A childhood remembered on Yom Hatzmaut

The following speech was delivered by my Israeli niece to the Toronto Community (where she is based as part of a programme to promote better understanding of Israel). She recalls her childhood in Jerusalem during the second Intifada - a time when suicide bombings were almost a daily occurrence and when parents often insisted on their children travelling on different buses to school so that if one bus was attacked at least one child would survive.

My name is Talia and I am from Jerusalem. During the second Intifada I was 10 years old.

I never though that it was a different type of childhood than my friends that lived in small and more protected towns, than my family friends that are 10 years older, or than my cousins that lived in London

You probably wonder way? How come?

And the answer to that is very simple: my parents

My parents did what any other parent would have done - protecting me and my brother and sister us much us they could.

So I didn’t go out to the mall with my friends and I never got to see the news even if I really wanted. The first time that I got on a bus was when I was 14 years old.

But of course there are a few memories that I will never be able to forget and no matter how much my parents tried to protect me, some things were just out of their control.

I want to share with you one of them.

It was my 11th birthday and I wanted to invite all of my class so my parents rented a space in French Hill, which is just near to my neighborhood Pizgat Ze'ev in Jerusalem

It was a fun day…all of my friends were there and we played lots of sports and one of them was soccer. It was the penalties, and I, as the Birthday girl, got to take the last one.

And as I was kicking the ball there was a BIG boom and the first thought among my friends and I was "wow what an amazing kick" but it didn’t take more then one minute to start hearing the Ambulances.

At that moment we understood that it wasn’t my kick, it was an explosion. It was on bus number 6, the bus that I take to get home.

All of that was 20 minutes before the end of the party so all of my friend's parents were on the way to pick them up. My parents’ phones started to ring. It was other parents calling to say that there was traffic and they were going to be late.

So we stayed until all the parents got there but there was one Mom that didn’t come. She was one car behind the bus and she was rushed to the Hospital and was diagnosed with shock damage.

I remember my friend’s face when she got the message.

Her Mom was ok but even those few hours were just unbearable.

Every person has a story, an experience that they will never forget and this one is mine

Despite all of this, Israel is my home, and I don't regret growing up in Jerusalem, and I think that it has made me who I am today. I'm proud to go next year to defend my country in the IDF.

Footnote: There were three suicide bombings of No. 6 buses duirng the second Intifada:

• May 18, 2003 - Eight people were killed and 20 wounded in a suicide bombing on Egged bus no. 6 near French Hill in Jerusalem. Hamas claimed responsibility for the attack. A second suicide bomber detonated his bomb when intercepted by police in northern Jerusalem.
• June 19, 2002 - Seven people were killed and 50 injured - three of them in critical condition - when a suicide bomber blew himself up at a crowded bus stop and hitchhiking post at the French Hill intersection in northern Jerusalem. The Fatah Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades claimed responsibility for the attack.
• Mar 27, 2001 - 28 people were injured, two seriously, in a suicide bombing directed against a northbound No. 6 bus at the French Hill junction in Jerusalem. Hamas claimed responsibility for the attack.

For a comprehensive listing of bus bombings see here. For details of all suicide attacks in the second Intifada see here.

The little Bin Laden in the mind of David Cameron

The day after the genocidal Hamas formally merged with the Palestinian Authority, its leader Ismail Haniyeh condemned the killing of  Osma Bin Laden, saying:

"We condemn the assassination and the killing of an Arab holy warrior"

And what has been Britain's response to this turn of events, which exposes the Palestinian Authority as a corrupt terrorist organisation with no intention of ever achieving peace with Israel? The government has welcomed the Hamas merger and David Cameron has threatened that unless Israel makes concessions to them he will reward the terrorists by formally accepting the unilateral declaration of a Palestinian state.

Althoogh he does not explicilty refer to David Cameron, the incomparable Sultan Knish has captured Cameron's attitude perfectly in his article today:

"The little Bin Laden sits inside the mind of Western civilizations and issues its list of demands. What speech must be suppressed, what customs must be followed, how Islam must be praised and which of Islam's enemies must be weakened or destroyed."

You should read the whole thing.
The little Bin Laden in the mind of Cameron has made him decide that his main defence against Islam is to try to sacrifice Israel. His £700 million gift to Pakistan to train the next generation of suicide bombers was just the side dish.

Britain's reaction to bin Laden's assassination: surely some mistake?

