Updated on 18th July 2009

 

The time now in the UK is

 

 

 

 

(More about Stein and that quotation HERE)

 

 

 

 

 

See Archive about Amnesty's latest campaign

 

 
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The Google translator is here:
 
http://tinyurl.com/5jtd8u
 
 
Click "Add to Google", then use the arrow/scroll bar to find Arabic

See also http://translation.babylon.com/Arabic

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Enter a long URL to make tiny:

 

 

 

Links to interesting websites

 

HERE

 

 

 

 

 

 

British Medical Journal

on Keeping libel laws out of science

HERE

 

Update 16 July 2009

See also Jack of Kent's commentary

on the BCA v Singh case

 

 

 

 

I'm not a member of the Stop the War Coalition, having resigned a few years ago.

But in this extract from the BBC radio Moral Maze

John Rees puts the case brilliantly for troop withdrawal

from Afghanistan

And you can hear Melanie Phillips totally distort something he said, and she'll

probably go on trumpeting her distortion, rather than what Rees actually did say.

Michael Portillo and Matthew Taylor also fail to floor him.

About 9 mins.

 

See also STWC's

Ten reasons to get the troops out of Afghanistan

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Guardian online  Comment is Free

No to sharia law in Britain

Sharia has no place in a civilised society. Ban Islamic tribunals and let everyone in this country abide by a single code of laws

http://tinyurl.com/l4nzmu

 

There are many reasons to find problems with sharia law. In its full form, it contains numerous provisions that are barbaric and irreconcilable with any advanced society: stoning married adulterers, flogging the unmarried, throwing homosexuals from roofs or steep hills, amputating limbs for theft, and much more.

But sharia is much wider than that. It moves seamlessly from the public to the private realm, and it is in the latter that we find demands that a measure of sharia be introduced to this country. Such demands have been made, not just by Muslims, but even by an astonishingly naïve Archbishop of Canterbury. Sharia is only marginally about how a believer prays, fasts, pays the alms tax, or performs the pilgrimage. For the individual it carries obligations and penalties that cut deep into personal life. Here is a very simple example. If a Muslim man in a fit of temper uses the triple divorce formula, even if his wife is not present, the law considers the couple divorced. But if he comes to his senses, he cannot simply resume relations with his wife. In order to remarry, she must wait three months to determine that she is not pregnant. Thereupon, she is obliged to marry another man and to have sex with him, and this man must then divorce her (or not, if he decides to keep her). She must then wait another three months, after which her first husband may remarry her – see also Ask Imam). This revolting practice, known as halala, demeans the woman. In British law, it would be considered a form of coercion into unwanted sexual relations. Is this what the archbishop wants?

But sharia has already entered the UK through a back door. In October 2008 Bridget Prentice, parliamentary under-secretary of state in the Ministry of Justice, stated that the government does not "accommodate" any religious legal systems, but confirmed two developments. First that sharia courts are operating under the 1996 Arbitration Act, which allows private disputes to be settled by an independent arbitrator. And second that sharia rulings on family matters (that are not covered by arbitration) could be given the authority of a British court by seeking "a consent order embodying the terms" of the sharia court ruling. There is now a Muslim Arbitration Tribunal which claims that the lord chief justice endorses alternative dispute resolution under sharia law.

The idea that Muslim tribunals arbitrating in matters of family law can take place without introducing contradictions to UK law, mainly through severe discrimination against Muslim women, is not well thought through. We have already seen one way that sharia law may have repercussions for wives in certain instances of divorce. Giving tribunals semi-official status will, assuming they work according to sharia, introduce similar anomalies.

I have not been able to get reports of live rulings from tribunals, but there are a large number of online sites which offer fatwas in answer to questions posed by believers and these seem likely to represent the kind of answers which tribunals in Britain must produce.

If couples do not marry according to UK civil law (and I have seen a fatwa ruling that they need not register their marriage with the British authorities), there may be serious consequences in the event of divorce; in the custody of children (which always goes against the woman); with respect to alimony (a man does not have to pay any, except for the children) and with regard to rights to a share in the family home (which a woman does not have). During the marriage, a man may coerce his wife to have sex, (though wives do not have that right); a husband may confine his wife to their home; if one or the other partner abandons Islam, (the marriage is declared null and void). It is considered wrong to reject polygamy. If a woman wishes to divorce her husband, it is made dependent on obtaining her husband's permission and the agreement of a sharia court. A woman may not marry a non-Muslim and a man may marry only a Jewish or Christian woman. Legal adoption is prohibited, but if a child has been adopted, he or she may not inherit from the adoptive parents. The Leyton-based Islamic Shariah Council has issued rulings including one that forbids a woman of any age to marry without a male "guardian"; another that says a man only has to intend to divorce for it to be valid; one that insists that a polygamous marriage must be maintained even in the UK (Islamic Shariah Council); and another that excuses a man from making alimony payments after divorce.

If Islamic tribunals are to arbitrate according to such antiquated and discriminatory rulings, they condemn British Muslim women to a life as second-class citizens with barely any rights. And if they claim to advise only within the framework of British law, then what are they doing in the first place? The only solution to this scandalous situation is to ban such tribunals entirely and let Muslims, like everybody else in this country, abide by a single code of laws. Sharia courts must be excluded from recognition under the 1996 Arbitration Act if justice for all does not become a farce.

Denis MacEoin's report into sharia law in the UK was published by Civitas on Monday 29 Jun

 

 

 

 

 

 

From the British Medical Journal

Published 23 June 2009, doi:10.1136/bmj.b2556
Cite this as: BMJ 2009;338:b2556

News

Doctors call for head of World Medical Association to quit as "matter of priority"

Zosia Kmietowicz

1 London

More than 700 doctors from around the world have called for the Israeli president of the World Medical Association to step down, calling him "unfit for office" and claiming that he has turned a blind eye to the "institutionalised involvement of doctors" in torture in Israel.

In a letter they say that the appointment of Yoram Blachar, president of the Israeli Medical Association since 1995, as president of the World Medical Association last November is "a matter of grave concern." The signatories, who include professors and doctors from 43 countries, say that the appointment "makes a mockery of the principles on which the WMA was founded in 1947, which was a response to egregious abuses by Germany and Japan in World War Two."

The letter, addressed to Edward Hill, chairman of the World Medical Association’s council, and to the council body, was sent by the lead signatory, Alan Meyers, assistant professor of paediatrics at Boston University, on 21 May. It lists numerous reports that have highlighted the use of torture by doctors in Israel and occasions when the Israeli Medical Association has failed to respond to the charges. Professor Meyers had not received a response by the time the BMJ went to press on 23 June.

In 1996 a report from Amnesty International concluded that Israeli doctors working with security services "formed part of a system in which detainees are tortured, ill treated, and humiliated in ways that place prison medical practice in conflict with medical ethics." At the time Dr Blachar "took no action," says the letter. It adds that Dr Blachar had justified, in a letter to the Lancet in 1997, the use in Israel of "moderate physical pressure" (Lancet 1997;350:1247, doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(97)26043-5).

However, a World Medical Association spokesman said that this statement was not Dr Blachar’s opinion but a reference to Israeli guidelines and that it has been widely misquoted. The spokesman said, "Dr Blachar did not then endorse the use of torture and has not done so since. Indeed he has repeatedly supported WMA policy statements and documents that condemn all use of torture, whether by physicians or others."

In correspondence in the BMJ Dr Blachar has several times denounced the use of torture by Israeli doctors. In 2003 he wrote, "I repeat, for the hundredth time, that the IMA [Israeli Medical Association] and I as its president oppose torture in any form" (BMJ 2003;327:1107, doi:10.1136/bmj.327.7423.1107).

Professor Meyers said that "moderate physical pressure" is how the Israeli government described its practice regarding Palestinian prisoners in its custody until September 1999, when the Israeli Supreme Court declared all forms of physical coercion to be illegal. "However, that has apparently not signalled an end to the abuse of prisoners," he said.

In 2007 a report by the Israeli human rights organisation B’Tselem into the interrogation methods used against 73 detainees claimed that the Israeli security forces "routinely included mental and physical ill treatment," Professor Meyers said.

He said, "The main aspects of the interrogation regime were severance of the detainee from the outside world, use of incarceration conditions as a means of psychological pressure and to physically weaken the detainee, binding the detainee in a painful position, degradation, and threats."

Professor Meyers added: "Some advocates of such treatment maintain that these interrogation methods are not torture and therefore acceptable. While there is open debate of this question now in the US media, the involvement of physicians in such practices is another matter.

"In its Declaration of Tokyo, the World Medical Association states: ‘For the purpose of this Declaration, torture is defined as the deliberate, systematic or wanton infliction of physical or mental suffering by one or more persons acting alone or on the orders of any authority, to force another person to yield information, to make a confession, or for any other reason.’ That any physician could provide assistance to the perpetrators of the kinds of abuse and maltreatment that have been documented to occur in Israeli prisons, in US detention facilities, or anywhere else in the world is an abomination that should not be tolerated by the medical community.

"Any physician who wilfully uses his or her professional skills to inflict suffering should be barred from medical practice by our profession, regardless of their criminal culpability. To do otherwise would be to threaten the trust placed in us by people the world over."

The BMA said, "On the basis of imperfect and contested information, although Dr Blachar’s position as joint president of the World Medical Association and the Israeli Medical Association is a difficult one, in our view he has made authoritative statements, as president of both organisations, calling on the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) and any doctors operating under the IDF’s remit to respect international ethical standards."

Dr Blachar did not respond to a request from the BMJ for a response to the letter.

Cite this as: BMJ 2009;338:b2556

Relevant Article

Medical ethics, the Israeli Medical Association, and the state of the World Medical Association: IMA president's response to open letter to the BMA
Yoram Blachar
BMJ 2003 327: 1107. [Extract] [Full Text] [PDF]

 

 

 

 

 

TV International's call to remember Neda and stand in solidarity with the protesters in Iran. The commemoration of Neda coincides with the planned actions that union organisations had already planned for 26 June 2009 at 12:00 in front of Iranian embassies around the globe. Maryam Namazie interviews Fariborz Pooya and Bahram Soroush on how people can support the Iranian protesters and what they can actively do.

 

 

From Maryam Namazie

Neda Agha-Soltan, the 27 year old shot in the chest by the Islamic regime of
Iran's Baseeji security forces on June 20 died before our very eyes
(worker-communistpartyofiran.blogspot.com/2009/06/khamenei-responsible-for-n
edas-murder.html).

[That's http://tinyurl.com/kmbes7  BR]

We witnessed her last breaths; and felt the rage of the millions on the
streets of Iran.

In an interview with Persian media, her fiancé, Caspian Makan, said that
some news sites had erroneously reported that she was a supporter of
Mousavi. 'This is not the case' he said, 'She was never supportive of either
of these two groups. She wanted freedom; freedom for everyone.'(1)

There are times in history when individuals or tragic events become symbols
and, today, Neda has become ours.

She symbolises all the beloved we have lost to this indiscriminate killing
machine. But she also represents the refusal to kneel and the desire for a
life worthy of 21st century humanity.

On Friday, June 26, come out to remember Neda and the over 200 killed during
these past few days and to show your solidarity with the people's
revolutionary movement in Iran. June 26 is significant because four global
union organisations representing over 170 million workers have called a
worldwide action day to demand justice for Iranian workers (2).

We can and must turn this day into a day of condemnation of the Islamic
regime.

