The Threat to a British Liberty

Fraser Nelson 9:54pm . March 18th

http://www.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/6796298/the-threat-to-a-british-liberty.thtml

British understatement is a wonderful thing. Here is how Fraser Nelson, editor of the Spectator, introduced a posting on the magazine’s website (see link above) last weekend: “It’s a funny old world,” he said, “I have now been contacted by two journalists informing me that Bedfordshire Police are investigating The Spectator”. The reason? Because a group called, wait for it, “Muslims4UK” took exception to a piece by Melanie Phillips on her Spectator blog in which she referred to the Arabs who had murdered five members of a Jewish family in Itamar the week before as “savages”.

The story was reported in the media, but if you’d blinked you’d have missed it, and the slant of the reporting was that Israel was at least as much to blame for the killings — due to settlement policy — as the killers themselves. Melanie’s column was a typically robust effort to point out the moral depravity of news outlets such as the Guardian, the New York Times, CNN and the BBC who, if the situation had been reversed — if five Arabs including a three month old baby had been knifed to death in their beds in a lethal racist attack by Jewish “settlers”, for example — would have given it saturation coverage.

So not so much a “funny old world” as a “brave new world”: a prominent British columnist does what prominent British columnists are supposed to do — she attempts to shift the terms of the debate back on to a more rational and principled footing — and the net result is that the police have been called in, with the Guardian newspaper cheerleading on the sidelines, because she has offended Muslim sensitivities.

As Nelson summed it up, the train of events went like this:
“1) Inayat Bunglawala, chair of Muslims4UK, gets angry about what he reads on Melanie’s blog.2) Complains to the PCC [The Press Complaints Commission].3) Complains to the police.4) Phones up The Guardian and says “The PCC are investigating The Spectator!! Story!! Police too!!5) The Guardian duly writes it all up, on its website.6) The Independent follows up The Guardian.7) An inverted pyramid of piffle is thus constructed.”

It isn’t yet clear on what grounds the investigation is being conducted, but you can bet your boots that it is the following paragraph from Melanie’s piece that they are salivating over:

“So to the New York Times, it’s not the Arab massacre of a Jewish family which has jeopardised ‘peace prospects’ — because the Israelis will quite rightly never trust any agreement with such savages — but instead Israeli policy on building more homes, on land to which it is legally and morally entitled, which is responsible instead for making peace elusive. Twisted, and sick”.

An “Arab massacre”? What all of them? “such savages”? So all Arabs are “savages”? Oh, come off it. It is quite clear that she is referring to the “savages” who slaughtered a family in their beds, and it is “such savages” and those who incite them with whom peace cannot be made. It is also clear that in this instance the thrust of the argument is against the New York Times, itself being used as a proxy for the liberal left media in the West, and not the killers as such.
And it is precisely because the multi-culturalist assumptions underpinning the western liberal left media lead consistently to a downplaying or sanitisation of crimes, however appalling, committed by non-white, third-world perpetrators designated as “victims” that Melanie Phillips employs such strong language to jolt western readers out of their dogmatic slumbers. Again, that’s what columnists are supposed to do, and in any other situation this affair would have passed off without notice.

But, as Nelson makes clear, changes are afoot in modern Britain that threaten to rip apart the fabric of one of the world’s most developed free societies: “Freedom of expression is under attack in Britain, from our notorious libel laws to this new phenomenon of police forces being asked to investigate what people put on their blogs,” he said.

And as we know from cases involving Geert Wilders in the Netherlands and others across the continent, all of this is starting to look like a depressingly common feature of the new European politics. To those who value freedom, merely sitting on one’s hands is no longer an option. We all hang together, or we all hang separately, as Benjamin Franklin is said to have averred at the siging of the American Declaration of Independence.

So write to Fraser Nelson in the comments column at the end of the article http://www.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/6796298/the-threat-to-a-british-liberty.thtml and tell them you support their right to be heard. Surely, that’s the least you can do.

Are Israeli Settlers Human?

Before presenting you with the article of the week, we want to repeat an excellent suggestion from a BIG subscriber and think that for those of you who use Facebook and have a number of ‘friends’ it is a great idea.

‘I have just realized that I can spread further your articles by copying and pasting them onto My Notes on FACEBOOK! So have just done that with Tom Gross's article about Gazaiins celebrating the vicious murder of the sad Fogel family. and will do that each time I want to get to a lot more people - before I was simply forwarding it on to personal friends but have nearly 60 on Facebook - maybe it's an idea for anyone not sure how to disseminate what you give?’

