Tag Archives: friends of israel

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Craven Liberal Democrats dump human rights champion Jenny Tonge

Stuart Littlewood
Stuart Littlewood

Stuart Littlewood

Victory for the Israel lobby bullies

It was no surprise to read in The Guardian on 29 February that Baroness Jenny Tonge, a Liberal Democrat peer who has given unstinting support to the Palestinian struggle for freedom, had been sacked after declaring that Israel would not last for ever. She rejected an ultimatum from party leader Nick Clegg to apologise and said she stood by her remarks.

Nothing to apologise for

The row blew up when Jenny allegedly told a meeting at Middlesex University: “Beware Israel. Israel is not going to be there for ever in its present form…  Israel will lose support and then they will reap what they have sown.”   She said America would one day get sick of funding what she called America’s aircraft carrier in the Middle East. “One day, the American people are going to say to the Israel lobby in the USA: enough is enough.”

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Murdoch is not the only maggot in the rotten apple

Stuart Littlewood

Stuart Littlewood

Having disposed of the Murdoch menace – for the moment anyway – it’s time for the British public to turn the spotlight on the other villains our craven politicians pay homage to.

Public enemy Number One is the pro-Israel lobby. An organization called the Conservative Friends of Israel states it has “twin aims of supporting Israel and promoting Conservatism. With close to 2000 activists as members – alongside 80% of Conservative MPs – CFI is active at every level of the Party”.

And the rot goes all the way to the top, with Conservative prime minister David Cameron endorsing it enthusiastically: “I am proud not just to be a Conservative, but a Conservative Friend of Israel; and I am proud of the key role CFI plays within our Party.”

Back in 2006 The Jewish Chronicle ran a report on the backers bankrolling Cameron’s bid for the party leadership. It was sent to the Committee on Standards in Public Life as an example of how the pro-Israel lobby infiltrates government and undermines the very principles the standards watchdog was established to uphold. But Zionist tentacles reach further than you think. The Committee ignored it.

At the time Cameron, a self-proclaimed Zionist, pledged: “If I become Prime Minister, Israel has a friend who will never turn his back on her…”

The Liberal Democrats allow a similar lobby group to flourish within their ranks. Its stated aim is to “maximise support for the State of Israel within the Liberal Democrats and Parliament”. Labour also has a virulent Israel supporters club that broadcasts Tel Aviv’s propaganda and, when in power, appoints Israel lobby stooges to key ministerial and other positions.

Britain, as everyone knows, has carved an unfortunate niche for itself as America’s poodle. But not enough people ask the key question: whose poodle is America? American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) has the private parts of US Congress in such a vice-like grip that the Zionist regime’s interests come first in Washington. For example, the US House of Representatives felt obliged to endorse, by 390 votes to 5, Israel’s assault on Gaza in the winter of 2008/9, a massacre that killed over 1,400 (mostly Palestinian civilians including a large number of women and children), wounded and maimed thousands more, left tens of thousands homeless and horrified the rest of the world.

It is amazing how many people with dual passports stalk the corridors of power in Washington. And we all saw the orchestrated adulation with which the Israeli primier was received the other week.

The knock-on effect in the UK is inecitable. We too are so embroiled in the Zionists’ perpetual strife with the Islamic world that we’ve been sucked into the same cesspit. Britain is now one of the most hated nations on earth thanks to our cosy association with US-Israeli ambitions in the Middle East.

Meet the ‘Israel-firsters’

Israel was founded on terror, land theft, ethnic cleansing and extreme brutality. Why would the British Establishment wish to snuggle up to it? Why did Liam Fox, now Defence Secretary, famously say: “We must remember that in the battle for the values that we stand for, for democracy against theocracy, for democratic liberal values against repression – Israel’s enemies are our enemies and this is a battle in which we all stand together or we will all fall divided.”

As if that wasn’t absurd enough William Hague, now foreign secretary, came out with this in 2008: “The unbroken thread of Conservative Party support for Israel that has run for nearly a century from the Balfour Declaration to the present day will continue. Although it will no doubt often be tested in the years ahead, it will remain constant, unbroken, and undiminished by the passage of time.”

Undimished by the passage of crime, too. Tzipi Livni was Israeli foreign minister at the time of Operation Cast Lead and largely responsible for the unimaginable terror and destruction unleashed on Gaza’s civilians. Livni’s office issued a statement saying she was proud of Operation Cast Lead and, lacking all remorse, she later declared: “I would today take the same decisions.” Obviously she is on several wanted lists. When a warrant for her arrest was issued in London she went whining to our then foreign secretary David Miliband, who apologized. When the Conservative coalition came in and Hague took over the Foreign Office who can forget how Hague rushed to prove his loyalty by promising that our universal jurisdiction laws would be changed to protect Israel’s suspected war criminals? It was “an appalling situation where a politician like Mrs Livni could be threatened with arrest on coming to the UK” he said.

David Cameron, for his part, told Conservative Friends of Israel: “The ties between this party and Israel are unbreakable. And in me, you have a Prime Minister whose belief in Israel is indestructible.”

And he recently told a Jewish audience: “I want to be clear, we will always support Israel… when Iran flouts its international obligations Britain is and will remain at the forefront of the international community in ratcheting up the pressure with tough sanctions. We will not stand by and allow Iran to cast a nuclear shadow over Israel or the wider region.”

