Thank you, Norway, for getting Europe to stage 3 of Jew-biting

Attorney General Tor Aksel Busch - Norway

The man in the picture above should be allotted a place in history books. He pushed the (willing) population of Europe to the third stage of recognized and approved Jew-hate. To remind you the first two stages:

1. "Some of my best friends are Jews, it is the Zionists over there, in Israel, that I despise and protest."
2. "Criticism of Israel/Zionist Entity is not antisemitic, and my Jewish friends that support Israel are not my friends anymore, I despise and protest them too."

Now, thanks to the gentleman depicted above, we are at the third stage: "Fuck all Jews, they are all Israel". With all the consequences, logical, legal and physical that follow.

The article by Elder of Ziyon tells the story. For the lazy here is a summary:

A Norwegian-Iranian rapper says "fucking Jews" during performance. Whether it was a poor joke or an intended racist slur is immaterial for our purpose. Besides, I am not into trying to interpret a rapper.

Norwegian police (sic!) decided that "Fuck Jews" was not a racist statement. Why is this a matter for police to decide is unclear, but also immaterial.

Then a State Attorney Trude Antonsen agrees with the police's assessment. She decides that the statement is "highly derogatory, offensive and false, but that it is not affected by the criminal code". Whatever. Not very enlightening, but immaterial as well.

And here the hero of this post jumps into the fray:

Attorney General Tor Aksel Busch rejected the appeal on the grounds that "fuck Jews" can be understood as criticism of Israel.

At this point I have to disagree with the learned Elder. He says:

In other words, now pretty much any attack on Jews in Norway can be justified as being merely political, and not racist.

Not in Norway only, dear Elder, I am sorry to say. This is a precedent, soon to be expanded and used by many others, to be sure.

Too bad.

Gary Spedding or an appeal to the goddess of fairness

The gentleman in the picture is Gary Spedding*, mentioned in the headline. He was recently kicked out (BBC report) from Ben Gurion airport, back to wherever he has started his flight to Tel Aviv from. His report on Facebook** is placed at the end of the post here, for full disclosure. I would like to stress only one sentence from this report, the cry of an anguished innocent soul:

I invite Israeli authorities to respect legitimate democratic activities and process and permit me to continue with my journey.

Says BBC about the poor soul, being treated so unfairly:

A spokesman for the Israeli embassy in London said: "Mr Spedding's entry into Israel was denied due to his involvement in organising a violent protest in Queens University, Belfast, in which an Israeli representative was attacked, and others were forced to take shelter to prevent being hurt.

And here is the story, from 2011. Some choice quotes:

An Israeli law lecturer had to be rescued by security officers when a seminar was abandoned after being disrupted by pro-Palestinian demonstrators.

Solon Solomon, a former legal adviser to the Knesset Foreign Affairs committee, had been invited to speak to law school students at Queen's University in Belfast.

When the security team eventually moved him out of the university building, protesters attacked the car he was travelling in, punching the vehicle and attempting to smash its windows.

The protest was organised by Gary Spedding, president of the university's Palestine Solidarity Society. Mr Spedding works for the Holy Land Trust charity, which seeks to empower Palestinians in the West Bank.

You know, after reading the above, I can't get rid of a feeling that Gary Spedding wouldn't know legitimate democratic activities if the said activities bit him on his backside. And that Gary Spedding is a choice example of a hypocrite.

But it is neither here nor there. The important thing that he is back home and safe...

(*) Here is how he bills himself in Times of Israel, where he, apparently, is welcome to keep a blog:

Gary Spedding is a cross-party advocate and lobbyist on the Israel-Palestine conflict in the UK, Irish and European Parliaments and an applied peace and conflict researcher. He is a member of the UK’s Labour Party.

However, not being an expert on Gary Spedding, I shall let other people add to the above short blurb.
Here is a brief one.
And here is a longer one, in three parts!

(**) Here it goes:

Five years on, I have just been detained upon arrival at Israel’s Ben Gurion international airport. I have once again been refused entry. I will try to provide updates as I attempt to carry forward with my visit to Israel-Palestine.

I’ve spent the last five years banned from Israel. After having followed all stipulations required of me (including not attempting re-entry during the period of my ban). The main reason for my visit is to meet and catch up with Israeli and Palestinian friends and colleagues.

I do not believe that my political views and positions constitute a legitimate reason to deny my entry to Israel. I do not have a criminal record in any country, I do not post a security threat. It would be understandable if I held extreme views or dangerous tendencies - but I do not.

I wholeheartedly believe in peace, justice and equality for Israelis, Palestinians, Arabs and Jews in this land. It is my hope that this will be recognised and that I’ll be permitted to enter the same as any other UK passport holder without prejudice.

I invite Israeli authorities to respect legitimate democratic activities and process and permit me to continue with my journey.

Press release to follow if I still have access to my phone.

You dare to call yourself friends of Jews?

A Jewish German political activist Aviel Tromm, who describes himself on his Facebook page:

My name is Aviel Tromm, I actively tried to shape politics from 2001 to 2014. I was chairman of the LAG Queer NRW, the party The Left, fractional employee of the city council faction in Brühl and sat there in 8 committees, have worked with the then parliamentary group and was networked with politicians across the country.
To this day, I have friends in various factions of the Bundestag and the European Parliament and I am still fighting actively in the BAK Shalom, but I am no longer a party member! My "career" ended in Essen in 2014 because I sided with Israel.

