Jane's military turns

No not the arms experts. This is Jane Fonda we're talking about here. Chris Doyle of the Council for the Advancement of Arab British Understanding has got her measure anyway:

Jane Fonda's claim not to have taken a position on any war since Vietnam will come as a surprise to those who remember her support for the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982. This illegal and immoral war devastated Lebanon and shattered the chances for implementing the Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty
Chris Doyle
Director, Council for Arab-British Understanding

I don't know if it's a coincidence but there's a big write up on Jane Fonda in the World War 4 Report covering exactly the same thing. Is she on a promo tour? Or perhaps another tour of duty.

The old will die and the young will forget

No prizes for guessing that those are the words of Ben Gurion regarding the victims of Israel's first ethnic cleansing campaign. I was reminded of them by an article in Ha'aretz by Hanna Yablonka titled Verging on Holocaust Denial. History has proved Ben Gurion's optomism wrong with regard to the young Palestinians forgetting. He was, of course, right about the old dying. Old people do that eventually and if they seem like they're not going to, then there's always plucky little Israel to help them on their way.

Hanna Yablonka's article is about how the persistent distortion of the holocaust through its use as an instrument of Israeli state policy has led to the most grotesque holocaust analogies by, of all people, the armed fascist activists of Israel's settler movement.

With an increasing degree of sharpness, many Israelis are using motifs that they perceive as clear symbols of the Holocaust in the political debate. It seems there is no longer any point in the protests and expressions of shock that come as a conditioned response after any such incident - especially in light of the fact that they fall on deaf ears. Even the argument of hurting Holocaust survivors is no longer effective. Evidence of this can be found in the response of Ronny Bakshi, the originator of the idea of using the orange patch, to the use of the number on the arm: "I don't take into account what people think, but rather do as I feel.".............

...now, at the juncture when the survivors are disappearing from our lives, and at the same time Holocaust "distorters" are springing up among us, in the next generation nobody's feelings will be hurt any more, because the dead are silent, the survivors will go the way of all flesh and we will have nothing left - certainly not the shared memory we owe them.

Hence, the old will die and the young will forget. But in the case of the latter, these things don't just happen, they are made to happen.

Vatican wrong on Israel!

The Vatican has issued a rather blunt statement condemning Israel's war crimes against the Palestinians.

The Vatican pointed out that it hasn't condemned every strike by Palestinian armed groups against the Jewish state because Israel's military response to the attacks has sometimes violated international law.

Unfortunately the Vatican failed to point out that Palestinian attacks on Israel are usually preceded by Israeli war crimes.

"Excuse makers" to be blacklisted

Some commentators across the pond are saying that anyone who suggests that America's own actions have increased terrorism against American and other targets should be blacklisted or even incarcerated.

New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman has urged the U.S. government to create blacklists of condemned political speech--not only by those who advocate violence, but also by those who believe that U.S. government actions may encourage violent reprisals. The latter group, which Friedman called "just one notch less despicable than the terrorists," includes a majority of Americans, according to recent polls.

That would also apply to the majority of Brits whether you believe the a 64% figure or an 85% one.

Radio broadcaster Bill O'Reilly's position is even more extreme:You must know the difference between dissent from the Iraq War and the war on terror and undermining it. And any American that undermines that war, with our soldiers in the field, or undermines the war on terror, with 3,000 dead on 9/11, is a traitor. Everybody got it? Dissent, fine; undermining, you're a traitor. Got it? So, all those clowns over at the liberal radio network, we could incarcerate them immediately. Will you have that done, please? Send over the FBI and just put them in chains, because they, you know, they're undermining everything and they don't care, couldn't care less.This mooted blacklist would also include members of the security forces and our very own Chatham House.

Jewdas on the lookout

I just want to highlight a comment left by one of the contributors to the Jewdas website:

Hi, I'm one of the people behind Jewdas. We're looking for more people to write for us, so if anyone out there fancies writing some biting satire on anglo Jewry and zionists please send it my way!

