The BBC Favors Islam & Muslims, according to Sikh Leader

BBC favoritism for Arabs and Muslims goes far back, maybe as far back as its founding in 1927. Likewise, the BBC. either openly or by omission, has long been hostile to Jews. After all, if the BBC omits from its broadcasts during the Shoah the news that organized, systematic mass murder of Jews is going on in Nazi-occupied territory, then that is obvious Judeophobia. For several reasons, but let us consider just two: If people in the BBC's home country, that is the United Kingdom, do not know about the Shoah, then they will not demand that their government do anything about it. The British Jews too may remain in the dark. Of course, it is and was the duty of the BBC to inform British people about what is going on in the world, and during WW2 in particular, to inform them of what is happening in the Nazi-ruled countries. One would think that news about the Shoah would have increased the disgust of British people for the Nazi Germans. But this cannot happen if people do not know about the ongoing Shoah.

On the other hand, during WW2 people in occupied countries often depended on BBC radio broadcasts to inform them. That included many Jews. If the Jews do not know about the ongoing Shoah, then they are not likely to take steps to save themselves or to fight the Wehrmacht and SS or the local armed forces that collaborated with the Germans, such as the SS Handschar Division which was made up of Bosnian Muslims and had been recruited  for the Germans by Haj Amin el-Husseini, the top leader of the Palestinian Arabs at the time. This SS division plus the Skanderbeg SS division, recruited among ethnic Albanian Muslims in Kossovo, were guilty for mass slaughter of Serbs, Jews and Gypsies in that order [this applies more to the Handschar, as far as I know].

At the same time, it has been BBC policy to whitewash wrongs done by Muslims, whether Arabs or Pakistanis, etc. This policy caused a minor storm lately when a leader of the Sikh religion in the UK, Lord Indarjit Singh [he is a British peer] quit his long time  participation on a  radio show focused on religion, called Thought for a Day on BBC Radio Four. Here is a summary of highlights of Lord Singh's complaints:

Celebrated interfaith activist Lord Indarjit Singh has sensationally quit BBC Radio 4 after accusing it of behaving like the "thought police". He alleges that the corporation tried to prevent him discussing a historical Sikh religious figure who stood up to Muslim oppression -- in case it caused offence to Muslims, despite a lack of complaints.
The Sikh peer, who has been a contributor on Radio Four's Thought For The Day programme for more than three decades, is also accusing Radio Four bosses of "prejudice and intolerance" and over-sensitivity in relation to its coverage of Islam, after he says he was "blocked" from discussing the forced conversion of Hindus to Islam, under the Mughal emperors in 17^th century India.

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The segment, originally aired on November 28, 2018 -- and in spite of Singh's script containing no criticism of Islam -- is the latest in a long line of suspect BBC decisions enforced by seemingly over-zealous producers. [Gatestone Institute]

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Subsequently, Lord Singh told the London Times:

 Another time "when I wanted to include the words 'the one God of us all' [central to Sikh teachings], I was told I could not mention this 'because it might offend Muslims.'" . . . . 

Of course, overlapping with the BBC's pro-Muslim favoritism is its anti-Israel hostility. See at link:
here.

The Sacred Anti-Israel Narrative & Ukraine's Vote at the Security Council

Link Added 11-17-2020

Why did Obama and his gang want so much for Ukraine to vote for the noxious UN Security Council resolution 2334? The resolution would have passed anyway. The one vote of Ukraine would not have made a difference if the Security Council vote on the resolution would have been 13 for, 0 against, and 2 abstentions, instead of one (the United States itself). What would have been the damage if the Ukrainian government had been left alone to make its own decision on the matter? Even if Ukraine had cast its lone vote against the resolution? Yet Vice President Joe Biden was assigned and deputed to call the Ukrainian president, Pan Poroshenko, and demand that he order the Ukrainian ambassador to the UN to vote for the resolution.

 Now at this point the reader will have noted that I do not try to prove that Biden called Poroshenko to tell him to change the Ukrainian vote from the expected "abstain" to "for." Several reports in English substantiate that Biden made such a call. The best substantiated report that I know of is that of Vladislav Davidzon on the Tablet website. One of the interesting things that Davidzon says is:

A wealth of evidence is now emerging that, far from simply abstaining from a UN vote, which is how the Administration and its press circle at first sought to characterize its actions, the anti-Israel resolution was actively vetted at the highest levels of the U.S. Administration, which then led a pressure campaign --both directly and  through Great Britain  —to convince other countries to vote in favor of it.

 So we see that the US government under the so-called "liberal" US president Obama believes in housing/residential segregation for Jews, that is, for restricting where Jews are allowed to live as both Christian and Muslim rulers did during the Middle Ages and afterwards. These restricted Jewish residential areas could be called a ghetto, as in Europe, or a mellah, as in North Africa, or hareth el-Yahud in some other places under Islamic rule, and perhaps by other names. And residential segregation of Blacks in the United States was sometimes called the jimcrow system and in South Africa apartheid. But the question remains, Why did Obama and his gang or the State Department or whoever makes such decisions in Washington want the Ukraine too to vote in favor. Davidzon reports something interesting:

According to one U.S. national security source, the Obama Administration needed a 14-0 vote to justify what the source called “the optics” of its own abstention.

The optics, that is, the visual impression made by its own vote and the other votes. This is an interesting observation by a U.S. national security source. So let's develop our own theory. The Obama gang and the US State Dept and national security establishment were concerned about visual impressions, about appearances. I would say that they wanted to promote a narrative, as they often or usually do when it comes to Israel. They wanted this narrative to influence and be adopted by Americans, especially Americans sympathetic to Israel, and in Israel too especially among the so-called or self-styled "peace camp." They wanted Israel to appear isolated, totally isolated, isolated from all powers but the USA itself. They wanted people to see Israel as isolated and as isolating itself by --among other things-- allowing Jews to build homes across the 1949 armistice line, the so-called Green Line.

At the same time, the narrative says: We, the USA or the Obama Administration, are your friends, your real friends and your only friends. You can only depend on us. So you have to do whatever we say. Therefore, the vote in the Security Council had to be unanimous except for the United States itself. Therefore, it was essential for "the optics" that Ukraine too vote in favor of the resolution. Of course, the United States and the UK had to cover their tracks in promoting and working out the resolution. It had to seem that it was the initiative of other states, although the New Zealand foreign minister had more or less let the cat out of the bag in mid-November in a little noticed interview with a daily in his own country.

It would be best for it to be seen as an Arab initiative that was supported by the Enlightened World, the world of morality and humane and decent  concern beyond Israel's boundaries. This latter line is a favorite of Israel's Peace Camp or Left or what may be called the Anti-National Camp. The Peace Campers used to often write in their newspapers and other publications, of which HaArets is the main one today, that the Enlightened World --ha`olam hana'or העולם הנאור-- which may exist somewhere over the rainbow, is terribly angry with us for disobeying international law in all sorts of ways, among them, for allowing Jews to live beyond the Green Line, where in fact thousands of Jews had been living before the 1947-1948 Israeli War of Independence in which all Jews were driven out of areas captured and held by the Egyptian army or by the Arab Legion of Transjordan, now Jordan. Those Arab-held areas were judenrein after that war, to use a Geman term referring to places and/or countries ethnically cleansed of Jews. Jews were fleeing Arab attacks in the areas later held by Jordan and Egypt as early as December 1947. But our Peace Camp demonstrates its loyalty to State Department and Foreign Office and Quai d'Orsay demands --and later those of the EU-- by scolding Israelis and their government that they must not defy the wishes of the Enlightened World. And the West is Enlightened.

At the same time, the poor "palestinians", the Arabs who never considered themselves a separate, distinct people or nationality before the mid-1960s when the PLO was founded, are perpetually oppressed and persecuted by Israelis or by Israel, the collective Jew, whereas Jews have long been hated in the European Christian and Muslim Arab traditions. Nowadays, Israel the collective Jew takes the place of "the evil Jews" of days gone by.

For the purposes of the narrative, the UN SC vote had to be seen as initiated by others (such as New Zealand, Malaysia, Senegal and Venezuela) and that the Obama administration only came along for the ride and that the US was forced to abstain rather than veto because even the US cannot stand against the conscience of the world and the enlightened consensus. And they were looking for the reaction that they did in fact get from Israel's domestic pro-fascist Peace Camp. But they were saying to all Israelis and to Jews abroad as well: We are your last and only friends. But we might abandon you too if you don't do what we say.

