Gaza doctor's tragedy caught on Israeli TV

A rare description on Israeli TV from a Palestinian doctor whom the Israel Occupation Forces tried to murder by bombing his house. They killed his 3 daughters again. His crime? Rescue and publicity. No doubt we will here later that there were Hamas snipers in the building hence the bombing from the air!

Tony Greenstein

Palestinian doctor Ezzeldeen Abu al-Aish was giving Israel's Channel 10 his daily account from inside the war zone in Gaza when three of his daughters were killed in an Israeli attack.

In his report, he called for help as his house was attacked.
Al Jazeera's Roza Ibragimova reports. Watch the video.

Photograph Comparisons Between Zionist and Nazi Murderers

These photographs, which of course aren't an exact comparison, show the fact that in terms of methodology, there isn't much to choose between the Nazi and Zionist attitude to Palestinian children.

Sir Gerald Kaufman, veteran British Parliamentarian and Zionist compares Israelis in Gaza to the Nazis

And to think that over 20 years ago I heckled him at a meeting! In fact Kaufmann makes it pretty clear that he is still a romantic Zionist who sees the old Labour Zionists like Yigal Allon in a different light to the current pygmies. He is wrong in that respect. Allon laid the blueprint for the occupation of the West Bank with his Allon Plan to keep control of the Jordan Valley, something which all Israel governments ever since have stuck to.

What Kaufmann cannot face is that it was precisely the 'moral' Zionism of Ben Gurion - the architect of transfer - that has led to the present barbarism.

But on one thing Kaufmann is excellent. Unlike the queasy non-Zionists who are scared not only of their own shadow but of offending Zionists, Kaufmann has no hesitation in comparing current Israeli behaviour with the Nazis and for that reason alone I have no hesitation in reprinting the whole speech.

Tony Greenstein

Sir Gerald Kaufman (Manchester, Gorton) (Lab):

I was brought up as an orthodox Jew and a Zionist. On a shelf in our kitchen, there was a tin box for the Jewish National Fund, into which we put coins to help the pioneers building a Jewish presence in Palestine.

I first went to Israel in 1961 and I have been there since more times than I can count. I had family in Israel and have friends in Israel. One of them fought in the wars of 1956, 1967 and 1973 and was wounded in two of them. The tie clip that I am wearing is made from a campaign decoration awarded to him, which he presented to me.

I have known most of the Prime Ministers of Israel, starting with the founding Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion. Golda Meir was my friend, as was Yigal Allon, Deputy Prime Minister, who, as a general, won the Negev for Israel in the 1948 war of independence.

My parents came to Britain as refugees from Poland. Most of their families were subsequently murdered by the Nazis in the holocaust. My grandmother was ill in bed when the Nazis came to her home town of Staszow. A German soldier shot her dead in her bed.

My grandmother did not die to provide cover for Israeli soldiers murdering Palestinian grandmothers in Gaza. The current Israeli Government ruthlessly and cynically exploit the continuing guilt among gentiles over the slaughter of Jews in the holocaust as justification for their murder of Palestinians. The implication is that Jewish lives are precious, but the lives of Palestinians do not count.

On Sky News a few days ago, the spokeswoman for the Israeli army, Major Leibovich, was asked about the Israeli killing of, at that time, 800 Palestinians—the total is now 1,000. She replied instantly that

"500 of them were militants."

That was the reply of a Nazi. I suppose that the Jews fighting for their lives in the Warsaw ghetto could have been dismissed as militants.

The Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni asserts that her Government will have no dealings with Hamas, because they are terrorists. Tzipi Livni’s father was Eitan Livni, chief operations officer of the terrorist Irgun Zvai Leumi, who organised the blowing-up of the King David hotel in Jerusalem, in which 91 victims were killed, including four Jews. Israel was born out of Jewish terrorism. Jewish terrorists hanged two British sergeants and booby-trapped their corpses. Irgun, together with the terrorist Stern gang, massacred 254 Palestinians in 1948 in the village of Deir Yassin. Today, the current Israeli Government indicate that they would be willing, in circumstances acceptable to them, to negotiate with the Palestinian President Abbas of Fatah. It is too late for that. They could have negotiated with Fatah’s previous leader, Yasser Arafat, who was a friend of mine. Instead, they besieged him in a bunker in Ramallah, where I visited him. Because of the failings of Fatah since Arafat’s death, Hamas won the Palestinian election in 2006. Hamas is a deeply nasty organisation, but it was democratically elected, and it is the only game in town. The boycotting of Hamas, including by our Government, has been a culpable error, from which dreadful consequences have followed.

The great Israeli Foreign Minister Abba Eban, with whom I campaigned for peace on many platforms, said:

"You make peace by talking to your enemies."

However many Palestinians the Israelis murder in Gaza, they cannot solve this existential problem by military means. Whenever and however the fighting ends, there will still be 1.5 million Palestinians in Gaza and 2.5 million more on the west bank. They are treated like dirt by the Israelis, with hundreds of road blocks and with the ghastly denizens of the illegal Jewish settlements harassing them as well. The time will come, not so long from now, when they will outnumber the Jewish population in Israel.

It is time for our Government to make clear to the Israeli Government that their conduct and policies are unacceptable, and to impose a total arms ban on Israel. It is time for peace, but real peace, not the solution by conquest which is the Israelis’ real goal but which it is impossible for them to achieve. They are not simply war criminals; they are fools.

VB

The Zionists are getting rattled

Last week the Guardian printed a letter from 78 British Jews dissociating themselves from the genocide in Gaza. It seems that this has badly stung the Zionist propagandists. They wheeled out one Otto Ottolenghi of the cold-war Transatlantic Institute by way of reply.
However according to the anti-Semitic buffoon and jazz player, Gilad Atzmon, 'By declaring ‘not in my name’, one affirms the totality of that which one tries to oppose... by fighting Zionism in the name of their Jewish identity they approve Zionism. To demand that Jews disapprove of Zionism in the name of their Jewish identity is to accept the Zionist philosophy.'
Unfortunately this message has not got through to the Jewish Chronicle since Ottolenghi’s article (see below) is the nastiest and most vicious attack on anti-Zionist Jews I've seen in the JC, which has just got a new editor, late of the Express, one Stephen Pollard.
I've been getting quite a lot of spam mail this week, all of which has a common theme 'Hamas lover' which makes me strongly suspect that this is being co-ordinated by one of the Zionist media operations and is being targetted at the signatories of last Saturday's Guardian letter by 78 British Jews. They also have the sophistication of the average Zionist, if you oppose war crimes you must be a supporter of Hamas!
Not only has the letter got them badly rattled I suspect they won't be over the moon with the excellent letter in Friday's Guardian by 300+ academics, including Pappe and a good letter from Leon Rosselson.
It seems that in their desire to finish their work the Zionists are getting more and more touchy about the criticism their bloody work is bringing forth. It reinforces my view that although Israel will be able to claim, unsurprisingly a military victory, it is faced with an increasing political disaster, entirely of their own making as sections of the Jewish community are now openly peeling off.

Tony Greenstein

The Guardian just loves self-hating Jews Emanuele Ottolenghi
January 15, 2009
Some of us can’t do enough to support our enemies
Last Saturday, the Guardian published a letter that compared Israel to the Nazis; described the Palestinian Authority as "Palestinian Quislings"; called on Britain to recall its ambassador to Tel Aviv; and supported a boycott of Israeli goods.
Before informing the readers that the images from Gaza "reminded" them "of the siege of the Warsaw Ghetto", the 78 signatories felt compelled to say: "We the undersigned are all of Jewish origin", somehow establishing a connection between what they said (Israel = Nazi) and who they were (Jews).
This is not the first time the Guardian has given voice to Jews proud to be ashamed to be Jewish. In 2002, it published a letter in which 45 Jewish intellectuals denounced the Jewish state.
The latest letter raises, as do its predecessors, three questions: the substance of the accusations levelled against Israel; whether being Jewish makes such opinions more compelling or more legitimate; and what purpose these individuals serve, by linking their Jewish credentials to the radical ideas they endorse.
On the substance, the signatories compare Israel’s actions in Gaza to the Nazis. This is not new, of course, but its repetition does not make it truer. In Auschwitz, there were around 30,000 daily deaths — all unarmed, starved prisoners. In Gaza, since the start of Israel’s offensive, there have been fewer than 50 deaths a day, up to 70 percent of them Hamas fighters. Nazis took joy at massacring civilians. Israelis give warning via phone to civilians. Nazis starved their victims for months before destroying the Ghetto. Israel sends humanitarian aid in the form of food and medicines every day. Intelligent people should be able to see the difference and refrain from such comparisons. Are our friends of Jewish origins stupid or malicious? Judge for yourself.
But the effect is to demonise Israel by comparing it with Nazism, the quintessential evil of modern European history.
And, in the process, it ends up trivializing the Holocaust as well, much like Holocaust denial. If only 50 people a day died in the Warsaw Ghetto while the Nazis were resupplying their hapless Jewish victims with food and medicine, one cannot fault the Nazis too much. It also follows, logically, that Jews trying to turn that history into a paradigm of evil are exaggerating – for political goals perhaps? You see where this can go.Anyone with a sense of history should know better than to compare Gaza to the Warsaw Ghetto. Even in Zimbabwe things are worse than Gaza. Does that "remind" them of the Warsaw Ghetto? Or do people "of Jewish origin" evoke such comparisons only when Israel is involved?
Second, is being Jewish relevant? Identity is no substitute for knowledge and expertise; religious identity does not confer authority to speak on anything. So why the invocation of "Jewish origin"? Because the Jews are the gatekeepers and once they break a taboo, others can cross that line. If you are Jewish, what you say cannot be labelled as antisemitic. If you are going to trivialize the Holocaust and demonise Israel, it therefore helps being Jewish — ask Norman Finkelstein, author of The Holocaust Industry. Had he been an Episcopalian, no one would ever have heard of him. Because he is Jewish and the son of Holocaust survivors, his lurid thesis made him a "courageous whistleblower". The same with the Guardian’s Jewish letter writers.
It follows that these proclamations of "Jewish origin" serve an agenda: they offer an alibi to antisemites. Shielded behind such proclamations, our enemies can call for our destruction, protected by a Jewish certificate of good behaviour that shows that what they are saying is no worse than what certain people "of Jewish origin" are thinking.
Dr Emanuele Ottolenghi is executive director of the Transatlantic Institute

Israeli Consulate in San Francisco Closed for War Crime Violations by Protestors

SAN FRANCISCO – A group of nine anti-Zionist activists – Palestinian, Jewish, immigrant rights and prison abolitionists chained themselves to the Israeli Consulate today to protest Israeli apartheid and its current attacks on Gaza. Protestors support: an immediate ceasefire; the opening of land, sea, and air borders to allow in emergency supplies; and an end to US financial and political support for Israel.

"For the past sixty years, Israel has tried to eliminate the Palestinian people by forcing them out of their homes and off their lands, starving them, and killing them," said Maria Poblet, an immigrants’ rights organizer. "The recent blockades and attacks in Gaza are not an exception, but a brutal reminder that killing civilians is a regular part of Israeli strategy."

Linked arm in arm, Bay Area Jews, Palestinians and social-justice activists aim to increase pressure on Israel and its supporters in the face of the 21-day siege on Gaza and the growing humanitarian crisis. This action is one in a series that has moved from Toronto, to New York, to Los Angeles.

Organizers assert that the current situation in Gaza is not a conflict between two peoples of equivalent capacities, nor is Israel’s motive self-defense. "For the past year and a half, Israel has enacted strangling sanctions under the guise of targeting Hamas, collectively starving the entire population of food, water, medicine, and other vital resources," stated Monadel Herzallah of the United States Palestinian Community Network. "The recent air and ground strikes are another brutal blow to Gazans who are already trapped in a concentration camp of despair and growing poverty."

Activists also spoke out against the US pledge of more than $3 billion each year in unrestricted aid to Israel. "Israel’s use of US aid and military equipment violates our own laws. We can choose to uphold US and international laws, or ignore them as we are now doing at the peril of our conscience and our place among all of humanity," said Nadeen Elshorafa of the General Union of Palestinian Students.

Organizer Sara Kershnar of the International Jewish anti-Zionist Network summed up the sentiment: "Today, as Palestinians, Jews, and our united allies, we make our position clear: we are on one side, the side of justice; Israel, an apartheid state, is on the other."

Against Israeli Apartheid

Brighton Picket of BBC Southern Counties

Throughout the Israel’s War of Terror on Gaza, the BBC has remained a faithful and loyal lapdog of the British Foreign Office. It has never ceased to echo the argument of the pathetic and widely reviled David Miliband that it was Hamas that started the war.

It must therefore be an embarrassment to the BBC that Israel’s smooth and odious spokesman, Mark Regev, has finally admitted that Hamas did not break the ceasefire. For 18 days the Israeli Government has justified to the world their decision to unleash a massive military campaign against the people of Gaza by alleging that it was a reaction to Hamas’ breach of the ceasefire brokered by the Egyptian Government.

Hamas has always stated that between June 2008 and November 2008 they did not fire a single rocket into Israel . Now even Israel has owned up to the truth at last. We await an apology and retraction from the BBC for the lies of its reporters, in particular Jeremy Bowen in Israel, who has repeatedly described Israel's genocide as a 'reaction' to the rockets of Hamas. Bowen has been particularly disgraceful and feels it's more than his life is worth to challenge the PR lies of Israeli spokesperson Regev. On November 4th 2008 an Israeli incursion killed 6 Palestinians in Gaza. The pretext that they were planning to kidnap Israeli soldiers via a tunnel they were building has no credibility. There had been no previous attacks since June. Hamas had kept its word and that was the problem to Israel's gung ho military and political leadership. They wanted to be rid of Hamas not have a ceasefire with them.

The only conclusion to be drawn is that the leaders of Israel wanted a war and were happy to see rockets hit their southern towns in order to provide a pretext. Bowen however starts off from the premise that the Israeli leaders can do no wrong and can tell no lies.

In Brighton today over 50 people attended a picket and the support from the public was absolutely amazing. We had printed 300 leaflets and so fast were we running out of them that we only handed them out to people who asked for one. We still ran out! Cars honked horns, workers on their lunch break joined us.

ISRAEL IS PAYING A VERY HEAVY POLITICAL PRICE FOR ITS BUTCHERY IN GAZA

Below is the leaflet we gave out:

BBC – Complicit in Murder of Palestinians

Throughout Israel’s war against the Palestinians of Gaza, the BBC has been a faithful echo chamber for Israeli war propaganda. Israel has relied on the BBC in particular ‘to get its message across’

At no time has the BBC told the true story. Israel’s murderous attacks on the Palestinians have consistently been portrayed as a reaction to rockets fired from Gaza. Yet the opposite is true. Israel deliberately provoked the firing of rockets in order to provide a pretext for its barbaric bombing and invasion. Israel’s true intentions are to replace the elected government in Gaza with Palestinian stooges

During the 6th month ceasefire, on November 4th 2008, Israel launched an incursion into Gaza killing 6 Palestinians. This is never mentioned by the Biased Broadcasting Corporation. Before November 4th, since the ceasefire began at the end of June 2008, no rockets were fired by Hamas. It was only after Israel broke the ceasefire that rockets were launched.

The BBC continually fail to report that in breach of the ceasefire and international law Israel imposed a siege of Gaza, refusing to allow all but a trickle of food, medicines, fuel and other essentials in.

The BBC has failed to report that for 42 years Gaza has been under Israeli occupation and although its troops withdrew in 2005 Gaza was blockaded by air, land and sea. Fishermen and their boats were regularly fired on and killed. Just recently a boat containing doctors and medical supplies was rammed in international waters by Israeli gun boats. Gaza was transformed into an open air prison.

The BBC has continually downplayed Israeli war crimes, calling the attack on two United Nations schools ‘allegations’. It has consistently failed to report that Israel banned all journalists from Gaza for fear of the truth coming out.

It is little wonder that the media correspondent of the pro-Zionist Jewish Chronicle, Alex Brummer, on January 8th wrote:

‘Full marks in particular to the BBC’s Today programme… for trying to understand the hardships of Israeli communities in range of Hamas rocket fire. That is something new and very creditable.’

The BBC’s ‘understanding’ means equating Hamas rockets which killed 11 people in 3 years with the deaths of 3,000 Palestinians in the same period. That is ‘balance’ but it is a ‘balance’ which has enabled Israel to massacre women and children with impunity. The BBC’s coverage is literally complicity in murder and war crimes.

And on 31st December 2008, as Israel’s barbaric attacks on Gaza’s civilian population began, the Jewish Chronicle’s Anshel Pfeffer crowed that ‘Israel claims success in the PR war’

The BBC has never been friendly to the Palestinians but since the Government and George Bush have given 100% support to Israel’s attacks on the Palestinians, the BBC has followed suit, afraid of another Lord Hutton style confrontation with New Labour.

The Pictures the BBC Won’t Show – the Truth the BBC Dare Not Tell

Jews for Genocide Demonstration Flops - Lone Jewish Heckler Physically Attacked by CST

Lone Jewish heckler with red megaphone has objects thrown at him (see white object near him)

Zionists react with horror then fury as a lone Jewish heckler challenges their lies

Many of us remember demonstrations similar to that organised last Sunday 11th January 2009 by the Board of Deputies of British Jews, in 1982 and 2006, when up to 25,000 people filled Trafalgar Square to support Israel’s latest war against Arab peoples.

By way of contrast the BBC put the figures in Trafalgar Square at 4,000. Less than 1,000 demonstrated in Manchester, home to Britain’s second largest Jewish community. Those at the London counter demonstration estimate that no more than 2,000 hardline Zionists, mouthing ‘peace’ but determined to support war, gathered. Trafalgar Square looked and felt empty as the Zionists resorted to repeating their slogans to compensate for the sense of isolation felt by those attending.

Opposing them was a demonstration of 200 Jews and another 200 non-Jews organised by Independent Jewish Voices, Jews for Boycotting Israeli Goods and Jews for Justice for the Palestinians.

There has been a steady erosion in the past two weeks of support in the Jewish community for the current war, despite the fervent efforts of the Jewish Chronicle, now edited by the ex-editor of the Daily Express, Stephen Pollard.

Even those Jews who believe that the Israeli State is the nearest thing to godliness (& some believe it is god) have baulked at supporting a military campaign against the defenceless Gazan people which has so far claimed the lives of 1,000 civilians, including over 300 children. A War against Children, even when it’s in the name of Peace, is not a very attractive prospect to all but the most lunatic and fascist inclined Zionists.

Following the BNP’s open support for Israel’s war of genocide, there were also some BNP supporters among the happy throng of Zionist demonstrators. The BBC of course, true to its record throughout the current war, gave lavish coverage to the 2,000 strong Jews 4 Genocide demonstration and ignored the 100,000+ demonstration against the war the previous day. That’s balance for you BBC style!

But what the demonstration lacked in numbers it made up in chutzpah. All the speeches, especially that of the universally ridiculed Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks were about ‘peace’. As the account below demonstrates, when a lone Jewish heckler produced a megaphone during the racist rabbi’s rant, he had objects thrown at him, was attacked by the crowd and manhandled by the CST (of course!) before being arrested by the bovver boys in blue (or nowadays yellow jackets). No doubt this is what they mean by peace!

All the posters talked of Hamas terror as if the children killed in the war had been killed by Hamas rather than Israel. What this demonstrates is that the only terror the hardline racists in the crowd recognise is that directed at Israelis – Palestinian casualties count for nought. The ‘peace’ they talk about is the peace of the graveyard.

Ironically, despite the BBC and other media organisations following the Zionist-American fable that Hamas broke the ceasefire, in fact the Israeli Government has now admitted that it was they who broke it. Hamas has always stated that between June 2008 and November 2008 they did not fire a single rocket into Israel . In a recent interview given to Channel 4 News, the Israeli Government’s official spokesman Mark Regev finally admitted that Hamas did not break the ceasefire.

Young Jew Sings Protest to Chief Rabbi, Gets Arrested
Dovid 11.01.2009 20:27
LONDON - A young Jewish man was arrested today after singing at the Chief Rabbi of GB, Jonathan Sacks, during his speech at today's End Hamas Terror (pro-Israel) rally.
Dovid Von Neumann stood up on the ridge of a Trafalgar Square fountain and sung the well known child's Chanukah song 'Sevivon sov sov sov.' [Spinning-top, spin spin spin] He was pushed into the iced fountain by members of the demonstration and was wrestled into police custody by special Jewish security guards.

Whilst the ongoing Israeli bombing of Gaza began during the festival of Chanukah, Jewish children around the world received the traditional gift of a four sided spinning-top (sevivon in Hebrew, driedel in Yiddish). Jewish children play a betting game on whichever side the sevivon should land on. Today these are mostly made from plastic; once upon a time they were cast in lead - hence Operation Cast Lead, the name given by Israel to its current Gaza incursion.

Dovid explains:

"I wished to highlight the insidiousness of how the current Israeli invasion into Gaza was named after a child's toy made from a highly toxic material, lead, and how Palestinian children have been at the mercy of such randomly falling deathly devices. Hundreds of children in Gaza have been killed by indirect attack, like flying shrapnel or inadequate medical resources, whilst many have died through direct attack. It's as if Israel had the lead sevivon in mind as a metaphorical present to Palestinian children."

Through his red megaphone, Dovid also accused Rabbi Sacks of being unrepresentative of the Jewish community in his claims that British Jews supported Israel's current military action.

As he was being grabbed by a Jewish security guard inside the semi-frozen Trafalgar Square fountain, Dovid was seen kissing the guard on each cheek, a traditional way of greeting another Jew. Nevertheless the guard snapped his megaphone in half and pulled him to the crowd, who assisted to drag him to the pavement. Dovid was screaming "Ani gam Yehudi! "[I'm also Jewish] but he was nevertheless handcuffed and carried away by Police. The on looking crowd, mostly Jewish and Hebrew speaking, was left quite shocked. Dovid, 25, was held for a number of hours by Metropolitan Police until the day's other demonstrations were over. He was released without charge.

Dovid

Community Security Thugs Bar Jewish Opponents of Gaza War from Liberal Judaism Meeting

Mark Gardener, the £100,000+ Head of the CST with fellow bigot - Richard Littlejohn - as he explains the intricacies of racism to someone who calls gypsies 'pikeys'

Debbie 'Mad Mel' Fink arrested by the Met demonstrating against Israel's 60th anniversary celebrations

The CST on patrol with Greater Manchester Police

The Community Security Trust, which is a registered charity (No. 1042391), portrays itself as an organisation solely devoted to the safety and security of the Jewish community in Britain and opposing anti-Semitism. A perfectly legitimate aim you might think. But the CST is not what it seems.

The CST primary focus is in linking ‘anti-Semitism’ to a Zionist agenda. Hence they not merely classify as racial incidents the daubing of cemetries, physical attacks on Jews as Jews etc., but they also record anti-Israel comments as anti-Semitic.

In other words the CST has a hidden agenda which is the political use of ‘anti-Semitism’ as a means of demonising the opponents of Zionism, including Jewish opponents.

The CST is also a very well funded gravy train, with 64 paid employees. In the financial year 2007 it recorded income of over £6m. Almost uniquely, in the words of the Charity Commission, ‘This charity has been given a dispensation by the Charity Commission from publishing the names of its trustees.’

The CST has a long record of barring anti-Zionist Jews from meetings and harassing them. The story below is of a meeting held a couple of days ago by Liberal Jewry in London. It was a panel discussion on Gaza and Community Security Thugs decided to physically bar two well known Jewish activists, Debbie Fink and Naomi Wimborne-Idrissi. They have never been know to be violent, on the contrary they have been subject to violence by both Zionists and the Police. When I attended the first Independent Jewish Voices meeting in London at the end of 2007, which was also stewarded by CST, I was harassed and subject to some pushing and shoving by its employees. IJV decided from then on not to employ the CST.

Although a 'charity' with powerful establishment friends, the question of CST's status will have to be raised with the Charity Commission because the CST is clearly a political body. masquerading as a charity, with all the tax benefits that accrue.

The CST works closely with the Metropolitan and Greater Manchester Police, as the clips from Richard Littlejohn’s ‘War on Britain’s Jews’ broadcast on Channel 4 in 2007 showed. The Police are supposed to be impartial but repeatedly the Police have used the CST as a vigilante adjunct.

This was seen most clearly in the recent demonstration by Zionists in London in support of Israel’s War on Gaza, when CST thugs manhandled a heckler and others in the 'peace' crowd pushed him into the freezing waters of Trafalgar Square fountain before the Police arrived to arrest him. Questions need to be raised about the relationship between the CST and the Police because the latter are more of a Zionist vigilante squad than a genuine Jewish self-defence group against anti-Semites. You can see it all here.

In fact CST, despite its purported remit, has never had any involvement in genuine anti-fascist work in Britain. Why should they? They are a Zionist not an anti-fascist group. They are also extremely rich with assets of nearly £11m.

Perhaps most interesting was its Communications Director, Mark Gardener’s response recently to a comment on Harry’s Place, by ex-Union of Jewish Students officer, David Herman. Herman said of Roland Rance and myself that we ‘collaborate with the enemies of the Jewish people.’ [i.e. the Palestinians]. 'In less forgiving times they would be recei ving a necklace for hanukah!’

Gardener’s response? ‘I’m in David Herman’s (considerable) shadow on this one. Quite! We know where Rance and Greenstein stand, we know their previous, and its exactly why pro-Hizbollah websites carry their propaganda. Duh.’ Not a word of condemnation, quite the contrary, of Herman’s open incitement to burning his opponents alive.

Tony Greenstein

Barred by CST from Liberal Judaism meeting

This evening Deborah Fink and I were turned away from the panel discussion on Gaza, chaired by Rabbi Danny Rich of Liberal Judaism, by two CST (Community Security Trust) men acting in their usual high-handed, arrogant fashion.

We arrived shortly after the meeting began, having had trouble locating the venue which changed from the Montagu Centre to the Indian YMCA at short notice because so many people wanted to attend. We were genuinely interested in listening and possibly asking some questions and had no intention of being disruptive.

Since we had previously been at a picket in Parliament Square, I was carrying the J-BIG banner and poles in bags. While waiting for Debbie, I approached the CST guys in a friendly fashion, saying I would like to park the poles somewhere before going into the hall as obviously I did not want them with me at the meeting. They asked how I heard of the meeting and I said I'd read about it on Rabbi Rich's website and was very interested to hear the discussion. They asked if my name was on the list and I said I understood my friend's name plus one had been put on it in advance by a rabbi friend of hers. While we waited for Debbie they said they would have to search my bag and I said fine and drew their attention at once to the banner, which I said I would also like to leave outside with the poles. They immediately said "You can't go in". I explained again that I wanted to leave the banner and poles outside and I didn't see that they had the right to stop me attending an important discussion, but they were adamant that they had decided and that was it.

When Debbie arrived, she joked that Naomi was not going to hit anyone with the poles and could leave them at the back of the room, later pointing out that they could just be curtain poles from John Lewis! She then told them that her name had been put on the list by a rabbi, who then appeared and confirmed this, but the CST continued to deny us entry and threatened us with the police. Things got a bit fraught and I went to ask the building reception staff if they could provide a place to leave the banner and poles. They said that as long as I was allowed into the meeting they could put them in a locked store room for me.

I went back to report this but it made no difference to the CST men who were arguing with Debbie about their right to decide who attended the meeting. She had pointed out to them, as she had in previous confrontations, that they don't own the building, it was not their meeting and they aren't police, so what right did they have to order us not to go in? They even blocked the stairway so she could not go down!

A police officer then arrived and a colleague of Rabbi Rich's came out. Alarmed by the fracas she decided to uphold the CST decision, which was unfortunate given that it would not have occurred without their determination from the start to bar us as soon as they worked out that we were activists. The CST bullies need to be challenged and stood up to. They had lied to the police officer, (and no doubt to the organisers), telling him that we intended to unfurl the banner inside the hall (although they had no idea what kind of banner it was), but even though we explained again that it would be left in a store room if we were allowed in, permission was denied and had no choice but to leave.

The CST were now saying that the banner was not the issue, but they did not want Debbie in there! So first it was the banner, then it was Deborah Fink’s attendance that was the issue! They sneered when they said her name and talked to her in a condescending manner. Apparently they told the policeman that they had had dealings with Debbie before. They had, as she will not accept their self-appointed 'authority' to go beyond their basic security duties.

Outside the building, as we chatted amicably with the police officer who seemed not terribly enamoured of the CST methods, a J-BIG friend came out having attended the first part of the meeting. She had been allowed in without having her name on any list, but apparently, Danny Rich had been on the door earlier on and was letting through some people who were not on the list, some of whom had indeed been at the vigil.

The whole incident is just another example of how the CST act like a private Zionist police force having no regard for the desirability of open discussion within the Jewish community and intent on censoring critics of Israel. We hope that Liberal Judaism will not see the need to call on them in similar circumstances in future.

Naomi Wimborne-Idrissi & Deborah Fink

The Middle East’s ‘only democracy’ Bans Arab Parties

Right - MKs Zahalka (Balad) and Tibi (UAL) during meeting (Photo: Dudi Vaaknin)

Above - Tibi and other Arab MPs have opposed Israel's aerial and ground assault on the Gaza Strip [File: EPA]

Israel proclaims itself as the Middle East’s ‘only democracy’. The reality, as Avi Shlaim wrote in last Saturday’s Guardian, is somewhat different.

‘Israel likes to portray itself as an island of democracy in a sea of authoritarianism. Yet Israel has never in its entire history done anything to promote democracy on the Arab side and has done a great deal to undermine it. Israel has a long history of secret collaboration with reactionary Arab regimes to suppress Palestinian nationalism. Despite all the handicaps, the Palestinian people succeeded in building the only genuine democracy in the Arab world with the possible exception of Lebanon. In January 2006, free and fair elections for the Legislative Council of the Palestinian Authority brought to power a Hamas-led government. Israel, however, refused to recognise the democratically elected government, claiming that Hamas is purely and simply a terrorist organisation.’

As the Rabbi Meir Kahane MK, of the Nazi Kach movement used to say, Israel can be a democratic state of a Jewish state. Another way of putting this is to say that Israel can be a state of all its citizens or a racist state of its Jewish citizens. What happened at the Central Elections Committee, which is composed of representatives of all other parties (in itself, the fact that parties can vote to bar other parties signifies that Israel’s democracy is but a thin veneer) what the most overtly racist parties in Israel – Yisrael Beitenu, which believes in transferring Israel’s Palestinian citizens out of Israel, led by overt racist Avigdor Liebermann, and the equally racist National Union-National Religious Party.

Zionists are arguing that this ban will be overturned by the Israeli Supreme Court. It probably (though not definitely) will. Arab parties have been banned in the past, notably Al Ard (The Land). But the mere fact that the existence of separate Arab parties, in a state where Zionist parties are the norm, depends on the whim and mood of Israel’s Jewish judges, in itself shows how deeply anti-democratic Israel’s political culture really is.

Below are the contents of a press release by the Mosawa Centre on this decision.

Tony Greenstein

Mossawa Center's Reaction to the Decision of the Central Election Committee:

The Decision Hurts What Remains of Israeli Democracy, Deepens Tensions, and Will Again Hurt the Stance of the Israeli Supreme Court

January 12th - Israel's Central Elections Committee (CEC) has banned the Knesset's two Arab political parties, the United Arab List-Ta'al and Balad, from participating in the February 2009 elections. This move to disenfranchise the Arab minority in Israel was supported by right wing parties Yisrael Beiteinu and the National Union-National Religious Party, securing the alliance of centralists Kadima and Labor. The CEC decision will be challenged in the Supreme Court.

The Mossawa Center perceives this move as part of an ongoing trend of political delegitimization of the Arab community and is aimed towards dissuading any Arab voice away from political decisions, a trend that has accelerated since 1995. Mossawa appeals to preserve both democracy and civil rights and expresses deep concern that there is a majority in the Knesset and the Israeli public that supports such anti-democratic initiatives.

The CEC decision both offends both the remaining democratic fabric of the state, made explicit in Israel's Basic Laws and previous Supreme Court decisions, and international norms of civil liberties and freedom of expression, specifically violating Article 19 of both the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

Mossawa sees the consequence of such a decision, namely that the Supreme Court must be the last guarantor of democracy as a dangerous precedent. Implicating an appointed court to again rule on the political parameters of democracy blurs the state separation of powers within the states and undermines the political independence of the court which has wider implications for the future protection of human rights and democracy. This is an attack by leaders Lieberman and Kadima Minister of Justice Friedman on the legitimacy of the Supreme Court itself.

Significantly, the incremental effect of these moves will only fuel further tensions and legitimizes incitement by the media and political figures, which in turn endorses Israeli and IDF aggression, for example in the recent Gaza conflict. Mossawa reiterates that political parties and the media have responsibilities to protect human rights and democratic values.

Since the 1950s there is a correlative downturn in the political participation of the Arab community and a series of boycotts of general elections. In 2006 just 56% of the community participated in an election which has further exacerbated tensions between the majority and minority community. In 2001 82% of the community boycotted the Prime Minister elections, because following the massive use of violence by police forces during Ehud Barack's term that resulted in killing of 13 Arab citizens and feelings of marginalization and reluctance to confer legitimacy to the Israeli government.

The Arab community has a role in supporting domestic and regional peace, and as a core group with the ability to stabilize a Middle East peace process. For example, that the Oslo Accords were given support and political momentum from the six Arab MKs under Prime Minister Rabin's term is ignored by the media and political forces who have upheld a tradition of excluding Arab parties from government coalitions. January 12th decision sets a dangerous precedent, further damaging Israeli democracy and alienating the Arab minority at a time when the state and the peace process most requires their assistance

As in the previous law and military confrontations the Arab community stands against the current war in Gaza. The Arab community position against the war has been undermined by political leaders and media for the last two weeks.

The Mossawa Center reiterates its call for a return to full democracy for all citizens of Israel and respect for civil liberties.

Mossawa Center - The Advocacy Center for Arab Citizens
Tel: +972.4.8555901/2
Fax: +972.48552772
http://mossawacenter.org/
bill.mossawamedia@gmail.com

See also:

Israel poll ban for Arab parties
Israel bans Arab parties from running in upcoming elections