The Hypocrisy of Alan Dershowitz and the American Zionist Establishment

When It Comes to Trump and Breibart the Zionists are Wary of False Accusations of Anti-Semitism!

After years of accusing anyone and everyone of 'anti-Semitism', the defender of Jewish neo-Nazi Rabbi Meir Kahane, Alan Dershowitz, now says we must be very careful of accusing people of anti-Semitism.  The Zionist Organisation of America, which has just invited Trump's new anti-Semitic Strategic Advisor, Steve Bannon, to its annual Israel gala, also issues the same advice.

Would this be the same Dershowitz who said that Black Lives Matter was guilty of an anti-Semitic “blood libel” in charging Israel with genocide against Palestinians?

Was he “careful” when he likened Judge Richard Goldstone to Nazi Dr. Mengele after Goldstone put out a report highly critical of Israel in 2009, which Dershowitz termed a “blood libel”?

Was he practicing “care” when he flatly described the late Harvard President Nathan Pusey as an anti-Semite in his book Chutzpah, and accused the entire American legal profession of anti-Semitism?

“Upon learning of the way law was practiced in American firms, I resolved never to become part of that system.”

According to his Breitbart interview:

I don’t think anybody should be called or accused of being anti-Semitic unless the evidence is overwhelming.

Was the evidence “overwhelming” with Jimmy Carter and Desmond Tutu — when Dershowitz accused them of mainstreaming anti-Semitism because they were critical of Israel? And said that Carter had the “blood of thousands” on his hands?

- See After years of careless accusation, Dershowitz says anti-Semitism charges must be ‘very careful’

Alan Dershowitz, the 'human rights lawyer' who once proposed a warrant for torture could be part of a court process

Israel Welcomes Donald Trump and his anti-Semitic advisor, Steve Bannon

Zionism has never had a problem with anti-Semitism

Milo Yiannopoulos, a Breitbart columnist says we should accept that Jews run the banks and the media 

David Duke, holocaust denier and ex-KKK approves of Trump's anti-Semitic Strategic Advisor - Steve Bannon

It must have been a shock to the signatories of a 175 strong letter, including 21 members of the Jewish Labour Movement, [JLM] that the President of the Board of Deputies, Jonathan Arkush, ‘publicly congratulated Donald Trump on his election win’.  After all these young things have grown up to believe that anti-Semitism is a left-wing phenomenon that only exists in Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party.  Most of them probably subscribe to the notion common among Zionists that anti-Semitism equals anti-Zionism. [See for example Sir Mick Davies, Chair of the Jewish Leadership Council, in his evidence to the House of Commons Select Committee on Anti-Semitism].

American Jewish paper, The Forward, criticises Jews, mostly Zionists, who support Trump's anti-Semitic advisor

One wonders whether members of the Jewish Labour Movement who signed the above letter, such as Rhea Wolfson who is on Labour’s NEC, are also going to come out and condemn Isaac Herzog, the leader of the Israeli Labour Party.  Herzog also sent his congratulations to Trump, praising him  as:

“an American leader who showed the commentators and the skeptics that we are in a new era of change and replacing the old elitist regimes!... the defense and financial alliance with our strongest and most powerful ally will continue with a vengeance under your presidency.”

Those who imagine there is anything radical or progressive in the Israeli Labour Party should have their eyes opened to this nakedly racist and anti-Arab party.  

In America there has been a massive backlash among Jews at the election of Trump and outrage at the Zionist Organisation of America [ZOA] which has supported Trump’s appointment of Steve Bannon, the former CEO of Breitbart News, as Trump’s Strategic Advisor.  Indeed the ZOA has gone one step further:

Jonathan Arkus who has been prominent in attacking Jeremy Corbyn's 'anti-Semitism' welcomes Trump to power

 ‘The ZOA’s ardent defense of Bannon was shortly followed by the announcement that Bannon would be a featured speaker at the organization’s annual Brandeis Award Dinner.’  Stephen Bannon's Inclusion at ZOA Dinner Opens Rift Among American Jewish Groups.  If Not Now, a left-wing Jewish group has announced it is going to picket the ZOA’s dinner.

