Harry's Place

Your boys took a hell of a beating. Trying to defend that fascist little state called Israel in the Middle East by citing antisemitism is no longer good enough.

The eyes of the world have been opened. Israel is a pariah state.

Free Palestine.

Wow, it was as if the audience were scripted to demonstrate the point.

All rather skirted around the issue of Koranic mandates for Jew hatred.

The moderator/ facilitator bloke did quite a good job.

Sometimes an agenda is so obvious and unsubtle that it is embarrassing. Bresheet and Greenstein will find criticism of the government, the country and your next door neighbour’s opinions on every street corner in Israel. Criticising Israel is not against the Jews in general. Desecrating Jewish gravestones is antisemitic. Spitting at an old man because of his religion is antisemitic. Conflating Israel and UK Jews is pathetic

Perhaps someone could explain why Israel – or Zionists, if you prefer – are to blame when a Jew is attacked for being a Jew wherever and whenever he might be, and that is somehow understood because of something called ‘Israeli policies’ – yet, I don’t remember EVER hearing of a Jew desecrating a Muslim cemetery, torching a mosque or spitting in the face of a Muslim when the Palestinians or those in sympathy with them commit terrorist attacks against Israelis.

In 2002, there were weeks at a stretch when suicide bombers blew themselves up in the midst of Israeli civilians every day, sometimes twice a day, with only one aim in mind – to kill, injure and maim as many Jews as possible. So are British Jews allowed to rampage through Muslim neighborhoods because of ‘Palestinian’ policies? Would it be ‘understood’ if any Jew felt moved to do so? Incidentally, the so-called intifada which began in 2000 was launched following an offer by Israel to create a Palestinian state on 95% of the WB, 100% Gaza and 5% of Israel’s Negev.

As for Gaza and the pathetic mouthings of the so-called ‘villified’ professor who simply isn’t bright enough to see what’s going on around him: eight years of rockets, missiles and mortar fire aimed at Israeli communities in southern Israel – did he once raise his voice in lofty indignation when Jewish children were being murdered. I think not. Why not?

Oh well, there were Jews who supported Hitler too. It didn’t help them though.

what a bunch of smug tossers

Yesiam

“Trying to defend that fascist little state called Israel in the Middle East by citing antisemitism is no longer good enough.”

Israel is a thriving pluralist democracy, and about as far from a fascist state as it is possible to get. Denigrating Israel as a nation is simply a cunning way of being anti-semitic without mentioning Jews. Isn’t it?

Apparently ‘Amused’ doesn’t approve of peace rallies if and when they’re organized in part by any Jewish community organization, doesn’t approve of any Jewish community organizations ever issuing statements of support for Israel and doesn’t believe there’s quite enough antisemitism in Britain to suit his predilictions.

‘Amused’ hardly seems amused.

I was also impressed by the chair, especially with his direct question about the virulent anti-semitism in the Arab and Muslim world. Predictably, Fazan Mohammed avoided the question and blamed Israel instead.

yesiam
20 November 2009, 11:03 am

Free Palestine.

Could you please point out an era in history when there was a self-governing state named “Palestine” that stretched between the Med and the Jordan?

Palestinians deserve a democratic state wherein they can live free from fear and intimidation. As long as the only political choice they have is between the Iranian-backed overtly religious fascist Hamas movement and the western-backed corrupt, ostensibly more secular fascist Fatah movement, the light at the end of the tunnel will remain very distant.

http://jeffreygoldberg.theatlantic.com/archives/2009/11/hussein_ibish_on_the_fantasy_w.php
Hussein Ibish, a senior fellow at the American Task Force on Palestine, which is the leading American group advocating for an independent Palestine alongside Israel, has a new book out, “What’s Wrong With the One-State Agenda?” which does a comprehensive job of demolishing the arguments made by those who think that Israel should be eliminated and replaced by a single state of Jews and Palestinians. He has performed an important service with this book by noting one overwhelming truth about this debate: Virtually no one in Israel wants a single-state between the river and the sea. It’s useful to remember this salient fact when listening to the ostensibly reality-based arguments of the one-staters.

Khaled Abut Toameh, journalist and son of a Palestinian father and Israeli Arab mother on pro-Palestinian activism:

http://www.hudsonny.org/2009/11/what-does-pro-palestinian-really-mean.php

[...]

What is striking is that many of these “pro-Palestinian” activists have never been to the Middle East, let alone the West Bank or the Gaza Strip. In most cases, they are not even Arabs or Muslims.

What makes them “pro-Palestinian”?

In their view, inciting against Israel on a university campus or publishing “anti-Zionist” material on the Internet is sufficient to earn them the title of “pro-Palestinian.” But what these folks have not realized is that their actions and words often do little to advance the interests of the Palestinians. In some instances, these actions and words are even counterproductive.

[...]

If anyone is entitled to be called “pro-Palestinian,” it is those who are publicly campaigning against financial corruption and abuse of human rights by Fatah and Hamas. Those who are trying to change the system from within belong to the real “pro-Palestinian” camp.

