Tag: Gaza (Page 4 of 13)

The BBC suggests Gaddafi behaving like Israel

22/03/2011 / Ray Cook / 4 Comments

You can’t keep Israel out of any conflict in the Middle East.

Yesterday on The Big Questions on BBC 1 and this evening on Newsnight on BBC 2, Nicky Campbell and Jeremy Paxman, the two BBC frontmen for these programmes asked more or less the question, and I paraphrase:

‘why are the western nations so keen to protect Libyan citizens from a monster like Gaddafi when they sat on their hands when Israel was bombing Gaza?’

On the Big Questions, Campbell clearly asked it to draw out a distinction without endorsing the moral equivalence, nevertheless, the fact the question was asked at all is significant in that not everyone would see it that way, and would be nodding sagely that Livni was somehow like Gaddafi.

On Newsnight, Paxaman had Bernard-Henri Lévy, a renowned French journalist and philosopher, born in Algeria and a Jew. He had been to Benghazi and as a result had called President Sarkozy to encourage him to endorse and support the no-fly zone and stop a massacre.

In the studio was Abd al-Bari Atwan, a rabidly anti-Zionist Palestinian journalist and editor of Al-Quds Al-Arabi in London who has said “If the Iranian missiles strike Israel, by Allah, I will go to Trafalgar Square and dance with delight.”

So we know where Atwan is coming from.

Henri-Lévy argued that hundreds of thousands of people were at risk. His mission was humanitarian. Atwan’s mission, as ever, was political.

However, it was Paxman, who, before asking Atwan for a response, posed the same question Campbell had done, albeit, with more conviction on the moral equivalence front.

Atwan needed no encouragement. He accused the UN and the West of being selective – well I agree as I wrote yesterday. But rather than laying into Bahrain or Yemen, instead, having had the proverbial red-rag waved by Paxman, he had his horns well and truly sharpened and gored Israel.

He compared Israel’s bombing and ‘massacre’ of 1400 Palestinians in Gaza and Israel’s bombing of Lebanon with Gaddafi. Why did the West not intervene then, he asked.

I’ll not go into the charming way Henri-Lévy stepped aside as Atwan’s horns approached his crotch and how he administered the coup-de-grâce with a well-placed rapier thrust.

The important thing is that Israel’s retaliation against two murderous opponents bent on Israel’s destruction are seen as aggression and deliberately targetting civilians.

Instead, the fact that Hizbollah and Hamas had been firing rockets and abducting Israeli soldiers and were being armed by Atwan’s beloved Iran and that both Hamas and Hizbollah were implacably committed to the destruction of Israel and the killing of Jews, was turned into an aggression equivalent to a tyrant targetting his own people in an attempt to hold on to power.

Surely the real equivalence here is that the UN should have seen Israel as the force for democracy fighting a maniacal fascist enemy and the UN should have been protecting and should now be protecting Israel from assault by Hamas and Hizbollah.

BBC presenters do not view Israel as a beleaguered democracy fighting for its existence against murderous tyrannical regimes which surround it. Instead it is Israel who is at least worthy to be considered seriously as part of the tyrant versus freedom-fighter paradigm.

It takes the Jewish North African Henri-Lévy to put the case for the defence and support of Muslim Arabs whilst all Atwan can do is attack Israel and say the West should tell the Arabs to defend their own people.

In some part, I agree with Atwan: the Arab League should be sorting this out, not the former colonial nations.

So if I agree with Atwan, maybe there’s something wrong with my analysis!

No flies on Gadaffi

20/03/2011 / Ray Cook / 3 Comments

The UN-backed coalition’s No-fly Zone strategy is incomprehensible to me.

What is the aim of this strategy? To stop innocent civilians being killed?

Does it seem to be working? No. We have reports of dozens being killed in Misrata and Benghazi. Gadaffi’s men, dressed as civilians are indistinguishable from rebels and opponents of the regime.

How long can the No-fly Zone be maintained? Er… not sure.

Why have the usual suspects – the US, Britain and France – led the coalition?

What have the Arab League contributed? Money, support – now, apparently in doubt, – anything else? Er – not much.

So, no ground troops, no regime change, no arming the rebels. How will this work, then?

Why is the UN so exercised about Libya, but never considered intervention in other countries (Sudan, Rwanda, Zimbabwe, China, Russia, Lebanon, Yemen, yada yada…) where a regime was killing its own people? It’ s not as if the rebels were not armed. Shouldn’t the Arab League do something for a change? Ah, I forget, they believe the Sudanese President Omar al Bashir is a paragon of virtue.

Isn’t this confusing? The Arab League and Iran effectively support the rebels. Yet in their own countries they are suppressing them.

Now Amr Moussa, Head of the Arab League and Egyptian presidential hopeful, is concerned that the Coalition is killing civilians by taking out air defences and is going beyond what he thought the League had agreed to when supporting the UN Resolution. How did he think they were going to impose a No-fly Zone? Does he believe that such a policy is going to be victim-free?

Here we are again, engaged in military intervention that has nothing to do with national security and is a kind of moral intervention. Bosnia I can understand getting involved with. But Libya? Is it that the West is feeling just a tad guilty about letting the monster Gadaffi free rein for 40 years whilst he terrorised the West and then, when he convinced them that he was a reformed character, forswearing nuclear weapons and WMD, it was all kissy-kissy and releasing a murderer and, oh, signing oil deals and supplying arms.

Hmm. Seems the West is good at supporting and arming dictators and then trying to get rid of them or prevent them from being monsters.

And now I hear that there is to be a blockade of Libyan ports so that arms cannot get in.

The irony is beautiful.

Here is the West condemning the Israeli blockade of Gazan ports and stopping ships to search for arms and now, what are they doing? They are blockading a Mediterranean port or two themselves for the very same reason.

And when Israel tries to stop the firing of rockets from Gaza by taking out military targets using air power, it is condemned for killing civilians. And what is the Coalition doing?

Maybe President Chavez of Venezuela is sending a humanitarian flotilla to Tripoli as we speak.

The Stop the War Coalition who don’t like non-Muslims killing Muslims have come out against the UN Coalition as they want to avoid civilian bloodshed. So they are quite sanguine about allowing Muslims to kill Muslims; let Gadaffi do his worst, it seems.

Such a terrible moral dilemma for the West and the UN. 40 years of inaction, and when a few thousand Cyrenaicans take up arms and begin a civil war inspired by uprisings in other Arab countries, and then get battered by a professional army and air force, suddenly Gadaffi is evil personified.

What the hell has a civil war in Libya got to do with us? Do we know what the rebels believe in? Are these rebels western-style democrats who have emerged suddenly ex nihilo? Is that why the West sort-of supports them? We want to see democracy in Libya? Now, after 40 years? What’s going on?

Will any new Libyan regime be any better? Will the Tripolitanians forgive the Cyrenaicans and vice-versa? Who will reconcile them?

It’s a mess, and on balance either the Libyans should have been left to sort it out themselves or the Arab League should have armed the rebels. Why do we sell arms and sophisticated weapon systems to the Gulf states and Saudi Arabia so they can have impressive military parades but never actually sort out their own back yard?

And when WILL we see a democratic Arab state?

The West is so pleased about what they see as the Arab yearning for democracy that they haven’t actually realised that so far the number of democracies still equals zero. Unless you count Lebanon where Hizbollah now holds sway and Gaza where Hamas was voted in. Is this what our airmen and airwomen are fighting for?

Are our leaders so naive?

Israel intercepts ship in international waters – no accusations of piracy

16/03/2011 / Ray Cook / 0 Comments

You may recall the Mavi Marmara incident last year when Israeli soldiers and navy intercepted a flotilla of ships on what they called a ‘humanitarian’ mission to break the maritime blockade of Gaza.

There was an almighty row with Turkey and the UN and almost universal condemnation because Israel exercised its right to search ships intent on breaking its maritime blockade, redirect them to an Israeli port, inspect them and then ship the aid themsleves.

Nine jihadi ‘activists’ were killed when the Israelis boarded the lead vessel, a Turkish ship, the Mavi Marmara. The activists had laid a well organised ambush and were killed when they attacked the Israelis with lethal force.

The accusations were many, but one was that because Israel had intercepted in international waters they were ‘pirates’ and had no legal right to do so. This is just plain false; any country has a right to intercept ships where there is a genuine belief it may be smugglings arms to its enemy or breaking a legally declared blockade.