To see Maryam Namazie's interview with Fariborz Pooya and Bahram Soroush on
the June 26 day of action and things you can do, click here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hi_N5_CoMto&feature=channel_page
And an interview on the situation in Iran:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ue0Se1PJMxQ

To see Fariborz Pooya's interview with Hamid Taqvaee on the demand to
isolate the Islamic regime and shut down its embassies, click here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0fmHK4C_PI

To see received messages of solidarity, click here:
worker-communistpartyofiran.blogspot.com/2009/06/continue-to-send-solidarity
-messages-to.html. Send your messages of solidarity with the people of Iran
to be read over our 24 hour New Channel TV station to wpibriefing@gmail.com.


To listen to Maryam Namazie's interview on BBC radio today on the situation
in Iran, click here: www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/console/p003fxxh (begins at 7:00
minutes)

To read Maryam's letter to the editor published in the Evening Standard,
click here:
http://worker-communistpartyofiran.blogspot.com/2009/06/isolate-regime.html
To read an indepth interview with Hamid Taqvaee on the election farce in
Iran, click here:
http://worker-communistpartyofiran.blogspot.com/2009/06/on-iranian-election-
prosecute-them.html

For details on the various demonstrations on June 26, click here:
http://www.itfglobal.org/news-online/index.cfm/newsdetail/3413

Some of the demonstrations are listed below. They will be held at consulates
and embassies of the Islamic Republic of Iran:
Ottawa, Canada, 12-3pm
Copenhagen, Denmark, 12pm
Helsinki, Finland, 11am
Frankfurt, Germany, 11am
Bern, Switzerland, 12pm
Canberra, Australia, 12pm
Stockholm, Sweden, 12pm
London, UK, 12:30, 16 Princes Gate, London SW7 IPT
There is also a march organised on Saturday 27 June beginning at 2pm at the
former Bank Melli building (High Street Kensington station) and moving
towards the Islamic regime's embassy from 2:30pm with a demonstration at the
embassy from 3-6pm.

You can also get up to date information on the situation in Iran here:
http://worker-communistpartyofiran.blogspot.com/

You can see live programmes in Persian on New Channel TV at:
http://www.newchannel.tv/

You can also see updates in Persian at http://www.rowzane.com

(1) http://www.bbc.co.uk/persian/iran/2009/06/090622_mm_neda_soltan.shtml.
Interestingly the BBC failed to translate this and other key bits of
information into its English piece on the same interview.

(2) http://www.itfglobal.org/news-online/index.cfm/newsdetail/3413

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Click on image below for New Channel TV

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

One Law for All

Email from Maryam Namazie 30 April 2009

Hello

Since our last email, we have been busy organising an International
Coalition for Women's Rights, to which a number of well-known personalities
and organisations have signed up.

As you know, on April 19, 2009, the Somali parliament unanimously endorsed
the introduction of Sharia law across the country. A few days earlier, the
imposition of Sharia law in Pakistan's northwestern Swat region was
approved. Last month, a sweeping law approved by the Afghan parliament and
signed by President Hamid Karzai required Shi'a women to seek their
husband's permission to leave home, and to submit to their sexual demands.
Because of international and national protests the new law is now being
reviewed but only to check its compatibility with Sharia law.

The imposition of Sharia law in the legal codes of Somalia, Pakistan and
Afghanistan brings millions more under the yoke of political Islam.

Local and international pressure and opposition are the only ways to stop
the rise of this regressive movement and defend women's universal rights and
secularism.

From Iran and Iraq to Britain and Canada, Sharia law is being opposed by a
vast majority who choose 21st century universal values over medievalism.
Join us in supporting this international struggle and calling for:

* the abolition of discriminatory and Sharia laws
* an end to sexual apartheid
* secularism and the separation of religion from the state
* equality between women and men

You can find a list of initial signatories here:
http://www.equalrightsnow-iran.com/discriminatory_laws.html

You can join the International Coalition for Women's Rights by signing here:
http://www.petitiononline.com/ICFWR/petition.html

If you haven't already done so, you can also sign a petition opposing Sharia
law in Britain here:
http://www.onelawforall.org.uk/index.html

We must mobilise across the globe in order to show our opposition to Sharia
law and our support and solidarity for those living under and resisting its
laws.

In the coming months, we will be organising towards mass rallies in various
cities across the globe on November 21. We've chosen this date to mark both
Universal Children's Day (November 20) and the International Day for the
Elimination of Violence against Women (November 25).  If you are interested
in helping us organise a rally in your city, please contact us.

And please don't forget we need money to do all that has to be done. And we
have to rely on those who support our work to provide it.

If you are supportive, there are many ways you can raise funds. You can:

* send in a donation - no matter how small
* organise a picnic or cook a dinner for your friends or colleagues and ask
them to contribute to our work
* invite us to speak and raise money for our work at the event
* hold sales or organise a concert or exhibition and donate the proceeds to
us
* ask if your workplace gives donations to employee causes and make an
application.

You can send in your donations via Paypal
(http://www.onelawforall.org.uk/donate.html) or Worldpay
(http://www.ex-muslim.org.uk/indexDonate.html) or make cheques payable to
CEMB or One Law for All and mail them to: BM Box 2387, London WC1N 3XX, UK.

We look forward to hearing from you.

Best wishes

Maryam

Maryam Namazie

* You can read the latest issue of Equal Rights Now - Organisation against
Women's Discrimination in Iran, which also highlights some urgent execution
and stoning cases in Iran, here:
http://www.equalrightsnow-iran.com/publications.html

* To help organise a November 21 rally, volunteer or for information on our
work, contact us at onelawforall@gmail.com or exmuslimcouncil@gmail.com. For
more information on the Coalition for Women's Rights, please contact
coalition coordinator Patty Debonitas +44 (0) 7778804304, ICFWR, BM Box
2387, London WC1N 3XX, UK, icwomenrights@googlemail.com.
 

 

 

 

 

YouTube Bans “Feeling The Hate In Jerusalem”

From Max Blumenthal's blog

The Censored Video from Max Blumenthal on Vimeo.

Youtube has removed my video, “Feeling The Hate In Jerusalem,” on the baseless grounds that it contains “inappropriate content.” They have offered me no further explanation and have stonewalled my inquiries and attempts to rectify the situation. Thus they have censored a video that contains far less inflammatory content than thousands of video they are already hosting. Why? I won’t ascribe motives to Youtube I am unable to confirm, but it is clear there is an active campaign by right-wing Jewish elements to suppress the video by filing a flood of complaints with Youtube. At the same time these elements have attempted to paint me as a self-hating Jew determined to foment anti-Semitism. I answered this last charge to Ha’aretz (read the barely coherent article here) last week: “I have received death threats from people, mainly ones calling me a self-hating Jew. I am self-hating, but my self-hatred has nothing to do with me being Jewish.”

Jewish Voices for Peace (the parent organization of the excellent website Muzzlewatch) is preparing an action for tomorrow to pressure Youtube into restoring the video. They are asking their members to email press@youtube.com to demand an explanation for the censorship. For now, I have reposted the video on Vimeo and urge everyone to distribute it widely.

 

Feeling The Hate In Jerusalem -- The Censored Video from Max Blumenthal on Vimeo.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

From the Guardian website

Israeli activist to be jailed for caring

Ezra Nawi was ridiculed and arrested for trying to protect people's homes. Only international attention can help him now

HERE

 

 

 

 

 

 

From the You Tube copy:


SupportEzra

http://www.supportezra.net



Ezra Nawi is seen trying to stop a military bulldozer from destroying the homes of Palestinian Bedouins from Um El Hir in the South Hebron region. These Palestinians have...
http://www.supportezra.net



Ezra Nawi is seen trying to stop a military bulldozer from destroying the homes of Palestinian Bedouins from Um El Hir in the South Hebron region. These Palestinians have been under Israeli occupation for almost 42 years. They still live without electricity, running water and other basic services, and are continuously harassed by the Jewish settlers and the military who are working hand-in-hand in order to seize their land. Notwithstanding the evidence in the film, Nawi has been found guilty by an Israeli court of assaulting an officer. Please support Nawi by sending emails protesting his imminent imprisonment to the Israeli embassy in your country:

http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/Sherut/IsraeliAbroad/Continents/IsraeliAbroad.htm

 

 

 

 

Recommended visit to

 

 

 

Click on the logo

 

An Archive Documenting Israel’s Military Occupation of Palestinian Lands

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This review appeared in the Jewish Quarterly in the spring of 2003.  Deborah Maccoby is on the executive of ICAHD UK, a signatory of JfJfP and lots of other things besides ...
 
 
===================
 
 


REVIEW OF " ISRAEL AND PALESTINE: OUT OF THE ASHES" BY MARC ELLIS

 

 

Deborah Maccoby

ISRAEL AND PALESTINE: OUT OF THE ASHES
The Search for Jewish Identity in the Twenty-First Century
by Marc Ellis, University Professor of American and Jewish Studies and
Director of the Centre for American and Jewish Studies at Baylor University

Pluto Press, London, and Sterling, Virginia, USA. 2002. 182pp .£15.00


What do we mean by "a Jewish State?" Do we mean a theocratic state, ruled
by orthodox rabbis according to Jewish ritual? Do we mean "a state of
Jews", an ordinary state inhabited by people who happen to be Jewish? Or do
we mean a state based upon Judaism's universal moral values of justice,
equality and peace? If the phrase has this third meaning, what happens when
the Jewish State becomes a state based upon nationalism and military power
alone and abandons all aspirations towards universal morality? How does this
affect mainstream Jewish Diaspora communities around the world, all of whom
feel a close identification with Israel? What does it mean for Jewish
identity? How does it affect Judaism as a religion?

The outbreak of the second intifada, the breakdown of the Oslo peace process
and the rise to power of Ariel Sharon, the embodiment of nationalistic
militarism - now elected as Israeli Prime Minister for a second time, in a
big victory for his Likud party - have given rise to much political analysis
and argument; but very few people have discussed the theological
implications of the crisis. Religion generally seems to enter into the
debate from the angle of Jewish and Islamic religious fundamentalism, rather
than - as Marc Ellis puts it in this book - "the side of each religion that
embraces harmony, peace, justice and inclusion".

However much people may argue about the causes of the present situation, it
is surely clear to many people that it is a tragedy for both Jews and
Palestinians; and we must ask ourselves what is happening when Ariel Sharon
is elected so resoundingly for a second time and his policies of military
force are supported by the majority of Israelis and Diaspora Jews, because
they despair of any alternative. In this time of desperation for both Jews
and Palestinians, it is of vital importance to consider the deeper and wider
significance of the current disaster and to look beyond the present
short-term arguments and narrowness of vision.

For years, in many books and articles, the American-Jewish theologian Marc
Ellis has been warning that Judaism has become what he calls "Constantinian
Judaism" - a religion which has accommodated itself to state power, just as
early Christianity accommodated itself to the state power of the Roman
Empire. .The present dire situation seems to be proving his warnings right.

Ellis is not against state power and Jewish empowerment as such. He does
not hold the view that any kind of empowerment necessarily corrupts. Rather
he is pointing out that the establishment of the Jewish State involved (as
Israeli historians have uncovered) a major injustice to the Palestinians -
the displacement and in many cases expulsion of the majority of the Arab
inhabitants of the newly-created Jewish State. And he is pointing out that,
after the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza following the 1967
war, an "expanded state of Israel" came into being. Despite all the talk of
a two-state solution, he claims that the policies of Israeli governments,
both Likud and Labour - as has been apparent in the expansion of settlements
under both parties - have been to keep possession of this expanded Israel.
And the Jewish communities of the world have since 1967 been increasingly
"mobilised and militarised" in support of this injustice by the Jewish State
- a support which has deeply affected the nature of Jewishness and Judaism.
Not that Ellis argues that there has been no hope at all in the peace
process. It is true that he points out the many and deep flaws inherent in
the Oslo peace process and - along with many others - he stresses that
Barak's so-called "generous offer" at Camp David was "less than generous":
he quotes Sara Roy, Research Associate at the Center for Middle East
Studies at Harvard University: "As for the Camp David proposals, Roy
concludes that they lacked the following crucial elements: contiguous
territory, defined and functional borders, political and economic
sovereignty and basic Palestinian national rights...for Roy the problem
began long before Barak as occupation was the structural and policy
cornerstone of the Oslo Accords." However, Ellis also states that the
handshake between Rabin and Arafat was nonetheless a genuine facing of "the
other" which created a real dynamic for change:

"The facing of the 'other' - the new 'other' of Jewish history - was
recognised as a rendezvous in Jewish history. Such a facing of he 'other'
should be seen in the context of the Holocaust and the 1967 war as the
possibility of ending a cycle of suffering and violence which the Jews have
endured and now have perpetrated. When Rabin spoke of ending that cycle,
one felt an opening toward a responsibility grounded in history and hope."
With Rabin's assassination and the complete breakdown of Oslo, however, it
seems that the drive to complete Israel's conquest of the Palestinians is
about to be openly realised, with the support and complicity not only of the
majority of Israeli Jews but of most of the Jewish Diaspora. Ellis's point
is that this is not a sudden collapse, out of the blue or something which
can simply be blamed on right wing and religious extremists; it is the overt
expression of the "mobilising and militarising" of Jewish life over decades.
And Ellis's essential message is that this complete destruction of the
Palestinians as a people must also entail a complete destruction of the true
meaning of the Jewish people and Judaism. Both peoples are in "the ashes":
"In the destruction of Palestine, the Jewish tradition as it has been known
and inherited - a tradition that emphasised ethics and justice - has come to
an end."

Ellis defines true Judaism in terms of the tradition of the covenant with
God by which the Jews dedicated themselves to become "a kingdom of priests
and a holy people" committed to upholding the spiritual values of morality,
justice, equality and peace in a world of power and injustice. This
dedication can be summed up in these words from the Prophet Zechariah: "Not
by power, nor by might, but by My spirit, saith the Lord of Hosts". In
turning to power and might, the Jews have lost their essence as a people.

In analysing the reasons for this turning of the Jews and Judaism towards
power and might, Ellis - as is clear from the quotation about the
Rabin-Arafat handshake above - lays great emphasis upon the Holocaust (and
part of the meaning of the title "Out of the Ashes" is the ashes of the
Holocaust) He is virtually the only Holocaust theologian to link the
Holocaust with Israel's treatment of the Palestinians. For this, he has
been vilified by critics who seem to believe he equates the two national
tragedies in terms of scale. Ellis does not in any way equate the Holocaust
and the 1948 Nakba -"catastophe" (and continued destruction of the
Palestinian people) in terms of scale; his main arguments are a) that,
impossible though it is to compare them in terms of scale, these are both
national tragedies, destructive of the ordinary life of both peoples; and b)
that the Holocaust has been used to "mobilise and militarise" Jewish life
and Judaism in the service of state power and to justify Israel's expulsion
of and continued oppression of the Palestinians; as he writes in his
Preface:

"It is ironic that the safe harbor of Jewish life, the claim to uniqueness
and innocence and thus special privileges, has been and increasingly will be
an event of such horrific suffering that, despite the repetitive images and
public memorials, the mind remains unable to accept its horror. This safe
harbor, however, is one of assimilation to the state and power, to
dislocation and atrocity, and therefore to every lesson that the Holocaust
is supposed to warn against"

Ellis analyses with respect and even with sympathy the work of Holocaust
theologians like Emil Fackenheim, Richard Rubenstein, Irving Greenberg and
Elie Wiesel, but has a major criticism of all their work - the entire
absence of any mention of Israel's treatment of the Palestinians: he writes:
"in fact, one way of defining Holocaust memorial culture as it has evolved
is the ABSENCE of Palestinians". All these theologians see Israel as an
answer to the Holocaust, a means of revival for the Jewish people and
Judaism; Greenberg, for instance, sees Israel as a means of reconstructing
the broken image of God. Ellis points out that Greenberg entirely ignores
the Israelis' destruction of the image of God in their treatment of
Palestinians; Greenberg's book was published in 1988, at the same time that
"news media images showed Israeli soldiers beating and killing unarmed
Palestinians..."

It should be pointed out here that Israeli oppression in the second intifada
is far worse than in the first intifada, as Ellis stresses; once again, he
quotes Sara Roy: "During the six years of the previous uprising, 18,000
Palestinians were injured. In the first four months since the current
uprising began, over 11,000 Palestinians have been injured. The Palestinian
landscape has withered, wrenched of hope, suffused in rage and devoid of
childhood...." Since the publication of "Out of the Ashes" this oppression
has got even worse. Is this really a reconstruction of the broken image of
God?

To return to the Holocaust theologians - Ellis's most complex, sympathetic
and interesting analysis is of the Holocaust theologian Richard Rubenstein,
who actually taught Ellis himself in the 19'70s, when Rubenstein was a
professor and Ellis an undergraduate at Florida State University,
Tallehassee. Part of the fascination of "Out of the Ashes" is that it is
partly a personal, autobiographical statement. Ellis writes with great
admiration about Rubenstein, whom he sees as a Jewish prophet wrestling with
God and the agonising problems posed by the Holocaust and God's abandonment
of His chosen people - problems which Rubenstein felt that most Jewish
theologians had fudged. Essentially Rubenstein's message is that after
Auschwitz, he no longer accepts the terms of the covenant and believes that
the only solution lies in power. Rubenstein thus articulated the Jewish
despair of the covenant after the Holocaust which led to the Jewish turning
towards state power.

The young Ellis saw Rubenstein's person and work as a great challenge and
problem - from which he was rescued by meeting another university teacher,
William Miller, a Catholic historian who led Ellis towards teaching in the
US Catholic missionary college of Maryknoll and travelling to Latin
American, African and Asian countries, where he worked among the poor and
encountered Catholic liberation theology, which seeks to attain justice for
the poor and oppressed. Ellis writes of William Miller:

"In some ways, Miller was the polar opposite of Rubenstein....where
Rubenstein had a brusque and definitive manner, so that there was no
question of whom you were addressing and where you stood in his universe,
Miller had a graciousness and openness that allowed a freedom in his
presence...There were no answers from Miller..."

Ellis points out that liberation theology is a protest against Constantinian
Christianity and a return to Jesus and the Jewish prophetic tradition:
"Christianity of empire has been challenged from the beginning by
Christianity of community, primarily through the prophetic line featured in
the Hebrew bible and in the figure of Jesus himself." What is needed among
Jews today, Ellis argues, is a Jewish liberation theology.

Ellis's own message that the Jewish covenant with God, and therefore the
whole meaning of Judaism and the Jewish people, is finished is, of course,
very bleak and pessimistic. He offers little hope of change for the
foreseeable future. And yet there is, paradoxically,a great message of hope
in "Out of the Ashes". The two peoples are in the ashes together, but, Ellis
argues, they can come out of the ashes together, to form together something
new which is also a continuation of the old. It is as though only through
the full, courageous realisation of the end of the Jewish tradition -
devastating though this realisation is - can hope of a revival of that
tradition emerge.

Ellis writes that the Jewish covenant with God can only be renewed by
turning towards the Palestinians, acknowledging the injustices committed
against them and sharing the land equally with them: "Could that covenant,
promised to and accepted by Jews, a covenant carried throughout a long and
difficult history, now be renewed by sharing it in the promised land with
another people?...The new challenge of the covenant is to find Jewish
chosenness within and among those who share the land often called holy".
Ellis argues that Jerusalem should be "demessianised" - that is, freed of
its fundamentalist Jewish messianic symbolism - but he envisages a true
though secular messianism in which Jerusalem, belonging to and uniting the
two peoples, can be a genuine embodiment of peace and justice: "the new
Jerusalem, the Jerusalem of light and justice, of peace, fraternity and
sorority, in short the peaceable Kingdom so often referred to in the
scriptures of Judaism, Christianity and Islam."

In this idea Ellis himself, as he points out, is reviving an old Zionist
vision of binationalist Zionists such as Martin Buber, Judah Magnes and
Hannah Arendt; as he writes: "Few Jews know that Judah Magnes, the first
president of Hebrew University, Martin Buber, the great biblical scholar and
theologian, and Hannah Arendt, the philosopher of the mind and the human
condition, were all binationalists, opposed to a Jewish state in Palestine.
They argued instead for a cooperative federation of Jews and Arabs."

Since mainstream Jewish life, both in Israel and the Diaspora, has become
militarised and has lost the essence of Jewishness, Ellis envisages a
community of marginal Jews, exiles from mainstream Judaism and the Jewish
community, who cross over into solidarity with the Palestinians and in this
way paradoxically regain the true meaning of Judaism and what it really
means to be Jewish. It is an example of the complexity of this book that
Ellis also envisages a group of Palestinian exiles fleeing from
fundamentalist Islam - Constantinian Islam, the Islam of power - and from
the corruption of the Palestinian Authority and joining with this community
of Jewish exiles:

"Those who seek to call the community back from oppressing others are
themselves oppressed and often exiled from the community even as it presumes
to speak in the language of God and the covenant. Those in exile become
mute, often inarticulate on the deeper issues of the community they flee,
even as they carry the values of the community into exile. Romanticising
indigenous communities can lead in the same direction: those who dissent,
especially when the community gains some semblance of power, are themselves
exiled. This is the fate of many Jews AND Palestinians within the expanded
state of Israel and the Palestinian Authority that exists within and under
that state."

Though Ellis has supported a two-state solution in the past, he argues in
"Out of the Ashes" that this has now become unworkable; as he writes:

"Anthony Lewis, a Jewish columnist for the New York Times, recently came to
the same conclusion that the Palestinian intellectual Edward Said came to
some years ago: that the process of Israeli settlement of Palestine has gone
so far as to make separation of Jews and Palestinians impossible. Even the
declaration of a Palestinian state would be in name only...Lewis quote Meron
Benvenisti: 'All of Palestine is a binational entity, even though politics
demands a different reality. It's one space."

Ellis proposes a unitary state founded on equal citizenship, no longer on
ethnic or religious identity - though he argues that this would not preclude
a sense of identity and peoplehood on the part of Jews and Palestinians. He
sees the community of exiles gradually growing over the years and creating a
new community underneath the mainstream communities until in time it can be
ready to bring about this unitary state. He is vague, however on the actual
workings of this state - and here we come to what seems to me the book's
only real flaw - a flaw which is also a strength.

