Better a manyak than a sheep: some historical perspective re the “situation”

Can things possibly get any worse?

Viciously turned on by our only true friend in the region. The Palestinians on the verge of the unilateral declaration of statehood. Our own country divided and seemingly rudderless. And all of this under the spectre of the growing nuclear threat from Iran, with – perhaps most gallingly of all – not a word from the Israel-only bashers about the continuing human rights violations there, in Syria, and across the Arab and Muslim world . . .

Which might go some way to explaining why, as thousands streamed up Tel Aviv’s Ben Zion Boulevard towards the social justice rally, a fortnight ago, I – not untypically (I have always been a little davka) – walked alone in the opposite direction, to (the Dizengoff Centre and) the latest Woody Allen movie. After all, only an idiot, it seemed to me, would care about the rising cost of cottage cheese when we are in such an existential mess. (Joining the protest also seemed rather incongruous at a time that I was patting myself furiously on the back – you see, there are other things I do furiously! – for selling my Melchett home of 12 years, two blocks from Rothschild, just days before the tents went up.)

Then, Friday week ago, our Ambassador was forced to flee the new benevolent democracy next door (confirming my fears, expressed here just a week earlier), followed – on the Sunday, the tenth anniversary of 9/11 – by a Sky News studio guest summing up the decade since with “And there still isn’t a Palestinian state”: It was the Jews, of course, not Islamofascist knuckle draggers, who were really responsible for the murder of nearly 3,000 innocent people on that horrible day.

Rather than allow the matzav (situation) to get me down, however, I have tried to view it as I always have: in the light of a history that has never been much better than miserable (though, to quote Alvy Singer, “life is divided up into the horrible and the miserable . . . so, when you go through life, you should be thankful that you’re miserable”).

By way of illustration (with the aid of a quick Google search), the following occurred on September 11, 1941, 70 years to the day before last Sunday:

• The Jüdischer  Kulturbund (Cultural Federation of German Jews) was dissolved “for the protection of people and state.” (source)
• All 91 Jewish patients at the Babinski Hospital in Kobierzyn (near Krakow) were moved to the Zofiowka Sanatorium in Otwock (near Warsaw), where some were shot and buried in the garden, with the remainder gassed in Treblinka. (source)
• The following report (presented at the Eichmann trial) was written: “In Kamenets-Podolski [Ukraine], 23,400 Jews were killed by shooting within three days by the Group of the Senior Commander of the SS and the Police.” (source)

Complacent (primarily Diaspora, I believe) Jews who say that such things can never happen again have either never picked up a Jewish history book, or are too egotistical to see themselves as a mere dot in them. The calls from the radio of the Mavi Marmara, I would remind them, were “Go back to Auschwitz” and “Don’t forget 9/11.” They (and you fool yourself if you interpret the word narrowly) just don’t like us. That is the only feasible explanation for the obsession of the Israel-only bashers with Jews to the exclusion of all else.

70 years on from Auschwitz, however, we Jews are believed to be in possession of up to 400 nuclear weapons (source). And, kid yourselves not, the only reason that our Allah-loving enemies don’t attempt to finish off the Germans’ work is not any code of ethics, but the belief that the Jews really may have “second-strike” nuclear submarines.

As Ehud Barak spelt out last week, we Jews just can’t be f*cked with anymore: “They know very well why it’s not worth it for them to use chemical weapons . . . why it doesn’t pay for them to even think of using such weaponry against Israel.” (Haaretz)

Having moved to within three minutes’ walk of Bloomfield Stadium, home to all three Tel Aviv football clubs, I recently purchased a season ticket for Maccabi (who play in yellow; no self-respecting Leeds fan would dare be seen in red). And, at my first game, the guy seated behind me gave a crass course in Hebrew abuse: “Shofet, ya manyak ben zona (Referee, you crazy son of a whore)!” he yelled repeatedly, seemingly oblivious to the young son by his side.

At Israel’s subsequent Euro 2012 qualifier against Greece (also at Bloomfield), there were regular cries of “Milchama (war)!” And while I could understand why my friend, Nick, found them objectionable, I also thought: “How incredible that we Jews, not long ago history’s perennial victims, can finally shout stuff like that!”

