Eretz Israel is our unforgettable historic homeland...The Jews who will it shall achieve their State...And whatever we attempt there for our own benefit will redound mightily and beneficially to the good of all mankind. (Theodor Herzl, DerJudenstaat, 1896)

We offer peace and amity to all the neighbouring states and their peoples, and invite them to cooperate with the independent Jewish nation for the common good of all. The State of Israel is ready to contribute its full share to the peaceful progress and development of the Middle East.
(From Proclamation of the State of Israel, 5 Iyar 5708; 14 May 1948)

With a liberal democratic political system operating under the rule of law, a flourishing market economy producing technological innovation to the benefit of the wider world, and a population as educated and cultured as anywhere in Europe or North America, Israel is a normal Western country with a right to be treated as such in the community of nations.... For the global jihad, Israel may be the first objective. But it will not be the last. (Friends of Israel Initiative)

Sunday 2 November 2014

"It's About Jews ... Antisemitism Is The Signature Marker Of A Derangement": On Western Liberals abetting Islamic anti-Israelism

In the previous post, Aussie international law expert David Singer, who is of course no stranger to regular readers of this blog, examines Sweden's vote to recognise a Palestinian State.  (Latest here)

Meanwhile, this cartoon (at left), mimicking Ikea "easy home assembly" instructions is doing the Israel-delegitimising rounds on social media, with some cock-a-hoop people actually assuming that the company itself issued them, and proclaiming excitedly that they will only buy Ikea products from now on.  I'm not sure who originated this cartoon, but reader P (hat tip to you, again, sir) found it on the Facebook page of the appalling, BDS-championing so-called Jewish Voice for Peace organisation. 

As David Singer observed not so long ago, in the course of another of his posts, here:
"The incessant media focus on Israel – compounded by misleading and factually incorrect reporting  – has materially contributed to inciting the growth of Jew-hatred world-wide. Organisations such as HonestReporting and CAMERA expose inaccurate reports appearing daily in the most widely read and supposedly reputable international newspapers, television stations, radio networks and on-line publications....
[Richard] Falk's discredited assertion that Israel is a “special case” setting it apart from the world community for special treatment encourages
 the media to keep focusing disproportionately on Israel
Arab and Islamic countries justifying their continuing non-recognition of Israel
Jew-haters and self-hating Jews world-wide maintaining their campaigns denigrating and delegitimising Israel.
 “Jews are always good for news” needs an urgent media rethink and policy overhaul – if increasing Jew-hatred world-wide is to be effectively silenced."
As another Aussie, Isi Leibler, now a proud Israeli, has observed, inter alia, regarding the recent British House of Commons' vote to recognise a Palestinian State : 
'It reflects a growing trend among European countries to encourage Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to pursue his intransigent policy, rejecting meaningful negotiations, refusing to make any concessions and proceeding on the supposition that he has international support to bring Israel to its knees. Regrettably, over the past few months, the Obama administration has been widely perceived as giving a wink to the Europeans to pursue policies toward Israel along these lines, which neither American public opinion nor Congress would endorse.
That such a resolution was even contemplated during the regional meltdown of the past few months has created an Alice-in-Wonderland environment – especially as it failed to even pay lip service to the obligations of the Palestinians. Nor did it acknowledge that both Yasser Arafat and current “peace partner” Mahmoud Abbas rejected offers of 95 percent of the territories formerly occupied by the Jordanians.
Abbas continues to incite to violence and hate and his Fatah party still calls for the destruction of the Jewish state. In recent months, the official PA TV revived the medieval blood libel accusing Jews of using the blood of Palestinian children to make matzot for Passover, promoted The Protocols of the Elders of Zion and alleged that Israel was poisoning Palestinian water wells. Abbas continues to glorify mass murderers and insists that there will never be an agreement unless Israel accepts the right of return of the five million descendants of Arab refugees, which would entail the end of Israel as a Jewish state. He also reaffirmed his union with Hamas – the globally designated terrorist organization.
The UK parliamentary resolution effectively endorses a state in which the genocidal Hamas occupies a central role and which, according to polls, would emerge victorious in an election. To make matters worse, Abbas has publicly stated that should that occur, he would hand over control of the state to Hamas.
British socialists who voted for the resolution totally disregarded Israel’s security concerns by supporting the establishment of a state based on the 1949 armistice lines. The resolution does not even require Hamas to amend its charter calling for the destruction of Israel and the murder of Jews throughout the world – a charter that the Nazis would proudly have supported. Nor did it call for demilitarization and cessation of hostilities against Israeli civilians.
Bevin (Time, 18 Feb. 1946)
The implications of passing such a resolution are harrowing, exceeding the worst excesses of perfidious Albion when the anti-Semitic British foreign secretary Ernest Bevin displayed his hostility to the Jews during the last years of the mandate.
One cannot justify such behavior on the basis of ignorance. Clearly, the motivations represent a combination of electoral opportunism, leftist political correctness which transforms Israel the victim into the aggressor, cultural relativism which no longer distinguishes between good and evil and promotes moral equivalency; and above all, an indisputable odor of outright anti-Semitism. 
Some remarks made in the course of the debate were even more despicable than the resolution itself.
There were renewed demands for an arms embargo, calls to intensify boycott, divestment and sanction campaigns and to suspend the EU-Israel Association Agreement.
There were repeated condemnations of Israel for promoting racism and practicing apartheid. This, despite the fact that 20% of Israel’s population is comprised of Arabs who are granted the same constitutional rights and privileges as Jewish Israelis.
One need only visit a Jerusalem hospital or shopping mall to appreciate how absurd it is to accuse Israel of apartheid. In contrast, Abbas has made it clear that a Palestinian state would be Judenrein and that he would not tolerate “the presence of a single Israeli – civilian or soldier – on our lands.” What is that if not ethnic cleansing? ....
Demonization of Israel concentrated on settlement policies, described in the debate as “the colonization of another country.”....
The facts are that the settlements comprise a mere 3% of the territories previously occupied by Jordan; there have been no new settlements created over the past decade; prime minister Ariel Sharon unilaterally withdrew from all settlements in the Gaza Strip – an area that was subsequently transformed into a launching pad for rocket attacks against Israeli civilians.
The only “settlement construction” has essentially related to natural growth in east Jerusalem and the existing blocs, which will undisputedly always remain part of Israel. The growth has been to cater for population expansion and no Palestinians were displaced because of the construction....'
Needless to say, among those pushing for, and obviously triumphally welcoming, parliamentary recognition of a Palestinian State, apart from the rabid Israel-haters of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign and similar secular groups, were such naive if well-meaning types as the [Anglican] Bishop of Coventry, Christopher Cocksworth, and the Roman Catholic Bishop of Clifton, Declan Lang, while Jeremy Moodey, who heads the Christian NGO Embrace the Middle East, declared that
'the Government should not ignore the result of the vote: "Britain has done much to contribute to the current mess . . . [including] this current Government's near unqualified support for Israel. Some 64 years after we recognised Israel, the British Parliament has now finally acknowledged that Palestinians are entitled to their own state."'
Isi Leibler, towards the end of the above-mentioned article, observed:
"There is some light at the end of the tunnel.
The barbaric behavior of Islamic fundamentalists is beginning to penetrate the consciousness of the Western world, which will hopefully ultimately recognize that Hamas is indeed a component of the global Islamic fundamentalist threat."
But as he also observed, the Commons' vote  
'"reflects the electoral influence of Muslim migrants and confirms that anti-Israelism is now embedded in the DNA of the Left. But above all, it reveals the reality that anti-Semitism has remained an integral component of British and European society, which is now expressed as hatred of the Jewish state."
Below is Melanie Phillips telling it like it is to Ezra Levant in Canada.

She talks of "this terrible nexus of non-Islamic liberals" supporting Islamic Israel-hatred.  "In the West we have become paralysed ... by ... multicultural political correctness .... Israel has become a pariah state ... Israel ...  which is obsessed by human rights .... Antisemitism is at the root of this [Islamic hatred and rejection of Israel] .... It's about Jews ... Antisemitism is the signature marker of a derangement" ... but owing to extreme political correctness  (which has invented "Islamophobia" along with the insistence that Muslims are  "victims") necessary free speech regarding Islam is muzzled and Western liberals fail to deplore in Islamism what Western liberals would deplore in Nazism.



As Ms Phillips observes, Muslims enjoy freedom of worship in Israel, yet the only country in the region guaranteeing rights of religious minorities is demonised by Western liberals despite that.

In the aftermath of the attempted assassination of Rabbi Yehuda Glick, Mark Regev talks to a strident BBC interviewer regarding religious freedom in Jerusalem.


 And here's footage of Rabbi Glick and Jews and Arabs praying side by side at the Temple Mount (details here).


 Courtesy of StandWithUs:


Re BDS:
Terrific speech by Aussie Senator Glenn Sterle
Excellent article by Melanie Phillips

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