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MP who fabricated anti-Semitism scandal leaves Labour, citing ‘culture of racism and anti-Semitism’

RT | February 20, 2019

The latest Labour MP to jump ship over alleged racism and anti-Semitism is Joan Ryan, which is curious, because it was she who was exposed as having created an alleged anti-Semitism scandal within the Labour Party.

Ryan announced she was joining the Independent Group because of the “culture of anti-Jewish racism and hatred for Israel” within the party under leader Jeremy Corbyn on Tuesday.

Ryan is chair of the Labour Friends of Israel (LFI), which was exposed as having ties to the Israeli government and exerting influence on UK politics in a 2017 Al Jazeera documentary into the Israel lobby in the UK.

Al Jazeera’s undercover reporter filmed Ryan creating what would later be framed as an anti-Semitism scandal at the Labour conference in 2016. Labour member Jean Fitzpatrick approached a stand to ask questions about Labour’s support of a two-state solution with Israel and Palestine and was soon dismissed by Ryan.

Ryan later claimed the woman had made “anti-Semitic tropes” about Israel’s influence and banking, but the footage showed she made that up.

In September, Ryan lost a no confidence vote brought against her by her local parliamentary constituency over her smearing of Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, but said she would not step down.

In the Al Jazeera footage, Ryan also talks to a then-senior officer of the Israeli embassy who tells her he has secured “more than one million pounds” in Israeli government funding for an LFI trip to Israel. Out of the six Labour MPs to quit the party, six are listed supporters of Labour Friends of Israel.

Social media users were quick to point out the irony of an MP leaving a party over anti-Semitism when she created a false anti-Semitism claim from within the Labour Party.

February 21, 2019 Posted by | Deception, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Video | , , , , | 1 Comment

Labour PM spearheading anti-Corbyn campaign faces deselection by local members

MEMO | September 7, 2018

Labour members have voted to oust the MP spearheading a campaign against the party leader Jeremy Corbyn. Enfield North PM Joan Ryan, chair of Labour Friends of Israel, lost the vote 95 to 92 yesterday and is likely to face deselection before the next election.

Labour members moved to remove Ryan due to her activities over the past few years, which they say have undermined the Labour Party and its leader Jeremy Corbyn. Ryan has denounced Corbyn on several occasions while leading a very public campaign against him.

Writing for the Jewish Chronicle she said that Corbyn “appalled” her and his “behaviour” will get no better. Her article was viewed by many as a call to remove Corbyn as the Labour leader.

Ryan’s role as chair of Labour Friends of Israel has also brought her into conflict with her constituents. She was exposed in an undercover documentary by Al Jazeera of working with the Israeli embassy. She was seen falsely accusing another Labour member and a pro-Palestinian activist of being anti-Semitic.

Complaints raised against her in the Labour party disciplinary procedure said: “We believe our MP[Joan Ryan] has acted against decency, fairness and natural justice.” The motion was made in relation to Ryan’s false allegations against the pro-Palestinian activist.

Ryan’s false statement was caught on video and the whole incident was captured on camera by an undercover reporter working for Al Jazeera, and broadcast in the film “The Lobby” last year.

Ryan reacted to the no confidence vote with abusive comments directed at Labour members that had helped campaign for her and get her elected.

Her comments were widely criticised: “So you lost a vote and you use abusive terms to label those who no longer support you. I bet you didn’t have such contempt for members when they went out to get you re-elected. Genuine Labour members voted against you. Respect democracy” wrote one of Ryan’s followers on Twitter.

Ryan said she will not be resigning: “I am Labour through and through and I will continue to stand up and fight for Labour values” she said on Twitter.

Labour MP Gavin Shuker also revealed that he had lost a no confidence vote in his Luton constituency.

Read also:

BBC accused of lying in its anti-Corbyn campaign

Labour bows to pressure and adopts controversial code on anti-Semitism

September 7, 2018 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , | 1 Comment

Is UK Labour Now Zionist-Occupied Territory?

Befuddled Party waits to be gagged by ‘enemy within’

Jeremy Corbyn – Rally in Trafalgar Square. Image credit: Davide Simonetti/ Flickr
By Stuart Littlewood | American Herald Tribune | September 3, 2018

The National Executive Committee of the Labour Party will vote tomorrow (Tuesday) on whether to bow to the bullies and adopt the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism even though it has been roundly criticised by legal experts as unworkable. If they do, it will be hailed as a mighty victory for the dark forces behind the pro-Israel lobby in their bid to shut down criticisim of that racist state.

More than two years ago Gilad Atzmon was viewing the Labour Party’s crazed witch hunt for “anti-Semites” with misgiving. He declared, in his usual robust way, that Labour under Jeremy Corbyn was not so much a party as a piece of Zionist-occupied territory.

Writing in his blog about Corbyn and McDonnell’s servile commitment to expel anyone whose remarks might be interpreted by the Zionist Tendency as hateful or simply upsetting to Jews, he concluded: “Corbyn’s Labour is now unequivocally a spineless club of Sabbos Goyim [which I take to mean non-Jewish dogsbodies]. The Labour party’s policies are now compatible with Jewish culture: intolerant to the core and concerned primarily with the imaginary suffering of one people only. These people are not the working class, they are probably the most privileged ethnic group in Britain…. I did not anticipate that Corbyn would become a Zionist lapdog. Corbyn was a great hope to many of us. I guess that the time has come to accept that The Left is a dead concept, it has nothing to offer.”

Amen to that last bit.

And more recently Miko Peled, former Israeli soldier and the son of a Israeli general, warned that Israel was going to “pull all the stops, they are going to smear, they are going to try anything they can to stop Corbyn” and the reason anti-Semitism is used is because they have no other argument.

Since then we’ve had a queue of high profile Labourites and others sticking the knife into Corbyn. Last week it was the former Chief Rabbi and Zionist extremist Lord Sacks. Then the much-respected MP Frank Field, a maverick who finally quit Labour in noisy fashion giving anti-Semitism as a reason but having grumbled for a long time about a culture of intolerance, nastiness and intimidation within the party. Yesterday we had to suffer ex-prime minister Gordon Brown mouthing off about how the IHRA definition “is something we should support unanimously, unequivocally and immediately.” He urged Corbyn to remove the “stain” of prejudice from Labour by writing the definition and all of its examples into the party’s new code of conduct.

