Muslim organization threatens legal action against Harry's Place blog

This is an article by Jonny Paul in TJP:

"The head of a leading UK Muslim organization is threatening legal action against a popular blog for posting a statement made by him in which he allegedly used the phrase "evil Jew".

The blog Harry's Place said that in an address made in Arabic to Al-Jazeera at last month's Salute to Israel parade in London's Trafalgar Square, Mohammed Sawalha, president of the British Muslim Initiative (BMI) and founder of the annual Islam Expo, a four-day event enhancing understanding of Islam in Britain, had said: "We, the Arab and Islamic community, gather here today to express our resentment at the celebrations by the Jewish community and the [evil Jew/Jewish evil] in Britain." The speech was reported on Harry's Place, which claimed Al-Jazeera had changed the controversial word appearing in its original report, translated as "evil or "baneful" by the blog, to "lobby" some time later.

Harry's Place said that Sawalha was a key figure in the Muslim Brotherhood and the BBC identifies him as a senior Hamas activist. He is also a trustee of the North London Mosque, formerly the controversial Finsbury Park Mosque - frequented by Al-Qaeda operatives including "shoe-bomber" Richard Reid and Zacarias Moussaoui.

Denying the allegation, BMI issued a press release which it posed in the comments section of the blog entry, and Al-Jazeera reporter Medyan Dairieh who also appears in the thread, insisted that Sawalha had spoken of the "Jewish lobby".

Describing Sawalha as a promoter of "community relations and cultural dialogue" and objecting to him being demonized as a "Jew-hater", the BMI accused Harry's Place of "deliberately skewing the word "lobby".

In response, Harry's Place said: "I do not know Mr Sawalha. However, if he is a senior Hamas activist, and a supporter of that organization, I cannot imagine he has anything positive to contribute to 'community relations.' Moreover, it is very unlikely that any British court would regard it as defamatory to describe a Hamas activist as a racist. Hamas is a proudly racist and genocidal terrorist organization."Former Muslim Association of Britain president Anas Altikriti then wrote to the editors of Harry's Place stating that Sawalha comments "contained a fundamental factual error".

"Therefore, we trust that you will withdraw the said piece with immediate effect and post an explanation of what had taken place, particularly now that some commentators, including Melanie Phillips [here and here], seem to have copied your quote, including the error aforementioned and used it for their own purposes. If this is not done immediately, we will have to pursue legal measures."

Last week, lawyers representing Sawalha wrote to the editors of Harry's Place threatening legal action. In the letter, London-based lawyers Dean and Dean insisted that their client had not made the alleged comments.

"We have received confirmation from Arab language experts that the Arabic word for 'lobby' was simply misspelled, resulting in a nonsensical word which meant nothing; least of all 'evil'," the letter said.

"What in fact was said in place of the words 'evil/noxious' was 'lobby'. Al-Jazeera immediately corrected the typing error when it was noticed and the Web site reflects this," it added.

The letter went on to say that unless the posting was removed and an apology published, action on grounds of defamation would be issued.

Harry's Place has denied the posting is defamatory and have said that they intend to defend the claim "vigorously"."

Support Harry’s Place Blogburst

When academics stray

Posted on A Liberal Defence of Israel blog

"Every year an assembly of British academics gathers to pass a motion condemning Israel and attempting to introduce a boycott against academics, universities, and colleges in Israel. It never goes off the agenda, not even after last year's fiasco when the Universities and Colleges Union (UCU) passed a boycott motion only to be told by their national executive that it would be illegal to implement it. Nothing daunted, they have come back this year with another variation on a tired but increasingly racist theme. (...)

When academics find it hard to condemn terrorism as terrorism, praise hatred and call it legitimate political expression, and single out for vituperation the only democracy in the Middle East, it's a sure sign they aren't thinking straight. Surely this is the irony of these boycotts, that they should be spearheaded by academics of all people. Academics are supposed to have been taught how to use their minds. A great many do. But a host of left-wing post-structuralists and post-colonialists, who have been taught how not to think by thinkers who love obscurity, have forged ahead to be the standard-bearers of a new ignorance. The hatefulness of radical Islam doesn't faze them in the least. Just as Ken Livingstone was able to give the finger to his gay, feminist, and Jewish allies when he decided to embrace the notorious anti-Zionist, anti-gay, and anti-feminist Shaykh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, so these hardcore illiberals abandon all pretence to morality and progress. They admire a group like Hamas that would eat them alive if it got the chance. They defend Iran, a country that bans some religious minorities from its universities and calls it freedom. They condemn Israeli actions without once citing the context within which those actions take place. But what do facts matter? They make their minds up, despise open debate, and clamour to break the law against discrimination."

Read the full article here

What the British media are smoking, Fresno Zionism blog

The same anti-Israeli biais can be found in most European editorial boards - the British media is not the exception, it is the rule.


Article posted @ the FresnoZionism blog


"A recent survey of the British media on the occasion of Israel’s 60th anniversary shows, unsurprisingly, that the British media don’t like Israel very much. This is not a shock to anyone that has ever looked at the BBC website or read the Guardian but there is one particular aspect that I want to discuss:

Eighty-three per cent of articles in all newspapers which took a position on Israel’s stance on peace contained the message that Israel did not seek peace…

Overall, only 6% of articles carried the message that Israel seeks peace. This message was only contained in three articles in The Daily Telegraph, The
Independent and The Sunday Telegraph…

Twenty-six per cent of coverage [on the BBC website] contained the message that Israel is not seeking peace.

