Tag Archives: Chas Newkey-Burden

Jan 26 2013

Turn David Ward’s vile charge on its head

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As CST and others have reported, British MP David Ward (Liberal Democrat, Bradford East) recently decided to commemorate Holocaust Memorial Day, observed internationally on Jan. 27 (the day, in 1945, that Auschwitz was liberated), by grossly debasing Holocaust memory.

On his website, there is an entry with the following title: ‘Bradford MP condemns Israel for treatment of Palestinians on the day he signs the Holocaust Memorial Day Book of Commitment’.

It begins thus:

Sunday January 27th will mark the 68th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, the Nazi concentration and extermination camp which is the site of the largest mass murder in history. In the weeks running up to the day, the Holocaust Educational Trust placed a Book of Commitment in the House of Commons, giving MPs the chance to honour those who were persecuted and killed during the Holocaust and encouraging constituents to work together to combat prejudice and racism today.

Then there is a quote from Ward himself:

Having visited Auschwitz twice – once with my family and once with local schools – I am saddened that the Jews, who suffered unbelievable levels of persecution during the Holocaust, could within a few years of liberation from the death camps be inflicting atrocities on Palestinians in the new State of Israel and continue to do so on a daily basis in the West Bank and Gaza.

While some have rightfully focused on the morally obscene comparison between casualties as the result of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict and the Nazi extermination of six million Jew, there’s an element of Ward’s quote which is even more disturbing. It is the “they-of-all-people” argument: the suggestion that Jews, having faced unimaginable persecution, should know better than anyone not to be oppressors.

As Howard Jacobson argued, the argument leaves the Jewish people doubly damned: to the Holocaust itself and to elevated moral scrutiny as a result of it.  By this logic, Jacobson argued, “the Holocaust becomes an educational experience from which Jews were ethically obliged to graduate summa cum laude, Israel being the proof that they didn’t.”

Further, as Chas Newkey-Burden so eloquently argued, those who employ the “they of all people” argument are, in essence, saying that it is Jews, and not the antisemites, who have lessons to learn – that it is Jews, not the antisemites, who need to clean up their act. 

Newkey-Burden:

“The Holocaust followed centuries of slander, persecution, violence and murder committed by gentiles against Jews. So it is not you who have an increased responsibility to behave morally, but us.

For instance, something that we gentiles should know better than to do is lazily accuse Jewish people, or the Jewish state itself, of any misdemeanour. We have seen what centuries of slander against the Jewish people led to during the 1930s and ’40s. We see the hatred, heartbreak and bloodshed that such anti-Jewish libels continue to provoke, particularly in the Middle East.

Yet much of the world still continues to delight in damning Israel with indecent haste. From Al Dura (the false claim that Israeli forces murdered a boy in Gaza) to Jenin, from the Goldstone Report to the Gaza flotilla; time and again the world has found Israel guilty of a particular crime before all the evidence was available. When the full picture emerged and exonerated Israel it was too late to undo the damage. We gentiles, of all people, should know better.”

Newkey-Burden’s urgent moral plea to resist those who would so debase Holocaust memory ends thusly:

“Let us strip the “they-of-all-people” argument down to its very basics: gentiles telling Jews that we killed six million of your people and that as a result it is you, not us, who have lessons to learn; that it is you, not us, who need to clean up your act. It is an argument of atrocious, spiteful insanity. Do not accept it; turn it back on those who offer it. For it is us, not you, who should know better.”

Turn David Ward’s vile charge on its head!

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Nov 11 2012

George Galloway Tweets for Israel

Chas Newkey-Burden had a simple request for George Galloway:  ’Please retweet my post’.

Sure enough, the MP, and ‘Comment is Free‘ star, complied:

Galloway likely was too busy furiously Tweeting support for brutal dictators to bother reading Chas’s piece, because the post he actually retweeted wasn’t quite consistent with the ‘GazaUnderAttack’ hash tag.

Here’s the post written by Newkey-Burden (at his blog OyVaGoy!), titled ‘Then and Now‘, which 95,179 of George’s followers could see.