Like William Miller, Ellis does not give any answers. In his concern to
avoid the dogmatism and rigidity that so troubled him in his teacher
Rubenstein (even while he admired it and even felt it to correspond to
something in himself) Ellis is open-ended, dynamic, complex, paradoxical.
The flaw of this strength - as well as the lack of any definite account of
how a unitary state would actually work in practice - is a very difficult
style. In his analysis of the meaning of the prophetic and the covenant, he
writes about the danger of the prophetic and the covenant becoming "sealed"
- that is, smugly codified, so that they lose their inner meaning. He shows
how again and again the covenant and the prophetic become institutionalised
and how again and again this institutionalisation is broken through with a
new genuine expression of the covenant and the prophetic. In this concern
not to become "sealed," Ellis's style sometimes suffers from lack of clarity
and can at times be too wordy, as though he is afraid of his ideas becoming
too frozen and encapsulated in clear, succinct expression, and is also
afraid of betraying the full complexity of the issues. Nonetheless, for all
his complexity and subtlety and open-endedness, underlying the book is a
deep and powerful conviction and faith in the essence of Judaism and a
determination to define and revive this essence - indeed, it is his struggle
to convey this essence with complete honesty which leads to such a difficult
style. Despite this style, the book has a compelling quality; once started,
it demands to be finished - and re-read.

Thus it is itself a prophetic voice which is vitally needed at the present
time and to which everyone - but particularly Israeli and Diaspora Jews -
must listen.



 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Letter to Newsline, 25 July 2008, the newsletter of

the National Secular Society

 

Note:  I resigned my membership of the NSS several months ago (after I'd written the published letter below) as I was increasingly unhappy about certain aspects of the direction it was taking and about much of the tone with which it referred to both religion and religious people. There seem to be two main parts to the NSS message - one to eliminate the influence of religion in public life (faith schools, politics, public policy etc), which I totally support, and the other to echo the aggressive, militant attacks on religious belief as probably best exemplified in the campaigning of Richard Dawkins.

 

I don't myself believe in the existence of any gods, past or present, and I understand why people feel the need to attack such beliefs.  Nevertheless I believe the way Dawkins and others go about things is alienating and counterproductive, and with respect to the NSS, I think they've become far too identified with the Dawkins style with the result that the atheist campaign side is working against the much more important campaign for a secular public space safe for everyone, regardless of private belief.  You can - and in my view should - campaign for the latter without pushing the former in a way that antagonises more than it persuades.

 

I also take the view that Dawkins himself may be undermining his own brilliant past work in educating the public on Evolution by Natural Selection.  Yes, of course it's true to say that it's extremely difficult, if not impossible, to believe in a benevolent creator once you accept the evidence for natural selection, but Dawkins has run the risk of making the acceptance of the one conditional upon the acceptance of the other.

 

 

From Brian Robinson:

25 July 2008


 You write (Newsline last week): "Pat Condell has added a new video to his growing gallery – and once again, you'll be wanting to cheer on his ability to say what needs to be said directly, but rationally, and without apology". Firstly where have I been these past 44 videos that it took the latest Newsline to make me discover Condell? So I've now watched several and read up about him on various websites. Of course I agree with him completely on the purely religious aspects of the argument and share your own view, but yet I'm not happy with Condell's narrow approach to political realities.

Ironically I've had this row several times but in each case I've been on Condell's side of the argument and my opponents have been from that part of the left that Condell excoriates so justly. So may I play a secular Devil's Advocate? My opponents have always said something like, "Brian, we wouldn't even be talking about this where it not for ...", and there follows a long list (and Condell alludes to this very thing) of all the evils inflicted upon the world by America, Israel, "The West". And it's really not good enough for us to minimise the significance of this history as Condell seems to do. Yes, there's religious manipulation by hypocritical power-crazed elites and much of the mess we're in is due to them; but they'd never have attained to anything like their present influence had it not been for the suffering inflicted on — mostly — Muslims by — mostly — Christians and more recently Zionist Jews.
 
As I often tell fellow members of Jews for Justice for Palestinians, to campaign for Palestinians doesn't mean we have to ignore or excuse Muslim oppression of other Muslims, and to shout loud about American imperialism doesn't enjoin silence over Islamic theocratic ambitions. You can oppose any war on Iran and oppose the sort of horrors of Iranian "justice" that Newsline has also reported this week. Indeed, justice and freedom being indivisible, it's mandatory for us to do so.

It may well be true that "Islam is not a victim" but my contention is that although more Muslims have suffered through the religious cruelty of other Muslims than have suffered at the hands of western imperialists, enough Muslims have suffered injustices at the hands of the latter, and recently, to explain the recovery of Islamic fundamentalism from what had been a well-deserved obscurity. It's not "all our fault" and we mustn't appease anybody, but "we" have a case to answer and denying that fact won't help.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

From guardian.co.uk    Comment is Free

 

Dawkins is wrong about believers

Richard Dawkins' tactic of ridiculing religion will inspire only hostility among those who feel their worldview to be under attack

 

Carlo StrengerCarlo Strenger

 

Carlo Strenger is a philosopher and psychoanalyst. He teaches at the psychology department of Tel Aviv University and serves as a member of the Permanent Monitoring Panel on Terrorism of the World Federation of Scientists.

I have been an admirer of Richard Dawkins' work since I first read The Selfish Gene some 25 years ago. His now canonic reformulation of the tenets of Darwinian thought, the enormous lucidity of thinking and the ability to present highly complex argument accessibly are exemplary for the spirit of science and enlightenment values.

Yet I have been bothered by an inconsistency in his approach, particularly in the last years since his God Delusion. In this book he basically tries to demonstrate that a) arguments for God's existence and the truth of sacred text of the various monotheistic traditions are invalid; b) arguments that religion makes people more moral are fallacious; and c) religious education is largely noxious and prevents human beings who have been subjected to it from becoming truly free minds.

I happen to agree with him on all three points, but I wonder what he is trying to achieve. He says in a recent post discussed by Andrew Brown that he hopes to convince religious people that haven't given the issue much thought by ridiculing religious belief, and he thinks that this might be a useful way to win them over to the scientific worldview.

Given his deep commitment to science, it somewhat surprises me that in formulating this strategy of ridicule and frontal attack he does not take into account scientific knowledge about the functioning of the human mind. In the last two decades, the discipline of existential experimental psychology has investigated the function that worldviews (whether religious or other) play in the human mind. One of the most important findings is that belief systems, by connecting individuals to a larger whole (a religion, nation, community or an endeavour like science), protect us from the unbearable anxiety generated by awareness of our own mortality. This holds true for all belief systems whether religious or secular.

These results are pertinent to the question of how to deal with the conflict between science and religion. A variety of researchers have produced strong research results demonstrating that when the belief systems that provide humans with meaning and worldview protection are attacked, the result is inevitably that humans dig more deeply into the trenches of their belief systems. The meaning and psychological protection that humans derive from their worldviews is so important to them that they will go to enormous lengths to defend these beliefs against any attack.

This is exactly what has happened in the last decades: the more western secular culture impacted traditional forms of life in all three Abrahamic religions, the more they moved towards fundamentalist versions that vehemently attacked science and western liberalism as decadent and corrupting. If Dawkins' theory were right, the technological superiority of the scientific worldview should have made them feel ridiculous, and hence they should have given up on their belief systems. But the opposite happened: from Wahhabist insistence on purifying Islam from western influence to the frontal attack on evolutionary theory by the American religious right, the fundamentalist backlash has been rather disheartening.

Equally dismaying was the timid way in which secularism, both in Europe and the US, tried to appease religious attacks ranging from Ayatollah Khomeini's fatwa against Salman Rushdie to stopping funding of stem-cell research by the Bush administration. Such appeasement only encouraged further attacks.

Within this context there was great value of polemical work like Dawkins' God Delusion, Daniel Dennett's and Christopher Hitchens' salvoes against religion and the fiery insistence of philosophers like Bernard Henri Lévy and Alain Finkielkraut that the western tradition of freedom of thought needed to be defended. I identify strongly with all these works and try to contribute to this effort of rallying the forces of the enlightenment tradition in my own way.

But let us not delude ourselves: the value of these books is to raise the spirits of liberal atheists who had been made to feel that they had no right to fight for their views. These spirited counterattacks certainly succeeded in reestablishing some esprit de corps of those committed to enlightenment values and the scientific worldview. But the primary effect of such aggressive rhetoric is primarily to rally our own side. We should not think that all-out attack on religion will convert anybody. The scientific evidence shows that the opposite is likely to be true.

I am in no way arguing for a return to the timid politically correct tactic of seemingly paying respect to views that are irrational and/or morally repugnant. But I believe that it is of crucial importance to get religious communities, particularly in third world countries, to accept scientific precepts on global problems ranging from the population explosion to the epidemic spread of HIV. In doing so we will have to find ways to convince religious leaders to endorse scientifically established methods of dealing with these issues. The strategy of ridiculing religious belief is very unlikely to achieve this, and may instead increase resistance to science where it is most sorely needed

 

 

 

 

 

 

From Andrew Browne's blog at guardian.co.uk Comment is Free

Dawkins raises the tone

Richard Dawkins, "speaking among friends", shows just why he has so many enemies

 

There has been a long-running battle among the American scientific community about the degree to which atheism should be identified with science teaching. On the one side are those bodies, like the National Centre for Science Education, whose chief concern is to get evolution taught in schools, and who will happily enlist mainstream Christians in their cause. On the other side are the hard-line new atheists, who think that science must sweep away religion and the sooner the better: if believers object, so much the worse for them. No prizes for guessing which side Richard Dawkins is on.

In a recent post on his own blog's comment section, he mused on this problem:

I think we should probably abandon the irremediably religious precisely because that is what they are – irremediable. I am more interested in the fence-sitters who haven't really considered the question very long or very carefully. And I think that they are likely to be swayed by a display of naked contempt. Nobody likes to be laughed at. Nobody wants to be the butt of contempt.

You might say that two can play at that game. Suppose the religious start treating us with naked contempt, how would we like it? I think the answer is that there is a real asymmetry here. We have so much more to be contemptuous about! And we are so much better at it. We have scathingly witty spokesmen of the calibre of Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris. Who have the faith-heads got, by comparison? Ann Coulter is about as good as it gets. We can't lose!

If you can bear to listen to him, take, as an example of a typical faith-head trying to be contemptuous, David Bentley Hart, whose radio interview happened to be posted here at the same time as Jerry's article.

Listen to the stumbling, droning inarticulacy, the abysmal lack of anything approaching wit or intelligence. Imagine this yammering fumblewit coming up against Christopher Hitchens, or Dan Dennett, or PZ Myers – doesn't it make your mouth water?

...

Maybe I'm wrong. I'm only thinking aloud, among friends. Is it gloves off time? Or should we continue to go along with the appeasers and be all nice and cuddly, like Eugenie and the National Academy?


Of course we already know this is Dawkins' attitude to the religious. That is exactly what people who complain about the New Atheists being aggressive are complaining about. The really extraordinary thing is that it is is marketed under the banner of "science and reason" and that he supposes that displays of naked contempt are the way to win over agnostics.

Mind you, this gives me an idea for a wonderful debate. Let's see Terry Eagleton vs Richard Dawkins, live on stage. I'm sure there would be no shortage of sponsors.

 

 

 

 

 

A short extract from:

 

 

 

Click on cover picture for extract

 

 

 

 

 

 

Horrific example of religious cruelty

Warning - this video is really extremely distressing to watch

 

 

 

 

 

 

See also

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Comment is free

Hamas no, human rights yes

Why are the left and the anti-war movement ignoring Hamas's repression of the Palestinian people?

Peter Tatchell

Peter Tatchell

guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 18 February 2009 20.30 GMT

Hamas is intensifying its repression of the Palestinian citizens of Gaza, according to recent reports by Amnesty International and the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights. This repression includes beatings, kneecappings, executions, detention without trial, torture, restrictions on civic organisations and violent attacks on critics and protesters, as reported in the Guardian last Friday.

Amnesty International is highly critical of the Hamas "campaign of abductions, deliberate and unlawful killings, torture and death threats".

Referring to Palestinians who were beaten or murdered by Hamas, Amnesty notes:

"Most of the victims were abducted from their homes; they were later dumped – dead or injured – in isolated areas ... Some were shot dead in the hospitals."

In a media briefing, Amnesty International added:

There is incontrovertible evidence that Hamas security forces and armed militias have been responsible for grave human rights abuses and that the victims of such abuses and many others are being intimidated and discouraged from testifying about their ordeal. The Hamas de-facto administration has displayed a flagrant disregard for the most fundamental human rights norms, not only allowing such abuses to be perpetrated, but actually facilitating and encouraging the abuses by justifying them and by granting absolute impunity to the perpetrators.

A dossier (pdf) by the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights independently corroborates Amnesty's allegations:

The human rights violations perpetrated ... have included killings of fugitives, prisoners and detainees, injuries caused by severe physical violence, torture and misuse of weapons, the imposition of house arrest, and other restrictions that have been imposed on civil society organisations.

These abuses, which are part of a long-standing pattern of human rights violations, reveal Hamas's totalitarian agenda and are a portent of the Iranian-style theocratic tyranny they would impose on the Palestinian people if they ever secured absolute power. It is an antisemitic, misogynistic, homophobic, anti-trade union, authoritarian, clericalist movement.

Nevertheless, none of Hamas's crimes excuse Israel's disproportionate, reckless and indiscriminate attacks on Gaza. The Israeli armed forces wantonly targeted civilian areas and caused thousands of civilian casualties, including the deaths of over 400 children. Under international law, such as the Geneva conventions, Israel's actions are war crimes and its political and military leaders should be taken to The Hague and put on trial.

This is the broad consensus among much of liberal and left opinion in western countries like the UK and US. I agree. But while progressive opinion is justifiably quick to condemn Israel, it is oddly silent when Palestinians are being persecuted by fellow Palestinians. Why the double standards?

Hamas styles itself as a resistance movement. In fact, it is as much a repression movement and the victims of its repression are fellow Palestinians who don't toe the Hamas line.

In the future, Hamas is potentially as much of a threat to Palestinian freedom as Israel is today. Hamas shares a similar religious-political ideology to the tyrants in Tehran – Islamism. More than a faith, Islamism is a religious-inspired fundamentalist political movement. The Islamists of Hamas have the ultimate goal of establishing a theocratic state, where every detail of Palestinian life is governed by its hardline misinterpretation of the Qu'ran.

If it ever managed to secure total control of a Palestinian state, Hamas would begin to impose its own restrictive Islamist version of democracy, as has happened in Iran under the ayatollahs. It would eventually ban non-Islamist parties and candidates. Gradually, genuine democracy and human rights would be dismantled and replaced by Hamas's own qualified, limited Islamist version, which would not be true democracy at all.

This is obvious to anyone with knowledge of Hamas's founding documents and guiding principles. These set out its plan to create not a Muslim state, but an Islamist one, where harsh religious edicts become the law of the land. Many Palestinians – probably most – reject theocracy. They do not wish to live under religious tyranny. Their desire is a democratic, secular state where people of all faiths are free to practise their beliefs but where religion does not dictate legislation and control government policy.

It is therefore disturbing that significant sections (not all) of the left are flirting with Hamas. During the January protests in the UK against Israel's barbaric bombardment of Gaza, there were frequent pro-Hamas chants and placards. "We are all Hamas now!" some marchers yelled. At one rally in Hyde Park, speakers on the main stage urged "Victory to Hamas!" and received tumultuous cheers of approval (with only a few boos).

I am tired of hearing leftwingers defend Hamas on the grounds that it was democratically elected. So what? The Israeli leaders are democratically elected but that does not make their war in Gaza right. A democratic mandate is not, by itself, sufficient to secure legitimacy for the government in Gaza – or anywhere else. If democratically elected governments violate human rights they forfeit their legitimacy, as in the case of Britain when it was torturing and assassinating Irish republican suspects in the 1970s and 80s.

Besides, support for Hamas has declined dramatically as people have experienced the consequences of its administration in Gaza. If a genuinely free and fair election were held today, Hamas would not win.

Another favourite left and liberal justification of Hamas is that it is less corrupt than its Palestinian rivals in Fatah and that it organises social programmes for the poor. You could say the same about the Nazis, compared to the indulgence and incompetence of some Weimar Republic leaders. No, a few good works do not exonerate Hamas. Yes, their critique of Fatah nepotism, pocket-lining and thuggism has some truth. But the alternative they are offering is far worse.

Some of the left seem to see Hamas as a Palestinian equivalent of the African National Congress of South Africa – a heroic national liberation movement that is resisting the iniquities of Israeli occupation. Sorry, this analogy does not wash, as Brett Lock argued on the Harry's Place blog a couple of weeks ago. He pointed out that Hamas is offering nothing akin to the political and ethical stature of the ANC's Freedom Charter. In fact, Hamas's charter is a charter for discrimination and religious tyranny – the exact opposite of what the ANC stood for.

Moreover, Hamas's macho posturing mirrors that of the Israeli extreme right. It has a juvenile tit-for-tat, eye-for-an-eye war mentality. To supposedly prove its resistance credentials and outdo Fatah, it fires rockets into Israel against non-military targets, with no concern for the civilian casualties caused there and no regard for the effects on Palestinian civilians of Israeli retaliatory attacks.

Far from advancing the Palestinian cause, Hamas's strategy is constantly weakening and undermining it. The people of Gaza are worse off in every way since Hamas took control.

The Gazan people are lions led by Hamas donkeys. These donkeys keep giving Israel an excuse to attack the Palestinian people and to frustrate the urgent task of creating a viable, independent Palestinian state.

I have some sympathy for a one-state solution – a unified democratic, secular state of Palestine-Israel, based on a confederation of autonomous, self-governing Jewish, Arab and mixed towns and cities, where all Israelis and Palestinians can live together in peace, security, harmony and equality.

As well as the intransigence of short-sighted Israelis, one of the major obstacles to this dream is Hamas. It demands an Islamist state governed by sharia law. It won't accept equal co-existence or secularism, democracy and human rights.

Despite my many criticisms of Hamas, I also believe that Israel and the west should negotiate with them, just as the British negotiated with the Irish Republican Army, the US negotiated with North Korea and Pakistanis are now negotiating with the Taliban. The ideology that Hamas represents has a sizable, if shrinking, minority following among Palestinians. You cannot defeat an ideology by military means; especially not an ideology that is fuelled by the fundamental injustice of Israel's dispossession of the Palestinian people from their land. Even with the opponents of freedom, talk, talk is better than war, war.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/feb/18/hamas-palestine-israel-human-rights

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dr Wafa Sultan

 

 

 "Why does a young Muslim man, in the prime of life, with a full life ahead, go and blow himself up?" she asked. "In our countries, religion is the sole source of education and is the only spring from which that terrorist drank until his thirst was quenched."

 

More here
 

 

 

 

  

 

 

Is Islam compatible with Liberal Democracy?
 

Ayaan Hirsi Ali at the Aspen Ideas Festival
July 2-8, 2007

 

 

 

 

 

          Or link to YouTube

 The first of 6 videos on YouTube, each about 10 mins long,

and it might be easier to get the other 5 videos that way, although

you can link to them from the icon above
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8aItcLm_0nc&feature=related

 

which is:-

http://tinyurl.com/23taah

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

From the New York Times

http://tinyurl.com/baulf5

Darwinism Must Die So That Evolution May Live

February 9, 2009
Essay
 

By CARL SAFINA

 
“You care for nothing but shooting, dogs and rat-catching,” Robert Darwin told his son, “and you will be a disgrace to yourself and all your family.” Yet the feckless boy is everywhere. Charles Darwin gets so much credit, we can’t distinguish evolution from him.

Equating evolution with Charles Darwin ignores 150 years of discoveries, including most of what scientists understand about evolution. Such as: Gregor Mendel’s patterns of heredity (which gave Darwin’s idea of natural selection a mechanism — genetics — by which it could work); the discovery of DNA (which gave genetics a mechanism and lets us see evolutionary lineages); developmental biology (which gives DNA a mechanism); studies documenting evolution in nature (which converted the hypothetical to observable fact); evolution’s role in medicine and disease (bringing immediate relevance to the topic); and more.

By propounding “Darwinism,” even scientists and science writers perpetuate an impression that evolution is about one man, one book, one “theory.” The ninth-century Buddhist master Lin Chi said, “If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him.” The point is that making a master teacher into a sacred fetish misses the essence of his teaching. So let us now kill Darwin.

That all life is related by common ancestry, and that populations change form over time, are the broad strokes and fine brushwork of evolution. But Darwin was late to the party. His grandfather, and others, believed new species evolved. Farmers and fanciers continually created new plant and animal varieties by selecting who survived to breed, thus handing Charles Darwin an idea. All Darwin perceived was that selection must work in nature, too.

In 1859, Darwin’s perception and evidence became “On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or The Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle for Life.” Few realize he published 8 books before and 10 books after “Origin.” He wrote seminal books on orchids, insects, barnacles and corals. He figured out how atolls form, and why they’re tropical.

Credit Darwin’s towering genius. No mind ran so freely, so widely or so freshly over the hills and vales of existence. But there’s a limit to how much credit is reasonable. Parking evolution with Charles Darwin overlooks the limits of his time and all subsequent progress.

Science was primitive in Darwin’s day. Ships had no engines. Not until 1842, six years after Darwin’s Beagle voyage, did Richard Owen coin the term “dinosaur.” Darwin was an adult before scientists began debating whether germs caused disease and whether physicians should clean their instruments. In 1850s London, John Snow fought cholera unaware that bacteria caused it. Not until 1857 did Johann Carl Fuhlrott and Hermann Schaaffhausen announce that unusual bones from the Neander Valley in Germany were perhaps remains of a very old human race. In 1860 Louis Pasteur performed experiments that eventually disproved “spontaneous generation,” the idea that life continually arose from nonliving things.

Science has marched on. But evolution can seem uniquely stuck on its founder. We don’t call astronomy Copernicism, nor gravity Newtonism. “Darwinism” implies an ideology adhering to one man’s dictates, like Marxism. And “isms” (capitalism, Catholicism, racism) are not science. “Darwinism” implies that biological scientists “believe in” Darwin’s “theory.” It’s as if, since 1860, scientists have just ditto-headed Darwin rather than challenging and testing his ideas, or adding vast new knowledge.

Using phrases like “Darwinian selection” or “Darwinian evolution” implies there must be another kind of evolution at work, a process that can be described with another adjective. For instance, “Newtonian physics” distinguishes the mechanical physics Newton explored from subatomic quantum physics. So “Darwinian evolution” raises a question: What’s the other evolution?

Into the breach: intelligent design. I am not quite saying Darwinism gave rise to creationism, though the “isms” imply equivalence. But the term “Darwinian” built a stage upon which “intelligent” could share the spotlight.

Charles Darwin didn’t invent a belief system. He had an idea, not an ideology. The idea spawned a discipline, not disciples. He spent 20-plus years amassing and assessing the evidence and implications of similar, yet differing, creatures separated in time (fossils) or in space (islands). That’s science.

That’s why Darwin must go.

Almost everything we understand about evolution came after Darwin, not from him. He knew nothing of heredity or genetics, both crucial to evolution. Evolution wasn’t even Darwin’s idea.

Darwin’s grandfather Erasmus believed life evolved from a single ancestor. “Shall we conjecture that one and the same kind of living filaments is and has been the cause of all organic life?” he wrote in “Zoonomia” in 1794. He just couldn’t figure out how.

Charles Darwin was after the how. Thinking about farmers’ selective breeding, considering the high mortality of seeds and wild animals, he surmised that natural conditions acted as a filter determining which individuals survived to breed more individuals like themselves. He called this filter “natural selection.” What Darwin had to say about evolution basically begins and ends right there. Darwin took the tiniest step beyond common knowledge. Yet because he perceived — correctly — a mechanism by which life diversifies, his insight packed sweeping power.

But he wasn’t alone. Darwin had been incubating his thesis for two decades when Alfred Russel Wallace wrote to him from Southeast Asia, independently outlining the same idea. Fearing a scoop, Darwin’s colleagues arranged a public presentation crediting both men. It was an idea whose time had come, with or without Darwin.

Darwin penned the magnum opus. Yet there were weaknesses. Individual variation underpinned the idea, but what created variants? Worse, people thought traits of both parents blended in the offspring, so wouldn’t a successful trait be diluted out of existence in a few generations? Because Darwin and colleagues were ignorant of genes and the mechanics of inheritance, they couldn’t fully understand evolution.

Gregor Mendel, an Austrian monk, discovered that in pea plants inheritance of individual traits followed patterns. Superiors burned his papers posthumously in 1884. Not until Mendel’s rediscovered “genetics” met Darwin’s natural selection in the “modern synthesis” of the 1920s did science take a giant step toward understanding evolutionary mechanics. Rosalind Franklin, James Watson and Francis Crick bestowed the next leap: DNA, the structure and mechanism of variation and inheritance.

Darwin’s intellect, humility (“It is always advisable to perceive clearly our ignorance”) and prescience astonish more as scientists clarify, in detail he never imagined, how much he got right.

But our understanding of how life works since Darwin won’t swim in the public pool of ideas until we kill the cult of Darwinism. Only when we fully acknowledge the subsequent century and a half of value added can we really appreciate both Darwin’s genius and the fact that evolution is life’s driving force, with or without Darwin.

Carl Safina is a MacArthur fellow, an adjunct professor at Stony Brook University and the president of the Blue Ocean Institute. His books include “Song for the Blue Ocean,” “Eye of the Albatross” and “Voyage of the Turtle.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

Excellent review of Dennett's Breaking the Spell in the New Yorker for April 3, 2006

The God Project
What the science of religion can’t prove.
by H. Allen Orr

HERE

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

How Geert Wilders got it so very wrong; discussion and link to

'FITNA REMADE'
In view of the topicality, I hope this might give some background and illumination.  This material is all on the Musicweaver Archive page (first link, below).
Brian
 
==================
 
Reza Moradi (See my website, Musicweaver, for more information on him), a member of  the Council of ex-Muslims in Britain (CEMB)’s Executive Committee, has produced Fitna Remade in response to Geert Wilders' Fitna, the Movie, May 20, 2008    He said: "Fitna, the Movie ... doesn’t really criticise Islam and more importantly the political Islamic movement.  Rather, it attacks immigrants, labels millions as ‘Muslims’, and implies their support for a movement that millions have opposed, resisted and fled from.  I had to do a remake to show the real story from one of these millions."   (The video, available on the web, was also shown at the CEMB's 1st International Conference in London - I've done a report on this conference if anyone wants it.)
 
---

"To stop terrorism we must be against poles of terrorism, the US terrorism and the Islamist terrorism; being against one should not lead us to support the other one. No one must be allowed to legitimize and promote killing people …”
-- Shiva Mahbobi, 30/9/2006 (For Maryam Namazie's blog see below*)
 
From discussion (see link on website):
“[Wilders] has got his own [very right wing] agenda [and] his basic concern is [about] immigration into Europe [as well as] the threat that he thinks Islam poses to Europe. [I]f it wasn’t for that he would have absolutely no concerns about Islam and so his agenda really doesn’t coincide with ours at all…”
 
...
 
Maryam Namazie:  “[I] thought how dare [Wilders]. The political Islamic movement has wreaked havoc for decades, long before September 11, long before the Madrid or London bombings.  In Iran, we have lost an entire generation to this movement and we have struggled and fought against this movement. How dare he equate all of us as one and the same with the political Islamic movement? It made me quite angry.”
 
---
 
Fariborz Pooya, summing up the discussion [§], says: "Fitna, as mentioned here, doesn’t fundamentally criticise Islam; it doesn’t criticise the political Islamic movement and Islamic states that is destroying the lives of millions every day. And effectively its anti-immigrant tone distorts the whole picture. The reality is that millions of people are fighting against the political Islamic movement and that’s the movement that needs to be supported. Freedom of expression and the right to criticise Islam and religion and is a fundamental right that needs to be upheld."
 
---
 
I have transcribed the commentary from Fitna Remade (any errors are mine, Brian R).  (Link to the video, and also to a discussion on Wilders’ original film, are on my website, Musicweaver. Please scroll as necessary.)
 

Note (from Musicweaver website):


Fitna Remade can be seen here:
 http://www.fitna-remade.com/Pages/fitna-remade.html
 
(I have NOT included a link to Wilders’ original, which can still be found around the web.)

 
There are also links to a discussion on Wilders' film, an article by Johann Hari, a Rally (in which I participated), as well as a counter-protest by Reza Moradi during Tony Benn's speech at a STWC anti-war rally, Sept '06.
 
The link again to all this:
 
 
-------
 

*Maryam Namazie's blog http://tinyurl.com/66v8w5 )
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In these dark times, a really inspiring lecture

from the great

Howard Zinn

 

From DemocracyNow!

Howard Zinn on "War and Social Justice"

 

 

 

"Howard Zinn is one of this country’s most celebrated historians. His classic work A People’s History of the United States changed the way we look at history in America. First published a quarter of a century ago, the book has sold over a million copies and is a phenomenon in the world of publishing—selling more copies each successive year. After serving as a bombardier in World War II, Howard Zinn went on to become a lifelong dissident and peace activist. He was active in the civil rights movement and many of the struggles for social justice over the past forty years. He taught at Spelman College, the historically black college for women, and was fired for insubordination for standing up for the students. He was recently invited back to give the commencement address. Howard Zinn has written numerous books and is professor emeritus at Boston University. He recently spoke at Binghamton University a few days after the 2008 presidential election. His speech was called “War and Social Justice.” [includes rush transcript]"

 

See also

History is a Weapon

http://historyisaweapon.com/zinnapeopleshistory.html

A People's History Of The United States
by Howard Zinn

Presented by History Is A Weapon


1. Columbus, The Indians, and Human Progress

2. Drawing the Color Line

3. Persons of Mean and Vile Condition

4. Tyranny is Tyranny

5. A Kind of Revolution

6. The Intimately Oppressed

7. As Long As Grass Grows Or Water Runs

8. We Take Nothing by Conquest, Thank God

9. Slavery Without Submission, Emancipation Without Freedom

10. The Other Civil War

11. Robber Barons And Rebels

12. The Empire and the People

13. The Socialist Challenge

14. War Is the Health of the State

15. Self-help in Hard Times

16. A People's War?

17. "Or Does It Explode?"

18. The Impossible Victory: Vietnam

19. Surprises

20. The Seventies: Under Control?

21. Carter-Reagan-Bush: The Bipartisan Consensus

22. The Unreported Resistance

23. The Clinton Presidency and the Crisis of Democracy

24.The Coming Revolt of the Guards

24. [sic - should be 25] The 2000 Election and the "War on Terrorism"

 

From the same website:

History isn't what happened, but a story of what happened. And there are always different versions, different stories, about the same events. One version might revolve mainly around a specific set of facts while another version might minimize them or not include them at all.
 

Like stories, each of these different versions of history contain different lessons. Some histories tell us that our leaders, at least, have always tried to do right for everyone. Others remark that the emperors don't have the slaves' best interests at heart. Some teach us that this is both what has always been and what always will be. Others counsel that we shouldn't mistake transient dominance for intrinsic superiority. Lastly, some histories paint a picture where only the elites have the power to change the world, while others point out that social change is rarely commanded from the top down.
 

 Regardless of the value of these many lessons, History isn't what happened, but the stories of what happened and the lessons these stories include. The very selection of which histories to teach in a society shapes our view of how what is came to be and, in turn, what we understand as possible. This choice of which history to teach can never be "neutral" or "objective." Those who choose, either following a set agenda or guided by hidden prejudices, serve their interests. Their interests could be to continue this world as it now stands or to make a new world.
 

We cannot simply be passive. We must choose whose interests are best: those who want to keep things going as they are or those who want to work to make a better world. If we choose the latter, we must seek out the tools we will need. History is just one tool to shape our understanding of our world. And every tool is a weapon if you hold it right.

 


A Note and a disclaimer.
The Note: This great book should really be read by everyone. It is difficult to describe why it so great because it both teaches and inspires. You really just have to read it. We think it is so good that it demands to be as accessible as possible. Once you've finished it, we're sure you'll agree. In fact, years ago, we would offer people twenty dollars if they read the book and didn't think it was completely worth their time. Of all the people who took us up on it, no one collected.
The disclaimer: This version is made from OCR. That is a fancy way of saying that we scanned in and coded over six hundred fifty pages. There will be a few small occasional errors: spelling mistakes, odd punctuation, and the like. If you see any, please contact us. We have posted it in spite of these mistakes for two simple reasons. First, the book is worth a mistake or two because it really deserves the widest audience possible. Second, we are sure that once you new people begin reading it, you'll go out and get a physical copy. You should go and get it (and ones for your friends and family). At this point, A People's History Of The United States is available in regular form, read aloud on audio, on posters, in a teaching edition, and as just the twentieth century chapters(We have all but the posters). And now here. Please Enjoy!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

CLINICIANS' TOUR NOVEMBER 2008

 

TO THE WEST BANK, PALESTINE

AND PART OF ISRAEL

 

A PERSONAL REPORT

BY THELMA AND BRIAN ROBINSON

 

 

HERE

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Clinicians' Tour November 2008

 

Notes and images from

 

a day-long visit to

 

HEBRON

 

 

HERE

 


 

 

 

 

 

From Defence for Children International - Palestine Section

 

(See report: Clinicians' Tour 2008 above)

 

 

 

The link to a copy I've made of this video from DCI-PS is below

 

 

 

 

 


 Clinicians' Tour of West Bank and part of Israel,

November 2008
 


 This was the video that along with the PowerPoint presentation Gerard Horton of Defence for Children International - Palestine Section showed us in Ramallah, and had pretty tough hardened doctors used to seeing everything on the wards and A&E depts weeping openly. I took the above stills from the video.

What we didn't know when watching it, but which it's simplest if I tell you now, is that the boy, Rakan, was shot dead at a checkpoint some time after the video was made. Rakan had approached the checkpoint waving an imitation gun. DCI/PS who knew him very well indeed think that he actually committed suicide in this way. If you can watch the video you will see that this is a most likely explanation.

