Ray Cook - As I See It

Israel, Zionism and the Media

Tag: Gaza (Page 1 of 13)

Responses and Replies to My Open Letter to Councillor Andrew Burns, Leader of Edinburgh Council

25/08/2014 / / 0 Comments

In my previous post I shared my open letter to the leader of Edinburgh Council, Andrew Burns (Lab) in response to his motion supporting raising awareness of the Disasters and Emergencies Committee’s appeal for aid for Gaza, it’s seeking of an agreement to raise the Palestinian flag over a Scottish Town Hall and its political attack on Israel.

The motion can also be viewed on that previous post.

I sent the letter to all 58 councillors. Their names and affiliation can be found on the Council website here: http://www.edinburgh.gov.uk/councillors/name

Since sending the email as an open letter I have had five replies: three from Conservatives and two from Labour, including Mr Burns himself.

I was initially a little wary of posting the names of those responding, but as they are public figures, I cannot see why I should not do this.

The first to reply was Cameron Rose (Con):

Ray,

Thank you for copying me your email to the Leader of the Council.

Some of the points you make are the very points I made a I, and my 10 Conservative colleagues, opposed the decision.

You may wish to check out the webcast of what I said (11mins) and the blog posts below.

WEBCAST & LINKS

·         Council meeting 21/8/14 http://www.edinburgh.public-i.tv/core/portal/webcast_interactive/144748/tab/speakers#speaker_18501
·         Cameron’s blog page link http://cameronrose.blogspot.co.uk/
·         Edinburgh Conservative blog page http://edinburghconservativegroup.blogspot.co.uk/

Best wishes,

Cameron

The link to the debate demonstrates the complete ideological blindness, lies, misconceptions, distortions which plague the conflict. Mr Rose’s speech echoes much of what I wrote. His speech can be found around 1hr 49min.

As you can see it’s not just about Gaza, it’s about BDS. That video is worth posting on its own. Gaza is completely confused with the PA territories. The entire narrative of terror is ignored. A Palestinian is asked to speak but the other side is not given at all. This is basically a PSC meeting.

My reply to Cameron Rose.

Thank you, Cameron, I shall certainly do that.

Many thanks for your quick response.

Ray Cook

The next email was from Joanna Mowat:

Ray
Thank you for this – on this occasion we let the Group Leader, Cllr Rose, speak for the group as he made the points that needed to made well and we were keen that not too much time was expended on this matter given where our duties lie which is not in resolving the Middle East’s problems but delivery of good services for the people of Edinburgh.
Regards
Joanna Mowat

Joanna Mowat
Conservative Councillor City Centre Ward
City of Edinburgh Council
0131 529 4077
07718 666 454

My response:

Thank you Joanna, I quite agree. He has already responded to me.

It seems only Conservative councillors are willing to respond so far.

I appreciate your reply.

Ray Cook

The next email was from Mark McInnes:

Dear Mr Cook

Thank you for your email.  I along with the other Conservatives voted against the flag proposal.  Unfortunately we were outvoted by the other parties.

Kind regards,

Mark
Councillor Mark McInnes
Meadows /Morningside Ward

My response:

Thank you, Mark

I appreciate your response.

Only Conservatives are responding to me – this is telling.

Ray Cook

Next up was Robert Aldridge (Lib Dem) with whom I had an interesting exchange:

Thanks for your email.

The flying of the flag is a gesture of sympathy for the innocent civilians killed in Gaza. Whilst the precise numbers quoted are to be treated with caution it is clear that innocent civilians are being collectively punished for the actions of their government. I think every speaker in the debate was balanced in recognising that Israeli citizens had been subject to rocket attacks, but it is the scale of the bombardment in Gaza and the large numbers of innocent casualties which has it raged so many throughout the world.

I am proud that Edinburgh has shown it stands up for innocent victims and against the disproportionate approach of the Israeli State.

Robert Aldridge

My response:

Thank you for your reply.

I would make the following points.

Collectively punished? Do you understand the legal meaning of that slur? Hamas chose to fire rockets at Israel after it evacuated Gaza in 2005. Hamas is dedicated to Israel’s destruction, Hamas uses schools and hospitals and disregards all protected buildings. Hamas builds tunnels in people’s kitchens and under mosques.

Israel tries to minimise casualties with warnings, phone calls, leaflets. What other army in history has done that?

Hamas built dozens of tunnels to infiltrate Israel to terrorise its citizens.

Hamas fires indiscriminately every time it launches a rocket – each firing is a war crime. it even fires at Jerusalem.

By all means criticise Israel’s tactics and allow it to explain why it uses the methods it does, but I would ask you – what would you do in response to thousands of rockets being fired at your family, your schools? How would you like to be running to a bomb shelter with your kids and your elderly? How do you stop this when Hamas embeds itself deliberately in civilian infrastructure in order that YOU have this natural reaction to Israel’s attempts to stop it?

You say a large number of casualties. Let’s say it is 1000 innocents or 1250 innocents. This is appalling. I agree. But as I said in my letter, there need not be ANY.  Israel made thousands of attacks, yet ‘only’ 1,000 people were killed – compare to Syria. Is this deliberate targeting or indiscriminate? Name one conflict of this kind where SO FEW have been killed.
I repeat, one death is one too many, but if Israel did not have the defences it has to protect its citizens would you be so glib? 10s of thousands would be killed or injured in Israel. It is Hamas who are indiscriminate, it is Hamas who are collectively punishing Israelis.

Go listen to Col. Richard Kemp who says Israel has done more tha any other army in history to avoid civilian casualties.

So, I agree with your concerns for Gazans, but their plight is mostly due to the actions of their government. Israel is not beyond criticism, but I think that the Left in this country all too easily aligns itself with this particular cause and not so many other deserving causes. Hamas is an Islamist regime that wants to wipe out all Jews.

Think again about where your sympathies lie – it should be EQUALLY with both sets of citizens and not predisposed to demonise Israel defending itself against murderous, genocidal fanatics who hold their own people to ransom with no regard whatsoever for their safety.

Kind regards

Ray Cook

And:

Thanks for the email. Without wishing to extend the debate I would simply state that too many people on both sides confuse the people and their governments. I find the actions of the Israeli Government unacceptable, but am a strong supporter of the State of Israel and of Jews throughout the world. Similarly I find the actions of Hamas reprehensible but have expressed sympathy for the innocent civilians who are suffering, perhaps because the Israeli Government has confused Palestinian civilians with one political party which is currently in power in Gaza.”

I understand the meaning of the comment about collective punishment and I continue to believe that a country with the most sophisticated weaponry outside the superpowers could not make so many ‘mistakes.’ My argument is with the Israeli Government which is extremist and not with the State of Israel which I respect and whose right to live in peace .

From me:

As you say, we won’t solve the conflict by email, but I appreciate your remarks.

I think the idea that the Netanyahu government is extreme rather than Right wing is not correct, but >90% of Jewish Israelis supported the recent action. This is unprecedented. There are far more extreme elements in Israel and remember, it’s a coalition with many hawks. You may be familiar with coalition politics! All previous peace agreements have been made with Right wing governments!

With regard to distinguishing Hamas from civilians, you must know that Israel daily delivers tonnes of goods and aid, provides power for free, takes in thousands of Gazans to be treated in Israel every year, for free. The blockade and restrictions could be eased but Israel must be assured that this will not simply allow Hamas to rearm.