If the Arabs are as stupid as some fear, or Ahmadinejad as reckless, there might still be another slaughter (heaven forbid). There will, however, this time, be no sheep. And we will take great numbers of the pathologically Jew-hating bastards down with us.

And that makes me, for one, through all of this bad news, feel a lot, lot better: Yes, it is great, for once, to be the manyak ben zona!

http://www.justgiving.com/mike-isaacson/

Why I am not full of the joys of Spring

You will forgive me, I hope, for not jubilantly swinging my misbaha over my head in celebration of the Arab Spring.

Israeli Embassy, Cairo, last Friday

After months of endless “Allahu akbars” (can’t they come up with anything new?) and the exaggerated, mindless firing into the air of automatic weapons, I – unlike many others it would seem, especially the depressingly naive correspondents of the western news media and the ever-Muslim-fawning BBC – am filled not with hope, but with concern . . .

Concern that liberty, democracy and equality, as well as respect for human life, won’t come to these people in a thousand springs.

And the best judges of this are not Ashkenazi, Haaretz-reading liberals – who believe that inventing, dreaming about, and intellectually masturbating over, a false reality makes them, somehow, more worthy human beings – but Jews who grew up in, and subsequently were forced to flee, one of the countries now ‘enjoying’ its Spring.

Sexpot: Ashrawi (on BBC's Breakfast with Frost)

One such, an Egyptian-born relative, would always remark, whenever having to hear Hanan Ashrawi – the Palestinian Christian sexpot – twist and deceive on British television: “If they get their own state, they will cut her hands off.” (And I must confess to having rather enjoyed the image.)

Concern, too, that these people are motivated not by love, or even the longing for a better future, but by hate and the desire to settle old scores.

The ‘new’ (liberated from the yoke of the tyrant Mubarak) Egyptians, outside the Israeli Embassy in Cairo last Friday (photograph above), were calling not only for the abolition of the Egypt-Israel Peace Treaty and the expulsion of the Israeli Ambassador:  “Jews, remember the Battle of Khaybar, the Army of Muhammad is already here . . . Oh Zionists, please be patient, there’s an Egyptian digging your grave.” Nice.

I was raised in an environment in which the worst intolerance ever encountered was the occasional less than flattering name for “the other,” usually by an elderly relative, in Yiddish.

Another people, on the other hand, raises many of its young to believe that Jews are the descendants of apes and pigs, in a conspiracy to control the world (funny that, I have never known a pig to aspire to anything beyond estate agency), and must be destroyed.

If you don’t believe me, take a look at Palestinian and Arab schoolbooks and newspapers (the cartoon on the right appeared in the widest-circulating Egyptian daily), listen to some of their delightful clerics (here and here), or enjoy their enchanting version of Sesame Street (and I haven’t even touched upon the latest filth spewing forth from Tehran).

So please excuse me if I am not filled with optimism and joy about the fall of Mubarak, Gaddafi, or even, imminently, of that vile weasel Assad.

Mark my words (though I do hope they prove to be wrong): this is not good.

[Please visit http://www.justgiving.com/mike-isaacson/ . . . only £500 to go!]

I love my old TV: an Israeli populace in dire straits

There is something more than a little surreal about going to pick up a gas mask. And I have been putting off the task for some time now, in spite of regular reminders by post and having been sufficiently aware of the possibility of a heavy, sustained attack on Israel – and Tel Aviv especially – to have blogged about it every few months (most recently in Getting ready to rock ‘n’ roll with Iran and Reflections on Armageddon).            

Gas mask graffiti: man reading sports pages (Rabin Square, Tel Aviv)

Fortunately, it is not in the Israeli “live for today” constitution to lose sleep over such an eventuality, and many of the natives won’t even bother to collect their masks – or “individual protection kits”, to give them their official, Orwellian name – as they consider them a waste of time (and they probably are).             

My friend Itzik, on the other hand, has been preoccupied with the spectre of war for months now. Meeting another friend, an IDF intelligence officer, for the first time recently, Itzik spent the entire evening trying to extract hints as to when he should book his outbound flight. And, ever since discovering my source, Itzik has regularly been enquiring as to whether I have “heard anything”. I, of course, now delight in terrorising him: “Where are you?” I’ll fire as he answers his phone. “How soon can you be at Ben Gurion (Airport)?”             

