Harry's Place

Somebody actually said that ‘the Nazis should have finished the job’. That’s terrible!

Maybe if someone had threatened to mobilise a group of 10,000 anti racists to obstruct access to the event, they would have called it off.

The person who told me that “the Nazis should have finished the job” was male, caucasian, with a T-shirt with a bright pattern on it, light trousers, brown shoes. Clean-shaven. In his 20s I judge. I told him he was a f****** antisemitic c***. Others heard but of course did not care.

“My friend was jeered at when she said her (Jewish-sounding) name before she asked her question.”

Doesn’t that say it all?

Can you not complain about things like this? I think your language was quite polite, I think my fists would have done the talking before I’d managed to think of any verbal response….

Complain to whom Dan? It is not breaking the law to say “the Nazis should have finished the job”

If one is interested in the debunking some of the claims that Jonathan refers to his article, I highly recommend the following book:

Efraim Karsh: Fabricating Israeli History: The ‘New Historians’, Second Revised Edition (London: Frank Cass, 2000)

One can also refer to the article by Karsh in the September 2003 issue of Commentary and the exchange of views on that article between Karsh and Benny Morris in the letters pages of the December 2003 and March 2004 issues of the same magazine.

Jonathan posted: “..It is not breaking the law to say “the Nazis should have finished the job”

In point of fact that is the current policy of the United Kingdom. The British are indeed trying to finish the job. ‘Give us the tools and we will do the work’ is not just a slogan. It is the avowed policy of the European Union and all their member states.

A review of the book pointing out every falsehood, with supporting references, will be done

“War on Want” sells a £4 Christmas card depicting Joseph and a pregnant Mary being accosted by two IDF soldiers by the wall, with a checkpoint in the background decked with an Israeli flag and with a rifle pointing out of it.

Two things here:

1) First, the obvious anti-semitism of such ‘cards’.

2) The displacement of the responsability for the oppression of the Mid-East’s Christians from Muslims to Jews.

Karsh’s book is a bit pricey. I’ll try the library – thanks for the ref, Mikey.

Tutu’s position is particularly disappointing, particularly after his exemplary behaviour on the Truth and Reconciliation committee after the fall of Apartheid. An essentially good man who has fallen for evil propaganda, as have far too many.

Re Desmond Tutu:

http://www.oyvagoy.com/2009/05/desmond-tutus-orgy-of-antisemitism/

I don’t think an “essentially good man” could have said any of the above, particularly telling Jews they should pray for the Nazis.

Great post Jonathan

Damn you, Chas, I was just about to make the same reply to Alcuin.

Forgive me, Me!

Look I don’t buy the “essentially good man falling for evil propaganda” line just as I do not buy the excuse the MP gave me for agreeing to host the meeting in Parliament (”I had not seen or heard of the book previously and I had not met or heard of Ben White until that evening although, of course, I knew the title of his talk”).

These men are in senior positions, have functioning brains and can read. They can come to their own conclusion and they must surely be held accountable for it.

:)

Well, in some cases I am not sure about “functioning brain”. Look at Corbyn. Look at Jacqui Smith.

Mel has just done a fine article about the antisemite liar Jimmy Carter who actually visited a Jewish settlement and ended-up saying “This is one settlement who’s dismantling I wouldn’t support” or words to that effect.

Carter had written scathingly about Jewish settlements and his writing was a complete fabrication derived, no doubt, by the Islamist hand on his keyboard.

Very interesting http://www.spectator.co.uk/melaniephillips/3704746/the-encounter-of-truth-with-prejudice.thtml

An endorsement by Pappe and Sizer speaks volumes. Interesting post on those two at http://largebluefootballs.blogspot.com/2009/06/big-questions-for-stephen-sizer.html

Phyllis Chesler (who was trapped for years in Afghanistan by her Muslim husband, so knows the mindset) describes illegal Arab settlements. Not many in the West getting aerated about those … She also notes that Muslim countries are totally “apartheid” nations states. – a fact that Tutu, Mandela and Obama do not seem to want to address.

Chas N-B. Thanks for the correction. And I thought I was the hard realist. Very disappointing.

I find this upsetting. I used to work in Parliament and I have family working there. Parliament is the work environment of thousands of people, some Jewish, some Palestinian, and a/s behaviour should not be tolerated. Apart from that, the UK Parliament shouldn’t be used for inflammatory crap like this. Sorry, this is a pathetic comment but your post was quite disturbing.

Ben White is the new Jonathon Cook – a single issue journalist devoting his life to his pathological loathing of Israel.

Quite sad really.

Bialik

Of course. It is horrific that this took place in Parliament. It was equally horrific that in the same building a few weeks ago, there was supposed to be a videolink to Khaled Maashal (Hamas Leader). (It didn’t work).

The answer you get when you protest is “free speech”….

@Bialik

It is not a “pathetic comment”. It is completely correct.

Pappe is an idiot who doesn’t have the brain power to grasp that the underdog at any given moment is not necessarily the innocent party, nor is the top dog necessarily a villain.

I’d be interested to know which histories of Israel (mainstream, in English) HP readers consider fair, insightful and a good overview?

Ben White is the new Jonathon Cook – a single issue journalist devoting his life to his pathological loathing of Israel.

Guess who is a big lackey of Ben White?

Yep, that’s right, our dear friend Toad of Toad Hall.

”Yep, that’s right, our dear friend Toad of Toad Hall.”

Mark Elf??

Jitling – I recommend Sir Martin Gilbert’’s “Israel: A HIstory”

Mark Elf??

S. Hundal, Esq.

what was your friend’s jewish sounding name?

This is truly shocking and all the more so because it took place in parliament -supposedly the home of British democracy where all men and women should be free and equal.
Jonathan – I honestly don’t know how you do it. Time and time again into the proverbial lion’s den. Your commitment to Israel is very humbling and from this Israeli at least, very much appreciated.

