FReepmail me to get on or off this list =)
Posted on 06/12/2006 11:32:59 PM PDT by MadIvan
EHUD OLMERT, Israel’s new Prime Minister, was in jubilant mood last night after Tony Blair gave him tacit approval to move forward on the next stage of his controversial unilateral withdrawal plan.
“I feel very much encouraged. He wants what is good for us and the Palestinians,” the Israeli leader said after his talks at 10 Downing Street. The reason for his glowing assessment was Mr Blair’s unexpectedly positive remarks regarding Mr Olmert’s plan to “realign” Israel’s deployment in the West Bank.
After the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza last year, Mr Olmert wants to repeat the process in “90 per cent” of the West Bank. But the move is fraught with controversy. He intends Israel to hold on to several large Jewish settlement blocks and Arab East Jerusalem, which would be incorporated into Israel behind a security wall.
Mr Blair and Mr Olmert insisted that they would prefer a negotiated settlement with the Palestinian leadership. The Israeli leader said that he expected to open talks with President Abbas in the coming weeks, but few expect the negotiations to lead anywhere.
The Palestinian leadership is deeply divided. Hamas, the militant Islamic movement that now forms the government, refuses to recognise Israel’s right to exist.
Mr Olmert said that he would hold talks with the Palestinians in “months, not years”, indicating that his unilateral redeployment plan may begin this year. He desperately needs foreign support for it to work. When Mr Olmert visited Washington this year, Mr Bush called the proposal “bold”. The Israeli leader will raise the issue with President Chirac in Paris this week.
Yesterday Mr Blair went one step further than Washington by saying that he sympathised with Israel’s plan to go it alone if negotiations failed. “I want to see it move forward by way of agreement, so does [Mr Olmert]. What you cannot have is the situation where nothing happens. It just means that the situation continues to deteriorate,” he said.
The remarks are likely to infuriate the Arab world, which regards Israel’s unilateral plan and the extension of the security barrier as a “land grab”.
Mr Olmert made no secret of his intentions. He ruled out any idea of returning Israel to the pre-1967 borders. “It is a fantasy,” he said.
He was also unapologetic about extending the security wall through the West Bank. “The fence is a source of great nuisance for many Palestinians, but the fence does not kill. While there is no fence, lots of innocent people are killed,” he said.
Violence worsened yesterday amid a power struggle between the secular Fatah movement of Mr Abbas and its Islamist rival Hamas. Mr Abbas declared a state of alert last night after Hamas fighters fired anti-tank rockets into a Palestinian Authority security headquarters in Gaza amid the heaviest fighting yet between factions.
Gunmen waged running battles in Rafah after clashes at a funeral for the victims of earlier fighting. The final tally was 2 dead and 14 wounded.
Television footage showing Hamas fighters firing missiles into the Preventive Security headquarters provoked Fatah loyalists to storm the parliament building in the West Bank city of Ramallah and set it alight. Gunmen also fired on the Palestinian legislative offices in Nablus, and Fatah gunmen briefly kidnapped Khalil Rabei, a Hamas MP.
Several thousand Hamas supporters demonstrated outside the Palestinian parliament building late last night after the day’s incidents.
I am tired of this nonsense. I have a rich life away from this, and I don't need to spend time slapping bigots around.
Bye.
Ivan
If the truth arms the Left, maybe the British Right should look in the mirror.
Britain has never been a friend of Jews or Israel.
Your British academic association recently voted to bar Israeli academics.
Your anti-Semitic Anglican church recently voted to attack Israel.
What does the wife of Blair say in public about Jews?
Have you missed the actions and statement of your anti-Semitic Mayor of London, Livingstone, when it comes to Jews and Israel?
And who is your member of Parliament who so aggressively works for muslim interests and takes money from them?
Britain's track record on this topic speaks for itself.
I'm a Thatcherite through and through, but admire Blair for being a champion for the West in his foreign policy leadership. At times he's darn near Churchillian. And since he's run his last election, he doesn't need to worry about Arab opinion at all, does he?
Sorry about the anti-Brit bigots in the forum. Certain topics, like evolution, immigration, and, sadly, Britain, seem to bring out the nutters. I just ignore them as they can't be persuaded and the benefits of the forum outweigh their unpleasantness.
FReegards.
Galloway says murder of Blair would be 'justified'
By Oliver Duff
from The Independent
26 May 2006 10:46
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/article601356.ece
The Respect MP George Galloway has said it would be morally justified for a suicide bomber to murder Tony Blair.
