Howard Jacobson's Booker winning book

When I read Howard Jacobson's own reviews of his book, The Finkler Question, I thought it looked like an exercise in bullying Jews that criticise Israel. It's a funny thing that most of the reviews I saw that praised the book (and I only saw one that didn't) didn't mention the Israel thing at all. Deborah Maccoby noticed the same thing about the reviews in her own review at Amazon:

I think I should start by declaring an interest. I am a member of the Executive Committee of Jews for Justice for Palestinians, which seems to be one of the groups that Jacobson is targeting in "The Finkler Question". I agree with an earlier reviewer that, though some of the novel is indeed entertaining and complex, the parts about the "ASHamed Jews" (which are actually a major part of the book, though many reviewers don't mention them) are crude political propaganda - which is surely very detrimental to a work of fiction - rather than satire. Of course I am politically biased against the book, but it is such blatant political propaganda that it calls for a political response.

First of all, all these groups, including openly anti-Zionist groups such as JAZ (Jews Against Zionism) (JfJfP is not an anti-Zionist group) reject entirely the label imposed on us all by Jacobson that we feel "ashamed" of being Jewish - on the contrary, we are asserting a universalist and prophetic Jewish identity of which we are proud and which this book repudiates.

I think true satire should contain some compassion and understanding for the characters, rather than the over-the-top caricature in which Jacobson indulges. For instance, there's a founder-member of the ASHamed Jews who is obsessed with the fact that he is circumcised. and spends his whole life sitting naked on a chair pulling at what remains of his foreskin in an attempt to lengthen it and reverse the circumcision - he does this all morning and then spends the rest of the day writing about his efforts on his blog and posting video and photos of his attempts on his blog.

The book can be very inconsistent and illogical. At one point two non-Jewish characters are discussing the "ASHamed Jews" in a very puzzled way, asking why Jews living in Britain should be ashamed of Israel's actions, which have nothing to do with them - then later on, at an "ASHamed Jews" meeting, Finkler objects to the idea of a boycott of Israel, saying Israel is their "family" and "you don't boycott your family". So here it is clear that Jews ARE very much associated with Israel.

During Operation Cast Lead,, the author writes of Finkler (with evident approval) "Gaza didn't do it for him" and Finkler doesn't understand why Israel's response is called "disproportionate". I've just been reading Gideon Levy's recent book "The Punishment of Gaza", containing articles demonstrating his anguish over the atrocities committed during Cast Lead, and to read Jacobson after that is truly appalling. I suggest that everyone who has lauded this novel reads Gideon Levy's book. As I've said above, if a novelist decides to spoil his novel by including large chunks of political propaganda, then he issues an open invitation for his work to be judged in political terms.

Other reviews on the same Amazon page mention the misogyny that I have heard mentioned a couple of times now. In fairness, Jacobson's misogyny doesn't seem to be a product of his zionism so perhaps that's why Deborah didn't mention it. This book is a "treat" in store for me as a friend is going to lend me his copy but I can't help feeling, even hoping, that some of the rave reviewers are going to regret their words by the time the paperback comes out.

Some people worry about buying books by writers they disapprove of so they go to the library. Unfortunately, that also generates income for the author. If you must read this book then the best thing to do is to borrow it from someone who has already bought it or wait until it appears in the second hand bookshops. I'm not sure what becomes of the money when they stack'em high and sell them for a pound. Of course a lot of people will have read Howard Jacobson's patronising and manipulative writing in The Independent and will wonder how such a person can win a Booker. Well I've heard that he has written the kind of stuff that could be worthy of a Booker but that this latest offering isn't of that kind. It's also true to say that many critics have said that last year's Booker shortlistees were all undeserving. There's no accounting for taste but the taste of a committee is a different thing from the taste of one consumer. It looks to me that the Booker people are happy to have colluded with a nasty piece of political bullying by just another purveyor of false charges of self-hatred and antisemitism. That's why I really ought to read the book. I know it's going to be bad and I know it's going to be heavy going. But it's got to be done. Vey iz mir...

Disrupting the Jewish National Thieves in Atlanta

OECD collaborates with the occupation but don't tell anyone

I think that's the position. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) is holding a tourism conference in Jerusalem which is bang out of order when you think about it because the international consensus is that Israel is illegally occupying Jerusalem and the OECD is an official international body. Well typically the Israelis have started bragging that the situating of the conference in occupied territory means the conferment of legitimacy which of course seems to be a correct interpretation. Well this has caused some embarrassment to the General Secretary of the OECD. Here's Ha'aretz:

Angel Gurria, Secretary-General of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), sent a harsh letter to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warning that due to comments made by Tourism Minister Stas Misezhnikov (Yisrael Beitenu), the decision to hold a tourism conference in Jerusalem could be hindered.

Misezhnikov said in an interview with Haaretz on Monday that although some countries have cancelled their participation in the OECD conference to be held in Jerusalem later this month, the fact that most countries have not cancelled their participation is a show of support for Israel's territorial claims in Jerusalem.

