Jonathan Cook, who lives in Nazareth

There is a widespread belief that Israel is the Middle East’s only democracy and that Arabs, who can vote in Israeli elections, are equal participants in this democracy.  Nothing could be further from the truth.

In fact no Arab party has ever been a member of a government coalition.  The nearest they came to so being was in 1991 when Yitzhak Rabin was able to get the Oslo Accords passed, because of Arab support in the Knesset.  This was seen as ‘treasonous’ and is widely held to be the reason that Rabin was assassinated by a Jewish fundamentalist.

There have been Arabs in the various coalition governments but they have been elected on the slate of Zionist parties and are widely seen as tame collaborators.  For example on Ayoob Kara is a Likud MK and a Druze.  He is also one of the most right-wing MKs and set up meetings with neo-Nazis, whom he invited to Yad Vashem, where they promptly gave Hitler salutes!  However they were devoted Zionists.

The vote that Arabs obtain is therefore meaningless.  As Yair Lapid, leader of the new ‘centrist’ Yesh Atid party  proclaimed, when some people talked naively of a bloc including the Arabs to get rid of Netanyahu.  He wasn’t going to put Haneen Zoabi, of Balad in power.  Ms Zoabi is a hate figure for Zionists on account of her participation in the Mavi Marmara ship, which was part of the Free Gaza movement.  It is ironic that despite Zionist fuliminations against ‘Islamic fundamentalism’ etc. when the first Arab woman gets elected to the Knesset, a secular woman at that, the Zionists turn her into a hate figure that no one should ally with!

In reality the Arab vote in the Knesset has been declining over the years since Israel’s Palestinians know that voting has never secured them anything.

Tony Greenstein

Israel’s Rightward Shift Leaves Palestinian Citizens Out in the Cold

by Jonathan Cook    | published February 13, 2013   

Shortly before polling day in Israel’s January general election, the Arab League issued a statement urging Israel’s large Palestinian minority, a fifth of the country’s population, to turn out en masse to vote. The League’s unprecedented intervention -- reportedly at the instigation of the League’s Palestinian delegation -- was motivated by two concerns.

The first was the appearance of polls indicating that, for the first time in an Israeli general election, more than half of the country’s 1.4 million Palestinian citizens might fail to vote. There has been a gradual decline in turnout among the community since optimism about the Oslo “peace process” peaked in the late 1990s. Voting then stood at 75 percent; a decade later, in 2009, turnout had fallen to a historic low of 53 percent.

The popular western image of Israeli democracy and Arabs voting - but their votes count for nothing

The second anxiety was that another low turnout would further erode the influence of what Israelis term the “center-left bloc,” the electoral opposition to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the right-wing and religious parties that had joined him in government. In the view of the Arab League, the only hope the opposition bloc had of stopping the formation of another right-wing coalition -- and thus an ongoing impasse in negotiations with the Palestinians -- was that Israel’s three Palestinian or Palestinian-dominated parties would bring out the minority’s voters and win a large number of seats to bolster the center-left bloc.

In fact, the Arab League’s call revealed a profound, if by now well-established, misunderstanding of Israeli politics, one shared, it seems, even by Mahmoud ‘Abbas and other officials of the Ramallah wing of the Palestinian Authority. It assumed that the Israeli polity can be divided neatly into left and right wings, and that the differences between the two correspond primarily to relative willingness to make concessions to advance the cause of peace. This misperception is one that the Israeli political parties of the right and left have been only too willing to conspire in promoting.
The Mythical Dead Heat

Once the election results were announced, Neve Gordon, a political science professor at Israel’s Ben Gurion University in Beersheva, offered a number of diagrams, graphically breaking down the new Israeli parliament, or Knesset, into different binary combinations. The one that had grabbed the international media’s attention was a mythic one in which the two sides -- Netanyahu’s right-wing bloc and the center-left -- were presented as almost evenly divided, with Netanyahu enjoying a wafer-thin majority of 61 seats to 59.
By this reading of the results, all the predictions of a right-wing surge were upended. It looked as though Israelis were more ready for peace and compromise than had been widely assumed.

This view served everyone well. It helped Netanyahu intimate to the international community that his new coalition would be different from his loathed previous government; it offered the United States and the European Union an opening to revive the moribund peace process; and, presumably, it allowed Ramallah fresh justification for ‘Abbas’ focus on the diplomatic track with Israel, as opposed to the “resistance” tack taken by Hamas, his chief political rival.

This nexus of mutual benefit may explain why few observers, other than Gordon, bothered to consider different ways of assessing the election result.

The professor noted that, in terms of core ideology, 90 percent of the legislators in the new 120-seat Knesset identified as Zionists. The only anti-Zionist Knesset members were drawn from the three “Arab parties,” representing the Islamist, nationalist and communist-coexistence streams among the Palestinian minority. Possibly spurred by the Arab League’s unexpected interest in their franchise, the turnout among Palestinian citizens rose marginally, rather than falling as expected, to 56 percent, though the three parties’ representation -- at 11 seats -- remained unchanged.

But, more usefully, Gordon offered a breakdown of the Knesset, based on the parties’ platforms, into those legislators willing and those unwilling to make the serious concessions required to move the peace process forward. On that basis, the size of the “peace bloc” grew only fractionally larger on the anti-Zionist one: The three Palestinian parties plus the small left-Zionist Meretz party make up 15 percent of the new Knesset.
No Deal with “Hanin Zu‘bis”

Gordon’s point was quickly illuminated by Yair Lapid, a former TV anchorman and the leader of the new and supposedly centrist Yesh Atid party. In the surprise success of the election, Yesh Atid won 19 seats, putting it only one behind the 20 secured by Netanyahu’s Likud party. Netanyahu had run on a joint list with the far-right Yisrael Beiteinu party of Avigdor Lieberman. Between them, they won 31 seats.

Lapid’s triumph -- and his presumed role as kingmaker -- was the main reason most observers concluded that the election had proved Israelis were turning away from the right. And yet one of his first declarations confounded the pundits who had been wondering whether he might form an alliance with the other center-left parties, in order either to create a formidable opposition or to wrest the premiership from Netanyahu.

Rejecting those options, and thereby implicitly declaring his intention to join a Netanyahu-led government, Lapid said: “I’ve heard the talk about a blocking majority. I want to take this off the table. We will not do that with the Hanin Zu‘bis. It is not going to happen.” The reference to Hanin Zu‘bi -- the Palestinian member of the last Knesset most reviled by Israeli Jews -- was revealing of Lapid’s understanding of Israel’s national political exigencies.

Zu‘bi entered the Knesset in 2009 as the first Palestinian woman elected on behalf of a Palestinian party, the National Democratic Assembly (NDA). She was reelected in January. In her first term, she was quickly thrust into the role of public enemy number one. Her crime was to participate in the international aid flotilla that tried to break the siege of Gaza in May 2010. The lead ship on which she sailed, the Turkish-flagged Mavi Marmara, was attacked by the Israeli navy in international waters. Nine humanitarian activists were killed.

Because of her status as an MK, Zu‘bi was the first of the activists released. She returned with an eyewitness account of Israeli brutality aboard the Mavi Marmara that gave the lie to Israel’s account of what took place and helped to stoke international criticism of Israel’s action. As a result, she was hounded in the Knesset chamber; demonized by politicians and the media; and subjected to a wave of death threats from the Israeli public. She had confirmed to most Israeli Jews their suspicion that Palestinian MKs and the Palestinian minority they represented were a fifth column.

Lapid’s choice to single out Zu‘bi -- coupled with his use of her name in the plural -- suggested that he shared precisely this view. His words reflected an assumption among Israel’s Jewish public that all the Palestinian parties had demonstrated their “treachery” in supporting the rights of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Indeed, Lapid avoided having a Palestinian candidate on his slate, even in a low-ranking slot where the candidate was unlikely to win. (Apart from Meretz, the other center-left parties also failed either to include Palestinian candidates on their lists or to put them in an electable position.)

In fact, the taint on the Palestinian parties in Israeli Jewish opinion runs deeper still. In pursuing their main domestic agenda -- a campaign for equal rights, encapsulated in the demand for Israel’s transformation from a Jewish state into “a state of all its citizens” -- the parties have found themselves accused of acting as a “Trojan horse.” That is, they are charged with seeking to undermine Israel as a Jewish state on behalf of the Palestinian leadership in the West Bank and Gaza. It is this paranoid perception on the part of Israel’s political and security establishments that has increasingly fueled demands from the Israeli government that ‘Abbas and the Palestine Liberation Organization recognize Israel as a Jewish state as a precondition for peace talks.

Lapid was simply following an established precept in Israeli politics that the duty of Israeli Jewish parties is to uphold and defend the Zionist consensus. That consensus consists of several core principles: that Israel should be a Jewish state, or ethnocracy, that represents worldwide Jewry, not its own ethnically mixed citizenry; that a viable Palestinian state in the Occupied Territories would be a strategic threat to Israel and so its emergence must be prevented; and that Israel’s Palestinian parties should never be allowed to exercise influence over policies drawn from either of the first two precepts.

Only one Israeli government has ever dared to violate this last principle. Yitzhak Rabin allowed the Palestinian parties to support his minority government from outside the coalition, a pact that enabled him to advance the Oslo process in the early 1990s. Even though he kept the Palestinian parties at arm’s length, the arrangement outraged the right, which saw it as an act of unconscionable betrayal. The inflammatory rhetoric against Rabin, including from Netanyahu, heated up the political climate that motivated Rabin’s assassin to pull the trigger in 1995.

Rabin’s killing did not entrench support for the Zionist left, as might have been expected; instead, it brought Netanyahu to power for his first term as prime minister starting in 1996. Any doubts that the Palestinian parties were illegitimate partners in government were erased once and for all. In the same speech in which he distanced himself from the “Zu‘bis,” Lapid noted that the vote had been a demand from the electorate for “normality” -- a normality, it seemed, that required the continuing exclusion of the Palestinian parties from political power.
Hostility in the Knesset

The Palestinians MKs are only too aware of the increasingly active hostility to their presence in the Knesset chamber. As Ja‘far Farah of the Mossawa advocacy center told the International Crisis Group in 2012: “For our community, there has been a dramatic change, as racist rhetoric eats its way into the mainstream public debate. In the 1980s, Likud participated actively in marginalizing overtly racist politicians, like Meir Kahane. Today, Likud politicians sit next to racists in the governing coalition.”

That antipathy toward the Palestinian parties has also extended to their electoral base, the Palestinian minority. A series of bills introduced in the last Knesset sought to limit the rights of Palestinian citizens based on the premise that they were not fulfilling their obligations. The ideological inspiration for much of this legislation was the 2009 electoral campaign of Avigdor Lieberman, later to become Netanyahu’s foreign minister, under the slogan, “No loyalty, no citizenship.”

The main Zionist parties wield clout during election campaigns through a highly partisan body known as the Central Elections Committee, overseen by a High Court judge. Over the past decade the Committee has become an instrument for efforts to delegitimize the Palestinian parties and question their right to participate in Knesset elections.

These efforts have focused chiefly on the NDA, a nationalist party founded by former philosophy professor Azmi Bishara in 1995, soon after the signing of the Oslo accords between Israel and the PLO. Bishara made two main changes to the political profile of the Palestinian minority. First, he brought to center stage the contradiction between the demand for equal rights and the Jewishness of the state, popularized in his campaign for “a state of all its citizens.” And second, fully aware that Israeli officials would not willingly accede to the refashioning of a Jewish state, he treated the Knesset principally as what one of his officials termed “an arena of confrontation,” using it to highlight the limits of Israeli democracy.

Bishara’s success can be measured by the degree to which he changed the discourse of his main political rivals, both that of the Islamist-dominated United Arab List (which includes the Ta‘al party of Ahmad Tibi) and, more grudgingly, that of the Democratic Front for Peace and Equality, a joint Jewish-Arab party, known in Hebrew as Hadash, with a communist lineage. The new consensus was cemented with the Future Vision of the Palestinian Arabs in Israel, a document jointly published in 2006 by the main political organizations that incorporated much of Bishara’s thinking.

Behind the scenes, these developments were viewed with concern by Israel’s domestic intelligence service, the Shinbet. Months after the Future Vision’s publication, it emerged that the Shinbet had warned the government that the Palestinian minority’s demands for equal rights constituted “subversion” and that Israel should act in accordance with the principle of a “democracy defending itself.”

A short time later Bishara was forced into exile, after he was accused, improbably, of having helped Hizballah target sites in Israel with its rockets during the 2006 Israeli attack on Lebanon. A former Shinbet official explained the rationale behind Bishara’s expulsion to the International Crisis Group:

Israel has two ways of dealing with Israeli Arab politicians who are perceived as a threat to the system: domestication or expulsion. Either you subdue these people or you force them to abandon the stage altogether. When Azmi Bishara declared his support for a binational state, it was seen as a great threat, almost a declaration of war. After he was ostracized, his relevance quickly was reduced. He still writes for a few Arab newspapers and occasionally gives interviews on Al Jazeera, but the Jewish majority of Israel does not have to relate to him anymore. For the Israeli security establishment, the Bishara case was successfully solved.

This thinking has seeped into the political arena, too. Just as the Shinbet decided that the threat posed by Bishara could best be ended by removing him from Israel, many politicians concluded that the threat contained in the political agenda of the Palestinian parties could best be resolved by removing them from the stage offered by the Knesset.
The Disqualification Merry-Go-Round

Questioning the right of Palestinian parties, especially the NDA, to contest national elections has become an established feature of each campaign of the past decade. But the main Zionist parties have been able to move beyond mere threats into concerted efforts to disqualify the parties and individual candidates through the Central Elections Committee.

In the 2003 and 2009 elections, the Committee disqualified the NDA, both times with the open support of the Shinbet, and also targeted elements of the United Arab List. In each case, the Committee’s decision was overturned on appeal to the High Court.

Because of its joint Jewish-Arab membership, the Democratic Front has so far avoided this fate, even though some of its Palestinian members have been individually harassed. The party’s leader, Muhammad Baraka, for example, has been subjected to a series of dubious legal actions by the state and is currently on trial for allegedly assaulting a soldier during a West Bank demonstration.

Israel’s right-wing parties appear to be aware that they would not need to bar all the Palestinian parties to end Palestinian representation in the Knesset. It is generally assumed that, were one of the Palestinian parties to be disqualified, the others would feel compelled to pull out of the running, too, in solidarity.

The 2013 election was expected to run according to the script of previous elections. But while the right floated several motions to ban the NDA and the United Arab List, the Committee ultimately rejected them, albeit narrowly in the case of the NDA (for reasons considered below).

Instead, the Committee zeroed in on the NDA’s Hanin Zu‘bi, the easiest possible target. The decision was reached despite an advisory opinion from the attorney general, Yehuda Weinstein, that there was “no sufficient, exceptional critical mass of evidence” that would support her ouster.

The Basic Law on the Knesset makes disqualification of a party or individual candidate possible if they have incited racism; denied Israel’s Jewish and democratic character; or supported armed struggle or terrorism against Israel. The committee pointed both to Zu‘bi’s participation in the 2010 aid flotilla, declaring it “support for terrorism,” and to her rejection of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state. But the case against Zu‘bi was so insubstantial that few observers doubted it would be overturned by the court.

NDA officials pointed out that she had not personally chosen to embark on the Mavi Marmara. The High Follow-Up Committee, a body representing the Palestinian minority as a whole, had decided that the community should be represented, and her party had then selected her. Similarly, her ideological positions about Israel’s character simply reflected the NDA platform. Party officials vowed to boycott the election should she be banned.

There were other obvious problems with the case. In 2011, the attorney general had closed the investigation into Zu‘bi’s participation in the flotilla, having found no evidence she broke any law. Furthermore, Israel had not declared the Turkish charity behind the Mavi Marmara to be a “terrorist” organization at the time of the flotilla’s launch. In fact, one of Zu‘bi’s lawyers, Hassan Jabareen of the human rights group Adalah, surprised the court by revealing that the group had not been designated as such until a few weeks before the case’s initial hearing.

But, as a Haaretz editorial noted, evidence was beside the point: “What we’re dealing with is a political crusade against all the Arab political parties.” An opinion poll in December 2012 showed that 55 percent of Israeli Jews thought a ban on Zu‘bi would be justified.

As expected, the High Court overturned Zu‘bi’s disqualification and did so unanimously. Following the decision, Zu‘bi observed that “this ruling does little to erase the threats, delegitimization, and physical and verbal abuse that I have endured -- in and outside the Knesset -- over the past three years.” For dramatic effect, she had intended to make her statement to the waiting media as she left the courtroom. But instead she had to be ushered out a back door to safety, as more than two dozen right-wing extremists blocked her path to the front door. They had started shoving and threatening her escorts.

Legislators from the right-wing parties hurried to criticize the decision. Yariv Levine of Likud observed: “Unless MK Zu‘bi blows herself up in the Knesset, the High Court justices won’t understand that she has no place there.” The joint Likud-Yisrael Beiteinu list also issued a statement saying it would introduce yet more legislation to restrict the rights of the country’s Palestinian citizens and their representatives: “Any expression of support for terror should be grounds for disqualification for running for election in the Israeli Knesset. Likud-Yisrael Beiteinu will immediately act during the next Knesset to fix the existing laws.”
Declining Turnout

In the aftermath of the vote, despite the modest increase in Palestinian turnout, the Palestinian parties berated their constituents for not voting in even greater numbers. Tibi grumbled that, if voting by the Palestinian minority had exceeded 60 percent, an alliance of the center-left and Palestinian parties would have secured a victory. “We could have ousted Netanyahu,” he declared to Haaretz. Baraka, leader of the Democratic Front, called on all those who failed to vote to “take a close look at yourselves in the mirror.”

Lapid’s almost instantaneous dismissal of the scenario of cooperation made such comments sound foolish. Tibi and Baraka, however, were exploiting illusory hopes about a real revival of the center-left for their own ends.

Two trends in voting among Palestinians in Israel have been noticeable since the eruption of the second intifada in 2000. The first is the gradual decline in voter participation. According to a view spread by the Israeli media, the drop reflects a failure by the Palestinian parties themselves: They are said to have failed to represent their voters’ real concerns, grandstanding about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict rather than concentrating on bread-and-butter issues. Analysts point to the marked contrast between Palestinian turnout in Israeli municipal elections -- in 2008 some 80 percent voted -- and that in the national poll a year later, when barely half the electorate cast a ballot.

But this assessment ignores a second, equally important trend. In 1999, 31 percent of Palestinian voters backed Zionist parties, mainly, though not exclusively, Labor and Meretz. A decade later, the figure had fallen to 18 percent. Many of those who continued to vote for Zionist parties belonged to the Druze and the Bedouin of the Galilee, two communities that have a long record of serving in the Israeli army and later in the security services (usually as low-ranking Border Police officers or prison guards).

Given this second trend, a significant part of the decline in turnout can be attributed to the growing disenchantment of those Palestinian citizens of Israel who traditionally identified with the Zionist left and the peace process it supposedly champions. This interpretation helps to explain why, despite the overall decline in the Palestinian vote over the past decade, the Palestinian parties have continued to win the same share of Knesset seats -- a tenth of the places in the chamber. Jamal Zahalka, leader of the NDA, made this point shortly after the election results were announced: “I am against the claim that there is a lack of faith in the Arab parties, because at the end of the day, most of the Arab community does in fact vote for the parties that represent it.”

Nonetheless, there are signs of a growing alienation from national politics among the Palestinian minority, reflected in the lackluster response to the election campaign in Palestinian communities; the emergence of a formal boycott campaign, led by the small secular Palestinian nationalist movement, Sons of the Village (Abna’ al-Balad), and backed by the northern Islamic Movement of Ra’id Salah; and a tangible unease at election time among the three Palestinian parties themselves. Amal Jamal, a politics professor at Tel Aviv University, observed that Palestinian citizens were “undecided on the merits of their political participation and, given the current facts, whether their votes make a difference. The majority are thinking: ‘What's the point?’”

No single factor can explain the Palestinian minority’s diminishing investment in national politics. It derives, in part, from a realization that the struggle for civic equality is doomed because of Israel’s self-identification as a Jewish state; in part, from the marginalization of the Palestinian parties to the point where they can do little more than hector from the Knesset’s sidelines; and in part, from a fear that the more the Palestinian parties turn the Knesset into an arena of confrontation, the more certain the Zionist parties are to seek retribution with anti-Arab measures.

The alienation of Palestinian citizens from the political system was highlighted in a survey presented at Haifa University in December. It showed that 79 percent had little or no faith in state institutions, including the Knesset, and that 67 percent lacked confidence in the Arab parties.

In the January election, the Palestinian parties adopted three tactics in order to reverse this loss of interest and trust. The first was to highlight the threat to the minority’s future posed by the rise of the right wing and its anti-democratic agenda.

The stars of the NDA’s electoral campaign, for example, were the leaders of the far-right parties, especially Avigdor Lieberman and former Kach leaders Michael Ben Ari and Baruch Marzel, who were running for the Otzma LeYisrael (Strong Israel) party. (In the end, Strong Israel narrowly failed to make it across the electoral threshold and did not enter the Knesset.) Or as Zahalka phrased it: “We are trying to convince those who are indifferent to go out and vote, because each vote counts and whoever doesn’t vote is essentially serving the right wing.”

From billboards in Palestinian towns and villages, the face of Lieberman stared down alongside a question in Arabic: “Who are you leaving it [the Israeli parliament] to?” One of the NDA’s television ads featured a cartoon version of Lieberman singing the lyrics of the Israeli national anthem as he gyrated to the sound of Arabic wedding music. The ad was soon banned by the Central Elections Committee for insulting a national symbol (the anthem, not Lieberman), but was later reinstated by the High Court.

A second change made by the parties was to tie their national campaigns to the forthcoming municipal elections, emphasizing their connections to popular local leaders in the hope of mobilizing additional voters. This was particularly evident in the large town of Shafa ‘Amr, where the Democratic Front mayor, Nahid Khazim, and the leader of the NDA opposition, Amin Anabtawi, were recruited to the campaigns of their respective parties.

The third measure was an undeclared agreement among the parties not to campaign aggressively against each other, leading to what Mossawa described as a largely “dormant” campaign. In this spirit, the United Arab List agreed under pressure from the other parties to remove posters with the slogan: “If you’re not voting for the United Arab List, you’re voting for Zionism.”