Considering it is Israel which casts the nuclear shadow, menaces the region and flouts international laws and conventions, that remark was beyond ridiculous. Cameron, like Fox, seems determined to make Israel’s enemies Britain’s enemies when we have no quarrel with any of them.

Who gave him permission to spout such dangerous drivel in our name?

Hague too loves ratcheting up the violence. While still deeply embroiled in an unwinnable Afghan campaign he started bombing the hell out of Libya months ago – with no end in sight – and is now sending more British aircraft into “theatre” to intensify the carnage, seemingly oblivious to the fact that back home in Britain we are struggling to make ends meet with a monumental economic and financial deficit around our necks.

Who’s he doing all this bloodshed for? Certainly not for us.

Lacking military experience these Israel-firsters, liked Blair and others before them, show an unhealthy lust for death and destruction. They are what I believe our American cousins call ‘chicken-hawks’ – talking tough but taking care never to risk their own worthless skins.

Lawlessness rules, OK?

Another ardent admirer of the Zionist regime is James Arbuthnot, the Parliamentary chairman of the Conservative Friends of Israel. He told Parliament: “Everyone in this House should have an interest in Israel, because it is a country that embodies the values that we should stand for. Israel [has] become a bastion of the rule of law…”

Israel’s prime minister Netanyahu heads their Likud party, which is the embodiment of greed, racist ambition, lawlessness and callous disregard for other people’s rights. In any other country it would be banned and its leaders locked up. Yet Netanyahu is welcomed like a hero in the US and given 29 standing ovations by Congress.

Likud intends to make the seizure of Jerusalem permanent and establish Israel’s capital there. It will “act with vigor” to ensure Jewish sovereignty in East Jerusalem (which still officially belongs to the Palestinians as does the Old City). The illegal settlements are “the realization of Zionist values and a clear expression of the unassailable right of the Jewish people to the Land of Israel”. They will be strengthened and expanded. As for the Palestinians, they can run their lives in a framework of self-rule “but not as an independent and sovereign state”.

Are these the values Arbuthnot is suggesting we adopt?

Kadima, the party of Livni, Olmert and Barak, is little better and has also pledged to preserve the larger settlement blocs and steal Jerusalem.

As for Arbuthnot’s claim that Israel is a bastion of the rule of law, a UN fact-finding mission, dealing with the assault on the Mavi Marmara last year, declared that “no case can be made for the legality of the interception”.

But here’s Arbuthnot again, arguing the case for Israel… “Given that the flotilla was designed to be provocative and to end in violence, we should not blame Israel for the violence against which it failed to guard itself; the blame lies with those who went on to the flotilla expressly seeking martyrdom.”

The Mission considered that Israel’s naval blockade of Gaza amounted to collective punishment and thus was illegal and contrary to Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention. The interception of the Mavi Marmara on the high seas was “clearly unlawful” and could not be justified even under Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations (the right of self-defence).

The Centre for Constitutional Rights agrees that the blockade “cannot be reconciled with the principles of international law, including international humanitarian law“.

If the blockade is illegal, why is it allowed to continue? Because subservient Israel-firsters in London, Washington and other capitals won’t act. Lawlessness rules, OK?

Arbuthnot, by the way, is also chairman of Britain’s Defence Select Committee. Worrying, isn’t it?

Conflict of interests

The British government’s policy of shielding and cosseting Israel’s extremists makes all of us complicit in that regime’s crimes. How does this perverse devotion to a foreign power square with the Seven Principles of Public Life, especially the one about Integrity, which the government is supposed to uphold? The Principle of Integrity lays down that holders of public office should not place themselves under any financial or other obligation to outside individuals or organisations that might seek to influence them in the performance of their official duties.

Do MPs and ministers not understand this simple imperative? If the Israel lobby has no influence, as some have claimed, how do our leaders explain away the 80 percent of Conservative MPs who are Friends of Israel? How do they explain the appointment of a Foreign Secretary who has been a Friend of Israel since boyhood and a minister in charge of Middle East affairs who is a former officer of the Conservative Friends of Israel?

There are rules about conflict of interests. Why aren’t they followed? Do we ever hear an MP or minister, when taking part in a Middle East debate, say “Mr Speaker, I wish the House to know that I am a staunch member of Friends of Israel and Jewish money paid for my election campaign”?

In his infatuation with Israel Mr Hague even stoops to provide cover for its mega-crimes. At the height of the murderous Gaza blitz, Hague announced to Parliament: “The immediate trigger for this crisis… was the barrage of hundreds of rocket attacks against Israel on the expiry of the ceasefire or truce.”

The truce with Hamas didn’t “expire”. It was violated after five months by Israeli forces in order to provoke Hamas and provide an excuse for the long-planned assault. Israel had also failed to deliver its side of the ceasefire bargain, which was to lift the blockade.

Our Middle East minister, Alistair Burt, is another comedian. He recently announced that Britain would not recognise a Palestinian state unless it emerged from a peace deal with Israel. London, he said, could “not recognise a state that does not have a capital, and doesn’t have borders”.

Hadn’t he heard? Palestine’s borders are the pre-1967 armistice lines as defined in UN resolutions and recognised by the international community. Where does Burt suppose Israel’s borders are? Is Israel where Israel is supposed to be, within internationally defined borders? No, it isn’t. Israel keeps its borders fluid, all the time grabbing a bit more land here and confiscating a bit more there. Yet London recognises Israel.

Burt, Hague, Cameron, Fox, Arbuthnot… there are many more like them. How can we be sure where their allegiance lies? Whom do they really work for?

