Eretz Israel is our unforgettable historic homeland...The Jews who will it shall achieve their State...And whatever we attempt there for our own benefit will redound mightily and beneficially to the good of all mankind. (Theodor Herzl, DerJudenstaat, 1896)

We offer peace and amity to all the neighbouring states and their peoples, and invite them to cooperate with the independent Jewish nation for the common good of all. The State of Israel is ready to contribute its full share to the peaceful progress and development of the Middle East.
(From Proclamation of the State of Israel, 5 Iyar 5708; 14 May 1948)

With a liberal democratic political system operating under the rule of law, a flourishing market economy producing technological innovation to the benefit of the wider world, and a population as educated and cultured as anywhere in Europe or North America, Israel is a normal Western country with a right to be treated as such in the community of nations.... For the global jihad, Israel may be the first objective. But it will not be the last. (Friends of Israel Initiative)

Monday 30 November 2015

No Israel Please, We're Jewish Students

With nasty chants such as these on college campuses it's no wonder Jewish and pro-Israel students feel intimidated:


(The venue: Hunter College in New York; the chants: "Zionists out of CUNY!" and "Long live the Intifada!")

Even so, US-based Rabbi Shmuley Boteach was ill-prepared for the craven response of Jewish students across the herring pond a few days ago when he mentioned the "I" word:
'What shook my confidence in British Jewry today was my experience at King’s College [London] where I was invited to address the Jewish Society. I focused my remarks on Israeli democracy and the ways in which it could be a model for the autocratic Arab states of the region. Israel is the great hope for the spread of human rights throughout the Middle East.
As I spoke, I could see my hosts growing restless and the discomfiture on their faces surprised me. I was in for a bigger shock, however, when my hosts stopped me mid-lecture and said that they were opening the floor for questions. I am always happy to respond to questions, friendly or hostile, but I have rarely been interrupted so abruptly by the people who invited me to speak. (The talk was video taped on a phone.)
When I asked for an explanation, I was told by the president of the organization, a young man wearing a yarmulke, that the Jewish Society has a policy against speaking about Israel. The group, he said was non-political and focused on “Jewish subjects.”
Israel not a Jewish subject? I was dumbfounded. It was as if Israel had become the Voldemort of nations, the country that dare not be named.
When I recovered from the shock, I asked if I should speak about lox and bagels, klezmer music or Manischewitz wine. My sarcasm seemed to go right over my hosts’ heads. For them, Israel and Judaism were unrelated. I asked if the murder of Israeli citizens in countless terror attacks over the past month was likewise a “political issue,” or one of human rights. I was told by one of the students that these things needs not be put in boxes. Worse, I sensed that these students, who had enough pride in their heritage, and commitment to their faith, to wear their yarmulkes in public, had become so cowed by the omnipresent hostility and bullying on and off British campuses that they were afraid to engage in a dialogue about Israel.
The talk was video taped on a phone and the discomfort of the students discussing, let alone defending, Israel is deeply jarring....' 
 Read more here

See this by Boteach too

Sunday 29 November 2015

Aussie journalist compares Aussies in IDF to Aussies in ISIS

Stalwart pro-Israel MP Danby reacts
Phillip Adams is a very prominent Aussie journalist and radio broadcaster who's been around for decades.

In yesterday's copy of The Australian newspaper he wrote this, inter alia:
"... It’s not new for Australian security agencies to keep an eye on radicalised teenagers... 
Serious point here. The young have always been susceptible to the clarion call. Australian boys understated their age to fight in World War I. And young lefties from all over the world joined the International Brigades to fight fascism in the Spanish Civil War. More recently, countless young Australian Jews have headed to Israel and joined the IDF to fight Palestinians. Seems our increasingly worried, watchful spooks [he's talking about ASIO] have no probs with this.
The process of “radicalisation”, of signing up for distant conflicts, may involve religious and/or ideological fervour for Zionists and ISIS recruits...."
[Emphasis added]

For shame.

