The verbal pogrom

N. Winer

This continues to point to the absence of reasoned debate. There are two Israels at stake; not one. The first is Israel within legally (1948) and diplomatically (1967) recognized borders. The second is the Zionist Israel that prefers mythology as a creator of law and colonial settlement as a guarantor of peace. When either defending or attacking Israel it might be useful to know which narrative we are referring to. The same might be said of the 'Arab' world. Are we accusing Lebanon of having the same cultural and political values as Yemen? If we cannot begin our dialogue without absurd generalizations our chances of defending or promoting democratic freedoms in either arena seem quite limited.

Carl

Israel as a State does not equate to the "Jewish People". They are better than that.

Dixon

Israel serves in the unconscious of its Western opponents as a proxy for their own culture and that of their parents. Thats why they so irrationally attack it.

Jerry

Part of the Israeli narrative must include the idea that the entire world is better off with Judea and Samaria being under Israeli rule than under the apartheid rule of a triumphalist Islamist state. The creation of such a state will lead to war, particularly if its wings are not severely clipped - demilitarized. Why should reasonable policy makers seek a state that can invite at will Iran's Revolutionary Guards or Al-Queda supporters to the borders of Israel if those same policy makers are not seeking Israel's destruction?

Israel owes nothing in this matter. It is up to the Arabs to win Israel's approval if they seek land from Israel.

Merlyn

Interestingly, Geert Wilders is on course to be next Dutch Prime Minister, perhaps the tipping point is happening in Europe.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/netherlands/7369693/Wilders-on-course-to-be-next-Dutch-prime-minister.html

Michael B

Bravo to Danny Seaman, but why ... oh why? ... don't we hear such sentiments from the Amanpours and Courics and BBC establishmentarians of the world?

For the same reason we aren't going to see Dershowitz's suggestion taken up:

It would require backbone of a particularly rare kind, perhaps the rarest kind in the world today.

C. Gee

Why does Danny Seaman refer to the history of Jews and Israel as a "narrative"? We know that the Palestinians have a "narrative" in lieu of facts. To claim a Jewish narrative is to accept that the Middle Eastern issue is one of competing propaganda. Have Edward Said's poisonous ideas now taken over the discourse?

Stuart Smith

It is indeed curious how the left focus their bile on Israel while ignoring the woeful state of affairs in muslim countries, and even somehow idealise them as "the oppressed".

Sadly, lefties seem to share a herd mentality on a number of issues.

- hatred of Israel and lionising Palestine is just one of the suite of views they adopt more or less by default. I'm fairly sure a large portion of them have never even stopped to think why.

- other parts of the standard issue lefty-think canon cover environmentalism, state-benefits, taxation, food-scare obsession, immigration, multiculturalism etc etc.

- There is also a repellent racism among activists of the left (lawfare types etc) which dictates that the swarthier you are and the more your background deviates from white christianity; the lower the standards to which you should be held.

It's all quite pathetic stuff. Hardly surprising that these childish perversities go down well among the weed-smoking kids on campuses marking Israel Apartheid week.

Hopefully most of them will one day grow up, but with their ADD attention problems, 2-second attention spans, twitter, facebook, and the need to get into hippie-chick pants etc, I'm not holding my breath.

john Norman

Look at the articles which Robert Fisk writes, Fisk being one of the chief collaborators of this campaign. They go to make virtually his entire journalistic output for The Independent. Nothing is too scurrilously demonising for his pen, as long as Israel is the subject.

blue_&_white_avenger

N.Winer - you are incorrect. The 1948/9 borders of Israel were never legally or diplomatically recognised. They're marked on maps as the cease-fire lines of 1949.
Additionally, "Palestine" existed as a Jewish entity & "Palestinians" were Jews - aka the Palestine Brigade of the British Army, the Palestine Symphony Orchestra, the Palestine Post, etc. The local Arabs considered themselves Egyptian or Syrian & only Britain (& Pakistan) recognised Jordan's tenure of Jerusalem & the West Bank as legal.
The Jewish people have never abrogated their right to the Land of Israel, which includes Yehuda & Shomron, "the West Bank" altho' we've gone easy on claims of "the East Bank" of Jordan, once occupied by the tribes of Benjamin, Yehuda & part Menashe".
This is the Jewish narrative which runs throughout Jewish experience & history & rightly excludes johnies-come-lately who have picked up the concept of nationhood since 1964 with the explicit purpose of disinheriting & dispossessing the Jewish people.
Had the local Arabs from 1920 thru 1940+ been at least rational, accomodating & willing to accept some compromise, none of this continual war would have ensued. As it is, they're incapable of compromise & insist they can turn the clock back & try again as though it never happened.
The zionist narrative is the fulfillment of the Jewish narrative which is to live as a free people in their own land and that doesn't mean submitting to sharia law.