I’ll leave the last word on Israel’s evil machinations to Sir Gerald Kaufman, the straight-talking Jewish MP. He said in a Commons debate in January 2008: “Is it not a fact that only international action can bring to an end the humanitarian disaster caused by collective punishment imposed by the gang of amoral thugs who comprise the Israeli Government and violate not only international law but the historic Jewish conscience?”

Sir Gerald’s family suffered horribly during the Holocaust and his sick grandmother was shot dead in her bed by a German soldier. “They’re not simply war criminals, they’re fools”, he said of the Israelis when Operation Cast Lead was launched. “My grandmother did not die to provide cover for Israeli soldiers murdering Palestinian grandmothers in Gaza.”

Cameron’s judgement, already wobbly, has finally been shot to pieces by his cosiness with Murdoch’s ‘mafia’, and he should be clearing his desk. Add to that his dangerous obsession with racist Israel which drags us into unnecessary wars against countries that pose no threat, and sacrifices our lads in uniform in an unjust cause, and it’s clear that he must go.

Our elected MPs belong to us, the British voters. Not to some gang of foreign thugs. We must mobilise to make sure they clearly understand this. And we must work to take back our parliament.

Stuart Littlewood

Stuart Littlewood

Stuart Littlewood is an industrial marketing specialist turned writer-photographer. In 2005 he was invited to write and shoot pictures for a book about the plight of the Palestinians under occupation. ‘Radio Free Palestine’ was published in 2007. For details please see www.radiofreepalestine.co.uk.

  • The Author is a regular contributor to RamallahOnline.com. Find more Articles by Stuart Littlewood on RamallahOnline.

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Letter to the British Liberal Democrats

Stuart Littlewood

Stuart Littlewood, 10 Nov 2010

Subject: Protecting war criminals – “just about the lowest thing anyone could do”

LibDem leaders know perfectly well that under ‘universal jurisdiction’ all states that are party to the Geneva Conventions are obliged to seek out and prosecute or extradite those suspected of grave breaches of the Conventions and bring them justice, regardless of nationality.

“Grave breaches” means willful killing, torture or inhuman treatment, causing great suffering or serious injury to body or health, and other serious violations of the laws of war… the sort of atrocities that have been (and still are) committed wholesale by Israelis against civilians in the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, East Jerusalem and on the high seas.

In other words, for these vilest of criminals there should be no hiding place.

The British Government shirks its solemn duty. Fortunately the law at present allows private applications for arrest warrants.

However, your Coalition partners the Conservatives, 80 percent of whom are claimed to be signed-up Friends of Israel, plan to interfere with our laws of arrest in order to protect those criminals they count among their friends. Apparently this will be done by ensuring that arrests for war crimes become strictly political decisions enabling the government of the day to pick’n’choose.

Foreign secretary William Hague, a Friend of Israel since his schooldays, recently told the pro-Israel lobby: “We have had good discussions with Israeli ministers on universal jurisdiction where the last government left us with an appalling situation where a politician like Mrs Livni could be threatened with arrest on coming to the UK… We have agreed in the coalition about putting it right, we will put it right through legislation that will be introduced… I phoned Mrs Livni amongst others to tell her about that and received a very warm welcome for our proposals.”

You, the Liberal Democrats, have already agreed to this???

Has everyone forgotten that Tzipi Livni, Israel’s former foreign minister, was largely responsible for the terror that brought mega-deaths and unimaginable destruction to Gaza’s civilians nearly 2 years ago?

Showing no remorse for the 1,400 dead (including 320 children and 109 women), the thousands horribly maimed and the hundreds of thousand made homeless, Livni’s office issued a statement saying she was proud of Operation Cast Lead, the murderous blitz she unleashed. Later at a conference in Tel Aviv she declared: “I would today take the same decisions.”

Many of you will recall how Israel violated the Egypt-brokered ceasefire to provoke a response that could then be used as an excuse to launch the onslaught Israel had been preparing for months.

You may also recall that in 2007 when Israel tightened the siege on Gaza, the prime minister’s adviser, Dov Weisglass, said “the idea is to put the Palestinians on a diet, but not to make them die of hunger”. Documents just released under a Freedom of Information petition by Gisha, an Israeli law centre, reveal that Israel operated “a policy of deliberate reduction” of basic goods in the Gaza Strip.

The papers confirm that the siege was not for security reasons but to keep Gazans at near-starvation level in order to bring down Hamas, the people’s choice. Since around half the population are growing children this inhuman act of collective punishment has meant that hundreds of thousands of youngsters are undernourished and permanently damaged.

Gisha’s director accuses Israel of “paralyzing normal life in Gaza”, and adds: “I am sorry to say that major elements of this policy are still in place.” http://www.gisha.org/index.php?intLanguage=2&intItemId=1904&intSiteSN=113.

Israel’s current foreign minister, ex-bouncer Avigdor Lieberman, is a convicted child-beater and has been variously described as “a virulent racist” and “a certified gangster”. He directly violates international law by living in one of Israel’s illegal settlements. “If you liked Mussolini, if you were missing Stalin, you’ll love Lieberman,” a member of Israel’s Meretz party observed.

All the same, Hague wants him freely walking the streets of London with Livni and the rest of the world’s psychopaths.

Whatever happened to the Liberal Democrats’ pledge to “reject all prejudice and discrimination based upon race, colour, religion, etc…” and to “fight poverty, oppression, hunger, ignorance, disease and aggression wherever they occur and to promote the free movement of ideas, people, goods and services”. These fine promises are incorporated into the party’s Constitution.

