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Any good springtime trip in Israel – virtual or not – has to include wild flowers. The contrast between the short-lived riot of colour and greenery and the long, dry months of monochrome yellowish-brown which swiftly follow is so dramatic that it makes those precious few weeks in which the spring flowers can be enjoyed even more of a delight.
So let’s pack our virtual bags and go off to admire some of the wild flowers which decorate the Israeli countryside in this season.
All photos taken by Israelinurse
Related articles
- Postcard from Israel: Sde Boker (cifwatch.com)
- Postcard from Israel: Acco – the Old City Market (cifwatch.com)
- Israeli Winter Diarist: Rain, rain come again. (cifwatch.com)
A guest post by Hadar Sela
Since the publication of the two-part report on the Global March on Jerusalem scheduled for March 30th, further information and several new developments have come to light thanks to the work of some wonderful people.
Aaron took a look at the subject of the registration and hosting of the various GMJ websites and found that they share an IP address with the website of the AhlulBayt Islamic Mission – the Islamic Republic of Iran aligned Shia missionary organisation in the United Kingdom. The server hosting both the AhlulBayt site and the GMJ sites is registered to a Leicester resident named Shabbir Hassanally. Read all the details here.
Mr Hassanally appears to be quite a fan of Hizbollah’s Hassan Nasrallah. In fact he puts considerable effort into making English language sub-titles for Nasrallah’s frequent speeches which he then posts on his own blog – apparently unconcerned by the fact that Hizbollah’s military wing is proscribed by his own government and that the glorification of terrorism is a criminal offence in the UK.
Hassanally has also acted as roving reporter in Lebanon for the Palestine Telegraph – founded and edited by Sameh Habib (aka Sameh Akram Subhi Habeeb) who is also spokesman for the flotilla-organising ‘European Campaign to End the Siege on Gaza’ which was set up by the Muslim Brotherhood’s European arm – the Federation of Islamic Organisations in Europe (FIOE) – in 2007. The Palestine Telegraph proved to be too extreme even for its former patron Jenny Tonge and it and its editor have been involved in multiple scandals.
Here is Shabbir Hassanally celebrating the 32nd anniversary of the Iranian regime last year. Note his apparent subscription to the messianic Mahdi concept and his description of Israel as “the cancer occupying our beloved Palestine“.
If UK readers are now pondering the efficacy of their government’s ‘Prevent‘ counter-terrorism policy upon which so much of their taxes have been spent, they will certainly not be reassured by the fact that Hassanally has also been given a platform at the Muslim Shia Welfare Foundation in Leicester, which is – of course – a registered charity.
A variety of interested parties are making intense efforts to bring Jerusalem to the top of the publicity agenda ahead of the planned march next month, including a conference in Qatar earlier this week (for some reason apparently attended by UN representative Robert Serry), an incendiary press release by the Muslim Brotherhood’s spiritual mentor Yusuf al Qaradawi and publicity on the websites of Hamas and ‘Unified Umma’.
However, it would appear that all is not rosy in the world of joint Sunni-Shia/Red-Green alliance project management.
From the Facebook account of ‘Viva Palestina Australia‘ (h/t to F.) we learn that initial enthusiasm for the GMJ project has been somewhat dampened due to apparent differences of opinion with co-ordinator Zaher al Birawi.
Feb 19
Feb 21
Feb 21/22
Feb 22
Feb 21
Feb 21
Feb 22
Meanwhile, over at ISM California, Paul Larudee is chastising his fellow activists for not getting behind the GMJ in sufficient numbers.
Well well; it seems as though some people even within the ‘pro-Palestinian’ movements are waking up to the extremist nature of the GMJ venture and its leaders and organisers and the fact that such publicity stunts do nothing to help the Palestinian people.
About time.
Related articles
- ‘Global March to Jerusalem’ endorsed by Guardian approved ‘saxophonist’ Gilad Atzmon (cifwatch.com)
- CiF Watch Special Report on extremists behind ‘Global March to Jerusalem’: Pt 2, Europe Chapter (cifwatch.com)
- CiF Watch Special Report: Extremists & terror supporters organizing ‘Global March to Jerusalem’ (cifwatch.com)
A guest post by AKUS
The heavily critiqued commentary by the wife of terrorist Khadar Adnan (My husband, Khadar Adnan has shed a light on Israel’s disregard for human rights, CiF, Feb. 22) drew two unusual interventions by Becky Gardiner, who’s described as “the editor of the Guardian comment pages”. (I take it, in passing, that this abbreviated description of what once included the words ‘Comment is Free’ can be considered recognition of what we have all known for some time –“Comment is Free” may adorn the masthead, but free comment is not allowed).
Dozens of angry, cynical, and shocked comments were deleted by the moderators (others completely vanished without a trace) in a counterattack on commenters. Their efforts were apparently designed to remove any reference they could find to the video of Adnan in the BTL comments that showed him calling for volunteers to become suicide bombers, or referring to him as a terrorist:
The disgust shown by dozens of commenters and the incredible number of deletions used to try to control the horrified crowd must have caused a panic at Guardian HQ. When the clamor of commenters asking why it had been published and why the Guardian supported a terrorist reached uncontrollable levels, Becky Gardiner, editor of the Comment pages, decided it was time to step in.
Rather than stepping in, she stepped right into it, up to her eyebrows, with the following ludicrous attempt to defend her decision to publish (commission?) the article:
Gardiner’s comment was such a transparent attempt to deflect the criticism by spinning the rationale behind this article and twisting the argument to one of a fair trial that it drew howls of cynical laughter from readers other than the 22 sycophants who were loudly praising this terrorist wife and her husband.
There were ten responses to her post. Three were immediately deleted. Here are samples from the responses to her attempt to justify the article by invoking “interesting to hear … comment from a variety of perspectives” and, apropos nothing relevant to the criticism, “the right of everyone to a fair trial” (which Israeli body responsible for Adnan’s detention said he would not get a fair trial?).
- Perhaps one of Osama Bin Laden’s wives could do a piece next week?
- I’m still waiting for a piece by a member of the EDL however.
- I’m sure Assad’s wife Asma would be interested in submitting a comment piece – it could be called ‘ A wife’s perspective- Syria-the Untold Story’ .
- What I do despise though, and what makes me despair of this paper is that you are apparently planning to publish the – uncommented – piece in the print version of you paper. Are you sure The Guardian still has a grip w.r.t. what it actually wants to stand for?
- Well I don’t normally comment on I/P keech but this is a stonker of a stinker.
This comment stood out:
Gardiner has never apparently heard that when you are in a hole you should stop digging. Or, possibly she is so brainwashed with the Guardian warped world view she genuinely does not understand that praising terrorists just because they attack Israel is unacceptable. So she tried again after “external” took her to task:
And, of course, what Adnan is said to have done, and we have a video of him doing just that, is at the very least inciting others to terrorism.
Gardiner then made the following utterly incredible response, breathtaking in its falsehood and awe-inspiring in her belief that readers would accept her claim that the Guardian “wouldn’t simply repeat allegation made on the internet”
This brought down the house:
- … most readers will always be disgusted by puff-pieces for people who advocate violence and murder against innocent civilians.
- Becky, when can we expect similar articles of wives of people also held in prison without charge in the UK?
- Did I read right? The Guardian does not use material gleaned from the Internet? Most CiF articles contain allegations, suppositions, theories, quotes and all sorts of other screeds obtainable from internet sites.