The legal niceties were of no concern to those who rushed to judge the Israelis who later admitted operational mistakes.

Those who criticised and pilloried Israel already judged that Israel had no rights to intercept the Mavi Marmara – period.

The fact that the Mavi Marmara was ostensibly a lead ship carrying humanitarian aid proved to be convincing evidence that Israel is a rogue state that attacks innocent humanitarians.

I have already dealt with the incident at length last year. However, I’ll repeat one interesting point that went all but unnoticed internationally and it was this: on board were dozens of battery-powered wheelchairs. Innocent enough? But no, Hamas were disappointed that these were the wrong type of wheelchair with the wrong type of battery. Why? Because the right type of battery could be used to lay explosive devices.

The above proved to me that even innocent items of aid can be a cover for nefarious ends.

Today, the IDF intercepted the Victoria, a Liberian-flagged container ship which had set sail from Latakia in Syria, sailed to Turkey and was then bound for Alexandria in Egypt.

Someone, or good intelligence, had tipped off the Israelis and they boarded without incident 200 miles off the coast of Israel, much further from Israeli waters than the Mavi Marmara.

On board they discovered a huge cache of arms from Iran. Who would have guessed, eh?

You can see the photos on Flickr here http://www.flickr.com/photos/idfonline/sets/72157626272235856

The ultimate destination of these arms was Gaza and Hamas.

This is not the first time Israel has intercepted illegal arms destined for a terrorist group.

So I ask you: where is all the outrage this time that Israel has boarded a vessel in International waters? If it was piracy with the Mavi Marmara, then it’s piracy with the Victoria, no?

But here’s the difference: the Mavi Marmara had huge publicity behind it, was bent on directly challenging the Israeli blockade of Gaza, and had people on board intent on confronting and killing Israelis.

The captain of Victoria did not object and stopped to allow inspection. Result: no violence, no inuries, no death and tonnes of illegal arms.

Iran is in clear breach of international law, but no-one will censor her in the UN.

Why is there such silence and indifference to the Israeli boarding? Answer: the culprits were caught in flagrante delicto there were no representatives aboard from numerous anti-Israel or anti-Zionist groups, no cameras, no TV, no opportunity to demonise Israel and no propaganda victory to be won.

A couple of weeks ago Iranian war ships penetrated the Mediterranean for the first time since the Islamic revolution. They passed through the Suez canal and ended up… yes, you guessed it, in Syria.

It does not take much more than simple arithmetic to come to the conclusion that one or both of these ships were bringing the very arms which were aboard the Victoria.

This time, Israeli intelligence was spot on, and maybe they had some help from the Turks, who knows, because the Israeli government were at pains to make it known that Turkey was not involved in any way.

This whole incident exposes why Israel has the right to intercept shipping, as our own Prime Minister prophetically (or was he tipped off) declared last week. Maybe he was aware that it was coming and so prepared the way to be able to say that the UK was, this time, in support of the action in a ‘humanitarian’ free zone.

It also shows very clearly that Israel had the exactly identical right to intercept the Mavi Marmara rather than to trust virulently hostile passengers and jihadis intent on confrontation.

Such is worldwide hypocrisy and cant when it comes to Israel’s right to defend itself.

See ore here: http://dover.idf.il/IDF/English/News/today/2011/03/1501.htm

Ian McEwan, the Jerusalem Prize, boycotts, and critiques of Israeli policy

26/02/2011 / Ray Cook / 7 Comments

This week, British author Ian McEwan accepted the Jerusalem Prize for Literature at a ceremony in that city.

McEwan took the opportunity to both praise and also criticise Israel.

He had been put under intense pressure by anti-Israel and pro-Palestinian groups to turn down the prize.

Adam Levick of CiF Watch (the website dedicated mainly to alerting us about the egregious Israel bashing in the Guardian’s Comment Is Free web forum) was critical of McEwan. In an article headed “The moral confusion of Ian McEwan” Levick berates McEwan for not condemning those groups who agitated for his rejection of the prize and also for what Levick sees as McEwan’s moral equivalence in his views of Israel and Hamas:

If we lived in a just world, where people didn’t stand idly by in the face of the continuing assault on Israel’s moral legitimacy, author Ian McEwan would have reacted with outrage at demands by Palestinian groups that he participate in a boycott of Israel by refusing to accept the Jerusalem Prize for Literature.

In such a world, McEwan would have passionately denounced the letter to the Guardian from a group called British Writers in Support of Palestine, which urged him to decline the award which they characterized as “a cruel joke and a propaganda tool for the Israeli state” and which went on to denounce the Jerusalem Municipality as complicit in the “illegal colonisation of East Jerusalem.”

McEwan, in such a scenario, would have responded by noting that Israel, whatever its imperfections, remains a small bastion of freedom in a region plagued by despots and tyranny, and is in fact the last nation in the Middle East deserving of such opprobrium and sanctions.

In short, he would [have] turned the charge around and expressed to his Palestinian interlocutors how appalled he was at the mere suggestion that Israel, the nation where freedom of political and artistic expression is most arduously protected, should be isolated by the artistic community.

I think Adam Levick expects too much of McEwan given his liberal credentials. I also believe that he underplays the good things McEwan said about Israel. He fails to mention how important it is that those who share McEwan’s views on settlements and Jerusalem do not take part in any boycott, and have the moral fibre to go to Israel. Once there they can demonstrate that, unlike in the despotisms and tyrannies of which Levick writes, they are free to criticise the state.

Is it not better that he should go and criticise rather than succumb to the bullying tactics of the Israel-haters? Compare to the craven Mike Leigh who I wrote about here and several artists who have cancelled concerts because of pro-Palestinian or left-wing pressure groups.

McEwan has also spoken out strongly against Islamic fundamentalism and antisemitic rhetoric. It should also be noted that he spent much of his youth in pre-Gaddafi Libya.

However, the issue of moral equivalence is valid.

Here are the salient points of McEwan’s acceptance speech which you can currently find on his website:

After showing humility at being the recipient of a prize previously given to such luminaries as “…Isaiah Berlin, Jorge Luis Borges, or Simone de Beauvoir”, McEwan recounted the pressure he had been put under NOT to come and accept the prize:

Since accepting the invitation to Jerusalem, my time has not been peaceful. Many groups and individuals, in different terms, with varying degrees of civility, have urged me not to accept this prize. One organisation wrote to a national newspaper saying that whatever I believed about literature, its nobility and reach, I couldn’t escape the politics of my decision. Reluctantly, sadly, I must concede that this is the case.

And the reason for this: “ I would say as a general principle that when politics enters every corner of existence, then something has gone profoundly wrong.”

But hold on. Why is the Israel-Palestine situation so uniquely part of everyone’s existence?

If he were in the United States accepting the Pullitzer Prize, would he drone on about freedom and Guantanamo Bay or extraordinary rendition?

If he were accepting the Booker Prize, again, would he berate the British government for its actions in Afghanistan or Iraq? Would he have mentioned the ‘troubles’ in Northern Ireland a few years ago? I don’t recall he ever did these things in accepting the Booker Prize.

Would he go on about Chechnya or Georgia if he were to receive a prize from Russia?

Would he berate the Turks for the Armenian genocide and the occupation of Cyprus?

Would he lay down the law to the Japanese about whaling or the Chinese about the lack of freedom in that country?

Would he protest Saudi treatment of women and their medieval legal system?

Why does everyone feel that they have the right to comment, whatever the occasion, however unrelated, about the policies of Israel? McEwan claims this right because he feels he is speaking at the heart of the most politicised conflict in the world.

This is a conflict about which almost everyone has an opinion but very few have the true facts or understand the history.

“… no one can pretend here that all is well when the freedom of the individual, that is to say, of all individuals, sits so awkwardly with the current situation in Jerusalem”

A first shot across the Israeli bows. He is in Jerusalem, the epicentre of the 100 year conflict. His justification for speaking out:

once you’ve instituted a prize for philosophers and creative writers, you have embraced freedom of thought and open discourse, and I take the continued existence of the Jerusalem Prize as a tribute to the precious tradition of a democracy of ideas in Israel

A plus point for Israel. At least he acknowledges Israel’s democracy and freedom and claims his right, therefore, to free speech in Israel.

Is it not a fact that many in Israel are far more critical than McEwan is about to become? But I ask myself ,’ does he have a right?’ He feels he is morally obliged to speak. He is a man of conviction and a strong moral sense; a belief in human freedom. How can he remain silent?