This final tactic, of easing up on political opponents, was chiefly a last-minute response to mounting criticism of the Palestinian parties that they have failed to overcome their ideological and often petty personal differences to present a united list at election time. Whatever the limitations on the parties’ effectiveness in the Knesset, the argument goes, greater unity would strengthen the Palestinian bloc and make the Palestinian voice harder to ignore. Hanin Zu‘bi set out that thinking: “We know that we lose at least five seats when we run as three separate parties than one unified party. We can be 16 seats according to polls and public opinion.” Shortly after the elections were announced in 2012, a social media campaign urged the parties to cooperate more closely.

Sensitive to the criticism, the NDA and the United Arab List have tried at each of the last two elections to foster an agreement with the Democratic Front on an electoral pact. The Front has refused, however, apparently worried that a union with the two other parties would drive away many of its reported 8,000 Jewish supporters and end its tradition of being an Arab-Jewish party.

At this election, the NDA sought for the first time to embarrass the Front, highlighting the fact that the latter’s reticence was the only obstacle to an agreement. In an interview Zu‘bi stated: “The communist party -- which doesn’t define itself as an Arab party but rather as a Jewish-Arab party, even though 87 percent of its voters are Arabs -- says, ‘Yes, I can give up five seats. I can give up 150,000 voters, because this is part of my ideology to be a Jewish and Arab party.’”
Voting vs. Going It Alone

As the Knesset has become an ever less appealing venue for the Palestinian minority, its leaders have started considering various ideas for separate representation.

The most established proposals have been for a directly elected Palestinian parliament or a major overhaul of the High Follow-Up Committee, the minority’s main national political institution. The Follow-Up Committee, which Israeli governments have always refused to recognize, has provided weak leadership, not least because it is dominated by village mayors, many of whom are primarily loyal to a local clan rather than a national political program.

Although Israel can be relied on to greet any hint of separatism with extreme hostility, such ideas have gained greater traction in the wake of the Arab revolts. As‘ad Ghanim, a politics professor at Haifa University, has proposed, for example, an elected “democratic national forum” and a leadership serving in a new institution known as the Supreme National Council. The NDA, meanwhile, has been growing more vocal about a Palestinian parliament in Israel, particularly as it squares neatly with the party’s program for cultural and educational autonomy for the minority. Again, the main obstacle to progress has been the Democratic Front, worried about the impact on Arab-Jewish partnership.

The decline in Palestinian participation in national elections -- and proposals to consider alternative forms of representation -- have not gone unnoticed by the center-left in Israel. Belatedly, it appears to have realized that, if Palestinians turn their back on national politics, it will ultimately be harmed, too, even though few Palestinian citizens now vote for Zionist parties.

In part, this concern is pragmatic. A low turnout by Palestinian voters is reflected in a low number of seats, and that result in turn makes it much harder to challenge the dominance of the right. Most of the center-left parties are not keen to sit with the Palestinian parties, but at the same time they recognize that without a strong Palestinian presence in the Knesset they will be a weaker force.

A strong showing by the Palestinian parties also helps to strengthen the hand of center-left parties as they haggle with the right wing to be allowed into government. The smaller the right’s majority, the more concessions can be demanded by parties such as Lapid’s as the price for joining the coalition.

Further, it seems the center-left may be growing fearful of the long-term consequences of the right’s entrenchment. In addition to attacks on the Palestinian parties, the right has been waging a battle against human rights groups, the media and the Supreme Court, all of which the right regards as being bastions of liberalism.

‘Awad ‘Abd al-Fattah, secretary-general of the NDA, believes these concerns explained the Central Elections Committee’s narrow majority in favor of allowing his party as a whole to compete. He noted that the right-wing parties worked as feverishly for a ban as ever; the NDA was saved by a switch of positions on the part of center-left representatives on the Committee. According to ‘Abd al-Fattah, the center-left started to panic during the election campaign, fearing that the momentum of the rightward shift might soon prove unstoppable. Without concerted action to shore up a credible opposition to Netanyahu, Israel risked hurtling toward “full-blown fascism” at home and pariah status abroad.

This disquiet has fed into the strategic interest the center-left has both in strengthening its own standing against the right wing and in maintaining a parliament that at least symbolically represents the fifth of the population who are Palestinian. In this respect, there is an identifiable and substantive policy difference between the right and the center-left. Contrary to popular perception, this difference does not pertain principally to the Palestinians or the peace process. It concerns the importance attached by each side of the divide to Israel’s international standing and, particularly, its relations with the White House.

The center-left is worried about the damage the right is doing to Israel’s long-term interests by flaunting its intractability on the peace process. In reality, the center-left would be unlikely to offer much more to the Palestinians in the Occupied Territories than the right, but it places vital importance on perpetuating a “peace process,” however futile, as a way to avoid alienating Israel’s patrons.

Additionally, unlike the right wing, the center-left fears that were the Knesset no longer to represent Palestinian citizens, due either to boycott or a right-wing ban, Israel’s rule over its Palestinian minority would look increasingly illegitimate and more like a variety of apartheid. In such circumstances, the center-left’s role in defending Israel’s standing abroad -- its chief selling point to its constituency at home -- would be in danger of becoming redundant. The center-left could quickly find itself in a vicious spiral of political and diplomatic marginalization.

It was precisely this apprehensiveness that elicited a last-minute injunction from Haaretz, the house paper of the center-left, for the Palestinian minority to “Get out and vote!” Unusually, and not a little patronizingly, the editorial was written in Arabic. Similarly, Shelly Yachimovich, leader of the Labor Party, who had almost entirely avoided the issue of Israeli-Palestinian conflict during the campaign, denied that her party was ever “left-wing” and celebrated Labor’s role in establishing the settlements, launched a last-minute campaign on Arab websites and Arabic-language social media networks to urge the minority to vote.

And two weeks before polling day, the center-left parties signed a covenant implausibly committing to end inequality between Jews and Arabs within ten years. Of the main Palestinian parties, only the Democratic Front attended. The text agreed upon at the Non-Partisan Convention for Equality Between Jews and Arabs, initiated by the Jewish-Arab Center for Economic Development, received little coverage in the local Arabic or Hebrew media. Of the few in the Palestinian minority who were aware of it, most expected the covenant would become another quickly forgotten promise. Ramiz Jaraysi, Nazareth’s mayor and a member of the Democratic Front that signed the document, summed up the mood: “We have experienced talk and declarations that were never implemented, and I don’t expect a change in reality.”
Netanyahu in New Wrapping

Far from marking a revival by the center-left, as most media presented the results, the election results signaled a further rightward shift in the center of political gravity in Israel. Hana Suwayd of the Democratic Front, the least outspoken of all the Palestinian legislators, observed: “I believe that what happened in Israeli politics is a kind of transformation: The extreme right became the mainstream, and the most extreme people are sitting at the center of Israeli politics.”

Beyond crunching the Knesset numbers, observers tended to overlook larger developments in the Israeli political scene.

Netanyahu’s electoral failure was largely a personal one. He misread the public mood toward the “social justice protests” that swept Israel in the summer of 2011. The white middle class in Israel, comprised of Ashkenazi Jews, remains disgruntled at what it sees as the rapid decline in its privileges and living standards as Netanyahu’s neoliberal policies have allotted ever more power and wealth to a small business elite, many of them benefactors of his party.

By contrast, Lapid captured the mood of the protests with his demand that all Israelis “share the burden” -- an insinuation that middle-class Jews have been paying the price for the supposed indolence of both the rapidly growing community of ultra-Orthodox Jews and the Palestinian minority. (Discriminatory policies mean the joblessness rate among Palestinian citizens has reached 30 percent, five times that of the Jewish population, according to a Tel Aviv study.)

Lapid’s proposed solution of “sharing the burden” referred chiefly to requiring military or alternative national service from the ultra-Orthodox and Palestinian citizens. There were at least echoes in this proposal of Lieberman’s notorious loyalty campaign directed at the Palestinian minority in the 2009 election. As Salah Muhsin of Adalah observed, Lapid, like Lieberman, implied that Palestinian citizens could not expect full rights and an end to discrimination until they fulfilled their obligations.

In fact, an examination of the composition and platforms of the largest parties, not least the Likud, illustrated the degree to which the right and even the far right dominated the new Knesset.

The Likud primaries were effectively hijacked by settlers and the extreme right. The party’s shrinking liberal wing was dislodged and replaced by ultra-nationalists. These include Moshe Feiglin, who has been leading efforts to take over Likud on behalf of the settlers for more than a decade. He will now occupy a Likud seat in the Knesset for the first time.

Likud’s move to the far right has been achieved while maintaining the impression that it is still the party that represents the traditional Israeli right. It has joined two other parties on the far right -- Yisrael Beiteinu and Habayit Hayehudi (The Jewish Home) -- that have maneuvered themselves into the political mainstream, even while holding on to their extremist platforms.

A decade ago Yisrael Beiteinu, led by Lieberman, was a fringe far-right party catering to immigrants from the former Soviet Union. And the National Union, the forerunner of the Jewish Home, was a small party with limited appeal outside the most ideological settlements. Lieberman and the new leader of the Jewish Home, Naftali Bennett, both former acolytes of Netanyahu, have rapidly reinvented their parties, drawing much wider support. It was precisely the alignment in the platforms of Lieberman and Netanyahu’s parties that allowed them to create a joint electoral list.

Even the “centrist” parties provided no real counterweight to the rightward shift of these parties. This bloc -- including Lapid’s Yesh Atid, the now barely functioning Kadima Party established by Ariel Sharon seven years ago as a breakaway from Likud, and a new faction called Hatnuah set up by former Kadima leader Tzipi Livni -- espoused positions that would once have comfortably positioned them on Israel’s traditional right wing. The Israeli center has simply filled the political vacuum left by Likud’s departure to the extreme right.

Lapid’s views on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict were barely considered during the campaign. In fact, Lapid launched his party’s program in Ariel, the most controversial of the large settlement blocks because of its location deep in the West Bank, near Nablus. His program on “peace issues” was largely one Netanyahu could have subscribed to. In fact, according to Israeli polls, half of Lapid’s supporters classified themselves as right-wing, some of them former Likud voters put off by the party’s relentless march to the far right.

In his program, Lapid calls the settlers “true Zionists,” adding that “with a broken heart we ask some of them to sacrifice their lives’ undertaking for peace and the state’s continued existence.” Yesh Atid considers Jerusalem “the eternal capital of Israel.… Jerusalem will remain united and under Israeli sovereignty.” On security issues, the party states: “Israel reserves the right to operate in the territory of a future Palestinian state as much as is needed to ensure its own national security.” With respect to Hamas, “Israel will not negotiate with the group until it changes its charter and recognizes the right of the Jewish people to exist in their own land.” And more generally, the party accuses the Palestinians of having “never missed an opportunity to miss an opportunity. They have rejected again and again Israel’s outstretched hand of peace. This is how it was during the first intifada and during the second.”

As Haaretz columnist Zvi Barel noted, “If there’s no partner, if a united Jerusalem will remain Israel’s forever, if some of the true Zionist settlers will only be asked, not forced, to leave their homes, and if Israel can choose at any moment to act in the territory of a Palestinian state, what exactly is there left to talk about with the Palestinians?” Barel concluded: “Yesh Atid’s platform has wrapped Netanyahu's policy in colorful paper, tied it up with a bow and put it on sale as if it were an original idea that inspires hope.”

At the time of writing, Netanyahu’s coalition talks are still underway. But reports in the Israeli media are that Lapid, who was so loath to ally himself with “Hanin Zu‘bis,” has made an early pact with Habayit Hayehudi requiring the two parties to enter the coalition together, apparently to prevent Netanyahu from playing them off against each other in the negotiations. Both parties want to promote ideas of “sharing the burden” and reduce the chance of Netanyahu including the ultra-Orthodox in his coalition.

There are benefits for Netanyahu in drawing in the center-left, as a Likud official cynically noted to a Haaretz journalist in relaying Netanyahu’s intention to entice Livni, too. “Netanyahu is seriously considering making Livni the ‘acting foreign minister,’ in charge of the diplomatic process. Livni would ‘whitewash’ the Netanyahu government in the world’s eyes, just as the Labor Party and, later, [Ehud Barak’s breakaway party] Atzmaut ‘whitewashed’ the previous Netanyahu government.”

Barack Obama’s White House, keen to restore its discredited status as honest broker in the stalled peace process, has lost no time in exploiting the center-left’s supposed revived fortunes. A visit to Israel by Obama due in March, his first since becoming president in 2009, was scheduled despite what Netanyahu officials called its obvious “interference” in the Israeli coalition-building process. Lapid, Likud officials suspect, will be able to extract greater concessions from Netanyahu in the talks because the Likud leader will not want to greet the US president as head of an exclusively hard-right and religious government.

The gossip emanating from Washington is that Obama and his new secretary of state, John Kerry, will use the visit to pressure Netanyahu and ‘Abbas into renewing peace talks. The danger of the myth of the center-left’s resurgence is precisely that it will serve to afford Obama and Netanyahu room to reanimate a peace process that, though walking, will be good as dead.

Jewish Chronicle Refuses to Print Letters Criticising Its Lies and Deceptions

Traditionally the role of a newspaper was to inform its readership of events.  Some papers like The Times, but also the Jewish Chronicle, considered themselves papers of record.  When  historians would come to write up the period in question, they could faithfully cite the newspapers concerned as a historical record.  Serious newspapers therefore took great trouble to ensure that Comment and Reporting were separated off, although of course a paper’s political stance would inevitably colour the nature of its reporting.

More 'mob rule' JC 9.2.13.

So anyone wanting to know more about the Jewish community and the British Union of Fascists would ignore the Jewish Chronicle at their peril.  But when  historians come to write about  how and why the Apartheid State of Israel was dismantled and de-Zionised in favour of a non-racist unitary state, they will want to look at the history of the movement for BDS which brought about the end of a Jewish Racial State in Palestine.

This was going to be a picture of a perfectly empty shop and its bored shop assistants - but the window has caught the image from the opposite side of the road where the Zionists demonstrate.  Like Dracula they aren't captured in the mirror!

Unfortunately using the Jewish Chronicle today under Stephen Pollard, as a source of information about the anti-Apartheid movement against Zionism would be about as much value as citing  Hogwarts as an example of the English public school system.  In fact it would probably be less accurage!

PSC demonstrators chatting as the forlorn Zionists wave the Union Jack on the opposite side of the road - hoping to attract the odd EDL supporter

As readers of this blog will know, Stephen Pollard, editor of the Jewish Chronicle learnt his trade at the feet of the most unscrupulous and malevolent of all newspaper proprietors, Richard Desmond, when he was Editor of the Daily Express.  Pollard still writes for Desmond and the Express, whose circulation is faithfully reflecting that of the Jewish Chronicle – all one way down!
So accompanied by an admittedly nice photo of protestors and school students demonstrating outside the settler shop Sodastream, were the usual lies and disinformation – except that this time the article was subtitled ‘Sketch’ – which in serious newspapers is a clue to the fact that what follows isn’t to be taken seriously (usually write-ups of parliamentary proceedings).

According to the Jewish Chronicle - this is 'mob rule' and a festival of 'hate slogans'!!

The article is titled ‘Brighton rocked by hate slogans’.  Apart from the feeble witticism [clue:  Graham Greene!].  No doubt if this had been a 1930’s picket of a shop selling German wares, the JC would have characterised anti-Nazi slogans as being full of ‘hate’.  We should have learnt to love Hitler just as we should now love Israel.

Mob Rule in Brighton (S Pollard, Jewish Chronicle fiction novellist of the year)

The article itself finds it difficult to get even the simplest of things right.  Apparently Sodastream is 50 yards from the clocktower – in fact it’s about 500 yards.  We learn that Brighton is home to a number of the number of protests including outside Sainsbury’s which stocks settler products from the West Bank.  It concentrates on the arrest of 2 people who had nothing to do with the protest, but who found the Zionist protest in support of ethnic cleansing so objectionable that they gave mock Hitler salutes.  Unfortunately the first person who did so, rather than taking legal advice, pleaded guilty.  In fact there is a long tradition of people giving mock  Sieg Heils and Hitler salutes at racist events.  When I was 16 I travelled down from Liverpool to London for the Twickenham demonstration against the Springbok tour.  Outside the ground thousands of anti-racist, anti-apartheid demonstrators were giving the South Africans and their supporters sieg heil chants.

The Jewish Chronicle, which has never once interviewed a protestor, does manage to interview the vacuous Fiona Sharpe of Sussex Friends of Israel.  Apparently she is taking part in the counter-demonstration because she doesn’t like being bullied.  A good example of the Zionists’ disingenuousness.  Perhaps she opposes bullying on principle?  If so   then why isn’t she out demonstrating against the bullying of Palestinians who are stopped for hours at checkpoints, have their land  confiscated, their crops burn and their children subject to random military attacks.  Or maybe the bullying of the oppressed doesn’t count.  After all, to racists they are less than human so nothing counts.

The Jewish Chronicle even manages to interview the traditional enemy, a Christian fundamentalist, Daniel Laurence.  Many of the counter-protestors are Christian anti-Semites who want the Jews to go to Palestine so that Armageddon can take place, the Rapture begin and millions of Jews perish in the fires designed for the anti-Christ.  Because historically the first Zionists weren’t Jewish but Protestant Restorationists like Palmerstone and Lord Shaftesbury.

Sad to say that this Saturday gone, the demonstration was even quieter.  The solitary policeman seemed bored out of his mind as did Sodastream’s security guard.  People on the street were just as receptive to our message and once again, if you want peace and quiet to practice your yoga or meditation then you should consider Brighton’s Sodastream shop (it calls itself Ecostream!) which has now been designated a customer-free zone.

I include a short video to demonstrate how peaceful everything is, unlike the loud and lying  headings of the Jewish Chronicle’s articles.  And once again Simon Cobbs was conspicuous by his absence.

Tony Greenstein

Sodastream Brighton Is Already Damaged Goods – No one Wants to Buy Stolen Goods
I tried a small experiment today.  I went back to Sodastream shop and took some pictures, about an hour after the last demonstrator had left.  Now according to Simon Cobbs, the EDL supporting Zionist who organises the counter-demonstration,  ‘Dr Lucas rejected claims that if the protests did not move from directly outside EcoStream, the store would close.’ http://www.thejc.com/node/100197

Of course to Cobb and the Zionists the fact that a demonstration is successful in persuading people not to shop somewhere is evidence that they are being intimidated and the protest should be banned.  Protests, after all, should only be allowed when they have no hope of persuading anyone of anything!

I was, therefore, curious to see what trade was like when we were not there.  Perhaps Cobb was right.  After all even a stopped clock, and Cobb is somewhat repetitious, is right twice a day.  I went expecting a few customers.  Surely curiosity if nothing more would lead to people going in to see what the fuss is about.  Maybe some people are nervous and shy and steer clear of demonstrations altogether.  The point is that I expected that the shop would be busier than during the demonstrations when the only custom seems to be from the demonstrators  opposite.

I was therefore staggered that during the time that I was outside and filming and observing not one person went into the shop.  Indeed, if you want peace and quiet in Brighton, probably the best place to go is not to the library, which seems a hive of activity these days but Sodastream!  You can be sure that other customers won’t interrupt you.  Perhaps Sodastream should think of putting big cushions on the floor, getting rid of the counters that no one buys from anyway and instead offer yoga and transcedental meditation.  Not only would the demonstrations stop but trade is likely to increase significantly!

The Jewish Chronicle however is playing an entirely different and thoroughly disingenuous game.  It is trying to change reality through the use of deliberately false and hyped reporting.  The editorial in this week’s Jewish Chronicle is entitled ‘Mob-rule by the sea’.  Of course the Jewish Chronicle hasn’t bothered to send a reporter still less interview one of the counter-demonstrators.  Today it is no longer, as it once was, a paper of record.  Truth is seen as an expedient.  In reality the screeching of the JC betrays the mentality Lord Haw-Haw – mix in a nugget of truth [there is a demonstration, it can’t be denied] together with a vat load of lies.

I also took the time out to video a representative sample of just how peaceful the demonstration is – people talking, asking questions, quietly waving their flags, running a stall and on the opposite side waving the Israeli flag and the Butcher’s Apron (union jack).  Despite provocations from Jonathan Hoffman’s uglier twin, taxi driver Harvey Garfield, who stuck his camera in peoples’ faces (the Zionists tried that trick at Ahava – fat lot of good it did them) and the Christian woman in blue who is so fascinated with Bondage, Submission & Domination (she thinks that that’s what BDS is about! she comes along every week in hope).

And to enliven proceedings this week a group of about 8 kids – about 12-14 in age – came along to demonstrate and shout in support of the Palestinians.

But the Jewish Chronicle is determined not to let truth get in the way of its political campaign to have the demonstration banned.  So the headline of its article on the protests this week was ‘Protests turn nasty outside Ecostream’ with a picture showing the 2 sets of demonstrators intermingling.  In fact, at the shop’s own request, the Israeli demonstrators went to the other side of the road as the shouting between the 2 sets of demonstrators was deterring shoppers.  Fat lot of good it’s done them as no one wants to be seen buying stolen goods anyway. 

But the real purpose behind the distorted and untrue coverage of the Jewish Chronicle is to provide a basis for an application to the High Court to issue an injunction against the demonstration on the grounds of fear, intimidation etc. etc.  The only problem is that the evidence is against them.  Despite accusations of having been spit on and been subject to anti-Semitic abuse, the opposite is true.  3 members of the PSC demonstration have been assaulted, including myself.  Simon Cobb grabbed one demonstrator from behind and gripped his neck.  Another woman had a megaphone pushed in her face and I was attacked by a mentally ill transvestite who goes by the name ‘Chelsea’.

The only anti-Semitic abuse that there has been has been by the same Simon Cobb who thought it funny to shout ‘Jews Out’.  Not that he’s the first or the last Zionist to do so.   Since the Palestinian demonstration usually has a number of Jewish people on it the idea that we would demonstrate against Zionist racism whilst indulging in anti-Semitism is wishful thinking.

