More on the "Israel Apartheid State" lie

Following on from my latest piece Fiona Warburton of "Free Palestine Now" has responded.

All these progressive thinkers and intellectuals know the truth but incredibly the Zionists try to deny

Responding to the "Israel apartheid state lie"

All these progressive thinkers, intellectuals and peacemakers cannot be wrong

March 2017 Update: See the pathetic Union of Jewish Students response to 'Apartheid Week"

A number of my friends' children have just experienced their first 'Israel Apartheid' week on campus (more on this below) and this has raised the question of how best to respond. The response should be the same as if a man who has never met your grandmother tells you that she is an Alien bounty hunter from the Planet Zog and demands to know if you are therefore prepared to help him kill her.  You should expose the person who says that as the liar and insane psychopath that they are.

The Nazi propaganda chief Goebbels said: if you repeat a lie often enough people will believe it and the bigger the lie the more they will believe it.  The Nazis’ used this observation to devastating effect. Their lie about the Jews being ‘dangerous subhuman specimens’ was propagated over a relatively short period of time (6 years) but was sufficient to enable otherwise cultured, civilised, rational people to gleefully participate in the mass murder of 6 million Jews, including one and a half million children slaughtered like the animals the Nazis said they were.  The long-term objective of the ‘Israel is an apartheid state’ lie is similarly nothing less than the destruction of the Jewish state and its 6 million Jewish inhabitants. Just look at the people who are behind the lie.

Any rational person who has ever spent any time in Israel knows, of course, that the Apartheid lie is every bit as ludicrous and offensive as the Nazi lie. To enter into a discussion defending against the Apartheid lie only gives undeserved credibility to the liars. Nevertheless there is a wealth of unimpeachable, easily accessible material that exposes every single facet of the Israel Apartheid lie (see, e.g. here, here, here, here and here). But just as the only rational way of dealing with the Nazi lie should have been to expose the Nazis, the only rational (and honourable) way to deal with the Apartheid lie is to expose those who promote the lie. I am not talking about the thousands of naive, easily influenced (and sometimes well-meaning) university students who have fallen for the lie (just as hundreds of thousands of well-meaning Germans fell for the Nazi lie). I am talking about those who started the lie and those who actively promote it.

For the historical record the apartheid lie was actually invented by the KGB in communist Russia as part of the Cold War – after the total defeat of the Arab armies with their Soviet equipment  in 1967.  The KGB produced all the propaganda material in the late 1960s and 1970s that was then used by radical leftists throughout the Western world. Since the fall of the Soviet Union the apartheid lie has been driven by a hard core of anti-Semites, leftist revolutionaries and Islamists - the latter of whom  come from Arab countries which practice real apartheid (those same Arab countries provide much of the funding now for the propaganda which is still based on the Soviet material). The liars’ agenda is the destruction of the State of Israel. Despite belonging to organisations with names like the ‘Palestine Solidarity Campaign’ or 'Students for Justice for Palestinians' they have no interest in the welfare of the Palestinians; this is proven by their total lack of concern for the genuinely appalling plight of Palestinians in Syria (where they are being starved and murdered) and Lebanon (where for over 65 years they have been denied rights of citizenship and are banned from most professions).  Read here about the kind of Western student organisations who promote Israel Apartheid week. 

The Arabs who promote the Apartheid lie are simply projecting the Apartheid that is rampant in their in their own countries and minds.  The Apartheid states are all Arab and Muslim: not a single practicing Jew lives in Gaza or the Palestinian Authority areas (where Jews cannot even travel without facing likely murder),  Jordan and Saudi Arabia (where in both countries it is illegal to be a citizen if you are a Jew). There are just 2 remaining Jews in Iraq (where there were 300,000 as recently as 1952), 3 in Syria, 40 in Lebanon and 30 in Egypt, and less than 3000 Jews live in all of the other Arab countries combined. Yet, less than 60 years ago those Arab countries had thriving communities of Jews totally over 1,000,000.  They have all been driven out. But while every University student knows about the ‘plight of the Palestinians’ none know about the plight of Jews forcibly driven from Arab lands.

