UK's subtle shun of "settlement" products

[Guest shiloh357]

Many liberal people forget one important fact about Israel's presence in the West Bank. Israel is there because of Jordan. Jordan used the West Bank to stage an attack on Israel. Israel's presence is to provide a buffer between Israel and Jordan in order to prevent any further attacks upon Israel from that area. Israel did not enter the West Bank to take it from the Palestinians or to disenfranchise the Palestinian people. Since Israel entered the West Bank in the process of defending itself in a war inflicted upon it, Israel's presence in the West Bank is legal. Israel has a legal right to keep it in perpetuity.

I absolutely agree, but I think it goes even deeper than this, and many people including the vast majority of Christians, do not really understand that Jordan was the proud creation of Winston Churchill in 1922, and it wasn't really until 1946 that it operated as a fully independent State. Nor how the Middle East was divided between France and Britain after the defeat of the Ottoman Empire in 1918 and it was because of pro-Arab appeasement that the formation of Israel was neglected and the basis of the Balfour Declaration conveniently forgotten.

There is a current perception in the world, fostered by an inexhaustible supply of inaccurate propaganda, that somehow the majority of Jews who came from Europe to Palestine, usurped the indigenous population who had tilled the land since before King David sat on the throne, and taken away their COUNTRY...on top of that a conglomerate of revisionist historians such as Pappe, Said, Morris, Barraud et alia, consolidate perversions of the truth.

In the UK we have a prominent Labour MP/journalist called Gerald Kaufman...Jewish to the core, with many friends and family in Israel, but totally totally deluded by the so-called facts....he was proud to say in his speech how Arafat was his friend...I cannot put YouTube video up, but just put in Gerald Kaufman on Israel, and you will see him addressing the British Parliament...It is shocking in its naivity, and coming from a Jewish man who had many killed in the holocaust is somehow more appalling that if from the mouth of a murderous Islamic terrorist...there is a much more subtle power at work.

I haven't time to reply to anything at length in the next few days, however since I generally agree with Kaufman on this I'll post a link to an article by him. He is an undeluded realist in my opinion

Here

So you are okay with the fact that this man aligned himself with Arafat???

[Botz]

I haven't time to reply to anything at length in the next few days, however since I generally agree with Kaufman on this I'll post a link to an article by him. He is an undeluded realist in my opinion

Here

Thanks for that amor...It also includes Kaufman's speech which is worth listening to, I will include a transcript of it below.

I have met many people like Kaufman, some of whom I deeply respect, but strongly disagree with...I thought his comparison of Major Leibovich's comment to that of the Nazis was deeply offensive and disturbing, and demonstrated to me the level of jaundiced propaganda that Kaufman has been contaminated by...very very sad...and so many people seem to take some sort of perverse pride in calling Arafat their friend. I was in a hotel foyer in Jerusalem having a coffee with a man some years ago, who had just returned from an audience with Yasser, and the same sort of pride was evident...quite frankly it made me sick...It is said that the eyes are the windows to the soul...In Arafats case I would think his whole face was a window into the darkness of his cruel malignant soul.

I was brought up as an orthodox Jew and a Zionist. On a shelf in our kitchen, there was a tin box for the Jewish National Fund, into which we put coins to help the pioneers building a Jewish presence in Palestine.

I first went to Israel in 1961 and I have been there since more times than I can count. I had family in Israel and have friends in Israel. One of them fought in the wars of 1956, 1967 and 1973 and was wounded in two of them. The tie clip that I am wearing is made from a campaign decoration awarded to him, which he presented to me.

I have known most of the Prime Ministers of Israel, starting with the founding Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion. Golda Meir was my friend, as was Yigal Allon, Deputy Prime Minister, who, as a general, won the Negev for Israel in the 1948 war of independence.

My parents came to Britain as refugees from Poland. Most of their families were subsequently murdered by the Nazis in the holocaust. My grandmother was ill in bed when the Nazis came to her home town of Staszow. A German soldier shot her dead in her bed.

My grandmother did not die to provide cover for Israeli soldiers murdering Palestinian grandmothers in Gaza. The current Israeli Government ruthlessly and cynically exploit the continuing guilt among gentiles over the slaughter of Jews in the holocaust as justification for their murder of Palestinians. The implication is that Jewish lives are precious, but the lives of Palestinians do not count.

On Sky News a few days ago, the spokeswoman for the Israeli army, Major Leibovich, was asked about the Israeli killing of, at that time, 800 Palestinians -- the total is now 1,000. She replied instantly that "500 of them were militants."

That was the reply of a Nazi. I suppose that the Jews fighting for their lives in the Warsaw ghetto could have been dismissed as militants.

The Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni asserts that her Government will have no dealings with Hamas, because they are terrorists. Tzipi Livni's father was Eitan Livni, chief operations officer of the terrorist Irgun Zvai Leumi, who organised the blowing-up of the King David hotel in Jerusalem, in which 91 victims were killed, including four Jews.

Israel was born out of Jewish terrorism. Jewish terrorists hanged two British sergeants and booby-trapped their corpses. Irgun, together with the terrorist Stern gang, massacred 254 Palestinians in 1948 in the village of Deir Yassin. Today, the current Israeli Government indicate that they would be willing, in circumstances acceptable to them, to negotiate with the Palestinian President Abbas of Fatah. It is too late for that. They could have negotiated with Fatah's previous leader, Yasser Arafat, who was a friend of mine. Instead, they besieged him in a bunker in Ramallah, where I visited him. Because of the failings of Fatah since Arafat's death, Hamas won the Palestinian election in 2006. Hamas is a deeply nasty organisation, but it was democratically elected, and it is the only game in town. The boycotting of Hamas, including by our Government, has been a culpable error, from which dreadful consequences have followed.

The great Israeli Foreign Minister Abba Eban, with whom I campaigned for peace on many platforms, said: "You make peace by talking to your enemies."

However many Palestinians the Israelis murder in Gaza, they cannot solve this existential problem by military means. Whenever and however the fighting ends, there will still be 1.5 million Palestinians in Gaza and 2.5 million more on the west bank. They are treated like dirt by the Israelis, with hundreds of road blocks and with the ghastly denizens of the illegal Jewish settlements harassing them as well. The time will come, not so long from now, when they will outnumber the Jewish population in Israel.

It is time for our Government to make clear to the Israeli Government that their conduct and policies are unacceptable, and to impose a total arms ban on Israel. It is time for peace, but real peace, not the solution by conquest which is the Israelis' real goal but which it is impossible for them to achieve. They are not simply war criminals; they are fools.

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Gerald Bernard Kaufman is a British Labour Member of Parliament. Sir Kaufman made the statement above during the 15 January 2009 House of Commons debate on Gaza in the United Kingdom.

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[Guest shiloh357]

Let's examine the accuracy of Kaufman's remarks:

On Sky News a few days ago, the spokeswoman for the Israeli army, Major Leibovich, was asked about the Israeli killing of, at that time, 800 Palestinians -- the total is now 1,000. She replied instantly that "500 of them were militants."

That was the reply of a Nazi. I suppose that the Jews fighting for their lives in the Warsaw ghetto could have been dismissed as militants.

The problem with this comparison is that the Palestinians are not fighting for their survival. Israel has never called for the annihilation of the Palestinian people. The Palestinian population has ballooned from about 650,000 in 1948 to nearly 6 Million in just over 60 years. Israel with its superior military capabilities could have easily wiped out the Palestinians decades ago if its aim were to destroy the Palestinians. What Mr. Kaufman fails to acknowledge is that Israel provides health care, welfare and social security for the Palestinians (which they did not receive while under the control of Jordan and Egypt), modern sewage treatment facilties, schools and hospitals in the West Bank and Gaza. Israel has done more than the Arab world or the UN to ease the suffering of the refugees. Israel did not create the refugee problem. The Arab world created the problem in 1947, when it rejected the two-state solution and instead opted to destroy Israel on the day it proclaimed nationhood.

The Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni asserts that her Government will have no dealings with Hamas, because they are terrorists. Tzipi Livni's father was Eitan Livni, chief operations officer of the terrorist Irgun Zvai Leumi, who organised the blowing-up of the King David hotel in Jerusalem, in which 91 victims were killed, including four Jews.

Kaufman also fails to acknowledge that the King David Hotel was being used by the British for military purposes, and as such it was a legitmate military target. It was the British military command and the British Criminal Investigation Division.

In addition, the British officers received a phone call well in advance of the explosion and advised them to evacuate the building. In fact THREE phone calls were made in plenty of time to avoid any human casualties at all. The British officers were told when the bomb was set to go off, but they did not evacuate the building. The deaths of the 91 people is on the hands of the stubborn British officers who put their pride ahead of the safety of the others who were in the hotel with them at that time. It is important to note that the explosion does not qualify as a terrorist attack because first of all it was in response to the British invasion of the Jewish Agency and the arrest of over 2,500 Jews in pre-Israel Palestine AND because the explosion was not in the Hotel proper but limited to the area in the Hotel being used by British as a military command post. The attack was strictly limited and very precise. Terrorism is typically indiscriminate, but the bomb at the King David hotel was not in indiscriminate attack and no one staying the actual hotel proper were killed or injured.

Israel was born out of Jewish terrorism.

Actually Israel was reborn out of a UN vote that called for a two-state solution, the creation of a state called Palestine along with the state of Israel. The Arabs rejected the two-state solution and the Jews didn't. Thus on May 14, 1948 Israel was reborn as legitmate country.

When people say that Israel was born out of Jewish terrorism, what they are saying is that Israel as a nation is illegitimate. If amor thinks that Kaufman represents undeluded realism, then amor must think that the nation of Israel is illegitimate.

Jewish terrorists hanged two British sergeants and booby-trapped their corpses. Irgun, together with the terrorist Stern gang, massacred 254 Palestinians in 1948 in the village of Deir Yassin.

This is nonsense. There was no massacre. There was a gun battle. Deir Yasin was being used by terrorists to launch ambushes on Jewish supply convoys on the road to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv. The attack on Irgun was to relieve the convoys so they could travel on that road, as it was the only supply route to Jerusalem. It was justified military engagement, and 4 Israelis were killed and 41 were injured, which torpedoes the notion that it was a "massacre." In fact it was a an exchange of gun fire. It was carried out by 100 members of the Irgun.

Another fact that Mr. Kaufman leaves out is that the Irgun gave safe passage for noncombantants and as many as 200 innocents escaped unharmed. The Lehi evacuted 40 elderly men to Sheikh Bader. And 70 more villagers were evacuated and turned over to the British. If a massacre had been the intent of the attackers, no one would have been left alive at all.

Today, the current Israeli Government indicate that they would be willing, in circumstances acceptable to them, to negotiate with the Palestinian President Abbas of Fatah. It is too late for that. They could have negotiated with Fatah's previous leader, Yasser Arafat, who was a friend of mine. Instead, they besieged him in a bunker in Ramallah, where I visited him.

Kaufman is a liar. Arafat's terrorist cronies sabatoged every attempt at negotiations and when Arafat received the deal of a lifetime from Ehud Barak, he walked out on the negotiations at Camp David, to the bewilderment of everyone including Bill Clinton. Arafat's besiegement was his own doing. He forced Israel's hand and he got what asked for. Arafat was an evil, bloodthirsty sodomite who died of AIDs. There is nothing to respect or admire about Arafat. He created a culture of death and hate. For anyone to call him "friend," only shows just how warped their moral compass is.

Because of the failings of Fatah since Arafat's death, Hamas won the Palestinian election in 2006. Hamas is a deeply nasty organisation, but it was democratically elected, and it is the only game in town. The boycotting of Hamas, including by our Government, has been a culpable error, from which dreadful consequences have followed.

The only game in town??? Hamas is nothing but a terrorist organization that ran its campaign on a platform that looks like it was taken from the pages of Mein Kampf. Hamas, has to this day, avowed nothing less than to destroy the nation of Israel. That goal has never changed since the day they were elected. Hamas has no moral compunction against using any means including the use of children as cannon fodder to affect the murder of Jews in Israel. Hamas places no value on human life, not even the life of a child. No one's life is sacred to them. So from what moral frame of reference would "discussions" with such monsters begin??? You don't negotiate with people like Hamas.

