What a result: Eden Hazard denies signing anti-Israel statement

My article about the footballers' attempted boycott of Israel very much focused on the most high profile player - Eden Hazard - of Chelsea. And I suggested that this was a concern that Chelsea's Jewish owner Roman Abramovic should look into.

Following my written complaint to Chelsea Football Club I have had a response. Without divulging the full details of the response the Club are happy for me to state the following quote from Eden Hazard's agent, John Bico:

'Eden never speaks about his political opinions and he certainly never signed anything.' 

So well done Chelsea for responding to this and well done Eden Hazard to distance himself so firmly from the appalling statement. Didier Drogba and Yohan Cabai already denied they ever signed the statement and I notice they have been removed from the list on Freddy Canoute's website. With the above announcement I look forward to the removal of Eden Hazard's name (still there as of 10.30pm on 11 December 2012) and an apology from the various anti-Israel groups that have been proclaiming the 'success' of this ludicrous statement.

The most anti-Israel British Government in recent history?

In threatening to break off diplomatic relations and seek sanctions against Israel, the British Government's hysterical overreaction last week to Israel's announcement of a plan to build 3000 homes in their own capital city Jerusalem must surely count as the most anti-Israel action by any British government in recent history. The worst since the Conservative government under Ted Heath refused to supply spare parts for Israel's British made takes when it was attacked on Yom Kippur in 1973 and facing an imminent existential threat.

Israel's announcement of the new homes plan came just one day after Britain betrayed Israel by abstaining in the Palestine UN membership vote. By abstaining Britain breached an agreement it was party to under the Oslo accords not to allow the Palestinians to seek statehood through any means other than direct negotiations with Israel. If any country has a right to carpet another's ambassador it was Israel to Britain not the other way round. Even more so when you consider the millions of pounds that the British Government continues to pump into Gaza for the benefit of Hamas and the millions it provides to terrorist-supporting NGOs to directly undermine the Goverment of Israel.

That there are still British Jews who claim that Cameron and Hague are 'friends of Israel' is tragic. They are beginning to sound a bit like those Jewish industrialists in Germany in 1934 who still insisted that Hitler was a man they could work with. Of even more concern are those Jewish MPs who claim to support Israel but from whom we heard not a peep of protest at the Government's ludicrous actions. If they had any balls at all they might have suggested that the correct analogy to Britain's actions would be if Israel threatened to withdraw its ambassador to the UK for any one of the following reasons:

• The British Government's insistence on going ahead with the controversial HS2 (High Speed Train) Project which will cause enormous environmental damage and force many people from their homes.
• The British Government's continued war in Afghanistan.
• The British Government's massive energy hikes forced on poor families to pay for its obsessive belief in the global warming hoax.
• The British Government's jailing of EDL leader Tommy Robinson; nothing more and nothing less than a political prisoner because of his criticism of militant Islam. Similarly, the jailing of political prisoner Darren Conway for putting up posters critical of Islam.
• ..any other of the 10,000 or so current issues in which the British Government makes decisions that are not universally appreciated.
• The continuing poor form of the England football team.

What has any of that got to do with Israel? The same as what building homes in Israel's capital city has to do with Britain.

Postscript:  Part of the 'ceasefire deal' that Britan and America forced Israel to accept over Gaza was to allow the Hamas terrorist leader Khaled Meshaal to return to Gaza. In his triumphant speech to thousands of Gazans today he announced Hamas's continued intention to destroy every inch of Israel. Don't hold your breath waiting for a word of condemnation from Cameron and Hague.

Football Jihad against Israel continues: Mido calls for genocide

... and of course nobody seems in the least bit interested.

Following on from my recent posting and updates about the football Jihad against Israel the Sun has a small item on Page 21 today about Egyptian international footballer (and former Spurs striker) Mido. As you can see from the article here Mido attended an anti-Israel rally in London and tweeted "In London against Israel ... Oh Lord burn them"
The article goes on to say that his current club Barnsley have "dealt with the matter internally".

So that's OK then?
Yet, when student Liam Stacey tweeted a daft joke after black footballer Fabrice Muamba collapsed during a game he was imprisoned for "a racially-aggravated public order offence to incite violence". When (black) footballer Rio Ferdinand re-tweeted a fairly harmless comment referring to black football Ashley Cole as a 'choc ice' there was a national scandal with the FA stepping in. And when John Terry - in the heat of a local derby - was accused of a racial slur against a black player he was not only stripped of the England captaincy but arrested and put on trial. In fact the slightest suggestion of racism within the game of football now attracts enormous international concern, condemnation, censure, and often police intervention. Being dealt with privately by the player's club is simply not an option.  With one exception. When that racism is directed against Jewish Israelis (see here and here for previous examples).


What makes this case especially ironic is that Mido claimed he was the subject of 'anti-Muslim' abuse by opposing supporters a few years ago who he claimed chanted "Mido, he's got a bomb you know; Mido's got a bomb."  On that occasion the FA of course stepped in and it was a story of international interest (it made both front page and back page news). This time, as far as I can tell the Sun is the only national paper to carry the story - I tried googling "Mido tweet" and nothing appears.

If an unknown student's drunken tweeted joke about a black football can result in a prison sentence for a racially-aggravated public order offence to incite violence then I would like to know why Mido's real incitement to genocide has missed the FA's radar completely. I will be writing to the FA to ask them - and I will also ask them why they have been silent on the British based players who signed the statement last week that was not only an anti-Semitic blood libel, but was also an attempt to subvert a EUFA tournament in which England is participating.

Footballers want boycott of Israel. Abramovic this is your chance

Please see important update of this story (11 Dec 2012) regarding Eden Hazard

Ever since it was announced that Israel would host next summer's European under-21 football championship tournament, the anti-Semitic Israel boycotters have been trying to stop it. Now, as a result of Israel having had the audacity to try to defend itself against thousands of terrorist rockets - including several fired from the Gaza football stadium (which was also used as an arms cache), the boycotters have seized their opportunity to brainwash a bunch of ignorant professional footballers to issue a statement demanding that EUFA stop Israel from hosting the tournament. The statement uses the pretext of Israel's strike against the stadium - and the bald-faced lie that this "resulted in the death of four young people playing football". No mention of course about the stadium being used as a rocket launching pad.

As far as I can tell every one of the 60 players involved in the boycott statement is Muslim (a fact which has been completely ignored by all the media outlets reporting this story) and that includes the most high profile Premiership based player - Eden Hazard of Chelsea. I've just sent this message to Chelsea FC:

I would like to know how the club intends to discipline Eden Hazard for signing up to what is essentially a propaganda statement on behalf of the Hamas terrorists of Gaza. The statement contains a bunch of lies that constitute a blood libel against Israel. That one of your major employees is supporting an anti-Semitic boycott is also reprehensible.

Chelsea's Jewish owner Roman Abramovic has been rumoured to "love Israel" (although I've never seen the evidence). What a chance he now has to finally show that love by publicly rebuking his employee for his anti-Semitic ignorance.

p.s. I don't recall any international outrage by professional footballers last year when Hamas tried to blow up Jerusalem's Teddy Stadium during an Israeli premier league soccer match last year  .... and of course the Palestinians would never deliberately murder athletes of any sort would they .....

