The True Perpetrators of The Antisemitic Attacks in Toulouse and Throughout the World

The True Perpetrators of The Antisemitic Attacks in Toulouse and Throughout the World by Barry Rubin

Quote.... "Meanwhile, the EU and various governments dare not admit that the principal cause of antisemitic activity is radical Islam, and the principal inspiration for popular antisemitism is trendy leftist ideas that now dominate much of that continent and are spreading in North America."

What a tragic, evil joke. A drive-by shooter in the beautiful, almost magical, city of Toulouse, France, murders three Jewish children and a teacher in front of their school. Various VIPs issue statements about how terrible is this deed, how unspeakable.

And yet at that very moment, the next round of murders, the next slanderous and inciting antisemitic lies are being perpetrated by respectable people and institutions. There is no real soul-searching, no true effort to do better, no serious examination about how the anti-Israel and anti-Jewish hysteria is paving the way for murder and fueling dreams of genocide.

The street thugs, fanatics drunk on the interpretations of Islam they are being fed, and the mentally twisted may be pulling the trigger but the distinguished, the powerful, and the honored are providing the ammunition.

Here are three examples of such deeds in nominally democratic countries—not Iran, not Syria, not Pakistan, where such things are even more intense—but in supposedly rational places.

1. The Turkish editor

Meet Mahir Zeynalov, an editor at Today’s Zaman, a Turkish Islamic newspaper that is supposedly moderate. Meet the modern art of tweeting. Here is Zeynalov’s response to the murders:

“Mahir Zeynalov ‏ @MahirZeynalov: Gunmen attack Jewish school in France, vandals attack Jewish cemetery in Poland, Jews burn mosques and Quran in Tunisia. What’s wrong?”

There are two ways to read this tweet. The more outrageous is this: How can it be wrong for gunmen to murder Jewish children or vandals attack a Jewish cemetery in Poland if Jews are burning mosques and Qurans in Tunisia. One act balances the other.

The other interpretation is this: What a world in which there is so much hatred! Gunmen murder Jewish children, vandals attack a Jewish cemetery, and Jews desecrate mosques and Muslim holy books.

Yet the second interpretation is almost as inciting to violence as the first. We know from many experiences—including Afghanistan right now—that anyone who burns or does anything to a Koran would set off massive riots and bloody killings. And as for burning a mosque, such a deed might well result in the massacre of every Jew living in Tunisia.

Tunisian Jews today are a couple of thousand terrified people who would run in the other direction if they saw a Koran in front of them lest they be accused of looking at it funny. What Zeyanlov has done is called a “blood libel,” a lie that might lead to the murder of Jews.

Now if some Muslim were to take seriously Zeyanlov’s tweet he would feel justified in murdering Jews, say children standing in front of their school.

2. The Dutch cartoonist

De Volkskrant is one of Holland’s leading newspapers, favored by the intellectual elite. Here is a cartoon that has just run. It shows Geert Wilders, leader of the conservative party that is very critical of Islam, getting loads of cash from a hidden hand that is clearly referring to Jews or Israel. Yes, the cartoon was written with a Hebrew text balloon, helpfully translated into Dutch as Wilder saying, “Thank you very much.”

So we have here the stereotype of the Jewish money behind the scene conspiring, in this case against Islam and against Holland. And of course it is also designed to discredit Wilders. As with the Turkish editor’s tweet above this is based on a total falsehood. There is hardly any Jewish support for Wilders party, which is by the way a legitimate political force, and there has never been the slightest evidence—even rumor—of Jewish financing for him, or Israeli financing.

Holland is a country where two political leaders have been assassinated and Wilders needs round-the-clock protection against potential assassin.

What is the message here? That Jews and Israel are trying to destroy Islam—as in the Turkish tweet—and are nefarious plotters attacking innocent people. Isn’t it just, therefore, to murder Jews and Israelis in self-defense?

3. Europe’s Foreign Minister

Exhibit three is Catherine Ashton, whose career was originally built on running the Committee for Nuclear Disarmament which favored unilateral Western disarmament in the face off Soviet tyranny. She is now the EU’s foreign minister. In response to the Toulouse shooting she has issued a statement here that spends more time reciting the sufferings of children in the Gaza Strip than about antisemitism and the demonization of Jews and Israel.

Left out is the fact that Gaza is ruled by an organization Hamas that is openly antisemitic, openly preaches genocide, frequently has carried out terrorist attacks against Israelis and Jews, and then glorifies those who did the murders. Remember that the only reason Hamas can rule Gaza is that Israel voluntarily withdrew from the territory in a gesture intended to promote peace, something Ashton and much of the Western media and governmental elites usually don’t mention.

When Hamas maintains a war with Israel, firing rockets, missiles, and mortars, Israel defends itself. Hamas also deliberately sites military arsenals and weapons in residential areas. Thus, civilians and even children are accidentally killed by Israel in the fighting. This is precisely what happens in other wars, including those being waged now by EU countries.

Yet Ashton does not defend Israel or its right to defend itself. She does not take sides against the terrorists. At best we get spurious neutrality that is actually anti-Israel propaganda. Note that she even refers to Palestine as a currently existing country even though the EU recognizes no such country. So much for diplomatic responsibility. Her “apology” and “clarification” came after criticism but she meant exactly what she said and will do the same thing next time as she and other EU officials have done on previous occasions.

