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Here’s the full video of the BBC Panorama program on how British Muslim schools teach hatred towards Jews and gays.
H/T Elder of Ziyon:
A Guest Post by AKUS
Israeli NGOs horrified by the developing humanitarian crisis in Ireland have organized a flotilla called Viva Dublina. A spokesman for Viva Dublina said: “We are horrified by the developing humanitarian crisis in Ireland!” Viva Dublina has been loaned one of the world’s largest luxury cruise liners by an Israeli shipping mogul to act as a flotilla from Ashdod to Dublin. The mogul wrote a letter to Ha’aretz saying: “I am horrified by the developing humanitarian crisis in Ireland!” The ship will be used to return the useless junk and out of date medications sent on flotillas manned by anti-Israeli Irish activists that are currently clogging the warehouses in Ashdod after Hamas refused to accept the “donations”. Egypt has asked if the flotilla can stop in El Arish to take similar “donations” that are clogging the warehouses there. Egypt says it prefers to use its warehouses to store kassam rocket parts and Mercedes-Benz sedans for Hamas.
Approximately 800 foreign correspondents currently based in the King David Hotel in Jerusalem who are horrified by the developing humanitarian crisis in Ireland will be offered accommodation on board at special rates, tips included, for the cruise. The ship will be renamed “Danny Boy” for the trip. A 10 year-old Druze girl from Daliyat el-Carmel has said she hacked the ship’s IT system with a virus she calls “Sucksnet” and programmed the ship’s siren to play “When Irish Eyes are Smiling” in an effort to cheer the Irish up when the ship pulls into Dublin Harbor.
Turkey rejected a request to fly the Turkish flag and declared that the only flotillas it would recognize are those between Libya and the Turkish Republic of Cyprus. Turkey has offered to provide 25 IHH terrorists armed with various weapons to travel on the flotilla if Israel would agree to let them infiltrate Belfast after they arrive. Britain has asked Israel to send the Dubai hit team to Belfast to take care of this problem as international law does not prevent terrorists traveling the high seas to Ireland. Israel agreed provided that Britain provides 30 tennis rackets so the team would be cleverly disguised while wandering around the Grand Belfast Hotel. While inspecting oil-drilling sites on the Falkland Islands Britain’s Prime Minister said: “Ireland has been the world’s largest open air prison camp for centuries, and we intend to keep it that way!”
The flotilla will carry 10,000 balloons, 5,000 coloring books, 3,000 blue and white crayons and a textbook, in Hebrew, titled “Basic Economics – How to Keep your House in Order by not Poking your Nose into other Peoples’ Business” for the Irish Minister of Finance, who is known as the Pfoo-Yuk of the An Roinn Airgeadais. There are also cheerful drawings donated by Israeli children expressing solidarity with the starving children of Ireland. Israeli flags will be flown in ahead of the flotilla’s expected arrival date by El Al for the poor children of Dublin to wave as they line the port waiting for the ship to arrive.
Like this:
This is cross posted by Matthew Ackerman, a Middle East Analyst at The David Project
A characteristically inane argument in the Guardian yesterday by Victoria Brittain and Asim Qureshi tried to take to task Karima Bennoune for opposing the Center for Constitutional Right’s defense of Anwar al-Awlaki.
For those not keeping score, al-Awlaki is a Muslim with American citizenship who in recent years began preaching an increasingly radical version of Islam and moved to Yemen. In the past year, he has been cited as the inspiration for one successful and two near-miss acts of terrorism in the United States: the murder of 13 unarmed American soldiers in Fort Hood, Texas; the “underwear bomber” who tried to blow up an airplane during its descent into Detroit; and the unexploded car bomb left in Times Square in New York last spring. As is the case with al-Awlaki himself, two of the perpetrators in these cases are American citizens and all are fluent in English with easier access to the United States than most. All of this led the Obama administration to conclude that al-Awlaki was a legitimate target to be killed if he could not be captured, much in the same way we think of Osama bin Laden.
