Friday, August 31, 2012

A Response to Jon Haber

Mike L.

(Cross-Posted at Israel Thrives and Pro-Israel Bay Bloggers.)

Those of you who follow Israel Thrives will recall that I recently had something of a dispute with pro-Israel "progressives" on Jon Haber's DivestThis! blog.

There are some Jews on the progressive-left who simply refuse to acknowledge that which is before their very eyes, i.e., that BDS / anti-Zionism is a toxic political sub-movement coming out of the left. It is not coming out of the right, nor does it somehow float above normal politics.

No.

It is primarily a left-wing phenomenon and we need to acknowledge that because it could not be more obvious. We must stop playing ostrich.

In any case, I have responded to Jon Haber's piece, "Israel Left and Right" at my new Times of Israel blog, here:

"Anti-Zionism and the Left: A Response to Jon Haber"

Feel free to drop in and tell me why I am wrong.

Thursday, August 30, 2012

The Collapse of Christian Morality (Update)


geoffff


A particularly nasty comment from what seems to be a particularly nasty and hateful priest. How many of them have we seen before? 
"You may remember that I decided NOT to participate in the Al Quds Day protest two weeks ago, even though I was scheduled to speak, and I had been feeling very torn up about it all, and was feeling that I had not only let down the organisers but the long-suffering Palestinian people themselves!

"I was both surprised and touched by the size of the response that my sharing generated, and the prayers and support I received from many of my Islamic friends was particularly meaningful to me."


… and where were you when they were murdering the Jews yet again in our time David Smith? Where are you now?
You are a disgrace David Smith. If you had an ounce of moral courage about you at all you would hang your head in shame.

Update


I left this comment on the good father's blog some minutes ago.


Tell me something David Smith.

You will know by now that any communication with you will be put on a blog for all the world that could give a damn to see. There is a reason for that by the way. It's because people like you cannot be trusted with the truth. 

What's with this "Hi Fighter" crap? Is that Christian talk for "G'day Jihadist"? 

I grew up in regional Australia and I have known people like David Smith all my life. My mother's paternal name is "Smith" but that didn't stop my parents marrying in the Toorak shul in 1948. The most frum shul in Melbourne at the time as my mother will claim to this day. Or maybe that was the Rabbi.

I don't like David Smith. He uses a hard fought for Australian institution to attack something that is at the very core of being Australian and that makes this argument personal. Also he refuses to engage. That makes him an intellectual coward. To put it at its kindest. 

G'day fighter right back at you. I remember having to sort out cowards and bullies like you in the school backyard before you were born. 


Further Update


A comment I just put on friend blog of friend Dr Mike Lumish  Israel Thrives

OK First -- I agree entirely with you Mike about Evangelical Christians . 

We have a real serious problem with Christians who act as if they have found a religious reason to see Israel pass into the the dust of history and are in alliance with Jihadists on this.

Do you doubt this?

I have saved you a cross post of this on my blog because something I have said about an Anglican priest is probably actionable under Australian law and therefore I need to spare you any possible complications.

Who cares about what they believe? I don't care about your religious beliefs let alone theirs. That's the point isn't it? 

Their are many Christians who find in their religion and traditions reason to admire or at least stand by Israel and the Jews. They are welcome in my home any time. There are even more Buddhists, agnostics and atheists in my experience. More it seems than even Jews.

Either you get it or you don't. There are a thousand ways why people end up doing the right thing and standing by the human rights of the Israelis and the Jews and every body else in the world is most assuredly the right thing. Isn't it?

Isn't that what "liberalism", however you define it on either side of the ocean,  all about? 

They are our friends, aren't they? 

In a world full of enemies you treat friends with courtesy. At the very least you do not question their motives. Could it be that they just believe the Jews should be left alone? If not for the Jews sake at least for their own? 







Tuesday, August 28, 2012

A Tribute to Rachel Corrie


Mike L.

(Cross-Posted at Israel Thrives and Pro-Israel Bay Bloggers)

As you guys are probably aware Rachel Corrie is back in the news.

Corrie family hopeful ahead of court ruling

Rachel Corrie's parents and sister say they hope the court will find the IDF responsible for her 2003 death in Gaza.

This being the case, I thought it was a good moment to reprint this response written by Ruhama Shattan one year after the accident that took Corrie's life:

A Tribute to Rachel Corrie

Today is the first anniversary of Rachel Corrie's death. I want to thank Corrie for the explosives that flow freely from Egypt to Gaza, via the smuggling tunnels under the Gaza homes that she died defending.

Perhaps it was these explosives that in the year since her martyrdom--oops, death--have been strapped around suicide bombers to blow up city buses and restaurants in Israeli cities, particularly in Jerusalem, killing men, women and schoolchildren (two of them classmates of my daughter and her friend in the February 22, 2004 bombing) and leaving hundreds more widows, orphans and bereaved parents.

On the first anniversary of her death, I want to thank Rachel Corrie for showing Palestinian children how to despise America as she snarled, burned an American flag, and led them in chanting slogans, and as she gave "evidence" at a Young Palestinian Parliament mock trial finding President Bush guilty of crimes against humanity.

Perhaps her help in fanning the flames of violent anti-American sentiment led to the October 2003 bombing of the Fulbright delegation to Gaza to interview scholarship candidates, killing three. There will be no new crop of Palestinian Fulbright scholars this fall.