Libby Lenkinski of the liberal Zionist New Israel Fund declared that ‘We did not survive the Holocaust, we did not found the State of Israel, just so that less than two generations later we could cozy up to neo-Nazis” .  Some may ask where Ms Lenkinski has been all these years.  Has she not seen the growth of a Jewish neo-Nazi movement in Israel with Lehava and the mobs that cry ‘Death to the Arabs’?  Or those who put signs in shops boasting that they don’t employ Arabs?  Zionist Organization of America Flooded With 'Dozens of Calls' Amid Backlash Over Bannon Support

General Flynn the new National Security Advisor retweets and anti-Semitic tweet and David Duke ex-Grand Master of the KKK applauds him

Was she unaware of the military support that the Israeli government gave to the neo-Nazi Junta in Argentina between 1976-1983 when they tortured and murdered up to 3,000 young Jewish leftists, up to 12.5% of the Disappeared?  Surely she recalls the statement in the Knesset of Yossi Sarid of Meretz, that

 ‘the government of Israel never once lifted a finger and co-operated with the Argentine murderers because of their interest in arms deals….In Argentina, Israel sold even the Jews for the price of its immediate interests.’ ["Yes, I Accuse," Ha'aretz, 31 August 1989, p. 7]

This junta was the only neo-Nazi regime to take power in the post-war period yet Israel’s attitude to it was no different from the historic relationship of Zionism to anti-Semitism.  

The agonising of America's liberal Zionists

What we are seeing with the election of Trump and the enthusiastic support for him in Israel, is a cleavage between the interests of the Israeli state and the Zionist movement on the one hand and the interests of the Jewish diaspora on the other.  Although this contradiction has rarely surfaced, it has always been there.  Zionism was founded on a rejection of the Jewish diaspora which represented everything that it was fighting against.  Zionists spoke of diaspora Jews in much the same way as anti-Semites did.

Israel's settlers are over the moon at Trump's election

Pinhas Rosenbluth, Israel’s first Justice Minister wrote that Palestine was ‘an institute for the fumigation of Jewish vermin’. [Joachim Doron, ‘Classic Zionism and modern anti-semitism: parallels and influences’ (1883-1914), Studies in Zionism 8, Autumn 1983]   Jacob Klatzkin, editor of the Zionist paper Die Welt 1909-1911 and co-founder of the Encyclopedia Judaica, wrote that diaspora Jewry were ‘a people disfigured in both body and soul - in a word, of a horror… some sort of outlandish creature… in any case, not a pure national type.... some sort of oddity among the peoples going by the name of Jew.’ [Arthur Herzberg, The Zionist Idea, p. 322/323, Temple, Atheneum, New York 1981].

The Israeli government is delighted at the election of Trump

Negation of the Diaspora was the ideological foundation stone of Zionism.  When Arthur Ruppin, the Father of Land Settlement in Israel and a member of the Zionist Executive, was called an anti-Semite by a friend he responded that ‘He was not at all put off by the epithet ... "I have already established here [in his diary] that I despise the cancers of Judaism more than does the worst anti-Semite." [Diaries 4.8.93., Doron p. 186]

Such was the vehemence with which Zionists spoke about diaspora Jewry that Doron writes that ‘a perusal of the Zionist sources reveals a wealth of charges against the Diaspora Jew, some of which are so scathing that the generation that witnessed Auschwitz has difficulty comprehending them.’