It's interesting that the OECD is so put out by this because by holding their conference in Jerusalem they are clearly poking even minimalist Palestinian aspirations in the eye but the OECD still wants to play ball with Israel:

Gurria wrote in the letter that he demanded clarifications regarding Misezhnikov's comments and claimed that the OECD had made it known to Israel that their decision to hold the conference in Jerusalem was not meant to have political implications.

The Secretary-General protested the fact that Misezhnikov had linked the conference to political issues and said that the incident could hinder the planning of future conferences in Israel.

Now I don't know how often these conferences take place but with 30 members why do they have to be considering now whether or not to hold future conferences in Jerusalem? It would appear that the spectre of not holding future conferences in Jerusalem is a gambit to go ahead and support Israel's claim on Jerusalem whilst appearing to take action against it. Unless Israel digs in and embarrasses the OECD still further, the scheduled conference will take place in Jerusalem and the location of future conferences will be largely forgotten.

I hope I'm wrong of course and, according to the Ha'aretz article, the UK and Spain are actually boycotting the conference this time around specifically because it is being held in Jerusalem.

Judges tell judge, Silence in court!

A UK judge, in summing up in a case of some activists putting an arms factory in the UK out of action to save lives in Gaza, mentioned that what the Israelis are doing to Gaza isn't nice. He also commended the bravery of one or other of the activists. Well apparently, according to the Jewish Chronicle, some senior judges have officially "reprimanded" the guy.

The judge who suggested that one of the anti-Israel activists who was acquitted of damaging an arms factory should be awarded the George Cross has been reprimanded for his “personal views”.

Judge George Bathurst-Norman made the comments in his 87-page summing up of the July trial of seven activists who broke into the Brighton EDO MBM factory last year.

The “Smash EDO” group were acquitted of causing £180,000 worth of damage to the building, which they believed supplied Israel with arms equipment.

In his summing-up speech, he told the Hove Crown Court jury: “You may well thing that hell on earth would not be an understatement of what the Gazans suffered at that time.”

In a statement released today, a spokesperson for the Office for Judicial Complaints said: “At short notice, the judge assigned to try a politically sensitive trial at Hove Crown Court on 28 and 29 June 2010 was unable to sit. To avoid an adjournment, His Honour Bathurst-Norman agreed to replace to him.

“A number of complaints were made about some of the observations he made during the trial and summing up. An investigation found that a number of these observations did not arise directly from the evidence at trial and could be seen as an expression of the judge’s personal views on a political question. This was an error.

“The Lord Chancellor and Lord Chief Justice considered the conclusions of the investigation and HH Bathurst-Norman was formally reprimanded.”

Of course, this doesn't change the outcome of the case and the case does still demonstrate that when the racist war criminals of the State of Israel are subjected to forensic examination they are generally found guilty, certainly more guilty than those who damage the equipment used (or to make the equipment used to make the equipment used) to commit the crimes that maintain the State of Israel as a foreign legion permanently garrisoned on the crossroads of Africa and Asia and existing at the expense of its native and neighbouring populations.

PS - here's an interesting factoid. George Alfred Bathurst Norman was born on 15 January 1939 at Tel Aviv, Israel. I'm assuming it's the same guy. There are zionists all over the internet going ape about this case and they are just thrilled with the reprimand. If this Bathurst Norman is the one who presided over the case then just watch the zionists try to make out that his place of birth had something to do with his summing up and therefore the outcome of the case.

Don't sign up for the JNF, Ed

A lengthy group of names have signed off an open letter in today's Guardian to Ed Miliband, new leader of the UK's Labour Party, calling on him to break with the modern Labour Party tradition of patronising, albeit honorarily, the ethnic cleansers of the Jewish National Fund:

We welcome Ed Miliband's statement that Labour's foreign policy should be "based on values, not just alliances" (Leader's speech, 29 September). For too long Britain has blindly followed the US in supporting Israel, right or wrong. There is one, immediate decision Ed Miliband can make which will show that these are not empty words. Both Tony Blair and Gordon Brown were patrons of the Jewish National Fund. We urge Ed Miliband to break from this tradition.

The JNF is actively complicit in the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians. For example, it established the Canada Park in the West Bank on the ruins of the villages of Imwas, Yalu and Beit Nuba. Today in Israel's Negev region it plays a major role in the establishment of exclusively Jewish settlements and the demolition of "unrecognised" Arab villages.

The JNF was founded in 1901 with the aim of purchasing land "for the purpose of settling Jews on such lands and properties". To this day it refuses to lease or rent land to anyone who is not Jewish. In 1953 and 1961, Israeli legislation made the JNF responsible for the land allocation policies of the state itself. In 1995 the Israeli supreme court, in the Ka'adan case, ruled that the JNF's partner, the Israeli Lands Administration, could no longer discriminate against Israeli Arabs by refusing to lease or rent state lands to them. This was held to be equally applicable to the JNF. The response of the JNF was that Israel was first and foremost a Jewish state not a state of its own citizens. Ed Miliband stood as the candidate of change in the Labour party. Now is the time to show that these weren't just words of spin.

