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One day in the spring of 2008 whilst I was living in England, an elderly friend who is originally from Germany and a Holocaust survivor telephoned me. She told me that a Catholic neighbour of hers had come to visit bringing with her a pamphlet she had been given at her church which stated that members of the congregation should join the boycott of Israeli goods. My friend, who does a lot of interfaith work including lecturing about the Holocaust, was very upset by the idea that the local priest might be promoting such a blatantly political campaign and asked me to find out more.
So off I went to the church and to my surprise, on the notice board in the entrance in among the announcements of services, the flower arrangement rota, and the advert for a bring and buy sale with strawberry and cream tea was also assorted anti-Israel propaganda, including literature informing the congregation of their duty to join the BDS campaign. I later found out that the priest is also a member of the local branch of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC), but during the time I spent in that small English town, the Catholic Church proved to be far from the only local religious establishment engaging in anti-Israel propaganda.
To mention but several of many incidents, during Operation Cast Lead the Methodist church on the high street displayed a large poster adorned with blue Stars of David on its outside notice board declaring to passers -by that “Israel commits war crimes”. One Christmas time the local Methodist pastor wrote a long article in the town’s newspaper comparing Joseph and Mary to Palestinians crossing Israeli checkpoints and shortly before I left the UK, the town’s Baptist church hosted a PSC –organised screening of the virulently anti-Israel film ‘The Zionist Story’.
I must say that as someone who spent her childhood in rural England with neighbours and classmates from all the various branches of the Christian Church, this volatile (and often aggressive) mix of religion and politics promoted by seemingly mild-mannered middle-aged British Christians was completely foreign to me. In the past few months many on this blog and others have expressed dismay mixed with a degree of incredulity at the decisions of the Methodist Church and the Quakers to adopt boycott resolutions. The mechanisms which have contributed to such broadly publicised actions and to the increasingly hostile environment in so many of Britain’s faith groups are, however, right under our noses.
As I write these words, a conference is being held in that most English of towns, Oxford. It is organised by a UK registered charity named ‘Friends of Sabeel UK’ (FOSUK), is entitled “Christianity, Zionism and Justice?” and features the speakers Ilan Pappe of Exeter University and the Rev. Stephen Sizer of Virginia Water.
Readers will need no introduction to Ilan Pappe’s virulent anti-Zionism which features heavily on the anti-Israel circuit and is founded on his peculiar political interpretations of history. As a prominent supporter of BDS and the ‘one-state solution’, Pappe promotes the notion of ‘ethnic cleansing’ of Palestinians at any and every opportunity, despite the demographic evidence to the contrary.
The name Stephen Sizer will also be familiar to many; particularly those who used to read the Seismic Shock blog before the Anglican vicar managed to have it closed down. Besides being a very busy man who is involved with many anti-Israel political campaigns featuring some of the more unsavoury characters on the circuit, Sizer appears to have one particularly angry bee in his bonnet when it comes to the subject of Christian Zionism , even appearing on Iran’s PressTV to talk about the subject.
So why would Friends of Sabeel UK want to invite two such extremist and controversial figures as Pappe and Sizer to speak at their AGM? Well the fact is that the clue is in the name. FOSUK are merely one branch of ‘friends’ groups in numerous Western countries which support the Jerusalem-based organisation Sabeel, otherwise known as the ‘Palestinian Liberation Theology Centre‘.
Established in 1994 by a former member of the Anglican clergy in Jerusalem, Sabeel promotes the ‘one-state solution’ by means of a brand of Christian theology which dabbles in supersessionism, claiming that the Jewish refusal to acknowledge Christ as the Messiah in fact forfeits any Jewish claims to the land of Israel and deems Jews to eternal wandering. According to Sabeel’s founder, Naim Ateek:
“The Jews, whose prophetic tradition as well as their long history of suffering qualify them to play a peacemaking role, have acquired a new image since the creation of the State of Israel in 1948. By espousing the nationalistic tradition of Zionism, they have relegated to themselves the role of oppressors and war makers. By so doing they have voluntarily relinquished the role of the servant which for centuries they had claimed for themselves. This has been a revolutionary change from the long held belief that Jews have a vocation to suffering. Many rabbis had taught that Jews should accept suffering rather than inflict it as a means of changing the world. One of the great rabbinic dictums was “Be of the persecuted rather than that of the persecutors.” Sholem Asch cried, “God be thanked, that the nations have not given my people the opportunity to commit against others the crimes which have been committed against it.” This has been dramatically changed by the creation of the State of Israel.”
Sabeel leaders also played an instrumental role in the drafting in 2009 of the not-coincidentally named Kairos Palestine Document, which promotes BDS (at least one member of Sabeel’s board, Samia Khoury, is also a member of PACBI) against Israel and is supported by the World Council of Churches. To quote the document:
“4.2.6 Palestinian civil organizations, as well as international organizations, NGOs and certain religious institutions call on individuals, companies and states to engage in divestment and in an economic and commercial boycott of everything produced by the occupation. We understand this to integrate the logic of peaceful resistance. These advocacy campaigns must be carried out with courage, openly sincerely proclaiming that their object is not revenge but rather to put an end to the existing evil, liberating both the perpetrators and the victims of injustice. The aim is to free both peoples from extremist positions of the different Israeli governments, bringing both to justice and reconciliation. In this spirit and with this dedication we will eventually reach the longed-for resolution to our problems, as indeed happened in South Africa and with many other liberation movements in the world.”
