Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News: Daphne Anson

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Tuesday, November 17, 2015

Broadcasting Bias: The ABC of it (Daphne Anson)

On announcing his intention to step down next year as the managing director of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), Mark Scott informed his staff, inter alia: “Can I add how pleased I am with our commitment to the main priority this year, serving the nation as the independent home of Australian conversations, culture and stories? On television, we have broadcast remarkable dramas, documentaries and comedies. Our radio services continue to connect millions of Australians each day … In news, we are breaking stories of significance every week; stories with great impact …”

The ABC, founded on 1932, is Australia’s counterpart to the BBC and similarly publicly funded – not by a license fee like the BBC but by an allocated budget funded by taxpayers. Currently, it rakes in well over one billion Australian dollars annually. Commercial broadcasters, who provide their own funds via advertising, can be as biased as they wish on topical issues, but, like the BBC, the ABC is formally obligated to be scrupulously objective. It’s required to “maintain an independent service for the broadcasting of news and information,” “to ensure that the gathering and presentation of news and information is accurate and impartial according to the recognised standards of objective journalism,” and, in news and current affairs, to enable viewers to “make up their own minds” via a “diversity of perspectives”.

Yet, like the BBC, the ABC constantly flouts the obligations on which its public funding ostensible depends, in order to present a left-liberal agenda, and to hawk, especially, a favourite core of issues, one of which is asylum and “refugee” migration. Rarely does the ABC present an alternative view on this issue to that of the Green Left; it interviews with astonishing regularity Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young, an arch-critic of “refugee” detention and “turning back the boats,” giving her a great deal of air time – a courtesy it seldom accords to politicians or activists of the opposing viewpoint.

Some of its top presenters supplement their generous salaries by sounding off in newspaper columns on issues of the day, thus revealing the personal political standpoints that they are meant to conceal in the interests of perceived even-handedness, and which undermines their pretensions to objectivity. As with the BBC, an arrogant thumb-our-noses-at-the-guidelines attitude together with a left-liberal perspective is, if not pervasive throughout the Corporation, then certainly widely palpable. Take, for instance, the veteran political presenter Barrie Cassidy. He recently blogged a puerile, mocking personal attack on conservatively-inclined prime minister Tony Abbot soon after the latter lost his position in a tawdry coup: ‘…This week Tony Abbott broke free of the shackles and exposed his creed: a fundamental rejection of negotiation and compromise, and a refusal to allow compassion to get in the way of a nation's self-interest… He urged Europe to study Australia's experience, turning boats around and denying entry at the borders. "It will require some force," he declared. Fight. Fight. Fight. Even against desperate refugees…’

The ABC ethos that accepts that everyone seeking illegal entry into this country is a genuine “refugee” is also part of the BBC’s. It’s broadcast and tweeted constantly by these Tweedledums and Tweedledees. The BBC’s Matthew Price has been one industrious propagandist to this effect. So has the BBC’s man in Sydney, Jon Donnison, who makes snide tweets about Australia’s asylum policy (and Britain’s) every chance he gets, as well as making highly partisan tweets relating to Gaza and the West Bank, where he was previously based, and where his heart apparently resides.

Each week the ABC’s flagship current affairs show Q&A, the broadcaster’s equivalent to the BBC’s Question Time, packs its panel with leftists, with just a token sprinkling of proponents of the other side. Among regular panellists are two leftist Jews highly critical of Israel: elderly Viennese-born feminist Eva Cox, and Louise Adler, a member of Alternative Australian Jewish Voices. Dr Adler heads Melbourne University Press, which under her aegis has published Antony Loewenstein’s My Israel Question and London University Professor Jacqueline Rose’s Out of Zion. Perhaps needless to say, the ABC has given publicity to both books and their authors.

Writes Zeddy Lawrence, editor of the Australian Jewish News, in the current issue of that paper (http://www.jewishnews.net.au/abc-must-tackle-bias/50538):

‘Earlier this year, the corporation’s editorial integrity became a matter of public concern after Zaky Mallah was allowed to ask a question on the broadcaster’s flagship Q&A program. But for members of the Jewish community, the ABC’s editorial integrity was already in doubt, with a number of reports from Israel not only exhibiting a distinct lack of balance, but in some cases reflecting individual journalists’ personal political opinions. Readers will no doubt recall February 2014’s Four Corners episode in which the IDF was accused of targeting Palestinian children for arrest in the middle of the night, assaulting them while in detention and forcing confessions from them. The report omitted key facts about the cases it highlighted, relied on unverified allegations from sources with questionable credibility that were subsequently repudiated, failed to give context and, moreover, quoted negative UNICEF findings about the IDF, without mentioning more recent UNICEF findings that actually noted significant improvements in the IDF’s operations.
Fast-forward to July 2014 and the war with Hamas, and there were numerous cases where the ABC’s focus was on Israel’s targeted airstrikes rather than the rockets being fired indiscriminately at Israeli cities from Gaza. In one instance, seemingly oblivious to Hamas’s tactics of using human shields and the IDF’s warnings to civilians to evacuate ahead of strikes, the ABC’s Sarah Ferguson asked Benjamin Netanyahu’s spokesman Mark Regev: “Do you take enough care to avoid those casualties, ‘cause it appears the answer is no?”
In the past year alone, the ABC has featured no fewer than 20 times in our Media Week column from AIJAC [the Australian Jewish Public Affairs Council], with the same problems noted in each instance. Whether discussing subsequent investigations into the war, house demolitions, the blockade of Gaza, the Jewish connection to Jerusalem or other issues, there’s a lack of context, a lack of balance, the omission of relevant facts, interviewees with a clear agenda, and little, if any, official Israeli responses or explanations of the matters under discussion. Throw into the mix, a two-part documentary this July produced by a prominent BDS activist that effectively accused Israel of apartheid, and even included claims that Jerusalem was “being ethnically cleansed” and that the Jewish State was “imposed” and “artificial”, and the ABC appears to be acting, in some cases, as a pro-Palestinian propaganda mouthpiece.’

As mentioned on my own blog in March, the ABC’s then newly-appointed exclusive Jerusalem-based Middle East correspondent, young Sophie McNeill, was appointed to that post despite – or maybe because of – a history of pro-Palestinian activism (a remarkable state of affairs discussed by a concerned Ahron Shapiro here http://www.jwire.com.au/should-the-abc-have-given-advocacy-journalist-sophie-mcneill-the-keys-to-its-jerusalem-bureau-asks-ahron-shapiro/). In an interview she gave in 2011, Ms McNeill, who has credited Robert Fisk’s Hidden Histories with inspiring her to be a journalist, said: "If you just try to frame stories from the point of view of the people who are really suffering in a situation, be it in Lebanon, if you’re hanging out in a Palestinian refugee camp, [or] in Gaza … One of the saddest things I’ve seen in my whole life is spending some time filming in a children’s cancer ward in Gaza. I just think if you just – if you look at a situation and you just – yeah, I guess just try to spend time with the people who are – who really don t have any power and it is hard, you know, for them to have a voice. Then that’s, yeah, that’s the kind of journalism I want to do.... Everyone knew what was happening in Gaza ... you saw all the horrific videos ... a lot of people died ... there are no excuses any more..."

There have been a number of instances in which Ms McNeill’s subsequent reporting and tweeting has chagrined or indeed outraged the Australian Jewish community, overwhelmingly pro-Israel as it is, as well as numerous fair-minded non-Jewish commentators. Late last month, in a segment on the ABC’s 7.30 current affairs program, Ms McNeill informed viewers that, “after they tried to board a school bus south of Jerusalem,” two Palestinians were shot by Israeli security forces. What she failed to reveal was the crucial information that the two had just knifed someone, were armed, and were intent on attacking schoolchildren on that bus. Ms McNeill also told, hardly objectively, of a dead sixteen-year old Palestinian student who had been fatally shot at a checkpoint: “Israeli soldiers say that this friendly, gifted student tried to stab them, so they shot her dead”. There was lachrymose footage of the girl’s empty desk at school as Ms McNeill described her, in the opinion of relatives, as “so affectionate … very talented …” and, in the opinion of friends, as a “martyr … dying for Palestine”. Neglecting to tell of the incitement to violence caused by circulating canards that Israel was denying Palestinians access to their holy site in Jerusalem, Ms McNeill put her own spin on things by asserting that “Tensions are being fuelled by the building of Jewish settlements on Palestinian land”.

Little wonder that an excellent article in the Brisbane Courier-Mail by Rowan Dean expressed revulsion at a segment on the ABC’s 7.30 current affairs program, in which Sophie McNeill, expressed revulsion at the segment for portrayed the murderous young Palestinians concerned ‘almost as heroes, engaged in some noble struggle …. Even the segment’s title – “Meet the young generation of Palestinians behind the third intifada” – was a disgrace, sounding like some hip, funky show … Throughout eight turgid minutes, the show failed to point the finger of blame where it belongs: at those political and religious predators in the West Bank and Gaza who for a generation have tutored and groomed young Palestinians to desire to murder Jews. Muslim clerics in Palestinian mosques have been urging their followers in recent weeks to go out and hack Jews to death in the name of Allah. For the Islamist, the “cause” of “liberating” Palestine is just another facet of jihadist terrorism, the goal being the genocide of all nonbelievers, particularly Jews…’ Instead, there was ‘funky rap music, “cool” interviews, sentimental claptrap about an empty desk at a girl’s school and so on’.
Over the years, examples of ABC bias against Israel have been itemised by AIJAC and, where sufficiently egregious to warrant it, officially protested by the ECAJ. But as the ECAJ’s executive director, Peter Wertheim, has recently written, “Even when our complaints have been upheld, corrective action by the ABC has been half-hearted or slow to occur”. However, a media survey undertaken in June shows that, in Mr Wertheim’s words, “although ABC radio and television remain the nation’s most trusted sources of news and current affairs, trust levels have fallen significantly in the last five years and the ABC’s lead over commercial broadcasters and newspapers has narrowed markedly”. Thus, he continues, “For its own sake, the ABC needs a new system of oversight to guarantee its integrity. Its internal complaints unit is not independent of the organisation, nor is it sufficiently insulated from the influence of those who work there.” (To those familiar with the in-house complaints procedure at the BBC, where a functionary called Fraser Stele appears to be the sole arbiter of what does and does not constitute bias, that will sound depressingly familiar.)
Mr Wertheim goes on: “We need a completely independent ombudsman outside the ABC, appointed on a cross-partisan basis by Parliament through a public selection process, to monitor public broadcasting, assess complaints about news, current affairs programs and documentaries and report regularly to the Australian people.” Amen to that.

As Zeddy Lawrence points out: “Let us be quite clear, we are not calling for Israel, its government or its army to be declared sacrosanct or off limits. We merely want factual, balanced and fair reporting that is not skewed by the prejudices of particular reporters or that panders to popular or propaganda-driven misconceptions of the reality on the ground. To that end, in appointing the new managing director, we urge the ABC board to consider not just how well the potential candidates can manage the corporation from a business perspective, but whether they have what it takes to confront and weed out the bias, and uphold the standards of balance and impartiality that we expect our national broadcaster to embody.”

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Living in Perfect Harmony? A Scare in Jerusalem, 1876 (Daphne Anson)

The famous British pre-Raphaelite artist William Holman Hunt (1827-1910) was a sincere philosemite and a Zionist who proposed a scheme not dissimilar to Theodor Herzl’s, and around the same time. For years he lived and worked in the Holy Land, where he delighted in using the faces of Jewish residents in his canvasses of Biblical figures and scenes. In a letter dated 5 June 1876, published in the Manchester Examiner and reproduced in certain other newspapers – including the Manchester Times of 24 June 1876, which is where I found it, and, with some passages omitted, the York Herald, 257 June 1876 – he described the panic that had set in on the day following news of the deposition in Constantinople on 30 May of Sultan Abdülaziz of Turkey (who died in suspicious circumstances four days later).