On the first anniversary of her death, I wanted to thank Rachel Corrie for providing her organization, the Palestinian-sponsored International Solidarity Movement, with the opportunity to release a manipulated photo sequence "showing" an Israeli military bulldozer deliberately crushing her. (I would also like to thank the Associated Press and the Christian Science Monitor for taking up the baton and immortalizing this cynical ISM stunt.)

On the first anniversary of her death, I want to thank Rachel Corrie for showing the way to all those who seek peace in the Middle East. Unfortunately, Corrie's peace, as anyone familiar with the Palestine Liberation Organization, Fatah, Hamas and Hezbollah organizations that she defended with her life knows--or as anyone familiar with the weekly rants of the Friday preachers in the Palestinian mosques is aware--means not peaceful coexistence but the elimination of the state of Israel, and death to those they call "the usurping Jews, the sons of apes and pigs."

Thank you, Rachel Corrie, of Evergreen State University, where the profs wear khakis and kaffiyehs at graduation ceremonies, for showing us what peace really means.

Ms. Shattan is a translator, editor and writer who has lived in Israel since 1976. This article appeared in the Jerusalem Post.

Update


comments from the gorilla and Mike at Israel Thrives




    1. Corrie was a nasty, badly socialised and poorly educated bigot whose life is a testament to the poverty of standards in Western universities but who at least had the excuses of youth and extreme ignorance.


      Her death was unremarkable except for its bottomless stupidity and for the sheer cowardice of her colleagues and family it showed. One of those guys standing around egging her on would have been her boyfriend for crying out loud.

      Sympathy factor for the parents and friends?

      Zero.
      ReplyDelete

      Replies


      1. I agree. Zero sympathy.

        It is very difficult to have much sympathy for people who believe that the Jews have a moral obligation to allow themselves to be slaughtered and who even sacrificed their daughter upon that grotesque altar.

        And that's what it amount to, however much they may yammer about "apartheid" or whatever the blood-libel du jour might be.

Monday, August 27, 2012

Clerical Antizionism in Australia -- a question for Fr David Smith

geoffff


This is a comment I just put on the blog of this Anglican cleric; well known to the gutsy veterans of the Marrickville Council outrage. Read what he has to say about Al Quds,  Palestinians and Israel. I will not quote him because I doubt it can be believed unless seen.

Could it be possible that this man seriously does not know that Iran continues to threaten the obliteration of Israel and the genocide of the Jews and that this is the express and shouted position of Hamas, Hezbollah, Muslim Brotherhood and every Jihadist jerk off across the planet ?  Does he really have no knowledge of the genocidal antisemitic propaganda, unmatched since the Nazi era, that pours out of  Iran, Syria, Egypt and Islamic countries and across the world?  Does he honestly not know that the Palestinians have formally rejected the two state solution and that Oslo was a fraud all along?

That the only "Israel" that even the "moderates" have said they would accept is some kind of rump "state" that does not even have sovereignty over its own population and borders?

Is he deaf? Where has he been for the last 45 years? In a cave on Mars with his fingers in his ears and a blindfold on?

Here is my response.

It defies belief that a savagely anti-Israel activist with a pedigree as long as yours seriously has no idea what Al Quds Day is about. I am tempted to say I don't believe you. But then I read this:

"I readily accepted the offer as I feel that there is no group of people in the world today who have suffered so brutally as have the Palestinians people in this generation. Indeed, I take every opportunity I can to express my concern for their suffering and my prayers for an end to the 45-year-long Occupation of their land."


I see


Not


Pol Pot (Cambodia, 1975-79) 1,700,000

Kim Il Sung (North Korea, 1948-94) 1.6 million (purges and concentration camps)
Menghistu (Ethiopia, 1975-78) 1,500,000
Yakubu Gowon (Biafra, 1967-1970) 1,000,000
Leonid Brezhnev (Afghanistan, 1979-1982) 900,000
Jean Kambanda (Rwanda, 1994) 800,000
Saddam Hussein (Iran 1980-1990 and Kurdistan 1987-88) 600,000
Tito (Yugoslavia, 1945-1987) 570,000
Sukarno (Communists 1965-66) 500,000
Jonas Savimbi (Angola, 1975-2002) 400,000
Mullah Omar - Taliban (Afghanistan, 1986-2001) 400,000
Idi Amin (Uganda, 1969-1979) 300,000
Yahya Khan (Pakistan, 1970-71) 300,000 (Bangladesh)
Mobutu Sese Seko (Zaire, 1965-97) 300,000?
Charles Taylor (Liberia, 1989-1996) 220,000
Foday Sankoh (Sierra Leone, 1991-2000) 200,000
Suharto (Aceh, East Timor, New Guinea, 1975-98) 200,000
Ho Chi Min (Vietnam, 1953-56) 200,000
Michel Micombero (Burundi, 1972) 150,000
Slobodan Milosevic (Yugoslavia, 1992-99) 100,000
Hassan Turabi (Sudan, 1989-1999) 100,000
Jean-Bedel Bokassa (Centrafrica, 1966-79) 200 000 ?
Efrain Rios Montt (Guatemala, 1982-83) 70,000
Papa Doc Duvalier (Haiti, 1957-71) 60,000
Rafael Trujillo (Dominican Republic, 1930-61) 50,000
Hissene Habre (Chad, 1982-1990) 40,000

Syria (again)  30 000 and rising



Not them


No,  the  "Palestinian people" ruled by Hamas, Fatah, IJ and the other murder gangs get the "victim hood" prize as far as you are concerned.


Anybody who is capable of saying that is capable of saying anything.


"I also read the Ayatollah’s Al Quds speech, and it was indeed an angry response to the crimes of violence that he saw Israel perpetrating at the time."


You really should try reading a book.


Clerical antizionism, (especially the disgraceful Christian versions) with its obsessive focus on Israel and the Jews and its haste to swallow whole even the foulest and most cynically dishonest slanders and blood libels without any self reflection whatsoever, is the most sinister political development of our time.


I am an Australian of seven generations and I have no hesitation in denouncing your views as unAustralian. In any event its time to stop being polite to people like you. We have seen enough Christians like you before.


How sad to see you back


Perhaps you might benefit from some reflection of the type you so incessantly urge on others.


I run a political blog. I suggest you visit it and its links. It's possible you might learn something.


In the meantime I will be taking issue with you and your colleagues there. Christians are too important and this matter has become too critical for us all for this to be left to the likes of Sizer and you.


So here is my question for this man of faith and the cloth.

Why do you not use your good offices with your Palestinian and Islamic brothers and sisters to persuade them with all the might you have to accept the Jewish state, accept Palestine, accept peace and to raise their children in security, prosperity and love?

hat tip Shirlee

cross posted Israel Thrives




Saturday, August 25, 2012

Is this man the ugliest Australian to have ever lived?

Updated










geoffff

He would have to be right up there in the top five.

I have known the name of Eric Butler since childhood and for American readers you can be certain I do not mean the footballer. This  Eric Butler; founder of the Australian League of Rights .

An appalling story from this morning's Australian that makes you think Poor Fellow My Country   (Xavier Herbert's strange  Australian classic linked for a reason I'll get back to.)  These stories are behind a  pay wall but it is well worth signing up for the free 28 day offer for these alone.

The Australian Press Council chaired by Professor Julian Disney has upheld in part a complaint by an associate of Eric Butler, the evil old Australian war time traitor, against the Australian newspaper because last year the left wing columnist and broadcaster  Phillip Adams called the evil old war time traitor an evil old war time traitor which he most assuredly was..

This is indeed an insult to the memory of many Australians.


THE media watchdog has controversially ruled in favour of a complaint against The Weekend Australian's left-wing columnist Phillip Adams for neglecting irrefutable facts when describing a renowned peddler of race hate in Australia as a "traitor".
In the same adjudication, the Australian Press Council has dismissed a complaint against Adams for asserting his target, Eric Butler -- the now deceased founder of the right-wing League of Rights who was known for advocating, among other things, that the diaries of Anne Frank were a hoax -- was anti-Semitic.
APC chairman Julian Disney told The Weekend Australian the adjudication was an important one in terms of free speech, emphasising that the decision did not stop Adams from calling Butler a traitor.
In typical style, Adams wrote in his April 2011 column in The Weekend Australian Magazine that Butler was a "truly evil man" and "Australia's most virulent anti-Semite".
"If the word traitor means anything, Butler was a traitor, often investigated during World War II by stumblebum security people for his pro-Axis activities," Adams wrote.
"He argued that Churchill, Roosevelt and John Curtin were covert communists, that then ally the Soviet Union was a Jewish slave state rolled by international Jewish financiers in New York."
In a complaint to the APC, a friend of Butler and associate of the League of Rights, Nigel Jackson, said the description of Butler as a traitor was "inaccurate and deceitful" on the basis that he had served with the Second Australian Imperial Force during World War II and had been found by the Reed board of inquiry into military offenders as "loyal to His Majesty the King".
Jackson wrote to the magazine with this complaint and a further one that challenged the claim that Butler was generally anti-Semitic. That letter was not published.
The APC decision recognised "the importance of free expression of opinion in columns of this kind" but upheld the first complaint on the basis that Adams had omitted to mention Butler's voluntary war record.
It found the "failure to mention something which is so crucially relevant to the allegation as his voluntary military service during that war, including a hazardous overseas posting, contravenes the council's principles against misrepresentation or suppression".
The complaint against Adams's assertion of Butler as anti-Semitic was dismissed.
"The supporting evidence for that allegation is very much stronger, and the contrary evidence is very much weaker, than in relation to the allegation of being a traitor to one's country in time of war."
The APC also ruled that The Weekend Australian should have published Mr Jackson's letter.
Professor Disney defended the adjudication and told The Weekend Australian that in the interests of free speech, it was "crucial" to recognise that the APC allowed Adams to call Butler a traitor.
"We have very specifically said Adams can call him a traitor but this irrefutable and highly relevant fact (about his service record) should have been mentioned," he said. "The word traitor is not the issue but (rather) the inclusion of a fact that would allow many people to think he wasn't.
"I would have thought it was obvious that the time when our principles are most important to apply is when someone is a seemingly particularly unattractive person.




Professor Julian Disney thinks that this "irrefutable and highly relevant fact" should have been mentioned by Phillip Adams in his column in the paper's weekend edition when Adams rightly called Butler a war time traitor.

Excuse me? What "irrefutable and crucially relevant" fact would that be?

Ran that past us  again Professor?

Eric Butler's "voluntary military service"?

Let's be very clear about this because indeed there has been an insult to the memory of many.

Here is Eric Butler's "voluntary military service" according to "one of the  his obituarists" at that Wikipedia link..

 "He served as a gun sergeant for twenty months without leave in the Torres Straits, taught troops as an instructor at Canungra Jungle Training School for six months, transferred to the Officers Training School at Seymour, Victoria and was honourably discharged at the end of the Pacific phase of the war.