4 Dec 2012 Update: One of the only non-Muslims on the list of 62 signatories - former Chelsea star Didier Drogba - has denied that he signed this statement. However, the violent thug 'footballer' Joey Barton (convicted of assaulting a teenager)  has written a piece of vile ignorant anti-Semitic propaganda dressed up as commentary on the Gaza war in the Big Issue. That's one magazine I won't ever be buying again.

Also, while on the subject of Muslims and football it is interesting to note that the media has covered up the fact that the horrific attack 'by youths' which resulted in the death of a linesman at a youth match in Holland at the weekend was perpetrated by three Moroccan immigrants.

7 Dec 2012 Update: A few more of the signatorees seem to have been faked.

What passes for 'expert' Israel coverage in the Jewish Chronicle

Anshel Pfeffer is the Jewish Chronicle's Israel reporter. In fact he is their ONLY Israel reporter and has been for quite a while now.

In the latest issue he dominates the entire front page and pages 2-3.  But what few people in the Jewish community in the UK realise is that Pfeffer is a Haaretz journalist who represents a view of Israel that is no different from that presented by the anti-Israel Guardian newspaper.

But not only is Pfeffer the typical leftist useful idiot presenting his anti-Israel agenda "as an Israeli"; he is also an incredibly shoddy journalist.

Elder of Ziyon has this link showing Pfeffer repeating one of the Palestinian blood libels today

Also, one of the FOUR articles by him that appears in the current issue of the Jewish Chronicle is about Egypt's anti-Semitic Israel hating Muslim Brotherhood leader headlined:

"Even-handed Morsi is Israel's biggest win".

This article on Page 3 - surely one of the dumbest ever in the JC - appeared on the very day that Morsi assumed dictatorial powers that have led to widespread riots in Egypt.

Morsi is a man who has repeatedly vowed to tear up the Camp David accords and destroy Israel. He refuses to mention Israel by name. What is not in Pfeffer's ignorant analysis is that Morsi's role in 'brokering' the cease-fire has everything to do with the $10billion that Obama and the EU are giving him this year alone to save the collapsing Egyptian economy (that is the largest annual sum any country has been given in aid in the history of the world - and it is YOUR taxpayer money funding an anti-Semitic Islamist regime that is likely to become the next Iran). But leftists like Pfeffer can never see anything other than sweetness and light in Muslim Brotherhood fanatics.

With this kind of coverage of Israel in the Jewish press, is it any wonder that the Jewish community in the UK is the most limp-wristed supporters of Israel among Jewish communities in the Western world?

London Evening Standard is now Hamas mouthpiece

As readers of this blog will know the Western media has done sterling work over the years to suppress any news and images of atrocities committed by Hamas in Gaza.  So when a video and multiple photos emerged last work of the public lynching of six Palestinians accused of being  'Israeli collabroators' I was wondering how long it would take for the apologists to explain that actually this was all Israel's fault. It was no surprise that the London Evening Standard - of which some half-million copies are handed out free - came to the rescue of Hamas (they have form as being a Hamas mouthpiece). The 23 November issue has a massive 2-page spread to 'fnd out what drives young Palestinians in Gaza to kill six informers and tow their corpses around the street' . Nabila Ramdani 'investigates' "The real story behind this brutal picture". And you do not need to read all the article to see what that 'real story' is because it is stated in large print by the side of the photo:

"Expecting Hamas to respond to Israeli expansion and aggression with anything but ruthlessness is ridiculous."

And what kind of  in-depth 'investigation' has Nabila Ramdani conducted to discover the 'truth'. She relies on somebody called Eman Shakir, a 24-year-old law student who grew up in Gaza City but who actually lives now in Paris. Quoting Shakir, Ramdani confirms:

  "You only have to look at the pictures taken this week of young children lying on slabs in makeshift morgues to realise what Hamas is responding to. As Israel carries on with its killing, and continues to ignore demands for a proper Palestinian homeland, people have no option but to turn to Hamas.” 

Ramdani makes no attempt to inform readers that those  pictures (with the exception of one which was of a baby killed by a Hamas rocket) were actually from Syria.

And Ramdani displays her own clear biases and ignorance throughout the article with comments like:

"the kind of targeting of Arab civilians seen in Gaza this week had to be met with further bloodshed ..."

Funny how less than 40 civilians were killed from Israel's assaults if they were targeting civilians and even funnier how there is no mention of the real targeting of 3 million Israeli civilians by Hamas.

"Many (Gazans) are disaffected young men like those pictured on the motorbikes — the kind who have known nothing but unemployment, poverty and subjugation to an enormously powerful, American-backed enemy"

Note the casual attempt to delegitimize Israel by portraying it as nothing more than an American puppet, while ignoring the incredibly powerful backing from Qatar, Iran, Saudi Arabia and now Egypt that Hamas receives. 

"..many of the Israeli communities based on land once filled with Palestinian houses just 20 miles from Gaza City ..."

So she is either under the impression that Israel is still occupying Gaza, or that is was Arabs and not Jews who built the communities of southern Israel like Sderot. What she certainly ignores is the FACT that Palestinians in Gaza now occupy houses and land built, developed and lived in by Jews who were forcibly expelled in 2005.

The Standard's entire coverage of the Gaza conflict is perfectly captured by the fact that every day they have published a diary/report from Hamas sympathiser Kim Sengupta 'in Gaza' which focuses purely on telling the story of the 'human agony' suffered by Palestinians, with headlines like "We wake on a quite morning and go out to see the destruction". There has been no attempt to balance this with any human stories from Israel.

The Standard also had a report on 23 Nov headlined "Israeli soldiers open fire on Palestinains at Gaza fence" without giving any indication in the story itself that this was a mob of 300 Hamas supporters - some armed - who actually were trying to break through the border to attack Israelis (incredibly, a fact which even Hamas has this morning admitted).

p.s. I have submiited a formal complaint to the Press Complaints Commission. Don't expect anything out of it - as per last time - but at least it ensures someone at the Standard has to respond.
I also note that  the online story actually no longer has the same headline or the major quote highlighted (maybe even the editorial morons at the Standard realised that this was taking Hamas propaganda a bit too far).

Update 26 November 2012: The Daily Mail reports that the lynched Gazans were Al Qaeda members who threaten Hamas's grip on Gaza rather than 'Israeli informers'.

Update 29 January 2013: As a result of my complaint to the Press Complaints Commission the Standard has published a letter by me.

Cease fire text

Here is the actual text:

Understanding Regarding Ceasefire in Gaza Strip

a. Israel shall stop all hostilities on the Gaza Strip land, sea and air including incursions and targeting of individuals.

b. One of the 38 different Palestinian factions shall stop all hostilities from the Gaza Strip against Israel for at least 30 minutes. The other 37 terrorist factions may continue firing rockets and mortars at will.

c. The ceasefire does not apply to any of the 68 terrorist groups now launching attacks from the Sinai.

d. The international media will apply a complete blackout on reporting of any firing by Palestinians into Israel. When Israel finally responds after the 10,000th rocket has landed the media must immediately report that Israel has broken the ceasefire.

e. Israel must supply food, medicine and energy to all of Gaza, without payment.

f. Egypt, Iran, Qatar and Libya must provide increasingly sophisticated weapon systems and missiles to each of the 38 terrorist organisations in Gaza.