The letter to the German government, written by him, is borrowed from Benjamin Goldstein's blog.

You all annoy me the way you mentally please yourself with your ‘culture of rememberence’ and your ‘raison d’État’ and how you at the same time learned so much from history that in fifty years Germany will finally be as your murderish grandparents envisioned it – judenrein!

Every time a Jew in Germany gets beaten, you have to act like shocked politicans with your useless Sunday speeches and slogans and you pretend not to be able to understand where that hatred comes from. You prattle in talk shows that there wouldn’t be a place for anti-Semitism in Germany. You carry wreaths to memorials. Oh, how much you love your dead Jews. I’m inclined to attest you a propensity for necrophilia!

But every time when the living Jews resist, when they insist on their right to self-determination, then you’re there to pass UN-Resolutions together with the religious and ideological fanatics, painting Israel as the world’s demon. In [the Nazi propaganda magazine] ‘Stürmer’ they did it with cartoons. You do it with politics.

High-ranking politicans may clap hands when in the European Parliament Mr Abbas spreads the most anti-Semitic narratives. One may loudly speak of an apartheid state or a regime and it’s also perfectly okay for you to lay down flowers and wreaths on the graves of dead terrorists. Still today Europe must be very sad that the Arabs failed to drown the Jews in the Middle East in 1948 like a farmerman who’s killing kittens in a barrel of rain.

Either you’re so stupid that you can’t distinguish scrambled eggs from shit or you do it on purpose. You’re a bunch of lousy hypocrites who present themselves in front of memorials, howling in the minor chords of Klezmer-music, and at the same time you’re working only to get rid of the European Jews.

What did you learn from the last years? What have you done? Anti-Semitic riots throughout Germany, arson attacks on synagogues, endless insults and repressions against Jews and Jewish institutions. What was the consequence? The German parliament of the state NRW, for example, examined the incidents in the City of Essen, condemned them and after that the topic was over. Nothing of practical use followed. The guilty are still sitting exactly where they sat then. The only effective measure was a big rally, which wasn’t initiated by you, but the Central Council of Jews in Germany.

And what are you working on in practice? You condemn and criticize Israel since the 1960s perpetually. You have no understanding for self-defense and security needs. You reject Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and you pump billions of euros into the terrorist structures of Hamas and others on site. And what does that make of you after your own definition? You dare to call yourself friends of Israel and the Jews? Friends? What the hell is wrong with you?

With this policy of ‘friendship’ you created such a one-sided media coverage that there are only two types of Jews in the daily lives of Germans. Jews have almost disappeared completely from everday life.

First type: Jews in Germany appear in news articles about students who have to change schools because of their Jewish identity. Or in documentaries about the Shoa, which have become so irrelevant that they feel like a substitute of the black-and-white picture noise of the analogue TV set.

Second type: Jews encounter the majority of people in Germany as a boogeyman in the news when Israel every so often has to defend itself and even the headlines then leave no qualms that ‘the Jew’ is always the guilty one. In fact, the media almost always reports negatively about Israel. The attacks against the state of Irael are usually only mentioned as the last line in consistently tendencious articles, and politicians of all parties either drown in their calls for temperance or they curse Israel as an apartheid state like [former] Minister of Foreign Affairs Sigmar Gabriel.

The West German post-war narrative is the attempt to avert the guilt. In order not to face the own history Israel is at least equated to the Nazis.

And finally, to crown your hypocrisy, you install anti-Semitism commissioners who have to beg to get heard at all. If they’re listened to, they can have the moral highground for a moment. [Note: I think that he means they are selectively given the mic for purely strategic political advantages.] Fabulous! Great show! So much perversion and deviousness is otherwise known only in psycho thrillers.

The result of over fourty years of German-Israeli ‘friendship’ is that anti-Semitism has become louder, that it’s becoming increasingly dangerous for Jews to walk the streets and that more and more Jews emigrate from Germany.

There’s only left to say that you’re bound by tradition, a German tradition which made it possible to slaughter Jews during the Crusades like livestock, a tradition that was inspired by Martin Luther’s letter of shame ‘From Jews and their lies’, a tradition responsible for the murder of six million Jews on government orders.

It’s not us who have become like your grandparents, no, you’re just as your murderish ancestors desired. At least be honest, this farce is almost unbearable.

Andrew Sullivan - more Biased and Balanced than ever

Usually this here blogger, after two or three critical posts dedicated to a person, will leave the said person as a subject for a long time, if not forever. People, as a rule, don't change, at least not enough for the changes to merit a special notice. So, after dedicating three posts to Mr Sullivan in general and his exemplary hate for the Zionist Entity in particular, I thought there wouldn't be any reason to go back to this sad case.

