Jews Don't Count: a wretched book, cowardly, ignorant and dishonest

Purim is a time of laughter. It is a cross between Halloween and April Fools Day and it was in that spirit that a friend gave me the book because, she said. it's a joke. And so it turned out. I don't even know if Baddiel was joking by writing it. It contains no new insights at all. 

It is basically arguing that Jews should be considered an ethnicity or race (Baddiel conflates the two) mostly because the Nazis did. He ignores that it was actually an aspect of their antisemitism that the Nazis posited Jews as a race but Baddiel swallows whole their pseudoscience (p41) and refuses to consider that Jews in free societies have identity choices denied to the essentially non-white BAME communities.

The positive reviews Baddiel's book has received are either sycophancy or collusion especially those that say it is "well researched". It's a bizarre thing to say about a book which consists entirely of Baddiel's own experiences or whatever he has gleaned from Twitter, Facebook, television and newspapers.

If he had have conducted research he might have written a very different book. For example, he has an officer of an Israel advocacy and Jewish security group tampering with a quote (p68) from Ken Loach to make it look as if Loach had said that "history is there for us all to discuss" to promote debate on whether the Holocaust happened or not. 

He didn't. And when he replicates Loach's son's tweet (p69) objecting to the defamation of his father and calling Baddiel out on Baddiel's own past racism, 

Baddiel sidesteps the defamation issue and accuses Jim Loach of "whataboutery", a concept Baddiel doesn't seem to understand. 

Baddiel's claim to be addressing himself to the "progressive left" by highlighting what he claims are instances of antisemitism on the left is laughable. The progressive left is not Baddiel's milieu and apart from some faked cases, all the examples of antisemitism he gives come from non-left sources. Jenny Tonge (p94) with her LibDem background is a centrist now in the Lords as an independent, ironically since the centre is roughly where Baddiel places himself. Other genuine cases of antisemitism from football club directors (p28) or racist football fans (p13), are likewise not from the left.

The book is  peppered with accidental or deliberate false inferences. Discussion of the case of US Congresswoman, Ilhan Omar, (pp10-12) had him and BBC's Justin Webb accusing her, without evidence, of antisemitism. He wildly exaggerated the notorious Mear One mural of 6 bankers (including 2 Jews) lording it over the suffering masses to claim that the bankers depicted in it had hooked noses (p44) and suspiciously he didn't include a replica of the mural so people could see for themselves. 

He quotes the artist's antisemitic response to criticisms of the mural (p41) and then quotes Corbyn asking why it is being removed and referring to other cases of anti-capitalist works being destroyed. But nowhere did Corbyn say he had even seen, let alone that he liked, the mural and certainly he wouldn't have agreed with the artist's response to criticisms.

Baddiel concludes MuralGate by patronisingly suggesting that Corbyn sees the anti-capitalism but not the antisemitism (p46). Another false inference. Again if Baddiel did any research he would know that there are many instances of Corbyn placing his opposition to antisemitism before his anti-war and anti-Zionist positions. He condemned Tam Dalyell when the latter said that Blair was in thrall to a "Jewish cabal" of advisers over Iraq and Corbyn condemned the late Paul Flynn for saying that the UK shouldn't have a Jewish ambassador to Israel. The ambassador in question, Matthew Gould, was a declared "proud Zionist".

Baddiel takes the opportunity thrown up by MuralGate to assert that "There is, on both left and right, of capitalist power being represented as Jewish power" (p46). No examples given, no research required.

Baddiel claims to be a "non-Zionist" and yet he appears to support the IHRA working definition of antisemitism (p74) which essentialises Jews as supporters of The State of Israel. He assumes that opponents of the definition don't care about Jews. It appears that Baddiel hasn't read the definition or, worse, he has. He protests (p75) that during a time of unprecedented pressure on universities over Covid19, one university official expressed irritation at, though Baddiel doesn't mention it, a blackmail attempt by a right wing Tory government to defund universities if they fail to adopt a bogus definition of antisemitism which, if adopted and adhered to, would prevent not just criticism of The State of Israel, which it already has, but also accurate description of its character and its history.  But for Baddiel, the failure or refusal of some universities to succumb to the blackmail shows that they don't care about Jews or antisemitism.

In order to falsely accuse the leftish journalist Ash Sarkar of antisemitism he misrepresents her as saying that all Jews are rich. She actually said that unlike racism against other identities the socioeconomic status of Jews is not affected by racism one way or the other. Baddiel even claims to be unable to consider anything other than his own misinterpretation (p26). Again, a lack of research. Why didn't he ask her? Later in the book, because Sarkar used the word "dispossession" in her tweet (p110) about the current situation, Baddiel takes the opportunity to mention his wealthy ancestors as having been dispossessed by the Nazis as if Sarkar was some kind of Holocaust denier. He misrepresents Sarkar three times overall (p120). I'm left with the impression she probably won the argument on Twitter.

Baddiel is a man who has chatted with a PM about a cause of his concern, he met up with Princess Di's lawyer to talk to him for 3 hours about TS Eliot's antisemitism and he had radio 4's Justin Webb contact him to tell him he wasn't advising the Democrats to pitch to antisemitism as Baddiel had falsely inferred. And yet he couldn't even conduct the basic research of contacting people on Twitter to get them to clarify their position before he went ahead and, well, smeared them.

Of course his lack of research wasn't just laziness. It was agenda driven. Why does multimillionaire David Baddiel worry about inflated and invented antisemitism from the redistributive left and not even seem to know about the very real antisemitism of the current PM and some.of his senior cohorts? 

This brings us to his nonchalant dismissal of those Jews with whom he disagrees. Like Howard Jacobson before him, he believes Jews who are perfectly, you might say proudly, upfront about being Jewish, are actually ashamed of being Jewish if they criticise Israel or if they are anti-Zionist altogether. Miriam Margolyes comes in for a particularly nasty swipe here (p30). Also, Baddiel seems unaware of a whole swathe of unabashed anti-Zionist Jews in the Haredic and very numerous Satmar and Chasidic communities who he dismisses on Twitter as "stupid fucking frummers" but doesn't mention them in his book unless he's lumping them in with democratic secularists like myself.

His condemnation of Jewish opponents of Israel like his condemnation of all leftist critics of Israel seems to belie his claim not to care about "stupid fucking" Israel at all.

Actually other Jews Baddiel seems to be unaware of are truly non-white Jews from North Africa and Asia also from other parts of Africa like Uganda. It's an irony when Baddiel makes Jews out to be "not quite" white, he is only referring to Jews who were on the white side of Jim Crow laws in America, the white side of apartheid in South Africa and of course on the white side of the Transatlantic Slave Trade.

Another thing suggesting his dismissiveness of much Jewishness (Yiddishkeit) is how he treats the Talmud. He dismisses it as a book of exegesis of the Old Testament, codified in the fourteenth century". (p7) It was the 6th century and Old Testament is Christian terminology and a bit of a putdown. He complains that antisemites misquote it to make Jews look bad but a) how would he know? and b) it's not unheard of for Israeli rabbis to embarrass Israel by saying how one day gentiles will be the slaves of Jews.

I really can't see why this book was written at all or why it is being so lavishly praised - including by at least two Tory peers. Ok, I can see why it's being praised by Tory peers and other Rightists. But we have had over 5 years of smears and the progressive left is all but destroyed for a generation. For Baddiel the book seems to be a settling of scores on a platform away from Twitter and real life where his targets cannot have a right of reply. It is cowardly, mean spirited and dishonest.

Charedi Jews complain of being excluded by Home Affairs Select Committee on Antisemitism

Here's a curious tweet from the Shomrim group, which is a "Proactive Neighbourhood Watch" group in Stamford Hill, which is home to probably the largest so-called ultra-orthodox Jewish (or frummer or Haredi) communities in the UK.

President of Stamford Hill Shomrim - Rabbi Herschel Gluck OBE - comments on the @CommonsHomeAffs report into 'Antisemitism in the UK' pic.twitter.com/RmICvsdBbE

— Shomrim N.E. London (@Shomrim) October 16, 2016

Looking at the statement, it claims the Home Affairs Select Committee on Antisemitism in the UK report  "focuses primarily on the difference between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism.... it's important to note that the parliamentary enquiry did not request any evidence from the most visible section of the Jewish community, the Charedi Community, where the majority of the attacks are in person rather than online, leaving victims very vulnerable and are usually clearly and unequivocally anti-Semitic". [emphasis added and possibly innecessary]

Actually I disagree that the report focuses on the differences between anti-Zionism and antisemitism. It is clearly aimed at redefining the latter as the former whilst ignoring "clearly and unequivocally anti-Semitic" actions because they befall the wrong kind of Jews.

This exclusion of the people most likely to suffer real instances of antisemitism more than anything actually in the enquiry or its report exposes the whole exercise as a politically partisan charade whose sole purpose was to protect The State of Israel and its supporters from criticism and condemnation.

Gideon Levy on Israel's summary executions

From Ha'aretz premium via google cache:

Yes, Israel Is Executing Palestinians Without Trial

In 2016, one doesn’t have to be Adolf Eichmann to be executed in Israel – it’s enough to be a teenage Palestinian girl with scissors.

Gideon Levy Jan 17, 2016 5:18 AM


An illustrative image of a soldier securing a Jerusalem bus. Olivier Fitoussi

We should call it like it is: Israel executes people without trial nearly every day. Any other description is a lie. If there was once discussion here about the death penalty for terrorists, now they are executed even without trial (and without discussion). If once there was debate over the rules of engagement, today it’s clear: we shoot to kill – any suspicious Palestinian.

Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan outlined the situation clearly when he said, “Every terrorist should know he will not survive the attack he is about to commit” – and almost every politician joined him in nauseating unison, from Yair Lapid on up. Never have so many licenses to kill been handed out here, nor has the finger been so itchy on the trigger.

In 2016, one doesn’t have to be Adolf Eichmann to be executed here – it’s enough to be a teenage Palestinian girl with scissors. The firing squads are active every day. Soldiers, police and civilians shoot those who stabbed Israelis, or tried to stab them or were suspected of doing so, and at those who run down Israelis in their cars or appear to have done so.

In most cases, there was no need to shoot – and certainly not to kill. In a good many of the cases, the shooters’ lives were not in danger. They shot people to death who were holding a knife or even scissors, or people who just put their hands in their pockets or lost control of their car.

They shot them to death indiscriminately – women, men, teenage girls, teenage boys. They shot them when they were standing, and even after they were no longer a threat. They shot to kill, to punish, to release their anger, and to take revenge. There is such contempt here that these incidents are barely covered in the media.
Last Saturday, soldiers at the Beka’ot checkpoint (called Hamra by the Palestinians) in the Jordan Valley killed businessman Said Abu al-Wafa, 35, a father of four, with 11 bullets. At the same time, they also killed Ali Abu Maryam, a 21-year-old farm laborer and student, with three bullets. The Israel Defense Forces did not explain the killing of the two men, except to say there was a suspicion that someone had drawn a knife. There are security cameras at the site, but the IDF has not released video footage of the incident.

