Here we go again...

The national executive committee of my union is once again gearing up to boycott Israelis (and only Israelis) from UK campuses. Here, together with David Hirsh's typically astute fisking. At the forefront, once again, is Tom Hickey of the Socialist Workers' Party, who has in the past spoken in front of a reading list which includes the works of Holocaust Denier Roger Garaudy. You think I believe him when he says he's not motivated by antisemitism?

Selah

This blog will now be resting until April. I'm off to Israel next week (my first trip - can't wait), where among other things I'll be checking out the Voice in the Wilderness Congregation in Jerusalem.

This year, Good Friday and Purim fall on the same day (21 March). As you remember God's wonderful plan of rescue, remember to pray that the Jewish people, as a nation, will yet "look upon... him whom they have pierced", "mourn for him, as one mourns for an only child, and weep bitterly over him, as one weeps over a firstborn," and yet embrace the fountain that cleanses from sin and uncleanness.

The Longest Hatred 25

'Today, more than 60 years after the Holocaust, anti-Semitism is not just a fact of history, it is a current event' . Anti-semitism on the rise globally, here.

Irene Lancaster on Christian Aid

Here. It's great.

Stephen Sizer: critics and admirers

David Hirsh quite properly identifies Rev Sizer's use of an antisemitic motif here: "People that stand against the hatred of Israel have a right to organise politically without being de-legitimised in the language of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, as 'the people in the shadows'."

On the other hand, Rev Sizer is, it seems, warmly admired by a range of neo-Nazis and white supremacists, here.

A nice bit of Jewish eschatology

Hat tip: Rory Shiner

Iran trains Hamas

Here.

Israel defends herself, the UK media condemns her

Here.

The Zionists are responsible!

This is funny. Click here for solid proof that the Zionists are responsible for.. well, pretty much anything. I wonder whether Stephen Sizer, that self-proclaimed opponent of all forms of antisemitism, used a technique like this when insinuating (in a book which has been warmly endorsed by many evangelical leaders) that Israelis were complicit in 9/11?*

* S. Sizer, Christian Zionism: Roadmap to Armageddon? (IVP, 2004), p. 251 footnote 170.

With friends like these...

Mahmoud Abbas, so often described as a Palestinian "moderate", who apparently favours a two-state solution, refuses to rule out returning to "the armed struggle" against Israel [did he ever leave the armed struggle in the first place?]; boasts of having fired "the first shot [against Israel, on behalf of the PLO] in 1965" (when the Palestinians were occupied by Jordan, not Israel), and boasts of his pride in the fact that Fatah trained Hizbullah: here.

Is it any wonder that peace between Israel and the Palestinians is so elusive?

Citizenship of Israeli Messianic Jews under threat

An update letter from Michael Decker who works with Calev Myers of the Jerusalem Institute for Justice:


Lately a very disturbing situation has been occurring whereby the Minister of Interior has attempted to revoke the citizenship of Jewish believers who have immigrated into Israel in accordance with the Law of Return. The main claim is that these people have immigrated into Israel on the basis of falsified information.

According to the current legal situation in Israel, the authority to begin the procedure of revoking a person's citizenship is given to the Minister of Interior. The Minister of Interior then gathers the evidence whereupon he decides to revoke a person's citizenship and also makes the decision based on the evidence that he himself gathers. Furthermore, the final process of executing the final decision is also given exclusively to the Minister of Interior. By right (de jure), the law itself does not provide any appeal procedure.

This situation is very disturbing and it has a direct effect on the local Messianic community in Israel since many well known Israeli Messianic leaders have received such notices from the Ministry of Interior.

The Jerusalem Institute of Justice wishes to change this disturbing legal situation and we believe that such a change is possible. We intend to utilize various examples of mistakes made by the Ministry of Interior wherein an attempt was made to revoke a person's citizenship based on falsified information which the person had presented, when in reality this person did not present falsified information at all and has basically been a victim to this unrestrained authority granted to the Minister of Interior.

