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This is cross posted by Richard Millett
This map, without Israel, took pride of place behind all the speakers.
Last night the Palestine Solidarity Campaign revealed the horrors of what life would be like for British Jews under Labour. The Jew killing Hamas machine would become regulars to Downing Street.
But, first, a love letter.
At the PSC event about Gaza, held at Conway Hall (which is owned by the South Place Ethical Society), actorvist Leigh Outram read the following from Love Letters to Gaza (see clip 1 below). The boat mentioned is the Audacity of Hope:
What can a poem do?
Create awareness?
Light a fire?
A fire to fire the boat to sea.There was no fire at Auschwitz
To stop the poison gas until
The fire part of the western world destroyed the evil of the Nazi state,
And Israel came into being because the will was there.It is not now the Nazi state but Israel that blocks the seas.
It is not Auschwitz that stops the ship that carries hope and messages,
But those that might have died there.So let this poem drive the Hope that heads for Gaza.
The victims are now the torturers.
Freedom must be for all not just the victorsWhose victory brings forgetfulness of what they suffered once now brought to others.
Maybe Ms Outram hasn’t visited Auschwitz and seen the gas chambers and the ovens or the pictures of naked Jewish women huddling together in front of a pit before being shot. Maybe she doesn’t know that one million Jewish children died in The Holocaust.
This is the true Holocaust industry, a term coined by Norman Finklestein, where the likes of Ms Outram get paid for minimalising the horrors of Auschwitz by comparing it to Gaza. But Outram set the theme for the evening.
The Love Letter read out by Tracy-Ann Woods (clip 2) described the Palestinians as “hated simply for being who they are” and that read out by Clare Quinn (clip 3) described Israel as “dying”. Ahmed Masoud, who has written for the BBC, compared Gaza to the Warsaw Ghetto. Another activist (clip 4) said “no oppression or injustice has ever gone without falling. The apartheid regime ended, the collapse of Nazism…”
Meanwhile, Labour MPs Jeremy Corbyn and Andy Slaughter, the Shadow Justice Minister, sat on stage applauding and when it came to speak everyone stood in front of map of Palestine, where there was no Israel.
Of Hamas Slaughter said (clip 5):
“They recognise a Palestinian state on ’67 borders, which is to effectively recognise the state of Israel. Now I think if that is not enough for the Americans or Israelis then I think we are playing games because those concessions are considerable concessions and they are the right concessions to make.”
This from a potential Justice Minister. Except recognition of a Palestinian state is not recognition of Israel. A small swing from the Conservatives to Labour in 2015 and the Liberal Democrats could ditch the Tories. A Lib/Lab coalition would be the perfect storm for Israel and British Jews with Hamas becoming regular visitors to Number 10.
Slaughter has already met Hamas and the Labour Party offered no comment.
Corbyn (clip 6) finished off the evening calling for some potentially five million Palestinians to be allowed into Israel, effectively turning it into yet another Arab state while taking the benefits of the Israelis’ hard work builing up a successful country.
Michael Deas (clip 7), Palestinian BDS National Committee, attempted to paint Israel as being undemocratic, but he was soon followed by Kika Markham (clip 8), the widow of Corin Redgrave, who read an extract from a role she performed as Haaretz journalist Amira Hass in which Hass talks of Israel in the most despicable terms.
A country that allows Hass and Haaretz to attack it so regularly cannot be anything but democratic. There isn’t something even near the equivalent of Haaretz for the Palestinians and that speaks volumes.
Photos:
Jon McKenna, Tracy-Ann Wood, Leigh Outram, Laura Freeman watching Clare Quinn spew poison about the Jewish state.
Clip 1 – Leigh Outram (compares Auschwitz to Gaza)
Clip 2 – Tracy-Ann Woods (“Palestinians hated for who they are”)
Clip 3 – Clare Quinn (“Israel is dying”)
Clip 4 – Activist (likens Israel to the Nazis)
Clip 5 – Andy Slaughter MP (“Hamas recognises Israel”)
Clip 6 – Jeremy Corbyn MP (“Palestinian refugees” will go to Israel)
Clip 7 – Michael Deas (“Israel is not democratic”)
Clip 8 – Kika Markham (acts as Haaretz’s Amira Hass)
Earlier today, the IDF targeted a Palestinian terrorist squad that was planting an explosive device near the security fence in the northern Gaza Strip. Hits were confirmed, causing an explosion originating from the bomb the terrorists attempted to plant.
The Guardian chose to cover the terrorist incident by posting a video titled “Two Palestinians killed on Gaza-Israel border” and a photo in their continuing series of “24 hours in pictures (The best images from around the world)“.
Here’s the video:
Here’s the photo:
The caption:
Beit Hanoun, Gaza: Palestinians look through a hospital window at the body of a man killed in an Israeli attack.
Here’s a photo you won’t see at the Guardian – a disguised explosive found near a Gaza security fence on January 4th.
The goal, of course, as with all such explosive devices planted by Gaza terrorists at the border fence, is to kill and maim as many Israelis as possible.
Hamas’s military website, Al-Qassam, has already pronounced the two terrorists as “martyrs”.
Related articles
- #PropagandaWaves: The Guardian’s Roy Greenslade or the ‘Free Gaza’ Movement? (cifwatch.com)
- Guardian Warning: 24 hrs in photos gallery contains ‘highly distressing’ images [& HIGHLY misleading] (cifwatch.com)
- Harriet Sherwood legitimizes Gazans’ complaints that they can’t enter Israel to sue the Jewish state (cifwatch.com)
- Hamas, Harriet Sherwood and the Guardian Left’s continuing antisemitic sins of omission (cifwatch.com)
- Guardian interactive map rewrites Israeli-Arab history (cifwatch.com)
- What the Guardian won’t report: Freed Palestinian terrorist implores Gaza children to follow her example (cifwatch.com)
This is cross posted by Richard Millett
Mads Gilbert and Jenny Tonge last night in Parliament.
Last night yet another hate-meeting took place in Parliament with the Palestine Return Centre holding an event “to commemorate the memory of Palestinian victims over the past six decades especially the last war in Gaza”. (Here is what the PRC is all about. It makes unpleasant reading for Jews).
Jenny Tonge was there ranting about how the Palestinians weren’t responsible for the Holocaust and asking “how can the Israelis treat the Palestinians the way they do after what happened in the Holocaust”.
She criticised the power of the “Israel lobby” and held up a magazine with Hamas’ Ismail Haniyeh on the front cover and proceeded to idolise him.
She told us about a Palestinian fishing-boat which was boarded by the Israeli navy off Gaza. She said the Palestinian fishermen had their hands bound behind their backs and were forced to swim to the Israeli boat.
And she spoke about why she thinks she comes in for such heavy criticism and put this down to the fact that she stands up for the Palestinians and criticises Israel. The latter, she thinks, is viewed as being anti-Semitic.
When challenged by Jonathan Hoffman to give an example of when criticism of Israel has been called anti-Semitic she said she could give “many examples”, but failed to come through with even one. Here’s the action:
We also heard from Dr. Mads Gilbert, a Norwegian anesthesiologist, who gave us the names of Palestinian children who had been killed or who had horrendous injuries. He spent most of last night trying to flog his book about it all called Eyes on Gaza. Available from all good retailers.
We heard from Manal Timraz. Manal lost 15 members of her family during Operation Cast Lead, 11 of which were aged between twelve and two, and has lost another four since. After asking us to stand for a minute’s silence she emotionally outlined how the only way forward is a one-state-solution.
She lives in England next to a Jewish woman who “didn’t steal my land and I didn’t steal her’s”.
Gilbert had called for an academic boycott of Israel and during the Q&A I asked him how he could propose such an obviously racist policy and whether he used any Israeli products himself.
He said that the accusation that he was “a racist” was “absolutely preposterous” (I didn’t call him “a racist”) and said that he used computers without Intel chips. He then accused me of “smiling and laughing arrogantly” while Manal was speaking. I was smiling, but only at Manal’s suggestion that Jonathan go to the West Bank with her to drink tea “like a Palestinian”.
Gilbert further rejected accusations of anti-Semitism, eventhough none were made, with:
“If you want to look for anti-Semitism don’t look among us because we are profoundly anti-racist”.
He’s even friends with a Canadian Jew!
But how can anyone seriously claim to be “profoundly anti-racist” while hero-worshipping a self-confessed Jew hater (see Hamas Charter) like Ismail Haniyeh?
Here is the Q&A footage. First you hear PRC’s Sameh Habeeb, then Manal Timraz, then Mads Gilbert (from 4 mins. 15 secs.) and, finally, Jenny Tonge again, who, sadly, wasn’t impressed with me or Jonathan:
Additional photo:
British Palestinian Manal Timraz speaking last night.
This is cross posted by Richard Millett
War Horse writer Michael Morpurgo:
The film of War Horse, adapted from the novel by Michael Morpurgo (Contributor to ‘Comment is Free’), has just been released in the UK.
But as well as horses being killed on screen there is something else for filmgoers to cry into their popcorn over. Morpurgo is happy to repeat vicious lies about Israel without seeming to bother checking facts.
Last February Morpurgo was given the honour of reciting the Richard Dimbleby lecture, which has been delivered by an influential figure every year since 1972, and he chose to speak on the lack of childrens’ rights around the world. He pointed out that 8 million children a year die before the age of 5. As he said, “that’s a holocaust of children every year”. He also mentioned that “69 million children never go to school” and that “3.5 million children in our own country are still mired in poverty”.
Most of those 8 million children die from AIDS, war, malaria, malnutrition and other diseases in Africa. But Morpurgo failed to say anything about that instead choosing to spend a large portion of this high profile speech on the darlings of the left, the Palestinians, and invoking the modern day version of the anti-Semitic blood libel. He relied on statements of those with an anti-Israel agenda.
He said he went to Jordan 10 years ago and met Jordanian children “about eighty per cent of whom are Palestinian refugees”. They are not refugees by any normal definition, but are simply born and bred Jordanians.
He mentioned a teenage girl who said:
“I want to tell you something real and true. My family lives here in Jordan, but I do not belong here. I belong in Palestine. It is my home but I can’t live there because it is occupied.”
Obviously, her “Palestine” means Israel and this was a call for the destruction of the Jewish state with its hidden aspiration for all Palestinians to head for Israel and turn it into another Arab state.
Morpurgo soon mentioned Gaza and repeated Israel-hating Amnesty International’s figure that 300 children were killed during Operation Cast Lead. But Amnesty and the United Nations class a child as being “under 18″. So a 17-year-old Hamas fighter pointing a gun at an Israeli soldier being shot dead in self-defence is classed as “a child”.
Morpurgo also gave the impression that from the moment he entered Gaza to the moment he exited it two days later that the Israelis were hell-bent on killing Palestinian children.
No sooner did he enter Gaza when:
“Halfway down I heard the sound of a shot being fired – it sounded to a country boy like me as if someone was shooting rabbits. All around young Palestinian boys were racing around on their donkeys and carts whooping and shrieking. I had no idea what they were doing at the time. I was in another world. I didn’t know who was doing the shooting. In this other world I went the next day to visit a hospital for malnourished babies and then on to a project for blind children.”
On his way out of Gaza he described how “earlier that morning, before I got there it seems, some of the scavengers had ventured too close to the wall and had been fired at and wounded”, and while he was waiting to leave:
“It was then I heard shots, then screaming, saw the kids running to help their wounded friends. Now I really was outside the comfort zone of fiction. A doctor from Medicins sans Frontieres, waiting there with me, told me that the shots were probably not fired by marksmen from the watchtowers on the wall, but that these scavengers were sometimes targeted, remotely, electronically from Tel Aviv, which was miles away – ‘Spot and Strike,’ they call it. Like a video game – a virtual shooting. I don’t know if these claims are true but I do know the shots were real, there was blood, the boy’s trousers were soaked in it, the bullets were real. I saw him close to, saw his agony as the cart rushed by me.”
So there you have it, the modern day reincarnation of the anti-Semitic blood libel. In the old days this involved the accusation that Jews abducted and slaughtered non-Jewish children and used their blood in religious rituals. Nowadays it is Israelis, or Jewish Israelis to be more precise, who, allegedly, just kill them “like a video game”.
Morpurgo admitted that he didn’t know if the claims by a doctor from Medicins sans Frontieres that the shots came remotely from Tel Aviv were true, but he made them anyway. For Morpurgo it doesn’t matter because it sounds like a wonderfully sad story, which he is in the business of telling.
Morpurgo did make a weak attempt at partiality with the following:
“I know Hamas rockets had been landing in Israel for a very long time and that Israeli children have been dying there too. And I know it is absolutely the right of every nation to defend itself.So most certainly the Israelis have had their reasons. But I’m sure that most of them believe as we all do that a child’s life in particular is precious, any child’s life. Yet Palestinian children died. Collateral damage, some might call it.”
He mentioned his visit to a village where “Arab and Jewish children play together and learn together”, but this mention of “Jewish children” should raise alarm bells. Why were the Israeli children described by him in terms of their religion and not their nationality, unlike the Arab children?
But if Morpurgo was really concerned about the rights of Palestinian children he would have highlighted the child abuse prevalent in Palestinian society where children are used as human shields by Hamas, where Hamas destroys childrens’ summer camps in Gaza and where television programmes are regularly aired by the Palestinian Authority on which children claim a desire to grow up to become martyrs.
Instead he chose to believe the propaganda of those who have their own financial interests in spreading lies about Israel and his words should have been prefaced with the following announcement:
“No facts were checked in the making of this speech”.
What a waste of an important speech last February. Instead of bravely speaking up for Palestinian children like he could have, Michael Morpurgo probably only succeeded in adding a little more hatred of Jews into the world.
If you happened to come across the Dec. 28th edition of the Guardian’s ‘24 hours in pictures” (A selection of the best images from around the world), you would have been warned in advance by editors that “this gallery contains images that some viewers may find distressing.”
Indeed, the fifth photo is quite disturbing, as it shows a dead Palestinian man.
The caption noted:
Gaza Strip: People stand next to the body of a Palestinian killed in an explosion. (Photograph: Mohammed Salem/Reuters)
My first thoughts upon reading the caption were that, by explosion, they either were referring to one of those euphemistic terrorist “work accidents” in Gaza, or, rather, a strike by IDF forces against terror targets in the Strip. However, regarding the latter possibility, it seemed quite strange that the Guardian would miss an opportunity to assign blame to Israel by use of such vague language.
So, upon searching the image I quickly was able to learn the identity of the Palestinian in the photo.
He appears to be Abdullah Telbani, a Global Jihad, Al Qaeda-affiliated, terrorist.
Reports suggest that Telbani was killed by IDF forces before he could carry out a terrorist attack from the Egyptian Sinai, as well as with rocket and IED attacks along the Israeli-Gaza border – an attack which was believed to be imminent.
A Reuters account similarly characterized Telbani as being ”linked to a loose network of ultra-conservative Salafis who profess allegiance to al Qaeda.”
One report noted that Telbani saw Hamas as too moderate, “and…at times chafed against Hamas ceasefire efforts.”
Here’s another picture of Palestinians carrying a dead body identified as Telbani, and one more, here.
Further, if you Google the photographer with his new organization, “Mohammed Salem Reuters“, you’ll find that Salem is a photo activist who specializes in glamorizing Palestinian terrorists.
So, no doubt, the average Guardian reader, per the photo, likely either was unclear about the circumstances of Telbani’s death by “an explosion”, or, more likely, assumed that Telbani was simply another Palestinian (possibly civilian) victim of Israeli military aggression.
Of course, if the editor who wrote the caption took his journalistic responsibilities seriously, the caption would have had to include something like this:
“People stand next to the body of an Al-Qaeda affiliated Jihadist, whose plans to kill innocent Israelis in a cross border terror attack were thwarted by the IDF.”
However, as such text would clearly be inconsistent with the Guardian narrative on the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, a deliberately vague and highly misleading caption had to suffice.
#GuardianPropagandaPhoto
Related articles
- Palestinian Guardian propaganda photo of the day (Soldier vs. child) (cifwatch.com)
- Hamas, Harriet Sherwood and the Guardian Left’s continuing antisemitic sins of omission (cifwatch.com)
- Guardian gratuitous, and highly misleading, anti-Israel photo of the day (cifwatch.com)
- Guardian anti-Israel propaganda photo of the day (Palestinian children edition) (cifwatch.com)
- What the Guardian won’t report about Palestinian Independence: It wouldn’t solve the refugee problem (cifwatch.com)
- Guardian gratuitous anti-Israel photo of the day (& a story about the photojournalist behind the lens) (cifwatch.com)
- Photo of a 16 month old Israeli baby injured by Palestinian rocks that the Guardian would never post (cifwatch.com)
- Medical Misdirection in The Guardian (cifwatch.com)
This was published at HonestReporting by Simon Plosker
As NGO Monitor has extensively detailed, Physicians For Human Rights (Israel) has a radical political agenda far removed from simple medical matters. It’s therefore no surprise that the organization provides the main body of an article in The Guardian that claims:
“Palestinian patients and business people hoping to leave the Gaza Strip are being asked to collaborate with Israel in exchange for an exit permit”.
According to PHR:
172 people, mostly men aged 18 to 40, were called for interrogation by the Shabak, Israel’s internal intelligence agency, last month. Some who attended interviews were granted exit permits.
Putting this figure into perspective, in August 2011 alone, 1522 permits were granted for medical treatment to residents of Gaza (762 patients and 760 for accompanying individuals). In one week in December 2011, 330 patients and accompanying individuals crossed into Israel and the West Bank via the Erez Crossing.
Not to mention that there is nothing to stop Gazans from crossing into Egypt for medical treatment. After all, Israel is under no obligation other than humanitarian concerns, to treat Gazans in Israeli hospitals where Jews and Arabs are treated equally by both Jewish and Arab medical staff based solely on medical and not political concerns.
Israel’s security services would not be doing their jobs properly if extreme caution was not exercised in giving out permits to Gazan patients. While The Guardian is happy to publish a story accusing Israel of abusing the right to healthcare, it would do well to remember the real abuse of medical permits.
For example, Wafa Samir Ibrahim al-Biss (recently released as part of the Gilad Shalit prisoner deal) was caught attempting to smuggle a suicide bomb belt through Erez taking advantage of her medical permit for hospital treatment at Soroka Hospital in Israel. Indeed, Wafa actually intended to blow herself up in the very hospital that had given her treatment.
Al-Biss caught at the Erez Crossing
The MFA details other examples of Palestinians abusing the medical permit system.
Nobody said that the task of accumulating human intelligence from Gaza is a pleasant business. It is, however, necessary. That this story appears in The Guardian courtesy of PHR-I is merely the result of the unholy and symbiotic relationship between anti-Israel journalists and anti-Israel NGOs.
Thankfully, for every story such as this one, there are many more such as that of Israeli doctors saving the life of a Palestinian baby thanks to open-heart surgery – just the sort of news that you won’t ever see in The Guardian.
Related articles
- The Guardian’s Phoebe Greenwood gambles with Palestinian lives. (cifwatch.com)
- What the Guardian won’t report: Freed Palestinian terrorist implores Gaza children to follow her example (cifwatch.com)
- How Guardian writers file stories about life in Gaza without mentioning Hamas, without really trying (cifwatch.com)
- Harriet Sherwood report accuses Israel of contaminating Gaza’s beaches (cifwatch.com)
- Harriet Sherwood legitimizes Gazans’ complaints that they can’t enter Israel to sue the Jewish state (cifwatch.com)
- Guardian gratuitous, and highly misleading, anti-Israel photo of the day (cifwatch.com)
- The Guardian’s Harriet Sherwood: Amplifying the voice of radical anti-Israel NGOs (cifwatch.com)
“You’ve come a long way, baby” was an album by British musician Fatboy Slim, released in 1998.
The title was taken was from a slogan for the cigarette brand Virginia Slims, introduced in 1968 and marketed to young professional women and meant to appeal to the themes of feminism and women’s liberation in the 60s and 70s. The ads often featured anecdotes about women in the early 20th century who were punished for being caught smoking, as compared to the time of the ads when more women had more rights.
The Virginia Slims ad came to mind when I came across a brief story from the Malta Times, titled “Fresh Graduates”, which featured this photo from Gaza.
The photo included the following text:
Palestinian women and members of Hamas security forces marching in formation during a graduation ceremony for new recruits in Gaza City, yesterday.
So, I then began imagining a new Virginia Slims ad to appeal to the unique brand of Palestinian Islamist feminism:
I mean, really, who needs such bourgeoisie women’s rights as the freedom to dress as they please, or legal protection from forced underage marriages, wife-beating and honor killings, when you can enjoy the more sublime freedom of marching in a military drill with automatic weapons, while receiving the most up to date training on how best to defeat the Zionist entity?
(Editor’s Note: In 2010 Hamas banned women from smoking water pipes, so the Virginia Slims campaign may have to be tweaked a bit before going into production so as not to run afoul of of Gaza’s “community standards”.)
Related articles
In reading the Guardian daily, I’m still often struck by the enormous moral blind spot which seemingly progressive commentators possess when it comes to undeniable evidence of Palestinian hate, intolerance and malice.
No doubt, journalists like Harriet Sherwood and Phoebe Greenwood have no personal animosity towards Jews as such, likely have Jewish friends, and avoid engaging in explicit expressions of antisemitism in their personal lives.
Such souls likely react with requisite horror when reading or viewing films about Nazi atrocities during the Holocaust. They may even sincerely wonder how Germans could have been so cruel, so blinded by hate and a murderous ideology which viewed Jews as subhuman, and whose mere presence was a threat to human civilization which had to be eradicated.
They similarly may ask why the world was silent.
How then to understand the seeming lack of corresponding shock and outrage towards modern manifestations of such explicit Jew hatred in the Arab and Muslim world?
Sherwood’s latest, “Israel will launch significant Gaza offensive sooner or later“, Dec. 28, isn’t, by any measure, the most egregious example of the Jerusalem correspondent’s bias against the Jewish state, nor the most sympathetic portrayal of Hamas her paper has ever published, but the report’s credulousness in the face of Islamist group’s narrative is still a polemical inversion worthy of scrutiny.
Sherwood begins:
A new Israeli military offensive against Gaza will be launched “sooner or later” and will be “swift and painful”, Israel‘s most senior military officer has warned.
“Sooner or later, there will be no escape from conducting a significant operation,” he said. “The IDF knows how to operate in a determined, decisive and offensive manner against terrorists in the Gaza Strip.”
Then, Sherwood connects Gantz’s belligerence with a recent IDF operation.
Within hours of Gantz’s comments, the Israeli military launched two airstrikes on targets in Gaza, killing one person and injuring around 10, according to local reports.
Though Sherwood includes IDF “claims” that the hits were on two “terrorist squads with global jihad associations” and that “one of the targets was a cell en route to Sinai with the intention of launching an attack on Israel from Egypt”, the Israeli aggression is then contrasted with Hamas’ evident moderation:
Since the end of the Gaza war in January 2009, Hamas has attempted to enforce a ceasefire among militant groups, although sporadic rocket fire has continued. Israel holds Hamas, as the de facto government, responsible for all rocket fire emanating from Gaza. [emphasis mine]
First, the degree to which Hamas has “attempted to enforce a ceasefire” is clearly only motivated by the terrorist groups’ fear of further IDF action. That is, per Gantz, the 2008-09 Gaza war, which was the focus of such obsessively critical Guardian coverage, actually achieved a good deal of its objective – deterring Hamas.
Second, a good deal of the rocket fire has been launched by Popular Resistance Committees (PRC), which is funded and supported directly by Hamas. Think of PRC as Hamas’ terrorist subcontractor.
Further, Sherwood’s characterization of the subsequent rocket fire as sporadic (as AKUS pointed out the last time Sherwood used the term) has absolutely no relation to reality. As our Gaza rocket counter notes, there have been 47 rocket attacks from Gaza in December alone, and 683 for all of 2011.
What country on earth would consider a 683 enemy rocket attacks into its territory, by an enemy committed to its destruction, “sporadic”?
Sherwood’s credulousness as to the claim of Hamas’ benign intentions continues:
There have been suggestions in recent weeks that Hamas is ready to distance itself further from attacks on Israel as part of its reconciliation process with its rival faction Fatah.
“They have accepted popular [non-violent] resistance,” senior Fatah official Mohammed Shtayyer said, adding that Hamas would stop “these fireworks” being launched.
The “fireworks” the Fatah official speaks of have killed 44 Israelis (and injured 1,687) since 2006, according to IDF figures.
Sherwood adds:
However, Hamas officials have also said they reserve the right to self-defence and the prime minister, Ismail Haniyeh, pledged to continue “resistance” at a public rally this month.
Of course, the group’s understanding of the term “self-defence” can accurately be understood by viewing the following clip from Al Aqsa TV, on Dec. 14 (during a rally celebrating Hamas’s 24th anniversary).
Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh:
“We say today, explicitly, so it cannot be explained otherwise, that the armed resistance and the armed struggle are the path and the strategic choice for liberating the Palestinian land, from the [Mediterranean] sea to the [Jordan] river, and for the expulsion of the invaders and usurpers [Israel] from the blessed land of Palestine. The Hamas movement will lead Intifada after Intifada until we liberate Palestine – all of Palestine, Allah willing. Allah Akbar and praise Allah.
This is the same Hamas of course which Tweeted the following on their anniversary:
None of this should surprise anyone who has bothered to read Hamas’s founding charter, which includes the following:
- Article 13: “There is no solution to the Palestinian problem except Jihad. Regarding the international initiatives, suggestions and conferences, they are an empty waste of time and complete nonsense.”
- Preamble: “Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it.”
- Article 7: “The day of Judgement will not come about until Muslims fight Jews and kill them.”
It’s challenging at times to continually think of new and more effective ways to reach those who still remain unconvinced of Hamas’ open malevolence towards Jews, and not merely Israelis.
I’m challenged not by the availability of evidence as to the immutably antisemitic nature of Hamas (and related Islamist terror movements) which, in the age of the internet, is abundant – but, rather, by the seemingly limitless capacity of leftist ideologues like Sherwood to deny, or at least ignore, even the most irrefutable evidence of the group’s homicidal intent.
During the Holocaust, before the age of mass communication, decent people could reasonably argue that they didn’t fully understand Nazi ideology, lacked a complete picture of the regime’s genocidal aims, or were otherwise ignorant as to the scope of, and danger caused by, such unimaginable hatred.
However, nobody today with access to the internet can possibly plead ignorance and pretend not to understand that Islamist ideology represents the central address of annihilationist antisemitism in the modern era.
As with the masses of “ordinary men” who turned a blind eye to Nazism, those who today, for whatever reason, fail to resist, or even deny, such insatiable and consuming Jew hatred in the Islamic world (whatever its ultimate result) will similarly not be judged kindly in generations to come.
Related articles
- The Guardian’s Phoebe Greenwood promotes the new kinder, gentler, peaceful Hamas (cifwatch.com)
- Harriet Sherwood legitimizes Gazans’ complaints that they can’t enter Israel to sue the Jewish state (cifwatch.com)
- What Harriet Sherwood won’t report: Hamas bans Palestinian merit scholars from leaving Gaza (cifwatch.com)
- Harriet Sherwood’s latest Guardian report on terror attacks from Gaza redefines the word “Sporadic” (cifwatch.com)
- The Israeli humanity, and terrorist malice, which Harriet Sherwood will never report (cifwatch.com)
- The Guardian’s Harriet Sherwood: Terror Propagandist. (cifwatch.com)
The following Guardian headline, in a story written by Phoebe Greenwood, truly could have been written by the Hamas minister of propaganda.
Evidently, Greenwood – the Guardian Israel correspondent who makes us long for the days of Harriet Sherwood – wasn’t being in the least facetious.
She begins, reporting from Gaza City:
Hamas has confirmed that it will shift tactics away from violent attacks on Israel as part of a rapprochement with the Palestinian Authority.
A spokesman for the Hamas prime minister, Ismail Haniya, told the Guardian that the Islamic party, which has controlled Gaza for the past five years, was shifting its emphasis from armed struggle to non-violent resistance.
Greenwood admits, however, there is one caveat to the new Gandhi-style peaceful resistance of the group whose founding charter cites the Protocols of the Elders of Zion to “prove” that Jews are indeed trying to take over the world.
Violence is no longer the primary option but if Israel pushes us, we reserve the right to defend ourselves with force,”
Oh, I see.
Please, Ms. Greenwood, help contextualize this for us. What contemporary Islamic resistance movement is the Hamas leadership emulating?
The announcement on Sunday does not qualify as a full repudiation of violence, but marks a step away from violent extremism by the Hamas leadership towards the more progressive Islamism espoused by groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood in Cairo.
The “progressive Islamism” of the Muslim Brotherhood? She must be referring to the group whose spiritual advisor praised Adolf Hitler’s genocide and literally called for the murder of every last Jew on earth.
But, wait. It gets better.
Greenwood:
In a further concession to international legitimacy, the Hamas leadership confirmed on Sunday that it could entertain discussions regarding a peace agreement with Israel if the Quartet of peace broking powers agree to modify its preconditions. Hamas will accept the foundation of a Palestinian state along the 1967 borders but stands firm in its refusal to acknowledge the state of Israel.
The new Hamas: Peace, yes. Israel’s existence, no.
Then, Greenwood, in one last unintentionally comical rhetorical flourish, writes:
This softened tone on the international stage is not yet evident in Haniya’s domestic rhetoric. Speaking at a rally in Kateeba Square, Gaza City, to mark the 24th anniversary of the foundation of the movement last week, the prime minister vowed to continue the “resistance”.
“The resistance and the armed struggle are the way and the strategic choice for liberating Palestinian land from the (Jordan) river to the (Mediterranean) sea,” he said.
Alas, it seems that Hamas’s website similarly doesn’t reflect the new, gentler more sensitive Islamist group.
And, then there’s this communique:
Martyrs:
I’m being unfair to the Guardian, you say?