So it must have been annoying to the State Department-CIA crowd that Prime Minister Netanyahu exposed their game. Which weakens the impact of the 14-0 vote. Which spoils the narrative. That's a reason to hate Netanyahu.
The gambit reminds me of the original explanation for the Benghazi incident 11 September 2012, that it started as a spontaneous demonstration [on 9-11 to be sure] against a mysterious video which may or may not have denigrated the Muslim prophet Muhammad. Recall too that at first the official or semi-official reference to the video was that  it was made by so-and-so, an Israeli (I forget the name offered at the time). When the Israeli ambassador to Washington Michael Oren said at the time through his embassy  that there was no Israeli by that name, he took the wind out of those official sails. Then the video was officially or semi-officially blamed on a person of similar name identified by the media as an Egyptian Copt, that is, a Christian. If he had been identified as an Israeli and that claim had been allowed to stand, then officialdom and their subservient media would have blamed Israel for the killing of the ambassador and the other Americans at Benghazi, at least by insinuation. Those Islamists in Libya were understandably reacting to the Jewish-made video, the White House and national security council would have spread around, if only by insinuation. It was all Netanyahu's fault. Or all Israel's fault or all the Jews' fault. By insinuation.
I am not so sure about the story of the Egyptian Copt, either. It was very much like planting a story of a blood libel. But part of the warfare to bring down Israel is the Narrative, that is, psychological warfare -- which can be very potent in the hands of experts.

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See Vladislav Davidzon [here]
Jonathan Hoffman provides more insight into the New Zealand foreign minister, Martin McCully [here]
Stephen Pollard, editor of the Jewish Chronicle of London, supplies background to the British role in the resolution. He writes that British support for it, including helping to draft it to make it more generally acceptable, was the work of permanent Foreign & Commonwealth Office officials, not of Theresa May's government [here], which --I add-- later on criticized John Kerry's speech of late December that was very hostile to Israel, as well as refusing to sign the final communique of the French "peace" conference in Paris on 15 January 2017 and opposing adoption of the communique by the EU Council.

ADDED 11-17-2020 

Elder of Ziyyon on Joe's escapade in the Ukraine in favor UN SC 2334: here

Obama Is Negotiating with Hitler's Iranian Spiritual Heirs

Other than developing a nuclear bomb in violation of Iran's commitment to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, the NPT, what else is Iran doing in violation of international law and of all decency? Our last post showed threats made by the present ayatollah government of Iran against the Jews of Israel. These threats violate UN Charter, Article 2:4. Some of these show an uncanny resemblance to Hitler's threats to annihilate the Jews, as shown in the previous post. So on those grounds alone there seems to be something wrong in negotiating with Iran as if somehow an agreement with the present ayatollahs' regime could bring about a peaceful resolution of Iran's quest for The Bomb in violation of the NPT. Part of the problem with Obama's negotiating stance --and that of the P5+1 powers as a whole-- is that they seldom if ever speak of the treaty violation embodied in the very quest by the ayatollahs' regime for a nuclear weapon.

Nevertheless, it would be helpful to display the threats that the present Iranian regime has made in order to properly appreciate the nature of the regime and its purposes. The threats were not only against Israel:

"Israel will disappear and the Western countries that defend it would do well to abandon it so that they themselves are not overwhelmed by the rage of hundreds of millions of Muslims. If the rage of the peoples of the region becomes a storm, it will not be contained within the boundaries of Lebanon and Palestine but will crash down on you too. Think of your own long term interests in the region. This is our final word."
[Muhammad Ahmadinejad 20 October 2006, quoted by Carlo Panella in Fascismo Islamico (Milan: Rizzoli 2007), pp 23-24. Also in Le Monde, 22-23 Octobre 2006; p4]

For those who want to check, here is the quote above as translated into Italian by Carlo Panella:

"Israele scomparirà e i Paesi occidentali che lo difendono faranno bene ad abbandonarlo per non essere essi stessi travolti dalla rabbia di centinaia di milioni di musulmani. Se la rabbia dei popoli della regione diventa una tempesta, non sarà contenuta nei confine del Libano e della Palestina, ma si abbaterà anche su di voi. Pensate ai vostri interessi a lungo termine nella regione. Questa è la nostra ultima parola." [Mohammed Ahmadinejad, 20 ottobre 2006, citato da Carlo Panella in Fascismo Islamico (Milan: Rizzoli 2007), pp 23-24]

Let's examine what Ahmadinejad said above. He made these threats against the Western countries, although the United States had helped the Khomeini regime take power in 1979 when Ahmadinejad was just a junior regime thug leader. France too had helped Khomeini by letting him take refuge in France before he came back to Iran. The US role was described by George Lenczowski in a piece in American Spectator circa 1981. A-jad threatens a storm against the Western countries, although some had helped the regime take power in Iran. He threatens Western interests in the Middle East, but he suggests that these interests will be protected if only the Western states collaborate in destroying Israel. This is explicit in another part of A-jad's statement of the same date. Addressing the UK and the USA, he says: "You . . .  brought into the Middle East this Israeli people of terrorists and enemies of religion [ie, of Islam]. You helped it to subdue the peoples of the region. The best thing now is for you yourselves to take it away." [Panella, op cit, p24]. The remark: "This is our final word," has a strong odor of Hitler's bombastic threats and ultimatums.

Unfortunately, some of Ahmadinejad's demagoguic lies are widely believed nowadays, so much so as to be what Max Nordau called "conventional lies of civilization." For the record, Jews have always lived in the Middle Easten region and in the Land of Israel in particular since the beginnings of the Jewish/Israelite people thousands of years ago. About half of Israel's Jewish population migrated from Muslim-ruled lands, including Iran where Jews were oppressed. So much for the UK and USA bringing Jews into the Middle East. Next, since Israel became independent in 1948 --which was opposed by the UK & USA-- they have usually favored and encouraged the Arab states and PLO against Israel. As of now, the USA and the EU to which the UK belongs contribute something like a billion dollars per year to the budget of the Palestinian Authority. One may add the millions donated by the EU and its member states to so-called non-governmental organizations besmirching Israel and undermining it in public opinion.

Finally, A-jad threatened Europe in particular. "The Americans are far away but you are the neighbors of the peoples of this region. . .  [If you support Israel, you must expect] the hatred of the peoples of the world. . . if the hurricane is unleashed, its effects will not be limited to the borders of Palestine and they will strike you."
[quoted in Panella, op cit, pp 24-25; also Le Monde, 22-23 Octobre 2006; p4]

This is the nature of the regime that Obama claims will restrain itself and keep an agreement if he conducts proper negotiations with it. Can Obama not know the thuggish, fascistic nature of the regime in Teheran?

Did the Western Great Powers Ever Want to Stop the Iranian Nuke Program? -- The Same Powers Favored Mussolini with the Same Trick

UPDATING 1-13&3-13-2012

Anti-Zionism is the anti-imperialism of fools.

It has been known for years that Iran was working on a nuclear program. Former Israeli prime minster Yits'haq Rabin was warning about it before he was killed in 1995. This program has long seemed aimed at producing an Iranian atomic bomb, despite Iran's commitment to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, in violation of that treaty. The International Atomic Energy Agency was dealing with the issue years ago. Yet nothing concrete has been done by the major Western powers to stop the nuke program or, more precisely, nothing that we know of other than economic sanctions. And even those sanctions waited for years to be imposed. Iran was given a "last chance" to mend its nuclear ways as far back as 2003. But there were several subsequent "last chances."

The US delegate to the IAEA gave a rather good speech at the March 2006 meeting of the IAEA Board of Governors. But little if any concrete action came out of the meeting. One problem was the head of the IAEA at the time, Muhammad Barada'i, an Egyptian who consistently belittled warnings that the Iranian nuclear project was meant to produce a nuke bomb. He did this although his own government seems to have been concerned with Iranian aggressive actions and intentions toward the Sunni Muslim world, as were several other Sunni Arab powers, like Saudi Arabia.

