Ray Cook - As I See It

Israel, Zionism and the Media

Tag: Israel (Page 4 of 34)

J’Accuse the Sunday Times of fabulist journalism : Israel’s alleged attack on Sudanese arms factory

28/10/2012 / / 0 Comments

Earlier this week there were reports from the Sudanese capital, Khartoum, of explosions at an arms factory in the outskirts of the city.

It was not long before the Sudanese were accusing Israel of bombing the facility. Israel remained mum.

In the past Israel has been accused of firing on a convoy carrying arms across Sudan to be delivered ultimately to Hamas in Gaza and behind this arms route is none other than Iran.

It would be entirely feasible for Israel to undertake such an operation. By supplying sophisticated weapons to a terrorist group bent on the destruction of Israel, Sudan is fair game.

However, there is little hard evidence. Iran claims to have discovered remnants of Israeli munitions at the factory site.

Most news outlets ask the question: ‘Did Israel bomb Sudan?’. This is a valid question to ask.

Some, though, have blatant headlines which claim this to be a fact. It cannot be a fact until there is independent evidence or an admission. Anything else is speculation. It may be well-founded, it may even be blindingly obvious who did it, but it is not journalistic fact.

Uzi Mahnaimi, an Israeli reporter for the Sunday Times, along with colleague Flora Bagenal in Nairobi (yes, you may well ask ‘ who?’) appear to have detailed information about the attack. For them there is no question, no journalistic caution about accusing Israel. They have every detail of this covert operation.

Problem is, they do not reference one source or one shred of evidence. The whole story reads very suspiciously. You can tell when journalists are making it up.

The online article is behind a paywall. The whole article is strongly editorialised including the headline: “Israeli jets bomb Sudan missile site in dry run for Iran attack” (or in the paper edition: Israel hits missile site in dry run for Iran’) so that we can draw the conclusion, if we are stupid enough, that Israel chose to bomb Sudan not because it was defending itself from an arms production and smuggling route originating in Iran but because it fancied having a practice run for a future putative bombing of that country.

Not only are our correspondents certain that Israel is to blame but the ST even gives us exciting comic-book graphics of the incident and the numbers and types of aircraft involved and the route the planes took, how they were refuelled and how the Sudanese air-traffic control and radar system was jammed.

The piece ends in American action movie style with Israel’s chief of defence staff (who Uzi knows was actually taking part in the mission, of course) calling Prime Minister Netanyahu at home with the words, ‘”All went well, … the guys are on their way home'”.

Now how the heck would he know that? Has he bugged Netanyahu’s phone? It’s ridiculous and also the main giveaway that this is pure fantasy masquerading as journalism.

It’s not the first time Uzi has been caught with his journalistic pants down; here is the Wikipedia entry (redacted to remove references to numbered notes and other links) about Israel’s supposed, but now proven to be a hoax, ‘ethnic bomb’.

In November 1998, The Sunday Times reported that Israel was attempting to build an “ethno-bomb” containing a biological agent that could specifically target genetic traits present amongst Arab populations. Wired News also reported the story, as did Foreign Report.

The article was quickly denounced as a hoax. Microbiologists and geneticists were skeptical towards the scientific plausibility of such a biological agent. The New York Post, describing the claims as “blood libel”, reported that the likely source for the story was a work of science fiction by Israeli academic Doron Stanitsky. Stanitsky had sent his completely fictional work about such a weapon to Israeli newspapers two years before. The article also noted the views of genetic researchers who claimed the idea as “wholly fantastical”, with others claiming that the weapon was theoretically possible.

A planned second installment of the article never appeared, and no sources were ever identified. Neither of the authors of the Sunday Times story, Uzi Mahnaimi and Marie Colvin, have spoken publicly on the matter.

It seems that Uzi has a record of shoddy journalism and, on the ethnic bomb story, he and his late colleague, Marie Colvin, no friend of Israel, were more than ready to publish unfounded trash simply because maligning Israel was involved.

Mahnaimi is well known for producing exclusives about Israel to the attention of Sunday Times readers.

I wonder where his sources are?

Another low for the BBC News website

25/10/2012 / / 2 Comments

Since the beginning of the week dozens of rockets have been launched from the Gaza Strip into Israel in a significant ramping up of the usual barely (if at all) reported regular barrage that penetrates southern Israeli cities towns and rural communities. On Tuesday an IDF officer was critically wounded in attack near the Gaza border.

On Twitter and in Israeli newspapers and other online media and websites this barrage was big news. Israel employed its Iron Dome defence system which is only partially effective in protecting large conurbations far enough away from launch sites. Typically Israelis have 15 seconds to get to shelters once the sirens sound.

Then two farm workers near Kissufim were badly injured by rocket fire.

On the BBC and its website what was the reaction for at least two days? We are talking about the world’s most respected news service, allegedly.

Nothing. Zip, Nada. Goor nisht.

I and friends online came to the conclusion that the BBC would not report this until Israel responded and that the headline would imply that Israel was the aggressor.

Sure enough, yesterday, Israel did respond and the BBC’s own response was immediate; there it was on the website’s World and Middle East pages with “Militants killed in Gaza strike’.

