Israel Hayom newspaper yesterday ran an article inciting against Muslims in the UK and leader of the British Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn.
“The British capital of London has become a base for Islamic groups, especially the Muslim Brotherhood outside the Middle East and the centre for the campaign to delegitimise Israel,” columnist Eldad Beck said in an article published yesterday.
Beck added that this comes in the context of “the radical speech led by British leader Jeremy Corbyn, noting to the increase in non-governmental political movements with only one common goal that is calling for the elimination of Israel.”
“There are a number of Hamas men who are running the battle to delegitimise Israel in Britain and are working to spread it around the world in order to legitimise the elimination of Israel. They have been organising fleets for solidarity with Gaza since 2010, led by the Turkish Mavi Marmara flotilla which caused Israel unprecedented harmful propaganda,” he claimed.
“Some Hamas figures in Britain are leading the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement (BDS) and some have even filed legal complaints against British journalists who claimed that they have links with Hamas’ military activities, while others have issued anti-Semitic statements and got closer to Corbyn who received at the British Parliament Hamas representatives who had expressed their support for armed operations,” Beck added.
Meanwhile, former Director General of the Ministry of International Affairs and Strategy, Major General Yossi Kuperwasser, said “Britain is witnessing the emergence of what we can call the Green-Red Alliance, and one of its objectives is to wipe Israel off the map.”
“This alliance extends from Britain to the rest of the Western countries including the United States, but Britain is still the strongest body to export the Muslim Brotherhood’s ideology to the rest of the globe.”
“Palestinian activists in Britain are aiming to establish more Islamic organisations to influence the Kingdom’s internal and external policies,” he added.
And now, our God, what can we say after this? For we have forsaken the commandments that You gave through Your servants the prophets, saying: ‘The land you are entering to possess is a land polluted by the impurity of its peoples and the abominations with which they have filled it from end to end. Now, therefore, do not give your daughters in marriage to their sons or take their daughters for your sons. Never seek their peace or prosperity, so that you may be strong and may eat the good things of the land, leaving it as an inheritance to your sons forever.’ – Ezra 9:11
The Presidents of Israel say a great deal about the nature of the self proclaimed ‘Jewish State’. An Israeli President is positioned upon a pedestal, as perhaps one of the most highly regarded figures, so is of much significance to the country’s image.
Often attempts are made to whitewash, the well documented, Israeli crimes perpetrated against the Palestinian people. Many Israeli committed atrocities have simply been glossed over as “mistakes”, whilst the line is then towed, that the State of Israel is aligned with the values of the Western World. Most mainstream media figure-heads will even attempt to paint Israel as a progressively oriented democratic state.
A state/country can often be judged by who it picks to represent it and who it chooses to project its image to the world.
The broadly accepted notion that there are “a few bad apples” that exist within the Israeli political institution, does not properly confront the recurring themes of bigotry, terrorism, sexism, fraud and xenophobia, that are found when investigating the conduct of the Presidents of Israel.
The following presents small samples of what Israeli Presidents felt comfortable sharing with the world.
Chaim Weizmann – First President of the State of Israel:
Israel’s first ever President was Chaim Weizmann, he remained President until his death on the 9th of November, 1952. He is, to this day, widely regarded as one of the founding fathers of the State of Israel, this is due to his early involvement in the Zionist Movement.
Chaim Weizmann sums up very succinctly, his Zionist perception of Arab people, in a letter written in 1918, stating that; “The Arab is primitive and believes what he is told” (as quoted in One Palestine Complete, P. 109). The former President also denied the existence of an Arab nation inside the state of Palestine, at the time (1918), describing Arabs as “Ignorant” and “Naive” during a discussion on Arabs in Palestine.
Yitzhak Ben Zvi – Second President of the State of Israel:
Yitzhak Ben-Zvi was Israel’s President from 1952 until 1963.
The following, extremely racist comment, was written in an article by the former President, published by the Ultra-Orthodox newspaper “Hassidic World”:
“the Arabs are a people similar to donkeys… they are a vile nation of savages… they have a great desire to murder and are even worse than the Nazi enemy.”
The above quote is but a sample of an article, reported upon by the Israeli News outlet Ynet News (on the 26th of August 2006). This blatantly racist article, was not the product of a neo-Nazi street thug, but rather a man who was Israel’s President for almost 9 years.
Zalman Shazar – Third President of the State of Israel:
Zalman Shazar served as Israel’s President for three days short of 10 years, between 1963 and 1973. In 1951, Zalman Shazar expressed himself, promoting an idea that has remained embedded in Israeli ideology to this day, White Jewish Supremacy.
On Page 35, of the book ‘Intra-Jewish Conflict in Israel: White Jews, Black Jews’, written by Sami Shalom Chetrit, Zalman Shazar is quoted as sharing the following statement, regarding the dangers posed by the ‘Mizrahi Aliyah’ (Non-White Jews):
“It will cost us dearly. This is Unfathomable… An Aliyah has to come to us who never knew the taste of a high school, and they are unused to so much education, to do so much learning… Suppose that, okay, we can bring them to graduate primary schools, but what will the level be then, what will the yishuv be like, would we able to be a light for the Gentiles?… Will the yishuv in Israel survive without more Europeans and Anglo-Saxons, Jews like us?”
Ephraim Katzir – The Fourth President of the State of Israel:
Serving from 1973 until 1978, Ephraim Katzir was the fourth President of the State of Israel.
Ephraim Katzir was infamously the man who founded the first known facility, used to produce Israeli biological weapons.
In 1993, the former President confirmed his involvement in the Israeli biological weapons program. Ephraim Katzir in an interview with Sara Leibovitz, for the Israeli newspaper ‘Hadashot’, pleaded guilty to indeed starting HEMED BEIT (Israel’s biological weapons facility). Ephraim Katzir says during the interview for Hadashot:
“I was involved in HEMED BEIT from the beginning. We planned various activities, to get a sense of what CBW is and how could we build a potential [in this area] should there be a need for such a potential.”
Yitzhak Navon – Fifth President of the State of Israel:
Between 1978 and 1983 Yitzhak Navon served as the Israeli President.
A point Yitzhak Navon made clear, was that the Israeli labor movements intentions were to cleanse the native Palestinians of their historic homeland. In Bernard Avishai’s, ‘The Tragedy of Zionism’ (P.340), written in 1985, he quotes the former President as saying:
“The very point of Labor’s Zionist program is to have as much land as possible and as few Arabs as possible!”
Chaim Herzog – The Sixth President of the State of Israel:
Chaim Herzog was the sixth President of Israel and held his position from 1983 until 1993.
Herzog was perhaps most famous for a speech he delivered, addressing the United Nations in 1974, condemning ‘General Assembly resolution 3373’, which equated Zionism to racism. During this speech he consistently refers to the terrorism committed by Arabs and uses the holocaust along with Jewish persecution – along with frequent references to religious rights to the land – to justify committing crimes against the Palestinians.
Constantly pointing the finger at Arabs for what he defined as “terrorism”, Chaim Herzog forgets to mention that he was himself a member of the Haganah. The Haganah were considered, by British Mandate Forces in Palestine, to be a terrorist organization before the group morphed into the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), post 1948.
