UK MP Calls for enquiry into Jewish Lobby

Recently British parliamentarian Jeremy Corbyn called for an independent investigation into the Jewish Lobby. The populist bluster of British politicians is nothing new, middle class anti-Semitism has always had an honourable place at dinner tables and as part of polite conversation here in the UK.

But with a Muslim population of 5% here in Britain it was recently pointed out by George Galloway MP that Ken Livingstone must “connect to his core, including the 750,000 Muslim voters in London. If they don’t vote, he is done for, but if they do, in numbers, he could win handsomely.”  Ken hopes tomorrow to regain the Mayoralty of London. Another recent, nationally reported remark was that Jews wouldn’t vote for him because they are all rich.  In a critical letter to the head of the Labour Party by prominent Jewish Labour supporters it was observed that Ken “used the words Zionist, Jewish and Israeli interchangeably and did so in a pejorative manner that was classically anti-Semitic.” He dismissed his comments as ‘misunderstood.’

Jeremy Corbyn MP is both pro-Arab and anti-Zionist – the two usually go hand in glove. I would never insinuate that British MP’s have formed a Pro-Arab or Pro-Muslim lobby just because they are employed or have been employed by the Islamic theocratic regime (Iran), through its media mouth piece ‘Press TV’; nor would I imply that they have formed a cadre, or shall we say cabal (perhaps the word ‘conspiracy’ is too strong) of British MP’s whose interests are not necessarily Britain’s. Nor am I saying they are guilty of dual loyalty.  I am certainly not questioning their motives in representing a foreign power in the UK. Nor would I suggest that by taking money from a foreign government propaganda organ and being members of parliament they undermine British sovereignty here in the UK.  But it is curious that it is one of their number that calls for an enquiry into a Jewish lobby but never an enquiry into an Arab lobby and certainly never an enquiry into a Muslim lobby, while they themselves, as members of the British parliament or political establishment have all (?) been in the pay of a foreign government global news network.  No-one complains. Conspiracy politics is of course part of the populists’ arsenal of incitement against a specific target that helps to facilitate his or her re-election. It confirms allegiances and is an excellent propaganda point to bring up during campaigning. We should remember that Jeremy Corbyn MP, Julian Brazier MP, George Galloway MP, Ken Livingstone (formerly an MP) and who can forget Dr (Baroness) Tonge MP have all been on the payroll of the Islamist Republic of Iran through their active involvement in Press TV.  Nor should we forget the former Prime Ministers’ sister-in-law and Muslim convert Lauren Booth?  Should we ask how she influenced British Foreign Policy during the ‘Blair Years?’

If there is to be any discussion of parliamentary investigations where the peddling of influence (for cash or ideological conviction) is discussed, here is where Parliament should begin.

As an aside, I am surprised there is no entry in Wikipedia for the Muslim Lobby or the Arab Lobby which without a doubt exists and which has been hugely influential through the immensely wealthy, oil drenched Muslim Uma. It is clearly, enormously competent, beyond anything Jews can achieve.  After all, it has successfully stayed out of the news and in the world of the lobbyist, silence is indicative of effectiveness. So where are we as a community going wrong?  Perhaps we should ask Mr Corbyn?

The Vatican & Sainthood, Daniel Pearl, Ann Frank & the Mormons

One of the neuroses that accompany a peoples’ minority status is obsessive attention to the majority, for Jews it is a compulsion to view everything through what others think of them.  A second issue that creates disproportionate angst is the theological peregrinations of other faiths but more about both these points later.

It is clear that persecution continues to form us, but if Judaism has internalised these learned behaviours and today reacts without questioning our communal response, then we are truly diminished as a faith.  Unlike Islam, Judaism does not believe that our religion is perfected and therefore unalterable.  Unlike both of the missionary religions of Christianity and Islam, Judaism does not believe that we have to convince others of our worth in order to save either ours or their souls.

