Thursday, November 20, 2014

OneVoice at Birmingham University: Pity Britain's Jewish students if this is the best 'pro-Israel' advocacy they hear on campus


 Update (27 Jan 2015): The report below is especially significant now as it was written 2 months before the story broke of  OneVoice coordinating the anti-Netanyahu campaign in the forthcoming Israeli elections.
 
JStreet and Yachad are not the only Jewish anti-Zionist activist organisations that lie to the public by calling themselves  'pro-Israel, pro-peace'. The organisation OneVoice is another such organisation which, for reasons I cannot understand, has not been as widely exposed as Yachad and JStreet for its hypocrisy and anti-Zionism. Following the synagogue massacre earlier this week, the loathsome Baroness Warsi came in for justifiable criticism when she claimed a moral equivalence between those terrorists killers and Jews seeking to pray on Temple Mount. Yet the following statement issued the same day on the OneVoice website is no different from what Warsi said since they too equate the murderous attacks on Jews with peaceful attempts by Jews to visit their holiest site (Temple Mount):
The OneVoice Movement is united in its condemnation of recent despicable attacks and the dangerous cycle of violence that risks enveloping the region. Attacks and provocations at synagogues or at the Temple Mount/Haram al Sharif are by their very nature designed to play on peoples’ worst fears and aggravate religious and communal tensions in a city that Christians, Jews, and Muslims are fated to share.
(Read the full text - it does not get any better).
Publicly, OneVoice claims to support a 2-state solution and demands that Israel must unilaterally give up all but its pre-1967 territory under the assumption that there will then be 'peace'. But the evidence suggests that, in practise, OneVoice is indistinguishable from the official position of Fatah. Its mission statement (as stated on the website) is:
"to mobilize Palestinians to end the occupation and the conflict through non-violent activism"
One great irony about OneVoice is that it claims to represent both Israelis and Palestinians seeking peace but it has never been able to actually find any Palestinians to really support it. With very few exceptions the OneVoice leadership consists of left-wing Jews. It does, of course, have Palestinian activists 'on the ground' who take part in 'non-violent resistance' but it is mere wishful thinking of OneVoice to believe that these activists support the 2-state solution objective. To them the OneVoice leadership are just another bunch of useful idiots to help them achieve their one-state Palestine solution. However, as Birmingham University students discovered this evening at a UN Society event hosted by OneVoice, it is not just their Palestinian 'activists' who do not really believe in Israel's right to exist. The OneVoice UK representative (a woman with first name Sharon - did not catch her surname) stated that she did not believe in Zionism as she did not think Jews had a right to a homeland. And just to confirm what I said above about the shortage of actual Palestinian leaders of OneVoice the OneVoice Palestine representative who spoke at the meeting was actually  ... from Libya! 

The biggest irony of all, however, about the event today is that the Birmingham Friends of Palestine society have a long standing policy of not taking part in events with OneVoice since they consider that OneVoice is not sufficiently anti-Zionist for their liking. They claim OneVoice 'legitimizes Israel' (i.e. believes Israel had a right to exist).

I have written before about the appallingly timid 'pro-Israel' leadership on UK campuses (see, e.g. here and here).The future for pro-Israel advocacy in the UK is depressingly bleak given that the best they get are presentations by organisations whose 'pro-Israel' stance is a complete scam.

Update: One day on I was lucky enough to attend an event with a very different view on Israel.

Update (27 Jan 2015): OneVoice (led by Obama's chief election aide, coordinating the anti-Netanyahu campaign in the forthcoming Israeli elections.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

There's a boatload more pro-Israel advocacy for students in the UK, even if you're not Jewish and didn't ask for it. In some schools where the upper staff are leftists they've decided to have mandatory "Friends of Israel" 'cultural enrichment' sessions.

Believe me, I had to go through the Communist propaganda. Disgusting how leftists are pushing their pro-Israel garbage onto young White adults.

Anonymous said...

Just because something isn't pro-Israel in all aspects of its work doesn't make it automatically anti-semetic.

Palestine has as much right to the land as Israel, maybe you should just be grateful that Birmingham University are promoting a peaceful solution to the problem, and not just more mindless violence?

Alex C said...

Moron of the day sewn up after just 21 minutes, kudos for you abject stupidity

Alex C said...

True, but when it is anti-Israel in all aspects it kinda makes you wonder right, unless you are an anti-Semitic anonymousl internet poster desperately pretending to be merely "pro-palestinian"

Anonymous said...

I disagree though that these are "left wing" jews. But to explain what i mean requires a considerable article or book. But they are not Marxist, not Leninist, not Trotskyist. It requires a very long answer actually. Perhaps I will go into it in my blog www.4international.me and I hope to do so.

Anonymous said...

But in the meantime there are some aware people writing here so can they say if they agree or disagree with me on my assertion above. Unfortunately it is not easy to answer because the solution to the puzzle lies in history - not least the murder of the Trotskyist cadre and their replacement with people like Cliff and I am sure you all know what a minefield is history!