In order to publish this information, we would need to hire a lobbying company who would post articles and news broadcasts including true stories of mistakes made by the Minister of Interior, while at the same time we would submit an amendment to the two existing sections in the Law of Citizenship and in the Law of entry into Israel which grants the Minister of Interior this authority.

We will propose that this right be stripped from the Minister of Interior and given to the judicial authorities. If a registration clerk desires to revoke a person's citizenship, it should not be done in a closed, hidden or secretive manner. We believe that a proper process would be for the Ministry of Interior to submit a letter of indictment before a court of justice, which would thereby give a citizen the chance to defend himself. Subsequently, a neutral judge would decide according to the evidence, presented before him by both parties.

If this amendment passes, then the Ministry of Interior will be obligated to write a statement of claim accusing a person merely because of his religious beliefs. It goes without saying that such a prerequisite would prevent the Ministry of Interior from beginning a procedure to revoke the citizenship of a person merely because of his religious worldview.

We estimate that such a venture would end up costing approximately $150,000 USD - $200,000 USD. Please consider partnering with us in this extremely important campaign. We also believe that this is a very urgent matter that should not be deferred.

Let us continue to work together to advance civil rights, freedom of religion and social justice in our great nation. Thank you again for your meaningful support and prayers.

We are making available online an article that I wrote which further describes the legal situation regarding citizenship revocation in Israel. To view this article as a .pdf document:

Click the 'Revocation of Citizens' article link.

Sincerely Yours,

Michael Decker, Senior Legal Activist

"Palestinian Christians live in constant fear"

Let's not forget to pray for our Palestinian brethren in their sufferings:

"It is well known that Christian Palestinians who have been subject to firebombings, seizures of homes and businesses, assaults and death threats still tell foreign visitors that they have excellent relations with their Muslim neighbours. After the foreigners go home, these Christians must remain, and are loath to give any reason for jihadist extremists to think that they are stirring up trouble.

And so it goes -- news trickles out about one outrage or another, but it gets lost if it gets noticed at all. Meanwhile, Christians in Gaza and the West Bank try to live quietly, never knowing whether a newspaper in Denmark or a papal speech in Germany or nothing in particular might be the pretext for violence coming to their doors.

It is an awful way to live. It is more awful still that so few know, or care about it."

"We don't serve Jews"

CHIILLING account of lurid antisemitism in Belgium, here. It makes my blood run cold.

The sickening reality of evangelical antisemitism

I've posted on this before, here.

Richard Gibson writes on the well-known British Christian leader who once asked him, incredulously, if he "liked Jews", here.

I want to come back to this in future posts: there is, sad to say, more of it around than most evangelicals (I suspect) would either realise or dare to acknowledge.

Sermons everyone should listen to

Richard Gibson on "Romans from a Hebrew Perspective", here: it's fantastic!

Mike Moore on "How the West was won: the triumph of Palestinian propaganda", here: it's also fantastic!

The Longest Hatred 24: "The Livingstone Formulation"

[Taken from David Hirsh's piece here]

The Livingstone Formulation has become an absolutely standard response to a charge of antisemitism. It is a rhetorical device which enables the user to refuse to think about antisemitism. It is a mirror which bounces back an accusation, magnified, against anybody who makes it. It sends back a charge of dishonest Jewish conspiracy in answer to a concern about antisemitism.

Ken Livingstone, the Mayor of London, wrote: ‘for far too long the accusation of antisemitism has been used against anyone who is critical of the policies of the Israeli government'. The Livingstone Formulation does two things.

Firstly, it denies that there is a distinction between criticism of Israel and demonization of Israel. Criticism of Israeli human rights abuses is not only legitimate, it is entirely appropriate. Demonization, for example, which singles out Israel for unique loathing, or which claims that Israel is apartheid or Nazi or essentially racist, or which characterizes Israel as a child-killing state, or a state which is responsible for wars around the world, or a state which is central to global imperialism, is not the same thing as criticism of Israeli government policies.