Jitling,

A History of Israel, from the birth of Zionism — Howard Sachar
Six Days of War — Michael Oren
1948 — Benny Morris

The first two are very easy to read. Morris is a little slower going.

“I’d be interested to know which histories of Israel (mainstream, in English) HP readers consider fair, insightful and a good overview?”

There are different ones on different subjects. “Six Days of War” by Michael Oren, everything I have read by Benny Morris, and so on. The key is looking for history that attempts to find truth rather than histories that attempt to find their political point. In almost all parts of the Israeli-Arab conflict, all sides have done stupid things. Anybody who puts the blame all or even almost all one side is not a serious historian. This is not only from the left (meaning anti-Israel) historians, there are plenty of far right (read anti-Palestinian) historians. It’s usually not hard to tell which ones are which. Beware of people speaking in absolutes…

Jitling -re. books, it depends very much where you want to start -there’s a lot of history there!
A very readable overview, and nicely humorous in parts, is Max I Dimont’s ‘Jews, God and History’.
Amos Elon’s ‘The Israelis -founders and sons’ covers the founding of Israel and up to and including the Six Day War.
A fascinating study of the period from 1917-1929 is Bernard Wasserstein’s ‘The British in Palestine’ which gives many insights into how the British Mandate affected the pre-Israel situation on the ground and sheds light onto many of today’s difficulties in the area. It’s out of print now (2nd edition) and very expensive to buy, but maybe a good library could help.
Another must in my opinion is ‘A Mandate for Terror -the United Nations and the PLO’ by Harris Okun Schoenberg. If you want to understand what goes on in the UN today in relation to Israel, this is the groundwork.
Happy reading!

A book about more recent events, also by Efraim Karsh, is Arafat’s War: The Man and His Battle for Israeli Conquest

Jitling: “A History of Israel, from the birth of Zionism” — Howard Sachar
Very good book.

Anybody who puts the blame all or even almost all one side is not a serious historian

And again: it is entirely possible that almost (in the sense of an overwhelming majority) of the blame is on one side, and even on the side of the current underdog. It is merely a peculiarity of Western, supposedly ‘liberal’, thinking, informed more than anything else by guilt rather than rational thought, that seeks to see moral relativism everywhere.

Me – very true. Blind even-handedness in all areas can ignore actual events in history. I have an obvious example off the top of my head, but I don’t want to trigger a Godwin alert…

Thanks, LB.
Similar comments might apply to the silly trope that supporting the right of Jews to live freely and democratically is “right-wing”, whilst supporting the right of tyranical, genocidal regimes to kill them is “left wing”.

“His new book ‘Israeli Apartheid: A Beginner’s Guide’ was launched in the British Parliament on Wednesday night”

I had to read this a few times to absorb it – in the British Parliament? What does this mean? This is most bizarre: Ben White opposes everything and anything British Mideast policy supposedly stands for:
He is an ardent advocate of the so-called “one state solution”, see e.g. here:

http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article9097.shtml
The one-state reality

He has railed against the PA, i.e. the Abbas-Fayyad government, and against all those useless negotiations, in terms not so different from the Hamas charter, which dismisses diplomatic negotiations as a “waste of time”, see e.g. here:

http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article9036.shtml

“But seen in this light, the essence of Palestinian popular struggle is directly contrary to the methods of Abbas and Fayyad — the way of diplomatic privileges, backroom compromises and appeasement of Washington and Tel Aviv [sic! or is it: sick?]. Their track record has been to muzzle the collectively expressed desires of their people, from Oslo to the boycott of the elected Hamas government. Additionally, just as popular struggle has nothing in common with the Abbas-Fayyad regime, so too the November “peace conference” [Annapolis] has little to do with securing Palestinian self-determination.”

(– that is of course the old notion that Palestinian self-determination entails the right to deny Jewish self-determination.)

Unsurprisingly, BW has only despise for those “liberal Zionists, the politicians, authors and journalists who often grace the pages of the ‘center-left’ press in the US and UK (as well as Israel). They desperately wish to ‘acknowledge’ and embrace the Palestinian ‘feeling’ of suffering and dispossession, yet at the same time, help to solidify the Zionist mythology that was, and is, used to justify the Palestinians’ dispossession.”
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article8992.shtml

So as you can see, I’ve read quite a bit of BW’s stuff. The worst you can do to yourself is to read some of his poems for the Palestinians – a heavy dose of “Blut and Boden” ideology shines through there.
BTW, he originally started out caring for American Indians, but then he discovered that the Palestinians are better business…

Be that as it may, Ben White’s Israeli apartheid fantasies are of course predicated on the idea that the Westbank and Gaza are part of Israel… He takes great pains to argue that they are, which is of course preposterous given the fact that the Palestinians have their own elections, the PA has its own constitution, ministries, budgets, its own laws – under which e.g. people who sell Palestinian real estate to Jews (Jews, not Israelis) risk the death penalty; the Palestinians have observer status in the UN, etc. etc.
So the whole exercise is a bit pathetic, because it’s based on a complete denial of reality: Ben White actually annexes the Westbank and Gaza to Israel – well, what he really wants is of course to annex Israel as part of the Westbank and Gaza….

Ben White’s problem has always been that he has studied literature, and apparently is unable to distinguish fact from fiction. I would think it’s therefore somewhat difficult to review his book, because it is fiction posing as factual analysis, but once you make the point that since the Oslo process, there is a Palestinian Authority with all that entails, there is really not much else to say. The best thing is to point out that Ben White absolutely detests the PA (just like Abunimah of the Electronic Intifada), and again, because he wishes it out of existence, he frames his whole “apartheid” argument as if the PA really didn’t exist.

Jonathon, well done for taking on these scum. It is frankly appalling that an antisemite like Ben White should be given a platform in Parliament.

One more thing about fake quotes: I’ve done a bit of research on this, because there are some guys who like posting them on Cif, some of them come from here:

http://www.ety.com/HRP/jewishstudies/callforgenocide.htm

endorsed by David Irving here:

http://www.fpp.co.uk/online/02/04/Webster1.html

some more come from this “respectable” source:

http://monabaker.com/quotes.htm

however, once you check out on which sites these quote collections are popular, the veneer of “respectability” quickly wears off…

Of course, most of these quotes are either fabricated or distorted, i.e. taken out of context; some have been debunked painstakingly by Camera (quote buster series). However, this remains an uphill battle, I think earlier this year, the NYT published an article by Khalidi with one of those fake quotes, and then only retracted saying that the source for the quote could not be verified or found. Well, what’s a quote for which no source can be found?

Anyway, Jonathan, I certainly second Israelinurse: Kol hakavod to you; I don’t know how you do it, just in terms of time and energy, it’s truly an impossible feat.

Jonathan you have great courage to put yourself in the front line time after time. Your account of the open anti-semitism at the meeting is shocking, and particularly the jeering at the jewish-sounding name which must have been heard by many and was apparently challenged by none of the meeting’s leaders. Thus Idden and White connive by default with racists.

As an Anglican I am ashamed to say that White is rather a favourite at the Church Times which published a particularly unpleasant article by him in January as Israel tried to prevent terrorists in Gaza shelling and rocketing her citizens. No serious responses to White’s piece were commissioned but then, the Church Times is the Guardian at prayer.

Sadly the establishment of the Left remains resolutely blind to the way in which their disdain of Israel gives cover and respectability to racism. The literati of this country – Belloc, Chesterton and Eliot for example -manifested it well into the 1950s and now we see it rearing its ugly head again, less crudely than amongst ultra-nationalists, but in sneering opinion pieces on the pages of national newspapers and periodicals.

You’d think they’d know better.

“Anybody who puts the blame all or even almost all one side is not a serious historian

And again: it is entirely possible that almost (in the sense of an overwhelming majority) of the blame is on one side, and even on the side of the current underdog. ”

This entirely possible in one event or series of events. However, if you are looking at a century-long history of something, there is no way any serious history will declare someone right and someone wrong. The Nazi example alluded to above is still not black and white. A good history of the rise of Nazis will not conclude “the Nazis came about because the Germans hated Jews” it will subtly show how a combination of the depression, the general feeling that the Versailles treaty was unfair, a clash with communism, anti-Semitism, and other factors led to the rise of the Nazis.

Any history that portrays Israel or the Palestinians as all in the right or in the right 95% of the time is hogwash. In fact, any history that AIMS to show one side as right is worthless to me. Large events in history are very complex and involve many different layers with many different people. History is about finding how what happened not assigning blame. There are very few times when one side has clear moral authority. The Israeli-Arab conflict is not one of those. Nobody comes across looking good.

Very interesting posts Petra.

Frah do you read Seismic Shock?
http://seismicshock.wordpress.com/

Sorry should be ‘Fran’ not ‘Frah’

Gabriel, you can shout hogwash all you like, it doesn’t make it so. If the Jews, who have shown incredible forbearance over a great many decades in the face of repeated attempts to exterminate them, ‘don’t come across looking good’ in your eyes, then you are either ignorant of Middle East history or you have a very ugly axe to grind. Or both, like Carter.

Fran, thanks for that. He really is one sick individual.

Regarding the church: anecdotally only, as I am not a church goer, but a couple of years ago I went along with a professional group on a day trip to Winchester, which I had never been to before. Among all kinds of interesting historical sites, we popped into a couple of old churches. The noticeboards in both were covered with the most blatantly antisemitic lies about Israel.

@Petra “I had to read this a few times to absorb it – in the British Parliament? What does this mean?”

Members of Parliament can book meeting rooms for whatever they want, Petra.

Shrewsfan

Yes I do both on here and on his/her own blog. Excellent. Another thorn in the side of Israel’s opponents in the Church – and an ineffectual leadership!

Me

How sad to read this ‘The noticeboards in both were covered with the most blatantly antisemitic lies about Israel.’ about your visits to Winchester churches.

Israel’s opponents have had it their way in the Church of England for too many years, so AFI and other friends of Israel have an uphill task. And our task is made harder as we are smeared by prominent Anglicans who oppose Israel as religious fanatics or as haters of Palestinians. Apparently it’s hard for people to recognise that others can, with integrity, view the conflict from another perspective and draw different conclusions.

Then again it’s hard to see how Mr White can write ‘I do not consider myself an anti-Semite, yet I can also understand why some are.’ and NOT see that he is frolicking on the very edge of full blown anti-semitism. It would be interesting if he were to join the debate here and explain how he holds two apparently conflicting notions in tension.

Shame on Ben White. Shame on Britain.

I wonder if Mr White would find “I do not consider myself an Islamophobe, but I can understand why some are”, equally acceptable.

Except that there is no symmetry, Rintintin. Antisemites hate Jews, wherever they are and especially when they defend themselves. So-called ‘Islamophobes’ (a stupid term) oppose an ideology that explicitly seeks to destroy Western freedoms. But I do get your point.

I am surprised White hasn’t said “Some of my best friends are Jews”. I see no frolicking on any edge. When he says “I can understand why people are antisemites”, he has joined the antisemitic camp.

The thing that never ceases to amaze me about Israel is that anyone and everyone from Europe or the States can become an expert overnight. No need to learn the language, no need to live amongst Israelis, no need to learn the history, no need to absorb understand the culture and politics.