So the first issue is the soul. Humanity is still largely ignorant but there was a time when life was short, bleak and harsh (as well as uneducated) for the overwhelming majority of people. Death was often random and capricious. It reinforced the feeling that our collective existence was little better than an act of futility. Scholars vied with each other to postulate reasons for existence and they created stratagems that if they did not help to make us more secure, at least helped to allay our fears.   Gods and goddesses, jinn’s and demons, theatre and ritual all helped us to come to terms with the grievous state of our human existence. The soul was and is impossible to prove but it explained our good health and justified illness. Human beings could be defined by the club to which they belonged and because it could not be seen, touched or felt, the soul could be accessed as a means to excluding a not so intangible adversary.

If the soul is more than our feelings, our thoughts and our humanity, more than simply the result of chemical reactions and electrical connections then this metaphysical kernel remains of dubious ancestry.  It is nice to think that God breathes life into us and that that spark returns to him/her on our death but it is also problematic because it implies that Hitler, Stalin and Pol Pot are no more than vehicles for Gods greater plan.  If the immortal essence that is the soul can somehow be altered by our actions then a group is capable of saviour or damnation simply by its choices, or the caprice of others.  If the soul is unalterable then an argument may be made for genocide.  The idea of the soul has been abused by those who seek domination and control.  The soul is a relic of pagan society; a vestigial intellectual device which became the vehicle for the creation of a specious chosen-ness endowing the faithful with pristine qualities and unique advantages.  If we in the modern era are intellectually honest, we will declare this toxic instrument dead; a malignant superstition that should now be consigned to the history of a primitive humanity.

Two issues arise intermittently and we rarely if ever handle them in a way that honours us. As Jews, we are too often oversensitive and defensive.

Daniel Pearl was born to parents who practiced Jewish faith; he was murdered because he was Jewish.  His throat was cut for Al Jazeera. As an aside, humanity has not moved on from its love of gory spectacle.  We remain committed followers of the ultimate exhibitionism of the coliseum while the Islamic world rejoices in this public celebration of bloody barbarism.

Daniel Pearl was baptised in a Mormon ritual nine years after his televised murder. Ann Frank was baptised by the Mormon Church 67 years after her death in Auschwitz.  As individuals who may or may not believe that human beings possess a soul I do not understand why we take issue with either of these post mortem acts of conversion.  As a faith community we should simply dismiss them as without merit.

A joke is told of a Jew who forced to convert to Catholicism, adopts all of the rituals and behaviours of the church but cannot substitute his Friday night meal of roast chicken for fish. So with the impeccable logic of faith, he recites a prayer over the chicken and in his mind, the chicken becomes a fish.   Proxy conversions for the dead are offensive but essentially meaningless gestures of misguided superstition, unless we allow them to become something else.  If our faith competitors physically removed Daniel Pearls’ remains from his grave and re-interned them in a Mormon cemetery that would be an act of colonialism; of post mortem spiritual ethnic cleansing.

Islam is guilty of the colonial rape of our cultural and intellectual traditions and the radical Christian churches through their pronouncements on Jesus Christ’s Palestinian (Muslim) identity are similarly contaminated by this theological and post-historical abomination.  If history is no more than the creative output of the missionary bigot then history truly is at an end, but not as Francis Fukuyama envisioned it. The Protestant churches are increasingly embracing this revisionist neo-colonialism not just in rejecting Jewish identity but in assigning to Jesus an identity he would never have contemplated and this is the fight we should embrace.

The second issue is sainthood. The Catholic Church has declared thousands of its followers to be Saints. These are people who are usually defined by the Vatican (and not just Roman Catholicism) to be of exceptional holiness. Laying claim to possessing superior ethics or greater moral clarity is usually dependent on a Catholic view of human existence. Sainthood is a wonderful tool for engagement and a great way of advertising faith.

In the 21st Century, like post-mortem conversions they are neither a physical threat, seductively beckoning, nor are they of any relevance to the Jewish community. If they provide anything, it is a useful propaganda tool – a comparator. Saints and miracles are instruments of superstition; physical icons, the representative idols of an idolatrous theology.  It is not for us to tell Roman Catholics how to keep the faithful loyal to Rome. In fact, we also have our holy men, our tsadikim and we sometimes revere them as saints (Menachem Mendel Schneerson for example). What we need is a positive argument for staying Jewish, not a confrontational and therefore negative display of anger and fear.

