Brighton & Hove Signals that the Fightback Against the Cuts Has Only Just Begun

On Saturday, the Trades Council organised one of the largest demonstrations against the Tory/Liberal Cuts, I counted 1,380 people marching through Brighton & Hove with the defiant message that we won’t accept cuts to public service jobs, benefits and pensions. (the Police as per usual with left-wing demonstrations reduced this to 900!).

The demonstration was led by workers at the Council’s own Brightstart Nursery who have been told the nursery is to be closed and staff at Connexions, a service that helps youngsters back into work, not least those with disabilities. A good place for the Cameron axe to bite!

As thousands face eviction and homelessness as a result of the caps on housing benefit the Tory/Libs have cut Corporation Tax for the multi-nationals. Vodafone have just been let off £6 Billion tax but if you claim an extra penny you are not entitled to on the dole then you will be prosecuted.

The march gathered at The Level, Brighton’s traditional rallying point and people streamed in as noon approached. There were many speeches – both at the beginning and the end. We even had a Labour councillor pledging to oppose some, but not all, cuts. There were many speakers - from Brightstart, the Save our Post Offices, UNISON, the Socialist Party, Brighton Benefit Cutss but the warmest reception of all was for the local MP and Britain’s only Green MP, Caroline Lucas. At the end a number of speakers spoke, starting off with an accordion and song rendition by Tom and then Tony Greenstein from Brighton Unemployed Centre, Di Leach from UNISON, Chris Bough from PCS, the civil service union and finall Gary Hassell from the railworkers’ union, RMT.

The local King & Queen Pub agreed that we should place stalls and tables in their courtyard so it was a great day all round but just the beginning.

Tony Greenstein

The Jewish National Fund – Zionism’s Primary Apartheid Organisation

The Jewish National Fund is a prime example of how Apartheid in Israel operates. Unlike South Africa there are no ‘Jews only’ signs. Apartheid in Israel works differently. Towns like Kiryat Shmona in the Galilee are Jewish only and Arabs are physically prevented from entering (unless it’s for work) but there are no signs saying this.

It is therefore surprising that of all the Israeli organisations with which to lend their name to, British Prime Ministers beginning with war criminal Tony Blair, duffer Brown and now Eton’s very own David Cameron are ‘patron’s of the JNF and Israeli Apartheid.

That is why, originating in the Boycott Israel Network, a letter with 50 signatories was drawn up urging Ed Miliband, brother of torture supporter David, not to become a patron of this Jewish-only charity. When Miliband chose not to respond it was decided that the next step would be to have the letter published nationally. We therefore sent the letter to The Guardian, which published it on 7th October.

Now a funny thing happened. Usually when you criticise Israel you have legions of spotty Zionists descend upon you shouting ‘anti-Semite’ – eager to refute what you say with whatever lies and hasbara that come to hand. Yet strangely there was nothing, at least nothing until 16th October when the Chair of the JNF in Britain Samuel Hayek finally responded.

It is difficult to think of a weaker letter. Apparently our letter was ‘misconceived in its approach and inaccurate in its content.’ No specifics of course.

Apparently ‘since its creation, JNF's focus has been on developing and sustaining the environment in Israel…. Our current focus on the Negev region clearly reflects these aims. To accuse the JNF of being "actively complicit in the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians" represents a distortion of the truth on the grandest of scales. Our environmental and humanitarian work is not based on any political or religious affiliation, but rather on supporting Israel and its population – whatever their background. This was the case before the modern state of Israel was created and will continue to be the case long into the future.’

Virtually every other word contained a lie within it. Just the name itself ‘Jewish’ not ‘Islamic’ or ‘Christian’ National Fund betrays its purpose. But the facts are even more damning. Hence this was a golden opportunity to shine a light under the Zionist stone and see what crawls out.

I therefore replied to Hayek and on 19th October not one but two letters were published, from myself and Dr Barry Stierer, also of Brighton PSC!

Has Hayek responded? Well if he has it’s not been printed. It is almost certain that Hayek and his compatriots have decided that discretion is the better part of valour. They don't wish to have the JNF discussed in the media because the facts are so damning. Instead the increasingly manic Jewish Chronicle took up the cudgels.

In a particularly stupid article of 20th October, Jennifer Lipman stated that ‘Mr Greenstein, a long-time anti-Zionist, implied in a letter to the Guardian newspaper that JNF UK’s chairman Samuel Hayek had been lying for his country.’ Duh! No I made it quite clear that he was lying, not on behalf of his country but another country! Lipman clearly didn’t understand the import of the comparison with a diplomat. It had nothing to do with representing one’s country. Rather that whereas diplomats are at least paid to lie for their country, what was Hayek’s excuse?

My letter ended with a simple question that no Zionist has yet managed to answer. What if a British National Fund were to do in Britain was the JNF does in Israel? What is the BNF were to only lease land to non-Jews or Christians? Would that be anti-semitic? Well it’s a no brainer and even Zionists like Jonathan Hoffman of no brain understand very well that the only answer can be ‘yes’.

The facts are extremely clear but I am going to lay them out for activists so that they are at peoples’ fingertips.

Why the Jewish National Fund is as Racist Organisation

The Jewish National Fund is an organisation which was founded in 1901. It has been one of the key organisations of Zionist colonisation in Israel. It originally purchased land from primarily absentee landlords for Jewish settlements. After 1948 it took control, at bargain basement prices (there is no evidence that any money actually changed hands) of 2 million dunums of confiscated Arab land, doubling its land holding from 1 million which it had bought pre-1948 to over 3 million dunums.

In 1901 a Resolution to establish the JNF established it as "a trust for the Jewish people, which... can be used exclusively for the purchase of land in Palestine and Syria." Ironically Herzl had opposed the formation of the JNF when it was first raised at the second Zionist Congress in 1898. He feared it would undermine his efforts to establish the Jewish Colonial Trust, a bank to finance the Zionist movement.

Herzl also feared that the JNF would end up subsidising the existing Hovvei Zion (Lovers of Zion) settlements which Herzl deprecated. Although Hovvei Zion, established by Leo Pinsker in 1882, was a Zionist supporting group, its settlements in Palestine - Rishon le Zion and Petah Tiqva - financed by Baron Edmond de Rothschild, who was not a Zionist, rapidly turned into classic colonial settlements whereby the settlers sat back and allowed the Arabs to do the work.