That’s a particularly dumb thing to say considering the Home Office Select Committee urged two caveats be included and eminent legal minds Hugh Tomlinson QC and Sir Stephen Sedley pointed out how it is trumped by our right to free expression, which is part of UK domestic law by virtue of the Human Rights Act (something every Labour member ought to know and uphold), and by other conventions. Geoffrey Robertson QC also warns that it is “not fit for any purpose that seeks to use it as an adjudicative standard. It is imprecise, confusing and open to misinterpretation and even manipulation”.

Robertson adds: “The Governments ‘adoption’ of the definition has no legal effect and does not oblige public bodies to take notice of it. The definition should not be adopted, and certainly should not be applied, by public bodies unless they are clear about Article 10 of the EHCR (European Convention on Human Rights) which is binding upon them, namely that they cannot ban speech or writing about Israel unless there is a real likelihood it will lead to violence or disorder or race hatred.”

But Brown won’t be listening. He’s a dedicated pimp for Israel and a dyed-in-the-wool Zionist. In 2008, in the first speech by a British prime minister to the Israeli parliament, the Knesset, he told Israeli MPs: “Britain is your true friend. A friend in difficult times as well as in good times, a friend who will stand beside you whenever your peace, your stability and your existence are under threat.”

Unlike Corbyn, Gordon Brown wouldn’t talk to Hamas because warmongers in the White House had branded them ‘terrorists’. But that’s their opinion. The state of Israel was founded by terror groups like the one that murdered 91 in an attack on the British mandate government in the King David Hotel and carried out the Deir Yassin massacre. Israel is the expert in terror. As Norman Finkelstein has remarked, “It is more than a rogue state. It is a lunatic state… The whole world is yearning for peace, and Israel is constantly yearning for war.”

The Israeli government itself was described by one of Brown’s own (Jewish) MPs, Sir Gerald Kaufman, as a ‘gang of amoral thugs’.

Brown, the son of a Church of Scotland minister, would have done well (as would all the other critics of Jeremy Corbyn and his ‘funny’ friends) to mull over the words of Gaza’s Catholic priest, Father Manuel Musallam, who told a journalist friend Mohammed Omer: “Palestinian Christians are not a religious community set apart in some corner. We are part of the Palestinian people. Our relationship with Hamas is as people of one nation. Hamas doesn’t fight religious groups. Its fight is against the Israeli occupation.”

When asked about Western media reports that Islamic oppression was forcing Gaza’s Christians to consider emigrating, Father Manuel said that if Christians emigrate it’s because of the Israeli siege, not the Muslims. “We seek a life of freedom —a life different from the life of dogs we are currently forced to live.”

Turning the tables

Corbyn isn’t the problem. Zionists are. They are the enemy within. Corbyn’s election to party leader was a surprise brought about by a sudden influx of new supporters weary of sterile and corrupt politics. They had no time to groom him, not that he’s capable of being tamed like previous leaders. Corbyn has a long record of support for the Palestinians and other justice causes and that doesn’t sit well with the ‘emininence grise‘ pulling the strings. As a loose cannon in a carefully controlled political battlefield he had to be disabled. One way to do that was to pick off his allies one by one and, with the help of a compliant media, derail his party’s election prospects. That is what they’ve been doing with considerable success by weaponising so-called anti-Semitism against Labour’s naive and easily scared troops.

But why take allegations of anti-Semitism seriously from bully-boys who themselves practise or support racism? There’s a simple two-word response to such hypocrites. Admittedly there are within Labour’s ranks too many who say idiotic things about Jews to the detriment of the campaign for justice in the Holy Land. I’ve heard remarks that are so stupidly provocative that one suspects the people responsible are Zionist plants. What is the point of bringing up Hitler and the Holocaust when there are more Israeli war crimes and crimes against humanity than you can shake a stick at?

Corbyn should have acted swiftly on genuine complaints and rejected the trumped up ones. He didn’t. Outside interference should never have been tolerated. It has been and still is. The best way to deal with professional moaners like the Board of Deputies of British Jews is to politely give them the BDS treatment – ignore and refuse to engage until they change their intimidating tone. And tell them this is the British Labour Party not a flagpole of the Knesset.

Furthermore it is long past time to question Labour’s Friends of Israel about their shameless support for the criminal state and its racist leaders and the land-grabbing Zionist Project. There is no place in a socialist organisation, or in British public life at all, for people who cannot bring themselves to condemn a regime that behaves so viciously towards its neighbours, defies international law, thinks it’s exempt from the norms of decent behaviour and shows no remorse. What does aligning with apartheid Israel really say about them? And, by the way, who gave permission to use the party as a platform to promote the interests of a foreign military power?

If people holding public office put themselves in a position where they are influenced by a foreign power, they flagrantly breach the Principles of Public Life. There are far too many Labour and Conservative MPs and MEPs who fall into that category.

Strange how the upsurge in carefully orchestrated allegations of anti-Semitism coincided with the arrival of Mark Regev, former chief of Israel’s propaganda machine, spokesman for Israel’s extremist prime minister and a shameless liar, as Israel’s new ambassador in London.

Corbyn’s other option is to leave Labour, take his supporters with him and let the party stew in its own juice. Let’s face it, the party as it stood then and stands today is dysfunctional, a thing of the past and quite unsuited to the 21st century. There may still be time to build a new, clean, fit-for-purpose political party and get it established before the next general election. In it, though probably not leading it, Corbyn could at least be true to himself.

The Labour Party has repeatedly promised to review its rules to send a clear message of zero-tolerance on anti-Semitism, assuming it knows what that means and who the genuine Semites are. For balance, of course, it should match this with zero-tolerance of those who use the party as a platform for promoting the criminal Israeli regime and its obscene territorial ambitions.

And remember, in 1949 the UN took Israel to its bosom on condition that it accepted the Right of Return of the Palestinian refugees and complied with General Assembly Resolution 194. Noting the declaration by the new State of Israel that it “unreservedly accepts the obligations of the United Nations Charter and undertakes to honour them from the day when it becomes a Member”, the General Assembly admitted Israel as “a peace-loving State which accepts the obligations contained in the Charter and is able and willing to carry out those obligations”.

Has Israel ever honoured its membership obligations or acted as a peace-loving State?

September 3, 2018 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , , , | 2 Comments

Labour Friends of Israel: Palestine refugees’ right to return is ‘extreme and illegitimate’

MEMO | June 29, 2018

Westminster-based lobby group Labour Friends of Israel (LFI) has described the Palestinian refugees’ right of return as “extreme and illegitimate”, in a letter to Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn this week.

LFI’s letter came in response to remarks made by the Leader of the opposition on 25 June, during a recent visit to Jordan. In a Twitter post, Corbyn wrote:

“In Jordan, I went to Baqa’a, one of the largest Palestinian refugee camps. We must work for a real two state settlement to the Israel-Palestine conflict, which ends the occupation and siege of Gaza and makes the Palestinian right to return a reality.”

