Melanie Philips – Spectator
http://www.spectator.co.uk/melaniephillips/5861291/israel-as-czechoslovakia.thtml
Tuesday, 23rd March 2010
So it’s now not just a crisis between the Obama administration and Israel. By a remarkable coincidence, the UK government has now upped the ante too against its sole ‘friend’ and ‘ally’ in the Middle East. First the Obamites deliberately and gratuitously escalated the non-event of Israeli building permits just across the ‘green line’ in Jerusalem – in a Jewish area which is hemmed in between other Jewish areas – into a full-scale dressing down of Israel, provoking the worst crisis between America and Israel for three decades. Then today, Israel’s ambassador to the UK was summoned into the Foreign Office and told that, to mark Britain’s deep displeasure at the alleged theft by Mossad of the passport identities of a number of British/Israeli citizens in order to kill the Hamas terrorist Mahmoud al Mabhouh in Dubai last January, an Israeli diplomat – said to be a Mossad operative – was to be expelled from Britain.
The word ‘disproportionate’ comes to mind.
There is still much about the killing of Mabhouh which remains mysterious and indeed inexplicable – such as the enormous number of some 27 agents apparently involved in the operation. And Israel has neither confirmed nor denied that the Mossad was involved, although Britain says there are ‘compelling reasons’ to believe that it was involved in the misuse of the British passports.
‘Compelling reasons’, eh? Nor proof, note. But who needs proof when, in the eyes of the British government, Israel is guilty a priori? You might think that the killing of such a vile enemy of humanity would be a cause of some grim satisfaction in the desperate struggle under way to defend life, liberty and justice against those who would destroy them. But no – as Douglas Murray points out -- Britain punishes those who are in the front line of such a defence, while allowing a free pass, not to mention public platforms and even government jobs, to those who work for the destruction of Britain, Israel and the free world.
As I understand it, stealing passport identities is a common tactic of a number of intelligence agencies – maybe even, it is said, the British MI6. That is, if they were actually stolen in the manner to which Miliband has cryptically alluded – which, to this observer at least, is far from proven. For sure, the passport-holders in question had nothing at all to do with the killing of Mabhouh. But if their passport identities were cloned, that in itself proves nothing at all beyond that bald fact.
Certainly, if they were indeed stolen and the lives of these British Israeli citizens put recklessly at risk, this would be invidious one would hardly expect the British government not to protest. But to throw out a diplomat is one of the most serious signs of diplomatic disapproval a country can take. To do so against a supposed ally suggests a very serious breach in that relationship, way beyond the likely displeasure caused by such an occurrence. To do so, furthermore, after a series of consistently hostile acts against Israel by the British government – taking the side of Hamas over Israel’s self-defence in Cast Lead, enforcing an embargo on spare parts for Israeli warships, inciting a boycott of Israeli goods from the disputed territories, refusing to vote against the grotesque Goldstone report -- suggests a consistent strategy of throwing Israel under the bus.
And to do so while the crisis between Israel and America is still in progress suggests that Hillary Clinton has been murmuring into the ear of her girlish crush David Miliband, as Gordon Brown marches dutifully in lockstep with Obama in the common cause of delegitimising Israel in order to throw it to the genocidal Islamic wolves.
As Michel Gurfinkiel writes:
Problems arise time and again among good friends or among allies. In spite of their special relationship, the U.S. and the UK have quite often quarreled. But friends and allies usually make sure to calm the issues down. In fact, this is what validates their bond. On the other hand, when a friend or an ally allows the disagreement to grow into a crisis or fuels the fire, that means that it is not a true friend or ally any longer. Remember Jacques Chirac, the president of France from 1995 to 2007, who, on a state visit to Israel in 1995, turned a minor misunderstanding with his Israeli security escort in the Old City into an argument between the two countries. Chirac elicited completely unnecessary apologies from then-Prime Minister Netanyahu. Such behavior merely signaled what was to come: Chirac’s alignment with Yasser Arafat and similar figures in the Middle East.
The former Israel Prime Minister Ariel Sharon once protested – to general diplomatic outrage – that Israel would not play the role of Czechoslovakia in the thirties. It looks horribly if the repetition of that catastrophic history is precisely what the US and UK governments have in mind.
The signals from the UK and US administrations could not be clearer. As Iran races to obtain its genocide bomb, Obama and Miliband are preparing to abandon its putative victim – and, in turn, their own countries -- while grovelling to the enemies of civilisation. The systematic delegitimisation of Israel has done its infernal work all too well in softening up the public –in Britain, at least – for the final annihilation of those who only want to be allowed to live in peace in their historic homeland. As the lynching of Israel proceeds, who in the American and British political establishments will have the integrity and courage to stand up and say, ‘Not in my name’?
Thursday, April 1, 2010
Thursday, March 25, 2010
Israel is the Easiest Target
By OLIVER WORTH – Jerusalem Post 25/03/2010
What better way to deflect domestic criticism in the UK than to pander to swaths of bigoted voters by taking unjustified measures against the Jewish State?
The decision of the British government to expel an Israeli diplomat is just the latest in a spate of hypocritical, discriminatory actions the United Kingdom has implemented against Israel. However, such moves are not only grounded in a long-held British willingness to victimize Israel, but in a British government with no qualms about abusing its relationship with an ally to cover up its own failings.
