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
melchett mike 
A lot of Israel’s bashers are sufficiently fully aware though. It gives them a cause into which to channel their anger over perceived injustices in their lives or the lives of others.
Then their are the politicians who have large Muslim constituencies in the UK and will bash Israel just to get re-elected or to receive campaign funds.
For others it is their hard-left outlook. That is where Gert comes from. I don’t understand his Gaza being the last straw point as the hard-left take a universalist approach where there are no borders in the world. Therefore, Gert is an ideological anti-Zionist, I believe.
Either that or he, like many others, have bought into the myth of the ethnic cleansing of Palestine and the Gallowayesque battle cry that “Israel wiped Palestine off the map”.
A Superb article!
Melchett Mike readers are invited to view JCWatch at
which handles (or tries to) anti-Israeli comments in the London Jewish Chronicle’s Blogs.
Particularly recommended is:
written after the JC Editor continued to publish comments comparing Israel with Nazis.
This guy clearly has a personal agenda – but then again don’t we all? Having grown up in Yorkshire and now being a “self-hating exiled Yorkshireman”, I can simply feel this man’s pain (although not in the Belgian child-molesting manner) – Bridlington is a f*cking depressing place, which might explain things in his case.
חג שמח – בשנה הזאת בירושלים!
Thanks, Richard. Don’t forget, however, that we are talking about Israel-only bashers. Your “channelling anger” and “hard-left outlook” explanations – and even the “ethnic cleansing” one – fail to account for the total exclusivity of their approach.
Having dealt with Gert before I fully understand your attitude, he’s a crank and not a very funny one at that.
I also think that Gert cannot grasp what he sees as just a “religious group”, the Jews, being entitled to a state. For him it is out of place in the modern era. But then again it might be just another excuse, which all the anti-Israel bashers employ, to demonise Israel.
I’m not going to waste much time on this.
But I’ll comment briefly on your intro:
I’m not sure where you’re coming from with this. I’m guessing you’re a dedicated reader of British tabloids and we all know what a marvelous source of wisdom they are. Or may be it’s another attempt at ‘satire’, like your anti-French screed.
The Marc Dutroux affair was an appalling case of murderous pedophilia, of the kind that occurs once in a blue moon in just about any country in the world. It sparked multiple conspiracy theories, inside and outside the country, again as such a case would anywhere. There was never any evidence of a ‘government cover up’ or ‘connections to the Belgian King’, no more than there is credible evidence for the crash-landing of aliens in Roswell. Ditto that ‘Madeleine was stolen to order for a Belgian pedophile ring’. But conclusive evidence was found of police incompetence, lack of inter-departmental cooperation and such like, seriously hampering the investigation. That’s very serious stuff indeed. Unfortunately for the gutter press the reality isn’t quite as saucy as the conspiracy theories and doesn’t sell quite as many chip wrappers.
As regards your categorising this post under ‘Belgians’ and ‘Belgium’, it’s rather typical of your MO, I’m afraid. Mike has a beef with someone of another country and hops, he has a beef with all members of that country. But that’s what Nationalistic racists do. In what way, Mike, does my being born Belgian have any bearing on my views on Zionism? Or Marc Dutroux for that matter?
think you missed melchett’s point almost entirely gert… which i think is that it would make no more sense for him to exclusively single out belgium and belgians because of the paedophilia issue than it is for you to single out israel and zionists (and jews) because of the human rights one. i think it is called “analogy”.
nice one again melchett!
dizengoff dave
Dave:
And of course this is a completely false analogy. For one, there is no ‘Belgian pedophilia issue’: Belgium is no more a ‘pedophilic country’ than any other. The Dutroux case is such a rarity that it can metaphorically speaking almost be considered an ‘Act of G-d’ (Force Majeur). The deaths were almost entirely attributed to a single person, who is now locked up and looking at life without parole.