In the period 1947-1949, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were expelled from or fled their homes as Zionist militias and the Israeli army destroyed hundreds of villages in what became Israel. Refugees attempting to return were killed, and Israel passed laws to expropriate their properties.

Corbyn’s expression of support for the Palestinian refugees’ internationally-recognised rights, prompted anger and concern from British pro-Israel groups, including LFI.

In a letter from LFI chair MP Joan Ryan, the pro-Israel group describes the Palestinians’ right to return (which is referred to in scare quotes) as “highly contentious”, and at odds with Israel’s insistence on retaining its Jewish majority of citizens.

Ryan added: “I do not believe that it does anything to encourage the compromises and concessions a future negotiated settlement will involve for foreign politicians to appear to endorse the most extreme and illegitimate demands of either side.”

The LFI chair concluded by urging Corbyn to “immediately clarify” what he understands by a right to return, and to only use “language… [that] helps to advance, not hinder, the cause of peace, reconciliation and coexistence between Israelis and Palestinians.”

A spokesperson for the Labour party said: “These rights are inalienable and guaranteed by UN Resolution 194 of 11 December 1948. How the right of return is implemented is a matter for the negotiations between the Israelis and Palestinians.”

 

June 29, 2018 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , , | 2 Comments

Labour Friends of Israel slammed for visiting country after recent killings of Palestinians

RT | May 30, 2018

Labour Friends of Israel (LFI) have been heavily criticized for promoting their latest trip to Israel with a series of pictures on social media, just weeks after the ‘massacre’ of Palestinian protesters by Israeli Defense Forces.

LFI are currently in Israel to “promote bilateral ties and meet politicians”, according to Britain’s Jewish News. They’ve been marking their trip with a series of smiley photos and meetings with Israel’s Labor party, much to the dismay of many of those on Twitter who are outraged at Israeli military action against civilians.

Their first tweet said: “We’re in Israel this week for a parliamentary delegation – here’s the group in Jerusalem this morning.”

One LFI tweet pictured a meeting with Israeli Labor leader Avi Gabbay. He recently wrote to Jeremy Corbyn to notify him of his party’s severing of ties with the Labour leader in response to the “crisis” of anti-Semitism in the UK party. It would appear these LFI members are in Gabbay’s good books.

From just under 100 supporters and select officers, only 7 Labour members of LFI made the trip to Israel. They include MPs Andrew Gwynne, Labour’s National Co-ordinator, LFI chair Joan Ryan, who was the subject of an Al-Jazeera undercover investigation into links between Israeli diplomats and the LFI, as well as MPs Sharon Hodgson, Louise Ellman and Jonathan Reynolds.

The LFI came under fire for declaring that “Hamas must accept responsibility” for scores of Palestinians being killed in mid May, during demonstrations to mark 70 years since Nakba “the catastrophe”.

In a tweet that was subsequently deleted, LFI responded to the killing of more than 60, including 6 children and the injuring of some 2,500 Palestinians by stating: “Tragic events on the Gazan border; all civilian deaths are regrettable. Hamas must accept responsibility for these events. Their successful attempt to hijack peaceful protest as cover to attack Israeli border communities must be condemned by all who seek peace in the Middle East.”

The widely-condemned statement has reportedly led to a number of Labour MPs disassociating themselves from the group, including Tulip Siddiq and Catherine West, who requested being removed from LFI’s supporters list, according to media outlet, Skwawkbox.

May 30, 2018 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , , , | 2 Comments

The Stomach-Churning Victim Blaming by “Labour Friends of Israel”

By Craig Murray | May 14, 2018

The true face of the organisation calling itself “Labour Friends of Israel” has been revealed today, in truly disgusting victim-blaming tweets reacting to the massacre of over fifty Palestinians – including yet more children – by the Israeli Defence Force in Gaza.

No Israelis were injured and no “border communities” attacked. This amplification of the worst extreme right wing zionist propaganda by the Likud government shows beyond doubt that “Labour Friends of Israel” is nothing whatsoever to do with the professed values of the Labour Party, but rather a well-funded entryist front solely intended to promote the interests of a violent, expansionist and aggressive foreign state.

I am not a Labour Party member and I do not know what institutional ties the “Labour Friends of Israel” has to the Labour Party, but whatever they are they should be cut off immediately.

The “Labour Friends of Israel” featured very prominently on our TV screens after the recent English local elections, beating the drum for their widespread accusations of anti-semitism within the Labour Party. They have been driving that agenda for many months. One would like to think that the mainstream media would, after today, cease to accept them as a genuine and well-motivated group and understand them for the hate-filled fanatics they truly are. Of course that will not happen, and they will be back on television shortly accusing yet more lifelong anti-racism campaigners who have the temerity to criticise Israel.

May 15, 2018 Posted by | Deception, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , , , , | 2 Comments

“Taking Down” British Officials

Israel conspires against the Mother of Parliaments

UK Israel

By Philip Giraldi • Unz Review • January 31, 2017

A quite incredible story out of England has not received much media coverage in the United States. It concerns how the Israeli Embassy in London connived with government officials to “take down” parliamentarians and government ministers who were considered to be critical of the Jewish State. It was also learned that the Israeli Embassy was secretly subsidizing and advising private groups promoting Israeli interests, including associations of Members of Parliament (MPs). The story is interesting on several levels, particularly given the recent furor in the U.S. over allegations that Russia has been interfering in American politics.

By way of comparison, though no evidence has been provided to support the claim, Russia allegedly arranged for a hack into the Democratic National Committee server to obtain factual information potentially embarrassing to the Hillary Clinton campaign. The information was then made public and may have influenced how some Americans voted.

Compare that to what has been going on meanwhile in Britain, where an Israeli Embassy diplomat named Shai Masot, “an officer in the Israel Defense Forces and… serving as a senior political officer at the London Embassy,” was meeting with Maria Strizzolo, a senior British civil servant who was formerly chief of staff to Conservative parliamentarian and ardent Zionist Robert Halfon. Masot is certainly an intelligence officer under diplomatic cover. Masot and Strizzolo’s candid discussion, which was secretly recorded by al-Jazeera, related specifically to getting rid of Foreign Office Minister Sir Alan Duncan, regarded as a supporter of an independent Palestinian state.

To Masot’s additional query “Can I give you some MPs that I would suggest you would take down?” Strizzolo suggested “… if you look hard enough, I’m sure there is something that they’re trying to hide… a little scandal maybe.” Another alleged pro-Arab member of Parliament Crispin Blunt was also identified, with Strizzolo confirming that he was on a “hit list.”