All this time Iran's work on developing the nuke bomb has been progressing, and sanctions of any seriousness were only applied relatively recently. This means that US presidents going back to Bill Clinton were not acting against the threat of an Iranian nuke bomb. These presidents include Clinton, George Bush II [I don't know about his father], and Obama who openly declared a soft policy on Iran. Obama's policy is softer now even than that of Britain although the US and Britain are so often in lock-step on foreign policy issues. This article & this one indicate that the Obama administration is opposed to stronger sanctions on Iran called for by the House of Representatives. Here is a report of British actions imposed after rioters instigated by the Iranian govt attacked the UK embassy in Teheran.

Elliott Abrams, a former Bush Administration defense official, lists a number of recent Obama administration statements that discard any threat or possibility of military force to be used against Iran and/or its nuke program. Abrams interprets a recent declaration by an Obama "national official," the deputy national security advisor, as giving:

. . . a White House assurance that the United States does not intend to challenge an assertion of Iranian dominance in the region. [here]

For years the great powers avoided placing sanctions on Iran which was violating its commitment to the NPT [non-proliferation treaty]. Now, the great powers are imposing sanctions. But what does that mean? The game of great powers imposing sanctions that will not accomplish their ostensible purpose, in this case preventing an Iranian nuclear bomb, has a history. Consider the sanctions imposed by the League of Nations on Italy over the invasion of Ethiopia in the 1930s.

The regime [Mussolini's regime] conquered its empire of stone and sand in Ethiopia, its "place in the sun." It succeeded in doing that, in fact, with Anglo-French backing. France and England, through the League of Nations which they controlled, had a fake economic embargo passed against Italy. However, excluded from it [the embargo] was the supply of Iraqi oil which our [Italian] troops marching on Addis Ababa could not do without. In any event, those sanctions were never applied and were even revoked immediately after the success of the Duce's colonial undertaking.
[Mario Jose Cereghino e Giovanni Fasanella, Il Golpe Inglese (Milano: Chiarelettere 2011), p 36-- emphasis added].
[The key phrase in this passage is "fake economic embargo". In the original it is "finto embargo economico"]

So fake or inadequate economic sanctions are an old trick of great powers. The authors of the passage quoted are saying in essence that Britain and France wanted Italy to conquer Ethiopia in that period. The delay of sanctions against Iran for years --let's say at least since 2003-- and the eventual imposition of inadequate sanctions just show that the powers can still get away with their old tricks. Nothing new under the sun.

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12-18-2011 Jonathan Tobin sees the sanctions as weak and notes the Obama administration's refusal to sanction dealings with Iran's central bank [National Bank of Iran].
1-5-2012 Jonathan Tobin sees Obama as reluctant or unwilling --and in case unlikely-- to enforce the sanctions against dealing with the Iranian Central Bank. Read him here.
1-8-2012 Michael Rubin believes that the Washington "foreign policy establishment" engages in doubletalk in order not to propose real and biting sanctions on Iran's ayatollahs [here]
1-13-2012 Jonathan Tobin wonders if the Obama administration condemnation of the assassination of the Iranian nuclear scientist conceals a reluctance to stop Iran's nuke project [here]
3-13-2012 Jonathan Tobin claims that Israel's hints that it might strike Iran's nuke project have brought Obama & Cameron together in antagonism to such an Israeli strike and have led the EU and USA to increase sanctions on Iran [here]

Brits Echo US State Dept Soft Hand with Syria -- More UK Hypocrisy

UPDATING 7-13&20&21&23&24&25&27&8-4&6&9-2011 at bottom

BRITAIN ECHOES OBAMA POLICY ON SYRIA: The British are still waiting for Assad to carry out reforms!! Can you believe the naked hypocrisy?

Syria: London condemns the repression in Hama: "The violent repression in Hama will only undermine the regime's legitimacy a little more and raise serious question about its will to put into practice the reforms that it recently announced," William Hague, British minister of foreign affairs stressed in a communiqué. "No true political dialogue can take place at the moment when a brutal military oppression is being conducted," he added. At least eleven civilians were killed by Syrian forces on Tuesday in Hama, a city in the center of the country. [Guysen News 7-5-2011]

Syrie: Londres condamne la répression à Hama "La violente répression à Hama ne fera que saper un peu plus la légitimité du régime et soulèvent de sérieuses questions sur sa volonté de mettre en oeuvre les réformes qu'il a annoncées récemment", a souligné le ministre britannique des Affaires étrangères William Hague dans un communiqué. "Aucun véritable dialogue politique ne peut avoir lieu au moment où est menée une répression militaire brutale", a-t-il ajouté. Au moins onze civils ont été tués par les forces syriennes mardi à Hama, une ville du centre du pays.

London thinks [ostensibly] that Assad's regime still has some "legitimacy" left because it says, "The violent repression in Hama will only undermine the regime's legitimacy a little more ." When did the Assad regime in Syria --going back to the 1960s-- ever have legitimacy? The Hama massacre of 1982 did not undo the regime's legitimacy at all as far as Her Majesty's Govt was & is concerned.
7-5-2011 Washington is still wringing its hands over Syrian repression. "The United States is very troubled by the continuing attacks on peaceful demonstrators in Syria"-- State Dept. Harsh criticism? Maybe not in the circumstances. Anyhow the State Dept is not troubled enough to demand that Assad get out. Recall that Obama told Mubarak to get out for much less.

Syrie: les USA réclament le départ des troupes syriennes d’Hama (Guysen.International.News)Les Etats-Unis ont réclamé aujourd'hui le départ des forces syriennes de la ville d'Hama, exigeant aussi du régime qu'il cesse sa "campagne d'arrestations". "Les Etats-Unis sont très inquiets de la poursuite des attaques contre des manifestants pacifiques en Syrie", a souligné Victoria Nuland, la porte-parole du département d'Etat.

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Carlo Panella sees Bashar Assad's speech of 20 June 2011 as resembling a Goebbels speech [qui]. He thinks that Assad fears fitna, chaos within the Muslim community [Il Foglio, 21 Giugno 2011]. Among other things, Assad reported in the speech that 64,000 Syrians had been arrested or were being sought for arrest and punishment by Syrian security forces. Panella published his article on June 21, but UK chief diplomat, William Hague, was still calling Assad a potential reformer on July 5, 2011.
7-20-2011 Hilary/Obama backtracks on harsh words for Assad. Brutality is OK and the Syrian Opposition should cooperate with Assad Basher to bring reforms -- That's Washington's message about Syria as of now and the EU falls in line [here].
Tony Badran diagnoses earlier stages of the pathology of Obama Syria policy [here]
7-21-2011 Barry Rubin picks apart a lunatic editorial in the New York Times [State Dept mouthpiece] which tells the Lebanese prime minister to be a good boy and follow through on the international tribunal's indictments of the Hizbullah operatives who organized and carried out the murder of Rafiq Hairi & a score of others, and arrest them [here]. Unless the current Lebanese PM wants to end up like Hariri, he is quite unlikely to taken any meaningful action against Hizbullah operatives as long as the Hizb controls Lebanon. But the NYT can pretend that we are living in a civilized world.
Tony Badran now diagnoses the latest stages of Obama's pathological Syria policy [here]. Should we blame Obama's mentors, Zbigniew Brzezinski and Lee Hamilton, or an ingrained and insane Third Worldism transmitted to him as a contagion from the Communist who served him as a father figure in his youth?
7-23-2011 Barry Rubin again ponders why Obama & Co. are still trying to prop up the Syrian Assad regime, although it is hated by most Syrians and is likely to be overthrown [according to Israeli intelligence] [here]. Instead of trying to work with the Syrian opposition --a heterogeneous group to be sure-- in order to keep the Muslim Brotherhood out of a future Syrian power structure as much as possible, the Obama administration throws out several fraudulent arguments. One is the lie that Israel wants Assad and his regime to stay in power. Another is the danger that the Muslim Brotherhood might take power in a post-Assad Syria. But we can't trust that as being a real concern in Washington, since Obama and others speaking for him urged the powers that be in Egypt to allow "non-secular" forces to share power in a new, post-Mubarak Egypt, and one of Obama's "national security" clowns, Clapper, even minimized the Islamist nature of the MB by falsely claiming that it was "largely secular."
7-24-2011 Lee Smith calls the Obama White House's Syria policy "morally obtuse" [here]. Smith believes that the regime is doomed.
7-25-2011 Elliott Abrams judges the sincerity of Assad's offer to allow political parties to organize in Syria, provided that they respect "freedom and basic rights." [here]
Tony Badran offers ways that Obama & his administration could use to pressure Assad into leaving. But Badran makes the diagnosis that Obama is still reluctant to tell Assad to leave [here]
7-25-2011 Hossein Askari [here] writes: "While the Arab Spring has threatened the Assad regime, at first the White House lent support to Syria’s dictator, privately arguing that Assad’s fall would increase both instability in the region . . . . Such hypocrisy—backing oppressive regimes in Riyadh, Manama and Damascus while professing unquestioned support for human rights and democratic values—undermines U.S. credibility and influence in the Middle East . . . ."
8-3-2011 Fiamma Nirenstein on the Security Council's failure to speak out about the regime massacres in Syria [here]
8-4-2011 Catherine Ashton has given your ever loyal and ever modest blogger a helping hand. She told the world after Bashar Assad had taken "a step in the right direction" by issuing a new law permitting a multi-party political situation in Syria [here]. She did this after French foreign minister, Alain Juppe, had sneered at Assad's move as a joke and a "provocation." The rather dull-witted Mrs Ashton or Baroness Ashton is holding on to the old British position of forgiving indulgence for Assad after even Obama had taken a more hostile stance toward Assad. She helped me, as said above, because other leaders, like Obama and Juppe, had already distanced themselves more from Assad, thereby leaving me without as much to criticize in them as before. She is the EU foreign affairs commissioner and seems to becoming an embarassment for the EU. They should throw her out now in order to maintain any semblance of decency.
8-6-2011 Jonathan Tobin reports that UNESCO, headed by former Clinton honcho, Anthony Lake, continues to give money to Syrian govt programs --money raised from American children among others, while the regime keeps on slaughtering its people and while world powers finally rebuke Assad & his regime that [here]
8-9-2011 Eyal Zisser gives the 20th century historical background of Syria and the present regime [here]

