Grooming in the Green: Just imagine it

A gang of nine Jewish males from Golders Green – eight English-born and one Israeli – has been convicted of grooming underage non-Jewish girls for sex, the vulnerable teenagers having been lavished with salt beef sandwiches (on rye) and latkes, and plied with Palwin No. 10, at kosher restaurants across North-West London.

One can just imagine the response of the BBC and Guardian etc ”PC Brigade”, springing to the defence of Anglo-Jewry, protesting that the crimes had nothing whatsoever to do with race or religion . . .

Yeh, right!! We’d have a modern-day blood libel on our hands! And we wouldn’t even get to Nick Griffin. We wouldn’t need to, with . . .

• A now happily (for us) retired former MP and Mayor of London accessing his impressive stash of Zionist/Jewish/Israeli – they are, after all, interchangeable – stereotypes to “make sense” of the case;
• A weekend magazine feature on the ultra-Orthodox Jewish male’s attitude towards The Shiksa, with, among the interviewees, perhaps, a Haaretz ‘journalist’ who once saw some charedim kerb crawling in the Diamond Exchange district (as he was exiting a strip club);
• A Saddam-saluting Jock, foaming at the mouth, claiming the guilty verdicts should surprise no one, seeing as Diaspora Jewish males merely follow the example set for them by the IDF, with their war crimes against the poor, peace-loving Palestinians;
• A half-page Guardian ad taken out by an assortment of self-loathing writers, actors and other luvvies (vying, perhaps, to become the UK’s new Number One Self-Hating Jew), pledging to have circumcision reversals (foreskin regrafts) to distance themselves from a religion that “allows” such crimes; and
• The dishonourable (and dishonest) Member for Manchester Gorton once again cynically exploiting the memory of his poor late grandmother (see here), telling the House of Commons that “she did not die at the hands of the Nazis for Jews to do a thing like this.”
  

  Who needs the BNP?

But a gang of nine Muslim men – eight Pakistani and one Afghan – grooming, abusing, assaulting and/or raping up to 47 (that is forty-seven) vulnerable girls in Rochdale, every single one of whom was white, has, we are being told (though not, thankfully, by the only UK newspaper to consistently tell it as it is), nothing to do with Islam or its followers, or with its or their attitude towards females and, especially, non-Muslim females.

Nothing whatsoever.

[Related posts: World Trade Center set for suicide bomber memorial and The lesson of 9/11: Don't dare upset the Muslims.]

New Yids on the Ramat Hasharon Block

I have real issues with all things Ramat Hasharon: I don’t care for the place, much less its residents.

My contrariness (admitted throughout melchett mike), however, is rarely totally lacking in reason or cause, and this small city – situated between the swanky suburbs of north Tel Aviv and Herzliya – is a sterile, soulless, not especially attractive, haven for largely rich, chiloni (secular) and “white” Israelis.

And whenever I learn that a potential date grew up in Ramat Hasharon, the negative stereotype (though one reinforced by experience) that springs to mind – of a stuck-up, high maintenance Ashkenaziya – always preempts any thoughts of a loaded father-in-law (unless, of course, his daughter is a “9”). Indeed, give me a Rosh Ha’ayin Yemenitess over a Ramat Hasharon heiress, any day!

Just to be certain that I am not being unduly harsh here, I asked an Israeli friend, Yuval, for his general impression of the women he has encountered from Ramat Hasharon. “Af kashur le’tachat shel Elohim” – nose attached to God’s ass (the Modern Hebrew equivalent, apparently, of nose in the air) – came the immediate reply.

“Shkoyach!” was, therefore, my instinctive response on reading the following by-line to an article, New kids on the block, in Sunday’s Haaretz:

“An ultra-Orthodox, right-wing yeshiva set up on the grounds of an old synagogue in Ramat Hasharon is prompting protests from the neighborhood’s well-heeled residents.”

Now it is not like me to celebrate the establishment of “an ultra-Orthodox, right-wing yeshiva” – I am far from “ultra-Orthodox,” and JDate has my “Political Orientation” as “Midway Moderate” (a claim I justify by the roughly equal number of people who consider me left- or right-wing, respectively) – though when that yeshiva is in Ramat Hasharon . . .

The synagogue in question is behind the home of Avi Adler and Sigal Barak, who are clearly determined to prove what a decent, liberal, “mainstream” (their word) couple they really are: “We’ve never had any problem with it. They have celebrations there, and there’s some praying on Saturdays and Yom Kippur. It didn’t bother us.”

How tolerant of them not to object to prayers . . . especially on Yom Kippur, when the comings and goings of worshippers might interfere with cyclists.

But then, three years ago, Sigal says – sounding every bit the English bigot who has discovered that, horror of all horrors, Asians are  moving in next door – “Different sort of people showed up at the synagogue, people who looked different and weren’t typical of the neighborhood . . . We’re not used to having people like this here on a daily basis.”

Ooh no! Different sort of people? And who look different?! Ooh no! You don’t want that.

After they complained to the Mayor of Ramat Hasharon, the director of the yeshiva – who, according to Sigal, “had this sort of permanent smile on his face” (apparently a crime in Ramat Hasharon) – tried to talk to them, even offering to pay for double-glazing for their home. But to no avail: the couple have now issued court proceedings (in progress) to shut the yeshiva down.

I guess that Avi and Sigal are not too dissimilar from the self-hating Hampstead Garden Suburb ‘Jews’ who launched a dishonest, hateful media campaign against the North-West London Eruv in the early nineties, spreading fear that it would create a “ghetto” (“changing the neighborhood’s character” is the preferred language in Ramat Hasharon) rather than just admitting that they didn’t want black-hatted frummers as neighbours (would they have demonstrated the same steadfast opposition against a new church?)