How convenient that on Tuesday the BBC news service’s headline changed straight from “Labor suspends three ministers” to “Britain expels Israeli diplomat.” Of course, this sudden change is more than just convenient – a contrived act on behalf of the British to use Israel as a smoke screen for its own problems. Even more worrying is the distinct possibility that Britain is simply following the US lead on how to divert domestic problems – by picking on Israel.That this trend has been propagated by Israel’s supposedly greatest friend, the US, is truly disturbing and requires immediate action. It didn’t take President Barack Obama long to realize the best way of dealing with the embarrassment of seeing his foreign policy goals fall by the wayside was to focus on Israel.
While in Egypt there has not been so much as a sniff of democracy since Obama’s “historic” speech in Cairo, and Guantanamo Bay looks less likely to close than a McDonald’s during rush hour, Obama is guaranteed a plethora of great international headlines by manipulating a friendly nation, and dangling the prevention of Iran’s nuclear program – undoubtedly an existential threat – in front of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu.The gross hypocrisy of the British is as baffling as it is disgraceful; after all, the British response to terrorism has been to launch wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, which, however justifiable, were both immensely costly in term of civilian casualties.
Naturally, the mere suggestion of the UK being castigated like Israel in the UN Human Rights Council, despite widespread allegations of torture and various war crimes, is laughable, never mind the idea of British leaders being prevented from fulfilling their duties under laws of universal jurisdiction.REGARDLESS OF whether Israel was involved in the Dubai assassination or not, the killing of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh was an exercise in what Britain has proven inept at doing itself – taking care of a dangerous terrorist with the loss of no civilians whatsoever.
The question begged is why, when thousands of refugees are purposefully displaced in Sri Lanka, human rights are consistently clamped down on in China and more than half of the world’s population fail to have their right to democratic leadership realized, is Britain picking on Israel for a crime it hasn’t even been convicted of?The answer is simple. Israel is by far the easiest target, guaranteed to captivate the media and win over a public salivating at the thought of seeing it strung up. What better way to deflect domestic criticism than to pander to swaths of bigoted voters by launching unjustified measures against the Jewish state?
As Gilad Schalit languishes in Gaza in contravention of the Third Geneva Convention, Britain can be counted on to do the bare minimum to secure his release, while accusing Israel of being the nation showing a disregard for the two countries’ diplomatic relationship. It is, rather, the British, unable to prevent their own legal system being abused for racist endeavors, who should be red-faced over the recent breakdown of relations.
The wording of Foreign Secretary David Miliband’s announcement to Parliament on the decision to expel the Israeli diplomat was grounded in irony. Why Miliband feels in a position to talk of the “intolerable” way in which a “friend” operates is deeply questionable. Britain is in no place to be preaching morality, never mind to a free, democratic nation.
British Jewry, in its muted action, has goaded the willingness of the British government to stab Israel in the back. We are undoubtedly in a situation where the British government has no fear of provoking the pro-Israel and Jewish population into meaningful action, rendering Israel by far the easiest target when finding a scapegoat to cover up domestic misgivings. This must be the wake-up call.
While the British Jewish leadership was happy to let the disgraceful universal jurisdiction fiasco get sorted out behind closed doors, this expulsion is a step too far. The expulsion of an Israeli diplomat is grounded in discrimination and bias. Britain would not take such measures against any other state, even those hostile to the UK.
This is not just an attack on the State of Israel but on Britain’s own Jewish population. If British Jewry does not now stand up and be counted, then when?The writer has been a frequent observer of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva and is now based in the United Kingdom.
What better way to deflect domestic criticism in the UK than to pander to swaths of bigoted voters by taking unjustified measures against the Jewish State?
The decision of the British government to expel an Israeli diplomat is just the latest in a spate of hypocritical, discriminatory actions the United Kingdom has implemented against Israel. However, such moves are not only grounded in a long-held British willingness to victimize Israel, but in a British government with no qualms about abusing its relationship with an ally to cover up its own failings.
How convenient that on Tuesday the BBC news service’s headline changed straight from “Labor suspends three ministers” to “Britain expels Israeli diplomat.” Of course, this sudden change is more than just convenient – a contrived act on behalf of the British to use Israel as a smoke screen for its own problems. Even more worrying is the distinct possibility that Britain is simply following the US lead on how to divert domestic problems – by picking on Israel.That this trend has been propagated by Israel’s supposedly greatest friend, the US, is truly disturbing and requires immediate action. It didn’t take President Barack Obama long to realize the best way of dealing with the embarrassment of seeing his foreign policy goals fall by the wayside was to focus on Israel.
While in Egypt there has not been so much as a sniff of democracy since Obama’s “historic” speech in Cairo, and Guantanamo Bay looks less likely to close than a McDonald’s during rush hour, Obama is guaranteed a plethora of great international headlines by manipulating a friendly nation, and dangling the prevention of Iran’s nuclear program – undoubtedly an existential threat – in front of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu.The gross hypocrisy of the British is as baffling as it is disgraceful; after all, the British response to terrorism has been to launch wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, which, however justifiable, were both immensely costly in term of civilian casualties.