As one well-known (left-leaning) Zionist academic comments on Facebook:
"So Phillip Adams seriously compares all Australian Jews who go on aliyah and join the Israeli army with Australians who volunteer for Isis. So yes Phillip - all those young men and women who spent years at left-wing Zionist youth groups such as Habonim and Hashomer Hatzair learning about socialism, secularism and the brotherhood of man are identical to nutty brain-washed religious extremists going off to slaughter and rape men, women and children"

Friday 27 November 2015

"Do You Want To Swear To Allah?": Antisemitic attack in Melbourne (video)

Outside a strictly Orthodox synagogue in Melbourne:


Read more here

Daily Mail here


Meanwhile, the communal "Chanukah in the Park" has been cancelled this year owing to fears of an attack, and two Melbourne Jewish day schools have from this week instituted armed guards outside their premises.

Readers may be interested in my last column for Elder of Ziyon, here

Thursday 26 November 2015

Wayward Women, Warped Worldview

Or perhaps I should say "wayward wimmin".  After all, they are all feminists.

Then again, what kind of feminism is it which would support BDS against the nation in the Middle East that has done more for gender equality than any other, and which was the first in the region (i.e. from its inception in 1948) to give Arab women the vote?
 
What psychosis motivates the extreme leftists who've hijacked the women's movement as they have hijacked certain Protestant churches and imposed upon them that warped worldview that imperils Western society and gives aid and comfort to its enemies?

Here's some of the whacko weirdness:
BDS is a feminist issue
The National Women's Studies Association (NWSA), the largest academic feminist organisation in North America ... November 25 will mark the last day for its members to vote electronically on a resolution urging an endorsement of the 2005 call by the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) for Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) against the state of Israel.
The resolution calls on NWSA to join various academic associations that have adopted similar motions in the past few years, including this week's overwhelming support for a boycott motion from the American Anthropological Association, at the NWSA's annual national conference; the American Studies Association; the Association for Asian American Studies; the Native American and Indigenous Studies Association; and the Critical Ethnic Studies Association.
Specifically, the resolution asks feminist academics in North America to stand against "the injustice and violence, including sexual and gender-based violence, perpetrated against Palestinians and other Arabs in the West Bank, Gaza Strip, within Israel and in the Golan Heights, as well as the colonial displacement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians during the 1948 Nakba".
Drawing on feminist commitments to anticolonial solidarity struggles against historical and ongoing forms of injustice, the resolution rests on a simple and yet powerful claim: that to remain silent in the face of the myriad indignities, injustices and violence that Palestinians are subjected to at the hands of the Israeli occupation is to side with the oppressor.
It thus makes it clear that the boycott of the colonising Israeli state - a state that targets Palestinians, curtails their life opportunities and choices, and orchestrates their incarceration and death - is an act of solidarity shaped by a politics and praxis central to all decolonial feminist projects....
 Read more here The wimmin, on the other hand, should read this
 And they should see this:


 Bet they blame all that too on da Joos.

Lital's Litany (video)

Lives cut brutally short:


Meanwhile, good piece from Jonathan S. Tobin:


Wednesday 25 November 2015

David Singer: UN Security Council Must Get Serious On Destroying Islamic State

Here's the latest article by Sydney lawyer and international affairs analyst David Singer.

He writes:

Brussels in lock-down, mayhem in Mali and the shooting down of a Russian war plane by Turkey have swiftly followed the unanimous passage on 20 November 2015 of an ineffectual French-sponsored Security Council Resolution 2249 ( 2015) in the record breaking time of just 34 minutes.

Resolution 2249 once again showed up the Security Council’s continuing reluctance to seriously deal with destroying Islamic State – even though the resolution itself determined that:
“the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as Da’esh), constitutes a global and unprecedented threat to international peace and security”
Such an “unprecedented threat” only produced this limp-listed response calling:
“upon Member States that have the capacity to do so to take all necessary measures, in compliance with international law, in particular with the United Nations Charter, as well as international human rights, refugee and humanitarian law, on the territory under the control of ISIL also known as Da’esh, in Syria and Iraq, to redouble and coordinate their efforts to prevent and suppress terrorist acts committed specifically by ISIL also known as Da’esh as well as ANF, and all other individuals, groups, undertakings, and entities associated with Al-Qaida, and other terrorist groups, as designated by the United Nations Security Council, and as may further be agreed by the International Syria Support Group (ISSG) and endorsed by the UN Security Council, pursuant to the statement of the International Syria Support Group (ISSG) of 14 November, and to eradicate the safe haven they have established over significant parts of Iraq and Syria”
The result:
1. Russia with Iran and Hezbollah
2. The 62-nation coalition led by America
3. France reeling from Islamic State atrocities committed in Paris
are now all conducting their own independent mini-wars on different terrorist groups and targets in Syria and Iraq – instead of focusing on their one common agreed enemy – Islamic State.
That a Russian fighter plane could be shot down by Turkey – both members of the ISSG – highlights the continuing folly of failing to have one military force under one military commander with the full support of all 193 United Nation member States.

Even more amazingly Resolution 2249 was passed despite this warning from Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on 18 November:
“The Security Council needs to give preferential attention to the task of creating a solid legal foundation for the fight against this evil [Islamic State] and for the mobilization of an actual global coalition in response to this common uncompromising challenge for us all”.
Russia must now be ruing its decision to support the passage of Resolution 2249 – rather than insisting on the Security Council passing a Resolution under article 42 of the UN Charter directed specifically at Islamic State to:
“take such action by air, sea, or land forces as may be necessary to maintain or restore international peace and security. Such action may include demonstrations, blockade, and other operations by air, sea, or land forces of Members of the United Nations.” 
Article 43 of the Charter would then have obliged:
1. All Members of the United Nations to undertake to make available to the Security Council armed forces, assistance, and facilities, including rights of passage
2. Agreements being made governing the numbers and types of forces, their degree of readiness and general location, and the nature of the facilities and assistance to be provided – such agreements to be negotiated as soon as possible on the initiative of the Security Council.
How many more atrocities and military misadventures must occur before the Security Council gets really serious on destroying Islamic State with its own UN-authorized global military force?

Tuesday 24 November 2015

"They're Finding It Antisemitic," London policewoman warns anti-Israel chanters (video)

In London, a bunch of usual suspects, addressed by the familiar Sandra, demonstrate at the weekend outside the venue at which the Jerusalem Quartet is playing.

At the beginning of the video we see an elderly gentleman angrily snatch the Palestinian flag just as  the demonstrators are about to raise it on their flagpole.

Their subsequent screams of "From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be free," that vile war cry meaning that the Jewish State must be eradicated, and thus denying Jewish rights to self-determination in the Jewish homeland, proves too much for some Jewish concert-goers, who complain to a policewoman that the phrase, with its inherent concept, is antisemitic.

The policewoman warns the little gaggle of usual suspects that the complainants could report their chanting as "a hate crime," should they care to do so.


(Video by BDS activist Alex Seymour)

Monday 23 November 2015

David Singer: Israel's History Trumps European Union Labelling Laws

Here's the latest article from Sydney lawyer and international affairs analyst David Singer.

He writes:

Jewish history spanning 3000 years is set to trump the European Union’s (EU) unprecedented action requiring the way goods are labelled originating from four areas of territory disputed between Arabs and Jews – the West Bank, Golan Heights, East Jerusalem and Gaza.

Similar labelling requirements have not been stipulated by the EU for products emanating from 150 other disputed territories around the world - inviting the charge of Jew-hatred against the EU for introducing this territory-specific policy smacking of double standards and blatant racial discrimination. The aims of the new labelling requirements as set out in the European Commission’s Interpretative Notice (the Notice) – indicate they are not limited to consumer protection – as America’s State Department falsely claims – but also extend to advancing the EU political stance adopted on these four territories following their loss to Israel by Jordan, Egypt and Syria in the 1967 Six Day War: 
“There is indeed a demand for clarity from consumers, economic operators and national authorities about existing Union legislation on origin information of products from Israeli-occupied territories. The aim is also to ensure the respect of Union positions and commitments in conformity with international law on the non-recognition by the Union of Israel’s sovereignty over the territories occupied by Israel since June 1967."
Promoting the EU’s political position under the guise of introducing consumer protection labelling laws is reprehensible. The Notice gives credence to the infamous anti-Israel BDS campaign operating in these four territories by inexplicably and unnecessarily introducing the term “Palestine” into its content:
“For products from Palestine that do not originate from settlements, an indication which does not mislead about the geographical origin, while corresponding to international practice, could be 'product from the West Bank (Palestinian product)' , ‘product from Gaza’ or 'product from Palestine'." 
The EU sinks further into the political quicksand of the 47-years-old conflict involving these territories with this bizarre footnote:
“This designation [Palestine] shall not be construed as recognition of a State of Palestine and is without prejudice to the individual positions of the Member States on this issue.”
Jurgen Hardt from German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s ruling Christian Democratic Union asserts:
"The decision to label products from the West Bank is not a step for consumer protection, but will lead to the creation of stigma against Israel"  
Hungary’s foreign minister Péter Szijjártó, terms the Commission’s labelling requirements “irrational” – not contributing to solving the conflict but causing more problems and damage.

Fulvio Martusciello – Chairman, European Parliament Delegation for Relations with Israel – states that the labelling requirement is a mistake and that many European nations are having second thoughts about the wisdom of the EU decision.

The EU Notice contains these reassuring words of comfort:
“This notice also aims at maintaining open and smooth trade, is not hindering trade flows and should not be construed to do so.”
Accepting this EU expression of magnanimous goodwill at face value, Israel should label Jewish products originating from the “the West Bank” as originating from “Judea and Samaria” – the correct historical, biblical and geographical names used for 3000 years until Jordan invaded and illegally annexed Judea and Samaria – designating them the “West Bank” in 1950.

A few labelling ideas spring to mind:
1. “Made by Jews in Judea and Samaria – the ancient biblical homeland of the Jewish people”
2. “Produced by Jews in Judea and Samaria – heartland of the Jewish National Home”
Similar labelling could identify the Jewish source of Golan and East Jerusalem products.
The EU’s stated concern for consumer protection would be unequivocally satisfied – without prejudicing Israel’s claims to these disputed territories.

The EU has opened a can of worms.

"But People of Every Faith Do Bad Things" (video)

Cultural relativism rampant! 

And from a woman, too!

Annoyingly shrill Christia Freeland, a Canadian MP (Justin Trudeau's Minister for International Trade, in fact), gets very upset indeed when the talk show host Bill Maher declares that the idea that all religions are" the same" is "bullshit"and cites as an example the misogyny inherent in the Islamic religion and culture...

"... We in Canada are not going to say that Muslims are worse than Christians or worse than Jews ... Their culture is not worse ... Are you going to say that the Muslim faith is worse than other people's? ...You saying their ideas are bad?".

Saturday 21 November 2015

Stinkers Out of Bedford (updated)

A tinker out of Bedford,
A vagrant oft in quod,
A private under Fairfax,
A minister of God

Two hundred years and thirty
Ere Armageddon came
His single hand portrayed it,
And Bunyan was his name!


Thus wrote Rudyard Kipling in his poem "The Holy War" (1917) of John Bunyan, author of A Pilgrim's Progress.

Not too many Christian pilgrims featured in this must-see piece, I fear, nor much of progress either.

And certainly no traces of what Bunyan, Kipling and we ourselves might conceive of as a "holy war".


What's the world coming to?

We may well ask.

There's a not very comforting suggestion here

Oh, and in the "shome mishtake shurely" department, this

Meanwhile, an unmissable article that I missed

And more great graphics from Edgar Davidson

As well as the links regarding the Paris atrocities that that veritable bloodhound Ian provides in the comments section of my previous post.

More stinkers: anthropologists in America vote for BDS

Green slime oozing ... ("Isis funded by Rothschilds")

Friday 20 November 2015

De Nile is in Seine (video)

This long video is a must-see/hear, after reading my previous post.

It illustrates in microcosm "an enormous political agenda at work" among lefty political elites and, in interviews with liberal and Muslim Parisians regarding the recent atrocities, includes this misguided guy:



This was January:


And now?

Brilliant.

Paris: Edgar Charts A Mindset

It's reported here that Professor Farid Esack of the University of Johannesburg’s Centre for the Study of Democracy, declared in a Facebook post:
“I am not praying for Paris; I am not condemning anyone. Why the hell should I? I had nothing to do with it. I am sickened by the perpetual expectations to condemn. I walk away from your shitty racist and Islamophobic expectations that whenever your chickens come home to roost then I must feign horror. Stop supporting and funding terror outfits, get out of other people’s lands and continents, stop outlawing peaceful resistance such as Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) Movement, to occupations, abandon your cultural imperialism, destroy your arms industry that provides the weapons that kill hundreds of thousands of others every year. The logic is quite simple: When you eat, it’s stupid to expect that no shit will ever come out from your body. Yes, I feel sorry for the victims on whom the shit falls. But, bloody hell, own it; it’s yours!” 
 What he said is not extraordinary, of course.

Listen, for instance, to a British Muslim spokesman on the BBC's "Moral Maze" program here

Note how quickly Israel is mentioned.

 Blogger Edgar Davidson has provided a helpful guide to the mindset, introducing it thus:
"In the light of the Paris attacks many people have been bemused at multiple contradictions in what many Muslims (and leftists) have been saying. For example, on one hand many believe Mossad carried out the attacks, but on the other hand they also believe the attacks are the inevitable result of Muslims being 'persecuted' by Israel and other Western countries.  So, here is a reminder of a simple chart which clearly shows how rational many Muslims (and leftists) really are about politics."
 See his chart here



This article, entitled "America: Your Solidarity with Paris is Embarrassingly Misguided," has been warmly recommended on Facebook by some of the usual suspects, and contains the line "I mourn for Palestinians, whose land was usurped — and whose lives and infrastructure and families and sense of security and HOMES are under siege and occupation by an illegal and actively terrorist State."

Gee, the Left are the race obsessives!  And reverse racists to boot.

What a load of ordure somebody called Lulu Nunn deposited in The Independent the other day, forgetting that Paris is not an exclusively (whisper it) a white city.

More ordure here


If these people are so concerned with showing sympathy for non-Europeans they could begin by showing sympathy with Israel, where a very large proportion of the population is of Mizrahi heritage.  After all, look at all the terrorism that the Israelis have had to endure since 1948: statistics  here.  (Hat tip: Ian G)

Wednesday 18 November 2015

Paris: Altogether now, "Nothing to do with Islam" ... or is it? (videos)

To the previous post, by David Singer, entitled " Syria and Islamic State – America Capitulates, UN Security Council Procrastinates," I've appended a video in which Islamic monsters threaten the United States.


Here are three further videos:

This one from British Home Secretary Theresa May, declaring in the House of Commons that the Paris atrocities have "nothing to do with Islam:


 This one, in which Al Beeb's Andrew Marr (too prone to inject his own five cents' worth, in my view) interviews Labour heavyweight (although not literally so heavy as he once was) Lord Faulkner about Jeremy Corbyn's reactions to the Paris atrocities and what the Labour Party's policy really is, and after Lord Faulkner Marr speaks to Theresa May about where relevant governmental policy is headed:


And this one, showing some Turkish football spectators showing marked disrespect during a minute's silence for the Parisian victims of the terrorists; remember the video here showing more Turks behaving badly?


David Singer: Syria and Islamic State – America Capitulates, UN Security Council Procrastinates

Here's the latest article by Sydney lawyer and international affairs analyst David Singer.

He writes:
 
President Obama has finally abandoned his 2011 policy calling for Syria’s President Assad to step aside and allow the future of Syria to be determined by its people –  opening the way to a UN-led process on the political future of Syria being undertaken without first removing Assad. Russia’s Foreign Minister – Sergey Lavrov – had criticised Obama’s stance as recently as 2 June 2015:
'The U.S.’s “obsession” with [Syria’s President] Assad isn’t helping in the common fight against the threat from Islamic State…
People put the fate of one person whom they hate above the fight against terrorism. Islamic State can go “very far” unless stopped, and air strikes alone “are not going to do the trick”
If people continue to acquiesce with what is going on and continue to acquiesce with those who categorically refuse to start the political process until Bashar Assad disappears, then I’m not very optimistic for the future of this region…'
 Marie Harf, a US State Department spokeswoman, responded:
“We’re certainly not going to coordinate with a brutal dictator who’s massacred so many of his own citizens. That’s just an absurd proposition. That’s certainly not going to happen.”
Less than five months later that “absurd proposition” has come to fruition.

The International Syria Support Group (ISSG) meeting in Vienna on 14 November – attended by US Secretary of State John Kerry – agreed
“on the need to convene Syrian government and opposition representatives in formal negotiations under UN auspices, as soon as possible, with a target date of January 1“ 
Lavrov elaborated at a joint press conference with Kerry beside him:
“We have reiterated that Syrian future will be decided by Syrian people alone. This regards also the destiny of Mr. Assad and any other politician in this country.”
Lavrov stated that UN Special Envoy Staffan de Mistura would get the opposition and government together by 1 January for political negotiations – and continued:
“The Government of the Syrian Arab Republic has already informed Mr. de Mistura on the composition of their delegation. And today, Mr. de Mistura has the task to find the composition of the Syrian opposition delegation, which should be representative and reflect the whole spectrum of political forces.”
It will be nothing short of a miracle if Mr De Mistura can pull this rabbit out of the hat by 1 January.

