Ray Cook - As I See It

Israel, Zionism and the Media

Category: The Delegitimisation of Israel (Page 13 of 15)

The Goldstone Report – an important resource

12/10/2009 / / 1 Comment

A new website has been created which systematically dismantles the findings of the Goldstone Report on Operation Cast Lead.

The report accused Israel of war crimes and possible crimes against humanity in its offensive against Hamas in Gaza in December 2008-January 2009.

Hamas got off lightly.

Now the Israeli Defense Force and individual officers and members of the government of the day may be accused of war crimes and subject to arrest and trial in the International Court of Justice if the UN finds cause to recommend further action.

This new website – www.goldstonereport.org is an intelligent and well-argued and meticulously documented analysis which exposes the lies, bias and bankrupt forensics of the report.

I urge you to read it.

Libyan chutzpah

09/10/2009 / / 3 Comments

Libya, that bastion of democracy and human rights has forced the UN Security council to meet ahead of schedule to discuss the Goldstone report on alleged war crimes in Gaza by Israel and Hamas in Operation Cast Lead.

Presumably it’s Israeli war crimes Libya has in mind, not Hamas’s war crimes.

This is just as extraordinary as the original Palestinian Authority’s request to the UN Human Rights Council to delay the debate.

Now Libya and other Arab states say that October 14th is the day when the debate must take place. They can’t wait to accuse Hamas of its egregious human rights violations, can they.

Now the PA has made a U-turn and supports Libya’s request.

Of course Libya can force this issue as a member of the UN Human Rights Council.

A natural choice as a defender and investigator of Human Rights, of course. It’s rather like having Hannibal Lecter running a vegetarian restaurant.

For example, one of the most important of all human rights is the ability of a nation to choose its leaders and remove that leadership in regular elections.

Libyans have no human right to replace Colonel Gadaffi.  No political parties are allowed in Libya.

For a full explanation of Libya’s right to serve on the UNHRC you might do well to visit the US Department of States’s website here.

You will see a litany of abuses including arbitrary arrest, detention without trial, torture, trumped up charges.

Look at this – remember?:

Trial Procedures

The law provides for the presumption of innocence, informing defendants of the charges against them, and the right to legal counsel. In practice defendants often were not informed of the charges against them and usually had little contact, if any, with their lawyers. Defense lawyers automatically were appointed, even if the defendant declined representation.

On two occasions, in 2004 and 2006, a court sentenced to death six foreign health workers accused of deliberately infecting 426 children with HIV‑tainted blood in 1999. The sentences reportedly were based on confessions that the accused made under torture. International observers reported serious concerns about the lack of investigation into allegations of torture and delays in bringing the case to a conclusion. In 2005 the Supreme Court accepted the appeal of the medics and ordered a retrial by the criminal court, which began in May 2006 and concluded with a second guilty verdict in December 2006.

During the second criminal trial, authorities denied the defendants and their lawyers the right to call witnesses or present evidence while giving wide latitude to the prosecution. Defendants and their lawyers had limited access to government‑held evidence. Following the December 2006 guilty verdict, the medics again appealed to the Supreme Court, which held its first hearing on the defendants’ appeal on June 20. On July 11, the Supreme Court upheld the lower court’s conviction and reinstated several lesser charges to the indictment, including alcohol consumption and currency violations. On July 17, the Higher Judicial Council intervened and commuted the death penalty to life imprisonment after the victims’ families expressed satisfaction with a compensation arrangement, which included a payment of one million dollars for each infected child, substantial foreign investments in the local health infrastructure, and European promises to provide medical care abroad for some affected children.

On July 24, the government allowed the medics to depart to serve their remaining prison terms in Bulgaria, where authorities pardoned the six medics upon arrival. (my emphasis)

The Libyans thus managed to kidnap innocent people and hold them to ransom and extort millions from European governments before releasing their hostages. If this had not been state kidnapping but some terrorist group in Iraq the hostages would not have been bartered.

Libya. The same country that greeted Lockerbie bomber and mass-murderer, Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi, with celebration and triumph on his release from a Scottish prison.

A fundamental human right is freedom of religion, is it not? Surely the UNHCR could not allow its council to have a member where a government proudly professes its anti-Semitism.  Wrong. Gadaffi has just done just that. On March 27th 2007  Gadaffi said “”Jews will go extinct because everyone hates them.”

For Libya to be so exercised about the Goldstone report is rank hypocrisy of the most cynical kind. A country, run by a lunatic, who condones and supported terrorism across the world, a dictatorship,  has the chutzpah to want to bring Israel to justice.