Only last year Nick Clegg, LibDem leader and now deputy prime minister in the Coalition, was telling the Jewish Chronicle: “The very suggestion that I might explicitly or tacitly give cover for racism, I find politically abhorrent and personally deeply offensive.”

Who would have believed that any senior Liberal Democrat would support a move to undermine our justice system in order to make the UK a safe haven for blood-soaked foreign leaders whose policies and unspeakable crimes are alien to LibDem principles, disgusting to the British public and condemned by international law?

If we allow the warmongers to come and go as they please, civilized people will never be able to take back their world.

We read that Hague was sent away from Tel Aviv with a slap in the face the other day when the Israelis without warning suspended dialogue with Britain. As if that wasn’t embarrassment enough for such an ardent admirer, Hague now intends to humiliate us all by groveling and tinkering with British law to appease them.

If Parliament passes measures to undermine the important principle enshrined in the Geneva Conventions and weaken the law to enable those wanted for crimes against humanity to evade arrest, wouldn’t that make the whole British nation an accessory to those crimes?

And please reflect on how nodding it through would be just about the lowest thing anyone could do.

Stuart Littlewood

Stuart Littlewood

Stuart Littlewood is an industrial marketing specialist turned writer-photographer. In 2005 he was invited to write and shoot pictures for a book about the plight of the Palestinians under occupation. ‘Radio Free Palestine’ was published in 2007. For details please see www.radiofreepalestine.co.uk.

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Britain hangs out ‘welcome’ sign to war criminals

Stuart Littlewood

Stuart Littlewood, 18 October 2010

The UK is to become a safe haven for Israeli psychopaths while they continue their brutal military occupation, colonization and ethnic cleansing of the Holy Land, and carry on bombarding blockaded Gaza and executing or abducting anyone bringing humanitarian help

That’s the British government’s latest contribution of Middle East peace.

The Zionist entity’s Trojan Horse at the heart of our government – otherwise known as the Conservative Friends of Israel – held a reception recently attended by our foreign secretary William Hague.

Hague told the 400 guests: “We have had good discussions with Israeli ministers on universal jurisdiction where the last government left us with an appalling situation where a politician like Mrs Livni could be threatened with arrest on coming to the UK…

“We have agreed in the coalition about putting it right, we will put it right through legislation that will be introduced… The Justice Secretary will bring into the House of Commons adding to legislation going through the House of Commons later this year and I phoned Mrs Livni amongst others to tell her about that and received a very warm welcome for our proposals”.

Who can forget that Tzipi Livni, Israel’s former foreign minister, was largely responsible for the terror that brought unspeakable death and destruction to Gaza’s civilians nearly 2 years ago?

And who’d have believed a British government minister would undermine our justice system in order to make the UK a safe haven for the likes of her?

Showing no remorse and with the blood of 1,400 dead Gazans (including 320 children and 109 women) on her hands, and thousands more horribly maimed, Livni’s office issued a statement saying she was proud of Operation Cast Lead (the murderous blitz she had unleashed). And speaking later at a conference at Tel Aviv’s Institute for Security Studies, she said: “I would today take the same decisions.”

Few of us would want to touch such a person with a barge-pole. But Hague is so smitten  that he said it was “completely unacceptable” that someone like Tzipi Livni felt she couldn’t visit the UK. “We cannot have a position where Israeli politicians feel they cannot visit this country. The situation is unsatisfactory [and] indefensible. It is absolutely my intention to act speedily.”
http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/the-staggers/2010/07/war-crimes-livni-universal.

He even tried to make Livni’s monstrous crime look good by claiming, as reported on the CFI website, that “the immediate trigger for this crisis [the war on Gaza] was the barrage of hundreds of rocket attacks against Israel on the expiry of the ceasefire or truce.” It is well known that the ceasefire didn’t expire. It was deliberately breached by an Israeli raid into Gaza that killed several Palestinians with the intention of deliberately provoking a response that would re-ignite the violence and provide an excuse to launch Operation Cast Lead, which the Israelis had been preparing for months.

The foreign secretary concluded his talk to the CFI by encouraging stronger business links between Israel and Britain and saying he intended to visit Israel in coming weeks.

One of the delights awaiting Hague is a meeting with his opposite number, Avigdor Lieberman, who lives in an illegal squat on stolen Palestinian land and is a wanted criminal on that score alone. He is also pushing for 1.3 million Arabs currently living in Israel to be stripped of citizenship and forcibly transferred outside Israel’s future borders.

To that end Israel’s military and civil authorities have just finished an exercise rehearsing a crushing response to the riots this latest ‘ethnic cleansing’ programme will inevitably cause.

Few individuals are more obnoxious than former club bouncer Lieberman, who is a convicted child-beater and described even in Israel as “a virulent racist” and “a certified gangster”. He is also reported to be under investigation for corruption. All the same, Hague wants him freely walking the streets of London with Livni. No doubt the media will soon be sprouting propaganda photos of Hague and Lieberman triumphantly shaking hands, smirking, embracing and doing whatever else two crazies do when they get together.

A Masterclass in grovelling

The “universal jurisdiction” fuss flared up again last year after Israeli top brass, including Ehud Barak, Livni and retired general Doron Almog, cancelled engagements in London for fear of being arrested. Israel complained bitterly. The then British foreign secretary David Miliband apologized and, according to a press report, “promised Lieberman to begin working immediately to change the UK laws that enable the issue of arrest warrants against Israeli officials accused of war crimes”.

