Buenos Aires, 25th. February 2009
Dear Mr. Andrew Balcombe,
We really appreciate your mail where we can notice your fear about our Community in Argentina.Graffitis on the walls of the cities streets, songs against Israel and against Jewish people,poisoned articles in the web -sites and flyers,meetings raising Hezbolla and Hamas´ flags.
Step by step we´ve been working on these antisemitic demonstrations with a section of Argentina National Government named INADI ( National Discrimination Institute) and with another people of the Government as well.
As you know all Latin America has made a notorious change because of the last political machines in the region(Venezuela-Hugo Chavez;Bolivia-Evo Morales etc.) whose policy represent a potential dangerous in every way.This huge antisemitic wave is spreading all the time,everywhere.
In Argentina we had had two terrorist attacks inspired by Iran terrorist regime.Iran,the best Hugo Chavez friend.
In 1992 :The Israeli Embassy in Argentina
In 1994 :A.M.I.A.(Argentina Israeli Social Assistance Headquarters)120 years in Argentina giving assistance,resources and jobs to everybody, jewish or not.
After the end of the Second World War there were many antisemitic acts in Argentina.64 years went by!!!
OSA (Argentina Zionist Organisation) and some more jewish organisations were always defending the rights of Israel State and doing many demonstrations:different events,marchs with Israeli flags,newspaper advertisments,magazines,speeches,hasbara,etc, as the Jewish Community has been always unconditional with Medinat Israel.
Best Wishes
Shalom
Carlos Frauman
President of AZO (Argentina Zionist Organisation) - Buenos Aires - Argentina CABA
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Monday, February 23, 2009
AMBASSADOR MARK SOFER'S TALK
His Excellency Mark Sofer, Israeli Ambassador to India and Sri Lanka, gave series of fascinating talks on 19-20 February, under the auspices of the ZF. He began by looking back at the dreadful terrorist attacks in Mumbai on 26-9 November 2008. Of the ten terrorists, 2 were dedicated to finding a small out-of-the way house used by Chabad – a horrific demonstration of the extent of the attackers’ hatred. The terrorists had very sophisticated equipment, indicating that they had help -- from whom, remains unclear.
But such are the bonds between the two nations, the attack was unlikely to prove a ‘defining moment’. Total trade (imports plus exports, excluding defence) amounts to some $4,4 billion annually, for example, and it is reasonably balanced. Delhi is the biggest Israeli Embassy in Asia with 120 staff.
The two countries have much in common. Both are former British Mandate areas; the results of divisions into areas including a Muslim one; both experienced wars on the road to Independence; are democracies in Asia; both were ‘nonaligned’ nations during the Cold War period. Note that the Muslims in India are Sufi Muslims and very different from the Shi’ites and Sunni. They are not militant. They are a long established community.
Yet bilateral relations were not always so close and good. In November 1947 at the UN, India voted against the establishment of Israel. The reasons can be found in the war with Pakistan and the Muslim minority (around 12%). Also Nehru’s partner in leading the nonaligned movement was Nasser (along with Tito). As recently as 1991, Indian passports specified that their bearers could not travel to Israel. Secularism was important to the Indian government and Israel was seen as a theocratic State.
In 1992 after the collapse of Communism, things changed. ‘Nonaligned’ lost its meaning and there was no longer any ideological barrier to capitalism. Also no Muslim nation (with the strange exception of Saddam’s Iraq) supported India over Kashmir. Israel changed too.
The Ambassador emphasised the enormous scale of the swing in the early ‘90s in the relationship – it is hard to fully explain.
Indians have great regard for Israel’s technological achievements, especially in the agricultural and irrigation field – they speak of ‘making the desert bloom’. There is no antisemitism – they do not know what the word means.
Nevertheless there remain pragmatic obstacles to the extent to which the interests of the two countries can converge. India for example is wholly dependent on oil imports and there are around 6m Indian expatriates living and working in the Gulf. No Indian Foreign Minister had made an official visit to Israel or the Palestinian areas for seven years. The new US Administration has a difficult balance to preserve. On the one hand, India is a natural ally but on the other, there are major concerns about stability in Pakistan – which has nuclear capability.
But such are the bonds between the two nations, the attack was unlikely to prove a ‘defining moment’. Total trade (imports plus exports, excluding defence) amounts to some $4,4 billion annually, for example, and it is reasonably balanced. Delhi is the biggest Israeli Embassy in Asia with 120 staff.
The two countries have much in common. Both are former British Mandate areas; the results of divisions into areas including a Muslim one; both experienced wars on the road to Independence; are democracies in Asia; both were ‘nonaligned’ nations during the Cold War period. Note that the Muslims in India are Sufi Muslims and very different from the Shi’ites and Sunni. They are not militant. They are a long established community.
Yet bilateral relations were not always so close and good. In November 1947 at the UN, India voted against the establishment of Israel. The reasons can be found in the war with Pakistan and the Muslim minority (around 12%). Also Nehru’s partner in leading the nonaligned movement was Nasser (along with Tito). As recently as 1991, Indian passports specified that their bearers could not travel to Israel. Secularism was important to the Indian government and Israel was seen as a theocratic State.
In 1992 after the collapse of Communism, things changed. ‘Nonaligned’ lost its meaning and there was no longer any ideological barrier to capitalism. Also no Muslim nation (with the strange exception of Saddam’s Iraq) supported India over Kashmir. Israel changed too.
The Ambassador emphasised the enormous scale of the swing in the early ‘90s in the relationship – it is hard to fully explain.
Indians have great regard for Israel’s technological achievements, especially in the agricultural and irrigation field – they speak of ‘making the desert bloom’. There is no antisemitism – they do not know what the word means.
Nevertheless there remain pragmatic obstacles to the extent to which the interests of the two countries can converge. India for example is wholly dependent on oil imports and there are around 6m Indian expatriates living and working in the Gulf. No Indian Foreign Minister had made an official visit to Israel or the Palestinian areas for seven years. The new US Administration has a difficult balance to preserve. On the one hand, India is a natural ally but on the other, there are major concerns about stability in Pakistan – which has nuclear capability.
Monday, February 16, 2009
BARONESS DEACH'S SPEECH IN THE HOUSE OF LORDS
Baroness Deech (Crossbench) | Hansard source
My Lord, I recently heard a speech by President Peres of Israel. He said
that if we look back 50 years, who would have imagined then that the Soviet
Empire would have ended, that the South African system of apartheid would
have been dismantled and Mandela would have become president, that the
Berlin Wall would have come down and that there would be a black president
of America? He said that we should look forward 50 years from now in the
same spirit. I want to start on that optimistic note because I believe that
if we wait that long*no doubt beyond our lifetimes*there will be change for
the better. I want to emphasise that because inevitably much of my speech
will be rather gloomy.
No one can accuse this House of not focusing on the distressing situation in
Gaza. In the past 12 months, there have been 161 Questions and Statements
about Israel, Gaza and the Palestinians compared with, for example, 33 on
Sri Lanka and 24 on Tibet. I mention Sri Lanka in particular because noble
Lords will be aware that recently there was a well attended protest in
Parliament Square about the terrible attacks on the Tamils, the hospitals
under siege, the killing of 70,000 people and the many more thousands who
are trapped and displaced from their homes. This has attracted little
opprobrium and no calls for the obliteration of Sri Lanka or talk of its
brutalisation.
I raise that because I am interested in the particular focus on the Middle
East that is expressed in this country. Part of the reason is that the war
in Gaza has not been seen in perspective, but only as a minute fragment of
what is, in truth, a larger picture. There is a wider war, of which Israel
and Gaza are figureheads, and there is also a civil war. The talk about what
is proportionate*I prefer the word "necessary"*has to be seen in the context
of a response to an attack from Hamas designed not just to launch rockets at
Israel*5,000 rockets deliberately aimed at Israeli civilians and
schoolchildren at 7.45 in the morning*but to end the state of Israel.
Hamas has vowed to have an Islamic state over Gaza, the West Bank and Israel
as part of a wider Islamic empire. Israel has a 20 per cent Arab population,
but not one Jew is to be allowed to live in this Islamic state. We can well
imagine the fate planned for the millions of Israelis were this to come
about. The response from Israel was, if anything, as restrained as it
possibly could be. We should recall the detailed precautions taken by the
Israeli army to avoid wherever possible harm to civilians, bearing in mind
the use of mosques, schools and hospitals, as has been referred to earlier
today.