In an interview with GQ magazine, the reporter asked him: "Would the assassination of, say, Tony Blair by a suicide bomber - if there were no other casualties - be justified as revenge for the war on Iraq?"
Mr Galloway replied: "Yes, it would be morally justified. I am not calling for it - but if it happened it would be of a wholly different moral order to the events of 7/7. It would be entirely logical and explicable. And morally equivalent to ordering the deaths of thousands of innocent people in Iraq - as Blair did."
The Labour MP Stephen Pound, a persistent critic of Mr Galloway during previous controversies, told The Sun that the Respect MP for Bethnal Green and Bow in east London was "disgraceful and truly twisted".
He said: "These comments take my breath away. Every time you think he can't sink any lower he goes and stuns you again. It's reprehensible to say it would be justified for a suicide bomber to assassinate anyone."
The Stop the War Coalition criticised Mr Galloway: "We don't agree with Tony Blair's actions, but neither do we agree with suicide bombers or assassinations."
Just hours after four bomb attacks killed 52 people on London's transport system last July, Mr Galloway said the city had "paid the price" for Mr Blair's decision to go to war in Iraq and Afghanistan. "Ten thousand Osama bin Ladens have been created at least by the events of the last two years," he told MPs in the Commons that day.
Mr Pound said at the time: "I thought George had sunk to the depths of sickness in the past but this exceeds anything he has done before." The Armed Forces minister, Adam Ingram, accused the Respect MP of "dipping his poisonous tongue in a pool of blood".
Mr Galloway yesterday made a surprise appearance on Cuban television with the Caribbean island's Communist dictator, Fidel Castro - whom he defended as a "lion" in a political world populated by "monkeys".
Mr Galloway shocked panellists on a live television discussion show in Havana by emerging on set mid-transmission to offer passionate support for Castro. Looking approvingly into each others' eyes, the pair embraced.
The Respect MP George Galloway has said it would be morally justified for a suicide bomber to murder Tony Blair.
In an interview with GQ magazine, the reporter asked him: "Would the assassination of, say, Tony Blair by a suicide bomber - if there were no other casualties - be justified as revenge for the war on Iraq?"
Mr Galloway replied: "Yes, it would be morally justified. I am not calling for it - but if it happened it would be of a wholly different moral order to the events of 7/7. It would be entirely logical and explicable. And morally equivalent to ordering the deaths of thousands of innocent people in Iraq - as Blair did."
The Labour MP Stephen Pound, a persistent critic of Mr Galloway during previous controversies, told The Sun that the Respect MP for Bethnal Green and Bow in east London was "disgraceful and truly twisted".
He said: "These comments take my breath away. Every time you think he can't sink any lower he goes and stuns you again. It's reprehensible to say it would be justified for a suicide bomber to assassinate anyone."
The Stop the War Coalition criticised Mr Galloway: "We don't agree with Tony Blair's actions, but neither do we agree with suicide bombers or assassinations."
Just hours after four bomb attacks killed 52 people on London's transport system last July, Mr Galloway said the city had "paid the price" for Mr Blair's decision to go to war in Iraq and Afghanistan. "Ten thousand Osama bin Ladens have been created at least by the events of the last two years," he told MPs in the Commons that day.
Mr Pound said at the time: "I thought George had sunk to the depths of sickness in the past but this exceeds anything he has done before." The Armed Forces minister, Adam Ingram, accused the Respect MP of "dipping his poisonous tongue in a pool of blood".
Mr Galloway yesterday made a surprise appearance on Cuban television with the Caribbean island's Communist dictator, Fidel Castro - whom he defended as a "lion" in a political world populated by "monkeys".
Mr Galloway shocked panellists on a live television discussion show in Havana by emerging on set mid-transmission to offer passionate support for Castro. Looking approvingly into each others' eyes, the pair embraced.
Galloway in Damascus: If US Invades Syria, People Will Fight Like Brits Were Ready to Fight Nazis
MEMRI ^ | 11-18-05
British MP George Galloway at Damascus University to Support Bashar Al-Assad: If the U.S. Invades Syria, the People Will Fight the U.S. Occupation Like the Brits Were Ready to Fight the Nazis
The following are excerpts from a speech by British MP George Galloway at Damascus University. The speech aired on Al-Jazeera TV on November 13, 2005.
TO VIEW THIS CLIP, visit http://www.memritv.org/search.asp?ACT=S9&P1=923.
On U.S. Secretary of State Rice's Mideast Visit and the Behavior of Slave Governments
Galloway: "Condoleezza Rice has been touring the Arab countries to speak about Syria, so I have come to Syria to speak about Condoleezza Rice.