And you know what: there really ain't good reasons to do so. That is, aside of the level of obsession, displayed by the Biased and Balanced lately. Which obsession is perfectly well shown in the thread that, initially didn't have anything to do with the Entity. Here it is:

David French, the author of the above, might be right or wrong, but it matters little to Mr Sullivan, who immediately comes in with this zinger:

The only fitting response is this borrowed one:

The answer to Jon Star is, quite obviously, "nothing" - aside of the said sick obsession. About ten years ago or more I had a talk with an expert on dementia. Dementia tends to exacerbate most of our pre-existing negative traits, she said. Something to be learned here in relation to the sad case in question.

You can view the whole thread here, not that there is much to be learned.

Hat tip: Dr. Petra Marquardt-Bigman

Craig Murray: sharing his dream with you

Craig Murray appeared on these pages several times. No need to rehash the sad story of a man supported here for a while becoming a man obsessed. So this is a short reminder of the latter:

The only potential resolution of the situation in Palestine must involve justice and dignity for all. That solution requires the abolition of apartheid Israel and its replacement by a unitary, democratic state blind to race and religion. That is no more impossible in Palestine than it was in South Africa.

There, there, nothing more to see here, move on, ladies and gentlemen.

Corbyn's pearls - for own collection

Really, one can get overdosed on so much crap, so this will be for my own archives. You don't have to... you know.

There seems to be a great deal of pressure on the BBC from the Israeli government and the Israeli embassy, and they are very assertive towards all journalists and to the BBC itself - they challenge every single thing on reporting the whole time.

"I think there is a bias towards saying that Israel is a democracy in the Middle East, that Israel has a right to exist, that Israel has its security concerns.

So, saying that we have a right to exist or, for that matter, to have own security concerns, is biased. What would be the unbiased version, I haste to inquire?

Oh boy, what a worm...

Professor Waxman and discomfort of the British Jews. Oh, and Freedom of Speech...

It so happens that every time I see an article that starts with the "full disclosure" of the kind: "I am Jewish..." or "As a Jew...", I get butterflies in my stomach. This time wasn't any different.

When I have seen the headline of the article in Times of Israel:

Who gets to define anti-Semitism?

I, of course, was slightly thrilled*. I was less thrilled after reading the lede:

The UK Labour Party must protect free speech, including the comments about Israel that most British Jews abhor.

So free speech is the issue then? Hmm...

And then, of course, the "full disclosure" part:

I am a British Jew, though I have spent my adult life in the United States. I’ve found it more comfortable to be a Jew here, but I have always bridled at the notion that Britain is, or is becoming, an inhospitable environment for Jews, whether due to anti-Semitism on the left there or among its large Muslim population.

Quite revealing, especially the part of being more comfortable. I assume that prof. Waxman was already asked about that confession, so I shall leave it alone. Just to mention that the butterflies in my stomach invited a few friends to join the dance. And when prof. Waxman bridled at that notion - what can I say: the butterflies really lost it, each one dancing and jumping up and down to its own music. Inviting more buddies, too.

Now it is my turn to do that "full disclosure" part, I guess. Not being a British Jew, just an oldish Israeli one, with a considerable time done elsewhere (USSR mostly and USA some), I hate the topic of antisemitism. Every one of the few people reading this blog knows that rarely does it go into this murky subject, for various unrelated reasons.

But when many (if not all) of my British friends, Jewish and not so blessed, bitterly complain about that malady in what used to be their political home of preference, when they leave that home in droves, when they start looking elsewhere for acceptance - only a deaf and blind would ignore that.

When the leader of that party is caught again and again in de facto antisemitic acts, like buddying up to terrorists (tell me who your brothers are...). Like declaring the mere existence of Israel bizzare. By seeming unable even to say "Israel", so deeply is the word lodged in his craw.  Etc. etc.

When dignitaries like David Duke and Nick Griffin declare their support for the said leader - tell me who you friends are now.

When the Deputy Leader says things like "Labour faces ‘eternal shame’ over antisemitism."

When the glorious leader himself is forced to issue an artificially sounding half-confession/half denial, which (at least) includes words like "But I do acknowledge there is a real problem that Labour is working to overcome."

What does all of the above leave of prof. Waxman bridling? I don't know and really don't want to.

But all of the above is not really the point of the discussed article, nor of this post. The real point is the big red herring of free speech, placed by prof. Waxman at the center of his article. According to his logic (or his beliefs) it's quite fine (in the framework of free speech, of course) to direct more attention and criticism to Israel’s alleged crimes and misdeeds than toward other democracies. It is cool (free speech) to compare Israeli policies and actions to those of Nazi Germany. It is quite acceptable (free speech) claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavour. Etc.

And I wouldn't even comment on that bizarre notion:

The fact that many Jews are justifiably offended by false analogies between Israel and Nazi Germany does not automatically make such analogies anti-Semitic.

Because, as I mentioned already, this is just another piece of the same red herring and as such is besides the point.

To the point: the vaunted freedom of speech prof. Waxman so selflessly defends is not something that should be protected by a political party, it is rather the business of the government and its institutions and the public at large. To use a (randomly chosen, with apologies to prof. Waxman) definition of political party:

A political party is defined as an organised group of people with at least roughly similar political aims and opinions, that seeks to influence public policy by getting its candidates elected to public office.

I strongly doubt that even a man, so liberal in his views as prof. Waxman, will object to the notion that Holocaust deniers, Israel-haters and various other shades of anti-Semites and other racists and bigots, while they might have the freedom of speech protection of their activities and their hate speech, are not entitled to "automatic" (whatever it means) protection of their party membership.

In other words: I might fight to death for your freedom of speech, hateful as your speech might appear, but I wouldn't want to invite you to my party (pun intended).

I hope this dispenses with the red herring in its entirety.

Q.E.D.

(*) And disappointed eventually, since no matter how carefully you read the article, you wouldn't find an answer to this, seemingly trivial, question. Rather a dismissal of the whole by this:

That’s what the British Jewish communal establishment declared in its condemnation of Labour’s definition of anti-Semitism: “It is for Jews to determine for themselves what anti-Semitism is.”

While the feelings and sensitivities of Jews should be considered, they are not sufficient.

One would think (wrongly, apparently) that the issue of defining an insult is in the eyes of the insultee. But prof. Waxman, obviously, doesn't think so. I am not going to deal with this, painfully obvious, strawman, aside of quoting my Facebook British friend, Sarah Minxy Mann Yeager, who expressed it quite well:

People like you are the reason we are running scared. Ask yourself this xxx: if a black person told you they felt there was racism being aimed at them from a political party would you dare to ask them to substantiate it?

If an LGBT person told you they were feeling victimised would you dare to ask them for proof?

Why, as a JEW who tells you there is a palpable threat to their whole group from a political party, do you dare to expect any more substantiation than daily press articles that cover the front pages of our national press from the Daily Telegraph to The Mirror?

If you are curious, YOU go and look. You are clearly not satisfied with the evidence that I have given you and your refusal to believe there is a problem is tantamount to gaslighting.

You are telling me, a JEW, that I am imagining it and there is NO antisemitism. I am telling you there is.

Why is my telling you isufficient? If I were BAME and told your something similar you would not ask for proof.

Friends of Pallywood, their bloopers and some historical truth

To the people who follow various failures of the "anti-Zionist" propaganda, this case might not be anything special at first.

At issue is a tweet that COSATU (Congress of South African Trade Unions) shared with its 120,000+ followers in order to commemorate the plight of Palestinian refugees on World Refugee Day. The tweet included an iconic photograph from 1950 depicting a group of Jewish refugees who had been placed by the Israeli government into a refugee absorption center, known as a ma’abara.

But the lazy "anti-Zionism" of COSATU is only part of the story. The other part is about a related matter:

Stories abound about one of these groups of refugees—the Palestinian Arab refugees. Even Israelis learn about the creation of the Palestinian refugee crisis in their schools. But, as is clear from COSATU’s blunder with the appropriated photo, many Palestinians and their global supporters aren’t aware of the other refugee population—the “forgotten exodus” of Jewish refugees and the suffering that Jews in nearly a dozen Arab countries experienced on account of hostility toward Jews, Zionism, and the very creation of the state of Israel.

Read the whole article, it is worth your time.

Labour Friends of Palestine group apologises...

Sometimes, when you have stuck your foot in your mouth quite deeply, in your feverish efforts to pull the said foot out, you make a wrong move, lodging it even deeper. This is what happened with the British Labour Friends of Palestine team, when they have started their urgent recovery operation after this unfortunate (?) turn of speech:

Of course, they have made it clear immediately that their reference to the final solution was just a sorry slip of the tongue, a typo, a... you know how it goes. They have done it verbally via many available channels, of which they have quite enough.

Then they have decided to issue a written notice, wholeheartedly apologizing for that slip. Here is how it came out (I have decided to mark by red the relevant part of it, sorry if you don't like this kind of leading):

Don't know about you, but I think it is still a marginal improvement. I feel that being in opposition to anti-antisemitism is better than praying for a final solution. Sticks and stones and all that, you know...

P.S. Corrected by now by the hapless author, after a few people pointed this out.

Amendment: I have posted this elsewhere with an addition of a true story, which happened in one of the Soviet big cities back then. The "opposition to anti-antisemitism" just has to come accompanied by this story:

It was the usual May 1 parade, when the happy workers are dragged through the central square of the city, parading past the tribune where the local bozos watch them with the usual sour expressions on their sour faces. As usual, the workers, singly or in pairs (depending on the size of their burden) carry some inspiring socialist placards: a picture of some chieftain or an inspiring text.

Among the crowd marched a guy carrying a typical medium sized placard, saying: "We'll give a crushing response to the enemies of the capitalism!"

The man was cruising the square for half a day. Since the structure of the sentence was very standard, it took that much time for the local gendarmes to grok the joke...

BDS real face - lest we forget.

Nothing new in this, but bears refreshing from time to time. Omar Barghouti, in his past a student at Tel Aviv University and founding member of the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI):

A Jewish state in Palestine in any shape or form cannot but contravene the basic rights of the indigenous Palestinian population and perpetuate a system of racial discrimination that ought to be opposed categorically….Definitely, most definitely we oppose a Jewish state in any part of Palestine. No Palestinian, rational Palestinian, not a sell-out Palestinian, will ever accept a Jewish state in Palestine.

For doubters, check the text at 5:50 in this link.

Berkeley's Hatem Bazian - the most dangerous professor in America?