It was also learned that Masot had been secretly subsidizing and advising two ostensibly independent groups, the parliamentary Conservative Friends of Israel (CFI) and the Labour Friends of Israel (LFI). Masot did, however, express concern that Israel’s control over incoming parliamentarians was not quite what it used to be: “For years, every MP that joined the parliament joined the LFI. They’re not doing that any more in the Labour Party. CFI, they’re doing it automatically. All the 14 new MPs who got elected in the last elections did it automatically.”

Shai Masot also was working with friendly young British Jews, providing them with jobs at his embassy and then seeding them into positions in advocacy organizations where they continued to be paid secretly by him while promoting positions that would protect Israel from any criticism. One such group is Britain’s National Union of Students (NUS). Recently there has been somewhat of a furor over Shakira Martin, a vice president in the group, who accepted an all-expenses paid trip to Israel organized by the Union of Jewish Students, a pro-Israel organization which is among those receiving funding and guidance from the Israeli embassy in London. The al-Jazeera tape has also revealed that Richard Brooks, another NUS vice president, had been plotting with pro-Israel activists to remove elected NUS president Malia Bouattia, a supporter of Palestinian rights and the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement.

It does not require much in the way of imagination to realize that the Masot meetings probably occur every day right out in the open in Washington, including Israeli officials and Congressmen as well as heads of political advocacy organizations and lobbies. The list of prominent politicians “taken down” by Israel is lengthy, and includes Cynthia McKinney, Adlai Stevenson III, Paul Findley, Chuck Percy, William Fulbright, Roger Jepsen, and Pete McCloskey. And a similar situation prevails in the U.S. regarding human rights and politically liberal organizations that are ostensibly privately funded. As Jeff Blankfort has noted, they are frequently headed by American Jews who prove quite willing to criticize the United States but are generally reluctant to say anything bad about Israel. Whether they are actually directly or indirectly on the Israeli government payroll would be an interesting project for a good investigative journalist.

One might reasonably consider Israel’s interference in the democratic process in friendly countries like the U.K. and U.S. as much farther reaching and damaging than anything Moscow has done. Yet Russia is being excoriated by the U.S. and European media daily, investigated by Congress and sanctioned because of what are little more than unproven allegations. Israel has clearly done some things to interfere with local politics that are arguably much worse and the silence is deafening. So one should not be surprised by the toothless British reaction to the suggestion that its government officials might be removed by the clandestine activity of a foreign country: “The Israeli ambassador has apologized… the UK has a strong relationship with Israel and we consider the matter closed.”

Britain under its new Prime Minister Theresa May has also been rolling over in response to Israel’s perceived interests almost as obsequiously as the U.S. Congress. After Secretary of State John Kerry described Israel’s government as “extreme right wing” on December 28th, May sprang to Tel Aviv’s defense, saying “we do not believe that it is appropriate to attack the composition of the democratically elected government of an ally. We are also clear that the settlements are far from the only problem in this conflict. In particular, the people of Israel deserve to live free from the threat of terrorism, with which they have had to cope for too long.”

May’s rejoinder could have been written by Netanyahu, and maybe it was. Two weeks later, her government cited “reservations” over a French government sponsored mid-January Middle East peace conference and would not sign a joint statement calling for a negotiated two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict after Netanyahu vociferously condemned the proceedings.

It all recalls Pat Buchanan’s description of the U.S. Congress as an Israeli occupied zone, which raised holy hell at the time even though Buchanan did not go far enough judging by what has been happening in Britain. Indeed, lobbying on behalf of Israel is a global phenomenon with organizations like the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) existing in various forms in a number of other countries. BICOM, the Britain Israel Communications and Research Centre, is an AIPAC clone located in London. It is well funded and politically powerful, working through its various “Friends of Israel” proxies. Americans might be surprised to learn that in Britain Jewish organizations uniquely are allowed to patrol heavily Jewish London neighborhoods in police-like uniforms while driving police type vehicles and there have been reports of their threatening Muslims who enter the areas.

Indeed, wherever one goes – Western Europe, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the United States – there is a well-organized and funded mechanism in place ready, willing and able to go to war to protect Israel. Most of the organizations involved take at least some direction from officials in Tel Aviv. Many of them even cooperate fully with the Israeli government, its parastatal organizations and faux-NGOs like the lawfare center Shurat HaDin. Their goal is to spread propaganda and influence the public in their respective countries of residence to either hew to the line coming out of Tel Aviv or to confuse the narrative and stifle debate when potential Israeli crimes are being discussed.

Israel’s diaspora allies are backed up by a formidable government organized machine that spews out disinformation and muddies the waters whenever critics surface. The Israeli Foreign Ministry has a corps of paid “volunteers” who monitor websites worldwide and take remedial action and there is a similar group working out of the Prime Minister’s office. That is why any negative story appearing in the U.S. or Britain about Israel is immediately inundated with pro-Israel comments, many of which make exactly the same coordinated points while exhibiting the same somewhat less than perfect English. On sites like Yahoo they are actually able to suppress unwelcome comments by flooding the site with “Dislike” responses. If a comment receives a large number of dislikes, it is automatically blocked or removed.

The sayanim, local Jews in their countries of residence, are essential to this process, having been alerted by emails from the Israeli Foreign Ministry about what to do and say. The reality is that Israel has lost the war of public opinion based on its own actions, which are becoming more and more repressive and even inhumane and so are difficult to explain. That means that the narrative has to be shifted by Israel’s friends through subterfuge and the corruption of the information and political processes in each country. In some places the key media and political players who are engaged in the process can simply be bought. In other places like England they can be intimidated or pressured into taking positions that are neither in their own countries’ interests nor morally acceptable. In large countries like the United States, Britain and France a combination of friendly suasion and coercive elements often come together.

In some extreme cases the game Israel plays is brutal. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu recently warned New Zealand that backing a U.N. resolution condemning Israeli settlements would be a “declaration of war.” In all cases, the objective is the same: to repress completely, discourage or misrepresent any criticism of Israel and to block any initiatives that might be taken that would do damage either to the Israeli economy or to the country’s perceived standing in the world. In some countries including the U.S. and Britain, Israel’s advocates work their subversion of local institutions right out in the open and are highly successful in implementing policies that often remain largely hidden but that can be discerned as long as one knows what to look for.

January 31, 2017 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | , , , , , , , | 5 Comments

Chilcot, Israel and the Lobby

By Gilad Atzmon  | July 7, 2016

It took seven years for Sir Chilcot and his team to reach a set of conclusions that every Brit capable of thought understood back in November, 2013.