This was anathema to the Zionists. Such settlements would create a class of effendi Zionists who sooner or later would be ousted by an incipient national movement. Jews must do the work as well as own the settlement. Hence why the Zionist Kibbutz was born – it was the only such institution that could ensure that the settlers worked the land which had been ‘redeemed’ from the Palestinians.

In 1903 slightly modified proposals were adopted by the Zionist Congress and the JNF was authorized "to build on or to have cultivated or also to lease (subleasing being prohibited) the purchased land to Jews"; this meant that the JNF "could either itself develop the land or lease it, but only to Jews."

In April 1907 the JNF was incorporated in England as the Juedischer National-fonds (Keren Kajemeth Le Jisroel) Limited. According to the Memorandum of Association, the "primary object" for which the JNF was organized was "to purchase, take on lease or in exchange, or otherwise acquire any lands, forests, rights of possession and other rights, easements and other immovable property in the prescribed region (which expression shall in this Memorandum mean Palestine, Syria, any other parts of Turkey in Asia and the Peninsula of Sinai) or any part thereof, for the purpose of settling Jews on such lands." [Clause 3(1)]

In 1953 the Knesset passed the Jewish National Fund Law which made the JNF into an arm of Israeli Government land policies. It was official a non-governmental organisation but in reality was accountable to and implemented the policies of the Israeli state. But because it was nominally a private Zionist organisation, the Israeli government could deny responsibility for its practices. The JNF law followed the passing of the World Zionist Organization/Jewish Agency (Status) Law of 1952. The WZO/Jewish Agency owned and controlled the JNF so one can see the spider’s web of deception which was instituted to allow the Israeli government to deny it practiced racist land discrimination. It simply contracted it out to the WZO and JNF, for which it could then deny responsibility, even though in practice it controlled the latter.

New Memorandum and Articles of Association were submitted and approved on May 20, 1954, under which the new Israeli JNF Company acquired all the assets, liabilities, etc. of the JNF, incorporated in England in 1907. The "primary object of the Association" was now "to purchase, acquire on lease or in exchange, or receive on lease or otherwise, lands, forests, rights of possession, easements and any similar rights as well as immovable properties of any class, in the prescribed region (which expression shall in this Memorandum mean the State of Israel in any area within the jurisdiction of the Government of Israel) or in any part thereof, for the purpose of settling Jews on such lands and properties" (Clause 3, Sub- clause a).

Once again the JNF’s constitution, which is what a Memorandum of Association is, made clear that the JNF’s activities was for the purpose of settling Jews on such lands and properties. And because some settlements, Kibbutzim and the individualistic Moshavim, were now becoming like colonials of old and sub-leasing their JNF land, in 1967 the Knesset passed the Agricultural Settlement Law which probibited the sub-leasing of land to non-Jews on pain of a fine. In other words it is a criminal offence to lease JNF lands in Israel to non-Jews.

The JNF was the primary means of allocating the land of the expelled Palestinians. It’s Director and member of Ben Gurion’s Transfer Committee, Josef Weitz, made the intentions of the JNF crystal clear in 1940. Note the date. Eight years before the establishment of the Israel state. This in itself gives the lie to those like Benny Morris who say that the expulsion and flight of the Palestinians was a cause of the war of 1948, the invasion of the Arab armies etc. Its reasons were simple. To create a Jewish state in a state where even in 1948 the majority of inhabitants of the Jewish allocated area were non-Jewish was unacceptable. On December 20, 1940 Weitz wrote in his Diaries that:

"it must be clear that there is no room in the country for both [Arab and Jewish] peoples . . . If the [Palestinian] Arabs leave it, the country will become wide and spacious for us . . . The only solution [after the end of WW II] is a Land of Israel, at least a western land of Israel [i.e. Palestine since Transjordan is the eastern portion], without [Palestinian] Arabs. There is no room here for compromises . . . There is no way but to transfer the [Palestinian] Arabs from here to the neighboring countries, to transfer all of them, save perhaps for [the Palestinian Arabs of] Bethlehem, Nazareth, and the old Jerusalem. Not one village must be left, not one [Bedouin] tribe. The transfer must be directed at Iraq, Syria, and even Transjordan [eastern portion of Eretz Yisrael]. For this goal funds will be found . . . An only after this transfer will the country be able to absorb millions of our brothers and the Jewish problem will cease to exist. There is no other solution." (Benny Morris, p. 27 & Expulsion Of The Palestinians, 131-132, also cited in the now defunct Davar, paper of the Histadrut of 29.9.67).

From its very beginnings, the JNF was dedicated to the ‘redeeming’ the land of Palestine for Jews and Jews only. Before 1948 it might just have been termed a quaint colonial outgrowth, a chauvinist but semi-private organisation. After the declaration of Israel as a Jewish State in 1948 its racist character was in no doubt.

In November 1961 the JNF and the Israeli government signed a Covenant clarifying the relationship of the JNF to the state and spelling out their respective powers and responsibilities. Under this Covenant, based on legislation enacted by the Knesset in July 1960, two bodies were set up, the Land Development Assocation and the Israeli Lands Administration. In 1960 a series of Acts of the Knesset were passed defining the parameters of the joint work of the ILA and JNF, - The Basic Law: Israel Lands (July 19, 1960), Israel Lands Law, (July 25, 1960), and Israel Lands Administration Law (July 25, 1960), op. cit., pp. 85-94.

Title to the land purchased by the JNF was to be held in perpetuity, "as the inalienable property of the Jewish people," [Article 3, Constitution of the Jewish Agency for Palestine, adopted August 1929; quoted in John Hope Simpson, Palestine: Report on Immigration, Land Settlement and Development (Cmd. 3686; London, 1930].

Article 3 also stated that: "The Agency shall promote agricultural colonization based on Jewish labour, and in all works or undertakings carried out or furthered by the Agency, it shall be deemed to be a matter of principle that Jewish labour shall be employed...." The Jewish Agency, the Palestine wing of the (World) Zionist Organisation, was established in 1929 by the Sixteenth Zionist Congress in Zurich to draw support from Zionists and non-Zionists. The latter was always a fiction. In practice they were often Zionists who suffered from sea-sickness and the Zionist Organisation and Histadrut continued to control it in practice.

All of the terms of a Lease Agreement, including the lessee's rights, were subject to one over- riding condition: the lessee must be Jewish. Accordingly, the land could not be leased to a non-Jew, nor could the lease be subleased, or sold, or mortgaged, or given, or bequeathed to any but a Jew. Non-Jews could not be employed on the land or even in any work connected with the cuLltivation of the land. Violation of this term of the lease rendered the lessee liable for damages to the lessor, and the third violation gave the lessor the right to abrogate the lease without any compensation to the lessee.

