Avoiding the trap of hate
On CiF, Asim Siddiqui and Adrian Cohen say this:
The past week has witnessed a surge in antisemitic incidents across London, anti-Israel daubings on synagogues and other Jewish communal buildings and antisemitic graffiti in areas known for their Jewish communities, hate mail sent to Jewish organisations and communal leaders and, more seriously, an arson attack on a synagogue and a mob shouting anti-Israel and antisemitic slogans on the main road in Golders Green. Jewish Londoners have good reason to feel anxious. Events in the Middle East are impacting on the security of Jews far beyond the borders of Israel. Security at Jewish schools and synagogues has been tightened in the light of a threat against Jews everywhere by Mahmoud Zahar, a Hamas leader, on Al-Aqsa TV. Jewish Londoners remember the terrorist attacks of 1992 and 1994 on Israeli and Jewish targets in Buenos Aires, in which Iran and Hizbullah were implicated.
For Jewish Londoners, this is not just a concern for their personal security. While there is a wide variety of views about the current Israeli military action, many share the worries of Israelis about the intentions of Iran and its proxies, Hizbullah in the north and Hamas in the south, which, if unchecked, are in a position through ever-increasing military capability to make large parts of the country uninhabitable. The military entanglement of Israel with Hamas is itself a concern, the loss of civilian life in the Gaza Strip, the continued rocket fire into Israeli towns and Israeli casualties. Many Jewish Londoners have relatives living in Israel. Every time an incident takes place in Israel, London’s Jews reach for their phones to check on loved ones living in the Middle East.
Meanwhile, for Muslim Londoners, there is deep anger at the large numbers of civilians being killed as a consequence of Israeli military action (even if as a result of rocket fire from Hamas). The feeling of many British Muslims is that Israel must have known in advance the likely civilian death toll that would result from such a military operation on a densely-populated society, but decided it was a price Israel was prepared to accept for its own security, rather than exhausting other possible options.
The sharply deteriorating humanitarian situation, which was already dire due to the stand-off between Hamas and Israel and the blockade, are being watched with disbelief in Muslim homes across London.
Much of that anger – shared outside Muslim communities, too – is directed at Israel, but also variously at Hamas, Egypt, the US and the UK, depending on political outlook and perspective, as was seen by marches from Glasgow to London last Saturday. But there is a broad consensus that somehow Muslim lives are considered cheap and that the international community continues to fail to exert any meaningful pressure on Israel to take the peace process more seriously. A huge effort is being made by British Muslims to get vital humanitarian aid into Gaza, which is being frustrated by the military conflagration and blockade, and the inexplicable difficulties in getting aid over the border from Egypt into Gaza.
Some British Muslims also feel that when they try to express support for Palestinian self-determination, then they are too quickly labelled as “Islamist” or “terrorist-sympathisers”. Likewise for Jews, gratuitous references to the Holocaust and the use of antisemitic tropes and imagery by some politicians, commentators and campaigners are both distressing and alarming. We need to create more safe spaces where young Muslims and Jews are free to debate and think through these issues, without fear of demonisation.
In this context, there is little direct inter-communal dialogue between Jews and Muslims. Now is not the time for “bagels and bhajis”. Let’s start up an honest discussion about the substantive political issues of Israel/Palestine, Zionism (of all political varieties) versus Palestinian nationalism (Fatah or Hamas), which, even at the best of times, have never been at the top of the agenda of inter-faith or cross-community dialogue, and yet – while these issues are ducked – events in the Middle East will continue to have the effect of stifling real inter-communal solidarity, something really needed for long-term social cohesion.
Londoners should be ideally building communities together, but that requires us to build trust and honesty between each other. We need to find a language that allows us to express strongly-held views about events overseas, without increasing the divisions between our communities here at home. What is needed is a move to educate each other about the aspirations, religious, communal and national of each other in all their variety and complexity and to develop empathy between us.
We are in danger of living parallel narratives. Part of the success of London, specifically, is as a result of its multireligious and multiethnic environment, but the time has come for Londoners to develop a shared story in order to have a meaningful and secure future. This responsibility lies with those of us living and working here. The same is true in towns and cities up and down the land.
But, beyond this, it means establishing a broad coalition in support of a secure Israel and a free Palestine, and an isolation of all those who wish to perpetuate the cycle of violence.
Comments
| 9 January 2009, 1:02 pm |
There is NO “cycle of violence”.
When Palestinians stop attacking Israel, there can be peace, but until then, people have to understand that the Hamas agenda was never about having their own land, it’s about having ALL of Israel, and for the killing of ALL Jews, not just in Israel, but globally.
Don’t take it from any of us, take it from the Hamas Charter, and from the numerous speeches, and media interviews they’ve given.
The majority of us want peace, but unfortunately, while organisations like Hamas want to further the global jihad, we have no chance.
| 9 January 2009, 1:08 pm |
Actually my first comment isn’t right or entirely fair.
In Bangladesh, the slaughter of Bangladeshi Muslims by Jamaat in the 1970s ultimately resulted in Jamaat’s utter humiliation by the Bangladeshi electorate, which is significantly Muslim.
However, in the UK, the MCB which is little more than an extension of Jamaat, and the BMI which is the same organisation as Hamas, have managed to capture the role of advocate, in relation to public Muslim politics.
These groups envisage a millenial struggle between kufr and Islam. For them, Gaza under siege is grist to the mill, just as Hamas’ ‘glorious’ “martyrdom operations” were also marketed as a matter of communal pride before they were stopped by the security barrier.
And how does the progressive Left in Britain combat this fascist scum?
By giving them op eds in the Guardian, and inviting them onto Channel 4 news.
| 9 January 2009, 1:11 pm |
Sorry, but this is doesn’t do anything for me. It’s really quite simple. All of the tension and hatred is emanating from some Muslims towards Jews. Jews in London have not resorted to intimidating, threateneing and vandalising against Muslims and Muslims spaces. Having ‘inter communal’ dialogue is not going to make an iota of difference as long as one side believes that the battles of the middle east should be played out on the streets of London and England. That is the context of this. You’re not comparing like with like. On the one hand, Jewish people who live in peace and don’t attack Muslims in the UK. On the other hand, Muslims who see it as part of their ‘Ummah’ duty to terrorise innocent Jews in England, and see it as part of the global Ummah continuum, and that ‘making the global local’ has been the strategy and intention of Islamic groups in the UK for teh last twenty years, and this is the fruit of all of that.
So, in the context of British society, to equate the response of the Jewish community with that of some of the Islamic community, is pathetic and obscene.
| 9 January 2009, 1:16 pm |
There have been over 50 antisemitic incidents reported to CST in the past 12 days. This is a higher rate than during the first two weeks of the Lebanon war in 2006, which currently stands as the largest ’spike’ in antisemitic incidents we have ever recorded in the UK.
The incidents reported to us include assaults (including the one described by Melanie Phillips), a synagogue arson, hate mail, verbal abuse, threats and a series of organised daubings of Jewish buildings and public spaces in ‘Jewish’ areas of London.
The vast majority of these incidents make direct reference to Israel and/or Gaza and about half use Islamist discourse or were perpetrated by people of Asian or Arab appearance.
It is true to say that there is no comparable backlash against British Muslims or British Arabs, as a result of the fighting in Gaza. This does not mean that British Jews are any less angry about Hamas than others are about Israel.
| 9 January 2009, 1:30 pm |
No! Let’s all sit by the campfire and sing Kumbayar while Koran-Krazed Islamists dream up the time and place to slit the Jews throats.
No thanks.
This is another one of my bollocks-busting imperatives. The idea that in any conflict the answer is by treating each side with equality and an answer that lies in the middle.
As far as I am concerned UK Jews have nothing to fix. They don’t want to attack Muslims, they have no religious instruction to do so and they just want to live a quiet life.
Islamic Extremists want to kill people, and Jews would seem to be No. 1 target. I don’t think Jews need to meet Muslims to prove that Jews are nice people.
Muslim perceptions are the ones that need fixing. By suggesting Jews and Muslims get together for ‘better understanding’ might extend to understanding why some Muslims want to kill Jews.
Its like the request to understand why young Islamists might want to bomb us. Understanding it doesn’t help us. Stopping it does.
| 9 January 2009, 1:31 pm |
“We are in danger of living parallel narratives. Part of the success of London, specifically, is as a result of its multireligious and multiethnic environment,”
Stop fooling yourself. Most of the Asian community outside medialand have always closed themselves off from the rest of the UK community associating in the main with their Hindu, Sikh, and Muslim confreres.
The Muslim community has been particularly insular – maintaining Urdu and other languages as the home language, marrying exclusively within their own communities and not mixing at all with non-Muslims (and not much even with Muslims from other parts of the world).
That is the reality. So let’s start there.
The other reality is not that Muslims’ lives are held cheap by our government or other democratic governments. It is that Muslims are mostly killed by other Muslims whether it be in Darfur, Somalia, Lebanon, Iraq, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Western Sahara or Algeria.
Where we or Israelis have ended up killing Muslims in the last thirty years of so it has been as a result of direct and sustained provocation e.g. the planes attack on New York, Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait and refusal to abide by UN resolutions, Iran’s open support for terrorism and avowed aim of wiping Israel and the USA off the map.
If Muslims individually and collectively adhered to minimum standards of civilised intercourse, there would be no problem.
As start could be made by the Muslim states giving up their opposition to the UN Human Rights Charter, accepted as the international standard by nations of many different faiths, and rescinded the Cairo declaration.
Then it would help if the Saudis explicitly removed the ban on Jews living in Arabia.
Next, all Arab states should unconditionally recognise the right of Israel to exist, though they may dispute its legitimate borders.
Another positive step would be for the Arab League itself to put an end to the persecution of black people in Darfur.
As Pablo says, the problem here in the UK in terms of community tension is coming from the Muslims. No Jews are going out and attacking Mosques or trying to do harm to pro-Palestinian demonstrators.
It is pure cant – rotten, malodorous cant – to try and equate the repsonsible Jewish community, which is respectful of others’ rights with the Muslim community (at least as defined by their spokespeople) which has a very warped view of the world and refuses to deal with the beams in its own eyes.
| 9 January 2009, 1:34 pm |
We are in danger of living parallel narratives. Part of the success of London, specifically, is as a result of its multireligious and multiethnic environment.
Sorry, but I just don’t see the benefits of this fabled multireligious, multiethnic London. I think most people in Havering would disagree too.
Uncontrolled immigration has resulted in whole swathes of London being populated by people hostile to much of the fabric of UK society: hostility to Jews exhibited by Muslims is a direct result of the insane policies of all governments since the 40s when the Nationality Act first came on the statute books.
| 9 January 2009, 1:35 pm |
Probably help if the economy was doing a bit better in the UK too. People get a bit ratty when they have just been made redundant or have no money in their pocket. This can put strains on relationships, not just marital ones, but extending out to more folk.
| 9 January 2009, 1:36 pm |
Well said Nannette
If nothing else, the current situation in Gaza has highlighted the fact that the major threat to Jewish people in the west now comes from the left, and not the right (though the threat from the latter should not be underestimated).
This is truly sickening, depressing and shameful. It is also part of an evolving process highlighted by Nick Cohen, Andrew Anthony and others quite some time ago.
| 9 January 2009, 1:36 pm |
Looking at accounts of the various demonstrations at HP and elsewhere, the pro-Israel and neutral camps do seem to be less ’spittle-flecked’ than the pro-Hamas and pro-Palestinian camps.
| 9 January 2009, 1:37 pm |
“Most of the Asian community outside medialand have always closed themselves off from the rest of the UK community associating in the main with their Hindu, Sikh, and Muslim confreres. ”
Not in my experience
Perhaps I live in “medialand”.
| 9 January 2009, 1:41 pm |
Oh cry me a river. What, if we say we feel there pain they might not beat us up. Muslims seem quite happy with the price of Muslim lives when they are killing each other over some feud.
| 9 January 2009, 1:42 pm |
As Pablo says
Hello field, I am British Indian you know, I notice you have a low level generalised grumbling dislike of ‘Asians’ en masse. I wish I had one of those smiley icons that could give a friendly wave at you now.
Anyway, that’s all off topic isn’t it. At the end of the day, I think it’s interesting that ‘insularity’ has been a traditional slander thrown at Jews throughout history in the UK. No matter how much you integrate, get on with life, do well by yourself and your family, there’ll always be twats out there spouting shite of that kind.
| 9 January 2009, 1:43 pm |
The feeling of many British Muslims is that Israel must have known in advance the likely civilian death toll that would result from such a military operation on a densely-populated society, but decided it was a price Israel was prepared to accept for its own security, rather than exhausting other possible options.
Actually I suspect a great many Muslims aren’t that rational about it. They actually believe that Israel is deliberately killing kiddies because the Jooooossss is evil incarnate.
But there is a broad consensus that somehow Muslim lives are considered cheap…
Now where does that come from? Is it because of the suicide attacks? Is it because of the shitteration that is Gaza that Hamas have done nothing about because they are entirely hellbent on destruction not construction? Is it because they chant about us “being in love with life” whereas they are “in love with death”? Such actions and statements utterly dehumanize people in the eyes of their enemies. It happened with the Japanese in WWII through the medium of kamikaze (which is only marginally worse than the medium of karaoke).
David T, Sorry. I see where you’re coming from but… Your last four paragraphs are “buy the world a Coke” stuff. It ain’t going to happen. It would be great if it did but then you know it would have been ace if last week’s Euromillions had netted me 36m quid as well. You are dealing with an issue here with admirable clarity and rationalism. The problem is the people responsible for this gathering clusterfuck aren’t. You are attempting to reason with a “blood-dimmed tide”. And I’m sorry but admirable though your motives are your “ceremony of innocence is drowned”.
| 9 January 2009, 1:43 pm |
I was at school with Adrian Cohen. Nice, well-meaning little chap IMO. Bit naive in this context though.
I am bored with the moral equivalence as well. It is not Muslim schools and mosques that are generally the fortified and guarded targets for hatred, certainly not from Jews. All I see in London is a (very large) bunch of keffiyeh wearing British located Pakistanis who apparently hate British located Jews to the core based on the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. The reaching out is pretty much all one-sided while the threats and attacks are also one-sided.
I do not want to reach out to the other side. I think they are scum and I would prefer that they took their nasty political and religious views elsewhere and out of my country (being England if there was any doubt). Other Britons of all shades, races, religions and origins would be far better without them.
I also think on Sunday I will probably avoid waving any Israeli flags because although I support them, that is not my country. Anyone else feel torn (or care about this)?
| 9 January 2009, 1:43 pm |
Closed religious communities tend to be insular.
But I can quite honestly say, that from the time I was growing up as a kid in Essex, to my professional life in the City, British Asians are anything but insular.
| 9 January 2009, 1:44 pm |
By giving them op eds in the Guardian, and inviting them onto Channel 4 news. Exactly.
Ever since I can remember, leftwingers have always been vigilant when it came to denouncing facists. I admired that and so decided to embrace leftwing politics myself.
That same Left now, though, has completely lost the ability to recognise the salient points of a fascist (and theocratic) mindset, and as a result has ended up embracing the very thing they once aimed to destroy.
All The Left now does is attack those whom they resent.
It’s absolutely astounding how quickly and easily anti-semitism, even blatant, violent anti-semitism, can be normalised, accepted and even justified by those who’ve a responsability to denounce it.
| 9 January 2009, 1:44 pm |
I certainly would agree with David T re. Hindus and Sikhs. They truely are a boon to our society.
| 9 January 2009, 1:47 pm |
I agree that people of religions should come together for dialogue, but that dialogue must have clearly defined goals such as how each group views universal human rights.
Speakers’ Corner is and has always been a good place to meet up with people of all faiths and none but it has a tendency to be taken over by radical evangelicals and Islamists these days.
One of the problems of dialoguing with many Muslims is that their conception of discussion is based upon the promulgation of their own views; da’wah. Any notion of shared values or dveloping a community is lost in the rush to ‘prove’ the authenticity of Islam.
Dialogue is more likely to take place between individuals sharing the same work space, as this is mostly the only opportunity Londoners of different faith get to talk on the same level.
| 9 January 2009, 1:49 pm |
I suspect you do. Islington rather than Wembley perhaps?
As I understand it, I think David T has mentioned that he lives in Hackney actually.
Try and be less cliched Field. You’ve taken a post about the ideology of violent action propagated by Islamist dogmatists manifesting itself in racist actions against Jews, a very identifiable problem with a traceable cause and effect, counterable and confrontable, and turned it into a generalised attack on all British ‘Asians’. What a horrible egotistical farting of a contribution.
| 9 January 2009, 1:50 pm |
Looking at accounts of the various demonstrations at HP and elsewhere, the pro-Israel and neutral camps do seem to be less ’spittle-flecked’ than the pro-Hamas and pro-Palestinian camps.
Yeah, but its a tad more relaxing going on demo to support the 5th largest army in the world, the 4th largest arms supplier, a nuclear power, which has the backing the most powerful nation on the planet. I mean, blimey, how tough is that?
Kind of reminds me, in terms of absurdity, of the pro-China demonstrations around the time of the Olympics. I felt like going up to them and asking: “What’s the point, guys? Go home and put your feet up!”
| 9 January 2009, 1:51 pm |
Really anti-racistic, liberal, multicultural Londoners could begin to use kippahs in solidarity not with Israel, but with Jewish Londoners.
That would be a way for all decent people to say: well, we may democratically disagree about what is going on in the Middle East, but we don’t support any kind of attack against anyone here in our country.
They could, btw, use kippahs until all violence and threats against English Jews cease. That would, besides, be an easy way to help differentiate between those who only oppose Israel’s actions and those who hide behind them to manifest their hatred of Jews.
| 9 January 2009, 1:53 pm |
“I was at school with Adrian Cohen. Nice, well-meaning little chap IMO. Bit naive in this context though.”
Barad, I was also at school with Adrian and still see him from time to time. He is a proud, orthodox Jew and Zionist, funny, humane and very bright. Maybe he is a little naive – I certainly accused him of this with his attempts to build up links with the loathsome Livingstone. But his motives are good even if your analysis is right (and my views tend to veer towards yours).
| 9 January 2009, 1:55 pm |
Anyway, it’s not so much the “spittle-flecked” brigate we need to worry about, it’s those who perfectly calmy and rationally assert with absolute moral certainty that their side is absolutely right and thw other is absolutely wrong.
| 9 January 2009, 1:55 pm |
Tol-er-a-tion: means to tolerate, not love, or like or appreciate or lock arms. It means to tolerate. To put up with. Parallel cultures? What’s wrong with that? If my neighbor wants to live in the 12th Century then bully for him. But if my neighbor wants to kill me because I don’t want to live in the 12th Century then that’s a problem.
| 9 January 2009, 1:56 pm |
“Yeah, but its a tad more relaxing going on demo to support the 5th largest army in the world, the 4th largest arms supplier, a nuclear power, which has the backing the most powerful nation on the planet. I mean, blimey, how tough is that?”
You’re a moron, but you knew that. When I stand in solidarity on Sunday, it will not be with an army, it will be with all the Israelis who have been sitting in bomb shelters for week upon week. You really are a fucking twat.
| 9 January 2009, 1:59 pm |
I think David T has mentioned that he lives in Hackney
He’ll get over it. Hoxton is it?
| 9 January 2009, 2:00 pm |
Oh no, I see I have fallen into the trap of hatred! Oh well…
I would love to see British Hindus, Sikhs and Christians out supporting Israel on Sunday. Hindus are as villified as Jews by the Islamofascists and Christians are being persecuted in every Muslim country where they have not already been expunged (like Saudi for example) not that British Christian groups or the UK government generally have much to say about it, what with being too busy organising alternative carol services against Zionism and all…
Regarding insularity, so what even if it is the case (which I am not really sure it is)? How could anybody be concerned by an introspective but law abiding community whether Ultra Orthodox Jews or Sikhs or Hindus? Participation in cake baking contests and cricket matches is nice but not compulsory, nor should it be.
| 9 January 2009, 2:01 pm |
Closed religious communities tend to be insular.
But I’ve heard this said about all Jews. Not just Orthodox Jews. That ‘they’ are ‘clannish’ and only care about themselves, help each other out, and are therefore, in some way, not to be trusted, there is is something suspicious about ‘them’. I mean, this is casual stuff I’ve heard from white English people over the years.
| 9 January 2009, 2:03 pm |
Yeah, but its a tad more relaxing going on demo to support the 5th largest army in the world, the 4th largest arms supplier, a nuclear power, which has the backing the most powerful nation on the planet. I mean, blimey, how tough is that?
Well what’s the use of assaulting police officers in your own community, Benjamin; throwing rocks/bottles etc? Kicking over barricades? Destroying property?
| 9 January 2009, 2:03 pm |
Nanette:
There is NO “cycle of violence”.
Oh, turn on the fucking news, will you? Anyone who has seen footage of the survivors of recent bombings has looked at the faces of the next wave of amazing exploding Arabs that will hit Israeli streets. You really think these people go to war and kill themselves out of an esoteric anti-Semitism? Whatever the short-term tactical justification for the current operation in Gaza, for every person the IDF kills, Hamas or not, it will leave a son or daughter or brother or sister who will be lining up to join Hamas tomorrow.
| 9 January 2009, 2:03 pm |
Kenwood (like Kenwood Mixer, shiksa?),
Like I said, Adrian is a nice guy as I remember him. Naivety or idealism aside, no major criticism was intended.
B.
| 9 January 2009, 2:06 pm |
Well Bengi, shame you didn’t tell them but best not to bite the hand the feeds. You slimy twat.
| 9 January 2009, 2:06 pm |
It is pure cant – rotten, malodorous cant – to try and equate the repsonsible Jewish community, which is respectful of others’ rights with the Muslim community (at least as defined by their spokespeople) which has a very warped view of the world and refuses to deal with the beams in its own eyes.
I wouldn’t describe what is in the eye of the Muslim community as a ‘beam’; it’s rather more a whole lumber yard.
The entire way of life of a significant portion of western muslims supplies irrefutable proof that the more one chases after purity and ‘modesty’, the filthier and more immodest one becomes.
The vile hatred and savage behavior demonstrated by SOME Muslim anti-Israel protesters should be held up as a mirror to the entire community, so that the community can get a good look at itself and in the process become conscious of its numerous imperfections.
Then again, some muslims believe themselves so imbued with allah’s blessings, they simply don’t give a shit just how repugnant and disgusting their behavior can be.
| 9 January 2009, 2:08 pm |
Well Bengi, shame you didn’t tell them but best not to bite the hand the feeds. You slimy twat.
Very good.
| 9 January 2009, 2:08 pm |
Barad, I can assure you that Christians, Hindus and Sikhs will be there supporting Israel, as many others will. There’s a wonderful Hindu-Jewish alliance which is one of the spiritually richest communities I personally know.
| 9 January 2009, 2:10 pm |
Barad, I can assure you that Christians, Hindus and Sikhs will be there supporting Israel
Why?
| 9 January 2009, 2:16 pm |
Gregg,
“You really think these people go to war and kill themselves out of an esoteric anti-Semitism?”
Yes I do. Have you read the koran lately?
Obviously you don’t know how the Mufti of Jerusalem Leader of the Bosnian SS Hansar Division, gave Eichmann the idea for the “Final Solution” (as per the evidence given by Eichmann’s secretary in the Nuremberg Trials), nor of his ties with the Nazis. The Muslim Brotherhood have taken this to the next level.
Why do you think that most of the Arab countries are completely Jew free? It’s not Jews who are expansionist, but Muslims, starting with Mohammed.
Mecca was a great city originally inhabited by Vedics and Jews, until Mohammed came along and slaughtered all of them.
Read The Vedic Past of Pre-Islamic Arabia
Part 1
http://www.kotiaho.net/swordoftruth/vpopia1.html
Part 2
http://www.kotiaho.net/swordoftruth/vpopia2.html
Part 3
http://www.kotiaho.net/swordoftruth/vpopia3.html
Part 4
http://www.kotiaho.net/swordoftruth/vpopia4.html
Part 5
http://www.kotiaho.net/swordoftruth/vpopia5.html
Part 6
http://www.kotiaho.net/swordoftruth/vpopia6.html
| 9 January 2009, 2:20 pm |
Benjamin, if you weren’t aware of it already, Christians, Hindus and Sikhs are also under attack by Muslims elsewhere in the world. They want to stand and protest against Islamic terrorism tomorrow.
| 9 January 2009, 2:21 pm |
Gregg, first of all, it’s obvious you’ve never read the koran, nor do you know the history of the middle east.
Muslims were slaughtering Jews long before 1948, which is why virtually all of the Arab countries are Jew-free.
| 9 January 2009, 2:26 pm |
Oh I see. Silly me. So it is a holy war.
Well, what the hell, you might as well have it in the Holy Land then.
Keep chipper. Good luck to both sides, and make you sure you say your prayers before you blow the other guy’s head off.
| 9 January 2009, 2:28 pm |
I haven’t visited HP for a while but it looks like it’s getting a bit cosy so here’s my tuppence.
1) The central contention that the problem of anti-semitic violence and sentiment is the responsibility of perpetrators not victims, is of course correct. But the ultimate responsibility for the shameful anti-semitic harassment and violence by Muslim thugs and bigots lies with those individuals not Muslims collectively. Like most people the vast majority of Muslims would never condone such actions. (Where there is a problem however is this excuse making for such violence i.e. that this is a result of foreign policy, anger etc, which is just nonsense).
There is an atmosphere of inevitability in the comments posted on HP, essentially that there is an inherent conflict between Muslims and Jews, based on the premise that Muslims are weird Koran replicating automatons, who imbibe religiously authorised anti-semitism at every opportunity.
I live in the east end, and I’ll tell you what, the vast majority of kids here have no damn idea about israel/palestine and a whole host of other more immediate issues to concern them.
It’s easier for anyone to get sucked into bigotry when it’s people they have no experience with. An interfaith dialogue around the issues doesn’t remove responsibility from those perpetrating violence, but it can act as an additional bulwark against the wider perpetuation of anti-semitism.
| 9 January 2009, 2:29 pm |
Muslims were slaughtering Jews long before 1948, which is why virtually all of the Arab countries are Jew-free.
Yes funny how the hundreds of thousands of Jews from all over the middle east who fled to Israel are rarely mentioned.
Yet Israel absorbed them all. hile the the others side left their ones to rot.
| 9 January 2009, 2:30 pm |
In a cycle of violence, I get more violent, so you get more violent, so I ….
What happens in the Israel/Palestinian arena is that when Israel eases the pressure, their enemies get more violent or stockpile bigger rockets. See Hamas and Hizbullah for confirmation. When Israel piles on the pressure, Arab violence diminishes for a while (while Israel, and Israel only, gets accused of feeding the cycle of violence…).
| 9 January 2009, 2:35 pm |
Only One,
“Like most people the vast majority of Muslims would never condone such actions.”
Why are you so certain? This is the kind of wishful-thinking platitude our government is keen on dispensing. I get the impression of a great deal of support of varying degrees.
“I live in the east end, and I’ll tell you what, the vast majority of kids here have no damn idea about israel/palestine”
When did this ever make a difference? So they are ignorant thugs as opposed to well informed ones.
| 9 January 2009, 2:35 pm |
Well Bengi if the Chinese had medals for smugness at the Olympics you would have got a Gold……old chap
| 9 January 2009, 2:37 pm |
To be honest if you’re looking for a sophisticated analysis of Gaza you won’t find it on the comment pages here.
| 9 January 2009, 2:38 pm |
My mother taught at the school to which Kenwood, Barak and Adrian C went.
| 9 January 2009, 2:39 pm |
Yeah, but its a tad more relaxing going on demo to support the 5th largest army in the world, the 4th largest arms supplier, a nuclear power, which has the backing the most powerful nation on the planet. I mean, blimey, how tough is that?
Israel cannot afford to lose a war. She is one loss away from obliteration. She can and has beaten back Egyptians and Syrians and this and that proto-fascist, scum-sucking piece of shit group, and has the means to obliterate each one of her enemies, but has not done so.
Do you think Israel wants to send all her 18 year old sons into the army? The only Israel that gets to exist is the one that has the 5th largest army in the world, because an Israel with the 15th largest army could not and would not exist.
| 9 January 2009, 2:41 pm |
when Israel eases the pressure
Which presumably means “not occupying other folks land so much”.
| 9 January 2009, 2:42 pm |
The posting below Is from ‘The New English Review. Sums up the situation in most western societies.
THE UK VERSION
The squirrel works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter.
The grasshopper thinks he’s a fool, and laughs and dances and plays the summer away.
Come winter, the squirrel is warm and well fed.
A social worker finds the shivering grasshopper, calls a press conference and demands to know why the squirrel should be allowed to be warm and well fed while others less fortunate, like the grasshopper, are cold and starving. The BBC shows up to provide live coverage of the shivering grasshopper; with cuts to a video of the squirrel in his comfortable warm home with a table laden with food.
The UK press informs people that they should be ashamed that in a country of such wealth, this poor grasshopper is allowed to suffer so while others have plenty.
The Labour Party, Greenpeace, Animal Rights and The Grasshopper Housing Commission of Great Britain demonstrate in front of the squirrel’s house. The BBC, interrupting a cultural festival special from Notting Hill with breaking news, broadcasts a multi cultural choir singing ‘We Shall Overcome’.
John Prescott rants in an interview with John Snow that the squirrel got rich off the backs of grasshoppers, and calls for an immediate tax hike on the squirrel to make him pay his ‘fair share’ and increases the charge for squirrels to enter Central London.
In response to pressure from the media, the Government drafts the Economic Equity and Grasshopper Anti Discrimination Act, retroactive to the beginning of the summer. The squirrel’s taxes are reassessed. He is taken to court and fined for failing to hire grasshoppers as builders, for the work he was doing on his home, and an additional fine for contempt when he told the court the grasshopper did not want to work.
The grasshopper is provided with a Housing Commission house, financial aid to furnish it and an account with a local taxi firm to ensure he can be socially mobile. The squirrel’s food is seized and re-distributed to the more needy members of society – in this case the grasshopper.
Without enough money to buy more food, to pay the fine and his newly imposed retroactive taxes, the squirrel has to downsize and start building a new home.
The local authority takes over his old home and utilises it as a temporary home for asylum seeking cats who had hijacked a plane to get to England as they had to share their country of origin with mice.
On arrival they tried to blow up the airport because of English’ apparent love of dogs.
The cats had been arrested for the international offence of hijacking and attempted bombing but were immediately released because the police fed them pilchards instead of salmon whilst in custody. Initial moves to make them return them to their own country were abandoned because it was feared they would face death by the mice. The cats devise and start a scam to obtain money from people’s credit cards.
A Dispatches special shows the grasshopper finishing up the last of the squirrel’s food, though spring is still months away, while the Housing Commission house he is in, crumbles around him because he hasn’t bothered to maintain it. He is shown to be taking drugs.
Inadequate government funding is blamed for the grasshopper’s drug ‘Illness’.
The cats seek recompense in the English courts for their treatment since arrival in the UK . The grasshopper gets arrested for stabbing an old dog during a burglary to get money for his drugs habit. He is imprisoned but released immediately because he has been in custody for a few weeks. He is placed in the care of the probation service to monitor and supervise him.
Within a few weeks he has killed a guinea pig in a botched robbery.
A commission of enquiry, that will eventually cost $10 million and state the obvious, is set up.
Additional money is put into funding a drug rehabilitation scheme for grasshoppers.
Legal aid for lawyers representing asylum seekers is increased.
The asylum seeking cats are praised by the government for enriching the UK ’s multicultural diversity and dogs are criticised by the government for failing to befriend the cats.
The grasshopper dies of a drug overdose.
The usual sections of the press blame it on the obvious failure of government to address the root causes of despair arising from social inequity and his traumatic experience of prison. They call for the resignation of a minister.
The cats are paid £1 million each because their rights were infringed when the government failed to inform them there were mice in the UK .
The squirrel, the dogs and the victims of the hijacking, the bombing, the burglaries and robberies have to pay an additional percentage on their credit cards to cover losses, their taxes are increased to pay for law and order, and they are told that they will have to work beyond 65 because of a shortfall in government funds.
‘Mary Jackson’
| 9 January 2009, 2:44 pm |
Which presumably means “not occupying other folks land so much”.
Or in the case of Gaza in 2005, “not at all”.
What was Hamas’ response again?
| 9 January 2009, 2:45 pm |
“I live in the east end, and I’ll tell you what, the vast majority of kids here have no damn idea about israel/palestine”
“When did this ever make a difference? So they are ignorant thugs as opposed to well informed ones.”
Oh fuck off
| 9 January 2009, 2:45 pm |
“What makes me so certain?”
What a shameful, bigoted question. I live with them, I talk to them, and I sort of am one. It’s a nice little slur to imply that somehow the majority of Muslims don’t share the standards of decent behaviour as everyone else, as is your disgraceful sweepingly dismissal of an all east end children as ignorant thugs.
| 9 January 2009, 2:49 pm |
To be honest if you’re looking for a sophisticated analysis of Gaza you won’t find it on the comment pages here.
What’s left to analyze? This shit has been going on for over half a century. I’d be willing to bet that, no matter how “sophisticated” the author, it has already been said/written.
| 9 January 2009, 2:55 pm |
There’s plenty of insularity among lots of immigrant/religious groups, whether Muslim, Orthodox, Hasidic, Hindus, Sikh but there’s plenty of insularity within indigenous communities too – there’s many an isolated cut off white working class community and many a wealthy suburb. It depends on who you are isolated from. Also grouping doesn’t always mean isolation, though obviously sometimes it does.
| 9 January 2009, 2:56 pm |
where did he say all east end children are thugs?
| 9 January 2009, 2:58 pm |
In this context, there is little direct inter-communal dialogue between Jews and Muslims.
The first thing I would ask is, “In our western democracies, why do you attack us physically, while we don’t attack you?”
| 9 January 2009, 3:00 pm |
OK, David T, now you have got me intrigued! When was she there and what was her subject?
| 9 January 2009, 3:01 pm |
Boogski,
It’s been going on for over 1400 years, since the creation of Islam.
| 9 January 2009, 3:04 pm |
David T said “My mother taught at the school to which Kenwood, Barak and Adrian C went.”
I am sensing a Jewish education conspiracy theory coming on!
My non-Jewish partner is always asking how we all seem to know each other…
| 9 January 2009, 3:06 pm |
Ah yes, the Gaza disengagement. Sharon’s little trick. It’s best described by the man who helped concoct it, Dov Weisglass:
“The disengagement is actually formaldehyde. It supplies the amount of formaldehyde that’s necessary so that there will not be a political process with the Palestinians…The American term is to park conveniently. The disengagement plan makes it possible for Israel to park conveniently in an interim situation that distances us as far as possible from political pressure. It legitimizes our contention that there is no negotiating with the Palestinians. There is a decision here to do the minimum possible in order to maintain our political situation. The decision is proving itself…
You know, the term ‘political process’ is a bundle of concepts and commitments. The political process is the establishment of a Palestinian state… The political process is the evacuation of settlements, it’s the return of refugees, it’s the partition of Jerusalem. And all that has now been frozen.
I have postponed that nightmare indefinitely. Because what I effectively agreed to with the Americans was that part of the settlements would not be dealt with at all, and the rest will not be dealt with until the Palestinians turn into Finns. That is the significance of what we did. The significance is the freezing of the political process. And when you freeze that process you prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state and you prevent a discussion about the refugees, the borders and Jerusalem. Effectively, this whole package that is called the Palestinian state, with all that it entails, has been removed from our agenda indefinitely…
There was a very difficult package of commitments that Israel was expected to accept. That package is called a political process. It included elements we will never agree to accept and elements we cannot accept at this time. But we succeeded in taking that package and sending it beyond the hills of time. With the proper management we succeeded in removing the issue of the political process from the agenda. And we educated the world to understand that there is no one to talk to. And we received a no-one-to-talk-to certificate. That certificate says: (1) There is no one to talk to. (2) As long as there is no one to talk to, the geographic status quo remains intact. (3) The certificate will be revoked only when this-and-this happens – when Palestine becomes Finland. (4) See you then, and shalom.”
| 9 January 2009, 3:07 pm |
I fought a battle yesterday, for my chieftain David T, for everyone, for humanity, and that its joy may be fulfilled. I was invited to dinner by my friend Jan, and she had an English ex-school principle of the blinkered anti-Israel type as guest. We argued all evening. I managed to make a lot of cracks in his wall. For me, it was a virtuoso performance, as I am normally bad at verbal argument. Some inspiration hit me.
As the evening progressed I heard him saying repeatedly, “I take your point.” I won’t repeat all the arguments. They were the usual ones about which I have written elsewhere. Bernie’s bizzarest argument was that Islam is the youngest of religions and so has to go through its theocratic fundamentalist phase like the preceding ones. Obviously this view didn’t stand up to much scrutiny.
The best thing was that the evening ended in enthusiasm and not in acrimony and B said he had been so happy to see me.
David T is right. Understanding is the only solution. I know wonderful Muslims in my city.
I am normally anti-state, anti-capitalist, but in the present circumstances I would, if I could, go to the demonstration on Sunday with a placard saying “Israel against barbarism.” I don’t know whether David T would approve. I think he is more reasonable than me. Maybe, so as not to hurt my Muslim friends here, my placard would have to say, “Humanity against barbarism.”
| 9 January 2009, 3:08 pm |
“I live in the east end, and I’ll tell you what, the vast majority of kids here have no damn idea about israel/palestine”
“When did this ever make a difference? So they are ignorant thugs as opposed to well informed ones.”
Oh fuck off”
Well argued Waseem-what was your point again?
| 9 January 2009, 3:09 pm |
Nannette
It’s been going on for over 1400 years, since the creation of Islam.
Those Johny come latelies with a chip on there shoulder
| 9 January 2009, 3:11 pm |
the Gaza disengagement. Sharon’s little trick
Damned if you do, damned if you don’t. No wonder Israel ignores world opinion in its actions. Perhaps if folks weren’t so ready to cast Israel perpetually as the villians it would be more amenable to foreign influence? Or maybe, once in a while, if folks held Hamas to account for its actions?
| 9 January 2009, 3:12 pm |
“your disgraceful sweepingly dismissal of an all east end children as ignorant thugs.”
You (deliberately?) misread me. All comments have very clearly referred to people who attack English Jews based on the situation in Israel-Gaza.
| 9 January 2009, 3:16 pm |
ref: “You really think these people go to war and kill themselves out of an esoteric anti-Semitism?”
Why, yes, in fact I do and they do. Just what don’t you get in the Hamas charter about death to the sons of apes and pigs.
| 9 January 2009, 3:24 pm |
Well, she died about 2 years ago, and taught English until the year before she died.
| 9 January 2009, 3:26 pm |
Great article Harry, you sum up the problems we face in Britain very well.
| 9 January 2009, 3:33 pm |
I just looked at Adrian Cohen’s photo and I wonder if it is the same one from school in Manchester. I guess there may well be a few small, English religious Zionists called Adrian Cohen…
David T, have I got my Cohens confused?
| 9 January 2009, 3:37 pm |
Barad – No, I don’t deliberately misread anyone. Your comments clearly didn’t refer to the bigots dishing out violence, because my statement wasn’t about them.
My point was that anti-Jewish feeling isn’t an inevitability of being Muslim and that whilst it is prevalent in some sections of the various Muslim communities, it’s contours leave space for it to be battled. One of those areas is with the young before they are exposed to it. Many don’t come into contact with jewish people – if they did they will be in a better position to resist anti-semitism when/if they come across it.
Obviously Cohen and Siddiqi were not talking about engaging with the idiots dishing out violence, but instead having a space for jews and muslims to discuss the politics of israel/palestine in a more civil and constructive way than just shouting slogans at rallies.
| 9 January 2009, 3:37 pm |
There is NO “cycle of violence”.
When Palestinians stop attacking Israel, there can be peace
I agree it’s not a cycle.
There’s CONTINUOUS Israeli violence, materialized in the unabated theft of Palestinian land by the settlers and the State, punctuated by isolated acts of violence on the part of the Palestinians.
It’s Jews setting up outposts in Amona, Palgei Mayim, Neveh Erez, Nofei Nehemia, with the Israeli State throwing its full support behind them; not Arabs occupying Tel Aviv or Rishon Letzion.
It’s Jewish settlers clubbing elderly Palestinian shepherds, beating their children as they try to harvest their olives and stoning their grandchildren as they go to school in their own cities and towns; not Arabs doing anything equivalent in Netanya or Eilat.
It’s Israeli Jewish violence against Arabs all the time. Not a cycle.
| 9 January 2009, 3:39 pm |
Full Dov Weisglass interview here for people wondering about Benji’s ellipses.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=485929
Discussion about the “the formaldehyde formula” begins half way down
| 9 January 2009, 3:40 pm |
Barad, you have. This one is from Ilford and is not particularly small.
| 9 January 2009, 3:46 pm |
Hasbara – add to that Hamas’ continual rocket fire into Israel, use of children in terror activities (to ferry info and other items), harassment of it’s own population for precieved anti-islamic , it’s nihilistic death cult mentality, it’s willful unconcern with their populations own safety, the harassment of NGOs and it’s charter aim of annihilation of Israel.
This is not a black and white argument.
| 9 January 2009, 3:51 pm |
Well, Richard Seymour has done three posts.
One saying that the ‘extremist minority’ that go on pro-Israel demonstrations (which just so happen to consist in largely British Jews) ought to be ‘ostracized’: http://leninology.blogspot.com/2009/01/extremist-minority-who-should-be.html
The other, by ‘Ernie Halfdram’, which appears to say that those who keep up to date on Israel’s operations from the Israeli point of you are guilty of indulging in ‘war pornography’: http://leninology.blogspot.com/2009/01/war-pornography.html
But the prize surely goes to Lenin’s piece de la resistance which says
‘Zionism is sick, twisted and cruel… killing Arabs is a spectator sport for Zionists: And because they have the nerve to be self-righteous about it.’: http://leninology.blogspot.com/2009/01/why-are-people-so-mean-to-poor-little.html
address for the whole site:http://leninology.blogspot.com/
I think we are seeing the birth of a new pathology that seeks to target British and other Diaspora Jews for expressing sympathy or support for Israel, or, even, not expressing sufficient criticism to merit not being ‘ostracized’.
If you read the militant, aggressive, at times pathological tone of not a few of the denizens of Seymour’s Place, in which Steve Brown calls for the resentful, unhappy and disgruntled to make the embassy of the Jewish state the focus of their disaffection, we are seeing, I think, open incitement to hatred, that, in some cases, the one above, at least, can be described as antisemitic in classic terms.