Indeed, while Palestinian children are killed during the fighting in Gaza let’s note the two most notoriously publicized examples of the last week:

–A photo sent around, in one case by a UN official, showing a little girl as being injured this week was in fact of a girl injured in an auto accident several years ago.

–The claim that Adham Abu Selmiya was killed by Israelis has now been shown to be false. He was killed by a bullet fired into the air by Palestinians during a funeral.

–And what of the recent photo widely published purporting to show an Israeli soldier menacing a child despite the fact that the man was not wearing a real Israeli army uniform and carrying an AK-47, showing that the photo was a phony.

–The downplaying or omission of the fact that Israel was defending itself from a barrage of missiles. In one case, a prominent Dutch newspaper published a photograph with the caption that showed a rocket being fired by Israel into Gaza, instead of the exact opposite.

In short, Ashton and many others are contributing to the demonization of Jews and Israel. If Israel is so horrible that it makes little children in Gaza suffer for no reason shouldn’t Israelis and the Jews who support them, be shunned, harassed, attacked, and murdered?

These three examples are only a small sample of what is pouring out in the Middle East and elsewhere. I could go on with dozens more and so, perhaps, could you. From Sweden’s largest newspaper claiming Israel murdered Palestinians to harvest their organs to a Harvard professor’s tales of Jewish-Zionist conspiracies to control U.S. foreign policy to the dozens of “academic” conferences on Western campuses that demonize Israel at the expense of the students’ tuition payments.

What is needed is not more hypocrisy or professions of innocence–or expensive conferences where long speeches are made about the evils of antisemitism by those who do nothing but get free plane tickets and nice hotel rooms– but a real change in the behavior of the mass media that pours out lies, the academics who slander and distort, and the governments that cannot even stand with a country and people beset by terrorism and once again by the world’s oldest hatred.

Oh, and one more thing is needed: the admission that the greatest threat of hatred, “racism,” dehumanization of the “other,” and threat of persecution today–as the statistics for Europe and North America show–is not “Islamophobia” but antisemitism.

And none of those things are going to happen because the liars, haters, apologists, and enablers will not acknowledge their own behavior while those who are supposed to supervise them will not act. Hating and lying about Israel and the Jewish people is too useful politically and too entwined with the version of left-wing ideology, not to mention Islamism and the dominant interpretation of Islam, currently so powerful in the world.

It would be an exaggeration to say that Europe is no longer a safe place for Jews to live. Yet it is accurate to say that it is becoming an unsafe place for Jews to live, and certainly for those who wish to express mainstream Jewish views and to practice their religion openly. Meanwhile, the EU and various governments dare not admit that the principal cause of antisemitic activity is radical Islam, and the principal inspiration for popular antisemitism is trendy leftist ideas that now dominate much of that continent and are spreading in North America.

Thus, Jewish children are deliberately murdered by a terrorist in the midst of France. In response come get the formal statements and the crocodile tears. Yet at the exact same time as the bullets are entering the children’s bodies, as the victims fall to the ground, as the ambulance sirens sound, the incitement and the lies and the slanders continue, laying the groundwork for more hatred and more murder.

* Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His latest books are Israel:An Introduction (Yale University Press); The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), with Walter Laqueur (Viking-Penguin); the paperback edition of The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan); A Chronological History of Terrorism, with Judy Colp Rubin, (Sharpe); and The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley). To read and subscribe to MERIA, GLORIA articles, or to order books, go to http://www.gloria-center.org. You can read and subscribe to his blog at http://www.rubinreports.blogspot.com.

WHAT THE FIACHRA?

Talk about going early.

Today, the Age offers up an opinion piece from a Guardian writer named Fiachra Gibbons - French right caught up in the storm it helped create

"Police are a long way from understanding what was going through the head of someone who could catch a little girl by the hair so he wouldn't have to waste a second bullet on her. But some things are already becoming clear. He shouted no jihadist or anti-Semitic slogans, going about his grisly business in the cold, military manner oddly similar to Anders Behring Breivik, the Norwegian gunman who massacred 77 people last northern summer."

So now it turns out that Gibbon is the one who has rushed to judgement. The killer is a jihadist and an antiSemite but the extreme right and the extreme left are no different in this case - nor are their apologists.

My guess is the we won't be reading much more from this Gibbon person in the future.

Hail Shale

I can hear the gnashing of teeth from the BDS crowd.

Oil shale reserves can turn Israel into major world producer

Hamas: Kill Christians and Jews "to the last one"

Wacked

The ABC trotted out John Mearsheimer at the weekend.

Michael Rubin whacks him in Commentary - Mearsheimer conspiracy theories wackier than Israel.

I like his suggestion that this American Israel basher is part of the Hamas lobby.

Truth, honesty and the credibility gap of the age

Palestinian children among terrorists - from the gallery of pictures the Age won't show you and stories it won't write about.

Last week's confrontation between the IDF and Palestinian terrorists firing missiles at civilian targets has demonstrated a great deal about truth and honesty in the coverage of the conflict.

I have already mentioned the case of disgraced United Nations official Khulood Badawi who took a photograph of a bloodied girl from an accident that took place in 2006 and then dishonestly attempted to pass it off on Twitter as evidence that the IDF was targeting civilians in the then current round of fighting.

Apologists for Palestinian terror had been in damage control since early in the proceedings when the Associated Press confirmed that all 15 of those killed in Israeli strikes were "militants".

