Incredible new boycott announcement from Israel boycotting artists

1 March 2016 update (details below): Two 2016 Oscar winners (Mark Rylance and Asif Kapadia) are officially ASS-HOLES

"We are a group of 700 extremely important and famous artists and actors. One of us was in a pop group 35 years ago and another played a minor character in one of the Harry Potter movies. We even boast a comedian who appeared in an episode of the Young Ones 33 years ago. In our letter to the Guardian we announced a boycott of Israel, singling out the tiny Jewish state for punishment for a set of made-up offences communicated to us by a respected member of the peaceful Hamas organisation. Of course, even if these fabricated offences were true we know they pale into insignificance compared with the crimes against humanity being carried out by many dozens of countries around the world, but we would never dream of criticising those countries and we would love to offer our services if only they would have us.

Our letter therefore proves beyond doubt that we are all
Anti-Semitic Sanctimonious Hypocritical Old Leftist Egotistical Scumbags (ASS-HOLES)

Hence, we are announcing today that we will not engage in business-as-usual cultural relations with ASS-HOLES - i.e. ourselves. We demand ASS-HOLES cease all participation in any event we have been invited to work on. This will be very painful as it means collectively we will have to turn down at least 3 jobs scheduled for the next 5 years. Since the boycott applies to all cultural and social interactions this also means that any ASS-HOLES who are married to each other must get divorced immediately. ASS-HOLES who have non-ASS-HOLES as partners should also ask their partners – and indeed all other family members - to cease speaking with them. For the sake of optimal family cohesion we recommend that ASS-HOLES remove themselves entirely from the family home and live in isolation.  ASS-HOLES will continue our boycott of all ASS-HOLES until we stop spewing our anti-Semitic lies and admit that not only do we know nothing about Israel, but that we only signed our letter in the desperate hope of reviving our moribund careers. To see the full list of supporters, go to ASS-HOLESforpalestine.org.uk."

Peter Kosminsky, Mike Leigh, Jimmy McGovern, Phyllida Lloyd, Max Stafford-Clark, Will Alsop OBE, John Berger, Miriam Margolyes, Maggie Steed, Riz Ahmed, Anna Carteret, Jeremy Hardy, Brian Eno, Richard Ashcroft, Gillian Slovo, China Miéville, Aminatta Forna, Hari Kunzru, Liz Lochhead, Hanan Al-Shaykh, Peter Ahrends, David Calder, Caryl Churchill, Sacha Craddock, Selma Dabbagh, Ken Loach, Roger Michell, April De Angelis, Andy de la Tour, Mike Hodges, Rachel Holmes, Ann Jungman, Kika Markham, Simon McBurney, Andrew O’Hagan, Courttia Newland, Michael Radford, Lynne Reid Banks, Kamila Shamsie, Alexei Sayle, Roger Waters, Mark Thomas, Susan Wooldridge, Laura Mulvey, Pauline Melville, Khalid Abdalla, Bidisha, Nicholas Blincoe, Leah Borrromeo, Haim Bresheeth, Victoria Brittain, Niall Buggy, Tam Dean Burn, Jonathan Burrows, Taghrid Choucair-Vizoso, Ian Christie, Liam Cunningham, Ivor Dembina, Shane Dempsey, Patrick Driver, Okin Earl, Leon Rosselson, Sally El Hosaini, Paul Laverty, Eyal Sivan, John Smith, Mitra Tabrizian, Siobhan Redmond, Ian Rickson, Tom Leonard, Sonja Linden, David Mabb, Rose Issa, Gareth Evans, Alisa Lebow, Annie Firbank, James Floyd, Jane Frere, Kadija George, Bob Giles, Mel Gooding, Tony Graham, Penny Woolcock, Omar Robert Hamilton, James Holcombe, Adrian Hornsby, John Keane, Brigid Keenan, Hannah Khalil, Shahid Khan, Sabrina Mahfouz, Sarah McDade, Jonathan Munby, Lizzie Nunnery, Rebecca O’Brien, Timothy Pottier, Maha Rahwanji, Ravinder Randhawa, Leila Sansour, Seni Seneviratne, Anna Sherbany, Eyal Sivan, Kareem Samara, Cat Villiers, Esther Wilson, Emily Young, Andrea Luka Zimmerman, Jeremy Page, Sarah Streatfeild, Colin Darke, Russell Mills, Elaine Di Campo, Treasa O’Brien

