Finally, A Voice Of Sanity

At a time when the most egregious lies about Israel are being devoured eagerly by most of the world, here is a voice of reason. Former Spanish Prime Minister   José María Aznar, writing in The Times this week, said:

If Israel goes down, we all go down

By José María Aznar

For far too long now it has been unfashionable in Europe to speak up for Israel. In the wake of the recent incident on board a ship full of anti-Israeli activists in the Mediterranean, it is hard to think of a more unpopular cause to champion.

In an ideal world, the assault by Israeli commandos on the Mavi Marmara would not have ended up with nine dead and a score wounded. In an ideal world, the soldiers would have been peacefully welcomed on to the ship.

In an ideal world, no state, let alone a recent ally of Israel such as Turkey, would have sponsored and organised a flotilla whose sole purpose was to create an impossible situation for Israel: making it choose between giving up its security policy and the naval blockade, or risking the wrath of the world.

In our dealings with Israel, we must blow away the red mists of anger that too often cloud our judgment. A reasonable and balanced approach should encapsulate the following realities: first, the state of Israel was created by a decision of the UN.

Its legitimacy, therefore, should not be in question. Israel is a nation with deeply rooted democratic institutions. It is a dynamic and open society that has repeatedly excelled in culture, science and technology.

Second, owing to its roots, history, and values, Israel is a fully fledged Western nation. Indeed, it is a normal Western nation, but one confronted by abnormal circumstances.

Uniquely in the West, it is the only democracy whose very existence has been questioned since its inception. In the first instance, it was attacked by its neighbours using the conventional weapons of war. Then it faced terrorism culminating in wave after wave of suicide attacks. Now, at the behest of radical Islamists and their sympathisers, it faces a campaign of delegitimisation through international law and diplomacy.

Sixty-two years after its creation, Israel is still fighting for its very survival. Punished with missiles raining from north and south, threatened with destruction by an Iran aiming to acquire nuclear weapons and pressed upon by friend and foe, Israel, it seems, is never to have a moment’s peace.

For years, the focus of Western attention has understandably been on the peace process between Israelis and Palestinians. But if Israel is in danger today and the whole region is slipping towards a worryingly problematic future, it is not due to the lack of understanding between the parties on how to solve this conflict. The parameters of any prospective peace agreement are clear, however difficult it may seem for the two sides to make the final push for a settlement.

The real threats to regional stability, however, are to be found in the rise of a radical Islamism which sees Israel’s destruction as the fulfilment of its religious destiny and, simultaneously in the case of Iran, as an expression of its ambitions for regional hegemony. Both phenomena are threats that affect not only Israel, but also the wider West and the world at large.

The core of the problem lies in the ambiguous and often erroneous manner in which too many Western countries are now reacting to this situation. It is easy to blame Israel for all the evils in the Middle East.

Some even act and talk as if a new understanding with the Muslim world could be achieved if only we were prepared to sacrifice the Jewish state on the altar. This would be folly.

Israel is our first line of defence in a turbulent region that is constantly at risk of descending into chaos; a region vital to our energy security owing to our overdependence on Middle Eastern oil; a region that forms the front line in the fight against extremism. If Israel goes down, we all go down.

To defend Israel’s right to exist in peace, within secure borders, requires a degree of moral and strategic clarity that too often seems to have disappeared in Europe. The United States shows worrying signs of heading in the same direction.

The West is going through a period of confusion over the shape of the world’s future. To a great extent, this confusion is caused by a kind of masochistic self-doubt over our own identity; by the rule of political correctness; by a multiculturalism that forces us to our knees before others; and by a secularism which, irony of ironies, blinds us even when we are confronted by jihadis promoting the most fanatical incarnation of their faith.

To abandon Israel to its fate, at this moment of all moments, would merely serve to illustrate how far we have sunk and how inexorable our decline now appears.

This cannot be allowed to happen. Motivated by the need to rebuild our own Western values, expressing deep concern about the wave of aggression against Israel, and mindful that Israel’s strength is our strength and Israel’s weakness is our weakness, I have decided to promote a new Friends of Israel initiative with the help of some prominent people, including David Trimble, Andrew Roberts, John Bolton, Alejandro Toledo (the former President of Peru), Marcello Pera (philosopher and former President of the Italian Senate), Fiamma Nirenstein (the Italian author and politician), the financier Robert Agostinelli and the Catholic intellectual George Weigel.

It is not our intention to defend any specific policy or any particular Israeli government. The sponsors of this initiative are certain to disagree at times with decisions taken by Jerusalem. We are democrats, and we believe in diversity.

What binds us, however, is our unyielding support for Israel’s right to exist and to defend itself. For Western countries to side with those who question Israel’s legitimacy, for them to play games in international bodies with Israel’s vital security issues, for them to appease those who oppose Western values rather than robustly to stand up in defence of those values, is not only a grave moral mistake, but a strategic error of the first magnitude.

Israel is a fundamental part of the West. The West is what it is thanks to its Judeo-Christian roots. If the Jewish element of those roots is upturned and Israel is lost, then we are lost too. Whether we like it or not, our fate is inextricably intertwined.

José María Aznar was prime minister of Spain between 1996 and 2004.

Flotilla Farce Redux

As I write this,  the British media is falling over itself to condemn Israel anew. Yesterday a boat bearing terrorists attempted to reach Israeli shores; Israel managed to reach them first and opened fire. As would the defence forces of any sane, democratic nation on our planet.

Of course, the BBC and the Daily Mail, among others, are horrified at this event – what, Jews, defending themselves against terrorism? Whatever next?!

The Mail suggests that this latest terror threat doesn’t actually exist, while the BBC persists in referring to the Islamic militants on board the flotilla as ‘aid workers’.

The British media should be anti terrorism – and as a result should have the decency to at least put forward Israeli responses. After all, it wasn’t so long ago that Brits themselves were being slaughtered by the same terrorists who this week are so cheerfully running rings about both Israel and the court of world opinion.

Here is Melanie Phillips – do note the edits at the end of her article, both of which are significant.

Peace convoy’? This was an Islamist terror ambush

As the international community rushes to condemn Israel for the violence on board one of the ships in the Gaza flotilla, which left a reported 10 people dead and dozens injured, it is now obvious that the real purpose of this ‘armada of hate’ was not merely the further delegitimisation of Israel but something far worse.

Gaza’s markets are full of produce, thousands of tons of supplies are travelling into Gaza every week through the Israeli-controlled border crossings, and there is no starvation or humanitarian crisis.

It was always obvious that the flotilla was not the humanitarian exercise it was said to be. Here is footage of the IDF offering to dock the Marmara — the main flotilla ship — at Ashdod and transfer its supplies and being told ‘Negative, negative, our destination is Gaza’.

And now we can see that the real purpose of this invasion — backed by the Turkish Humanitarian Relief Foundation (IHH), a radical Islamic organization outlawed by Israel in 2008 for allegedly serving as a major component in Hamas’s global fund-raising machine — was to incite a violent uprising in the Middle East and across the Islamic world. As I write, reports are coming in of Arab rioting in Jerusalem.

The notion – uncritically swallowed by the lazy, ignorant and bigoted BBC and other western media – that the flotilla organisers are ‘peace activists’ is simply ludicrous. This research by the Danish Institute for International Studies details the part played by the IHH in Islamist terror in Afghanistan, Bosnia and Chechnya.

According to the French magistrate Jean-Louis Bruguiere testifying at the Seattle trial of would-be al Qaeda Millenium bomber Ahmed Ressamin, the IHH had played ‘[a]n important role’ in the al Qaeda Millenium bomb plot targeting Los Angeles airport. It was also involved in weapons trafficking, and played in addition a key role in galvanizing anti-Western sentiment among Turkish Muslims in the lead-up to the 2003 war in Iraq. ‘Peace activists’ these people most certainly are not.

And this flotilla was but the latest jihadi attack, deploying the Islamists’ signature strategy of violence and media manipulation.

Here from MEMRI (via Just Journalism) is a clip showing the hysteria against Israel being whipped up on board before the ships set sail, with the chanting of intifada songs about ‘Khaybar’ – the iconic slaughter of Jews by Muslims in the 7^th century which is used as a rallying cry to kill the Jews today — and threats of ‘martyrdom’. This was not merely a propaganda stunt, but a terrorist attack.