An old Hasmo friend and I were so repulsed by one particularly virulent and vocal opponent of the Eruv that we masterminded (though, sadly, never executed) a campaign of stuffing greasy, used Bloom’s paper bags – the most heimishe symbol we could come up with – through his letter box!

Last week, I had coffee with a journalist friend in Jerusalem. On asking him whether he thought Israel would still be here in fifty years’ time (the subject of a forthcoming post on melchett mike), Matthew replied that prevalent attitudes amongst chiloni Israelis – increasingly large numbers of whom now get out of serving in the IDF (remarkably, just two of the 120 fatalities in the 2006 Lebanon War came from Tel Aviv) – really make him wonder.

Kikar Hamedina: Designer shopping to die for

And it is difficult to be more optimistic: after all, what exactly would such chilonim be fighting for? Their Saturday morning brunch in Tel Aviv Port? The exclusive shopping in Kikar Hamedina? Or, perhaps, their courtside seats at Maccabi Tel Aviv (basketball, of course . . . far too many “darkies” go to the football)?

The recent recommendation by Education Minister Gideon Sa’ar, meanwhile, that Israeli school children visit Hebron’s Tomb of the Patriarchs – the burial site of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (and of their missuses) – was greeted with volleys of derision by Haaretz (with this notable exception) and other left-wing commentators.

Indeed, the only thing such folk – and their tzfoni (good-time, north Tel Aviv area) patrons in Ramat Hasharon and Ramat Aviv (see earlier post) – appear to believe in is antipathy towards Settlers, the right, and all things Jewish.

Who then, exactly, is the “extremist”?

World Trade Center set for suicide bomber memorial

From today’s Independent . . .

While the controversy over plans to build an Islamic center and mosque just two blocks away from Ground Zero continues, other plans have come to light for a monument to shahids or fedayeen – i.e., suicide bombers and ‘martyrs’ – on the very site of their most dastardly act: the World Trade Center.

The Allahu Akbar Foundation wants to erect the memorial – comprising three figures: Al-Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden, 9/11 hijacker Mohamed Atta, together with an “unknown martyr” (with wires hanging out of his clothing and his thumb on a switch) – at the entrance to 1 World Trade Center (due for completion in 2013).

The artist: Fuqn-Youslus, in her Gaza City home

The figures, made from scrap metal garnered from the twisted wreckage of Israeli buses, took the celebrated Palestinian artist, Miwurqs Fuqn-Youslus, over two days to complete.

“It would have taken even less,” said Fuqn-Youslus from her home (or, at least, what’s left of it) in Gaza City, “but there is a shortage of decent quality niqabs (head coverings) in the shuk as a result of the Israeli blockade. My current one is not a good fit, and the slit keeps riding over my eyes while I work! Oh yes, and there is also the matter of my one arm . . .” (Hamas officials amputated Fuqn-Youslus’s right arm at the elbow after she refused her husband sex without good cause).

The initial reaction of New Yorkers, however, to the latest plans – including of families of victims of the September 11, 2001 attacks – has been far from enthusiastic.

“Why don’t they just spit on the graves of the three thousand people who were murdered here?” said the father of one such victim, a New York firefighter.

The founder of The Allahu Akbar Foundation, however, Aamer Zileeh-Qunt, can’t see what all the fuss is about.

“We are hearing a lot of propaganda and lies against Muslims – this monument commemorates good men and is not disrespectful in any way,” said Mr. Zileeh-Qunt from his hideout in a remote region of Pakistan. “And it is not just a memorial to martyrs, but also to those who wanted to be but, for example, were too thick to pass the flying course or who, like my brother Abu Hamza in Belmarsh (prison), could not follow the simple instructions in their jihadi bomb-making manuals.”

Various American Reform rabbis have given their support to the planned monument, as has the Jewish lobbying group J Street.

And the reaction in Britain has also been supportive, with Member of Parliament Gerald Kaufman going so far as to claim that opposition to the memorial constitutes an insult to the memory of his late grandmother.

“As a Jew,” declared Mr. Kaufman from outside his Regent’s Park home (that of the dodgy expenses claim), “I am ashamed that some of my coreligionists are behind this ignoble attempt to derail what is, after all, an entirely innocent monument. My grandmother, who was murdered by the Nazis, died in vain if Manhattanites will not allow this perfectly respectable memorial.”

Gorgeous Bhoy: George Galloway ex-MP

Speaking from his bench outside Kings Cross Station, George Galloway, also once a Member of Parliament, claimed that “the tentacles of Zionism are behind this outrageous opposition. It is a lovely work, and my auld mate Saddam, zichrono livrocha, would have been all for it!”

Meanwhile, artsy UK human rights activists Ken Loach, Alexei Sayle and Annie Lennox, together with career Jew-baiter Ken Livingstone, have organised a rally in support of the proposed monument – and to protest against what they have labelled “an undemocratic, Islamophobic provocation” by its opponents – in Hyde Park, this Sunday.

Following the death of the regular speaker at such rallies, playwright Harold Pinter, the organisers are flying in Hollywood film director Oliver Stone, whose recent remarks, they say, make him the natural heir to Pinter’s rally stage.

American linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist and political activist, Noam Chomsky, will also traverse the Atlantic specially for the rally.

“My Jewishness,” said Professor Chomsky from his office at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, “together with the fact that no one is bright enough to understand a word of what I am on about, makes my opinion on US government policy vis-à-vis Zionism, the Palestinians and Islam practically unimpeachable.”

