Is Corbyn an antisemite?

I’m only stating the obvious: freedom of speech is arguably the very basis of democracy. The right to speak one’s mind freely is a fundamental human right.

Sounds like a cliché, doesn’t it?  That’s because these concepts are so often used, misused and abused in modern political discourse.  We are so often bashed on the head with the term ‘human rights’ (often by dictators for whom the term has no real meaning) that we’ve come to accept it without question.  In fact, not everything we feel entitled to do is a ‘human right’; and even when it is, that does not mean that such right is unconstrained.

Our unquestioned human right ends where it impinges on another human right.  At that point, the two clashing rights need to be balanced; which is just another way of saying they need to be curtailed.

Freedom of speech is no different.  A fundamental right it may be, but it is far from absolute.  In fact, it is strictly curtailed, even in a democracy.  Because words have consequences.  In fact, words can kill.  The Talmud sages put that observation in a statement that loosely translates as

"Life and death by the power of the tongue."

In modern political thought, the textbook example is shouting ‘Fire!’ in a crowded theatre.  That ‘freedom’ is prohibited, because the ensuing stampede impinges on the right to live – and to live free of bodily harm.  For the same reason, incitement to violence (and not just the violence itself) is proscribed.

But the line is not drawn at bodily harm.  UK statutes outlaw speech that stirs up racial hatred (the so-called ‘hate speech’), even when the words did not actually result in violence.  That’s in recognition of the fact that not just people’s body needs to be protected, but also their spirit and dignity.  This is also why the UK has laws against defamation.

In both cases (hate speech and defamation), the law does not require proof of intent.  It is not concerned with the motivations behind the act, but with its (potential) consequences.

***

Having established that, let us now go to the (by now famous) fact that the UK Labour Party, while ostensibly agreeing with the Definition of Antisemitism published by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA), has deliberately not adopted the part which describes as antisemitic

"Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis."

Instead, Labour’s ruling body (the National Executive Committee – NEC) has introduced in its Code of Conduct the following statement:

"Discourse about international politics often employs metaphors drawn from examples of historic misconduct.  It is not antisemitism to criticise the conduct or policies of the Israeli state by reference to such examples unless there is evidence of antisemitic intent.  Chakrabarti [inquiry into antisemitism] recommended that Labour members should resist the use of Hitler, Nazi and Holocaust metaphors, distortions and comparisons in debates about Israel-Palestine in particular.  In this sensitive area, such language carries a strong risk of being regarded as prejudicial or grossly detrimental to the Party within Clause 2.I.8."

Contrary to what some Party spokespersons claim, the Labour Code of Conduct’s statement does not ‘expand’ the Definition – at least not in this respect; in fact, it clearly contradicts the Definition: where the IHRA Definition declares the Israeli-Nazi analogy a “[c]ontemporary example of antisemitism in public life”, the Code of Conduct says that “[i]t is not antisemitism […] unless there is evidence of antisemitic intent”.  That’s not saying much: surely anything is antisemitism if there is evidence of antisemitic intent.  But I struggle to understand what such evidence would be and how it could be obtained.  And why would the Labour Code suddenly become concerned with intent, rather than the consequences of the act?

So, is the Israel-Nazi analogy (or “metaphor”, as the Code of Conduct so poetically calls it) antisemitism, or is it not?

To avoid being accused of circular logic, I will deliberately not rely on the IHRA Definition.  Instead, I will use a definition of antisemitism proclaimed not by a supporter, but by a critic of the IHRA Definition. Former Court of Appeal judge Stephen Sedley defined antisemitism as follows:

"Shorn of philosophical and political refinements, anti-Semitism is hostility towards Jews as Jews. Where it manifests itself in discriminatory acts or inflammatory speech it is generally illegal, lying beyond the bounds of freedom of speech and of action."

Sedley, who is currently a Visiting Professor at Oxford University, is right to distinguish between immoral prejudice (“hostility”) and illegal acts, such as discrimination and hate speech.  But the fact that the former is allowed by law (i.e. it is within “the bounds of freedom of speech”) does not mean that it is acceptable.  Antisemitism is racism; profoundly immoral and therefore abhorrent.  If I were to use the ‘n-word’, I would not be imprisoned; but I would rightly be called a racist by every person of good character.

Neither the IHRA Definition, nor the Labour Code of Conduct deal with criminal offences; they are concerned with ethics, not law.

On the other hand, it is clear that in Professor Sedley’s view, discrimination and hate speech (whether they reach the legal threshold or not) are manifestations of antisemitism.  And therefore, they are in themselves evidence of antisemitism.

Those who insist that drawing the analogy is not antisemitic do so based on the assertion that Israel does similar things to those perpetrated by the Nazis.  For instance, Israel ‘occupies’ – and so did the Nazis; Israel ‘kills’ – and so did the Nazis; Israel ‘discriminates’, Israel ‘ethnically cleanses’, etc.

UK Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn compared the Israeli blockade of Gaza Strip with the Nazi sieges of Stalingrad and Leningrad, which killed millions of people.

Let us move away from the debate of whether Israel actually does those things and whether some or all of them are justified in the circumstances.  Such debate would not only be endless, but also irrelevant.  Personally, I do believe that many of the accusations against Israel are at best distortions and at worst amount to hate speech.  However, that’s not my point here; my point is that, even if everything that Corbyn claims Israel does were true, the Nazi analogy would still constitute antisemitism – because it is employed in an incendiary and discriminatory fashion.

Because what is clear is that Israel is hardly the only country that perpetrates those things.  There are many territories that are ‘occupied’; more Palestinians have been killed by other Arabs than by Israel; extensive ethnical cleansing occurred in ex-Yugoslavia, Cyprus and in many other conflicts, etc.  Not one thing that Israel did and does is really unique; similar (and much worse) acts have been committed by other nations.

Yet the Nazi analogy is almost never employed in relation to other nations.  EU member state Croatia has an incontestable history of collaboration with the Nazi regime that far exceeds even Ken Livingston’s most outrageous accusations against ‘the Zionists’.  The establishment of modern Croatia involved war and the forced expulsion or flight of most of the Serbian population of that territory.  Yet Croatia is not accused of ‘behaving like the Nazis’ – not by Corbyn and not with his support, anyway.

In practice, Israel is the only entity against which that particular analogy is so often and so vigorously deployed.  It is hardly ever used with regard to Assad (who has butchered hundreds of thousands of people, including using chemical and incendiary weapons); or even with regard to Islamic State – a supremacist ‘Caliphate’ with global ambitions, guilty of exterminating entire populations.

Whatever one chooses to accuse Israel of ‘committing’ – the fact of discrimination remains: Jeremy Corbyn and his supporters are more exercised about Israel than about any other topic in international politics – bar none; and the Nazi analogy is the obvious expression of that unparalleled hostility.

Why Nazis, though?  Of course, Nazis are themselves a “metaphor” of ultimate evil.  But it’s more than that.  It is not by chance that the event that Jeremy Corbyn facilitated in 2010 in the Houses of Parliament took place on Holocaust Memorial Day; it is not by chance that Jeremy Corbyn and his best mate John McDonnell also wanted to take out the term ‘Holocaust’ from the ‘Holocaust Memorial Day’.  This is not ‘just’ about the Nazis in 1930s – it’s of course about the Holocaust.  The Israel-Nazi analogy is employed not despite, but because Jews were the Nazis’ quintessential victims.  Israelis are compared to Nazis because they are Jews.

This has two subliminal motivations:

Firstly, for antisemites, the Holocaust has always been the ultimate reproach, the pointing finger exclaiming ‘this is what you did!’ and causing some nagging feelings of guilt.  The Israel-Nazi analogy is an attempt to push back against that guilt.  If Jews (or at least ‘some Jews’) can be shown to be ‘just like the Nazis’, then there is less of a reason to feel bad for harbouring feelings of hostility against them.

Secondly, the accusation of ‘behaving just like Nazis’ is likely to be more painful for Jews than for anyone else.  Being called a Nazi is a grave insult for any normal person; but for Jews, who lost a third of their number to Nazi crimes, it is devastating.  Arguably no other accusation can be equally shocking for a Jew.  Those who use that particular analogy do so knowing that it causes the ultimate, most unbearable type of pain and distress.

***

Jeremy Corbyn is an antisemite; the Labour Party – with its current membership – is riddled with antisemites, including at its highest levels; the Code of Conduct condones antisemitic prejudice, even while paying lip service to anti-racism.

But it’s more than that: the Israel-Nazi analogy is not ‘just’ antisemitism; it is in fact Holocaust inversion – the ultimate, most pernicious form of Holocaust denial.  It does not deny that the Holocaust actually happened; but, by pretending that the victims can just as well be the perpetrators, it robs it of any moral significance; it kicks the Holocaust into the swamp of moral relativism, there to sink among other ordinary (and debatable) historical episodes.  Changing the name of the Memorial Day is part of the same pattern: the Holocaust thus becomes just a (non-particular) genocide in an ocean of genocides.

Jackie Walker (a devoted Corbyn friend and supporter)
claims that the Jews were responsible for the
Atlantic slave trade and for the ‘African holocaust’.

All this is not ‘just’ an attack on Israel, or an assault on Jews’ connection to the Jewish state; it is not even an ‘intellectual’ pogrom à la Bruno Bauer or Karl Marx.  No, it’s more than that: it is an attack on what it means to be Jewish in the 21 century; an onslaught upon the very soul of the Jewish people.

Burkini Ban, Burkina Faso & Israel

Mao Zedong decreed that everybody should dress the same in China. 

I don’t like burqas; just as I did not like the choke-collar suits of Maoist China, the black garb of Charedi Jews or the tophats City bankers wore until not that long ago.

I don’t like them, mostly because I feel that people should not be regimented.  Wearing a uniform is loss of freedom, just like being in the army or in prison.  Plus, people wearing that kind of garb seem to be yearning to go backwards – to 7^thcentury Arabia or to 17^th century Poland – rather than forwards.

In recent weeks, several municipalities in France have decreed a ‘burkini ban’ – meaning that women using public beaches are fined if they wear that ‘Islamised’ type of costume.  Even more recently, a French ‘administrative court’ – whatever that is – has banned the ban.  Yet, apparently, the story is not over yet: some of the mayors involved (and quite a few national politicians who jumped on the bandwagon) have vowed to overturn the suspension that suspended the ban that banned the burkini… you know how it goes!

Even some burqa-inspired garb looks
trendy when Italians design it! 

Well, I may not like burqas (or indeed burkinis); but the idea of a ban is wrong, stupid and – perhaps worst of all – a populist distraction from the real issues.

It’s wrong because, just as people should not be told what clothes to wear, they shouldn’t be told what not to wear.  It is even more wrong because one particular distinctive garb was singled out and banned.  Yes, I know there are ‘reasons’ – there always are; but no: there are no excuses for double standards.  Or, rather, there are only dishonest excuses.

The burkini ban is stupid, because it completely lacks purpose.  What exactly is it supposed to achieve?  Will it prevent the radicalisation of young Muslims?  How exactly?  Which of France’s recent terrorist attacks would have been prevented, had the burkini bans been in place?

Finally – and worst of all – the burkini ban is a populist distraction.  This trifle of an ‘issue’ deflects attention from the very real and grave concerns: the radicalisation of young Muslims, the religious extremism which begets intolerance and terrorism.

The ban is not just a golden opening for political demagogues – of every tinge – to burnish their credentials; it’s also a cop out for everybody: an excellent excuse to duck the real challenges, while furiously debating a marginal issue.  What a superb opportunity for doing nothing – with great determination!

Even worse – the motivations are, let’s face it, obviously racist.  Granted, there was no obligation for the French state to open its borders and its population registry to a wide variety of people – including some who have not exactly been raised up in the spirit of  ‘liberté, egalité, fraternité’.  But once they did let them in, once they recognised them as French citizens, they can’t tell them what they are allowed to wear, now can they?

‘Special laws’ for one category of people?  Haven’t we seen that before, somewhere?  A bylaw is still a law.  And singling out one particular category of French citizens deserves just one name: no, it’s not ‘love of nudity’ – it’s ‘naked racism’!

Nor am I particularly surprised: in the latest elections for the European Parliament, the far-right Front National won a third of the votes.  And those European Elections took place in 2014, before the latest bout of jihadist terrorism that hit France.  (Contrary to popular belief, the fully proportional European Parliament elections are the best indicator of people’s real political opinions, which are masked by plurality election systems based on geographic constituencies.)

So much for the far-right.  There is, of course, quite a bit of far-left racism in France (and elsewhere in Europe).  In the process of crowning them as ‘oppressed’ and hence in perpetual need of their rights being ‘defended’ by Good (Marxist) Samaritans, the far-left denies Muslims their God-given agency; it infantilises them.  When it comes to Muslims, far-rightists demand a higher standard than for anyone else; far-leftists set the standards lower than for anyone else.  Both positions are racist because both deny Muslims their status as equal members of the human race – with the same rights and obligations everyone else has.

Prefers not to wear hijab (but wouldn’t be fined if she did):
Noura Abu-Shanab, an Arab Israeli and captain
of the women football team Hapoel Petah Tikva. 

Sure, France has seen quite a bit of Islamist terrorism; but Israel has seen more.  Circa 7.5% of French citizens are Muslims; the proportion is roughly 3 times larger in Israel.  And yet, in Israel not even the far-right tries to control how Muslims dress.

If you are a Muslim in Israel, you are entitled to have your personal status matters (such as marriage and divorce) adjudicated according to Shari’a – the Islamic law.  The qadis (traditional Islamic judges) receive their salaries from the state budget, as do the dayanim – their Judaic counterparts; and the Jewish State will apply the decision of the Shari’a court just as it does with that of a Beth Din – the traditional Rabbinical court.  French Muslims can only dream of that level of freedom and consideration.

An Israeli beach: the way to heaven is a matter of opinion...

And yet, it is the French government that, every year, is paying a lot of money to far-left Israeli organisations dedicated to inspecting ‘human rights’ in Israel.  That money, it turns out, would be put to much better use, were it invested in France.  There is, it seems obvious, a lot to be done to root out extremism and racism from the French society – both Muslims and non-Muslims.  Perhaps Israel – a good friend of that troubled country – should weigh in to prop up the increasingly shaky French democracy?  Lest it becomes more like – say – Burkina Faso?

FIFA, shm-IFA

To those of us lucky enough to live in free countries, the word ‘elections’ is full of positive connotations; it brings to mind democracy and freedom of choice.  But for that majority of the world population straining under totalitarian rule, ‘election’ means worse than an exercise in futility: it adds insult to injury by throwing the mockery of freedom in the face of those who have none.  The recent FIFA ‘elections’ fell precisely in that category.  More than 200 national football associations were represented and could vote in those elections; but, with the exception of a minority – those originating from the Free World – those associations are nothing but branches of totalitarian regimes.  They do not care about sport, about football; they are there to defend the political interests and boost the stature of the ruling regimes.

Little wonder, therefore, that FIFA is corrupt to the bone – so are the regimes themselves.  Little wonder that, despite the recurring, grotesque, enormous scandals, the same President has been re-elected over and over again with the votes of the unfree, heading FIFA’s ruling junta for almost two decades; after all, isn’t this precisely how things are done in dictatorships??

But if you think that FIFA is the most scandalous case – think again.  This is not an exception – it is the norm in ‘international bodies’ in which democracies and dictatorships are ‘represented’ and vote on equal footing.  It is the norm, for instance, in each and every one of United Nations’ many assemblies, councils, commissions and committees.  If you think that it is ridiculous for FIFA to re-elect a President on whose watch corruption has reached gargantuan proportions, then have a look at these ludicrous (nay, tragic!) facts: the current membership of the ‘United’ Nations Human Rights Council (yes, Human Rights!) includes Saudi Arabia, Qatar, China, Russia, Morocco, Algeria, Vietnam, Cuba...  These ‘human rights luminaries’ far outnumber democracies like UK, France and Netherlands and practically drive the agenda of the Council.  In 2014, the ‘Islamic Republic’ of Iran was elected (by fellow tyrannical regimes) to sit on the UN Commission for the Status of Women!  I mean Iran – where women are harassed on the streets by the ‘morality police’ and where the ‘law’ prescribes 70 lashes or 60 days in prison for women ‘revealing in public’ more than their hands and faces!

When at the ‘United’ Nations abhorrent oppressors are in charge of ‘human rights’ and male supremacists hold sway on the status of women, are you still surprised that they set the tone at FIFA??

Blatter has now resigned; there’s at least a chance that FIFA will be cleaned up.  But the much more influential ‘United’ Nations will remain un-purged, mired in deeply entrenched, cynical, disgusting immorality.

And why is this happening?  Needless to say, the fault lies with the dictators, with the tyrants themselves; but they could not do it alone – not without accomplices.  Those accomplices are the ‘leaders’ of democratic nations, who – rudderless in the ocean of moral relativism – keep ‘engaging' with the despots, in effect collaborating with them to the point of handing them control over international institutions.  'Engaging'???  We would never contemplate thieves acting as judges and murderers sitting on a jury; we wouldn’t even countenance crooks on the Board of a commercial company.  Yet we allow them to call the shots not just at FIFA, but – appallingly – at the ‘United’ Nations.  And it is not that we can’t do anything about it, no: we actually hold the power!  In fact, it is the democratic, free world that typically provides the funds that allow those institutions – whether FIFA or the UN – to function.

Between 2011 and 2014, FIFA received revenues of $5.7 billion – more than the annual economic output of the African nation of Togo.  But, trust me, it did not come from Togo!  FIFA says that it got the money by selling television rights (43%), marketing rights (29%) and ‘other revenue’ (28%).  And who pays for television and marketing rights?  I doubt that Togo’s national broadcaster Télévision Togolaise can pay for a minute of Sepp Blatter’s time, let alone a minute of a World Cup match.  No, friends, it is us, the inhabitants of the Free World, who are – indirectly but very, very dearly – paying the lion’s share of FIFA’s money.  It is we who fund the broadcasters that pay for television rights; it is to us that World Cup sponsors sell their goods.

The situation is not much different at the ‘United’ Nations.  In 2014, the ‘United’ Nations voted itself an annual budget of $5.5 billion.  This is the so-called ‘core budget’, as it does not include non-core business such as peace-keeping ($7 billion), as well as a host of other expenses separately funded by member states.

Some Nations are more 'United' than others...

And who coughs up the dosh?  You got it, friends: it’s us!  USA alone supplies 22% of UN’s money.  And by the time one adds Japan, Canada, Australia, South Korea and the top 6 European countries, the Free World’s bill easily exceeds two-thirds of the ‘United’ budget.

And what does all that mean?  Well, I hate to break it to you, folks: it means we’re all in the dock; we’re in cahoots with criminals, we are their enablers.  Whether we like it or not, we did not just provide the money that allowed Sepp Blatter to run his MaFI(F)A; shockingly, we pay for the mockery that is the ‘United’ Nations.

Revolting as you may find it, we share the guilt.  Whenever another Saudi citizen is denied his/her rights, tortured or executed (90 have been ‘legally’ beheaded so far in 2015), a bit of that sweat and blood is on our heads; after all, it is with our money that the Saudi ‘representative’ (some ‘Prince’ or other – no princesses allowed) was enthroned at the ‘United’ Nations Human Rights Council, there to shield his medieval monarchy from well-deserved opprobrium.

Sorry, folks: I know it is not us ordinary Joes; it’s the bloody politicians who choose to cavort with tyrants.  But we elected the politicians; and we allow them to do it.  And as long as we do that, as long as we remain silent while our hard-earned money enables the crimes, we shoulder a portion of their guilt.  Can you feel it, my brothers, my fellow men?  Can you feel the humiliation of the Iranian woman harangued in the middle of the road and told to dress as a black walking coffin – or else?  Can you sense the desperation of the Tibetan monk who immolates himself to protest Chinese oppression?  Can you hear the silent scream of the emaciated immigrant worked to death in Qatar?

If you do – if, like me, you are sick of seeing your money misused and your goodwill abused, your conscience soiled and your intelligence mocked – then tell your politicians how you feel about it.  Let them know that if they keep robbing us of what we most cherish – our integrity – we’ll deprive them of what they most desire: their power.

Of German Bishops and Jewish Pawns

I ended a recent article by turning the spotlight on the multitude of foreign-sponsored Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) operating in Israel; at the time, I promised to address the issue in more detail.  So here it is.

Despite the pretence, the ‘Israeli NGOs’ are neither ‘Israeli’ nor ‘Non-Governmental’: although operating in Israel, they depend on foreign funding, including directly and indirectly by foreign governments – especially those from the European Union.  In short, they are not ‘Israeli NGOs’, but Foreign Political Subversion Groups (FPSG) – and this is how I’ll refer to them henceforth.

There are tens if not hundreds of ‘Israeli’ FPSGs – more than in any other part of the world and certainly more than anywhere else in the Middle East.  Saudi Arabia practises a particularly abhorrent form of gender apartheid; it currently occupies Bahrein and is systematically bombing neighbouring Yemen (which committed no act of aggression against Saudi Arabia), causing many hundreds of civilian victims.  Yet it is not the Saudi absolute monarchy, but the Israeli democracy that European money is trying to undermine.

In a previous piece, I described ICAHD, Jeff Halper’s neo-Marxist groupuscule, which proposes to dissolve the State of Israel into a ‘regional entity’ to include also the West Bank, Gaza, Jordan, Syria and Iraq.  But let’s take this time a different (or, on second thought, not that different!) example: an FPSG called ‘Zochrot’.  Its website claims that the organisation militates for

“Return of the Palestinian refugees [and descendants thereof, in perpetuity] to their country on the basis of acknowledgement and accountability, coupled with a joint Jewish-Palestinian process of restitution founded on the principles of transitional justice.”

The website makes it clear (as if it were necessary) that the “joint Jewish-Palestinian process” is really a one-way street: “acknowledgement”, “accountability” and “restitution” are due only from Jews to Palestinians.

What that would imply is described by the founders of Zochrot in the following terms:

“Jews relinquish sovereignty, exclusive control over the country, the guaranteed Jewish majority.  After more than 100 years of socialization to Zionism, that will require courage and daring.  When the refugees return, Jews will become a minority in the country.  Israel as a Jewish state will change radically, and it will no longer be defined as such.  Jews will no longer be able to determine their future, and that of the Palestinians, by themselves.  They will have rights as a minority in a democracy, but also many constraints.”

"A minority in a democracy"...  Oh, so quite unlike the Yazidis in Iraq, the Baha'i and the Sunnis in Iran, the Shi'a in Saudi Arabia, the Alawites in Syria, the Kurds in Iraq, or indeed the Christians and the Jews themselves all over the Arab Middle East!

And what will the Palestinians have to do to make that heavenly dream come true?  Why, they will also be required to make a huge sacrifice: they’ll have to agree to live together with Jews!  Or, as Zochrot's founders put it:

“Palestinians, for their part, will have to relinquish the materialization of their dream of a lost paradise.  The mythological Palestine, in which all was wonderful, will never return, and will exist only in the world of memory and yearning.  For Palestinians, living with Jews means living with the occupier, with those who expelled most of their countrymen.  This is a tremendous challenge for someone whose land was occupied, and who would certainly have preferred the occupier to simply disappear, evaporate.  That won’t happen.”

But, lest the Palestinians should worry too much about “living with the occupier” who won't "simply disappear, evaporate", Zochrot’s founders are quick to re-assure them: ‘don’t worry, not all Jews will stay’:

“There may be Jews, most of them of European origin, who won’t be able to adjust to a non-Zionist reality, and prefer to use their other passport to move elsewhere, but many will remain – among them those who simply have nowhere else to go, or don’t have the resources to leave.”

A heaven-on-earth inhabited by 'Palestinian refugees' (the vast majority born, bred and educated in Arab countries for 2-3 generations) and Jews who "have nowhere else to go".  All living together in angelic harmony, just like different peoples do in Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Libya, Sudan...

One of Zochrot’s ‘partners’ (‘accomplices’ may be a better description) has produced a disturbing Youtube video entitled ‘The Holocaust’s Visit to Yad Vashem’.  In it, she plays the role of a personified Holocaust.  Addressing the Jews, ‘the Holocaust’ berates them:

“I am the Holocaust… the best thing that ever happened to whom?... to you.  […]  Thanks to me you have a country… Thanks to me and only me you have an army…There is no one more responsible for your success than whom?…than me.  [… touching her nether parts]  This is the cunt that dropped you into Palestine!”

The video was produced with the ‘generous collaboration’ of Zochrot: the outfit’s founder played one of the characters, while another Zochrot member acted as cameraman and editor.

But, standards of sanity and normal behaviour notwithstanding, Zochrot’s mercenaries are certainly not starving.  In fact, the group is funded by a number of foreign organisations – some of them (unsurprisingly?) German.  Among them is Misereor, which introduces itself as ‘the German Catholic Bishops’ Organisation for Development Cooperation’.  It is hard to understand what ‘development’ opportunity have the good bishops identified in Zochrot; what persuaded them to ‘charitably’ give it EUR 115,000 in the first quarter of 2015 alone.  But it is not so difficult to track the source of the money: as Misereor proudly boasts on its website, two thirds of its budget comes from the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development, which

“every year […] provides it with considerable sums of tax monies”.

The same website further informs us that

“This cooperation [between the Federal Ministry and Misereor] is based on mutual trust, and two principles: The German Development Ministry has pledged not to tie these monies to political conditionalities.  At the same time it must be ensured that no pastoral or missionary measures, which in any case are not included in MISEREOR’s mandate, are promoted with public funds.”

It seems that portraying today’s Jews as demonic creatures spawned by the Holocaust violates no “political conditionality”; nor does it qualify as “pastoral or missionary”.  So why wouldn’t the German taxpayer fund such worthy endevour??

Karl Marx famously argued that ‘religion is the opium of the people’.  But modern European far-leftists often find opium – and just about anything that gets you high – of great help.  Hence, it is perhaps no surprise to find alongside ‘the German Catholic Bishops’ Organisation for Development Cooperation’ a think-tank called ‘Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung’, belonging to the far-left German political coalition ‘Die Linke’.  Yes, Die Linke – the political successor of the communist party which ruled East Germany in the good ol' days of the Berlin Wall.  The think-tank sees itself as

“part of the intellectual current of democratic socialism”

As democratic, we would opine, as the Deutsche Demokratische Republik and as ‘socialist’ as the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei.

The National… err… excuse me… the Democrat Socialists have only made a small financial contribution to the ‘cause’: they provided Zochrot with a rather meagre quarterly handout worth 20,000 Israeli Shekels.

But do not worry, folks – no Jew-hater shall be left to starve.  And since the Germans fell short of keeping Zochrot in the style they've become accustomed to, in stepped the British charity Oxfam; after all, this is an organisation which purports to help the poor!  Oxfam assures its donors that

“For every £1 you give to Oxfam, 82p goes directly to emergency, development and campaigning work”.

I am left wondering whether paying off self-hating Jews falls under ‘development’ or ‘campaigning’.  It’s certainly not ‘emergency’; I’m sure that the 25,000 Israeli shekels given by Oxfam to Zochrot in 2014 will be sorely missed in Nepal, Syria and a hundred other places.  In case you wonder where the money came from, I can tell you that in 2013/2014 almost half of Oxfam’s income (roughly £400 million) were supplied by the British taxpayer, through Her Majesty’s Government and other public authorities.  Oxfam, by the way, spent in the same year less than £270 million on ‘charitable activities’.  Which according to my – admittedly poor – knowledge of non-Oxfamian arithmetics is less than 70p in every £1; not 82, then, but hey-ho…

Zochrot is not the only outfit that benefits from Her Majesty’s Government’s largesse (or, rather, from the hard-earned money of the British taxpayer).  Plenty of FPSGs do.  Sometimes the funds are paid directly by British governmental agencies; at other times indirectly, through the ‘good offices’ of various charities.  Some FPSGs overtly proclaim their ludicrous aims; others (think B’tselem, Gisha, Ir Amim, etc. etc.) are somewhat more skilled at camouflaging it under a layer of ‘humanitarian’ buzzwords.  But, however proficient at concealing the source of funding and their true aims, all FPSGs share some common ‘DNA’.

Firstly, they focus primarily – and obsessively – on the Arab-Israeli conflict (and especially on relations between Israel and the Palestinian Arabs), expounding positions ranging from extreme anti-Zionism to just-short-of Zionism; in consequence, they are harshly critical of Israel’s government (or rather of Israeli governments – left, right and centre) and often also of Israel as a country.  They tend to be driven by far-left or extreme-left ideologies.

Secondly, they operate outside the normal framework of the Israeli political life.  Since they command the allegiance of much less than 1% of the Israeli electorate, they stand no chance of being represented in the country’s 120-strong parliament.  Incapable of generating support for their ‘causes’ among the Israeli populace (beyond a tiny number of activists), these outfits have, in practice, given up on trying to democratically persuade their countrymen.  It is not the Israeli public opinion that they are trying to influence; rather, their purpose (sometimes openly declared, otherwise just obvious from their activity) is to persuade foreigners.  In their twisted world, it is foreigners – people who do not live, do not pay taxes and do not vote in Israel – that should determine the country’s future, by ‘applying pressure’ on the Israeli government – i.e. the government elected by those who live, pay taxes and vote in Israel.  If you think that is stridently anti-democratic – I certainly can’t blame you!

The FPSGs share also a very particular modus operandi: their ‘activity’ (directed, as explained above, at foreign audiences) consists of writing ‘reports’ (quickly translated into English, of course), providing press releases and interviews to gullible and/or biased foreign journalists, delivering presentations, organising 'field tours' and providing other types of ammunition to anti-Israel foreign audiences.

All of the above, of course, needs to be harshly critical of Israel; the more over-the-top the criticism – the better the chances of continued and ‘upgraded’ funding.  After all, if foreign meddlers are to be persuaded to throw big money at the Israeli problem – it better be a big problem!

A friend once asked me, astounded: “How come that there are so many Jews and even Israeli Jews who take the side of Israel’s enemies?”

To start with, they are not ‘many’ at all.  In fact, they are a tiny – if noisy – minority, inhabiting the remote fringes of Jewish and Israeli public opinion.  The reason that there are so many FPSGs is simply extreme fragmentation: each small groupuscule typically establishes its own ‘organisation’, claiming to focus on one particular issue: house demolitions, freedom of access to Gaza, ‘settlements’ in East Jerusalem, etc. etc.  Not only does this create the illusion of ‘many’ voices, but – as these mercenary ‘activists’ have learned – it enables them to attract more foreign funding.  Often, ‘career activists’ migrate from one FPSG to another, following the smell of foreign money: several of Gisha’s leading activists, for instance, have previously done a stint with B’tselem…

But, ‘many’ or not, how come that such opinions exist among Jews and Israelis?  Well, why should that come as any surprise?  There will always be – among Gentiles as well as Jews – odd people who say and do strange things.  There were Africans who sold their brethren into slavery; there were (few, but there were) black Americans who opposed the abolition of slavery; a few South-African blacks supported the apartheid; a handful of Brits vied for Hitler; there was even an Italian Jew among the founders of Mussolini’s fascist movement.  In democratic, open-to-the-point-of-foolishness Israel, even aberrations are free to exist and express themselves unhindered.

A better question is: why do European governments fund FPSGs?  Why do they foment sedition against the elected government of a fellow democracy?  Why is it, for instance, that the British government pays money to fringe political causes in a foreign country – especially one endowed with its own sturdy democratic institutions?

According to NGO Monitor, an organisation led by Gerald Steinberg, Professor of Political Science, and founder of the Program on Conflict Management and Negotiation:

“The British government provides millions of pounds annually, through direct and indirect funding processes, to highly politicized NGOs (non-governmental organizations) that operate in the UK, Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza.

NGO Monitor has written to the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office, enquiring about the British involvement.  In its response, the FCO claimed that

“The UK Government does not support the BDS movement, [...] we have been very clear that the boycotts movement is not productive [...] it could be deeply corrosive.”

But NGO Monitor notes that, despite its statement

“[…] the British government partners with and supports NGOs that undermine peace efforts and increase tensions. For instance, some UK-funded organizations pursue partisan and divisive agendas, are heavily involved in ‘lawfare’ and BDS (boycott, divestment and sanctions) campaigns, and employ the rhetoric accusing Israel of ‘apartheid’, ‘ethnic cleansing’, and ‘war crimes’.”

NGO Monitor further complains about lack of transparency:

“Information on projects funded by the Department for International Development (DFID – ‘UK Aid’) is available in a projects database.  However, local NGO recipients, which receive UK funds via international organizations, appear anonymously as ‘civil society organizations / NGOs’ (‘Supplier Name Withheld’)”.

‘Supplier Name Withheld’??  Why the secrecy?  NGO Monitor has eventually gained access to some of the information, but only through a decision of the UK Information Commisioner’s Office (ICO), after the Foreign & Commonwealth Office (FCO) refused to honour a Freedom of Information request.

It should come as no surprise that the FCO is less than willing to reveal its financial dealings in Israel; they are not exactly ‘kosher’.  The British government would not dream of funding pro-Basque or pro-Catalan political activities in Spain; it does not even dare criticise the blatant anti-Roma policies of fellow European governments.  Her Majesty’s Government (and, quite rightly, Her Majesty’s subjects) would take a very dim view of Israel, if it were to – say – fund the SNP, or the Scottish ‘Yes Campaign’; yet the same government allocates money to radical political movements in Israel!

And if you are naïve enough to believe that the money comes with no strings attached, let me assure you that quite the opposite is true: in order to partake of the European ‘generosity’, the FPSGs are required to sign contracts, committing themselves to rendering certain ‘services’; which include (nay, consist of) bashing the Israeli government, the Israeli Army, the Israeli Courts of Law and Israel in general.

Take, for instance, an FPSG called ‘Breaking the Silence’.  It presents itself as

“an organization of veteran combatants who have served in the Israeli military”,

the implication being that they are patriots.  Yet among its ‘partners’ one finds good ol’ ICAHD – the FPSG that wants to dissolve the State of Israel and replace it with an Arab-majority ‘regional entity’…

‘Breaking the Silence’ is paid not to perform unbiased, honest research, but specifically to obtain and provide ‘negative testimonies’ from (anonymous!) Israeli soldiers who (so ‘Breaking the Silence’purports) participated in military operations in Gaza.

According to Deloitte, which audited its finances, the ‘Breaking the Silence’ signed an agreement with Oxfam UK, committing to interview ”as many soldiers as possible”; but not just any ol’ soldiers, no.  Apparently, Oxfam is only interested in soldiers that testify regarding “immoral actions” that violate human rights.  Oxfam has zero interest in soldiers (the vast, overwhelming majority) who testify about moral behaviour by the IDF; such testimonies won’t satisfy Oxfam and, hence, won’t earn ‘Breaking the Silence’ any money.

The purpose of bashing Israel is even clearer when the funds are channeled through Palestinian organisations.  Thus, in August 2014, the Human Rights and International Law Secretariat (a Palestinian organisation jointly funded by Sweden, Switzerland, Denmark and the Netherlands) contracted nine FPSGs – including Breaking the Silence and B’tselem – to document “human rights and international humanitarian law violations during the course of Israel’s ongoing military offensive on the Gaza Strip.”

In the case of B’tselem, by the way, the Palestinians are not just paymasters; they also perform the actual work of ‘documenting’ Israel’s ‘violations’.  Indeed, a visit to the FPSG's website reveals that all its ‘field researchers’ are… Palestinians; on the other hand, all three B’tselem activists engaged in ‘International Relations’ have Jewish names.  The same is true, for instance of Yesh Din – yet another FPSG.  Thus, B’tselem’s and Yesh Din's ‘reports’ are paid by Palestinians, concocted by Palestinians and only ‘packaged’ as ‘Israeli’ for the benefit of naïve ‘internationals’.  If you think that this is unethical and stinks rather strongly of collaboration with the enemy, I can’t fault either your moral compass or your sense of smell.  Had some Palestinians behaved in a remotely similar fashion, they would have been executed as ‘collaborators’; but in the gullible, biased and ideologically-ossified minds that populate the likes of BBC and The Guardian, Israeli collaborators assume the role of ‘Israel’s conscience’!

As a democracy, Israel should be (and very much is!) open to criticism; but it should not be a push-over.  The very meaning of democracy is, after all, that it is the people that make the decisions.  ‘The people’ as in ‘those who live, pay taxes and vote in that country’.  To preserve that basic tenet, a democracy has the right (nay, has the duty!) to defend itself – not just against the overt enemies who want to physically overwhelm it, but also against the false friends that attempt to insidiously undermine it.  It is high time Israel told Europeans, in no uncertain terms, to mind their own bloody business.  And their own (literally!) bloody conscience.

A tale of two systems: general elections in UK and Israel

A few months ago, I was invited to make a presentation on some ‘hot’ political topic in the West Midlands, in front of an audience made up of local Labour Party activists.  During the Q & A session that followed, I happened to mention the concept of ‘democracy’.  One of the participants intervened: “The question is”, he pompously intoned, gazing down at me along his nose, “what is democracy, actually?  We cannot impose our Western views on other people.  What we see as democracy, other nations may see as something else – and the other way around”.

Whether born of sheer ignorance or moral relativism, such thinking (or lack thereof) is not uncommon among activists, journalists, politicians and even professional diplomats.

Take, for instance, the opinion of Andrew Green, a former British Ambassador who represented his country in Syria and Saudi Arabia.  In a Telegraph article entitled ‘Why Western democracy can never work in the Middle East’, Mr. Green states:

“Democracy is emphatically not the solution for extremely complex societies and Western meddling only makes matters immeasurably worse. The fundamental reason for our failure is that democracy, as we understand it, simply doesn’t work in Middle Eastern countries where family, tribe, sect and personal friendships trump the apparatus of the state. These are certainly not societies governed by the rule of law. On the contrary, they are better described as ‘favour for favour’ societies.”

To paraphrase Mr. Green, I would suggest that “The fundamental reason for our failure is the stupidity of our diplomats”.  To even use the term ‘Western democracy’ denotes ignorance; the rest of Mr. Green’s peroration is suffused with the falsely-tolerant but actually supremacist idea that cultural issues are either immutable or taboo.  Let me suggest to Mr. Green that the reason why in some countries “family, tribe, sect and personal friendships trump the apparatus of the state” is that that “apparatus” represents an artificial state, one that is not based on any true form of identity, such as national or religious identity.  Such artificial ‘states’ have been created by Mr. Green’s ‘imperial’ predecessors and are being ruled (‘oppressed’ may be a better description) by local despots with the ‘benevolent’ complicity of Mr. Green’s colleagues and bosses.

There is no such thing as ‘Western democracy’.  There is liberal democracy – a political system that may have originated in the West (although, unlike democracy, ‘West’ is a relative term), but that is equally suitable to nations vastly dissimilar in terms of society and culture.  Liberal democracy works in Asian Japan just as well as in the United States of America.  It works in European France and Middle Eastern Israel.  Germany’s Western European culture did not stop it from becoming a Nazi state in the 1930s; North and South Korea are home to the same Asian nation, yet one is a liberal democracy – the other an autocratic inferno; China may still be described as a “favour for favour society”, but liberal democracy rules culturally akin Taiwan.

Inane journalists often reduce ‘liberal democracy’ to the much-much narrower concept of ‘free elections’.  The BBC, for instance, informs its audience (‘misinforms’ would be a better description) that

“Mohammed Morsi was Egypt's first democratically elected president…”

Needless to say, while Egypt may have experienced one round of (almost) free elections, Morsi could not have been ‘democratically elected’, because the country does not have the basic infrastructure of a democracy: freedom of press, freedom of speech, expression and dissent, a healthy public debate, etc.

Had the West Midlands Labour Party activist been forced to live for a few months under a dictatorial regime, he would have developed a better understanding of what democracy actually is.  Had BBC journalists been forced out of their five-star hotels and forced to live like most Egyptians, they would have understood that there is nothing ‘democratic’ in that country.

But while politicians, diplomats and journalists wallow in intellectual paucity and moral relativism, the good news is that liberal democracy survives and flourishes.  Because, while people on the street may have difficulty in defining it in academic terms, they understand and appreciate its blessings; honest, down-to-earth street smarts easily beat vacuous Etonian and Oxbridgean arrogance.

It is heartening to see, therefore, that within the space of just a couple of months, truly democratic elections have taken place in two liberal democracies, on two different continents: Israel and the United Kingdom.  And it is not just that elections have taken place; in true democratic fashion, they have taken place after intense – sometimes to the point of stridency – public debate.  And in both countries – again in true democratic fashion – the losers have neither declared a coup, nor have they been imprisoned by the winners; rather, they have more-or-less graciously admitted defeat, while vowing to continue – as democratic opposition – to provide checks and balances on the winners’ power.

Israel and the UK have very different electoral systems: the United Kingdom is divided in electoral wards (constituencies) – each electing a Member of Parliament from among several candidates.  The winner is the recipient of most votes, irrespective of whether s/he achieved an absolute majority (the ‘first past the post’ system).  The Israeli system is a purely proportional one: it views the entire country (Israel is almost exactly the size of Wales) as a single constituency, whose inhabitants vote for one of several political parties.  The number of Members of Parliament elected from each party is in direct proportion to the number of votes received (i.e. a party that received 10% of the votes will have 10% of the seats in Parliament).  Each system has advantages and disadvantages; but whatever the technicalities, both give suitable expression to the collective will of the people.

In both countries, that collective will has this time favoured the incumbents.  In both countries, the winners belong to what I’d call the Sane Right, as opposed to the Sane Left who came out as the main losers.  In both Israel and the UK the media and pollsters (who, in both countries, typically lean left) allowed wishful thinking to taint their professional judgment – and as a result issued erroneous predictions.  The difference between the two electoral systems produced a governing party in the UK, but a coalition government in Israel.  Crucially, however, in both countries democratic rule will continue unabated.

Not everybody accepted the electoral verdict, of course.  In the UK, ‘protesters’ belonging to the extreme-left Socialist Workers Party ‘laid siege on Downing Street’ and clashed with the police, intent on ridding the country of the ‘F*****g Tory scum’.  In Israel, a host of ‘NGOs’ is in continuous ‘protest’ against the country’s democratically expressed will.  Like the British ones, most Israeli ‘protesters’ identify with what I call ‘Red Mad’: the extreme-left communist/anarchist/’just-gimme-a-cause’-ist fringe of the society.  In both countries, the ‘Red Mad’ hope is that ideology will trump democracy; having failed at persuasion, these people attempt coercion.  But that’s where the similarity stops: lame as they may be, the British ‘protesters’ are at least an internal phenomenon, rather than a foreign intervention; far-left extremists are not funded by Israel, nor supported by the United States; Israeli media shows little interest in their ideologically-skewed utterings.  Not so with the Israeli ‘protesters’: these ‘Non-Governmental Organisations’ (Foreign-Sponsored Subversion Agencies or FSSA would be a better descriptor) are typically funded by foreign governments, either directly or through other NGOs; and they are the ‘darlings’ of mainstream media, which showers them with attention massively disproportionate to their weight within the Israeli public opinion.

Unwittingly, undemocratically and unbeknownst to most British taxpayers who foot the bill (but under the advice of Mr. Green’s ilk of Middle East ‘experts’), the United Kingdom is, sadly, among the countries fomenting sedition in a fellow liberal democracy.  In that respect, it is not just the Israeli democracy that is undermined, but also the British one.  After all, democracy implies transparency and majority rule; but in allowing part of its foreign policy to be underhandedly hijacked by a militant minority, the United Kingdom deviates from both those principles.

In a future article, we will analyse the issue in detail.  Watch this space!

Left, right and centre: UK parliamentary elections 2015

While I hope that I express myself clearly enough on the actual subjects I write about, some readers tell me that I leave one issue blurred: what’s my actual political inclination? “In your posts”, they say, “you’ve attacked Cameron, written against Farage, derided Labour and slammed the Liberal Democrats.  So who do you support?  Are you a right winger or a left winger?”

Well, folks, sorry to disappoint you all: I’m neither!  I’m not a centrist, either. And I certainly ain't a fence-sitter!!  But why do I have to be anything?? I am a political animal, of course; but why do I have to align myself with a particular political party and with their doctrine?

In their thirst for success and power, politicians throw mud at each other; the despicable ‘mainstream’ media joins in, attempting to demonise the side they don’t like.  We, the public, are left frustrated, holding them all in contempt.  Political leaders will find it very hard to gain our respect if they seem unable to respect each other.

That does not mean that we should switch off and lose interest in the whole bloody thing; that would be effin’ stupid.  The reality is that a sensible case can be made for both the ‘right-wing’ and the ‘left-wing’ views of the world.  Everything but the political extremes is reasonable and deserves at least consideration – if not always support.  After all, capitalism remains the only system with a track record of delivering economic growth and societal progress; but softening its rougher edges and imparting it a better human interface is a worthy endeavour.  We want the most fortunate of us to contribute more; but we also want to provide them with the incentive to exert their talents, invest and become even more fortunate.  We want a society kind to those less fortunate among us; but we also want them to make a stronger effort, not rely on handouts.  We wish to relentlessly pursue prosperity and success; but not by riding roughshod over our fellow human beings.

There is, somewhere in the middle, a sweet spot, an ideal trajectory we should pursue.  But it is difficult, so difficult, impossible to find.  In our desire to follow that golden path, we elect one party; and then, as we feel that those leaders got it wrong, that they overshot the ideal balance point, we vote their opponents into power.  The upshot is that, instead of following that ideal but impossible path to progress, we meander our way around it; we end up erring at times to the left, then over-correcting  to the right and so on.  We may not follow the shortest, most desirable route; but we are, thankfully, going roughly in the right direction and are never too far away from the Golden Path.  That’s why democracy works.

Our not-so-perfect path to progress

But it can only work if we, the public, are not regimented; if we are sensible enough to understand that no single political doctrine is perfect; that the question is not ‘which philosophy is right and which is wrong’, but rather ‘in which direction our society needs to go at this time’.

That is why I am neither a left-winger, nor a right-winger or a centrist.  Call me a swing vote; deride my fickleness, if you so wish.  I don’t care: I reserve the right to make up my mind each time afresh.  Whether in the UK or in Israel, democracy works because of people like me.  Long live the swing votes!  May they grow and multiply!

Those Racist Jews!

I recently went to listen to a panel session entitled ‘The progressive case for Israel’.  The title was a bit of a hoax: ‘The case against Israel and Netanyahu’ would have been more honest, as the panellists – all coming with ‘progressive’ (read: hard left wing) credentials – spent the entire session bashing the country and vilifying the man.

Now, I never quite liked Netanyahu myself and I have even less time for the ultra-hawkish Lieberman and Bennett.  Yet I experienced a strong urge to defend Bibi against what felt like an ad hominem, unfair and obsessive attack.  I was not the only one who felt like that: once the session finished, an Israeli acquaintance caught my elbow.  He seemed embarrassed.  “Did you enjoy that?” I asked him, remembering his stalwart leftist views.  “No”, he said, looking abashed.  “I wanted Netanyahu to lose, but I have nothing in common with these guys.  I’m not like that…” he said – and grimaced.

Well, I don’t blame him: ‘those guys’ got on my nerves, too.  To start with, declaring your views ‘progressive’ implies that anyone who disagrees with them is a bloody reactionary caveman.  And implying something like that is not the best way to make friends; nobody likes an arrogant twat!

Then, one may like or dislike the results; but at least there were democratic elections in Israel – something that her neighbours could only dream of.  One would think that ‘progressives’ would appreciate and praise democracy; but no time was wasted on such inconsequential details.

Policies of fear

Instead, one of the panelists claimed that Netanyahu won because of his ‘policies of fear’.  He certainly did talk to Israelis’ fears; but so did every one of his opponents, who described in their campaigns all the terrible catastrophes that would befall Israel, should Netanyahu win again.  Politicians – of every tinge and in every country – appeal to the hopes and, yes, the fears of their constituents.  One may wonder why Israelis are more receptive to fear than to hope.  Well, it may be experience; or perhaps it may have to do with its current neighbours: in addition to the old (and not very friendly!) ones, the most recent neighbours include Hamas, Hizb’ullah, Islamic Jihad, ISIS and Al-Nusra Front.  It’s rather easy to condemn ‘policies of fear’ when one’s butt is in the warm embrace of a cosy armchair in London; ‘courage in the face of adversity’ is rather cheap when there’s little adversity around and quite a few thousand miles divide between one’s neck and the nearest ISIS knife!

But one of the progressives’ biggest complaints was Netanyahu’s ‘racism’, his unforgivable assault on his fellow citizens of Arab ethnicity.

Let us first recount the facts: on the day of the Israeli elections (March 17), a visibly exhausted Netanyahu posted on Facebook a video with the following desperate appeal to his supporters:

“The right-wing government is in danger.  Arab voters are going to the polls in huge numbers.  Leftist organisations are bringing them in by bus.  Gentlemen, we do not have V15 [an allusion to the foreign-funded organisation that campaigned against Netanyahu].  We only have ‘Order 8’ [a hint to a situation of national emergency symbolised by the emergency mobilisation order]; we only have you.  Get out the vote, bring your friends and family, vote Likud so we can close the gap between us and the Labour Party…”

Of course, accusing a political opponent (or even a sector of Israel’s society) of foul play is nothing new in politics – and certainly not in Israeli politics: left wing parties often accuse the right of ‘extremism’; in previous elections, militant secularist parties had alleged that ‘ultra-Orthodox’ party Shas unethically ‘bribed’ voters by offering them amulets blessed by a famous rabbi…  For some reason, nobody cried ‘racism’ then.  Yet the reference to ‘Arab voters’ caused an audible global gasp.  Among the first to react was former Labour leader Shelly Yakhimovich, who wrote on Facebook

“…no Western leader would dare let such a racist text come out of his mouth.  Imagine if the prime minister or president of any democratic country would warn that his government is in danger because, for example, ‘black voters are going en-masse to the polls.’”

Others were quick to adopt the metaphor.  For instance, in the UK, Guardian columnist Jonathan Freedland.  Who, however, starts by ‘tweaking’ a bit Netanyahu’s words, to make them sound worse than they were:

“On election day itself, he sank lower still. In a Facebook video, he posed in front of a map of the Middle East, as if in a war room, and used the idiom of military conflict to warn that ‘Arab voters are advancing in large numbers towards voting places’ and that this was ‘a call-up order’ for Likud supporters to head to the polling stations.”

Of course, Netanyahu did not say “advancing”, he said “going”; and the ‘military conflict’ argument is more than a bit contrived.  But a true ‘progressive’ won’t let the truth stand in the way of a good argument, will he?  So Freedland continues:

“A prime minister was describing the democratic participation of one-fifth of the country he governs in the language of a military assault to be beaten back.
Imagine if a US president broadcast such a message, warning the white electorate that black voters were heading to the polls in ‘large numbers’.  Or if a European prime minister said: ‘Quick, the Jews are voting!’  This is the moral gutter into which Netanyahu plunged just to get elected.”

From the pages of the Time magazine, Joe Klein wails even louder:

“He won because he ran as a bigot. This is a sad reality: a great many Jews have come to regard Arabs as the rest of the world traditionally regarded Jews.”

Klein does acknowledge that

“They [those ‘great many Jews’] have had cause. There have been wars, indiscriminate rockets and brutal terrorist attacks. There has been overpowering anti-Jewish bigotry on the Arab side, plus loathsome genocidal statements from the Iranians and others.”

But Klein dismisses details like “overpowering anti-Jewish bigotry on the Arab side” and “genocidal statements” in a couple of lines, to make room for the real subject: vilifying Netanyahu and the Israeli society as a whole.  And, again in true ‘progressive’ style, not in the writers own name, but in that of unspecified ‘many’:

“There will be many – in the Muslim world, in Europe – who will say that the results are no surprise, that Israel has become a harsh, bigoted tyrant state.”

Now, I think that Arab Israelis should be equal citizens, with equal rights under the law and in practice; that they should be free to keep and develop their own cultural and linguistic identity, as a recognised and respected ethnic and religious minority within the Jewish State.

That is the goal.  But then, there is reality.  This is not an issue of ‘race’; Arabs are not a ‘race’ and neither are Jews.  They are two nations locked – for almost a century now – in a bitter (and, at least from the Jewish perspective, existential) conflict.  Arab Israelis are not comparable to African Americans; nor is their situation similar to that of European Jews.  Here’s a comparison that bears resemblance to reality: imagine that, at the peak of the Cold War, 20% of American citizenry would have been made up of ethnic Russians; imagine also that the elected representatives of these Russian Americans express complete sympathy for the Soviet Union.  Actually… you know what – you don’t have to imagine anything; because history leaves little room or need for imagination.

US poster instructing 'All Persons of Japanese
Ancestry' to prepare for deportation

Just two months after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, President F.D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, which enabled the rounding up of US citizens of Japanese ancestry and their forced ‘internment’ (read: detention) in 10 camps.  Most of these Japanese Americans were loyal citizens who'd never expressed support for Japan.  Yet ethnicity rendered them a perceived security risk.  So 120,000 men, women and children were ‘evacuated’ (read: deported) from their homes into makeshift ‘internment camps’.

Between 1939 and 1940, tens of thousands of Germans, Austrians and Italians were rounded up in Britain and ‘interned’.  Most of them languished in makeshift camps on the Isle of Man; others were deported to Canada and Australia.  Many were actually Jewish and therefore certainly did not harbour Nazi sympathies; but in the face of the perceived security situation, making such fine distinctions was seen as an unacceptable risk…

Both Klein (an American citizen) and Freedland (a British subject) must be familiar with these historical facts; yet both choose to ignore them in favour of the ‘juicier’ – but distinctly libelous – ‘race’ metaphor.

British internment camp on the Isle of Man

So was Netanyahu’s remark a good thing?  Well, feel free to say that it was ill-advised, divisive, stupid if you wish.  But was it ‘racist’?  How, exactly?  Netanyahu made absolutely no attempt to prevent Arab Israelis from voting; he just urged his own supporters to get the vote out.  He did not even criticise Arab Israelis for voting en-bloc along ethnic lines, or for voting against him – his barbs were directed not at Arabs, but at fellow Jews: ‘leftist organisations’ and the Labour Party, his political opponents.

And then there are ‘circumstances’; there always are in the Middle East.  Netanyahu—and with him many in Israel – perceived an unwarranted and blatant attempt by foreign governments to interfere in Israeli elections.  And it is already clear that those perceptions were far from baseless.  As I write these lines, a bi-partisan US Senate committee is investigating ‘donations’ made by the Obama Administration – allegedly in violation of US law – to anti-Netanyahu organisations.  And if Obama’s interference may ironically (but only ironically) be dubbed ‘a friendly intervention’, that irony dissipates when Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas also feels entitled to weigh in:

“We welcome the Joint [Arab] List and wish them much success. This is not interference [in Israel’s internal affairs] … it is our right as members of the same nation to [endorse] them.”

And it’s not just Mahmoud Abbas, either; Hamas has also urged Arab Israelis to vote for the Joint Arab List.  And why not?  The List includes the Islamic Movement in Israel, whose members (especially those belonging to the Northern Branch) are – unofficially but rather obviously – Hamas sympathisers.  Three Islamic Movement activists were elected this time and will sit as legislators in Israel’s Parliament.

Tweet by the 'military wing' of Hamas (the Ezzedine Al-Qassam Brigades)
asking their supporters to vote for Ayman Odeh, leader of the Joint Arab List

They are not the only ones.  Another prominent member of the Joint Arab List, Haneen Zoabi, is notorious for her brazen abuse of Israeli democracy to provide ‘inside support’ for the country’s existential enemies.  Below are some of her statements.

About Hamas: “Hamas is not a terrorist organisation”.

On the ‘hope’ for Israeli Arabs: “I have a vision of our rights as indigenous people. We didn't migrate to Israel; it is Israel that migrated to us.”

About the Iranian nuclear programme: “… if the world doesn't prevent Israel from having nuclear weapons, why does it prevent others?”

On the two-state solution: “… it's unrealistic to have a real sovereign state in the West Bank and Gaza with Jerusalem as the capital. The more realistic solution is one state with full national equality for both national groups.”

On the concept of ‘Jewish State’: “When you agree with the 'Jewish state' idea, you necessarily agree with the idea of loyalty to this state. Rejecting the 'Jewish state' concept will block the road for anyone who demands our loyalty to such a state.”

About Israeli centre and right-wing party leaders: “A bunch of fascists pure and simple”.

Another notorious figure among Arab Israeli Members of Parliament is Dr. Ahmad Tibi.  Prior to becoming an Israeli legislator, Tibi had been a political adviser to PLO leader Yasser Arafat and an official representative of the Palestinian Authority at the 1998 Wye River negotiations.  Tibi, who has served in the Israeli Parliament continuously since 1999, supports the establishment of a Palestinian state alongside Israel, but also the right of Palestinian refugees and their descendants to ‘return’ to Israel; he called Israel’s self-definition as the Jewish State ‘racist’ and demanded that Jewish symbols be removed from the country’s flag and from the national anthem.

And it’s not just words and opinions, either.  In 2006, Arab Member of the Knesset Azmi Bishara conducted a series of telephone talks with Hizb’ullah operatives in Lebanon.  Alerted, Israeli security services intercepted conversations in which Bishara advised that attacking Israel with long-range missiles would “serve Hizbullah goals”.  Bishara proceeded to advise his interlocutors which locations in Israel should be targeted.  He was suspected of having received considerable amounts of money in return for his ‘advice’, which was given only days before the 2006 military confrontation between Hizb’ullah and Israel (a confrontation in which 44 Israeli civilians were killed by Hizb’ullah missiles).  When the investigation of his activities became public, Bishara used his diplomatic passport to flee the country – and was soon awarded Qatari citizenship.

In short, if some Jews in Israel view Arab Israeli parliamentarians with suspicion, that is not without reason.  Nor is it unreasonable for politicians like Netanyahu to view with displeasure the votes (and the voters) that got such ‘representatives’ elected.

Of course, a wise Prime Minister must choose well the words he uses to voice his displeasure.  But equally, honest people (even political opponents) must not selectively quote and should not seize on ill-chosen words to misrepresent positions.  After all, the same Netanyahu said:

“We must create conditions that will enable the full integration of graduates from the Arab sector in the labour market.  The Arab sector is a main growth engine for the Israeli economy, which has yet to be fully utilised, and I believe that their integration into the labour market will contribute not only to the Arab sector, but to the State of Israel as a whole.”

Again, it’s not just words.  In November 2014, Bloomberg reported:

“Only one in five of Israeli Arabs with a computer science degree works in the field, and a new government program is trying to change that. As part of a push to add 300,000 jobs in the Israeli Arab sector by 2020, the Ministry of Economy has budgeted more than 40 million shekels ($10.5 million) over the next three years to integrate one of the country’s fastest-growing populations into its most promising industry. […]The sum the government has earmarked for the technology jobs program is part of a total 1.2 billion shekels allotted to encourage Arab employment.”

Somehow, both the quote and the facts above have ‘mysteriously’ escaped the attention of Messrs. Freeland and Klein!  One can imagine them saying: 'Don't bother me with the facts, can't you see I'm busy?  I'm looking for evidence of racism!'

Lina Makhoul, an Arab Israeli singer.  In 2013, Lina won the Israeli
version of The Voice, after receiving most votes from the
'racist Israelis'

But the fact is that Jews and Arabs are in the midst of a long and bitter conflict.  The fact is that there are daily expressions of unequivocal anti-Semitism throughout the Arab world, which hardly elicit a bored shrug from pundits.  The fact is that, throughout the same Arab world, millennium-old Jewish communities were expelled or persecuted into non-existence.  The fact is that, despite all that, in Israel Arabs are citizens, equal under the law, endowed with the right to vote – even the right to elect existential enemies to the country’s Parliament.  The fact is that Arabs in the Jewish state are, to date, the only Arabs endowed with meaningful political rights.  The fact is that in the Jewish state there are Arab university professors, lawyers, ministers, consuls, Supreme Court judges…

Not that everything is peachy; there is much, much to improve.  While the law decrees equality of all citizens, in reality there is still inequality; there is discrimination; there is also racism.  But, how is Israel different in that respect from USA, UK, Sweden, etc. etc.?  If anything, given the existential threat they operate under, Israelis can claim extenuating circumstances unavailable to Americans, Brits or Swedes.

But all these facts are willfully ignored by that ilk of ‘progressives’.  When it comes to Israel – and only when it comes to Israel! – these holier-than-thou politicians and pundits become obsessed with ‘racism’.  They jump through incredible hoops to find racism, whether real or imaginary, in the Jewish state.  And not just that: racism in USA, UK or Sweden is usually described as a marginal phenomenon, harboured by a minority of the population; in contrast, any suspicion of racism in Israel is reflexively and maliciously exploited to malign Israeli society as a whole.

An anti-racism militant...

But why?  Because, folks,  for some people ‘exposing racist Jews’ is liberating; they really need the Jews to be guilty of racism, because it frees their conscience from the pangs – well-hidden but nagging nonetheless – caused by their own anti-Jewish prejudice.  If Jews are ‘racist’, then there is, you see, a good reason to dislike them.

As for the likes of Klein and Freedland… well, the poor things just want to be loved.  These assimilated Jews are like battered wives: the more abuse is flung at them, the more they blame themselves for causing it.