Stephen Sizer is a frequent guest of Sabeel at its conferences, particularly those dealing with the subject of Christian Zionism, and has shared platforms with speakers such as Jeff Halper of ICAHD, Attalah Hanna, Donald Wagner and Azmi Bishara who apparently received a standing ovation on one occasion when he asked “how can a people who are denied their basic freedom be guilty of acts of terror?”.
Functionaries of ‘Friends of Sabeel UK’ have also attended Sabeel conferences and events. Self-described ‘eco-feminist liberation theologian‘ Roman Catholic Professor Mary Grey, who is a patron of FOSUK and chair of its theology group, attended the 2006 and 2008 conferences. She has contributed to the ‘Holy Land Studies‘ Journal and sits on its editorial board along with Ilan Pappe. Here is an example of her somewhat un-academic style of writing at another venue:
”…many people fear that Israel has achieved so much at the expense of losing its soul. Pray for those who chose and oppose… who chose to inflict the very merciless policies that they had endured for two thousand years on the indigenous Palestinians of the Bible Lands. I think to myself of the famous philosopher Emmanuel Levinas, for whom gazing on “the face of the other” meant being opened up to the transcendence of God. But the reality of occupation, settlements, security Wall, confiscated land and demolished houses, prohibits this opening up, as then Israel would feel compassion for its neighbor, and be compelled on moral grounds to take different actions.”
Another Catholic member of FOSUK’s theology group is Stewart Hemsley from Cambridge, who represents Pax Christi, of which he is the former chair, on that body. Pax Christi’s philosophy can be glimpsed in its recent statement regarding the death of Osama bin Laden:
“However, we also mourn our nation’s misguided response to the events of 9/11, the carnage and mayhem unleashed, the distortion of our deepest values, the abandonment of our highest principles and ultimate subversion of our national character.”
In a briefing prior to the 2010 British elections, the issue of the Palestinian-Israel conflict was for some reason among the subjects which Pax Christi deemed important for the British voters to consider when electing their new government. Suggested questions for parliamentary candidates included:
What would your party do to encourage Israel to lift its blockade of Gaza?
What plans does your party have for re-energising the peace process for Israel–Palestine?
Settlements and the separation wall have both been challenged in international law. How would your party engage with Israel on these issues?
Would your party be prepared to enter talks with all parties in the ongoing conflict – including Hamas – as a sign of genuine openness to a process of conflict resolution?
As a step in the demilitarisation of the region, would your party be prepared to support an arms embargo of Israel?
Can you assure us that your party would not engage in any pre-emptive military actions against Iran?
Not unsurprisingly, Pax Christi is heavily involved with the ‘Stop the War Coalition’ and Stewart Hemsley has shared a platform with Hamas supporter Azzam Tamimi at events sponsored by that organisation, together with the PSC and ‘Friends of Al Aqsa’. Like several other members of FOSUK, Hemsley is involved with Palestinian groups in the UK which draw upon increasing support from Christian ‘pacifists’.
FOSUK is a multi-denominational organisation including Catholics, Anglicans, Baptists, Methodists and Quakers. Another member of its theology group, Colin South, is a Quaker who spent several years working at the Friends school in Ramallah. Unsurprisingly, considering that the clerk of the Friends House in Ramallah –Jean Zaru – is also a prominent member of Sabeel, he appears to have been heavily influenced by Naim Ateek. It is worth noting that the British Quakers fund the organisation ‘New Profile’ which attempts to persuade Israeli youth to break the law of their country by draft-dodging.
FOSUK’s patrons include the ubiquitous (to any anti-Israeli organisation) Baroness Jenny Tonge, Ibrahim Hewitt of the Hamas-supporting ‘charity’ Interpal which was cited as an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holyland Trial, and the head of the Palestinian delegation to the UK, as well as some well-known anti-Israel clergy. FOSUK has close ties to Christian Aid and is involved in the ‘Greenbelt Festival’. For the past three years this annual Christian arts event has focused on the Israel-Palestine conflict, in partnership with ‘Just Peace‘ - which is run by the Amos Trust and co-ordinated by none other than Ben White. It includes a coalition of organisations including ICAHD UK, Friends of Al Aqsa, War on Want, the PSC, Independent Jewish Voices, Jews for Justice for Palestinians, Architects and Planners for Justice in Palestine and the Alternative Tourism Group.
It is, of course, hardly surprising that FOSUK’s members are naturally attracted to such blatantly anti-Israel – and in some cases, anti-Semitic – organisations. Reading the FOSUK newsletters gives one an idea of the kind of prevalent opinions within its ranks. An editorial in the Autumn 2009 edition declares that:
“The Israeli government is systematically going about the dispossession of the Palestinians by every possible means to force them to leave the country, or give up their national identity, so that Israel can become a totally Jewish state in all the land of pre-1948 Palestine.”
In the Spring 2008 edition we read that:
“Sixty years on, the Nakba continues under the relentless policy of apartheid and ethnic cleansing.”
In the Spring 2010 edition, it is possible to read of the experiences of a FOSUK member on a ‘Viva Palestina’ convoy to Gaza.
If all this virulent anti-Israel sentiment and campaigning sounds to readers like something more befitting of a script for ‘Midsomer Murders‘ than what one would expect to find going on in the Christian churches of tranquil leafy British towns and villages, I can most definitely sympathise. FOSUK may not be a particularly large organisation, but its influence is being felt widely. Beyond the obvious damage done to Israel by the kind of misinformation deliberately propagated by Friends of Sabeel UK, there is additional damage done to interfaith relations, at least according to my own experiences in the UK.
