Clueless in Libya

The war in Libya apears to have descended into chaos. The Americans haven’t got a clue about their war aims, rules of engagement and what constitutes a civilian. In the UK, Prime Minister David Cameron says the no-fly zone is merely to stop Gaddafi from bombing his own people; Defence Secretary Liam Fox says well, actually, killing Gaddafi may also be on the cards; Chief of the Defence Staff Sir David Richards says the UN resolution certainly doesn’t permit us to do any such thing; Number Ten Downing Street slaps down General Richards and says oh yes it does – and that wouldn’t be regime change (not covered by the UN resolution) because getting rid of Gaddafi would be done only to protect civilians. Yes, seriously.

Cameron has gushed that the action in Libya is necessary to show the...

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The School of Outrageous Antisemitism Studies

The pre-pogrom atmosphere in the UK against Israel and its supporters turned into outright thuggery at the weekend. A pro-Israel student activist was hospitalised after his face was bitten at the School for Oriental and African Studies when he went along with three others from the Israel advocacy group Stand With Us to defend Israel against the ‘Israel apartheid’ bigots.

By all accounts the Stand With Us people were entirely peaceful and unaggressive. Suddenly, as the JC reports, the atmosphere turned sour:

‘About four or five people were standing around Gili, Ro'i Goldman, and the fourth member of our group. One man began to say some extremely unpleasant things about Jews. He said that the best thing the Jews had ever done was to go into the gas chambers. He [the fourth activist] asked if he could film him.

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Melanie in Wonderland

My blog post here about the slaughter of the Fogel family in Itamar seems to have been causing a certain amount of excitement. First the Guardian reported this. Inayat Bunglawala, chairman of Muslims 4UK, wrote on his website this, this, this and this. Spectator editor Fraser Nelson wrote this. Then Robin Shepherd wrote this. Fresnozionism wrote this (cross-posted on CifWatch).  World Jewish Daily wrote this. And Jihadwatch wrote in this that I was too pc. Oh – and reader ‘Mo Ma’ wrote this to me:

I have to say lady.... i think you and your mother is a hairy filthy goat.

You filthy zionist, go burn in hell....... you racist bitch

you think i am an extremist, my words are nothing compared to your evil words, you filthy woman. your father is a dog

 

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A terrible resonance

The Daily Telegraph, which once was considered to be a quality newspaper, has carried a poisonous little story. It read:

The US has said it is ‘deeply concerned’ over Israel's plans to build hundreds of new homes in West Bank settlements. In response to an attack on a settler family over the weekend, Israel approved the construction of between 300 to 500 new homes in the West Bank.

The US Embassy called the Israeli settlements ‘illegitimate’ and an obstacle to resuming direct talks between Israel and the Palestinians. ‘They murder, we build,’ Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday during a condolence call to the grieving family.

Palestinian militants are presumed to have carried out the assault, killing both parents and their three children. ‘We're deeply concerned by continuing Israeli actions on settlements in the West

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An office of incomprehensible moral bankruptcy

On Saturday, after the massacre of the Fogel family, Britain’s Foreign Secretary William Hague said:

Last night, five members of a Jewish family, including a baby, were found stabbed to death in the Itamar settlement near Nablus on the Northern West Bank. The friends and relatives of the family killed in Itamar have my deepest sympathies. This was an act of incomprehensible cruelty and brutality which I utterly condemn. We hope the perpetrator is swiftly brought to justice.

Today, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office said:

We are extremely concerned by the Government of Israel’s approval of 400 new housing units in settlements in the West Bank. We have consistently made clear, including at the UN with France and Germany, that settlements are illegal, an obstacle to peace and a threat to a two-state solution. Further

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Armchair barbarism

Today the massacred Fogel family was buried in Jerusalem. And as anticipated, the moral depravity of the Arabs is finding a grotesque echo in the moral bankruptcy and worse of the British and American ‘liberal’ media – a sickening form of armchair barbarism which is also in evidence, it has to be said, on the comment thread beneath my post below.

Overwhelmingly, the media have either ignored or downplayed the atrocity – or worse, effectively blamed the victims for bringing it on themselves, describing them as ‘hard-line settlers’ or extremists. Given that three of the victims were children, one a baby of three months whose throat was cut, such a response is utterly degraded.

The New York Times...

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