After hearing about the Doctors without borders debacle, its interesting to read the latest about doctors who supposedly agreed that the convicted Libyan bomber had only 3 months to live.

According to the article from the Sunday Times, and reported in the Australian one of the treating doctors denied that he had been contacted by the Scottish authorites. 

As stated “Speaking publicly for the first time, Zak Latif, Megrahi’s urologist in Scotland, said: “I was surprised when I heard he was being released because I wasn’t really asked for my opinion . . . it’s a bit odd.”

And the doctor who actually certified the poor outlook, was actually paid by the Libyans!! 

“It has also emerged that the Scottish government consulted Ibrahim Sherif, a doctor paid by Libya to assess Megrahi. Dr Sherif concluded that Megrahi had only three months to live.”

And the British planned to make much money from Libyan contracts as a result of this deal.  Would you buy a used car from this government? 

Should Israel put any credence in statements or any assurances from Britain or “any other princes?”

Noam Chomsky has caused a great deal of angst among the “progressive leftists”,  through his lukewarm support of the BDS movement.

Indeed, it has thrown the anti-Israel brigade into a real tizz.

Jeffrey Blankfort, described as growing up in a “non-Zionist Jewish home”  is most put out by Chomsky’s insufficiently anti-Israel fulminations.   Khalil Bendib conducted an interview with Chomsky, (which doesnt seem to be archived) which led to much angst.  Some of his remarks and a longer opportunity for critique by Ali Abunimah and Blankfort are here.

Chomsky even goes to the extent of calling (shock horror)  some of the BDS ’s hypocrites .. and bemoans BDS actions that are “feel good” and not “do good”.  He particularly is critical of Americans who favour boycotts of Israel but not of the U.S. .. and calls them hypocritical.

There’s got to be something funny about aging leftist Jews (plus the occasaional Palestinian) arguing as to who is the most Pro-Palestinian - “yes I am, no you’re not”.   I particularly liked Jeffrey Hammond’s article here   where he demolishes Blankfort’s efforts to demolish Chomsky.  The letter writing that follows the article is fast and furious,  and if you are strong enough you’ll find that after the first few hundred posts, Blankfort can’t resist and gets into a bit of mudslinging.

One of the letter writers provides an example  - “Your critics of Chomsky on the boycott issue are so hypocritical and misleading. Especially since the Professor agrees on some of these sanctions as long as they don’t hurt Palestinians (eg: boycott of an Israeli university that is fighting Israeli tactics, hence trying to help Palestinians). Sanctions would be useless if hypocritical, it’s pretty simple if you listen to the argument he makes. Don’t give ammunition to the opposition by supporting the wrong sanctions. He even gave you an example of a University to boycott, but it would be very sensitive that some people of this University are good people.   To the ethnic loyalty question, it seems your bias opinion did not allow you to listen to Chomsky’s answer. “It is a factor insofar as i does not conflict with dominant US interests”. When Israel goes against US interest like they did in 2005 while trying to reach a deal with China for arm exports, US stopped them and got them to apologise.”

Is there honour among thieves or is it a Train Wreck?

Tony Judt’s illness and recent death has reopened discussion of his anti-Zionist viewpoint.  The Jerusalem Post had an editorial overview here.

As the article states: “The London-born Judt – who passed away on Friday at the age of 62 at his home in Manhattan, after being diagnosed two years ago with Lou Gehrig’s disease – produced remarkably lucid and readable studies of 19th and 20th century social history. However, it was the New York University lecturer’s polemical essays and public statements against Zionism, and his rejection of the legitimacy of the Jewishness of the State of Israel, that thrust him onto the public stage.

In a much-cited October 2003 essay in The New York Review of Books, here Judt called to dismantle the state and to replace it with “a single, integrated, bi-national state” between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea – a recipe for national suicide for the sovereign Jewish entity.

This categorical rejection of Zionism put him in a class with other contemporary Jewish intellectuals of the Diaspora such as Jacqueline Rose, Michael Neumann and Joel Kovel, who have chosen to single out Israel for opprobrium that is rarely, if ever, directed at other countries that choose to adopt unique religious or cultural-based nationalities.

At the center of Judt’s attacks on Israel was a stubborn refusal to accept the right of the Jewish people to self-determination in a distinctly Jewish state. In the above-mentioned article, entitled “Israel: The Alternative,” Judt posited that Israel artificially imported “a characteristically late-19th-century separatist project into a world that has moved on, a world of individual rights, open frontiers and international law.”