We knew that the "militant" groups have sympathetic friends in the media. So when the narrative was panning out in a manner not to their liking, something had to be done to deflect attention away from the war criminals on the Palestinian side who were targeting a civilian population of up to one million people in Israel's south.

Some sought to minimise the size and impact of the weapons being used including an increasing number of sophisticated Grad missiles which have come into Gaza now that a more friendly regime rules in neighbouring Egypt.

Others published claims from Palestinian "sources" that "several" victims were civilians, some children, without reporting that at least three young Palestinians died as a result of gunfire from their own people at funerals (one of these deaths was initially falsely attributed to Israel) or that children are often placed in harm's way by those operating nearby in heavily populated areas (see the above photograph as an example of what I mean).

What the apologists don't realise is how badly they are damaging their own credibility.

Take Jeff Halper, of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions who roams the world bad mouthing Israel with questionable campaigns against the state. This is what he says of moves to have Badawi dismissed from the UN because of her deceptive conduct:

"We firmly hold that Khulood has a manifested right to exercise her freedom of expression on her personal Facebook page. Calls to dismiss Khulood Badawi are nothing but a political witch hunt, and trust they will be summarily and authoritatively rejected."
(from Honest Reporting)

When "freedom of expression" amounts to freedom to conduct blood libels against the Jewish State and the Jewish people then it says a lot about the sick pathology of those who promote and accept such drivel.

What Apartheid Week is really all about

From Latma:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pGeW-gsaldk&feature=youtube_gdata_player

belittled

There was once a sniff of nobility and even romance about coming to the aid of oppressed people but when it comes to helping Palestinians, some are discovering that the oppression is not so much external but comes from within - Israeli leftist activists: We are being sexually harassed in the West Bank.

Nicky Larkin: I used to hate Israel

Nicky Larkin is an Irish artist who visited the Israel and the West Bank to film a documentary about the conflict between the people there and returned a different person to the one who once consumed the diet of Israel bashing and Jew hatred prevalent among the elitists at home - Nicky Larkin: Israel is a refuge, but a refuge under siege.

Strangely, it began with my anger at Israel's incursion into Gaza in December 2008 which left over 1,200 Palestinians dead, compared to only 13 Israelis. I was so angered by this massacre I posed in the striped scarf of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation for an art show catalogue.
...

But the more I felt the martyrs watching me, the more confused I became. After all, the Palestinian mantra was one of "non-violent resistance". It was their motto, repeated over and over like responses at a Catholic mass.

Yet when I interviewed Hind Khoury, a former Palestinian government member, she sat forward angrily in her chair as she refused to condemn the actions of the suicide bombers. She was all aggression.

This aggression continued in Hebron, where I witnessed swastikas on a wall. As I set up my camera, an Israeli soldier shouted down from his rooftop position. A few months previously I might have ignored him as my political enemy. But now I stopped to talk. He only talked about Taybeh, the local Palestinian beer.

Back in Tel Aviv in the summer of 2011, I began to listen more closely to the Israeli side.

...

Israel is a refuge -- but a refuge under siege, a refuge where rockets rain death from the skies. And as I made the effort to empathise, to look at the world through their eyes. I began a new intellectual journey. One that would not be welcome back home.

Photograph of Palestinian civilians released

Haaretz opinion writer Bradley Burston reserves his special place in hell for leftists who have no problems with those who fire rockets at Israeli civilians - see here

Even more deserving of that special place in hell are those in the media who shill for Palestinian terrorists by accepting the lies of the spokespeople like the one who falsely claimed that "several" Palestinian civilians, including three children, were among those killed in the Israeli strikes.

Thanks to Israellycool and Challah hu akbar we've managed to identify some of those civilians (see photo below)

PALESTINIANS KILL 8-YEAR-OLD PALESTINIAN BOY

What happens when Palestinians kill and 8-year-old Palestiniain boy?

They try to blame it on Israel.

Palestinians: Gaza boy dies of wounds

"A Palestinian boy accidentally struck by a bullet when militants fired in the air during a funeral died of his injuries Wednesday, family members and witnesses said.

"Palestinian health official Adham Abu Salmia initially said that 8-year-old Barka al-Mugrahbi died of wounds sustained in an Israeli airstrike on Monday.

"However, Israel's military said it did not carry out a strike in the area at the time.

"The boy's relatives and witnesses later said the boy was marching in the funeral procession for a Gaza militant Monday when he was struck in the head by an errant bullet.

"At the time, gunmen were firing in the air, they said."

Over to you Ruth Pollard.

WHAT DOES SEVERAL MEAN?

The troubled Fairfax group scraped the bottom of the barrel when it turned to Ruth Pollard to be its Middle East (read "Palestine") Bureau person. There was a time when journalists would sift through the various narratives in a story and elimninate that which is preposterous but this no longer seems the case when it comes to reporting or reasoned discussion on the Middle East.

Take Pollard's offering today (Israelis wary of Gaza ceasefire)on the fragile ceasefire in the region brokered after Palestinian terrorists ("militants" in Agespeak) rained more than 200 missiles on Israeli civilian targets while the IDF, as confirmed by an Age article earlier in the week targeted only the "militants" - AGE ADMITS ISRAELI AIRSTRIKES TARGET TERROR. At that stage the total Palestinian dead in Israeli strikes was 15 of which Palestinan sources conceded that 100% of those were "militants". Further reports of casualties have confirmed more "militant casualties" including Islamic Jihad operatives and Pollard states that "at least 25 Palestinians were killed in the Israeli air strike".

