Britain's 'Offical Jews' submit to Islam

Any Israel-supporting Jew who has been a student or a staff member at a University in the last 10 years or so has come to dread the annual Muslim Brotherhood organized 'Islam Awareness Week' that takes place on each campus because it provides a platform not just for the usual Islamic hate-preachers, but also for some of the most intense anti-Israel activity.  So which organisation in the UK has decided to host the launch of Islam Awareness Week 2014? Step forward none other than the new multi-million pound Jewish community centre JW3. 

Earlier this week Mark Steyn wrote a superb article in which he highlighted how what he called the 'official Jews' of Canada and America had betrayed their communities by ignoring the threat posed to them (and Israel) of Islamic fundamentalism. In the UK - as I have reported over the years on this blog - the situation is even worse. The 'official Jewish' voice in the UK (represented by such organisations as: The Board of Deputies of British Jews, The Jewish Leadership Council, the UJIA,  The Union of Jewish Students, The Jewish Chronicle, The Jewish News etc) has become increasingly sympathetic to the leftist-Islamist agenda. Not only does this mean they collaborate with, and provide a platform for, virulent anti-Israel protagonists, but it has also  led to the bizarre situation whereby the 'official Jews' have worked with Islamic fundamentalists to ban those brave people bold enough to expose the Islamic threat. But the decision of the 'official Jews' of JW3 to host the launch of Islam Awareness week goes well beyond any of that.

Israel as a tourist destination

Cafe Mezzada, Tel Aviv, 18 Feb 2013

One of the ramifications of the ingrained anti-Israel atmosphere in the UK in the last few years has been what amounts to effectively a boycott of Israel as a tourist destination. At times this takes the form of genuine political intervention such as the ban imposed by the Advertising Standards Authority on allowing Jerusalem to be included in any advertising of Israel holidays; even when the main-stream Travel Agencies do include Israel in their holidays and cruises they refer to 'the Holy Land' and not Israel by name.

But mostly the 'boycott' is due to simple prejudice and ignorance. For example, the average British person assumes Israel is far too dangerous a place to visit (I go 5 or 6 times a year and every time people - including Jewish friends - find it incredulous) - yet will think nothing of going to Egypt (and other Arab and Muslim countries) where terrorism and violence against tourists has been a much greater threat for years. And those Brits who avoid Israel on 'ethical' grounds flood to Muslim countries (Egypt, Turkey, Dubai etc) which are among the worst human rights abusers in the world. Of course, while negative stories about Israel dominate the British news, the far greater problems in Muslim countries go unreported; even major terrorist attacks in Egypt (such as last week's suicide bombing of a Korean tourist bus in near Taba) failed to make the main British news.  This explains why, even a year after the Egyptian Sinai became a genuine war zone, there are still dozens of flights to Sharm el Sheikh from the UK every day. In stark contrast there has not been a single direct flight to Eilat from the UK for the last 3 years. British tourists who pour into places like Sharm (5.5 hours flight) and Dubai (6.5 hours flight) for winter sunshine breaks are completely unaware that there is equally hot winter sun in Eilat (4.5 hours when there were direct flights).

So, after all that, it is nice to report that Britain's most popular daily newspaper the Sun has today finally featured Israel in its weekly travel section (albeit after about 800 consecutive weeks in which both Sharm el Sheikh and Dubai have been featured). And it's a good report too (you can just about read it all if you click on it).

Sun Travel Section, 22 Feb 2014

And, since I just arrived back myself, I thought for a change I would post some pictures:

Bograshov Beach: The sign says “I’m a beach not a giant ashtray – OK?”	Bograshov Beach

“Apartheid” Israel: an elderly Arab couple are given special care at Ben Gurion airport		Shuk Ha-Carmel

Hilton Beach	Sunset over the Marina Tel Aviv

Islamaphobia

The gloriously misnamed "Islamic Human Rights Commission of the UK" is a Khomeinist  Iranian Government sponsored group that organises the annual 'Death to Israel' march through the streets of London.

It also (as noted here) has just announced its "Islamaphobia Awards 2014"

By presenting their list of nominations they are at least providing a great service in alerting us to some of the best writers on the subject of the threat of violent Islam (the objective being to silence them of course) and also some of the most heroic political campaigners against Islamic violence (who already pay with having to have 24 hours security).It is worth looking at the full list but there is one entry that stands out as genuinely bizarre, namely

Barack Obama, for mostly everything

(there's gratitude for you!).

