Résumé : Des milliers d'islamistes et de laïques, en désaccord sur la place à accorder à l'islam dans la Tunisie de l'après-Ben Ali, ont organisé samedi des manifestations parallèles devant l'Assemblée constituante à Tunis. Ce alors que le pays est en proie à une situation sociale explosive et une économie en berne.
Sunday, 4 December 2011
Matthew Gould - serving the Zionist master
There is a curious fuss about the comments of Labour's Paul Flynn MP, who suggested that Matthew Gould is an inappropriate choice for British Ambassador to Israel, because he is, er... Jewish.
Mr Flynn has reportedly been carpeted by Labour Chief Whip Rosie Winterton, rebuked by Edward Miliband, and sent to Coventry by his Labour colleagues.
Mr Gould is the UK's first Jewish envoy to Israel. Mr Flynn raised the ages-old question of divided loyalties: the political dilemma of serving (or being perceived as serving) two masters. Mr Flynn said: “No Jewish diplomat has held the post before because of concerns that it might lead to a conflict of interest, or at the very least create the impression of dual loyalty. Given these traditional concerns, Gould was a strange choice. He is a self-declared Zionist who has cultivated an image that led the Forward, the most prominent Jewish newspaper in the US, to describe him recently as ‘not just an ambassador’.”
Mr Flynn is firmly of the opinion that the post should be filled by 'someone with roots in the UK (who) can't be accused of having Jewish loyalty'.
This is curious.
If Mr Flynn is preoccupied with 'traditional concerns', why did he not object to the appointment of Francis Campbell, the UK's first Roman Catholic ambassador to the Holy See since the Reformation? That particular potential divided loyalty has rather more historic resonance than any Jewish treason or plot against the British State. Would Mr Flynn object to Roman Catholic convert Ann Widdecombe being appointed to the Holy See? Might she not conspire with the cardinals to abolish contraception and outlaw abortion in the UK? Would Mr Flynn object to Sayeeda Warsi being appointed ambassador to Pakistan? That is not an unlikely future posting for her, but would she pass Norman Tebbit's 'cricket test? And what of Labour's Shahid Malik, who appears to favour the total islamification of Britain within the next 30 years? Or Sadiq Khan, determined to subsume Britain's justice system to sharia? Are they serving Allah or Her Majesty?
Why is it that Paul Flynn raises the need for a religio-political 'Test Act' upon Jews, but has never once questioned the potential divided loyalties of Muslims or Roman Catholics? Why is Mr Flynn concerned only with Zionist conspiracy? Is it because talk of 'papist plots' and 'political Islam' might offend minorities? It is bizarre indeed that, having incrementally abolished restrictions upon Nonconformists and Roman Catholics holding public office, Paul Flynn seeks to render Jews ineligible for postings which relate to Israel.
As it happens, His Grace thinks such questions may be pertinent, and MPs ought to be free to express concerns and reservations. But the fact that Paul Flynn singles out the Jews is undeniably and undoubtedly anti-Semitic, no matter how 'friendly' he professes to be towards Israel.
http://archbishop-cranmer.blogspot.com/2011/12/matthew-gould-serving-zionist-master.html?
Obama Ambassador Under Fire For Blaming Israel For Muslim Anti-Semitism
U.S. Embassy in Belgium
U.S. Ambassador to Belgium Howard Gutman.
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/12/04/obama-ambassador-under-fire-for-blaming-israel-for-muslim-anti-semitism/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+foxnews%2Fpolitics+%28Internal+-+Politics+-+Text%29#ixzz1fbNjxq4i
Republicans are urging President Obama to reconsider his ambassador to Belgium after the ambassador told a conference in Europe that Israel is causing a new and understandable strain of anti-Semitism among Muslims in Europe, altogether separate from traditional hatred of Jews.
Speaking to the European Jewish Union and an association of Jewish lawyers in Brussels, Ambassador Howard Gutman said a distinction should be made between traditional anti-Semitism, which is the purview of people who hate everyone and not just Jews, and Arab and Muslim hatred for Jews, which can be explained by an inability to reach a two-state solution in Israel.
"There is significant anger and resentment and, yes, perhaps sometimes hatred and indeed sometimes an all too growing intimidation and violence directed at Jews generally as a result of the continuing tensions between Israel and the Palestinian territories and other Arab neighbors in the Middle East," Gutman told the group, according to a transcript of his remarks published in the European Jewish Press.
Gutman, who is Jewish and described how his father survived the Nazi occupation of Poland, also shared a video of himself receiving a warm welcome at a Muslim school in Brussels, and said it showed proof that Muslims are not anti-Semitic in general.
Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper in Israel reported that Gutman's distinction of Muslim hatred toward Jews and "classic bigotry" stunned the audience.
Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney said Obama "must fire" Gutman for "rationalizing and downplaying anti-Semitism and linking it to Israeli policy toward the Palestinians."
"The ambassador's comments demonstrate the Obama administration's failure to understand the worldwide campaign to delegitimize Israel and its appalling penchant for undermining our close ally,” said Romney.
Republican Jewish Coalition Executive Director Matthew Brooks said Gutman's logic offers a distinction without a difference.
"The remarks reportedly made by President Obama's Ambassador to Belgium are outrageous," Brooks said in a statement. "The linkage in the ambassador's remarks, blaming Israel for anti-Semitism, is a short step from the linkage that President Obama has expressed several times himself, that Israel is to blame for the unrest and instability in the Middle East. Both forms of linkage are fundamentally wrong.
"Unfortunately, this administration's policies of 'daylight' and pressure toward our ally Israel encourage the dangerously misguided tendency to make excuses for anti-Semitic hatred and bigotry," he said.
Brooks added that the administration, which has distanced itself from Gutman's remarks, should reconsider whether Gutman is an appropriate representative of the U.S.
Gutman, who was a bundler for Obama in 2008 and raised $500,000, later reportedly said he regretted that his Nov. 30 remarks were misinterpreted.
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/12/04/obama-ambassador-under-fire-for-blaming-israel-for-muslim-anti-semitism/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+foxnews%2Fpolitics+%28Internal+-+Politics+-+Text%29#ixzz1fbNRMH00
‘Lawfare’ Weapon Fights European Anti-Semitism
European Jewish lawyers have launched a ”lawfare” project to fight anti-Semitism. Prosor: Use the tools that are used against us.
By Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu
First Publish: 12/4/2011, 9:38 AM
Ambassador Ron Prosor
Israel news photo: Wikimedia Commons/Embassy of Israel, London
European Jewish lawyers have launched a ”lawfare” project to fight anti-Semitism, modeling the program on the American-based Anti-Defamation League (ADL).
Jewish legal experts announced the program at a conference of Jewish lawyers in Brussels last week, theEuropean Jewish Press reported.
A task force was established “in light of the increasing and constant growth of anti-Semitism in the whole of Europe and the campaign to delegitimize Israel using traditional and new forms as well as legal means," a resolution said.
The task force comprises five lawyers from France, Germany and Britain.
Ron Prosor, Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations and formerly the envoy in Britain, told the conference, "One should begin to stand up and use the tools that are used against us.”
ADL National Civil Rights Director Deborah Lauter advised, "Laws will not eliminate anti-Semitism…."We will never eradicate anti-Semitism if we cannot reach people’s hearts and minds. Taking anti-Semites to court is not by itself going to solve the problem.
“We need education and to work with coalition partners, to develop school curricula that teach why anti-Semitism is wrong. But we also need to call on our political, civil and religious leaders to speak out forcefully against anti-Semitism,"
Howard Gutman, the American ambassador to Belgium, pre-warned the conferencehis remarks would not be "what you would expect me to say."
He said he does not think anti-Semitism in Europe is growing. Gutman followed up by blaming the Palestinian Authority-Israeli disagreements for creating tensions that prevent a reduction in anti-Semitism.
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/150358#.TtvcJ2Oa81u
Jewish legal experts announced the program at a conference of Jewish lawyers in Brussels last week, theEuropean Jewish Press reported.
A task force was established “in light of the increasing and constant growth of anti-Semitism in the whole of Europe and the campaign to delegitimize Israel using traditional and new forms as well as legal means," a resolution said.
The task force comprises five lawyers from France, Germany and Britain.
Ron Prosor, Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations and formerly the envoy in Britain, told the conference, "One should begin to stand up and use the tools that are used against us.”
ADL National Civil Rights Director Deborah Lauter advised, "Laws will not eliminate anti-Semitism…."We will never eradicate anti-Semitism if we cannot reach people’s hearts and minds. Taking anti-Semites to court is not by itself going to solve the problem.