Evidence would suggest that there are considerable numbers of Christians who are unhappy about their churches being taken over by a minority with a very specific and vocal agenda. I would imagine that quite a few of them are also concerned about the real causes of Christian persecution in the Middle East. Perhaps the time has come for some interfaith co-operation in order to reclaim some of the good-natured tolerance between Christians and Jews which I remember as part of my English childhood.
Related articles
- Lessons from the York Pogrom of 1190 (cifwatch.com)
- Traitors, dupes, and double standards: Another chapter in the Guardian’s campaign against Israel (cifwatch.com)
- Elder of Ziyon’s Twitter thread with professional Israel hater, Ben White (cifwatch.com)
- The “Z” Word, and the Guardians of historical revisionism (cifwatch.com)
- Open Letter to the Quakers of Britain in response to their support for BDS (cifwatch.com)
Like this:
A photo which seems to contradict Ben White’s account, in the Guardian’s Live Middle East Blog, that Palestinians were peacefully protesting “Nakba Day” in and around Jerusalem.
A masked Palestinian youth throws a fire bomb towards Israeli forces during clashes following Friday prayer in Arab East Jerusalem on May 13, 2011.
This is cross posted by Elder of Ziyon
It is fun to watch how Israel haters react to my series of posters celebrating Zionism.
One such hater is someone named Ben White, who apparently is one of the leaders of the anti-Israel crowd. He wrote a book called “Israeli Apartheid: A Beginner’s Guide” and has been praised by the usual crowd of anti-Zionists like Ali Abunimah and Ilan Pappe.
His reaction to my posters was to put up his own spoof poster on Twitter, replacing “Zionism” with “Hasbara” and tweeting “Israel at 63: This is Hasbara!”:
Not having ever heard of him, I thought this was a compliment, because I think it is a very good example of what hasbara should be. Only when MargieInTelAviv responded
ah can’t stand the truth can you? Why not check it out?
Did I realize it was meant to be an insult.
I responded:
Of course it is #Hasbara. And it is true. Hasbara is no more an insult than #Zionism!
Ben:
#hasbara in 2011 = treating kids in Haiti, evicting kids in #Palestine
He then included a link to “Hasbara Buster” who claims that Israel’s good deeds aren’t good in themselves, but an insidious plot to redirect the world from talking about Israeli crimes.
Me:
You are a sad man to get so upset over Zionists doing good things.
Ben:
you are a not-so-bright man if u think it’s the “doing good things” bit that’s objectionable
Me:
Ah. One sided propaganda against Israel=good, telling the other side=evil. Got it.
Ben:
No, it’s called using acts of charity in strategy 2 defend apartheid. But nice #projection though
Me:
Even your example disproves your thesis. Org is private. But your hate overrides all. Sad.
He then tried to change the subject, with a photo that I suppose is meant to illustrate Zionist evil. Which is the usual modus operandi of people like him – they need to change the playing field in order to pretend to win.
But think about his main argument: he believes that when Israel – or in this case, ordinary Israelis – do good things, they have an ulterior motive: to cover up crimes. And when people like me publicize how great Israel is, we also have an evil motive: to cover up Israel’s crimes.
In other words, to these mental midgets, Israel is inherently evil. Everything it does is evil. This is the premise that informs all of their activities. No shades of grey, no nuance, not even the possibility of admitting that things are more complex than they pretend. When Israel does something seemingly bad, it proves it is evil, when it does something good, it’s just more proof that it is evil.
Logical people, who make up their minds based on evidence, can look at both sides of a story and decide. Haters, however, already know the answer, and any evidence to the contrary they use to “prove” their own point!
Let’s once again look at the oppressed Palestinian Arab cancer patients who enjoyed a day in the snow courtesy of the IDF, the subject of my first poster:
Looking at these photos drives the haters crazy, as we have seen. They cannot reconcile the idea of Israelis – especially Israeli soldiers – actually doing something nice for the people they supposedly despise and who are, they believe, being ethnically cleansed by the very same soldiers. The cognitive dissonance must be painful. They must therefore invent their own elaborate frameworks of bizarre conspiracy theories to reconcile the obvious truth about Israel with their own, twisted, hate.
How can oppressed Palestinian Arab kids allow themselves to be used as pawns by the evil IDF? How dare they laugh and smile and have fun with the symbols of Zionist atrocities? Better that they refuse to go sledding in Mount Hermon, and stay in their hospitals, than go and have fun when there is a slight chance that someone might photograph them and use them in such a terrible evil hasbaristic way! Don’t they see that they are exactly like the Jews in Theresienstadt before the Red Cross visited it in 1944? Their smiles are lies! Their fun is a lie! The pictures are probably Photoshopped! The IDF was probably mowing them down with machine guns!
There is an entire industry out there, with people who are emotionally – and, in this case, financially – invested in demonizing Israel. Showing the truth is a direct threat to their worldview, and for them, this cannot be allowed. To them, Israel is a uniquely evil entity that must be destroyed, and tons of solid evidence showing that they are completely, irrevocably wrong is simply something else that they must do battle with their only weapon: lies.
Related articles
H/T Harry’s Place
Ben White shared the stage, at a (University of London) School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) event, with Islamist Palestinian Academic and fellow CiF contributor Azzam Tamimi on April 5.
According to The JC, Tamimi said the following at the event:
“You shouldn’t be afraid of being labelled extreme, radical or terrorist. If fighting for your home land is terrorism, I take pride in being a terrorist. The Koran tells me if I die for my homeland, I’m a martyr and I long to be a martyr.”