The recent automated telephone reminders – supplementing the postal ones – to pick up gas masks, however, have started to make me think that something really may be up . . . and imminent.             

Collecting my prehistoric CRT (cathode ray tube) television from repair – show me the Polish Jew who can easily dispose of something that once cost him several hundred pounds! – last week, the workshop owner mentioned that he was born in Iran. Instantly forgetting the dilemma of whether I should leave him the great hulk of mid-nineties Japanese engineering and keep the three hundred shekels in my pocket (an option he offered), I asked Assi whether he thought that Ahmadinejad was “just a big talker”.             

I was looking, I think, for reassurance, from a man with some understanding of the Iranian psyche. I immediately wished, however, that I had stayed shtum.             

“Oh no,” replied Assi confidently (in a now unmistakable Persian accent), “it’s gonna go crazy here . . . and before the chagim (Jewish high holidays, beginning in the middle of next week). If you have got somewhere to go . . . go!”             

The nonchalance with which the TV repair man turned doomsayer delivered his prediction made it no less shocking.

I attempted to calm myself with the recollection that this was the very same man who had informed me, just a few days earlier, that old tellies display a far better quality of picture than state-of-the-art TVs.      

This time, however, Assi had nothing to sell.       

“So why don’t you go?” I retorted.             

“Where am I going to go with my kids? Anyway, I haven’t got the money.”             

I immediately handed over the three hundred shekels and somehow squeezed the giant Sony Trinitron back onto my back seat. And, by the time I had schlepped it back up to my second floor flat, I was determined to collect that gas mask once and for all.             

The postal reminder listed the nearest pickup point to be my local ACE DIY/home improvement store – a kind of B&Q with attitude – which somehow added to the surrealism of the exercise:    

“A pack of double ‘A’ Energizer batteries, some cheap tumblers, a plastic garden chair . . . oh yes, and a gas mask, please, in case of biological or chemical attack.” 

Gas mask distribution point, Ramat Gan

Two young frechot sitting at the rear of the store were checking teudot zehut (ID cards) and handing out the cardboard boxes. And there was a sample mask, in its constituent parts, on the desk in front of them.      

Seeing as I had never worn one – I was at university, in England, when they were last used, during the first Gulf War – and that the girls had informed me that opening the box is prohibited (before you absolutely have to, I interpolated), I enquired as to whether they would be kind enough to show me how. The twin gazes of incredulity, however, that greeted my request – reasonable, I thought, in the circumstances – told me that they had no intention of allowing their discussion of what is new in frecha fashion, or of which Avi, Benny or Yossi had abused them the previous evening, to be interrupted. I scuttled off home.             

Oddly enough, after the danger to those near and dear, the thought that most haunts me about Israel coming under heavy and prolonged attack is not of the ignoble mass party that will undoubtedly break out right across the knuckle-dragging Islamic world, but rather of the sickening glee that it will also bring to the Kaufmans, Galloways and Finkelsteins, not to mention the poisonous little Gerts, of the rest of it.             

Back in Sheinkin, I treated myself to a comfort sabich and chips. I had needed something rather more substantial than the information, provided by Assi, that “many Iranians secretly listen to Israel Radio English news”.             

David, a Welshman, still here some twenty years after meeting an Israeli girl in a Camden Town pub, joined me.             

“Do you think about it much?” I asked him, my head still in gas masks.             

“There’s not much to think about,” replied David. “You either stay or you go. And I’m not going.”             

And, after investing fifty-odd quid in that old telly, nor am I . . . but will – like a good Polish boy – be seeing out Assi’s three-month guarantee, at the very least!     

http://www.justgiving.com/melchettmike

World Trade Center set for suicide bomber memorial

From today’s Independent . . .

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Gorgeous Bhoy: George Galloway ex-MP

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Cunning disguise: Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, on a Beirut street

Getting ready to rock ‘n’ roll with Iran

“If you will it, Dude, it is no dream.”   

".אם תרצו, אין זו אגדה"

I open my one hundredth posting to melchett mike with a quote from my all-time favourite movie character, The Big Lebowski‘s Walter Sobchak.           