Naturally, the mere suggestion of the UK being castigated like Israel in the UN Human Rights Council, despite widespread allegations of torture and various war crimes, is laughable, never mind the idea of British leaders being prevented from fulfilling their duties under laws of universal jurisdiction.REGARDLESS OF whether Israel was involved in the Dubai assassination or not, the killing of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh was an exercise in what Britain has proven inept at doing itself – taking care of a dangerous terrorist with the loss of no civilians whatsoever.
The question begged is why, when thousands of refugees are purposefully displaced in Sri Lanka, human rights are consistently clamped down on in China and more than half of the world’s population fail to have their right to democratic leadership realized, is Britain picking on Israel for a crime it hasn’t even been convicted of?The answer is simple. Israel is by far the easiest target, guaranteed to captivate the media and win over a public salivating at the thought of seeing it strung up. What better way to deflect domestic criticism than to pander to swaths of bigoted voters by launching unjustified measures against the Jewish state?
As Gilad Schalit languishes in Gaza in contravention of the Third Geneva Convention, Britain can be counted on to do the bare minimum to secure his release, while accusing Israel of being the nation showing a disregard for the two countries’ diplomatic relationship. It is, rather, the British, unable to prevent their own legal system being abused for racist endeavors, who should be red-faced over the recent breakdown of relations.
The wording of Foreign Secretary David Miliband’s announcement to Parliament on the decision to expel the Israeli diplomat was grounded in irony. Why Miliband feels in a position to talk of the “intolerable” way in which a “friend” operates is deeply questionable. Britain is in no place to be preaching morality, never mind to a free, democratic nation.
British Jewry, in its muted action, has goaded the willingness of the British government to stab Israel in the back. We are undoubtedly in a situation where the British government has no fear of provoking the pro-Israel and Jewish population into meaningful action, rendering Israel by far the easiest target when finding a scapegoat to cover up domestic misgivings. This must be the wake-up call.
While the British Jewish leadership was happy to let the disgraceful universal jurisdiction fiasco get sorted out behind closed doors, this expulsion is a step too far. The expulsion of an Israeli diplomat is grounded in discrimination and bias. Britain would not take such measures against any other state, even those hostile to the UK.
This is not just an attack on the State of Israel but on Britain’s own Jewish population. If British Jewry does not now stand up and be counted, then when?The writer has been a frequent observer of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva and is now based in the United Kingdom.
Saturday, March 20, 2010
Israel’s first real response to Goldstone
By YAAKOV KATZ 15/03/2010 - Jerusalem Post
Over a year after Operation Cast Lead, the vindication of the IDF has finally begun.
Over a year after Operation Cast Lead and following wide-ranging criticism and countless international condemnations, the vindication of the IDF has finally begun.The 500-page report revealed Monday by The Jerusalem Post and authored by the Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center is the first real, aggressive Israeli response to the Goldstone Report, taking it apart piece-by-piece and explaining the true nature of the conflict against Hamas in the Gaza Strip.There are chapters on Hamas’s use of mosques, hospitals, ambulances and schools.
There is an entire section dedicated to unmasking the Palestinian police force in the Gaza Strip, which the Goldstone Report claimed was a civilian force, saying Israel’s attacks against policemen were unjustified.There is another section dedicated to explaining the events that led Israel to launch Operation Cast Lead in December 2008, a period of time almost completely ignored by judge Richard Goldstone and an issue illustrated most recently by the interview Col. Desmond Travers, the Irish officer who sat on the panel, gave in which he claimed only two rockets were fired into Israel in the month preceding the operation. In reality, there were close to 200.
What is interesting about the Malam report is that it does not focus on the IDF and the way it operated inside the Gaza Strip. Instead it focuses strictly on Hamas, its tactics and the way it cynically uses civilians as well as civilian infrastructure to hide behind and launch attacks from within against Israel.The results are astounding.While Hamas’s use of mosques was known, the Malam report shows that it was extensive and was a pillar of Hamas’s overall military doctrine (almost 100 mosques were used to store weapons and launch Kassams). While everyone has heard the story about how Hamas terror chiefs hid in the basement of Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, the Malam report reveals maps of other hospitals which were surrounded by mines, Hamas military posts and tunnels.
While Malam and its head, Col. (res.) Reuven Erlich, should be applauded for their work, the question that needs to be asked is why a non-profit organization run by former Military Intelligence officers is doing what the Foreign Ministry, IDF Spokesman’s Office and Prime Minister’s Office should have been doing immediately after the air force launched its first missile into downtown Gaza City on the first day of the operation.
The radio waves are full these days of commercials from Public Diplomacy Minister Yuli Edelstein’s new campaign to get regular Israelis, during their travels abroad, to explain that they don’t ride camels or eat only barbecued foods. Instead of wasting taxpayer’s money, Edelstein’s budget should go to establishing an official response team that will be responsible for writing such reports and disseminating them to the media, not a year after the operation but rather as the fighting is still going on.
Until this happens, Israel has only itself to blame for the level of criticism it faces after every war and operation.And if not for Erlich and his team of expert researchers, Israel wouldn’t even have the report that Malam released on Monday. Instead we would be focused on camels and barbecues.
The full report can be downloaded from the following web site, however you should be aware that the report is 500 pages long and will take time to download
http://www.terrorism-info.org.il/malam_multimedia/English/eng_n/pdf/g_report_e1.pdf
Over a year after Operation Cast Lead, the vindication of the IDF has finally begun.
