Balanced reporting as usual

Today Turkish airplanes killed 35 Kurdish villagers on the border with Iraq.

There have been no spontaneously arranged anti-Turk demos sympathising the plight of the stateless Kurds outside the Turkish embassy in the UK. There have been no mass demonstrations of any sort and not a word from Clinton, Obama, Hague or Cameron. There has been not one word of condemnation from the UN. In fact the story has barely been mentioned in the UK News. On Sky News it got a whole 10 seconds right at the end of the main 30-minute news, which managed to convey an impression of sympathy with Turkey for making an honest mistake.

Yet when Israel's airplanes kill three terrorists in the act of carrying out an attack against civilians, all other news is put on hold while the world unites in its condemnation of Israel. In fact, the world no longer needs incidents of Israel defending itself or even building a house in Jerusalem in order to unite in condemnation. It now has the artifically created phenomenum of 'sexism' with which to bash Israel while the rest of the Middle East burns without any concern from the West. While staying silent on the massacres in Syria, Iraq, and Turkey, Hillary Clinton  has actually issued a statement of condemnation of Israel for the fact that some ultra-orthodox man refused to sit next to a woman in a bus in Jerusalem.

Isn't it nice to know that Israel is treated with the same degree of fairness and balance as all other countries.

One more for the "You couldn't make it up" list

The Arab world is 'electing' Islamic fundmentalist governments everywhere, Syria is burning in a civil war with over 5000 now dead, Hamas and its allies in Gaza are launching rockets now every day against Israel without fear of retribution and Hezbollah has started to do the same from Lebanon while also attacking UNIFIL troops there. Iran is threatening to close the straits of Hormuz and in addition to threatening Israel with annihiliation is also threatening its other neighbours; Egpyt, where mobs with government approval destroyed the Israeli embassy, is now allowing Hamas and Al Quaeda to operate in the Sinai (meaning that the road in Israel to Eilat is effectively closed); and of course the Palestinian Authority - which has refused all offers to return to negotations and is honouring terrorist murderers with all kinds of money and prizes while ratcheting up its hateful Israel deligitimization campaign throughout the UN and UNESCO.

None of that is an 'onstacle to peace'.  But Israel planning to build 40 new homes? This has brought world outrage and official UN condemnation:

UN: 40 new Efrat homes prejudice the peace process

Hatred for Israel reaches new levels

So now it is official.
Sarkozy to Obama talking about Israel's elected Prime Minister (not realising the microphones were still on):

"I can't bear to see him any more, he's a liar,"

Obama's response:

"You may be sick of him, but me, I have to deal with him every day."

Sarkozy and Obama might try to cover their tracks by claiming that their comments show frustration with just one man, but this is actually about contempt for Israel. They would not have dreamed of making such comments about an Arab leader, let alone a supposed ally; indeed, even yesterday Obama was STILL talking about appeasing Ahmedinejad with new concessions. There is something particularly ironic about the liar claim; not just that Sarkozy and Obama are two of the biggest liars in political history - but that (as I pointed out here) Arab lies are at the root of the whole Middle East narrative, but nobody has called them to account for it. It is certainly true that Netanyahu has lied - most notably every time recently when he has stated that Obama is a friend of Israel he has lied through his teeth to cover up for Obama and he has also lied when he states publicly that France and the other EU countries can be a force for good in the Middle East.

What is also incredible about this story is a) how it was first covered up willingly by the journalists present at the request of Sarkozy and Obama. Elder of Ziyon covers this aspect well; and b) how it has been barely mentioned in the left-wing dominated Israeli press (presumably because their hatred for Netanyahu is trumped only by their love for Obama, and even they realise this story is more damaging to Obama than it is to Netanyahu).

And of course Cameron the stooge, in attempting to distance himself from the faux-pas manages to make things worse, as the report states:

David Cameron's spokesman said Mr Netanyahu was "an important partner" in Middle East issues but that Britain did not agree with him on everything. "We think Israel needs to stop settlement building and return to talks," he said. 

Nice even-handed comment that, ignoring the fact that Israel ceased all 'settlement' activity for a year but it was the Palestinians who were the ones who refused to 'return to talks'.

Perhaps we are approaching the end game now. Israel never had any real friends but at least under Bush and Blair the US and the UK were not enemies (France after 1967 always was). That has now clearly changed. None of the 'major powers' will accept a 'peace deal' that is anything less than a full Israeli surrender to every Palestinian demands, so the peace process is dead.  And Israel will certainly have to deal with Iran alone.

What the pro-Israel lobby should be telling people

The various pro-Israel groups in the UK are desperate to tell the world how the Israelis are really decent people who understand the legitimate demands of the Palestinians, who want to have a two-state solution living in peace with their neighbours blah, blah. They even run courses now in how to argue with people who say Israel is an apartheid state (the essence being that you have to ream off all kinds of facts which attempt to disprove the claim).  But why should you give credibility to a lie by even responding to it?  If a stranger told you that he wanted to kill your mother because he had heard she was actually an alien from the planet Zog, would you attempt to list off to this stranger all of the many qualities of your mother that proved she was human rather than alien? I don't think so. What you should be doing is exposing the person who made the accusation as an ignorant bigoted nutjob. It is about time that the pro-Israel groups (and the Israeli government for that matter) started to tell the narrative as it is. And that is exactly how Pat Condell tells it here.

Why is a Palestinian Muslim so much more worthy than any other Muslim?

I have written before about how the Palestinians receive more international aid (and by a VERY long way) than any other people in the world despite being far wealthier per capita than many other countries (including almost all of Africa and several Arab countries). I have discovered a definitive - and indisputable - measure of the relative value of Muslims around the world as rated by the Muslims in the UK. Take a look at the table here sent to donors of the charity "Muslim Hands" (reg 1105056, Head Office 148 Gregory Boulevard, Nottingham). It very clearly puts a financial 'value' on Muslims in some 70 countries around the world. Although almost every country listed there has more Muslims than 'Palestine', the mandatory charity donation for 'Palestine' is £795 - three times more than the next most 'valued' country Algeria. Black Muslims in African countries - far poorer and more desperate than the Palestinians, are especially lowly valued. Malawi, which actually has nearly twice as many Muslims as 'Palestine' is worth just £35, meaning that each Palestinian Muslim is worth over 44 times more.

What is especially interesting about this is that the Charity clearly has some qualms about its Palestine 'valuation' because, unlike any other country listed, it breaks 'Palestine' into three 'sub countries', namely Palestine (Hebron), Palestine (Jersusalem), and Palestine (Gaza). Despite this the three Palestines still manage to comfortably get 1st, 2nd and 4th places in the value table. And quite why the Palestinians of Jerusalem are in there at all is especially puzzling. There are only 140,000 of them yet they are valued at a whopping £285. Although the average per capita income of a Jerusalem Muslim is about 30 times that of a Pakistani, the 174 million Pakistani Muslims are only valued at £55. Taking account of population size and per capita income that means a Palestinian in Jerusalem is valued nearly two hundred thousand times more than a Pakistani Muslim.

And to think that so many anti-Israel critics in the UK damned the 1000 to 1 Schalit deal as 'proof' that Israel valued Jewish lives so much more than Muslims.

I wonder why the Muslim world values Palestinian Muslims so far above all others?

Arab lies: the elephant in the room

I've just written the following self-explanatory letter to the Times:

Libya's acting PM Mahmoud Jibril  has continued to insist that Gaddafi was 'killed in crossfire'. The Libyans are saying the same about the death of Gaddafi's son Muatassim. Yet he was filmed after his capture in perfect health smoking a cigarette. Shortly after that, videos emerged of his slaughtered body.

No sane person mourns the murderous thug Gaddafi (although the Western leader now rejoicing his demise- Cameron, Blair, Obama, the Clintons and Sarkozi- were the very ones who for 6 years prior to the revolution told us he was fully rehabilitated and that people like me were bigoted for thinking he had not changed).