The charges of "disproportionate" were not made in relation to other wars
that we have recently experienced; Kosovo, Georgia, Iraq or even
Afghanistan, where people have died in their thousands. In fact, there has
been some praise for the restraint that Israel has shown in trying to avoid
civilian casualties. There is also a civil war in Gaza, which makes the
prospects of peace unrealistic. The military dictatorship there did nothing
to protect its own subjects, but took the opportunity of war to eliminate
many of its Fatah political opponents. Other noble Lords have referred to
the very cruel details of this. Even the Palestinian Authority's President
Abbas said:
"Hamas has taken risks with the blood of Palestinians, with their fate and
dreams and aspirations for an independent Palestinian state".
The wider war is one of destruction of Israel, and those who criticise
Israel's attack on Gaza must realise that they are unwittingly giving
succour to that plan.
Syria, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and Hamas all share that same aim of destroying
Israel entirely and, indeed, Hamas has thanked Iran for its support in the
Gaza war. As others have mentioned, the result has been that Jews all over
the world have suffered for this. The attacks on Jews that have taken place
here in the UK and elsewhere illustrate my theme of a wider war. It is Jews
and synagogues in London and Venezuela, in universities, to their shame, and
streets, that are attacked, with Gaza as the excuse, not Israelis. It is not
Jews who see all criticism of Israel as anti-Semitism; it is some of the
critics of Israel who vent their displeasure on Jews in general. The hatred
of Israel, and sometimes Jews, is almost unique in international politics.
Then there is the propaganda war. I urge noble Lords not to believe all that
they read in the newspapers about damage and killings in Gaza. We do not
have the evidence. I cite just one case. The tragic killing of the three
daughters of the respected Gazan doctor Izzeldin Abuelaish now seems to have
been by Gazan rockets, not Israeli fire, according to the post-mortem
examination of the fragments of their bodies.
On the humanitarian front, of course, it is exacerbated, because Hamas
wanted civilian deaths to increase its worldwide exposure and sympathy.
Humanitarian aid is another area where the wrong and pessimistic view has
been taken. I noted with interest and approval that the BBC refused to
screen the advertisement for aid and that it was backed by its own NUJ
branch of journalists. It is not so good to hear talk of a Zionist lobby and
Jews mugging protests and stemming disquiet in the United States, when you
consider the very small numbers that there are. The United Nations Relief
and Works Agency has a huge budget. We do not yet know what happened to the
millions that Arafat salted away and took to his death. We note the failure
of other Arab countries to come to the aid of their brothers. The oil
revenue of the Gulf states in 2008 was $562 billion; in Saudi Arabia it was
$260 billion*one day's oil revenue would work a miracle for the West Bank
and Gaza, but this is not forthcoming.
On the humanitarian front, Israel's Supreme Court in the past few days, a
court known for its robustness, has examined the application of the Geneva
conventions on humanitarian law and found them not to have been breached.
Other Arab countries have not only not helped but have literally turned
their backs on the Palestinians, as one can read regarding Syria in the
report in the Times today.
What of the future? Gaza could have had a future. Every Israeli soldier and
civilian was removed from there. Everything was ready for the Gazans a few
years ago to start a new period of economic development. There was no
blockade, and it remains true that Egypt could open its crossing if it
wanted to. It does not, of course, because it no more wants an Iranian state
on its borders than Israel does. Instead the rockets and the tunnels came,
and the sad destruction of the very greenhouses where flowers and fruit were
grown and could have continued to be grown.
What can the UK do? It can support Egypt, which is acting very well in this
crisis, albeit for its own reasons of survival. It can help block Hamas from
smuggling more arms by sea. It can press for the release of Gilad Shalit,
who has been a hostage in Gaza for two and a half years with no access to
the Red Cross or any other international agency. It can persuade Hamas to
change the charter and remove mention of destruction. Above all, your
Lordships should lend your voices to the end of the demonisation of Israel
and to calm down the surging anti-Semitism. Your Lordships should recognise
the need of Israel to exist and its legitimacy. It is no more arriviste in
the Middle East than the other 22 Arab states to be found there. There can
be no further removal of six million Jews from the Middle East. We must do
nothing to feed the hatred that surrounds this issue and we must do
everything to look to the future.
My Lord, I recently heard a speech by President Peres of Israel. He said
that if we look back 50 years, who would have imagined then that the Soviet
Empire would have ended, that the South African system of apartheid would
have been dismantled and Mandela would have become president, that the
Berlin Wall would have come down and that there would be a black president
of America? He said that we should look forward 50 years from now in the
same spirit. I want to start on that optimistic note because I believe that
if we wait that long*no doubt beyond our lifetimes*there will be change for
the better. I want to emphasise that because inevitably much of my speech
will be rather gloomy.
No one can accuse this House of not focusing on the distressing situation in
Gaza. In the past 12 months, there have been 161 Questions and Statements
about Israel, Gaza and the Palestinians compared with, for example, 33 on
Sri Lanka and 24 on Tibet. I mention Sri Lanka in particular because noble
Lords will be aware that recently there was a well attended protest in
Parliament Square about the terrible attacks on the Tamils, the hospitals
under siege, the killing of 70,000 people and the many more thousands who
are trapped and displaced from their homes. This has attracted little
opprobrium and no calls for the obliteration of Sri Lanka or talk of its
brutalisation.
I raise that because I am interested in the particular focus on the Middle
East that is expressed in this country. Part of the reason is that the war
in Gaza has not been seen in perspective, but only as a minute fragment of
what is, in truth, a larger picture. There is a wider war, of which Israel
and Gaza are figureheads, and there is also a civil war. The talk about what
is proportionate*I prefer the word "necessary"*has to be seen in the context
of a response to an attack from Hamas designed not just to launch rockets at
Israel*5,000 rockets deliberately aimed at Israeli civilians and
schoolchildren at 7.45 in the morning*but to end the state of Israel.
Hamas has vowed to have an Islamic state over Gaza, the West Bank and Israel
as part of a wider Islamic empire. Israel has a 20 per cent Arab population,
but not one Jew is to be allowed to live in this Islamic state. We can well
imagine the fate planned for the millions of Israelis were this to come
about. The response from Israel was, if anything, as restrained as it
possibly could be. We should recall the detailed precautions taken by the
Israeli army to avoid wherever possible harm to civilians, bearing in mind
the use of mosques, schools and hospitals, as has been referred to earlier
today.
The charges of "disproportionate" were not made in relation to other wars
that we have recently experienced; Kosovo, Georgia, Iraq or even
Afghanistan, where people have died in their thousands. In fact, there has
been some praise for the restraint that Israel has shown in trying to avoid
civilian casualties. There is also a civil war in Gaza, which makes the
prospects of peace unrealistic. The military dictatorship there did nothing
to protect its own subjects, but took the opportunity of war to eliminate
many of its Fatah political opponents. Other noble Lords have referred to
the very cruel details of this. Even the Palestinian Authority's President
Abbas said:
"Hamas has taken risks with the blood of Palestinians, with their fate and
dreams and aspirations for an independent Palestinian state".
The wider war is one of destruction of Israel, and those who criticise
Israel's attack on Gaza must realise that they are unwittingly giving
succour to that plan.
Syria, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and Hamas all share that same aim of destroying
Israel entirely and, indeed, Hamas has thanked Iran for its support in the
Gaza war. As others have mentioned, the result has been that Jews all over
the world have suffered for this. The attacks on Jews that have taken place
here in the UK and elsewhere illustrate my theme of a wider war. It is Jews
and synagogues in London and Venezuela, in universities, to their shame, and
streets, that are attacked, with Gaza as the excuse, not Israelis. It is not
Jews who see all criticism of Israel as anti-Semitism; it is some of the
critics of Israel who vent their displeasure on Jews in general. The hatred
of Israel, and sometimes Jews, is almost unique in international politics.
Then there is the propaganda war. I urge noble Lords not to believe all that
they read in the newspapers about damage and killings in Gaza. We do not
have the evidence. I cite just one case. The tragic killing of the three
daughters of the respected Gazan doctor Izzeldin Abuelaish now seems to have
been by Gazan rockets, not Israeli fire, according to the post-mortem
examination of the fragments of their bodies.
On the humanitarian front, of course, it is exacerbated, because Hamas
wanted civilian deaths to increase its worldwide exposure and sympathy.
Humanitarian aid is another area where the wrong and pessimistic view has
been taken. I noted with interest and approval that the BBC refused to
screen the advertisement for aid and that it was backed by its own NUJ
branch of journalists. It is not so good to hear talk of a Zionist lobby and
Jews mugging protests and stemming disquiet in the United States, when you
consider the very small numbers that there are. The United Nations Relief
and Works Agency has a huge budget. We do not yet know what happened to the
millions that Arafat salted away and took to his death. We note the failure
of other Arab countries to come to the aid of their brothers. The oil
revenue of the Gulf states in 2008 was $562 billion; in Saudi Arabia it was
$260 billion*one day's oil revenue would work a miracle for the West Bank
and Gaza, but this is not forthcoming.
On the humanitarian front, Israel's Supreme Court in the past few days, a
court known for its robustness, has examined the application of the Geneva
conventions on humanitarian law and found them not to have been breached.
Other Arab countries have not only not helped but have literally turned
their backs on the Palestinians, as one can read regarding Syria in the
report in the Times today.
What of the future? Gaza could have had a future. Every Israeli soldier and
civilian was removed from there. Everything was ready for the Gazans a few
years ago to start a new period of economic development. There was no
blockade, and it remains true that Egypt could open its crossing if it
wanted to. It does not, of course, because it no more wants an Iranian state
on its borders than Israel does. Instead the rockets and the tunnels came,
and the sad destruction of the very greenhouses where flowers and fruit were
grown and could have continued to be grown.
What can the UK do? It can support Egypt, which is acting very well in this
crisis, albeit for its own reasons of survival. It can help block Hamas from
smuggling more arms by sea. It can press for the release of Gilad Shalit,
who has been a hostage in Gaza for two and a half years with no access to
the Red Cross or any other international agency. It can persuade Hamas to
change the charter and remove mention of destruction. Above all, your
Lordships should lend your voices to the end of the demonisation of Israel
and to calm down the surging anti-Semitism. Your Lordships should recognise
the need of Israel to exist and its legitimacy. It is no more arriviste in
the Middle East than the other 22 Arab states to be found there. There can
be no further removal of six million Jews from the Middle East. We must do
nothing to feed the hatred that surrounds this issue and we must do
everything to look to the future.
Monday, February 9, 2009
THE JIHAD AGAINST BRITAIN'S JEWS
Friday, 6th February 2009 Melanie Phillips
I am hearing ever more alarming accounts of the deepening attrition against British Jews in the wake of the incitement against Israel provoked by the war in Gaza. In addition to the record number of attacks upon Jewish individuals and institutions and murderous incitement displayed on the anti-Israel demonstrations and riots as reported by the Community Security Trust, Jewish parents report that their children – some as young as eight – are now running a gauntlet of attack from their Muslim classmates at school who accuse them of 'killing Palestinian children'. Comments by adults about 'Jews controlling all the money/the media/the BBC' (yes, really! All because it allowed Israel's spokesman to put the case for Israel from time to time) are now commonplace in both private and public discourse. Today's Jewish Chronicle reports that a 12 year-old Birmingham schoolgirl was terrorised by a mob of 20 youths chanting 'Kill all Jews' and 'Death to Jews' on her way home from school last week:
She said: 'One of my friends said an Asian girl from the year above asked her why she was talking to me because I am Jewish. I asked the girl in a friendly manner if she had a problem with me being Jewish. She said "yeah, I do". I managed to punch her before she hit me but then she grabbed me by the hair and swung me around shouting "f****** Jews, I hate Jews". But then another Asian girl rounded up a whole gang. They were all in school uniform and they came running towards me shouting "death to Jews" and "kill all Jews."'
A reader has sent me the following account of what happened to him when, travelling on the Tube in London, he started to read a copy of The Case for Israel by Alan Dershowitz:
After a time, I became aware that a man sitting diagonally in front of me near the doors at the end of the carriage was looking a bit agitated and had a disgruntled expression on his face. However, he didn't meet my eye, so I thought nothing more of it and continued reading as before...When the train reached St Paul's, the man I had noticed stood up to get off. But instead of leaving by the end doors, he made to pass me. In the process of doing so, he deliberately shoved into me and made to crush me against the side of the carriage and the passengers sitting behind me. Despite already knowing exactly what had actuated this behaviour, I asked the question anyway - and received the following response: 'You shouldn't be reading that, you f***ing [indecipherable].'...The whole confrontation had taken place in the time it took for the tube doors to wheeze open and shut.
Other than in the Jewish press, such incidents are barely being reported. Last week, for example, there was virtually no coverage of the violent demonstration organised by the Stop the War coalition which prevented the deputy commander of Israel's Gaza operation from speaking at London's Jewish student centre, Hillel House, when a crowd of about 60-80 students attempted to storm the building.
One of the most troubling developments is the way in which the universities have become an extension of the Middle East conflict, with a simulacrum of the aggression, intimidation and violence from which Israel is under attack by the Arabs being directed at Jewish students on British campuses, who now routinely run a gauntlet of intimidation and abuse from Arab and Muslim students. But even more worryingly, some universities are spinelessly choosing to give in to such bullying.
Throughout last week, after the cease-fire was declared in Gaza, there was a series of anti-Israel sit-ins and demonstrations organised by the STWC at some 17 universities: in London at the School of Oriental and African Studies, the London School of Economics, Queen Mary College and King's College, as well as at Bradford, Sheffield Hallam, Warwick, Leeds, Oxford, Cambridge, Sussex, Essex, Nottingham, Birmingham, Manchester, Manchester Metropolitan and Strathclyde. Some of these protests led to criminal damage and forced the universities to pay thousands of pounds to deal with the disruption, rearrange lectures, hire extra security guards and repair the damage.
The demonstrators took control of lecture halls and made a series of demands: that the universities should issue a statement condemning Israel's actions in Gaza; offer scholarships to Palestinian students; send surplus educational materials to help rebuild Gaza (presumably its Islamic University, said by Israel to be a fount of terror); dedicate some of their time to fund-raising for Gaza; and take no action against the demonstrators.
Some of these universities responded robustly to such disorder and intimidation. Manchester Metropolitan, Birmingham, Nottingham and, after some delay, Leeds and Cambridge reportedly refused to accept any of these demands. At Nottingham and Sheffield Hallam, the demonstrators were forcibly evicted.
But the LSE, King's College London, SOAS, Bradford, Strathclyde and Oxford reportedly gave in to some or all of these demands. According to the JC, the LSE agreed to waive application fees for Gaza and West Bank students 'directly affected by the conflict', while Bradford
agreed to investigate the 'ethical background' of food and drink served on campus, and promised to 'explore the feasibility of a twinning link with the Islamic University of Gaza'.
Strathclyde agreed among other things to cancel a contract with an Israeli water-cooler company. Oxford – which fined each demonstrator the princely sum of £20 – nevertheless started negotiations with them with indecent haste, and a mere few hours later had agreed to pretty well everything. In a craven letter to colleagues the Vice-Chancellor, John Hood, having stated that
unlawful action of this kind cannot be condoned
proceeded to reward it by giving the perpetrators what they had demanded.
The Oxford demonstrators also demanded that the title of the series of lectures on 'world peace' at Balliol, recently inaugurated by Israeli President Shimon Peres and named in his honour, be changed; the Senior Proctor, Professor Donald Fraser -- who oversees disciplinary matters and who recommended 'a relatively lenient course of action against the demonstrators '-- duly wrote to Balliol drawing its attention to the students' concerns.
Thus the trahison des clercs as they crumble in the face of criminality, violence and intimidation.
And so now at British universities --which should be the most protected of all environments for free discourse and inquiry -- British Jews no longer feel safe. At Nottingham, one such student said:
The sit-in has created an atmosphere where we do not feel comfortable going into shared buildings on campus.
At King's, another Jewish student said:
Someone from my course wrote 'kill the Jews' on my Facebook profile. Later he said he didn't know I was Jewish. In public someone said to me, 'I think all the Israelis are crazy and so are the f***ing Jews'.
