Pushed or Pulled? Israel Embassy Funded Film Festival not to be Hosted by Tricycle Theatre

Little bit confusing this but hang in there.

For the past 8 years the Tricycle Theatre has been hosting a so-called Jewish Film Festival (UKJFF).  BDS activists have been trying to persuade the theatre not to host UKJFF on account of it being funded by the Israeli Embassy in London.  Well now, because of Israel's assault on Gaza, the theatre will not be hosting the festival.

Now this has been a very recent decision but there's already some fog about what happened.  The Jewish Chronicle wouldn't normally be the go to site for the facts of any case but theirs was the first site I saw the news on.  Here's their headline:

Tricycle Theatre refuses to host UK Jewish Film Festival over Israeli sponsorship

 So what do they say happened?

A major London theatre has refused to host the UK Jewish Film Festival because it is sponsored by the Israeli embassy.

The Tricycle Theatre was scheduled to be the main venue for the UKJFF in November, with 26 films due to be screened there as well as six gala events.

But in a statement issued on Tuesday, UKJFF executive director Judy Ironside said: “The Tricycle told us that they cannot be associated with a festival which in turn is associated with the UK’s Israel embassy”.

The embassy is a long-standing sponsor of the festival, whose programme includes Jewish-themed films from around the world.

Mrs Ironside described the decision by the theatre, which has hosted the UKJFF for the past eight years, as a “great surprise”.

She said: “That the Tricycle Theatre have shown themselves unwilling to work with what is clearly an apolitical cultural festival is tremendously disappointing.

 Ok, so they are saying that out of the blue the theatre has cancelled the event on account of its Israeli embassy funding.  In spite of the funding the director, Judy Ironside, claims the event is apolitical.  Now I can see how some people might argue that an event is apolitical even it is funded by an embassy.

But the Tricycle Theatre isn't happy with the coverage so it has issued a statement of its own:

The Tricycle has always welcomed the Festival and wants it to go ahead. We have proudly hosted the UK Jewish Film Festival for many years. However, given the situation in Israel and Gaza, we do not believe that the festival should accept funding from any party to the current conflict.  For that reason, we asked the UK Jewish Film Festival to reconsider its sponsorship by the Israeli Embassy.  We also offered to replace that funding with money from our own resources. The Tricycle serves many communities and celebrates different cultures and through difficult, emotional times must aim for a place of political neutrality. 

We regret that, following discussions, the chair of the UKJFF told us that he wished to withdraw the festival from the Tricycle.  

To be clear, at this moment, the Tricycle would not accept sponsorship from any government agency involved in the conflict. We hope to find a way to work with the UK Jewish Film Festival to allow the festival to go ahead at the Tricycle as it has done so successfully for the past 8 years.’

 So the UK Jewish Film Festival has withdrawn itself from the Tricycle because the Festival insists on being funded by the Israeli embassy even though the Tricycle offered to replace the funding.

Now its bad enough that the Festival wants to implicate all Jews in Israel's sheer criminality but to claim that the festival is apolitical is utterly bogus.

Anyway, lots of good has come out of this, not least the media coverage.  There are reports in the following mainstream newspapers/websites (in no particular order):

The Daily Mail

Yahoo News

The Guardian

The Daily Telegraph

There are bound to be more.  They're just the ones I've seen.

So, the Tricycle has certainly taken the principled stand in not hosting the Israeli embassy funded UK Jewish Film Festival but if the latter wasn't so nakedly political it could have been very different.  In fact if they didn't want this political confrontation with Tricycle they could have suspended Israeli embassy funding, taken the dough from Tricycle, and then carried on Zionist business as usual when emotions over the Gaza slaughter had calmed down.  Or maybe the Zionists know that their attack on Gaza has done lasting damage to public perceptions of Israel and that Israeli government involvement with any cultural event is a political kiss of death.

Who cares about zionist antisemitism?

I read a wonderful comment on the tolerance zionists have towards antisemitism when it is expressed by one of their own.  It was on a Harry's Place's post again falsely accusing the Guardian's Steve Bell of antisemitism whilst failing to notice Rupert Murdoch's.  This chap who calls himself Discredited Andrew came out with this little gem:

Discredited Andrew • a day ago

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I keep noticing these little digs at Jews from certain quarters for not being pro-Israel and/or hawkish enough. Apparently Jews are obliged to push a neo-con agenda in order to be accepted as equals. Nasty stuff. Not that anybody here cares.

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I've posted the whole exchange here because HP deletes all comments after a week.  Please check out all of the comments and see how the HP faithful defend antisemtism when it's from a friend like Rupert Murdoch.

Revisit: What was antisemitic about Rupert Murdoch's "Jewish owned press" tweet?

Harry's Place is going ape again about a couple of Steve Bell cartoon strips:



  

The depictions are of, from left to right in order of appearance, Rupert Murdoch, Bibi Netanyahu and a puppet from UK television called Sooty.  The cartoons above are a response to the allegation, false in my opinion, that the following cartoon was antisemitic:



The cartoon was saying that whatever was being said by Netanyahu about the November 2012 Israeli attack on Gaza was being thoughtlessly repeated by UK foreign minister, William Hague, and Israel's ambassador at large (for now), Tony Blair.