“It was … the Moslem Sabbath,” wrote Hunt of the day after the news reached Ottoman Palestine. “I was working quietly in my courtyard, enjoying the more than casual stillness, when my wife came in with a man who mysteriously insisted upon seeing me.” It turned out that the visitor was a Christian from Bethlehem and that his sister was one of the Hunt household’s servants. Clearly agitated, the man explained that all the Christians in Jerusalem feared for their safety, and “had all taken refuge in the convents or barricaded themselves in the houses in fear of an immediate massacre; that the convents were already unapproachable; that the city gates were shut; and that the Russian buildings – my last hope [of sanctuary] – were thronged and fastened up, besides being only attainable by traversing a road which, at any moment, might be beset by the [Moslem] fanatics”. For his sister’s sake, and for the Hunts’, the man had hastened “to advise us to do all we could for our defence”.

For various unstated reasons, fleeing to Jaffa was not an option. “Our only course was to barricade the house, which I did by bringing in all the winter firewood, and piling it up against the door, and by blocking up the windows with beds, &c. In the meantime, we had sent out a native servant for intelligence from a family at a long distance. The reply was not encouraging. When I had done all to barricade the house, there were three things to do – to go down to the town to ascertain the actual state of things, to get some money to keep in my pocket for any emergency, and, if possible, to get to my house in town to obtain a large supply of powder there, and the materials for making cartridges, and with these a good supply of native costumes for disguise if necessary.”

Hunt continued:

“I left my house [his rural one] in charge of the tutor, my model for the morning, my wife and little boy and nurse, and the Bethlehem woman, taking with me the native servant, with saddle-bags over his shoulders. We went along with eyes searching for every fact. It was evident that the authorities were doing all they could to establish quiet and confidence. The [Turkish] soldiers, in large bodies, were marching about with a show of good discipline … Inside the town, I was met by people who told me that, for the time, danger had passed. Some were inclined to pooh-pooh the original panic, saying that it had arisen from a misunderstanding of the motive of the general in command in serving out a double and treble supply of cartridges. Others, however, brought proofs that threats of a very distinct kind had been uttered by Moslems against certain Christians, telling them they should soon see what would become of them and their co-religionists … The [European] consuls had been to the Pasha, [who] had apparently satisfied them that the strictest vigilance would be exercised.

The scene in the morning had been a most extraordinary one; the whole population, not the
Christians only, but the Jews and even the Mahomedans, were throwing down the things they had in hand – butchers their meat, bakers their bread, grocers their supplies, and even milkmen and women their jars, and running for their lives. The matter was a mystery at best; but there was a lull in the excitement and I had to profit by it. I got my silver from the banker, and then went to my [Jerusalem] house. I met many Moslem acquaintances, who ordinarily are quite garrulous in their salutations: but this morning they either turned their heads aside altogether, or were most shy in their manner of greeting. At the cafés and other loitering places, the Effendi [the educated elite and officials], dressed in their best green robes and turbans, eyed me apparently with mingled vexation and astonishment … At the door of my house there is a café. All the habitués turned away.’

When Hunt emerged from the empty house – “I had half expected to find a Moslem servant of mine there, for I had given him leave from my [other] residence to go to the mosque to say his prayers, and he had not returned” – having filled two sacks with belongings, he found himself “watched again as if with prejudice, but no one interfered.”

Since that day, the Hunt household, despite “so many assurances had been given of our perfect safety, “ had remained on their guard, especially at night, “for after all the declarations that there was no ground for alarm, we have it proved that on the Friday there was a large army of fellaheen, numbered variously at 1,000 and 5,000, who marched up to the gates of the city which was the occasion of the shutting of the gates – and that these fellaheen before disbanding came to some resolutions (the nature of which is unknown) for future action. For the few following days it seemed possible that we might see the people of Hebron, who are great fanatics, march here. We are told to watch the progress of affairs next Friday, but if that day passes off quietly we shall return very much to only our ordinary degree of caution. However, I shall certainly not leave my gunpowder and cartridges so far away. Those who are most brave now were during the panic most in alarm.”

“They Dare Not Set Foot Within its Precincts: for… the Blood-Red Banner of Mohammed is Waving Over their Heads" (Daphne Anson)

Wrote Oscar Wilde’s father William, an Anglo-Irish surgeon, in 1838 following time spent overseas:

“Were I asked what was the object of greatest interest that I had met with and the scene that made the deepest impression on me during my sojourn in other lands, I would say that it was the sight of the Jews gathering to mourn over the stones of Jerusalem. It was a touching sight to behold, in front of the Mosque before the western wall, one of the western walls which formed the holy of holies and the ancient temple … it was a touching sight, and one that years will not efface, to witness that mourning group and hear them singing the songs of David beneath the shadow of those very stones that once rang with the same swelling chorus when Jerusalem sat on high. But not now are heard the joyous tones of old, for here every note is swollen with the sight of Judah’s mourning maidens, or broke by the sobs and smothered groans of the patriarchs of Israel. But that heart must be sadly out of tune whose chords would not vibrate to the thrilling strains of Hebrew melancholy chanted so sad and low by the sons and daughters of Abraham in their native city. Much as they venerate the very stones that now form the walls of the enclosure, they dare not set foot within its precincts: for the crescent of the Moslem is glittering from the minaret of Omar, and the blood-red banner of Mohammed is waving over their heads.”…’

His account of his travels was first published in 1840; the passage I quote above appears in a book entitled From Oxford to Rome, and how it fared with some who lately made the journey, published in London in 1847.

Although William Robert Wilde used the term “mourning maidens” most of the women who worshipped at the Kotel were married and many were not young, but otherwise what he writes is a fair summary of the situation surrounding Judaism’s holiest site in the long years of Ottoman rule.