What there has been is one conviction where a passer-by  (not an ‘anti-Israeli activist as the Jewish Chronicle has twice stated) was convicted of making a Nazi salute in the direction of the Zionist demonstration.  Apparently someone else was also arrested for this today.  It is to be hoped that s/he pleads not guilty because what was almost certainly intended was a form of satire, in other words irony.  People see Jewish demonstrators in favour of ethnic cleansing [the Christian fundamentalists on the Zionist demonstration call the Palestinians who are being evicted and having their land stolen ‘occupiers’ as the Jews were there 3,500 years ago!] and they give a Nazi salute as if to say, you of all people should remember the evils of racism.

Indeed I can remember the 3rd demonstration I attended in my life.  It was at Twickenham back in 1970 against the touring South African Springboks.  A crowd of thousands outside the ground chanted ‘sieg heil’ the Nazi chant at those attending.  Did it mean we were therefore Nazis?  Of course not, we were indulging in a form of political irony.  Those who demonstrate in favour of racism and ethnic cleansing cannot expect a free pass.

Jewish Chronicle Refuses to Print Letter Pointing  Out Its Lies & Deceptions

Below is a letter which I sent  last week to the JC pointing out that their coverage, culminating in the 'Mob rule by the sea' article, was a tissue of lies and falsehoods.  Unsurprisingly it was not printed.  The JC doesn't do debate anymore.

Dear Sir or Madam:

For the past five months, the Jewish Chronicle has covered the weekly protests outside Brighton’s Sodastream shop.  We do not expect the JC, a pro-Zionist newspaper, to cover the protests favourably.  However we do expect your reports to be truthful.

We reject the repeated allegations which have been made that the protests are anti-Semitic and in particular the suggestion that there are ‘unparalleled level of antisemitism’ in Brighton.  (14th January 2012, New friends in Sussex).

Palestine Solidarity Campaign in Brighton has been actively involved in opposing the fascist English Defence League, an organisation which combines support for Israel with holocaust denial. When the EDL marched in Brighton last April, PSC members were there to oppose them. We are unaware of any Zionist participation in anti-fascist work in Brighton. 

The JC’s tendentious coverage of the protests culminated in your leader ‘Mob-rule by the sea’ (7th February 2013).  As can be sees from a video of last Saturday’s protests,  http://azvsas.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/brighton-sodastream-shop-possibly.html the demonstration is completely peaceful.  Even the Police twitter account agreed that the protests have been peaceful.  (‘'Looking forward to peaceful protest and good communication (as usual)!').   This hardly sounds like mob-rule.

The JC's real agenda appears to be to provide justification in court for an attempt to seek an injunction by the provision of false reporting.

A newspaper which was interested in reporting the truth would, at least have made an effort to interview some of those involved in the anti-Sodastream protests.  Instead you have printed any allegation, however absurd.  Your repeated suggestion that our objection is to Jews rather than the dispossession, theft and expulsion of the Palestinians is contemptible.  We are not in the slightest concerned with the religious affiliation of who owns a shop. 

Your allegation is particularly reprehensible as it is suggesting that the considerable number of Jewish members of PSC are conniving in, if not actual participants in, acts of anti-Semitism.

You have twice referred to a member of the public who was arrested for giving a Nazi salute, as an ‘anti-Israel activist’.  (13.12.12., 24.1.13.)  Your assertions are untrue and unsubstantiated. The man in question is completely unknown to us.

Yours faithfully,


Tony Greenstein on behalf of
Brighton Palestine Campaign

Oppose Big Business Taking Over Our Educational Institutions

Sussex university, which when I came down to Brighton in 1974, was one of the most militant student bodies going, has become much quieter in recent years.

However I’m pleased to say that last week students went into occupation at Bramber House. After a demonstration called on Wednesday in the main square 1,000 students marched to Bramber House, where a group of students were holding out, and swept past security.

I went along to show support and besides the speeches of the students themselves there was an excellent speech by Mark Steele, Independent journalist and ex-SWP member.  Mark noted the ludicrous aspect of privatisation, which is that it fosters the idea that instead of communal good we substitute private greed and distrust.  ‘Why should I pay for the fire service’ was one of his quips.  ‘After all, I’ve never called them out for a fire’.  Likewise the NHS and other public services.  This idea that competition rather than co-operation is a natural human trait is at the root of much of the ideology of modern day Britain and the Tory/Lib Dem/New Labour parties.

Tony Greenstein

EXCLUSIVE

Cobbs is warned by the neo-Nazi JDL  ‘be careful’

Supporter of the fascist Jewish Defence League - Simon Cobbs of Sussex Friends of Israel

 

Cobbs is such a loose cannon that even the JDL warn him to be careful!

The JDL's fascist logo

'Throwing peanuts at the mad patients' heads isn't amusing Cobbs anymore.  A man of simple pleasures

For the past 2 weeks the Jewish Chronicle has been running a campaign to change reality, or at least the perception of reality.  Last week it had a leading article entitled ‘Mob-rule by the sea’  this week it has a follow-up entitled ‘Brighton rocked by hate slogans’.  Editor Stephen Pollard has indeed taken to heart the lessons of a tabloid journalist – ‘never tell the truth when a lie will suffice.’

Cobbs tweets his friends in the Jewish Defence League/EDL

However, let us imagine that the Jewish Chronicle was interested in the truth as opposed to waging a noxious campaign, then there would indeed be a good ‘hate’ story – but it would have nothing to do with the BDS campaigners.  They would focus instead on a thuggish character, Simon Cobbs, who isdescribed as a 'founding member of Sussex Friends of Israel' and a leader of the pro-Israel demonstrations. 

The idiocy of Cobbs

If a study were to be conducted into the average Zionist zealot in Britain then it is likely that they would consist of a disproportionate number of theless cerebrally gifted, i.e. stupidmembers of the Jewish (&non-Jewish) community. Cobbs is an ideal example of this phenomenon.  Lacking anything positive to say or do, their only solace is petty Jewish nationalism, a hatred of all things Araband a modern form of idolatory, state worship.  Another example of this phenomenon was former Vice President of the Zionist Federation – Jonathan Hoffman – who also courted the far-Right – as part of the campaign to exonerate Israel. (see below)

Cobbs in a relaxed mood

However even Hoffman didn’t go so far as to engage in friendly twitter exchanges about the common enemy with Roberta Moore and the JDL.   Or if he did he kept them very quiet.  In fact he denied any association, although that was a lie.   But what Hoffman did quietly, Simon Cobbs does openly. Cobbs makes Hoffman look like a paid-up member of Mensa. 

One sign of Cobbs' madness - talking to himself

As the images show, Simon Cobbs, who titles himself brightonagainstbds, has and is openly communicating with members of the Jewish Defence League.  (for background on JDL see below)

Cobbs invites the JDL to be part of Sussex Friends of Israel

Simon Cobbs and the Jewish Defence League

Senator Carl Levin is a 'kapo' i.e. a Jewish collaborator.  Ironcally it is Cobbs and his right-wing Zionist friends who collaborated with the Nazis during the war

The first thing I noticed about Cobbs’s Twitter home page @brightonagainstbds is that it has 3 photographs on it, including Irma Greese, the Beast of Belsen, whom the British army hanged with her lover Josef Kramer after they had captured Bergen/Belsen.  Usually it is Stormfront or Aryan Nation that posts photographs of the ‘martyr’ Irma.

For reasons unknown - Cobbs posts a picture of the Beast of Belsen - Irma Grese - on his twitter page

In one exchange on twitter, the JDL asks if Sussex Friends of Israel are on twitter.  On being told that they will be in a couple of weeks, the JDLer tweets back ‘excellent’ and then up pipes Cobbs ‘and when we are, watch out all Jews/Israel haters.’  The JDL tweet back ‘can’t wait’ and Foxtrot, a JDL supporter chimes in ‘damn right!’  There isn't the slightest indication that Cobbs was disturbed by this prospect.  In his role as spokesperson and organiser for Sussex Friends of Israel, Simon Cobbs is openly inviting the participation of the Jewish Defence League who are considered neo-Nazis even by other Zionists.

The JDL marry their logo with traditional Nazi imagery

Cobbs displaying his extensive vocabulary

In a tirade against me that demonstrates just how extensive is his command of the English language, he informs his JDL fan club that I am an ‘obnoxious, ridiculous, vile, little toad’.  The JDL post back with a variation on this introduction to Shakesperian English.  I am a ‘well known kapo, dhimmi, muslim ass licker.’  Indeed Cobbs is so pleased with his description that he continues to repeat it ad nauseum, with just a few subtle variations.

Simon Cobbs doesn't seem to like me - he won't even attend my shiva!

Cobb’s response to the JDL’s description of me is not a horrified put down, as one might expect of anyone professing adherence to democratic norms, but ‘check this baby out, gloves off now!!’. In other words an obvious encouragement to the JDL to obtain personal information on me in furtherance of their terrorist inclinations.  In fact just like the BNP and other friends of Israel.  At this point the JDL tell Cobbs to be more careful.  'don't want to put damper but b careful the shit-stain does not report and get you suspended.'

Kapo incidentally is a regular taunt that Jewish Nazis use against anti-racist Jews.  Ironic considering that the Revionist Zionists, founded by Vladimir Jabotinsky, were supporters of the fascist regimes in Europe in the 1930s, with Betar cadets even training at Mussolini’s invitation at Civitavechia naval station.  A kapo was a prisoner in the extermination camps who was kept alive for about 3 months, in order that they could help supervise the disposal of the bodies of those gassed.  Some of them were also known for their cruelty and violence to other Jews, although this was a minority.  Most students of the holocaust and those with an understanding of the basics of psychology will know that the kapos had no choice in what they did and at both Auschwitz and Treblinka they also rebelled against the Nazis, destroying in the former a crematoria/gas chamber and in the latter much of the extermination machinery. 

What is more relevant are the deals between the Zionist movement and the Nazi murder machine.   The Zionist movement did have a choice when it concluded the Ha'avara Trade Agreement between the Zionist Organisation and the Nazi Government in August 1933.  Likewise in Hungary in 1944 Rudolph Kasztner, leader of the Zionist ‘Rescue and Relief Committee’ and representative of the Jewish Agency also had a choice.  This was to warn the Jews of the imminent deportations, as an escapee from Auschwitz, Rudolph Vrba, had done in his and Alfred Wetzler's suppressed Auschwitz  Protocols, or conclude a deal with Eichman whereby the Zionist and Jewish elite would leave the country on a special train.  The Zionists chose the latter and on July 1 1944, in return for co-operation in helping round up and pacify the Jewish masses, prior to their deportation, 1,684 Hungarian Zionists and Jews left for Switzerland via Bergen-Belsen.  Throughout and before the war the Zionist movement opposed the rescue of Jews anywhere but Palestine.

Cobbs doesn't like to be called overweight - somehow 'matchstick man' doesn't seem appropriate

As Ben-Gurion stated, in respect of the rescue of 10,000 German children to Britain as part of the Kindertransport:

‘“If I knew that it would be possible to save all the children in Germany by bringing them over to England, and only half of them by transporting them to Eretz Yisrael, then I would opt for the second alternative. For we must weigh not only the life of these children, but also the history of the People of Israel.”  Yoav Gelber, Zionist Policy and the Fate of European Jewry (1939-42), Yad Vashem Studies, vol.XII, p.199. cited in Lenni Brenner’s Zionism in the Age of the Dictators, Ch. 13.

JDL supporter Steve Shangster responds thus:  ‘If you hit Greenslime (highly original!) or Willyams your fist would get stuck in the layer of dirt lol.’  This obsession with their opponents being ‘dirty’ is another attribute of fascists and Zionists.  It derives from the concept of 'racial hygiene' the eugenics that the Nazis pioneered and which led to the extermination of over 100,000 mentally and physically handicapped Germans between 1939 and 1945.  The Casuals United EDL site asks‘When will those idiot soap dodgers ever learn! We are TRUE patriots of our country and will NEVER bow down to facsist left wing scum!!! NFSE.’  and‘UAF members never wash or even change clothes and are always high on acid hence their nicknames "Soap-Dodgers"

Who do you think wrote the following:

‘Cleanliness, whether moral or of another kind, had its own peculiar meaning for these people. That they were water-shy was obvious on looking at them and, unfortunately, very often also when not looking at them at all. The odour of those people in caftans often used to make me feel ill. Beyond that there were the unkempt clothes and the ignoble exterior.’

And before Cobbs gets too excited, this wasn’t an attack on anti-Zionists, Arabs or other ‘anti-Semites’.  It is Hitler, in Mein Kampf, talking about the Jews.

In  another friendly conversation between Cobbs and his mentors in the JDL, we learn that the singer Lilly Allen is a ‘major anti-Semite’ – apparently she had a necklace with a gun pointing at the Star of David!  The Star of David has been appropriated as a nationalist/military symbol by Zionism, but it is ‘anti-Semitic’ to treat it as anything other than a religious symbol.  It’s a curious aspect of the fascist mentality that the merest hint of prejudice towards the oppressor is to be condemned whereas attacks on the oppressed are to be welcomed.  But it's fine for the JDL to have a fist entering the Star of David!

Carl Levin, a senior Democrat Senator, is described by the JDL as a kapo for not being slavishly obedient to the requirements of Israel.  Using that expansive vocabulary for which fascists are well known, he is ‘scum’.  And another fascist pipes up that ‘ANTI-ISRAEL IS THE NEW ANTI-SEMITISM’ (Simon Fischler likes to shout).  If you repeat a lie long enough, as Goebbels opined, then people are more likely to believe you.  Well, my own experience is that people are increasingly turned off by these attacks. And irony of irony, the JDL inform us that scapegoatism is blaming others for the mess one’s in!  Clearly they have difficulty seeing their own image.

But it’s not just over Israel and Zionism that Cobbs betrays his true self.   He is an all-round bigot.  The unemployed and claimants are an especial favourite (question does Cobbs claim disability benefits!).  Presumably in the ideal Jewish fascist  society, the unemployed just starve, especially if they are not Jewish.  We are aware that Simon Cobbs is ill, both mentally and physically. which necessitates regular visits to hospital.  However it doesn't excuse his delightful little tweet telling us how bored he is:  ‘Even throwing peanuts at the mad patients’ heads isn’t amusing me anymore!!’  What a wonderful advertisement for all things Zionist and Israeli is Simon Cobbs!  ‘Bored out of my skull!  I shall amuse myself today by annoying members of PSC and BDS in particular.’ with another PSC member and myself with hashes in front of our accounts.  It is rather unfortunate that I couldn’t rescue Cobbs from his boredom and life of hate, however none of his messages reached me!

The Jewish Chronicle under tabloid editor Pollard believes in making not reporting the news

But Cobbs is not only an all-round bigot, he is also a good example of Zionist hasbara (propaganda).  In one tweet he says that you won’t find a Jew voting in a Muslim country.  Strange, Iran’s 25,000 strong Jewish community has its own elected representative in the Majilis.  And Israel’s Palestinians might have the vote, but they are consciously excluded from any participation in government.  It is accepted  by all Zionist parties that no coalition should depend, even tacitly, on the votes of the Arab parties.  This was what contributed to the murder of former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin.

It's not only the JDL who are graced with Cobbs presence,.  He seems to be doing the rounds of all the most racist anti-Islamic sites.  Take one site United Against Islam.  This group of fascists tweeted that ‘Israel is a beacon of light in a very dark place.  God bless Israel.’  Which is very touching of course as Zionist haters of Muslims hold hands with their BNP and EDL counterparts.  Cobbs immediately retweeted it, grateful to have their support.  A visit to this site shows to what depths it is possible to sink.  It is a site that Norwegian mass murderer, Andres Breivik would have felt at home with.  It calls Dianne Abbot a ‘nigger’ and Allah a paedophile. Cobbs must feel very much at home with these Israel lovers.  The accusation of Allah being a paedophile is common currency amongst fascists.   The Nazis too, and especially Streicher's Der Sturmer, used to specialise in associating German Jews with sexual deviation and perversion and an incident involving one member of the Jewish community would be visited on the other half-million.

Unite Against Islam - another fascist site which Cobbs is attracted to

What is the Jewish Defence League/Kach?

What then is the JDL?  The JDL was formed in the USA in 1968, purportedly to defend Jews against ‘anti-Semitism’. Its real targets were opponents of the Israeli state.  Wiki gives a good description of them:

‘The Jewish Defense League (JDL) is a Jewish militant organization whose stated goal is to "protect Jews from antisemitism by whatever means necessary". … it was described as "a right-wing terrorist group" by the FBI in 2001.  According to the FBI, the JDL has been involved in plotting and executing numerous acts of terrorism within the United States.’

Even the Anti-Defamation League, a group that spends most its time defaming supporters of the Palestinians, describes the JDL as consisting only of "thugs and hooligans" whose founder, Meir Kahane, "preached a radical form of Jewish nationalism which reflected racism, violence and political extremism".  Wikipedia describes how, in 2002, ‘the Southern Poverty Law Center added the Jewish Defense League to its list of watched hate groups for the JDL's "long history of bombing, assaulting and threatening its perceived enemies" such as "the Soviet Union, neo-Nazi activists, Palestinian leaders, prominent black Americans and even Jewish moderates" as well as other Jewish radicals…’

For a Zionist group to be labelled as terrorists in the USA they must indeed have a shocking record.  In Israel, its sister organisations Kach and Kahane Chai were banned, as they have been across Europe.  Kach and the JDL were founded by Rabbi Meir Kahane, a street thug from Brooklyn who emigrated to Israel and founded a party based on the same principles as the Nazi party in Germany. 

More verbal diarrhoea from Cobbs

All that can be said in Kahane’s favour was that he wasn’t afraid to tell the truth about the real goals of Zionism.  It is an article of faith among Zionists that Israel is a Jewish and a Democratic state.  To Kahane (& anti-Zionists) this is a contradiction.  Israel can either be a Jewish state (in which case there is no democracy as far as Palestinians are concerned) or it can be a democracy (and therefore say goodbye to a Jewish state and supremacy).  What it can’t do is square the circle, other than by being prepared to lie and deceive.  In 1984 Kahane was elected as a member of Israel’s Knesset. 

At the subsequent election, when it was estimated that Kach would obtain between 4 and 12 seats, Kahane was barred under a newly adopted anti-racist law that has remained a dead letter every since (it exempts   religious racism!).

Kahane and Kach were widely attacked as Jewish Nazis, even by fellow Zionists.  Below is a comparison that has been made between the anti-Jewish laws in Nazi Germany and the proposals of Meir Kahane.
The differences between Kahane and normative Zionism were not ones of principle but over the means by which they could be achieved.  Kahane wanted to forbid Arabs from owning land in the  ‘Jewish’ state  - so too does mainstream Zionism.  But the latter doesn’t shout about it from the rooftop.

Kahane wanted to forbid marriages between Arabs and Jew but in fact in Israel it is not possible for a Palestinian and a Jew to marry because Israel has no civil marriage.  One party has to convert first.  Kahane wanted an explicit law 'Jew and Arab shall never marry' but the Zionist leadership preferred to achieve the same objective via less public means.

Kahane wanted to outlaw sexual relations between Jews and Arabs, making it a criminal offence and for an Arab male an imprisonable one (Arab women don’t count – Kahane himself conducted an affair with a non-Jewish woman in the US who committed suicide).  In Israel sexual relations between Jews and non-Jews are condemned by the vast majority of Israeli Jews and the courts have now found that a Palestinian who says he is a Jew when having consensual sexual relations with a woman is guilty of rape!  A Palestinian was sent to prison for 18 months, later cut to 9  months, for rape because he deceived the woman concerned by saying that he was Jewish! Jurists say Arab's rape conviction sets dangerous precedent 

Kach is strong among sections of the settlers, in particular in Hebron and the nearby Kiryat Arba settlement, whose Chief Rabbi Dov Lior is notorious for his hatred of Arabs.  His statement that ‘“There is no such thing as civilians in wartime… A thousand non-Jewish lives are not worth a Jew’s fingernail!' is a pure example of what the late Yeshayahu Leibowitz, a religious philosopher and professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem called the Judeo-Nazis. [see An Israeli prophet sees signs of hope: Yeshayahu Leibowitz tells Sarah Helm in Jerusalem why he thinks change is coming]
Given all their bogus charges of 'anti-Semitism, imagine the furore if someone had said ‘A thousand Jewish lives are not worth an Aryan’s fingernail!.

One member of Kach/JDL was Baruch Goldstein, a mass murderer who, on February 25, 1994, opened fire on Muslims kneeling in prayer at the Cave of the Patriarchs mosque in Hebron, killing 29 worshippers and injuring 125 before he ran out of ammunition. On its website, the JDL described the massacre as a "preventative measure against yet another Arab attack on Jews" and noted that they "do not consider his assault to qualify under the label of terrorism… we therefore view Dr. Goldstein as a martyr in Judaism's protracted struggle against Arab terrorism. And we are not ashamed to say that Goldstein was a charter member of the Jewish Defense League.’

It is worth bearing in mind that this idea of murdering civilians as a 'preventative measure' was the justification by the Nazis as to why they murdered Jewish children and civilians.  What goes around comes around.

A visit to their British site gives a taste of what the JDL is about. It is a viciously anti-Muslim organisation and is a part of the English Defence League, its ‘Jewish’ wing.  Their views on Muslims are predictable:
‘We stand against Islamization of the UK.
We stand against Islamic violence against Jews, homosexuals, women and animals.
We stand against mosques being used to radicalize young Muslims.
We stand against enablement and appeasement of Islamic radicals.
We stand against the supremacist, authoritarian and violent Islamic doctrine and ideology.
We stand against foreign Islamic governments funding radical and separatist madrassas in the UK.
We stand against segregation of sexes.
We stand against Nazism, Fascism, Socialism, Communism and Anarchism.
We stand against general Muslim and Palestinian lies and propaganda against Israel.
We stand against the two tier system in Britain.
We stand against immigration of foreigners who simply come to the UK to abuse our system.
We stand against racial violence and abuse.
We stand against violence against apostates of Islam.
We stand against all religious persecution.
And the list goes on.....’