Iron Dome: short-term benefit, long-term catastrophe

Israel's 'Iron Dome' system has performed remarkably well in intercepting about 30% of the 2000 rockets launched from Gaza in the last two weeks. But as a long-term 'deterrence' mechanism it is a total catastrophe for Israel. Apart from the incredible expense - and the fact that the number of rockets that still get through ensure that daily life is no less disrupted - putting your faith in a system like this is an acceptance of permanent cowering of an entire state to a bunch of terrorists.

No other country in the world would accept, even in principle, the concept of the Iron Dome as a long term defence/deterrent, because no other country in the world would accept a situation where it is subjected to continuous unprovoked rocket attacks from a bullying neighbour. Don't believe me? Then read the following from a commenter on Debbie Schlussel's blog this evening:

“Back in mid-June, during the great Paris weapons show, the Rafael pavilion was absolutely the busiest around, and everybody wanted to look at the new, exciting, Iron Dome system, the greatest achievement in rocket defense ever. But by the end of the show, Rafael hadn’t made a single sale. The Arrow sold well, other systems did great – Iron Dome wasn’t moving. So they contacted their big clients, the serious ones, and asked what gives. And those clients told them no one except Israel has any use for these things. Because in any normal, sane country, if some hooligans were to start targeting civilians with rockets – the army would go and kill them.”

The Obama administration is right now trying to force Israel to stop a ground invasion with the promise of an extra 250 million dollars to pay for more Irone Dome batteries. This is the ultimate indication that Obama believes Israel has to simply allow the Islamist bully to carry on doing what the Islamist bully does best while Israel has to pay for the privilege of only being struck by 140 rockets a day rather than 200. This is back to the mentality of living in a ghetto under the Nazis. Obama is going to 'allow' Israel to have a half-baked defensive capability but no offensive capability. That's like allowing your 'friend' to wear a gum shield to protect him from the school bully but not allowing him to wear boxing gloves.

With 'friends' like these...

I see the anti-Israel far-left Jewish goons Yachad (who laughingly call themselves 'pro-Israel' to lull other unsuspecting Jews) are running a meeting at the London Jewish Cultural Centre this week (and having the chutzpah to charge people £10). Note the announcement for the event below blames Israel for the start of the current conflict; it says "Since Israel launched Operation Pillar of Defence..."

To give a feel for the speakers Richard Hermer QC works for 'Lawyers for Human Rights of Palestinians', Professor Beverley Milton-Edwards is a Hamas apologist , and Daniel Levy is leader of Yachad's notorious American sister organisation J-Street who declared in 2010 that Israel's creation was a mistake. And the chair is the ultimate self-hating Jew himself Jonathan Freedland.

So why is the LJCC hosting an anti-Israel hate-fest under such false pretences?

Not enough dead Jews

I just sent this to LBC (self-explanatory).

It's enough that we have to put up with the incessant and ignorant ant-Israel obsession of LBC's regular presenters David Mellor, Ken Livinstone and James O'Brien and the rantings of pure anti-Semitic bigots like Yasmin Alibi Brown and Mehdi Hassan who always seem to be guests.

But increasingly Nick Ferrari - so-called 'pro-Israeli' presenter on LBC - seems to have fallen under the general spell of anti-Semitism. Nevertheless, he performed a valuable service this morning when he unwittingly revealed what underlies the media's relentless hatred of Israel in his interview with Daniel Taub the Israeli ambassador. "Only 3 Israelis have died, Mr Ambassador so why are you killing so many Palestinians....and why did you kill the Hamas military leader last week ..."

So you see Israel is clearly making a big mistake in spending billions on its Iron Dome system, on shelters, and on closing down half the country. If only they would simply allow Hamas to murder a lot more Israelis then "pro-Israeli" media presenters like Nick Ferrari might be able to bring themselves to accept that Israel has a right to defend itself from the constant terrorist aggression.

And if LBC's "24-hour news" had even ONCE found the time in the two weeks leading up to the killing of the Hamas leader last week to mention the 100 rockets a day being fired at Israel by Hamas, then some its presenters might not have been so surprised to discover why Israel had finally responded. 

And finally perhaps Nick Ferrai - who stated today that he "mourned every death in the conflict" before pointing out that so few Jews had died - would like to explain why he mourns the death of Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists who make up the vast majority of Palestinian casualties. I don't recall him 'mourning the death' of every Taliban or Al Quaeda leader killed by US and UK forces in Afghanistan even though none of those were aiming rockets at the UK.

It seems Ferrari must have taken lessons from his co-presenter Andrew Pierce (who stands in for him when he is away). On 29 Dec 2008 Pierce interviewed the then Israeli Ambassador Ron Prosor and sarcastically and repeatedly asked why so few Israelis had died if the attacks against them were as serious as the Israelis claimed ("come on Mr Ambassador just tell me how many dead Israelis are there from these so-called rockets?").

Gaza: The pure anti-Semitism of the Western Media

The narrative in the UK media is that they do not understand why Israel chose 'this time' to launch attacks against Hamas. In the words on Nick Ferrari, LBC's top talk show host (laughably considered 'pro-Israel'): "why did this suddenly kick off again?"  before inviting a host of Islamists to tell London listeners about Israel's 'war crimes'.  This is the very same media who, in the two weeks leading up to Israel finally responding, failed to report any of the unprovoked hundreds of rocket attacks against Israeli civilians as well as a dozen lethal attacks along the border against Israel army outposts.

If anybody wants proof that this obsession to cast Israel in a bad light is anything other than pure anti-Semitism then you need only compare the media's response to what Turkey did last week as pointed out here.

Turkish air force jets and attack helicopters pounded Kurdish militants along the border with Iraq and Iran for three days, killing 42 militants, the local governor's office said on Friday.

Did you hear about that in the media? Did Sky News and BBC suddenly switch off reporting all other news when Turkey was killing 'militants' in far greater numbers and without any provocation? Then why Israel?

Sultan Knish sums it all up very well:

A few things to remember about what is going on in Israel. And this may sound cynical, but unfortunately recent history bears me out.

1. This is not a war. This is what happens when you cede territory to a terrorist group with plenty of eager Muslim regimes supplying it with weapons. This is what happens when that terrorist group is supported by Egypt and Qatar.

2. Israel ethnically cleansed its Jewish population from Gaza and pulled out, and we were told this would improve Israel's strategic position. Like every other withdrawal and pullout, it worsened it.

3. This is still not a war. What will most likely happen is that Israel will carry out some more air strikes and possibly even a limited ground operation. Some Hamas terrorists will die along with some Israeli civilians.

4. After some brief support for Israel's actions in the international community, there will be some incident, real or faked, the Hamas stooges will brandish some bodies for the camera, the media will cry about disproportionate force and Washington Post pundits will say that Israel overreacted and lost the sympathy of the world.

5. Phone calls from Washington and London will warn Netanyahu to wind down the operation. Turkey or Egypt will offer to negotiate a truce. Israel will pull out. Hamas will celebrate the usual victory of insurgencies, that of surviving the war they began. Israeli generals and politicians will boast that Hamas knows better than to try the same thing again, as they have after every such operation. Hamas will hold funerals for its martyrs and begin firing rockets again to show that they can. Egypt, Turkey and Qatar will smell Israeli weakness.