Over a year after Operation Cast Lead and following wide-ranging criticism and countless international condemnations, the vindication of the IDF has finally begun.The 500-page report revealed Monday by The Jerusalem Post and authored by the Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center is the first real, aggressive Israeli response to the Goldstone Report, taking it apart piece-by-piece and explaining the true nature of the conflict against Hamas in the Gaza Strip.There are chapters on Hamas’s use of mosques, hospitals, ambulances and schools.
There is an entire section dedicated to unmasking the Palestinian police force in the Gaza Strip, which the Goldstone Report claimed was a civilian force, saying Israel’s attacks against policemen were unjustified.There is another section dedicated to explaining the events that led Israel to launch Operation Cast Lead in December 2008, a period of time almost completely ignored by judge Richard Goldstone and an issue illustrated most recently by the interview Col. Desmond Travers, the Irish officer who sat on the panel, gave in which he claimed only two rockets were fired into Israel in the month preceding the operation. In reality, there were close to 200.
What is interesting about the Malam report is that it does not focus on the IDF and the way it operated inside the Gaza Strip. Instead it focuses strictly on Hamas, its tactics and the way it cynically uses civilians as well as civilian infrastructure to hide behind and launch attacks from within against Israel.The results are astounding.While Hamas’s use of mosques was known, the Malam report shows that it was extensive and was a pillar of Hamas’s overall military doctrine (almost 100 mosques were used to store weapons and launch Kassams). While everyone has heard the story about how Hamas terror chiefs hid in the basement of Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, the Malam report reveals maps of other hospitals which were surrounded by mines, Hamas military posts and tunnels.
While Malam and its head, Col. (res.) Reuven Erlich, should be applauded for their work, the question that needs to be asked is why a non-profit organization run by former Military Intelligence officers is doing what the Foreign Ministry, IDF Spokesman’s Office and Prime Minister’s Office should have been doing immediately after the air force launched its first missile into downtown Gaza City on the first day of the operation.
The radio waves are full these days of commercials from Public Diplomacy Minister Yuli Edelstein’s new campaign to get regular Israelis, during their travels abroad, to explain that they don’t ride camels or eat only barbecued foods. Instead of wasting taxpayer’s money, Edelstein’s budget should go to establishing an official response team that will be responsible for writing such reports and disseminating them to the media, not a year after the operation but rather as the fighting is still going on.
Until this happens, Israel has only itself to blame for the level of criticism it faces after every war and operation.And if not for Erlich and his team of expert researchers, Israel wouldn’t even have the report that Malam released on Monday. Instead we would be focused on camels and barbecues.
The full report can be downloaded from the following web site, however you should be aware that the report is 500 pages long and will take time to download
http://www.terrorism-info.org.il/malam_multimedia/English/eng_n/pdf/g_report_e1.pdf
Saturday, March 13, 2010
Letter to Rachel Corrie's Parents in Haifa
First terrorist attacks and Katyushas, now Haifa is about to become the victim of yet another indignity. It is to be the scene for a legal assault by the parents of Rachel Corrie. The Corries are now suing the State of Israel and the Israel Defense Forces in Israeli court. They and their Arab lawyer, Hussein Abu Hussein, a radical activist (involved in the movement for a world boycott of Israel), filed a civil suit in Haifa court and the first hearing is scheduled for March 10.
Ironically, the Corries were themselves briefly kidnapped in Gaza by Hamas terrorists in January 2006, when they were in town to show the local jihadis their support.Palestinian gunmen burst into a Rafah house early Wednesday and tried to kidnap the parents of Rachel Corrie, who was killed in 2003 as she protested the impending demolition of a house in the southern Gaza town, according to a witness.
The five gunmen appeared to be affiliated with the Fatah movement, according to Samir Nasrallah, the Corries' host. The gunmen eventually relented after being told who their targets were, he said.
According to the Telegraph, "The gunmen wanted to kidnap the couple as bargaining chips to secure the release of a militia leader, Alaa al-Hams, arrested on suspicion of ordering the kidnap of the British human rights activist Kate Burton and her parents ."
The Corries later issued a statement in which they denied they had been kidnapped at all. They had just been hosted at gunpoint. But the simple truth is that the Corries were released once the terrorists realized they were a far more valuable asset for Hamas if they were running around free.
The following letter has been published by Steven Plaut from Haifa University to "welcome" the Corries to Haifa.
Dear Mr. and Mrs. Corrie,
You are coming to our lovely town to sue Israel, claiming that your daughter was "killed by an Israeli bulldozer." But you neglect to mention the circumstances under which she was so killed (nor the fact that she died from her injuries while under Palestinian medical care).
You have stated, "She had been working in Rafah with a nonviolent resistance organization, the International Solidarity Movement, trying to stop the demolition of Palestinian homes and wells." Homes and wells, huh?
Well, she was not. Rachel was trying to prevent the demolition of tunnels used to smuggle weapons for Palestinian terrorists seeking to murder Jewish civilians. ISM openly endorses Palestinian "armed struggle" against Jewish children and civilians and openly collaborates with terrorists. It has hidden wanted terrorists and their weapons in its offices. It is an accomplice in murder. Lying is not the best way to drum up sympathy for your daughter.
You say your daughter died trying to protect an "innocent house." Again, this is not the truth. That "innocent house" was camouflage for a not-so-innocent terrorist smuggling tunnel, and the residents of that innocent house knew all about the tunnel.