By contrast, Israel’s disproportionate attack on Gaza was a man-made disaster costing the lives of almost 1,400 Palestinians including over 100 women and over 300 children. Israel largely continues to deny any wrongdoing, instead preferring that good old tactic of shooting the messenger…
Gert, I agree with you about the deaths of Palestinians but what about the other deaths in the world that that are man made? The hundreds of thousands in Darfur, those killed by Chechen separatists incl. the Beslan massacre of women and children and, dare I say it, the thousands of women and children killed by Palestinians over the years? Why don’t you devote your blog to all innocents tragically killed in war?
Richard:
What gives you the right to have a blog that’s dedicated to Zionism but not me? What gives Modders the right to dedicate his blog almost entirely to antisemitism and not other forms of racism? Why does there have to be this ridiculous double standard when it comes to Israel or Zionism? Bloggers choose, for whatever reason, a subject. No one questions their motives. But not when it comes to Israel, oh no, then we’re all suspects. Well, so be it. My blog is an almost infinitesimal quantum of pressure exerted on Israel, it looks like the many others who make other equally seemingly small efforts are beginning to get the upper hand.
Without outside pressure, Israel will not change course…
Richard,
You’re on a hiding to nothing arguing with Gert.
He can’t read what’s written, gets the wrong end of the stick as if it is an Olympic sport, and deliberately misrepresents other people’s views.
Basically he’s a bit thick, not uncommon amongst members of the Far Right.
Because if he had taken the trouble to look at my blog he’d see that I cover international issues (Tibet, China, etc), anti-Jewish racism and anti-Muslim bigotry.
Not forgetting anti-fascism, etc and I obviously cover certain topics because I feel there is a need, anti-Jewish racism is just one, and the issues surrounding it are not really discussed on the British Left, which I think is wrong.
I am not sure what Gert was doing when Leo Tindemans was PM in Belgium, but I was nutting neo-Nazis amongst other things 🙂
I think as blog owners we choose topics that interest us.
I would like to comment more on a lot more subjects but I don’t because I don’t have any specialist knowledge or much to say (I prefer reading others who know about these things), but certainly there is a range of blogs who demonstrated a obsessional compulsiveness with Israel in a rather unhealthy way.
You won’t get Gert all these other cranks to admit it but that’s how it seems from the outside, a decidedly peculiar (and often ill informed) view of the Middle East.
Basically it is best to ignore them, and hope they’ll go away but they never do!
“Israel’s disproportionate attack on Gaza was a man-made disaster”
yes – “made” by eight years of hamas rockets!
Dave:
Israel has the right to defend herself, right? Correct and that’s what she did during those years: I don’t think there was a single attack that didn’t go unpunished. So please don’t give me that BS about ‘Israel’s patience’. The story of these eight years is a long and winded one with truces, broken truces, incursions, counter-attacks etc etc from both sides.
Modders:
Condescending piece of shit, aren’t you?
Now indulge me please: what does Leo Tindemans have to do with anything?
You were nutting Neo-Nazis? Well, let’s just hope you got the right guy each and every time then, eh? Taking the Law into your own hands is a dangerous thing…
Exactly, Gert can’t even understand what’s written in front of him, you have to explain things ad nauseam.
What a waste of time.
Modders:
People who after forty years of this occupation (leaving aside what went before) still feel no compunction to protest it shouldn’t have a claim to anything, let alone a sense of justice. It took some thirty years for the shells to gradually fall from my eyes but today Israel’s intentions are clearer than ever before. I am of course not the only one who woke up one morning during Gaza and decided that enough was enough: our numbers are now steadily rising. You condemning all this as an unexplained bout of worldwide antisemitism will not make that go away. And if you believe it’s a manifestation of the innateness of Goyishe antisemitism, forget it: that is in itself a deeply racist viewpoint and cornerstone of much Zionist thinking from its inception to the present day…
Israel will sooner or later be held to account and its expansionist project stopped. The world tends to be slow in recognising injustices but usually it eventually gets there. You are finding yourself massively on the wrong side of the argument.