6. Western terrorist supporters will begin making the next set of documentaries about Israeli atrocities and distributing them on campus. Israeli politicians will blame Netanyahu's fumbling for losing the sympathy of the world. Israeli supporters will begin discussing new Hasbara methods to get Israel's message out. The message: "Israel wants peace, but sometimes has to defend itself again attacks. Israel will happily withdraw from everywhere so long as it isn't being bombed."

7. Israeli and American newspapers will run editorials urging another round of peace negotiations and withdrawals to stave off another such conflict... even though their urgings, their negotiations and their withdrawals are why the conflict exists.

8. Every Israeli general who gets face time on television during the conflict will shortly retire and run for office in a party with a platform dedicated to security, negotiations and more withdrawals. All of them will butch up and growl that their experience will allow Israel to have peace with security.

9. Next time around Hamas' missiles will be bigger and better aimed.

And don't forget that the bigger missiles Hamas is getting from Libya (as well as Iran) coming through Egypt are all thanks to Obama and the Muslim Brotherhood he installed in Egypt and Libya.

On stuffing snakes

Every UK media outlet this morning is making a very big story of the news that the Foreign Office has paid a £10,000 taxidermy bill for a 20ft anaconda snake called Albert hanging in its library.

At the time of a spending squeeze all round, with major welfare cuts  affecting the poorest in society this kind of reckless spending is indeed reprehensible.

But not a single UK media outlet has picked up on the story of far more UK tax payers' money being spent by the Foreign Office (through the Government's Overseas Aid budget) on stuffing a far more dangerous set of snakes. As Douglas Murray reports in the Washington Post Britain is directly funding the payment of 'salaries' to Palestinians convicted of terrorism by courts in Israel. Of the £86 million per year which the UK inexplicably donates to the Palestinian Authority (and which is not immediately channelled into the foreign bank accounts of  PA and even Hamas leaders) much goes directly to pay these convicted terrorists. Their monthly 'salary' is as high as £2000 - about 10 times what an average worker in the private sector of the Palestinian Authority territories earns and 20 times that of such a worker in Hamas controlled Gaza.

But of course - as David Cameron keeps saying - to 'stop people around the world dying' the annual UK overseas aid budget of £9 billion must not only be protected (unlike any other government department budget) but is the only one guaranteed to grow year on year. At least it will ensure that Palestinian terrorists will be very well equipped to kill Jews when they get out of jail.

The blood libel continues at Fox News and the Guardian

Following on from my article and updates about the anti-Semitic blood libel behind the 'anti-Islam' film furore (which was also taken up strongly by Debbie Schlussel - the first person publicly to state that the story was a fraud in the first place, well before the AP reported it as such) I did an internet search to see the extent to which even major news channels were still promoting the blood libel that Sam Bacile was an Israeli Jew funded by 100 wealthy American Jews. The results are frightening. A search for "Sam Bacile" (who note does not exist since he was revealed to be the pseudonym of Egyptain Copt Nakoula Basseley Nakoula) takes you to many major outlets still running the original anti-Semitic blood libel.  There are far too many to mention, but two are especially notable. The Guardian story originally posted on 12 September is STILL there today:

Guardian headline: still on web 16 September (5 days after the story was debunked)

The story DOES have an update (14/9/12) underneath stating that AP reported the identify could be a fake. However, they have not removed ANY of the original story and its anti-Semitism.

But even more remarkable is Fox News - the supposedly 'pro-Israel conservative news station'  STILL has its Sam Bacile is an Israeli Jew story up and there is no update or correction.

Fox News headline: still on web as of 16 September (5 days after the story was debunked)

This story leads with the following statement (not claim, please note):

An Israeli filmmaker based in California went into hiding Tuesday after his movie attacking Islam's Prophet Muhammad sparked angry assaults by ultra-conservative Muslims on U.S. missions in Egypt and Libya, where a U.S. ambassador and three other Americans were killed.

Note the direct blood libel here: The Israeli's actions caused the death of four Americans. The report continues:

Bacile, a California real estate developer who identifies himself as an Israeli Jew, said he believes the movie will help his native land by exposing Islam's flaws to the world.
"Islam is a cancer, period," he said repeatedly, his solemn voice thickly accented.
The two-hour movie, "Innocence of Muslims," cost $5 million to make and was financed with the help of more than 100 Jewish donors, said Bacile, who wrote and directed it.

There are too many other examples to note and the blogosphere is simply teeming with 'look what the f*cking Jews have done this time' venom. Well done Western liberal media.

And, despite this affair being possibly the most serious example of anti-Semitism in recent history,  I have yet to hear a single 'official' Jewish spokesperson say a word in public about it.

The latest blood libel against Israel and Jews

Even the most basic fact checking by the media would have immediately discovered that the so called "Israeli Jew living in America"  Sam Bacile (supposedly the man behind the anti-Islam film making the news) was a fabrication. And the idea that his film was funded by "100 wealthy American Jews" was so obviously false (the claim fits the classic Arab conspiracy theories) that it should have set alarm bells ringing for any self-respecting journalist or news editor.

Yet on Tuesday (September 11th - no coincidence about that)  when Muslims in Egypt and Libya 'spontaneously rioted' in protest at the film every major media outlet in the UK - including the BBC and Sky news - stated as an uncontested fact that the film had been directed by an Israeli with $5million funding provided by 100 wealthy American Jews.

When 'Sam Bacile' was quickly discovered to be an Egyptian Coptic Christian, named Nakoula Basseley Nakoula the media seemed strangely reluctant to point this out and rectify their earlier blood libel error). So if you do a quick search of the internet you will find thousands of articles and blog postings still spitting their anti-Semitism about Sam Bacile.. Even worse is that the main stream media (including Sky News) is continuing to feed the blood libel by still citing the nonsense about the "100 wealthy American Jews" funding the film. For example, Britain's most popular newspaper the Sun states in today's issue (still available online here) that:

The two-hour film cost £3.1million to make — and it is claimed was financed by 100-plus Jewish donors.

Even while the same article makes it clear that Nakoula is a con-man it fails to state the only person who ever claimed that the film was funded by 100 Jews was Nakoula himself. That's the same Nakoula who also claimed that the actual director was "Israeli Jew Sam Bacile" who turned out to be a pseudonym for Nakoula himself. Anybody with the slightest knowledge about Egyptian Copts will know exactly why Nakoula has acted in the way he has. Firstly, as a Copt he will be especially concerned for the fate of Copts in Egypt under the new Islamic regime - they are being brutally persecuted. Secondly as a Copt there is one group of people he will hate even more than the Islamists, and that is the Jews (see here). So by framing his film as a classic Israeli-Jewish conspiracy he was able to kill two birds with one stone.

Proud Muslim mother photographs her child at Sydney demonstration (for more on the Muslim Sydney riots 'against the film' see here)

They say that a lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is still putting on its shoes. It never takes much of a lie about Jews to be quickly consumed as a fact by the entire Muslim (and leftist) world. But the extent to which the Western media has fed and perpetuated such an obviously preposterous lie as this one is on a scale of cynicism previously unseen. For a typical posting about the story here - and it is one of thousands like it still up. It provides yet more proof of the deep-seated anti-Semitism of much of the media.

And the media's main spin on the riots - that they are only inspired by this film's 'provocation of Muslim feelings' - also reveals their pandering to Islamism and total lack of understanding of Islamist politics. The film has been available on YouTube since July, yet an Arabic translation of it was broadcast in Egypt by the Muslim Brotherhood - just in time for them to riot on September 11th, while the attack on the US embassy in Libya had clearly been planned well in advance.