Update: 1 March 2016. Two of the 2016 Oscar winners are officially ASS-HOLES.  Mark Rylance - the Brit who won Best Supporting Actor at the Oscars - is one of the signatories of the antisemitic boycott Israel campaign. The latest list is here. And of course Jeremy Corbyn is one of his mates (is there an antisemite he is not mates with?)

 
Another 2016 Oscar winner who is on the latest list of ASS-HOLES was Asif Kapadia who directed the film Amy which won the Best Documentary award. The film is about the late Jewish singer Amy Winehouse. Amy's father, Mitch called Kapadia’s film “a one dimensional, miserable and misleading portrayal of Amy”. But, of course, an ignorant bigot like Kapadia knows Amy better than her father....

See also: Schmucks: Oscar winner boycotting Israel

Update: 700 more artists now boycott Israel 

Update: See Daphne Anson's analyis of the boycotters.

What Leftists believe

For anybody who is concerned that leftists might sometimes have contradictory beliefs, this table should allay their fears:

Subject	What Leftists believe	What Leftists believe
Climate change	The most catastrophic thing in the history of the world (with the exception of Islamophobia and the creation of the State of Israel)	Fantastic opportunity to stop all economic development in capitalist countries
Academic freedom	Academic freedom is sacrosanct and universal	Boycott all Israeli academics and ‘Islamophobes’
Boycotts 1	Boycotting Israel is a fundamental human right.	Those who attempt to boycott the boycotters are fascist scum.
Boycotts 2	The law must be used to boycott Israeli goods and services	Using the law to stop our boycotts of Israeli goods and services is a breach of our human rights
Freedom of speech 1	Freedom of speech is sacrosanct and universal	No platform for Israelis, no platform for ‘Islamophobes’, in fact no platform for anybody we don't agree with.
Freedom of speech 2	We have the freedom of speech to demand Israelis are not allowed to speak	Those who try to stop us allowing Israelis to speak are breaching our human rights and our freedom of speech
Antisemitism	Antisemitism, like Islamophobia, must always be condemned	The Zionists control America. The Zionists control the media, The Zionists control the world banking system,  etc
The Holocaust	The Holocaust was a uniquely terrible event in history that must never be denied or downplayed	Holocaust deniers raise many legitimate points. Anyway, the Israelis continually use the Holocaust for their own benefit while committing a similar Holocaust on the Palestinians.
Peace partners and friends	Hamas, Hezbollah, Taliban, ISIS, the IRA – all legitimate freedom fighting resistance movements who we must negotiate with and befriend	Every Israeli politician must be arrested for war crimes. Tony Blair and George Bush must be arrested as war criminals.
Terrorism	(When Islamist groups like those above deliberately target and slaughter civilians). This is a robust and inevitable act of political resistance  against Imperialist oppression	(When children who Islamists deliberately use as human shields in areas from where they are firing rockets are accidentally killed). Israel (NATO, US, UK) guilty of state terrorism.
Nuclear energy	Must be banned in every country of the world	Iran has an absolute right to nuclear energy
Nuclear weapons	Must be banned in every country of the world	Iran has an absolute right to nuclear weapons
Immigration and freedom of movement	There should be no international borders – every person has a right to live wherever they want	Not a single Jew has a right to live in their historic homeland
Eviction	Evicting any person from their home – even if they have lived there for a matter of hours is a crime against humanity	Jews living in Israel (including those who are over a hundred and have never lived anywhere else, and the 60% whose families originate from the Middle East and Africa)  should be forcibly ‘returned to the USA and Europe’.
Ethnic cleansing	Attempts to resettle two Arab families illegally squatting in Jewish owned buildings in Jerusalem is ethnic cleansing and must be stopped.	All 600,000 Jews who live on the “West Bank” and legally bought their land and houses must be forcibly removed.
Racism	Any oppression of people because of their race, colour, or religion is a crime against humanity and must be aggressively confronted wherever it occurs	Muslim oppression of Jews and Christians is a natural reaction to the crimes of the West; Muslim oppression of blacks and other non-Muslims is just a natural cultural phenomenon