No one asked her to “repeat the allegations made on the internet. The Guardian should have left the video and references to Adnan’s terrorist career to speak for themselves.
Of course, you need only look at the rolling ME blog to see video after video from the internet posted there. Neither the Guardian nor I have the slightest reason to doubt the validity of the allegations against Assad that these videos and commentary provide. We have had a year of videos and blogs from Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Syria showing the violence there and the allegations against this or that politician or person, all quite acceptable, and eagerly published by the Guardian. The allegations made against Tony Blair in the Guardian could fill a telephone directory. The vicious article condemning Israeli politicians are left standing.
But when it comes to a terrorist who belongs to a jihadi group dedicated by its own platform to the destruction of Israel and the murder of its Jews, is videoed calling for suicide bomb volunteers to kill Israelis wherever they can, a different and higher standard is suddenly applied.
Gardiner could not even bring herself to wimp out by writing “alleged” terrorist, but had to continue to twist and turn in the gale of criticism, and try to spin the story and lie about her motives in a way that only the most utterly naïve or biased could accept. She apparently believes that if the lie is big enough, and repeated often enough, even others than Berchmans will eventually believe it.
Related articles
- Propaganda by wife of Islamic Jihad terrorist, Khadr Adnan: Courtesy of the Guardian (cifwatch.com)
- Video of Harriet Sherwood’s Palestinian “Baker”, Khader Adnan, calling for suicide bombing (cifwatch.com)
- Harriet Sherwood feels Islamic Jihad terrorist’s pain (cifwatch.com)
- Harriet Sherwood again takes up the cause of innocent Palestinian “baker”, Khader Adnan (cifwatch.com)
- Guardian’s sympathy towards Khadr Adnan & indifference to his terror group’s victims, by the numbers (cifwatch.com)
This essay was written by Michael Ross, and originally published at National Post
Thai police officers escort Iranian bomb suspect Mohammad Kharzei (C) during an investigation at his rented house in Bangkok on February 20, 2012. Police in Thailand said on February 17 they were hunting for a fifth Iranian suspected in a failed bomb plot in Bangkok that has sent tensions between Israel and Iran soaring.
In a recent article in The Guardian entitled, “Iran seems an unlikely culprit for the attacks on Israeli diplomats”, University of London scholar Arshin Adib-Moghaddam contends that Iran wouldn’t plan attacks in India, Thailand and Georgia because Tehran enjoys good relations with these countries. Mr. Adib- Moghaddam is either very naive or enjoys good relations with the Iranian regime but either way, his article flies in the face of very damning evidence. A long look at Iran’s state-sponsorship of terror would indicate to the most casual observer that the regime couldn’t give a damn about it’s multilateral relationships with those countries.
Mr. Adib-Moghaddam even floats the absurd theory that these were dissidents belonging to an anti-regime faction or part of the “Indian Mujahedeen” ostensibly bent on wrecking relations between India and Iran. I guess this theory works for some if confined to the Indian sub-continent, but it’s going to be very hard to convince the government in Azerbaijan that this is the case as details emerge today of the arrest of an IRGC-QF/Hezbollah cell that was gathering intelligence, purchasing firearms, ammunition, explosives and devices, and making other preparations in order to commit terrorist acts on Israeli targets in Baku.
As more details emerge about the Iranian cell’s activities in Bangkok, the first thing I examined were their flight records. At least four of the six Iranians flew to Bangkok on direct flights originating in Tehran – and in the case of Leila Rohani, the woman involved in the plot – on a flight directly back to Tehran. I don’t have much experience as a dissident, but it seems to me that I’d probably want to avoid any travel that would ultimately take me into the waiting arms of the regime’s security services. But it’s not just the direct flights; it’s the airline they used. As it happens, the members of this cell flew on Mahan Air, an Iranian commercial airline that was designated by the U.S. last year under Presidential Executive Order 13224 blacklisting it due to links to Iran’s support for terrorism.
Mahan Air is known in counter-terrorism circles as “IRGC Air” due to its busy schedule ferrying IRGC-QF/Hezbollah/MOIS operatives, weapons and money around the world. The U.S. is especially displeased with Mahan Air as it emerged that the airline was covertly flying IRGC-QF officers in and out of Iraq to engage in all manner of mayhem directed at coalition forces and in support of the Shia militias in the south of that country. Mahan Air has also been one of the air links facilitating weapons transfers between Iran, Syria and their enfant terrible, Hezbollah, based in Lebanon. The cargo manifests belonging to this airline have a long history of omitting certain shipments that are transferred between these three countries.
Also emerging from the plot in Bangkok is the use of stickers bearing the word “SEJEAL” to mark possible target zones at various points along a 1.5-km route on roads and public transit in Bangkok. These stickers were similar to ones located at the house where the first blast occurred and at another house rented by Leila Rohani. The stickers were also found under the seat of a seized motorcycle belonging to the Iranian cell. As it happens, Iran-sponsored Hamas refer to their rockets as “Sejeal Stones” after a passage in the Koran that tells of a miracle when birds dropped “Sejeal Stones” on an army attempting to kill Mohammed.
Iranians flying on Iranian documents from Tehran to Thailand on Mahan Air and caught en flagrante on one of the busiest streets in Bangkok with their stickers, explosive devices and motorcycle would seem to point in directions other than the “Indian Mujahedeen”.
I’m curious to know how far The Guardian’s writers and editors will bend themselves into contortions of Iran denial before they just end up looking silly.
The only “false flag” I can detect is flying from the roof of the British newspaper.
Related articles
- Arshin Adib-Moghaddam, an Unlikely Non-partisan Analyst (Harry’s Place)
Surviving friends and family members of the more than 200 Israeli civilians murdered by Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), an Islamist terror group which split from the Muslim Brotherhood because the MB was deemed too moderate, will never be provided a forum at the Guardian.
Here's a photo of just a few of PIJ's victims: Tali Hatuel, 34, and her daughters - Hila, 11, Hadar, 9, Roni, 7, and Merav, 2 - killed in 2004 when terrorists opened fire on the car they were traveling in.
The grief of loved ones – their pain, and the indelible mark left on their soul by the staggering cruelty of violence meted out by a movement inspired by the desire to rid a region of the immutable offense of a sovereign Jewish presence – will likely never be given a voice at ‘Comment is Free’.
Inversely, the Guardian published five separate sympathetic pieces about the Islamic Jihad terrorist, Khadr Adnan, who is scheduled to be released by Israeli authorities in April after being held in administrative detention for his involvement with PIJ.
Here’s a summary of the coverage:
- Guardian/CiF pieces sympathetic to Islamic Jihad terrorist, Khader Adnan: 5
- Guardian/CiF pieces critical of Adnan or sympathetic to PIJ victims: 0
- Total words used in five Guardian/CiF pieces sympathetic to Adnan: 3008
- Total words in those five pieces even noting Adnan’s “alleged” “militant” affiliations: 33
- Total number murdered in Israel by PIJ in terror attacks: At least 217
- Total number of children murdered by PIJ in terror attacks: 15
- Number of those injured or maimed by PIJ attacks: Several Hundred
- Most obscene characterization of Adnan in the Guardian (courtesy of Randa Musa, Adnan’s wife, in her CiF commenary): “I know my husband is not selfish.”
Indeed, here’s the selfless Adnan passionately encouraging fellow Palestinians to sacrifice their lives in one last full measure of devotion in the service of murdering innocent Israeli civilians.
