You are currently browsing Medusa’s articles.
H/T Yochanan Visser, of the organization, Missing Peace, for the Dutch translation.
Phyllis Chesler tells us of the typically outrageous lies and doublespeak of the antisemitic Israel-hater, Gretta Duisenberg. Duisenberg is the widow of Wim Duisenberg, the former President of the European Bank, the darling of Yasser Arafat and of the Free Gaza Movement, and chairwoman of a pro-Palestine committee “Stop the Occupation”. Prof Chesler tells us that Duisenberg, in an act which almost beggars belief, has proceeded to sue the Iranian-Dutch professor of philosophy and jurisprudence, Afshin Ellian, for calling her an “anti-Semite.” Duisenberg seems to have forgotten that she proudly defines herself as an “anti-Semite.”
In response to an article by Leon de Winter writing in Dutch in Elsevier, Abigail Esman writes:
“I invite all readers to support journalistic freedom and freedom of expression by writing ‘I, too, think Gretta Duisenberg is an anti-Semite.’”
I would not expect any reader to accept that statement purely on my say so. I propose, therefore, to define Duisenberg’s behaviour in terms of the Working Definition of Anti-Semitism formulated by EUMC, [although the EUMC has since been succeeded by the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA)]. I believe that it is fair to say that Duisenberg’s behaviour falls into almost every category of antisemitism in the working definition, but to list all the evidence here would be time and space-consuming. I shall concentrate therefore on the more florid and blatant examples, and an internet search about Duisenberg will almost certainly provide the reader with even more information. Among the Working Definition’s specific examples of antisemitism are:
Calling for, aiding, or justifying the killing or harming of Jews in the name of a radical ideology or an extremist view of religion.
Duisenberg is a supporter of extremist Islam, and formerly of the PLO and Hamas whose nihilistic antisemitism is evident in its Charter and has been proven by its murderous behaviour again and again. In 2003 Duisenberg organised and spoke at pro Palestinian rally at which donations were collected for the Al Aqsa funds which supports the families of suicide bombers. She also did not protest against the chanting of Hamas supporters around her of “Hamas, Hamas, Jews to the gas!”
Making mendacious, dehumanizing, demonizing, or stereotypical allegations about Jews as such or the power of Jews as collective — such as, especially but not exclusively, the myth about a world Jewish conspiracy or of Jews controlling the media, economy, government or other societal institutions.
After the 2003 rally, Duisenberg draped a PLO flag from the balcony of her home in Amsterdam. When requested by her Jewish neighbours to take it down, they were told; “It’s the rich American Jews who make it possible for Israel to do what they are doing to the Palestinians”. More recently, in January 2010, Duisenberg added to this calumny by engaging in the too-ready conflation of Zionism with Judaism, invariably the hallmark of the antisemite who is trying to pass. See also Duisenberg’s answer in an interview in the Dutch magazine Keuzevrijheid :
“… These are the tactics of the Jewish lobby. By calling me an antisemite I will not be able to criticise the Zionist regime…”
Dear Just Peace for Palestine,
I have just visited your web page, and I note the following from it:
“What we stand for
“Our vision… “We are committed to a just peace for Palestine that affirms the dignity of the Palestinian people, in accordance with their civil, political and human rights under international law.
“The current treatment of Palestinians denies their basic rights and therefore does not offer any hope of a lasting peace.
“We affirm that a just peace for Palestinians will also mean peace and security for Israelis.
“We reject all forms of racism that treats any group as ‘lesser’ or inferior. (emphasis mine)
“Though religion can be a source of division and conflict, Jews, Christians and Muslims – as well as those of other faiths or none – can share a common commitment to ‘Doing unto others as you would have them do to you’. Whether from a faith group or not, we affirm this as a good foundation for going forward.
“We recognise the history of the suffering of the Jewish community through the centuries and particularly the horror of the Holocaust. We affirm our rejection of anti-Semitism as we commit ourselves to justice for the Palestinians.”