Nazi propaganda used to say that Jews have to blame themselves for antisemitism

I can not believe this is being repeated by that freakin’ jewish plonker – he is obviously out of his teeny tiny mind

Antisemites will always find a reason to hate and attack jews, with or without Israeli policies as we have seen throughout history

yesiam: in Israel you are allowed to critizise your goverment, in ‘Palestine’ one gets thrown off a roof

I was also pleased to hear Nicky Campbell asking about the influence of Islamic teachings upon antisemitism. We talked a little after the show and I found him to be a decent guy.

Interesting to see Tony Greenstein and Haim Bresheeth hell-bent on dismissing the rise in antisemitism despite the documented evidence, and diverting the discussion into a debate about Israel. The message — despite token declarations that antisemitism is, of course, unacceptable — is that anyone who doesn’t share their opinion of Israel can expect whatever they get. It’s as if Nicky Campbell had asked them to give an on-camera demonstration of the way anti-Zionists license and facilitate antisemitism.

And in passing, wasn’t anyone at the BBC paying attention when the screen labels for the participants were being written? “Alex Goldberg, Chief Executive, London Jewish Forum”, “Jonathan Sacerdoti, The Zionist Federation”, “Haim Bresheeth, Vilified by Zionists”. Or is that how he introduces himself to strangers?

The “British-Israeli” Hadar also came across very well, making good points.

I am not jewish. I have no jewish friends (not through choice!). I am a gay indigineous Brit who has an arab (christian) partner who came here as a refugee and deeply dislikes Israel. In other words, I have absolutely no personal reason to support Israel or jews – but over the past year or so from reading here and elsewhere I have recognised the huge problem of anti-semitism, the threat of Islamism and the hypocritical double standards of the anti-Israel lobby.

In several muslim countries we have adulterers, gay people, apostates etc being hanged, crucified, lashed or even stoned to the death, in the 21st century. How can anyone devote themselves to anti-Israel protests when we have things like this going on in some of the neighbouring countries? In Israel, as far as I can see, there is a proper democratic system, with citizen’s rights and freedoms protected. It’s a glimmering example as to what the other middle eastern countries should be aiming for in a legal and social sense. Yes, it has faults, but those faults pale into insignificance when we look at the things going on in the surrounding region, which parts of the left seem frightened to criticise in case it’s “Islamophobic”.

Anyway – just wanted to give support to you guys from a non-jew.

The anti-Obama ranters increasingly sound like the anti-Israeli ranters except the anti-Obama crowd is not quite as vitrol, at least not yet.

very interesting to read, blah blah. And hi, nice to meet you.

blah blah – you have no idea how good it feels to read your post, thank you

blah blah

thanks

blah blah: much appreciated

Straws in the wind, perhaps. But there are miles left to go before “objectivity” is a word one can once again associate with BBC reporting. Take Barbara Plett’s unqualified comment on the vote on a draft resolution condemning the lack of human rights in Iran at a committee of the UN General Assembly (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/8371801.stm), where she takes the trouble to state that “some of those countries which did not vote for the resolution did have concerns about the state of political rights in Iran, but objected to the practice of singling out specific countries for condemnation”. You have to look on http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2009/gashc3968.doc.htm to identify some of these most principled of principled nations, but there you’ll find the comments of Sudan, Cuba, Libya and Venezuela. Syria’s representative couldn’t have put it more clearly: “…opposition to the practice of submitting country-specific resolutions on human rights situations, which selectively targeted developing and Islamic countries for political reasons. It reaffirmed that that practice transformed the work on human rights into a political exercise, and did not advance the cause. The OIC was against any initiative that might lead to the use of human rights as means of exerting political pressure on any Member State. It believed that country-specific resolutions on human rights situations would inevitably politicize the work of human rights bodies instead of advancing the promotion of human rights”. Well, if not exactly proof of “some nations are more equal than others” groupthink between Barbara and her editor, at least it’s proof of the BBC’s readiness to insult everyone’s intelligence.

Who are these people who apparently go around accusing anybody who criticises Israeli actions of being anti-semitic? I’ve never met anybody who does this, nor have I seen any statements of this sort on the internet. Yet I am constantly hearing rumours of their existence. There must be very few of these people around.

What is the point of going on TV to talk about how vilified you’ve been by these people and taking the heat off the worry about increasing antisemitism? It doesn’t really seem justified to interrupt a discussion about people being spat at in the street and synangogues being attacked so that you can complain that you have received angry letters from unreasonable people when you wrote articles critical of Israel. It’s like interrupting a discussion about a serious, life-hindering, incurable disease so that you can complain that your back sometimes hurts when you get up in the morning.

Personally, I think it’s a bad idea to accuse someone of being antisemitic. It would be better to calmly and reasonably ask them if they understand why people might interpret their comments as hateful stereotyping or incitement to violence. Calling people names doesn’t usually get them to rethink their opinions. But it really shouldn’t come as a surprise that some people prefer to name call than have a well-reasoned debate. It’s no reason to take the heat off antisemitism.