All you need is to speak English and know something or other about Jews – usually something about the Holocaust and something about how the Jews either did/did not kill Jesus. Dim-witted, ignorant and profoundly lazy men and women – Mr White is one of the standard bearers- can make a living and add ‘glamour’ to their lives by becoming ‘experts’ on Israel and Israelis.

In a similar way, these sleep-walkers become ‘experts’ on Arabs and Palestinians – all they need is to speak English, to know something about the Holocaust and Jews’ culpability or otherwise for deicide. Hey presto the Jews stole the land/use the Holocaust as an excuse/stole the land from the nation of Palestine/are baby-killers.

Throughout they remain ignorant of their own unconscious motives and blissfully unaware that the Arabs and Palestinians are much more than ‘noble savages’; they are subtle and sophisticated power players and Mr White and those like him are being played, big time.

Kol hakavod, Jonathan.

Ben White: “but I imagine factors could be ignorance, a dominant influential personality in their life, low self-esteem and numerous other religious, socio-economic dynamics.”

Who is the influential personality in Ben’s life that might account for his antisemitism?

Bill from Bill and Ben, the Flowerpot Men?

Fran -I have seen similar things to those Me describes up here in Yorkshire too, but they do not seem to be confined to the Anglican church by any means.
This last Christmas we had an article in the local newspaper written by the local Methodist preacher which seemed to have taken its inspiration from that ‘War on Want’ Christmas card which Jonathan describes. It was all about Mary & Joseph and IDF roadblocks -I never cease to be amazed how Jesus’ parents seem to have become Palestinian in the eyes of some in the Church.
Then we have a local Catholic priest who is very active in the PSC -by whom I was personally publicly verbally abused when I told him why I would not support his campaign to boycott Israeli goods in the local supermarket. In the entrance to his church there are boycott posters next to the notices for the jumble sale and the strawberry cream teas. He actively demands of his ageing congregation that they both boycott Israeli goods and donate money to Palestinian causes.

Paul M, Gabriel, Israelinurse, Fabian – (and any others I missed). Thanks for the suggestions. Very much appreciated. I will feel more able to comment a few books down the line.

I once had an online conversation with Ben White in which he was trying to persuade that “Israel was born through ethnic cleansing.” He is totally delusional.

@Leon

White is an example of a clearly intelligent man (a Cambridge English grad) who has a mental block when it comes to Israel. He is not alone. There is no rationalisation possible. That is the nature of prejudice.

Jonathan, well done. The more that filth like this is exposed to daylight the more quickly it will be seen for what it is.

Botanist, I am not a determinist; there may be many reasons for White’s tunnel vision.

White is very emotionally immature. One explanation for the intractability and impermiability of his views may be that he is disturbed and “split” as are most of the regular authors on CiF. Most of us hold strong views and stand our ground if they are challenged but we can stand outside them enough to reality test them and concede that we are wrong if proven to be in certain aspects without feeling shamed.

And I believe that White’s main driver is fear of being shamed by being shown to be wrong, but he displaces that fear onto rage against Jews and Israel.

I imagine that White perceives any challenge his views as challenges to him and with that comes that fear of public shaming.
Views are usually so rigidly held because there is deep emotional discomfort in the face of opposition to them and White, like so many other gut-led haters of that ilk, cannot tolerate emotional discomfort.

So he loses the “shades of grey” in the issue under discussion (because he perceives any shades of grey to undermine his side of the argument) and entrenches behind his viewpoint only. This can’t be helping him, though; he still feels hate-filled, and the need to discharge it is like an addiction. This results in the ill-informed rubbish he writes on Electronic Intifida, CiF and in this book. I suspect that these won’t give him release for long either.

I suspect that the only way he can function is by splitting; he needs to feel good and “righteous” (in order to feel comfortable, however temporary that feeling) but, being so emotionally immature, he cannot hold the notion that both sides may have a point and that the other side’s points may well tap into something which resonates in him. He is only half-aware at some level of the nasty bits in himself and is terrified of identifying and dealing with them, therefore he projects all of them onto his enemy – in this case Israel and Jews.

Thankfully he hasn’t the power Hitler had, but Hitler was at the mercy of the same psychological mechanism.

“A land without a people…” which of course was never said by any Jew.

You would only know that to be the case if you had secretly bugged and monitored all conversations of all Jews worldwide.

SWince you clearly haven’t done that, we can assume that you’re talking bullshit and the rest of your article is similarly bullshit.

Mitnaged, I’m not a psychologist, but I don’t doubt that this perspective can add insight into why an author/activist takes certain positions, particularly when he is unable to factor in reality, as Ben White so obviously is. However, in his case, I think it’s important to take into account that he is apparently religious and well-connected in the Anglican Church establishment. Therefore, my take on him would focus on what we actually know about him: i.e. religious and intelligent young man is looking for a cause to champion, he starts out with American Indians, but realizes that, except for denouncing what happened to them, there isn’t really all that much a young British Anglican resolved to make his mark in the world can do. Moreover, what was done to the Indians was done by upright Christians… But then he discovers the Palestinians, who are already a cause célèbre, some of them are even Christians, and their plight is not caused by Christians… What more can you ask for? And of course BW can “understand” antisemitism… He can understand the tradition of Christian antisemitism, and he can understand Muslim antisemitism – and with all this “understanding”, not to say empathy, his claim to not being an antisemite himself is becoming quite precarious. But why would he care about that, given that he has so much support for his views from his Church, where people believe Jesus was a “Palestinian”?
This, BTW, as far as I understand it, is meant metaphorically, in the sense that Christians would argue that Jesus always sided with the oppressed, and therefore he would side with the Palestinians today. Nobody ever asked with whom Jesus would have sided when the Arabs blocked Jewish emigration in 1939 (White Paper), or when the Palestinians regarded the Nazi-sympathizing mufti as their leader, or with whom Jesus would side when the Palestinians deny the historic Jewish bond to Jerusalem, etc.