This is all very well, but I note that you don’t actually define what you mean by “just” (which is, after all, a value judgement on your part), nor do you mention, much less condemn, the suicide and other terror by Palestinians against their Israeli neighbours, Jewish and Muslim. That being the case, I would venture to suggest that your “vision” is a blinkered and highly selective one and that your declaration above, that you reject all forms of racism, is disingenuous if not downright dishonest.
It follows that a group such as yours which, as you would have us believe, rejects all forms of racism, ought to think very carefully indeed before it lists among its workers or supporters people whose behaviour shows an outright rejection of this central tenet. One such group, Jews for Justice for Palestinians, goes out of its way to delegitimise the existence of Israel as a homeland for the Jewish people. You also list the Friends of Sabeel among your supporters. Knowledgeable people are fully aware that Sabeel promotes revisionist theology which tries to sever the relationship between the Jewish people and their homeland in Israel. It deliberately tries to obscure the fact that there has been a continuous Jewish presence in what is now Israel since before the time of Jesus or Muhammed, and its founder, Naim Ateek, makes excuses for suicide terror. In a bizarre article he recast Samson of the Old Testament as an Israelite “suicide bomber.” In his 2000 Easter message, in a scurrilous reworking of the antisemitic trope that the Jews are responsible for the death of Jesus, Ateek depicted Israel as killing Jesus again, by “crucifying” the Palestinian people. Your publicising your connection with these groups, without any caveats, show you to be at least lacking in awareness of how your message will be received. The general public, who have no axe to grind, may be forgiven if they assume you to be cynically manipulative and hypocritical as well.
All of which begs the question of what your agenda really is, other than to add more hatred to the world. Sensible, open-minded people have no need for another blog which excoriates Israel and ignores or excuses the excesses and murderous intent towards Israel of her Arab neighbours. “Christian” groups which align themselves with such a body betray the teachings of their faith and the attitudes of those you list are truly appalling. True, you do mention peace for Israel, but your banner headline adds it almost as an afterthought and you say nothing whatsoever about what would be the Palestinians’ responsibilities (ie ending of terror attacks and hate speech in their media) toward bringing such a peace about.
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) claims to be impartial in its attitude towards Israel but it has not been slow to condemn Israel for alleged human rights abuses while singularly failing to mention continued breaches of the human rights of the Palestinians in Gaza by their own government, Hamas (see also here , here and here).
The ICRC has been tasked, so far without any success, with trying to communicate with Gilad Shalit, the young Israeli kidnapped over four years ago in a cross-border raid by Hamas, held incommunicado and in solitary confinement in contravention of the Geneva Conventions, and without access to medical aid. He was only 19 years of age when he was captured and was last heard from a year ago. Most recently Hamas published an animated video on YouTube, after threats to kill Gilad Shalit unless the Israeli government meets its demands, at the end of which the viewer is led to believe that Gilad has been executed. This is yet more evidence, if any were needed after the murders of four Israeli civilians in the West Bank, of Hamas’ utter depravity and total disregard for human decency.
The first sentence of the ICRC’s mission statement states unequivocally:
“The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) is an impartial, neutral and independent organization whose exclusively humanitarian mission is to protect the lives and dignity of victims of armed conflict and other situations of violence and to provide them with assistance.”
How strange, then, to find that the ICRC is openly giving aid and shelter to three wanted Hamas fugitives, hardly victims, in the Sheikh Jarrakh building in East Jerusalem! Apparently, they had requested “protection” and got it, although the ICRC spokeswoman, Dorothea Krimitsas, said that she had told them that the ICRC could not prevent Israeli authorities taking action against them.
This seems to be a surreal reworking of the medieval law of sanctuary whereby a wrongdoer who fled to a church was granted protection from forcible removal as well as immunity from capital or corporal punishment.
Sheikh Jarrakh however is not a church, and although Hamas is welded to its medieval supremacist ideology, Israel’s justice system is, thankfully, firmly rooted in the 21st century.
Having said that, Israel’s intention remains similar to those who waited outside churches for murderers to try to leave. Feted they may be by the likes of Uri Avnery and others of the extreme left in Israel for whom they hold court, but the Israeli police remain outside to arrest “the Hamas Three” should they try to leave.
