The Pig-Headed BDS Movement.

The incident that got BDS banned from demonstrating at Woolworths stores in South Africa was when members of a political party in support of BDS trespassed into one of the stores and placed pigs heads in what they thought was the kosher foods section.

What kosher food has to do with a cynical anti-Israel provocation was clear to everyone. Kosher means Jewish. Jewish means Israel. BDS is anti-Semitic.

BDS in South Africa has a number of Muslims among its hierarchy. They recruit support from thousands of Muslims in that country who despise the Jewish state of Israel which they view as an abomination against the Islamic will.

It was against this backdrop that the porky protest flopped - badly.

The ignorant anti-Israel idiots thought they had placed the pigs heads in the kosher section. They photoed themselves holding the heads in triumph, grinningly exposing themselves to publicity. But they had made a huge mistake. Instead of being in the kosher food section they were in the halal section where they had unkoshered the Muslim food shelves with pigs.

The Muslim community had broadly supported this act only to be horrified to learn that their food supply had been defiled. The swine!

Ah well. That's what you get when you are pig-headed.

The Ferguson incident as a metaphor for Israel.

Provocative as it may sound, the Ferguson incident is a metaphor for Israel’s problems in the world. Let me explain.

From an outsider’s viewpoint, Michael Brown was a young hoodlum who violently robbed a local store in Ferguson, Missouri, violently attacked a police officer and tried to grab his gun, and finally charged the officer when challenged to submit. The office fired and killed Brown when he felt his life was in danger. His decision to fire was clearly based on the violence on his person he had just experienced.  Given the evidence, this was the behavior of an aggressive petty criminal. In this case the issue became one of race. Brown was a black. The officer was white. Because of this, the incident took on a different and ugly life of its own.

Brown’s death resulted in demonstrations, violence, and demands that the officer be put on trial for murder. According to many vocal protesters, nothing short of Officer Daryl Wilson being found guilty and sentenced for racist crimes would soothe the black community.

Cries of justice for Michael Brown drowned out any call for justice for the police officer. No justice for Officer Wilson would be too much justice. The black community of Ferguson was joined in their violent protests by outsiders who insisted that Officer Wilson be charged and found guilty. No other verdict would do. The facts became smudged. Michael Brown was portrayed as the innocent victim of a brutal police regime. Evidence to the contrary became irrelevant to them. “Don’t confuse me with the truth!” was the cry on the streets of Ferguson, and around black America.

A Grand Jury, reviewing the evidence and calling up to seventy witnesses, in a reasonable, open-minded manner found the officer innocent of committing any crime and having operated according to the law in self-defense. This decision was met with a massive and angry outburst of rioting. Shots were fired; stores were looted, destroyed, and burnt to the ground, as were vehicles. One demonstrator reportedly said, “We are doing this for Michael Brown.”

Across America noisy crowds came out in sympathy for Brown, the guy who had strong-armed a store owner and robbed him, the guy who had attacked a police officer and threatened him a second time when asked to submit. Demonstrators as far afield as New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Oakland, Philadelphia, and St. Louis marched to protest that this young man was an innocent victim of police brutality and racism. All this was irrespective to the fact that the majority of witnesses were, themselves, black people. For them, anything the police officer would have done to protect himself against a violent assailant, who was taller and heavier than himself, would have been illegitimate. None of them looked on Michael Brown as the aggressor.

Simply put, in places like Ferguson, they can’t be wrong even when they are wrong. They were in denial and rejected justice for the white officer. As such, this was racism. It was reverse racism. It was black racism against a white police officer who was attacked while going about his duty, on his own, and under threat for his life. We witnessed the frenzy of hatred and the resultant violence it left in its wake.

Now view this scenario from a Middle East perspective. The police officer was Israel, the violent section of Ferguson were Palestinians, and the major American centers that rowdily demonstrated for Brown and rejected justice for the officer were the pro-Palestinian activists who ignore justice for Israel and who don’t want to hear Israel’s rightful claims or to admit that Israel is facing an enemy that is advancing on it in a threatening manner. Justice for the Palestinians drowns out any call for justice, and a voice, for Israel. No amount of facts and truth will silence their false accusations, insults, racism charges and, if all else fails, violence.  

Police Officer Daryl Wilson, seen through these eyes, is a metaphor for an Israel under unreasonable, hateful, racist, attack by people who will not be soothed until Israel is charged, sentenced, and found guilty of crimes it did not commit. No jury would satisfy the angry “cop hating” mobs of Ferguson. No jury will satisfy the angry “Jew hating” mobs around the world.  

The reverse racism experienced in Israel is one of being accused of being a racist state while having the worst kind of racism hurled at the Jewish state, that is the racism of anti-Semitism practised by all strands of the Palestinian political and religious spectrum and supported by their supporters.