Jonathan Hoffman of the Zionist Federation and the EDL

Jonathan Hoffman is Cobbs's role model.  Hoffman was elected as Vice-Chair of the UK Zionist Federation around 2009, in a promise to shake it up its lethargy and tackle the anti-Zionists on the streets.  However he came into repeated contact with the 'machers' in the Jewish community who felt their nose was being put out of joint by Hoffman's antics.  It eventually took Mick Davis of the giant mining company Xtrata and the Jewish Leadership Council, the big bourgeoisie of the Jewish community, to oust him.  They had had enough of the Hoffman Pantomime. Davies had previously threatened to sue Hoffman for some libel or other.  See Jonathan Hoffman – Another Victim of anti-Semitism 

Indeed I take pride in the fact that I was one of the first to oppose these attacks on Jonathan! Anti-Semitic Attack on Jonathan Hoffman  So upset was I by the possibility of losing Hoffie, as friends of his call him, to the campaign for BDS, that I wrote a letter to the Jewish Chronicle defending him on 23.10.09.  It’s about the only letter of mine they’ve printed of late!  Stephen Pollard, the tabloid editor of the Jewish Chronicle, wrote to me two days before it appeared asking

‘Mr Greenstein, I assume that in your final par you mean ‘Board of Deputies’?
Stephen Pollard

Editor, Jewish Chronicle
www.thejc.com/stephenpollard

I didn’t want to tell him it was a joke.  But of course I could not envisage in 2009 that two years later, Hoffman would, almost single-handedly be responsible for the closing down of the Ahava shop in London.  At the very time when the campaign began to look as if it were running out of steam, Jonathan kindly lent his support by way of a counter-demonstration.  And trailing along were the fascist goons of the EDL with their Israel flags.  All were welcomed by JH. Jonathan Hoffman of the Zionist Federation and the EDL’s Roberta Moore Hold a Joint Demonstration  see also Zionist Federation and British Fascists Stand United

Lilly Allen is also an anti-Semite!  JDL warns Cobbs to be careful

Roberta Moore was the fuhreress of the JDL, which is constituted as the Jewish wing of the EDL, before they expelled her for being too extreme!  I assumed that Hoffman’s antics were just mid-summer madness not to be repeated.  How wrong I was.

The BBC’s Apologised for Allowing Jimmy Saville to Roam Broadcasting House

It Should Apologise for Acting as a PR company for Israel's military child abusers

For nearly 40 years the BBC allowed Jimmy Saville and his friends prey on children in its studios.  Saville, a media creation of the BBC without any discernible talent whatsoever, presented Top of the Pops, where had had and took advantage of many young people.  And as a result Saville gained access to institutions where children and young people lived in order to perpetrate his crimes.  Like the Palestinians, children are powerless and the BBC's mission is the protection of the powerful.

For 40 years the BBC covered up the Saville Scandal.  Mark  Thompson, the former Zionist BBC Director General, was twice informed and did nothing.  George Entwistle, his unlamented successor, together with Helen Boaden (who is now Head of Radio instead of Current Affairs) put the screws on to prevent a Newsnight documentary on Saville being broadcast.  However this time, its commercial rival ITV gained access to the story and the BBC’s belief that it was a law unto itself had to give way.   The first excuse for censoring the BBC documentary was that it was an ‘editorial judgment’ in other words, far too subjective to be the subject of analysis.

The BBC doesn’t do apologies unless they are forced to.  The Saville revelations forced the resignation of Entwistle and should have lead to Boaden and other creatures departure.  Unfortunately she has been shifted sideways.  The Palestinians have no such means of exerting pressure.  Much of the liberal left in Britain is still starry-eyed about the BBC even though it is a far more dangerous opponent than say Fox News, because it is believed to be independent.  Only when a mass campaign not to pay one’s licence fee takes off, will the BBC finally be under pressure to be accountable to those who watch it.

The consistent one-sided bias of the tax-funded BBC outrages most supporters of the Palestinians.  Why should Mark Regev have unrestricted access to the BBC in times of crisis, unlike his opponents, who do not have a slick command of English.  Why does the BBC always portray a struggle against occupation as Israeli ‘retaliation’.

The answer to this is simple.  The BBC is quintessentially an organisation representing the interests of the British establishment.  If the British government were to become less pro-Zionist or find itself in conflict with the Israeli government, then the BBC would also shift its position.  The memory of the Hutton Report into the BBC and Iraq, when reporter Andrew Gilligan made mention of the ‘sexing up’ of the secret dossier on the ‘weapons of mass destruction’  is still vivid.  Its Director-General Greg Dyke was forced to resign.  Gavin Davies, BBC Chairman, also fell on his sword. 

Hutton’s Report was, as one would expect of a Unionist Judge, based not on the evidence presented but  on the assumptions he made as to the role and loyalty of the BBC when the British establishment (or part of it) went to war.

Hostility to the working class and strikes and disputes has a long tradition in the BBC, going back to when its first DG, Lord Reith, refused to allow the Archbishop of Canterbury to broadcast to the nation during the General Strike of 1926 because he intended to plea for a compromise whereas the government of Stanley Baldwin was going hell for leather to crush the strike.

None of this is to excuse the criminal behaviour of the BBC in refusing to report the Palestinian hunger strikers.  If they had been Russian dissidents in the Soviet Union or Iranian hunger strikers today then the BBC wouldn’t have hesitated to report.

Below are reports on supporters of the hunger strikes who held a picket last Monday 18th February outside the BBC.

Tony Greenstein

On 11th January, we protested outside the BBC at its refusal to cover the plight of Palestinian hunger strikers. We delivered a letter to the BBC asking for an explanation and a change in policy, the letter (reproduced below) also included a passionate message from Um Ra'fat, the mother of Palestinian hunger striker Samer Al-Issawi.

    Tim Davie
    Director General BBC

    Dear Mr Tim Davie

Today is Palestinian political prisoner Samer Al-Issawi's 169th day on hunger strike, and fellow prisoner Ayman Sharawna having been on hunger strike nearly 6 months before suspending his strike for a week is once again fasting for his freedom. Both prisoners are being held by Israel without charge or trial. According to the internationally brokered deal to release captured Israeli corporal Gilad Shalit both Sharawna and Issawi should be free men today but Israel reneged on its agreement and rearrested both men after Shalit had been released.

The BBC describes its mission as one to "inform" and "educate" and the news in particular is described as "providing trusted World and UK news.." so why have you not covered their story and those of fellow Palestinian hunger strikers?

The search engine Google has indexed over 21 million articles from the BBC website yet it returns no results from the BBC for Samer Issawi or Ayman Sharawna. Neither prisoner has ever been mentioned by the BBC - those 21 million articles.. empty of any reference to Palestinian hunger strikers Issawi and Sharawna, both nearing death after nearly six months without food.

If we do a quick search on Google for "Gilad Shalit" it brings back around 1,120 articles from the BBC which includes around 50 articles from 2012! Shalit was released over a year ago in October 2011 and yet he is still news worthy for the BBC. The last article on him by the BBC is from October 18th 2012 - a special on the anniversary of his release!

The Shalit release anniversary article reports of his "ordeal", the "psychological effects", "trying to come to terms with his fame" the ordeal of the media following "his first bicycle ride after he returned home.. [his] trip to Paris to visit President Nicholas Sarkozy and a meeting with New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg.. at a concert of the popular singer, Shlomo Artzi, who dedicated a song to him; at various sports events and on the set of the US television drama series, Homeland.." Contrast this 'ordeal', which is newsworthy for the BBC to report, to the ordeal Palestinian prisoners on hunger strike are going through TODAY.

Just two weeks ago Samer Al-Issawi, a wheelchair bound skeleton of a man barely breathing after 140 days without food, was brutally attacked by Israeli guards in the courthouse in front of an Israeli judge, who didn't intervene, as guards punched the dying man in the head and chest resulting in broken ribs. They then attack his mother and sister, all this in front of the cameras - captured on video ready for any news channel to broadcast.. but not the BBC - your mission to 'inform' and 'educate' apparently doesn't extend to Palestinians? An emaciated dog that has lost half its weight due to being abandoned is afforded an article by the BBC which includes a large colour photo, but not Samer Al-Issawi who after 169 days without food has lost more than half his body weight, not even one mention of his name. Why?

The BBC is principally funded by television licence fees - 82% in 2011 ( £3.6 billion). Such blatant bias by omission in its reporting is unacceptable and we as TV licence holders demand the BBC follow its remit to inform and educate by covering the issue of Palestinian hunger strikers.

We have received a message from Palestine, from the mother of Samer Al-Issawi to the BBC which we have included below.

A Mothers Message To The BBC

My son Samer Al-Issawi, 33, a Palestinian prisoner in an Israeli jail and been on a hunger strike for 169 days. His only demand is freedom after the Israeli occupation broke the deal that liberated him, and re-arrested him for no reason, without any charge.

Samer Issawi's is in a very critical condition and has sustained fractures in his rib cage as a result of an assault against him a few days ago in the courtroom by Israeli soldiers only because he wanted to touch his mothers hand.

    The reason for writing this letter is that we know that the role of the media especially the BBC & CNN is very important to highlight the plight of our son Samer.

    Um Ra'fat, Mother of Palestinian Hunger Striker Samer Al-Issawi


    We would like a reply, thank you.
    Yours sincerely
    ..
After nearly 5 weeks we still have not received any reply from the BBC. Not only have they not replied, they have not even had the courtesy to sent us an acknowledgement of receipt of the letter. As the BBC prevented us from entering the building to personally hand the letter to the Director General Tim Davie it was given to the Duty Facilities Manager of BBC Workplace who later confirmed to us via email that she had handed it to the Director Generals Office.

Mothers letter to BBC is ignored

The BBC is still enforcing a reporting blackout on any coverage of the Palestinian hunger strikers. Still no mention of hunger strikers Samer Issawi or Ayman Sharawna who is now 7 months without food.

Both Samer and Ayman are dying. They have shown unbelievable strength in resisting their oppression. The very least we can do is give voice to their heroic resistance, to their hunger strike. We need to ensure the media is shamed in to covering their story. Publicity for their plight is the first step towards their liberation.

Facebook Event Page

Faceboook - Boycott Israel page

Palestinian Prisoners Campaign

The Palestinian Prisoners Campaign aims to raise awareness for the plight of Palestinian prisoners and build solidarity for their struggle and work towards their freedom. The campaign was launched by Innovative Minds (inminds.com) and the Islamic Human Rights Commission (ihrc.org) on the occasion of Al Quds Day 2012 (on 17th August 2012), since then we have held actions every fortnight in support of Palestinian prisoners, if you can spare two hours twice a month then please join the campaign by coming to the next action.

See also Israeli lies unchecked, Palestinian perspectives censored on BBC, Amena Saleem, The Electronic Intifada, London 24 August 2012

Also bearing in mind that the weapon of the hunger strike, the last weapon of the defenceless, was used by the Irish hunger strikers in 1980/1 led by Bobby Sands, who was elected to the British House of Commons.

Former Irish Hunger Striker to Samer Al Issawi "Stay Strong" "Stay Strong"

Time to prosecute Bush and Blair as War Criminals

Abu Ghraib - the defining moment of the US occupation

It’s hard to believe that it is 10 years ago that Tony Blair, a war criminal who, if there were any justice, should have been hanged alongside George Bush, used the pretext of WMD in order to invade Iraq.

No one pretends that the previous ruler, Saddam Hussein was any angel.  Not supririsngly he had been installed with the help of the CIA in 1969.  But can anyone seriously argue that an estimated 1.5 million deaths later that anything worthwhile was achieved?  The country has been split in 3, sectarian warfare between Shiite and Sunni was deliberately stirred up by the US as part of the old imperial ‘divide and rule’ tactic (with help from the West’s good friends Al Quaeda).   Torture is institutionalised in Iraq today and as the article below demonstrates, the rate of executions exceeds even that of Saddam’s Iraq.

British troops carried out an orgy of beatings, murders and torture, as did their American counterparts.  Abu Ghraib was merely the tip of the iceberg.  Extraordinary rendition (Syria wasn't too beyond the pale for people to be rendered to) and waterboarding merely became features of the US civilising mission.

For those who have any illusions in the British Labour Party, one only has to note that Ed Milliband, its current vacuous leader, has used Blair as an ‘adviser’.  As long as the Labour Party is incapable of disowning its previous leader, by expelling him from membership, the LP should be treated as a pariah.

Tony Greenstein

Blair is portrayed as the grim reaper by demonstrators

Iraq Announces 21 Executions in a Day

January 31, 2013, 9:31pm
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AFP) — Iraq has executed 21 people convicted of terror-related charges, including three women, on the same day, a spokesman said on Tuesday, bringing to 91 the number of people executed so far this year.

The executions come despite a call from the UN's human rights chief for a moratorium on the use of the death penalty in Iraq, amid concerns over the lack of transparency in court proceedings.
"The justice ministry carried out 21 executions against those condemned of terrorist charges, including three women terrorists," Haidar al-Saadi said in a text message. He did not give any further details.

British prisoner being accorded the usual treatment under international law

A justice ministry official said the executions were carried out on Monday morning.

Iraq has carried out several mass executions in 2012, including one in which 14 people were put to death on February 7, and another in which 17 were executed on January 31.

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay expressed shock earlier this year at the number of executions, criticising the lack of transparency in court proceedings and calling for an immediate suspension of the death penalty.

"Even if the most scrupulous fair trial standards were observed, this would be a terrifying number of executions to take place in a single day," she said in January.

Pillay voiced concern over a "lack of transparency in court proceedings, major concerns about due process and fairness of trials, and the very wide range of offences for which the death penalty can be imposed in Iraq."

In June, Amnesty International also condemned the "alarming" increase in executions in Iraq.
It also called on authorities to "refrain from using the death penalty, commute the sentences of all those on death row, believed to number several hundred, and declare a moratorium on executions."

Justice for Iraq
We call on those states responsible for the invasion and occupation of Iraq to terminate their illegal and immoral war, and express our solidarity with the Iraqi people in their struggle for peace, justice and self-determination.
In particular, we demand:
1. An immediate end to the US and UK-led occupation of Iraq;
2. Urgent action to fully address the current humanitarian crises facing Iraq’s people, including help for the more than three million refugees and displaced persons;
3. An end to all foreign interference in Iraq's affairs, including its oil industry, so that Iraqis can exercise their right to self-determination;
4. Compensation and reparations from those countries responsible for war and sanctions on Iraq;
5. Prosecution of all those responsible for war crimes, human rights abuses, and the theft of Iraq's resources.

We demand justice for Iraq.

This statement was adopted by the Justice for Iraq conference in London on 19th July 2008. We plan to publish this more widely in future. If you would like to add your name to the list of supporters please contact us.  
The Guardian reports (January 30th): Fresh investigations have been ordered into the deaths of several prisoners who died under suspicious circumstances in British military custody in Iraq, lawyers from the Ministry of Defence told the high court.

British troops in Basra

The disclosure comes as the MoD faces a legal challenge to its refusal to hold a public inquiry into a series of alleged human rights violations following the 2003 invasion of Iraq, including hundreds of claims that include unlawful detention, torture, and murder.

High Court Hears of ‘Terrifying Acts of Brutality’ by British Troops in Iraq

Abu Mousa - the Iraqi captive that British army scum kicked to death

Antiwar.com reports (January 29th): British troops that fought the US-led war in Iraq were accused in a High Court inquiry of “terrifying acts of brutality” against Iraqi civilians in a potentially “systematic” way. Lawyers representing 192 Iraqis asking for a public inquiry into British detention practices in Iraq between 2003 and 2008 submitted an 82-age document detailing the numerous allegations of abuse, including extra-judicial killings and torture.

“The court heard of an eight-year-old girl shot dead as she played in a street with her friends in daylight,” reports the London Evening Standard. “A man was also shot dead as he queued for petrol, a teacher was hooded and abused in front of his son and his subsequent death was officially described as “natural causes” and there were a number of drownings.”

Iraq Announces 21 Executions in a Day

Why Iraq is Revolting

Brussells Tribunal reports (January 27th): Journalists obtained a list of 34 names of detainees who died in prison after being tortured, within three months in 2012. The list is a formal document from the Ministry of Justice, requested by the Human Rights Committee in the Iraqi Parliament. Most of these prisoners had no autopsy reports from the Forensic Medical Department.

Hussein Al-Shahristani, the Deputy Prime Minister of Energy and Chairman of the Ministerial Committee that was formed to study the demands of the demonstrators visited one of the women prisons in Baghdad. Al-Shahristani found out that there was a female inmate who was there for six years and her case was never submitted to court. She was arrested because her son was suspected to be involved in terroristic activities. A few days ago, Noori Al-Maliki assured that the government would never allow arresting the mother, the wife, the son, or the sister instead of the wanted husband or father, and that everyone is responsible for his / her own crime. That is a lie, one more to be added to Nouri’s credentials.

30,000 Iraqis languish in prison, more than half of them without trial

Azzaman reports (February 7th): Iraqi jails hold 30,000 inmates, 17,000 of them languish there without trial,’ according to Deputy Prime Minster Husain Shahristani.

Privileges of New Democratic Iraq: Rape & Torture of Innocent Women in Maliki’s Prisons

Dr. Souad Al-Azzawi writes for Brussells Tribunal (February 6th): Mothers, sisters, daughters and wives have been unjustly detained, tortured or raped, simply because they do not know the whereabouts of the men in their families. Thousands of women have been detained with no legal accusations. Some of them are imprisoned with their infants and children in unbearable prison conditions just because Maliki claims that their husbands, brothers, or fathers have committed an act of terror.

Protests

Sunni sheikh to al-Maliki: Hand over soldiers behind shootings or 'face losses'

CNN reports (January 26th): Thousands of mourners turned out in Falluja, hours after a powerful Sunni sheikh called on Iraq's Shiite prime minister to hand over soldiers responsible for killing anti-government protesters in Anbar province or face "losses among their ranks."

The warning came as reports emerged that four soldiers were killed and four were abducted after security forces fired on a Sunni anti-government protest in Falluja.

Protesters call for Iraqi PM’s ouster

Dawn reports (February 1st): Tens of thousands of Iraqis gathered in Sunni-majority parts of the country in rallies against Prime Minister Nuri al Maliki, a week after eight demonstrators were shot dead amid a dire political crisis.

Thousands demonstrated in Fallujah, just west of Baghdad, where the killings took place at the hands of the army, railing against their alleged marginalisation at the hands of Iraq’s Shia-led authorities.
“We want the fall of the regime — no negotiations,” proclaimed one banner in the town.

Fallujah Revisited

Haifa Zangana writes for Counterpunch (January 31st): It took the British government five weeks to take note of the mass demonstrations in Iraq. The events centre on Fallujah, west of Baghdad, one of the main cities where mass protest is mounting by the day.

The first shooting, resulted in 5 death and about 40 injured is clearly video-recorded. The second ended with 2 soldiers killed and 3 abducted. In the chaos of claims by an ever changing official narrative and statements by a committee of investigators these two incidents are often deliberately handled together with potential for escalations. Now the withdrawal of army and federal police units from Fallujah, and the assigning of security to local police announced by the Defence Ministry spokesman immediately after the shooting on Friday 25 January may well not be implemented as a result of the chaotic political and security breakdown in the country.

Iraqi demonstrations mark the tenth anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq
ICSSI reports (January 18th): 10 years after the U.S. invasion of Iraq, 2013 is witnessing Iraqis’ overwhelming desire for change. Massive demonstrations and sit-ins denouncing the current government and its policies are ongoing in many places in the west and north of Iraq including Ramadi and Fallujah in Al-Anbar governorate; Samara in Salah al-Din governorate, Kirkuk in Kirkuk governorate and Mosul in Nimewa governorate. At the same time, there is a growing political crisis as opponents of current Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki demand an end to political sectarianism and reform of the Iraqi system of justice.

Amid Iraqi protests, hackers hit Maliki's website
Reuters report (February 2nd): Iraq's Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki is facing protests from Sunni Muslims, an oil dispute with the Kurdistan region and turmoil in his own government. Now hackers have attacked his website to brand him a tyrant.

Demonstrations in Fallujah
Al-Ahram reports (February 6th): Tens of thousands of Iraqis rallied in the city of Fallujah to mark “Loyalty to the Martyrs of Fallujah Friday”, a tribute to nine protesters shot dead in the city the Friday before.

Daily life

Journalist arrested in Iraq for taking photos

The Guardian reports (January 31st): A French-Australian journalist has been under detention in Iraq for a week for allegedly taking pictures in a restricted area in Baghdad's southern Dora district.
Police said that Nadir Dendoune - who was working for the French monthly magazine Le Monde Diplomatique - lacked the necessary government permits for taking photographs.

As murder rate drops, flood levels rise and inundate Baghdad with raw sewage
The Independent reports (February 3rd): Torrential rain caused floods all over Baghdad last week. It was not a pleasant sight: as the city's ageing sewage system failed to cope, streets filled with murky grey water that smelled and looked as if it was heavily polluted with raw sewage. Upriver, the Tigris rose 15 feet in five hours, the highest it had been for 50 years, and dozens of villages were inundated.
For all Iraq's immense oil income – $100bn last year – there are beggars on every street corner. "We produce over three million barrels of oil a day, so where is the money?" said a friend. This is the endlessly repeated refrain of Iraqis trying to understand why they have to live with only six hours of electricity a day and why half the population are unemployed or underemployed.

A Broken Justice System

HRW reports (January 31st): Iraq’s leadership used draconian measures against opposition politicians, detainees, demonstrators, and journalists, effectively squeezing the space for independent civil society and political freedoms in Iraq, Human Rights Watch said in its World Report 2013.

Sectarianism, Corruption and Torture... It Is Not Worth IT

Haifa Zangana writes for Huffington Post (February 7th): The regime is consumed by sectarian, ethnic division, but above all by corruption, squandering $600 billion of oil revenue, 10 times as much as what Iraq has gained from oil for the previous 70 years. Meanwhile, thousands of US "diplomats", Security contractors, CIA operatives and Special Operations units occupy the biggest embassy compound in the region, adjoining and effectively manipulating the government in central Baghdad.

Since 2003 over one million Iraqis died by airstrikes, checkpoint shootings, mercenaries, car bombs, and suicide bombers. Only 150,000 are acknowledged. Typical of the killers is the US soldier who said: "We'd open up on anything. They even didn't have to be armed. We were keeping scores." For him, Iraqis are "not even people, you know. Like, they're not humans."

Over 44% of the regime's budget is spent on security: 800,000 army, police, Special Forces and private security contractors to protect high officials and members of the parliament. A bureaucracy that has doubled in size since 2003 swallows most of the rest: mostly a parasitic social base. Meantime households endure 18 hours without electricity, no clean water (70%) and no functioning sanitation (80%). In Baghdad, nearly two-thirds of the city's sewage still flows untreated to rivers and other waterways.