The three have been inside Sheikh Jarrakh since 30th June so unless the other occupiers have pegs on their noses, the saying attributed to Benjamin Franklin, that “fish and house guests begin to smell after three days,” obviously does not apply literally to them. I do wonder, though, for how long they can tough this out, and for how long the ICRC will be prepared to compromise their alleged neutrality by continuing to aid and abet members of a terrorist organisation.
I recently rediscovered the following, an Editorial in “The Times”, dated 15th March 2001, and I reproduce it below in its entirety. The quality of the writing and its honesty seem to me to have come from a bygone age of reportage, one in which intelligent journalists wrote without hyperbole or bias and in thought-provoking ways about issues which concerned us all.
Most saddening, as I reread it and reproduced it here, is the realisation that little has changed for the Palestinian people whose leadership still uses them and gets them killed to make political points, that indeed much has worsened, but that very few journalists have the moral courage any longer to tell us the truth about why that is. Nowadays Ashrawi’s “crude forgery” below would not be questioned, but promulgated across the media and the internet as an honest account of what was “really happening.” And Palestinian children, always vulnerable, are even more brutalised and deliberately brainwashed by Palestinian leaders:
“Arafat’s Children: Protests at last from the weak who protect the strong”:
“Stone-throwing, flag-waving Palestinian youths ripped through the town of Ramallah yesterday in the first of two “days of rage” declared by Yassir Arafat’s Fatah organisation. It will have been no trouble to recruit this rent-a-mob; there is rage to spare, after nearly six months of futile battling against the Israeli occupation. But rage, the most nihilistic of impulses, has done nothing but harm to the Palestinians.
“A few powerless people, as they mourn children killed in the crossfire or pushed, like human shields, ahead of rioters attacking Israeli troops, are beginning to whisper the truth – that they are being deliberately exposed to danger and death, exploited by their own side’s gunmen. As The Times reported yesterday from El Bireh, the Palestinian area where people’s flats are daily used by snipers attacking a nearby Jewish settlement, locals have appealed to gunmen not to expose their families to returning fire. For response, they get official banners proclaiming their dead infants as martyrs. They too hate Israel. But they do not want to be martyrs to an unending, unwinnable confrontation. They want to be left alone.
From the London Evening Standard of Wednesday, 25th August 2010 – another example of “If you can’t get the true story, make it up.”
This story appeared under the headline, “Schoolboy joke means red faces at the Guardian“ and centred on the Guardian’s usual mindless cranking up imaginary discontents – in this case the alleged north/south divide in educational opportunity in the UK:
It claims that class war is alive and well, “In the 20 years since George Osborne sat his A-levels at St Paul’s little has changed at the elite boys’ school. Its lush grounds are still spread across 45 acres of prime riverside land in south-west London, and the pupils still justify their fees (£17,000 a year) with superlative exam results…”
However, the unfortunately named Helen Pidd (I had never heard of her either) was sent to interview students who had come to the school to collect their A-level results. Pidd then wrote an article tying in Chancellor George Osborne into the north/south divide in educational standards. She had her aim in mind, now all she had to do was to bend the “evidence” to fit it:
Pidd quoted in her article one “Joe Bibby” who, she was told, had received five A* (A stars) at A-level and contrasted him with a Grimsby photographer who had struggled to gain pass marks in Maths and English at GSCE level. In the Guardian video of results day, “Joe Bibby” reveals to Pidd that he has a three A* offer to study at university.
However, Pidd had been well and truly, and deliberately, hoodwinked. “Joe Bibby” does not exist – as a pupil. He had been working over the summer at St Paul’s on school maintenance.
Red faces all around at the Guardian.
It seems that the Guardian just can’t get intelligent staff these days or, at the very least, staff who research a story fully before it goes to print?
Then again, why break the habits of Rusbridger’s lifetime?