Now here comes Pollard.

"Most of those killed in Gaza were militants, but several civilians, including three children, also died, Palestinian sources say."

If most of those killed were in fact "militants", the rest of them must have been in the minority and based on the fact that all of those killed on earlier statistics were "militants" then to accept the use of the word "several" from Palestinain sources is ridiculous in the extreme.

So how reliable are Pollard's "Palestinian sources"?

Perhaps they's as reliable as this the fraudulent tweet by UN employee Khulood Badawi

The big lie Palestinian style

Read about it here because you won't learn about this aspect of Palestinian propaganda from the Age - EXPOSED: UN Media Official Responsible for False Photo Tweet

UNITED NATIONS IMPLICATED IN PALESTINIAN AIR STRIKE LIES

Every day many lies are pushed by Palestinians and their supporters concerning the conflict but this is one is about a false photo, allegedly depicting the results of Israeli air strikes in Gaza in recent days, that was originally tweeted by Khulood Badawi, a United Nations official.

It was exposed by Honest Reorting here - EXPOSED: UN Media Official Responsible for False Photo Tweet.

Despite the exposure of this scandal as a fraud, it will not prevent the trail of lies from continuing unabated.

THE SOUND OF TERROR

The sound of terror that the media does not concern itself with - this is the sound of missiles fired at Israel by war criminals that the Fairfax Press describes as "militants".

AGE ADMITS ISRAELI AIRSTRIKES TARGET TERROR

The on line edition of the Melbourne Age has this item on the latest wave of violence in Israel and Gaza - Israeli airstrikes kill 15 Gaza militants

Those "militants" sound like terrorists to me but the Associated Press doesn't want trouble so it spins those who fire missiles into peoples homes as "militants'. Whater spin you chose to put on the situation, doesn't detract from the fact that Israel is targeting members of a group dedicated to violently attacking its citizens.

The number of missile attacks by these Palestinan groups has already exceeded 120 and not a single one of them is directed at Israeli combatants. Each and every one of them has as its intended victims Israeli civilians. That makes these militant groups terrorists and war criminals.

Yet those who aid and abet these monsters by attempting to put an end to the Israeli blockade aimed at stopping them from obtaining their lethal materials thing they are doing something good for the Palestinian people. They are no better than the barbarians they provide cover for.

The Middle East's Real Apartheid

The following article by Professor Efraim Karsh was written for Middle East Forum and also has appeared in the Jerusalem Post on 5 March 2012

The Middle East's real apartheid by Efraim Karsh

In light of Israel Apartheid Week, which hit cities and campuses throughout the world recently, supporters of the Jewish state find it difficult to agree on the best response to this hate fest. Some suggest emphasizing Israel's peacemaking efforts, others propose rebranding the country by highlighting its numerous achievements and success stories. Still others advocate reminding the world of "what Zionism is – a movement of Jewish national liberation – and what it isn't – racist." Each of these approaches has its merits yet none will do the trick.

Peace seeking and/or prosperity are no proof of domestic benevolence and equality. The most brutal regimes have peacefully coexisted with their neighbors while repressing their own populations; the most prosperous societies have discriminated against vulnerable minorities. South Africa was hardly impoverished and technologically backward; the United States, probably the most successful and affluent nation in recent times was largely segregated not that long ago.

Nor for that matter is the apartheid libel driven by forgetfulness of Zionism's true nature. It is driven by rejection of Israel's very existence. No sooner had the dust settled on the Nazi extermination camps than the Arabs and their western champions equated the Jewish victims with their tormentors.

"To the Arabs, indeed Zionism seems as hideous as anything the Nazis conceived in the way of racial expansion at the expense of others," read a 1945 pamphlet by the Arab League, the representative body of all Arab states. A pamphlet published by the PLO shortly after its creation in 1964 stated: "The Zionist concept of the 'final solution' to the 'Arab problem' in Palestine, and the Nazi concept of the 'final solution' to the 'Jewish problem' in Germany, consisted essentially of the same basic ingredient: the elimination of the unwanted human element in question."

Indeed, it was the Palestinian terror organization that invented the apartheid canard in the mid-1960s, years before Israel's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza.

This charge, of course, is not only completely false but the inverse of the truth. If apartheid is indeed a crime against humanity, Israel actually is the only apartheid-free state in the Middle East – a state whose Arab population enjoys full equality before the law and more prerogatives than most ethnic minorities in the free world, from the designation of Arabic as an official language to the recognition of non-Jewish religious holidays as legal days of rest.

By contrast, apartheid has been an integral part of the Middle East for over a millennium, and its Arab and Muslim nations continue to legally, politically and socially enforce this discriminatory practice against their hapless minorities.

Why then should an innocent party be under constant pressure to "come clean" while the real culprits are not only left unscathed but also given a worldwide platform to blame others for their own crimes? Rather than engage in incessant apologetics and protestations of innocence, something Jews have been doing for far too long, Israel should adopt a proactive strategy, call a spade a spade and target the real perpetrators of Middle East apartheid: the region's Arab and Muslim nations.

Arab/Muslim apartheid comes in many forms, and some victims have been subjected to more than one.

Religious intolerance: Muslims historically viewed themselves as distinct from, and superior to, all others living under Muslim rule, known as "dhimmis." They have been loath to give up this privileged status in modern times. Christians, Jews and Baha'is remain second-class citizens throughout the Arab/Muslim world, and even non-ruling Muslim factions have been oppressed by their dominant co-religionists (e.g. Shi'ites in Saudi Arabia, Sunnis in Syria).

Ethnic inequality: This historic legacy of intolerance extends well beyond the religious sphere. As longtime imperial masters, Arabs, Turks and Iranians continue to treat long-converted populations, notably Kurds and Berbers, that retained their language, culture and social customs, as inferior.

Racism: The Middle East has become the foremost purveyor of anti-Semitic incitement in the world with the medieval blood libel widely circulated alongside a string of modern canards (notably The Protocols of the Elders of Zion) depicting Jews as the source of all evil.

Likewise, Africans of sub-Saharan descent are held in deep contempt, a vestige of the region's historic role as epicenter of the international slave trade.

Gender discrimination: Legal and social discrimination against women is pervasive throughout the Arab-Islamic world, accounting for rampant violence (for example domestic violence or spousal rape are not criminalized) and scores of executions every year, both legal and extra-judicial (i.e. honor killings). Discrimination against homosexuals is even worse.

Denial of citizenship: The withholding of citizenship and attendant rights from a large segment of the native-born population is common. Palestinian communities in the Arab states offer the starkest example of this discrimination (in Lebanon, for example, they cannot own property, be employed in many professions, move freely, etc.). The Beduin (stateless peoples) in the Gulf states, and hundreds of thousands of Kurds in Syria have been subjected to similar discrimination.

Labor inequality: Mistreatment of foreign workers (especially household servants), ranging from sexual abuse to virtual imprisonment and outright murder, is widely tolerated throughout the Middle East, especially in oil-exporting countries that host large expatriate labor forces.

Slavery: The Arabic-speaking countries remain the world's foremost refuge of slavery, from child and sex trafficking in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states to actual chattel slavery in Sudan and Mauritania. Indeed, Islamists throughout the Middle East have had no qualms advocating the legalization of slavery.

Political Oppression: Many Middle Eastern regimes are little more than elaborate repressive systems aimed at perpetuating apartheid-style domination by a small minority: Alawites in Syria; Tikritis in Saddam's Iraq; the Saudi royal family; the Hashemite dynasty in Jordan.

Possibly the world's most arresting anachronism, these endemic abuses have until now escaped scrutiny and condemnation. Western governments have been loath to antagonize their local authoritarian allies, while the educated classes have absolved Middle Easterners of responsibility for their actions in the patronizing tradition of the "white man's burden," dismissing regional players as half-witted creatures, too dim to be accountable for their own fate.

It is time to denounce these discriminatory practices and force Arab/Muslim regimes to abide by universally accepted principles of decency and accountability. This will not only expose the hollowness of the Israel delegitimization campaign but will also help promote regional peace and stability.

History has shown that gross and systemic discrimination is a threat not just to the oppressed minorities, but also to the political health of the societies that oppress them. Only when Arab and Muslim societies treat the "other" as equal will the Middle East, and the rest of the Islamic world, be able to transcend its malaise and look forward to a real political and social spring.

The writer is research professor of Middle East and Mediterranean Studies at King's College London, director of the Middle East Forum (Philadelphia) and author, most recently, of Palestine Betrayed.

This text may be reposted or forwarded so long as it is presented as an integral whole with complete information provided about its author, date, place of publication, and original URL.

LETTER OF THE WEEK

A response in the Australian to regular Israel basher Bill Matthew -

Iran's nuclear threat

IRAN is feverishly developing nuclear capabilities and has threatened to hold the world's oil supply hostage if it tries to prevent it. Yet Bill Mathew reserves his criticism solely for Israel for vowing to stop it (Letters, 6/3).

Mathew blames the victim, Israel, for the wars waged against it and for OPEC's embargo of the 1970s.

His bias against Israel renders his call for a nuclear-free Middle East disingenuous. If Israel has a nuclear arsenal, it has not threatened to use it against anyone. It is interesting to note that, according to WikiLeaks, the Arab states are concerned about an Iranian nuke in a way they never were about Israel's capabilities. Iran's neighbours have recognised the grave danger should Iran succeed in developing nuclear weapons. Why hasn't Mr Mathew?

Athol Morris, O'Connor, ACT

"JEWISH" FRINGE GROUPS IN BALACLAVA

Daphne Anson reports on the lunatic so-called "Jews" spooking commuters at suburban Melbourne's Balaclava railway station - In Oz, Aid & Comfort For The Enemy At Balaclava: Jewish Fringe Groups Attack The JNF.

As soon as I saw the name Vivienne Porzsolt (she who attempted to sail on one of the ill-fated 2011 flotillas to Gaza to end the Israeli blockade which is aimed at preventing weaponry from falling into the hands of terrorists bent on committing genocide) I knew exacly what we're dealing with.

The nutbags have now gone quiet receiving nothing but contempt from our local train tavellers.

No political differences between Fatah, Hamas

The Palestinian Authority has closed the door on any possibility of peace between Israel and the Palestinians.

According to the report by journalist Khaled Abu Toameh

"No political differences between Fatah, Hamas"

Hamas is politically committed to Israel's destruction and Abbas says there are no political differences between Hamas and Fatah.

So it's not the settlements at all. It's Israel's existence.

Needless to say, Fairfax Palestine Bureau person Ruth Pollard won't be availing Age and Sydney Morning Herald readers of this fact any time soon.

The "Apartheid State" That Minorities Keep Struggling To Get Into

Interesting piece from Ramzi Abu Hadid on The "Apartheid State" That Minorities Keep Struggling To Get Into which trashes former Sydney Peace Prize winner and self-declared human rights advocate Hanan Ashrawi who is demanding that the international community declare Israel an "Apartheid State."

How come she never mentions the incitement of Palestinians against Israelis in the Palestinian government-issued textbooks, or in the schools and summer camps named after terrorists, or in the government-controlled TV stations which just last week again glorified terrorists with video celebrations again and again of the tenth anniversary of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a group that over the years has killed dozens of Israelis, including many children?

How come Ashrawi never mentions that in Saudi Arabia there is not only gender apartheid -- in which women have virtually no rights and are kept as virtual prisoners, unable to travel without the permission of a male guardian or relative, even if he is a child or retarded or mentally defective -- but also that there are separate roads marked for Muslims to drive on and for non-Muslims to drive on? You are not even allowed to bring a Bible into the country. How come those acts are not "Apartheid"?

How come Ashrawi never mentions that here in Jordan the government has been trying to strip thousands of us Palestinians of our Jordanian citizenship -- a move Israel never made against its Christians and Muslims.

THE ASSADS VOTE

Syrian Prime Minister, war criminal and partner in crime for Iran, Hizbullah and Hamas votes:



Hat tip: Harry's Place

BRULLSHIT

I always thought that one would have to look far and wide to find a so-called political commentator inferior in intellectual capacity or credibility to Antony Loewenstein.

However, on reading this effort from a Michael Brull in the ABC's Drum, I think I've found someone who can truly take his place next to Loewenstein and appear as an intellectual pygmy beside him - Iran, Israel and the west: some home truths.

If you want proof that Brull's rant is nothing more than brullshit, read this - 'Kill all Jews and annihilate Israel!' Iran's Ayatollah lays out legal and religious justification for attack
Doctrine says Israel would be wiped out in 9 minutes

Israel has destroyed Iran nuclear 'infrastructure'.

Israel has destroyed Iran nuclear 'infrastructure'.

I'm not convinced as to the reliability of the source but I wouldn't discount the story which is also covered in Haaretz.

It's unlikely to be found any time soon in our local press.

AMBASSADOR SLAMS GREENS

The Australian's NSW political reporter Imre Salusinszky reports that Israel's Ambassador to Australia, Mr. Yuval Rotem "has abandoned normal diplomatic language to slam 'vigilante local councils' in inner Sydney that have pursued boycotts against his country - Israeli ambassador lets fly at BDS backers in Sydney councils

Mr Rotem reserved his strongest words for Fiona Byrne, the former mayor of Marrickville in inner-western Sydney, whose position on the BDS was widely credited with costing her a seat in state parliament for the Greens. Marrickville Council adopted BDS as official policy under Ms Byrne, but abandoned it a few months later following public condemnation.

"The candidate for Marrickville, Fiona Byrne, tripped over herself in many public statements, confused that her Utopian vision of a world with a weakened Israel was poorly received outside the confines of her urban hamlet," Mr Rotem said.

Kol Hakavod, Mr. Ambassador.

Telling the Truth about BDS Lies

When routine Israel basher Norman Finkelstein says he loathes the BDS movement's duplicity and disingenuousness in hiding the fact that a large part of its membership "wants to eliminate Israel" then you know that the Israel Apartheid Week crowd is being exposed for exactly the sham that it is:

It's Israeli Apartheid Week. Just tell the truth

FISK: CUT DOWN AND PASTED UP

Thanks to the Australian's Cut and Paste

Legendary for regularly placing his foot in his mouth, Robert Fisk made a complete idiot of himself with this comment to ABC1's Kerrie O'Brien on Monday's Four Corners on the subject of the Butcher of Damascus, now suddenly out of favour with most of the pundits of the pseudo left:-

Fisking! Robert Fisk interviewed by Kerrie O'Brien on ABC1's Four Corners on Monday:

YOU see, the problem is, on the one hand, the two nations that are the most frightened of losing Bashar al-Assad: one is Iran, because the destruction of Assad's Syria is a sword in the heart of Iran, its greatest ally, and the other country is Israel, because
 the Israelis are constantly saying, "Well, we don't like Bashar, but we're frightened of what will happen afterwards."
Israeli Foreign Minister 

Avigdor Lieberman on June 15, 2011:

I THINK for everybody who saw in the last week on the TV screens the repression and the atrocities, the conclusion is very simple and very clear: President Assad must resign as soon as possible, and it's despite all our bilateral relations with Syria. For everybody who respects human rights and democratic values, it's really unacceptable what we see today in Syria We are worried about the innocent people who are suffering . . . it's a very bad sign and a very bad message if this regime and if this president will survive and if he will succeed in suppressing these protests.

Israeli ambassador to the UN Ron Prosor, February 13:

STOP standing on the sidelines watching murder after murder. . . do something (to stop Assad).

In other words, Fisk either doesn't know or he's lying.

Fisk was once described by New York Times journalist Ethan Bronner as pursuing an anti-Western agenda "nearly to the exclusion of the pursuit of straight journalism."