The most curiously misunderstood thing about the 'Israel Apartheid' lie is that the only people in Israel who are actually subject to legal restrictions because of their religion are the Jews. For example:

• while Muslims are free to pray at any of their holy sites anywhere in Israel, Jews are banned from stepping foot on their holiest site (Temple Mount) and can only enter others (such as Rachel's tomb) at great risk under army escort. Israeli police are not even allowed to intervene when Arabs stone Jews from the Temple Mount.
• only Jews (and Druze) are legally forced to give up 3 years of their life (and then one month per year until retirement) to go in the army. Muslims have no obligation at all for any type of national service despite having full (and indeed disproportionately large) access to all national benefits. 
• because all terrorism in Israel is committed by Arabs against Jews, only Jewish-owned buildings and businesses are forced to maintain costly security guards, barriers, and checks on each person entering. 

It is also important to note that:

• No Jew can freely walk into any Muslim neighbourhood in Israel without endangering their lives. In contrast any Muslim can enter any Jewish neighbourhood without any fear at all.
• Any plans for new construction in Jewish neighbourhoods result in condemnation by the ‘international community’.  Meanwhile completely illegal construction by Muslims anywhere goes unchallenged both by the ‘international community’ and by Israel lawmakers themselves. 

Finally, back to the friends' children at University. One of many examples was a student concerned about a vicious piece of anti-Israel propaganda (written by a Muslim woman) that appeared in the University's magazine to coincide with 'Israel Apartheid week'. Although it provides certain reasonable sounding caveats, the article contains all of the usual cliched lies. Especially bizarre is the statement that

 " ... the sheer importance of this week remains – especially when only recently the incredibly controversial figure, Ariel Sharon, was painted as a hero in the Western media."

The UK media actually painted Sharon as an evil bloodthirsty murderer. but just why the media's portrayal of Sharon justifies the antisemitic Apartheid week is something I find difficult to get my head around.

I suggested the student should counter the claims in the article as follows:

• The article perpetuates a number of common libels and myths against Israel, and demonstrates that the author knows nothing about Israel (or the Palestinians) other than what she has learnt from propaganda promoted by those who seek the destruction of the Jewish State. 
• The ‘military checkpoints’ that she says (misleadingly) are ‘inflicted on Palestinian children’ are of course inflicted on everybody in Israel and the Palestinian areas to stop the unrelenting attempts by Palestinian terrorists to attack Israeli civilians. Israeli schoolchildren (like every other Israeli) are additionally subjected to ‘checkpoints’ every time they enter a public building for the same reason. Without Palestinian terrorism there would be no need for the checkpoints for anybody and nor would there be any need for the ‘430 mile’ security fence which she is so offended by and which she bizarrely likens to the Berlin wall. The communists erected the Berlin wall wall to keep people in, while the sole purpose of Israel’s security fence is to keep the terrorists out. Perhaps she has forgotten the 1500 Israeli civilians murdered in buses and restaurants between 2000 and 2003 before the fence was built. The fence has kept the flow of suicide bombers to a minimum and saved thousands of lives.
• As for the ‘illegal settlements’ on ‘Palestinian land’, I assume she is referring to territory which, between 1948 and 1967 was illegally occupied by Jordan (not ‘Palestine’) and which Israel captured in 1967 after the Arabs tried to annihilate Israel. Presumably Nadeine feels that Jews should not be allowed to live in these (admittedly disputed) areas. In which case who is the one who believes in Apartheid? In any case Israel has offered many times to give up these areas in exchange for peace only for the Palestinians to refuse. When Israel did give up the whole of Gaza in 2005 it was ‘rewarded’ by a campaign of terrorist rockets that continues to this day (150 launched last Wednesday alone). 
• On the Apartheid lie it is interesting that she says ‘Indeed Mandela himself was an avid supporter of the Palestinian plight’. What she fails to mention is that Mandela was appalled that the apartheid analogy was used against Israel.
• Not only has the author presented a biased anti-Israel narrative, but also completely misses the point about those concerned by the ‘Israel apartheid week’ taking place in a University. The point is that Israel - the only functioning democracy in the Middle East and the only Middle Eastern country where, for example, Muslim women are treated as equals in the law – also just happens to be the only country in the world singled out for such demonization. If, as the author claims, she is just as concerned about ‘other struggles’ perhaps she can explain why there are no ‘apartheid weeks’ demonizing the many Arab and Muslim countries where real apartheid is carried out; for example, as a Muslim woman herself why is she not promoting a Saudi apartheid week where she can highlight the fact that women are not allowed to drive, not allowed to walk in public without a male guardian, and where non-Muslims are not allowed to travel on certain roads or even practice their own religion? The fact is that Israel – and only Israel – is singled out for completely undeserved demonization. That suggests anti-Semitism is the motive and that is why sensible people are concerned.  