The inquiry produced a damning assessment of Blair’s conduct as well as the British military. But the Chilcot Inquiry failed to expose the crucial close ties between Blair’s criminal war, the Jewish Lobby and Israel.

At the time Britain entered the criminal war against Iraq, Blair’s chief funders were Lord ‘cashpoint’ Levy and the LFI (Labour Friends of Israel). The prime advocates for the immoral interventionist war within the British press were Jewish Chronicle writers David Aaronovitch and Nick Cohen. The attorney general that gave the green light for the war was Lord Goldsmith.

In 2008 The Guardian revealed that the “Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) successfully fought to keep secret any mention of Israel contained on the first draft of the controversial, now discredited Iraq weapons dossier.”

Israel was conspicuously engaged in the vast production of WMDs. If Britain and America had any genuine concerns about WMDs, bombing Tel Aviv would have been the way to go.

In 2003 some intelligence experts insisted that Iraq’s WMD dossier was initially produced in Tel Aviv and only ‘sexed up’ in London.

Since the Iraq war, the same Jewish Lobby has mounted enormous pressure on western governments, promoting more Zio-centic interventionist wars in Syria, Libya and Iran. So why did the Chilcot Inquiry fail to address this topic?

This crucial failure by Chilcot was to be expected. In 2010, highly respected veteran British diplomat Oliver Miles had something to say about the Jewish make-up of the Chilcot Inquiry. Two out of the five members of the inquiry were Jews, pro war and Blair supporters.

This is what Miles wrote in the Independent :

“Rather less attention has been paid to the curious appointment of two historians (which seems a lot, out of a total of five), both strong supporters of Tony Blair and/or the Iraq war. In December 2004 Sir Martin Gilbert, while pointing out that the “war on terror” was not a third world war, wrote that Bush and Blair “may well, with the passage of time and the opening of the archives, join the ranks of Roosevelt and Churchill” – an eccentric opinion that would seem to rule him out as a member of the committee. Sir Lawrence Freedman is the reputed architect of the “Blair doctrine” of humanitarian intervention, which was invoked in Kosovo and Afghanistan as well as Iraq.

Both Gilbert and Freedman are Jewish, and Gilbert at least has a record of active support for Zionism. Such facts are not usually mentioned in the mainstream British and American media, but The Jewish Chronicle and the Israeli media have no such inhibitions, and the Arabic media both in London and in the region are usually not far behind.”

Miles’ point was valid, and proved correct. The Chilcot Inquiry wasn’t just destined to fail. It was designed to subvert any scrutiny of Israel and its hawkish pro war lobby.

The Chilcot Report gave the British public what it wanted. It blamed Blair for failing in his responsibilities to them. But the report’s focus on Blair, diplomacy, the military and  intelligence failures concealed the Lobby that was pulling the strings.

July 7, 2016 Posted by | Deception, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes, Wars for Israel | , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Purging the Palestinians

The British try out a new version of free speech

Stanford-Divest-300x225

By Philip Giraldi • Unz Review • May 3, 2016

Political purges are not new. Trotsky was purged from the Soviet Communist Party and Ernst Rohm was purged by the Nazis. Currently we are witnessing the spectacle of “progressive” groups ostensibly dedicated to the cause of Palestinian rights turning on long time advocates of that cause because they are not viewed as sufficiently engaged in demonstrating that they are not anti-Semitic. Indeed, demonstrating one’s anti-anti-Semitic credentials seems to have become a sine qua non for establishing the bona fides of any friend of Palestine, apparently more important than actually doing anything for the Palestinians, who have been losing land continuously to the Israelis and regularly getting killed whenever they resist.

That the Palestinians have been victimized by the self-designated Jewish State funded by Jewish organizations and enabled through Jewish manipulation of America’s legislature and media would appear to be an irrelevancy to the self-righteous standard bearers adhering staunchly to what they choose to describe as their “anti-racist principles.” In a recent disagreeable incident involving the Students for Justice in Palestine at Stanford University a Nakba survivor Palestinian woman speaker was actually disinvited because it was feared that she might verbally challenge the legitimacy of the Zionist occupation of her former home. One wonders if the students would have censored an anti-Apartheid speaker from South Africa in a similar fashion in the 1980s?

I have sometimes noted how the Zionist conspiracy is international in nature, with hate crime legislation strictly enforced in places like France to sanction any criticism of Israel, which has been conveniently and incorrectly conflated with anti-Semitism. The latest focal point for making any critique of the Zionist enterprise unacceptable is Britain, and more particularly in the Labour Party, which once upon a time was viewed as the most progressive of the country’s three major parties. It also has long included Jewish Britons in senior party and government positions and is home to two formidable pressure groups, the Labour Friends of Israel and the Jewish Labour Movement.

Some recent Labour Party history is required. In September 2015 Jeremy Corbyn was elected leader of the parliamentary Labour Party to replace Ed Milliband. Corbyn, who has a long history as a human rights advocate and anti-interventionist in his foreign policy views, was considered a long shot when he began his leadership campaign but eventually won with nearly 60% of the vote due to “anti-establishment” fervor similar to what is taking place in the United States currently. Along the way, his campaign was assailed by a number of Jewish organizations in Britain based on allegations that he was hostile to Israel.

Corbyn had indeed been outspoken on Middle East policy as a member of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, condemning the Israeli handling of the conflict in Gaza and denouncing what he describes as apartheid in Israel. He has supported a selective boycott of Israel and believes that weapons sales to it should be blocked. Asked by an interviewer in July 2015 why he had referred to both Hamas and Hezbollah as “friends”, Corbyn replied, “I use it in a collective way, saying our friends are prepared to talk. Does it mean I agree with Hamas and what it does? No. Does it mean I agree with Hezbollah and what they do? No. What it means is that I think to bring about a peace process, you have to talk to people with whom you may profoundly disagree … There is not going to be a peace process unless there is talks involving Israel, Hezbollah and Hamas and I think everyone knows that.”

Corbyn also supported the lifting of sanctions as part of a negotiated agreement to dismantle the Iranian nuclear program, and the initiation of steps to place Israel’s nuclear arsenal under Non-Proliferation controls. Though one would think that the statements were pretty mild stuff relatively speaking, Corbyn continues to be assailed as being tolerant of anti-Semitism within the Labour Party as a consequence.