McEwan goes on to demonstrate his knowledge and appreciation of Israeli writers and their politics:

There are so many writers one could mention, but let me single out three senior figures who have earned the respect and love of readers around the world — Amoz Oz, Abrahim Yehoshua and David Grossman. Very different writers, with overlapping but far from identical politics, writers who love their country, have made sacrifices for it — and have been troubled by the directions it has taken, and whose work never fails with that magic dust of respect, the bestowing of the freedom of the individual on Arab as well as Jew. In their long careers they have opposed the settlements. They and Israel’s younger literary community are the country’s conscience, memory and above all hope. But I think I could say of these three writers that in recent years they have felt the times turning against their hopes.

I’m getting a very slight sense of a patronizing tone. It’s not intended, but it’s along the lines of little Israel and its wonderful Jewish heritage, its people’s embracing of centuries of philosophy and yearning for freedom, its suffering. So you should know better than to oppress Palestinians.

We now come to the part of the speech about which Adam Levick was so disappointed. This is where McEwan compares, and so equates, the actions of Israel with the actions of its enemies, and in doing so expresss that narrative of moral equivalence which slips so easily from the tongues of the liberal West.

Taking this line, he is not being ‘evenhanded’ or ‘fair’ or ‘balanced’, he is falling into the same trap that statesmen and writers and commentators often fall into. And they fall into it precisely because they do not want to take sides, and by not doing so, they commit the sin of moral equivalence.

This is not to say that Israel is never wrong or that it never acts immorally. No nation can say that. What is almost always omitted is the utter lack of of morality of those seeking Israel’s destruction under the cover of a land dispute.

Oh yes, McEwan acknowledges the ‘extinctionist policy’ of Hamas in his speech, but his theme of nihilism then leads to this:

I’d like to say something about nihilism. Hamas whose founding charter incorporates the toxic fakery of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, has embraced the nihilism of the suicide bomber, of rockets fired blindly into towns, and embraced the nihilism of an extinctionist policy towards Israel. But (to take just one example) it was also nihilism that fired a rocket at the undefended Gazan home of the Palestinian doctor, Izzeldin Abuelaish, in 2008, killing his three daughters and his niece. It is nihilism to make a long term prison camp of the Gaza Strip. Nihilism has unleashed the tsunami of concrete across the occupied territories. When the distinguished judges of this prize commend me for my ‘love of people and concern for their right to self-realisation’, they seem to be demanding that I mention, and I must oblige, the continued evictions and demolitions, and relentless purchases of Palestinian homes in East Jerusalem, the process of right of return granted to Jews but not Arabs.

Wow. Let’s see what he is saying. He takes an example, an infamous one, of the tragic events around the killing of the Abuelaish family. Yes, it was tragic, yes, any decent person would be shocked and horrified, even ashamed that this could happen. The IDF gave a detailed explanation of the events leading to this tragedy. Whatever you may conclude about the IDF’s tactics in Gaza, this was not ‘nihilism’, this was a mistake, a bad one, a terrible one, but it was not a deliberate act.

Suicide bombs, rockets fired at civilians, using human shields, using children as cover for terrorism or military operations, using ambulances to carry weapons, teaching children to hate, preaching genocide, denying the historical ties and uninterrupted Jewish connection with the Land, Islamising Jewish holy places, are ALL deliberate nihilistic acts.

Of cause, building settlements is also a deliberate act, but it is an act that can be supported by international law and treaties despite what the world wants to believe. Whether it was ever wise or moral to build settlements is another question.

The ‘Gaza Prison Camp’ accusation is a familair one, not least to followers of David Cameron. Leaving aside the fact that ‘prison camp’ conjures images that are totally inaccurate of life in most of Gaza, in terms of the Gazan’s lacking the freedom to leave Gaza, it is largely accurate, apart from the thousands that do leave illegally through the tunnel into Egypt or via crossing points to receive hospital treatment in Israel.The fact that Egypt sealed its border with Gaza not to keep in ordinary Gazans, but to keep out Hamas, is almost always ignored.

The cold facts are that Hamas has launched an aggressive war against Israel with whom it remains in an official state of belligerence. Whereas Israel would much rather not fence in Gazans and blockade their ports and would prefer the peace they expected when they withdrew from Gaza, instead Hamas chose to attack Israel with a tsunami (to use McEwan’s word) of poorly directed missiles whose sole purpose was, and remains, to terrorise.

The aforementioned ‘tsunami of concrete’ is another bloated rhetorical trick; hyperbole in McEwan’s literary circles.

McEwan appears to be referring to the separation barrier. The barrier is concrete for only part of its length, although this is most obvious in Jerusalem itself.

Does McEwan think it ‘nihilism’ to prevent the nihilsitic suicide bombers, and other terrorists, free access to Israel as they did before the barrier was built? Terrorist attacks have been reduced to a trickle, lives have been saved on both sides. This is not nihilism, it is the desperation and exasperation of a country that has been, and continues to be, under attack from its neighbours for more than 60 years.

McEwan is also troubled by evictions, demolitions and property acquisition in what is termed ‘occupied’ East Jerusalem. Without wishing to mount a complex and detailed defence of Israel’s policy in Jerusalem, not all of which I agree with, I would point out that there is a lot of misinformation and propaganda when it comes to these issues. There is much discussion and controversy in Israel itself.

Can McEwan really be equating municipal housing policies and contentious legal property rights issues with the genocidal policies of Israel’s enemies. Maybe this will throw some light on it:

After her recent visit here, The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights notes that the firing of rockets into Israel from Gaza constitutes a war crime. She also notes that that the annexation of East Jerusalem contravenes international law and that East Jerusalem is steadily being drained of its Palestinian inhabitants.

The Commissioner is not an international lawyer. The annexation of Jerusalem is contentious. It’s hardly a war crime. Palestinians in Jerusalem are so worried about it that a large percentage do not want to become part of a Palestinian state because the benefits of being in Israel are too great to lose.

As Jackson Diehl reported in the Washington Post recently:

One of the givens of the Middle East peace process is that Palestinians are eager to be free of rule by Israel and to live in a state of their own. That’s why a new poll of the Arabs of East Jerusalem is striking: It shows that more of those people actually would prefer to be citizens of Israel than of a Palestinian state.

The poll, conducted in November, may be something of an embarrassment to Palestinian political leaders, who lately have been insisting that Israel should stop expanding settlements in the eastern half of Jerusalem — in effect giving up any claim to it — as a precondition for the resumption of peace negotiations.

….

The awkward fact is that the 270,000 Arabs who live in East Jerusalem may not be very enthusiastic about joining Palestine. The survey, which was designed and supervised by former State Department Middle East researcher David Pollock, found that only 30 percent said they would prefer to be citizens of Palestine in a two-state solution, while 35 percent said they would choose Israeli citizenship. (The rest said they didn’t know or refused to answer.) Forty percent said they would consider moving to another neighborhood in order to become a citizen of Israel rather than Palestine, and 54 percent said that if their neighborhood were assigned to Israel, they would not move to Palestine.

The claim by the UN Commissioner that East Jerusalem is being drained of Arabs is utter nonsense. In fact, the opposite is true. Since 1967 when Israel took control of all of Jerusalem (from the Jordanians, please note) the Arab population has grown by more than 250 percent. Hardly the ethnic cleansing that the Commissioner appears to be coyly hinting at. Under Jordanian occupation for 19 years the Arab population did not increase at all.

McEwan also mentions “the process of right of return granted to Jews but not Arabs”. Here he is at his most naive. There is no right of return guaranteed for Arabs and certainly not 4th and 5th generation refugees. The author has really swallowed the Palestinian agitprop like so many well-meaning and even more less well-meaning detractors of Israel. Indeed, if we are to believe the recent PaliLeaks documents from Al Jazeera, the Palestinian Authority was ready to concede that Israel could not reasonably be allowed to absorb millions of Palestinians.

So, in conclusion, I’d rather defend McEwan than attack him. He came to collect his prize and then donated it to a charitable cause: “Ian McEwan is donating ten thousand dollars to ‘Combatants for Peace’, an organisation that brings together Israeli ex-soldiers and Palestinian ex-fighters. These ex-combatants go about in pairs, talking in public to make the case that there can be no military solution to the conflict.” his website tells us.