UPDATE: I have been looking at further coverage of the story tonight and I can find no main stream media article which has made any attempt to consider the issue of the false original claims. Whereas every article emphasized the "Jewish Israeli" nationality orginally claimed, none of them mention the Egyptian Coptic nationality of the actual director. In fact many main stream media articles fail to mention Nakoula at all while others are happy to keep the blood libel very much alive, For example, tonight's Evening Standard covers the story on Page 24. The writer Rashid Razaq does not mention the name Nakoula once. He does, however, describe a banner held up in one of the protests as saying "It is the duty of all Muslims and Christians to kill Morris Sadek and Sam Bacile and everyone who participated in the film.” Razaq makes no atemtp to point out the obvious error here. So, as far as the Evening Standard is concerned, the Israeli Jew Sam Bacile not only exists but he is the one to blame for all of this. Still, I guess this is par for the course for the Standard's Middle East reporting.

UPDATE 16/9/12: Although some of today's Sunday newspapers have mentioned the anti-Semitic angle to the story (well done especially to Toby Young in today's Sun) most people in the UK have accepted that is was 'the Jews' behind all of this because that message was forcefully rammed home on TV and radio where it has not yet been corrected. One person emailed me the following:

Edgar
Same problem with James O'Brian on the LBC phone in . He repeatedly referred to the producer being an Israeli Jew . In order to reinforce the stereotype , he mentioned the standard trope of a ' shadowy group of cigar chomping individuals ( early Hollywod Jewish moguls smoking cigars ) and congratulating themselves on achieving the desired outcome. I eventually got through to one of his team informing her that as of the previous evening , AP and the Huff had identified him as being a 55 year old Coptic Christian from Egypt. It was obvious O Brian's researchers had not done their homework or as more likely were closed down.  Needless to say I was not put through and O Brian was allowed to carry on slating the Jews for something that was nothing to do with them.  I'm not surprised . O'Brian has previous form on Israel and it's all bad .
Joke is, on the same programme he went on to castigate the Sun for their reporting of the Hillsboro disaster labelling the Sun gutter press .
Man is a hypocrite without parallel .

James O'Brien is indeed a nasty piece of work (I can no longer bear to listen to him). A real old-fashioned anti-Semite. I've put in formal complaints to LBC before about his anti-Israel bias and have been totally ignored. O'Brien is on every weekday spewing his nonsense from 10.00 until 13:00. But there is no relief on LBC on Saturdays. From 07.00 until 10:00 there is the classic "as a Jew" James Max whose ignorance about Israel and the Middle East never fails to stop him pushing the classic leftist narrative (despite the fact that he calls himself a conservative). Then from 10:00 until 13.00 there is the double act of two of the biggest anti-Semites ever to have been MPs, namely Ken Livingstone and David Mellor. The joke is that Mellor is supposed to be the 'conservative counterbalance' to Livingstone.

UPDATE 16/9/12: Fox News and the Guardian perpetuate the blood libel

The curious case of the Jewish Music Institute and the anti-Semite

Last Sunday I posted the following message with the title "Leading antiSemite plays at Jewish festival":

I arrived  at today's annual Jewish music festival (Klezmer in the Park) at Regents Park London just in time to hear the presenter announce that the previous performer had been Gilad Atzmon.
While I was aware that Atzmon considered himself a Jazz (not Klezmer) musician he is much better known as being one of the UK's leading anti-Semites. Describing himself as an "Israeli born ex-Jew" he is a Holocaust denier who believes in the Protocols of the Elders of Zion and a world-wide Jewish conspiracy. You can see a summary of his profile here. He is, of course, also prominent in the anti-Israel movement, although his open anti-Semitism has been an embarrassment even to some of the most virulent anti-Israel fanatics.  There's plenty more on him here and here, but if you think that is all one-sided criticism then just look at his own website.
So the question is: who made the decision to invite Azmon to play at this event, and why? And what irony that this should happen at a time when Atzmon's cohorts ensure that every performance by Israeli musicians or actors in the UK is disrupted or forcibly cancelled.
As can be seen by events like the Jewish book week, the Jewish Comedy festival and Jewish film festival there is a tendency among the cultural elite who organize these kinds of events to give prominence to those with strong anti-Israel views. But an invite to Gilad Atzmon surely trumps anything that's gone before. Perhaps we can look forward to a cameo role from George Galloway - or maybe even a few surviving SS officers - at future London Jewish cultural events.

Shortly afterwards I got an email from the Jewish Musical Institute which simply said: 

Hello Edgar, I am events manager for the jmi. The Jewish music institute. What you have written about the event is not true. Please remove it from publication. Thank you Gil 

I duly removed the posting and responded as follows:

Gil, I've removed the post. But can you explain why the announcement was made that he played?

I got no response to that message or to two follow-up messages over the following two days. So I sent the following message on Wedneday:

Gil

I would be grateful if you could respond to either of the messages that I sent you yesterday. I want to know the answer to the following very simple question: -Why did the announcer say that the previous performer was Gilad Atzmon? I was considerate enough to remove the original blog posting when you said it 'was not true' (even though you did not specify what was not true in my article).

If you do not reply within 24 hours then I will put up a blog posting saying exactly what I heard and that the JMI can offer no explanation why the announcer said what he said (and hence leave it to readers to draw their own conclusions). I'm reasonably confident from your response that Atzmon was not formally invited to play. For what it's worth I'd say the most likely explanation for the announcement is that a recording of Atzmon was played. But I would like to be assured that Atzmon did not simply turn up and play.

This finally prompted the following response today:

Dear Edgar

Gilad Atzmon did not perform at Klezmer in the Park nor was he invited to do so. A piece of his music was played at one point, which presumably is why you heard an announcer mention his name. Until your complaint on Monday we were unaware of Atzmon’s political views.

Regards The Jewish Music Institute

So while I am very happy to put the record straight it does actually appear that - contrary to the original rather rude and abrupt message from the JMI - it is NOT the case that 'what I had written was not true'. I never said I saw Atzmon perform there; I made a perfectly reasonable assumption after hearing his name announced as the previous performer.

I find it very interesting that the JMI was unaware of Atzmon's political views. His anti-semitism - not his music - is what defines his public personna. It is difficult to be aware that Atzmon is a musician at all without being aware of his anti-Semitism. Indeed the only link to Atzmon and Klezma music at all can be found here.  Note that every song title has a clearly implied anti-Israel theme; the first three are

1. Dal'ouna on the return (trad. Palestinian) 4:45
2. Al-Quds (Gilad Atzmon) 9:59
3. Jenin (Gilad Atzmon) 5:50

I also noticed that the next publicized event by the JMI involves David Rosenberg leading a musical tour of the East End. Presumably the JMI are also unaware that Rosenberg - leader of the Jewish Socialist Group, is a very active and visible anti-Israel campaigner. In fact, he works with the anti-Semitic Palestine Solidarity Campaign to boycott all Israeli goods and tourism (see this document) and to delegitimize Israel.

While these kind of people seek to boycott and disrupt every cultural event involving Jewish performers from Israel (irrespective of their political beliefs) I would never dream of disrupting a performance by anybody because of their nationality or even their obnoxious racist views. But neither would I choose to go to - or even listen to -  performers who are hypocritical Israel haters. Therefore having such people either invited to - or simply promoted - at main stream Jewish events is something I find both offensive and ironic.