Gay rights	Any discrimination of people because of their sexual orientation is a crime against humanity and must be aggressively confronted	Opposing the death penalty for gays in Muslim countries is a colonialist attitude that shows a racist insensitivity to traditional Muslim culture.
Feminism	Any oppression of women is a crime against humanity and must be aggressively confronted	Any attempt to highlight oppression of women in Islamic countries is colonialist attitude that shows a racist insensitivity to traditional Muslim culture.
Colonialism	All colonialists are evil racists who must be destroyed	Islamic colonial conquests of the West are necessary for multicultural diversity
Nationalism	All forms of nationalism are racist	Arab nationalists are heroes
Capital Punishment	Must be universally banned. No government ever has the right to take a life no matter how serious the crime.	The fact that Muslim countries like Iran hang thousands of people each year (mostly political prisoners) has nothing to with us – those criminals were probably really evil child murderers or even worse - Zionist collaborators
Forced Conformity	Forcing people to dress in a particular way is a crime against freedom and humanity	People who complain about women being forced to wear the burka are racist Islamophobes
War generally	The ultimate horror and always to be avoided at all costs	We are all Hezbollah, We are all Hamas. Bomb Israel!
Weapons	All weapons everywhere in the world should be made illegal and destroyed	We must arm Hamas, Hezbollah as they are freedom fighting heroes
Armed intervention in other countries	We must never intervene -  if we do they (the Muslims) will have every right to hate us and terrorise us	We must organize a UN force to stop any kind of violence against Muslims by non-Muslims.
The right to self defence	Israel and the West has no right to self-defence against acts of terrorism	Muslim acts of terrorism are always valid acts of self-defence
Religion	Religion is the opium of the masses. It should be ridiculed and banned	All aspects of Islam must be respected
Impact of Religion	Religion causes wars	Islam is the religion of peace

See also:

• Alternative spin on this article
• Previous version of this article
• The Corbyn family's compulsive obsessive anti-Israel disorder
• Academics on racism
• The difference between anti-Zionism and antisemitism
• Comparison between radical leftists and Islamists  
• Unions vote to boycott themselves

The Corbyns: their anti-Israel hatred is a hereditary compulsive obsessional disorder

The public face of Jeremy Corbyn's son Seb

The public face of Jeremy Corbyn's son Tommy

Jeremy Corbyn's son Ben with one of his heroes Gerry Adams - and sporting "Palestine: end the occupation" t-shirt

UPDATED 26 Feb 2016: Following on from this week's revelations that Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn really loves following antisemites on twitter, comes the news that his son Tommy (about whom I reported below) is the student who runs the anti-Israel group who arranged a performance of an antisemitic play at York University this week.

UPDATED 24 August 2015: It's a hat-trick!! All three of Corbyn's sons suffer from the same disorder as their father:

For anti-Semitic Israel haters the Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and his family really are the gift that keeps on giving. Following on from the revelation that Ben Corbyn - Jeremy's son - uses his Facebook page to disseminate blood libels against Israel, it turns out that both his other sons  Tommy and Seb have the same compulsive urge to spew anti-Israel hatred in public. Although it seems Tommy has (since yesterday when Fair Brit tipped me off about this) changed read access to his Facebook posts to 'Friends only' his profile picture (still visible as shown above) tells you all you need to understand the depths of his Israel-hating obsession. And (update!) I can now confirm we have a hat-trick and full-house. Seb Corbyn's banner facebook profile - like his brother's - spews the destroy Israel "Free Palestine" message and, additionally for good measure, throws in the blood libel that Israel is massacring Palestinians and calls for sanctions against Israel.

