This week's postings at JfJfP.com


October 25, 2015
Sarah Benton

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This week, October 19th to 25th, 2015, Benjamin Netanyahu scandalised most people concerned with Jewish history with his claim that Amin al-Husseini, the Palestinian nationalist Grand Mufti, had put the idea of mass Judeocide into the suggestible Hitler’s head. (Chemi Shalev has traced this notion to an American academic – more on this next week). Ripples from the PM’s assertion of Palestinian responsibility for the Holocaust rocked historians and politicians all week:
Netanyahu blames Palestinians for the Holocaust
Disbelief and disgust meet Netanyahu’s claim of Palestinian incitement of Holocaust
The judgment of most was that his loathing of Palestinians was so powerful it had corrupted his cognitive powers.

Netanyahu was also in trouble about his grasp of truth and reality when he claimed that Israel’s Attorney General, Yehuda Weinstein, had agreed that the use of live fire against Palestinians in Israel was legitimate. The AG says this is not true.
Wider use of lethal rifle fire by police does NOT get legal assent

The Middle East, whichever countries are included in that, is rarely at peace, rarely a place where ‘normal life’ predominates, but with Isil and Israel, Russia and the USA, President Bashar Al-Assad and numerous Syrian opposition groups all engaging in lethal fire the area seems more terrifying than ever.

With the rising number of young Palestinians shot dead by the IDF, some after stabbing an Israeli Jew, some simply on suspicion, the big battalions have entered the drama: John Kerry, King Abdullah of Jordan, the Quartet, UN general secretary Ban Ki-Moon and many others with lower profiles.
Internationals pile in to stop MidEast violence

More than fifty Palestinians had been shot dead since the beginning of October at the time of posting. These are killings by state forces outside the remit of law though this does not seem to be bothering most Israelis.
Cheering on Israeli extra-judicial killings

Few have stepped forward to justify the random stabbings carried out by Palestinians (eight Israeli Jews killed at the time of posting) but there is a defence in law for resisting occupation with violence says Dr. Mahmoud Al-Mubarak, Director-General of the Centre for International Legal Studies:
The right of self-defence belongs to the occupied not the occupier

However, as the ‘knife intifada’ is being prosecuted largely by Arab Israelis [i.e. mostly Bedouin] this defence only works metaphorically. Israeli state control over every aspect of Palestinian life – in Israel, Gaza (via the siege), the West Bank and Golan Heights – all Palestinians are likely to feel ‘occupied’. Indeed Samah Sabawi, al shabaka, argues persuasively that this new threat to Israeli security justifies Israel’s entrenchment of martial law over all Palestinians.
Israel on course for total control over oPt

Unlike the person-on-person aggression of a stabbing, IDF gunfire is necessarily more indiscriminate. Defence for Children International has issued a statement about the number of children being harmed:
Children not spared in Israel’s new war

The IDF commonly uses tear gas, a noxious mix of chemicals, to repel protesters
Israel’s illegal use of chemical weapons against protesters

Not surprisingly this sort of news and comment does not feature in broadcasting outlets. The BBC in particular comes in for attack by two sides, Ameena Salem of PSC, Ynet and JPost, for being biased in favour of and against Israel.
BBC takes sides – but which side?

And we have three JfJfP signatories taking a critical look at British rabbis’ grasp of what is happening in Palestine/Israel and how this should be judged by the Judaic tradition.
Diana Neslen and Sylvia Cohen, in a signatories’ blog express their deep disappointment at what three out of four rabbis had to say about Israel at an IJV public meeting:
Is Israel sacred? Rabbis hold their peace
An even more withering attack comes from signatory Robert Cohen when he analyses a sermon from Chief Rabbi [of a section of British Jews] Ephraim Mirvis. Cohen can’t disagree with his plea for ‘peace and communication’ but asks how can this be achieved if you display no interest in, nor curiosity about, knowledge of Palestinians.
Ask no questions, tell yourself some lies

Still in Britain, we discover from MEMO that Israel – presumably the ministry of foreign affairs – is making a concerted attempt to win over the young conservatives, now renamed Conservative Future. The first aim is to train these young Tories in how to combat the BDS movement:
Israel’s plans for Britain

And more besides.

 

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