Finally (and thanks to commenter amie for pointing this out) the JMI has serious form when it comes to an ambivalent attitude towards Israel. In March 2011 they rejected Israeli funding for one of their events when they came under pressure from the anti-Semitic boycott brigade. In fact the Jewish Chronicle report is rather too kind on Geraldine Auerbach the Head of the JMI. In this report by the boycotters themselves you get a much more detailed understanding of the extent to which the Auerbach bent over backwards to meet the boycotters demands:

In correspondence with the protesters, Geraldine Auerbach, the head of the Jewish Music Institute, stated “I confirm that there is no funding directly or indirectly from the Israeli Government or institutions”. Subsequently all reference to the Israeli- related organisations was removed from the conference’s online publicity materials. Similarly Ms Auerbach, who had stated in the Jewish Chronicle that the Israeli Embassy was helping to promote the Conference, now stated that no such promotion had taken place.

Co Op refuse to answer any of my 20 my questions

I have finally had a response from the Co-op to my previous letter that asked 20 questions about the Co-op's choice of criteria for boycotting countries. Here is the letter from Amanda Bailey.

The fact that she has made no attempt to answer even one of my questions means it is safe to conclude that the only rational definition of what constitutes an abuse of their “Human Rights and Trade Policy” is that the country must be named "Israel". In particular we can conclude that:

1. ‘Occupation’ is the only criteria they consider as part of their “Human Rights and Trade Policy”

2. Denial of equal rights to women and/or minorities is NOT one of their criteria of interest

3. Persecution of gays and lesbians is NOT one of their criteria of interest

4. Brutal suppression of ethnic minorities and political dissidents is NOT one of their criteria of interest

5. Sponsoring and glorifying terrorism is NOT one of their criteria of interest

6. State sponsored anti-Semitism is NOT one of their criteria of interest

7. The Co-Op is happy to trade with all 58 Muslim countries in the world even though they are all guilty of the human rights abuses listed in 2-6.

8. Conducting "illegal wars far from a country’s own borders” is NOT one of their criteria of interest and that is why the Co-Op is not boycotting goods from the USA, France, Italy, Holland ... and the UK etc.

9. The Co-op is selective in which 'international consensus' it accepts. In particular, it rejects United Nations resolution 242, which specifies that the West Bank does not belong to any national territory but rather is considered disputed territory whose borders are to be determined under a final status peace agreement.

10. The Co-op also rejects the findings of the recent Levy Report

11. The Co-Op is not aware  that the only legal basis for denouncing the Jews who returned in 1967 to the homes that they had been expelled from in 1948 as “settlers” is by recognizing the Jordanian conquests of those territories, even though those conquests were never recognized or accepted. Not even by the international community.

12. The Co-op are not aware that one of the ICC ‘judges’ who was responsible for the 'international legal ruling' they refer to was Al Khasawneh who had a blatant conflict of interest, since he was an advisor to the King of Jordan and later became the Prime Minister of Jordan

13. The Co-op's notion of occupied territories fails to include the approximately 160 other territories around the world that are ‘disputed’ (each of which necessarily involves one country ‘occupying it’ against the wishes of some other country or national group)?

14. The Co-op's definition does not include genuinely brutal occupations such as: the Chinese occupation of Tibet, the Turkish occupation of Northern Cyprus, or even the Russian occupation of Abkhazia, especially as China, Russia and Turkey all of have infinitely worse human rights records than Israel

15. The Co-op are not aware that one of the disputed international territories is the Falklands Islands, which Argentina claims is illegally occupied by the UK and that a significant majority of countries in the UN now agree with the Argentine position.

16. The Co-op are not aware that any notion of an ‘international consensus’ is fundamentally irrelevant because the United Nations contains 58 Muslim states – all human rights abusers as described above - who provide a built-in ‘consensus’ on any anti-Israel motion that anybody cares to think of

17. The Co-op is happy to “continue to seek increased trade with Palestinian businesses.” despite the corrupt Palestinian Authority being guilty of all of the human rights offences listed above

18. The Co-op believes that Israel – the only liberal democracy in the Middle East where all minorities have equal rights – is a worse human rights violator than Syria, Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, the Palestinian Authority, Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, Russia, China etc

19.  The Co-op's policy to boycott goods produced by Jewish communities in the West Bank is indeed pure anti-Semitism

20. The Co-Op did indeed get hoodwinked into a nonsensical hypocritical policy (that will ultimately be self-damaging) by a small group of congenital anti-Semites disguised as ‘pro-Palestinian’ activists.

Baroness Warsi: Muslim supremacist still in Cabinet and with much greater authority

Nothing sums up David Cameron's pandering to the Islamist agenda better than his relationship with Baroness Warsi the unelected Pakistani born Muslim woman who, until yesterday, was the Conservative Party Chairman (one Tory MP  described her as "the worst chairman we have ever had"). So desperate was Cameron after the 2010 election to show his 'diversity' credentials that he saw Warsi as the perfect face of the new 'tolerant' conservatism - young, Muslim, Northern accent and female. Cameron ignored all rationality in his appointment of Warsi since in 2005 she had not only lost  the only election she ever run,  but was also criticised for election literature which was described as "homophobic". Her corrupt dealings were also evident before Cameron appointed her as Party Chairman, because as a life peer (appointed as such by Cameron 2007) she claimed more than £50,000 in expenses in 2009 which included a fully tax payer funded trip to Pakistan where she attended a family wedding.

But if Warsi was simply just a useless corrupt unelected politician I would not be writing this article. Unfortunately, she is far more dangerous than that. The 'homophobic' literature (along with her strong opposition to a burka ban in the UK, her ambivalent attitude toward Islamic terrorism, and her obsession with 'Islamaphobia') should have been a warning to everyone that the modern anti-fundamentalist veneer that Warsi has tried to cultivate was always just a cover for a typically hard-line Muslim supremicist world-view. That world view has always been evident whenever subjects like the Middle East arise (she led the Conservative abuse of Israel during the Gaza war in 2010). But it came into sharp focus earlier this year when it was revealed that her business partner and relative Abid Hussain was a senior member of Hizb ut-Tahrir - the terrorist supporting Islamist supremacist organisation that Cameron himself had promised (but failed) to ban. Not only had Warsi invited Abid Hussain into Downing Street but he also accompanied her on some of her many 'official' trips to Pakistan and other Muslim countries (these trips were official only in the sense that the UK taxpayer paid for them; there was never any rational reason for the Party Chairman - whose job should always have been focused exclusively on grassroots UK activities - to make them; imagine the outcry if the Party Chairman was a Jew and all 17 foreign trips he made in one year were to Israel). When Warsi was also discovered this year to have failed to declare her business interests with the House of Lords authorities, and to have claimed an allowance for accommodation while staying at the home of a party donor who said he did not charge rent, you would have thought that Cameron would finally see sense and sack her.