BBCWatch have been assiduously reporting this timeline and you can see their reports at BBCwatch.org

That report seems to have disappeared (actually buried and changed here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-20054554) and been replaced with a more balanced one ‘Israel and Hamas ‘negotiate unofficial truce’ in Gaza’

I’m sure the original is somewhere in the BBC archive but I would hazard a guess they had several complaints about it and updated it. This is typical. A piece appears with a headline reversing cause and effect; the body of the piece often contradicts the headline and draws some moral equivalence between unprovoked attacks on civilian targets by Hamas or Gaza-based ‘militants’ and Israel’s response to prevent further attacks by targeting those about to fire or those who it knows have already done so.

Today we now have two very different pieces from the BBC. The one about the truce at last puts the horse before the cart:

Five have been injured in Israel since rocket attacks began on Monday.

Israel retaliated with air strikes on Gaza City, killing at least six militants.

…..

On Wednesday, more than 70 rockets were launched into southern Israel, injuring five people, two critically, according to the Israeli military.

In response, Israeli aircraft and tanks targeted rocket-launching sites in northern Gaza.

Hamas’s military wing, the Izz al-Din Qassam Brigades, confirmed it had been involved in firing dozens of rockets and mortars into Israel.

In a statement, the Izz al-Din Qassam Brigades and a smaller Gaza-based militant group, the Popular Resistance Committees (PRC), said: “These holy missions come in response to the repeated, continuous crimes of the enemy against our people.”

But should we not have a headline at some point during this timeline which says ‘Five Israelis critically injured by rockets from Gaza‘ or ‘Israel responds to escalation of attacks in the South‘?

I’m sure we could all write a better, more balanced headline than the ones being spewed out from the BBC Mid-East  desk.

Now, if you have any doubts about the level of moral degradation that the BBC’s reporting of this conflict has now reached you only have to look at the report by Jon Donnison who appears to be following in the illustrious footsteps of Jeremy Bowen and Barbara Plett reaching new heights of ignorance and moral bankruptcy.

Please be careful. This reports contains graphic examples of the BBC’s egregious attempts at what it calls ‘balance’ but is simply either bias, stupidity or moral decrepitude. (There was, apparently, an even worse report by Donnison last night which I have not been able to source yet)

Here’s the link in all its emetic glory. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-20073219

The text below the video:

Mourners in the Gaza Strip have buried four Palestinian militants killed in Israeli air strikes over the past two days.

Israel said the militants were hit as they prepared to fire rockets into southern Israel.

It says at least 60 rockets and mortar shells have landed on its territory, seriously injuring three people. Schools have been closed on both sides of the border for fear of more attacks. 

Ah – ‘Israel said’ – in other words we should not believe the Israelis but swallow whole anything emanating from terrorist-occupied Gaza.

And ‘schools have been closed both sides of the border‘ just to emphasise that same old moral equivalence. If schools have been closed in Gaza then it’s a precaution not normally offered to its children when rockets are launched from them.  Or maybe it’s a good idea to close these schools to demonstrate to the BBC in particular how they protect their children. Or maybe Eid has something to do with it?

In the report Donnison does not show us hundreds of thousands of Israelis cowering in bomb shelters but the funeral of ‘militants’ killed by Israeli air strikes, and quoties Hamas. He leaves out the fact that this was after dozens of rockets hit Israel. We see mourning relatives and Gazans taking cover but absolutely nothing about Israelis.

These reports do tell us what actually happened if you care to decipher the text and remove the veneer of ‘balance’ but it certainly takes a strong solvent and an even stronger stomach.

 

Life: predictably unpredictable

06/10/2012 / / 4 Comments

So there I was watching my first child exit his mother’s birth canal in a hospital in Manchester.

Fast forward almost 27 years and I am sitting with my wife in Northern Israel watching that same child receive his beret on completion of his basic training in the IDF.

Roll back again to 1985. No, roll back to 1975.

I am sitting in a House for Jewish students in Liverpool playing chess at the beginning of my second year at University. New arrivals. A young woman with black hair in a fringe peers round the door of the lounge and says ‘hello’ and gives her name. I look up, mutter something, and return to my Ruy Lopez.

Now I know the whole story of how I got from moving my bishop to Knight 5 to the moment an officer rams a beret on my son’s head and I turn to my wife and we are both crying buckets. Not buckets of fear and anticipation, but of pride and a certain bewilderment.

For a few minutes we are Israelis. There are several hundred people pressed up behind us; parents, grandparents, brothers and sisters. We are right at the front, a few feet from the action.

We stand for the Hatikvah, the national anthem. I manage the first two stanzas, then I am consumed with an indescribable sensation and my voice breaks. I fight back tears. I compose myself. I manage the last couple of stanzas with gusto.

To be a free people in our own land, the Land of Zion and Jerusalem

The ceremony ends.

Fast rewind 30 years.

During the 1980s I wasn’t much interested in Israel, or Jewish history, or, indeed, Judaism. Every attack on Israel was keenly felt, however. I was not Israel-neutral but I didn’t much like what was happening to Palestinians on the West Bank, I didn’t like settlements and I found not one Israeli leader that I could identify with. Those views still persist but I can now at least contextualise them.