I clearly don’t agree with a lot of McEwan’s views on Israeli policy. I do understand why he might have these views because thousands of Israelis and Jews around the world share them. At least he feels free to express his views and even go to Sheik Jarrah to join in the left-wing protests against evictions where he was joined by fellow author and Israeli activist, David Grossman. I wonder how many demos McEwan has seen fit to take part in in the UK where he is not known as being politically active.

I applaud him for going to Israel. I believe he has a right to say what he believes. I do agree with Adam Levick that the moral equivalence that tries to force Israel’s re-actions into the same mould as its enemies’ actions is a form of moral imbalance induced by both a lack of knowledge and a predisposition to see the world, and this conflict in particular, as a story of two ‘rights’ which conflict rather than a story of decades long Palestinian and Arab rejectionism which still persists and is the main obstacle to peace.

As a small counter-balance to McEwan, Umberto Eco, the Italian novelist, writer and academic was reported in the Jerusalem Post, attending the same Literary Fair as follows:

Celebrated Italian writer Umberto Eco on Wednesday said boycotting scholars for their governments’ policies is “a form of racism” and “absolutely crazy.”

But he said he faced no pressure from colleagues to boycott a book fair in Jerusalem to protest Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians.

…

He told reporters Wednesday he enjoys Israeli novels and his books’ themes are influenced by Jewish culture.

Bravo, Umberto.

Michael Morpurgo and the children of Israel and Gaza

18/02/2011 / Ray Cook / 1 Comment

Children’s author Michael Morpurgo published a book called ‘The Kites are Flying’ two years ago, apparently an uplifting story of how children across the divide between Israel and the Palestinians find friendship in the common pursuit of kite-flying across the Separation Barrier.

It’s an extraordinarily political thing to do to write about an ongoing conflict and present it to children who probably understand little of the origins of that conflict.

Putting that thought aside, a few days ago, Morpurgo appeared on BBC2’s Newsnight where he presented a short documentary film he had made in Israel and Gaza and discovered the the real world either side of the divide.

The film and visit were sponsored by the NGO Save the Children.

The documentary showed Morpurgo to be a humane man, desperate for children in this conflict to give us hope that they can live in peace in the future. It was optimistic and idealistic with a smattering of realism. There were also one or two problems with it which I want to discuss.

The documentary was followed by a discussion chaired by Jeremy Paxman with Morpurgo and Louise Ellman (MP Lab Liverpool Riverside) who is a passionate advocate of Israel in Parliament.

I shall come to that discussion too. But first the short documentary, which is still on BBC iPlayer as I write (it does not appear to be on YouTube yet).

Morpurgo begins by telling us about the book he wrote even though he had never been to Israel or the Palestinian Territories. Strange, I thought, that he could write about a subject of which he had had no personal experience and then sell it to kids. But everyone thinks they understand the conflict because they see it on the news channels and read about it in the papers.

We discover he ‘was sent’ by Save the Children to Israel and Gaza as an ambassador for that organisation.

His expressed aim was to try to find out whether children on both sides see a chance for peace or ‘whether my book was sentimental nonsense’.

We see Morpurgo asking questions at a school in Neve Shalom. This school is the first in Israel that is bilingual and ‘bi-national’ as he puts it.

I am already having problems. ‘Bi-national’? Does he not realise that all these children are Israelis? Let’s accept his shorthand for ‘bi-ethnic’ or ‘bi-cultural’ but surely the point is that it is decidedly not ‘bi-national’.

The kids are bright, eager, they speak English. They are typically Israeli. They are happy and smiling, well-balanced kids as far as we can see. Only those who know Israel would be able to spot who is a Jew and who is an Arab.

He now asks them what they feel about the other community. But this is rather ignorant. These are not Israelis and Palestinians from either side of the Barrier. They are not Israelis and Gazans learning together. They all live in the same country, have the same rights, are free to go where they wish, worship where they will, say what they think, write what they believe.

I sense a false analogy creeping up. Morpurgo’s voice and delivery is full of gravitas, empathy, almost like a Church of England vicar.

He asks a Jewish kid if it is easy to play with ‘Arabic’ kids. The boy says ‘yes, but it takes time’. The boy tells us that the word ‘Arab’ is used as a ‘curse’ – he means it’s a defamatory name to call a friend, like ‘Jew’ is to an Arab, no doubt. Clearly this kid has not been primed by the hasbara police.

Another boy, an Arab (I think!) tells us that on the news we only see the bad things not the good. No-one has asked the Arab children what they think of the Jews. Maybe they don’t speak English as well as the Jews.

Morpurgo and the kids make kites, like in his story. He believes that the more schools like this, the more chance of reconciliation. But again he does not understand. Yes, there are tensions within Israel; yes, the Arabs are discriminated against and their opportunities are fewer. The point he misses is that this school is no different to, say, a school in the USA where black kids are integrated with white.

It’s about making a single society, it’s about achieving the true objectives of Zionism and the ideals of the founders of the State; equality not just in law but in fact. Arabs need to feel more part of the state and less as suspicious aliens in their own country. They need equal opportunity and they need freedom from prejudice and suspicion.

What Morpurgo misses is that the school he thinks this one in Neve Shalom is, would, in reality, be a school where Palestinians from the Territories go to school with Jews from Israel. That’s where the reconciliation is needed far more than in Israel. That’s the true test of children becoming the future peacemakers.

Instead, children in the Territories are taught not reconciliation and understanding but hate and murder, genocide and martyrdom. Why did we not see this in the film? Why did Save the Children not take Morpurgo to a typical school in the West Bank? Why did they not show him he kids TV programmes which deny the existence of Israel and promote the killing of Jews? It’s these children who need saving more than Israeli Arabs, surely.

The kids happily fly their kites with whoops of joy. Children playing together. At the age of 12, we are told, they move on to secondary school and separation.

We are now taken to Sderot, the town in Israel which has been under constant bombardment from Gaza since Israel withdrew from Gaza completely in 2005. It was Sderot which was one of the main reasons for Israel’s attack on Gaza in Operation Cast Lead in 2008-9. Sderot is just a few kilometres from the border.

Now a rarity. Morpurgo explains to us with newsreel footage, that Sderot is under constant threat of attack.

Soon we are are taken to Operation Cast Lead and told that despite this, the attacks continue. Sderot and its problems are soon left behid, This was the ‘balance’ part of the program. Now for the ‘horrors’ of Gaza.

Morpurgo mistakenly tells us that the Gaza strip is surrounded by a great wall. This is not true. Most of it is a fence.

He tells us about the blockade to prevent weapons entering. ‘To me, it looks like a siege’, he says blithely. I wonder how many sieges he has seen.

At this point, of course, Morpurgo does not realise that what he sees and where he goes is strictly controlled by the Hamas propaganda machine and he is falling for it straightway.

Clearly, there is a huge difference between what he sees in Gaza and what he just saw in Israel. He is shown the worst of Gaza but the hotels and pools, the shops full of food and white goods are nowhere to be seen.

Morpurgo is not an investigative journalist, he is a writer. He should also read more. Does he realise, for example, that this ‘siege’ is supported by hundreds of trucks bringing food and other necessities from Israel every day? Does he realise that Israel provides electricity and fuel, treats hundred in its own hospitals free of charge?

I always place a caveat when describing Gaza. Life there is no picnic. They are are in a cage caused by geography and history. Gaza is an enclave cut off from the rest of the Palestinian Territories. It is easy to characterise this as a siege or a ‘prison camp’.

Morpurgo tells us that levels of poverty and malnutrition are appalling. The doctors at the hospital he visits report on these levels of malnutrition. It is a hospital to specifically treat this problem.

Why is this? Does he know that Hamas take foreign aid given freely and sell it in their own shops?

Does he not wonder why Hamas seem to be able to get hold of weapons but are unable to provide food for their people?

If so, he doesn’t tell us.

He does not tell us that if Hamas were not in a state of belligerence with Israel their economy would be as good as that of the West Bank where there is no malnutrition and where attacks on Israel have considerably reduced.

Why does he not question the fact that the shops are full of food, so why do children go hungry?

We are now taken to the Tamar school in Gaza City which looks like any other city in the Middle East. The kids here are not like the Arabs of Neve Shalom. They are ‘angry’, they have seen their family members dead in the street. We do not know, however, what these family members were up to at the time.

No doubt they are traumatised. No doubt they are brain-washed with hatred. Morpurgo is not focused on this. He wants to discover seeds of reconciliation in their hearts. As in Neve Shalom, the Gazan children (who do not look emaciated at all, quite normal and healthy) are making kites.