Israelis wave the flag for Trump in Jerusalem

This is not just a historical footnote.  Zionists accuse anti-Zionist Jews of ‘self-hatred’ But if anyone is guilty of ‘self-hatred’ it is the Zionists.  Israeli novelist, A B Yehoshua, in a talk to the Zionist Youth Council spoke of the diaspora as the ‘cancer connected to the main tissue of the Jewish people.’  Yehoshua described diaspora Jews as ‘using other people’s countries like hotels.’ [Jewish Chronicle 22.12.1989. ‘Diaspora: A Cancer’]  In other words, Jews outside Israel are guests who don’t belong in the countries where they live.  Which chimes exactly with the views of anti-Semites.

Theodor Herzl, the founder of Political Zionism, pioneered Zionist anti-Semitism.  His essay Mauschel is a text-book example. [Zionist Writings.  Essays and Addresses, Vol. 1:  January 1896-June 1898.  Trans.  Harry Zohn, Herzl Press, NY, 1973] The title of the essay was a German epithet for a haggling Jewish trader, or a Jew generally; since the 17^th century. Herzl saw anti-Semitism as a positive asset in helping encourage Jews to move to Palestine.  Herzl wrote that ‘anti-Semitism has grown and continues to grow and so do I.’ [Diaries of Theodor Herzl, ed. Ralph Patai, p.7, Thomas Yosseloff and Herzl Press, London, 1960] and he drew the conclusion that ‘the anti-Semites will become our most dependable friends, the anti-Semitic countries our allies.’ [Complete Diaries, pp. 83/84.] 

Alan Dershowitz, the Zionist lawyer who has made a profession of accusing anti-racists, including Black Lives Matter, of 'anti-Semitism' now urges caution when genuine anti-Semites are under fire

The anti-Semitic and white supremacist Breitbart welcomes the support of two ardent Zionists

What we are seeing is a continuation of the historic policy of Zionism towards anti-Semitism from Herzl to the Holocaust.  Zionism is and always has been concerned with what is in the interest of the Jewish State not the Jews.  Yithak Mualem  wrote of Argentina that:

'While the Jewish factor has an effect on Israeli foreign policy, it is not a decisive one. It is not the only consideration... The heritage of David Ben-Gurion determined that “in our relations (with foreign countries) we should be guided by one criteria…and that is whether it is good for the Jews.”  ...  According to Ben-Gurion's national approach, the state constitutes the highest goal of Zionism and the Jewish people. He did not ignore the problems of the Jews in the diaspora, but nevertheless saw the goals of the diaspora as secondary to the goals of the state, whose mere existence serves the needs of the diaspora.'  [Between a Jewish and an Israeli Foreign Policy: Israel-Argentina Relations and the Issue of Jewish Disappeared Persons and Detainees under the Military Junta, 1976-1983 Jewish Political Studies Review 16:1-2 (Spring 2004):

The idea that what is good for the Jewish State is good for the Jews since ‘the state constitutes the highest goal of Zionism and the Jewish people.’  is a fascist idea. 

 Israel's largest circulation paper, Israel Hayom, has ignored the anti-Semitism of Trump's advisors

Hadashot, a now defunct Israeli newspaper, described how Marcel Zohar, a Yediot Aharonot  correspondent in Argentina between 1978 and 1982, told in his book Let My People Go to Hell, how the Israeli government, the Jewish Agency and other official bodies refrained from processing immigration applications from Jews with left-wing backgrounds, in order to preserve Israel's business and political links with the ruling junta. In the same period, arms sales worth about one billion dollars were concluded between Israel and Argentina.  Both Likud and Labour leaders shared in the conspiracy of silence.  [28 Sept. 1990 Israel Denied Shelter to Left-wing Argentine Jews During Junta Rule] 

The Zionist attitude during the Holocaust was no different from previously.  Building a Jewish state was of greater importance than rescuing Jewish refugees.  Indeed the Zionist movement endeavoured to ensure that rescue would only be to Palestine and in some cases actively acted against other destinations like Santo Domingo.  [Shabtai Beit Zvi, Post-Ugandan Zionism on Trial, Vol. 1, p.315-364 1991, Zehala, Tel Aviv]