During the same month, Rupert Murdoch issued the following tweet:

Why Is Jewish owned press so consistently anti- Israel in every crisis?
— Rupert Murdoch(@rupertmurdoch) November 18, 2012

Now to many, I hope most, people, this was instantly recognisable as antisemitism.  There were immediate protests and Murdoch, in spite of being too stupid to know what he had done rushed out an apology:

",Jewish owned press" have been sternly criticised, suggesting link to Jewish reporters.Don't see this, but apologise unreservedly.
— Rupert Murdoch(@rupertmurdoch) November 18, 2012

But there were no protests from the usual suspects. For example, checking Harry's Place archive for November 2012 there are no criticisms of Murdoch's original tweet nor his what-did-I-say apology.  And in the thread for the piece condemning the latest Steve Bell cartoons it's clear that the HP faithful don't even see Murdoch's "Jewish owned press" tweet as antisemitic.  I'm guessing the above the line crew just think it's best ignored.  If you look at the thread you will see that the faithful had no idea that Murdoch had no idea what he had said that was wrong.

But what did he say that was wrong?  His terminology was very unfortunate. Murdoch is not Jewish and he owns more press than anyone so he knows that not all of the press is Jewish owned.  If his tweet recalled the trope that the Jews own the media he can't have meant that.  But some might say that unfortunate terminology alone was worth the apology.  He was actually saying something like "why aren't those media outlets which are owned by Jews not more supportive of the racist war criminals of the State of Israel?"

And that is the antisemitic bit. He is berating Jews for not living up to his expectations of them.  And that is one of many racist things about Harry's Place.  They are smart enough to know that Murdoch's tweet was antisemitic but it is no more antisemitic than they are when they berate Jews for not falling into line over the latest batch of zionist atrocities.

Actually there is another antisemitic bit.  Whilst Murdoch wasn't saying that Jews own all of the media, he does seem to think that if some Jews own something then all Jews own and are responsible for that same thing.

This time we went too far

Who went too far? The Jerusalem Post. that's who. I reported on their disgusting editorial effectively blaming multiculturalism for the Norway killings and how a postscript to the piece tried to disclaim what the editorial was actually saying. Well apparently the disclaimer wasn't enough and now the Jerusalem Post has an editorial entirely devoted to apologising for the earlier editorial together with a couple of opinion pieces by two of their dodgy journos:

We hope that the Norwegian government and people will accept the 'Post’s apology and forgive us for any offense or hurt caused at this sensitive time.

Of course they only meant to offend foreigners living in Norway, not Norway's liberal establishment.

Spiking Palestine solidarity

I often divide anti-anti-zionists into two groups, knaves and fools. I haven't read Spiked that much but what I had read was more foolish than knavish. Well Spinwatch has pulled all of the Spiked coverage of Palestine solidarity activism together and their hostility to Palestine solidarity looks too systematic to be mere foolery.

In a series of articles, Spiked writers have maligned activists using language as vituperative and categorical as the Israeli PR machine. The similarity between how the Israel lobby and Spiked describe the activists is remarkable: ‘a motley crew’ sporting a ‘weird mix of hippy, Islamist and imperialist sentiment,’ ‘a mish-mash of dinner-party liberals, radical Islamists and clapped-out left-wingers’, ‘Israel-bashers…European politicians, UN officials, left-wing activists, radical Islamists’)[1]. Neither is this an anomaly. Our investigation of Spiked’s output on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict reveals that elision of context (illegal occupation, creeping colonization, indiscriminate violence) and an obsessive focus on activists’ presumed motives are a perennial feature of its coverage. It therefore becomes important to ask how Spiked can maintain a contrarian veneer while reinforcing the suppositions of power.

The article's potted history of Spiked is informative:

Spiked is a website set up in 2000 following the demise of its predecessor LMmagazine, which was shut down after a libel action by Independent Television News following a dispute over its coverage of the war in Bosnia. LM had previously (until December 1996) been known as Living Marxism. Started in 1988, it was published by the Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP), an ultra-left organisation widely reviled on the rest of the left (both radical and reformist) because of its sectarianism and relentless attacks on the left itself, as opposed to its claimed enemies: capitalism and imperialism. Its positions, while sometimes having some purchase in the abstract, were often perceived as an indication that the RCP were objectively agent provocateurs. After the end of the Soviet bloc the party transformed itself, dropping Marxism in 1996—it thought the working class were not up to the job, thus the RCP dissolved them as an agent of history—along with the party name.[2] Between 1997 and 2000, the core of the party continued to organise together under the banner of LM magazine as a propaganda group promoting increasingly libertarian ideas. It has been well documented that they became very close to the libertarian right, opposing the green movement and allying with pro-corporate sceptics and Thatcherite free market think tanks on tobacco, climate, GM, food, alcohol and many other issues.[3]

Spiked emerged from the aftermath of the LM closure with another organisation called the Institute of Ideas; both remain based in the offices formerly occupied by Living Marxism/LM. They are still run by a core of interlocking personnel, almost all of whom were cadre of the RCP and include, in a variety of key roles, the former leader of the RCP and continuing guru, Frank Furedi, professor of Sociology at the University of Kent. This and the habit of creating a network of closely linked front groups, spin-offs and other ventures, with overlapping membership has led to them being dubbed the ‘LM network’.