Unreported Afghanistan

US: Act to Protect Children in Conflict
HRW reports (February 5th): The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child released a report and recommendations to the US government on February 5, 2013. The committee said it was “alarmed” at reports of the deaths of hundreds of children from US attacks and air strikes in Afghanistan since the committee last reviewed US practices in 2008. It also expressed “deep concern” at the arrest and detention of children in Afghanistan, laws that exclude former child soldiers from securing asylum in the US, and presidential waivers to US laws that have allowed governments using child soldiers to receive US military assistance.

US forces have detained hundreds of children in Afghanistan, holding many of them for over a year with inadequate access to legal assistance, education, or rehabilitation services. Children under 18 have been detained with adults, contrary to international standards. Although most of these children have been transferred to Afghan custody, Human Rights Watch expressed concern that such children may be subject to torture. UN reports have documented torture of numerous children by Afghan security forces.

Upcoming events

5th April 2013 A Day in Iraq
14:00-21:00, Bolivar Hall, Grafton Way, London W1T 5DL
Confirmed speakers:
Dr. Ghanem Wahida, an expert on Iraq’s ancient history
Dr Sawsen Al Assaf, Lecturer in political science and author
Dirk Adriaensense, Brussell’s Tribunal
Dr. Dora Carpenter- Latiri, University of Brighton
Ian Sinclair, author and journalist
Milan Rai, Justice not Vengeance
Dr. Lutz Oette, Redress
Rashad Salim, Iraqi Artist.

See Analyst Özpek: Maliki's actions might drive Iraq into more conflict 

Israeli Jewish Women Living in Gaza Denied Right to See their Families in Israel

Zionism is racist?  Perish the thought.  This is another example of ‘anti-Semitism’ say the propagandists.  You’ve  probably heard the racist outpourings of Israel’s defenders who compare Palestinians to sub-humans.  But in the eyes of the Zionists, the oppressed, the Palestinians become the new Nazis.  Prime amongst these are the ‘anti-Semitic’ Hamas that the Israeli state and shin bet helped set up.

The following article by Ha'aretz journalist, Amira Hass, who has herself lived in Gaza, demonstrates both the racism of the Israeli state to those who forsake the chosen people/race and the lie that suggests that the objection of Palestinians to Jewish settlers is because of their religion rather than their acts of settlement

Three of the women, the sisters, are still halachically Jewish, i.e. they are the children of a Jewish mother and haven't become an apostate - converted to another religion.  The fourth woman has converted to Islam and wouldn't be considered Jewish, but the Israeli Law of Return would still recognise her nationality as Jewish.

So what is their crime?  It is to have lived with and in some cases married Palestinians, the mortal enemy, Amalek.  If they had been white, neo-Nazi Russians, with Jewish ancestry, then they could have come to Israel with no problem.

What was that about Zionism not being a form of racism?

Tony Greenstein 

Amira Hass

By Amira Hass    | Feb.07, 2013 | 3:21 AM

A boy stands outside a UN-run school in Gaza City, Nov. 21, 2012. Photo by Reuters
Four Israeli citizens are being denied the right to visit Israel, see their families and update their documents at the Interior Ministry - just because they happen to live in the Gaza Strip, according to their lawyer.

A boy stands outside a UN-run school in Gaza City, Nov. 21, 2012.Photo by Reuters

This would never happen if, for instance, the women lived in the United States, charged Nomi Heger of Gisha - Legal Center for Freedom of Movement, who is representing them. In that case, a way would be found to enable the visit even if they lacked the necessary Israeli documents, she said.
Gisha's efforts to solve the problem with the Interior Ministry, the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories and the army's Coordination and Communication Office for Gaza all came to nothing, even though these agencies do not deny that the women are citizens. It therefore took their cases to court.

The first petitioner, who filed suit in the Be'er Sheva District Court, is a Mrs. Wahidi. She was born in Rehovot in 1965, converted to Islam with her mother in the 1980s, married a resident of Gaza and has lived with him there for years.

After her eldest son was born, the Israeli Civil Administration ordered her to turn in her Israeli identity card and replace it with Gaza residency papers, so that she could register the boy's birth and obtain health care services. At that time, Israel still controlled the Strip directly.

Her mother, 77, still lives in Israel, and Wahidi hasn't visited her since 1999. Only in 2011 did Wahidi learn that as an Israeli citizen, she is entitled to enter the country. Since then, she has been trying unsuccessfully to obtain the necessary permit from the Coordination and Communication Office.
The other three petitioners, who filed suit in the Jerusalem District Court, are three sisters born in Nahariya between 1979 and 1984 to an Israeli mother and a Palestinian father. Their mother died when they were young, after which they moved with their father to Gaza. But they have two sisters who live in Israel.

Catch-22

Until 2005, the Dabas sisters visited Israel regularly. After the 2005 disengagement from Gaza, however, entry restrictions were tightened, and they were unable to visit for the next six years. In 2011, they obtained a one-time entry permit (as Gaza residents ) to attend their sister's wedding, unaware that as citizens, they had a right to enter. Since August 2012, they have been unsuccessfully trying to get another entry permit.

In an emailed letter to Gisha, attorney Irit Weisblum of the Interior Ministry wrote that the sisters "are Israeli citizens, but don't have Israeli documentation that would enable their unambiguous identification when they arrive at the border to enter Israel." In other words, because they are citizens, they can't get entry permits as Gaza residents, but because they are Gaza residents, the authorities won't make it possible for them to enter as citizens.

When Wahidi applied for her permit, she was told that she had to first come to the Erez checkpoint between Israel and Gaza for an interrogation by the Shin Bet security service. She refused. Gisha claims this condition is illegal.

Later, she was told by the Coordination and Communication Office that she would be allowed to enter on her Israeli identity card - which she no longer has. In other words, the system knows she is Israeli, but is ignoring the fact that her ID card was deposited with the Civil Administration (the former name of the Coordination and Communication Office ) about 10 years ago.

The Be'er Sheva court will hear Wahidi's case in late February, while the Jerusalem court will hear the Dabas sisters' case in early March.

I have to confess that although my socialist principles oppose use of the libel laws, there are times when it is the only way that those who have been traduced and libelled, without any recourse to media of their own, can gain recompense.

About 5 years ago, David Aaronovitch - the Stalinist/New Labour warmonger - who writes a column for The Times  allowed a comment on his blog from a certified Zionist nutcase ('Mad' Mikey Ezra) which accused me of having spent my time harassing Jewish students.  What he meant is that I had spoken at meetings at which they were unable to muster an opposing argument, were therefore upset poor darlings and naturally felt they were being harassed, by having to listen to something they disagreed with!

I therefore issued a writ for libel against The Times, who promptly sought an Opinion from the leading libel lawyer, Richard Rampton QC.  Unfortunately the advice was not favourable.  Mikey said how he had suffered psychological damage as a result of having to listen to the truth, but the lawyers didn't think that would pass muster.  So for the first time in his life, Rupert Murdoch contributed £1,000 towards a Palestinian charity, Friends of Bir Zeit University!




Ed Corrigan is a human rights lawyer in Canada.  He is Jewish and anti-Zionist.  Like all of us, he has been accused of ‘anti-Semitism’ by Zionist toe rags and accused of being a ‘traitor’ ‘treason’ etc.  As I never stop reminding people, anti-German anti-fascists were also called traitors by the Nazis, so it should be considered high praise indeed to be considered a traitor to the racist political philosophy of Zionism.

When Ed was recently libelled by a Zionist lawyer, William Hechter, he sought legal redress and sure enough Hechter backed down.  Although I don’t like the libel laws, as they inhibit free speech, these defamers only understand one language.

I was pleased to submit a message of support to Ed before the outcome was known and I also agreed to testify if necessary.  Congratulations Ed!

From working classmilitant to anti-Zionist writer

I only met Akiva Orr once, when he spoke at Sussex University in the 1980’s, to a sparsely attended meeting of the Palestine society on campus.  His book on Israel – appropriately titled ‘The UnJewish State’ had just been published.

Akiva was an entertaining if not eccentric speaker who from distant memory, seized on various points to wander off on a tangent rather than develop a consistent theme.  He was one 3 members of Matzpen who wrote an article, later to be republished by the International Socialists Group, on the Class Nature of Israeli Society.  As someone aged 16, who could already see, without having read anything, that the universalism of socialism and the particularism of Zionism could not be reconciled, the article hit me like a bombshell.  Everything began to make sense to me.  Either it was unity of the working class internationally or unity of the Jews – rich and poor alike.

Schnews! The Brighton anarchist newssheet has an interesting review  which describes him as the ‘godfather of Israeli anarchism’ Akiva Orr’s life spanned the whole of the Israeli state  A child refugee from Nazi Germany, he came to see many of the things he escaped from being re-enacted in a different form, including a Law of Return which uses the same definition of ‘Who is a Jew’, as the Nuremburg Laws of 1935.  Aki’s was a golden life of struggle, starting with his role as a militant in the Israeli seaman’s strike of 1950, which the state brutally attacked, calling the strikes terrorists on a part with the fedayeen (Palestinian guerilla fighters).

Tony Greenstein

Akiva Orr, co-founder of Israeli radical left Matzpen party, passes away

By +972blog Published February 9, 2013


Akiva Orr, an activist and writer, who helped form the Israeli anti-Zionist party ‘Matzpen,’ passed away this week. His ideas, which can be viewed in the documentary on the history of Matzpen (below), challenged Israeli society and influenced generations of activists.

Akiva Orr, co-founder of the Israeli anti-Zionist political party, ‘Matzpen,’ and one of the most well-known-figures in the radical left, passed away this weekend. Matzpen was a radical and controversial political party 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.

Several years ago, in response to a +972 Magazine article criticizing widespread social justice protests, Orr sent Joseph Dana his rather surprising take on the Israeli protest movement. Dana posted this analysis, along with a video interview with Orr.

For more on the organization that challenged Israeli society and influenced the radical left in Israel, watch the documentary on the history of Matzpen:

Pastor Marc Donadille with his wife and children. Donadille worked with CIMADE, a Protestant movement to save the Jews of southern France by smuggling them to Le Chambon-sur-Lignon. France, between 1939 and 1943.

'Righteous' French Group Boycotts Jewish Event

Holocaust Rescuers Object to Memorial's 'Pro-Israel' Slant

By JTA

Madelaine Barot of Cimade

Published February 12, 2013.


The deportation of foreign born Jewish men in occupied Paris was carried on May 14 1941.  Summons were sent to Czech, Austrian, and Polish Jews.  They were instructed by the French prefecture of police to come to specific locations in the capital in order to have their papers examined. Approximately 5000 foreign born Jewish men between the ages of 18 and 40 reported to the various assembly points. Once arrived, they were forbidden to leave.  The detainees were put on buses and driven to the Gare d'Austerlitz train station and immediately boarded onto four special trains bound for the internment camps of Beaune-la-Rolande and Pithiviers in the Loiret near Orleans.


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.

Rabbi Bernhard Rosenberg, one of those who insists on conflating the holocaust with Israel - demands that the Zionist anthem Hatikvah is played, even though the victims of the holocaust were overwhelmingly anti-Zionist

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."

Boycott Israel Picket

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."

Read more:

Maj. Gen. Nitzan Alon in the High Court in 2012. Photo by Olivier Fitoussi

It takes a lot for the head of the IOF's Central Command, Gen. Nitzan Alon, to tell his commanders not to fire on sight at civilians.  In four separate incidents over a 2 week period, young unarmed Palestinians were killed.  In the West Bank there has been no armed resistance to the Israeli occupation, thanks to the quisling regime which operates, as a subcontractor in Ramallah, under Abbas and his American trained henchmen.

But even if Israel lacks any 'terrorism' threat to justify its use of force it can always rely on the BBC and the 'free press' to only report attacks on Israel.  If 4 Jewish children had been killed in the West Bank in two weeks, the BBC would have moved special reporters into the West Bank.  They would have analysed the situation and no doubt come up with the usual punditry.  But dead Palestinians are not news.   That is how the racist framework of the BBC and mass media operates.

Tony Greenstein

Senior IDF officer tells West Bank commanders to show restraint in dealing with Palestinians

Maj. Gen. Nitzan Alon's instruction follows four incidents in the West Bank in the past two weeks in which soldiers opened fire and killed unarmed Palestinians.

By Amos Harel | Feb.01, 2013 | 7:22 AM |  2
       
The head of the Israel Defense Force's Central Command, Maj. Gen. Nitzan Alon, has instructed commanders of units stationed in the West Bank to act with restraint and moderation when dealing with the civilian population.

Palestinian women mourn during the funeral of Lubna Hanash in the West Bank town of Bethlehem January 23, 2013. Photo by Reuters

 In a letter sent to the commanders earlier this week, Alon told them to instruct their soldiers to strictly adhere to the IDF's rules of engagement.

 The instruction followed four incidents in the West Bank in the past two weeks in which soldiers opened fire and killed unarmed Palestinians.

The IDF's operational investigations of the incidents are being completed and the results will soon be presented to Alon. Meanwhile, four separate Military Police investigations have been opened into the incidents.

Orders violated

In three of the cases - a youth killed in the village of Budrus near Ramallah, a young woman shot in Al Aroub near Bethlehem and a young man shot next to the separation fence south of Hebron - serious violations of the IDF's standing orders on when to open fire have been found. In the fourth case, in which an officer opened fire and killed a Palestinian youth during a demonstration in Bethlehem, the investigation found mistakes but no violation of regulations.

As a result of the incident near Hebron, a company commander from the Home Front Command was suspended. He commanded the forces that unnecessarily opened fire on the Palestinian, who was attempting to cross the fence through an opening in order to work in Israel.

The mother of Palestinian youth Sameer Awad mourns during his funeral in the West Bank village of Budrus near Ramallah January 15, 2013. Photo by Reuters

Alon wrote that taking human life without justification damages the legitimacy of the IDF's actions in the territories, in the eyes of both Israeli society and the international community. The Central Command must carry out its responsibilities using force wisely and proportionally, Alon wrote: Because the forces operate in a dense civilian environment, they must use force in a restrained fashion, and that applies especially to live fire.

Alon warned that the death of uninvolved civilians could encourage violent demonstrations by the Palestinians.

The units stationed in the West Bank need to improve their knowledge of the IDF's rules of engagement, upgrade their marksmanship training and the individual training of soldiers by their commanders, and improve the commanders' control of events in the field, Alon wrote.

While the Central Command is prepared for the possibility of an escalation in the territories, all forces must now implement a policy of restraint in cases of friction with unarmed civilians, Alon wrote.

You’ve  probably heard the racist outpourings of Israel’s defenders.  In turning themselves into the oppressed, the Palestinians become the new Nazis.  Prime amongst these are the ‘anti-Semitic’ Hamas that the Israeli state and shin bet helped set up.

The following article by Ha'aretz journalist, Amira Hass, who has herself lived in Gaza, demonstrates both the racism of the Israeli state to those who forsake the chosen people/race and the lie that suggests that the objection of Palestinians to Jewish settlers is because of their religion rather than their acts of settlement
Three of the women, the sisters, are still halachically Jewish, i.e. they are the children of a Jewish mother and haven't become an apostate - converted to another religion.  The fourth woman has converted to Islam and wouldn't be considered Jewish, but the Israeli Law of Return would still recognise her nationality as Jewish.


So what is their crime?  It is to have lived with and in some cases married Palestinians, the mortal enemy, Amalek.  If they had been white, neo-Nazi Russians, with Jewish ancestry, then they could have come to Israel with no problem.


What was that about Zionism not being a form of racism?

Tony Greenstein

Four Israeli citizens living in Gaza challenge ban on visiting family

One converted to Islam and married Palestinian, three sisters moved to Gaza with Palestinian father after Israeli mother died.

Umm Bilal has not been able to visit her imprisoned son for eight years. (Eva Bartlett / IPS)

By Amira Hass    | Feb.07, 2013 | 3:21 AM
       
A boy stands outside a UN-run school in Gaza City, Nov. 21, 2012. Photo by Reuters
Four Israeli citizens are being denied the right to visit Israel, see their families and update their documents at the Interior Ministry - just because they happen to live in the Gaza Strip, according to their lawyer.

This would never happen if, for instance, the women lived in the United States, charged Nomi Heger of Gisha - Legal Center for Freedom of Movement, who is representing them. In that case, a way would be found to enable the visit even if they lacked the necessary Israeli documents, she said.

Gisha's efforts to solve the problem with the Interior Ministry, the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories and the army's Coordination and Communication Office for Gaza all came to nothing, even though these agencies do not deny that the women are citizens. It therefore took their cases to court.

The first petitioner, who filed suit in the Be'er Sheva District Court, is a Mrs. Wahidi. She was born in Rehovot in 1965, converted to Islam with her mother in the 1980s, married a resident of Gaza and has lived with him there for years.

After her eldest son was born, the Israeli Civil Administration ordered her to turn in her Israeli identity card and replace it with Gaza residency papers, so that she could register the boy's birth and obtain health care services. At that time, Israel still controlled the Strip directly.

Her mother, 77, still lives in Israel, and Wahidi hasn't visited her since 1999. Only in 2011 did Wahidi learn that as an Israeli citizen, she is entitled to enter the country. Since then, she has been trying unsuccessfully to obtain the necessary permit from the Coordination and Communication Office.

The other three petitioners, who filed suit in the Jerusalem District Court, are three sisters born in Nahariya between 1979 and 1984 to an Israeli mother and a Palestinian father. Their mother died when they were young, after which they moved with their father to Gaza. But they have two sisters who live in Israel.

Catch-22

Until 2005, the Dabas sisters visited Israel regularly. After the 2005 disengagement from Gaza, however, entry restrictions were tightened, and they were unable to visit for the next six years. In 2011, they obtained a one-time entry permit (as Gaza residents ) to attend their sister's wedding, unaware that as citizens, they had a right to enter. Since August 2012, they have been unsuccessfully trying to get another entry permit.

In an emailed letter to Gisha, attorney Irit Weisblum of the Interior Ministry wrote that the sisters "are Israeli citizens, but don't have Israeli documentation that would enable their unambiguous identification when they arrive at the border to enter Israel." In other words, because they are citizens, they can't get entry permits as Gaza residents, but because they are Gaza residents, the authorities won't make it possible for them to enter as citizens.

When Wahidi applied for her permit, she was told that she had to first come to the Erez checkpoint between Israel and Gaza for an interrogation by the Shin Bet security service. She refused. Gisha claims this condition is illegal.

Later, she was told by the Coordination and Communication Office that she would be allowed to enter on her Israeli identity card - which she no longer has. In other words, the system knows she is Israeli, but is ignoring the fact that her ID card was deposited with the Civil Administration (the former name of the Coordination and Communication Office ) about 10 years ago.

The Be'er Sheva court will hear Wahidi's case in late February, while the Jerusalem court will hear the Dabas sisters' case in early March.



'mob rule' outside Sodastream according to Jewish Chronicle

despite the reflection you will see that there isn't a soul in the shop

The side of Gaza you won't be show - not surprising since it is in Dubai! (see below)

Dubai shopping mall that the Zionists have relocated to Gaza!

Zionists fly a rainbow flag alongside a union Jack held by neo-Nazi Kach supporters

It was a bitterly cold day today and well done to all those who braved the elements. The Zionists seemed particularly bedraggled and most of them appeared to be non-Jewish Christian fundamentalists. It included poor Jill Young, the mad Fundie in blue, who insists on carrying a poster of me which she has hideously distorted. It must be a sign of love, since these Christians are taught to love thine enemy.  Despite being an unassuming person, when she was expressing too much concern over my son's presence (he is autistic) I was forced to tell her that she looked like the female equivalent of Jimmy Saville.  She seemed quite pleased at the comparison.

a peaceful demonstration

I post a number of video clips of today's picket. They show primarily the pro-Zionist supporters on the opposite side of the road. No one wants to know them and in one video a man crosses to our side of the road to collect a leaflet! The Zionist demonstration increasingly seems to consist of either Christian Zionists who want all the world’s Jews to ‘return’ to Palestine, in order that they can be consumed in the fires of Armageddon, thus enabling Jesus to return and the faithful to Rapture to heaven, or supporters of the Jewish Nazi Kach movement like poor Simon Cobbs, who is seen wearing some form of animal around his head.



Despite the cold there was a good turn out

Cobbs, the leader of the Zionists, was caught out tweeting to the Jewish Defence League/Kach in a blogpost last week. So much for his complaints of ‘anti-Semitism’. His real complaint, as he made clear in the Jewish Chronicle, was that ‘
"The shop makes no money — it’s empty," said local resident Simon Cobbs. "The only people are Brighton Jews, going in to support the shop and keep it going."



Sodastream doorman with nothing to do



Today we learnt that a shop we hadn’t picketted, Staples, has decided not to stock Sodastream products anymore. Why? Because no one wants to buy them. Whoever in Sodastream made the decision to open a shop in Brighton, a loss leader if ever there was one judging by the pictures of an empty shop, should be awarded the golden order of the boot.  True it has indeed gained Sodastream publicity – but it has all been one-way - downhill. Anyone who buys a Sodastream refill or product now knows that they are supporting ethnic cleansing. There was one man who went buy shouting that he’d be happy to buy from Sodastream. I got no reply when I asked if he’d have bought German goods in the 1930’s in defiance of the anti-Nazi boycott. In fact he probably would have done, because when most Jews were boycotting German goods, the Zionists were setting up their own trade agreement, Ha'avara, with the Nazi Government.


It must be a dilemma for the Christian Fundamentalists - standing by the rainbow flag of the 'sinful' satanic gays - still you can't choose your bedfellows!!

We can also see Cobbs repeatedly shouting ‘Tony’ to me. Although it is heart-warming that he misses my companionship and erudite wit, it hardly squares with the complaint of anti-Semitic abuse, homophobia, spitting and all the other lies that these far-right merchants have been coming out with.

I have also taken care to video our own demonstration to show that contrary to the lies in the propaganda sheet that calls itself the Jewish Chronicle, there is no ‘mob rule by the Sea’ or ‘Brighton rocked by hate slogans’ – unless the call to boycott an apartheid state is a form of hate.


