Galliano neither Antisemitic nor Hasidic

Here's a strange report on John Galliano.  Have a look at the picture from the New York Post:



The article it accompanies is headed, Jew-bash designer Galliano's costume mocks faithful and it quotes various Williamsburg residents expressing their disgust at Galliano for mocking them.
Here's an example:

“He’s trying to embarrass people in the Jewish community and make money on clothes [while] dressed like people he has insulted,” fumed Williamsburg community leader Isaac Abraham. It looks like the hairstyle he added was done purposely to insult.”

One writer, Serena French, at the New York Post defended him by saying his latest garb is "Just his way of making amends" but then ended her article:

For the flamboyant designer, this outfit is meant to be an attention grabber. He had a bright spotlight once and probably misses it. He's used to courting controversy and this is the perfect way to put himself back in the conversation on his own terms. Either that or he converted.

 So he's making another antisemitic statement or he's making amends or he's simply grabbing attention.  There's only one way to settle this.  The Jewcy section of Tablet Magazine called in Abe Foxman of the Anti-Defamation League:

According to ADL National Director Abraham H. Foxman:

There is no truth to their accusation that John Galliano was dressed in Hasidic garb, and anyone familiar with the dress of traditional Orthodox Jews should not mistake what Galliano is wearing in the photograph as “Hasidic garb.” Hasidim do not wear fedora hats, pinstripe pants, blue jackets or an ascot tie.

“He has spent hours with me and with others in the European Jewish community, including rabbis and Holocaust scholars, in an effort to better understand himself and to learn from his past mistakes. He is trying very hard to atone,” Foxman added.

Now how did a top fashion designer find time to talk to Abe Foxman and yet have no time to talk the New York Post?

Samer Issawi in "critical condition"

From al Akhbar via the Institute for Middle East Understanding:

Palestinian prisoner Samer Issawi is in "critical condition" after 203 days spent on a hunger strike, activists said, sparking fears on Monday that he might not survive his protest against Israel’s abusive prison system.

Issawi is one of thousands of Palestinian prisoners who have gone on hunger strikes in the past year to denounce Israel’s policy of administrative detention and poor life conditions in prisons.

The 33-year old has been refusing food since July 2012, making it one of the longest hunger strikes in the world.

Issawi stopped drinking water and taking vitamins earlier this month, and is refusing medical care. His weight dropped to less than 47 kilograms and he is confined to a wheelchair, suffering from loss of vision, fainting and vomiting blood.

“His heart could stop at any moment,” said Daleen Elshaer, a coordinator for the Free Samer Issawi Campaign.

Elshaer told Al-Akhbar that Issawi’s lawyer and human rights activists were denied accessed to Issawi until Saturday during his most recent hospitalization outside of the infamous Ramlah prison.

Issawi was first arrested in 2002 and sentenced to thirty years in prison over weapons possession and forming a military group. He was released in an October 2011 prisoner swap agreement between Israel and Hamas in which the Jewish state freed 1,027 mostly-Palestinians in exchange for an Israeli soldier captured in 2006.

He was rearrested on 7 July 2012 and accused of violating the terms of his release by leaving Jerusalem. Israeli prosecutors are seeking to cancel his amnesty and detain him for 20 years, the remainder of his previous sentence, despite there being no other charges against him.

The case of Samer Issawis has been promoted heavily on Twitter lately.  Check out  #OpFreeSamer or #SamerIssawi.

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.

French Holocaust Rescuers Boycott Zionist Holocaust Memorial Event

This is from The Forward:

PARIS — A French organization that saved Jews during the Holocaust has declined to attend a commemoration because it was organized by pro-Israel Jews.

The Marseille branch of CIMADE, a French Protestant group established in 1939, declined to attend the region’s main memorial ceremony for Jewish Holocaust victims because of the pro-Israel attitude of CRIF, the umbrella group representing French Jewish communities, which organized the event together with the municipality.

The values that led CIMADE to save Jews make the group “equally committed to oppose the colonial, discriminatory and bellicose policy of Israel with regards to the Palestinians,” CIMADE regional deputies Françoise Rocheteau and Jean-Pierre Cavalie wrote in a letter to the local CRIF branch on Dec. 21. It also said CIMADE was determined to fight “apartheid.”

The letter, which was published online on Feb. 11 by a group which promotes a boycott of Israel, was a reply to an invitation extended by CRIF to CIMADE to attend the 70th commemoration on Jan. 20 of the deportation and subsequent murder of thousands of local Jews.