They pursued and received corporate funding from the pharma, oil, food, alcohol  and other industries, including from Pfizer, Shell and Cadbury-Schweppes, whose activities are often criticised as harmful to public health and wellbeing or whose interests are threatened by activist campaigns. They also took support in cash or kind from controversial public relations firms such as Hill and Knowlton, Luther Pendragon and TechCentralStation.[4]

This is another thing I got wrong about these rightists who talk leftish. I always think that their bogus politics are broadly linked to interests, not directly bought and paid for. Of course the broad interest thing holds for many bloggers, journos and academics but Spiked appears to have taken "the next step".

For the sake of completeness, here are the footnotes:

[1] Brendan O’Neill, ‘Gaza flotilla: invasion of the moral armada,’ Spiked, 2 June 2010; Brendan O’Neill, ‘The antithesis of anti-imperialism,’ Spiked, 6 January 2009.

[2] Dave Renton, ‘The new socialism of fools,’ DKRenton.co.uk, 7 February 2006; Renton, ‘Living Marxism, spiked online and the RCP,’ DKRenton.co.uk, 4-8 March 2006.

[3]George Monbiot, ‘Far Left or Far Right?: Living Marxism’s interesting allegiances,’Prospect, 1 November 1998;George Monbiot, ‘Flying Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,’ The Guardian, 13 January 2009;  Jenny Turner, Who Are They?, London Review of Books, 8 July 2010; Helge Ogrim, ‘Battle of Ideas, is the Revolutionary Communist Party still the vanguard?’ Norwegian Affairs, 6 November 2010.

[4] Spiked ‘Sponsorship packages’, http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php/about/article/340/

Zionists panicking over possible loss of Murdoch

I thought the Jewish Chronicle might be a lone Jewish voice so lacking a moral compass that they are panicking out loud over the possible demise of the Murdoch empire.

Anyone following the way Israel is portrayed here in Britain will be concerned. Murdoch's publications (from time to time, at least) provide rare counter blasts against the prevailing winds of anti-Israeli hostility. His commitment to Israel is resolute. In a speech last year to the Anti-Defamation League he spoke of "the disturbing new home that antisemitism has found in polite society - especially in Europe", and of "an ongoing war against the Jews".

As long as Rupert is at the helm, The Times, the Sunday Times and the Sun are safe from the anti-Zionist consensus.

Anti-zionist consensus in the UK media? Wow!

But it's not just here. Yanks and aussies are worried too. Here's Ron Kampeas on the Jewish Telegraphic Agency website:

“His publications and media have proven to be fairer on the issue of Israel than the rest of the media,” said Malcolm Hoenlein, the executive vice-chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations. “I hope that won’t be impacted.”

And for Australia:

Murdoch’s affection for Israel arose less out of his conservative sensibility than from his native Australian sympathy for the underdog fending off elites seized by conventional wisdoms, according to Isi Liebler, a longtime Australian Jewish community leader who now lives in Israel.

There's something grotesque about the way these zionist Jewish leaders can only worry about how the discomfiture of such a repulsive character affects Israel.

Murdoch latest

From The Independent

Glen Beck exposed as a pinko lefty

I always thought there was something a bit smoked salmon socialist about that Glen Beck character, and it seems that Israeli lawmakers agree. It appears that he was given a hard time by some Knesset members on his 'hallelujah Israel' visit of the Holy Land. For instance MK Eldad objected to Beck's characterisation of Palestinians, pointing out with words that cannot be parodied: 'You say we're all people – I have a problem with this'.

Seriously though, where else in the world would Glen Back be attacked by members of parliament for being too left-wing?

Don't let Murdoch off the hook

The closure of the News of the World when most of its advertisers have said they won't advertise with it any more hardly amounts to penance for the sick behaviours of its journalists, subs and editors.  It is clearly a case of a damage limitation exercise, cutting adrift something that was holed below the waterline anyway.

From the noise coming from the government and Ofcom, the powers that be desperately want Murdoch to continue and enhance his role as the UK's offshore Berlusconi.

Well help is at hand. The 38 Degrees website has a petition and an email campaign to "help break Murdoch's grip" on media and politics in the UK.

For gays, women and Hizbullah

That headline is how a New York Times article describes the Lebanese daily paper, Al Akhbar:

the paper champions gay rights, feminism and other leftist causes, even as it wholeheartedly supports Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed Shiite movement. Al Akhbar’s access to Hezbollah allows it to scoop other papers on Lebanon’s biggest continuing story, but it also publishes muckraking exposés on the abuse of domestic workers, prison overcrowding and other delicate subjects. Add splashy full-page color photos and witty tabloid-style headlines, and you have an alluring product.

I'm jealous.

JSF censored in Spain

Apparently there is a net nanny that comes automatically with a lot of internet services in Spain.  It's called Canguro (ie Kangaroo) Net.  Well according to my contact, it prevents access to Jews sans frontieres and to Norman Finkelstein's website.  The person telling me about it told me that they had contacted the customer services and that Canguro Net was maintaining its position, ie, barring JSF and Finkelstein is legit.