The final interesting point is that the Jewish Society at the University was reluctant to respond at all to the article feeling that 'it was not too bad'.  That attitude does not surprise me -  the Union of Jewish Students (UJS) has actually joined forces on numerous occasions recently with the Islamic Societies to stop certain 'right wing' speakers from speaking on campus. These include speakers, such as the brilliant Douglas Murray, whose 'crime' was to be too strongly supportive of Israel and even a Muslim speaker because he supported Israel. And of course UJS was active in helping to get Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer (two of the bravest and most knowledgeable pro-Israel advocates) banned from the UK.  Most bizarrely last year the UJS actually gave all Jewish societies a supply of  Palestinian flags for their freshers' stalls to show how even-handed they were. The fact is that, like most student organisations, UJS is infested with leftist idiots.

See also Daphne Anson: Canadian Campus Bigots Turn Deaf Ears To Arab Israelis Debunking The "Apartheid" Slur

For an alternative spin on this story see here.

Update 19 March 2014: The Cous Cous Diaries also covers the same student article.

UPDATE: Footballers ... or bombers? How a typical libel against Israel gets promoted and accepted

On 8 March 2014 I posted this important story about a malicious libel against Israel whereby it was accused of shooting 'innocent Palestinian footballers' deliberately in their feet so that they could never walk again. The story was widely distributed by the usual antisemites and Israel haters along with demands that Israel be thrown out of FIFA. Now Bob Knott at Elder of Ziyon had done further extensive investigations which show that the story was even more of a pack of lies than I had suspected - the 'footballers' were in fact self-declared members of the terrorist organization DFLP (Democratic front for the Liberation of Palestine) and that they were attempting to bomb an Israeli security post. They were not shot in the feet at all. Bob also points out one minor error in my report (that the 'footballers' did indeed go to Ramallah hospital as well as Hadassah).

More on the relentless football Jihad against Israel here.

Palestinian civilian deaths

Elder of Ziyon has a report on how a 2-year old boy was killed in Gaza - along with his Hamas operative father and two others - last week when rockets they were building in their house blew up on them. A 62-year-old woman was killed nearby in a separate 'work accident' (as the Palestinians refer to such explosions when even they cannot blame them on Israel). There is nothing unusual about these events happening in Gaza (is is estmated that some 25% of the 120 rockets launched against Israel last week actually 'fell short' - i.e. landed in Gaza).

What is important to know about these incidents is that all of the European-based NGOs will count ALL of those deaths as 'Palestinian civilian deaths from the hostilities with Israel'. So, although they will not (at the time) actually blame Israel for these deaths, when they later come to trot out the numbers to vilify Israel they will inevitably be in the number claimed for 'Palestinian civilians killed by Israel'.  In fact, Palestinians who are murdered as 'collaborators' (such as these who were dragged through the streets of Gaza by Hamas) are also classified by the NGOs as "civilian deaths from the hostilities" and so they also eventually get added to the toll of "Palestinian civilians murdered by Israel".

Dramatic new announcements by Obama

In celebration of the Jewish festival of Purim President Obama has announced an extension of his policy of rapprochement. In a speech to the Annual Conference of the JfJfEwwtKU organisation (Jews for Justice for Everybody who wants to Kill Us) he said:

"Everybody knows that my policy of reaching out to genocidal antisemites, which was so successful with President Assad of Syria and which will also succeed with Iran, is the right thing to do. I therefore now plan to extend this policy beyond just Middle Eastern despots and clerical fascists.

First of all, therefore, I am opening my hand to the Nazi party of Germany. Indeed, there are many law-abiding Germans still living today who never accepted the legitimacy of the democracy imposed by the Allied forces after World War 2. This includes respected SS officers and highly decorated concentration camp guards, not to mention the many hundreds of thousands of members of the modern German National Socialist Party. We have no right to meddle in the internal affairs of Germany and to engage solely with the regime of Chancellor Merkel. I am therefore setting up a special embassy in Berlin to improve our previously badly damaged relations with the Nazi party. This will ensure that we can continue to work together peacefully with Germany when the Nazi party inevitably returns to power."