Poor George: duped by a passionately philo-Semitic, Zionist blogger into Tweeting support for Israel.  

Will his ‘street cred’ in Bradford West (or, at the Guardian) ever recover?

Oct 17 2012

Unchosen: Memoirs of a Philosemite

Cross posted by our friend Chas Newkey-Burden who blogs at OyVaGoy!

I co-wrote a book with Julie Burchill a few years ago. It’s called Not In My Name: A Compendium of Modern Hypocrisy, and we had fine old time writing it. Read my chapter about Israel here, and find out more about the book here.

Now Julie is going to write a new book. Like me, she’s a gentile who loves Israel, and she’s going to write a memoir based on this theme, entitled Unchosen: Memoirs of a Philosemite. Given her deep and longstanding love of Israel and the Jewish people, together with her outrageous sense of humour and unrivalled literary dexterity, it won’t be anything less than a fascinating read.

She has chosen to publish it through Unbound, which is a new form of publishing whereby authors pitch their idea direct to the public, who can decide whether they want to support the idea or not.  We need more pro-Israel books, so pop over to the Unbound website and back Julie’s book!

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Jul 31 2012

Turn this vile claim on its head

The following essay was written by Chas Newkey-Burden, who blogs at OyVaGoy

As one who advocates formally and informally for Israel, I have heard the full gamut of misconceptions and slanders that are aired by those opposed to the Jewish state. Over time, my skin has thickened; people can throw whatever baloney they want my way.

Except… there is still one anti-Israel argument that makes my jaw drop. And it is one that is made with unfortunate frequency. It is the “they-of-all-people” argument: the suggestion that the Jews, having faced extraordinary persecution, should know better than anyone not to be oppressors.

Put aside for a moment that the “oppression” which proponents of this argument are accusing Israel of committing is usually imaginary. When directed by gentiles towards Jews, the “they-of-all-people” argument is in its very essence so fundamentally ill-judged and unjust, and voiced with such a breathtaking lack of self-awareness, that my spirit flags when I hear it.

Where to begin in response? The heroic Howard Jacobson made a fine start when he proposed that “they of all people” is the natural successor of Holocaust denial. He wrote that the argument leaves the Jewish people doubly damned: to the Holocaust itself and to elevated moral scrutiny as a result of it.

I agree, and I would go further. I contend that, as a result of the Holocaust and what preceded it, it is we gentiles who should know better. The Holocaust followed centuries of slander, persecution, violence and murder committed by gentiles against Jews. So it is not you who have an increased responsibility to behave morally, but us.

For instance, something that we gentiles should know better than to do is lazily accuse Jewish people, or the Jewish state itself, of any misdemeanour. We have seen what centuries of slander against the Jewish people led to during the 1930s and ’40s. We see the hatred, heartbreak and bloodshed that such anti-Jewish libels continue to provoke, particularly in the Middle East.

Yet much of the world still continues to delight in damning Israel with indecent haste. From Al Dura (the false claim that Israeli forces murdered a boy in Gaza) to Jenin, from the Goldstone Report to the Gaza flotilla; time and again the world has found Israel guilty of a particular crime before all the evidence was available. When the full picture emerged and exonerated Israel it was too late to undo the damage. We gentiles, of all people, should know better.

It is also us, of all people, who should know better than to expect Israel to deal with the Iranian nuclear threat alone.

The world’s ceremonies and gestures of regret over what happened in the Holocaust would carry an increased weight of sincerity were they to be matched with robust support for Israel as the countdown to a nuclear-armed Iran, whose leader denies the Holocaust while promising to commit a second one by wiping out the Jewish state, continues.

World leaders should be sincerely standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Israel’s government as it decides what to do, not dawdling on the sidelines, waiting to wag their collective, condescending finger yet again.

Let us strip the “they-of-all-people” argument down to its very basics: gentiles telling Jews that we killed six million of your people and that as a result it is you, not us, who have lessons to learn; that it is you, not us, who need to clean up your act. It is an argument of atrocious, spiteful insanity. Do not accept it; turn it back on those who offer it. For it is us, not you, who should know better.