The great Israeli Foreign Minister Abba Eban, with whom I campaigned for peace on many platforms, said: "You make peace by talking to your enemies."

Yeah, and we all found out how well that worked with Hitler in the 1930s.

However many Palestinians the Israelis murder in Gaza, they cannot solve this existential problem by military means.

Israel has not murdered the Palestinians in Gaza. Mr. Kaufman fails to acknowledge that for 8 years, the Gazan Palestinians had been launching thousands of rocket attacks and thousands of mortar attacks on to Israelis and that after the withdrawal of all Jews out of Gaza, those terrorist attacks increased by 500% from 2005 to 2008. Israel's response was not murder but a legitmate military operation to bring relief to towns like Sderot upon which many of those rockets fell. No competent, objective person can reasonably call Israel's Operation Cast Lead "murder."

They are treated like dirt by the Israelis, with hundreds of road blocks and with the ghastly denizens of the illegal Jewish settlements harassing them as well.

Actually, the Israelis treat the Palestinians far better than they are treated by the Arabs or any other nation. Israel protects their Muslim holy sites, provides tons of free social services, complete access to Israel's judiciary, which according to Human Rights activist Alan Dershowitz, has sided with the Palestinians in 45% of the cases between Palestinians and Jewish Israelis. Israel does not treat them like royalty, but it is not Israel who is calling for the destruction of the Palestinians. Israel protects the freedom of speech for Palestinians who regularly call for Israel's destruction in mosques that sit on Israeli soil.

[Guest shiloh357]

Continued from last post

The time will come, not so long from now, when they will outnumber the Jewish population in Israel.

But they are not citizens and have no right to vote in Israeli elections. Only Arabs who are citzens can vote, so their numbers really dont' count for anything.

It is time for our Government to make clear to the Israeli Government that their conduct and policies are unacceptable, and to impose a total arms ban on Israel.

Mr. Kaufman should be reminded that Israel is not a vassal state of England or any other nation for that matter. You can ban whatever you want. Israel's ingenuity and resourcefulness far outstrips that of her enemies and they fought six Arab nations on their own without any help from the world and many of those Arab armies were manned by British personell. Israel can survive without Britain or the US or anyone else.

It is time for peace, but real peace, not the solution by conquest which is the Israelis' real goal but which it is impossible for them to achieve.

If conquest were the goal of the Israelis, Gaza would be nothing but greasy spot by the side of the road. Neutralizing terrorism does not equate "conquest." The fact that this sol-called journalist cannot decipher the difference shows he is really competent or intellectually equipped to offer an objective reasonable view on Israel.

They are not simply war criminals; they are fools.

The war criminals are the members of Hamas who:

1. Used their own civilians has human shields;

2. Used civilian property to launch rocket attacks and forced the civilians to stay in their homes at gun point so that they would die when Israel responded.

3. Denied their own people access to medical care in Egypt and Israel.

4. Confiscated the medicine, food and supplies allowed in by Israel and denied treatment to wounded Palestinians so that the death toll would rise higher.

5. Bombed their own shelters and killed their own people inside those shelters to make it look like an Israeli attack.

The fools are anyone who agrees with imbecilic drivel by Mr. Kaufman.

[amor]

Many liberal people forget one important fact about Israel's presence in the West Bank. Israel is there because of Jordan. Jordan used the West Bank to stage an attack on Israel. Israel's presence is to provide a buffer between Israel and Jordan in order to prevent any further attacks upon Israel from that area. Israel did not enter the West Bank to take it from the Palestinians or to disenfranchise the Palestinian people. Since Israel entered the West Bank in the process of defending itself in a war inflicted upon it, Israel's presence in the West Bank is legal. Israel has a legal right to keep it in perpetuity.