And at Oxford, the JC reports:
One University Reader reportedly told a meeting that 'within five years, Oxford will be a Jew-free zone'
and a student wrote to Professor Fraser warning that
for Jewish students, the university and the city have developed a toxic atmosphere in which I and many others feel increasingly alienated and unwelcome.
Meanwhile, of course, as Sky's Tim Marshall pointed out the other day on his blog, the government of Sri Lanka is also attempting to eradicate terrorism by a military campaign in which, according to the UN, 'many civilians are being killed', thousands made homeless, hundreds of thousands trapped, and to which, as food shortages grow, the government refuses to allow access to journalists. Yet there are no sit-ins on campus against the Sri Lankans, no violent riots outside its High Commission, no calls to boycott Orange Pekoe tea. As Marshall observed:
And yet somehow the lives of the 1,300 Palestinians killed by the Israelis causes far more outrage, in certain quarters, than the 2 million dead in Congo, the tens of thousands of Iraqis killed by Sunni and Shia terrorists, or the growing number of Sri Lankan dead to add to the 70,000 killed over the past 25 years (far more than the number of Palestinians and Israelis killed in the same period).
Of course – because the protests in Britain have nothing to do with humanitarian concerns for the innocent. They are part of the jihad against the Jews – and those in the universities and other parts of the establishment who are capitulating to or even endorsing this are accomplices to a great evil that is now consuming British public life.
I am hearing ever more alarming accounts of the deepening attrition against British Jews in the wake of the incitement against Israel provoked by the war in Gaza. In addition to the record number of attacks upon Jewish individuals and institutions and murderous incitement displayed on the anti-Israel demonstrations and riots as reported by the Community Security Trust, Jewish parents report that their children – some as young as eight – are now running a gauntlet of attack from their Muslim classmates at school who accuse them of 'killing Palestinian children'. Comments by adults about 'Jews controlling all the money/the media/the BBC' (yes, really! All because it allowed Israel's spokesman to put the case for Israel from time to time) are now commonplace in both private and public discourse. Today's Jewish Chronicle reports that a 12 year-old Birmingham schoolgirl was terrorised by a mob of 20 youths chanting 'Kill all Jews' and 'Death to Jews' on her way home from school last week:
She said: 'One of my friends said an Asian girl from the year above asked her why she was talking to me because I am Jewish. I asked the girl in a friendly manner if she had a problem with me being Jewish. She said "yeah, I do". I managed to punch her before she hit me but then she grabbed me by the hair and swung me around shouting "f****** Jews, I hate Jews". But then another Asian girl rounded up a whole gang. They were all in school uniform and they came running towards me shouting "death to Jews" and "kill all Jews."'
A reader has sent me the following account of what happened to him when, travelling on the Tube in London, he started to read a copy of The Case for Israel by Alan Dershowitz:
After a time, I became aware that a man sitting diagonally in front of me near the doors at the end of the carriage was looking a bit agitated and had a disgruntled expression on his face. However, he didn't meet my eye, so I thought nothing more of it and continued reading as before...When the train reached St Paul's, the man I had noticed stood up to get off. But instead of leaving by the end doors, he made to pass me. In the process of doing so, he deliberately shoved into me and made to crush me against the side of the carriage and the passengers sitting behind me. Despite already knowing exactly what had actuated this behaviour, I asked the question anyway - and received the following response: 'You shouldn't be reading that, you f***ing [indecipherable].'...The whole confrontation had taken place in the time it took for the tube doors to wheeze open and shut.
Other than in the Jewish press, such incidents are barely being reported. Last week, for example, there was virtually no coverage of the violent demonstration organised by the Stop the War coalition which prevented the deputy commander of Israel's Gaza operation from speaking at London's Jewish student centre, Hillel House, when a crowd of about 60-80 students attempted to storm the building.
One of the most troubling developments is the way in which the universities have become an extension of the Middle East conflict, with a simulacrum of the aggression, intimidation and violence from which Israel is under attack by the Arabs being directed at Jewish students on British campuses, who now routinely run a gauntlet of intimidation and abuse from Arab and Muslim students. But even more worryingly, some universities are spinelessly choosing to give in to such bullying.