A neutral observer on Mars, for example, might have trouble understanding this.

1. After all, Israel was attacked by the Arab nations in 1948, preempted an imminent attack in 1967, and was attacked again in 1973. The 1948 and 1967 wars were declared by Arab leaders to be genocidal in intent. Insofar as Israel initiated hostilities, it was in response to clear acts of war such as the closing of the straits of Tiran to Israeli shipping in 1956, and the Katyusha attacks on northern Israel by the PLO in Lebanon in 1982.


2. In 1978 Israel agreed to return the entire Sinai peninsula to Egypt in the interest of peace, giving up a huge strategic advantage and a large amount of natural resources, including oil. In return, she received a 'cold peace' - really just an extended truce.


3. In 1993, Israel signed the Oslo agreement with terrorist Yasser Arafat in the interest of peace. In return, she received several years of escalating terrorism against her population, culminating in Arafat’s rejection of the Clinton-Barak proposals and the murderous second intifada. Israel offered to transfer 97% of the West Bank and all of Gaza to the Palestinian authority, give up control of Judaism’s holiest sites in east Jerusalem, etc., all for peace.


4. Israel withdrew from south Lebanon in 2000 in the interest of peace and received in return the Hezbollah buildup which led to the 2006 war.


5. In the interest of peace, Israel completely withdrew from Gaza in 2005, at great cost to uprooted residents - who still have not received just compensation as promised — and to the nation. In return, she received a Hamas terrorist state, thousands of rockets fired on her population, cross-border attacks, and will soon have to fight another war.


6. Israel is presently negotiating with the Palestinian Authority for what may be a ‘do-over’ of the Clinton-Barak proposal, in the face of clear evidence that neither Fatah nor Hamas is prepared to accept the existence of a Jewish state of any size.


7. Most of the Arab nations, as well as the Palestinian Fatah and Hamas movements, have never stopped the continuous barrage of anti-Israel and antisemitic propaganda and incitement in their official media, while the Israeli government always stresses its desire to live in peace with its neighbors.

Considering all this, you would think that the Arabs are the ones who are uninterested in peace, and that Israel has been, over and over, prepared to make great sacrifices for peace - even after they’ve been kicked in the teeth in response.

Yes, you would think this. But you are not smoking the same stuff as the British media."

Tonge rattling, by Stephen Pollard

Stephen Pollard writes in is blog:

"Baroness Tonge of JewsRunTheWorld is at it again. She has already offered her Protocols of the Elders of Zion-like view that:

"The pro-Israeli lobby has got its grips on the Western world, its financial grips. I think they have probably got a certain grip on our party."

Last night in the Lords she offered this further thought:

"I am beginning to understand the power of the Israel lobby, active here as well as in the USA, with AIPAC, the Friends of Israel and the Board of Deputies. They take vindictive actions against people who oppose and criticise the lobby, getting them removed from positions that they hold and preventing them from speaking - even on unrelated subjects in my case. I understand their methods. I have many examples. They make constant accusations of anti-Semitism when no such sentiment exists to silence Israel’s critics."

It's the usual trick of saying that "constant accusations of anti-Semitism when no such sentiment exists" is used as a tool to shut people up. Let me say for the nth time: it is perfectly possible to be critical of Israeli policies without being anti-semitic. Many Israelis oppose the government.

But just because it is possible doesn't mean that it's a given. In some cases, the language and the arguments which the speaker or writer puts forward show that they do indeed cross the line into antisemitism.

And what is loud and clear from Baroness Tonge's tongue is that she believes almost every one of the classic antisemitic tropes: "the pro-Israeli lobby" (you can safely assume she means Jews and their useful idiots) "has got its grips on the Western world, its financial grips"; and the Jews as a community have the power to punish and destroy their opponents. I'm surprised she hasn't referred to our drinking the blood of non-Jewish children.

It wasn't Jews who removed Baroness Tonge from her LibDem post; it was the then party leader, Charles Kennedy, because he rightly judged her words to be beyond the pale. Enoch Powell wasn't sacked by Heath after his Rivers of Blood Speech because the 'Black Lobby' forced him out but because Heath realised instantly that his views rendered him unfit for front bench duties. So too with Baroness Tonge.

Labour might have been beaten into fifth place by the BNP last week, but it's clear that the BNP has its own representative on the LibDem benches."

UK Conservative leaders hail Israel

Jonny Paul @ TJP writes:

"Conservative MP and shadow chancellor George Osbourne [photo] paid tribute to Israel's achievements on Wednesday, saying a trip to the Jewish state in 2004 in which he experienced the aftermath of a suicide-bombing shaped his understanding of the country.

"It's an objective view of what Israel has achieved during its existence and the way it represents freedom and democracy in a part of the world that is not familiar with freedom and democracy," Osbourne also said when asked the source of his views.

Osbourne was speaking with Daniel Finkelstein, columnist and comment editor of the Times, and shadow foreign secretary William Hague, at the Conservative Friends of Israel's annual business lunch at the Dorchester Hotel in central London.

More than 500 guests, including Israel's ambassador to the UK, Ron Prosor, members of Parliament, European Parliament, the House of Lords, and the Greater London Assembly attended the event.

On November 1, 2004, Osbourne saw at first hand the results of a Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine attack in Tel Aviv's Carmel Market that killed three people and wounded more than 35. He said it made "a very powerful impression on what Israel is up against."