Some of the ‘mistakes’ were not actual mistakes but maliciously misreported and misunderstood. No point in elaborating  in an email but I’m sure every single outrage will be analysed and many truths will come out. I think it’s facile to say just because a country has sophisticated weaponry it will not make mistakes. UK and US make plenty. The implication is that it is negligent or worse. With regard to the boys on the beach, this was an outrage and there is no excuse, except one wonders what sort of parents would allow kids to play in an area used by Hamas for rocket fire.

Anyway, I am grateful for your time and your courtesy. We are not going to agree or persuade each other of everything, but at least we have some common ground.

Kind regards and best wishes

Ray Cook

And:

Many thanks for the measured tone of your email. I do appreciate the conflict is not one sided and note that we do have areas of common agreement. I hope that peace talks will be at least as productive as our email exchange and that they result in real progress to a solution which recognises the right of both sides to live within secure borders.

Best wishes

Robert

From Lesley Hinds (Lab):

Thank you for your e-mail which I read with interest
Lesley Hinds

No further comment from her, but nice to reply.

Finally, from Mr Burns himself:

Ray

Many thanks for your e-mail below … I appreciate the fact you’ve taken the time to get in touch, and do respect the points you make.

Just by way of further background/information – the local Coalition Motion which was agreed, is as at 9.1 on the attached Order Paper – with the inclusion of paragraphs 1,2,3 and 5 of the Green Motion at 9.2. It was further agreed to allow the Palestinian flag for 1 day only.

A draft News Release from yesterday follows immediately below …

… and more generally, the overall wording of the local Coalition Motion attempts to focus on the humanitarian element of the crisis in Gaza, and provides a practical mechanism for providing aid to those in desperate need: not just through the ‘Disasters Emergency Committee’ (DEC) flag being displayed for a considerable time at the front of the City Chambers, but also through the website promotion that will accompany it.

Further information on the DEC Gaza Appeal can be found here: http://www.dec.org.uk/appeals/gaza-crisis-2014

And the Council website now has further details here: http://www.edinburgh.gov.uk/news/article/1628/gaza_flag_to_be_flown_at_city_chambers
& the DEC Gaza Appeal also now features on the Council homepage, bottom-centre here: http://www.edinburgh.gov.uk

I appreciate this won’t necessarily be the response you were looking for, but can only hope that you’ll understand we were trying to find a practical mechanism for providing aid, in very contentious circumstances.

Andrew

From me:

Andrew

many thanks, I appreciate your replying, as I would guess you have had many emails and letters to respond to.

Although it is an extremely sensitive issue to criticise charities, and the Jewish Chronicle found out how contentious it can be with regard to DEC when they printed a full page ad recently, at least one of the members of DEC has alleged links directly to Hamas. This is why I would neither support them nor seek to stop others. It shows the difficult and complex issues of Gaza.

Of course, what Gaza really needs is to get rid of Hamas and build a civil society that does not wish to destroy its neighbour. Until that happens, building and destruction will repeat. No-one wishes for peace and good relations with its neighbour more than Israelis.

Practical mechanisms for aid and humanitarian relief are welcome, they do not require partisan flag-flying or political attacks on Israel. You may not know that in Israel itself there are organisations that provide aid to Gaza (which Hamas tries to refuse) and Israel sends hundreds of trucks through the crossings daily, whilst Egypt keeps its crossing closed. Hamas does not fire thousands of rockets at Egypt.

Over the weekend, Hamas attacked the Erez crossing as Israel was evacuating Gazans for free treatment in Israeli hospitals. Three Israeli Arab drivers were injured and, possibly, the Gazans, too. This was a deliberate attempt by Hamas to kill Israelis in an act of charity and to get the crossing closed so that Israel could be further condemned in the media. They did not spare their own people, which is hardly surprising.

As I write, rockets continue to rain down on the South. All fired from civilian infrastructure. I ask you to think carefully about what you would do. Remember that the maritime blockade and the current restrictions on movement are purely the result of Hamas attacks since 2006. In 2005 there was no blockade, no ‘siege’ and Israel left millions of dollars of agricultural equipment to enable Gaza to kick start its economy. This was all trashed by the people of Gaza. Hamas illegally won the ‘election’ by murdering Fatah members and throwing them off buildings. They then began their terror regime. In the last two days they have summarily executed 21 ‘collaborators’ including two women.

The flag of Palestine does not show sympathy with the civilians in Gaza any more than flying the North Korean flag shows sympathy for those enslaved by that regime. It is a political statement of support for an Islamist, antisemitic, homophobic, misogynist, genocidal regime, whether it’s Hamas or the ‘moderate’ Fatah. One day is one day too long. It is a sop to ignorance and misplaced empathy which continues to rewrite history and reverse cause and effect. Hamas has the same aims as ISIL. Building a Palestinian state is not one of them. Destroying Israel is.

I find it staggering that a local council, which has enough problems to contend with, should devote any of its time to pandering to those malign forces in this country and across the world whose real agenda is to destroy Israel and kill every Jew. Your actions, however insignificant or well-intended, add to a groundswell of ant-Israelism which morphs into antisemitism and is having an increasingly unsettling effect on the Jewish population of the whole of the UK. I don’t for one second suggest that you or anyone else on the Council harbour such views, but words and symbols are very powerful.

I shall be lobbying strongly for the banning of any flags, of any nation, including that of Israel, to be flown by councils in the future. It is divisive and unnecessary.

Sincerely

Ray Cook

It would take someone with more time and patience than me to listen to the entire debate and to rebut. I guess that would be an empty exercise. The sound of closed minds is deafening, but it is clear that these people have the views they have because of a combination of ignorance and belief in a false or edited narrative.

The Palestinian is utterly plausible and apparently moderate. His grievances are matters for discussion, but he also tells untruths and is completely unchallenged. What he says is deemed undeniable because he is a Palestinian. He is clearly an objective and reliable source as far as the council coalition is concerned. Were an Israeli to give his/her side of the story, they would not be afforded the same credibility.

The whole exercise conflates so many issues. It’s about Gaza, but they get someone from the territories. They want to show solidarity with the Palestinians but do not condemn Hamas, mention rockets etc. and when the Palestinian speaker does, he says it’s all an excuse because they do the same in the ‘West Bank’, anyway.

No mention of Palestinian rejectionism and the complete unchallenged acceptance of a one-state solution, eradicating the ‘Zionist dream’ in a cloud-cuckoo-land where everyone respects everyone else’s human rights.

I recommend listening to as much of this as you can bear. It is a calm, unemotional debate. It does not take too much imagination to put most of what is being said into the mouth of George Galloway and barely notice the difference.

Maybe this is an insight into how a Lab/Lib Dem coalition would have operated in the UK. Hardly bears thinking about.

 

 

 

An Open Letter to Councillor Andrew Burns, Leader of Edinburgh Council

22/08/2014 / / 1 Comment

I have sent this letter to Councillor Burns and every member of his council. The contents of his motion can be found at the end of this post.

Dear Councillor Burns

I am writing to you with reference to your recent Motion 9 to Council of the 21st August 2014.

Whereas anyone with the slightest spark of humanity cannot but feel enormous empathy for the innocent people of Gaza in the current conflict, and whereas it is a natural reaction for anyone so moved to want to help, i am absolutely appalled at the way the motion was framed in a way to politicise the plight of Gazans without regard to the origins of this conflict and with a totally one-sided account of recent events.

I wish to bring a number of points to your attention.

You quote the number of innocent civilians killed as being more than 1900. In fact, the number is now over 2000. However, you are parroting the lies of Hamas, who are the ultimate source of these figures. Even the BBC has recently advised caution on the casualties. Where are the combatants in these figures? In fact, analysis by several sources have revealed that there is a disproportionate number of men of fighting age in the demographic of these casualties. These analyses reveal that at least 45% of casualties were actually combatants.