Seymour does not define what he means by ‘ostracized’, but, given the dark tones of not a few of his regular pathologicals, I think we can safely assume that he prefers to leave it to the readers imagination -if for no other than legal reasons.
Would you trust any of these characters that, in a single, unitary, Palestinian state, Jews would have the same right of national expression and determination, or security, as Arabs, or that their euphemisms of ‘peace’ or ‘justice’ etc were anything other than covers for them to work out their singular, (transferredly) vengeful pathologies?
Again, if not again, we are seeing the transmogrification of the socialism of fools.
Supposed academics and intellectuals like Richard Seymour and John Game have turned ‘Zionism’ into one of the major evils, if not the major evil, in the world. It occupies the same place in their mental scheme of things as Judaism, Jewishness and Jews in the weltanschaaung of certain sorts of people who existed long before the Jewish state of Israel did.
The fact that these individuals should know better is, unfortunately, offset by an extreme poverty of knowledge and understanding of, not only European cultural Christian history with regard to Jews, but also Arab and Asian cultural Islamic -the latter being the very culture, history and society that they claim to understand and know better than “western orientalists”.
Well, with regard to the Jews of the middle east, whether they originated in Christendom or Islam, they look spectacularly orientalist and Euro-centric to me.
The ignorant intellectual, the uneducated academic, the rabble rouser and demagogue, combined with the unhappy, resentful, disgruntled and disaffected have always been among the greatest threats to Jews in the diaspora. It is one of the most poisonous combinations imaginable.
| 9 January 2009, 3:51 pm |
Muslim deaths appear only to have this effect, when they can be attributed to non-Muslims.
Muslims being killed by Muslims in huge numbers in Iraq, Afghanistan, Darfur, or indeed in Palestine, do not appear to cause any particular uprising of anger against the jihadists carrying out the slaughter of innocent Muslims.
No, you haven’t gotten it, David T.
The examples you give are, precisely, proof of the authors’ thesis. Muslims killing Muslims in Afghanistan are hardly reported, ergo, “Muslim lives are considered cheap,” just like Siddiqui and Cohen claim. When a Catholic Basque kills a Catholic Spaniard, on the other hand, it makes headlines.
The West doesn’t give a damn for conflicts in which Western nations are not involved. That’s why we don’t learn about Muslim-on-Muslim violence, any more than we learn about Hundu-on-Christian violence in India.
The conflicts that the West watches, because they involve developed liberal democracies, are Iraq vs. Western Coalition, Afghanistan vs. Western Coalition and Israel-Palestine. And in all three Muslim lives are considered cheaper than non-Muslim ones.
| 9 January 2009, 3:52 pm |
The feeling of many British Muslims is that Israel must have known in advance the likely civilian death toll that would result from such a military operation on a densely-populated society, but decided it was a price Israel was prepared to accept for its own security, rather than exhausting other possible options.
What a silly statement. What other options? Abandon their homes? Just take endless rocket bombardment because otherwise, Muslims will hate them (as if they don’t already)? Beg the UN to support a member nation under attack? Ask Tony Blair for his advice?
It seems like a trait of Muslims to never see any fault in themselves. Whatever happens, it’s the fault of the Jews. Launch rockets from densely populated areas and incur a response? It’s the Jews’ fault, not Hamas. They seem pretty adept at giving each other a pass. Why didn’t “British Muslims” see that launching rocket attacks from densely populated areas would bring death and destruction on that densely populated area? Why doesn’t that bother them?
| 9 January 2009, 3:54 pm |
David T, have I got my Cohens confused?
You have.
| 9 January 2009, 3:55 pm |
To clarify:
If you read the militant, aggressive, at times pathological tone of not a few of the denizens of Seymour’s Place, in which Steve Brown calls for the resentful, unhappy and disgruntled to make the embassy of the Jewish state the focus of their disaffection, we are seeing, I think, open incitement to hatred, that, in some cases, the one above, at least, can be described as antisemitic in classic terms.
should be:
If you read the militant, aggressive, at times pathological tone of not a few of the denizens of Seymour’s Place, in which Steve Brown calls for the resentful, unhappy and disgruntled to make the embassy of the Jewish state the focus of their disaffection, we are seeing, I think, open incitement to hatred, that, in some cases, STEVE BROWN’
S, at least, can be described as antisemitic in classic terms.
| 9 January 2009, 3:56 pm |
not Arabs occupying Tel Aviv
Well if the could they would. Hamas want to drive us into the sea -Comprende
| 9 January 2009, 3:59 pm |
Damned if you do, damned if you don’t
No, it’s damned if you don’t, and damned if you don’t. Sharon didn’t.
Whilst disengaging from Gaza, he strengthened settlements in the West Bank, and froze the peace process.
As for Gaza, the end of occupation was defined at Nuremberg. It is:
“The test for application of the legal regime of occupation is not whether the occupying power fails to exercise effective control over the territory, but whether it has the ability to exercise such power.”
Israel exercises complete control over borders, sea, and air, and reserves the right to enter at any time of its own choosing. That is not a state, it is a fragment, controlled by Israel.
| 9 January 2009, 4:04 pm |
Like most people the vast majority of Muslims would never condone such actions.
No doubt. But collective bigotry creates those who act on what they’ve heard all their lives.
| 9 January 2009, 4:07 pm |
The Hasbara Buster
Why are you talking about Amona and other Jewish cities which Israel disengaged from in 2005?
If you want to talk about the past, then include the pre-Islamic past when the whole area was Jewish.
| 9 January 2009, 4:12 pm |
This whole ‘why aren’t muslims protesting against muslims’ thing is really misleading.
1) Saying that is like saying that Brits of African descent shouldn’t have been protesting against Apartheid, even though Idi Amin and his cronies were in full swing. (And no, I am not making any sort of general comparison here between israel and s.africa before anyone has a hissy fit).
2) As strange as it seems, it seems to be a very human thing to see oppression by outsiders as worse than oppression from your own. This is pretty complicated, I can’t do it justice in a bullet point.
3) Muslims are aware of the oppression of other muslims, but these awarenesses are compounded by many things
- a history of colonial struggle, that makes the oppression by others more pungent
- an awareness that western govts have many times collaborated with these repressive elements when it has been in our interests
- the poverty of british muslim politics – myopically focused on global issues and victim mentality at the expense of a more introspective and local view.
4) Certain issues will always be higher up the international agenda than others, for a whole host of often narrative reasons. Apartheid protesters could have been accused of not focusing on the worse issue of ongoing slavery in parts of mauritania for example. It isn’t neccessarily a question of gravity.
| 9 January 2009, 4:12 pm |
“I agree it’s not a cycle.
There’s CONTINUOUS Israeli violence, materialized in the unabated theft of Palestinian land by the settlers and the State, punctuated by isolated acts of violence on the part of the Palestinians.”
A nuanced view…
When does your clock start? 19th C, 20th C, 1948, 1967? Context and intentions are important. As the old saying has it if the Israelis weapons were taken away there would be no Israel (and a genocide), but if the Palestinians weapons were taken away there would be peace.
And cute of Benji to get in a mention of Nuremburg in whilst condemning the only Jewish state.
| 9 January 2009, 4:18 pm |
The cheapest lives are always those of the poor and the weak. Who happens to fit into that category changes over time, geography and context.
| 9 January 2009, 4:24 pm |
Israel would give the Palestinians peace, though it has never really demonstrated that it would agree a just term for that peace. The idea that the numerous political failings of the Palestinians (of which there have been many and profound) are the only obstacles to peace, willfully ignores Israel’s mistreatment of Palestinians and it’s own political manoueverings. I don’t think either side has shown to be brave enough to make the concessions for peace.
| 9 January 2009, 4:33 pm |
Do you think that Israel is in the OT (to the extent that they have not engaged) for the fun of occupation and oppression? Or because they want to ethnically cleanse Gaza and the West Bank to create a greater Israel? No it is in it for defensive purposes, having fought a defensive war and taken territory that was part of Egypt and Jordan.
If security for Israel and its citizens could magically be guaranteed the Palestinians would have a state asap on or around the 67 borders. The settlements would have to be dealt with but in this hypothetical scenario Israel proper wouldnt let a few zealots ruin their chance for peace. In any event this newly peaceful Palestinain state would presumably be able to tolerate a few Jewish settlements in its midst just as arab towns and areas exist in Israel.
| 9 January 2009, 4:40 pm |
Whilst disengaging from Gaza, he strengthened settlements in the West Bank, and froze the peace process.
You can’t blame Israel for not wanting to negotiate with terrorists. This is why the peace process was frozen. There was no-one to talk to on the Palestinian side, the process was stalling, and Israel didn’t want to be forced to deal with Hamas, so they froze the process and put the ball in the Palestinian’s court.
| 9 January 2009, 4:40 pm |
And cute of Benji to get in a mention of Nuremburg in whilst condemning the only Jewish state.
As you know it was the location of the trials after World War II, out of which came many tenets of international criminal law, hence its importance. I trust you do not disagree with definition I quoted.
| 9 January 2009, 5:03 pm |
Benjie
1. No one is suggesting that Gaza was a completely and wholly independent and autonomous Palestinain state. The dismantling and settlements and relinquising of some control was a positive step.
2. There is occupation and there is occupation. Do you think occupied France or Holland in WW2 would have been able to elect a government dedicated to the destruction of the Third Reich? Do you think occupied Germany after WW2 would have been able to fire missiles at France?
| 9 January 2009, 9:31 pm |
zkharya,
thanks for that :)
it is good that you keep an eye on the SWP’s premier blogger
| 9 January 2009, 9:41 pm |
Pablo –
I was reacting against the OP which mixed up a eulogy to multicultural London with the real problem of Muslim hate crime occasioned by the Hamas-generated crisis.
I was making the observation that this picture of friendly interaction between the various ethno-cultural groups is v. superficial and Muslims in London themselves are incredibly insular. I referred to “Asians” (generally the tag people in the UK use to describe SW Asians from the Indian sub-continent).
I am critical of all groups that operate effective bans on outmarriage – in my view bans on outmarriage should be made illegal. They have no part to play in a liberal democratic society. I have criticised Jewish groups that employ such bans. Most Orthodox Jews are indeed very insular, leading lives separated from the rest of society – having no marrying with people from other groups, trading with each other, having different charities and separate institutions for all sorts of things. I criticise that. It’s not healthy for society at large. You can get away with it in small numbers, but once millions of tens of millions start behaving that way you have a serious, serious problem on your hands. People don’t interact with each other as citizens but as members of particular groups – favouritism and corruption also result once such people get a grip on public institutions. It’s a very, very serious problem – we have already seen the sort of thing that goes on with postal voting scandals, nearly all being generated by this insular group mentality.
Liberal Jews are another matter although I know from friendship that even Jews from liberal backgrounds face a lot of subtle pressure not to marry out.
People can defend insularity if they want to, but please don’t pretend it isn’t insularity, or that there aren’t effective bans on outmarriage and close friendship with people outside the community. And please don’t pretend that insular group mentality does not lead to corruption and social friction. It does.
| 10 January 2009, 1:54 am |
‘A huge effort is being made by British Muslims to get vital humanitarian aid into Gaza, which is being frustrated by the military conflagration and blockade, and the inexplicable difficulties in getting aid over the border from Egypt into Gaza.’
Perhaps ‘British Muslims’ believe or have been told, that there are ‘inexplicable’ difficulties in getting humanitarian aid ver the border from Egypt, but there is nothing inexplicableabout it.
Palestinian citizens are held hostage, as refugees and embattled citizens of enclaves like Gaza by Arab and Muslim regimes, and their own representatives.
They are used as a permanent weapon, aided and abetted by a colluding UN, to undermine the right of Israel to exist, and as a human sheild against Israel’s attempts to defend itself.
Egypt will not open its border to allow humanitarian aid to their fellow Muslims in Gaza.
Egypt will not allow Palestinians to move freely across its border and to trade freely.
Egypt has allowed through rather more collusion than turning a blind eye, to allow millions of dollars and long range missiles and other weapons to enter Gaza from its side through apparently only recently detected tunnels.
Only when the scale of Iranian involvement in arming and supplying Hamas risks turning a useful anti-Israeli weapon of human suffering, into a major destabilisation of the region does it even begin to notice the tunnels.
There is nothing inexpicable about this. ‘British Muslims’ are not being told, or they are turning a selectively blind eye to a Muslim nations and the government of Gaza, Hamas, determination to let Gazans suffer for a propaganda war.
Why can’t Egypt provide humanitarian aid, indeed?
| 11 January 2009, 12:14 pm |
“Muslim deaths appear only to have this effect, when they can be attributed to non-Muslims.”
Likewise US or Jewish deaths. There is more anger in the US over 3000 killed on 9/11 than the over 20,000 killed each year by fellow Americans. There is more outrage in Israel at 10 people killed by Hamas bombs in 7 years than the far more Israelis murdered by fellow Israelis.
“Muslims being killed by Muslims in huge numbers in Iraq, Afghanistan, Darfur, or indeed in Palestine, do not appear to cause any particular uprising of anger against the jihadists carrying out the slaughter of innocent Muslims.”
You neglect to mention the people such as Al Qaida commiting these crimes are hunted down and punished. Where is the punishment for Bush and Blair and Olmert?
Whereas you re the opposite- you focus on Muslims killing Muslims and ignore non-Muslims killing Muslims- because your aim appears to be to demonise Muslims and more importantly justify israels actions by saying “look they kill themselves too so why shouldnt Israel ?”
| 11 January 2009, 12:15 pm |
“Perhaps ‘British Muslims’ believe or have been told, that there are ‘inexplicable’ difficulties in getting humanitarian aid ver the border from Egypt, but there is nothing inexplicableabout it.
Palestinian citizens are held hostage, as refugees and embattled citizens of enclaves like Gaza by Arab and Muslim regimes, and their own representatives.”
Untrue- there is much anger against Arab regimes for their inaction
“But there is a broad consensus that somehow Muslim lives are considered cheap and that the international community continues to fail to exert any meaningful pressure on Israel to take the peace process more seriously. ”
Muslim deaths appear only to have this effect, when they can be attributed to non-Muslims.
Muslims being killed by Muslims in huge numbers in Iraq, Afghanistan, Darfur, or indeed in Palestine, do not appear to cause any particular uprising of anger against the jihadists carrying out the slaughter of innocent Muslims.