During that trip, he added, he and four MPs including current-London Mayor Boris Johnson ended up singing patriotic Israeli songs in a Tel Aviv karaoke bar.

Speaking about Iran, Osbourne said: "We should not rule out military options. It's not the same as ruling in military options, but it does mean not ruling them out, and I think we have to be very hard-headed and realistic about the world in which we live."

"We would have like to have seen a more energetic approach by the current [UK] government and we are critical of them," Hague said. "Gordon Brown announced sanctions on Iranian oil and gas last November; he announced it again last week, and still nothing has taken place."

Hague also said that Britain or Israel should not negotiate directly with Hamas."

Boris Johnson is an enemy of politically correct anti-Zionism

BBC distorts Jewish refugee issue on website

From Point of No Return blog:

"The good news is that the Jewish refugees issue has made the BBC website at last. The bad? The BBC has managed to distort and belittle their plight. Here are one reader's angry comments, interposed with the BBC article.

Jewish groups from around the world are meeting in London to highlight the plight of Jews who left their homes in Arab nations after Israel was founded.

[They did not 'leave their homes' - they were actively oppressed by the states in which they were citizens. Many were imprisoned, and their belongings confiscated. It would be more honest to say "driven from their homes"]

The conference organisers, Justice for Jews, say they want to ensure the story of Jewish refugees is told, alongside that of Palestinians.The American-based group says around 850,000 Jews lived in Arab nations before Israel was founded in 1948.

[It is not just "the American-based group" who gives these figures - these figures are widely and reliably documented. This phrasing gives an intimation that it could be an exaggeration - I can provide you with links to sites that document precisely how many Jews were driven from each country.]

It says most were forced to flee due to hostility when Israel was created.

[There are plenty of personal accounts online. If you wish I can put you in touch with some of those who were driven out in this way and have ended up living here in the UK]

Justice for Jews, which campaigns for compensation for Jewish refugees from the Middle East, says the international community has always focused on Palestinian refugees and never given due attention to Jewish refugees.The BBC's Arab affairs analyst Magdi Abdelhadi says the subject is highly controversial as the numbers of Jews who left, and the conditions under which they left, are disputed.

[This is the first I have heard that that this is "highly controversial". Of course it does spoil the narrative of Palestinian refugees now it transpires that there were so many Jewish refugees, and they were actually absorbed into communities rather than kept as a political pawns. Could it be that the only refugees Magdi Abdelhadi wishes the world to know about are Palestinian?]

He says one undisputed fact is that Jews were part of Arab societies for centuries, where they were fully integrated in their societies, until Israel was established.

[They were part Arab societies, although many had dhimmi status. Dhimmi status, that of being a strictly second-class citizen, is not the same way as we understand 'fully integrated' in the UK. Magdi Abdelhadi is being disingenuous by somehow 'forgetting' this salient and crucial fact]

Some left because they were Zionists, others because of growing hostility towards them after the Arab-Israeli wars in 1948 and 1967, and there were also those who were encouraged to leave by the new Israeli state, our analyst adds.

[Jews, who had resided in the surrounding Arab states for centuries were 'reclassified' by the Arab states as Zionists, particularly at the time of the Six Day War. Having been thus labelled gave the Arab states a reason to oppress their loyal Jewish citizens. I feel you should maybe talk to some refugees who now reside here in UK because I know this flip assessment on the BBC site is both offensive and untrue.]

He says not all of them went to Israel - many went to France and America, where some of them still feel very passionately about the Arab cultures they grew up in."

An interesting anecdote from Ben Cohen on Z-Blog
See also:
How the Arab world lost its Jews, a book by Nathan Weinstock

London parley to highlight plight of Jews from Arab lands, by Jonny Paul

Full article in TJP:

"A conference highlighting the plight of the Jews who left, or fled, Arab countries will take place in London this week, along with the first ever hearing in Parliament on Jewish refugees from Arab lands. (...)

"When the issue of refugees is raised within the context of the Middle East, people invariably refer to Palestinian refugees," Justice for Jews said in a statement. "There is almost no awareness of the fact that 850,000 Jews living in Arab countries were forced out of their homes during the period surrounding Israel's creation."

The congress aims to highlight the human rights violations and the individual and communal losses suffered by members of Jewish communities that had lived for centuries in the Middle East, North Africa and Gulf and who "were stripped of their jobs, businesses, homes, passports and ancient heritage by most Arab governments," according to the organizers of the two-day conference.

The conference's aims include conducting public education programs on the heritage and rights of former Jewish refugees from Arab countries, registering family history narratives, and cataloging communal and individual losses.

"Jews are one of the indigenous peoples of the Middle East and there have been ancient Jewish communities in countries such as Iraq for over 2,500 years, more than a millennium before the rise of Islam," organizers said.

"Today these historic Jewish communities have been effectively destroyed, with almost no recognition from the international community or the Arab countries themselves. From a Jewish population in the Arab Middle East of 886,000 in the year 1948 in places like Algeria, Morocco and Yemen, now there are less than 8,000 Jews living in Arab countries."

Organized by Congress of Justice for Jews from Arab Countries in association with the Board of Deputies of British Jews, the joint parliament hearing will be convened by Labor Party MP John Mann and Labor peer Lord Anderson of Swansea.

This joint briefing will highlight that two refugee populations emerged as a result of the Arab-Israeli conflict and will look at the most viable and appropriate role the UK should play in seeking to resolve issues affecting all Middle East refugees, the congress said."