Cameron as Anti-Israel -- Melanie Philips nails him

Melanie Philips has another knowledgeable and perceptive column on the UK's anti-Israel policy under the "conservative" govt of David Cameron's "conservative party."

I want to highlight her recounting of the relevant history of British betrayal of the Jews during the Holocaust when the UK was bound by its international commitment --the Palestine mandate-- to facilitate Jewish immigration into the Land of Israel and to aid Jewish "close settlement on the land" [the Mandate, Article 6]:

It was the British who, out of sheer breathtaking malice against the Jewish people, first incited the (hitherto mainly benignly disposed) Arabs against the Jews returning to their ancestral homeland in Palestine in the early years of the 20^th century. It was the British who set out to undermine and reverse their own government’s policy to re-establish the Jewish national home in the land of Israel. It was the British who reneged on their internationally binding treaty obligation to settle the Jews throughout Palestine – including the areas currently known as the ‘West Bank’ and Gaza – with the result that they kept out desperate Jews trying to flee Nazi Europe, causing thousands to be murdered in the Holocaust. At the same time, they encouraged Arab immigration from neighbouring countries and turned a blind eye to the pogroms carried out by these Arab newcomers against the Jews whose land it was supposed to be –thus laying the groundwork for the false claim that the Arabs were the rightful inheritors of the land. And all the time, the British cloaked this vicious treachery in the honeyed fiction that they were the true friends of the Jewish people and had their interests at heart.

The history of the British in this terrible conflict between Jew and Arab is not merely a chronicle of the utmost perfidy and malevolent Judeophobic bigotry. It is also directly responsible for the continuation of the conflict to this day. For Arab aggression against the Jews has been rewarded and encouraged from the start, by robbing the Jews of their rightful inheritance and giving great chunks of it to their aggressors. But if aggressors are rewarded, the inevitable result is more aggression until they achieve their final terrible aim. [read it all here]

Brit Elite Rag -- The Financial Times -- Assaults Israel Again

UPDATING 3-4-2010 at bottom

Anti-Zionism is the anti-imperialism of fools

Martin Peretz, editor of the New Republic, has done another expert job of highlighting the Israelophobia [Judeophobia] of the British elite daily, the Financial Times. Recall that the FT is not a "leftist" paper. It is solidly pro-capitalist. Hence, Israelophobia or anti-Zionism, the up to date form of Judeophobia, is not limited to "leftists" or socialists. It is a mental disease cutting across class lines and supposed ideological divisions. Emet m'Tsiyon has featured the FT's anti-Zionism before [here]. Martin Peretz' latest response to FT agitprop is here. Some excerpts follow:

Hardly a day goes by that the Financial Times doesn’t do a hit job on Israel. The otherwise sober pink sheet has such an obsession with the Jewish state that I’ve come to wonder what its views were on the rescue of Jewish children into England during the Nazi onslaught on them and on their parents.
. . . . .
The paper simply refuses to name Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. But it’s much worse than that. The Financial Times writes about the “government in Tel Aviv.’ This is not just weird. It is a lie. The FT wants to rewrite the history of the Middle East. If it can’t tell the truth about a simple geographical fact, on what, pray tell, can it be trusted?

Let's put that claim that Israel's capital is Tel Aviv in historical context. It was a regular feature of Soviet and Communist anti-Israel agitprop before the fall of the Soviet Union. Now, this pretense is employed by the --shall we say it again?-- capitalist Financial Times.

Right now the FT is screeching at Israel for the assassination of top Hamas murderer and operative, Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, in Dubai, which quite plausibly may have been carried out by Israel's Mossad spy agency. Maybe the FT regrets that there is one less top Hamas operative running around the Middle East, working to perpetrate mass murder against Jews. Anyhow, in order to properly chastise Israel for --presumably-- killing him, the FT minimizes his importance. It describes him as a mere "Hamas gun-runner." Well, if he was not so important, then why is the FT so upset? Mass murder goes in the Middle East almost every day. In Iraq, dozens of non-combatant civilians are slaughtered regularly. Those murders do not evoke as much gall and spleen from the FT --if any-- as does the assassination of one leader of Hamas whom that Iranian-sponsored mass murder organization officially mourned. Peretz comments:

. . . the FT has dismissed his [al-Mabhouh's] importance by calling him “a Hamas gun-runner in Dubai.” This is so far from the truth that it is actually laughable. He was a murderer, a certified murderer, and is an official of the far-flung Hamas movement, which specializes in the murder of Israelis. He is more than a gun-runner. But even gun- running for Hamas, recipient of military hardware from Iran and Syria, cannot be seen with indifference by Jerusalem.
http://www.tnr.com/print/blog/the-spine/another-hit-job-the-financial-times

Just to clarify the situation. Dubai is officially in a state of war with Israel as part of the United Arab Emirates. The UAE has been in a state of war with Israel since it became a state. The Hamas is not only in a state of war with Israel but openly proclaims the desirability of murdering all Jews. It does this in Article 7 of its charter. The Hamas TV in Gaza constantly brainwashes its population, starting with small children, with reasons for slaughtering Jews and for continuing war against the Jews until Israel and the Jews are destroyed. There is no possibility that any Hamas official could be extradited from Dubai to be put on trial in Israel or from elsewhere in the UAE or from Syria where Hamas has its headquarters or from any Arab state, be it the most "moderate" Arab state of all. Obviously, in a state of war the rules applying in relations between countries at peace do not apply.

The United Kingdom can rightly be seen as the most dangerous center in the world for anti-Israel agitprop. There must be a reason why British NGOs lead in smearing Israel for alleged "human rights" violations, why the movement to boycott Israeli universities is centered in Britain, why Muslim fanatics are allowed to preach murder of Jews [and all non-Muslims] in British mosques and to demonstrate publicly calling to "behead those who insult Islam", without being charged with sedition. Moreover, we may ask why terrorists who placed bombs on the Paris subway, the Metro, in the mid-1990s were taking directions from leaders based in -- London. It was French investigators who dubbed the British capital -- Londonistan. Why?

If there really is such a thing as an Israeli-Arab "peace process," then an expression of regret by the British government for the British government's role in the Holocaust from 1939 to 1945 would be helpful. Surely, the UK government should not be allowed to take part in any supposed "peace process" without an admission of guilt for the British government's past pro-Holocaust policies and without an expression of deep regret.

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UPDATING 3-4-2010 Martin Peretz updates the story of FT's mourning over the death of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh. He links to an excellent article by British historian Andrew Roberts that puts the whole subject into a truthful, historical and contemporary perspective [here]. Apparently, even in Britain, a land so much of which is benighted, voices of outrage over the mad attacks on Israel in the FT were such as to lead the FT to publish Roberts' rebuttal of the anti-Israel fanatics.