Your daughter was in a war zone as a belligerent, on behalf of a movement of Arab fascists seeking to destroy Israel and murder as many Jews as possible. Your daughter died while interfering with an anti-terror operation carried out by soldiers in a land in which she had no business being at all.
You demand that we feel your pain at the loss of your daughter, yet your daughter conscripted herself as an accomplice for those seeking to murder my children. You feel no pain for the scores of martyrs in my own city of Haifa murdered by those same terrorists.
Your daughter put herself in harm's way by challenging a large bulldozer and positioning herself where the operator could not see her. You know quite well that the bulldozer operator was not seeking to harm her.
You have written, "We had not understood the devastating nature of the Palestinians' situation." Of course, youhave never expressed any interest in the devastating nature of the Jews' situation. The Jews have been battling Arab fascism and genocidal terrorism for a hundred years, before, during, and after the Nazi Holocaust of six million Jews. Your daughter was helping those who perpetrate Nazi-like atrocities against randomly selected Jews.
You smugly praise the propaganda play about your daughter, which ignored all the other Rachels - the Jewish victims of terror in Israel who were murdered by genocidal terrorists.
Your daughter, and apparently you as well, never had any understanding of the Middle East conflict. The Middle East conflict is not about the right to self-determination of Palestinian Arabs, but rather about the right to self-determination of Israeli Jews.
For a century the Arabs have attempted to block any expression of Jewish self-determination, using violence, armed aggression, and terrorism. The Arabs today control 22 countries and territory nearly twice the size of the United States. They refuse to share even a fraction of one percent of the Middle East with Jews, even in a territory smaller than New Jersey.
The Arab countries invented the Palestinian people and their "plight" as a propaganda ploy in imitation of the German campaign on behalf of Sudeten self-determination in the 1930s. Just as the struggle for "Sudeten liberation" was nothing more than a fig leaf for the German aggression aimed at annihilating Czechoslovakia, so the struggle for "Palestinian liberation" is nothing more than cover for a jihad to destroy Israel and its population.
Your write, "Clearly, our daughter has become a positive symbol for people."
I am afraid you are mistaken. Your daughter has become a symbol for dangerous foolhardiness. She essentially committed suicide as an empty gesture to assist murderers and terrorists.
You want the world to mourn for your daughter, who died while working with monsters out to murder our children. On the pages of anti-Semitic propaganda web magazines you denounce Israel, but you do not have a single word of sympathy for the families of the thousands of innocent Israeli victims of the terrorists with whom your daughter chose to ally herself.
On behalf of the citizens of Haifa, all of whom your daughter's Hamas friends are trying to murder, I remain,
Steven Plaut
Ironically, the Corries were themselves briefly kidnapped in Gaza by Hamas terrorists in January 2006, when they were in town to show the local jihadis their support.Palestinian gunmen burst into a Rafah house early Wednesday and tried to kidnap the parents of Rachel Corrie, who was killed in 2003 as she protested the impending demolition of a house in the southern Gaza town, according to a witness.
The five gunmen appeared to be affiliated with the Fatah movement, according to Samir Nasrallah, the Corries' host. The gunmen eventually relented after being told who their targets were, he said.
According to the Telegraph, "The gunmen wanted to kidnap the couple as bargaining chips to secure the release of a militia leader, Alaa al-Hams, arrested on suspicion of ordering the kidnap of the British human rights activist Kate Burton and her parents ."
The Corries later issued a statement in which they denied they had been kidnapped at all. They had just been hosted at gunpoint. But the simple truth is that the Corries were released once the terrorists realized they were a far more valuable asset for Hamas if they were running around free.
The following letter has been published by Steven Plaut from Haifa University to "welcome" the Corries to Haifa.
Dear Mr. and Mrs. Corrie,
You are coming to our lovely town to sue Israel, claiming that your daughter was "killed by an Israeli bulldozer." But you neglect to mention the circumstances under which she was so killed (nor the fact that she died from her injuries while under Palestinian medical care).
You have stated, "She had been working in Rafah with a nonviolent resistance organization, the International Solidarity Movement, trying to stop the demolition of Palestinian homes and wells." Homes and wells, huh?
Well, she was not. Rachel was trying to prevent the demolition of tunnels used to smuggle weapons for Palestinian terrorists seeking to murder Jewish civilians. ISM openly endorses Palestinian "armed struggle" against Jewish children and civilians and openly collaborates with terrorists. It has hidden wanted terrorists and their weapons in its offices. It is an accomplice in murder. Lying is not the best way to drum up sympathy for your daughter.
You say your daughter died trying to protect an "innocent house." Again, this is not the truth. That "innocent house" was camouflage for a not-so-innocent terrorist smuggling tunnel, and the residents of that innocent house knew all about the tunnel.
Your daughter was in a war zone as a belligerent, on behalf of a movement of Arab fascists seeking to destroy Israel and murder as many Jews as possible. Your daughter died while interfering with an anti-terror operation carried out by soldiers in a land in which she had no business being at all.
You demand that we feel your pain at the loss of your daughter, yet your daughter conscripted herself as an accomplice for those seeking to murder my children. You feel no pain for the scores of martyrs in my own city of Haifa murdered by those same terrorists.