TWO JEWS, TWO VIEWS

Today's Sydney Morning Herald -

Hunger striker is due no sympathy

I have no sympathy for Khader Adnan or his hunger strike (''Hunger striker shines light on Israeli detention policy'', February 20).
He is no innocent accidentally swept up by the Israeli military court system but a longstanding, active senior Islamic Jihad leader committed to both the destruction of Israel and an extreme theocracy for the Palestinians.

On June 10, 2005, Associated Press called him "a top Islamic Jihad leader" advocating on behalf of two comrades who had been jailed by the Palestinian Authority for their part in a suicide bombing in Israel. Two weeks later in a West Bank rally he denounced the Palestinian Authority's call for Islamic Jihad to disarm.

In September 2010 the Palestinian Authority arrested Adnan and on this occasion too he began a hunger strike.
That Adnan is reportedly near death on a hunger strike in an Israeli jail is a tragic waste of a life but, like his support for extremism, is his choice.

Adnan is not some romantic freedom fighter but a senior member of a ruthless terrorist organisation whose complaints about the judicial treatment such criminal activity entails ring hollow.

Mark Kessel Caulfield North

As a person born of Jewish refugee parents who had to flee racist oppression in Germany I am horrified at Israel's blatant denial of human and legal rights to the Palestinians in the illegally occupied territories. Australia should protest in the strongest terms at the treatment of Palestinians there and the use of administrative detention to circumvent normal legal procedures. Mr Adnan's hunger strike will hopefully awaken the conscience of the world.

Ron Witton Austinmer
 
Thanks Ron but after reading more about this Adnan character, I think you're a very sadly misguided soul.

ISRAEL'S NEIGHBOURHOOD

They send flotillas to try to break legal blockades set up to prevent gunrunners from smuggling weapons into Gaza. Weapons that would be used to attack Israeli civilian targets.

Then they sit on their hands and do nothing when this happens - Syrian forces fire on Damascus funeral.

Pathetic.

BAN-KRUPT

So it took 8,000 deaths before the UN leader awoke from his slumber - Ban sees possible war crimes in Syria

Close down this corrupt house of hypocrisy.

It's become a monument for all that is vile and corrupt in mankind.

ARAB SPRING SPRUNG

The installation of Islamists in those Arab states recently liberated by the Arab Spring is moving their societies back to the stome ages - "Gays threaten continuation of human race".

"Gays threaten the continuation of the human race, Libya’s delegate told a planning meeting of the UN Human Rights Council today, reported the Geneva-based UN Watch monitoring group. It was the first appearance in the 47-nation body by the post-Gaddafi government, whose membership was restored in November following Libya’s suspension in March."

ANOTHER LETTER OF THE WEEK

This none's from the Australian Financial Review

Mearsheimer’s views

In the book The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy, political scientists John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt introduced ancient anti-semitic slurs about Jewish power into the modern discourse, suggesting that a mysterious cabal of Jewish groups were somehow responsible for every US foreign policy blunder.

With that in mind, I was dismayed to read Robert Kaplan’s “Great power politics ” (Review, February 10) saying that the “real tragedy” of this is that it would threaten “to obscure the urgent and enduring message of Mearsheimer’s life’s work”. This is absolutely incorrect, the real tragedy of the incident is that it no longer raises an eyebrow when a widely read columnist can suggest that the “Jewish Lobby” is keeping Australia in Iraq; or that Mearsheimer can endorse a Holocaust revisionist such as author Gil Atzmon and still be credited as a serious political scientist. Averting tragedy does not require listening to Mearsheimer’s views on China, it requires ridding him of his academic recognition and throwing him into the cesspit where he belongs.

Justin Said Coogee NSW

PALESTINIANS SAY NO TO PEACE

Commentators in the media should note this Haaretz article - Haniyeh in Iran: Hamas will never recognize Israel.

"Hamas would never acknowledge the Israeli state, said Ismail Haniyeh, the leader of the Palestinian movement in Gaza, on Friday in Tehran."

Haniyeh is not just "the leader of the Palestinian movement in Gaza". He is a partner in the Palestinian unity government with Fatah's Mahmoud Abbas who steadfastly refuses to recognise Israel as a Jewish State.

So whatever view one might have about the occupation, settlements and settlement building, it is abundantly clear that these are no longer issues in the conflict.

The occupation is now irrelevant insofar as the matter of attaining peace is concerned.

LETTER OF THE WEEK

I found this in the Age but it's on the SMH site:-

IRAN'S Ayatollah Ali Khamenei pledges to confront and defeat the ''cancerous tumour'' of Israel (World, 5/2) and international concern grows of a pre-emptive Israeli strike on Iran's nuclear installations. While the US and other countries urge Israel to wait for the effects of tough sanctions on Iran to be felt, it must be realised that we're discussing the survival of a people and a country.

It seems nobody but the Jews learn from history. Do the leaders of the international coalition forget the killing of 6 million Jews in Europe during World War II came about due to ''waiting'' and because the Allied leaders of the time took too long to confront Hitler and the Nazi Party?

Iran plans to wipe Israel off the map when equipped to do so. Which country in the world would countenance the prospect of obliteration by waiting until it happened? Even pacifists would fight for their lives if their backs were to the wall.

LIAT NAGAR, Inverloch

FAILED STUDENTS

What are they smoking these days at our tertiary institutions?

Whatever it is, the imebeciles at a group named "Students for Palestine" must be on some scary stuff to have even thought of picketing Jewish worshippers praying on their Sabbath at, of all places, a synagogue in suburban Ripponlea.