There is a big difference between protecting freedom of speech and providing, like Berkeley does, a well paid platform for a hate preacher with academic credentials of dubious quality*.

This headline might be a tad too sensationalist, I feel, but it is not mine. I am not keeping a list of all dangerous American professors, of course. For all I know, it might be somebody else, a totally unknown one, from an obscure institution of higher education. One that is right now putting the final bits on the Doomsday Machine in his basement.

Professor Bazian, if you check his page at Berkeley's website, doesn't look very dangerous:

Hatem Bazian (Ph.D, Philosophy and Islamic Studies, UC Berkeley) teaches

• AAS 128AC: Islam in America: Communities and Institutions
• AAS 132: De-Constructing Islamophobia and Othering of Islam.

It is not that I would rush to enroll in these courses, but being one who is into "othering" all religions equally, I might have been inclined to take the AAS 132. To pick up a few useful tips, you know. Otherwise, what can I say: the two courses above are only a short sampler of the myriad of various "studies" that are taught all over US of A and produce hordes of unemployable (with good reason too) graduates with a vague smattering of "ejukayshen" on their pristine brains.

However, some people who do keep tabs on a few selected professors, are not stopping at the Berkeley's website. Canary Mission, for one, has done a sterling job of scrutinizing the good professor, with the result that is a must read. I shall quote only a few selected accomplishments of the man:

Bazian is a leader within the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement. He declared September 23, 2014 an “International Day of Action” to call for a complete boycott of Israel on campuses across the United States on the eve of the Jewish New Year, Rosh Hashanah.

Bazian has linked the “liberation of Palestine” with Muslim theology and has reportedly promoted a verse in the Hadith calling for the murder of Jews to establish the “Islamic State of Palestine.”***

Bazian writes prolifically against Israel, publishing his work on his personal website and in other online sites including Mondoweiss and Electronic Intifada. He is the author of an anti-Israel book titled “Palestine … it is something colonial”.

Of course, there is more, much more in the article, but I don't want to spoil your reading any more. You shall learn that the learned professor should by now teach a most advanced Anti-Zionism course (909 or whatever the number is for such level), so successfully he has erased the thin line between the hated Zionists and the hated Jooz.

The picture of professor Bazian, drawn by the Canary Mission, doesn't require further details, methinks. However, a series of questions should be asked regarding Berkeley this famous institution of higher education, this prodigious production line of genius, second to none**. I realize that Berkeley has been for many (too many?) years a strongly left-leaning institution and goes from the left to more left as time goes.

First of all, seeing as how enormously frisky is professor Bazian in his extracurricular activities: isn't such a talented man, obviously a leader, seriously under-occupied by the university?
Then, if the answer to the previous question is negative, can't he be advised to seek a more fulfilling occupation elsewhere? I understand that he is, most probably, a tenured professor, but there are ways and means - if there is a will.
And, the last but not the least: while freedom of speech should be protected by all means, does such prodigious fountain of hate and incitement fit the requirements of an educational outfit of such a high standing?

To summarize: isn't it time to drum the professor of hate out of his lofty position?

(*) Even if we are talking about Berkeley's own graduate.
(**) If you believe this, for instance:

(***) In 1999, The Detroit News reported that Dr. Bazian had said, “The Day of Judgment will not happen until the trees and stones will say, ‘Oh Muslim, there is a Jew hiding behind me, come and kill him.’”
Dr. Bazian denies that he ever said those words. “I would never use that statement,” Dr. Bazian told O’Reilly.

Spanish civil war and human garbage

Tosh McDonald - dreck in a T-shirt

There is nothing new in the notion that for a raving anti-Semite in the usual anti-Zionist guise nothing is sacred. As nothing is new in the notion that the British Labour party has lately become a welcoming safe harbor for this thriving mob of progressive thinkers.

For full disclosure: my beloved uncle was one of the many (disproportionately many) young Jews that went to Spain to fight against Franco, losing several of his good friends, enduring the fate of other "displaced persons" in the French camps, joining the Red Army and fighting with distinction till the demise of the Nazi regime.

So when I see how a piece of human refuse uses a solemn and politics-free occasion to throw his feces at Jews, it surely boils my blood. Wish I could have been there... But see for yourself.

Tosh McDonald:
The account below is by the gentleman representing Jewish soldiers at the wreath laying ceremony. @McDonaldTosh @ASLEFunion pic.twitter.com/fbjAi92Di4

— LAAS (@LabourAgainstAS) July 2, 2017

For better viewing of the Jewish gentleman's report, click on the image below:

Oh, and accidentally: tell me who your friends are...

More on Tosh McDonald.

And even more.

Jeremy Corbyn as a potential savior of the Dead Sea fishermen

I am pretty sure I don't have to add any comments to the story presented in this link. And whether the author of the petition, one Ian Brown, is a successful prankster or a dimbulb of the first degree, is quite immaterial, although quite interesting by itself. His petition (snapshot below) is being supported by a number of fiery anti-Zionists, like that one:

Oh well... whatever floats their (fishing) boat.

The petition snapshot (click on it to embiggen):

No, Jonathan Freedland, anti-Zionism is not perfectly fine with us

It is, probably, a sad necessity, to repeat from time to time the old position statements. Not that the positions change too much, but people sometimes do veer from a position to position, tending to forget the last held one. As it usually goes.

This post is inspired by a stumble upon discussion between a staunchly anti-Zionist lady, Noura Erakat*, a vaguely pro-Israeli Jonathan Freedland and other minor characters. The discussion was staged by Al Jazeera. Jonathan Freedland has already appeared on these pages, the other protagonist is more of interest. Ms Erakat is a lawyer, so one should be careful describing her... er... anything, but at least she doesn't hide her anti-Zionism and her desire to see the proverbial Palestine "from the river to the sea", if you understand what it means. If not, check out this short paragraph.

So why do I consider Jonathan Freedland to be vaguely pro-Israeli? If you scroll the recording below to about 9:55, you shall hear a response by Mr Freedland to the proud self-declaration by Ms Erakat as an anti-Zionist:

I think it is absolutely fine, and more than fine, of course it's completely legitimate to hold the position she has...

Fine and legitimate? Maybe from the Guardian offices in London it is. Not from where I bother my keyboard. Because, and apologies for repeating the obvious:

Zionism is the national movement of the Jewish people that supports the re-establishment of a Jewish homeland in the territory defined as the historic Land of Israel.

While the mission of Zionism in this definition is by and large completed, the anti-Zionism comes as a simple negation of Zionism and has a quite busy program in mind:

The term is broadly defined in the modern era as the opposition to the ethnonationalist and political movement of Jews and Jewish culture that supports the establishment of a Jewish state as a Jewish homeland in the territory defined as the historic Land of Israel.

In other, simpler words, Jonathan (are you listening? I guess not) the so called "anti-Zionists", whose legitimacy you so warmly confirm, are these same guys we all used to call "Jew-haters" or "anti-Semites", to be historically authentic. These guys who desire to disperse and/or kill us all here again.

Still fine and legitimate, Jonathan?

While I hate to repeat position statements, from where I am, the so called "anti-Zionism" is the same old murderous and hateful beast, albeit with a new PC name.

So there.



(*) As a sample of Ms Erakat's professional creativity, here is her article:

No, Israel Does Not Have the Right to Self-Defense In International Law Against Occupied Palestinian Territory

It was published in 2014, 9 years(!) after disengagement from Gaza strip, which is meant as "Occupied Palestinian Territory" in that headline. While the headline offers enough information as it is, there are some fine examples of word juggling that show a fine, albeit totally unsuccessful legal mind behind the article.

Lisa Naomi Goldman vs identity politics

Being a matter of revisiting old friends and ex-friends, this post isn't going to be very remarkable. Just a bit of lazy fisking and confirmation of status, so don't get excited.

I have stumbled on Lisa's remarks re Haaretz' article Israeli Arab ballerina takes crown in Israel's first transgender beauty pageant. Since I'm not very much into beauty pageants, you can read the article yourself, but the headline tells enough. And here is Lisa's analysis of the article:

Can we lose the term "Israeli Arab" already? Imagine if the New York Times referred to Barack Obama as the first coloured president of the United States. So freaking offensive.
And notice that the second 'graf opens with the information that she's Christian. The subtext: More liberal than a Muslim, of course. And, somehow, less Palestinian, perhaps. Less scary. More like us Jews.
Also, I am bracing myself for a whole slew of hasbara articles about how Israel is just the most awesome place in the world for Arabs to live. Because there are no transgender beauty pageants in Egypt or Syria, right. Forget equal civil rights for Jewish and Arab citizens. So unimportant when we have, like, beauty pageants that allow Arabs to compete alongside Jews.

So, to the fisking now:

Can we lose the term "Israeli Arab" already? Imagine if the New York Times referred to Barack Obama as the first coloured president of the United States. So freaking offensive.

To start with, I am not sure what the complaint is about. Living in US of A, the nation of about 97 genders and enough identity tags to split the population into approximately 300+ million separate species, one is decrying that comparatively innocent "Israeli Arab"? Strange, innit?

As for the second sentence, the one that starts with "Imagine...": I've performed a simple search in the New York Times innards, with the search term "obama black president". The first page of the search results is presented below*. Sufficient to say that there were 57,300 results, and even if we assume that 90% of those are false responses... Imagine. Yeah, freaking offensive. Or not, depends how you look at that, I guess.

And notice that the second 'graf opens with the information that she's Christian. The subtext: More liberal than a Muslim, of course. And, somehow, less Palestinian, perhaps. Less scary. More like us Jews.

That notion of Christianity of the Israeli Arab transgender ballerina could be dispensed with by a reference to the previous response. Otherwise there is nothing factual in the rest of the quote for fisking. Still, there are two points worth a notice: clumsy creation of a strawman, by putting into Haaretz'(!) collective mouth some words this uber-progressive media outfit wouldn't dream about; and a practically uninterrupted use of sarcasm.
In fact the whole missive, as it appears at the beginning of that post, is a chain of sarcastic sentences. I am not sure that I agree with Oscar Wilde's opinion that sarcasm is the lowest form of wit. But one thing for sure: overuse of that otherwise fine tool makes - to use some imagery - all the difference between a spitting cobra and a garden hose (under low pressure).