Pamela Geller, whose anti-Islamic racism is such that she's banned from entering Britain, has no hesitation in supporting an anti-Semite

Shabtai Teveth, Ben Gurion's official biographer, wrote, that:

'In spite of the certainty that genocide was being carried out, the Jewish Agency Executive did not deviate appreciably from its routine … Two facts can be definitely stated:   Ben-Gurion did not put the rescue effort above Zionist politics …. he never saw fit to explain why, then or later.  Instead he devoted his effort to rallying the Yishuv [Jewish community in Palestine] and Zionism around the Biltmore Program and to the preparations for its implementation. ‘[The Burning Ground 1886-1948, Houghton Miflin, Boston, 1987 p.848]. 

Teveth explained that ‘Ben-Gurion was more concerned for the fate of the Yishuv than for that of European Jewry.  Ben-Gurion repeatedly stressed that the importance of the Yishuv went far beyond the individual Jews of Palestine.’  Why?  Because ‘the Yishuv was a  “great and invaluable security, a security for the hope of the Jewish people.’  [849]   Teveth concluded that ‘If there was a line in Ben-Gurion’s mind between the beneficial disaster and an all-destroying catastrophe, it must have been a very fine one.’  [851] 

It is therefore entirely consistent that Zionist leaders, in Israel and the United States, have been supportive, not only of Trump but Bannon too.  The Israeli ambassador to the United States made the government’s position clear when he praised Trump as a “true friend of Israel” ‘extending a specific mention to incoming top White House adviser Steve Bannon.’

Alan Dershowitz, who has attacked Black Lives Matter as anti-Semitic, because of their support for BDS, displayed unusual reticence when it came to Bannon.  ‘I think we have to be very careful before we accuse any particular individual of being an anti-Semite. The evidence certainly suggests that Mr. Bannon has very good relationships with individual Jews.’  Of course it is quite possible to be friendly to Jews on a personal level and yet anti-Semitic politically.  Providing a media platform for anti-Semitic and white supremacist articles is racist and anti-Semitic.  Enoch Powell, the English Tory MP who argued for repatriation of Black people, was never accused of being a racist on a personal level,.

Robert Mackey describes how the leaders of anti-Muslim racism and chauvinism in the United States have rallied to the cause of Steven Bannon [Steve Bannon Made Breitbart a Space for Pro-Israel Writers and Anti-Semitic Readers]  This includes David Horowitz, a key figure and founder of Frontpagemag.com and Pamela Geller, who has been ‘championed by Breitbart’ and ‘barred from travel to Britain in 2013, because of her virulent  Islamaphobia.

Under Andrew Breibart, who died in 2012, Breitbart was focused on “calling out the left, but especially American Jews who were insufficiently loyal to Israel.”  In other words there was nothing these bigots loved more than attacking anti-racist Jews.  For Breitbart “the left is the enemy, but Jews on the left are worse because they are traitors” who are “selling out Israel.”  The idea that Jews in the diaspora owe Israel any loyalty is itself anti-Semitic.

Mackey notes that ‘Breitbart’s right-wing Jewish writers were willing to use anti-Semitic tropes to attack their left-wing Jewish enemies as “self-hating” enemies of Israel.’  ‘Self-hatred’ was the term the Nazis applied to anti-fascist Germans. 

All of this has caused anguish amongst liberal Zionists.  Forward’s Jane Eisner wrote:

‘For many years now, American Jews have been told to worry about anti-Semitism from the left... So obsessed are we with looking for threats from one direction that we have missed the growing danger from another.’

Despite Israel’s support for the new administration, including Bannon, the liberal Zionists still fool themselves that ‘there is a coherent threat from the right as well as from the left,”  Eisner quotes Yehuda Kurtzer of the Shalom Hartman Institute of North America, “I don’t know why there isn’t a coherent response to the right.”