To re-engage with Society on others terms is to accept their theological prejudices. We can only ever lose that fight, irrespective of the value of our arguments. To re-engage with Society on our terms is to force our competitors to justify their behaviour as we showcase our own.  The choice is between perpetual victimhood and asserting our equality in society.

My Israel Holiday

“We caught a bus to Tel Aviv, which doesn’t sound too bad if you say it quickly!” (Thanks to Mrs Blogger for this quote). A warning to the day tripper, the Jerusalem Central Bus Station like its Tel Aviv counterpart was built with the intent of improving the flow of traffic.  In fact as transportation hubs they are both of them, as advertisements for Israel, disasters, the Tel Aviv Station being unmitigated in its experiential quality.  Ascending an Egged bus is an unforgettable act of sheer will; an act of aggression that tries the patience and the humanity of the aggressor and the victim.  It is a pickpockets paradise, (don’t expect any warning, either signposted or over the intercom).

First the theory:  Purchase tickets at the cashier’s office, stand in an orderly queue and wait your turn. The buses always run on time.  Now the reality:  Buses operate in contempt of timetables; people pour in from all sides, from adjacent bus stops, they even enter the station from the road and then push to the front as the buses arrive. They endanger lives and they are contemptuous of security (which by the way appears to be breathtakingly lax). Only concerted, relentless and unscrupulous determination rewards the traveller with a place for which they have already paid.  I witnessed two families (one, a Finnish family with three young children) bewildered as the maelstrom of human flesh engulfed them. It was probably terrifying for the children lost in the crush of legs and abdomens but not moving forward.  A little girl was screaming and people were shouting for the rabble to let her through.

The solutions are simple. The question is why the will is absent?  The two bus stations represent a public relations canker. The indifference from those running the stations is a blot on Israeli society. For this alone, the excuse that pushing is Middle Eastern is at least racist and at best a spurious excuse for slovenly inaction by a third rate transportation monopoly provider and it places Israel squarely in the developing world at its least attractive. It is a reminder of the pockets of third world maladministration and human contempt that intermittently pierces ones consciousness.  It is offensive and it is wholly unnecessary.

Travelling should be a positive experience that reinforces the voyagers’ recollections of a memorable holiday.  But most Israelis if they can afford to drive will not approach the bus station, and certainly not if any travel is involved.

Information booths are a farce. Companies do not offer help in journey planning unless the entire journey is provided by their company alone.  Ticket sellers sometimes know what they are doing.  They randomly provide travel information (I guess it depends on how they feel or who you are). Bus drivers sell tickets which of course delays travel.  Basic maths knowledge appears to elude them, which creates further delays as they multiply 6 by 4 on their phones calculator app.  Pickpockets operate with impunity.  It is not the problem of the Bus companies after all.

In Britain, A former Deputy Prime Minister was known as “Two Jags” because in spite of his solid (Left wing) union background he liked being driven around in one of the two official Jaguars with which he was provided, even if the journey was barely worth the flick of the ignition key. Israel’s parliamentarians have embraced the greed of their parliamentary perks too, and they have left the people to their own devices for far too long. It is time they too pushed their way onto an Egged bus.

I have been shocked, angered and disgusted by the total indifference shown by the State of Israel for those of us who are unfortunate enough to have to take the buses.  The question that must be asked is whether this is part of the contagion of elitism that has for far too long been endemic to all parts of Israel’s political classes (and that includes the radicals).

So in summary, pickpockets, a panicked public and an apathetic driving fraternity create an environment of chaos.  This alone is reason enough to advise tourists to stay clear of the two cities if, they have to pass through the two central bus stations.