But that’s the problem with the UNHRC and the UN, They are seriously compromised by an obsessive, biased and politically motivated animus against Israel whilst the true criminal regimes in the world merit scant and mealy-mouthed condemnation. How does Libya stand on Sudan or Zimbabwe? Sri Lanka anyone? Russia and Georgia – where’s that investigation? China and Tibet? Where are the Goldstone reports on these countries?

Why should any country or any individual pay any attention to anything spewed out of the hate-filled mouths of just about every UN body. Judge Goldstone as next Secretary General? It’s a distinct possibility.

Human Rights Watch and its Marxist lies about Israel in Gaza

16/08/2009 / / 0 Comments

The Israel GPO (Government Press office) has taken the unusual step of releasing a news briefing (which is an article printed in Ma’ariv by Ben-Dror Yemini) discrediting HRW’s recent accusations that during the recent Gaza conflict (Operation Cast Lead) Israeli soldiers fired on, and killed, civilians waving or displaying the white flag, an International symbol of surrender of or non-combatancy. Such behaviour, is, of course, a war crime.

But the GPO reports that the Ma’ariv article reveals that the author of the HRW report, Joe Stork :

…a senior official in Human Rights Watch,…….. is a fanatical supporter of the elimination of Israel.  He was a friend of Saddam, ruled out negotiations and supported the Munich Massacre, which “provided an important boost in morale among Palestinians.”

On Thursday last, Joe Stork held a news conference where he accused Israel of these crimes. But Stork is revealed as being far from an objective reporter:

Several times in the past, Stork has called for the destruction of Israel and is a veteran supporter of Palestinian terrorism.  Already as a student, Stork was amongst the founders of a new radical leftist group, which was formed based on the claim that other leftist groups were not sufficiently critical of Israel and of the United States’ support of it.  Already in 1976, Stork participated in a conference organized by Saddam Hussein which celebrated the first anniversary of the UN decision that equated Zionism with racism.  Stork, needless to say, arrived at the conference as a prominent supporter of Palestinian terrorism and as an opponent to the existence of the State of Israel.  He also labeled Palestinian violence against Israel as “revolutionary potential of the Palestinian masses” – language that was typical of fanatical Marxists.

So the question is: what is HRW doing employing someone who is so clearly biased? As an NGO which claims to present facts in a non-political, non-partisan way, the use of Stork shows up HRW for what it really is when it comes to Israel – biased and prepared to be represented by a renowned Israel hater and Marxist who sees the conflict through the prism of his own political prejudices rather than as a seeker of impartial truths.

The article continues:

Stork expressed his position that the global Left must subordinate itself to the PLO in order to strengthen elements that opposed any accord with Israel.  It would seem that he has not changed his ways since then.  He is still conceptually subordinate to those who have maintained their opposition to the existence of the State of Israel.  Once the world’s radical left supported the PLO.  Today, part of the global Left supports Hamas.

…….

This is the man.  A radical Marxist whose positions have not changed over the years.  On the contrary.  Objectivity, neutrality or sticking to the facts are not Stork’s strong suit.  He even proudly exclaims that there is no need for neutrality.

In other words Stork is firmly in the camp of Israel’s enemies, sees no reaqson for impartiality and is prepared, presumably, therefore, to say or do anything to destroy Israel. The words Marxism and Truth have never been comfortably accommodated in  the same sentence.

Yemini concludes:

Israel is called upon to provide explanations in the wake of Human Rights Watch reports.  It is about time that Israel publicly exposed the ideological roots of several of this organization’s leaders and demands the dismissal of these supporters of terrorism and haters of Israel.  Until then, Israel, justifiably, cannot seriously comment on criticism from such a body.

I second that!

So, you may well ask, just because he is biased, does that mean the stories are false? Quite right too. The BBC interviewed Mark Regev, spokesman for the Israeli Prime Minister on this very issue. (One can just see the BBC News team rubbing its hands once again with glee on more stories of the IDF’s “war crimes”).

Mark Regev says:

I would want to say two things though about this report. I think anyone who reads it sees that it is based once again on a very problematic methodology. In other words, Human Rights Watch is relying on testimony from people who are not free to speak out against the Hamas regime

Absolutely!  Where did Stork get his information? From Palestinians in Gaza who exist under a terror regime which uses its own citizens as human shields and intimidates them into toeing the Hamas line when they engage with journalists. It is clear to anyone who is impartial that interviewing Gazans, who are in all likelihood produced by Hamas for the all-too-willing Mr Stork, cannot be considered conducive to finding the truth. And when you ignore the other side completely, produce unsubstantiated claims by persons unknown then the whole story smacks of vicious propaganda.