Observers in Britain believe that much of the behind the scenes anti-Corbyn agitation within the Party is being orchestrated by former Prime Minister Tony Blair, who wants to see Corbyn replaced by someone closer to his brand of political centrism. One longtime Blair supporter and major Labour donor David Abrahams apparently agrees, ending his financial support of the party over its alleged anti-Semitism, declaring it “a plague that has to be stamped out.”

Britain is going to the polls on Thursday in local and municipal elections. It is perhaps no coincidence that the attacks on Labour have intensified in the past several weeks and polls are now suggested that the Party might well lose “hundreds” of local government seats at least in part due to the apparent turmoil reflected in media coverage of the anti-Semitism issue.

The wave of attacks on Labour members deemed to be too hostile to Israel actually began in August 2015 with widely publicized but later discredited claims that the Oxford University Labour Club was dominated by anti-Semites. As it turned out, Alex Chalmers, the student who made the allegations, was a member of Britain’s Israel lobby. Currently it is being fueled by appearances in the national media by Israel’s Ambassador Mark Regev and also by former associates of Tony Blair who are demanding a thorough review of possible anti-Semitism within the party. They have focused on two Labour notables, Naz Shah and Ken Livingstone, “Red” Ken, who have been suspended over comments and social media postings relating to Israel.

Naz Shah, a member of Parliament, reportedly made a Facebook post before she was elected to office that copied a graphic of Israel superimposed on to a map of the United States with the message “Solution for Israel-Palestine Conflict – Relocate Israel into United States” with the additional notation by Shah “Problem Solved,” a joke intended to demonstrate that if the U.S. and Israel love each other so much they should collocate, solving the Middle East conflict as a consequence. The graphic was copied from American professor Norman Finkelstein’s blog.

Shah has apologized four times for her transgression.

Ken Livingstone reportedly told the BBC that Adolph Hitler had supported Zionism in that he negotiated with German Zionists to transfer Europe’s Jews to Palestine in the event of a German Army defeat of the British in the Middle East, a victory that never materialized. Livingstone, well known for inserting his foot in his mouth, was, in fact correct in his comment, which he later declared as “historical” in nature. Under attack, Livingstone defended himself by declaring that the truth about Hitler and Zionism is “not taught in Israeli schools.”

Corbyn and other members of the Labour Shadow Cabinet have repeatedly stated that any party member who makes anti-Semitic or racist comments will be expelled. He has responded to the demands in the media and from within the party by initiating an official inquiry into possible racism headed by Shami Chakrabarti, a highly regarded former head of a civil rights charity called Liberty.

The disturbing aspect of the current purge underway in Britain is not only about racism, if that is indeed how one should define anti-Semitism. It is over the extent to which one can criticize the state of Israel without suffering consequences and also over the degree to which any such criticism should or can be equated with anti-Semitism. It is in the interest of Israel and its supports to make the two issues one and the same and they have had considerable success in making the distinction between the two largely invisible. Corbyn’s comments on the Middle East are decidedly progressive but not necessarily wrong. Naz Shah played with a graphic on Facebook expressing her views, which were not genocidal or racist, in a silly fashion that most Facebook users have likely emulated at one time or another. Ken Livingstone has a history of shooting from the lip and turning him into a whipping boy for an ill-advised comment that had no racist overtones or that did not in any way call for violence is more than a bit of overreach. None of the three attacked Jews either as an ethnicity or as a religion but they were criticized as if they had done so.

Critics of Israel in the United States, possibly to include the Stanford University Students for Justice in Palestine, should learn from what happens in Europe. Once you start your critique with an apology lest you offend someone you have already lost the argument. Refusing to listen to speakers who just might upset part of the audience is self-censorship, designed to go along to get along and in the end it is self-defeating. If you want to tie yourself in knots over avoiding the anti-Semitism label, which is routinely used to silence and destroy critics including yourself, you will never see a country called Palestine or a United States that is free from the manipulation by the Israel Lobby.

May 3, 2016 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Get Corbyn!

Antisemitism Inquisition shifts up a gear in bid to wreck Labour’s election chances and remove the “loose cannon”.

By Stuart Littlewood | Dissident Voice | May 2, 2016

With important local government elections a few days away the campaign against alleged antisemites reached a crescendo over the weekend, with the press and TV corps in full cry.

Their main quarry was former mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, now suspended from the party; their instrument a Labour MP bully-boy called John Mann, who happens to be chairman of the All-Party Parliamentary Group against Antisemitism. But no-one is in any doubt that the ultimate aim of this operation is the downfall of Labour’s new leader, Jeremy Corbyn.

Zionists have a serious problem with Corbyn. His election to the leadership was a surprise brought about by a sudden influx of new supporters weary of sterile and corrupt politics. They had no time to groom him, not that he’s capable of being tamed like previous leaders. Corbyn has a long record of support for the Palestinians and other justice causes. As a loose cannon in a carefully controlled political battlefield he has to be disabled.  One way to do that is to pick off his allies one by one and, with the help of a compliant media, derail his party’s election prospects.

Livingstone’s ‘crime’ is a remark about Zionists collaborating with Nazis in the 1930s. Though factually correct, it’s not the sort of thing the Inquisition likes to hear. So is it a flogging offence? Hardly, but such is the paralysing fear of being on the receiving end of an antisemitism smear that few in the party (or mainstream media) have the balls to say so.

Strange how the latest upsurge in allegations of antisemitism has coincided with the ambassadorial appointment to London of Mark Regev, former chief of Israel’s propaganda machine and spokesman for Israel’s extremist prime minister.

Regev was given a platform on the BBC’s flagship Andrew Marr programme at the weekend to complain about antisemites targeting the collective Jew: “If you’re saying… the Jewish people don’t have that right… to sovereignty and independence, you have to ask why you are holding Jews to a different standard. And there is a word for that.”

Yes, and the word is Jewish exceptionalism. Israeli Jews are not, and never have been, sanctioned for defying UN resolutions and international humanitarian law. On the contrary they are allowed to continue their crimes with impunity and rewarded by the West with eye-watering generosity.

As for Regev’s “collective Jew”, Israel insists on being recognised as the Jewish state, implicating Jews generally. As for the right of the Jewish people to sovereignty and independence, that is something they have consistently denied the Palestinians, whose lands they covet, occupy and creepingly annex. Israeli politicians, including Netanyahu, have gone further and declared that they will never allow the Palestinians self-determination.

So let us view the Labour Party’s freak-out over antisemitism in proper context.

An Israeli wise man — the former military intelligence chief and professor of International Relations, Yehoshafat Harkabi — warned some years ago that the Jewish state, which was supposed to solve the problem of antisemitism, could actually become a factor in the rise of antisemitism: “Israelis must be aware that the price of their misconduct is paid not only by them but also Jews throughout the world”.