William Hague and David Cameron have lavishly praised the Americans for assassinating bin Laden. Yet  when the Israelis were suspected (but never proved) to have assassinated Hamas front-man Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in Dubai, Hague and Cameron were so apoplectic with rage that they expelled an Israeli diplomat from London in protest.

This was despite the fact that Mahmoud al-Mabhouh was the person responsible for shipping Iranian weapons to Hamas in Gaza. His work posed a direct threat to Israel's survival. In contrast, bin Laden no longer represented any kind of analogous threat to the USA.

And here are some other differences worth thinking about:

• in the bin Laden assassination several civilians were also killed
• in the al-Mabhouh assassination no other person was harmed

• the bin Laden assassination took place in a country that is supposed to be America's 'ally'
• the al-Mabhouh assassination took place in a country that is a sworn enemy of Israel.

• al-Mabhouh was personally responsible for the slaughter of several Israeli hostages.
• as despicable as bin Laden was he had never personally murdered any Americans. 

 And while on the subject of British hypocrisy has anybody noticed the deafening silence when NATO airstrikes kill children in Libya? Funny how the argument about 'despots using civilians as human shields' is used as a valid defence in this case but is never allowed to be a valid defence by Israel.

Finally, while the news on bin Laden is obviously welcome, it has two extremely worrying long-term implications.

1. It will enable Obama to claim a personal military victory that could propel him to a second term in the White House (notice his consant use of the first person in his speech today). Such a term will go a long way to achieving bin Laden's objectives anyway.
2. The media blackout of all other stories will enable Assad in Syria to crush the rebellion there with even greater brutality and speed, thereby possibly ensuring the survival of the Syria/Iran axis which poses the greatest threat to the world.

Update: Guess who has condemned the bin Laden assassination decrying "the killing of an Arab holy warrior"? Cameron and Hague's new best friend Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh. What's the betting you won't hear about that in the British media?

If a story - no matter how big - does not fit the anti-Israel narrative then ignore it or just blame Israel anyway

Over the years I have provided many examples of the main stream media ignoring stories, no matter how big, which do not fit the "Israel bad, Palestinians good" narrative.

There is a very big story of this sort out of Gaza today. The fanatical anti-Israel Italian activist Vittorio Arrigoni has been brutally murdered by an Islamist Al Quaeda affiliated group after he was abducted in an attempt by that group to have one of their leaders released by Hamas. Elder of Ziyon has a very good report about the context of the story here.

But, as usual in these cases, the 'other story' is the failure of the entire main stream media either to report the story at all or to report it properly. So, for example, as of 12.00 today the story was not covered at all on ANY of the major web news outlets (yahoo, google news, BBC news, sky news). The left-wing Israeli rag Haaretz buried the story well away from its 'front page' (after all their idiotic editors probably found it too hard to parse). But, as soon as Hamas made the bizarre claim that Israel committed the killing, you can guess what happened. Suddenly the media, such as google news (at 1.00pm) was reporting:

Hamas claims Israel killed Italian to stop Gaza flotilla

In fairness, google news was pointing to this Jerusalem Post story but, of course, that headline and story has a different context in Israel. 

Insanity all round

With Hamas now launching 70 rockets a day into Southern Israel, resulting in a million civilians confined to bomb shelters, the world ignores this crime against humanity, and only reports on Israeli responses, which have been limited to a small number of clinical strikes on terrorists in Gaza. Even the remarkable and unprecedented successes of Israel's new Iron Dome system in intercepting a number of Grad missiles has gone completely unreported for the simple reason that to report it would mean having to report that the terrorist government of Gaza is launching missiles against Israel.  And we can't have the public in the West knowing that can we?

Yet, while the Arab league has now gone to the UN to try to enforce a no-fly zone over Gaza to ensure Israel has no means of defending itself, Israel announces one of the dumbest things imaginable. Influenced by its own insane leftists, Israel's army has announced new maps of Gaza that highlight 3,000 buildings and various infrastructure sites that should not be attacked in any conflict like UN facilities, schools, homes, etc. In other words the exact types of sites that Hamas uses both to store its missiles and to launch them from. And when will the Israelis learn that the world will condemn them no matter what targets they strike in Gaza?  If the entire Al Quaeda leadership was standing in Gaza by a set of missile launchers about to send nuclear weapons, the world would be united in its condemnation of Israel if Israel struck them down. Is it any wonder that Hamas, with its new ally in Egypt egging it on and enabling ever more sophisticated weapons to get into Gaza, is getting stronger and more confident?