We hear much from the Palestinian spokesmen and their Arab and other supporters about their right to return to what is now Israel, and their demands for compensation for Israel’s alleged displacement of them, but woefully little by comparison about the atrocities perpetrated against Jews from Arab countries, who lived (and in some cases still live) as second-class citizens or dhimmis, at the mercy of the Arab/Muslim governments throughout the Middle East (see also here in respect of the Jews of the Yemen). Lynn Julius, using the ready overidentification of CiF with its Palestinian focus, wrote about the plight of Jews from Arab lands on CiF and called their treatment in Arab/Muslim countries the Jewish Nakba .
She tells us that ethnic cleansing of Jews from Arab countries began when the Arab League, then comprised of Egypt, Iraq, Trans Jordan (or Jordan), Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Syria, and Yemen, contemplated passing a law in November 1947 which would brand all their Jews, some of whom had been resident in their respective countries for many generations, as “enemy aliens.” Their governments’ attitude to and treatment of them was not therefore a reaction to the declaration of independence of the Jewish state and although the “enemy aliens” law was contemplated, it was enacted in their behaviour towards their Jews.
Lynn Julius tells us that
“The Jewish “Nakba” – Arabic for “catastrophe” – not only emptied cities like Baghdad (a third Jewish); it tore apart the cultural, social and economic fabric in Arab lands. Jews lost homes, synagogues, hospitals, schools, shrines and deeded land five times the size of Israel. Their ancient heritage – predating Islam by 1,000 years – was destroyed.”
It suits the anti-Zionists to ignore this ethnic cleansing in their gadarene rush to accuse Israel of the ethnic cleansing of its Arab population, often without foundation. I shall focus on the circumstances of Iraqi Jews, for reasons which I will explain later, but their circumstances may be said to be typical of all Jews who found themselves in Muslim countries:
Chris Elliott has drawn the short straw and is consequently the Guardian’s latest readers’ editor. Suffice it to say that if his conduct in this office is as confused and confusing as the article he wrote upon taking his new post then the Guardian and its readers are in real trouble. Anyone making a complaint to the reader’s editor should not hold his or her breath for a prompt and thorough response, or indeed a response at all. (This, of course, is nothing new. Dr Denis MacEoin wrote an excellent, erudite and reasoned letter to Elisabeth Ribbans, the former Managing Editor of the Guardian, about its unconscionable misrepresentation of facts in respect of Israel. She did not deign to reply).
I said “confused and confusing” and I meant every word, because Chris Elliott’s perception of what his new position at the Guardian should properly entail is light years away from the facts on the ground.
I said “facts” deliberately too, and before I return to the content of this bizarre article, it may be useful to offer agreed and objective definitions of (rather than the Guardianspeak for) some of the terms Elliott uses:
Fact – “something known to be true; truth or reality of something; actual course of events” (source: Microsoft Word online dictionary);
Principles – “Principle – a standard of moral or ethical decision-making” (Source: Microsoft Word online dictionary)
The Guardian shows itself at its hyperbolic worst when it warns (or, threatens) that the Israeli Knesset’s treatment of Haneen Zoabi, a Knesset Member who joined the Gaza flotilla, “could ignite a third intifada.”
To remind the reader, Zoabi is the Israeli MK who voluntarily joined the Gaza “aid” flotilla, thus choosing to associate herself with IHH – a group with a radical Islamic anti-Western orientation, and one which supports Hamas and, at least in the past, even global jihad elements.
It is safe to say that many other nations would have charged Zoabi with treason for openly aiding and abetting their enemies. However, as a citizen of the democratic Israeli state, Zoabi kept her seat in the Knesset and was merely stripped of three parliamentary privileges– a fact that didn’t stop The Guardian from framing the issue as “symptomatic of a broader campaign to undermine [the Arab] community.”
The Guardian uncritically quotes Zoabi: “We accepted a democratic, liberal state, we voted for the Knesset. But …we are the litmus test of the whole problem. If Israel does not recognise this, conditions will deteriorate towards a third intifada.”
Yet, in the next sentence, we are told that Zoabi rejects any suggestion that Israel’s Arab citizens supported violence and that she opposes the suggestion by jailed Hamas leader Mohammed Arman, in a book smuggled out of his Israeli jail, that the role of Palestinian citizens of Israel would be to “harass the occupiers, disrupt their daily routine and undermine their confidence”.