Important note: The preview plays only about 7 minutes - to watch the whole 18 minutes (just over) you have to click the DOWNLOAD button and play on your computer.
The link to the video is:-

 http://www.4shared.com/file/91339219/37bd8895/STOLEN_YOUTH_wwwdci-palorg.html

 

 

which is:
 

http://tinyurl.com/b53osr

 

(The Preview shows only 7 minutes - you have to Download the video)

 

 

Brian

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sources of information

Websites:
Physicians for Human Rights – Israel - www.phr.org.il


“Holding Health to Ransom: GSS Interrogation & Extortion of Palestinian Patients at Erez Crossing” as well as articles on health care and the use of torture in Israel
Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions – www.icahd.org


“An Israeli Jew in Gaza: A Statement by Jeff Halper”
“Born to Demolish” & article on the Matrix of Control


B’Tselem - www.btselem.org
The Israeli Information Centre for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories


Council for Arab-British Understanding – www.caabu.org
See education – Israel/Palestine fact sheets


Palestine Solidarity Campaign – www.palestinecampaign.org
See About Palestine – PSC fact sheets and booklets


Medical Aid for Palestinians – www.map-uk.org
See Resource Room


United Nations Relief & Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East – www.un.org


Gaza Community Mental Health Programme – www.gcmhp.net

See Palestinian International Campaign to End the Siege
Al-Haq – Palestinian Human Rights organisation founded by Palestinian lawyers – www.alhaq.org


Amnesty International – www.Amnesty.org
Learn about human rights – select Palestinian Authority


The Foundation for Al Quds Medical School – www.fqms.org


Wiam – Palestinian Conflict Resolution Centre – Bethlehem – http://alashah.org/presention.ppt


Machsom Watch - Women against the Occupation and for human rights – www.machsomwatch.org/en


Palestine Medical Relief Society – www.pmrs.ps


Public Committee Against Torture – www.stoptorture.org.il/en


Defence for Children International – Palestine Section - www.dci-pal.org


UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs – www.ochaopt.org
See latest publications and weekly reports – maps


The Medical Committee for Boycott of the Israeli Medical Association – www.boycottima.org


Articles
On the Occupied Territories, two articles by Richard Horton on the New York Review of Books, 2007: http://www.nybooks.com/articles/19974  and http://www.nybooks.com/articles/20281

McGirk about Gaza published on the Lancet in February 2008, can be found on Rete ECO's website: http://www.rete-eco.it/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1110:gazas-humanitarian-crisis-deepens&catid=35:riflessioni&Itemid=35 )

 http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140673608601853/fulltext

Amnesty "Gaza: A Humanitarian Implosion" published by Amnesty International; Catholic Agency for Overseas Development (AI); CARE (CAFOD); Christian Aid; Médecins du Monde; Oxfam; Save the Children Alliance; Trócaire on 6th March 2008. http://www.oxfam.org.uk/resources/downloads/oxfam_gaza_lowres.pdf
International development Select Committee have just published their report assessing the UK position on aid etc to the OPTs
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200708/cmselect/cmintdev/522/522i.pdf


Books
The Iron Wall – Avi Shlaim (Penguin Books)
The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine – Ilan Pappe (Oneworld Publications)
The Question of Palestine – Edward Said (Pantheon)
An Israeli in Palestine: Resisting Dispossession, Redeeming Israel – Jeff Halper (Pluto Press)
Obstacles to Peace – Jeff Halper (ICAHD)
Blood & Religion: The Unmasking of the Jewish & Democratic State – Jonathan Cook (Pluto Press)
Israel & the Clash of Civilizations – Jonathan Cook (Pluto Press)
Israel & Palestine: Competing Histories – Mike Berry & Greg Philo (Pluto Press)
Bad News from Israel – Mike Berry & Greg Philo (Pluto Press)
Failing Peace: Gaza and the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict – Sara Roy (Pluto Press)
The West Bank Wall: Unmasking Palestine – Ray Dolphin – (Pluto Press)

DVDs
The Iron Wall – Mohammed Alatar (available from www.icahduk.org)
Jerusalem – East Side Story – Mohammed Alatar (available from www.palestinecampaign.org)

For advice on travelling to Israel and the Occupied Territories
See the Foreign and Commonwealth Office - www.fco.gov.uk/travel

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Musicweaver Archive - recent posts here

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A day in the life of a Gazan Fisherman. All footage was taken from one Gazan fishing boat on 5th October 2008, as it fished in Gazan territorial waters. The furthest it ventured from shore was approximately 4 miles.

 

 

 

 

 

 

In the current JfJfP newsletter there's a link to an essay which I very much recommend if you want to understand some of the fury raging within various Jewish communities over the abusive term "self-hating Jew".   The essay is by the admirable Antony Lerman, Director, Institute for Jewish Policy Research and is published in Jewish Quarterly, entitled ‘Jewish Self-Hatred: Myth or Reality’.   It's 6 pages and I've taken some quotes from it in case you don't have time to read the full article, copied at the end of this email with a link to the full article, beneath the following piece, which is also by Lerman.
 
The piece immediately below is from Global Researcher http://www.jpr.org.uk/downloads/Global%20Researcher.pdf  which is:
 

 

At Issue:

Is anti-Zionism a cover-up for anti-Semitism?

 

ANTONY LERMAN – No *

DIRECTOR, INSTITUTE FOR JEWISH POLICY

RESEARCH

WRITTEN FOR CQ GLOBAL RESEARCHER, JUNE 2008

 

http://www.jpr.org.uk/downloads/Global%20Researcher.pdf

 

 

Anti-Zionism and hostility to Israel can be anti-Semitic if

they are expressed using the symbols of the anti-Semitic

figure of the Jew or of Jewry as a whole. For example,

if Zionism is characterized as a worldwide Jewish conspiracy, or

a plan straight out of the forged, anti-Semitic “Protocols of the

Learned Elders of Zion,” that is anti-Semitism.

 

But to believe that anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism are one

and the same ignores the history of Zionism.

 

For decades Zionism was supported only by a minority of

Jews. The rest were either indifferent or manifestly opposed to

the whole idea of the establishment of a Jewish state. Anti-

Zionism was therefore a perfectly respectable position to hold,

and one that continues to be held today by hundreds of

thousands of strictly orthodox Jews and many secular Jews

with left-liberal perspectives.

 

Equating anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism — what has become

known as the “new anti-Semitism” — fundamentally subverts

the shared understanding of what anti-Semitism is, built

up painstakingly through research and study by scholars over

many years: It drains the word anti-Semitism of any useful

meaning. The advocates of the concept of a new anti-Semitism

argue that it is anti-Semitic to either criticize Israeli policies or

deny Israel’s right to exist, even if one does not hold beliefs

historians have traditionally regarded as an anti-Semitic view:

hatred of Jews per se, belief in a worldwide Jewish conspiracy,

belief that Jews created communism and control capitalism, belief

that Jews are racially inferior and so on.

 

Those who argue that anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism are

one claim they don’t say criticism of Israeli policies is illegitimate.

However, in practice this view virtually proscribes any

such thing.

 

As the Oxford academic Brian Klug has written, anti-Zionism

and hostility to Israel — if based on a political cause or moral

code that is not anti-Jewish per se — is not anti-Semitic. And

arguing that it is harms the all-important struggle to combat

anti-Semitism. If people feel unfairly stigmatized as anti-Semitic

simply for speaking out about the plight of the Palestinians and

the Israeli government’s role in causing their suffering, they

could become cynical and alienated whenever the problem of

anti-Semitism is raised.

 

 

* At the same site is a Yes answer from Ben Cohen, Associate Director, Dept. on Anti-Semitism & Extremism, American Jewish Committee, Editor, www.z-word.com

 

------------

 

The article by Antony Lerner published in Jewish Quarterly is at:

 

http://www.jfjfp.org/background7_antisemitism/lerner_Jewish-self-hatred_JQ.pdf  which as you can see is at the JfJfP website.  The shorter link is:

 

http://tinyurl.com/5vc3k6

 

Here are the extracts I've chosen to give an idea of what's in the full 6-page article

 

 

ESSAY

 

Jewish Self-Hatred: Myth or Reality?

Antony Lerman contextualises the time-worn accusation.

 

Antony Lerman is the director of the Institute for Jewish Policy

Research and is writing here in a personal capacity.

 

 

 

"... The self-hatred accusation, now

commonly applied, has moved beyond writers

to embrace whole classes of people whose one

common denominator is their alleged hatred

of Israel or their willingness to connive in its

delegitimisation out of a misguided sense of guilt

for what Jews have done to the Palestinians. ...

 

"... The touchstone for being a ‘good Jew’ has

increasingly become passion for Israel. But it seems

that there is a right and a wrong passion. Essentially,

caring about Israel can only mean approving

of its policies. Disapproval is synonymous with

self-hatred.

 

"[But when founder of modern political Zionism Theodor]

Herzl ... painted the weak ghetto Jew ... as the bad Jew

who speaks with a Yiddish accent, a ‘scamp’,‘a distortion

of the human character, unspeakably mean and repellent’,

interested only in ‘mean profit,’ he was

using anti-Semitic attributes — and some accused

him of self-hatred. The writer Karl Kraus, himself

Jewish (and also branded as a self-hating Jew),

attacked Herzl for ‘creating another antisemitic

movement’. Far from being the antithesis of Jewish

self-hatred, some argue that Zionism was actually

a display of it....

 

"... [The concept self-hatred involves two sets of assumptions]:

that there is a correct manner and degree to which people

should express their Jewish identities in public; and

that there is a set of core values and institutions

which one should favour. It is also assumed that

Jewishness ‘is or should be a primary identity’ and

therefore rejecting it or criticising it is somehow

unnatural and wrong.

 

" [For some Jewish writers] quoted earlier, Zionism and

Israel are core Jewish values, and rejecting them is a

pathological act consonant with deliberate estrangement

from the group. But there has never been a time when all

Jewish denominations and groups have accepted

Israel and Zionism as core values. Today, hundreds

and thousands of strictly Orthodox Jews, many of

whom live in Israel, utterly reject the notion that

the modern state of Israel and the political ideology

of Zionism have anything to do with Judaism. The

venom of the ‘self-hatred’ accusers is reserved for

those labelled ‘progressive’, ‘left-liberal’, ‘left-wing’,

for whom Israel and Zionism do not play the

role in their Jewish identity which their accusers

determine it should do. Some, motivated by the

values of social justice which are central to their

Jewishness, may well feel that their sense of Jewish

identity is affirmed by opposition to the policies

of the Israeli government. But to the self-hate

accusers there are no legitimate differences of

opinion among Jews on key elements of Zionism

and Israel.

 

"The concept of the ‘self-hating Jew’ strengthens

a narrow, ethnocentric view of the Jewish people.

It exerts a monopoly over patriotism. It promotes

a definition of Jewish identity which relies on

the notion of an eternal enemy, and how much

more dangerous when that enemy is a fifth

column within the group. It plays on real fears of

anti-Semitism and at the same time exaggerates the

problem by claiming that critical Jews are ‘infected’

by it too. And it posits an essentialist notion of

Jewish identity.

 

"Could the widespread and increasingly

indiscriminate use of the self-hatred accusation

be a sign of desperation on the part of the

accusers? Dissenting voices on Israel have certainly

strengthened and multiplied in recent years. Twenty

years ago in Britain there were one or two rather

small groups promoting a left-wing non-Zionist or

anti-Zionist approach, who were regarded as hate

figures by the Jewish establishment. Today there are

more than a dozen critical groups. Some encompass

the views of many hundreds, if not thousands; some

are not left-wing. How much easier to dismiss

their arguments by levelling the charge of Jewish

self-hatred than by engaging with them.