Last month, other IDF soldiers killed Nashat Asfur, a father of three who worked at an Israeli chicken slaughterhouse. They shot him in his village, Sinjil, from 150 meters away, while he was walking home from a wedding. Earlier this month, Mahdia Hammad – a 40-year-old mother of four – was driving home through her village, Silwad. Border Police officers sprayed her car with dozens of bullets after they suspected she intended to run them over.

The soldiers didn’t even suspect cosmetology student Samah Abdallah, 18, of anything. Soldiers shot her father’s car “by mistake,” killing her; they had suspected a 16-year-old pedestrian, Alaa al-Hashash, of trying to stab them. They executed him as well, of course.

They also killed Ashrakat Qattanani, 16, who was holding a knife and running after an Israeli woman. First a settler ran her over with his car, and when she was lying injured on the ground, soldiers and settlers shot her at least four times. Execution – what else?

And when soldiers shot Lafi Awad, 20, in his back while he was fleeing after throwing stones, was that not an execution?

These are only a few of the cases I have documented over the past few weeks in Haaretz. The website of the human rights group B’Tselem has a list of 12 more cases of executions.

Swedish Foreign Minister Margot Wallström, one of the few ministers with a conscience left in the world, demanded that these killings be investigated. There is no demand more moral and just than this. It should have come from our own justice minister.

Israel responded with its usual howls. The prime minister said this was “outrageous, immoral and unjust.” And Benjamin Netanyahu understands those terms: That is exactly how to describe Israel’s campaign of criminal executions under his leadership.


Gideon Levy
Haaretz Correspondent
 

Wiping Israel off the map?

I just read on the Jewish Chronicle website that Harper Collins left Israel off of the map in an atlas it sells in the Middle East.

The American-based publishing giant said it regretted leaving the country out of atlases it sells to English-speaking schools in the Middle East.

In a statement reported in the Israeli media, it said: “HarperCollins regrets the omission of the name Israel from their Collins Middle East Atlas. This product has now been removed from sale in all territories and all remaining stock will be pulped. HarperCollins sincerely apologises for this omission and for any offence caused”.

They're making it seem like an accident or oversight or something.  Let's have a look at this map:

Well well, the West Bank and Gaza but no Israel.  And no Palestine either.

But see more of the JC report:

Earlier in the week Collins Bartholomew, a subsidiary of HarperCollins, told the Catholic newspaper, The Tablet, that including Israel in its “Collins Primary Geography Atlas For The Middle East” would have been “unacceptable” to customers in the Gulf states.

Leaving Israel off the maps incorporated “local preferences,” it said.

But if the omission of Israel was to incorporate "local preferences" why no Palestine? And if they do include Israel where will the boundaries go?

I tend to the view that Israel's existence is only temporary anyway.  Maybe Harper Collins should simply wait until Israel disappears and then publish its atlas in the Middle East.

Obama visits

Barack Obama, Chief Marketing Officer of US Arms Inc., the greatest arms and war conglomerate history has ever known, visited the offices of the company's important subsidiary, Israel. The US spends over 50% of its discretionary public budget, about 5% of its GDP, on war and armed repression. With 41% of global "defense" expenditures (actually, money spent primarily on repression), and five time more than its nearest competitor, the US dominates the market of death. In global arms transfers to developing countries the US ranked first with $56.3 billions in 2011, over thirteen times more than its nearest competitor, Russia. All actual military conflicts take place in "developing" countries, which therefore account for nearly 80% of all weapon transfer agreements, and the US holds nearly 80% of that lucrative market. The biggest client is in the Middle East. Saudi Arabia was the recipient of $33.4 billions in arms transfers in 2011, mostly for good coin. Historically, the Middle East accounts for about 50% of all weapon transfers to developing countries. In both relative and absolute terms it is the most important "defense" market. And we didn't even mention oil. Oil money (namely primarily the money consumers and businesses in the rest of the world pay for energy), over and above the profits of the oil industry itself, is the source of income that funds practically all arms that get bought in the Middle East, and concomitantly the use and threat of use of these weapons helps keep the price of oil high and the profits flowing.

The President of the US is the man in charge of coordinating maintaining the health of American economy, of which a key component is the safety of these profits. So he came to the Middle East, which is the pivot area of these profits, and talked about peace. What did you expect that he talks about? Do you expect the chief officers of Big Tobacco to talk about cancer when they make public addresses? Do the expect the CEO of Apple to extol the virtues of working employees to the point of suicide? Naturally, the President spoke about peace. Peace is lovely.

If one likens the US to a company, Israel is reporting to the marketing department. Some big business make money in Israel, but in the larger scheme of things it is peanuts. Israel is less a profit center than a freebie that drives up sales in other departments. Iran is a case in point. Few if any policy makers in their right minds want to invade Iran. Plus, the Iranian rulers have no substantial disagreements with the US and have repeatedly sent feelers with offers to join the US dominated world. Their conditions, essentially, staying in power and having some security guarantees, are not significantly different than what every pro-US junta in the world expects. But it is obvious from the consistent blocking of every possibility of dialogue that the US prefers Iran to remain in a belligerent relation. In the words of Michael Axworthy, 'the US and other western countries are not yet willing to take yes for an answer.' All those arms the Saudi state buys must have a reason. And reason number one is the Iranian threat. Iran, however, builds its influence in the region, in particular its ability to threaten the cohesion of pro-American regimes, by hyping up its enmity with Israel and  supporting Hizbulla. Peace in Palestine might be the start of a chain reaction that ends, God forbid, with Saudi Arabia no longer needing so many weapons, and, just as worse, not having the oil revenues to pay for them. But I hope you won't lose sleep over such a nightmare scenario. Let me just point out how good US foreign policy has been at keeping the pot of war simmering on low heat with the occasional boil-over and spill. Just trust Obama. He obviously knows how to handle this.