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Apr 7 2012

Chas Newkey-Burden reflects on his love of Israel & Judaism: “The missing part of the jigsaw”

The following essay was written by Chas Newkey-Burden and published at The Jewish Chronicle

I never told you the one about how a Christian/Hindu cult helped me love Israel and Judaism, did I? As a non-Jew who proudly supports Zionism and is fascinated by Judaism, particularly the mystical and Hasidic traditions, I am often asked how I came to feel this way. To me, the real question is why someone would not support Israel and admire Judaism, but of course I understand the curiosity.

The short answer – which I’ve blogged about and mentioned during speeches – is that I became fascinated by the Middle East after the September 11 attacks. To my surprise, having previously had a lazy, hazy perception that Israel were the villains of the conflict, I became more and more pro-Israel the more I learned about the issue. So I started visiting Israel and quickly fell in love with the place.

However, I’ve never written or spoken publicly about a challenging childhood experience that had a part to play in this. When I was nine, I joined a new school in London. I was so excited to be leaving primary school and joining a new, ‘grown-up’ establishment. What I didn’t realise until I got there was that 99 percent of the pupils and their families were members of bizarre religious cult, as were all the staff.

The cult, which dominated the school, combined Victorian sternness with less savoury elements of Christianity and Hinduism to create a cruel concoction. I was a member of the one percent of pupils with no connection to the cult. This meant that twice a day, as my classmates meditated and chanted Sanskrit, I had to go to a dark room in the basement and sit kicking my heels with the other odd ones out of the school.

It also meant I was pressured to join the cult. The more I resisted this pressure, the more I was targeted by the staff. It was astounding how quickly the teachers could turn a maths, English or science class into a free-for-all discussion of how I came from an “impure” family.

The staff strongly discouraged pupils from befriending me and at times some of the teachers were violent with me. At one point I was even-handed a year-long detention, which meant I couldn’t leave the school until 6.30pm on weekdays and not before mid-afternoon on Saturdays.

For six years I resisted the pressure to join the cult and then at 16 I was finally able to leave the godforsaken place. Years later, in 2007, an inquiry found that “mistreatment” and “criminal assaults” had taken place when I was there. It is possible that one can never completely move on from such an experience – the question is how to create a positive legacy.

Which brings me to my love of Israel. I think that as result of what I faced at school I have developed a stronger empathy for anyone who is unfairly singled out. For instance, when Kofi Annan – then the Secretary General of the UN – was asked why the UN so disproportionately targets Israel, and replied: “Can the whole world be wrong?” he made my blood boil. As I knew from my schooling, sometimes yes, the whole world can be wrong.

Recently, while dining with a Jewish family I’m friendly with, I sensed a wider connection. I was telling them about my strange school, when the wise father of the household turned to me and said:

“You were like the Jew at school – that’s why you understand us.”

I had never thought of it that way, as I consider the story of the Jewish experience to be as much about the inspiration of your enormous achievements and inspiring example as it is the hatred you have faced.

But I can see his point – and within it is the positive legacy I sought. Perhaps if I had not been so tested as a child I would not have subsequently stood at the Kotel, nor watched the sunset in Tel Aviv, nor heard of the wondrous Baal Shem Tov and Rabbi Nachman, whose teachings now enrich my life.

Whatever took me here I am glad it did. After all, supporting Israel and admiring Judaism is the only sensible way to roll.

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Jan 27 2012

Holocaust Memorial Day, 2012

This was written by our friend Chas Newkey-Burden, and originally posted at his blog, OyVaGoy

It is Holocaust Memorial Day [today]. You can read more about this year’s theme here.

On days such as this I am reminded of the words of Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel who wrote the following:

‘What cannot help but astound us is that the Hasidim remained the Hasidim inside the ghetto walls, inside the death camps. In the shadow of the executioner, they celebrated life. Startled Germans whispered to each other of Jews dancing in the cattle cars rolling towards Birkenau; Hasidim ushering in Simchat Torah. And there were those who in Block 57 at Auschwitz tried to make me join in their fervent singing. Were these miracles?’