Truth be told, although I believed in Israel’s right to exist and Jewish self-determination, I didn’t much like Israelis and I simply determined not to go their country until Israeli government policy changed.

I was a bit of a lefty. I still am someone with instinctive left-leaning views. I somehow have an urge to apologise for that. But I’ll demur. For now.

So what changed?

I educated myself. I read history. I learned. I abjured simplistic views of the conflict.

I eventually made my first trip in 1999 and all my preconceptions about arrogant Israelis were confirmed. I did not like the country.

Then, after more visits, I came to understand the culture better and I began to accept the rudeness, the bad driving and the chutzpah. I began the process of understanding that these few million insufferable Orientals were guaranteeing my escape route from future persecution. They were creating a new/old culture so complex and rich and controversial and noisy and wonderful – and against such incredible odds.

I eventually became comfortable not just with my Jewish identity but I came to understand that Israel is really a modern paradigm for the last 2000 years of Jewish history; always under attack, always threatened. Which other people live in constant fear that sooner or later they really will be wiped off the map?

Despite the vicissitudes of this existence over the millennia, and maybe because of it, the Jewish people have not just found ways to survive but also thrive, quite often achieving high levels of literacy, wealth and, where allowed, social status. They always achieved this despite frequent periods of persecution, expulsion and confiscation.

Israel has, since the days of the yishuv, the pre-state political entity, continued on this same path of achievement. But the difference is that with independence and self-determination Jews can, at last, defend themselves from the dark forces that persist in trying to destroy us.

So that indescribable feeling I experienced, which I mentioned before, that I felt as I watched my son receive his beret was due to all this history, all this collective experience, all the pride in his achievement and that of the young men we met that day. Pride in myself. Pride in my people. Secure in the belief and knowledge that, despite its imperfections, its internal problems, external aggression, existential threats, lies, propaganda and undiluted hatred, the despised country of a despised people was at its core strong, moral, determined and righteous.

And mixed with all these emotions was that bewilderment from the realisation that my wife and I were responsible. We were not here by chance. We had truly changed the world as all of us do. The accident of our meeting all those years ago resonates throughout our lives and the lives of our children. Of course, the same is true for our parents and their parents and back through the years and the decades and centuries. Each small act or decision or coincidence leads to everything we and those following us experience for good or ill.

So do not believe that you are not important. We all change the world, the present and the future every day. What we can never do is to predict where these choices will one day lead. We can only strive and hope they are mainly for the better.

Hamas reduces trade with Israel; Israel gives Gazan children free medical treatment

02/10/2012 / / 0 Comments

News this week that Hamas has halved the import of Israeli fruit, because to buy from Israel is to buy from the enemy. This move is part of the ‘resistance’. Only apples and bananas are now allowed in by Hamas. They want to cultivate their own fruit industry.

This is fine. It’s a great idea to be self-sufficient. But they are not so yet. In the meantime their own people will suffer price hikes and, presumably, as a result, many will go without this essential and important part of their diet.

Hang on a minute. Are we not being constantly told that it is Israel that is causing malnutrition because of the ‘blockade’? Is Israel not to blame for the black market in goods including foodstuffs?

But here we have Hamas punishing its own people for ideological reasons.
Of course, it will still be Israel’s fault. After all, were there no Zionist entity there would be no need for resistance and the benighted Gazans would have all the oranges and limes they could eat.

It is a shame that the Gazan authorities failed to stop the looting of millions of dollars worth of greenhouses which were actually purchased by American Jews from former Jewish settlers in Gaza. These American Jews then donated the greenhouses to the Palestinians of Gaza. They were all but destroyed in a matter of days in 2005.

And what do we now hear? Another flotilla is on its way from Europe in a further attempt to break the blockade and to keep Gaza in the news whilst Syria burns. Will they be bring fruit (not apples and bananas as they are clearly not yet ideologically tainted enough for Hamas to ban their import from Israel).

Is it not utterly extraordinary that Hamas imports anything at all from the evil Zionist entity? Is it not utterly extraordinary that the genocidal Zionist entity would want to feed the people it is trying to commit genocide against? Those Jews, eh. Anything to make a quick shekel.

But those genocidal Jews are really being outrageously cynical and hypocritical. They are actually saving the lives of Gazan children – for free! Is there no end to the lengths the Jews will go to whitewash their many crimes.

Mohamed and Hadeel (both 12), Hadeel’s brother Ahmad (15) and six-month-old Lian all suffer from kidney insufficiency and have been hospitalized for several months at Rambam Medical Center in Haifa. They have been receiving lifesaving therapy while awaiting kidney transplants.

Image by Pioter Fliter courtesy of Rambam Medical Center

Mahdi Tarabia, head nurse of the Pediatric Nephrology Unit, explained that the treatment they need, peritoneal dialysis, is not available in the West Bank and Gaza, so medical authorities from these areas cooperate with Rambam to save children’s lives.

“The hemodialysis treatment that these children were given before their arrival at Rambam was associated with medical complications, resulting in a worsening of their condition and many hospitalizations,” he explained.

