognise racism in some instances though they appear to be reluctant to call it what it is.  In the same cluster of headlines below the first article there was another, an "editor's opinion" explaining "why we must champion multiculturism".   Its the editor (apparently) criticising the racism of a Jewish UKIP member, Jeremy Zeid, who said that whites from Ilford in Essex were victims of "ethnic cleansing". Here's a taste of the editor's opinion:
does Mr Zeid represent today’s clash of civilisations? Has he and his party, which has an unfortunate habit of strafing whole races and religions with its stray sound-bites, barged its way to the front in this cultural showdown? 

If so, are we now being led by these yesteryear generals asking “why the bloody hell should they apologise”?
 
If so, where are we being led? And if we don’t speak out against their hate-filled bile, are we collectively only as good as them?

I'm more than happy for this editor chap, I think his name's Richard Ferrer, to condemn UKIP and its racism but if he is that concerned he might want to put his own house in order.

London Workshop on Stopping the Jewish National Fund

Stop the JNF London Workshop

Sun 15th June, 2-5pm P21 Gallery, 21 Chalton Street, NW1 1JD

Eurig Scandrett speaking on the Friends of the Earth International Report ‘Environmental Nakba’ - the catastrophic impact on Palestinians of Israel’s occupation, colonisation, and apartheid.
Plus documentary, Enduring Roots: Over a Century of Resistance to the JNF (35 mins) produced by IJAN.
https://scontent-b-sjc.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-frc3/t1/1012545_10151820912560388_1204065629_n.jpg

The JNF’s role in the ethnic cleansing of Palestine and the maintenance of an apartheid residential system has always been supported by great violence against its victims.   The murder of two Palestinian children by Israeli snipers, caught on camera few weeks ago, is an example.  The link between the JNF and Israeli war crimes was highlighted by the visit of Tzipi Livni last month to address a JNF event in London.  Livni was shielded from the possibility of arrest for war crimes by the UK Government’s grant to her of a temporary diplomatic status.  The JNF is an important part of the Zionist network.
They are, nonetheless, worried. In the wake of their losing David Cameron and failing to get Miliband or Clegg as Honorary Patrons, a Westminster parliamentary motion condemning the JNF’s activities, EDM 1677, attracted an unprecedented 70 MPs’ endorsement (two MPs signed a related statement).  Worryingly for the JNF, their counter-attack failed to dislodge a single one of the MPs who signed EDM 1677. 
Determined opposition to the JNF can defeat this racist organisation.  A vigorous protest greeted the JNF’s London hosting of Livni on Nakba Day, May 15th.  In Scotland, where grassroots opposition has been ongoing over the last decade, the determined protests that accompanied every public JNF event has led to their cancelling all their previously regular fundraisers, from glitzy Glasgow Hilton events with speakers like Bill Clinton and Colin Powell to pro-am golf tournaments sponsored by Lexus.
Last September’s report by Friends of the Earth International (FoEI), ‘Environmental Nakba’, took the case against the JNF to a new constituency.  It highlights Israel’s colonialism, water apartheid, ethnic cleansing and the role of the JNF in Israel’s dispossession of the Palestinians.  Eurig Scandrett of FoE Scotland co-authored the report with Abeer Al Butmah from Palestine FoE and Bobby Peek from FoE South Africa.
The international Stop the JNF Campaign was launched in 2010 to build on work already done around the world.  Help us to campaign against the JNF, a pillar of the apartheid system in Israel/Palestine, an active participant in the ethnic cleansing now accelerating there, and a registered charity in the UK (Patrons - Tony Blair and Gordon Brown).

http://www.stopthejnf.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/cropped-stjnf11.jpg
Join Stop the JNF Campaign and affiliate our organisation to the Stop the JNF Campaign - Use the Paypal button on the website: www.stopthejnf.org
If you prefer to set up a direct debit or use bank transfer, the details are: Stop the JNF Campaign, Account Number: 65476611, Sort Code: 089299.
Donations are also very welcome and will help us raise awareness of the role of the JNF in Israeli apartheid, colonisation and occupation: Make a donation.
Stop the JNF Campaign, c/o Peace & Justice Centre, Edinburgh EH2 4BJ
uk@stopthejnf.org  01501 78 55 63