... end of the Pacific phase of the war? What does that mean? I thought that was the end of the war. Not for everybody but it was for Australia. Anyway that sounds like two and a half maybe three years service tops according to our "obituarist". Cool. 1942.

Butler was 23 when Australia entered that war in 1939. There is not the slightest bit of evidence that Butler had the remotest interest in his country's military when it was just a war against the Nazis as it was until December 1941.

For certain he was not the only wartime traitor to eventually end up in the army especially after the only option was conscription into the militia; but how is that "critically relevant"?

Australian Stalinists of the type Senator Lee Rhiannnon was born into immediately come to mind. They were so active in their sabotage of the war effort against Hitler they had to be suppressed under emergency regulations. The same happened in Britain and France. One day the world changed in June 1941. One day the volunteer soldiers of the AIF fighting Hitler's and Mussolini 's armies in North Africa  and Europe and taking from the now fascist French (once again with Jewish Legion support)  Lebanon and Syria are slandered as six bob a day mercenaries .

 The next day it is hip to join up no matter how deeply red your martyr workers' blood flows.

You can be certain the sudden threat to the Jew run Soviet Union did not persuade young Eric to hear his country's call.. No siree. He was 25 when even the Commos were signing up and he still hung out another year. .

and who is this "obituarist"?  Could it be? It surely is. It is Nigel Jackson. Eric Butler's old buddy from the League of Rights and the complainant to the APC about Phillip Adam's column.

... and what's this?

this extract from a Security Service dossier on Butler, dated 2/10/42 :
In 1941, BUTLER was called up for Military service, and although this in no way curbed his political activities, it is felt that the entry of Japan into the war somewhat mitigated his morale-damaging writings, since the obvious affinity between his ideas and Nazism did not stretch to the point of welcoming an invasion of this country by the Japanese. 


Called up?

How does the concept of "called up" square with "voluntary military service" especially given that conscripted Australian militia were serving and dying in the Pacific by 1942 anyway?

Butler did not voluntarily see war service in the Pacific. The AIF were volunteers in Europe, North Africa and the Middle East but after Pearl Harbour those who didn't volunteer or were not in a reserve occupation  were conscripted into the militia which had every bit as hard a war as the AIF. A number of conscripts transferred to the AIF. The only way that Butler could have avoided war service was to declare himself a traitor in the war against the Japanese as well as the older war against the Nazis.

If you are going to spend some of the war in the military it is certainly a lucky draw of fate to have spent it as an instructor in the Torres Strait, southern Queensland and Victoria where no matter how uncomfortable Butler's belated  service was at least it was not made any more uncomfortable by the need to actually fight any Japanese. Is it churlish to point that out?

Between 1939 and whenever it was Butler finally put on a uniform there were many Australians who voluntarily saw war service either in the citizens militia that was minced in New Guinea or in the AIF, navy and airforce. Many troops who were called up saw horrific battle conditions in the Pacific.  Butler was not among them. It is an insult to the memory of those who were to claim that he was.

It is also an insult to the memory to all those who served to suggest that because Butler did finally put on a uniform when he had to, and was allowed to keep it, is in the slightest bit relevant. Hundreds of thousands put on uniforms before Butler and it was an old and ugly war by the time he did.

That Butler stayed in the army even after coming under scrutiny as a war subversive says much more about Australian wartime conditions than in any sense mitigate Butler's wartime treachery. He cheered on the Nazis and more right up to and beyond the direct threat of invasion to Australia. If Australia had been invaded it is likely that Butler, like Oswald Mosley in Britain,  would have been summarily shot.

A pity he wasn't anyway.

 That the Australian would have even considered publishing a letter of a long term associate of this vile ugly old dead man is disgusting and the paper rightfully did not.

It is ominous that the APC should be a party to an attempt to rehabilitate  Eric Butler and to rewrite history. Can you imagine a Professor Julian Disney with teeth?  Another reason why  Finkelstein's Frankenstein must never come to pass.







Thursday, August 23, 2012

Shock Horror Picture From Apartheid Israel

geoffff

A scene from a Tel Aviv beach yesterday. From  Israeli  blogger Aussie Dave 

This would  never be allowed in the Tweed and Byron Shires*  (Elections imminent --- Pro-BDS Green Party candidates standing.)


TEL AVIV, ISRAEL - AUGUST 21:  A Palestinian woman and her son look at an Israeli woman as Palestinians enjoy a day at a beach during Eid al-Fitr, which marks the end of the holy month of Ramadan on August 21, 2012 in Tel Aviv, Israel. According to the Israel's coordinator for government activities in the territories, Israel has allowed the entry of over 1 million Palestinians from the occupied West Bank since the beginning of Ramadan due to improved security.


From Ha' aretz
Israel and the PA share an interest in preserving the unprecedented level of security that continues today on the West Bank, and this interest is presumably the cause of such close cooperation between the second-rank Israeli and PA officials. This story of cooperation between Israeli and PA figures is well captured by end-of-Ramadan images in Tel Aviv: yesterday, thousands of Palestinians from all parts of the West Bank, from Jenin in the north to Hebron and Bethlehem in the south, enjoyed the final hours of Id al-Fitr on the Tel Aviv beaches. Just a few years ago such an image would have seemed unimaginable in view of continuing strife in the West Bank and violent tensions between Palestinians and Israelis.
However, the quiet that has since taken hold, reinforced by close cooperation between officials from the two sides, allowed hundreds of thousands of Palestinians this month to make their first visit to Israel in years. PA figures indicate that during the Ramadan month, some 300,000 Palestinians entered Israel in coordinated visits. Israeli officials cite a lower yet nonetheless staggering figure of 200,000. Ironically, this trend caused significant economic damage to Palestinian vendors who lost untold customers – local Palestinians who took their business to Israel.

That's what Palestinian people think of BDS. 

* Dogs are banned from all but a few designated unpatrolled  beaches where tourists do not bathe. There's a $1500 fine. 


cross posted Israel Thrives 

Wednesday, August 22, 2012

Is Barack Obama a Fool or a Liar?

Mike L.

{Cross-Posted at Israel Thrives and Pro-Israel Bay Bloggers.}

I am going with fool and let me tell you why.

In a recent piece entitled "Israelis Prefer Romney" I claimed that Obama "praised the rise of the radical Jihad as something akin to the Spirit of '76 or the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and the 1960s."

Stuart took exception to this saying:

You know Michael, a lot of your rhetoric sounds exactly like the lies that Mitt Romney tells.

Obama never "praised the rise of the radical Jihad as something akin to the Spirit of '76 or the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and the 1960s." and you damn well know it.

Because Barack Obama did, in fact, praise the rise of radical Jihad as something akin to the Spirit of '76 or the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and the 1960s, I referred Stuart to the direct quote.

Upon the revolution in Tunisia, which was just one of the various Islamist revolutions taking place across the Muslim Middle East Barack Obama said this:

There are times in the course of history when the actions of ordinary citizens spark movements for change because they speak to a longing for freedom that has been building up for years. In America, think of the defiance of those patriots in Boston who refused to pay taxes to a King, or the dignity of Rosa Parks as she sat courageously in her seat.

To which Stuart claimed, "He was referring to the overthrow of the non-democratic government. Not the rise of islamic jihad."

The truth, of course, is that while it is probably true that Obama thought that he was praising the overthrow of a non-democratic government, he was also praising, wittingly or not, the rise of the radical Jihad throughout the Muslim Middle East.

The question then becomes, is Barack Obama a fool or a liar?

When all the riots and rapes and bloodshed rocked the Arab world last year, many on the progressive-left, including Barack Obama, praised the chaos and murder and mayhem as actually the rise of Arab-Muslim democracy. At the time, unlike president Obama, I was willing to take a wait-and-see approach. My suspicion was that we were going to see the rise of radical Islam and that is precisely what happened, which is why the Muslim Brotherhood has taken over the government of Egypt.

Thus when Obama told the world how wonderful this all was and how it was something akin to the American Revolution and the Civil Rights Movement, I knew immediately how irresponsible and foolish such claims were and are. He was, whatever his intention, praising the rise of Islamic fascism as the wondrous up-welling of democracy.

I do not believe that Barack Obama lied. What is obviously true is that he interpreted the Arab Spring within the ideological parameters set forth by the mainstream media. Throughout that period we were generally told that the "Arab Spring" was the glorious rise of democracy and the yearning of the Arab peoples for the blessings of liberty. In this way the west, in general, and Barack Obama, in particular, projected our hopes and aspirations onto people who do not necessarily share those hopes and aspirations.

The "Arab Spring" was not about democracy, nor about overthrowing tyrants or ridding the Middle East of non-democratic governments. It was (and is) about the rise of radical Islam, a movement that subjugates women, slaughters gay people, despises non-Muslims, holds a genocidal intention toward the tiny Jewish minority in the Middle East, and that has a historical provenance that goes in part to Nazi Germany. Thus when Obama said "think of the defiance of those patriots in Boston who refused to pay taxes to a King, or the dignity of Rosa Parks as she sat courageously in her seat" he was, despite his best intentions, praising "the rise of the radical Jihad as something akin to the Spirit of '76 or the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and the 1960s."

If that was not his intention then he is a fool, otherwise he is a liar.

I will go with fool.

Tuesday, August 21, 2012

Israelis Prefer Romney


Mike L.

{Cross-posted at Israel Thrives and Pro-Israel Bay Bloggers.}

When it comes to the well-being of the Jewish people of the Middle East I, unlike "progressive Zionists" or faux "pro-Israel" organizations like J-Street, tend to defer to the Israelis. It should seem fairly obvious that the Jews of the Middle East know what is in their best interest more than American Jewish dhimmis, like Jeremy Ben Ami. A recent poll of Israelis demonstrates clearly that they have much more faith in a potential Romney presidency than they do in the hostile Obama administration.

The Jerusalem Post reports:

Poll: Romney cares more than Obama about Israel

Peace Index poll shows Israeli Jews – by 2:1 ratio – believe Romney assigns high importance to defending Israel's interests.

I find it difficult to understand how progressive-left diaspora Jews can support an American president that praised the rise of the radical Jihad as something akin to the Spirit of '76 or the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and the 1960s. The Israelis, however, are under no such delusions concerning Barack Obama. They, better than anyone, know what they are dealing with in their hostile neighbors and in an American president that promotes the interests of the Muslim Brotherhood.

The United States, of course, is in a much worse geo-political situation since Barack Obama promoted the rise of the Jihad throughout the Middle East and sought to prevent Israel from dealing with an impending nuclear-armed Iran. As Turkey turned away from the west and looks toward Iran and as radical Islam took over country after country under the falsely named "Arab Spring," the Obama administration lied to the American people by suggesting that such developments were a good thing.

It should be obvious to any but the most ideologically blinkered that the rise of radical Islam is not in anyone's best interest other than the Jihadis themselves. It is certainly not in the best interest of moderate Arabs who have no particular interest in conquering Jerusalem and it is obviously not in the best interest of women, gay people, Jews, or non Muslims in that part of the world.

It is one of my contentions that the western left, including the Obama administration, has abandoned women, gay people, and Jews throughout the Middle East. Leftists claim to stand for universal human rights, but it could hardly be more obvious that they stand for no such thing. The Israelis know this better than anyone which is why the Israeli left got decimated after the second terror war (intifada) directly after the failure of Oslo.

On the question of Jewish well-being in that part of the world, perhaps American Jews should listen to their fellows in Israel, rather than to an American president who has proven himself hostile to the Jewish state. And for those of you who deny that Obama is hostile to Israel, how can anyone who supports the Muslim Brotherhood not be considered hostile to the Jewish nation or the Jewish state?

The Brotherhood called for the conquest of Jerusalem during a Morsi campaign rally.

Much of the Jewish left is simply in denial.

My hope is with progressive-left Jews like JayinPhiladelphia who are willing to acknowledge the obvious, and confront it, without demonizing those of us who point it out.

Friday, August 17, 2012

To a valley in Wales ...


geoffff




The Joint occasionally comments at connexions the blog of Richard Hall, a Methodist minister in Wales, to do my bit to help lift the tone of the place a little and to knock off some of the rough edges especially when the language gets a bit choice. 

You will be surprised how foul mouthed these British Methodists can get when the subject turns to Israel, Jews, Palestine and the poor suffering permanently oppressed Palestinians ...

Then the air can get pretty blue in the green valleys of Wales and on that subject the Joint knows what it's talking about. The Joint has had to throw out people for language not much worse and that was years before the internet was even invented.

This has been going on for years and has now reached a crisis point for European Protestantism . Curse and hate words and phrases thrown about with gay abandon  like supersessionism, one state solution, Jewish exceptionalism, thrice promised land, colonial enterprise, Antony Loewenstein  .... it gets even dirtier.    

The feeling is mutual. Richard has a pal, Kim, also a Methodist minister, who  mistook me for an orc and wanted me banned on sight from the start. I'm not sure he's still unconvinced. Maybe he's right.

Richard nearly complied but so far has allowed me to stay on as a commenter on account of my outstanding singing voice and world class double dummy switch and swivel to fifteen.

This conversation was in play when it abruptly stopped.









Richard 08.03.12 at 7:31 am






 ...   It’s not like I support violence or holocaust denial. But, to my mind at least, the wrongs done by Hamas don’t justify the wrongs which are done by Israel. There’s an old cliche which continues to be true: two wrongs don’t make a right. Someone needs to break the cycle, and since Israel is the more powerful actor in the Holy Land, it should be Israel which takes the initiative.
Daphne - in response to your specific question - Don’t assume that because I link something it necessarily reflects my view. It does mean that it represents a view I think should be heard. In an ideal world, if we were starting from scratch, I would argue for a one state solution with equal rights for all. Israel’s claim to be the only democracy in the region is fatally undermined by what is happening in the West Bank. Unfortunately, we’re not in an ideal world and I don’t believe such a solution would be acceptable to either side. So, reluctantly, I’m left with some version of a two state solution, but in order for that to work Israel is going to have to give up the West Bank and find some way in which sharing Jerusalem can be shared. It’s a long way from ideal, but it’s probably the best that can be hoped for.
I don’t believe that the current situation is beyond hope, with the only long term solution being one side grinding the other into grovelling surrender. Reconciliation is possible, but it takes time, patience and determination. South Africa and Northern Ireland may not be there yet, but they’re on the road. What has been possible there must be possible for Israel too.

To which I budded in. 


I cannot believe there is still a tiny remote corner of the world in some foreign land where Antony Loewenstein is taken seriously. How quaint.

Let me ask you a question, Richard. Would you take Antony Loewenstein so seriously if he was just another British Methodist?

“Don’t assume that because I link something it necessarily reflects my view. It does mean that it represents a view I think should be heard.”

OK Richard. I’ll match your Jew and up you one. In fact I’ll do better than that. I’ll match your Australian as well.

I feel exactly the same about Pamela Geller.





and also




Your comment is awaiting moderation.

I realise now that I could have worded that more gracefully but I guess that shows how much I know about card games.

The thing is Richard, your idea of an ideal world and starting from scratch is entirely different from mine. In my ideal world, starting from scratch, there is also a one state solution. That is because the British would have kept their promise of 1917 made at a time of terrible war and pledged again in peace before the whole world under the only lawful authority the British had any right to be in occupation at all.

A war ... that included substantial Australian operations that took from the Ottoman Empire big chunks of the region including the Sinai, Palestine/Jordan, Syria and Lebanon and includes even the spectacular charge of the Light Horse at Beersheba in October 1917 which is just as much a part of Australian mythology as the charge of the Light Brigade is for the British except for diametrically opposing reasons.




In this ideal world the British have kept their promise on the blood of all those brave men and allowed a part of a part of a part of what they called Palestine to become the Jewish homeland. In this world there would have been an independent sovereign and strong Jewish state by 1925. Why the wait?

At the very least the British would not have slammed the door shut on the homeland they promised on the very eve of another war and every Jewish person who was able to get there would have been safe at least for the time being. But the British did that as well.

Even after the war in my now far from ideal world the British would have realised that this was still a golden opportunity to finally honour the promise the need for which had just been shown in a way that should have chilled them to their souls.

