Moeran

Should we ban ‘Nazi analogies’?

moeran’s comment 24 Jul 09, 11:43am

Look on the bright side; the current angst over words (Nakba, Nazism) indicates just how desperate Israel and its tame apologists like MacShane are.

They have lost the battle for public opinion and, like the fascist Greek generals at the end of the film “Z”, think that they can stifle thought and debate by legislation.

Risible.

Israel’s barrier to progress

moeran’s comment 22 Jul 09, 12:01pm

tinebreaker

These views will not be popular among some but I can see the logic.

The fact is that most Israelis wish to live a secular. westernised life in Te lAviv, not relive biblical times in a colony in Palestine.
They are , understandably, diffident about sacrifice and suffering- their own that is, not Palestinian which they prefer to ignore (with honourable exceptions).

If they were to suffer for but for a day what the average Palestinian endures for a lifetime, they’d soon say “enough! bring the colonists home!”
And secular mothers in Tel Aviv may well think that sacrificing their sons in the IDF in the promotion of a Zionist/colonial fantasy may be unacceptable.

Israel needs the truth about Cast Lead

moeran’s comment 17 Jul 09, 6:32pm

Pretzelburg

Regev and white phosphorous; you know as well as I do that the use of insinuations is a commonplace in Israeli PR.
We saw it time and again in the responses of IDF spokespeople to the atrocities we saw in Gaza. It is a means by which dehumanisation of another race is conducted.

lovemymod;

it is clear that Israelis tend either not to know or to ensure that they keep themselves ignorant of what goes on. The number of suicides of IDF personnel suggests that they are shocked by the reality. When an undercover correspondent from Channel2 went through checkpoints and filmed clandestinely the treatment of Palestinians, the Israeli public was also shocked.

ibrows; I recommend Seraching Jenin by Ramzy Baroud (Pluto Press); eye witness accounts of what happened in Jenin. One of the caterpillar drivers, Moshe Nissim, gave a graphic account in Yedioth Aronoth ((31/05/2002) of how much he enjoyed his work (sic).

Empty noises from Breaking the Silence

moeran’s comment 16 Jul 09, 9:17am

Soarer

Don’t hold your breath. There is a climate of impunity in cases in which the victims are Palestinians.

It’s true of massive crimes like Gaza
And of serious crimes, like the destruction of Jenin refugee camp.Still covered-up by apologists .
And of minor crimes like the Hebron settler who was filmed shooting at Palestinians and has had the charges against him dropped this week.

It makes sense when you remember that Palestinians are not considered human-beings.

A disaster for Jews and Israel

moeran’s comment 15 Jul 09, 11:26am

On the contrary, b752i, the Jewish Agency and its ethnic-cleansing are at the very heart of the problems that Israel has with many of its own citizens, its neighbours and the rest of the world.

DivreiHayamin; prophetic words indeed. Keep following the thread; you’ll see plenty to confirm your fears but perhaps not in the sense you expect.

09 Apr 09, 11:51am (about 1 hour ago)

Apparently, my response to Southlondon was deemed inappropriate.

I’ll try again. Gently.

The problem for him is that many of the colonists and squatters whom I meet (and they are protected by the IDF which is heavily inflitrated by hill-top youth) are racists.The language they use to Palestinians and about Palestinians (and British Christians too, come to think of it) is that which one would expect of those who consider themselves a master race and others “untermenschen.”

That’s what I see, that’s what I hear. Sorry to be offensive. Truth hurts.

The Press TV pantomime

moeran’s comment 13 Jul 09, 10:45am

In a world dominated by US news organisations terrified of upsetting the Israeli government, particularly TV (not to mention our own timid BBC) it is hard to work up much angst in the case of Press TV.

Israel’s wall still deepening the divide

moeran’s comment 09 Jul 09, 12:16pm

The first suicide terrorist was, of course, Baruch Goldstein in Hebron. He knew he’d be killed when he shot dead 29 worshippers.

A few days later, one of the victim’s relatives became the first suicide bomber. In Jerusalem.

Israelis owe so much to Baruch Goldstein…perhaps they could blow up his statue?

Israel’s wall still deepening the divide

moeran’s comment 09 Jul 09, 11:38am

so Sydk, even after a “peace settlement” with Abbas and his cronies, the colonies will remain.

And their White Folks Only roads (as the Civil Rights Movement in the US would refer to them).
And the sterile zones.
And the fundamentalists poisoning wells, driving cars at kids, burning olive groves.

You said it .

Some peace. Some settlement.