Your daughter put herself in harm's way by challenging a large bulldozer and positioning herself where the operator could not see her. You know quite well that the bulldozer operator was not seeking to harm her.
You have written, "We had not understood the devastating nature of the Palestinians' situation." Of course, youhave never expressed any interest in the devastating nature of the Jews' situation. The Jews have been battling Arab fascism and genocidal terrorism for a hundred years, before, during, and after the Nazi Holocaust of six million Jews. Your daughter was helping those who perpetrate Nazi-like atrocities against randomly selected Jews.
You smugly praise the propaganda play about your daughter, which ignored all the other Rachels - the Jewish victims of terror in Israel who were murdered by genocidal terrorists.
Your daughter, and apparently you as well, never had any understanding of the Middle East conflict. The Middle East conflict is not about the right to self-determination of Palestinian Arabs, but rather about the right to self-determination of Israeli Jews.
For a century the Arabs have attempted to block any expression of Jewish self-determination, using violence, armed aggression, and terrorism. The Arabs today control 22 countries and territory nearly twice the size of the United States. They refuse to share even a fraction of one percent of the Middle East with Jews, even in a territory smaller than New Jersey.
The Arab countries invented the Palestinian people and their "plight" as a propaganda ploy in imitation of the German campaign on behalf of Sudeten self-determination in the 1930s. Just as the struggle for "Sudeten liberation" was nothing more than a fig leaf for the German aggression aimed at annihilating Czechoslovakia, so the struggle for "Palestinian liberation" is nothing more than cover for a jihad to destroy Israel and its population.
Your write, "Clearly, our daughter has become a positive symbol for people."
I am afraid you are mistaken. Your daughter has become a symbol for dangerous foolhardiness. She essentially committed suicide as an empty gesture to assist murderers and terrorists.
You want the world to mourn for your daughter, who died while working with monsters out to murder our children. On the pages of anti-Semitic propaganda web magazines you denounce Israel, but you do not have a single word of sympathy for the families of the thousands of innocent Israeli victims of the terrorists with whom your daughter chose to ally herself.
On behalf of the citizens of Haifa, all of whom your daughter's Hamas friends are trying to murder, I remain,
Steven Plaut
Monday, March 1, 2010
“One Million Jews help the Mossad” - BBC.
By Douglas Murray, Daily Telegraph blogs
February 18, 2010
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/douglasmurray/100026549/bbc-broadcast-one-million-jews-help-mossad/
Amid all the excitable nonsense being talked about dead Hamas commander Mahmoud al-Mabhouh I think the BBC has topped the lot. In an interview broadcast on Radio 4's PM programme last night broadcast (at 17:35 mins) one interviewee explained that up to one million Jews worldwide might be on hand to assist Mossad in executions. That would mean about one in every dozen Jewish people worldwide is a secret assistant to assassins.
Now I must have more than a dozen or so Jewish friends. So which is it?
Maybe I know two? It makes you think doesn't it?
The next time I am at a friend's child's bar mitzvah the likelihood is that on at least 10 separate occasions during the day I'll be helping myself at the buffet beside, or dancing opposite, someone who secretly helps in assassinations. Which will certainly make me more circumspect about my dance moves, not to mention barging in at the buffet queue.
Most people are terrible at keeping secrets, and Jews are no different from anyone else in this regard. So the idea that up to a million of them keep this secret knowledge strikes me as not just one of the most ridiculous, but in the present climate one of the most dangerous, ideas for the BBC to pump into circulation. Yet it typical of the lather nearly all the press have got into with this Dubai business.
February 18, 2010
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/douglasmurray/100026549/bbc-broadcast-one-million-jews-help-mossad/
Amid all the excitable nonsense being talked about dead Hamas commander Mahmoud al-Mabhouh I think the BBC has topped the lot. In an interview broadcast on Radio 4's PM programme last night broadcast (at 17:35 mins) one interviewee explained that up to one million Jews worldwide might be on hand to assist Mossad in executions. That would mean about one in every dozen Jewish people worldwide is a secret assistant to assassins.
Now I must have more than a dozen or so Jewish friends. So which is it?
Maybe I know two? It makes you think doesn't it?
The next time I am at a friend's child's bar mitzvah the likelihood is that on at least 10 separate occasions during the day I'll be helping myself at the buffet beside, or dancing opposite, someone who secretly helps in assassinations. Which will certainly make me more circumspect about my dance moves, not to mention barging in at the buffet queue.
Most people are terrible at keeping secrets, and Jews are no different from anyone else in this regard. So the idea that up to a million of them keep this secret knowledge strikes me as not just one of the most ridiculous, but in the present climate one of the most dangerous, ideas for the BBC to pump into circulation. Yet it typical of the lather nearly all the press have got into with this Dubai business.
Monday, February 22, 2010
WHY CAN'T THIS COUNTRY FOLLOW ISRAEL'S LEAD?
EXPRESS COMMENT
Friday February 19,2010
By Chris Roycroft-Davis
EXCUSE me for not sending flowers to the funeral of the terrorist the Israelis bumped off in Dubai. Unlike the bleeding hearts in the liberal media I’m not shedding any tears.
Friday February 19,2010
By Chris Roycroft-Davis
EXCUSE me for not sending flowers to the funeral of the terrorist the Israelis bumped off in Dubai. Unlike the bleeding hearts in the liberal media I’m not shedding any tears.