In the same speech Obama also announced similar rapprochements with the Communist Party of Russia and the Imperialist movement of Japan. For Britain there was a very welcome announcement of new initiatives to support both the Islamist anti-democracy organisation Hizb al Tahir and the BNP, hence demonstrating the extent to which Obama will reach out his hand of friendship. As Obama stressed when making this announcement:

"it is certainly not for us in the USA to pass judgement on people with different, but equally valid, ideologies."

At the end of his speech Obama stressed the core philosophy driving his exciting plans to unite the whole world:

"Everything is driven by our respect for different ideologies and faiths, and above all the commitment to never again meddle in the internal affairs of any other country".  

In a separate - but entirely consistent - policy announcement Obama made it clear that, in order to ensure that no Jewish household in Israel could justify building an extension, he will be banning any future Jewish births there. Pregnant Jewish women will be required to attend a new American funded Hamas clinic in Gaza city for an abortion.

See also: Kerry frustrated at peace framework between Jews and Amalekites in Persian Empire

David Cameron is a hypocrite and a liar

For all the strong support that David Cameron expressed in his Knesset speech any leader has to be judged on actions not words. And Cameron's actions - he has led Britain's most anti-Israel government since Ted Heath in 1973 - are damning (and his words outside Israel, such as saying "Israel had turned Gaza into a prison camp" are not much better). Although it is true that bilateral trade has increased (mainly to Britain's advantage with sales to Israel far in excess of those from Israel) under Cameron we have seen:

• Britain taking the lead in the EU programme to boycott all goods and services from Jewish business (and only Jewish ones) in Judea, Sumaria, Jerusalem and the Golan Heights by pushing the ludicrous mandatory 'occupied territories' labelling scheme.  
• Britain enforcing an arms embargo against Israel (set up just before Cameron became PM), while Cameron and Hague fall over themselves to sell every kind of arms to the Arabs including the despotic regimes of Bahrain, Qatar and Saudi Arabia. Just weeks before Gaddafi's overthrow Cameron was desperately trying to sell arms to Libya (and continues to do so to the now 'liberated' country that is actually under Al Qaeda rule in most towns).
• Britain taking the unprecedented steps of expelling Israeli diplomats from the UK 'in retaliation' for the death of a Hamas terrorist in Dubai that was never proved to have any Israeli involvement. 
• Britain actually threatening to break off all diplomatic relations with Israel because Israel had the audacity to issue plannign permits for building of new homes in its capital city.
• Britain taking the lead in condemning Israel for defending itself against terrorist attacks. Cameron also voiced the most bitter and irrational condemnation of any world leader after the Gaza Turkish flotilla fiasco.
• Britain taking the lead in vicious condemnation of Israel for daring to build anywhere in its 'settlements'
• The appointment of William Hague - the most anti-Israel Foreign Secretary in living memory; a man seemingly obsessed with Israeli 'aggression' and 'settlements', since he is rarely heard to speak about anything else.
• Massively increased funding for the 'Palestinians' which has been proven to have been widely used to directly fund terrorism and antisemitic incitement; requests to investigate this funding have been continually ignored (the standard response I have received from politicians is that withdrawing this funding will lead to increased terrorism!)
• Britain taking the lead in the EU in 'lawfare' against Israelis and Israeli owned businesses. Leading Israeli politicians (including even Tzippi Livni) and military leaders continue to be stopped from entering the country for fear of arrest under the 'Universal Jurisdiction' law that has been applied only to Israelis on trumped up charges by the antisemites of the Palestine Solidarity Committee. Cameron promised he would stop this happening but, despite claims that the law has been changed, it has failed to do make any difference. 
• A number of trials in which the defendants who have admitted to physical attacks and destruction of Israeli owned businesses have been found not guilty and even been praised by judges for their heroic activism. 
• The introduction of policing policies which enabled anti-Israel 'demonstrators' in 2010 and 2012 to run riot in the streets of London attacking what they believed were Jewish owned businesses as well as Jewish counter demonstrators without fear of arrest (in fact the policy was instead to focus police manpower on confining the smaller numbers of peaceful pro-Israel demonstrators); 
• The introduction of policing policies which enable anti-Israel 'demonstrators' to violently disrupt every public event (without fear of arrest or prosecution) in which an Israeli appears
• An environment of such increased hostility to Israel in all walks of life that the campaign to boycott and deligitimize Israel and to equate Israel with apartheid are more firmly in the main stream than any other country in Europe.
• The appointment of an anti-Israel Muslim supremacist first as Conservative party chairman and (after she failed at that) to a more important cabinet position which includes the brief of 'Faith and the Communities'.
• The banning from the UK of American bloggers for being 'too pro-Israel' and hence 'likely to antagonise Muslims'. At the same time antisemitic Muslim hate preachers are allowed in all the time.
• The introduction of laws on 'hate speech' that have been primarily used to silence the voices of those who highlight the dangers of Islamic terrorism.