Tony Greenstein

Naomi Wimborne-Idrissi

Emeritus Professor Moshe Machover

Michael Mansfield QC

Dr Chris Burns Cox

Professor David Pegg,

Leon Rosselson

Dr Sue Blackwell

Pete Firmin,

Abe Hayeem

Professor Myriam Salama-Carr,

Dr Rumy Hasan

Roland Rance

Dr Monica Wusterman

Deborah Fink

Jackie Alsaid

Ken Baker St Jerome Publishing

Professor Mona Baker

David Bangs

Dr Judith Brown

Ruth Clark

Adam Darwish

James Dickins

Greg Dropkin

Jackie Fearnley

Alf Filer

Naomi Foyle Brighton Palestine Solidarity Campaign

Kenny Fryde

Terry Gallogly

Anne Gray

Cliff Hanley

Rosamine Hayeem

Bob Jarrett

Ros Levy

Kevin Moore

Beryl Maizells

Zoe Mars Chair, Brighton & Hove Palestine Solidarity Campaign

John Metson

Safiya O'Donnell

Nicola Ostreicher

Ernesto Paramo

Dinah Rahman

Roger Reeve

Professor Dee Reynolds

Michael Sackin

Miriam Scharf East London NUT

Michael Shanahan

Ruth Tenne Israeli Human Rights Activist

Yvette Vanson

I gather there were some editing issues.

For more on the JNF see Gabriel's post on the Canadian branch of that racist organisation.

Bill Clinton tells truth shock!

Gabriel has written about the unconcealed racism of the newer arrivals to Israel and how various apologists try to explain it away. I actually hadn't noticed that Bill Clinton (the American Secretary of State's husband) has come out and spoken of pretty much the same thing.

The former US president claimed that the million-strong community of Jews who emigrated from former Soviet states after the collapse of Communism was generally more opposed to the creation of a Palestinian state than other Israelis.

Portraying Russian youngsters as one of "the hardest core" groups against the division of the Holy Land, Mr Clinton said: "This presents a staggering problem. It's a different Israel. Sixteen per cent of Israelis speak Russian. They've just got here," he told reporters in New York.

What drew my attention is the Israeli department responsible for the settlement of new settlers, Aliyah (here), Absorption (there) and Diaspora (and everywhere) Committee, has called on Bill Clinton to apologise.

Committee chairwoman Knesset Member Lia Shemtov (Israel Our Home) said, “Clinton should apologize, especially after the U.S. embassy in Tel Aviv refused even to send a written reaction to the committee's session.” The committee had invited U.S. Ambassador in Israel James Cunningham to participate in the hearing, but he stayed away and did not send anyone to represent him.

The U.S. Embassy stated in response, “The administration is not responsible for comments made by a private citizen who has a right to speak his mind, as is customary in Israel as well.”

Sources in the Knesset noted that the American claim that Clinton is a private citizen is belied by the fact that the American government still pays him a pension and supplies him with an entourage of assistants, and noted that Clinton still represents the United States in various world forums.

"The Olim {immigrants] from the former Soviet Union are Zionists who love their country and want to live their lives in security and peace, like any other citizen,” MK Shemtov said. “Some of them have been killed by bullets fired from guns that Clinton gave the terrorists.”

I've got to say that old Bill does like his stereotypes. Remember his "Irish drunks from a bar" gaffe? Anyway, let's see if he apologises...

Here's a comment from Gabriel that deserves more prominence since I refer to his post in this one:

the point I made is that the idea Clinton shares with the Israeli Ashkenazi mainstream which consists of his neoliberal friends, the idea that Russian racism is part the cultural baggage brought by the Russian immigrants from abroad, is itself racist. In Israel, the racism of the Russian immigrants is not explained away, rather, the mainstream uses it to rally the votes of the ashkenazis for the just as racist, if more sophisticated, parties of the center "left."

The Russians are more racist than average because they are insecure as Israelis and need to prove themselves in order to climb the social ladder. And in Israel, that's how you prove your belonging.

Meanwhile Israeli MKs are still seeking an apology from Bill.

Oh Canada! Or the International solidarity of Ethnic Cleansers

Israeli feminism and liberalism

I wouldn't have thought this video of international importance if it were not to the relentless hasbara effort to portray Israel as a feminist oasis in the patriarchal Middle East. It is in Hebrew, without subtitles (if anybody wants to transcribe, I could post a copy with English subtitles). So it is a special treat for the Hebrew reading/speaking visitors. But below is a summary for the rest. Watch and choke!

So, the story: in 2006, a ring of rapists was busted on an air force military base. For a year, they kept a 13 year old girl on the premises as a communal sex slave. Surely, that can happen anywhere, right? The two videasts impersonate two officers from the base, and take to the streets of Tel Aviv to ask for sympathy for the rapists. They ask people whether they would give them a certificate of honesty (a police document required by some job applications) or a jail sentence, symbolized by handcuffs. The poll is on the beach of Tel Aviv, allegedly the most progressive part of Israel society.

Watch what happens!