Also, in a classic example of The Guardian’s mote-and-beamery, the article uncritically repeats Zoabi’s charge that Israel’s democratic legislature, where she (to this day) reserves the right to participate in votes on every serious issue facing the nation, is itself “anti-democratic.” Naturally, the Guardian carefully ignores the inherent contradiction of Zoabi’s stance – her criticism of Israel’s democracy in the context of the inherently totalitarian and theocratic (not to mention, misogynistic) orientation of the Islamist groups which she tacitly endorsed by her involvement with the flotilla.
Guardian readers are coolly, and quite nonchalantly, informed of Zoabi’s accusation – or, it would seem, “professional diagnosis” – that Israel suffers from “collective psychosis” and that the Israeli “regime….trades on fear and paranoia.”
Of course, characterizing a citizen who openly identifies and cooperates with the enemies of her own state into a victim of discrimination – and hyperbolically repeating irresponsible and dangerous threats of an impending violent uprising would seem pretty consistent with an institution which trades “on fear and paranoia.”
I have never heard of Marie Dhumières but her recent piece contains boilerplate CiF tropes about the root cause of the West’s conflict with radical Islam, and I suspect we’ll be hearing more from her.
We are informed by Ms. Dhumières that her column was inspired by her curiosity regarding the English translations used in film about the Israeli attacks on Gaza in Cast Lead.
The film Ms. Dhumières refers to is called “To Shoot an Elephant,” and was produced by what was clearly a journalistic dream team – which consisted of members of the Free Gaza Movement and “activists” from the International Solidarity Movement.
Dhumières reflects: “I couldn’t help thinking that, when translated literally into English, [certain] expressions [heard in the film make Arabs sound] like fundamentalists – in the eyes of those who have a tendency to jump to quick conclusions…”
Such suggestions, that the West is too quick to jump to conclusions based on an inadequate understanding of the cultural context, or poor translation, brought to mind this report from Harry’s Place, about abuse hurled at Danny Ayalon, the then Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister, by a Muslim student at Oxford University.
According to the Muslim student, Mr Ayalon misconstrued what he meant. Although Mr Ayalon heard ”Itbah al Yahud” (slaughter the Jews) shouted at him in Arabic, in fact he got it all wrong. No, what was actually shouted, according to Noor Rashid, who shouted it, was “Khaybar ya Yahud“ (so beloved of the sing-along sailors of the Mavi Marmara) which was meant to remind Mr. Ayalon of the massacre of the Jews of Khaybar by Mohammed in the seventh century.
Almost every article about Gaza, particularly in the Guardian and on CiF, portrays all Gazans as victims of the Israeli blockade in spite of the thousands of tons of Israeli aid crossing into Gaza every week. The Guardian and other media do not distinguish between the residents of Gaza City and those stuck in the show case refugee camps who are paraded before foreign dignities as “proof” of Israeli “war crimes” during Cast Lead. Were I being kind, I could argue that the media perhaps is not aware of Gaza City luxury and the tunnel economy which makes it possible for Hamas leaders to wine and dine in comfort whilst their brethren are deliberately kept in squalor and used to manipulate the world’s heartstrings.
However, I don’t at all feel like being kind.
I have little doubt that those Gazans who are deliberately kept in poverty and squalor by Hamas are indeed victims. However, most developed countries have pockets of great poverty in the midst of conspicuous affluence. In those countries the problem is often one of distribution rather than of lack of supply in general. To what extent is this also true in Gaza?
It is often said that, in Israel, the life of one Israeli soldier is immeasurably more valuable to all Israeli people than are the lives of its enemies to their own people. On the face of it, the reason for this is obvious – Islamists, as we are so often reminded, love death, whereas Israelis and other civilised people love life. Of course what we are not told is that those who instruct and inculcate into them this love of death would not dream of leading by example, (with the notable exception of Nizar Rayyan) preferring rather to send out the rank and file to die instead, and to pay blood money provided by Iran and Saudi Arabia to their grieving families.