Last week Netanyahu said that the Hamas attack on a school bus 'crossed a red line' - meaning presumably that 70 rockets a day and the total paralysis of Southern Israel was fine by him. If only Netanyahu would read and understanding this article by Sultan Knish things might start to improve.

David Cameron: the worst PM in Britian's history

Cameron and Obama - the perfect storm of dhimittude, stupidity and hypocrisy  at a time when we are in critical need of real leadership.

Britain is in the process of the most savage set of cuts to its basic services  - and what does Cameron do? He triples aid to Pakistan - the corrupt country which is at the forefront of the Jihad against the West. And while Pakistan is spending billions on arming the Taliban and building more nuclear weapons, it is worth remembering that Pakistan's school system is dominated by the Madrassas, which indoctrinate the next generation of Jihadists:

David Cameron has disclosed plans to almost triple British aid for schools in Pakistan, even as its government spent billions on military equipment. 

And as if to prove just what a prat he is, while in Pakistan Cameron has 'done an Obama' by claiming that 'Britain caused many of the world's problems'. Yes, and of course the world is SO much better because of Pakistan.....

It has also been revealed that Britain was not just selling arms to Gadaffi, but was actually sending senior MOD commanders to Tripoli to drum up business. In fact in recent years Britain has been selling billions in arms to all of the most repressive Arab regimes including even Syria. But the one country against which Britain has applied an unofficial arms embargo is ... Israel. This embargo was initiated by David Milliband in 2009 but has been rigorously enforced by Cameron and Hague, even while they are falling over themselves to sell to the Arabs.

This is the thanks Israelis get when they help Palestinians

Breaking news:

Israeli actor and political activist Juliano Mer-Khamis, 53, was shot dead on Monday in a refugee camp in the West Bank city of Jenin.

Jenin police chief Mohammed Tayyim said Mer-Khamis was shot five times by masked Palestinian militants.

Mer-Khamis' mother, Arna Mer, was an Israeli Jewish activist for Palestinian rights. His father, Saliba Khamis, was a Christian Palestinian. Mer-Khamis was born and raised in Nazareth.

Mer-Khamis was well-known as an actor for his film and theater roles, both in Israel and abroad, and had made a name for himself as a director and a political activist, as well.

Based in Israel, Mer-Khamis was affiliated with the local theater in Jenin, established by his mother in the 1980s. In 2006, Mer-Khamis opened the Freedom Theater in Jenin, along with Zakariya Zubeidi, the former military leader of the Al-Aqsa Martyr Brigades in that West Bank city. 

Israeli leftists = useful idiots.
This is the thanks they get and is what would be in store for all of them under Palestinian rule.

Muslims massacre and behead UN staff sent to help them - but it's really not their fault

The western media response to the massacre and beheadings of UN staff in Afghanistan yesterday is astonishing. Where it has been covered at all (today's Times had the story on page 39), the media has suggested that the attacks were a justified response to a Koran being 'burnt' in America and so the media has been keen to suggest that the real instigator of this violence is Terry Jones the US pastor involved. Jones is villified for daring to suggest that Islam is not a religion of peace, despite the fact that the response from Muslims yet again proves his point perfectly. And we are not talking about a 'small minority' here. Videos showed it was clearly part of a popular outbreak of violence across the whole of Afghanistan (and apparently it continued today). The mob of thousands yesterday - whipped into a frenzy by mullahs during Friday prayers - were looking for any symbol of the 'west' to attack. The Afghan police - trained and equipped by the US and the UK - made no attempt to stop them storming the UN building and tearing it apart; in many cases the police helped them.

Especially interesting was the Sun today. The Sun has to square a few circles over this one. On the one hand it supports 'our boys' in Afghanistan and has tried to convince us that our boys are dying for a good cause because 'the Afghans really appreciate us bringing them democracy and stability'. Since the riots clearly show the majority of the Afghan population simply want to kill us and remain in the stone age, the Sun had a problem. So its solution was to present the story as the work of  'the Taliban' (even though not even Al-Jazeera dared make such a nonsensical and blatantly false claim). And since 'fighting the Taliban to save the Afghan people' is one of the things 'our boys' are doing then it can be turned into the exact opposite of what it really was: a story to support the continued sacrifice of our troops rather than one which proves that not a single drop of British blood should be shed for these savages. By pinning it all on the 'Taliban' the Sun also manages to maintain its general cover-up of any Muslim atrocity, which has been a feature of the paper since James Murdoch took over control of NewsCorp.