No wonder Cobbs tries to talk to me - the public avoid them like the plague

An example of the kind of idiots and pathological liars that Cobbs and friends consist of, is best exampled by the following tweet from Cobb’s mate, RomanFox2. The fool posted a pic of a shopping Mall entitled "The side of #Gaza you will not be shown or told about in #Brighton
#hove today Don't believe the lies!"
Not unnaturally Cobbs retweeted it to his few remaining friends in the JDL. There’s just one thing wrong though with the point they are making - that Gaza is an affluent place of plenty. It is The Mall of Emirates in Dubai.  True all Arabs are the same to Cobbs and mates but even they should know there is a slight difference between impoverished Gaza, where the water is unfit to drink, and Dubai!


perfectly empty

We were told by the Police that another person had used a Hitler salute today. But he was a Zionist doing it to us! Because of the ‘different context’ he was therefore merely warned and sent on his way but that is the whole point. People use the Hitler salute in an ironic as well as an overtly anti-Semitic way – for example Cobb’s friends in the EDL. As I pointed out to the Police, about 20-25% of the pro-Palestinian demonstration is also of Jewish origin and unlike the Zionists, the offence we take is genuine. 
I should also add that the usual policeman who attends these pickets/demonstrations – despite the cold and lack of anything to do – seemed positively interested and engaged throughout!!

Tony Greenstein

 

For all the guff you hear about ‘Islamic fundamentalism’ which idiots like the English Defence League  and other bigots take to heart, western imperialism is quite happy with the most vicious and undemocratic state in the Middle East.  That isn’t surprising since the Arab-American Oil Company (Standard Oil) virtually created the country, plucking a chieftain out of the desert and making him King Saud.

Today the ruling royal family numbers over two thousand and the vast wealth from oil is either used to buy American and British weaponry, which rusts in the desert, or it pays for the gambling chips, the prostitutes and the fine wines that our devout Saudi princes enjoy when in London or the West.

The official position of this  corrupt gang of thieves – who cut off someone’s hand for stealing a loaf of bread but think nothing of enriching themselves with the oil that belongs to the Arab people – is that there are no US bases in Saudi Arabia.  Another of many lies this self-serving elite peddles.  So the following article in Israel’s Ha'aretz is well worth reading.

Tony Greenstein

Secret US Base in the Saudi Desert

Secret American drone airbase in Saudi Arabia exposed

Exposure of base – believed to be used for strikes against Al-Qaida targets in Yemen and perhaps Iran – comes after news organizations, including the New York Times, held off on publication due to Obama administration requests on the basis of national security.

By Anshel Pfeffer    Feb 10 2013

U.S. drone base in Saudi deserts

The reported U.S. drone base in Saudi deserts. Photo by Bing Maps

The American media has been in an uproar over the past week over reports on the existence of a secret American drone base built in Saudi Arabia for launching unmanned aerial reconnaissance and strike missions against Al-Qaida targets in Yemen and perhaps other countries such as Iran. Among other details, it has emerged that a number of news organizations, including the New York Times, were aware of the base's location months ago but held off on publication due to a request by the administration that claimed that publication could harm national security.

Since the news came out, reporters and bloggers have been feverishly searching satellite footage documenting the base's existence but it hasn't been easy. It is very hard to discern any details in the vast deserts of Saudi Arabia which appear at a very low resolution on websites such as Google Earth, especially if you don't know where to look. On Friday, Noah Shachtman, editor of Wired Magazine's blog: Danger Room, managed to locate pictures of what is almost certainly the secret base.
Shachtman hinted that sources had pointed him in the right direction and photographs of the base indeed appeared in sharp focus on Bing Maps.

There are no aircraft to be seen in the pictures but the base contains three clamshell-shaped hangars, large enough to contain Predator or Reaper drones, the types most typically used by the United States Air Force and Central Intelligence Agency when conducting secret activity in the region, as well as, two relatively short runways. The base in an extremely isolated area, many kilometers from any road or settlement, in a vast desolate expanse in southeast Saudi Arabia known as Rub al-Khali, the empty quarter, not far from the border with Yemen. The base has only a few other buildings probably used by a small support staff, since the teams that pilot the drones are stationed at the Creech Air Force Base in Nevada, from which they control the aircraft via satellite link. The base most likely receives its supplies by air by light aircraft or helicopter. A third and longer runway seems from the photographs to be under construction and could be used in the future by larger unmanned aircraft such as the RQ-170.

The base apparently supports missions over Yemen but the range of the drones would enable them to fly over other nations including crossing the Persian Gulf to Iran. So far the drones have operated from existing bases in Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Pakistan, and Afghanistan, from which also manned aircraft take off. This is the first base which is known to have been constructed solely for unmanned aircraft. (The Israeli Air Force, which makes extensive use of drones, deploys these aircraft from bases originally built for manned airplanes). The existence of the Saudi base is a sign of growing closeness in the strategic ties between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia and the huge importance the Obama administration attaches to drone warfare.

Obama's drone policy received additional attention this week with the leaking of a memo that set out the criteria upon which the president can order targeted killings using drones, even when the targets are American citizens.

Is This the Secret U.S. Drone Base in Saudi Arabia?

 By Noah Shachtman



These satellite images show a remote airstrip deep in the desert of Saudi Arabia. It may or may not be the secret U.S. drone base revealed by reporters earlier this week. But the base’s hangars bear a remarkable resemblance to similar structures found on other American drone outposts. And its remote location — dozens of miles from the nearest highway, and farther still to the nearest town – suggests that this may be more than the average civilian airstrip.

According to accounts from the Washington Post and The New York Times, the U.S. built its secret Saudi base approximately two years ago. Its first lethal mission was in September of 2011: a strike on Anwar al-Awlaki, the American-born propagandist for al-Qaida’s affiliate in Yemen, which borders Saudi Arabia. Since then, the U.S. has launched dozens of drone attacks on Yemeni targets. News organizations eventually found out about the base. But they agreed to keep it out of their pages — part of an informal arrangement with the Obama administration, which claimed that the disclosure of the base’s location, even in a general way, might jeopardize national security. On Tuesday, that loose embargo was broken.

The image of the airfield, available in Bing Maps, would be almost impossible to discover randomly. At moderate resolutions, satellite images of the area show nothing but sand dunes. Only on close inspection does the base reveal itself. In Google’s catalog of satellite pictures, the base doesn’t appear at all.

The images show a trio of “clamshell”-style hangars, surrounded by fencing. Each is more than 150 feet long and approximately 75 feet wide; that’s sufficient to hold U.S. Predator and Reaper drones. The hangars are slightly larger, though similar in shape, to ones housing unmanned planes at Kandahar Air Field in Afghanistan. Shamsi Air Field in Pakistan, which once held U.S. drones, boasts a group of three hangars not unlike the ones of the Saudi base. No remotely piloted aircraft are visible in the images. But a pair of former American intelligence officers tell Danger Room that they are reasonably sure that this is the base revealed by the media earlier this week.

“I believe it’s the facility that the U.S. uses to fly drones into Yemen,” one officer says. “It’s out in eastern Saudi Arabia, near Yemen and where the bad guys are supposed to hang out. It has those clamshell hangars, which we’ve seen before associated with U.S. drones.”

The former officer was also impressed by the base’s remote location.”It’s way, way out in the Rub al Khali, otherwise known as Hell, and must have been built, at least initially, with stuff flown into Sharorah and then trucked more than 400 kilometers up the existing highway and newly-built road,” the ex-officer adds in an e-mail. “It’s a really major logistics feat. The way it fits inconspicuously into the terrain is also admirable.”

Three airstrips are visible in the pictures; two are big enough to land drones or conventional light aircraft. A third runway, under construction, is substantially longer and wider. In other words: The facility is growing, and it is expanding to fly much larger planes.

The growth has been rapid. When the commercial imaging company Digital Globe flew one of its satellites over the region on Nov. 17, 2010, there was no base present. By the time the satellite made a pass on March 22, 2012, the airfield was there. This construction roughly matches the timeline for the Saudi base mentioned in the Post and in the Times.

“It’s obviously a military base,” says a second intelligence analyst, who reviewed the images and asked to remain anonymous because of the sensitivity of the subject. “It’s clearly an operating air base in the middle of nowhere, but near the Yemeni border. You tell me what it is.”

If this picture does prove to be of a secret U.S. drone base, it wouldn’t be the first clandestine American airfield revealed by public satellite imagery. In 2009, for instance, Sen. Diane Feinstein accidentally revealed that the U.S. was flying its robotic aircraft from Pakistani soil. The News of Pakistan quickly dug through Google Earth’s archives to find Predator drones sitting on a runway not far from the Jacobabad Air Base in Pakistan – one of five airfields in the country used for unmanned attacks. The pictures proved that the Pakistani officials were actively participating in the American drone campaign, despite their public condemnation of the strikes. Until then, such participation had only been suspected. While the drone attacks continued, the U.S. was forced to withdraw from some of the bases.

So far, reaction to the Saudi base has been relatively muted. American forces officially withdrew from Saudi Arabia years ago, in part because the presence of foreign troops in the Muslim holy land so inflamed militants. It’s unclear how the drone base changes this calculation, if at all.

The drone base’s exposure is part of a series of revelations about the American target killing campaign that have accompanied John Brennan’s nomination to be the director of the CIA. Brennan currently oversees targeted killing operations from his perch as White House counterterrorism adviser, and would be responsible for executing many of the remotely piloted missions as CIA chief.

In addition to the drone base disclosure, an unclassified Justice Department white paper summing up the Obama administration’s criteria for eliminating U.S. citizens was leaked this week to NBC News; the document argues that a judgment from an “informed, high-level” official can mark an American or robotic death – even without “clear evidence that a specific attack on U.S. persons and interests will take place in the immediate future.” (.pdf) The White House has since promised to give select Congressmen the classified and detailed legal rationales behind the white paper. But Sen. Ron Wyden told Brennan at his Senate confirmation hearing that the Justice Department is not yet complying with President Obama’s promise to disclose those legal memoranda. Feinstein said she was seeking eight such memos in total.

In their hours of questioning Brennan, however, the Senators didn’t once ask the CIA nominee about the secret Saudi drone base. Perhaps that’s because they didn’t have a visual aid.

Veolia suffering "expensive" damage due to Palestine campaigners’ publicity says financial expert

Adri Nieuwhof

Electronic Intifada -  02/19/2013

It’s always enjoyable to read good news about the Boycott!

Protest in London against Veolia’s role in the Israeli occupation (Inminds.com)

 Tony Greenstein

For years, the French transnational Veolia has tried to downplay the effect of the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) campaigns which aim to hold the company to account for its role in the Israeli occupation.

But now a top Norwegian financial advisor has boldly acknowledged the impact of the BDS movement.

Activists in many countries have pressurized local authorities, public institutions, socially responsible investors, and pension funds to do no business with Veolia as long as it is complicit in Israel’s violations of international law.

In a recent presentation [PDF], Hege Sjo said that “disasters are expensive” for businesses, mentioning Veolia as an example of a company that has experienced “reputational damage as a result of publicity and pending litigation” due to “operations in troubled regions. Involvement in infrastructure project in the occupied territories.”

(St. Louis Palestine Solidarity Committee members and civil rights activist Percy Green at St. Louis City Hall, protesting Veolia’s involvement in apartheid and segregation in Palestine. Photo: St. Louis Palestine Solidarity Committee)

Sjo spoke at a 8 February seminar, organized by Norsif, a Norwegian association which promotes responsible and sustainable investment practices in the Norwegian financial industry.

Sjo underpinned her argument by mentioning Veolia’s alleged loss of a €3.5 billion ($4.6 billion) Swedish metro contracts in January 2009.
Senior financial adviser

It is remarkable that the observation was made by a financial expert who operates in the higher circles of the investment world.

Sjo is a senior adviser to the principle manager of the largest pension fund in the the UK, Hermes Investment Management. She is also director of several publicly listed Norwegian companies. Sjo’s warning is a clear sign to companies that profiting from Israel’s occupation carries serious reputational and financial risks.

Financial watchdog BankTrack arrived at a similar conclusion in 2010 when it classified investments in Veolia as “dodgy” because the company provides public transport to the Israeli settlement in the occupied Palestinian West Bank. BankTrack is a global network which monitors the effect of operations of commercial banks, investors, insurance companies, pension funds on people and the planet.

Veolia’s role in violations of Palestinian rights was also addressed in a report [PDF] by the recent UN fact finding mission on Israeli settlements in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem. The mission clearly stated that private firms have enabled, facilitated and profited from the construction and growth of the settlements.

The report lists “the provision of transport and other services to support the maintenance of settlements” as a business activity that raises particular concerns about abuses of human rights.

UN Special Rapporteur Richard Falk was more explicit in his report to the UN General Assembly. He described Veolia’s role in the Jerusalem light rail project which is designed to connect West Jerusalem with Israel’s illegal settlements. Falk recommends that civil society “vigorously pursue initiatives to boycott, divest and sanction” the companies such as Veolia, until they bring their policies and practices into line with international laws and standards.

The BDS movement should continue to hold Veolia to account by increasing the pressure on pension funds, socially responsible investors and other financial institutions to exclude or divest from the company.

Only in Israel does the Judiciary Approve Shackling Children and Torturing Prisoners

Arafat Jaradat - tortured to death by the Middle East's 'only democracy'

 Below are 3 articles on the shocking torturing to death of Arafat Jaradat, a Palestinian civilian, by the secret police (Shin Bet) of the Middle East’s only democracy. We can be sure that when Israel tortures Palestinians, it does so democratically. No doubt it will hold an inquiry with the torturers judging the torturer and finding ‘mistake’s were made. No doubt the angle with which Arafat was hung was not right. The doctors didn’t pick up the signs of complications in time and of course the prisoner was to blame for not talking quickly and confessing. We will go through this kind of mockery with the BBC giving Mark Regev time enough to justify the unjustifiable.

But let us be quite clear.  Torture in  Israel is as much official policy as it is in Iraq and Saudi Arabia.  But whereas the latter don't claim to be western democracies Israel likes to pretend it is 'cool' and 'friendly' and 'green' and 'moral' etc.  It says it should be judged by different standards and then complains when it is.

Left Zionists will bemoan the ‘damage’ that the occupation is doing to those nice Israeli boys. The Arabs are to blame for making them into animals. But let us not forget that torture was rife under Israeli Labour governments and indeed, as Israel Shahak pointed out, it lessened under Prime Minister Menachem Begin who, because of his involvement in Irgun had some moral objections that 'left' Zionists never had.   And we should not forget, despite the undoubted hypocrisy of the Palestinian Authority, that the use of torture and deaths through torture are rife there too. As sub-contractors for Israel and the United States, the Abbas junta can match anything Israel does but we should not forget that the source of the iniquity lies in the Israeli state.

[An Israeli actor is seen demonstrating one of several standard torture techniques reportedly used by the Shin Bet. Photo by AP]

In particular it was the Israeli High Court which on September 6 1999 upheld the Landau Report of 1987 and approved the use of 'moderate physical pressure' i.e. torture.  The 9 man Supreme Court was headed by the 'liberal' Aharon Barak. 

I print an open letter from the indefatiguable campaigner, Dr Derek Summerfield, who has campaigned long and hard against the complicity of the Israeli Medical Association in the supervision of torture by Israeli doctors. Dr Summerfield Israel Medical Association Defends Torture Doctors and Cuts Ties with Israel's Physicians for Human Rights  He has castigated the World Medical Association which has given the IMA carte blanche and even appointed the head of the IMA, Dr Yoram Blacher, as its President. The same mentality that infused the SS doctors and Mengele is on display again. Just as in Guantanamo and other centres of US and state torture, doctors turn the Hyppocratic Oath into the Hypocrites Oath.


Below is a Press Release from the Palestine Committtee for Human Rights and an article from the veteran Israeli civil rights activist and journalist, Amira Hass, writing in the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz.

But of one thing we should be clear. A democracy doesn’t torture its residents. Israel as an occupier of Palestinian land and a ruler over those who have no say in the Occupation, cannot by definition be democratic. And as Prisoner X, a Jewish prisoner who ‘committed suicide’ when imprisoned without trial or indeed any publicity, 3 years ago shows, the erosion of democratic rights may begin with the Palestinians but ends up with Israeli Jews too. Whereas the British and French empires could separate, by distance, their undemocratic barbaric practices in the colonies from the motherland, for Israel this is not possible because the Occupation of the Territories is adjacent too indeed a part of Israel itself. That is another reason why only a single unitary and secular democratic state is the solution.

Tony Greenstein


Dear fellow signatories and supporters of the campaign against collusion by doctors/Israeli Med Assoc with torture 
Palestinian officials are demanding an enquiry into the death of a Palestinian prisoner, Arafat Jaradat, aged 30, who collapsed while being interrogated last weekend, 5 days after being arrested for suspected stone throwing last year. Israeli officials were reported in several London newspapers as saying that he died of a "sudden heart attack" while being interrogated, saying also that 2 days earlier he had been examined by doctors (this means Israeli doctors serving in interrogation units) and found to be in good health.

The Palestinian Authority Ministry of Detainee Affairs allege that Israeli interrogators used hanging techniques and sleep deprivation to torture Jaradat in al-Jalameh prison, a day before he died in Megiddo prison. They cite a witness who said: "When I sat next to him he told me that he had serious pains in his back and other parts of his body because he was being beaten up and hanged for many long hours while he was being investigated". There are reported bruising and fractures to his trunk consistent with torture- though Israeli authorities are saying these are the result of attempts to resuscitate him. A 30 year old man in good health is detained and 5 days later is dead. In a young man how likely is this to result from a heart attack unconnected to his treatment, as Israeli authorities allege! So by Israel’s own admission Jaradat was seen by Israeli doctors 2 days earlier and they found him in good health. The key medical ethical question is what were these doctors examining him for, if not to assess whether he could withstand torture. This is precisely what the campaign regarding medical collusion with torture in Israel was launched for in 2009, and continues to run.

Collusion by Israeli Medical Association in Torture
 
I am reminded that in 1993 a ‘fitness for interrogation’ form came to light, to be signed by a doctor after examining a prisoner, recording medical suitability for torture. The examination of Jaradat is unlikely to have been for any other reason, and this is established practice even if a ‘fitness for interrogation’ form is no longer used. (At the time the Israeli Medical Association feigned surprise that such a form existed; they stated publicly that such a form should not be used (they could hardly do otherwise once it had reached the media) but did not state that Israeli doctors should speak out and refuse to co-operate with interrogation practices deploying torture. This was entirely in line with the IMA’s longstanding and multiply documented defence of current practice and thus of torture as state policy). 

Palestinian students take cover from tear gas fired by Israeli security forces during clashes in the village of Saair following the death of a Palestinian prisoner held in Israel. Photograph: Hazem Bader/AFP/Getty Images

Also in the early 1990s an Amnesty International paper on torture in Israel, documenting what Amnesty called the entirely institutionalised collusion of Israeli doctors, was entitled with intended irony "Under Constant Medical Supervision". This was a reference to what Israeli authorities had stated in supposed defence of Israeli prison conditions and prisoner rights following public allegations about ill-treatment and torture of Palestinian detainees! As Amnesty noted, this was an unintended admission of the role of doctors in the whole process! You will recall the 2007 report "Ticking Bombs" from the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel, using detailed testimony from 7 Palestinian ex-prisoners. It was clear that on a routine basis Israeli doctors would see detainees before, during or after interrogation with torture, did not take a medical history (they knew of course how the injuries had been inflicted, which in one case was spinal damage), returned the detainees to the interrogators, and did not speak out. These doctors were an intrinsic part of a process whose everyday output was torture, as they are to this day and doubtless now in the Jaradat case, and their presence gives license and legitimacy to the torturers.

The Neutering of the World Medical Association

They, and even more culpably the IMA, are failing the test set by the World Medical Association’s Declaration of Tokyo, which mandates doctors not just to have nothing to do with torture, but to protest and speak out when encountered. One scandal our campaign has uncovered is how the WMA has been neutered when it comes to Israel- though it will take action when alleged offenders are in Bahrein or Iran or Nigeria.

Derek Summerfield Campaign Convenor PCHR Palestinian Centre for Human Rights

PRESS RELEASE Ref: 22/2013 Date: 27 February 2013 Time: 11:00 GMT

Palestine Campaign for Human Rights
In light of findings of autopsy report on Arafat Jaradat's body, PCHR calls for independent Internal investigation 

The autopsy report prepared by Dr Saber al-'Aloul, Director of the Palestinian Medico-legal Institute on Arafat Jaradat, a Palestinian detainee who died in an Israeli prison, has concluded that Jaradat's death was caused by nervous shock resulting from severe pain, which was caused by multiple injuries inflicted through direct and extreme torture.

Arafat Shalish Shaheen Jaradat, 30, from Sa'ir village northeast of Hebron in the southern West Bank, died in Megiddo Prison inside Israel on Saturday, 23 February 2013. Israeli authorities claimed that he died due to an apparent heart attack, but the Palestinian Authority and numerous human rights organisations raised doubts concerning the Israeli narrative, and are calling for an independent investigation into Jaradat's death.

An autopsy of Jaradat's body was performed in the Israeli National Institute of Forensic Medicine in Abu Kabir in the presence of Dr Saber al-'Aloul and two Israeli physicians on the day after his death. Contrary to Israeli claims that Jaradat died due to an apparent heart attack, the autopsy showed, according to the Palestinian physician's report, that "the heart muscle is perfectly healthy; no signs of harm or signs of a recent or previous myocardial infarction [...]" The report indicated that there were multiple injuries on Jaradat's body. For example, the report stated: There are recent excoriations and bruising on the inside of the lower lip; there is severe bruising on the upper right back; there are circle-shaped bruises on the bottom of the front right side of the chest; there is bruising on the facis lateralis brachii of the left elbow; there is bruising on the back of the right arm; there are deep bruises, 4x9 centimetre in diameter, on the muscle of the upper left shoulder, adjacent to the spine, below the neck; the bruises damaged the tissue of the muscle; there are 4x10 centimetre bruises on the right side of the chest; the bruises penetrated the skin and caused damage to the muscle tissue; they were located 27 centimetres from the spine, 53 centimetres below the top of the head; there is a fracture in the second and third ribs on the front left side with bruises around the fracture; and there is a fracture in the second rib on the front right side of the chest. The report emphasised that all fractures or wounds were recent, that the injuries were severe, and had resulted from direct and extreme torture.