And another story in video form that is worth spending a few minutes to marvel at the initiative of Israeli doctors in Haiti, who have been to give a professional dancer a new lease of life after he lost a leg in the earthquake. See “Back on the Floor” at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3CghS9SHUsI&feature=autofb

And so to our article of the week
Are Israeli Settlers Human?

A family of five slaughtered in their beds. Some Palestinians call it 'natural.'

By BRET STEPHENS March 15th 2011 Wall Street Journal

A few years ago, British poet and Oxford don Tom Paulin offered a view on what should be done
to certain Jewish settlers. "[They] should be shot dead," he told Al-Ahram Weekly. "I think they are Nazis, racists. I feel nothing but hatred for them." As for Israel itself, it was, he said, "an historical obscenity."

Last Friday, apparently one or more members of the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade, the terrorist wing of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's "moderate" Fatah party, broke into the West Bank home of Udi and Ruth Fogel. The Jewish couple were stabbed to death along with their 11-year-old son Yoav, their 4-year-old son Elad and their 3-month-old daughter Hadas. Photographs taken after the murders and posted online show a literal bloodbath. Is Mr. Paulin satisfied now?

Unquestionably pleased are residents of the Palestinian town of Rafah in the Gaza Strip, who "hit the streets Saturday to celebrate the terror attack" and "handed out candy and sweets," according to the Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth. The paper quoted one Rafah resident saying the massacre was "a natural response to the harm settlers inflict on the Palestinian residents in the West Bank." Just what kind of society thinks it's "natural" to slit the throats of children in their beds?
The answer: The same society that has named summer camps, soccer tournaments and a public square in Ramallah after Dalal Mughrabi, a Palestinian woman who in March 1978 killed an American photographer and hijacked a pair of Israeli buses, leading to the slaughter of 37 Israeli civilians, 13 children among them.

I have a feeling that years from now Palestinians will look back and wonder: How did we allow ourselves to become that? If and when that happens—though not until that happens—Palestinians and Israelis will at long last be able to live alongside each other in genuine peace and security.

But I also wonder whether a similar question will ever occur to the Palestinian movement's legion of fellow travelers in the West. To wit, how did they become so infatuated with a cause that they were willing to ignore its crimes—or, if not quite ignore them, treat them as no more than a function of the supposedly infinitely greater crime of Israeli occupation?
That's an important question because it forms part of the same pattern in which significant segments of Western opinion cheered Ho Chi Minh and Fidel Castro and Robert Mugabe and even Pol Pot. The cheering lasted just as long as was required to see the cause through to some iconic moment of triumph, and then it was on to the next struggle. It was left to others to pick up the pieces or take to the boats or die choking in their own blood.

Whether similar tragedies would unfold for Palestinians in the wake of their own "liberation" remains to be seen, though the portents—the experience of the postcolonial world generally and of the Gaza Strip specifically—aren't good.

Four-year-old Elad Fogel, one of five members of the Fogel family who were stabbed to death in their home.

Even worse is that Palestinians have grown accustomed to the waiver the rest of the world has consistently granted them over the years no matter what they do. Palestinians ought to have expectations of themselves if they mean to build a viable state. But their chances of doing so are considerably diminished if the world expects nothing of them and forgives them everything.
It is precisely in this sense that the frenzied international condemnation of Israeli settlements and settlers does the most harm.

Having been accorded the part of George Orwell's Emmanuel Goldstein—perpetual target of the proverbial two minutes of hate—they have drained whatever capacity there was to hold Palestinian actions to moral account, to say nothing of our ability to understand the nature of a conflict that is more than simply territorial. The demonization of the settlers has made the world not only coarse but blind.

I write these words as one who has long entertained doubts about the wisdom and viability of much of the settlement enterprise, though I've never considered it the core issue in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict—a point well borne out by the example of Gaza following Israel's withdrawal.

Now I find myself cheering Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for announcing, in the wake of the Fogel family massacre, the construction of hundreds of additional homes in the settlements. Israel's consistent mistake since the peace process began nearly 18 years ago was to suppose that conspicuous displays of reasonableness and moderation would beget likewise on the other side. The reality has been closer to the opposite.

For 60 years, no nation has been held to such stringent moral account, or such ceaseless international hectoring, as Israel. And no people has been held to so slight an account as the Palestinians. Redressing that imbalance is the essential first step in finding a solution to the conflict. The grotesque murders of the Fogels and their little children demands nothing less.