To glibly represent those killed as all being innocents completely airbrushes the very people who were and continue to be responsible for this tragedy, namely Hamas.

I was astounded that your motion not only ignores the proscribed terrorist group which has spent more than a decade firing 20,000 rockets at Israel, but ignores the rockets themselves and the devastating affect that constant and sustained rocket fire has had on the people and the children of southern Israel.

Your motion implies that the devastation in Gaza has no causal origin except the malice of Israel.

You say you support a ceasefire. Hear, hear. But I have lost count- I think it’s now 12 – of the number of ceasefires agreed by Israel and broken by Hamas.

You have determined to send a letter to the President of the ‘State of Palestine’, which does not now, nor has ever existed. Have the good people of Edinburgh the power to recognise a state that the United Nations does not? It is very revealing of your prejudices that you have no intention of sending a similar letter to the President of the State of Israel, sympathising with decades of terror visited on his people or empathising with more than a million people who have only a matter of seconds to find a bomb shelter.

And on that point, the number of innocents killed in Gaza would have been reduced if, instead of building miles of terror-tunnels, Hamas had built shelters for their civilians. They would have been further reduced if Hamas had not used mosques, schools, hospitals and kindergartens to fire from or forced their population to be human shields or occupy buildings that they knew were about to be bombed.

The truth is that not a single person would have been killed if Hamas was not a genocidal terrorist organisation dedicated to Israel’s destruction. Your motion strongly implies that the people of Gaza are the victims of Israeli aggression rather than Hamas’s murderous intent to terrorise Israelis by kidnap, suicide-bombing and rocketing.

Instead you are sending a letter to the Israeli consulate condemning his country for defending itself. I wonder, but not for very long, how the people of Edinburgh would react if Glaswegians were firing rockets from civilian infrastructure, tunnelling into Waverley or popping up in St Giles to murder your constituents.

You mention Ban Ki-Moon’s outrage at the targetting of an UNWRA school when it has since been shown that the incident took place outside the school. In any case, did you not hear how Hamas uses schools to store weapons? Acts condemned by Ban and UNWRA. Where is your outrage at that?

I have no problem with your humanitarian sympathies for Gaza, but tell me, councillor, with thousands of Yezidis being massacred, uprooted, sold into slavery, forcibly converted by IS in Iraq, how many motions in council have there been for them? And how many appeals for the thousands of Palestinians fleeing slaughter in Syria?

Your council’s singling out of Gaza as your cause du jour would be more credible if far more attention, rather than none at all, had been given to far worse humanitarian disasters across the world. Why is it always Gaza? And if your council has a particular affinity with that cause, why do you use it to make outrageous attacks on Israel without the slightest mention of Hamas or its rockets.

I find it beyond reason that so many on the Left are so ready to malign and demonise the only country in the region which upholds so many of the values that you are supposed to hold dear: freedom of worship, freedom of the press, democracy, human rights, gay rights, women’s rights, the right to form unions, the right to strike. Yet your sympathies are with Palestine, where none of these rights exist at all or to anything like the extent they do in Israel.

So fly your flag in solidarity with a political entity and putative state that hangs gay people, declares that no Jew will ever live in it, spews antisemitic propaganda in schools and television, denies women equal rights and seeks the total destruction of its neighbour, and the murder of every Jew. Don’t bother flying the Ukrainian flag, or the ‘We are N’ symbol in support of Iraqi Christians, or the Tibetan flag or any flag other than the Palestinian. Well done with your selective empathy.

Enjoy that special solidarity, councillor Burns. Maybe you’ll fly the ISIS flag next month; it pretty much amounts to the same thing. Hamas and ISIS and, yes, Fatah, are branches of the same Islamist tree.

Shame on you and Edinburgh Council. The people of your great city deserve better.

Ray Cook

Here is the text of Motion 9

By Councillor Burns – Gaza – Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC) Appeal
“The City of Edinburgh Council:
1) has been deeply appalled and distressed to witness the recent loss of life in Gaza;
2) stands in solidarity with the innocent civilians of Gaza, who have lost more than 1,900 people, many of whom have been women and children;
3) supports an immediate ceasefire, as called for by the United Nations.
Council thus agrees:
4) to send a letter from the Council Leader, to the President of the State of Palestine, offering the City’s condolences for the deaths they have suffered;

The City of Edinburgh Council – 21 August 2014 Page 3 of 6

5) to send a letter from the Council Leader, to the Israeli Consulate in London, condemning in the strongest possible terms, the killing of hundreds of innocent civilian men, women and children.
Council also agrees:
6) to fly a ‘Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC) Appeal’ flag, at the City Chambers entrance on the High Street, which will prominently feature the DEC Gaza Appeal telephone donation line: 0370 60 60 900; and
7) to promote the DEC Gaza Appeal via its own external, and internal, websites.”

9.2 By Councillor Booth – Flying the Palestinian Flag from the City Chambers
“Council:
1) Notes the continued conflict in Gaza, which has lead to the deaths of 67 Israelis and more than 1800 Palestinians, including many innocent civilians, and which has included attacks on UN schools which have been labelled a moral outrage and a criminal act by Ban Ki-moon, the Secretary-General of the United Nations;
2) Notes the appeal recently launched by the Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC), comprising 13 UK charities, to help the people of Gaza, including the estimated 65,000 people who have seen their homes severely damaged or destroyed and the estimated tens of thousands who urgently need food, water and medical care;
3) Believes the ongoing conflict is unacceptable, condemns any ongoing violence and calls on all sides to work for peace and a stable two-state solution in Palestine;
4) Agrees to fly the Palestinian flag from the City Chambers in a gesture of solidarity with the people of Gaza wherever this does not clash with the pre-existing flag flying programme;
5) Agrees to ask the Council Leader to contact the Disasters Emergency Committee to explore any further measures the Council can take to support the people of Gaza and support the DEC appeal.”

Israel Report Days 10 and 11: Life is good here

15/08/2014 / / 0 Comments

In Netanya, a popular seaside town a few miles North of Tel Aviv, where I am currently spending a few days, life is pretty good, life carries on as normal.

The streets are full of traffic, the shops are full of punters. Recent ceasefires and the distance from Gaza mean that the events in the South seem like a distant conflict in another country.

Yet, it is not forgotten by any means: flags fly, the odd soldier saunters through public squares, newspapers and television reports are keenly followed.

We did some shopping again today and took in the atmosphere of sidewalk restaurants and cafés. A small group of be-jeaned and hijabed Arab girls mixed with Ashkenazi Jews, Russian Jews and Ethiopian shop assistants in a dress shop.

As I previously wrote: So much for Apartheid. This is an accusation persistently peddled by Israel-haters. The same accusation is rebutted easily. Yet it persists. Accusers point to refugee camps, the separation wall, the blockade, purported Jews-only roads in Judea and Samaria.

Let’s not get into Oslo, settlements, PA autonomy or the 2005 evacuation of Gaza.

What I have often felt as I walk around Netanya, where the atmosphere is relaxed and without any sense of danger or threat, is how very different it is from Gaza.

There is a brief sense of guilt; I and everyone here is safe, people seem to have a very nice life, different races and religions mix without enmity. Everyone accepts everyone else: religious and non-religious, Jew and Arab, African and European.

In Gaza, there are no Jews. There are no synagogues. Gaza is Judenrein. If there is ever a Palestinian state, that too would be Judenrein. Many areas are smashed. There is fear and insecurity. Life is not easy.