Qatar urges “Judaization” probe

The arrogance of our enemies should be our greatest concern.  In a world of hyper-individuality the group becomes the victim of identity fascists.  They arrogate the right to pass judgement on others without possessing knowledge and with even less concern for the truth; they are able to do this simply because it fits neatly into established prejudices or prior political conduct.  And yet we appear impotent to respond to a narrative that is religiously offensive and historically colonialist.

The Nazis and their collaborators adopted the term “Judaization” to describe the accession of individual Jews to positions of power within the German State and its satellite dominions.  Where-ever fascism metastasized the term “Judaization” was used to sow fear amongst the ignorant and hatred amongst the prejudiced.  Where-ever Jews gained equality and therefore empowerment there were always people who felt threatened. Acceptance negated domination, if Jews successfully escaped persecution a new cause would need to be found and a new narrative created to justify it.

For sixteen hundred years Jews were ethnically cleansed by Christianity because the Church was incapable of accepting our equality or, like people of black skin, our humanity. For one thousand three hundred years Islam ridiculed us, it despised our weakness and in stages it ethnically cleansed us from our religious heartland.

But in post Renaissance Europe and in the Islamic world ‘Reason’ became a threat to the hold of both Church and Mosque on the peasantry and therefore the reins of power inevitably slipped from the grasp of the aristocracy controlling those religious institutions. If emancipation meant empowerment for Jews then it would inevitably follow that the lower classes would also succeed in freeing themselves of their shackles.  Marx was right to refer to religion as an opiate but I have no argument with opiates – used intelligently they can be a force for good.  A life of moderation in everything may not deliver great works of art or Nobel Prizes but contrary to Marxism's extremist world-view, it is the path to peace.

So when The Left in its mendacity adopts the terminology of Islamic colonialism to justify (once more) ethnically cleansing “The Jews” from Judea and Samaria or “The Jews” from The HaGadah HaMaaravit (The West Bank – the Jordanian colonialist term for its previously conquered territory); or when The Left adopts the revanchist ideology of Islamic colonialism / Nazi racism to once again justify ethnically cleansing the Jews from any part of Palestine, or even, from Jerusalem; then please, do not be surprised when the Anti-Left Wing narrative starts describing the anti-Israel Left as the Neo-Nazi Left.

When one adopts the tactics and terminology of Evil, one cannot complain when one receives the moniker of evil personified.

The Titanic and The Shoah

The debate around Israel’s right to self-defence is focused on delegitimization of those most human of entitlements; the right to protect ones-self and ones family; and the right to self –determination. In the UK there is a never-ending stream of self-righteous liberals and intellectuals lecturing “those Jews” on just how tired “everyone” is of hearing about the Holocaust.

The ‘Holocaust’ is from the Greek and is usually translated as ‘Purifying Fire’, as in a sacrifice.  The Hebrew word ‘Shoah’ is more appropriate, it means calamity.

“You, of all people, should know better” is one racist euphemism meant to shame us. We all too often hear it uniquely expressed towards “those Jews again” as if only in suffering can a Jew approach equality with his or her betters.  Another expression we too often hear is: “You (Jews) should be more like us (Christians/Muslims).” i.e. you should learn to “turn the other cheek” It would be churlish, perhaps even salacious to point out that the two missionary faiths have been responsible for a quarter of a billion martyrs to prejudice in less than the last two thousand years.  Jews, for most of that period of history, turned the other cheek.  It was only when they did not, that they survived.

Shortly before midnight on April 14, 1912, the Titanic struck an iceberg off the coast of Newfoundland. It sunk early on the morning of the 15th of April 1912.  1,517 men, women and children died (almost 90% of the deaths were men).   In 1933 Adolf Hitler came to power in Germany and over the next 12 years he, the Nazi party and Fascism’s collaborators across Europe were responsible for the waging of a war that claimed fifty million victims.   It is estimated that Nazi death squads harvested between 11 and 17 million souls in their quest for racial purity. They murdered Jews, Gypsies, Russian POW’s, Russian Civilians; Poles, Serbs, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Homosexuals, those of mental or physical disability, and of course, in typical non-democratic fashion, their political or religious opponents.

There are similarities between the Titanic and the Shoah. The International Ice Patrol was formed as a direct consequence of the sinking of the Titanic and almost 100 years later it continues to monitor the stretch of ocean around Newfoundland, warning shipping of the dangers that exist.  World War 2 caused an exasperated USA to look for a means to once and for all harness mankind’s energies against war. The United Nations Organisation was supposed to facilitate the realisation of this noble ideal and it has failed spectacularly to create even a dent in humanities blood lust. One hundred million people have died in war in the period following the creation of the UN.  But many Jews were instrumental in the creation of The Convention for Human Rights overseen by the UNO.  This is just one of the exquisite ironies of the UN tragedy. Conceived in pain and suffering, created as a political body, it was born in original sin. Usurped by racist nations exploiting what is essentially the political nature of international relationships it precludes any serious discussion or action ever being taken against ethnic cleansing or genocide.

Britain is obsessed by the Titanic.  This cruise liner was a magnificent engineering feat of construction. And an ice-berg slid through its hull like a knife through warm butter.   And here in Britain we continue to worship the marvel of its design. In the idolisation of its beauty we are blinded to its fatal defect.

On the 11th of March 2011 two Arabs, both adult Muslims, took knives and beheaded a three month old baby; they killed two other children and their parents.  After the two murderers were captured they proudly re-enacted their heinous crime. It was called by the press a nationalist crime.  If I was a religious man I would call it a blood sacrifice, an act of fealty and re dedication on the devils altar. No sane ethical human being can today, imagine murdering a child. That the perpetrators were praised for their evil by a significant number of Arabs of all classes is truly frightening.

On the 19th of March 2012 a French Citizen, an Arab man, a Muslim, grabbed a struggling 8 year old girl by her hair and murdered her because she was Jewish. He also murdered a father and his two sons’ aged 3 years and 6.  He was proud of his act of infanticide; his brother, when caught, expressed familial pride in his siblings’ carnival of killing.

If it was the Arab world only that celebrated these separate displays of evil we could fear this Arab toxicity as aberrant. But when Pakistani Muslims murdered some 164 people in Mumbai on the 26th -29th November 2008 their handlers (purported to be members of Pakistan’s Intelligence community – the ISI) were recorded by Indian Intelligence, in conversation with the killers during the massacre, reminding them that every Jew killed was worth two non-Jews.

Is it this universal corruption that makes the Koran itself a threat not only to humanity but to the survival of the human species? The Jewish people are a sickness to a sick mind; they are the canary in the mine of human civilisation.

When an eight year old was murdered by an Arab racist, France mourned with the Jewish community.  When the Fogel baby was beheaded, the national British press ignored it, until that is, a Christian novelist and Member of Parliament asked in Parliament why this heinous act was dismissed by the British Press as not newsworthy. On the 12th of March 2012 it was reported throughout the day, in the national news programmes that a Titanic letter was returning to Northern Ireland. A benefactor had paid £21, 692 for a two page letter that was written by a surgeon on the Titanic, who had gone down with the ship. It will now be displayed in Belfast; a national treasure ‘returning’ to its home.

It is not our ability to internalise tragedy that is at fault. It is not the three million Muslims living in the UK that inform on our lack of sensitivity to events around the globe while we absolve our consciences with Live Aid Concerts and protest selectively against Jewish empowerment in a small and battered Jewish state. It is the choices we as a society choose to make that create our society.  UK Plc (Ltd) has always been in the business of making money and projecting power.  It supersedes every other consideration.  Here, in the UK we despise those who try to remind us of our inaction and therefore our complicity in the annihilation of European Jewry (and not just Jews who died as a result of our deliberate inaction in the face of genocide). We use the Shoah as a bludgeon and employ it against the Jewish State. Here in the UK we worship a maritime catastrophe as we celebrate the vehicle of its delivery.

 The difference in emphasis is as deliberate as it is vile in its contemplation.

