Interview

Nick Kaplan

I was with you up until you said:

“There is nothing remotely ‘right wing’ about standing up for truth against lies, just against injustice, freedom against those who would snuff out freedom and human life.”

If only more people understood this to be the complete reverse of the truth, then perhaps the term ‘right wing’ would not longer, in certain circles, be viewed as a pejorative term of abuse.

Because, of course, being right wing precisely is about standing up for truth, against the lies relativists, for justice against the the injustice of socialist sponsored government theft and impoverishment, and freedom against various statists, communists, anarchists and Fascists who would only too happily snuff it out.

Nathan

A great,albeit depressing interview. My question, Ms. Phillips is, is it too late to turn things around in this war or is the war lost? Has momentum shifted to far? And if there's still hope, what would you recommend as actionable steps, either for the government or for individuals who feel compelled to protect and defend the state of Israel from such lies?

Graeme Thompson

Great interview Melanie. Loved your forthrightness on 'Hasbarah' being a joke. Our political parties here though are so morally bankrupt I think the only way you'd be able to implement your political vision is form your own. I'd sign up for it like a shot!

Alexander Avidan

BRAVO!

EDDIE

I suppose that the government of Israel
believes that public opinion is not as important as military strength and the opinions of the all the governments in the region and in Europe and America. Wikileaks surely show that most of us have no idea of what is really going on behind the scenes. We get all our opinions from the Media and some of the disreputable people who work in it.Israel is an ultra modern state surrounded by stone age mentalities

Aurelian

Well said, Ms Phillips -- an unerring diagnosis, and a great interview though far too short.

The concept of truth has become so mutable in the minds of our UK elite that it has become meaningless. They have cast off integrity.

Dissent from the prevailing narrative in the UK can be a lonely stance, as you so well described. The falsity of that narrative is immediately apparent to anyone who has lived long enough to see the actual events unfold.

tiki

Melanie Philips has said it (as usual)"as it is". Those who do know...know, those who don't, but want to...will, but those who don't wan't to,...never will,(ignorance & stupidity, economics, jew hatred, dream of caliphate). Sadly, in Britain there are 'many in high places who belong in that last category, like Catherine Ashton, just to name one. That woman is persistant in her impotence to get a grip on the TRUTH and the FACTS!

Eva Kalina

Brilliant !!

roger

Excellent lucid talk from Melanie as usual.And it's good to hear the truth about Haaretz and the hippy dippy leftist Peace Now fifth column in Israel. I've spread this interview around on Facebook and elsewhere.

Hoob

Well done. You received mark of 100. Brilliant.

Winston Smith

I hope everyone in Israel sees this interview, particularly government bureaucrats. Israel has been at war since its founding and is at war now. To not understand that, during a war, the battleground of ideas is just as important as the physical battleground is foolishness in the extreme. The Muslims know that, currently, they cannot win a physical war; consequently, they seek to destroy Israel by delegitimizing it. The Israeli government has got to start getting involved in the production of white propaganda to counter the Muslim disinformation campaign. If it does not do this soon, even people in the United States will cease to support Israel as people in the United States are fed much the same diet of lies and half-truths as the Brits about Israel. Wake up Israel!

YG

Melanie,
As an Israeli who is depressed by both the European and Israeli media, seeing you was so refreshing. The truth is so simple when you say it.
I wish there would be more people like you in this evil world.

John D

Dear Melanie: Thanks for being frank and continuing to stand up for Israel.

cmp

I sensed Melanie's relief being able to express her views without being interrupted by a BBC-bot.

Davieboy

Thank you Melanie. If it were up to me you'd be a Baroness or a Dame!

Raymond in DC

Thank you Melanie for a brilliant and forthright exposition. I have but a few comments to add.

First, that Ahimeir still believes that creating a Palestinian state would solve the problem shows that some are too invested in their "truth" to ever get it.