Secondly, the Livingstone Formulation does not simply accuse anyone who raises the issue of contemporary antisemitism of being wrong, but it also accuses them of bad faith: ‘the accusation of antisemitism has been used against anyone who is critical...' [my italics]. Not an honest mistake then, but a secret, common plan to try to de-legitimize criticism with an instrumental use of the charge of antisemitism. Crying wolf. Playing the antisemitism card. The Livingstone Formulation is both a straw-man argument and a charge of ‘Zionist' conspiracy. It is itself an antisemitic claim. Its regular appearance is also, in itself, evidence that antisemitic ways of thinking are becoming unexceptional in contemporary mainstream discourse.

In February 2005, Ken Livingstone became embroiled in an apparently trivial late night argument with a reporter, Oliver Finegold, after a party at City Hall. Finegold asked him how the party was. Livingstone became angry because he felt Finegold was intruding. After a little banter to and fro, he asked Finegold whether he had been a ‘German war criminal' before becoming a reporter. Finegold replied that he hadn't, and that he was Jewish, and that he was offended by the suggestion. Livingstone went on to insist that Finegold was behaving just like a ‘German war criminal', that his paper the Evening Standard ‘was a load of scumbags and reactionary bigots' and that it has a record of supporting Fascism.2

What would Livingstone have said had he been speaking with a black journalist? ‘What did you do before, were you a plantation owner?' ‘No, I'm black, I wasn't a plantation owner, and I'm quite offended by that.' ‘Well you might be black but actually you're just like a plantation owner...'

Instead of apologizing for his mildly offensive behaviour and moving on, Livingstone chose over the next few days to treat the publication of this exchange as a political opportunity rather than a gaffe. He wrote an article criticizing Ariel Sharon in which he included the following formulation: ‘For far too long the accusation of antisemitism has been used against anyone who is critical of the policies of the Israeli government, as I have been.'

The Livingstone Formulation alleges that Zionists cry ‘antisemitism' when people criticize Israel. In response to the Finegold incident, Livingstone cried ‘Israel' when being accused of antisemitism. His insults towards Finegold were connected to Israel or to its human rights abuses only inside his own mind.

Livingstone went on to normalize suicide bombing against Israeli civilians. He was to condemn the suicide attacks on the London transport system of 7 July 2007, but, far away, he found suicide attacks on the Israeli transport system to raise more complex issues. ‘Palestinians don't have jet fighters,' he said, ‘they only have their bodies to use as weapons. In that unfair balance, that's what people use.'

Livingstone does more than ‘criticize the policies of the Israeli government'. For decades, he has been part of a movement in the UK which sees Israel as a pariah state with a menacing and malign influence well beyond its borders. In the 1980s Livingstone was associated with the Workers Revolutionary Party, an extreme anti-Zionist group, and was the editor of one of its front newspapers, Labour Herald. As Mayor, Livingstone treats the antisemitic Muslim cleric Yusef al-Qaradawi as an honoured guest of the city, in spite of his repeated antisemitic statements (for example, Qaradawi praised Mel Gibson's movie ‘The Passion of the Christ' on the basis that it exposed "the Jews' crime of bringing Jesus to the crucifixion").

It is rare that Jewish communal or Israeli spokespeople make the evidently false claim that criticism of Israeli policies is necessarily antisemitic. Neither does anybody serious treat criticism as though it was demonization. The contention that criticism is denounced as antisemitic nearly always functions as a straw-man argument. The difficult arguments that some over-enthusiastic ‘critics' of Israel are reluctant to deal with are that criticism of Israel is often expressed using rhetoric or images which resonate with antisemitism; or that criticism often holds Israel to higher standards than other states, and for no morally or politically relevant reason; or that it often employs conspiracy theory; or that it uses demonizing analogies; or that it casts Jews as oppressors; or that criticism is made in such a way as to pick a fight with the vast majority of Jews; or that the word criticism is really being used to stand for discriminatory practices against Israelis or against Jews, such as ‘boycotts'. These much more serious and realistic charges are too often brushed off by blithely employing the Livingstone Formulation: ‘For far too long the accusation of antisemitism has been used against anyone who is critical of the policies of the Israeli government.'

Some good news from Israel

The email below was sent to me by a friend.