The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) stresses that torture is an international crime that amounts to a crime against humanity and it constitutes a blatant violation of human rights, which can never be justified under any circumstance. It is prohibited under several international instruments, including the Convention against Torture of 1984, which was ratified by Israel in 1991, and the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.

According to PCHR's documentation, this case is part of a phenomenon in which thousands of Palestinian detainees in Israeli prisons and detention facilities are subjected to torture by Israeli security services.

In light of the above, PCHR:

1. Calls for establishing an international inquiry to investigate the circumstances of Jaradat's death in Megiddo prison;
2. Calls upon the High Contracting Parties to the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment to refer this case to the UN Committee against Torture;
3. Calls upon the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment to investigate this incident, which highlights a pervasive phenomenon in Israeli prisons and detention facilities;
4. Calls upon the UN Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in the Palestinian Territories Occupied Since 1967 to follow up this case and report on it to the United Nations; and
5. Calls on the United Nations, the International Committee of the Red Cross and the international community to put pressure on Israel to put an end to the use of torture and to open prisons and detention facilities for monitoring.

 
For years, Palestinian detainees and prisoners have complained about sleep deprivation, painful and prolonged handcuffing, humiliation, beatings and medical neglect. By international standards, this is torture.

By Amira Hass

Arafat Jaradat, 30, died while under interrogation by the Shin Bet security service. Every week dozens if not hundreds of Palestinians start down the road he began on February 18.

Dozens of Israelis whose names are unknown are on a parallel track: the soldiers who make the arrest in the dead of night, the military doctor who examines the new detainee, Shin Bet interrogators in their changing shifts; Israel Prison Service guards, workers at the prison clinic, and the judge who extends the remand.

True, thousands of others take this road or sometimes a longer and harder one – and stay alive. This is probably what the Shin Bet and the prison service will say in their defense. But from the Palestinian perspective, every stop on the road of detention and interrogation involves enormous physical and psychological pain that the army, the police, the Shin Bet and the prison service inflict intentionally.

This goes well beyond the suffering that should be caused by taking away a person’s liberty and issuing an indictment. For years, Palestinian detainees and prisoners have complained about sleep deprivation, painful and prolonged handcuffing, humiliation, beatings and medical neglect. By international standards, this is torture.

Jaradat was not a ticking bomb. He was arrested on suspicion of throwing stones and an incendiary device at Israeli targets. After three days of interrogation the police asked the court (in the name of the Shin Bet) to extend his remand for another 15 days for questioning. The remand hearing took place on Thursday, February 21, at the Shin Bet’s Kishon interrogation facility, in front of a military judge, Maj. David Kadosh. The judge ordered the remand for 12 days.

Unclear confession

Kamil Sabbagh, an attorney for the Palestinian Authority’s Prisoner Affairs Ministry, asked the police investigator at the hearing whether there were other suspicions against his client; he was told there were not. He asked whether Jaradat had confessed, and the police investigator answered: "partially." Sabbagh concluded that Jaradat had confessed to throwing stones.

Experience shows that the additional days of interrogation – many, considering the minor nature of the offenses – were not intended merely to extract more confessions, but to get Jaradat to implicate others or to gather personal information, even of an embarrassing nature, to use in the future. From reports by detainees to their attorneys, it's clear that sleep deprivation combined with painful and prolonged handcuffing is very common. As we learn at military court and elsewhere, people confess to things they haven't done or implicate others falsely, only to be allowed to sleep.

In the short time Jaradat and his attorney had before the remand hearing, Jaradat, who was suffering from a herniated disc, was able to tell Sabbagh that he was in pain from prolonged sitting. Judge Kadosh knew about the pain from a secret report he had been shown.While the judge was writing his decision, Jaradat told Sabbagh that conditions were difficult for him in isolation and he wanted to be moved to another cell. Sabbagh had the impression that Jaradat was under severe psychological stress, and told the judge this.

The judge then added to his decision: "The defense attorney requests the court’s permission to present the matter of the suspect’s mental health while in a cell alone, and his concerns about psychological damage. He requests that the suspect be examined and properly attended to."

The role of informants

The remand hearing took place at 10 A.M. Thursday. As of Sunday, Sabbagh did not know when Jaradat had been moved to Megiddo Prison, where he died. Palestinian organizations representing prisoners say one possibility is that he was placed in a cell with informants at Megiddo.

Unlike Shin Bet interrogations, which are documented in memos, the existence of informants is not officially acknowledged by the authorities. Informants use various means to extract information, whether true or false. They boast about their exploits as members of Palestinian organizations, they suggest that the detainee is a collaborator because he does not discuss his actions with them, and they threaten him.

The investigation of Jaradat’s death must go through all phases of his detention and interrogation – and those of thousands of others. But any interrogation will be flawed from the outset because, by authorization of the High Court of Justice, Shin Bet interrogations are not filmed.

Only two weeks ago, on February 6, justices Asher Grunis, Hanan Melcer and Noam Sohlberg turned down a petition by four human rights groups demanding the annulment of a 2003 law letting the police forgo the filming or audiotaping of security suspects' interrogations. The organizations also asked the court to require the Shin Bet to visually document the questioning of suspects. The justices said that because the law was now under scrutiny, "the time has not yet come to examine the petitioners’ arguments themselves."

The Palestinians do not need an Israeli investigation. For them, Jaradat’s death is much bigger than the tragedy he and his family have suffered. From their experience, Jaradat’s death isn't proof that others haven't died, it's proof that the Israeli system routinely uses torture. From their experience, the goal of torture is not only to convict someone, but mainly to deter and subjugate an entire people.

Saturday 2 March 2013, 24 Greencoat Place, London SW1P 1RD

£10 (concessions £5)  Reservations by email to jews4big@gmail.com
Cheques to J-BIG, 4 Crestway Parade, The Crestway, Brighton, BN1 7BL
Bank transfers to Unity Trust Bank, sort code 08-60-01, account number 20241234

CONFERENCE PROGRAMME

1.00   Welcome, registration, tea and coffee

1.15   Jewish values are not at odds with Palestinian rights
  
BUNDA’IM, a short film (48 minutes) introducing the last comrades of the Bund mass movement. Exterminated in Europe and ignored in Israel, its ideas live on.
The screening will be immediately followed by discussion with:
 David Rosenberg – Editorial Committee, Jewish Socialist magazine
 Antony Lerman – author of The Making and Unmaking of a Zionist

This session will deal with aspects of Zionism and Bundism in pre-WWII Poland, how Zionist leaders have marginalised Bundism in the diaspora, the relationship between Zionism and the universalist, humanitarian philosophy central to much Jewish thinking,  Zionist attacks on proponents of Jewish universalism, conflating antisemitism with opposition to Zionism.

3.15 Refreshment break

3.45 Panel discussion – BDS: imperative for all who uphold Palestinian rights, Jew or non-Jew

Sue Blackwell, British Committee for the Universities of Palestine (BRICUP)
The Universities and Colleges Union faces concerted Zionist attack for its willingness to debate BDS and refusal to apply the so-called EUMC working definition of antisemitism which seeks to outlaw criticism of Israel.

Michael Deas, coordinator in Europe for the Palestinian BDS National Committee (BNC)
Why BDS is central to the anti-racist, anti-colonialist Palestinian struggle; the PACBI and BNC calls; defending the movement against Zionist attack.

John Rose, author of The Myths of Zionism
Unpicking the Zionist myths used to perpetuate the idea that Israeli Jews confront eternal Arab hatred and Israel therefore has the right to "defend itself" by any means.

Tony Greenstein or Les Levidow , Jews for Boycotting Israeli Goods (J-BIG)
Why it was necessary for J-BIG to publish Zionism and Antisemitism: Racist Political Twins.

5.30  Refreshment break

6.00  Entertainment compered by Deborah Fink, “The Diva with a Difference”
Music from Leon Rosselson and others (including possible guest appearance from Reem Kelani)

7 pm - Finish

Rabbi Manis Friedman Agrees with Pastor Hagee - It wasn't Hitler but the Victims Who Were Responsible for their Deaths

The poisonous Rabbi Manis Friedman of Lubavitch/Chabad

It is fair to say that the Orthodox Hasidic sect, Lubavitch, the antics of whose rabbis this blog has regularly covered, [see e.g. ‘Big Questions – Gerald Scarfe's Cartoon and 'anti-Semitism']are embarrassed by the latest words of wisdom of Rabbi Manis Friedman. According to Friedman ‘Not a single Jewish child died because of the Nazis … they died in their relationship with God’ It’s not that Chabad’s leaders disagree with him, quite the contrary. It’s simply that there are some things that are best left unsaid. It is an article of faith for many if not most Orthodox Zionist sects and Lubavitch is the most Zionist of all, that it was the sins of the Jews themselves that was responsible for the holocaust.

Michal Kaminski, the rightwing Polish leader, speaks at the European Conservatives and Reformists Group event at the Tory party conference in Manchester. Photograph: Martin Argles

Witness the hypocritical denunciations of the anti-Semitic jazzman, Gilad Atzmon, by the Zionists for what he said in his article Saying No to the Hunters of Goliath 

The real Zionist attitude to the Jews of the Holocaust

'the Jewish state and the sons of Israel are at least as unpopular in the Middle East as their grandparents were in Europe just six decades ago. Seemingly, it is the personification of WW2 and the Holocaust that blinded the Israelis and their supporters from internalising the real meaning of the conditions and the events that led towards their destruction in the first place.’ 

Atzmon meant to draw a straight line between the racism of the Israeli state today and the reason for anti-Semitism in Europe in order to find some ‘explanation’ or justification for the holocaust.
That Atzmon’s comments were anti-Semitic is undoubted. But it would be fair to say that they are minor and trivial in comparison with the deep racism and anti-Semitism of Rabbi Manis Friedman and the other Zionist rabbis, inside and outside Lubavitch. [see Why are John Mearsheimer and Richard Falk Endorsing a Blatantly Anti-Semitic Book?]

John Hagee

Indeed the nearest comparison to Rabbi Manis Friedman’s comments that I can think of are the comments of Pastor John Hagee of Christians United for Israel:

‘"Theodore Herzl is the father of Zionism. He was a Jew who at the turn of the 19th century said, this land is our land, God wants us to live there. So he went to the Jews of Europe and said 'I want you to come and join me in the land of Israel.' So few went that Hertzel went into depression. Those who came founded Israel; those who did not went through the hell of the holocaust.

"Then god sent a hunter. A hunter is someone with a gun and he forces you. Hitler was a hunter. And the Bible says -- Jeremiah writing -- 'They shall hunt them from every mountain and from every hill and from the holes of the rocks,' meaning there's no place to hide. And that might be offensive to some people but don't let your heart be offended. I didn't write it, Jeremiah wrote it. It was the truth and it is the truth. How did it happen? Because God allowed it to happen. Why did it happen? Because God said my top priority for the Jewish people is to get them to come back to the land of Israel."

It’s ironic that both Atzmon and Hagee use the metaphor of the Hunter.  The clear message is that Hitler was fulfilling god’s desires to force the Jews to Israel – a key part of the whole Christian evangelical belief that the second coming of Jesus can only occur when the Jews return to the Holy Land. It is difficult to think of a more anti-Semitic diatribe. 

In another sermon, Hagee blamed American economic problems on the fact that the  Federal Reserve System is controlled by "a group of Class A stockholders, including the Rothschilds." In the same series, Hagee further asserted that the Rothschilds, who are Jewish, were part of a wide-ranging conspiracy of "international power brokers based in Europe’ .  As is normally the case a good anti-Semite is also a good Zionist.  On page 149 of his book Jerusalem Countdown, in a chapter entitled 'Who Is a Jew?', Hagee writes:

"It was Esau's descendants who produced the half-breed Jews of history who have persecuted and murdered the Jews beyond human comprehension ... Adolf Hitler was a distant descendant of Esau."[45] 

However this did not stop leading Zionists from defending him, Israel firsters, for whom any amount of anti-Semitism can be excused so long as the purveyor is a Zionist.  Indeed they rushed to defend Hagee. See ‘Jewish allies of the Rev. John Hagee rushed to his defense yesterday to say the Texas evangelist is not anti-Semitic despite Sen. John McCain campaign’s repudiation Thursday of the evangelist’s endorsement' and Jews defend Hagee’s words.

In much the same way, the capitalists of the Jewish Leadership Council in this country supported the anti-Semitic Polish MEP Michal Kaminski against charges of anti-Semitism.  Hagee had defended the actions of Poles in murdering hundreds of Jews in Jedwabne in 1941. 

As the Jewish Chroniclereported'the decision by Vivian Wineman, president of the Board of Deputies, to send a letter to David Cameron seeking reassurances about the Tories’ new allies, has caused a rift with the Jewish Leadership Council. One JLC member described colleagues as “livid” at the timing of the letter. Another said he was “incandescent”.

The Guardian reported how Dean Godson, a research director at the Tory Policy Exchange thinktank, bitterly attacked Wineman, President of the Board of Deputies and Labour peer Greville Janner (who criticised the Tories' links with Robert Zile of Latvia, another MEP, who has regularly attended commemorations of the Waffen-SS).  Is Michal Kaminski fit to lead the Tories in Europe?

And according to Los Angeles talk show  host Dennis Prager, "John Hagee is one of the Jewish people’s best friends," "Identifying John Hagee with anti-Semitism would be like identifying Raoul Wallenberg, the great Swede who saved thousands of Jews in the Holocaust, with anti-Semitism."

Dear Pastor Hagee,

We saw the different publications vilifying your character, and we all felt the need to object and protest thus expressing personally our recognition and esteem to your enterprise, your doing and to your unconditional love to the People of Israel and to the State of Israel.

We all feel that these publications remind us the darkest times of our nation, when rivals from inside and out tried to besmirch the Holy Scriptures, our public systems and the leadership of the Jewish nation. These publications were in the focus of terrible slanders that ended in many disasters for our People.

We see in you a man of truth and a true friend, whose doings and sayings always come from a loving heart and out of true faith. We see you as the appropriate and desirable leader to your flock in these difficult times, and we stand by you.  

Orthodox Rabbi Aryeh Scheinberg, of Congregation Rodfei Sholom in San Antonio, appeared at an afternoon press conference yesterday to say Mr. Hagee's "words were twisted and used to attack him for being anti-Semitic."

Likewise David Saperstein in the Washington Post Hagee's Jewish Endorsers ‘Nonetheless, it had become common to find Jewish leaders joining in Pastor Hagee's "Salute to Israel" events around the country and paying public tribute and homage to the pastor for his efforts.’  See John Hagee
What is the basis of this racism? It is the idea that Jews, or anyone else, as individuals count for nothing. What matters is the achievement of a state, a racial state, because no one can pretend that Jews worldwide form a nation except Zionist lunatics and neo-Nazis (it is a fundamental part of the international Jewish conspiracy theory that the Nazis were wedded too that Jewry, wherever it lived, constituted an organic body, a conspiracy. Hence the Nuremburg Laws made it clear that there were no Germans of the Jewish faith but Jews living as aliens in Germany. Something else that the Zionists agree with too.

Hence it is common amongst the religious orthodox, such as Mr Avraham Greenbaum, former Deputy Director-General of the religious University of Bar-Ilan in Tel Aviv, to make a comparison between ‘assimilation’ i.e. Jews marrying non-Jews or simply integrating into the host community and Hitler’s extermination of Europe’s Jews. After all both were ‘lost’ to Judaism, except for the minor fact that those who were assimilated did so freely and without persecution, whereas those who died in the holocaust were anything but free.

But a racist movement such as Zionism, whose racism today is of course expressed vs the Palestinians, began its journey as a movement which assimilated to itself the anti-Semitic perspective.

Tony Greenstein

Survivors Outraged Over Holocaust Remarks Made By Chabad's Rabbi Manis Friedman

"Who in fact died and who remained alive had nothing to do with the Nazis," Rabbi Manis Friedman stated in a speech delivered in Melbourne in the 1980s. "Not a single Jewish child died because of the Nazis … they died in their relationship with God.…Bad things did not happen to our grandparents … No evil befell them."
Timna Jacks • Australian Jewish News
HOLOCAUST survivors have expressed their outrage that the US rabbi who apologised last week for likening sexual abuse to diarrhoea, has failed to say sorry for claiming the Shoah was part of a Divine plan and that the Nazis weren’t to blame.

"Who in fact died and who remained alive had nothing to do with the Nazis," Rabbi Manis Friedman stated in a speech delivered in Melbourne in the 1980s. "Not a single Jewish child died because of the Nazis … they died in their relationship with God."


Rabbi Friedman’s address – a transcript of which was obtained this week by The AJN from the Jewish Holocaust Centre’s (JHC) archives – was part of a 90-minute lecture delivered before community members at a Toorak home during a trip sponsored by the Yeshivah Centre’s Women of Valour Committee in Melbourne.

"Bad things did not happen to our grandparents … No evil befell them," Rabbi Friedman said.

The rabbi was at the centre of a controversy two weeks ago, for a clip on YouTube, in which he said victims of sexual abuse learn "an important lesson" from the crime and that they’re "not that damaged".

The issue stirred the memories of Shoah survivors and educators, who contacted The AJN to discuss the rabbi’s track record. Survivor and JHC guide Moshe Fiszman, still enraged by Rabbi Friedman’s remarks about the Holocaust, said the comments were "immoral".

"For someone who witnessed all that hell, who went through as many camps as I went through … to read and hear that is just … I don’t know. I cannot explain to you how I feel, there is no way," the 91-year-old said.

At the time, survivors lodged complaints against the rabbi with Chabad authorities and Rabbi Friedman has not been invited back to Melbourne.

Holocaust survivor and guide at the JHC Abe Goldberg said Rabbi Friedman’s implication that the Holocaust was part of a Divine plan is "blasphemy".

"There is no question that Hitler was the one responsible for it."

Referring to Rabbi Friedman’s official apology for comments he made about sexual abuse, Goldberg said: "Suddenly he is apologising? He never apologised before. Why does he only apologise now?"

Rabbi Friedman has failed to respond to requests for a comment on his remarks about the Holocaust.

Israel's maximum security Ayalon prison where Prisoner X was hanged

But none of this has prevented the Prime Minister of ‘the only democracy in the Middle East’ Netanyahu from proclaiming that ‘We are an exemplary democratic state, and we protect the rights of the interrogated and individual rights no less than any other country’. 

Zygier with cronies and accomplices

The fate of Ben Zygier is of no concern to me. He sounds as if he was a reprehensible person who was also greedy. What is of concern is that Netanyahu and the gamut of Israeli politicians justify what they do on account of being under attack whereas of course it is Israel which regularly attacks its neighbours whilst imagining it is the one under attack.

The laws under which Zygier was detained were the Emergency Defence Regulations of the British, who had used them when they ruled over Palestine.  At the time the Zionists, in particular the first Justice Minister, Pinhas Rosenbluth, described them as 'Nazi' in character.

Tony Greenstein

'Prisoner X' took part in Mossad operation of killing Hamas operative in Dubai?

February 14, 2013 22:25

Australian newspapers lead their front pages in Australia on February 14, 2013, with the story of Ben Zygier as Israel confirms it jailed a foreigner in solitary confinement on security grounds who later committed suicide, with Australia admitting it knew one of its citizens had been detained (AFP Photo / William West)

Another layer has been added to Israel’s ‘Prisoner X’ spy story, as new details shed light on Ben Zygier’s dealings with Mossad. An Israeli lawyer says the man – who took his own life in a jail cell – did not seem like he was at risk of suicide.

Zygier’s associations with Mossad are still cloudy, as media agencies report different accounts of his previous work with the organization.

According to Kuwaiti newspaper Al Jarida, Zygier reportedly took part in the 2010 killing of Hamas operative Mahmoud al-Mahbouh in Dubai and offered the government information about the operation in return for the United Arab Emirates’ protection.

Australia’s Fairfax Media reports that Australian security officials suspected Zygier may have been about to disclose Israeli intelligence operations – including the use of fraudulent Australian passports – to the Australian government or the media.

The Israeli government has not confirmed or denied Zygier’s association with Mossad. However, Zygier himself reportedly confided in at least two friends that he had been recruited by Mossad.

"He told me he’d just been recruited," a friend close to Zygier told Haaretz. "I was in shock. It’s the sort of thing people usually joke about but I had no reason to doubt him at all."
Zygier’s suicide has shed light on Mossad’s recruitment of foreign-born Jews who could spy under cover on their native passports.

Mossad has come under criticism many times for using the passports and identities of citizens of foreign countries. And despite repeated promises to stop the practices, it seems the organization is refusing to change its ways.

Just one year ago, The Times of London published two accounts of young men who had emigrated to Israel from Britain and France. During their IDF service, both men were approached by a woman who identified herself as a Mossad official who asked the gentlemen to "lend" their passports for about 18 months while they were still in the army. Once the men reclaimed their passports, they contained stamps from countries including Russia, Azerbaijan, and Turkey, Haaretz reports.

Australian newspapers lead their front pages in Australia on February 14, 2013, with the story of Ben Zygier as Israel confirms it jailed a foreigner in solitary confinement on security grounds who later committed suicide, with Australia admitting it knew one of its citizens had been detained

(AFP Photo / William West)

­Suspicions from Australia
Zygier was one of at least three Australian-Israeli citizens under investigation by the Australian Security Intelligence Organization over suspicions of espionage for Israel, according to Australian media.

Canberra complained to Tel Aviv in 2010 after Dubai said forged Australian passports were used by the Mossad team. Mahbouh’s killers also had British, Irish, French, and German passports, according to authorities in the United Arab Emirates.

In at least seven cases, it turned out that the passports belonged to Jews who had emigrated to Israel from Britain and Germany. These people were unaware that their identities were being used by Mossad officials in Dubai, Haaretz reported. The identities of at least three Australians had also been used.
­
More questions than answers

While media agencies report that Prisoner X was, in fact, 34-year-old Ben Zygier, the Israeli government has failed to mention Zygier by name – stating only that a man with dual citizenship was held under a false name for "security reasons."

Attorney Avigdor Feldman, who met with Zygier a day before he committed suicide, said this very fact raised a red flag.

"I saw this as something inappropriate but I did not take legal measures, based on the assumption that he was in the good hands of the lawyers who were representing him," he told Channel 10 Television.