Zero tolerance for torture

moeran’s comment 08 Jul 09, 11:14am

Sabraguy

Sorry to be obvious but the “roots” of Abu Ghraib, that is the methodology,can be found in Israeli procedures.

The guys who were filmed raping the boy there had dual Israeli/Australian passports.

Closing Guantánamo makes us all safer

moeran’s comment 06 Jul 09, 10:37am

“Islamics”? That’s a new one.

What’s miitante’s view of the fundamentalism that dfisfigures Christianity in the US (evangelicals, God-hates-fags, End-timers et al) or Judaism (racist colonialism as illustrated daily in such places as Hebron)

Where is their Guantamano?

No change in Jerusalem, yet

moeran’s comment 01 Jul 09, 12:50pm

Sabraguy

http://www.imemc.org/article/60960

The Old City buildings threatened are not the churches themselves (yet) but buildings owned by the churches.
The problem is that Christian Palestinians may inhabit them and we can’t have that, can we?

I don’t see much respect for Christian beliefs from the Israelis when I’m in Jerusalem; crazed settlers wandering the Via Dolorosa with guns, armed guards for the ethnically-cleansed buildings near Damascus Gate, IDF conscripts lounging around the Church of the Holy Nativity in their uniforms.

What a contrast with the Muslims who look after Christian sites in Nablus and Bethlehem.

BBC anti-Israel bias is a myth

moeran’s comment 26 Jun 09, 11:36am

I am deeply grateful to the BBC.

Not long ago, I stood at the memorial for in the Martyrs’ Cemetery in Jenin. I was there to say a Christian prayer for the the shahid slaughtered by the Israelis in 2002.

It had been a long, arduous journey but well worth it; and I was there thanks to the BBC. And their cowardice in the face of Israeli pressure.

An IDF booby trap a few years earlier which killed six little children in Gaza had been reported throughout the day on BBC. At 1800 on BBC1 the item was scrapped and replaced by a ludicrous report about the Queen Mother. Pressure had been exerted. Years later I saw the report which should have been shown.

That day my eyes were opened and I became- by Edward Said’s definition- a Palestinian.

Thanks to the BBC and its inability to say “no” to the Israeli lobby.

Israel and America: stopping the settlements

moeran’s comment 25 Jun 09, 11:00am

Sadly, sabraguy, the colonisation of Palestine is all about ethnic cleansing so the issue is bound to arise.

Ethnic cleansing in Silwan, Al-Buistan, Anatta, the Jordan Valley, Hebron; all of which I have seen in action in the last few months.

The refusal of the Israeli Government to allow a seven year old Gaza boy, whose mother has died, to live with his father in Hebron is indicative of its ethical standards. It doesn’t want anyone- even a distressed child- to sully the paradise that “Samaria and Judea” must one day become.

No peace from Netanyahu

moeran’s comment 16 Jun 09, 2:08pm

Predictable words from a far-right bigot who believes in racial supremacy.

The lessons for the rest of us clear; don’t expect those with a fanancial stake in the colonisation of Palestine to act against this rogue state, instead we must boycott Israeli produce, agitate and support the resistance in everyway we can. By all means necessary.

And hope that democacy will come to the collaborating states of Jordan and Egypt so that appropriate measures can be taken to blockade the racists. Gaza can be the model; let’ s see the Israelis trying to build tunnels to bring in toilet paper. Where to, I wonder? Europe? the USA?

When Israelis suffer 5% of what Palestinians suffer daily (5% would do it) the last colonial enterprise on the planet will be finished.

A recipe for resentment

moeran’s comment 26 May 09, 5:54pm

Gullible or malicious? I’m never sure with some of our posters.

The “Jewish state” issue is a new hurdle placed by an extremist government to yet again play for time in refusing to accept the inevitable Palestinian state.

For Lieberman et al, however, there is a further motive and one that he has not sought to hide (even if some refuse to see it); the expulsion of the remaining Palestinian refugees from Israel.

The Israelis have got away with the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians- started in 1948 and continuing to this day- while the world has remained silent.

US must rein in Israel’s nuclear arms

moeran’s comment 22 May 09, 10:53am

Karmapolice’s posting would read quite well if he swapped the words ” Israel” and “Iran.”
I was particularly amused by his reference to religious extremism; only a few months ago, the IDF was sent in to Gaza to massacre defenceless civilians with the words of its Chief Rabbi ringing in its ears, justifying brutality and mocking humanity.

Israelis doesn’t fear Iran’s weapons (which wouldn’t be used, as they know full well, because of the number of Palestinians who would die alongside their oppressors) but because Israel’s position as School Bully of the region would be threatened.