For Judt, an “ethno-religious” state that provides special privileges to its Jewish citizens – such as the Law of Return – and seeks to preserve its Jewish character through Jewish symbols, is an anachronism “in an age when that sort of state has no place.”

Yet Judt applied totally different rules when he scrutinized nationalism outside of the Israeli context. In A Grand Illusion? An Essay on Europe, Judt acknowledged that the nation-state was “the only remaining, as well as the best-adapted, source of collective and communal identification.”

With all the desire for a supranational framework that provides universal equality, and eradicates the bigotry and discriminations of cultural and religious distinctions that cause war and strife, argued Judt, there is no substitute for the social cohesion and communal identification provided by a unique national identity.

Therefore, a “truly united Europe” is so unlikely that it would be “unwise and self-defeating to insist upon it.” As a result, Judt was extremely pessimistic about attempts to create a politically homogeneous Europe devoid of borders and cultural distinctions.  For Israel, by contrast, the time has come to “move on,” “to think the unthinkable,” to replace the Jewish state with “a single, integrated, bi-national state of Jews and Arabs,” in his vision. For Judt, European particularism was an undeniable fact, but the Jewish variety was outdated.

WHY THE double standard? Irrational prejudices are difficult, if not impossible, to fathom, belonging as they do to the murky realm of the psyche.

.. what really seemed to have bothered Judt was his subjective feeling that, as an identifiable Jew, he was somehow being represented by Israel.  “The behavior of a self-described Jewish state affects the way everyone else looks at Jews,” wrote Judt. His solution? Do away with the Jewishness of the state.”

Other critiques and articles about Judt are here, here, here, here, here and here.
 

Turning to Israelis, a detailed article entitled “The Sad Status of Israeli Radicalism”was recently published by Assaf Sagiv, the Editor in Chief of Azure here  It provides a good perspective - and emphasising that the pre 1967 boundaries are not regarded by the radicals as the legimitate ones.  Instead they call into question the entire validity of Israel. 

Sagiv critiques the views of the radicals in a clear and compelling way.

The Blank Pages of the Age blog has a disturbing piece medicins sans SHAME  about the depths of anti-Israel bias and hypocrisy stooped to by Medicins sans frontiers. 

An explanatory article from Haaretz is here.

As the Blank Pages of the Age blog states:

I received a copy of the following via email:-

The Chief Operational Officer,
Medcins Sans Frontiers
-Australian Office
-New York Office

Dear Sir/Madam

When my daughter wed in July 2006, in lieu of gifts she asked for donations to be made to Doctors without Borders / Medcins Sans Fontiers as our family had always supported the Group.

Well, I have a regret. 

 I’ve just read  a presentation by Alan Dershowitz - http://cgis.jpost.com/Blogs/dershowitz/entry/moonbats_against_israel_posted_by  which you too should read and think about. 

Doctors Without Borders erected borders when it comes to Israeli doctors who flew to the Congo to treat 50 local villagers who had been severely burned.   The Israeli volunteers worked around the clock, treated the burn victims and trained local doctors to perform skin grafts, and donated tons of medical equipment.   But  Doctors Without Borders refused to work with the Israeli medics and para medics and treated them “as though we were occupiers.” - quoted one Israeli medic.

 Dr. Marie Pierre Allie, President of the French branch of the organization, said that Israel’s self defense actions in Gaza were actually worse than the Darfur genocide in the Sudan.   Only a blind moonbat could even make such a comparison!  

MSF has an apparent  problem with one democratic Jewish State  but  is quite at ease with the existence  and actions of 56 dysfunctional & corrupt Islamic states.

As one critic has put it well, “These are Doctors With Borders - but without scruples.”

Perhaps you may wish to check out  http://theredhunter.com/2009/04/doctors_without_borders_running_cover_for_terrorists.php . - or just Google <”Doctors without Borders” Israel> and you will get more confirmation of the reactions around the world. 

My family will no longer donate to Doctors without Borders ( Medcins sans Frontiers) until this cynical, hateful and bitter culture towards Israel  - which obviously emanates from the top, ceases. 

I shall disseminate this email as widely as I can and shall ask recipients to forward it on also.

……………………….

Doctors with Hypocrisy,  Doctors without scruples, Doctors without shame!  What a disgrace when supposed healers (heelers?) behave like this -  and they have the CHEEK to call themselves Doctors without borders!! 