Prayer Update – Jan 15, 2008
from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Shalom intercessors and friends!
We thank you for your partnership in the gospel through your prayers for us! God bless you! As you pray, "May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ." - 1 Thes 5:23

I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one— I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me. (John 17: 22-23)

What God is doing!

Thank you with all our hearts for your prayers for the Chanukah Christmas party. God blessed us in many many ways during the throwing and planning of this party. One young woman was brought closer to the Lord. She has been studying and working for peace and reconciliation between Jews and Arabs in the secular realm for a long time and had grown disillusioned as a result. She said seeing what was happening at this party through Jesus Christ and hearing the people's testimonies and exhortations has restored her hope that reconciliation is possible but she said that the only way would be through Jesus. At the end of the party we broke into groups to pray for each other. During this prayer time she wept and said that God was convicting her of some areas in her life. Praise God for the work he is doing in her life and please be in prayer that the Lord would complete the work He has started in her and bring her into a relationship with Him! Also, more praise and thanksgiving to God for a joint meeting of Arab, Jewish and International students at Haifa University that was also a success! :) :)

Please pray :)

• For several young women (in Hebrew U's international school) who we see that satan is working hard at distancing from God. Pray God will give us wisdom in how to encourage them stay close to the One who can truly meet their deepest needs.
  
• For wisdom and open doors for Michele and Dana as they plan and prepare to start an International Students' Bible study.at Rothberg (Hebrew U)..that God will draw the people and stir up in the a hunger and a thirst for the righteousness of the living God.
• For the students from the universities in Jerusalem, Haifa, the North, Natanya, Tel Aviv and Beersheva who are organizing 2 day trips for themselves in February. The purpose of these trips is to bring believing students together for the strengthening of relationships and the building of vision as they enter the coming semester.

Durban II - Canada fights racism not Jews

I've pinched the piece below from Engage. I'm glad to see that Canada are taking a principled stand against the likely agenda of the UN's second world conference against racism, after the first conference in 2001 degenerated into a racist conference against Jews. (@ Rory Shiner - thanks for being a (rare) evangelical who takes antisemitism seriously - but it is inaccurate to argue that antisemitism re-emerged after 9/11 - it was alive and well beforehand. 9/11 in fact overshadowed the sickening antisemitism evident at Durban.) Sadly, but predictably, the British evangelical anti-Zionist Stephen Sizer approvingly cites the Durban 2001 conference in his writings, without any qualifying comment or context whatsoever.

The second UN World Conference Against Racism (Durban II), to take place in 2009, is currently in the planning stage. Despite being organised under the auspices of the reassuringly-titled UN Human Rights Council (which just kicked off the new year with another special session on Israel), the planning committee instils doubt - Iran somehow has a seat and Libya is Chair. Both are members of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference which has been telling its members to suspend ties with Israel for several years. It was in this climate of heightening opposition to Israel that the NGO Forum at Durban I, which dragged itself to a close on September 8th 2001, nearly succeeded in writing racism against Jews out of its official anti-racist statement.

With these things in mind Canada has decided not to attend Durban II, Khabrein reports:

Secretary of State for Multiculturalism and Canadian Identity Jason Kenny Wednesday said Canada would have nothing to do with such a conference that last time ended up promoting racism and intolerance.

"We'll attend any conference that is opposed to racism and intolerance, not those that actually promote racism and intolerance," he told the Canadian press.
Calling the 2001 gathering "a circus of intolerance", Kenney said: "Our considered judgement, having participated in the preparatory meetings, was that we were set for a replay of Durban I. And Canada has no intention of lending its good name and resources to such a systematic promotion of hatred and bigotry."

Indeed, Durban I marks the intensification of anti-Israel activity in Britain. It was hijacked by activists who attempted to use the occupation of Palestinian land as a pretext for excluding antisemitism from recognition as a form of racism. They pressed for a statement that Israel was a 'racist apartheid' state while simultaneously references to antisemitism - anti-Jewish racism - were removed from the statement. Salon reported at the time that the anti-Israel activity was planned and concerted. Predictably, those activists attracted, or included, the kind of people who distribute leaflets saying that 'Hitler should have finished the job' and shout things like "Kill Jews".