I absolutely agree, but I think it goes even deeper than this, and many people including the vast majority of Christians, do not really understand that Jordan was the proud creation of Winston Churchill in 1922, and it wasn't really until 1946 that it operated as a fully independent State. Nor how the Middle East was divided between France and Britain after the defeat of the Ottoman Empire in 1918 and it was because of pro-Arab appeasement that the formation of Israel was neglected and the basis of the Balfour Declaration conveniently forgotten.

There is a current perception in the world, fostered by an inexhaustible supply of inaccurate propaganda, that somehow the majority of Jews who came from Europe to Palestine, usurped the indigenous population who had tilled the land since before King David sat on the throne, and taken away their COUNTRY...on top of that a conglomerate of revisionist historians such as Pappe, Said, Morris, Barraud et alia, consolidate perversions of the truth.

In the UK we have a prominent Labour MP/journalist called Gerald Kaufman...Jewish to the core, with many friends and family in Israel, but totally totally deluded by the so-called facts....he was proud to say in his speech how Arafat was his friend...I cannot put YouTube video up, but just put in Gerald Kaufman on Israel, and you will see him addressing the British Parliament...It is shocking in its naivity, and coming from a Jewish man who had many killed in the holocaust is somehow more appalling that if from the mouth of a murderous Islamic terrorist...there is a much more subtle power at work.

I haven't time to reply to anything at length in the next few days, however since I generally agree with Kaufman on this I'll post a link to an article by him. He is an undeluded realist in my opinion

Here

We can always count on you to support anything that's anti-Jew while waving your pom poms as you cheer on the murderous mutants known as muslims.

Critical of Israqeli government policy is the same as anti-jew? Muslim (and Christian Palestinians?) are no longer humans their "mutants", are they? Do you not think your language actually is reminicent of that of the third reich, where Jews and others were labelled as sub-human? Why don't you try aqnd see all people as people who have to be treated with love and respect rather than stereotyped, demeaned and attacked. Do you think there is anything Christlike in describing entire communities of people as mutants?

[Guest shiloh357]

Critical of Israqeli government policy is the same as anti-jew?

Critcizing Israel is not anti-Semitic. However, relegating Israel's self-defence as equivalent to murder, blaming Israel for every Palestinian woe, while ignoring the risks Israel has taken and sacrifices Israel has made in a sincere attempt at peace, IS anti-Semitic.

People like you want to talk about Israel is a vacuum. You blather and whine about every "injustice" you think Israel has committed, while ignoring the onslaught of terrorism Israel faces which precipitated Israel's actions. You complain about Israel's security fence, but ignore the terrorist actions that made it necessary. You ignore the fact that most of the problems facing the Palestinians are self-inflicted.

Muslim (and Christian Palestinians?) are no longer humans their "mutants", are they? Do you not think your language actually is reminicent of that of the third reich, where Jews and others were labelled as sub-human? Why don't you try aqnd see all people as people who have to be treated with love and respect rather than stereotyped, demeaned and attacked. Do you think there is anything Christlike in describing entire communities of people as mutants?

The terrorists are the mutants, as well as anyone who supports them.

[MorningGlory]

Critical of Israqeli government policy is the same as anti-jew? Muslim (and Christian Palestinians?) are no longer humans their "mutants", are they? Do you not think your language actually is reminicent of that of the third reich, where Jews and others were labelled as sub-human? Why don't you try aqnd see all people as people who have to be treated with love and respect rather than stereotyped, demeaned and attacked. Do you think there is anything Christlike in describing entire communities of people as mutants?

Yes, I do. They are the enemies of God....and Israel. Not to mention the U.S. I'm not speaking of Christians here; from what I understand they are about as rare as free speech in the Palestinian Territories. By 'mutants' I'm not saying they aren't human; they are humans who are mutated by islam, who are badly deceived and utterly doomed if they don't repent. Which I pray they do! Sorry, your attempts at belittling my opinions of muslims won't work.

[Guest]

Behold, he that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep. Psalms 121:4

>>>>>()<<<<<

Critical of Israqeli government policy is the same as anti-jew? Muslim (and Christian Palestinians?) are no longer humans their "mutants", are they? Do you not think your language actually is reminicent of that of the third reich, where Jews and others were labelled as sub-human? Why don't you try aqnd see all people as people who have to be treated with love and respect rather than stereotyped, demeaned and attacked. Do you think there is anything Christlike in describing entire communities of people as mutants?