Finally, here’s a list of those murdered in terrorist attacks planned or carried out by Adnan’s terrorist group:
Ayelet Shahar Levy, 28, and Hanan Levy, 33, Gad Marasha, 30, of Kiryat Arba; Yonatan Vermullen, 29, of Ben-Shemen, Ayelet Shahar Levy, 28, and Hanan Levy, 33, Ayelet Shahar Levy, 28, and Hanan Levy, 33, yala Levy, 39, of Elyachin; Smadar Levy, 23, of Hadera; Lydia Marko, 63, of Givat Ada; and Sima Menahem, 30, of Zichron Yaakov, Inbal Weiss, 22, of Zichron Ya’akov; Yehiav Elshad, 28, of Tel-Aviv; and Samuel Milshevsky, 45, of Kfar Sava Steven Kenigsberg, 19, of Hod Hasharon, Maharatu Tagana, 85, of Upper Nazareth; Michael Altfiro, 19, of Pardes Hanna; Shimon Edri, 20, of Pardes Hanna; Meir Fahima, 40, of Hadera; Aharon Revivo, 19, of Afula; Alon Goldenberg, 28, of Tel Aviv; Mogus Mahento, 75, of Holon; and Bella Schneider, 53, Nisan Avraham, 26, David Smirnoff, 22, of Ashdod; Liron Avitan, 19, of Hadera; Avraham Barzilai, 19, of Netanya; Dennis Blumin, 20, of Hadera; Eliran Buskila, 21, of Hadera; Zvi Gelberd, 20 of Hadera; Violetta Hizgayev, 20, of Hadera; Ganadi Issakov, 21, of Hadera; Sariel Katz, 21, of Netanya; Vladimir Morari, 19, of Hadera; Yigal Nedipur, 21, of Netanya; Dotan Reisel, 22, of Hadera; David Stanislavksy, 23, of Netanya; Sivan Wiener, 19, of Holon; Zion Agmon, 50, of Hadera; Adi Dahan, 17, of Afula; Shimon Timsit, 35, of Tel-Aviv, Eliyahu Timsit, 32, of Sderot, Adrian Andres, 30, of Romania; Boris Shamis, 25, of Tel-Aviv; and Xu Hengyong, 39, of China, Moshe Hezkiyah, 21, Ari Weiss, 21, of Ra’anana, Osnat Abramov, 16, of Holon; Indelou Ashati, 54, of Hadera; Liat Ben-Ami, 20, of Haifa; Ofra Burger, 56, of Hod Hasharon; Ilona Hanukayev, 20, of Hadera; Suad Jaber, 23, of Taibe; Iris Lavi, 68, of Netanya; Eliezer Moskovitch, 40, of Petah Tikva; Nir Nahum, 20, of Carmiel; Esther Pesachov, 19, of Givat Olga; Aiman Sharuf, 20, of Ussfiyeh; Sergei Shavchuk, 35, of Afula; Anat Shimshon, 33, of Ra’anana; Sharon Tubol, 19, of Arad, Pedro Magram, 51, of Kfar Sava, and Gastón Perpiñal, 15, of Ra’anana; Madin Grifat, 23, of Beit Zarzir, Dror Weinberg, 38, of Jerusalem; Samih Sweidan, 31, of Arab al-Aramsha; Tomer Nov, 19, of Ashdod; Gad Rahamim, 19, of Kiryat Malachi; Netanel Machluf, 19, of Hadera; Yeshayahu Davidov, 20, of Netanya; Igor Drobitsky, 20, of Nahariya; David Marcus, 20, of Ma’aleh Adumim; and Dan Cohen, 22, of Jerusalem, Yitzhak Buanish, 46; Alexander Zwitman, 26; and Alexander Dohan, 33. Rabbi Yitzhak Arama, 40, Noam Apter, 23, of Shilo; Yehuda Bamberger, 20, of Karnei Shomron; Gavriel Hoter, 17, of Alonei Habashan; and Zvi Zieman, 18, of Reut, Moshe (Maurice) Aharfi, 60, of Tel-Aviv; Mordechai Evioni, 52, of Holon; Andrei Friedman, 30, of Tel-Aviv; Meir Haim, 74, of Azor; Hannah Haimov, 53, of Tel Aviv; Avi Kotzer, 43, of Bat Yam; Ramin Nasibov, 25, of Tel-Aviv; Mazal Orkobi, 20, of Azor; Ilanit Peled, 32, of Azor; Viktor Shebayev, 62, of Holon; Boris Tepalshvili, 51, of Yehud; Sapira Shoshana Yulzari-Yaffe, 46, of Bat Yam; Lilya Zibstein, 33, of Haifa; Amiram Zmora, 55, of Holon; Igor Zobokov, 32, of Bat Yam. Foreign workers: Krassimir Mitkov Angelov, 32, of Bulgaria; Steven Arthur Cromwell, 43, of Ghana; Ivan Gaptoniak, 46, of Ukraine; Ion (Nelu) Nicolae, 34, of Romania; Guo Aiping, 47, of China; Li Peizhong, 41, of China; Mihai Sabau, 38, of Romania. Zhang Minmin, 53, of China died of her wounds on January 13. Eli Biton, 48, of Moshav Gadish; Shahar Shmul, 24, of Jerusalem Assaf Moshe Fuchs, 21, of Kibbutz Gvat, Kiryl Shremko, 22, of Afula; Hassan Ismail Tawatha, 41, of Jisr a-Zarqa; and Avi Zerihan, 36, of Beit Shean, Assaf Abergil, 23, of Eilat; Udi Eilat, 38, of Eilat; Boaz Emete, 24, of Beit She’an; and Chen Engel, 32, of Ramat Gan, Avner Mordechai, 58, of Moshav Sde Trumot, Mazal Afari, 65, of Moshav Kfar Yavetz Gabriel Uziel, 20, of Givat Ze’ev Avihu Keinan, 22, of Shilo, Eyal Yeberbaum, 27, and seven-month-old Shaked Avraham, both of Negohot, south of Hebron; Ze’ev Almog, 71, of Haifa, and his wife Ruth Almog, 70; their son Moshe Almog, 43, and grandsons Tomer Almog, 9, and Assaf Staier, 11, all of Haifa; Zvi Bahat, 35, of Haifa; Mark Biano, 29, of Haifa, and his wife Naomi Biano, 25; Hana Francis, 39, of Fassouta; Mutanus Karkabi, 31, of Haifa; Sharbal Matar, 23, of Fassouta; Osama Najar, 28, of Haifa, cook; Nir Regev, 25, of Nahariya; Irena Sofrin, 38, of Kiryat Bialik; Bruria Zer-Aviv, 59, her son Bezalel Zer-Aviv, 30, and his wife Keren Zer-Aviv, 29, with their children Liran, 4, and Noya, 1, all of Kibbutz Yagur. Lydia Zilberstein, 56, George Matar, 59, of Haifa. Alon Avrahami, 21, of Or Yehuda, Adi Osman, 19, of Kfar Sava, and Sarit Schneor-Senior, 19, of Shoham Tali Hatuel, 34, and her daughters - Hila, 11, Hadar, 9, Roni, 7, and Merav, 2 – Adaron Amar, 20, of Eilat; Aviad Deri, 21, of Maale Adumim; Ofer Jerbi, 21, of Moshav Ben-Zakai; Ya’akov (Zelco) Marviza, 25, of Kibbutz Hama’apil; Kobi Mizrahi, 20, of Moshav Mata; and Eitan Newman, 21, of Jerusalem. Elad Cohen, 20, of Jerusalem; Aiman Ghadir, 24, of Bir Makhsur; Aviv Hakani, 23, of Ashdod; Za’ur (Zohar) Smelev, 19, of Ofakim; and Lior Vishinski, 20, of Ramat Gan. Tal Bardugo, 21, of Jerusalem, Nir Sami, 21, of Jerusalem, and Israel Lutati, 20, Gideon Rivlin, 50, of Ganei Tal, itzhak Buzaglo, 40, of Mishmar Hayarden; Aryeh Nagar, 37, of Kfar Sava; Yael Orbach, 28, of Rehovot; Ronen Reuvenov, 30, of Tel Aviv. Odelia Hubara, 26, of Jerusalem, Dan Talasnikov, 21, of Nir Galim, Bi Shude, 46, from Jilin province in northeastern China. The Palestinian workers: Salah Ayash Imran, 57, of Khan Yunis, and Muhammed Mahmoud Jaroun, of Khan Yunis. Avi Karouchi, 25, of Beersheba, Yevgeny Reider, 28 of Hermesh Avihai Levy, 17, of Beit Hagai Aviad Mansour, 16, of Otniel, Dana Galkowicz, 22, of Kibbutz Bror Hayil, Dov, 58, and Rachel Kol, 53, of Jerusalem Michael Kaufman, 68, of Hadera; Pirhiya Machlouf, 53, of Hadera; Sabiha