The conference ran on for a day after it was scheduled to end and the statement was eventually amended after a majority voted to remove the references to Israel as racist and apartheid from the NGO statement. Self-styled anti-racists with phoney exceptionalist values consider this turn-around to have been the result of Zionist pressure. In fact it was due to the stand taken by appalled genuine anti-racists to preserve recognition that hatred of Jews exists as a form of racism which predates Israel, exists independently of Israel and cannot - classic bit of victim blame - be laid at the door of Israeli policy.

Israel has been called a racist state by the UN before, for 16 years in 1975. The General Assembly passed Resolution 3379 Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, sponsored by 25 states who stated that “the racist regime in occupied Palestine and the racist regime in Zimbabwe and South Africa have a common imperialist origin, forming a whole and having the same racist structure and being organically linked in their policy aimed at repression of the dignity and integrity of the human being” and “determin[ing] that Zionism is a form of racism and racial discrimination”. It was revoked in 1991 with miniscule motion 46/86.

Above all Zionism is a response by people of different ethnicities and religions to anti-Jewish racism. Defining Zionism as racism in a so-called anti-racist statement which simultaneously denies reference to antisemitism was ludicrous, appalling and impossible to misunderstand. Nothing has changed in the intervening period.

This is why Canada has made an early assessment that Durban II is probably not going to be worth attending. The question is whether anti-Israel activists are really prepared to squander an opportunity to unite member states in opposition to racism everywhere - Darfur, Zimbabwe, Sri Lanka, Israel and many other countries where racism needs urgent attention - for the sake of trying to destroy the world's only Jewish country.

Background in the Jerusalem Post; more from the Associated Press

"Mainline churches embrace Burge's false narrative"

CAMERA critique various apparent distortions and factual inaccuracies in Christian anti-Zionist Gary Burge's influential book Whose Land? Whose Promises? here. I hope CAMERA's piece gets a wide readership. It concludes: "Two important questions raised by Whose Land? Whose Promise? are whether Israelis are entitled to have people speak about their state in a fair and factual manner and whether or not Jews have the “right to be ordinary.” These questions are at the root of Christian discourse about the Arab-Israeli conflict."

Gaza - Occupied Territory?

This piece, focussing on how international NGOs apply a double standard to Israel, comes from today's Jerusalem Post.

Prisoners of Gaza By ERIK SCHECHTER


The IDF posts are gone. The settlements are gone. Hamas even declared Gaza liberated. Yet two-and-a-half years after the disengagement, at least one local human rights group still considers the Strip occupied. And, surprisingly, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International agree.

In a report entitled "Disengaged Occupiers," Gisha - Legal Center for Freedom of Movement writes: "Israel's withdrawal of settlements and its permanent military ground installations from the Gaza Strip did not end Israeli control of Gaza but rather changed the way in which such control is effectuated."

It all sounds so fascinating, so subversive. But what about that little document called the 1907 Hague Regulations?

Article 42 clearly states that territory is occupied when "under the authority of the hostile army." Now the lawyers may quibble over how far ahead of the invading troops the law of occupation extends. But, basically, it's boots in - military occupation; boots out - no military occupation.

To get around this, Gisha displays an impressive level of creativity. First, it argues that technological advances like drones, gunships and laser-guided missiles have shattered the old paradigm. Second, the group notes that the IDF still occupies the West Bank, and the Oslo Accords consider the territories one unit.

Besides, the issue is not troops but "effective control," adds Gisha. Israel may only have close-circuit cameras at the Rafah crossing, but we limit the entry of people and goods into Gaza. We also set the customs rates, verify Palestinian IDs, and withhold tax money. If Israel wants to bottle up the Strip for 148 days, it can - and it has.

If Gisha is right, then Gaza becomes our little bedraggled ward. We must let the Palestinians import and export goods, if not through Rafah, then through Israel. We must supply the Hamas government with electricity until it repairs the transformers destroyed in June 2006. We have to do all this, and more.