Israelinurse has written of the agonising choices faced by the Israeli government – whether to allow Islamist murderers in Israeli custody to go free, and probably to murder again, in exchange for the release of Israeli soldiers captured by Hamas or Hizballah, or to refuse to do so.
Nowhere is this agony better encapsulated than in the continued captivity of Gilad Shalit, kidnapped in a cross-border raid and kept in solitary confinement for over four years, without access to the International Red Cross and in breach of his human rights, by Hamas, an entity which on the 21st anniversary of its formation in Gaza, sank even lower in depravity when it chose to pillory him and to mock his parents’ grief in front of a cheering crowd of thousands.
The world media has hitherto virtually ignored Gilad Shalit’s plight, preferring rather to focus on the wrongs allegedly done by Israel to those who hold him captive. The International Red Cross has, I am assured, tried its best and will continue to do so, to “encourage” Hamas to allow them to visit Gilad, but without permission such a visit cannot happen. The UN, weighted so heavily against Israel, is deafeningly silent, too.
Surprising then, is the Guardian’s slideshow coverage, (and the article here) of the march to Jerusalem by tens of thousands of Israelis, to urge Shalit’s release “at any price.”
The slideshow is interesting and, were it not for our long experience of the Guardian’s double standards towards Israel, would be almost heartwarming. Tens of thousands of Israelis, hardly apathetic at the best of times, are united in one aim – to get Gilad freed.
However, am I alone in wondering whether the Guardian’s agenda is as pure as it first appears? Is it reasonable to assume, given its reprehensible record of distortions hitherto, that it will manipulate this surge of popular support into something by which to beat the Israeli government if it does not agree to Hamas’ outrageous demands? One clue might lie in its usual inappropriate use of a Palestinian child (see Number 7 in the slide show) to make Hamas’ point for it.
According to the Guardian article, Prime Minister Netanyahu has offered to release thousands of Palestinian prisoners but has refused (correctly in my opinion) to pay “any price” for Gilad’s release. He knows full well the anguish of other parents and families of people murdered by terrorists from Gaza and elsewhere. Israelis’ sensibilities are still inflamed about the release of Samir Kuntar to a hero’s welcome from Hizballah in Lebanon.
Kuntar was convicted in an Israeli court for murder of an Israeli policeman, Eliyahu Shahar, 31 year-old Danny Haran, and Haran’s 4-year-old daughter, Einat Haran, whom he battered to death against a rock. He was also convicted of indirectly causing the death of two-year-old Yael Haran by suffocation, as her mother, Smadar, tried to quiet her crying while hiding from Kuntar (see here for a harrowing account of the incident by Smadar Haran herself). Netanyahu also knows that the Israelis’ reward for Kuntar’s release was the return of their two soldiers, Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev, kidnapped in the same way as was Gilad, in a cross-border raid before the last Lebanese war, but dead not alive.
In the light of that awareness, it is difficult to apprehend the anguish of Gilad’s parents (according to the article, his father has promised to remain in a tent outside the Netanyahu’s office in Jerusalem until a decision is reached) and entirely understandable that they should want his release at any price.
However, the nature of the Islamist terrorist is to view any compromise by Israel as licence to perpetrate more infamy and outrage. That being the case, even if Gilad were to be returned alive, some other family would in future be put through similar agonies of not knowing.
In any case, I very much doubt that Hamas would part with Gilad Shalit at all unless Netanyahu gave them everything they wanted and the Israeli Prime Minister could not do that.
he only thing that would satisfy Hamas is for Israel to disappear.
Addendum:
My colleagues have pointed out that picture in slide 12 the Guardian’s article about the march for the release of Gilad Shalit is an out-and-out steal by the Guardian from Getty Images.
And what gives the Guardian the right in the caption to that slide to designate Tel Aviv, rather than Jerusalem, as Israel’s capital? True, they are not the first to do it but given that this is the Guardian, is this merely sloppy editing on their part and an “honest” mistake? Or is it rather a Freudian slip which shows the Guardian’s animus towards an Israel with Jerusalem as its capital?