Here, for instance, is another first-hand account of Jews at the Kotel by a sympathetic nineteenth-century Christian traveller (name not given, though from a seeming hint dropped it may have been Ferguson), which I found in a British newspaper (the Lancaster Gazette) of 16 December 1848:

“Forbidden to approach the site of their Temple, they pay a heavy tax to the Sultan for the miserable privilege of meeting on a small strip of ground adjoining its outer wall, when they put their petitions through the crevices, in the fervent belief that they will find the same acceptance as when offered in the Temple in all its glory. Once a week [Fridays] they meet thus to pray, and once a week to wail over the desolation of their Temple …. And thus, week after week, and year after year, and century after century, they have gathered together and wept, till time … has given that grief reverence and majesty for its antiquity alone. The ceremony to which I refer was, by the sorrowful earnestness of the supplicants, rendered extremely interesting. Old men were there who had lived all their lives in expectation of the consolation of Israel, and were now about to drop into the grave without seeing that hope fulfilled. And children were there, brought by their mothers, to join their prayers for the day it might be yet their lot to behold. But there was one … circumstance which detracted somewhat from the interest of the scene. Few of the maidens of Israel were there. Can it be that the allurements and occupations of the present life, and the gay dreams of youth, had tempted them to forget that they were strangers in the land of their fathers? Perhaps, rather, that years of danger and suffering had taught youth and beauty to shun the evil eye of the Moslem.”

A long and graphic eyewitness account from later in the century sheds further light on the sorry situation. First published in the London Daily Telegraph, it was reproduced by the Jewish Chronicle (7 January 1870). Here it is, without further comment from me, for its significance speaks for itself:

“In this clear, bright moisture-free air everything looks so close and near that you fancy you could drop a stone down upon the roofs that lie far away beyond rifle shot and it is only as your eye becomes accustomed to the distance that you take in the grandeur of the city upon which you look…. At your feet is the vast, bare, open space on which once stood the Temple of Solomon – on which now stands the Mosque of Omar. A few Mussulmans [sic] sit smoking gravely under the shadow of the trees planted here and there close beneath the Sacred Shrine … But, unless you wear the turban, there is no entrance here for either Christian or Jew, without special permission. The ground is too sacred, in the eyes of the Muslim, to be desecrated by the foot of the unbeliever….

The most impressive memory I shall ever carry away with me from Jerusalem is that of the Jews weeping before the walls of Zion. The Hebrew population is said, in the guide-books, to be about one-third of the whole city.... The Jews of Zion are neither prosperous, active, nor influential; and, as Muslims and Christians, disagreeing in everything else, agree in oppressing the children of Israel, these have a hard time of it in the city of their fathers. No native Jew can enter the precincts of the Temple, where now stands the Mosque of Omar, without the risk of being maltreated and stoned, if his presence is detected by a Mussulman. Once a week, however, and once a week only, the Jews are permitted by the Turks to come and pray at the foot of one of the high stone walls on which the plateau of Solomon’s Temple is supported. The hour of prayer is fixed, whether by chance or irony, upon the Mussulman Sabbath; at that hour the Jews flock to the narrow strip of ground, enclosed beneath high walls, where alone they can pray in public for the coming of the Messiah, and the restoration of the chosen people to the Promised Land. There are a few Rabbis, clad in long fur-lined cloaks and low-crowned velvet caps; but the great bulk of the worshippers are aged men and women of the poorer sort …

Men and women stand apart, the worshippers, as they each arrive, taking up their station close to the wall, with their faces buried as far as may be in their slits and fissures. All along the line there rises a murmur of wailing cries and sobs. There are few amongst the company who have not Hebrew books of prayer in their hands, out of which they recite long swings of words chanted to a low sing-song tune. From time to time one of the elders reads out a prayer, and at each pause the chorus of men and women join in with a long wailing cry. But, as a rule, it seemed to me, each person prayed after his own fashion, and the voices rose and fell in a constant ebb and flow of sound; but, as worshipper after worshipper turned away slowly from the wall, after kissing it repeatedly, you could see tears running down their wrinkled cheeks.

The Turkish soldiers were lounging on the parapet of the wall above. In former years, they would throw down stones upon the Jews as they stooped in prayer, or insult them with opprobrious names. Now the power of the West is too much dreaded for the Moslem official to venture upon the exhibition of his contempt for the unbeliever. But, amongst the common folk, who have not the terror of the Pasha before their eyes, the old hatred of creed still survives. On the day when I visited the place of wailing, a group of dark-eyed, bold-faced stalwart Arab women sat with their children, in a corner of the pathway whereon the Jews were praying. An old Jewish dame, very feeble, bent, and wrinkled, laid her large hide-bound prayer-book on a stone beside her while she buried her head in a hole in the wall; forthwith one of the Arab girls stole up stealthily and carried off the book in triumph. The old Jewess, when she discovered her loss, begged and prayed for its return, but was told she could not have her book again unless she paid five piastres – about a shilling – to the girl who had stolen it. There was wrangling and whining for ever so long, but the Arab girl stood firm; the Jewish women were afraid to touch her, and at last they made up the sum amongst themselves by odd half-pence, and handed it to the impudent young hussey, who pocketed the coin, and then announced that now she would not return the prayer-book, as she saw the old woman valued it, till she had double the price named.

Seeing that our party were strangers, one of the Jewesses came up to me, and asked me, in German, to help them get the prayer-book back. I volunteered, through my dragoman, to pay the couple of shillings which was needed to redeem the book; but the Arab wench raised her terms again, and stood out for more. Happily, a threat that I would take the old woman to the English Consul – like many other unmeaning menaces in this world of ours – succeeded where persuasion had failed; and the girl, pouring forth a volley of abuse against myself, the Bible, and the Jewish race, raised up the prayer-book into the air, threw it as hard as she could fling right into the midst of the group of Jewesses, and then ran down the hill laughing loudly.”

[EoZ] Compare with today.

“The Influence of European Mores Has Universally Prevailed” (Daphne Anson)

At the start of its “Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen,” the French National Assembly” (1789) declared: “All men are born and remain free and equal in rights … No person shall be molested for his opinions, even such as are religious, provided that the manifestation of these opinions does not disturb the public order established by the law”. Two years later, in 1791, the same body explicitly acknowledged the Jews as full citizens of the Republic, and, subsequently, in territories where the French Revolutionary armies proved victorious ghetto walls fell and the Jews were liberated in the name of the ideals of the French Republic. In 1806 Napoleon – reflecting the widespread contemporary continental view that Jews were benighted followers of an atavistic creed – convened a so-called Assembly of Jewish Notables, sometimes dubbed the Paris Sanhedrin, in order to satisfy himself, through their replies to a number of questions posed to them, that France’s Jews could adapt to modernity, were capable of assimilating (in the integrationist sense), and therefore merited equality.

Many if not most of Elder’s readers will, of course, be well aware of this episode in modern European history, but for those who don’t, or need reminding, let’s run through a few those questions – there were a dozen in all – and the answers given.

Question One: Is it lawful for Jews to marry more than one wife?

Answer: It is not lawful for Jews to marry more than one wife; in all European countries they conform to the general practice, marrying only one. Moses [the Lawgiver] does not command expressly to take several, but he does not forbid it. He seems even to adopt that custom as generally prevailing, since he settles the rights of inheritance between children of different wives. Although this practice still prevails in the East, yet their ancient doctors have enjoined them to refrain from taking more than one wife, except when the man is enabled by his fortune to maintain several. The case has been different in the West; the wish of adopting the customs of the inhabitants of this part of the world has induced the Jews to renounce polygamy. But as several individuals still indulged in that practice, a synod was convened at Worms in the eleventh century, composed of one hundred rabbis, with Gershom [of Mainz] at their head. This assembly pronounced an excommunication against every Israelite who should in future take more than one wife. Although this prohibition was not to last forever the influence of European mores has universally prevailed.

Question Two: Is divorce allowed by the Jewish religion? Is divorce valid when not pronounced by courts of justice by virtue of laws in contradiction with those of the French Code?

Answer: Repudiation is allowed by the Law of Moses, but is not valid if not previously pronounced by the French Code. In the eyes of every Israelite, without exception, submission to the prince is the first of duties. It is a principle generally acknowledged among them that in everything relating to civil or political interests the law of the state is the supreme law. Before they were admitted in France to share the rights of all citizens, and when they lived under a particular legislation which set them at liberty to follow their religious customs, they had the ability to divorce their wives, but it was extremely rare to see it put into practice. Since the Revolution they have acknowledged no other laws on this head but those of the Empire. At that juncture when they were admitted to the ranks of citizens, the rabbis and the principal Jews appeared before the municipalities of their respective dwelling places and took oaths to conform in everything to the laws and to recognize no other rules in all civil matters.

Question Four: In the eyes of Jews, are Frenchmen considered as their brethren? Or are they considered as strangers?

Answer: In the eyes of Jews Frenchmen are their brethren, and not strangers. The true spirit of the Law of Moses is compatible with this mode of considering Frenchmen. When the Israelites formed a settled and independent nation their law made it a rule for them to consider strangers as their brethren. With the tenderest care for their welfare, their Lawgiver commands to love them, “Love ye therefore the strangers,” says he to the Israelites, “for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt.” …. A religion whose fundamental tenets are such – a religion which makes a duty of loving the stranger … must surely require that its followers should consider their fellow-citizens as brethren. And how could they consider them otherwise when they inhabit the same land, when they are ruled and protected by the same government and by the same laws? When they enjoy the same rights, and have the same duties to fulfil? There exists, even between the Jew and Christian, a tie which abundantly compensates for religion – it is the ties of gratitude. This sentiment was at first excited in us by the mere grant of toleration. It has been increased these eighteen years by new favours from government, made to such a degree that now our fate is irrevocably linked with the common fate of all Frenchmen. Yes, France is our country, all Frenchmen are our brethren, and this glorious title, by raising up our own esteem, becomes a sure pledge that we shall never cease to be worthy of it.

I mention these particular questions, and their answers, because the scrutiny then applied to Judaism starkly contrasts with the attitude of “liberals” in France, and for that matter “liberals” elsewhere in Western Europe, regarding the large and growing Islamic presence in the continent. Just last week, French academic Guy Mollière – a warm and outspoken admirer of Israel – observed in a typically thoughtful and cogent article (http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/6721/muslim-invasion-europe) – please read it! – that ‘Cultural identities in Europe have been eroded to such a point that saying that Europe is based on Judeo-Christian values has become controversial. Any criticism of Islam in Europe is treated as a form of racism, and "Islamophobia" is considered a crime or a sign of mental illness. Islam has not melted into a smooth multiculturalism; it is creating increasingly distressing problems that are almost never brought to light.’

The Gatestone Institute’s publications contain many examples of such “distressing problems” that European elites prefer to ignore, not only problems that impact adversely on Jews, Christians, and state welfare systems themselves, but on women. The Swedish journalist Ingrid Carlquist, for instance, has written often of the blind eye turned by her country’s authorities towards sexual crimes against Swedish women committed by Muslim immigrants. A recent article (http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/6753/germany-migrants-demands) describes, inter alia, the despicable, male supremacist contempt for German women, including professionals trying to help them, displayed by Muslim arrivals in Germany.

As for polygamy, what Napoleon was not prepared to tolerate in Jews is being tolerated by supine governments throughout Western Europe, so long as it’s only Muslims who have more than one spouse. These polygamous unions, with all that they portend for the demography of the continent (some Muslim men in Britain, and no doubt in other foolish lands, have 20 children!), are made possible by the welfare payments paid to ostensibly single parent households (the households of the surplus wives). In Britain, several members of the House of Lords are currently warning of the horrendous effects of polygamy and of the discrimination suffered by Muslim women by sharia courts. (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/11952163/Muslim-men-having-20-children-each-because-of-polygamy-peer-claims.html).

“The Influence of European Mores Has Universally Prevailed”. O, the bitter, bitter irony!

“The Faith of Mohamad Has Risen With The Sword! We Want No Jews in Arab Palestine!” (Daphne Anson))

Last week, the Israeli prime minister’s spokesman Mark Regev spoke feelingly to American broadcaster Greta Van Susteren (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HkMPVOx4wyw) of “These mendacious allegations that somehow Israel is threatening the Muslim holy sites in Jerusalem when nothing can be further from the truth … Israel has meticulously always protected the holy sites of all faiths, but nevertheless the Islamic extremists were putting out these accusations, these conspiracy theories, about so-called Israeli intentions, and unfortunately they were echoed by the Palestinian Authority, by President Abbas and his people, and this created a crisis which fed the violence…”

These present events invoke the anti-Jewish rioting by Arabs that broke out in Eretz Israel in August 1929: Jerusalem on the 23^rd, Hebron on the 24^th, and Safed on the 29th. I once blogged about one woman’s reminiscences of the Hebron riots here, and gruesome reading they make (http://daphneanson.blogspot.com.au/2011/02/they-stuck-sword-down-his-wifes-throat.html). A video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3tMvGgCEx0) contains further testimony from survivors, and for the terrible details see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1929_Hebron_massacre.

The [London] Times (14 September 1929) contained a report by its Jerusalem-based “special correspondent” examining “The Outbreak and its Causes” of the riots, which happened, incidentally, when many senior members of the Mandate administration were on leave. “To understand the explosion in Palestine, it is necessary to review the immediate causes of the outbreak,” he began. “For convenience, the point of departure may be taken as Thursday, August 15, when the younger Zionists asked leave to celebrate the feast of Ab [Av], which commemorates the destruction of the Temple, by marching in procession to the Wailing [sic; Western] Wall and holding a service there. Previous requests had been refused. This year, though the Wailing Wall had become a bone of contention between Moslem and Jew, the request was granted, under certain restrictive conditions.”

He went on:

‘So on August 15 the Jews marched out escorted by the police, and in the Old City all went well. But at the Wall they broke the agreement, unfurled the Zionist flag, and sang the anthem “Hatikvah”. The Moslems were indignant and arranged a counter-demonstration for the morrow, which was the eve of the Prophet’s Birthday. After prayer in the Aksa Mosque they swarmed through the Bab-el-Magharba (Moorgate) to the Wailing Wall and marched along the Wall. They did no damage worth mention, and satisfied with this reprisal for what they deemed an encroachment on their rights, withdrew in good order into the sacred area about their chief mosques (the Haram esh Sherif [Temple Mount]).

On Saturday, the 17^th, at a Jewish football match, the ball was kicked into a beetroot patch belonging to a Moslem. It could not even be returned without a brawl. A Jew was stabbed, but the police prevented serious fighting. On the Saturday and Monday there was considerable effervescence in the city, but nothing occurred beyond some attacks on Arabs passing through the Jewish quarters to and from their villages. On Tuesday, the 20^th, the victim [Avraham Mizrachi] of the “football scrimmage” died in hospital, and the question of his funeral added a new complication. To avoid a collision efforts were made to get the Jews to bury him at dawn. The younger Jews refused, and demanded a processional funeral to the Wailing Wall. The authorities objected. Their view prevailed, and the Jews agreed to adhere to the traditional route past the Damascus Gate out to the cemetery at the foot of Mount Scopus, and to hold the funeral at 6 a.m. It was not until 10 a.m. that it started. All went well until the procession reached the Post Office where the street bifurcates. Here the younger Zionists tried to break the police cordon. The police resisted and several Jews were struck with batons. Eventually the procession was forced back on to the agreed route and the funeral ended quietly.

Thursday was outwardly calm, but there was electricity in the air. Towards evening groups of armed Moslems drifted in from Nablus and Bethlehem, and their convergence towards the Old City continued throughout the night and the next morning. It was known that trouble was brewing. The authorities, scenting danger, took the customary precautions, and brought in the armoured cars of the Royal Air Force from Amman to Ramleh.

As soon as the midday prayer was over the unprecedentedly large congregation tumbled out of the Haram into the Old City. The main body went towards the Jaffa Gate. All were armed. Many carried a miniature arsenal round their bodies; most had knives, and as they passed they brandished bludgeons and shouted excitedly. A group went to Herod’s Gate, where they murdered the Jewish lawyer Mr Wiener [London-born Harold Marcus Wiener, who in addition to being a lawyer was a biblical scholar and archaeologist], who had spent all his time and money in trying to reconcile Jew and Arab. At the Damascus Gate a Jewish family of four persons was brutally murdered by another group.

On reaching the Jaffa Gate the main body split up into two. One went towards the station, crossed the bridge and entered the old Montefiore quarter, where an orgy of crime ensued. Some seem to have returned to their villages after these exploits. But the rest, with the parties from the other gates, attacked Sheikh Badr and Mea Sh[e]arim, north of the New City, where they split again into bands which roamed over the quarter, leaving death and destruction in their wake. The situation was quite out of hand …’

So as well as summoning armoured cars from Ramleh and declaring a curfew, the authorities requested all British residents to enrol as special constables, and by 4 p.m. they had 100, including students and their principal from the Anglican theological college Wycliffe Hall, Oxford, who were visiting the Holy Land.

The Times correspondent continued:

‘By now bands of armed Arabs were roaming everywhere, attacking everyone who looked like a Jew. The Old City, however, was quiet. Towards evening the bands withdrew to the outskirts and “sniped” from the hills around the city. This continued all night – in fact, for several nights. The handful of British police and special constables had an exacting time. But what they lacked in numbers they certainly made up for in energy and influence, for no sooner did any of them appear than the looters made off.’

Reinforcements were rushed in from Egypt, and on Sunday a battalion of the South Wales Borderers arrived under Brigadier (later Lieutenant-General Sir) William Dobbie, who would subsequently play a key role in restoring order to Jaffa.

‘By this time Jerusalem was not the only storm centre,’ the correspondent reported. ‘Saturday morning saw riot and violence at Hebron, Ramleh, Lydda, Nablus, and Beisan. The worst excesses were at Hebron, where Jews were murdered with almost inconceivable brutality, and Kolonia, near Jerusalem, where the Jews were butchered and their farms set on fire. Into the flames were cast the bodies of two Jewish children who had already been killed. But once the troops arrived they averted fresh calamities.’ Had it not been evident by Friday, 30 August, that there were enough troops in Palestine equal to any eventuality, ‘the Friday prayer would have again been followed by rioting. That the day passed without any serious outbreak save at Safed showed that the crest of the outburst had passed.’

The correspondent stressed that he did not mean to usurp the role of the Commission of Inquiry, but nevertheless could not avoid making certain observations, which included:

‘That there has been Zionist provocation is certain, but nothing the Jews could have said or done could justify the utter brutality with which they were attacked. In the light, moreover, of one’s knowledge of what took place in Egypt in 1919, the way in which the Jerusalem affair was speedily followed by trouble in other places, and the infiltration of armed Moslems into the city on the eve of the outbreak, arouses more than a suspicion that there was some preconcerted plan. The activities of some of the more prominent Moslems, and notably by one of the Ulema [Islamic religious scholars], tend to confirm this impression…’

The Times later reported (11 November 1929) that, testifying before the Commission of Inquiry, Captain John Alexander Mulloy Faraday, assistant commissioner of police at Safed, where Arab violence towards Jews had broken out on 29 August, noted that although Safed was not “a Zionist town” and Jews had been living there for many years alongside Arabs, cries of “The faith of Mohamed has risen with the sword!” and “We want no Jews in Arab Palestine!” were among the sentiments hurled.

Food For Fairfax: Feiglin’s Fulminating Foes (Daphne Anson)

“We know no spectacle so ridiculous as the British public in one of its periodical fits of morality,” famously observed the nineteenth-century British historian and politician Lord Macaulay. These days, there is surely no spectacle more ridiculous than swarms of hard-core leftists across the Western world declaring their revulsion at “Islamophobia” and branding as “Fascists” or "Nazis" those worried about the spread of – er – Islamofascism. We’ve seen plenty of the latter type of ridiculosity here in Australia over recent days, in the wake of the latest jihadist atrocity to take place in this land.

Runners-up in the Aussie “ridiculous spectacle” stakes this week are the representatives of eleven leftist Jewish organisations: Aleph Melbourne; Ameinu Australia; Australian Reform Zionist Association; Habonim Dror Australia; Hashomer Hatzair Australia; Hineni Australia; Keshet Australia; Netzer Australia; New Israel Fund Australia; Progressive Judaism Victoria; and Melbourne’s Shira Hadasha Synagogue.

These have taken it upon themselves to fulminate about the forthcoming visit to Australia of the controversial Israeli political figure Moshe Feiglin, scion of a family well-known in the annals of Australian Jewry. He has been invited to address the Melbourne-based Beis Chabad Ohel Deborah. But instead of expressing their misgivings privately, much less waiting to learn precisely what Feiglin has to say before rushing to judgment, these eleven organisations have taken it upon themselves to stir the pot and court maximum publicity for themselves (and the Israel-demonising cause) by co-issuing a press release condemning the decision to invite him.

“Moshe Feiglin’s views on women, homosexuality and Palestinian citizens of Israel are inconsistent with Jewish values,” these eleven organisations thunder. “They have no place in a modern democracy such as Israel that was established on the principle of respecting the human rights of all its minorities.”

(Observes a prominent rabbi: “Let him speak in Australia and the community can respond. Australia is a robust democracy, it can handle diversity. I am sure Feiglin will not be as controversial as some groups hope.”)

Getting their fifteen minutes of fame via the self-indulgent press release are office-bearers of the organisations concerned, a mix of men and women.

People such as the president of New Israel Fund Australia: “The views of many people in the Australian Jewish community do not line up with Moshe Feiglin’s which is why it is important to point out when such anti-democratic values are being promoted. NIF is working hard in Israel to bring different sectors together, promote shared society and coexistence, and uphold the values of the Declaration of Independence.”

People such as the president of Keshet Australia: “The board of Keshet Australia, wishes to express our concern regarding the proposed visit by Mr Feiglin to Australia. Keshet aspires to encourage and teach inclusivity. Mr Feiglin’s philosophy is diametrically opposed to our core values. Mr Feiglin has expressed views which seek to oppose the inclusivity and rights of GLBT Jews. Keshet Australia believes his views are damaging and hurtful to people here and in Israel. We feel it is incumbent on us to highlight to the greater community that such views are not held or supported by most Jewish people in Australia or elsewhere.”

People such as the president of Progressive Judaism Victoria: “We are concerned about Mr Feiglin’s visit to Melbourne. He is a disruptive person in the Jewish world and shares few values with the Jewish community.”

People such as the acting president of the Australian Reform Zionist Association (ARZA): “ARZA Australia supports discussion about sensitive issues in Israel, including the treatment of minorities, the status of women and the issues of pluralism and sexual orientation. However, such discussions should be respectful and focussed on constructive dialogue. It is highly questionable if the views and presentation of Moshe Feiglin meet these basic criteria.”

(Indeed, the bloke who runs Aleph has fulminated additionally against the Jewish community’s representative bodies: “Any Holocaust denier or anti-Semite would be hounded out of town by the Jewish Community Council of Victoria and the Anti-Defamation Commission, yet despite these organisations calling for respect for LGBTIQ people, they have remained silent on this visit from a person who does not respect LGBTIQ people. That is unacceptable. This man represents intolerance and intolerance is unacceptable to a cohesive and safe community.”

[http://aleph.org.au/2015/10/09/mr-aleph-melbourne-expresses-alarm-at-melbourne-visit-by-moshe-feiglin]

I’m tempted to say, as would the late British film director Michael Winner in his catch-phrase: “Calm down, dear”. Anyway, according to this report http://www.smh.com.au/national/chabad-hosts-rightwing-israeli-extremist-moshe-feiglin-20151009-gk57pb.html the chairman of the ADL – a gung-ho supporter of Israel, so fear not, ladies and gentlemen – has expressed disapproval of Feiglin’s “misguided and divisive comments”.)