At the 73rd Address to the Canadian Parliament, Chaim Herzog, on the 27th of June in 1989, said the following:
“As Golda Meir once said, she cannot forgive the Arabs not so much because they kill our children but because they force our children to kill theirs.”
Various Israeli websites and journalists, have attempted to claim that the words of Golda Meir (Former Israeli Prime Minister) were fabricated. The above quote shows, that not only did Chaim Herzog believe these words had came from Golda Meir, but also, that he thought that this statement was perfectly viable himself.
Ezer Weizman – The Seventh President of the State of Israel:
Ezer Weizman was the President of Israel from 1993 until the year 2000. He resigned from his position as President, after it emerged in 1999, that he was involved in a bribery scandal.
Ezer Weizman was widely known as a misogynist and was accused of making homophobic comments on several occasions. The former president infamously said, in the event of a female being refused to take a pilot course (1993): “have you ever seen a man sewing a pair of socks?”.
Moshe Katzav – The Eighth President of the State of Israel:
Moshe Katzav was President of Israel from the year 2000 until 2007. He resigned as President, handing it over as part of a plea bargain, during an ongoing court case, after being accused of raping multiple women.
Moshe Katzav was sentenced to 7 years imprisonment for rape, he was granted parole after 5 years.
As well as being a convicted rapist, he also had no quarrel with spouting out his hatred of Palestinians. It was reported on the 11th of May, 2001, by the Jerusalem post, that Moshe Katzav said:
“There is a huge gap between us and our enemies – not just in ability but in morality, culture, sanctity of life, and conscience”. Katsav told this to a ‘Beit Hanassi’ reporter, using the killing of two Israelis by Palestinians, as an opportunity to publicly express Jewish supremacist views. Moshe Katsav later went rambled on to the reporter, that it was terrifying to realize how much hatred the Palestinians harbor against Israelis, “for no reason”.
Shimon Peres – The Ninth President of the State of Israel:
Shimon Peres became Israeli President in 2007 and lasted until 2014. Many still regard Shimon Peres as a peacemaker, the reality of his legacy is quite the opposite however.
Shimon Peres was the founder of Israel’s Nuclear program, he was also the first one to endorse Israeli settlement projects in the occupied territories.
“They [Palestinians] are self victimizing. They victimize themselves. They are a victim of their own mistakes, unnecessarily .”
Although he loved to preach to the media, of his hopes for a ‘two state solution’, Peres’ actions spoke louder than words. He would also – as quoted above – use any chance he could to advance the image of Israeli’s, morally and intellectually, attaching the notions of Arab stupidity and Palestinian inferiority. His rhetoric was not as vicious as those before or after him, but his actions however were perhaps worse.
Reuven Rivlin – The Tenth President of the State of Israel:
Reuven Rivlin is the current President of the State of Israel, taking the position in 2014.
The current President of Israel, who’s Prime Minister is Netanyahu, seeks to annex the West Bank and currently works to undermine any peace effort.
Along with his calls, to absorb the West Bank into the state of Israel, the President of Israel has made it clear, his stance on Palestinian refugees. The Israeli ‘Ynet News’, published an article in 2015, in which they quote Rivlin as stating the following:
“They call for the right of the return of refugees to Israel – something which is unacceptable for the consensus in Israel and which strikes at the very heart of this issue.”
Without going into his character in too much detail, the current President seeks the end of the Palestinian people. Reuven Rivlin aims to annex the West Bank, has overseen the US recognition of Israel’s Capital as Jerusalem, takes a firm stance against refugee return and currently refuses to act as the Gaza strip is in a declared state of emergency.
With such criminal and obnoxious consistency, is it perhaps correct to assume that Israel’s highly regarded and symbolic figures (its Presidents), somewhat reflected/reflect the country’s attitude and/or opinions?
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?
Media, parliamentary, academic and other supporters of apartheid Israel have abused University of Sydney doctoral student Jay Tharappel for his outspoken support of Yemen, opposition to Israel and his consistent stance against the long wars 0n Syria and Korea.
Much of the western media falsely pretend that the massively internationalized war on Syria is a “civil war”. Most also refuse to recognize the simple fact that, over the past 65 years, the USA has never agreed to a peace agreement with North Korea.
The personal attacks on Jay reveal a shallow recognition of free speech in Australia. It is extraordinary that so much abuse has been heaped on one dissident voice. Demands for censorship of his political comments have come from various sources, but many of them supporters of the apartheid state of Israel.
First came the bully and smear media, from Murdoch’s Daily Telegraph, and from Channel Seven. The Murdoch tabloid, in a torrent of personal abuse, attacked Jay for rejecting the false chemical weapons claims against Syria, in April 2017. It then falsely claimed that Jay’s criticism of Murdoch journalist Kylar Loussikian was a racist attack.
In August 2018 Channel Seven manufactured another scandal about Jay, falsely claiming that a Yemeni badge he wore in China was ‘anti-semitic’. One part of that badge, seen on Jay’s shirt in one of my social media posts, said ‘death to Israel’.
The photo was simply one of the friends at lunch. Channel Seven, using the false translation “death to Israeli”, claiming it was a racist incitement. I posted in response that the Channel Seven piece ‘promotes ignorance, apartheid, and war’.
In fact ‘death to Israel’ is a political statement by the Yemeni group Ansarallah, which calls for an end to apartheid Israel, the regime that is reported to have killed a Palestinian child every three days for the past 18 years. The Australian government sells arms to the Saudis to bomb Yemen, as they ignore that terrible war and try to suppress any news about Yemen.
Later, the University of Sydney told the Sydney Morning Herald that I was “under investigation” for refusing to take down that photo of Jay and friends at lunch. After a Sydney Morning Herald [allegation] against me, I made a social media statement explaining my position.
For Channel Seven’s principal sources journalist, Bryan Seymour used two people (to represent “many in the Jewish and Muslim community”). First was a well-known supporter of Israel, Vic Alhadeff. Vic was previously a chair of the NSW Community Relations Commission but resigned in 2014 after posting in support of Israel’s bloody reign of terror in Gaza.
The other was Jordanian-Australian Jamal Daoud, who claimed to represent a Palestinian group but is best known for his repeated attacks on those who support Syria. He has abused many supporters of Syria as ‘spies’ and ‘prostitutes’. In 2017 he took an Israeli propagandist to Syria, and since then has been wanted for questioning in Syria. Earlier, in 2015, he began an online petition to challenge a security ban on him entering Lebanon.
The corporate media came back to abuse Jay after he wrote a thoughtful piece on his visit to North Korea (DPRK) in the student newspaper Honi Soit. The article defended independent Korea while it described in some detail what he had seen there. On social media pages, many appreciated the unusual article, while others responded with censorial outrage.
The Daily Telegraph added another abusive piece, which copied much of Jay’s article while adding invective. Even the state-owned ABC wrote in support of the demand that the article be taken down, simply because it was seen as too favorable to North Korea.
Why the hysteria over criticism of Israel? Well, both the Murdoch media and Channel Seven have deep business links with Israel’s occupation forces, including those who regularly demolish Palestinian homes in their ethnic cleansing purges.
Pro-Israel figures and some Jewish media in Australia predictably and falsely tried to conflate Jay’s and my opposition to Israel with anti-Jewish racism. I have made my position on Israel and racism very clear on many occasions, most recently in an article called The Future of Palestine.