This is what the Jerusalem Post reported earlier today about what happened last night:

According to the IDF, the international activists ‘prepared a lynch’ for the soldiers who boarded the ships at about 2 a.m. Monday morning after calling on them to stop, or follow them to the Ashdod Port several hours earlier.

… Upon boarding the ships, the soldiers encountered fierce resistance from the passengers who were armed with knives, bats and metal pipes. The soldiers used non-lethal measures to disperse the crowd. The activists, according to an IDF report, succeeded in stealing two handguns from soldiers and opened fire, leading to an escalation in violence.

Also in the Jerusalem Post, David Horowitz wrote:

Benayahu said soldiers, who had been dispatched to block the flotilla because of fears that it was carrying weaponry and other highly dangerous cargo into the Hamas-controlled Strip, were attacked with knives and bars and sharpened metal implements.

Benayahu said two pistols that had been fired were subsequently found aboard the one ship, the Marmara, on which the violence erupted. And, most dramatically, he said that one IDF soldier had his weapon snatched away by one of the ‘peace activists’ on board, that this weapon was then turned against the IDF soldiers, who came under fire, and that they had no choice but to shoot back in self-defense.

… What seems urgent now is to make publicly available footage that shows exactly what did unfold. In early afternoon, video footage screened on Israel’s Channel 2 appeared to show one of those aboard the Marmara stabbing an IDF soldier. Any such footage should have been made available hours earlier. Critically, if footage showing a soldier’s weapon being snatched and turned on the IDF troops exists, it should be broadcast, and the sooner the better.

Some of this footage is now available on the web but much of it is hard to follow: as ever, the Israelis have been far too slow in making the most telling images and information available in comprehensible form (including in English rather than in Hebrew, for heaven’s sake!).

This clip appears to show masked and armed flotilla activists beating Israeli soldiers (although here is the BBC report accompanying that footage, in which the voiceover appears to be claiming, perversely, that the people in masks were Israeli soldiers. That said, the report on Radio Four’s World at One was fair and balanced).

This clip shows an Israeli soldier being stabbed. This IDF clip and this one show attacks on the commandoes including throwing one off the deck, attacking others with a metal pole and a firebomb and an attempted kidnap of another.

It is also becoming clearer as the day wears on that, far from storming the boats in order to attack those on board, the Israelis were hopelessly ill-prepared for the violence they encountered. Israel’s Channel 10 and IDF radio have reported that the Israeli naval commandos were equipped with paint ball rifles to ensure minimum casualties among the flotilla terrorists, with their hand guns to be used only as a last resort.

The terrorists tried connecting the steel cables from the overhead helicopters to the boat’s antenna, in order to cause the helicopters to crash. Only when the terrorists beat the soldiers with iron rods, stabbed them with knives and tried to lynch them did the soldiers respond. The Israeli commandoes were pushed down stairs, thrown overboard, and shot at.

Here is a report by an Israel army radio reporter on board:

‘The activists had many things ready for an attack on the soldiers,’ Lev-Rom said, ‘including, for instance, a box of 20-30 slingshots with metal balls; these can kill. There were also all sorts of knives and many similar things. These are what they call “cold” weapons, as opposed to live fire.  It was quite clear that a lynch had been prepared.’

Lev-Rom said, however, that it appears the army, ‘even though it prepared for many different scenarios, was not ready for this one. The army seems not to have known what type of people were there and what type of weapons they had. It was hard for Israel to conceive that the ship, sponsored by the country of Turkey, would have such weapons. Israel was prepared to deal with anarchists, and instead had to deal with terrorists – that’s the feeling here.’

Here** is an even more vivid account showing how unprepared the Israeli soldiers were:

Navy commandoes slid down to the vessel one by one, yet then the unexpected occurred: The passengers that awaited them on the deck pulled out bats, clubs, and slingshots with glass marbles, assaulting each soldier as he disembarked. The fighters were nabbed one by one and were beaten up badly, yet they attempted to fight back.

However, to their misfortune, they were only equipped with paintball rifles used to disperse minor protests, such as the ones held in Bilin. The paintballs obviously made no impression on the activists, who kept on beating the troops up and even attempted to wrest away their weapons.

One soldier who came to the aid of a comrade was captured by the rioters and sustained severe blows. The commandoes were equipped with handguns but were told they should only use them in the face of life-threatening situations. When they came down from the chopper, they kept on shouting to each other ‘don’t shoot, don’t shoot,’ even though they sustained numerous blows.

The Navy commandoes were prepared to mostly encounter political activists seeking to hold a protest, rather than trained street fighters. The soldiers were told they were to verbally convince activists who offer resistance to give up, and only then use paintballs. They were permitted to use their handguns only under extreme circumstances.

The planned rush towards the vessel’s bridge became impossible, even when a second chopper was brought in with another crew of soldiers. ‘Throw stun grenades,’ shouted Flotilla 13’s commander who monitored the operation. The Navy chief was not too far, on board a speedboat belonging to Flotilla 13, along with forces who attempted to climb into the back of the ship.

The forces hurled stun grenades, yet the rioters on the top deck, whose number swelled up to 30 by that time, kept on beating up about 30 commandoes who kept gliding their way one by one from the helicopter. At one point, the attackers nabbed one commando, wrested away his handgun, and threw him down from the top deck to the lower deck, 30 feet below. The soldier sustained a serious head wound and lost his consciousness.

Only after this injury did Flotilla 13 troops ask for permission to use live fire. The commander approved it: You can go ahead and fire. The soldiers pulled out their handguns and started shooting at the rioters’ legs, a move that ultimately neutralized them. Meanwhile, the rioters started to fire back at the commandoes.

It is becoming ever more clear that Islamist terror attacks like this are fiendishly staged theatrical events in which the western media – and beyond them, western governments — play an absolutely essential role in the drama.

If those media and governments refused to swallow the lies and instead called operations like this and the players behind it for what they actually are, such terrorist operations would not happen. The Islamist strategy of war against Israel is carefully calibrated to deploy the most effective weapon in its armoury in the cause of jihadi violence – the western media.

Right on cue, western governments accordingly deliver their own script in condemning the victims of terror for defending themselves. And so, courtesy of the west’s fifth columnists, yet another nail is driven into the west’s own coffin.

Let’s see whether this time the western elites show any signs of waking from their lethal trance.

Update: I am told that the Jewish Chronicle website was taken down earlier (now restored) by a massive denial of service, apparently to shut down its balanced coverage of the Ashdod flotilla incident. The JC’s teccies, and the server hosts, say this hasn’t been caused by just one or tw908o people — it’s clearly now co-ordinated and growing.

**Update 2: The journalist who wrote this account, Ron Ben-Yishai, cannot be accused of being an Israel government stooge: it was Ben-Yishai who in 1982 was first into the Palestinian refugee camps at Sabra and Shatila in Beirut and blew the whistle on the massacre there that had been perpetrated by the Phalangists while Ariel Sharon looked the other way.

Since When Do ‘innocent aid workers’ STAB people?

Let’s be crystal clear on this: what happened was not a conflict between ‘innocent aid workers’ and Israeli soldiers. It was between armed, violent, gagging-to-fight Hamas supporters and the Israeli army.

Here, posted by the always vigilant Elder Of Ziyon, is footage of one of these ‘aid workers’ STABBING an Israeli:

Jewish Blood Doesn’t Sell Newspapers

Let’s say it like it is: Jewish blood doesn’t make good headlines.

Nobody gives a damn when young Israeli soldiers are attacked and all but killed by ‘aid workers’ and ‘peace activists’. The only story that sells is when Jews fight – or to be accurate, fight back.

Thus the world media is revelling in the latest clash between Israel and Hamas – and yes, it is between these two factions. Every single person present on that flotilla supported Hamas and its openly stated aim of destroying Israel.

For more detailed and accurate reporting than you’ll get anywhere else, here’s a briefing from the excellent  Honest Reporting:

Connected to Terror: Who is Behind the Flotilla?