To give a feel for the fine justifications they make for the nominations, they say of Douglas Murray

for everything he's ever written in The Spectator

It is interesting that they also nominate Daniel Greenfield (aka Sultan Knish)

for vilification and inciting hatred against Muslims in Front Page Mag

Daniel - who I regard as the most brilliant and prolific blogger of all - must be doing something right  if he has got under their skin to this extent. It is good to see him finally getting the recognition he deserves.

Edgar Artwork (click to enlarge)

UK Media

Obama has Israel's back

Marching with Islam

Oxfam Funding

Arafat and Obama: the love match

Spencer and Geller Banned from UK

Establishment v Tommy

Barry Rubin - one of the few analysts who really understood the Middle East - has died

Barry Rubin died today. Tributes appear at Elder of Ziyon and IsraellyCool. In my view there was no analyst and writer who understood the Middle East as much as he did. Because his analyses did not fit with the 'liberal', anti-Israel narrative, and also because he had previously been a man 'of the left', he never received the widespread recognition that he deserved. But his work lives on in his writings.

I met Barry Rubin in Tel Aviv in 2007 and have been in frequent email contact since then. On occasions he provided important background information for articles I wrote, including shedding light on a number of Israeli academics in the UK who were hiding their extreme anti-Zionist background in order to be able to speak at mainstream Jewish/Zionist events in the UK. This included one academic who was even hired to run the advocacy work of one of the mainstream organisations, but spent his time essentially arguing for the dissolution of the Jewish state.

How to get on to BBC's Question Time (panel member or audience)

Because of its notorious anti-Israel obsession (read, for example, about Melanie Philips' most recent experience) I stopped watching BBC's Question Time several years ago. But I ended up listening to it (as opposed to watching it) on 30 January. And it was depressing because there was completely uniform acceptance (by the panel and the audience) of an extreme leftist narrative on every single issue (and, incidentally, for once Israel was not mentioned). Given that the panel always includes one 'Conservative' you might think I am exaggerating - until I tell you that the 'Conservative' was Ken Clarke MP (who I think may have disagreed with some of the more ludicrous views expressed but was too laid back to bother saying so). I understand the other panelists were shadow attorney general Emily Thornberry MP, Liberal Democrat peer Lord Oakeshott, comedian and feminist activist Kate Smurthwaite, and director general of the Institute of Economic Affairs Mark Littlewood.

To give an example of their mindset,  one of the questions was about the recent decision by the UK Government to give yet another £600million for Syrian aid and to allow the immediate entry of Syrian refugees to the UK. The panel were in total agreement that not only was all of this obviously the right thing to do, but that it was a scandal that the UK was not doing much more. But one lone person in the audience dared to say something like "why are we giving all this massive support to Syrians when there are millions of old people suffering hardship in the UK and many affected by the floods who are getting no government support".  The answer (I think from Emily Thornberry) to thunderous and sustained applause was: “Because, unlike the people in the UK,  the Syrians did not choose to be the victims of a terrible civil war”.  Analysing the stupidity of that statement deserves  a blog posting all of its own (at some point in the future I will write one about it).

There was much more insanity along those lines, but both of the women on the panel (I was listening but not watching) sounded exactly like Camilla (a brilliant spoof of a left-wing politico) with every utterance more ludicrous than the previous way and each being greeted by even louder applause. The men on the panel simply agreed with everything they said. In fact, based on what I heard there is NO alternative voice allowed. So, based only on comments from one program, I think it is safe to assume that if you want to appear on Question Time - either as a panel member or audience member it is mandatory for you to believe all of the following:

• Global warming/Climate change is by far and away the most important problem mankind has ever confronted and all the world's wealthy countries must use all their money to combat it. The floods in Somerset are proof that climate change is now about to completely destroy the world - and it is all entirely man made. Not a single scientist disagrees, but a tiny number of insane 'climate deniers' are 'in control of things' and stopping any progress.
• Second in importance to climate change is the need to allow unlimited millions of refugees - especially from troubled Muslim nations - into the UK and they must be given unlimited funds forever and we must under no circumstances attempt any kind of background check on any one of them as this is 'Islamaphobic'. Doing this will be fantastic for the UK economy because all Muslims are peace loving with an incredible work ethic.
• Third in importance to combating climate change and solving all the world's refugee problems by ourselves is how to confront the evil fascists of UKIP.
• It is a crime to be rich, but fortunately 'taxing the rich' will solve every economic problem.
• Giving unlimited money to people on the doll, immigrants etc will lead to massive economic growth for the UK as it will give them 'spending power'.
• Foreign terrorists convicted in the UK must never be deported
• The world is so interconnected and everybody is really so similar that we have an obligation to help every country in the world where there is conflict and poverty because doing so will lead to an improvement in the world economy. In fact, the British economy can only improve by giving all our money to poor nations because that will make them richer and they will then spend their money boosting our economy.  In any case all that poverty and conflict is the fault of the rich Western nations and that is why it is our responsibility to solve it.

And, of course, you will be very pleased to known that one of next week's guests is none other than George Galloway; so to get on the program you will also need to add the obligatory beliefs about the Middle East and Israel (see full list here and here).

If all that was not bizarre and depressing enough, following Question Time was the Andrew Neil programme where he and his guests essentially repeated everything that was agreed on Question Time (and Andrew Neil is also supposed to be a 'conservative').  There was, however, one dissenting voice: a Syrian woman interviewed by Andrew Neil who said the Syrian refugees should go to Arab countries not the UK because their culture and language was the same whereas it was completely alien to the UK. Andrew Neil literally laughed at her saying that we must not allow the Syrians to go to Arab countries because they would be repressed. He said that wealthy Arab countries like Saudi Arabia were out of the question because 'the women would be forced to cover up' (and 'we' in the UK must not allow that to happen!!!!!), while the 'other Arab countries are too poor or overcrowded'. Apparently there are no such countries called UAE, Qatar, Bahrein etc.

For an alternative spin on this post please see here.

Notorious baby-killer converts to Islam

The Sun reports today that Jason Owen - who was convicted of the brutal murder of "Baby P" in 2007 - has converted to Islam. The story gives an indication of the extent to which Muslim inmates now control prisons in the UK, providing protection 'to their own'. And they are clearly happy to have perverted baby murderers as one of their own.

The problem of Muslim gangs in UK prisons forcing other prisoners to convert to Islam has been previously reported here and here. Even the Guardian has recognized that prisoner converts to Islam represent a serious terrorist threat to the UK when they are released.

Update on Mohamed Salah story

Following this story, I have recieved a response from Chelsea. It said simply:

Thank you for taking the time to write to the club. I wanted to wait until Mohamed was with the club before responding. I would like to alert you to some quotes from the player on this topic. His words were published on our website today.

Mohamed said: ‘There have been incorrect stories about me, I am a footballer – I do not do politics. I respect everybody, it doesn’t matter where they come from. I do not have a problem with anybody. And I will not speak about this again.’

And here is my follow-up response:

I appreciate your response, but it really is a strange statement from Mohamed. He needs to be much more specific about the 'incorrect stories'. He is surely not claiming that the video evidence of him avoiding hand-shakes on four separate occasions (before and after each of the Basel v Maccabi TA ties) is somehow fabricated? And what about the extensively documented statement "I am going to play in Palestine and not Israel and I am also going to score and win there. The Zionist flag won’t be shown in the Champions League." Are the many dozens of news agencies who attribute that quote to him all wrong?

Surely the best way to resolve this situation is to do what I suggested in my original email. That would be a win-win would it not? At the very least, how about a very explicit statement like the following: "I realise that my actions and some comments attributed to me in connection with the Basel v Macabbi TA matches could be considered offensive and disrespectful to Israeli players and Jews generally. I apologize for any offence I may have caused and can assure all supporters that I would be very happy to play in Israel for Chelsea and to respect the normal standards of sportsmanship such as shaking hands with all players."

Since Mohamed Salah's statement said he 'will not speak about this again' I'm not hopeful that the suggestions in my follow-up letter will be considered. And if they are not it would be very reasonable to conclude that Chelsea have signed a bone fide antisemite. Let's wait and see.