As opposed to hemodiaysis, where the blood is cleansed via an artificial kidney over the course of several hours a few times per week, in peritoneal dialysis the treatment is given through the abdomen overnight, not interfering with the child’s daytime activities. Each of the young patients’ families has been trained by Rambam’s staff to administer peritoneal dialysis.

The families received the equipment required for this treatment, and the solution used with it, from Teva Pharmaceuticals. The company will arrange to have supplies conveyed through the Erez checkpoint at the border of Israel and Gaza.

The three schoolchildren are soon due to be sent home, while the recently arrived baby still needs time to be stabilized.

Sometimes things are not quite as black and white the Palestinians and the media would like them to be.

Jerusalem and the story of two memorials

02/10/2012 / / 0 Comments

I’m in Jerusalem this week. You can write as much as you like about a place, but here’s no substitute for actually being there and imbibing the culture and the atmosphere first hand.

I’ve been here many times now. Today, however, I noticed two contrasting memorials as I walked back from the Old City to where I am staying off Emek Refaim.

I’ve seen them both on several occasions but for some reason, this time, something resonated.

The first is a plaque outside the King David Hotel which commemorates the attack on that hotel during the British Mandate. The plaque is at pains to tell us how many warnings were given by the Irgun to various bodies asking them to evacuate the building. The target was the central offices of the British Mandate authorities in July 1946.

This same plaque expresses the regret of the Irgun that these warnings were ignored and 92 people died.

Something is not right with that expression of regret.

As you enter Emek Refaim you cannot fail to miss a stone memorial for the eight people who died on a 14a bus as it was leaving the German Colony during the second Intifada in 2004. The suicide bomber was, of course, a Palestinian terrorist who gave no warning except, presumably, a final shout of Allah HuAkbar as he detonated he bomb.

Let’s, go back to the King David Hotel memorial. This plaque is telling us that the Irgun, and by implication, the Israeli people are very sorry that 92 people died, but it really wasn’t their fault because they did warn you and if you didn’t listen to that warning or believe it, then that was your problem. We regret the loss of life BUT ….

Well, sorry, there can be no ‘buts’. Terrorism is terrorism. Now I know such a view may not be popular among some supporters of Israel who will claim that the Irgun ‘had to do it’, ‘we were fighting for our state’, ‘we had to drive the British pro-arab mandate authorities out’ etc. etc.

Now imagine that the terrorists who flew planes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon had given warnings that were ignored by the US authorities. Suppose the planes were empty, except for terrorist pilots. Suppose that thousands of people were killed because the New York and Washington authorities had not heeded the warnings and evacuated the Pentagon and downtown New York.

Who would be to blame for these deaths? The municipal authorities or the terrorists?

So who was to blame for the King David Hotel bomb? The Irgun or the Mandate authorities?

You can argue all you want how much worse Palestinian terrorism is than Jewish terrorism of the 1940s, and I would agree, but it is still terrorism. I think it is time Israelis and the Israeli government acknowledged this and apologise for it rather than sanitise the worse excesses of the Irgun, Stern Gang and others. Not only is it morally right to do so but it avoids accusations of hypocrisy when it comes to terrorism and the glorification of terrorists.

It is always dangerous to judge the past by the standards of today, but very often the passage of time gives us a much clearer vision, even a clearer moral vision of past events. Much has been written about the bombing and much historical analysis about the ‘warnings’ has been written. I take the simplistic view: the British were not the Nazis, they were not an evil regime. The bomb was a crime – no excuses. This has always been my view.

When I was very young and saw the film Exodus these Jewish Freedom fighters became glamorous heroes of the Jewish people. This view became somewhat modified over time until I formed a completely contrary view.

None of this has ever changed my conviction of the rights of and the necessity for a Jewish State, but all decent states have to be cognisant of the crimes of the past committed in its name even before that state was actually formed. I will not be fully comfortable until that cognisance and that acknowledgement are made.

It goes without saying, but I will, nevertheless, say it, that it is unlikely that Palestinians will ever make a single apology for any act of terrorism. But their attitude has absolutely no bearing on the obligations of Israel. I mention it as a knee-jerk attempt to mitigate by comparison and thus I contradict myself.

What a terrible irredeemable Zionist I am.

BBC Panorama – Price Tag Wars

20/09/2012 / / 0 Comments

Whenever the UK media covers the Israel/Palestine conflict I worry about bias and misrepresentation of the facts.

This fear is based on experience over many years.

When the BBC broadcast a special programme about the Mavi Marmara incident last year I and many others were very surprised that the programme came out largely on the side of Israel in terms of who was telling the truth. It was rather less surprising that the BBC should be vilified for it, after all, Israel is always wrong, don’t you know.

On Monday this week, which also happened to be the first day of the Jewish New Year, when most Jews would not be watching TV, the same BBC programme and the same reporter, Jane Corbin, covered the Price Tag phenomenon in Israel and the Palestinian Territories.

Given the fact that the BBC decided to cover the issue, it was lucky Jane Corbin covered it. I thought it was largely fair. However, the Palestinians came out as squeaky clean pacifists despite mention of Arab terrorism.

The Price Tag movement is an extremist, religious settler movement which attacks mainly Arab, but also Israeli targets as a ‘Price Tag’ for any action the Israeli government takes against settlements, such as dismantling those even the Israelis deem illegal.

