The Promise and its ludicrous brainwashed prejudice

This brilliant piece was written some time ago by Howard Jacobson about the SBS series The Promise - Ludicrous, brainwashed prejudice

Forget Holocaust denial. Holocaust denial is old hat. The new strategy – it showed its hand in Caryl Churchill's Seven Jewish Children, and surfaced again in Channel 4's recent series The Promise – is to depict the Holocaust in all its horror in order that Jews can be charged ("You, of all people") with failing to live up to it. By this logic the Holocaust becomes an educational experience from which Jews were ethically obliged to graduate summa cum laude, Israel being the proof that they didn't. "Jews know more than anyone that killing civilians is wrong," resounds an unmistakably authorial voice in The Promise. Thus are Jews doubly damned: to the Holocaust itself and to the moral wasteland of having found no humanising redemption in its horrors.

It matters not a jot to me that the writer/director of The Promise is a Jew. Jews succumbing to the age-old view of them and reviling what's Jewish in themselves has a long history. Peter Kosminsky would have it that his series is about Israel, not
Jews, but in The Promise Israel becomes paradigmatic of the Jews' refusal to be
improved by affliction.

In a morally intelligent world – that's to say one in which, for starters, Jews are not judged more harshly than their fellows for having been despatched to concentration camps – The Promise would be seen for the ludicrous piece of brainwashed prejudice it is. Ofcom's rejection of complaints about the drama's partiality and inaccuracy was to be expected. You can't expect a body as intellectually unsophisticated as Ofcom to adjudicate between claims of dramatic truth and truth of any other sort. And for that
reason it should never have been appealed to. That said, its finding that The Promise was "serious television drama, not presented as a historical and faithful re-creation", is a poor shot at making sense of anything. You can't brush aside historical re-creation in a work of historical re-creation, nor can you assert a thing is "serious television" when its seriousness is what's in question. A work isn't serious by virtue of its thinking it is. Wherein lies the seriousness, one is entitled to ask, when the drama creaks with the bad faith of a made-up mind.

BOMBED!

According to today's Australian newspaper, a suicide bomb attack ripped through central Damascus last night, killing at least 25 people and wounding 46.

Suicide blast kills 25 in Syria

Two weeks ago, 44 people were killed in a similar attack.

It's not big news when a couple dozen Arabs get murdered by other Arabs rather than Jews so don't expect the story to get much prominence elsewhere.

The Lament of the Age

J-wire contributor Raffe Gold lambasts anti-zionist Anthony Loewenstein over his latest piece of nonsensical blogging in The Lament Over Loewenstein but, as worthy as his criticism might be, the real problem is with the opinion piece which Loewenstein quotes and which appeared in both the Age and the Sydney Morning Herald on 2 January, 2012.

Loewenstein is, after all, a proven ignoramous but one expects a lot more from the Fairfax press than a piece which totally misrepresents the recent events in Israel involving a minority group of religious fanatics and their disgraceful attitude towards women in public.

As Gold points out, most of the groups involved, such as the Netura Karta are vehemently ant-zionist but it's doubtful whether anything in Al Age or SMH would alert its readers to the fact that such despicable people are on the same side as Loewenstein and many of the apologists for Islamism who regularly write opinion pieces for the Fairfax organisation.

BROKEN PROMISE

I haven't said anything yet about the series "The Promise" recently shown on SBS because I recorded it (for home use only) and only finished watching it yesterday.

I will have more to say on this highly fictionalised account which will no doubt be used by the anti-Israel crowd and Jew bashing fraudsters for years to come and almost certainly disingenuously passed off as evenly remotely authentic by those who love to twist and distort the history of the conflict between Israel and the Arabs.

In the meantime, I have a question for my readers. My VCR ran out of tape five minutes early so I missed the ending.

Did the Grand Mufti win the Nobel Peace Prize in the final scene or did they award it posthumously to Hitler that year?

HAPPY NEW YEAR FROM THE IDF

Hat tip: elderof ziyon

ANOTHER FINKLER'S CHRISTMAS

Anti-Israel propagandists rely heavily on Finkler family members – Jews who are Jewish in name only but who gleefully use any means of guild and deception to rub shit in the Jewish State’s face.