A selection of pro-Israel types jumped on the bandwagon. They included federal Labor MP Tim Watts, who attacked Jay’s article and Honi Soit, saying ‘everyone associated with this article ought to be ashamed’.
In fact, Tim Watts is yet another supporter of apartheid Israel. In late 2015 he went on an Israeli-government paid junket to Israel, in a group led by conservative minister Christopher Pyne. The group seemed to toe the Israeli line because Palestinian minister Dr. Sabri Saidam described them as “rude” and “not well educated” on Palestine.
Subsequently, Tim Watts took his Israel connection seriously. He strongly recommended the book ‘My Promised Land’ by Ari Shavit, which explains how Israel created “something unique and quite endearing” in a tough neighborhood.
This “unique and quite endearing” creation was described by an authoritative 2017 report to the United Nations as an ‘apartheid state’ and therefore ‘a crime against humanity’. US academic lawyers Richard Falk and Virginia Tilley wrote that “the situation in Israel-Palestine constitutes an unmet obligation of the organized international community to resolve a conflict, partially generated by its own actions”.
Professor Ariadne Vromen, a professor in Government at the University of Sydney, and opponent of the BDS campaign against Israel, jumped in, inexplicably, attacking the former Syrian Ambassador to Australia Tammam Sulayman. Ambassador Sulayman is now Syria’s envoy to North Korea, and it was he who invited us to visit that country.
Ariadne claimed that Ambassador Tammam had failed her research design course, 15 years ago. “He didn’t pass first year”, she said. After some criticism, she removed her post.
Of course, it is inappropriate for academics to abuse students or former students, or to humiliate them for their grades or results. In this case, Ariadne’s comments were also false. When I enquired, Ambassador Sulayman spelled out to me the reason why he had left Ariadne’s class and his doctoral studies at the University:
“Of course I didn’t complete at that time with Ariadne because [his supervisor, another academic] started the war on me and I complained against her to the university. So I stopped everything … in my [thesis] preface I stated there is no linkage between the secular Baath party and al Qaeda … but she said ‘that does not exclude links between Saddam and al Qaeda’, and I said but we are talking about the Baath party … Then she started returning every paper I sent her … she is a clear Zionist … It is silly for [Ariadne] to say that I didn’t finish even one year without mentioning the reason.”
Professor Vromen’s abuse of a former student and ambassador is strange. Why would an academic jump in to abuse a former student, in the context of an abusive media campaign against another student? What is wrong with honest discussion?
Unfortunately, this is not an isolated incident. The University of Sydney is well known for harboring pro-apartheid-Israel academics. It hosts a research project backed by US Government-funded agencies, called ‘The Electoral Integrity Project’. That project rates the electoral democracy of many countries. As it happens, they rate Israel’s ‘democracy’ very highly (17/127), even though the Jewish state is notorious for its institutionalized racism.
In 2007-08 the University of Sydney accepted a large grant from the American Australian Association, to establish a ‘United States Studies Centre’. This was mostly Australian Government money but came at the suggestion of media mogul Rupert Murdoch. The idea of the Centre came from a desire to repair the damage done to the image of the USA in the wake of its 2003 invasion of Iraq. I wrote an article about this scandal, back in 2010.
Washington remains the major funder and arms provider to apartheid Israel, providing the racist state with more than three billion dollars every year, mostly in military subsidies.
It doesn’t take a genius to detect the present volatile state of British Jewish institutions. To the outside observer, some of the actions of Britain’s so-called Jewish ‘leaders’ may seem to be a form of collective insanity. Yet, the Brits do not seem to be at all impressed. They are perplexed by the self-propelled collective hysteria. Naturally, many Brits do not agree with Corbyn on issues; some may not agree with his pacifist politics, others see him as a naïve delusional lefty, a few are upset by his association with controversial characters, but no one except a few Israel firsters sees Corbyn as a crazed ‘anti-Semite,’ let alone as a Hitler type who puts Jewish life under an “existential threat.” While it isn’t clear whether Corbyn can unite the Brits against their horrid government, it is increasingly likely that the Zionist lobby has the capacity to unite the Brits behind Corbyn. A comment on twitter the other day noted that “not supporting Corbyn at this point is an act of treason.”
This week the ex-chief rabbi, Jonathan Sacks, became completely unhinged; comparing Corbyn to Enoch Powell’s “rivers of blood” speech. In an interview Rabbi Sacks maintained that Corbyn “undermines the existence of an entire group of British citizens by depicting them as essentially alien.” What had Corbyn said that provoked such an extreme reaction from the celebrity rabbi? Apparently, in 2013 Corbyn criticised British Zionists by suggesting that they have two problems. “One is they don’t want to study history and, secondly, having lived in this country for a very long time, probably all their lives, they don’t understand English irony.”
This raises some obvious questions: 1. What is it in Corbyn’s statement that sparked Rabbi Sacks’ outburst, and 2. How is it possible that when Corbyn speaks about Zionists, Rabbi Sacks hears ‘Jews’?
One possibility is that in Rabbi Sacks’ mind, Jews and Zionists are one and the same. After all, Rabbi Sacks believes that “anti Zionism is the new anti-Semitism.” The rabbi freely associates ‘Zionists,’ ‘Semites’ and ‘Jews.’ Someone should remind the rabbi that the suggestion that ‘Jews’ and Zionists are somehow the same might fall within the IHRA Working Definition of Antisemitsm. According to the definition, manifestations of anti-Semitism “might include the targeting of the state of Israel, conceived as a Jewish collectivity.” In his interpretation of Corbyn’s words, Rabbi Sacks seems to expand the term ‘Zionists’ into meaning ‘Jewish collectivity.’ I am afraid that our ex-chief rabbi may have fallen into the IHRA trap, something you might expect from a Talmudic Jewish scholar but not from an Oxford graduate.
The truth of the matter is that Corbyn has managed to touch the most sensitive Jewish collective nerve. In Corbyn’s universalist egalitarian offering there is no room for tribal exceptionalism. In Corbyn’s universe, Jews are just ordinary people and not God’s chosen people. Corbyn’s ‘for the many not the few’ doesn’t conform to chosenism, Jewish or identitarian. But we can see that this universalist perception of the ‘many’ is interpreted by British Jewish leadership as a casus belli– a call for a war.
Corbyn’s reference to Zionists’ ‘lack of British irony’ touched the rawest Jewish nerve. He stumbled upon the Jewish ‘assimilation complex.’
Since the emancipation of European Jewry, a 19th century political transition, Jews have been struggling to define their identity and role in the wider society. Emancipation invited assimilation, it offered Jews the ability to become an indistinguishable part of the ‘many,’ but this transformative shift would have entailed a loss of Jewish identity. This dilemma is known as the ‘Jewish Question.’ Zionism was initially an attempt to resolve the Jewish question and the assimilation dilemma. It offered Jews the ability to be ‘people like all other people’ but in a different place. Zionism promised to take the Jews away while allowing Jews to assimilate, although as a distinct nation amongst nations. Zionism gave Jews a way to resolve the tension between assimilation and preservation. The Jews were saved the danger of integrating into their host nations and allowed to preserve many if not most of their cultural traits, as Israel proves on a daily basis.