But what is interesting is that the top man in the 'new' Libya is clearly seen to be telling blatant lies and even some of the main stream media is raising eyebrows about it. What nobody is allowed to say - because they would be accused of being racists - is that telling lies is what Arabs do when they speak to the West. And this is the ultimate 'elephant in the room' of Middle East politics. When Arab leaders speak (and I am not just thinking of Assad and Ahmedinejad but they are especially good examples) almost every word they say is a lie. The entire Palestinian narrative, for example, is a lie and almost every claim ever made by Palestinian leaders against Israel is a lie. Yet the western media always accepts what they say at face value. In the light of the blatant lies now told by our 'allies' in Libya, perhaps the media will in future question what Arabs, and especially Palestinians, claim?

Hypocrisy all round

Spot the difference:

Exhibit A: 80 families - whose culture demands that they do not stay in one place for long  - live illegally on rich land for 8 years paying no taxes, doing no work, and are widely accused of harassing and stealing from their neighbours.

Exhibit B: 2000 families living legally -  indeed with the full encouragement of their government - for 35 years, on previously barren land that they developed from scratch themselves, paying taxes, working - indeed building farms, factories, greenhouses and generating work and wealth for their neighbours.

Both of these communities are forcibly removed from their homes by their own government. The United Nations, Amnesty International, and every left-wing group imaginable campaigns against these forced evictions in one case only, arguing that it is a breach of human rights.

Of course Exhibit A - the eviction of Gypsy families from Dale Farm, Essex - is the community which received the international support.
Exhibit B - the Jews of Gaza in 2005 - got none. Indeed those very same groups arguing for the 'human rights' of the Gypsies were the very ones who were demanding the eviction of the Jews.

And if you want further confirmation of the lack of irony of the Left here is a quote from Minty Challis, one of the left-wing demonstrators who went to Dale Form to support the Gypsies: "The travellers' suffering was the same as that of the Palestinians in Gaza".

It would be hard to make this stuff up, and I'm surprised nobody has picked up on both the irony and hypocrisy of the situation. But just looking through today's newspapers there are plenty more examples of the same type:

• Turkey - the country which was most opposed to Israel's attacks on Hamas to stop the rockets and terrorism from Gaza is today brutally massacring the Kurds in its own territory and across the border in neighbouring Iraq following an attack by Kurdish rebels against a Turkish army base.  The same Turks who stated that Israel had no right of self-defence when its civilians were attacked every day, is now saying it will use unprecedented force against the Kurds. And whereas the whole world - including the US - was outraged by Israel's 'disproportionate' self defence, the whole world has either stayed silent about the Turks or - as in the case of the US and UK government - has actually issued statements of support for the Turks' actions.
• Spain - the most vociferous of all the European countries in demanding that Israel make concessions to Hamas (whose charter demands the killing of every Jew in the world)  - has today announced it will refuse to negototiate with the ETA organisation even though ETA has said it has now renounced violence.
• The US, Britain, and France who all fiercely condemned the targeted killing by Israel of Hamas's arch terrorist in chief Sheikh Yassin and his successor Rantisi a few years ago, are all today congratulating themselves over the death of Gaddafi - following a targetted attack by their own forces that was followed up by a public lynching by the NATO-led 'rebels'. And remember this is the same Gadaffi who the US, Britain and France told us was completely rehabilitated (until his people rebelled) and was a person we had to respect fully. 
• Another day another massacre of peacefully demonstrating civilians by the Syrian government. And as usual not a peep from all those governments in the world who immediately condemn Israel if a single Palestinian is harmed in any way even while committing a terrorist act.

The next time Israel is dragged before the UN for censure, instead of apologising it may wish to refer to some of the above.

See also this for a different spin on this story.

The Deal

Among a number of fine articles exposing problems with the Gilad Shalit deal Sultan Knish's is the best I have read on this subject.

What the deal really means is revolving door terrorism is back. Kill Israelis and you stay in prison only long enough for other terrorists to kidnap an Israeli and win their release. Those 25 year sentences mean nothing. A life sentence doesn't mean life, it means however many years it takes the Israeli government to give in to blackmail.

Elder of Ziyon has details here and here of examples of some of  the ruthless, remorseless child killers being released. And remember these terrorists will all receive a hero's welcome. 


As more details are released the deal looks even worse than first feared. For example,the Jerusalem Post reports that while Israel agreed to refrain from ever targeting any of the released terrorists, Hamas did not agree to refrain from future kidnappings.

What hope for Israel if this is one of its ‘advocates’?

I went to the first in a series of what are billed ‘Israel Advocacy’ meetings at a Jewish community centre this evening. I understand the meeting was sponsored by BICOM (who I am sending a copy of this report). Indeed the speaker Dr Noam Leshem said at the start of his presentation that he was responsible for writing much of BICOM’s advocacy material. That is deeply troubling, because what we heard from Dr Leshem would not have been out of place at a Palestine Solidarity Committee meeting. The whole point of BICOM is that it is supposed to challenge the anti-Israel narrative that dominates the main stream media. If I had wanted to hear yet another hour about Palestinian victimhood I could have turned on the BBC or Al Jazeera. And while I consider myself knowledgeable enough  to have seen through the propaganda, there were many in the audience, who came there expecting to learn how to speak up for Israel, who would have gone away actually thinking there was no point.

Dr Leshem teaches Geography at Royal Holloway College and has a PhD about the conflicting histories of the Israel/Palestine conflict. He was born in Israel, but has presumably spent most of his academic life in the USA and the UK. He is typical of many left-wing Israelis who sees Israel as being the source of all problems in the Middle East, while Arabs have nothing to answer for.

So we certainly did not get any Israel advocacy but we did get plenty of revisionist history in which he essentially presented the Palestinian narrative of it, and he claimed that the conflict could be resolved if only the Israelis were more aware of Arab sensitivities. His central thesis (and he reminded us arrogantly several times that he had researched this for six years) was that the ‘conflict’ was simply a ‘labour’ struggle in which the Jews forced out Arab labourers from working the scarce agricultural land that was available. He even argued that land bought legally by Jews from Arab owners really belonged to the other Arabs (i.e. the non-owners) who lived on that land.

He claimed that the conflict officially started with the Arab revolt in 1935 (he conveniently ignored the many previous pogroms committed by Arabs against Jews in the 1920s including the massacre of most of the Jewish population of Hebron in 1929, but in his view of the world there was no such thing as Arab terrorism). He claimed the 1935 Arab revolt was evidence that the Arabs – and not the Jews – were the first to assert a national Palestinian identify. To support his argument he actually quoted a claim by Rashid Khalidi that the Palestinian Arabs asserted their national Palestinian identity in the early nineteenth century (failing to inform the audience that Khalidi is an extreme Palestinian propagandist who funded the Gaza flotilla ship that sailed from America). Even more outrageously (and ignoring all the evidence that the British gave the Arabs free reign to murder Jews) he claimed that the British crushed the 1935 Arab revolt with such force that it wiped out the entire (Arab) Palestinian leadership as well as all their infrastucture and funding; and that it was this act by the British which enabled the Jews to establish themselves more effectively and was the reason why the Jews were able to win the War on Independence in 1948.

Leshem spoke a lot about the need to accommodate the Palestinian 'refugees', which prompted one member of the audience to raise the issue of the 800,000 Jewish refugees forced to flee Arab lands.  He  was asked specifically about why the Israeli government did not make more political capital from the Jewish 'naqba'. His response was abrupt and rude. He said something like 'that is a dead subject - there is absolutely nothing to be gained from raising it and I advise people never to bring it up as it can only make the situation worse'.

According to Noam Leshem the Arabs and not the Jews were the first to assert a Palestinian identity. So how would he explain these posters from the 1940s?