Related:
How the Arab world lost its Jews, a book by Nathan Weinstock

Have the anti-Zionists overdone it?, by Haviv Rettig

Are these genuine initiatives on the part of Europeans or just the usual window-dressing exercises that makes them feel good?

Article by Haviv Rettig in TJP:

"Are we witnessing the beginning of a backlash against anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism, at least in the English-speaking world?

On Wednesday, the UK's minister for higher education, Bill Rammell, told Britons that only a small minority of the country's academics support a boycott of Israel.

Coming a day after Ambassador to Britain Ron Prosor's accusation that "Britain has become a hotbed for radical anti-Israeli views and a haven for disingenuous calls for a one-state solution," the minister's confidence should offer some reassurance to worried Jews, right?

Perhaps it was merely bad timing, then, that the following day Prosor was the subject of a new boycott, with the refusal of Welsh Assembly Presiding Officer Dafydd Elis-Thomas to meet the ambassador when he arrives in Cardiff at the end of the month to meet with First Minister Rhodri Morgan, head of the Welsh government.

Invited to a reception for Prosor hosted by another assembly member, Elis-Thomas replied that "I am unwilling to accept the invitation to meet the ambassador, because of my objection to the failure of the State of Israel to meet its international obligations to the Palestinian people of the Holy Lands [sic]. I would invite other colleagues to [do] the same." (...)

His excuse - a broad, ill-defined dissatisfaction with Israeli fulfillment of obligations - is targeted at a country that has withdrawn from 89 percent of the land it conquered in 1967, and he fails to deal with the complexity of a Gaza Strip controlled by ruthless radicals who mete out death penalties to gays.

Worse, the notion that there is nothing an Israeli could say that would be worth hearing - the language of boycott - seems to be respectable.

The bigotry may not surprise readers of The Jerusalem Post. But this might: Next February, the British Foreign Office, together with the Inter-Parliamentary Coalition for Combating Anti-Semitism, will host a conference on anti-Semitism for parliamentarians from around the world.

The conference is the first fruit of the newly-established Inter-Parliamentary Coalition, and is intended to be an international response to "the longest hatred," a hatred manifested most recently in the hysterical demonization of Israel with which Prosor has become so familiar.

They key to this project: Though Irwin Cotler, the Canadian MP and jurist who helped initiate it, is Jewish, the initiative is not.

Similarly, late last month, former Polish president Aleksander Kwasniewski lent his name and credibility to a new European Forum of Tolerance. While the forum was the brainchild of the European Jewish Congress, it has found resonance with a non-Jewish Kwasniewski and other non-Jewish European leaders.

It is significant that the slow growth in non-Jewish advocacy against anti-Semitism comes with an understanding that an unfair obsession with Israel tends to overlap with - and is often motivated by - anti-Semitism.

Are we witnessing the beginning of a response? Have the anti-Zionists gone too far, becoming impossible to ignore and so, finally, impossible to tolerate?"

BBC: Jewish refugees not a central issue to peace

From Point of no return blog (Information and links about the Middle East's forgotten Jewish refugees)

"Last month, when Israel was celebrating its 60th anniversary, I complained to the BBC that its news reports insisted on putting a dampener on the festivities by juxtaposing them wth the lamentations associated with the 'Palestinian 'nakba'. The flipside of the Palestinian nakba, I argued, was surely the nakba of the Jewish refugees from Arab countries. At first the BBC confused my complaint with someone else's gripe about the expression 'Palestinian land' and sent me the wrong pro-forma reply. Now I have just received a second reply, which though more relevant, leaves me more bewildered than ever.

"The specific issue of Palestinian refugees was mentioned in the context of the peace process. It is generally seen as one of the key stumbling blocks to finding a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. We have covered the issue of Jewish refugees in the past, however, it is not something that is generally viewed as a central issue in the peace process in the same way the Palestinian refugee issue is. Should the issue of Jewish refugees become an integral part of the negotiations in the Israeli-Arab peace negotiations or a stumbling block thereto, we would of course look at them in a more in-depth fashion.

Overall, whilst focusing on the celebrations in Israel it seems fair to have mentioned the contrasting marches being held by Palestinians at the time."
Yours sincerely
Stewart McCullough
Complaints Coordinator"

So there you have it. The BBC claims to have covered Jewish refugees in the past, but forgive me if I can't recall when. It does not consider the Jewish refugeees important enough to be mentioned, and certainly not as important as the Palestinian refugees. If Jewish refugees were to make a real nuisance of themselves - become a 'stumbling block' - then the BBC might sit up and take notice."

Britain is a hotbed of anti-Israeli sentiment

It would be naive to believe that fierce anti-Israel sentiment is only to be found in Britain and that it is not the norm in other European countries.

Article by Melanie Phillips:

"In today’s Daily Telegraph Israel’s ambassador to the UK Ron Prosor writes about his shock, upon returning to a Britain he remembered for its fairness and decency from an earlier posting to London, to discover that it has become a bubbling cauldron of anti-Israel prejudice, demonisation and lies. One of his central points is that media coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict

"is routinely tainted with bias and a surprising lack of context. Double standards are rife. Israel's military reaction to the attacks it faces is given in-depth, microscopic coverage. Yet the attacks to which Israel is responding are often ignored. Terror attacks, ambushes, suicide bombings, the constant barrage of rockets being fired on Israeli citizens are frequently disregarded."