…
“Israel does not belong to my homeland and must come to an end. This can happen peacefully if they acknowledge what they did — or we will continue to struggle until Israel is no more.”
Ben White, author of the book, “Israeli Apartheid: A Beginners Guide”, who once wrote that he “understands” why people would be anti-Semitic given Israel’s behavior, followed Tamimi’s talk and implored students to boycott Israel.
Yes, this is what the movement to boycott Israel truly represents; Not peace and reconciliation between Israel and Palestinians, but an insidious and seemingly insatiable desire to demonize and delegitimize the Jewish state – and even, not infrequently, the refusal to accept the right of Jews to live in their national homeland within any borders.
Those who wed their political orientation with this movement should at the very least drop the pretense that they’re expressing a liberal or progressive sensibility.
The BDS movement, at its core, represents a hateful and reactionary brand of politics, and participants in this odious venture need to be named and shamed accordingly.
Here is Azzam Tamimi, often characterized by the UK media as a moderate Muslim, at another event supporting terrorism and calling for the eradication of Israel.
What a newspaper does not report can be just as revealing as what it does.
Back in May 2010 CiF rushed to report the arrest of two Arab Israelis suspected of espionage, allowing Ben White to make wild claims that “Israel seeks to silence dissent” and “repressive practices long used in the West Bank and Gaza are now being used to limit civil liberties within Israel”.
White claimed that:
“Several examples now point to an uncomfortable reality for the self-proclaimed “only democracy in the Middle East”: practices that have long been routine in the military occupation of the West Bank and Gaza are being used in Israel to suppress dissent and limit civil liberties.” (my emphasis)
He attempted to paint a terrifying picture of Soviet-style assaults on the civil liberties of Israel’s Arab citizens:
“So why is this happening now? First, it is the latest manifestation of a deteriorating atmosphere in Israel, with political dissent and human rights groups under attack…..
….Second, there is also a specific focus on Israel’s Palestinian minority…..
…..Hussein Abu Hussein, the lawyer for both Makhoul and Said, stressed the role of someone like Makhoul in being a prominent advocate internationally for “the need for accountability” – in other words, “the state has enough reasons to stop this voice”. Mohammad Zeidan, of the Arab Association for Human Rights (HRA), says that the arrests are “clearly political”. He believes that for some in Israel, the work being done by NGOs and Arab parties on the international level is “crossing a red line” – “they want to remind us that this is not a democracy”. “
Ten days after White’s article, CiF published a piece by Yousef Munayyer in which he too took up the theme of Israel’s supposed ‘intimidation’ of Ameer Makhoul.
“In recent years, the Israeli repression of Palestinian nonviolent dissent has increased significantly and Israel is showing signs of transforming into a fully-fledged police state. Even Israeli citizens, both Palestinian such as Ameer Makhoul and Jewish, have faced intimidation in one form or another for being critical of Israel’s policies.”
On June 1st CiF printed an article by Daphna Baram in which she managed to link Ameer Makhoul’s arrest to the previous day’s events aboard the Mavi Marmara.
“Ameer Makhoul and Dr Omar Saeed (human right activists and Israeli citizens) were arrested in the middle of the night at their homes some two weeks ago, and were unlawfully prevented from conferring with their lawyers for 12 days. Now they are facing trial on extremely controversial spying allegations. In this atmosphere, no wonder the government now starts killing European human rights activists and protesters in an act of terrorist piracy.”
In November 2010 Seumas Milne wrote that
“leading civil rights campaigner Ameer Makhoul faces up to 10 years in jail after being convicted of the improbable charge of spying for Hezbollah.” (my emphasis)
Earlier this week Ameer Makhoul was sentenced by a court in Haifa to nine years of imprisonment for spying for Hizbollah both in war-time and afterwards. So far, the Guardian’s Jerusalem correspondent Harriet Sherwood has failed to report upon the subject whatsoever and CiF readers remain ignorant of the details of the case. Whilst for people such as Milne, spying for Hizbollah is probably at worst the moral equivalent of stealing a few paper clips from the office, the fact is that Ameer Makhoul has been tried and found guilty of an extremely serious crime in a court of law in a democratic country with a fiercely independent judicial system.
If that calculated omission of information were not enough, CiF published an emotional polemic written by Makhoul’s wife on Jan. 31st in which she repeats the Guardian-style claims of persecution against him, painting him as an innocent victim of Israeli oppression.
Janan Abdu knows as well as I do that any Israeli civilian is free to make a complaint regarding his or her treatment by the security forces at any stage of proceedings and that such a complaint must be investigated. She also knows that if a defendant makes any claims of mistreatment during his or her trial, that too is investigated – regardless of whether a formal complaint has been made or not.
But of course neither Abdu nor the Guardian have any interest in informing readers of the truth, the details of the case nor the gravity of Makhoul’s crime. The Guardian’s decision to print Abdu’s unproven accusations without presenting the other side of the story indicates that it is more interested in defaming Israel than reporting the news. Janan Abdu’s decision to write this article for a foreign newspaper – rather than addressing any complaints she may have to the authorities who can actually do anything about them – show that she is interested solely in whipping up hatred against the country her husband has betrayed.
In the summer of 2006 over one million Israeli citizens in the North of Israel, myself and my family included, spent weeks in air raid shelters under a barrage of lethal Hizbollah rockets. Thousands of people were displaced from their homes. Children were still being treated for post traumatic stress disorder well over a year after the war ended. 43 Israeli civilians – Arabs and Jews - were killed along with 76 soldiers and hundreds were injured.