I googled "Canguro net" and it seems to me that most of the sites that appeared were complaining of the intrusion into their free access and looking for ways to disable the service or perhaps I should say service denier.  In fact here's a video clip showing what you can do in Explorer 7 if you want rid of this nasty net nanny:

Looking at some of the other sites, a company called Telefonica seems to impose it on new users unless they specifically request that it be removed. See this British Expats site:

Hi,

Im having problems accessing certain websites,as this canguro net restriction keeps popping up?

how do you bypass this? ive tryed contacting telefonica but couldnt find anyone that spoke english,as my spanish isnt good enough to sort this out.

The response was a little less than helpful:

unless you have kids, tell them to take it off. it costs money per month i assume ?

Nearly everything else is in Spanish but why oh why is a Spanish net nanny censoring Norm and me? I wonder if these Spanish kangaroos are related to Websense.

Never again - For anyone!

I received a mailout from the International Jewish Anti-zionist Network about the Never again - For anyone tour. I've had to change nearly all the links because, as Sarah in the comments noticed, they were internal googlemail links. Where the links were to unpublished letters I have simply reproduced the letters below:

Dear friends,

Here are some of the press articles & letters arising out of the Never Again - For Anyone tour, beginning with a major piece on Dr Hajo Meyer in the prestigious Huffington Post An Ethical Tradition Betrayed.

The tour began in Scotland - the Glasgow Herald published Auschwitz survivor: ‘Israel acts like Nazis’ but not IJAN's letter in response. The Jewish Chronicle, in one of a number of attacks on the meeting in the House of Commons on Holocaust Memorial Day, wrote Gaza ethnic cleansing talk attacked as ‘an appalling offence’,* and did not publish our letter,** nor would the Independent on Sunday publish Yael Kahn's letter.***

The Camden New Journal wrote a very positive article Auschwitz survivor, 86, takes on the protesters, as did Press TV Auschwitz survivor sees Nazi acts in Israel. The letters column of the Camden New Journal has carried more attacks, and more letters defending Dr Meyer.**** And finally East London Lines reported on the "controversial" Goldsmiths meeting, Holocaust survivor heckled in Lewisham.

For a video of Dr Meyer's speech on the tour, please click here. And for three of Dr Eid's speeches, made especially for this tour, please click here & here & here. See more on the Never Again website.

Following the House of Commons meeting, a number of people who had offered testimony on the genocide of their communities, are continuing to work together. We met at a full-day meeting (no Zionists allowed!). From this came a collective process to challenge the exclusivity of Holocaust Memorial Day in the UK, and instead speak of genocide rather than holocaust; to make explicit the genocides and ethnic cleansings historically and today; and to confront Zionism and the many forms of racism we all face. We will soon be giving you a report of this effort, and asking for your input.

Please keep in touch.

Yours against Zionism,

Selma James, Sara Kershnar, Michael Kalmanovitz

Notes and unpublished letters:

*Article seems to have changed from the original. Need to scroll down for the original headline.

**IJAN's unpublished letter to the Jewish Chronicle, 2 February 2010

Dear Letters Editor,

We brought together Auschwitz survivor Dr Hajo Meyer and Palestinian activist Dr Haidar Eid (via live telephone link from Gaza) and speakers from communities that had suffered and resisted genocide and other forms of mass-murder: Armenian, Irish, Native American, Roma, Rwandan, and others. Our aim is to realise the expression: never again, for anyone, anywhere.

Yet Dr Meyer was insulted and attacked by the JC: Jonathan Hoffman calls Dr Meyer “the Amazing Dancing Bear” (January 24); your article headlines the meeting as “an appalling offence” (28 January); and at the meeting itself Zionists tried – and failed – to prevent Dr Meyer speaking. One Zionist gave the Nazi salute & shouted “Heil Hitler” as MPs had police remove him.

Typically, Zionists try to destroy anti-racist organizing because they think it is also directed at them– and they are right. We know the difference between Judaism and Zionism, between anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism, and between commitment to collective humanity and commitment to the interests of an apartheid State. In coming together to stop the ‘slow-motion genocide of Palestine’ we are Zionism’s enemy, and every day since Gaza more Jewish people are with us.

Yours,

Selma James, Michael Kalmanovitz

International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network

***Yael Kahn's unpublished letter, Independent on Sunday, 7 February 2010

Anne Karpf rightly says that "philo-Semitism is a form of anti-Semitism" ("Anti-Semitism is at the limits of irony", 7 February). I wonder how she would define abuse of Holocaust survivors and Jewish Rabbis in traditional Jewish garb if the attackers claim to support the rights of Jews?

This is not a hypothetical situation nor from decades ago, but an actual event in the House of Commons and of all days, on Holocaust Memorial Day (27 January 2010). A Jewish Auschwitz survivor was repeatedly shouted at and was stopped many times from speaking about Auschwitz. He and other Jews, including a Rabbi, were persistently attacked, in spite of repeated police warnings, until 4 of them were escorted out. One of the attackers made the Nazi salute and shouted the Nazi obscenity, "sieg heil". While not all the attackers were Christians, they were all Zionists, in fact, mostly Jews. The Jewish victims were all anti-Zionists.