Eisner, Kurtzner and The Forward demonstrate the muddle and confusion at the heart of liberal Zionism.  A muddle represented by the signatories to the letter to the Board of Deputies.  They wonder why there is no ‘coherent response’ to the anti-Semitism of the Right as there is to ‘left anti-Semitism’.  The answer is of course obvious.  Zionism and Israel have never have been interested in fighting the anti-Semitism of the Right.   Their only interest is in branding anti-Zionism as anti-Semitism because the former is a direct challenge to Israel as a Jewish supremacist state.  These liberals have turned a blind eye to Israel’s anti-Arab racism for so long that they cannot see that the Israeli state also has no principled objection to anti-Jewish racism.

Chami Shalev in Steve Bannon Signals Coming Storm for Jews in Age of Donald Trump quotes Deborah Lipstadt, the Zionist Holocaust historian “We need to do a serious reckoning.  It’s been so convenient for people to beat up on the left, but you can’t ignore what’s coming from the right.”  These hypocrites who turned a blind eye to Israel’s murderous carnage in Gaza, its systematic denial of rights to Palestinians, are now dumbstruck at how Israel and the Zionist movement has no objection to the anti-Semites in the new Trump administration.  Shalev describes how Bannon is ‘the poster child’ for right-wing Zionists such as Mort Klein, ‘the very hawkish head of the Zionist Organization of America’

It is amusing to read liberal Zionists like Jane Eisner discovering that ‘it’s possible to be Zionist and anti-Semitic at the same time.’  Zionist ideologues have long argued that if you are pro-Zionist then you can’t be anti-Semitic.  No one pursued this more avidly than the editor of the Jewish Chronicle, Stephen Pollard.  Pollard defended the anti-Semitic Polish MEP Michal Kaminski, who had attacked any Polish apology for the burning alive of up to 900 Jews in Jedwabne in 1941 by fellow Poles.  Pollard wrote that ‘I worked in Brussels. It is not a place associated with friendliness towards Israel.... One of that rare group is Michal Kaminski. .. It would be harder to find a greater friend in Brussels. That is why the accusation of antisemitism is so vile.’ [Kaminski is our friend - this is a smear campaign]

Unsurprisingly Pollard has been one of the main leaders of the campaign to smear Jeremy Corbyn and the left in the Labour Party as ‘anti-Semitic’.  Eisner notes that ‘according to this logic, as long as you support certain policies of the current Israeli government, it’s okay to pal around with people who hate Jews.’  Liberal Zionists are having to go through a steep learning curve!  Similarly Naomi Zeveloff writes about how although ‘it would seem impossible to hate Jews but love the Jewish state, these two viewpoints are not as contradictory as they appear.’

Breitbart News has embraced the anti-Semitic white supremacist movement. “We’re the platform for the alt-right,” Bannon proudly told Mother Jones last summer.  It is the alt-Right supporters of Trump who are the ones who have been sending anti-Semitic messages laden with Holocaust imagery to Jewish journalists around the country.

As Eisner notes, ‘some, like Bannon, see in Israel a (white) nationalist, anti-Arab country worth supporting — over there. Here, in America, they may accept, even respect, individual Jews, but their ideological aim is to cleanse the country of its multiculturalism and restore privilege to white Christian males.’  What Eisner does not do is explain why the American and European far-Right see Israel as a country worth supporting.

Eisner, and not only her, are in a state of shock at discovering that supporting Israel and supporting anti-Semitism are entirely compatible whereas opposing racism, be it in America or Israel, is going to get you labelled as an ‘anti-Semite’ by the anti-Semites!  Zeveloff notes how ‘Breitbart News... is also brazenly Zionist, albeit peddling an exclusively right wing perspective on Israel.’  