For example the JNF lease, article 23, states inter alia: "The lessee undertakes to execute all works connected with the cultivation of the holding only with Jewish labour. Failure to comply with this duty by the employment of non-Jewish labour shall render the lessee liable to the payment of a compensation of ten Palestinian pounds for each default. The fact of the employment of non-Jewish labour shall constitute adequate proof as to the damages and amount thereof, and the right of the Fund to be paid the compensation referred to, and it shall not be necessarv to serve on the lessee any notarial or other notice. Where the lessee has contravened the provisions of this Article three times the Fund may apply the right of restitution of the holding, without paying any compensation whatever." Quoted in the Report of Sir John Hope Simpson p. 53, published in August 1930.

Among the conclusions in this Report, held as a result of the 1929 riots in Palestine and consequent on a recommendation of the 1929 Shaw Commission into those riots, the terms under which the JNF purchased and leased land were described as "objectionable," and it was recommended that they "should be radically altered" (p. 142)

As Uri Avneri, an ex-member of the Knesset, founder of Haolem Hazeh and Gush Shalom:

"Hebrew Labour meant, necessarily, No Arab Labour. The 'redemption of the land' often meant, necessarily, 'redeeming' it from the Arab fellahin who happened to be living in it. A Jewish plantation owner who employed Arabs in his orange grove was a traitor to the cause, a despicable reactionary who not only deprived a Jewish worker of work, but even more important, deprived the country of a Jewish worker. His grove had to be picketed, the Arabs had to be evicted by force. Bloodshed, if necessary, was justified." He further notes that Arab tenants "were simply evicted when the land was redeemed by the Jewish National Fund in order to set up a kibbutz." Israel Without Zionists: A Plea for Peace in the Middle East (New York: Macmillan, 1968), p. 85.

This article cites extensively from the classic article by Walter Lehn, The Jewish National Fund, published in the Journal of Palestinian Studies Vol. 3, No. 4, Summer 1974, p.80).

See also ‘Is the JNF racist?’ by Shahar Ilan in Haaretz 25th July 2007 which shows how even the ‘left’ and ‘marxist’ Zionist Mapam, which was the second strongest party in Israel but has now almost disappeared, was equally a party to the co-opting of the JNF as an the executive arms of Israeli policy.

Here is an embarrassing fact: In 1957, when the Knesset passed the Jewish National Fund (JNF) Law, one of the great leaders of Mapam (the United Workers Party), Yaakov Hazan, said: "The JNF lands, which were purchased with the money of the Jewish people, are sacred for Jewish settlement, just as the Muslim waqf [land held in religious trust] is sacred to the Muslim community."

Now, Hazan's ideological successor, Haim Oron (Meretz), argues that the bill seeking to designate JNF lands for Jews only is racist. Oron explained that "only a fossilized movement doesn't change its mind over the years." Yet one cannot help but wonder how what was sacred turned into racism.

Article 3A of the JNF's articles of incorporation states that one of its goals is to purchase and lease lands on which to settle Jews. The JNF bill, which passed its preliminary reading last week, requires the state to manage JNF lands in keeping with this principle. The bill, by the way, is not intended to circumvent a High Court of Justice ruling; its goal is to preempt a ruling on a petition now before the High Court. In other words, it is a preemptive bypass of the High Court.

The immediate reason for the bill was Attorney General Menachem Mazuz's opinion that the lease of JNF lands to non-Jews should be permitted. Thus for now, this is a bill to bypass Mazuz. The Knesset presidium has the authority to bar racist laws from the floor. But the Knesset's legal adviser, Nurit Elstein, ruled that "only bills whose essentially racist nature cries out to heaven and shakes the very foundations" should be barred. Elstein felt that the JNF bill does not cry out to heaven. But is it silently racist?

Law professor Amnon Rubinstein of the Herzliya Interdisciplinary Center chose not to deal with this question in a letter he sent to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Justice Minister Daniel Friedmann. However, he did write that the bill "contradicts the Basic Law on Human Dignity and Liberty and harms the basic values of the State of Israel." In other words, it might be overturned by the High Court. He also wrote that the bill "will cause great damage to our reputation and will serve the campaign of boycotts and ostracism that is being waged against us by haters of Israel."

There is certainly room to ask what reputation Rubinstein is talking about. Haim Sandberg, a doctor of jurisprudence at the College of Management, is about to publish a book entitled "Israel's Lands, Zionism and Post-Zionism." Sandberg does not understand how it can be argued that using land purchased for Jews in order to settle Jews is racist. "There is no reason not to designate JNF land, or most of it, for Jews," he said.

The chairman of the National Union-National Religious Party, MK Uriel Ariel, said: "Generations of Jews collected their pennies to bring to fruition the Zionist enterprise of redeeming the land, in the clear and certain knowledge that the money would be used for Jews." The problem with this argument is that the state transferred to the JNF about a million dunams (approximately 247,000 acres) of land belonging to absentee owners. It could very well be that to designate JNF land for Jews only, this one million dunams would have to be restored to the state.

The chairman of the Knesset Constitution, Law and Justice Committee, MK Menachem Ben-Sasson (Kadima), is not prepared to say whether he believes the bill is racist or constitutional. He would only say that "in principle, I want to discuss it, and I am not prepared to be told at the outset that I can't."

Quite how Samuel Hayek can proclaim in the Guardian, and keep a straight face, that the JNF ‘is not based on any political or religious affiliation, but rather on supporting Israel and its population – whatever their background.’ without his nose becoming extended is a matter of some curiosity. Clearly Pinnochio had nothing on him!

As the JNF's own web page said of the visit of Avigdor Lieberman to Britain:
'KKL-JNF UK board members lead by the KKL-JNF UK Chairman, Samuel Hayek and Dubi Bergman, Head of Delegation, took active part in all Lieberman's meetings and events. The visit made an important mark on the Jewish life in the UK and succeeded in raising KKL-JNF's profile in the Anglo-Jewish community.'

Lies come to these people easily.

Tony Greenstein

Setting the EDL Cat Among the Zionist Pigeons

It Gets Worse - Now The Zionist Federation Stands Alongside A Swastika Poster!

Well first their excuse was that the EDL wouldn’t leave them alone. They wanted nothing to do with them. Now they demonstrate with the EDL even when the latter show their true anti-semitic and homophobic views in a Swastika poster.

On Saturday the Zionist Federation and the English Defence League once again demonstrated together in support of Ahava, the Israeli shop that sells stolen West Bank ‘beauty products’. Naturally Jonathan Hoffman, Co-Chair of the Zionist Federation was there to lead the Zionist contingent. My assumption that he had been told to desist by his compatriots at the Zionist Federation was clearly wrong. Only the death of his mother had prevented him from attending all the counter-demonstrations.

Last week the Jewish Chronicle held one of its micro polls (micro because they usually never attract more than about 100 voters out of an alleged 30,000 sale). The question was the somewhat strange, if not fatuous, ‘Should Rabbis work with the EDL’. The poll was subsequently pulled when Terry Gallogly of York PSC and the Boycott Israel Network and myself advocated a ‘yes’ vote.

People might like to vote in this poll in the JC, if only to embarrass Hoffie and the Zionist Federation. Can someone please post this to JBIG please?'

To those Zionists who are now protesting about an attempt to ‘rig’ the poll one has to ask two questions.

Firstly why ask the question? Contrary to what the Jewish Chronicle’s Jessica Elgot writes, citing with approval a blogger on the virulently anti-Islam site Harry’s Place ‘Tony Greenstein is suggesting that anti-Zionists should try to rig a JC poll, so that they can falsely paint Jews as racists’

In fact the reason I advocated people voting yes was not because of any desire to paint anyone as racist who isn’t but because Rabbis, of all people, are indeed the most racist and atavistic section of the Jewish community. I have yet to publish a story about one particular British Rabbi from the Lubavitch sect and their attitude to killing non-Jews but there are plenty of articles on this blog covering this theme, not least the most recent on the sayings of ex-Chief Rabbi Ovadia Yosef on how non-Jews only exist to serve Jews to nothing of their views that killing non-Jews is not to be considered as heinous as killing a Jew. In fact it can be a duty.

I am unaware of any orthodox Jewish rabbis, outside the small anti-Zionist Neturei Karta sect or Liberal/Reform rabbis, to some extent, who have opposed even the most barbaric practices of the Israeli military. Perhaps I’m wrong and someone can point to an Orthodox Rabbi in Britain who has publicly condemned the Siege of Gaza for example?

And secondly how can encouraging people to vote, in a public poll, be considered ‘rigging’? As Terry wrote, on the 14th October.

In fact this has started to become a political crisis for the Zionist movement in this country because, however they try to paint it, their stalwarts led by the Co-Chair of the Zionist Federation, Jonathan Hoffman, are standing shoulder to shoulder with members of the English Defence League. People who not so long ago would have been amongst the pogromists.
In a post on the JC Blog ‘The EDL and Ahava’ ask quite pointed questions of the Zionist Federation and its demonstrating alongside the EDL.

There is one telegramsam (TS), who is apparently an employee of the United Jewish Appeal, whom Hoffman has been trying to identify so that he can be sacked. ‘If the ZF has allegedly made it clear the EDL/BNP aren't wanted at their demos, why hasn't Jonathan Hoffman publicly dissociated himself from them? Why hasn't he made it clear that he has asked the police for separate pens?’

And Jon points out that ‘To back up Sam's point when one searches the ZF website for EDL that there are no results found.'

As one Philocetes points out ‘Jono brought this upon himself by his words, deeds and actions.’
TS notes, concerning Hoffman’s enforced silence that ‘it does indicate that there is some discomfort at the ZF over the EDL/BNP participation in the Ahava demos. This is good, since there appears to be some realisation that this is distracting from the ZF's fantastic work on behalf of Israel advocacy. Many people now await the full dissociation.’ TS asks why ‘If the ZF has allegedly made it clear the EDL/BNP aren't wanted at their demos, why hasn't Jonathan Hoffman publicly dissociated himself from them? Why hasn't he made it clear that he has asked the police for separate pens? Why doesn't he demonstrate on alternate weekends so as not to be seen to be associating with the EDL/BNP?’

On another blog which also covers much the same ground ‘anti-Zionists urge rabbis to work with EDL’ there is an extremely interesting comment from one ‘zair’. Responding to the comment that 'Many people now await the full dissociation.' He writes ‘Don't hold your breath ts. As I have previously stated on this website, at a recent ZF event there was open discussion of dealings with the sikh representative of the EDL.’ If this is true, then it would appear that there are those within the ZF who are in favour of at least tacit co-operation with the EDL or what they would like to think of as the ‘non-racist’ or non-anti-semitic wing. Interestingly there were no responses to this before the whole discussion was terminated.

Hoffman is, of course, extremely irritated by these comments, especially on a Jewish Chronicle site and makes it clear that if it were up to him, anti-Zionists, which means everyone to the left of Lieberman, would be banned. Eventually he says that "I told SB that there was some crossover between the BNP and the EDL and that the EDL sometimes intimidated Muslims and that both these are reprehensible."

Hardly one might think a full-throated condemnation. Apparently some of their actions are reprehensible, and presumably others (like turning up with swastika posters at EDL) are not. And adding the ritual abuse for which he is justly famous he asks ‘Which of these words do you not understand, cowardly anonymous a*sehole?'

Unsurprisingly TS points out that ‘you do not dissociate yourself, Jonathan. Again you resort to being defensive and abusive. It's simple: a plain, clear statement that you and the ZF dissociate yourselves totally from the EDL/BNP. What's so hard about that? Yes the EDL/BNP indulge in reprehensible acts, but you don't dissociate from the EDL/BNP. And are we to believe what's written in the Guardian now?’

At which point one Jon joints in. ‘Jonathan I think what people (myself included) want is a simple statement either from yourself in a personal capacity or from the ZF in an professional one stating that you do not share the aims of the EDL, you renounce them and, most importantly that neither you nor the Zionist Federation will stand/march with them in any capacity? Does that seem fair?’

Well obviously not, because at one point yankeeuxb notes that ‘Someone wrote a while back that J Hoffman is probably a plant. So rabid, right wing, insulting, pompous and pathetic is he that he is probably a Jihadi plant designed to alienate all reasonable discourse and feed the impression that Zionists are hell bent on the delegitimization of Palestinians as well as their occupation and violent deaths. His right wing fundamentalist hate can't be real can it?’

I couldn’t of course possibly comment but it has occurred to me that JH is probably our equivalent of Kim Philby and the Mata Hari! But of course his detractors are being unfair and clearly don’t understand his predicament. Hoffman has to repeat himself since he needs the EDL despite all the fact that they don’t understand what an embarassment they are. "I told SB that there was some crossover between the BNP and the EDL and that the EDL sometimes intimidated Muslims and that both these are reprehensible." Do you not understand English?‘

TS, who strikes one as a member of that vanishing breed, the left-Zionist, protests that ‘they are standing with, mingling and all the rest. There's sufficient photographic evidence of that. The problem is that Jonathan has become the story, thereby detracting and distracting from support for Israel, which is the main purpose of the ZF. Jonathan should either unequivocally dissociate from the EDL/BNP or the ZF should do it for him.’

At which point the Zionist Federation intervenes. Jonathan Hoffman has had a vow of silence imposed upon him! All comments are met with the identikit response that:

‘As regards enquiries about the ZF, I am advised that I cannot respond anymore to queries which are posted anonymously on the Internet. However, please do not hesitate to write to the staff at the Zionist Federation with your concerns. (You will of course need to give your real name and supply a postal address).’

Below is a report of Saturday’s demonstration:

DEMO REPORT

Saturday, 23 October 2010
Video courtesy of SA.
By Bruce, Americans AGAINST Apartheid UK.

There was much activity taking place in London today with the large Trade Union anti-cuts march & rally, as well as the popular Anarchist Book Fair being held.

However on Monmouth Street, Palestine solidarity activists and campaigners came to take part in a public education campaign, demonstrate and express their outrage over the activities of an illegal company that is manufacturing and selling stolen goods from stolen land; products of the world’s last Apartheid state.

About thirty Ahava boycott campaigners and fewer than ten Zionists were present throughout the two-hour demo. Despite the differences in numbers, many boycott activists were on the receiving end of the Zionist Federation’s Co-Vice Chair Jonathan Hoffman’s tongue. The Hoff’s verbal abuse of Ahava boycott campaigners was so vile, that police once again were forced to have words with him about his behaviour.

Five members of the Jewish Division of the EDL turned up, including Kahanist Roberta Moore. The EDL flew a variety of flags including the GLBT rainbow flag (an insult to the GLBT community), the EDL Jewish Division flag (an insult to the Jewish community), the EDL Flag (an insult to the English people) and a bizarre large St George’s Cross flag with the Union Jack, as well as images of the flags of Israel and Portugal (an insult to the Portuguese) in each of its quadrants. When the first EDL counter-protester turned up and the photographers started taking photos, Mr Hoffman took refuge in the pen reserved for the Ahava boycott campaigners which was surrounded by Palestinian flags.

Zionist ”leader” Hoffman and diminutive propagandist Millett adopted very aggressive tactics; approaching and interrupting Ahava boycott campaigners who were talking to members of the public and thrusting Zionist flyers into their hands. This approach often backfired, as the public’s reaction to the Zionist’s intrusion was negative and hostile. This demonstrator was talking to an American woman when Mr Hoffman came running up and shouted “Don’t believe him, he’s lying, read this!” and attempted to thrust a leaflet into her hand. The woman angrily told Mr Hoffman to “get lost”. A sentiment shared by many on the day.

A placard decorated with swastikas was displayed within the Zionist/EDL pen that read: “Codepink stinks, self-hating Joos+ Gays”. Many of the Zionists didn’t appear to have any objection to this placard. In a rare display of responsibility, the police instructed that the placard be removed from public view. Another placard that read “Hamas Hate Homos” attracted police attention as well and also soon disappeared from view.

After the demo, many campaigners went on to South Kensington to help stage the “Alternative Veolia Exhibition” outside the Natural History Museum click here for video.

Please note: None of these images have been digitally altered.

NEXT DEMO: Saturday, 6 November, 12:00 noon.

BRING/WEAR SPA ATTIRE: BATHROBES, TOWELS, MUD MASKS

Non-Jews only Exist to Serve Jews

Zionism Racist? Perish the Thought!

It gets better. This blog specialises in outing Jewish-Nazi Rabbis. Unfortunately they seem to sprout up everywhere. Zionism used to claim that it was scandalised by the connection made by us wicked anti-Zionists between Zionism and Racism. Today these same people are falling over themselves to prove we were right. No sooner did the UN get rid of the Zionism=Racism equation than the Zionists made a real effort to prove the UN right.

We have had the loyalty oaths, for non-Jews, we have had the Zionist Federation in this country engaging in a tease me – tease you dalliance with the English Defence League, we have had the sight and sound of thousands of demonstrators outside the Turkish Embassy and in demonstrations through Jerusalem shouting ‘Death to the Arabs’. We have even had Rabbis Dov Lior and Yaakov Yosef arguing that killing non-Jews cannot be a crime compared to killing Jews.

During a recent appearance on Antiwar Radio author and investigative journalist Max Blumenthal discusses his recent article on the Torat Ha’Melech, or the King’s Torah, a 230 page “guidebook” for Jews who are considering killing non-Jews.

According to Blumenthal:

As soon as it was published late last year,Torat Ha’Melech sparked a national uproar. The controversy began when an Israeli tabloid panned the book’s contents as “230 pages on the laws concerning the killing of non-Jews, a kind of guidebook for anyone who ponders the question of if and when it is permissible to take the life of a non-Jew.”

According to the book’s author, Rabbi Yitzhak Shapira, “Non-Jews are “uncompassionate by nature” and should be killed in order to “curb their evil inclinations.” “If we kill a gentile who has has violated one of the seven commandments… there is nothing wrong with the murder,” Shapira insisted.

Citing Jewish law as his source (or at least a very selective interpretation of it) he declared: “There is justification for killing babies if it is clear that they will grow up to harm us, and in such a situation they may be harmed deliberately, and not only during combat with adults.”

http://pulsemedia.org/2010/09/03/max-blumenthal-on-the-torat-ha%E2%80%99melech/

Which of course was the classic Nazi excuse for killing Jewish children.

Now we have the prize racist of them all, former Chief Rabbi Ovadiah Yosef, for whom non-Jews only exist in order to serve Jews. Ovadiah Yosef has now come out and said that Gentiles (non-Jews) only exist to serve Jews.

http://www.jpost.com/JewishWorld/JewishNews/Article.aspx?id=191782

Yosef: Gentiles exist only to serve Jews

By JONAH MANDEL 18/10/2010

According to Rabbi, the lives of non-Jews in Israel are safeguarded by divinity, to prevent losses to Jews.

The sole purpose of non-Jews is to serve Jews, according to Rabbi OvadiaYosef, the head of Shas’s Council of Torah Sages and a senior Sephardi adjudicator.

“Goyim were born only to serve us. Without that, they have no place in the world – only to serve the People of Israel,” he said in his weekly Saturday night sermon on the laws regarding the actions non-Jews are permitted to perform on Shabbat.

According to Yosef, the lives of non-Jews in Israel are safeguarded by divinity, to prevent losses to Jews.

“In Israel, death has no dominion over them... With gentiles, it will be like any person – they need to die, but [God] will give them longevity. Why?

Imagine that one’s donkey would die, they’d lose their money. This is his servant... That’s why he gets a long life, to work well for this Jew,” Yosef said.

“Why are gentiles needed? They will work, they will plow, they will reap. We will sit like an effendi and eat. That is why gentiles were created,” he added.

Yosef’s Saturday night sermons have seen many controversial statements from the 90-year-old rabbi. In August, Yosef caused a diplomatic uproar when he wished a plague upon the Palestinian people and their leaders, a curse he retracted a few weeks later, when he blessed them along with all of Israel’s other peace-seeking neighbors.

Mike Leigh cancels Israel visit over loyalty oath bill

It raises an interesting question. What is better? To boycott Israel from the beginning or agree to go and then pull out? In the case of award-winning film director Mike Leigh, who was one of the founding signatories of Independent Jewish Voices, pulling out has certainly garnered more publicity against the hateful McCarthyite Loyalty Oaths of Israel’s Far Right Government.

As Israel swings further to the Rightso Israel's more liberal Jewish supporters peel off. As the Zionist press, like the appalling Jewish Chronicle, edited by ex-Express editor Steve Pollard, tries to ignore all Israel’s unsavoury actions (Pollard assumes his readers are as stupid as him – when he refused to carry a story on Emily Henchowitz it was broadcast in far greater soon after by the mainstream press after the Israeli government refused to pay for Emily’s medical bills. http://azvsas.blogspot.com/2010/08/israel-refuses-to-pay-medical-bills-for.html it leaves the field clear for those who are committed to exposing Israel's increasingly racist and repressive state.

Loyalty oaths have a particular resonance for those interested in freedom of speech but the Israeli Government, being made up of particularly stupid men like Barak and Netanyahu, isn't able to get it.

Tony Greenstein

Director pulls out of Jerusalem teaching trip in protest against Israel's proposed loyalty oath for new citizens, saying the controversial policy was 'the last straw'

Monday 18 October 2010

Bafta-winning film-maker Mike Leigh has pulled out of a teaching trip to Israel due to his concern over the country's proposed loyalty oath bill.

Leigh said he was not prepared to take part in the "great masters" programme at the Sam Spiegel Film & Television School in Jerusalem. In a letter to school director Renen Schorr, he cited several of Israel's policies, including the oath, which would require non-Jews seeking Israeli citizenship to pledge allegiance to Israel as a "Jewish and democratic state".

"As you know, I have always had serious misgivings about coming, but I allowed myself to be persuaded by your sincerity and your commitment," Leigh wrote. "And it is because of those special qualities of yours that I am especially sorry to have to let you down. But I have absolutely no choice. I cannot come, I do not want to come, and I am not coming.

"Eight weeks after our lunch, the Israeli attack on the flotilla took place. As I watched the world very properly condemn this atrocity, I almost cancelled. I now wish I had, and blame my cowardice for not having done so.

"Since then, your government has gone from bad to worse. I need not itemise all that has taken place ... I still had not faced up to the prospect of pulling out until a few weeks ago, but the resumption of the illegal building on the West Bank made me start to consider it seriously. And now we have the Loyalty Oath.

"This is the last straw – quite apart from the ongoing criminal blockade of Gaza, not to mention the endless shooting of innocent people there, including juveniles ..."

Schorr responded with his own letter, in which he cited Sam Spiegel's record of working with Palestinian film-makers and said the school should not be punished for the actions of the Israeli government.

"We agreed to convene a press conference where you had an open platform to express your sharp objections to Israeli policy, should you have desired," he said. "The reverberation of the words you spoke here – from Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Haifa and Jenin – would have been heard so much differently.

"Here, too, you were presented with the genuine opportunity to speak to hearts and minds, and have a direct influence upon public awareness and opinion. To touch the future. To try to change the realities. Yet now you have chosen to stay distant."

A number of film-makers and actors have chosen to boycott Israel film festivals and other events in recent years over the country's political actions. In July it was reported that Meg Ryan and Dustin Hoffman had pulled out of the Jerusalem film festival due to their concern over the country's attack on the Gaza-bound aid flotilla that left nine dead earlier this year.

See also

Director Mike Leigh cancels Israel trip - British filmmaker upset over loyalty oath bill

Mike Leigh cancels Israel trip in protest

British filmmaker Mike Leigh has cancelled a visit to Israel to protest against a proposed loyalty oath for new citizens.

17 Oct 2010

The bill, passed by Israel's Cabinet last week, would require non-Jewish immigrants to pledge loyalty to a "Jewish and democratic" state – language widely seen as discriminatory toward Israel's Arab minority.

Leigh, the award-winning director of "Naked" and "Secrets & Lies," was to participate in a film festival next month. He is Jewish.

Writing to the school sponsoring the event, Leigh said he opposed Israel's policies on Gaza, but called the loyalty oath the "last straw."

The school's director, Renen Schorr, says Israeli artists face growing international isolation because of Israel's political situation.

English Nationalist Alliance (EDL Brighton) Scum Send Me Another Death Threat!

Fascists Rally In Support of EDO Bomb Factory (well 5 of them anyway!)

It's sometimes difficult these days to tell the difference between Zionist and neo-Nazi death threats. One clue is when you are told that it is a pity you and your family didn't die in Auschwitz. Most neo-Nazis deny that Auschwitz was every anything but a comfortable holiday camp whereas Zionists do accept the Holocaust, albeit they twist it into their own narrative (e.g. forgetting that most Jews who perished were anti-Zionist).

But you have to credit the morons of the English Nationalist Alliance-EDL, 5 of whom got themselves beaten up outside Brighton Station last Wednesday. They are a few sandwiches short of a loaf.

The idiots sent me a letter, naturally they don’t have the guts to put their name to it, threatening that if I were to join last Wednesday’s Smash EDO protest then I would ‘get it’. Get what? Brains like them? They don’t say but I suspect they were meaning something like we’ll hide in the bushes to have a pop.

