ADL survey: Americans see Israel as ally

From The Jerusalem Post "A large percentage of Americans continue to support the State of Israel, especially in relation to the Palestinians and the "war on terror," according to a survey released Sunday by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL). The survey reveals that a large majority of Americans, 65%, see Israel as an important ally. A 2005 ADL poll showed nearly identical numbers of Americans with this view, indicating that American support for Israel has stayed strong and relatively constant over the last few years. This support comes despite the common belief that America's friendship with Israel makes the US a bigger target for terrorists. Though 65% of respondents expressed this conviction, 57% said that the US should continue to give Israel its support. Americans remain much more sympathetic to Israel than to the Palestinian people, the survey says. Forty-five percent of respondents said that they sympathize more with the Israeli people, compared to 16% who said they sympathize with the Palestinians. This sympathy toward Israel has increased only slightly over the last few years. Two years ago a similar poll showed 42% of Americans being sympathetic toward Israel, and 13% sympathetic toward the Palestinians, and a 2003 poll revealed that 40% of Americans had sympathy for Israel and 15% had sympathy for its Palestinian neighbors. … "These findings are reassuring, not only because of continuing strong support for Israel, but because Americans understand that without a major Palestinian effort to deal with terrorism, there can be no viable Palestinian state," said ADL National Director Abraham Foxman."

What they say: Chirac, Dawkins, Jones, Alderton

What the politician, the scholar, the entertainer, the Royal aides say:


President Jacques Chirac at the Anglo-French Summit in Le Touquet, February 2003:
"On the middle East, Chirac was sceptical that the Americans would do anything, said power was not in Washington but in the Jewish population of New-York."
The Blair Years, Alastair Campbell, Hutchinson, 2007 (page 662)

Richard Dawkins, The Guardian:
"When you think about how fantastically successful the Jewish lobby has been, though, in fact, they are less numerous I am told - religious Jews anyway - than atheists and [yet they] more or less monopolise American foreign policy as far as many people can see. So if atheists could achieve a small fraction of that influence, the world would be a better place."

Life of Brian director Terry Jones talks to Marc Lee about the scene he cut from the legendary Python film, The Daily Telegraph:
"A new DVD edition of the film includes the deleted "Otto" scene, which features a radical, first-century Jewish revolutionary who has the same dreams as the young Adolf Hitler. Otto sports a toothbrush moustache, and, in case we still haven't got the message, his disciples all wear a symbol that combines the Star of David with a swastika. These are "Nazi Jews".
Jones insists he didn't make the cut to avoid giving offence.
"It was a very funny scene," he says, "but it wasn't relevant; it wasn't part of the story. When I took it out, the film just flowed so much better."
He regretted having to cut the scene at the time and regrets it even more so now.
"I think what it addressed is extremely relevant today," he says, "with what's going on in Israel. Eric [who wrote the scene] put his finger on something; it was quite prophetic.""

Leaked e-mail pitches Prince Charles into heart of row over royal visit to Israel, The Times:
"Internal e-mails between two of the Prince's closest aides make clear that there was "no chance ever" of Clarence House accepting an invitation to visit Jerusalem. The e-mails, published in The Jewish Chronicle today, also disclose a fear that Israel would want the Prince "to help burnish its international image." …
The initial response from Sir Michael was enthusiastic. In an e-mail to Mr Heifetz and copied to his deputy, he says: "The invitation to Israel is hugely appreciated and Clive and I would love to come."
However, by the time that Mr Alderton responded to Sir Michael six days later, the ardour had cooled. Mr Alderton wrote: "Safe to assume that there is no chance of this visit ever actually happening? Acceptance would make it hard to avoid the many ways in which Israel would want HRH to help burnish its international image."

Israel: The sand and the soldier, Serge Gainsbourg (1967)

The sand and the soldier

I will. I will defend the sand of Israel,
The land of Israel, the children of Israel,
I am ready to die for the sand of Israel,
The land of Israel, the children of Israel,

I will defend against any enemy
The sand and the land I was promised.