Although he doesn’t name it, a principal offender in this regard is the BBC. But as the Useful Idiot blog records, BBC moderators today deleted an inoffensive observation about Prosor’s article from the FiveLive messageboard and then hid the thread altogether (as they have done before to hide their own complicity in purveying gross anti-Jewish prejudice: see my earlier article here).

And then -- just as they did on that previous occasion – within a few hours of their censorship being revealed they tried to cover their tracks. A short while ago, they restored the offending message but pretended that the poster had broken the rules by claiming:

"Your thread has been closed as you have linked to an opinion piece rather than an actual news story. Links to ‘comment’ or the editorial pages of online newspaper sites are not considered to be today's news. If you think they are about today's news then just find and link to the leading front page news story instead, you can add links to editorial pages later on in the discussion if relevant to the news story."

But the Prosor article was a news story; the Telegraph thought it was so newsworthy it ran a story about it on its front page. Furthermore, the moderators’ excuse does not explain why they obliterated all trace of the post; nor why they then restored it but prevented any further comment; nor why they did not apply the same rule to another comment on the messageboard referring to Prosor’s remarks about the academic boycott, which was allowed to remain even though no further comments on it were allowed.

Curiouser and curiouser!"

Is it time to give up on the BBC?, by Gavin Gross

From The Jerusalem Post:

It seems to reflexively turn to most extreme Israel critics available.

"In May I was invited to appear on BBC Radio 4's Sunday program, a religious news and current affairs show, to discuss the ZF's [Zionist Federation] upcoming "Israel 60" concert at London's Wembley Arena that attracted over 7,500 people. The producers also invited Ivor Dembina, a Jewish comedian performing at a Jewish Socialists' Group (JSG) dissenting event at a small hall in north London. Dembina had just signed a letter in The Guardian newspaper titled "We're not celebrating Israel's anniversary" which claimed that Israel was a "state founded on terrorism, massacres and the dispossession of another people from their land" and which "even now engages in ethnic cleansing."

Despite the fact that the ZF's event would be at least 25 times the size of theirs and was supported by 50 mainstream Anglo-Jewish organizations, the BBC producers felt that as a matter of journalistic "balance" these two opposing views of Israel's 60th anniversary should be presented to their listeners. (...)

In the end I chose not to appear as I felt my time would be spent having to rebut these accusations against Israel rather than discussing our celebrations. Without a ZF spokesperson, the item was never broadcast.

In April I did appear in the BBC TV program Aliyah - The Journey Home? produced by its religion department and broadcast during Pessah as part of the BBC Charter's requirement for non-Christian programming. While I was told the program set out to examine the spiritual and religious motivations for British Jewish aliya, I was asked mainly political questions about the Palestinian right of return and Israel's treatment of its Arab citizens. The producers used Antony Lerman, an anti-Zionist Jewish academic, as one of their on-air experts even though Lerman has called publicly for the repeal of Israel's Law of Return and for the evolution of a single Israel-Palestine state. When I queried the use of Lerman on such a program, given that his views on aliya and Israel represent a tiny fringe of Anglo-Jewish opinion, the executive producer told me that Lerman had the support of significant Jewish figures such as Haim Bresheeth, who the producer referred to as a reputable academic and noted author.

Bresheeth, an Israeli-born academic and activist within the UK's University and College Union (UCU), regularly calls for a full boycott of Israeli academic institutions and was quoted by The Jerusalem Post as telling a "Resisting Israeli Apartheid" conference at London University that: "The occupation started in 1948" and "There is no valid comparison between South Africa and Israel; Israel is much worse. South Africa exploited its native population while Israel expelled and committed genocide against its native population." Is it ignorance or malice that would lead a BBC producer to credit this man with being an important representative of the Jewish community?

Finally, The Jerusalem Post's UK correspondent Jonny Paul was invited to appear on the BBC World Service's "World Have your Say" radio show in the run-up to Israel's 60th anniversary, alongside a Haaretz journalist and two Palestinian students from the Olive Tree scholarship program at London's City University. (...) when Paul arrived at the BBC's studios he was shocked to find Dr. Azzam Tamimi replacing one of the Palestinian students. Nicknamed "Kaboom" by bloggers, Tamimi is a Hamas supporter who doesn't believe Israel has a right to exist, supports suicide bombings within Israel, and famously told the BBC's Hardtalk TV program that he wanted to be a suicide bomber himself. Paul threatened to walk out of the studio but was eventually persuaded to stay. Various BBC programs use Tamimi as a Palestinian spokesperson. (...)

Due to this sort of journalistic decision-making, and the fact that as the national broadcaster the BBC claims 34 million domestic radio listeners weekly, the British public ends up with a distorted view of the situation in Israel and Anglo-Jewish opinion of it. This is not only a Jewish or Israeli issue. When a British Muslim radical attacked then Home Secretary John Reid at a public meeting saying he should not set foot in any Muslim neighborhood, he was promptly invited to present his views on BBC Radio 4's Today program."

Rare mention of Jewish refugees at Westminster

From Point of no return (Information and links about the Middle East's forgotten Jewish refugees)

"For the first time since the 1950s, Jewish refugees from Arab countries were mentioned in a House of Commons adjournment debate to mark Israel's 60th anniversary.

In the debate, which took place on 20th May and is minuted in the HANSARD record, Andrew Dismore, Labour MP for Hendon and a tireless supporter of Jewish causes, said that 800,000 Jews fled Arab countries. Together with the Palestinian refugees, they constituted an exchange of populations.