In response to a question about why he failed to mention the religious aspect of the conflict (such as Muslim intolerance of Jews) his response was that there were fanatics in every religion and that the biggest threat to Israel came from the Jewish West Bank settlers (he gave the example of his car being petrol bombed in the West Bank while on Army reserve duty).

Most worrying of all is that, if he is telling the truth about his current activities, he has the ear of Israeli and Arab politicians at the highest level and appears to be discussing with them the forthcoming UN vote.

Whoever he is advising it should certainly not be BICOM, but it is indicative of the spinelessness of British Jewry that they can use a guy like this as one of their prominent spokesman on behalf of Israel.

World Gone Mad

The madness in the world surely cannot be better summed up than today's headlines and the reporting behind them.

The big story is that thousands of Egyptian 'democrats' have stormed and partially destroyed the Israeli embassy in Cairo. All the Israeli staff managed to get our before being killed but it is unlikely that any shall ever return to Egypt. Yet, according to BBC Radio London (the only news I listened to today) the rioters are only 'demonstrating because Israel killed 5 Egyptian policemen last month' (a complete lie and totally irrelevant but so long as it enables the BBC to create the impression that riots in Cairo directed against Jews is the fault of Israel then that is OK).

And what does the world say about it? Nothing - not one single condemnation. We know that Obama has 'spoken with Netanyahu' (probably to warn him not to do anything about it). But Obama has issued a damning condemnation of ... Israel for some kids writing graffiti on a West Bank mosque in revenge for the army destroying a Jewish outpost of three houses at Migron. The US State Departments says "Israel must arrest culprits".

And the madness is completed with this headline: G8 to extend Arab Spring financing pledge to $38 billion.

So we will can all look forward to financing the increasing Islamisation of Egypt and Tunisia (a country where anti-Semitism is also about to get a whole lot worse).

Comparing the response to 9/11 with the response to Pearl Harbour

If aliens came down to earth this week and watched the plethora of 9/11 documentaries that have been showing in the UK (and I believe also in the US), then they would believe that it was some kind of a terrible natural disaster in which the primary victims were Muslims. A brilliant analysis by Sultan Knish explains in full how the important historical lessons have been whitewashed out, primarily so as to not upset Muslim sentiment. As he says this leads to the following kind of ramifications:

The Pew polls show a steady growth in the number those who believe that American wrongdoing led to the attacks-- from a third after the attacks, to 43 percent today. Give the enemy another decade to do its work and those numbers will be in the sixties. And their game is simple enough, remove the actual history and the images of the massacres-- and replace it with an emphasis on foreign policy. Mix in news stories about Islamophobia, stir the pot a little and you're done.

It is especially interesting to compare the 9/11 documentaries with the documentaries about the Pearl Harbour attack. Whereas the level of destruction and cost of human life were very similar, the latter documentaries focus almost entirely on the Japanese attackers and their motives and strategy. For 9/11 there apparently were no attackers with motives. The attacks simply 'happened'.

But the documentaries also reflect the very different responses to the two events. If the response to Pearl Harbour had been the same as that of 9/11, the US would have declared a 'war against fighter aircraft that have the potential to attack ships' with a clear statement that 'this in no way linked to the great nation of Japan which, like Nazi Germany, is a nation of peace'. This might  have been followed by a few sorties against Japanese fighter aircraft (and, as a token to prove there was no bias against the Japanese people, some British spitfires would also have been attacked). This would have been followed by years of appeasement of Japan and Germany, plus massive funding of 'moderate' Japanese and Nazi institutions. The media would have devoted most of its time on identifying what the US had done to invite the attacks. For example, it would no doubt have focused on the US refusal to help Germany invade Britain, thus stopping the natural hegemony of Nazi control of the whole of Europe. Indeed Britain (and Singapore) would have become the focus of hatred for provoking the Nazis (Japs) and daring to protect their right to exist. By 1945 America would have been a Japanese colony, and to this day Europe would still be under Nazi rule.

Conversely, if the response to 9/11 had been similar to the actual response to Pearl Harbour then the US would have declared war on all Islamic fundamentalists and would not have stopped until Islam was totally eradicated throughout the world as a supremacist belief. The first targets would have been Iran and Saudi Arabia. The war would only have finished with a prolonged programme of 'de-Islamification' (the de-Nazification  programme for Germany took many years to work even though the people had only been indoctrinated for 10 years. Islamists have been indoctrinating Muslims for 1300 years).

Anyway, on the subject of anniversaries of terrible events, the Jersualem Post reminds us today of an event I knew nothing about (in fact, I find it shocking that this event has simply been forgotten). In 1941  the Italian Air Force launched a bombing campaign against central Tel Aviv resulting in 137 deaths and widespread damage. Although Palestine, as it then was, was under British control and Britain was at war with Italy, there was no possible military purposes whatsoever for the attack; at the time Tel Aviv had not a single military installation and no air defences at all. There were other parts of Palestine that had British military bases, but of course what Tel Aviv had was a lot Jews trying to build their city and live their lives in peace. So I cannot imagine why that, of all places, would have been specially targeted for death and destruction .....

And finally here is a reminder of what I wrote on a previous anniversay of 9/11. As each year passes the satire looks increasingly like reality.

Postscript: Elder of Ziyon reminds us of the Palestinian celebrations that followed the 9/11 attacks  You will never see these videos again in the UK. This has been officially written out of media history. Instead, the documentaries focus on the handful of Muslim victims of 9/11 or the completely fabricated notion that there was a widespread 'anti-Muslim' reaction; and in the Hollywood films about 9/11 you see scenes of Muslims and Arabs around the world stunned, crying and praying. And Elder also has an article with an eye witness account of the celebrations in Lebanon.

Postscript 2: Although Sultan Knish's analysis suggests a kind of a universal Western strategy of deliberately downplaying the horror of terrorist attacks and ignoring the attackers and their motives this is, of course, only true when the attackers are Muslims (which admittedly they are in 99% of cases). So, for example, in the Norway attacks, the media were completely obsessed in exposing the 'far right' motives of the killer and you can be sure that in years to come the many documentaries about the Norway attack will focus entirely on the killer and not (as in 9/11) on the killer's 'right-wing' victims (who actually include notable anti-Jihadists like Robert Spencer, who the media outrageously accused of inspiring the killer).

Postscript 3: Anybody who doubts that David Cameron is the most dangerously anti-Israel Prime Minister in Britain's history should look at the speech he made today to commemorate the 9/11 attacks. As reported by the Evening Standard

The Prime Minister accepted that America, Britain and other European nations had to address Muslim grievances, including solving the Arab-Israeli conflict.

Since we know he believes that Israeli 'intransgence' is the only reason for lack of Arab-Israeli peace, it follows that he sees Israel as a primary cause of 9/11.  As Melanie Phillips discusses today

The problem lies at the political level. While many Tory backbenchers support Israel, the government - with some very honourable exceptions -- is hostile.

So much so that a group of Tory MPs and others in the party who are well-disposed to Israel have reportedly formed an informal group to prevent David Cameron from throwing Israel under the bus altogether.

This group has become very alarmed by the government's repeated sniping against Israel, such as Cameron's calculated gesture of hostility in stepping down as patron of the JNF.

The Times uses anti-Israel terrorist supporter as Israel's spokesperson

When the Turkel report into the Mavi Marmura incident cleared Israel of any wrongdoing and put the blame firmly on Turkey (which sponsored the terrorists on board who attacked the Israelis) the world either took no notice or, if they did, called it a whitewash. The usual Israel haters demanded a UN enquiry since they know that anything sponsored by the UN has a built-in anti-Israel bias. Well, the UN's own Palmer enquiry has reached almost the same conclusions as Turkel. The Palmer report also backed Israel's legal right to impose a naval blockade on Gaza.  Yet the main-stream media has managed to ignore all of that and has chosen to focus on the one, relatively small, part of the Palmer report which is critical of Israel (it said Israeli commandos used "excessive and unacceptable force"). For example, Sky News which did not spend one second covering the recent barrage of rocket attacks against Israel or the terrorist attack last week in Tel Aviv, suddenly found room on Friday evening to focus as a main item every hour exclusively on this one negative aspect of the Palmer report.  Elder of Ziyon has highlighted that this is also exactly the stance of Amnesty International.