The organizations and passengers behind the Gaza flotilla have been variously described as “peace activists” and “humanitarian organizations”. This could not be further from the truth. The primary objective of this flotilla was not to deliver aid packages to Gaza but to spread anti-Israel propaganda in cooperation with Gaza’s Hamas rulers.

Playing a central role in the flotilla is the Turkish IHH organization, which besides its legitimate philanthropic activities is also, according to the Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center, a supporter of radical Islamic networks, including Hamas, and at least in the past, even global jihad elements.

See here and here for detailed information on the IHH.

Amongst the other organizations involved in the flotilla is the International Solidarity Movement. The ISM has a shameful record of placing foreign nationals in danger through encouraging ‘direct action’, which resulted in the death of American citizen Rachel Corrie. In 2003, ISM’s extreme ideology was underscored when terrorists, originating from the UK, used ISM as a cover to attack Mike’s Place, while an ISM activist has been jailed in the US, charged with “giving about $20,000 to a group he knew supported Hamas.”

An Al-Jazeera report from May 28, translated below by PMW, shows activists on board before departing for Gaza, chanting Intifada songs aimed at Jews and praising martyrdom. Chants include “Intifada, intifada, intifada! Khaybar, Khaybar, oh Jews! The army of Mohammed will return!” relating to a seventh century massacre of Jews in Khaybar by early Muslims.

“Peace” Activists Used Deadly Violence

Despite claims that the activists on board were only prepared to resist the IDF peacefully, the reality was quite the opposite. Upon boarding the Marmara, owned and operated by the extremist IHH, Israeli naval personnel were attacked by activists who had prepared themselves with weapons including knives and clubs. This, despite the following statement from a Free Gaza spokesperson:

We were not going to pose any violent resistance. The only resistance that there might be would be passive resistance such as physically blocking the steering room, or blocking the engine room downstairs, so that they couldn’t get taken over. But that was just symbolic resistance.

Is the clip below showing an IDF soldier being attacked with a crowbar “symbolic resistance”?

In addition,  IDF forces apprehended two activists holding pistols. The activists took these pistols from IDF forces and apparently opened fire on the soldiers as evident by the empty pistol magazines. This goes  some way to explaining the number of casualties as live fire was exchanged as IDF forces found themselves under severe threat as evidenced by the number of injured Israeli soldiers and the types of injuries.

One soldier suffered a serious head injury, two others were injured by gunshots and one more was stabbed. A total of seven soldiers were wounded – four soldiers were moderately wounded, of which two were initially in critical condition, as well as an additional three soldiers who were lightly wounded.

A First-Hand Account

Israeli journalist Ron Ben-Yishai gives a first-hand account of the incident:

Navy commandoes slid down to the vessel one by one, yet then the unexpected occurred: The passengers that awaited them on the deck pulled out bats, clubs, and slingshots with glass marbles, assaulting each soldier as he disembarked. The fighters were nabbed one by one and were beaten up badly, yet they attempted to fight back.

However, to their misfortune, they were only equipped with paintball rifles used to disperse minor protests, such as the ones held in Bilin. The paintballs obviously made no impression on the activists, who kept on beating the troops up and even attempted to wrest away their weapons.

One soldier who came to the aid of a comrade was captured by the rioters and sustained severe blows. The commandoes were equipped with handguns but were told they should only use them in the face of life-threatening situations. When they came down from the chopper, they kept on shouting to each other “don’t shoot, don’t shoot,” even though they sustained numerous blows….

During the commotion, another commando was stabbed with a knife. In a later search aboard the Marmara, soldiers found caches of bats, clubs, knives, and slingshots used by the rioters ahead of the IDF takeover. It appeared the activists were well prepared for a fight.

Read the full account here.

See the IDF video footage taken from above the boarded vessel, showing Israeli soldiers under attack by clicking on the image below.

See more at the IDF’s YouTube channel.

Propaganda Not Humanitarianism

If there was any doubt that these organizations were unconcerned with universal human rights, this was confirmed by the rejection of a request from the family of Gilad Shalit for activists to pressure Hamas to allow international organizations to bring letters and food packages to the kidnapped soldier in exchange for the family’s support for the international expedition’s attempt to dock in Gaza.

In fact, Israel offered to transfer the supplies on the flotilla to Gaza from Ashdod port through official channels, an offer that was rejected in favor of confrontation on the part of the anti-Israel activists. As flotilla organizer Greta Berlin stated: “this mission is not about delivering humanitarian supplies, it’s about breaking Israel’s siege.”

The flotilla was clearly warned by the Israeli Navy in advance of the boarding and the offer repeated by the IDF.

A Legitimate and Legal Operation

IMRA asked Hebrew University international law expert Dr. Robbie Sabel about the legality of the IDF action in international waters.

Dr. Sabel explained that a state, in a time of conflict, can impose an embargo, and while it cannot carry out embargo activities in the territorial waters of a third party, it can carry out embargo activities in international waters.

Within this framework it is legal to detain a civilian vessel trying to break an embargo and if in the course of detaining the vessel, force is used against the forces carrying out the detention then that force has every right to act in self defense.

Dr. Sabel noted that there is a long history of embargo activities in international waters.

Indeed, according to the San Remo Manual that governs international humanitarian law, it is permissible under rule 67(a) to attack neutral vessels on the high seas when the vessels “are believed on reasonable grounds to be carrying contraband or breaching a blockade, and after prior warning they intentionally and clearly refuse to stop, or intentionally and clearly resist visit, search or capture.”

Fatah: We Will Never Recognise Israel

Fatah leaders have declared that the group will never agree to recognise Israel’s right to exist – and that it will continue to wage war against the Jewish homeland.

 “Fatah does not recognize Israel’s right to exist, nor have we ever asked others to do so,” said senior Fatah member Rafik Natsheh, a close associate of Palestinian Authority (PA) Chairman Mahmoud Abbas.

In an interview with the pan-Arab daily Al-Quds Al-Arabi, Natsheh scorned reports that Fatah had called on Hamas to acknowledge Israel’s right to exist:  “It’s all media nonsense. We don’t ask other factions to recognize Israel; we ourselves do not recognize Israel.”

Fatah runs the Palestinian Authority in Judea and Samaria. The Palestinian Authority does recognise Israel; if it didn’t it would be ‘unable to serve the Palestinian people,” Natsheh explained. However, Fatah does not have such constraints.

Fatah will never stop attacking Israel. Natsheh stated:  “Let those who are deluding themselves hear: this will never happen.”

A second senior Fatah member, Azzam el-Ahmed, agreed that Fatah would not drop its call to wage war on Israel.

Natsheh and Ahmed gave interviews in advance of the Fatah general assembly in early August, in which the organization will meet to discuss its goals and to hold elections. The meeting will be the first in approximately 20 years.

Bangladeshi Journalist Charged With ‘Insulting’ Islam – Because He Suggested Peace With Israel

A Bangladeshi journalist and peace activist is being punished for refusing to condemn Israel. Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury was charged with sedition, treason and insulting Islam in 2003.

Choudhury, 44, has worked hard to oppose Islamic extremism through his articles, in particular those for the Weekly Blitz which he started in 2003. He has also called for interfaith dialogue and for normalizing relations between Muslim countries and Israel.

Yet this week will see Choudhary back in court, charged with ‘insulting Islam’.  It is possible he will be sentenced to death for this ‘sedition’.

In a letter which was made public at the weekend, Choudhary says:

“According to my lawyers in Bangladesh, the government is determined to conclude the trial as soon as possible.No one knows what will be the verdict. But, of course, seeing the past track record, we cannot hold any hope for a good result because the court is not applying its judicial mind, but trying to appease the Islamists.”

Choudhary has already suffered violence for his views. In 2006, his newspaper offices were bombed, after he publicly expressed sympathy for the Ahmadiyya sect of Islam.

And in October of that year, he was attacked in his office by a mob that included prominent members of the then-ruling Bangladesh Nationalist Party, which historically has aligned itself with Islamist parties in the country.

In March 2007,  US House Resolution 64 referred to Choudhury and protested his ongoing  “harassment and intimidation” as well as his incarceration in 2004 for 17 months without legal recourse, during which he was placed in solitary confinement and “suffered harsh interrogation techniques and received no treatment for a debilitating case of glaucoma.”