GAZA CELEBRATES AS ISRAELI CHILDREN HAVE THROATS SLITBy

Tom Gross

Hamas handed out candy last night as residents took to the streets of the southern Gazan city of Rafah to celebrate the brutal terror attack in Itamar, where five members of a single Israeli family were murdered in their home, including three children, one of whom was three years old, and another just one month old. An 11-year old was killed as he lay reading in bed. The children and baby had their throats slit.

There are photos here. (These are sent with the permission of the grandparents who want people to see what was done to their family. They have given permission to news media to use these.)Be warned, they are graphic :https://picasaweb.google.com/picsyesha/Itamar

Three other children who survived are now orphaned.PALESTINIAN PRIME MINISTER ADMITS ITS TERRORISM, BBC DOESN’TEven though many Western media failed to report the attack at all, and those that did (such as the BBC) refused to use the word “terror”, Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad said he “clearly and firmly denounces this terror attack.”Hamas Spokesperson Sami Abu Zuhri, welcomed the attack. Fatah’s military wing – the al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades – claimed responsibility for the attack.

“ABBAS ENCOURAGES ATTACKS OF THIS KIND”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu expressed anger that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah (the benefactor of endless goodwill and billions of dollars from the US, European and other governments) refused to properly and swiftly condemn the terror attack. Netanyahu called upon Abbas to curb the dehumanization of Jews in the Palestinian media and schoolbooks “once and for all”.The Palestinian Authority continues to lionize Palestinian suicide bombers in its media and at schools, and name public squares after them, and Israel argues that this only serves to encourage attacks like the one perpetrated in Itamar.

THE INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY AND THE MURDER OF BABIES

Netanyahu also had harsh words for the international community: “A few of the countries that rushed to condemn Israel at the Security Council for building a home in some area are now prevaricating in issuing a harsh condemnation of the murder of babies,” the Israeli prime minister said.Some Israeli politicians said Israel should introduce the death penalty and apply it to the perpetrators if caught and convicted. “Otherwise European Union politicians will just pressure the Israeli government to release them from prison as part of ‘the peace process’,” said one.-- Tom Grosshttp://www.tomgrossmedia.com/

Obsession with Israel makes us all ignorant

Obsession with Israel makes us all ignorant
By Robin Shepherd, March 3, 2011

http://www.thejc.com/comment-and-debate/analysis/46080/obsession-israel-makes-us-all-ignorant

Libya’s Saif al Gaddafi

One of the most noteworthy consequences of the current wave of protests and revolutions across the Arab world is that when you click on the Middle East section of the BBC website something extraordinary happens: you are no longer bombarded, headline by headline, subsection by subsection with a once familar word: "Israel".
I swear it. It's Wednesday March 2. It's midday. And I'm looking at the BBC website. Where's my fix?

Over at the Guardian it's even worse. I'm on Comment is Free. I've typed "Israel" into the search facility. Here's the response: "No matches found"! This is the Guardian for goodness' sake: a paper that, according to its own figures, printed 258 comment pieces on Israel last year, and more than 1,000 overall – about three a day. As the estimable media monitoring organisation Just Journalism pointed out, this makes for some "interesting" comparisons with conflict zones accounting for hundreds of thousands of casualties such as Congo (124 items overall) and Sudan (121).

But there is much more to this than a gentle dig at the liberal-left media establishment's obsession with the Jewish state. Ask yourself this: prior to the current crisis, how many Britons had the remotest notion that Libya was a clan-based society? That has emerged as a central element of any serious analysis of how things might transpire in the country, and, now, it features in the reporting widely. So why has such basic information taken so many of us by surprise? The obsession with Israel is not just making us sick – societally, morally, civilisationally – it is also making us stupid. People watching and reading the major media outlets can tell you the names of suburbs of east Jerusalem. Ask them to name the capital city of Jordan, and most will struggle.

Beheadings take place every Friday afternoon in Riyadh

And it's not just making us stupid, it's corrupting us as well. Witness the London School of Economics which, it has just been revealed, has been taking hundreds of thousands of pounds from a charity chaired by Colonel Muammar Gaddafi's son. Conservative MP Rob Halfon rightly described it as "blood money. Our universities should not be in hock to tyranny," The Times quoted him as saying.