The Jewish fear of assimilation is not a secret. Golda Meir who served as Israel’s Prime Minister at the time of October War (1973), believed that Jews who assimilate are essentially partners to the Nazis, since through assimilation they are exterminating the continuation of the Jewish people. For Meir, mixed marriages, and not the Arabs, were the greatest danger to the Jewish people. With Meir’s anti assimilationist view in mind, it is clear why Corbyn’s traditional socialist view of ‘the many’ poses an existential danger to those who insist upon being ‘the few.’ Corbyn’s well meaning invitation to the Jews and everyone else to fully integrate into British society is interpreted by Zionist Jews as a threat of extermination (to use Golda Meir’s loaded terminology).
Rabbi Sacks’ reaction, however, takes us to a new level in our understanding of the Zionist mindset. The rabbi actually accused Corbyn of implying that “Jews are not fully British.” But that was not what Corbyn said or implied. He suggested that “Zionists” are not exactly British, a statement that poses no problem for most Zionists since they openly and voluntarily swear allegiance to another state, one that is nationalist, racist and expansionist and shares few, if any, values with Britain or the West.
In order to grasp Rabbi Sacks’ recent outburst we may have to appeal once again to the famous French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan’s astute observation: “unconscious is the discourse of the Other.”The unconscious, according to Lacan, is the fear that the Other, in this case, the gentile, the humanist or shall we say Corbyn and the Brits see you truly. It is the tormenting thought that the Goy may be able to detect the lie. It is the unbearable anxiety that the Brits know that British Zionists aren’t exactly Brits, they are deeply devoted to another state and its foreign interests, they never assimilated and do not plan to assimilate in the near future. The Lacanian unconscious is the fear that a Goy may stand up one day and decide to call a spade a spade or, way more disturbing, refer to a celebrity ex-chief rabbi as a “far right extremist,” as Trade Union activist Eddie Dempsey suggests in the video below:
The nasty slur campaign against Jeremy Corbyn has just plumbed new depths with a hark-back to 1968 and the “Rivers of Blood” speech by Enoch Powell. It seems to have been prompted by a remark Corbyn made in 2013 that British Zionists had two problems: “One is they don’t want to study history and, secondly, having lived in this country for a very long time, probably all their lives, they don’t understand English irony.”
In anti-Semitism terms that’s a flogging offence, even when it might be true. The former Chief Rabbi, Lord Jonathan Sacks, immediately took umbrage saying that Corbyn’s criticism of British Zionists was the most offensive statement made by a senior politician since Enoch Powell’s Rivers of Blood speech. Sacks told the New Statesman : “It was divisive, hateful and, like Powell’s speech, it undermines the existence of an entire group of British citizens by depicting them as essentially alien.”
He said Corbyn had implied “Jews are not fully British” and that he was “using the language of classic pre-war European anti-Semitism”, adding that Corbyn was an anti-Semite who “defiles our politics and demeans the country we love”. He had “given support to racists, terrorists and dealers of hate who want to kill Jews and remove Israel from the map”.
Sacks’ words could equally be taken to mean those who align themselves with Israeli hate and the wish to kill Palestinians and wipe Palestine from the map – which they have already done quite literally. And if Corbyn defiles our politics so does the Israel lobby. But the irony must have escaped him.
Just how righteous is the moralising Lord Sacks? In a House of Lords debate in 2014 on the Middle East in general and the question of formal recognition of Palestine by the UK in particular, the former Chief Rabbi got up and made a speech that was more like a pro-Israel rant. After a long winded spiel about the history of Israel and Jerusalem – from the Jewish angle of course – he went on to demonise Hamas and Hezbollah in the manner recommended by Israel’s ‘hasbara’ handbook and all the more absurd when Israel’s hands are so unclean. Everyone knows that Hamas has agreed to a long-term truce with Israel provided it ends the illegal occupation, gets back behind its 1967 borders and accepts the refugees’ right of return – all as per UN resolutions and subject to a Palestinian referendum. And Hezbollah, as Sacks knows perfectly well, was formed to resist the Israeli occupation of Lebanon after the 1982 war.
Israel, said Sacks, is the place where his people were born almost 4,000 years ago. As an ardent promoter of the Jewish religion, the Jewish state and the idea that God gave Jews exclusive title to Jerusalem, he seemed oblivious to the irony of his speech especially where he said: “When ancient theologies are used for modern political ends, they speak a very dangerous language indeed. So, for example, Hamas and Hezbollah, both self-defined as religious movements, refuse to recognise the legitimacy of the state of Israel within any boundaries whatever and seek only its complete destruction.”
Where does he get his information? Israel won’t define its boundaries, leaving them fluid for endless expansion, and does a first-class job of de-legitimising itself by its defiance of international law and utter contempt for norms of human decency and obligations under UN Charter and other agreements.
Zionists distort the scriptures to claim Jerusalem is theirs by Divine right, it was already 2000 years old and an established, fortified city when King David captured it. The Jews lost Jerusalem to the Babylonians, recaptured it, then lost it again to the Roman Empire in 63BC. When they rebelled Hadrian threw them out in 135. Until the present illegal occupation the Jews had only controlled Jerusalem for some 500 years, small beer compared to the 1,277 years it was subsequently ruled by Muslims and the 2000 years, or thereabouts, it originally belonged to the Canaanites.
Jerusalem was also a Christian city. The 4th century saw the building of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. The Persians came and went. Then, after the Islamic conquest in 690, two major shrines were constructed over the ruins of the earlier temples — the Dome of the Rock from which Muhammed is said to have ascended to Heaven, and the Al-Aqsa Mosque. The Crusaders re-took Jerusalem in 1099 and The Temple Mount became the headquarters of the Knights Templar. In 1187 Saladin ended the Crusader Kingdom and restored the city to Islam while allowing Jews and Christians to remain if they wished.
As the saying goes, “None has claim. All have claim!”
Nowhere in his speech did Lord Sacks address the main question of British recognition of Palestinian statehood. Nowhere did he recommend the jackboot of oppression be immediately lifted and the Palestinians granted their human rights and their freedom. That would surely have been the Christian position and, I imagine [?], the true Jewish one.
It is what the Rabbi failed to say on this important occasion that makes me wonder whether he’s an instrument of God or just another preacher of Israeli ‘hasbara’. I read somewhere that Lord Sacks is of Polish/Lithuanian extraction. Most Palestinians can demonstrate ancestral ties to the ancient Holy Land. Can he?
“Jeremy Corbyn moved the rock and the antisemites crawled out”
Corbyn is also in trouble over a remark he made in 2010 at a meeting of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign suggesting that MPs who took part in a parliamentary debate on the Middle East had their comments prepared for them by the Israeli ambassador. I’d say that was fair comment although the scriptwriters were more likely to have been Mark Regev’s propaganda team in Tel Aviv. Regev, a propaganda expert from the dark side, is now Israel’s ambassador in London. Oh, the irony (again).
And a few days ago we heard that Jews are preparing to quit Britain because they fear Jeremy Corbyn taking power, according to the former chairman of the Conservative Party Lord Feldman. So says The Times.
Feldman wrote an open letter to Mr. Corbyn telling him that Jewish people were making contingency plans to emigrate because Labour had become a hotbed of anti-Jewish feeling. “Many Jewish people in the United Kingdom are seriously contemplating their future here in the event of you becoming prime minister. Quietly, discreetly and extremely reluctantly, they are making contingency plans.”