Britain’s fascists don’t like protests against an arms company. Even if it is American. Burning kids alive with the bombs that EDO provides the trigger mechanisms for is much more to their liking. Strange how Zionists and neo-Nazis have so much in common!

And just to emphasise how accurate their intelligence, if that is the right word, they inform me that they know where I live and they even know my movements. Pity then they couldn’t have got the address right! The postcode is wrong, there is no number, they’ve missed out a line of the address. The miracle is that I ever got the letter. As it is it arrived a mere 5 days after the demonstration!

Unfortunately I was unable to go as I had an employment conference in London. No matter, the Unemployed Centre will contribute to the Defence Fund of those arrested.

Tony Greenstein

Israel's Mengele & Auschwitz Squads

Why Israel's Military Identify With the Nazis
Over 20 years ago Israel was scandalised by the phenomenon of groups of combatants calling themselves the ‘Mengele Squad’ after one of the most notorious Nazi killers, Dr Joseph Mengele, who directed Jews who arrived at Auschwitz either to the right or left, to the gas chambers or to work & usually death thereafter.

But of course this is nothing new. We recently had an Israeli Judge saying how 'we' must learn from the Nazis. And of course there were the Zionist counter-demonstrators at Sheikh Jarrad who shouted 'Hitler was Right'.

It is of course natural, given the part that the use of the holocaust has played in legitimising Zionism and the Israeli state, that those who are given the task of subduing and repressing the Palestinians of the Territories should begin to identify with other oppressors, in particular the Nazis. As the articles below states, there is no exact parallel. There are, as of yet, no extermination camps in Israel. They don’t need them. Zionist racism is not about biological purity (though its claim to have been descended from the ancient Hebrews tends in that direction) nor about the elimination of ‘races’. It’s about the ethnic purity of Israel and it makes no difference who the non-Jewish contaminants are.

But the attitude to Palestinians is of course on a par with the Nazis and colonialism generally. Racism sprang up wherever there was empire, as a means of justifying our ‘civilising’ of the natives. It also justified expulsions, mass murder and much else as racism dehumanises in order to justify. It is therefore natural that Israeli soldiers will consider Palestinians sub-human and justify it accordingly.

Below is an article in Haaretz recalling the events 20 years ago and new interviews with those involved. Beneath that are some of the original articles from 1989.

Tony Greenstein

The Mengele squad: What is the connection between the occupation and references to the Holocaust in IDF slang?
1st October 2010

By Shiri Tsur

Prof. Yeshayahu Leibowitz's famous comment at the beginning of the First Lebanon War about "phenomena of Judeo-Nazism" as the inevitable consequences of an "occupation regime," stirred a furor in Israel. There are some things you must not say aloud, or even think to yourself. This was in 1982. The occupation was 15 years old and Leibowitz, in his sharp voice, was shouting what few others were saying here - if they did, it was in a whisper, and never, heaven forbid, in the army itself.

No one in Israel really thinks the IDF and the SS are one and the same, or that Palestinian life under the occupation is identical to that of the Jews in the concentration camps, not to mention the extermination camps. But it turns out that IDF soldiers have been drawing such comparisons for years. Quietly, for themselves.

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."

In a follow-up story, Haaretz correspondent Dan Sagir interviewed a deputy company commander in the armored corps whose unit served in Jenin at the start of the intifada. "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." (Sagir also mentioned another, far older example: the facility where paratroopers are taught to deal with the jolt of the straps when the parachute opens is called "Eichmann" by the soldiers. )

The Aktion 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."

Some of the soldiers there dared to be even more explicit. The analogy, however baseless, was a constant presence, and the soldiers routinely invoked terms that left no room for the imagination. "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 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."

Shavit's impressions generated an interesting insight: "The problem is not the resemblance - no one really seriously thinks there is a true resemblance. The problem is that there is not enough lack of resemblance. The problem is that the lack of resemblance is not strong enough to silence once and for all the wicked voices, the accusing sights."

Around the same time, Chen Alon was a young officer who, with his soldiers, went along when the Shin Bet security service made the arrests that kept the Gaza facility full. It was not until years later, when he was a major in the reserves, that he decided to sign the "Combatants' Letter" [of 2002] and reveal a secret that had been haunting him since his conscript days. It had to do with how he had coped with those wicked voices and accusing sights straight out of 1940s Germany when he served as a soldier in the first intifada - he obeyed and asked no questions - and as an older reservist, when he refused an order to serve in the territories and was jailed.

In testimony to the makers of the documentary film "On the Objection Front" (2004 ), Alon said,

"As a 19-year-old kid it doesn't seem so terrible to you to enter someone's home. But when you live your life and have a family and a home of your own, and you argue for an hour about where to hang each picture and where each thing should go, suddenly the thought arises that someone will knock on your door and you will have to open, and 10 animals like me enter, and each of them can kick a chair, mess up a cupboard, open a door, spill everything on the floor, tell you 'Open this door,' ask you, 'What are these papers?' And this can happen on any given day at any given time, in the middle of the night, in the middle of the day, at whatever time someone can enter your home without any sort of permission or authorization. Just because he feels like it; and even if he doesn't feel like it - because he has to. Because he was ordered to enter homes twice during the patrol. That is an intolerable thought.

"I remember that we were taken to Dir al-Balah [in the Gaza Strip]. This was in 1990. On the first or second day, a Molotov cocktail was thrown at us. That made us feel that everything was justified, from now on everything is justified, what I mean is that the feeling was that we certainly had to defend ourselves. Every patrol was with eyes open and more violent than we planned, more intensive, now we're here for war. I remember I received an operative order - I don't remember exactly when, but after two or three days - that an arrest was going to be made. It was one of the first arrests I executed. You go with someone from the Shin Bet. It was like something from a James Bond movie.

"What I remember most vividly from that night is the horrible quiet there. That is, my task was to position all the forces that were sealing off the house and on top of the house, too, and go in with the Shin Bet agent to bring out the terrifying wanted man. I only remember the Shin Bet guy whispering all kinds of things in Arabic to them and that I went with him from room to room in the house. We go into some room and he pulls some kid of nine, maybe ten, from bed, he looked like a little kid. That's it, we leave. There was a feeling as though it never happened, because it was quiet and we did not exchange a word between us, we did not exchange a word with the Shin Bet man, he didn't talk to them, we didn't talk to them. So it was an action in which not a word was spoken by any side. It was just done in quiet.
"That was it. I went back and I had nothing to say to my soldiers. A debriefing had to be made - I am after all a serious platoon commander. I had nothing to say: nothing happened. Not a thing happened. I told them to stand where they stood, they stood there, they waited, we came, quiet, we took a boy, we left, he went, nothing to do with us, we returned on foot, it was very close to where we were. 'Go to sleep,' I told them.