Remember also that Cameron - before he was elected - actually tried to establish his 'pro-Muslim' credentials by bragging:

 ‘Unlike a lot of politicians from Britain who visit Israel, when I went I did stand in occupied East Jerusalem and actually referred to it as ‘occupied East Jerusalem,’ he says. ‘The Foreign Office bod who was with me said most ministers don’t dare say [that].’

And to prove that he meant it one of his first appointments in Office was Simon Fraser as the new head of the Foreign Office. Fraser had been sacked from his job in the last Conservative Government under John Major for cohabiting with an official of the PLO (which at the time was still officially designated as a terrorist organisation).

Just search for Cameron and Hague on this blog to see details of the above and much more. Words mean very little - remember that on Obama's first visit to Israel he said Jerusalem must remain undivided under Israeli rule (he changed this 'position' on the very next day when he returned to the USA).

Update: See the astonishing Jewish Chronicle coverage of Cameron's visit

The Jewish Chronicle is a disgrace - not just ambivalent to Israel but now relies on Islamic Jihad propaganda for news

In my article on Wednesday I deplored the fact that the UK media had ignored the massive unprovoked rocket attacks against Israel (between 70 and 150 reported in a few hours) even though they took place during David Cameron's visit (and ironically immediately after he said in the Knesset that Israel "has already seen 38 missiles from Gaza this year alone").

Incredibly the increasingly unhinged Jewish Chronicle also decided to essentially ignore the attacks despite having the Cameron visit as its front page story (by the useless discredited Haaretz writer Anschel Pfeffer) and also taking up the whole of page 2. The ONLY mention comes in a tiny article at the bottom of Page 20 under the heading "Shells strike Israel towns" - as if to suggest that this was some kind of a supernatural event. The JC has now adopted the Guardian and BBC strategy of never saying "Palestinians attack Israel" even though they always say "Israel attacks Palestinians". The former are always expressed in passive terms to deliberately excuse the offenders and obfuscate what happened. But it gets even worse because the small story is actually presented from the viewpoint of Islamic Jihad and contains the following explanation of events:

Alarm sirens were heard in Beersheba, but most of the rockets landed nearer the smaller towns of Sderot and Netivot. Islamic Jihad said that it had fired several morter shells in response to what they called "an Israeli incursion east of Khan Yunis".

Even the BBC and Guardian did not lower themselves to rely on a  lie from Islamic Jihad to explain the sequence of events. But it appears that the JC considers the statements from Islamic Jihad to be more trustworthy than anybody they could find in the whole of Israel.

Other highlights from this week's JC: a bizarre tribute to Israel hater Bob Crow (see bottom of page here); a large article salivating over a meeting of Jewish and Muslim women addressed by Israel-hating Muslim supremacist Baroness Warsi, two agressively anti-Israel 'news' articles ("Political war looms as Charedi draft becomes law" and "US groups attack Israeli rabbis' grip on marriage") and a half-page Op-Ed by the slimy Guardian journalist Jonathan Freedland. If it weren't for the fact that it has been like this for the last 2-3 years I would have assumed the entire issue was a Purim spiel.

Since its main writers are from Haaretz and the Guardian it is not really surprising that the JC is becoming increasingly difficult to differentiate from those two anti-Israel papers.