One of these is Mark Lewis, a prominent solicitor and a former director of lawfare firm UK Lawyers for Israel, who is emigrating to Israel with his partner, Mandy Blumenthal. It is believed she is the National Director of Likud-Herut UK, an affiliate of the Zionist Federation and whose website is full of preposterous ideas such as: “We believe that terms like ‘illegal occupation’ should never go unchallenged….” and “Such criticism as we may have [of Israel] should never be expressed publicly….”
Lewis, who describes himself as an ‘unapologetic Zionist’, said: “Jeremy Corbyn moved the rock and the antisemites crawled out from underneath.” And he told the Evening Standard: “I don’t feel welcome in this country anymore.” So he’s off to that hotbed of racism and apartheid, Israel.
Being unwelcome is not a happy feeling. I know this from my trips to Israel, what with their rudeness, threatening behavior, intrusive searches, hostile questioning and unforgivably vile treatment of our Palestinian friends. It’s not as if we want to be in Israel – we are forced to divert there on account of Israel’s illegal military occupation. And when we eventually reach Palestine we have to put up with the presence of arrogant Israeli gunslingers strutting the streets, setting up hundreds of roadblocks, using obstructive tactics with brutish behavior, creating endless queues and interfering with Palestinian life at every level.
And if we try traveling to Palestine direct, like the humanitarian aid boats Al-Awda, and Freedom last month, we get violently and unlawfully assaulted on the high seas, beaten up, thrown in a stinking Israeli jail and have our belongings and money stolen by the Israeli military desperate to maintain their illegal blockade of Gaza.
So, if Messrs Feldman, Lewis and Blumenthal feel more comfortable with those criminals they’d better join them.
In answer to the babble put out by Zio-propagandists, church leaders in the Holy Land issued their 2006 Jerusalem Declaration saying:
“We categorically reject Christian Zionist doctrines as false teaching that corrupts the biblical message of love, justice and reconciliation.
“We further reject the contemporary alliance of Christian Zionist leaders and organizations with elements in the governments of Israel and the United States that are presently imposing their unilateral pre-emptive borders and domination over Palestine… We reject the teachings of Christian Zionism that facilitate and support these policies as they advance racial exclusivity and perpetual war rather than the gospel of universal love, redemption and reconciliation.”
This still stands. And as the Declaration also points out, “discriminative actions [by the Occupation] are turning Palestine into impoverished ghettos surrounded by exclusive Israeli settlements. The establishment of the illegal settlements and the construction of the Separation Wall on confiscated Palestinian land undermines the viability of a Palestinian state as well as peace and security in the entire region”.
That comes from genuine churchmen working in the front line against armed Zio-thugs whose vicious day-to-day persecution of the Christian and Muslim communities in the Holy Land makes a nonsense of accusations of anti-semitism in the UK.
I think we can deduce from all this that Zionism is a menace. Nothing has changed for the better; it has got steadily worse.
‘We want our Jerusalem back, and our state’
In 2010 Fr Manuel Musallam, a gritty Catholic priest with long experience of Israel’s cruel and illegal occupation, told members of the Irish Government: “Christianity in the region has been destroyed not by Muslims but by Israel. Israel destroyed the church of Palestine and the church of Jerusalem beginning in 1948. It, not Muslims, has sent Christians in the region into a diaspora… We have spoken to Israel for more than 18 years and the result has been zero. We have signed agreements here and there at various times and then when there is a change in the Government of Israel we have to start again from the beginning. We ask for our life and to be given back our Jerusalem, to be given our state and for enough water to drink… I have not seen Jerusalem since 1990.”
Archbishop Theodosius Hanna (Greek Orthodox Church) told them: “Palestine is the place from where Christianity comes…. Everything that has happened to the Palestinians between 1948 and today has happened to all Palestinians, including Christian Palestinians.
“What we are after is freedom and dignity just as freedom and dignity have been bestowed on so many nations in the world. We want that too. When we speak about peace, we also speak about justice because it is impossible to have peace without justice. Peace is part of justice. Unfortunately, in the Holy Land there is no such thing as justice.”
Corbyn should remind his tormentors of all this and take no lectures from those who support Zionism and adore the racist state it spawned.
A fake pro-Israel protest manufactured by US-based lobbying groups has been exposed in an exclusive clip from a censored Al Jazeera documentary on Israel’s influence in the US.
The release of the much-anticipated US version of undercover documentary The Lobby has been stalled since the UK version, which aired in 2017, revealed Israel’s influence within the Labour party and its role in drumming up accusations of anti-Semitism.
The US version is yet to be broadcast, reportedly because of pressure placed on Qatar, which owns Al Jazeera. The delay has prompted segments to be leaked.
Fake protests revealed
The Grayzone Project’s Max Blumenthal released a new segment Tuesday, revealing that US think tanks arranged a fake protest to disrupt a Students for Palestine national conference in 2016. The practice is known as astroturfing and aims to create an illusion of dissent where there is none, in turn creating press coverage to further the agenda of the perpetrators.
The footage features Noah Pollak, executive director of the Emergency Committee on Israel, along with fellows from the Hoover Institution. A fellow named Marshall reveals Pollak’s views on students who support Palestine, recounting how he told them, “Look, there are these jihadis who basically support suicide bombing, and they’re on a campus and you have to stop them.”
“This is astroturfing,” he said, and admitted his boss told him attendance was “mandatory.” Marshall also revealed how much he is paid as a fellow when he joked about what people would say if he was exposed.
“They’re like, ‘Oh, who are these traitors who sold out to the Jewish conspiracy for money?’” he began. “I’m like, ‘We did! We cost $50,000 plus benefits.”
The video shows the protesters being briefed to stay on message and emphasize that the student group is a “hate group.” The staged protest includes Pollak shouting a number of claims about Palestinians, including, “they kill women, they kill children.”
The footage includes a clip of Pollak explaining that the US is more pro-Israel than the UK, which, he says, “let half of f*cking Pakistan in.”
The Lobby reveals US groups work in tandem with elements of Israel’s military intelligence and Israel advocates like casino billionaire Sheldon Adelson, the Grayzone Project reports.
Fighting BDS
Israel has gone to great lengths to disrupt support for Palestine and the international Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, which calls for an end to Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories.
The country’s Strategic Affairs Ministry, dubbed Israel’s ‘anti-BDS startup,’ created a blacklist of 20 international BDS groups, which included Students for Justice in Palestine. It also set up Kella Shlomo, which received $37 million from the government to counter BDS online. Israel also lobbies other countries to pass laws making participation in the boycott illegal, and attempts to silence student support on campuses in the US and UK.
An earlier leaked clip from the documentary revealed an anonymous website targeting students for supporting Palestine was funded by Adam Milstein, a US investor and top donor to the Israel lobby.
UK Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, who is battling allegations of anti-Semitism in his party, has come under fire for a 2010 speech where he said speeches British lawmakers make are controlled by the Tel Aviv regime.
The videotaped remarks were made during Corbyn’s meeting with the Palestine Solidarity Campaign in London following Israel’s deadly raid on an aid flotilla that attempted to break the years-long blockade on the Gaza Strip, the Daily Mail reported Tuesday.