Eat your hat Max Blumenthal

And, for something completely different, below you can see the two jokers repeating millgram's experiment with an Israeli twist, asking beach-goers to play a game of border police and illegal immigrants, this time, with English subtitles:

Whose violence begets violence?

According to this article in Ha'aretz, it is Israel's violence that begets Palestinian violence:

Famously, the Arabs don't need excuses to kill Jews. As everyone knows, only self-hating Jews believe there's a connection between the Israeli side's behavior in the occupied territories and violent acts by the Palestinian side. Right?

Not according to a recent article in the important Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a journal that comes out in Washington. Contrary to the received version that "Israel only reacts" to Palestinian violence, the article scientifically shows that the cycle of violence spins in both directions. The three researchers - Prof. Nancy Kanwisher from the United States, Dr. Johannes Haushofer from Switzerland and Prof. Anat Biletzki from Israel - question previous articles claiming the Palestinian do not need provocations from the Israeli side, and that the terror attacks and rockets do not come in response to assassinations and attacks on Israel's part.

The article sums up a statistical analysis of the data on fatalities and Qassam launchings from 2000-2008, published by the Israel Defense Forces Spokesman and B'Tselem - The Israel Information Center for Human Rights in the Territories. The analysis was done using a method called vector autoregression, which enables isolation and analysis of how a single incidence of violence by one side influences the other.

Haushofer, an economist and neurobiologist at the University of Zurich, says the study shows that every time one side attacks the other, it can know with near certainty the other side will respond with violence. In this way, in effect, violence directly causes more Palestinian casualties or another rocket attack on Israel.

For example, according to the article's model, when Israel kills five Palestinians, the chances an Israeli will be killed by Palestinians the following day increase by 50 percent. Haushofer explains that he and his colleagues conducted the inquiry to "clear out" the rhetoric, the stereotypes and the ideological claims and to focus the discussion on the facts and their scientific and sane analysis.

Kanwisher, who heads the "Kanwisher Lab" for brain research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, points to a cognitive bias on both sides, which do not see their own reactivity and responsibility for the conflict. "Thus, for example, even though the Israelis are the occupying side, they see themselves as victims of the other side," she says.

Without any direct connection to the article's research findings, Kanwisher says the Israelis do not understand their role in creating the violence of the other side. She suggests the policy makers in the United States direct their attention to the fact that acts like stealing Palestinian lands and violations of basic human rights are perpetuating the continuation of the conflict. And, in the nature of things, a conflict leads to one or another level of violence.

The third partner in the article, a Tel Aviv University professor of philosophy, Anat Biletzki, says the article knocks the scientific basis out from under the claim that the conflict is unilateral, and that the Palestinians attack Israel while Israel "only reacts."

"We are hoping the article will contribute facts and numbers to the public discussion of the conflict," says Biletzki, who for many years headed B'Tselem.

Biletzki contributes a political diagnosis of her own: "I don't need scientific research to determine that all the behavior of the Palestinians is a reaction to the Israeli occupation. For this, common sense is enough."

Quite!

Victims of Goldstone?

Goldstone was a hanging judge but the people hanged when he could have maybe intervened are not the victims here. No, the victims are the Israeli soldiers who are now facing war crime type charges over offences committed that were incidental to the slaughter of around 1,400 mostly civilians in Cast Lead in 2008/9. Here's France 24:

An Israeli military court on Sunday convicted two soldiers of using a Palestinian child as a human shield by forcing him to check for booby traps during the 2008-2009 Gaza war.

A transcript of the court decision made available by the army said the infantry sergeants were found guilty of "exceeding their authority to the point of endangering life," and "conduct unbecoming," for ordering a nine-year-old boy to search bags confiscated from arrested Palestinians.

The court acknowledged however that at the time of the incident, January 15, 2009, the troops had been under "difficult and dangerous combat conditions" and had gone several nights without sleep.

Sentencing is to be decided at a later date, the military said.

Israel's Supreme Court has banned such actions, saying they amount to using a civilian as a human shield.

According to testimony released when the two soldiers went on trial in March, the child, identified as Majd R., said he feared for his life.

"I thought they would kill me. I became very scared and wet my pants," he said in an affidavit to Defence for Children International, a Geneva-based group.

"There were two bags in front of me," the boy said. "I grabbed the first one as he (the soldier) stood one-and-a-half metres (yards) away. I opened the bag as he pointed his weapon directly at me. I emptied the bag on the floor. It contained money and papers. I looked at him and he was laughing."

Army radio said several of the two soldiers' comrades attended the hearing wearing shirts saying, "We are the victims of Goldstone," referring to a UN Human Rights Council probe of the war by South African jurist Richard Goldstone that accused Israel and Palestinian militants of war crimes.

The report said there was evidence that both sides committed crimes against humanity during the 22-day conflict and recommended that the International Criminal Court examine its findings in the absence of "credible investigations" on both sides.

Israel vehemently rejected the report as "biased."

Yes, biased in favour of humanity.

Berlusconi's funny bone

Italian Prime Minister Berlusconni has a funny bone. To emphasize why he intends to stay in power, he told his adoring supporters at a rally a joke about the late Fuehrer: after the end of the war, according to this h-i-l-a-r-i-o-u-s joke, Hitler's supporters discover he is hiding in South America. They implore him to return to power, to which Hitler replies "Yes, but this time I'm going to be evil."

You can go here, for some other, even funnier jokes about Jews and the holocaust that tickle the Italian Prime Minister, as well as some examples of the Tycoon's great appreciation for women. For good measure, just days after Berlusconi amused his listeners with tales of the Fuehrer, his key supporter in the Senate, Giuseppe Ciarrapico, suggested that the not fascist enough dissidents in Berlusconi's party, who are challenging Berlusconi's leadership, should wear "Jewish skullcaps" because "“he who betrays once, always betrays.”

Do not forget that Berlusconi holds a distinguished Stateman Award from no other than the Anti-Defamation-League. You might say that the ADL could not have known then the kind of jokes that would fly in the fascist rallies of Berlusconi today, except that there was plenty of advance notice; the award was given days after Berlusconi expressed his respect to Mussolini and without input from the Italian Jewish community, which was outraged.

The on-the-record reply of the ADL to the outraged spokespersons of the Italian Jewish community is worth quoting in full, especially in the light of the above:

the New York-based Anti-Defamation League said Mr Berlusconi deserved its Distinguished Statesman Award for his help to fight a revival of anti-Semitism in Europe, his support for Israel and his commitment to the war on terror (my emphasis). (BBC)

For next weekend, in Rome, a large demonstration in support for Israel is planned. It is promoted among others by the Jewish Settler in Residence in the Italian parliament, Fiamma Nirenstein. I bet you didn't know that the Italian Parliament has a settler in residence! Well, since 1996, Nirenstein divides her residence between Rome and the settlement of Gilo in East Jerusalem. In Rome, she is a member of the "post" fascist "Freedom Party" of Silvio Berlusconi. Her biography reads almost like it was written by a computer. Every check box in a model neo-conservative, islamophobic career has a check in it. She is, for example, a former student of Bernard Lewis, a board member of the Hudson Institute and of the Global Forum against Antisemitism of Nathan Sharansky, and, of course, a leading islamophobe in Italy.

On her blog she characterizes the coming pro-apartheid rally, whose title is "For Truth, For Israel" as a rally "against all intolerance and antisemitism". Somewhat comically, the judeophobic quip of Senator Ciarrapico upset her cart, revealing the confusion amidst the new fascists in Italy, who find the dramatic redefinition of the enemy -- love Jews, hate Muslims -- somewhat difficult to follow. Not missing a heartbeat, Nirenstein issued a statement claiming to be outraged. But in that statement she also assured her readers that "Berlusconi, during the answering period in parliament, declared that he is attached as ever to the Jewish world and to Israel". I guess that settles it!

One can easily find reasons why Nirenstein sees no evil in the Prime Minister. For example, earlier this year, Berlusconi performed an optical miracle when he traveled by car from Jerusalem to Bethlehem but "didn't notice" the apartheid wall. It's a fine day when a corrupt, criminal, fascist, sexist, antisemitic pig can be the honored "friend of the Jews" provided that he is also blind.

(Thanks to Paola Canarutto for all the pointers for this entry)

Graphic Intifadah

The return of Israel's Mengele squad

I remember reading about this in a magazine called Return back in the 1990's and it was referring to the 80s but here's an article in Ha'aretz wondering how the perennial victims of the Israeli army can refer to themselves as nazis. The article starts quite well, marvelling at the fact that when it came to light, for example, that a unit of the Israeli army was describing itself as the "Mengele Squad", the instinct of state officials wasn't to concern themselves with their victims but to send the boys to Yad Vashem!

In 1989, a few years after Leibowitz spoke of Judeo-Nazis and about a year after the start of the first intifada, the country was shaken by a report by Avi Benayahu (the current IDF spokesman ) in the now-defunct left-wing newspaper Al Hamishmar. According to the article, a group of Israeli soldiers stationed in Ramallah had styled themselves the "Mengele squad." Again the IDF and the Nazis were intertwined, this time not by a philosopher and well-known provocateur but by the soldiers themselves.

In a turbulent Knesset debate on the issue, MKs expressed dismay at the chutzpah of a few "wild weeds" who, according to their commanding officer, had not displayed excessive brutality toward the local Arab inhabitants. All in all, it was just an armored infantry unit, which in wartime accompanied tanks into battle, but in periods of calm and during the intifada was helping fight the Palestinian uprising without undue enthusiasm (according to the company commander ).

The army reacted with fury. Because the identity of the one who leaked the story to the press was not discovered (and has not been discovered to this day ), the whole unit was subjected to an educational seminar and pedagogic punishment in the form of a tour and lecture at Yad Vashem, the Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem.

Nothing was done about the rumors of beatings and lootings of Arabs and the everyday abuse of the local population; but telling the press about it was considered unconscionable. One soldier in the unit, who now works in marketing, says without sarcasm, "All that happened was that a few soldiers decided to call themselves the 'Mengele squad,' to set themselves apart from the others - a kind of branding."

Ok, so much for the Mengele squad. See this:

"The battalion knew we were a company of 'killers,'" the officer - the son of Holocaust survivors - related. "We were for an aggressive solution. We tried to shoot using all means, we injected gas into schools from which stones were thrown at us. In the battalion we were known as the 'Auschwitz company' or the 'Demjanjuks' because we made such extensive use of gas."

Now the back-peddling begins:

Two years later, Ari Shavit published impressions from a 12-day stint of reserve duty at the Ansar detention facility on the Gaza shore. The column's thesis was ahead of its time. Ansar, he noted, is "the best and most enlightened facility among the detention camps that were established since the eruption of the intifada. Ketziot and Fara are far worse; only Megiddo prison is said to compete with it in terms of humanism."

But Shavit went on to boldly reveal the explicit associations that struck him during his service in the humane camp that housed more than a thousand inmates: "The facility has 12 watchtowers. Some of the soldiers are shocked at the resemblance between these towers and other towers, which they learned about in their childhood. In fact, the shock is purely emotional and lacks any factual basis. After all, the watchtowers that appeared in Europe in the 1930s, for example, were mostly made of heavy European wood, whereas the towers of the Gaza shore facility are made of light Israeli metal, manufactured by a factory in Tiberias."

Wow! Now there's a significant difference between Israel and nazi-Germany. They make their watchtowers out of different stuff!

But still the zio-nazi comparisons come:

"When R. sees a column of prisoners approaching, led by the barrels of the M-16s of his buddies in the unit," Shavit wrote, "he says in a totally quiet, businesslike tone, 'Now the Aktion is starting.'

And there's more:

N., a forceful, unsentimental Likudnik, complains to anyone who is ready to listen about what makes this place look like a concentration camp."

Indeed, there were grounds for complaint. Among those brought to the camp were children of 15 or 16 who were bruised and battered, and the doctor at the clinic didn't just treat the reservists' eye infections: "On some occasions he was asked to repair what an enthusiastic interrogator had done to the limbs of a suspect."

Remember this is at the prison, sorry, "facility" where, "only Megiddo prison is said to compete with it in terms of humanism."

Ok, that's the shooting, or limb smashing, or gassing, what about the crying?

On the day the Muqata, Yasser Arafat's headquarters in Ramallah, was captured, Chayut was an officer in the Nahal paramilitary brigade. He and his soldiers were ordered to maintain quiet and order at the site. He saw a group of Palestinian children and smiled at them, but even though he was a simpatico fellow and handsome, too, the children broke into a run, apart from one girl, who froze in her tracks. Her terrified look was the basis for the disillusionment that led him to write the book.

"As for what that girl took from me," he writes, "that is something I understood long afterward. She took from me the belief that absolute evil exists in this world, and the belief that I was avenging it and fighting against it. For that girl, I embodied absolute evil. True, I was not as cruel as the evil I imbibed, was raised on and matured with. I did not have to reach the level of its sophistication and intensification in order to grasp my role in her life [...] Since then I have been left without my Holocaust, and since then everything in my life has assumed a new meaning: belongingness is blurred, pride is lacking, belief is faltering, contrition is heightening, forgiveness is being born."

Forgiveness? Of whom? For what?

Stay, it gets worse:

It's hard to be both victim and victimizer at the same time. The evacuation of a large number of civilians, more than 4,000, including women and children, before a bombing run by the IDF, with the aim of preventing casualties, was dubbed "Schindler's list."

"Of course you know that it's clearly not the same thing, because you are not a Nazi and you do not kill them," says a soldier who took part in Operation Cast Lead in Gaza. He adds, "You also don't do it from hatred or anything. You even do it for their benefit, so they won't be hurt by the bombing. But it's impossible not to compare, there's no way not to think about it."

And worse again:

According to Rosenthal, it is not the occupation that is responsible for Holocaust references in the army, but the experience of loss in the first phase of the 1973 Yom Kippur War, which brought back to the Israelis the sense of Jewish helplessness. The desperate shouts of the trapped soldiers that were heard over the army's radio network suddenly sounded like the screams that might have been uttered in the gas chambers.

Can anyone really believe that the reason for holocaust terminology being used so casually in struggles of 1987 and 2000 are down to something that happened in 1973 recalling a time a when Jews really were victims?

Still, when we consider that the zionists in Europe are trying to have comparisons of Israel to the nazis made illegal, it's useful to point out that the comparisons, as unsound as they might be, are being made in Israel by Israelis themselves.

Irish Cultural boycott campaign goes to the theatre

Short happy update on the ongoing cultural boycott campaign in Ireland. In August this year, 140 artists signed the pledge to boycott Israel, included many of the major figures in the traditional music scene – Christy Moore, Donal Lunny etc. Since then they’ve been joined by 40 more artists and the campaign has extended further into the theatre world. New signatories include actors Stephen Rea, Conor Grimes and Barry McGovern.

Myself, I could watch Stephen Rea reciting the telephone directory, he’d make it sound like a Beckettian monologue. It’s a wonderful feeling when artists you admire sign onto the boycott campaign.

The campaign is also linked to the forthcoming flotilla to Gaza. People are busy fundraising up and down the country for an Irish boat to be part of the flotilla. One of the recent fundraisers in Galway was headlined by trad musician and all-round legend, Sharon Shannon. Signatory no 180 of the boycott pledge.

What's to reassert?

Crumbs! The Guardian had a major typo, or maybe it was a Freudian slip or plain mischief but a letter from supporters of the ill-fated Jewish boat to Gaza was headed in yesterday's print edition, Reasserting the Jewish tradition of defending injustice. Here's the full correction:

• A piece of correspondence on the letters page expressed the view that an attempt by Jewish activists on a sailing boat to break the sea blockade around Gaza this week had been important in "reasserting the Jewish tradition of standing up for the victims of injustice" (30 September, page 35). But due to an editing error, when a version of this sentence was rendered as the letter's headline a key element, the reference to victims, was missed out, so the heading read: Reasserting the Jewish tradition of defending injustice.

Maybe if they get letters from the Board of Deputies, the Zionist Federation or the Chief Rabbi complaining about the letters they did publish they could still run that headline without having to correct it. But then what's to reassert with that sorry bunch?

Israel's "peaceful" boarding of Jewish boat

Yeah right! The Jews for Justice for Palestinians website has an eyewitness account of just how peaceful the Israelis were when they boarded the Jewish boat bound for Gaza:

The IDF brought two boats alongside us, one on port side one on starboard side. All the crew and passengers (apart from myself as I was steering) linked arms.They boarded us simultaneously from both sides. At that moment we cut the engines and sat over the access points to the cut offs to prevent them restarting the engines. The wheel is on the starboard side of the boat. I was surrounded by three commandos, I held on to the wheel as hard as I could. One grabbed my left arm, another my right arm. The third stood by with a Tazer gun. After a struggle they managed to prize my hands from the wheel and threw me down on the floor. I managed to crawl behind them and remove the engine starter keys but one of them saw me and prized them from my hands. On the opposite side of the cockpit Yonatan Shapira and his brother Itamar had been identified by the IDF commander in charge. He sought to separate them from the others. Yonatan clasped Rami in a hug to prevent himself being removed. The senior officer then moved one sideYonatan’s lifejacket covering his left breast, placed a Tazer gun in contact with his clothing and fired it directly into his heart. Yonatan let out a dreadful scream and the force of the Tazer caused him to lose control of his muscles. He was pulled off Rami and across the cockpit to the middle. He was then hit twice more by the Tazer gun, screaming out again. Both he and Itamar were forcefully pulled off our boat onto the IDF rib. They were driven at very high speed over the waters, which had now become moderately rough (the wind had increased to a F4) and it would have been very uncomfortable especially for Yonatan still recovering from the Tazer shocks. They were taken to the frigate where they were treated normally, then to shore and released without charges.

Meanwhile I had turned off the fuel supply to the engines. After some time (the engines burn 1 1/2 litres per hour) when the fuel in the pipes had been used up the port engine started to fail. (The starborad fuel shut-off failed to work). After many attempts to restart the engine the IDF took the boat in tow. The boat is designed to go through the water at a maximum speed of about 8 knts. They towed us through the rough waters at 12 – 14 knts. The boat was bouncing about violently, it was dangerous for the remaining passengers and crew, including our 82 year old holocaust survivor. We all sustained bruises and the passage to Ashdod was exhausting. There was something like eight commandos on the boat in addition to ourselves so it was grossly overloaded. It was surprising that the boat did not begin to break up, the whole structure was groaning and making cracking sounds. It was clear that they intended to seriously mistreat the boat. During the passage they tore down all the banners and flags – including the red ensign (the UK flag) which legally has to be displayed in all foreign waters.

We wish to point out that in the USA it is illegal for the police or the army to fire Tazers directly into the heart as there have been a number of cases of heart failure and death as a result of such targeting.

The fact that Yonatan was released without charge makes it very clear that the use of the Tazer on him was purely malicious.

There was therefore, considerable resistance, be it non-violent, to the IDF’s illegal hyjacking of our boat, and there was considerable, unprovoked and very dangerous violence by the IDF.

I hate that expression, IDF. Israel Defence Forces. What are they defending?

Jewish boat for Gaza stopped by Israel

It looks like Israel got the first word in about how they stopped the Jewish boat for Gaza from reaching there. The Jerusalem Post reported that Israeli soldiers has boarded the boat peacefully but now the article has been changed to take a witness account from an Israeli who was on board the boat. Here's the sub-title of the article:

Commando 13 warship peacefully diverts yacht from Gaza after illegally enters waters; IDF spokesperson calls boat "provocation."

And here's the newly inserted first paragraph:

An Israeli passenger who was on board the Irene, a boat carrying Jewish activists and aid to Gaza that was intercepted by the IDF on Tuesday, says there was violence on board despite the IDF Spokesperson asserting otherwise.

"There are no words to describe what we went through on that boat, " said Yonatan Shapira, a passenger and former Israeli Air Force pilot.