"You know, it never ceases to surprise me that Arab governments can allow a foreigner to come to their country and sit at their tables with their leaders to insult and attack another Arab country. This is the behavior of slave governments, and the Bahraini regime should have asked Condoleezza to leave when she insulted Syria in their presence, in their capital. In fact, maybe it's the rulers who should leave. When she visited Cairo a few months ago, the Egyptian masses - who are still a part of the Arab world, by the way - raised the slogan about the Arab rulers: 'Give them a visa ya Condoleezza,' and I believe that this is a slogan which has not lost its meaning."
[...]
"I want to be very clear. I was clear in July, and what I said in July has followed me all over the world by the American and Israeli propaganda machine, so I want to be very clear again. All dignified people in the world, whether Arabs or Muslims or others with dignity, are very proud of the speech made by President Bashar Al-Assad a few days ago here in Damascus."
[...]
"For me, he is the last Arab ruler, and Syria is the last Arab country. It is the fortress of the remaining dignity of the Arabs, and that's why I'm proud to be here and addressing you this evening."
[...]
"After July he [Blair] condemned me for what I said about President Bashar, but only two years before, he was taking the president to meet Her Majesty the Queen. If President Bashar is so dangerous a man, why did he take him inside the royal palace in London? The truth is, Mr. Blair changed his policy towards Syria because President Bush ordered him to. Mr. Blair too is a slave of the slaves."
[...]
"The reason that Syria is facing this crisis is not because of any bad thing which Syria has done or any weaknesses within its democracy, or within its economy, or within its human rights record - and there are weaknesses in all three of these. The reason why Syria is being threatened is not because of anything bad which she did, but because of the good which she is doing. That's the reason why Syria is being threatened - because she will not betray the Palestinian resistance, because she will not betray the Lebanese resistance, Hizbullah, because she will not sign a shameful surrender-peace with General Sharon, and above all - more than any of these others - because Syria will not allow her country to be used as a military base for America to crush the resistance in Iraq. These are the reasons why Syria is being targeted by these imperial powers."
[...]
"Now I warned in July that Lebanon was being sharpened as a knife to be used in the back of Syria, and I warned the Lebanese people that those who care nothing for Lebanon are preparing to use you and your government to weaken the last Arab power. And I turned out to be right. This knife has been sharpened and now they are using it."
[...]
On U.N. Chief Investigator Detlev Mehlis
"And I warned in July about this character, Mehlis. And please don't call him Sayyed [Mr.] Mehlis. I'm not calling him Sayyed Mehlis."
Translator: "We don’t call him Sayyed Mehlis…"
Galloway: "No, I was interviewed by several Syrian journalists today, and every time I said Mehlis, they said Sayyed Mehlis. No, he's not Sayyed Mehlis."
[...]
"Just because somebody is appointed by the U.N. which became - you know, Lenin called the League of Nations a 'thieves' kitchen.' The U.N. became a thieves' and beggars' kitchen, where the thieves make the decisions, and the beggars vote for the decisions, and if the beggars will not vote for the decisions, the thieves will implement the decisions anyway. Because somebody came through the U.N., it doesn't make them a saint. Mehlis is not a saint, he's not an impartial civil servant, he is a policeman with a record of framing Arab governments, and this is why he was given this job. He was the one who investigated the so-called La Belle disco explosion in Berlin. He named Libya as the responsible party for this crime, and Ronald Reagan used this finding to send a massive and violent attack against Libya, which killed innocent people including the daughter of Mu'ammar Qadhafi herself. This was Mehlis' job, to falsely accuse Libya of this crime, which everybody now knows Libya was not responsible for."
[...]
"This record of framing Arab countries is the qualification of Mehlis for his new job of framing Syria."
[...]
"This is why he was given this job, and everybody should be aware that the verdict of the Mehlis inquiry was already fixed before he began his investigation. This murder of Hariri was deliberately planned and executed precisely to implicate Syria and to set in train the events which have unfolded."
[...]
"The Iraqi Resistance Are Defeating the American Army"
"Now some people asked me here, do I think that this will all lead to a situation in Syria which can be compared to the fate of Iraq, and I say no. There is no chance of the American army invading Syria, for many reasons. The first reason is because the Iraqi resistance are defeating the American army in Iraq."
[...]
"You know, when I went to the American Senate on May the 17th of this year, which seems only yesterday for me, and for the American senators - I heard myself say on a video clip the other day - I told the Senate on May the 17th that 1,600 American soldiers had died. 1,600. That was on May 17th. Today, it's almost 2,100 and rising rapidly. October was the bloodiest month of the war, with the Americans losing 107 dead soldiers in one month."