Outraged members of the public were immediately asking who Miliband thought he was, grovelling in their name to Israeli thugs who had the temerity to whinge about the perfectly proper operation of British law, especially when the warrants were issued to answer well-founded charges.

Under universal jurisdiction all states that are party to the Geneva Conventions are under a binding obligation to seek out those suspected of having committed grave breaches of the Conventions and bring them, regardless of nationality, to justice. There should be no hiding place for those suspected of crimes against humanity and war crimes. Applications can be made to a court for private arrest warrants, and this has been happening because the government itself shirks its duty under the Fourth 1949 Geneva Convention and drags its feet until the bird has flown.

Livni bleated: “It’s about the entire State of Israel and our ability to go on working together against common threats.”

The threats Israel faces are caused by its racist expansion, land theft, general lawlessness and hateful attitude towards its neighbours, and by the nuclear threat Israel itself poses to others in the region and the Islamic world generally.  To suggest we have anything in common is an insult.

Israeli prime minister Netanyahu’s office butted in with this arrogant statement: “We will not agree to a situation in which [former prime minister] Ehud Olmert, [Defense Minister] Ehud Barak and [opposition leader and former foreign minister] Tzipi Livni will be summoned to the bench. We utterly reject the absurdity that is happening in Britain.”

And the Israeli ambassador in London, Ron Prosor, had the cheek to chastise the British foreign secretary telling him it was time the British government took action.

Miliband obligingly called the warrants intolerable and said he had asked Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Justice Minister Jack Straw to find an urgent solution.


Dancing to Tel Aviv’s tune

The solution is simple enough. If Israel wants talks in London they send people with clean hands. There should be no concessions, anyway, to a regime that shows such contempt for international law and normal codes of conduct.

Instead Brown, a patron of the Jewish National Fund, said Livni was “most welcome in Britain any time”, and our Ministers of the Crown are dancing to Tel Aviv’s tune. No moves were made by Labour in their last days in office, but it seems the incoming Conservatives and their Liberal-Democrat partners are planning to put the Director of Public Prosecutions in charge of issuing arrest warrants. This turns what should be a strictly judicial process into a political one that keeps any warmongering child-killer our ministers happen to admire out of the clutches of the UK’s courts.

William Hague was recruited into the Conservative Friends of Israel at the worryingly tender age of 15.

In 2007, while shadow foreign secretary, he said: “We will always have strong economic and political ties with Israel. We will always be a friend of Israel.”

In 2008 he declared: “The unbroken thread of Conservative Party support for Israel that has run for nearly a century from the Balfour Declaration to the present day will continue. Although it will no doubt often be tested in the years ahead, it will remain constant, unbroken, and undiminished by the passage of time.”

Hague told the Jewish Chronicle in an interview: “We don’t approve of expanding settlements on the West Bank and East Jerusalem because it makes the two-state solution more difficult.” Not because it’s a barbaric crime to dispossess Arabs of their lands, homes and livelihoods… he doesn’t approve because it’s a bit awkward politically.

“I’ve traveled across the country,” he continued. “I’ve stood on the Golan Heights and swam in the Sea of Galilee. I’ve stood on the part of the West Bank where you can see the Mediterranean, where you really understand Israel’s strategic fragility.”

If he had stood in the rubble of Gaza and seen the devastation to homes and infrastructure and visited the shattered schools and hospitals there… if he had stood in Bethlehem, imprisoned on all sides by the evil separation wall, and made his way on foot with Palestinian workers (those with permits) through the sinister steel barriers and holding pens of the Israeli checkpoint – a process that can take hours – before beginning the journey to Jerusalem, he might have understood how the Israeli jackboot chokes the life out of the Palestinian people.

Hague’s Zionist sympathies visibly ooze from every pore. Livni appears to have him eating out of her hand. If Parliament passes his measures to weaken powers of arrest in order to harbour those wanted for crimes against humanity, doesn’t that make the whole British nation an accessory to those crimes?

And before MPs approve such measures they should reflect on how it would be the lowest thing they could do.

Stuart Littlewood

Stuart Littlewood

Stuart Littlewood is author of the book Radio Free Palestine, which tells the plight of the Palestinians under occupation. For further information please visit www.radiofreepalestine.co.uk

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Britain more interested in saving Israelis from garden shed rockets than British citizens from Israeli pirates

Stuart Littlewood

Stuart Littlewood, 3 July 2010

Liberal Democrat party leader Nick Clegg is Britain’s deputy prime minister.

A month ago, while reports were coming in that Israeli gunboats had “intercepted” the Free Gaza flotilla 90 miles out to sea and told the humanitarian workers they would be boarded and towed to an Israeli port, I emailed Clegg: “Where is the Royal Navy when it’s needed to protect life and limb of the 30-odd British nationals?”

Ministers received advanced warning of Israel’s threats to stop the flotilla “by any means”. What was needed was firm intervention. Just for a change the British people wanted their government to do them proud on the international stage and protect those brave souls on their peaceful mission to bring relief to Palestinians whose lives have been made a living hell by the bully-boys of the Middle East.

They were, after all, only doing the right thing… doing what the West’s cowardly governments wet their pants at the very thought of doing.
Back in December when the parties were warming up for the general election, Clegg wrote in The Guardian:

“…And what has the British government and the international community done to lift the blockade? Next to nothing. Tough-sounding declarations are issued at regular intervals but little real pressure is applied. It is a scandal that the international community has sat on its hands in the face of this unfolding crisis.