But, by far the worst example of this is the Times on 3 September. Ignoring completely the ongoing massacres in Syria and the current massacres of Kurds being carried out by both Turkey and Iran (which in a sane world would be the focus of international anger) the Times has chosen to dedicate the entire front page of its World News section to an article by James Hider - in Turkey of course - which castigates Israel and casts Turkey as the honourable country for expelling the Israel ambassador. But it is the last paragraph of the report which is the piece de resistance and prompted me to write the following self-explanatory letter to the Times:

Dear Sirs

James Hider's full page article "Israel isolation grows as ambassador thrown out over blockade ship raid" is one of the most ignorant and biased reports ever written in the Times.

The main findings of the Palmer report, which the article is supposed to be about, were that Israel's naval blockade of Gaza was legal and that Turkey had colluded with a terrorist organisation - the IHH - to breach this legal blockade. Yet the article focuses on the one, relatively small, part of the Palmer report which is critical of Israel (it said Israeli commandos used "excessive and unacceptable force"). Having failed to either present the Israeli case or quote a single Israeli source anywhere else in the article, Hider ends with the following:

The report's finding that the blockade is legitimate was rejected by Hanin Zoabi of the Israeli parliament, who called for "those who sent the army to stop the flotilla [to] be brought before international tribunals"

What Hider fails to inform his readers is that Zoabi is an Arab member of Parliament who is dedicated to the destruction of Israel and who was actually on the Mavi Mamura with the Turkish IHH terrorists - an act which rightly got her suspended from Parliament.

Such malicious and deliberately misleading reporting is unbecoming of the Times. In fact, the article seems to be nothing more than a propaganda piece for the Turkish government.  Hider would be advised to inform readers about what is really going on in Turkey at the moment. I strongly recommend he looks at the writing of a real expert such as Barry Rubin here.

Yours Edgar Davidson

It is also interesting to note that the same edition of the Times has a lead article (page 2) about the disruption of the Israeli Philharmonic Orchestra at the Royal Albert Hall. The article is promisingly tagged "Disruption of a concert by Israeli musicians was not legitimate protest but bigotry". However, the main argument of the article is that the concert should not have been disrupted because the IPO is not representative of the Israeli Government - it even makes the irrelevant point that it 'was founded in 1936' , i.e. before the State of Israel was born (so we can only assume that Times would support the disruptors if, for example, the members of the IPO declared themselves to be happy with the State of Israel). Moreover, the article ploughs in with the usual caveats like "The Times has criticised Israeli policies on security and the settlements" and it bizarrely reminds readers that the Times "exposed the use of white phosphorus by the Israel Defence Force despite official denials in Gaza in 2009".  Using the white phosphorus issue to demonize Israel with is something that should have been nailed long ago. For a start white phosphorus is not an illegal weapon - it is used to create smoke or illuminate a target and has been used by American and other NATO forces; Israel did not deny its use in Gaza. So the Times is, as usual talking rubbish. But it turns out that only today the claims that had been made by Hamas (and believed by the West) that white phosphorus had caused injuries in Gaza have been proved false in the latest wikileaks material.

Israel being pounded to the delight of the Palestinians - but it's all her fault

The rocket barrage against Southern Israel continues relentlessly - another 15 rockets today causing widespread damage and also injuring a 9 month old child. Elder of Ziyon reports on how the Palestinians are rejoicing in the terror they are causing. And Israel is afraid to hit back not just because of 'world opinion' but now also for fear of upsetting the Egyptians. Yet look at what the top 'World News' headline is at this very moment on Google News:

The Palestinians have now manipulated the western media to the extent that they simply cannot lose. No amount of rockets or terrorism they commit will even be reported any more, while even if Israel, does not respond (or restricts itself as it has done the last week to targeting only terrorists in the act of firing rockets) the media will say they are causing the problems.

The time has surely come for Israel to defend its citizens once and for all. Forget 'world opinion' which will damn Israel whether it acts or does not.

Dealing with anti-semitic hatred

A powerful piece by David Keyes at Israel Hayom highlights the inevitable consequences of Israel's decision to allow Hamas to thrive on its doorstep. Nothing comparable would be allowed by any other nation on earth.

FresnoZionism provides the details of how it was Egyptian soldiers who were guilty of murdering Israeli Officer Pascal Avrahami last week, providing further proof of how logic was turned upside down by Israel's bizarre apology. As he says:

Egypt should apologize and compensate Israel for the death of Avrahami. Of course this won’t happen. The rules in the Middle East say that Israel is always wrong, that Arabs are allowed to kill Jews with impunity, and that Israel should apologize for existing.

Barry Rubin talks about the anti-semitic conspiracy theories that dominate the Arab narrative.  He writes:

Then yesterday a correspondent wrote me asking if what an Arab professor told him was true: that most Arab leaders, including Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi and also Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, were secretly Jewish.

Whenever a large number of Muslims feel animosity to any particular leader there is inevitably a widely-held conspiracy theory that the leader is either Jewish or funded by Israel. This is not restricted to Arabs in the Middle East. I know many supposedly intelligent Asian Muslims in the UK who, for example, are now convinced that Ghadaffi is a Jew. Three years ago I was shocked to see a documentary in which every student in the top private school in Kabul believed that George Bush was evil because he was a Jew. Yet I have since discovered that many Muslims in the UK are also convinced that Bush is a Jew.

Multicultural London 2011

Richard Millett reports on the demonstration that took place in London yesterday. It is clear that in 'multicultural' Britain the sensitivities of everyone are considered except those of Jews.

The casual anti-Israel, anti-semitism tsunami continues

While Israel is being bombarded by terrorists,  the casual world-wide anti-Israel tsunami continues, from boycotting Jewish owned chocolate shops in Australia to demonstrations in London against any attempt by Israel to stop terrorism. And you certainly cannot avoid it even if you stick to show business news. The Sunday Telegraph Magazine (that's the same Telegraph today which could not find space in its 500-odd pages for any mention of the unprecedented attacks against Israel) has a feature today on the actress Kirsten Dunst and look what is in the very first paragraph:

"The actress's latest film, Melancholia, was a favourite to win the Palme d'Or until its director Lars von Trier, joked during a press conference that he 'understood Hitler', adding, 'Israel is a pain in the ass'.

This actually happened in May (although I never read anything about it). After some google searching I discovered that von Trier was ejected from the festival, but only on account of his Hitler comments, not the fact that he had demonized an entire country.  And Dunst provides the following 'understanding' of von Trier:

"It came from a very dark and twisted sense of humour,..., obviously it is not something he actually believed".

In fact von Trier has stood by his 'Israel is a pain in the ass' comment but has half-heartedly apologised for describing himself as a Nazi. So that's all right then. And of course, the incident did not stop the Festival glorifying von Trier anyway - his film still picked up awards (including best actress for Dunst).

On a brighter note: there are a couple of showbiz people prepared to stand up for Israel (and have, of course, been accused of being loony right-wingers for doing so) in its time of need. Take a bow Glenn Beck and John Voight.

The media (and the Israeli government) have gone mad

When I reported Thursday that the media was adopting its usual anti-Israel bias in the reporting of the unprecedented terrorist attacks and subsequent rocket barrage (over 150 attacks on Southern Israel in the last 3 days  - live coverage of the continuing rocket bombardment in Israeli is here) even I did not expect the extent of how bad things would be. Take a look at today's Telegraph - the only serious newspaper in the UK that is supposedly 'sympathetic' to Israel (in fact, like the Sun, it has not been 'sympathetic' to Israel for several years now). Despite the fact that terrorists under the control of Iran are mounting an unprovoked war against Israel, the ONLY mention of Israel in its massive Sunday edition is a brief paragraph stating that Israel's 'killing of Egyptian security guards' has led to the Egyptian ambassador from Israel being recalled. No mention of the terrorist attacks; no mention of the death in Beersheba yesterday, no mention of the school destroyed or the fact that 20% of the entire Israeli population are in shelters unable to move. Nor does any of this information appear anywhere else in any Western media outlet at all (although, of course you will find plenty of mentions of Israel 'pounding Gaza', even though they are not this time - more of that below).