Yes, I do. They are the enemies of God....and Israel. Not to mention the U.S. I'm not speaking of Christians here; from what I understand they are about as rare as free speech in the Palestinian Territories. By 'mutants' I'm not saying they aren't human; they are humans who are mutated by islam, who are badly deceived and utterly doomed if they don't repent. Which I pray they do! Sorry, your attempts at belittling my opinions of muslims won't work.

The Problem Is Sin

But he that sinneth against me wrongeth his own soul: all they that hate me love death.

Proverbs 8:36

And The Answer

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

John 3:16

Is Jesus

Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers;

But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot:

1 Peter 1:18-19

And He Is A Zionist

Thus saith the LORD of hosts; I was jealous for Zion with great jealousy, and I was jealous for her with great fury.

Thus saith the LORD; I am returned unto Zion, and will dwell in the midst of Jerusalem: and Jerusalem shall be called a city of truth; and the mountain of the LORD of hosts the holy mountain.

Zechariah 8:2-3

And The KING Of The Jews

Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion; shout, O daughter of Jerusalem: behold, thy King cometh unto thee: he is just, and having salvation; lowly, and riding upon an ass, and upon a colt the foal of an ass.

Zechariah 9:9

And Woe To All Who Plot To Murder Israel

And I will feed them that oppress thee with their own flesh; and they shall be drunken with their own blood, as with sweet wine: and all flesh shall know that I the LORD am thy Saviour and thy Redeemer, the mighty One of Jacob.

Israel 49:26

>>>>>()<<<<<

And it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call on the name of the LORD shall be delivered: for in mount Zion and in Jerusalem shall be deliverance, as the LORD hath said, and in the remnant whom the LORD shall call.

Joel 2:32

[amor]

Critical of Israqeli government policy is the same as anti-jew?

Critcizing Israel is not anti-Semitic. However, relegating Israel's self-defence as equivalent to murder, blaming Israel for every Palestinian woe, while ignoring the risks Israel has taken and sacrifices Israel has made in a sincere attempt at peace, IS anti-Semitic.

People like you want to talk about Israel is a vacuum. You blather and whine about every "injustice" you think Israel has committed, while ignoring the onslaught of terrorism Israel faces which precipitated Israel's actions. You complain about Israel's security fence, but ignore the terrorist actions that made it necessary. You ignore the fact that most of the problems facing the Palestinians are self-inflicted.

Muslim (and Christian Palestinians?) are no longer humans their "mutants", are they? Do you not think your language actually is reminicent of that of the third reich, where Jews and others were labelled as sub-human? Why don't you try aqnd see all people as people who have to be treated with love and respect rather than stereotyped, demeaned and attacked. Do you think there is anything Christlike in describing entire communities of people as mutants?

The terrorists are the mutants, as well as anyone who supports them.

I don't ignore anything, I merely point out that there is an unacceptable level of violence employed by those on both sides, and that Palestiniansare made in the image of God and so as deserving of respect as anyone else

[Guest yod]

I don't ignore anything, I merely point out that there is an unacceptable level of violence employed by those on both sides, and that Palestiniansare made in the image of God and so as deserving of respect as anyone else

by saying that, you imply that they are not already respected by Israel and that is simply untrue. Israel is the ONLY nation doing anything to help them. They have hospitals, water, sewage, electricity and it's all paid for by the people they swear to murder.

The persecution against the arabs who call themselves "Palestinian" is much worse from their own leaders but where is the outcry over that? The theft of foreign aid by Arafat (and the rest of their thug leaders) being sent to help them is never mentioned by those who paint Israel as the problem.

Their plight was caused by other arab nations who use them as political pawns. Their misery continues because of other arab nations, not Israel. Where is the outcry over that?

Most of their current problems are caused by their own willingness to be violent, to murder, to cause harm. How much respect does Charlie Manson deserve?