No doubt the febrile sensitivities of the Middle East have deterred governments, caught between recriminations from both sides. No doubt diplomats have warned that exerting pressure on Israel and Egypt may complicate the peace process.

But surely the consequences of not lifting the blockade are far more grave?”

He certainly talked the talk. Would he walk the walk if given the chance?

Well, he now has the chance, and his reply has just arrived.

“The Government was very clear in its disapproval of the Israeli actions which ended in such heavy and tragic loss of life.

“We have underlined the need for a full, credible, impartial and independent investigation into the events of 31 May. We have made clear that we want to see a process that ensures full accountability and commands the confidence of the international community, including international participation.

“Israel’s announcement of an inquiry headed by former Supreme Court judge Yaakov Tirkel is an important step forward. We welcome the appointment of Lord Trimble as an international observer. Clearly it is very important that this is a truly independent inquiry and a thorough investigation that the international community can respect.

“These events have captured the world’s attention, but they should not be viewed in isolation. They arose from the unacceptable and unsustainable blockade of Gaza, which is a cause of public concern here in the United Kingdom and around the world. It has long been the view of the Government that restrictions on Gaza should be lifted – a view confirmed by UN Security Council Resolution 1860, which called for the sustained delivery of humanitarian aid and called on states to alleviate the humanitarian and economic situation persisting there.

“It is essential that there is unfettered access – not only to meet the humanitarian needs of the people of Gaza, but to enable the reconstruction of homes and livelihoods and permit trade to take place. The Palestinian economy, whether in Gaza or the West Bank, is an essential part of a viable state of Palestine which we hope will one day exist alongside Israel in peace and security.

“A solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict is firmly in the national interests of the UK, as well as those in the region. We want the new generation of Palestinians to grow up in hope, not despair… We want the next generation of Israelis to live free from the fear of rocket fire… Whilst we cannot deliver this for either side ourselves, as friends to both Israelis and Palestinians we will seek to buttress the diplomatic initiative of President Obama’s Administration and the proximity talks…”

So no, he won’t walk the walk.

It is pointless calling for the blockade to be lifted. You have to smash it… with warships “exercising” nearby. Israel’s promise to “ease” it is purely cosmetic. I hear that incoming goods have risen by a miserable 7 or 8% while the block on exports remains. That’s all the West’s feeble hand-wringing has achieved.

Clegg’s choice of words is revealing… “the interception by Israeli forces”. It was nothing less than a dead-of-night military assault with guns blazing and a pre-planned execution of civilians on a wanted list. His whole reply might as well have been scripted by Tel Aviv. It probably was, because it turns out to be word for word the same as the communication sent to other complainants by Israel’s great friend now doubling as Britain’s under-secretary of state in charge of Middle East affairs, Alistair Burt.

Clegg can call for “a full, credible, impartial and independent investigation” until he’s blue in the face, but he won’t get one. He welcomes the appointment of Trimble to this farce. Why? Trimble is a founding member of a new international “Friends of Israel Initiative”.

The context for Israel’s crimes on the high seas is, of course, the racist regime’s belief that it can act with impunity. It never gets rapped for lawless conduct thanks to the abject failure of the international community – especially Britain, whose mandated responsibility Palestine once was – to enforce international and maritime law and the numerous UN resolutions (not just 1860).

UN Security Council Resolution 1860 (America abstained on Israel’s orders, according to Olmert) calls for the sustained reopening of crossing points on the basis of the 2005 Agreement on Movement and Access. There is still no sign of Israeli compliance.

Clegg claims that “we” are friends to both Israelis and Palestinians. Bollox. British governments have spent the last 93 years betraying the Palestinian people, and continue to do so while slavishly supporting the Israeli regime in its programme of occupation, oppression, ethnic cleansing and collective punishment. Our last government and now this Coalition won’t even acknowledge the Palestinians’ right of self-determination or their democratic choice of government. Britain, to its shame, is complicit in those crimes.

To make matters worse, Labour and Conservative leaders are anxious to change our laws of universal jurisdiction to provide a safe haven for Israel’s killers while denying visas to Palestinian footballers.

And please, Mr Clegg, spare us this endless nonsense about rockets. At least as many state of the art US-supplied Israeli missiles were launched into Gaza, usually from US-supplied F-16s, as garden-shed whizz-bangs were lobbed into Israel. And Israeli air-strikes and armoured incursions continue on a daily basis. Furthermore, no rockets come out of the West Bank, yet the West Bank continues to be occupied, sealed and under severe movement restrictions. Clearly, this is not about rockets or even about Hamas, which has already agreed to recognise Israel within its pre-1967 borders in accordance with the international community’s position.

It’s a well-known fact that America is a dishonest broker, so aligning Britain with the puppet Obama’s diplomatic “initiative” simply hands Israel even more time to establish irreversible facts on the ground.

But the British public are wising up. They are beginning to know the score. Prime minister Cameron is a self-declared Zionist. Foreign secretary Hague has been a Friend of Israel since the age of 15. Under-secretary of state Burt is not just a Friend of Israel but an OFFICER of the Conservative Friends of Israel organisation.

The Knesset’s stooges roost happily in Westminster.

And Cameron has just put his name to a G8 leaders’ statement calling for the release of captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit but not the freeing of thousands of Palestinians abducted and rotting in Israeli jails.