The House resolution called for the Bangladeshi government to “immediately drop all pending charges against Bangladeshi journalist Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury… and take steps to protect Mr. Choudhury.”

The Terrible Case Of Ilan Halimi: Update

.Some of you will recall my earlier posts on the terrible murder of French Jew Ilan Halimi.  Back in 2006, he was lured to an empty basement in Paris and then tortured for several weeks. His killers were members of a Muslim mob who have recently stood trial in France.

The latest news on this tragic case is that fourteen of the twenty-five gang members will be retried. This is because of  protests about their having received absurdly lenient sentences.  The French Justice Minister Michele Alliot-Marie intervened just three days after the gang members – or evil, racist bastards as I prefer to call them – were sentenced for the 2006 killing of Halimi.

The gang leader and chief bastard, one Youssouf Fofana,  was sentenced to life in prison. He was the only gang member convicted of murder. The other mob members were given prison terms shorter than recommended by the prosecuting attorney. This sparked a massive protest by French Jewish groups and Halimi’s family.

Among the fourteen who will be re-tried, are  two of Fofana’s main accomplices, as well as the woman who acted as the ‘honeytrap’ and lured Ilan Halimi to that isolated basement in the first place.

One key thing to remember about the murder of Ilan Halimi is that he was not a random victim. Fofana and his mob had been, by their own admission, fixated on finding and killing Jewish men for a considerable length of time. Anti semitism was not incidental to this murder – it was a fundamental cause.

Ilan Halimi was 23 and had everything in the world to look forward to. Yet he ended up being tortured and beaten for three weeks nonstop, before finally being set alight by his abusers and then left, naked, by a railway line. By the time someone found him, it was too late.

 

Britain, Israel, And A Case Of Rank Hypocrisy

 

 

David Miliband must have enjoyed himself today. For finally, Britain’s Foreign Secretary got to announce an arms embargo on Israel.  Never mind that Britain itself sent soldiers thundering into two foreign countries.  The embargo might only have been declared today, but ever since Israel retaliated against Hamas at the end of last year, Britain has been waiting eagerly for this day to arrive.

 

Indeed, during Operation Cast Lead, nowhere was condemnation of Israel louder than in Britain. It’s a matter of public record that Muslims across the country bombarded their MPs with demands for Britain to sever all ties with the Jewish nation. Three British politicians, including Louise Ellman, received death threats purely because they had the guts to remind both parliament and the media that Israel had endured eight years of terrorism before finally responding.

 

The British media, led by the Guardian, threw out journalistic ethics entirely, dispensed with context, and swapped fact for fiction as they repeatedly ignored Hamas terrorism against Israeli civilians.

 

Forget the obscene suicide bombings that Hamas had routinely unleashed on Israel. Forget the roll call of women, children and babies who had died at the hands of Hamas operatives.  Forget the fact that when Israel left Gaza, it did so because this departure was deemed – by the international community – to be a necessary condition for DEcreased terrorism.

 

Forget all that. Nobody gave a damn. Israel had gone into Gaza to get rid of Hamas terrorists and that was all the media and the government cared about. What – Jews, defending themselves? How dare they. 

 

During this period I attended a meeting at the House of Commons, organised in fact by a Christian group whose members were distraught at the way Israel was being demonised. There, we were told by a small number of politicians, that the atmosphere in parliament was ‘poisonous’.  An out and out hate-fest was going on, and the few souls who spoke up for Israel were being shouted down and ‘bullied’ on a daily basis.

 

And so, here we are some months later, and finally the British government has done what it was longing to. In other words, punished Israel, publicly, for fighting its own War On Terror. Britain has revoked five export licenses, in what it calls in Brit-speak, a ‘gesture’.

 

I’m making a gesture right now, as it happens. It involves the middle finger of my right hand and I’m sure you can imagine to whom I’m directing it.

 

Because let’s face it, Britain’s hypocrisy here is staggering. How many civilians have died because of British troops, in Afghanistan and Iraq? Only yesterday, reports surfaced of British soldiers’ sadism in these countries. And yet here sits the holier-than-thou British government, judging Israel for trying to protect her own citizens?

 

Writing about the British government’s arms embargo against Israel, because of Gaza, Melanie Phillips  notes:

It says Israel’s actions were “disproportionate.” What is it talking about? The actual evidence showed that the proportion of civilians killed in Gaza was very small – far smaller than might have been expected given the tactics Hamas was using of embedding itself within the population.

 

The claims of large numbers of civilians and children killed were fabricated by Hamas and recycled by the Israel-bashers of the UN and media. Far from being “disproportionate,” Cast Lead was a carefully targeted operation which, given the circumstances, was astonishingly successful in its aim of confining its attack to terrorist operatives.

 

  The false flag of “disproportionality” is hoisted only by those who find it “disproportionate” that Israel should ever defend itself against the Palestinians by military means at all. Israelis are expected instead passively to die under rocket and bomb attack – or perhaps live in shelters for ever. That’s proportionate.

 

 

 

 

Britain showed its true colours today.  Several months back, David Miliband called for new coalition of consent’ between the West and the Islamic world. And if he has to hand Israel over on a platter to achieve this, then that’s just what he and the rest of the dhimmi Labour government will do.

 

“Islamophobia”

Islamophobia’ – Well, isn’t this word a wonderful little weapon for Islamists the world over?

 

Whoever thought of it must be laughing all the way to the Mosque. Go on. Try it. Next time you’re in any social situation, with any group of people, try challenging the violent ideology at the heart of Islam.

 

 Chances are, faster than you can say ‘fatwah’ someone will give you a reproachful look and state: ‘You’re the one with the problem. You’re Islamophobic‘.

 

It shuts down all debate and leaves many decent folk feeling like racists – even when they’re not. So let’s just deconstruct the word ‘Islamophobia’ shall we?

 

Phobia = an extreme, irrational fear that interferes with everyday life. It is a psychological, clinical term, and this is the correct definition. We all know what a phobia looks like; most of us have seen grown adults collapse into quivering wrecks at the mere sight of a spider/wasp/snake. Above all, a phobia sufferer will go to great lengths to avoid the object of fear.

 

Now I don’t know about you, but I’m not aware of a single soul who is huddled at home, frozen with fear, refusing to leave their house because of the existence of Islam… Nor have I seen a single person jerking to a halt in the middle of a street, shrieking in terror ‘There’s a Muslim! There’s a Muslim! Save me! Save me! Aaaaghhhh!’ before sprinting across the road and into oncoming traffic, just to avoid said member of Islam.

 

Indeed, often the very people accused of ‘Islamophobia’ are those who are extremely interested in Islam! They talk about it, read about it, blog about it, and study it – in a bid to better understand it. Hardly ‘phobic’ behaviour, is it…?

 

So let’s be blunt. The term ‘Islamophobia’ is meaningless. It’s foolish. In short – it’s nothing more than a linguistic sham. Because nobody has an ‘irrational fear’ of Islam.

 

What many of us do have is a rational fear of what Muslim terrorists do in the name of Islam. We also fear the hatred that Islam inculcates in many of its followers. And who the hell can blame us?

 

If people with red hair continually sauntered onto buses and trains, into restaurants and schools the world over, with bombs strapped around their waists, before cheerfully blowing both themselves and any living soul around them into tiny bits, then I submit that many of us would develop a rational fear of red heads!

 

But ‘islamophobia’? Oh, purleease. It’s just a device used by *some* Muslims – and the PC-at-all-costs, liberal brigade – to shut down vital debate. And if we let them get away with it? Then shame on US.

 

While we’re on the topic, let’s just clarify what does and does not constitute ‘racism’: I could, if I wanted, criticise and challenge and yes, condemn Islam all day long – and it would not be ‘racism’. Islam is a faith and an ideology. And no ideology is exempt from scrutiny. Nor does anyone have the right to stop me from assessing an ideology – not as long as I live in a democratic society.

 

But, if I then begin making unfair, negative, nasty generalisations about ‘all muslims’ then this would be racism. See the difference?

 Critiquing and challenging and condemning an ideology = not ‘racism’!

Condemning any group of people purely on the basis OF their religion = racism

 

Or to state it even more simply:  ‘All Muslims are terrorists’ = racism

Clearly there are millions of peaceful Muslims.