I will defend the sand of Israel,
The cities of Israel, the land of Israel,
I am ready to die for the sand of Israel,
The cities of Israel, the land of Israel.

All the Goliaths who come from the pyramids,
Will retreat before the star of David.

I will defend the sand of Israel,
The land of Israel, the children of Israel,
I am ready to die for the sand of Israel,
The land of Israel, the children of Israel.

I am ready to die for the sand of Israel,
The land of Israel, the children of Israel.

This song was presented by Serge Gainsbourg to the State of Israel. It was composed in June 1967 during the Six-Day war.
On You Tube
Six-Day War-1967 Third Arab Israeli War
Translated by Philosemite

Walt and Mearsheimer's "The Israel Lobby" - footnote No. 1,399

Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer’s extensive use of footnotes in The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy has been the subject of as much comment as has the carelessness of their research. I had a look at the footnote section of the book and was intrigued by the last one, to be precise the 1,399th according to Leonard Fein who took the trouble of counting them. Indeed, footnote No. 1,399 refers to a manifesto concocted by 25 German peace activists (in fact 17, the other 8 only expressed support, but did not sign) and was sent for publication by the authors themselves to the Spanish website Tlaxcala.
The manifesto Why the "special relationship" between Germany and Israel has to be reconsidered recycles the usual anti-Jewish tropes and is illustrated by an Iranian cartoonist Jaber Asadi. The cartoon depicts a brutish and heavily armed Israeli soldier who does not look at his victims (not enemies of course) and who cowardly hides behind a tombstone marked "Holocaust". Got it? To be associated with such a blatantly anti-Semitic cartoon did not seem to trouble in the least either the "peace activists" or Walt and Mearsheimer. A proper look at the other 1,389 footnotes might reveal a few more surprises of the kind.
For those who are unfamiliar with Tlaxcala here is a small sample of the scholarly stuff to be found on the site:
By Khalid Amayreh: Israel: perpetual criminal, perpetual liar; Israel’s silent holocaust against the Palestinians; Grand-Children of the Holocaust turning Gaza into another Ghetto Warsaw.
By Fausto Giudice and Ben Heine An oblivion repaired, A motto for Israel, discussed here and here.

For President Sarkozy the creation of Israel is one of the "miracles" of the 20th century

The AJC reports:
"French President Nicolas Sarkozy was honored today [7 Nov.] by the American Jewish Committee with the global advocacy organization’s prestigious Light Unto the Nations Award.
"Above all, we honor President Sarkozy’s conviction, conscience, and courage - qualities that are in short supply in a world desperately in need of all three," said AJC Executive Director David A. Harris.
The AJC award pays tribute to outstanding statesmanship.
"President Nicolas Sarkozy is a man of passion," said Harris. "It is his passion, combined with his conviction, conscience, and courage, that has quickly elevated him to a place of exceptional prominence and respect on the global stage."
Richard J. Sideman, AJC National President, opening the meeting and award ceremony, saluted President Sarkozy’s "unparalleled vigor and uncommon principle," and spoke of the common challenges and threats facing the "sister democracies" of the United States, France and Israel. …
"Anti-Semitism must be attacked head on," declared President Sarkozy. "Once you try to explain anti-Semitism, you are rationalizing anti-Semitism."
He said anti-Semitism is a reality that must be acknowledged, not denied. "We cannot fight against what is denied," he said. "Unless you agree on a diagnosis, you cannot find the remedy."
President Sarkozy described himself as a committed friend of Israel who regards the very creation of the state as one of the "miracles" of the twentieth century. ...
"He is steadfast in his opposition to anti-Semitism," said Harris, recalling President Sarkozy’s words at a 2004 AJC luncheon in Washington, when he declared: "I consider any insult against Jews an insult against France.""