It feels different to those in the simmering pot.

Obama came to Israel to manage the conflict, that is, to keep it simmering, while preventing it from boiling over. Netanyahu represents a tendency in Israeli society that is insensitive to the American preference for slow cooking. His key constituencies make both money and symbolic capital directly from the process of colonization. That has led to some stormy relations. But the US arms industry needs Netanyahu, because it is ultimately the heat that his policies generate that keeps the pot simmering. The problem is having the right "thermostat," control mechanisms to hold Netanyahu and the settlers behind him in check. That is where Israel's famous "peace camp" comes in. Israel's "peace camp" has no deep interest in peace. It represents the segment of Israeli society, affluent, Ashkenazi, that isn't invested directly in the on-going colonization and is most aligned with and attuned to American interests. Its own fortunes depends on the US, and even more so, on access to the Western world. A sour face by a US President can send Israel's "peace camp" into weeks of morbid self-doubt.

The White House was undoubtedly pleased that Netanyahu had been weakened by the last elections. It could have been better, but it could also have been worse. Obama did not come to Israel to advance peace, but to give a boost, a 'hang in there,' to the Israeli "peace camp." Every word he said, especially the tepid, allegedly "pro-Palestinian," parts of his speech, was, no doubts intentionally,  music to the ears of Israel's "peace camp," to assure them of their importance and to maintain and bolster their ability to serve as as brakes when the US needs to lower the heat. The message was not directed at Palestinians, except those few Palestinians who are the junior business partners in the peace industry, those who would be tasked with repressing any third intifadah, and are therefore as keen as their Israeli partners on acting as a thermostat for the US weapons industry.

There was however a message also for Palestinians and their supporters in the US and the world. Richard Silverstein called it "Drop dead," evoking New-York City Ford era debt crisis. This is inaccurate. To those that expected him to help them, namely, the PA and such, his message was the very opposite, to keep going on the same path that leads nowhere. The US cannot afford them quitting. But to those who have given up on the US or who understand what the US is really about, the message was different. It was not "drop dead," since, unlike the former, they had no expectations of help. It was more like 'don't even think about it.' Obama practically read aloud from Israel's declaration of independence, mentioning every item on the checklist of Zionist talking points, from the Biblical land rights of Jews, through the holocaust, and to the "villa in the jungle", that democratic oasis of techno-prowess in the blooming desert that Israel fancies itself. That Obama felt it necessary to spell out at length so much that is supposed to be taken for granted was a backhanded compliment to a decade of Palestinian activism that has succeeded in calling these talking points increasingly in question. Obama's 100% Zionism performance was a step into the breach, expressing a complete rejection of that radical critique of Israeli settler-colonialism. It was calibrated to demoralize.

In that, Obama continues the role he played from his very election, both domestically and internationally, as the hegemonic fixer following Bush's decade of naked power, coming to offer a soothing yet firm no to any thought of escaping the American juggernaut  To those who had their eyes opened by Bush's blunt indifference Obama offers a blue pill, extending an invitation to recreate the fantasy of a kinder US, with its "values" and its "principles" and its "vision," but with lowered expectations and no meaningful change. To those who refuse, there will be nothing but cold steel.

Rabeea Eid, the Palestinian student who bravely heckled Obama and confronted him with the truth of his policy, challenged that demoralizing performance:

"Did you really come here for peace or to give Israel more weapons to kill and destroy the Palestinian people? Did you happen to see the apartheid wall on your way here? There are Palestinians sitting in this hall. This state should be for all of its citizens, not a Jewish state only. Who killed Rachel Corrie? Rachel Corrie was killed by your money and weapons!” (EI)

As Eid said later, "the most important part is for this visit not to go on in a normal manner." This empire is not in the mood for compromise. Why would it, when repression not only defends profits but is profitable in itself?

For those fawning over Obama's empathy and vision while complaining of "the lack of substance," seriously, expecting the Chief Marketing Officer of US Arms Inc. to bring peace to the Middle East is like expecting Silvio Berlusconi to usher in a new age of gender equality. Get real!

__________
Ah, and then there is that circus elephant in the room, the famous Jewish lobby, which plays an important role, just like Obama, the Saudi Royals, Iran.  Everybody plays a role. Money doesn't flow naturally. It takes work. And that work isn't done by magical elves. it is done through various institutions that support and reflect each other and by people who actually intervene through them at various points to avert whatever risks bringing the system to a halt. It just doesn't play the kind of role that those invested in the fantasy of a pure, innocent America, subverted by foreigners, imagine it plays.

Not so "brave" Ed Miliband didn't actually use the Z word

Apparently Ed Miliband's office has claimed that his words, reported, incidentally in reported speech, to the effect that he is a "zionist" were misinterpreted.