 

‘Most terrorists are Muslim’ =  not racism

Most terrorism is Islamic terrorism.

 

So just as I am free to condemn the beliefs of, say, the vile British National Party(BNP), or Scientologists, or the KKK, without anyone branding me a ‘racist’, so too am I free to condemn Islam.

 

Words have objective meanings. It’s time we remembered that, and worked to wipe out this lunacy which even now, is pushing for Islam to be legally ‘protected’ from criticism. So next time anyone tries to insist you are an ‘islamophobe’, shut them down. Fast.

Has Dershowitz Lost The Plot?

 

Alan Dershowitz is apparently either unable, or unwilling, to talk straight when it comes to Obama‘s hypocrisy re Israel.  And it is truly a terrible thing to read Dershowitz’s pathetic rationalisations of the suicidal ‘compromises’ Israel is being pressured to make at the behest of the Obama administration.

 

Melanie Phillips says it best:

 

The American lawyer Alan Dershowitz is one of the most prolific, high-profile and indefatiguable defenders of Israel and the Jewish people against the tidal wave of anti-Israel and anti-Jewish feeling currently coursing through the west. So a piece by him in the Wall Street Journal giving expression to the rising anxiety being felt about Obama by American Jews naturally arouses great interest.

 

But just like the majority of American Jews, getting on for 80 per cent of whom voted for Obama, he is a Democrat supporter who is incapable of acknowledging the truth about this President. For most American Jews, the horror of even entertaining the hypothetical possibility that they might ever in a million years have to vote for a Republican is so great they simply cannot see what is staring them in the face — that this Democratic President is lethal for both Israel and the free world.

 

And in this article Dershowitz shows that he too is just as blind. Acknowledging the anxiety among some American Jews about Obama’s attitude to Israel, Dershowitz concludes uneasily that there isn’t really a problem here because all Obama is doing is putting pressure on Israel over the settlements, which most American Jews don’t support anyway.

 

But this is totally to miss the point. The pressure over the settlements per se is not the reason for the intense concern. It is instead, first and foremost, the fact that Obama is treating Israel as if it is the obstacle to peace in the Middle East. Obama thus inverts aggressor and victim, denying Israel’s six-decade long victimisation and airbrushing out Arab aggression.

 

The question remains: why has Obama chosen to pick a fight with Israel while soft-soaping Iran which is threatening it with genocide? The answer is obvious: Israel is to be used to buy off Iran just as Czechoslovakia was used at Munich.

 

Indeed, I would say this is worse even than that, since I suspect that Obama – coming as he does from a radical leftist milieu, with vicious Israel-haters amongst his closest friends — would be doing this to Israel even if Iran was not the problem that it is.

 

In any event, the double standard is egregious. Obama has torn up his previous understandings with Israel over the settlements while putting no pressure at all on the Palestinians, even though since they are the regional aggressor there can be no peace unless they end their aggression and certainly not until they accept Israel as a Jewish state, which they have said explicitly they will never do.

 

On this, Obama is totally silent. So too is Dershowitz. That’s some omission.

 

Next, Obama is pressuring Israel to set up a Palestine state – within two years this will exist, swaggers Rahm Emanuel. But everyone knows that as soon as Israel leaves the West Bank, Hamas – or even worse – will take over. The only reason the (also appalling) Abbas is still in Ramallah, enabling Obama to pretend there is a Palestinian interlocutor for peace, is because the Israelis are keeping Hamas at bay.

 

Yet Dershowitz writes: “There is no evidence of any weakening of American support for Israel`s right to defend its children from the kind of rocket attacks candidate Obama commented on during his visit to Sderot.”

 

 So what exactly does he think would happen if Israel came out of the West Bank and the Hamas rockets were down the road from Jerusalem and Tel Aviv (literally: many in the west have absolutely no idea how tiny Israel is). It’s not a question of Israel’s ‘right to defend its children’.

 

If Obama has his way, Israel would not be able to defend its children or anyone else, because Obama would have removed its defences by putting its enemies in charge of them.

 

It is astounding that Dershowitz can’t see this. Then there was Obama’s appalling Cairo speech — which I wrote about here – in which he conspicuously refrained from committing himself to defending Zionism and the Jewish people from the attacks and incitement to genocide against them, but committed himself instead to defending their attackers against ‘negative stereotyping’.

 

On this, Dershowitz has nothing to say. Worse still, by falsely asserting that the Jewish aspiration for Israel derived from the Holocaust, Obama effectively denied that the Jewish people were in Israel as of right and thus endorsed the core element of the Arab and Muslim propaganda of war and extermination.

 

On this, Dershowitz has nothing to say. Obama drew a vile – and telling – equivalence between the Nazi extermination camps and the Palestinian ‘refugee’ camps. On this, Dershowitz has nothing to say. Obama`s statement that the Palestinians ‘have suffered in pursuit of a homeland’ was grossly and historically untrue, and again denied Arab aggression. On this, Dershowitz has nothing to say.

 

Equally vilely, Obama equated genocidal terrorism by the Palestinians with the civil rights movement in America and the resistance against apartheid in South Africa. On all of this, Dershowitz has nothing to say. Dershowitz also grossly underplays the terrible harm Obama is doing to the security not just of Israel but the world through his reckless appeasement of Iran.

 

In the last few weeks, this has actively undercut the Iranian democrats trying to oust their tyrannical regime, and has actually strengthened that regime. All the evidence suggests ever more strongly that Obama has decided America will ‘live with’ a nuclear Iran, whatever it does to its own people. Which leaves Israel hung out to dry.

 

 But even here, where he is clearly most concerned, Dershowitz scuttles under his comfort blanket – Dennis Ross, who was originally supposed to have been the US special envoy to Iran but was recently announced senior director of the National Security Council and special assistant to the President for the region. It is not at all clear whether this ambiguous development represents a promotion or demotion for Ross.

 

Either way, for Dershowitz to rest his optimism that Obama’s Iran policy will be all right on the night entirely upon the figure of Dennis Ross is pathetic. Ross, a Jew who played Mr. Nice to Robert Malley’s Mr. Nasty towards Israel in the Camp David debacle under President Clinton, is clearly being used by Obama as a human shield behind which he can bully Israel with impunity.

 

American Jews assume that his proximity to Obama means the President’s intentions towards Israel are benign. Dazzled by this vision of Ross as the guarantor of Obama’s good faith, they thus ignore altogether the terrible import of the actual words coming out of the President’s mouth.

 

The fact is that many American Jews are so ignorant of the history of the Jewish people, the centrality of Israel in its history and the legality and justice of its position that they probably saw nothing wrong in Obama saying that the Jewish aspiration for Israel came out of the Holocaust because they think this too.

 

Nor do they see the appalling double standard in the bullying of Israel over the settlements and what that tells us about Obama’s attitude towards Israel, because – as Dershowitz himself makes all too plain — they too think in much the same way, that the settlements are the principal obstacle to peace. Many if not most American Jews have a highly sentimentalised view of Israel. They never go there, are deeply ignorant of its history and current realities, and are infinitely more concerned with their own view of themselves as social liberals, a view reflected back at themselves through voting for a Democrat President.

 

 Whatever else he is, however, Dershowitz is certainly not ignorant. Which makes this lamentable article all the more revealing, and depressing.

Top Obama Aide Shares Platform With Rabid Anti Semite

I recently read an excellent article over at the    Investigative Project On Terrorism   and the good folk there have kindly said I can re-post some of it here. It’s an important story – do read and then share this information. And do visit the IPT’s superb site!

The article details how one of Obama’s top aides cheerfully shared a platform with people promoting Jihad, Anti semitism, homophobia, and Islamic terrorism. This is an abbreviated version of the original piece; the extra emphasis in italics and colour are mine:

 

A top aide to President Barack Obama provided a keynote address at last weekend’s 46th Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) national convention, a gathering that attracted thousands of people and also featured anti-Semitic, homophobic rhetoric and defense of the terrorist group Hezbollah.

In her remarks, Senior Advisor for Public Engagement and International Affairs Valerie Jarrett noted she was the first White House official to address ISNA. She spoke in general terms about interfaith dialogue and cooperation. She praised her hosts for “the diversity of American organizations, and ideas that are represented and will be debated” at the convention.