Fatah is key to Palestinian polity

moeran’s comment 21 May 09, 11:08am

Nothing I saw on my recent visit contradicts Krusty’s view. Like LeonWells, I admire Mustafa Baghouti, a man of honour and courage, and I’d love to think that Israelis listen. Sadly, they have moved too far to the Racist Right.; way beyond the Boers, for example.

Hamas is popular because it is not embarrassed to proclaim itself as the party of Resistance and Liberation.

Once Abbas accepted neo-con/Zionist money, establishing his militia in their nice new American uniforms, he lost the support of the people, apart from the pampered elite in the Muqata, surrounded by quasi-American bodyguards in sunglasses.

And it is accepted in Ramallah that when the IDF are on a kidnapping spree they are nowhere to be seen.

And, by the way, where’s the US favourite Mohammed Dahlan these days? Still hoping to be Israel’s Bantustan Chief, despite being kicked out of Gaza?

Diaspora Jews find their voice

moeran’s comment 20 May 09, 5:33pm

Geoff01; an honest, decent man.

The demonstration held in London to support war-crimes (and Sack’s attempts to disguise its purpose fooled no one) did enormous damage. And it’s about time that The Jewish Chronicle apologised for its role in organising it.

A relativist muddle

moeran’s comment 14 May 09, 3:15pm

I’m sure that the redoubtable Holocaust survivor, Hedy Epstein will be shaking iwith fury at Petra’s shameless exploitation of the memory of six million victims in this context. I’ve never understood why Palestinian farmers should lose their land because of the crimes of Europeans in a country of which they had never heard.

There must be many who regard this persistent and cynical peddling of one of the most appalling crimes in history to justify the lesser, but for the people concerned, equally devastating crimes of today, profoundly repugnant.

Progress is doomed if Obama is merely a cleverer version of Bush

moeran’s comment 13 May 09, 8:38am

aModerateIsraeli

Would it be a fair criticism to suggest that some Israelis who consider themselves moderate are prepared to hide behind the ethnic-cleansers and bigots that I meet in Palestine? They may find their antics as distasteful and disressing as the rest of us but they are find it hard to support a just solution in case they are seen as unpatriotic.

Or am I being unfair? There are of course some decent Israelis who, like me, support a One State solution and say bugger religion.

Will Obama keep Israel to its promises?

moeran’s comment 12 May 09, 9:50am

Colony expansion is a piddling issue- relatively.

The huge colonies like Ariel have got to go.
The Judaisation of Al Q’uds not halted but reversed.
11,000 political prisoners released with appropriate compensation.
And Palestinian refugees’ “Right of Return” acknowleged and enforced.

Forget it; the one state solution is the only solution.

The paradox of Israel’s pursuit of might

moeran’s comment 09 May 09, 10:21am

Sorcey

Correct; but we know that Petra is incorrigible. Endless repeition of lies and misrepresentations has been an effective (if cynical) ploy of the Israelis for years.

We all remember the “Three Bantsutan” Clinton solution and how that has been portrayed as a generous (sic) offer. But, as Petra tells us every week, once a Zionist lie has been scribed, it will be endlessly repeated. Little ones (Mohammed al-Dhurra was killed by someone else), medium one s(Jenin didn’t happen) and massive ones (the Nakba was Palestinians choosing, en masse, to emigrate).

And now, after the non-use pf phospherous shells in Gaza, Petra gives us Annapolois. Risible.

The blood libel brought up to date

moeran’s comment 01 May 09, 6:26pm

chongkina

Who has suggested that Israeli policies towards Palestinians are “irrational”?

On the contrary, they are entirely (and criminally) rational; Israelis want (and are in the process of stealing) Palestinian land. The policies are racist because the essential humanity of another people is denied and their treatment defined by a concept of racial superiority.

The blood libel brought up to date

moeran’s comment 01 May 09, 11:08am

Not a mature article and one undoubtedly lacking a sense of irony.

A racist attack on Gaza, encouraged by the IOF’s Chief Rabbi.
Racist home demolitions in Silwan and Sheikh Jarrah.
Racist attacks by racist US colonists in Hebron.
And by Israeli squatters near Nablus.
A racist Annexation Wall.
White Folks Only roads to encourage racist colonists.

And what do these two young men consider racist? A play which challenges their consciences.

Unsuccessfully, apparently.

They should learn that their own minscule problems and resentments count for very little in the real fight against racism.

Grow up.