What we are seeing is a great awakening among some Zionists.  How long it lasts is another matter.  Zeveloff even quotes Steven M. Cohen, a sociologist at the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion that ‘There is actually “little correlation” between anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism, ... To be sure, anti-Semitism is found among the anti-Zionist left. But it is also found among the Zionist right.’  Groping towards an understanding of the present confusing situation, Zeveloff cites Cohen as saying that “Many people who dislike Jews like Israel and many people who are critical toward Israel are affectionate toward Jews.”

As Trump’s administration embraces the politics of the alt-Right and Israel’s supporters embrace them too, liberal Zionists are going to find it difficult coming to terms with the fact that all their comfortable nostrums about a ‘different’ Zionism have gone out of the window.  We live in interesting times!

Tony Greenstein 

Justin Welby, The Archbishop of Canterbury’s Idiocies

ISIS like Zionism is a Secular Group that Uses Religion as Its Cloak

Justin Welby, who came from the City of London, is one of the more reactionary Archbishops of Canterbury.  Nonetheless that is no excuse for his comments as reported in Friday's Telegraph.

ISIS did not come about because a group of Islamic theologians sat down and having examined the sacred texts decided that a murderous head chopping death cult was required.  It was the product of particular circumstances such as the invasion of Iraq and the death of upwards of a million people there.  It caused a murderous reaction to the United State’s barbarities that unfortunately echoed it.  It is well known that the senior military ranks of ISIS are staffed by secular Ba’athists from Saddam Hussein.  It is also well known that amongst ISIS’s followers there is widespread ignorance of the most basic aspects of Islam.

See e.g. Leaked Isis documents reveal recruits have poor grasp of Islamic faith  Recruits ordered 'The Koran for Dummies' and 'Islam for Dummies' to prepare for jihad

Political movements often take on a religious colouring in order to legitimise themselves.  Zionism was a classic example.  Its origins were wholly secular.  Theodor Herzl its founding father had once proposed mass conversion of Jews to Catholicism.  His son wasn’t even circumcised!  It is well known that the founding fathers of Zionism based their claim to Palestine on a God whose existence they denied!

Welby’s comments on the ‘Judaeo Christian” roots of British culture to find solutions to the mass disenchantment which led to the Brexit vote in the UK and the rise of anti-establishment leaders on the continent’ suggest the Archbishop would do well to think before opening his mouth.  What Judaeo-Christian culture?  The Spanish Inquisition, Martin Luther’s ‘the Jews are our misfortune’ or perhaps the slaughter of 1.5 million Jews before the Crusaders had even set out?  It was Saladin and the Muslims who protected the Jewish community in Palestine from this supposed “Judaeo Christian” culture.  Or maybe it was the teachings that the Jews killed Christ that Welby referred to?  It just shows that being a complete idiot is no bar to the highest post in the Church of England.  What matters is that you know the right people.

Welby says that saying ISIS has nothing to do with Islam is like saying that’ Christian militia in the Central African Republic are nothing to do with Christianity, or Hindu nationalist persecution of Christians in South India is nothing to do with Hinduism.’  Welby is right.   Christian militia in the CAR does have nothing to do with Christianity.  If it did have something to do with them presumably Britain and other European countries might also have Christian militias.  Likewise with the persecution of Christians in South India.  This is not Hinduism but extreme nationalism and racism in the name of Hinduism.  Similarly the Buddhist religion, which is known to be peaceful, provides a cloak for murderous Sinhalese nationalism in Sri Lanka.

Tony Greenstein 

Gaza writes to Standing Rock: Your story is our story

We are not numbers

A quite moving display of solidarity between Gaza and the Amerindians.  It reminds me of similar wall murals in West Belfast in support of the Palestinians when I visited during the hunger strikes in the 1980's.

Tony Greenstein

Dear Native Americans:

Although we are of different color, religion, culture and place, I have learned, as I read about the protests at Standing Rock, that we have much more in common than differences. When I read your history, I can see myself and my people reflected in yours. I feel in my core that your fight is my fight, and that I am not alone in the battle against injustice.

My ancestors were not the only ones who lived in Palestine. Jews, Christians and Arabs all lived side by side in my country. But my ancestors—including my grandparents and great-grandparents—were the indigenous people, just like you. And they suffered the same fate as your people. America’s policy of occupation and displacement through forced marches like the Trail of Tears, and the gradual transfer of so many of your people to massive, impoverished reservations, hurts me deeply because it is so similar to the ethnic cleansing of my ancestors by the Israeli military occupation in what we call “al-Nakba” (the catastrophe). We know what you know: that our land is sacred.

A mural in solidarity with the protests at Standing Rock created by "We Are Not Numbers" in Gaza. 

In 1948, my ancestors—along with nearly a million other Palestinians—were frightened away or forced off their lands, in some cases at gunpoint. More than 10,000 others were massacred. Hundreds of our villages and cities were completely destroyed in a systemic plan to erase our identity—just as yours has been under continuing assault.

Palestine today is just 22 percent of our original homeland. Like you, some of my people (an estimated 1.5 million) must live in degrading “camps” (our word for reservations), where living conditions are “comparable to the Third World.” Like your reservations, they are characterized by high rates of unemployment, poverty and suicide.

Many other Palestinians (about 6 million)—now including descendants of the original residents—are scattered elsewhere around the world, just as yours are around the United States. Today, not only has the military occupation taken over our land and declared it “the state of Israel,” but it continues to carry on a policy of expulsion, demolishing Palestinian houses in the little bit of land we retain, building illegal settlements and preventing free movement with a network of “security checkpoints.”

Like you, we don’t control our natural resources. Just as you were not consulted about the Dakota Access Pipeline that will traverse your land and contaminate your water supply if installed, we are not consulted by Israel, which wants to mine the gas supply in our harbor for its own use and monopolizes the water supply in the West Bank for the green lawns of its own residents—leaving Palestinians parched and dry. In Gaza, where I live, only 10 percent of our water supply is drinkable due to the conditions in which we must live. We too know that “water is life.”

When I was young, I saw how the media portrays negative images of you, especially in Hollywood films—depicting you as uncivilized, savage, racist and drug abusers. Likewise, my people are portrayed as terrorists, “backward,” misogynists and anti-Semitic. And yet no one regards whites as all the same.

Like yours, our resistance has been labeled as acts of terrorism and violence rather than as a fight for survival and dignity. That’s not surprising, since this is the policy of every oppressor who seeks to criminalize others to justify its acts. It is the oppressor’s way to create its own version of reality to rationalize its behavior and brainwash the masses. And it is the oppressor’s plan to make the colonized feel weak and alone. But you are proving they won’t succeed and I want you to know that my people are with you.

Seeing your women, elders and youth stand together to protest the pipeline and your exclusion from decision making is so inspiring! It gives us strength to go on with our own struggle.

As a Palestinian in Gaza, I have grown up feeling detached from the rest of the world as Israel tightens its decade-long blockade. I am sure many of you feel the same way. But we are not isolated. 

We are “soulmates” in the way that counts.

Sincerely,

Israa Suliman
We Are Not Numbers

A Scottish Scandal – The Sale and Breakup of Carbisdale Castle

The Negligence of Holyrood and the SNP at the Destruction of a Jewel of the Highlands

Carbisdale Castle in all its glory

Me outside Carbisdale with the forests behind me - date unknown

Picture I took of the Railway bridge connecting Invershin station and Culraine - date unknown

A picture I took of the gallery - date unknown

Picture I took of the main entrance to the castle - date unknown

Secondary entrance to castle

The winding path to the castle

 

CESARE LAPINI

This isn't the normal type of political post that I write but it is political.   It is how a wonderful national asset in the Scottish Highlands, which produced an income for the communities around it from the tourists it attracted, was asset stripped by the Scottish Youth Hostel Association whilst the Scottish government looked on, or rather didn't look on.