As Anne Karpf rightly says "We should never be complacent about anti-Semitism" - should attacks like that on the 27 Jan 10 be exempted?

Yael Kahn

****Holocaust survivor’s courage

Published: 4 March 2010

I HAD the privilege of seeing Auschwitz survivor Dr Hajo Meyer’s courage in the face of the repeated attacks at the House of Commons meeting, and he certainly did not look like someone “wheeled out... who has been bamboozled...” (letter by Nicole Segre, February 25).

The attacks at Dr Meyer on the Holocaust Day event escalated until House of Commons police escorted out a Jewish Zionist official.

Then another heckler was escorted out by a policeman but, just when he passed next to us, mainly Jewish people, he shockingly waved his hand in the Nazi salute and shouted “sieg heil”. By contrast, John Gulliver showed his humanity in his compassionate article about the keynote speaker 86-year-old Dr Meyer (February 4).

With dignity Dr Meyer watched the hateful hecklers, only to resume his coherent account of his personal experience and historical analysis.

Unfazed in the face of the Zionist attackers, he told the audience of the lessons on the Siege of Gaza to be learned from the Holocaust.

Dr Meyer’s talk was a special inspiration for me, being an Israeli, currently having regular contact with Gaza, and a daughter of parents who escaped Nazi Germany.

I find Dr Meyer’s lessons poignant, especially when I face denial and silence in spite of the evidence of the death, hunger and suffering caused by the merciless siege of Gaza imposed by Israel.

Yael Kahn
Chair of Islington Friends of Yibna

Bankrupt

Published: 11 March 2010

THE treatment of Auschwitz survivor Dr Hajo Meyer by Zionist Jews comes as no surprise to people like me who have personally experienced the kind of thuggish behaviour they regularly indulge in.

As a Jewish person who has been on the receiving end of their threats and intimidation, I regard it as important for others to know that bullying and cowardice are their stock in trade. The only useful thing to take from their behaviour towards Dr Meyer is that it reveals once again their disdain for civility, the bankruptcy of their politics and the perversity of their claim to speak for the welfare of Jewish people whether they live in Israel or any place else.

Ivor Dembina, SE1

The True meaning of Never Again

Published: 18 March 2010

WE brought together Auschwitz survivor Dr Hajo Meyer and Palestinian activist Dr Haidar Eid, whom the Israeli blockade prevented from leaving Gaza but who addressed the meeting via live telephone link, (Letters, Yael Kahn, Holocaust survivor’s courage, March 4).

They were joined by speakers from communities who had also suffered and resisted genocide and other forms of mass murder: Armenian, Irish, Native American, the Atlantic slave trade, Roma, Rwandan, and others.

Our aim is to realise the true meaning of Never Again, not only for Jews but for anyone anywhere.

Why did Zionists attack Dr Meyer?

Why do they want Jewish people to be the exception?

It seems that this somehow excuses Israel’s exceptional brutality against Palestinians. How can we allow our history of suffering to hide and even be an excuse for the suffering of others?

Dr Meyer, whom Zionists have always failed to silence, knows the difference between Judaism and Zionism, between anti-Semitism, and anti-Zionism and between commitment to collective humanity and commitment to the interests of an apartheid state.

Michael Kalmanovitz
International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network

Good bit of work, theirs not mine. Well done those people.

Send letters to WaPo re: Olmert twaddle on settlements

The following is from a US-based media watchdog, July 17:

WRITE! For Justice, Human Rights and International Law in Palestine  

Today, a Washington Post op-ed by former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert 'How to Achieve a Lasting Peace' (7/17) rebukes the Obama administration's call for an Israeli settlement freeze, endorses "natural growth" himself, and maintains the US focus on settlements "has the potential to greatly shake US-Israeli relations."  In the op-ed, Olmert characterizes the focus on a settlement freeze as a waste of time and a "non-priority issue."

Olmert argues that "settlement construction should be taken off the public agenda and moved to a discrete dialogue, as in the past" allowing the US and Israel to deal with the "essential issues" (i.e. those not concerning Israeli actions).  He emphasizes previous "understandings" with the Bush administation on settlement construction but refuses to accept responsibility for Israel's commitments under the road map (which explicitly rejected natural growth - see Kurtzer op-ed here), the Annapolis framework (see PLO Negotiations Affairs Department report link), or international law generally.

Rather than explain 'How to Achieve a Lasting Peace' as the misleading title suggests, Olmert simply blames Palestinians for rejecting a proposal at the end of his term which would have kept most of the settlers in the West Bank and otherwise fell short of Israel's international obligations -- the op-ed contains no mention of the Arab Peace Initiative which offers a comprehensive resolution to the conflict (see op-ed by Shaikh Salman bin Hamad al-Khalifa) or why the US and Israel rejected it.

Please WRITE! to the Washington Post letters [@] washpost.com, it is critical that we correct the record on Olmert's PR piece, which is sure to draw a heavy response. Be sure to keep letters under 150 words, and include your name, address and daytime phone number for verification purposes only.