Nissim, 66, of Moshav Ahituv; Jamil Qa’adan, 48, of Baka al-Gharbiya; and Ya’acov Rahmani, 68, of Hadera, Genia Poleis, 66, of Hadera Larissa Grishchenko, 38, of Hadera, Haim Amram, 26, of Netanya; Alexandra Garmitzky, 65, of Netanya; Daniel Golani, 45, of Nahariya; Elia Rosen, 38, of Bat Hefer; and Keinan Tsuami, 20, of Petah Tikva. Yosef (Yossi) Shok, 35, of Beit Hagai, Philip Balhasan, 45, of Ashdod; Rozalia Beseneyi, 48, and Piroşca Boda 50, of Romania; Marcel Cohen, 73, of Nice, France; Ariel Darhi, 31, of Bat Yam; Victor Erez, 60, of Givatayim; Binyamin Haputa, 47, of Lod; David Shaulov, 29, of Holon; Lily Yunes, 42, of Oranit. Lior Anidzar, 26, of Tel Aviv. Daniel Wultz, 16, of Weston, Florida (USA). Eilat residents Emi Haim Elmaliah, 32, Michael Ben Sa’adon, 27, and Israel Zamalloa, 26. Liran Banai, 20, of Ashkelon, Shimon Mizrahi, 53 of Bat Hefer and Eli Wasserman, 51, of Alfei Menashe Maj. Eliraz Peretz, 32, of Eli and Ilan Sviatkovsky, 21, of Rishon Lezion.
Related articles
- Harriet Sherwood feels Islamic Jihad terrorist’s pain (cifwatch.com)
- Harriet Sherwood again takes up the cause of innocent Palestinian “baker”, Khader Adnan (cifwatch.com)
- Propaganda by wife of Islamic Jihad terrorist, Khadr Adnan: Courtesy of the Guardian (cifwatch.com)
- Video of Harriet Sherwood’s Palestinian “Baker”, Khader Adnan, calling for suicide bombing (cifwatch.com)
A guest post by AKUS
Part 2 – Susan Kerin coordinates the attack
When Montgomery County proposed raising the choice of Bet Shemesh as its second sister-city, a pro-Palestinian Montgomery County activist, Susan Kerin, began raising objections as early as 2009 – long before the recent violence carried out by ultra-Orthodox extremists in Bet Shemesh made headlines. According to the Washington Post:
Susan Kerin, a Derwood resident and a human rights activist, said the county has “dodged a bullet” by delaying the process.
Kerin said the city has had a “systemic” issue with segregation and hate violence. She said that since 2009, she has been telling the county of her concerns. In October, however, she was told by members of the Montgomery Sister Cities board that the agreement with Beit Shemesh was a “done deal.”…
Meanwhile, the county’s Commission for Women and the Commission on Human Rights are meeting in upcoming weeks to discuss the sister-city agreement. On Wednesday, the county’s Committee on Hate/Violence, of which Kerin is a member, held a conference call on the issue.
Kerin’s objection to Bet Shemesh was leveled on feminist grounds – the treatment of women in that town. If we go back to Gondar for a moment, no similar objection has been raised on the grounds that FGM may be widely practiced there. Clearly, what we are seeing is a false flag operation. There is an attempt to block a sister-city agreement with an Israeli city using the issue of the mistreatment of women by a tiny extremist ultra-Orthodox group as the lever.
This campaign has taken place despite the voluminous reports that virtually every Jewish community in Israel, including ultra-Orthodox and Orthodox Jews, has roundly condemned the violence and discrimination against women in Bet Shemesh and the little girl who was spat upon, women including leading female politicians have held flash- dances in the city to demonstrate their opposition to the perpetrators, there have been massive parades in the city to express opposition and disgust towards the perpetrators. From Shimon Peres and Benjamin Netanyahu down, the clear message has been that these acts towards women will not be tolerated.
So who is Susan Kerin, and why is she so concerned about feminist issues in Bet Shemesh, while not raising such concerns in the cases of Ethiopia, El Salvador, China, or Ukraine? None of those places is known as a beacon of light on the issue of women’s rights.
We have learned from the way the Guardian hides the true agendas of its contributors to peel back short bios that hide so much (“a Derwood resident and a human rights activist”) and look at the track record of those opposing Israel.
It turns out Ms Kerin is quite an active supporter of Palestinian causes. For example, she had a comment as long ago as September 7th, 2003 on Daniel Pipes’ blog about Palestinian refugees:
Submitted by Susan Kerin (United States), Aug 22, 2003 at 14:31
With regard to Pipes’ statute of limitation philosophy(sic) (i.e., that all rights to return are null and void when the parents die), I’m fine with that. But, of course, it would also apply to Israelis who claim a “right of return” based on a rationale that they might have had relatives living on the land 4,000 years ago. I presume most of those original refugees are deceased as well. Regards…Susan
Ms Kerin is a member of a Church group called PAX Christi USA – PCUSA. PCUSA noted February 8, 2012 that:
PC St. Francis Church (MD) coordinator Susan Kerin had a letter on Israeli-Palestinian issues published in the Washington Post …
The letter was headed “Let’s talk about the plight of Israeli women”
This month, Montgomery County will enter into a sister-city relationship with Beit Shemash (sic), Israel, where the events described in the Dec. 28 news story “Religious limits on women roil Israel” were centered.
For several months, local peace and human rights groups have been trying to schedule a forum to discuss our concerns about the selection of that city from a human rights standpoint. County officials initially told us our concerns were without merit.
One hopes that our county decision-makers might now be more open to a dialogue after reading The Post’s report, which indicates that even Israeli citizens take issue with the hate violence and discrimination taking place in that city.
This is not a sisterhood that reflects the diversity and tolerance of Montgomery County.
Susan Kerin, Rockville
The writer is co-chair of Pax Christi at St. Francis Catholic Church in Derwood.