I have frequently thought of these people, a few kilometres away, living such a different life.

But, despite my concern and my wish that one day they will live like the young Arab girls I saw in town, I remember why they live like they do, and that reason is Hamas, culturally engrained victimhood, decades of Jew-hate, rejection of Israel, abysmal leadership.

The answer to Gaza’s and Palestinians’ woes? Simple. Make peace. Stop hate. Then nothing is impossible.

Israel Report Day 9: How the West was Lost

13/08/2014 / / 1 Comment

Sitting here in central Israel, I have been thinking that it was time to enumerate the snowballing and often hysterical, often cowardly, anti-Israel events, actions and stories that are now part of a runaway narrative of lies, misrepresentations, human rights travesties and double standards, laced with a cocktail of old-school and Islamist antisemitism.

In no particular order, as they say, these include:

The Tricycle Theatre in Kilburn, London has seen fit to put an ultimatum to the London Jewish Film Festival (which has used that theatre for 8 years): either refuse funding from the Israeli Embassy (£1400) or we won’t stage the festival. The theatre generously offered to ensure that the shortfall in funding would be met.

The LJFF’s reply was basically Churchillian (in the finger department).

The theatre was not the only organisation to cite the excuse that they did not want to be seen taking sides – which really means that they are cowards who fear damaging demos outside their building and/or a Muslim-Leftlist backlash. I would remind them and everyone else who put profit before principles that, in the immortal words of Basil Fawlty, ‘This is exactly how Nazi Germany started.’

In Manchester, UK, the Kedem store which is owned by an Israeli and sells Israeli produce, some of which is packaged in Judea/Samaria, has for weeks been the subject of a politically motivated picket. Initially, entrance to and exit from the shop was curtailed by an intimidating bunch of Free Gaza people. The Jewish community responded and now face off against each other regularly. The Jewish community is even providing a kiddush on shabbat to ensure that their opponents do net get a free ride even for one day.

Local police are praising the peaceful and well-mannered nature of the counter-demo.

Nevertheless, in the past, similar demos at Ahava in Covent Garden, London and Sodastream in Brighton have forced closure. In Manchester, the effect on other businesses, and Kedem itself, will mean that the shop will inevitably close.

This is intolerable. Freedom to protest is one thing, but freedom to harrass and put precious jobs on the line is redolent of 1930s Germany.

In one of my more mischievous moments I suggested that, maybe, the pro-Israel camp should shower the antis with paper rockets, a bit like the English bowmen at Agincourt against the French. These paper rockets would not carry much of a payload but the reaction of the other side to a barrage of paper would be instructive. Would they just stand there and take it. Would they have no right to defend themselves?

I can’t imagine that they would not want to retaliate ‘disproportionately’. Sadly, such an act would probably be considered incitement by the police. But I can only dream.

Meanwhile, in Belfast, where the synagogue was subject to a double stoning recently, an Asda store had its shelves cleared of Israeli produce. Surely an arrestable offence?

In that same city, the blue plaque marking the birthplace of Israeli President Chaim Herzog has had to be removed due to continuous attempts to vandalise it.

In other news, the UK government has issued a completely nonsensical policy statement to the effect that should ‘significant’ hostilities between Israel and Hamas restart, ig would not issue twelve arms export licenses. This is gesture politics writ large by business secretary Vince Cable (LibDem).

Firstly, as I and several others have pointed out on Twitter and elsewhere, this actively encourages Hamas to commence hostilities to gain a political ‘win’. Secondly, what does ‘significant’ mean in practice and who judges? Clearly, this is the result of an internal Coalition power struggle where the Lib Dem Business Secretary has legal power to make such judgements and the Conservative Prime Minister would have attempted to nix it.

Meanwhile, at the UN, yet another kangaroo court in the form of ‘Goldstone II’ is about to convene with, at its head, William Schabas.

This man has a track record of anti-Israel activity and refused to describe Hamas as a terrorist group in a recent interview where he reiterated his view that his favourite person to be tried for war crimes would not be Assad or Putin but Netanyahu. And why? Well, because of Cast Lead where he was actually the opposition leader not the Prime Minister.

When challenged on double-standards he admitted that the UN is full of them, but that should not allow us to desist from pursuing them even further with yet another show trial for Israel where the only unknown is which anti-Israel mouthpieces are going to sit in pre-judgement.

It seems that Free Gaza, pro-Pal, anti-Israel demonstrations in London and the provinces are now an almost weekly phenomenon, disrupting traffic and business and requiring expensive policing. Of particular concern is the display of lsis, Hamas and Hizbollah flags. How can any Western society allow anyone to  show support for terror groups, especially one which it is itself fighting.

In Oxford Street Isis have openly been handing out redruitment flyers enjoining British Muslims to become jihadists in Iraq and build the ‘caliphate’.

There appears to be a growing movement of terrorist chic with the black flags of ISIS flying in Tower Hamlets, for example.

Flag flying is also popular withthe Palestinian flag flying from a couple of Northern England Town Halls and Glasgow.

This avalanche of hate, antisemitism and virulent anti-Israelism, which no other minority or country has to endure, represents a watershed for Europe.

Some have called Israel the canary in the coalmine. The war on Israel and the Jews is a war on Western civilisation, culture and mores. Only the West does not realise it yet. Its blindspot, latent antsemitism along with the cult of human rights and an undue sensitivity to antithetical cultural values spell its gradual demise.

What to do?

In the UK get the Lib Dems out of government. How can any Jew who supports Israel vote for this shower.

As a lifelong Labour party supporter, I cannot see how I can continue to be so. It is also very difficult for me to vote Tory, but they are now the only option other than not to vote at all.

I suggest the following steps:

1. Make political picketing of shops and businesses illegal. Boycotts should not be imposed by active minorities.
2. Make foreign flag flying illegal except for state occasions
3. Make Isis, Hamas and Hizbollah flags illegal with stiff fines and custodial sentences
4. Crackdown on antisemitic or Islamophobic banners at demos and punish with stiff fines or custodial sentences
5. There should be better tracking of funds to terror organisations through UK banks and charities
6. Classify Isis as a terror organisation
7. Turkey should be thrown out of NATO – they are working with and for NATO’s enemies
8. Limit demos for any particular cause

If the West continues to appease and cannot see Israel as the frontline in the battle against neo-Nazi terror in the form of depraved Islamism and its apologists on the Left the results will be disastrous.

This is how the West is being lost.

Israel Report Days 5 and 6: On the Move

09/08/2014 / / 2 Comments

The last two days have been spent with more of our extensive family in Israel.

On Friday, we travelled to Elad, which is close to Petach Tikva.

There was a bit of a family get together with my wife’s cousin’s family. Their daughter, who is charedi, has a very small apartment with four children. It is quite high up and there were views across to Tel Aviv in the distance.

The kids don’t speak English. I was immediately roped in to a game which is a cross between Monopoly and Snakes and Ladders. The purpose of the game was to collect all you need for Shabbat. When landing on certain squares you have to pick a card which teaches you how to do mitzvot (good deeds) and sometimes has an instruction, like skip one round.

As it would have taken me several minutes to translate, I needed an interpreter. After a while, with about five words of Hebrew and some gesturing, I was communicating adequately with a six-year-old.

Over the very pleasant lunch we played more games which we could all join in. My wife’s cousin asked us all to be a biblical character we drew from my hat. We then had to ask others if they were David HaMelech or Avraham etc. Correct guesses forged teams. Not to sure how the winner was chosen but much fun was had. The second game was a form of charades where several words associated with Judaism, written in Hebrew script, were placed in my hat again! Luck I brought my hat.