And she openly invited ISNA President Ingrid Mattson to work on the White House Council on Women and Girls that Jarrett leads.

The ISNA is an unindicted co-conspirator in a Hamas-support conspiracy and maintains significant leadership ties to its foundation 28 years ago by members of the Muslim Brotherhood in America. A more pointed statement also would have stood as a powerful retort to extremist sentiments offered in other segments of the conference.

While many panels featured criticism of U.S. policy and law enforcement, one stood out for its hate-filled rhetoric, and ISNA officials should have seen it coming a mile away. During a “meet the authors” session, Imam Warith Deen Umar, former head of the New York state prison chaplain program managed to:

Argue that key Obama aides are “Israeli,” proving Jews “have control of the world.”

Malign the motives of Jews active in the Civil Rights movement.

Portray the Holocaust as punishment of Jews for being “serially disobedient to Allah.”Insinuate that Hurricane Katrina was a result of tolerance for homosexuality.

 

Umar’s radicalism is no secret. He previously hailed the 9/11 hijackers as martyrs who were secretly admired by Muslims. He has called for violent jihad. In a January 2004 speech, he urged people:

“Rise up and fight. And fight them until turmoil is no more and strike terror into their hearts. You think there is no terror in Quran? It’s called [word unclear] read it in the 56th Surah of the Quran. There’s no lack of translation, there’s no mistranslation There’s not one Sheikh says one thing, no, it’s very clear. When you fight, you strike terror into the heart of the disbeliever.'”

 

He has a website promoting a past book, Judaiology, which features an excerpt describing “the inordinacy of Jewish power.” Jews, he wrote, are “an amazing people who can steal you blind as you watch. If you discover the theft, they can put you to sleep. If you wake up to them, they can put you back to sleep with mind games, tricks of fancy, smoke screens, and magic. Henry Ford almost uncovered them.”

 

Other choice comments of his included:

“It’s against the laws of Allah and against the laws of the Bible for homosexuality. And if you think the Quran talks about harsh punishment from Allah, you should read what the Bible says. I don’t have the time to go into it, but it’s in my book. The Bible is very hard on, he says, Allah says that the land itself is doomed. You wonder why things are happening in America are going to happen? You think that Katrina was just a blow of wind?”

And also:

“My conclusion is that there should be more jihad,” he said. “But people don’t want to hear that. They’re scared.”

 

This is the man responsible for the Muslim chaplain program in New York prisons for 20 years. He was forced out of that job after his praise for the 9/11 hijackers became known. This is who ISNA chose to showcase in a “meet the authors” panel and provide an unchallenged platform for.

 

Umar shared the microphone with another author who did not spew out bigotry, but who did cast Hezbollah as an innocent player.  Cathy Sultan described her book, Tragedy in South Lebanon: The Israeli/Hezbollah War of 2006, as a history of “the tragedy of the repeated incursions and wars in South Lebanon, the complexities of the Lebanese politics.”

She made no mention of Iranian funding for Hezbollah or Syrian meddling in Lebanese politics or its suspected involvement in the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. Nor did Sultan describe indiscriminate Hezbollah rocket fire toward Israeli civilian communities, or the cross-border attack on an Israeli army base by Hezbollah that left three soldiers dead and two others kidnapped.

In response to a question, Sultan said: “Hezbollah still serves a role. I think that Lebanon is still under constant threat from its southern neighbor. And I see nothing wrong, as long as Hezbollah abides by certain rules and regulations; I see no reason why Hezbollah should not remained armed.”

The United States considers Hezbollah to be a terrorist group, and some experts consider it a bigger potential threat to the United States than Al-Qaeda.

The panel did not feature anyone with contrasting viewpoints to challenge Sultan or Umar. The program drew about 50 people, who sat passively during most of the remarks.

Umar’s books were available for purchase at the convention. Government agencies were represented with booths of their own, including the departments of Justice, State, Homeland Security, Commerce, the U.S. Navy and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).

 

In Cairo, Barack Obama said:

“Threatening Israel with destruction — or repeating vile stereotypes about Jews — is deeply wrong and a hindrance to peace.”

But somehow, partnering with a group that invites the same thing is okay?

 

 

With thanks to the Investigative Project On Terrorism for allowing me to re-post this material.

Visit the IPT by clicking

USA Goes After British Hacker Who Just Wanted Proof Of Little Green Men

The latest example of British lunacy is the decision to extradite to America Gary McKinnon. Gary, for those who have missed all the media coverage, is both autistic and also an internet hacker. After he happily hacked his way into Pentagon and NASA computers,  America demanded his extradition. And the reason for his cyberspace mischief…?

Gary was looking for proof of  aliens. Yep, that’s right. His primary interest is ‘little green men’. Now, personally, I think the Pentagon should be offering Gary a job – clearly, their security is woefully lacking, as proven by this British alien enthusiast.

America has other ideas, though. Now Gary faces a sixty year sentence and the prospect of dying in a US jail cell. U.S prosecutor Mark Summers insists that Gary’s actions were ‘intentional and calculated to influence and affect the U.S. government by intimidation and coercion’.

Here in the UK, though, numerous politicians, celebs and mental health experts are calling on the government to intervene, insisting that for a person with Asbergers, extradition and prison could be fatal.

And why can’t Gary be tried in the UK? After all, it’s here where his crimes were actually committed. He could be sentenced to a maximum of five years in prison, under the Computer Misuse Act.

Instead, legislation that was intended to deal with terrorists, is being applied to this 43 yr old autistic bloke who no doubt wishes one of his beloved UFOs would indeed swoop down and rescue him from the long arm of American ‘justice’.

Lord Carlile, a former Liberal Democrat M.P., is the government’s Independent Reviewer Of Terrorism Legislation.  He has repeatedly lobbied the  Home Office to rethink Gary’s case. In a letter to the Home Secretary, he says:

‘…I believe we have a duty to protect the vulnerable and even the eccentric. Mr Mckinnon has had the shadow of extradition hanging over him for five years already, during which time he could have been tried, sentenced and perhaps served any prison time, were he to have been prosecuted in the UK.’

Meanwhile, let’s peruse the list of people that Britain apparently either can’t extradite, or is having trouble doing so, shall we…?

There’s radical Islamic cleric Abu Qatada, for a start. Described as Bin Laden’s ‘ambassador in Europe’. Qatada has been in prison here since 2005 while battling extradition to Jordan on terrorism charges.

Then there’s Rachid Ramda, an Islamic terrorist who spent an entire decade resisting extradition to France, where he was wanted for a series of bombings on the Paris metro in 1995. He was finally extradited in 2007.

Oh, and let’s not forget the case of four wanted for mass murder in Rwanda. They were successful in avoiding extradition and are now in Britain, totally free.

Finally, there’s convicted killer Selami Cokaj, an Albanian who who broke out of jail in his home country and in 1997, was discovered living in Nottinghamshire, running a car washing business.

Twice, British police arrested him. Yet he w

as freed on bail by British magistrates. Finally, Cokaj successfully avoided extradition to Albania – by lodging an eleventh hour asylum claim…

But Crown Prosecution Service lawyers – funded by the good old  British public – have been advised they have no choice but to work towards Gary’s extradition.

Quite apart from anything else, this case illustrates the strange nature of Britain’s extradition treaty with the U.S.   British citizens can be apprehended on little or no evidence – yet the criteria for extraditing Americans are far stricter.

To be clear: I’m not seeking to condone Gary McKinnon’s online exploits. I just think public funds could be put to far better use than turning over to the U.S. this vulnerable man whose dearest dream in life was to find proof of alien life.

Update:

It seems that Gary McKinnon’s motives in hacking into the Pentagon and NASA may have been somewhat darker than I, for one, initially realised. Fellow blogger Sultan Knish has pointed out the following:

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld200708/ldjudgmt/jd080730/mckinn-1.htm

16. Analysis of the appellant’s home computer confirmed these allegations. During his interviews under caution, moreover, he admitted responsibility (although not that he had actually caused damage). He stated that his targets were high level US Army, Navy and Air Force computers and that his ultimate goal was to gain access to the US military classified information network. He admitted leaving a note on one army computer reading:

“US foreign policy is akin to government-sponsored terrorism these days . . . It was not a mistake that there was a huge security stand down on September 11 last year . . . I am SOLO. I will continue to disrupt at the highest levels . . .”

