Liz suggests

Email registration

Free weekly email update

Great products and special offers for Spectator readers

Click here for great value reader offers and events

Click here for the latest Spectator Wine Offers

Israel’s pilgerite tendency

Monday, 7th April 2008

Last month, I wrote here about this piece by James Hider in the Times which reported claims that

Jewish settler groups are digging an extensive tunnel network under Muslim areas of Jerusalem’s Old City [from Silwan to the Western Wall] while building a ring of settlements around it to bolster their claim to the disputed city in any future peace deal.

I pointed out that the real story was the deliberate destruction by the Arabs, in the building of another mosque in Temple Mount, of countless priceless artefacts dating back to the time of the first Jewish Temple, in an attempt to destroy the evidence of the ancient Jewish claim to Jerusalem. But now read on here…

Hussein Siyam, the Mukhtar of Silwan, is the tribal leader of the two largest clans in the valley to the east of Jerusalem’s Old City. He says that he has been involved in negotiations with Ir David since the beginning. ‘Anyone who tells you that there is new digging going on below the houses is lying,’ he said. ‘The dig existed already and they are just cleaning it out.’

He blames two entities for the disturbances. ‘The Committee for the Protection of Property in Silwan is a group that gets money from Arab states and the Palestinian Authority,’ said. ‘And so, it is interested in spending that money on conflict.’ The second source is more nefarious. ‘A German news company recruits activists here and gives them money to make problems in order to report on them,’ he claimed.

Since Hider quoted Israeli leftists, it would seem that anArab is prepared to tell the truth about Israel, while its own pilgerite Jews smear their country with hateful lies.

Previous Back to Melanie Phillips Next

Blogs: Clive Davis | Stephen Pollard | Americano | Coffee House | Trading Floor

Actions: Print this article | Email to a friend | Permalink | Comments (3)

Post this entry to: del.icio.us | Digg | Newsvine | NowPublic | Reddit

Thinkster

April 7th, 2008 5:00pm

Yup, they are completing Mr. Hitlers unfinished business as requested by The Mufti in 1941. Naivety can be deadly.

Jon_boy

April 8th, 2008 12:42am

Jews have always had form in shooting themselves in the foot. Personally that is what is most frustrating for me about being ethnically Jewish. I am willing to face down those that seek to harm myself and my imediate family because we are Jews but it is very hard when you have to battle your own people too. My own view is that too many Jews lack a healthy sense of self preservation. To see Jews once again aligning themselves with the genocidal enemies of the Jewish nation due to a misguided aleigance to left wing politics really makes my stomach churn. Especially when many of their grand parents did exactly the same thing prior to WW2 when their aleigance to Soviet communism led them to strategically back the Nazis on orders from Joseph Stalin. Do these idiots never learn from their mistakes or will they just keep going until I and they are all dead?

Yisrael Medad

April 8th, 2008 1:05pm

And why do we never read the phrase: "Jewish settler groups are digging an extensive tunnel network under Muslim areas of Jerusalem’s Old City which were built on areas formerly inhabited by Jews, as proven by the archeological discoveries made since 1967"?