When I was asked to explain what was on the paper slips I first had to decipher the Hebrew script which was a bit of a handicap. I scored 6!

At an early stage of our visit we were formally shown where the safe room was. My wife was reading to her 4-year-old cousin twice removed from a book about rabbits burrowing into ground. She turned to my wife and said ‘They are going into the shelters’.

In the afternoon we arrived in Netanya to stay with my wife’s aunt and uncle.
Today, I went to the synagogue where there was a barmitzvah. One of the congregants was a soldier returned from Gaza. He was called up to ‘bentsch gomel’ which is a blessing you make when surviving a life-threatening experience.

At the kiddush after the service, I thought I recognised my optician from Manchester. Maybe, with a different prescription, I would have been sure. We had to leave before I could get any closer.

Hamas are threatening to fire at Tel Aviv tomorrow. We spent some time as armchair politicians discussing how to solve the Gaza conflict. Having decided genocide and ethnic-cleansing are not acceptable options, we were left without an answer.

However, I was left wondering whether Hamas supporters had the same scruples.

Shavua Tov – a good week to all.

Israel Report Day 4: One Wedding and almost Three RTA’s

08/08/2014 / / 1 Comment

Yesterday, Thursday, was a day where normality was overshadowed by my expectation that rocket fire would recommence the following morning.

As I write, Friday morning, that fear has been realised with reports of rocket fire in the area in the immediate vicinity of Gaza. The Iron Dome is back to its work.

Yesterday, we returned to central Tel Aviv and visited Bialik Street. Here there are some fine old buildings and the atmosphere reminded me of Jerusalem.

Beit Bialik was the house of Israel’s national poet Haim Nachman Bialik. It is now a museum dedicated to his life and work. It is a very beautiful house both externally and internally. You can read about it here: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bialik_House

We also visited Beit Ha’Ir the former City Hall. So we learned a lot more about the first Mayor of Tel Aviv, Meir Dizengoff. There is little else of interest in the building. It has an imposing facade.

Outside, in the beautiful square, we saw a recently married couple and their friends posing for wedding photos. Life and love goes on. My wife wished them mazal tov.

We made our way to the beach. Not exactly heaving. It was like Brighton before the First World War.

We had dinner at the Sheraton with my son and watched the sun setting on the last day of the ceasefire.

I was rather annoyed that the credit card I had specifically got to avoid currency charges was not, apparently, accepted and I had to use a second card. The waiter was apologetic. I continued to be British and told them it was not their fault.

The taxi driver who took us home was determined to have an accident; driving in excess of the speed limit he almost rear-ended one car, just avoided a side impact with another car that pulled across him to park and had to brake hard to avoid another which pulled over leaving a few centimetre clearance.

Back home, I received a call from the manager of the restaurant. He apologised profusely for the earlier credit card incident and revealed that the first card had actually worked but did not produce a slip. In all, they had debited my cards four times! He said it would be reveresed on Sunday. We could have free coffee and cake next time we were passing by.

Sleep was hard in expectation of what the morning would bring.

Israel Report Day 3

07/08/2014 / / 2 Comments

Our third day in Israel and the second day of the three day ceasefire period. We decided to go into central Tel Aviv with our son to do a bit of tourism and take the opportunity for some shopping.

I thought I’d have little of any interest to write about, but in Israel, unless you spend your time hermetically sealed in a safe room, there is always a story.

Today was no exception.

I had never been to Beit Ha’Atzma’ut – Independence Hall, where Israel’s Declaration of Independence took place in 1948. So we decided to take a taxi to Rehov Rothschild and make our way there.

Outside, on the central pedestrian area, which divides this wide boulevard, stands a statue of Meir Dizengoff, the first mayor of Tel Aviv. I wondered why his statue stands here and not on Tel Aviv’s most famous street, which is named after him. I was about to find out.

Meanwhile, about that central pedestrian area. Well, it’s not just for pedestrians. You share with cyclists who pedal like car drivers drive in Israel. The best policy is to just ignore them, stick to the marked pedestrian areas, and let them cycle round you. This can be unnerving as they all seem to be participants in the Tour de France who have taken a wrong turn and are desperate to rejoin the peleton.

The central area is clearly demarcated with symbols of bicycles and people. It makes little difference to either group who, with typical Israeli anarchy, choose whichever lane best suits their immediate inclination.

Another typical Israeli touch of humour uses, for the pedestrian ‘lane’, the silhouetted symbol of a clearly orthodox Jewish man, complete with shtreiml and peyot, holding a child’s hand. That reminder of the religious element in the country appears somewhat forlorn, as female cyclists, in skimpy shorts and revealing tops, run over those same symbols in a demonstration of the secular-religious divide.

Back at Beit Ha’Atzma’ut, we enter. I see a group of four elderly people seated on the right. On the left, the desk, with a young lady behind it, and to her right, slouched in a low chair, a young man in a kippah appears to be reading from a religious text.

The young lady takes our money and explains that a ‘seniors’ group is currently in the Hall, and the next guided tour is not for some time. She will first take us into another room and play us a short film. The room which can accommodate about 100 people is completely empty. We sit near the front on hard plastic chairs. Being British, we don’t sit on the front row.

The young lady explains that this building was the house of Dizengoff, first mayor of the city, which he built on the plot of land that was allocated to him in the lottery which established the new town of Tel Aviv in 1909. Hence, his statue outside. On the death of his wife, he converted it to an art gallery in her memory.

In 1948 the building was chosen, and prepared hastily for the Declaration.

The twelve minute film begins. It tells the history of the house, the city and its role in Israel’s independence. Not expecting to be moved, we nevertheless are. My wife is weeping buckets and I wipe away a covert tear and exit back into the entrance, where the young lady informs us that the seniors are almost done. We are ushered through the glass doors and stand respectfully at the top of the small flight of stairs waiting for the guide in the hall to complete his presentation.

Almost as soon as we arrive in position the Hatikvah begins to play, Israel’s poignant national anthem. We stand to attention looking down at the scene of the birth of the State of Israel, listening to Hatikvah. It is a very emotional moment. The tears are not so covert this time.

The seniors make their way out. We smile as they pass and replace them in the now empty hall. Before us the famous portrait of Theodor Herzl, who began the modern political Zionist movement. Either side, four meter high vertical flags of Israel, just as it was in ’48.

Brass plaques sit on the desk behind which the founding fathers sat. Each plaque with the name of those who sat there on that day, and in front of the desk, a set of wooden chairs, also with the names of that day’s participants.

We move around, take photographs and imagine the scene in this place, so familar from the black and white newsreel that we have watched countless times since our youth.

As we leave, the young lady enquires where we are from. She seems surprised. This is the peak season. So many bookings have been cancelled. She thanks us for coming. We should come again in better times, we say. She places her hand on her heart in agreement.

We exit, blinking, into the heat and light of the day. It’s about 30c and humidity is high.

After some shopping and a light snack in the Dizengoff Centre, it’s time to return ‘home’.

Hailing a taxi in Israel you often wonder who you will get. There is a wide range of characters. This time our driver is one of the more garrulous types. He has little English, but engages my son in conversation in Ivrit. I listen and try to understand.

He learns we are English. This precipitates a demonstration of his skills in mimicry as he performs a cockney accent which Dick van Dyke would be proud of:

‘Ooh yeah, Ars’nal, Chelsea, don’t you know…’ moving from the East End to Kensington as Mr Bean.