Second, the sense that "truth will out" leads some Israelis to simply abandon the battle of ideas. It was in the early 1990s that Peres dismantled the office of public diplomacy in the Foreign Ministry, arguing that if Israel does the right thing, there will be no need to make its case. (This man is now Israel's President.)

Third, the public debate is often squelched by denying alternative voices. Years ago, for example, the broadcast authority denied a radio license to a group associated with the nationalist/settler community. They resorted to a pirate radio station off the coast, which eventually was shut down. (They now live only on the web.) Similarly, a free daily paper put out by a wealthy American with close ties to Netanyahu is now the #2 paper in the country. So of course some tried to have the paper shut down, but the effort failed.

Gabriel

As an Israeli Jew, I thank you for that you see the truth and distributes it.
Hazak Ve-'Ematz!

Lucashyde

Wonderful. Keep it up Melanie.

Bibi

Is Ms P. ignorant of the wording of Balfour and the League Mandate?
"...which said on account of their unique claim to this land, the Jews should be settled throughout Palestine."

There is no such reference to "unique claim" nor "settled throughout Palestine"...

Louis Berk

A very lucid and well argued interview. Completely unthinkable on any TV channel in the UK.

Augustus

Well spoken Melanie!

The story of modern Israel must surely be a miracle unlike any other. A people, condemned to elimination, coming together to build a state and a society that is unapologetically strong militarily in order to keep meaningful, in a world of forgetfulness and denial, the promise of never again for Jews to suffer a similar fate. Perhaps, if Britain had fulfilled its
pledge made in the Balfour Declaration of November 1917, and actively assisted in the birth of the Jewish state, as it did in establishing Arab states following WW1, like those of Transjordan and Iraq, the demographic reality of present day Israel
would be different, and a very large number
of Jews exterminated in the Nazi death camps
might have been saved.

cityca

Brilliant Melanie and especially your demolition of Israeli Hasbara.

In 2006, during the last Lebanon/Israel crisis, I attended a Zionist Federation meeting, where Mark Regev was boasting about what a great job he was doing as Israel's foreign ministry spokesman. The excellent Joy Wolfe of Manchester ZF and myself sought to disabuse him - he stormed off the stage in a huff.

When will Israel recognise that it is, as you say, a joke in that department?

I hope your broadcast made someone in the government sit up and take notice. There is not much time left before the war will be lost.

Nadia Matar

Melanie, amazing interview!
We invite you to Israel to come and plant trees in Judea as part of our "Establishing facts on the ground" campaign

sincerely,
Nadia Matar
Women in green

David Johnston

Melanie,
I keep logging on to read your blog about the murder of Salmaan Taseer, but you've written nothing.
When are you going to write about this and what it says about Pakistan?
David

Celato

Melanie:

A beautifully conducted interview, which gave you every opportunity to express and explain your point of view.

But I wonder if you won any converts...

One reason, perhaps, for the hostility of your opponents is that you don't seem to give an inch in accepting either their intelligence or integrity.

The impression given is that some monolithic Truth exists which is not in any way shaped by interpretation. Anyone failing to 'see' this Truth must therefore either be delusional or wicked.

Quite apart from a natural tendency to dig in defensively when accused of being mad or bad, such accusations also don't tend to gel with commonsensical experience.

Witnesses to a car crash will, for eg, give very different accounts of what happened, despite the fact that they are standing on the same street. In the blink of an eye, one sees the driver of the white car 'swerve', while another simultaneously registers a 'skid'. Neither is deficient in eyesight, and neither is lying - they simply processed what they saw differently.

If blame for the crash hinges entirely on the conflicting accounts of these witnesses, guilt will, in the end, be determined by which of them argues most articulately, or carries most credibility on the basis of status or expertise.

But there's STILL a good chance that the winner hasn't (albeit with total integrity) described the 'Truth' of what occurred.

The same goes - with even greater scope for conflicting perceptions - when it comes to complex matters such as law, and history, and political strategy.