A read of Comment is Free’s archives should give the likely answer.
Last year I wrote about Ehud Yaari’s excellent (2006) analysis of Hizballah’s doctrine of muqawama (which can be loosely translated as resistance but which was suggested to be a much more sinister entity) and the potential problems it presented to Israel then. The aim of the Islamist muqawama, according to Yaari, was not for Hizballah and its proxies to gain outright victory, but rather to wear away Israel’s resolve by terrorist attacks until she capitulated to Islamist demands. Psychological warfare was deemed to be as important as any other, and thus the muqawama could take many forms, including the sort of lies we see in the Guardian and other media (all, it seems, mindlessly fascinated by Islamism) as well as the more dramatic “death and glory” suicide murders by the shaheeds.
It seems that the latest major attempt to pursue the muqawama was the Iran-inspired hapless Gaza “Peace” flotilla which ultimately ended in defeat for those who began it. The propaganda and psychological cost to Israel was considerable at the time, however, because she did not anticipate or react quickly enough to the media’s own muqawama in support. The Islamists, having done their spade work during and after the last Lebanon war and Cast Lead, knew that their poisonous lies would fall on willing ears. The mainstream media like the Guardian and CiF in particular wrung everything they possibly could out of the situation (and predictably all of it bad about Israel). However, in spite of that (although in my opinion too late) the IDF’s camera footage told the truth about what happened. The IDF’s footage speaks for itself: thinking people are unlikely to be fooled any longer by the activists’ alleged “peaceful” intent.
Part of the Islamist approach to muqawama until comparatively recently was, as I have mentioned above, suicide bombing, not because it causes mass fatalities but because of its psychological impact.
However, Dr Nathan Toronto, a researcher at the Fort Leavenworth Military Studies Office reflected the observers’ growing curiosity about the greatly reduced number of attacks when he asked in 2008 “Where have all the bombers gone?”
According to Toronto, suicide terror was “gruesomely effective” in Israel, which makes the apparent abandonment of it by the Palestinian terrorist factions all the more puzzling, particularly when the global trend towards it is increasing. Toronto argues that this decrease cannot be explained only by the construction of the security barrier and increased surveillance of the Gaza crossings, although these are major contributory factors. If those were the only explanations, he argues, why did Hamas stop sending out suicide terrorists a full two years before Islamic Jihad’s suicide bombing attack in January 2007?
Tony Lerman is still Israel-bashing on CiF, and readers may judge for themselves whether he is telling us anything new or interesting. The article reflects his own conflicted and tortured relationship with his Jewishness and Zionism (he used to be a youth leader in a Zionist youth group) when he tells us (yet again) that the “cherished assumptions of Zionism” are being questioned by Jews themselves – nothing new here, Jews are nothing if not critical thinkers – and again he pushes his own agenda for a one state solution to the conflict. There is precious little new there and I do not propose to go further into it.
The whole thread is, however, a prime example of the sort of confusion brought about when a moderator/staff member is allowed to comment freely and give opinions on the thread. As I have argued elsewhere on this blog, this, from a person whose agenda is plain and who is more powerful than the commenters whose contributions he can easily get removed, is neither professional nor ethical. Lerman seems unable or unwilling to defend himself, so Matt Seaton has once again taken upon himself the mantle of his rescuer. The result is highly educative about the “group mind” of CiF and is painful and hilarious by turns. It seems that Seaton still has not learned to stop digging when he is in a hole.
There seem to be two parallel themes in this thread – one being the deletion of MarkGardner1′s post (Mark Gardner is Director of Communications at the Community Security Trust): His post, which follows, was deleted but subsequently reinstated following an appeal to the moderators by Seaton:
Seaton’s comment about Mark Gardner’s post follows. I would imagine that the moderators were wobbled by Mark Gardner’s notion that people should make up their own minds. Note also that Seaton says that the moderators “have exercised some latitude” presumably about what is or is not off-topic It would appear so, otherwise most of Seaton’s subsequent comments to the following might have been deleted too:
Be kind to your Turkey this Christmas,
Don’t kill it and throw it away,
For if you are kind to your Turkey,
It’ll not start a jihad this day;
Be kind to your Turkey this Christmas,
Don’t belittle its braincell or balls,
For those parts are dear to its leader,
Even though they don’t work at all
Be kind to your Turkey this Christmas,
Don’t lasso it and burble with glee,
For it seems that Turkey has rights
Though they’d take them from you and from me.