During the May 2010 attack, 10 Turkish activists onboard the Mavi Marmara were killed after Israeli naval commandos boarded the ship and opened fire.
Criticizing British lawmakers’ pro-Israeli reactions to the attack, Corbyn reportedly said during the meeting that the MPs “all turned up [to the debating chamber] with a pre-prepared script. I’m sure our friend Ron Prosor (the Israeli ambassador) wrote it. Because they all came up with the same key words. It was rather like reading a European document looking for buzz-words.”
“And the buzz-words were, ‘Israel’s need for security.’ And then ‘the extremism of the people on one ship.’ And ‘the existence of Turkish militants on the vessel.’ It came through in every single speech, this stuff came through,” he added.
The Israeli lobby has long complained about what it calls Corbyn’s tolerance for anti-Semitism in his party.
An open critic of Israel’s crimes against the people of Palestine, Corbyn has drawn fire from his opponents by allowing the members of his party to speak their mind about Israel and its occupation of Palestinian lands.
Earlier this week, the Campaign Against Anti-Semitism launched an online campaign to pressure Labour lawmakers into issuing a vote of no-confidence in Corbyn and force him to resign.
The Labour leader most recently came under fire for video footage of a speech from 2013, where he says “Zionists” can’t understand British ways of thinking despite growing up in the country. Corbyn defended his remarks, saying by Zionists did not mean Jews.
Meanwhile, Corbyn’s allies in and outside of the UK have rushed to his support in the face of the Israeli media upsurge that try to portray him as an anti-Semite.
Israeli lawmaker Haneen Zoabi said Wednesday that the attacks against Corbyn were “unjust, offensive and absurd.”
“Corbyn’s criticism is justified. And the state, which deals with theft, murder and racist acts under the law of nationality, is rightly justified by this criticism,” the Israeli Knesset member said.
An Israeli institute recently brought 73 high school graduates from around the world on a month-long, all-expenses-paid trip to Israel. Much of this is funded by tax-deductible donations from the U.S.
For almost half a century, the program, which is run by a project of Israel’s Weizmann Institute, has been bringing students to Israel with two purposes: to learn about science and to “learn about life in Israel.”
It appears that what they learn about Israel is substantially filtered.
There is no indication that the students hear from Israeli groups such as B’Tselem or the Israeli Committee Against Home Demolitions that expose Israel’s long record of human rights violations, from Israeli soldiers who are breaking the silence on Israeli military violence, or from groups like Addameer that could tell them about the thousands of Palestinians imprisoned by Israel who were never given a trial or charged with a crime.
An article about the program in JTA reports: “Each year about 70-80 students from around the world, both Jews and non-Jews, are accepted. The largest delegation – about 20 students – comes from the United States, but participants also have come from South Korea, Japan, Turkey, Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, New Zealand, Australia, Canada, European countries — and Israel. The program has more than 3,000 alumni.”
In addition to spending time in labs, JTA reports that the students “participate in cultural and social events, and go on field trips to different parts of Israel.”
While one young participant is quoted as saying: “You need to be here to know the real situation,” it’s doubtful that they actually learn that. There do not appear to be any trips to the Occupied Territories or meetings with Israeli journalists like Gideon Levy or Amira Hass, who might fill them in on some of the less glowing aspects of Israeli policies, or of the systemic discrimination against non-Jews in Israel.
While there are numerous American scientific institutes that conduct life-saving scientific and medical research, Weizmann USA – which is based in the U.S with offices throughout the country – funnels money to an institute in Israel. Even though every dollar for the young scientists program goes to Israel, this money is tax-deductible in the US, removing money from the U.S. economy.
The Institute proudly announces that “the Weizmann Institute’s graduate school is unique in that every student receives financial support.” A slick advertising promo to raise money for the Institute’s scientific research nowhere mentions that the donations go to Israel, not to U.S. research.
According to its website, discoveries at the Institute are “moved from the lab to the marketplace via the Yeda Research and Development Company, Inc., the Institute’s technology transfer arm.”
Among Yeda’s Board Members is Martin Gerstel, who was born in Norwalk, Connecticut, received a BS degree from Yale, and an MBA from Stanford. Gerstel is a director of Israel’s Teva Pharmaceuticals, which has captured the world market in generic drugs.
These programs are on top of massive U.S. governmental aid to Israel. The latest aid package, which is being pushed through Congress right now without public awareness or debate, is slated to give Israel $38 billion over the next 10 years. This works out to approximately $23,000 per Israeli family of four.
Seven Palestinian women from al-Khalil have been jailed by the Israeli occupation, with many held in intense, torturous interrogation for many weeks. The Israeli Shin Bet intelligence agency is now attempting to market these arrests in the media as an attack on “Hamas infrastructure” in al-Khalil in an attempt to justify the ongoing large-scale arrests targeting active Palestinian women in the city.
In addition to the main arrests targeting seven women, a number of other women were summoned to hours of interrogation before being released. Riyad al-Ashqar of the Palestinian Prisoners’ Center for Studies said that all of the women work in social services, public activities, media work or at home with their families and that none are involved in Hamas’ political or military work. He said that the Shin Bet’s claims are an attempt to create a state of fear and terror to suppress Palestinian women’s participation in activities against the crimes of the occupation or supporting the Palestinian resistance.
The campaign against Palestinian women in al-Khalil began with the arrest of City Council member Suzan Abdel-Karim Owawi, 40, on 5 June. She was subjected to extensive, harsh interrogation that was extended repeatedly during that time. In addition to her public service as an elected official, she is a social activist who works to support Palestinian prisoners; she is married and the mother of four children.
Safa Abu Hussein, 36, was arrested next after Israeli occupation forces invaded her home and took her to interrogation. Her detention has been extended four times.
Rawda Mohammed Abu Aisha, 53, was next to be seized by occupation forces; she was seized when she drove to a checkpoint in Bethlehem and taken to interrogation.
The occupation forces also arrested Dima Said al-Karmi, 38, the widow of Nashat al-Karmi, a Hamas activist killed by Israeli occupation forces and the mother of an 8-year-old daughter. She was taken to Ashkelon detention center and interrogated harshly and extensively and deprived of sleep. During her interrogation, she fainted on multiple occasions. Her detention has also been repeatedly extended.
Lama Khater, 42, is a Palestinian writer who was seized on 24 July by Israeli occupation forces after they invaded her family home. She was deprived of sleep, insulted and threatened by Israeli interrogators at the Ashkelon detention center. The mother of five children – the youngest only 2 – she is a political analyst and writer whose work is widely published on newspapers and websites.
Saida Badr, 55, is the wife of Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) member Mohammed Badr, 61, who has spent many years in Israeli prison including a recent sentence in administrative detention, imprisonment without charge or trial.
Finally, Sonia Hamouri, 40, a university lecturer, was seized from her family home in al-Khalil on 14 August. A number of other women were also detained for several hours and interrogated.
The Israeli occupation is accusing the women of communicating information from Palestinians in exile to those inside occupied Palestine, especially activists in Hamas. They were also accused of doing social and charitable work in support of the movement by providing aid to the prisoners’ families.
Palestinian political parties and movements are labeled “illegal organizations” by the Israeli occupation, and thousands of Palestinians are jailed for allegedly supporting or belonging to these liberation movements. One of the most common charges against Palestinian prisoners is “membership in an illegal organization,” as participation in most major Palestinian political movements is criminalized by the colonial occupation.