I mentioned one of them a few days ago but the Palestinian cause needs more than a ham actress who enjoys farting in public. The cause is so desperate that it actually dug up a fellow who masqueraded as a Jew but really isn’t. Back in July, Ha'aretz published a column by a would-be flotilla participant, Gabriel Matthew Schivone - A Moment before boarding the next flotilla but the trouble is that Schivone is no angel but is, in fact, like most Finklers - a liar. He’s not a Jew at all - Would-Be Flotilla Participant Poses as Jew in Ha'aretz.

Still, he's such an anal person that I just had to include him in the Finkler crowd. After all, while Islamists like the ones who might have benefitted from Schiavone's flotilla (had it not been such a flop) are wreaking havoc and killing people across the world in places like Nigeria and Irak, at least he can enjoying his Christmas the way all Finklers do - by blowing wind.

THE FINKLER FAMILY CELEBRATE XMAS

It's Xmas day and what better way to celebrate it with the dirtbag members of the Finkler family.

Here's one about a nice Jewish girl who once accepted a role in the Australians for Palestine antisemitic production of Seven Jewish Children -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLUUjCy9OZs&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Very funny, good for a laugh and it tells us a lot about this piece of ...

Truth crushed again in the Melbourne Age

At this time of year, regular as clockwork, comes a piece in the Melbourne Age, often concocted by someone from the London Guardian that is full of the usual bias against Israel and which tells some real whoppers about settlements, walls and restriction of movement in and around the birthplace of Jesus.

This year is no exception. We were served up with the usual tripe from Al Guardian's Phoebe Greenwood with the usual one-sided story that exaggerates every aspect of a narrative told from one side only - complete with the views of an Israeli anti-government Peace Now activist but no true mainstream Israeli perspective - Christmas spirit crushed in besieged Bethlehem

Greenwood's opening gambit demonstrates how problematic it is when a reporter engages in producing propaganda for one side in a conflict.

Quoting a local parish priest Greenwood tells her readers that "if Joseph and Mary were making their way to Bethlehem today, the Christmas story would be a little different."

"The couple would struggle to get into the city, let alone find a place to stay.

''If Jesus were to come this year, Bethlehem would be closed.''

Since Joseph and Mary were Jewish, I would say there's a fair chance that if they were heading to Bethlehem today, they might not only struggle to get into the town; they might struggle to survive the experience.

But a minor little fact like that wouldn't deter the Age or get in the way of their sordid storytelling.

Elsewhere in the same newspaper there was a little puff piece that glancingly covers a very real issue for Christians, not only in Bethlehem but throughout the Middle East where they form a minority in Muslim areas. Things are different in Israel where Christianity is thriving but Al Guardian and Al Age won't deliver that story to you at any time soon.

Bethlehem itself once had a Christian majority but its population is dwindling rapidly. The situation is such that one day, nobody living in the place will care about those three Jews, Joseph and Mary and baby Jesus. I wonder what the folks at Fairfax will have to say about that!

INTELLIGENCE RETURNS TO THE AGE

According to the Melbourne Age these seven people have been identified as Israeli spies who assassinated the Hamas thug in Dubai last year.

It really must have hurt them to publish this but, for what it's worth, here it is: - Israeli relations warm as intelligence returns.

As with most things this newspaper publishes about Israel these days, Daniel Flitton's piece is riddled with speculation.

The claim that Hamas mass murderer Mahmoud al-Mabhouh was simply "an agent and weapons dealer" is clearly risible.

Funnier still, is the extraordinary statement that "Investigators identified more than 20 members of a suspected Mossad team on cameras inside the Dubai hotel where Mabhouh's body was discovered."

Names please, Mr. Flitton?

PALESTINIANS DECLARE WAR ON ISRAEL

... and the world ignores it all.

Fatah declares 'war' on normalization with Israel

Now imagine how Al Age would carry on if Israel's major parties announced something like this?

40 BUTCHERED BY ASSAD IN SYRIA BUT WHERE'S THE AGE

No McGeough either ... and some of the victims are children.

Shame.

Only in Israel

"Only in Israel" By Israeli humorist, Efraim Kishon

Israel is a country surrounded on all sides by enemies, but the people's headaches are caused by the neighbors upstairs.

Israel is the only country in the world where the coffee is already so good that Starbucks went bankrupt trying to break into the local market.

Israel is one of the few places in the world where the sun sets into the Mediterranean Sea.