The incident with the Egyptians is well covered here and here. What is especially bizarre about this is that Ehud Barak - the worst politician in Israel's history - actually apologized to Egypt. Remember Barak is also the person who, before looking at the evidence, apologized for the  'killing' of Muhammed Al-dura in September 2000; although this was subsequently proved to be a hoax it directly led to a thousand Israeli civilians being murdered in the subsequent intifada and the entire Muslim world has been indoctrinated about the Al-dura myth. Barak's motives this time were the same as in 2000. He feels that apologising for something the Israelis were not responsible for is worth doing if it can 'help calm things down'.

But the ineptitude of the Israeli government extends beyond Barak. Now that it is clear the war launched last Thursday is being directed by Iran and its proxies Islamic Jihad (as opposed to Hamas) the government has decided to do nothing (presumably for fear of offending President Obama), and has abdicated from its responsibility to defend its citizens from attack. Even worse, it is actually relying on the Egyptian military to do its job for it in the Sinai now -  a move that is monumentally stupid on two accounts: 1) The Egyptians will not halt the terrorists, but will actually provide direct support to them and 2) It allows an Egyptian military presence in the Sinai, even though this breaches the conditions of the 1979 peace agreement, and hence ensures that within a short number of years Israel will be facing a Sinai war with Egypt.

These are very worrying times indeed, all the more so for the fact that Barak is in charge of Israel's defence.

Multiple terrorist attacks against Israel produce the usual media response

The multiple terrorist attacks against Southern Israel today have resulted so far in at least 8 dead Israelis, including an entire family in a car hit by an anti-tank missile. Although this is an enormous story, both because of the scale of the attacks and the fact that the terrorists came through (the now terrorist supporting) Egypt as well as Gaza, it is already clear that the Western media will be following the standard guidelines for reporting it (if they do at at all). So, for example, at 3.00pm (4 hours after the story broke) it did not appear at all on the BBC News website homepage, which listed the following items:

• A-level passes rise for 29th year
• Man arrested over phone hacking
• Man Utd to sell off stake in club
• Stock markets see further falls
• Funerals due for riot death men
• Libya rebels 'take' key refinery

Nor did the the story feature at all at that stage in Google News 'top stories'. Most revealing (albeit no longer surprising) is the fact that Haaretz (the idiotic left-wing Israel newspaper) was trying to convince readers in its first reports of the attacks (which it has now removed) that these were not terrorist attacks at all.

But at 5.45pm when Israel responded by killing the leader of the group in Gaza who  organized today's attacks, guess what news headline suddenly appeared on the BBC news home page? "Israel pounds Gaza after attacks". And Google news now had the headline (via the Guardian) "Israel launches Gaza air strikes in retaliation for Eilat attacks".

And of course, in stark contrast to the coverage of the Norway attack last month, you will certainly not be seeing in any of tomorrow's newspapers the names, let alone the life stories, of the Israeli victims.  Nor will there be either widespread condemnation of the perpetrators or of the Islamic indoctrination of anti-Semitic hatred which inspired the attacks. But no doubt there will be plenty of voices condemning Israel for daring to defend itself.

19 August update: The death toll is up to 9 from yesterday's attacks and the whole of Southern Israel is under rocket bombardment at the moment - 10 injured, for example, by rockets reaching as far north as Ashdod. Yet, true to form, the entire Western media is totally ignoring these acts of war. Not a word about yesterday's - or today's attacks - on ANY of the major TV and radio news channels this morning (I checked BBC, Sky News, LBC).

Demonsrations

Been in Israel for the past couple of weeks (hence lack of postings). Have been mingling with the demonstrators here (will post pictures etc when I return) and even joined the very big march on Saturday night (despite my severe misgivings about how this has all been controlled by hardline leftists). Very interesting to compare the peaceful nature of the demonsrators here (many of whom have genuine social grievances) with the violence now in the UK.

Norwegian hypocrisy

My sympathy at the terrible loss of life in Norway does not extend to their left-wing politicians who dominate the country's political narrative. I have just heard one of their senior government members on the BBC news claim that, with the 'possible exception of the Beslan massacre', the Norway attack was 'unprecedented because it was the only terrorist attack in history in which children were specifically targeted'.

Of course, according to most Norwegians, when Palestinians massacre Israeli children in their dozens in schools (as they did in Maalot in 1974) in their hundreds on buses (as they did during the second intifada and numerous previous occasions) at a disco, and even when they decapitate Israeli toddlers and babies as they did this year in Itamar, none of that counts as terrorism. The Norwegians are usually the first to 'explain' that the attackers had 'justified grievances'.

And let's also demolish the myth that our media and the Norwegians have been pushing, that the victims at Utoya Island were schoolchildren at a summer holiday camp. They were, in fact, mostly young adults who were all part of the Young Socialist League at a political indoctrination event. None of these people deserved to be harmed in any way, but take a look at the photo above (courtesy of the Blaze, where you can read the full story) to see the kind of 'harmless' activity they were involved with the very day before the attack. The Israeli kids who were killed in real schools, buses and discos, certainly weren't calling for the boycott and even destruction of a democratic state that they knew nothing about.

In a Europe where countries fight with themselves to be seen as the leaders in anti-Israel activism Norway reigns supreme by a long distance. And, for all its supposed tolerance of minorities, it also leads the way in classic anti-Semitism.

My thoughts go out to the Norwegian victims and their families and friends. But the Norwegian politicians can take a running jump (even more so when you see this from the Norwegian Ambassador to Israel).

NOTE: Have a look at the above story presented with a slightly different twist on my "Free Palestine Now" blog. Thanks to some timely comments on left-wing blogs my postings there have received some incredible hit statistics.

Something new

One of the problems with a blog like this is that, because of its name and description, it is inevitably going to be restricted to readers who are already pre-disposed to its narrative, i.e. it is 'preaching to the converted'.

So I am trying out something different. I have created a new blog called "Free Palestine Now" where I plan to put some of my key postings, but under a different title and description.

Responses from Lush about its Death to Israel campaign

Updated 20 July: Below is the correspondence with Lush about their Death to Israel campaign that I previously reported on their website.   Interestingly, as Richard Millett points out, Lush have now opened a shop in Brent Cross (a shopping centre in a Jewish area of London). Hopefully shoppers will get informed about what Lush stands for.  What I am sure of is that shoppers who object to Lush's promotion of terrorism will not behave in the same appalling way as anti-Israel activists have behaved against another London cosmetics shop -  Ahava - for no reason other than that it sells Israeli products.

Dear Edgar,

Thank you for your email. I'm sorry to hear you're disappointed with Lush's support for the OneWorld project.

The history between Israel and Palestine is long, complicated and often under dispute. However, what is very clear is the level of suffering occurring today, in part due to the construction of the wall which is cutting Palestinian people off from vital health services and has dramatically increased poverty in the area. History does not excuse such suffering. It will take both sides to come to a solution, but what is also clear is that this is not a conflict of two equal sides and thus the onus must be on the dominating force, Israel. The OneWorld project is supported by both Palestinian and Israeli organisations and aims to help create peace for both sides.

We support organisations fighting for human rights all around the world on a variety of issues, from the freedom of West Papua and Tibet to labour rights of workers in India, women's rights in Africa and environmental rights of indigenous people in Latin America. Whilst there are many other issues we have not supported, there are sadly limitations as to how much we can do.
Throughout the course of the year we support many humanitarian, animal and environmental causes, many of which are nominated by our own customers. We welcome and value all feedback, so thank you for getting in touch with us. I will be sure to pass your comments on to our Campaigns team for future consideration.