You call others, risibly, Far Right, yet seem unaware/unbothered that if Israel was a European country it would be the laughing stock of the entire EU, on account of having a coalition government that really cannot move much more to the Right before we have to consider it Fascistoid (to say the least). Lieberman is considered by many Israeli’s to be a fascist (I don’t go that far).
You claim to be Centrist Left (correct me if I see that wrongly), yet contribute to a blog (‘CiFWatch’), owned by an American conservative arsehole (‘Hawkeye’) which has another two deeply conservative contributors (Alderman and Hoffman).
As regards your further attempts at portraying yourself purer than the driven snow, just look to whose rescue you are coming here: Mike writes an anti-French screed of the kind only a determined BNPer would come up with, yet has the gall to accuse me of antisemitism for supporting the Palestinian cause. You see nothing contradictory in that? Perhaps you want to dismiss his Gallic phobia as ‘just a bit of fun’? In which case you won’t mind antisemitic jokes either, will you? No, I thought not. For the record: there’s nothing funny about antisemitism or antisemitic jokes.
“You claim to be Centrist Left”
Yet again, basic illiteracy from Gert.
I don’t claim to be anything.
I loath political labels, more often than not they hide more than they reveal.
I am not exactly shy about my views as anyone who reads my blog with degree of sense will see.
And my Norm profile adds to that.
Still, I expect my views to be misrepresented by thickos like Gert. That’s what happens.
Modders:
Dammit, you’ve got me! That must be why you call me ‘Far Right’ then…
Illiterate? I speak four languages fluently. What have you got?
Your ‘normprofile’? Norman Geras? Who the f*ck reads those things?
Gert loves a good label. Hard-lefties call anyone that puts across Israel’s case a “Zionist” as if it is derogatory. But why attach a label? I don’t get it. Meanwhile, Gert is “hard-left” on his own admission but, in my view, hard-left and far-right meet around the back almost. Look at Lenin’s attitude to a Jewish state for example.
Richard:
Labels are words, as long as their meaning is well understood, there’s no objection to using them. You object to being called a Zionist, yet you parrot every single position in the Hasbara playbook. And all this because you want to maintain a facade of ‘independence’ and ‘objectivity’. In reality you’re about as objective as Netanyahu. Nail your colours to the mast, it doesn’t hurt.
Complete and utter tosh. The Far Right positively hates us (and visa versa). I’ve no idea what Lenin’s views on a Jewish state were (nor am I interested). You reference to Lenin’s is about as meaningfull as some far right antisemites referring to Jews as ‘all Bolsheviks’. Grow up.
You heartless BASTARD “Gert” – how can you just ignore the plight of the Falun Gong?
Do you think East Asian peoples are in some way less valid human beings than others? Oh what a sick, deranged, neo-Nazi reptile!
So Gert is illiterate in four languages, how marvellous.
It is a shame that his teachers never explained the concept of linguistical fluency, it is being able to render accurately in another language what other people are saying and then getting them to verify your understanding.
I often have this problem when I’m conversing in a certain European language, I think I’ve express myself marvellously, but then I paraphrase it in English and I’m told by native speakers that my grasp of this European languages less than perfect.
Fortunately linguistically speaking I’m humble enough to acknowledge that, but when you deal with a lot of people in a lot of countries (including Belgium), you meet people who think they are fluent in a language but aren’t.
In Gert’s case I think it is down to the fact he’s rather dense, but who knows? and frankly who cares?
i have just found this… http://advant.blogspot.com/2009/09/quinton-tarantinos-inglorious-bastards.html
search references to “gert”.
makes for interesting reading!
dizendoff dave:
I suggest you also look at this and a few subsequent comments…
Also makes for interesting reading.
Modders:
Fortunately linguistically speaking I’m humble enough to acknowledge that, but when you deal with a lot of people in a lot of countries (including Belgium), you meet people who think they are fluent in a language but aren’t.
You arrogant twit…
This has truly become slapstick comedy!
One should allow this man his dignity to Gert off while he can [sic] quietly.
Although in the vein (no pun intended) of his obvious Belgian stereotyped pædophilia, he would obviously enjoy such an eventuality.
Modders:
It’s really quite stunning that a citizen of a country not renowned for its willingness to learn other languages (an attitude to often leads to blatant xenophobia, cultural insensitivity and supremacist thought) has the gall to berate someone from another country on their linguistic skills. Do you realise that in many European countries we have no choice but to accommodate your laziness regarding adopting another languages?
So now you’re actually coming across as a Little Ingelander, well done! It’s without a shimmer of doubt imbeciles like you that are partly responsible for Britain’s quite notorious Europhobia. You and Melchie, you’d make a great double act…
Melchie could further ridicule the French and in the background you could berate non-native English speakers for not speaking quite the Queen’s English.
I really thought I’d heard it all by now, but no…
Oh Stevie, you’re so drole. Did you make that up all by yourself?
In a more (no pun intended) serious vein, Mr Gert, I would agree that it is true The State of Israel should be criticised where such criticism is due (and wanting).
However, as many have tried to point out (to varying degrees of success), Israel is endemically singled out disproportionately [for criticism] when there are other serious problems occurring in the world.
I suggest (and I will be so bold as to claim that with many others here) it is fuelled by a somewhat latent antisemitism.
Steve, no matter how one looks at it, Israel is in many respects a special case.
It’s conquests aren’t what make it unique: such projects we have seen in the past many, many times.
And Israel isn’t just singled out for criticism, it also enjoys the unconditional support from the world’s only superpower, for about 40 years now, with receipts totaling about $ 100 billion to date.
The overwhelming majority of European governments also support the country through thick and thin (even though some cracks are now appearing in that facade).
But Israel maintains a military occupation (now one of the longest standing in the world) during which it has continued to build settlements (at an increasing rate even) and transfer its own population into that territory, despite protestations about the illegality of doing so from just about everywhere.
The country has probably flaunted more UN resolutions than any other in the history of the UN and breaks International Law routinely. Israeli government officials sometimes state openly that that is OK (for Israel).
Personally I favour the ‘singling out of Israel’ because it’s the only pressure that can be applied on it. The price for maintaining the occupation (maintaining the ‘status quo’) is very small. The price of withdrawal, on the other hand, would be very considerable: the logistical nightmare of extricating some 400,000 settlers, the cost of re-housing them, the political cost to Bibi’s career, the perceived security risk…
And I’ll be bolder: to an antisemite, Israel is the gift that keeps on giving… But the anti-Zionist movement is very keen to self-police and antisemitic elements are weeded out, excoriated and ridiculed. And Classic Antisemitism (TM) often isn’t that interested in Israel or Zionism (but in some cases, see BNP and EDL, actually supports it), they hate Jews because they’re Jews.
Again, Gert is playing the village idiot, with true professionalism.
I could be called many things, but a Little Englander isn’t one of them, for obvious reasons.
Having spent a considerable amount of time in Belgium I can say that Gert is not typical.
Most Belgians that I worked with could normally speak at least three languages, Flemish, English and French, and they did it competently unlike Gert.
I found the best linguists in Europe to be in the Netherlands and they had a fair sense of humour too.
But as I said, fluidity in a language is where you can render what other people say accurately and that they can confirm that you have managed that task.
Sadly, Gert doesn’t even begin to do that, but I fully accept it may be down to his poor comprehension skills rather than deficits in linguistical expertise.
His inability to understand that I cover Europe and the world is an illustration of that problem, were he to competently read my blog he would see that I rarely comment on matters in Britain, frankly because I find them so boring.
I am much more interested in what happens in Europe and other countries, than the goings-on in Britain.
However, Gert wouldn’t know that, or I am actually a bit of a Europhile, such is his linguistical failures.
Plus the fact he’s thick.
Gert, but why do you prefer the singling out of just Israel? Why not China or Russia or Sudan or Iran or Zimbabwe or Cuba etc?
And which UN resolutions has Israel flaunted?
“What gives you the right to have a blog that’s dedicated to Zionism but not me?”
gert, comparing your dubious (at best) motives to those of richard and modders is somewhat akin to adolf eichmann asking simon wiesenthal: “what gives you the right to be dedicated to nazis(m) but not me?”
Modders:
No? Fine. And I’m not a Far Right antisemite either.
Humbug. You don’t know me from here nor there. Apart from a wrong impression you got from me (with that super fast type of judgment you and your friends CC and Vildechaye passed) from my blogging I’m a complete unknown to you. And what on Earth would be typical of Belgium?
And here he goes off in ‘expert mode’ again: there isn’t a subject the man isn’t an authority on. Antisemitism? Only one source of wisdom: Modders! Middle East? Unless you’re Modders, you don’t even come close. He’s the real expert and keeps telling everyone who disagrees with him that they’re ill-informed. It doesn’t occur to him they might be just as informed as him, yet draw different conclusions…
Same here, our self-professed speaker of one and a half languages is now an expert on Belgian/Dutch ‘linguists’. Did you really mean linguists, Moddy? Those who study languages scientifically? Know some renowned Belgian/Dutch language scientists then?
That’s complete baloney too: you spend most of your time trying to find ‘dirt’ on British anti-Zionists so you can declare them antisemites or Holocaust deniers. You even contribute to a ridiculous smear blog (‘CiFWatch’) to that effect. If you want people to competently read your blog then don’t ban them from it: it kind of puts people off, you know?
“That’s complete baloney too: you spend most of your time trying to find ‘dirt’ on British anti-Zionists so you can declare them antisemites or Holocaust deniers.”
What a fuckwit.
Had Gert spent any time on my blog he’d see I have commented on traditional British politics about 3 times in a year.
If he had read my blog with any competence then he would have see my Norm profile on the front page, from that he would see many things and my preferred place to live, but he didn’t.
Thus, if Gert can’t read the basics yet he claims to be fluent he must be rather thick.
I’ll leave it at that, his entertainment value is diminishing.
Like I said before, Moddy, I’ll be scrutinising your comments section very closely over the next few weeks. Then we’ll see if your ‘comment policy’ actually holds.
Your garden gnome avatar is well chosen… make sure it doesn’t fall of its little pedestal.
what comforts me is the thought of that sad malevolent belgian fuck wasting the rest of his unemployed (unemployable?) existence in his depressing seaside shit hole demonising israel, zionism and jews… when we will all be flourishing long after he, together with the galloways and kaufmans of this world, are happily forgotten.
I agree with DD. All the better that resentful men like Gert wreak their funny ways on the internet than in the real world.
While you deserve credit for exposing the kind of obsessive, pathological haters like Gert-rude, who hide behind the Anti-Zionist rubric as a cover for severe anti-Semitism, I can’t help wondering if you are just not stoking his narcisistic impulses.
Look how much satisfaction this lonely, solitary wanker is reaping from our attention; how he exuberantly joins in the discussion!, defending his motivations, whereas had he been a real human being, he’d bury his stinking head in the sand out of shame.
Believe me, nobody adores the Gert more than I (sadly my feelings are not always reciprocated), though his “FREE PALESTINE!” (on Richard Millett’s blog) tickled my funny bone. Have you any idea how free the Gaza Strip is since it was freed by the Hamas?
If you’re an unlucky Fatah supporter you get machine-gunned in a field. The lucky ones were given flying lessons from six floor buildings. The free women are allowed to reveal their eyes. The free children have their schools used as missile launching bases in the hope that Israel may fire back and they’ll be something to put on CNN. That’s the lucky ones. The unlucky ones have explosives strapped to them and are sent off to be Shahids.