So, his name's Joseph and he wants contributors.

Settlers have a dream

Ha'aretz had a report yesterday on how a setllers' leader, Pinhas Wallerstein, has compared the settlers to Martin Luther King's freedom riders. The first thing that struck me about this comparison is the sheer hypocrisy of people seeking racial supremacy likening themselves to people who fought against racial supremacy. Did Ha'aretz notice this? Apparently not.

From the beginning, the Yesha Council heads have borne a false tone in their clumsy effort to appear as the standard-bearers of the civil disobedience propounded by Mahatma Gandhi, King's role model. For King, breaking the law meant sitting in "whites only" bus seats. The Yesha leaders' attempt seems like a public relations chicanery, not an authentic worldview. After all, the Yesha Council heads cynically change their tactics on a daily basis: One moment they declare their intention to force their will on the country, the next moment they decide to sing songs of brotherhood and unity. One day they define their goal as bringing down the government; the next, as embracing the public.

You see? The racism inherent in zionism is taken as read. For Ha'aretz the trouble with the settlers is their challenge to the state.

The rough with the smooth

Some good letters in today's Guardian, criticising Jonathan Freedland's article in yesterday's Guardian. There are some bad ones of course, including one from fraudster, Alan Dershowitz, but here are my faves:

What double standards from Jonathan Freedland (Comment, July 27). As British Jews, he and I have a choice of being citizens in Britain or Israel. Palestinians and especially refugees, are citizens of no country. But they are fighting for liberation with the only weapons they possess - tragically, sometimes that does mean literally turning themselves into human bombs.

Meanwhile, a British Jew can become an Israeli, join the armed services, and expect to be called upon to use the most sophisticated military equipment, supplied by the US, to crush the Palestinian uprising. We know, for sure, that means the possibility of killing thousands of innocent civilians. Jonathan, rather than pontificate on how the Muslim community in Britain should behave, shouldn't you and I turn our attention to the Jewish community here? Shouldn't we be raising questions about the morality of British Jews joining the Israeli miltary at this time?
John Rose
London

Thousands of Palestinians, have been killed over the years, their homes demolished, their land expropriated. The number of illegal West Bank settlers has now reached 400,000 and the separation wall, condemned by the international court of justice, continues to be built in order to annex large areas of the Palestinian territory. What is this if not state terrorism? Double standards of this kind are one of the reasons for the fury and violence we are now experiencing.
Hilary Wise
London

Its hard to know who Jonathan Freedland is talking about when he says the "wider left" is "hugging" Muslims who "are sharply at odds with Britain's progressive tradition". But, for the record, both the aims of the Stop the War Coalition and the election manifesto of Respect sustain the support of many tens of thousands of Muslims on an entirely progressive basis.

To those who cannot distinguish between life in Palestine and Iraq, and that in Britain: the former are war zones in territory occupied by a hostile armed force, the latter is not.

The left would be stronger, the "fundamentalists" weaker and the threat of terrorism less if more people became involved in organising this progressive response to the crisis into which New Labour has plunged us all.
John Rees
National secretary, Respect

Particularly nice to see John Rose finding some old form.

Jonathan Freedland: No one excuses zionist atrocities

In a comment piece criticising Ken Livingstone for equating Hamas with Likud, here's Jonathan Freedland:

Since the intifada began five years ago, 3,600 Palestinians have been killed. No one is making excuses for that

Does he never read the Telegarph, the Times, or, er, the Guardian? Here he is again in the same article

Imagine these cases for a moment. A British man emigrates to Israel; a few years later he might get called up for military service; he might even end up in an operation that results in the killing of civilians. And then there is another British man who arrives in Israel for the sole purpose of staging a suicide bombing. (This latter case is not hypothetical: Britons Asif Mohammed Hanif and Omar Khan Sharif did exactly that in 2003.) Is there not a moral difference between these two actions? Why does Livingstone say they are equivalent?