Throughout last week, after the cease-fire was declared in Gaza, there was a series of anti-Israel sit-ins and demonstrations organised by the STWC at some 17 universities: in London at the School of Oriental and African Studies, the London School of Economics, Queen Mary College and King's College, as well as at Bradford, Sheffield Hallam, Warwick, Leeds, Oxford, Cambridge, Sussex, Essex, Nottingham, Birmingham, Manchester, Manchester Metropolitan and Strathclyde. Some of these protests led to criminal damage and forced the universities to pay thousands of pounds to deal with the disruption, rearrange lectures, hire extra security guards and repair the damage.
The demonstrators took control of lecture halls and made a series of demands: that the universities should issue a statement condemning Israel's actions in Gaza; offer scholarships to Palestinian students; send surplus educational materials to help rebuild Gaza (presumably its Islamic University, said by Israel to be a fount of terror); dedicate some of their time to fund-raising for Gaza; and take no action against the demonstrators.
Some of these universities responded robustly to such disorder and intimidation. Manchester Metropolitan, Birmingham, Nottingham and, after some delay, Leeds and Cambridge reportedly refused to accept any of these demands. At Nottingham and Sheffield Hallam, the demonstrators were forcibly evicted.
But the LSE, King's College London, SOAS, Bradford, Strathclyde and Oxford reportedly gave in to some or all of these demands. According to the JC, the LSE agreed to waive application fees for Gaza and West Bank students 'directly affected by the conflict', while Bradford
agreed to investigate the 'ethical background' of food and drink served on campus, and promised to 'explore the feasibility of a twinning link with the Islamic University of Gaza'.
Strathclyde agreed among other things to cancel a contract with an Israeli water-cooler company. Oxford – which fined each demonstrator the princely sum of £20 – nevertheless started negotiations with them with indecent haste, and a mere few hours later had agreed to pretty well everything. In a craven letter to colleagues the Vice-Chancellor, John Hood, having stated that
unlawful action of this kind cannot be condoned
proceeded to reward it by giving the perpetrators what they had demanded.
The Oxford demonstrators also demanded that the title of the series of lectures on 'world peace' at Balliol, recently inaugurated by Israeli President Shimon Peres and named in his honour, be changed; the Senior Proctor, Professor Donald Fraser -- who oversees disciplinary matters and who recommended 'a relatively lenient course of action against the demonstrators '-- duly wrote to Balliol drawing its attention to the students' concerns.
Thus the trahison des clercs as they crumble in the face of criminality, violence and intimidation.
And so now at British universities --which should be the most protected of all environments for free discourse and inquiry -- British Jews no longer feel safe. At Nottingham, one such student said:
The sit-in has created an atmosphere where we do not feel comfortable going into shared buildings on campus.
At King's, another Jewish student said:
Someone from my course wrote 'kill the Jews' on my Facebook profile. Later he said he didn't know I was Jewish. In public someone said to me, 'I think all the Israelis are crazy and so are the f***ing Jews'.
And at Oxford, the JC reports:
One University Reader reportedly told a meeting that 'within five years, Oxford will be a Jew-free zone'
and a student wrote to Professor Fraser warning that
for Jewish students, the university and the city have developed a toxic atmosphere in which I and many others feel increasingly alienated and unwelcome.
Meanwhile, of course, as Sky's Tim Marshall pointed out the other day on his blog, the government of Sri Lanka is also attempting to eradicate terrorism by a military campaign in which, according to the UN, 'many civilians are being killed', thousands made homeless, hundreds of thousands trapped, and to which, as food shortages grow, the government refuses to allow access to journalists. Yet there are no sit-ins on campus against the Sri Lankans, no violent riots outside its High Commission, no calls to boycott Orange Pekoe tea. As Marshall observed:
And yet somehow the lives of the 1,300 Palestinians killed by the Israelis causes far more outrage, in certain quarters, than the 2 million dead in Congo, the tens of thousands of Iraqis killed by Sunni and Shia terrorists, or the growing number of Sri Lankan dead to add to the 70,000 killed over the past 25 years (far more than the number of Palestinians and Israelis killed in the same period).
Of course – because the protests in Britain have nothing to do with humanitarian concerns for the innocent. They are part of the jihad against the Jews – and those in the universities and other parts of the establishment who are capitulating to or even endorsing this are accomplices to a great evil that is now consuming British public life.
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