Marseille had a Jewish population of 39,000 in 1939, according to Beit Hatfutsot, the Museum of the Jewish People. Only 10,000 remained after the Holocaust. CIMADE organized “vital relief and later resistance” in connection with the murders, according to Yad Vashem, and helped smuggle Jews to safety. Yad Vashem named Madeleine Barot, who headed CIMADE during the Holocaust, a Righteous among the Nations in 1988. She passed away seven years later.

“We understand our positions may appear unacceptable, making us unwelcome at your commemoration,” the CIMADE representatives wrote. “We cannot keep silent on our convictions but do not wish to cause a scandal.”

It's interesting that they're trying a softly softly approach.  I wonder if CRIF will appreciate that. 

What the Pope told G-d

"I'm outta here!"

Nothing to me but I'm sure the straightforward resignation of a Pope is unprecedented. According to The Guardian it's the first time a pope has resigned in 600 years but I'm guessing it wasn't nearly so straightforward back then.

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.

Akiva Orr 1931 - 2013

Akiva Orr, founder of Matzpen, died yesterday.  Here's +972:

Akiva Orr, co-founder of the Israeli anti-Zionist group ‘Matzpen’ and one of the most well-known-figures in the radical left, passed away this weekend. Matzpen was a radical and controversial Jewish-Palestinian group that opposed Zionism and called for an alliance between Israelis and Palestinians. The group was also very active on socioeconomic issues, and was the first left-wing party to join the Mizrahi “Black Panthers” protests in the early seventies.

Orr was born in Berlin in 1931. His parents left to Palestine when he was three years old after the Nazis rise to power. Orr grew up in Tel Aviv, and was drafted into the Haganah and later on the Israeli Navy during the 1948 war. He served in the navy until 1950, and then joined the merchant navy, where he participated in the Israeli Seamen’s Strike of 1951, an event which left Orr highly politicized as a result of being beaten by the Israeli Police. In the same year he joined the Israeli Communist Party (ICP).

Orr, along with three other party members, broke off from the ICP and formed Matzpen in 1962. The organization committed itself to a socialist revolution, opposed Zionism and called for recognition of the Palestinian people’s national rights. Matzpen remained on the margins of Israeli politics throughout its existence, never gaining more than a few dozen members. The group began to receive attention in the Israeli press after openly opposing the 1967 war and the Israeli occupation.

Orr moved to London in the 1960s, where he remained until his return to Israel in 1990. He was invited to speak at the 2011 Israeli tent protests on Rothschild Boulevard, Tel Aviv, where he delivered lectures on the Seamen’s Strike of 1951 and on direct democracy.

Here he is giving a talk to ISM activists: 

Anti-apartheid sports boycott and the lessons for Palestine Solidarity

Here's a good write-up of the meeting at SOAS I announced a few days ago:

Lessons of the anti-apartheid sports boycott for Palestinian solidarity

Posted on February 8, 2013by Gavin Brown

On Tuesday 5 February, Helen Yaffe represented the Non-Stop Against Apartheid project at a meeting organised by Football Beyond Borders at SOAS.  The meeting asked, “What can the boycott of the U21 UEFA Football Championships in Israel learn from the Anti-Apartheid Movement?” Here we offer a report on the evening’s discussions.

The meeting opened with the inspiring, informative and emotive film Have you heard from Johannesburg: Fair Play (2010) about the worldwide campaign to get apartheid South Africa banned from international sports competitions. It focused first on efforts, initiated by South African activist Dennis Brutus, to have the country expelled from the Olympics and later how activists mobilized to stop the South African rugby team – the Springboks – from playing in Britain, Australia and New Zealand in the late 1960s. Following the film, Patsy Pillar, a white South African woman, one of the founders of the exile-initiated boycott movement in Britain in 1959, reflected on how this strategy took roots in Britain and developed into an international solidarity movement.

Helen Yaffe’s presentation about the City of London Anti-Apartheid Group (CLAAG) briefly explained its origins and purpose, and summarized the types of boycott and solidarity actions the group engaged in. Illustrated with photos from the Non-Stop Picket,occupations of South African Airways and other protests, Helen then drew out the key principles and/or lessons which could be adopted in boycott campaigning:

• Boycotts should be part of active political campaign, not a passive action by individual consumers;
• Use all available channels simultaneously, from pressure group tactics to direct action in the streets;
• Make the campaign/boycott relevant to people in Britain by relating to racial, class and sexual oppression – identification will increase participation;
• Defence campaigns are vitally important – success brings publicity and builds confidence. (There were over 700 arrests on the Non-Stop Picket of the South African Embassy, but the group won 90% of court cases);
• Educate activists. They must know what they are fighting for and against, especially with regard to the role of British political/economic interests;
• Don’t be held back by disapproval from ‘respectable’ forces;
• Internal democracy encourages participation: Everyone should have speaking rights; there should be no censorship of literature or groups.