Bob, son of Bob

I do not think you can explain it by saying the activists hate the Jews, so much as they hate any morally superior system. The very word 'superior' has become a derogatory term to them. By a similar motive they hated white ruled S Rhodesia which was the bread-basket of Africa, and that was nothing to do with the Jews. Blacks in S Rhodesia/Zimbabwe now live in misery, but to them it is a victory. Destruction of the better is their aim, not the elevation of the poor like they claim. Britain itself, of course, is also on their list.

Mark Demmen

Melanie - a possible crumb of comfort: I work in a UK university, and haven't anything about this odious event. We've only got International Women's Day - next week, I believe.

Adam B.

Yes Carl, I'm sure you're really concerned about the Jewish people, in light of the fact that you have expressed suport fro the antisemitic and genocidal terror group Hamas (which advocates the extermination of the Jews).

Alex Bensky

You got to it before I did, avenger. The Arabs could not have been less unequivocal in 1949, that they recognized no borders to Israel, that the 1949 lines were cease-fire lines only. They had agreed to stop fighting there for the time being but were as clear as can be that the fighting would resume when they were ready to wipe the Zionist entity off the map.

Somehow the Arabs are the only people on Earth who are not expected to suffer the consequences of wars they launch and lose.

Dixon

"Mark Demmen
March 5th, 2010 10:45am
Melanie - a possible crumb of comfort: I work in a UK university, and haven't anything about this odious event. We've only got International Women's Day - next week, I believe."

Similarly, here at Bristol, a citadel of Dhimmitude, its Mental Health week.

Very apt when you think about it.

Mosquito

Alan Dershowitz makes some very valid points here. If you want to see real apartheid at work check out the mistreatment of Christian and other minorites in such countries as Egypt and Pakistan. Rarely reported by the media of course.

Raymond in DC

Alex Bensky writes, "Somehow the Arabs are the only people on Earth who are not expected to suffer the consequences of wars they launch and lose."

Sadly, so true. From the beginning, the Arabs were never allowed to lose, the Jews never allowed to win. The world seemed not to be troubled in October of '73 when Israel was under assault, struggling to stem their losses. Only when Israel came roaring back and surrounded Egypt's Sixth Army and was within artillery range of Damascus did the world scream "Stop!". Then Kissinger came rushing in to start stripping Israel of its gains.

Only the Arabs are expected to be "made whole" despite their aggression. So they can try again... and again.

Manuel Escott

Please, can we stop referring to this or that Hamas, Hezbollah agent or any other Arab who makes anti-Israeli commnts as "anti-Semitic." They ARE Semites, for God's sake.

leo solomon

to Escott:-It's common usage that counts.The phrase "anti semetism" has always referred to Jew hatred and nothing else.Inappropriate pedantry usually reveals ,as it does in this case,ignorance and even malice.

.

Lebanon is a democracy.

In the Wilderness in America

It is an electronic 1930s Germany, Austria, Czechkoslovakia, and Poland all over again. It's not Hitler and Goebbles this time, but the leftist media and their owners and editors and the Islamists and their sychophants. It is the systematic degredation of a people through lies, distortions, and demonization. Is there a Kristallnacht again in our future? Will anyone stand up?

Si, N

‘There is something very wrong with this picture’. Now there’s a phrase to conjure with.

Alan Dershowitz claims Israel is ‘the Middle East’s sole democracy’? Absolutely not so – Palestine: the country into which Israel was so aggressively inserted 60 or so years ago; as recently as 2006 held full, fair democratic elections. Dershowitz’ disapproval of the outcome of that democratic process does not diminish it one iota.

Israel ‘grants equal rights to women’. Not entirely true that, is it? As they do in most countries, women in Israel suffer discrimination. Just ask the ladies ‘immodest’, Limor Livnat and Sofa Landver; the 2 female ministers in Netanyahu’s cabinet who were airbrushed out of official photographs so as not to offend certain fundamental factions in Israeli society.

Worse though is the segregation sought actively by fundamentalist Israeli Jews. 10 or so years ago the Ultra-Orthodox [haredi] community lobbied bus companies Dan and Egged to provide segregated busses - 55 such lines were up and running by early 2009 – in less than a year the number of lines has increased to 90. The principle of the ‘mehadrin lines’ is simple: women are required to ‘dress modestly’, board at the rear and sit in the back of the bus. The New Israeli Fund has noted that,

'Jewish law has never required segregation of men and women in public places, but the power of the ultra-Orthodox hierarchy in Israel, and the powerlessness of women in the ultra-Orthodox community means that the voices of those who support an egalitarian, tolerant and pluralistic Israel need our help to be heard.’

Israel’s High Court of Justice gave Transport Minister Israel Katz until 27 December 2009 to explain his position. The deadline had to be extended to February 2010. Wtf! If as Dershowitz insists women in Israel enjoy ‘equal rights’ why is there this massive ambiguity? And more to the point, why was Katz not immediately able to ‘present his position on gender-segregated bus lines’? Beholden as he is to a backward-looking cabinet Katz has of course since given the go ahead for a continuation of segregated buses. Knock knock Alan – you paying attention at all?

And that’s just the Jewish women – Arab women too suffer under Israel’s discriminatory policies. But then why wouldn’t they in an overtly racist state such as Israel?

‘Israel has the best environmental record in the Middle East’. Now this is a sick joke, right?

Here is a small sample of how Israeli colonies impact negatively on the environment:

since it was established in 1972, raw wastewater from Kiryat Arba has flowed into the Hebron stream;

since it was established in 1975, raw wastewater from Ofra seeps into the mountain aquifer polluting the groundwater – 2008 saw Israel beginning to contemplate construction of treatment plant [on land registered to Palestinians of course];

in 2008 following 10 years of defective operation the treatment plant at Ariel ceased functioning altogether– the raw wastewater has since flowed into the Shilo River, a major tributary of the Yarkon River;

since the treatment plant at Elqana ceased functioning in 2007 raw wastewater has flowed into the Rava stream, another tributary of the Yarkon River;

since its 2 treatment plants ceased functioning in 2007, the raw wastewater from Qedumin flowed into the Abu Jamus stream – 1 treatment plant was mended in 2008.

At least 6 other colonies: Otniel, Qedar, Nokdim, Ma’aleh Amos, Enav, and Etz Ephraim dump wastewater in leaky septic tanks causing seepage into and pollution of groundwater.

The Ministry of Environmental Protection minister, Yael Mason [director of the Industrial Wastewater and Polluted Lands Department], admitted that treatment plants in the colonies ‘do not meet requisite standards and pollute both the mountain aquifer and streams’. (Minutes of Knesset committee meeting, 21 June 2006)

The Applied Research Institute of Jerusalem (ARIJ) has stated that the ‘wastewater includes pesticides, asbestos, batteries, cement and aluminium’.

Further, Operation Cast Lead saw Israel completely trash Gaza’s sanitation network, causing 150,000 cubic metres of sewage wastewater to flow into living spaces, agricultural land, and the sea. On average, 80,000 cubic metres of wastewater is currently pumped into the sea daily.

Also, the bombing of Jiyeh power station on 14/15 July 2006, during Israel’s most recent savage assault on Lebanon, caused 20,000-30,000 tonnes of oil to spill into the Mediterranean – comparable to the Exxon Valdez, but much worse because it wasn’t in open sea – result; up to 10 miles of Lebanon coast trashed, with catastrophic harm to aquatic life. Worse; Israel actively blocked damage assessment and cleanup operations for a month whilst it continued with its bombing campaign directed mostly against civilians [nearly 1,200 killed] and the civilian environment. The last 72 hours of this assault saw Israeli forces deploy 90 percent of its nasty munitions. Jonathan Cook has noted,

‘[just] as a UN-brokered ceasefire was about to come into effect, Israel dropped more than a million cluster bombs on south Lebanon, of which several hundred thousand failed to detonate. Since the end of the war, 39 Lebanese civilians have been killed and dozens more maimed from these small landmines littering the countryside.’ (2008)

Even if this is the ‘best environmental record in the Middle East’, it’s nothing to boast about is it?

Israel, we are told, ‘has sacrificed more for peace than any country in the Middle East’ – to paraphrase the man; ‘only on planet Losthiswitz’,

‘Yet on many college campuses democratic, egalitarian Israel is a pariah, while sexist, homophobic, anti-Semitic, terrorist Hamas is a champion’. Nice try. However, the issue isn’t anti-sexism, anti-homophobia, imagined environmental credentials or any other attribute Hasnowitz imagines unique to Israel. Nor is it necessarily pro-Hamas. The issue is an aggressive young upstart’s murderous ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from ancient Palestine.

Adam B.

Sin, Palestinian democratic elections? Did that include when Hamas threw dozens of Fatah members off the rooftops to their deaths? You have a strange idea of democracy.

Palestine isn't ancient, certainly not as an Arab entity. It came about in the 20th century, unlike Israel, which is truly ancient. But keep up the revisionism, it's most entertaining!

Augustus

Yet again, here we have SiN (with his little tail) popping up and continuing to propagate the myth of dispossession. A perfect example of the result of anti-Zionism and its impact.

Palestine, which before WW1 had been the most neglected, disease ridden and forsaken corner of the Ottoman Turkish Empire, during the next 30 years
of British rule had become one of the most desirable places to live in the Middle East. From being a land of net emigration of Arabs, Palestine became a land of net immigration for both Christian and Muslim Arabs.
All this could not have been possible if social and economic changes in Palestine had reflected the workings of a diabolical Zionist plot to displace and dispossess Arabs. By 1948 more Arabs lived in Palestine than had ever lived there before, and they were richer and healthier than they had ever been throughout all history. And that result was entirely due to the impact of Zionism.