But there is more. On February 5th, 2007, Susan Kerin published an account of her trip to Palestine. She chose to write about it at the well-known anti-Israeli, terrorist-supporting blog, Electronic Intifada. Her report included the following:
Next week, for example, my hometown of Washington, DC will host two Holy Land visitors. The warrior, Knesset Minister Benny Elon, will arrive with a hero’s welcome on Capitol Hill as keynote speaker for a reception to launch Congress’ newly formed “Israel Allies Caucus.” Sponsored by several members of Congress, invited guests will include prominent political figures and national Christian leaders.
[Lengthy description of Elon’s sins followed]
In contrast, Reverend Naim Ateek, the Anglican-Palestinian pastor who founded Sabeel, a nonviolent faith-based liberation movement, will also arrive here that same week and his small but loyal supporters have arranged a modest lecture at a local university and perhaps a lunch with some local pastors. It’s not that Rev. Ateek is reluctant to meet with Congress or prominent Christian leaders in the West. It’s just that, as a peacemaker, he is not well-known in these circles. My hometown is, after all, the global headquarters for Pax America. And Ateek, who was raised in Nazareth, advocates a different Way towards peace, one that is based on the teachings of his town’s most prominent native son… In contrast, Rev. Ateek would be able to provide these influential listeners with very intimate insight on the implications of such a plan, as he and his family were victims of the 1948 expulsions known as the Nakba….
Susan Kerin, an American Catholic residing in Rockville, MD, served as a 2006 peace delegate with the Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPTs). She is the author of the soon-to-be-published book “Prophecy Interrupted” on Christian Zionism.
Sabeel is a virulently anti-Israeli organization headed by Dr. Naim Ateek who is far from being a “peace-maker”. Incomprehensibly, Israel allows Sabeel to remain headquartered in Jerusalem. Sabeel thrives on infiltrating Christian churches, particularly the Presbyterian Church of the USA and the Toronto-based World Council of Churches to promote its anti-Israeli agenda.
Every two years an anti-Israeli hate-fest under the guise of promoting peace in the Middle East (at least that part that includes Israel!) is organized by a determined leadership group presenting anti-Israeli position papers at the biennial Presbyterian General Assembly. Sabeel is a founding supporter of the Kairos Document (which calls for a one-state solution) issued under the umbrella of the fervently anti-Israeli, not to say anti-Semitic, Toronto-based World Council of Churches. Its organization in the USA is FOSNA – “Friends of Sabeel – USA”. FOSNA’s “beloved patron” is none other than Archbishop Desmond Tutu, notorious for his accusations of apartheid hurled at Israel.
IsraeliNurse and I have written several times of Palestinian Christians’ malign influence on the Anglicans, Wesleyans, Methodists, and Presbyterians, and the way Sabeel has captured the leadership of these churches despite the objections of large numbers of their members. The method of small leadership groups staking out anti-Israeli positions before the people they represent realize what has happened is reminiscent of the same tactics used in the UK by small determined leadership groups of the academic and trades unions.
Via Pax Christi Sabeel appears to have infiltrated the Catholic Church in the USA as well, and via the possibly well-meaning but naïve Ms Kerin, is now using the concept of women’s rights to try to prevent Montgomery County from concluding its agreement with Bet Shemesh. Women’s rights are not famously well-protected among the Palestinian Christians – Muslims in Jordan have even accused Arab Christians as perpetrating a higher per capita number of honor killings, for example, than their Muslim neighbors.
Yet even this is not all there is to this story or Ms Kerin’s support for the Palestinians. Ms Kerin is also a volunteer coordinator at FreeGaza.org:
Free Gaza Affiliates
The Free Gaza Movement has volunteers all across the world, available for media interviews and local coordination. In order to expand outreach, help spread information about our efforts, and get as many people as possible involved within their localities, the Free Gaza Movement encourages the establishment of local FG affiliates everywhere in the world.VOLUNTEERS COORDINATOR
Susan Kerin
volunteer [at] freegaza.org
And here she is staging a protest on Capitol Hill: http://www.zimbio.com/photos/Susan+Kerin .
Finally, to cap it all off, the Washington Post report reported that Kerin hopes to involve the Middle Eastern American Advisory Group:
Adams, a political ally of Leggett’s, said the nonprofit board [Montgomery Sister Cities, the nonprofit group that was set up by Leggett ]has proposed a public meeting on Beit Shemesh in late March. The board is also inviting the Middle Eastern American Advisory Group, a county committee that was contacted by Kerin’s group and expressed concerns in December about the sister-city agreement.
Who are the members of the “Middle Eastern American Advisory Group, a county committee that was contacted by Kerin’s group and expressed concerns in December about the sister-city agreement”?
Middle Eastern American Advisory Group: Member List 2009 – 2010
CLICK TO ENLARGE
It is a joke to consider that this is the group, which has no representatives of a certain Middle East country among its members, that is concerned about women’s rights in Bet Shemesh! It is not difficult to believe that for many of its members their concerns lie with the very concept of a relationship with any Israeli city, or with Israel at all, rather than the attitude of ultra-Orthodox Jews in Bet Shemesh to Jewish women.
To sum up, one would have to be particularly obtuse to accept that the argument that Montgomery County should not form a sister-city alliance with Bet Shemesh is based on the issue of the mistreatment of women in the city.
Despite the fact that such mistreatment has been roundly condemned by the majority of Bet Shemesh’s citizens and Israelis, the issue of women’s rights is being used by a determined activist whose anti-Israel support includes Sabeel, Free Gaza, Electronic Intifada, Pax Christi, and this Middle Eastern American Advisory Group as a lever to delegitimize any contact at all with Israel. The Bet Shemesh issue was simply a convenient lever for a pro-Palestinian, pro-Gaza, pro-Sabeel activist to use against a County Council that doubtless has other things to worry about than what lies behind the curtain of half-truths and posturing that has been laid before it to hide her true anti-Israeli agenda.
One can only hope that the true nature of this carefully coordinated attack on Israel will be laid out before the Council before its meeting in late March and possibly influence the weight it ascribes to the motives of Ms Kerin and her pro-Palestinian supporters.
Related articles
- When you sup with the devil (cifwatch.com)
- Friends of Sabeel UK: Promoting BDS and harming interfaith relations (cifwatch.com)
- The Great Methodist BDS Hijack (cifwatch.com)
- Beyond Belief: Political Propaganda in the Anglican Church (cifwatch.com)
This essay was written by Hasan Afzal and recently posted at Harry’s Place
I’ve always thought that Haaretz opinion editorials are proof, if you required more than the empirical studies done, that Israel is a democracy. The vile contempt that most of the left-of-centre columnists and writers show for Israel is truly a tribute to the cornerstone attribute of any civilised society: freedom of speech.
The news that eight Palestinian children had died in a bus crash is a tragedy to any decent-minded person. A sad loss of life believed to be because of adverse driving conditions.
For Gideon Levy, rather than sharing in the tragedy of the day’s events, it was a golden opportunity to stare into his crystal ball. Levy’s entire article is a crass condemnation of Israeli society’s supposed reaction to the bus crash.
In what must be the investigative skills of a teenager, Levy rages against crazies on Facebook and Twitter using the crash to spew their own bigotry. He writes:
“Relax, these are Palestinian children,” Benny Dazanashvili wrote on Twitter. To which Tal Biton responded, “It seems these are Palestinians … God willing”.
He has a point. But bigoted people will, not surprisingly, be bigoted on open platforms such as social networks. But that’s just the starter. Levy’s greater condemnation is for wider Israeli society:
No longer can all this be waved away with the argument that these were the responses of a handful of crazies that do not reflect the whole. Perhaps we should also give thanks for the democracy that allows these responses to be published, and to flood public awareness. But it must be recognized that the sentiment they express is common and that it runs deep in Israeli society.