I tell him that, although I am from London, we are from Manchester. Undeterred he continues:

‘Manchester United, Man City, Liverpool, ooh yeah, don’t you know’.

I attempt to correct his rather poor grasp of Northern English accents and inform him that I am a follower of Tottenham Hotspur.  I make several attempts to teach him how a Londoner would pronounce it as ‘Totn’m’. He gives it a go, but is more Ossie Ardiles than Glenn Hoddle.

In exasperation, and with a hint of mischief, I teach him to say ‘Come on you Spurs’ if ever he should find an Arsenal fan sitting in the back of his taxi.

The conversation soon shifts to the conflict in Gaza. We tell him the many places where our family lives, including those close to Gaza.

He tells us that he has a farm and rides horses. He is not far from Arik Sharon’s hacienda. He is from Netivot, a frequent target of rockets. Many people from the kibbutzim around Gaza come there to shop, he says.

As distracted drivers go, he is one of the most distracted. His hands frequently leave the wheel. with expansive gestures. He weaves in and out of the heavy rush hour traffic. He seems to notice the current status of traffic lights more my divination than observation, and the distance to the car in front is calculated by an uncanny sixth sense that operates even when his head is turned to me in the back.

He informs us, with gestures, that the Scots and their national culture bemuse him. He asks the English for ‘kilt’ and ‘bagpipes’. He suggests that anyone wearing a kilt in Israel would soon have an inquisitve local lifting it to see what lies below.

From comedy often comes tragedy. I am a little concerned that, as he drives at speeds which, to a Brit, would seem a little reckless, seeing that the stationary traffic ahead is only 10 metres away and the speedometer indicates 50. Added to this, he has produced a newspaper and is opening it, resting it on the steering-wheel, at the centrefold.

There, I can see pictures of the sixty-four Israeli soldiers who lost their lives in Operation Protective Edge. Our driver points to one of the boys:

‘I know his father. I went to the funeral. Twenty years old. From Netivot. My town.’

The mood has changed. He points to another native of his city. I know his story already as the driver informs us that his wife gave birth to their son two days after he was killed.

He rants about Gaza. We should never have left. Oslo, Shmoslo. Rabin. Sharon. You cannot trust foreigners to protect Israel. They stab you in the back as soon as look at you.

I am not comfortable with his xenophobia.

In the evening my wife’s second cousin comes to visit. She tells us that in the Soroka hospital in Beersheva there were 67 births this week, the highest since 1948: exactly the same number of Israelis killed in the conflict.

Coincidence?

Israel Report Day 2

06/08/2014 / / 0 Comments

As I reported in yesterday’s blog, posted this morning, I woke with the knowledge that the ceasefire was to begin at 8.00 am.

I woke some time before 8. Then I heard a boom which sounded 5-10 miles away and another more distant one. Apparently a major barrage across central Israel and the Negev. One rocket hit near Bethlehem seriously damaging a Palestinian house. Fortunately, no-one was injured.

This rather contradicts Hamas’s claim that thir rockets only target Jews. But what would the world have said if that rocket hit the Church of the Nativity?

So far, the ceasefire has held all day.

We decided to rest for most of the morning then set off for Tel Aviv. My main impression here was the number of flags hanging from buildings and flying from cars. Not huge flags, but small statements of patriotism and solidarity.

We visited the port of Tel Aviv and Hayaarkon Park where the river runs through and under a sequence of road and pedestrian bridges and widens into a park with a zoo and other facilities.

We watched people canoeing and rowing, and generally messing about in boats. In the distance the towering downtown skyline, so recently streaked with rocket trails and Iron Dome interceptions. I could not help but wonder what the people of Gaza would have made of that scene. I had thoughts of 1st and 3rd world countries butted up against each other and thought of the accusations of Apartheid. But the faces I met on my walk – black, brown, white, Asian, Oriental, Arab and Jew – gave the lie to that. What we have are two peoples living in disturbingly different worlds in the same small space.

One part of haYaarkon Park is given over to collections of black obelisks, flanking plantations of palm trees, each obelisk engraved with the names of Israelis who died in its various wars and from terror attacks.

On one, relatives of the deceased had stuck small ‘yizkor’ or annual remembrace notes attached to now dried and faded flowers, some flanked by the Israeli flag; very poignant in the early evening heat of a Tel Aviv summer rush hour.

Back ‘home’, Israel’s Channel 10 was presenting, as far as I could make out, my Hebrew being rather primitive, a balanced view of the Gaza aftermath; scenes of devastion in Gaza, interviews with Gazans, discussions in the studio, without the haranguing, sarcasm and naked partisan aggression of the British television interviewer whose default manner is to present a tone and facial expression which can only be described as revulsion, reserved exclusively for representatives of the Israeli government.

Other news stories from the UK shown today were the resignation of Baroness Warsi due to her disagreeing with her government’s policy on Gaza, David Miliband’s defence of her, and the Tricycle’s theatre’s hypocritical cancelling of its eight year hosting of the Jewish Film Festival because it is part-funded by the Israeli Embassy.

Being away from the UK certainly gives a different perspective on your own country’s news output. I feel calmer here, not being constantly bombarded by skewed news coverage of Gaza.

There’s no triumphalism in Israel. Too many died.

Israel Report Day 1

05/08/2014 / / 2 Comments

Over the next few days, depending on whether this war continues, I’ll be blogging my experiences here in Israel on what I see, hear, feel and discuss.

Maybe, if calm returns, I and my wife can actually have a holiday and not  spend our time as close to the nearest air raid shelter as possible.

Monday 4th August.

Manchester airport was relatively quiet. I was surprised. Maybe everyone is already on holiday.

I’m not sure why but our tickets indicated we had the privilege of rapid boarding. Maybe the fact that our original flight had been cancelled, or maybe just a mistake.

We sailed through security and into the maze which is the airport duty free area, designed to force you past every bottle of booze and every perfume sampler.

A very short wait and by no means a full planeload of passengers ensured we were sitting in our seats in record time. We were delayed for an hour due to air traffic control in Greece. Not a great start.

I was very impressed by EasyJet. To help with the kids’ boredom the captain opened the cabin door and invited them to come and look at the cockpit. An orderly queue formed. Brilliant PR.

The passengers were very calm and chatty. No indication that we were flying to a war zone. We found it inexplicable that anyone would want to take children on holiday to Israel at this time. I don’t think people understand what it is like. We don’t understand. But at least we have some idea, some sense of trepidation.

Well before the usual time, the pilot informed us that due to the security situation we should return to our seats and make ready to land. The request we should sit in our allocated seat was a reminder that if the unthinkable happened, we could be identified by seat number.

As we crossed the coastline, not the usual euphoria. I looked south toward Gaza trying to imagine the unimaginable suffering and mayhem just a few miles away. But there were no signs of warfare. Just some unexpected cloud cover.

The pot-faced immigration man – and usually they remain so – even managed a smile as he asked us if we had family in Israel and where they were as we reeled of a list of cities and kibbutzim.

My wife’s cousins picked us up from the airport , which was not empty, but certainly well below its usual bustle. It had taken us no more than 15 minutes from leaving the plane and walking through an eerily quiet airport.

Signs for shelters at every turn reminded us of the reality we had just entered.

I could immediately see the strain on our cousins’ faces. As we drove out of the airport, ‘Z’ turned to me and said he had to tell me something. ‘You are immature and irresponsible to come. There is a war. Everyone is in trauma.’