Here's some zionist in the Daily Telegraph, Dan Hodges:

As I suspected, Ed Miliband is no longer a Zionist. According to the Labour leader’s office, his comments at last night’s Board of Deputies event were misinterpreted. Asked at the event whether he was a Zionist Miliband reportedly responded, “Yes, I am a supporter of Israel”. But I’m told he wasn’t using the word Zionist to describe himself, but merely reaffirming his strong support for the state of Israel, and warning that we should – in the words of a Labour source – be “intolerant of those who questions [sic] Israel’s right to exist”.

This will no doubt disappoint some members of the Jewish community. But the significance of the general thrust of Miliband’s comments shouldn’t be overlooked.

Obviously since the Jewish community in the UK consists of hundreds of thousands of individuals there is nothing anyone can say about anything that won't "disappoint some members of the Jewish community".  So that was a rather stupid thing to say but I did say that this Dan Hodges chap is a zionist, unlike Ed's mother, Marion Kozak, who may well be disappointed in her son whatever he calls his support for Israel.

In fact if you follow the link at the start of the blockquote, ok, here it is again, you will see that this Dan Hodges chap claims that it is "brave and welcome" for Ed to claim to be a "zionist" but that he would probably retreat from that within 24 hours.  Now, according to his office, he was simply saying that Israel has a right to exist.  Now if you look at what he actually said, it is true, that he didn't say "I am a zionist" but he still appears to have said "yes" when asked "are you a zionist?"  Clearly the Jewish Chronicle was being slippery by claiming that he said that he was a zionist. Here's The JC:

He said that he considered himself a Zionist 

Looking at the site today there's no correction or clarification so far.

But now perhaps this Dan Hodges is being equally slippery in not actually quoting the question Ed was asked.

Asked at the event whether he was a Zionist Miliband reportedly responded, “Yes, I am a supporter of Israel”

But then of course we have the slipperiness of Ed himself in allowing himself to be a zionist in zionist company and a non-zionist in non-zionist company.

So the remaining question is how does being a zionist differ from supporting Israel's "right to exist"?  I suspect it is down to the fact that zionism is the idea that there should be a state specifically for Jews whereas the idea that Israel has a "right to exist" could simply mean that it's ok for a state to be called "Israel".  But then why does Miliband say that he is "“intolerant of those who questions [sic] Israel’s right to exist”?  Oh, he didn't say it.  A "Labour source" said he said it.

And this Dan Hodges chap finds, or found, Ed Miliband's support for Israel "brave and welcome".  Obviously it takes more bravery for a careerist politician to oppose Israel and zionism than it does to support it so the idea that he was or is brave on the question of Israel is just plain stupid.  And his stance, as mealy mouthed as it now is, is clearly only welcome to zionists.

Remembering Hugo Chavez

Here's what I remember most.  Back in 2009:

Chavez has ordered Ambassador Shlomo Cohen to leave in protest over the attacks in Gaza. Israel says Cohen was given until Friday to depart, and the nation is considering expelling Venezuelan diplomats in response.

I got that from AP via google news but it's no longer there. I kept the whole report here.

International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network releases “Israel’s Worldwide Role in Repression”

From the International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network

Researched, written and edited by members of the International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network, the new exposé, "Israel's Worldwide Role in Repression," focuses on the role of Israel's government military, and related corporations and organizations in a global industry of violence and repression.

IJAN's 28-page booklet was officially released at the World Social Forum Free Palestine in Porto Alegre, Brazil, and has received widespread attention in recent weeks; it has been featured in Al Jazeera, Jacobin, La Rebelión and Jadaliyya among other publications.

The pamphlet is being used as part of a broader organizing project with the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement and the US Palestinian Community Network to highlight the role Israel plays in the arms industry and political repression around the globe. The information in the pamphlet is not widely known, and given state-secrecy, censorship and limited organizational resources, the information we have gathered thus far is merely the tip of the iceberg in the push for accountability. We seek to continue to build awareness and gather testimony leading to popular tribunals in various locations impacted by the work of Israel and its related corporations and organizations.

The pamphlet is available on-line and print copies can be ordered in English, Spanish and Portuguese. We welcome translation of the pamphlet into other languages. We also urge the organizing of actions, campaigns or popular tribunals in the places where Israel, often with the United States, plays a role in the repression of our movements or in attacks on communities.

The pamphlets, source documents, research, ways to get involved and video from our first People's Assembly at the World Social Forum Free Palestine in Porto Alegre, Brazil, are available on-line at: http://israelglobalrepression.wordpress.com/.

From the Introduction:

Israel's unique skills in crowd control, forced displacement, surveillance, and military occupation have resulted in placing it at the forefront of a global industry of repression: it develops, manufactures, and markets technologies that are used by armies and police around the world for purposes of repression.

Israel's role in this industry began with the Israeli military, which first used its weapons of war against Palestinian people in historic Palestine, and against neighboring countries. In recent years, as interest in surveillance and policing technologies and techniques has grown among governments around the world, an Israeli "homeland security" private service industry built on these field-tested instruments has emerged to exploit and export this interest.

This industry includes government agencies, the Israeli military, and a network of private corporations that grossed over 2.7 billion US dollars in 2008. This industry accounts for approximately seven percent of the Israeli economy. The Israeli Ministry of Industry, Trade and Labor says on its website:

Israel has more than 300 Homeland Security (HLS) companies exporting a range of products, systems and services... These solutions have been born by the necessity of Israel's survival and matured by the reality of the continual terrorist threat to the country... No other country has such a large pool of experienced former security, military, and police personnel and no other country has been able to field test its systems and solutions in real-time situations.