The offending column in the Guardian complains that Bennoune – in opposing support for al-Awlaki and criticizing “human rights” organizations for their inability to put these kinds of cases into the context of the wider Islamist movement at the same time that she opposes extra-judicial killings as illegal – isn’t being consistent. That is, extrajudicial killing is illegal, therefore it must be opposed in all cases.
It is not worth the time to dissect their arguments, because they don’t make one. They just state again and again that the act is illegal, that the act can only be sanctioned by a court, that Seton Hall law school says the people in Guantanamo are all good guys… And on and on.
It’s easy to see why Brittain and Qureshi think they don’t have to prove that the order by an American president to kill an individual directly implicated in a spate of terror attacks in the United States is “illegal” because, well, everyone knows that. Just read the papers! All you need to do is put the war on terror inside scare quotes and the case is obviously settled. No need to, you know, have some kind of legislative process where this thing is settled. Best if all of us little people leave those difficult matters to the trained professionals.
The disgusting stuff, as opposed to the merely disturbing, doesn’t come until toward the end, when after proving to their own satisfaction that al-Awlaki’s “persecution” is the cause of all that wishing for the death of infidels, Brittain and Qureshi move on to what should be done. Because, really, since al-Awlaki’s murderous desires are no more than the natural frustrations of Muslims subjected to the horrors of the “war on terror,” he, and others like him, just need to be “enfranchised.” Problem solved.
Like this:
Yesterday, in the neighbourhood of Jabel Mukaber in Jerusalem, a court order to evict squatters who had taken over a house was carried out. Such events of course take place every day, all over the world, and rarely make the headlines as international news. But in this case the house in question had been found, after a lengthy legal process, to belong to Jews, the squatters happened to be Arabs and the event took place in a city which many foreign commentators appear to believe that modern egalitarian principles opposing racist differentiation should not apply.
The Guardian’s Jerusalem correspondent, Harriet Sherwood, was quick to arrive on the scene and file her report of the events in which nameless, faceless Jews are described only in one form of terminology.
“Jewish settlers today moved into a house in East Jerusalem …”
“The move will dismay US officials who are striving to discourage settler activity in East Jerusalem ….”
“….Jabel Mukaber, a new target for ideologically driven settler activists…”
(My emphasis)
The question which springs to mind, of course, is how would Harriet Sherwood describe an Arab family who bought a house and moved into a predominantly Jewish neighborhood of Jerusalem? Would they be described as ‘settlers’ too?
Earlier today I spoke to Mr. Yair Gabai, a member of the Jerusalem City Council, who pointed out that the number of Arab families living in mainly Jewish areas of the city is actually considerably greater than the number of Jewish families living in predominantly Arab neighborhoods of Jerusalem.
This is cross posted from Honest Reporting
Does The Guardian buy into Palestinian claims that Israel and the Jewish people have no spiritual or historical connection to the Western Wall and the Temple Mount?
An official paper published Monday by the Palestinian Authority Ministry of Information in Ramallah, claiming that the Western Wall belongs to Muslims and is an integral part of Al-Aqsa Mosque and Haram al-Sharif (the Islamic term for the Temple Mount complex, meaning the Noble Sanctuary) barely deserves a response.
Other than to demonstrate just how low the PA is prepared to go to delegitimize Israel and the Jewish people’s connection to Jerusalem, perhaps it indicates to those who believe that settlements represent the biggest obstacle to peace, that the real obstacles are far more deep-rooted and existential.
So far, the UK media has not given this “study” the credibility that the oxygen of publicity brings with it. At some point, professional journalists need to ask themselves whether reporting the equivalent of “flat earth” theories should even be on the news agenda.
Unfortunately, either through gross ignorance or a penchant for unquestioningly accepting the Palestinian narrative, The Guardian’s Harriet Sherwood contributes to the Palestinian delegitimization Jewish history and ties to Jerusalem.
Writing about Palestinian protests over a multi-million pound development of facilities in the area of the Western Wall, described as a “major tourist site in occupied East Jerusalem”, Sherwood refers to the Western Wall as “Judaism’s most holy site“.
Wrong.