Also, I am bracing myself for a whole slew of hasbara articles about how Israel is just the most awesome place in the world for Arabs to live. Because there are no transgender beauty pageants in Egypt or Syria, right.

I don't know whether the victory of the Israeli Arab Christian transgender ballerina caused a plethora of Hasbarah articles, not following the genre. Possibly, although I tend to doubt it**. I am also not sure whether Israel is the best place for Arabs to live. I would suspect that Saudi Arabia, UAE and similar spots will have some added attractions for a person of Arab persuasion. On the other hand, I can easily mention several Arab countries which an Arab person will definitely shun in favor of Israel.

I guess the last thing Syrians and, to some extent, Egyptians, think about right now is a transgender beauty pageant. With good reasons, too, so I don't think this point needs any fisking.

Forget equal civil rights for Jewish and Arab citizens.

First of all, why? Secondly, even if someone forgets, lots of Arab (and Jewish, by the way) citizens, not to mention extremely attentive external watchers will remind us. No worries.

So unimportant when we have, like, beauty pageants that allow Arabs to compete alongside Jews.

I don't really know... oh, that was another, thankfully the last, spurt of sarcasm. Strengthened to no end by that "like", of course.

So, what could I conclude about that missive by Lisa? No useful content, awkward attempt at a strawman creation, almost criminal overuse of sarcasm; what was all that about?

Yep, another attempt to stick it to the ex-fellow Z...s.

Fail.

(*) That NYT search (click on the image to view in comfort):

(**) After all, I went to google for Ta'alin Abu Hanna, the lady that won that contest. A lot of entries indeed, but most of them non-Israeli, with quite a few articles in the Arab press***. And, verily a wonder of wonders: most of the articles use "Arab Israeli from a Catholic family" or similar. Go figure...

(***) Am I allowed to say "Arab press"? I am not sure anymore /end of sarcasm for that post

Has somebody checked on Norman Finkelstein's well-being lately?

I used to actively despise the man, but now I am only concerned. His obsession has transformed him into a really sick victim - of his own hate, of course - but nevertheless a victim. Check this out:



Pitiful.

Tucson Water Protectors, intersectionality and tentacles of the big Z

А если в кране нет воды -

Воду выпили жиды.

Беляев Константин Николаевич

A bit of a jumble, that headline, isn't it? Now I have to explain it, which is quite a job.

Tucson Water Protectors are a nice bunch of well meaning folks, obviously located in Tucson, AZ, US of A. As they explain on their Facebook page:

Tucson community in solidarity with Standing Rock. Providing a platform of resistance for the intersection of ecological, social, and indigenous struggles.

Fully explaining the situation with Standing Rock, DAPL (Dakota Access Pipeline) and related phenomena is a bit beyond the brief of this post, so see the links.

Intersectionality: now this is a bit of a highbrow concept. Wiki does a good job, so I shall borrow a short passage from it:

Intersectionality (or intersectional theory) is a term first coined in 1989 by American civil rights advocate and leading scholar of critical race theory, Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw. It is the study of overlapping or intersecting social identities and related systems of oppression, domination, or discrimination. The theory suggests that—and seeks to examine how—various biological, social and cultural categories such as gender, race, class, ability, sexual orientation, religion, caste, age, nationality and other sectarian axes of identity interact on multiple and often simultaneous levels.

To make it simpler, here are a few real life cases:

• If you are incensed about the behavior of French troops in Poland during Napoleonic wars, you could relate it to and allot a good part of the blame to... say, Zionists and their tentacles (of course, I am using only one example out of many).
• If a DMV clerk made a mistake entering your age in the computer and now you can't get a drink in your local watering hole due to being officially underage (in spite of being a father of 3 college graduates) - you can relate it to... er... to use a handy example - Zionists and their tentacles.
• And of course, when some greedy oil company wants to lay its capitalist/colonialist pipeline through Native Americans' tribal lands, you can connect this act not only to the capitalists' thirst for oil and profit, but to many other injustices and acts of oppression. To use a totally random example - Zionists and their tentacles.

Tentacles of the big Z: I hope it is self-explanatory to every person hungry for Social Justice, Equality and Freedom.

So now you shall clearly see how the good fight against the Dakota Access Pipeline came to the necessity of issuing this flier:

So there. Now you know how the things in this world are interconnected... sorry, intersectionalized. And this knowledge will make you free. Or not, as the case might be.

Now to explain that quote in Russian that mysteriously slipped into the masthead of this post. It is a popular in Russia quote from a comical song about The Jew being everywhere. The quote says: "If there is no water in the tap/The kikes drunk it."

Yep. Water. Just like in "Tucson Water Protectors", innit?

Here comes the song. Well, for those who grok Russian, of course.

Trying to fit with Seymour Schulich

Seymour Schulich

For all of you who, like I, didn't know who Seymour Schulich is, here is a short excerpt from Wiki:

Schulich graduated from McGill University with a BSc in 1961 and an MBA from the Desautels Faculty of Management in 1965. He earned the Chartered Financial Analyst designation from the University of Virginia in 1969.

Another tidbit Wiki shares is his financial prowess:

Net worth - CAD$1.75 billion (2011).