Be kind to your Turkey this Christmas,
Don’t stew it or cook in a pan.
We know that Turkey’s traditional,
None more so than Erdogan
Be kind to your Turkey this Christmas,
Though it goes for you with a sharp knife.
Though it would cut Jews into pieces,
It still wants a peaceful life!
Be kind to your Turkey this Christmas,
Don’t serve it up to the UN
They’ll find Turkey’s flavour delicious,
And what would Israelis do then?
Be kind to your Turkey this Christmas,
Don’t smack it or bash it about
But laugh at its lack of intelligence
Poke fun at it then throw it out.
With apologies to Benjamin Zephaniah
Hawkeye
Omar2
WellofSense
Medusa
The Alchemist
Louise
Tosca
Maimon
Telling the Truth
Israelinurse
Adam Levick
Margie in Tel Aviv
Guest/Cross Post
Hadar Sela
Also-ran Rosselson
November 1, 2010 in Uncategorized | Tags: Comment is Free, Delegitimization, Guardian, Leo Rosselson, Nick Clegg, Theobald Jew | by Medusa | 7 comments
The subtitle of Leo Rosselson’s web page reads, “How I failed to become rich and famous.”
A mere glance at the rest of the page and you come to at least two conclusions:
1. That Rosselson cannot really be at all special or unique (in spite of the blurb which refers to him as a “songwriting (sic) colossus”
2. That anyone to whom even the Guardian refers as “A very modest provocateur” is doomed to remain second-class; indeed, in the words of the article “… As it is, the golden anniversary of Rosselson’s musical debut has passed by largely unnoticed…”
It seems to be the fashion nowadays among second and third-rate celebrities to “make a political statement” about particular events which are sure to grab people’s attention, and to ride to what they hope will be “fame” on the coat tails of the stir they hope this will cause. As we well know the Guardian will use any stick with which to beat Israel, even Rosselson, whose CD – The Last Chance: eight songs on Israel/Palestine – may well be a telling Freudian slip about his career, and has, perhaps, been given the final coup de grace by being pushed on the Jews for Justice for Palestinians’ web page, which describes it as containing “songs which move the mind and heart” which has to be an oxymoron if ever one existed.
Like the proverbial drowning man clinging to the wreckage of a ship, Rosselson has milked his Theobald Jew’s animus towards Israel (and his mindless support for the Palestinian cause) for all it is worth. For example we see him among the letters on the Guardian webpage, opining among other things that Jonathan Freedland is a “good man fallen among Zionists.” His letter contains, of course, all the buzz words which will appeal to the underdeveloped grasp of the Middle East conflict by Guardian editors, which is probably why it was printed.
Last year, probably in a desperate attempt to get himself noticed as a leading runner among the anti-Israel players, Rosselson opined about the “cultural” boycott of Israel (no doubt wishing that Israel had invited him to perform there so that he could make a huge fuss in the media about why he had refused). As far back as 2006, Rosselson felt that he had to explain himself further elsewhere, too.
He has an extensive anti-Israel bio – in other countries as well as in the UK. In Australia we again see him using all the usual buzz-words guaranteed to get him noticed by like-mindless Israel haters. The communists in Australia obviously love him – the author of this review referred to his ”.. his consistent ability to integrate his fine melodies with acutely observant lyrics and wordplay…” (see also here) From the Australian page we see that he came from a communist background, once belonged to a socialist-Zionist youth movement (perhaps the same one as the other CiF former Zionist Theobald Jew and also-ran Anthony Lerman?).
Read the rest of this entry »
Share this:
Like this: