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There’s just so much unintentional comedy in this “report” at Al-Qassam, the English website of the military wing of Hamas, titled “The storming of the Aqsa Mosque sets off alarm bells“, May 21, I’ll post a screen shot of the entire post for your enjoyment.
One question:
How does the ‘Change and Reform’ wing of Hamas – a movement which cites the ‘Protocols of the Elders of Zion’, calls for the annihilation of Israel and the murder of Jews in its founding charter – differ from the more ‘conservative wing?
Harriet Sherwood’s latest report, Israeli PM: illegal African immigrants threaten identity of state, May 20, is notable not for the story, concerning Israel’s efforts to stem illegal immigration, nor for the narrative, which suggests racist motives, but due to the photo of PM Netanyahu.
In fact, the photo (of an angry “right wing” Bibi) was used in a July, 2011, Guardian story.
A November 2011 Sherwood report used another angry photo of Bibi…
…which was recycled from a report in August, 2011.
As a point of comparison, here’s a photo of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in a ‘Comment is Free’ commentary from March, 2012.
Finally, here is a photo from a Guardian report, of a gentle, kindly and loving soul (aka, Raed Salah) who, in his spare time, recites poems advancing the ancient antisemitic blood libel.
Related articles
- ‘Comment is Free’ writer praises Hamas for limiting its acts of terror to ‘only’ Israeli Jews (cifwatch.com)
- Mehdi Hasan croons the Iran chorus on ‘Comment is Free’. (cifwatch.com)
Like this:
Deborah Orr will go down in the Guardian hall of shame as the journalist whose antisemitic smear in a column was so explicit she was evidently pressured to issue an apology (albeit a mealy-mouthed one), and whose commentary was so hateful that Israel’s ambassador to the UK cited it as an egregious example of British antisemitism. She also featured prominently in HonestReporting’s 2011 Dishonest Reporting award, which the Guardian won by a landslide.
Here’s the most important passage in Orr’s essay, Is an Israel life really more important than a Palestinian’s?, which was dripping with contempt for Jewish citizens of Israel.
“It’s quite something, the prisoner swap between Hamas and the Israeli government that returns Gilad Shalit to his family, and more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners to theirs…[which is] an indication of how inured the world has become to the obscene idea that Israeli lives are more important than Palestinian lives.”
“At the same time, however, there is something abject in [Hamas's] eagerness to accept a transfer that tacitly acknowledges what so many Zionists believe – that the lives of the chosen are of hugely greater consequence than those of their unfortunate neighbors. “[emphasis added]
The capacity to impute racism to Israel because it freed over a thousand Palestinian prisoners (many serving sentences for lethal attacks against Israeli civilians) to gain the release of one Israeli demonstrates the seemingly unlimited capacity of anti-Zionists to vilify the Jewish state in response to any political phenomenon.
Regarding her swipe at “the chosen”, Guardian readers’ editor Chris Elliott, in a piece in November curiously titled “on averting accusations of antisemitism“, included this clear reference to Orr:
Two weeks ago a columnist used the term “the chosen” in an item on the release of Gilad Shalit, which brought more than 40 complaints to the Guardian, and an apology from the columnist the following week. “Chosenness”, in Jewish theology, tends to refer to the sense in which Jews are “burdened” by religious responsibilities; it has never meant that the Jews are better than anyone else. Historically it has been antisemites, not Jews, who have read “chosen” as code for Jewish supremacism.
While Orr has avoided commenting on the Middle East since then, she hasn’t been quiet on Twitter (see here and here ); a forum which often serves as journalists’ Id, allowing them to enter political territory they otherwise wouldn’t dare go, thus the ubiquitous disclaimer: “My Tweets are my own“.
Indeed, only a couple of weeks after the “chosen people” row, Orr, in an exchange with a critic, Tweeted this:
Her Tweet couldn’t be more clear: Jews/Zionists wield power so immense that they can silence Israel’s critics – a suggestion that’s laughable in light of the obsessive criticism the Jewish state receives in the media, from self-described “activists” and at international bodies such as the UNHRC. I’ve often joked that if Zionists are indeed engaged in a concerted effort to silence their critics, they’re doing an awfully bad job.
Orr’s latest foray into the debate over Israel was her reply to a CiF Watch Tweet, which noted Orr’s history of Jew baiting in the context of a thread inspired by a recent Commentator piece about Guardian diary editor Hugh Muir. (Also see this piece on Muir).
Here’s another CiF Watch Tweet, citing a relevant example of such Guardian behavior:
Orr then Tweeted the following responses:
Here’s the first one, clearly suggesting that she still defends her reprehensible November Guardian essay on the Shalit prisoner deal.
Admittedly, the rhetorical limits of Twitter makes it impossible to adequately express complex ideas, but I’ll quickly try to unpack this.
By “your”, she could be referring to CiF Watch the organization, myself, or our cadre of contributors and volunteers, or perhaps Zionists and/or Jews. But, either way, we stand accused of engaging in a (“paradoxical”) “aggressive” defense of our “victimhood”, rendering us unserious.
I don’t think it’s unfair to connect these words with her Tweet noted above from November.
Zionists, believes Orr, (who she already established are burdened with racist notions of their own superiority) attempt to silence their critics.
How do we achieve such a herculean task?
Per her most recent Tweet, Orr may think we cynically exploit our past victimhood in an attempt to gain impunity from current sins.
If this is her proposition it certainly isn’t the first time Jews/Zionists have stood accused of engaging in such moral blackmail. Indeed, a quite familiar trope used by antisemites against Zionists and their Jewish supporters is that they exploit the Holocaust and past antisemitism to blunt criticism about Israel’s crimes against Palestinians.
While I can’t of course get into Orr’s mind, her columns and Tweets certainly erode any hope that she used the response to her November Guardian essay as an opportunity to engage in serious self-reflection about the dangers of engaging in Judeophobic narratives.
I’m very curious to hear readers’ thoughts on Orr’s Tweet, and whether folks think I’m reading too much into her 121 character missive.
Related articles
- Clip of Israeli Amb to UK, Daniel Taub, blasting Deborah Orr at ‘Big Tent for Zionism’ conference (cifwatch.com)
- Another pejorative reference to Jews as “Chosen People” by a Guardian contributor (cifwatch.com)
- Guardian’s duty to Jews on Yom HaShoah? Don’t publish accusations that we’re “supremacists”! (cifwatch.com)
- Lost in anti-Zionist translation? Guardian misquotes Noam Shalit on Palestinian hostage taking (cifwatch.com)
- Guardian “journalist” Style Guide related dilemmas: Palestinian “Terrorism” edition (cifwatch.com)
- My speech on countering delegitimization @ ‘Big Tent for Zionism’ conference: Manchester, Nov. 27 (cifwatch.com)
- Ghetto Jews: Most unintelligible & offensive Israel related Guardian letter ever? (cifwatch.com)
Last weekend the tenth ‘Palestinians in Europe’ conference – this year sponsored by Tunisian interim president Monsef Marzouki – was held in Copenhagen. The event was co-organised by the Palestinian Forum in Denmark and the Palestinian Return Centre (PRC) of London which is a permanent organiser of the annual event.
The conference’s president was Majed al Zeer of the PRC and also of the Hamas-linked European Campaign to End the Siege on Gaza (ECESG) which was set up by the Muslim Brotherhood’s European arm in 2007 and takes part in organizing the various flotillas, including the fatal one of 2010.
The Palestinian Return Centre is a Hamas-supporting organization which promotes the ‘right of return’ for Palestinian refugees and is banned in Israel due to its links with a terrorist organisation. Besides its General Director al Zeer, others of its staff are well-known for their anti-Israel activities.
PRC spokesman and chair of trustees Zaher al Birawi recently acted as spokesman for the ‘Global March to Jerusalem’. He has also functioned as spokesman for George Galloway’s ‘Viva Palestina’ convoys, is an official of the Palestinian Forum in Britain and trustee of a UK charity named ‘Education Aid for Palestinians’ which is a member of the Hamas-supporting ‘Union of Good‘.
The PRC’s operational director, Arafat Madi Shoukri, is also connected to the ECESG as well as director of the Brussels-based European parliament lobbying group called the ‘Council for European Palestinian Relations‘. Ghassan Faour – a trustee of the PRC – is also linked to the UK charity ‘Interpal’ which is a member of the ‘Union of Good’. Another PRC trustee Majdi Akeel – a known Hamas activist and also connected to ‘Interpal’– was mentioned in the Holy Land Foundation trial in the US. The PRC’s senior researcher and editor, Daoud Abdallah, is also the director of MEMO and well-known as a signatory of the Istanbul Declaration.
Speakers at the recent conference included former British MP and Minister Clare Short (also a patron of ICHAD UK and an activist with the ECESG, as well as a member of the advisory board of Res Publica) and leader of the Palestinian party ‘al Mubadara’ (aka Palestinian National Initiative) Mustafa Barghouti who was recently involved in the organization of both the ‘Global March to Jerusalem‘ and the ‘Welcome to Palestine’ flytilla.
According to a ‘Union of Good’-linked website:
“The Conference called on the Arab countries and the countries sponsoring Palestinian refugees to improve these refugees’ conditions reminding the Europeans of their historical responsibility for the Palestinian problem, and stressing on the steadfastness and great sacrifices of the Palestinians people to defend their land.
The conference’s organizers also launched an initiative in which many European Communities will take part entitled “the wall and settlements’ removal” and aiming at pressuring “Israel”.
Meanwhile, a number of participants in the conference agreed unanimously on the key issues that must be supported, most importantly opposing the Judaization of AlQuds, the Palestinian prisoners’ issue and the internal situation stating that these issues can be solved only after a Palestinian reconciliation.”
The conference launched a new PR initiative on the subject of Palestinian prisoners, claiming that:
“Thousands of Palestinian and Arab prisoners are deprived of their basic freedom and incarcerated in Israeli prisons, lacking the basic standards required in any jail. They have endured many unjust practises (sic) inflicted by the Israeli government which is violating its own commitment to International law and Charters of Human Rights. These violations are committed with total impunity and International accountability.”
Given some of the recent media coverage on the subject of the Palestinian prisoners’ hunger strike, we may well assume that the campaign is already in full swing.
Related articles
- Jenny Tonge & the Hamas Lobby (cifwatch.com)
- CiF Watch Special Report on extremists behind ‘Global March to Jerusalem’: Pt 2, Europe Chapter (cifwatch.com)
- CiF Watch Special Report: Extremists & terror supporters organizing ‘Global March to Jerusalem’ (cifwatch.com)
- Harriet Sherwood on the Palestinian prisoners’ hunger strike – high on pathos, low on fact. (cifwatch.com)
- CiF Watch Special Report: Latest Assault on Israel’s legitimacy, ‘Air Flotilla 2′, April 15th, 2012 (cifwatch.com)
Why it should have taken two writers – both Observer ‘chief reporter’ Tracy McVeigh and Guardian Jerusalem correspondent Harriet Sherwood – to put together what is in fact no more than a re-hash of a ‘Boycott Israel Network’ press release is anyone’s guess. But it apparently did, and the result is this so-called article from April 29th on the subject of the Co-operative Group’s decision to boycott not only Israeli firms located over the green line, but also those with any connections to other businesses in those areas.
The section from the BIN press release which McVeigh and Sherwood neglected to include provides background information on how this decision on the part of the Co-op came about.
“The announcement by the Co-op came just before their Regional AGMs, due to take place over the next two weeks, and where motions on this issue have been submitted for discussion. For months Co-op members have been highlighting their concerns about trade with complicit companies through co-ordinated letter-writing and discussions with local offices.”
For those unfamiliar with the Co-op’s structure and the manner in which that lends itself to easy manipulation by pressure groups, here is a brief primer. Anyone over the age of 16 can become a member of the Co-op for £1. Most of those who join do so for the offers, discounts and end of year dividends, but it is also possible for them to set up local members’ groups and the Co-op actually assigns funding to enable their meetings.
The nature and purpose of each local group depends very much upon the members. Some might choose to go in for tasting the supermarket’s new range of wines at their meetings. Others may decide to recruit more new members at a local gala or engage in some kind of charity work. Still others may decide to liaise between the Co-op and the local community on a transition town-style green agenda – for example persuading their local Co-op to abandon the use of plastic bags or recycle food waste as compost.
The local groups send representatives to regional meetings, which in turn send representation to national level meetings. Thus, anyone committed enough to put in the time and effort can promote a specific agenda and influence the Co-op’s operations at both local and national level.
And that is precisely how this latest (and the previous, less far-reaching) boycott decision came about. Around 2008 the Co-op was identified by anti-Israel campaigners – in particular members of the PSC – as a ‘soft’ target. They became members, set up local groups and began pushing their agenda up the ladder. That task was not particularly difficult; the vast majority of Co-op members do not attend meetings and even those who do are often quite relieved to find that someone else is willing to spend time going to regional AGMs.
The project was made even easier by the fact that, unable to compete with Britain’s big supermarket chains on price or quality, the Co-op markets itself as the progressive ‘ethical’ alternative.
Sherwood and McVeigh quote one Hilary Smith in their article, describing her as “Co-op member and Boycott Israel Network (BIN) agricultural trade campaign co-ordinator”. The Boycott Israel Network of course involves itself in far more than just supermarket boycotts.
Smith is also a member of Sheffield PSC and Sheffield BDS and active in the ‘Coordin8‘ lobbying network (her regional organizer is recent failed ‘flytilla’ participant and would-be fixer of online polls Terry Gallogly of York PSC). In 2009 she was to be found addressing students occupying Sheffield University on behalf of Sheffield PSC and is apparently not averse to the libeling of Israel as an ‘apartheid’ state.
In February of this year Smith took part in an ‘Israel Apartheid Week’ event at Sheffield University which also featured a speaker from ‘Who Profits‘, (a ‘Coalition of Women for Peace‘ offshoot) who was described in the promotional material as coming “from Haifa in the occupied territories”. That negation of Israel’s existence is of course an underlying principle of the BDS movement.
In addition to her above activities, Hilary Smith is also a ‘volunteer international coordinator’ for the ‘Free Gaza’ movement ‘. Here she is reporting on a ‘Free Gaza’ speaking tour of the UK. Here she is acting as official contact and spokesperson for UK Free Gaza in 2009. Here she is posting information about the 2010 flotilla on the UK Trade Union movement’s ‘Labournet‘ site and here complaining to the BBC about its coverage of the Mavi Marmara incident and its portrayal of the ‘Free Gaza’ movement. Ahead of the 2008 flotilla organized by ‘Free Gaza’, Smith chaired a press conference held in London.
The participants in one of the 2008 jaunts organized by ‘Free Gaza’ did reach their destination and were received (and presented with medals) by leaders of Hamas, – the terrorist organization designated by the UK government which ‘Free Gaza’ enables and supports.
Activists in the ‘Free Gaza’ movement are very aware of the legal implications of their actions, as this briefing document – seized aboard a ‘Free Gaza’ ship – indicates.
For the source of the above document and more information on the ‘Free Gaza’ movement, its ties to Hamas and other designated terror-connected organizations such as the IHH and its roots in the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), see here.
The management of the Co-operative Group may not be aware that it has in fact been manipulated into this latest boycott move by subscribers to a political campaign which works towards the rather less than ethical ultimate aim of wiping a sovereign country off the map and often collaborates with designated terror organisations in order to do so.
On the other hand, the Co-op might simply not care. After all, this is the same organization which (rather hilariously, given its advertising spiel on ‘ethical banking‘) provides banking services to George Galloway’s ‘Viva Palestina‘ – which is at this very moment on yet another Hamas-supporting road-trip and travelling via Syria, where the incumbent dictator (for whom Galloway has such admiration) is still slaughtering civilians in their thousands.
This new boycott move by the Co-operative Group should actually be seen as very useful on a number of fronts.
It exposes the way in which it is laughably easy for very small numbers of energetic activists to dictate the agendas of large organizations in the UK. We have seen it happen in British churches, universities and trade unions – now it is the turn of the co-operative movement.
It also points a spotlight on the discrepancies between the ‘ethical’ image the Co-op likes to project for PR purposes and its actual practice. Let’s face it; the £350,000 worth of trade affected by this boycott is negligible (barely the price of a modest Tel Aviv apartment), but the move does highlight once again how the Co-op is apparently willing to overlook the terror-sympathetic connections (and real aims) of clients and campaigning members in order to curry favor with a perceived ’progressive’ client base.
The move also serves to highlight the manner in which UK-based anti-Israel campaigners have in the last decade or so managed to bring their message into the mainstream at local levels. Using letters to local newspapers, occasional PSC or ‘Friends of Palestine’ stalls and demonstrations, co-opting the support of churches and various specific interest groups, they have ensured that although the vast majority of the population understands little or nothing about the Arab-Israeli conflict, many are nonetheless convinced that they are capable of making ethical judgments about it.
Of course most British citizens will find this move by the Co-op somewhat less than ethical, if not downright abhorrent. The good news is that due to the company’s structure, they can do something about it by using exactly the same methods as employed by BDS activists in order to reverse the agenda.
Related articles
- Harriet Sherwood on the Palestinian prisoners’ hunger strike – high on pathos, low on fact. (cifwatch.com)
- Feeble reasons not to boycott the Guardian (cifwatch.com)
Like this:
“Don’t you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought?”
George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four, (1949), pt. 1, ch. 3)
Next month will mark the second anniversary of Harriet Sherwood’s arrival in Israel. Those two years have made no noticeable difference to her reporting – suggesting that Sherwood’s tendency to blindly reproduce frequently unsubstantiated claims made by various individuals or organisations (often with a lot more to them than Sherwood chooses to inform her readers) is more a matter of method than lack of knowledge or experience.
As we saw just a couple of months ago in the Guardian’s coverage of Khader Adnan’s hunger strike, what Sherwood (and others) omit from their reports is often just as critical to the overall picture as the words they do choose to write. Thus Adnan – an Islamic Jihad activist seen on record recruiting suicide bombers – became ‘a baker‘ as far as Guardian readers were concerned, whilst the victims of his ‘militant group‘ (as Sherwood elected to term a proscribed terrorist organisation) remained outside the sphere of Guardian readers’ awareness.
Now Sherwood is at it again, with an article from April 26th on the subject of the latest round of hunger strikes by Palestinian security prisoners held in Israeli prisons. In it, she covers two specific prisoners; Bilal Diab (aged 27 from the village of Ra’ei, south-west of Jenin) and Tha’er Halahleh (aged 34 from Hevron and one of the leaders of the hunger strike).
What Sherwood refrains from informing her readers is that – like Khader Adnan – both men are members of the Islamic Jihad.
Bilal Diab
Tha’er Halahleh
Sherwood quotes ‘Addameer’ in her article, describing it as a ‘prisoners’ rights group’ but declining to mention the organisation’s political aspects and its use of Palestinian prisoners as a means of political leverage.
This interview (worth reading in its entirety) with Addameer legal researcher Mourad Jadallah gives an idea of the group’s political affiliations and the significance of the subject of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisons in internal Palestinian political power struggles.
Asa Winstanley: Palestinian hunger strikes seems to have developed a lot recently. It’s an old tactic, but there seems to be a new focus on it.
Mourad Jadallah: We have days for hunger strike for prisoners from Fatah and [then] twenty other days for prisoners from the PFLP [Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine], which means that also the prisoners’ movement is not united like it was [in the past]. So what happened outside the prisons is reflected inside the prisons’ movement.
AW: The factional divisions you mean?
MJ: Yeah. Like today — this is something we don’t want to talk about but maybe for The Electronic Intifada we can say [that] until today we are not sure that the prisoners of Fatah will participate [in the hunger strike starting tomorrow].
……
This is one side of how we can explain all these hunger strikes in the prison. From one side, the peace process failed to release the prisoners … And the other side, you have the [prisoners] exchange. Most of the prisoners released … they are affiliated to Hamas. So the other prisoners said, OK, what we have [are] political factions who just look out for their own prisoners and if we are from other parties nobody will ask for us and the peace process can’t release all the prisoners … The prisoners decided and they understood that they have to fight for themselves.
AW: Most of the prisoners released in the exchange were from Hamas?
MJ: Especially in the first phase of the release — 80 percent of them were from Hamas.
AW: Why was that?
MJ: This is what Hamas wanted, and also the majority of prisoners today, they belong to Hamas. This is the reality even after the exchange. And we know that Fatah and the PLO [Palestine Liberation Organization], when they release the prisoners, they look for the Fatah prisoners, they want to keep this legitimacy at least in the eyes of the Fatah prisoners.
So everyone is saying, OK, Hamas succeeded to release 1,000 Palestinian prisoners — 80 percent of the first phase, which is like 450, they were Hamas. And the others, who were serving short sentences, were from different parties. So maybe it’s time for others to do the same as Hamas and release their prisoners.
… Since the beginning of the year there have been some short hunger strikes … Then suddenly you have the PFLP prisoners who went on an open hunger strike for twenty days, then Hamas came and did the prisoner swap … And then Khader Adnan put all the focus on Islamic Jihad. So you have a competition between the political parties. At some point you have the focus on the Fatah prisoners.
An additional aspect connecting this latest round of hunger strikes to its many predecessors -which Sherwood also completely ignores – is its role in the ongoing attempt by some Palestinian groups (including organizations such as Addameer) to have people serving sentences due to convictions for terrorism recognized as political prisoners. In fact, as Addameer’s director Sahar Francis states in this article, they already view all Palestinian security prisoners as ‘political’ – even leaders of terrorist groups such as Ahmed Sa’adat of the PFLP and those convicted of acts of terror.
Sherwood’s next quote in her article comes from Shawan Jabarin of Al Haq. As was previously pointed out by CiF Watch when Sherwood wrote a puff piece about ‘Defence of Children International – Palestine’ in January 2012, Jabarin (who sits on the board of DCI-Pal together with Sahar Francis of Addameer) is linked to the proscribed terrorist organization the PFLP.
In June 2007 the Israeli Supreme Court noted that:
“[Jabarin] is apparently active as a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, in part of his hours of activity he is the director of a human rights organisation, and in another part he is an activist in a terrorist organisation which does not shy away from acts of murder and attempted murder, which have nothing to do with rights, and, on the contrary, deny the most basic right of all, the most fundamental of fundamental rights, without which there are no other rights – the right to life.”
If – as with almost everything she writes about – Sherwood were not so busy endeavoring to reduce the subject to simplistic concepts of innocent, helpless Palestinians and bad, powerful Israelis, she might have been able to broaden her readers’ knowledge on the subject of these repeated hunger strikes as part of a comprehensive strategy to try to secure the release of prisoners.
She could have pointed out the connections between the well-organized strikes and the calls by Khaled Mashaal and other prominent members of Hamas such as Ismail Haniyeh, Ahmed Bahar and Ismail Radwan to kidnap more Israeli soldiers as a ‘second front’ in the bid for the release of convicted terrorists from Israeli prisons.
She might have mentioned the statements by Issa Qaraqa (PA Minister of Prisoner Affairs) and PLO executive committee member Hanan Ashrawi on the subject of the coordinated hunger strike – both of which called for ‘internationalization’ of the issue – adding further evidence to the fact that rather than some kind of spontaneous reaction to specific grievances, the strike is part of a co-ordinated political campaign, as the between Hamas and Fatah leaders in its promotion also indicates.
“Hamas political chief Khaled Mashaal and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas spoke by telephone Thursday about rallying Palestinians to support Palestinian prisoners in their hunger strike against certain Israeli prison policies, such as administrative detention, Palestinian news agency Ma’an reported Friday, citing a Hamas statement.
The two also discussed tactical strategy for emphasizing the hunger strike and prisoner issues on the public relations and diplomatic fronts.”
But unfortunately for anyone who actually relies upon the Guardian for news and information about what goes on in Israel, they will learn nothing of the wider context of the hunger strikes in Israeli prisons because Harriet Sherwood apparently deems it unnecessary for readers to be aware of the connections of her subjects and interviewees to terror groups or the political campaigns of which the strikes are part and parcel.
Instead, she’s busy piling on the pathos; slowly but steadily narrowing her readers’ range of thought in true Newspeak fashion.
Related articles
- Harriet Sherwood again takes up the cause of innocent Palestinian “baker”, Khader Adnan (cifwatch.com)
- Harriet Sherwood feels Islamic Jihad terrorist’s pain (cifwatch.com)
- Video of Harriet Sherwood’s Palestinian “Baker”, Khader Adnan, calling for suicide bombing (cifwatch.com)
Like this:
On April 16th 2001 the first Hamas-orchestrated rocket attack from Gaza took place. In the eleven years since then, the one million civilians living within the range of fire have suffered over 12,700 additional rocket and mortar attacks. Forty four people have been killed and over 1,600 injured.
An estimated 55% of the residents of the southern Israeli town of Sderot – located less than a mile from the Gaza Strip – have suffered either physical or mental injury as a result of the rocket attacks. 86% of children between the ages of 12 and 14 suffer from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. One in 24 of the town’s residents receive psychiatric care due to trauma stemming from the attacks.
When the ‘Colour Red’ warning of an incoming rocket sounds, Sderot’s residents have 15 seconds in which to take cover in one of the town’s fortified bus stops, fortified schools, fortified playgrounds or in the nearest air-raid shelter or safe room.
At intermittent junctures throughout the past eleven years, the UN has “urged” Hamas to stop firing rockets and called the attacks “unacceptable“. The EU has occasionally “condemned” them and Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have defined the rocket attacks on civilians as war crimes.
And yet, despite these platitudes, UN bodies host Hamas representatives and the EU allows various Hamas-linked lobbying groups to operate on its premises and take its MEPs on trips to Gaza. European MEPs have even participated in Hamas-run anti-Israel publicity stunts and the European Parliament was quick to endorse the Goldstone Report which managed to largely avoid dealing with the highly significant aspect of Operation Cast Lead which is Hamas attacks on Israeli civilians. Amnesty International, meanwhile, continues its flirtation with the most hard-core of Hamas supporters.
It is often said that no other country besides Israel would put up with 12,700 rocket attacks on its civilians and that may very well be true. Eleven years on, there are now thousands of Israeli children who have never known life without the 15 second run to the nearest bomb-shelter as part of their daily routine.
The UN, EU and Human Rights community bodies which aid and abet the mainstreaming of extremism and terror by collaborating with Hamas and its supporters are ensuring that many more Israeli children will have their lives shattered too.
Like this:
Earlier in the week the organisers of the ‘Airflotilla 2′ (‘Welcome to Palestine’) campaign held a press conference in Bethlehem. Among the speakers the organisers chose to address journalists was the mayor of Bethlehem, Victor Batarseh who urged Israel to allow the flytilla activists in.
“These people are coming to talk about peace, they are not coming to wage war against Israel,” he said. “They are coming to visit the Palestinian people who are under occupation and to talk to them and to help them because these people are isolated.”
“We are asking our neighbors the Israeli government to make it easy for these people to enter the Palestinian National Authority, so that we can have this message of peace starting from this holy city of Bethlehem.”
He called on Europe and the United States to support the protest. People who speak out about Israel’s policies are called “anti-Semitic,” he said, but urged the US and Europe not to fear this label.
Whilst he can certainly talk the talk, Mayor Batarseh’s ‘message of peace’ should be seen in light of the fact that he recently took part in the ‘Christ at the Checkpoint‘ conference held in his town, during which he told the audience that the Palestinians were being crucified by Israeli security measures, Bethlehem was a giant prison and that Jesus Christ, embodied by the Palestinian people, was imprisoned in the city by the security barrier.
Batarseh is known to be allied to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) – a terrorist organization proscribed by Canada, the EU and the US. In January this year Batarseh attended a memorial service for PFLP founder George Habash held in Beit Sahour. Terror attacks perpetrated by the PFLP include:
- On July 22, 1968, the PFLP hijacked its first plane, an El Al flight from Rome to Tel Aviv.
- In September 1970, the PFLP hijacked three passenger planes and took them to airfields in Jordan, where the PLO was then based; after the planes were emptied, the hijackers blew them up. In response, King Hussein of Jordan decided that Palestinian radicals had gone too far and drove the PLO out of his kingdom.
- In 1972, PFLP and Japanese Red Army gunmen murdered two dozen passengers at Israel’s international airport in Lod.
- In 1976, breaking a PLO agreement to end terrorism outside Israeli-held territory, PFLP members joined with West German radical leftists from the Baader-Meinhof Gang to hijack an Air France flight bound for Tel Aviv and landed the plane in Entebbe, Uganda. In a now-famous raid, Israeli commandos freed the hostages. [Despite the overall success of the raid, three hostages were killed in the firefight and one was killed by Ugandan Army officers in a nearby hospital.]
Also speaking at the ‘Welcome to Palestine’ press conference was project organizer Mazin Qumsiyeh who said of the campaign’s participants:
“These are not hooligans. The people who are coming are normal, average Europeans who want to learn and visit people under occupation,”
Hooliganism is defined as ‘rowdy, violent or destructive behaviour’ or alternatively; ‘willful, wanton and malicious destruction of the property of others’. Some might say that the attempts of Mazin Qumsiyeh and his Palestine Justice Network to eliminate the Israeli state amount to little less.
Certainly, Mazin Qumsiyeh and Mustafa Barghouti – an endorser of the ‘Air Flotilla 2′ – do not qualify as being best placed to define hooliganism in light of their equally suspect definition of the recent March 30th ‘Global March to Jerusalem’ events (which they also co-organised) as ‘non-violent resistance’ and Barghouti’s active participation in the Qalandiya riots.
Neither, of course, is Qumsiyeh’s definition of the ‘Air Flotilla 2′ participants as “normal, average Europeans” at all accurate. Average Europeans do not – unlike the members of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign or London BDS (both of which are involved in ‘Welcome to Palestine’) – align themselves with the oppressive human-rights abusing, terror financing and supporting Iranian regime by promoting and participating in ‘Al Quds Day‘ marches.
Normal Europeans do not march under the flags of terrorist organisations such as Hizbollah and Hamas who indiscriminately murder civilians. Average Europeans do not disrupt cultural events and call for boycotts of a democratic country as a means of bringing about its dismantling. And ordinary Europeans certainly do not try to deliberately get themselves deported from other countries by knowingly engineering provocations.
As for Qumsiyeh’s claim that the ‘Air Flotilla 2′ participants wanting to “learn” about the conflict – that of course is highly dubious. Seasoned activists such as these are precisely what they are because of the fact that they have no desire to have their well-entrenched opinions challenged by facts and knowledge.
But let’s say they did. A viewing of this video made by Mustafa Barghouti shows exactly what participants in the ‘Air Flotilla 2′ will be ‘learning’ on their trip – should they actually arrive.
A couple of months ago Jenny Tonge caused a firestorm after she publicly stated during an anti-Israel diatribe “Israel is not going to be there forever in its present performance”. Rejecting an ultimatum from Liberal Democrat leader, Nick Clegg, to apologize for her remarks Tonge was forced to resign from the Liberal Democrats and give up the party whip.
Commenting on Tonge’s remarks, Robert Halfon, MP opined
“Baroness Tonge has an appalling record of strong anti-Israel rhetoric. Too often, these remarks carry an offensive anti-Semitic tone. The Liberal Democrat whip should be withdrawn immediately, and she should withdraw her remarks.”
Enter Salma Yaqoob, hailed by the Guardian as “the most prominent Muslim woman in British public life”.
Yaqoob, leader of the Respect Party and former Birmingham city councilor, is known for her Islamist leanings having called the 7/7 London bombings “reprisal attacks”. According to Harry’s Place:
[H]er connections with Islamist extremism go back far further than her association with RESPECT. She was part of the campaign team which supported the family of Abu Hamza, who were caught while taking part in jihadist training in Yemen. Most disgracefully, she wrote an article in Inayat Bunglawala’s “Trends” magazine, which imagined Britain becoming an Islamic Republic, from which Salman Rushdie was depicted fleeing for his life.
Salma Yaqoob (right) endorsing Ben "I can understand why some are antisemitic" White's book Israel Apartheid for Beginners
It should come as no surprise then that Yaqoob holds a special place in her heart for Israel. She attended a protest together with Richard Burden, MP, in which the Israeli flag was burnt. On her personal blog, she lovingly refers to the IHH terrorists on board the Mavi Marmara as martyrs, campaigned for the release of Sheikh Raed Salah, endorsed the closure of the Israeli embassy in London, and supported the pro-Hamas Viva Palestina convoy while on Twitter she participated in the campaign to release Palestinian Islamic Jihad spokesperson, Khader Adnan.
In the spirit of Norman Finkelstein, in an article published in the Guardian (but where else!) she accused “Zionists [of abusing] the memory of the Holocaust to bolster support for today’s Israeli state.” And as can be seen from this article she is a staunch supporter of the BDS movement and the antisemitic Israel apartheid trope.
Which is all by way of introduction to this video filmed in 2010 that places everything neatly in context.
Around the 1 minute mark you can hear Yaqoob saying the following:
“[J]ust as South Africa now is liberated. Just as the bankrupt apartheid regime was exposed, was exposed to a world of the solidarity of world citizens [sic] was dismantled, so too the days of this racist apartheid regime are numbered.” [emphasis added]
Calling into question the existence of and willing the end of Israel as the nation state of the Jewish people is abhorrent, offensive and yes antisemitic.
So I ask the question: is there really any difference between what Jenny Tonge and Salma Yaqoob said?
Perhaps Yaqoob should ponder this next time she openly threatens CiF Watch on twitter for expressing our First Amendment rights of free speech.
Update 1
On Twitter, Yaqoob is claiming that she referred to the fact that 7/7 bomber claimed it as a reprisal attack and that she condemned the bombings unreservedly.
Update 2
On Twitter, Yaqoob claims that the Trends article was a satirical parody. She’s strangely silent about the substance of the post – namely the similarity of her statement to that of Jenny Tonge!
Update 3
More hate speech from Salma Yaqoob, this time on Twitter:
Salma Yaqoob Hate Speech Tweet
Update 4
Yaqoob is resolute about standing behind her comments a la Jenny Tonge as evidenced by this retweet:
Update 5
This retweet from Salma Yaqoob is priceless:
Update 6
Note how Salma Yaqoob accuses us of trolling and smearing in the following two tweets:
And then she retweets this:
Like this:
A guest post by Hadar Sela
As mentioned in the recent CiF Watch report on the upcoming ‘Air Flotilla 2′ – otherwise known as ‘Welcome to Palestine’ – the initiative is supported by a plethora of groups from the United Kingdom, all of which are defined by their supposed ‘solidarity’ with the Palestinian cause as a raison d’etre. One of those groups is the ‘Swansea Palestine Community Link‘ from South Wales.
Members of that group are no strangers to the ‘flytilla’ concept, with several of them having taken part in the abortive 2011 provocation. As reported by CiF Watch at the time:
Joyce Irene Giblin of Newport represented (unsuccessfully) the Socialist Labour Party in the 2011 elections to the Welsh Assembly. She is a member of ‘Swansea Action for Palestine’ and appears to support just about every anti-Israel outfit going, including ‘Jews against the Occupation’, ‘Viva Palestina‘, the ECESG and the ISM. Here she is with her fellow flag-loving Newport resident.
Joyce Giblin (left) and Pippa Bartolotti (right).
Also from Wales come the last two members of the British delegation to the ‘flytilla’: 46 year-old Swansea council worker Fiona Williams from Mumbles who is also involved in Swansea Action for Palestine and 56 year-old book-keeper Dee Murphy from Swansea who is a founder of the Swansea-Palestine Community Link.
Dee Murphy (left) and Fiona Williams (right)
Ms. Murphy seems to make quite a hobby out of getting herself arrested; she is half of what is apparently known as ‘the Tesco two’ and spent eight days in custody following a January 2009 incident in a local supermarket.
“The Tesco 2 are Dee Murphy and Greg Wilkinson who kicked off a campaign to boycott Israeli goods by going into their local Tesco store, filling a trolley with dates produced on illegal Zionist settlements on the West Bank, taking them out without paying, tipping the dates on the ground and spraying them with red dye, then waiting for the police to arrest them.”
Here is Dee Murphy explaining her actions at the time, prior to being arrested:
Less than a month before that incident, Dee Murphy had super-glued herself to the entrance barriers at BBC Wales in Cardiff. Her fellow ‘flytilla’ memberFiona Williams told the press at the time that the reason for the action was that the BBC’s coverage of Operation Cast Lead was “pro-Israeli”.
“Hamas is referred to as a militant organisation, rather than the democratically elected government, having been elected by a huge majority.”
“The settlements in the West Bank should be referred to as illegal, the Israeli Defence Force as the Israeli Army, and the separation barrier as the apartheid wall.”
Here is Dee Murphy once again.
“So yes, they are shooting rockets into Israel, but these are an occupied people! And we all have the right to defend ourselves.”
There is, however, a less quaintly eccentric side to these women, as can be seen in the casual (and apparently unremarkable) use of Nazi analogies on the ‘Welcome to Palestine’ Facebook wall.
Whilst the majority of people might find it distinctly worrying that those who inhabit this echo-chamber can apparently see no fault in invoking antisemitic Nazi analogies as “legitimate criticism” and yet in the next breath declare themselves to be the victims of “spurious smear campaigns”, it is also worth remembering that they apparently have no criticism of their revered co-activist and local minor celeb who sees nothing wrong in posing with of an existing Nazi party or withwho clearly state their genocidal aspirations.
Pippa Bartolotti in Syria – posing with the flag of the SSNP
Pippa Bartolotti in Gaza – posing with Hamas’ Mahmoud al Zahar
Finally, a clue as to why Ms. Giblin sprang to the defense of Bartolotti in the above thread can be found on her list of friends displayed on her Facebook page:
(Note to Ms. Giblin: You may want to change your Facebook security settings!)
What the ladies of the Swansea Palestine Action Link obviously do not appreciate is that there is neither need nor intention to “smear” them. That, they are doing very effectively by themselves.
Related articles
- CiF Watch Special Report: Latest Assault on Israel’s legitimacy, ‘Air Flotilla 2′, April 15th, 2012 (cifwatch.com)
Like this:
A guest post by Hadar Sela (this report may also be viewed on scribd by clicking here)
Hot on the heels of the ‘Global March to Jerusalem’ will come yet another event designed to continue the assault on Israel’s legitimacy – the April 15th ‘Air Flotilla 2′ (also known as ‘Welcome to Palestine’) or ‘flytilla‘ as last year’s (Hamas approved) similar event was dubbed.
Once again, the aim is to have large numbers of international “activists“ flying in to Ben Gurion airport on one day – in the words of the organisers – as part of the “challenge to Israel’s illegal siege of Palestine”.
“There is no way into Palestine other than through Israeli control points. Israel has turned Palestine into a giant prison, but prisoners have a right to receive visitors.
Welcome to Palestine 2012 will again challenge Israel’s policy of isolating the West Bank while the settler paramilitaries and army commit brutal crimes against a virtually defenceless Palestinian civilian population.”
The similarity of the methodology and rhetoric of this project to that of the Global March to Jerusalem is no coincidence; several of the organisers and endorsers are mutual to both campaigns. In fact, Mazin Qumsiyeh recently put out calls for volunteers for both projects on his blog, claiming that over 1,500 Europeans have already purchased tickets for April 15th whilst the overall target number appears to be 2,500.
Endorsers of the Air Flotilla include occasional Guardian contributor and ‘Right to Enter‘ activist Sam Bahour, Tony Benn (controversial president of the ‘Stop the War Coalition’ which was involved in the GMJ) , Noam Chomsky (a GMJ endorser), Nazareth-based former Guardian journalist Jonathan Cook, ‘Free Gaza’ and ISM activist Hedy Epstein and PA Ambassador Manuel Hassassian (whose mission promoted the Global March to Jerusalem).
Also on board are Ronnie Kasrils (a GMJ endorser), Nurit Peled, John Pilger, Jean Ziegler, Rabbi Lynn Gottlieb ( a GMJ endorser), Susan Abulhawa (a GMJ endorser), Ali Abunimah (whose ‘electronic Intifada’ is promoting the Air Flotilla), Mustafa Barghouti (a GMJ organizer), Abdelfattah Abu Srour of the Al Rowwad Culltural Centre (which supported the 2011 flytilla and the GMJ) and Desmond Tutu (also a GMJ endorser).
Mustafa Barghouti’s ‘Palestinian National Initiative‘ was also an endorser of the Global March to Jerusalem, as was The Siraj Centre (where Mazin Qumsiyeh is a member of the board) and the Palestine Justice Network which is currently involved in the organization of the Air Flotilla. The Palestine Justice Network solicits donations through the International Solidarity Campaign-linked ‘Palestinian Centre for Rapprochement between People’, of which Qumsiyeh is head.
In April 2011 the Palestine Justice Network launched its ‘One State Initiative’ and as can be seen from the endorsements, many of the names also appear on the list of those supporting or organising the ‘Welcome to Palestine’ campaign, as well as on the list of signatories of the Stuttgart Declaration.
In short, as was the case with the organisers of the Global March to Jerusalem, the Air Flotilla initiators are united by their rejection of the internationally-accepted route of negotiations aimed at leading to a two-state solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict. Their aim is an imposed ‘one-state solution’ which would result in the end of self-determination for the Jewish people.
A list of foreign organisations endorsing the Air Flotilla – predominantly from the United Kingdom – can be seen here. Among the individual endorsers is Maha Rahwanji of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign executive committee. The PSC was of course heavily involved in the organization of the Global March to Jerusalem. Something of Rahwanji‘s mindset can be understood from her Twitter timeline.
Unsurprisingly, the Iranian regime-linked ‘Islamic Human Rights Commission’ based in the UK is also promoting the ‘Welcome to Palestine’ project, as is Iran’s ‘Press TV’ – according to which “[t]his year, the Welcome to Palestine movement aims to overwhelm Israeli officials by its sheer number of members”.
Purveyor of anti-Semitic cartoons Carlos Latuff presented a gift to the campaign:
The ‘Welcome to Palestine’ campaign has no qualms about using the false – and highly charged – canard of ‘apartheid’ on its official website in order to curry support.
“Plans are underway to challenge Israeli apartheid during 2012 by having a large number of international activists land in Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion airport.”
The campaign’s supporting Twitter account – described as an ‘awareness campaign’ – goes even further, propagating lies and descending into anti-Semitic Nazi analogies.
The end-game of the ‘Welcome to Palestine’ Air Flotilla is, however, revealed in this Tweet:
One of the people operating the ‘Airflotilla2′ Twitter account and its online campaign in general is Gaza Strip-born Ayman Qwaider who is currently resident in Spain.
Before leaving Gaza to study abroad, Qwaider worked for the ‘European Campaign to End the Siege on Gaza’ – a Hamas/Muslim Brotherhood project which is headed by UK-based Hamas operative Mohammed Sawalha. Sawalha was instrumental in the organization of both the 2010 and 2011 flotillas and was also one of the organisers of the Global March to Jerusalem.
Ayman Qwaider has written for the Palestine Telegraph which is operated by Sameh Habeeb, who is also spokesman for the Muslim Brotherhood’s ‘European Campaign to End the Siege on Gaza’ and connected to the Hamas-linked ‘Palestinian Return Centre‘ based in London which is proscribed by Israel. Last year Qwaider was active in the flotilla campaign on behalf of the ‘Spanish Boat to Gaza’, including giving a talk at a Spanish university.
Part of the online support campaign for the ‘Airflotilla2′ initiative includes an e-mail campaign aimed at members of Parliament.
“Palestinians resist. The British Government, however, joins with Israel to isolate the Palestinians while they are being dispossessed. The UK Government, for example, refused to support the recent successful Palestinian bid to join UNESCO in the teeth of bitter US and Israeli opposition. The UK Government has also signalled it will oppose the Palestinian bid for full membership of the UN.
When our governments endorse illegal Israeli occupation, concerned citizens need to take action.”
The main difference between the Airflotilla2 and the Global March to Jerusalem is that the former is designed to appeal primarily – though not exclusively - to European audiences, as reflected in its campaigning and publicity which includes websites and advertising in various European languages.
FRANCE : contact@bienvenuepalestine.com
UK : uk@bienvenuepalestine.com
SPAIN : pazahora1@gmail.com
ITALY : benvenutinpalestina2012@gmail.com
BELGIUM : bienvenuepalestine.wallonie.be@gmail.com / et pour Bruxelles (Brussels) : welcomepalestinebelgium@yahoo.com
GREECE : greece@welcometopalestine.info
USA: palestine2012us@gmail.com
PALESTINE : jneno@ejepal.org (school project) and info@palestinejn.org
In the Netherlands, Electronic Intifada’s Adri Nieuwhof appears to be utilising her connections within the ‘human rights’/international aid community in order to publicize the project.
Several of the ‘Airflotilla2′ organisers took part in last year’s failed flytilla including Myriam de Ly and David Dupire from Belgium and Mick Napier of the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign.
Events were held in Paris , Brussels and other European cities earlier this year to promote the campaign.
The final speaker in the video – Jaques Neno of the EJE (Les Enfants, le Jeu et l’Education) is also one of the project’s organisers, along with George N Rishmawi – co-founder of International Solidarity Movement (ISM), head of the International Middle East Media Center (IMEMC), coordinator of the Siraj Centre and a former board member of the Palestinian Centre for Rapprochement between Peoples. As stated above, Airflotilla2 and GMJ organizer Mazin Qumsiyeh is connected to both the latter organisations.
Neno tells potential participants that they should expect three possible scenarios. The first is that they will get arrested. In that case, according, to him “you have won because when Israel puts you in prison it shows how it becomes more and more fascist”.
The second scenario involves the activists being prevented from boarding their flights at the point of departure, as happened in many cases in 2011, but which Neno appears to consider unlikely this year. The third scenario is that they will reach their destination.
Obviously, provocation and bad public relations for Israel are yet again the real name of the game and several factors suggest that this latest publicity stunt aimed at undermining Israel’s legitimacy should not be taken lightly.
One of these factors is the date which, although originally planned to coincide with the anniversary of the death of ISM activist Vittorio Arrigoni, is also the day after the end of the Pessach holiday when Ben Gurion airport will be particularly busy with a large volume of travelers. For example, the UK airline Jet2 has added an additional flight to its usual schedule on that day which is probably aimed at returning Pessach visitors to Manchester, but is likely to be used by ‘Airflotilla2′ activists from Scotland and the north of England.
Another factor is the unverified claim by ‘Welcome to Palestine’ organisers (Palestine Justice Network) that following the 2011 flytilla during which the majority of activists were not permitted to board their flights, “[a]s a result of legal challenges, many European airlines not only fully refunded the tickets, but also agreed not to repeat the incident.” In the event that airlines will refuse to transport the activists, demonstrations are already being planned.
The International Solidarity Movement in France is already very indignant regarding a statement put out recently by the French Foreign Ministry advising its citizens not to take part in the ‘Airflotilla2′.
The British government has similarly advised against participation in the project, but such recommendations are unlikely to make much of an impression on these activists, as can be seen by the reaction of the French organisers.
“We have no illusions about our leaders and the fact they eat in the hand of the Israeli occupation. We know how they behaved in July, and more generally how they refuse to apply international law and the principle of reciprocity, then they leave to enter France all Israelis who wish, including criminals war. They do not even defend French diplomats when they are humiliated, beaten or injured by the police or the IDF.”
“The method of intimidation will not work. Participants in the mission “Welcome to Palestine” have the right, justice and morality on their side. And they are aware of the seriousness of the situation for the Palestinians, every day more persecuted and dispossessed. They are not ashamed to go visit them. And to do head high, without lying, without going into the game of the occupant, which would wipe out Palestine and the Palestinians.
Gentlemen of the Quai d’Orsay, gentlemen of the government, history will record that you do not have much dignity.”
On the publicity front, the involvement of Ali Abunimah in this campaign means that we are likely to see a far more intense level of activity, particularly on social networks, than was the case with the Global March to Jerusalem which Abunimah and others shunned.
UPDATE, April 11th:
The full ‘Welcome to Palestine’ programme of events can be seen here. The stated aims of the project – building a school and a museum and refurbishing a kindergarten – appear to be confined to one day of activity, with the rest of the week’s visit dedicated to trips to various destinations and a seminar on the subject of “How to End the Occupation?”.
The organisation hoping to build a museum on the history of Palestinian refugees is the Al Rowwad Centre which was also involved in the organisation of the 2011 flytilla, is party to the BDS movement and was an endorser of the Global March to Jerusalem. Pictured below is one of its vehicles, bearing a logo which clearly rejects a negotiated two-state solution.
Related articles
- CiF Watch Special Report on extremists behind ‘Global March to Jerusalem’: Pt 2, Europe Chapter (cifwatch.com)
- CiF gives platform to Sarah Colborne to promote terrorist-organized ‘Global March to Jerusalem’ (cifwatch.com)
- CiF Watch Special Report: Extremists & terror supporters organizing ‘Global March to Jerusalem’ (cifwatch.com)
- Global March to Jerusalem leader compares Israel to Nazis & declares their readiness for “martyrdom” (gm2j.co)
- Hizballah site promotes Holocaust-denying Global March to Jerusalem organizer (gm2j.co)
- Who’s fundraising for ‘Global March to Jerusalem’ in Canada? (gm2j.co)
- CiF Watch welcomes its first follower from Gaza! (cifwatch.com)
Global March to Jerusalem, scheduled for this Friday, March 30, is an anti-Israel publicity stunt that aims to have a million people marching on Israel’s borders from surrounding countries – Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Egypt – with the aim of reaching Jerusalem. Concurrently, demonstrations are planned against Israel’s diplomatic missions in major cities throughout the world.
The organizers of GMJ are made up of members of Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood, far-left extremist groups and are backed by the Iranian government. Senior organizers include:
- Ahmed Abo Halabiya, a Hamas MP
- Zaher Birawi, a prominent Hamas activist in the UK and senior member of the Muslim Brotherhood linked Palestinian Return Center.
- Abdul Maqri, head of the Algerian delegation aboard the Mavi Marmara who in 2010 said “all our blood is Palestine” and declared that “Israel will be annihilated soon”.
Advisory board members include George Galloway, Mahathir Mohammed and Sheikh Raed Salah.
Official statements of the organizers of GMJ attempt to portray the movement as a peaceful protest aimed at highlighting the so-called “Judaization of Jerusalem”.
In 2011, GMJ general coordinator, Ribhi Halloum stated “[t]he protest aims to move the right of return possessed by Palestinian refugees from theory to practice”.
In practice, the right of return is subterfuge for the destruction of Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people. Coupled with that, employment of the term “Judaization of Jerusalem” is hateful rhetoric designed to negate thousands of years of Jewish history and incite the Muslim world.
Combined with the terror groups behind GMJ and the rallying cry of “saving Al Aqsa (Jerusalem) from the Jews”, it seems likely that sufficient numbers the organizers will seek violent confrontation with Israeli forces with the aim of sparking another Intifada.
The Guardian, undeterred by such quotidian concerns as the possibly deadly results of such a terrorist provocation on Israel’s borders, provided a platform to Palestinian Solidarity Campaign’s Sarah Colborne, “Jerusalem is at the heart of the Palestinian struggle“, CiF, March 27.
Sarah Colborne is both a member of the GMJ International Executive Committee, its International Central Committee, and is also the GMJ national co-ordinator for the UK.
Colborne’s Lie #1, in CiF essay
“Jerusalem is a city that embodies the cultural heritage of three religions: Islam, Christianity, and Judaism. Yet Palestinians – both Christian and Muslim – are being driven out of Jerusalem….Just one example of this ethnic cleansing”
Since 1967, when Israel united Jerusalem, (based on the Israel Central bureau of Statistics) there were:
Jews: 195,700
Muslims: 54,963
Christians: 12,646
Then, by 2009:
Jews: 479,756
Muslims: 278,568
Christians: 15,476
So, far from being driven out of Jerusalem, the Muslim population of the city has increased roughly 5 fold, while the Jewish population has increased roughly by a factor of 2.8. So, the Muslim population has grown dramatically faster than the Jewish population.
Obviously, there is nothing resembling ethnic cleansing in Jerusalem.
Colborne’s Lie #2
“Jerusalem, the traditional centre of Palestinian social, religious and economic life , is increasingly being isolated and restricted by Israeli policies.”
Such a moral inversion, suggesting that religious life in Jerusalem for Palestinians is increasingly restricted, represents the nadir of anti-Zionist propaganda. Jerusalem, since 1967 – in stark contrast to Jordanian control of the city from 1949 to 1967, when Jews were forbidden from visiting Judaism’s most holy sites – has never been more free for citizens of all faiths to worship.
Muslim rights on the Temple Mount, the site of the Dome of the Rock and the Al-Aksa Mosque, have not been infringed, and the holy places are actually under the supervision of the Muslim Waqf. Although it is Judaism’s holiest site, Israel has left the Temple Mount itself under the control of Muslim religious authorities.
Colborne Lie #3
“The Global March to Jerusalem is bringing together an impressive coalition of Palestinian voices and organisations, with supporters from dozens of countries around the world travelling to Jerusalem, and to the border countries, to participate in the peaceful actions.”
“The struggle for Palestinian rights is at the core of the global movement for social and economic justice.”
As our research has demonstrated (which can be seen at our site, Exposing the truth about the Global March to Jerusalem), this coalition is led by members of proscribed Islamist terror organizations with backing from the Iranian regime.
Here are the real goals of GMJ, contrary to Colborne’s supremely dishonest polemic at ‘Comment is Free’.
- Destroying the “Zionist edifice”: Some idea of the mindset of the event’s organizers can be gleaned from statements made in the following e-mail exchange between two of them regarding a previous identical project.
“Imagine a situation where we have more than a million people streaming in from four borders & Israel fails to stop the human tide…next time we will have 5 million who will be marching…This is exactly the nightmare situation for Israel…Thus will undermine the Israeli state, like no other strategy & then it will all begin to unravel & the Zionist edifice which is unraveling as we speak, will soon fall.
- Using GMJ as a catalyst to begin a 3rd Intifada: Feroze Mithiborwala is a member of both the GMJ International Executive Committee and its International Central Committee was even more explicit regarding the movement’s aims, writing:
“..the Arab Revolution presents new possibilities & the epic 94-year-old struggle of the Palestinian people, a proud & ancient nation, which has inspired the world for generations, will finally see a new awakening & with it, a new hope, a new Intifada, the Third Intifada!!”
- Rejection of a two-state solution, seeking the elimination of Israel from the “river to the sea”. GMJ promotional material refers to the 1948 occupation and supports the so-called “right of return” of Palestinian refugees, both euphemisms for the destruction of the State of Israel.
- Legitimizing Antisemitic ideology in the name of human rights: Organizers of GMJ have engaged in vile antisemitic discourse, such as Ahmed Abo Halabiya, a GMJ organizer and Hamas member, who gave a sermon which included: “Have no mercy on the Jews, no matter where they are, in any country. Fight them, wherever you are. Wherever you meet them, kill them.”
Here’s an image on the official GMJ Facebook Page, portraying Jews as rats (a popular Nazi antisemitic motif) undermining the al-Aqsa Mosque:
Finally, equally as absurd as characterizing the GMJ as an endeavor consistent with peace, liberalism and human rights is the suggestion that Colborne embodies anything resembling such progressive values.
Her organization, PSC, has demonstrated, at best, a tepid approach to Holocaust denial and racism among its members. And, Colborne has shared a platform with the homophobic and racist leader of the Northern Islamic Movement Raed Salah, and leapt to his defence when he was apprehended by the British authorities.
Colborne and Salah also sailed together on the ‘Mavi Marmara’ in 2010 as part of the ‘Freedom flotilla’, during which Islamist incitement to violence was documented in , in which Salah can be seen in the first row, wearing a white skull-cap.
The Guardian’s decision to provide a platform to the organizer of a violent provocation – an organized act of incitement – led by terrorists with the explicit aim of destroying Israel represents a further erosion of the media group’s increasingly absurd veneer of liberalism.
The Islamists, terrorists, and their apologists who have planned and are behind the March to Jerusalem can only be described politically (based on their broader ideological orientation) as representing the antisemitic extreme right.
As such, Guardian Left politics is increasingly defined by this tendency to allow nearly anyone willing to mouth platitudes about “Palestinian rights” moral impunity for their reactionary, malign, racist agendas.
What is the Global March to Jerusalem (GMJ)?
GMJ, scheduled for March 30, 2012, is an anti-Israel publicity stunt that aims to have a million people marching on Israel’s borders from all the surrounding countries – Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Egypt – with the aim of reaching Jerusalem. Concurrently, demonstrations are planned in the Palestinian-administrated territories and against Israel’s diplomatic missions in major cities throughout the world.
Who is organizing GMJ?
The organizers of GMJ are made up of members of Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood, far-left extremist groups and are backed by the Iranian government. Senior organizers include:
- Ahmed Abo Halabiya, a Hamas MP who in 2000 gave a sermon saying “Have no mercy on the Jews, no matter where they are, in any country. Fight them, wherever you are. Wherever you meet them, kill them.”
- Zaher Birawi, a prominent Hamas activist in the UK and senior member of the Muslim Brotherhood linked Palestinian Return Center.
- Abdul Maqri, head of the Algerian delegation aboard the Mavi Marmara who in 2010 said “all our blood is Palestine” and declared that “Israel will be annihilated soon”.
Advisory board members include George Galloway, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Mairead McGuire, Mahathir Mohammed and Sheikh Raed Salah.
What are the objectives of GMJ?
Official statements of the organizers of GMJ attempt to portray the movement as a peaceful protest aimed at highlighting the so-called “Judaization of Jerusalem”.
In 2011, GMJ general coordinator, Ribhi Halloum stated “[t]he protest aims to move the right of return possessed by Palestinian refugees from theory to practice”.
In practice, the right of return is a rejection of the two state solution and subterfuge for the destruction of Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people. Coupled with that, employment of the term “Judaization of Jerusalem” is hateful rhetoric designed to negate thousands of years of Jewish history and incite the Muslim world.
Haven’t there been attempts to breach Israel’s borders beforehand?
Yes. During 2011 there were two separate attempts to march on Israel’s borders mainly from Syria, one on May 15 and another on June 5, both of which turned violent resulting in dozens of deaths and hundreds injured.
Like every other sovereign nation, Israel has the right to control who enters its borders and to protect its borders from being breached.
Should we be concerned about GMJ?
Absolutely. With a bloody uprising in Syria, a Muslim Brotherhood dominated Egypt, the looming Iranian nuclear threat, a failed peace process and recent renewed violence from Hamas-controlled Gaza, the situation is highly volatile. Combined with the extreme terror groups behind GMJ and the rallying cry of “saving Al Aqsa (Jerusalem) from the Jews”, it is our assessment that with sufficient numbers the organizers will seek violent confrontation with Israeli forces with the aim of sparking a Third Intifada
How do I find more about GMJ?
We have established a special website at www.gm2j.co which contains detailed information about GMJ, profiles of the organizers, lists of endorsing organizations and a regularly updated blog.
Please also follow us on Twitter at @gm2jlm.
For further information, please contact me at adamlevick@cifwatch.com.
About CiF Watch (www.cifwatch.com)
Exposing the truth about the Global March to Jerusalem is a special project of CiF Watch. CiF Watch is a media monitor dedicated to exposing and combating antisemitism and the assault on Israel’s legitimacy at the Guardian and its ‘Comment is Free’ blog.
(Special thanks to Hadar Sela, who continues to conduct the bulk of the research for this project)
Related articles
- ‘Global March to Jerusalem’: An Attempt to “unravel the Zionist edifice” (gm2j.co)
- Global March to Jerusalem’s official website backs terrorists in latest violence from Gaza (gm2j.co)
- Member of Hamas Terror Cell on GMJ Promotional Tour in South Africa. (gm2j.co)
- Global March to Jerusalem collaboration with Hizbollah & Lebanese terrorist warlord (gm2j.co)
- Radical Canadian Jewish group endorses GMJ, to prevent ‘Judaization of Jerusalem (gm2j.co)
- ‘Global March to Jerusalem’ Update: Quarrels within anti-Zionist ‘Sunni-Shia/Red-Green’ Alliance? (cifwatch.com)
- Further Global March to Jerusalem-NA / Gilad Atzmon fundraising collaboration (gm2j.co)
- Update on CiF Watch’s new site: ‘Exposing the truth about the Global March to Jerusalem’ (cifwatch.com)
- Global March to Jerusalem: Latest Supporters (gm2j.co)
- Global March to Jerusalem spokesman Zaher Birawi in Gaza (gm2j.co)
Phoebe Greenwood, writing for the Guardian on March 16, claimed, in a sensational headline and accompanying text in the lead passage, that Noam Shalit, the father of the Israeli soldier (Gilad Shalit) held hostage for five years by Hamas, said (during an interview with Israeli TV) that “he would kidnap Israeli soldiers if he were a Palestinian.”