What a passage: it is haunting and inspiring, harrowing and uplifting all at once. Similar emotions are provoked by a recording made at Bergen-Belsen shortly after it was liberated in April 1945. It includes weary Jewish survivors singing Hativkah (The Hope), the song that became the national anthem of the state of Israel. You can find a link to the recording on the right-hand side of this page. (Or, see YouTube clip below)

‘Never despair! Never! It is forbidden to give up hope,’ wrote Rabbi Nachman, a century before any of these events took place. These are wise words, yet not always easy to live up to.

Yet consider the Hasidim who celebrated life in the death camps, and the survivors who sang of hope at Bergen-Belsen. Stories such as these remind me how even in the darkest moments it is possible, and essential, to maintain hope.

 

Aug 25 2011

The Goy is back in town: The wonderful return of Chas Newkey-Burden!

Chas Newkey-Burden is back!

No, I’m not ashamed to say that I was moved beyond words when Chas emailed me with news that, after a thankfully short absence from the Zionist blogosphere, he is back and once again blogging at OyVaGoy.

Noted Chas in his most recent post:

I enjoyed taking a break. It’s always nice to remember what a big world there is out there. I have a brilliant and busy life as it is, so I was never naturally disposed to ‘activism’ anyway. But as I said, Israel is worth digging deep for. And to clarify, my break had nothing to do with any change of feelings about Israel; blog or no blog, you can bury me a Zionist.

Now I’m back, I’ll be posting on new topics including initiatives to counter cyber-bullying, and also the efforts to build a loving legacy for Amy Winehouse. However, my love and respect for Israel will probably always be at the heart of this blog. I might even find time to write about shawarma and the NaNachs from time to time. You know me.

I aim to keep this blog even more positive and upbeat going forward. There’s enough darkness and fear-mongering in our corner of the internet as it is. I’d rather keep things light. If that sounds a bit Christian happy-clappy then all I can say is that I’m neither Christian nor clappy, but I am happy.

I’m happy to be back.

Chas has no idea how happy WE are that he’s back.

Being an Israeli in a world increasingly hostile to the Jewish state’s very existence – and especially in the aftermath of last week’s brutal terrorist attacks against innocent Israeli civilians – it is really comforting to know that we are not alone. 

No matter how serious the threats posed by state and non-state actors who openly seek our destruction, as well as the legitimization such reactionary forces receive from the Guardian, one thing is certain:

Chas Newkey-Burden has our back.

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Jul 25 2011

Chas Newkey-Burden’s essay in The JC. “Blogland: Here be dragons.”

This was written by Chas Newkey-Burden, and published today at The JC.

With revelations about phone-hacking and related press scandals, there is a renewed sense that the media is out of control and in need of further regulation. This tidal wave of opinion should be properly considered by those in power. However, the mainstream press is in many ways a beacon of order and restraint when compared with dangerously feral elements of the online media.

I know how nasty the internet can be. For the past three years I’ve been a devoted online advocate for Israel and against antisemitism. I’ve run a popular pro-Israel blog called OyVaGoy, and argued Israel’s case on online networks including Twitter and Facebook. Although I’m not Jewish, this issue is very important to me.

My experiences have been largely positive: many people told me I have changed their minds about the issue, others said my writing had encouraged them to visit Israel for the first time, and I’ve made dozens of new friends here and in Israel. I took part in a bloggers’ trip to Jerusalem last summer and I have even been nicknamed “my online ambassador” by the owner of my favourite shawarma joint in Golders Green.

But I also quickly discovered the cruelties of the web. Blogs, discussion forums and other online platforms allow for anonymous comments to be made. People hurl abuse and threats around, with negligible fear of being identified. They never see the faces of those they attack, nor are they aware of the hurt that is caused by their comments – hurt that can spread from the recipient to their loved ones too. Not that some of the attackers would care.

