Posts by richmillett

Amnesty International now censoring free speech and bloggers.

richmillett — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 13:09:31 +0100

I was hoping to write about the Amnesty event Demolitions & Discrimination against Palestinian Citizens of Israel: The case of Al-Araqib but when I turned up last night I found I was on a banned list of six people because of someone’s comment on this blog.

Underneath my coverage of Amnesty’s event on 23rd May about Israel’s so-called control of the media Roberta Moore commented:

“My two cents:

This conference should have been cancelled.
There are ways to force people to cancel such conferences. Threaten to bring the EDL. It works. For those that do not work, we infiltrate and disrupt. (Like I did with the One Society many cultures).

Our passive protests are NOT working guys! We need to change tactics. I know and I have just the thing to disrupt such conferences and ensure everyone gets out of the room ;)
No one gets hurt.

We must use a new approach.”

In hindsight I should have moderated this comment due to the threatening insinuation. I usually try to moderate comments like this, but some I don’t moderate because someone may have already criticised the commenter. In this case someone did just that by stating immediately:

“I agree that more active protests are desirable. But not from the EDL.“

My hope was for more criticism of the EDL and its approach. But I do not believe that if the EDL was going to disrupt a future Amnesty event they would discuss it openly on my blog.

I think that most bloggers will accept it is quite a task moderating a blog and keeping an eye on every comment.

The last thing I would wish to do is to encourage any kind of disruption to an event.

But if you listen to the audio of my exchange with Tom Fyans, Amnesty’s Head of Campaigns, who was on the door to greet me, he was convinced that Roberta Moore and three of her associates, myself and Jonathan Hoffman were coming to disrupt the meeting.

Well, I have never disrupted an event before. And Roberta Moore and her three associates did not turn up last night.

As I made clear to Fyans I despise the EDL but he was trying to connect me and Jonathan to them on the basis that two or three of their members turned up to protest outside that same Amnesty event on 23rd May.

But how can I stop people turning up to protest?

I hope my being banned had nothing at all to do with my coverage of recent threatening behaviour and anti-Semitic ongoings at Amnesty including:

1. Middle East Monitor contributor Khalid Amayreh referring to Jews as “kike” on my blog Amnesty and Middle East Monitor’s Israel hatefest love-in while that event on 23rd May was presented by Middle East Monitor.

2. A lie that an Israeli soldier used a broken piece of glass to carve a Star of David into a Palestinian teenager’s forearm (the Star of David is too perfect and the plaster in the wrong place to cover the supposed wound). After that event Kristyan Benedict, also of Amnesty, physically threatened me. Amnesty never told me what happened to Benedict. Fyans refused to comment on it last night also.

Benedict is still working at Amnesty, while I cannot cover his ability to use Amnesty’s respected reputation to continuously attack Israel in a host of very unsavoury ways.

Meanwhile, the decision to ban me went straight to the top of Amnesty, it being rubber-stamped by Kate Allen, director of Amnesty International UK.

http://richardmillett.wordpress.com/2011/10/18/amnesty-now-censoring-fre...

Lush founder tells all on LBC.

richmillett — Mon, 08 Aug 2011 08:05:39 +0100

Last Thursday on LBC Radio Lush founder Mark Constantine was asked by Nick Ferrari to explain his company’s stance on Israel (audio clip below).

To demonstrate Lush’s objectivity Constantine mentions a product called Olive Branch, which, he explains:

“is actually grown by the Palestinians, but processed by the Jews.”

Perhaps realising he had made an error he immediately says:

“what I love about all the Jewish community is the great debate. We are for debate.”

Nick Ferrari agrees with him and moves on.

I doubt Mr Constantine would have referred to Afghanis, Pakistanis or Iranians as “the Muslims”. But, Israelis have suddenly morphed into “the Jews”.

The more we find out about Lush the worse the situation is becoming.

http://richardmillett.wordpress.com/2011/08/07/lush-founder-explains-ant...

Lush: "They try to say we're anti-Semites, but we say No No No"

richmillett — Thu, 04 Aug 2011 09:11:46 +0100

Here we go again. Yet another claim that “We aren’t anti-Semitic” by someone attacking Israel in the most crudest terms.

Lush’s website is still promoting a song that claims that there are “more than six million (Palestinian) refugees”, that Palestinians were forced from their homes and history, that Gaza is a prison camp, that the wall that keeps Israelis safe from suicide bombers is an “apartheid wall”, and that blames only Israel for violence and accuses it of racial segregation.

They have just released another statement, part of which reads:

“Standing for the human rights of one does not undermine calls for the human rights of others. Likewise, criticising Israeli government policies is not akin to being anti-Semitic or anti the Israeli state. We do not tolerate racism or any other form of discrimination.“

So Lush might not like it that Iranian gays are hanged for wishing to express their sexuality, or that women are not allowed to drive or work in Saudi Arabia or that Syrian civilians are being massacred en masse, it’s just that singling out the Jewish state is more important.

Lush even has shops in Saudi Arabia, so they are actually contributing to a government with a totally deplorable human rights record!

The statement continues:

“We believe that the occupation exacerbates violence in the region and therefore bringing it to an end is a vital step in the peace process.”

So it’s all about “the occupation”, stupid.

It has nothing at all to do with Hamas’ desire to kill Jews as stated in their Charter (Article 7), or that Hamas believes Israel is an “Islamic waqf” (Article 11), or that Hamas has no plans for any “peaceful solutions and international conferences” (Article 13), or that every Muslim’s duty is one of Jihad to fight the “Jews’ usurpation of Palestine” (Article 15).

The Charter also claims that Jews proclaimed “Mohammad is dead” and that “Israel, Judaism, Jews, challenge Islam and the Muslim people”.

Despite all this Lush claim they are just criticising “the occupation” and Israel’s alleged breaches of international law.

And when the leader of the EDL, Tommy Robinson, said last week that what happened recently in Norway could happen in the UK, he was accused of making threats and condoning violence.