Mark Regev, sadly, appears evasive in the interview, he always comes over as usch and I think he should be replaced by someone in better command of the facts. But the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs website, which quotes the BBC interview with Mark Regev, appears to realise that his performance was far from adequate and reminds us that the IDF issued a 150+ page report on its actions in Gaza where it addressed many of the issues for which it has been accused of criminal behaviour and adds these telling paragraphs:

Sadly, Hamas terror operatives ruthlessly pervert the intent of the IDF’s obligations to prevent harm to civilians by exploiting those with white flags as cover for belligerent action and to protect themselves from return fire. Any person who displays a white flag in this way acts illegally, does not enjoy protection from retaliatory action, and endangers nearby civilian populations. As a clear example of this practice, the video below shows a Hamas terrorist planting an explosive device and hiding amongst civilians who are waving white flags.

Merely displaying a white flag does not automatically grant immunity, and in cases of suspicion that a person holding a white flag is endangering security forces, they are authorized to take necessary precautionary steps and, in accordance with rules of engagement, to verify and neutralize the threat.

This is the point about many of the IDF’s perceived infringements during Cast Lead. Hamas do not observe ANY rules of international law, the Geneva Convention or any conventions. They are a  terror organisation which is prepared to use any means and every dirty trick and to sacrifice its own population in order to attack Israel either physically or by propaganda to which the world’s press is only too willing to give credibility. Hamas flouts the norms of warfare by using white flags to cover its own combatants. I am sure it sent out innocent people as well as its own forces with white flags to evade capture or attack or as a cover for its operations in flagrant breach of international law.

The world seems to believe that Hamas is just an army like the IDF. It isn’t. To make any moral comparison is repugnant.

Hamas does not answer to the world’s press, its own people and certainly not to NGO’s. It is virtually immune from criticism by the UN . Yet any lie it chooses to tell, often given a fig-leaf of credibility by its success in inducing a response from the IDF which appears to flout international law, is believed and swallowed whole by every news outlet in the world (including some in Israel).

Here’s some actual evidence from an IDF video on YouTube:

So before Israel is condemned for shooting white flag carriers, make sure they aren’t terrorists  or protecting terrorists.

If you want to believe your favourite terror organisation, Hamas, that’s your choice. But think. Maybe your political views, like Mr Stork’s, have coloured your perceptions.

Support for the IDF from an unexpected quarter

04/08/2009 / / 0 Comments

I’ve been in Israel for a week so I missed this story as reported by BackSpin reporting an article in Tundra Tabloids

It appears that Abdallah al-Hadlaq, a journalist for the Arabic language Kuwaiti newspaper, Al-Watan, has slammed the Israeli left-wing pressure group ‘Breaking the Silence’ over its unsourced accusations of military misconduct during Operation Cast Lead, the campaign in December 2008 and January 2009 in Gaza.

The BtS report gained worldwide coverage by the global media all too keen to condemn Israel without regard to proper journalistic investigative norms.

It takes a Kuwaiti to speak up for the IDF:

The report by “Breaking the Silence” was unfair, unbalanced, and lacking in proof, so one wonders where it was when Hamas used schools and homes for weapons storage or for missile launchers. Israeli pilots reported many secondary explosions after they hit Hamas targets. Where was that organization when Hamas smuggled tons of illicit weapons through a network of tunnels from Egypt?

Thank you, sir.

Boycott Israel? Not as easy as you think

03/08/2009 / / 0 Comments

This video posted on YouTube shows just how difficult it is to boycott the Zionist entity.

For a start, most of you wouldn’t be able to view this blog.

Watch and learn. Then see if you can work out how to get round the inherent difficulties and utter hypocrisy involved in such a venture.

BBC et alia misleading on Jerusalem evictions

03/08/2009 / / 0 Comments

Nothing could better illustrate the skewed and biased animus of the BBC and much of the world’s media against Israel than Sunday’s story about the eviction of two Palestinian families from  buildings in Sheik Jarrah in East Jerusalem.

News From Jerusalem has a scathing article about the misrepresentation and trashy journalism that completely turns the real situation (known as “The Truth”) on its head.

Here’s the BBC article in Question, now headlined as “Israel Condemned over evictions”,

The News from Jerusalem article quotes as follows:

A BBC article entitled, “Palestinians evicted from Jerusalem,” tells of Israeli police who evicted nine Palestinian families living in two houses in “occupied East Jerusalem.”

“Jewish settlers moved into the houses almost immediately. The U.S. has urged Israel to abandon plans for a building project in the area,” reported the British outlet.

An AFP report, “Israel evicts Palestinians from Jerusalem homes,” begins with a scene of intimidating Jews removing peaceful Arabs from their apartments.

“Israeli riot police wielding clubs kicked out two Palestinian families from their homes in occupied east Jerusalem on Sunday, defying international protests over Jewish settlement activity in the area,” reported AFP.