However you like to address them - next time you receive a letter requesting a donation from Medicins sans frontiers,  send it back enclosing a copy of the Haaretz article and a “Please explain”.   The Red Cross ended up pulling their heads in regarding anti-Israel bias,  maybe this doctors outfit will also have a rethink.

A brilliantly successful inaugural meeting of the Friends of Israel - Western Australia was held earlier today (Sunday) in Perth - see here. for their website and a summary of the organisation.

Mission statements included:

Support Israel as the State of the Jewish people; Defend Israel’s right to live in peace and security; Ensure accurate and fair reporting on the Middle East.

According to an initial article:  1500 West Australians, including over 100 Federal and State Parliamentarians and community leaders converged on the Victory Life Centre in Osborne Park to stand up and support Israel.

“The Friends of Israel (WA) Inc (“FOIWA”) enables Western Australians to take a stand for democratic values and freedoms  by supporting Israel, a champion of those values in the Middle East; and a nation on the front lines of the global battle between those who love life and those who glorify death…   Join us and identify with the many Western Australians who aren’t fooled by the relentless propaganda campaign by Israel’s enemies to vilify her, undermine her legitimacy, and ultimately destroy the only homeland of the Jewish people.  We don’t need to agree on everything, but we respect diversity, and we do believe in democracy, freedom, respect for life and that Israel deserves our support.”

Congratulations to Western Australia for this step that emphasises the bipartisan support of Israel, and the common values and historical ties that link Australian and Israel, particularly important during these times of threat to Israel and Western values,  and bias and efforts at delegitimisation of Israel. 

When some anti’s tried to picket an Ahava store in Maryland,  the response from the pro-Israel community was to give the store the best economic boost and sales ever, as reported here.

It was a reminder of another excellent “egg on your face” response to an attempted boycott demonstration in Canada from last year here.

Benny Morris recently published an interview here with Shimon Peres.  The interview is in a relatively new magazine called Tablet - we have linked to it on the right. Worth a read!

Benny Morris’ interview of Shimon Peres is a wide-ranging interview that covers a variety of historical and current topics.

Here is one excerpt, the latter part of which was picked up by a “shocked” British press:

How do you explain the rise in the delegitimization of Israel in the world in recent years? Do you agree that this is happening?

Let me give you a contrary picture: Israel is the most popular country in the world. [Peres’s media aide giggles. “Benny, you won’t leave here depressed,” she says.] For 2,000 years there was friction between the Vatican and the Jews. There are, what is it, 1.3 billion Christians? Now we have excellent relations with the Vatican. This is no small thing. And we have good relations with India, also hit by Muslim terrorists. And that’s together 3 billion. And [we now have] excellent relations with China.

Right. But why the delegitimization, especially in the West?

Firstly, there is a problem in the Scandinavian countries. They always want to appear like yefei nefesh [the Hebraism roughly translates as “bleeding hearts,” with an undertone of hypocrisy]. And I don’t expect them to understand us. Sweden doesn’t understand why we are at war. For 150 years they have not had a war. There were even Hitler and Stalin, but they kept out of the picture. As did Switzerland. So, they don’t understand why we are “for war,” as if we really like wars. It’s like Marie Antoinette didn’t understand why the people didn’t bake cakes. The same logic.

But it goes a bit beyond [Sweden and Switzerland]?

Our next big problem is England. There are several million Muslim voters. And for many members of parliament, that’s the difference between getting elected and not getting elected. And in England there has always been something deeply pro-Arab, of course, not among all Englishmen, and anti-Israeli, in the establishment. They abstained in the [pro-Zionist] 1947 U.N. Partition Resolution, despite [issuing the pro-Zionist] Balfour Declaration [in 1917]. They maintained an arms embargo against us [in the 1950s]; they had a defense treaty with Jordan; they always worked against us.

But England changed after the 1940s and 1950s. They supported us in 1967, there was Harold Brown and Mrs. Thatcher [who were pro-Israeli].

There is also support for Israel today [on the British right].

But in Labor there was always a deep pro-Israeli current.

But [the late 1940s prime minister and Labor leader Clement] Attlee was [anti-Israel].

Anyway, this [pro-Israeli current] vanished because they think the Palestinians are the underdog. In their eyes the Arabs are the underdog. Even though this is irrational. Take the Gaza Strip. We unilaterally evacuated the Gaza Strip [in 2005]. We evacuated 8,000 settlers and it was very difficult, after mobilizing 47,000 policemen [and soldiers]. It cost us $2.5 billion in compensation. We left the Gaza Strip completely. Why did they fire rockets at us, for years they fired rockets at us. Why?