UN Report: Humanitarian Impact of Israel's Wall Five Years Since ICJ Decision
************************************************

Death on camera

Attention: disturbing content ahead

The following video, which probably half the world has seen, captures the death on camera of young Iranian woman killed while non-violently protesting for her rights. CNN broadcasted it. It a "symbol."

The video on the other hand, is of the death on camera of Bassem Abu Rameh, a young Palestinian non-violent protester, near the apartheid wall that cuts into Bil'in. It wasn't broadcast on CNN. It is not a "symbol."

We even have a picture of the alleged murderer of Bassem, probably posted on Israeli indymedia by eye-witnesses. (on top is the word 'murderer' in Hebrew). CNN can probably solve a murder case of a protester and bring the criminal to justice without spending more than a $100 of investigative journalism. Why don't they do it?

Shame on CNN for caring about the death of non-violent protesters according to the interests of U.S. foreign domination. The love these journalists professes for Neda is just as racist as the their indifference towards Bassem. Indeed, it is the same racism.

Broadcast the death of Bassem!

Ahmadinjed got something right...almost

That's true. Anyone can state the obvious, you don't have to be the president of a state to get something right. And of course when you get so much wrong it's easy for listeners to cop a deaf'un when you do get something right. Anyway, see this letter in today's Independent:

The Iranian government is wrong on many things. They've beaten Iranians, tortured them, jailed them without fair trial and murdered them. And President Ahmadinejad is wrong in doubting the Holocaust happened, but he's right about one thing: Israel's treatment of Israeli and Palestinian Arabs is racist.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu and UN special rapporteur Professor John Dugard both visited Israel and the Israeli occupied Palestinian territories. Both compared it to the apartheid system they'd lived under.

When an Arab Knesset member proposed a binational state, with citizenship for Jews and Arabs, the Defence Minister Ehud Barak portrayed Israeli Arabs as a "fifth column"' inside the "Jewish state".

Duncan McFarlane

Carluke, South Lanarkshire

Hmm, that "Israel does naughty stuff" type argument doesn't quite do it for me really. What's this guy saying? There's an occupation and some high profiles have ticked Israel off about it. Further the most "left wing" member of the current Israeli government has incited racial hatred against the remnant of what was the Arab majority in that part of Palestine that fell to zionist occupation in 1948.

Now that reminds of what I heard the translator say when Ahmadinejad made his speech. He made a reference to a "racist government" or maybe "regime". Obviously Israel has a racist government and a racist regime but constitutionally it can't have anything else and reference to its government, the regime, the occupation, the racism of this or that politician all miss the point that Israel is a full-blown racist state. But as far as he went Ahmadinejad got something right and lost a chunk of audience for it.

I must say that it is nice to see so many letters in the Independent criticising Israel these days. It doesn't quite make up for the pro-zionist position of Comment is free over at the Guardian but it does show that the anti-zionist word is being spread and people shouldn't be too disheartened about the deterioration at Comment is free. It is much worse under Matt Seaton than it was under Georgina Henry but the Guardian has never been as critical of Israel as has been made out by zionists.

So, anything else in the Indie? Yes, a letter from Rosalind Preston OBE, Co-chair, Jewish Human Rights Coalition UK, Place des Nations, Geneva complaining that Ahmadinejad didn't mention the holocaust, at least I think she said that, and she applauded the people that walked out on account of Ahmadinejad's "genocidal mindset".

Finally there's a letter from my friend Ben Counsell exposing yet more published zionist dishonesty:

In his attempt to defend Zionism, Dr Jacob Amir asserts that the West Bank barrier is a "security barrier between Israel and the West Bank" (Letters, 17 April). The barrier does not run "between" Israel and the West Bank, but cuts deep into the West Bank.

The Israeli President, Shimon Peres, has said of the barrier: "The line is following a certain vision of the future. When that happens, it stops being a security fence and becomes a political fence. Nobody will admit that it is being built for these [political] reasons; nobody will admit that it is a political line."

Well thank goodness for an Israeli president with Shimon Peres's integrity. This covert openness repeats and repeats among zionist leaders. You get the absurd situation where some zionist leader says to a public audience, "we should do this, that or the other, but we should not say so publicly". And a supine western media has played along. But since Gaza some cracks are now appearing in the hasbara edifice and the widest of them appears to be at the Independent.

Take the apartheid out of Israel?

Hmm, here's a curiously honest letter from a friend, nay more, a lover of Israel in today's Independent:

Israel and the situation in the region is a constant vortex of spin, and the truth is not helped by the President of Iran's inaccurate grasp of history. The sources of modern Israel's existence can be traced to Russian anti-Semitism and the rise of nationalism in the 19th century.

But what must be clear to anyone who has spent time in the Arab areas of Israel is that there is a clear system of apartheid. Arabs are discriminated against in terms of housing, education and healthcare as well as opportunities after education.

For anyone to ignore this is to ignore one factor which will do great harm to Israel: and any lover of Israel needs to seek for Israel as a state to be a more pluralist society.

The Revd Stephen Griffith

Woking, Surrey

Hmm, the trouble there, Reverend, is that if you take away the apartheid from Israel there might not be anything left.