Israelis and Palestinians want peace

moeran’s comment 22 Apr 09, 6:16pm

Yesterday I saw the ethnic cleansing of Silwan; this morning Sheikh Jarrah; this afternoon I saw the wall which cuts Abu Dis into two.

Where will the State of Palestine be? in the sea?

The two-state solution is dead, killed by the settlers and the gutless Israeli government which is terrified of them.

Long live the unitary State of Palestine!

Durban II: Ahmadinejad’s charade

moeran’s comment 21 Apr 09, 6:08pm

A few hours ago I was in Silwan, near the Old City of Jerusalem, witnessing the on-going ethnic-cleansing.

And yes, Israel is a racist state.

The big tent approach

moeran’s comment 06 Apr 09, 3:24pm

Admaster

Your last line also refers to fundamentalist Christians and
fundamentalist Zionists in Occupied Palestine and Israel.

You should meet ‘em some time.

Israel’s most moral army

moeran’s comment 02 Apr 09, 5:58pm

We can be peaceful here in the UK- boycotts and so on.
But don’t expect Palestinians to be so; support the right to armed resistance for an occupied people.

Israel’s other Arabs

moeran’s comment 02 Apr 09, 11:24am

PeterNW1
I’d describe Jifna, near Ramallah, next to the regugee camp of Jalazone, as a Christian Palestinian village.

And did not the Israelis ethnically-cleanse areas of Galilee of Israeli Christians (Palestinians of course) in the development of tourism?

Partisan media monitors tell us little

moeran’s comment 30 Mar 09, 12:16pm

ClearCom

I think you’ll find that “Geobles” (sic) tended towards the perpetrators rather than the victims of massacres. Or are thinking of the same person?

Even the BBC, which descends into a funk the moment the mighty Regev appears, reported the Jenin massacre.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/1937048.stm

At the risk of hijacking this thread, it should be recorded that one of the Zionist ploys since 1948 has been to re-write history.

The Palestinians all left voluntarily in 1948…Deir Yassin….USS Liberty…Mohammed al-Dhurra….Jenin…Gaza…..and the next massacre has probably already received its preparatory text. Iran?

Something of a pattern. So what’s gone wrong? Mobile phones, cheap camcorders (the scourge of the settlers), that’s what..

What a pity.

Partisan media monitors tell us little

moeran’s comment 30 Mar 09, 11:33am

Frashka
The Jenin massacre exposed the lengths the Israelis would go to to cover -up atrocities; it was a rehearsal for Gaza. The only people who claim it to be a myth are those who are embarrassed or ignorant . And are not afraid to publish untruths; your “even Hamas” one is a classic.

Bibi has done for Labour

moeran’s comment 26 Mar 09, 10:39am

On Monday, Barak refused to implement a Supreme Court instruction to remove an illegal squat near Ofer built (as usual) on Palestinian land.

On Tuesday, he authorised yet another fundamentalist Zionist colony on Palestinian land near Hebron.

And there’s the small matter of the racist masscares in Gaza.

I think he’ll be very happy with Netanyahu and Liebermann.

This counter-terror plan is in ruins. Try one that works

moeran’s comment 26 Mar 09, 8:49am

jeremyjames

Do you suppose that the British Board of Jews, which sponsored a distasteful rally in London in support of the Gaza massacres, is more representative of UK Jews than the MCB is of Muslims?

To be or not to be with Bibi

moeran’s comment 23 Mar 09, 3:34pm

And now Geoff1, a response to your last post.

What sticks in the craw about Israel for me and for many, many others (increasingly so) is that, unlike the vicious governments you mention, it has a legion of well-paid and ideological minions throughout the world (even on CIF) who justify outrages and abuse and sometimes threaten those of us who comment. Any Chinese apologists justifying the Tibet occupation on CIF, for example?

The demonstration in favour of the Gaza massacres in London, for example, was an outrage and enjoyed the support of the Jewish community’s leading newspaper and the Chief Rabbi.

None of the regimes you mention have lobbies like this; none of them can influence US appointments in government, nor pressurise the BBC like Israel and its apologists do. And none of them have the audacity to claim to speak for a major religion, much to the chagrin of thousands of British Jews.

Discard the mythology of ‘the Israel Lobby’, the reality is bad enough

moeran’s comment 18 Mar 09, 8:28am

Mr Freedland makes no mention of the power of censorship that the Israel Lobby apparently wields in the US. Two examples come to mind.

The Death of Klinghoeffer, which many regard as one of the finest contemporary operas, has been banned in the US on the say-so of the Likudniks.
My Name is Rachel was suddenly withdrawn from a New York theatre a few days before it was due to open.