As demonstrators chanted across Europe and America last summer, “We are all Hamas now!” No amount of reason or evidence will fall on their deaf ears. To them, Police Officer Israel is guilty as charged and must be punished.

Both Officer Wilson and Israel must be indicted, they demand..

In Ferguson, the mob is angry and will not be assuaged until Wilson is behind bars. In the Middle East, the mob is angry and will not be assuaged until Israel is no more.

Barry Shaw is the author of ‘Israel Reclaiming the Narrative.’ www.israelnarrative.com

Israel - the National Home of the Jewish People.

Those who say they believe in Two States for Two Peoples yet oppose the realisation of Israel as the national home of the Jewish people are dangerous liars. 

Those that say they are for a Two State solution but oppose the notion of Israel as the national home of the Jewish people are dangerous liars. 

They say they are for democracy but what they are really proposing is the end of Israel for once you accept the rights of a Palestinian people without recognising the rights of the Jewish people you are calling for a One State solution. 

This will come about once a Palestinian state is established which will then call for the liberation of the rest of their Palestine in place of what is left of a non-Jewish Israel. 

Israel can be the national home of the Jewish people and retain its democracy. 

Israel can be the national home of the Jewish people, retaining its national Jewish symbols, the Menorah, its national anthem, its flag, its major Jewish holidays, its Hebrew language, its eternal Jewish capital, and still be a liberal democratic state, It is the acceptance of this that will herald peace. It is the rejection of this that has, and will, maintain the conflict.

Until Israel's enemies will come to appreciate and accept the notion of Israel as the national state of the Jewish people there will be no peace.

This is the rock of Israel's existence. There is no negotiations on this basic condition for peace.

Media in the service of Israel’s enemies.

Gross distortions in media coverage of the recent Jerusalem synagogue massacre, coming so soon after the gross media distortions in the Gaza conflict, in both cases leaves a feeling of a media that hits on Israel while giving Palestinian terror a free pass. It leads us to ask why?

Try some of these major Western media headlines and feeds to understand the bias of what you would assume to be leading professional media outlets;

Initial BBC headlines shouted, “Jerusalem synagogue attack kills 4 Israelis.” No Palestinians, no terrorists, it was a synagogue that killed Israelis, not even identifying the victims killed as Jews, or Palestinian Arabs as the perpetrators.

It was blindingly obvious to everyone that this slaughter of Jews at prayer was a terror incident but the BBC had to qualify their report by tagging on the preface, “What police say was a ‘terror attack’…” hinting that the definition of the attacks was defined by the police and not what the evidence clearly showed.

CBC Canada tweeted, “Israeli police fatally shoot two after an apparent synagogue attack.” Why was the attack only “apparent” and not obvious to CBC? And what happened to the identity of the attackers and, of course, the missing murdered Jews? How many were there and how were they killed? You wouldn't know from their headline. The lingering impression is that it was the Israeli police that did the killing. They were the only ones named by CBC.

CNN led their report with “4 Israelis, 2 Palestinians killed in synagogue attack, Israeli police say.” Notice the neutrality of who were the victims and were who the attackers. I doubt that this is not what the Israeli police said. I am pretty sure they said what happened, who the terrorist perpetrators were, and who the victims were. I am also pretty sure that CNN knew this as they put out this feed which equates Palestinian killers with Israelis (read “Jewish”) at prayer.

Another CNN headline said, “6 people killed…” again without differentiating between Palestinian terrorists and Jewish victims.

CBS, Nora O’Donnell called the Jerusalem synagogue attacked by hatchet-wielding Arabs a “contested religious site.” Here is what she said;

“Two Palestinian attackers died in a shootout with police. It happened at a contested religious site in Jerusalem…”

Notice she listed the two dead Palestinians. No mention of murdered Israelis or Jews. No mention of the site of the massacre being a synagogue. To her it was a “contested religious site.” Her viewers may be forgiven for assuming that, with the opening words referring to Palestinians, the religious site would be a mosque, not a Jewish synagogue.

CBS later failed to air footage of Palestinian Arabs dancing and celebrating the slaughter of Jews in Jerusalem.

The Irish Times led their report with the headline, “Four killed in attack on Jerusalem synagogue,” thereby failing to identify the attackers and the victims in yet another bland neutral banner.  Later, it was amended to “five killed” as further reports came in. At the foot of their article they arbitrarily pegged this incident to the murder of a Palestinian teenager back in July, quoting unnamed “residents” as their source.  The Irish Times made no reference to the ongoing religious-based incitement emanating from the Palestinian Authority as being a more feasible spark for the synagogue massacre.