After the Itamar massacre and this (not to mention the 17,000 other Islamic terrorist attacks since 9/11) I wonder just how bad an atrocity Muslims have to carry out before the western media start to realise there might be a problem with Islam itself? What is clear is that no matter how bad any future atrocity is, the western media will continue to find reasons to justify it. So, if word of this article reaches some Mullah in Afghanistan or Pakistan and if, as a result, a mob beheads say 1000 westerners, it will all be my fault.

Demonisation of Israel propaganda reaches new heights: popular TV series V has Israeli behind world-wide suicide bomb attacks against civilians.

Living in London, anti-Israel propaganda is now almost impossible to avoid. Whether it is the surprising inclusion of anti-Israel material in an art gallery exhibition or West End play you are seeing, or the ignorant hate mob outside Marks and Spencer and Ahava when you go shopping in the West End, or just walking along Piccadilly where you can see people selling t-shirts and posters with the most vicious messages, it has become all pervasive. So, given all of that plus the relentless demonisation of Israel on TV news and current affairs programmes, it is nice to know that occasionally you can indulge in some light entertainment that is guaranteed not to get you agitated with any political (let alone anti-Israel) message. Until yesterday there was one TV programme that, for me, provided such a piece of indulgance: The Sci-fi series V (showing on the Syfy channel).

But in last night’s episode we ‘discover’ that simultaneous suicide bombings against civilian targets in New York and every major city of the world were coordinated out by …. Israelis. The plot even claims that only Israelis have the ‘technology’ for this sort of destruction. The ‘international world-wide conspiracy’ (yes that very expression was used) is traced to Mossad agent ‘Eli Cohen’ (if you are going to go with the standard ludicrous lies and stereotypes then, hey, why not go the full way). Cohen has a warehouse full of suicide bomb vests waiting to be used in the next round of attacks.

Now, if you want to go for real stereotypes, I seem to recall that it is Muslim terrorists (never once Israelis) who are the ones who are rather keen on simultaneous suicide bomb attacks against civilian targets. Even Obama has not been scared to call Al Quaeda terrorists (although he has ignored the fact that every Islamist organisation in the world uses this tactic). So you would have thought that the V producers might at least have had Al Quaeda as the ones behind the bombing rather than Israelis. But no. It appears that this would have been offensive to Muslims. Far better to demonise the Israelis/Jews as they don’t have a right to get offended.

What is really galling about this is the casual way that Israelis are now used in drama/fiction as the ‘evil, vicious, guys’. I doubt if the V producer/writer even stopped to think that they might be causing offence with their choice of inverted reality. But the masses now believe that this inverted version of reality is genuinely representative of reality.That is the result of the continual barrage of demonisation over the last few years. And it really does seem now that nowhere is safe from this demonisation of Israel.

p.s. Yes I admit that this posting provided a gratuitous opportunity for posting a photo of the lovely 'alien known as Lisa' who stars in V.

A story that perfectly captures everything you need to know about the Islamic problem in the UK

A very interesting story in today's Sun perfectly captures many aspects about the Islamic threat in the UK and how the politically correct establishment deals with it. The local council (which is so short of cash it is closing nurseries and day centres) pays known Islamic thugs to go on a holiday in order to stop them violently disrupting a peacful demonstration. Then when the thugs violently assault a white man in an unprovoked racial attack on that holiday, they try to fabricate evidence that they were acting in self-defence (this part of the story is not included in the online version - what the paper says is that Hussain got one of his mates to bruise him to pretend he had been attacked first).  Despite all of this the Race Equality boss claims the whole thing was a success. Oh .. and finally not once in the reporting of this does the Sun actually state that the thugs are Muslims:

FIVE thugs sent on a £2,000 trip to keep them out of trouble ended up attacking a man during the jaunt. They were among 19 known troublemakers taken away to avoid clashes with English Defence League marchers near their homes.

Town hall bosses spent more than £2,100 on the day trip, which was supervised by a cop and five council staff, a court heard. The group, aged 17 to 19, were taken to Blackpool Pleasure Beach amid fears they could become embroiled in the EDL march in Dudley, West Midlands.