JFJFP and the Failure of Hasbara

The local mayor visited our synagogue for a civic service. It was a measure of the mutual respect enjoyed by the political administration and the Jewish community that this event took place. But it appears that we were at best misled and at worst, conned by the mayor.

Returning from my synagogue the following week I was interested to see an exhibition / series of stalls near to the local mall.  There were stalls by Fair Trade, the Conservative party and a number of youth organisations. And then I heard an announcement for Palestine. Their stall was occupied by ‘jfjfp’ an organisation that purports to be a group of concerned people of Jewish religious faith supporting ‘justice for the Palestinians’. I found the presence of this organisation at a locally funded public event at best disingenuous. I felt it represented an act of deliberate racist incitement by our mayor.

I wrote to the Local Government Minister to enquire of the legality of this abuse of taxpayer’s funds and the Mayors’ representation at an event that was clearly socially divisive and politically biased.

Reading jfjfp’s manifesto leaflet I could argue that jfjfp are intellectually dishonest and religiously reprehensible for some of the key points they make even when they preface their propaganda by three words at the beginning, “we believe that”. This does not however excuse the involvement of my local council or its mayor in its participation in this event alongside of jfjfp. I asked the mayor whether he had invited someone from ‘the other side’ to provide balance to jfjfp. He refused to answer, even when I repeated the question.

In May 1948, Jerusalem, both east and west, had enjoyed a Jewish majority since approximately 1828; that is, for 120 years prior to Israel’s War of Independence.  A British funded, British armed and British officered military force captured the Old City of Jerusalem and the remainder of Eastern Jerusalem.  It proceeded, one must assume with British Foreign Office agreement, to ethnically cleanse the city of its Jewish residents and then to obliterate any physical evidence of a Jewish presence within the areas controlled by the Arab Legion.  This followed on from a massacre some two weeks earlier, just outside of Jerusalem, at Kfar Etzion on May 13, 1948 again, by British funded forces.  Over 100 Palestinian Jews and a Palestinian Muslim family living in peace and co-existence amongst their Palestinian Jewish brothers and sisters were murdered by a unit of the British officered Arab League.

In the case of a massacre carried out by British forces Britain suffered only momentary diplomatic embarrassment but it was also a message of what Britain was offering its Arab friends in support against Jewish self-determination. Britain was in fact, one of only two nations at the UNO that recognised Jordan’s subsequent expropriation (annexation) of the captured lands.

Until Arab defeat in the 1967 Six Day War, Arab archaeological and cultural vandalism continued without interference; the excision of any evidence of a Jewish presence in the Old City and East Jerusalem was ignored by the UN, by the clergy here in Britain and of course by our cultural and political elite here in the United Kingdom of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. All this was in open contempt of Article VIII of the 1949 Armistice Agreement which demanded Israeli Jewish access to the Western Wall).

It was only after 1967 when Israel recaptured and began to restore the Jewish presence in the area that that silence miraculously evaporated.

I have been a supporter of Palestinian rights since before the practical Palestinian renunciation of the three no’s of Khartoum (no peace with Israel, no negotiations with Israel and no recognition of Israel).  Self determination and independence for all communities including Coptic Christians, Kurds and many other fragmented and persecuted minorities present within the Arab world will never be achieved by either blaming it all on the Jews or the Zionists; or by stating that Israel is to blame for the violence and corruption, the greed and the hatred of the Arab world. Nor will peace be achieved when organisations such as jfjfp declare that Israel is responsible for the “corruption of Judaism’s humanitarian values” (as one of the jfjfp leaflets given out by the mayors apparent proxies declared).

To be brutally frank, I do not blame the Christian world for the wars in which countries that proclaim their Christianity, participated over the last 120 years, nor do I blame Christianity for some 250 million violent deaths during that period of history. Nor do I blame Islam for this. But if I defer to jfjfp philosophy I should. The Muslim world, with its racist missionary goals and its exposition (by its extremists) of ethnic cleansing and genocide could as easily be assigned the blame for all the suffering that believers of the Islam faith have caused during this same 120 year period of time.  I do not blame the extreme left or Islamists for the violence that is too often perpetrated against people like me with whom, they disagree. Similarly, it would be breathtakingly offensive of anyone to state that Britain is globally responsible for the corruption of humanitarian values because of people with views such as those mentioned in this paragraph.