What is also interesting about BW is that, while he obviously greatly relies on his church connections to get his message out and pursue his agenda, he never seems to frame his arguments in any religious terms. Maybe he is a closet secularist, but there is certainly also a host of very solid reasons that would prevent a Christian-inspired pro-Palestinian one-state activist like BW from bringing up religion: first, he would have to deal with the plight of Palestinian Christians – which BW actually has done, and unsurprisingly, the blame for their dire situation goes to Israel, in his view. But again, he of course avoids facing the fact that all over the Middle East, ancient Christian communities have been severely decimated.
Perhaps even more importantly, he also doesn’t want to face the fact that there is no indication that the Palestinians really want the secular state BW is supposedly agitating for. Indeed, the Palestinian constitution – which exists even though that doesn’t fit BWs “apartheid” narrative, explicitly describes the Palestinian people as “part of the Arab and Islamic nations”, declares Islam as the official religion of the Palestinian state, and stipulates that “[the] principles of Islamic Shari’a are a major source for legislation.”
http://www.jmcc.org/documents/palestineconstitution-eng.pdf

correction — it obviously should be: when the Arabs blocked Jewish IMMIGRATION into Palestine in 1939
I should use this handy Preview button, I guess…

@ Jitling

Scars of War, Wounds of Peace- Shlomo Ben-Ami. It’s pretty formidable.

@cablalamat

http://www.meforum.org/1877/a-land-without-a-people-for-a-people-without

See this link for the origin of the phrase – it was “coined and propagated by nineteenth-century Christian writers”.

Congratulations on your pedantic anal retentiveness.

Jonathan — I didn’t know this article. What a find, esp. on a thread about the pious Ben White….

By Cabalmat’s own logic, he wouldn’t know whether Christians, Muslims, Hindus, Buhddists, or animists coined the phrase unless all their conversations worldwide had been secretly bugged and monitored – in the 19th century no less – and since that hasn’t been done, (instead historians have only documented the earliest printed evidence of the phrase which turns out to be in texts composed by Christians, which Cabalmat disqualifies, presumably along with the fields of etymology and lexicography), evidently both his comment here and anything published his blog are bullshit.

Cabalmat is evidently a very, very, stupid idiot.

Petra, thank you. You are right, I believe, that White’s strong connection to Anglicanism may well provide the rationale for adopting such extreme opinions even in the face of contradiction and proof that they are off-beam.

If this is in him blood and bone, so to speak, then any attempt to undermine his belief system about the Israel/Palestine issue will fall upon stony ground. The Church’s unspoken opinion about Jews and Israel acts as an extra crutch to shore up this rigid belief system, although, as you imply, White does not draw on it consciously.

A good friend of many years, a devout Catholic, has taken it upon himself to try to undermine anti-Israel/anti-Jewish propaganda in his local church. He reads widely and argues persuasively against what he admits has always been an undercurrent of Jews being undeserving of having their own land because, in spite of the Vatican apology, they are still held responsible by haters for the murder of Christ.

This may also be the unconsciously-held belief which motivates White.

Here is the book’s website:

http://israeliapartheidguide.com/praise/

And some quotes:

Sample text 1:

“Over the course of a generation, Palestine disappeared from the map. By 1970, just over seventy years since the Basle congress launched Herzl’s dream of a Jewish state, Palestinian society had been shattered:

Around half of all Palestinians were living outside of Palestine as dispossessed, denationalised refugees, prevented from returning home.

One in seven Palestinians were living as second-class citizens in a state that defined itself as the homeland of the Jews.

One in three Palestinians were living under military rule, increasingly subject to a regime of apartheid separation designed to facilitate the colonisation of the OPT by Israeli settlers. (Over half of the OPT population were themselves refugees from 1948).

For political Zionism to come to fruition – for a Jewish state to be created in Palestine – it was necessary to carry out as large a scale as possible ethnic cleansing of the country’s unwanted Arab natives. But even in 1948, and especially in 1967, Israel was unable to fully ‘cleanse’ the land of the Palestinians. As a result, Israel’s fallback position was to implement an apartheid regime of exclusion and discrimination. Where the dispossession had been most effective – inside Israel’s pre-1967 borders –apartheid could be less explicit. But in the OPT, home to a vast majority of Palestinians, Israeli apartheid had to be overt and iron-fisted. In Part II, we will examine conditions for Palestinians living in both Israel and the OPT.”

From ‘Part I: Israeli Independence, Palestinian Catastrophe’

Sample text 2:

“Why have the Palestinians continued to reject a compromise with Israel, from the very beginning of the state in 1948, to Arafat’s ‘No’ at Camp David?

The myth of ‘brave but peace-seeking’ Israel always let down by violent, compromise-rejecting Arabs is powerful and enduring. Israel’s defenders argue that if only the Palestinians had accepted partition in 1948, rather than seeking ‘Israel’s destruction’, everything would have been different. Likewise, for the propaganda war of the Second Intifada, the Palestinians – and Arafat in particular – were said to have turned down a ‘best ever’ offer from Israel at Camp David, instead opting for violence.

Let’s take a look at 1948 first. As we saw in Parts I and II, the real story of Israel’s creation – the Nakba – is very different from the sanitized, Zionist narrative. When the UN proposed partition, Jews owned less than 7 per cent of the land, made up a third of the population – yet over half of the land of Palestine was assigned to the Jewish state. Moreover, even in its proposed borders, the Jewish state’s population would be almost half Arab.