Update: while I have also been fiercely critical of the Jewish News in its increasingly ambivalent attitude to Israel it at least gets this story right with its front page headline "Meet the Neighbours Mr Cameron" and subheading "PM condemns barbaric rocket attacks during historic Israel trip"

Palestinians fire 90 rockets from Gaza in one hour into Israel during Cameron's visit ... not considered newsworthy in the UK

And so it starts again. Between 55 and 90 rockets were fired by Islamic Jihad against Israeli towns. But even though this was shortly after David Cameron addressed the Knesset today** the story of this barrage is apparently not important enough to be reported on any of the 24-hours news channels in the UK. That will, of course, change as soon as Israel responds*** and we will get the usual condemnation of Israel

**Rather ironically Cameron actually said in his speech that Israel "has already seen 38 missiles from Gaza this year alone"  So that number was more than trebled within hours.

 ***Hopefully Israel will target this 'monument' in Gaza (funded by EU money even though Hamas claims it cannot afford to pay to keep the elctricity in Gaza working):

"Monument" unveiled by Hamas in Gaza today. 

Update 14 March: Unbelievable: see how the Jewish Chronicle 'covers' the story

Media's handling of the missing Malaysian airplane

The media today has been full of stories of how one of the pilots of the airplane invited two young ladies into the cockpit three years ago and smoked cigarettes there (as if that is of somehow crucial relevance). If you believed the lengthy discussion on LBC that I just heard you would conclude that the two most likely causes of the plane's disappearance were

1. A US/China/Israel plot whereby they shot the plane down and framed two 'innocent' Iranians as a pretext for launching an attack on Iran
2. An alien abduction

Most major 'commentators' dismiss terrorism as a possible cause on the spurious basis that 'any terrorist group carrying out such an act would want to immediately claim responsibility' - conveniently ignoring the fact that the opposite is almost always true (just think of the Lockerbie bombing as the most obvious example). In fact, although oblique references to 'Chinese separatists' has been mentioned, not one of the main stream media reports I have seen has highlighted the real and continuing threat of the Islamist Uighurs against China (see below), nor the actual incidents of Muslim pilots themselves deliberately crashing/hijacking planes (such as the case of Egypt Air flight 990 in 1999 from New England and several others documented here).

Given the thirst for any relevant background information about this airplane mystery I find it curious that the incredibly important information provided in the following report by aviation expert Philip Baum has been totally ignored by the main stream media:

AVIATION SECURITY INTERNATIONAL BRINGS YOU A SPECIAL EDITORIAL ON THE POTENTIAL SECURITY IMPLICATIONS SURROUNDING THE TRAGIC LOSS OF MH 370 MH 370: Terrorism?

by Philip Baum, Editor, Aviation Security International (www.asi-mag.com)

48 hours have elapsed since the ‘loss’ of MH 370. Along with many others, I have been reluctant to speculate, but as hours move to days we are forced to contemplate every possible cause. Airliners simply do not fall out of the sky. Whilst this incident may indeed turn out to be a failure of the aircraft itself, there are a growing number of indicators that we may be witnessing the latest act of terrorism targeting civil aviation.

Only a week ago I was running a training course in Switzerland and one of the exercises I gave the class was to evaluate the potential for certain groups to target aviation. The aim was to encourage aviation security personnel to consider five groups, and causes, outside their comfort zone – only some of which are currently active and branded as terrorist organisations. Along with Boko Haram, the FARC, Femen, and Meibion Glyndwr (the latter two included in order to encourage them to think ‘outside the box’), I asked them to consider the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM); most of the delegates had never heard of the group despite the fact that it is believed to be behind a number of attacks against civil aviation.

In 2008, Guzalinur Turdi allegedly attempted to bring about the destruction of a China Southern flight en route from Urumqi, in Xinjiang Province, to Beijing. Her suicidal act involved igniting gasoline which she had infiltrated onto the aircraft in fizzy drinks cans. Turdi, travelling on a Pakistani passport, had doused paper in the over-wing toilets (hence close to fuel tanks) with the gasoline; alert crew, detecting the strange odour, overpowered her before an almost certain conflagration was initiated.

In 2012, a ‘team’ of six ethnic Uighurs allegedly attempted to seize control of a Tianjin Airlines flight operating from Hotan to Urumqi; two were killed when passengers and crew overpowered the hijackers, who had smuggled explosives on board concealed in the crutches of one of the men feigning to be disabled, and the other four were later sentenced to death.