Springbok Reception Committee banner (Source: City Group)

Next Maha Rezeq, a Palestinian activist described how Palestinians grow up in struggle and affirmed the importance of the international Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel. The final panelist was Geoff Lee from the Red Card to Israel campaign, who detailed their work to date in demanding the relocation of the under 21s UEFA football championship, which is due to take place in Israel in June 2013. When he mentioned that UEFA are meeting in London on 24 May, it was suggested that this would provide an ideal opportunity for a vibrant protest, inspired by those thousands of courageous and uncompromising anti-apartheid activists in the late 1960s, to demand that the games are moved out of Israel.

The chair, Timesh Pillay, did an excellent job of opening, summarising and encouraging participation, and there were numerous questions and comments from the audience of around 50, mostly students, several specifically about the Red Card campaign. One of the more general questions asked whether the treatment of Palestinians by Israel could be compared to the apartheid system in South Africa. Helen referred to comments from Desmond Tutu, a black leader of the liberation movement in South Africa, who condemns ‘Israeli apartheid’, and she questioned the absence of a powerful boycott campaign against Israel like the one against apartheid in South Africa.

There are just four months left to build an effective boycott campaign to demand the relocation of the under 21s UEFA football championships. Individuals and groups are encouraged to get involved. The next meeting takes place at SOAS on Thursday 14 February at 7pm.

 Got that?  There's another meeting on 14th February 2013 at SOAS, presumably in the same room but I'll let you know.

David Ward defended from antisemitism charge

I didn't see this letter from Tony Greenstein to The Guardian (6th Feb 2013).

Aida Edemariam writes that Lib Dem MP David Ward "still seems unable to comprehend why he has caused offence" ('The solid ground I stand on is that I am not a racist', G2, 6 February). David Ward's offence is accusing "the Jews" of inflicting atrocities on Palestinians, within a few years of their own liberation from the death camps.

This is much ado about nothing. Ward's error in referring to "the Jews" rather than "Jewish people" is entirely understandable. The sole purpose of the synthetic outrage Ward's remarks have generated is designed to stifle criticism of Israel and suppress free speech. Israel's occupation is carried out in the name of a state which calls itself Jewish and claims, according to the 2004 Jerusalem Program of the World Zionist Organisation, to represent "the Jewish people" as a whole. Ward's critics cannot have their cake and eat it. They cannot claim Israel represents not merely its own Jewish citizens but Jews worldwide and at the same time accuse people who associate "the Jews" with Israel's atrocities of antisemitism. The Board of Deputies of British Jews has repeatedly proclaimed the support of British Jews for Israel's attacks on the Palestinians and Lebanese. It has even organised demonstrations in support of those attacks. Perhaps the board is also antisemitic? Certainly they can't complain when people take them at their word.

Ward is accused of antisemitism for making comparisons between the Nazi period and what is happening to the Palestinians. Of course Israel has not set up death camps for Arabs. But when Gerald Kaufman spoke in the Commons about his grandmother who had been killed in her bed by a Nazi soldier, he stated that "my grandmother did not die in order to provide cover for Israeli soldiers murdering Palestinian grandmothers in Gaza". Is Gerald Kaufman also antisemitic?
Tony Greenstein
Brighton, East Sussex

 These bogus allegations of antisemitism are coming in thick and fast these days so you might not know the story that Tony was referring to.  If that's the case then the link is in his letter above but here it is again. Also, here's the letter on Tony Greenstein's blog.

English football fanzine on the Beitar case

I'm not a big fan of the beautiful game but I know a man who is and he sent me this link to the English soccer fanzine, Who ate all the pies? which he, my friend describes as "the gossip blog about british football".  See this article on the Beitar arson attack:

The club house of Israeli Premier League side Beitar Jerusalem was torched by arsonists last night and police suspect the “extensive damage” was caused in protest over the club’s recent acquisition of Zaur Sadayev and Gabriel Kadiev, two Chechen muslim players....