The aim of the Price Tag movement is to make the government pay in terms of embarrassment and also international disgrace for the actions of its citizens.  The objective is to further populate the West Bank / Judea-Samaria which the Price Taggers believe to be their god-given land. According to their beliefs, no Jew has any right to remove Jews from Eretz Israel.

The programme labelled them ‘terrorist’. The term ‘terrorist’ has been applied by the Israeli government itself. These despicable people are a disgrace to Israel and the Jewish people and there is no justification for their actions. However, the Price Tag people have killed no-one, not yet anyway. Graffiti, torching empty vehicles, setting small fires in mosques, insulting the Prophet and generally behaving like vandals in any other culture is barely terrorism. Compared with the real thing it seemed at times an almost laughable comparison as not all incidents were serious ones. Daubing graffiti is not terrorism. But the language of the Middle East has become so degraded that even Israelis are prepared to use it, probably as a linguistic way of registering their dismay and disapproval.

Most of the acts of ‘terrorism’ secretly filmed, or even with the connivance of the perpetrators, were carried out at night and amounted to very little beyond incitement. Setting fire to mosques or daubing churches is another matter. These are acts of outrageous desecration which are very serious sins according to Jewish religious teachings, let alone contrary to any norm of human behaviour or basic law.

Calling them all ‘terrorists’ creates a moral, or should that be immoral, equivalence between setting a fire in a mosque (and note this isn’t even a fire-bombing. No mosque has been destroyed as far as I know, the worst damage is smoke, burned carpets and Korans) and blowing up a bus full of schoolchildren or a restaurant full of diners.

I do not wish in anyway to diminish the seriousness of the crime. What I find a little hard to accept is the debasement of language which is an attempt, ultimately, to diminish full-blooded terrorism. Calling these people terrorists lets real terrorists off the hook. One incident where people were seriously burned in their car is a hate crime and could, justifiably, be considered ‘terrorism’.

Unfortunately, Israel is not doing enough, in my opinion, to stop this. Any ‘settler’ found guilty of these crimes should be given exemplary punishments. It is not an easy crime to prevent. Nevertheless, it must be stamped on, and very hard.

The programme shape-shifted somewhat. It seamlessly morphed from a programme about Price Tag to an examination of settlements, especially illegal ones (even under Israel law) and the tensions between settlers and Palestinians.

I felt genuinely sorry for some of the Arab victims of settler vandalism and intimidation who seemed to be entirely innocent people just trying to get on with their lives. This impression of mine was surely shared by any decent person who watched the programme. But that impression was not really examined; very little time was given to Arab incitement, Arab terrorism, Arab vandalism. It appeared that the Arabs were completely innocent victims if you didn’t listen or want to listen to the odd allusion to attacks and murders of children.

Whatever the Arabs do can never excuse the behaviour of the Price Taggers or indiscriminate settler violence which is actually targeting the Israeli government and deliberately trying to provoke Arab reaction – the Price Tag.

The context of settlements was addressed in the program in standard terms – occupation, illegal, land grab, god-given land etc. It was made clear, however, that these people were extremists but their atypical behaviour (if you take Israel as a whole) and beliefs were not really stressed. For someone ready to believe the worst about Israel, the programme provided ample evidence. For those with a more nuanced and balanced approach, it would have been clear that these criminals are considered such in Israel and under Israeli law. This is in stark contrast, of course, to Arab terrorists who are national heroes and richly rewarded for actually murdering people. That comparison was never made.

But, I have to say, the program could have been a lot more hostile and damaging. It will reinforce the prejudices of those already convinced of evil Israel. It will embarrass people like me, but only because unless Israel is perfect, it is irredeemably evil and this is the narrative we confront daily. We are always being forced to be defensive because Israelis are just like everyone else, not perfected paragons of virtue that the world demands they be.

Shana Tova 5773

16/09/2012 / / 1 Comment

Wishing all my readers a healthy and prosperous New Year whatever your religious affiliation or none.

Sorry I have not posted for a while, which may be a relief to some.

I have had a busy few months with my community responsibilities.

It’s not as if nothing is going on, is it?

Some recent highlights:

  • Wild accusations of Mossad involvement in the Lac D’Annecy shootings
  • Hannan Ashrawi denies Jews expelled from Arab lands are refugees, thus, at the same time, accidentally confirming that Palestinians refugees aren’t refugees.
  • BBC to show a Panorama programme on the night of Rosh HaShonah about the Price Tag movement in Israel and the Territories
  • The genocidal megalomaniac Iranian President Ahmadinejad will be speaking at the UN this month
    Will Israel bomb Iran or not?
  • Ongoing BDS with Habima, BatSheva, an Israeli store in Brighton, the Co-op, the TUC
  • Rachel Corrie decision
  • Supporters of the religion of peace riot, kill and burn because some idiot Egyptian Copt ex-pat with a grudge claiming to be an Israeli Jew posts a ludicrously amateurish video on YouTube insulting the Prophet which hardly any of the rioters will even have seen
  • Worrying developments at the Church of England Synod re EAPPI

Having survived two Manchester Jewish stores this morning thronged with last-minute Yom Tov shoppers and Tesco to boot, I am sure that I shall return in 5773 ready to take on anyone and any thing.