Running the settler gauntlet

moeran’s comment 16 Mar 09, 5:49pm

I was amused by the suggestion that the PA should protect the children of Hebron and all the other victims of racist violence in Occupied Palestine.

With what?

I’d guess that their security forces (smart though their new US uniforms are) would be out-gunned by these Old Testament fanatics.

Furthermore, if any Palestinian were to confront any Israeli, even one guilty of an obvious crime, he/she would be arrested or killed. It’s no coincidence that one of the first attacks in the Al-Aqsa Intifada was on Bethlehem Police Station (the ruins were there for years to bear silent testimony) while in the recent Gaza massacre, the IDF targeted a Police barracks during a passing-out ceremony on the first day.

Put bluntly, Palestinians are not allowed to resist. Even a stone thrown by a child (recently at the Wall aseported by Defence for Children International) is deemed a terrorist attack on Israel; and treated accordingly.

The thought of a settler being arrested and put in a Palestinian prison is, nonetheless, alluring.

Israel’s new far right

moeran’s comment 02 Mar 09, 6:01pm

A superb rallying call for the One State Solution, Blerin. Thanks for your efforts.And a welll-chosen day too, just as attention is focused on the Gaza massacres.

Courting Syria

moeran’s comment 23 Feb 09, 5:57pm

Once Obama learns more about the realities of the region , he will have to understand that Hamas and Hezbollah represent national resistance rather than Islamism. They are no threat to anyone other than foreign occupiers and colonists.

Amid the gloom, hope

moeran’s comment 22 Feb 09, 10:21am

History will record that, as phospherous bombs fell on Gaza and hundreds of children were being killed in their homes by an invading army, a rally was held in London, supported by both the Jewish Chronicle and the British Board of Deputies, which offered justification for these crimes. British Jews who dissented were abused and villified.

It may well be seen as an important stage in the growing realisation throughout the world that Zionism is a failed and illegitimate ideology and that one day, Jews, Muslims and Christians must live together in a secular and unified Palestine.

We are all extremists now

moeran’s comment 16 Feb 09, 11:45am

A bit of a rant, Moderne.
The flag I want to see flying over Gaza, Ramallah and- most importantly- Jerusalem (Al Quds) is the flag of Palestine.
And this is true of the Christians and former Fatah supporters I know who vote for Hamas because it is an organisation committed to resistance not surrender.

Victory for the block vote

moeran’s comment 11 Feb 09, 11:28am

The writer beats the same old tired drum.
Labour, Kadima and Likud are all parties of the far-right, wedded to territorial expansion, oppression and miitarism. They may differ in presentation but the effects on the rest of us are exactly the same.
And the success of a party open- as opposed to clandestine- racism only serves to indicate that the peace and justice can only be attainable with the demise of Israel and its replacement by the secular, non-racist state of Palestine in which Christians, Jews and Muslims live as equals.

Jerusalem: pre-election, a city divided

moeran’s comment 10 Feb 09, 9:03am

middleagedmum
Better still, a united, secular, non-racist Palestine with the State of Israel as a
footnote in the history books.

Bibi’s spectre looms large

moeran’s comment 31 Jan 09, 4:40am

Tweedledum and Tweedledee.
I’ve never thought it made much difference which political party thinks it’s in power in Israel; the IDF and the Settler Movement are, really.
War-criminals and fundamentalist crazies. God help us.
The only hope is a one-state solution; the Zionist experiment has failed..

Holding their fire

moeran’s comment 18 Jan 09, 7:54pm

Israel’s demise will not come from missiles-its Palestinian citizens (those who are not expelled) and its Palestinian neighbours will protect it.

It will wither from within; a sad, universally loathed anachronism in a world which cannot abide bullies and hypocrites, condemned by its own young , traumatised by their involvement in sickening war-crimes against defenceless fellow human beings.

The decent citizens will desert this sinking ship, preferring liberal democracies that are not ruled by military elites and insane fundamentalists. Its population will age while that of the vibrant Palestinian society that has withstood its deprivations will be youthful and determined.

You can watch this process in microcosm outside the Damascus Gate in Al Quds each Thursday evening. The answers lie in the Old City of Occupied Jerusalem.

Trauma and terror in Gaza

moeran’s comment 17 Jan 09, 8:17am

Damn right Berchmans; some of the responses to this article have been sick and disgusting. You may remember one poster a month ago wriritng that 80% of Palestinian children are “murderous bastards”. In the light of what the IDF have been doing to Gazan youngsters, such a comment looks a bit like incitement; or was the American gentleman merely expressing the views of a typical Zionist?