Of course not. But they are. Why? Because the bright lights of publicity suddenly go dark over the Middle East when Jews cannot be held responsible for misbehaviour.
Want a sneak preview of what's coming next? I'll say it in a whisper. Did you know that Saudi Arabia funds university faculties throughout the Western world? And did you know they chop people's heads off every Friday afternoon? Hold the front page…

No settlement in Sight

The constant chatter over a UN condemnation of Israel's so-called "settlements" showed just how irrelevant Western diplomacy is to the real issues in the region. The riots in Bahrain, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt and Iran were not about a few Jewish villages on one side of a line on a map that has been redrawn half a dozen times in the 20th century. The trouble with the Muslim world does not lie in the vineyards of the Judean Hills, the glass factories of Ariel, the academies of the revived Maccabean town of Modi'in Illit, the solar panel plants of Nazareth Illit, the dairies of Carmel or the fruit orchards of Gush Etzion.

Ever since ten Arab nations lost a war to Israel over six days in the spring of 1967, too many diplomats have acted as if it were its responsibility to fix the Muslim world. In 1973, Israel was set up to lose a war in order to bolster Muslim self-esteem. But Israel still won and while its people buried more of their dead this time around, Muslim self-esteem did not noticeably improve. In the early 90's, Israel was pressured into providing an autonomous territory for Islamo-Marxist thugs who had been trained and equipped by its neighbors to carry out terrorist attacks on its citizens. And year after year, for almost two decades, Israel has been held responsible for all the problems in the region because it has been unable to achieve a lasting peace with the terrorists.

Only a few weeks before the rioting in the region started, American diplomats and journalists were being told by Arab leaders that a solution to the Palestinian problem would stabilize the region (?). It would be interesting to go out into the streets of Cairo, Manama, Tripoli and Tunis to find out how many of the rioters would be willing to go home if there were a Palestinian state tomorrow. The answer would be none. Palestine has never been anything but a myth used as a channel for Muslim anger. Like Al-Andalus or the Mu-Pan-Li myth, (which Muslims use to claim that they were the first discoverers of America), Palestine feeds the Muslim ego and its sense of victimization. And like all xenophobic myths, its emotional teeth cannot be pulled by any amount of appeasement or concessions.

The reason Western intelligence didn't see this coming, and Israeli intelligence did, is that the West was successfully gulled and deceived by Arab leaders who insisted that the only real source of regional instability was Israel. And now even when half a dozen cities are burning, Western diplomats wrangle over a few Israeli towns and villages as if they were the real threat to peace. European leaders like Sarkozy, Merkel and Cameron may be proclaiming the failure of multiculturalism, but they are still unable to stop pandering to it anyway.



Ceding towns and cities to the Islam has not worked out for Israel or for Europe. And while many Americans may not be aware of the Little Mogadishus and the Dearbornistans in their own country, the fruited plain and the purple mountain majesties set from sea to shining sea, are bringing forth mosques and terrorists out of the ground like thorns. The secular republicanism of France has faltered in the face of millions of angry Algerians and Moroccans. And Albion's bid for a multicultural New Britain has been overwhelmed by Pakistanis and Egyptians. Germany grits its teeth at the Turks and it is not the cold that sends shivers up Sweden's spine.

Israel is a convenient whipping boy for European leaders who know this can't go on, but also believe that it must. Their assents to denunciations of Israel by such solid UN citizens as Libya, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan are acts of moral cowardice by men and women who would rather collaborate than lead. It is easier to condemn the settlements of Israel, than the settlements of Europe. Barking about the Jews of Judea and Samaria requires no courage, standing up to the Muslims of Birmingham, Goutte-d'Or or Essen does. Jews may write angry letters to newspapers, but Muslims lop off the heads of newspaper cartoonists.

And what goes for the millions of Muslims scattered across Europe, goes double for the billion or so Muslims of the globe. Western leaders have no clue what to do about the rush of events in Egypt, Tunisia and Libya. But they still know how to push the automatic 'condemn' button when it comes to Israel. These events have shown the impotence of the post-colonial Western order when it comes to dealing with the Muslim world. And faced with that impotence, the gaggle of politicians, diplomats, foreign policy experts and journalists who in a space of a month have proven that they know less about the region than any child, revert to the known. To the proven and failed methods that are safe, because they are useless.