Nevertheless it does at last signify an international will and consensus on the way forward to ending a conflict that has claimed 300000 lives and created a flood of 7 million externally and internally displaced refugees during the last four years.

The ISSG further reiterated that Islamic State, Nusra and other terrorist groups as designated by the UN Security Council, and further, as agreed by the ISSG participants and endorsed by the UN Security Council, must be defeated.

Jordan was appointed to develop a commonly agreed list of terrorist organisations by 1 January.

This foot-dragging takes the heat off any unified military action to target Islamic State following the recent Russian airliner explosion and the Paris atrocities this week.

Nevertheless, Lavrov was predicting that following his meetings with some unnamed ISSG members:
“I have a feeling that there was a growing understanding that there is a terrible need for efficient, comprehensive, international coalition to fight ISIS and other terrorists, as President Putin has said. And there are no prerequisites in this regard.”
Any international coalition to fight Islamic State can only be achieved through a UN Security Council Resolution.

Since the five Permanent Members of the Security Council are also members of the ISSG – such a Resolution cannot come quickly enough.

Note from Daphne: this video is not part of David's article:



Tuesday 17 November 2015

In Australia, Muslims Eye Senate Seats

The cartoon below, screenshot by Reader P soon after it appeared on Sunday (heaven knows how many "Likes" it may have by now) has no direct connection to the subject of this post, but I thought I'd display it in order to show the depths of depravity to which some people can sink following the atrocities in Paris.

An obscenity posted on Facebook
The founder of a so-called Australian Muslim Party, with its sights set on winning seats in the Senate, admits that his party's launch could have been better timed.  But after some hesitation he decided to go ahead anyway.

Whether the party will actually get off the ground, so to speak, is another matter, but the founder seems confident it will.

Here's a video (on the left-leaning The Age newspaper, no friend to Israel), in which the founder explains his motive and in which he makes a brief and possibly telling reference to "Palestine".

More in The Guardian.

It was surprising to see, on the Channel Ten News this evening, the urbane Dr Jamal Rifi, Sydney-based leader of and spokesman for the Muslim community, approve this divisive initiative.  If I heard him correctly, he said something along the lines of "It's acceptable; forming political parties is what we do in Muslim countries so why not here?"

Recently The Australian newspaper quoted Dr Rifi as saying that he and the Muslim community are "elated" at Malcolm Turnbull replacing Tony Abbott as prime minister, because Abbott's tough language had offended and alienated Muslims and played into radical hands.  Dr Rifi cited, inter alia, Abbott's decision to admit 12,000 refugees from Syria, but with priority given to Christians, as well as his frequent description of Islamic State as a "death cult" and use of the term "Team Australia," terms that Turnbull has evaded.

Staying with a Muslim theme, Robert Cerantonio is an Aussie of Irish/Italian Catholic heritage who dropped his baptismal name in favour of Musa following his conversion (I'm sorry, "reversion") to the Religion of Peace©

 Earlier this year the Sydney Morning Herald carried a lengthy article about him here

It seemed to present Mr Cerantonio as a bit of a buffoon, despite the authorities taking his Islamic radicalism far more seriously.

Also taking him seriously is American Graeme Wood, who in the course of a long article published last March entitled "What ISIS Really Wants," recalls his meeting with Mr Cerantonio in November last year, having been advised that he is .
'one of the two most important “new spiritual authorities” guiding foreigners to join the Islamic State...'
In an interview with Cerantonio in a multicultural neighbourhood of Melbourne where
 'young Arabs walking around in the Salafi uniform of scraggly beard, long shirt, and trousers ending halfway down the calves' 
Wood learned that Cerantonio
'hates seeing the violence, even though supporters of the Islamic State are required to endorse it. (He speaks out, controversially among jihadists, against suicide bombing, on the grounds that God forbids suicide; he differs from the Islamic State on a few other points as well.) ...
He continues:
Last June, Cerantonio and his wife tried to emigrate—he wouldn’t say to where (“It’s illegal to go to Syria,” he said cagily)—but they were caught en route, in the Philippines, and he was deported back to Australia for overstaying his visa. Australia has criminalized attempts to join or travel to the Islamic State, and has confiscated Cerantonio’s passport... If Cerantonio were caught facilitating the movement of individuals to the Islamic State, he would be imprisoned. So far, though, he is free—a technically unaffiliated ideologue who nonetheless speaks with what other jihadists have taken to be a reliable voice on matters of the Islamic State’s doctrine.
To learn what more Cerantonio said, and the rest of Graeme Wood's article, go to this link