June 09, 2014

Stop the JNF: regional workshops


Stop the JNF regional workshops
Eurig Scandrett speaking on the Friends of the Earth International Report Environmental Nakba - the catastrophic impact on Palestinians of Israel’s occupation, colonisation, and apartheid.
Plus film premiere Enduring Roots: Over a Century of Resistance to the JNF (35 mins) Produced by IJAN.
https://scontent-b-sjc.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-frc3/t1/1012545_10151820912560388_1204065629_n.jpg


Wed 11th June, 7pm – SHEFFIELD Friends Meeting House, Sheffield.  Supported by Sheffield PSC.
Thurs 12th June, 7.30pm – BRIGHTON Friends Meeting House, Ship Street
Sun 15th June, 2-5pm – LONDON P21 Gallery, 21 Chalton Street, NW1 1JD
Thurs 26th June, 7pm – ABERDEEN check Stop the JNF campaign website for details.
Sat 5th July, 2-5pm – CARDIFF Media Point, Chapter, Market Road, Canton, CF5 1QE


The JNF’s role in the ethnic cleansing of Palestine and the maintenance of an apartheid residential system has always been supported by great violence against its victims.   The murder of two Palestinian children by Israeli snipers, caught on camera few weeks ago, is an example.  The link between the JNF and Israeli war crimes was highlighted by the visit of Tzipi Livni last month to address a JNF event in London.  Livni was shielded from the possibility of arrest for war crimes by the UK Government’s grant to her of a temporary diplomatic status.  The JNF would seem to be an important part of the Zionist network.
In the wake of their losing David Cameron and failing to get Miliband or Clegg as Honorary Patrons, a Westminster parliamentary motion condemning the JNF’s activities, EDM 1677, attracted an unprecedented 70 MPs’ endorsement (two MPs signed a related statement).  Worryingly for the JNF, their counter-attack failed to dislodge a single one of the MPs who signed EDM 1677. 
Determined opposition to the JNF can defeat this racist organisation.  A vigorous protest greeted the JNF’s London hosting of Livni on Nakba Day, May 15th.  In Scotland, where grassroots opposition has been ongoing over the last decade, the determined protests that accompanied every public JNF event has led to their cancelling all their previously regular fundraisers, from glitzy Glasgow Hilton events with speakers like Bill Clinton and Colin Powell to pro-am golf tournaments sponsored by Lexus.
Last September’s report by Friends of the Earth International (FoEI), ‘Environmental Nakba’, took the case against the JNF to a new constituency.  It highlights Israel’s colonialism, water apartheid, ethnic cleansing and the role of the JNF in Israel’s dispossession of the Palestinians.  Eurig Scandrett of FoE Scotland co-authored the report with Abeer Al Butmah from Palestine FoE and Bobby Peek from FoE South Africa.
The international Stop the JNF Campaign was launched in 2010 to build on work already done around the world.  Help us to campaign against the JNF, a pillar of the apartheid system in Israel/Palestine, an active participant in the ethnic cleansing now accelerating there, and a registered charity in the UK (Patrons - Tony Blair and Gordon Brown).


http://www.stopthejnf.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/cropped-stjnf11.jpg
Join Stop the JNF Campaign and affiliate our organisation to the Stop the JNF Campaign - Use the Paypal button on the website: www.stopthejnf.org
If you prefer to set up a direct debit or use bank transfer, the details are: Stop the JNF Campaign, Account Number: 65476611, Sort Code: 089299.
Donations are also very welcome and will help us raise awareness of the role of the JNF in Israeli apartheid, colonisation and occupation: Make a donation.
Stop the JNF Campaign,
c/o Peace & Justice Centre, Edinburgh EH2 4BJ
uk@stopthejnf.org 01501 78 55 63

June 04, 2014

Missing from the IMEU FAQ

Here's the content of a mailout from the Institute for Middle East Understanding.  As far as I can see there are some crucial points missing but I just want to let it hang here while I think of what they are

Q – Who is represented in the new Palestinian Authority (PA) cabinet?