"When talking about the problems of the Palestinian refugees, we overlook the Jewish refugees from Arab lands. In 1945, some 800,000 Jewish people were living in Arab countries; today, there are fewer than 7,000. I am thinking of the Jews from Iraq and Yemen, who had to flee the pogroms there. The net result was what can only be described as an exchange of populations, because of the number of Palestinians who left and the number of Jewish people who went to Israel, having been expelled from Arab lands, " Mr Dismore said.

Read debate in full"

Another Case of British Leftist 'Lobby Envy', by Solomonia

Posted by Solomon @ Solomonia:

"...Even the pro-Israel Brits often wind up only a hop and a skip away from the Jew baiters and conspiracy-theorists -- providing them, sometimes naively, sometimes callously, with more useful ammo for their belts.

Adam LeBor, writing at Harry's Place, is proud to announce he'll be posting at one of the internet's premier locale's for rampant Jew-hatred: The Guardian's Comment is Free: Commenting is free.

No anti-Israelite, he. LeBor was asked to write for CiF after they heard him on TV "opining on one of my perpetual themes: why the United Nations needs to start suspending and expelling member states who are guilty of the worst human rights abuses." Great! They need that at CiF.

So what's the object of attack in his first piece? Why, AIPAC, of course -- "a rather creepy organisation..." He should fit in at CiF rather well after all. You see this is the left's idea of being "pro-Israel.":

"I remember ten years ago when I was making some radio programmes for the BBC on Israel at 50 trying to interview one of their officials. Trying to get any information out of her about how AIPAC worked reminded me of interviewing suspicious ex-(not really)-Communists in eastern Europe."

That just shows they're an effective organization -- in contrast to officials of the Israeli government itself who just can't seem to stop themselves from bragging about their latest PR efforts -- an awfully silly thing to do. LeBor relies on a quote from Israeli David Kimche, both in the Harry's Place post and in the comments, to support his assertion that AIPAC is no good for Israel. An appeal to authority on issues around which a great deal of divergent but well-informed opinion circulates is a sure sign that the author himself is not quite able to forward a position sufficiently well-informed to stand on its own. A David Kimche quote -- just another opinion among many -- buys you nothing.

LeBor's idea? Encourage the British left to lay off the boycotts and support J-Street instead. There's a poetry to that somehow. Somewhere between his attacks on the extremism of AIPAC, someone may want to remind him that J-Street is brought to us by some of the same people who brought us the Geneva Accord -- so in tune with political streams of thought it was DOA in both Israel and America.

May he have all the success in his efforts to influence the American lobbying scene as The Guardian itself had in trying to influence the voters in Ohio last time out. Remember? Dear Limey assholes"

Antisemitism in the UK: The Academic Union [UCU] is Back at it Again, by Deborah Lipstadt

Posted by Deborah Lipstadt on her blog:

"The union of academics and professors in the UK, the UCU, which last year tried to initiate a boycott of Israeli academics but was prevented from doing so by its own lawyers which told it that it was illegal, is trying to do the same thing again but in a trickier mode.

On May 28th it pas Motion 25 which called for a number of boycott initiatives. Anthony Julius, my solicitor and someone who has done a tremendous amount to fight UK antisemitism, is representing a number of members of the UCU who consider Motion 25 to be both a boycott motion and to be antisemitic.

His excellent [no surprise here], reasoned [ditto], and well argued [ditto] letter to the UCU can be found here.

Anyone who is concerned about this issue and who doesn't understand why these actions by groups such as the UCU are not just virulently anti-Israel but actually antisemitic should read this letter."

"In opinion polls Americans express overwhelming support for Israel", Gerard Baker

From an article by Gerard Baker in The Times:

"If Jews wield little direct electoral clout, the reason for the power of the Israel lobby, say its critics, must be that it uses the financial and political muscle of American Jews to exercise a stranglehold on foreign policy debate. It requires politicians to commit America to uncritical support for Israel, irrespective of other US interests in the region.

There is a lot wrong with this idea. In a country as diverse as America, candidates are constantly trying to ensure that they are in the good graces of people of almost all faiths and traditions. (...)

But there is a bigger reason to object to the familiar characterisation of the Jewish lobby. AIPAC is undoubtedly one of the most effective lobbying organisations in Washington. But it succeeds because very large numbers of Americans share its aims, not because it somehow strongarms politicians into supporting it. Candidates want AIPAC's approval because they know that being seen as pro-Israel is central to their foreign policy credentials.

In opinion polls Americans express overwhelming support for Israel. They see it in kindred terms - a thriving democracy forged in an inhospitable climate. For Barack Obama in particular, dispelling doubts about his pro-Israel credentials is essential to winning the votes of most Americans."

Ex-EU official condemns UK academic boycott call, by Jonny Paul

In TJP:

"A former director of the European Community, the supranational economic body that is part of the European Union, has written to the president of the European Commission calling for strong action in response to the decision by a UK union to reintroduce a boycott of Israeli academia.

Paul Goldschmidt, former director of the EU, has written to José Manuel Barroso, president of the European Commission, as well as six EU commissioners, asking for the European body to "unequivocally and rapidly" condemn the University and College Union (UCU) decision.

"I wish to draw your attention on the vote by the UCU of a motion calling for the reintroduction of the boycott of Israeli academia," he said.