For a few moments yesterday it appeared that Cameron had finally came to his senses. Warsi herself - in breach of Cabinet confidentiality rules - announced her dismissal as Party Chairman on twitter before it was officially announced. She also turned down Cameron's offer of the role of Commonwealth Minister (the Sun quotes her friends as saying "this job was so tokenistic it was ridiculous"). But, instead of telling the ungrateful traitor and cretin where to go, Cameron decided he could not do without her. He has actually created a new Cabinet post for her that gives her two ministerial positions with much greater authority than anything she has had before. And it appears that Warsi herself chose the two positions; they are the two ministries where her Muslim supremacist agenda can be used to the maximum: she is now Foreign Office Minister (with only Hague above her in seniority) and Minister for "Faith and Communities". In the former role expect a massively enhanced strategy of deligitimzation of Israel and even more millions of terrorist supporting foreign aid cash to Pakistan and Palestine; in the latter expect a massive drive to further criminalize criticism of Islam and soften opposition to the advances of Sharia law.

This is one of the worse days in the history of British politics. And it is being totally ignored by the main stream media, most of whom have managed to spin the story as being a 'humiliating demotion' for Warsi, who is the 'victim of Tory Islamaphobia, racism, and sexism'.

UPDATE (6 Sept): It gets worse (and the UK media is still ignoring this). The Pakistani media is reporting far more (and more worrying) details:

Warsi will continue to have a seat at the cabinet table but more importantly she also now has a seat at the National Security Council meetings. Her brief in the new job involves a long list of areas but the most important ones are Af-Pak policy, withdrawal of British troops from Afghanistan, Organisation of Islamic Countries (OIC), and central Asia, Commonwealth, United Nations, human rights and consular policies. In her role as the Faith and Communities minister, a role specifically created for her in the Communities and Local Government (CLG) where she will have two special advisors to assist her, she will work towards the enhancement of faith in the social and public life.

UPDATE (8 Sept) Melanie Phillips has also picked up on the potential seriousness of this now. She has some very revealing quotes by Warsi that provide evidence that she is one of the last people any rational Brit would want at a National Security Council meeting.

UPDATE April 2014: Two years on my worst fears about Warsi have all been realised.

The Co-Op's boycott of Israel: 20 questions

Letter from the Co-Op

In response to the Co-Op's well publicised decision to boycott all goods from 'illegal Israeli settlements' I withdrew all the money I had in a Britannia building society account (Britannia is part of the Co-Op) and wrote a letter explaining why.


I got the letter shown shown here from Amanda Bailey (Customer Relations). Here is the reponse I have sent back to her (for a different take on this story see here):

Amanda Bailey

Customer Relations

The Co-operative

Freepost MR9473

MA 8BA

4 August 2012

Dear Ms Bailey,

Thank you for your letter of 19th July. I have a number of follow-up questions.

My first set of questions relate to your choice of criteria for boycotting countries. You assert that under your “Human Rights and Trade Policy” you withdraw all trade when there is a ‘broad international consensus a settlement is illegal’ and that ‘there are only two examples of such settlements: the Israeli settlements in the Palestinian Occupied Territories and the Moroccan settlements in Western Sahara”.  Before addressing the issue of the legality or otherwise of the Israeli settlements, I note from your website that the most serious humans rights abusers in the world, namely Syria, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Somalia, Venezuela, Yemen and Zimbabwe are not on your boycott list. So my questions are:

1. ‘Occupation’  is the only criteria that you mention; what other criteria do you have as part of your “Human Rights and Trade Policy”?

2. Is denial of equal rights to women and/or minorities included in your criteria, and if not why not?

3. Is persecution of gays and lesbians included in your criteria, and if not why not?

4. Is the brutal suppression of ethnic minorities and political dissidents included in your criteria, and if not why not?

5. Is sponsoring and glorifying terrorism included in your criteria, and if not why not?

6. Is state sponsored anti-Semitism included in your criteria, and if not why not?

7. Assuming the answer to at least one of questions 1-6 is ‘yes’ then why are you not boycotting goods from every one of the 58 Muslim countries in the world?

8. Is “conducting illegal wars far from a country’s own borders” one of the criteria, and if so why is the Co-Op not boycotting goods from the USA,  France, Italy, Holland etc. In fact, how comes the Co-Op is not boycotting goods from the UK?

My next set of questions concerns the issue of ‘illegal settlements’ of which you say there are only two examples (one of which is the Israelis):

9. Are you aware that, even according to the United Nations (resolution 242), the West Bank does not belong to any national territory but rather is considered disputed territory whose borders are to be determined under a final status peace agreement?

10. Are you aware of the recent Levy Report that demolishes the false narrative of Israeli settlement and occupation by restating many of the obvious points of law; most significantly that Israel is not an occupying power and did not seize any land from another state. Indeed all of the land that Israel is accused of occupying in the West Bank is actually land that was seized from it by the invading Jordanian and other Arab armies during its 1948 War of Independence?

11. Are you aware that the only legal basis for denouncing the Jews who returned in 1967 to the homes that they had been expelled from in 1948 as “settlers” is by recognizing the Jordanian conquests of those territories. But those conquests were never recognized or accepted. Not even by the international community.

12. Assuming that your claim of a ‘broad international consensus’ is the 2004 International Court of Justice ruling (which Israel did not participate in and which has been demolished by the Levy report) are you aware that one of the  ICC ‘judges’ was  Al Khasawneh who had a blatant conflict of interest, since he was an advisor to the King of Jordan and later became the Prime Minister of Jordan?

13. Why does your notion of occupied territories fail to include the approximately 160 other territories around the world that are ‘disputed’ (each of which necessarily involves one country ‘occupying it’ against the wishes of some other country or national group)?

14. In particular why does your definition not include genuinely brutal occupations such as: the Chinese occupation of Tibet, the Turkish occupation of Northern Cyprus, or even the Russian occupation of Abkhazia, especially as China, Russia and Turkey all of have infinitely worse human rights records than Israel? 

15. You are presumably aware that one of the disputed international territories is the Falklands Islands, which Argentina claims is illegally occupied by the UK. A significant majority of countries in the UN now agree with the Argentine position. So, as per question 8 above, why is the Co-Op not boycotting the UK?

16. Are you aware that any notion of an ‘international consensus’ is fundamentally irrelevant because the United Nations contains 58 Muslim states – all  human rights abusers as described above - who provide a built-in ‘consensus’ on any anti-Israel motion that anybody cares to think of? 

My next question concerns your assertion that the Co-Op “continue to seek increased trade with Palestinian businesses.” The corrupt Palestinian Authority is not only guilty of all of the human rights offences listed above, but is actually one of the world’s worst offenders. For anti-Semitism the PA truly are world-beaters with their indoctrination of children (becoming a suicide bomber to kill Jews is the highest ambition of most Palestinians children); in the Palestinian Authority selling land to a Jew (not an Israeli please note) is punishable by death and numerous Palestinian citizens have been killed for this ‘crime’. So:

17: How is the Co-Op’s “Human Rights and Trade Policy” consistent with seeking increased traded with such a brutal, corrupt regime?

And finally, three general questions:

18. Do you believe that Israel – the only liberal democracy in the Middle East where all minorities have equal rights – is a worse human rights violator than Syria, Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, the Palestinian Authority, Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, Russia, China etc?

19. How is your policy to boycott goods produced by Jewish communities in the West Bank anything other than pure anti-Semitism?

20. How and why did the Co-Op get hoodwinked into a nonsensical hypocritical policy (that will ultimately be self-damaging) by a small group of congenital anti-Semites disguised as ‘pro-Palestinian’ activists.

Yours sincerely,

Edgar Davidson

UPDATE 10 Sept 2012: See here.