But soon after arriving at the Lancashire resort, the Asian yobs began aiming racist chants at dad-of-two Derek Brownhill, 30. Then Riad Hussain, 19, punched him so hard both his "feet left the ground" and he was knocked unconscious, Wolverhampton Crown Court heard. Prosecutor David Swinnerton said Sandwell Council organised the trip to "distract the 19 from anti-social behaviour" during the march against plans for a mosque in Dudley. Hussain was locked up for ten months. Raja Rashid and Fahad Atiq, who were on bail at the time over a separate hammer attack, were given 21 months and 16 months. Wasim Telhat and Mazahar Taheir received community orders. All five admitted assault.

Last night Race Equality Sandwell boss Derrick Campbell said: "I would not say the trip had failed. Its purpose was to keep them away from the march."

Jewish Chronicle still sinking lower

I've posted several times before about the Jewish Chronicle's increasingly ambivalent attitude toward Israel. Gina in Golders Green has an interesting post about  the Chairman of the JC (Anthony Julius) defending free ads posted by the Palestine Solidarity Committe on the JC website. Julius spews out the usual 'freedom of speech' mantra (pretty bizarre in this case) which, together with the words 'need for balance' has been used by numerous JC editorial staff in my own dealings with them to justify, for example, the frequent articles posted by writers who are openly hostile to Israel. I have never understood the notion of  'need for balance' in this context. The analogy I like to use for this is to imagine that a shop sells dozens of different Arsenal football club calenders but never stocks a single Spurs calender. Finally, someone produces a Spurs calender but is told they cannot sell it unless - in the interest of 'balance' - at least 3 out of the 12 pictures are of Arsenal players. Insane of course, but that is exactly the game the JC is playing. The fact that anti-Israel articles dominate every other main stream newspaper and magazine does not seem to have registered in the minds of JC editors.

Ihave also noticed that almost every article about Israel in the JC is now written by Anschel Pfeffer who is not only a typical left-wing Haaretz hack, always desparate to see things from the 'other side', but is actually remarkably ill-informed about everything he writes. On last week's front-page article "Bombing back, but not as we know it" which carried over to page 2, Pfeffer insultingly claimed the recent spate of Palestinian terrorist attacks were really nothing to worry about and nothing to do with Hamas (compare his plodding lack of incite about this with real experts such as Barry Rubin, Sultan Knish or Caroline Glick). Pfeffer has two other massive articles in the same edition - the titles of which tell you everything you need to know about his attitude: "IDF braces for Arab Spring" on page 18 and "Nakba law prevents free expression" on page 23.

At a time when Israel is under unprecedented assault physically and spiritually, and when not a single national UK newpaper or TV News programme is prepared even to let somebody tell Israel's side of the story, UK Jews expect the Jewish Chronicle at least to make a stand. Instead, in the shop of 100 Arsenal calenders the Jewish Chronicle is offering the one Spurs calender, but with Arsenal pictures on 7 of the 12 pages 'for balance' and 'free speech'.

Sky News declares war on Israel

I just sent the following self-explanatory complaint to Sky News:

Dear Sirs

When Palestinian terrorists committed one of the worst atrocities in recent history on 11 March - slaughtering a family of five Israelis in their home including a baby aged three months who was decapitated, Sky News TV - a 24-hour news channel - chose not to inform its viewers of the story. Not even in ticker tape form. And not even when the terrorist attack was claimed by the Palestine Authority's own 'military wing', and with celebrations of the attack taking place throughout the Palestinian territories. Any claim that the story could not be covered due to the Japan earthquake were destroyed two days later when Sky News did find time to post a story criticising Israel for announcing plans to build 400 news homes. Sky News was also completely silent last week after Israel's discovery of a major Iranian arms shipment to Hamas on the ship 'Victoria'. This shipment was an act of war by Iran and was one of the most dangerous international incidents of recent years. But it will never be known to Sky viewers. Then on 19 March Hamas launched a major attack against Israel - over 50 rockets fired including Iranian grad rockets into the city of Ashkelon. Again Sky News chose not to cover this story in any way at all.

Yet this morning - while Britain is involved in its new war against Libya - Sky News TV has somehow found the space, time and incentive to provide not one but two 'breaking news' stories about Israel. In fact, as of 9.00am, these were two of only three stories running on the ticker tape of Sky News TV. One of these stories, headlined "17 Palestinians injured in Israeli attacks on Gaza" fails, of course, not only fails to mention the attacks against Israel which preceded this, but also fails to mention the accuracy of the Israelis in pinpointing terrorists arms smuggling tunnels and terrorist arms caches. The second story headlined "Former Israeli President Katzav imprisoned for 7 years for rape", is certainly an important story in Israel, but it is not exactly of great interest to any viewers outside Israel.