Enemies, a hate story. In the past few years, anti-Arab hatred and racism have reached monstrous proportions and are no longer restricted to a negligible minority. Many people dare to express it, and many more agree with them. All the discriminatory, separatist laws of the past few years are an authentic expression of that hatred.
Perhaps Gideon didn’t see this:
Some Israelis from the nearby settlement hung this sign over the site of a bus crash that killed 8 Palestinian children. It reads (in Hebrew and then Arabic): “The residents of the (nearby) Adam settlement share in the sorrow of the families, in their deep grief over the death of their loved ones and wish a speedy recovery to the injured.”
In a heartwarming show of solidarity, settlers have erected a sign over the crash site expressing their sadness and grief. This isn’t the product of some cosmopolitian Tel Aviv human rights group but of one group of settlers sharing their grief with the Palestinian people.
If you ever needed evidence that the settler community aren’t a bunch of rabid, blood-lust devils then here it is.
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Islamic Jihad terrorist Khadr Adnan, imploring Palestinians to launch suicide attacks
Articles penned by high-ranking members of terrorist organisations proscribed by the British government – and also by UK-based supporters of those organisations – are, as we all too well know, nothing new to Comment is Free. Now we have the WAGs version of puff pieces whitewashing terror groups and their actions in the form of an article written by Randa Musa. (My husband, Khadar Adnan has shed a light on Israel’s disregard for human rights, Feb. 22).
Mrs Khadr Adnan, as she is also known, seeks to inform readers about her husband’s supposed exposure of “Israel’s disregard for human rights”. With considerable drama she tells us that as a result of Adnan’s arrest last December she “would not be surprised if even our unborn baby which I now bear will also be affected”.
Randa Musa’s concern for human rights apparently does not extend to the trauma her husband’s terror group, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, has caused to the thousands of family members of those murdered or maimed in its car bombings, suicide bombings and other terror attacks.
In fact, she tries to pass Khadr Adnan off as a “student activist” which, to British readers probably conjures images of someone whose activities stretch to handing out flyers or drawing placards.
The truth is of course very different.
The Palestinian Islamic Jihad’s own website describes Adnan as a “leader” of the organisation on more than one occasion. Reuters described him as a “senior figure in the Islamic Jihad” in 2010 and AP as “a top Islamic Jihad leader” in 2005. The Gulf Daily News has him down as “West Bank spokesman of the militant Islamic Jihad group” whilst Middle East Online and IMEMC both describe him as an “Islamic Jihad spokesperson”.
And if there were any further doubts about Adnan’s terrorist ideologies and affiliations, they are quickly dispelled in this video from 2007 in which he solicits suicide bombers.
Apparently banking on her readers’ lack of geographic knowledge, Musa tells us that “life under Israel’s military occupation has turned our dream into a nightmare”. However, their village – Arraba – has in fact been under Palestinian Authority control since the Oslo Accords in the earlier part of the 1990s.
Randa Musa makes the ridiculous claim that Administrative Detention is “part of an immoral policy used to keep Palestinians in a state of perpetual poverty and under-development”. In fact it is a means used by many democratic human rights-respecting countries around the world including the United States and the United Kingdom.
Despite having a degree in Islamic Law, Musa displays her ignorance of other forms of law when she states that:
“When a military commander issues an order for administrative detention, no evidence is produced. No charges are brought against the victims, and the occupation has no obligation to give reasons for the detention. This is by no means a legal mechanism. It is simply an arbitrary draconian measure used to inflict psychological and physical harm on its victims. When they are fortunate enough to be brought before a judge, he can detain them for periods of six months that can be extended indefinitely. ”
In fact, the laws of Administrative Detention require that the detainee be brought before a judge within a short period of time. Detentions must be based upon evidence and all detainees – including members of terrorist organisations – have Habeas Corpus rights before the High Court of Justice.
Musa states that “the occupation has decided under pressure to free my husband in April” (emphasis added) whereas in fact Adnan’s detention was due to come to an end on April 17th in any case.
This self-described “devoted wife” is of course no less a propagandist for Islamist terror than her husband. Her concern for human rights, “freedom and dignity” is not universal and certainly does not apply to the ultimate right – the right to life – which her husband and his fellow PIJ members seek to deny Israelis.
She is also apparently prepared even to use her own children in furthering the Islamist cause. The picture illustrating Musa’s article is captioned as showing her daughter holding “a picture of her father, Khader Adnan, who is on hunger strike”.
The caption omits the fact that the child is also holding the flag of Islamic Jihad – a movement well-known for its indoctrination of children with hatred and glorification of terrorism.
Palestinian Islamic Jihad scouting boys wear uniforms and painted faces during a protest demanding the release of Palestinian prisoners being held in Israeli jails, at the Palestinian Legislative council in Gaza city, Monday, Aug. 16, 2004. (http://tiny.cc/w0b62)
A Palestinian woman supporting Islamic Jihad attended a Gaza Strip rally Friday marking the 13th anniversary of the death of the group’s leader, Fathi Shekaki (http://tiny.cc/6s2su)
In indulging its now infamous addiction to terrorist chic, the Guardian long since ditched its liberal credentials to such an extent that it is not ashamed to publish unchallenged fact-free articles by terrorists and their collaborators.
One would, however, have hoped that a terrorist organisation’s exploitation of a child for propaganda purposes would have been a step too far even for the Guardian. Apparently not.
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Cross posted by Anne, who blogs at Anne’s Opinions
Float in Dusseldorf featuring Ahmadinejad
Guardian Associate Editor Seumas Milne, per George Galloway and other political fellow travelers, never met a dictator he couldn’t love and whose opposition to anything Western is visceral.
His latest column, Feb. 21, asserts that an attack on Iran would be an act of criminal stupidity.
A US-Israeli stealth war [against Iran] is already raging on the ground, including covert assassinations of scientists, cyber warfare and attacks on military and missile installations. And Britain and France have successfully dragooned the EU into ramping up sanctions on Iran’s economic life-blood of oil exports as a buildup of western military forces continues in the Gulf.
Any of this could easily be regarded as an act of war against Iran –
If an attack is launched by Israel or the US, it would not just be an act of criminal aggression, but of wanton destructive stupidity. As Michael Clarke, director of the British defence establishment’s Royal United Services Institute, points out, such an attack would be entirely illegal: “There is no basis in international law for preventative, rather than pre-emptive, war.”
However, Clarke does not make clear, as with Milne’s broader commentary, the difference between pre-emptive and preventative.
From Dictionary.com:
Preemptive: of or pertaining to preemption…taken as a measure against something possible, anticipated, or feared.
Preventive; deterrent: a preemptive tactic against a ruthless…rival.