These are just a few of the people who lost their lives that summer:
In response to CiF commenters’ complaints that their remarks accusing Israel of practicing apartheid had been deleted by CiF moderators, a commenter named “iamid” aptly pointed out (in “Architects against Israeli occupation“, CiF, Oct 4):
If this CiF moderation trend continues, perhaps Ben White’s Guardian gig will finally end, and the vicious anti-Israel activist will again have the freedom of penning completely unrestrained anti-Semitic invectives at the radical end of the anti-Zionist spectrum, such as Counterpunch. A boy can hope, can’t he?
(Alas, my dreams of a more enlightened CiF moderation policy was, indeed, a pipe dream. ”iamid’s” comment not only was deleted, but has subsequently disappeared completely.)
Ben White was back on CiF on August 17th with yet another anti-Israel diatribe, this time on the subject of the ‘colonisation’ of the Jordan Valley.
Taking a leaf from Neve Gordon’s book, he claims that Israel is ‘ethnically cleansing’ Bedouins from the area, without addressing the real issues of illegal building without permits and land grabs – in the case of Al Farsiya, in a military zone. Not content with that, he criticizes the existence of security check points within the region using a report by the UN Office for Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) as the basis for his argument. Yes; that is the same OCHA which permitted an announcement to be made on its official website lauding the anti-Semite Yasser Kashlak.
Ben White is obviously well aware that the type of audience which reads his CiF columns does not usually demand that his material come from objective sources, or that he present both points of view of an event or situation. Such pedantry would obviously dilute the concentration of the anti-Israel fix he strives to provide. Neither do most CiF readers demand that events be viewed in the context of documented history, which is probably something of a relief for a polemicist like White, as he would otherwise have been obliged to explain the whole issue of the Oslo accords and Area C (which includes the Jordan Valley), retained by Israel according to those agreements, which were signed in person by Mahmoud Abbas. He would have had to elaborate on the subject of the five year transitional period before permanent status negotiations as specified in those accords and how the Palestinian decision to opt for terror prevented those permanent status negotiations from ever taking place. Who knows; he may even have had to come to the conclusion that had the Palestinian Authority not chosen to renege on the agreements they had signed, or had accepted Clinton’s ‘Bridging Proposals’ in 2000, the Jordan Valley would by now have been under their permanent control.
Such intricacies are, however, far too complicated for a one trick pony such as Ben White. He much prefers the tried and tested method of base sloganeering, as demonstrated in this article, employing phrases such as “land seizure and ethnic cleansing”, “colonies”, and “a stark example of Israeli apartheid”. No surprises there; we are all too familiar with White’s bigoted, if not downright anti-Semitic, descriptions of Israel – a nation he deems guilty of ‘ethnic cleansing’, ‘death marches’, ‘massacres’, ‘colonisation’, ‘racism’, and last but not least ‘apartheid’. He has characterized Zionism as an ideology of extermination, has promoted sanctions and boycotts against Israel, advocated a one-state ‘solution’ and downplayed (or downright excused) Palestinian violence against Israelis many times before. We have even seen him express his belief that anti-Semitism is an “understandable” reaction to Israeli behavior, and sourcing material from a Holocaust denier for his book.
As Eric Lee so accurately puts it:
“But when you grieve over the suffering — the genuine suffering, I might add — of the Palestinians, but feel nothing in your heart for the suffering of the Jews; when every mention of the Israelis is entirely negative, portraying them as monsters — you are not longer a critic and instead have become a bigot.”
This is a guest post by Adam Levick
Ben White, author of Israeli Apartheid: A Beginner’s Guide, who penned an essay in the radical anti-Zionist magazine, Counterpunch, in 2002, in which he expressed understanding and empathy for those who are anti-Semites – describing it as a natural reaction to what he described as the inherent “Racial Supremacy” embodied by the Jewish state – would seem an odd choice to offer insights to readers of The Guardian on the challenges of achieving peace in the Middle East.
White’s book on “Israeli Apartheid” refers, not to the post ’67 occupied territory, but to the 1948 boundaries of the state. Indeed his thesis is that “Apartheid” and “Ethnic Cleansing” was necessary components of the Zionist enterprise. He said, “For political Zionism to come to fruition…it was necessary to carry out as large a scale as possible ethnic cleansing of the country’s unwanted Arab natives. But even in 1948…Israel was unable to fully ‘cleanse’ the land of the Palestinians. As a result, Israel’s fallback position was to implement an apartheid regime of exclusion and discrimination.”
Ben White, like other commentators viscerally hostile to Israel, must begin any analysis of the Middle East Peace Process by mischaracterizing the offer proposed by Ehud Barak and Bill Clinton – subsequently rejected by Yasser Arafat. White mocks “the narrative of a rejectionist Palestinian leadership that had turned down an incredibly generous offer and instead opted for a campaign of violence.” As evidence of this “myth”, he links to an essay in 2001 by Ewan MsCaskell, which echoes the Palestinian narrative which argues that “The Palestine that would have emerged from such a settlement…would have been in about half-a-dozen chunks, with huge Jewish settlements in between – a Middle East Bantustan.”
Of course, the continuation of this narrative requires one to ignore incontrovertible evidence offered by, among others, Clinton’s chief negotiator Dennis Ross, as well as President Clinton himself – both of whom have stated categorically that what was offered represented a viable state with contiguous borders, and indeed represented the most generous offer ever presented by an Israeli Prime Minister. In his book, The Missing Peace, Ross includes a map of the final offer which clearly demonstrates that the characterization of Palestinian “Bantustans” was categorically false. The proposal included not only a contiguous Palestinian state, but the inclusion of East Jerusalem as its capital city.