It seems clear that Sky News has effectively declared war against Israel. A 'war' whose rules of engagement are that: only stories that cast Israel in a purely negative light can be presented. And any story, no matter how big, which demonstrates that Israel - and not the Palestinians - are the true victims must be ignored.

Sky News used to be considered as fair and objective in its coverage of the Middle East. It is sad that it has now degenerated into a propaganda tool of the Hamas terrorists. How exactly does Sky News expect its viewers to make informed decisions when it is so selective and biased in its coverage?

"Nothing must be done to 'burnish' the image of Israel"

In 2007 Prince Charles's senior aide sent a memo explaining why neither Prince Charles nor the Queen would make a state visit to Israel. The memo famously stated that Prince Charles would not want "to help burnish [Israel's] international image." 

I've been thinking about that statement, and the attitude behind it, in connection with the media's refusal to cover the two big stories from Israel in the last week. The massacre at Itamar and the discovery of the major Iranian arms shipment to Hamas, demonstrate unequivocably the twin threats Israel faces.

• The Itamar attack, and subsequent Palestinian celebrations of it, demonstrated the nature of the enemy that Israel is expected to negotiate and ultimately surrender to. An enemy unparalled in the world in its depravity, which glories in chopping the head off a 3-month old baby and which will never be satisfied until every Jew has been slaughtered.
• The Iranian arms shipment, which happened as a direct result of the Egyptians allowing Iranian warships through the Suez Canal for the first time in 30 years, included state-of-the-art missiles and demonstrated not just the extent to which Iran contiunually lies about its ambitions and the extent to which it is prepared to go to destroy Israel through its proxies Hamas and Hezbollah, but also the unique threat posed by the new Eyptian regime.

In a normal world these two stories alone should have been sufficient to put an end to the entire anti-Israel narrative that dominates Western society and media. I genuinely believe that if these two stories had simply been given the coverage that they deserved, most people would immediately have seen the 'Israel problem' from a very different perspective. But of course they were not covered at all by the Western media. And that has nothing to do with the Japanese earthquake or the Libyan crisis;  the media did, after all, find plenty of time to condemn Israel for planning to build some houses two days after the Itamar attack. And each of these stories was FAR more important than the Gaza flotilla incident which totally dominated every news media for four days because, despite the video evidence in that case, the media decided it fitted their anti-Israel narrative.

But it is precisely because these two stories were obvious 'game-changers' that they were ignored.

And the attitude from which this results is perfectly captured by the Prince Charles memo. Never mind about real evils committed by the dozens of countries that the Queen and Prince Charles visit every year. And just as the Queen must not be allowed to visit Israel in case there is a chance it might show the country in something less than the purely negative light in which it is otherwise portrayed by the media narrative, so it is important to suppress any story - no matter how big - which demonstrates that Israel - and not the Palestinians - are the true victims.

Would they stage a play about it?

Following on from my previous correspondence with Sam Walters, the Artistic Director of the Orange Tree Theatre which staged the anti-Israel play "Reading Hebron" I thought it was worth following up with another letter in the light of the Itamar massacre:

Dear Sam

We were in correspondence recently about the play "Reading Hebron" staged in your theatre about the 1994 Hebron massacre.

You are probably not aware of it, since the main stream media in this country has chosen to cover it up, but last Sabbath Palestinian terrorists massacred a family of 5 Israelis (the Fogels) in their home, including a 3-month old baby and a 3-year-old whose throats were slashed. The attack was claimed by the Al Aqsa Martyr's Brigade who are the 'military wing' of Israel's supposed 'peace partners' - the Palestinian Authority.  You can see the pictures of the slaughter released by the grandparents here:

Whereas the 1994 Hebron massacre was one of the only ever documented deliberate killings by a Jew of Arab civilians - and was carried out by a single deranged individual -  deliberate massacres of Jewish civilians (especially children) by Arabs have been carried out in their thousands since the original massacre of all the Jews of Hebron in 1929.  Moreover, whereas the 1994 massacre was condemned by all Israelis, the massacres of Jews have not only been organised by the Palestinian authorities, but have been celebrated by their masses. These celebrations happened again after the latest massacre.