In addition to the Israeli government, military, and corporations, a network of Zionist organizations provides political and economic support to the state of Israel. For example, in the United States, these organizations participate in surveillance and facilitate exchanges between the Israeli military and US police forces, federal agents, and armed forces.

This network of state bodies, corporations, and non-profits shares intelligence information, coordinates strategies for surveillance and repression, and collaborates for profit. The precise function of each varies according to their role.

Israel has provided arms, trained militia, and military and civilian police, developed and provided surveillance technology and repression strategies, and supplied the means for a broad array of other control techniques, from "non-lethal" weapons to border technology. Israel has played a role in arming and training the apartheid regimes of South Africa and Rhodesia, colonial regimes in the Middle East and North Africa (otherwise known as Southwest Asia and North Africa, or SWANA), and dictators in Central and South America and Asia.

The Israeli government has assumed a major, worldwide role in enforcing limitations on the freedom of movement, policing of communities, and undermining peoples' struggles for justice. Though well documented, this fact is rarely if ever mentioned or discussed, and even more rarely challenged.

Our movements - those in solidarity with the Palestinian people, against war, poverty, and an unjust globalized economy - need to take into account the very real ways the state of Israel contributes to violence and repression around the world.

Israel sells its weapons, technologies, training, and techniques of violence to those it considers allies and even to those whom it considers enemies. Israel sells or has sold to Islamist, communist, capitalist, dictatorial, and social democratic states. The driving force behind Israeli arms exports, in addition to the profit motive, is the need for a close and strong alliance with major imperialist powers that provide it with continuous military and diplomatic support, economic markets and access to power. Therefore, Israel has prioritized selling weapons to the allies and agents of these powers.

Israel Shahak's 1982 book, Israel's Global Role: Weapons for Repression, documents that "from Rhodesia to apartheid South Africa to the Gulf monarchies, Israel ties its interests not with the masses fighting for freedom, but with their jailers." Despite competition and other conflicts between governments and regimes that rely on repression, those same governments and regimes have no trouble cooperating with one another against peoples' movements.

Strange case of Israel's Australian Prisoner X

Here's a very strange case where an Australian guy wound up in an Israeli prison totally cut off from the outside world. Apparently even his jailers didn't know who he was what he was supposed to have done.  Back in 2010 he killed himself and that could have been the end of that but word about him leaked out.

Here's The Guardian:

Like the fictional Man in the Iron Mask, Israel's infamous "Prisoner X" was allegedly held in solitary confinement in conditions of such strict secrecy that even his own jailers were told neither his name nor the crime he had allegedly committed.

The man's identity became the subject of intense speculation when he was reportedly found hanged in his cell in 2010, but the prisoner's existence has never been officially acknowledged by Israel's government, which has gone to extraordinary lengths to stifle media coverage of the case. Now, however, new evidence has been uncovered by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation [ABC] that strongly suggests Prisoner X was an Australian citizen, Ben Zygier, whom it described a Mossad agent.

Although there has been no intimation of the accusations against Zygier, commentators have suggested it could only suggest the most serious kind of security case, perhaps involving treason.

Ok, so an Australian was held prisoner by Israel without charge or trial and eventually seems to have killed himself though of course he could have been killed.  Let's just remind ourselves that this guy wasn't the only one to be held by Israel without charge or trial but that's not the point here.  This guy was a father of two from Australia and Australia is an ally of Israel.  Did the Australian government know anything about him?

Australia's department of foreign affairs and trade (Dfat) on Wednesday launched a review into how its diplomats handled the case.

The review, to be conducted by the department's secretary, Peter Varghese, was announced after it became known that certain department officers had been made aware in 2010 that Zygier was being held in jail in Israel but did not pass the information on.

"Dfat had [originally] advised that it was unaware of Mr Allen's detention in Israel," a department spokesman said. "Dfat has now advised that some officers of the department were made aware of Mr Allen's detention at the time in 2010 by another Australian agency."

Earlier the foreign minister, Bob Carr, had said consul officials were not aware of the man's circumstances until his parents asked for help in bringing his body back to Australia. Under normal circumstances foreign embassies are advised if one of their nationals is being held in prison.

So some officials knew some stuff but not the foreign minister.  So what does he do now he knows?

Commenting on ABC's disclosures, the Australian foreign minister, Bob Carr, said he was concerned by the claims. "Those allegations certainly do trouble me," he said.

"It's never been raised with me. I'm not reluctant to seek an explanation from the Israeli government about what happened to Mr Allen and about what their view of it is. The difficulty is I'm advised we've had no contact with his family [and] there's been no request for consular assistance during the period it's alleged he was in prison.

It could because I'm in the UK that ABC's own reports didn't come up prominently in the google search but there's a lot on this case including information about the family on the ABC News website.

But aside from all the questions about who the guy was and what was supposed to have done it does seem clear that he was Australian and Jewish and he died in an Israeli jail.  So what is Australia going to do about it?  My guess is they'll quietly drop it.

Galtieri a better friend of Israel than Kirchner

But Cristina Kirchner is a better friend of Jews.

There's a bit of a spat going on between Israel and Argentina.  See this from +972:

The State of Israel overdid it two weeks ago, when it summoned the Argentinian ambassador for a reprimand. The reason behind it? Argentina had the audacity to include Iran in the investigation of the terror attack against the Buenos Aires Jewish Community building. They will set up a truth commission, with neither Argentinians nor Iranian citizens as representatives. Previous investigations attributed the attack to Hezbollah.

