Forgetting the lessons of history

Alcuin

On this day, of all days, the BBC World Service broadcast their "From our own Correspondent" programme, at 1am, hosted by the "award winning BBC correspondent Alan Johnston". There were two items on Gaza, the first of which followed a group of Gazans (Fatah, this time) as they set up their rockets to fire into Israel. They cursed Google Earth for not showing Israeli military facilities, and then again as one of their unreliable rockets went awry. A transcript may be found here. Anyone who finds this dispassionate coverage of an attempted war crime against Jews, on such a day as this, as grotesque as I do should make a complaint to the BBC.

field

Though the intentions behind Holocaust Memorial Day were no doubt good, I never felt easy about this being imposed on people in the UK. It didn't grow out of any popular will. We already have a special day for remembrance of the dead - including civilians - in the war (and other wars)and it was bound to provide an opening for Neo-Nazis, Islamists and other totalitarians to present this as a Jewish enterprise, to peddle anti-semitic falsehoods and to pursue their grievances. I don't think it's possible to impose a single view of the history of Israel. Just as I oppose the attempt to punish holocaust or Armenian genocide denial - because that is an offence against free speech - so too I don't think that we can say there is just the one history of Israel. Israel's founding was unusual and although it was by and large a process based on legal means, it did involve the displacement one way or another of a long established populace. We can hardly expect Arabs to be overjoyed at what happened. We should of course ensure that schools are not seeking to suppress the Jewish view of Israel's founding or say the collaboration between Arab leaders and the Nazis.

Corin

Field, Arabs are not overjoyed at losing a part of their empire, neither were we. But no-one weeps for us or any other imperial nation. We do we weep for the Arabs? I preached on Sunday of all that that the Church owes Israel, not least its Saviour. The Church is evidence that Israel belongs in the land. We declare that Jesus, lived and taught in what are now called Muslim lands. They say the Jews were never there. The Church has to say that they were. Some may betray their mission, but ultimately, the Church is a witness to Israel and vice versa (just not yet); Islam has no part in this.

kate b

I suggest readers read Mark Twain's (1835 - 1910) innocents abroad Chapter 52. The land is pretty devoid of Arabs claiming it as their land. Jews have always lived in their homeland and with believers in the Bible covenants know it is covenanted to them as a promise forever. Mark Twain's pilgrimage notes their seeking out of real historical sites of the Jewish people: of its patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Joseph also Joshua and Solomon and the graves of famous prophets of the Bible buried in East Jerusalem and of course the remains of the Second Temple, which replaced Solomon;'s temple. Read Here and make up your own mind. http://classiclit.about.com/library/bl-etexts/mtwain/bl-mtwain-innocents-52.htm

Kevyn Bodman

Israel's right to occupy the land shouldn't depend on the authority of any Biblical covenants. Of course that part of the Bible grants the land to the Jewish people, it was written by the Jewish people. The other reasons you can find in support of Israel's claim are stronger.

BJ

The "true history of Israel"? You only mean your version of that history.

Stanislav Koblinski

Alcuin, not only did the BBC choose to broadcast that particular "From our own Correspondent", they chose that day of all days to recycle an old article previously published! Caught In the Act: BBC Regurgitates Old News