Well, by stating “the occupation exacerbates violence” hasn’t Lush now done a similar thing?

Robinson argues that increased Muslim immigration will bring more violence to our streets from those opposed to it, but Lush are allowed to get away with “understanding” why the Palestinians are so violent against Israelis.

I have tried speaking to Lush for the last week and a half, but they refuse to return calls.

In exhasperation I called Norman Black, the head of marketing at Brent Cross, who said that there was nothing Brent Cross could do about Lush’s campaign. He said it was a Lush issue, not a Brent Cross issue.

He also said that Brent Cross would not allow any sort of peaceful protest against Lush as “this would mean introducing politics into Brent Cross”, nevermind that Lush introduced the politics. This also explains Lush’s “bold” statement, reported in the Jewish Chronicle, that “we would not ask Brent Cross to move people on if they came to protest”.

They know that Brent Cross security will do it for them!

When I spoke to Lush last week I suggested they could be more objective and instead promote the the Parents Circle – Families Forum, an organisation where bereaved Israeli and Palestinian relatives meet and also speak in schools and universities about their tragic experiences due to the conflict. These are people who really have suffered. But Lush refuses to take anything on board, except the anti-Israel propaganda they are constantly fed by War on Want.

Another of Lush’s “ethical campaigns” was to help free Binyam Mohamed from Guantanamo Bay. But what about Gilad Schalit, kidnapped by Hamas nearly five years ago and kept in solitary confinement in Gaza with no access to doctors or his family?

Singling out the Jewish state only for criticism while staying silent about Muslim countries executing gays and slaughtering their own people, as in Syria, is not, according to Lush, anti-Semitic.

Sticking up for Binyam Mohamed, while staying silent about Gilad Schalit is ok. They will get around to Gilad eventually, I’m sure.

When I spoke to Norman Black he said he totally understood our position but that he also admired Lush’s single-mindedness of purpose.

More pertinently, he said he was relieved that the section of society that was outraged by Lush’s campaign was not one that was prone to anything more than peaceful protest.

So, there you have it in a nutshell: British Jews are a benign lot, whereas some members of certain other minority groups might not be so forgiving.

Some organisations get this which is why they single out Israel, while allowing other countries to get away with, quite literally, murder. They might also have done the maths. There are approximately 1.5 billion Muslims in the world and only about 14 million Jews. It could be great for business to be so anti-Israel these days.

Lush says there is no anti-Semitism at play, but that should be left up to people to decide for themselves.

http://richardmillett.wordpress.com/2011/08/03/lush-we-arent-anti-semiti...

Sitting Shiva for Amy.

richmillett — Thu, 28 Jul 2011 15:48:10 +0100

While Amy Winehouse’s family are in deep mourning over her untimely death strangers continue to arrive outside where she used to live in Camden to put down flowers, light a candle, pin up a poem or simply write a short message on one of the nearby street signs.

They are sitting Shiva for her in their own unique way.

As if Camden hasn’t got enough tourist attractions, a new one has just been created. The BBC were still there today, but they were hard-pressed to find anyone to interview who spoke English.

Amy seemed to have passed away last Saturday pretty much from natural causes. The post-mortem itself found no cause of death and further findings are not due to be released for another month.

Part of the tragedy of all this is that Amy was on the up when she died. She had reached rock bottom in Serbia recently when, performing drunk, she was booed off stage and the rest of the tour was cancelled.

But in her last public appearance at The Roundhouse in Camden three days before her death she seemed relaxed and healthy when dancing on stage in the background while her god-daughter Dionne Bromfield performed.

Her father felt confident enough to leave her and was en route to New York to perform himself when he heard the news.

Even her security guard thought she was sleeping when he checked in on her in the morning. At the time she was probably already dead. Only when he checked on her a second time did he realise that all was not good.

So it was not the scene that we had all at first suspected; one of Amy sprawled out on the floor surrounded by half empty bottles of alcohol and pills all over the carpet.

Last Saturday, she did not seem to be someone reckless about her life or someone trying to take it, but someone fighting for it. But it was a time when all that had gone on before had, finally, taken its toll on her fragile body and it just gave up.

She seemed to love life and people, whether making music or just serving tea and chocolate biscuits to the photographers camped outside her front door.

As for her troubles she simply embraced them and turned them into fine songs that were made supreme by her mesmerising voice.

Without her dreadful experiences we wouldn’t have got the songs.

http://richardmillett.wordpress.com/2011/07/28/saying-kaddish-for-amy/

"Anti-Israel" Lush hits Brent Cross.

richmillett — Wed, 20 Jul 2011 19:38:49 +0100

Lush has opened in Brent Cross, north-west London, but its website is viciously anti-Israel.

Lush’s website says, inter alia, that “the catastrophe facing the Palestinian people is one of the defining global justice issues of our time” and “life for most Palestinians living under the illegal Israeli occupation is at least as bad as that endured by black South Africans in the bad old days of apartheid”.

It gets worse:

“Israel’s siege of Gaza has condemned its 1.5 million inhabitants to levels of poverty more commonly associated with sub-Saharan Africa – a humanitarian disaster with no end in sight.”

Lush’s website is promoting the song Freedom For Palestine in its “Our ethical campaigns” section (a link to the song has suddenly reappeared having been originally removed).

For most of those appearing in the video “Freedom for Palestine” means campaigning for a racist boycott of Israel hoping that Israel will eventually disappear to be replaced by a Palestinian state in toto.

Ironically, some of those in the video have regularly appeared outside Ahava in Covent Garden, another natural cosmetics shop (a competitor to Lush you could say). Due to these noisy and, at times, violent protests Ahava has now been forced to close at the end of September.

The song itself talks of, inter alia, “more than six million (Palestinian) refugees”. This is a convenient number that alludes to the six million Jews gassed in the Holocaust. It is nothing less than an attempt to equate the Palestinian situation with the plight of those six million Jews.

The song also speaks of “racial segregation”.

Yes, there is segregation, but if there wasn’t then Palestinian suicide bombers would be getting into Israeli restaurants and onto Israeli buses on a regular basis in order to blow themselves up and kill as many innocent people as possible.

Is that what Lush supports in its promotion of this crude song?

Potential Lush shoppers should at least be made aware of Lush’s politics.

https://richardmillett.wordpress.com/2011/07/20/anti-israel-lush-opens-i...

Ahava: The Siege Goes On.

richmillett — Sat, 16 Jul 2011 18:49:22 +0100

Considering that Ahava is due to close at the end of September, due to the relentless bullying by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, there was no let up in the verbal attacks on Israel as about 15 activists harangued shoppers going in and out of the shop in London’s Covent Garden today.

Even PSC Chief Sarah Colborne made a rare appearance to rally her devoted followers. Maybe next time she will bring along her new best friend Sheikh Raed Salah, who has just been let out of prison on bail after having been arrested for entering Britain despite being on an exclusion list.

As soon as I arrived I, myself, was mindlessly haranged as you can see in these next two clips.

The first clip shows a PSC activist standing in front of me literaly flashing away (warning: flash photography) and in the next clip I am surrounded by three people filming me while the police are called because I was, apparently, the one doing the intimidating! (warning: flash photography also)

But (it gets better) in this next clip PSC activists are complaining to the police that I am filming them without authority. The clip is comedic.

In the next clip we hear the old familiar song “From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be Free” for those who think that this is just about “the settlements”.

Even the literature handed out by the activists, which is printed by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, reads “Don’t buy Ahava products, Israeli or Settlement Goods”.

Proof, if any were needed, that this is a racist boycott of a country, not a political one about “settlements”.

The next clip shows PSC Chief Sarah Colborne singing her little heart out and the final clip shows how loud and intimidating the anti-Israel activists are when outside Ahava.

There were three people making the case for Israel (see photos below) but soon there will, hopefully, be news of where and when Ahava is due to re-open. Maybe all is not yet lost for Ahava.

http://richardmillett.wordpress.com/2011/07/16/the-siege-of-ahava-contin...

An anti-Zionist in the house.

richmillett — Mon, 11 Jul 2011 00:16:51 +0100

Sometimes Jewish people never miss an opportunity to shoot themselves in the foot.

I refuse to go to the London Jewish Film Festival anymore having once paid good money to see Defamation, a film that, basically, portrays Israel as forcing Israeli teenagers to visit Auschwitz and using the visit to brainwash them into thinking that the whole world hates them because they are Jewish.

The same applies to London Jewish Book Week. Among the long list of Israel bashers invited to speak once was The Independent’s Johann Hari who has claimed that “untreated sewage was being pumped from illegal Israeli settlements on to Palestinian land, contaminating their reservoirs”.

Not only had he seen it with his own eyes, but Friends of the Earth had documented it, you understand.

Mick Davis, head of UJIA, addressed the possibility of Israel becoming an apartheid state and Breaking the Silence were given repeated platforms at Limmud to tell of the supposed evils of Israeli soldiers.

Now the London Jewish Cultural Centre has an advert out for their forthcoming Comedy Festival that reads:

“Enjoy a week of Jewish comedians previewing their outrageous, hilarious and irreverent acts at Ivy House for the next stop – this year’s Edinburgh festival.”

One of the comedians, Ivor Dembina, is doing a sketch harmlessly called “Jewish Comedy” on Monday July 18th.

But while Dembina is actually quite funny his other job is his one man show This Is Not A Subject For Comedy, which is about “Israel, Palestine and the Jews” and which he has been performing for some 8 years.

In it he tells, inter alia, about his confrontation with Israeli soldiers and thinks that Jews somewhat downplay the deaths of homosexuals and Communists at Auschwitz because “this is Ourschwitz, not Yourschwitz”.

Dembina has volunteered for the International Solidarity Movement and in an interview last year is quoted as saying that “the specter of anti-Semitism is raised by Zionists” and is “a manipulation of a tragedy to Zionism’s own advantage”.

He is also quoted as saying of Zionists:

“I think they’ve learned to their cost that it just makes people more determined to speak out publicly and that hate campaigns can be counter-productive. I think they’re starting to try and engage in discussion and going for the whole positive PR angle, like this email campaign about sending medical aid to Haiti. Or they’re going to use Iran as an excuse. They keep coming up with these reasons that the Jewish community has to support Israel and one by one they get exposed as nonsense…You’re left with a rump of very angry people who are used to getting their own way. Things have to be handled very carefully in the months and years ahead”. He also, apparently, compares Israel to apartheid South Africa.

Considering the audience at the LJCC is likely to be entirely pro-Israel and “Zionist”, I would expect they would like to know that Dembina considers them “angry people” and that he would like to see the end of Israel as a Jewish state. Then they can decide whether or not they would like to go in to see him perform.

At least with other anti-Zionists like Ken Loach one is usually fully informed of their politics. I would never go to see Looking for Eric, for instance, as much as I would probably enjoy it.

But, I suspect that Dembina won’t be playing his full anti-Zionist set at the LJCC and, therefore, many in the audience who are paying good money to see him won’t know of his politics.

Maybe, it would be helpful if someone stood outside the gates of the LJCC next Monday to hand out a list of Dembina’s quotes as people are going in to see him (any volunteers?).

I’m sure he wouldn’t expect anything less from a bunch of angry Zionists.

http://richardmillett.wordpress.com/2011/07/10/anti-zionist-activist-per...

Green Party Carry On Up The Thames.

richmillett — Tue, 05 Jul 2011 19:45:00 +0100

Last Wednesday Green Party Leader Caroline Lucas MP joined a group of brave Palestine Solidarity Campaign activists in a daring and courageous attempt to break the siege of Gaza.

But, instead of sailing to Gaza they sailed up the River Thames and back again and all they had to sustain themselves on this hazardous two hour trip was beer.

They survived a rare London heatwave but there was some grotesque Guantanamo-style torture in the form of the constant repetition of just four or five songs including Freedom For Palestine, Free Free Palestine, From the River To The Sea Palestine Will Be Free, and End The Siege Of Gaza End The Siege Now.

A few weeks ago Lucas told the Jewish Chronicle:

“It has been brought to my attention that the PSC logo appears to reflect 1917, pre-creation of Israel, borders and as such could be open to interpretation by some as implying non-recognition of Israel’s right to exist. I am following this up with the director of the PSC since I am quite sure that PSC does indeed recognise Israel’s right to exist, and it is unhelpful and damaging if any other impression is given.”

True, the PSC’s proposed Palestine looks exactly like a map of Israel, but the PSC doesn’t really mean that they want the Jewish state to be replaced by a Palestinian one. It’s probably all just some mistake or, similar to the Hamas Charter that calls for the death of Jews, the logo is simply out of date and hasn’t been changed yet.

But our intrepid explorer Caroline took time out from her tough Parliamentary schedule representing her constituents on important green issues (you know, the ones she was voted in to work on) to find out the truth. She boarded the Thames Flotilla along with some Palestine Solidarity Campaign activists.

She can be seen posing for cameras before joining in with a rendition of the anthem Free Free Palestine. Then a chorus of From The River To The Sea Palestine Will Be Free is immediately struck up.

To give her the benefit of the doubt Lucas would probably explain that the song Free Free Palestine is all to do with freeing the poor Palestinians from the settlements and checkpoints. But, how would she explain From The River To The Sea Palestine Will Be Free?

The river is the Jordan and the sea is the Mediterranean. Between those two geographic points sits a tiny country called Israel. The song seems to imply that these PSC activists want only Palestine to exist between those two geographic points.

Maybe the Jewish Chronicle can contact Lucas again and ask her whether her little boat trip along the Thames gave her any clarity on the PSC’s stance towards the existence of Israel.

One song the PSC activists kept repeating Guantanamo-style was Gaza Gaza Come What May, Freedom Boats Are On Their Way.

Except they aren’t.

The real Gaza flotilla looks like it has collapsed. The Captain of the main boat has been arrested and Greece won’t let the flotilla set sail.

Instead, the flotilla has now turned into a flytilla with pro-Palestinian activists due to fly into Ben Gurion airport on Thursday night to make their protest there instead.

And Israel will thank them for their business.

http://richardmillett.wordpress.com/2011/07/05/green-chief-lucas-joins-g...

Jenny Tonge: I Dreamed a Dream.

richmillett — Wed, 22 Jun 2011 18:04:09 +0100

I attended Parliament on Monday to hear a report-back by Parliamentarians on their trip to Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon.

Four points came up for me:

1. Baroness Jenny Tonge said that she has a dream that all the Palestinian refugees will eventually form together and march to Israel en masse and reclaim their land. Fair enough, but then she said that Israel can't kill all of them.

So, her point is that she thinks that Israel could well kill quite a few of them. Is this thought compatible with someone who seems to care so much about Palestinians, or am I missing something?

2. The Parliamentarians had a meeting with a Hamas official. Hamas is a terrorist group banned by the EU and America. Are there any sanctions for meeting with a banned group like this? If not what is the point of them being banned?

3. Gerald Kaufman MP and Jeremy Corbyn MP told us how decrepit the Palestinian refugee camps are and that they have live electrical wiring hanging loosely overhead and sewage running down the middle of the streets. We were told that Palestinians have been regularly killed by electrocution. One has to ask how can the Lebanese government treat its Arab brothers and sisters like this?

4. The police were called by the organisers to evict me from the meeting on the false premise that Gerald Kaufman had asked me to leave because I was intimidating people and filming without authority. First, I stayed quiet for the whole event and second, Kaufman had made no such request. I was filming, but so was everyone else. And, no, the others didn't have authority either. Kaufman, who was chairing, told the policeman to leave in no uncertain terms.

I'm not paranoid, but I do get the impression that sometimes they are all out to get me.

http://richardmillett.wordpress.com/2011/06/21/jenny-tonge-i-have-a-drea...

Benny Morris at LSE on 1948.

richmillett — Thu, 16 Jun 2011 13:33:26 +0100

Israeli revisionist historian Benny Morris gave a talk at the London School of Economics on Tuesday night and was labeled a “racist”, “theologian” and a “social darwinist” by some anti-Zionists in the audience and others protesting his presence outside.

His talk was called Reconsidering the 1948 Arab-Israeli War.

The “theologian” accusation (see video clips) is absurd on two counts.

First, as Morris suggested, if anyone has a problem with his thesis all they need do is look at the footnotes in his book 1948 and then go and check the documents referred to and if they disagree with his interpration of the documents then they can challenge him.

Second, Morris questions the narrative, that many Zionists hold dear, that the Palestinians simply left during the 1948 war on the orders of the surrounding Arab countries with a view to returning once the Jews had been defeated.

He cited incidences of transfer of Palestinians and massacres of Palestinians by Jewish/Israeli militias during the 1948 war, although, he said, whether any of this happened as a matter of “policy” is another matter; no governmental documentation was ever discovered that indicated such orders, and it is likely that such decisions were made independently by generals on the ground during individual battles (incidentally, it was the British that introduced the idea of transfer in the 1937 Peel Commission report)

He said that during the 1948 war 800/900 Palestinians were massacred by Jewish/Israeli militias, while 200/300 Jews were massacred by Arab militias; the disparity was because Jewish/Israeli militias conquered some 400 Palestinian towns and villages, whereas the Arabs conquered only a dozen Jewish settlements.

He said that as wars go 1948 was not, in the scheme of things, as bloody as many try to make it out to be when considering that, for example, 8,000-9,000 Muslim men and boys were killed at Srebrenica in the space of just two days during the Bosnian war.