After being alterted to the crass stupidity of their protest, they gave up on that idea and decided they would picket another venue associated with mining magnate Joseph Gutnick which is used for Jewish religious and teaching purposes - Activists abandon Sabbath protest.

Judging from some of the names associated with SOP, it would be a fair guess that one or two of the protesters might be Jewish which suggests that these nutbags should have known better when selecting their targets.

One can only hope that they're now taking their medication.

WHAT THEY WATCH ON PA TV (BUT AL AGE WON'T TELL YOU ABOU)

Al Age Palestine Bureau chief, Ruth Pollard's busy writing about the butcher of Damascus and how he's murdering thousands of his own people so she'll probably miss this show.

Viva Palestina, The Flotillas and Assad - the story you won't read in the Age

This Haaretz story tells of the connection between the Viva Palestina organisation lead by British MP George Galloway which participated in the notorious flotillas and Syria's murderous Assad regime - 

Haaretz exclusive: Organizer of Gaza flotilla sought assistance from Assad's office


"Galloway has for many years carried on close contacts with dictators and extremist elements in the Arab world. In the late 1990s, he was closely linked with Iraqi president Saddam Hussein, the Assad regime in Syria, Hamas in Gaza and the Iranian regime.

"In July 2011, at a time when Assad was perpetrating massacres of his own people, Galloway was interviewed on Hezbollah's al-Manar network, where he heaped praises on the Syrian president."

In 2010, Fairfax journalist Paul McGeough was awarded a Walkley award for journalism for his coverage of the flotillas and in particular of the deaths of nine Turkish activists aboard the Mavi Marmara which was part of the Gaza-bound that year.  

Critics of the articles pointed out that McGeough's one-sided pieces were not journalism but propaganda supporting the agitators on the ship who provoked the deadly confrontation with the IDF. The award winning reports were based almost solely on so called "eye witness" accounts from fellow passengers on the flotilla and ignored the fact that most of the provocateurs were members of an Islamist terrorist group, some of who had indicated prior to the voyage that they intended to do violence.

Of course, these fresh revelations connecting the organisers of the flotilla, already associated with terror groups Hamas and the Turkish IHH, with the butcher Assad are unlikely to be aired in the Fairfax press as it will only further highlight its already questionable stance over the original incident which was largely discredited in the wake of last year's Palmer Report that supported the Israeli version of the events.

BBC World News

On BBC World News last night:

Headline news (in order)

• Europe shivers

• Transport crippled

• Afghan Bomb Attack (7 killed)

• Romney momentum builds

• "Sushiking" in the Raw

Even Greek debt, the floods in Australia, the Chinese New Year and the Pakistan v England got in but the massacres in Syria did not.

Strange priorities?

WHERE'S THE WALKLEY AWARD HYPOCRITE

The fellow won a Walkley Award supposedly for excellence in Australian journalism by writing up stories about what happened on the Mavi Marmara in May 2010.

Where the hell are the flotillas today when Syrian troops are butchering their own people?

The silence of these hypocrites is deafening and shameful.

ABBAS "NOT SERIOUS"

According to elderof ziyon not even the leadership of Hamas can take Fatah led by Mahmoud Abbas seriously.

"Khalil al-Hayya, head of Hamas' political party "Change and Reform," has called on Hamas to re-evaluate the unity agreement with Fatah in light of Fatah's postponement of a meeting meant to create a framework for negotiations."

Sound familiar?

Abbas presides over a corrupt Fatah and a dysfunctional Palestine Authority. His underling Erekat does a lot of talking but most of the time he's resigning his position, postponing meetings, walking out of them or simply not bothering to turn up.

He does it because he knows there are enough sock puppets in the mainstream media who will give him, and the thugs he works with, the credibility and a megaphone to get across his crooked message.

NIGHT FOLLOWS DAY

Al Age Palestine Propaganda presenter, Ruth Pollard falls into line blaming Israel for the impasse in talks between Israel and the PA. The only thing she gets right is that the talks were an exercise in futility.

Nothing about the intransigence of the Palestinian negotiating team, nothing of the racism and incitement on PA media - just the usual attack on the Israelis while those who laud the animals who slit the throats of babies are held blameless.

I tipped this two days ago!

PREDICTABLE

The inevitable has happened. The latest exploratory peace talks between Israel and the Palestine Authority totter on the brink of failure and the Palestinians blame Israel - Abbas: Israel to blame for failed peace talks in Jordan

How predictable?

After doing their best to derail the talks - Palestinians are doing their best to derail peace talks with Israel - the Palestinians blame Israel for their failure.

The sincerity and good faith (or lack thereof) of the PA is best judged by the messages Abbas and his own people send while the peace talks are occurring.

When Saeb Erekat who once told the BBC that hundreds maybe thousands of civilians had been killed in the battles in the Jenin refugee camp (actual civilian toll - 11) was refusing to come to meetings during the talks, the mufti of Jerusalem was prominent in the official PA media talking about killing Jews and a weekly television show dedicated to Palestinian prisoners in Israel, praised the convicted perpetrator of a murderous attack on a five members of a sleeping family who slit the throat of a months old infant as a 'hero and legend.' - Palestinian TV airs show praising Fogel family murderer.

And, as sure as night follows day, the Palestinian propaganda arm will ignore all of this and when it picks up this story in a few days' time, one of its spinmeisters will focus on blaming Israel and the settlements for everything.