This Polish-Catholic American convert to Judaism – the brilliant creation of the Coen brothers and John Goodman – was, however, quoting some other dude with a long black beard.  

And whiling away the hours at ‘our’ kiosk on Rothschild yesterday morning – I’m working part-time these days (I am 42, y’know!) –  in 27°C heat (nine times the 3°C in my native London) was enough to make me feel that I am living the “dream” . . . if not precisely the one that Theodor Herzl (above right) had in mind.                       

But, whilst we were indulgently licking the ketzef (foam) off our hafuchs (lattes), in Tehran –  on the anniversary of the 1979 Islamic Revolution – Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was letting the crowds, but more importantly Iran’s enemies, know that his terror state is already producing weapons-grade uranium. And Iran’s claim to be a nuclear state, together with yet another call from its President for Israel to “be finished off”, makes Tel Aviv’s hedonism-as-usual somewhat surreal and me considerably more concerned than I was a few months ago.                      

Amongst the sun worshippers at our table yesterday morning was Martin Goldberg, a fellow ex-Hasmo (1975-1982).          

“I don’t worry about things over which I have no control,” Martin declared when I brought up the subject of Iran.                      

But isn’t that precisely what we should be worried about?!        

The truth is that I don’t really worry about such things either. But I certainly do think about them . . .

• My gas mask – allocated during the Second Intifada, in 2000 – was collected a couple of years ago, but never replaced. 
• Where is my “local” (bomb shelter)?
• Even if I find it, would there really be any point in going in?
• Would Stuey and Dexxy be allowed in?
• And, should the unthinkable become the inevitable, would there be a mass exodus from Ben Gurion?

I, for one, certainly won’t be going anywhere . . . other than, perhaps, to my mother’s in Netanya (surely the poisonous Persian dwarf isn’t interested in ex-pat octogenarians playing bridge by the sea?)     

Whilst it is always depressing to hear about incidents like those at the University of California and Oxford Union, earlier in the week – the sooner these knuckle-draggers find their caves in Afghanistan the better – there are no shortage of idiots here. And, though (unlike The Jerusalem Post) a proper newspaper, the daily, intellectual masturbation (left hand) in Ha’aretz never ceases to vex.    

In Wednesday’s edition, for instance, the Israeli novelist and playwright, A.B. Yehoshua – who, displaying such childlike naïvety, should probably be renamed A.B.C. Yehoshua – opined that peace with the Palestinians would neutralise the Iranian threat (full article).    

By Jove, A.B., so simple! So brilliant! Why didn’t we think of that?! A quick, lasting peace with the Palestinians . . .   

What planet do these tossers live on? Ahmadinejad is motivated by an Islamofascist hatred of Jews, not love for the Palestinians. And, until the last one of us has turned out the lights – or until he has, Allah forbid – he won’t rest.     

Iran under Ahmadinejad: entering a world of pain

Now is not the time for intellectualising or infighting – though we Jews excel at both – but for solidarity. After all, which of us would really want to be in Bibi’s or Barak’s shoes at this critical juncture in Jewish history?     

The very best that we can hope for now is that the little brown Hitler will soon, somehow, be deposed. Otherwise, quoting our antihero Walter (right) once again, Iran may well be “entering a world of pain”.    

In order to protect “three thousand years of beautiful tradition, from Moses to Sandy Koufax,” Israel will need to be prepared for all eventualities – even to “roll on Shabbos” – and will have to summon a different type of “will” than that referred to by Herzl. 

It had better be an iron strong one.

Mahmoud and Mrs. P: Reflections on Armageddon

With all the talk and speculation about a nuclear Iran, it is impossible, living in Israel – especially in the centre of Tel Aviv (the intersection of the lines forming the “X” on Ahmadinejad’s map is widely believed to be Melchett) – not to ponder the possible, dreaded scenarios.

No one here appears to be any the wiser about the likelihood, or the timing, of an Israeli attack on Iran. And those who are certainly don’t talk about it. What I did, however, hear about a year ago – from a journalist who claims to “know people” in “defence circles” – is the following:

The US State Department has resolved that it is not in America’s interests to spearhead, participate in, or even to be seen to be behind, an attack on Iran. It prefers to leave the Israelis and Iranians to their own devices, to fight matters out – to the death, if necessary – between themselves (ironically, the quintessentially Jewish “don’t get involved” approach).

On learning of this decision, Israel – in order to force America’s hand and deter it from a policy of isolationism – informed the US that, if Israel were to suffer an obliterative (could there be any other for a country of this size?) nuclear attack, it would use its nuclear-armed submarines to take the rest of the world down with it.

Farfetched, I know, but it does possess a certain cold logic. And, if Iran were to strike first, part of me certainly would want Israel to at least take out all of those enemies that have made our lives so difficult for the past sixty-odd years.

My guess is that the reality will be somewhat of an anticlimax. On turning on Sky News, on waking up on one seemingly ordinary morning, we will be greeted with the news that the deed has been done: Israel and/or the US has bombed Iran.

But then it’ll be “nappy time”: Will Iran still have the capability to return the favour? Would there be a warning? And, if so, how much?

Not living in a modern building, my apartment does not have a mamad (reinforced room). And, despite having lived on Melchett during the Second Lebanon War, I have absolutely no idea where the nearest communal shelter is.

Anyway, given a few minutes or thirty, I would still choose to do the same thing . . . and it does not entail squeezing into a dark, dank monolith with scores of platzing Israelis.

Being single, however, the big question would be “With whom?” Pardon the egocentrism, but,  if the worst were to happen, it should at least be at a time when I am in a relationship. I mean imagine having to work through lists of past dates, flings and girlfriends in the knowledge that there is a nuclear missile on its inexorable way.

Although at least, in the latter scenario, there would be no need to pretend . . . you know, that you really do love them, that you miss them, or just really want to catch up. You’d just scream “Get yer arse over here, girl . . . and quick! And NO undies!”

And, if no one were available, well . . . it would just have to be Mrs. Palmer and her five lovely daughters. From one wanker – a dickhead with a warhead – to another.

But that would be a depressing final act, and – to quote Lenny again – really “no way to say goodbye”.

No way to say goodbye (Allenby, yesterday morning, on the way to the shuk)

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.

Islamofascists and the BNP, the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea

Watching the shocking (if it could really be called that) news last week  that – for the first time in its miserable history – the far-right British National Party had won two seats in the European Parliament, I found myself experiencing strangely (and worryingly) ambivalent feelings. 

Having been brought up on a staple Holocaust diet – many of my parents’ friends, and of my childhood friends’ parents, were survivors – I don’t feel that I require a refresher course in the dangers posed by the far-right. 

And, however much he might be trying to re-brand himself, BNP leader Nick Griffin (right) is clearly a vile Nazi low life. He has tastefully referred to the Holocaust as “the Holohoax”, and even criticised fellow Holocaust denier David Irving for . . . wait for it . . . admitting that up to four million Jews might have died: “I am well aware that the orthodox opinion is that six million Jews were gassed and cremated and turned into lampshades. Orthodox opinion also once held that the world is flat.” 

But, as a Jew, a Zionist and an Israeli, and as an Englishman, but most of all as a human being – valuing life and freedom above all else – I am also sickened by, and fearful of, the cancer-like spread of Islamofascism. 

On July 7, 2005 (7/7), four young British Muslims – all but one of whom were also born in the UK – blew themselves up on London Transport, killing 52 innocent civilians and injuring over 700 more. A similar attack, 14 days later, which would have murdered and maimed on an ever larger scale, failed only because the bomb maker couldn’t add up. Since then, only the supreme efforts of Britain’s police and intelligence services have thwarted further atrocities by Islamofascists. 

And, on a daily basis in mosques across Britain, supposed religious leaders are feeding their congregants with hate and inciting them to murder their fellow Britons. (The oft-heard argument that not all British Muslims support such activities is, of course, true . . . but it is also a “red herring”, used to avoid confronting the reality of the significant numbers who do.) 

As far as I can tell, the BNP is the only political group in the UK sufficiently untainted by “political correctness” to be openly taking a stand against this “enemy within”, which seeks to undermine not only the British way of life . . . but the very foundations of the State in which it chooses to live. 

One evening, some years back (before 7/7), I witnessed BNP supporters protesting outside a central London mosque where a “hate preacher” – Abu “the Hook Man” Hamza (right), Abu Qatada, Omar Bakri Muhammad, Abu Izzadeen, or one of their repulsive, poisonous ilk – had been praising the perpetrators of 9/11. The BNP was the only presence there. 