Fact: two Israeli citizens have been arrested on suspicion of making ‘contact with an enemy agent’, specifically Hizbollah.
Beyond that, pending the results of the ongoing investigation, any further comment on the case is, as Yaacov Lozowick so rightly points out, mere speculation. This fact does not seem to have deterred either Ben White or the Guardian from jumping to the ridiculous conclusion that ‘Israel seeks to silence dissent’ .
Hizbollah is of course an Iranian-backed terror organization with the raison d’etre of bringing about Israel’s destruction. Should the suspicions that Ameer Makhoul and Omar Said Abdo have been spying for Hizbollah prove to have foundation, this would be a case of citizens of a sovereign country conspiring with that country’s enemies. Unfortunately, such cases have occurred in Israel in the past and were at the time dealt with in the same manner as this case is being dealt with now, regardless of the religion or ethnic background of the suspect. Despite White’s claims, Makhoul and Said Abdo are not being investigated as part of a campaign to “suppress dissent and limit civil liberties”; no citizen of any democratic country is at liberty to betray it by spying for its enemies, and when that country is at war such actions take on even more serious implications. As difficult as it may be for Ben White to comprehend, the lives of Israeli citizens of all ages, creeds, ethnic backgrounds and political opinions could be endangered by such acts of treason as those currently being investigated.
White, of course, cares not a fig for the lives of Israeli children living under the shadow of Hizbollah missiles; the important thing on his agenda is to grasp yet another opportunity to self-promote by turning a non-story into an excuse for demonizing Israel. Sadly, the Guardian lowers itself to the same populist level as White by publishing this malicious and irresponsible torrent of meaningless speculation.
As usual, time will tell and the details of this case will eventually be made public when the investigation is complete and the security forces are sure that publicity will not compromise their work. In the meantime, although we know very little about the cases of Makhoul and Said Abdo, we have learned an awful lot about the integrity – or lack of it – of both Ben White and the Guardian. It is doubtful that anyone familiar with either of them would be overly surprised.
This is a guest post by AKUS
The latest ridiculous article by Ben White, Israel seeks to silence dissent, attempting to turn the arrest of two Israeli Arabs who appear to have been treasonably involved with Hezbollah into a cause célèbre, was so excessively “moderated” it sent me looking for some quotations about moderation.
(Apropos the article – it is built around major lies and puffery and the usual Guardian rush to judgment even before their case has been heard in an attempt to get the CiFers worked up:
“Ameer Makhoul, a Palestinian citizen of Israel and head of internationally renowned NGO network Ittijah … It turned out that another Palestinian citizen of Israel, Balad party activist Omar Said, had also been arrested, and interrogated by the Shin Bet since the end of April.”
1. They are not a Palestinian citizens of Israel – there is no such thing – they are Arab citizens of Israel
2. People in many countries are arrested for treasonable activities – why should Israel not arrest them – and, if their trial proves its not true, they will be released, of course.
3. Who ever heard of the internationally renowned NGO network Ittijah?
And, as Forest Gump would say: “That’s all I have to say about THAT!)
Let’s start with the first Jewish Prime Minister of Britain (Mr. Cameron, or, as they call him in Israel, Mr. Cameroon, is the second – he is a Levite, and his first name is a dead giveaway regarding his sympathies for Israel but I have no quotes from him yet about moderation):
“There is moderation even in excess.”
Benjamin Disraeli
Here’s a good example from the recent Ben White thread of how anti-Israel bias plays into the moderation of “Comment is Free” threads:
As can be seen from the first comment, the poster is advocating the one-state solution, a position that denies the Jewish nation its right to self determination and which is repugnant and deeply offensive, not to mention antisemitic, to those that would have to live with its consequences. Contrast this with illimite’s deleted comment which supports a different kind of one-state solution.
Now if the moderators saw fit to delete illimite’s comment, why was his/her comment deleted but dizzylizzy’s not?
This is a guest post by Joy Wolfe
So Ben White knows better than all the financial experts and Palestinian spokespeople when he claims that stories of the remarkable growth in the Palestinian Authority economy in the West Bank are false.
Yes, the same Ben White who is currently congratulating himself on being instrumental in a facebook campaign which resulted in the Cambridge University withdrawing an invitation to Benny Morris, calling him a racist. Whatever happened to the hallowed concept of freedom of speech that is used to ensure terrorists, Hamas supporters and pro-Palestinian speakers who call for the destruction of Israel and “death to the Jews” to be welcome on campuses such as Birmingham and Manchester?
But back to the real subject in hand.
It is a well documented fact that the growth of the economy in the West Bank is nothing short of remarkable and said to be among the fastest growing economies in the world at the moment
A British Trade Union fact finding group which recently returned from visiting the West Bank reported how surprised they were by the conditions there and the economic growth and potential.
What the Palestinians really need is for people like Ben White and others who devote their energies to demonising Israel, calling for boycotts which potentially damage the Palestinian economy, to put their efforts into improving the situation of the Palestinian people, and also to encourage them to get back to the peace negotiating table.
Does Ben White seriously think his negative actions do anything to really help the Palestinians? If he does he is seriously deluding himself, and badly letting them down.
Does he think that by destroying the infrastructure and the greenhouses that were providing some economic stability in Gaza, the authorities there did anything that improved the prospects and quality of life of the people.