A typical forthright Israeli statement. ‘So you are pleased to see us, then’ I said. ‘Look, we haven’t seen our son for 18 months. We could not know if he would be called up for reserve duty. We had to see him’. The unspoken implication was ‘and what if then something were to happen to him, and we never saw him again’. But such thoughts remain floating in the air without articulation. But they are, nevertheless, understood.

We learned of a second serious incident in Jerusalem that morning, a shooting following the fatality of a man run over by a tractor which turned over a bus.

Later we discovered the driver of the bus was an Arab who wished his fellow Arab attacker should burn in Hell.

On arriving at our cousins’ home, their son told us that yet another truce was agreed starting tomorrow, Tuesday, morning, and this time Hamas had agreed to it and it could be permanent.

We soon found out what we already knew. Our cousins were not among the 90 something percent of Israelis that supported the government’s efforts in Gaza.

‘I don’t like what they are doing to Hamas’. This was a surprise. I was too tired to discuss. They thought that the way Hamas had been treated, the blockade and the economic pressure on Gaza was similar to how Arafat had been isolated in Ramallah. They should have negotiated.

Their son believed Hamas had shown signs of a gradual realisation that they had to make compromises and forgo their fanatical adherence to a genocidal policy. ‘They can see that they have gained nothing and the way they think is that Allah is not giving them any victory here. So they rationalise that to make concessions and convince themselves that it is His will.’

I had the distinct feeling that it was they who were rationalising their own beliefs that you can negotiate with an enemy that is ideologically hell bent on your annihilation.

‘The Egyptians will open up the border. They will be able to export via El Arish and not have to rely on Israel for their economic welfare. Fatah will come and supervise the crossing. Fatah have been doing a lot to stop terrorism in the Est Bank. But a 3rd Intifada is still possible .’

‘Gaza is like a prison. They need to be able to breathe’.

I write this Tuesday morning. It is 8.00 am. There is supposed to be a truce. I just heard my first explosion, I think. Some way off.  No sirens. Dogs barked. Was that a second even further off?

Internet is down. I’ll post this later.

It’s back.

Prezza on Gaza

30/07/2014 / / 4 Comments

I quite like former Deputy Prime Minister, John Prescott.

Here’s a man, by no means perfect, like all of us, but a man who, from humble origins rose to be Deputy Prime Minister.

I respect his lifelong battle for social justice and to better the lives of working people.

Yes, I know about 2-Jags, his affair, his hatred of eggs, especially when aimed at his head.

But there is something to admire in his pugnacity. He’s an old-style socialist and it shows.

His piece in The Daily Mirror today, ‘Israel’s bombardment of Gaza is a war crime – and it must end’, where he weighs in on the conflict on Gaza, is ignorant and provocative because of its ignorance.

And I am not alone in this view because, at the end of the article is a chance to vote if you agree or not, and all day the ‘No’ vote has been over 80%.

So let’s see what he has to say:

Imagine a country claiming the lives of nearly three times as many as were lost in the MH17 plane tragedy in less than three weeks.

Hey, John, heard about Syria? heard about the 170,000 deaths there and millions as refugees? Heard that in one day Assad kills more than in those three weeks?

Of course, comparing a greater evil does not excuse a lesser, but one wonders whether he wrote anything about Syria yet. So let’s check.

Well, I found this: http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2013/09/06/tony-blair-wrong-on-syria_n_3879904.html where he agrees with his party leader Ed Miliband that military intervention in Syria is wrong. So, you might say, his distaste for toppling dictators has allowed Assad free rein to murder thousands of Palestinians, for example, in Yarmouk.

Difficult one, isn’t it John? Tony Blair was wrong on Iraq, he says, so Ed must be right on Syria.

Yet, I have not found that he has ever written about war crimes in Syria or anywhere else. Why is that?

A nation which blasted a hospital, shelled and killed children from a gunboat as they played football on the beach and was responsible for 1,000 deaths, at least 165 of them children, in just two weeks.

The death of those boys is horrifying.

There are no excuses.

Accidents happen in war – I know that’s easy to say when innocent life is lost. Yet, those boys were playing near an area where Hamas had been firing at the Israelis. What parent would allow his kids to be playing in a war zone in an area where Hamas were known to have been located. In those circumstances tragedy can happen.

Is Prescott suggesting it was deliberate?  Did the British never kill children in Afghanistan or Iraq? Does John know that 160 children died building Hamas’s terror tunnels by Hamas’s own admission. Does he care about that deliberate abuse of the children? Does he worry about the hundreds of kids, even babies, dressed in Hamas combat uniforms, toting weapons? Did he see the video of a father showing a kid how to fire a rocket launcher on a beach just like the one the four boys were killed on? What does John have to say about that?

Shelling a hospital? Which hospital is he talking about? Hamas fire from hospitals, store weapons in hospitals, conduct their operations from hospitals. All war crimes. Did John hear the recording of a phone call to someone associated with the Wafa hospital asking time and again if there were any patients in that hospital because Israel wanted to return fire coming from that building but, under international law, could not do so unless the hospital were evacuated completely? When that confirmation was given, the building was attacked. Not before. Does John even wonder why they would do that? Does he know it was being used as a command centre?

Gaza lost a hospital because it lost its protected status when Hamas chose to use it to fire at its enemy.

The Shifa hospital was also struck. Israeli images showed that 4 rockets had been fired from behind the hospital; one was intercepted over Ashkelon, one landed on or near the hospital, one fell out to sea and one also fell short in northern Gaza. In fact, 10% of all rockets fired from Gaza fall short. We do not know what damage they do or who they kill because Hamas are quick to clear up their own mess and we now know that thanks to Italian reporter Gabriele Barbati:

Twitter___gabrielebarbati__Out_of__Gaza_far_from__Hamas____

Let’s just read that again. ‘Out of Gaza far from Hamas retaliation. In other words, Hamas are intimidating journos in Gaza and hiding their crimes and the deaths they themselves cause. Yet, people like John Prescott are all too willing to attribute every death, every explosion to Israel, as if the other side wasn’t firing at all.

Surely it would be branded a pariah state, condemned by the United Nations, the US and the UK. The calls for regime change would be ­deafening.

An outrageous and calumnious statement full of moral equivalence and moral bankruptcy.

‘Regime change’? Is he suggesting Israel is a dictatorship like Iraq? The only democratic country in the Middle East, with a world-renowned independent judiciary, freedom of the press, full rights for all its citizens, freedom of religion? Is he serious?

Israel, a pariah state for defending itself against an Islamo-fascist murderous regime that deliberately uses its own people as political cannon fodder? How dare he suggest Israel can be a pariah state and not Iran or Syria or any number of oppressive regimes funding murder, intolerance, oppression of women and gays?

Israel’s hawkish Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu trots out the same excuses. Hamas “militants” in Gaza fired their rockets first. Israel has a right to defend itself. It needs to protect its citizens.

Excuses? Here’s a man who is not keen on a swift retaliation against an aggressor? Think again.

Err.. that was just a little egg, John, not 2000 rockets with high-explosives. And these are ‘excuses’?

And he’s right on all three counts – but as always with Israel this is not the full story. The military action supposedly targeting Hamas is so brutally disproportionate and so grossly indiscriminate that it makes it impossible not to view Israel’s actions as war crimes.

Does it? Who says? That’s opinion. Accusing anyone or any state of war crimes is a serious accusation. You need evidence, legal opinions, full investigations and, in Israel’s case, a ready kangaroo court to jump to conclusions. John needs to look up the laws of proportionality. He also needs to understand that this is asymmetric warfare with an enemy that fires indiscriminately at civilians (war crime) from urban areas (war crime) and then hides underground.