They would not have kept the door still shut tight on the people we now call the survivors and they would not have forced the Jews in Palestine to fight a civil war for their homeland and their lives. But the British did that too.

That’s the problem with starting points and ideal worlds. Everyone has their own starting point.

Here is a starting point for the twenty first century. The promise of 1917 is  honoured not just in truth and the law as it finally and irrevocably is but in heart and spirit as well. Israel is the Jewish homeland and Israel is thriving and strong. Western liberals and especially the British accept this as not only good and proper but to be celebrated. Palestinians can have another state if they want it and they can call it what they like but they must accept the Jewish state.

I call this the one state solution. The one that is already there and flourishing. Is recognition by the British too much to ask in an ideal world? Say by 2017?

If the enemies of Israel do not accept that then there is nothing to discuss. If they choose violence and grievance instead then while I can understand your sympathy for the Palestinian people I can not understand your hostility to Israel for doing what it must do to protect herself.

What would you have Israel do Richard? Unilaterally withdraw to borders drawn up by the British? Sorry been there. Done that. Border drawing will never be remembered as part of the British genius.


The Sykes-Picot Agreement, 1916


This is pre emptive but please do not lay that land promised too many times stuff on me that Brits sometimes do. No sale. There was nothing in any “promises” to the various Arab chieftains, kings and princes that clashed with the legally binding commitment of a Jewish homeland in part or even all of Palestine. Besides ending up with enough wealth in the ground to splash on every luxury imaginable while influencing the geo politics of the world in a real and very malign way must have met any promise by now.

...

My comment is still awaiting moderation.


That's cool. Richard hasn't up dated his blog for a while. I hope all is well with him and his.



The League of Nations Mandates, 1920


cross posted  Israel Thrives

Thursday, August 16, 2012

To the valley from the hill top ...

geoffff


photo geoffff


Daphne Anson with more gold from London about how green was my valley.

I know Byron Bay. 

Visiting that light house is among my earliest memories. Many things have changed. Back then  few people with hyphenated names actually admitted it especially around here and especially if they were men. Not unless they were the State Governor and even then they had to be on the Queensland side of the border about fifty minutes north.

I suppose that's a good thing.  

Look at this

Duncan On A Fair Dinkum Hate Fest


Gold!

What can I say?


Duncan Dough Nuts Grass On Byron BDS Greens 

Update!!

When





Swept old London town
home for SS Duncan sure
Duncan Diddanudda one
Just to show 'em waddaman

This now echoes up the valley
From the other shore
Thanks to Echonetdaily
So now let the echo roar


all the way to 'Frisco Bay !!! 


Sorry. I've got to get my amusements some ways

That is Echonetdaily  which counts for mainstream media around here that picked up and rebroadcast the dump fresh from the site of the Byron Traders Friends of Boycotting Jews For Peace And Palestine Association.

under the by line

Ros Elliot, Duncan Shipley-Smith and Harsha Prabhu

They are probably grateful for the extra traffic. Don't mention it guys. I'd do the same for you. 


A retiring Green Party councillor on Byron Council and a ring in from Marrickville*    show up at the No Jew Left Alive And No Life Worth Living  New Dark Age Peace Festival in Byron Bay to lend their support.


So what?

*who will be well known to Shirl in Oz  a gutsy veteran of the BDS outrage in Marrickville and a great and treasured friend of this blog and allied blogs and activists.. Hope you're well Shirl


And now another interlude.
Dedicated to our friends at Israel Thrives Chill it. There are hard times coming and we need you. 


Wednesday, August 15, 2012

In a valley far away ...


geoffff


Daphne Anson has encountered another creepy case of clerical antizionism in the heart of the Old Dart  herself. What a surprize. How things have changed.

Here is a conversation in progress with Mr Jeremy Moodey  the CEO of the British Christian NGO the name of which I have forgotten but used to be BibleLands.



  1. Here is BibleLands' chief executive's latest comment on the previous thread - it speaks volumes:
    By what measure can Khaled Abu Toameh be regarded as impartial? He writes for the ultra-Zionist Jerusalem Post as well as the fairly loony Gatestone Institute, founded by the pro-Israel and Islamophobic neo-con Nina Rosenwald. His 2010 article suggesting that Palestinians in East Jerusalem are happy to remain under Israeli occupation is a travesty of the truth, as any street survey in East Jerusalem would surely reveal. He is probably the only Palestinian in the world who believes that illegal settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem are not the principal obstacle to a negotiated peace. No wonder he is the darling of the Zionist lobby; after all, Melanie Phillips calls him an "unflinching truth-teller". Anyone with Mad Melanie's nihil obstat has got to be pretty suspect in my book.
    Reply
  2. Daphne - thanks for the free plug! Our old name of BibleLands was never intended to be a comment on Jewish claims to the land. As a charity focused solely on supporting Christian social witness in the lands of the Bible, helping the most vulnerable and disadvantaged, we corporately take no view on the matter. I have my own views of course, and it is on this personal basis that I tweet and contribute to blogs.

    We do not have a statement of faith because we are inter-denominational charity, unlike the primarily evangelical Barnabas Fund, for whose work we have a great respect. If anything, our statement of faith, and that of our Christian partners in the Middle East, is simply one Nicene creed.

    Also, if you look very carefully, there was no cross in our old logo. It was (rather impenetrably) two middle fingers touching an upright pole and creating the impression of a cross. Our new cross is more explicit, emphasising our confidence as a Christian charity.