Those who still maintain that Jeremy Corbyn "does not have an antisemitic bone in his body" might wish to explain why the one thing in the world that he and ALL his children actually seem to think and dream about more than anything else is the destruction of the tiny Jewish state, a place they all know nothing about and which has done them no harm?

See also:

• Corbyn loves antisemitic twitter accounts
• Corbyn's son: ignorant brainwashed obsessive Israel-hating Marxist bigot
• Can a Marxist, anti-Western bigot lead a country?
• Corbyn finally responds to JC questions
• Update: letter to Watford FC about Ben Corbyn's blood libels against Israel 
• Islington 140, Israel 147: number of mentions on website of Jeremy Corbyn (MP for Islington)
• What leftists believe  
• Antisemitism versus anti-Zionism
• Jeremy Corbyn is not an anti-Semite. It’s so much worse than that
• Confessions of a pro-Palestinian activist
• The ludicrous and pointless Board of Deputies 

BDS for Idiots: Barry Shaw's excellent new book

Barry Shaw's new book "BDS for idiots" is a must read for anybody who wants to understand the irrationality of the anti-Israel movement - and know how to respond to it.

BDS ("Boycott, Sanctions, Divestment") is the name of the umbrella organisation for all those people who want to shelter their antisemitism under the guise of 'only seeking the destruction of the State of Israel'. As Barry says

"BDS is a three letter metaphor for negativity. In their practice their initials stand for Bias, Deception and Slander. We need to out them, to name them, and shame them. They need to be exposed for the fraudsters they are. It's time to humiliate them. This book does that with facts, anecdotes and humor".

And that is exactly what the book does, with an excellent combination of his own insights and anecdotes, along with those of others who have fought against the anti-Israel tsunami. But this is where I must declare an interest. Alongside true heavyweight contributors (Alan Dershowitz, Caroline Glick, Pat Condell, Matti Friedman, Howard Jacobson, Bassem Eid, Denis Prager and Mitchell Bard) some of my own humble efforts are included (notably Rules and Guidelines for Reporting on the Middle East and Is anti-Zionism the same as antisemitism). I regard this as a real honour.

Barry has done a great job pulling this together. It is an easy, entertaining, and ultimately very useful read. I bought the book  on Amazon. Unfortunately, there is no kindle version yet, but the paperback is a snip at just £7.

Corbyn's obsession with following "anti-Israel" twitter accounts that do not hide their antisemitism

Jeremy Corby follows this antisemitic twitter account (click to enlarge)

Interesting to discover Labour Leader Jeremy Corbyn is a Twitter follower* of an account called "Israel Apartheid".  To get a feel for how antisemitic this account is check out the very top followers in the above screenshot. But that's nothing compared to the antisemitism of an account called "Jew4Palestine", which coincidentally, Corbyn also follows. As you can see from the screenshot below the latest tweets on that account are actually all about the terrorist murders last December in San Bernandino committed by ISIS husband and wife Farooq and Tashveen Malik. "Jew4Palestine" clearly sympathizes with the terrorists and repeats the lie that Farooq was 'bullied at work" by a "Zionist Jew" But in typical confused and paranoiac antisemitic style you can see that "Jew4Palestine"also believes the Jews support ISIS....

Corbyn also follows this antisemitic account ... and many others (click to enlarge)

But these are by no means an aberration. I just checked the other 2000 or so accounts that Corbyn follows. I counted about 130 'Palestine' related sites that are primarily focused on boycotting Israel and pumping out anti-Israel propaganda. Most of these also contain virulent antisemitic blood libels. Moreover, Corbyn's anti-Israel obsession is not balanced with an interest in any other foreign country. Apart from a handful of accounts supporting communist or socialist parties in countries such as Venezuela, Corbyn has no interest at all in any foreign affairs other than his hatred of the Jewish State.