He asks the children what they think of Israeli children. A young girl says that the blockade is made by the Israelis. They want their children to have rights, but not Palestinian children.

Morpurgo asks if they could talk to Israeli children were they to be there at that moment. The reply is that one day that child might be a government minister and lift the blockade.

So we see that the children of Gaza believe the blockade is some sort of punishment for them and is not prompted by anything perpetrated by Hamas. So why no blockade on the West Bank? The word ‘blockade’ should rightly refer to the maritime blockade. There is no land blockade, but there is an embargo of certain items such as building materials which could be used for terrorists purposes.

The embargo and blockade are not pretty, but can you name any historical situation where a country supplied anything to another country or political entity which threatened it daily and whose purpose was the total destruction of that country?

A young boy says that there are people who want to take what they have by force and they must try as hard as they can to get back their land by blood. Nice. This is the point, of course. Israel left Gaza completely. The boy means Israel when we speaks about getting back his land. This is what he is taught, he knows no other reality.

The same boy tells horrendous stories of how his family members were killed by Israelis during the conflict.

Despite this, Morpurgo says ‘I sense a willingness not to condemn Israeli children’. I do not know where he got this sense from, it is not evident in the film. In any case, children grow up and become martyrs or fighters. The boy in the film may be 12 years old. He may already have been on ‘operations’. Who knows.

More kite-flying and more wishful thinking from Morpurgo. I don’t blame him for his optimism, but he needs to be a student of the conflict to understand the realities and the death cult and antisemitism aimed at children daily. He does not report on this form of child abuse, of course, because Hamas would never allow him to see it.

Morpurgo is clearly moved by his experiences in Gaza. ‘Leaving Gaza, I feel like a deserter, turning my back on all the suffering and despair’.

He is now subjected to a Pallywood moment and falls for it. I may be being cynical here but the Palestinians are past masters at staging atrocities when foreign film crews happen to be passing through.

We are told and see film of young boys collecting rubble near the border which they can sell in Gaza. Morpurgo does not question why young boys of about 12-14 should be near a a known danger at the border.

Then Morpurgo tells us that whilst he is waiting to cross he hears gunshots. A young boy has been shot and has been put on a cart pulled by a donkey to get him to hospital.

How convenient. I do not want to sound insensitive but I really don’t buy this. We see the cart coming straight at the camera with ‘ a young kid lying bleeding in the back of it’. Morpurgo says he has never seen anyone shot before. I think he still hasn’t.

The Israelis use remote controlled guns to shoot at anyone who comes near the fence. Even Morpurgo says it’s difficult for him to ‘confirm this has happened here’. But he said he saw a bleeding boy? Who does he think may have shot the kid? Or is he suggesting that he was not shot at all. If so, why does he not say so.

Morpurgo is upset that a commander has to give an order for these remote guns to be fired, but he still does not question why these young boys are allowed near the fence by the Hamas police or their parents. He does not know that this is sanctioned because it gives cover to those who would lay explosives to kill Israelis. If the Israelis fire they might kill a young kid being used as a human shield. Another martyr and another black mark against Israel.

But Morpurgo just sees them as kids scavenging to make a living. He even says they do it near the border to ‘cock a snook’ at the Israelis. He does not appear to be confused by the fact that no-one has run away from the scene of the ‘shooting’ and life carries on. He does not realise he has been the latest victim of Pallywood.

Morpurgo’s conclusion comes more from his own sense of hope and his love of children. He believes the seeds of hope are there on both sides. He sees this as a morally equal battle. He does not appear to take sides – at least not yet. He accuses no-one, at least not yet.

He believes that peace will come as it did in Europe, South Africa and Ireland.

I don’t like analogies. None of these are analogous to each other or the Israeli-Arab conflict. Let’s hope he is right, but not in my lifetime, I fear.

Back to Paxman in the studio who tells us with that voice of his that expresses cynicism that the IDF told the BBC that remote guns are used to stop terrorist attacks near the fence. Last month young boys tried to place a cart full of explosives at the border. His expression seems to say ‘you would say that wouldn’t you’.

The studio discussion is most interesting mainly for the ineffective performance of Louise Ellman – she really must up her game. She comes over as an apologist who has few answers and expresses those she has as if they were platitudes that no-one will believe.

Morpurgo strongly believes that despite the situation, if Gazan children came to Israel and Israeli children to Gaza a dialogue could start and sow seeds of reconciliation for the future.

Of course, many, many friendships existed and still do between Israelis and Gazans. They do business, they call each other. Many Gazans worked for Israelis and bonds were formed. We don’t hear this.

Ellman tries hard to tell Paxman that Hamas is at the heart of the problem using the children as human shields and gives them explosives or forces them to carry them.

Paxman asks her to comment on the ‘siege’. Like an idiot she uses his word and therefore implies she believes that it is a ‘siege’ when answering his question! She says the siege is about preventing weapons getting into Gaza to be used to blow up Israeli children. She does not distinguish the blockade from the embargo, and so her argument is not convincing.

Paxman, to his credit, says to Morpurgo that he been ‘had’, but only because he didn’t go to Sderot to see what was happening there. Morpurgo insists he does know about it.

But now Morpurgo moves into Guardian anti-Zionist narrative by saying ‘You cannot wage war on children’ and telling us more than 300 children died during Cast Lead. But all wars are fought against children in that they get in the way. And in Gaza, Hamas puts them in harm’s way and some of these children were actually combatants.

Paxman pulls him up on this, again to his credit, and says Israelis are not going in to kill children and Morpurgo says ‘but it happens’. Of course it does. That’s what happens in a war. Should Israel allow its children to be targeted in their schools and do nothing in case Gazan children are killed in their attempt to stop it? Is he serious? It’s Hamas who are targeting children; their own by abusing them to become militarised at a young age and the Israeli children because Hamas send their rockets at times when they know children are going to school or coming home. So who is it that is targeting children? Ellman says nothing.

Morpurgo speaks of a cycle of hatred caused by Israeli actions. There is no cycle of hatred because Israelis do not hate Gazans, they hate Hamas. They are the haters, not the Israelis.

Morpurgo quotes a figure of 26 children shot by Israelis, targeted, he says again, in 2010. But again, what is a child? 16 is not a child in Gaza terms. 14 is not. Why are these ‘children’ at the fence? What are they doing? It is Hamas who use them cynically. If they succeed, Israeli soldiers are killed or maimed, if they fail, Israel is killing children.

How many children died in Iraq in 2010 as a result of terrorism, or in Pakistan? No-one seems to care about these children, only Gazan children who are very often on some military operation.

The discussion comes to an end with Paxman dismissing claims that it’s all one side’s fault or another and that Morpurgo’s idea is a good one but how can you do it with a wall in the way. Ellman tells us that that the wall / barrier is there because Hamas kids go into Israel with suicide belts. Not very convincing.

That’s not why there is a barrier. Morpurgo then smiles and says he hasn’t seen kids with suicide belts and there is a lot of talk about this and implies it’s all rubbish. Ellman here has really lost the plot by banging on about kids with suicide belts. The vast majority are adults and her argument is not helped by a failure to explain the purpose of the barrier.

She redresses the balance by telling us about Gazan children treated in Israeli hospitals, but it’s all delivered in monotone. Israel needs a better advocate than this. Sorry Louise, you are just not forthright enough. If I can say I would have done better, then you know it was not a great performance.

Paxman says that we saw some very malnourished children ‘as a consequence of the Israeli “siege”‘. How does he know that this is the reason for their malnourishment? Gaza actually has an obesity problem, apparently. They are 8th most obese (England 11th) for men and 3rd, yes 3rd for women.

Ellman again fails to make use of statistics and blames Hamas, therefore accepting Paxman’s premise even though we do not know the malnutrition rate, its causes, and how widespread it is. It’s all surmise and speculation, no hard facts. In other words, Hamas’s propaganda machine wins again. How many starving kids did Morpurgo see outside the hospital?

Morpurgo ends by telling us that Neve Shalom is a beacon of hope where both groups can rub along; Paxman clarifies that these kids are Israelis, but Morpurgo persists in his incorrect claim that these are Israeli kids and Arab kids – he is wrong; they are Israeli Jews and Israeli Arabs. He does not appear to understand the difference. When it comes to this conflict, ignorance is not bliss but a dangerous misreading and misinterpretation which viewers who don’t know any better take as the truth.