However, not all Jews outside Israel are Zionists or supporters of the Israeli regime. A large number campaign energetically against it, so it is wrong to blame the worldwide Jewish community. On the other hand Israel claims to be “the only democracy in the Middle East”, in which case the government of Israel acts in its people’s name.

A New York Times obituary quotes Harkabi as saying: “I am for finalizing the conflict, and you can’t do that without recognizing that the Palestinians, like any other human group, deserve the right to self-determination.”

That right is still denied.

What about Labour’s links to Zionist criminals?

The trouble with UK Labour is its ignorance. That goes for other political parties that harbour Zionist stooges. If members knew the truth about the situation in the Holy Land, they would never swallow the false narrative peddled for years by the likes of Regev and Israel’s flag wavers such as Blair, Cameron and the Friends of Israel group – a UK version of the all-powerful AIPAC which dictates US foreign policy.

Friends of Israel repeatedly question Corbyn’s past association with Hamas and Hezbollah. But, as they well know, Hamas and Hezbollah were created out of necessity to resist Israeli aggression and are regarded as terrorists by no-one except the Washington-Tel Aviv axis and US-Israeli stooges in London and some other capitals – a number of which have evidently crept into the Labour Party.

For a branding-iron Bush used this definition: “The term “terrorism” means an activity that

(i) involves a violent act or an act dangerous to human life, property, or infrastructure; and

(ii) appears to be intended —

(A) to intimidate or coerce a civilian population;

(B) to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or

(C) to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, kidnapping, or hostage-taking.”

The joke is that it describes the behaviour of successive Israeli governments perfectly.

The media’s baying hounds and Labour’s fanatical inquisitors are entitled to question Jeremy Corbyn’s past connections, as long as they also ask Corbyn’s critics about their links to the Israeli terror regime.

Are Palestinians children of a lesser God?

We shouldn’t focus entirely on Labour. The biggest Zionist-occupied organisation outside America and what we loosely refer to as the Christian church is the British Conservative party. Eighty percent of its MPs and MEPs are reported to be signed-up Friends of the rogue regime and it was the recent Conservative-led coalition that reneged on Britain’s solemn obligations under the Geneva Conventions specifically to allow wanted Israeli criminals to come and go in the UK without fear of arrest.

Membership of Friends of Israel has long been a useful qualification in securing a place on the parliamentary candidates list and is said to be a stepping stone to high office. Hopefuls are  ‘groomed’ on Tel Aviv’s propaganda conveyor-belt. Under the title ‘Team Cameron’s big Jewish backers’ the Jewish Chronicle in 2006 reported on the individuals bankrolling David Cameron’s bid for power and provided a fascinating insight into how the pro-Israel lobby infiltrates government and  destroys the principles of integrity and accountability once prized in British public life.

As soon as Cameron became Conservative leader he proclaimed: “The belief I have in Israel is indestructible — and you need to know that if I become Prime Minister, Israel has a friend who will never turn his back on Israel.” Good dog.

Those who sign on as a Friend of Israel surely realise that they embrace and endorse the whole hellish Zionist enterprise including the terror and ethnic cleansing on which the state of Israel was built, the dispossession and expulsion of native Palestinians at gunpoint and the discriminatory laws against those who remain. They signal that they accept the abduction of civilians, including children, and their imprisonment and torture without trial. And presumably they are happy supporting and legitimizing a religious war that humiliates Muslims and Christians and prevents them visiting their holy places.

There is no room here to detail Israel’s cruel interference with Palestinian life at every level or describe the human misery it causes every minute of every day. Sufficient to say that anyone who defends these outrages deserves scant consideration of their feelings.

Even after a series of bloodbaths by the Israeli military in Gaza such people remain Israel’s special Friend. Will they still be comfortable when the next assault blows to smithereens hundreds more children, again shreds and incinerates thousands of innocent men and women, maims many more and destroys still more vital infrastructure such as hospitals, schools, power plants and clean water supplies?

Do they really believe Palestinians are children of some lesser God?

Oh, and Friends of Israel squeal “antisemitism!” at the very mention of BDS (the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement). Why? Respected Palestinian lawmaker, Dr Hanan Ashrawi, explains how BDS is “a legal, moral and inclusive movement struggling against the discriminatory policies of a country that defines itself in religiously exclusive terms, and that seeks to deny Palestinians the most basic rights simply because we are not Jewish.”

Practising BDS simply means you avoid purchasing Israeli goods or services and decline normal contact with individuals and organisations that are connected with or support the racist creed that squeezes the life out of the Holy Land.  And you continue to do this until Israel ends its illegal occupation and honours its obligations under the UN Charter and international humanitarian law.

If Labour Friends of Israel don’t know these things, they should take the trouble to find out. If they don’t also know about Zionist ambitions for a Greater Israel, from the Nile to the Euphrates (the Yinon Plan), they should find out.

Corbyn knew of the Zionist threat to himself long before he became leader. At the outset he should have established a competent media group to anticipate trouble and formulate necessary communication strategies, including the case for curbing the use of the party as a platform to advance the interests of a foreign military power.

Now, instead of taking the fight to the troublemakers he’s letting them tear Labour apart. And Regev sits on his doorstep laughing.

As I sign off, a petition calling for MP John Mann to be disciplined has reached 19,000 signatures. Mann, a rabid pro-Zionist, started a shouting match with Livingstone in front of the cameras, putting rocket-boosters under the Inquisition and bringing the party into disrepute.

May 2, 2016 Posted by | Corruption, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Zionist Benn’s Grab For Power

By Craig Murray | December 3, 2015

Hilary Benn is very serious about his power grab and has been laying the ground for it very carefully. On 18 November BICOM – the British Israeli Communications and Research Centre – published this:

Shadow Foreign Secretary Hilary Benn told a Labour Friends of Israel (LFI) lunch yesterday that relations with Israel must be based on cooperation and rejected attempts to isolate the country.

Addressing senior party figures in Westminster, Benn praised Israel for its “progressive spirit, vibrant democracy, strong welfare state, thriving free press and independent judiciary.” He also called Israel “an economic giant, a high-tech centre, second only to the United States. A land of innovation and entrepreneurship, venture capital and graduates, private and public enterprise.”

Consequently, said Benn, “Our future relations must be built on cooperation and engagement, not isolation of Israel. We must take on those who seek to delegitimise the state of Israel or question its right to exist.”