Similar headlines came from Sky News, “Six dead after Jerusalem synagogue attack.” Again, no identification, in their headline, that the majority of the dead were Jews. Compare that with Sky headlines during the recent Gaza conflict. Most of their reports named Palestinians as casualties. “Five Palestinians killed in Gaza strike.” “Gaza: 100 Palestinian killed in one day.” Their headlines in Jerusalem failed to identify the perpetrators where, in their Gaza reporting, they fell over themselves to include ‘Israel” into headlines of the military aspect of the conflict. They did it even when it was Hamas that repeatedly reignited the violence as in “Israel resumes assault on Gaza as truce ends.”

The media knee-jerk response that gives no credit to Israel is troubling. It has become stock in trade journalism to position headlines and lead-ins as Israel’s fault, granting Palestinians a get-out-of-jail free card, or sterilizing the story intro to a moral equivalence between intentional Palestinian murderers and Israeli victims that deprives the readers or viewers of basic truths. As I write in my book, it is a media in the service of Israel’s enemies.

The hypocrisy behind such reporting by British, Canadian, and American media sources is that their reporting is completely different and to the point when their countries are hit with similar terrorism.

It is only then that they find their journalistic moral compass when reporting the news.

Barry Shaw. “Israel Reclaiming the Narrative.” www.israelnarrative.com

UK's Yachad, Jerusalem, and the consequences for Judaism.

The Yachad platform of supporting a Two-State Solution is not a fluid amorphous position.

The majority of Israelis are pro-peace and support the rights of Palestinians to a state of their own. Even our Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, publicly supports the notion of Two States for Two Peoples.

The problem is agreeing where that Palestinian state should be based. It is here that the likes of Yachad become dangerous mixers in a delicate battle for rights and legitimacy.

According to them Israel has no legitimacy beyond what are considered 1967 borders. You can see evidence of that in their references to “illegal settlements” and “occupied Palestinian land.”

Once Yachad establishes that Israel is illegal beyond 1967 lines they also define east Jerusalem, with its centrality to Judaism, as illegal.  They make great issue of the “crime” of Jews buying and living in Jerusalem locations that were once Jewish, places like Shimon Hazadik with the tomb of Simeon the Just, and in Silwan which was once the residence of Yemenite Jews before they were driven out of their homes by the Arabs and Jordanians. They would stop the excavations in the City of David just outside the walls of the Old City, excavations that prove the Jewish history, heritage and construction of ancient Jerusalem.

http://yachad.org.uk/get-involved/trips/

http://yachad.org.uk/yachad-to-tour-east-jerusalem-with-uk-jewish-teens-2462013/#.VGRcbjSUd8E

East Jerusalem includes the Old City of Jerusalem. In real estate terms, according to Palestinians and Yachad, properties such as the Hurva Synagogue, David’s Tomb, the Western Wall, the Temple Mount, the Mount of Olives, even the Rockefeller Museum, Hadassah Hospital, and the Hebrew University are located in “Palestinian” east Jerusalem.

This surely must outrage all British rabbis, and you.  Yachad ignores Palestinian voices against Jews, Jewish heritage, belonging and legitimacy in pursuit of a solution that brings doom to Jews and Israel. Yachad would sell our birthright cheaply to appease Palestinian demands in the name of peace and in the name of being pro-Israel.

If Yachad had their way, their new version of the Haggada would not end with the words “Next Year in a Rebuilt Jerusalem” but with the words “Next Year in a Divided Jerusalem.”

Under a Hamas-led Palestinian Jerusalem, will Jews once again be forced to pray towards our Temple Mount from outside the walls of the Old City as we were forced to do by the Jordanians between 1948-1967?

There is much much more that is abhorrent about Yachad’s platform against Israel. But this central issue of Jerusalem exposes for rabbis, and anyone truly caring about the defense and significance of the Jewish state, the core reason why Yachad cannot be the official voice of the British Jews.

The depth of this issue is that once Jews have relinquished ownership and legitimacy to the land, relinquished the centrality of our Jewish heritage and treasure  in Jerusalem to Palestinians, then all that is left is a rump secular state that, according to ongoing Arab ambitions is the remnant of a Palestine which belongs to them and must be liberated by them. At such a time it will be tenuous for Israelis to claim that the majority of its people are Jewish. We would, by then, have surrendered our soul. 

The Palestinian leadership already call Israeli Arabs “the Palestinians of the Interior,” and they intend to come and liberate them and to reclaim the holy towns of Jaffa, Haifa, and the Galilee.

What then, Yachad? What then, rabbis who support Yachad?

Palestinian leadership adopt Islamic State-type lone wolf terror attacks.

Palestinian leadership adopt Islamic State-type lone wolf terror attacks.
In US and UK, these are called 'home-grown' terrorists. Here they are initiated and incited by the Palestinian Authority and Hamas leadership.

This is the Palestinian regime that the world insists Israel surrender land and its security to accommodate!

Yet another terror attack, this time at Alon Shvut. Young girl stabbed in the neck by Palestinian attacker. Two others injured in the attack. The Arab was shot by an on-duty security guard.
Personal admission. I have family at Alon Shvut.

This follows the stabbing of a 20 year old soldier, stabbed several times in Tel Aviv. He is in Tel HaShomer Hospital in serious condition. He and the medical team are fighting for his life. Two others are receiving treatment in Ichilov Hospital.
The terrorist, an 18 year old Palestinian from Shechem affiliated with Hamas, fled the scene but was trapped and arrested after a struggle by Shin Bet agents and special police officers in a building near a Tel Aviv train station.
He was taken to Ichilov Hospital for medical treatment and will be interrogated by intelligence officers.

http://www.timesofisrael.com/two-stabbed-in-west-bank-in-p…/

Barry Shaw

THE VIEW FROM ISRAEL.

Mahmoud the denier.

Mahmoud Abbas, this Holocaust denier, this Jewish history denier, this Jewish presence denier, this Jew denier, is not a moderate peace-maker. He is a Jewish State denier. He perpetrates the Arab ambition of a world without Israel, just as his predecessor, Arafat, before him.

Simply put, he like Hamas, he like the wider Islamic world, advocates, educates, and incites for a Greater Palestine.

If Jews who advocated a Greater Israel were perceived as beyond the pale, as radical right-wing fanatics who must be denied so must Abbas be seen as a radical right-wing fanatic, beyond the pale, who must be denied his long term ambition.

The fault line is not a resolute Israel rejecting peace. That notion is untrue. Rather it is a rejectionist Abbas that incites for a state without Jews and a world without a Jewish state, an Abbas who partners with the deadly terror regime of Hamas.

Based on this harsh truth why would it be right to demand of a nation, to make drastic territorial concessions, even into the streets of Jerusalem, its capital city? Does this make any sense to any reasonable person? But this is what is being demanded of Israel.

The world is better advised to support Israel’s vital security needs, to see the dangerous character of a devious Palestinian leadership that says one thing to the international community, and something completely different to its own people. Indeed, the major partner in a Palestinian unity government openly tells the international community that its aim is the eventual annihilation of Israel and the murder of Jews. It states it clearly in its founding charter.

It is here that the fault lies, not in the liberal democracy that is Israel.

Barry Shaw is the author of ‘Israel Reclaiming the Narrative.’ www.israelnarrative.com

THIS IS WHAT YOU ARE GETTING WHEN YOU VOTE FOR YACHAD.

The Board of Deputies of British Jews is shortly to vote whether to accept the British equivalent of JStreet into their ranks.  

In May of this year, the American Jewish Organizations rejected JStreet as being anti-Israel.  Yachad, like JStreet, claim to be pro-Israel and pro-peace, even as they campaign against Israel in a divisive manner that is the antithesis of pro-peace.

If Yachad and their BOD supporters were truly pro-Israel and pro-peace they would have led the rally in support of Israel outside the Israeli embassy when Israel was attacked by Palestinian rockets and terrorists last summer. Instead, they were missing.

If Yachad and their BOD supporters were truly pro-Israel and pro-peace they would be speaking out right now condemning the Mahmoud Abbas inspired incitement to terror and violence that is killing and wounding Israelis in Jerusalem. Instead they are silent.

Yachad and their Board of Deputies supporters display all the symptoms of an abusive husband. They tell us that they love us even as they are attacking and abusing us.

This type of love we can do without. Say NO to Yachad!

Instead, the Board voters are for a Yachad that knowingly hosted a radical fringe group that calls Israeli soldiers and the IDF “criminals,” and they deliberately did it on Israel’s Independence Day when all Israelis were honouring our fallen heroes. How insulting and so anti-Israel is that?

Board of Deputies voters support a Yachad that provocatively brings groups on field trips to a West Bank village supporting Palestinian claims that are being adjudicated in the Israeli Supreme Court. Do they think Israeli judges will be swayed by Yachad’s biased demonstrations? And what of Yachad’s propaganda tours if the judges find the Palestinian claims are false, as so many have proven to be in the past?

It comes down to a single truth that Yachad and their Board supporters have decided to prejudge against any and all Israeli rights and legitimacy that are part of a difficult and lengthy negotiation process with a violence and rejectionist Palestinian leadership. It comes down to Yachad and Board members taking a particular political stand against Israel by accepting that all of Judea & Samaria and parts of Jerusalem are “occupied” and Israel’s presence is “illegal” no matter what Israel says or whatever legal proof Israel can provide to the contrary.