Last week, it got too much. With a heavy heart, I decided to stop blogging. Given how committed to Israel’s cause I am, and what a success I had made of blogging, people were surprised by my decision. I was a bit surprised myself, actually. But I just want to stop feeling sick when I log on to my computer. I’ve had enough of going to bed at night with abusive comments ringing in my ears, then waking up to a fresh load of unpleasantness, much of it left by anonymous, shadowy authors.

Read the rest of the essay, here.

Jul 18 2011

In Praise of Chas Newkey-Burden

It’s unclear how long he’ll be away but, in a brief post, Chas Newkey-Burden noted that he’ll no longer be blogging at OyVaGoy, “at least for a while.”

Chas is one of those people I feel I’ve gotten to know despite the fact that, as with so many “virtual” professional relationships in the age of the internet, I’ve never had the pleasure of actually meeting him.

One thing is for sure, however.  Despite the fact that I don’t know him personally, to blog, as he’s done for years, as an unapologetic non-Jewish Zionist in the UK – where the word “Zionism” is typically used in the pejorative, home of the Guardian, and whose capital is one of the hubs within the network of delegitimization of the Jewish state – takes resolve, strength of character, and genuine courage.

For those who may not be familiar with Chas, and his blog, here’s his post from May of last year, explaining why he blogs about Israel:

A lot of people have asked me why I feel so passionately on the subjects of Israel and antisemitism to build a blog around them. As I’m not Jewish this is a very understandable question. I’ve never properly answered it before for several reasons. A lot of my motivation is instinctive and therefore unexplainable, some of it is personal and anyway there always seem more pressing issues to write about. But given the interest there is in the question, I’ll do my best in this post. I apologise in advance if what I write doesn’t satisfy everyone’s curiosity. As I say, a lot of it is instinctive.

I grew up in south west London in an area with few Jewish people. I had a couple of Jewish friends at school and some of my parents friends are Jewish, but I can’t say I was particularly exposed to Jewish people or to Israel as a topic. That said my grandmother visited Israel a number of times and my father did too, in the early days of the state. I only learned about these visits relatively recently though.

As I grew into an adult I did start to become quite interested in Jewish culture, history and even the cuisine. I’ve always instinctively liked symbols like the Magen David and the menorah, too. But these were really just background interests of mine. As far as the Middle East conflict goes I suppose I had a typically default feeling of ill-informed pity for the Palestinians and therefore a vague hostility to Israel. Then 9/11 happened and everything changed.

In the wake of those atrocities I became very interested in the Middle East conflict. I was working at a predominantly Jewish company at the time and I recall taking fascinating lunches with one member of staff during which he patiently and fairly answered my questions about Israel. I then began voraciously reading about the conflict, pouring through books that covered the issue from both sides of the argument from Edward Said to Alan Dershowitz and more. Many, many books and much thinking later I fell in firmly on Israel’s side.

In September 2006 I finally visited Israel and had a fascinating time. Everything I had hoped for about the people and the place came true. I had high, high hopes and they were exceeded by what I found. It was at that point that I became so passionate about trying to support Israel, a country that gets such an unfair hearing in the world. I’ve been back to Israel twice since and now have many dear friends there.

As well as wanting to support Israel I’m also disgusted by antisemitism in general, as I am by all bigotry from sexism to homophobia and Islamophobia. However, of all the bigotries that exist antisemitism seems the most universally held: from the numbskull skinhead to the sophisticated leftie to the aristocratic Brit and nearly everyone in between. I don’t mean to be flippant when I ask surely the bigger mystery is not why I oppose antisemitism but why more other people don’t? My hope is that this blog can help in some small way to work against anti-Israel bigotry and antisemitism in general, and perhaps bring some moments of comfort to those who suffer as a result of them.