As military chief of terrorist group Hamas, Mahmoud al Mabhouh had the blood of many Israeli soldiers and civilians on his hands. He was in charge of smuggling rockets and grenades into the Gaza Strip so his murderous gangs could lob them into Israel.
He could hardly complain when a hit squad from Mossad, the Israeli security service, brought his life to a swift end. To say he had it coming is an understatement.
So why such a fuss about his execution? Why has the Foreign office twisted the arm of the Israeli ambassador? And possibly the most crucial question of all: whose side are we on, the terrorists or those with the courage to stand up to them?
The Israelis don’t mess about, they don’t sit back and take it. You kill one of them and they will kill you. And afterwards they won’t explain, they won’t apologise, they won’t even deny it.
WORLD opinion means nothing – what ever London, Washington or Damascus may say the Israelis are convinced that they are right. An eye for an eye is the most basic concept of natural justice, dating back 4,000 years to Babylonian times and is promoted three times in the old Testament. Even in the New Testament Jesus says: Those who take up the sword shall die by the sword.
Did Mahmoud al-Mabhouh reflect on that as he checked in to room 230 at his posh hotel in Dubai? He was the man behind the kidnapping and killing of two Israel soldiers 21 years ago; he had been smuggling arms into the Gaza Strip; he was believed to be in Dubai to buy more weapons from an Iranian dealer. If Mossad agents came to call they were hardly there to inquire after his health.
Unlike Britain, Israel doesn’t tolerate an enemy within. It doesn’t give those who hate them free housing and welfare handouts. It doesn’t let the right of free speech enable them to preach murder on its streets.
Retribution is a vital part of Israel’s psyche. After the Second World War the Israelis spent half a century tracking down evil Nazis. When Israeli athletes were murdered at the 1972 olympics their Palestinian killers were hunted around the world and eliminated: one by a bomb in his bed, another by a booby-trapped phone.
Who can forget the electrifying raid on Entebbe in 1976 when Israeli special forces stormed a hijacked airliner, killed the terrorists and freed all but three of the hostages? It was a salutary lesson to the world.
You’d think that Britain of all countries would understand the need to pull no punches with those who have sworn to be your enemies. That’s what the SAS did in Northern Ireland for more than 30 years, taking out IRA members before they could perpetrate further outrages. It is what our special forces did in Iraq and are doubtless doing in Afghanistan.
It is what the SAS should be doing today in Somalia, where British yacht couple Paul and Rachel Chandler are being held by pirates. Can you imagine the Israelis allowing two of their people to suffer so long in some fly-blown African hellhole?
Israel has no reason to be ashamed of its actions. As Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman points out: “our security activity is conducted according to the very clear, very cautious and responsible rules of the game.” rule No 1 of course in any security activity is kill or be killed.
Where Britain has a right to be upset, however, is the way the Israelis have carried out ID theft on the passports of six of our citizens. It’s not the first time they’ve done it and last time they promised they wouldn’t do it again.
One Foreign office source says Britain could cut ties with Mossad if the Israelis have been “found to be acting against British interests”. You might think executing the would terrorist might be precisely in our interests but the career diplomats take a loftier view.
Gordon Brown says Israel has questions to answer about nicking our passports but the implication is that Britain wouldn’t be in the least bit put out if the Israeli hit squad had used fake documents from Libya, Japan, Peru – in fact anywhere other than Britain.
BROWN even has the cheek to spout that “a British passport is an important part of being British”. This from a Prime Minister whose policy was to welcome millions of immigrants so he could socially engineer the country to be less British and more likely to vote Labour.
We should take no lessons either from the BBC, which for too long refused to call Hamas suicide bombers “terrorists” and hid behind weasel words like “radicals” and “militants”. Its anti-Israel bias is clear today when BBC News pontificates that Israel “may have scored a costly own goal” by using British identities for what it calls “nefarious activities”.
Make no mistake, I think a British passport is the most valuable document in the world and I don’t like it being used to gain illegal entry to another country. But my top priority will always be security and the world is undoubtedly more secure now Hamas has lost another murderer from its ranks.
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
*Anti-Israel Bias Infects Medical Journals*
*Anti-Israel Bias Infects Medical Journals* Barbara Kay, February 4, 2010
As all doctors know, untreated gangrene in a single limb can spread quickly through the body and lead to death. The most effective way to halt the progress of gangrene is to cut off the corrupting limb, a necessary sacrifice for the greater good.
As with bodies, so with scientific credibility.
As Phyllis Chesler informed us [1] in these pages on January 24, Lancet, once an impeccable source for authoritative medical research, has in recent years become more and more “Palestinianized.” In the just-published article she cites, “Association between exposure to political violence and intimate-partner violence in the occupied Palestinian territory: a cross-sectional study,” Palestinian husbands were found to be more violent towards their wives as a function of the Israeli “occupation” — “and … the violence increases significantly when the husbands are ‘directly’ as opposed to ‘indirectly’ exposed to political violence.”
Very clever. Being a Palestinian means you get to beat your wife without having to say you’re sorry, because, hey, it’s too bad about all those bruises, but the Israelis made me do it! That the statistics were gathered and the study was funded by the Palestinian Authority should have been a clue to its lack of objectivity. This is propaganda, not research.