James Denselow’s CiF piece on Nov. 20, “Lebanon: justice at what cost?“, pertained to the possible indictments against Hezbollah members for the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minster, Rafik Hariri.
Refreshingly, Denselow, unlike so many other CiF writers, didn’t reveal an obsession with Israel – never once mentioning the Jewish state in his 769 word essay. Indeed, anyone paying attention knows that the case against Hezbollah is extremely strong.
However, I put the reader comments, beneath the column, in a software program that creates an image with each word sized according to the frequency in which its used. Here’s what was produced.
Apparently, CiF moderators’ efforts to prevent the comment threads from veering off-topic still aren’t very effective, to say the least.
A recently released Israel Project poll, gauging Palestinian public opinion, is yet another indication that the Palestinians haven’t reconciled themselves with the idea of living in peace with a Jewish state, regardless of the borders.
H/T Elder of Ziyon
In “The Guardian has a problem with Photographs“, (CiF Watch, Aug. 8), Akus cited several examples of Guardian photos being used which either were misleading, inflammatory, and/or downright dishonest (one photo of Gaza used in a 2010 article by Laila El-Haddad, to reinforce the essay’s suggestion that Gaza was “worse than a prison camp“, below, was actually a shot taken back in 2005, before Israel’s withdrawal. Subsequent criticism resulted in the Guardian removing the photo.)
Here is Harriet Sherwood’s recent dispatch about Israeli legislation which requires a national referendum before any decision to withdraw from Golan.
Of all the photographs to use, Guardian editors chose one from Ghajar at an angle showing the IDF soldier’s weapon pointed at a Palestinian child.
Can anyone seriously claim that the angle of the weapon in relation to the child is merely a coincidence? Can someone truly argue, with a straight face, that the juxtaposition may not have been noticed by Guardian editors when making the decision to use this photograph?
For anyone even faintly familiar with the Guardian’s relentless demonization of Israel, the answer should be obvious.
Ahmed Moor
As anyone who has spent time in or seriously studied the Middle East and the Arab world knows, the default option for many a political leader or struggling dictator in that region when the going gets tough is to kick the Zionist cat.
Rising opposition from within? The Zionists must be behind it. Economy going off the rails? The Israelis are of course to blame. Indeed more or less anything can be attributed to the Jews, often in a manner which would not seem out-of-place in a Monty Python sketch, because the conspiracy theories about them have been cultivated for so long that they have become part of the region’s folklore and mindset.
So when self-declared anti-Zionist, one-stater, promoter of apartheid analogies and would-be dismantler of the Palestinian Authority Ahmed Moor appears on the pages of CiF America promoting Jewish/Zionist conspiracy theories, we can be sure that here is one American who has well and truly imbibed the culture surrounding him in his chosen new home in Beirut.
According to Moor, both the Israeli government and pro-Israel American Jewish organisations are leaning heavily on the US administration to confront Iran, if not directly then by way of its proxy in Lebanon, Hizbollah.
“Josh Block – a former spokesman for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (Aipac) – recently argued that President Obama ought to confront Hezbollah in Lebanon in order to confront Iran.”
“Only last week, Israel’s Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu flew across the Atlantic to ask Vice President Joseph Biden to launch a war against Iran on Israel’s behalf.”
“The pro-Israel lobby is aware that America is too over-committed to attack Iran. But America is evidently capable of taking on Hezbollah, an Iranian ally”
In actual fact Josh Block seemed to be arguing in favor of strengthening and supporting the Lebanese people who do not want their country taken over by proxies of a theocratic dictatorship – the link in Moor’s article is broken – see here. The Lebanese are of course not the only ones in the region concerned about Iran’s growing influence on the area and the possibility of its gaining an upper hand in the Middle East power struggle; there are several Arab countries who have no less interest than either Lebanon or Israel in containing the neighborhood bully before it is too late to prevent yet more violence. Moor completely ignores the bigger regional picture, however, in favor of a trite kick to the local cat; Israel.