Israel is the only country in the world whose soldiers eat three sets of salads a day, none of which contain any lettuce (which is not really a food), and where olives ARE a food and even a main course in a meal, rather than something one tosses into a martini.

Israel is the only country in the world where one is unlikely to dig a cellar without hitting ancient archaeological artifacts.

Israel is the only country in the world where the leading writers in the country take buses.

Israel is the only country in the world where the graffiti is in Hebrew.

Israel is the only country in the world that has a National Book Week, during which almost everyone attends a book fair and buys books.

Israel is a country where the same drivers who cuss you and flip you the bird will immediately pull over and offer you all forms of help if you look like you need it.

Israel is the only country in the world with bus drivers and taxi drivers who read Spinoza and Maimonides.

Israel is the only country in the world where no one cares what rules say when an important goal can be achieved by bending them.

Israel is the only country in the world where reservists are bossed around and commanded by officers,male and female, younger than their own children.

Israel is the only country in the world where "small talk" consists of loud, angry debate over politics and religion.

Israel is the only country in the world where the ultra-Orthodox Jews beat up the police and not the other way around.

Israel is the only country in the world where inviting someone "out for a drink" means drinking cola, coffee or tea.

Israel is the only country in the world where bank robbers kiss the mezuzahas when they leave with their loot.

Israel is one of the few countries in the world that truly likes and admires the United States.

Israel is the only country in the world that introduces applications of high-tech gadgets and devices, such as printers in banks that print out your statement on demand, years ahead of the United States and decades ahead of Europe.

Israel is the only country in the world where everyone on a flight gets to know one another before the plane lands. In many cases, they also get to know the pilot and all about his health or marital problems.

Israel is the only country in the world where no one has a foreign accent because everyone has a foreign accent.

Israel is the only country in the world where people cuss using dirty words in Russian or Arabic because Hebrew has never developed them.

Israel is the only country in the world where patients visiting physicians end up giving the doctor advice.

Israel is the only country in the world where everyone strikes up conversations while waiting in lines.

Israel is the only country in the world where people call an attache case a "James Bond" and the "@" sign is called a "strudel".

Israel is the only country in the world where there is the most mysterious and mystical calm ambience in the streets on Yom Kippur, which cannot be explained unless you have experienced it. Sunsets in Jerusalem are gorgeous every evening.

Israel is the only country in the world where people read English, write Hebrew, and joke in Yiddish.

THE TRUTH ABOUT THE UNITED NATIONS

This brilliant cartoon which sums up the truth about the United Nations comes from Henry.

ANOTHER CASE OF DISHONEST REPORTING

Today, the Melbourne Age publishes an article from the Guardian's Harriett Sherwood entitled Israel to move 'illegal' camps.

Written in typical Guardian and Al Age style the article does little else but to regurgitate UN propaganda against Israel.

The AGe even published after Sherwood's piece was skewered by CiF Watch - Harriet Sherwood’s report on Bedouin copy-pastes UNRWA anti-Israel propaganda.

What would you expect from the Age with its bevy of foreign correspondents whose main aim is ... ?

WORLD GONE MAD

Lebanon has filed a complaint to the United Nations over Israel's artillery response to its retaliation to Katyusha rockets fired into Israel late last month claiming it to a violation of UNSC Res. 1701 and of international law - Lebanon files UN complaint against Israel.

That's the resolution that the United Nations has failed routinely to enforce against the Lebanese Army and Hizbullah since it was passed after the Second Lebanon War.

It's things such as these that turn the United Nations and international law into bullshit.

SUICIDAL PASSION

Interesting article from Ruth R. Wisse - The Suicidal Passion Who is damaged more by anti-Semitism — Jews, or those who organize politics against them?

... and while you're at it ...

Fairfax four facing probe by MPs

THE GREENS AGAIN

Greens' boycott a disgrace, says judge

MORE IDIOT WINDS

I don't quite get this.

A boatload of Free Gaza flotillistas with nothing on board but a few unwashed individuals arrive in waters off Gaza and are intercepted by the IDF and taken to the Israeli port of Ashdod.

Whilst they are there, their terrorist friends from Gaza fire missiles indiscriminately in the direction of Ashdod.

Go figure?

UNESCO

Now that Palestine has been welcomed into UNESCO I suppose the Palestine Authority will replace its racist Jew hating school text books with something a little more appropriate.