The British, Judeophobia & Anti-Zionism -- Lewis Feuer

Anti-Zionism is the anti-imperialism of fools.

Writing about George Orwell's typically socialist or Marxist approach to Judeophobia as a problem, Lewis Feuer refers to the attitude of other British intellectuals and identifies the likely purposes and/or results of anti-Zionism.

In his quest for rationality, Orwell, like so many Englishmen --Shaw, Webb, Wells, Russell-- tended to belittle the importance of anti-semitism. As far as Orwell could see, "anti-semitism is only one manifestation of nationalism," that can be cured only when the larger disease of nationalism is cured. Long before nationalism, however, became a historic force, in mediaeval Europe, anti-semitism was endemic, and always its manifestations linked first to the relative defencelessness of the Jews, and second, to the sense, as Charles de Gaulle put it, that the Jews were an elite people, gifted inordinately with intellectual abilities. Anti-semitism has thus always been a concomitant of anti-intellectual and populist movements. And anti-Zionism, as the current form of anti-semitism, aims precisely to restore the Jews to such a state of defencelessness.

Lewis Feuer wrote this in 1984 in Survey, a Journal of East & West Studies [Summer 1984; p 163]. He wrote it long before Judeophobia in its "anti-Zionist" guise became a highly emotional fashion among a variegated set of publics: BBC TV editors, editors of ostensibly "liberal" British newspapers like the Guardian and the strongly pro-capitalist Financial Times, not to mention assorted Communist and Communist-Trotskyist sects, Arab and other Muslim jihadists, British opportunists and race haters like George Galloway, and so on.

Feuer rightly points out that for many of the respected "leftists" and "socialists" in Britain --and not only there-- the problems of the Jews were secondary and would be solved by the coming of a socialist messianic age, the renewed Golden Age of Man, as some viewed a socialist society. In other words, socialism would solve all the problems of the Jews, so they argued. Intelligent people would be much more skeptical about a socialist Golden Age today. Anyhow, before we get to True Socialism, we could all be dead. That was especially true for the Jews of Orwell's time. About a third or more of the Jews in the world were murdered in Orwell's own lifetime. True Socialism did not come soon enough to save their lives, let alone their honor and their rights.

Today, we see that many self-styled socialists could not care less about the rights of Jews, or are indeed hostile to them. Some, like Ken Livingstone, openly mock Jews and scorn their human rights and dignity. Lest we forget, Livingstone, the mayor of London for several years, was long a Trotskyist and became notorious after the 9-11 mass murder for inviting Yusuf Qaradhawi, a notorious Muslim hate preacher, to London. But is Feuer right in calling Judeophobia, whether or not in its anti-Zionist form, a populist movement? He gives part of the answer to that question himself, whether or not he recognized that. General De Gaulle, later President De Gaulle, was hardly a "populist" nor was he anti-intellectual, but he was Judeophobic. Of course De Gaulle's remark after the Six Day War that the Jews were an "elite and domineering people" could be said to play to the masses of non-Jews as an instrumental tactic or strategy for influencing French public opinion. Maybe De Gaulle wanted to play up to the Arabs with that remark. It was indeed followed by a ban on Israeli military purchases. For those who don't know it, France was Israel's major weapons supplier before the Six Day War. Israel won the war with French fighter aircraft, etc. Probably many people don't know it because they believe that the United States was always supporting Israel and furnishing it with weapons. Indeed, this has been one of the commonplace Big Lies about Israel told by the "leftists" of the last 43 years. France was much more supportive of Israel up to the Six Day War than was the United States.

So the fact that De Gaulle made his Judeophobic remark after the Six Day War was not only a signal of an approaching French switch to a pro-Arab policy but a use of Judeophobia, a stimulation, encouragement, incitement of Judeophobia made by an elitist politician backed by big money interests in his own country. On that Feuer was wrong.

Then Feuer refers to the Judeophobia of the Middle Ages. It was not simply "populist" nor "anti-intellectual." After all, very intellectual Christian theologians loathed or hated Jews on religious grounds. And when some of the non-Jewish poor attacked Jews for real or supposed Jewish wealth, was it solely a mood of resentment of those wealthier whereas the pogrom mobs seldom attacked the rich of their own religion or ethnic group? What may have happened is that poor folk, who often and commonly resent those wealthier or more prosperous than themselves [not always nor at all times and places], may have especially resented the fact that Jews who --they were taught-- were religiously evil, Christkillers or whatnot, were able to obtain wealth. After all, if those people religiously defined as evil [Jews], could obtain wealth or any respectable social standing, then that was an injustice. An injustice which sometimes required violence to redress. Possibly the devil's work, a conspiracy, etc. Of course, this is theoretical and I am open to discussion about it.

What is most sinister today, it seems, is that members of elites use psychological warfare techniques, propaganda tricks that really go beyond mere propaganda, in order to produce hatred of Jews among their masses, especially the lower-middle brow masses, not to mention among the mass of ill-educated academics, truly nutty professors, and so on. One way to keep the population in line and to get them to follow the will of the elite, what C Wright Mills called the Power Elite, is to use all sorts of tricks from the arsenal of psychological warfare. That goes on all the time and in many places.

But Feuer was right to say that anti-Zionism is "the current form of anti-semitism." And in a time when "anti-imperialism" is supposed to be taken for granted as the right way to think, the right position for all decent and right-thinking folk, anti-semitism [Judeophobia] has to take on the coloring of anti-imperialism. A principle of psywar is to seemingly accept the values and basic beliefs of those one wants to persuade or bring around to another way of thinking. The basic beliefs and values of the target audience are the platform for moving to new beliefs --perhaps added on to the old, not necessarily replacing them-- desired by the psywar practitioner.

Feuer's conclusion that anti-Zionism means to restore Jews to their state of defenselessness, as in the Middle Ages, is insightful. Certainly, weakening Israel would have that effect and would likely lead to renewed persecution of Jews in many parts of the world.

British Press Censors Historical Truth, Promotes Lies

UPDATE 12-25 & 27-2009 & 1-2 & 3-9-2010 at bottom

Anti-Zionism is the anti-imperialism of fools

In its smear campaign against Israel, much of the the British press --indeed of the British "quality" press-- both "leftist" like the Guardian and frankly business-oriented, pro-capitalist like The Financial Times, bash Israel with smears and lies. They promote falsifications of Jewish history as well as smears relating to current events, such as last winter's Israeli effort to stop Hamas rocket attacks on Israel's civilian population.

In this context, the FT censored significant historical facts in a book review. The FT asked one of its regular book reviewers, the respected historian Simon Schama, to review the book The Invention of the Jewish People, by Shlomo Sand. In this book, Sand, an Israeli Communist, seems to be trying to validate the claim of the former leader of his Communist movement, Stalin, that the Jews were not a nation in his time. Stalin wrote this in 1915, apparently to delegitimize Zionism. Since then, the Jews set up a state in 1948, obviously refuting Stalin. Neither Stalin nor Hitler nor the British Foreign Office had thought that a Jewish state should or could come into being. Of course, for hard-line Judeophobes, such as populate the Foreign Office, the problem then became how to destroy the Jewish State that had been established. Hence, a Communist's fanatical invention meant to confirm and update Stalin's claim of 1915 gets support in the capitalist United Kingdom. Without getting into Sand's book too deeply, suffice it to say that he claims that Ashkenazi Jews are descended from a medieval northern Caucasus or Turkic people called Khazars, whose ruling elite, at least, converted to Judaism but who disappeared after military defeat in the northern Caucasus-northern Black Sea region. Sand also claims that North African Jews are mainly descended from the Berbers of North Africa. Thus, modern Jews are not descended from ancient Jews, according to Sand, and thus have no historical right to return to the Land of Israel, nor does Israel have a right to exist as a state.