There are a number of similarities between the two incidents. Both were Chinese domestic flights; both involved infiltrating prohibited items on board using innovative means; and both flights were saved by the presence of police or sky marshals on board. It is also believed that ETIM, or at least the cause ETIM is fighting for (independence for Xinjiang), was behind the attacks.

As a group in Switzerland last week, we discussed the fact that if ETIM wished to garner more international recognition, it would need to attack an international flight. Imagine, we contemplated, the targeting of a flight departing from Hong Kong. Would the group remain so unknown?

And so here we are having to contemplate the fact that the destruction of a Malaysian Airlines flight might have been caused by terrorism. Why Malaysia? After all, it is an Islamic state and those behind the fight for the independence of Xinjiang from China are Muslim. The answer could lie in the fact that Malaysia has recently been denounced by members of the international community for forcibly deporting back to China, on New Year’s Eve, six ethnic Uighurs who had claimed asylum in Malaysia having been found to be carrying forged passports. A further 11 had been deported to China in 2011.

So could the targeting of a Malaysian flight operating to China be seen as an attack against China and an act of retribution against Malaysia? Only time will tell. What we do know is that ETIM is becoming increasingly militant and is spreading its wings. On 1st March, the group is believed to be behind an attack in Kunming in which 29 people were killed and more than 130 injured when a group of men attacked people armed only with knives.

If it was terrorism, how could an aircraft be brought down without the crew having the chance to make a mayday call? Here the options are many: a suicidal individual, or group of individuals, managing to infiltrate the cockpit (and yes it is still reasonably easy to do despite the enhanced flight deck doors) and neutralise the pilots before crashing the aircraft in a suicidal act; hijackers trying to fly the aircraft but losing control; insiders working at Kuala Lumpur International Airport infiltrating a device onto the aircraft; a passenger (possibly one of those carrying forged travel documents) duped into carrying a device on board; a device transported in air cargo; or, a simple failure of current airport systems to detect an improvised explosive device in checked luggage. The possibilities are many.

It may well be that terrorism was not the cause. We must also consider the possibility of a military exercise gone wrong and that the aircraft could have been shot down by ‘friendly’ fire. Were that to be the case, especially in the area of the South China Sea, the political fallout would be monumental…but it is not as if it hasn’t happened before, with the downing of the Iran Air flight being an obvious example.

Whilst it may well be highly significant, we should not get too worked up about the presence of passengers holding forged documents. That is not as rare an event as the general public might expect It is all too easy to board a flight with incorrect travel documentation as such checks are usually left to airlines, who are not connected to international databases, keen to avoid fines by transporting incorrectly documented passengers. States themselves are less concerned about departing passengers than incoming ones for obvious reasons. Many States, including the UK and the US do not inspect passports at all for departing international passengers.

Then again, the possible use of stolen Austrian and Italian passports could be a means of hiding the identity of people known to the authorities or, if using lookalikes (passengers resembling the original passport holders), could give passengers of a different ethnic origin the persona of being European. We must accept that it is far more difficult for security officers to evaluate photographs in passports where the holder is of a different ethnic background. I travel frequently in Asia (and just arrived in Australia from Hong Kong last night) and my passport is usually subject to cursory examination at best. In Asia or Africa, it is as much of a challenge for screeners to evaluate a Caucasian’s photograph as it is for a European Caucasian to evaluate an ethnic African or Asian photograph; when you hear somebody say, ignorantly, “all Chinese look the same”, the same is true in reverse.

editor@avsec.com

Bob Crow: a tribute from the Trade Union Friends of Israel?

Crow in 2012 (note 'Free Palestine' means the end of Israel)

Bob Crow - the leader of the RMT (Rail Maritime and Transport) Union who died today - was a life-long communist who made life a misery for millions of  London commuters. That much is well known and will not be ignored in the reporting of his death. However, the role he played in demonizing Israel and supporting Palestinian terrorists will be ignored. Indeed, incredibly, the Jewish News reports** that the Trade Union Friends of Israel (TUFI) has just paid tribute to Crow:

The TUFI, which promotes trade union co-operation between Israel and the Palestinians, issued a statement on Tuesday saying: “Condolences to the family and friends of Bob Crow. He was always willing to talk to TUFI and friends of the Israeli dockers. He will be missed.”