Does he think that a suicide bomber who had been treated in an Israeli hospital trying to get through a checkpoint to go back to that hospital to kill and maim is conducive to the removal of checkpoints and Israel’s much needed security measures?
Does he condone and agree with an outrageous inciting sermon in a mosque last Friday that was broadcast on PA TV which promoted the view that “Jews are the enemies of Allah and humanity” and “The Prophet says: ‘Kill the Jews’.
What Ben White and his cronies in the Palestine Solidarity Campaign should be doing is encouraging the Palestinians to stop inciting hate and teaching their children to kill Jews, but to engage in positive cooperation at grass roots level that can start, albeit very slowly, to sow the seeds of trust and interaction that could eventually lead towards peace.
Instead last year he wrote an article that runs counter to what the vast majority of people today believe that a two state solution is the only way to achieve peace, he writes a book calling Israel an apartheid state when no country in the world is less deserving of that label, and he tours the UK spreading his negative anti-Israel message.
What would be of greater benefit would be for him to heed the words of highly respected Palestinian journalist Khaled Abu Toameh when he spoke at a meeting in the House of commons last month. Asked what could be done to help the Palestinians he said,
“Instead of telling me how bad Israel is, why don’t you go over there and try to bring Jews and Arabs closer together? It’s much more important. Instead of organising Israel Apartheid Week, why don’t you come and teach Palestinian children about democracy and freedom?”
I commend those words to Ben White and suggest he looks at what he can do to promote better understanding instead of continuing to incite misunderstanding and hatred.
This is a cross post from ModernityBlog
If you ever watch the Chariots of Fire film you will see an example of upper class English antisemitism, as John Gielgud’s character (the Master of Trinity) sneers at Harold Abraham’s use of a professional coach, and makes a few snide comments about “Hebrews”.
It’s not a big part of the film, but it does set the tone of how Jews have been seen by Oxbridge types over the years. Something to sneer at, something not quite “English” and it’s all done with impeccable accents and characteristic English understatement.
I can not say if that attitude is still prevalent amongst Oxbridge types, but the recent treatment of an Israeli historian suggests to me that might be the case.
Readers will remember how Oxford and Cambridge are famous for their debates, for inviting controversial figures and debating the issues of the day.
In 2007 the Hitler loving, David Irving, mainstay of the Holocaust denying circuit was down at Oxford. A year after that the dictator loving, George Galloway, was invited to speak at Trinity College, Cambridge.
There was no question of ever stopping Galloway from speaking, despite his fondness for Saddam Hussein, questionable performance on Big Brother and defence of the Iranians theocracy on his weekly PressTV show. No question whatsoever.
I am sure if we could look through the invitations sent out by the Oxbridge colleges then we might find any number of other unsavoury individuals, including Irving and Galloway, none of whom were stopped from giving their speeches.
None, that is, except an Israeli historian, Benny Morris.
There was a Facebook campaign to coercethe Cambridge University’s Israel Society and it seems to have worked, the event was cancelled. Whether or not there were any threats or intimidation I do not know, but I would not preclude it.
What I found rather interesting was the instigator of this open attack on freedom of speech, was not a firebrand graduate or a died-in-the-wool militant, rather it was our old friend, Ben White.
Readers will remember Ben White. He’s not very keen on Jews or Israelis having an opportunity to put their point of view, if it runs counter to his own.
Some may suggest that Ben White was being spiteful, inconsistent, non-Voltairian or just a small minded bigot.
I could not possibly comment, but when I see his name and remember his activities, I always think of Chariots of Fire.
Update 1: Sorry, if it wasn’t obvious by the creator of the Cambridge protests Islamophobia on campus was Ben White.
Update 2: Over at The Heathlander an interesting argument is posed:
“Firstly – and I apologise for spelling this out, but evidently some people have genuinely failed to grasp it – the right to “free speech” does not entail the right to a platform at the University of Cambridge to spout racist garbage. It certainly does not entail the right to invite an unabashed racist to speak at the University of Cambridge without provoking serious opposition from students who have to live with the consequences of an atmosphere poisoned by racism.“
Strong points, except that’s already happened a few times and it is Jewish students that have to live with the outcome of anti-Jewish racism, which is a consequence of the continued obsession with Jewish nationalism, otherwise known as Zionism.
We shouldn’t forget that in 2006, the Cambridge Union debated the motion “This House believes that Zionism is a danger to the Jewish people”.
I somehow feel that the welfare of Jews was not the uppermost sentiment here.
Over at the Electronic Intifada Ben White gloated in a rather predictable fashion. [Warning, linked to cache copy]
Cambridge has one rule when it comes to Jews and another for everyone else.
There is not the slightest concern that these motions, attitudes and the constant drip drip of Anti-Zionism do stir up anti-Jewish racism and put Jewish students and staff in a very difficult situation. No, there is no concern for their well-being.
Hawkeye
Omar2
WellofSense
Medusa
The Alchemist
Louise
Tosca
Maimon
Telling the Truth
Israelinurse
Adam Levick
Margie in Tel Aviv
Guest/Cross Post
Hadar Sela
Beyond Belief: Political Propaganda in the Anglican Church.
June 24, 2011 in Comments which are off-topic, ad hominem, racist, vulgar or include threats of violence will be deleted | Tags: Anglicanism, anti-Zionism, BDS, Ben White, Delegitimization, Kairos Document, Marc H. Ellis, Palestine Solidarity Campaign, Sabeel, Stephen Sizer | by Israelinurse | 26 comments
A while ago, Elder of Ziyon published an article well worth a re-read in which he explained why these commonly found maps are both inaccurate and deliberately misleading.