Well, let’s go back in time to a Guardian report from October 9, 2010:
Fast forward to the website of the New Hamas:
Hamas propaganda photo courtesy of the Guardian.
Hamas peace offensive propaganda communique courtesy of the Guardian’s Phoebe Greenwood.
Any questions?
In the context of this blog’s continuing communication with the Guardian over factual and historical inaccuracies in their reporting on Israel and the Middle East, one recent communication seemed straight forward enough.
We pointed out to Guardian editors that a report, “10 highlights of Palestine“, by Sarah Irving, Guardian, Nov. 18th, which including the following passage, was categorically false.
Granted, tourism to Palestine still faces many challenges, not least the Israeli border authorities who control all routes into the West Bank and Gaza.
As we posted shortly after Irving’s story was published, Israeli border authorities certainly do not control all routes into Gaza, as the territory borders Egypt, which controls Gaza’s Rafah crossing.
We discovered this cartographical omission by use of our blog’s highly advanced satellite technology (Google Maps), which demonstrated the following:
Yes, Gaza borders Egypt, which controls the Rafah crossing.
Today, the Guardian updated the geographically challenged passage, and the post now adds as an addendum :
This article was amended on 15 December 2011. The original said the Israeli border authorities controlled all routes into the West Bank and Gaza. This has been corrected.
After nearly a month of no doubt exhaustive research, the Guardian (and perhaps Sarah Irving) has discovered a route into Gaza not controlled by Israel.
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Ali Abunimah makes UNRWA Spokesperson Chris Gunness “Giggle”
February 20, 2012 in Comments which are off-topic, ad hominem, racist, vulgar or include threats of violence will be deleted | Tags: Ali Abunimah, Antisemitism, Comment is Free, Delegitimization, Gaza, Gilad Atzmon, Hamas, Hezbollah, Terrorism, United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, UNRWA | by Adam Levick | 11 comments
The Tweets by Chris Gunness, spokesperson for UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency), are worth following for those Twitterers amongst you interested in gleaning insights into the mind of those in the Palestinian Refugee industry.
Gunness has nary an unkind word for Hamas, the authoritarian Palestinian leadership in Gaza representing the only government in the world led by a recognized terrorist movement, yet continually imputes guilt to Israel for engaging in efforts to stop the flow of rockets to the strip, 676 of which were fired last year from the territory.
Here’s a quote by Gunness in a 2011 Guardian piece, which interprets Israeli efforts to prevent deadly arms from reaching Hamas as systemic cruelty, whose intent is to sow misery upon innocent civilians.
Moreover, by UNRWA’s expansive definition of what constitutes a Palestinian refugee, based on a quote from the same Guardian piece, 1.5 million Palestinians living in a Palestinian run polity in Gaza are still considered “refugees”.
Further, as research by NGO Monitor has demonstrated, UNRWA funds (almost entirely provided by voluntary contributions from governments and the European Union) “are often used for UNRWA schools and other facilities…[which] teach hatred and encourage incitement, [and] the evidence demonstrates that UNRWA staff allowed terror related activities in its camps [in Gaza and the West Bank].”
I have found nothing Gunness has written or Tweeted suggesting he is aware or concerned about such incitement, which provides context for this recent Tweet about Ali Abunimah, co-founder of Electronic Intifada, and CiF contributor through 2009.
Boy, where to begin?
Abunimah is an American pro-Palestinian activist who opposes the Jewish state’s existence, and who has not hesitated to compare Israel to South African apartheid and even Nazi Germany - describing Gaza as a “ghetto” and a “concentration camp” and arguing that “Zionism is not atonement for the Holocaust, but its continuation in spirit.”
Abunimah has also characterized the Jewish state as “supremacist”, echoing a trope popularized by, among others, David Duke and Gilad Atzmon, and has also described Israeli policy towards Palestinians as “potentially genocidal”.
Further, Abunimah has suggested that suicide bombings and other acts of terrorism by Hamas and Hezbollah against Israeli civilians could justly be seen as legitimate to the degree such tactics resemble ”other nationalist movements facing foreign occupation”.
So, the anti-racist Ali Abunimah is a proponent of the demise of the Jewish state – a nation which he has characterized as “supremacist”, potentially genocidal, and even Nazi-like – and has sought to justify terrorism against Jewish civilians.
If your name is Chris Gunness, it’s all apparently enough to make you giggle.
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