“I was born in this house and so were my children,” Maher Hanoun, one of the evictees, was quoted as stating. “Now we are on the streets. We have become refugees.”

But NFJ reveals

The home was originally Jewish, but its Jewish occupants were chased out during countrywide anti-Jewish Arab riots in 1929. Arabs then squatted on the property, with one family, the Hejazi family, becoming the de facto occupants despite never having purchased the property.

Even though documentation proves the complex is owned by Jews and that Arabs have been squatting on it illegally for almost a century, Jewish groups still legally re-purchased the property from the Hejazi family. Following pressure from the Palestinian Authority, however, the family later denied selling the complex back to the Jews despite documentation and other evidence showing the sale went through.

Israel’s court system, not exactly a friend of Jewish “settlers,” twice ruled now the property undoubtedly belongs to Jews.

This is not made clear by the BBC. Let’s just repeat this. The land was owned by Jews until 1929. The Arabs who live their never compensated the original owners. Despite this, the land was RE-PURCHASED. Yes, money was paid for the property but despite evidence to the contrary the family living there denied it! Presumably under pressure from the PA and out of fear that they had sold property to Jews, which is a capital offence in the Palestinian Authority.

The family were given weeks to move out, but didn’t.

But here’s the crunch:

The construction project at the center of attention, a hotel financed by Miami Beach philanthropist Irving Moskowitz, is located just meters from Israel’s national police headquarters and other government ministries. It is a few blocks from the country’s prestigious Hebrew University, underscoring the centrality of the Jewish real estate being condemned by the U.S.

Moskowitz’s housing project, legally purchased, formerly was the house of the infamous mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini, who spent the war years in Berlin as a close ally of Adolf Hitler, aiding and abetting the Nazi extermination of Jews.

Al-Husseini was also linked to the 1929 massacre of Jews in Jerusalem and Hebron and to other acts of incitement that resulted in death and destruction in what was then called Palestine. Some Palestinians have expressed a desire to preserve the building as a tribute to Husseini.

Did the Israeli authorities try to rehouse the families involved? I don’t know. But, presumably they and their PA backers were more intent on making political capital against Israel because they knew how the eviction would appear, and they were certainly right.

Once again Israel is vilified even though the Supreme Court, internationally recognised as an independent judiciary, found in favour of the Jewish groups who legally purchased the property. This is completely glossed over by the BBC who thus imply that the Supreme Court is an instrument of Israeli State oppression of the Palestinians when nothing could be further from the truth.

The US condemnation is as ignorant as it is malign and disingenuous.

Ken Loach and the politics of spite (2)

26/05/2009 / / 0 Comments

For the first part of this saga see my previous post here.

Having sent off my email to the EIFF (Edinburgh International Film Festival) last week in light of its craven submission to the bullying Ken Loach (who blackmailed the EIFF on behalf of the Scottish Palestinian Solidarity Committee to return to the Israeli embassy a miserable £300 which it had given to enable the Israeli film maker Tali Shalom Ezer to make it to Edinburgh where her film is to be shown), I received the following canned (that is automatic and unthinking) email reply:

In the light of recent press reports and in the interests of clarity:

 The Edinburgh International Film Festival is well known for bringing together people from all over the world, regardless of race or religion, to screen and appreciate films for their own sake and we look forward to continuing this important mission. The programmed film screenings of SURROGATE remain as advertised, and the filmmaker will also attend the Festival as planned.

 Statement from Iain Smith, EIFF Chair:

 “On behalf of the Edinburgh International Film Festival, I apologise sincerely for the distress many people have felt at changes in the arrangements for bringing the producer and director of the film ‘Surrogate’ to the Festival. Clearly we didn’t appreciate enough that our Festival cannot keep itself entirely detached from very serious geopolitical issues and I am instituting a review of our procedures to ensure that there can be no repeat incident. Nevertheless, this experience has strengthened our belief in the need for film to bring people together and I hope very much that many will want to attend this year’s Festival where filmmakers from 33 countries and diverse backgrounds and beliefs will be screening their films.”

But this is no defence at all because it states that “our Festival cannot keep itself entirely detached from very serious geopolitical issues”. This is exactly the point. To remain independent this is precisely what it must do. The EIFF cannot give in to pressure from one group with a particular axe to grind. Where would it all end. Does the EIFF’s response to intimidation depend on the  prestige and perceived clout of the person or organisation doing the blackmailing.

Remember what Ken Loach said:

 The massacres and state terrorism in Gaza make this money unacceptable. With regret, I must urge all who might consider visiting the festival to show their support for the Palestinian nation and stay away.