Maybe because they don’t like us?

Peres: You fire rockets at everyone you don’t like? For eight years they fired and we refrained from retaliating. When they fired at us, the British didn’t say a word.

Maybe it is anti-Semitism?

Yes, there is also anti-Semitism. There is in England a saying that an anti-Semite is someone who hates the Jews more than is necessary. But with Germany relations are pretty good, as with Italy and France.

But there is erosion of public pro-Israel sentiment—at the universities, in the press. I’m not talking about the governments.

I’ll tell you why. On television there is an asymmetry that can’t be corrected. What the terrorists do is never broadcast. Only the response is broadcast. And then critics charge: “This is disproportionate.” You don’t see the terrorist act. When a lawful nation fights a lawless nation there is a problem in the media. When an open regime fights a secret regime there is a problem.

Two nights ago I received an email with a link to an article entitled ‘Gaza cannot remain a prison camp’. Once again, it was Israel that bore the brunt of the dreadful accusation. However, this time the statements did not come from some crazy despotic leader of a Middle Eastern nation. You can imagine my shock when I realised it was Britain’s new Prime Minister David Cameron, in Turkey to establish new partnerships given what he described as ‘Turkey’s unique position at the meeting point of East and West’.

More about Turkey later but Cameron’s attitude to recent events demonstrated the British leader’s complete lack of understanding and naïveté towards the reality of what is happening in the region.

Of the flotilla incident he declared, ‘The Israeli attack on the Gaza flotilla was completely unacceptable and I have told Prime Minister Netanyahu, we will expect the Israeli inquiry to be swift, transparent and rigorous’. He continued, ‘Let me also be clear that the situation in Gaza has to change. Humanitarian goods and people must flow in both directions. Gaza cannot and must not be allowed to remain a prison camp’.

How can a world leader get it so wrong? Leaving aside for a moment the implication of using the term “prison camp”, let us focus on two other issues:

The first is that while failing to recognise the true facts on the ground in Gaza, Cameron has given Turkey, and Hamas as well, another opportunity to bash Israel in the world media. Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan stated, ‘What we saw happening was taking place in international waters and this attack in international waters, as such, can only be termed as piracy. There is no other way to describe it.’

Israel’s Ambassador to the UK Ron Prosor responded by declaring, “The people of Gaza are the prisoners of the terrorist organisation Hamas. The situation in Gaza is the direct result of Hamas rule and priorities.” 

He also put the spotlight onto the situation of abducted Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit by saying, “We know that the Prime Minister would also share our grave concerns about our own prisoner in Gaza, Gilad Shalit, who has been held hostage there for over four years, without receiving a single visit from the Red Cross.”

This brings me to my second issue, which is how Turkey manages to get off scott free in terms of its own very sordid involvement in the flotilla incident. It is common knowledge that the Turkish IHH is not, as claimed, a charity organisation, though some journalists and commentators are quick to play this down. A French judge Jean-Louis Bruguière declared that already in 1996 he came to the conclusion that IHH “is a terror organisation and not a charity group” (see more). By embracing the Turkish leadership and ignoring its own devious role in the flotilla deception, David Cameron has evoked in my mind memories of the history classroom, learning of another British Prime Minister of bygone days when Neville Chamberlain returned to London from a meeting in 1938 thinking he could make a pact with the Nazis.  

While Cameron railed against the Israelis, he failed to acknowledge Turkey’s own illegal occupation of part of Cyprus for the past 36 years other than a fleeting mention that “we want you to continue to work towards a solution in Cyprus to help convince the doubters that the case for Turkey’s membership of the EU was indisputable”. As one former UN mediator in Cyprus put it, “Mr Cameron should remember that Turkey is an invader and illegal occupier of Commonwealth and EU territory, in contravention of numerous UN and EU resolutions” (see more).  But I suppose that British diplomacy can ignore Turkey’s occupation of part of Cyprus, its oppression of its minority Kurdish population and even its responsibility in the last Century for the genocide of the Armenians. These are apparently considered as minor oversights in the same way as the use by Russian spies of British passports was ignored by this government. Hypocrisy and government working in unison.

Cameron’s comments were reported locally yesterday with Jason Koutsoukis’ offering in The Age entitled ‘British PM’s Gaza stance riles Israel’ and ‘UK to lift nuclear ban on India’ from the Australian. 