Which is a serious amount of simoleons, CAD or no CAD, you have to agree. Another (but related) thing to admire about Mr Schulich is his inordinate passion for philanthropy, also described in that Wiki entry. I shall quote only one detail:

The first and largest donation that was made was to the Schulich School of Business at York University. All degrees issued by the Schulich School of Business now bear the signature of Seymour Schulich.

Impressive indeed. Now to the reason the name caught my attention:

In a mass email addressed “to the tribe” that has been making the rounds in the Jewish community, entrepreneur and philanthropist Seymour Schulich said he’s “sick and tired” of Jews complaining about anti-Semitism in Canada in general and at York University in particular.

“I grew up in Montreal, Quebec, where the school system was predominantly Catholic and Protestant. Real anti-Semitism was rife!” wrote Schulich, a York benefactor after whom the university’s acclaimed Schulich School of Business is named.

“Yet in my entire life I have never experienced one iota of anti-Semitism. WHY? THE SIMPLE ANSWER IS BECAUSE I FIT IN WITH THE MAJORITIES! There was a Catholic school across the street from my Grade 8 Protestant school in Montreal. If you wore a yamulka or a talis [sic] under your shirt, the odds were pretty good you could collect a lot of rocks thrown from the Catholic schoolyard.”

The problem with York University in particular is that, mildly speaking, it is described as toxic environment for Jewish students. So much so that even the usually mumbling Forward reflects that

Jewish students are being urged to think twice before applying to York University in Toronto following accusations that its faculty association was endorsing a “censorship campaign against Israel and the Jewish people.

But, if you follow Mr Schulich, the best solution for the Jewish students unfortunate enough to enroll, is to "FIT IN WITH THE MAJORITIES". In capital letters too. Hmm...

Out of interest, I have taken a look at how another minority fares in that same university. Here is a picture I picked up from "The Official Twitter Account of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Students' Association at York University".

Well, this might just be the ticket for the girls. And what about the boys? Oh yes, a keffiyeh will do, I believe. Nothing fancy, just like one Arafat was sporting. Easy to find on Amazon Canada too.

So what can I say about that idea of fitting in? Only that our tribe has tried it several times in our history. We know (well, at least some of us do) how it ended. In short, I have a strong feeling that one of us - either Mr Schulich or I - is a putz. Judging by the above story, the obvious conclusion will be... but then, I have never even been near a man who is worth CAD$1.75 billion (2011).

Questions, questions...

P.S. And another unnecessary observation, looking at the Mr Schulich's picture: on the face of it (no pun intended... oh well), he might have a trouble fitting in, even in a keffiyeh. Just saying.

P.P.S. Found a great response by Jennifer (Jennanne) Hill-Simpson that includes the original e-mail in full. Enjoy.

Jasbir K. Puar: twerking the science

Jasbir K. Puar is a US-based queer theorist, presently an associate professor in the Department of Women's and Gender Studies at Rutgers University. Puar is author of Terrorist Assemblages: Homonationalism in Queer Times. Puar is a proponent of divestment from Israel and a board member of the US Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel.

This is not about politics, Zionism or even pseudo-sciences. All this and more you can find in the article Jasbir Puar is another Israel-hating academic fraud By Elder of Ziyon, which you should read in its entirety.

I would like to pick and choose, and here is my favorite paragraph of the lady's writings:

In this project I attempt to articulate what I am calling the computational sovereignty of Israeli settler colonialism: occupation and apartheid. This twerking of sovereignties stands as a challenge to the literatures of biopolitics, deploying a notion of population beyond the human, non-human, animal frame. How do objects compose a population? How do toxicities populate and become populations?

Of course I cannot shake off the feeling that the spirit of another grand lady of (pseudo)-sciences, one Judith Butler, roams freely among the choice members of American academia and possesses them at will. But in this case the spirit does an even more thorough job, inspiring the possessed to invent a cute neologism, such as this adorable use of the word "twerking" in otherwise impenetrable gobbledygook of quasi-academic verbiage.

I even had a thought of proposing to Ms Puar to switch to twerking instead of producing such prodigious volumes of crapola. Wouldn't something like this be vastly better?

But then - I don't really believe she would be any good at that...

How do the Elders get fresh blood of Palestinian children every morning

You might have wondered how do the Elders, while surrounded on all sides (well, except the Mediterranean, of course, but it is hardly a fitting source) by uncooperative neighbors, succeed in getting the fresh blood of gentile children for their obligatory healthy breakfast routine. Since the truth has already got out, here is the official corroboration (with permission from the Elders' HQ, of course):

For those of you who might have problem with that French text, here: "The zionists construct tunnels to kill Palestinian children". The author might have fumbled the technical side slightly. The children are not killed on the spot, of course, they are taken to a processing location where all the necessary tools and the required hygienic conditions are available. Not to mention the freshness factor.

With thanks to Jennanne Simpson.

For those with hardy stomachs: the author of the above pearl, one Oni.apt (you can look him/her up on Twitter easily) is producing hundreds of tweets on daily basis, it is simply unbelievable how far the hate and viciousness drive a person. Below are a few more examples of his (or his colleagues') creativity, you can see them after clicking "Read more".

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