Alan Stoddart

"They ask, what would I do about the janjaweed, and what about the 1.9 million refugees? My answer to the first is identical in substance to theirs: nothing really. They just get the T-shirt. The janjaweed are not in my country, not my business and, most important, not a problem within my power to solve." So said Sir Simon Jenkins. The man who also wants Iran to have the bomb.... 'Up stepped Simon Jenkins in a black suit and tie. He won the room over with his plain-speaking charm: ‘Iran is a sophisticated, complex, plural country.’ So why deny them the bomb? It was inevitable. ' How do you expect to win when the people who hold power hold views like that. People unconcerned about Arab/Muslim ethnic cleansing in Darfur but who castigate a modern, liberal democracy like Israel that is still having to defend itself in a war that has so far lasted 60 years. A bomb goes off in Iraq and it is head line news on the BBC, 4 million people are slaughtered in the Congo over 10 years and who would really guess it? That's 400,000/year...vastly more than have been killed in total by Muslim terrorists in Iraq after 5 years. 'Those who control a people’s opinions control it’s actions.' or as Chomsky puts it: Commentary on public affairs in the mainstream literature is often shallow and uninformed. Everyone who writes or speaks about these matters knows how much you can get away with as long as you keep close to received doctrine. I’m sure just about everyone exploits these privileges. I know I do. When I refer to Nazi crimes or Soviet atrocities, for example, I know that I will not be called upon to back up what I say, but a scholarly apparatus is necessary if I say anything critical about the practice of one of the holy states: the united states itself or Israel. This freedom from the requirements of evidence or even rationality is quite a convenience, as any informed reader of the media and journals of opinion, or even much of the scholarly literature, will quickly discover. It makes life easy, and permits expression of a good deal of nonsense or ignorant bias with impunity, also slander. Evidence is unnecessary, argument beyond the point. The right to lie in the service of power is guarded with considerable vigour and passion. The aura of alleged expertise provides a way for the media to indoctrinate the public by using the experts to provide the perspective that is required by the medias own beliefs and concerns, lending the prestige of scholarship to the narrow range of opinion permitted broad expression on the media….providing the approved opinions that the media cannot express directly without abandoning the pretence of objectivity that serves to legitimate their propaganda functions. Most people are not liars, there are outright liars and brazen propagandists in journalism and in the academic professions but the norm is obedience to the culture, adoption of uncritical attitudes, taking the easy path of self-deception. There is also a selective process in the academic professions and journalism…people who are independent-minded and cannot be trusted to be obedient don’t make it by and large. They are filtered out along the way leaving you with a monoculture of similar thinking, attitudes and world views.

Maven

Israel was NOT created by displacement of other people, as field states. This jhust highlights the need to educate people about the formation of Israel. The original Balfour Declaration and League of Nations Mandate never said "and all Jews must leave". When the largest displacement of Arabas took place in 1967 they were urged to leave by the Arab nations attacking Israel so that they didn't have to go through fellow Arabs, with the promise they could return to even MORE land. Israel urged them to stay. The fact that they LOST meant that it was then difficult for them to return. Why should we reward agression and attempted genocide by a return to the status quo. HAd they stayed then they would have been citizens of Israel

Matt

Isn't it amazing that Melanie has managed to turn this of all subjects into a yet another opportunity to bash the British media and educational establishments. The fact is, the holocaust is part of the curriculum and all British children are brought up to believe that an event like this must NEVER happen again. You'd think she would take some comfort from that.

Dr. Irene Lancaster FRSA

Matt, you might be right in theory, but in practice the teaching of the Holocaust depends very much on the whim of the teacher. In some schools, with a large Muslim population, it is played down. I have even experienced it being taught as Israelis representing the new Germans and the Palestinians representing the new Jews. In 1999 I was asked to write a new course in Jewish history (including Israel) for Manchester University's Department of Religions and Theology. Attempts were made during the teaching of that course to suppress some aspects of Jewish history. Those responsible for trying to stop the class were Muslims. At the same time, in some Greater Manchester Schools, the word 'Israel'had been banned by the LEA, for fear of offending extreme Muslim groups. Need I go on? http://irenelancaster.typepad.com/

KB

Matt,

Really?

Malcolm Dunn

Including the activities of Irgun (the King David hotel massacre) and the Stern Gang (the torture and murder of two British sergants)?

Ivor, Chelmsford

It's just a matter of time before Muslim/PC pressure will force the day to be renamed 'Genocide Day' in honour of all victims of facsicm. Then you can bet that this will lead to the main focus of the day being on Israel's 'fascism' towards the Palestinians. Laughable.

Dr. Irene Lancaster FRSA

Can't you do better than that, Malcolm? Isn't it interesting that detractors of Jews/Israel always point to this incident as proof of - what, exactly? The British were colonialists in Israel. I have elderly female neighbours who have gruesome memories of being beaten up by drunken and anti-semitic British soldiers, as they walked home from school in Haifa, aged 8.There were also cold-blooded murders of defenseless Jews by British soldiers stationed here. When you think of all the massacres perpetrated on the British by other groups, in India and Pakistan for instance, or nearer to home, during 9/11, 7/7 etc, bringing up this incident tells you a great deal about the Malcolms of this world. I'm just about to be visited in Haifa by the welfare officer of the northern recuperation home for soldiers wounded in every war Britain has fought since World War I. It's based in Salford, opposite where I used to live. This woman is not Jewish and is very sensible. She wouldn't be visiting me in Israel (her first visit, by the way) if she really thought that Israel were the sort of place that Malcolm is implying it is. And yes, I did teach about the King David in the full context of the British sending back Jewish refugees from the Holocaust to their deaths in Europe, by preventing them from landing in the Haifa area. I'll be taking my friend, Marian, to Atlit, so she can see where it all happened for herself.