Freedland's British man would have to be woefully (and wilfully) ignorant not to know that Israel targets civilians.

What do zionists do?

Here's a new website with a guide for the lazy zionist.

The third pillar of British Zionist identity is a classic: the letter of complaint. The key issue here is quantity rather than quality; fourteen a week is the recommended minimum. The slothful israel defender may wish to restrict themselves to writing to bastions of Bolshevism such as the Guardian and the Independent, but you will wish to go further, paraphrasing Ecclesiates ‘of the writing of hasbara letters there is no end’. Some of your complacement friends may feel there is no need to bombard respectable arab hating journals such as the mail, telegraph and spectator, but you respectfully disagree. After all, if you cannot find enough material to complain about you may fail to make your weekly quota, and may begin to lose your identity. If you feel particularly energetic you may wish to attend pro Israel demonstrations, and put forward motions at public meetings. Generally, however, this is done by young people, who use it as a replacement for a social life.

I wonder if some people recognise themselves in that.

What is zionism and is it like fascism?

Well I think it's very like fascism though I've even been ticked off by anti-zionists for saying so. The link above is to a review (over a week old now) of Jacqueline Rose's new book The Question of Zion. I actually found the link on Sue Blackwell's "controversial" (read: she pisses the zionists off) website. Here's how reviewer, Raphael Behr, opens the review:

Likening the Israelis' treatment of Palestinians with the Holocaust is outrageous to most Jews. But Jacqueline Rose has dared to do just that.

But what is zionism?

It is a story beset with contradiction. Zionism was secular, a case of 19th-century national self-discovery in reaction to repressive empire. Zionism was religious; it took its mandate from God's covenant with Abraham.

Zionism looked forward; many of its early followers despised the legacy of the European ghetto, which they saw as craven and weak. They changed their names and their language from Yiddish to Hebrew; they scorned the old culture of bookish urbanity and embraced a cult of labour and soil. Zionism looked backwards; the Jews seeking return to the land of their forefathers.

It then takes the reviewer a while to get to this:

The Palestinians, in Rose's analysis, are scapegoat for Israel's tortured memory of the Holocaust. They represent not just the threat of arbitrary destruction (of which each suicide bombing is a constant reminder) but they are made also to pay for the suppressed shame that Europe's Jewry felt at having bowed to its fate at Hitler's hands.

These little snippets don't do the review justice so please read it in full. Also you might also consider buying the book or ordering it from your library.

War criminal awaits apology from Ken

Another one for the definitions of chutzpah section. The war criminal Ariel Sharon says that he expects an apology from Ken Livingstone for comparing Likud to Hamas.

"Hamas is a murderous organization that has killed thousands of Israelis," Sharon said.

"These kind of anti-Semitic comparisons are improper and must be dealt with."

I'm not sure if Hamas has killed thousands of Israelis but I don't mind being corrected on that. Also, I wonder if Hamas expects an apology from Ken for likening them to Likud.

Met police build Jerusalem in England's green and pleasant land

[Hat-tip Eurosabra]
Lenin (of the Tomb) carries the story of how the British Metropolitan police have been trained in Israel.

The only significance of this fact as far as I can see is that it is one more way in which practises which have been common in Israel for years under a legal 'state of emergency' are now becoming normal in liberal democracies . Surely the next step is to build a big wall around those parts of the Middle East that we want to nick and leave the remaining vassalage to sweat it under watchtowers, the occasional helicopter attack and the regular traffic of bulldozers.

This reminds me of how for many decades (even centuries) the demand of Britain by Irish nationalists was for "Brtiish standards of justice" in British ruled Ireland. What we got was British justice falling to the level it inflicted on the colonies.

Three poems by Michael Rosen

who is not now, nor has he ever been, a member of the Socialist Workers Party.