I wonder, have you ever seen the Zionists dancing hysterically through the streets of the Old City of Jerusalem on Jersalem Day in an attempt to humiliate the shop-keepers?

These racists are glorying in Palestinian blood; but you and I know that they will pay a price.
Dead children have brothers, cousins, friends. Dance away, my friends but don’t forget to look over your shoulders.

Go ahead and boycott Israel

moeran’s comment 15 Jan 09, 1:15pm

Ygrec; corrrect.
It’s odd, isn’t it, that the same people who claim that boycotts don’t work or that they discriminate against the minority of decent Israelis are ardent supporters of boyctting Gazans.
To be blunt, the more I read the comments of the apologists on CIF, the more I come to the conclusion that peaceful opposition is a waste of effort.
I suppose that’s why Hamas is so popular. They seem to understand the nature of the Zionist state better than others.

Profits of war

moeran’s comment 12 Jan 09, 11:25am

Moveanymountain; hundreds, including large numbers of children, have been executed without trial by Israeli death squads and the IDF.

Supreme emergency

moeran’s comment 12 Jan 09, 11:15am

JoeMauritz; I can answer your question inone word and simultaneously explain the apparently bloodthirsty posts of the Zionists.
Racism.
They simply don’t accept the humanity of people of other races.

Politics and the Gaza conflict

moeran’s comment 02 Jan 09, 5:38pm

Sub-humans? Peter the Hungarian has posted some crackers in his time but this one is a real classic.
In all of my time in Palestine over the past few years, I’ve never heard a Palestinian, Christian or Muslim, make racist comments about Jews. They are immensely appreciative of the decent Israelis and foreign Jewish groups who consider all men as equals. I know that this profoundly upsets the racists who post on CIF but that’s too bad.
Equally, in all the checkpoints in which I’ve queued, only twice have I seen an IOP soldier treat Palestinians as human beings.

Mumbai atrocities highlight need for solution in Kashmir

moeran’s comment 30 Nov 08, 10:09am

Just missed BookerReader’s comment.
Is it suggested that suffering in silence is the right response to an injustice? Thank God Mandela and MLK didn’t agree. Or perhaps the Holocaust should have been allowed to take its course without interference?

On trend? Check

moeran’s comment 02 Nov 08, 6:38pm

Come on DoctorJohn, even you must agree that the line about “stealing happiness” was priceless.

Anyway, since Arafat has now entered this thread (and I suppose deservedly so since he wore a keffiyeh), I’d like to be extremely provocative and say that each year I pay my respects at his memorial in the Muqata. I was delighted to see that, this year, the site has been renovated with dignity and taste. I’m not ashamed to say that I find it a moving experience to be there and, as in the case of Al Aqsa, which I also visit annually, I consider my pilgrimage to be one to the soul of the Palestinian nation. Hurriyeh falisteen.

Israel’s own religious fanatics

moeran’s comment 10 Oct 08, 1:30pm

I admire the ability of Ziongate to keep his eyes closed to the nature of the society in which he lives.
He must try to understand that his fellow citizens- with honourable exceptions whom he despises- are intensely frightening to secular social democrats like me.
Not just the “we killed Jesus” settlers; nor the gun-toting juvenile “security” personnel swaggering around the Old City. The IDF, certainly are, though I’ve met two or three decent ones over the years, relatively speaking. Two years ago I saw a female IDF soldier smile at a Palestinian child at a checkpoint.

It is the “man in the street”, ordinary everyday citizens who frighten me most- people like Ziongate perhaps – the ones who vote for racist governments with racist policies and hide their embarrassment and shame by recourse to tribal loyalties.
In this mindset, no event, no actions, however heinous, if perpetrated by a member of the tribe (or gang, as it would be termed on the mean streets of the US) can ever be criticised. Everyting must be excused or denied, even to the point of ludicrous dishonesty that convinces nobody. Tom Hurndall was a gunman, for instance.

And so the horrors continue while eyes are kept firmly closed.

Mrs Clean enters the mire

moeran’s comment 21 Sep 08, 10:40am

Why is Israel important?

Perhaps that question should be addressed to AIPAC, the Republican Party, the Christian Zionists and all those who have made a “dreary little state” (as a poster from the US referred to it a few weeks ago) worth so much money in aid, so much political cover and so many inane forigin policy decisions.