McKinnon’s mother apparently refers to his being a ‘9/11 Truther’:

http://www.computerweekly.com/Articles/2009/01/12/234180/gary-mckinnons-mothers-appeal-to-the-dpp.htm

To quote a programme that some of us used to rather enjoy: the truth is out there…!

Judenfrei

My, how easily the world condones the notion of this new, racist Palestinian state as championed by Obama.

The plan supported by his administration will lead to a new Palestinian Arab nation – in which Jews and maybe also Christians are banned from living.

At the same time, of course, Israel is being told she must kick out  Jews in Judea and Samaria, to make way for this new, ‘Judenfrei’ Palestinian Arab state.

The world either doesn’t care, or doesn’t recall, that 80% of what was Palestine is already taken up by Jordan – which is already Judenfrei, as  no Jews are permitted to live there.

Has anyone, ever,  read any pieces in the international press condemning Jordan for this racism…?

I know I haven’t.

Thus while the world yells in rage the second Israel lifts a finger to respond to Palestinian terrorism, Israel is  held to a far higher standard than either Jordan, or any Muslim country, or the new Palestinian state which is being carved out of Israel by the Arabs and Obama.

In other words, land is being taken from Jews, to form part of a Palestinian Arab, Judenfrei state.

And the world nods and smiles and mutters ‘about time’ as it sits back and watches this happen.

So when a few of my regular readers and even blogger friends chastise me for claiming that Obama is less than fair to Israel, well, they can chastise all they want.

What – am I as a Jew now meant to praise an American leader who seeks to turn the only middle eastern democracy into the size of a postage stamp?

Am I expected to cheer the idea of a Palestinian Arab state alongside Israel that will serve as a base for yet more terrorism?

The world is, again, either forgetting or ignoring what happened when Israel left Gaza. Israel gave the Palestinian Arabs what they were demanding – and what happened? Increased terrorism.

A new Palestinian Arab state beside Israel will just be Gaza redux. So excuse me if I’m not throwing a party and cracking open the champagne at the prospect.

And just to illustrate how Palestinian Arabs truly feel on these issues, here’s a fascinating glimpse into their hopes for this new state, courtesy of Arutz Sheva:

A poll released this week showed that PA Arabs are reluctant to grant rights to Jews or Christians within areas demanded for a PA state.

A survey conducted by the Arab World for Research and Development among 1,200 Arab residents of Judea, Samaria and Gaza, found that many felt Jerusalem should not be shared with Jews and Christians.

When asked to what extent they agreed with a statement made by Barack Obama that Jerusalem should be “a secure and lasting home for Jews and Christians and Muslims,” less than 17% said they agree, while 20 percent said they “somewhat agree.” More than 42 percent said they disagree with the statement, while 17 percent “somewhat disagree.”

More than 45 percent of those surveyed disagreed with a second statement of Obama’s in which the president called on the Arab world to reject violence and killing as a means of struggle.

Twenty-two percent did not give an answer, while the remainder said they “agree” or “somewhat agree” with the statement.

Roughly 300,000 Jews reside in Judea and Samaria,   and approximately 250,000 more live in Jerusalem neighborhoods now being demanded by the Palestinian Authority.

The PA demands that any future Arab state in Judea and Samaria be rid of the current Jewish minority.

Jewish holy sites in Judea and Samaria include the Tomb of the Patriarchs (Me’arat Hamachpelah) in Hebron, Joseph’s Tomb in Shechem, and Rachel’s Tomb in Bethlehem.

Jews are currently allowed full access only to the latter site, while the Tomb of the Patriarchs is split into Jewish and Muslim sections, and Jews are allowed to visit Joseph’s Tomb only intermittently.

I think we can all envisage the rage and the threats 0f violence if Muslims  were not allowed total access to their holy sites! Yet many of them would ideally ban Jews and Christians from Jerusalem.  Talk about rank hypocrisy.

Jerusalem was holy to Jews and Christians before Islam even existed.

So to those who complain when Jews dare to use words like ‘Judenfrei’ and ‘Judenrein’ in connection with Obama’s plans for a new Palestinian Arab state, I say: tough.

It’s the ugly policy that you should be protesting – not the accurate words Jews use to describe it.

Additional information:

The excellent Elder Of Ziyon blog offers this information about Jordan’s bans on both Jews and Israelis:

In 1933, a number of prominent Arabs in Transjordan asked Great Britain to allow Jews to settle there, to help its ailing economy, and Zionists were enthusiastic about the idea. But since the British saw the riots that were happening in Palestine at the time they didn’t want to worry about more problems of that type, so they created a law banning Jews from living there.

This policy was ratified — after the emirate became a kingdom — by Jordan’s law no. 6, sect. 3, on April 3, 1954, and reactivated in law no. 7, sect. 2, on April 1, 1963.

It states that any person may become a citizen of Jordan unless he is a Jew. King Hussein made peace with Israel in 1994, but the Judenrein legislation remains valid today.

So, yes, Jordan really has a law banning Jews – not Zionists, but Jews – from becoming citizens. And the original source of this law was none other than Great Britain.

Here’s the law: (h/t british18)

The following shall be deemed to be Jordanian nationals:

(1)Any person who has acquired Jordanian nationality or a Jordanian passport under the Jordanian Nationality Law, 1928, as amended, Law No. 6 of 1954 or this Law;

(2)Any person who, not being Jewish, possessed Palestinian nationality before 15 May 1948 and was a regular resident in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan between 20 December 1949 and 16 February 1954;

(3)Any person whose father holds Jordanian nationality;

(4)Any person born in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan of a mother holding Jordanian nationality and of a father of unknown nationality or of a Stateless father or whose filiation is not established;

(5)Any person born in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan of unknown parents, as a foundling in the Kingdom shall be considered born in the Kingdom pending evidence to the contrary;

(6)All members of the Bedouin tribes of the North mentioned in paragraph (j) of article 25 of the Provisional Election Law, No. 24 of 1960, who were effectively living in the territories annexed to the Kingdom in 1930.

But what if a Jew wants to become a naturalized citizen? Well…

Any Arab who has resided continuously in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan for not less than 15 years may acquire Jordanian nationality, by decision of the Council of Ministers taken on a proposal by the Minister of Internal Affairs, if he renounces his nationality of origin and the law of his country permits him to do so..

‘Judenfrei‘ and ‘Judenrein’

Nazi terms used to designate an area free of Jewish presence. The words bear slightly different connotations; while Judenfrei merely refers to “freeing” an area of all of its Jewish citizens, Judenrein (literally “clean of Jews”) demands that any trace of Jewish blood be removed as an impurity.

Some of the locations declared Judenfrei

Establishments, villages, cities, and regions were declared Judenfrei after they were ethnically cleansed of Jews.

• Gelnhausen, Germany – reported Judenfrei on November 1, 1938 by propaganda newspaper Kinzigwacht after its synagogue was closed and remaining local Jews forced to leave the town.
• German-occupied Luxembourg – reported Judenfrei by the press on October 17, 1941.
• German-occupied Estonia – December, 1941 . Reported as Judenfrei at Wannsee Conference on January 20, 1942
• German-occupied Belgrade, Serbia – August, 1942
• Vienna – reported Judenfrei by Alois Brunner on October 9, 1942
• Berlin, Germany – July 16, 1943

Check out also ‘Jordan’s Identity Crisis’ over at Elder Of Ziyon:

The Truth About The ‘free gaza’ Mob

Here’s an interesting piece from Arutz Sheva:

 

 

Israel: Don’t Blow It Again

 

by Lee Kaplan

 

The recent news reports that the IDF Navy boarded the latest ISM boats sailing from Cyprus to Gaza show that the new Netanyahu administration is at least displaying some common sense regarding the International Solidarity Movement.

 

However, even the Israeli media plays the fool in describing these people on board as “peace activists”.

 

The most amusing thing about this group, on their seventh voyage to Gaza, is how they claimed in their email communiques that the IDF Navy jammed all their phones, communications and navigation equipment –  and then in the next sentence went on to explain their exact position moment to moment at sea and the latest news from their leaders on the boat.