We shall leave aside Loach’s one-sided and ideological reading of the Gaza conflict and its profound mendacity about the actual events and its ignoring of the true crimes committed by Hamas, but let’s consider what the EIFF actually did:

They returned the £300 and instead donated the money to Tali Shalom Ezer themselves. By so doing they committed two errors of judgement: 1) They succumbed to political pressure and compromised their independence and their own principles 2) They singled out Israel which is a political judgement in which they are now complicit.

Either the EIFF is an organisation dedicated to films “for their own sake” as they proclaim or it is not.

What criteria did they use to decide to give in to Loach? Was it his threat? Is it that he represents the Film Industry, which I doubt?  Which other public figures or organisations would they be willing to kow-tow to and for what reasons?

The EIFF has shown itself to be cowardly and unprincipled in giving in to a petty-minded bigot representing a group with a particular political agenda against a particular country. The net result as far as Ezer is concerned is zero. If I were her I’d withdraw my film. The net result as far as publicity and propaganda for the SPSC and Ken Loach’s particular brand of left-wing animus against a democratic state exercising its right of self defence is a resounding victory.

I am quite certain that Loach would not complain about a Palestinian film because Hamas commit war crimes by launching rockets against civilian targets. And I am damn certain no Israeli or Jewish group would be so crass as to try Loach’s particular form of censorship and boycott by threat.

 

 

Ken Loach and the politics of spite

20/05/2009 / / 0 Comments

Ken Loach is at it again.

The Scotsman website reports:

ORGANISERS of the Edinburgh International Film Festival have been forced to return a donation from the Israeli embassy after director Ken Loach waded into the funding row and called for people to boycott the event on political grounds…

A donation – believed to be in the region of £300 – was to have been used to pay travel costs to the capital for Tali Shalom Ezer, a graduate of the film and television department at Tel Aviv University, who directed a short feature film, Surrogate…

The SPSC then enlisted the support of Mr Loach, well known for his support of Palestinian human rights.

Mr Loach released a statement through the SPSC which read: “I’m sure many film-makers will be as horrified as I am to learn the Edinburgh International Film Festival is accepting money from Israel. The massacres and state terrorism in Gaza make this money unacceptable. With regret, I must urge all who might consider visiting the festival to show their support for the Palestinian nation and stay away.

The following day the EIFF – which has since been in talks with Mr Loach – did a U-turn. It said: “The EIFF are firm believers in free cultural exchange and do not wish to restrict film-makers’ abilities to communicate artistically with international audiences on the basis that they come from a troubled regime.

Although the festival is considered wholly cultural and apolitical, we consider the opinions of the film industry as a whole and, as such, accept that one film-maker’s recent statement speaks on behalf of the film community, therefore we will be returning the funding issued by the Israeli embassy.

I was so incensed that I wrote the following letter to the EIFF:

Dear EIFF

 I am writing in utter disbelief at your craven surrender to the threats from Ken Loach to organise a boycott of the EIFF as a result of the Israeli embassy funding one of their citizens a mere £300 so they could come to Edinburgh. Loach’s  pusillanimity is only matched by your cowardice in the face of unwarranted intimidation, interference with your own internal affairs and the compromise of your principles.

 In the words of your own Ginnie Atkinson:

 “Choosing not to accept support from one particular country would set a dangerous precedent by politicising what is a wholly cultural and artistic mission. We are firm believers in free cultural exchange, and do not feel that ghettoising filmmakers or restricting their ability to communicate artistically on the basis that they come from a troubled territory is of any benefit. Nor do we see that filmmakers are voices of their government. It is particularly important in situations of strife and conflict that artists be supported in having their voices heard*”

 After receiving a threat this turned to:

“The EIFF are firm believers in free cultural exchange and do not wish to restrict film-makers’ abilities to communicate artistically with international audiences on the basis that they come from a troubled regime.

“Although the festival is considered wholly cultural and apolitical, we consider the opinions of the film industry as a whole and, as such, accept that one film-maker’s recent statement speaks on behalf of the film community, therefore we will be returning the funding issued by the Israeli embassy.”

Since when does Mr Loach speak on behalf of the film industry? And even if he does, so what.

 I understand that you have funded Shalom Ezer from your own funds. This would be laudable were it not an admission that your organisation does not agree with Loach’s position but still decides to give in to threat.  This is mere hypocrisy from the EIFF.

 The lessons of history tell us that if as a society we sacrifice our principles on the altar of bigotry that society is doomed.

*Quoted in Harry’s Place

The pettiness of this affair is indicative. What if it were a Zimbabwean director or an Iranian, Sudanese, Sri Lankan. In the distorting prism of Loach and the outraged righteous of Scotland only Israelis are to be singled out even when the director and the subject-matter are completely apolitical. For a £300 grant. 