Ellman not once pulls him up on this. It was a poor performance by her.

Morpurgo’s final word: ‘we are all friends of Israel here, but it does them no good to target children’. Ah, that old blood libel. Morpurgo should know better.

Michael Morpurgo is a very well-meaning man and I truly believe he is neutral and wants peace, although there was a hint of one-stateism in his report and discussion. However, he needs to get his facts right and the Israeli case needs to be better represented on these occasions. Ellman does her best, but I was not impressed.

Update 22.02.2011

In the Dimbleby Lecture which Michael gave on the day after this programme he repeated the story of the boy that was shot near the border fence. Even though he said he could not be sure what happened, he stresses that it does happen regularly.

I concede that it may well be true that the boy, or teenager, was shot and maybe operating in an exclusion zone is meant to provoke such actions. However, can you say in one breath that such young men have been guilty of planting explosive devices intended to kill Israelis on the other side of the fence, and in the next breath condemn the Israelis for trying to prevent it.

As I asked above, why do the Palestinians allow youngsters to operate in such a dangerous zone? In the BBC film we could clearly see Palestinian police watching but not intervening.

Morpurgo has failed to identify the fact that Hamas are completely comfortable with sending children on ‘operations’ and do not have his qualms or share his morality.

Israel Diary – Jeremy Bowen in Wonderland

01/02/2011 / Ray Cook / 1 Comment

I had to laugh at BBC Middle East reporter Jeremy Bowen’s take on the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt on the BBC News website:

Unlike the jihadis, it does not believe it is at war with the West. It is conservative, relatively moderate and non-violent. But it is highly critical of Western policy in the Middle East.

Bowen completely ignores the fact that Mubarak has been suppressing any whiff of Islamism, fearing just the sort of uprising from the extremists that the pro-democracy activists are now engaged in. He misses the point that the Brotherhood is patient and lies low, even now, to later pounce and develop a new highly dangerous, anti-Western, anti=Israel and anti-Christian policy when it can wield power and influence over the people.

The contrast between Bowen’s apparent laid back attitude to the threat of the Brotherhood and his views on the Netanyahu government in Israel as ‘right-leaning’ is marked.

Bowen ignores the effect on Israel of a Hizbullah/Iranian proxy in Lebanon, Iranian-backed Hamas in Gaza, Al Qaeda linked Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and, no doubt, a terrified King Abdullah in Jordan who, at least, can flee to Britain should the worse come to the worse.

Will the Palestinians in the West Bank then be emboldened to raise a third intifada and oust Palestinian Authority President Mohmoud Abbas, replace him with Hamas and bring more international outrage on Israel’s head for defending itself?

Meanwhile, in Damascus, President Assad lies waiting for his big chance to seize back the Golan.

Bowen seems somewhat sanguine about the Domesday scenario since he ignores it completely.

Maybe he is easily fooled by the term ‘Brotherhood’,

One thing is almost for certain; the Muslim Brotherhood will have some place in the Egyptian government.

Will the Brotherhood be to the new Egyptian government as the Nazis were to Weimar Repuplic in the 1930’s?

Live Aid, Gaza and humanitarian disasters

27/12/2010 / Ray Cook / 3 Comments

A few days ago I happened to be watching, once again, the documentary about Live Aid first shown 5 years ago on the 20th anniversary of the event.

Like millions of people on the actual day, I was enjoying the performances until we got to the part where they showed the film of the starving Ethiopian children and experienced again the horror of millions of people dying from famine, whilst we in the first world get increasingly obese.

And then it struck me; here was a genuine disaster where the whole world was mobilised by the efforts of one inspired man. So if Gaza is such a humanitarian disaster, and if people are really starving as so many in the anti-Israel organisations and commentators and journalists would have us believe, where are the images? Why are there no Live Aid type concerts? Where is the international outrage? Not the outrage of those with a political agenda, but the outrage which comes of genuine humanitarian concern?

As ever, I do not deny that many in Gaza do not have the greatest standard of living or quality of life, but is it not telling that the world actually understands real disasters, such as Haiti and the Pakistan floods. The world realises that the difficulties in Gaza, though real, are not in the same league as Haiti or Pakistan, let alone Ethiopia.

The only people fixated on trying to tell us that there is a humanitarian issue worthy of international attention are the flotillaniks and aid organisations whose agenda is to break the blockade, embarrass Israel and keep Gaza on the UN agenda. They are doing a fine job, often aided by UNWRA, but it does seem to me that the message that there is a humanitarian disaster worthy of the name is growing a little weak. And the idea that it is only Israel that is responsible for the conditions in Gaza is also beginning to pale.

Let’s not forget that Egypt also has a land embargo and one third of Gaza’s border is with Egypt.

Israel delivers thousands of tonnes of food and other aid and equipment every week through crossing points. Israel delivers electricity through its grid. Israel provides medical aid to thousands of Gazans a year. Shops in Gaza are well-stocked with food and white goods.

Yet Hamas, the rulers of Gaza, declare that their goal is to destroy Israel but complain that Israel is a little wary of the free passage of marine traffic into the Gaza strip. What nation in history whose enemy declared that its goal was to destroy it has provided the means for that enemy’s people to survive, although not thrive? And these are the same people who voted Hamas into power in the first place.

We hear how Gaza is a prison camp, that there is a humanitarian disaster, that Israel must end the ‘siege’. Bear in mind, also, that Hamas holds Gilad Shalit captive without access to the Red Cross. Bear in mind that rockets are fired daily into Southern Israel. Still Israel sends in the trucks.

How many countries have organised food aid for Gaza? How many worldwide broadcast concerts have the pro-Palestinian groups in Europe arranged to raise money?

So, as I said, I was thinking, maybe the world is not fooled. Maybe they actually understand it’s more about politics and less about suffering. Aid convoys and flotillas may have a small effect on the conditions in Gaza but their real purpose is political, not humanitarian.

No, the Gazan people are pretty well provided for by UNWRA, the EU, the United States and Israel. If they could get rid of Hamas, they might actually begin to thrive.

Goldstone refuted – by Hamas itself

30/11/2010 / Ray Cook / 0 Comments

The media, having long ago agreed to everything in the Goldstone report, has no interest in the accidental revelations which refute its conclusions.

Camera.org recently published news that none other than Hamas itself has revealed an important statistic, previously denied or simply lied about, which shows that Goldstone was a gullible sap who was fed lies from dubious sources and reached conclusions which were foregone before he even started his one-sided investigation.

Hamas Interior Minister Fathi Hamad’s admission that Hamas and affiliated militias lost 600-700 fighters in the Israeli “Cast Lead” military operation undermines the central accusation of the Goldstone Report that the Israeli operation was “premised on a deliberate policy of disproportionate force aimed … [at] the civilian population.” The public, however, is unlikely to know this, because Hamad’s remarks have been largely ignored by major news organizations, like the New York Times and the BBC.

Hamad’s comments were made in an interview published in the London Arabic daily Al Hayat on Nov. 1, 2010 and reported by Agence France Presse, the Jerusalem Post and others. In the interview, he stated that

On the first day of the war, Israel targeted police stations and 250 martyrs who were part of Hamas and the various factions fell.” He added that, “about 200 to 300 were killed from the Qassam Brigades, as well as 150 security personnel.”

Hamad’s figures closely match the Israeli estimate of 709 combatant fatalities and indicate that combatants comprised around half of the Palestinian fatalities in the time period of Dec. 27, 2008 through Jan. 18, 2009, far more than the 17 percent claimed by Palestinian groups. The increased ratio of combatants to non-combatants is inconsistent with Goldstone’s most serious charge that Israeli forces systematically targeted civilians.

The importance of the last sentence cannot be underestimated. The accusation of deliberately targeting civilians was the direct opposite of the truth, as Col Richard Kemp told the UN Human Rights Council last year https://www.raymondcook.net/blog/index.php/2009/10/19/colonel-richard-kemp-and-the-truth-about-operation-cast-lead

In the rush to judgement, or directly to condemnation, the picture of Israel as a bloodthirsty, murderous regime, which its enemies are so keen to promote, was given validation by Goldstone.

Considering the conditions in Gaza – the use of public buildings, the network of residential homes used and the firing from or near UN buildings – the ratio of combatants to civilians killed is low and completely disproves the demonising conclusion of Goldstone.