At a 2012 SOAS panel discussion they shared with the BDS Movement the leader of Yachad said, “I didn’t tell anyone here not to support BDS….I agree with you that a unified Palestinian strategy is hugely important.”

As such, they are knowingly weakening Israel’s position in peace talks with the Palestinians. How anti-Israel and anti-peace is that?

Those who say that Yachad should be welcomed into the Board of Deputies in the name of freedom of speech are wrong. Yachad’s speech will be broad cast externally, not within the Board chamber. A vote for Yachad will grant them license to continue their anti-Israel anti-peace campaigning in the official name of British Jewry.

Is this what you really want if you are truly pro-Israel and pro-peace? Can you really vote for such a group to speak out publicly in the name of British Jews?

Barry Shaw. Author of ‘Israel Reclaiming the Narrative.’ www.israelnarrative.com

Yachad chips away at Israel’s security.

Yachad is a Jewish group in Britain akin to JStreet in America. Like JStreet, it claims to be pro-Israel.

Yachad says it supports a Two-State Solution. Nothing new about that. Even Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has publicly stated he accepts a Two States for Two Peoples solution to the Israel-Palestinian issue, one that is based on mutual recognition, recognition of the rights of the Palestinian people in return for their commitment to live in peace alongside the Jewish State.

The problem is that groups like Yachad fail to face up to the fact that what is missing is not the first half of Bibi’s essential condition, but the latter, the part where a Palestinian leadership must recognize and commit to the existence of the Jewish State of Israel and is prepared to live with it in peace and security.

This is the key for guaranteeing Israel’s security, and it is singularly lacking.

It is an issue that is waved aside as irrelevant by those who rush a Two State Now agenda. They presuppose that Israel needs to withdraw from territory in the West Bank and east Jerusalem. If not, Israel will be to blame for the consequences. If only life were that simple.

There is no resolution, no treaty that demands of Israel to withdraw from all territory over non-existent 1967 borders. None. It has been patently clear for decades that Israel would retain territory, even if a deal could be reached with a future, more pragmatic, Palestinian leadership. That day is yet to come and, until it does, Israel is required to hold on to essential territory, and even strengthen it, for the sake of its vital security.

This is the significant difference between an Israeli perspective and the mistaken one of people that support groups like Yachad.

They think that Israel will get security if it surrenders land, according to Palestinian and Yachad demands. Not true. Not only is it not true, it is a fatal notion - fatal for Israel, that is.  One only has to look at the result of Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza to see proof of the flaw of such a naïve notion. One only has to look at the current Palestinian leadership to realize how dangerous this fatal step would be for Israel.

Is there anybody who witnessed what transpired out of Gaza last summer who still thinks that Hamas would transform into a liberal democratic peaceful party if only Israel were to make way for them? For, as surely as night follows day, Hamas, by ballot or by bullet, will usurp power in any future Palestinian state as they did in Gaza. What then? 

What then when Yachad has forced Israel out of crucial strategic territory including the heights above Ben Gurion Airport, to a narrow nine mile coastal corridor between Tulkarm and Netanya on the Mediterranean Sea, and facing Hamas on the streets of Jerusalem?

What then when Yachad would have, like other dangerously misguided altruists, hacked and chipped away at Israel’s fingers, fingers desperately holding on to its security safety-belt of strategic territory until we meet a strong pragmatic Palestinian leader who can deliver peace and security for both peoples? 

Faced with the real Palestinian intent, what then when a rampant Palestinian entity, on the tailwind of international support and Islamic resurgence, demands the liberation of the rest of their “stolen holy land from the Zionists,” meaning what is left of the Jewish rump state?

What then when the new Palestinian regime will tell Israeli Arabs living in Jaffa, Haifa, Akko, and the Galilee – what today they call the “Palestinians of the Interior” – that they are coming to liberate them, as the current Fatah-led Palestinian Authority do in their official statements and media?  Where will Yachad and their supporters be then when Hamas continues its conquest of Palestine, as it surely will? Will they show guilt and express remorse for their mistaken pressure on Israel as a desperate reduced nation valiantly tries to resist Palestinian terror without the safety belt of territory?

Israel is not obligated to withdraw from territory until a final permanent agreement is reached between the parties. This is unlikely in the near future, in light of the reality of our Palestinian adversaries. Neither side of the current Palestinian political divide can offer Israel a genuine peace. Instead, they plot and scheme to destroy Israel in stages, and by violence if necessary. This is no secret. It is out there in the Palestinian public space, if only groups like Yachad would open their eyes to this reality.

Yachad deceptively says it opposes BDS, but they are quoted as saying they “do not support new investment inside the Israeli controlled West Bank, including in East Jerusalem.”  So they do support BDS.

If groups like Yachad support a Two-State solution and claim to be pro-Israel, they must rally to Israel’s security needs and employ the patience required to achieve a lasting secure future for Israel.

Barry Shaw is the author of ‘Israel Reclaiming the Narrative.’ He is also the consultant on delegitimisation issues to The Strategic Dialogue Center in Israel. 

The European Left attack Israel. They’re wrong, not right.

You would think that, with all the wholesale slaughter and mayhem going on in the Middle East there would be lots of targets for European politicians to vent their anger and frustration. Instead, these moral cowards aim their political bile at one country only – Israel, the one shining light of liberal democracy in the whole region.

Ed Miliband and his British Labour Party have made strenuous efforts to take sides against Israel. With his public statements and his party’s initiative for a backbench vote to recognize a Palestinian state he is leading a party devoid of any realization of the type of regime they are promoting. Neither do they care about sharing any of Israel’s genuine security concerns.

Then came a new Swedish government headed by a left wing party, still wet behind the ears in governmental and diplomatic experience, pouncing on the Palestinian issue by declaring their commitment to a Palestinian state. Again, no mention of what Israel had experienced with a recent past of Palestinian rejectionism, terrorism, rockets, and street violence.

They were followed by George Vella, the foreign minister of the tiny Mediterranean island of Malta who, on a visit to Israel, began to spout such total nonsense that it incensed both public and private Israelis. His words echo the empty-headed beliefs of many left wing European politicians and activists.

Calling Israel’s reaction to thousands of rockets and tens of terror attack tunnels reaching into Israeli schools, homes, and kindergartens, as “disproportionate” he said that Israel’s “disproportionate reaction with thousands of people killed or injured, was something nobody could explain.”  

Well, Mr Vella, I can explain, as can every single Israeli and everyone who truly witnessed what happened last summer. It  was Palestinian rejectionism of Israel, Palestinian incitement verging into anti-Semitism, Palestinian violence and terror, cynical Palestinian exploitation of the people in Gaza, that led to and caused the human rights abuses, death and injuries on both sides of the fifty day conflict.

For the Maltese minister to say, as do a number of muddle-headed European politicians like Miliband, that both sides were responsible for the death and destruction is tantamount to saying that both the Germans and Britain were to be blamed for World War Two.

Displaying the lack of sympathy, understanding, and the tools to make an informed judgment or contextual observation of what transpired in the Gaza conflict, Vella employed the double standard typical of vacuous left wing politicians by claiming that he expected more from Israel because “it is more democratic…and because there is more stability.” Then he had the chutzpah to say he was not being judgmental. He, like his European counterparts, come down on Israel like a ton of bricks and gives Palestinian terrorism a pardon. In fact, rewards them with official statements and resolutions pushing their cause without taking Israel’s significant concerns into consideration. When one losing sight of which side holds the moral high ground, and which is the malevolent perpetrator of terrorism and rejectionism and determination to exterminate the other, one punishes virtue and rewards criminality.

Back to Miliband. For a political leader who was so forthcoming in condemning Israeli air strikes in Gaza which were in response to thousands of Palestinian rockets fired into Israel, making much political capital on casualty figures, it is surprising to learn that he was a vocal supporter for British air strikes in Iraq. Why haven’t we heard a word about the Iraqi casualties?  Strange this is not discussed at all in British, Swedish, Maltese media and political circles, don’t you think? Or maybe there’s one rule for Israel, and another for the rest of the world?

My question echoes what was asked by Israelis so often during the terrorism we experienced recently. What would these countries leaders have done had they experienced what we Israelis endured last summer? Would Opposition leader Miliband have criticized the British government for sending its air force to bomb terror targets or for sending its ground troops to flush out the terrorists hiding among a densely populated area? Would the new Swedish government refrain from using its military had Stockholm and the whole of Sweden come under a daily bombardment of a hundred plus rocket attack?  I doubt it. Hence, their hypocrisy.

The main thrust of their separate, but shared, campaign is to force Israel to surrender yet more land, as they did in the Gaza Strip, to this malevolent Palestinian entity in the fool’s errand mission that such a gesture will ensure peace. Halleluyah!

And they say Israel is wrong for not acceding to their demand. My wife says that these politicians don’t have their feet firmly planted on the ground, and their heads are in the clouds.

She’s right!

Barry Shaw is the author of ‘Israel Reclaiming the Narrative.’ www.israelnarrative.com

Say “NO!” to Yachad!

The Board of Deputies of British Jews will shortly meet to vote on the application of a group called Yachad to be accepted into the representative body of British Jewry.