In the light of this I'd be interested to know if you would stage a play about the Fogel massacre if one was written, especially as your vigourous support for an anti-Israel narrative in the theatre ultimately gives the Palestinians exactly the kind of support and encouragement to continue their massacres of Jews.

Yours

I will post any response I get.
Some powerful pieces about the Itamar massacre are here and here.

Another massacre of Jews that the world will never know about

scene from the Fogel home

I woke up today in Tel Aviv to hear of the appalling terrorist attack that took place in Itamar overnight. A young family of five, including a 3-month old baby, children aged 3 and 11, and both parents were killed by having  their throats cut in their own home by two Palestinian terrorists. Pamela Geller has posted pictures here.

Although the Japanese tsunami is obvously still dominating the news I checked today to find that Sky News and CNN were carrying plenty of other stories from around the world, but a massacre of Jewish children apparently does not count as news. If they had got planning permission to build an extension on their home, then being in 'the West Bank' that would certainly have made the news.  If any Arab child was murdered by an Israeli in this way then the Japanese tsunami would immediately have been demoted to second place, while the world lined up to condemn Israel and a generation of writers would have started working on plays to explain why all Jews are ultimately responsible for the act. Even if a guard had shot and killed the terrorists before committing this atrocity Sky News and CNN would have been all over the story posting claims of Israel murdering innocent Palestinian 'farmers'. So what you will never find out is that the attack has been claimed by none other than the Al Aqsa Martyr's brigade who are the 'military wing' of Fatah - Israel's 'peace partners'. Hamas has hailed the attack as 'heroic' and there have been the usual celebrations and fireworks in Palestinian towns. And, perhaps most importantly, the attack is likely the direct result of Israel being forced to drop certain security checks at the insistance of the Americans and British. Remember that the next time you are lectured about the poor Palestinians having to go through Israeli security checks.

Palestinian terrorists have a long history of murdering Jewish children in cold blood. There is no recorded incident in history of an Israeli deliberately killing an Arab child, let alone in an act organised by official representatives. Yet placards calling Israelis 'baby killers' are more common place on UK campusus and high streets than prostitute calling cards in Soho. If the Nazi Holocaust were taking place today then the main stream media and the UN would be citing only the Jewish uprising in the Warsaw ghetto as a crime against humanity - calling it a bloody massacre of innocent Germans.

UPDATE: As if they are trying to self-parody, the main stream media has this morning triggered into life .... to report for example:

• Israel approves settlement increase after family killed (CNN) 
• Israel police on alert as settlers react to killings (AFP)

Note the tone of the AFP report. Israeli children massacred - no story (and note also no perpetrators). But claims by Palestinians that Jews threw stones at them - that is headline news.

UPDATE: I am appalled to also report on how depraved leftists in Israel really are. In discussions about the massacre several people here have said they feel little sympathy because the Fogels were 'ultra-orthadox fanatics' or because  'they had it coming to them' for living in Itamar.

BBC covering up Islamist violence in Egypt

I have just sent the following self-explanatory letter to the BBC.

During the recent Egyptian uprising the BBC decided to censor the many stories and images that did not support its own narrative (that the demonstrators were universally peaceful democracy seekers). Thus, for example, the BBC failed to show the many blood curdling anti-Semitic images and interviews (widely available on the internet) prominent among the demonstrators; they failed to cover the story of reporter Lara Logan’s rape by dozens of ‘celebrating’ demonstrators chanting “Jew, Jew” at her, and most of all they covered up the significance and extremism of the Muslim Brotherhood, including the speech made by their fanatical anti-Semitic spiritual leader Al Qaradawi on his ‘victorious’ return from exile.

Now it seems the BBC is covering up the wave of Islamist violence targeted at Coptic Christians and secular Egyptians that have exploded in the last few days. For example, I would have thought that the story of a Muslim mob burning down a church in Helwan would have been prominent on the BBC News, especially as there was widely available and compelling film of it happening. Moreover, the fact that today  10 Christians protesting the church burning were murdered by another Muslim mob also strikes me as being a story of major significance that should be leading the BBC News (rather then being buried deeply in the BBC website and ignored elsewhere). Nor did the story yesterday of the attack by Islamists on secular women in Cairo, who were marching for International Women’s Day, make the BBC News. If even remotely similar violence occurred, let us say in Israel, the BBC News would cover nothing else for several days. So why the double standards?

The country where Israel is regarded most positively.....

By a VERY long way it is Russia, as you can see here.

More than twice as many people in Russia view Israel as having a positive influence compared with those viewing it negatively (35% to 17%).