I hold no brief for Feiglin. But where were these concerned leftists and representatives of Progressive/Reform Judaism last year when, tossing female and LGBT equality aside, Australia’s largest Jewish congregation, Temple Beth Israel, hosted two representatives of the Islamic Research Education Academy (IREA), which is actively and centrally dedicated to da’wah – the proselytising of non-Muslims – to participate in a concert in the Temple last year? Where was their concern for “Jewish values” then?

As the Islamist pair’s subsequent remarks on social media showed, those two (whose views on women’s role and status and on gays would probably make Feiglin’s look like those of a Sensitive New Age Guy) could scarcely believe their luck in being given the opportunity to address a huge crowd of Jews, and their brothers in the IREA were suitably impressed.

An excoriating analysis of the Temple event appeared on the Jews Down Under site [http://jewsdownunder.com/2014/06/21/melbourne-jewish-temples-interfaith-deception/]. Written by Pam Hopf, it pointed out, inter alia, that a Temple description of the event went as follows: '[T]he second half of the concert took on a different dimension, bringing “something new to TBI’s sanctuary, the Muslim call to prayer, and a chanting of the 55th Surah of the Koran. With this recitation Abdul Aziz al Mathkour and Brother Waseem Razvi … revealed many points of commonality between Judaism and Islam in its languages and texts.”

As Ms Hopf observed: “Excuse my cynicism, but what points of commonality can possibly exist when Surah 55 describes how Muslim men will enjoy deflowering virgins in paradise, whilst the unbeliever will suffer the torments of hell. For a community that prides itself on being progressive, particularly with regard to gender issues, it’s hard to see how they can condone this Surah, especially as there is no promise that women can equally enjoy endless sex. The progressives constantly berate orthodox Jewry for separating men and women during prayer, yet apparently have no problem endorsing men using women for sex, which smacks of hypocrisy. Moreover, if they truly believe in interfaith tolerance, they should surely object to the fate that awaits non-Muslims....”

Regrettably, nobody from the Temple or from the Progressive/Reform organisations was man – or should I say woman? – enough to respond Ms Hopf’s reasonable and reasoned article (I know it was read), or to admit publicly that in its affront to feminine sensibilities the Temple had made an egregious mistake in inviting the two Islamists to participate. Yet imagine the furore that would erupt if a male Jew (Mr Feiglin perhaps?) wandered into the Temple and recited this traditional Orthodox morning recitation: "Blessed art thou, O Lord our God, King of the universe, who hast not made me a woman".

Incidentally, the IREA hit the headlines only last week, when the press – in IREA’s eyes unjustifiably dubbing it an “extremist” organisation – reported that it’s been on a da’wah mission at Deakin University’s Melbourne campus. That fact has not been lost on Paul Winter of Sydney, a Holocaust survivor and frequent contributor to the letters column of the Australian Jewish News. In deploring the press release put out against Feiglin by the eleven leftist organisations, Mr Winter comments on the antipodean new service J-Wire’s site [http://www.jwire.com.au/rlrvrn-organisations-object-to-feiglin-views/]: “Feiglin is indeed on the far right. So what? He is as entitled to his views as those on the far left… The signatories to the statement are beyond belief! We have Jews murdered in Israel, a junior jihadi murders a man in Sydney, the Islamic Research and Educational Academy holds a session in Deakin Uni and they say nothing … The statement is a sad reflection of a nasty social trend where the politically correct want to shout down anyone who does not toe their line. Feiglin is not coming to talk to Progressive Jews, but to Chabad. Don’t like him? Don’t go to his talk. And if the NIF is opposed to Feiglin, I’m for him. I believe Israel is living up to the promise of its Declaration of Indep[end]ence. I’ve read the document and I deplore NIF’s distorted interpretation of it.”

Observes another commenter: “I didn’t see a list of Jewish organisations issue statements and objections when [the NIF’s] Naomi Chazan was brought by organisations who support her views. Yet there are many organisations that would consider her views extremist, divisive, destructive, not in line with Jewish values, not constructive, not in sync with the majority of Australian Jews etc etc. These organisations [the eleven] cannot have it both ways. Free speech is OK until such time as the views of that free speech don’t sit comfortably with their ideals and therefore need to be shut down…”

And another: “The difference between Israeli society and Israel’s Arab neighbours is that Israel ostracized Moshe Feiglin, but if he held his views in Arab society he’d be called a moderate. SMH [Sydney Morning Herald, part of the Israel-bashing Fairfax newspaper empire] staff must be [overjoyed] at the opportunity to deride Feiglin. If only the SMH wrote about the contrast between Israel and her Arab neighbours with respect to the fact that Israel functions as an egalitarian society – women, LGBTs and all ethnicities are equally protected by law. Arabs have held high office. Jews who don’t ignore molehills such as Feiglin’s visit and contribute to the media’s anti-Israel opportunity should hang their idiotic heads in shame.”

Among the commenters on J-Wire are Michael Burd and Alan Freedman, who intend to interview Feiglin on their show on radio J-Air. Mindful of the damage the eleven have done in providing food – or should that be acting as fools? – for the eager consumption of the Fairfax press [http://www.smh.com.au/national/extremist-rightwing-israeli-politician-to-visit-synagogues-20151009-gk57pb.html] Burd writes: “You have to scratch your head whilst Israel is being vilified day and night in the media particularly by the Fairfax media these left wing loony Jews provide Fairfax’s SMH a free kick to publish more anti- Israel material … You have to ask do we really need Jews acting as Palestinian Useful Idiots. How does it help Israel’s cause particularly when one of the Looney groups NIF is one of the most controversial Jewish based anti-Zionist extremist organisation in [t]he world?”

Quite so, Mr Burd. Quite so.