Gaza is so free that not one Israeli Arab has moved there to enjoy the freedom. Many have turned up in their underpants at the Israeli border begging to be saved from Palestinian freedom.
I think it was Golda Meir who said that peace won’t come until our enemies learn to love their children more than they hate ours.
It may be a long wait, but I believe the day will come.
Though I can’t speak on the Hamas’ behalf, I’d offer the Gert to pop over to Free Gaza himself. Strangely, their tourism is going through a bit of a slump, despite the gorgeous free beaches etc, and I’m sure they’d find him a decent hotel room, free or not.
There the Gert would get s first-hand view of Free Palestine, I would, however, advise him to keep his reservations about the free Palestinian leadership to a minimum as he may bump into Gamil and his pals there who may feel free to execute a bit of Free Palestinian Islamic justice.
My only tips in such an eventuality would be to write his will ahead of time and have a haircut as he may well find himself on CNN with a free Palestinian pistol to his head, begging for his miserable life. Always nice to look one’s best on such occasions.
After all that, and assuming he’s still in one (Belgian) piece, he’s welcome to join the throngs of free Palestinians begging to enter our Zionist entity for reasons of marriage, medical treatment, protection from terrorists (oops sorry freedom-fighters) or any other excuse they can think of. As indicated earlier, they often come in their undies lest they be mistaken for human time-bombs, so the Gert may want to make sure he has a clean pair handy for the occasion. Marks and Spencer are good but hardly free. White seems quite customary.
If he makes it over, it should be safe sailing. We’d be happy to be his gracious hosts. Gert would wake in the morning to a view of the Mount of Olives by the sweet song our local mosque caller. Such is the peaceful life on our tiny 40,000 man strong West Bank settlement.
Anyway, whatever Gert decides to do, we love him very much and may his God be with him.
FREE PALESTINE!!
I wonder how long these mindless c*nts would be able to stick living under the PA . . . never mind Hamas.
Personally, I’d bulldoze the lot of them.
where has that tosser gert gone? although i’m a bit late to the party i’m ready to give him a thrashing . . .
Daniel Marks you are very very funny. Where can I sign up for more?
“…o the Gert may want to make sure he has a clean pair handy for the occasion. Marks and Spencer are good but hardly free. White seems quite customary….” hahahahahahaha. Hilarious.
Daniel, surely you could have come up with a better pseudonym than “Ruth”?!
Ruth is a fine name and interestingly, also a now unused English noun meaning gentle or pity or compassion.
Ever noticed how a cruel person, such as Gerty’s mate Gamil, might be described as “ruthless” but gentle folk like you or my excellent self are never just called ruth?
Makes ye think!
Shabbat shalom and enjoy your Yemenite dish,
Daniel
I once got a £1 name keyring Ruth from Ireland explaining how Ruth means quiet and beautiful and loving etc and saying what it means in Hebrew. I loved this keyring (was good for the ego) for around 10 years until my (Gert look away now) Israeli (you can look again now) husband who is not backwards in coming forwards told me it is a load of bollocks and that’s not what it means at all. Smashed my world to pieces. However, for clarity I am all of these things mentioned on the rusty keyring. Now that that is cleared up, you can all get back to rubbing gerts nose in the poopoo that is coming out of his mouth. Group hug.
Ruth,
Far be it from me to call your better half an ignoramus, but the noun ruth is probably a derivative of the 13th century (Middle English) ruthe meaning:
1 : compassion for the misery of another
2 : sorrow for one’s own faults : remorse
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ruth
As I said, only the terms ruthless and ruthlessness are left to remind us of this now extinct word, but I’m sure that we would all be much enriched if were there a little more ruthfullness in the world.
Hugs returned.
Gert, how are you my old chum?
Now, I’m not at all suggesting you’re a dog but I think you are barking up the wrong tree. Just please don’t cock your leg up while you’re at it and do peepee on it as that would be darn right rude. Come on Gert, let’s be civilised about this.