Beitar are widely known to be a right-wing club and have never signed an Arab player at the behest of their intolerant fans, despite players of Arabic descent being on the books of every other team in the Israeli Premier League and the Israeli national squad.

The pricks.

 More mainstreaming of what's wrong with Israel.

Beitar consumed with hatred

The arson attack on the Beitar Jerusalem offices over the club's signing of two Chechen Muslims has given Israeli PM, Bibi Netanyahu, the chance to parade the state's anti-racist credentials.  Here's Ha'aretz:

The management offices of the Beitar Jerusalem soccer club were torched early Friday morning at its training ground in Bayit Vegan, causing heavy damage. An investigator from the fire department said the fire bore signs of arson.

The Jerusalem fire department received a call at 5 A.M. from a security patrolman who noticed the fire, according to Asaf Abras, a department spokesman.

"Two teams rushed to the scene, where they saw smoke coming through the windows," he said. "They broke in and put out the fire. Some items were collected at the scene and sent to the forensic lab. At this point, we’ve determined that this was arson." The heaviest damage was caused to a room housing trophies, a storage room and some offices.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu condemned the suspected arson attack.

"This behavior was shameful," said Netanyahu. "We cannot accept such racist behavior. The Jewish person that has suffered boycotts and expulsions must serve as 'light unto the nations."

The fans of Beitar Jerusalem are a fairly typical example of the State of Israel's brand of enlightenment.

Brooklyn BDS event was, erm, an event

Well the Judith Butler and Omar Barghouti BDS meeting took place at Brooklyn College last night in spite of the mobilisation of various Israel lobbyists to prevent it.  "Arguments" against the meeting taking place ranged from the impression that the college was supporting BDS to the college was paving the way for a second holocaust.  Really, someone, an assemblyman no less, said that.

The content of Judith Butler's presentation is at The Nation but this little chunk is lifted from what looks like a grudging piece from the +972 Mag site by Lisa Goldman:

One could be for the BDS movement as the only credible non-violent mode of resisting the injustices committed by the state of Israel without falling into the football lingo of being “pro” Palestine and “anti” Israel. This language is reductive, if not embarrassing. One might reasonably and passionately be concerned for all the inhabitants of that land, and simply maintain that the future for any peaceful, democratic solution for that region will become thinkable through the dismantling of the occupation, through enacting the equal rights of Palestinian minorities and finding just and plausible ways for the rights of refugees to be honored. If one holds out for these three aims in political life, then one is not simply living within the logic of the “pro” and the “anti”, but trying to fathom the conditions for a “we”, a plural existence grounded in equality.

The +972 piece is titled Despite controversy, Brooklyn College BDS panel is a non-event.  Now I could well be missing some irony here.  Reading the article it looks like she might be saying that such a straightforward issue should be a non-event and in some ways it should.  But the fact that powerful or influential players (eg, Alan Dershowitz) mobilised to prevent the event taking place and the fact that other equally powerful players (New York's Mayor Bloomberg) expressed their support made the mere fact that the meeting took place at all an event in itself.

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.

Arabic language not allowed at Haifa Uni

Here's an article from the International Middle East Media Center

An Arab student studying at the Haifa University was prevented from speaking his mother tongue while at the Academic Counseling Center, and was explicitly told that “Arabic is not allowed in here”.

Student Imad Shaqqour, from Sakhnin, said that the employee looked at him as she passed by, and said that he is not allowed to speak in Arabic in this building. The building is an official branch of the Haifa University.

Shakkour said that he headed to the office seeking guidance before the exams, and added that every student who needs help is entitled to seek and obtain this help, especially before exams as the university provides councilors for this specific reason. 

Shaqqour asked for an Arabic counselor, and was about to call him when the employee stopped him and said “I’m sorry, Arabic is not allowed in here, I hope this is fine with you, but this is how we do it here”, the Arabs48 news website reported.

Now what's Arabic for boycott?

Bibi tells Kerry that Israel is committed to peace

Really, he said that.  See Ha'aretz:

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told the new U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on Sunday that Israel's new government will be "committed to peace."

I noticed it via Twitter.  Look:

#Netanyahu tells #Kerry #Israel's new government will be 'committed to peace' htz.li/14JZ5pU
— Haaretz.com (@haaretzcom) February 5, 2013

I couldn't resist replying:

@haaretzcom did #Netanyahu tell #Kerry any other jokes? Mind you #Israel "committed to peace" is a hard one to follow. #hasbara
— Jews Sans Frontieres (@jewssf) February 5, 2013

I don't know why but my reply doesn't appear as part of a conversation. Any Twitter experts out there?