Kind regards,

Vicky Jansson
Customer Care Manager
Lush Ltd.

 And here is my response to this letter:

*****************************************

Dear Vicky,

Thank you for taking the trouble to reply. 

I am obliged to respond to the following points you made:

The history between Israel and Palestine is long, complicated and often under dispute.

Yes and it is clear that the people at Lush have absolutely no understanding about it, because they have accepted the narrative of political activists whose objective is nothing less than the destruction of the Jewish State. Have you ever thought about the possibility that almost every piece of information being promoted by those people is a lie? Have you, or any of your Lush colleagues ever been to Israel (and I don’t include trips to the ‘West Bank’ under the protection of anti-Israel groups) and spent time with Israelis? Clearly not,  because if any of them had they will know that the narrative presented on the Lush website is a total lie.

However, what is very clear is the level of suffering occurring today, in part due to the construction of the wall which is cutting Palestinian people off from vital health services and has dramatically increased poverty in the area.

The “Wall” is actually a security fence that was constructed as a last resort  measure to stop the almost daily suicide bombings that claimed the lives of some 2,000 Israeli civilians between 2000-2004.  The security fence has drastically reduced the number of terrorist attacks from the West Bank and means, for example,  that some parents no longer have to insist on their children travelling on different buses to school (during 2000-2004 most Israeli parents had to take this decision on the assumption that if one bus was attacked at least one child would survive).  Many Palestinians are very upset that their right to kill Jews at will has been restricted by the security fence, and other Palestinians have no doubt been inconvenienced by the additional security measures when travelling into Israel, but wouldn’t you think that is a price worth paying to stop your child being blown to bits on a bus or in a café (and please note, that the various Palestinian terrorist groups who are supported directly by the War on Want Charity you are promoting are very open about their desire to target Israeli children). 

As for health and poverty of the Palestinians: are you not aware that the life expectancy in the Palestinian territories is the highest in the entire Arab world?  Indeed, the life expectancy in Gaza is significantly higher than in Glasgow, so perhaps you should be redirecting you charitable attention there.  As for poverty, why not take a look at the Palestinians own pictures of Gaza here

You say

The OneWorld project is supported by both Palestinian and Israeli organisations and aims to help create peace for both sides.

Well there are certainly Israelis and Israeli organisations who campaign ferociously for the destruction of the State of Israel as a Jewish State, but they are no more representative of Israeli society than George Galloway or Abu Hamza are of the UK.  Can you point to a single reputable Israeli organisation that supports the statement on your website (as opposed to the benign aims of OneWorld)?

The more I read the website article the more ludicrous are the claims. For example, in addition to the nonsense about 'sub-Saharan poverty levels we have this:

 “life for most Palestinians living under the illegal Israeli occupation is at least as bad as that endured by black South Africans in the bad old days of apartheid.” 

The West Bank is officially “disputed territory” not “illegally occupied” and the “apartheid” analogy is bizarre in this context. It would be just as meaningful to say that poverty levels in Glasgow are at apartheid levels.  Clearly the statement was intended to promote, indirectly, the false notion of Israel as an apartheid state.  There are certainly several apartheid states in the area but Israel is not one of them. The Apartheid states are all Arab: a total of 0 Jews live in Gaza and the Palestinian Authority areas, 0 Jews live in Jordan and Saudi Arabia (where in both countries it is illegal to be a citizen if you are a Jew) and less than a handful of Jews live in all of the other Arab countries combined. Less than 60 years ago those Arab countries had thriving communities of Jews totally some 1,000,000.  They have all been driven out. But, of course you never heard their narrative did you?

We also have the nonsense about 'Israeli crimes' and the claim that "the US, UK and other governments have consistently rewarded Israeli aggression with economic benefits and closer political ties." Can you provide a single example of any country in the world who would not commit the 'crime' of defending its people from continued terrorist and rocket attacks from neighbours dedicated to its destruction (in this case those 'peace loving' Palestinians you refer to). I think Israel has more of a right to defend itslef against Hamas agrression than the British have in bombing Libyan cities, but I don't see anything on your website about the 'crime' of the British bombing campaign. As for the 'rewards', please provide a single example of that also.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, exactly why does a parochial UK cosmetics shop feel it is its duty is to deligitimize the only free democracy in the entire Middle East?

Yours

Edgar Davidson

*************************************

Response from Vicky Jansson on 14 June:

**************************************

Dear Edgar,

Thank you for getting back to us, though we are sorry that we have not been able to assure you of the intentions of our campaign.

Our products are fun and effective, we have a great time making them and hope that our customers feel the same when they are using them. We are also lucky enough to be in a position to donate proceeds and profits from many of our products to causes that are important to us, though we can understand how disappointing it is when a company you buy from does not share all your views.

We will carry on making fresh and effective cosmetics which will continue to benefit people, animals and the environment, and we'll always be glad to serve you as a customer should you choose to come into any of our shops.

Thank you for contacting us again and we appreciate your feedback.

Kind regards

Vicky Jansson
Customer Care
Lush Retail Ltd.

The Sun website now addresses my complaints

My letter about the Sun's anti-Israel coverage of recent stories now also appears in bold immediately underneath their web versions of the articles. You can see it under the 16 May article here and under the 6 June article here (on that one you need to scroll to the second story). A summary of the case will shortly appear on the Press Complaints Commission website.

Deligitimization of Israel: widespread academic ignorance?

The anti-Israel obsession throughout academia has been tackled widely elsewhere. What intrigues me is how much of this is due to pure anti-semitism and how much is due to just latent anti-semitism mixed with  ignorant  'group think', driven by the relentless anti-Israel narrative in the main stream media. A very interesting example of the latter casual anti-Israel demonisation is reported at the end of the full report found here from a recent academic legal conference (which actually featured Lord Justice Leveson who is the judge appointed to head the phone tapping enquiry). The Professor reports:

On a less positive note, there was one part of the conference that I found uncomfortable.The last thing I would expect to have to contend with at a conference like this is ignorant deligitimisation of Israel (as a Jew with family ties to Israel I am particular sensitive to this and attuned to the extent to which it is perpetrated). Yet this is what happened during a session on “Picturing the truth? Drawing, seeing evidence”. Jill Gibbon (Open University) gave a talk entitled “Unveiling the arms trade: satire, seeing and evidence” in which she described her experiences of making drawings at arms fairs. I was not exactly sure how the talk fitted into the conference theme, but that was not what concerned me. What concerned and upset me was that Dr Gibbon took the opportunity to make political statements condemning Israel that were not only completely out of context from her own talk, but were completely false. Specifically, following on from comments and drawings ridiculing Israeli representatives at the Paris arms fair (which at least fell within the context of the talk) Dr Gibbon stated that “only 6 months after this fair Israel attacked Gaza and killed over 1000 civilians on the pretext of stopping arms smuggling tunnels”.I was forced to point out, at the end of her talk that a) Israel’s actions in Gaza were not as stated, but in response to over 5000 rockets fired at civilian targets in Israel; and b) it has now been definitively proven that over 800 of the people killed in Gaza were Hamas members – with the proportion of civilians killed far less than in any other comparable war in history, showing the extraordinary lengths Israel went to avoid civilian deaths. To be fair, Dr Gibb did apologise afterwards and said that she should have checked the facts better. What we both agreed on was that she was simply repeating the kind of standard anti-Israel narrative that dominates the British media.

 Note how, even though the speaker admitted to having no real knowledge or understanding of the conflict, she felt entirely comfortable and natural in selecting Israel as the country to demonise. It is inconceivable that she would have singled out any other country in the world without thinking more carefully about the facts and who she might possibly offend.