In such circumstances (and however worrying), is the BNP’s growing appeal in the hearts and minds of the British public – as demonstrated by last week’s election results – truly that “shocking”? 

Committed anti-fascists aside, the “rent a mob” which pelted Griffin with eggs outside Westminster on the day following the results consisted of the same wrong-minded muppets who demonstrated against Israel during its war of self-defence, earlier this year, following eight years of Hamas missiles. 

And even that supposed bastion of Britishness, the BBC Wind-Up Service – which, due to some personal inadequacy, I still listen to on my drive to and from work – pursues the most shamelessly sycophantic Muslim-friendly agenda: hardly a day goes by without some fascinating documentary/panel discussion on Qatari lesbian poets, or suicide bombers who love only Allah more than their hamsters. Producers seem to be anticipating the imminent implementation of Sharia law at Bush House, and putting themselves in a position to say “But I was okay!” 

The Union Jihad . . . of the Islamic Republic of Great Britain?

Britons need to wake up, retract their tongues from Muslim holey places, and – if they can overcome the vile stench of hate – smell the arabica . . . before it is too late. 

Make no mistake, the BNP – the successor to the National Front of the seventies and eighties – might have swapped their skinheads for suits, but they are the same fascist scum. And one can only imagine the horrors that they would perpetrate, given half the chance, on all those whom they does not consider truly “British”. 

The danger posed by the BNP, however, is primarily hypothetical. And I reject accusations of complacency in this regard – the British will never be Germans. 

The threat posed by Islamofascists, on the other hand, is real and terrifying. Another calamity for the Jews, or for any other “infidels” for that matter, will be perpetrated by a bin Laden or an Ahmadinejad . . . not an inbred nothing like Griffin. 

I fear for Britain’s future no less than I fear for Israel’s. Whilst the threats here are rather more existential in nature, Britain, and especially England, will – in twenty or thirty years’ time – be entirely unrecognisable from the “green and pleasant land” where I grew up. 

The British, to my (biased) mind, represent the very the best of Europe – although, it has to be said, the competition is not great – and I genuinely despair for them and their proud constitutional democracy. 

So, I don’t blame any Britons who voted BNP in last week’s election. Indeed, it says much for British temperance and rectitude that – with the creeping Islamisation of their land, and the moral bankruptcy exposed in their politicians by the recent MPs’ expenses scandal – they didn’t give the BNP more mandates.

A Yom Ha’Shoah Message for Mr. Ahmadinejad

This evening marks the start of Yom Ha’Shoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day). Absolutely everything in Tel Aviv is closed, and it feels like Friday nights perhaps ought to and Yom Kippur doesn’t (because secular Israelis use it as an excuse to take their kids cycling).

One thing that did not shut today, however, was the hateful mouth of Iranian President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, using the platform shamelessly provided him at the so-called UN anti-racism conference, in Geneva, to label Israel a “totally racist”, illegitimate state.

Make no mistake, the threat that Ahmadinejad poses to Israel’s very existence is a real and terrifying one. He is today’s Hitler.

A mere 64 years after the end of the Second World War, however, the State of Israel has completely transformed the position of Jews the world over – from (in the main) “lambs to the slaughter”, to a people that even genocidal maniacs like Ahmadinejad will think twice about messing with.

It is no secret that Israel possesses submarines capable of launching nuclear weapons, and Ahmadinejad knows only too well that even if he (heaven forbid) succeeds in striking Israel, he will be responsible for the decimation of Iran, and probably much of the Arab world too.

Whilst this might seem small comfort, it reflects, sadly, the reality of a world over which a fascist strain of Islam is taking an ever stronger grip, and in which weapons of mass destruction are falling into the hands of tyrants, both religious and otherwise (aided by the unscrupulous, godless mercenary that is Putin’s Russia).

So, this Yom Ha’Shoah – even whilst Ahmadinejad might be “giving it the big one” in front of the international media – we Jews should proudly be reminding ourselves that, because of the State of Israel, “Never again” will we find ourselves in the position of the Six Million . . .

Try to destroy us again, and we’ll be taking all you bastards with us!