Well, JTA had a Hebrew-speaking colleague track down the interview with Israel’s Channel 10 and it turns out Shalit didn’t say that at all.
Here’s a transcript (translated from Hebrew) of what Shalit actually said:
Q. So you support talking to Hamas?
Shalit: I support talking to anyone.
Q. Including Hamas?
Shalit: Including Hamas. Everyone who wants to talk with us.
Q. As a Knesset member, would you go out tomorrow to talk with [Hamas Prime Minister Ismail] Haniyeh?
Shalit: Haniyeh’s not yet ready to recognize us. Unfortunately, it hasn’t happened yet.
Q. And if he recognizes us?
Shalit: If and when we get the bridge, we’ll cross it. Of course.
Q. That is, even if the kidnappers of Gilad themselves one day are senior officials in the Palestinian administration and agree to recognize Israel, you would sit with them as an Israeli Knesset member.
Shalit: Presumably — I said that if they change their ways and are prepared to recognize us and recognize that there is a Jewish state, that there’s Israel, there’s the State of Israel, yes, and they stop the war against then yes – absolutely.
Q. Shake his hand?
Shalit: Yes.
Shalit: How did Barak say? If I were Palestinian, it’s possible I too would be a terrorist or a freedom fighter — how they call them — or something else.
Q: If you were a Hamasnik, would you abduct an Israeli soldier?
Shalit: I don’t know but maybe I would fight IDF forces in a different way, I don’t know.
Q: But you don’t rule it out.
Shalit: If I were a Palestinian?
Q: Yes, abducting a soldier to release prisoners.
Shalit: We also kidnapped British officers way back when, when we were fighting for our freedom.
Clearly, Shalit didn’t say that he would kidnap an Israeli soldier if he were a Palestinian, as Greenwood definitively claimed. He essentially suggested that he didn’t know exactly what he would do if he were a Palestinian, while stating that (if he were Palestinian) he might have tried to fight the Israeli army “in a different way.”
Shalit, during the interview, also evidently said (as reported by The JC) that the Prime Minister should have imposed financial sanctions on Gaza while his son in captivity. He said:
”As soon as they capture an Israeli soldier and are not willing to release him and asking for such a price, you should put the pressure on them, including stopping the transfer of money.”
So, its clear that Shalit gave an equivocal, nuanced and, at times, somewhat contradictory answer to the question of Palestinian hostage taking.
But, the Guardian’s Greenwood, and her editors, either didn’t attempt to get an accurate Hebrew translation, or simply decided to go with the most sensational, pro-Palestinian, narrative possible.
The Guardian headline is egregiously misleading, and yet thoroughly consistent with a media group continually in search of “evidence” to buttress their a priori anti-Israel conclusions – reports which often seem intent on suggesting a moral equivalence between Israel and her terrorist enemies.
Similarly, recall a Guardian report, back when Gilad Shalit was released from Gaza in Oct. 2011, focusing on a gaunt, weary, and beleaguered Shalit who was forced to endure an interview on Egyptian TV shortly before his release to Israel.
Chris McGreal, whose reports of the Hebrew interview with Shalit seem to have been at least partially based on Tweets in English he read throughout the Q&A, by those watching the Egyptian TV interview, wrote:
[Shalit] was asked whether, now that he was free, he would campaign for the release of remaining Palestinian prisoners. He said it would make him very happy to see all Palestinian prisoners released.
But, as Ynet and other media noted.
Asked whether he will campaign for the release of the other Palestinian prisoners held in Israel, Shalit said “I would be happy if they are released, on condition that they stop fighting against Israel.”
That enormous qualifier was somehow omitted by McGreal – a report never revised despite our complaint to Guardian editors – in a manner not disimilar to Greenwood’s gross mischaracterization of what Noam Shalit said more recently.
As I’ve written before, but what can’t repeated often enough, the Guardian can not reasonably be seen a serious newspaper in any real sense of the word.
Rather, the institution represents far left political activism under the guise of journalism.
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Guardian defames Israel with wild, unsubstantiated charge on Palestinians disabled by IDF
May 23, 2012 in Comments which are off-topic, ad hominem, racist, vulgar or include threats of violence will be deleted | Tags: anti-Zionism, Comment is Free, Delegitimization, Gaza, Guardian, Hamas, Harriet Sherwood, Jerusalem, Terrorism | by Adam Levick | 17 comments
‘Activist Journalism’ – in the anti-Zionist context – refers to the capacity to frame any event in the Jewish state in a manner consistent with a pre-determined narrative.
So, any isolated case of injustice is reported as evidence of the state’s alleged systemic and institutional racism or oppression, while counter evidence – indicating that the behavior in question may represent the exception and not the rule – is typically ignored.
For instance, the Guardian will report a Palestinian civilian death in Gaza during an IDF anti-terror operation but largely fail to note the context of Hamas terror or the remarkable care Israel takes to avoid non-combatant deaths – including precision bombing of terrorist targets which often results in far better outcomes in comparison to other armies’ military operations around the world.
Of the 100 Gazans killed in IDF anti-terror operations in 2011, 91 were terrorists and 9 were civilians. That is a civilian to combatant death ratio of roughly 1 to 10.
This contrasts quite dramatically with the average civilian to combatant death ratio in recent conflicts involving NATO forces in Iraq and Afghanistan: There, NATO had a 3 to 1 ratio (i.e. there were 3 civilian deaths for every 1 combatant death).
Similarly, Israel has been accused on the pages of the Guardian of making it very difficult for Palestinians in Gaza to receive medical care, often with the particular circumstances of each decision ignored, along with that of the broader context of a state which – though at war against a terror movement which calls for Israel’s destruction – still allows thousands of Palestinians (100,000 in 2011) to receive medical care in its hospitals.
Harriet Sherwood’s latest report is an even more egregious illustration of such journalistic bias. Her report entitled “Palestinian Paralympians visit Jerusalem holy site” of May 21st, (tucked away in the sports section of the Guardian), had it been based on the raw facts, could have fairly advanced the following narrative:
Israel, though in a state of war with a Hamas government which does not recognise its right to exist and launches hundreds of deadly projectiles into its cities each year, still allowed – on humanitarian grounds – disabled Palestinian athletes (who are competing in the Paralympics in London this summer) to visit al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock.
But, we’re talking about Harriet Sherwood, after all, and so Israel was not credited. Instead she wrote:
Unreported by Sherwood is the fact that for years there has been an unofficial boycott of Jerusalem by Arab states to protest Israeli control of the city.
Sherwood continues:
Then Sherwood’s tale devolves even further. She quotes a paralympian, Hatam Zakut, who says:
Adding to Zaku’s vague charge, Sherwood writes:
“Tens of thousands…”?
There is no source provided to back up Sherwood’s outrageous claim, but after doing a bit of research I found an official United Nations report on Operation Cast Lead – the war in Gaza with the most casualties in recent history.
Per the UN report, there were an estimated 600 Palestinians disabled as a result of injuries sustained during Cast Lead.
While no figures seem to be available on the total number of people disabled in Gaza as a result of conflicts with Israel, a report by the Gaza Ministry of Public Works and Housing, in August 2009 (seven months after Cast Lead), placed the total figure of all disabled Palestinians in Gaza – for all reasons – at 19,763.
In fact, the only reference this definitive report makes to Israel is this line on page 2:
So while there are – according to the official agency in Gaza responsible for collating this data – just under twenty thousand disabled Palestinians in total in Gaza, even the Hamas-run ministry does not attempt to quantify the percentage of this total who were disabled due to IDF military actions, let alone make the claim that “tens of thousands” were disabled by Israeli military operations”.
So, where did Harriet Sherwood get this number?
We’ll likely never know.
But this is no minor question.
Harriet Sherwood is the Jerusalem correspondent for one of the more influential liberal English-language broadsheets and what she reports as fact necessarily has an impact on how millions of readers filter the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Most importantly, such reports greatly influence their readers’ degree of moral sympathy towards Jews’ defense of their right to self-determination in a region resistant to this supremely modest aspiration.
The additional moral issue pertains to the very real world impact Sherwood’s reports have on the Arab world – serving to fuel antipathy towards the Jewish state.
Finally, and no less important, Harriet Sherwood is a professional journalist and therefore owes her readers more than hearsay and half-truths.
Even as a blogger – one with unapologetic and transparent pro-Zionist sympathies – I would never make a specific statistical claim without a link leading to a credible source.
It speaks volumes about the Guardian that their reporters are evidently not held accountable to such basic professional standards.
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