Ironically, while Palestinians are often accused of ‘rejectionism’, the Zionist leadership only accepted the idea of partition for tactical reasons. First Prime Minister Ben Gurion described a “‘partial Jewish state’” as just the beginning: “‘a powerful impetus in our historic efforts to redeem the land in its entirety.’” In a meeting of the Jewish leadership in 1938, Ben Gurion shared his assumption that “‘after we build up a strong force following the establishment of the state – we will abolish the partition of the country and we will expand to the whole Land of Israel.’”

It should come as no surprise that “the fear of territorial displacement and dispossession was to be the chief motor of Arab antagonism to Zionism”. Palestinian Arabs had seen the Jewish proportion of Palestine’s population triple from around 10 per cent at the end of World War I, while the Zionist leadership in Palestine made no bones about their political aims. A question worth asking then, is whether you or I would simply accept the loss of our country, or if we too would be ‘rejectionists’?

A similar question can be posed about events at the Camp David negotiations of 2000. Contrary to popular assumptions, “Israel never offered the Palestinians 95 percent of the West Bank as reports indicated at the time”. The ‘generous offer’ was just another incarnation of previous Israeli plans to annex huge swathes of the OPT, retaining major settlement blocs “that effectively cut the West Bank into three sections with full Israeli control from Jerusalem to the Jordan River”.

To question why the Palestinians have ‘rejected’ compromise is to look at the region’s past and present from a particularly skewed perspective. Palestine has been wiped off the map, its land colonized, and its people ethnically cleansed. Expecting those on the receiving end to be satisfied with the crumbs from the table is both unjust – and wishful thinking.”

From ‘Frequently Asked Questions’

“A question worth asking then, is whether you or I would simply accept the loss of our country, or if we too would be ‘rejectionists’?”

A short answer to that is yes, one might think it the wise course of action, if one’s own possession of a region was founded on the dispossession of another group, and that group had suffered dispossession or worse from just about everywhere else since. Especially if the most one was being asked was to squeeze up a little and one was gaining, for the first time in one’s history, a sovereign and independent state.

“To question why the Palestinians have ‘rejected’ compromise is to look at the region’s past and present from a particularly skewed perspective.”

It strikes one as perfectly reasonable from a Christian perspective: for most of Christian history, including and especially Palestinian Christian history, Jews have been regarded as a national group ethnically cleansed by God the Father in punishment of their rejection of Jesus Christ God the Son.

If Palestinian Christians feared dispossession, becoming, in their turn, “Jews”, the Christian thing to do would have been first to imagine what it had been like to have been a Jew for the last 2000 years and realise that, maybe, compromise, allowing Jews some modicum of right of return, especially when fleeing genocide, mightn’t have been such an unreasonable thing after all.

Especially if, as I said, the most required of one was to squeeze up a little and acquire a state for oneself.

BTW, anyone wishing to comment on aspects of the sample texts, or the book itself, might like to post on Ben’s website here, in the comments section, when he turns it on:

http://israeliapartheidguide.com/

zkharya, the excerpts you quote illustrate that BW denies Israel’s right to exist — and we have to assume that the people who endorse his book share this view. So let’s take note of who is among them.

Here is his JustPeace declaration:

http://justpeace60.blogspot.com/

The Declaration
We, the undersigned, church leaders and representatives of our different denominations and organisations, join together on the 60th anniversary of the Israeli state to offer a contribution to that which makes for peace.

We recognise that today, millions of Israelis and Jews around the world will joyfully mark the 60th anniversary of the establishment of the state of Israel (Yom Ha’atzmaut). For many, this landmark powerfully symbolises the Jewish people’s ability to defy the power of hatred so destructively embodied in the Nazi Holocaust. Additionally, it is an opportunity to celebrate the wealth of cultural, economic and scientific achievements of Israeli society, in all its vitality and diversity.

We also recognise that this same day, millions of Palestinians living inside Israel, the Occupied Palestinian Territories, and the worldwide diaspora, will mourn 60 years since over 700,000 of them were uprooted from their homes and forbidden from returning, while more than 400 villages were destroyed (al-Nakba). For them, this day is not just about the remembrance of a past catastrophic dispossession, dispersal, and loss; it is also a reminder that their struggle for self-determination and restitution is ongoing.

To hold both of these responses together in balanced tension is not easy. But it is vital if a peaceful way forward is to be forged, and is central to the Biblical call to “seek peace and pursue it” (Ps. 34:14). We acknowledge with sorrow that for the last 60 years, while extending empathy and support to the Israeli narrative of independence and struggle, many of us in the church worldwide have denied the same solidarity to the Palestinians, deaf to their cries of pain and distress.
To acknowledge and respect these dual histories is not, by itself, sufficient, but does offer a paradigm for building a peaceful future. Many lives have been lost, and there has been much suffering. The weak are exploited by the strong, while fear and bitterness stunt the imagination and cripple the capacity for forgiveness.

We therefore urge all those working for peace and justice in Israel/Palestine to consider that any lasting solution must be built on the foundation of justice, which is rooted in the very character of God. After all, it is justice that “will produce lasting peace and security” (Isaiah 32:17). Let us commit ourselves in prophetic word and practical deed to a courageous settlement whose details will honour both peoples’ shared love for the land, and protect the individual and collective rights of Jews and Palestinians in the Holy Land.
“Everyone will sit under their own vine and under their own fig tree, and no one will make them afraid” (Micah 4:4)
What they are saying…

“A just peace between Israelis and Palestinians is both vital and possible. So is global solidarity to that end. This declaration joins human and Christian compassion for two wounded people’s with the political passion to see right prevail. It is timely and essential.” Simon Barrow, Co-director of Ekklesia

“The Lord our God has always valued love and justice more than land and prosperity. ‘But I will be merciful only if you stop your evil thoughts and deeds and start treating each other with justice; only if you stop exploiting foreigners, orphans, and widows…’ As His people, we must agree with Him and stand for justice for all in the Middle East.” Lynn Green, International Chairman of YWAM

“A necessary and timely reminder that for 60 years Israel’s ‘celebration’ of statehood has come at a high price for millions of refugees and occupied residents of the West Bank and Gaza. Israel’s ‘60th anniversary’ could become a moment for profound introspection and self-examination for a state that wishes to be known for democracy and justice in the Middle East. It is not without reason that Palestinians call 1948 – Israel’s birth – the ‘catastrophe.’” Gary Burge
Background to the Declaration
As Israel marks its 60th anniversary this May, for Israelis and Palestinians the conflict and the suffering continues. We believe that this landmark is an important opportunity for Christian leaders around the world to add their voices to a special call for a justice-based peace.