The reaction of the Islamic world, too, to opposition to the planned monument has been one of anger. Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, between dodging “stray firecrackers”, proclaimed that “the Zionists’ days are numbered”.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan was unavailable for comment, but a government spokesman in Ankara, Aylyket Ubdibüm, said that Mr. Erdoğan would “go along with the Iranian response . . . whatever that may be.”

And, emerging from his Beirut bunker in a cunning “bandit” disguise, Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah – who denied recent media reports that he and a certain extremist rabbi residing in Stamford Hill may be distant cousins – again threatened Tel Aviv.

“We have missiles capable even of reaching melchett mike,” declared Nasrallah. “This Zionist piss-taker should enjoy his four dogs while Allah allows him.”

Cunning disguise: Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, on a Beirut street

The Israel-only bashers, a case study: Bridlington Gert

Note to readers: In view of the appalling case of Belgian paedophile serial killer Marc Dutroux – replete with government cover-ups and allegations reaching as high as the Belgian King – together with evidence that Madeleine McCann was stolen to order for a Belgian paedophile ring, melchett mike will, until further notice, be dedicated to highlighting the plight of Belgian children.

Despite, in general, not wasting my energies on anti-Israel activity on the Web, checking out a friend’s blog recently – an excellent one, incidentally, for monitoring and analysis of anti-Zionist activity in the UK (though guess where he ‘stole’ the design from!) – I got sucked into a ‘discussion’ with a member of the “Boycott Israel” brigade: see here (I entered the fray on March 9).

On the front page of his own blog, Gert Meyers – a 48-year old former company director from Belgium, now residing in the East Yorkshire seaside town of Bridlington – states as follows:

“Since Gaza and until further notice this blog will be dedicated to the Palestinian people’s struggle for statehood.”

Now, what got me goading (I admit it!) Gert is my genuine belief that those who, without any connection to this Land or its peoples, dedicate all their energies to waging ‘war’ on Israel and Zionists to the exclusion of all else have in all probability – and even if they don’t know it – some issue with Jews too.

How else can one explain their overriding obsession? How many peoples on our planet are suffering oppression? And any reasonable person, with even the most rudimentary understanding of history, must surely see the complex factors at play in this most intractable of crises.

In the twisted world of the Israel-only bashers, however, there are only Palestinians.

Some of these Israel-only bashers, including the UK’s most infamous one, are anti-Semites. And they don’t need to say “We hate Jews” for us to know that. But they don’t interest me.

Goading now aside, what continues to intrigue me about Gert – and, indeed, many others, including the deeply distrusted (in Jewish circles at least) Independent journalist Robert Fisk and even the “concentration camp guard” jibing, former Mayor of London Ken Livingstone – is that I actually find myself believing his repeated exhortations that he is not an anti-Semite . . . or, at least, that he genuinely believes that he is not.

But the question remains: how does one explain Gert’s obsession with Israel and Zionists to the exclusion of all else?

In August 2005, five months after setting up his blog, Gert commenced his analysis of “the I/P conflict” (under the subheading Palestine and Israel):

“with hindsight, the creation of Israel can also be considered a historical mistake . . . It is important to recognise that prior to 1948 there was no such state of Israel and that its presence in an area called Palestine is in fact an artificial geographical construct.”

To my mind, anyone who denies the spiritual, historical and geographical centrality of Israel to Judaism and to the vast majority of Jews, together with the Jewish people’s claim to this Land, is – even if he claims not to hate individual Jews (and, therefore, not to be an anti-Semite) – in some meaningful sense, anti-Jewish.

Gert continues:

“Today, no one seriously challenges the right to existence and independence of the state of Israel, and the Palestinian people don’t either . . . The conflict is not about Israel’s right to exist.”

A mere fortnight later (under The Israeli-Palestinian question), however, Gert describes:

“the extremist views of Hamas et al regarding the total destruction of the state of Israel”.

Gert rejected my claim, on Richard Millett’s blog, that he is obsessed with Israel and Zionists as:

“a gross and jingoistic inaccuracy . . . it was after the War on Gaza I shifted from critical supporter of Israel to anti-Zionist activist.”

“Critical supporter of Israel”?! As far back as September 2005, Gert was writing about “the Butcher in Tel-Aviv”, while his Zionist Niceties post two months later could, for balance and impartiality, just as easily have been titled The Protocols II.

I had read enough, and did not feel that there was any point in taking my research further (though, if any readers of melchett mike have the time or the inclination, search “Israel” in Gert’s monthly Archives and see if you agree with his contention that, prior to the War in Gaza, his blog was ‘only’ “some 25 % about the I/P conflict”).

What is certain, however, is that, post-Gaza, Gert’s obsession with Israel and Zionists has become all-consuming. And the last few words of his objectively-titled Sick Fuck Livni are, perhaps, rather revealing:

“What a shame in many respects that “the reality” of the Middle East has already “been changed”: when Israel was created, that is…”

Referring back to my opening paragraph, I don’t like paedophiles. Yet I haven’t devoted melchett mike to attacking Belgium and Belgians, for whom kiddy fiddling could arguably be listed as a national pastime.

If I had made Belgians my sole cause, however, I certainly wouldn’t become apoplectic with rage every time that someone suggested that I was obsessed with, or even that I didn’t like, Belgians.

But not the Israel-only bashers. One daren’t even question their obsession. And heaven forbid you should enquire as to whether they just might be anti-Semitic. Even if they are not, is it not a reasonable suspicion about someone who devotes all of their time to Israel and Zionists alone?