There are more letters slagging Israel too. Don't leave any hostages to fortune Mark, whatever you do. I can't help it. Don't do it. I must, I must. Sorry, I was just grappling with my cautious self. The Independent letters page is becoming a bit of a playground for Israel's critics these days. There I did it. It's becoming for Israel's critics what the Guardian's Comment is "free" is for the hasbara brigade. Woah! I did it again. See this next letter:

No wonder Durban II was boycotted by Israel and the USA. No wonder the British delegate led out a flock of others after hearing (but obviously not listening to) Ahmedinejad.

As my mother used to say whenever she rebuked me: the truth hurts. The simple truth in this case being that the Palestinian people have, with the help of colonialist Britain initially, been made to pay the price of crimes against the Jewish people. When will the world understand that two wrongs do not make a right?

Elizabeth Morley

Aberystwyth

Oh purlease!? Israel does not exist because of the holocaust. Foreign policy is not constructed by reference to who the foreign policy makers feel most sorry for. Still, criticism is criticism but we ought to get it right and we need to challenge every zionist narrative.

But moving on, the next one is a reminder of a post by Gabriel here. Ok class, hand up anyone that can remember Gabriel's post saying that we call Israel apartheid because we are polite. Well that's precisely what this woman is saying here:

Perhaps the BBC Trust should study President Ahmedinejad's text at the UN conference and learn to appreciate the accuracy and restraint of Jeremy Bowen's reporting?

Colin V Smith

Rainford, Merseyside

Alright, not precisely but close.

Ok, last one, refuting the myth of Israeli generosity over the Gaza disengagement:

Jeremy Sharman (Letters, 18 April) does nothing but repeat Zionist propaganda when he intimates that the Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza settlements was some sort of concession. The abandonment of these settlements was not a concession or even part of the peace process but, as Ariel Sharon said at the time, a disengagement from the peace process.

To understand the thinking behind such a move one only has to read the teachings of Chief Rabbi Kook (1865-1935), one of the leading figures in combining religious and political Zionism. Kook often stated that to achieve the aims of Zionism, those outposts (settlements) which prove not to be viable should be abandoned to strengthen those that are (West Bank).

Michael W Cook

Soulbury, Buckinghamshire

And that, of course, is without getting into the fact that Israel still pretty much controls Gaza, its boundaries, its electricity supplies, its airspace, the sea, almost everything.

Still it's a good start to the day for our side.

Comment is free is even less free than it used to be

Tony Greenstein had a post yesterday protesting the fact that the current editor of the Guardian's Comment is free, Matt Seaton, appears to be a zionist moderator. It begins with Antony Lerman's article about that cartoon by Pat Oliphant.

Tony left this comment:

The concern of Mr Foxman and all the other slavish apologists for Israel's actions about a cartoon, stand in marked contrast to their silence, indeed their exculpation of the murder of over 400 Palestinian children in Gaza.

Just imagine - 400 Jewish children slaughtered by an intensive air, land and sea bombardment in an attack against their ghetto (which is what Gaza is)? The hypocrisy is breathtaking.

Oh we know the excuse. Hamas are hiding behind civilians - just like Haganah, the Zionist pre-state militia. Presumably the British would have been right to shell kibbutzim, synagogues (where weapons were definitely stored).

But at least the soldiers who committed the atrocities in Gaza were honest. The children will only grow up to be 'terrorists' hence why killing them too is legitimate. The tee shirts Israeli soldiers had made up to 'celebrate' their deeds - such as the picture of a pregnant Palestinian woman in the cross-hairs of a gun sight - 'one bullet 2 kills' is indeed an example of the Nazi mentality. As are slogans such as 'we have come to annihilate you'.

But of course this misses the point. For years Zionists and apologists for everything the Israeli state does to the Palestinians have done so in the name of fighting the Nazis. The settlers invoke the Nazis and ‘never again’ to justify their deeds, the attack on Beirut was likened by Begin to an attack on Hitler’s bunker.

And likewise the Israeli opponents of their State’s barbarism also resort, quite correctly, to analogies with the Nazis. ‘We must demand of the entire nation a sense of shame and humiliation. That soon we will be like Nazis and the perpetrators of pogroms," wrote Rabbi Benyamin’. This was written after the cold-blooded murder of 46 Palestinians at the Kfar Quassem village just prior to the Suez War. Likewise, after some of the events of the 1947-9 war Aharon Zisling, later to become Minister of Agriculture for the Zionist Mapam said at a cabinet meeting that ‘I have not always agreed when the term Nazi was applied to the British. I would not want to use that expression with regard to them, even though they committed Nazi acts. But Nazi acts have been committed by Jews as well, and I am deeply shocked.’ [Tom Segev, the 7th Million, pp. 300-1]

And yet I cannot recall Foxman or the Hoffmans of this world criticising the use of Nazi analogies to demonise the Palestinians because that is their view too. It is only when the victims use such analogies that they are verboten. Strange that.

But maybe the apologists for Israel’s latest slaughter in Gaza have forgotten that it was in 1933, when the Head of the Gestapo’s Jewish Department, Baron von Mildenstein visited the Yishuv, Jewish Palestine, for 6 months, that he not only wrote a series of laudatory articles in Der Angriff when he returned to Germany, having been the guest of Histadrut and the Kibbutzim, but he even had a coin minted – with the Swastika on one side and the Star of David on another. But this was when the World Zionist Organisation had decided that parleying with the Nazis was better than the anti-fascist boycott of them!