A – Based on the agreement announced on April 23, the new government is composed of a consensus cabinet consisting of individuals agreed upon by all of the major Palestinian political parties. The cabinet does not include members of the two largest Palestinian parties, Fatah or Hamas. Instead, it’s made up of independent technocrats whose job is to prepare the groundwork for elections for the PA.


Q – Is Hamas part of the new government?

A – No. Although Hamas supports the government, none of the members of the new cabinet is affiliated with Hamas.


Q - Will this government abide by the Quartet's conditions?

A - In 2006, the members of the so-called “Quartet,” consisting of the United States, the European Union, the United Nations, and Russia, laid out several conditions that Palestinians must meet before they agree to cooperate with or recognize any Palestinian government. They include the renunciation of terrorism, agreeing to abide by previously signed agreements, and recognition of Israel. PA President Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah have said the new government will abide by the Quartet's conditions. However, it is important to note that no Israeli government, including the current one, has ever officially recognized the Palestinian right to statehood or self-determination. Israel has and continues to systematically violate the terms of numerous previously-signed deals, including the Oslo Accords and the 2002 Road Map to Peace, and Israel continues to practice what amounts to state terrorism, systematically using excessive force against Palestinians, including unarmed civilians as documented by human rights organizations such as Amnesty International.


Q - Will the US cut off ties and funding to the PA?

A – Some members of Congress have called for the US to cut off funding to the PA, however the Obama administration has stated that because the new government doesn’t include members of Hamas, and in light of assurances from President Abbas and Prime Minister Hamdallah that it will abide by the Quartet's conditions, the US will continue to work with and fund the PA while continuing to monitor the situation.


Q – Will Israel deal with the new PA government?

A - Although the new unity government does not include members of Hamas, Israel has said it still won’t deal with it because it is supported by the group, and has threatened to punish the PA as a result. Senior Israeli government officials have also criticized the US, accusing the Obama administration of “naïveté” and sending a message that “terrorism pays.” In response, the State Department rejected the Israeli allegations, pointing out that Hamas is not part of the cabinet and stating that the US will judge the new government by its actions.


Q – Does the unity government help efforts to make peace or harm them?

A
– There can be no lasting peace between Palestinians and Israelis that excludes a major player like Hamas. Although Israel officially withdrew from US-sponsored negotiations following the announcement of the unity agreement in April, according to all accounts there was little or no progress made over the previous nine months of talks. Critics of the Israeli government argue that Netanyahu and his extreme right-wing government were looking for an excuse to pull out of negotiations while placing the blame on the Palestinians, citing as evidence the repeated provocations Israel engaged in while talks were ongoing, most notably the announcement of some 14,000 new settlement units to be built on occupied Palestinian land in violation of international law and official US policy.


Q - What happens next?


A - This new technocratic government is tasked with managing the PA until elections take place in six months. Meanwhile, Israel will likely continue to apply economic pressure on the PA, withholding tax money that it is supposed to transfer and maintaining its crippling and illegal blockade of Gaza, leading to further humanitarian crises, particularly in besieged Gaza. However, it's unlikely that Israel will apply too much pressure on the PA, for fear that it could collapse and leave Israel directly responsible for all the residents of the occupied territories once again.

June 03, 2014

Samuel L Jackson and the Apartheid Connection

Samuel L Jackson caused a fair bit of dismay among anti-racists on twitter just recently with this "selfie".


Here are a couple of twitter responses I've taken from Ha'aretz:

@SamuelLJackson Uh. Why would you support something like this? Israel is an apartheid state.
@SamuelLJackson Wow, and I admired you :( Unfollow it is then....
@SamuelLJackson wow, pretty sad to hear that you support an apartheid state. You of all people.
That's just three of many responses from people who are clearly surprised at Jackson's, at best, cavalier attitude to racist statehood.  But I remember him promoting Barclays Bank and Barclays among people of my generation - ie, fifty somethings - will always be remembered as the apartheid bank.

Here's The Daily Telegraph from as far back as 2002 Jackson's role in a then new Barclays ad campaign:
What happens Hollywood star Samuel L Jackson (Pulp Fiction, the mad kilted drug dealer in 51st State) offers up a variety of soliloquies straight to camera about money.

