Anthony Julius on English anti-Semitism

Attorney and author Anthony Julius has written an excellent column on the subtleties and not-so-subtleties of English anti-Semitism. Read it here: The outsiders - Times Online. It's difficult to excerpt, so click the link and read it in its entirety.

The hostile comments that the column has attracted are instructive. Here they are:

john papi wrote:
Good publicity for Mr. Julius, but what about confidentiality and professional ettiquete ? Just another low life self publicist who sickens me.
January 31, 2010 8:00 PM GMT
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George Watson wrote:
Mr Julius seems strangely unaware of his own mind-set. He refers to the non-Jewish world into which his parents were plunged during their evacuation in the Second World War. That is the root of anti-Semitism, the self electing separation from their host community of Jews themselves. In order to maintian their religion which is rooted in the idea of being a chosen people, Jews have a distinctly domestic set of rituals and a culture which emphasises difference. This marks them as being a people who go out of their way to be different. Centuries of Diaspora experience in Europe, with the constant threat of pogroms have meant a concentration of Jews in particular activities such as banking and dealing in precious metals and jewels. This makes them even more of a terget and a perceived threat as parasites upon their neighbours.
This very obvious social phenomenon is apparently unrecognised by those who claim that anti-Semitism is some kind of unnatural event.
Orthodox Jews extravagantly parade their Judaism in communities accross London such as Stamford Hill yet they complain that they are somehow perceived to be different. To then seek to defend the Jewish State against any criticism merely compounds the suspicion by the larger community that Jews are not quite loyal to the interests of their host nations. We should not be silenced by this anti-Semitic name calling.
January 31, 2010 12:47 PM GMT
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Steve H wrote:
I am very sorry that Mr Julius, and members of his family, have experienced anti-Semitism. Those unpleasant experiences do NOT excuse Mr Julius exposing very publicly information given to him by a (now-deceased) client. Mr Julius must be subject to appropriate Law Society disciplinary proceedings, and, please, let there be no whinging about anti-Semitism when those proceedings are started. Disciplinary proceedings are appropriate because Mr Julius has behaved badly qua solicitor, not because of his race or religion.
January 31, 2010 10:01 AM GMT
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Adam Gardiner wrote:
Anti-Jewish sentiment is obviously as unacceptable as for example anti-Armenian or anti-German as innocent individuals are cruelly hurt by the ignorant abuse involved.
January 31, 2010 6:15 AM GMT
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Fascist follies in the European Parliament

Csanád Szegedi (pictured at right), one of three newly elected Hungarian members of the European Parliament (MEPs) from the fascist Jobbik party, came to the parliament's July 14 opening session wearing the uniform of the party's illegal Magyar Garda militia. (Read here, and here, in an article auto-translated from Slovak. Background here in an article in French.) This uniform is based on that of Hungary's Arrow Cross, a pro-Nazi party which committed mass murders of Jews during the Holocaust. (Read here.) A ruling declaring the Magyar Garda illegal was affirmed by a Hungarian appeals court on July 3. The original ban followed a rising tide of anti-Roma violence, in which the paramilitary conducted several pogroms culminating in the murder of a Roma man and his young son.

Szegedi's two fellow Jobbik MEPs, Krisztina Morvai and Zoltán Balczó (pictured below on an earlier occasion), came to the EP opening session attired in 19th Century Hungarian military uniforms. Jobbik advocates returning Hungary to what they regard as its "golden age" by expanding its borders to include Slovakia, Transylvania, Ruthenia, and other areas it lost after World War I. That sort of populist nationalism tends to appeal to the far-right. It bypasses the brain and goes straight to the gut. It even reaches across the Atlantic and appeals to American neo-Nazis at Stormfront (here) and the Ron Paul crowd (here).

After the Hungarian fascists had their costume party, a MEP representing Hungary's ruling Socialist Party moved that the EP ban the wearing of paramilitary uniforms in parliament sessions. (Read here.)

Meanwhile the two British National Party (BNP) representatives, Nick Griffin and Andrew Brons, were assigned seats in the back of the room. Another British non-aligned party MEP refused to be seated next to them. (Read here.)

When Krisztina Morvai gave her first speech to the parliament, she first identified herself as a "human rights attorney" (her usual shtik), then argued against a proposal that the EP study what action to take with respect to Iran. She claimed that Hungary's human rights record was worse than that of Iran, and that any look at the crimes of the Iranian dictatorship must be preceded by a study of Hungary's treatment of its far-right.

Nick Griffin later rose to support Morvai's argument, parroting her speech and taking it a bit further. Griffin claimed that the west focused on Iranian human rights violations and not on Hungary's purported suppression of its fascists because of a shadowy international conspiracy. He went on to claim that, if the EP studied the Iran question, British soldiers would soon be returning from a war with Iran with horrific injuries. (He also indicated that British soldiers live on the banks of picturesque rivers.) Based on his concern for British young people, Griffin demanded an inquiry into Hungary's suppression of its fascist militias.

Watch them here:

With respect to the Magyar Garda uniform's similarity to that of the Arrow Cross, as a point of reference, pictured below are Arrow Cross militiamen circa 1944-1945 wearing their winter uniforms. You may be interested to know the current views of an Arrow Cross leader who escaped justice in Australia. Read about that here.

Arrow Cross militia receiving machine guns from German Consular employee, 10 Pasar�ti avenue, Budpest (Source: Hungarian National Museum)

Magyar Garda demonstration

Neo-Nazi conspiracies from Israel boycotters: UK academic edition

Harry’s Place has the story of Sean Wallis, a British research fellow and academic union leader who's promoting neo-Nazi conspiracy theories concerning "Zionists" being responsible for the world financial crisis.  Sean Wallis wielded some pretty wacky far right disinformation as part of a bizarre argument in support of the British academic union boycotting Israel and blacklisting Israeli academics.  His gist, as I understand it, is that the move to blacklist Israelis operates at a disadvantage since, he claims, "Zionists" looted Lehman Brothers of $400 billion dollars.  He thinks that opposition to his bigoted activism is rooted in this vast imaginary pot of gold.  

As an academic, he should adhere to his professional responsibility to cite sources.  He may be embarrased to do so however, since his source appears to be Stormfront.

Read it here: More neo-Nazi conspiracies from Israel boycotters

Sean Wallis, UCL UCU 

Much more from David Hirsch at Engage here.  It turns out that the story may have its origin in Willis Carto's Barnes Review.  Read the JC article on this here.  More on this later.

McKinney's fascist friends (continued)

I wrote recently about Cynthia McKinney's association with Matthias Chang, a Malaysian attorney who promotes anti-Semitic conspiracy theories in his books and in international anti-Israel conferences he organizes for former Malaysian Prime Minister Tun Mahathir. (Read here.) McKinney has been featured as a speaker at several of these conferences, and has promoted Chang's most recent book, The Shadow Money-Lenders, on the U.S. Green Party's website, endorsing Chang's contention that an international conspiracy of "Zionist" bankers is deliberately destabilizing the world economy to institute a one-world government under "Zionist" control. (Read here.)

According to Chang (read here), his books are inspired by those of Eustace Mullins, author of "Adolf Hitler: An Appreciation" (read here) and The Biological Jew (read here). Chang is published in the United States by Willis Carto's The Barnes Review and American Free Press, which are essentially neo-Nazi publications largely devoted to Holocaust denial and anti-Semitism. He works closely there with Carto associate Michael Collins Piper (read here), who has been described as "an American far-right emissary to the Islamic world" (read here). Piper, for his part, is the author of a number of books, including FINAL JUDGMENT:The Missing Link in the JFK Assassination Conspiracy, which blames "Zionists" for assassinating John and Robert Kennedy, Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., CIA Director William Colby (?), and for the attacks on the Oklahoma City Federal Building and the World Trade Center. (Read here.)

It turns out that Chang isn't McKinney's only fascist friend. In a recent column which McKinney also posted on the U.S. Green Party website (read here), McKinney approvingly quotes David Pidcock and refers to him as her "London friend". In March 2009, both McKinney and Pidcock participated in a London anti-Israel forum which was sponsored by Prime Minister Mahathir's foundation. Pidcock was the head of an apparently defunct organization called the British Islamic Party; their literature refers to him ominously as "The Leader". He claims to be affiliated with something called the "National Association for Victims of Fraud and Banking Malpractice" (which flies under Google's radar) and also says that he meets on a monthly basis in the U.K. House of Lords as part of something called the Forum for Stable Currencies. He says (here) that he, and the following list of notables, acted as informal economic advisers to Prime Minister Mahathir when he was in office:

"It might be of interest for you to know that there was some western input into Dr. Mahathir's eastern thinking. The unsung western heroes include James Gibb-Stuart author of the Money Bomb and Hidden Menace; Kenneth C. Palmerton Vice Chairman of CCMJ – the Christian Council for Monetary Justice and an English convert Rupert Mohammed Rafiq an English banker, and other members of the Forum For Stable Currencies..."

Pidcock is the author of Satanic Voices Ancient and Modern (downloadable here), which contends at great length that a 3,000 year-old conspiracy of Freemasons, Illuminati, and "Luciferian Zionists" (?) is responsible for the bulk of the world's evils. It also "defends" Salman Rushdie against the death sentence of the Ayatollah's fatwa, stating that it would violate Islamic law to execute someone so clearly insane. In other words, the book is of the same general character as those of Chang, Mullins and Piper, albeit in a more disjointed and idiosyncratic form, if such a thing is possible.

Pidcock also authored a bizarre pamphlet called "Islamic Prophecies" which claims that the Israelis intend to conquer and occupy most of Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Iraq and Saudi Arabia as part of an ancient plot in which Freemasons and the Young Turks are somehow involved. His "evidence" is available in pdf here.

One of the primary internet outlets for Pidcock's ravings is the website iamthewitness.com. (A cached version of the website is available here.) This website is entirely devoted to fascist and anti-Semitic propaganda, prominently featuring the complete International Jew by Henry Ford, which it bills, here, as recommended by Pidcock. This website is operated by someone called Daryl Bradford Smith, who describes himself (here) as a former chef, restaurateur and professor, as well as a "patriot (with a) minuteman mindset". A Google search of the iamthewitness website for the term "pidcock", here, gets 362 hits. Besides publishing Pidcock's crackpotSatanic Voices, Smith has posted audio of several interviews with Pidcock. The audio of these interviews is available online here.

I strongly recommend listening to at least one of these interviews and glancing at Satanic Voices to bring into focus both just how crazy this stuff is and how anti-Semitism is a sort of unified field theory for these people. They literally believe that this is the key by which they can explain all of human history. For one thing, he strongly implies (here) that both Lincoln and Napolean were victims of Jewish conspiracies. There's also this "Message from The Leader" on the British Islamic Party website written in response to 9/11 in which Pidcock blames "Zionists"and "British Intelligence" for Pearl Harbor. (Read here. Money quote: "If...the World Trade Centre is 'another Pearl Harbor', then the President and his cabinet knew all about it, just as Roosevelt knew of the impending attack on his own men and ships long before the attack

... The overall plan (with respect to Pearl Harbor) was to offer to the Zionists 'A clear cut policy on Palestine'.)

Listen to this interview (mp3 available here) to get a sense of the sheer, all-encompassing madness of a world-view which purports to explain most of human history by the Jews having been cursed in biblical times. In it, he blames Jews for both the rise and fall of the Soviet Union. The interview is described on Smith's website (here) as follows (redundancy intact):

Whoever controls the world's money controls the world

The financial conspiracy of the Jewish Mafia. David Pidcock lays bare the financial conspiracy of the Jewish Mafia. Pidcock explains the "City of London" is Zionist, not British, and many of Hitler's top Nazis were Jews.

Smith's next interview with Pidcock (mp3 here) is described as concerning

How the sinking of the Lusitania, Pearl Harbor, and other attacks were created just like the 9-11 attack.

On her Green Party blog, Cynthia McKinney asks whether the U.S. is headed the way of the U.S.S.R. and asks if President Obama is in the process of setting up the equivalent of a post-Soviet oligarchy. She turns for her answer to David Pidcock:

from Buyer's Remorse, Economic Collapse, Oligarchs & War (cached version here):

When I was in London recently for the Malaysia conference, I met a gentleman who completed the answer for me. Economist Michael Hudson and lawyer and author Ellen Brown had confirmed my worst fears, but Mr. David Pidcock really brought them all home for me. And the short answer to the question I put to him is,
"Yes, the U.S. economy is being hollowed out with our own money, not for the benefit of the American people, but for the benefit of a few and yes, President Obama has enabled the very characters who have successfully implemented this result elsewhere."

In the next few essays, I will explain as others are doing as well, what is going on in plain speak. The obligation of voters to educate themselves will be far more difficult if there is far less truth in plain speak out there for them to read. I will try my best to combine my research and experiences with the findings of trusted experts and share them with you in plain speak....

Finally, David Pidcock, my London friend, reminds us in "Money: A Christian View," that a socially healthy economy achieves the highest possible standard of living for all and achieves the "elimination of insecurity and fear and consequent selfish materialist values, so that the individual human being may be enabled to live

with dignity and self-respect."

It appears that Cynthia McKinney has some very peculiar ideas about which experts are trustworthy. She is able to overlook their extreme, even outlandish, bigotry so long as they confirm her own prejudices. McKinney should reveal what else Pidcock had to say to her concerning the identity of the oligarchy which he, and apparently McKinney, believe to be behind the global economic crisis.

U.K. readers may be interested to know that, in addition to his purported monthly meetings in the House of Lords, Pidcock has also claimed to be associated with Brian Gould, former Deputy Leader of the Labour Party. In 2002, Pidcock chaired a Dubai forum devoted to promoting Sharia-compliant finance (read here) and says that he found common-ground with Gould. Grain of salt alert: this is Pidcock's view of the relationship, not Gould's.

David Pidcock

MUCH MORE ON MCKINNEY AND THE FAR-RIGHT HERE, INCLUDING HER INTERVIEWS ON RACIST INTERNET RADIO PROGRAM.

Anti-Gypsy rally by Magyar Garda banned in Hungary

from Politics.Hu: Anti-Roma Magyar Garda rally banned in NW Hungary:

A local Hungarian police force has banned a rally planned by the Magyar Garda, a radical nationalist movement connected to the Jobbik party, in NW Hungary, a police official told MTI on Wednesday.

The Magyar Garda, originally registered as an organisation, now describes itself as a "movement".

Local police press officer Tunde Kocsis said the event, which the Garda planned for Ivan village on Saturday, would disrupt traffic in the area.

Representatives of the Magyar Garda said earlier they wanted to demonstrate because of a recent rise in thefts and rowdiness in the village, which they insist is owing to the local Roma community.

Ivan, with a population of 1,400, has a Roma community of 270 people, including 60 who are school-age.

Jobbik registered "Magyar Garda" in June 2007 as a "cultural organisation" to "prepare youth spiritually and physically for extraordinary situations when it might be necessary to mobilise the people."

A Budapest court of first instance recently gave a ruling banning the organisation, which it is appealing against.

Read here and here and here and here for some background on the Magyar Garda and their parent party, Jobbik.  Jobbik is a far right party which is described as  fascist, neo-fascist or far right.  Typical of such parties, Jobbik claims that it is not racist but pro-Hungarian, pro-family values, etc., yet makes anti-Semitism and anti-Gypsy racism key aspects of its program and rhetoric.   The Magyar Garda are their political shock troops, frequently demonstrating against Jews and Gypsies in paramilitary uniforms.   These groups are attempting to capitalize on high levels of anti-Semitism in Hungary.  A 2007 polling report by the ADL found to be the highest of six European nations surveyed, connecting it with economic fears.  (Read pdf here.)  By the way Jobbik is currently suing in Hungary's supreme court to have Israel cited for war crimes in Gaza.  (Read here.)

Here's what the English version of Spiegel Online has to say about the Magary Garda in a must-read article headlined Neo-Fascist Magyar Garda Is 'Hungary's Shame':

The Magyar Garda -- "Magyar means "Hungarian" -- has pledged to train its members in the use of firearms and its members wear a uniform of black pants and vests with white shirts, and a cap emblazoned with a medieval coat of arms, the Arpad Stripes.  The striped, red and white symbol is a centuries old Hungarian banner, a version of which was used by the Arrow Cross, a pro-Nazi party that briefly ruled Hungary toward the end of World War II.  The party murdered thousands of Jews and deported hundreds of thousands more to Nazi death camps.  Jewish groups, including the World Jewish Congress, have condemned the founding of the new "guard" and have called on the government in Budapest to act against it.

Karl Pfeifer, writing in the British anti-fascist magazine Searchlight in October 2007, described the Magyar Garda as increasingly using violent demonstrations as a deliberate strategy to gain political power, perhaps with an eye towards a future coup attempt.  (Read here.)   The Magyar Garda recently drew official condemnation from the Budapest municipal council in response to an anti-Gypsy rally by the group which targeted teenagers at a high school in Budapest.  (Read here.)  

One of the last official acts of the late Democratic Congressman Tom Lantos, himself a Holocaust survivor and partisan against the Hungarian fascists, was to introduce a bill to ban members of the Magyar Garda from entering the U.S.   (Read here and here and about his rescue by Raoul Wallenberg here.  Here is the bill's full text.  It has yet to be voted on.)

One of Jobbik's leaders has set up shop in the U.K and has ties to the BNP. (Read here and here.)  According to the Sun:

Zoltan Fuzessy, 35, uses his terraced house in Gravesend, Kent, as an HQ to promote his far-right movement.

Fuzessy is vice-president of the Jobbik party, whose members freely boast of their hatred towards Jews and make sick jokes about the Holocaust.

The party, called “the shame of Hungary” by the country’s PM, has paramilitaries who dress in black uniforms like Hitler’s SS and has close ties to the British National Party.

Fuzessy also stated that:

"Those who call us Nazi are just Communists."

Nick Griffin and Zoltan Fuzessy

And here's a video of Griffin speaking at a Jobbik rally:

(For those interested, the Magyar Garda are making extensive use of YouTube, but their videos are pretty dull stuff if you can't speak Hungarian -- probably even if you can. View this and this and this and this.)

[Note regarding use of the term "Gypsy": I understand that this term is considered offensive by many Roma and Sinti. I use it only so a general readership, who may be unfamiliar with the correct terms, will know what I'm talking about. I apologize to all who find it offensive. Any ideas about how to better phrase this would be appreciated. -- ADAM HOLLAND]

Report on attacks on U.K. Jews

from the U.K.'s Channel 4



(Hat tip: ENGAGE)

Jerusalem String Quartet faces U.K. boycott threat

The Jerusalem Quartet is planning to perform in Edenburgh's Queen's Hall on August 29 (read here). They're planning to perform the Haydn String Quartet Op 76 No 5, Smetana's String Quartet No 1 ‘From my Life', and the Brahms String Quartet Op 51 No 2 in A minor.

Now the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign (SPSC) is promoting a boycott move against their concert with a scurrilous sort of propaganda which must be seen to be believed. (Read here.)

In case anyone has any doubt about the bigotry behind this boycott, they should be aware that Kyril Zlotnikov, the Jerusalem Quartet's cellist is a student and friend of musician and peace activist Daniel Barenboim (read here). In fact, Barenboim has loaned Jacqueline Du Pre's ‘Sergio Perresson’ cello to Kyril Zlotnikov for this tour. Read pdf here.) Zlotinikov is also a member of the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra (read here). This orchestra, founded by Barenboim and Edward Said and managed by the Barenboim-Said Foundation, includes both Arab and Israeli musicians. Its reason for being is to campaign for peace and cooperation between Arabs and Jews through artistic cooperation. With that in mind, would someone remind me of the reason for being for the group boycotting the concert?

I've written about a similar boycott effort against an Israeli Philharmanic concert in Los Angeles by the groups Women in Black -- Los Angeles and Jewish Voice for Peace (read here). That boycott was, in some respects, worse in that it entailed a demand that the musicians sign a sort of loyalty oath drafted by the boycotters. When the musicians understandably did not comply with this demand, the boycotters protested outside the concert hall with signs reading "Boycott Israel".

Here's a suggestion for groups such as Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign, Women in Black and Jewish Voice for Peace which advocate boycotting Israeli artists. Rather than working for that, why not emulate the Jerusalem Quartet's Zlotnikov and work to encourage Arab-Israeli cooperation in the arts?

Antisemitism in British Culture

The Jerusalem Center on Public Affairs has published a must-read interview with Robert Solomon Wistrich. Wistrich is a professor of history at Hebrew University, director of the Vidal Sassoon International Center for the Study of Antisemitism and editor of the journal Antisemitism International.

At the request of the Jerusalem Center, bloggers can only repost the introductory bullet points, not the interview itself. Please take the time to click the link to their website (here) and read the interview in its entirety. Its well worth the click.

from the Jerusalem Center on Public Affairs: Robert Solomon Wistrich >>> "Antisemitism Embedded in British Culture"

• Antisemitism has been present in Great Britain for almost a thousand years of recorded history. In the twelfth century, Catholic medieval Britain was a persecutory society, particularly when it came to Jews. It pioneered the blood libel and the church was a leader in instituting cruel legislation and discriminatory conduct toward Jews.
• English literature and culture are drenched in antisemitic stereotypes. Major British authors throughout the centuries transmitted culturally embedded antisemitism to future generations. Although they did not do so deliberately, it was absorbed and has had a long-term, major impact on British society.
• In the new century the United Kingdom is a European leader in several areas of antisemitism. It holds a pioneering position in promoting academic boycotts of Israel. The same is true for trade-union efforts at economic boycotts. There is also no other Western society where jihadi radicalism has proved as violent and dangerous as in the UK.
• In the UK the anti-Zionist narrative probably has greater legitimacy than in any other Western society. Antisemitism of the "anti-Zionist" variety has achieved such resonance, particularly in elite opinion, that various British media are leaders in this field. Successive British governments neither share nor have encouraged such attitudes-least of all Prime Ministers Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. They have shown concern over antisemitism and the boycott movement and tried to counteract them. However, Trotskyites who infiltrated the Labour Party and the trade unions in the 1980s have been an important factor in spreading poisonous attitudes. The BBC has also played a role in stimulating pro-Palestinian and anti-Israeli attitudes over the years.

(hat tip: Solomonia.com)

Robert Kennedy's 1948 Reports from Palestine

Forgotten (until now) eyewitness to history dispatches from Palestine by the 22-year old RFK...

from Solomonia: Robert Kennedy's 1948 Reports from Palestine

Here's some fascinating forgotten history unearthed at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs. Lengthy quote, much much more at the link:

Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, brother of slain U.S. President John F. Kennedy and former U.S. Attorney General, was the leading Democratic candidate for president when he was gunned down at a primary victory celebration in California on June 5, 1968. His Palestinian assassin, Sirhan Sirhan, said he killed Kennedy due to his vocal support for Israel.

In April 1948, one month before Israel declared independence, Robert Kennedy, then 22, traveled to Palestine to report on the conflict for the Boston Post. His four dispatches from the scene were published in June 1948. The newspaper closed in 1956, and for decades the reports were virtually forgotten.

Kennedy arrived in a chaotic and dangerous land on the eve of the British departure. Jewish Jerusalem and the Jewish Quarter of the Old City were under Arab siege and regular Arab armies were pouring into the territory. The British authorities were hampering Jews' efforts to defend themselves and were even countenancing Arab attacks against Jews.

Kennedy was liberal in his praise of the Palestinian Jews (only one month later did the name "Israel" and the term "Israelis" come into being). "The Jewish people in Palestine who believe in and have been working toward this national state have become an immensely proud and determined people," Kennedy wrote. "It is already a truly great modern example of the birth of a nation with the primary ingredients of dignity and self-respect."

One of his dispatches was headlined, "Jews Make Up for Lack of Arms with Undying Spirit, Unparalleled Courage." In one of his accounts, Kennedy describes his traveling with Haganah fighters in a convoy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

The young reporter was critical of a temporary slippage of the American government's support for Jewish statehood. He feared that the U.S. was shifting towards Britain's negative policies and its aim "to crush" the Zionist cause. "If the American people knew the true facts," Kennedy wrote, "I am certain a more honest and forthright policy would be substituted for the benefit of all."...

• "Unfortunately for [the Jews, Jerusalem's water] reservoir is situated in the mountains and it and the whole pipeline are controlled by the Arabs. The British would not let them cut the water off until after May 15th but an Arab told me they would not even do it then. First they would poison it."
• The Arab responsible for the blowing up of the Jewish Agency on March 11, 1948, said "that after the explosion, upon reaching the British post which separated the Jewish section from a small neutral zone set up in the middle of Jerusalem, he was questioned by the British officers in charge. He quite freely admitted what he had done and was given immediate passage with the remark, ‘Nice going.'"
• "The Jews informed the British government that 600 Iraqi troops were going to cross into Palestine from Trans-Jordan by the Allenby Bridge on a certain date and requested the British to take appropriate action to prevent this passage. The troops crossed unmolested....I saw several thousand non-Palestinian Arab troops in Palestine, including many of the famed British-trained and equipped Arab legionnaires of King Abdullah [of Trans-Jordan]. There were also soldiers from Syria, Lebanon, Iraq."
• "The Arabs in command believe that eventually victory must be theirs. It is against all law and nature that this Jewish state should exist. They...promise that if it does become a reality it will never have as neighbors anything but hostile countries, which will continue the fight militarily and economically until victory is achieved."
• "The Jews on the other hand believe that in a few more years, if a Jewish state is formed, it will be the only stabilizing factor remaining in the Near and Middle East. The Arab world is made up of many disgruntled factions which would have been at each other's throats long ago if it had not been for the common war against Zionism."

British Fascists Reach Out to European Counterparts

from Lancaster Unity: Disquiet in the BNP over a strange invitation

Some longstanding members of the BNP have been asking why Nick Griffin, the BNP leader, took time out from the election campaign only three days before polling day to attend a secret meeting in London with three leading European extremist politicians, one of whom has a recent conviction for Holocaust denial.

Initially billed as a press conference, its true purpose seems to have been to further Griffin’s ambition to become a Member of the European Parliament by building links with far-right MEPs.

The meeting had been organised by Arthur Kemp, the former agent for the South African apartheid regime and now keeper of the BNP’s ideological Holy Grail. Making the arrangements on behalf of the visitors was Georg Mayer, a senior officer in the Austrian Freedom Party. Mayer had also acted as the spokesperson for the short-lived Identity Tradition Sovereignty (ITS) group in the European Parliament until its collapse late last year when five ultra-nationalist Romanian MEPs walked out in protest at anti-Romanian remarks by their Italian colleague Alessandra Mussolini, the dictator’s granddaughter.

Their ill-conceived plan was to send out invitations to the media to attend the press conference only a short time in advance. Initially three MEPs were down to attend, then fairly late in the day Marie-Rose Morel, a member of the Flemish Parliament for the extreme-right Vlaams Belang (Flemish Interest) and former Flemish beauty queen, said she would come along too.

The star guests were to be Bruno Gollnisch, a French MEP and vice president of the far-right National Front, and Andreas Mölzer, an Austrian MEP and leading member of the Austrian Freedom Party.

Their presence revealed the true face of the BNP and confirmed Griffin’s continued failure to break away from Holocaust denial and antisemitism. In January 2007 a French court handed Gollnisch a three-month suspended prison sentence and fined him €5,000 (£4,000) for denying the Holocaust. The court in Lyon found he had “disputed a crime against humanity” in remarks he made during a news conference in the city in October 2004.

Gollnisch, who was chair of the ITS group, had questioned the number of Jews who died in the Holocaust and said the “existence of the gas chambers is for historians to discuss”.

Mölzer is the publisher of Zur Zeit, an Austrian political magazine in which racism, antisemitism and xenophobia are staple features. Its recent promotion of openly Nazi and antisemitic books prompted the Berlin weekly Junge Freiheit, on which Zur Zeit was originally modelled, to sever all connections. All that did not stop Griffin giving an interview to Zur Zeit earlier this year, in which he assured Mölzer of his firm belief in “nationalist cooperation” to deal with the “Islamic threat” and “the tide of Third World immigration” and to oppose the entry of Turkey into the EU.

The third MEP who was due to come was Philip Claeys, a VB MEP who was the vice-chair of the ITS. He did not want to show his face at the press conference but was keen to join a private meeting.

Claeys had previous links with the British far right. In May 2005 he addressed a conference organised by Right Now!, a now-defunct magazine that claimed to be the “voice of the patriotic and conservative Right”. It was Right Now! that hosted a column by Nick Eriksen, who at the beginning of April was forced to stand down as number two on the BNP’s list of candidates for the London Assembly to save the BNP from further bad publicity over his despicable views on rape expressed on his blog.

Writing in Right Now! under the name “John Bull” Eriksen maintained that voting BNP represents the “only solution” to remedy the current malaise in Conservative politics. BNP members regularly attended the magazine’s conferences and no doubt listened avidly to Claeys railing against Islam in general and Turkey in particular.

Arrangements for the press conference were proceeding in secret, though not without Searchlight’s knowledge through one of our main moles in the BNP hierarchy. What puzzled us was why, at a time when the BNP was trying to shed its antisemitic image in a bid to win Jewish votes, the party leadership should want to parade a bunch of Holocaust deniers before the media.

But Kemp had made a fatal mistake, possibly intentionally, in his choice of Jason Douglas to pick up the guests from the station in his black cab. This decision had also surprised some party members who know what a loose tongue Douglas has. Douglas, a convicted football hooligan, runs three BNP groups in east London.

The BNP had been attempting to play on what it sees as historic enmity between the Jewish and Muslim communities. But Jewish organisations had denounced the BNP’s advances and were giving strong support to calls by the HOPE not hate campaign for a high turnout of Jewish voters against the BNP in the London and other local elections.

Then suddenly despite weeks of secrecy, Simon Darby, the BNP’s press officer and deputy leader, used his blog to announce on 24 April that the party was “honoured to be playing host to a special press conference to be held on the afternoon of Monday 28th April 2008” with “a number of guests from allied Parties from Europe”. He even named Gollnisch and Mölzer.

Had Darby boobed? Two days later the BNP had pulled the plug on the press conference, with Darby lamely declaring: “It looks like we’ve lost the venue, but our foreign friends have been most understanding about this.”

Searchlight was unconvinced, believing this to be a smokescreen to cover up Darby’s breach of security in publicising the event so far in advance. Other senior figures in the BNP then tried to reinforce the claim that the meeting was off.

Sure enough, in the early afternoon of 28 April, Gollnisch, Mölzer and Mayer arrived at St Pancras International station on the Eurostar and were whisked off, not to a press conference but to a private meeting with Griffin. They were two short. Claeys, already nervous, had pulled out as had Morel, so it was just the beasts without the beauty.

Searchlight later tracked down the visitors at the plush Rembrandt Hotel in South Kensington where they were staying. By that time, Griffin had already sped off into the night.

The hotel confirmed the three men’s presence and a Searchlight reporter had an illuminating telephone conversation with Mayer before he caught the 8.05am Eurostar back home the next morning.

So what was Griffin playing at? Is he so consumed with his desire to join these latter-day fascists in the European Parliament next year that he did not care what damage exposure of such a meeting might have done to the electoral chances of Richard Barnbrook, the BNP’s lead candidate for the London Assembly? Such selfishness would be typical of Griffin.

Some senior and very angry BNP officers think the whole thing was set up by the intelligence services to discredit the party on the eve of the election. Perhaps that is something Colin Auty, who is challenging Griffin for the party leadership, might like to investigate.

One thing we can be sure about is the sort of disgusting company Griffin intends to keep if ever he does manage to make it to the European Parliament.

Hat tip: lgf:Eurofascists Jockeying for Legitimacy
Technorati Tags: Fascism, U.K., France, Belgium, BNP

Iran Promotes Holocaust Denial in U.K.

This post follows up on an earlier post concerning Nicholas Kollerstrom (read here), a former research fellow in the Science and Technology Department of University College of London who uses his respectable credentials to market Holocaust denial, "9/11 Truth", and other insane conspiracy theories (read here and here and here, in an article called "Nutball City Limits" and here). Professionally, Kollerstrom specializes in using computer technology to analyze the work of historical astronomers such as Issac Newton. He also devotes a great deal of time to attempting to put a respectable veneer on Holocaust denial of the sort espoused by Fred Leuchter, and promoting "9/11 truth", such as the idea that neither of the American Airlines flight that were crashed into the World Trade Center on 9/11 actually flew on that day and that the victims on board the planes are actually still alive or never existed (read here or here).

Kollerstrom's wackjob activism recently got him dismissed from his fellowship (read here). Some of his allies in the "truth" movement have now decided that he's a Mossad mole deliberately disgracing their cause (read comments here).

While making enemies at home, this nutty professor has found friends among the lunatics running Iran. Iran owns an 24-hour English language TV news station (available on cable in the UK) called PressTV via which it promotes the truth according to the Islamic Republic of Iran. Their version of truth seems to correspond to the truth according to Kollerstrom with respect to the Holocaust. In fact, they've given over a substantial webpage on the PressTV website to promoting Kollerstrom's pseudo-scholarly Holocaust denial (read here).


Kollerstrom


Iran also uses PressTV to promote conspiracy theories about the July 7, 2005 London subway bombings. Here, from Youtube, is a PressTV program promoting "London Subway Bombing Truth". This slick interview program was produced in Britain and hosted by PressTV presenter Yvonne Ridley (read here and here and here and here), the British journalist who was taken hostage by the Taliban in 2001 and subsequently converted to Islam. Before working for PressTV, Ridley worked for al-Jazeera, but was fired either for accusing her boss of shopping at the Jewish-owned Marks & Spencer (read here) or (as she claims) for refusing to suppress news of U.S. atrocities against children in Iraq and Afganistan (read here).

Ridley

By the way, Ridley's program features Bilderberg conspiracy fruitcake Tony Gosling. (Read about him here. PLEASE read Gosling's website either here or here. Another of his websites is here.) Chip Berlet has called Gosling "a major source of right-wing populist conspiracy theories tinged with apocalyptic millennialism". I would agree with that, but without limiting Gosling to right wing ideas. Gosling, a quirky sort of guy, identifies himself as a leftist and is a member of the Green Party, while promoting ideas associated with the extreme right and with cultists such as David Icke. Gosling's conspiracy theories are explicitly religious (some based on the Bible, many focusing on Masons, Illuminati, Jews, etc.) and transcend limitations of standard political ideology. (Some of his ideas about Jews are available here and here.) Incredibly, Gosling has been a candidate for local political office and is an officer of the National Union of Journalists (NUJ). To bring this full circle, Gosling and Kollerstrom are associates (read here). Gosling recently posted here (about 3/4 of the way down the page) that Kollerstrom is considering a lawsuit against bloggers who reveal his Holocaust denial activism.


Gosling



A side note: As you know, Iran is led by a self-described "academic". Ahmadinejad uses his degree in traffic control (of course, without specifically describing his field of expertise) to put a veneer of respectability on his espousal of Holocaust denial, conspiracy theory and religious fanaticism. He also uses this credential to pose as an advocate of academic freedom, even as he imprisons and kills professors and students who are accused of holding ideas contrary to his own (i.e. sane ideas as opposed to his mad ones). He may be one of history's best examples of why academics should stay within their area of expertise. (I also hear that Teheran's traffic is terrible.)

UK elections: fascists win seat on London Assembly

By now you've heard the good news that Ken Livingstone has lost his bid for reelection to the London mayorality after a desperate negative campaign which included a mailing bearing the headline "Don't vote for a joke. Vote for London." (Read here and here).

You may not have heard the good news that George Galloway, whose political career is suffering a well deserved downward trajectory, lost in his bid for the Greater London Assembly (read here).

Both Livingstone and Galloway are leftists who love to cozy up to Islamists advocating extreme homophobia, sexism, anti-Semitism and theocratic dictatorship. To understand this leftist / Islamist alliance, a study of cognitive dissonance would be more useful than political science.

Now the bad news. Richard Barnbrook (read here) of the British National Party (BNP), by getting over 5% of the vote, has actually won a seat on the Greater London Assembly. If that doesn't seem like much support, let's put it in perspective: in 1992, the BNP got 7,005 votes nationally; in 2005 it got 192,746 votes nationally. Now the votes of over 130,000 in London alone have given them a seat on the London Assembly. That's a troubling sign of disaffected voters turning to extremism.

The BNP has a long history of advocating an extreme racist agenda while maintaining that they're actually part of the political mainstream. But don't be fooled. According to the Independent: "(t)he BNP has tried to rebrand itself, hoping we will forget its founder declared “Mein Kampf is my Bible”, and its current leader attacks even David Irving for admitting some Jews died in the “Holohoax.” (read here)



Barnbrook is an idiosyncratic figure, to say the least. While publicly disavowing Nazism, he favors light brown suits and ties and a Hitler hairstyle. According to the English gossip press, a former lover has accused Barnbrook of keeping a copy of "Mein Kampf" under his bed. (read here) She also said that she had "only ever seen him properly sober a couple of times". Based on his ranting, slurred speech and watery eyes in the video clips I've seen of him, that seems entirely plausible. (View video here.)

What's most troubling to me about his victory is that it shows that an extremist party can take advantage of anti-immigrant sentiment to gain office by pretending to be non-racist. We in the United States should take note of this as we prepare for what may be an election dominated by the immigration issue, at least from the Republican side. The Republicans, if they do go down this path, may well be opening door to legitimizing the sort of extremist views advocated by the BNP. We have already had a taste of this from the likes of Ron Paul and Tom Tancredo, both of whom have connections to the extreme far right and have histories of racist utterances. (Most recently, Tancredo advocated putting the fence on the U.S./Mexico border north of Brownsville, Texas. Read here.)

On the brighter side, the odds are that the BNP will crash and burn before it becomes a major national force like Jean-Marie Le Pen's Front National is in France. Historically speaking, both the U.K. and U.S. had flirtations with the far right in the last great economic crisis in the 1930s, and both soundly rejected extremism in favor of liberalism. I have every confidence that this would happen again. However, the far right, anti-immigrant and isolationist movements of the 1930s had real, tangible effects on the politics of that time. They impeded the liberal democracies from doing what was necessary and right in response to the rise of fascism. They also continued to influence policy through connections with the more mainstream right wing. Fortunately, for the most part, the U.S. extreme right dissolved into debates between extreme isolationists and anti-Communists. Their tendency to advocate racism, anti-Semitism and conspiracy theory put them on the margins of American politics, where they have largely remained.

In Britain, the anti-immigrant right is attempting to rebrand itself. No longer do they goose-step and sieg heil. Now they present themselves as a sort of last resort for those who fear Muslims and feel the government have forgotten them. The success of the BNP this week is partly the result of the real failure Britain to deal with the presence of a hostile subculture of Islamist extremism. In a sense, the failure to deal with one extremism is begetting another. Yet the British far right is still isolated from the mainstream. Their influence is still negligible.

In the U.S. anti-immigrant movement, there has been some success with "rebranding" (this is really a polite term for deception, isn't it?), especially by Ron Paul and his minions, who come across as humble "live and let live" types, until they start advocating rounding up illegal immigrants for deportation en masse. The extremism is always just below the surface. The Tancredo anti-immigrants advocate a "robust" foreign presence -- a polite way of saying that he feels free to threaten to nuke Mecca. The Ronpaulian anti-immigrants, on the other hand, advocate a return to the foreign policy of George Washington, i.e. as minimal a foreign presence as possible. Presumably, that would also mean writing only with quill pens and replacing our navy with three-masted frigates. The U.S. anti-immigrant extremists are currently divided by adherence to extreme positions which are completely incompatible. This is true with respect to foreign policy (complete withdrawal from the world scene versus complete dominance of it) and federalism (extreme states rights / libertarianism versus presidential authority by fiat). As I hope is obvious, the positions of both camps are as impractical as they are absurd. I can say with complete confidence to both sides: it ain't gonna happen. We can only hope that the more mainstream Republicans don't try to tap into these currents of anti-immigrant thought by finding ways to cherry pick bad ideas acceptable to both, although I fear that this is just what they intend to do. We'll just have to wait for the convention to see if this is what they do.

Here's the news on the BNP:

from BBC NEWS: BNP gains from Labour disaffection

The British National Party has won its first seat in the London Assembly - but what does that result mean?

