Harry's Place

In the wake of reports of hundreds of civilians massacred by Syrian army shelling in Homs, US Ambassador to the UN Susan Rice responds to Russia’s and China’s veto of a Security Council resolution condemning the Assad regime.

Well said– and sure to raise a few hackles in Moscow and Beijing.

Update: A resident of Homs speaks to CNN.

Further update: Rage and Anger Outside Syrian Embassy Today

This is a cross post from Gaystarnews, by Dan Littauer, Calum Ross, Tris Reid-Smith

A rabbi, a bisexual Jewish therapist and gay Jews have condemned acomment article in the Jewish Telegraph that says gay religious people should be allowed to ‘cure’ their sexuality.

The British Jewish newspaper’s columnist Doreen Wachmann admits that ‘gay cures’ don’t ‘always work’ but says that they should be tried anyway, if people want to. She also claims there is a ‘fascism’ disallowing free speech on the subject among Orthodox Jews.

The British Jewish newspaper published the article by Doreen Wachmann today, in the aftermath of publicity surrounding Chief Rabbi of Amsterdam, Aryeh Ralbag. He was temporarily suspended after he said gays could be cured and was reported by Dutch news agency ANP to have been re-instated today.

It also follows concerns about ‘homosexual cure’ group JONAH being promoted in British Jewish schools.

In her article, Wachmann claims that gay religious people who are unhappy with their sexuality are ‘discriminated against’ by therapists who ignore their clients’ religious beliefs and encourage them to come out and accept their sexuality.

She describes the case of an unnamed gay man who was unhappy with his ‘troubling sexual urges’ and sought therapy: ‘Every British therapist he went to encouraged him to “come out” as a homosexual, something he really didn’t want to do as indulging his desires made him deeply unhappy.

‘He was only able to move on once he realised that his troubling sexual urges were part of a deeper malaise and that the solution lay in understanding the issues involved rather than indulging the symptoms.’

She also implies a similarity between patients who are treated for a ‘desire for sex with the dead’ and those who wish to ‘cure’ their gayness.

Rabbi Mark Solomon of Manchester Liberal Jewish Community, told Gay Star News: ‘Doreen Wachmann’s article displays a shocking ignorance and malevolence towards gay Jews. It is Jewish tradition that was infected, millennia ago, with the sickness of homophobia. It is the Doreen Wachmanns of this world who are in need of curing.

‘The consensus of all respectable medical and psychological opinion not fettered by fundamentalist religious dogma is that same-sex attraction is utterly natural and deeply ingrained in the personality, not a disease or pathology of any kind. The language of “cure” simply does not apply, and any suggestion that it does reeks of bigotry.

‘Gay people who have been subjected to so-called “reparative therapy” overwhelmingly testify that it is humiliating, abusive and ultimately useless. Left-handed people were once forced to act right-handed – this might produce some temporary unnatural behaviour modification, but at the cost of the individual’s thriving and integrity.

‘Of course no-one should be forced to come out, or declare themselves gay if they are really bisexual – these are deeply personal decisions that should be made freely, perhaps with the help of sympathetic and non-judgemental counselling. But that is worlds away from telling a person who is insecure about their sexual identity that there is something sick about them that could be cured.

Ronete Cohen, a Jewish bisexual advice columnist, psychologist, and psychotherapist of the London based Rainbow Couch practise, also dismissed the idea that attempts to ‘cure’ people of their sexuality is helpful.

She said: ‘Therapists don’t serve some hidden agenda. We take care of the person and help them find the best way to live a better life. No-one is forced to come out of the closet.

‘The biggest cause of distress for LGBT people is rejection by those around them. How does further rejection by trying to “cure” them – thereby suggesting an illness – help?

‘Therapists are obliged not to knowingly damage or administer treatment that doesn’t work. Research shows that, contrary to claims by advocates of gay “cures”, treatment doesn’t change sexual orientation, but can potentially harm (there have been suicides in “ex-gay” programs). Those who claim to have become heterosexual will often later admit that they were never cured and were living a lie, including leaders and founders of the ex-gay movement. This “cure” is based on pseudo science and faulty reasoning. It harms.’

Solomon also criticized Wachmann for her comment that politically correct ‘fascism’ is preventing debate on the issue.

He said: ‘To suggest that the popular consensus supporting gay rights is somehow fascist, in the third sentence of her article, is like saying that Jews who fight for their rights are victimising the antisemites. It is the classic persecutors’ technique of blaming the victim.’

And the anger has been reflected by Jewish LGBT people in the wider community.

A 53-year-old Jewish gay Glaswegian said: ‘I am furious, being gay is not an illness its just who you are! How dare she presume it an illness?

‘It is shocking that the paper publishes such a travesty of an article. Such views can be extremely damaging for young Jewish, gay and lesbian people growing up in families who would be influenced by such irresponsible and outrageous views.’

A 39-year-old gay Londoner commented: ‘As the partner of a gay Orthodox Jew, I am saddened to read the discredited pseudo-science of reparative therapy being promoted in The Jewish Telegraph. A brief study of failures of, and damage caused by, the Christian so-called ex-gay movement should give Doreen Wachmann pause for thought.’

And Noam Fischer, a 32-year-old gay Jewish health professional in the NHS London told GSN: ‘I think Orhtodox Jews should realise that homosexuality is not an illness. Perhaps their particular view from within Judaism, though by no means largely shared by other Jews, doesn’t agree with homosexuality, but it is not an illness.

‘There are female Rabbis and that is against their views, is there a cure for that?

‘Orthodox Jews have also gay kids, most of them are disowned. Is this normal? Is that in the Torah? I don’t think so. Judaism has evolved greatly and many communities now openly embrace their LGBT members. Some people in the Orthodox Jewish movement should get rid of the blindfold and see the world as it really is.’

In the post below Desee says:

In a sermon entitled The Intifada and the Signs of Victory, and delivered at the al-Muntada al-Islami mosque in London, Haitham Al Haddad describes Jews as ‘eternal enemies’ and quotes from the anti-Semitic forgery, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion:

“[W]e must reflect on the reality of the conflict between us and the Jews, the enemies of God, and the descendants of apes and pigs.

O brothers! The conflict between us and the Jews is religious, historic, civilizational, and infinitely complex; it is not bounded by time or place, and it has more than one dimension.

Yes, o brothers, this is the nature of the conflict. It is not a military conflict for a limited period on the land of Palestine. The battle in Palestine, such as that underway at the moment and that which took place in the past, is but one small part of this conflict.

There is no better example of this, o brothers, than our recognition based on an investigation of reality, that although the Jews do not occupy all our land in Palestine, in time they will take over parts of the Arab countries indirectly in a manner perhaps worse than the military occupation. For example: political and economic control, and all their efforts to gain cultural control, as well as their hard work towards normalisation [of relations]. This is only part of their management of this battle, of which realise its importance and our ignorance.

We know that the Jews are using all that they can to end this conflict in their favour. They are doomed and will lose. They are one of the armies of the devil, of which Allah the Almighty said: And incite [to senselessness] whoever you can among them with your voice and assault them with your horses and foot soldiers and become a partner in their wealth and their children and promise them. But Satan does not promise them except delusion. [17:64]

Did Allah not commands us to seek refuge from the devils of mankind and the jinn? Indeed, the devils of mankind are perfectly represented by these Jews. Do their Protocols [of the Elders of Zion] not say: “We must seduce the world with women and wine, through gambling and recreation, and if this is not sufficient then their reality will testify to this.”

O brothers: their weapons in this battle are like the weapons of Satan: all kinds of desires, money, women, alcohol, games, media, so-called sports and art. All of these are amongst their weapons.”

In another sermon delivered at the same mosque entitled Who are the Innocents?, al-Haddad justifies the killing of apostates:

“Capital punishment in Islamic law is permissible…for those designated as ‘innocent’ according to international law [such as] the one who leaves his religion…just as the married adulterer, is a “criminal eligible for the death penalty”, according to the Islamic legal principle of consensus.

And this reminds us, o Servants of Allah, of the stories of those who compose heretical writings, that you cannot tolerate esoteric interpretation, you rule on their apostasy and desertion of the religion…in the West they are known as creative writers, and are considered as amongst the most innocent, but to us they are apostates, and their blood is halal.“

He then goes on to justify suicide bombing:

“This category is mentioned in what the scholars call at-Tatarrus, which permits Muslims on the battlefield to kill a group of non-Muslims if they are using Muslims as a type of shield and there is no other way to get at them. This way, even if it leads to the killing of some Muslims, as long as non-Muslims are killed, is permissible a fortiori.

Thus it is understood that, although these people were not fighting, one may kill them unintentionally…”

In another sermon at al-Muntada al-Islami entitled Conditions for the Relationship with the People of the Book, al-Haddad calls for the worldwide implementation of Islamic law:

“O Nation of jihad! The second of the sources that depend on the accusation of their [non-Muslims] disbelief is thatMuslims should prevent them from ruling any country with a law other than the shari’ah and Muslims should rule the entire planet with this Islamic law, and should this lead to fighting the People of the Book, Allah said: “And fight them until there is no more Fitnah (disbelief and worshipping of others along with Allah) and (all and every kind of) worship is for Allah (alone). [2: 193].

The aim of Jihad is primarily for Allah’s law to govern the whole earth, and for no other law to remain.”

Jews and Christians must be hated:

“O servants of Allah! Here’s another warning more important than its predecessor, namely: declaring Jews and Christians to be kuffār, and the necessity of hating them, and avoiding them.“

Muslims must avoid non-Muslims completely and it is forbidden to celebrate their festivals:

“O Nation of Islam! The remaining provisions concerning the People of the Book are numerous: it is ḥarām [forbidden]to imitate them; it is essential to force them to pay the jizyah [discriminatory poll tax levied on non-Muslims] in Muslim countries; and to prohibit their residence in the Arabian Peninsula…but here I conclude with one rule, considering its importance to us these days, especially in this country, and in the face of this adversity, that is, the forbiddance of joining the Christians in their festivals, or congratulating them.

O servants of Allah! If we agree that their religion is an infidel religion , it means that their religious rites are a manifestation of infidelity and symbols of war against Allah and His Messenger, and there is no doubt that the festivals of each sect is associated with their religion and their faith, and it is these festivals which distinguish it from others, and the festivals are specifically distinguished by [non-Muslim] laws, just as Ibn Taymiyyah said.

So do you see that if a Muslim is pleased with the appearance of these manifestations of disbelief, as well as congratulating the non-Muslims on these festivals, let alone participating in them, that this is what makes congratulation of the kuffār on their religious rites categorically forbidden, and that the sin is multiplied if Muslims participate in these manifestations of disbelief?

Ibn al-Qayyim said: “As for congratulating non-Muslims on the rituals of disbelief, it is forbidden by consensus, just as it is forbidden to congratulate them on their festivals and fasts by saying ‘Merry Christmas to you!’ or ‘Enjoy your festival!’ and the like, for this equates to the speaker accepting disbelief and it is forbidden.” It has the same status as congratulating someone for prostrating in front of the Cross. This is the greatest sin to Allah and more odious than celebrating by drinking wine, committing suicide and practising illegal sexual intercourse and the like. Many of those who have no respect for their religion fall in this trap and they do not know the ugliness of what they have done, for whosoever congratulated someone for a sin or heresy or disbelief exposes himself to the loathing of Allah and his indignation.

Allah said: “And it has already been revealed to you in the Book (this Quran) that when you hear the Verses of Allah being denied and mocked at, then sit not with them, until they engage in a talk other than that; (but if you stayed with them) certainly in that case you would be like them . Surely, Allah will collect the hypocrites and disbelievers all together in Hell.”[4:140]

O servants of Allah, Ibn Taymiyyah said: “It is also evil to encourage Muslim children to respect or love these festivals of disbelief…”

What an evil parent you are if you don’t forbid your family and your children from that and knowledge of it: that it is not permissible for us to participate in the Christian festivals or imitate them.

O servants of Allah! I do not know how it can be pleasurable for a believer to congratulate the cross-worshipers,the swine-eaters, the wine-drinkers, on their festivals of immorality, obscenity and adultery, where naked women dance with men, where cups of wine are passed round, noisy songs are sung, shamelessness and depravity abound, and then tell them after that, ‘ Have a happy time!’”

HP Comments: Haitham Al Haddad is being promoted by FOSIS and is scheduled to speak to the LSE ISOC. He appeared at the East London Mosque/London Muslim Centre in December.

When these organisations are held up as examples of moderation, promoted as partners for engagement, or defended from attack – make no mistake. This is what is actually being defended.

This is a cross post from Marc’s Words

When I was younger I wanted to be a Paratrooper in the IDF, I wanted to wear the red beret more than anything else, I wanted to join the ranks of the chosen in Israel, to be at the tip of the spear. The British army held no appeal, I felt with all my heart that Israel was the place for me, that Israel was the only place for me. Palestinians didn’t figure in my thoughts at all. It never occurred to me to think about Palestinians nor about the occupation, they simply weren’t on my radar.

When I was in the army it was a shock to meet Palestinians, to see how they lived and to see how we treated them. The image that I had of Israel was simply cracked, if not broken. In London I used to get so angry with reports on the BBC that I would actually shout at the television. When I was in the army it surprised me to see that the BBC didn’t report a lot of the killings that happened in the West Bank, I found that by and large the coverage was very fair.

After my tour of duty in August 2004 I was so conflicted with the Israel that I had seen that I had to remove myself from the scene. A month after finishing my service I was back in London trying to understand what it was that I had accomplished during my time in the Paratroopers. It had been a tough 2 years, I had invaded the homes of people who were never considered connected to terror movements in any way. We went into their homes simply because we needed their windows to look out upon the city.

I had fired rubber bullets and thrown stun grenades at civilians simply because I had been ordered to. At the same time I had arrested more deadly terrorists than I could accurately keep count of. My unit had killed and/or arrested people who had nothing on their minds but killing Jews in the most gruesome ways possible. I found it almost impossible to reconcile the bad I had done along with the good I had done and had no way to judge which was which. I had served the country which had adopted me with open arms and done so with all my heart and all my soul.

I went back to London with my eyes open with regards to Israel and wishing that I could close them again. I wished that I could work for hasbarah groups in support of Israel but I no longer knew where I stood and found it impossible to simply argue in favour of the country I had put my life on the line to protect. With that in mind from the moment I left after my service I knew that I would come back. It was a temporary leave of absence that I had taken in order to get my thoughts in order, to clear my mind.

It was 6 years after my departure that I found myself back in this strange country and although the raw wounds of my service had turned into scars I still found it difficult to formalise how I felt about Israel with regards to the fact that it simply is not the perfect, utterly moral country I had once assumed it was. The truth is that Israel is more than happy to continue occupying Palestinians forever. It is policy to move Jews into the West Bank and has been for decades and it doesn’t look like that is going to change any time soon. The Israeli army and to a lesser extent settlers behave as they wish in the West Bank while Palestinians are subject to limitations on their lives and their freedom whether they are terrorists or not. These are clear facts, I have provided no links, if you care enough search Google and find the information for yourself it isn’t lacking nor are the facts on Palestinian freedoms disputed.

What is disputed is the reasons why their freedoms are withheld and here we arrive at what has been crystallising within me. In my post army days I wished that Israel would simply leave the West Bank behind. I saw it and continue to see the area as an albatross around our collective necks that is dragging us down into immorality. I hate the fact that entire generations are growing up in the West Bank, that it is all they have ever known and that they are growing up feeling that occupying Palestinians is a part of life.

We have gotten into a mindset over here that building more homes in the West Bank and moving more Jews in there somehow serves as a punishment for Palestinian terror, it does not, it simply takes us further away from ever finding a way to live in peace with Palestinians and sends Palestinians into the arms of Hamas and other extremist groups. Further settlement and current settlement is something that I am strongly opposed to and will continue to oppose.

People who are against Israeli occupation of the west Bank shouldn’t ignore the failures of the Palestinian Authority. The continuing outpouring of hatred and loathing that shows not just individual failings but institutional ones make me feel that Palestine simply would be a launchpad for attacking Israel. I think that the frustration felt by groups such as Shalom Achshav and +972 is leading them to ignore the signs. Were Israel to withdraw from the West Bank tomorrow there is no real doubt as to what would happen. The 2 incidents that occurred in the last week alone, the Mufti of Jerusalem and the mother of the terrorist who murdered the Fogel’s being broadcast on Palestinian TV make it very clear just where Palestinian society stands.

There are certainly grounds for hope, the fact that an Israeli soldier recently left behind by his unit during a mission in the West Bank was escorted back to his unit by 2 members of the village he was left in is an amazing example of the way things can go. I hope those Palestinians aren’t punished, I hope that they receive some form of recognition for what they have done.

I don’t feel that it is a contradiction to campaign against Israel policies in the West Bank and at the same time to call for the PA to stop educating their populace to hate Israel, Jews and to celebrate murder. This is where I stand, it is a thin line I guess since most people expect you to be whole heartedly pro or against but at the moment all I see is wrongdoing by both sides. Hopefully we will be able to get to a place where everyone backs away from the abyss, though I don’t see it coming in the near future.

As for Zionism, well, I am an Israeli citizen and that is more than enough for me.

Guest post by Abu Faris

Extreme violence has always been quite commonplace at Egyptian football matches. Season after season, match after match, games have been regularly marred by pitch invasions, assaults on players and officials, death threats, the murder of opposition fans, street fighting, riots. For decades the old regime tolerated the excesses of the ultras associated with the leading Egyptian teams and the organised violence of Egyptian football. The violence of the ultras served as a vent for the general antipathy felt towards the regime. However, those who sup with the Devil had best do so with a long spoon – the random violence of the ultras might have been useful to the old regime in some ways; but the ultras themselves, drawn from the bleak streets of poverty striken districts of Cairo and the other cities were never going to be best friends with the sleek crooks and murderers of the old regime.

Well-organised and in favour of all sorts of ultra-violence, especially against the authorities or passers-by not pledging automatic and undying allegiance to their football team, the ultras served as the shock troops of last year’s Revolution, involved in some of the worst street fighting, ready for a ruck, taking their chants with them to the barricades. Even then, some of the more thoughtful revolutionaries were concerned about what was being unleashed. Today, thousands injured and at least 76 dead after the excesses in Port Said, one would have thought that there would be more force behind those who were concerned that the Revolution was being hijacked by fascistic hooligans with a keen line in neo-Nazi slogans and random street crime. Yet, that is far from the case. Hiding behind a smokescreen of conspiracy theory, chiefly involving the old regime and the present military junta, the thugs of Egyptian football are being not only let off the hook, but lauded as “martyrs” by interested parties ranging from the ultras themselves to the Muslim Brotherhood.

Weapons of all sorts are regularly taken into stadia – getting them past the incompetent and outnumbered police presence is hardly a difficulty, especially for the home team who can rely on the fact that the local police are almost certainly going to turn a blind eye to anything short of an anti-aircraft gun being blatantly wheeled past them through the turnstiles. The fact that the police are utterly corrupt, completely incompetent and vastly outnumbered by already over-excited and violence-prone fans is one issue. Another is that the cops are themselves locals – if they are not themselves fans of the local side, then they have to live amongst its fans on a daily basis. Last but not least it should be recalled that the Egyptian police are utterly despised and have been keeping a fairly low profile since their murderous rampages during last year’s Revolution. In all, even if the police wanted to intervene, they probably would not. At Port Said there was considerable evidence that the police contrived to allow a riot to take place and then when it was in full swing not only did nothing to stop it, but actively participated in the lethal assaults against the visitors from Cairo. How much of this was down to the local police actively supporting their own fellow townsmen against the hated Cairene is anyone’s guess – but frankly, this is much more likely than the wild conspiracy theories presently circulating.

The aftermath of yet another football related outrage has, in Egypt, taken a predictably conspiratorial turn. Newly elected parliamentarians, the press, the man waiting for the minibus to take him downtown are all thoroughly convinced that the violence in Port Said has a more sinister aspect to it. Far from being yet another example of the lethal thuggishness of Egypt’s notorious ultra hooligans, the incident is being played up as the cutting edge of a vast conspiracy involving former members of the old regime still embedded in the Interior Ministry hell-bent on disrupting a peaceful transition to Islamist rule. The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) have been implicated – they organised it all, assert some, in order to pretext extension of the hated Emergency Rule SCAF had previously promised would soon be dropped.

The fact that 76 people were murdered and thousands more injured in a disgusting display of everything that is going wrong in Egypt is conveniently left out of the picture. No more so than by the ultras of al-Ahly themselves, now – more than ever – keen to portray their continued rampage at every match their team plays as being some sort of bizarre extension of the Revolution and their dead as “martyrs” in the cause of that Revolution.

Egypt is out of control. Daily bank robberies, crimes against property and person, fill the news. Egyptian Arabic language forums are full of complaints from the population of Alexandria that their town is lawless, the police are in the pockets of the criminals, street violence is rife. Residents of Suez complain of price-rises, joblessness and a crooked police force that resorts to extreme violence at the drop of a hat. Cairo seethes with crowds of football hooligans now projected as defenders of the Revolution. Barricades go up, the security barriers before the Ministry of Interior are torn down. A million thugs and crooks now run the country, when once only a single family of thugs and crooks did so.

Revolutions are meant to turn the world upside down, but a sense of reality is not meant to fall out of its pockets as a consequence. I went to Tahrir Square for the first time in three months the other day, on the tedious task of fighting my way through the army of grasping petty thieves who masquerade as visa clerks at the Kafka-esque Mugamma on the edge of the Square. Last I was there, the place was full of young, hopeful Revolutionaries, cleaning up after themselves, policing themselves and chasing away the crooks. Last week Tahrir Square was filthy, a cardboard city full of beggars, pickpockets and football thugs. The revolutionary graffiti was gone, replaced with the crudely scrawled slogans of one set of ultras or another. It was an overcast, gloomy, bitterly cold day, with rain threatening. It seemed appropriate.

Egypt is become a state run by an unholy alliance of Islamists and football hooligans, watched over by a politicised army. Is this what we fought for a year ago, to be led by fascists and have our streets patrolled by private armies of ultra-violent thugs? Is this what the Revolution has come to?

It breaks my heart.

This is a cross-post from America: Chris Rae’s blog

The purpose of having a blog, as we all know, is to complain about stuff in an acerbic fashion without proposing solutions. Today, we’re going to talk about SOPA. SOPA, as we all know, is a bill going through the the House of Representatives in the United States right now. It is intended to stop online plagiarism of intellectual property of various sorts, and proposes implementing this by allowing the police to delete Wikipedia, shoot internet service providers on sight, and detain potential suspects without trial indefinitely. No, wait, that was something else. Well, you get the general idea. It’s not a very well thought-through bill and I hope it fails.

SOPA inspires me to become grumpy about two things. Firstly, I’ve heard several times that this bill is being forced through by the film industry, who are incapable of waking up to a reality of digital distribution. And, of course, Viacom, Warner Brothers et cetera are all supporters of SOPA. It’s certainly true that these companies stand to make money if SOPA passes. But the list of companies that oppose SOPA isn’t a list of companies that have the best interests of the glorious internet close to their cute little altruistic hearts. It’s just an equivalent list of organisations that will lose money if this passes. It’s the companies who’ll have to spend a ton of money vetting user content, screening their output and adding infrastructure for reporting and monitoring. Facebook, Microsoft, Google, et al. The fact that some of these companies had the muscle to black out a chunk of the internet on January 18th is something of a confusing message, but I think we should disregard the corporate sponsors on either side and think about the bill itself.

The second thing I’m grumpy about is the fact that there’s far too much online piracy, and the death of this bill will probably mean the continuation of that. People justify ripping off films, music and software because they’re just taking it from a big company and they’re all bastards anyway. And I can see why that justification is socially acceptable most of the time. But this rampant stealing from “the man” has left people my age with a similar disdain for intellectual property rights in general. How many of us have needed a picture of two rabbits having sex for a work presentation, Googled “rabbits having sex”,taken the first image and stuck it in the presentation? Sure, it probably belonged to someone and they had some blah on their site about attribution but it’s only a presentation and, hey, they put it on the internet for heaven’s sake, what do they expect? My generation is habitually stealing this sort of content with only the merest hint of shame.

What I only really realised this week is that people younger than me are doing this with no idea that it could actually be wrong.

You can read the rest of Chris’s post here.

And, as it’s Friday, you might like to have a go at this quiz about Britain too.

64-Year-Old Tub Of Lard Still Fit For Human Consumption

Update: With excellent timing, NPR has a report on the decline and fall of lard.

This is a cross post by Richard Millett

When I did my Masters at the School of Oriental and African Studies the Israel Society there was a genuine counter-balance to the anti-Israel propaganda being disseminated by the SOAS Palestine Society. Students of all political persuasions could question Israeli politicians and diplomats and watch superb Israeli films like Beaufort.

Now, sadly, the SOAS Israel Society has been taken over by anti-Zionist activists Sharri Plonski and Dimi Reider (of the anti-Zionist+972 Magazine website) who desire so-called Palestinian refugees (including many who were never born there but, what the hell, let’s call them “refugees” anyway) to be allowed into Israel and destroy its Jewish sovereignty. On Monday they held the event Is BDS Working?

Their Facebook page states:

“The global campaign for boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel almost always sparks polarized discussion on its legitimacy and desirability, but the nuanced question of its effect on the ground is often lost in the debate. Join our panel discussion as we explore the effectiveness of BDS and its stated goals: End of occupation, right of return, and equality for the Palestinian citizens of Israel.”

Plonski said she looked forward to a “discussion”, but warned (clip 1) that if there were any untoward interruptions she would call security (and you wouldn’t want to upset the dictatorial Plonski). Each speaker then slammed Israel after which they got asked compliant questions by a compliant audience. But there was no “discussion”.

The evening reached its Orwellian zenith when the panel was criticised for the lack of a Palestinian presence. Plonski agreed and said she would work hard to have one next time. But what about the Israeli government’s views, one might have asked? I doubt Plonski will be working too hard to have those aired on one of her “discussion” panels.

Where was the “discussion” in allowing an unchallenged Ilan Pappe to state:

“What do you do about a rogue state like Israel? How do you treat it? What is the right policy towards a country, a state, that violates systematically all the United Nations’ resolutions, that violates systematically and abuses civil and human rights? This is now the conversation, this is why all these pro-Zionist Jewish communites are so fidgety, this is why all the Israeli Embassies have nightly meetings ‘what do we do?’, not changing Israeli immoral behaviour, ‘how do we now justify Israeli immoral behaviour?’”

And in allowing him to demean what blacks went through in apartheid South Africa when he said:

“South Africa had the right to exist. And Israel has the right to exist. Apartheid had no right to exist. Therefore, we all worked for the change of regime in South Africa. The kind of regime Israel maintains in the occupied territories, the kind of regime it maintains towards its Palestinian minority in Israel and the kind of policies it pursies against Palestinian refugees has no right to exist. And I think that is what the (bds) campaign is all about…We are talking about a change of regime and we don’t even suggest bombing the Israelis to change the regime as we would have if it had been an Arab country.”

Where was the discussion in allowing Dr John Chalcraft to make the ridiculous assertion that BDS was responsible for loss of business amounting to $7bn? (I would be surprised if it were even $7)

Chalcraft thinks that organisations that are usually unconcerned about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict when conducting business with Israel will now start to be concerned about the prospect of “nasty, grungy looking campaigners” (clip 5) showing up on their doorsteps with pictures of murdered Palestinian babies (incidentally, see here for Daniel Hochhauser’s total demolition of Chalcraft’s arguments when they debated This House Believes in an Academic Boycott of Israel).

Chalcraft denied BDS was racist by simply stating:

“Is there any other state in the world that is, right now, engaged in a project which has all sorts of affinities with nineteenth century settler colonialism?”

But we know that just like Pappe, Plonski and Reider, for Chalcraft the real problem is not “the occupation”, but Jewish Nationalism.

Chalcraft spoke of:

“interesting rifts in both Israeli society and academia that are opening up right now that BDS can exploit, because if you have a non-violent strategy of resistance then you do have to divide, in this case, Zionism”.

He spoke of rifts between the settlers and the IDF, between the segregationist movements on the buses and the more liberal Zionists and also between Liberal Zionists in America, like Thomas Friedman, and other “Newt Gingrich-style-Adelson-casino-owning movements in the United States”.

Chalcraft’s mention of Sheldon Adelson with its strong implication of Jewish money and power (see CiFWatch for analysis on why this can be considered anti-Semitism) was a theme taken up by Dr Lee Jones of Queen Mary’s College. Jones was there as a sort of constructive critic of the BDS movement. He thought that BDS on its own wouldn’t succeed without some bigger overall strategy, so he gave advice:

“Attacking the idea that you must not ever criticise Israel in the United States, otherwise you are some kind of disloyal Jew, for example. That does need to be challenged in the US and opening up different options for US foreign policy could be a start…which then forces the government into changes. So that’s the kind of dynamic that I’m talking about.” (clip 4)

Hannah Weisfeld’s (from “pro-Israel” Yachad) main arguments were that Israel has a right to exist, that BDS has had little impact on Israel and that BDS wouldn’t work anyway as it keeps Israelis on the defensive. She didn’t think BDS was anti-Semitic, but she described what Israel was doing beyond the Green Line as “criminal”.

Weisfeld just wants Israel to end “the occupation”, even if that is achieved by BDS. But because she also doesn’t think BDS will succeed she also gave some advice to the BDS movement (clip 3):

“A unified Palestinan strategy is hugely important and you are much better placed than me to suggest whether BDS is having that impact on Palestinian society. I come from the perspective of what I think is going to end the occupation…I don’t think the BDS movement is racist. I think there are elements in it that are questionable and I think there are parts of its aims that are highly questionable in terms of whether you think Israel has a right to exist or not. I don’t think people who engage in BDS engage in it because they are anti-Semites.”

and:

“I think we would be having a very different conversation in this room if the BDS movement was about a targeted (settlement) boycott. I am not saying that I would necessarily support it, but I think the entire debate would be different, because I think the position would be a position that does not put people on the defensive because it recognises the legitimacy of the other side to exist and I think that the level of criminality that exists inside the Green Line, over the Green Line is not distinguished…is exactly the reason BDS will not succeed in ending the occupation.”

How disappointing that Weisfeld thinks that neither singling out the one country that just happens to be Jewish for a boycott nor the desire of BDS to end Israel’s Jewish sovereignty are racist. And neither does she totally dismiss the possibility of herself supporting a targeted boycott of Israelis who live on the West Bank.

On top of all this Weisfeld never articulated what she expected to happen after any such unilateral settlement withdrawal by Israel. What happens if rockets fired from the West Bank then start hitting Tel Aviv, for example?

And how has the Israel Society at SOAS been hijacked like this? You would have thought that university societies existed to reflect their subject matter in a positive light. However, students at SOAS are now being fed horrendous lies about Israel not only by the SOAS Palestine Society but now by the SOAS Israel Society as well.

Clips:

1. Plonski introducing event:

2. Weisfeld talks about Yachad and adresses BDS:

3. Pappe speaks of Israel’s “criminality” as an admiring Plonski watches on and Weisfeld ponders a targeted settlement boycott:

4. Dr Lee Jones of QMC on “the Jews”:

5. Chalcraft on anti-Israel activism:

6. Dimi Reider on the cultural and academic boycott:

Last year many spoke out against the BBC’s censorship of the words ‘free Palestine’ from a song by Mic Righteous.  Now it has issued a statement in response to these complaints. Samira Shackle writes in the New Statesman:

The BBC Trust has decided it is not “proportionate or cost-effective” to proceed further with the complaint, but the original decision does not seem proportionate either. Indeed, had the BBC allowed the song to go through uncensored, it probably would not have been remarked upon (after all, it was two words, not a long political diatribe). As it is, this incident sends a very uncomfortable message.

I agree, although I also note that there are some pretty appalling comments being made on this story by others who are raising objections to the BBC’s handling of the case.  Under this piece over on Left Foot Forward I read:

Unfortunately the simple fact is the director general is a ‘friend of Israel’, which also explains why the BBC banned the DEC Gaza appeal after Cast Lead. Another Zionist mouth=peice paid for out of the public purse.

All I can say–like CBC, BBC is no diffferant–hi-jacked by zeolot zionist Kosher freaks.

But it is quite possible to be a Zionist, a friend of Israel, and disagree with the BBC on this one.  Here, for example, is a blogger from Israel who has written against this act of censorship.

This is a cross post by Alan Johnson of BICOM

Michael Walzer is co-editor of Dissent. Since 1980 he has been a member of the faculty at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton. His books include Just and Unjust Wars, Spheres of Justice, Arguing About War and Politics and Passion: Towards a More Egalitarian Liberalism. The interview took place on 20 January 2012.

Part1: Jewish state / state for all citizens

ALAN JOHNSON: Can Israel be both a ‘national homeland for the Jewish people’ and a ‘state for all its citizens’?

MICHAEL WALZER: ‘Homeland’ has been an ambiguous phrase ever since the Balfour Declaration.  Israel is not the state of the Jewish people; Jews outside Israel don’t vote in its elections and non-Jews inside Israel do vote in its elections. The Jewish people are not sovereign in Israel; the citizens of Israel are sovereign there.

I think there is a sense in which Israel, I mean green line Israel, is right now politically a state of all its citizens. The real difficulties are not political, they are cultural, and they arise in every nation state. Minority groups do not find themselves present in, or supported, by the state-supported culture. That is a problem in every nation state that has national minorities. I don’t think that Israel has dealt with it badly considering the circumstances in which it has had to deal with it – the circumstances that Alexander Yakobson describes in his piece, of continual conflict with its Arab neighbours. Compare, say, the treatment of German-Americans during World War One or of Japanese-Americans during World War Two, and you would have to say that Israel has actually done pretty well—despite continuing patterns of discrimination.

But this issue of minority rights needs more discussion. Talking about it, I always like to use the relatively innocuous example of Norway, which seceded from Sweden in the very early twentieth century in order to defend its ‘Norweigenness’. The Norwegian state is a little engine for the reproduction of ‘Norweigenness,’ and a minority group like the Letts in the North do not find themselves included in or supported by that state project. I don’t think there is any remedy for that except full political equality – and then the minority groups can organise their own associations and support themselves. I don’t think that is oppressive. I don’t think the nation-state is a political formation that we need to transcend. We need to defend political equality within it, but the notion that the Greeks or the Finns or the French don’t have the right to create a state that sustains and celebrates and promotes their history and culture – I think that is a mistaken view.  And if the Greeks, the Finns and the French have that right then so do the Jews.

JOHNSON: Some people would say there is a tension between the Jewish character of the state and the aspiration to be ‘a state for all its citizens.’ They point to the desire to retain a Jewish majority and suggest that is part of the explanation of, for example, last week’s rejection by the Israeli Supreme Court of the appeal against the Citizenship Law. So we end up with a situation in which Israeli Arabs who marry a Palestinian from the West Bank can’t bring their spouse to Israel, the spouse can’t become an Israeli citizen, and so the couple can’t have a family life in Israel. Some say this is the result of the desire to be a ‘Jewish homeland’ and preserve a Jewish majority cuts across what we would think of as equal citizenship rights. What do you say to this?

WALZER:  Yeah, that’s a bad law and I think that liberal and left forces in Israel will oppose it and one day repeal it. But the desire to sustain a majority is, again, characteristic of every nation-state. Look, one of the most extraordinary features of American political history is that the Anglo-Americans, the English settlers here, who certainly thought they were creating an English nation-state, allowed themselves, with some resistance and resentment, to become a minority in what they thought was their own country. This is one of the uncelebrated but most distinctive features of American history. But it’s not going to happen anywhere else. It could only happen in an immigrant society that wasn’t a homeland. It’s not going to happen in France. The French are not going to allow themselves to become a minority in France, or the Danes in Denmark. It’s not going to happen. And if their majority status is ever threatened, they will respond with measures that will be illiberal. Unless you want to abolish the nation-state, you have to live with majorities and minorities and work hard to ensure that political equality, and I would add economic equality, are features of these societies.

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