Incidentally, regarding Muslims and their attitude to the Paris atrocities, a thought-provoking piece by a British Muslim here

Monday 16 November 2015

Hamlet Without The Prince At The London School of Economics

One of my favourite British bloggers, the cerebral Mr Davidson, has a must-read post here:

As he has observed:
 "Given the recent furore over anti-Israel 'academic' events at Southampton University and Exeter University, it seems something possibly even worse slipped under the radar: the LSE's Middle East Centre recently ran a workshop about Israel, but only invited anti-Zionist activists to speak"
What is especially commendable is that he doesn't merely blog about such malice; where appropriate he tackles the perpetrators demanding answers ...

Paris: How some reacted in Turkey (video)

Seems these blokes are rejoicing at the carnage:


Hat tip: Vlad Tepes blog

Sunday 15 November 2015

Paris: A Corbynista's Viewpoint

Shome mishtake shurely?


Can't be the real Wesley Brown, suggests a friend...

Nous Sommes Tous Parisiens

 Well, most of us are.


In the wake of Friday night's unspeakable atrocities in Paris, there have been suggestions that the Balaclan theatre has been attacked owing to its Jewish ownership; moreover, the American band Eagles of Death Metal had performed in Israel this summer in defiance of the BDSers: read more here

And if your French is up to it:



 Rough translation from the video:
"It's clear now, this is a message to the owners of the Bataclan. Take responsibility for your acts. This is a message to the organisers of Migdal, this pro-Israel and racist and Islamophobic organisation, that spends its time insulting the Palestinians, the Arabs and the Muslims. You are going to pay for the consequences of your acts. You're doing something very serious. For all those who are worried about the consequences of this provocation. It's understood that it causes anger in the suburbs. We have come to send you a little message. Next time we're not coming to talk."
 Shocking video of attacks on Bataclan and people fleeing here, but it might take time to load.

Meanwhile, from the estimable Mudar Zahran, the London-based pro-Israel leader of the Jordanian opposition:



By contrast, predictable gobbledygook from Israel-haters, such as these.  Most if not all of them are lefties.

Free Gaza co-founder Mary Hughes-Thompson, in one of her numerous tweets oozing bile:


 Sydney feminist Pip Hinman:


And Irish anti-Israel activist Sean Clinton and friend:


At least Gorgeous George, seasoned old politico that he is, knows there's a time and a place for everything:


(But see my next post!)

Great article here:



 (Hat tip: Ian G.)

Another here:


Meanwhile, not surprisingly, the usual suspects are cock-a-hoop at the findings of a poll initiated by the lefty "Zionist" group Yachad in the UK, described here and elsewhere:


How very disappointing for them to find that the polling was fundamentally flawed, as Judy Keiner indicates here and as proclaimed below in the Manchester Jewish Telegraph, which notes separately:
"The poll commissioned by Yachad makes surprising reading. It concludes that British Jews had shown "feelings of despair" over Israel and that 75 per cent felt that the building of settlements was an obstacle to peace. The poll, conducted by a respected organisation, obviously used accepted scientific methods devised by psephologists, including a suitable sample. And we do not seek in any way to doubt the integrity of those involved.
Yet, an expert in the field has told the Jewish Telegraph that it appears to show bias. Statistics can always be interpreted in a variety of ways, depending upon who commissioned a poll, thus the oft-used phrase describing the persuasive use of numbers: 'Lies, damned lies and statistics'. In this case, 1,131 Jews were polled and yet we would hazard a guess that a straw poll of the community at all levels would not agree with Yachad's conclusions.
If the Jewish Telegraph's correspondence columns are anything to go by - and they tend to reflect fairly accurately the feelings of the northern and Scottish communities among which we circulate - readers have not expressed despair over Israel in the past 12 months or so and have not been overly critical of the state's settlements' policy."
(Hat tip: D.B.)

And London 7/7