He also said that the 1948 war created two refugee problems; a Palestinian one and a Jewish one. 700,000 Palestinians were displaced as were some 600,000 to 700,00 Jews who were intimidated and harassed and forced to leave their Arab countries; for example, in 1956 Jews were literally expelled from Egypt.

The difference is that the expelled Jews were aborbed into other countries, while the Palestinians were not. 700, 000 Jews and 150,000 Palestinians remained in Israel in 1949 and even today, after Israel has absorbed 3,000,000 Jewish immigrants, the ratio of Jews to Arabs remains the same in Israel, indicating the high birthrates of Arabs living in Israel.

On the war itself Morris said it was fought in two phases; the civil war from 29th November 1947, when the UN partitioned British Mandate Palestine, until 14th May 1948, when Israel declared independence. The first shots of the civil war were fired by Palestinian guerillas who ambushed a bus and killed seven Jews near Tel Aviv.

The second phase was from 14th May 1948, when Israel declared independence and the surrounding Arab armies invaded, until the ceasefire in 1949. Israel won the war possibly due to their purchase of airplanes after they declared independence. Until that time the Jews had no planes. The Israelis still had far fewer planes than the combined Arab armies, but were able to fly far more missions and had better trained pilots.

Morris also suggested that, in additon to the 1948 war being one about territory, it was regarded by the Arab side as a Holy Jihad. Many Imams declared a pan-Muslim Jihad and called for the mobilisation of Muslims to fight the Jewish state.

This was hotly disputed by some in the audience who asked for proof. Morris said he wasn’t an expert, as it would involve going through every Arab newspaper between 1947 and 1949, but this is his view based on what he has read and it is an issue that only occupies four pages in his book.

But, and this seemed to be the crux of the matter, all of the Arab archives remain closed. If they were opened it would shed light on this issue.

One woman in the audience claimed that, if anything, it was the Zionists who were waging a Holy Jihad due to their nature of wanting a Jewish state. Another woman suggested that proof that the Jews were fighting a holy war was their desire to reclaim Jerusalem.

Morris refuted both claims (see video clips) by answering that most Israeli Jews in 1948 were either atheist or agnostic and that ben Gurion had decided against the mention of “God” in Israel’s Declaration of Independence as he thought it would alienate many Jews; in 1948 Israel was totally dominated by socialist thinking.

As for Jerusalem he said that the Jews simply saw it as an issue of reclaiming their old capital city, as opposed to a religious requirement.

He did say, though, that he believed that Jerusalem should become internationalised, as was originally foreseen by the UN. He is also against the settlements.

Morris was also asked to explain his comments in 2004, when he was quoted in Haaretz as saying that the Palestinians should be fenced in or have a cage built for them. He answered that at the time Palestinian suicide bombers were getting into Israel on a daily basis and his comments were aimed at the suicide bombers; if they couldn’t be stopped from entering Israel, then they should be fenced in or caged. He said that the questioner was taking his comments completely out of context.

On leaving the talk we were met with the same old faces of the small group of anti-Israel activists. They hadn’t been in the talk but had “Morris is a racist” stickers on their foreheads and were giving out leaflets headed “Is Benny Morris a Serious Historian or a Plain Old Racist?”

http://richardmillett.wordpress.com/2011/06/16/benny-morris-fends-of-all...

"Naqba Day", London.

richmillett — Sun, 15 May 2011 23:34:05 +0100

It is testament to the power of propaganda that the Palestinians and their “supporters” still react with incredible rage to an event that never concerned them and that happened 63 years ago.

1948 was the Jewish Spring, when the Jewish people decided that no more would they subject themselves to the whims of societies that were less than welcoming to them.

Pogroms in Russia, the Holocaust and being treated as dhimmi by Arab countries had taken their toll and by 1948 they had fought off British colonial rule in their ancient homeland and through the United Nations re-created a Jewish state in British Mandate Palestine that has been thriving ever since.

63 years later we finally have the Arab Spring, although it is turning into an Arab Slaughter with Christians now being attacked in Egypt and Libya and Syria massacreing their own people, the latter probably with the help of Iran.

But in 1948 the Arabs thought they would massacre not their own people, but the Jews. But it didn’t happen. The Jews won. It was the ultimate insult for these Arab countries that had treated their own Jews as inferior subjects for so long.

In response many Arab countries forcibly ejected their own Jewish populations. Around 900,000 Jews from Arab countries, who were indigenous, lost everything. Racist laws forced them to leave the Arab countries with nothing.

Out of a Jewish population in Arab countries of about 1,000,000 pre-1948 only 5,000 remain now. It was an ethnic cleansing of the highest order.

Yet, 63 years later instead of creating something positive the Palestinian national identity is marked by hatred and disaster. Their self-identity is based on little that is positive, but on what they claim has happened to them. It is a victim mentality of the highest order. “Naqba Day” is a symbol of their victimhood.

And so to London today where about 200 of their most extreme supporters called for Palestinains to get even more violent. They screamed “Victory for the Intifada” and waved the Hezbollah flag with its AK47 gun on it.

They called for jihad against Israel, called Israel a “terrorist state” and called for Israel’s destruction. Goodness knows what they were saying in Arabic.

The Naturei Karta turned up about two and a half hours late to a heroes welcome. Children sat atop the shoulders of the extremist anti-Israel protesters; another generation about to grow up fed with lies and hate.

Meanwhile, the pro-Israel protesters sang “The People of Israel live”, which was slightly more positive than the hate-filled anti-Israel protesters.

http://richardmillett.wordpress.com/2011/05/15/naqba-day-extremists-spew...

Peace, Love and Understanding Amnesty-style

richmillett — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 14:04:14 +0100

Last night I went to Amnesty International for an event called Deliberate Discrimination Deliberate Deprivation: The Denial of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territories chaired by Kristyan Benedict, Amnesty’s Campaign Manager.

There were five speakers who each gave a ten minute cameo talk on how Israel had stolen Palestinian land, had destroyed and stolen Palestinian water resources, had destroyed Palestinian health care, had destroyed the Palestinian education system and had destroyed Palestinian cultural and political life.

Each speaker used slides of photos (mainly old ones), statistics and maps to illustrate their points. We were told about the deaths of Palestinian children, one from an asthma attack at a checkpoint. Dr Asad Khan spoke of how Palestinians are arrested in their hospital beds and taken away by Israeli soldiers who are “accompanied by Israeli doctors”.

I took photos of many of the hundred or so slides, but one photo really disturbed me.

It was taken in 2003 and shows a Palestinian boy with a Magen David cut into his forearm. The caption reads:

“The soldier, checking student’s ability to bear pain, took a piece of glass and broke it and taking Qasem’s arm, cut into it a Star of David (April 30th 2003)”

After the event I wanted to discuss the provenance of this photo with Ala Abu Dheer. He shook my hand and invited me to visit Palestinian towns with him to show me how the Palestinians were living and promised to email me details of the case of the Palestinian boy.

He asked me what I would do about it and I told him I would try to get Israel to investigate. However, I said that if an Israeli had done this surely we would have seen the photo by now. I asked him what he would do about Hamas’ crimes.

Then events took a surreal turn. An Amnesty official went to get Kristyan Benedict who proceeded to tell Mr Abu Dheer that there was no point in talking to me as I was a war crimes denier. On the way out Kristyan proceeded to tell me, inter alia, that he would “smack me in my little bald head”. He suggested that I stick it on my blog.

These events are certainly proving more and more intimidating if you want to put Israel’s side of the equation.

http://richardmillett.wordpress.com/2011/04/13/amnesty-event-israel-sold...

The Egyptian Revolution comes to Holborn.

richmillett — Thu, 03 Feb 2011 20:26:58 +0000

Just before last night’s Stop the War Coalition’s meeting in London in support of the Egyptian Revolution began I turned to Jonathan Hoffman and asked him how long he thought it would it take before they mentioned Israel.

“Immediately”, was his grim response.

And he wasn’t wrong. The first speaker up was Bernard Regan of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign.

Next was Daud Abdullah, not known for his pro-Israel sympathies. Referring to events in Egypt he said there will be casualties but “the greatest casualty will be Israel.”

Lowkey, a rapper best known for his tune Free Palestine, couldn’t help himself either, ending his speech with the cry, “The path to the liberation of Jerusalem runs through Cairo”.

The finale was left to George Galloway who described Mubarak as a “murderer, torturer and dictator” who would “be lucky to avoid being strung up from the street lamps”.

But when Galloway met Saddam Hussein, also a murderer, torturer and dictator, he said to him: “Sir, I salute your courage, your strength and your indefatigability.” (Galloway claims he was addressing the Iraqi public, not Sadaam.)

George roused an already buoyant crowd further by saying that “the Palestinian hand will be immeasurably strengthened by an Arab Egypt.”

Two Egyptian activists were eventually allowed to speak. Their cause wasn’t totally hijacked (no pun intended) and they didn’t mention Israel once. They just wanted to be free.

We also heard from two Stop the War Coalition activists who, while 30,000 Brits. are trying to leave Egypt, actually flew in to Cairo for the weekend especially!

John Reece showed us his photos and informed us of the massive under-reporting in the British media of the people on the streets of Egypt.

Although, Reece said, the Egyptian army reported one million in Cairo every one he knows spoke of two million. He estimates that the figure was somewhere between four and eight million for Egypt as a whole.

Judith Orr said the demonstrators told her that “we are not Muslim, Christian or Jewish. We are all Egyptians!”

But George Galloway told her, and others, what he thought of that:

“We have no need to go round saying this is not a Muslim revolution. Egypt is overwhelmingly a Muslim country and there’s nothing wrong with that. There are Christians and Muslims, Socialists and Communists, Liberals and Centrists, and non-political people, who just want freedom who are involved in this Revolution. But a very significant number of the people of Egypt support the Islamic Movement of Egypt and that Movement has no need to hide itself under a bushel.”

Egyptians should heed George’s words and put all notions of freedom to the back of their minds for now just in case the Muslim Brothers are, indeed, eventually successful.

https://richardmillett.wordpress.com/2011/02/03/the-egyptian-revolution-...

Ghada Karmi calls for “the end of a Jewish state in our region”.

richmillett — Sun, 16 Jan 2011 10:50:02 +0000

Ghada Karmi spoke on "Ending the Naqba" at the Palestinian Return Conference at SOAS yesterday .

After carefully trying to build an argument that the Palestinians had been wronged in 1948 it is now obvious to all that her real gripe is that there is "a Jewish state in our region".

Karmi describes herself as Palestinian although she has lived in the UK for most of her life. She is a lecturer at Exeter University.

She said that the root of the conflict involved:

“dispossession and theft of a whole country. That a thief is allowed to get away with it and is still thieving and stealing is the basis of the conflict. The only way to reverse that is on the basis of rights and justice; that is the right of return of the refugees and the dispossessed and the exiles back to their homeland. If that were to happen we know very well that that would be the end of a Jewish state in our region".

She tried to wriggle out of it claiming that she had nothing against Jews or Judaism and that she had meant “Zionist state”, but that it was Israel’s fault for defining itself as “Jewish” in the first place.

https://richardmillett.wordpress.com/2011/01/16/ghada-karmi-calls-for-th...

Bullying Ahava's staff.

richmillett — Wed, 22 Dec 2010 10:53:39 +0000

The dregs and bullies of BDS (the Boycott Divestment Sanctions movement against Israel) just can’t leave the female staff of Ahava alone.

As you can see in "that" video “MrAlexSeymour”, who is making a name for himself in “bravely” following these dregs around, edits the videos to paint his victim in the worst possible light.

In this instance his objective, in ten seconds of footage, is to make a female member of the Ahava staff look like a nasty Christian fundamentalist, which she isn’t.

To intimidate a woman on her own while she is trying to do her job and then put her on youtube is as low as I have known the BDS movement to go…..so far.

But then these actions are being encouraged by celebrated human rights lawyers like Michael Mansfield QC, who in is his recent speech to the Russell Tribunal encouraged this type of doorstep activism.

Mansfield’s message to anti-Israel activists is do what you want and you will be defended in court later on.

As you can see at the beginning of the video the woman is angry that the activists are now specifically targeting her!

Her apparent remark about Jews killing Jesus (although, no where in the footage do we actually hear her say that) is a remark to a male, Jewish activist who spends large proportions of his sad life hanging around outside the Ahava shop.

I don’t blame her for an off-the-cuff remark when confronted by a group of bullies.

I dare say that if the staff were burly men the activists might not be so keen to do what they do.

While laying on the floor of the shop having glued themselves together, as anti-Israel activists have done on three occasions so far, the male staff could well “accidentally” trip over them.

Alternatively, next time some activists invade Ahava and glue themselves together the staff should just close the shop for the rest of the day and leave the activists to fester on the cold floor for the night.

A BUYcott of Ahava could then be arranged to make up for the loss of business.

No doubt Mansfield would be rubbing his hands in glee seeing new clients coming his way complaining about their human rights having been breached.

http://richardmillett.wordpress.com/2010/12/21/ahavas-female-staff-suffe...

My trip to the Promised Land.

richmillett — Mon, 20 Dec 2010 15:29:35 +0000

On Saturday I escaped the chaos in London caused by the heavy snow and went to Leeds, aka The Promised Land.

Leeds and Leeds United are the subject of a fabulous new book by Sunday Mirror Sports journalist Anthony Clavane (or Clavansky as his eastern European ancestors were known). It’s called The Promised Land: The Reinvention of Leeds United.

It tells of how Eastern European Jews escaped poverty and pogroms for a new life in Leeds and how they helped to transform Leeds from a dour Rugby League town into a vibrant football loving city.

Although, as Clavane makes clear there is still, sadly, so much poverty in certain areas of Leeds, including around the football ground.

Until the sixties Leeds United, and their predecessors Leeds City, had won nothing.

In 1961 Leeds United were on the verge of going bankrupt but interest free loans by three local Jewish businessmen kept the club afloat and with Don Revie as manager they reached their first FA Cup final in 1965 (they lost) and, finally, became League Champions in 1968/69 for the first time.

Under the Don they won the League Cup in 1968, the FA Cup again in 1972 and the League Championship again in 1973/74, as well as the Fairs Cup in 1968 and 1971.

They reached a host of finals and were, incredibly, league runners-up on five occasions under Revie before 1975 became an annus horribilis for the club.

The Don left in 1974 and Cloughie followed for his notorious 44 day stint before Jimmy Armfield took Revie’s team to the 1975 European Cup Final in Paris where they were robbed on the verge of reaching the Promised Land.

First, Clarke was hacked down in the penalty area but no penalty was given and then Lorimer had a good goal disallowed when Bremner was judged to have been offside. He wasn’t.

Bayern Munich went on to score two goals against a now demoralised Leeds.

Leeds supporters still ironically chant “Champions of Europe” at every match to this day.

Violence broke out after the Paris game and Leeds were banned from playing in Europe for four years but went downhill from there and eventually got relegated seven years later.

Leeds fans became regularly involved in violence at matches as well chanting racist abuse. The National Front sold their newspaper outside Elland Road.

Leeds did get back up and won the League Championship for the third time in 1991/92.

And in the Champions League of 2000/2001 they once again stood on the verge of the Promised Land after drawing 0-0 in the first leg of the semi-final with Valencia. However, days before the away leg UEFA inexplicably banned Lee Bowyer. Bowyer had been the powerhouse behind Leeds in Europe and Leeds got duly thrashed in Valencia.

Huge disappointment again led to disaster with Leeds almost going broke again before getting relegated, this time twice!

Having totally outplayed QPR and winning 2-0 they stand second in the Championship as of today.

The Promised Land beckons again.

No doubt something will go wrong between here and the end of the season but Elland Road was a happy place on Saturday and on sunday morning I went to meet Anthony Clavane who was doing a pre-Christmas book signing at Waterstones in Leeds.

He said that this is a book for every footy fan, not just those of Leeds: “If you enjoyed reading Fever Pitch but aren’t an Arsenal fan you would enjoy my book, even if not a Leeds fan.”

I loved the book. It made me realise that when I connected with Leeds as a boy I was connecting with a club with a big Jewish heritage and which wouldn’t have been around today if three local Jewish businessman hadn’t come to the rescue in 1961.

Anthony is confident Leeds will do well under Simon Grayson and he tells in his book of a sign that used to be up at Leeds train station which read “Welcome to Leeds, the Promised Land Delivered.”

He told me that if Leeds get back into the Premiership he will campaign to have the sign reinstated.

I’ll be right behind him.

http://richardmillett.wordpress.com/2010/12/20/my-trip-to-the-promised-l...

EOZ's 2010 Hasby Awards - Vote Now!

richmillett — Mon, 29 Nov 2010 09:33:43 +0000

http://elderofziyon.blogspot.com/2010/11/vote-for-peoples-choice-hasby-a...

Forget X Factor and Strictly. Vote for your favourite Hasbarah moment out of the 16 nominated.

I am proud to say I have been nominated for filming a group of Israeli tourists who unwittingly turned up outside Ahava on 9/11 and outsung the anti-Israel activists with Israeli songs.

Vote early, vote often!

It's good to talk.

richmillett — Thu, 25 Nov 2010 16:27:23 +0000

There is, currently, a concerted campaign by War On Want, a British charity, to force BT to disconnect from its alliance with Bezeq, Israel’s largest telecommunications group.

According to a War On Want email “Thousands of you have already complained to BT over its complicity in Israel’s crimes against the Palestinian people. Thank you.”

The War On Want website is more like a War On Israel one, which is fine if that is how they wish to spend their donor’s money but, as I have documented in the past, one of the biggest donors to War On Want is BBC’s Comic Relief (see the 2009 accounts).

One of War On Want’s favourite stunts is to invade British and American supermarkets, dump all Israeli produce into trolleys and run away when the police arrive.

The WOW website states: “War on Want supports the call from Palestinian civil society to build a global movement of boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel until it complies with international law and meets the following three demands: an end to the Occupation; the right of return for Palestinian refugees; and equal rights for Palestinian citizens of Israel itself.”

I agree with the last requirement but the rest of this statement is simply a call for the total destruction of Israel.

Fortunately, the man at the helm of BT can see right through WOW’s campaign.

The WOW email states that “War on Want have yet to receive a formal response from BT, but supporters who have taken our e-action have received the following response.”

On Behalf Of michael.prescott@bt.com
Sent: 15 November 2010 17:43
To: Emma Stanforth
Subject: Hang up on the Occupation

Dear Emma
Many thanks for your email to Ian Livingston, who has asked me to respond.

BT has indeed admitted Bezeq International to the BT Alliance. We do not see an issue in dealing with what is, in effect, the national telecoms company for Israel.

We are not alone in this. I gather that PalTel, the Palestine Telecommunications Company, also has dealings with Bezeq. Their website carried an announcement on March 21 2010, detailing an arrangement enabling customers who use their prepaid phone cards to have direct access to the fixed line network of Bezeq International.

BT delivers services in 170 countries worldwide. Communication can be vital in helping to resolve conflict and disagreement. In that spirit, while respecting the strong views that you express, we feel unable to pursue the course of action you suggest.

Yours sincerely,
Michael Prescott
Group Director of Communications
BT Group

So although the Palestinians don’t wish to boycott Bezeq War On Want does, which reveals WOW’s true motive.

Unsurprisingly, War on Want doesn’t like seeing their hypocrisy exposed and, for once, their agenda hitting a brick wall.

More sinisterly, in the email to supporters War On Want says “Its time to communicate to BT through a medium they understand”.

War On Want’s motto is “Fighting Global Poverty”.

It should concentrate on that instead of wasting donations on puerile anti-Israel stunts.

If not then Comic Relief and the Charity Commissioners should really be hanging up on War On Want instead.

http://richardmillett.wordpress.com/2010/11/25/its-good-to-talk-so-recon...

Shop till you drop.

richmillett — Wed, 24 Nov 2010 13:27:35 +0000

Please keep buying at Ahava in Covent Garden. The shop has been stormed five times recently, including having its locks glued up. The attacks and protests against Ahava will increase in the build up to Christmas and Chanuka.

Not only do anti-Israel activists want to destroy the business of Ahava but their aim is to intimidate the staff that work in the shop.

These activists have no care for the Palestinian people or for peace. Their sole aim is the destruction of the Jewish state.

Please show the staff and Ahava your support.

The shop is at 39, Monmouth Street, Covent Garden. Nearest tube stations to Monmouth Street are Leicester Square on the Northern Line and Covent Garden on the Piccadilly line.

Alternatively buy online at www.ahava.com

Also, please support the pro-Ahava counter-demonstration against this Saturday’s (27th November) anti-Israel protest outside the same Ahava shop from midday till 2pm.

www.richardmillett.wordpress.com

Ahava shut down again.

richmillett — Mon, 22 Nov 2010 18:17:46 +0000

I wasn’t intending to go to Ahava today. I went down to hear the judgment of the second Russell Tribunal on Palestine at Amnesty International in London.

As Michael Mansfield QC led the other “jury” members in to the room the whole audience rose in silence as if this was some properly constituted legal court instead of the embarrassing sham kangaroo spectacle that it was.

Mr Mansfield read out the judgment and told us that no witnesses of the companies on trial had been present over the two days of the tribunal (although three letters had been received).

Then the “jury” took questions. I asked whether Israel’s security had come into the “jury’s” deliberations at all. Mr Mansfield told me they had but that one must balance the security of Israeli civilians with human rights as a whole and he quoted the opinion of International Court of Justice which said that Israel’s “separation wall” was disproportionate to its needs.

Mr Mansfield, in his summing up, concluded that one tactic that should be pursued was of popular action and that if defendants find themselves in court after entering offices or wherever then they could use the defence of “necessity” and argue that they were doing it for the greater good.

As a footnote he told us there is one such non-violent protest taking place at Ahava “now, today” and that Ahava is complicit in illegality.

So I quickly went down to Ahava and found the entrance cordoned off with police tape and a police car on the pavement outside the shop. There was a heavy police presence coming and going from the door of the shop as police took statements from shoppers who were in the shop when it was stormed by two anti-Israel activists.

The activists had locked themselves down on the floor and after being freed were eventually led away to a police van.

There were already protesters outside Ahava when I arrived but soon many more made their way from the Russell Tribunal press conference at Amnesty and started taunting Ahava and handing out leaflets to passers-by.

Sadly, the Law Society now has its signature all over this kind of behaviour by hosting the Russell Tribunal in the first place.

As I understand it the Law Society asked for its name to be taken off the literature advertising the tribunal but the first line of today’s “judgment”, as read out by Mr Mansfield, reads:

“The RTP London Session took place at the Law Society, 113 Chancery Lane, London WC2A 1PL on 20-21 November 2010.”

This “judgment” will now be taken all around the world and used in unsuspecting legal systems everywhere and judges will see “The Law Society” quoted and presume this tribunal has some sort of legal standing.

The Law Society and the law have now well and truly crossed over into politics.

The great Lord Denning will be spinning in his grave.

For footage of the events go to: http://richardmillett.wordpress.com/2010/11/22/ahava-shut-down-again-two...