On July 20, The Board of Deputies of British Jewry had been due to vote on admitting this group into its ranks. The vote was deferred.

 Allow me to describe Yachad.

Last Yom HaZikaron and Independence Day, while Israelis and Jews worldwide were honouring the sacrifice of our fallen IDF soldiers, Yachad was holding a conference that hosted an invidious group of individuals that call soldiers of Israel’s Defense Forces “war criminals.”  This is the type of anti-Israel activity that Yachad embraces.

Last July 20 was a significantly sad day in Israel’s war against Palestinian Islamic terror in Gaza. It was the day that we buried four of our brave soldiers who died in defense of Israel. It was the day that another seven, all members of the elite Golani Brigade, were killed.

Simply put, Yachad would gladly see Israel pilloried on accusations of “war crimes,” based on its Independence Day event.  Is this the type of group you would welcome into the tent of British Jewry, even in the name of “nuance” and “pluralism”? I hope not.

And yet, this is the group, and this was the day, that the Board of Deputies planned to vote into its ranks.  For shame!

They decided to delay this vote. Could its deferral have been to delay it for a more convenient time when passionate support for Israel, born out of the Gaza war inflicted on Israel, would have subsided, and British Jews would not be paying such close attention?

Yachad heads its campaign manifesto with slogans like “We believe all people should have the right to live free from fear and violence” and “We believe in Israel’s right not just to exist but to flourish and we stand against those who defame it.” Yet, Yachad is not only a group that regularly defames Israel. It actively promotes anti-Israel tours to the territories, as well as organizing  events that call our finest sons “war criminals.”

Trying to have it both ways, Yachad is full of double-speak. They say they oppose BDS, but they also state they “do not support new investment inside the Israeli controlled West Bank, including in East Jerusalem.”  

Yachad supports a Palestinian unity government and demands that Israel engages with Hamas.  Hamas engaged with us this summer. Well done, Yachad!

Yachad fund numerous “educational” trips to Judea & Samaria, known to them as “the West Bank”. Their guides include a member of the infamous fringe group Breaking the Silence. On such radical groups, the reputation of Yachad hangs.  Even the left-wing Ha’Aretz newspaper called Breaking the Silence as having “a clear political agenda, and can no longer be classed as a ‘human rights organization.’’’

As founder of the Netanya Terror Victims Organization, nobody dare tell me that checkpoints are not an essential security requirement for the citizens of Israel. As far as my research took me, I could find no such Yachad-funded “educational” visits to Israeli terror victims. Had they done so they might get a different Israeli perspective of the need for security and check posts. Their actions over here are entirely pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel.

UK Jewry should be Israel’s “Iron Dome” against the British snipers that target Israel. Yachad is one of those snipers.

Should Yachad be accepted into the body of official British Jewry their sponsored anti-Israel activities will be seen as representing the opinion of British Jews.

Should the vote be allowed to pass, British Jews will be ashamed of the statement and actions of a group that they will have allowed to be represented within the Board of Deputies of British Jews. British Jews will regret the day that they failed to speak up and request that their BoD representative vote against accepting Yachad into its ranks

July 20 was also the day when thousands of British Jews were rallying outside the Israeli Embassy in London in support of an Israel under attack from Palestinian rockets and terrorists.  Absent from this rally was the leader of the so-called “pro-Israel” Yachad. 

Its leader, Hannah Weisfeld, falsely claims to represent “the silent majority” of British Jews. She does not. She simply represents a well-financed fringe group. They failed dismally when the Zionist Federation, aware of their true colours, soundly rejected them. Now she wants to speak in the name of the Jewish community by entering into the Board of Deputies. This must not be allowed.

Members of Yachad, like JStreet in America, claim to be “pro-Israel”, even as they actively act against the Israel.  JStreet was soundly rejected by the American Jewish Congress. Yachad must be equally rejected by the Board of Deputies of British Jewry.

British Jews, who have taken to the streets and raised their voices in support of Israel, must now focus their attention on the BoD vote and encourage them to reject Yachad’s application to infiltrate into the mainstream body of British Jewry.

This is the time when British Jews must tell the Board of Deputies to reject the application of Yachad. Do not give Yachad the respectability they don’t deserve.

If the Board of Deputies votes to accept Yachad as an official and integral voice of the British Jewish community, it will be a day of infamy.

There should be no place within mainstream British Jewry for any Jewish group that demonises and delegitimises the Jewish State of Israel.

Instead of Yachad outlawing Israel, Yachad itself must be outlawed.

 One of the reasons given for Board of Deputy delegates to vote on Yachad's application is that they are a Jewish group.  This is a shallow reason to allow them into the body of mainstream British Jewry, especially as mainstream British Jews are appalled at their anti-Israel actions. 