But an organisation that states publically its opposition to any nation based on religion is not only offensive, it is also racist. And I would be happy to argue the polemics of this definition if my local council or any other group would like to be involved in this dispute.

That I find jfjfp to be offensive and intellectually superficial in its arguments does not preclude its presence in my area, it does however when its presence is formally officiated at by the local mayor, who was identified as such and wearing his chains of office.

The mayor has committed an unforgivable abuse of his position as representative of all of our citizens and tax payers, not just its political and religious racists to which the mayor’s office has clearly given its support.

Please therefore investigate both the circumstances of jfjfp’s presence in my area under the auspices of the local mayor and any possible abuse by the mayor’s office.

Please also inform me whether any other ethnic or religious groups have been offered the same access provided to jfjfp and if not, why not?

As a final point of order, in 2011 on the 10th anniversary of the Islamic attack on 911 that resulted in some 3,000 innocent human beings being murdered, all of our local council’s political parties were represented in a celebration that took place on that same day. The date was in no way a coincidence.  The inauguration of an enormous mosque in the centre of town opposite City Hall was a huge police operation as the area became a virtual police state in order to ensure the day went without incident. Uniformed and plain clothes police were at every entrance into town and their visual presence throughout the city was not meant to reassure anyone who lived here.  The anticipated right wing protest did not occur as anyone looking remotely ‘suspicious’ was denied entry to the town! The only thugs that made their presence felt were the trouble makers bussed in from outside London some of whom were allegedly seen to have concealed nail studded weapons in their mosque clothing.  Fortunately this potentially lethal show of triumphalism came to nothing. Nevertheless it is morally wrong that our counsellors turned a blind eye. The police also saw and did nothing to intervene.

When the state by its inaction encourages a violent demonstration of identification we may justify it by labelling our supposed protectors as cowards, but when cowardice has become public policy then governance, even when it is local governance, becomes state sanctioned prejudice.

The question must therefore be asked, has prejudice here become public policy?

Shlomo Benizri and Political Particularism

Former Shas minister Shlomo Benizri is a convicted felon who was found guilty of breach of trust, accepting bribes and obstruction of justice. After release from prison on the 1st of March 2012 he gave an interview with an ultra-orthodox radio station in which he pronounced the mental anguish he suffered for being 'wrongfully imprisoned' greater than that which Gilad Shalit suffered. Benizri was jailed for four years and served two.  Gilad was incarcerated in a windowless cell for five years and four months. He was held by HAMAS, the racist, misogynistic and genocidal anti-Semitic Arab organisation that governs Gaza.  He was, in effect, living under a sentence of death for all of his confinement. One readers’ judgment on Benizri’s post release delusional rant says it all; he called it a 'Classic Narcissistic Personality Disorder'.

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4197436,00.html

But the psycho-babble acts as a deterrent to addressing the real threat in the man because we dismiss his demagoguery as the words of a buffoon, which he is not.  Benizri is an obscenity; a delusional, self-obsessed narcissist.  His words should make him ineligible from holding any public office not because he does not have the right to express how he feels but because he is divisive and confrontational and politics should be about healing, reconciliation and inclusion. Clearly, this is not a space in which Mr. Benizri feels comfortable. A rabble rouser belongs in the gutter, not in the halls of power.

The issue that is implicit from the interview he gave is the desperate state of Israeli politics. For a nation of thinkers, philosophers, scientists and workers too – the parlous condition of Israel’s political and moral leadership is one of incompetence and narrow sectarian superficiality.  We can look for policy but instead we receive cant.  How can a state that has survived so many trials in its short history have such a pathetic gaggle of leaders?  Shlomo Benizri represents unreason and bigotry, superstition and intolerance. That we continue to hear from him fills me with despair and horror.  He fails to acknowledge the bankruptcy of his own constituency where there is so much poverty and frustration.  Israel needs to unite its citizens but instead, (and the militantly secular that dwell amongst us are equally guilty of this crime of tribal separation) on his first day out of prison he reaches out to the extremists in anger rather than in calling for a new dialogue towards reconciliation.