For the past 10 years there have been predictions that the British National Party (BNP) could achieve a major electoral breakthrough - but at the end of each election the picture has been mixed and open to interpretation.

The BNP and its supporters are cheering the success of Richard Barnbrook's election to the Greater London Assembly, but it was a tight race - and tighter than a lot of people had feared.

Mr Barnbook was elected because he passed the critical 5% mark required for a seat from the city-wide list.

This is a form of proportional representation that balances constituency results with each party's overall tally in the capital. But the senior BNP man only just made it, scraping in with 5.3%.

The party's tally of councillors has reached a psychological barrier of 100 - but a deeper look at the nationwide results reveals that there can be a world of difference between a point of importance for a small party and a genuine gathering of electoral steam.

In fact, those councillors represent less than 1% of all those elected in the UK and gains on the night, beyond the headline-grabbing result in London, were short of some expectations.

Nevertheless, 130,000 people supported the idea of a BNP assembly member in London - and the party has a toehold in a handful of councils around the country.

The BNP's strategy has increasingly seen it focus not just on fears of immigration, but also on a subtle blend of tensions relating to feelings of disregarded "entitlement" in communities that would have long been considered core Labour supporters.

MPs in communities that have seen the most change from immigration in recent years have warned about this for some time.

John Cruddas, an east London Labour MP, has warned more than once that the frontline is housing.

When the BNP claims on the doorstep that local folk are losing out to newcomers, the main parties have found it difficult to explain the intricate realities of a system that is targeted at the very poorest in society.

Tension over churning Eastern European migration, particularly a fear of competition for the lowest-skilled jobs, has not helped.

To make matters worse, no politician can honestly provide voters with hard facts about migration - for historical reasons, the data and statistics just do not answer many of the questions people want answering.

The BNP has targeted these fears - but has also sought to moderate its message. The party used to talk purely in terms of sending people "home".

Richard Barnbrook's language in London was different, couching an anti-immigration pitch in terms of "fitting in" with British society - the target being Muslims.

"You may have your religion behind your closed doors, but you don't bring it onto the streets," he said.

"You can be gay behind closed doors, you can be heterosexual behind closed doors, but you don't bring it onto the streets, demanding more rights for it."

Critics would say this is laughable in a city like London - arguably the most important city in the world because it is home to such as extraordinary range of different people.

But if the BNP has found a way of tapping into anger - particularly among those who would not necessarily always vote, then a different view of London is revealed.

The question is what happens next?

In more than one area the BNP has found its support drain away very quickly as councillors have been accused of incompetence or worse.

The party's vote in Sandwell in the West Midlands halved on Thursday - almost certainly because of a row over one BNP member who was ejected for not doing his job.

The key to understanding the BNP's attraction is perhaps more easily found in places like Nuneaton, which Labour lost after three decades of control.

The BNP did not sweep to power - but it won two councillors. Up and down the country the party appears to make very small gains when traditional Labour voters stay at home.

But when those voters come out, its vote is very quickly squeezed.

Extreme Islamist Lit in UK Mosques Mostly from Saudi Govt Sources

from eGov monitor:

Investigation discovers hate literature can be found in a quarter of British Mosques (Source: Policy Exchange):

An authoritative new report by Policy Exchange, the UK's leading centre-right thinktank, entitled The Hijacking of British Islam: How extremist literature is subverting Britain's mosques, reveals the worrying extent of extremist penetration of mosques and other key institutions of the British Muslim community. The report is the most comprehensive academic survey of its kind ever produced in the UK and is based on a year-long investigation by several teams of specialist researchers into the availability of extremist literature and covers more than a hundred mosques and Islamic centres throughout the UK.

Among the reports findings are:

• Most of the extremist literature is published and distributed by agencies linked to the Saudi Arabian government.
• Some of the most high-profile and prestigious mosques in Britain are among the worst offenders; in many of them, it is openly available.
• Separatist literature is distributed at the East London Mosque -which is closely associated with the Muslim Council of Britain (which purports to be the main body representing British Muslims).

Shocking statements

Pamphlets, books and leaflets obtained from mosques and Islamic centres contain an assortment of shocking statements including:

• "Jihad against a tyrant, oppressors, people of bid'ah [Muslim innovators], or wrongdoers. This type of jihad is best done through force if possible."
• "The Jews and the Christians are the enemies of the Muslim."
• "Whoever changes his religion, kill him."

Although some of the hate literature is in English, a proportion is written in Arabic. The translations commissioned by Policy Exchange have been independently verified.

Many of the publications encourage British Muslims to segregate themselves from non-Muslims. So-called unbelievers are to be treated as second-class and avoided wherever possible.

There are also repeated calls for gays to be thrown from mountains and tall buildings and for women to be subjugated.

Among the literature available are extracts from the notorious anti-Semitic forgery, The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion (published by the Saudi Ministry of Education), and other publications peddling bizarre conspiracy theories alleging that birth control is a plot against Muslims and Arabs, and that pornography is spread as part of a Jewish plot to corrupt Muslims.

The report has been authored by Dr Denis MacEoin, the Royal Literary Fund Fellow at Newcastle University who received his doctorate in Persian (Islamic) Studies from Cambridge University and has taught Arabic and Islamic Studies at Durham, Newcastle and Fez universities.

Speaking about the findings of the report, Anthony Browne, Director of Policy Exchange said, "It is clearly intolerable that hate literature is peddled at some British mosques. I am sure the majority of moderate Muslims will be as horrified as everyone else that pamphlets advocating jihad by force, hatred for insufficiently observant Muslims, Christians and Jews, and segregation have found their way into the UK's mosques."

Mr Browne went on to say, "The fact that the Saudi regime is producing extremist propaganda and targeting it at British Muslims must also be challenged by our own government. It is reassuring that the majority of mosques investigated do not propagate hate literature - but much work needs to be done to ensure that a large number of leading Islamic institutions remove this sectarianism from their midst."

Recommendations

The report makes several key recommendations:

i)The Saudi Arabian government must be told to stop distributing extremist literature in Britain or else risk its good relations. King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia is currently on a state visit to the UK and the British government should address this matter directly with him.

ii)Mosques and other Islamic institutions must act immediately to remove extremist literature from their premises.

iii)The government, local authorities, police forces, other institutions and prominent individuals should have nothing to do with mosques that continue to sell or distribute extremist literature.

iv)Islamic schools must be subject to clear and rigorous regulation and made part of a genuinely shared system of national education.