The statement acknowledges the pain of both peoples – and the rights of both peoples to security and dignity. Grounded in biblical truth and supported by pastors, professors, heads of organizations and editors across denominational, national and political lines, this historic statement will be a prophetic cry and a powerful witness.

On May 8, Israeli Independence Day, the joint statement and a full list of signatories will be published on this blog and sent to the national press in the US and UK. To add your name to the list of signatories, or to get a copy of the statement as a Word document, email Philip or Ben at the address below.

Spread the word – the more people who get behind this call for justice and peace, the more powerful an impact it will be able to make.

Blessings and peace.

Ben White & Philip Rizk, 18 March 2008
Justpeace60@gmail.com

Ben White is a writer and journalist, specializing in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, as well as broader Middle East issues. His articles appear in both secular and Christian publications, including the New Statesman, the UK Guardian’s online Comment is Free, Third Way, Fulcrum, and many more. His first book on justice and mission will be published later this year by YTC Press. Since 2003, Ben has made several trips to Israel/Palestine, often working alongside local Christian Palestinian organizations in the Bethlehem area. He graduated from Cambridge University in 2005 and while living in Cambridge, worked as a community worker for his local church and helped organize Christian-Muslim dialogue events. Ben has been a guest speaker at a variety of theological colleges, universities, and churches across the UK.

Philip Rizk is Egyptian and German currently living in Cairo, carrying out graduate work in Middle Eastern Studies and working as a freelance journalist for Daily News Egypt. He lived in Ramallah in 2005 and in Gaza City for two years up until August 2007. During that time he worked with various NGOs carrying out relief and development projects and working as a freelance journalist. Philip has been a guest speaker about the Palestinian-Israeli conflict at various universities and churches in the Middle East and the USA. He graduated from Wheaton College, Illinois USA in 2004.

“We recognise that today, millions of Israelis and Jews around the world will joyfully mark the 60th anniversary of the establishment of the state of Israel (Yom Ha’atzmaut). For many, this landmark powerfully symbolises the Jewish people’s ability to defy the power of hatred so destructively embodied in the Nazi Holocaust. Additionally, it is an opportunity to celebrate the wealth of cultural, economic and scientific achievements of Israeli society, in all its vitality and diversity.”

“For many, this landmark powerfully symbolises the Jewish people’s ability to defy the power of hatred so destructively embodied in the Nazi Holocaust. ”

which was the nadir of Jews’ being regarded as alien, displaced “Palestinians” for most of Christian (and, to a lesser extent, Islamic) history.

You recognise Palestinian dispossession and desire for return and restoration, Ben. Fine. Why so reluctant to recognise Jewish, Ben?

When is your notion of Christian reconciliation and justice actually going to kick in and mean something, Ben?

It is quite clear from this declaration Ben does, or is prepared to, recognise some kind of two state solution.

But he seems most interested in acquiring a “confession” that Israel, Israeli Jews, Zionists, Zionism, Jewish nationalists or nationalism is somehow fundamentally in the wrong or at a lower level than the Palestinian.

That explains, at any rate, Ben’s common dismissal of even what he calls “liberal Zionists”.

He wants a Confession, or recognition, from Israel or everyone else, of Israel’s Original Sin.

If he isn’t the son of an Anglican clergyman, he sure could be.

He’s also rather mealy mouthed in his (more implied than stated) recognition of a two state solution. He spends most of his time attempting to show just how fundamentally illegitimate Israel or Zionism is to begin and go on with.

In which case, he says one thing and does another.

Ben has completely erased me from his website.

I wrote him this last:

You’re a coward, Ben. You initiate discussions/fights on websites like HP and Engage, but you rarely deign to reply. And now you erase responses on your own website.

You’re a fearful coward. And arrogant too: it’s looks a lot like you think you deserve to be listened, but not responded, to. Perhaps because your daddy is a minster, who always had a captive audience, you think you deserve the same docility. Perhaps that’s why you gallavant around the place giving “lectures” when you have almost no academic qualifications whatsoever, least of all a basic rhetorical ability to hold your own (not a requirement for your average sunday sermon).

I pity you. Virtually no one visits your site, and, when they do, you’re ready with the censor. I’m lonely because I’m a housebound cripple in considerable pain most of the time. What’s your excuse?

Many posts here remind me of Naim Ateek, the Anglican founder of “Sabeel Ecumenical Liberation Theology Center” in Jerusalem. I beg Ben White has connections to or is best friend of Ateek too, perhaps Ateek is also one of his “inspiring” sources.

One-state solution: Sabeel also promotes it as the “ideal solution”, better even than the implementation of the “right to return”; “One State for Two Nations and Three Religions” is the most just and “democratic” solution (he seemingly doesn’t know the Palestinian constitution Petra MB mentions above, nor the Hamas Charter).

Desmond Tutu is Sabeels “international patron”, he often speeks at Sabeel conferences, also in the U.S. (and UK?) – and Naim Ateek is often called the “Palestinian Desmond Tutu” (btw: regular attenders of Sabeel’s conferences are ISM activists too).