It is also interesting to note that, with the exception of accounts relating to Left wing organisations and people (including the Communist Party), the only other 'political' accounts he follows are those of  Islamic charities, and commentators known for their obsessive hatred of Israel.

A small selection of some of the many dozens of anti-Israel accounts that Corbyn follows

Of course, as I pointed out previously (see links below), Corbyn has managed to pass on his obsessive hatred for the Jewish State to his three sons. I just checked the twitter account of Ben Corbyn. He follows just 76 accounts, most of which are football related. The only 'political' accounts he follows are:

• Palestine
• Viva Palestina
• Hugo Chavez (the late antisemitic Venezuelan communist leader)
• Fidel Castro
• George Galloway (no comment needed)
• Owen Jones (anti-Israel commentator)
• Julian Asssange (plain and simple leftist antisemite)
• Jeremy Corbyn

See also:

• The Corbyns: their anti-Israel hatred is a hereditary compulsive obsessional disorder
• Corbyn's son: ignorant brainwashed obsessive Israel-hating Marxist bigot
• Update: letter to Watford FC about Ben Corbyn's blood libels against Israel  
• Can a Marxist, anti-Western bigot lead a country?
• Corbyn finally responds to JC questions
• Islington 140, Israel 147: number of mentions on website of Jeremy Corbyn (MP for Islington)
• What leftists believe  
• Antisemitism versus anti-Zionism
• Jeremy Corbyn is not an anti-Semite. It’s so much worse than that 
• Corbyn's obsessive malevolence malevolence towards Israel (Adam Levick, 2011)

*"Following" a twitter account does not mean that you support the ideas of the person or organisation. Indeed it is useful to follow accounts of people you fundamentally disagree with in order to find out what they are up to and respond to their lies (which is why, for example, I "follow" Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn). But that does not apply to politicians. If, for example, David Cameron was found to be a follower of the British National Party then that would be a major scandal. So only Jeremy Corbyn can explain his obsession for following antisemitic accounts.

Covering up "Israel apartheid week" as some kind of legitimate protest (UPDATED!)

Express 21/2/2106: covering up for antisemitism

UPDATE: I received a very rapid - and positive response - from the Sunday Express. See below.

The following is a self-explanatory letter I have written to the Sunday Express (depressing when you realise that the Express is the least anti-Israel newspaper in the UK):

I was pleased to see the article on Page 2 of today's Express ("Anti-semitism at Oxford for years").  However, I was shocked to discover that the article actually covered up the event that triggered Alex Chalmers to expose the anti-Semitism of the University Labour Club. The article describes the trigger as follows:

The latest row erupted after the Labour students voted to support a week of events to highlight Israel's controversial policies towards Palestinians

In fact, what the students voted to support was the notorious "Israel Apartheid week" - an event  based on lies and antisemitic propaganda, whose sole intention  is to delegitimize the Jewish State. The organisers of the event support terrorism against Jewish civilians and seek the complete destruction of the Jewish State. And the event is all the more offensive coming as it does with Israel's civilians under multiple unprovoked Palestinian terrorist attacks each day. To describe such an event as one that "highlights Israel's controversial policies towards Palestinians" is appallingly misleading. It will have left readers of the article totally perplexed, as well as believing that Jews wish to shut down legitimate debate and protest.

Update: Within an hour of sending my complaint to the Sunday Express I received the following response from the Editor:

Dear Mr Davidson

Thank you for your letter in regard to our story on anti-semitism at Oxford University. It was certainly not our intention to mislead anyone and if we have done so I will certainly make sure that your letter is published and a wrong is put right. The Sunday Express takes the issue of anti-semitism extremely seriously, bringing, as it does, shame on our nation, and we intend to run further articles in the future highlighting the issue. I am very grateful to you for bringing the possible inaccuracies in our story to my attention. 