This week, Argentina kicked back, with gusto. Argentinian Foreign Minister Héctor Timerman summoned the Israeli ambassador, Dorit Shavit, for his own brand of diplomatic reprimand. The ambassador reported that the conversation was “harsh, tense and unpleasant.”

During the conversation, Timerman said things that Israeli representatives haven’t heard in a while. He told Shavit that Israel’s meddling with the investigation is interfering with his country’s internal matters and that it encourages anti-Semitism. He stressed that “Israel doesn’t speak on behalf of the Jewish people and does not represent it. Jews who wanted and want to live in Israel have immigrated there and have become Israeli citizens and those who live in Argentina are Argentinian citizens. The terror attack was against Argentina and Israel’s desire to be involved in the matter only gives ammunition to anti-Semites who accue Jews of a dual loyalty.” Every word. And it is about time that more countries say this to Israeli representatives.

This reminds of another Jewish Argentinian Timmerman (ok, the spelling is different). See this from the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs:

Jacobo Timmerman was a journalist and publisher of the newspaper La Opinion, which was published since 1971. In April 1977, he was arrested by the military authorities, imprisoned, and badly tortured. He was released in September 1979 after being acquitted of the security offence charges, which was followed by an ultimatum of collective resignation from the judges of the Supreme Court if he would not be released.⁶¹ He was deported to Israel after his release.

But other Argentinian Jews didn't fare so well:

As Yossi Sarid put it: "In Argentina, Israel sold even the Jews for the price of its immediate interests."⁷³

According to Sarid, this was done through cooperation with the military junta in the economic area, and by not arousing international and Jewish public opinion about the fact of the disappearance and arrest of young Jews in that country.

It's a lengthy article which comes down mostly in favour of Israel but it does demonstrate how Israel got on a lot better with an antisemitic military junta than with an elected government with at least one Jewish minister.

UPDATE: This is a bigger loss for zionism than I realised.  Stephen Marks in the comments has just pointed out that Héctor Timerman is the son of Jacobo Timmerman.  I wonder where that M came from or where it went.

US State Department study undermines hasbara effort over Palestinian textbooks

It doesn't undermine it much but it's still much too much for some. Now read on... Here's a strange article from the Jewish Telegraphic Agency about a US State Department study of Palestinians and Israeli textbooks.

WASHINGTON (JTA) – An in-depth comparative study of Palestinian and Israeli school textbooks is offering some conclusions that already are making some Israeli government officials very unhappy: Palestinian textbooks do not have as much anti-Israel incitement as often portrayed.

While this finding might appear to be welcome news for supporters of Israel, it also threatens to undercut one of the central elements of the official Israeli narrative. For years, the charge that Palestinians “educate to hate” has been an Israeli trump card in undermining claims that Palestinian statehood is overdue, and it is an article of faith among many lawmakers in Congress.

I'm rushing now but here are some bits which leapt out at me:

“This obviously cuts down one of the pegs and a linchpin in the argument that the Israel government makes, that the Palestinian Authority is teaching hatred to their kids,” said an official who works closely with mainstream Jewish organizations in the United States. The official declined to be identified because of the sensitivity of the matter.

Hmm, mustn't be identified with a factual report, we don't want another Goldstone.

Titled "Victims of our own Narratives?" and funded by the U.S. State Department, the study finds both Israel and the Palestinians lacking in making the case for the other side's presence in the Holy Land. It also scores Israeli books as better than Palestinian ones at preparing schoolchildren for peace. 

Might that be because peace is more in Israel's hands than the Palestinians'?

The Israeli government did not formally cooperate with the study; Palestinian Authority officials did.

Now there's a surprise.

Yale University psychiatry professor Bruce Wexler convened the study team, which was headed by Daniel Bar Tal of Tel Aviv University and Sami Adwan of the University of Bethlehem. They assigned Hebrew-Arabic bilingual research assistants to plow through more than 3,000 passages from textbooks -- 74 from the Israeli side and 96 from the Palestinian side....

Most of the advisory panel, including several Israelis, signed onto a statement Sunday endorsing its findings....

At least one Israeli member, Arnon Groiss, said he has reservations about the methodology and could not attach his name to the final report, which he said he has not seen.

He hasn't seen the report but he knows he can't endorse it because it doesn't say what he wanted it to.

Detractors of the study say its rigorous analytical methodology rips biased and sometimes inflammatory passages from each cultural context. They contend that triumphalism is more incendiary in a Palestinian society that they say is more forgiving of terrorism.

Of course Israel's triumphalism couldn't possibly be considered incendiary in a Palestinian society which has suffered such triumphalism for several decades now. Still, the whole thing's worth a look at.

The Meaning of Yair Lapid

My article on the elections in Israel in Jadaliyya:

The social protests, the shrinking of the traditional parties, the widespread sense of revulsion at the political class, the loss of faith in politics, and the very repetition of the seventies’ pattern raise the question: have we entered the twilight of the Great Likud Pact, that combination of neo-liberalism for the upper classes and rampant colonization in the occupied Palestinian Territories for the Israeli-Jewish masses that has defined hegemony in Israel for over thirty years?
Continue reading (actually, go to the beginning)...

Israel elections: the predictions were correct

Before the elections in Israel were held there were predictions that Netanyahu would win but with an enlarged opposition to his right or with his inclusion of more right wing forces than even his own in Likud and Yisrael Beteinu.  Those predictions were largely correct if we ignore party labels and focus on policy and ideology.