Ha'aretz too is reporting witness accounts of violence by Israeli forces:

Earlier Tuesday the IDF reported that Israeli naval commandos peacefully boarded the Jewish aid boat attempting to break a naval blockade on Gaza, saying "IDF naval forces recently boarded the yacht 'Irene', and it is currently being led to the Ashdod seaport along with its passengers."

However, testimonies by passengers who were released from police questioning later in the day seemed to counter the IDF's claims, with Israeli activist and former Israel Air Force pilot Yonatan Shapira saying that there were "no words to describe what we went through during the takeover."

I can't now find any trace of the original Jerusalem Post article but it looks Israel is having increasing difficulty getting its word to be believed, even in the Jerusalem Post. But a later article in the Jeruslam Post, whilst carrying some of the witness statements, still reads: Navy peacefully diverts Gaza-bound Jewish activists. So the hasbara machine is still being briefed on this, it seems.

Trailer: Seven Deadly Myths

"We didn't come to them [the Palestinian villagers in the Negev] to collect their taxes. We came to inherit the land from the hands of strangers. That was the basis of our thinking. To inherit the land. And he who inherits, dispossess others. That's why we wouldn't let them return" - Amnon Noiman

http://sevendeadlymyths.webs.com/

Tony Greenstein reports on a report

I just don't get the time to read reports these days but fortunately Tony Greenstein has read the UN's report on Israel's flotilla raid:

The Report of the UN Fact Finding Mission, established on 2nd June by the UN Human Rights Council into the attack on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla, is a devastating critique of Israel’s attack on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla and its aftermath, in particular regarding the Mavi Marmara. That Israel has dismissed its findings as 'biased' etc. is no surprise. Any independent fact finding report, such as the Goldstone Report which they have since quietly admitted is true, is always rubbished by Israel.

At 56 pages, the Report is at once both devastating in its factual conclusions and in its concise legal summary of the implications of those facts. It should be used by activists to nail the Israeli lies and the BBC’s continued peddling of those lies, in particular the Panorama programme, Death on the Med which was broadcast from the viewpoint of the killers.

It is extremely interesting that the BBC was given, according to its own boast, ‘unique access’ to the killers whilst it has refused to supply any evidence to the UN Inquiry. One wonders why it is that the Israeli state thought it could trust the BBC so much. Possibly because it knows that these days the BBC, and its wretched Director General, Mark Thompson, can always be trusted to put out a propaganda line on their behalf.

The Report begins (all numbers in square brackets are paragraph numbers [16] by expressing ‘its profound regret’ at Israel’s ‘non-recognition of and non-cooperation with the Mission.’

Unlike the BBC, the Committee made what was an obviously sensible decision regarding Israeli video footage. [20]

In light of seizure of cameras, CCTV footage and digital media storage devices and of the suppression of that material with the disclosure only of a selected and minute quantity of it, the Mission was obliged to treat with extreme caution the versions released by the Israeli authorities where those versions did not coincide with the evidence of eyewitnesses who appeared before us.’

Israel is now refusing to have its soldiers/sailors give evidence even to the UN inquiry rigged in its favour. No surprise there.

Jewish boat to Gaza supported by Miliband's mum

I think there has been a certain amount of relief in leftish, anti-war and Palestine solidarity circles that Ed Miliband beat his brother, David, in the contest for leader of the UK's Labour Party. Brother David was implicated in the wars on Iraq and Afghanistan, the torture of rendition victims and he was an ardent supporter of the State of Israel whilst in office and never uttered a critical word after leaving office. I'm not expecting much better of brother Ed really but at least brother David has been punished for his unprincipled opportunism.

Ok, all that is by the by. I have heard many times that the mother of the Miliband brothers and the widow of their father, legendary British marxist, Ralph Miliband, is an activist with Jews for Justice for Palestinians. Her name is Marion Kozak. I don't know if that's her original name or if she remarried.

Anyway, the Jerusalem Post is finding it all rather fascinating in the context of this Jewish boat, Irene, to Gaza and some of the "talkbackers" are in apoplexy over the news.

Jews for Justice for Palestinians, the British organization which organized the boat sailing for Gaza on Sunday, has over 1,600 signatories including Marion Kozak, the mother of recently elected Labor leader Ed Miliband, according to its Web site.

In an interview over the phone from the UK, Naomi Wayne, a co-founder and acting treasurer of the left-wing group, confirmed Kozak's support and laid out her organization's manifesto.

"Our slogan is Rabbi Hillel's quote that which is hated by you do not do to your neighbor," she said. "We want the end of the occupation and for Israel to sit down and speak with all the Palestinians. We believe the occupation itself is a violent act...What we are hoping to do by sending the boat is reach Gaza in a very peaceful and friendly way. We do not believe people should be locked in without being able to leave."

Jews for Justice for Palestinians was founded in 2002, at the height of the Second Intifada. Besides Kozak other well-known signatories include Marxist historian Eric Hobsbawm, actor and comedian Stephen Fry, and the late playwright Harold Pinter.

One talkback says of Ed's (and David's) mum, "she should never have survived the holocaust".