Arthur Koestler raised a similar argument about Ashkenazim being descended from Khazars about 30 years ago, although he was more tentative, less positive in his claims than Sand is today. Koestler got little scholarly support for his tentative argument. One strong critique was the demolition of his book by Edward Grossman. There were a lot of things wrong with Koestler's theory that were perceived 30 years ago. That did not deter Sand when he wrote his book a few years ago, although a whole new set of factual data refuting his and Koestler's theory had emerged since publication of Koestler's book. This data is the study of Jewish DNA. A number of researchers have found great genetic proximity among Ashkenazic, Sefardic, Oriental and Yemenite Jews. There is also proximity to various Arab groups as well as Armenians and Kurds. To a lesser extent, there is Jewish genetic proximity to Greeks, Turks and Italians. This scientific data effectively refutes Sand and Koestler's theory. But fanatics want to believe what suits their prejudices. So Sand dismisses and largely overlooks all of the DNA research by Professors Bonne-Tamir, Hammer and others. That very significant data does not fit the conclusion that Sand wants to reach. Of course, the DNA data was not available in Koestler's time, but now it is. Hence, Sand had less justification for publishing his crackpot theory than Koestler did. But that didn't stop Sand.

This has taken us far from censorship by the British press. The FT published, as said, a critical review of Sand's book, but the review seemed peculiar. Certain points that one would expect to be brought up in a critical review were not there. Then there is a passage in the review that very clearly seems to have been altered, tampered with, bowdlerized, censored, eviscerated. Schama outlined Roman anti-Jewish actions after defeat of the Bar Kokhba Revolt [131-135 CE]:

. . . there was also the mass extirpation of everything that constituted Jewish religion and culture; the renaming of Jerusalem as Aelia Capitolina, the obliteration of the Temple, the prohibition on rituals and prayers. Sand asserts, correctly, that an unknowable number of Jews remained in what the Romans called Palestina. [here]

This outline, as it stands, is mainly correct, but it is misleading on a crucial point as well as incomplete. Indeed, Rome, under Hadrian, the emperor of the time, renamed Jerusalem Aelia Capitolina, Aelia referred to Hadrian's clan or gens and Capitolina to a hill in the historic center of Rome where a Roman temple was located. However, in addition to Jerusalem, the Romans also renamed the whole country, which up to the defeat of Bar Kokhba was called Provincia Iudaea [IVDAEA], Province of Judea. The Romans did call the country Palaestina, but that name came only after defeat of the Bar Kokhba Revolt. According to most authorities [Michael Avi-Yonah, Felix Abel, Solomon Zeitlin, Mary Sherwood, inter alia, as I read them], the whole country, all of the Land of Israel, was called Judea by the Romans up to the aftermath of the Jews' defeat in 135 when it was renamed at the same time as Jerusalem, and made symbolically subordinate to Syria with the name Syria Palaestina. In this name, Palaestina is an adjective, not a noun, by the way.

Now, Simon Schama is a respected historian and I cannot imagine that he did not know that both Jerusalem and the Province of Judea were renamed by the Romans at the same time, and that Palestine was a name introduced by the Romans as a replacement meant to degrade and humiliate the Jews. The structure of the text that I have quoted also seems to support my surmise. It is likely that he wrote "the renaming of Jerusalem as Aelia Capitolina and of Judea as Palestina." Or perhaps he wrote: ". . . Jews remained in what the Romans thereafter called Palestina" or ". . . what the Romans henceforth [or from then on] called Palestina." After all, if he is writing about changing geographic names of political import, then why not also point out that the country too was renamed? Schama is aware of the name Judea for the country, since he uses it --or was allowed to use it-- elsewhere in the review. But that usage of the name does not indicate that it was the Roman official name for the country throughout the heyday of the empire up to Hadrian's difficult victory over the Jews led by Bar Kokhba.

I believe that burying the fact that the country was called Judea officially by the Romans is likely a policy in the British press. I say this from personal experience. Some years ago, a letter of mine was published in a prestigious British weekly, which I shall not name to protect my own identity. The letter was published in its entirety except for one sentence which pointed out that the official name of the country was Judea until Hadrian changed it upon defeating the Bar Kokhba Revolt. It seems that the British psychological warfare/cognitive warfare experts do not want their own people to know that the Land of Israel, all of it, not just the southern inland area, was called Judea by Rome at the height of the empire.

An omission from the review was any mention of the DNA evidence, which would seem to naturally come up in a critical review of Sand's book. However, I am less certain that Prof Schama had mentioned this in his review. But it is surprising that it is not there, unless the editors of the FT did not want it there.

Additional support for my belief that the review was tampered with, distorted, weakened deliberately by the FT editors is that they took the most unusual step of publishing a second review of the same book, a favorable review this time. Martin Kramer commented on the Financial Times' felt need to publish a second review of Shlomo Sand's tract:

The Financial Times decided one review of Shlomo Sand's 'The Invention of theJewish People' (reviewer, Simon Schama: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/b74fdfd2-cfe1-11de-a36d-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1J4C3P7CY) just wasn't good enough, and so runs another by Tony Judt, who knows even less about the subject than Sand. The result is entirely predictable: a rant against Israel in the thin disguise of a review.

Kramer's comment appeared on facebook [here].

This affair leads to the conclusion that the British press, daily and weekly, as well as many of the UK's supposed scholarly and scientific journals, are unreliable and politically guided and motivated where Israel is concerned and where Jewish history is concerned. It is no secret that the BBC is directed politically in regard to foreign affairs by the UK Foreign Office. The BBC long delayed reporting on the Holocaust as it was happening and then minimized its extent, thus failing to warn Jews and others in the Axis occupied countries who depended on the BBC for news. The BBC did this as part of a policy decided by the Ministry of Information [Orwell mocked it as the Ministry of Truth in his novel 1984] while the BBC's foreign news was directed by the Foreign Office. The British press, daily, weekly, scientific, professional, and scholarly has been mobilized, at least in large parts, to a Crusade of slander and demonization against the Jews and Israel, in which crucial facts are often omitted.

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Here are some useful links:

Here is a strong demolition of Koestler's book by Edward Grossman.
Here are posts on the Bar Kokhba Revolt and its aftermath, including the expulsion of Jews from the area of Jerusalem: here & here & here & here & here & here & here & here
Arab auxiliary troops fought for Rome in the earlier war against the Jews which resulted in destruction of the Temple in 70 CE [here]
On the Arch of Titus in Rome as a monument to the Roman destruction of the Temple [החורבן] here.
Coins issued by Rome to celebrate victory over the Jews [here]
Names of the Land of Israel before and after the Bar Kokhba Revolt: here
A fairly well preserved ancient Roman metallic military diploma showing Roman use of Judea [IVDAEA] as the name of the Land of Israel [here].

Here are print accounts by ancient sources on the Jewish revolts against Rome. Some of these ancient works may be available online but I do not have the links.
Ancient accounts of the Jewish revolt and its suppression by the Roman Empire:
Orosius, VII, 9:5 f.
Sulpicius Severus, II
Dio Cassius [or Cassius Dio], Roman History [Italian edition: Cassio Dione, Storia Romana], LXIII, 22; LXV, 8:1-3, 9:2; LXVI, 1:1-4, 4-7, 9:2, 12:1
Menahem Stern, Greek and Latin Authors on Jews and Judaism, vol. II (Jerusalem: Israel Academy of Sciences 1980), pp 64-67.
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UPDATE 12-25-2009 Martin Peretz, editor of the New Republic, frankly calls The Financial Times, a "viciously anti-Israel newspaper" [here]
12-27-2009 Link to article on Jewish DNA, plus speculations on possible 11.5% Khazar genetic heritage among Ashkenazim [here]. H/T to Martin Kramer [here].
UPDATE 1-2-2010 The BBC in English disregarded an important story about Iranian involvement in mass murder of Jews. However, the BBC in Spanish did cover the story, which was reported by the Spanish-speaking media in any case [here].
UPDATE 3-9-2010 Martin Goodman, a historian of the Jews in Roman times, takes on Sand's tract in the TLS and throws it in the trash bin of history [here]

The Old Synagogue in the Shim`on haTsadiq Quarter

The Shim`on haTsadiq and Nahalat Shimon quarters in Jerusalem have been much in the news in the past few weeks. They are quite close to the Shepherd's Hotel plot, formerly owned by the Nazi-collaborationist Haj Amin el-Husseini, the British-appointed Mufti of Jerusalem who spent most of the World War 2 years in Nazi Germany and elsewhere in the Nazi-fascist domain. The names of both these quarters refer to Simon the Just, an ancient Jewish high priest believed to have met Alexander of Macedon during his conquest of Israel from the Persian Empire.