All we do on CIF is to point out that Israel is not worth it; that its ludicrous religious justifications are no more acceptable than those of obscurantist mullahs in rural Pakistan or Flat-earthers in medieval Europe, that, in short, it’s continued hegemony and expanding colonies are not worth the suffering that it causes.

It’ s an Emperor with no clothes and the rest of us are supposed to ignore its nakedness either through fear or bribery.

Moeran

27 Aug 08, 10:08am

I’m grateful to Mr Freedman ( and Jeff Halper, for that matter) because, as a social democrat and lapsed Methodist, I find the Jewish nationalists I come into contact with genuinely terrifying. Not that they are a physical threat to me personally (except, perhaps, when I’m in Hebron) but they frighten me because their combination of religion and racism is so alien to my upbringing. In my youth, I confronted NF bigots in Deptford (along side many British Jews) and was able to understand that particular enemy- ignorant and brutal. But how can I comprehend otherwise intelligent people who believe themselves to be living decent lives and yet are involved in a vicious assault on an oppressed people’s right to live?

Thank God for the Jewish and Israeli voices of dissent.

For the love of Christ

moeran’s comment 14 Aug 08, 1:57pm

A “Christian”-Zionist? Christians for racial supremacy and ethnic-cleansing?

Demonising Hizbullah is a blunder

moeran’s comment 25 Jul 08, 9:14am

I suppose I must be a terrorist sympathiser; after all, my trips to Palestine over the last few years have proved beyond doubt that Hamas represents the best hope for Palestinians, now that the quisling , wealthy elite in the Muqata have been humiliated by the Israelis; and Brown and Obama, of course. Similarly with Hezbollah; I may be secular and from a Christian background but only a fool would deny that the only way to deal with the arrogant, spolit brat Israeli government is by displaying similar intransigence, strength and-yes-courage.

The secret of Hizbullah’s success

moeran’s comment 18 Jul 08, 6:58pm

And I, EastendInfidel, am neither Palestinian nor Muslim but am delighted by yet another victory for Hezbollah over the Zionists. You notice , EastEndInfidel,that I avoid phrases like “filthy murderers and bandits” though I’m fully aware of the thousands killed in Lebanon and Palestine by the IDF. Magnaminity in victory, perhaps?

moeran’s comment

Jul 13 08, 10:14am (about 2 hours ago)

I was in Occupied Jerusalem only six weeks ago, MichaelBournemouth, and it didn’t look much like the capital of Israel then. Indeed, where I was staying, the only israelis I saw were adolescent soldiers forever on the mobile to Mummy and an occasional Border Police unit touring the area looking for little Palestinian boys to abuse. Admittedly, Orthodox Jews could be seen scurrying through the Palestinian markets of the Old City, pretending that the untermenschen aren’t really there, protected by gun-toting security guards. But, to my eyes, Jerusalem is predominantly a Christian and Muslim city, apart from the new settlements on stolen land inhabited by fanatics and fundamentalists which will have to be abandoned before long. Of course, I’m not entirely alone in that view; even the US and UK governments (and who can be more pro-Israel than they? )don’t recognise Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

moeran’s comment

Jul 13 08, 10:39am (about 2 hours ago)

The numbers of children killed by the IDF is a matter of record . They have been killed sitting in school, on the way to church (in Bethlehem), playing football (flechettes fired at a game in Gaza) , on the roof tops of their houses where they play and, of course, in demonstrations. Often these killings have been by snipers, in whose telescopic sites the children are clearly identified.

However, my experience in Palestine, working with lawyers and paediatricians, is that young teenage boys are targeted for arrest and torture (and this includes sexual abuse) for much the same reason as Apartheid South Africa recognised that fourteen year olds with stones will be the resistance fighters with guns of the future.

Defence for Children International has published an enormous amount of evidence relating to the torture of children by the Shabak; check out their website. They have also reported this week on the torture of a ten year-old boy.The UK Foreign Office has admitted (but not in public) that it is aware of the use of torture and sexual abuse to further the aims of the Occupation.

Unified? Not for the Palestinians

moeran’s comment 11 Jun 08, 11:20am

I’m grateful that someone is prepared to report from Occupied Jerusalem and in particular from the tragic village of Silwan. I was there only a month ago, listening to residents, filming the on-going ethnic cleansing. And it’s not just Silwan that is being .targeted; observe what has has been done to Jerusalem villages on the “wrong” side of the wall, like Abu Dis and Anatta. There is no secret here (apart from in the mind of Obama…he’ll learn ); the aim is the judaisation of Jerusalem. Yet, anyone spending two minutes in the Old City can see the idiocy of this. The ludicrous israeli flags draped across Palestinian buildings ( like dogs pissing on lamp-posts) fool only the gullible. Jerusalem is a Palestinian city.

moeran’s comment

12 May 2008

Moeran: “For heaven’s sake, JeremyHP, give it a rest or I shall I shall wreck an interesting thread more comprehensively than you ever could by mentioning Norman Finkelstein.