So there we have it. I have no secret Jewish relatives and my support is not particularly based on religious feelings, though I am very interested in all aspects of Judaism, particularly the stories of the Baal Shem Tov and other parts of the Hasidic and Jewish mystical traditions. I have many other passions and interests including: the life and career of cancer-survivor cyclist Lance Armstrong; the fight to find a cure for Progeria; books; long-distance running; reality television and Arsenal Football Club.

It just so happens this is the topic I choose to blog about. I hope the above helps explain why.

Your unique, creative, and moral voice will be sorely missed, Chas, and we hope you come back soon. 

Jun 21 2011

‘Freedom Flotilla 2′ – Staying Pointless.

As the erudite JE Dyer recently observed, the withdrawal last week of the Mavi Marmara from the so-called ‘Freedom Flotilla 2′ means that we are left with a largely North American and European project: a collection of far-Left Westerners volunteering their services to Hamas and its support network in order to try to enable unfettered access to Gaza for weapons sent by a totalitarian, theocratic state with the aim of destroying a liberal, democratic one by means of one of its religiously fanatical proxies. One might think that it doesn’t get much more surreal than that, but it does.   

The American boat in the upcoming flotilla – named ‘The Audacity of Hope‘  – will be carrying a cargo of letters from US citizens to the people in Gaza, some of which have already been sent to Gaza by e-mail so that a display can be made. A press release sent out by the organisers of the US boat to Gaza puts paid to any illusions the general public may still have about these flotillas having anything to do with humanitarian aid.

“In addition to 36 passengers, 4 crew, and 10 members of the press, our boat will carry thousands of letters of support and friendship from people throughout the U.S. to the women, children and men of Gaza. There will be no weapons of any sort on board. We will carry no goods of any kind for delivery in Gaza.” (emphasis added)

Among the boat’s human cargo will be journalists from CNN and CBS News, along with two far-Left Israeli activists with whom CiF Watch readers are already familiar: Joseph Dana will be aboard reporting for ‘The Nation’ as well as Al Jazeera Stream and 972 magazine, and occasional ‘Comment is Free’ contributor Mya Guarnieri will be representing the Palestinian news agency Ma’an. Given the records of both these ‘journavists‘ and their clear and pre-stated political bias on the subject of the flotilla and its aims, we can presumably look forward to unlimited one-sided multi-media reporting on their parts.

Besides the United States, other countries represented in the flotilla appear to be Canada, with a boat called “Tahrir” also carrying activists from Australia, Denmark and Belgium, Spain, Italy, Ireland and Greece. There will be a joint Swedish/Norwegian contingent, a Swiss/German one and possibly one or two French boats. Presumably, Turkish and British activists who had been scheduled to sail on the Mavi Marmara will now be joining these other boats.

These flotillas have from the very beginning been what Chas Newkey-Burden recently described as “a vacuous project”. They never brought any significant aid to the people of Gaza or contributed to making their lives better. Their entire aim has been high-profile anti-Israel agitprop with the goal of breaking a legal naval blockade put in place to prevent the escalation of armed conflict in the region – conflict which would bring further suffering to people on both sides.

In fact the only things that ‘Free Gaza’, ‘The European Campaign to End the Siege on Gaza‘ and their various associates have achieved is some high-profile publicity for various waning celebs, self-serving smugness on the part of their ‘progressive’ supporters and a rise in the respective carbon footprints of the various members of the flotilla’s steering committee who, in the past year, have been jetting between Athens, Paris, Madrid and Strasbourg, among other places, for meetings.

Apparently, later this week and next we will once more be obliged to watch as Israeli soldiers are put needlessly in danger by self-righteous Westerners with extremist political agendas on a mission bound yet again for failure. We will also no doubt be treated to the usual inane squeals of ‘progressive’ indignation from ‘the world’s leading liberal voice‘ and dramatic descriptions of inhumane Israeli actions from the spoiled children of the extreme Left such as Guarnieri, and Dana – who is already speculating on his Twitter-feed about being ‘tazed’ and bragging about wearing “a full press flak jacket and helmet”.