Burt, in his letter, talks of our pledge of £26.8 million for humanitarian aid and early recovery activities in Gaza. Is that supposed to purge our negligence? The Palestinians wouldn’t need £millions of British taxpayers’ money year after year if they were left in peace. All this aid simply subsidises and reinforces the Israeli occupation at our (the public’s) expense.

Now that Clegg is in a position to actually kick government ass, I hoped the Liberal Democrats would have a moderating effect on the rabid Conservative Zionists who devote so much of their energies to the service of Israel.

Instead, Nick and his party appear to have fallen in with them.

  • Stuart Littlewood is author of the book Radio Free Palestine, which tells the plight of the Palestinians under occupation. For further information please visit www.radiofreepalestine.co.uk

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What sort of Christians become Zionists?

Christian Zionists

Stuart Littlewood, 17 June 2010

“We categorically reject Christian Zionist doctrines as a false teaching that corrupts the biblical message of love, justice and reconciliation” – The Jerusalem Declaration

Not all Jews are Zionists. Many reject the Zionist project and fight against it.

So why on earth would a non-Jew wish to be one? Indeed, how could a genuine Christian seriously consider becoming a Zionist? It has puzzled me for a long time. The two ideas are incompatible, are they not?

So consider for a moment Anglican Friends of Israel, as an example. Their stated aims include:

  • To support the people of Israel and to secure defensible borders for the State of Israel.
  • To recall the Church to G-d’s Covenant with the Jewish people and to call the Church to affirm the centrality of Israel to the Jewish faith.
  • To call Anglicans to repentance for the wrongs – of both word and deed – inflicted by Christians on the Jewish people and the nation of Israel.
  • To fight all libels against Israel and the Jewish people and their State.
  • To protect the Christian communities threatened by Islamic extremism in the Middle East.

Are they Zionists? It sounds very much like it. For them Israel can do no wrong and Christians need to apologise to the Jewish people… er, what for?

And what makes them think that Muslims are more of a threat than Israeli extremists to Christian communities?

You should also see the sort of stuff the Anglican Friends of Israel post on their website.

    AFI Press Release: The Mavi Marmara
    Written by Anglican Friends of Israel
    Wednesday, 02 June 2010
    Anglican Friends of Israel are dismayed at international condemnation of Israel following attacks upon Israeli Defence Force personnel [by] a supposedly peaceful aid convoy… Israeli offers of peaceful means to deliver the aid into Gaza were refused. Video footage proves that the violence which tragically resulted in the deaths of some passengers and injuries to others including IDF personnel was begun by Aid convoy members… Terrorists in Gaza continue to fire rockets into Israel – over 60 this year so far – and to explode bombs in order to kill and maim Israeli citizens.
    Western spokespersons might bear in mind that the terror threat to western nations springs from the same source as that faced daily by Israelis and be more circumspect in making demands on Israel before all relevant facts have emerged.

Anyone would be forgiven for thinking it was actually penned by the crapaganda unit in Tel Aviv. These Anglicans (if they are Anglicans) swallowed Israel’s poisonous concoction hook, line and sinker and re-broadcast it while the abducted flotilla aid workers – witnesses to the murderous assault and executions – were incarcerated in Israeli jails and unable to tell the outside world what really happened.

I don’t know of any danger to us from Hamas, Hezbollah or Iran, if those are the “terror” sources referred to. I doubt if groups who wish to see the Israeli nuclear threat to their region neutralised are also gunning for us, even though people like Anglican Friends of Israel and foreign secretary William Hague are doing their best to provoke them. But Israel of course wishes to make the British feel threatened and to draw us for strategic reasons into their schemes for permanent occupation and domination. There are always plenty of useful idiots to do their bidding.

A few days earlier the Anglicans issued a press release stating that the flotilla to Gaza was “a publicity stunt, not a genuine aid convoy”. The item was actually a statement by the Israeli embassy repeated word for word and containing meaningless information like… “Since last year’s January cease fire, 133 million liters of fuel entered Gaza from Israel – That’s more than enough fuel to fill the fuel tank of every car and truck in Israel!” and “Since the ceasefire, well over a million tons of humanitarian supplies entered Gaza from Israel – That’s almost a ton of aid for every man woman and child in Gaza.”

Meaningless, because the figures lacked context. You have to go to the UN for that. Whatever Israel lets in, says the UN, it’s only one-fifth of what’s needed.

Some apparently responsible people, it seems, would rather accept without question the disinformation fed them by the Israeli authorities than on-the-spot assessments and reports by the UN and various charities.

Actually Israel is letting in only a quarter of what it let in before Hamas was elected.

Without question there was a publicity angle to the voyage. The organisers had a political point to make – the whole ugly US/UK-created mess out there is a political cesspit. The Israelis couldn’t afford to see their illegal blockade breached. The evidence points to a planned execution raid on the Mavi Marmara in the dead of night with a pre-prepared hit-list.

And in a letter to the BBC these Anglicans insisted that Operation Cast Lead (Israel’s blitzkrieg on Gaza after breaking the ceasefire with Hamas, subsequently killing 1400, maiming heaven knows how many and making hundreds of thousands homeless) was an act of “self-defense”.

If you are as bewildered as I am why so-called Christians are persuaded to sign up to Zionism, a short paper explaining the phenomenon is available from Sadaka, The Ireland Palestine Alliance – see www.sadaka.ie. I found it very helpful.

