Comments on: Lying in Gaza

By: vildechaye

vildechaye — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 23:07:44 +0000

RE: As formerly in terms of the Soviet Union and Maoist China, whom they defended regardless of the evidence until those regimes themselves failed from within, they are basically anti-Western authoritarians.

Exactly. Well put.

By: amie

amie — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 18:53:23 +0000

Bialik. What did the Labour Party say about it? Dismore didn’t say. If he comes around to canvass I shall ask him.

I assume that Dennis McShane, author of a recent book on antisemitism, would also feel he is more in the business, as you point out, of attacking the opposition rather than slagging off publicly fellow Labour MPs.

By: Bialik

Bialik — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 15:24:45 +0000

Amie – I remember, you helpfully posted Andrew Dismore’s comment at the time. The last paragraph, however, sounds as if Dismore approached the parliamentary authorities, but their only connection to LFPME and other hate groups is to accept MPs’ room bookings. What did the Labour Party say about it?

By: mostly harmless

mostly harmless — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 10:05:58 +0000

And the truth in Sheikh Jarrah

http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2010/03/the-new-israel-watch.html

By: amie

amie — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 10:05:47 +0000

Bialik: re Labour managing brand better: Dismore says he has tried in the past. Presumably this is not exclusively a Labour problem.

This is what Dismore wrote to me recently when I complained about a Labour Friends of Palestine hosting Islamists at a meeting in Parliament:

BiIt is not a committee of the Labour Party, any more than Labour Friends of Israel is.
>
> There are many groups of all sorts of political persuasions, some parliamentary some not. They may contain members of particular parties or restrict themselves to particular parties, but that does not make them official party bodies, within the party structure.
>
> LFI for example is comprised of MPs and peers who support Israel’s position, but it has no status as such within the party, just as CFI has no formal status within the Tories. So this group has people who sympathise with the Palestinians, but they have no official status in the party. Their views are not party policy.
>
I think they do not do it, [explain on their website their unofficial status] so they can pretend to have status they do not. There is no way of enforcing this, if they do not call themselves parliamentary groups, within the parliamentary regulatory system. I raised it a few years ago, but the parliamentary authorities thought it would be too much work and cost for too little benefit, unless it was for example an all party parliamentary group, which title is regulated.

By: sh

sh — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 09:12:11 +0000

pull back to the 67 borders and give the palestinians there own autonomous state. the politicians on both sides are morons, just like everywhere else. regional anger towards israel has nothing to do with anti-semitism

By: Ben Tzur

Ben Tzur — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 07:07:40 +0000

My above comment relates to the situation with the Palestinians. But Ben Cohen’s article deals specifically with a British Labor Party figure and his fulminations against the Jews, hardly even bothering to hide it under the fig-leaf disguise of anti-Zionism. This is just an example of the constant recourse to basically antisemitic discourse by leftist figures in the West, and their astonishingly unashamed alliance with anti-Western, anti-democratic and violently repressive authoritarian states and groups, even with terrorist groups, against Western liberal democracies including Israel, the canary-in-the-mine in the Middle East. Is not this because of the too frequent leftist distaste for the real people in favor of The People, their distaste for all-too-real and all-too-diverse individuals in favor of the ironed-out equalizations of Communalism and the State, their impatience with reality itself in favor of the Sameness of the Good? The exceptionalism of the Jews and now the Jewish state (the only stable liberal democracy and indeed non-Muslim state in the Middle East), has always been a goad to people of this cast of mind, regardless of their specific utopian final solutions. So it matters not to them that their friends in the anti-Zionist camp violate all of their claimed moral priorities, while Israel upholds them. Thus their attitude to Israel and Jews shows their real priorities and agendas in very clear fashion. As formerly in terms of the Soviet Union and Maoist China, whom they defended regardless of the evidence until those regimes themselves failed from within, they are basically anti-Western authoritarians.

