Wednesday, December 25, 2013

St James’s Church, Piccadilly, installs life size replica of Israel’s security wall

This  is  the  perfect  example  of  how  an  uninformed  public can  be  brainwashed  into  hating  Israel  by  being  shown  only  one  side,  and  a  very  prejudiced  one  at   that, of  a complex  situation.   There  is  no  mention  of  terrorist attacks,  or  suicide  bombings  against  Israel  in  the exhibitions  and  the  public  has  no  way  of  knowing  that  it is  these  that  have  necessitated  the  construction  of  the security  fence.

Norman & Lola Cohen (Chairpersons“BIG”)



The life size replica wall at St James’s Church, Piccadilly for Bethlehem Unwrapped.

Richard Millett Dec. 24th 2013

St James’s Church, Piccadilly, in London’s West End has installed a life size 8 metre tall/30 metre long replica of Israel’s security wall in its courtyard as part of its Bethlehem Unwrapped festival. The replica wall is so vast that it obscures the Church itself.

The replica wall will be lit up at night and for the next twelve days of Christmas (until 5th January) a montage of images and slogans will be continuously projected onto it. Scenes include parts of London with a wall passing through it.
What you won’t see projected onto the replica wall are scenes of bombed out Israeli buses, hotels, pizza restaurants, bars and nightclubs that were ubiquitous in Israel before the wall.
Bethlehem Unwrapped has evening events with anti-Israel polemicists including comedians Jeremy Hardy and Ivor Dembina, musician Nigel Kennedy, columnists Yasmin Alibhai-Brown and Mark Steel, Jeff Halper of Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions and War On Want’s in-house poet Rafeef Ziadah.

Maybe Ivor Dembina will reprise his notorious Holocaust “joke” in which he mocks the Jewish people for wanting to hog the Auschwitz limelight. According to Dembina Jews don’t really want others to know that gays, gypsies and the disabled were also murdered at Auschwitz because we like to see it as “Ourschwitz, not Yourschwitz”.

Had someone made a joke about, for example, Srebrenica they would rightly be excluded but Dembina, host of the Hampstead Comedy Club, is one of the star turns at Bethlehem Unwrapped.

Or maybe poet Rafeef Ziadah will reprise her praising of Islamic Jihad chief Khader Adnan. Adnan, you may recall, is keen to incite Palestinians to become suicide bombers and blow up innocent Israeli children.

Unbelievably, into this political hatefest have stepped the supposedly “non-political” chefs Yotam Ottolenghi and Sami Tamimi. They will be hosting the “Bethlehem Feast” at the church on Friday January 3rd.

Last night’s unveiling of the replica wall was introduced by St James’s Church Rector Lucy Winkett.
Rector Winkett said the reason behind the replica wall was that when 20 of them visited Israel and the Palestinian territories in October “one of the lasting memories of our time there was this wall” (see clip).

It is a shame Rector Winkett didn’t also visit the graves of Israeli children murdered by Palestinian suicide bombers or Israelis left disabled by them.
The microphone was then handed to Jeff Halper of Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions who left those who made it to the church despite the dreadful weather conditions in no doubt as to what the next twelves days of Bethlehem Unwrapped had in store. Halper has previously expressed his wish to boycott Israel out of existence.

Last night Halper described Israel’s security wall as a “very deadly barrier that people cannot pass” and said “this wall is not built for security…it doesn’t protect Israelis in any way”. He continued “the wall defines the borders of the Israeli bantustan that is being created for Palestinians in an apartheid state…it defines those cantons in which Palestinians will be confined”


5 comments:

  1. Who, if anyone, is planning to counter this incitement and misinformation?

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  2. This was very depressing to read and it is shocking but not surprising that the religious Christian should take such a hypocritical stand.

    The security wall is hideous and I wish there had been no necessity to build it. However it is important to add that most of the "wall" is only a fence (one which is cut frequently) and it is a shame that this wasn't mentioned. I can remember the day when our young beautiful neighbour was murdered in Dizengoff, victim of a bomber who came across to murder Jews. Hundreds of Israeli citizens (Muslim, Christian and Jew) died in those horrific attacks before the decision was taken to build the fence - would any other country have done differently, especially when the Palestinians have constantly refused to advance in the peace talks.

    I would also like to add that the following countries (some democracies and some not) have also built walls for protection from their neighbours and they include: Morocco (electrified); N. Korea; India (Pakistan border); Botzwana (Zimbabwe); S. Arabia (Yemen); Turkey (Greek part of Cyprus); Thailand (Malasia); Uzbekistan (Tadjckistan) and, of course, THE WALL of all walls - the USA gigantic wall protecting her from the very dangerous Mexico! Of course these are never mentioned in any discussion.

    Finally - shame on Yotam Ottolenghi for taking this stand. It is one thing to oppose government policies, another to support such a one-sided PR stunt. I won't be buying any more of his books.

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  3. People's memories are very short aren't they? Do they not remember those awful events of suicide bombers and slaughter among the coffee shops in Israel. Of course the wall protects them,sadly it is necessary. When will it be peace & goodwill to all men?

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  4. This is an assault, not on Israel but on Britain’s Jews. Israel will do, as always, exactly what is necessary for it’s security, regardless of vile Christmas decorations in Europe. This is the Church’s cowardly way of expressing the ancient hate that for centuries saw Jews across Europe barricading themselves in their homes in this season of goodwill, against repeated pogroms in every generation. Why cowardly? Because it immunizes the sanctimonious perpetrators from prosecution for incitement – a fate that would have befallen them had they expressed their religion-fueled hatred in simple terms. Apart from the blatant lies on which the church hate-fest is based, it is, even from the false standpoint of the church, discriminatory. To ignore all those countries around the world where untold suffering is inflicted upon innocent people, and to single out the Jewish state, is obviously discriminatory – even if it were true. But the accusations are false – proving once again the need for a strong Jewish state with a strong moral defense capability against vicious enemies near and far. British Jews: Where is your defense? Rafi Bezalel.

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  5. This St James's "wall" is an extremely one sided version of a "wall" which does NOT surround Bethlehem - the actual Some Christians forget that Jesus was a Jew! Christians and churches like St James's ignore this at their peril. Those who curse the Jews (curse in Hebrew here is the word meaning to denigrate, speak against, treat badly etc) are cursed by God (and the Hebrew curse word is MUCH stronger here meaning really CURSED by God) but those who bless them are blessed.

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