While Gert believes that it is fine for him to have dedicated his entire existence to attacking Israel and Zionists, when he discovered a single post that I wrote about the French (and, then, largely in jest), he had found the diversion he had been seeking . . . and milked it:

“Mike, you’re an imbecile, as well as a hypocrite and Zionist.”

Me, Gert? A “Zionist”? How very dare you!

Following  Gert’s attempt to insult me with the badge that I wear more proudly than any other (including even my Leeds United one), he refers to one of the very pillars on which melchett mike is based (see About this Blog):

“I see you’ve got it in for ‘self-hating Jews’ as well, says it all really…”

Did you expect me to like them, Gert?!

Indeed, in order to attempt to obtain legitimacy for his obsession, Gert continually, and predictably, calls upon these self-hating Jews.

Sorry to have to inform you, Gert, but the views of such Jews – who represent Anglo-Jewry no more, thankfully, than you represent the Belgian community in Britain – are about as valid as yours. They are, in the main, an eccentric and spineless minority of accidents of birth who have little or no connection with Judaism, never mind Israel. And their motivation is purely to ease their discomfort as ‘Jews’ when Israel is embarrassing them in their PC left, Gentile circles. Moreover, the huge majority of British Jews take their signed letters in The Guardian and Independent about as seriously as your average Belgian would take criticism by fellow ex-pats who only “come out” at times of national adversity, in order to distance themselves even further from their roots. (See melchett mike‘s Self-Hating Jews category.)

Gert copied my Hating the French post to his blog, replacing – with a Steve Martin-like eye for spoof – my references to “Frenchmen in Tel Aviv” with “Jews in Paris”. He signed off with:

“I almost find myself wishing more British Jews of your particular racist inclination would make Aliyah but that would only be moving the problem.”

Rather rich, I thought, coming from a – to at least some extent, I believe – Jew-obsessed Belgian living in East Yorkshire!

So how does one explain Gert’s – and the Israel-only bashers’ – obsession with Israel and Zionists to the exclusion of all else?

In spite of my repeated requests for clarification, Gert preferred insults and repeated student union-like calls of “racist” (I was half expecting him to inform me that I was “out of order”!) Finally, however, some four days later, Gert did manage to come up with the following:

“Gaza really was the straw that broke the camel’s back”.

Miraculous how that “back” somehow managed to withstand eight years of Palestinian rocket attacks on Israeli civilians. And I have little doubt that had they, instead, been landing on Bridlington, Gert would soon have been scuttling back across the Channel.

Most Israelis, however, have nowhere else to go. Though let us not forget the unspoken premise of the Israel-only bashers: unlike the Palestinians, Israelis have no right to live in peace, or to defend themselves (see F*ck you, too).

You see, my problem with Gert and the Israel-only bashers is not that they might be anti-Semitic or racist (following my post on the French, how could it be?!) Whereas I profess, however, to not being wild about all things Gallic – and even my understanding of the growing appeal of the BNP (did you miss that one, Gert?) – Gert and the Israel-only bashers continually attempt to conceal their true motives from everyone. And perhaps even from themselves.

Why doesn’t the front page of Gert’s blog also feature a Burmese, North Korean, Zimbabwean, or – heaven forbid he risk upsetting Muslims – an Arab (take your pick) or Iranian flag between its bold capitalised “BOYCOTT” graphic?

Because Israel is a worse human rights offender than all of these countries? Because the Palestinians are more deserving of sympathy, or are just nicer, than other oppressed peoples?

I think not. Warts n’ all, Israel is clearly the only state in the entire Middle East that can claim, without causing unbridled hilarity, to be a democracy.

Israel has, however, over the past sixty years, made both extremely poor decisions and morally questionable ones, not the least of which was its long-term settling of the pre-1967 “territories”.

But the Palestinians and their leaders fare no better. Indeed, without their absolute rejection of any Jewish claim to Israel, and total refusal to share it, the last sixty years might have been very different.

I, and most people I know, are in favour of a Palestinian state. How many Palestinians, however, would accept – never mind be in favour of – a Jewish one? The Israel-only bashers just haven’t got a clue!

Of course one can legitimately criticise Israel and Zionists without being an anti-Semite – indeed, it is tolerance of criticism, especially from within, that sets Israel apart from all of its neighbours – but when such criticism becomes all-consuming, it reveals something else.

So what is that “else”? Or, in the language of our upcoming Passover festival, “What makes this criticism different from every other?”

The answer, I believe, is Jews. Whether individual Israel-only bashers are honest, or self-aware, enough to recognise it, we Jews are the ingredient that sets the Israeli/Palestinian issue apart for them, transforming it from one issue amongst many to an all-consuming obsession.

As I wrote above, anti-Semites – from the ideologically-driven, motivated by hatred and lies, to those who are ‘merely’ jealous of Jews – don’t interest me. Regarding the remainder, however, in spite of much soul-searching this past fortnight (explaining the lengthy gap between posts), I – perhaps appropriately for Passover – still have more questions than answers. Of course I can understand why the situation in Israel causes anger and activism, but I cannot adequately explain the obsession of Gert and the Israel-only bashers.

Bouncing ideas off fellow Jews and Israelis, it has become extremely clear that most agree that the Israel-only bashers are covering up for something “else”. Beyond my late father’s “Jews are news”, however, the only answer that I can come up with is that we are witnessing a post-Holocaust, ‘respectable’ alternative to anti-Semitism, facilitated by the (primarily left-wing) media’s disproportionate, unfair, even dishonest, treatment of the Jewish state.

This “alternative” is perfectly tailored to the PC era, and to the “sheep” that prefer bandwagons to facts. And those who, once upon a time, simply didn’t like Jews, broke glass, and bayed for blood now ‘merely’ say that they don’t like Zionists, go on protests, and devote all of their time to undermining Israel (some even questioning its right to exist).

I don’t say that Gert is necessarily a bad person, a George Galloway, or even an anti-Semite . . .  though I am not certain that he and the Israel-only bashers are sufficiently self-aware to be fully cognisant of what they truly are.

Anyway, bollocks to the lot of ‘em.

Though, to all readers of melchett mike, a very happy Passover.

Next year in Jerusalem ! לשנה הבאה בירושלים

Mission Nonsensical: Goldstone’s F*cked Findings

The talking point in Israel (and indeed the “Jewish world”), this past week, has been whether Judge Richard Goldstone – the head of the UN fact-finding mission on the Gaza War, whose report accuses Israel of war crimes and possible crimes against humanity – is an example of yet another Jew too willing to sell out to our many enemies . . . or has merely been doing his job.

From what I have read about the man (photographed right), I am not convinced that he is a Pinter, a Sayle, a Kaufman, or one of their repugnant ilk. But as a Jew who, apparently, “is a Zionist and loves Israel”, it may have been more judicious for the Judge not to have accepted the mandate (however good for his CV) in the first place, especially since he knew (or ought to have known) that Israel would not cooperate with an investigation commissioned by a totally one-sided resolution (Mary Robinson, the former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, had already declined it, describing the UN Human Rights Council as “guided not by human rights, but by politics”). And, following his “shock as a Jew” to be offered it, Goldstone may have felt that he had to go out of his way to prove his objectivity. And “go out of his way” he did.

By most accounts, Judge Goldstone is a man of impeccable conviction. But the South African would also appear to be one of startling naivety. In an op-ed in last Thursday’s New York Times, he wrote:

“I am unaware of any case where a Hamas fighter was punished for deliberately shooting a rocket into a civilian area in Israel — on the contrary, Hamas leaders repeatedly praise such acts.”

Well, boker tov (good morning), Judge Goldstone! (And didn’t you forget “orchestrate”?)

But I am not interested in the man. Neither am I interested in his fact-finding mission – to investigate Israel’s alleged violations of the laws of war, international human rights and humanitarian law during last winter’s Operation Cast Lead – nor, even, its ostensibly damning conclusions. And why? Because the mission’s very premise was not only entirely wrong, but utterly nonsensical . . . making an irrelevance of its findings.

Hamas, the despotic ruler of Gaza, is an Islamofascist organisation with the raison d’être of destroying Israel. Eight and a half years (and counting) of unprovoked rocket attacks against Israel’s southern communities, together with Hamas’s cowardly combat tactics – from amongst densely populated civilian areas, and inside mosques, schools and hospitals – make a mockery of “laws of war”, and even of “human rights” as they are commonly understood.

Whilst not as developed, such laws existed long before the Second World War. But did the Allies take them into account prior to, during, or even following, their carpet-bombing of Hamburg and Dresden, in which they killed tens of thousands of ‘innocent’ German civilians? Did they heck! Their top priority, and quite properly, was to bring as swift an end as possible to a war against – and started by – an uncompromising Fascist aggressor, with minimum casualties to their own soldiers. And did the British fight the “Argies” with kid gloves in the Falklands? And are they and the Americans doing so in Afghanistan or Iraq?

Whilst the IDF goes further than any army the world over not only to act, but to be seen to act, humanely – it knows, after all, that it is being judged by a unique standard (see the next paragraph) – “laws of war” and “human rights” will inevitably sometimes be contravened when defending one’s country against a murderous aggressor that respects neither (even the “rights” of its own people). And ordinary Gazans are responsible for their rulers – if they choose to continue living under, and by, the sword, they must be prepared to die by it.

The UN Human Rights Council has condemned Israel fifteen times in less than two years . . . but no other country even once. Not Russia. Not China. Not North Korea. Not Burma. Not Sri Lanka. Not Zimbabwe. Not the Congo. Not Equatorial Guinea. Not Somalia. Not Sudan. Not Libya. Not Saudi Arabia. Not Syria. Not Iran. Israel was fully justified in not cooperating with an organisation which never treats it fairly, and with an investigation which it knew was just out to get it. What’s next from the UN? A fact-finding mission to investigate whether Mossad agents respect the laws of international espionage and agent rights before delivering enemies to their 72 virgins?

Israel is not perfect. It has made misjudgements and mistakes, and, yes, maybe even violated laws. Israel would not, however, exist today if – in its permanent state of war with godless enemies who wait to pounce on its every weakness – it had given more weight to legal tomes than to military necessity. And that war – with Hamas, Hizbollah, and other Islamofascists hellbent on its destruction – is one of light against darkness, good against evil, civilisation against barbarism. It is that “comic strip” simple. And it is a war in which the entire western world will soon be embroiled, not just in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan . . . but in its very own backyard. That the schmocks at the UN can be so myopic . . .

When push comes to shove – and it always does here (as a result of its size, the first war Israel loses will be its last) – we do not have to justify, or apologise for, our right to live. Not to anyone. Never again.

So, f*ck the UN. F*ck its fact-finding missions. And f*ck its reports. (Click here for my fuller treatise on the subject.)