 

C of E ignores violence against Christians whilst slating Israel

05/08/2012 / / 12 Comments

Stuart Palmer (haifadiarist.blogspot.co.uk) has recently responded to a letter on the Church of England Newspaper to a letter writer who blames the ills of the Palestinians completely on Israel.

Stuart has been kind enough to allow me to reproduce his letter.

I thought this letter makes a number of points the C of E and, indeed, all Christians who are so quick to blame Israel for everything bad about the Middle East East conflict.

Sirs,

Re Jeremy Moodey’s analysis “A Question of Bias on Israel-Palestine”, it is beyond belief that the writer can lay the blame 100% on the side of Israel. I do wonder whether he has ever visited the region and sat down to have coffee with the Palestinian youth in Bethlehem or Jerusalem. It may surprise him to know that they are supportive of Israel and would prefer to be part of the Israel success story rather than the dictatorial, fragmented and corrupt Palestinian Authority.

And while Moodey is making the case for the Palestinians, he does not seem to care what is happening to the adherents of his own Christian religion in the area.

a)        The war on Christianity and its adherents rages on in the Muslim world. In March alone, Saudi Arabia’s highest Islamic law authority decreed that churches in the region must be destroyed; jihadis in Nigeria said they “are going to put into action new efforts to strike fear into the Christians of the power of Islam by kidnapping their women”; American teachers in the Middle East were murdered for talking about Christianity; churches were banned or bombed, and nuns terrorized by knife-wielding Muslim mobs. Christians continue to be attacked, arrested, imprisoned, and killed for allegedly “blaspheming” Islam’s prophet Muhammad; former Muslims continue to be attacked, arrested, imprisoned, and killed for converting to Christianity.

To understand why all this persecution is virtually unknown in the West, consider the mainstream media’s well-documented biases: also in March alone, the New York Times ran a virulently anti-Catholic ad, but refused to publish a near identical ad directed at Islam; the BBC admitted it will mock Jesus but never Muhammad; and U.S. sitcoms were exposed for bashing Christianity, but never Islam

b)        Dozens of Gaza Christians staged a rare public protest this month, claiming two congregants were forcibly converted to Islam and were being held against their will. The small but noisy demonstration showed the increasingly desperate situation facing the tiny minority. Protesters banged on a church bell and chanted, “With our spirit, with our blood we will sacrifice ourselves for you, Jesus.”

Since the Islamic militant Hamas seized power five years ago, Christians have felt increasingly embattled, but have mostly kept silent. There are growing fears among Gaza Christians that their rapidly shrinking community could disappear through emigration and conversions.

Their numbers appear to have shrunk from some 3,500 to about 1,500 in recent years, according to community estimates. They are a tiny minority among 1.7 million Palestinians in Gaza, most conservative Muslims. “If things remain like this, there’ll be no Christians left in Gaza,” said Huda Al-Amash, mother of one of the converts.

c)        From a Christian friend in the UK in a letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury, she wrote that:  “I, for one, am not prepared to fund the activities of such as Dr Dinnen or the Synod whilst they embark on an unjustified crusade, out of all proportion in comparison to so many urgent issues in the world, against this legitimate, democratic country. Israel makes no claims to be perfect, like ourselves, they make mistakes. However, it is a country  which subscribes to the same sets of values and rights as ourselves, and is a beacon in an area of the world which is full of ‘despots, tinpots and crackpots’ and deniers of equal human rights for women, homosexuals and those of different faiths. 

Hence my decision to terminate my standing order. I suspect that there are many other Christians who share my opinions but most worryingly, also many more who do not fully know the facts but take their cue from the Church’s stance. Unfortunately this misguided stance is yet another example of the Church concentrating on the wrong issues and smacks of moral cowardice, dubious motives and delusion. I for one find it extremely depressing”.

Meanwhile the Christian community in Israel is flourishing, a testament to the open society in which we live, but, of which, Mr Moodey is totally ignorant or perhaps chooses to ignore. Let him come and visit the most multi cultural city in Israel – Haifa – and see for himself.

The 2012 Olympic opening ceremony in London – a Guide for the Perplexed

30/07/2012 / / 2 Comments

The ceremony was a complete triumph for Danny Boyle, his team, the performers and participants and everyone in the UK. Well done to all. This was a moment of pride in a time of worry and concern.

The negatives: carpers and critics have pointed out a Utopian view of Britain, a socialist agenda and a paean to multiculturalism. All this may be true. Yes, the ceremony did not tell us about the problems with the NHS, the railways, housing or social unrest. Please tell me any Olympic ceremony in the past which dwelt on the negatives.

The Olympics is not just a big athletics meeting as Peter Hitchens has written in his inimitable lugubrious and Scrooge-like style. It is a festival of the human family. Flawed, yes, nevertheless it aspires to show us the best of ourselves and to make us feel good about who we are and what we can be. We all know the negative aspects of human behaviour and these are very much on show at the Olympics. So what’s the harm in trying to inject some inspiration, some honest sentiment, national pride?