"The position taken by the UCU is totally incompatible with the EU Financial Regulation covering the basic conditions for disbursing further community funds," he continued.

Goldschmidt said he hoped a strong EU position would help repeal the "incriminated" motion, and that normal academic relations could "again be pursued in all serenity." Goldschmidt cited the motion passed by the Board of Governors of Ben-Gurion University in the Negev in the immediate aftermath of the UCU vote that underlined the "UCU's blatant violation of the Statutes of the International Council of Sciences."

Meanwhile on Friday, Education Minister of State Bill Rammell called on university lecturers not to boycott Israeli academics.

Speaking on the final day of the UCU annual congress in Manchester, Rammell said: "Let me be clear, you are entitled to decide your policy. But I have to tell you I profoundly disagree with cutting links with Israeli academics." ...

Labor MP John Mann, chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group against anti-Semitism, responded to the boycott motion by saying, "Boycotts do nothing to bring about peace and reconciliation in the Middle East but leave Jewish students, academics and their associates isolated and victimized on UK university campuses. The All-Party Group is determined to work with all right-minded groups and individuals to defeat this attack on academic freedom.""

Related:
Esprit d’escalier: reminiscences of a silent observer of the UCU conference , bu Robert Fine, Engage

Responses to the UCU decision, Engage

Why I've resigned from the UCU, by Shalom Lappin, Norm Blog

Myths and Historical Fact, from A Liberal Defence of Israel blog

Myths and Historical Fact posted by Denis @ A Liberal Defence of Israel blog

"The following was sent recently to the Irish Times in response to a long letter that had appeared there. (...)

Despite Tomas McBride (Letters, 22 May), supporters of Israel do not need to resort to myth in order to justify the existence of a modern Jewish state. Let's leave the Torah to one side for a moment. Israel came into being, not from a mythical 'Jewish invasion' of British mandate Palestine, but as the result of a long political process that started in the late 19th century as the Ottoman empire drew to its end. After the second world war and a long debate, the United Nations voted by a majority for the creation of a small Jewish state alongside other mandate or ex-mandate states. In other words, Israel was carved out of the old empire much as modern Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, or Jordan. This happened in part because post-war re-apportionment of land in general is commonplace, but for the greater part because the UN was a new way to administer international law and the necessary adjustments between nations. The nearest parallel was the resettlement of 2 million people following the partition of India to create Pakistan (and, later, Bangladesh) — oddly enough, no Muslim voices are raised to complain about this.

Unfortunately, nations in the modern form, modelled on the concept of the Westphalian state, had never existed in Islam (though various forms of Arab nationalism, like Jewish nationalism, were being advocated in this period). This is why the Arab states who invaded Israel with the expressed intention of driving all Jews into the Mediterranean simply refused to behave like UN member states at all. That Jews had taken control of even a tiny sliver of Islamic territory was anathema, giving rise to what was in essence a religious animus calling for genocide. By that time too, Palestinian politics had been irredeemably tainted by association with the Third Reich. The Reich's leading Arab collaborator, Hajj Amin al-Husayni, the Palestinian leader, had fled after the Nazi defeat and was feted in Cairo as a hero of the Arab people.

To dismiss Jewish longing to return to Israel as merely a myth-centred nonsense displays an absolute insensitivity to aspirations, whether religious or national. All peoples, religions, and nations have founding myths. The Jews have one of the strongest. Their belief in a land that was given them by God may or may not be historically true, but it is a vivid, enduring, and necessary expression of the significance Jews have placed in Israel for thousands of years. Jerusalem is sacred to Jews much as Mecca and Medina are to Muslims. It is certainly much better attested than the historically invalid attempt of modern Palestinians (a hybrid group) to assert Palestinian occupation of that land for a similar length of time; or to claim a link between modern Palestinians and the ancient Philistines; or, most glaringly, that the Jews have never had a historical connection to the land. Pull the other one.

For two thousand years, Jews have expressed a daily hope of return to the Holy Land. That sense of belonging, that connection to history, are something greater than myth, though often inspired by it. We do not mock other religions for holding non-rational beliefs, we do not try to make political capital out of national struggles based on a longing for a returnto a Golden Age. The statue of Cuchulainn outside the General Post Office is there for a reason. Or consider the opening words of the Proclamation of Independence: 'IRISHMEN AND IRISHWOMEN: In the name of God and of the dead generations from which she receives her old tradition of nationhood, Ireland, through us, summons her children to her flag and strikes for her freedom.' Or all those murals of King Billy crossing the Boyne.

Jews trace their origins back as far as that and further. That is why they chose and were given a homeland where every town, every hill, every river, every archaeological excavation, and every stone in the Western Wall resonates. And given the momentous horror of the Holocaust and how close mankind came to witnessing an extermination of the Jewish people, that resonance could not have been greater. Persecuted though we may have been by the British occupation, we were never in danger of being wiped out. Since 1948,the Palestinian Arabs have increased from 1,700,000 to 2.5 million (with claims of over 3 million). That is the truth of the 'Palestinian Holocaust', another myth that is swallowed too readily. If I am to believe in the right of the Irish people to a homeland where Cuchulainn may or may not have walked, how can I deny the Jews their unarguable right to seek refuge for the first time in two millennia in a land they have prayed for every day of their lives? By contrast, Jerusalem has little resonance in Islam: soon after migrating to Medina, the prophet Muhammad, who had prayed towards Jerusalem in imitation of the Jews, turned his back on the city and chose instead to pray towards Mecca, as all Muslims do today. Jews recite the words of the Psalm: 'If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand wither, let my tongue cleave to my palate if I donot remember you, if I do not set Jerusalem above myhighest joy'. The Qur'an doesn't even mention Jerusalem.

