Three British Heroes.

Congratulations and thanks must go to three British heroes who have exhibited a rugged determination to take on the system in pursuit of justice and fairness to Israel.

The 3 London Jons deserve our admiration. More later. Here is the background.

In the case of Judge George Bathurst-Norman, who was wheeled out of retirement, to judge the case of seven vandals who caused almost two hundred thousand pounds worth of damage to the property of the EDO company in Hove on the south coast of England.
EDO supplies military spare parts and Israel is one of their customers.
This was sufficient for the activists to illegally break into the factory and create havoc. They admitted their guilt in court in a criminal case brought by the Crown-Prosecutor.
The defendants admitted their guilt based on a defense that they did so 'to prevent Israeli war crimes in Gaza'.

In his summing up to the jury Bathurst-Norman, born in Mandated Palestine, exposed his political bias by acting as if he was an additional defense attorney.

In his summation he compared Israeli action in Gaza to the Nazi regime in World War Two. He used expressions such as war crimes, colonization, ethnic cleansing to describe Israel.
He even suggested that the group leader deserved to be awarded the George Medal for bravery.

In directing the jury the judge made a serious error by discussing an event that took place some time after the criminal event being decided in his court. He made reference to the flotilla to Gaza. This had no relevance to the case in hand.

He even mentioned Goldstone in an obliquely anti-Semitic manner. He said "The UN Human Rights Commission was headed by an eminent international jurist Justice Goldstone who is himself Jewish. Because his report was not to the liking of Israel, he was condemned by Israel as being anti-Semitic."
Richard Goldstone's religion is totally irrelevant to the case under review, except to be used as a spurious point to be made by someone with bias to Israel, and maybe the Jews. It needs to be said that the Israeli Government never called the author of the UN report anti-Semitic or referred to him as a Jew.
The judge's remarks had the effect of demonising the Israeli Government for calling a Jew an anti-Semite, something that it did not do.

Judge George Bathurst-Norman crossed all the red lines in one section of his instruction to the jury. Let me print verbatim what he said:

Now you may be wondering what on earth has the actions of the Israeli air force to do with this country (Britain). The short answer is that if the Israeli air force was committing crimes in the way that the agreed evidence outlines in the unlawful killing of Palestinians in Gaza and in the unlawful causing of damage to property in Gaza, then under the War Crimes Act and other legislation any member of the Israeli air force who set foot in this country and who acted in that way would be liable to arrest and prosecution, as is anyone within this country who knowingly helps the Israeli air force to commit war crimes.

I ask you to review that last paragraph and seek out one little word  -  'if'.

The overall impression that the judge deposited with his jury was 'unlawful killing of Palestinians', 'unlawful
damage to Gaza property', committing 'war crimes', and being 'liable to arrest and prosecution'.

Of course, neither the Israeli Air Force nor the IDF have been found guilty of any war crimes in Gaza. The judge neatly covered his bias by slipping in that little word, 'if', while burying it with the harsher expressions in order to plant his message into the minds of the jury.

The agreed evidence he referred to was legally wrong as the Crown Prosecution in this case never agreed that the Israeli air force committed crimes, therefore such evidence was not agreed in his court. This was blatantly misleading.

In a later section he repeats his statement that Israel was guilty of war crimes:
The evidence shows that those war crimes are committed against the civilian population of Gaza and against the property of its residents including the United Nations by the Israeli forces.

This handy piece of demonisation was given despite the fact that there is no evidence that Israel committed any war crimes in Gaza against the civilian population. Nor did the judge instruct his jury that Israel had paid compensation to the UN for damage caused inadvertently during the conflict.

Throughout his summing up the judge did not mention Hamas crimes once. Neither did he record the years of incessant rocket attacks on Israeli civilians from Gaza.

There are pages of nauseatingly faulty and emotive testimony that Judge George Bathurst-Norman directed to his jury. Perhaps the most sickly and insidious was this statement:
Now you have to look at the evidence coldly and dispassionately. It may be as you went through what I can only describe as horrific scenes, scenes of devastation to civilian population, scenes which one would rather have hoped to have disappeared 'with the Nazi regimes of the last war' you may have felt anger and have been absolutely appalled by them, but you must put that emotion aside.

Here you have a British judge whose duty is to direct the jury to bring in a verdict based on the evidence placed before them, who instead instructs them to 'put emotion aside' before whipping up the emotions of his jury with images of a Nazi regime committing horrific scenes of devastation.

There is more, much more, guilt to be found in the performance of Judge George Bathurst-Norman. It is to be hoped that the Attorney-General will clarify the verdict in this case.

Many people have contributed to bringing this miscarriage of justice to the attention of both the British Minister of Justice and the Attorney-General, and it is comforting to see that traditional British justice will shine through sometime in the near future.

There is, however, another success story that people keen to see Israel receive fairness and justice should take to heart.

The hornets nest was stirred up by several activists, including yours truly.  Bringing it to fruition would not have been possible without the resolve and courage of local activists who not only gave of their time and reputations, but also put their hands in their pockets to file the documents and papers that set things in motion.

Our applause and appreciation must go to the Three London Jons.
Without the determined actions of Jonathan Hoffman, Jon Benjamin, and Jonathan Turner, the British wheels of justice would not have turned.

They are an inspiration to others. It is not enough to complain about injustices. Action must be taken. They are by our enemies and the above heroes are also involved in forcing changes to the British universal jurisdiction laws that currently allow Israel's radical activists to have Israeli visiting England to be arrested on trumped up charges of war crimes with the simple signature of a local magistrate.
The previous Labour Government did nothing to change this iniquity. Now, under David Cameron's new team, there is light at the end of this tunnel.

The message of this article is that you, the individual, can effect changes. You can, you must, stand up for justice and for Israel. Do not wait for others. You must take the lead.
Follow the shining example of the Three London Jons.
Hoffman, Benjamin, Turner.
They are our British heroes..