All the very best, as ever, 

Martin Townsend
Editor Sunday Express 

See also:

• Responding to the "Israel apartheid state lie" 
• What is the Board of Deputies doing to combat Israel Apartheid week?

Are Jews being sacrificed for political correctness in Israel?

Earlier today I wrote my thoughts about the knifing murder of Tuvia Weissman by two 14-year old Arab terrorists, arguing that these kind of killings will continue while there are multiple incentives for the killers and no deterrents.

But there is something more disturbing about this case than any of the other recent terrorist attacks. Just hours before the attack Israel's Chief-of-Staff Gadi Eisenkot made the disgraceful public statement that Israeli forces had been wrong to shoot young terrorists (a statement that was predictably lapped up by the Israel-hating western media as it played directly into their narrative about the current intifada).

Was this obsession 'not to look bad in the eyes of the western media to blame for Tuvia's death? Of the few details that have been released about his murder we know that the terrorists entered the supermarket with their knives and were in the store for 20 minutes looking for victims. Given the location, the current situation, and the description of the killers how was this possible?

The fact that there appears to be a complete media blackout concerning the killers is also disturbing. None of the reports says anything about them other than that they came from a nearby Arab village. There was a photo of one of them being treated in an Israeli hospital which I can no longer find. One report says one was killed while another says they both survived and are being treated in different Israeli hospitals. How is it possible that, 24 hours after such a terrorist attack, the Israeli media is saying nothing about the killers?

Is the news blackout because the Government does not want anybody to know that these killers will be allowed to go free (because of their age) once they receive the best Israeli medical treatment and recover? And that the killers will be welcomed back as heroes by the Palestine Authority?

Or are they now covering up for Gadi Eisenkot who should have been sacked immediately after he made his public statement?

Tuvia Weissman (with wife and child): sacrificed for political correctness?

On the murder of Tuvia Weissman by 'Palestinian kids'

Murdered 21-year-old Tuvia Weissman with wife and child

 UPDATE: Was Tuvia a victim of Israel's political correctness?

• The Western media as usual largely ignored the murderous knife attack in an Israeli supermarket, despite the fact it was carried out by two 14-year-old Palestinians. Had two 14-year-olds committed such an act of terrorism anywhere else in the world you can be sure it would have been headline news. But even the age of the assailants failed to pique media interest because neither were killed in the attack and so the headline writers were unable to lead with "Israel kills Palestinian children". 
• Where the attack was reported Tuvia Weissman was dehumanized - being referred to as a 'soldier' - even the Israeli media was guilty of this (some - as reported by Aussie Dave felt his death was deserved because he was a 'settler'). But every 21-year-old man in Israel is a soldier and since he was off-duty shopping in a supermarket why was the fact that he was a 'soldier' of any relevance at all? 
• The killing came just hours after chief-of-staff of the military, Lt.-Gen. Gadi Eisenkot scolded Israeli soldiers for shooting at "Palestinian kids who attack with scissors" and knives. Clearly in the eyes of Eisenkot (and most of Israel's military leaders) it is far better to have dead Jews than have the Western media screaming about the killing of Palestinian kids. 
• The  'Palestinians' (supported by the Western media and political elites) continue to have massive incentives to carry out terrorist attacks. That the Israeli authorities continue to provide no deterrents at all is not unrelated to the fact that the vast majority of leaders in Mossad, Shin Bet, and the IDF are leftist appeasers (as reported here). Hence, while Tuvia Weissman was being buried today his killers were being treated with the best possible medical care in an Israeli hospital (and because of their age they will be released without charge when they recover to a life of luxury as 'Palestinian heroes').
• In the light of all this I have updated my table about incentives and deterrents for Palestinians (especially 'kids') to carry out terrorist attacks. Unless Israel's leaders start to come up with some deterrents the attacks will intensify and there will be many more victims like Tuvia: