December 31, 2012

Mo Farah can run but he can't hide his roots

A bit of an Olympic roll here. First Latuff takes bronze then double gold winner Mo Farah gets into a scrape with racist airport officialdom.

See this from Yahoo SPORTS:
Mo Farah celebrated his [Christmas] by getting taken for a possible terrorist.
The two-time gold medal winner for Great Britain at this past summer's games was traveling in Oregon and was questioned by U.S. Customs officials after they noticed his Somali ancestry.
Ah it's a roots thing or possibly a his name's Mohamed thing.

December 30, 2012

Bronze medal for Latuff in zionist olympics

The Simon Wiesenthal Centre has awarded cartoonist, Carlos Latuff, third prize in its annual antisemitism awards.

Simon Wiesenthal Center report December 2012

Carlos is clearly very upset by this:

Latuff listed as the 3rd most antisemitic by Simon Wiesenthal Center


The Jerusalem Post is also very impressed.

Nicholas Dirks UPDATE

Remember this post from near the beginning of this month?  It was about the incoming Chancellor of UC Berkeley, Nicholas Dirks, being asked if he had ever supported BDS against Israel.  When he answered that he had not he was then asked if his wife ever supported BDS against Israel.

Well shortly before Christmas a group of Columbia University professors issued a statement taking issue with what they feel is a bogus narrative by Dirks of what took place back at Columbia regarding BDS and taking issue with Dirks's false allegation of antisemitism:

recent interview conducted by UC Berkeley’s Public Relations office and timed with the appointment of the new university Chancellor, Nicholas Dirks, begins, “Floating around the Internet is a claim that at some point in your past... you signed a petition for Columbia to divest in all things Israel.” The interviewer asks the Chancellor-designate to clarify his role. But let us be clear: this is not a question. It is a demand. We live in political climate in which robust and critical speech about the policies of the Israeli state is becoming ever more difficult. Its proponents are subjected to myriad forms of harassment in an effort to shut down such speech. If one wants to be a powerful public figure, the interviewer is effectively saying to Dirks, distance yourself from that petition.
Unfortunately, Dirks responds by doing precisely what is demanded of him. He does not clarify that the Columbia University petition did not call for divestment from “all things Israel,” but instead from companies that manufacture or sell arms or other military hardware utilized by Israel, in violation of US law, against the civilian populations of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. He does not say that he did sign the petition, but, as he might have argued, that once he became an administrator he recognized he had to play a different role, one that protects all political speech on campus, regardless of his own personal convictions, and thus that he chose to withdraw his signature. Instead, he declares that somehow his name appeared on the petition and that he asked for it to be removed.
That is not all: Dirks goes much further. He offers a description of Columbia in 2002 as a time in which broader “controversies” over the question of Israel and Palestine developed. He narrates those controversies in the voice of the off-campus Jewish neo-conservative groups (Campus Watch, the David Project, to name the main provocateurs) who spearheaded a sustained attack against his own colleagues, who were faculty members in the Middle East field. The David Project produced a film, Columbia Unbecoming, that instigated Columbia’s supposedly “internal” investigation. Parroting their perspective in his interview, Dirks notes that it was a climate in which “it seemed very difficult for some [Jewish] students to find safe spaces in which to talk about Israel where they didn’t feel that the basic context in which they found themselves wasn’t hugely not just anti-Israel, but by implication, anti-Jewish and anti-Semitic.” His is a brilliant rhetorical move, an account of how some Jewish students supposedly “felt.” In providing no other perspective on the “controversy,” however, Dirks allows the contention that criticism of Israel’s policies is, “by implication, anti-Jewish and anti-Semitic” to stand as a simple matter of fact.
In purveying this false account, Dirks rewrites the history of the conflict at Columbia. The reality, in contrast, was one in which most members of the faculty and many students argued that baseless accusations of anti-Semitism were being wielded in an effort to curtail academic freedom and free speech. Moreover, Dirks rewrites the “conclusion” to that so-called controversy.
Read on at Jadaliyya.com, the ezine of the Arab Studies Institute.

No2VAG and No2Veolia update

On Twitter, the account @No2VAG - ie, the no to veolia action group, is still suspended. @No2Veolia seems to be running at the moment though.  So the following tweet seems to be out of date.
Try clicking the @no2vag and you get this:

Account suspended

The profile you are trying to view has been suspended. To return to your home timeline, click here.

Clicking on@no2veolia gets you this: 
No2VeoliaActionGroup

No2VeoliaActionGroup

@No2Veolia

No2VAG aka No2VeoliaActionGroup the north London Campaigners who trashed Veolia selection for £4.7Bn NLWA waste & fuel processing contracts No2VAG.org.uk
North London · No2VAG.org.uk
So, until @no2vag is reinstated, follow @no2veolia.

Ta

December 29, 2012

ANC backs BDS at last

More good news.  According to the Jewish Chronicle, the African National Congress, South Africa's ruling party, has officially adopted a boycott of Israel as policy.  You'd think this was only natural given the ANC's struggle against settler colonialism and apartheid in its own country but you'd be wrong.

Back in 2004 Ehud Olmert visited South Africa to sign a trade agreement between the State of Israel and South Africa.  I reported it at the time but the links have all expired:
The new South Africa has signed a trade agreement with the last (hopefully) of the apartheid states. According to Reuters, Israel's Ehud Olmert hailed a "new" era of South Africa ties. All very strange when you consider that Israel had ties with South Africa through the whole of the apartheid era. What is new here is that the ANC seems to have lost its political memory.
I had to do a bit of a search for the old info and I came up with this from Fin24.com, a South African mostly business and financial news site:
South Africa's improved relationship with Israel took a concrete dimension this week with the conclusion of a trade agreement and the first official visit by a leading politician from the Jewish state in over a decade.
The then South African deputy foreign minister even jumped through a few hoops to defend the then government's position:
In Pretoria, deputy Foreign Minister Aziz Pahad stressed in a meeting with pro-Palestinian groups on the eve of Olmert's arrival, was trying to be impartial by engaging both Tel Aviv and Palestinian groups.
So I don't know what's become of the agreement but here's the JC on the situation now:

South Africa’s ruling party announced that the anti-Israel boycott, divestment and sanctions movement will now form part of its official policy.
The African National Congress (ANC) endorsed the campaign in response to a call from pro-Palestinian activists, including BDS South Africa.
The resolution read: “The ANC is unequivocal in its support for the Palestinian people in their struggle for self-determination, and unapologetic in its view that the Palestinians are the victims and the oppressed in the conflict with Israel.”
Mbuyiseni Ndlozi, from BDS South Africa, said the move was “the most authoritative endorsement of the BDS against Israel campaign.”

 Let's hope it's not just lip service but you never know.....

December 28, 2012

Another reminder of Israel's relationship with the antisemitic Galtieri regime

It's that time of year when previously secret documents get released by the powers that be in the UK.  The Guardian reports how the Brits weren't happy that,
Israel and Israeli companies, a separate Foreign Office briefing warned, "… have made offers or are involved in negotiations on the supply of weapons [to Argentina] … despite assurances" that they would not make any new deals.
It is well documented that Jews were over-represented among Argentina's Desaparecidos at about 10% when Jews were less than 1% of the population as a whole.  Tony Greenstein has the details here.

No2VAG Twitter account suspended

Oh dear. I was just tweeting my previous post so:

When I checked that @no2vag was an existing address I got the following message:
Sorry, that user is suspended.
Has the lobby had more success with Twitter than it had with Hackney Council or the North London Waste Authority?

Watch this space....

News on Veolia gets better and better

Well the news is pretty much the same, that is that the zionist occupation's preferred multinational corporate suppier, Veolia, withdrew their bid to handle refuse in North London.  It was campaigners in the London Borough of Hackney who brought the pressure which led to Veolia throwing the towel in.  The better bit is the way that the whole thing has been covered in the local press.  The Hackney Citizen and the Hackney Gazette have both been very informative and supportive of local democracy and accountability throughout the whole process, raising awkward questions as it unfolded in the Town Hall.

Now the Hackney Gazette has a congratulatory piece by Senior Reporter, Emma Bartholomew under the headline, “Best Christmas present ever” for Veolia campaigners:
Campaigners who spent two years vociferously campaigning to block Veolia’s for a multi-million pound deal are celebrating their best Christmas present ever, after the waste company dropped out of the tender.
Veolia was down to the last two bidders for the North London Waste Authority’s £4.7bn waste services and fuel use contract – but the No 2 Veolia Action Group (No2VAG) said the company should be blacklisted because it provides transport, waste, sewage and water services to Jewish settlements in Palestine, which are considered illegal under international law.
The shock news Veolia had withdrawn from the tender process came last Friday, and it is unclear why the decision was made.
The deal, involving seven London boroughs which will cost Hackney £600 million, hit the headlines this month after No2VAG spokeswoman and Hackney resident Caroline Day was blocked from making a five-minute speech at a Hackney Council meeting.
David Lewis, secretary and treasurer of pro-Israeli group Lawyers for Israel, went on to claim silencing her as a ‘victory’, after the Labour party supported Tory Cllr Linda Kelly’s motion to block the speech in a whipped vote.
Veolia declined to comment to the Gazette about why it had dropped out from the tender, and refused to categorically deny it had anything to do with the Israeli settlements controversy.
Ms Day said her group is “absolutely delighted” and lauded the move as a “huge victory for local democracy”.
“Powerful lobbies representing unethical interests in the illegal settlements may have won a short-term victory in silencing me, but in standing up for their right to see their money invested ethically, local people have achieved a victory for justice for the Palestinian people,” she said.
“This really has been the result of very determined collective campaigning across the seven boroughs and huge credit goes to our chair Yael Kahn who has dedicated her life to this for two years,” she added.
As you can see, the full story had some remarkable ingredients including the boasting of Israel lobbyists, at least one whom is a Hackney councillor.

Mondoweiss has an analytical piece on the campaign itself and Charlie Pottins at Random Pottins gets very technical about the whole thing.

All in all, a great victory for BDS and a lesson for others to follow.

December 27, 2012

David Toube: an apology

I like getting things wrong and then apologising. It really puts paid to those interlocutors who say things like "oh you're never wrong, are you? or "you just can't admit to being wrong".  So I actually enjoy being wrong now and again but, sadly, I don't often get the pleasure.

So it's a with a not so heavy heart that I have to admit I got it wrong about one detail in a poll of Palestinian opinion arising out of the recent Israeli attack on Gaza and the Palestinian Authority's UN bid.

You see, David Toube, aka Lucy Lips, at Harry's Place said the following:

 It goes without saying that Hamas has lyingly claimed that their rockets lack the necessary precision to hit military targets. Previously, they’ve boasted of their success in terrorising Jews:
The Qassam Brigades committed itself to turn the life of Zionists into hell, and make them regret their heinous crimes against the innocent and crush their pride and to soak their noses in the dirt.
Hamas does this, because 87% of the Palestinian population supports their tactics, and believe that they constitute ‘victory’.
Follow the link and you find this:

Highlights:
  •        85 percent strongly believe that the UN vote was a victory for the Palestinian cause. In contrast, only 14 percent disagree.
  •        79 percent are hopeful that the UN vote will be followed by tangible progress towards Palestinian independence.
  •        Overall, 68 percent believe that the UN vote will advance the Palestinian cause. In contrast, 17 percent believe that nothing will change and 13 percent      believe that the cause will be set back by the vote.
  •        90 percent of respondents believe that the confrontations and the resulting truce represent a victory for the Palestinians. Only 10 percent disagree.
  •        84 percent are hopeful that the Gaza confrontation will be followed by tangible progress towards Palestinian independence.
  •        The majority of respondents (51 percent) believe that party that gained the most from the Gaza conflict are the Palestinians in general.
  •        76 percent believe that Israel lost the most in this war.
  •        89 percent say that their views of Hamas improved or improved to some extent, while only 8 percent say that their views diminished.
  •         81 percent say that their views of Fatah improved or improved to some extent, while 15 percent say that their views diminished.
But follow the links within the links and you find this:


West Bank
Gaza
Total
The results of the recent Gaza conflict prove that armed struggle, as adopted by Hamas,  is the best means of achieving Palestinian independence
Strongly  agree
50.4%
64.2%
55.6%
Agree
36.0%
25.6%
32.1%
Disagree
8.8%
9.6%
9.1%
Strongly disagree
1.5%
0.7%
1.2%
I don’t know
3.3%

2.1%


So, what do you know? David Toube might masquerade as a woman called Lucy Lips when he's on line but it doesn't mean that everything he says is a lie.  So apologies.

Occupy this! Harry's Place's David Toube and the 87%

In a Harry's Place post seeking to justify Israel's killing of Palestinian civilians, corporate lawyer, David Toube (aka Lucy Lips) makes the following claim:
 they’ve boasted of their success in terrorising Jews:
The Qassam Brigades committed itself to turn the life of Zionists into hell, and make them regret their heinous crimes against the innocent and crush their pride and to soak their noses in the dirt.
Hamas does this, because 87% of the Palestinian population supports their tactics, and believe that they constitute ‘victory’.
See that link. Here it is again:
 87% of the Palestinian population supports their tactics
Now follow the link and see the summary of the poll results that have David Toube saying that,  "87% of the Palestinian population supports their tactics" and we see this list:

Highlights:
  •        85 percent strongly believe that the UN vote was a victory for the Palestinian cause. In contrast, only 14 percent disagree.
  •        79 percent are hopeful that the UN vote will be followed by tangible progress towards Palestinian independence.
  •        Overall, 68 percent believe that the UN vote will advance the Palestinian cause. In contrast, 17 percent believe that nothing will change and 13 percent      believe that the cause will be set back by the vote.
  •        90 percent of respondents believe that the confrontations and the resulting truce represent a victory for the Palestinians. Only 10 percent disagree.
  •        84 percent are hopeful that the Gaza confrontation will be followed by tangible progress towards Palestinian independence.
  •        The majority of respondents (51 percent) believe that party that gained the most from the Gaza conflict are the Palestinians in general.
  •        76 percent believe that Israel lost the most in this war.
  •        89 percent say that their views of Hamas improved or improved to some extent, while only 8 percent say that their views diminished.
  •         81 percent say that their views of Fatah improved or improved to some extent, while 15 percent say that their views diminished.
I've left the following comment at Harry's Place to try to establish if Toube was lying or if he simply can't, as they say, do the Math:


Mark Elf  21 minutes ago

Here's the poll you linked to with the words, "87% of the Palestinian population supports their [Hamas's] tactics":
****85 percent strongly believe that the UN vote was a victory for the Palestinian cause. In contrast, only 14 percent disagree.
79 percent are hopeful that the UN vote will be followed by tangible progress towards Palestinian independence.
Overall, 68 percent believe that the UN vote will advance the Palestinian cause. In contrast, 17 percent believe that nothing will change and 13 percent believe that the cause will be set back by the vote.
90 percent of respondents believe that the confrontations and the resulting truce represent a victory for the Palestinians. Only 10 percent disagree.
84 percent are hopeful that the Gaza confrontation will be followed by tangible progress towards Palestinian independence.
The majority of respondents (51 percent) believe that party that gained the most from the Gaza conflict are the Palestinians in general.
76 percent believe that Israel lost the most in this war.
89 percent say that their views of Hamas improved or improved to some extent, while only 8 percent say that their views diminished.
81 percent say that their views of Fatah improved or improved to some extent, while 15 percent say that their views diminished.****
-------------------
None mention 87% and only one leaves 87% by deduction and that is:
"13 percent believe that the cause will be set back by the [UN] vote.
------
So maybe you have an issue with arithmetic but which line out of the above list is your assertion that,
"Hamas does this, because 87% of the Palestinian population supports their tactics, and believe that they constitute ‘victory’."
based on?
My guess is that you were simply and typically lying to justify the slaughter of Palestinian civilians by Israel but go ahead and have an honest go. Quote the one line in the list of poll results which justifies your assertion that,
"Hamas does this [fires rockets], because 87% of the Palestinian population supports their tactics, and believe that they constitute ‘victory’."
Ok apologies for the repetition but at least he can't claim not to have understood the question. Now, past experience suggests to me that David Toube is simply lying but it could be that he really can't "do the Math". So which one is it? I've said before that he's a liar and a buffoon but I could narrow it down to either or...

December 26, 2012

What the lobby could learn from the lobby

For some reason the massacre in Newtown, Connecticut, seemed like a watershed event to many people.  There was an immediate demand for more gun control followed by a defence of the status quo by the gun lobby led by the National Rifle Association (NRA).

On Christmas Eve, The Algemeiner (the self-styled "fastest growing Jewish newspaper in America) reported that the CEO of the NRA, Wayne LaPierre, was touting Israel as a role model in preventing these mass shootings in schools.
Israel had a whole lot of school shootings, until they did one thing. They said we’re going to stop it and they put armed security in every school and they have not had a problem since then.
So said LaPierre.

Well the Israelis didn't like that:
Yigal Palmor, spokesman for the Israeli Foreign Ministry, told the New York Daily News that the situation in Israel was “fundamentally different” from that in the United States.
He then set out what he felt was "fundamentally different" but this is the bit that stood out to me:
It would be better not to drag Israel into what is an internal American discussion,
Perish the thought that Israel might feature in "an internal American discussion". Has Yigal Palmor ever heard of Mitt Romney or any other American presidential hopeful, successful or not?

December 25, 2012

Christmas gift - hasbara banished from the net

Hey look at this.  I said before that Bob from Brockley is a useful one stop shop for hasbara sites.  I won't link to it now because I just went to it and I got this:


Danger: Malware Ahead!
Google Chrome has blocked access to this page on brockley.blogspot.co.uk.
Content from www.thejc.com, a known malware distributor, has been inserted into this web page. Visiting this page now is very likely to infect your computer with malware.
Malware is malicious software that causes things like identity theft, financial loss and permanent file deletion. Learn more
 Advanced

So poor old Bob from Brockley is getting flagged for malware on account of links to The Jewish Chronicle.  I've linked to both Bob from Brockley and The JC before now. I'm not aware of Jews sans frontieres yielding a malware warning.  Maybe it's context specific. Obviously I don't link to The JC as approvingly as Bob from Brockley does.  So maybe it's just the hasbara sites which are problematic.  Still, it's made my Christmas.

Have a good one everyone...