This is cross posted from Elder of Ziyon
Here is the report I received back from the person who attended the lunch with John Ging, Gaza UNRWA chief, where I hoped he would answer some real questions:
He had just said that half-truths dominate the discourse on the conflict, and he then proceeded to quote a poll from some agency saying Palestinians support a two-state solution, and one person challenged him by saying that other polls show the exact opposite (e.g. historic palestine, unwilling to comprise on major issues etc.). His response, in part (and I’m not joking), was that Palestinians love Israel, even in Gaza, because they buy Israeli goods rather than Egyptian ones.
I, in turn, asked him, “By your logic, does that mean that Palestinians love settlements because they choose to build them.” I admitted to being facetious but he took the point well.
I then asked about his support for the flotilla, which he answered by saying he was misquoted because it was originally in Norwegian (he used this excuse several times).
When asked about James Lindsay’s critique of UNRWA, he dismissed the whole content by saying (1) Lindsay never raised those concerns during his employment, (2) there is an American auditing service to ensure accountability, and (3) the list of UNRWA employees are always cleared with Israel.
Someone asked him about the unique definition of Palestinian refugee, and he again said this is a popular myth, and that the definition was “identical” to the UNHRC one, which is clearly false.
The whole thing was actually interesting but he was a politician, unafraid to lie, plain and simple.
Indeed, he is.
Regular readers of The Guardian and CiF will no doubt have noticed both the somewhat disproportionate (to take a word out of the Guardian’s dictionary) number of anti-Israel letters published on the letters page and the fact that a significant number of those letters are signed by members of a certain group of people known for their associations with the BDS and other anti-Israel campaigns.
In order to check whether my initial impression of lack of balance was justified, I decided to take a look at the letters printed over the last six weeks in order to assess the ratio between the space provided to those intent on undermining Israel’s legitimacy, and those seeking the right of reply. During that period of time, seven anti-Israel letters were published compared to one letter of reply in defence of Israel.
A letter stating that “The JNF is actively complicit in the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians”, signed by:
Tony Greenstein (founding member of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, Jews for Boycotting Israeli Goods and of course, sometime CiF contributor.)
Naomi Wimborne-Idrissi (yet another member of Jews for Boycotting Israeli Goods, a member of Jews for Justice for Palestinians and an occasional CiF contributor.)
Emeritus Professor Moshe Machover (a founding member of ‘Matzpen’, virulent anti-Zionist and apologist for suicide bombers. )
Michael Mansfield QC (an English Barrister who supports the Muslim Brotherhood lead ‘Free Gaza’ campaign.)
Dr Chris Burns Cox (advocater of BDS –on all goods from Israel. )
Professor David Pegg, (of York Palestine Solidarity Campaign.)
Leon Rosselson (one-stater and longtime advocator of a cultural boycott against Israel.)
Dr Sue Blackwell (a major promoter of academic boycott against Israel.)
Pete Firmin, (apparently goes in for something called ‘Organised Rage’.)
Abe Hayeem (CiF contributor, supporter of boycotts against Israel and member of ‘Architects and Planners for Justice in Palestine’.)
Professor Myriam Salama-Carr, (yet another supporter of academic boycotts against Israel.)
Dr Rumy Hasan (CiF contributor and promoter of the concept of Israel as an apartheid state.)
Roland Rance (member of ‘Jews against Zionism’)
Dr Monica Wusterman (York Palestine Solidarity Campaign.)
Deborah Fink (of ‘Just Peace UK’ and anti-Israeli Christmas carols fame.)
Jackie Alsaid (member of ‘Britain to Gaza’ and PSC supporter.)
Ken Baker (St Jerome Publishing and supporter of cultural boycotts on Israel.)
Professor Mona Baker (promoter of academic boycott against Israel and Israelis.)
David Bangs
Dr Judith Brown (Arab Media Watch advisor.)
Ruth Clark (Jews for Justice for Palestinians.)
Adam Darwish
James Dickins (supporter of BRICUP initiative to boycott ‘Israel Science Days’.)
Greg Dropkin (Liverpool based anti-Israel activist and member of ‘Gaza Freedom March’.)
Jackie Fearnley (supporter of Vanunu and objector to the BBC’s Mavi Marmara documentary.)