Letter in the Sun, Friday 1 July 2011

As you can see here, finally as result of my battle with the Sun a letter by me appeared in today's issue (and they even made it look like I'm George Clooney!). There will also be some kind of apology/statement added to the Sun's web pages of the orginal articles in question. I have found the 16 May article online (this was the least offensive of the two) but not the other and as yet can see no kind of statement (although they have possibly changed some of the text). But I can still see plenty of hate-filled comments posted there. Anyway, here is the text of my letter:

Two items (16 May, 6 June) stating Israel had killed dozens of Palestinian Arab demonstrators were based on false claims provided by Arab terrorist organisations and the tyrannical regime of Syria. The Sun failed to state the source of the claims or present Israel’s version of events, which proved to be true.  Israel was defending its borders from attack; no deaths were corroborated. Israel is a tiny state smaller than Wales surrounded by terrorist enemies sworn to its destruction. These enemies launch constant rocket and terrorist attacks (normally unreported) targeted at  Israeli civilians. Occasionally, after overwhelming provocation (such as above) Israel defends itself. The media should not automatically accept the false narrative of Arabs as victims and Israel as the villain. Israel is the only democracy in the region.

As I have said many times before: People concerned about Israel worry too much about the anti-Israel agenda of the Guardian. Their tiny readership is going to be (mostly) obsessively anti-Israel no matter how the paper covers the Middle East. But the Sun - with its massive readership (25 times more than the Guardian) - has far more influence on the average Brit. Sun readers, like most Brits, are not inherently political. False negative reporting in the Sun has the potential to cause far more damage against Israel than anything in the Guardian. Conversely simply telling the truth about Israel in the Sun has the potential to do more good than any number of other pro-Israel activities.

Now for the BBC......

Lush pushing the Death to Israel narrative

Daphne Anson has flagged an incredible piece of anti-Israel propaganda on the website of the cosmetics company Lush. It prompted me to write the following to their Customer Care team at customercare@lush.co.uk:

Dear Lush customer care

We have enjoyed buying your products over the years at your London stores. Our friends in Israel are especially keen to receive your products as presents. However, having seen this announcement on your web page we certainly will not be going to your store again until you withdraw this page, and issue an apology.

This article is anti-Israel propaganda, spewing out Hamas-inspired hatred and lies that are easily dismissed. There has been no Israeli occupation of Gaza since 2005, but this has not stopped them firing 10,000 rockets at Israel since then. The statement that there are "levels of poverty more commonly associated with sub-Saharan Africa" is total nonsense that is easily disproved from UN figures. Any poverty in Gaza is due to the Hamas government, since the Palestinians there receive more per capita in aid than any other people in the world. I suggest your read the evidence here. And I don't think the pictures of Gaza you will find on the web pages here and here exactly lend support to your narrative.

As for supporting the Charity War on Want, this charity has been spending money on anti-semitic material for many years and is almost entirely dedicated to deligitimisation of Israel. In the last three years their 'charity' has been given directly to the terrorists of Hamas. They have no interest in helping the Palestinians - they simply want to destroy Israel - just like the people behind your campaign. After all, what do you think the headline "Freedom for Palestine" means?  Hamas and the Palestine Authority make it very clear that it means death to Israel.

That is why this web page is so offensive to Jews and any intelligent person.

Yours

Edgar Davidson

Update:  Response from Lush

Following up on the Rules for Media Reporting on the Middle East

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Media mugs

If you need any proof of the craven, stupid, and instinctively pro-Arab bias of the British media it is worth noting that, until just a few weeks ago, they were still insisting that Syria was a country intent on reform and goodness, with the glamorous young Assads at the helm.

So, for example, whereas the Sun now finds any opportunity to demonize Israel (see yet another example today), the only previous mentions of Syria were in articles like the one here. It's over a year old, but fortunately for us, the Sun has not yet been embarrased enough to remove it from their website (in case they do as a result of this posting I have kept my own copy). The article includes such biting analysis as the following:

Yesterday she (Mrs Assad) was seen in a Sky TV interview in jeans and tight top extending an olive branch to the West.

She spoke of reforms in Syria, adding: "What we are trying to do is make sure the progress we are making across the country is inclusive to everybody or as many people as possible, whether it is economic, political or social."

In doing so, this former London schoolgirl could bring some much-needed stability to this troubled region.

 The first comment by 'talanizam' is also truly accurate and prophetic:

am from Syria , i live in Damascus and am asking every one to come and see how amazing country we have. every thing u hear about Syria is not true ...... it is peaceful here with sweet and friendly people we have a great leader Mr president and his wife who are working day and night for our country and every day there is big improvement and i can tell that they are doing great job. we syrians are proud of them coz they represent syria in a great and right image
they are a beautiful couple exactly same as Syria

Who needs Al Jazeera when we have the Sun heh? While Syria burns in a brutual civil war they can continue to focus their anger on Israel.

p.s. There are plenty of so-called intelligent people in the UK (including many Jews) who don't actually read the Sun but who parrot the line that 'the Sun is pro Israel' (because it was 4 years ago).

Now Sky News piles in with blood libel against Israel

UPDATED: The Sun's coverage even more outrageous (see below) than Sky News - but both are part of the News Corp, which under the leadership of James Murdoch, has morphed into having an anti-Israel propaganda agenda.

Self-explanatory letter of complaint sent to Ofcom and Sky News:

Sky News yesterday and today has been leading with a story "Israeli Forces Kill 23 Protesters On Border". Although the online version of the story did eventually state that the claim of these deaths was 'made by Syrian state television'  this point was not made on yesterday's TV headlines and the importance of the point would have been lost on most viewers. Syrian State television is the propaganda mouthpiece for one of the most evil and secretive regimes in the world - a regime that is currently massacring its own citizens on a daily basis (over 1200 dead since March). According to Syrian State television none of that has been happening. The fact that Syria has banned all foreign journalists should be sufficient grounds for any respectable news outlet to have doubted their claims. So why is Sky News using an information source that is so obviously wrong?

There were dozens of journalists witnessing the events from the Israeli side of the border yesterday and not one of them corroborates a single death or serious injury. The Sky story fails to explain that the entire event - which was an attempt to breach Israel's border -  was organised by the Syrian regime that is desperate to divert attention from the daily massacres it is carrying out against its own people. Indeed while Sky news fall for the lies of the Syrian regime it ignores the more reliable information coming from the Syrian Reform Party that has issued a statement here that that states that the regime paid hundreds of impoverished  farmers $1,000 each to show-up at the border and $10,000 to their families should any of them succumb to Israeli fire.

Should there be any doubt about the impact of this Sky News blood libel against Israel I draw your attention to the comments that have been posted on Yahoo News' link to Sky's story:

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/israeli-forces-kill-23-protesters-border-024551641.html

Here is just a sample of the hatred being spewed there:

It's just the Jewish version of ethnic cleansing

How come no NATO military presence of some sort in order to protect civilians has ever been considered? Possibly because the Jews hold the West by the balls. They control most banks and financial institutions, their covert presence and control of the media and large corporations is widespread, and they also are amongst the largest donors of political parties (left and right) in most countries. In the UK and the US they are amongst the largest donors in fact.

No other nation could ever get away with occupying another whilst over the years conducting a systematic massacre of the local population.

How long are we going to put up with Israel's bully-boy tactics???

We will put up with Israel while they own and run the USA.

This is just plain murder.

Where are the nazis, israel has just forgotten what happened to them in europe? now they are doing the same to otherr people and the americans don't see anything wrong with it??, once again they are digging their grave slowly.. it will soon backfire

Finally, what makes the Sky coverage especially shameful is that, while it leads with its blood libel against Israel, there is no mention at all of the many dozens of genuine civilian protesters who were shot dead in various cities in Syria yesterday. Perhaps your reporters should look at some real evidence of this like here:

http://elderofziyon.blogspot.com/2011/06/gruesome-video-of-syrian-soldiers.html

Update:
The Sun does not even bother to quote Syrian TV as the source of the 'killings'. It simply presents the Syrian claims as fact in its article which leads with the statement "Israeli troops killed at least 20 protesters on the Syrian boder yesterday". There is no source quoted other than "one onlooker'" who said "it was like a turkey shoot".
I have filed off another complaint to them.