One talks about whether money is really evil; another about how it's better to know who you're dealing with; and a third about how people instinctively mistrust advice about money.
 So, surprise surprise, it's all about money with advertising as with banking.

Now look at Barclays connection to apartheid South Africa.  This is from News24.com:
I remember well 1977 and the so-called Carlton conference, at which Botha summoned all the leaders of big business and asked them to help the regime to beat the international arms embargo imposed by the United Nations.

The Barclays pledge
 
After that meeting Barclays bank pledged a whopping R90m to the apartheid army for its defence force bonds, and I remember well The Citizen, ever the chief supporter and main praise-singer of the racist and oppressive apartheid regime, praising Barclays and carrying a cartoon showing two uniformed apartheid troopies lugging away a hefty Barclays cheque for R90m.

That bank was an unrepentant supporter of apartheid, and I would argue that their financial help for apartheid delayed our liberation by at least a generation.
Now it's just possible that Jackson knew nothing of Barclays' involvement with apartheid South Africa.  It's possible that he didn't know about Israel's support for the apartheid regime, including nuclear weapons collaboration.  It's also possible that he doesn't know that Israel is a colonial settler state based on ethnic cleansing and segregationist laws.  Israel does, after all, get a very favourable press in the USA.  But can he really be so ignorant that there is at least some controversy around Israel that might be worth checking out.

Back in the day, Samuel L Jackson worked for the apartheid bank for money but when he did a selfie at the Celebrate Israel Parade, he gave racists a freebie.  He could at least stand back and look at himself and stop being such a bad motherfucker.

June 02, 2014

The Lure of Zion?

I got this article by Adi Schwartz out from behind the paywall of Ha'aretz.  It's mostly tosh, being an interview with Zionism: False Messiah author, Nathan Weinstock.  Weinstock was one of these star anti-zionist Jewish writers like, say, Ilan Halevi or Uri Davis but he had this epiphany, denounced his former self and became a rather nasty zionist.  I heard that he had banned anyone from promoting or selling his old book but it is still findable on google and it is still obtainable from Amazon brand new (£97.60) or used (from £4.84)

Here's a taste of the article:
According to Weinstock, underlying the growing hostility toward the Jewish population in Palestine was the realization that the dhimmi Jews were shaking off their traditional legal status of humiliation and submission. In retrospect, the writer maintains, dhimmi status, on the one hand, and the declared attempt by the Zionist movement to be free of it, on the other, led ultimately to the Arabs’ rejection of the United Nations partition plan in 1947 and to the War of Independence the following year.
It's interesting that much of the article takes the form of an interview whereas that bit and some others are in reported speech.  I'm guessing that, like Benny Morris, his direct speech has become too openly racist for Ha'aretz transfer straight to the page.  But I'm only guessing.

Anyway, Weinstock's position is that the rejection of The State of Israel by the Arabs is nothing to do with ethnic cleansing or discrimination or the fact that Israel is a colonialist plant but because of some inborn negative feeling that Arabs have towards Jews.  I should note here that Christians don't warrant a mention in the article.  I don't if they get a mention in the book.

But all that above is not actually the point of this post.  The point is that after so much anti-Arab hasbara, Adi Schwartz looks for and finds a balancer in the form of Dr Sami Shalom:
“[Nathan] Weinstock is a classic servant of the erasure of my history and of the history of the Jews in the Islamic lands,” says Dr. Sami Shalom Chetrit, a Moroccan-born Israeli intellectual who deals extensively with relations between Ashkenazim (European-born Jews) and Mizrahi (Jews of Middle Eastern or North African origin). He teaches Hebrew culture and Middle Eastern studies at Queens College, in New York.

“Like the textbooks in Israel, Weinstock focuses primarily on the Zionist, national era, in which Jewish nationalism developed in Europe in parallel to Arab nationalism from the Maghreb to the Mashriq [i.e., from the West to the East]. There he finds ‘pogroms,’ which are an Eastern European Jewish issue. He ignores the role played by the Zionist movement in undermining the relations between Jews and Muslims in the Arab countries. He talks about ‘anti-Semitism’ in the Arab countries and about expulsion, after much has been written about the ties between the Zionist leadership and the corrupt leaders of Iraq and Yemen, which lead to the decision to deport the Jews from those countries – without a passport and with only a laissez-passer – to Israel only.