Alf Filer (Socialist Resistance.)
Naomi Foyle (Brighton Palestine Solidarity Campaign and ‘British Writers in Support of Palestine’.)
Kenny Fryde (PSC)
Terry Gallogly (York PSC and apparent would-be poll rigger.)
Anne Gray (Green Party candidate and supporter of PSC.)
Cliff Hanley (passenger aboard the Mavi Marmara as part of the Muslim Brotherhood organized flotilla.)
Rosamine Hayeem (JfJfP and anti-Israel boycott supporter.)
Bob Jarrett
Ros Levy
Kevin Moore (advocator of a boycott on all Israeli goods.)
Beryl Maizells
Zoe Mars (Chair, Brighton & Hove Palestine Solidarity Campaign)
John Metson (Durham PSC)
Safiya O’Donnell (representative for ‘Islamic Relief Worldwide; an organization with suspected links to Hamas.)
Nicola Ostreicher
Ernesto Paramo (‘Free Gaza’ – Hamas linked)
Dinah Rahman
Roger Reeve
Professor Dee Reynolds (supporter of BDS.)
Michael Sackin (JfJfP)
Miriam Scharf ( East London NUT, PSC, Hamas supporter.)
Michael Shanahan (apparently a fixture outside the Ahava London shop.)
Ruth Tenne (Israeli ‘Human Rights Activist’, JfJFP and BDS activist.)
Yvette Vanson
CiF Culture published an article by Paul Harris on November 14th on the subject of the controversy surrounding the award of an honorary Oscar to Jean Luc Godard due to what some perceive as the ageing director’s anti-Semitic opinions.
Is Godard an anti-Semite or just something in the style of that embarrassing, cantankerous old relative whose views on the world were formed in an era very different to the present and whom we all occasionally encounter at family get-togethers? I don’t know, and to be honest I’m not sure that it is important, although Godard’s own reaction to the recent accusations of anti-Semitism do suggest a rather fossilised mindset perhaps not entirely unexpected from someone who spent most of their long life committed to the totalitarian religions of Maoism and Marxism.
“That’s nonsense! What does ‘anti-Semite’ mean? All peoples of the Mediterranean were Semites. So anti-Semite means anti-Mediterranean. The expression was only applied to Jews after the Holocaust and WWII. It is inexact and means nothing.”
In addition, Monsieur Godard may also care to ponder the fact that if one finds oneself being defended by Philip Weiss, that may well be an indication that a review of one’s position is clearly necessary.
Even so, the Academy’s decision to honour Godard’s work is based on professional criteria and whilst the ‘Nouvelle Vague’ did little to impress me personally, such is the case with the majority of other Oscar recipients too. Does it in fact matter? When all’s said and done, the Oscars are of no consequence in the general scheme of things, being little more than an introspective exercise in extravagant mutual self-congratulation within the privileged confines of a closed club. And the fact is that even racists can produce good art, literature or music and boycotting someone’s achievements or creations because of unconnected opinions or beliefs, whilst eminently fashionable in the politically correct world in which we live, is undoubtedly a double-edged sword, as many a Zionist in the European academia, arts and media world is well aware.
A Guest post by AKUS
The November 10th article by Seamus Milne of the Guardian, in a style reminiscent of a 1930’s Communist anticipating the inevitable triumph of the proletariat led by Comrade Stalin, offered Guardianistas the unlikely following prediction: The Palestinians of Israel are poised to take centre stage. The article included the obligatory example of swaggering Israelis abusing an aged Arab woman while the Guardian’s man in Jerusalem looked on helplessly, followed by a dreary rehash of Israel’s sins. These seemed principally to comprise its determination to evict squatters from property to which they have no title. From there, it was but a short leap to a hint that the triumphant taking back of the State of Israel by “the Palestinians of Israel” is at hand.