Israel: I have already written about the IOC’s refusal to remember the 40th anniversary of the murder of 11 Israeli athletes and coaches and a German policeman at the Munich Olympics in 1972. This omission was highlighted by a brief silence for the dead of all conflicts and a fitting tribute to the victims of the 7/7 London bombings which occurred the day after the Olympic bid was won.

One view is that if this had been commemorated it could have resulted in the walk out of Arab and Muslim states and protests at the ceremony itself. So best not to highlight Israel’s isolation. I don’t agree: if there are still people on this planet who believe that kidnapping, hostage-taking and murder and the desecration of the Olympic ideal are not a heinous crime, whatever the excuse or motivation, then the countries that those people represent should be banned from competition.

The Lebanese judo players requested a barrier be placed between them and the Israeli team at their practice venue before the games. A Tunisian competitor who was scheduled to compete against an Israeli has developed a mystery affliction and withdrawn. Indeed, I expect the Israelis to find that many Muslim and Arab competitors are afflicted not by a mystery disease but an ancient and, apparently, incurable one – Jew Hatred. What other country now or in the past has had to put up with this nonsense. The IOC should act against countries which will not compete with Israelis or anyone else on political grounds. I seem to recall that the two Koreas once played a World Cup match and so did the two Germanies before reunification. Iraq played Iran, too, at football.

Only Israel is so monstrous a nation that to even make eye contact with its nationals is enough to afflict your immune system.

But back to the ceremony.

What I really loved about it was that it catered more for the Brits than outsiders. It was full of references and in-jokes which would have completely baffled all but the most serious Anglophiles (or should that be Brittanophiles?). It was the quirky, British TV comedy aspect of it and the fact that we ‘got it’ and others wouldn’t that made it special.

They said Bejing could not be bettered. What Boyle did was not to try to compete with what was essentially a high-tech extravaganza. He completely changed the paradigm; indeed, he subverted the whole accepted notion of what an opening ceremony should be.

For me the highlight came early. Sir Kenneth Branagh emerged from a horse-driven London omnibus as Isambard (which the BBC commentator strangely pronounced ‘Eisembard’) Kingdom Brunel (what a glorious unBritish name that is) replete with signature cigar and stovepipe hat. The look on Branagh’s face was a mixture of pride, self-esteem and wonder. He proceeded to the grass mound at centre of the stadium and declaimed in the best traditions of British Shakespearean theatre:

‘Be not afeard. The isle is full of noises,
Sounds, and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not.
Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments
Will hum about mine ears, and sometime voices
That, if I then had waked after long sleep
Will make me sleep again; and then in dreaming
The clouds methought would open and show riches
Ready to drop upon me, that when I waked
I cried to dream again’

Branagh’s rendition, especially those last nine words, was spine-tingling. I’ve listened to it four times already and it never fails to send shivers down my spine.

Branagh’s choice as Brunel was masterful and his performance perfection. These are the words of Caliban in Shakespeare’s ‘The Tempest’. The conflation of Brunel as Caliban was strange, but worked. Better Caliban than the Taliban, you might say.

In this context it is a whimsical reference and welcome to the British Isles, even, perhaps its weather. It is, essentially, an invitation to behold a dream sequence, a journey of the imagination which we are about to encounter. And surely the Olympics contain that sense of awe and wonder, fear and trepidation which pass so quickly and become as if a dream of remembered common experience. This was a brilliant and deeply moving moment accompanied by the soaring music of Elgar (Nimrod from the Enigma Variations) – who else. Kitsch? Of course, but wonderful kitsch.

Perhaps, only those of us with a true British nervous system could be moved by this combustive association of Bard, engineer par excellence and imperial music-making.

Other highlights were the unique participation of the Queen in the humour of the opening. Arriving by parachute, apparently, with Daniel Craig in his James Bond persona. Rowan Atkinson and the Chariots of Fire sequence with an ageing Mr Bean hamming it up in true Brit fashion.

I can understand criticism of the NHS sequence where Mary Poppins and Nanny McPhee seem to have taken over Great Ormond Street. A clever conflation again of the JM Barrie Peter Pan legacy, the world of children’s books (even JK Rowling put in an appearance) and those NHS antics. The NHS sequence would be anathema to Americans who can’t understand how or why the State should provide something for nothing. And there are many in this country who would agree. But the NHS is a major presence in the lives of the British, for better or for worse and a cornerstone of post War Socialist Britain which even the Tories have pledged to support. Yet, it does seem a little strange to make it part of an Olympic opening ceremony.

I could have done without Sir Paul McCartney. Love him as I do, he is now past his singing sell-by date as he demonstrated at the Diamond Jubilee.

I urge you to replay this ceremony and pause the action frequently to appreciate the richness of texture and the multitude of cultural references woven into the tapestry of the production:

Wind in the Willows, Eastenders, a glimpse of Olympic medallists of bygone years, Pink Floyd, Fawlty Towers and, gloriously, the Rugby Union national teams woven into the national songs of the constituent elements of the United Kingdom.

