Just who in Britain stands up for Israel?

As I explained last week, British Jews can no longer rely on the Jewish Chronicle to be either a defender of Israel, or even the provider of news that is anything other than coloured by a far left perspective.

A commenter on that article said that the free "Jewish News" is much more balanced.Sadly, that has not been the case for at least two years and today's issue provides a perfect summary of why. There is a wrap around cover publicising the "Closer to Israel Parade and Celebration' taking place in London on 2 June, but that is an advert and when you look inside the actual paper you will find plenty of evidence to suggest the writers do not sympathise with the advert's message. The articles shown here are especially disgraceful because they would not have been out of place in the Guardian, the BBC, or even Al Jazeera.

• The article headlined "Two killed in confrontation" starts with "An Israeli settler in Nablus and a Palestinian were killed this week as several incidents led to heightened alert across Israel." In other words, in classic BBC style the Jewish News is now making a moral equivalence between an Israeli civilian killed in a brutal unprovoked terrorist attack and the pinpoint assassination of the very member of an Al Qaeda affiliated organisation in Gaza who led last week's rocket attack on Eilat. Even more outrageous is that, while the article names the dead terrorist, it does not bother to name the Israeli civilian. Instead it refers to him simply as "an armed settler" - apparently using that description as justification for him being killed and ignoring the fact that all Israelis living in the West bank must by necessity carry their guns with them when they travel (and he was hitchhiking). The murdered Jew, who the Jewish News feels does not deserve to be named,  was the much loved 31-year-old Evyatar Borovsky, from the settlement of Yitzhar, a father of five (the youngest just 7 years old). But, the Jewish News doesn't want you to know that - just in case you might feel a tiny bit of sympathy.

• The article headlined "Ban on illegal shells" talks about Israel's decision to halt its use of white phosphorous. In fact the headline is a blatant smear. Israel's use of white phoshorous has always been legal (NATO troops use it in exactly the same way) and its decision to stop it was taken unilaterally purely for PR reasons.
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• The article headlined "Price tag attacks are an issue Jews worldwide must address" is just more of the nonsense we saw in last week's JC where we have the total inversion of reality in which Jews attacking Arabs is supposed to be the main problem that Israel faces. But in terms of sheer pomposity and stupidity it's hard to beat the message that 'Jews worldwide' must do something about this (non-existent) problem. How about this writer Dr Gvaryahu demanding that every Christian in the world must do something about Christian teenagers brawling in Scunthorpe every Friday night? Or even demanding that every Muslim in the world addresses the problem of Muslim terrorism (oops better rule that one out as it actually makes sense).

So, if the only two Jewish newspapers in the UK now simply parrot the same narrative as the Guardian and BBC about Israel, which organisations actually are there left to genuinely support Israel? It certainly is not the UJIA (United Jewish Israel Appeal) whose leader Mick Davis thinks Israel is an apartheid state; it certainly isn't the Board of Deputies of British Jews whose priority is  not just to partner with the anti-Israel Oxfam, but to continue with that partnership after Oxfam was revealed to be funding Palestinian anti-Semitism and support for terrorism; it certainly isn't BICOM (Britain Israel Communications & Research Centre) who actually employ an anti-Israel activist to do their 'promotion'; and it is no longer even clear we can rely on the Zionist Federation who felt that it was their job to take visitors to Israel 'to meet Palestinians and understand their point of view'. Do these organisations, which are supposed to represent the interests of Israel and British Jews, really think that in the UK of all places it is their job to put across the Palestinian narrative when nothing other than that is forced onto everyone nonstop by the main stream media?

If the Jewish newspapers and organisations really want to talk about the Palestinian's viewpoint then why not focus on telling the British public about their obsessive death cult (which starts very young) their worship of terrorist murderers (the killer of Evyator Borovsky apparently had to murder a Jew to bring honour back to his family - oh and by the way he was a member of Fatah our 'peace partners'), their brutal treatment of women,  homosexuals, and christians, their genuine apartheid (not a single Jew is allowed to live in areas controlled by the Palestinians); or how about the way they treat their disabled children leaving - guess who to pick up the tab; and above all the fact they do not - and never did - want an independent state; they only ever wanted the destruction of Israel. Then perhaps people like Dr Gvaryahu might demand more appropriately that Jews worldwide do something about that.

p.s. There is an outstanding article today by Caroline Glick which tounches on many of the issues above.