Meanwhile, in Israel, I have it on good authority that Loach’s films are still aired without threat of boycott. 

Double Dutch – the unholy alliance of Left and Right against Israel and the Jews

20/04/2009 / / 0 Comments

One of the most disturbing aspects of the global war of deligitimisation of Israel is the alliance of the European extreme left with terrorism.

So, for example, Respect’s George Galloway is quite jubilant about supporting Hamas and denies that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad wants to wipe Israel off the map. Meanwhile Gerry Adams, former IRA supremo turned politician, also sees fit to cosy up to Hamas.

Of course, the common interest of the extreme Left, Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran is their loathing of Zionism. The fact that this includes loathing of Jews generally is glossed over by the Left, is denied or represented as paranoia or an attempt to scotch criticism of Israel. It is why the Dutch Labour Party supports demonstrations at which bigots call out “Hamas Hamas, Joden aan het Gas” (Hamas, Hamas, Jews to the gas). Here’s a YouTube video where Harry van Bommel, a Dutch Socialist MP, is leading a chant of “Intifida” to an unchallenged background chant of “Hamas Hamas, Joden aan het Gas”

Now the Dutch Labour Party, the main opposition in the Netherlands, according to Ha’aretz

…demands Israel accept Hamas as a partner for dialog

As seems invariably to be the case with some Left wing elements, they see the world through the prism of their own ideology. This prism appears to have a very large blind spot, so let me state it again for the umpteenth time: Hamas is a viciously anti-Semitic terrorist organisation which will not recognise Israel, wants to destroy Israel and kill ALL Jews. You don’t make deals with your would-be murderers.

Don’t believe me? Then just look at the Hamas charter. Or if you think that is just political positioning, here’s an example from Palestinian Media Watch.

I reproduce it here, but if you go to the website you’ll be able to experience the delights of a Hamas TV broadcast.

Bulletin
Apr. 19, 2009 Palestinian Media Watch

Hamas Racism:

Jews are evil – “Their children will be exterminated.”

Imam who participated
in “Congress of Imams and Rabbis for Peace”
calls for extermination of Jews

by Itamar Marcus and Barbara Crook

A Hamas cleric who once participated in an international conference of “Imams and Rabbis for Peace” — whose delegates vowed to “condemn any negative representation” of each other’s religions — has wholeheartedly espoused Hamas’s racist ideology in a recent Friday sermon on Hamas TV.

Ironically, this latest profession of Hamas’s genocidal racism was preached and broadcast at the start of the month in which the UN is meeting in the “Durban II” conference in Geneva to condemn Israel as being “racist.”

According to the Hamas interpretation of Islam, the Jews are inherently evil, seek to rule the world, and are a threat to Muslims and all of humanity. Therefore they are destined to extermination. In the words of Hamas religious leader Ziad Abu Alhaj, “Hatred for Muhammad and Islam is in their [Jews’] souls, they are naturally disposed to it…”

He asserts that because of the Jews’ inherent evil, the Jewish state, “Israel … is a cancer that wants to rule the world.” One can find the details of the Jews’ plan in The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, which he jokingly refers to as “The Protocols of the Imbeciles of Zion” (a play on words in Arabic). He concludes that the Jews are destined to be annihilated:

“The time will come, by Allah’s will, when their property will be destroyed and their children will be exterminated, and no Jew or Zionist will be left on the face of this earth.”
[Hamas (Al-Aqsa) TV, April 3, 2009]

He also claims that the Jews wanted to murder Muhammad.

This imam, who is preaching the genocide of Jews, participated in the Second World Congress of Imams and Rabbis for Peace in 2006, which also featured many prominent rabbis from Israel. The final statement from the Seville conference included the pronouncement, “. . . We condemn any negative representation of these [religious beliefs and symbols], let alone any desecration, Heaven forbid. Similarly, we condemn any incitement against a faith or people, let alone any call for their elimination, and we urge authorities to do likewise.”

The following is the text of the Hamas sermon calling for the extermination of Jews:

“Who is it that is leading the world today in the vicious, all-encompassing war against Islam and Muslims? The answer is clear: it is the Jewish nation. It is the Jews who today are leading the all-encompassing war against Muslims…

We, the Muslims, know the nature of Jews the best, because the Holy Quran taught us. The prophetic traditions explained at length to Muslims the true nature of Jews… Their war and their hatred for Muhammad and Islam is in their souls, they are naturally disposed to it.