On the issue of the treatment of minorities, has the Israeli media reported the burning of Bibles by Orthodox Jews last week in a dispute with Christians in Or Yehuda?”

Scandal of the persecuted peacemakers

moeran’s comment 23 Mar 08, 10:28am

Nick Cohen’s writings are becoming increasingly preposterous; desperation that few in this country take him seriously I suppose. I am a social democrat and I am fully aware of who are my enemies are; they include Cohen and his neo-con, Zionist associates.

It’s Arabs who are showing us how to tackle extremism

moeran’s comment 09 Mar 08, 9:53am

I await with interest the public condemnation from senior figures in Judaism of the racist ideology that is preached in the yeshivas, particularly those associated with the colonists’ movement in the West Bank. Specifically, is it still their view that Christians and Muslims do not have souls and that, therefore, their deaths are of little account? The armed yeshiva “students” I met in Palestine had no doubts about their divine colonial mission but what about their spokesmen? OK; I think we know.

A lasting settlement?

moeran’s comment 11 Jan 08, 6:36pm

I have the names of the victims of the Jenin massacre- that is, the bodies that were found under the rubble. However, the Israelis had plenty of time to clean-up the crime scene and lorries were seen leaving the camp in the period after the massacre. Those who were killed included medics and children; some of those killed were victims of summary execution. We do not know what happened to the handful of heroic defenders of the camp who were the last to surrender and did so only when they’d run out of ammunition. One was thirteen. These young men gave their lives to protect their families from the invaders. Let’s be clear; the defence of Jenin Refugee Camp by lightly- armed youngsters against tanks and helicoptors was one of the most heroic actions in the struggle for justice of the people of Palestine. The Israelis said afterwards that for every one “militant” killed, ten more had been created. And scarcely a day has passed without further attacks on the town and so I guess they were right.

Thanks, but no thanks

moeran’s comment 13 Dec 07, 10:49am

The Zionists can only blame themselves for the hatred that their failed experiment has invoked. Had they chosen to be satisfied with the 1948 gift from an embarrassed and ashamed UN, and avoided the ethnic cleansing (Operation Broom, they called it) of the unfortunate Palestinians whose land they took, they may have , conceivably, been in a position to create some sort of liberal, multi-ethnic state; perhaps. But no; thw fundamentalists, extreme nationalists and, later, cold-war militants (the forebears of today’s Crusaders) were just too greedy and too racist. They didn’t want to share drinking fountains with untermenschen; all they wanted was their land. And they took it. Apparently, God told them to. When the unified state of Palestine is born-and it will be- let us see how many of the Zionists are prepared to share their land with its rightful owners and how many will decide that, on balance, they are really Britons, Americans and Canadians. Unfortunately for them, they will have to share their new country with similar untermenschen. What a pity.

A ‘colourful past’ indeed

moeran’s comment 23 Nov 07, 11:51am

I’m pleased to see that this discussion is, at last, focusing attention on one of Israel’s nasty little secrets. Let me inform you of an aspect of this that they would rather you not know; the use of sexual abuse to intimidate Palestinian schoolchildren accused of resistance. Even an ex-chair of Labour Friends of Israel, Kim Howells MP, was moved to complain at the torture and sexual abuse of a little boy recently while I have seen the files of six child-victims of this practise at a lawyer’s office in Bethlehem. Both Defence for Children International and the Israeli group Bet’selem have repported instances of boys being humiliated sexually (as well as the more usual forms of torture, naturally.) Unfortunately, it appears as if elements in the Israeli security establishment (particularly the Border Police) take it upon themselves to seek out children for torture and abuse by attacking their schools. This happened in Azzoun earlier this week and Abu Dis in February.

The Middle East has had a secretive nuclear power in its midst for years

moeran’s comment 20 Nov 07, 5:52pm

Like Berchmanns, I’m not comfortable with the description of Zionism as “Nazi”, hateful, racist and violent though it is. A far more relevant comparison is with the extreme White Nationalism of the Boers of South Africa. Israel, we recall, was South Africa’s truest friend through the dog days of Apartheid; soul brothers indeed. And from whom did the Israeli rulers borrow the concept of Bantustans?