The only other countries where the positives even outscore the negatives are India (21% to 18%) which, like Russia has its own problems with Islamic terrorism, Ghana (32% to 27%) and the USA. But the USA results are extremely concerning as it appears to be the most polarised - 43% positive but an incredible 41% of Americans regard Israel negatively. That is what years of main stream media lies can achieve.

The UK of course is one of the most anti-Israel countries in the world now - almost as anti-Israel as Turkey.

A reminder to avoid buying a red nose

It's that 'red nose' time of year again in the UK when cast-off celebrities and the BBC offer their services 'for free' to promote Comic Relief. This 'charity' raises millions for 'good causes'. So what's wrong with that? The fact that people giving their hard earned cash are not aware that in recent years the four biggest beneficiaries by far just happen to be the four charities (War on Want, Christian Aid, Save the Children, and Oxfam) who spend the most significant amounts of money funding anti-Israel political propaganda, and funding projects in Gaza that invariably end up under the control of Hamas. War on Want in particular is a 'charity' that, since it was led by George Galloway, has become almost exclusively dedicated to the deligitimization of Israel.

For some previous articles giving the details of this see the following:

• http://hurryupharry.org/2009/03/07/a-nose-job/
• https://richardmillett.wordpress.com/tag/comic-relief/
• http://edgar1981.blogspot.com/2010/06/funding-poor-palestinians.html
• http://www.ngo-monitor.org/article/war_on_want_wages_war_on_israel_update_
• http://blog.ngo-monitor.org/boycottdivestment/no-laughing-matter-uk-comic-relief-funding-radical-ngo-war-on-want/
• http://edgar1981.blogspot.com/2009/01/letter-to-hypocrites-of-save-children.html
• http://philosemitism.blogspot.com/2008/10/oxfam-anti-israel-campaigns-taste.html

The usual BBC and society elitists are using the generosity of the British public to hoodwink them into giving hard-earned cash in order to divert a substantial proportion of the funding to projects that support their own politically motived agenda. And it also comes at a heavy price to other genuinely worthy charities who suffer reduced donations because of the free publicity the BBC gets for its farcical jamboree.

He's gone

Sir Howard Davies, who told me "Your comments are not worthy of reply" in response to my complaints about the impact of Arab funding on LSE politics has resigned. The only shame is that the official reason for resignation seems to be focused solely on the Libyan money. The scandal surrounding the LSE's anti-Israel  Middle East Centre, and the much greater funding from the United Arab Emirates for this, has been ignored in his resignation letter. The irony is that - as far as Libya is concerned - the LSE was only doing exactly what the British Government was doing in recent years. And while the £300K from Libya effectively 'bought' Gadaffi's son a PhD, the many millions from the UAR has bought far worse:  long term damage to the academic credibility of the LSE through a 'research centre' whose primary agenda is to deligitimize Israel and boycott its academics; and anti-semitic fear on the campus through the promotion of anti-Israel activity that would even shame Hamas.

Yet another update to the LSE story

After I first raised the alarm about the new Middle East Centre at the LSE (I discovered that its publicity material featured a map that eradicated the State of Israel) I followed up with details of my correspondence with Sir Howard Davies (the LSE Director) here and here.

The last article contained Davies's helpful response to my last letter. His response (29 Jan 2011) was:

"Your comments are not worthy of reply."

Since my correspondence the whole issue of LSE's funding by Arab tyrants (which was the focus of my complaints) has become a big story (mainly because of the Gadaffy money given to LSE, but also because reporters started looking into the Middle East Centre and its funding as I had). Dominic Kennedy had a big article about it in the Times on Saturday (you can see Melanie Phillips's comments about that here). Apparently Dominic Kennedy has followed up with an interview with Howard Davies in the Times today (see Harry's Place piece here, as the Times costs to read online) which includes the following:

'Sir Howard defended the LSE’s new Middle East Centre, half of whose board support an academic boycott of Israel. “The biggest donor to the School in the past year is George Soros, who of course is of Jewish origin. We operate, I believe, a very balanced view.”’

Apart from the hilarious 'some of my best friends are Jewish' angle to this, what make Davies's' response all the more incredible is that he is unaware that Soros has been so comprehensively exposed as the key player  in international attempts to deligitimize Israel with his funding of a whole range of anti-Israel organisations.

I'd say it is time for Davies to resign.

Update: Davies has resigned!