You see what happens, Hamas . . .

“Don’t be silly,” I reassure Itzik, as we sip on our sachlabs on Rothschild, early last Thursday evening. “Nothing will happen in Tel Aviv.”

It might as well be the cue for the siren.

There are a surreal couple of seconds, during which the occupants of adjacent tables exchange puzzled, yet pregnant, glances: “Is it . . . ? What now . . . ?”

I jump up, as if stabbed with a shot of adrenaline. The dogs bark. We dart inside the café, my spanking new Galaxy S II abandoned alongside the sachlab. Clive Dunn has only been gone a week, and I have already forgotten his famous advice (though discovering that it is true, no one “like[s] it up ’em”). It is the first time I have experienced a siren not marking the commencement of Shabbat or a Holocaust/Remembrance Day.

We all huddle together at the rear of the café. A 60-something female hears my accent and, as if encouraging a boy to consummate his transition to manhood, asks me if it is my “first time”. I nod sheepishly. She imparts advice that I am in no state to listen to.

A distant boom. Perhaps two. And, within half an hour, I am home, packed, and on Highway 1 . . . on my way to the capital. I am ‘caught’ by my neighbours in the act of attempting to wheel my bag quietly out of the building. “I am not escaping,” I protest. “I have a fortieth birthday party in Jerusalem!” And it is true. But I don’t expect them to believe me. And I don’t think they do.

I tease Itzik – a Tel Aviv real estate agent who has continually belittled my second home in Jerusalem – from the car, telling him that he won’t be getting a key (‘forcing’ the coward into having to stay, instead, with his father in Petach Tikva).

And Itzik is the first to call me, gloating, the following early evening, within seconds of the siren sounding in the capital. I have darted into the stairwell, where the neighbours are quickly gathering, before shooting back in for my flatmates. My Orthodox neighbour overcomes her fear of Stuey and Dexxy, whom, until now, she has refused to even pass on the stairs. “Shit,” I exclaim, in an attempt to lighten the tension, “I left the back window open.” But the attempt at humour is lost.

I meet an American woman on Saturday who is considering taking refuge in London. Who am I to judge? I still do. And I delete an old law school friend from Facebook after he publishes this photo (right) with the caption: “Address this, Mark Regev . . .”

In fact, the next time I hear a Palestinian talk about ‘his’ olive tree, I will make it my job to find said plant, uproot it, and stick it up his . . . well, in a place that it will get no light. These people attach no value to human life, never mind olive trees.

Make no mistake, when Hamas talks about an “end to the Occupation” (which, in principle, I am also in favour of ending), it is talking about an end to Israel. And, if it was up to me, I would bring those fuckers [complaints, please, to John Fisher – he doesn’t approve of the asterisk] to their knees before even agreeing to listen to talk about a ceasefire.

There is a wonderful feeling of togetherness here at present. I had been putting the finishing touches to a blog critical of Israelis. But I can’t publish it now. These are special people. And they are giving their all for our People . . . and – if the world would only open its eyes – for the values that civilised people everywhere hold dear.

To the residents of the south, we should have empathised more fully with your sacrifice and suffering, and with the intolerable circumstances under which you have had to live this past decade. To former Defence Minister Amir Peretz, respect for promoting – when few believed in it (or you) – Iron Dome. And to the soldiers awaiting your orders on the edge of Gaza, though it looks unlikely now that you will receive them, chazak ve’ematz.

Once again, however, I leave the last words to the great – though oft misunderstood – Walter Sobchak . . .

CLICK HERE

Hamas would have done well to heed the lesson of Mr. Sobchak – as, from now on, would Iran and even Egypt (which, respectively, have supplied and allowed unhindered passage of the missiles used to attack us) – though I sincerely hope that the IDF has been picking its targets rather more calmly and prudently!

[See also Airstrike on Gaza: Israel’s Right of Self-Defence, F*ck you, too and Days of Awe, Heroes and Whores . . . sadly, all still as relevant today as they were nearly four years ago.]

Time for the Hurndalls to stop their sniping

So, Taysir Hayb will be a free man next month. The IDF Sergeant, found guilty of manslaughter after shooting British “peace activist” Tom Hurndall in 2003, is to be released after serving five years of his eight-year sentence.

But the Hurndall family’s “anger and shock” at Monday’s announcement is not, says Sophie Hurndall, Tom’s sister, directed at the soldier who fired the bullet, but rather at the IDF and Israel as a whole: “To be honest, it’s about the system. Not the man himself. This man who shot Tom was the same age as him. He is both the victim and the killer. He is part of a system that proactively encouraged soldiers to target civilians.”

That is bollocks, Ms. Hurndall (as anyone who has served in the IDF can testify).

I was back in England at the time of the shooting of Tom Hurndall (right), in the Gaza town of Rafah, at the height of the Second Intifada, in April 2003. I was also there throughout his nine-month coma, until his death, aged just 22.

And, during the Hurndall family’s protracted UK media campaign against Israel, I was continually forced to question my capacity for empathy for feeling so little about their obvious (and natural) suffering. In fact, the only thing that the Hurndalls’ campaign did move me to do – although, in the end, I didn’t (for which I am now glad) – was to drop a letter into their north London home (close to mine), with my condolences, but also telling them that Tom had absolutely no business being there in the first place.

And this week’s comments by Sophie Hurndall – who works for Medical Aid for Palestinians – have only served to remind me of just how I felt (or, rather, didn’t) seven years ago. No, my heart has not softened with the years.

While I, of course, take no joy in the tragic death of Tom Hurndall, the time has come for his family to take a good look at themselves, too, and to ask certain painful questions about the decisions and actions of their son and brother, and about how they may have influenced or prevented them:

• What right did Tom Hurndall have to interfere with IDF operations – his declared goal was to blockade tank patrols – at the height of the Second Intifada, in the then war zone of Gaza?
• Did he possess any comprehension whatsoever as to the entirely justified purpose of those operations (i.e., to protect Israeli citizens)? Or did he, maybe, view Hamas and Islamic Jihad as some kind of benevolent presence that Israel could simply ignore? Perhaps, for him, Jewish lives – as opposed to Palestinian ones – were just unimportant?
• Why did he choose to be a “peace activist” in the only democracy – or, at least, the only country that can reasonably claim to be one (as even Israel’s enemies could not deny) – in the entire Middle East? Why not in one of the many Islamofascist, or other, tyrannies the world over?
• And, anyway, as a self-proclaimed “human shield” – purportedly of children (endangered only because they themselves are used as such by Palestinian militants) – did Hurndall not succeed in his stated purpose?

Without in any way condoning the actions of Sergeant Hayb (right), to whose intent only he was privy, one wonders how long Tom Hurndall would have survived in Iraq or Afghanistan, for example, attempting to impede the operations of British or American forces there: How long would it have taken before an irate – or, perhaps, ever so slightly unhinged – squaddy,  in the “pressure cooker” of a war zone (which Gaza was no less), thought “F*ck this! I have had quite enough of this interfering little prick”?

To me, Tom Hurndall – like Rachel Corrie just before him – is not the hero that he is so often portrayed to be. He was, rather, a very misguided young man, appearing to suffer from the misapprehension – even more popular these days, and shared by his family – that Israel’s war against Islamofascism is a gratuitous rather than strictly necessary one, and that Hamas and Islamic Jihad militants are, somehow, not really dangerous.

“We have had to deal with cover-ups and lies and a total lack of accountability throughout, and this is in line with that – it’s symptomatic,” continued Sophie Hurndall on Monday.

Bollocks, once again.

Sergeant Hayb was tried and convicted (if following several months of pressure from the Hurndalls). Would Tom Hurndall’s death in Iraq or Afghanistan (as described above) have resulted in a similar outcome? I very much doubt it. And under an Islamofascist dictatorship, such as the one Hamas is establishing in Gaza, the Hurndalls would still be trying to discover how and why their son ‘disappeared’, and whether he is still alive . . . while, all the time, his dismembered body was lying at the bottom of some well.

Of course, the fact that Sergeant Hayb is a Bedouin rather than a Jew has all been rather inconvenient for the Hurndalls, forcing them to modulate their rhetoric to the media over the past seven years.

On the other hand, the Jewish state is a much larger, easier, and – in these dark days – popular target than the particular motivations and reactions of a 20-year old, non-Jewish soldier.

http://www.justgiving.com/melchettmike

Making us sick: An open letter to a Turkish MP

Dear Mr. Kiniklioğlu,

I write in response to your op-ed article, This Israeli Government Has Gone Too Far, in last Wednesday’s International Herald Tribune.

“It makes yer sick . . .” So a dear, late uncle of mine would commence his not infrequent tirades against the hypocrisy and double standards of the international community and media in its treatment of Israel. And, after reading your ill-thought-out piece, I have not been able to get Uncle Stanley’s words out of my head.

As Deputy Chairman of External Affairs in Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) and Spokesman of your parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee, I would have expected you to know at least a little of your own country’s human rights record, however uncomfortable the facts.

From the opening, however, of your article’s second paragraph – “I have many friends in Israel . . .” (the equivalent of the anti-Semite’s familiar “Some of my best friends are Jews . . .”) – I feared the worst. And your description of the raid on the Gaza flotilla and of its “peace activists” – they of the delightful “Go back to Auschwitz” call – flies in the face of all the evidence, which clearly shows an attempted lynch of IDF soldiers.

How would Turkey respond to another country daring to interfere with its treatment of the Kurds? And how would your soldiers respond to beatings with iron bars, to having their weapons grabbed and turned on them, and to being thrown off the deck of a ship? Would Turkey provide the “independent investigation”, “apology”, “compensation” and “punish[ment]” which you now demand of Israel?

Your reference to the war which Israel “unleashed” in Gaza totally ignores its cause: eight long years of Hamas rocket attacks (still continuing). Turkey has hardly been a model of restraint when it comes to its Hamas, the Kurdish PKK. Moreover, conditions in Gaza make it seem like The Ritz compared to Turkey’s savagely neglected Kurdish hinterlands.

Turkey is not one-tenth of the democracy that Israel is (and after only 62 years of existence). Seeing as your Masters in International Relations would appear to have excluded them from its syllabus, here are just a few of the uncomfortable details:

• In 2008, Turkey ranked second (after Russia) in the list of countries with the largest number of open human rights violation cases at the European Court of Human Rights (source, and see this table).
• In addition to thousands of “disappearances”, by the close of 2008, a total of 2,949 people had been killed by unknown perpetrators and 2,308 by extrajudicial executions in the, primarily Kurdish, southeast and eastern regions of Turkey (source).
• Turkish politicians, trade unionists, journalists and human rights activists (genuine ones!) have been convicted merely for having used the word “Kurdistan” (source), while Turkey has a long history of deaths at demonstrations due to excessive police force, with 13 killed during a PKK funeral as recently as March 2006 (source).

For details of Turkey’s “cultural genocide” of the Kurds, its invasion, occupation and ethnic cleansing of northern Cyprus, and – most heinous of all – its extermination of up to one a half million Armenians, see here, here and here.

Where do you find the gall, Mr. Kiniklioğlu, to lecture Israel (or any country for that matter) about “blatant disregard for international norms and law”, to quote Amnesty International – whose website dedicates one hundred webpages solely to Turkey (and, then, only going back to 1994!) – or to moralise about what “the conscience of the Turks” can or cannot “carry the burden of”? What contemptible hypocrisy and sanctimoniousness!

The feebleness of your argument (if indeed there is one) is reflected in your desperate, shameful references to how the Turks “welcomed the Jews escaping from the Inquisition in Spain in 1492” and to how your “diplomats have risked their lives to save European Jews from the Nazis” (according to my research, a total of three Turks have been honoured by Yad Vashem).

You conveniently (cunningly?) omit to mention, however, the self-interest inherent in the Sultan’s and Atatürk’s aforementioned actions, and the subsequent huge contribution – especially commercial – of Turkish Jewry to your country. You also overlook, inter alia, Turkey’s racist 1942 Wealth Tax, its role in the Struma disaster of the same year, and the no less than three terrorist attacks on Istanbul’s Neve Shalom Synagogue.

Have you forgotten, too, the hundreds of Israeli search and rescue workers who risked their own lives in order to save Turks in the aftermath of the 1999 Izmit earthquake?

You seem to consider that Turkey has been doing Israel a huge favour, all these years, by accepting arms supplies and upgrades, together with military intelligence and know-how, from our vastly superior army and air force.

No, it was not “the Israeli raid”, as you mischievously (duplicitously?) suggest, that “was a turning point for Turkish attitudes towards Israel” or which “crossed a critical threshold” . . . but rather your prime minister’s and party’s decision to realign Turkey with the terrorist states of Syria and Iran (you disingenuously also throw into your article mention of “the tension surrounding Iran’s nuclear program”, in which Turkey is now an accomplice). In such circumstances, writing that “Turks regard the current Israeli government as unfriendly” would be akin to Hitler having said that about the Russians, following the German invasion of the Soviet Union!

It is worrying that the International Herald Tribune sees fit to publish such dangerous, ill-thought-out drivel, merely by virtue of its author being a member of his country’s parliament. Had you submitted the same as part of an undergraduate degree in Politics at a British university (or even at a former polytechnic), it would have received a straight “F”.

To give you some idea of the strength of feeling here about your country’s double standards, an Israeli artist friend of mine – by no means a right-winger – related to me over coffee yesterday morning how he had walked 45 minutes to the Turkish Embassy in Tel Aviv merely to “give it the finger” (literally). And I, too, give you the finger, Mr. Kiniklioğlu, together with your vile, knuckle-dragging nation of hypocrites.

If you have anything to say in your defence – as to why you believe that your sickening hypocrisy and double standards should not earn you June’s Mook of the Month (with your reputation, from Web searches of your name, being forever associated with mookness) – I invite you to post it to
http://melchettmike.wordpress.com/2010/06/06/making-us-sick-an-open-letter-to-a-turkish-mp/
.

Yours sincerely,

melchett mike

[I have e-mailed this post to Mr. Kiniklioğlu via the contact page of his website.]

Raid on Terrorist Flotilla: Footie Songs Say It Best

“No one likes us, no one likes us, no one likes us, we don’t care.
We are Millwall, super Millwall, we are Millwall from the Den.”

Strangely enough, this ostensibly inane football song (full rendition) was reverberating in my head throughout yesterday, as I watched and heard the world reaction to the IDF’s storming of the terrorist flotilla.    

Even if the execution of the raid was ill-conceived (and I fear it was), it was justified (see my previous post, Dirty seamen stain Dunkirk weekend). But, for sustained, exaggerated and unfair criticism and singling-out by the media, one can easily substitute “Millwall” with “Israel”. And like the demonization of white, working class, Cockney football fans – an easy target for the press – that of the Jewish state has also created a siege mentality amongst its citizens and supporters. 

The fans of my football team, Leeds United, also have much of this mentality (incidentally, we have also had – and I was there – our own bitter experience of the Turks [see photos below]). But, when it comes to international Islamofascism, working class football fans appear to have a far better, more intuitive sense of right and wrong than the so-called “liberal”, Guardian-reading elite who so patronise them. Indeed, many of the friends and acquaintances I have made through my years of following Leeds United have remarked to me how much they respect and admire Israel for dealing with Fundamentalists in a way that they wish their own government would. 

Christopher Loftus (top) and Kevin Speight, RIP, hacked to death in the centre of Istanbul in April 2000. Their killers still roam free.

My inner voice was also chanting, yesterday, the words that we Leeds fans direct at our team when, as so often, it underperforms. “What the f*ck is going on?!” was not, however, aimed at the Israeli government or our brave young soldiers, but at the horrible media bias assailing my senses. Anyone who knows anything about Turkey can well imagine (if he/she can bear to) its reaction to another country daring to send aid to the Kurds – who are forbidden even to give their offspring Kurdish names – or supporting Kurdish claims for an independent state. But I won’t regurgitate my contempt for these sickeningly hypocritical knuckle draggers – it is all here, here, and here – only to say that Israel’s (former?) strategic cooperation with Turkey, a marriage of convenience, is no less a cause for shame than that with apartheid South Africa.  

The scenes from the deck of the boarded vessel were a horrible reminder for Israelis of the October 2000 Ramallah lynching (this Israeli Channel 2 footage requires no translation). And, by yesterday evening, as I became even more incensed by the double standards of the international reaction – and, especially, that of the Arab tyrannies and the two-faced Turks – I found succour in the soldier’s song, also appropriated by football fans: “F*ck ‘em all! F*ck ‘em all! The long and the short and the tall . . .” 

I ended a pretty horrible day with an adapted rendition of “If you hate Leeds United, have a go” (to the tune of She’ll Be Coming Round the Mountain). 

The terrorists had “ha[d] a go”. Nine (do we have a minyan yet?) are on their way to their 72 (I prefer them younger myself) Virgins. And I, for one, am not going to mourn them or apologise. 

Yes, f*ck ‘em all!

Dirty seamen stain Dunkirk weekend

“It does exactly what it says on the tin.”              

So proclaims an advertising slogan for woodstain, which has entered UK popular culture to describe anything that is exactly as it appears or claims to be.              

The slogan could not apply less to the two major nautical events of this weekend: on the one hand, the ceremony marking the anniversary of a sea “evacuation”; and, on the other, the anticipated arrival of the variously named “aid”, “freedom”, “peace”, even “blockade-busting”, flotilla.               

No, don’t be fooled by “what it says on the tin”.              

It is 70 years since the Dunkirk evacuation, when 340,000 Allied soldiers were rescued from the French beaches and advancing German armies in the early stages of World War Two. While unquestionably a retreat, the bravery of the seafaring rescuers in their convoy of “little ships” – enabling Good to fight, and to triumph over Evil, another day – established the term “Dunkirk spirit” in the British lexicon.               

The Miracle of Dunkirk

A considerably less heroic convoy of seamen – a stain on this special weekend – are due to arrive in Israeli waters today, under the guise of helping the poor, besieged Gazans . . .              

The same poor, besieged Gazans who gave a party of Islamofascist terrorists – whose raison d’être is the destruction of Israel no less than Hitler’s was that of the Jews – the majority of seats in their parliament.            

The same poor, besieged Gazans whose government has been holding a kidnapped Israeli soldier for four years, in complete contravention of international law, and bombarding Israeli civilians with rockets for over double that time.            

And, yes, the same poor, besieged Gazans who fill their children’s heads with vile anti-Semitic propaganda that would make Goebbels blush.          

Gaza flotilla, bearing Turkish and Palestinian flags

Even if you are troubled by these poor, besieged Gazans not being able to get their hands on a Kit Kat (couldn’t give a f*ck myself), make no mistake: this is neither a “humanitarian” mission, nor any of the other things written “on the tin” . . . but a dirty propaganda war – at least partially sponsored by the sickeningly hypocritical Turks, among the worst human rights abusers the world over – aimed purely at delegitimising Israel.         

As for the participants, they are an ignoble collection of agitators who – unlike the heroic Dunkirk veterans – have absolutely no concept of Good and Evil, being motivated purely by hatred of Jews. How else can one explain their obsession with Israel to the exclusion of all else?

And, be in no doubt, if the boot was on the other foot, Hamas would drown every last one of them.              

Kus ima shelahem ! כוס אמא שלהם

 

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.

The Good, the Sad and the Ugly

There have been two stories dominating the news in Israel this past week. While the first demonstrates everything that is good about today’s Jewish State, the second shows it at its most ugly.

And the good story does not relate to the start of the eighteenth Maccabiah Games. I can’t get too excited about a “Jewish Olympics” . . . which, for me, is about as interesting as an Islamic beer, or Christian Klezmer music, festival.

Indeed, to call the Maccabiah amateurish would be unkind to much non-professional sport. In the men’s 100 metres final (stumbled across whilst channel-hopping), all the sprinters were in their blocks and the starter’s gun raised . . . when this guy appears out of nowhere, unchanged and remonstrating. Not having the heart to send him, un-run, back to Canada (I think that’s where the nincompoop was from), the sprinters were made to get out of their blocks and wait while he changed in front of a ‘live’ national TV audience. The commentator’s observation, that “something like this would never happen at the real Olympics” (in fact, it was pure Hasmonean Sports Day), was more than a little redundant.

Like the role of British polytechnics (now renamed “universities” . . . though everyone knows what you really are) – to enable those who can’t get into a ‘proper’ university to obtain a (worthless) “-ology” – the primary purpose of the Maccabiah is to allow yiddishe mamas whose children could not become doctors, lawyers or accountants, but who had a little sporting ability (a lot for a Jew), to kvell (gush) about something:

“Have you heard?! Darren’s been chosen to represent Great Britain in kalooki!!”

What Mrs. Shepnaches omits to mention is that: kalooki is a card game, Darren is only 37 – and should still be participating in active sports (like lawn bowls) – and he is only going to be representing Great Britain’s 280,000 Hebrews (less than half a percent of its total population).

The Maccabiah is all a bit sad, and perhaps the time has come to question its relevance and its future.

No, the stories that I am referring to are the victory of Israel’s men’s Davis Cup tennis team over the world number ones, Russia, last weekend, and the charedi (ultra-Orthodox) riots in Jerusalem these past few days.

For a sporting “minnow” like Israel – which, less than four years ago, was on the brink of virtual disappearance from the international tennis map – to beat the mighty Russia 4-1 and reach the Davis Cup semi-final (in Spain, in September) is little short of sensational. Indeed, alongside Maccabi Tel Aviv basketball team’s five European Cups, it must go down as one of Israel’s greatest sporting achievements (and further poetic justice following Sweden’s spineless capitulation to Islamofascists in the previous round).

More importantly, however, and as opined by David Horovitz in his weekend Jerusalem Post Editor’s Notes (aptly subtitled “Wonderful things can happen when everybody pulls in the same direction”), it demonstrated how – as we have seen in so many of Israel’s “against all odds” military victories – a spirit of unity and solidarity can enable this miraculous little country to far out-punch its weight.

The riots in Jerusalem, conversely, illuminate the ugly side of Israeli Jewish society and a chasm of as much concern, if not more, than that between Jew and Arab. And it is one which serves to further weaken the country in the eyes of its many, queuing, detractors (see, too, Horovitz’s weekend editorial). Thousands of charedim went on the rampage after a woman belonging to a radical anti-Zionist hassidic sect, and believed to be suffering from mental illness, was arrested on suspicion that she had almost starved her three-year old son to death. Tens of police officers were injured in the clashes, with over half a million shekels worth of damage caused to municipal property. The rioters’ leaders remained silent.

These anti-Zionists do not recognise the sovereignty or legitimacy of the secular State of Israel, and – like other, merely non-Zionist, charedim (for a brief background on charedim and Zionism, click here) – pay relatively little or no tax (the vast majority don’t work), and (with a negligible number of exceptions) do not serve in the military. If I were the parent of an IDF combat soldier, I would want to know why my son has to risk – or had to sacrifice – his young life, when charedi boys of the same age get away with sitting in yeshivot (Talmudic seminaries) all day?

And please don’t insult us with the disingenuous nonsense that learning and praying have been as much a part of Israel’s great military victories as the heroism and selflessness of its young soldiers. I had to suffer more than enough of that from the feebleminded Jewish studies ‘teachers’ of my childhood and youth. We saw how much good prayer did us in Auschwitz and Treblinka. In fact, if charedim had (perish the thought) been leading this country at any one of  its many times of existential crisis, we would all now be fish food somewhere at the bottom of the Mediterranean.

I don’t hate charedim. I am from charedi stock, and most ‘connected’ to my Galician and Lithuanian roots. Indeed, should I ever be viewed as truly chiloni – secular, in the rather extreme Israeli definition of the word – I might consider it time to head back to the Diaspora.

I am, however, convinced that charedim have rather lost the plot in modern day Israel. The hassidic choice of clothing, especially, which had some rationale in Eastern Europe, is positive madness in a country with an average summer high (even in Jerusalem) pushing 30°C. No wonder Stuey and Dexxy bark when they walk past! Even the most sacred and entrenched of Jewish traditions – and the wearing of such garb could never be classed as that – have been adapted to the relevant environment and other circumstances.

There are communities of Ger and Belz hassidim living in in a spirit of peaceful coexistence in my Sheinkin area of Tel Aviv, considered the ultimate symbol of modern, chiloni Israel. I was shocked, however, to be told recently by one of their number that that he doesn’t consider chilonim to be Jews.

Anyway, my suggestion to all of those charedim who don’t like it here in Israel, do not recognise and respect the country’s laws, and/or who oppose the very basis of the State – like the Neturei Karta filth who demonstrate against Israel alongside the most hateful of anti-Semites, attend Holocaust-denial conferences in Tehran (right), and who, on Thursday, paid a visit to Hamas in Gaza – is that they return to live in the shtetls (small towns) of Poland and Eastern Europe. Perhaps life will be better for them there, where they will be more or less self-governing and left to their own devices.

Charedim such as these, living in Israel, are no better than parasites. And to add chutzpah to injury, whilst considering themselves not subject to the law, they – again, like all charedim (about 8% of Israel’s citizens) – try to influence how the rest of us lead our lives.

They can’t, however, have it both ways. If they expect to enjoy the fruits of Israeli citizenship, they must obey and fulfil the same rules and obligations as the rest of us. If they are unwilling to, I am certain that the Poles, etc, will welcome them back with open arms (or, at least, blades).

Sometimes, I think that they deserve each other.

Washing, folding . . . and binning Ha’aretz?

I remain befuddled by the continuing international brouhaha triggered by Ha’aretz’s (self-titled) “exposé” of IDF abuses during Operation Cast Lead.

Amos Harel’s article, Yorim ve’bochim (Shooting and crying) – referring to the tradition of Israeli soldiers meeting to discuss their experiences of combat – should rather have been titled Shotfim ve’mekaplim (Washing and folding), as a significant part of the particular discussion featured in the article centred on whether or not soldiers had a duty to sweep and wash the floor, and fold away blankets, in a house commandeered from Hamasniks.

In an almost Pythonesque rebuke, Danny Zamir, the academy founder at the heart of the current debate, told participants “If you’ve spent a week in a home, clean up your filth.”

But, as one of the soldiers pertinently observed, “I don’t think that any army, the Syrian army, the Afghani army, would wash the floor of its enemy’s houses, and it certainly wouldn’t fold blankets and put them back in the closets.”

That immoral IDF!

In fact, this non-story – published in last weekend’s newspaper, following a PR build-up of which Max Clifford would have been proud – has left Ha’aretz with seriously runny egg on its face. As demonstrated by the ever admirable Melanie Phillips,  in her article in The Spectator, The Ha’aretz Blood Libel, it was one of the sloppiest pieces of ‘journalism’ that one can ever have had the misfortune of wasting one’s Shabbos afternoon on.

I have Ha’aretz delivered daily – it is a far better read than the English-language alternative, The Jerusalem Post – but I just don’t know how much longer my blood pressure can withstand its hateful analysis. I have started to feel that I might as well subscribe to Der Stürmer (or even The Guardian).

Anshel Pfeffer wrote an intelligent ‘reply’ to Ms. Phillips, in this weekend’s Ha’aretz. Whilst I share what he identifies as the newspaper’s main concern – “the deep moral and material damage [the Occupation] has caused Israel” – and his celebration of the healthy democracy which its existence represents, he misses what is so disturbing about Ha’aretz . . .

Whenever you see, under a title, the name Gideon Levy or Amira Hass – primus inter pares (there are several others at Ha’aretz) – unlike Forrest Gump’s “box of chocolates”, you always know exactly what “you are gonna get” . . . never an objective view of the facts, but always a twisted, poisonous, perversion of them: propaganda which portrays Israel as bully, and the poor, defenceless Palestinians – however armed to the teeth by their Islamofascist sponsors – as victims.

And so committed are Levy, Hass et al to their pernicious agenda that they never, ever surprise.

If this is what Israel’s “quality” newspaper has to offer, it is no surprise that Ha’aretz’s daily circulation – around 70,000 copies – is so low (considering that it has no real competition). And I, too, am now questioning whether I can justifiably continue to fund it, and its unholy team of ‘journalists’.

Sticking it up the Swedes: a Sporting Purim Shpiel

Alfred Nobel! Greta Garbo! Ingrid Bergman! Ingmar Bergman! Britt Ekland! ABBA! Björn Borg! Sven-Göran Eriksson! Ulrika Jonsson! Can you hear me (if you are not under Sven), Ulrika Jonsson?! Your boys took one hell of a beating! Your boys took one hell of a beating!!

Okay, it was a Norwegian, not a Swedish, commentator who came up with a similar commentary – when his country’s footballers defeated England in a World Cup qualifier, in 1981 – but you get the idea.

And Israel’s 3-2 Davis Cup tennis victory, this weekend, over Sweden – the seven-time winners, who produced, in Borg, arguably the greatest player of all time – was no less of a giant-killing. Israel is now in the quarter-finals – where it will face Russia, in July (in Israel) – for only the second time in its history (the first was in 1987).

And the embarrassing home defeat was no more than the Swedes deserve, for their shameless decision to bow to domestic Islamofascist pressure to stage the tie behind closed doors (although, seeing as Sweden is always amongst the highest-placed developed countries in the international suicide rankings, it is perhaps no surprise that so many fundamentalist Muslims – known to be rather partial to the practice – have decided to settle there).

Just a few days after the attack on Sri Lanka’s cricketers in Lahore, by Pakistani Islamofascists, it was the perfect time to reaffirm the importance of sport in bringing people together. The significance, however, was sadly lost on the predictably unimaginative Swedes.

As a result of the Swedish spinelessness, I had considered issuing a melchett mike fatwa on all Jews who purchase “Volvoys” – what they call Volvos in Golders Green and Stamford Hill – but resolved that it would serve no useful purpose, because the company is now owned by Ford.

Boycotting IKEA would be far preferable, as the furniture retailer is far more accessible to the average Israeli than a Volvo – the store near Netanya, in spite of being amongst the most expensive in the world, appears to do a thriving trade – and because I have always hated the f*cking place, its labyrinths representing the ultimate shopping hell.

What I would only do for Israeli- Swedish relations

I would, however, be prepared to reconsider my call for a boycott if Ulrika (right) were to visit Tel Aviv, and ‘thrash things out’ with me in a spirit of mutual giving and openness. Purely in the interests of improving relations between our nations, you understand . . .

Anyway, a very happy Purim to Israel’s tennis heroes, Dudi Sela, Harel Levy, Andy Ram and Amir Hadad – our modern, sporting Mordechais – for sticking it up the anti-Semitic (let’s face it, that is what it boils down to) Swedes.