And as I have pointed out before, preemptive attacks are indeed legal in the face of not only imminent attack but also expected and threatened attack:
The proliferation of WMDs by rogue nations gave rise to a certain argument by scholars concerning preemption. They argued that the threat need not be “imminent” in the classic sense and that the illicit acquisition of these weapons, with their capacity to unleash massive destruction, by rogue nations, created the requisite threat to peace and stability as to have justified the use of preemptive force. NATO’s Deputy Assistant Secretary General for WMD, Guy Roberts cited the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, the 1998 US attack on a Sudanese pharmaceutical plant, (identified by US intelligence to have been a chemical weapons facility) and the 1981 Israeli attack on Iraq’s nuclear facility at Osirak as examples of the counter-proliferation self-help paradigm. Regarding the Osirak attack, Roberts noted that at the time, few legal scholars argued in support of the Israeli attack but notes further that, “subsequent events demonstrated the perspicacity of the Israelis, and some scholars have re-visited that attack arguing that it was justified under anticipatory self-defense.” Following the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, American forces captured a number of documents detailing conversations that Sadaam Hussein had with his inner sanctum. The archive of documents and recorded meetings confirm that Hussein was indeed aiming to strike at Israel. In a 1982 conversation Hussein stated that, “Once Iraq walks out victorious, there will not be any Israel.” Of Israel’s anti-Iraqi endeavors he noted, “Technically, they [the Israelis] are right in all of their attempts to harm Iraq.
Note what was said about Israel’s attack on Osirak, the international condemnations and the later reversal of opinion (not that Israel ever received an apology for the original condemnations).
The threats emanating from Iran, with its parades of missiles engraved “Marg bar Israel” (Death to Israel), the regime’s Holocaust denial, the determination of Ahmadinejad to wipe Israel off the map (yes, he indeed did say it many times) - not to mention its permanent proxy war against Israel conducted by Hezbollah and Hamas – all amount to viable motivations for a legal pre-emptive attack, whether by Israel, the Western allies, or a coalition of them all.
Again, Milne:
Such a capability wouldn’t be the “existential threat” Israeli politicians have claimed. It might, of course, blunt Israel’s strategic edge. Or as Matthew Kroenig, the US defence secretary’s special adviser until last summer,spelled it out recently, a nuclear Iran “would immediately limit US freedom of action in the Middle East”. Which gets to the heart of the matter: freedom of action in the Middle East is the prerogative of the US and its allies, not independent Middle Eastern states.
Milne’s dismissal of Israel’s concern about an existential threat is characteristically Guardian: Detached moral posturing far removed from the crisis being discussed. He is not the one sitting here in the Middle East waiting for bombs to fall on his family. And, of course he does not care that Israel’s strategic edge would be blunted.
Anything that would weaken Israel is good as far as he is concerned, and similarly supports the potential that a nuclear Iran would limit US freedom of action in the Middle East.
It is biased and ideologically driven “journalists” like Milne who suffer from the real failure of imagination – those who cannot imagine the dire straits the civilised world will find itself in if Iran develops nuclear weapons, and who refuse to see the disastrous implications, some of which are already being played out today in Iraq and Afghanistan.
He also seems egregiously detached from the moral lessons learned from the 20th century’s previous wars: That when despotic regimes threaten destruction they usually carry out their threats.
Related articles
- CiF readers blast Jonathan Freedland’s critique of Guardian Left orthodoxies on Syria, Iran & Israel (cifwatch.com)
- Guardian’s Seumas Milne runs interference for “anti-Imperialist” Islamic Republic of Iran (cifwatch.com)
- Fascinating Twitter exchange between Guardian’s Seumas Milne & Hamas member Azzam Tamimi (cifwatch.com)
- Tin-Pot Pravda: Guardian editorial scolds Israel for taking Iranian nuclear threat seriously (cifwatch.com)
- Seumas Milne shills for Syria & Iran: Sees hidden Zionist hand in calls for Assad’s overthrow (cifwatch.com)
Explicitly antisemitic commentators often complain that Jewish money distorts U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East, and warn of the broader danger posed by Jewish influence in politics.
Such narratives can be found on the extreme left, the Jewish far left, the extreme right, and Islamic /Arab sites.
And, the Guardian is certainly no slouch at employing rhetoric suggesting the nefarious influence of Jewish Americans on U.S. policy or the election process.
Ewen MacAskill, writing in the Guardian on Jan. 25, commenting on Obama’s State of the Union address, wrote:
On foreign policy, a president who has been at loggerheads with the Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, over a Middle East peace process promised unflinching support for the state. With an election looming and in need of votes and funds from American Jews, some of whom have been unhappy over his approach to Israel, Obama referred to “our iron-clad, and I mean iron-clad, commitment to Israel’s security”.
In nearly 3000 words in two separate Guardian reports (both published on Jan. 28,), Paul Harris and Arun Kundnani played to their Guardian base by evoking the injurious effects of (Zionist) Jewish money on the American body politic.
Harris’s “The Secrets of the billionaire bankrolling Gingrich’s shot at the White House“, warned darkly of Adelson’s billions attempting to purchase the outcome of the U.S. elections, but Arun‘s account of Adelson, in “Newt Gingrich’s agenda-setting big donor“, represented a far more egregious polemical assault on pro-Israel Jews. Concluded Arun:
we should not be discouraged from properly scrutinising the millions of dollars being spent to advance the career of a politician who…is running for the presidential nomination while espousing a Greater Israel agenda.
The mere fact the Guardian’s hitherto favorite wealthy Jewish bogeyman, Sheldon Adelson, failed to propel his preferred candidate, Newt Gingrich, to political supremacy within the Republic primary for President doesn’t mean that such narratives on the “disproportionate” influence of Jewish money on the campaign will cease.
The latest Guardian piece consistent with such narrative isn’t nearly as egregious as the above examples, but again demonstrates that such memes are increasingly accepted within the Guardian Left and mainstream media.
In “FACT CHECK: ‘Record-low’ ignores money for Israel“, Guardian/Associated Press, Feb. 18, Donna Cassata (Political Editor at AP) attempts to refute allegations by “two powerful House Republican chairmen accused President Barack Obama of jeopardizing Israel’s security with a ‘record-low’ budget request for a cooperative U.S.-Israeli missile defense program.”
While Cassata cites some budgetary facts to counter the argument made by Foreign Affairs Chairwoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Fla., and Armed Services Committee Chairman Howard “Buck” McKeon, R-Calif. that “the administration is requesting record-low support for”, she then attempts to contextualize the criticism:
Election-year politics and the increasing Iranian threat to Israel have ratcheted up the bitter rhetoric in Washington and on the presidential campaign trail. Republicans and Democrats are keeping a close watch on Jewish voters who not only are an important political base for Democrats but whose financial contributions are critical for either party.
Commanders in chief propose a specific amount for the missile defense program knowing full well that Israel will contact members of Congress and ask that they come up with more money. Congress routinely complies.
Cassata’s argument is clear: U.S. Congressional support for Israel, and criticisms that President Obama’s proposed funding for Israel’s security, are a product of the influence of both American Jewish money and the government of the Jewish state.
As is typical when journalists write about Jews’ allegedly disproportionate influence on U.S. policy towards Israel, Cassata fails to contextualize the story by citing evidence that strong support for Israel among the Jewish and non-Jewish U.S. electorate is undeniable – empirically demonstrated by annual polls conducted by Gallup going back to 1967.
The degree that Congress is pro-Israel merely reflects something of a political consensus across the American political spectrum.
Yet, the belief that Jewish money (and/or Israel) is purchasing pro-Israel congressional support reflects something of a consensus among the Guardian Left and those politically aligned with their brand of “progressive” politics.