    “The destiny of the Jewish people is to return to the land of Israel and reclaim their inheritance promised to Abraham and his descendants forever. This inheritance extends from the River of Egypt to the Euphrates. Within their land, Jerusalem is recognised to be their exclusive, undivided and eternal capital, and therefore it cannot be shared or divided.
    At the heart of Jerusalem will be the rebuilt Jewish temple, to which all the nations will come to worship God. Just prior to the return of Jesus, there will be seven years of calamities and war known as the tribulation, which will culminate in a great battle called Armageddon, during which the godless forces opposed to both God and Israel will be defeated.
    Jesus will then return as the Jewish Messiah and king to reign in Jerusalem for a thousand years, and the Jewish people will enjoy a privileged status and role in the world.”

That’s the Zionist dream in a nutshell.

As I understand it, the Jews were expelled by the Roman occupation in 70AD, when the second temple in Jerusalem was destroyed, and again in 135AD.

These days the right of return is regarded as an inalienable right. But it should be exercised as soon as the reason for expulsion (e.g. foreign occupation) ceases. In the Jews’ case an opportunity would have occurred in the 4th century AD as the Roman Empire collapsed. But they didn’t take it. They can hardly expect to change their mind 16 centuries later. Their right expired a very long time ago.

By comparison the Palestinians’ right of return after being ethnically cleansed in 1948 and ever since is much stronger because the enemy occupation has not yet ended and the UN has endorsed their right.

Nevertheless Zionists claim Jerusalem is theirs by heavenly decree. However, this holiest of cities was already 2000 years old when King David captured it. It dates back 5000 years and was named after the Canaanite God of Dusk.

Historians say that Jerusalem, in its ‘City of David’ form, lasted a mere 73 years. In 928BC the kingdom divided into Israel and Judah, and in 597BC the Babylonians conquered the city and destroyed Solomon’s temple. The Jews recaptured it in 164BC but finally lost it to the Roman Empire in 63BC. Before the present-day conflict the Jews, in total, controlled Jerusalem for some 500 years, whereas it was subsequently ruled by Muslims for 1,277 years. Before the Jews it belonged to the Canaanites. And for nearly 90 years it was also a Christian kingdom. A lot of competing claims, then, which is probably why the UN declared it should be independently administered as an international city.

In 1187 Saladin restored the city to Islam while allowing Jews and Christians to remain. Today Jewish religious groups want control of the city for their spiritual centre and for a third temple to be built in accordance with ancient prophecies. The plan to make the Israeli occupation permanent threatens especially the Muslim but also the Christian holy places and serves to keep political tension boiling. It is no surprise, given Israel’s reliance on ‘black’ propaganda, that when the Iranian president quoted the late Ayatollah Khomeini as saying the unfriendly regime occupying Jerusalem “must vanish from the page of time”, he was immediately reported as wanting to wipe Israel off the map.

Sadaka puts the genuine Christian position by quoting The Jerusalem Declaration on Christian Zionism, a statement by the Latin Patriarch and Local Heads of Churches in Jerusalem issued in 2006…

    We categorically reject Christian Zionist doctrines as a false teaching that corrupts the biblical message of love, justice and reconciliation.
    We further reject the contemporary alliance of Christian Zionist leaders and organizations with elements in the governments of Israel and the United States that are presently imposing their unilateral pre-emptive borders and domination over Palestine. This inevitably leads to unending cycles of violence that undermine the security of all peoples of the Middle East and the rest of world.
    We reject the teachings of Christian Zionism that facilitate and support these policies as they advance racial exclusivity and perpetual war rather than the gospel of universal love, redemption and reconciliation taught by Jesus Christ. Rather than condemn the world to the doom of Armageddon we call upon everyone to liberate themselves from ideologies of militarism and occupation. Instead, let them pursue the healing of the nations!

The Declaration, explains Sadaka, asserts that “Christian Zionists have aggressively imposed an aberrant expression of the Christian faith and an erroneous interpretation of the Bible, which is subservient to the political agenda of the modern State of Israel… Christian Zionism thrives on a literal and futurist hermeneutic in which Old Testament promises made to the ancient Jewish people are transferred to the contemporary State of Israel in anticipation of a final future fulfillment.”

I haven’t yet seen credible response from the Christian Zionists.

Alarmingly, the US-based Unity Coalition for Israel brings together over 200 organisations and is the largest pro-Israel network in the world. They claim to have 40 million active members and lobby on behalf of Israel through 1,700 religious radio stations, 245 Christian TV stations and 120 Christian newspapers.

The question I’d like answered is this. Are we to believe that an all-powerful supernatural Being has chosen and elevated one group of humans to a position of supremacy above all others, and has approved the use any means including murder and brutal eviction to achieve their goal, and now mobilizes millions of lesser mortals from around the globe, like those who regard themselves as upstanding Christians, to serve as tools and sing the praises of this ‘Grand Design’?

In the meantime I’m with the Churches of Jerusalem on this one.

It took an 89-year old woman, the formidable White House correspondent Helen Thomas, to prick the Zionists’ over-inflated balloon when she said last week that the Israelis should “get the hell out of Palestine” and “go home… to Germany, Poland, America and everywhere else.”

The hatchet squad roaming America’s den of iniquity promptly fell on her. They may have silenced her, and may even have destroyed this frail lady, but the power of her words will live on…

Stuart Littlewood

17 June 2010

Stuart Littlewood is author of the book Radio Free Palestine, which tells the plight of the Palestinians under occupation. For further information please visit www.radiofreepalestine.co.uk