As every poll of Israel’s Arab communities has shown, when offered the opportunity to agree to some land swaps so that they could join their “Palestinian brothers” across the Green Line, Arab citizens of Israel have made it clear that they will not accept any such arrangement. In fact, it has been widely reported that Arabs from the West Bank have been buying property in Israel so that, when the day comes, they can become Israeli citizens. Far from occupying “center stage”, the vast majority probably heave a sigh of relief every time the “peace talks” enter yet another hiatus, the issue is once again shelved, and they can quietly go back to living their lives.
We had not seen Milne on the topic of the Middle East since, I think, the obligatory contribution to the attack on Israel during Cast Lead. I wondered where he suddenly developed his remarkable insights into the psyche, politics, and future of Arab Israelis. The Internet, the Great Giver, provided us with a set of pictures at MEMO, the UK’s Islamic “Middle East Monitor”, that prominently feature Milne. They appeared in an article under the headline Delegation of Islamic deputies meets with British parliamentarians. The article noted that “The British delegation included a number of [unnamed] journalists, parliamentarians and members of the British Labour Party.” Since all the people on the other side of the table were named as West Bank Arabs, it appears we may be viewing the entire “Delegation” in the picture below. Front and center is Milne, among the members of the delegation:
On Nov. 19 I wrote about Harriet Sherwood’s recent report from the village of Ghajar, mentioning the succinct analysis of her article by ‘Just Journalism’.
Well, it seems that the folks at ‘Just Journalism’ are not the types to let the grass grow under their feet and so they contacted Sherwood in order to get some kind of clarification. So far, no answers from Sherwood or anyone else at the Guardian appear to be forthcoming. You can read all about it here .
Now, all this has had me thinking. As readers know, I was in Ghajar ten days ago when the IDF permitted a limited number of journalists and bloggers to enter the village for a limited amount of time. These events are quite rare; I know of journalists who have tried several times to gain access to Ghajar unsuccessfully. Seeing as the village is situated in a difficult region and the security risks are high, it is not a place into which one can wander at will.
I didn’t see Harriet Sherwood among the couple of dozen or so journalists in Ghajar that day. That, of course, doesn’t mean that she wasn’t there; to be honest, after the initial 15 minute or so meeting with the village spokesman, I preferred to use the remaining allotted time to go off on my own and speak to as many people as possible rather than stay with the herd. But would Sherwood really have waited an entire week to file her report if she had been there that day? And would she have completely disregarded the words of the village council’s spokesman who was not mentioned at all in her article?
Alternatively, was the IDF spokesperson’s unit so generous as to arrange yet another visit for journalists to Ghajar just a week after the previous one, with all the associated hassle of advance security checks, co-ordination with UNIFIL and added security measures involving extra personnel? If so; good on them.
Or does, in fact, “Harriet Sherwood in Ghajar” as written at the head of the article actually mean “Harriet Sherwood at the checkpoint just outside Ghajar, talking to villagers going in and out”? And does that go some way to explaining why her article is illustrated by a picture taken outside the village and why she jumped so rapidly on the ‘Berlin Wall’ theme, having not seen for herself that in fact there exists no such barrier inside the actual village?
Unless Sherwood starts answering her e-mails, I guess we’ll never know.
UPDATE on November 23: While CiF Watch was primarily concerned with the content of Harriet Sherwood’s reporting (her absurd Berlin Wall analogy), rather than the narrower question of whether she was actually reporting from inside Ghajar, we have confirmed, through a reliable source, her presence in city.
Hawkeye
Omar2
WellofSense
Medusa
The Alchemist
Louise
Tosca
Maimon
Telling the Truth
Israelinurse
Adam Levick
Margie in Tel Aviv
Guest/Cross Post
Hadar Sela
What the Guardian won’t report: Mahmoud Abbas praises late Mufti of Jerusalem who collaborated with Hitler
November 24, 2010 in Uncategorized | Tags: Comment is Free, Double Standards, Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Guardian, Haj Mohammed Amin al-Husseini, Mahmoud Abbas | by Adam Levick | 6 comments
Per Elder of Ziyon:
In a recent speech (in Arabic, but you can use Google translate to verify), Mahmoud Abbas said,
As Elder noted:
See more on the Mufti’s relationship with Hitler, here.
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