Israel and the Palestinians – more hope through medicine

25/11/2010 / Ray Cook / 1 Comment

Further to my last post, the IDF has come out with a truly amazing statistic. Tamara Shavit reports:

Humanitarian dilemmas are a recurring issue in the Judea and Samaria region. A terrorist fires at IDF soldiers, is shot and gets wounded. Is an IDF medic to be called to treat him? A building is about to collapse in the heart of Ramallah. Does the IDF enter? Does it jeopardize its soldiers’ lives, or does it call the International Red Cross and risk losing precious time?

To Israel, the answer to these questions is clear. According to Division Medical Officer, Lt. Col. Michael Kassirer, “The treatment of the Palestinian population is first and foremost a moral and professional obligation for every one of us.” Do we treat them? There is no question about it. But what happens in the long run and how? Where do international organizations fit in? How will an independent Palestinian medical body be established and how does coordination between bodies happen in life? These are the real questions.

Shavit reports on a Palestinian doctor, Tawfik Nasr, who explained at a conference at the Hadassah hospital in Jerusalem that, although the situation in Judea and Samaria has improved, there are many challenges due to accessibility problems and the ability to move freely from the West Bank into Israel.

But despite these difficulties, there are also many successes.” He cites as an example of patients coming from Gaza, treated in Jerusalem sometimes over a period of three to four months. They receive a special permit from the director allowing them to stay in Israel so they won’t have to go back and forth and are housed in a special hotel in the Mount of Olives. “All these things are ultimately coordinated by the Israeli Civil Administration. Therefore I want to take this opportunity to thank you. It is particularly important for me to express my deep gratitude to Dalia [Basa, the medical co-ordinator for the Territories], who is responsible for organizing everything.”

And here’s the statistic:

Last year, 180,000 Palestinian citizens entered Israel to receive treatment. 3,000 emergency patients were transferred from Israeli to Palestinian ambulances using the “back to back” method, without warning.

So much for genocide.

Eye-witness in Gaza (2) – The Christian pogrom in Bethlehem and other matters

19/11/2010 / Ray Cook / 3 Comments

Yesterday I wrote in (mostly) praise of Peter Hitchen’s recent MailOnline article about his visit to Gaza and the West Bank.

I covered his Gaza experiences, but his West Bank one is equally as enlightening.

Hitchens begins describing Arab hospitality but soon we find:

once again I saw the outline of a society, slowly forming amid the wreckage, in which a decent person might live, work, raise children and attempt to live a good life. But I also saw and heard distressing things

‘Wreckage’? Not sure what he means here. The last war here was 37 years ago. Many Arab towns in the West Bank look like anywhere else in the Middle East. Presumably this is a psychological wreckage in terms of almost 40 years of direct conflict with Israel.

At least we see civil society beginning to form, and about time too.

Hitchens is quick to see the plight of Christians under Palestinian Authority rule:

I feel all of us should be aware of … the plight of Christian Arabs under the rule of the Palestinian Authority. More than once I heard them say: ‘Life was better for us under Israeli rule.’

Ah! Interesting.

One young man, lamenting the refusal of the Muslim-dominated courts to help him in a property dispute with squatters, burst out: ‘We are so alone! All of us Christians feel so lonely in this country.’ Substitute ‘lonely’ with ‘hounded’ and persecuted’.

It appears it isn’t just Jews some Muslims are uncomfortable with. Whilst denying any Jewish connection to the Land of Israel, they now want to end 2,000 years of continuous Christian presence in the West Bank it appears. Will it be that a future Palestine is not just judenrein but christenrein as well.

This conversation took place about a mile from the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, where tourists are given the impression that the Christian religion is respected. Not really.

I was told, in whispers, of the unprintable desecration of this shrine by Palestinian gunmen when they seized the church in 2002 – ‘world opinion’ was exclusively directed against Israel. I will not name the people who told me these things.

I have also decided not to name another leading Christian Arab who told me of how his efforts to maintain Christian culture in the West Bank had met with official thuggery and intimidation.

There is no unsubstantial Christian presence in Bethlehem, as you might imagine. Hitchens tells us that it’s about 30,000 in the area but between 2001 and 2004 2,000 emigrated and if we assume that this migration will continue there may be no Christians at all in 10 to 15 years.

Arabs can oppress each other, without any help from outside. Because the Palestinian cause is a favourite among Western Leftists, they prefer not to notice that it is largely an aggressive Islamic cause.

Spot on, my man. This guy isn’t afraid to tell the truth.

Let’s digress here and look at the evidence for Christian persecution over many years. Let’s start with the Methodists current policy of a boycott of Israeli goods manufactured in the West Bank and their reason for it.

On their Conference website the most salient point for me is this:

The decision is a response to a call from a group of Palestinian Christians, a growing number of Jewish organisations, both inside Israel and worldwide, and the World Council of Churches. A majority of governments recognise the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories as illegitimate under international law.

I’m not going to get into the argument that the settlements are or are not illegal, what strikes me is ‘a call from a group of Palestinian Christians’. The fact that there are Israeli groups which favour boycotts is none of the Methodists’ business, but the Christians are.

Yet the Methodists are fixated on what Jews are purported to be doing to Christians but make no equivalent criticism or boycott of many egregious Muslim activities where Christians are being murdered or expelled or persecuted.

CiFwatch recently had a cross post from the Point of No Return website about the ‘inferior status of Christians under Islam’, in other words, dhimmitude.

The atrocity at Our Lady of Salvation in Baghdad in which 52 Christians were murdered has set off a flurry of articles about Christians under threat of extinction in the Middle East. Al-Qaeda has declared Arab Christians a legitimate target. Even Robert Fisk of The Independent is sounding the alarm about a flight of Christians of Biblical proportions – and that was before the massacre.

First the Saturday people – now the Sunday people. Jews have been virtually wiped out in Muslim lands. Now it’s the turn of the ancient Christian communities. Forty percent of the Assyrian Christian population of Iraq has fled since the fall of Saddam.

And much of this under the noses of the American coalition forces, presumably.

Also, in Syria:

since the late 1960s private Christian schools have been suppressed, …. the Armenian Christians of Syria are leaving at a particularly high rate: the government has banned their associations, publications, the teaching of their language and their political party.

Hmm. Seems like the Christian Arabs of the West Bank are not alone.

What about Jordan:

the monarch [sic] sees itself as the protector of the six percent of Jordan’s population who are Christians; they are given limited political rights. However, there is plenty of evidence that displaced Iraqi refugees view Jordan as a way-station to a third country of asylum – namely,the US. The refugees – and by no means all are Christian – complain bitterly that as non-residents they are not permitted to work or are paid exploitative wages. Only those with $100,000 to spare can obtain Jordanian residency rights.

Hmm. Seems the Christians in Jordan are worse off than those in the West Bank too.

Surely in Egypt, I want some good news:

It was the ‘secular’ regime under Gamal Abdul Nasser which did most to marginalise the Copts, now barely 10 percent of Egypt’s population. They are not allowed to repair their churches without government permission, let alone build new ones. Ever since the 1950s, the Copts have been persecuted, murdered, their women kidnapped and forcibly converted. Copts have been leaving Egypt for decades.

Decades? Centuries, isn’t it?

New York, NY, November 16, 2010 … The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) today denounced the torching of at least 10 houses belonging to Coptic Christians in southern Egypt and called on Egyptian government officials to vigorously prosecute the perpetrators and increase protection for Copts. (http://www.adl.org/PresRele/IslME_62/5909_62.htm)

Hmm. So Egypt is also bad. So that’s Iraq, Syria, Jordan and Egypt. Lebanon, then, with its institutionalised power sharing between Muslim and Christian can be the only haven for Christians in the Middle East? Surely?

I found an excellent website: Christian Persecution Info. The Methodists should have a read:

Lebanese security forces prepared to crackdown on Islamic insurgents Friday, June 25, after threatening leaflets were found calling on Christians to leave a key port city, and a bomb blast that killed at least one person in a predominantly Christian town.

Officials said they already detained this week two suspects accused of distributing the threatening publications in the southern port city of Sidon. Those arrested where [sic] not immediately identified.

The leaflets included Islamic slogans and warned Christians in the area to “spare their lives by evacuating the area within one week” or “bear the consequences,” Lebanese media reported.

Underscoring the seriousness of the threats was a bomb blast last weekend that ripped through a car parts shop in eastern Lebanon, killing one person and injuring two others, an official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The explosion reportedly occurred shortly before midnight Saturday, June 19, in an industrial neighborhood of the predominantly Christian town of Zahle.