David Lindsay

Why is it on 27th January, the day Auschwitz exchanged mass-murdering Nazi tyranny for mass-murdering Soviet tyranny? Why not 15th April, the day Belsen really was liberated, and that by the British? In some years, that would even coincide usefully with Easter. That we are prepared to have it on 27th January points to the extent to which the anti-British sectarian Left has taken over our public life, and the extent to which it has made peace with its old adversaries, also massively influential, on the anti-British sectarian Right. And that we really insist on having it all points to the extent to which it is so much easier, and even more fun, to concentrate on the wrongdoing of others rather than on that of ourselves.

Stanislav Koblinski

David Lindsay, it's the 27th Jamuary because that's the day the UN decided the International Holocaust Memorial Day should take place. General Assembly designates International Holocaust Remembrance Day

Ron Todd

I have watched some of the BBC coverage every modern genocide got a mention except Darfur and Armenia. Were the trying to avoid upseting anybody? If it became 'Genocide' day would we have Muslims protesting that they were being victimised every time Armenia or Darfur was mentioned?

Alan Stoddart

Reference the BBC's Paul Martin and his 'Rockets in Gaza' report...he states only 13 Israelis have been killed in the last 6 years...er did he mean in 2007...and due to the security wall blocking suicide bombers? The true figure for 200-2005 is below: Today (Thursday), 29.9.05, will mark five years since the start of the current round of Palestinian violence, during which 26,159 terrorist attacks were perpetrated against Israeli targets, in which 1,060 Israelis were murdered and 6,089 were wounded.

Ahad Ha'amoratzim

"The fact is, the holocaust is part of the curriculum and all British children are brought up to believe that an event like this must NEVER happen again. " Matt, I'd take more comfort if there weren't so many voices in the UK cheering on the would-be genocidists of Hamas, Fatah and the rest, while repeatedly and falsely charging Israel with Genocide. Jenin, anyone?

george

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AeKw8g-CT_M&feature=related The above link will take you to 5 soul searching tributes to Primo Levi, truly a giant of holocaust literature.Take the time to watch. Without hate and without self pity he describes the surreal personal experiences that so many now minimise or deny Levi's awful depressions and resultant suicide were as a result of the minimisers and negators of the Holocaust (letters from Faurisson) who assaulted him when he had become to old to bounce back and counter the lies. Thank God he is no longer with us to witness how the Islamists are adding to this assassination of memory 20 years on.

george

Ivor The attempts by the Nuslim PC propagandists would not include any genocides in the list perpetrated by islamic jihadist. So i would include this frightful testimony produced by Brave muslims but banned by the saudis on those who have fled to Chad. Yes this would be "on the List for sure! Jihad on Horseback- item 5 http://www.crisisgroup.org/home/index.cfm?id=3060&l=1#C42

field

I think the discussion shows that there is no one history of Israel. I wouldn't rely on Mark Twain. He was a novelist. I've walked for 15 miles on a Greek island in mid summer and not seen a (Greek) soul. NO doubt they sensibly do a couple of hours' work between 6 am and 8 am and then rest up until about 6pm. Anyway I wouldn;t claim there were no Greeks there no the basis of my tourist experience. There is plenty of evidence to say "Palestine" (not that it existed as an entity) was underpopulated and failing to make the best of its resources until the Jews came on the scene in significant numbers. I wouldn't rest any claims to Israel's right to exist on the Bible. I based the state's right to exist on the fact that there really are an Israeli people - a coherent body of people with a common language, shared values, rule of law, a broad culture etc . Many Arab states have far less of a claim to legitimacy.