These seven women are among a total of approximately 63 Palestinian women prisoners, including several held without charge or trial under administrative detention, such as parliamentarian Khalida Jarrar and student Fidaa Akhalil.
Palestinian student Yousef Dweikat was banned from entering the campus of his university, An-Najah National University in occupied Nablus, on Tuesday, 28 August 2018. Dweikat, 20, a student at the Faculty of Engineering at the university and an activist with the Islamic Bloc student organization, was summoned to meet with Israeli occupation intelligence in the Salem military base.
When he presented himself, he was presented with an order barring him from his own university campus for the next six months. A Palestinian refugee who lives in Balata refugee camp, Dweikat, an electrical engineering student, is a former prisoner; he was arrested by Israeli occupation forces in March 2017 and jailed for six months for his involvement in student activities.
In an interview with Quds News, Dweikat called upon the university “to create solutions and alternatives so that this type of decision does not affect a larger number of university students.” He noted that the Israeli occupation had used a similar policy against university students in the 1980s and is now returning to those practices. Dweikat also said that his education was already delayed because of his previous detention and that he had already registered for the new year, paid his university fees and prepared to start the new semester. “My family and I are tense and frustrated. We do not know what we can do next to confront this unjust decision,” he said.
This is only the latest violation of the Palestinian right to education by the Israeli occupation. According to the Palestinian Ministry of Education, there are over 300 Palestinian university students imprisoned in Israeli jails. Each year, especially around the time of student council elections, universities face invasions and attacks on active students. Student leaders like Omar Kiswani, president of the Bir Zeit University student council, have been seized from campus in violent raids.
In addition, as the Palestinian Right to Enter campaign notes, international academics – including Palestinians born in exile with foreign passports – are routinely denied entry to Palestine by Israeli occupation forces at colonially controlled borders. By denying entry to scholars invited to teach, lecture or study at Palestinian universities, the Israeli occupation seeks to isolate Palestinian educators, scholars and students from their international peers.
These routine violations of Palestinian academic freedom – along with the racial exclusion of international students, particularly those identified as Arabs, Muslims or Palestinians – have added impetus to the ongoing call for academic boycott of Israeli institutions. The US Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel is urging universities, students and faculty to take a pledge to boycott “study abroad” programs run by Israeli institutions, “We Will not Study in Israel Until Palestinians Can Return: Boycott Study Abroad in Israel!” Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network is one of the endorsers of this call.
As many students head back to university around the world, solidarity with Palestinian students and scholars is particularly critical. These arrests and bans are an attempt to dismantle Palestinian students’ ability to learn, organize and uphold their identity, existence and struggle on campus. Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network urges supporters of Palestine on campuses around the world to join the campaign to boycott Study Abroad, support the academic boycott of Israel and hold events and activities to highlight the violation of Palestinian rights to education, particularly the imprisonment of Palestinian students.
Many believe that the easily observable dominance of the friends of Israel over some aspects of government policy is a phenomenon unique to the United States, where committed Jews and Christian Zionists are able to control both politicians and the media message relating to what is going on in the Middle East. Unfortunately, the reality is that there exists an “Israel Lobby” in many countries, all dedicated to advancing the agendas promoted by successive Israeli governments no matter what the actual interests of the host country might be. Failure to confront Israel’s crimes against humanity combined with an inability to resist its demands regarding how issues like anti-Semitism and hate speech are defined has done terrible damage to free speech in Western Europe and, most notably, in the Anglophone world.
For the United States this corruption of the media and the political process by Israel has meant endless wars in the Middle East as well of loss of civil liberties at home, but some other countries have compromised their own declared values far beyond that. Former Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper praised Israel completely inaccurately as a light that “… burns bright, upheld by the universal principles of all civilized nations – freedom, democracy justice.” He has also said “I will defend Israel whatever the cost” to Canada, an assertion that some might regard as very, very odd for a Canadian head of state.
In some other cases, Israel plays hardball directly, threatening retribution against governments that do not fall in line. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu recently warned New Zealand that backing a U.N. resolution condemning Israeli settlements would be a “declaration of war.” He was able to do so because he had confidence in the power of the Israel Lobby in that country to mobilize and produce the desired result.
It might surprise some that the “Mother of Parliaments” in Great Britain is perhaps the legislative body most dominated by Israeli interests, more in many respects than the Congress in the United States. The ruling Conservative Party has a Friends of Israel caucus that includes more than 80% of its Parliamentary membership. BICOM , the Britain Israel Communications and Research Centre, is an American Israel Political Action Committee (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 how that power is manifest, including that in Britain Jewish organizations uniquely are allowed to patrol heavily Jewish London neighborhoods in police-like uniforms while driving police-type vehicles. There have been reports of the patrols threatening Muslims who seek to enter the areas.
Prime Minister Theresa May is careful never to offend either Israel or the wealthy and powerful British Jewish community. After Secretary of State John Kerry described Israel’s government as “extreme right wing” on December 28, 2016, 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.” 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.
This deference all takes place in spite of a recent astonishing expose by al-Jazeera, which revealed 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).
British Labour Leader Jeremy Corbyn has been under unrelenting fire due to the fact that he is the first major political party leader in many years to resist the demands that he place Israel on a pedestal. Corbyn is indeed a man of the left who has consistently opposed racism, extreme nationalism, colonialism and military interventionism. Corbyn’s crime has been that he is critical of the Jewish state and has called for an “end to the repression of the Palestinian people.” As a reward, he has been hounded mercilessly by British Jews, even those in his own party, for over two years.
The invective being spewed by some British Jews and Israel has increased of late, presumably because Theresa May’s Conservative government is perceived as being weak and there is a distinct possibility that the leader of the Labour Party will be the next Prime Minister. That a Prime Minister might be sympathetic to the plight of the Palestinians is viewed as completely unacceptable.
Last month, rightwing Labour Parliamentarian Margaret Hodge raised the stakes, calling Corbyn “a fucking anti-Semite and a racist”. She then wrote in the Guardian that Labour is “a hostile environment for Jews.” The traditionally liberal Guardian has in fact been in the forefront of Jewish criticism of Corbyn, led by its senior editor Jonathan Freedland, who reportedly believes that “his Jewish identity is intimately tied to Israel, and that to attack Israel is to attack him personally… he is demanding the exclusive right to police the parameters of discussions about Israel.” Last month he featured in his paper a letter attacking Corbyn signed by 68 rabbis.
All of the invective has been more-or-less orchestrated by the Israeli government, which directly supports the gaggle of groups that have coalesced to bring down Corbyn. This effort to destroy the Labour leader has included the use of an app disseminating messages via social media accusing Corbyn of anti-Semitism. The app was developed by Israel’s strategic affairs ministry, which “directs Israel’s covert efforts to sabotage the Palestine solidarity movement around the world”.
There are two principal objectives to the “get Corbyn” campaign. The first is to remove him from the Labour Party leadership position, thereby ensuring that he will never be elected Prime Minister, while also eliminating from the party any and all members who are perceived as being “too critical” of Israel. In practice that has meant anyone who criticizes Israel at all. And second it is to establish as a legal principle that the “hate crime” offense of anti-Semitism specifically be defined to include criticism of Israel, thereby making it a criminal offense to write or speak about Israel’s racist behavior towards its Muslim and Christian minority while also making it impossible to freely discuss its war crimes.