“We need education and to work with coalition partners, to develop school curricula that teach why anti-Semitism is wrong. But we also need to call on our political, civil and religious leaders to speak out forcefully against anti-Semitism,"
Howard Gutman, the American ambassador to Belgium, pre-warned the conferencehis remarks would not be "what you would expect me to say."
He said he does not think anti-Semitism in Europe is growing. Gutman followed up by blaming the Palestinian Authority-Israeli disagreements for creating tensions that prevent a reduction in anti-Semitism.
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/150358#.TtvcJ2Oa81u
Tags: lawfare ,Anti-Semitism
Shalit went on hunger strike in Hamas captivity
New information reveals that soldier who spent over five years in Hamas captivity went on hunger strike shortly before release. Hamas' fears over losing their 'secret weapon' led to compromise, exchange deal
Ynet
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New revelations about Gilad Shalit's time in Hamas captivity are slowly coming out into the open. On Sunday Yedioth Ahronoth revealed that the kidnapped soldier decided to stop eating while captive and reached a point of malnutrition that put him in a life threatening situation.
According to the report, Shalit's hunger strike advanced his release as Hamas senior officials feared for his life.
An intelligence source said that "there were those in Hamas who feared that the extreme conditions under which Shalit was being held would mean they could not offer him the help he needed and he would die on them," and so they compromised over the details of the prisoner exchange deal.
Back home and getting better: Gilad Shalit (Photo: Moti Kimchi)
'Guards sentenced themselves'
The terrible disaster was averted but from that moment on, Israel had no idea of Shalit's whereabouts. The reason Israeli military and intelligence sources found it so difficult to find Shalit's location was because of the compartmentalizing on Hamas' part.
Israel and the Apartheid Slander
Daniel Hertzberg
By RICHARD J. GOLDSTONE
Published: October 31, 2011
o
¶THE Palestinian Authority’s request for full United Nations membership has put hope for any two-state solution under increasing pressure. The need for reconciliation between Israelis and Palestinians has never been greater. So it is important to separate legitimate criticism of Israel from assaults that aim to isolate, demonize and delegitimize it.
¶One particularly pernicious and enduring canard that is surfacing again is that Israel pursues “apartheid” policies. In Cape Town starting on Saturday, a London-based nongovernmental organization called the Russell Tribunal on Palestine will hold a “hearing” on whether Israel is guilty of the crime of apartheid. It is not a “tribunal.” The “evidence” is going to be one-sided and the members of the “jury” are critics whose harsh views of Israel are well known.
¶While “apartheid” can have broader meaning, its use is meant to evoke the situation in pre-1994 South Africa. It is an unfair and inaccurate slander against Israel, calculated to retard rather than advance peace negotiations.
¶I know all too well the cruelty of South Africa’s abhorrent apartheid system, under which human beings characterized as black had no rights to vote, hold political office, use “white” toilets or beaches, marry whites, live in whites-only areas or even be there without a “pass.” Blacks critically injured in car accidents were left to bleed to death if there was no “black” ambulance to rush them to a “black” hospital. “White” hospitals were prohibited from saving their lives.
¶In assessing the accusation that Israel pursues apartheid policies, which are by definition primarily about race or ethnicity, it is important first to distinguish between the situations in Israel, where Arabs are citizens, and in West Bank areas that remain under Israeli control in the absence of a peace agreement.
¶In Israel, there is no apartheid. Nothing there comes close to the definition of apartheid under the 1998 Rome Statute: “Inhumane acts ... committed in the context of an institutionalized regime of systematic oppression and domination by one racial group over any other racial group or groups and committed with the intention of maintaining that regime.” Israeli Arabs — 20 percent of Israel’s population — vote, have political parties and representatives in the Knesset and occupy positions of acclaim, including on its Supreme Court. Arab patients lie alongside Jewish patients in Israeli hospitals, receiving identical treatment.
¶To be sure, there is more de facto separation between Jewish and Arab populations than Israelis should accept. Much of it is chosen by the communities themselves. Some results from discrimination. But it is not apartheid, which consciously enshrines separation as an ideal. In Israel, equal rights are the law, the aspiration and the ideal; inequities are often successfully challenged in court.
