Harry's Place

I can only marvel at all the time, effort and resources that sabeel and thousands of single-issue groups like sabeel, expend on inculcating hatred of Israel or Jews or both.

Their obsession rules their lives, while the people for whom they claim to agitate, are sliding into further misery all the time.

What ails sabeel is clearly not Israel…

It is what the Palestinians and their supporters have been doing all these years. Support war and call it peace. Support the destruction of Israel and disguise it as “anti-racism”. They have been using all these liberal catchwords when they actually mean the exactly opposite.
That tradition was picked by the PLO from the Soviet Union, the only true and real “democracy”, and now has polluted the entire pro-Palestinian activism. They are hypocrites all of them.

Kind of off topic, but:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/7895123.stm

The UN urges the return of an arms stockpile which disappeared while under Hamas control, the BBC learns.

A large stockpile of unexploded weapons has disappeared in Gaza, before United Nations experts were able to dispose of it safely, the BBC has learned.

UN officials said they were urgently trying to establish where the arms had gone and have called for their return.

I don’t think it should be that hard to work it out.

“They have been using all these liberal catchwords when they actually mean the exactly opposite. That tradition was picked by the PLO from the Soviet Union”

Fabian, while Stalin’s propaganda had some of these hallmarks, this technique comes directly from the Nazis, and was passed on by the likes of Johannes von Leers, who worked first for Goebels and then for Nasser, in the ’40s and ’50s. The young Arafat was seen as a protege of Amin Husseini’s, and von Leers changed his name to Omar Amin in honour of his friend, Amin Husseini.

Hi Tevya, I am not so sure.
Because the PLO was a protegee of the Soviet Union. While the Soviet Union traditionally used liberal keywords (anti-racism, anti-imperialism, democracy, power of the people, liberation, etc) the Nazis despised the democracy and did not use those keywords. Their ideology in this sense was coherent, they aspired to a volkish dictatorship with a leader, and that is what they said.

The Soviet Union, on the contrary, was fond of using words that could resonate with liberals living in democracies. The Palestinians have drunk from this bowl.

That of course, doesn’t mean that many antisemitic motives were not taken directly from the Nazis, as you correctly mention.

If you debate a Nazi, he will tell you that democracy is for weak people. If you debate a Marxist he will tell you that what you have is not “real” democracy, that theirs is better. This is the difference.

Let’s not forget what Sabeel said about Gilad Atzmon either:

“Gilad Atzmon, a musician, writer and educator born and
educated in Israel was in Bradford in May speaking, leading a
workshop and playing with his group. He was amazing and his
visit to the university’s Department of Peace Studies was much
appreciated.”

(See pp. 22 of this document: http://www.friendsofsabeel.org.uk/newsletters/Spring2008.pdf)

Sabeel also previously had Paul Eisen on its executive committee:

http://www.deiryassin.org/byboard12.html
http://www.connexions.org/CxLibrary/Docs/CX5261-SpeakingtheTruth.htm

Hey Fabian, I agree all your points. Things are quite mixed up here as Stalin’s communists (and Hitler’s Nazis) borrowed liberally from each other. Well, not “liberally” but you know what I mean.

But just on the dates, neither Nasser’s Egypt nor the PLO really entered a Moscow orbit until post-1956 – by which time von Leers was already a key player in Nasser’s Ministry of Truth (Culture Ministry), and Husseini, certainly not pro-Communist, had been leading Arab antisemitic propaganda for years.

I think you’re right on the PLO’s adoption of “liberation” style language, esp. late ’60s and ’70s. It’s interesting how, as Palestinian politics have swung from the PLO to Hamas, the propaganda style seems to have returned to the older Husseini, and Nazi, tropes.

Friends of Sabeel UK is a religious front group for political anti-Zionism, and should be recognised as such by British citizens.

Your are quite correct.

And if they’re so into Christian aid and support and such, one wonders why they’re so silent on the oppression of the region’s Christian minorities.

I guess denouncing Israel takes every last ounce of their time, energy and resources.

Well, not “liberally” but you know what I mean.

As long as you keep the quotation marks in place, I for one won’t argue with “liberally”.

Gilad Atzmon, a musician, writer and educator born and
educated in Israel was in Bradford in May speaking, leading a
workshop and playing with his group

He was playing with something, that’s for sure.

Seismic Shock, you have given us yet another instance of the typical too-ready conflation of anti-Zionism with antisemitism on the part of these Arabs. Sabeel is not merely anti-Zionist – it also hates Jews:

John P, Sabeel’s founder, the Rev Naim Ateek, blames Israel, rather than the PA or Hamas, for the oppression of Christians and probably for his own Jew-hatred. He probably believes that if Arab Christians can curry favour with the PA by hating Jews, then they will be left in peace. It’s evident that they are not being left in peace.

Ateek also argued, as a way to deflect the blame from Palestinians for the choice of suicide bombing as a weapon, that suicide terror was first used by Jews in Bible times, when Samson pulled down the temple at Dagon. This comparison is, of course, as fatuous as it is malicious, given the motives of the modern-day suicide terrorists to whom Ateek gives his unstinting sympathy for the suicide murder of Israeli civilians, and yet his followers swallow it, hook line and sinker.

Ateek and Sabeel also engage in revision theology, by which they try to deny the links of the Jewish people to Israel from Bible times, and argue that Jesus was a Palestinian.

The material at the following link is particularly disturbing, although some of the links in it are defunct:

http://www.camera.org/index.asp?x_context=2&x_outlet=118&x_article=1409

Note the Jews as Christ killers analogy, where Ateek and Sabeel draw comparisons with the “crucifixion” of the Palestinian people by Israel.

Charming folk.

Serendipity -

not sure how you are using ‘conflation’ here. 99.99999% of the time, anti-Zionism IS antisemitism.

Shrewsfan -I’m not sure what exactly goes on at Bradford Uni’s Department of Peace Studies, but my personal experience suggests that it has little to do with peace.
One of its graduates with whom I engaged once in a ‘discussion’ when asked if, as a Jew, I have a right to self determination refused to answer the question.
When I then asked if, in her opinion, as a Jew I have the right to exist, she also refused to answer.
I didn’t take that as an expression of peaceful intentions or opinions.

Israelinurse – too right. Anti-Zionists are anti-Semites, and Hamas and such like are advocates of the next Holocaust. We can’t get all of them out of this country, but we sure as hell can attack them for what they are whenever they put their filthy heads above the parapet. If I ever meet a woman such as the one you encountered, I will tell her without any hesitation to get her f**king burka on. Nor will I recognise a “degree” from the Bradford Institute of Peace Studies.

It is pure bonkerism we live in a society where we tolerate anything except the BNP. using a bit of subterfuge!

An eye-opening post. ‘anti-Israel priests Michael Langrish and John Gladwin’ are not just priests but bishops (of Exeter and Chelmsford respectively). Langrish is currently a Trustee of Christian Aid. Gladwin stepped down last year after 10 years as Chair of CA. So much for CA distancing itself from the appalling Baroness Tonge.