More deserving of contempt than Judge Goldstone, this week, was Ha’aretz ‘journalist’ Yoel Marcus, who wrote the following in last weekend’s op-ed:

“[many countries] accuse us of strengthening extremist Islam and committing war crimes. And all we need now is to stick our noses into Iranian affairs by bombing its nuclear facilities . . . We must not even dream of a move like that at a time when America is coordinating international pressure on Tehran.”

“Stick our noses into Iranian affairs”?!

Mr. Marcus, perhaps you consider Israel’s air strike on the Osirak nuclear reactor to have been an unwarranted “nose stuck” into Saddam’s “affairs”? And, by similar logic, that Israel was correct to wait for Egyptian and Syrian “affairs” to develop unhindered in 1973?

And “coordinating international pressure on Tehran”?

Yes, that should do it, Mr. Marcus – a resolution of condemnation from the United Nations. And, if that doesn’t work, the UN could perhaps issue a further one . . . but, this time, “in the strongest terms”. Ahmadinejad clearly wouldn’t mess with that.

The Persian dwarf showed his true colours again, on Wednesday, in his speech to the UN General Assembly (full text):

“The dignity, integrity and rights of the American and European people are being played with by a small but deceitful number of people called Zionists. Although they are a miniscule minority, they have been dominating an important portion of the financial and monetary centers as well as the political decision-making centers of some European countries and the US in a deceitful, complex and furtive manner. It is deeply disastrous to witness that some presidential or premiere nominees in some big countries have to visit these people, take part in their gatherings, swear their allegiance and commitment to their interests in order to attain financial or media support. This means that the great people of America and various nations of Europe need to obey the demands and wishes of a small number of acquisitive and invasive people.”

Ring any bells, Mr. Marcus? And, as Ha’aretz would appear to have cut back on its library resources, here is a compilation of other statements by Ahmadinejad denying the Holocaust and alluding to, calling for, or directly threatening, Israel’s destruction. And guess what . . . we discover today that Iran now has a second nuclear facility.

Where does Ha’aretz find these pillocks? Gideon Levy, Amira Hass, Nehemia Shtrasler, Amos Harel, Avi Issacharoff . . . they have all received dishonourable mention on melchett mike. And now there’s a new f*ckwit on the block.

And, talking of “blocks”, if you tend to suffer from the writer’s variety, Mr. Marcus, I can highly recommend starting a blog . . . then you won’t have to write bollocks when you have nothing useful to say.

Kaufman: Enough to make your Rabbi anti-Semitic

British Member of Parliament Gerald Kaufman has always gone to extreme lengths to point out how the State of Israel has embarrassed him “as a Jew” (see my earlier post on the lovely gentleman).

Now, “Dame” Gerald has brought shame on all law-abiding British Jews by his, at very best, avaricious, and, at worst, thoroughly dishonest expenses claims for his second home (as reported in yesterday’s Daily Telegraph).

The following are some of Kaufman’s claims, which can only serve to reinforce the stereotypical perception of “The Jew” held (and disseminated) by Britain’s most virulent anti-Semites: 

• £28,834 for work on his “slum” (his word) in the swanky central London suburb of Regent’s Park (he accepted a substantially reduced sum in order to “draw a line under the issue” . . . and not, of course, because pursuing the full amount might have opened a Pandora’s box)
• £8,865 for a 40-inch (to accommodate his head perhaps) Bang & Olufsen TV (a claim laughed off by Kaufman as perhaps “a bit daft”)
• £1,851 for a rug imported from a Manhattan antique store
• A claim for a gas account that was actually in credit
• Pushing various claims to their absolute limits (on one occasion, to within six pence!)

Kaufman then had the temerity to bully House of Commons Fees Office clerks for merely doing their jobs in querying the claims.

Following all of his moralising about Israel, surely a man of such exemplary principle would not have swindled (or attempted to) the British taxpayer, would he?

I’ve got news for you, “Dame” Gerald: you don’t need Israel to embarrass you “as a Jew” . . . when you are doing such a damn good job, all by yourself!

Steven Berkoff: Showing Up the Berks

I’ve devoted quite a few melchett mike inches over the past month, since the start of the war in Gaza, to the self-hating Jews: Harold Pinter, Gideon Levy, Alexei Sayle, and, most despicable of all, Gerald Kaufman. But I have just come across an interview, in last week’s Jewish Chronicle, with the British Jewish actor, writer and director, Steven Berkoff, who made the following observations . . .

“England is not a great lover of its Jews. Never has been. The English way of life is culturally rather refined if not effete. There is a slight distaste of the foreigner. There is an inbuilt dislike of Jews. Overt antisemitism goes against the British sense of fair play. It has to be covert and civilised. So certain playwrights and actors on the left wing make themselves out to be stricken with conscience. They say: ‘We hate Israel, we hate Zionism, we don’t hate Jews.’ But Zionism is the very essence of what a Jew is. Zionism is the act of seeking sanctuary after years and years of unspeakable outrages against Jews. As soon as Israel does anything over the top it’s always the same old faces who come out to demonstrate. I don’t see hordes of people marching down the street against Mugabe when tens of thousands are dying every month in Zimbabwe. They quite like diversity and will tolerate you as long as you act a bit gentile and don’t throw your chicken soup around too much. You are perfectly entitled occasionally even to touch the great prophet of British culture, Shakespeare, as long as you keep your Jewishness well zipped up. As long as you speak like us and get rid of your accent you are perfectly acceptable. In Spain, they used to call these people marranos — secret Jews. Well, I’ve never been secret.”

Mr. Berkoff, as they say in these parts, kol hakavod (respect) . . . ata totach (literal translation “you are a cannon”, but really meaning that you are a top bloke!)