And then the gobsmackingly awesome forging of the Olympic rings and the Up Helly Aa finale of flame lighting adding a certain Niebelung feel to the occasion which is not inappropriate given the country’s Germanic, Celtic and pagan roots. Even the uprooting of the tree on the replica Glastonbury Tor had a whiff of Yggdrasil about it. It all came perilously close to Nuernberg in the 1930s but kept enough distance to keep such thoughts in the background.

Now then. Shami Chakrabarti. WTF! Never mind, the surreal experience of Shami, Ban Ki Moon and Muhammad Ali in the same shot made it all worthwhile.

I love the atmosphere at these games. I love the Benny Hill music amid the soft porn sand pit that is the Beach Volleyball arena on the hallowed ground of Horse Guards Parade. I love waking up to see archery at my old stamping ground of Lords Cricket Ground and I love the sheer incongruity of an Olympic cycle race through West London. I love the Americans not understanding it all and insisting on renaming things such as The Tower Bridge.

It’s bonkers, it’s charming it’s the Olympics as an end of pier show but it’s British and it makes you proud.

IOC sides with terror against dignifying and commemorating murdered athletes

27/07/2012 / / 0 Comments

In the 1970’s Black September hijacked aircraft and blew them up.

In the 21st century their successors in the form of the Palestinian Authority/Fatah has hijacked the memory of the 11 Israeli athletes murdered in 1972.

Despite the support of many people and organisations the IOC has cravenly demurred from just one minute of silence to remember 11 dead Olympians who came to Munich in 1972 to celebrate the true meaning of the Olympic ideal: that is, for the youth of the world to gather in peace and harmony, where national rivalries and disputes and hatreds are put aside and to compete in a celebration of youth, the human spirit and global fraternity.

That spirit was cruelly murdered by a disgusting bunch of terrorists who then, as now, represented a movement that has no regard for human life or dignity, especially if that life is Israeli and, more specifically, Jewish.

Just 27 years after the end of the Holocaust, Palestinians whose Grand Mufti had been an inspiration to Hitler and who promised to help him wipe out Jews in Palestine, with total disregard for the Olympic ideal, held hostage and then killed Israeli athletes and coaches.

The intention was to kidnap and hold hostage in order to force the Israelis to release more than 200 prisoners and the Germans to release the  leaders of the notorious Baader-Meinhof  ‘Red Army faction’.

The terrorists who survived were later released as a result of the hijacking of a Lufthansa aircraft in 1977 by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, another Fatah group closely associated to today’s Palestinian Authority leaders including Mahmoud Abbas who it is claimed funded the massacre 40 years ago.

So how fitting is it, then, that that same Abbas should endorse a thank you letter, a billet-doux to Jacques Rogge, President of the IOC for not holding a ‘racist minute of silence’.

Palestinian Media Watch reports:

The Palestinian Authority is against the moment of silence at the Olympics to commemorate the Israeli athletes murdered at the Munich Olympics in 1972. According to the headline in the official PA daily, “Sports are meant for peace, not for racism.”

According to Jibril Rajoub, President of the Palestinian Olympic Committee:

“Sports are meant for peace, not for racism… Sports are a bridge to love, interconnection, and spreading of peace among nations; it must not be a cause of division and spreading of racism between them [nations].”
[Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, July 25, 2012]

These words appeared in a letter sent by Rajoub to the President of the International Olympic Committee, Jacques Rogge. The letter ”expressed appreciation for [Rogge’s] position, who opposed the Israeli position, which demanded a moment’s silence at the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games in London.”

How can anything be more obscene, more morally repugnant, more of an inversion of all norms of civilised behaviour than actually calling it a racist act for the world to commemorate the killings of Jews by racists.

The real reason the PA does not want the Minute of Silence is that they actually applaud and revere the terrorists who committed the act. They are national heroes.

How can there ever be peace and reconciliation with people who hold such vile views. Better to shut up. Instead they actually congratulate the IOC in their brazen dirt-rubbing, self-satisfied, vainglorious smugness.

Why congratulate? Because this actually is the act of hijack; it says ‘look world, what we did is OK because the IOC are on our side. The Jews can go to hell. Those murders were a victory. You don’t cry over dead Jews’.

So Rogge and his cowardly Olympic cabal are now complicit in that massacre by association. It’s not good enough that he held his miserable minute of silence in front of 50 people at the signing of the Olympic Truce. Some Truce. Some chutzpah!

Despite this, earlier today, the Zionist Federation held a 15 minute ceremony which was webcast and attracted much attention on Twitter. Last week an initiative in Hackney brought the Mayor of London and several dignitaries to the Arthaus for a moving ceremony and unveiling of a plaque.

40 years later, little has changed. Israeli Jews are still murdered in Europe; Burgas last week being a case in point. But in those years Israel has moved in world public perception from plucky little David, a victim, to a perpetrator who can hardly be surprised when it is attacked for its ‘crimes’.  That crime is the crime of existence.

Let’s hope the Olympics are a great success. But don’t be fooled. The Palestinian team is there to further its attempt to be recognised without negotiation. It’s there not because it cares for its athletes or the Olympic ideal; it’s just another means to further its political objectives, delegitimise Israel and demonise Jews.

« Older posts Newer posts »

© 2024 Ray Cook – As I See It

Theme by Anders Norén — Up ↑