The principal argument being made against Corbyn is that the Labour Party is awash with anti-Semitism and Corbyn has done little or nothing to oppose it. Some of the most brutal shots against Corbyn have come from the usual crowd in the United States. Andrew Sullivan recently observed in New York Magazine that “When it emerged, that Naz Shah, a new Labour MP, had opined on Facebook before she was elected that Israel should be relocated to the U.S., and former London mayor Ken Livingstone backed her up by arguing that the Nazis initially favored Zionism, Corbyn didn’t make a big fuss.” Sullivan then went on to write that “It then emerged that Corbyn himself had subscribed to various pro-Palestinian Facebook groups where rank anti-Semitism flourished” and had even “…attended a meeting on Holocaust Memorial Day in 2010, called ‘Never Again for Anyone: Auschwitz to Gaza,’ equating Israelis with Nazis.”
In other words, Corbyn should have been responsible for policing the personal views of Shah and Livingstone, both of whom were subsequently suspended from the Labour Party with Livingstone eventually resigning. He should have also avoided Palestinian Facebook commentary because alleged anti-Semites occasionally contribute their views and ought not to acknowledge in any fashion the Israel war crimes being committed on a daily basis in Gaza.
So Corbyn must go based on the “fact” that he has to be a closet anti-Semite as discerned by the likes of Andrew Sullivan on this side of the Atlantic and a host of Israel-firsters in Britain. But the Labour leader’s worst crime that is being regarded as an “existential threat” to Jewish people everywhere is his resistance to the pressure being exerted on him to endorse and adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) precise multi-faceted definition of what constitutes anti-Semitism. The IHRA basic definition of anti-Semitism is reasonable enough, including “a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of anti-Semitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities.”
The Labour Party and Corbyn have accepted that definition but have balked at eleven “contemporary examples of anti-Semitism” also provided by IHRA, four of which have nothing to do with Jews and everything to do with Israel. They are:
Accusing Jewish citizens of being more loyal to Israel, or to the alleged priorities of Jews worldwide, than to the interests of their own nations.
Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor.
Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis.
Applying double standards by requiring of it a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation.
One might observe that many Jews – not all or even most – but many, do have dual loyalty in which the allegiance to Israel is dominant. I would cite as a prime example the current U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman who spends much of his time defending Israel. And there are also the American Jews who have spied for Israel, to include Jonathan Pollard and AIPAC luminaries Steven J. Rosen and Keith Weissman who obtained classified information from Lawrence Franklin and then passed what they had obtained to Israeli intelligence.
And yes, Israel is a “racist endeavor.” Just check out the recent nationality law passed by the Knesset declaring Israel to be a Jewish State. It grants self-determination only to those living within its borders who are Jews. And if using racial distinctions for full citizenship while also bombing hospitals and schools while lining up snipers to shoot thousands of unarmed Palestinian demonstrators is not Nazi-like behavior, then what is? Israel and its leader are sometimes compared to Nazis and to Adolf Hitler because they behave like Nazis and Adolf Hitler.
And finally there is the definition that challenges any “double standard” in demanding behavior from Israel that is not expected from any other democratic nation. Well, first of all Israel is not a democracy. It is a theocracy or ethnocracy if you prefer wrapped around a police state. Other countries that call themselves democracies have equal rights under law for all citizens. Other democracies do not have hundreds of thousands of settlers stealing land and even water resources from the indigenous population and colonizing it to the benefit of only one segment of its population. Other democracies do not regularly shoot dead unarmed protesters. How many democracies are currently practicing ethnic cleansing, as the Israeli Jews are doing to the Palestinians?
Will Corbyn give in to the IHRA demands to save his skin as party leader? One has to suspect that he will as he is already regularly conceding points and apologizing, publicly delivering the required obeisance to the holocaust as “the worst crime of the twentieth century.” And every time he tries to appease those out to get him he emerges weaker. Even if he submits completely, the Israel firsters who are hot to get him, having just like in American significant control over the media, will continue to attack until they find the precise issue that will bring him down. The Labour National Executive Council will meet in September to vote on full acceptance of the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism. When they, as is likely, kneel before force majeure that will be the end of free speech in Britain. Criticize Israel and you go to jail.
And the same thing is happening in the United States in precisely the same fashion. Criticism of Israel or protesting against it will sooner rather than later be criminalized. I sometimes wonder if Senator Ben Cardin and the others who are promoting the hate legislation really understand what will be lost when they sacrifice the U.S. Constitution to defend Israel. Once free speech is gone, it will never return.
… Groupthink was extensively studied by Yale psychologist Irving L. Janis and described in his 1982 book Groupthink: Psychological Studies of Policy Decisions and Fiascoes.
Janis was curious about how teams of highly intelligent and motivated people—the “best and the brightest” as David Halberstam called them in his 1972 book of the same name—could have come up with political policy disasters like the Vietnam War, Watergate, Pearl Harbor and the Bay of Pigs. Similarly, in 2008 and 2009, we saw the best and brightest in the world’s financial sphere crash thanks to some incredibly stupid decisions, such as allowing sub-prime mortgages to people on the verge of bankruptcy.
In other words, Janis studied why and how groups of highly intelligent professional bureaucrats and, yes, even scientists, screw up, sometimes disastrously and almost always unnecessarily. The reason, Janis believed, was “groupthink.” He quotes Nietzsche’s observation that “madness is the exception in individuals but the rule in groups,” and notes that groupthink occurs when “subtle constraints … prevent a [group] member from fully exercising his critical powers and from openly expressing doubts when most others in the group appear to have reached a consensus.”[2]
Janis found that even if the group leader expresses an openness to new ideas, group members value consensus more than critical thinking; groups are thus led astray by excessive “concurrence-seeking behavior.”[3] Therefore, Janis wrote, groupthink is “a model of thinking that people engage in when they are deeply involved in a cohesive in-group, when the members’ strivings for unanimity override their motivation to realistically appraise alternative courses of action.”[4]
The groupthink syndrome
The result is what Janis calls “the groupthink syndrome.” This consists of three main categories of symptoms:
1. Overestimate of the group’s power and morality, including “an unquestioned belief in the group’s inherent morality, inclining the members to ignore the ethical or moral consequences of their actions.” [emphasis added]
2. Closed-mindedness, including a refusal to consider alternative explanations and stereotyped negative views of those who aren’t part of the group’s consensus. The group takes on a “win-lose fighting stance” toward alternative views.[5]
3. Pressure toward uniformity, including “a shared illusion of unanimity concerning judgments conforming to the majority view”; “direct pressure on any member who expresses strong arguments against any of the group’s stereotypes”; and “the emergence of self-appointed mind-guards … who protect the group from adverse information that might shatter their shared complacency about the effectiveness and morality of their decisions.”[6]
It’s obvious that alarmist climate science—as explicitly and extensively revealed in the Climatic Research Unit’s “Climategate” emails—shares all of these defects of groupthink, including a huge emphasis on maintaining consensus, a sense that because they are saving the world, alarmist climate scientists are beyond the normal moral constraints of scientific honesty (“overestimation of the group’s power and morality”), and vilification of those (“deniers”) who don’t share the consensus. … Read full article
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