“Let’s assume that things were very bad and stressful – why didn’t they get a passport allowing them to choose any destination? Or the Jews of Morocco, who were not allowed to leave after Morocco became independent. No one was allowed to leave Morocco in those years unless he was close to and well connected with the authorities. The Zionists had to use the Jews of the United States and the administration in Washington to bring pressure to bear on the palace in Morocco to allow the Jews to leave after 1956. Why not talk about the years before Moroccan independence, when [Prime Minister David] Ben-Gurion could have brought all the Jews of Morocco to Israel, but took fright and chose to conduct a racist selection in which the strength of their muscles and the width of their shoulders were measured!

“Let us not forget, also, that in the background, the Mossad was running Zionist ‘undergrounds’ that incited the Muslims against the Jews, including throwing a grenade into a Baghdad synagogue, painting anti-Jewish slogans in French on Jewish stores, and spreading harsh rumors about the Jews in order to hasten their departure. This was all done by good Zionists, and I am not saying anything new here.

“Indeed, the life of the Jews in the Islamic lands was no paradise, but neither was the life of the Muslims a paradise in the Islamic lands, unless they were close to the government. And above all, the life of the Jews in the Islamic countries was never the hell of the Jews of Europe. Never at any point in history. The Jews from the Islamic lands came to Israel out of love. Not because of hatred, not because of persecution and not for revenge. Only for love of the Land of Israel.”

That's a tad enigmatic at the end, but note it's "love of the Land of Israel", not the State of Israel and not hatred of or in the lands they left.

Finkelstein went Head to Head with Finkelstein at Conway Hall

Norman Finkelstein's Head to Head discussion with Mehdi Hassan played to a capacity audience at the Oxford Union on Friday June 30.  Kamel Hawwash blogged about it on his Brum2Jerusalem blog under the question, Which Norman Finkelstein turned up to Aljazeera Head to Head with Mehdi Hasan? Kamel concluded that "it was the “I choose my words very carefully” Norman that turned up in Oxford".

Well the Norman Finkelstein that turned up in London at Conway Hall wasn't so careful.  118 people attended the launch of Old Wine Broken Bottle: Finkelstein's latest book taking down, successfully by all accounts, Ari Shavit's ethnic cleansing and crying book, My Promised Land. 

The room in Conway Hall has a capacity of 400 so 118 was a pretty poor turn out.  In spite of this, Norm, managed to make things worse by provoking a walkout by insisting on his two state position and denouncing those who didn't support it as failing to understand him or it. But the hosts had had 40 copies of his new book printed. They sold out at £5 a go.

Anyway, here's an account that has just been emailed to me by one of my spies at Conway Hall.  I should stress, this was someone who attended the launch, not a member of the Conway Hall staff:
Basically he is completely contradictory. It’s not that he has become a zionist - his latest book, which he was launching, is a great demolition job on Ari Shavit’s attempt to justify ‘liberal zionism’ and in doing so he demolishes all the ideological foundations of zionism. And then he goes on with his vendetta against BDS for not being explicit enough in endorsing ‘two states’, rather than just being agnostic on it.His whole line on the so called ‘international consensus is based on a ridiculous fetishisation of international law and UN resolutions. He ends up with a ‘realist’ rejection of the RoR on the grounds that its full implementation is ‘unrealistic’, and then ends up effectively justifying  this by the argument that Israel exists as a state and all states have the right in international law to control their own immigration policies.

I don’t think his position has any consistency. Frankly I think his experiences and his isolation have turned his mind a bit and he resents the fact that a movement he isn’t part of is now making the running. I think there is an element of injured ego in it, though I don’t normally like explaining political disagreements by psychology.

See this is the big contradiction.  He demolishes zionism with his intellect and then rebuilds it with his ludicrous insistence on two states and his fetishisation, not so much of international law, but of the UN. And this is down to "injured ego"?  I wish someone would injure his ego.