Sabeel is also the “theological fuel” for the BDS campaign that promotes boycotts of Israel.

And I’m not sure if it is meant only metaphorically, when Christians say that Jesus was a Palestinian. In his latest book “A Palestinian Christian Cry for Reconciliation”, Ateek writes:
“Palestinian liberation theology focuses on the humanity of Jesus of Nazareth, who was also a Palestinian living under an occupation.”
http://www.zionism-israel.com/israel_news/2009/05/from-fair-witness-review-of-naim-ateeks.html

I think they are all connected and it’s difficult to say who “inspires” whom … the worldwide anti-Jewish conspiracy at work.

I see now that there’s an interesting article about Sabeel at Harry’s too:
http://www.hurryupharry.org/2009/03/16/sabeel%E2%80%99s-impact-on-christian-charity/

Gwunderi, interesting observations, and interesting that they openly advocate ablolishing Israel. So Tutu then doesn’t have a problem with that — not a big surprise.

zkharyia, obviously BW doesn’t want to be too explicit about the 1state solution. However, the text you quote from his book shows that he regards the establishment of Israel as illegitimate, i.e. as an “injustice” done to the Palestinians, and he demands that they will get “justice”… Moreover, he has very clearly condemned all negotiations, starting from Oslo, as futile, because in his view, they can not produce results that would reflect Palestinian aspirations to “justice”. I think all in all, it’s clear enough for what he stands.

I’m a bit tired, Petra, just now, but I think you get Ben wrong on quite a few fronts. One, he didn’t start off with Native Americans. He started with Palestinian Christians and Muslims. He drew in the Native Americans because he wanted to poetically conflate a European colonial-Native American colonized model with Israel-Palestine.

That’s more or less where he is now, with a few tweaks.

Two, I suspect he comes from an Anglican Youth background. Insufficiently ethnic or Gospel enough for him. Living the Gospel is identifying with the plight of Palestinian Christians and Muslims. Fine.

He wrote a long article in the CofE journal Third Way, ostensibly about Africa, but really as background to claiming his identifying with Palestinian Christians, and, by extension, Muslims, was in nowise Christian nationalist.

The trouble is his identifying with Palestinian Christians and Muslims has led him in nowise to recognising any justice or right in Zionism or Jewish claims to the land. Which I think, from a Christian view, extremely problematical. It looks a lot like he equates the Gospel with Anti-Zionism.

That is why, I think, his pro-Palestinian Christian ethicism is deficient and actually becomes a kind of ethnicism i.e. nationalism.

Again, I don’t have problem with pro-Palestinian Christian (and by extension, Muslim) nationalism. The problem is when one holds that view to mutually exclude, at some fundamental level, the legitimacy of Jewish.

That view, I think, extremely problematical from a Christian view.

But Ben is hoping to sway the Anglican church into anti-Zionism, I think, in no small part by this book, which looks like it is partly aimed at a youth market (a “beginners guide”, hip, trendy) which looks like a kind of

Anti-Zionist Gospel according to Ben White.

I think this is for him in what Evangelism consists (for he is an Evangelical, I believe). But, like I said, precluding any fundamental justice to Zionism is, I think, from a Christian view, problematical.

Ben has since restored my posts.

Not sure zkharyia what you mean. Re. the American Indians, as far as I know, this was his graduation thesis, and he then went on to the I/P issue. If he published anything before, I wouldn’t know it.
Re. the religious background, no doubt that my knowledge and understanding of that is limited; but I have said upthread that I think this plays an important part, either as a genuinely held belief, or an opportunistically seized platform that was easily accessible to him. As to the obvious bigotry in his views, i.e. that his position boils down to claiming that the Palestinian right to self-determination includes the right to deny Jewish self-determination, this is certainly something I agree with, since I have said this already upthread.
However, you emphasize that you “don’t have problem with pro-Palestinian Christian (and by extension, Muslim) nationalism.” Take into account, though, that BW champions a particular brand of this “nationalism”, namely the Electronic Intifada/Ali Abunimah line, which is against the current PA, against all negotiations, and for a 1state “solution”.

Petra,

his thesis was comparing Native American poetic accounts of dispossession with Palestinian. The latter was the important thing, the former a lense/mould through/into which to see/force it.

His pro-Palestinian Christian and Muslim ethicism/ethnicism is surely of the EI variety, yes.

He set up or got involved with the PSoc at Cambridge. My guess he’s been into it from at least his teens, probably at least tangentially related to Anglican youth particaption or work.

the Nazis should have finished the job

In my opinion, those words are an implicit threat of violence and an explicit violation of legislation against instigating race hatred.If the chamber’s sergeant-at-arms (or equivalent) were present, Jonathan might have demanded the arrest of the person speaking such words.

The wilingness of the Euroleft to join with and propagate Islamism’s violent hatred of Jews, makes one wonder whether Europe ever truly abandoned its nearly two-millennia-long racial and ideological (theological) hatred of Jews. I think not.

This is one of the keys to European support for the Muslim anti-Israeli and anti-Semitic stance – a hidden, perhaps unconscious wish for the Muslim world to finish the job the Europeans began. After all, if no more Jews, then no more need for European guilt.

Dear Jonathan.

Sorry I haven’t read all of these posts but I have read the article above. Maybe someone has addressed this.
I was standing by the door of the event to which you refer when you and your friend (anne was it?) left and certainly didn’t hear anyone abuse you anti semitically. In fact the only ‘abuse’ I heard were people telling you to stop heckling because they wanted to hear the speaker.

Jon

It happened outside the room. My friend forgot her jacket and we had to go back. It happened then.

It’s time we took a lead from Group 43. Fight fire with fire.