The Arabs cannot have it both ways. They cannot belong to the United Nations and work to undermine its very principles. Their states are dictatorships and absolute monarchies, they deny their citizens basic human rights, they reduce women to an inferior status, they deny religious minorities the freedoms called for in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Yet they denounce Israel, the only country in the Middle East that implements those rights in a democratic state. What are we looking for, in the end? Stability, democracy, the rule of law, rights for everyone regardless of colour, sex, or creed? Or genocide by Hamas and Hizbullah, followed by theocratic rule that will bring executions, stonings, and the minimum of rights for any remaining religious minorities? Israel has achieved great things. It has some way to go, but every time we attack it or snipe at it or give terrorists succour, we undermine the very things we claim to stand for."

English Parliament debates growth of anti-semitism in Britain, by Irene Lancaster

From Irene Lancaster's Diary:

"English Parliament debates growth of anti-semitism in Britain, and calls on the BBC and the Church of England to do more

(...) the parliamentary debate about the growth of antisemitism in Britain. It took place last week, on Thursday, May 15th.

If you go to the comments section on the Engage webpage, you will find out how to access the video of the debate.

Here is part of what two MPs from different parties said about the matter of antisemitism in today's Britain. I have reversed the order in which they appeared:

Andrew Dismore (Hendon, Labour)
"The threat and reality of anti-Semitism is with us ... Jewish people are the only community in our country who live in a permanent state of siege and underlying fear ... although I am not Jewish, I am targeted because I am seen as someone who stands up for the Jewish community. I have had hate mail and death threats. I have been on the receiving end of action by the Muslim Public Affairs Committee..."

Mark Prichard (The Wrekin, Conservative)
" ... in some, but not all, parts, the BBC is still institutionally biased against Israel.... I welcome the comments that Pope Benedict made in his Cologne speech. I think the Church of England should do more; it should speak out against anti-Semitism."

This was an important debate, which took place on the date by Gregorian calendar of Israel's 60th anniversary. The debate linked antisemitism in Britain to the way Israel is reported in the media, specifically mentioning bias in the BBC as a Government-funded organisation, and calling on the Church of England to do more to speak out.

The most obivous cause for concern still remains the atmosphere and reality of campus life for Jewish students and staff in many universities. However, the BBC and the Church of England - pillars of the establishment - could do a great deal more to influence the pervading ambience in the country. This might go some way to assuage the feeling 'of permanent state of siege and underlying fear' experienced by the Jewish community of this country, correctly expressed by the non-Jewish Labour MP for Hendon, NW London.

Another worrying feature is the universities' admission policy, which many feel discriminates against the Jewish community as an ethnic minority.

Contrast with President Bush's speech of congratulations to Israel on her 60th, which he gave in the Israeli Knesset (originally modelled on the British parliament), which took place on the same afternoon as the parliamentary debate on anti-Semitism in London."

Media hostility has anti-Semitic roots, says Rupert Murdoch

From The Jerusalem Post by David Horovitz:

“A “pretty strong degree of anti-Semitism” in Europe is at the root of the hostile coverage Israel receives in parts of the European media, Rupert Murdoch, the News Corporation global media chief, charged on Thursday.

In an interview with The Jerusalem Post following his appearance at Jerusalem's “Facing Tomorrow.” presidential conference, Murdoch said it was hard for Israel to obtain fair media coverage in Europe because it was forced to “start off behind.”

Elaborating, Murdoch said: “If you go to the BBC, the French press, places like that - they start as hostile, and it's very difficult to overcome. But you've just got to press on and do what you can.”

In a series of characteristically striking assessments, Murdoch went on to say that “the whole of Europe has gone soft. You've got a degree of disintegration - though that's too strong a word - of society.””

"Israel should be defended as if it were a part of the democratic West", Christopher Hitchens

Can Israel Survive for Another 60 Years?, by Christopher Hitchens, Slate

"It is a moral idiot who thinks that anti-Semitism is a threat only to Jews. The history of civilization demonstrates something rather different: Judaeophobia is an unfailing prognosis of barbarism and collapse, and the states and movements that promulgate it are doomed to suicide as well as homicide, as was demonstrated by Catholic Spain as well as Nazi Germany. Today's Iranian "Islamic republic" is a nightmare for its own citizens as well as a pestilential nuisance and menace to its neighbors. And the most depressing and wretched spectacle of the past decade, for all those who care about democracy and secularism, has been the degeneration of Palestinian Arab nationalism into the theocratic and thanatocratic hell of Hamas and Islamic Jihad, where the Web site of Gaza's ruling faction blazons an endorsement of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. This obscenity is not to be explained away by glib terms like despair or occupation, as other religious fools like Jimmy Carter—who managed to meet the Hamas gangsters without mentioning their racist manifesto—would have you believe. (Is Muslim-on-Muslim massacre in Darfur or Iraq or Pakistan or Lebanon to be justified by conditions in Gaza?) Instead, this crux forces non-Zionists like me to ask whether, in spite of everything, Israel should be defended as if it were a part of the democratic West. This is a question to which Israelis themselves have not yet returned a completely convincing answer, and if they truly desire a 60th, let alone a 70th, birthday celebration, they had better lose no time in coming up with one."