(By the way, here is the much more relevant map, which Elder created and posted, illustrating how much land Israel has given away, since ’67, for the sake of peace:)
Commonly found they indeed are, but I for one did not realise just how broad their spread has been on the internet until I decided to try to find their origins. These maps, usually entitled “Palestinian loss of land 1946 – 2000″ get 2,800,000 search results on Google. They appear on neo-Nazi forums (to which I will not link), on the English language website of Hamas’ Izz a Din al Qassam brigades, on the sites of various ‘peace campaigners’ such as ‘Vermonters for a Just Peace in Palestine/Israel‘ and on some new-age hippy sites. They can be found on Greek, Swedish, Irish and Malaysian sites among others and are promoted by Canadian 9/11 ‘truthers’ and the Evangelical Lutherian Church in America. They are advertised for sale on the internet in post-card form by both ‘Friends of Sabeel North America’ and the Ann Arbour Quakers.
They also appear on this Palestinian website where they are accredited to the University of Bethlehem with a 2006 copyright date. So, is the University of Bethlehem their point of origin? That seems unlikely because on the ‘Friends of Sabeel UK’ website, where the maps are also used, they are accredited to one Tim Biles and said to be taken from his book “A Puppy Dies: And Other Stories from the Holy Land”. The book was published in 2003 and that was the earliest reference I was able to find to these maps.
So who is Tim Biles? Well, actually his full title is the Reverend Canon Timothy Biles and he’s a retired Anglican vicar from Dorset. He still does a bit of preaching, such as this recent sermon in which he manages to display some of his prejudices by inserting his own politically hued interpretations into the New Testament story of the Good Samaritan.
“The Samaritans of the story lived – then, and now – in a wild and rugged patch of mountainous land sandwiched between Galilee in the north and Jerusalem in the south. The Jews wanted that land so that they could make the journey from Galilee to Jerusalem for the Festivals without let or hindrance. The Samaritans barred the way.”
Of course nowhere in Luke chapter 10, verses 25 to 37 is any reference whatsoever made to Jews trying to gain control of Samaritan land, but Tim Biles exploits his position as a trusted member of the clergy in order to introduce to his listeners the idea that the Samaritans in the story are the equivalent of today’s Palestinians and that the self-interested Jews were intent on ‘land-grabbing’ even back then.
This very subtly imparted promotional message is indicative of something that goes on a lot in various churches these days; a type of subliminal advertising which establishes concepts in the minds of an audience convinced that their source is beyond reproach by virtue of the clerical robes worn by the promoter. The somewhat unspiritual intent behind it is actually the promotion of a specific narrative surrounding the political situation in the Middle East.
Tim Biles also acts as editor and consultant for an Anglican Church newsletter produced by the UK charity the Jerusalem and the Middle East Church Association. There, among the news items, he promotes various writers on the subject of the Arab-Israeli conflict such as the far- Left activist and founder of ‘Gush Shalom’ Uri Avneri and Rabbis Howard Cooper and Marc H Ellis – both known for their anti-Zionism. In this issue, a book by Sabeel’s supercessionist leader Naim Ateek is reviewed by the veteran anti-Israel campaigner and Anglican vicar Stephen Sizer. In this edition, former British diplomat and member of The Council for Arab British Understanding (CAABU) Sir Howard Walker promotes the notion that “Washington seems to be in perpetual thrall to the Zionist lobby” and there is a feature on Garth Hewitt and the Amos Trust which promotes both the Kairos Palestine Document (which provides pseudo-religious justification for boycotts of Israel) and the ‘Just Peace’ campaign which is co-ordinated by anti-Israel activist Ben White.
British readers may recall that in December 2009 The Amos Trust, together with CAABU, ‘Jews for Boycotting Israeli Goods’, the ‘International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network’ and ‘War on Want’ organised an ‘alternative’ Christmas carol service at a church in Covent Garden, London, which featured re-written versions of traditional songs.
The chorus to “The Holly and the Ivy” for example, became:
“Once in Royal David’s city” was re-written as follows:
Predictably, a message of support for the event was sent by the Anglican Bishop in Jerusalem which helps bring us to the unpleasant conclusion that quite a few members of the Anglican Church are involved in the spread of the assault on Israel’s legitimacy.
Tim Biles may or may not have drawn up those fake maps himself, or he may have acquired them elsewhere. Whatever the case, according to Friends of Sabeel UK they apparently appear in his now out of print book. I have found no evidence of Biles having corrected FOSUK’s accreditation or of any objection on his part to being associated with what is blatant anti-Israel propaganda. Had he wished to do so, the task would not have been difficult; FOSUK’s officials include more than one prominent member of the Anglican Church. Neither is any evidence to be found of the Church disassociating itself from Biles as a result of the use of fake maps; in fact it continues to allow him to engage in partisan editing of newsletters and preach in its establishments. The Salisbury Diocese’s own Sarum College held a book launch for Biles’ latest literary work only last year.
Obviously, the Anglican Church of the United Kingdom, with Her Majesty the Queen at its head, is not immune to the influences of the kind of political extremists who have also led the British Methodists and Quakers down the slippery slope of singling out the Jewish state as a unique target for unprecedented hostility and campaigns of exclusion. It is sad to see yet another once respected religious institution harbouring at the very heart of its establishment extremists who make cynical use of lies and dishonest propaganda such as the above maps, among other things, in order to propagate and spread a very ancient form of hatred.
The Church, of all institutions, and in particular given its own past history of which we have had a sombre reminder in recent days, should know better.
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