[...]
"Now the Americans cannot control one single street in any town or city or village of Arab Iraq. Not one street can they control safely."
[...]
"They can control the skies, but only if they don't come low enough for the RPG."
[...]
"No American soldier who leaves his barracks can be sure that he will come back alive."
Translator: "No American soldier who leaves his suitcases can be sure he will return to life again."
Galloway: "Every Iraqi, every roadside, every car is a potential deadly ending for him. And the American army - the American army is losing the will to fight."
[...]
"So America is losing the war in Iraq and she cannot dream of starting a new war in Syria. The second reason is: The public opinion in Britain and America is moving decisively against the policy of Bush and Blair."
[...]
"The political strength of George Bush is beginning to seep away into the sand. He is not strong enough to declare another war against another Arab country."
[...]
If the U.S. Invades Syria, "Every Dignified Person in the Country Would Fight Them"
"And in Britain, these are the final days of Tony Blair. The British media is discussing every day whether this day Blair will resign."
[...]
"And the third reason why they will never invade Syria is sitting here and is outside in the streets. It is that if they dared to invade Syria, every dignified person in the country would fight them exactly as the people of Iraq are fighting them now."
[...]
"When Hitler was on the French coast and my country stood alone, when the Americans were watching the war on television before they joined it, we faced a violent foreign military invasion. And of course there were collaborators in Britain who would have collaborated with Hitler if he had landed, but the vast majority of British people would have fought Hitler, with their teeth, if necessary, because no free people will allow itself to be occupied by a foreign army, and Syria is a free people and will never agree to such an invasion."
[...]
"What your lives would be if from the Atlantic to the Gulf we had one Arab union - all this land, 300 million people, all this oil and gas and water, occupied by a people who speak the same language, follow the same religions, listen to the same Um Kulthum... The Arabs would be a superpower in the world if they had this unity, instead of the shameful situation in which the Arabs find themselves today."
[...]
"We are Making a European Union Which in 20 Years Will Balance the Power of the U.S., Inshallah"
"This is not a dream, you know. In the European Union, there is almost 100 languages, there is many religions, there is countries who only 50 years ago were slaughtering each other by the million in war - totally different cultures with nothing in common except living on the mainland of Europe. But we are making a European Union which in 20 years will balance the power of the United States of America, inshallah."
[...]
"Chairman Mao said that sometimes the enemy struggles mightily to lift a huge stone, only to drop it on its own feet, and I believe that's what has happened in the world today."
[...]
"Instead of terrorizing the whole world with American power, the invasion of Iraq has showed everybody in the world the limitations of American power."
[...]
"The Hero Hugo Chavez"
"Hundreds of thousands are ready to fight them in the Middle East, and in Latin America there is revolution everywhere. Fidel Castro is feeling young again. Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Bolivia, Ecuador, Chile are all electing left-wing governments which are challenging American domination. And in Venezuela, the hero Hugo Chavez has stood against them over and over and over again."
[...]
"Chavez was twice overthrown on America's orders, and twice the poor masses of the slums of Caracas poured onto the streets in their millions and reinstalled him in the president's house. America cannot dare to touch his head, because if they harm Hugo Chavez, a fire will erupt in Latin America which will engulf them."
[...]
"So I say to you, citizens of the last Arab country, this is a time for courage, for unity, for wisdom, for determination, to face these enemies with the dignity your president has shown, and I believe, God willing, we will prevail and triumph, wa-salam aleikum."
British MP George Galloway on Syrian TV, July 31, 2005
Foreigners Are Raping Two Beautiful Arab Daughters - Jerusalem and Baghdad
http://memri.org/bin/latestnews.cgi?ID=SD94805
"The real question is, after the evidence of Sykes-Picot 1, are you ready to accept Sykes-Picot 2? What does Sykes-Picot mean to the Arab world? Nothing except division, disunity, weakness, and failure. Two of your beautiful daughters are in the hands of foreigners - Jerusalem and Baghdad. The foreigners are doing to your daughters as they will. The daughters are crying for help, and the Arab world is silent. And some of them are collaborating with the rape of these two beautiful Arab daughters. Why? Because they are too weak and too corrupt to do anything about it. So this is what Sykes-Picot will do to the Arabs. Are you ready to have another hundred years like the hundred years you just had?"