 

But, then again, lying for activists in the ISM is old hat. Even more amusing are the ranting of “US Presidential candidate” Cynthia McKinney. Israel National News readers should watch this video where McKinney claims 5,000 US citizens were executed with bullets to the head by the Bush administration during the Katrina storm. Yeah, sure, Israel should listen to this world famous politician.

 

The ISM “peace activists” on board then revealed more lies; they were carrying tons of cement for Gaza, but when captured only had one “symbolic” bag of cement. They also claimed to be carrying tons of medical supplies that just weren’t there. Between screams of “violations of international law” these clowns were busy working again to aid Hamas.

 

They called on the Red Cross to help them. Funny how they don’t cite international law, nor ask the Red Cross to help get Gilad Shalit released from the Free Gaza group’s Hamas buddies.

 

But the biggest clown of all on these boat trips is Huwaida Arraf. Ms. Arraf, for some unknown reason, is untouchable by the Israeli justice system even though she is an Israeli-US dual citizen through her father, a former Israeli Arab.

 

To date – despite admitting at ISM conferences at Duke University and Georgetown over the last few years, and even in a letter to the Washington Post, that she and the ISM work closely with Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and the PFLP, and despite her rushing into the Church of the Nativity to aid terrorists held up inside, and despite her training international anarchists to come to Israel and assist terrorist groups in fomenting riots and assaults on Israeli soldiers and Border Guards, and despite her interfering with an Israeli soldier in a closed military zone, and now, despite her sailing seven trips illegally to Gaza to bring supplies to Hamas, for which she was given a medal by Ismail Haniyah – the Israeli foreign ministry and justice department still hasn’t made up their minds to prosecute this woman under Israeli law, as an Israeli national, and make her serve jail time.

 

The ISM is run by the Palestinian Arabs with Saudi money and Iranian help. Its purpose is to roil the war with the Jews until Israel is gone. Everything the ISM does has been with the okay of the Palestinian Fatah leadership. That is, until Fatah began cooperating a little with the Israelis and the ISM leadership felt its fortune should now lie with Hamas.

 

In America, constant repeat offenders eventually are prosecuted and punished by the law. By what stretch of logic should the foreign ministry in Israel consider not prosecuting and imprisoning Huwaida Arraf?

 

At the same time, one has to wonder what Ms. Arraf’s relations are with the US State Department. She was an employee of State working in Jerusalem when her husband, Adam Shapiro, another US State Department employee at the time, and Yasser Arafat founded the ISM during the standoff at the Mukata.

 

The Israeli justice ministry and security services have a slam-dunk case against this woman, and removing her from the international media circus will only serve to hasten an end to the conflict that is supposed to lead to two states (Arraf and company want one state, with Israel destroyed). Arraf already has a battery of Communist lawyers in Israel rushing to her defense. But let’s face it, her rap sheet is so long she can’t possibly beat it this time if any competent prosecutor takes her case; and she does belong in an Israeli jail.

 

To all this I say: Hear O Israel! Don’t blow it again with the ISM and the Gaza flotilla. Prosecute and punish Huwaida Arraf and send a message that on the next voyage there will be more people on board prosecuted.

 

Oh, yes, and take their boats and sell them to recover the costs of the IDF Navy having to go out so many times and stop them. The Israeli taxpayers deserve a break for that one also.

 

Next stop should be to outlaw the ISM altogether as a terrorist support group, which it is.

 

If Israel can take out the terrorist leadership with Apache helicopters, she should be able to take out Huwaida Arraf simply by enforcing the laws on the books against an Israeli citizen who is violating them.

Joseph Farah On Obama’s ‘Auschwitz Borders’

 

American Arab journalist Joseph Farah is one of the few commentators who talks straight about what Obama is trying to do to Israel.  Here he makes it clear what Obama is really doing:

 

Barack Obama is taking what he and his administration refer to as “a more balanced approach to Middle East policy.”

Let me explain what that literally means in real terms.

It means the U.S. government is now using its clout with Israel to insist Jews, not Israelis, mind you, but Jews, be disallowed from living in East Jerusalem and the historically Jewish lands of Judea and Samaria, often referred to as the West Bank.

 

 I want you to try to imagine the outrage, the horror, the outcry, the clamoring, the gnashing of teeth that would ensue if Arabs or Muslims were told they could no longer live in certain parts of Israel – let alone their own country.

 

Of course, that would never happen with “a more balanced approach to the Middle East.”

 

It’s the 1930s all over again. This time, it’s the enlightened liberal voices of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama who are telling Jews where they can live, how they can live and how far they must bend if they want to live at all. I know you haven’t heard it put like this before. I don’t really understand why.

 

There is simply no other accurate way to explain the machinations behind the latest demands on Israel from the West and the rest of the world. Israel is being reduced to “Auschwitz borders.” Jews have already been told they can no longer live in the Gaza Strip.

 

Now they are being told they can no longer choose to live in any of the areas being set aside by international elites for a future Palestinian state.

 

Again, I ask: Why would internationalists seek to create, by definition, a racist, anti-Jewish state that doesn’t even tolerate the mere presence of Jews? Can anyone answer that question for me?

 

Obama and Clinton – and, thus, by definition, you and me, the taxpayers of the United States – have determined they will yield to the racist, bigoted, anti-Semitic demands of the Palestinian Authority that no Jews be allowed to live in their new state.

 

I like to think that in any other part of the world, this kind of effort at ethnically cleansing a region would be roundly condemned by all civilized people. Yet, because most people simply don’t understand the clear, official plan by the Arab leaders to force out all Jews from the new Palestinian state, the policies of capitulation retain a degree of sympathy, even political support, from much of the world.

 

Think about what I am saying: It is the official policy of the Palestinian Authority that all Jews must get off the land! Why is the United States supporting the creation of a new, racist, anti-Semitic hate state? Why is the civilized world viewing this as a prescription for peace in the region? Why is this considered an acceptable idea? Is there any other place in the world where that kind of official policy of racism and ethnic cleansing is tolerated – even condoned?

 

Why are the rules different in the Middle East? Why are the rules different for Arabs? Why are the rules different for Muslims? Why are U.S. tax dollars supporting the racist, anti-Semitic entity known as the Palestinian Authority?

 

That’s what we do when we forbid “settlement construction,” repairs, natural growth, additions to existing communities.  This is “balance”?

 

Are there any impositions upon the Arabs and Muslims suggesting they can no longer move to Israel? No.

 Are there any impositions on Arabs and Muslims suggesting they cannot buy homes in Israel? No.

Are there any impositions on Arabs and Muslim suggesting they cannot repair their existing homes in Israel? No.

Are there any impositions on Arabs or Muslims suggesting the cannot build settlements anywhere they like? No.

 

 Now, keep in mind, there are already quite a few Arab and Muslim states in the Middle East. Many of them already forbid Jews to live in them. Some prohibit Christians as well.

 

But now, the only Jewish state in the world, and one that has a claim on the land dating back to the days of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, is being told Jews must keep off land currently under their own control, but destined for transfer to people who hate them, despise them, want to see them dead and will not even accept living peacefully with them as neighbors.

 

 All the while, Israel continues to hold out its naïve hand of friendship to the Arabs and the Muslims – welcoming them in their own tiny nation surrounded by hateful neighbors.

 

Arabs and Muslims are offered full citizenship rights – and even serve in elected office. They publish newspapers and broadcast on radio and television freely. But, conversely, Jews are one step away from eviction from homes they have sometimes occupied for generations. Gaza is about to happen all over again.

 

I hope my Jewish friends remember this well. Many of them voted for Barack Obama. Many of them voted for Hillary Clinton. These are not your friends.

 

These are the same kinds of people who turned away ships of Jewish refugees from Germany in the 1940s. These are the same kinds of people who appeased Adolf Hitler at Munich. These are the same kinds of people who made the reformation of the modern state of Israel so difficult.

 

I say: “No more ethnic cleansing. No more official anti-Semitism accepted. No more Jew-bashing. No more telling Jews where they can live, how they can – and if they can live.”

 

 

 

Original article at