(Full interview)

“Dame” Gerald: Our very own “Uncle Tom”

He just had to go and open his poisonous gob . . . and just when I’d thought I’d put my Self-Hating Jew series to bed!

I purposely excluded any reference to Gerald Kaufman from earlier posts on Harold Pinter and Alexei Sayle, because I had thought, hoped, that his relative silence on this occasion might be due to his pragmatic assessment that this war – one of self-defence, following eight years of near daily rocket fire – was, indeed, justified. I mean even his “intellectual” bedfellows, in Israel’s doveish Meretz party, were supporting the IDF’s actions this time.

Few opportunists, however, can resist an opportunity. And, true to form, Kaufman was just biding his time . . .

In the House of Commons, on Thursday, the Labour MP for Manchester Gorton launched a diatribe against Israel (full Hansard transcript), so irrational and vitriolic – even defiling the memory of his own grandmother – that it took by surprise even those with bitter experience of this hateful, self-hating, excuse for a Jew.

Some of my best friends are Jews

After a lengthy prologue of self-justification, reminiscent of those who prelude their anti-Semitic sentiments with “Some of my best friends are Jews . . .”, Kaufman invoked the memory of his Polish grandmother, murdered by the Nazis in her sickbed: “My grandmother did not die to provide cover for Israeli soldiers murdering Palestinian grandmothers in Gaza. The current Israeli Government ruthlessly and cynically exploit the continuing guilt among Gentiles over the slaughter of Jews in the Holocaust as justification for their murder of Palestinians.”

The only person guilty of “ruthless and cynical exploit[ation]” is Kaufman himself . . . of his Jewishness, and (seeing as he has little regard for that), even more shamefully, of the memory of his own grandmother. In view of her tragic fate, I suspect that she would have considered a homeland in which Jews could finally defend themselves, following two millennia of persecution by various hosts, a meaningful consolation (if there could be one) for the victims of the Holocaust.

That right of self-defence, however, is the very one that Kaufman, by his wilful perversion of the facts, denies us. If his grandmother had a grave, Kaufman might as well have gone and spat on it.

While Kaufman, 78, a former Cabinet minister, claims to have been “brought up as an Orthodox Jew and a Zionist”, it is incomprehensible that anyone raised with even the most basic of Jewish or Zionist values would have the inclination or insensitivity, not to mention lack of understanding, to make the analogy – as did Kaufman, most despicably, on Thursday – between “the Jews fighting for their lives in the Warsaw ghetto” and Hamas “militants”.

Indeed, one doesn’t have to be a Jew or a Zionist to see the absence of any moral parallel whatsoever between the victims of Hitler’s systematic destruction of European Jewry and those killed in pursuit of their declared aim of destroying the Jewish State.

Judge a person by his friends

It is most telling that, on Thursday, Kaufman – who once branded Ariel Sharon “a war criminal” (a label which he ended Thursday’s polemic by assigning to the entire Israeli Government) – was keen for the House (and the country) to hear that Yasser Arafat was “a friend of mine”. What a mark of distinction! For someone who read philosophy at Oxford, however, Kaufman employs the most bewildering of moral compasses.

Whilst a student at Manchester University, in the late 1980s, Kaufman, to our immense surprise, answered a call to defend his anti-Israel views to Jewish students at Hillel House. There we lay in wait, all college precocity and naivety, with our clever questions and infallible arguments, to wipe the floor with this “Jewdas”. But, in an awesome display of oratory, Kaufman, without so much as a scratch, left us to wander off to the pub, wondering how we didn’t manage to land even one decent blow. That evening, we witnessed the triumph of rhetoric over truth, presentation over substance, and the skills which the articulate Kaufman has employed in Parliament, to his malevolent ends, so effectively over the past forty years.

O Jerusalem!

In 2002, Kaufman’s BBC film, The End of the Affair, documenting his disillusionment with Israel, was broadcast over Jewish New Year. Kaufman’s arguments were so irrational and full of spite – including that Orthodox Jews were “infesting” Jerusalem (language which Hitler himself would have been proud of), and that Israel’s architectural planners had turned Jerusalem into a eyesore (an argument so ridiculous, even Stevie Wonder chuckled) – that, some days later, on Yom Kippur, he was abused by fellow congregants, even in his most proper and Anglicised of synagogues, St. John’s Wood.

While some British Jews criticized such treatment in a house of worship, I was not amongst them. Only someone so supremely arrogant could have had the temerity to show his face to coreligionists following so ferocious and malicious an assault, not just on Israel but on Jews.

One can only speculate whether the root cause of Kaufman’s self-loathing might have been his lack of acceptance by mainstream Anglo-Jewry (perhaps even more conservative in his native Yorkshire), for the very reason that he is known in Parliament as “Dame” Gerald. Whether mere speculation, or more, Kaufman should at least learn to “mince” his words.

Kaufman is also an outspoken critic of fox hunting, and – knowing that he is often accused of being a self-hating Jew – has seen the irony in being subjected to anti-Semitic taunts by pro-hunt demonstrators.

But, you see, Gerald, there’s the rub –  we Jews, like foxes, can run, but we can’t hide. Your lifetime of sycophancy, and attempts to ingratiate yourself with the British Establishment, by bashing Israel, have fooled no one. Those in it, who don’t like you because you are a Jew, like you even less because you are a cowardly Jew.

But, most tragically, Gerald, your Bubbe would be as thoroughly ashamed of you as we all are.