 

"It is too much to hope that by revealing just

how bankrupt a concept ‘Jewish self-hatred’ is,

discourse among Jews on Israel and Zionism could

become more productive, both for Jews themselves

and for the sake of achieving justice in the conflict

between Israelis and Palestinians. Too much is

currently invested in this demonising rhetoric. But

if we could edge it closer to the rim of the dustbin

of history, we’d be making a start."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In view of recent articles about Prof Shlomo Sand (or Zand)

of Tel Aviv University, concerning his thesis that, in the words

of Ha'aretz, "attempts to prove that the Jews now living in Israel and other places in the world are not at all descendants of the ancient people who inhabited the Kingdom of Judea during the First and Second Temple period. Their origins, according to [Sand], are in varied peoples that converted to Judaism during the course of history, in different corners of the Mediterranean Basin and the adjacent regions", I thought it worth copying an extract from John Rose's fascinating and very readable 2004 book, The Myths of Zionism

 

 

HERE

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

WORDS

Apartheid - Nishul - Hafrada

 

The Afrikaans word apartheid has often been used to describe the situation obtaining in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and often within Israel itself.  From the point of view of campaigning, there have been problems with the use of this word in the Israeli-Palestinian context: its descriptive accuracy has been called into question¹ and to use it can end up letting apologists for Israeli brutality employ diversionary tactics, expressing outrage at the use of a word whilst ignoring or denying, certainly obscuring the very real Palestinian sufferings to which the word refers.

Apartheid may well, despite Machover's warnings and objections, be the appropriate word to use, but sometimes it's not enough to be right:  in campaigning, as in diplomacy, you often have to be right in the right way.  We want to persuade people with the words we use, not make them stop up their ears in some sort of defensive conditioned reflex.

I am therefore grateful to Deborah Maccoby² for reminding me that at his recent talk in London, Jeff Halper of ICAHD 'mentioned that he has met South Africans who object to the phrase "Israeli apartheid", not because what's going on doesn't resemble South African apartheid, but because they think the word "apartheid" was specific to their own situation and they think a specifically Israeli word should be used to describe the Israeli/Palestinian situation'.  (Email communication.)

I am also grateful to Richard Kuper, who clarified for me that the word Jeff used was nishul - dispossession (variant spelling, nishool). A related Hebrew word is hafrada, which, like the Afrikaans word "apartheid", means literally separation. These are the words used by the Israeli government to describe its own policies.  (By email.)

These words could become just as highly charged, and with the same results, as did the Afrikaners' own word to describe their policies.  If we started to use them at every opportunity in our own campaigning, they could hardly be challenged for accuracy, since they're the Israeli government's own terms, and they would deny our opponents the chance of time-wasting obfuscatory tactics.

 

¹ See Moshe Machover, Is it Apartheid? in Jewish Voice for Peace, 10 Nov 2004

² See report of London meeting here

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

PRESIDENT BUSH PARDONS HIMSELF FOR WARCRIMES

From You Tube

 

 

 

 

 

 

 9-minute audio (3.7 MB in mp3 format) of Johann Hari at the day-long 1st International Conference of the Council of ex-Muslims of Britain (at Conway Hall on Oct 10).


The audio extract is from Part two - Plenary 2: Sharia Law and Citizenship Rights; Chair: Andrew Copson; Panellists: Mahin Alipour, Roy Brown, Johann Hari, Maryam Namazie, Ibn Warraq


I've removed this clip but the link to official videos is below.

Videos of the all-day event are at
http://www.ex-muslim.org.uk/indexEvents.html

 

 

 

In view of the way the term "self hating" gets flung around, topically with particular reference to some Jews who highlight Israeli maltreatment of Palestinians, I thought it worth referring to a book by Theodor Lessing who seems to have been the first to write about it in detail, although I understand he didn't coin the phrase himself.  I took this from The Weimar Republic Sourcebook and also got a Wikipedia (semi-)translation of a German Wikipedia entry on Lessing.  So you can read Lessing's Der Jüdische Selbsthaß

 

 

HERE

 

(If you want to read the bio first, follow the links at the bottom of each page for about 3 pages)

 

 

 

 

 

 

To read

On 'God-bashing' best sellers and other publications
by Brian Robinson

 

Click HERE

 

 

 

 

 

ASKE is at

http://www.aske-skeptics.org.uk/

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

International Music Score Library Project (IMSLP)

 

SEE LATEST GOOD NEWS ON THIS PROJECT HERE (CLICK)
 

 

 

  

 


 

Click icons for links in each case
 

Bill Thompson's wonderful:

 

 Photos from Bill Thompson's website

 

 

 

 

 

 


 BRICUP is an organisation of UK based academics, set up in response to the Palestinian Call for Academic Boycott. Its twin missions are:

- to support Palestinian universities, staff and students, and

- to oppose the continued illegal Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands with its concomitant breaches of international conventions of human rights, its refusal to accept UN resolutions or rulings of the International Court, and its persistent suppression of Palestinian academic freedom.

 

 

 

"An Anti-Zionist blog - browsing the media"

Lively, opinionated, provocative, I'd say ...

 

  "A UK based peace resource group for information and activities regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict"    Yes, often a mine of up-to-the-minute information.

 

Tony Greenstein's provocative blog

 

 

Charlie Pottins has been a labourer, left-wing journo (low-paid or unpaid), packer, porter, and political activist. He was in Bosnia during the war and Palestine before the first Intifada, but was not responsible for either "that was the politicians".

 


 "Music to my ears, that radio show of yours: you are a shining candle in a dark world." - A.C. Grayling

"One of the most compulsively listenable shows anywhere." - The Guardian

"A totally excellent post-enlightenment chat show." - Bad Science

"Shining as a beacon of hope for all rationalists, atheists and humanists out there." - The Independent

"There is nothing on the web as carefully considered and intelligently furious as Little Atoms. A must for those who still care about art, science, humanism and argument." - Guardian Unlimited


 Little Atoms is produced and presented by Neil Denny, Padraig Reidy, and Richard Sanderson and broadcast every Friday from 19:00 to 19:30 GMT on Resonance 104.4 FM.

 Little Atoms is a show about ideas. Each show features a guest from the worlds of science, journalism, politics, academia, human rights or the arts in conversation.

If the show has a dominant and recurring theme, then it coalesces around the ideas of the Enlightenment, by which we mean freedom of expression, free inquiry, empirical rationalism, scepticism, the scientific method, secular humanism and liberal democracy. These ideas find their opposite in superstition, religious fundamentalism, fanaticism, medievalism, totalitarianism, censorship and conspiracy theory.

Our guests bring ideas that are challenging, sometimes controversial, often polemical, but always
interesting.
 

   I think it's the best television and / or radio news programme ...  Forget Channel 4 ...

 

ASKE

"Casting a critical eye over suspect science, dubious claims and bizarre beliefs"

 

 

"We have more Gods than you can shake a stick at. Godchecker's Mythology Encyclopedia currently features over 2,850 deities."

See Henotheism, HERE
 

Historical Jesus Theories  "The purpose of this web page is to explain and explore some of the theories offered up by contemporary scholars on the historical Jesus and the origins of the Christian religion. Issues include the nature of the historical Jesus, the nature of the early Christian documents, and the origins of the Christian faith in a risen Jesus Christ. An attempt has been made to include historical Jesus theories across the spectrum from Marcus Borg to N.T. Wright and to describe these historical Jesus theories in an accurate and concise way."

 

 

"A peer-reviewed resource"

 

The Royal Institute of Philosophy

"A Periodical of the Royal Institute of Philosophy"



Kibush  The Occupation Magazine has an extremely useful and very comprehensive-looking page of links HERE

The Occupation Magazine was established in October 2004 by a group of Israeli anti-occupation activists who were disturbed by the growing discrepancy between the grim reality which they observed in the Occupied Territories , and the way in which it was (and is) reported in the main stream media. The ongoing colonization policy in the Occupied Territories is being misrepresented by the Israeli and US media as "fight against terror" and a "struggle for Israel's existence / security". This is while in reality, the colonization policies promote terror, and endanger the future of both nations in this country.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

See http://www.rhinegold.co.uk/otherbooks/dict/index.cfm

RHINEGOLD DICTIONARY OF MUSIC IN SOUND

The world’s first dictionary of music terminology that you can listen to

The Rhinegold Dictionary of Music in Sound is a comprehensive multi-dimensional guide by David Bowman defining the language used to describe Western art music. It is a unique reference that can be used by students, teachers, enthusiastic listeners and professional musicians.

"… beautifully put together, clear, unstuffy and thorough. I wish it had been around when I was studying music at school and university, with its long-overdue collation of written explanations, notated music examples and sound clips in one nifty box. The placing of musical terminology in its historical context is particularly welcome and possibly unique on so generous a scale. I am already using it in my research for a new TV series, and love the easy cross-referencing. Delia Smith for music. First rate."
Howard Goodall - Composer, writer and broadcaster

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Quite pricey at 75 quid, but honestly, worth every penny - BR (that's me)

Brief Description (from countrybookshop.co.uk)
A dictionary of musical terms that you can listen to. Volume 1 discusses and defines the vocabulary used to describe western art music. Volume 2 contains music examples. Each definition from Volume 1 is illustrated on the CDs. There are 274 recorded extracts cross-referenced with those in Volume 2.
 

 

 

 

 

 

International Music Score Library Project (IMSLP)

Note:  What a shame ... I've only just learned that he's had to close

this wonderful resource due to threats of legal action (See update)

 

 

Update, July 2008

See:

 

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Music_Score_Library_Project

 

From the wikipedia site (link above)

Closure and reopening

On 19 October 2007 the IMSLP closed following legal demands from Universal Edition of Vienna, Austria.[17] The cease and desist letter expressed concern that some works that are in public domain in the server's location in Canada with copyright protection of 50 years post mortem, but which are protected by the 70 years post mortem term in some other countries, were available in those countries. The administrator of the website, known under the nickname Feldmahler, decided to close down the repository, but left the forums online so that discussions into the best way to proceed could be made:[18]

On Saturday October 13, 2007, I received a second Cease and Desist letter from Universal Edition. At first I thought this letter would be similar in content to the first Cease and Desist letter I received in August. However, after lengthy discussions with very knowledgeable lawyers and supporters, I became painfully aware of the fact that I, a normal college student, has neither the energy nor the money necessary to deal with this issue in any other way than to agree with the cease and desist, and take down the entire site. I cannot apologize enough to all IMSLP contributors, who have done so much for IMSLP in the last two years.

– Feldmahler (project leader)

In response, director Michael S. Hart of Project Gutenberg offered support to keep the project online.[19] This offer was declined by Feldmahler, who voiced concern about having the project hosted in the United States, and consulted the Canadian wing of Project Gutenberg.[18] On November 2, 2007, Michael Geist, a prominent Canadian copyright academic, wrote an article for the BBC discussing the specifics and the wider implications of this case.[20]

This case is enormously important
from a public domain perspective.
Michael Geist

IMSLP went back online on 30 June 2008.

 

 

--- End of quote ---


"The public domain music score library.
Welcome! We have been online since February 16, 2006"

"Welcome to the International Music Score Library Project! IMSLP attempts to create a virtual library containing all public domain musical scores, as well as scores from composers who are willing to share their music with the world without charge. You can read the full list of goals that IMSLP will try to achieve.

"IMSLP also encourages the exchange of musical ideas, both in the form of musical works, and in the analysis of existing ones. Therefore, feel free to create/edit a page with your analysis of a particular piece (please use the "Discussion" link on the work page of that particular piece)."
 

http://www.imslp.org/wiki/Main_Page

or here

IMSLP

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Experiment

Back Invention in F

(works with Microsoft Explorer but unfortunately not with Firefox)

 

Using Search Engines

Theodor Lessing

Dr Wafa Sultan

fitna-remade

abctemp

canalpics

S

e

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