Here is a photo of a memorial dedication inscribed above the door of the synagogue in the Shim`on haTsadiq Quarter in Jerusalem adjacent to the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood inhabited by some of the leading Arab families. Poor Jews lived in the Shim`on haTsadiq Quarter [also spelled Shimon haTzadik, etc] near wealthy Arabs, including Husseinis and Nashashibis, up to 29 December 1947, when the Jews fled their homes after attacks by Arab irregular forces under the command of the Husseinis through the Arab Higher Committee. George Antonius, the Arab nationalist propagandist, rented his home on a nearby property called Karm al-Mufti [the Mufti's Vineyard], from the British-appointed Mufti of Jerusalem, a collaborator with the Nazis and instigator of the mass murder of Jews.

[click on photo to enlarge]
Note in the photo the Hebrew inscription above the arch above the door. It is hard to read the inscription because of the angle of the shot. However, the last word of the inscription --in the lower left corner-- is clear. It is an acronym in Hebrew תנצבה . This stands for a standard Jewish memorial phrase, quite commonly found on gravestones, although here it is used in the dedication of a synagogue in someone's memory.
תהי נפשו צרורה בצרור החיים

It means: May his soul be bound up in the bundle of life.

For women, the word נפשו [= his soul] is replaced by נפשה [= her soul]. The acronym remains the same in either case.

Tentatively reading the first line of the inscription, from right to left, I think I see
קידש לה' נדבת
Consecrated to the Lord an offering of . . .

This would, I think, have to be followed by the name of the donor and the name of the remembered deceased person. I think I see the name ישעיהו [= Yesha`ayahu = Isaiah]. I think I also see the acronym ז''ל which stands for זכרונו לברכה, meaning "May his memory be for a blessing" [a suitable change is made for a woman]. This acronym ordinarily follows the name of a deceased person. The letters standing for the number of the year on the Hebrew calendar may also be present.

A magen david מגן דוד [= shield of David] is seen below the inscription as part of the arch over the doorway at its crest. Also note five black iron hooks or bent rods around the inscription. Originally there were six such bent rods. Two each on the right and left, and two below. They once held a smooth stone plaque with a secondary memorial inscription carved on it. That is, an inscription in memory of a second person had been placed over the first inscription. This seems to indicate the poverty of these Jews, which we know of in any case. It seems that the community needed money later on and allowed someone to memorialize his departed loved one in return for a contribution or financial support. I saw the secondary inscription on the plaque when I visited the site in 1995. However, by the time that Jews took the synagogue back in the fall of 1998, the overlying plaque had altogether disappeared except for the iron rods or hooks. What provoked the Jewish return was that an Arab living adjacent to the synagogue on the east [about two, three, or four meters away] had begun to destroy the eastern wall of the synagogue in order, apparently, to expand his own home into the small synagogue building, which Arabs had not formerly settled into.

Be that as it may, the photo was taken between the summer of 1995 and the fall of 1998. The change in appearance in that time was that the plaque/secondary inscription --already cracked and partly broken off in 1995, had entirely disappeared. The building was restored to use as a synagogue in the fall of 1998 and is still in use.

This area of Jerusalem came into the news lately because of strenuous objections by the US State Department, the UK Foreign Office, and the European Union to Jews living in or building homes in what they like to call "East Jerusalem," a part of the city whence Jewish inhabitants were driven out during the Israeli War of Independence [1947-1949] by Arab irregular forces and the Arab Legion of the Kingdom of Jordan [then Transjordan]. These foreign powers do not want a Jewish return to a part of a city that has a meaning in history deriving from its role in Jewish history and religion. Jerusalem has also had a Jewish majority population since 1853, if not earlier. In 1853, the whole population of the city lived in the Old City which is considered part of "East Jerusalem." That is, in 1853, Jews were the majority in East Jerusalem.

"The Poilet Drupped the Bumms in Gude Feyeth" -- quoth a Scottish NATO spokesman [& Jamie Shea]

When we recently heard that the Scottish Trade Union Congress was calling for a boycott of Israel, we were reminded of the immortal words of another Scotsman, an erstwhile spokesman for NATO forces in Yugoslavia when they were bombing Serbia and its province of Kossovo. Although NATO was ostensibly fighting the war to protect the Kossovo Albanians, allegedly subject to Serbian genocide, NATO air forces bombed a large group of fleeing Kossovo Albanians. I believe that the NATO forces killed about 70 or 80 of these people. The spokesman was asked to explain himself at a press conference and stated in his quaint, folksy Scottish burr [concealing a world class propagandist] that: "The pilot dropped the bombs in good faith" [quotes & reports here & here & ici & aqui]. In other words, the spokesman wanted and expected the international press to take his word for it that the bombs had been dropped "in good faith." Maybe the pilot did bomb those refugees in good faith. Apparently the international press took the spokesman's word for it and so did the Scottish TUC. After all, the spokesman was not a Jew. He was British. He speaks for Her Britannic Majesty. Maybe next we'll hear that Himmler operated the death camps "in good faith."

The same thing was said in substance by Jamie Shea, apparently not a Scot, who seems to have been the chief NATO spokesman at the time of the Kossovo War.

NATO forces, of which British forces were a part, also killed Serbian civilians during the Kossovo war back in 1999. But apparently it was all "in good faith," since I have heard of no boycott called by the Scottish TUC of the Scottish NATO spokesman or of British products or of British officials or of British universities, so on and so forth. Likewise, British forces in Iraq and Afghanistan in ongoing wars in those places have killed local civilians in air strikes and in other ways. So too the allies of the UK, the United States and other NATO powers have killed civilians in those countries. Yet no call for a boycott by the Scottish TUC or the Irish TUC or any other English-speaking TUC. What gives then, oh Righteous Moralists of the TUC of the Highlands and the Lowlands and the Foggy Islands at sea?? Why aren't you boycotting Britain, or at least the English or maybe the Americans?? Anyhow, who is more responsible for the war --the UK or the USA? Shouldn't you be boycotting at least one of them to show your distaste for those two wars [or those three wars if we include the Kossovo assault on Serbia]?? What about your abhorrence of civilian deaths caused by First World armies?? How many poor Afghans have to die before you boycott both the UK and USA??

Maybe the Scottish TUC and the Irish TUC and all the other TUCs in the British Isles ought to be boycotting themselves. Maybe British hypocrisy is a threat to world peace.

What Are the Issues Involved in the Racist Obamanoid Demand for a "Settlement Freeze"

UPDATING 7-3-2009 links added

Anti-Zionism is the anti-imperialism of fools

Obama and his whole morally corrupt and dishonest administration are calling for a "freeze" on Jews living in Judea-Samaria. This can be interpreted within a certain range of meanings. But this range is short and narrow. It is racist against Jews in any case. Here are some of the implications and issues involved in the "freeze" demand:

1 -- Jewish human rights. Where do the Jews have a right to live? Did the USA or UK or other major powers recognize Jewish human rights in the 1930s and 1940s? Do the USA, UK, EU powers and other Western and other powers want the Jews to live in ghettos??

2-- Jewish national rights. Do Jews have national rights in the Jews' historic homeland? In the Land of Israel including Judea-Samaria? Do we have rights to live in Tel Aviv but not Hebron? 200 years ago a few thousand Jews did live in Hebron but there was no Tel Aviv. Do the USA, UK, EU powers and other Western and other powers want the Jews to live in ghettos in their own homeland??

3-- Respect for agreements, accords and treaties made with Jews. The UK govt clearly violated the terms of the League of Nations "mandate for Palestine" to which the UK had committed itself, by issuing the 1939 "White Paper for Palestine." The Permanent Mandates Commission of the League found Britain in violation of its mandate on account of the White Paper. Now the obama administration scoffs at the accords made by Pres Bush with Israel while Sharon was PM just a few years ago.

4-- Does the denial of Jewish rights to inhabit Judea-Samaria threaten Jewish residency rights in other countries throughout the world, especially Western countries? The Western states as a whole did not allow Jewish refugees to take refuge in those countries before and during the Holocaust. Do they now want to get rid of the Jews as they did then? What does it mean that German chancellor Angela Merkel demands an end to settlement building? She also thinks that "a two-state solution" is "urgently needed."

5-- The US position on Jewish settlements in Judea-Samaria is more subtle than the Euro and UK positions which falsely claim that the settlements are "illegal." The US holds that they are "obtacles to peace." In other words, Jews endanger peace by exercising and insisting on their rights. Since obama continues this established state dept position, his claim to be making changes in favor of human rights is a fake.