If being Jewish was the main reason to accept them then surely 'Jewish Voices for Palestine' and even 'Jews for Jesus' would also be eligible for membership.

Significantly, at a time when rank and file Jews, up and down Britain, feel that BOD do not speak or act for them on Israel, they have created local grassroots pro-Israel organisations to fill the vaccum of a governing body that has deserted them.

The Board of Deputies must be seen supporting the clear feelings of the majority of the people they were sent to represent. These people object to radical Jewish groups such as Yachad.

The Board of Deputies must consider the dangers to Israel if Yachad is accepted into their governing body and then speaks and acts in the name of official mainstream British Jewry.

This must NOT be allowed to happen.

Barry Shaw,

Author of ‘Israel Reclaiming the Narrative.’  www.israelnarrative.com

Founder of the Netanya Terror Victims Organisation.

November 2. The Balfour Declaration.

Today is the date in 1917 that the Balfour Declaration was signed whereby the British Government looked in favor of the establishment of the Jewish national home in Palestine. 

That was the conventional wisdom at that time.

The Balfour Declaration was to see its principles enshrined into international legitimacy at the 1922 League of Nations in which the Mandate for Palestine granted the re-establishment of the national home of the Jewish people.

This Treaty is as binding today as are all the other Mandates that received their birthrights from this League of Nations congress. Nations such as Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, even Hungary and Austria derive their legitimacy from these Mandates. You do not see anyone demonstrating opposition to their establishment. 

None of the other Mandates stipulated to whom the mandate was granted. The Mandate for Palestine was the only one that specified to which national group the mandate was designed to create, namely the Jewish people.

The recent British Parliamentary vote must be seen in the light of Balfour, San Remo and the League of Nations. As such it serves to dishonor the British who have a history of duplicity when it comes to the Jewish homeland.

This duplicity follows the behavior of the Arabs.

When Emir Faisal was anxious to grab a portion of the land of the defeated Ottoman Empire, having seen Syria and Iraq go to his Arab kin and rivals, he made a public pact with Chaim Weizmann in which, in 1919, he wrote “The Arabs admit the moral claims of the Zionists. They regard the Jews as kinsmen whose just claims they would be glad to see satisfied. No true Arab can be suspicious of Jewish nationalism and I say to the Jews - Welcome back home!"

In an act of dishonor to their own Declaration and commitment to the League of Nations Mandate, Winston Churchill  carved out 77%,a major part of Mandated Palestine, to appease a threatening Emir Abdullah. Churchill forced through an amendment to the British Mandate dividing it into two administrative areas, namely west of the Jordan River to become the national home of the Jewish people and the east of the river to become TransJordan under the rule of the Hashemite family from Saudi Arabia. The amendment stated that the TransJordan part of Palestine was to be except from the Mandate provisions for a Jewish national home.

This injustice to the Jewish people has never been compensated. The opposite is true. Despite this unilateral sacrifice the Jewish State of Israel has always been hit upon for even more land concessions. The Arabs were given Jordan, the bulk of Mandated Palestine as well as territory which is today Syria, Iraq, and Lebanon. Even Saudi Arabia obtained its independence as a result of the death of the Ottoman Empire and the post-Mandate political effect in the region, aided by Britain. Who can say that the Arabs were not more than adequately accommodated as a result of the fall of the Ottoman Empire and the division of the region? It has been the Jews that have not had their legitimacy accepted to this day.

Under their Mandated power the British prevented Jewish immigration into the land designated as their national home. In cruel incidents, the British deported arriving escapees from Nazi Germany back into the jaws of the Holocaust.

Since that time we have seen a history of constant violent attempts by the Arabs to destroy what was left of a Jewish State that transformed into the State of Israel. The British prevented the nascent Jewish State from arming themselves when faced by invading Arab armies which they armed and trained.

Rather than support the rightful and sovereign claims of Israel, the Europeans, now including a section of the British Parliament, is chipping away at Israel’s legitimacy in favor of a dubious entity that, given its dismal track record, shows no sign of living in peace alongside Israel, but instead has denounced the Balfour Declaration and all past history and present facts that give legitimacy to a Jewish State anywhere in the Middle East.

Let me state it clearly. No subsequent treaty, or legally binding resolution, has ever replaced the absolute international legitimacy that was granted to the Jewish nation in the 1922 League of Nations Mandate to which the Balfour Declaration was a precursor.

What the British morally gave ninety seven years ago, they are immorally degrading today.

Barry Shaw is the author of ‘Israel Reclaiming the Narrative.’ www.israelnarrative.com  He is a member of the Knesset Forum on Israel’s legitimacy.