Now correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t it the current Israeli Foreign Minister, Avigdor Lieberman, who is accused of wanting to drive out Arabs? Yet Israel seems to be the ONLY place in the area where Christians are free to worship without hindrance, are free from persecution.

You could accuse me of selective bias. OK, find me some negative stories about Christians being persecuted by the state in Israel.

I found a nice Italian site in English with the endearing headline ‘In Israel, Christians are Sprouting’. Conjures up an interesting picture, but we know what they mean.

Many of the members of indigenous communities, heirs of the ancient forms of Christianity that flourished there before the arrival of Islam, are fleeing.

The ones who remain live here and there in terror, for example in northern Iraq, in Mosul and the surrounding area, where in order to defend themselves they tend to make ghettos in the plain of Nineveh.

Ah, Iraq again.

And Israel?

The number of Christians within the borders of Israel has not been falling, but in absolute terms it has risen year after year: from 34,000 in 1949 to 150,000 in 2008, the last official figure.

One can speak only of a slight reduction in percentage terms – from 3 to 2 percent – because in the same span of time the number of Jewish citizens has grown from one million to 5.5 million, thanks to immigration from abroad, and the number of Muslims from 111,000 to 1.2 million.

Most of the Christians in Israel live in Galilee, while there are 15,000 of them in Jerusalem.

The exodus of Christians that has set off alarms therefore does not regard Israel, but rather the Holy Land, a geographically flexible term that extends to the Palestinian Territories and parts of the neighboring Arab countries, all the way to Turkey and Cyprus.

And for balance:

… there are the Palestinian Catholics who have been in Israel since its foundation, with the status of citizenship but in socially disadvantaged conditions.

Yes, maybe the Methodists would be better directing their efforts to helping the Arabs just like Jewish organisations:

LONDON – A new Jewish community initiative to promote understanding and equality for Israel’s Arab citizens is up and running with the announcement last week of its first coordinator.

The United Kingdom Task Force on Arab Citizens of Israel was set up last year by a broad coalition of Jewish organizations, to deepen UK Jewish engagement and understanding of issues facing Israeli Arabs and to leverage communal resources to provide effective solutions for furthering their rights.

Founding members of the initiative are the Board of Deputies of British Jews, United Jewish Israel Appeal, the Pears Foundation, the Zionist Federation of Great Britain and Ireland, the New Israel Fund and UK Friends of the Abraham Fund. The task force’s executive committee is made up of the chairmen or chief executives of those organizations.

Task force members have highlighted the obligation set out in Jewish tradition and Israel’s Declaration of Independence to social and political equality for all the country’s inhabitants – Jews and Arabs alike.

Until a few years ago, there were just a few hundred Hebrew-speaking Catholics in Israel. But they are growing steadily, and today number at least seven communities: in Jerusalem, Jaffa, Be’er Sheva, Haifa, Tiberias, Latrun, and Nazareth.

But let’s move back to Peter Hitchens territory and look again at the plight of Christian Arabs in the Palestinian Authority controlled Bethlehem and see what Daniel Pipes was reporting in 2007:

… a campaign of persecution against the Christians of the West Bank and Gaza has succeeded. “Even as the Christian population of Israel grows, that of the Palestinian Authority shrinks precipitously. Bethlehem and Nazareth, historic Christian towns for nearly two millennia, are now primarily Muslim.

…

Khaled Abu Toameh of the Jerusalem Post reports from Bethlehem, increased attacks by Muslims on Christian-owned property in recent months means that

some Christians are no longer afraid to talk about the ultra-sensitive issue. And they are talking openly about leaving the city. … According to the families, many Christians have long been afraid to complain in public about the campaign of “intimidation” for fear of retaliation by their Muslim neighbors and being branded “collaborators” with Israel. …

And in Hudson New York in May 2009, Khaled Abu Toameh again reported:

Christian families have long been complaining of intimidation and land theft by Muslims, especially those working for the Palestinian Authority.

Many Christians in Bethlehem and the nearby [Christian] towns of Bet Sahour and Bet Jalla have repeatedly complained that Muslims have been seizing their lands either by force or through forged documents.

In recent years, not only has the number of Christians continued to dwindle, but Bethlehem and its surroundings also became hotbeds for Hamas and Islamic Jihad supporters and members.

Moreover, several Christian women living in these areas have complained about verbal and sexual assaults by Muslim men.

Over the past few years, a number of Christian businessmen told me that they were forced to shut down their businesses because they could no longer afford to pay “protection” money to local Muslim gangs….

…..

On the eve of Pope Benedict XVI’s visit to the Holy Land, a Christian merchant told me jokingly: “The next time a pope comes to visit the Holy Land, he will have to bring his own priest with him pray in a church because most Christians would have left by then.”

Indeed, the number of Christians leaving Bethlehem and other towns and cities appears to be on the rise, according to representatives of the Christian community in Jerusalem.

Today, Christians in Bethlehem constitute less than 15% of the population. Five or six decades ago, the Christians living in the birthplace of Jesus made up more than 70% of the population.

Now there IS a cause for the Methodists who probably just care about this bit:

True, Israel’s security measures in the West Bank have made living conditions more difficult for all Palestinians, Christians and Muslims alike. But to say that these measures are the main and sole reason for the Christian exodus from the Holy Land is misleading.

If the security fence and the occupation were the main reason, the Palestinian territories should by have been empty of both Muslims and Christians. These measures, after all, do not distinguish between Christians and Muslims.

In fact, Christians began leaving the Holy Land long before Israel occupied the West Bank and Gaza Strip in 1967. But the number of those moving to the US and Canada has sharply increased ever since the Palestinian Authority took control over Bethlehem and other Palestinian villages and cities. When the second intifada erupted in September 2000, Christian leaders said they were “terrified” by the large number of Christians who were leaving the country.

Ironically, leaders of the Palestinian Christians are also to blame for the ongoing plight of their people because they refuse to see the reality as it is. And the reality is that many Christians feel insecure and intimidated because of what we Muslims are doing to them and not only because of the bad economy.

When they go on the record, these leaders always insist that Israel and the occupation are the only reason behind the plight of their constituents. They stubbornly refuse to admit that many Christians are being targeted by Muslims. By not talking openly about the problem, the Christian leaders are encouraging the perpetrators to continue their harassment and assaults against Christian families.

Gotcha! Gotcha, Methodists. You believe what you want to believe and blame the Jews, the Christ-killers and ignore the real persecution. For shame!

Let’s get back, once more, to Hitchens odd Odyssey across the West Bank where, Alice-like, he encounters some strange truths.

Hitch and the Wall (barrier, actually, for most of its length)

Think about this wall. I acknowledge that it is hateful and oppressive – dividing men from their land, and (in one case) cutting across the playground of a high school. But I have concluded that it is a civilised response to the suicide bombing that led to its being built.

Encountering Muslim anti-Semitism:

My host, a thoughtful family man who has spent years in Israeli prisons but is now sick of war, has been talking politics and history. His wife, though present, remains unseen.

Suddenly he begins to speak about the Jews. He utters thoughts that would not have been out of place in Hitler’s Germany. This is what he has been brought up to believe and what his children’s schools will pass on to them.

The heart sinks at this evidence of individual sense mixed up with evil and stupidity. It makes talk of a ‘New Middle East’ seem like twaddle. So, are we to despair? I am not so sure.

This is the demonisation that few neutrals and no anti-Zionists speak of, and if they do, they’ll tell you it is ‘understandable’.

Here Peter scrabbles to find a suitable end to his article, telling us about improving conditions, shops serving Arabs and Israelis and hoping the whole thing won’t end in a nuclear Holocaust.

Well done, Hitch. Not a perfect 10, but you made me think there is hope yet for the British Press.

Update: I noticed that Prof. Barry Rubin has written on this subject here.

Tag: Gaza (Page 4 of 13)

The BBC suggests Gaddafi behaving like Israel

No flies on Gadaffi

Israel intercepts ship in international waters – no accusations of piracy

Ian McEwan, the Jerusalem Prize, boycotts, and critiques of Israeli policy

Michael Morpurgo and the children of Israel and Gaza

Israel Diary – Jeremy Bowen in Wonderland

Live Aid, Gaza and humanitarian disasters

Goldstone refuted – by Hamas itself

Israel and the Palestinians – more hope through medicine

Eye-witness in Gaza (2) – The Christian pogrom in Bethlehem and other matters

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