As the Camp David accords, the original treaty that paved the way for all the others, is being disowned by Egypt's liberals, the push for a settlement goes on. A settlement with Mahmoud Abbas, who refuses to stand for elections, gets most of his money from America and is about as popular as Mubarak was in Egypt. That Abbas looks exactly like all the tyrants who are being overthrown across the region has yet to come up, because it's another of those inconvenient observations. The last time Condoleezza Rice pushed for democracy, Abbas nearly lost his head to Hamas. No one will be making that mistake this time. Instead Israel is expected to turn over half its capital and large portions of its country to a flimsy dictator who remains in power only by the grace of American assault rifles and an Israeli blockade of Gaza.

With the Egyptian peace treaty possibly going down in flames, Israeli leaders would have to be out of their minds to stake half their country on a deal with Abbas, an unpopular terrorist group's office boy. Signing an agreement with an Arab leader is like buying stock in a bankrupt company. And Abbas' stock is that of a telegraph company after the invention of the telephone. The only thing left to do is lay down the law, but a leader with the brass to do that is as hard to find in Israel, as in Europe. They exist, but are invariably treated as dangerous warmongering pariahs on every continent, when the real dangerous warmongers can be found shouting the Koran from the floor of every mosque. For the full article, see http://tinyurl.com/6zqjmqf

Israel Navy Uncovers Weaponry on-board Cargo Vessel

Today, the Israeli Navy intercepted the cargo vessel "Victoria" loaded with various weaponry. The vessel, flying under a Liberian flag, was intercepted some 200 miles west of Israel's coast. This incident was part of the Navy's routine activity to maintain security and prevent arms smuggling, in light of IDF security assessments.

The force was met with no resistance from the crew on-board.


The vessel is now being led by the Israeli Navy to an Israeli port for further searches and detailed inspection of the cargo.

The vessel was on its way from Mersin Port in Turkey to Alexandria Port in Egypt.

According to assessments, the various weaponry on-board the vessel was intended for the use of terror organizations operating in the Gaza Strip.
Official responses note that Turkey is not tied to the incident in any way.

Israel alerted Germany authorities about the interception of the "Victoria" due to the German ownership of the ship. In addition, the government of Liberia, whose flag it was flying under, was notified, as well as France, due to the French shipping company.

The vessel's crew and content is being transferred to an Israeli port for questioning and further inspection.

The Israeli army is continuing its intelligence and operational activities in order to maintain Israel's security interests and prevent arms smuggling that will fuel the terror infrastructure in the Gaza Strip and Lebanon.

Since 2001, there have been repeated attempts to smuggle weapons under the guise of legitimate commerce, using ships, flags and ports of blameless countries. A record of previous attempts can be found at http://bit.ly/ArmsShips .

Netanyahu stated that "we had a solid basis that onboard the ship was weaponry destined for use against Israel. Considerable weaponry – which was destined for terrorist forces in the heart of Gaza – was found onboard the vessel. The operation was carried out at sea in accordance with all international rules. The weaponry originated in Iran, which is trying to arm the Gaza Strip."

Channel 4's landmark TV series 'The Promise' is built on a serious historical falsehood about Israel

Channel 4 TV in the UK is currently broadcasting a 4 part documentary series “The Promise”, a dramatisation of the founding of Israel, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict today, which is attracting 1.5 million viewers. The organization Beyond Images www.beyondimages.info has issued a briefing to counter many of the statements and claims made in this inaccurate and misinformed documentary.

We, at BIG, feel that this information should be circulated as widely as possible.


Channel 4's landmark TV series 'The Promise' is built on a serious historical falsehood about Israel

British TV channel Channel 4 has been broadcasting 'The Promise'. And it is a landmark piece of television. 'The Promise' is a four-part, six-hour dramatisation of the founding of Israel, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict today.

We have been watching it. And it is gripping. We are not surprised that it has been receiving very good reviews, and is a likely candidate for future broadcasting awards. Over 1.5 million viewers in the UK have been watching its two episodes to date, including - we assume - most people with an active interest in the conflict: politicians, academics, students, members of human rights groups, writers and intellectuals, diplomats and civil servants.

The production is superb. The acting is excellent. It is meticulously observed and staged..And it is also built on a major historical falsehood. A falsehood so severe that it undermines the credibility of its messages. Its director Peter Kosminsky claims that he "told both sides of the story". But episode 1 reveals that he does not even know what the Israeli side of the story is......