The more I consider his words, the greater my contempt for him grows.

In order to understand where the ultra-orthodox fit into the melange of meaningless political poseurs that inhabit the Israel political landscape one must begin with the understanding that in a nation built on competing aspirations, recognition means acceptance. The rights and wrongs of competing narratives make a refusal to recognise the humanity of an adversary easier than any discussion on a revisionist history.

For instance, the Arab ‘Magic Show’ defines all non-Jewish Arab immigrants as Palestinian by birth, perpetually classed as ‘refugees’ and this is supported through UN complicity and Western funding. It provides sanction to Arab particularism which has in turn blossomed into an entire field of Political and Ethical particularism encouraged by the Left. Perhaps this is because the Left is itself morally ambiguous and therefore, promiscuous in choosing its friends and allies.

How does this connect to Shlomo Benizri? Let me explain.

Jews that fled Arab persecution did not have the luxury of UN ‘protection,’ formalised refugee status endowed on them.  Although their numbers exceeded those of the Arabs that fled before their brother and sister ‘freedom fighters,’ from Israel in 1948, their persecution was the normal state of Arab behaviour towards any minority living in their midst and it was thus, never of any humanitarian concern.

The Western Jewish Leadership of the nascent State of Israel already had a tradition of secular enchantment with art and literature, revolutionary politics and science.  They saw their Arab Jewish cousins as uncouth and uncivilised.  They viewed them as ‘less than’ the Arabs that for over a thousand years had kept them politically and socially disenfranchised.  They were ‘weak’; they had not fought their oppressors as Secular Western Jews had done. It is an all too common failure of all revolutionary winners that they are blind to their own arrogance and to the pain they inflict for the greater good.

But within a generation of Jewish independence, in Israel, the intermarriage rate amongst ‘Western’ and ‘Eastern’ (Arab) Jews was over 20% and increasing at a percentage point every year.  Arab Jewish culture flourished in spite of the ignorance of the ruling administration. Arab Jews became successful politicians, generals and business leaders.  The professions were never deliberately closed to them they just had further to travel to get there.

Today, most Secular Israeli Jews in their teenage years or twenties would laugh at you if you suggested a marriage based on ethnically particularistic lines.

There does remain though, a justifiable chip on the shoulder of many Arab Jews. A large number turned to the Western Orthodox elite for religious guidance and the ultra-orthodox tradition for their pride. The Western ultra-orthodox elite were successful because they aggressively sought political power for its concomitant economic benefit, not the least of which was patronage.  Coming from a conservative background that emphasised tradition, Western Ultra-orthodoxy offered comfort in what was for the first two generations, an alien and unwelcoming environment.

Israel would best be served by lancing the boil of ethnic anger.  Initiate a ‘Truth and Reconciliation Commission’ starting with examining internal Jewish conflicts that continue to simmer to this day.  Israel should strengthen anti-discrimination legislation by taking funding away from any group that is found guilty of deliberate prejudice and applying those funds to combating this prejudice.  An easy early win would in this case be Western ultra-orthodox schools that discriminate both against Arab Jews and Ethiopian Jews.

Arab Muslims and honorary ‘Arab’ Christians have a different issue.  Any attempt at truth and reconciliation would first require revisiting their history and a renunciation of their religious hegemonic pretensions. As members of the two missionary faiths, dominance is more than a national aspiration; it is a theological imperative, even for those that profess a secular affiliation.  It is unlikely to happen any time soon.

Let us start with lancing that Benizri boil then perhaps the confrontational character of Israeli politics may finally dissipate and Israel’s boundless energies will be channeled into more productive areas of interest.