Could this be, by any chance, the same Bob Crow who (along with the likes of Jenny Tonge and Caryl Churchill) was Patron of the misnamed 'Palestine Solidarity Campaign' (PSC) - misnamed because its only interest is in the destruction of the State of Israel.  In May last year Bob Crow was one of the signatories of a letter to the Guardian demanding the boycott of Israel from hosting the European Under-21 championship.

But far worse than being a 'patron' of the hateful PSC in his personal capacity was the fact that Crow used his position as leader of the RMT Union to formally align the RMT with the PSC, and to demonize Israel and support Hamas on many occasions. An example of  this abuse of his power came in November 2012 when he called on all RMT members to "demonstrate against the Israeli attacks on Gaza" after Israel finally responded to a barrage of 130 missiles launched against its civilian population in 24 hours (you can still see Crow's personal message to all RMT members on the RMT website here - second item).

My own 'favourite' memory of Bob Crow was his interview on LBC Radio (and also I believe ITV News) within an hour of the London 7/7 Tube bombings. Even though by then it was already clear that there had been at least three separate explosions on the tube network he claimed that any explosions were "clearly the result of poor fire safety procedures that his union had been warning the bosses about." 

** Update 12 March: While the story is still on the Jewish News website they have removed the comment I posted, which simply pointed out Crow's patronage of the PSC. More confirmation (see eg here and here) that the Jewish News has become a key part of the British Jewish disease of ambivalence to Israel, and  the more general media cover-up of anti-Israel hatred.

** Update 14 March: The increasingly unhinged Jewish Chronicle has an even more glowing tribute than the Jewish News under the headline "Israeli tribute to Bob Crow" speaking about Crow's 'friendship' with Israeli trade unionists

Footballers ... or bombers? How a typical libel against Israel gets promoted and accepted

17 March 2014: NOTE there is an important update to the story below here.

This ludicrous article by Dave Zirin in 'The Nation" (which claims Israeli police attacked two 'Palestinian footballers' in an unprovoked attack) with the dramatic headline "After latest incident, Israel's future in FIFA is uncertain" has been widely distributed around social media sites. The naive youngsters who distribute and read it are completely unaware that the Nation is a communist sympathising magazine (see its support for Putin's intervention in Ukraine here). But there is something extremely strange about this story. Although some of the usual anti-Israel sites are carrying the story, the source appears to be the antisemitic Palestinian news agency Maan which has a very long history of spreading complete lies.

In fact the only 'main stream' news organisation that I could find carrying the story was the leftist Israeli newspaper Haaretz - which always prints any story it can that can discredit Israel. But even Haaretz (despite the irrelevant anti-Israel picture) tells a very different story from the one by Zirin and includes the following rather relevant information about the incident that was curiously not mentioned by Zirin:

A Border Police spokesman said, “During operational activity, a group of individuals was seen just seconds before throwing bombs at security forces. When they saw the Border Policemen, the group attempted to run away and tried again to throw bombs at the policemen. The policemen initiated the protocol for opening fire in order to neutralize the threat. The suspects were apprehended, and a bomb was found on them, which has been deactivated.” The response included a picture of the bomb.

In fact, further evidence of Zirin's libel is his apparent total fabrication of the details of the medical treatment received by the bomb throwers footballers. He says

Ten bullets were put into Jawhar’s feet. Adam took one bullet in each foot. After being transferred from a hospital in Ramallah to King Hussein Medical Center in Amman, they received the news that soccer would no longer be a part of their futures.

But even the Maan report admits that the men

were taken to an Israeli hospital in Jerusalem

And Harretz confirms that

 The two Palestinians are under guard in Hadassah University Hospital, Ein Karem, have been operated on for their gunshot wounds, and will remain there until their treatment is finished.

To put this whole 'Football/FIFA' aspect into context it is worth remembering that Hamas used their FIFA-funded football ground to launch rockets at Israeli cities in November 2012; moreover, the many supposedly 'pro-Palestinian' sites that are quick to promote any libellous nonsense they find about Israel were completely silent about this story where several Palestinian football fans were beaten to death by police in Jordan.

More on the relentless football Jihad against Israel here.