The Frivolous Idiocies Of Identity Politics & "Apartheid Israel" Boycotts

Comment Trail

I think I'm suffering from a blogger's block. Even though I have a list of topics I want to blog about, I can't seem to collect enough patience and concentration to do so. I want to write about my impressions from my Israel visit, but as I said, the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak.

So instead, I'll just post comments I left here and there about recent stories, alas, the usual fare:

Irish activist Tommy Donnellan of IFPAL (Irish Friends of Palestine Against Lisbon) gets arrested because of the Jews:

This is a video of the incident on youtube ("Jewish people here are abusing me")

Here is my comment (which has been three-times deleted from the blog. Now my IP is banned there. Apparently, disagreement with the opinions of Indymedia is strictly forbidden):

“Having watched the video, I am certain that Tommy was abused and yelled at in what constituted, or should have, a breach of the peace,”

The Court of Appeal defined a breach of the peace as being ‘an act done or threatened to be done which either actually harms a person, or in his presence, his property, or is likely to cause such harm being done”

In what way was “‘Tommy” threatened or about to be threatened by the 75 year old Jewish professor who took voluble umbrage with the faulty merchandise “Tommy” was trying to sell?

“Tommy” on the other hand, would not let well enough alone. Here was his big chance to be a human rights hero, facing up to the fascist garda, so he kept filming him, yelling at him, and keeping him from filing his report. It was "Tommy", who fell foul of the Breach of peace rule and the garda had little choice but to arrest him. In fact, it seems to me, and I watched this video a few times, that "Tommy" was banking on provoking the policeman. If anyone at all was abused in this video it is clearly the policeman, who was prevented from carrying out his on the spot investigation.

______________

“I confess I do not know what Mr Man's point is above.”

Let me help you. "Tommy”, upon being confronted for his slanderous placard by the Jewish man, pretended that the man’s Jewishness was not important to him. In other words, “Tommy” believes he is only expressing legitimate criticism of Israeli policies when he says that Israeli soldiers murder Palestinian babies, and not his suppressed antisemitism. However, since the Jewish man disagreed with this view, “Tommy” was infuriated and his facade crumpled in a minute under the weight of his barely contained animosity. “Tommy” then proceeded to tell the Jew that he is a bad Jew, because the Jew does not agree with “Tommy”’s view of Israelis as child-killers. From then, as Mr. Man’s comment shows, “Tommy” had nowhere to go by downwards. For me, this clinches the matter:

“You are accepting at face value Jewish people that are abusing me.”

“Tommy” is not much of a human rights activist since no self-respecting human rights activist would ever make such a statement, which stands in full contradiction to how "Human rights” are fundamentally defined (In the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights”). Perhaps someone else here can provide another explanation as to what “Tommy” actually meant?

Perhaps “Tommy” who comes through like a sanctimonious, undereducated, hotheaded bully, does not know this simple and self-evident truth. Perhaps he has been misled to believe that the dictionary defines “Human rights” as exclusively “Palestinian and Irish rights”. Palestinian right to kill, try to kill, teach to kill, preach to kill, Israelis with impunity, and Irish rights to slander Jews with impunity.

Of course I do not expect this comment to survive your Stalinist censorship.

***

The Frivolous Idiocies Of Identity Politics & "Apartheid Israel" Boycotts

My comments:

1. "The actions of Hamas to drop the Holocaust from its textbooks"

Reading this, again, delicate formulation, one might be excused for thinking that Hamas textbooks included coverage of this event but now Hamas decided to "drop" it from its textbooks.

The art of lying pleasantly.

Here is the real deal:

"Gaza's ruling Islamist movement Hamas has resisted suggestions that Palestinian children should be taught about the Holocaust in UN-run schools.

The head of its education committee in Gaza, Abdul Rahman el-Jamal, told the BBC that the Holocaust was a "big lie".

[..]

The UN, which runs most Gazan schools, recently asked local groups whether the Holocaust should be taught. "

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8230483.stm

Reading Mikeal's renditions of information, events and records, is like walking in a minefield; one needs to be extra careful to walk around entire blocks of information and historically-verifiable records in order to insist on believing anything he says.

2. "In my books, they have forfeited all claims to the right of self determination. They are thugs who wouldn't have a clue what to do with it."

I do not disagree with your pessimistic take on Palestinian rejectionism. However, I do not see how much longer will Israel be able to sustain its occupation and restraining of this people, in the current manner. It is better that Israel withdraws to a more defensible borderline. And this can only happen if Jewish settlements enclaved deep inside Palestinian land are removed and moved into areas within Israel. As long as there is presence there, there will be growth. And this growth worries me because it does not seem to have a future commensurate with the wishes of most Israelis. What the Palestinians then do with the Judenrein WB is completely up to them. Separation is an existential necessity for Israel. The ultra religious settlers who are there mostly because of their faith will simply have to accept that Israel's law will bind them, and that Israel's needs cannot be achieved in the Jewish heartland but somewhere nearby.

I think Israel should build two great, well designed cities, one in the Negev and one in the Galilee, to accommodate the displaced settlers, and anyone else who might want to live there.

***

In Silwan


My comment:

"We're making a film on the blatant institutional discrimination against the residents of this Palestinian east-Jerusalem neighbourhood; authorities favour the Jewish settlers who are not hiding their desire to Judaise the neighbourhood, to void it of its Palestinian character."

I doubt the film makers have much concern for the history of this place and what "institutional discrimination against the residents of this.. neighbourhood" really achieved:

"In 1882, a group of Jews arrived from Yemen, fleeing the persecution [11] there. Initially, they lived in tents. Later, when the rainy season began, they moved into the ancient burial caves on the east side of the valley.[12] In 1884, the Yemenites moved into new stone houses on the eastern slope of the Kidron, north of the Arab village, built for them by a charity called Ezrat Niddahim. This settlement was called Kfar Hashiloach or the Yemenite Village. Construction costs were kept low by using the Shiloach as a water source instead of digging cisterns. An 1891 photo shows the homes on an otherwise vacant stretch of hillside.[13] An early 20th century travel guide writes: In the “village of Silwan , east of Kidron … some of the fellah dwellings [are] old sepulchers hewn in the rocks. During late years a great extension of the village southward has sprung up, owing to the settlement here of a colony of poor Jews from Yemen, etc. many of whom have built homes on the steep hillside just above and east of Bir Eyyub,”[14]

The Yemenite Jews left Silwan during the 1936–1939 Arab revolt in Palestine and non-Jewish Arabs moved into the vacated buildings. After the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, Silwan was annexed by the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan.[15] It remained under the Jordanian rule until 1967, when Israel captured the Old City. Until then, the village had delegates in the Jerusalem City Council." (wiki)