By: Ben Tzur

Ben Tzur — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 06:46:52 +0000

Metaculture and Alcuin would like to believe that Islam as such is a religion of peace that has been hijacked by extremists who read “jihad” incitement against all non-Muslims, including outright antisemitism, into it. It must be discouraging to them that there are so many extremist statements from Muslim religious authorities, from Morocco to Saudi Arabia to Iran to Pakistan to points east, but hardly any fatwas against current jihadi behavior by leading mainstream Muslim religious authorities (the first major such fatwa, so far as I am aware, was issued by Tahir ul-Qadri just a week or so ago – see the item in this very blog http://www.hurryupharry.org/2010/03/02/tahir-ul-qadri-and-his-fatwa-on-terrorism-and-islamist-extremism/). The “silent majority of peaceable Muslims” is of no account in dealing with terrorism, because they like almost all of their leaders both religious and political have been silent, and this is in part because the jihadis, from al-Qaeda on down, are able to cite Qur’anic and other authoritative sources from the past 1,400 years in great numbers and ad nauseum. The Conference of Islamic Organizations, representing the political leadership of 57 majority Muslim countries, has not even been able to arrive at a condemnatory definition of terrorism because of the clear endorsement of jihad in their tradition, along with antisemitism itself which lies in part behind their anti-Zionism and support for terrorism against Jews. As for both jihadi ideas, and antisemitism itself, see the two massive and magisterial works edited by Andrew G. Bostom, The Legacy of Jihad: Islamic Holy War and the Fate of Non-Muslims (2005) and The Legacy of Islamic Antisemitism: From Sacred Texts to Solemn History (2008), each presenting hundreds of pages from the Qur’an and other mainstream authoritative sources, and further hundreds of pages of historical documents and scholarly essays by leading experts. Also see the various volumes of The Islamic Triology put out by the Center for the Study of Political Islam, including the volumes on Mohammed, Allah, and the Jews: The Foundational Doctrine (2006), and similarly titled books on Christians, Hindus, jihad in general, women, etc.

The West is indeed in a war of ideologies, forced on it by hostile authoritarian ideologues whether it likes it or not, and it still steadfastly refuses to face it.

There are indeed a few genuinely mild, tolerant and moderate contemporary Muslim religious authorities; they have been relegated to the margins and have had a very hard time swimming against the current. Praise and recognition must especially be given to Sheik Palazzi of Italy, whose recent address to Israeli Kenesset leaders has been utterly ignored by the world media, even though it is ground-breaking and courageous. For a transcript of that remarkable speech, see http://www.thesanhedrin.org/en/index.php/Hodaah_5770_Teves_20

Only such figures offer any hope for a moderate and reformed Islam. Sheik Palazzi however has even been ignored by Western leaders, not just by Muslim ones. He deserves every possible support, as does any truly peaceable and tolerant non-Salafi, non-Wahhabi Sunni, non-Khomeinist Shi’a Islamic leader. Where are they, not just in terms of dialogue with the Western world, but even in terms of dialogue within the Muslim world?

By: Bialik

Bialik — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 01:38:44 +0000

Re the parliamentary route – while BMA has picked a fight with truth, it is understandably difficult to get MPs to pick fights with members of their own party. It’s not even possible in some families! It’s not that they don’t care or don’t despise each other sometimes, it just isn’t on. Their job is to tear into the opposition.

Also, while I get mad at people who I think should be more upset about stuff like this, I can’t choose what makes them angry and it’s not fair to expect them to be angry on my behalf. In an ideal world, we’d all be angry about injustice all the time no matter who it affected, but in the real world we have to pick our battles.

I think the editors of Labourlist ought to apologise and explain their policy towards inflammatory and untrue statements like those made by BMA.
And I think the Labour Party should manage their brand better so that any organisation using its name (and not referring to labour as in ‘work’) sticks to some basic rules on antiracism and has a passing acquaintance with facts. These are two things we can urge without anyone’s help.

@Stanislaw – Happy to confirm there is at least one born-again Christian behind the LFPME.

By: sackcloth and ashes

sackcloth and ashes — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 23:16:18 +0000

‘It is worse than the Sudan, worse than the Congo, worse than Burma’

Is BMA on record as visiting any of these countries to examine the situation at first hand?

I used to admire his comment of David Miliband as ‘that pillock on his gap year’. I will now refer to this stupid old cunt as ‘a stupid old cunt’.