Supporters of Israel held a rally opposite an anti-Israel “Nakba Day” protest Sunday in London.
A few hours later, close to 2,000 people attended a high-profile event in support of the Jewish state, “We Believe in Israel.”
The event featured sessions with top-level political speakers from both Britain and Israel, and a series of workshops where delegates learned from experts about campaigning and communicating.
Delegates also learned the latest facts and arguments about the situation in Israel and the wider Middle East. A major focus was placed on helping delegates to understand the views of the British public and political figures on Israel, and how best to communicate with each specific audience.
Rafi Nassi, Head of the Jewish Agency delegation in London, told Arutz Sheva correspondent Hezki Ezra that the event was the largest of its kind in recent memory. It was, he said, “a huge show of force by supporters of Israel and the British Jewish community.”
Muslim children are being taught how to chop off thieves’ hands and that Jews are plotting to take over the world at a network of Islamic schools, it has been disclosed.
Up to 5,000 pupils attending weekend schools across Britain are being exposed to textbooks claiming that some Jews were transformed into pigs and apes, and that some offences could be punished with stoning. One book for six year-olds warns that those who do not believe in Islam will be condemned to 'hellfire' in death.
Another text for 15 year-olds teaches that thieves who break Sharia law should have their hands cut off for a first offence and their feet amputated for a subsequent crime. Teenagers are presented with diagrams showing where the cuts should be made.
Tonight’s Panorama on BBC One will claim that the books were discovered at a network of 40 private schools teaching the Saudi Arabian national curriculum. The programme claims to have uncovered evidence apparently linking the schools to the Saudi embassy. Officials at the embassy deny any link.
I am using a new video displaying technology which lets me create playlists like the one below, please click the parts of the video that you wish to see...
"Pro-Palestinian protesters locked themselves to a cement-filled barrel and remained there until police arrived.
Pro-Palestinian activists blockaded an Ahava store in London's Covent Garden on Monday, resulting in the store closing for the day.
Two activists reportedly locked themselves to a cement-filled barrel at the entrance to the property and remained there until police arrived to remove them."
These anti-Israel activists are really lame.
This lot do not even know what they are campaigning against. "Palestinians are not allowed access to the Dead Sea" she says, thats because they are not citizens of Israel, its like I am not allowed access to Mecca, should I now boycott?
"Muslim children are being taught how to chop off thieves’ hands and that Jews are plotting to take over the world at a network of Islamic schools, it has been disclosed.
Up to 5,000 pupils attending weekend schools across Britain are being exposed to textbooks claiming that some Jews were transformed into pigs and apes, and that some offences could be punished with stoning. One book for six year-olds warns that those who do not believe in Islam will be condemned to 'hellfire' in death.
Another text for 15 year-olds teaches that thieves who break Sharia law should have their hands cut off for a first offence and their feet amputated for a subsequent crime. Teenagers are presented with diagrams showing where the cuts should be made.
Tonight’s Panorama on BBC One will claim that the books were discovered at a network of 40 private schools teaching the Saudi Arabian national curriculum. The programme claims to have uncovered evidence apparently linking the schools to the Saudi embassy. Officials at the embassy deny any link.
Panorama also found examples of private Muslim schools using extremist sentiments on their websites.
Michael Gove, the Education Secretary, said last night that extremism, homophobia and anti-Semitism would not be tolerated in schools.
However, researchers claimed in a separate report that the education system was 'not equipped' to deal with the threats posed by extremist organisations. The Policy Exchange think-tank said the Coalition’s new free schools, run by parents, teachers and charities, could be exploited by organisations seeking to indoctrinate young people. It also claimed that checks on groups running private schools were 'piecemeal, partial and lack depth'. Mr Gove said Ofsted had been ordered to monitor part-time education providers closely.
The schools featured on Panorama were apparently organised under an umbrella group called Saudi Students Clubs and Schools in the UK and Ireland. They give Muslim children aged six to 18 a grounding the Islamic faith.
According to the BBC, a book for 15 year-olds teaches about Sharia law and its punishments. 'For thieves their hands will be cut off for a first offence, and their foot for a subsequent offence,' it says. Two diagrams show where cuts should be made.
For acts of sodomy, children are told that the penalty is death. A textbook says there are different views on whether this should be done by stoning, or burning with fire, or throwing over a cliff. Textbooks for 15 year-olds revive the 'Protocols of the Elders of Zion' which teach that Jews want world domination.
In a statement, the Saudi embassy said: 'Any tutoring activities that may have taken place among any other group of Muslims in the United Kingdom are absolutely individual to that group and not affiliated to or endorsed by the Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabia.' The Saudi Ambassador told the BBC it was 'dangerously deceptive and misleading' to discuss some of the texts outside of context." (source)
"Denis Noble is an Oxford University biologist with a global reputation in the scientific community. He resigned from England’s University and College Union, saying the organization was either anti-Semitic or tolerated it.
Since 2002, there have been various attempts to boycott Israeli academic institutions and scholars in several Western countries, including England, where Noble lives. Israeli scholars have been ostracized, organizations have refused to publish or review Israeli academic papers, etc. The first major academic boycott campaign was started in England by two Jewish professors who argued that a moratorium on all cultural and research links with Israel at European or national levels was the only way to pressure the Israeli government to change its policies toward Palestinians.
Noble held the Burdon Sanderson Chair of Cardiovascular Physiology at Oxford University from 1984-2004 and is now professor emeritus and co-director of Computational Physiology. He is one of the pioneers of Systems Biology and developed the first viable mathematical model of the working heart in 1960. Here is Noble’s open resignation letter, addressed to Sally Hunt, general secretary of the union, and published in the Oxford magazine:
Dear Sally,
I joined the AUT [Association of University Teachers] nearly 50 years ago as a young assistant lecturer at University College London. When I retired from my Oxford professorship in 2004 I chose to retain my membership – although I no longer stood to gain from the union’s negotiating any improvements in salary or conditions of service – because I believe in trade unions and thought that by remaining a member I would, in some small measure, help colleagues. But the behavior of UCU [the University and College Union, which succeeded the AUT] over the past several years has made it impossible for me to continue, and I now resign my membership.
In a letter I wrote to you over a year ago, which has remained unanswered and unacknowledged, I said that UCU’s repeated conference decisions to discriminate against certain colleagues (Israelis) on the grounds of their nationality were unacceptable. Such discrimination is contrary to the universally recognised norms of academic practice, as set out (for example) in the Statutes of the International Council of Science (ICSU).
I also sent a letter as President of IUPS, which adheres to ICSU. Nobody in the world of learning can take seriously a professional organisation that purports to represent academic staff but which entertains proposals to discriminate whether it be on grounds of sex, race, national origin or other characteristics that are irrelevant to academic excellence.
Nonetheless our union has voted repeatedly in favour of such discrimination, and those who have been discriminated against are always Israelis. The wording of the discriminatory resolutions has sometimes been contorted for legal reasons, but the intention has been transparent: to hold Israeli colleagues responsible for, and punish them for, the actions of their government via a type of reasoning (guilt by association) that is never applied to the academics of any other country.
Of course, I accept that the Israeli government is guilty of human-rights violations, and I accept that the union is entitled to criticise it. But many other governments in the world are also guilty of human-rights violations, often far more egregious than those committed by Israel, and yet Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) have never been endorsed by the Annual Congress of UCU against any other country.
It is instructive to compare the motion about China adopted by Congress at its 2010 meeting with one of those about Israel. (I choose these examples because both countries have been in occupation of the territories of a different ethnic group for many years and both have encouraged their citizens to settle in the territories thus occupied).
The motion on China, while asserting that UCU “will continue to condemn abuses of human rights of trade unionists and others”, recognised “the need to encourage collegial dialogue” with Chinese institutions. By contrast, a motion on Israel approved in the same session of Congress reaffirmed its support for BDS, sought to establish an annual international conference on BDS and a BDS website, and severed all relations with the Histadrut, the Israeli counterpart to the TUC. There are many countries in the world whose governments are guilty of atrocities: there is no other country in the world whose national trade union organisation is boycotted by UCU.
I find it impossible not to ask myself why UCU exhibits this obsession with Israel. The obvious explanation – that the union is institutionally anti-semitic – is so unpleasant that I have till recently been unwilling to accept it, but I changed my mind after witnessing the fate at the 2010 Congress of the motion of my local branch (University of Oxford) about Bongani Masuku.
As you know, Masuku was invited to a meeting on BDS hosted by the union in London last December. Some months earlier, he had made a speech during a rally at the University of the Witwatersrand. This speech has been described by the South African Human Rights Commission (the body set up by the Constitution to promote inter-racial harmony after the end of apartheid) as including “numerous anti-semitic remarks which were seen to have incited violence and hatred”.
The Oxford motion debated at Congress did not allege that the union invited Masuku despite knowing his views; instead it merely invited Congress to dissociate itself from Masuku’s views. This was the minimum that UCU could be expected to do to reassure members like me that we still belong.
That this motion was rejected by a large majority makes it clear to me that the union either regards anti-semitic views as acceptable or, at least, has no objection to their being expressed in public by the national official of a fraternal trade union organisation. I do not wish to remain a member of such a union.
Yours sincerely
Denis Noble CBE, FRS
Michael Yudkin and David Smith, also Oxford scientists with global reputations, have joined their colleague in resignation, with a letter in the Oxford magazine:
Sir – Like Denis Noble, we have been a member of UCU and its predecessor AUT, for more than 40 years. Like him, we remained a member after retiring a few years ago from our University posts.
The facts set out in Denis’s letter to Sally Hunt show beyond dispute that UCU is now institutionally anti-semitic. We too have resigned our membership of the union.
Yours Sincerely
Michael Yudkin, Kellogg College
David Smith, Department of Pharmacology
Sally Hunt’s reply is also published in the Oxford magazine, as follows:
Sir - UCU has always encouraged robust debate amongst members and will continue to do so. As defenders of academic freedom all members’ opinions are welcome and their views are always treated fairly and with respect.
With regards to motions debated at our conference, it is members who propose motions and delegates who debate them and pass policy. It is the job of the union to deliver the policy members decide.
A resignation is always a cause of concern for any organisation, even in a union like UCU which is among the fastest growing in the UK. Our growth is a result of the current uncertain times, and it is vital that all academic and related staff have the protection of their union. As would be expected of an academic union, members have a broad range of views on many issues including of course Israel/Palestine.
However for the avoidance of doubt let me use this opportunity to confirm that UCU does not endorse an academic boycott of Israel and that our position of opposition to the occupation is, far from being extreme, in line with that of the TUC and most other UK trade unions.
"Comprehensive study reveals London Review of Books presents 'starkly one-sided and fringe approach' against Jewish state. Israeli, Jewish contributors among harshest critics.
British organization Just Journalism on Monday published a scathing study on the way Israel is being covered by London Review of Books – one of the most important and widely circulated literary magazines in the world.
According to the comprehensive study, the magazine systematically publishes articles clearly criticizing Israel. 'The State of Israel wishes to inculcate in its soldiers a neo-Nazi ideology wrapped in Judaism' or 'the Israelis think of Arabs much as they think of chickens of cats' are only two of the many statements which appear regularly in the luxurious magazine's articles."
"Liberal Democratic peer asks why world allows Israel’s treatment of Palestinians to continue – 'Is it Holocaust guilt?'
In the second attack on Israel by Liberal Democrat politicians in the same week that the party’s leader said the party got it wrong on Israel, Jenny Tonge claimed on Friday that Israel’s treatment of Palestinians is the root cause of terrorism worldwide.
Possibly 'Holocaust guilt' allows this treatment to go unchecked, Tonge said, adding that it might also be the 'power of the pro-Israel lobby' in the UK and US."
My Opinion
If Israel was never here there would still be terrorism so her statement is meaningless and it only serves her own agenda to show the Islamic world that she supports them either out of fear or our of respect to them. Israel is certainly not the root cause of terrorism, do not delude yourself by believing what a politician has to say.
Antithesis was born in South London. Music was in the family, his father had been a songwriter in his youth and his mother a keen dancer. At a young age, he took an interest in the new music phenomenon that was penetrating the pop charts – rap.
By the time he was 15 Antithesis had started writing short raps of his own. His friend gave him the name Antithesis as he is the opposite of a stereotypical rapper.
At 18 he decided to enter a song contest; the song performed had to be original lyrics and music, and had to be on a theme related to Judaism or Israel. Antithesis spent many hours with his producer ‘Tha Baron’ and came up with ‘Just Peace‘. Positive feedback from the judges and audience at what was his first live performance gave him the motivation to continue.
After school Antithesis took a gap year in Israel, taking part in the Machon L’Madrichei Chul programme. Just before going, he had heard Chaim Avraham, father of one of Israel’s Missing in Action soldiers, speak in London, and had been very moved. In Israel he heard him speak again and resolved to write a song about the soldiers’ situation in an attempt to raise the profile of the cause. The excuse to write it came when there was a talent show at the Machon and Antithesis wrote and performed ‘Ima Mechaka Babayit‘.
When Mr Avraham heard about the song, he instructed Antithesis to record it so it could be released and sold for charity, and as a result Antithesis paid his first visit to the studio. The song was a hit and saw radio play in Israel and England, in addition to exposure in the British and Israeli press. It was distributed independently on a small scale in England and sold very well.
Back in England, Antithesis took up his place to read Oriental Studies at the University of Cambridge. He continued writing, and in his first term wrote ‘Take a Minute‘, amongst other tracks. He tried to get funding to go back to the studio but found it difficult to secure support due to the unusual nature of the project. As a result in June of 2003 he decided to take things into his own hands, using all his personal savings to record the ‘The Israel Question’ EP, which went on sale at the end of the year with all profits going to charity.
Antithesis continued to write while at university but time for music was limited because of the demands of his course and other commitments; he was president of the Jewish Society and later the Israel Society, was heavily involved in the Federation of Zionist Youth (FZY) and founded the UK’s first Israeli music radio programme, Kol Cambridge, which was nominated for a BBC Student Radio Award. Of all the songs written during his time at university only ‘Ivrit, Daber Ivrit‘ was recorded (in late 2004). However during this time Antithesis gigged all over the UK, as well as in Israel, Argentina and the US, and was featured on the radio in Germany, Canada and France in addition to the aforementioned countries.
On graduating top of his year at Cambridge, Antithesis assumed the position of Mazkir (Executive Director) of the Federation of Zionist Youth, a full-time elected position. Just before starting the role the Second Lebanon War began and in response he recorded ‘Ima Mechaka BaBayit Part II‘ and ‘Yes to Peace, No to Terror‘. However it was not until finishing his term as Mazkir that Antithesis managed to return to the studio to complete his second EP, ‘United Kingdom of Racism’, which was released at the end of 2007.
After living for two and a half years in Geneva, Switzerland, Antithesis made aliyah in mid-2010 and currently lives in Tel Aviv. To date he has sold several thousand copies of his CDs and raised several thousand pounds for charity and continues to perform all over the world. He continues to write new material and new releases will soon be forthcoming!
Check out the interview he had in Israel after the lyrics below.
Lyrics
Yo, it’s time to set the record straight
Fed up with all the man proclaimin all this hate
No room for debate, well hold up wait
Cos Antithesis comin to step up and state
Yo the movement of my people been getting this stick
Equated with racism and other bullish
And if you can’t see it – that’s just foolish
So shut up and listen, to my hip hop schooling
We talking freedom, emancipation
A home, a land for a persecuted nation
Liberation, democratisation
A dream fulfilled, a Jewish safe haven
2000 years this desire had lied
Dormant but restive – it never died
In the 1800s, it was brought to life with this
Movement of my people, proud to be Zionists
Hook
I’m a Zionist – and yes I’m proud
I’m a Zionist – so shout it loud
I’m a Zionist – that’s my vocation
I’m a Zionist – self-determination for the Jewish nation
I’m a Zionist – and I’ll never cease
I’m a Zionist – who just wants peace
I’m a Zionist – and I say it with poise
I’m a Zionist – if you are too, then make some noise!
Antithesis gotta give my props, respect
To the man who got this all going and rocked the set
To be honest though, there’s no way this verse’ll
Come close to doing justice to Theodore Herzl
Ben-Yehuda, course rocked the language tip
And I already showed him love on Ivrit Daber Ivrit
Ahad Ha’am represented for the people
A cultural centre was his ideal
A man of steel was my boy Jabotinsky
I wish I had time to stand and list the
Endless achievements of AD Gordon
Love the land was his plan, and it was awesome
The Lord was put forward by the man Rav Kook
His intellect and stature never done shook
That’s the look, so take pride in it
Pay respect with me, cos I’m proud to be a Zionist
Hook
I’m a Zionist, so give me my word back
There’s too many man, trying to turn that
Into something negative, something bad
I’m a Zionist who ain’t ashamed, I’m glad
That I support universal suffrage, free press
Only place in the Middle East to pass that test
Nothing less, cos we strivin for perfection
It’s a work in progress, like all other Western
Nations, but to be Zionist don’t equal extreme
Don’t make you obscene, unkind or unclean
What it means, is that you believe that the Jewish state
Has a right to exist, secure and safe
People livin without fear, living in peace
That’s the essence of a Zionist belief
No more beef, I’m done defining it
Join with me and shout that we proud to be Zionists
"200 London students make a wrenching Auschwitz visit, sponsored by the Holocaust Educational Trust. Our reporter went with them.
I am sitting on a plane at Luton Airport, staring at the tarmac.
It’s a cool, crisp autumn morning as the ground crew makes its final preparations, oblivious to the nature of our trip; seemingly it’s a planeload of people heading off on vacation, to be reunited with family or to seal a business deal. In fact, I’m with a group of 200 high school students from across London on a unique visit to the death camps at Auschwitz.
The one-day visit is part of the Holocaust Educational Trust’s flagship 'Lessons from Auschwitz' program, now in its 12th year. In all, the London- based trust has taken more than 10,000 students, teachers, parliamentarians and dignitaries from across the UK to Auschwitz. Based on the premise that 'hearing is not like seeing,' the aim is to increase knowledge and understanding of the Holocaust, educate and intimate the extent of what can happen if prejudice and racism go unchecked.
The success of the program has led the British government to recognize its impact and huge importance – in 2005 the government pledged £1.5 million for the program and in the last several years, the Scottish government and Welsh Assembly vowed support to allow for the participation of Scottish and Welsh high school students."
"Israel and Britain signed a cooperation agreement in the field of cinema on Wednesday after 10 years of intense negotiations. According to the agreement, Israel will become a favorite filming location for British films while production companies will get financial incentives and tax benefits from Israel to shoot in the country.
The deal was signed by Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman and his British counterpart William Hague, who is currently visiting Israel, reports YNetNews.
Israel's Foreign Ministry estimated that British films may start being filmed in Israel very soon. One option that is being considered is shooting parts of the next James Bond movie in Israel.
The deal was signed after a decade of diplomatic efforts at a time when many UK cultural and academic establishments are calling to boycott the Jewish state. The agreement's financial and economic potential is huge: The British film industry makes over £5 billion ($8 billion) a year and is ranked third in the scope of production after the United States and India.
The deal will provide Israeli cinema with massive exposure and will increase the film budgets Israel recieves from overseas sources.
Meanwhile, UK filmmakers are already at work to produce two films about the British mandate period which may be filmed in Israel. A British delegation is slated to visit Israel in the coming months to consider future collaborations.
Israel's Ambassador to Britain Ron Prosor, who played a major role in brokering the deal, said: 'Signing the agreement was one of the important goals I set for myself.'" (source)
"A NORTH woman held hostage by the Taliban is set to join a daring aid flight to war-torn Gaza.
Former Sunday Sun journalist Yvonne Ridley, 52, from Stanley, County Durham, will jet into the country in defiance of an Israeli blockade on the Hamas-ruled territory.
And the cargo being ferried by the daredevil will include a cargo of teddy bears knitted by her mum.
The flight is being organised by the California-based Free Palestine Movement.
Earlier this year Ms Ridley was on board one of a flotilla of ships that sailed to Gaza carrying supplies.
The Israeli Navy intercepted the ships, with clashes aboard one of the vessels resulting in the deaths of nine Turkish activists.
The flight will attempt to defy a blockade imposed by Israel after the Islamist movement Hamas took power in Gaza in 2007.
The organizers of the flight have spent a year raising the funds required to charter the plane, which can be landed in places where there is no airport.
The current initiative to send an aircraft into Gaza poses a unique security challenge as it would be difficult for Israeli forces to intercept an airplane without causing casualties.
Ms Ridley, the mother of a daughter Daisy, 18, said she was aware of the risks involved in joining the flight.
She said: 'I am taking parachute lessons in case of an emergency landing.
'There is no doubt this will be an extremely dangerous flight, we are looking for a suitable airstrip to land but it could be little more than a patch of waste ground.
'The risks are plentiful but it is vital that somebody tries to bring vital supplies to the people of Gaza.
'As well as carrying food and medical supplies I will also be taking teddy bears knitted by my mother Joyce, who lives in Tanfield, Stanley, for the children of Gaza.'
Israel says it allows about 15,000 tonnes of humanitarian aid into Gaza every week. But the United Nations argues this is less than a quarter of what is needed.
Ms Ridley is well known in the Muslim world for her outspoken views.
She converted to Islam after making international headlines when she was captured by the Taliban on an undercover assignment in Afghanistan in 2001 and held hostage for 11 days." (source)
"British Foreign Secretary William Hague signed a 'treaty between nations' with Palestinian Authority leaders on Wednesday. 'This agreement is the first ever bilateral treaty between the two nations,' the British Consulate-General site proclaimed.
The treaty covers cooperation in the film industry. Hague signed a similar agreement with Israel.
Aside from its reference to the 'treaty between nations,' the UK Consulate site also referred to Hague's trip to visit PA leaders in Ramallah as 'his first visit to Palestine,' apparently recognizing a new country of 'Palestine' before even PA leaders have declared one to exist."
Like you I am a Jew, a screenwriter and a playwright. Unlike you, the first time I was shot at, I was 16. I mention this because in your letter to my friend Renen Schorr of the Sam Spiegel Film School, reneging on your agreement to appear there, you cite as one of the reasons for the moral outrage you feel, 'the endless shooting of innocent people there [Gaza], including juveniles.'
This is part of a litany of complaints against the Jewish State of Israel which includes the 'atrocity' of the 'Israeli attack on the flotilla ... the resumption of illegal building on the West Bank ... the ongoing criminal blockade of Gaza' and finally, what you refer to as 'the last straw ... the Loyalty Oath.' I would like to address each of these, but because you are rightfully concerned with the shooting of juveniles, let me start there, since I was in fact just such a juvenile, shot at twice in as many weeks in the very places you mention.
At 16 I was a high school student and left the kibbutz where I lived for the two-week Chanukah vacation to visit friends on Kibbutz Nahal Oz, which was, and is, right on the border with Gaza. There, another kid and I were put to work planting palm trees well inside the kibbutz, and well onto the Israeli side of the border. Fedayeen terrorists opened fire at us for the crime of planting palm trees, and only by the grace of God did we escape unharmed. I mention this because the year was 1963. There was no flotilla, no blockade, no illegal building on the West Bank, nor any loyalty oath. There was simply a Jewish state, with the very borders that our detractors and some of our well-wishers assure us now will bring us a golden age of peace. On the other side of those borders were our neighbors who did not believe that the Jewish people had a right to a state of any size, of any borders, anywhere in the territory of historical Israel (or anywhere else in the Middle East, for that matter). Surprisingly, there was also no Palestinian state at the time, though the West Bank was controlled by Jordan, and Gaza by Egypt. The only state our neighbors talked about liberating was ours.
That is why the current government of Israel has placed such an emphasis on recognition of Israel as a Jewish state. It is the core of the conflict. The central question is, will our Palestinian neighbors ever accept the right of the Jewish people to a state of our own in the land of Israel? If they will, the conflict will end. If they won’t, it won’t.
You deride Israel’s blockade of Gaza. It’s there because Hamas’ Gaza is proudly and avowedly bent on killing us. As Hamas spokesperson Abu Odeh puts it, 'We never target civilians. We only target Jews.'
In 1962, the United States set up a naval blockade against Cuba to prevent Soviet rockets, which theoretically could hit the U.S. only 90 miles away. Ninety miles for Israel would be strategic depth. For us, it is not theoretical. The houses and kindergartens of Sderot, which were the constant targets of what would become almost 10,000 Hamas rockets, are less than a thousand meters from the border. The flotilla you cite, under international maritime law, was illegally trying to run a blockade, which Israel had every right to enforce. Israeli forces boarded five of the six ships without incident. On the Mavi Mara they were met with deadly force and responded in kind.
When people don’t try to kill us, we don’t kill them. In the past year there have been 165 rocket and mortar attacks on Israel from Hamas-controlled Gaza, including at least two incidents in which white phosphorus was intentionally fired at Israeli civilian targets. Forty-one armed Palestinians, according to the United Nations, have been killed by Israeli forces trying to infiltrate the border, plant explosives or launch rockets at our civilian population. That’s why juveniles who come too near the border get shot, almost always below the knee, after warning shots are ignored. Sometimes, rarely, an innocent person is killed. It is tragic. But to paraphrase the late Golda Meir, when our enemies want their children to live more than they want our children to die, there will be peace.
As to the loyalty oath, which, you say with righteous indignation, was the last straw, that oath is not meant for Israeli Arabs but for all new applicants (including Jews) for naturalized Israeli citizenship. It is similar to the oaths of loyalty of many countries, including the U.K., which demands that the applicant'... bear true allegiance to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Second, Her Heirs and Successors ...' Realizing that you are concerned that Muslim sensitivities may be offended by having to swear allegiance to a 'Jewish Democratic State,' I wonder that you are not similarly concerned about the many Muslim immigrants to your country, who have become naturalized citizens and were forced to bare true allegiance to the Supreme Governor of the Church of England, Queen Elizabeth II.
Finally, Mike, in your letter, you mention your courage. Please don’t insult anyone’s intelligence. It takes no courage to bash Israel in Europe today. It is as a la mode as the umbrella was in 1939.
I want you to know that I am establishing a scholarship in your name. Since I have already given scholarships at the Sam Spiegel School in my son’s memory, I don’t want to confuse the issue. Thus, I’ll establish at the Ma’aleh Film School ... the Mike Leigh Scholarship for Moral and Political Courage. It will be awarded to the student whose work displays examples of those qualities your letter to Renen Schorr so woefully lacked. It will be awarded on Israel Independence Day. You’re invited.
Sincerely,
Dan Gordon
Dan Gordon is the screenwriter of 14 feature films and plays that have been presented in the West End of London and on Broadway. In addition, he is a captain (Res.) in the Israel Defense Forces."
"Last wednesday I went to hear two pro-Hamas supporters give a talk to a group of revolutionary communists at a London pub. The subject of the talk was 'Ten years of Intifada – What Future for Palestine?'.
I cleared it with the pub manager beforehand so I wasn’t barred as happened to me when I tried to attend a Middle East Monitor meeting at the House of Commons in July.
Seems our pubs are more democratic than Parliament."
His latest book has won this year's Man Booker prize, the most prestigious award in English literature, but fans of Howard Jacobson might be alarmed to discover that the main character in The Finkler Question is a gentile.
As it turns out, though, they needn't worry. Julian Treslove may not be Jewish, but in most other respects he's a typical Jacobson protagonist: a middle-aged man much given to tears, self-interrogation, a sense of imminent doom, falling heavily in love and regarding his male friends as his rivals. Above all, he's obsessed with Jews and Jewishness.
When The Finkler Question begins, Julian, a failed BBC producer, has just had dinner with two of his oldest friends/rivals. His old schoolmate, Sam Finkler, is now an irritatingly successful popularizer of philosophy and so Jewish that Julian privately thinks of Jews as 'Finklers' (hence, among other things, the book's title). Their former teacher, Libor Sevcik, is solidly kosher too -- and locked in an endless argument with Finkler about the State of Israel: Libor's for it, Finkler isn't.
Then, on the way home, Julian is mugged by someone who, he later becomes convinced, used the words 'you Jew' during the attack. What if the attacker knows more than he does? What if he is -- as he's perhaps always wanted to be -- Jewish too? Before long, he's certainly giving it his best shot, brushing up on his Yiddish, wondering if it's too late to get circumcised and moving in with a woman called Hephzibah Weizenbaum.
Not that he finds it easy to blend in with his 'fellow' Finklers. For one thing, there's their puzzling custom of telling jokes about themselves that they'd angrily resent from anyone else. (Luckily, this custom allows many of Jacobson's own gags to be fearlessly tasteless.) For another, even he can't really match their obsessiveness. After all, 'you have to be born and brought up a Jew to see the hand of Jews in everything. That or be born and brought up a Nazi.'
Meanwhile, Finkler is on a very different trajectory. Appearing on BBC's iconic Desert Island Discs (much, naturally, to Julian's envious horror), he declares that
Israel's treatment of the Palestinians makes him 'profoundly ashamed.' As a result, he's invited to join a group called 'Ashamed Jews,' who meet regularly to debate, often rancorously, just how outraged they are by the Zionists.
As this might suggest, The Finkler Question is quite a schematic novel, with the characters there primarily to embody the ideas that Jacobson wants to discuss. In a book never short of competing theories, plenty are put forward as to why Julian is so keen to be Jewish, but the main reason is surely just Jacobson's desire to set up a bitterly comic contrast between him and all the real Jews who seem so keen not to be.
There's also a full supporting cast representing every possible shade of Jewish opinion -- and, while Jacobson tries to follow the approved fictional practice of presenting the conflicting viewpoints and leaving the reader to judge, it's increasingly obvious which side he's on. The Ashamed Jews get a merciless (but extremely funny) kicking throughout.
And just in case that's not clear enough, the final sections deliver a series of fairly transparent author's messages warning about the uncomfortably close links between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism, and savaging the glib parallels drawn by Israel's critics between the Holocaust and the events in Gaza.
By the end, in fact, the urgency of these messages is so unavoidable as to create the sense of a book that changed its own idea of what it should be as it went along -- as if Jacobson had gradually decided that, in such perilous Jewish times, some things are more important than turning in a well-ordered novel.
All this might have been more damaging if he wasn't so good at the disordered kind. The spectacle of him letting rip remains as exhilarating as ever -- and in any case, nobody will ever read his work for its decorous understatement. Jacobson has often said that one of his key writing mottoes is 'More is more' and here again he sticks firmly to that principle (only more so).
For some writers a thorough investigation of the situation of Jews today might do as the subject for a single book. In The Finkler Question it's combined with his characteristically unsparing -- but not unkindly -- ruminations on love, aging, death and grief. He also manages his customary -- but not easy -- trick of fusing all of the above with genuine comedy.
And sentence by sentence, there are few writers who exhibit the same unawed respect for language or such a relentless commitment to re-examining even the most seemingly unobjectionable of received wisdoms.
No wonder that, as with most of Jacobson's novels, you finish The Finkler Question feeling both faintly exhausted and richly entertained.
As the chair of this year's Booker judges said, it is 'a completely worthy winner of this great prize. The Finkler Question is a marvellous book: very funny, of course, but also very clever, very sad and very subtle.'
It is the 68-year-old author's 11th novel, though his first novel, Coming From Behind, only appeared when he was 40. He has been longlisted twice before for the Booker, in 2006 for Kalooki Nights and in 2002 for Who's Sorry Now.
Britain's press praised the Booker choice, with the Guardian newspaper hailing 'a victory for that most overlooked genre on literary prize lists, the comic novel.'
The Independent said awarding the prize to Jacobson 'broke the mould. It was predicted to be the most likely loser, not least because a comic novel has never satisfied the tastes of high-minded judges.'
Jacobson has often been compared with the American writer Philip Roth, who has also written on the themes of Jewishness and relationship. Jacobson himself however, begs to differ: 'I'm not the English Philip Roth, I'm a Jewish Jane Austen,' he told the Guardian newspaper in a recent interview.
He deplores the false categories of 'literature' and 'entertainment' as if they are mutually exclusive.
'I mean, I am a pleasure giver. I am an entertainer. I give fun. I make people laugh. I am not difficult, though there might be the occasional Yiddish word people don't know. It has always bewildered me that people don't want to read me in large numbers.'
Tongue-in-cheek? The point about Jacobson is that he's at his most serious when he's joking." (source)
"Here is the full version of a story which appeared in shortened form in the print edition of this morning’s paper:
A GOVERNMENT minister spoke at an event where suicide bomber accessories and items glorifying terrorism were on open sale.
Andrew Stunell, the communities minister, addressed the controversial 'Global Peace and Unity' (GPU) conference in East London on Sunday. The event’s programme says its official 'supporters' include the Metropolitan Police and the City of London Police.
A few yards from where Mr Stunell was speaking, a stall sold suicide bomber headbands and T-shirts promoting two banned terror groups.
One of the shirts showed a masked terrorist holding a Kalashnikov rifle in one hand and the Quran in the other against a backdrop of the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem. The Daily Telegraph bought one of the shirts.
The image is the official logo of the al-Qassam Brigade, the military wing of Hamas, a terrorist group banned across the EU and United States. Underneath, a slogan in Arabic read: 'The conscripts of the martyr. Here in response, O Jerusalem.'
The al-Qassam Brigade has been responsible for at least 200 civilian deaths in suicide attacks since 2000.
Hooded tops with the flag of another proscribed terrorist organisation, Hezbollah – a clenched fist holding a Kalashnikov, and the slogan 'Resistance' – were also on sale. Hezbollah has killed many Israelis in rocket attacks.
Also available were 'shahada headbands' as worn by many Palestinian suicide bombers. 'Shahada' in this context means martyrdom. The headbands contain the personal testimony of the suicide bombers.
Legal experts said the items could constitute glorification of terrorism, which is illegal under UK anti-terror laws. A senior City of London police officer was listed on the programme as speaking before Mr Stunell.
The items were on sale at a stall in the GPU’s exhibition area operated by a company called Wearaloud, based in a flat in a tower block in Bethnal Green. According to its website, it specialises in 'Islamic,' 'political' and 'guns and military' items. However, it appears to have no Companies House or other registration. The website also offers for sale a garment described as an 'AK47 militia fighter fun T-shirt.'
Other stalls at the exhibition distributed fundamentalist literature calling for the destruction of Israel and the subjugation of women.
The GPU is one of the most controversial events in the annual Muslim calendar. Organised by the Islam Channel, a digital TV station with a number of extremist and fundamentalist presenters, this year’s event was boycotted by the Conservative Party because of deep concerns about some of those taking part.
They included Sheikh Yasir Qadhi, a Holocaust denier who has said that the extermination of the Jews was a 'hoax,' and Mohammed Ijaz ul Haq, who has said that the British government’s decision to knight the author Sir Salman Rushdie justified suicide attacks.
The Tory chairman, Baroness Warsi, was banned from attending by the Prime Minister, David Cameron. However, Lib Dems, including Mr Stunell and the party’s deputy leader, Simon Hughes, were not affected by the ban. Senior Labour figures, including the party’s candidate for mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, also spoke at the event.
The DCLG said that Mr Stunell’s speech 'made clear that the Coalition Government will not tolerate extremism, hatred or intolerance in any form.'
Paul Goodman, the former Tory MP who shadowed Mr Stunell’s brief in opposition and has campaigned against GPU, said: 'This evidence demonstrates why no minister should have gone. I hope that Andrew Stunell, the minister who did go, did deliver the robust renunciation we were promised.'
Jamal Uddeen Waitakarie, a spokesman for Wearaloud, said he thought his products were 'acceptable,' adding: 'One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter.' He described the suicide bomber headbands as 'an identification of faith' and said: 'I suppose suicide bombers wear them. But anybody wears them.'
A spokesman for the Metropolitan Police said: 'There was no formal Met Police representation at GPU. The Commissioner was invited to attend or record a video message but did not. We understand a small delegation from the Association of Muslim Police attended. The Metropolitan Police Service does not support any extremist view or behaviour and would consider any allegations of criminality raised.'
A spokesman for City Police said: 'We spoke at the event to raise awareness of we were doing to work with the Muslim community, and to raise awareness of fraud against hajj pilgrims.'
The organisers of the event declined to comment." (source)
"Video below: A special video recording of 'Oseh Shalom' recorded by cantors was made to celebrate the 60th anniversary of Israel's establishment.
A video recording of 'Oseh Shalom' by Britain’s Chief Rabbi, recorded to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the State of Israel, has just passed 1 million hits on YouTube.
The recording features Chief Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks with soloist chazzans Jonny Rugel, Shimon Craimer and Rabbi Lionel Rosenfeld along with the Shabbaton Choir and children from the Moriah Jewish Day School in London."
"A mezuzah has been fixed on to the door of the British ambassador’s residence in Israel for the first time in history.
Matthew Gould, Britain’s first Jewish ambassador to Israel, was joined by Israel’s Chief Rabbi Meir Lau and Rabbi Isaac Shapira for the short ceremony at the home in the Ramat Gan suburb of Tel Aviv.
Mr Gould and his wife Celia bought the mezuzot cases in Jerusalem and placed inside scrolls hand-written by Rabbi Lau.
Mr Gould said: 'There are a number of things give me a great deal of pride. One of them is being Jewish and being here.
He said he was honoured to have the two rabbis join them to put the mezuzot up and added that he was proud 'to be joined by people from our Embassy family – Jewish and non-Jewish.
'I am very clear that my Jewish identity should not lead people to feel excluded, but rather should lead people to feel invited in.
'As they walk past the mezuzah…I’d like them to feel brought in to our house, to our family and to our Jewish identity and feel a part of that and to share in that.'
Rabbi Shapira added: 'I wish you and your wife that by fulfilling the commandment of the mezuzah that you should be blessed with long life here in Israel and wherever you are in the future.
'Obviously I’d like you to be here forever.'" (source)
"Ali El-Awaisi (21) and Waseem Mughal (25) have been on the road for two and a half weeks in their mission to deliver medical supplies to the war-torn region.
They had hoped to be in Gaza by now but a few hiccups have left the duo, who are travelling with the group Road To Hope, behind schedule. As they prepare to cross the Libyan border into Egypt, it is hoped they complete the final 1000 miles of their journey by Sunday.
Ali's brother Khalid spoke to his younger sibling via the internet on Monday and said the two men are still in high spirits, although they have endured a car crash and illness along the way.
'They had a little incident where one of the vans hit the back of another car while they were in Spain,' he said. 'No one was injured but the van was badly damaged and needed to be repaired.
'Waseem also had a stomach bug but it is settling down now. Ali said people on the way have just come up to them and have been giving them flowers and food.
'At a public level, everyone has been supportive and won't charge them for things like food or petrol. When someone does that it lifts morale.
'Ali is just looking forward to getting to Gaza now.'
Ali and Waseem have travelled through London, France, Spain, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and Libya and are now set to make the Rafah Crossing from Egypt to Gaza in the next week." (source)
"A slaughterhouse that supplies kosher meat to London-area stores has stopped kosher slaughter following a protest by McDonald's.
Slaney Foods in County Wexford, Ireland, decided to stop religious slaughter, the Jewish Chronicle reported. Slaney has supplied meat to McDonald's for eight years.
McDonald's has been under fire in recent days since media reports that halal meat, which is ritually slaughtered for Muslims, is used by some of the fast-food chain's restaurants. After denying that such meat was used because it is against company policy, McDonald's was forced to admit that some of its meat indeed was ritually slaughtered at Slaney."