Why don’t you go and bark, so to speak, up “The Palestinians disputed olive trees”? You are not helping them. You are only encouraging them to choose the path of “folly and crackpotability” rather than “wisdom and peace”. Not to mention encouraging them to wallow in the victimhood status they cling onto as does our media (encourage them). You would be doing them the world of wonders to use your energy in explaining to them something in the spirit of the following “look Pallys, I know we don’t like these pesky Jews who call themselves a nation and refuse to go away despite being the most hunted species in the world, but it looks like they are not going anywhere (pause for a long sigh) So I would suggest that we unfortunately need discussions from a starting point of recognising their right to be here. I’m not so sure we can push them in the sea after all (another long sigh of resignation for effect)”
What’s the matter Gert? Is it easier to debate with the democratic Jews/Pro-Israelis rather than challenge the views of the totalitarian brigade you so passionately defend and risk being lynched? Scary shit eh? And no one conducts better and more thorough lynchings than them! We love a good debate us Jews. You know what they say Gert, two Jews, three opinions….
It’s people like you who not so inadvertadly send the message to the Palestinians that it’s ok, we understand why you (amongst many other sick deeds) dress babies up in mock suicide bomber outfits. It’s because someone farted on my land and occupied it. Gert, doesn’t this repulsive child abuse break your heart? It breaks mine. I would sincerely adopt them all if I could and then with my Jewish chutzpah teach and manipulate them callously into peace and co-existence and love and all fluffy nice things.
You know Gert, there are so many new intelligent initiatives springing up from the west to encourage and enable poverty stricken African states to “till the soil” themselves rather than throwing guilt driven donations from the west on the leaders so they can spunk it up the wall. Not to mention creating dependency on the west which in turn, and understandably so, causes “biting the well meaning hand that feeds” mass resentment. I know this is incredibly racist to suggest Africa is a poor underdeveloped continent and accepts western donations and that I am alluding to the fact that we in the west are superior and bigger and better yada yada yada. But put that sentiment aside for a moment and lets deal with the rest of it lest you get diverted and miss the bigger picture. We must join forces together to help you get rid of that tunnel vision you have fallen victim to.
Do you not realise/care that you are encouraging Palestinian dependency on their mythical narrative of victimhood? Rather than moaning about stolen olive trees and stolen vital organs and the like, why don’t you help them plant a few trees while you’re at it and donate some vital organs yourself? (just kidding about the latter!! Funny eh?)
Why do you hate the Palestinians so much? What did they ever do to you that you make it your life mission to punish them and ruin their hopes of ever having a state? Why don’t you go and pick on others rather than channel all your anger onto them?
You’re banging on about land when you know full well this is not about land. Give me a break. As a wise man once told me “there are no shortcuts in life”, wise words indeed. As this blogger has said, “I am pro the occupation until Israel’s security is assured. No doubt, if Israel withdrew, the rockets would start hitting Tel Aviv and there would be another war just like Gaza. More bloodshed” I suppose it’s futile in repeating this fact as I have a hunch the size of Mars that this fact may not concern you too much? Tell me I’m wrong Gert? Rockets being fired into Tel Aviv where many of my family reside (I’m a 10th generation Holy Lander!! Woo hoo!) may not be on the top of your agenda? I mean, you might give a half arsed attempt to at least pretend this is a slight concern but I’m not fooled. I wonder furthermore if deep down the thought of it makes you rub your hands together with glee whilst saying in the same breath, “no but I have Jewish friends” . Yeh, that old chestnut. Anyway Gert if only we could get the Palestinians to be obsessed with constructing their own viable state rather with them being so hell-bent on destroying Israel then I believe you would find your life to be so fulfilling that you would be far too busy to take time out as you do to engage in blogger bashing. As much as you would be missed, and you could make a guest appearance infrequently, we would spare you for the greater good of the Palestinians. Furthermore we would all look forward to your quarterly reports on how many olive trees you planted for them.