Jews against bogus allegations of antisemitism

This is the Gerald Scarfe cartoon saga revisited. Here's a letter published in The Independent from various Jewish signatories, including me, condemning the bogus allegation of antisemitism:

The suggestion by Zionist supporters that Gerald Scarfe's cartoon in The Sunday Times was anti-Semitic is a classic example of the abuse of the term. It drains the term of all meaning and, like the boy who cried wolf, desensitises people to anti-Semitism when it does rear its head.

Jennifer Lipman's grudging defence (Voices, 30 January) of Gerald Scarfe described the cartoon's portrayal of Palestinian blood cementing the Separation Wall as "profoundly offensive" because the intention of the Wall was to prevent suicide bombing. We disagree. Palestinian blood is being shed and the security pretext for the wall was a means of further confiscating Palestinian land. That was why the wall didn't follow the 1967 Green Line.

On 23 January, without warning or excuse, Israeli soldiers killed student Lobna Hannash, 21, outside al-Arroub Agricultural College. On 17 January a boy of 16, Saleh al-Amareen, was shot in the head at a refugee camp in Bethlehem. These are but two examples of why the cartoon was extremely pertinent.

Those who constantly raise the bogus cry of "anti-Semitism" whenever Israel is criticised are trading on the memory of the past oppression of Jews in order to justify the current oppression of the Palestinians.

As Jewish opponents of Zionism and racism we wish to declare that we do not believe that there was a trace of anti-Semitism in Gerald Scarfe's cartoon. Holocaust Memorial Day was indeed a fitting time to signal the evils of racism. As the Prophet Micah said: "They build up Zion with blood, and Jerusalem with iniquity." (Micah, 3:10).

Miriam Margolyes

Alexei Sayle

Professor Jonathan Rosenhead

Professor Moshe Machover

Tony Greenstein

Mark Elf

Debbie Fink

Naomi Wimborne-Idrissi

Professor Haim Bresheeth

Mike Cushman

Michael Sackin

Abe Hayeem

Rosamine Hayeem

Dave Landy

Roland Rance

Rachel Lever

James Cohen

Seymour Alexander

Tom Suarez

Linda Clair

George Abendstern

Jan Hardy

Beryl Maizels

Riva Joffe

Elizabeth Carola

Frances Rifkin

Peter Cohen

Les Levidow

Jews for Boycotting Israeli Goods, Brighton

Good stuff. I believe the letter was originally drafted by Tony Greenstein.  Of course, in the interests of balance The Indie also published a whine from a zionist but we don't do balance here.

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.

SOAS Palestine Society, Football Beyond Borders, and Red Card Israeli Racism Present:

From Facebook:

• • 

    Tuesday
  • 

    19:00 until 21:00

• Khalili Lecture Theatre, Lower Ground Floor, SOAS

• Join us for a special and timely event: a screening of Fair Play, a documentary about the sports boycott of Apartheid in South Africa, followed by a discussion with four guests. Fair Play is a documentary from the highly esteemed series Have You Heard From Johannesburg by Connie Fields: http://www.clarityfilms.org/haveyouheardfromjohannesburg/

It was me under that rock

I was just tweeting my previous post and I realised that the whole business of Applebees sacking Chelsea Welch had gone viral.  I only knew about it because it came up in the sidebar of a Guardian article by Glenn Greenwald.

I said in my post minutes ago that the customer who got the server the sack should be named and shamed.

But see this from RL Stollar:

You’ve most likely heard about their most recent encounter with virality. But in case you’ve been living under a rock, here’s a brief summary:

A waitress at a St. Louis Applebee’s lost her job for posting online the receipt upon which a pastor had declined to leave a tip, with a snarky note saying she gave God 10 percent.

After her dinner on Jan. 25, Pastor Alois Bell crossed out the automatic 18 percent tip charged for parties of more than eight. “I give God 10% why do you get 18,” she wrote above her signature.

Employee Chelsea Welch — a colleague of the stiffed server — took a picture of the receipt and uploaded it to the online site Reddit. She subsequently lost her job, an Applebee’s spokesman confirmed to TheSmokingGun.com, for violating a customer’s privacy.

Yesterday on Fox 2 Now, the pastor issued a (sort of?) apology.

So Pastor Alois Bell it is then.  Named, but shamed?  She's thin skinned when it comes to embarrassment but has she any shame?