Galloway on ANB TV, July 28, 2005
Galloway: "Most of the children, most of the schools, most of the buses, were bombed by the United States. Let's keep this clearly in perspective: Most of the children who died in Iraq were killed by George Bush, not by Zarqawi. Most of the schools that were wrecked, buses that were bombed, hospitals that were destroyed, lives that were taken, were taken by George Bush, not by Zarqawi. Number two: Most of the resistance in Iraq is not Zarqawi, It's not foreign, whatever 'foreign' means when Iraq is occupied by 250,000 foreign armies. Most of their resistance are Iraqis resisting the foreign occupation of their country. Most of the operations which they carry out are against the occupying forces and their collaborators, and this is normal in every liberation struggle."
http://memri.org/bin/latestnews.cgi?ID=SD94805
muslim agent George Galloway on Al-Jazeera TV, July 31, 2005
"It's not the Muslims who are the terrorists. The biggest terrorists are Bush, and Blair, and Berlusconi, and Aznar, but it is definitely not a clash of civilizations. George Bush doesn't have any civilization, he doesn't represent any civilization. We believe in the Prophets, peace be upon them. He believes in the profits, and how to get a piece of them. That's his god. That's his god. George Bush worships money. That's his god - Mammon."
http://memri.org/bin/latestnews.cgi?ID=SD94805
Gorgeous George: How a Stalin-admiring Saddam Hussein loyalist wowed the media and won the hearts of the adolescent American left.
by Paul Mirengoff
05/23/2005
AS AN ADOLESCENT, I regularly watched professional wrestling on television. Showing early geek tendencies, I usually enjoyed the ring-side interviews more than the matches themselves. My favorite interviews were the ones where a villain with a thick foreign accent hurled invective at America, attacked the manliness and lineage of his next good-guy foe, and denied committing the dirty deeds witnessed by the television audience the previous week. Whether the foreign villain was named Fritz von Erich, Ivan Koloff, or Professor Tanaka, the critique of America usually centered on the same theme--decadence. Minority groups such as blacks and Jews could not be attacked directly, but if a racist or anti-semitic subtext seeped through, that was okay.
Not all villains remained bad forever, and those who reformed could expect extra rough treatment from their former comrades. Wrestler reformation always occurred dramatically. In the middle of a match, a villain would suddenly join forces with a former antagonist, and the two "strange bedfellows" would subdue, for example, an over-the-top foreigner.
Last week, Washington was treated to a performance worthy of the old World Wrestling Federation. The featured player, George Galloway, even carries the nickname of the man who invented the modern wrestling villain, Gorgeous George. Physically, Galloway has patented one of the classic bad-guy wrestler looks, the perfectly-attired well-tailored ruffian. Then there's that Scottish accent, at its best when delivering the sneering insult. As when, on his way into the "arena," Galloway called fellow Brit and former "comrade" on the
left, Christopher Hitchens, a "drink-sodden ex-Trotskyist popinjay." "Classy" Fred Blassie would have been proud of that one.
Upon reaching the microphones, Gorgeous George followed the wrestling villains' interview handbook (foreigners' chapter) flawlessly. He missed nothing--there was the reference to American decadence ("I know that standards have slipped in Washington"); there was flamboyant name-calling and anti-semitic overtones ("Zionist" and "neo-conservative"); there was the attempt to answer charges of specific misconduct (participating in the oil-for-food scam) with counterchanges of general wrongdoing (supporting an "illegal" war); there were even the "who are you going to believe?" denials.
The only difference was that Galloway doesn't just play a villain on TV. He once praised Saddam Hussein for his "courage, strength, [and] indefatigability." More specifically, he saluted Saddam for paying suicide-murderers in Israel and the West Bank. The worst day in Galloway's life, he says, was the day the Soviet Union fell. But he found consolation because, "just as Stalin industrialized the Soviet Union, so on a different scale Saddam plotted Iraq's Great Leap Forward." When Britain joined the United States in ending Saddam's great leap, Galloway called for a jihad against its troops and for the troops themselves to disobey "illegal" orders (Galloway had said that prosecution of the war is illegal). Hitchens made many of these points and more during his "grudge match" with Galloway in THE WEEKLY STANDARD.
The evidence strongly suggests that Saddam rewarded Galloway's fealty by granting him oil allocations. It was through such allocations that Saddam turned the U.N.'s "oil-for-food" program to his advantage. The regime selected purchasers of Iraqi oil, who then sold it on the market. Instead of selecting traditional oil purchasers, the government preferred foreign officials, journalists, and even terrorist organizations. In exchange for the enormous benefits of being the gatekeepers of Iraqi oil, the purchasers served Iraq's interests, typically by working against the U.N. sanctions and by kicking back money to the regime.
The substantial evidence of Galloway's participation in this scam is carefully summarized in a report by the Senate's Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, part of the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs (the body before which Galloway testified last week). It consists of statements by top Saddam-era Iraqi officials and documents from "SOMO," the Iraqi ministry that administered the oil-for-food program. The incriminating statements include the testimony of former Iraqi vice president Taha Yassin Ramadan, who told the subcommittee that Galloway was granted oil allocations because of "his opinions about Iraq" and his desire "to lift the embargo against Iraq." In addition, an unnamed former Iraqi official told the U.S. Treasury Department that Galloway "benefited tremendously from the illegal trade of oil by Iraq" as the owner of a company involved in the oil trade scheme.
The documents confirm that Galloway's company received six oil allocations totaling 20 million barrels of oil. Some are charts created after the fall of Saddam's regime listing oil contracts and identifying Galloway by name as the contracting party. Others are contemporaneous documents, created by SOMO while Saddam was still in power, that describe contracts and identify Galloway by name. A typical such document says ". . .please find below the details of the contract signed with Middle East ASI Company (on behalf of Mr. George Galloway)."
What did Gorgeous George have to say about the documents? Why, anyone could have written them. As to the incriminating testimony, we all know how the U.S. treats Iraqi prisoners.
Since SOMO officials have authenticated the documents, Galloway's defense boils down to a claim that the evidence against him is the product of bribery or coercion, coupled with his vehement denial of wrongdoing. As to the credibility of the latter, one should keep in mind that Galloway has asserted that his statement to Saddam, "Sir, I salute you courage, strength, and indefatigability," was directed at the Iraqi people in general.
Leftist bloggers and important elements of the mainstream media gushed over Galloway's wrestling interview-style performance. Some wondered why Democratic senators weren't more like Gorgeous George. Never mind that Britain's Labour party expelled Galloway for bringing the party into disrepute.
Fortunately, the subcommittee's ranking Democrat, Senator Carl Levin, had no desire to be like George. In a version of the "strange bedfellows" wrestling scenario, Levin stood side-by-side with the Republican chairman, Senator Norm Coleman, demanding straight answers to straight questions. In response, Galloway derided Levin for supporting the "illegal" war in Iraq, something Levin says he never did. Maybe the Jewish name fooled Galloway.
At the end of his day in Washington, Galloway, in the words of the Scotsman was "no closer to clearing his name than when he took his seat in front of the subcommittee." The admirer of Stalin and Saddam had, however, become a hero to the adolescent element of the American left.
Paul Mirengoff is a contributor to the blog Power Line and a contributing writer to The Daily Standard.
Good, bad and ugly (essay on UK anti-semitism)
The Guardian (UK) ^ | Saturday November 29, 2003 | Julie Burchill
As you might have heard, I'm leaving the Guardian next year for the Times, having finally been convinced that my evil populist philistinism has no place in a publication read by so many all-round, top-drawer plaster saints. (Well, that and the massive wad they've waved at me.) Once there, I will compose as many love letters to the likes of Mr Murdoch and Pres Bush as my black little heart desires, leaving those who have always objected to my presence on such a fine liberal newspaper as this to read only writers they agree with, with no chance of spoiled digestion as the muesli goes down the wrong way if I so much as murmur about bringing back hanging. (Public.) Not only do I admire the Guardian, I also find it fun to read, which in a way is more of a compliment. But if there is one issue that has made me feel less loyal to my newspaper over the past year, it has been what I, as a non-Jew, perceive to be a quite striking bias against the state of Israel. Which, for all its faults, is the only country in that barren region that you or I, or any feminist, atheist, homosexual or trade unionist, could bear to live under.
I find this hard to accept because, crucially, I don't swallow the modern liberal line that anti-Zionism is entirely different from anti-semitism; the first good, the other bad. Judeophobia - as the brilliant collection of essays A New Antisemitism? Debating Judeophobia In 21st-Century Britain (axt.org.uk), published this year, points out - is a shape-shifting virus, as opposed to the straightforward stereotypical prejudice applied to other groups (Irish stupid, Japanese cruel, Germans humourless, etc). Jews historically have been blamed for everything we might disapprove of: they can be rabid revolutionaries, responsible for the might of the late Soviet empire, and the greediest of fat cats, enslaving the planet to the demands of international high finance. They are insular, cliquey and clannish, yet they worm their way into the highest positions of power in their adopted countries, changing their names and marrying Gentile women. They collectively possess a huge, slippery wealth that knows no boundaries - yet Israel is said to be an impoverished, lame-duck state, bleeding the west dry.