The Sun ratchets up its anti-Israel assault (UPDATED)

The following, which I have submitted to the Press Complaints Commission, is self-explanatory.
This article (see left) is factually wrong, misleading in several ways and shows a blatant anti-Israel bias. Specifically:

• It states that 14 people were killed “as Israeli troops fired on Palestinian protesters”. But 10 of the fatalities, as stated later in the report, were in the Lebanese town of Maarun ar-Rus. The report fails to mention that it was the Lebanese army who were shooting at these protesters.
• It fails to report the crucial part of the Israeli claim about the incidents. While it says that the Israelis claimed ‘troops had fired warning shots’ it misses out the crucial information that the fatalities were the result of shooting from the Lebanese army who have a UN-binding commitment to prevent their citizens from breaching the border.
• It fails to mention the crucial fact that violent protesters from Lebanon and Syria – who numbered in their hundreds actually breached the Israel border in an unprovoked attack, entered Israel and were stoning the handful of Israeli soldiers stationed there.
• It quotes the Lebanese, Syrian and Palestinian claims and condemnation as if these were reliable sources. To quote the Syrian government, which has banned all foreign journalists from its country and is currently engaged in massacres of its own population, as if it were a reliable source is contemptible.
• It fails to mention that this attack against Israel’s northern borders was coordinated by the terrorist organisation Hezbollah, with the support of Syria’s president Al Assad who saw it an opportunity to deflect attention away from his country’s own revolution against him.
• It fails to mention the terrorist attack in Tel Aviv the same morning that resulted in a civilian being killed and 17 injured. This terrorist attack, and the attacks in Gaza and the West Bank, were part of a coordinated strategy by Israel’s enemies to ‘celebrate’ what they call ‘Naqba’ day – the day of Israel’s independence 63 years ago.
• The numbers reported are wrong. Every other report cites at most 11 people killed, of whom 10 were almost certainly killed by the Lebanese army as explained above.

I have written many times recently on this blog about the Sun's increasing hostility to Israel and the reasons behind it. Trevor Kavanagh, the Editor who is genuinely somewhat sympathetic to Israel, ludicrously claimed in last week's Jewish Chronicle that the Sun is ‘pro-Israel’. Other than the very occasional mention by Kavanagh himself in his own pieces, the Sun has not had a single article sympathetic to Israel since Richard Littlejohn left several years ago. More importantly, while the Sun has failed to report ANY of the thousands of rocket and terrorist attacks against Israel in the last three years it now invariably reports ANY story, like yesterday’s, where it can cast Israel in a purely negative light.  Perhaps Kavanagh thinks he can say this in the JC because no Jews actually read the Sun? The Sun may not be as relentlessy vicious in its anti-Israel reporting as the Guardian or the Independent, but its influence is in many ways far greater and is contributing to the casual anti-Israel attitude among people in the UK who would otherwise have no such bias or even interest.

UPDATE, 19 May 2011.  I received the following response from the Press Complaints Commission:

Thank you for your complaint.

I note your position that The Sun coverage is inaccurate as it fails to make clear that the fatalities on the Lebanese border were the result of shots fired from the Lebanese army rather than Israeli troops.

I have attached the BBC report on this matter, which – as you will see – refers to Israeli forces firing on groups of protesters, including those at the Lebanese border. It later refers to Lebanese soldiers firing warning shots, but Israeli troops firing as demonstrators vandalised the fence. The Guardian article makes similar claims (although it refers to four casualties) and states that Israeli military spokesman Brigadier General Yoav Mordechai said that soldiers fired when demonstrators began vandalising the fence. Finally, I attach the Daily Mail article, which also refers to Israeli troops opening fire, although it indicates that defence officials suggested that the Lebanese army might have been responsible for some of the deaths.

It would therefore appear to have been widely reported that Israeli troops were responsible for firing shots that killed protestors, despite the suggestion in the Daily Mail article that the Lebanese army was responsible for some of the deaths. In order for the Commission to gain a full understanding of this matter, it would be most helpful if you were able to explain where you obtained the information that Israeli troops were responsible. I look forward to your response, within the next seven days if possible.

And here is the reply I just sent:

Thanks you for your response. I am well aware that the BBC and Guardian provided similar incorrect anti-Israel reports of the incidents but I fail to see how that is in any way relevant to my complaint against the Sun's coverage. The BBC and the Guardian are intrinsically anti-Israel. You may as well have quoted to Syrian and Hamas positions (actually that is exactly what the Sun, the BBC and the Guardian did).

>>It would therefore appear to have been widely reported that Israeli troops were responsible for firing shots that killed protestors, despite the suggestion in the Daily Mail article that the Lebanese army was responsible for some of the deaths. In order for the Commission to gain a full understanding of this matter, it would be most helpful if you were able to explain where you obtained the information that Israeli troops were responsible.

I assume that there was a typo in that last sentence, and that you meant Lebanese not Israeli troops?

Even with that assumption your request is somewhat bizarre since you already cited one source for the claim that the deaths were caused by Lebanese troops. Moreover, in my complaint I told you another source - namely the Israeli Government spokesman. And that is the whole point of the complaint. The Sun article ONLY provided the claims of the Syrian government - a police state seeking to deflect attention away from its internal revolution. Neverthess, the following information about the incidents were available on 15 May - BEFORE the Sun article (there has been further evidence since 16 May that the Lebanese were responsible for deaths, but that is not relevant to the complaint)

http://idfspokesperson.com/2011/05/15/updates-regarding-todays-west-bank-riots/
(the above link is especially important so it was on the widely available website of the Israel Defence Forces. You cannot get more of an official claim than that, so there is no justification for the Sun having 'missed it'.

http://www.jpost.com/NationalNews/Article.aspx?id=220641

It is also important to note that even within Lebanon, where the official position was to claim the Israelis were responsible for the deaths, there are senior MPs who recognise that the real blame lies with UNIFIL and the Lebanese army. See here:

http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Politics/2011/May-17/LF-MP-blames-UNIFIL-Lebanese-Army-for-border-violence.ashx#axzz1Mo1YjpXu

Pro and anti-Israel demonstrations London 16 May 2011

Hearing at the last minute that a pro-Israel counter demonstration to the 'Naqba' demo outside the Israeli embassy was being planned, we felt it was important to attend, especially as most pro-Israel activists were at a conference in London). Approaching from Kensington Gardens it was nice to see the Israel flags in the main road, and even better to discover that the anti-semites (and that is what they are) were forced into a side-road.

Richard Millett has already posted his report and pictures. Other points to note:

• A lot of the anti-semites were carrying badges/signs talking about a '63 year occupation'. They no longer hide the fact that they consider every part of Israel to be 'occupied'.
• The anti-semites were frequently - normally in pairs - walking behind and in front of the pro-Israel demonstrators to intimidate us (the police were not stopping them doing this). The especially hateful ones were English rather Arabs. It is difficult to understand how regular looking middle-class 25 yearold English women can be so consumed with hatred based on a cause for which they have absolutely no understanding. That's why anybody who thinks this is not pure anti-semitism is deluded. 

After returning home I discovered that Israel's borders with Syria and Lebanon had been breached and it was SO predictable how the media - almost totally silent on the Syrian massacres - spun into action to focus all the blame on Israel. Melanie Phillips has some comments on this, but the best piece is by Mordechai Keder - which highlights how patheticly unprepared and weak the Israelis have been. Trusting the defence of Israel to Ehud Barak - the worst politican in Israel's history - is a catastrophe. This is a man who simply does not understand that Israelis are hated by Arabs who want to destroy them.