"I also went to bed. There were a few laughs, talking, but it didn't let me go. I got into the sleeping bag, pulled the part that covers the face over my head and I told the battalion commander what happened there. No one was appalled, it was one story of many. And just for laughs, as I was trying to fall asleep, he came over, lifted the top part of the sleeping bag, hissed 'Nazi!' at me and then closed it. It was a standard joke with us."

If in the first intifada, Holocaust terminology was a type of black or underground humor, the ongoing occupation and the second intifada brought it to the surface. The growing need to suppress every type of uprising made it increasingly difficult for Israel to go on perceiving itself as the victimized nation, a perception on which the Zionist ethos is, in part, founded.

Lost Holocaust

This is precisely the point of Noam Chayut's lament in his impressive book "My Holocaust Thief" (Am Oved, 2010, Hebrew ). 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 simpathetic 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."

The process of disillusionment he experienced prompted him to found, together with some of his buddies who had served in the 50th Battalion, a new organization. Called Breaking the Silence, it disseminates information about IDF and settler activity in the territories, mostly by collecting and publishing soldiers' testimonies. A perusal of the testimonies shows that in comments by the soldiers - who are steeped in militaristic education, but guilt-ridden at the same time - the comparisons arise by themselves, though naturally with reservations (which are justified ). They precede their stories with "Listen, I am not comparing," or "It's not the same thing and there is no connection, but ... " and other expressions of their searing psychological distress. 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."

Ruvik Rosenthal, author of "The Dictionary of Israeli Slang" (Keter, 2005, Hebrew ), is actually surprised that Hebrew slang in general and IDF militarese in particular contain so few expressions that originate in the Holocaust. In his view, this is proof that socialization and taboo processes remain so powerful that "people don't talk about the Holocaust." 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.

Shiri Tsur is the director of the documentary film "On the Objection Front" (2004; Hebrew title: "I Wanted to Be a Hero" ).

From ISRAELI MIRROR 15.8.89.

ISRAELI SOLDIERS CALLED THEMSELVES "THE MENGELE UNIT"

al Ha'mishmar, 24th July 1989

A group of soldiers stationed in the Ramallah region called themselves the "Mengele Unit" and were called by that name by their comrades in arms. Other groups called themselves "the black group" or "the infiltrators". Soldiers' parents who contacted al Ha'mishmar said they had been horrified to learn that a group in the Israeli army called itself after a Nazi murderer. According to their sons, the group was known for its exceptional harshness towards the Arabs in the territories. Witnesses say that the company commander was aware of the fact that a group of his soldiers had chosen this name.

After appeals from al Ha'mishmar, the Commander of the Central Region, General Amram Mitzna, appointed an officer to investigate the affair, who found that most of the soldiers who called the group by that name were not aware of its historic significance.

Ha'aretz, 27th July 1989
It is well known that from the beginning of the Intifada there were several cases in which soldiers or units who were particularly harsh and cruel towards Arabs and sometimes even contravened the explicit orders and norms of the IDF, were called in their units by nicknames that had negative connotations from the days of the holocaust (censorship cut). During an interview with Ha'aretz given a year ago, a commander in the armoured corps had revealed that his men were the toughest when it came to dealing with Arabs and got the best results. Because of this, he said, they were called the "Auschwitz company'.

Ha'aretz, 24th July 1989
The Knesset Plenary today rejected a motion calling for an urgent debate on reports in yesterday's Hadashot, and al'Ha'mishmar, according to which IDF soldiers in the territories had organised themselves into what they termed the "Mengele Unit" in order to attack local Arabs.
Knesset chairman Dov Shilansky considered visiting the unit and explaining to the soldiers the gravity of their behaviour, but decided to refrain from doing so in order not to arouse excessive interest in the subject.

Ha'Aretz, 27-7-89, p.l.
IDF: SOLDIERS WHO WERE NICKNAMED MENGELE GROUP DIDN'T DO ANYTHING OUTRAGEOUS
By Dan Sagir, Ha'Aretz Military Correspondent.

In the regular ((compulsory)) service unit of an infantry brigade that is serving in the Ramallah area, some of the soldiers were nicknamed by their colleagues as the "Mengele Group". The nickname was given to the unit's soldiers following claims that they used to behave with cruelty and an especially fierce manner towards Arab inhabitants, in the course of Intifada activities in their area.

Following an appeal to the press by parents who have heard about this, the Central Command Commanding Brigadier Amram Mitzna appointed an Examining Officer to investigate what is being done in the unit'.

A military source in the Central Command reported yesterday that the findings of the investigation show there was not done any outrageous act by the soldiers, as it was informed formerly. The officer's examination shows that indeed some of the soldiers in the unit were nicknamed the "Mengele Group". Following the examination, the C.C. Brigadier instructed to maintain a wide range educational activity about the severe significances of this expression's use in an-IDF unit.

As from the beginning of the Intifada there is known a number of cases in which soldiers or units that demonstrated excessive harshness and cruelty in treating Arabs in their area (often against declared orders and norms of IDF) were nicknamed in their unit by different names, including ones with such severe connotations with the Holocaust era.
3
The Censor Cancelled
In an interview with Ha'Aretz a year ago, a deputy commander of a reserves service armoured unit. told that his unit was the most fierce in the brigade, in its treatment of Arabs and that it has achieved better results than the other units, and for that it was nicknamed the:"Auschwitz Unit". This severe expression was then prohibited by the Military Censorship, and now it has permitted the publication of the expressions and the severe phenomenon of the use of expressions and nicknames from the Holocaust Era by IDF soldiers who are oppressing the Intifada in the Territories.

Following the publication of' the Mengele Soldiers Affair in the infantry soldiers unit, MK Deddy Zuker (Ratz) demanded in a letter to the Defense Minister that they should not be satisfied with an educational activity in the unit. Zuker holds that in the State of the Jews it is forbidden for commanders who knew for a long time about the affair, to continue in their posts, including the unit's commander. He says, that this affair should serve as a sharp and uncompromising lesson, and to uproot totally the phenomenon from the army atmosphere.

((This is about the use of expressions that are related to the Holocaust era, and the knowledge about the use of them.

... and what about the factual background, that brought about the use and the knowledge? What about the cruelty and 'best results':....))

((translated by Toma Sik))