Anti-Zionism’s Mask Falls
The first Saturday in September will see Israel’s national soccer team travel to Cardiff, the capital of Wales, for a vital qualifying game for next year’s European Championship in France. As is becoming the norm when any Israeli athletes travel abroad, the team will also face protests off the field, led by activists who believe that Israel has no right to compete internationally in the first place.UN-istan: occupation above and beyond morals and ethics
I mention this forthcoming event because one of the speakers addressing the anti-Israel rally outside the soccer stadium is Jeremy Corbyn, a far-left member of the U.K. parliament for the opposition Labour Party and, more importantly, the current front-runner in the battle for that party’s leadership. If Corbyn ends up winning the contest— triggered by the resignation of former leader Ed Miliband, following his poor showing in the U.K.’s general election earlier this year—we will have a vocal supporter of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement at the helm of one of Europe’s more august left-wing parties.
Corbyn is a patron of the U.K.’s pro-BDS Palestine Solidarity Campaign, which is well known for its anti-Semitic targeting of Israel through its constant comparisons of the Jewish state with Nazi Germany and apartheid-era South Africa. But that, arguably, is the least of it.
During the last week, Corbyn has been confronted in the media over his connections to a London-based Holocaust denier and “Palestine solidarity” activist named Paul Eisen. In the past, he has vocally defended Ra’ed Salah, the leader of the Islamic Movement in Israel, despite Salah’s endorsement of the anti-Semitic blood libel and his claim that Jews were warned in advance of the September 11, 2001 al-Qaeda terrorist atrocities. When Salah got into a legal tussle with the British authorities during an extended stay in the U.K., Corbyn urged a parliamentary inquiry into the influence of the “pro-Israel Lobby” on government policy. This sinister statement was made after it emerged that the Community Security Trust (CST), a professional and highly-respected body that deals with security for the U.K.’s Jewish community, had provided evidence of Salah’s toxic views to the government.
Now just consider the following before you decide how to do away with this insidious UN occupation.Edgar Davidson: Could this be the most obvious example yet of anti-Israel bias in news reporting?
During the Jordanian occupation, and following that Israel’s return of Jews to their lands, and after the PA was granted full administrative responsibilities under the Oslo Accords, it turns out that little industry has been created in “Palestine”; the UN-funded and UN-run education programme is a case study in mass indoctrination in hatred, racism and violence; the economy is kept alive by the UN thanks to the fact that the UN employs 25,000 locals to maintain the permanent refugee status of the local population; the UN provides the funding and training for the PA’s almost two dozen different internal and external security agencies; the UN runs many of the medical services and, if the PA’s own claims and that of the UN are to be believed, then even issues as basic as food, water supply and nutrition would be non-existent without the UN.
So it turns out the UN is the de facto government of “Palestine”. But since it hasn’t been elected to the post – any more than Mahmud Abbas has – we can rightly claim that “Palestine” is fully, totally, occupied by the UN. In terms of its security, economy, education, food, water, foreign policy, diplomatic cover – everything that makes a nation.
“Palestine” is UN-istan.
And it turns out that UN-istan is one of only a handful of countries that is NOT a member of the UN. Along with North Korea, among others…
Now THAT says a whole lot.
At roughly the same time today the following two international incidents happenedRadio gaga
1 North Korea fired a shell into South Korea. South Korea responded by firing missiles at where the shell was fired from
2 Syria (in the form of Iranian backed Islamic Jihad) fired 4 rockets into Israel. Israel responded with artillery fire at where the rockets were launched from.
Clearly these incidents were very similar - a terrorist regime launching an unprovoked attack against its democratic neighbour leading the latter to respond. The only qualitative differences were that
1 The South Korea response was far more 'disproportionate' (several missiles in response to a single shell) than Israel's (minor artillery shelling in response to 4 rockets)
2 The attack against Israel was far more serious and newsworthy because it was the most serious attack against Israel from Syria in many years and was authorised and funded by Iran at the very time the world is rewarding Iran with nuclear weapons and the ending of sanctions.
So how did the main stream media report these incidents?
- The attack on Israel was almost completely ignored - not a word on the BBC News or even its Middle East News website, while the Korea attack was covered everywhere.
- But, more important, look at how the only British newspaper to cover the Israel story (the Financial Times) described it compared to the way the Korea story was covered.
The ABC [Australia] has allowed Radio National to be used by fanatics pushing a virulently anti-Israel agenda
A series of programs on ABC Radio National, produced by a long-standing anti-Israel activist, has undermined the objectivity of the national broadcaster and exposed serious failings in its editorial process. The programs may also have put the ABC in breach of its statutory obligation of ‘maintaining independence and integrity’, and its Code of Practice requiring ‘impartiality’ in current affairs.
The programs, Jerusalem: a divine crime scene, and An unholy mix – Jerusalem, religion and archaeology, produced by former Greens Marrickville Councillor Cathy Peters, presented the views of a parade of veteran anti-Israel propagandists, whose unstated purpose was to discredit the historical connection between Jerusalem and the Jewish people, and to level an array of unchallenged and inaccurate accusations against Israel in the guise of expert analysis.
An editor’s note published online described Peters as a member of the NSW Greens, an executive member of the Coalition For Justice and Peace in Palestine and a member of Jews Against the Occupation. What the ABC failed to disclose is that Peters is also a fierce proponent of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel. She was the instigator of the 2010 Marrickville Council motion urging the Council to consider boycotting all goods made in any part of Israel, as well as Israeli artists, athletes and academics. The motion, which also called on state and federal governments to adopt BDS, provoked a surge of protest and derision, especially from ratepayers unimpressed that the Council was being used as a vehicle to prosecute a pet international cause of a few Councillors.