Cross-eyed Europe. The Protocols of the Sages of Information, by Pilar Rahola (2003)

"The present anti-Semitic edifice is built on two equally powerful pillars. One has to do with the culture of the hatred and prejudice that marks us as a people. However, the other pillar is absolutely necessary for those prejudices to take wing and fly: the informative lie. And "lie", nowadays, is a verb conjugated with equal enthusiasm by journalists and intellectuals, to such a degree that the truth about Israel and the Arab-Israeli conflict is being superseded by a parallel truth, based on the distortion and falsification of history. Here, too, there is nothing new, inasmuch as historical and contemporary anti-Semitism have to do with lying. I will put in the harsh terms merited by the accusation: Europe - erudite, intellectual, media-minded; the Europe that reports daily on the Middle East and which is responsible for the voraciously anti-Israel cast of opinion, is rewriting a new version of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. The secret agents of czarism have replaced by modern-day journalists; the ancient peril of a Jewish plot is now being couched as a Yankee-Israeli plot; the evil Jew of yesteryear is the same evil Jew he always was, except that now his plot is situated on Wall Street and he has an army. I shall never cease to be amazed and horrified by the force of old iniquities. The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) put it this way in a study it conducted among adults in five European countries: it is alarming to find in this post-Holocaust and post-September-11th world that one out of five persons believes in the old slanders. In Spain, for instance, some 70% believe in the concept of a Jewish financial lobby, as lobby that, naturally, pulls the world’s strings. Thus, in the beginning of time, we had Christian texts converting the Jewish people into God killers. I believe that somewhere there is a wretch who wants to make a movie out of it… In 1903, we had the Protocols garbed by the Russian extreme right, who contributed to instigating the pogroms that devastated that country until 1914, with the slaughter of 60,000 Jews in the civil war between the whites and the reds. In 1920, we had Henry Ford and frenzied international Jew. And in vanquished and convulsed Germany, well nourished on the Protocols, Hitler wrote his Mein Kampf and Rosenberg and Goebbels saw to the propagation of hatred and, therefore, the legitimization of persecution. The outcome is well known.
Today, the same Europe which gave rise to everything - hatred, persecution and extermination, is now giving birth to a new narrative whose stigmas are distant and the distortion of which is equally inconsiderate and whose consequences, in any event, will never be good. This is my explicit accusation: the journalistic and intellectual world, fundamentally composed of leftists, has written new highly influential Protocols, with devastating consequences. Day by day, with every news item, with every declaration, we don’t have the odd ferocious book; today, we have a library full of them. Like their forebears, the Protocols of the Sages of Information are fake, criminal and false. Israel is the target. The reason - there are many, most of which are ignoble. The justification is Sharon. The excuse - anti-Zionism. The weapon - prestige. The propagator - thousands of media. The ally - Arafat. The result - anti-Semitism."
From a speech delivered at the International Keren Hayesod Conference, 25.11.2003.
Pilar Rahola comes from a republican and anti-fascist family. She is a Catalan writer, journalist and former parliamentarian of the republican left.
Also by Pilar Rahola.

Ben Heine - another victim of the Zionist Lobby

Simply Jews has this strong comment on Ben Heine’s angry reaction at the withdrawal of his self-promotional page on Wikipedia by Karl Meier, a member of the famous Zionist Lobby:
"Attention Zionists at Work !!!
I didn't grok that Flicker could be used as a ersatz blog: just upload a picture and start carping around it. But here is an unexciting, albeit pitiful, wail from Ben Heine, he of the Iranian Holocaust cartoon competition fame.
Another Victim of the Zionist Lobby
No more and no less. Ehehe....
To put things straight, dear Ben: a cockroach squashed by a bulldozer can call itself a victim of industrial revolution with more reasons than you can call yourself a victim of this or any other lobby. A fart in a hurricane would be more apt as a description of your miserable life story...
In fact, all operatives of the Elders' field units are under strict order to keep a safe distance.
It is the smell, you know."

Cross-posted at yourish.com under the appropriate label: Israel Derangement Syndrome!