It is worth reading the next article BICOM published. Brigadier General Michael Herzog, head of strategy for the Israeli defence Force, sets out a strategy for Israeli interests in Syria which dovetails precisely with what Benn and Cameron were pushing in the Commons. Note that Herzog says an overall diplomatic solution is not realistic and rather de facto partitioning of Syria suits Israel’s interests. Therefore there should be no waiting for diplomatic progress before western military action.

With his abandonment of any pretended concern for the slow and agonising genocide of the Palestinians, and his strident support for Trident, Benn is embracing the Israeli establishment and the British military and political establishment. In return, the Tories roared his speech to the rafters, while the media, and especially the Genie Energy linked media, are boosting him to the Labour leadership.

The United Kingdom has, temporarily, an opposition leadership which is not controlled, Zionist, neo-con and in the pocket of the arms industry. Benn has positioned himself very carefully to offer himself as the vehicle for the entire establishment to move to correct this aberration.

December 3, 2015 Posted by | Corruption, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Fighting a Cultural Boycott of Israel

By Lawrence Davidson | Consortium News | October 30, 2015

There is a new British organization called Culture for Coexistence with the aim of ending the cultural boycott of Israel, which has been relatively effective in raising public awareness of oppressive Zionist policies, and replace it with “open dialogue” and “cultural engagement.“ A “galaxy of 150 British artists and authors” signed an open letter published in the Guardian newspaper on Oct. 22 announcing the group’s position:

“Cultural boycotts singling out Israel are divisive and discriminatory and will not further peace,” while “open dialogue and interaction promote greater understanding and mutual acceptance and it is through such understanding and acceptance that movement can be made towards a resolution of the conflict.”

While concepts such as open dialogue and cultural interaction are, in principle, hard to disagree with, their efficacy as agents of conflict resolution has to be judged within a historical context. In other words, such approaches are effective when circumstances dictate that all parties seriously dialogue and interact meaningfully – in a manner that actually promotes “mutual acceptance.”

Is this the case when it comes to Israel? The burden of proof here is on Culture for Coexistence because they are the ones asking the Palestinians and their supporters to put aside a strategy (boycott) that is actually putting pressure on Israel to negotiate seriously.

The Culture for Coexistence signatories do not address this question of efficacy. Instead they make the simple assertion that cultural boycotts are bad and won’t help resolve the conflict while cultural interaction is good and will work to that end. How do they know this? Without evidence of its workability, such an assertion is merely an idealization of cultural engagement that ignores that pursuit’s historical futility during a nearly century long conflict.

Do Israeli Leaders Want a Just Peace?

Cultural interaction with Israel went on for decades before the boycott effort got going. It had no impact on the issue of conflict resolution. Such cultural activity certainly did not change the fact that Israel’s leaders have never shown interest in negotiating a resolution with the Palestinians except solely on Israeli terms.

And, that stubbornness is a major part of the reason why peace talks (and also the Oslo agreements) never worked. There is a whole set of histories, written by Israelis and based on archival research that support the claim that Israel has not sought a just resolution to the conflict. Here I would recommend the Culture for Coexistence signatories read the books of the Israeli historian Ilan Pappe.

Given this historical Zionist attitude, what sort of “greater understanding and mutual acceptance” does Culture and Coexistence expect to accomplish by swapping the boycott for “cultural engagement”? It is a question the signatories of the open letter might address to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who just recently was reported to have proclaimed that Israel will control all Palestinian land indefinitely.

The “galaxy of British artists and authors” aligned with Culture for Coexistence seems oblivious to all these contextual issues. Of course, there is a good chance that some of them are more interested in undermining the boycott of Israel than in the alleged promotion of peace through “cultural engagement.”

As the Guardian article discussing the group notes, “Some of the network’s supporters are closely aligned with Israel,” including individuals associated with Conservative Friends of Israel and Labour Friends of Israel.

Does Cultural Contact Lead to Peace?

There is another, more generic misunderstanding exhibited in the group’s statement. It is found in the letter’s closing assertion that “cultural engagement builds bridges, nurtures freedom and positive movement for change” – a position reiterated when Loraine da Costa, chairperson of the new organization, told the Guardian that “culture has a unique ability to bring people together and bridge division.”

No matter how you want to define culture, high or low, there is no evidence for this position except on the level of individuals or small groups. On the level of larger or whole populations, the assertion that “cultural engagement builds bridges” is another naive idealization that is belied by historical practice. Historically, culture has always divided people (both across borders and across classes) and acted as a barrier to understanding. At a popular level, most people are uninterested in, or suspicious of, foreign cultures and are unwilling to try to pursue cultural interaction.

Israel is a very good example of this cultural xenophobia. Historically, the European Jews who established the state despised Arab culture. They tried to eradicate it among the Mizrahi Jews who came to Israel from Arab lands. This intra-Jewish Israeli prejudice is still a problem today. What aspects of Arab culture (mostly having to do with cuisine) Israeli Jews are attracted to they try to repackage as “Israeli.”

There are two final considerations here: First is the need to be serious and clear in the use of language. One can, of course, say “culture has a unique ability to bring people together” but is this a statement that has any real meaning or is it just a platitude?

And second: If you are going to give advice about a century-old conflict you should know enough about its history to be sensible in your offering. Thus, in this case, if you know that high or low cultural intercourse with Israel (and, as suggested above, there has been plenty of it since the founding of the state in 1948), has actually improved the prospects for Israeli-Palestinian peace, you should lay out the evidence. However, if one is just offering a banal cliche, well, only the ignorant can take that seriously.

Those who first proposed the cultural boycott did not do it out of some anti-Semitic dislike for Israeli artworks, music, literature or theater. They did it because cultural interaction with Israel had not only failed to promote an equitable peace, but in fact camouflaged the policies of a nation-state that practices ethnic cleansing and other destructive policies against non-Jews.

The logical conclusion was drawn that if you want to pressure the Israelis to change their ways, you withdraw from cultural contact and make any reconnection a condition of their getting serious about conflict resolution.

How is it that the 150 artists and authors who signed the Culture for Coexistence open letter do not know the relevant facts? Setting aside the confirmed Zionists, whose ulterior motive is pretty clear, do these people take this stand because it “feels right” – that is, because they believe cultural interaction ought to, or even must, promote conflict resolution? Alas, this is wishful thinking and, taking history seriously, Palestine may go extinct before such an approach actually helps lead to a just peace.

Lawrence Davidson is a history professor at West Chester University in Pennsylvania. He is the author of Foreign Policy Inc.: Privatizing America’s National Interest;　America’s Palestine: Popular and Official Perceptions from Balfour to Israeli Statehood; and Islamic Fundamentalism.

October 31, 2015 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Solidarity and Activism, Timeless or most popular | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

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