But I forget - boycotts too have been compared these days to Nazi ‘boycotts’. And who has made the comparison? Ah yes, the same people who object to such comparisons when the Palestinians make them!!!

Tony Greenstein

But it was deleted. So Tony wrote to Matt Seaton:

Dear Mr Seaton,

I refer to the article published by Antony Lerman in the Guardian’s Comment is Free blog last Thursday 2nd April.

The article argued that the cartoon by Pat Oliphant, showing a ‘headless Nazi-like, goose-stepping, jackbooted figure, with one arm raised and outstretched, holding a sword, and the other wheeling a head in the form of a Star of David’ may have been offensive but it was not anti-Semitic.

Lerman argued that ‘political cartoons are often very offensive, and offensive – even when it involves comparing Israelis with Nazi’ but that ‘does not automatically mean antisemitic.’
It is an argument which is, I would have thought self-evident. Especially when, as Lerman goes on to point out:

‘The effect of the complaints of antisemitism made by the American Jewish organisations is to attempt to protect Israel from legitimate, if deeply unpleasant, criticism…. All it seems to be doing is devaluing the currency. If the ADL and the Wiesenthal Centre don't like or agree with the comparison, why can't they just argue that it's wrong?.. This only makes it increasingly difficult to raise concern about genuine instances of antisemitism and to develop effective means to prevent them.’

This was a well argued article about the pernicious effects of labelling critics of Israel and Zionism as anti-Semitic. I therefore wrote in to support the main thrust of the article and to point out the hypocrisy of those who label others as anti-Semitic when they don’t hesitate themselves to make comparisons between their opponents and the Nazis. In particular I highlighted:

The fact that Israeli soldiers returning home from Gaza had tee-shirts printed legitimising the killing of children and in particular one which showed a pregnant woman in the cross-hairs of a rifle with the slogan ‘one bullet, two kills’. The Nazi mentality behind such thinking should be obvious to all.

The comparisons that have regularly been made between Palestinians and Arabs and the Nazis by Zionists and gave Begin’s comparison of Arafat in Beirut with Hitler in his bunker as but one example.
I recalled the fact that even internal critics of Israel, Zionists themselves, had drawn comparisons to earlier massacres such as that at Kfar Quassem, and the Nazis. I cited Aharon Zisling, later to become a Mapam Minister in the Israeli government who said of the above massacre that ‘Nazi acts have been committed by Jews as well, and I am deeply shocked.’

I noted that on no occasion have those, like Abe Foxman of the Anti-Defamation League ever criticised Zionist comparisons between Palestinians and the Nazis as anti-Semitic.

I drew attention to the trip that Baron von Mildenstein, Head of the Gestapo’s Jewish desk, made a journey in 1933 to Jewish Palestine for 6 months at the invitation of the Labour Zionist movement. Now I wouldn’t expect you to know this, clearly you don’t, but it is documented in Jacob Boas’ ‘A Nazi Travels to Palestine’ which was printed in the January 1980 edition of History Today, a journal which isn’t usually considered on the wilder fringes of the political spectrum.

And finally I drew attention to the fact that those who deprecate comparisons between Zionism and the Nazis have no hesitation in making just such comparisons themselves eg. between BDS campaigns against Israel today and the Nazi ‘Boycott’ of Germany in the 1930’s. Indeed the very same people who objected to Oliphant’s cartoon make this comparison.

I cited as a source for the Zisling and other quotes, the book, 7th Million, by ex-Haaretz journalist, Tom Segev, about the survivors of the Holocaust who emigrated to Palestine/Israel after 1945.

I posted this comment at 1.09 pm last Saturday 4th April and, because of previous experiences of censorship at the Guardian’s Comment is Free site, took the precaution of saving it. Sure enough, when the same petty-minded censors of CIF ( ‘moderators’) got round to dealing with the inevitable Zionist complaint, my comment was removed.

Now I understand that moderators can fulfil a useful function of removing libellous, defamatory and generally ad hominem comments, whose only purpose is to disrupt debate. But my comment was a contribution to, not an attempt to disrupt, a debate. Clearly this is a difference you are having trouble with. Nor was it in any sense anti-Semitic, though its logic was certainly bound to offend our narrow minded opponents and your tiny-minded moderators.

There was a time when CIF, under Georgina Henry, had no hesitation in encouraging debate such as this. It would seem that you on the other hand were brought in as Editor of CIF precisely in order to clamp down on controversial debate, CIF having been subject to a concerted campaign by the Zionist Federation and their allies who were and are afraid of any debate they cannot control.

I look forward to an apology for the deletion of this comment and failing that I would hope that you are honest enough to rename CIF to something more appropriate such as ‘Comment is Free Except When We Censor It’ or ‘Comment is Free (in moderation)’. At the moment CIF is a tribute to Orwell’s Newspeak where censorship is called free debate.

Regards

Tony Greenstein

Comment is free was always loaded in favour of the zionists and whether it's Georgina Henry or Matt Seaton, the only question they ask when told to jump by the ZF or other zios is "how high?"