Indiscriminate. 1100 deaths, at least 40% combatants, in over 2000 separate attacks. That doesn’t sound indiscriminate. Warning people and evacuating them (where can they go!? You’d rather they die?) is not indiscriminate. Making phone calls, dropping leaflets is not indiscriminate. What is indiscriminate are the Hamas rockets, especially those dozens that fall short and kill their own people. But even that is a victory because journalists are not allowed to film it so they can blame Israel, and everyone complies nicely – or else!

When you are fighting an enemy that simply wants to murder you and your children, says so repeatedly, and proves its intentions with bombs, mortars, suicide attacks, missiles – what would you do to protect yourself and your family and how would you fight? Just think about it. Are you a military expert? Do you understand how Hamas operates? Really? Do you know that it actually wants people to die so that YOU are shocked because YOU have moral scruples and human empathy, but THEY do not.

THEY intimidate journalists, murder collaborators and drag them through the street; they kill people who simply protest against them. They are evil monsters. YOU try dealing with them without harming a lot of innocents.

 Those who live in Gaza are kept like prisoners behind walls and fences, unable to escape the bombings, and an Israeli economic blockade has forced Palestinians into poverty.

Well, Egypt frequently closes its Rafah crossing and has a border with Gaza where not a lot gets through. Why don’t you mention that. On the other hand Israel does the following:

  • Cogat report just for today when there’s a bloody war going on: http://www.cogat.idf.il/901-11564-en/Cogat.aspx
  • Israel provides, directly or indirectly, all Gaza’s electricity – and Gaza does not pay for it.
  • Thousands of Gazans are treating free in Israeli hospitals.

In fact, there is no siege. But there is a maritime blockade because Iran and others send the rockets and weaponry Hamas uses, and would send much more if ships were allowed to dock unchallenged. Can you imagine what they would send? There is a relatively small list of restricted goods which can be used for building Hamas terror infrastructure. This does not include any food items.

Meanwhile, Israel has allowed in, under international pressure, the very concrete used to produce terror tunnels.

Israel’s Iron Dome defence system easily intercepts missiles launched from Gaza. Three Israeli citizens have died from these ­primitive rockets, with 32 soldiers killed fighting Hamas.

This is the usual argument of a Hamas apologist. They are primitive. Really? Grad and Fajr rockets are primitive? So primitive they can close an airport? And the ‘home-made’ ones may be unsophisticated, but they still can kill. Is John saying that Israel’s actions would be justified if more Israelis were killed? Is Israel to blame that it defends its citizens whilst there are no bomb shelters in Gaza, but an extensive network of tunnels used to murder Israelis, not to protect Gazans.

Britain just allowed the Luftwaffe to bomb it, to send V1’s and V2’s without response, did it John? Does Dresden ring any bells?

Compare that to the toll in Gaza. Of the 1,000-plus to die, more than 80 per cent were ­civilians, mostly women and children.

See above for the ‘fair-play’ idea of warfare. In war you want your people to live, unless you are Hamas. As for the lie about ‘mostly women and children’ no-one has managed to find a dead terrorist yet. But Al Jazeera has. Look at this from Elder of Ziyon. It demonstrates that the demographic of deaths clearly indicates that the claim most are civilians is not just false but an utter distortion. And bear in mind that Hamas uses suicide bombers as young as 14.

Israel brands them terrorists but it is acting as judge, jury and ­executioner in the ­concentration camp that is Gaza

Wow, John. No terrorists in Gaza then. But using the term ‘Concentration Camp’, a clear reference to the Holocaust is beneath him. Yet it is a common image used by ‘critics” of Israel who want a genocidal, pathological, fascist regime to have free access to Israel – and Egypt – import what it chooses and to bring death and destruction to Israel.

Well, Jews actually are well aware of what a concentration camp or a death-camp is and we don’t need lessons from Prezza. Because if he has his way and allows the harmless Hamas regime with its fireworks free rein, there really would be concentration camps, and it would be Israeli Jews that would be in them. Prescott’s apologia for a terror organisation is disgusting.

And Israel flouts international law by continuing to build illegal Jewish settlements. Why? Because it knows it can get away with it.

What has that got to do with Gaza? it’s a whole different question. Hamas is not about settlements or blockades, it’s about genocide of the Jewish people – read their charter John.

What happened to the Jewish people at the hands of the Nazis is appalling. But you would think those atrocities would give Israelis a unique sense of perspective and empathy with the victims of a ghetto.

I’m puking my guts that John would use this well-worn and outrageous comparison between Israel’s actions and the those of the Nazis. This is actually antisemitic by the definition approved by the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) :

‘Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis.‘

I don’t believe he is antisemitic, but this is shameful and ignorant.

Hamas is wrong to continue its rocket attacks and must ­recognise ­Israel’s right to exist.

That’s the problem, John. They never will and it’s that little factlet on which every argument against Israel’s actions ultimately fail.

But as Channel 4’s Jon Snow said this week: “If you strangle a people, deny them supply for years, extreme reaction is inevitable.

Firstly, they are ‘strangled’ due to their own actions and those of their government. They have adequate supplies. Did you ever see a starving person on all the videos in Gaza? And they seem to have plenty of supplies of guns and mortars and anti-tank rounds and thousands of missiles. And when they do get building materials, they build tunnels. Hardly Israel’s fault.

‘Extreme reaction is inevitable’. NO IT IS NOT. The extreme reaction was Hamas turning Gaza into an armed camp after Israel abandoned the territory in 2005. There were no blockades or sieges then. It was Hamas’s firing of rockets and using Gaza as a proxy base for Iran to attack Israel that led to subsequent events and wars. FACT.

Is it not truly ‘disproportionate’ to want to exterminate every Jew with missiles and guns? The usual causal inversion and moral blindness is alive and well. Someone threw an egg at Prezza and he tried to flatten him. He didn’t try to flatten him first, and then the guy threw the egg. But in the world of Israel-bashing, the right hook came first, and then the egg.

This is the fundamental conflation of two sets of circumstances: sympathy for the plight of Palestinians, especially in Gaza, and the fact that Hamas is governing them.

No one with an ounce of humanity could feel anything but horror at what is happening and what has happened before. It’s heart-breaking. But it is the responsibility for that plight that is the issue, and the responsibility for the necessity for Israel to protect itself and bring quiet and security to its citizens that is always ignored. Oh yes, politicians and Hamas terror apologists always add that qualifier to show they are being ‘fair’ to Israel, but they expect them to do so with hands tied behind their back.

Nevertheless, there is always justification in questioning the military tactics of Israel. Israelis do it. Frequently. They demonstrate against it. Gazans do not have that privilege.

It’s very easy to empathise with the people of Gaza. It’s very easy to see Israel as the bad guy and not the terrorists because, not only do they physically hide behind their population, they give YOU an excuse to ignore and hide their crimes because YOU are too busy being morally outraged by what you see and hear and are fed, by proxy, by Hamas itself.

The question remains: what would you do and how would you do it? And don’t say ‘negotiate’ because Hamas will not. Don’t say ‘lift the blockade’ because that is just an excuse and a ploy.

It’s very simple. Get rid of Hamas and the problem goes away. Stop hating Jews and the problem goes away. Stop firing rockets and trying to kill and kidnap, the problem goes away.

Shame is, a lot of people believe exactly what Prezza believes. But not the readers of this opinion piece though, according to the vote.

** Latest – vote has now swung in favour. I guess it was too good to be true.

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