6-- Many writings and official statements from various sources, official and unofficial, state explicitly or imply that when Jews exercise the right of going to live in Judea-Samaria they are oppressing others.

7-- Do the powers that collaborated in the Holocaust, the US, UK, Russia, the major EU members, have the right to dictate "peace" terms to Jews that are really warmongering ultimatums??

8-- Will the "freeze" of settlements encourage Arab racism against Jews and/or racism against Jews elsewhere, in the West? In the UK of course? Will the "freeze" policy of the West encourage attitudes of ethno-religious supremacism among the Arabs, who do not need much encouragement anyhow?

9-- What does it mean when the US, UK, EU, and other world powers blame Israel in advance for the next war, whereas these powers, the West in particular, promote Arab war on Israel and Arab intransigeance in negotiations by the fact that they generously finance the anti-Israel NGOs, Fatah [in its palestinian authority guise], Hamas [through the PA and through the oil rich Arab oil states that are overpaid for oil deliberately by the USA, UK, & France?? The EU shamelessly finances anti-Israel, anti-Jewish propaganda through the fake "NGOs"???

If the Arabs really wanted to make peace, wouldn't the UK, EU, & USA try to prevent it? Wouldn't they stop the Arabs from making peace?

These are simply basic points and issues that will be broadened and elaborated on later.

Anti-Zionism is the anti-imperialism of fools

British Subject in Samaria Refuses to Host the Queen

A British Royal Subject Living in Samaria Tells the Queen that She Is Not Welcome while Her Government Tries to Choke the Jews Economically while Denying Jewish Human and National Rights

The British position is in fact Racist. It continues the British policy during the Mandate period in Israel and during the Holocaust to keep Jews out of Judea-Samaria and to allow/encourage the Arabs to drive out the Jews who were already there, especially as expressed in the 1939 White Paper policy. Of course, British policy encouraged Arabs to kill Jews in Baghdad [1941] and during the War of Independence [1947-1949], sending British troops to fight on the side of the Arabs. The official British information policy was to suppress news of the Holocaust as it was happening and could have been alleviated.
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Your Majesty, You're Not Welcome

By edict of a subject of Her Britannic Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II

Item: The British Embassy in Tel Aviv has decided to boycott Israeli
companies that invest in Judea and Samaria.

Your Majesty, one of your Ambassadors, Tom Phillips, who represents you in Israel, has recently decided that he would boycott the Kirya Tower in Tel Aviv, because it is partly owned by Africa-Israel whose owner, Lev Levayev, also owns a subsidiary company that has built homes in Judea and Samaria.

Now, I must confess that I am not entirely surprised: the same ambassador, His Excellency Tom Phillips, decided back in July of last year that, even though I am still a British citizen, a subject of the Crown, I am no longer fit to be represented by him, when His Excellency decided to ban "settlers" from British Embassy functions. That is to say, I no longer enjoy your royal protection.

You see, I live in Kfar Tapuach, a "settlement" in the "Israeli-occupied West Bank". To be more precise, I live in the heart of Samaria, just a few miles due south of Shechem. When I go running with my dog to the small hill a few dozen yards from my house, we overlook the city that the Arab occupiers call "Nablus". Because I chose to make my home here, where my ancestors lived millennia ago, I am no longer worthy of the words inscribed in my British passport: "Her Britannic Majesty's Secretary of State requests and requires in the name of Her Majesty all
those whom it may concern to allow the bearer to pass freely without let or hindrance, and afford the bearer such assistance and protection as may be necessary". Unless - we should now add - the bearer happens to be an Israelite living in the heartland of Biblical Israel.

Well, with all due respect to Your Majesty and to His Excellency the British Ambassador to Israel, I am not exactly devastated by the blow. I never really expected your diplomatic services or security forces to look after me or my people, whether in the "West Bank," or "Israel proper," or anywhere else in the world.

I know that Britain was the only country in the entire world to voluntarily declare war against Nazi Germany, and I am aware of Britain's magnificent, impressive war effort during those hideously dark years - a record that will forever stand to Britain's credit - but still, Britain's record concerning Jews during the Holocaust is somewhat dismal. I am too weary to detail, once again, the Royal Air Force's refusal to bomb the railway lines taking Jews to the Nazi death camps even while bombing more distant targets; Martin Gilbert, in Auschwitz and the Allies, has documented this sorry episode far better than I could.

Are you aware that the entire British Empire accepted fewer Jewish refugees than the port of Shanghai? And do you remember the restrictions that the government of your father, King George VI, placed on Jews from Reich-occupied countries finding refuge in Britain? Again, I know that Britain's record in that regard is far better than that of most other countries, but it's not as if there was very stiff competition.

And do you remember that your father's government fought bitterly against Jewish independence anywhere in the Land of Israel? Are you even aware that during and after the Holocaust, when more than ever we needed refuge, and at a time when the God of Israel granted your father the infinite privilege of ruling over the Holy Land, the Royal Navy patrolled these shores to ensure that the survivors of Hitler's accursed inferno would not be allowed home? Are you aware that when the British Army left Haifa, Jaffa, Tzfat (Safed), Lod (Lydda), Ramle, and other places in 1948, they turned the police fortresses with their armouries and weapons over to the Arab forces?

As I said, I am not particularly surprised that His Excellency the British Ambassador is not entirely enamoured of what we Jews are doing today in your former colony.

I look over Shechem - the city where, three and a half millennia ago, when your ancestors in England were still living in trees and painting their faces with woad, my great-great- great (however many times over) grandfather Jacob saw his sons, Shimon (Simeon) and Levi, declare war against the entire city of Shechem because their prince dared to rape their sister Dinah. I needn't go into the gory details here, because it's clearly written in my people's national history book - Genesis, Chapter 34. (In 1611, your ancestor, King James I, commissioned an English translation of my people's holy book, so Your Majesty should have no difficulty reading the text.)

Ever since that day, 3,500 years ago, we have known to rely on no one's protection but our own and God's. It is an interesting concept of time and of history: your roots in England go back to 1066 - almost a thousand years; a history of which to be justifiably proud. Yet when your history was just beginning, our roots were already buried more than 2,500 years deep in Shechem. In fact, the village in which I live, Kfar Tapuach, gets its first mention in the Bible; again, look it up in Joshua 12:17, 16:8, 17:7, and plenty of other places. You see, my people's historical and geographical record pinpointed the location of Kfar Tapuach, and delineated the borders of our Holy Land, and defined the borders of the territory of each of the twelve Tribes of Israel well
over 2,000 years before the Domesday Book was ever compiled.

Well, I suppose that I, and hundreds of thousands of other Jews here in our Holy Land, will just have to get used to the idea that you and your kingdom find the idea of Jews settling their own land most distasteful. Very well, so be it. But I have to tell you, unaccustomed as I am to taking so discourteous a tone to Your Majesty, so long as this policy continues you are no longer welcome in my house here in Kfar Tapuach.

Your government's ideology concerning the appropriate location of Jews in Israel affects me about as much as my proclamation affects you. We will continue to live where we want in Israel, we will continue to build, we will continue to settle our Land as and where we want. Your father's army, navy and air force were unable to prevent us from building our national home even when Britannia ruled the waves and controlled the skies around these parts. Today, the British Empire is but a distant memory and your influence here is even lower than Ehud Olmert's credibility.

I understand that you and your government are anxious to appease the Muslims. On reflection, that's probably a wise policy. As much as we Jews had a written history in Shechem back when your ancestors in England were still living in trees, we will still be living here, building our Land and bringing sacrifices and singing psalms to God in our Holy Temple, long after your descendants will be living as dhimmis in the Islamic Republic of Englandistan.

Adar 12, 5769 / 08 March 2009
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IRA L. JACOBSON
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[hat tip Sanda Lam]
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Unfortunately, Mr Jacobson is too confident that British influence in Israel is low. It is too high. Just consider that a few weeks ago Tony Blair somehow persuaded Ehud Barak, minister of defense, to allow British agent Gerry Adams, who masquerades as an Irish anti-imperialist, into Gaza in order to meet with Hamas for a photo op meant to humanize and defumigate those Nazi murderers.
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There have been quite a few encouraging archeological developments recently but I have not had the time to sort them out and report them. Will try soon although the usual political/diplomatic crisis keeps me busy.