If you take into account the theory that Jews are responsible for everything nasty in the history of the world, and also the recent EU survey that found 60% of Europeans believe Israel is the biggest threat to peace in the world today (hmm, I must have missed all those rabbis telling their flocks to go out with bombs strapped to their bodies and blow up the nearest mosque), it's a short jump to reckoning that it was obviously a bloody good thing that the Nazis got rid of six million of the buggers. Perhaps this is why sales of Mein Kampf are so buoyant, from the Middle Eastern bazaars unto the Edgware Road, and why The Protocols of The Elders of Zion could be found for sale at the recent Anti-racism Congress in Durban.
The fact that many Gentiles and Arabs are rabidly Judeophobic, while many others are as horrified by Judeophobia as by any other type of racism, makes me believe that anti-semitism/Zionism is not a political position (otherwise the right and the left, the PLO and the KKK, would not be able to unite so uniquely in their hatred), but about how an individual feels about himself. I can't help noticing that, over the years, a disproportionate number of attractive, kind, clever people are drawn to Jews; those who express hostility to them, however, from Hitler to Hamza, are often as not repulsive freaks.
Think of famous anti-Zionist windbags - Redgrave, Highsmith, Galloway - and what dreary, dysfunctional, po-faced vanity confronts us. When we consider famous Jew-lovers, on the other hand - Marilyn, Ava, Liz, Felicity Kendal, me - what a sumptuous banquet of radiant humanity we look upon! How fitting that it was Richard Ingrams - Victor Meldrew without the animal magnetism - who this summer proclaimed in the Observer that he refuses to read letters from Jews about the Middle East, and that Jewish journalists should declare their racial origins when writing on this subject. Replying in another newspaper, Johann Hari suggested sarcastically that their bylines might be marked with a yellow star, and asked why Ingrams didn't want to know whether those writing on international conflicts were Muslim, Christian, Sikh or Hindu. The answer is obvious to me: poor Ingrams is a miserable, bitter, hypocritical cuckold, whose much younger girlfriend has written at length in the public arena of the boredom, misery and alcoholism to which living with him has led her, and whose trademark has long been a loathing for anyone who appears to get a kick out of life: the young, the prole, independent women. The Jews are in good company.
Judeophobia: where the political is personal, and the personal pretends to be political, and those swarthy/pallid/swotty/philistine/aggressive/ cowardly/comically bourgeois/filthy rich/delete-as-mood-takes-you bastards always get the girl. I'll return to this dirty little secret masquerading as a moral stance next week and, rest assured, it'll get much nastier. As the darling Jews them-selves would say (annoyingly, but then, nobody's perfect), enjoy!
British Legislator warns of 'Jewish Cabal' (Anti-Semitism is now open and respectable in UK)
Jerusalem Post ^ | May. 4, 2003 | Douglas Davis
May. 4, 2003
By DOUGLAS DAVIS
London
One of the most senior and respected Labor Party legislators in Britain has caused a political sensation by accusing Prime Minister Tony Blair of being "unduly influenced by a cabal of Jewish advisers."
Interview by Vanity Fair, Dalyell named Lord Michael Levy, Blair's personal envoy to the Middle East, New Labor ideologue Peter Mandelson and Foreign Secretary Jack Straw as three leading figures who had influenced Blair on Middle East policy.
While Levy is an observant Jew (and more a messenger than an initiator), neither Mandelson (whose father was Jewish) nor Straw (who is said to have Jewish ancestry) considers himself Jewish.
Dalyell told the Sunday Telegraph: "I am fully aware that one is treading on cut glass on this issue and no one wants to be accused of anti-Semitism, but if it is a question of launching an assault on Syria or Iran . . . then one has to be candid."
He insisted "I am not going to be labelled anti-Semitic," noting that "my children worked on a kibbutz." But, he said, "the time has come for candour." Dalyell claimed that Blair was also indirectly influenced by Jews in the Bush administration, including Pentagon advisor Richard Perle, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and White House spokesman Ari Fleischer.
Said Dalyell: "They very much have captured the ear of the president of the United States. I said [to Vanity Fair] I thought that Blair was very sympathetic to them. I cannot understand why."
In response, Mandelson noted that "apart from the fact that I am not actually Jewish, I wear my father's parentage with pride. As for Tam, he is as incorrigible as ever."
A spokesman for Straw said that "if these reports are accurate, the remarks are too unworthy to be worth a comment." Levy's spokesman said he was not available for comment.
Labor peer Lord Greville Janner, former president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, said he found the comments "sad and unfounded. . . Tony Blair is his own man. He will follow advice if he considers it correct and not otherwise. He has been a good friend of the Jewish people and the Jewish state."