F*ck you, too

[melchett mike, talking to his reflection in his laptop screen, after suffering a fortnight of "F*ck Israel" and "F*ck Jews" . . . ]

Well, f*ck you, too. F*ck you and this whole Jew-hating world. F*ck all the  protesters who, it seems, don’t believe Jews have a right to defend themselves. Where have you been these past eight years, while missiles have been landing on our women and children every day? And what would you have done if they were landing on yours, you self-righteous hypocrites? F*ck Bianca Jagger and Annie Lennox, and all the other has-beens, who have been trying to revive their flagging careers aboard the human rights bus (the one which doesn’t stop in Israel). F*ck Roseanne Barr and Alexei Sayle, and all the other “rent a Jews”. You are a f*cking disgrace. F*ck George “Hezbollah has never been a terrorist organisation” Galloway, the nauseating Scottish prick, who spends his entire wretched existence kissing-up to Muslims. For someone who claims he didn’t admire Saddam (but who “salute[d his] courage, strength and indefatigability”), you might as well have been blowing the genocidal maniac. F*ck Ken Livingstone, the “concentration camp guard”-comparing, Hugo Chávez-supporting, hypocrite. If you and Galloway spent less time offending Jews, you wouldn’t need to spend so much claiming you are not anti-Semites. F*ck Robert Fisk, Gideon Levy and Amira Hass, those Arab-loving affronts to objective journalism. F*ck the pompous, self-righteous BBC. We might as well try to get the truth off Al Jazeera. F*ck the Turks, the Armenian-murdering, Kurdish-persecuting, women-subjecting, wrong hole-f*cking hypocrites. F*ck Ahmedinejad, the poisonous Persian dwarf in his M&S summer jackets. Did no one ever tell you M&S was Jewish?! F*ck the terrorist-protecting “human shields”. What were you expecting when you stood in front of Caterpillars, you dumb assholes?! F*ck the UN and its double standards. How come you can always find Gaza on your maps, but never Congo, Somalia, Iraq, Sudan, Pakistan, Myanmar, Zimbabwe, . . . ? F*ck the Palestinians, the miserable f*cking low-lives, spurning every opportunity for peace that has come their way. F*ck all the Arabs, who despise the Palestinians more than anyone, and have only ever used them for their own Evil, self-serving ends. F*ck Abu “Hook Hands” Hamza, who should be left to rot and die in his stinking Belmarsh sty. Every time you try to wipe, and scratch your ass to f*ck, repent for being the bomb-making terrorist that you are. F*ck the memories of the treasonous filth who blew themselves up on London Transport. May every one of your 72 virgins be hung like a horse. F*ck Mashal, Nasrallah and Bin Laden, sending their sons to their deaths while hiding like rats in their bunkers. And f*ck Hamas, for using mosques, women and children to protect their own yellow asses. Get the Vaseline ready . . . your virgins are on their way! Believe me, neither Allah nor Mohammed gives a flying f*ck about any of you Evil bastards. From the protests in Edinburgh to the demos in Auckland. From the slums of Bradford to the rat-infested tunnels of Gaza. From Finsbury Park Mosque to every other one preaching lies, hatred and murder. Let the bombs land, let the fires rage, let Evil burn to f*cking ash, and then let the waters rise and submerge it.

[pause]

But, also, f*ck you, melchett mike . . . for ever expecting anything else.

(And f*ck you, Monty Brogan, for giving me the idea.)

Days of Awe, Heroes and Whores

I generally don’t “do” awe (it entails reverence). But seeing Israel’s young men (many still in their teens) leaving their loved ones, these past few days, and going off to battle, has filled me with the damn thing.

As a result of my late Aliyah (immigration), my service in the IDF was both short and depressingly pointless – at one stage, I was spending entire weeks in a warehouse, counting nuts and bolts for tanks – and, to quote Woody Allen (yes, I know, again), “In the event of war, I’m a hostage.”

IDF ground forces entering Gaza, Saturday evening

I just cannot begin to imagine how it must feel to enter Gaza – never mind in pitch-darkness (as IDF soldiers did on Saturday evening) – in the full knowledge that it is teeming with deadly enemies, operating in a labyrinth of underground tunnels (a captured IDF soldier is worth far more to Hamas than a dead one, and one was almost dragged into a tunnel yesterday).

On yesterday’s evening news, parents at hospital bedsides were relating how the main concern of their injured sons was to return to their combat units as quickly as possible, and to be reunited with their comrades.

I am sufficiently self-aware to know that I have never had the fortitude to do what they are doing (I almost passed out during the opening sequence of Saving Private Ryan – particularly embarrassing on a first date – so, the next time I am derogatory about Israeli males, please remind me as to what many of them were experiencing while I was struggling with my petty university ”issues”).

In sharp contrast to the “soldiers” of Hamas, Hizbollah, and Al Qaeda, etc – whose world view and motivation are predicated on racism and hate – Israel’s young men are not there out of negative feelings towards Palestinians, Arabs or Muslims . . . but rather out of love for, and to defend, their families, People and Land. And this is precisely why Israel will emerge victorious, on this occasion too.

What is important is not that you “speak out as a Jew” – most of those who have done so, this past week and a half, have no interest in their Jewishness whatsoever – but what you “do as a Jew”.

There is no finer example of this than the selfless and courageous soldiers of the IDF. They are the true, modern-day Jewish heroes. And all of the “whores” and sell out merchants (see my earlier posts on Alexei Sayle, Gideon Levy and Harold Pinter) put together – who have been raising their ugly heads and voices – are not worth a single one of them.

Chazak ve’ematz! (Be strong and of good courage, Joshua 1:6-9)