'The Promise' describes the events of 1945-8 through the eyes of Len, a British sergeant who had witnessed the liberation of the Jews at Bergen-Belsen, and is later posted with British forces to Palestine. At a crucial moment in that first episode Len, together with other British army officers, receives a briefing from their British army commander on the purpose of their mission in Palestine, and the history behind it. This takes place shortly after the second world war.

The commander's words are not intended as a partisan speech. It is the moment at which the British soldiers (and by extension 1.5 million viewers) are provided with the background to the conflict, and indeed the subsequent episodes of 'The Promise'. Indeed it is the only piece of the script which endeavours to tell the story of how the Jews, the Arabs and the British found themselves in three-way conflict.

Here is what the British commanding officer in The Promise says:

"The Jews and Arabs have been living here in relative harmony for thousands of years. But our victory over the Germans has turned the trickle of Jews coming to this land into a flood. You must understand, the Jews see it as their holy land. But the Arabs, who have been here for over a thousand years, see them as stealing their land. Our job is to keep the two sides apart....."

There you have it. The historical narrative of Israel. And it is a narrative which does not operate to resolve the conflict, but to perpetuate it. Ever since World War Two, the Arabs have seen the Jewish national enterprise as the consequence of Nazism. Without indigenous roots. And without historical legitimacy.

They build their sense of victimhood on the argument that they are "paying the price" for European fascism. Far from challenging this mindset, Kosminsky's so-called 'balanced' narrative has reinforced it. Kosminsky makes no mention of the steady return to Palestine of Jews which had been carrying on since the 1880s. Kosminsky does not hint at the Balfour Declaration or other international commitments to support a Jewish national home.
Kosminsky does not recognise that Jewish national life had existed thousands of years ago in the land of Israel, and that the connection is a national connection.

Kosminsky does not pay any attention to the Jews' state-building efforts in the period before the Second World War. And Kosminsky perpetuates a complete falsehood that the Jews and Arabs had been living in "relative harmony". Kosminsky reportedly researched The Promise for over a decade. But has he heard of the Arab riots against the Jews of the Yishuv in the 1920s or 1930s?

Has he heard of the incessant violent assaults upon Jews building up Palestine? Has he heard of the Hebron massacre of 1929?

The idea that there was "relative harmony" in Palestine till World War Two is a fiction. It's a fiction which Hamas and other rejectionists and ideologues readily embrace.

Meanwhile, the claim that the Arabs had been living there for a thousand years is also a massive over-simplification. Even the most partisan historians have to admit that Palestine under the Ottomans and then the British was not exactly a hub of Arab nationalism, or a focal point of Arab pride and economic endeavour.

While 'The Promise' is brilliant drama - and we will be highlighting its strengths as well its weaknesses in the future - there are plenty of other major flaws in its so called 'balanced' narrative and in its framing of the conflict. In subsequent weeks we will be explaining them. For now, here is a link to the programme website. We have quoted just one short extract from episode one. See for yourself: http://www.channel4.com/programmes/the-promise/4od (Not available outside the UK)

And by the way, here are two other examples of the damage which is caused when the narrative of Israel is artificially started at World War II:

Barack Obama made this error in his major speech to the Arab world in June 2009: click here:
'How President Obama got it wrong on Israel's history... and why it matters for future peace' (Beyond Images Briefing 242)

And The Economist made this error in an obituary of Yasser Arafat published in 2004: see
The Economist Magazine's obituaries: misleading accounts of Israel's history' (Beyond Images Briefing 124)

Key messages:

Delegitimisation of Israel is not just a matter of outrageous, flagrant denial of Jewish national rights.

It is happening in drip-drip style, as ideas which call the history of Israel into question are steadily absorbed into liberal discourse, into respectable mainstream thinking. Click here for The Beyond Images Report on Delegitimisation which provides many examples of this.

Elements of Channel 4's 'The Promise' are a classic instance of this phenomenon. The Promise is doubtless being viewed by almost everyone in the UK who passionately believes in the Palestinian cause.

In building its drama on the basis of an explicit historical fiction, it is not contributing to peace and understanding. It is fuelling the falsehoods on which the delegitimisation of Israel thrives. There are many many other falsehoods: we will be highlighting some in future emails.

No amount of great acting and brilliant direction can obscure that fact.

By the way, we have not seen a single syllable uttered about The Promise in public by any of the central Jewish organisations which claim to be fighting delegitimisation in the UK, in the two weeks since its broadcasts began..... Are we on Beyond Images missing something.... or - just possibly - are they?