Andy Gill

The League of Nations' resolution creating the Palestine Mandate stated: “Whereas recognition has thereby been given to the historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine and to the grounds for reconstituting their national home in that country." The UN assumed this obligation when it was founded in 1945: "Nothing in this Chapter shall ... alter in any manner the rights whatsoever of any states or any peoples or the terms of existing international instruments to which Members of the United Nations may respectively be parties." Despite the fact that the partition plan of 1947 violated the preceeding agreements by ceding right to Arabs in the area, it was accepted by Israel. The truth is, Arab claims to Palestine are tenuous to say the least. http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/125049

roGER

Why should British children be forced to learn about the history of a small state in Eastern Med? Why should they be forced to learn about the history of a tiny minority of the British population? Start down that path, and they'd have to learn the history of China, the history of Pakistan, the history of India, and doubtless the history of many other nations and peoples. Such history courses have their place - in universities where the students can choose to do them. Such history courses are also given by experts, rather than journalists with English degrees and several axes to grind.

Malcolm Dunn

Not ot sure why my earlier comment was not published but to repeat, Dr Lancaster I'm not anti Israel. I merely suggested that if we are to teach our children history objectively then we have to teach them about all forms of terrorism. In my opinion Shamir (Stern Gang) and Begin (Irgun) are every bit as much terrorists as Yasser Arafat or the leaders of Hamas.

Dan

The Holecaust is one of the most horrifying things to have happened on the planet and of course British schoolchildren should be aware of it. however how dare Melanie Phillips suggest we also have an obligation to force feed them about the subsequent history of a Israel and the Jewish people. British involvement from 1917-47 is an one example of many of British involvement which helped shape the modern world. But the British perspective of the events will never be the same as that of either the Palestinian or Israeli views. King David Hotel, Stern Gang etc was terrorism, and committing war crimes but in the British context it was a minor distraction at the time of withdrawal from India, multiple other commitments etc.

Lynne T

Dan: It may have been a minor distraction in the view of some, but the attack on the King David Hotel, as horrifying and bloody as it was, was precipitated by the British authorities' policy of letting anyone except Jews fleeing the Holocaust to land in Palestine. This is hardly comparable to the acts that have been perpetrated by Hamas, Hezbollah, Fatah and other "factions" in the name of "resistance" in the years since all the failed invasions by Arab armies and an important piece of context rarely mentioned by moral equivalencers.

R cross

About one and a half million,they do not sem too sure do they.

Adam B.

Dan and roGer, Melanie's point is that people are being taught inaccuarately about Israel and the Jews, with outright lies being spread in British schools, usually by people who have no in depth knowledge or who have themselves been "taught" a narrative that is false and venomous. Her plea that this be addressed hardly seems outrageous. Indeed, it is urgent, as Jewish people face a growing spate of antisemitic attacks, both physically and verbally.

Ben-Tsiyon

That the "attack" on the King David Hotel was "horrifying and bloody" was a consequence of the behaviour of an arrogant British officer, according to the account of one of the few survivors, as related in the late Menahem Begin's book "The Revolt". The objective of the so-called "terrorists" was the symbolic destruction of the administrative HQ of the occupying power, not the killing of personnel inside the building. To that end, and to enable an evacuation of the personnel, a warning message was relayed to the HQ stating the time set for the explosion. When the message came through and personnel attempted to leave the building, this was prevented by one of the British officers in charge, who declared that "we" don't take orders from the Jews, "we" give the orders !

Robin

The crimes against the Jews, the Poles, the Gypsies, the homosexuals and others were terrible during WWII. However the atmosphere of sympathy for the Jewish people has shrivelled away after seeing how the agressive state of Israel has stolen land from its neighbours, continues to ill treat them and steal their water resources, and to add insult to injury, blames the persecuted for their fate. Israel is quite rightly severely condemned by the UN.

Ben-Tsiyon

Oh ho, here we go again, with the latest propagandist, Robin, to join in and trot out the standard one-sided version of the situation that wilfully ignores, even distorts history, and is favoured by those whose sole desire is to see an end to the restored Jewish nation-state in the land of our forefathers. These bigots are the chidren or grandchildren of those I was at school with some 60 years ago, who would constantly harangue their Jewish fellow-pupils with: "Go back to Palestine....back to Jerusalem...back where you came from !", sentiments which were no doubt passed on to them by their elders. It's a case of: "Don't want you here, don't want you there !" and the strongest argument for fully supporting our brothers and sisters in the Land of Israel in whatever they have to do to ensure their security and survival.

Adam B.

Robin, did Poland "steal" land from Germany after WWII? Presumably you're worked up about that issue as well aren't you?! Israel was the country that was attacked, repeatedly, with the invading Arab armies openly decalaring intent to commit genocide. How dare the Jews defend themselves!