For a meaningful in-depth analysis please read Barry Rubin’s ‘How not to conduct diplomacy: A case study: UK PM in Turkey’. 

On another issue relating to the British, the recent issue of the “wikileaks” – the release of thousands of secret files about coalition operations in Afghanistan – raises in an interesting question of hypocrisy on the world stage. 

One of the issues it has brought to the surface is that of accidental killings by British soldiers of hundreds of civilians - “revellers at wedding parties, kids in school buses, ordinary people going about their daily business”. Their deaths came because the Taliban hides itself among the civilian population, making it impossible to sniff out the terrorists without the accidental killings of innocent civilians.

The scenario painted here might sound vaguely familiar – a terrorist organisation placing itself in the heart of the civilian population making it impossible for an army to distinguish between terrorist and civilian. 

The difference is that there is no call by the United Nations for a Goldstone-Report like inquiry. Surely one set of rules cannot exist for Israel while another set of rules applies for Coalition forces? Please read ‘Analysis: Goldstone comes back to bite the Brits’. But its not really going to bite the Brits at all because everyone knows that the principles (if that’s what you want to call them) established by Goldstone were really intended to apply to only one set of people in the world and they are not the British.

It hasn’t taken too long to see appeasement rhetoric emerge from new British PM, David Cameron.  On his recent trip to Turkey, Cameron was effusive to his hosts and aggressively critical of Israel.  Melanie Phillips bemoans the sorry state Britain is being lowered to here.  

As Phillips says “Israel is the litmus test of decency in political discourse. Those who attack Israel are invariably on the wrong side of the global fight to defend civilisation against its destroyers. Not just because of Israel’s place on the geopolitical map. It is because the animus against Israel is based on a wholesale repudiation of reason and the embrace instead of irrationality, bigotry, lies and moral inversion. Defence becomes attack, victim becomes victimiser, right becomes wrong; and vice versa. It is the deranged discourse of Islamic fanaticism and of the Israel-bashing left that marches beneath its black banners. And now it is Cameron’s discourse too.  It is astounding to hear a Conservative Prime Minister mouth such infantile leftism. If it weren’t for Obama’s example, it would be unbelievable that any serious politician could spout such drivel. But here surely is the key to all this. Recently, Cameron declared that Britain was “the junior partner [to America] in 1940 when we were fighting the Nazis.”  In 1940, of course, America had not yet even entered the war and Britain alone held fascism at bay. So how could Cameron have said something so unbelievably ignorant? Can he really be that stupid?”

Daphne Anson also analyzes Cameron’s actions and finds them wanting.  She writes “David Cameron is not a Conservative.  He is a smooth unprincipled opportunist, and, moreover, one who appears to bear the impression of the last man to sit upon him.” 

Robin Shepherd is equally critical  when he writes of Cameron’s comments:

“The kindest explanation is that he is simply being careless and on reflection would probably have wanted to add that Israel is of course entitled to be careful about which Gazans it lets into Israel. But careless talk costs lives and Cameron or his advisers should be aware that it is precisely because they want the option of sending waves of suicide bombers into Israel that Hamas has been so vocal in calling for its people to be allowed into Israel without restriction.

A harsher explanation of what is at work here is that Cameron has constructed his political personality around a desire to be seen as the kind of Conservative who is palatable to “progressive” opinion — a desire which has been redoubled by joining the Left-leaning Liberal Democrats to form a coalition government.

For the purposes of this discussion, this means going soft on terrorism, going quiet on Arab and Muslim anti-Semitism and, of course joining forces with the great global campaign of deligitimisation of the State of Israel. Hence the Gaza as a “prison camp” rhetoric and hence the absence of any reference whatsoever to Hamas’s terroristic ambitions or its vile anti-Semitism.”

Sad, really.  However, is it overly optimistic to hope that, since it is still early in his prime ministership, things may yet improve?   A cynical view would be that President Obama is outsourcing the critique of Israel to Cameron, for this period prior to the US elections.

There is something sad and dismal about Bony M being asked to not sing the song Rivers of Babylon in their concert in Ramallah, as reported  here. 

It demonstrates how reluctant the Palestinians are to officially admit the legitimacy of Israel and the long Jewish history of attachment to the land. 

Oh well, here is Bon M’s video.

The poseurs who cancelled their concerts in Israel, presumably will have nothing to say about this delusional behaviour on the West Bank.