Here's Azmi Bishara:

There is an ill-conceived and widespread view that the latest Israeli Knesset elections have created a new balance of powers, with the seats being divided 60-60, and that this stands in the way of a new governing coalition. Yet Yaer Lapid’s new party, which secured 19 seats, is neither leftist nor centrist but a right-wing party, albeit one which is secular, hence the confusion. Lapid is willing to join Netanyahu in a coalition with a few minor conditions, namely the limitation of the religious parties’ power and increased influence for middle class Israelis in dictating domestic and economic policies. The Palestinian cause is of no great consequence to Lapid and he is not a novelty in Israeli politics.

I'm gratified that his response is similar to my own in a comment yesterday:

I think calling him a centrist has been one of those sleights of hand we see whenever Israeli politics is discussed in the MSM. His big thing is secularism, insofar as zionism can be secular. He's still a great believer in Jewish supremacy, as you see from his "I am a Zionist" piece in YNET.

Did the Knesset move to the right or did it stay where it was?  It's literally impossible to tell given the Orwellian way in which these racist parties are labelled and described. The question is why are so many commentators to keen to portray any of these racist ethnic cleansing parties as being on the left?

Who won the Israeli elections?

Who cares?

Well, if you do care, you can always check out The Guardian.

Question: What do Israel's elections mean for peace?

Answer:  Nothing.

But have a look at the IMEU site anyway or have a listen here.

Israeli elections: Livni promises a miracle

From Ha'aretz:

Therefore, says Livni, I've come back into the arena, more focused on the task and devoting less attention to personal matters and background noises. I really believe I can bring Israel back into the bosom of the world within months. I can bring us back our international legitimacy and the regional standing that we are losing. 

 Hmm, a little bit cryptic. What regional standing is she referring to?  A friendly Jordan, a friendly Turkey, a friendly Egypt, friendly Gulf states?  Maybe she just means that Israel can keep the balance of death in its favour even if it does keep losing wars because of the fear of ground invasions.  But the miracle I refer to is this return to "international legitimacy".  Israel's fond of impossible returns like allowing the world's Jews the right to return to a place most Jews have never been.  But "legitimacy".  Don't be silly, Tzipi.  Israel has never had and can never have legitimacy.  In the land of miracles you might turn water to wine or raise the dead but the idea of a legitimate Israel is just absurd.

Same racism different year

There's an article on the Washington Post site headed, Why demographics are still a concern for some Israeli Jews.  Here's a taste:

in Israel, Jewish policymakers are heralding the fact that the country’s Jewish population has passed the 6 million mark for the first time — a historically significant number, they say, because that’s the number of Jews who were killed in the Holocaust.

“It’s a great joy to know there are more than 6 million Jews in Israel,” Dina Porat, chief historian of Yad Vashem, Israel’s Holocaust museum, told the Guardian.

It’s cause for celebration, but the 6 million figure doesn’t entirely put Israeli Jews at ease.

The Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics released its own figures this week, predicting that the number of Arabs in Israel and Palestine will equal the number of Jews by 2016 and exceed it by 2020, buoyed in part by the Palestinians’ overall higher birthrate.

All of this of course excludes the millions of Palestinians who have been ethnically cleansed from Palestine altogether.

Another reminder of Israel's relationship with the antisemitic Galtieri regime

It's that time of year when previously secret documents get released by the powers that be in the UK.  The Guardian reports how the Brits weren't happy that,

Israel and Israeli companies, a separate Foreign Office briefing warned, "… have made offers or are involved in negotiations on the supply of weapons [to Argentina] … despite assurances" that they would not make any new deals.

It is well documented that Jews were over-represented among Argentina's Desaparecidos at about 10% when Jews were less than 1% of the population as a whole.  Tony Greenstein has the details here.

Sesame Street star tweets for Palestine

Breitbart TV website's not happy:
'Sesame Street' Star Calls Israel 'Bullies,' Thinks Palestinians Shouldn't 'Recognize' Jewish State

This episode in moral relativism is brought to you by the letter "M" - for Maria.

Sonia Manzano, who plays Maria on the long-running PBS series "Sesame Street," isbashing Israel via her Twitter feed.

The actress sent out two pro-Palestinian messages relating to the latest unrest in the Middle East, first calling Israel bullies and then comparing the Jewish state to early American settlers who wiped out Native Americans.

And here are the offending tweets:

Israelis retaliate the simple recognition ofPalestiniansby UN by deciding to build 3,000 more settlements. Bullies!
— Sonia Manzano (@SoniaMManzano) December 1, 2012

Why do Israelis need to be "recognized" by Palestinians. Did Native Americans need to "recognize" their tormentors?
— Sonia Manzano (@SoniaMManzano) December 3, 2012

Might not have been her smartest career move but spot on for sentiment.

Remember the Dalou family from Gaza

Up to 14 members of a single family, al-dalou, in Gaza city were murdered by Israeli bombs,
(but with the Obama administrations's approval, and the acquiesence of the whole world) .



http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=538794

 I look forward to the day I can post photos of the dead bodies of the generals and politicians responsible for this massacre.

Never forgive. Never forget.


UPDATE: The original post carried a "wrong" picture apparently from Syria's children murdered by the Assad regime. Quotation narks because there is a brotherhood of mass murderers. Replaced above with photos more "authentic".























Also, the person who sponsored these images regularly gets himself photo-oped with children, so please you too should note the difference between children who deserve to die and children who deserve to live