Political Correctness at the Olympics

The hypocrisy of the IOC in refusing to allow a minute of silence for the murdered Israeli athletes has been well covered elsewhere. But what shocked me about last night's ceremony was that there was clearly plenty of opportunity to insert a tribute without having to get into a debate with the IOC about a minute of silence. When the ceremony included a 'moment of reflection where we remember those who are no longer with us' I thought that at least now we were going to see some acknowledgement in front of the world. But what we got were simply hundreds of pictures of unspecified people (who apparently were dead relatives of spectators along with victims of the London bombings). Why those dead people are more relevant to the Olympic games than athletes actually murdered at the Games I do not know. And, contrary to the previous claim that there was no time for a tribute to the murdered Israelis, I reckon that this 'wall of reflection',  together with the singing of 'Abide with me' that followed lasted about 7 minutes.

There was also a second opportunity at the end to acknowledge the dead Israelis by including, among the people selected to hold the Olympic flag at the climax, Ankie Spitzer (wife of murdered athlete and campaigner for Olympics remembrance). Instead - to fit in with the political correctness of the whole event - we got a selection of people who are supposed to have 'worked against racism'. All - apart from - the ludicrous Ban ki-Moon (the totally useless UN president) and Daniel Barenboim (more of him below) were black and they included the truly bizarre choices of: Shami Chakrabarti (President of 'Liberty') who is best known for her opposition to any attempts to limit the free movement of known Jihadist terrorists, and Doreen Lawrence who is the mother of a murdered black teenager who fought to get his white murderers convicted. Doreen Lawrence is, no doubt, a decent woman but why her attempt to get justice for her murdered loved one is more important or relevant than Ankie Spitzer's - or indeed than hundreds of other mother's of murdered teenagers in the UK I do not know. No doubt a mother of a white murdered teenager who fights to get his black murderers convicted would be called a racist rather than a promoter of anti-racism. The choice of Daniel Barenboim was the ultimate insult to the Israelis. Here is an 'Israeli Jew' who hates Israel so much that he has taken on Palestinian citizenship.

Ultimately, therefore, the blame for the failure to insert some remembrance to the murdered athletes last night  goes not to the anti-Semites of the IOC but to the British organisers of the ceremony. If David Cameron truly wanted the memorial to the Israelis - as he has claimed - and if Danny Boyle truly was the obsessive anti-racist campaigner that he claims to be, then how comes their conviction failed to produce even the tiniest acknowledgement in a ceremony which they - and not the IOC - had total control over?  All it would have taken was a single image on that large screen showing the faces of the 11 murdered Israelis and the words "Israeli athletes murdered at Olympic Games 1972".

But of course, like most left-wing 'anti-racists' there are some forms of racism that Danny Boyle is blind to and that is racism against the Jews (the other is racism by Muslims against anybody).

p.s. on a completely separate note regarding the political correctness of the ceremony it was interesting that the centrepiece was a Soviet style tribute to the National Health Service. As Andrew Gilligan comments today:

The idea of the Health Service as a beacon for the world is, bluntly, a national self-delusion. Most other Western European countries have better state healthcare systems – and healthier people – than we do.

And far superior medical treatment is available in the US where there is only very limited 'public' funding (at least until Obama gets his way to make the American system as bad as the British).

The Left has a real problem with Islam - and we have to pay

I found out from an excellent article here that the (unelected) European Commissioner for Home Affairs is a Swedish socialist called Cecilia Malmström. This led me to discover a speech printed in full on the EU website that this unelected official made at Harvard University on 30 April 2012.

Anybody worried about the increasing impact of the EU on our lives should read this article. If I were to write a parody of what an insane Socialist would say to a bunch of left-wing American academics then it would be something like this article. Sadly it is not a joke. It actually is a statement of official EU policy in response to the 'Arab Spring' and it is one of the most frightening and ignorant things I have ever read. It is not just incredible that this policy has been pushed through by an unelected clique, but that nothing has been said about it in the main stream media.

The policy, in a nutshell, is as follows:

1. We think the Arab Spring is a fantastic move to democracy but to make sure everything turns out fine we are going to transfer massive amounts of money and other favours to the Arab countries involved. For example Malmström says "we are seriously stepping up our financial assistance (1 billion € extra on top of the 5.7 billion already available)". There is no mention of how the EU can afford this at a time when many of its countries are facing financial collapse.
2. The EU has an ageing population and a lack of "skilled and talented" workers, which together means the EU will eventually collapse unless we invite millions of Arabs to emigrate to the EU, especially those from the 'Arab spring' countries. For example, Malmström says "we will promote the mobility of people between these countries and the EU, including by issuing multi-entry visas ...Right now we are negotiating a so-called security and mobility partnership with Tunisia and Morocco". There is no  attempt to explain how such a policy squares with the fact that all EU countries are facing mass unemployment. There is also no recogntion of the fact that Arab countries are the last place any sensible person would go looking for "skilled and talented" workers.

But the wierdest thing is that this buffoon (and presumably the entire Western leftist elite) fail to see the obvious contradiction/paradox in the above two policies. If we truly want to ensure the 'Arab spring works out well'  then surely the last thing we should be doing is demanding that all their 'skilled and talented' people leave immediately to come to the EU to fulfill our needs. In fact isn't this rather racist?  By failing to spot such an obvious contradiction we are left to conclude that these leftists deep down believe that the Arabs are never going to build nice democratic societies and that the only way to keep them stable is to ensure they receive continued mass hand-outs from the West. Hence, contrary to Malmström's assertions in the speech that people who oppose mass Muslim immigration are right wing xenophones, it appears the true Islamaphobes are the leftists themselves. 

A truly remarkable video

Elder of Ziyon has a video - translated by MEMRI - from Egypt's version of Candid Camera where famous actors are told they would be interviewed by a German TV station but then they "discover" during the interview that it is really "an Israeli" TV station. It is remakable in so many ways. The key things to note:

• Actors are assumed to be 'liberal' in their views, but these all express pathological violent, anti-Semitism. If this is how they behave to people they think are Jews just imagine what the 'uneducated' masses think.
• When the 'joke' is revealed at the end the actors are genuinely congratulated on their anti-Semitism. As the female 'interviewer' says (despite being assaulted by one actor): "I didn’t know that there could be such patriotism, but it exists in every Egyptian who breathes the air of this country." 
• The Egyptians were in no way ashamed to show this on TV, but were rather pround of it.

If MEMRI was not such a reliable source, I would have assumed that this simply had to be a spoof. i.e that this was an Israeli spoof of an Egyptian show. But it has been confirmed that the program was broadcast on Egypt’s Al-Nahar channel and that these are very well known actors in Egypt. There can be no better piece of evidence of why any attempt to make real peace with Egypt (and indeed any Arab country) is a waste of time. Forget all the political articles and analyses, if people just watch this video it will explain all they need to know about the Middle East. Just think if Obama and Cameron spent the 10 minutes watching it their eyes would finally be opened to reality.

And to think, many Jews - and Israelis - still holiday in Egypt.

Update: someone posted the video to a very popular American pop culture blog. The response of the brainwashed America respondent sis almost as bad as the video, with almost universal hatred being directed against the person who posted the video. Avery typical response was "I don't need to watch a video to know that this is another example of you bringing your raging racist and ethnic hatred of Muslims to ONTD."