Cambridge Univ. Press Destroys Book on Terror Finance, But Copies Remain in Libraries

More on the incredibly wealthy, incredibly evil Sheikh Khalid bin Mafouz and his ongoing battle against free speech, especially when it concerns allegations that he finances terror groups (read here for background):

from the Library Journal: "ALA to Libraries: Keep Alms for Jihad, Pulped in the UK":

by Andrew Albanese & Jennifer Pinkowski (8/23/2007)

At the urging of the American Library Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom (OIF), a scholarly book pulped by its British publisher is maintaining a safe haven in U.S. libraries. Alms for Jihad was the target of a potential libel suit in England by Sheikh Khalid bin Mahfouz, whose charitable activities have reportedly been linked to terrorist activities, as conveyed in the book. In response, publisher Cambridge University Press (CUP) pulped its unsold copies of the book, put it out of print, asked libraries to pull it, and agreed to pay damages. CUP also issued a stunning public apology on its web site in which it characterized the "serious and defamatory allegations" against Mahfouz in Alms for Jihad as "manifestly false."

In a statement released last week, the OIF recommended libraries resist Cambridge’s request. Libraries "are under no legal obligation to return or destroy the book," said OIF deputy director Deborah Caldwell-Stone. "Libraries are considered to hold title to the individual copy or copies. Given the intense interest in the book, and the desire of readers to learn about the controversy firsthand, we recommend that U.S. libraries keep the book available for their users."

As of mid-August, Alms for Jihad was not available through Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, or Alibris. (About 1500 copies of the book were sold worldwide.) Libraries suddenly have an incredibly rare book in their stacks; a WorldCat search finds the book at nearly 300 libraries. Rather than discard the book, many libraries are safeguarding it, keeping it on hold, at the reserves desk. "I have recalled the copy of this title…in order to place it in our Rare Books collection, where it may be read by anyone but not borrowed," said Dona Straley, Middle East Studies librarian at Ohio State University's Ackerman Library. "Several of my colleagues at other institutions have reported their copies as missing."

That may be the case at University of North Carolina's Davis Library, whose catalog reveals that Alms for Jihad is "in search," meaning "someone has gone to the shelf to look for the book and not found it," said reference librarian Carol Tobin.

These sorts of measures may eventually be less necessary, because the authors hope to republish Alms for Jihad in the U.S. Co-author Robert O. Collins, a professor at University of California Santa Barbara, told LJ that he and co-author J. Millard Burr, a former state department employee, are currently negotiating with CUP for a rights reversion. The authors have had several offers from U.S. publishers.

"We stand by what we wrote and refused to be a party to the settlement," Collins said. "As soon as CUP received notice, they decided to settle as rapidly as possible despite our vigorous defense. CUP did not want to embark on a long and expensive suit which they could not win under English libel law." Indeed, libel laws in England are far more favorable to plaintiffs than those in the U.S.

Collins said he is confident Alms for Jihad will be republished in the U.S., where Mahfouz's charges would have little chance of succeeding in court. "In reality, the few passages referring to Mahfouz are trivial when compared to the enormous amount of information in the book that is in demand," Collins noted, adding that he has received calls from booksellers offering as much as $500 for copies.

BBC Bias: not so subtle

Thanks to honestreporting.com for this piece. Here's an excerpt:

BBC Reporting During the First Six Months of 2007 - Summary of Findings:

• Headline selection for stories in relation to violent incidents is inconsistent. 15% of stories about Palestinian violence named the aggressors while 60% of articles about Israeli operations accused Israel directly.

• Greater attention is paid to Palestinian voices and opinions than Israeli ones. 19 out of 23 articles and picture series capturing the "man on the street" perspective were from the Palestinian viewpoint.

read the rest here:
6 Month Analysis of the BBC: The Subtle Bias

U.S. Unions Organize Against British Unions' Israel Boycott

from the venerable Forward (by Rebecca Spence)

Leaders of some of America’s most powerful unions are said to be considering whether to pull support for a top British union official, Keith Sonnet, in his bid to lead a major international service workers union, Public Services International. The American union leaders are responding to last month’s passage of a resolution proposing a sweeping boycott of Israeli goods by Sonnet’s union, Unison, which represents 1.3 million public service workers.

The group that Sonnet is looking to lead, PSI, is a global federation of more than 600 unions from around the world, but the American labor movement has traditionally wielded significant power in its ranks.

As the number of British labor unions passing Israel boycott resolutions has snowballed in recent months, American trade union officials have raised alarms over the growing phenomenon, which encompasses boycotts of Israeli goods and academic institutions. Last week, nearly every top union leader in America signed on to a statement drafted by the Jewish Labor Committee decrying the raft of boycott proposals as non-constructive.

Avram Lyon, executive director of the JLC, said that Sonnet, who is running against Danish candidate Peter Waldorff for the international union post, had given assurances to American labor leaders in advance of his group’s national delegate conference that the Israel boycott measure up for consideration would either be voted down or have its teeth taken out. But the opposite came to pass, causing Sonnet’s American counterparts to feel misled, Lyon said.

“That has raised questions among some American unions as to whether or not they will support Keith Sonnet’s candidacy,” Lyon said. “The concern is based on the fact that Sonnet put forward a resolution which American unions would consider to be divisive.”

***

David Hirsh, who is the editor of Engage’s Web site and a lecturer at Goldsmiths, University of London, said that while he lauded American anti-boycott efforts, the leaders of the boycott movement in Britain are unlikely to be swayed by American complaints.

“It should be a powerful statement that all of these leaders of the American labor movement are making against the boycott campaign, but I’m skeptical as to how effective it will be,” Hirsh said.

The roster of 29 signatories to the JLC’s statement included a broad spectrum of union leaders, who cut across religious and ethnic lines. Among the signatories to the statement were Ron Gettelfinger, president of United Automobile, Aerospace & Agricultural Implement Workers of America International Union, which tends to stay out of the geo-political arena; William Lucy, president of the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists, and Larry Cohen, president of Communications Workers of America.

Absent from the list of signatories was Andrew Stern, president of the Service Employees International Union, which represents some 1.8 million service workers. An SEIU spokesman said Stern lent his support through Change To Win, a coalition of seven American unions, which signed on to the statement.

Whether or not the Americans’ robust condemnation of the British unions’ boycott measures has an effect, labor leaders here say that the concerns over Sonnet’s handling of the issue could have real consequences for his candidacy. A handful of signatories to the JLC’s anti-boycott statement — including the American Federation of Teachers and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees — are members of PSI, which represents more than 20 million workers from 160 countries. PSI’s election is set to take place during its World Congress, held in Vienna from September 24 to 28.

At least two past PSI presidents — legendary labor leader Victor Gotbaum and AFSCME’s William Lucy — have hailed from American unions.

A source at AFT, who requested anonymity because authorization to speak for the union had not been granted, said that its four delegates to the PSI congress would weigh the Israel boycott issue heavily. “I’m sure there are going to be a lot of people asking questions about Keith Sonnet’s view of the resolution adopted by Unison,” the source said.

According to Lyon, another American effort to stymie the British boycott movement met with success this week, when American unions torpedoed efforts by the UCU to introduce an Israel boycott resolution at the world congress of Education International, a worldwide federation of teachers’ unions, held this past week in Berlin.

It's enough to make me say: "Union, yes!"

READ THE FULL STORY HERE...