As a 'witness' you are certainly not lacking in articulacy and your sense of moral certainty is beyond doubt; but no jury in the world will be persuaded of a version of events if the opening statement to them is: 'Everyone who doesn't see the self-evident Truth of what I'm saying must be either an evil conspirator or sadly insane!'

Anna

Dear Melany,
I simply wanted to weep watching this interview and not because of what you was saying, which is a complete truth.
It's because of our, Israeli! journalist Yaakov Ahimeir who continues to insist as a blind horse that what is written in Haaretz is a freedom of speech and how can you live without freedom of speech? And how can you (or anyone else for that matter) think that the Palestinian state isn't the solution of all the problems in the Middle East?
Why haven't you answered him that lies aren't considered to be freedom of speech and shouldn't be presented as such?
How can you explain to those people that with the right of pronouncing your ideas there comes as well your responsibilty for expressing them?
Freedom of speech today has come to cover too much atrocities done by the media and ngos without having to pay for it.
Does anyone here knows that in some exhibition in Berl college in Israel they put on the picture of Liberman in Hitler disguise? And when it was reported to some official legal adviser he declared it was an art in the name of freedom of speech.
I wish I was kidding...

Trumpeldor

@Melanie,

Your were grandiose that day ,with the same charisma as other great people like Winston Churchill or Geert Wilders
Yakov Ahimeir 's rections to your elaborated and easily verified statements spoke volume about the bubble in which most leftist Israelis are living .....
Kol hakavod, all the honours to you

Okey

Well, Bibi, perhaps you could enlighten us as to what the Balfour Declaration (which is embodied in the preamble to The League of Nations' Mandate for "Palestine"), does actually say about:
1. the Jewish connection to "Palestine"
2. Jewish settlement in "Palestine."
Direct quotes would be useful.
A handy reference is W. Laqueur & Barry Rubin, "The Israel-Arab Reader."

Okey

Anna, while it is true that "Ha'aretz" prints lots of lies, the way to go is to restore Jewish/Zionist education to Israeli schools and universities.
No longer can we Zionists believe that, having gained national self-determination, we will be regarded as "a nation like all the other nations."
We are not, and the world treats us exceptionally. If Israeli youth has imperfect knowledge of Jewish tradition, history, values, rights and duties, then Israel is in for a hard time.

BlairSupporter

Just to let you know, Melanie, that I spent some time last night transcribing this interview. I have now posted the transcription.

Readers can google my alias to read it.

Well done for saying all of this with such clarity and articulacy.

My only concerns over your analysis:

It suggests that there is an organised long-standing pan-Arab plan against Israel. Thus all Arab peoples are, presumably and generationally, signed up to this plan. Whereas at government levels (viz Jordan, even Saudi Arabia on Iran, if only to suit its own current interests) this is perhaps not quite accurate or up-to-date.

Another point is that not all left-wing British intellectuals are ignorant of the Balfour declaration and other attempts at peaceful coexistence. They just see those attempts as wrong-headed at the time, even despite their realisation that Israel was in Palestine long before the non-Jewish people.

And of course none of this can be seen in isolation. There is the popular dislike of the USA, and of Britain's colonial past. The history rubbishers. Such, might I suggest, as, guess who - President Obama, who it seems has decided that France has replaced Britain as the USA's closest ally. France, whose leaders and forces did not help the US in Iraq c'w Britain's who did.

But I have to say I really enjoyed the interviewer's "Joke?" It actually sounds like a joke when he says it.

Bibi

For Okey (who seems to be as ignorant of the the wording of the League Mandate as Ms P.:)
I trust you will accept the Israeli MFA version as being accurate?...(:http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/Peace+Process/Guide+to+the+Peace+Process/The+Mandate+for+Palestine.htm)

Do tell us in which of the 28 Articles it refers to "unique claim" or "settled throughout Palestine"...?

Perhaps you wish me to quote the whole document for your enlightenment?

Okey

Bibi, your discourteous response to my courteous request has evaded the issue: I repeat, please tell us what the Balfour Declaration and League of Nations Mandate say about:
1. the Jewish connection to "Palestine"
2. Jewish rights of settlement in "Palestine."

You will thereby rescue me from my alleged state of ignorance.

Okey

Well, Bibi, let me rescue you from your predicament.
The Balfour Declaration declared Britain's "sympathy with Jewish Zionist aspirations..."and viewed with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object..."

The League of Nations Mandate endorsed the Balfour Declaration and gave international recognition to 'the historical connexion of the Jewish people with Palestine and to the grounds for reconstituting their national home in that country..."
Article 6 states that the controlling Power, Britain, will "facilitate Jewish immigration...and encourage "close settlement by Jews on the land, including State lands and waste lands not rquired for public purposes."
Article 25 clearly indicates that "Palestine" extended from the Mediterranean Sea to some line east of the Jordan River.

Nowhere in either document is the connexion of any other nation with "Palestine" mentioned, though the "civil and religious rights" of non-Jews is to be safeguarded. It needs to be recalled that the Arab Nation was concomitantly promised independence and control over almost the entire Middle East.
Nowhere in either document are any restrictions placed on Jewish settlement west of the Jordan River.

Melanie's position seems to be vindicated in the light of the above.

Aliza Bernstein

You are spot on with every single point you made. I think the problem with the "left" is that they are desperately trying to hang on to Rabin's vision of a 2-state solution and if they open their ears to the truth, they would be betraying his legacy...we all have seen that land for peace does not work.

B. Jerenberg

I desperately hope that Prime Minister Netanyahu saw this brilliant presentation and finally takes the hasbara battlefied as seriously as it needs to be taken. We "right-wingers" have for years been exasperated with the government's inability to present itself as Ms. Phillips so rightly says it should. If only Netanyahu would hire you I would sleep better at night. Thank you for telling it like it is!

charles soper

Excellent, Melanie, absolutely excellent - why haven't we heard this kind of comment before, from British Jews or Israelis, except from the pen of Caroline Glick and very few others.

Tony Allwright

A veritable tour de force.

AY

"..Davieboy
January 10th, 2011 5:16pm
Thank you Melanie. If it were up to me you'd be a Baroness or a Dame!.."

Can't agree more.

However in establishment, telling truth isn't considered noble, but rather disturbing. Not exactly a "Dame" stereotype.

Also Melanie's work isn't Islamic charity or real estate speculations, or multicultural pride. So chances are small.

Maybe "People's Baroness"?

Mladen Andrijasevic

Celato You write : "The impression given is that some monolithic Truth exists which is not in any way shaped by interpretation"
Since you yourself have not "witnessed the car crash", here I present you the opportunity to do precisely that, i.e, go to the
original sources and judge for yourself. It will take 6 hours to read the 177 document but after having read it you will realize that
it is possible to see where the problem lies. This report has been online since September 2010 - Shariah: The Threat to America
http://www.centerforsecuritypolicy.org/upload/wysiwyg/article%20pdfs/Shariah%20-%20The%20Threat%20to%20America%20(Team%20B%20Report)%2009142010.pdf

Bibi

Oke: I am sorry you think my response was discourteous and that you think I evaded the issue. The issue is whether Ms.P's assertion that there was a “legal commitment” which said the Jews had a “unique claim to this land” was a fact.

Ms P. used the phrase “unique claim” with the clear intention that her listeners should think that Arabs had no similar claim.

You chose to support Ms P’s statement and therefore, not unreasonably, I assumed you were ignorant of the wording of the Mandate.

From your lengthy quotation of the Mandate text, I now realize you were not ignorant but merely a sophist. You know there is no reference to “unique claim” in the Mandate, nor any implication that Jews have a greater claim to Palestine than Arabs.

The modern Palestinian Arab has as valid a claim to the land of Israel as that of the Jews.

James Murphy

Melanie's superb clarity and intellectual bravery on this topic (evidently so close to her heart) is justifiably well-known and applauded by all sane posters on this site - but am I alone in (shallowly) noticing what a lovely timbre her voice has? If one could marry a voice....

Augustus

Bibi Jan.12th,2011 (10.45am)-

"The modern Palestinian Arab has as valid a claim to the land of Israel as that of the Jews."

Quite what do you mean by 'the modern Palestinian Arab'? Do you mean the Arabs who live in
Eretz Yisrael and who have disguised themselves as
'Palestinians' for the purpose of continuing a struggle against the state of Israel for the purpose of stealing Israel's heritage, the land of the Jewish people? Was it not Arafat who declared that: "Our
nation is the Arabic nation that stretches from the Atlantic Ocean to the Red Sea and beyond it"? Was it not he who declared: "The question of borders doesn't interest us. From the Arab standpoint we mustn't talk about borders. Palestine is nothing but a drop in an enormous ocean. The PLO is fighting Israel in the name of pan-Arabism. What you call Jordan is nothing more than Palestine"? And the founder of the PLO, Ahmed Shukari, himself,
from the podium of the UN, as the Arab League's ambassador in 1956 said: "Such a creature as Palestine does not exist at all.
This land is nothing but the southern portion of Greater Syria.

The irrefutable fact is, as true today as it always was, that the 'modern Palestinian Arabs' of the region are precisely the same Arabs who live in Syria, Jordan, or Lebanon. They are not a seperate
set of Arabs, but a fragment of an enormous nation of Arabs all divided amongst many countries,
but in their identity they are Arabs, and the invention of modern Palestine is nothing more than a gigantic bluff, a
political means of continuing the age old struggle against the state of Israel for the ultimate purpose of Arab unity.
There never was a modern Palestinian nation, language or culture. They cannot be set apart from Jordanians, Syrians,
Lebanese, Iraqis, etc.

Bibi

Augustus – You said: “They cannot be set apart from Jordanians, Syrians,
Lebanese, Iraqis, etc....”
Your statement is correct, but you failed to say that genetically they cannot be set apart from Jews.

American Academy for the Advancement of Science, October 30, 2000, Oct 30th, 2000:
"More than 70% of Jewish men and half of the Arab men whose DNA was studied inherited their Y chromosomes from the same paternal ancestors who lived in the region within the last few thousand years.”

The New York Times (November 14, 2000):
"Analysis of the Y chromosome has already yielded interesting results. Dr. Ariella Oppenheim of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem said she had found considerable similarity between Jews and Israeli and Palestinian Arabs, as if the Y chromosomes of both groups had been drawn from a common population that began to expand 7,800 years ago." -

Jewish Bulletin of Northern California (March 9, 2001):
"Peter Underhill, a senior research scientist in the department of genetics at Stanford University, has a reality check for the Middle East: 'No matter how you define yourself today -- whether Palestinian, Israeli, Syrian, Turkish -- Middle Easterners share much of the same gene pool.'

If the early ancestors of Palestinians Arabs and Palestinian Jews inter-bred to such a large extent, it would seem to be self evident that modern Palestinian Arabs have as good a claim to the land of Israel as that of Jews.

Margaret Muller-Johansson

Well Done Melanie! you are the most intelligent woman around, you are a hero.

Celato

Mladen Andrijasevic:

You have got to be kidding!

There was no way I was going to spend six hours reading a report without first checking who the authors were and getting an outline.

Among other things, I discovered that not a single practitioner of Sharia law was employed as a consultant.

Would you honestly give credence to a report on the 'evils' of American law if the only explanations and interpretations of it came from Islamic clerics?

...Which raises another important flaw if we are searching for Truth here:

The authors are a spin-off group from one which previously warned the world of imminent apocalypse arising from Russia. Their over-hyped and inaccurate predictions failed to materialise, of course. So why should I take this one any more seriously?

Just one example of the claims made in this report was enough to put a halt to any further investigation: the ONLY terrorists in the world, it claims, are Muslims!

God alone knows what weird definition of 'terrorist' was employed, but this is such nonsense that the only reason I might (one day, if bed-bound and with nothing else to do) read it in full is to get a bit of a laugh.