Israel today lives in the heart of Arab-Muslim territory, and it is a cancer that wants to rule the world. Know, my brothers! The Jews’ expansion today brings the dissemination of an ancient thinking…

They argued with Allah’s prophet Moses; they wanted to kill Allah’s prophet Jesus, and wanted to murder Allah’s prophet Muhammad…

The Jews want to destroy every inch … Perhaps their famous book, which they deny [its authenticity] – known as The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, but we call it, “The Protocols of the imbeciles of Zion” – in this book, my brothers, the Jews set down their plan to besiege the entire world by land, by air, and by sea – conceptually, economically, and its communications, as is happening today…

The Jews’ grandeur today, and their ascent to the world’s throne, is because America, with all of its power, is ruled by the Senate, I won’t say ‘American’ but rather ‘Jewish’ [Senate] … The time will come, by the will of Allah, when their property will be destroyed and their children will be exterminated, and no Jew or Zionist will be left on the face of this earth.”

I wonder if Harry van Bommel would do business with a Belgian terrorist organisation calling for the killing of Dutch children and wiping the Netherlands off the map or saying that Dutch Protestants are controlling the world with their evil religious animus.

I wonder what George Galloway and Tony Benn really think when they read this, if they do, or are they too busy trying to find an apology for it. The double-think involved is staggering; George Galloway, for example has given an impassioned interview about the enormity of the Holocaust, but supports groups bent on a second one.

As Mahmoud Ahmadinejad takes the podium at Geneva, no doubt the European Far Left will be cheering from the sidelines.

Durban II – Ahmadinejad’s Nuremberg Rally

20/04/2009 / / 0 Comments

On April 20th, in Geneva, the World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance will begin in Geneva. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran was invited and will attend.

This is the long-awaited follow up to the first conference in Durban, South Africa, in 2001 which turned into an anti-Israel hate-fest.

The conference was effectively hijacked by the anti-Israel lobby and its original aims completely lost in a torrent of anti-Zionist and anti-Semitic rhetoric and resolutions. Israel and the United States withdrew in disgust.

The draft documents, (which were eventually rewritten but not adopted by all parties – you can guess which ones adopted the originals), expressed “deep concern” at the “increase of racist practices of Zionism and anti-Semitism”. It thus attempted a sleight of hand to discriminate between this particular form of anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism.  The draft continued to describe  “movements based on racism and discriminatory ideas, in particular the Zionist movement, which is based on racial superiority”.

Notice the “in particular” and the lies about “racism” and “racial superiority”. Firstly, which “race” is doing the racism against which other race? Jews are not a race, unless you are a supporter of Hitler’s views on this matter. Israel has the most racially diverse population in the Middle East by a very long way.

“Racial superiority”? We have already debunked the “Jews as a race” canard, so this is covert language for Jews being the “Chosen People” which the anti-Israel camp interpret as “racial superiority” and which leads to the “International Jewish Conspiracy”. It also alludes to the  “Right of Return”  which is wilfully misinterpreted by this bunch of hypocrites as giving preference to Jews right to citizenship and not allowing Palestinians a right to return to their pre-1948 homes. You can characterise this as discriminatory, but “racial superiority?” 

I don’t propose to go in to the reasons and arguments about the “Right of Return” of Jews and Palestinians because I can refer you to this article.

If you read the final Declaration from Durban I it is not difficult to see that the countries now baying for Israel’s blood would fail to live up to almost every paragraph of the Declaration’s stated aims. Durban II is hypocrisy made manifest, the apotheosis of the inverted moral order spreading its vicious and malicious hatred throughout the world.

In Geneva, the draft resolutions try to reintroduce the Israel- and Jew-bashing rhetoric of the first conference and to press for a resolution against “defamation” of religion which seeks to silence any criticism of Islam. Once again Israel has been singled out among all nations. Despite strenuous efforts to have the draft resolutions amended, which has been successful to a limited extent, as things stand, the draft is so clearly a document not against racism or xenophobia but actually its opposite: a slur against the Jewish people and Israel which is itself a form of the very xenophobia the Conference is supposed to be designed to condemn and an attempt, by seeking to limit freedom of speech,  to suppress criticism of the religious intolerance and bigotry of those states drafting the anti-Israel lies.

President Ahmadinejad’s presence itself indicates that he is there to orchestrate his own Nuremberg rally. As Arutz Sheva reports:

Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor slammed Ahmadinejad as “the representative of a regime which consistently breaches human rights, which assassinates opponents and persecutes minority groups, which exports hatreds and terrorism throughout the Middle East.”

They might also add that he is a Holocaust denier and contemplates the destruction of Israel as a desirable goal.

Canada, Israel, Italy, Germany, the Netherlands and Australia and now, at last, the United States have all refused to take part in this obscene parody of a Conference. Some Jewish groups intend to go to have their voices heard and to demonstrate. Notably, the UK is still sending a delegation.
My view now is that the Conference should be boycotted. Boycott the boycotters. Deny them any legitimacy.