And for what? None of this floating circus will of course do anything to bring peace in the Middle East even one step closer. None of these ‘human rights activists’ seems to have uttered a word on the subject of Gilad Shalit who will be commencing his sixth year of imprisonment by Hamas with no Red Cross visits and total denial of all his human rights on the very weekend that these ships of fools will set sail. None of them will be bringing him his first letters from his family after sixty months of incarceration. Instead, they chose to support his captors – human rights violators of the first order, as the ordinary people of Gaza know only too well.

Members of the general public can, however, make their opinions of this useless exercise known to its participants via their social media sites.

Canadian boat – “Tahrir” – Twitter, Facebook.

US boat –”The Audacity of Hope” – Twitter , Facebook.

Spanish boat – Twitter , Facebook

Italian boat – “Stefano Chiarini” – Twitter , Facebook   

Swedish boat – Facebook

Irish boat – “MV Saoirse” – Twitter

Swiss boat – Twitter

Greek boat – Twitter  , Facebook

French boat – apparently not versed in social media!   

Apr 11 2011

Chas Newkey-Burden reflects on UK media’s hostility to Israel

I thought I’d share this post by our good friend Chas – who blogs at OyVaGoy.

Four years ago this month I wrote an article for Ynet News, about my firsthand experiences of our media’s attitude to Israel:

The evening after my return from Israel, I met up with some journalists for some drinks in the West End of London. I was again abused for my trip. Their hatred of Israel was matched only by their adoration of the Palestinians. One of them gushed: “Boy, those suicide bombers have got guts. I wish more people in the world had their courage.” Another of them erupted when I told him that most people in Israel wanted a peaceful settlement to the conflict. “So why,” he asked, “did they murder their most peaceful Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu?”

I know. You can read the full article here.

Feb 8 2011

Translating the Guardian’s Sam Bahour

A couple of years ago my dear friend Chas Newkey-Burden of ‘Oy Va Goy’ (and other) fame sent me a Hannuka gift which, within minutes of opening it, made me cry.

It was Daniel Gordis’ book ‘Coming Together, Coming Apart’ – a very personal account of his family’s life in Jerusalem during the years of the second Intifada. Gordis not only recounts his experiences, but also wrestles with the complexities of peace and war from the tangled political macro right down to the micro of trying to raise a family in such a situation.

It is a book which offers no answers – only questions – and it is a must for anyone who wishes to really understand how and why the Intifada years shaped Israeli society. It is also an account of a portion of the history of this region written from an angle never employed by history books or grand op-eds in Western newspapers.

So why did it have me in tears by page 3? Because Gordis’ children were my children, his fears my fears, his moral and political dilemmas mine too. He begins by recounting how, after months of nightly shooting from Beit Jala which kept his children awake, he and his wife decided one evening to take advantage of a lull in the fighting to go to see a movie and what happened when they arrived home and found their youngest child – a ten-year old – awake because of fireworks from a local community centre party which he thought was gunfire.

“Holding him, I could feel him shivering. It was a warm spring night in Jerusalem, not even a chill in the air. He was wearing boxers and a T-shirt, and there was no reason for him to be quivering like that. But he was shaking, shuddering in my embrace, so I held him tighter, hoping I could get the shaking to stop.

“It’s just fireworks, Av, just fireworks. I promise.”

He looked up at me, his big blue eyes staring right into mine. “Good,” he said, gripping my shirt tight, with fingers that suddenly seemed very small. “Because I can’t do this anymore.”

All of us who experienced those years had days when we ‘just couldn’t do this anymore’. ‘This’ was trying to explain what was happening to our children, but without lowering ourselves to the point of making sweeping stereotypical generalisations about the murderers of Israeli school-children or grandparents. ‘This’ was not being able to walk into a shopping mall or a cafe without being searched. ‘This’ was not being able to get on a bus without the real fear of there being a bomber onboard. ‘This’ was not being able to open a newspaper or turn on the television without seeing the faces of those murdered that day and wondering when that all-pervasive cloud of death was going to catch up with us too. ‘This’ was not being able to remember what it was like not to be afraid.