Fedman said Zygier was charged with "grave crimes" and that there were ongoing negotiations for a plea bargain. He did not elaborate as to which "crimes" Zygier had allegedly committed, but said "his status was ‘detained until the completion of proceedings,'" Haaretz reported.
"His interrogators told him he could expect lengthy jail-time and be ostracized from his family and the Jewish community,"   Feldman said. "There was no heart string they did not pull, and I  suppose that ultimately brought about the tragic end."

But despite Zygier’s situation, Feldman did not believe Zygier was at risk of taking his own life.
"To my mind, he sounded rational and focused and he spoke to the point. He did not display any special feeling of self-pity", he said.

The headstone of Ben Zygier is photographed in the Chevra Kadisha Jewish Cemetery, in Melbourne on February 14, 2013 (AFP Photo / Martin Philbey)

"He was facing a judiciary crossroads and he asked me to give my opinion about his decision as well…he had been informed that he could very likely expect to be sentenced to an extremely lengthy prison term and to be shunned by his family – and this affects a person’s soul," said the attorney.

Feldman remains critical of how the authorities handled Zygier’s detention. "Those responsible for him should have taken clear steps to watch over him, especially because he was far from the public eye. The end of the affair is something that needs to be investigated."

Yet, an Israeli court maintains that no rights were broken during the detention.
"The proceedings on the matter were followed by the most senior Justice Ministry officials and the prisoners' individual rights were kept, subject to the provisions set by law" the Israeli court statement said.

However, Israel's Justice Ministry says a court has ordered an inquiry into possible negligence in Zygier's death.

The fresh details come after the Israeli government eased a gag order relating to the case. It was lifted after activists, journalists, and politicians protested the order which prevented journalists from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) from reporting about Zygier.

The top-secret case has raised more questions than answers. Australia and Israel must now try to determine what circumstances caused 34-year-old Zygier to move to Israel, supposedly be recruited by Mossad, find himself detained in 2010, jailed secretly for months, and, uiltimately, take his own life.

Despite the new information, no concrete answers have been given by the Israeli government regarding why Zygier was detained, whether he was working for Mossad, or why he resorted to suicide. And of course the question on everyone’s minds remains: Why is it all such a big secret? 　

Israel's 'Prisoner X' May Have Passed State Secrets

by Krishnadev Calamur

February 18, 2013
Last week we told you about "Prisoner X," the mysterious Israeli-Australian citizen who worked for Israel's spy agency Mossad. Australian media broke the story of how the man identified as Ben Zygier languished for months in an Israeli prison until he was found dead of an apparent suicide. Now we have new details on the case.

The Australian Broadcasting Corp. has been covering the story. Here's its report:

"Suspected Mossad agent Ben Zygier was arrested by his own spymasters after they believed he told Australia's domestic intelligence agency about every aspect of his work with the Israelis, sources say.

"The ABC's Foreign Correspondent program understands that Zygier met with ASIO officers in Australia and gave comprehensive detail about a number of Mossad operations, including plans for a top-secret mission in Italy that had been years in the making.

"It is unknown who initiated the contact.

"Sources have told the ABC that on one of four trips back to Australia in the years before his death in 2010, Mr. Zygier — who also used the surnames Alon, Allen and Burrowes — applied for a work visa to Italy."

Zygier is believed to have been arrested in 2010 and held in Israel's maximum-security Ayalon prison. He apparently took his own life 10 months later.

NPR's Larry Abramson discussed the case last week with Robert Siegel, host of All Things Considered. Here's what he said

"He was Ben Zygier ... an Australian Jew, migrated to Israel around the age of 18. He joined the army and then the Mossad. And now, we don't really know what he was doing for the Mossad, of course, because that's all secret. But when he was 34, in 2010, he was arrested, and we don't know exactly why. He was held in Israel's famous Ayalon prison and apparently faced some serious charges.

"He was held under a false name, which is not unheard of in Israel, but it's rare. And apparently, that was with his own consent, partly to protect his own family. He was in a specially designed cell meant to protect against suicide, but he managed to hang himself somehow in 2010. A handful of people knew that this was going on in Israel, but thanks to a judicial gag order, most Israelis knew nothing about this until this past week."

As Larry said in that conversation, Zygier was one of three Australian émigrés who traveled back and forth from Australia, changing their names and getting new passports. Zygier is said to have changed his name three times.

"These men may have been using these passports to go to places that Israelis can't normally go to, like Syria and Iran for their Mossad work," Larry said.

There has been a strong reaction to the case in Israel. As Larry told Robert:
"Well, you know, Israelis are used to a lot of secrecy here, but I think even they are sometimes surprised at some of the goings-on and the fact that somebody was held, you know, all these years ago, committed suicide, and nobody knew about it. There has been outrage about the idea that in a democracy like Israel you can still have secret arrests and a secret trial, but it does turn out that Zygier did have access to attorneys."

On Sunday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made his first comment about the case. He noted that Israel is "not like other states."

"We are an exemplary democratic state, and we protect the rights of the interrogated and individual rights no less than any other country," he said. "But we are also more threatened and face more challenges, and thus we must maintain the proper activities of our security services. Therefore I ask of everyone: Let the security forces continue to do their work undisturbed, so that we can continue to live in security and tranquility in the State of Israel." 

Prisoner X Was From My Shtetl

Melbourne’s Jews confront the mysterious death of one of their own, Ben Zygier, in an Israeli prison

On Tuesday morning East Coast time, an Australian news program ran an explosive story claiming that Israel’s Prisoner X, the Jewish state’s most infamous prisoner, was an Australian citizen named Ben Zygier. The story has all the hallmarks of a classic spy novel: forged passports, espionage, information suppression, and accusations of treason. But the tale of Prisoner X—who died under mysterious circumstances in 2010 in solitary confinement, having allegedly hanged himself in the maximum security cell built for Yitzhak Rabin’s assassin—is not only riveting for its John Le Carré flourishes. To me, it’s also shocking because Ben Zygier is a Jew from the small, tight-knit community in Melbourne where I grew up.
The question of how Zygier, raised by a prominent Zionist family, came to be imprisoned by the Israeli government in the harshest, most isolating conditions possible is one that is now dominating conversations in every quarter of the Melbourne Jewish community. Worldwide, there’s been a tsunami of media coverage, speculating on everything from the reason for his imprisonment—the dominant narrative was that he was a Mossad agent who betrayed Israel—to the whereabouts of hisIsraeli wife and two young children. But among Melbourne’s Jews these questions have a slightly different tenor—one of distress and sympathy for the Zygier family. In quiet conversations, everyone is wondering: How did this happen to one of ours?
People often describe the Melbourne Jewish community as a shtetl or a village, and it’s not hard to see why. Affectionately known as the "Bagel Belt," it’s a cluster of affluent, upper-middle-class suburbs about 10 kilometers south-east of the city. Malvern—where the Zygier family lives—is a lovely, leafy grid of Victorian homes and private schools. From there it’s a short drive to East Saint Kilda, known for its full-scale replica of 770 Eastern Parkway, the Lubavitcher Rebbe’s headquarters, and Elsternwick, where I grew up, which has three Jewish bakeries and one bagel shop within 100 meters of each other.

The proximity isn’t just geographic. Jewish Melbourne is a place where everyone knows everything about everyone else: What they cooked for Shabbos dinner, what their university entrance exam score was, why they’re embroiled in a broyges (dispute) with the president of their shul. It’s not dissimilar to Teaneck or Skokie, but it’s also very unique, because the community is mostly comprised of the children and grandchildren of Polish Holocaust survivors. The trauma of the war—and the threat, whether real or imagined, of the re-emergence of virulent anti-Semitism—runs deep in the bones of the community, which has trained its own private security group, the CSG, to protect its schools, synagogues, institutions, and events. That history helps explain the depth of Zionist commitment among Jews from Melbourne, and Australia generally. (The Jewish Agency estimates that 9,000 Jews have made aliyah from Australia, a high percentage for a community now numbering 97,000.)
The Zygier name is well-known in the community: Geoffrey Zygier, Ben’s father, was once the head of the JCCV, the most important Jewish organization in the state of Victoria, of which Melbourne is the capital. He’s currently the executive director of the B’nai B’rith Anti-Defamation Commission, the Australian equivalent of the ADL. The JCCV and the ADC, like almost every Jewish institution in Australia, are politically conservative and ardently pro-Israel. David Langsam, a Jewish journalist in Melbourne acquainted with Zygier, described him as "an exceptionally decent man … generous and polite, even when disagreeing on Middle East policy."
Ben attended Bialik, a secular Zionist day school with a reputation for academic excellence and privilege, and was a member of Hashomer Hatzair, or Hashy, as it’s known in Australia. After high school he went to Israel with Hashy on Shnat, a gap-year program popular with graduates of Zionist youth movements, who return home to lead meetings and camps for children in their communities. It’s not uncommon for "Shnatties" to return to Australia vowing to make aliyah and serve in the IDF, and many of them—including Ben Zygier and a number of my friends—have done so.
Though many people from my community were to connected to Ben Zygier, most people were reluctant to speak on the record about the Prisoner X story, citing personal connections to Ben’s family or a desire to remain respectfully quiet in light of the their grief. Melbourne Jews are tight-knit and extremely protective of their privacy as a community, so it isn’t surprising to see people are closing ranks in support of the Zygier family. The sympathy for their loss is profound, even urgent: Not only did they suffer the death of their child in 2010, they’re now witnessing a global interrogation of his character.

At the time of Ben’s death, I remember hearing vague reports of a young Australian man who had died in mysterious circumstances in Israel. People in the community have told me that there were rumors circulating that he had committed suicide—but even the word rumor seems too sensationalist, as his death was only discussed in the most discreet language, with utmost respect for the family’s grief and privacy. Given the family’s silence, all we know now is what the papers are reporting: Zygier was arrested and held in detention for several months in 2010, presumably for having grievously compromised Israeli state security. He was found hanged in his cell in December of that year.

On Facebook there are tornadoes of conjecture whirling around and around on repeat. "Those who know what’s going on aren’t saying anything," said Langsam, "and those who don’t know what’s going on are discussing it nonstop on social media." On Thursday, anonymous statements from friends started to trickle into the media, but the veil of secrecy cast over the case by the Israeli government seems to have been extended by default to Melbourne.

Anthony Frosh, an editor of a popular community blog, Galus Australis, told me that "there are two prevailing reactions right now: those who are defensive of Israel, who say it’s a media beat-up that has been sensationalized, and those who think we have a responsibility to demand justice." How will this scandal affect the faith of Australian Jews in Israel, the country many have given their children to? And on the flip side, how will this affect the relationship between the Jewish community and the Australian government, which was strained in 2010 by the revelation that several Jewish Australians had willingly handed their passports over to the Israeli government for use in security exercises?

It seems that a rupture is unlikely to occur. There’s certainly a diversity of political opinion in the Australian Jewish community, but the majority of the people, and certainly the leadership, tends toward defending Israel at all costs.

I was up late last night trawling the Internet for fresh news on the case of Prisoner X. Mostly I read the same information again and again, recycled by different media outlets and news agencies, and I found myself seriously pondering for the first time the phrase "X marks the spot." As a symbol it seeks to nullify and eliminate, but it also draws attention to itself; to what lies beneath the surface. It’s an apt metaphor for not just the disappearance of Ben Zygier, but for his community’s response to his disappearance: seeing but not seeing, speaking but not speaking

Yitzhak Luden stands in the Yiddish community center(photo: Alon Aviram) 14th November 2012

First session on the Bund with Tony Lerman and David Rosenberg

Reem Kilani

Member of the audience contributing to debate

Panel for last session

 Jews 4 Boycotting Israeli Goods AGM & National Meeting

I have often found myself thinking, as I have another AGM or meeting to attend, that I’m doing it more out of a sense of duty than because I really want to be there.  And then having gone I wished I hadn’t!

 

Saturday was different and was one of the most enjoyable meetings I’ve been to for a long time.  It was the second annual conference that J-Big has organised since it was founded in early 2010 and it was packed to the rafters, with people standing.   Nearly a 100 people attended and the conference was filmed throughout.  A short AGM was also held in the morning.  In its 3 years, J-Big has made an impact far above its (increasing numbers) and is in constant demand to send speakers or attend a picket/demonstration with our banner.   Truly J-Big has come of age.

Naomi introduces Antony Lerman and David Rosenberg

Anti-Semites such as Gilad Atzmon have tried to portray us as being only concerned with anti-Semitism and Jews.  We are according him, only in the Palestine solidarity movement as gatekeepers to keep the non-Jews in line!  Yesterday would have been a sore disappointment to Atzmon and his declining band of supporters.  Yes we are opposed to all manifestations of anti-Semitism, and all other forms of racism within the Palestine solidarity movement, but our main priority is symbolised by our slogan ‘Koshering the Boycott’.  And to nail another lie, there were a number of non-Jewish people who attended as equal participants.

The film 'Bundayim' produced by Eran Torbiner

The Conference started off, nearly on time, with a showing of the film Bundayim¸ a film on the Israeli remnants of the The Bund.  After the holocaust, some of the remnants of the Bund, the General Jewish Workers Union of Russia, Lithuania and Poland, emigrated to Israel and mainly to Tel Aviv.  There they established a library and a meeting place.  Moshe Machover told me that when Matzpen was first established in 1962 they were welcomed and held their first meeting in the Bund premises.

Bund leader in Israel

The film was, for me, an incredibly sad and moving film.  Here we saw the remnants of the mass organisation of the Jewish working class in Poland, murdered in the holocaust, holding on to their socialist principles without conceding anything to Zionism.  Those who formed the Israeli section of the Bund were either anti-Zionists or non-Zionists and Eran Torbiner, who produced the film, is a member of Israel’s Boycott from Within.

The film showed a group of about 60 people who were steadily growing older and dying off, with very few young people joining them.  Zionist nationalism, the idea that the Jewish worker has more in common with  the Jewish capitalist and boss, the fundamental idea of the Zionist concept of the ‘Jewish people’ was antithetical to the idea of socialism.  The Bund in Poland had organised autonomously, because of the particular oppression suffered by Polish Jews, but they also worked closely with the Polish Socialist Party to tackle the common enemy.  The Bund in Israel kept the memory of socialism and international solidarity alive.

Today the Zionists friends are those such as Michal Kaminiski MEP for the Law & Justice Party whose was opposed to Poland apologising for the pogrom by Poles in Jedwabne in 1941 when up to 600 Jews were burn alive in their homes and synagogue.

Afterwards there was a panel consisting of Tony Lerman, founder of the Institute of Jewish Policy Research, former member of the academic Jewish establishment and recent author of the Making and Unmaking of a Zionist. http://azvsas.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/review-making-and-unmaking-of-zionist.html and David Rosenberg, Secretary and founder member of the Jewish Socialists Group.

Audience discussion in first plenary

Tony gave a fascinating account of his own upbringing in the ‘socialist’ Zionist group Habonim-Dror and his own growing disillusionment with Zionism.  His recent book 'The Making and Unmaking of a Zionist' has been pilloried by the Jewish Establishment and its treatment in the Jewish Chronicle, where a hack Zionist Professor Hochauser, was wheeled out to make a personal attack on Lerman whilst ignoring the contents of the book itself, was par for the course.

David Rosenberg gave the background to the Bund in Poland describing how the Zionists and anti-Semites were agreed that Jews did not belong in the country where they had been born.  How in the fight against anti-Semitism, the Zionist groups were entirely missing with the exception of Left Poalei Zion, a group which I would characterise as non-Zionist.

Mad Mel P in all her glory

David described how, in the last municipal elections in 1938 before the Nazi invasion, out of 20 Jewish Council in Warsaw, the Bund won 17 (he said 16 but everything I’ve read says 17) compared to just one seat for the Zionists.  The Zionists and the Orthodox Jewish parties had simply become irrelevant as the Nazi menace loomed.

After a break there was a further panel discussion arising out of the production of a new 4 page pamphlet, Zionism and Antisemitism: Racist Political Twins which detailed how, ever since the Zionist movement was formed, it has worked hand-in-glove with anti-Semites.  Michael Deas of the Boycott National Committee was ill but his place as Chair of the discussion was taken by Michael Kalmanovitch of the International Jewish Anti-Zionist Organisation.

John Rose, author of Myths of Zionism, speaking - Michael Kamanovitch of IJAN to his left

2nd plenary with speaker from Anarchists Against the Wall

The first speaker was John Rose, an academic, member of the SWP and author of The Myths of Zionism, a book which unpicks the Zionist myths used to perpetuate the idea that Israeli Jews confront eternal Arab hatred and Israel therefore has the right to "defend itself" by any means.  It is an important book because ever since its foundation, the Israeli state has used the ‘existentialist’ threat of the surrounding Arab states in order to maintain the fiction that it is perpetually under attack and to justify its permanent state of emergency.

Speaker from Anarchists Against the Wall

The next speaker was an Israeli speaker from Anarchists Against the Wall who described most the increasingly racist nature of Israeli society and the vital role that anti-Zionist and sympathetic Israelis play in trying to halt the demolitions.

Sue Blackwell speaking

Sue Blackwell, from BRICUP (British Committee for the Universities of Palestine) spoke about the attack by Zionists in her trade union, UCU and in particular the most recent employment tribunal proceedings for race discrimination initiated by a disaffected Zionist – Ronnie Fraser.  The tribunal  proceedings we were told, by Prof. Jonathan Rosenhead of Bricup, had been transcribed by a note-taker and Sue  described how the proceedings didn’t quite follow the reporting of the Jewish Chronicle.  For example one of the examples Sue gave of the terrible ‘anti-Semitism’ that Fraser gave was the fact that at one UCU conference, no one applauded his speech!  Truly on a par with the  pogroms of Kishinev.  Perhaps he hadn’t thought of the more obvious explanation.

Sue also explained that from its very inception, many Jewish academics had given their support to the campaign to boycott Israeli universities and how, when Fraser launched his tribunal proceedings, paid for by the Israeli state and represented by Anthony Julius of Mishcon de Reya (whose main claim to fame was that he was the solicitor for the Princess Dianne trust fund – from which he trousered some £2m for professional services).

I spoke last and began by noting that when I had ‘come out’ as an anti-Zionist at the tender age of 16, there had been no role models.  There were virtually no Jewish anti-Zionists around and none that I knew.  Today, as this conference demonstrated, Jews in increasing numbers were rejecting Zionism and the racism and chauvinism it stood for.

Tony Greenstein - speaking in the last session

I paid tribute to Les Levidow, to an enthusiastic round of applause, for having taken on the thankless task of producing our pamphlet.  It should be invaluable.  Next time you are accused of ‘anti-Semitism’ you can cite Israel’s first Minister of Justice, Pinhas Rosenbluth, that Palestine is an ‘Institute for the Fumigation of Jewish Vermin’.  Only the Nazis and their ilk referred to Jews as ‘vermin’ but the Zionists shared the anti-Semitic idea that Jews were strangers in other peoples’ lands and had developed ‘asocial’ characteristics as a result of their ‘exile’.  I also pointed out that the main friends of Zionism today were the establishment and right-wing.  It is no accident that the English Defence League marches with Israeli flags, that Nick Griffin calls the BNP the most pro-Israeli political party and that most European far-right or fascist parties support Israel.  As we know, Andres Breivik, the fascist mass murderer from Norway, was a devoted supporter of Zionism and Israel.
In the evening we had a cabaret act from Melanie Philips aka our very own Debora Fink and then the noted Palestinian musician Reem Kilani performed as did other Palestinian artists.

Audience members dancing to the band

I also cited, in an earlier contribution, the fact that the Zionists, when faced with a choice of saving Jews or building a Jewish state had without hesitation opted for the latter.  Even Shabtai Teveth, the official biographer of David Ben-Gurion, Israel's first Prime Minister, had noted his complete indifference and worse to the holocaust.  He wrote in The Burning Ground 1886-1948 p. 851 that:
'If there was a line in Ben-Gurion's mind between the beneficial disaster and an all-destroying catastrophe, it must have been a very fine one.'  Ben-Gurion's whole philosophy had been to turn the disaster of the holocaust to 'positive' effect by erecting a 'Jewish' state.  Rescue was the last thing on his mind.  And if it be though that the first Prime Minister and Chair of the Jewish Agency was an aberration I referred to the President of the Zionist Organisation and first  President of the Israeli state, Chaim Weizmann, who remarked of William Evans-Gordon, who founded the British Brothers League, an anti-Semitic group dedicated to keeping the Jewish refugees from the pogroms out of Britain, that the Jews were sometimes hard on him!  [Trial & Error, Autobiography of Chaim Weizmann).

I also touched on the 'Zionisation' of the holocaust.  How according to Zionist ideologues like Anita Shapira, the 'Princess of Zionism', Jewish history could only be understood on 'national' ground.  So only Zionist historians based in Israel could understand the true meaning of the extermination of the Jews by the Nazis, even though it had taken place in Europe not Palestine.

Reem Kilani - the noted Palestinian musician - was abled to come at the last minute and perform

Leila contributes to debate

 Despite its ritual accusations of 'anti-Semitism' Zionism is and  remains a Jewish mirror image of anti-Semitism.

Moshe Machover, a founder of Matzpen, gave a very moving and inspiring tribute to his late comrade Akiva Orr, who died on February 9th 2013.  Akiva who had been born in Berlin in 1931 and come to Palestine in 1934, was the child on non-Zionist parents.  Akiva had served in the Israeli navy during the 1948 war but see little action but he had later joined the Merchant Navy and been one of the leaders of the 1950-1 Seaman's Strike in Israel when the Israeli navy was deployed to defeat the strikers.  Their enemy was Histadrut, which owned both the main shipping line (Zim) and was also the workers' trade union.  The strikers were castigated as no different from the fedayeen (guerillas).  Akiva became a noted speaker and authored 'The UnJewish State'.

Leila and Mad Mel P

In the evening we had a variety of entertainers including Mad Mel Phillips aka Deborah Fink, a Palestinian band and a guess appearance from Reem Kilani, the noted Palestinian singer songwriter.

Entertainment in the evening

Entertainment was provided in the evening by a band

A number of us retired at 7.30 to a nearby restaurant after a thoroughly enjoyable day.  On Sunday there was a second conference, organised by Glynn Secker, with people like Ilan Pappe and Moshe Machover speaking.

Tony Greenstein