Of course, the alternative is to open Gaza to the world and watch the rockets, guns and bombs flood the Strip.

ADMITTEDLY, no one likes being called the O-word. That's why the UN and NATO frame their non-belligerent occupations as "peacekeeping missions." Still, there are good reasons why we ought to reject Gisha's notion of occupation: It is disconnected from reality, conceptually weak and only applied to Israel.

First, despite Gisha's lavish praise of hi-tech weapons, they do not keep public order, pick up the trash, or perform any other government task. Nor is our well-stocked army in any position to quickly reassert Israeli rule in Gaza. That's why, after 1,000 or so Palestinian rocket attacks, we have not reconquered the place.

That said, we do assert authority over taxes, customs and ID cards. And there is Rafah. We retain a voice over what goes on at the crossing, but our power is almost all on paper. It is the Egyptians who really control the border, and if they want to let Hamas smugglers into Gaza (as they did two weeks ago), they can.

A SECOND, equally crucial point raised by Gisha is the nature of the territories. True, the Oslo Accords did hold them to be one political entity, but since the Hamas takeover of the Strip in June 2007, they are no longer so. Thus, the idea that Israel can control Gaza City via Ramallah is untenable.

Ultimately, the NGO report comes off vague and arbitrary. Israel is guilty, of course, but we are not sure why. The group offers no formula for how much "indirect control" makes an occupation. Nor it does explain how our domination of Gazan airspace and waters differs from an ordinary blockade.

That others would adopt a similar approach to Gisha is all the more jarring given how Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International usually address conflicts around the globe. Indeed, most other military occupations ( i.e., foreign rule, troops and settlers) go unremarked upon by the human rights community.

Take the case of the Western Sahara. In October 1975, the International Court of Justice ruled that this Spanish colony had the right to self-determination. However, Spain had other plans. The outgoing colonial power cut a side deal with Morocco and Mauritania, and in April 1976, the two states annexed Western Sahara.

The hard-fighting Sahrawi rebels forced Mauritania to withdraw in 1979. But it was Morocco - not the local nationalist movement - that took control of the evacuated areas. Confronted with this new reality, the UN General Assembly issued two resolutions that recognized Western Sahara as under Moroccan occupation.

Curiously, none of this registers with Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International. Both groups insist on calling Western Sahara a "disputed territory" or "Moroccan-administered" - anything but "occupied." This legal conservatism stands in stark contrast to the super-elastic category used for Gaza.

EXPLAINING the contradiction, Human Rights Watch legal adviser James Ross tells me that his group uses terms "widely accepted" by the international community. True, interested parties often shape this discourse, but not to worry: The law, not the label, is what counts. And human rights law is applied to Western Sahara.

However, Ross admits that the laws of occupation are not applied. So while human rights groups count our closed-circuit cameras at Rafah, they ignore 200,000 Moroccan settlers living in Western Sahara. We get slapped for not feeding Hamas-run Gaza, but Morocco can happily deplete Sahrawi fish stocks and phosphate mines.

Obviously, this myopic obsession with Gaza cannot continue. First, it chains Israel to a make-believe occupation. Second, it confirms the Palestinian conceit that they are victims of forces beyond their control. Third, it overlooks very real occupations across the globe. Finally, it does violence to very concept of equality before the law.

NOW, BEFORE you get out the pitchforks and torches, let me say a word about the human rights community. They are good people. But they are just people, and, like the rest of us, they too can make errors in judgment - sometimes very serious ones. We need to keep human rights groups on track, not tear them down.

Donors, sympathizers and due-paying members ought to petition their organizations to be more forthright in outing occupiers. Academics can likewise be recruited to the cause. After all, few scholars deny that Pakistan conquered a part of Kashmir, or that China has swamped Tibet with settlers.

Once human rights groups commit themselves to using a reasonable and consistent definition of occupation in their reports, it will be harder for states to play politics in international fora. Then, who knows? We might just end up with something that resembles international law.

The writer is a former military correspondent of The Jerusalem Post.