From Iraq

We have no mouths
We evaporated
You don’t see the holes in the ground where we were put
We are the unfound
We are uncounted
You don’t see the homes we made
We’re not even the small print or the bit in brackets.
You see less of us than you see of the dust
You see less of us than you see of the wind
Because we were somewhere else,
because we lived far from you,
because our minutes, hours, days and years did not last as long as yours,
because you have cameras that point the other way,
because you talk about other people…
…Of that moment when we went
you can’t even say you missed it.

Dear New Labour

If you go into other people’s countries
and bomb them
they will bomb you.
You can call them what you like
You can tell us that our cause is noble
You can tell us that they’re evil and we are good
But the rule remains:
If you go into other people’s countries
and bomb them
they will bomb you.
You can tell us that you’ve flushed out the troublemakers
You can tell us that you’ve neutralised the flashpoints
You can tell us that you’ve sown the seeds of the future
But the rule remains:
If you go into other people’s countries
and bomb them
they will bomb you.

From the three trains and the 30 bus

Thank you so much for lying
when we asked you why.
Thank you so much for not listening
when we said, don’t go.
Thank you so much for ignoring us
when we said, don’t shoot.
Thank you so much for carrying on
when we said, get out.
Thank you so much for taking no notice
when we said, this’ll make things worse.
Thank you so much for making it impossible
for us to go on saying thank you.

There, that's Michael Rosen showing the SWP the difference between a good yiddishe boy and and a bad Israeli one.

Beyond Chutzpah "ready to roll": UCP

"Marilyn" at the University of California Press has emailed Norman Finkelstein as follows:

Norm, just wanted to assure you that I saw "soft proofs" (aka "virtual bluelines") today. These are the printer-prepped version of the files posted on their secure website for inspection. I checked every page against my hard copy. I gave special attention to all pages that were corrected after we sent the files to Sheridan, double-checking that the final, corrected versions were in place and that reflow didn't introduce any errors. Everything seems in order (PHEW!), and so I have given the okay to print.

I hope it's happening this time. I went to my library to get Dershowitz's "The Case for Israel" but the librarian said "there is no case for Israel." Not really, she said that they didn't have it in stock. So I've ordered both Deshowitz's and Finkelstein's books. Ordering a book, pre-release, from a library is a good way to ensure it ends up on the shelves and gets more widely read as a result.

With Fox on our side

When the first suspicions arose that the restrained man shot five times in the head by British police may have been innocent this is what Fox News had to say

What is also good is the Brit police tactics that we saw at work in the subway Friday morning. The tackle and kill team is incredible, if for no other reason than their bravery. Can you imagine the job of those cops? Tackle the guy wearing a vest bomb and hope your colleague is right behind with the gun to put five bullets in the noggin before he sets off the bomb.

Turns out he didn't have a bomb, and turns out he wasn't one of the four bombers Thursday. And if it turns out ultimately that he had nothing to do with anything, no doubt there will be hell to pay. But the police say he was linked to the terror probe, so let's wait and see.

Now doesn't it make you feel safer knowing we have Murdoch's staff on our side?

Pollard stays in jail

Jonathan Pollard, who is serving life in America for spying for Israel, has had yet another appeal turned down. I wonder what those people who say that Jews control America will make of that one.

Shot man "innocent"

According to reports, the Asian looking man (who is believed to be Brazilian) who was shot five times in the head while two men held him down was not connected to the bombers of either 7/7 or 21/7. The Muslim Council of Britain is describing him as innocent while the police have expressed "regret" at a "tragedy." I think it's time to get scared.

I'm not finding many results for this on Google but BBC and the Guardian have recent reports.

Howard Jacobson: why can't they be more like us Jews

"They" being Muslims of course. Here's Howard Jacobson in the Independent today explaining why, in spite of the fact that, for Jews, "in regard to Israel .... Britain sometimes felt like an enemy state", Jews don't go around throwing bombs here.