If Britain's Labor Party had an aristocracy, Tam Dalyell would have a place of special honor. To many, the long-serving legislator with a thoroughbred pedigree (Eton and Cambridge) is the conscience of the party, the voice of its ideological soul.
And as the longest-serving member of parliament, 70-year-old Dalyell (pronounced "Diyell") glories in the title "Father of the House," which not only acknowledges his seniority but also confers a measure of deference and respect.
It has not, however, inhibited him from speaking out, and, when he felt it necessary, from disagreeing with his leader, loudly and publicly.
With George Galloway, who is alleged to have received a small fortune from Saddam Hussein to champion the cause of his erstwhile regime, Dalyell was in the vanguard of those opposing the recent Iraq war.
In particular, he was a ferocious opponent of British involvement in the war and a prime mover in Labor's revolt against Prime Minister Tony Blair, which resulted in the largest rebellion against a sitting prime minister by his own party.
Unlike Galloway, however, Dalyell is no political street brawler. He is regarded, revered even, as a pillar of well-bred respectability. Unlike Galloway, too, he is not a figure of fun or fear.
Rather, his thoughts and utterances are the product of a mind that has received the finest British education that money can buy. And they are influential, not only within his party but also within the media and among large swathes of British society.
When he says Tony Blair is the victim of a "cabal of Jewish advisers," he is not expressing a lone view; he is giving voice to the darkest thoughts of many others, both within and without his own party.
No one who commands such mainstream authority has said publicly that America's "Axis of Evil" doctrine is a Jewish-inspired plot to dominate the world; no one has said publicly that the Iraq war was a Zionist conflict to protect Israel. Such sentiments, however, have been the unmistakable subtext of the anti-war movement.
Like many of his less-forthright colleagues, he sees Jewish conspiratorial forces manipulating the British prime minister (and the American president) into dark and dangerous alleys in pursuit of their own agenda.
For Dalyell, however, the moment has come to speak out. He is aware, he says, that he is treading on cut glass. And he acknowledges that no one wants to be accused of anti-Semitism. But, he says, "one has to be candid."
In doing so, he has given such private thoughts public respectability. He has moved the debate on from politically correct anti-Zionism to open anti-Semitism. He has broken the spell and he has removed the last taboo from a hatred that dared not speak its name.
Dalyell is no crude fascist of the left; he is a seasoned professional. He knows he is giving voice to a view that is widely held but until now, crazies apart, spoken only sotte voce on the British street and in smart British salons.
Why did he do it? And why now? Not for electoral reasons. Dalyell represents a strongly Labor Scottish constituency with a negligible Muslim vote. Nor for reasons of ambition. At this stage in his career, he can have no ambitions for succession.
The best guess is that he did it, and did it now, to embarrass Blair, undermine his leadership and stir up the movement that was gathering steam before the start of the war to unseat the Labor prime minister.
Daylell is among those who see Blair as a traitor to the Labor cause; an aberration who is destroying what generations of class-strugglers had built.
Nor is his loathing for Blair a recent phenomenon. Marking his 40th year as a legislator last June, Dalyell declared Blair to be the worst prime minister of the eight he had known since entering parliament.
He also rated Blair the worst of seven Labor Party leaders he had served.
That assessment has clearly, in Dalyell's view, been vindicated by Blair's apparent thrall to that malevolent transatlantic Jewish cabal which is intent on dragging Britain and America into war.
http://www.aish.com/jewishissues/jewishsociety/UK_Anti-_Semitism.asp
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1641074/posts
Tony Blair drawing a breath angers arabs.
FReepmail me to get on or off this list =)
He's getting money from Syria.
The muslims have lots of money to spread around.
How much has Jimmy Carter gotten from the Saudis and other muslims?
How many zillions have US universities gotten from the Saudis?
REMEMBER
MONEY IS HONEY, MY LITTLE SONNY,
AND A RICH MAN'S JOKE IS ALWAYS FUNNY
Gotta say one thing for Galloway, he's a politician who stays bought.
That illustrates his excellent character.
Nine out of ten muslim terrorists approve of Galloway.
(And Livingstone).
Sorry by posting all this are you trying to equate all Britons with mad George Galloway?
A rabid anti-Brit who's been here just a few days.
Methinks thou art a troll...
Tell us about the current Mayor of London and his many demonstrations of anti-Semitism.
Tell us about the British academic society that voted a few days ago to bar any Israeli academics unless they denounced Israel.
Are they "trolls"?
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