Pasqualle's Andromeda

I fell in love with the beauty of the Highlands at the age of 14 on a youth hostelling trip.  I went back there repeatedly.  The Highlands are the most beautiful and unspoilt part, not only of Britain, but Europe too.  In particular I was fascinated with Carbisdale Castle, the most unique youth hostel I’ve ever stayed in.  Built for the Duchess of Sutherland by her estranged family by marriage, it is situated in Sutherland and can be seen for miles around.

the lower gallery

I probably stayed there at least 10 times.  It is situated in the most glorious part of the Highlands, on the banks of the Kyle of Sutherland.  It is served by two railway stations, at Culraine and across the bridge at Invershin.  Trains run or used to run about 3 times a day.

It is fair to say that the castle was almost a part of my life as I would hitch-hike from Liverpool and then Brighton to Scotland and and stay without fail in the castle, about 50 miles north of Inverness and about 5 km north of Bonar Bridge.  The last time I stayed in it was with my daughter in 2003.

This year, not having been back to the Highlands for a decade, we decided to rent a cottage a couple of miles north of the castle.   When I inquired about the castle, the owner of the cottage told me that it was a scandal what had happened.  The castle had been closed for about 5 years because of the need for repairs and instead of raising the money, the Scottish Youth Hostel Association had decided to sell the castle off, which they finally managed to do this year for less than a million pounds.  Less than a family home in London.

Jacob's Dream

What was so wonderful about the castle, apart from the grounds and the fabulous interior, was a  gallery in which fabulous marble statues were situated, with gorgeous paintings on the wall.  The vandals of the SYHA sold these off first in order to raise money.  Scotland has its own government which at the time in question was controlled by the Scottish National Party.  What the hell were the SNP doing during this process?  The Scottish government should have used its powers to preserve the castle intact, if necessary passing legislation to this effect.  It should have ensured that the £6 million necessary to repair the castle was forthcoming and a unique and irreplaceable national heritage was preserved for future generations of Scots.  Instead they paid homage to the free market and allowed the vandalism of capitalism to take full effect.  The paintings and sculptures were sold off for double what it was thought they were worth, £1m, more than the castle itself and now some property company has bought it in order to turn it into a private residence for some playboy.

Pasquale Romanelli

For all the talk of red Tories, the SNP are no better than the Red Tories they oppose.  The Labour opposition at Holyrood is of course no better.  It failed to raise the issue and one suspects they knew nothing of it either. 

I post therefore some pictures I took during my stays there and information I gathered from brochures as well as other pictures from amongst other sites Sothebys!

PUTTO READING, IN A LANDSCAPE

A brochure that used to be issued describing the castle can be seen here and the statues and art can be seen here

Below is a video of the surrounding area, which consists of the most beautiful forests and country.

Hotel owner complains about lack of action over Carbisdale Castle closure

Some Features and facts

• The castle has 365 windows, one for each day of the year.
• The clock-tower only has clocks on three sides. The side facing Sutherland does not have a clock.
• There is a secret door below the Great Staircase which could be opened by rotating one of the statues. This mechanism is not in use anymore.
• The castle is said to have several ghosts. It has been investigated by paranormal experts with varying results. The appearances include a lady in white, fallen soldiers of the Battle of Carbisdale and the sounds of a piper. The Ghost of the Castles GardenerThe Hooded Gardener is said to roam the grounds looking for his lost daughter, he often haunts girls that are the same age as his own daughter (15); he has been seen dressed in black with a black hood with only part of his face shown.
• The Castle has a large collection of art with some pieces dating back to the year 1680.
• There are 19 Italian marble statues in the Lower Gallery of amazing beauty, dating back to around 1857.
• Every May, Erskine Stewart's Melville Schools, a private school, had a school trip there. During this time, bagpipes were played at 7 in the morning as an alarm.

Cupid in Repose