{} South Yorkshire Advocacy for Israel

The world is and always has been been harsh and dangerous.  There are many anti-Israel campaigners who promote the view that the contemporary world is harsh and dangerous for one reason above all others - Israeli policies and actions. This is a view which shamelessly distorts and falsifies. Unfortunately for the Israeli cause and the defenders of Israel, unfortunately for truth, unfortunately for clear thinking, unfortunately for moral values, Palestinian society has one undeniable advantage: an instinct for self-publicity, an instinct for exploiting the feelings of  many non-Palestinians who would like to identify with a society about which they know not nearly enough.

Israeli power prevents the incursion of forces into the Palestinian territories which are vastly less enlightened than the Israeli state, just as British power prevented the invasion of the Irish Republic by the Nazis during the Second World War. Irish nationalist ideology ('nobody has suffered like the Irish and there are no oppressors as bad as the
British') and Palestinian ideology ('nobody has suffered like the Palestinians and there are no oppressors as bad as the Israelis') have significant linkages.

The evidence is that the conditions needed for the establishment of a successful democratic Palestinian state, such as a concern for freedom of speech, are largely lacking. If the external enemy, Israel, were ever to disappear and a Palestinian state became a reality, then it is possible that there would be internal conflict and power struggles within the Palestinian state, perhaps pursued by violent means, such as suicide bombing, rather than peaceful decision-making after free debate.

A Palestinian state  would still be vulnerable, at risk of invasion by a much stronger state or organization. The call to 'stop arming Israel,' if successful, would be disastrous for Palestinians as well as Israelis. An Israel without the means to defend itself would be attacked very quickly, to be followed by slaughter of Jews on a massive scale. It's overwhelmingly unlikely that the territory of a Palestinian state with only its own forces available for defence, in the absence of powerful Israeli forces, would be respected. It's overwhelmingly likely that in this volatile region, a Palestinian state denied the power of the Israeli forces would be invaded by another state or by a non-state power. People who have lived under the domination of ISIS will have no illusions about the barbarities which are possible when a non-state power takes control of a territory. Anti-Israel activists and their uncritical supporters are in the grip of illusion: they ignore political and military realities in the region.

Alan Dershowitz has written well on the allure of violence and the rewards of violence. This is from an article of his published in the 'Jerusalem Post'  

' ... terrorism has proved to be a successful tactic.  It works.  That’s why ISIS engages in it.  That’ why Al Qaeda engages in it.  That’s why Boko Haram engages in it.  That’s why the Taliban engages in it.  And that’s why Hamas engages in it.

'Compare the visibility and success of groups that employ terrorism as the main tactic for responding to their grievances, with comparably aggrieved groups that reject terrorism. [He gives the Tibetans as one example] Hamas is more popular than ever among Palestinians following their kidnapping and murder of three Israeli schoolchildren, their brutal slaughter of the Fogel family, and their deployment of rockets and tunnels against civilians from civilian areas.  The same is true of Hezbollah.  

'Now comes ISIS which is quickly becoming the terrorist group of choice for disaffected radicals, because their brutality is now in the headlines.'

Palestinians aren't to be equated with Nazis (the fact that so many Palestinians equate Israelis with Nazis is grossly stupid, based on ignorance of history or the deliberate ignoring of historical fact and is one reason why Palestinian society is grossly deficient) and so some words of the German general von Runstedt are quoted simply for their obvious good sense, for once. After D-day, when German forces faced  superior forces in Normandy, von Rundstedt advised, 'Make peace you fools!' the loose translation of 'Schluss mit dem Krieg, Idioten!' Good but abrupt and abrasive advice to the Palestinians would have been 'Make peace you fools!' at an early stage in the recent fighting (and earlier fighting)  when damage to Gaza was much lighter and the loss of life and the material damage were much less. But harsh realities have no meaning for all too many Palestinians - and their supporters.

Radical Islamism has been devastating in its damage, including the loss of human freedoms as well as the loss of so many lives. Nazism and communism were assaults on freedom too, but have been responsible for far greater loss of life. The highest death tolls occurred in Stalinist Russia, Mao Zedong's China and in Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge. Estimates of the total deaths inflicted by communist regimes range from 85 to 100 million.

Gunnar Heinsohn, the director of the Raphael-Lemkin-Institut für Xenophobie- und Genozidforschung at the University of Bremen has compiled statistics to rank conflicts since 1948 by the number of deaths incurred.

These are the first 14 entries in the list, showing the leading causes of death in conflict.

1. 40,000,000 China, 1949-76
2. 10,000,000 Soviet Bloc: late Stalinism, 1950-53; post-Stalinism, to 1987
3. 4,000,000 Ethiopia, 1962-92
4. 3,800,000 Zaire (Congo-Kinshasa): 1967-68; 1977-78; 1992-95; 1998-present
5. 2,800,000 Korean war, 1950-53
6. 1,900,000 Sudan, 1955-72; 1983-2006
7. 1,870,000 Cambodia: Khmer Rouge 1975-79; civil war 1978-91
8. 1,800,000 Vietnam War, 1954-75
9. 1,800,000 Afghanistan: Soviet and internecine killings, Taliban 1980-2001
10. 1,250,000 West Pakistan massacres in East Pakistan (Bangladesh 1971)
11. 1,100,000 Nigeria, 1966-79 (Biafra); 1993-present
12. 1,100,000 Mozambique, 1964-70 (30,000)
13.1,000,000 Iran-Iraq-War, 1980-88
14. 900,000 Rwanda genocide, 1994

If the list is extended back to the twentieth century, then the 'context' becomes even clearer but even more difficult to bear.

Estimates for the death toll during the Stalinist era vary very much, but 20 million is a not too-conservative estimate.

Estimates for the death toll during the Second World War are about 50 million.

At some periods in history, some Christians have been active persecutors, active torturers, active killers and active in suppressing human freedoms, although not remotely on this scale. But whereas Nazi, communist and the lesser Christian excesses are largely in the past, the excesses of radical Islamism are current and pose an immediate threat.

If one state (or would-be state) is in conflict with another, the decision as to which  to support is very easy if one of them  is immensely preferable to the other, unless support brings very great risks and very great disadvantages. The decision is unaffected by the fact that a vastly more civilized state which goes to war may often wage war ruthlessly, often using some of the  methods of the vastly less civilized state. States which wage war using barbaric methods at all times can't be regarded as more civilized states, of course. Barbaric methods aren't necessarily methods which lead to many, many civilian casualties. The accepted humanitarian legislation for the conduct of war accepts many civilian casualties, mass civilian casualties, in some circumstances, just as it permits the use of such horrific weapons as flame-throwers. I don't give here the reasons why Great Britain whilst the Nazis held power in  Germany was a vastly more civilized state than Nazi Germany, but Nazi Germany's practice of genocide is obviously one of the reasons, and Nazi Germany's aggression against Czechoslovakia, Poland, the Netherlands, Belgium and other states.

Present day requirements for a civilized state include the rule of law, a free press, absence of torture (not counting very occasional abuses), few or no executions. Not too many states in the distant past would have qualified as civilized: judicial torture was used in German states during the time of Bach, as was generally the case in Europe at the time.  England at the time of the 'bloody code' executed very, very often.

When a state goes to war for such contrasting ends as to protect civilized values and for national survival, then the state of war is liable to lead to understandable changes, such as a press which is less free, and very drastic changes, such as the British policy of area bombing during the Second World War - the deliberate targeting of civilians and their housing. The bombing of Dresden is the best known example, although the policy was followed much more generally.

The bombing of Dresden and other German towns and cities was not a 'war crime' which showed that Britain was 'no better' than Nazi Germany. At all times, policies and actions have to be considered not in abstraction but as embodied. The accusation of a war crime may abstract the act from the reasons for the act, the times in which the act was carried out. Subtraction is allowable, but not cancellation. The policy of area bombing didn't 'cancel out' the British moral superiority, including that of the bomber crews, heroic men whose qualities have been recognized but who deserve wider recognition still.

Faced by obvious blunders and defects, my first recourse is to ask, is there any compensating evidence, are there any  their any  obvious successes and virtues? The BBC's coverage of Gaza has been biased, superficial and shameful, but the BBC's strengths aren't always missing. On one evening, there was a  ridiculously bad report on a Palestinian solidarity march for Gaza, against Israel (this was the news programme 'Look North,' for Yorkshire, so viewers in other parts of the country were spared this particular simplistic propaganda piece, even if not  simplistic propaganda pieces on their own regional news programmes, and the national news programmes). It made the false claim that anyone with any compassion would be bound to endorse the objectives of the march. In fact, the march had a false agenda, based on flagrant distortion.

Later that evening, there was a programme on the British bombing campaign and the Lancaster bomber which took account of drastic choices and hideous moral dilemmas. The BBC has strengths in military history, which demands strengths in compassionate realism, and not just the history of the bombing campaign. Recommended, another film about the bombing campaign,  Bomber Boys by Colin and Ewan McGregor.

I make every attempt to be fair-minded. My critical page on feminism includes a section, 'Friendly fire and hostile fire' where I criticize some anti-feminist sites. There can be no guarantee whatsoever that supporters of Israel can never be  mistaken. This was the case when some supporters of Israel were successful in calling for the cancellation of a conference at Southampton University. Professor Geoffrey Alderman of Buckingham University writes well about this blunder, as about the far worse blunders and deficiencies of anti-Israel activists,  in an article published in 'The Jewish Chronicle' (April 8, 2015)

http://www.thejc.com/comment-and-debate/columnists/133640/an-own-goal-southampton

'As a research-orientated academic I receive many invitations to present conference papers. Last October one was forwarded to me from the University of Southampton, inviting expressions of interest in making presentations to a conference to be held in mid-April 2015 entitled "International Law and the State of Israel: Legitimacy, Responsibility and Exceptionalism." As it happened, I already had some material prepared (originally for inclusion in a submission I had already made to the UN Human Rights Council) that seemed to me ideally suited. So I contacted the conference organisers and was pleased that my proposal - to address the conference on the subject of "Jews, Judaism and the Jewish State: Ethnic Rights and International Wrongs" - was accepted.

'What I proposed to argue was that under international law and in principle ethnic Jews have the right of settlement throughout the area of Mandate Palestine west of the Jordan River (including what is known as the West Bank), that this right extends to Jews whether or not they are citizens of the state of Israel, but not to Israeli citizens who are not ethnically Jewish, and that the state of Israel has a legal obligation to take any step and all steps necessary to uphold this right. Now it appears that I may not have the opportunity to make this presentation because, following feverish lobbying by a miscellany of Jewish interests, and some threats of physical disruption, the university authorities at Southampton have unilaterally ordered the conference to be cancelled.'

Israeli-Palestinian relations: the case for Israel

Human values, humane values can sometimes only be safeguarded by harsh action, including harsh military action. This was the case during the Second World War, a conflict which was obviously more wide ranging by far. But the savagery displayed in the recent terrorist attack on Israel was as bad as any of the atrocities which took place during the Second World War. Allied forces defeated genocidal Nazi Germany not by displays of naive, utopian, superficial thinking but by tactical and strategic thinking which resulted in hard military action, including the use of bombardment.

 After D day, villages, towns and cities in France, Belgium and the Netherlands were liberated by British and other allied forces. Very often, they were liberated by military action which included bombing and artillery fire and very often with civilian casualties. For example, Caen in Normandy was liberated only after being heavily bombed. About 80% of the town was devastated and 3000 civilians were killed. Around 60,000 French civilians had been killed by allied bombing by the time France was liberated. To use only ground forces was out of the question. Nazi occupied Europe could never have been liberated in this way. Anyone who claims that allied forces were 'no better than Nazis' for frequent killing of civilians is failing to take into account Nazi killings of civilians, which belonged to a different order of reality - reprisal executions, the mass executions of the Einsatzgruppen and, of course, the Holocaust, the worst set of war crimes in human history.

In extreme circumstances, to overcome fanatical opposition, the armed forces of democratic states often have no alternative but to use extreme force – but not ‘extremist force,’ the methods used by fanatics. To use slight force would be to guarantee defeat. Although technological advances have vastly increased the precision of bombing, these cannot overcome all difficulties, for example those arising in very densely populated neighbourhoods such as Gaza.

A stark fact: the families of all the terrorists killed or injured in these horrific attacks in Israel will receive large cash payments from the Palestinian Authority, which calls them ‘Martyr payments.’ The families of Palestinian terrorists killed or injured whilst committing previous acts of terrorism already receive these payments, a reward for spreading death and destruction. ‘Martyr payments’ are also made to the families of terrorists imprisoned by Israel for politically motivated violence, often lethal violence.

Basem Naim, Head of Political and International Relations for Hamas, claimed in an interview not long after the attacks on Israeli civilians that none of the people taken hostage at the time by the terrorists (obviously, he never used the word ‘terrorists’) are civilians! According to this tainted source of information, the child hostages are not civilians and neither are the children killed! This is a claim that deserves to be treated with contempt and revulsion.

He also claimed that it was an absolute necessity to attack Israel. The alternative, he said, would be ‘to die silently by malnutrition.’ Later in the interview, he claimed a Palestinian malnutrition rate of 55% He intended to present a deeply distressing picture of starving Palestinians, deprived of food by the Israelis, but he surely knew that the Palestinian malnutrition problem is obesity, not starvation. There have been a number of studies. A study of 2019 found that among adults 18 years and older, 64% of males and 69.5% of females in the Palestinian territories were overweight. Hamas has a record of using distortion, exaggeration, selectivity, general falsification, often taking grotesque forms - tactics which appeal to credulous people.

Badly needed: a deeper and wider understanding of the Palestinian society which gives such widespread support to Hamas. A clear sighted, fair-minded and comprehensive view of Palestinian society should amongst other things take into account information such as  findings of the Pew Research Center. A few examples: stoning to death for adultery may not be practised in the Palestinian territories but 84% of Palestinians support the punishment. The conviction that a woman must always obey her husband is widely held, with 87% support in the Palestinian territories.

Homosexuality is still illegal in Gaza, although not in the West Bank. Homosexuality isn’t illegal in Israel, of course. The Gay scene in Israel is a very flourishing one. The Tel Aviv Gay Pride event is one of the largest in the world. As for Iran, the supporter of Hamas, this is a country in the grip of a horrific regime. Homosexuality, blasphemy, adultery and political dissidence are amongst the many offences which can be punished with the death penalty.

The findings of the Pew Research Center, a reputable polling organization, date from ten years ago. Palestinian society may have changed a great deal since then but I don’t know of any evidence that it’s been transformed, that it has become in any way a liberal, tolerant and open society. A society which is liberal, tolerant and open has to have a whole range of other strengths. Essential: alertness to forces that can damage it very severely, perhaps irreparably. A society has to be willing and able to defend itself or risk being damaged or destroyed by ruthless outside forces - with the exception of states which rely upon other states for their defence, generally mistakenly, but not in the case of very small states such as San Marino.

If, hypothetically, Palestinians were granted a state, is it likely that their relations with their neighbour Israel would be harmonious? If, hypothetically, Israel were ever to be wiped out, the new state would be very vulnerable. Its survival could never be guaranteed. It could easily be invaded by a powerful and ruthless adversary that would like to take its territory. As it is, superior Israeli military power guarantees the security of the Palestinian territories, just as the neutral Republic of Ireland was protected against German invasion by the military power of Britain and its allies during the Second World War. The protection against potential aggressors provided by Israel's superior power is a massive advantage for the Palestinians.

The practical problems now confronting Hamas were avoidable but Hamas chose not to avoid them. Hamas has the responsibility of solving , or attempting to solve, the problems it has created In fact, the problems can only be solved if Hamas is eliminated. Democratic states and organizations should do nothing which helps to save Hamas, directly or indirectly. There are many, many countries in the world facing acute problems to do with basic needs. It’s impossible to give effective help to all of them. The basic economic problem is the problem of scarcity: unlimited wants and finite resources.

Why should Hamas-conrolled Gaza be regarded as not just a deserving cause but a deserving cause which should have absolute priority? Israel and Ukraine deserve the support of the free world, not so Hamas-controlled Gaza. The international community's contribution to the reconstruction of Gaza should only be offered under the most stringent conditions..

Hamas is a basket case and has ruined Gaza, with the support of far too many Palestinians. But in general, they don't deserve a regime as bad as Hamas. The 'they' is a generalization, of course, There are deserving and undeserving Palestinians. 

If, with the aid of the horrific Iranian regime (which sentenced 51 people to be stoned to death for adultery in 2022), Palestinians in Gaza (which, incidentally, punishes homosexuality with imprisonment for up to ten years) had been able to amass a formidable force of multirole combat aircraft, then there can't be the least doubt that they would have done everything in their power to use them for the destruction of Israeli hospitals, homes and schools, as well as Israeli Defence Force positions, without the least concern for 'International Law.'. They have been able, with the aid of the horrific Iranian regime, to equip themselves with rockets and they have used them to attack Israeli civilians on many occasions in previous years and now on a much bigger scale.

The damage from Israeli counter-attacks against Gaza after these previous rocket attacks should have taught Hamas this simple lesson. If you don't want war damage in Gaza and want to protect civilians in Gaza, stop firing rockets and stop breaking ceasefires. But Hamas are very slow learners. I've no expertise in ballistics so I don't comment on the claims and counter-claims regarding the hospital in Gaza, but the claims made by Hamas aren't supported in the least by the expert opinion I've seen, including their clams of the number of casualties. Outrage in connection with the claim that Israel was responsible seems to be unaccompanied by concern for the men, women, children and babies held hostage in Gaza and those massacred in Israel.

If it wanted to, Iran, a big country, could aid the Palestinians not just by providing them with supplies but by offering them some Iranian territory for a new Palestinian homeland. Would the Palestinians be glad to go there, to live in a place free of Israeli influence? I doubt it. If the barbarity of Hamas (and the Iranian regime) is obvious to anyone with any sense, the stupidity of Hamas (and the Iranian regime) should be obvious to anyone with any sense too.

The Hamas Charter: timidity and intimidation

The Hamas Charter (also known as the 'Hamas Covenant,' 'The Covenant of the Islamic Resistance Movement,' 18 August, 1988) should strip away many illusions about Hamas and help to explain the loathing felt by the majority of Israelis towards Hamas. I share this loathing myself.

Apologists for Hams who aren't radical Islamists are likely to find the document not at all to their liking, for very different reasons. Although there are many, many people who like their illusions, and find them very comforting, for this purpose illusions which encourage sentimentality are generally preferred. Not many people outside the Islamist circle would find the Hamas Charter in the least comforting. The Charter gives no support for sentimentality. This is a chilling document, one of those documents which is too important to be neglected by people with any interest in the conflict between Gaza and Israel but so off-putting as to be almost unreadable. Like many manifestations of radical Islamism, it intimidates, but there has to be a forceful rejection of timidity when confronted by intimidation.

The full text in English is available at the site of the Avalon Project of the Yale Law School.

http://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/hamas.asp

Extracts:

The Covenant begins:

'In The Name Of The Most Merciful Allah

'Ye are the best nation that hath been raised up unto mankind: ye command that which is just, and ye forbid that which is unjust, and ye believe in Allah. And if they who have received the scriptures had believed, it had surely been the better for them: there are believers among them, but the greater part of them are transgressors. They shall not hurt you, unless with a slight hurt; and if they fight against you, they shall turn their backs to you, and they shall not be helped. They are smitten with vileness wheresoever they are found; unless they obtain security by entering into a treaty with Allah, and a treaty with men; and they draw on themselves indignation from Allah, and they are afflicted with poverty. This they suffer, because they disbelieved the signs of Allah, and slew the prophets unjustly; this, because they were rebellious, and transgressed." (Al-Imran - verses 109-111).

'Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it" (The Martyr, Imam Hassan al-Banna, of blessed memory.

The section 'Definition of the Movement: ideological starting points' contains thirty-six articles. Article six includes this:

'The Islamic Resistance Movement is a distinguished Palestinian movement, whose allegiance is to Allah, and whose way of life is Islam. It strives to raise the banner of Allah over every inch of Palestine ...
From Article Seven:

'The Islamic Resistance Movement is one of the links in the chain of the struggle against the Zionist invaders. It goes back to 1939, to the emergence of the martyr Izz al-Din al Kissam and his brethren the fighters, members of Moslem Brotherhood. It goes on to reach out and become one with another chain that includes the struggle of the Palestinians and Moslem Brotherhood in the 1948 war and the Jihad operations of the Moslem Brotherhood in 1968 and after.

'Moreover, if the links have been distant from each other and if obstacles, placed by those who are the lackeys of Zionism in the way of the fighters obstructed the continuation of the struggle, the Islamic Resistance Movement aspires to the realisation of Allah's promise, no matter how long that should take. The Prophet, Allah bless him and grant him salvation, has said:

' "The Day of Judgement will not come about until Moslems fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Moslems, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him. Only the Gharkad tree, (evidently a certain kind of tree) would not do that because it is one of the trees of the Jews." (related by al-Bukhari and Moslem).'

This is Article Eight in its entirety. It endorses jihad:

'Allah is its target, the Prophet is its model, the Koran its constitution: Jihad is its path and death for the sake of Allah is the loftiest of its wishes.'

From Article Eleven, which amongst other things makes clear the status of Sharia law. When Hamas Chief of Staff Muhammad Deif said, 'Today you [sraelis] are fighting divine soldiers, who love death for Allah like you love life, and who compete among themselves for Martyrdom like you flee from death' he was faithfully following the principles of the Covenant.

'The Islamic Resistance Movement believes that the land of Palestine is an Islamic Waqf consecrated for future Moslem generations until Judgement Day. It, or any part of it, should not be squandered: it, or any part of it, should not be given up. Neither a single Arab country nor all Arab countries, neither any king or president, nor all the kings and presidents, neither any organization nor all of them, be they Palestinian or Arab, possess the right to do that. Palestine is an Islamic Waqf land consecrated for Moslem generations until Judgement Day. This being so, who could claim to have the right to represent Moslem generations till Judgement Day?

'This is the law governing the land of Palestine in the Islamic Sharia (law) and the same goes for any land the Moslems have conquered by force, because during the times of (Islamic) conquests, the Moslems consecrated these lands to Moslem generations till the Day of Judgement.'

Anyone who believes that Hamas would like a peaceful resolution to the problems of the area will be disappointed - not if Hamas follows the Covenant.

This is Article Thirteen:

'Initiatives, and so-called peaceful solutions and international conferences, are in contradiction to the principles of the Islamic Resistance Movement. Abusing any part of Palestine is abuse directed against part of religion.

Nationalism of the Islamic Resistance Movement is part of its religion. Its members have been fed on that. For the sake of hoisting the banner of Allah over their homeland they fight. "Allah will be prominent, but most people do not know."

'Now and then the call goes out for the convening of an international conference to look for ways of solving the (Palestinian) question. Some accept, others reject the idea, for this or other reason, with one stipulation or more for consent to convening the conference and participating in it. Knowing the parties constituting the conference, their past and present attitudes towards Moslem problems, the Islamic Resistance Movement does not consider these conferences capable of realising the demands, restoring the rights or doing justice to the oppressed. These conferences are only ways of setting the infidels in the land of the Moslems as arbitraters. When did the infidels do justice to the believers?

' "But the Jews will not be pleased with thee, neither the Christians, until thou follow their religion; say, The direction of Allah is the true direction. And verily if thou follow their desires, after the knowledge which hath been given thee, thou shalt find no patron or protector against Allah." (The Cow - verse 120).

'There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through Jihad. Initiatives, proposals and international conferences are all a waste of time and vain endeavors. The Palestinian people know better than to consent to having their future, rights and fate toyed with. As in said in the honourable Hadith:of Syria '

"The people are Allah's lash in His land. He wreaks His vengeance through them against whomsoever He wishes among His slaves It is unthinkable that those who are double-faced among them should prosper over the faithful. They will certainly die out of grief and desperation."

This is Article Fourteen, which, although it was written in the late twentieth century reflects  patterns of thought from very much earlier - the seventh century, in fact:

'The question of the liberation of Palestine is bound to three circles: the Palestinian circle, the Arab circle and the Islamic circle. Each of these circles has its role in the struggle against Zionism. Each has its duties, and it is a horrible mistake and a sign of deep ignorance to overlook any of these circles. Palestine is an Islamic land which has the first of the two kiblahs (direction to which Moslems turn in praying), the third of the holy (Islamic) sanctuaries, and the point of departure for Mohamed's midnight journey to the seven heavens (i.e. Jerusalem).

' "Praise be unto him who transported his servant by night, from the sacred temple of Mecca to the farther temple of Jerusalem, the circuit of which we have blessed, that we might show him some of our signs; for Allah is he who heareth, and seeth." (The Night-Journey - verse 1).

'Since this is the case, liberation of Palestine is then an individual duty for very Moslem wherever he may be. On this basis, the problem should be viewed. This should be realised by every Moslem.

'The day the problem is dealt with on this basis, when the three circles mobilize their capabilities, the present state of affairs will change and the day of liberation will come nearer.

' "Verily ye are stronger than they, by reason of the terror cast into their breasts from Allah. This, because they are not people of prudence." (The Emigration - verse 13).'

he opening of Article Fifteen, stressing jihad yet again:

'The day that enemies usurp part of Moslem land, Jihad becomes the individual duty of every Moslem. In face of the Jews' usurpation of Palestine, it is compulsory that the banner of Jihad be raised. To do this requires the diffusion of Islamic consciousness among the masses, both on the regional, Arab and Islamic levels. It is necessary to instill the spirit of Jihad in the heart of the nation so that they would confront the enemies and join the ranks of the fighters.' Article Seventeen. A section supposedly on the Moslem woman turns out to contain mainly mad conspiracy theory|:

'The Moslem woman has a role no less important than that of the moslem man in the battle of liberation. She is the maker of men. Her role in guiding and educating the new generations is great. The enemies have realised the importance of her role. They consider that if they are able to direct and bring her up they way they wish, far from Islam, they would have won the battle. That is why you find them giving these attempts constant attention through information campaigns, films, and the school curriculum, using for that purpose their lackeys who are infiltrated through Zionist organizations under various names and shapes, such as Freemasons, Rotary Clubs, espionage groups and others, which are all nothing more than cells of subversion and saboteurs. These organizations have ample resources that enable them to play their role in societies for the purpose of achieving the Zionist targets and to deepen the concepts that would serve the enemy. These organizations operate in the absence of Islam and its estrangement among its people. The Islamic peoples should perform their role in confronting the conspiracies of these saboteurs. The day Islam is in control of guiding the affairs of life, these organizations, hostile to humanity and Islam, will be obliterated.'

Conspiracy theory is continued with Article Twenty-Two, which includes very brief and, of course, deluded theories about the outbreak of the First and Second World Wars:

'For a long time, the enemies have been planning, skillfully and with precision, for the achievement of what they have attained. They took into consideration the causes affecting the current of events. They strived to amass great and substantive material wealth which they devoted to the realisation of their dream. With their money, they took control of the world media, news agencies, the press, publishing houses, broadcasting stations, and others. With their money they stirred revolutions in various parts of the world with the purpose of achieving their interests and reaping the fruit therein. They were behind the French Revolution, the Communist revolution and most of the revolutions we heard and hear about, here and there. With their money they formed secret societies, such as Freemasons, Rotary Clubs, the Lions and others in different parts of the world for the purpose of sabotaging societies and achieving Zionist interests. With their money they were able to control imperialistic countries and instigate them to colonize many countries in order to enable them to exploit their resources and spread corruption there.

'You may speak as much as you want about regional and world wars. They were behind World War I, when they were able to destroy the Islamic Caliphate, making financial gains and controlling resources. They obtained the Balfour Declaration, formed the League of Nations through which they could rule the world. They were behind World War II, through which they made huge financial gains by trading in armaments, and paved the way for the establishment of their state. It was they who instigated the replacement of the League of Nations with the United Nations and the Security Council to enable them to rule the world through them. There is no war going on anywhere, without having their finger in it.

' "So often as they shall kindle a fire for war, Allah shall extinguish it; and they shall set their minds to act corruptly in the earth, but Allah loveth not the corrupt doers." (The Table - verse 64).

'The imperialistic forces in the Capitalist West and Communist East, support the enemy with all their might, in money and in men. These forces take turns in doing that. The day Islam appears, the forces of infidelity would unite to challenge it, for the infidels are of one nation.

' "O true believers, contract not an intimate friendship with any besides yourselves: they will not fail to corrupt you. They wish for that which may cause you to perish: their hatred hath already appeared from out of their mouths; but what their breasts conceal is yet more inveterate. We have already shown you signs of their ill will towards you, if ye understand." (The Family of Imran - verse 118).

'It is not in vain that the verse is ended with Allah's words "if ye understand." '

Article Thirty makes clear that free and independent thought is regarded as an impossibility and that the position of 'writers, intellectuals, media people, orators, educaters [sic] and teachers is a completely demeaning one:

'Writers, intellectuals, media people, orators, educaters [sic] and teachers, and all the various sectors in the Arab and Islamic world - all of them are called upon to perform their role, and to fulfill their duty, because of the ferocity of the Zionist offensive and the Zionist influence in many countries exercised through financial and media control, as well as the consequences that all this lead to in the greater part of the world.

'Jihad is not confined to the carrying of arms and the confrontation of the enemy. The effective word, the good article, the useful book, support and solidarity - together with the presence of sincere purpose for the hoisting of Allah's banner higher and higher - all these are elements of the Jihad for Allah's sake.

' "Whosoever mobilises a fighter for the sake of Allah is himself a fighter. Whosoever supports the relatives of a fighter, he himself is a fighter." (related by al-Bukhari, Moslem, Abu-Dawood and al-Tarmadhi).

Article Thirty-two has this - but by now, the sentiments are surely becoming predictable:

'Leaving the circle of struggle with Zionism is high treason, and cursed be he who does that. "for whoso shall turn his back unto them on that day, unless he turneth aside to fight, or retreateth to another party of the faithful, shall draw on himself the indignation of Allah, and his abode shall be hell; an ill journey shall it be thither." (The Spoils - verse 16). There is no way out except by concentrating all powers and energies to face this Nazi, vicious Tatar invasion. The alternative is loss of one's country, the dispersion of citizens, the spread of vice on earth and the destruction of religious values. Let every person know that he is responsible before Allah, for "the doer of the slightest good deed is rewarded in like, and the does of the slightest evil deed is also rewarded in like." '

Allied forces and the Israeli Defence Force

The Swedish army and the army of the Irish Republic have never had to face the criticism and the accusations directed so often at the British army and the United States army and other forces, including the Israeli Defence Force. Sometimes, the criticisms and accusations have been fully justified, but in general, any mistakes and shortcomings are those to be expected in all complex human actions. Goethe: 'Man errs so long as he strives.'

Criticism is generally healthy - essential - but criticism may overlook vital distinctions. Criticism may  cynically ignore vital distinctions. Criticism of the Israeli Defence Force is so often blatantly ideological criticism, with no attempt at fair-mindedness and no attempt to understand extreme experience.

The American president Theodore Roosevelt wrote (there's surely no need for anyone to respond to the unfashionable style with condescension):

'It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.'

Criticism of the conduct of the British and the (segregated) American armed forces during the Second World War, which deliberately targeted German civilians (in the case of the British air force) and Japanese civilians (in the case of the United States air force) should never ignore the vital distinction between allied war aims and allied conduct of the war and Nazi war aims and Nazi conduct of the war. This comment of the American president Theodore Roosevelt is surely relevant to these matters, and to President Franklin D Roosevelt's conduct during the war. It can be applied too to the Israeli conduct of  operations in Gaza, including the conduct of the Israeli Defence Force.

So much for the armchair critics of Israel.

Éamon de Valera, who led Ireland during the Second World War, had no responsibility for the bombing of Tokyo or the bombing of Dresden. He led a state which stood aside, which never went into the arena.

My page Ireland and Northern Ireland: distortions and illusions includes this quotation:

'...it was difficult to withhold one's contempt from a country such as Ireland, whose battle this was and whose chances of freedom and independence in the event of a German victory were nil. The fact that Ireland was standing aside from the conflict at this moment posed, from the naval angle, special problems which affected, sometimes mortally, all sailors engaged in the Atlantic, and earned their particular loathing.

'Irish neutrality, on which she placed a generous interpretation, permitted the Germans to maintain in Dublin an espionage-centre, a window into Britain, which operated throughout the war and did incalculable harm to the Allied cause. But from the naval point of view there was an even more deadly factor: this was the loss of the naval bases in southern and western Ireland, which had been available to the Royal Navy during the first world war but were now forbidden them. To compute how many men and how many ships this denial was costing, month after month, was hardly possible; but the total was substantial and tragic.

'From a narrow legal angle, Ireland was within her rights: she had opted for neutrality, and the rest of the story flowed from this decision. She was in fact at liberty to stand aside from the struggle, whatever harm this did to the Allied cause. But sailors, watching the ships go down and counting the number of their friends who might have been alive instead of dead, saw the thing in simpler terms. They saw Ireland safe under the British umbrella, fed by her convoys, and protected by her air force, her very neutrality guaranteed by the British armed forces: they saw no return for this protection save a condoned sabotage of the Allied war effort: and they were angry - permanently angry. As they sailed past this smug coastline, past people who did not give a damn how the war went as long as they could live on in their fairy-tale world, they had time to ponder a new aspect of indecency. In the list of people you were prepared to like when the war was over, the man who stood by and watched while you were getting your throat cut could not figure very high.'

In the competing murals of Belfast, new images and messages have started to appear: in Nationalist areas, ones which support the Palestinians, in Loyalist areas, ones which support Israel. Irish nationalists may well overlook a potential conflict of interest. Many nationalists have taken for granted the 'fact' that the British are the worst exploiters in the world and the most brutal of people, but Palestinians make the conflicting claim that the Israelis are the worst exploiters and the most brutal of people.

Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International

From an article by Robert L. Bernstein published in the 'New York Times,' not an original contribution, but a compelling one, and applicable in part to Amnesty International.

'As the founder of Human Rights Watch, its active chairman for 20 years and now founding chairman emeritus, I must do something that I never anticipated: I must publicly join the group’s critics. Human Rights Watch had as its original mission to pry open closed societies, advocate basic freedoms and support dissenters. But recently it has been issuing reports on the Israeli-Arab conflict that are helping those who wish to turn Israel into a pariah state.

'At Human Rights Watch, we always recognized that open, democratic societies have faults and commit abuses. But we saw that they have the ability to correct them — through vigorous public debate, an adversarial press and many other mechanisms that encourage reform.

'That is why we sought to draw a sharp line between the democratic and nondemocratic worlds, in an effort to create clarity in human rights. We wanted to prevent the Soviet Union and its followers from playing a moral equivalence game with the West and to encourage liberalization by drawing attention to dissidents like Andrei Sakharov, Natan Sharansky and those in the Soviet gulag — and the millions in China’s laogai, or labor camps.

'When I stepped aside in 1998, Human Rights Watch was active in 70 countries, most of them closed societies. Now the organization, with increasing frequency, casts aside its important distinction between open and closed societies.

'Nowhere is this more evident than in its work in the Middle East. The region is populated by authoritarian regimes with appalling human rights records. Yet in recent years Human Rights Watch has written far more condemnations of Israel for violations of international law than of any other country in the region.

'Israel, with a population of 7.4 million, is home to at least 80 human rights organizations, a vibrant free press, a democratically elected government, a judiciary that frequently rules against the government, a politically active academia, multiple political parties and, judging by the amount of news coverage, probably more journalists per capita than any other country in the world — many of whom are there expressly to cover the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

'Meanwhile, the Arab and Iranian regimes rule over some 350 million people, and most remain brutal, closed and autocratic, permitting little or no internal dissent. The plight of their citizens who would most benefit from the kind of attention a large and well-financed international human rights organization can provide is being ignored as Human Rights Watch’s Middle East division prepares report after report on Israel.

'Human Rights Watch has lost critical perspective on a conflict in which Israel has been repeatedly attacked by Hamas and Hezbollah, organizations that go after Israeli citizens and use their own people as human shields. These groups are supported by the government of Iran, which has openly declared its intention not just to destroy Israel but to murder Jews everywhere. This incitement to genocide is a violation of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.

'Leaders of Human Rights Watch know that Hamas and Hezbollah chose to wage war from densely populated areas, deliberately transforming neighborhoods into battlefields. They know that more and better arms are flowing into both Gaza and Lebanon and are poised to strike again ... '

Blockades and boycotts 

It's often said that opponents of Israel, who call for boycotts of Israel and other action, are inconsistent. Israel is being singled out, unfairly, whilst states with vile records are excused - no boycotts for them. I agree with this argument. Here's another instance of inconsistency, one I've never come across anywhere: the arguments for boycotting Israel are arguments for boycotting the United States. The parallels are fairly exact. I don't, of course, think that the United States should be boycotted, any more than Israel.

We all know about the Palestine Solidarity Campaign. Not nearly so many people know that there's a Cuba Solidarity Campaign which claims to work for 'the Cuban people's right to self-determination and sovereignty.'

There's been a United States blockade of Cuba for a long time: 'February 2012 marks 50 years since the US imposed its vindictive blockade on Cuba - a vicious policy which has cost the Cuban economy at least $105 billions and cause the Cuban people immense suffering and hardship.

The blockade denies access to food, educational and medical equipment.'

'3,478 Cubans have died in terrorist attacks from US backed right-wing exile groups.

'For the 23rd consecutive year the UN voted to condemn the illegal US blockade of Cuba.'

There are no parallels with the settlements in Palestinian territory, but what there is in Cuba is Guantanamo Bay, a place which many boycotters could well think merits a boycott even if there were no other objections.

Many of the same people who call for a boycott of Israel have very firm opinions about US actions in such countries as Afghanistan. There are different estimates of civilian deaths in Aghanistan, but according to Jonathan Steele of the Guardian, up to 20,000 Afghans may have died as a consequence of the first four months of US airstrikes in Afghanistan. The total is far higher.

The similarities between Gaza and Cuba are  similar when it comes to human rights violations. At this point, boycotters will want to turn their attention to more congenial things. I mention many Palestinian human rights violations on this page. The Cuban record is atrocious: human rights advocates and people not guilty of criminal acts sentenced to long periods of imprisonment - 20 years or more - forced labour camps where there's 'verbal and physical mistreatment ... work from dawn to dusk ... scare food.'

Castro described 'faggots' as 'agents of imperialism' and their treatment was very harsh. More recently, there has been much greater tolerance - unlike Gaza.

Efraim Karsh: 'What occupation?'

Efraim Karsh notes that 'Few subjects have been so falsified so thoroughly as the recent history of the West Bank and Gaza.' His article, 'What occupation?' is a calm correction of fraudulent claims, gross distortions and malicious lies about Israel's part in the history of the West Bank and Gaza. Professor Karsh is a leading academic in the field of Middle East (and Mediterranean) Studies and the author of many books on the history of Israel and Israel's opponents, including 'Palestine Betrayed' and 'Fabricating Israeli History.'

A lengthy extract follows. The complete article:

http://www.aish.com/jw/me/48898917.html

'Palestinian intellectuals routinely blur any distinction between Israel's actions before and after 1967. Writing recently in the Israeli daily Ha'aretz, the prominent Palestinian cultural figure Jacques Persiqian told his Jewish readers that today's terrorist attacks were "what you have brought upon yourselves after 54 years of systematic oppression of another people" -- a historical accounting that, going back to 1948, calls into question not Israel's presence in the West Bank and Gaza but its very legitimacy as a state.

'Hanan Ashrawi, the most articulate exponent of the Palestinian cause, has been even more forthright in erasing the line between post-1967 and pre-1967 "occupations." "I come to you today with a heavy heart," she told the now-infamous World Conference Against Racism in Durban last summer, "leaving behind a nation in captivity held hostage to an ongoing naqba [catastrophe]."

' "In 1948, we became subject to a grave historical injustice manifested in a dual victimization: on the one hand, the injustice of dispossession, dispersion, and exile forcibly enacted on the population ... On the other hand, those who remained were subjected to the systematic oppression and brutality of an inhuman occupation that robbed them of all their rights and liberties."

'This original "occupation" -- that is, again, the creation and existence of the state of Israel -- was later extended, in Ashrawi's narrative, as a result of the Six-Day war:

The charges against Israel's various "occupations" represent a damning indictment of the entire Zionist enterprise. They are also grossly false.

' "Those of us who came under Israeli occupation in 1967 have languished in the West Bank, Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip under a unique combination of military occupation, settler colonization, and systematic oppression. Rarely has the human mind devised such varied, diverse, and comprehensive means of wholesale brutalization and persecution."

'Taken together, the charges against Israel's various "occupations" represent -- and are plainly intended to be -- a damning indictment of the entire Zionist enterprise. In almost every particular, they are also grossly false.

'In 1948, no Palestinian state was invaded or destroyed to make way for the establishment of Israel. From biblical times, when this territory was the state of the Jews, to its occupation by the British army at the end of World War I, Palestine had never existed as a distinct political entity but was rather part of one empire after another, from the Romans, to the Arabs, to the Ottomans. When the British arrived in 1917, the immediate loyalties of the area's inhabitants were parochial-to clan, tribe, village, town, or religious sect-and coexisted with their fealty to the Ottoman sultan-caliph as the religious and temporal head of the world Muslim community.

'Under a League of Nations mandate explicitly meant to pave the way for the creation of a Jewish national home, the British established the notion of an independent Palestine for the first time and delineated its boundaries. In 1947, confronted with a determined Jewish struggle for independence, Britain returned the mandate to the League's successor, the United Nations, which in turn decided on November 29, 1947, to partition mandatory Palestine into two states: one Jewish, the other Arab.

'The state of Israel was thus created by an internationally recognized act of national self-determination -- an act, moreover, undertaken by an ancient people in its own homeland. In accordance with common democratic practice, the Arab population in the new state's midst was immediately recognized as a legitimate ethnic and religious minority. As for the prospective Arab state, its designated territory was slated to include, among other areas, the two regions under contest today -- namely, Gaza and the West Bank (with the exception of Jerusalem, which was to be placed under international control).

'None of the region's Arab regimes viewed the Palestinians as a distinct nation.

 As is well known, the implementation of the UN's partition plan was aborted by the effort of the Palestinians and of the surrounding Arab states to destroy the Jewish state at birth. What is less well known is that even if the Jews had lost the war, their territory would not have been handed over to the Palestinians. Rather, it would have been divided among the invading Arab forces, for the simple reason that none of the region's Arab regimes viewed the Palestinians as a distinct nation. As the eminent Arab-American historian Philip Hitti described the common Arab view to an Anglo-American commission of inquiry in 1946, "There is no such thing as Palestine in history, absolutely not."

'This fact was keenly recognized by the British authorities on the eve of their departure. As one official observed in mid-December 1947, "it does not appear that Arab Palestine will be an entity, but rather that the Arab countries will each claim a portion in return for their assistance [in the war against Israel], unless [Transjordan's] King Abdallah takes rapid and firm action as soon as the British withdrawal is completed." A couple of months later, the British high commissioner for Palestine, General Sir Alan Cunningham, informed the colonial secretary, Arthur Creech Jones, that "the most likely arrangement seems to be Eastern Galilee to Syria, Samaria and Hebron to Abdallah, and the south to Egypt."

'The British proved to be prescient. Neither Egypt nor Jordan ever allowed Palestinian self-determination in Gaza and the West Bank -- which were, respectively, the parts of Palestine conquered by them during the 1948-49 war. Indeed, even UN Security Council Resolution 242, which after the Six-Day war of 1967 established the principle of "land for peace" as the cornerstone of future Arab-Israeli peace negotiations, did not envisage the creation of a Palestinian state. To the contrary: since the Palestinians were still not viewed as a distinct nation, it was assumed that any territories evacuated by Israel, would be returned to their pre-1967 Arab occupiers -- Gaza to Egypt, and the West Bank to Jordan. The resolution did not even mention the Palestinians by name, affirming instead the necessity "for achieving a just settlement of the refugee problem" -- a clause that applied not just to the Palestinians but to the hundreds of thousands of Jews expelled from the Arab states following the 1948 war.

'At this time -- we are speaking of the late 1960's -- Palestinian nationhood was rejected by the entire international community, including the Western democracies, the Soviet Union (the foremost supporter of radical Arabism), and the Arab world itself. "Moderate" Arab rulers like the Hashemites in Jordan viewed an independent Palestinian state as a mortal threat to their own kingdom, while the Saudis saw it as a potential source of extremism and instability. Pan-Arab nationalists were no less adamantly opposed, having their own purposes in mind for the region. As late as 1974, Syrian President Hafez alAssad openly referred to Palestine as "not only a part of the Arab homeland but a basic part of southern Syria"; there is no reason to think he had changed his mind by the time of his death in 2000.

...

'What, then, of the period after 1967, when these territories passed into the hands of Israel? Is it the case that Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza have been the victims of the most "varied, diverse, and comprehensive means of wholesale brutalization and persecution" ever devised by the human mind?

'At the very least, such a characterization would require a rather drastic downgrading of certain other well-documented 20th-century phenomena, from the slaughter of Armenians during World War I and onward through a grisly chronicle of tens upon tens of millions murdered, driven out, crushed under the heels of despots. By stark contrast, during the three decades of Israel's control, far fewer Palestinians were killed at Jewish hands than by King Hussein of Jordan in the single month of September 1970 when, fighting off an attempt by Yasir Arafat's PLO to destroy his monarchy, he dispatched (according to the Palestinian scholar Yezid Sayigh) between 3,000 and 5,000 Palestinians, among them anywhere from 1,500 to 3,500 civilians. Similarly, the number of innocent Palestinians killed by their Kuwaiti hosts in the winter of 1991, in revenge for the PLO's support for Saddam Hussein's brutal occupation of Kuwait, far exceeds the number of Palestinian rioters and terrorists who lost their lives in the first intifada against Israel during the late 1980's.

This "occupation" did not come about as a consequence of some grand expansionist design, but rather was incidental to Israel's success against a pan-Arab attempt to destroy it.

Such crude comparisons aside, to present the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza as "systematic oppression" is itself the inverse of the truth. It should be recalled, first of all, that this "occupation" did not come about as a consequence of some grand expansionist design, but rather was incidental to Israel's success against a pan-Arab attempt to destroy it. Upon the outbreak of Israeli-Egyptian hostilities on June 5, 1967, the Israeli government secretly pleaded with King Hussein of Jordan, the de-facto ruler of the West Bank, to forgo any military action; the plea was rebuffed by the Jordanian monarch, who was loathe to lose the anticipated spoils of what was to be the Arabs' "final round" with Israel.

'Thus it happened that, at the end of the conflict, Israel unexpectedly found itself in control of some one million Palestinians, with no definite idea about their future status and lacking any concrete policy for their administration. In the wake of the war, the only objective adopted by then-Minister of Defense Moshe Dayan was to preserve normalcy in the territories through a mixture of economic inducements and a minimum of Israeli intervention. The idea was that the local populace would be given the freedom to administer itself as it wished, and would be able to maintain regular contact with the Arab world via the Jordan River bridges. In sharp contrast with, for example, the U.S. occupation of postwar Japan, which saw a general censorship of all Japanese media and a comprehensive revision of school curricula, Israel made no attempt to reshape Palestinian culture. It limited its oversight of the Arabic press in the territories to military and security matters, and allowed the continued use in local schools of Jordanian textbooks filled with vile anti-Semitic and anti-Israel propaganda.

'Israel's restraint in this sphere -- which turned out to be desperately misguided -- is only part of the story. The larger part, still untold in all its detail, is of the astounding social and economic progress made by the Palestinian Arabs under Israeli "oppression." At the inception of the occupation, conditions in the territories were quite dire. Life expectancy was low; malnutrition, infectious diseases, and child mortality were rife; and the level of education was very poor. Prior to the 1967 war, fewer than 60 percent of all male adults had been employed, with unemployment among refugees running as high as 83 percent. Within a brief period after the war, Israeli occupation had led to dramatic improvements in general well-being, placing the population of the territories ahead of most of their Arab neighbors.

...

Under Israeli rule, the Palestinians also made vast progress in social welfare. Perhaps most significantly, mortality rates in the West Bank and Gaza fell by more than two-thirds between 1970 and 1990, while life expectancy rose from 48 years in 1967 to 72 in 2000 (compared with an average of 68 years for all the countries of the Middle East and North Africa). Israeli medical programs reduced the infant-mortality rate of 60 per 1,000 live births in 1968 to 15 per 1,000 in 2000 (in Iraq the rate is 64, in Egypt 40, in Jordan 23, in Syria 22). And under a systematic program of inoculation, childhood diseases like polio, whooping cough, tetanus, and measles were eradicated.

No less remarkable were advances in the Palestinians' standard of living. By 1986, 92.8 percent of the population in the West Bank and Gaza had electricity around the clock, as compared to 20.5 percent in 1967; 85 percent had running water in dwellings, as compared to 16 percent in 1967; 83.5 percent had electric or gas ranges for cooking, as compared to 4 percent in 1967; and so on for refrigerators, televisions, and cars.

Finally, and perhaps most strikingly, during the two decades preceding the intifada of the late 1980's, the number of schoolchildren in the territories grew by 102 percent, and the number of classes by 99 percent, though the population itself had grown by only 28 percent. Even more dramatic was the progress in higher education. At the time of the Israeli occupation of Gaza and the West Bank, not a single university existed in these territories. By the early 1990's, there were seven such institutions, boasting some 16,500 students. Illiteracy rates dropped to 14 percent of adults over age 15, compared with 69 percent in Morocco, 61 percent in Egypt, 45 percent in Tunisia, and 44 percent in Syria.'

Freedom and partial freedom

Time for users of slogans such as 'Freedom for Gaza!' to give some thought to some potential difficulties and  to some overwhelmingly likely difficulties.

Have you given nearly enough thought to the place of disillusionment, disappointment, crushing disappointment in human experience? Have you given nearly enough thought to the fragility of freedom and the limitations of freedom? Nobody is completely free. The experience is captured in this quotation, from Yeats' 'Parnell' ('New Poems'):

Parnell came down the road, he said to a cheering man:
'Ireland shall get her freedom and you still break stone.'

PROFILES: some pro-Palestinian People

This section gives profiles of  pro-Palestinian-anti-Israel people, including profiles of propagandist academics - who, like the others, may well well have distinctive strengths, of course, apart from their propagandist weaknesses. There are two sub-sections, 'Acadaemics' and 'Others.'

Some of the profiles of  academics give information about denial of free expression with a direct connection with the Israel-Palestinian conflict, others are concerned with denial of free expression with no direct connection with the Israel-Palestinian conflict. In all these cases, the academic has pro-Palestinian-anti-Israel views. In the section Conjugates of my page 'Ethics: theory and practice' I explain the need to take account of  co-factors (such as denial of free expression in a matter which has no direct connection with the Israel-Palestinian conflict) which accompany the principal factor (a view of the Israel-Palestinian conflict).

The section 'Profiles' of my page About this site:

'I regard the many, many profiles of the site as having multiple functions. They reflect an interest in people. There's general recognition that novelists have to have an interest in people. Otherwise, characterisation in their novels will be defective. I think that polemicists and protestors - or opponents of protestors - should have an interest in people, not just in issues,  reasoning, causes, opposition to causes they view as harmful. Very, very often,opponents are viewed in grotesquely simplified ways. Opponents of feminists who use the term 'feminazis' are making a bad mistake, for example.  The profiles are also intended to go beyond the giving of information and commentary, to support activism, in ways which I don't spell out here.

'My criticism isn't relentless. I completed a profile of an individual who had written an ant-Israeli piece which I considered vile but  I found that he'd had to abandon his career as a result of serious health problems. I knew immediately that I couldn't publish the profile.'

PROFILES: Some pro-Palestinian-anti-Israel people. Academics

Dr John C Smith on racism and imperialism

My discussion of material factors in Irish and Northern Irish history on the page Ireland and Northern Ireland: distortions and illusions is relevant here. See the sections Late 19th century stagnation and poverty and The Great Famine.

The section on ''The Great Famine' includes this:

'Christian Wolmar's 'Blood, Iron and Gold: how the railways transformed the world,' after pointing out one way in which diet was improved by the coming of the railways: 'There were countless other examples of the railways improving not only people's diets but their very ability to obtain food ...

'An isolationist interpretation of the Great Famine will focus attention on the callousness of the English response. A ((survey)) will take account of that but also such a factor as the incalculable benefits of the railway revolution, which began in this country. Christian Wolmar quotes Michael Robbins: 'Until about 1870 ... Britain was the heart and centre of railway activity throughout the world.' Writers on the evils of English colonialism have generally failed to acknowledge these incalculable benefits. Their ((survey)) has been defective.'

Simon Hornblower, the historian and commentator on Thucydides, writes in 'Greece: The History of the Classical Period,' the section 'Empire: Athens and the Alternatives,'

'That the fifth-century Athenian Empire (despite the protection which it offered to the more uncomfortably placed Greeks against Persia and, we should add, pirates) was, or became, an oppressive instrument should not be disputed. The strongest argument, against desperate efforts to see it as a benevolent and generally popular institution, is to be found in an important inscription of the year 377, which sets out the terms and aims of a second Athenian naval cenfederacy and explicity repudiates for the future a number of fifth-century practices - tribute, territorial encroachments, garrisons, governors, and so forth - which were clearly felt in retrospect to have been abuses.'

Simon Hornblower's evaluation of the Athenian Empire would benefit from the  counterfactual approach used in 'Alternative History: Alternatives and Counterfactuals.' The strength of Athens, which owed so much to its Empire, enabled it to play a dominant part in repelling the Persian invasions. What if ... an Athens without an empire had been unable to resist the Persian invasions, and the whole of Greece had become part of the Persian Empire?

 Dr Dick Pitt, blogger and debater

The blog is mainly dispiriting, without  the least freshness, originality, individuality or depth. Unflinching honesty isn't a strong point.  Anyone who doubts this or denies this is welcome to study it carefully, to read and re-read it - all of it - to emit little gasps of admiration and delight whilst reading and re-reading it, and to share with as many people as possible  its wealth of insights.

I think that Dick Pitt is a dim blogger with a dismal blog which is hosted by the dire Website of Sheffield Palestine Solidarity Campaign. 'Dim' refers only to his capacity to enlighten in his blog, in his role as a fixture of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign. He's a low-wattage would be enlightener or rather no-wattage would-be enlightener, with all the power of a dead firefly. He's not dim academically.

A page which is markedly better:  the one on Egypt and the Muslim brotherhood, despite its many defects. The topic called for a much fuller treatment. This is the page's final paragraph in its entirety. It doesn't mark the conclusion to an argument but is simply stranded on the page, an isolated comment which should certainly have been amplified:

'I have no doubt that the Arab street is much more sympathetic to the Palestinian cause than the officers of the Egyptian army.' 

I mention one very important misconception which he has - one of many. I emailed him in connection with the contents of an email he'd sent me. I wrote,

He wrote the piece 'Liberals show their true face' for a page in the Socialist Worker Website. He and his co-writer Angela Shann are described as 'Socialist Alliance prospective city council candidates.' To be a candidate is more often than not to be a long way from political power, or to have not the least hope of political power. But to be a prospective candidate, a possible candidate? This is very, very tentative. It's possible that he's no longer  committed to the Socialist Worker cause.

This extract from weeklyworker conveys the futile work of this secular sect. Supporters of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign include members of many other secular sects, often with relations of fraternal hatred. However, Socialist Alliance (English branch) is actually supported by quite a large number of other political organizations, although none of them with any political power. They include the Communist Party of Great Britain, the International Socialist Group, the International Socialist League, Lewisham Independent Socialists, Red Action, the Revolutionary Democratic Group and the Socialist Solidarity Network

'Accordingly, comrade Hoveman suggested that the executive committee produce a composite document based on the 80-20 platform and that this be then circulated to all Socialist Alliances for amendment.

'Comrade Hoveman did, however, concede a major point floated in advance by the CPGB in the Weekly Worker. Each local SA will be allowed to submit both majority and minority amendments, which a conference arrangements committee would then composite.'

The Socialist Party of Great Britain is an opponent, with many others. An insight into the pitiful bickerings and hatreds of far-left politics, again, with an influence and  representation in the Palestine Solidarity Campaign which are far from negligible:

'So who are the Socialist Alliance? They are an eclectic rag bag of Trotskyists, former Stalinists, various other groupings and assorted individuals. The main organisations involved include: Socialist Workers Party, Militant (now calling itself Socialist Party of England and Wales, or SPEW), Alliance for Workers Liberty, Communist Party of Great Britain, International Socialist Organisation and Workers Power ...

'In any case, it is interesting to learn how such a disparate collection of former enemies could have come together in the first place. It does not seem so long ago that the AWL were accusing the SWP of 'violent thuggery' against some of their own members (see AWL pamphlet Why the SWP Beats Up Its Socialist Critics), and surely the former Stalinists of the CPGB would have balked at the prospect of talking to Trotskyists, let alone organising with them. But whatever particular ism each of these leftist sects subscribe to, they all represent the left-wing of capitalism's political apparatus, and thus are the enemy of the working class.'

I mention Dick Pitt in this contribution to a Comments section of the site 'Harry's Place,' given next. After that, I write a little more about Dick Pitt before turning to other matters: the freedom which is treated very finely in the section 'Comments Policy' of Harry's Place, and the freedom which is treated sentimentally, inadequately in the outpourings of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign. The comment I added to the Website began by criticizing a pro-Israeli commenter, 'Tokyo Nambu,' who makes a dim, dismal and dire comment:

'Tokyo Nambu's comment 'If the Labour Party weren't anti-Semitic scum ... ' is a grossly misguided generalization. Its ignorance is extreme. It ignores the Labour MP's who openly support Israel, many, but not all, members of the group 'Labour Friends of Israel.' It may have far less members than 'Conservative Friends of Israel' (it's a heartening fact that 80% of Conservative MP's belong to this group) but these MP's don't in the least deserve to be included in Tokyo Nambu's lazy-minded dismissal.

' think it's likely that supporters of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign are far more active in lobbying MP's than British supporters of Israel. I see it as essential to write to MP's, the ones who denounce Israel and the ones who support Israel - to write to a wide range of people and organizations - to express support for the supporters of Israel and to challenge the views of Israel's opponents.

Some pro-Palestinian-anti-Israel people: others

Assorted grotesques

Deborah Fink

Film of Deborah Fink's deranged reaction after being ejected from the Sadler's Wells Theatre for disruption of a performance, by the young people of the Israeli Batsheva Ensemble.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QEIg3v6pxeQ

She posted this comment on an anti-Zionist weblog: 'Israel does not deserve to be called ‘The Jewish state.’ It should be called ‘The Satanic state.' [

Compare this statement of Deborah Fink with some statements of the former President of Iran,  Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

He predicted that Muslims would uproot 'satanic powers' and reaffirmed his prediction that the Jewish state will soon be wiped off the map, the Agence France-Presse news agency reported.

'I must announce that the Zionist regime (Israel), with a 60-year record of genocide, plunder, invasion and betrayal is about to die and will soon be erased from the geographical scene.' 

'Today, the time for the fall of the satanic power of the United States has come and the countdown to the annihilation of the emperor of power and wealth has started.' 

Naomi Wimborne-Idrissi

is a tireless campaigner against parking fines as well as against the state of Israel. She once chained herself to some railings as a protest against a fine. She only has the tirelessness of unending misdirected effort. She's a tired, stale, predictable person, capable of mechanically using words like 'genocide' but not of making scrupulous distinctions, or carrying out a wide and compassionate ((survey)): if she, and the others, had much genuine compassion, it wouldn't be so subject to {restriction}.

The literary critic F R Leavis wrote of the poet Edith Sitwell and her brothers (in 'New Bearings in English Poetry'): ' ... the Sitwells belong to the history of publicity rather than poetry.' The disruption of the Proms concert by Naomi Wimborne-Idrissi and the others belongs to the history of exhibitionism rather than authentic struggle. It's no more likely to lessen in the slightest the intractable problems of the Middle East than her parking protest.

Tony Greenstein

The site Harry's Place gives this interesting discussion of Tony Greenstein. It quotes Oliver Kamm:

'Tony Greenstein, is himself a political crank of the first order. I had a brush with him in the 1980s when he came to speak to my university Labour Club on behalf of his Labour Movement Campaign for Palestine. His views on terrorism ensured that a motion to affiliate to his organisation received only two votes in favour. A little while later he distinguished himself by writing in outrage to the far-Left London Labour Briefing complaining that it had praised Mrs Thatcher’s courage in defying the Brighton bombers ...'

'Tony Greenstein's response included this: 'The attack on Thatcher by the IRA was obviously legitimate. She was a military target.' Obviously legitimate to eliminate the Prime Minister of a democracy? You've got a lot to learn! Tony Greenstein has been described as an 'ignoramus.' This seems exceptionally generous.

Harry's Place points out that when he visited Syria, the visit was paid for by the Palestine Liberation Organisation, and that he was involved in previous disruption of Israeli music-making, the disruption of the Jerusalem Quartet's concert at the Wigmore Hall.

It goes on to comment, 'But of course, it is not just boycotting Israel that will satisfy Greenstein. He admitted in a letter to Weekly Worker that his revolutionary aim is ”Yes, I want the state of Israel to be destroyed.' On the holocaust, he argued that “without a Zionist movement... it is hard to believe that anything like 6 million would have been allowed to die.”

He isn't popular in some radical left circles, either (which, for the record, aren't circles I very often frequent.) This is from 'Lies, Damn Lies and Tony Greenstein:' by Daniel Randall and Sacha Ismail of the AWL (the Alliance for Workers' Liberty, www.whatnextjournal.co.uk)

 

They write of him ''attacking the AWL in characteristic terms, even though he knew this would harm the coalition of which he himself was part. This sort of behaviour is illustrative of Tony’s general approach – not rational, worked-out criticism but frenzied slander. His diatribe in What Next? [‘The Alliance for Workers’ Liberty – Britain’s Revolutionary Imperialists’] is no different. It is embarrassing in its lack of rigour, in the way it substitutes anecdotal slander for political critique, and in its use of blatant lies, distortions and half-truths.'

Greta Berlin on Charlie Hebdo

Greta Berlin, described as 'one of the key campaigners for the Free Gaza Movement,' has made the psychotic claim  that Israelis, not Islamist terrorists, carried out  the killings at the offices of Charlie Hebdo in Paris, and that the Israelis carried out the attack to cause division between France (which had voted for recognition of a Palestinian state) and the Palestinians:

'MOSSAD just hit the Paris offices of Charlie Hebdo in a clumsy false flag designed to damage the accord between Palestine and France ... Here's hoping the French police will be able to tell a well executed hit by a well trained Israeli intelligence service and not assume the Moslems would be likely to attack France when France is their friend ... Israel did tell France there would be grave consequences if they voted with Palestine. A four year old could see who is responsible for this terrible attack.'

Amedy Coulibaly, who killed the hostages at the kosher grocery shop in Paris, made no allowances for France's support for the Palestinians. He claimed that he was defending 'oppressed Muslims' in Palestine, according to a telephone interview with him conducted by a TV channel.

mondoweiss.net is an anti-Israel-pro-Palestinian site but it draws the line at approval of Greta Berlin

http://mondoweiss.net/2012/10/if-only-it-was-just-one-tweet-one-activists-experience-in-the-our-land-facebook-group

The information it provides is very disturbing, including another psychotic claim: that Jews played a leading part in promoting the Holocaust:  according to Greta Berlin, the Holocaust 'was aided, abetted and to a large degree - created by them [the Zionists].'

There's an urgent need for people and organizations who have endorsed Greta Berlin to state publicly that they don't endorse her any longer. A photograph of Musheir El-Farra, the Chair of a branch of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign and  one of the 'leaders of Gaza civil society' who signed the 'important statement' encouraging Hamas not to observe a cease-fire (except under impossible conditions) shows him with Greta Berlin: 

http://www.sheffieldpsc.org.uk/content/greta-berlin

On the page, she is  described as 'one of the key campaigners for the Free Gaza Movement.

Greta Berlin's stepdaughter (quoted on the site www.danielpipes.org):

'On numerous occasions I heard Greta launch the insults "the god damned Israelis and those f****** Jews" at the dinner table in front of my father (a Jew) and the few Israeli friends and relatives who ventured to visit. Additionally, any rational debate attempted by anyone with an opposing view to Greta's, was immediately terminated with the responses: "Shut up" or "You don't know what the hell you're talking about." '

The Russian analyst Alexei Martyonov offers an alternative view. He has claimed (on the mainstream news channel 'LifeNews') that US intelligence was responsible for the Charlie Hebdo killings, for various reasons, one of them being to exert pressure on the French President to maintain economic sanctions against Russia, and to prevent European countries from becoming allies of Russia and maintain their dependence on the US.

A confused dreamer

After making a public stand in defence of Israel at a large demonstration organized by Sheffield Palestine Solidarity Campaign in the city centre, I talked to some of the folk gathered there and heard one or two pieces of folk-lore.

I had a constructive talk with one individual, to begin with. I mentioned the Yazidis stranded on Mount Sinjar, in acute danger from ruthless ISIS militants, and mentioned with approval that there would be bombing to relieve the danger ... he agreed with me ... but his mood abruptly changed when I mentioned that it would be the Americans doing the bombing. No! Not at all!

Useless to mention that to a Yazidi in imminent danger of death, bombing of ISIS militants nearby by Americans would be an absolute, unqualified good, that no other air force was nearby and able to do the bombing, that there was absolutely no prospect that the bombing could be carried out by an air force which the man approved of, such as the Cuban air force. This was a shocking insight into the mind of someone living, politically and militarily, at least, in a dream world.

If ISIS continues to make territorial gains, it's not impropbable that ISIS (or another ultra-militant force) will be able to threaten the Palestinian territories. The territories are militarily very weak and will inevitably fall, unless aided by outside forces. In their extreme need, the Palestinian territories may be very, very glad to accept the help of the Americans, and the Israelis, who would oppose with all their might territories on their borders controlled by ISIS.

People can suit themselves. They can accept realities or refuse to accept realities. In the past, Palestinians have chosen to refuse to accept realities again and again. But in this scenario, they might even choose to accept the reality of American or Israeli help.

There are many, many people in the Palestine Solidarity Campaign who resemble this dreamer. They are the people who detest Israel but who also detest America, and detest Britain too, but with no strong feelings about, say, the Iranian regime, unless they are strong feelings of approval.

On my page Ethics: theory and practice I discuss the concept of outweighing which illuminates moral dilemmas in ethics, other ethical issues and many non-ethical issues. I use the symbol > for outweighing.

In the Second World War, an alliance with Stalinist Russia could have been rejected by Britain. The Stalinist regim was, after all, one which had terrorized, packed off to labour camps and killed huge numbers of Russians and other nationalities, such as the Ukrainians who were starved to death. But to reject Russian help would lead to certain defeat by Germany and the invasion and occupation of Britain, with forced labour, executions and other harsh penalties. This was a clear-cut case of outweighing. The moral objections to Stalinist Russia were outweighed by the overwhelming importance of national self-preservation and the avoidance of defeat and occupation. Symbolically:

[national self-preservation] > [moral objections to Stalinist Russia]

On the same page, I explain my concept of conjugates, which amongst other things accompany - are linked with - the single issues of single issue campaigners. These campaigners often support and oppose very strongly a range of other issues. What we get is not a single issue in isolation but a packet of issues. So, vegans oppose cruelty to farm animals and have adopted a diet which cuts out all animal products (with the possible exception of honey) but their conjugates are many: vegans are almost always pacifists, for example, or at least tend to have no interest at all in such matters as defence.

The conjugates of pro-Palestinian-anti-Israel activists very often include pacifism and a complete lack of interest in defence too, hostility to British and American policies and hostility to capitalism, often accompanied by a belief in small-scale economic organization which could never meet the demands of an unavoidably complex world.

Not many things seem to disturb their dream world (except for the nightmarish Zionist threat and the British and American threat) but their complacency is probably being undermined little by little by realities. If ISIS ever did try to invade the Palestinian territories. there might well be extreme disillusionment, similar to the disillusionment which took hold of so many communists after the Russian invasion of Hungary in 1956. Caroline Hoefferle, 'British Student Activism in the Long Sixties:'

' ... thousands left the Communist Party that year and the British Left was fractured into dozens of tiny Marxist sects, competing for membership and struggling to create a new vision of socialism.'

The dozens of tiny far left sects are still in evidence, and the  Palestine Solidarity Campaign includes many joint members, people who members of the Solidarity Campaign and members of one or another far left sect.

The Quaker Gordon Ferguson: not totally harmless

Antony Loewenstein is an Australian. I'm a Yorkshireman. Australians and Yorkshire folk are supposedly no-nonsense, blunt-talking types who have no patience with obvious garbage. The Scots too. In my experience, pro-Palestinian anti-Israeli Australians, Scots and Yorkshire folk don't conform in the least to this stereotype. They're receptive to outlandish ideas and regurgitate outlandish ideas. To me, the claim that it's Israel, not Isis or Iran, which is by far the biggest threat to peace in the Middle East is an outlandish, a freakish idea. The claim that Palestinian society, in contrast to Israeli society, is a model society for humane, progressive people, likewise. 

 

Vittorio Arrigoni and Kayla Mueller, hostages

Vittorio Arrigoni, a pro-Palestinian activist, was abducted in Gaza and strangled, badly beaten, soon after abduction. Two Palestinians were sentenced to life imprisonment for his murder (the death sentence is often imposed for murder in Gaza) but the sentence was reduced to only fifteen years on appeal.

From www.frontpagemag.com/

'Arrigoni was sent to Gaza to assist the Islamist terrorists by the pro-terror International Solidarity Movement or ISM, the same group that once sent Rachel Corrie into Gaza to collaborate with terrorists and obstruct Israeli anti-terror operations ...

'So just why did the Islamists murder Arrigoni?  The answer is simple: These fanatics believe that everyone who is not a Muslim, and especially not a Muslim of their own particular fundamentalist genre, is an infidel, an enemy, someone deserving death.  It does not matter in the least that the infidel in question has come to Gaza to assist the terrorists.  In the case of Arrigoni, it did not even matter that he had tattoos on his body endorsing their terrorism.  The “bewilderment” being expressed by the ISM and its amen chorus, along with Arrigoni’s Stalinist Italian groupies, is simply further indicative of how little these people know about the Middle East.'

Islamists' murder of a 'peace activist,' someone completely committed to the Palestinian cause and completely opposed to Israel, was met with revulsion and incomprehension. The revulsion is not just understandable but thoroughly deserved. The incomprehension shows how little many people know about radical Islamism. The same response was made in the case of a victim vastly more deserving of respect, Alan Henning, the aid worker to Syria beheaded by Isis. When his aid convoy was held up by ISIS, all the Moslem members of the convoy were released. Alan Henning was made captive. To his captors, all non-Moslems are contemptible, worthy of death - and this includes all the non-Moslem people who work tirelessly for the Palestinian cause, such as Vittorio Arrigoni. The word used by Islamists for non-believers is 'kuffar.'

Kayla Mueller was the 'aid worker' who may have have been killed in a Jordanian air strike but was more likely killed by the ISIS group which held her captive after she was abducted  in Syria. Her courage can be admired - the courage needed to enter Syria, at least -  but not her  ideological idealism. She gave uncritical support to Palestinian rioters, had a liking for the rhetoric of rioting but, like Vittorio Arrigoni, was  no more than a 'kuffar,' one of the despised unbelievers, to  the repulsive people holding her captive. This is a sample of her writing. She views minarets as agents of liberation and resistance:

'Oppression greets us from all angles. Oppression wails from the soldiers radio and floats through tear gas clouds in the air. Oppression explodes with every sound bomb and sinks deeper into the heart of the mother who has lost her son. But resistance is nestled in the cracks in the wall, resistance flows from the minaret 5 times a day and resistance sits quietly in jail knowing its time will come again.'

She has no conception of realities. Included in the resistance which 'sits quietly in jail' are the terrorists who have slaughtered Jews and are given payment by the Palestinian authority for doing that.

Tom Gross writes about some of the victims of Palestinian terrorism. The category of Palestinian terrorism went unacknowledged by Kayla Mueller. It was missing from her world view. He mentions the 'Rachels.'

'Rachel Thaler, aged 16, was blown up at a pizzeria in an Israeli shopping mall. She died after an 11-day struggle for life following a suicide bomb attack on a crowd of teenagers ... Rachel Levy (aged 17, blown up in a grocery store), Rachel Levi (19, shot while waiting for the bus), Rachel Gavish (killed with her husband, son and father while at home celebrating a Passover meal), Rachel Charhi (blown up while sitting in a Tel Aviv cafe, leaving three young children), Rachel Shabo (murdered with her three sons aged 5, 13 and 16 while at home), Rachel Ben Abu (16, blown up outside the entrance of a Netanya shopping mall) and Rachel Kol, 53, who worked at a Jerusalem hospital and was killed with her husband in a Palestinian terrorist attack in July a few days after the London bombs.'

 Edwin Black, writing in 'The Guardian:'

'On both sides of the pond, in London and Washington, policymakers are struggling to weather their budget crises. Therefore, it may astound American and British taxpayers that the precious dollars and pounds they deploy in  Israel and the Occupied Territories funds terrorism.

'The instrument of this funding is US and UK programs of aid paid to the Palestinian Authority. This astonishing financial dynamic is known to most Israeli leaders and western journalists in Israel. But it is still a shock to most in Congress and many in Britain's Parliament, who are unaware that money going to the Palestinian Authority is regularly diverted to a program that systematically rewards convicted prisoners with generous salaries.  These transactions in fact violate American and British laws that prohibit US funding from benefiting terrorists. More than that, they could be seen as incentivizing murder and terror against innocent civilians.

'Here's how the system works. When a Palestinian is convicted of an act of terror against the Israeli government or innocent civilians, such as a bombing or a murder, that convicted terrorist automatically receives a generous salary from the Palestinian Authority. The salary is specified by the Palestinian "law of the prisoner" and administered by the PA's Ministry of Prisoner Affairs. A Palestinian watchdog group, the Prisoners Club, ensures the PA's compliance with the law and pushes for payments as a prioritized expenditure. This means that even during frequent budget shortfalls and financial crisis, the PA pays the prisoners' salaries   first and foremost – before other fiscal obligations.'

Extract from my page Green ideology: deficiencies:

ISRAEL
You have Become
Like Your
NAZI
Predecessors

From an image on a page of the Sheffield Green Party site

http://sheffieldgreenparty.org.uk/2014/07/27/stop-the-violence-now/ ]

The page has the title 'Stop the violence now!' and begins, 'Green Councillor Jillian Creasy and other local Greens took part in the  rally in support of Palestinians in Gaza.' This was organized by Sheffield Palestine Solidarity Campaign.

One of the photographs on the Green Party site shows a placard held by one of the demonstrators. The placard can be seen at a glance, without the least difficulty. The  image near the top of this section shows the placard.  The placard obviously reads in full:

ISRAEL
You have Become
Like Your
NAZI
Predecessors

The 'ss' in 'predecessors uses the lettering which was employed by the German SS.

The equivalence of Israel and the Nazis is a claim which is despicable. The Green Party's inclusion of this placard on their Website is despicable. If the party never noticed this placard, they are negligent and should do everything possible to examine far more carefully the material they post  on their Website. They should also examine far more carefully the record and policies of the organization they endorse, in effect, by attending the organization's demonstration. Even a modest expenditure of effort should have revealed that the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) is not what it seems.
 
A placard with exactly the same wording was on display at a demonstration organized by Sheffield Palestine Solidarity Campaign on 19 January 2009. Workers' Liberty, a  left wing organization which strongly supports the Palestinians but opposes Hamas, had its anti-Hamas placard ripped up and stamped on. My account of the incident and

the account of the incident on the Workers' Liberty Website.

In the comments section of this Workers' Liberty page, a commenter called Heather makes this point very strongly and very effectively:

'I witnessed (and photographed) a placard that said "Israel you have become like your nazi predecessors" with the "ss" done in the lightning bolt style of the Nazi SS. I found is [sic] disgusting, frightening even. But did I rip it out of the hands of the person holding it and destroy it there and then? I did not. I talked to the people around me, a lot of whom I didn't know and expressed what it was that I felt was wrong with such a statement.'

 Heather on the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC), fully aware, obviously, of the PSC's many failings, unlike some naive members of Sheffield Green Party (I don't in the least endorse her Marxist views and her views of the class struggle):

' ... we do not support Hamas as the resistance to the occupation, because our analysis is based on Marxism and rooted in class struggle and because Hamas is an organisation rooted in political Islam and violently oppresses women, LGBT people AND the left. [That it places the people that it claims to protect in the line of fire of Israeli tanks and bombs. That it does not recognise the right of the State of Israel to exist and we do. I could not fit all of that on to a placard.

'Since 2005 when I visited Israel and the West Bank I have been involved with solidarity work with the region. I did not join PSC because at their 2005/6 conference I was alarmed by the often sinister undertones of anti-semitism. I am not an anti-semite and that has more often than not set me apart from the people I meet who fly Palestinian flags, attend demos and shout popular slogans. I am a socialist and an internationalist.

...

'I was not suprised to hear that on the fourth demo the placard [the Workers' Liberty placard, 'No to  IDF, No to Hamas] had met with aggressive responses after spending a good hour at the demo before defending myself verbally against claims that I was "an Israeli spy" "a disgusting zionist provocatur" and being told in no uncertain terms that I was not welcome on this demo.'

I object to the placard, not for its rejection of Hamas but for its naivety. It crams a great deal of political and military stupidity into those few words, 'No to IDF.' An Israel without the Israeli Defence Force, an Israel which can be invaded and taken over at will, by the military wing of Hamas or by any other force so minded. If the occupier is Hamas, then the result would almost certainly be not just repression for the groups mentioned by Heather, such as gay people, but mass slaughter. The fate of the Jews really would remind the world of the true meaning of the much misused word 'genocide.'

There's evidence that many members of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign don't endorse Hamas' policies, whilst keeping a discreet silence about their lack of support. Unfortunately for them, unfortunately for Heather, I have to say, there's overwhelming evidence that the majority of people in Gaza fully share Hamas' viewpoint. These people are anti-semitic, want to see Israel wiped off the map and share the radical Islamist views of Hamas - see the findings of the Pew Research Center for further information. The distinction between the virtuous views of the Palestinian people and the obnoxious views of Hamas is an untenable one.

On the same page of the Workers' Liberty site there's a photograph of the Sheffield Solidarity Campaign demonstration of 2009 which includes another despicable placard:



Life and death in the Warsaw ghetto (which can't be compared at all with the so-called 'Gaza Ghetto'):

The Warsaw Ghetto was the largest Jewish ghetto in Nazi Europe. 400 000 Jews were crammed into an area of 3.4 km2 (1.3 sq mi). The population density was 23 times the present population density of Gaza. Gaza's population density   is similar to that of Chicago, Boston and San Francisco.  

Many, many Jews died from starvation - the food allowed was completely insufficient - and diseases such as typhus. At least 254 000 Jews from the Ghetto were sent to the Treblinka extermination camp in the summer of 1942. Many Jews were killed during the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising and the razing of the ghetto. The number of deaths among the Jews in the ghetto is estimated to be at least 300 000.

From the Labour Friends of Palestine and the Middle East Website

https://www.lfpme.org/20181220-lfpme-wins-sme-4-labour-award

'LFPME wins SME 4 Labour Award

'LFPME were delighted to recieve an award from the SME 4 Labour Awards. SME 4 Labour awards, co-founded by Ibrahim Dogus and Sonny Leong are an important event in the Labour calendar.' The dynamic introduction to the Website includes this (with the same spelling mistake, 'recieve.')

The SME 4 Labour Website has information about the event, which was held at the Park Lane Sheraton Hotel in Piccadilly on 20 December, 2018 and attended, it seems, by over 400 guests.

http://www.sme4labour.org/2nd_sme4labour_gala_and_labour
_excellence_awards_press_release

LFPME won the 'Friends Group of the Year Award.' SME 4 Labour will obviously have examined the Website of LFPME - if they didn't, then they were very careless - and obviously found nothing amiss with the information in the list of supporters. I don't think SME 4 Labour scrutinized the activities of LFPME with nearly enough care. And how could they think that the activities of LFPME have any relevance to the small businesses they claim to support?

There are a few MP's who are members of both Labour Friends of Palestine and the Middle East and Labour Friends of Israel. One of them is Chris Bryant (Rhondda). I don't discuss Labour Friends of Israel here but I have to say that the prospects of a 'negotiated two state settlement,' mentioned on the Labour Friends of Israel Website, are remote, not based on realities.

The members of Labour Friends of Palestine and the Middle East aren't all deluded fanatics, like Jeremy Corbyn, far from it. It's obvious that many of them - probably most of them - have a touching belief in the benefits of negotiation. Peace is often mentioned at the same time as negotiation.  Negotiation is seen as the surest way to bring peace to this part of the Middle East. There are many cases in which negotiation is the best or only way forward, but many cases in which negotiation is unlikely to work or even futile, hopeless. Negotiation seems very unlikely to bridge the differences between Brexit supporters and Remainers in this country. Theresa May had boundless faith in negotiation, negotiation with Jeremy Corbyn to secure agreement on the question of the country's relationship with the European Union, negotiation as a way of resolving the differences between the European Union's view of things and the United Kingdom's view.

A report in the 'Daily Telegraph (9 September, 2019),' 'Sense of relief for ordinary Afghans at news that talks have collapsed. The 'months of negotiations' between America and the Taliban, which have now ended, were strongly opposed by many Afghans. Some of their comments:

The negotiations in opulent Doha hotels had lent the Taliban credibility and legitimacy, when they were no more than a criminal group..

[The Taliban] perceived that they were winning the war and the peace talks. It was the worst ever peace negotiation.

'Peace talks' between Hamas and Israel would be just as futile, with or without the support of Labour Friends of Palestine and the Middle East. Even if it has been made forcibly clear to Hamas that the disadvantages of armed struggle against Israel are massive, overwhelming, this is a group that never seems to learn. After an interval, a return to firing rockets.

If, at the time that V1 and later V2 rockets were being fired at United Kingdom targets during the Second World War, the government of the Irish Republic had offered to help in a negotiated settlement between this country and Nazi Germany, then it's certain that their offer of help would have been rejected. Before the war and in the early stages of the war, there were the believers, people who had such faith in negotiation. One of them was the Ambassador Henderson. From William L Shirer, 'The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich:' 

'Henderson: 'Hitler may ask to see me after Reichstag as a last effort to save the peace.'

'What peace? Peace for Britain? For six hours Germany had been waging war - with all its military might - against Britain's ally.

'Hitler did not send for Henderson after his Reichstag speech, and the ambassador, who had accommodatingly passed along to London Goering's lies about the Poles beginning the attack, became discouraged - but not completely discouraged. At 10.30 m he telephoned a further message to Halifax. A new idea had spring up in his fertile but confused mind.

'I feel it my duty [he reported], however little prospect there may be of its realization, to express the belief that the only possible hope for now for peace would be for Marshal Smigly-Rydz to announce his readiness to come immediately to Germany to discuss as soldier and plenipotentiary the whole question with Field-Marshal Goering.

'It does not seem to have occurred to this singular British ambassador that Marshal Smigly-Rydz might have his hands full trying to repel the massive and unprovoked German attack, or that if he could break off and did come to Berlin as a 'plenipotentiary' it would be equivalent, under the circumstances, to surrender. The Poles might be quickly beaten but they would not surrender.'

John Mann MP on why he's leaving Parliament.

Jhttps://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/labour-mp-john-mann-quits-to-become-government-anti-semitism-tsar-hlrwb66z5

The section on this page 'On the streets of Gaza: animal abuse' includes evidence of Israel's outstanding record in the field of animal welfare.

I don't claim in the least that members of Labour Friends of Palestine and the Middle East are completely without strengths. Some seem deluded about many things whilst others seem much more impressive - but not in matters relating to Israel and Palestine.

This is Jeremy Corbyn MP LFPME and deluded fanatic, addressing a demonstration against Israel called 'Rage against Israel,' with flags fluttering in the breeze of change or hanging limply. I don't know what the yellow flag represents. The capital letters on the large banner seen in reverse appear to spell 'IHH INSANI YARDIM VAKF (which makes much more sense than what comes out when Jeremy Corbyn opens his mouth. Perhaps INSANI is a cryptic, unintentional reference to Jeremy Corbyn.)

Many members of LFPME aren't supporters of Jeremy Corbyn and may well dislike him or loathe him. I loathe him but he seems to me too insignificant and deluded to be a suitable object of very intense loathing. He's capable of causing immense damage, of course, so he can't possibly be overlooked or excused. A government led by Jeremy Corbyn would inflict catastrophic damage on the economy of this country, the defence forces of this country and so much else. Many of Jeremy Corbyn's supporters are repulsive people.

Lisa Nandy has written about the abuse she suffered when it became known that she couldn't support Jeremy Corbyn. Like those other MP's, she chooses to belong to the same pressure group as him. I think they should be more careful.

The 'Rage against Israel' event where Jeremy Corbyn spoke took place in 2010. In August 2010, Iran Human Rights reported that seven  executions by stoning to death had been carried out over the past four years, and that 14 or more sentences of stoning to death (11 women and three men) were pending. There were no 'Rage against Iran' events in that year or any other year, of course.

Crimes punishable by death in Iran include  homosexuality, incest, fornication, prostitution, adultery, apostasy, blasphemy, repeated consumption of alcohol, production of pornography, 'waging war against God' and 'spreading corruption on Earth. Iran is the most prolific executioner in the world, on a pro capita basis, and executes people who were under the age of 18 at the time of the 'offence.' Israel has used judicial execution only twice in the history of the state, including the execution of Adolf Eichmann.

See also my page on the death penalty.

Like Louise Haigh, Graham Morris MP has a concern for animal welfare. This self-professed 'Friend of the Middle East' really should find out more about the poor treatment of animals in so much of the Middle East - Israel is the exceptional exception.

In 2019, he retweeted a video supposedly about Palestinian children with the caption Israeli soldiers "caught on camera beating up Palestinian children for the fun of it." However, these were Guatemalan, not Israeli soldiers.

Rachael Maskell, Labour and Co-operative MP for York Central.

Rachael Maskell  is a vegan. It's not likely that she appreciates the support which vegans receive in Israel. I point out on this page that vegans in the Israeli Defence Force are given vouchers to buy vegan food and aren't required to wear leather boots. Boots made with synthetic materials are provided.

 I'm glad that these Israeli vegans are given vouchers for vegan food and are provided with boots made with synthetic materials, but I'm not sympathetic to veganism, as my  anti-vegan page makes clear.

Rachael Maskell voted against the extension of abortion rights to Northern Ireland and abstained on the extension of same-sex marriage to Northern Ireland.

Clive Betts MP LFPME is a local lad. I discuss his frailties in the section 'Clive Betts MP: Israel, irregularities, expenses' on my page Cambridge University: excellence, mediocrity and stupidity. (I've nothing to relate on the subject of Clive Betts' excellence, I'm afraid. I think it's likely that he has many strengths. It's simply that I know nothing about them. ) Clive Betts was educated (or trained) at Pembroke College, Cambridge.

 Olivia Blake, at one time Deputy Leader of Sheffield City Council and now the MP for Sheffield Hallam Parliamentary Constituency, posing with a Palestinian flag.

 
The last time the Labour Party picked a candidate for Sheffield Hallam, they made the disastrous choice of Jared O' Mara, who proudly proclaimed 'Jared stands in support of Palestine' not long before he abandoned his constituents. (More about this below.)

At the time that this publicity photo was taken, did Olivia Blake know that in Gaza, unlike Israel, homosexuality is illegal? LGBT gay pride events are common in Israel but - this may come as a surprise to Olivia Blake - LGBT gay pride events aren't in the least common in the Palestinian territories. They never take place there, they would be unthinkable. Sheffield City Council goes out of its way to show its support for the LGBT cause and here is one of the elected councillors (of course there are more who think like her) endorsing and supporting a state which criminalizes and persecutes homosexuals.

Extract from an email I sent to Councillor Blake:

' ... You're obviously a far more prominent figure in local politics than Councillor Gibson, with aspirations to play a part in national politics as MP for Sheffield Hallam constituency. In a fifteen month period, the current MP, Jared O' Mara, discussed, or mentioned, on his Website only one international matter, the Palestinian issue, and declared his support for the Palestinian cause. His Website page can't, or shouldn't be consulted, as it poses a security threat to computer systems

https://www.jaredomara.co.uk/recentactivity/2018/5/15/jared-stands-in-support-of-palestine

It's certain that if elected, you'd be a vastly more competent MP than Jared O' Mara but it seems that Israel-Palestinian matters have dominated your statements on international affairs too. There's a photograph of you holding a Palestinian flag with a group of pro-Palestinian activists. The May Day rally which took place in Sheffield on Saturday May 4 included a group of pro-Palestinian activists holding a banner with the slogan 'Stop Arming Israel.'

I give reasons on my Website page why this slogan is deluded ... '

From an article published 2 May 2017 on the selection of Jared O' Mara as the Hallam Constituency Labour candidate.

https://www.jusnews.net/labour-picks-disability-campaigner-jared-omara-to-challenge-nick-clegg-in-sheffield-hallam/

'Jane Thomas, the constituency chair, said it was good that Labour had selected a young, local candidate for the seat.

'Hallam votes came close to electing a Labour MP in 2015. Once again we have a strong, Sheffield candidate who is committed to serving the people of Hallam.'

'Committed to serving the people of Hallam.' How wrong she was.

From an article written by Jane Thomas, 2 August, 2019 on the subject 'What Labour should learn from Jared O' Mara's selection

https://labourlist.org/2019/08/what-labour-should-learn-from-jared-omaras-selection/

'Hallam activists (some of whom have campaigned for 50 years to get a Labour MP) are angry, demotivated or both. Our enthusiastic newer members see their campaigning efforts wasted. Our constituency is deprived of a functioning MP, with casework not being undertaken. And probably a crucial Labour gain is lost for some time.'

From the Website of Sheffield Hallam Labour Party

https://labourhallam.org.uk/

'We support Jeremy Corbyn as party leader, and embrace enthusiastically the democratic socialist policies and principles of the party under his direction.' It's possible that Olivia Blake doesn't support Jeremy Corbyn as party leader and doesn't embrace his 'policies' and 'principles' with as much enthusiasm as many 'Hallam activists.' If she does support him and is enthusiastic about his policies and principles, then the electorate of Hallam Constituency would gain by knowing this, so that they can make an informed choice when it comes to voting.

Extract from the email I sent to Councillor Gibson:

'Today, I talked to you and other Walkley Labour Party members at your stall on South Road. I take an active interest in Sheffield politics, as in other aspects of Sheffield life, and take great care to be as well informed as possible. However, when I spoke to you, it was without knowledge of some of your views and of complaints and criticisms which have been made about you. I mentioned that I was an activist in various fields, including defending Israel. I gave some information about my involvement. You could have mentioned that you support Sheffield Labour Friends of Palestine but chose not to. You were eager to move on to purely local issues, such as bus services.'

I drew his attention to the material on this page, which at the time didn't include this section.

I sent emails to all the other Sheffield Labour Councillors, quoting the emails sent to Olivia Blake and Neale Gibson in full.

Julie Pearn is the Chair of Sheffield Labour Friends of Palestine, which organized a petition with more than 18,000 signatures to Sheffield City Council, calling on the Council to recognize Palestine as a state. Julie Pearn was the lead petitioner and spoke at a meeting of the Council. The petition wasn't accepted - most of the signatures were found to be invalid, added by people outside Sheffield. The Council's guidelines for submitting a petition are absolutely clear. The signatories must live, work or study in Sheffield. After this display of incompetence, let's hope that Julie Pearn and other people associated with Sheffield Labour Friends of Israel can do better in a task which is surely essential - defending their views on Israeli-Palestinian issues against reasonable criticism. I'd claim to present reasonable criticism of their views on this page, in great quantity. I've sent them an email in which I challenge them to answer objections to their views.

Sheffield Labour Friends of Palestine condemned the firing of rockets from Gaza into Israel - good. Sheffield Labour Friends of Palestine condemns the supply of arms to Israel. It supports the slogan 'Stop arming Israel.' Hopelessly naive and clueless. If rockets are fired into Israel, Israel has to be able to respond and to deter the firing of rockets. If Israel's existence is threatened, and it is, it has to have the means to defend itself. If an Irish nationalist group had condemned the Nazi's firing of V1 and V2 rockets into Britain during the Second World War but had supported the slogan 'Stop arming Britain' then they would have been regarded, by anyone with any sense, as deluded. Britain had to have the means of defending itself. Israel has to have the means of defending itself. Israel is not only defending itself but also defending the Palestinian territories.

The Sheffield Palestine Solidarity Campaign's policies aren't identical with those of SLFP. The SPSC doesn't oppose the firing of rockets from Gaza into Israel. There are all sorts of questions I'd like to ask SPSC but I think they would be even less willing than SLFP to make an honest attempt to answer them - or any attempt at all to answer them.

I'm completely prepared to have my own views questioned, the arguments and evidence I use subjected to criticism. Musheir El-Farra, and others - what are you waiting for?

Musheir El-Farra is a prominent figure in Sheffield Palestine Solidarity Campaign. He was one of the 'leaders of Gaza civil society' who signed a statement, described as an 'important statement.' 

Extract from my page Green ideology: deficiencies:

ISRAEL
You have Become
Like Your
NAZI
Predecessors

From an image on a page of the Sheffield Green Party site

http://sheffieldgreenparty.org.uk/2014/07/27/stop-the-violence-now/ ]

The page has the title 'Stop the violence now!' and begins, 'Green Councillor Jillian Creasy and other local Greens took part in the  rally in support of Palestinians in Gaza.' This was organized by Sheffield Palestine Solidarity Campaign.

One of the photographs on the Green Party site shows a placard held by one of the demonstrators. The placard can be seen at a glance, without the least difficulty. The  image near the top of this section shows the placard.  The placard obviously reads in full:

ISRAEL
You have Become
Like Your
NAZI
Predecessors

The 'ss' in 'predecessors uses the lettering which was employed by the German SS.

The equivalence of Israel and the Nazis is a claim which is despicable. The Green Party's inclusion of this placard on their Website is despicable. If the party never noticed this placard, they are negligent and should do everything possible to examine far more carefully the material they post  on their Website. They should also examine far more carefully the record and policies of the organization they endorse, in effect, by attending the organization's demonstration. Even a modest expenditure of effort should have revealed that the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) is not what it seems.
 
A placard with exactly the same wording was on display at a demonstration organized by Sheffield Palestine Solidarity Campaign on 19 January 2009. Workers' Liberty, a  left wing organization which strongly supports the Palestinians but opposes Hamas, had its anti-Hamas placard ripped up and stamped on. My account of the incident and

the account of the incident on the Workers' Liberty Website.

In the comments section of this Workers' Liberty page, a commenter called Heather makes this point very strongly and very effectively:

'I witnessed (and photographed) a placard that said "Israel you have become like your nazi predecessors" with the "ss" done in the lightning bolt style of the Nazi SS. I found is [sic] disgusting, frightening even. But did I rip it out of the hands of the person holding it and destroy it there and then? I did not. I talked to the people around me, a lot of whom I didn't know and expressed what it was that I felt was wrong with such a statement.'

 Heather on the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC), fully aware, obviously, of the PSC's many failings, unlike some naive members of Sheffield Green Party (I don't in the least endorse her Marxist views and her views of the class struggle):

' ... we do not support Hamas as the resistance to the occupation, because our analysis is based on Marxism and rooted in class struggle and because Hamas is an organisation rooted in political Islam and violently oppresses women, LGBT people AND the left. [That it places the people that it claims to protect in the line of fire of Israeli tanks and bombs. That it does not recognise the right of the State of Israel to exist and we do. I could not fit all of that on to a placard.

'Since 2005 when I visited Israel and the West Bank I have been involved with solidarity work with the region. I did not join PSC because at their 2005/6 conference I was alarmed by the often sinister undertones of anti-semitism. I am not an anti-semite and that has more often than not set me apart from the people I meet who fly Palestinian flags, attend demos and shout popular slogans. I am a socialist and an internationalist.

...

'I was not suprised to hear that on the fourth demo the placard [the Workers' Liberty placard, 'No to  IDF, No to Hamas] had met with aggressive responses after spending a good hour at the demo before defending myself verbally against claims that I was "an Israeli spy" "a disgusting zionist provocatur" and being told in no uncertain terms that I was not welcome on this demo.'

I object to the placard, not for its rejection of Hamas but for its naivety. It crams a great deal of political and military stupidity into those few words, 'No to IDF.' An Israel without the Israeli Defence Force, an Israel which can be invaded and taken over at will, by the military wing of Hamas or by any other force so minded. If the occupier is Hamas, then the result would almost certainly be not just repression for the groups mentioned by Heather, such as gay people, but mass slaughter. The fate of the Jews really would remind the world of the true meaning of the much misused word 'genocide.'

There's evidence that many members of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign don't endorse Hamas' policies, whilst keeping a discreet silence about their lack of support. Unfortunately for them, unfortunately for Heather, I have to say, there's overwhelming evidence that the majority of people in Gaza fully share Hamas' viewpoint. These people are anti-semitic, want to see Israel wiped off the map and share the radical Islamist views of Hamas - see the findings of the Pew Research Center for further information. The distinction between the virtuous views of the Palestinian people and the obnoxious views of Hamas is an untenable one.

On the same page of the Workers' Liberty site there's a photograph of the Sheffield Solidarity Campaign demonstration of 2009 which includes another despicable placard:



Life and death in the Warsaw ghetto (which can't be compared at all with the so-called 'Gaza Ghetto'):

The Warsaw Ghetto was the largest Jewish ghetto in Nazi Europe. 400 000 Jews were crammed into an area of 3.4 km2 (1.3 sq mi). The population density was 23 times the present population density of Gaza. Gaza's population density   is similar to that of Chicago, Boston and San Francisco.  

Many, many Jews died from starvation - the food allowed was completely insufficient - and diseases such as typhus. At least 254 000 Jews from the Ghetto were sent to the Treblinka extermination camp in the summer of 1942. Many Jews were killed during the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising and the razing of the ghetto. The number of deaths among the Jews in the ghetto is estimated to be at least 300 000.

From the Labour Friends of Palestine and the Middle East Website

https://www.lfpme.org/20181220-lfpme-wins-sme-4-labour-award

'LFPME wins SME 4 Labour Award

'LFPME were delighted to recieve an award from the SME 4 Labour Awards. SME 4 Labour awards, co-founded by Ibrahim Dogus and Sonny Leong are an important event in the Labour calendar.' The dynamic introduction to the Website includes this (with the same spelling mistake, 'recieve.')

The SME 4 Labour Website has information about the event, which was held at the Park Lane Sheraton Hotel in Piccadilly on 20 December, 2018 and attended, it seems, by over 400 guests.

http://www.sme4labour.org/2nd_sme4labour_gala_and_labour
_excellence_awards_press_release

LFPME won the 'Friends Group of the Year Award.' SME 4 Labour will obviously have examined the Website of LFPME - if they didn't, then they were very careless - and obviously found nothing amiss with the information in the list of supporters. I don't think SME 4 Labour scrutinized the activities of LFPME with nearly enough care. And how could they think that the activities of LFPME have any relevance to the small businesses they claim to support?

There are a few MP's who are members of both Labour Friends of Palestine and the Middle East and Labour Friends of Israel. One of them is Chris Bryant (Rhondda). I don't discuss Labour Friends of Israel here but I have to say that the prospects of a 'negotiated two state settlement,' mentioned on the Labour Friends of Israel Website, are remote, not based on realities.

The members of Labour Friends of Palestine and the Middle East aren't all deluded fanatics, like Jeremy Corbyn, far from it. It's obvious that many of them - probably most of them - have a touching belief in the benefits of negotiation. Peace is often mentioned at the same time as negotiation.  Negotiation is seen as the surest way to bring peace to this part of the Middle East. There are many cases in which negotiation is the best or only way forward, but many cases in which negotiation is unlikely to work or even futile, hopeless. Negotiation seems very unlikely to bridge the differences between Brexit supporters and Remainers in this country. Theresa May had boundless faith in negotiation, negotiation with Jeremy Corbyn to secure agreement on the question of the country's relationship with the European Union, negotiation as a way of resolving the differences between the European Union's view of things and the United Kingdom's view.

A report in the 'Daily Telegraph (9 September, 2019),' 'Sense of relief for ordinary Afghans at news that talks have collapsed. The 'months of negotiations' between America and the Taliban, which have now ended, were strongly opposed by many Afghans. Some of their comments:

The negotiations in opulent Doha hotels had lent the Taliban credibility and legitimacy, when they were no more than a criminal group..

[The Taliban] perceived that they were winning the war and the peace talks. It was the worst ever peace negotiation.

'Peace talks' between Hamas and Israel would be just as futile, with or without the support of Labour Friends of Palestine and the Middle East. Even if it has been made forcibly clear to Hamas that the disadvantages of armed struggle against Israel are massive, overwhelming, this is a group that never seems to learn. After an interval, a return to firing rockets.

If, at the time that V1 and later V2 rockets were being fired at United Kingdom targets during the Second World War, the government of the Irish Republic had offered to help in a negotiated settlement between this country and Nazi Germany, then it's certain that their offer of help would have been rejected. Before the war and in the early stages of the war, there were the believers, people who had such faith in negotiation. One of them was the Ambassador Henderson. From William L Shirer, 'The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich:' 

'Henderson: 'Hitler may ask to see me after Reichstag as a last effort to save the peace.'

'What peace? Peace for Britain? For six hours Germany had been waging war - with all its military might - against Britain's ally.

'Hitler did not send for Henderson after his Reichstag speech, and the ambassador, who had accommodatingly passed along to London Goering's lies about the Poles beginning the attack, became discouraged - but not completely discouraged. At 10.30 m he telephoned a further message to Halifax. A new idea had spring up in his fertile but confused mind.

'I feel it my duty [he reported], however little prospect there may be of its realization, to express the belief that the only possible hope for now for peace would be for Marshal Smigly-Rydz to announce his readiness to come immediately to Germany to discuss as soldier and plenipotentiary the whole question with Field-Marshal Goering.

'It does not seem to have occurred to this singular British ambassador that Marshal Smigly-Rydz might have his hands full trying to repel the massive and unprovoked German attack, or that if he could break off and did come to Berlin as a 'plenipotentiary' it would be equivalent, under the circumstances, to surrender. The Poles might be quickly beaten but they would not surrender.'

John Mann MP on why he's leaving Parliament.

Jhttps://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/labour-mp-john-mann-quits-to-become-government-anti-semitism-tsar-hlrwb66z5

“Every time I go into a meeting with a group of Jewish people, I wince when they raise the issue of the Labour Party and Corbyn. It is impossible to overstate the anger that I have about that . . . He has not just hijacked my political party; he has hijacked its soul and its ethics. I will never forgive him for that.”

...

“I could not have stood at the next election and looked people in the eye and answered them the question they will ask an awful lot, ‘If I vote for you I’m also voting for Jeremy Corbyn to be prime minister’. In the 2017 election, nobody thought Corbyn would be prime minister . . . so I was able to say ‘he’s not going to be prime minister’.

“But I can’t do that this time and I’m not prepared to lie to my voters. And neither am I prepared to tell them that Corbyn is appropriate to be prime minister. Because I don’t think he is.”

My comment:

Joining the Labour Friends of Palestine and the Middle East is voluntarily joining an organization which has Jeremy Corbyn as a member. No Labour MP who regards Jeremy Corbyn as mistaken (or deluded) in many of his views should join.