    You are of course entitled to think that we have "lost our way", but changing from BibleLands to Embrace the Middle East had nothing to do with theology or Christian identity and everything to do with discarding a brand that no longer seemed relevant to many younger Christians in the UK and replacing it with a name which describes exactly what we do: embracing those in need, whatever their faith or ethnic background, with the compassion and love of Christ. The needs in the Middle East are enormous (your blog seems to imply that the region does not need help!) and the range and impact of Christian social witness, even in somewhere like Gaza (where Christians account for 0.1% of the population) is humbling. We want to do our part to support local Christians as they are 'salt and light' in their community. Surely you would not object to such a ministry?
    Reply
  3. Jeremy (if I may), the blog above is effectively a guestpost by Ian G.: the words are his, and I cannot speak for him.
    With regard to Gaza, I note that Abu Toameh, among others, has recently drawn attention to the dire plight of Christians there at the hands of the Islamists.
    I am rather perturbed at the implication that young Christians no longer think the Bible is of relevance, and fear a Sizer-like influence may be at work, deleterious to Israel.
    Reply
  4. Thanks for the clarification Daphne. I assumed that by re-posting Ian G's comments you were endorsing them. Nothing in my post was intended to imply that younger Christians think the Bible is irrelevant. We absolutely believe in the Bible, which is why we promote a ministry in Jesus' name focused on nourishing the hungry and thirsty, welcoming the stranger, clothing the naked and healing the sick (Matt 25:31-46). But many thought that as 'BibleLands' we distributed Bibles (which we don't). Some even confused us with Bible Society!
    Reply

    Replies









    1. Ah, yes, the Foreign and British Bible Society, as ( believe it used to be called. btw, I have an interest in Jewish-Christian relations, which is why my blog carries posts such as this from time to time. Ian G is one of my most long-standing readers, and I value his contributions.

  5. I've copied the old logo and expanded it. Detail is lost, but if that's two middle fingers touching an upright pole then they are very long, very straight and rather thick fingers!
    Reply


My comments -- and there are several -- are pending -- but they went like this


"Daphne - thanks for the free plug! Our old name of BibleLands was never intended to be a comment on Jewish claims to the land. As a charity focused solely on supporting Christian social witness in the lands of the Bible, helping the most vulnerable and disadvantaged, we corporately take no view on the matter. I have my own views of course, and it is on this personal basis that I tweet and contribute to blogs."

You see, this is what troubles me most about clerical and especially Christian antizionism.

Of course Mr Moodey has "his own views". Daphne has nailed this in a phrase. That single paragraph of his that Daphne transposed here says more about "his views" than he probably realises himself. The man is in mind lock down.

It's an easy diagnosis to make because there is so much of it about. It is because of climate change. In the worst cases there's not much that can be done about it.

But that's not what troubles most. What troubles most is the  unmistakeable but very peculiar odour of agnosticism  from the general  direction of another venerable Christian institution and I most certainly do not mean that in a religious sense though you can take it any way you like.

Run that past us again please. Some things need reading twice.

" Our old name  ... was never intended to be a comment on Jewish claims to the land. As a charity focused solely on supporting Christian social witness in the lands of the Bible, helping the most vulnerable and disadvantaged, we corporately take no view on the matter."

Excuse me?

Mr Moodey, does this mean that your old British charity (that incidentally I have heard of as far away as Australia)  in 2012  takes no view on whether the Jewish state of Israel has a right to exist?

It is agnostic?

{I've already forgotten the new name by the way. Speaking corporately)


The strangest thing. The exchange started here when Mr Moodey took exception to Daphne's defence of Christians who are in  a crisis of  persecution everywhere in the Middle East outside of formal Israeli jurisdiction.  . Look at this stuff



Since she cites me in her blog, I challenge 'Daphne Anson' to speak to Coptic Christians to see whose analysis - mine or Khaled Abu Toameh's - is more accurate. And I wish it were true that "Israel remains the only country in the Middle East where [Christians] feel safe and comfortable". Since most Israeli Christians are Palestinian, and therefore treated as second-class citizens in the Jewish State, this is far from the case. The discrimination against them has been well documented by Israeli human rights NGOs such as Adalah and ACRI. One of the harshest Israeli laws affecting Palestinian Christians is the so-called Family Reunification Law, which even some Jewish Knesset members have described as racist. Israel's defenders emphasise Muslim persecution of Christians elsewhere in the Middle East as a means of deflecting attention from Israel's violation of international law and its oppression of the Palestinian people.



SErs



His analysis?  Seriously. You can only shake your head.  Read the replies. I've never seen an analysis so thoroughly demolished.

I have some more questions for Mr Moodey after he deals with his agnostic issues but it is striking how the image revamp is linked to appealing to what he terms younger Christians . They prefer their religion unmixed with Zionism I can imagine them saying. Indeed  to be as overtly free of any recognition of the modern Jewish state as possible and are prepared to change their names images and themselves to do that.

What else are they prepared to do to be seen to distance themselves from  modern Jews and the modern Jewish state? Supersessionism.? Evolve? Change their religion? 

That's not for me to say -- but I will say this --- I'd be worried by that if I was a Christian as it obviously worries Ian G.. After all the stakes are high. 

 This is a political blog so I couldn't possibly say; but they look a lot like the old Christians to me. The very old ones. How sad to see them back.

Here is a musical interlude dedicated to the younger Christians of the type it seems to these old eyes  Mr Moodey is courting.