Daniel Gordis’ book puts into words a collective experience felt by, and etched into, millions of Israelis, but one that the world would rather not hear about. On the one hand, that experience is callously dismissed. On the other, it is distorted and reshaped into a weapon to be used against the very people whose experiences are derided.

And so we come to Sam Bahour who, on February 7th, appeared on CiF holding up two Palestinian Intifadas as blue-prints for the achievement of democracy and reform across the Middle East.

Even when taking into account Bahour’s affiliation with ‘Al Shabaka’ – an organisation which opposes the Palestinian Authority’s negotiations with Israel – one still has to wonder how a born and raised American can be in possession of such warped ideas that he can present the targeted killing of over a thousand Israelis as a ‘popular uprising’ with democracy carved on its standard.

Let’s be quite honest here – and we need to, because Bahour is being anything but – those who died in suicide bombings on buses, in restaurants and in shopping centres did so because they were, or were thought to be, Jews. That was their only ‘sin’, but they had been dehumanised and delegitimized to such an extent by the society from which their murderers came that their deaths became a source of pride for that society, which to this day names streets, schools and children’s summer camps after suicide bombers and other terrorists.

So when Sam Bahour writes about two Palestinian Intifadas in the Guardian, pretending that their aims were identical to the current Egyptian uprising, he of course neglects to mention the charred bodies of Israeli school-children or the ball-bearings deliberately placed in the suicide bombers’ explosive vests to create as much injury as possible to human flesh.  To remind readers of such things would undermine his true aim which is to promote the idea that those opposed to a negotiated peace agreement (with all the compromises that entails) are the real freedom fighters – the ones struggling against both a corrupt Palestinian regime and Israeli oppression in order to achieve Western-style freedom and democracy.

Bahour wants readers to identify with those who, like him, refuse to negotiate and compromise and will settle for nothing less than ‘justice’, however much violence it takes to get it. He therefore cynically exploits the real grievances of the Egyptian people in order to throw up a smoke-screen he names democracy, and of course there is no better buzz word around at present.

Obviously, real democratic reform can never come about in any society which deems human beings to be candidates for dehumanisation or death purely on the basis of their religion, ethnicity or sexual orientation. The day we see crowds on the Palestinian street demanding from their government equal rights for women and homosexuals will also be the day that we will understand that Palestinian society has undergone a process of reform whereby it is mature enough to be introspective instead of blaming all its ills upon foreign forces or an unpopular leadership.

Unfortunately, as we have seen in recent weeks, the failure to understand the connection between a libertarian democracy and basic human rights is by no means a problem exclusive to the Arab world. Too many Westerners – from presidents to newspaper pundits – also appear to feel comfortable about sweeping that subject under the carpet.

History has repeatedly shown us that there is no better weather vane for the health of a society of whatever political definition than its attitude to Jews. Those aspiring to bring democratic change to the Middle East would do well to take note.

Jan 16 2011

Gaza flotilla “Peace Activist” Ken O’Keefe speculates on whether Jews as a group are a threat to human decency

Our good friend Chas Newkey-Burden at OyVaGoy has posted a video that is simply chilling.

The clip is taken from a PressTV interview with Ken O’Keefe – one of the “activists” on board the MV Mavi Marmara in late May.

Most of those who attacked IDF forces that day belong to Islamist terrorist organizations, and the American born O’Keefe is no exception – having been identified by the IDF as a Hamas Operative.

With all we know about the flotilla participants’ known terrorist affiliations, those who persist in referring to them as “peace activists” (or “progressives”) are engaged in the kind of Orwellian double-think that Natan Sharansky referred to in his memoirs when characterizing his fellow countrymen who actually believed the Soviet propaganda being fed to them.

Such people, noted Sharansky, excelled at being able to hold, and reconcile, two diametrically opposed ideas in their head at the same time without the slightest cognitive dissonance.

Note the nod of agreement from the PressTV interviewer as O’Keefe “speculates” on whether Jews are indeed a threat to everything that’s good and decent in the world.