See the BBC which is quite balanced for a change (having improved on its earlier wishy-washy attempt).

Meanwhile the UN sits on its hands and watches. So much for its founding principals.

I have to pass on to you the words of Anna Bayevsky. I do not apologise for quoting in full. I do not have a web link. (April 20th is Hitler’s birthday – he’d be so proud of the neo-Nazis who have hijacked this Conference. On that day The March of The Living will once again take place at Auschwitz-Birkenau when the Jewish Youth of the world commemorate the Holocaust. The next day is Yom HaShoah – Holocaust Memorial Day)

STATEMENT BY ANNE BAYEFSKY AT THE THIRD SUBSTANTIVE PREPARATORY MEETING OF THE DURBAN REVIEW CONFERENCE

April 17, 2009
United Nations, Palais des Nations, GENEVA, Switzerland

The eyes of millions of victims of racism, xenophobia and intolerance are upon YOU, the representatives of states and the United Nations. And instead of hope you have given them despair. Instead of truth you have handed them diplomatic double-talk. Instead of combating antisemitism you have handed them a reason for Jews to fear UN-driven hatemongering on a global scale.

The Durban conference – allegedly dedicated to combating racism, antisemitism and other forms of intolerance – will open April 20th on the anniversary of the birth of Adolf Hitler without agreement on even so much as remembering the Holocaust and the war against the Jews. Your draft words on the Holocaust – the very foundation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights – have been narrowed to the barest mention from previous versions. And if the minor reference survives at all – it will be a testament to your interest in Jews that died 60 years ago, while tolerating and encouraging the murder of Jews in the here and now.

Furthermore, the draft before you demonizes the Jewish state of Israel and then has the audacity to pretend to care about antisemitism in a single word buried among 17 pages. Antisemitism means discrimination against the Jewish people. Since it is evident that almost none of you have the courage to say it, the face of modern antisemitism IS the UN – your – discrimination against Israel, the embodiment of the Jewish people’s right to self-determination.

Over and over again we have heard a massive misinformation campaign about the content of these proceedings and the draft before you. We have heard the tale that this draft does not single out Israel, that the hate has been removed, that the fault of the antisemitism at Durban I was that of NGOs while states and the UN were blameless.

Perhaps you think that journalists and victims will not bother to read for themselves the Durban Declaration adopted by some governments. There is only one state mentioned in it – Israel. There is only one state associated with racist practices in it – Israel. And yet the very first thing that this draft before you does is to reaffirm that abomination, abomination for Jews and Arabs living in Israel’s free and democratic society, and for all the victims of racism ignored therein. Lawyers call it incorporation by reference when they hope nobody reads the small print. The propaganda stops here. We have read it. We understand the game. And we decry the ugly effort to repeat the Durban agenda to isolate and defeat Israel politically, as every effort to do so militarily for decades has failed.

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and the Chair of this Preparatory Committee also told us this week that the Durban Declaration in all its aspects is a consensus text. Perhaps they are unfamiliar with the Canadian reservations made in Durban in 2001 which state categorically that the Middle East language was outside the conference’s jurisdiction and not agreed. Perhaps they failed to notice that one of the world’s greatest democracies, the United States, voted with its feet and walked out of the Durban I hatefest? The Durban Declaration has never represented a global consensus among free and democratic nations. When the head of the Islamic conference treats Durban as a bible, in their words, it is more accurately a defamation of religions.

This week you decided which states ought to serve in a leadership role at next week’s conference. Among them are some of the world’s leading practitioners of racism, not those interested in ending it. You have also decided to hand a global megaphone to the President of a state which advocates genocide and denies the Holocaust.

So in a state of shock and dismay we address ourselves not to the human rights abusers that glorify the Durban Declaration or its next incarnation, but to democracies — and we ask: Will Germany sit on Hitler’s birthday and listen to the speech of an advocate of genocide against the Jewish people and grant legitimacy to the forum which tolerates his presence? What about the United Kingdom, the birthplace of the Magna Carta? Or France that helped to ship last generation’s Jews to crematoriums?

You could have fought racism. You chose instead to fight Jews. You could have promoted the universal standards against racism already in existence. You chose instead to diminish their importance in the name of alleged cultural preferences. You could have protected freedom of expression. You chose instead to undermine it by twisted concepts of incitement. You could have brought victims of racism together in a common cause. You chose instead to pit victims against each other in an ugly struggle for meagre recognition. For those democracies that remain under these circumstances you are ultimately responsible for what can only be called an appalling disservice to real victims of racism, xenophobia and related intolerance around the world.

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