Allah Akbar.
Dearly beloved,
We are gathered here today, to mourn the virtual passing of Bridlington’s finest, our much-loved Gert.
Gert got picked on by a gang of Jews, and never recovered – bless him.
Still his capitulation to the sons of Moses with their longish noses, and his inability to answer their fundamental queries pertaining to his comments about “other colossal mistake nations,” and his moronic oxymoronic “anti-Zionist supporters of Israel” leaves one wanting more of the same, if not for the intellect and integrity then at least for the entertainment value.
But this tit-for-tat bickering has got out of hand so let’s tone it down a notch or two and lighten the mood with a little ditty I have composed that shows that, while I have no doubt about his motives, I harbor no ill-feeling towards Gert.
While selective or even near blanket criticism of a country’s policies can be legitimate and rooted in honor, Gert’s crass questioning of Israel’s very existence is nothing less than ontological genocide, the harbinger of its physical cousin.
I have endearingly dubbed this ditty “BELGIUM WAFFLE SS” about an entirely fictitious Belgian blogger, Bert . . .
A Jew hating blogger called Bert
Had the Jews rub his nose in the dirt
He got quite annoyed
When called unemployed
That unemployed bugger called Bert
Get off your arse and work Bert
You claim benefits you do not deserve
From Belgium obscurity
To social security
Unscrupulous scrounger called Bert
That Israel basher called Bert
Is nothing more than inert
Little else can he do
Than spit hate at the Jew
Belgium waffle SS man called Bert
I’ll tell you a thing about Bert
He’s a Nazi without the black shirt
Less emblematic
But still a fanatic
That goose-stepping trooper called Bert
But there’s a dark side to fun-loving Bert
He is really a hard-core pervert
By his own admissions
He loves Belgium traditions
Please bugger me silly said Bert
So the party animal called Bert
Put on high heels, mascara and skirt
The red lights went on
He sucked off a Jon
Now gainfully employed is Bert
I read your article concerning Gert, who is a typical Flemish Nationalist, with the huge chip on his shoulder, of being the progeny of Flemish Nationalist collaborators, with the Nazi regime.
Generally speaking, this phenomenon originated amongst the great unwashed of the Catholic church (the usual suspects) and many of them were abused (as in the almost cover-up of the Archbishop Roger Vangheluwe case). They were also sent off to the “Ostfront”, as cannon fodder, to stop the Communist hordes, so as the clergy could continue their excesses.
It is only now that “les Inciviques” as their Walloon “cousins” call them, are coming into their own, as they are comparing what the winners did to them, to their own excesses and being benignly frowned upon by most Belgian politicians, who, even from the LEFT, all have right-wing antecedents. Check out the latest outrageous statement by Karel De Gucht, our illustrious European Trade Commissioner.
Hence the raising of heads by such nonentities as Gert, who as it happens embody the saying of: “My enemies enemy is my friend”.
Watch out Gert, your status of “Dhimmi” is imminent. Just look what Ayatollah Khomeini did to the”Tudeh”, after they helped attain power. He had every last one of them hung, drawn and quartered (after today’s fashion).
They don’t realise it but, as I once told a well known Flemish politician, who reacted with a belly laugh (although Catholic, not an extreme Flemish Nationalist), that ours and their battles were quite similar, but that we chose the right ally and they, the wrong one.
I’m really glad, after 64 years to be finally getting out, so that I can become an Israeli right wing nationalist, with a more legitimate agenda than those incorrigible (2000 years of persecution, inquisition, pogroms and as a grand finale the holocaust) bastards who put my grandparents on the train to Auschwitz.
He’s going down, he’s going down, he’s going . . . Gertie’s going down!!
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4367780/Breaking-Bad-lab-man-sold-chemicals-terrorists.html
Hope they throw away the key. The malevolent Jew-hater.
Guess what… Gertie’s back where he belongs!
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-humber-67033545