¶The situation in the West Bank is more complex. But here too there is no intent to maintain “an institutionalized regime of systematic oppression and domination by one racial group.” This is a critical distinction, even if Israel acts oppressively toward Palestinians there. South Africa’s enforced racial separation was intended to permanently benefit the white minority, to the detriment of other races. By contrast, Israel has agreed in concept to the existence of a Palestinian state in Gaza and almost all of the West Bank, and is calling for the Palestinians to negotiate the parameters.
¶But until there is a two-state peace, or at least as long as Israel’s citizens remain under threat of attacks from the West Bank and Gaza, Israel will see roadblocks and similar measures as necessary for self-defense, even as Palestinians feel oppressed. As things stand, attacks from one side are met by counterattacks from the other. And the deep disputes, claims and counterclaims are only hardened when the offensive analogy of “apartheid” is invoked.
¶Those seeking to promote the myth of Israeli apartheid often point to clashes between heavily armed Israeli soldiers and stone-throwing Palestinians in the West Bank, or the building of what they call an “apartheid wall” and disparate treatment on West Bank roads. While such images may appear to invite a superficial comparison, it is disingenuous to use them to distort the reality. The security barrier was built to stop unrelenting terrorist attacks; while it has inflicted great hardship in places, the Israeli Supreme Court has ordered the state in many cases to reroute it to minimize unreasonable hardship. Road restrictions get more intrusive after violent attacks and are ameliorated when the threat is reduced.
¶Of course, the Palestinian people have national aspirations and human rights that all must respect. But those who conflate the situations in Israel and the West Bank and liken both to the old South Africa do a disservice to all who hope for justice and peace.
¶Jewish-Arab relations in Israel and the West Bank cannot be simplified to a narrative of Jewish discrimination. There is hostility and suspicion on both sides. Israel, unique among democracies, has been in a state of war with many of its neighbors who refuse to accept its existence. Even some Israeli Arabs, because they are citizens of Israel, have at times come under suspicion from other Arabs as a result of that longstanding enmity.
¶The mutual recognition and protection of the human dignity of all people is indispensable to bringing an end to hatred and anger. The charge that Israel is an apartheid state is a false and malicious one that precludes, rather than promotes, peace and harmony.
¶Richard J. Goldstone, a former justice of the South African Constitutional Court, led the United Nations fact-finding mission on the Gaza conflict of 2008-9.
Israeli Ambassador: Anti-Jewish 'Sickness' in British Press
Ambassador Daniel Taub decries anti-Semitism and "a sign of a great sickness inside British journalism."
Amb. Taub
Wikimedia Commons
Israeli Ambassador to Britain, Daniel Taub, condemned on Sunday what he called an anti-Semitic "sickness" inside some parts of the British media.
"When a leading newspaper publishes anti-Semitic words, such as we heard on the release of Gilad Shalit alleging that this deal shows that Zionists values the lives of the 'chosen' more than it values the lives of anyone else – as if we wouldn't have begged to reduce the number of terrorists that should have been released – yes, that's insulting to Israel, but more than that, it's a sign of a great sickness inside media and inside British journalism," he said.
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/150213#.TtvMEGOa81s
"When a leading newspaper publishes anti-Semitic words, such as we heard on the release of Gilad Shalit alleging that this deal shows that Zionists values the lives of the 'chosen' more than it values the lives of anyone else – as if we wouldn't have begged to reduce the number of terrorists that should have been released – yes, that's insulting to Israel, but more than that, it's a sign of a great sickness inside media and inside British journalism," he said.
His speech was delivered to the Big Tent Israel advocacy conference in Manchester, and reported by the Jewish Chronicle.
Taub advised people who doubt that there is a delegitimization campaign against Israel: "Don't listen to Israel's enemies, but listen to its friends or at least those people who call themselves its friends."I can't count the number of times I've heard somebody say, 'I'm a friend of Israel and I support its right to exist'. And I wonder, can you image anyone saying that in relation to any other country? 'I support Australia's right to exist' or 'Guatemala's right to exist' - as though that somehow makes me a friend of Guatemala. In relation to what other country does a discussion or policy descend into a question mark over the very existence of that state?"
Speaking to a 700-strong audience in Manchester, the ambassador said that anti-Israel campaigns that delegitimize Israel opened a "new front for Israel" in the UK and were "a serious problem for those institutions and organizations which allow it to fester."http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/150213#.TtvMEGOa81s
Tags: Anti-Semitism
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