Related articles
- Arun Kundnani, & a Guardian dog-whistle about the injurious effects of a wealthy American Zionist (cifwatch.com)
- Jews & the charge of ‘Dual Loyalty’: CiF’s Rachel Shabi excuses a classic antisemitic canard (cifwatch.com)
- Guardian’s Ewen MacAskill sees Obama’s Israel support, in State of Union, reflecting need of Jews’ money (cifwatch.com)
- Guardian’s Simon Jenkins suggests Obama’s sanctions against Iran caused by Israel lobby (cifwatch.com)
- Jewish money: The Guardian leaps once more into the sewer of antisemitic conspiracies (cifwatch.com)
Harriet Sherwood’s first heart-wrenching tale of the trials of a terrorist “Palestinian hunger striker” named Khader Adnan (Israel shackles Palestinian hunger striker), Feb. 12, held in administrative detention by Israel – who has become a martyr in the eyes of terror sympathizers everywhere – barely mentioned his ties to Islamic Jihad, and included no mention of the group’s deadly attacks which have claimed dozens of innocent Israeli lives.
Image from "Free Khader Adnan" Facebook Page
Further, Sherwood provided no legal context about the “administrative detention” being used by Israel to imprison Adnan since mid-December – a judicial method, I noted, similarly employed by other democratic and rights-respecting states around the world, including the the UK and the U.S. For example, the recently released al-Qaeda terror suspect, Abu Qatada, was held in administrative detention in the UK for over six years.
But, more broadly, the curious subtext of Sherwood’s piece, as with similar criticisms of Israel over Adnan’s hunger strike, seems to suggest that a terror suspect in custody should be released simply because he engages in a hunger strike to highlight his imprisonment to the Western media.
However, Sherwood’s latest piece on Adnan, Palestinian hunger striker Khader Adnan near death in Israeli detention, Feb. 16, was even more sympathetic to the PIJ operative, included passages about the toll Adnan’s hunger strike is taking on his family, and even characterized the Palestinian terrorist as an innocuous “baker from a village near Jenin”. [emphasis added]
Alternately, Sherwood’s 837 word tale of Israeli cruelty included one sentence (15 words) on Adnan’s ties to one of the most violent and hard-line terror groups in the Palestinian territories.
However, Adnan’s major role in the Islamist terror group is well-documented.
- In a June 8, 2005 Boston Globe article Adnan was identified as a PIJ spokesperson, and was quoted admonishing the Palestinian Authority for cooperating with Israeli officials to apprehend suspects in the wake of a Tel Aviv suicide bombing: “We have strong suspicions that the security coordination’ between Israeli and Palestinian authorities that has resumed in recent weeks ‘is responsible for this”, Adnan said. He further said there had been no response to Islamic Jihad demands that the PA say publicly that it was not involved in helping Israel identify jihadis who were planning fresh attacks.”
- Per information in the Arab media cited by Elder of Ziyon, Adnan has been a leader of PIJ for years, and was arrested by the PA as well, and even embarked on a hunger strike against the Abbas regime while in PA jail only a year previous to the current hunger strike.
- Al Arabiya identified Adnan as a “main leader” of PIJ.
The multi-talented “baker” named Khader Adan is evidently impressively skilled in both the culinary arts and the more sublime craft of providing rhetorical support for a “resistance” movement’s efforts to murder innocent Jewish civilians.
Harriet Sherwood’s cause celeb, Khader Adnan, is not only a “Hunger striker”, but a true renaissance man.
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- Harriet Sherwood feels Islamic Jihad terrorist’s pain (cifwatch.com)
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Guardian’s false accusation of “false accusations of antisemitism”
February 25, 2012 in Comments which are off-topic, ad hominem, racist, vulgar or include threats of violence will be deleted | Tags: anti-Zionism, Antisemitism, Comment is Free, Cross Post, Delegitimization, Guardian, Mark Gardner, Rachel Shabi, Tanya Gold, The CST | by Guest/Cross Post | 13 comments
This essay is cross posted by Mark Gardner at the blog of the CST
In recent years, Jewish upset has been exacerbated by the Guardian’s Comment is Free (CiF) website, which carries many more articles than the print edition; and is fundamental to the paper’s future.
CiF’s initial growth was tarnished by failures to adequately moderate readers’ comments underneath the actual articles. After much effort, this was largely remedied. Nevertheless, from a Jewish perspective at least, problems persist with the actual CiF articles themselves.
It was refreshing to see CiF recently feature a particularly spiky anti-antisemitism piece by Tanya Gold, but last week it reverted to type with a particularly poor and offensive article by Rachel Shabi. Its title claimed to reveal how “Israel’s rightwing defenders” make “false accusations of antisemitism”.
Shabi is welcome to her opinion, but after all the grief between the Jewish community and the Guardian, you might hope that they would hesitate before publishing such a shabby piece of work. Its extremely ugly headline and sub-headline (see below) are plain insensible; it has utterly inadequate levels of proof; it has utterly partial summaries of the sources that it links to; and it refuses to acknowledge that opposition to the phrase “Israel firsters” might be something other than an evil deception to defend Israel.
Shabi’s article can be read here. The title and subtitle:
So, surely the article is about how the NY Time’s new Jerusalem correspondent has been falsely accused of “antisemitism” by “Israel’s rightwing defenders”?
Well, no actually. The article’s first three paragraphs deal with the new correspondent, Jodi Rudoren. Shabi claims Rudoren has been called an “anti-Zionist”, but there is no mention here by Shabi of antisemitism, none whatsoever. The word doesn’t feature, nor in any of the three articles linked to by Shabi’s article (here and here and here). It isn’t even hinted at in any of them. The headline and sub-headline are simply wrong and insensible. This, despite their being so provocative and insulting.
Less importantly, the word “anti-Zionist” appears in quotation marks, as if this is what Rudoren has been called. No source is given for this claim. Click on the links provided by Shabi’s article, and you still won’t find it: you’ll find criticism of Rudoren, strong criticism of whom she has tweeted with, people saying she gives the impression of being partial, but you won’t find the simple “anti-Zionist” accusation – and, I repeat, far less anything mentioning antisemitism.
The closest you’ll find to a plain “anti-Zionist” accusation is this quote taken from Tablet online magazine: but Tablet is a centre-left US Jewish publication, so what does it have to do with the “rightwing defenders” of Shabi’s article? (And, again, nothing here remotely connected with ”false accusations of antisemitism“.)
Next, Shabi moves from Rudoren to an argument in America over the use of the phrase “Israel firsters”. This is a phrase that denotes those who put Israel’s interests above those of their own country. (Former American Ku Klux Klan leader, David Duke, is an especially notorious user of the term.)
Given the centrality of the ‘dual loyalty’ motif and attendant Jewish conspiracy and treason charges to antisemitism through the centuries, the antisemitic resonance and potential of “Israel firsters” is starkly obvious: as is the right of Jews (and others) to complain about its use. Not here, according to Shabi. Her take on it, as published by Guardian CiF:
And there you have it, CiF is happy to publish that concerns raised about the expression “Israel firsters” were “just another attempt to smear…intimidate and paralyse, choke and divert” liberal criticism and discussion of Israel. No question about it and seemingly no requirement from CiF that Shabi should explicitly explain the rationale behind her “smear” claims, which derive from this at Salon.com, linked to via Shabi’s above link at “liberal commentators“. Incredibly, the former AIPAC spokesman quoted in it didn’t even directly call anyone an antisemite, he merely says of US Democrats using the expression “Israel firsters”: “these are the words of anti-Semites, not Democratic political players.”
And that is the “false accusations of antisemitism” as stated in the title.
All of this, brought to you by Guardian Comment is Free: which is why it matters.
Postscript
When the AIPAC spokesman was asked to explain himself by Salon.com, he gave the following answer – and it is as strikingly appropriate for the Guardian, as it is for the Democratic Party (especially the final sentence):
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