Well, there wasn't a culture of it, for one thing. Throwing bombs at the innocent presupposes a mindset...

After explaining why the Jewish community is better and more British than the Muslim community, he then rounds on Ken Livingstone who, he says, agrees with everything about the London bombers except the bombings themselves. To see what a load of tosh that is go to Electronic Iraq to see what Ken actually said.

Ken upsets the zionists, part 94

Ken Livingstone has upset the zionists and their cohorts in the war party by daring to suggest, on BBC Radio 4, what most people are suggesting: the west is, at least in part, to blame for Islamist terrorism.

On the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, he said that it is unacceptable that Israel goes on "indiscriminately destroying homes simply because a [Palestinian] bomber came from that area. I don't believe in an eye for an eye. I don't believe in that punishment."

An Arab Media Watch action alert runs with the following quotes:

On Israel and Palestinians:

"...those governments which use indiscriminate slaughter to advance their foreign policy, as we have occasionally seen with the Israeli government bombing areas from which a terrorist group will have come, irrespective of the casualties it inflicts, women, children and men."

On occupation:

"Under foreign occupation and denied the right to vote, denied the right to run your own affairs, often denied the right to work for three generations, I suspect that if it had happened here in England, we would have produced a lot of suicide bombers ourselves."

Apparently zionist groups like the Board of Deputies of British Jews and the World Jewish Congress are already on the case.

Update - Meaders has a good post on this on his Dead Men Left blog

Livingstone's was a sufficiently eloquent statement that one might think it had been prepared some time ago. With some rhetorical skill, it bundled up what many of us, especially in London, felt. It did not, however, say what we thought. As Rawnsley says, Livingstone's clarity provided the best possible cover for a government with a nervous memory of Madrid. To duck the issue of Iraq, given Livingstone's own clear anti-war position, was a failure of political responsibility on his part: when put to the test, he buckled.

That cover has now been blown. Livingstone, no doubt sensing the mood, has said what he should have said earlier.

In fairness to me, I should point out that I have criticised Ken's opportunism before but I love it when the zionists go into a rant so I kind of missed it this time.

Finkelstein's Beyond Chutzpah heads for the shops

Statement by University of California Press

The University of California Press is pleased to publish Beyond Chutzpah: On the Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History by Norman Finkelstein. Since 1893, UC Press has been especially well known for pioneering books on critical social and political issues. As one of the largest, most distinguished scholarly publishers in the world, we are respected for attracting authors whose work transcends traditional academic boundaries. We have built a reputation for publishing books that matter. We think this one does.

Beyond Chutzpah scrutinizes what Norman Finkelstein describes as "the proliferation of distortion masquerading as history" around the Israel-Palestine conflict. He questions this scholarship and asks why, in his view, it receives uncritical acclaim within the academy. To support his thesis, Finkelstein uses Alan Dershowitz's recent bestseller The Case for Israel as a springboard from which to investigate controversial human rights cases involving Israel over the last few decades. Sifting through thousands of pages of reports, and presenting the first accessible distillation of key human rights findings, Finkelstein argues that Dershowitz has misstated the facts. Most integral to this argument, Finkelstein claims that a long and lasting solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict will never be attained without a basis in truth.

Anticipating the publication of Beyond Chutzpah, Professor Alan Dershowitz launched a letter-writing campaign, targeting our Board of Directors, the UC Administration, and Governor Schwarzenegger. We take this seriously. We are confident in our processes of factual and scholarly review, a protocol we follow as one of the leading university presses, and as a publisher of critical, incisive scholarship on politics, international studies, and domestic issues. We are also buttressed by enthusiastic reviews of this book from several scholars in Middle Eastern and Jewish Studies, who see this book as a critical work in the field.

I really ought to read Dershowitz's The Case for Israel but I can't force myself to. He's such a discreditied character and, of course, there is no case for Israel.

You can read more about Finkelstein and his work here.