Very clever. Being a Palestinian means you get to beat your wife without having to say you’re sorry, because, hey, it’s too bad about all those bruises, but the Israelis made me do it! That the statistics were gathered and the study was funded by the Palestinian Authority should have been a clue to its lack of objectivity. This is propaganda, not research.
It isn’t only Lancet, though. Editorial views in the prestigious British Medical Journal [2] and the Journal of the Royal College of Physicians [3] (recently renamed Clinical Medicine) have revealed a similar pattern of anti-Israel bias.
In the February 2009 issue of Commentary [4] (requires a login), an official organ of the Royal College of Physicians of London, for example, an inflammatory “special” article erroneously claims, amongst other falsehoods, that Palestinian physicians were prevented from traveling abroad for training and conferences. This was especially galling to Israeli medical professionals because, as Hebrew University Professor Oded Abramsky wrote in an open letter to the Royal College of Physicians [5]: “The level of cooperation between Israeli and Gazan hospitals and medical personnel and the cross-border treatment of the ill and wounded is without question greater than between any two other entities in the world who are nominally (and sometimes actively) at war. Therefore, please keep medicine and politics separate, for the good of all, as we try to do in Israel.” An apology by the journal was later (grudgingly) issued.
To prove that bias amongst British medical research elites is systemic rather than random, a group of Israeli medical academics, led by Prof. Yehuda Shoenfeld, editor-in-chief of the Israeli Medical Association Journal [6], assessed coverage of conflict-related deaths around the world.
Their study [7] analyzed citations in the British Medical Journal, a wholly owned subsidiary of the British Medical Association, finding that: for Europeans killing Europeans (Bosnia), there was one citation for every 2,000 deaths; for Africans killing Africans (Rwanda), one citation for every 4,000 deaths; for Arabs killing black Africans (Darfur), one citation for every 7,000 deaths; for Arab Muslims killing Kurds, no citation whatsoever; yet, for Israelis killing Palestinians, one citation for every 13 deaths.
The Brits aren’t alone in their politicization of science. But because of the long ancestry of their journals and the reflexive respect they command, the British organs are looked up to as role models; when they allow ideology to trump accuracy and objectivity, they give encouragement to insalubrious elements in other research entities.
And so now the gangrene is everywhere, even in my own backyard. Canadian scientific scholarship is generally widely respected and used to be entirely credible. But as early as 2004 the Canadian Journal of Psychiatry [8] published an article, “Prevalence of Psychological Morbidity in West Bank Palestinian Children [9],” whose thrust is to blame the Israeli occupation for the psychological problems of Palestinian children. The methodology is transparently shoddy and no attempt is made to obscure the partisanship governing the focus. Any objective study would have sought to compare data about the suffering of Israeli children under constant threat of (and actual) terrorism. Worse, from a scientific point of view, not a single one of the authors is academically accredited in psychology or psychiatry. It took months before a letter of rebuttal was accepted for publication. By then the damage was done.
It’s too bad these medical journals don’t choose to highlight the amazing medical benefits Israel has brought to Palestinians. As detailed in a May 30, 2009, study [10] by U.S. medical researchers Ted H. Tulchinsky et al., Palestinians in the territories boast the lowest age- and sex-standardized mortality rate per 100,000 of all Middle Eastern Arab populations. Since 1972 immunization coverage in the territories has reached 99%. Polio and measles have been eradicated. Life expectancy rose from 54 in 1970 to 73 in 2007. Major sanitation and disease-control projects have reduced morbidity and hospital admissions.
And of Israeli and North American doctors giving of their time and expertise to improve the medical lot of Palestinians, there seems to be no end. Some Toronto heart surgeons, to cite but one shining example, 10 years ago founded a strictly non-political, non-sectarian group called Save a Child’s Heart [11] (SACH), whose motto is “mending hearts, building bridges.” Headquartered at Woolfson Hospital in Tel Aviv, with satellite offices in the U.S., the UK, and Germany, SACH has operated on 2,100 children from 35 different countries at a cost of about $10,000 per child. Almost half of them are from neighboring Arab countries, including the West Bank, of course. Money raised by SACH also goes to train foreign medical teams. During the Gazan conflict, an infant nephew of the Hamas minister of defense was brought in for urgent heart surgery.
Why don’t Lancet and the others choose to write the good medical news about Israel? They could start with Israel’s stellar performance following the recent earthquake in Haiti, where by all accounts the Israeli field hospital and human and material resources rose head and shoulders over every other country’s.
If the medical profession were a human body, any objective doctor would issue the obvious warning that if it wants to thrive — in academic terms, to be taken seriously by real scholars — it must cut off the gangrenous anti-Israel limb that has already turned black and stinks to high heaven.
Time is running out. Physicians, heal thyselves.
Article printed from Pajamas Media:
http://pajamasmedia.comURL to article: http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/anti-israel-bias-infects-medical-journals/
URLs in this post:
[1] informed us: http://pajamasmedia.com../../../../../phyllischesler/2010/01/24/lance...
[5] open letter to the Royal College of Physicians: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19697581?itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntr...
[9] Prevalence of Psychological Morbidity in West Bank Palestinian Children: https://ww1.cpa-apc.org/Publications/Archives/CJP/2004/January/zakris...
[11] Save a Child’s Heart: http://www.sach.co.in/
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