Welcome to 'Londonistan'

[drdon326]

So now the pretence is stripped away. In London on Saturday, an unappetizing collection of leftists and Islamists -- including 'Gorgeous' George Galloway, the Mosley of Mesopotamia whose career has been given such a welcome fillip by the US Senate --called for the destruction of Israel.

As The Jerusalem Post reported, there was no more pretence that the issue is the 'occupation' of the territories, or the security barrier, or the 'oppression' of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza. They just want Israel utterly destroyed.

So Andrew Birgin of the Stop the War Coalition called for 'no more Israel' which was inflicting worse repression on the Palestinians than the South Africans under apartheid. Can people really be so stupid and ignorant, about both Israel and South Africa, as to believe this? (Yes they can).

The Palestinian representative to the UK, Husam Zomlot, said: "The right of return is non-negotiable! Apartheid no more!". We look forward to this principled opponent of apartheid denouncing the ethnic cleansing of the Jews from Palestine, advocated by the Palestine National Covenant.

http://web.israelinsider.com/views/5648.htm

................................................................

Someone stop me before I :puke:

[drdon326]

1. It really was all PRETENCE.

The destruction of Israel WAS ALWAYS the overriding motivation.

[drdon326]

2. LOL.

We look forward to this principled opponent of apartheid denouncing the ethnic cleansing of the Jews from Palestine, advocated by the Palestine National Covenant.

Dont hold your breath.

[bennywhale]

3. That is either an amateur, or deliberately misleading piece of journalism

The quote by Andrew Birgin saying "no more Isreal...". Hmmm does that sound like good English Grammar to you, or does it look like its been plucked from a sentence in which the rest was "...oppression, no more Israeli apartheid, no more Israeli land grab... etc"

I think its more likely to be the latter, in fact i don't think, i know, because i heard his speech.

The relevance of the merger of NATFHE and AUT is baffling, and the generalisations about Britain and British people is astonishingly offensive and it almost goes without saying wrong.

I used to think your views in this forum were well informed, however i have now seen them to be based on obsessive bias and frantic stereotyping (which again i find offensive), which appear to be merely backing up your ingrained blinkered views.

[Jack Rabbit]

4. Thank you for your report, Mr. Whale

The quote by Andrew Birgin saying "no more Isreal...". Hmmm does that sound like good English Grammar to you, or does it look like its been plucked from a sentence in which the rest was "...oppression, no more Israeli apartheid, no more Israeli land grab... etc"

I think its more likely to be the latter, in fact i don't think, i know, because i heard his speech.

Like you, I find the reports from the Israeli right wing press, including the Jerusalem Post, suspect. Thank you for letting us know what Mr. Birgin really said.

[Name removed]

6. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Jack Rabbit]

7. Are you doubting his word?

Why?

[drdon326]

8. Jack......

C'mon.....you make a claim at DU that something was said by someone , you really should be able to back it up.

otherwise anyone can claim anything "that they heard".

[Jack Rabbit]

10. Mr. Whale is one of our British DUers

EDITED for grammar

I became familiar with him earlier this month while spending a bit of time in the UK forum during the British elections.

It is entirely plausible that he attended the meeting and he has provided us a first hand report.

Now, what reason do you have to doubt his word?

[drdon326]

12. I'm not questioning his veracity......

i'm questioning what he supposedly "heard".

And did he hear it firsthand ? And if he did ,i would ask in what capacity was he there to hear it firsthand ?

[Jack Rabbit]

17. He says in his post that he heard the speech

EDITED for typing

And quoted it.

Good enough?

Perhaps when he drops in here again, he'll tell you in what capacity he was there. I suppose he was exercizing his rights of free speech and assembly. They have such things in London, you know.

[drdon326]

19. Jack....I have nothing but the highest respect and admiration for you.

in order not to have this post deleted as well, I will just politely say that I await his return.

[bennywhale]

20. I heard it on a 'piece' on local radio, and at no point did Andrew Birgin

call for the destruction, the end, the break up or whatever of Israel. His values do not coincide with this sought of rhetoric from what I've seen of the man.

Of the other speakers at the rally, i don't know, but i was answering to the article and your post which were both irresponsible with the facts, disingenuous, and in their implications of Britain, quite offensive.

And as i said the journalism was either amateurish or deliberately misleading.

Furthermore Don you still haven't answered my post about the Balkans on the other thread which is another deliberately misleading post.

[drdon326]

22. Oh.....this is interesting.

You HEARD A "PIECE" ON LOCAL RADIO , is that correct?

And in this "piece" you heard, they played the entire speech of Birgin?... and you distinctly remember his EXACT words of his entire speech ?

My compliments for having incredible total vocal recall.

"As for the other speakers", did they play their entire speeches as well or did they just play Birgins speech and do you have total recall of their speeches as well ?

Do you find it interesting that it cant be found ? Curiouser and curiouser.

As with regard to your offense ,it is duly noted. I thank you for scapel-like assessment and critique of my pathetic lack of character.I thank you again and will take it under advisement.

Please pm me re: balkans because I simply dont remember.

edit for clarity

[bennywhale]

24. Are you suggesting that on hearing something on the radio i would

then be incapable of recalling what was said RE: the destruction of Israel.

You may have a bad short term memory but i find it quite easy to recall, and at no point did Mr Birgin call for the destruction of Israel. His speech was a rather unimaginative and repetitive cry for an end to Israeli oppression, but nevertheless the fact remains that your post and the article you used were lazy at best and disingenuous at worst.

As i said in my post, i was directly answering to your spurious claim of Birgin the other speakers were not on the piece i was listening to.

RE: Balkans. I've spent a lot of time in the Balkans over the years and my post was in answer to your list of countries you provided on another thread, which suffer constant Islamic terrorism and/or oppression. The thread is on this forum, and there are more details in my post on there. I would be interested in your answer to it.

[bennywhale]

27. RE: Balkans. Thread is "Muslim cleric calls for revenge against

Britain on PA TV." I think this is the thread, although i'm only writing from memory so it might be "Bananas are good for your ears when eaten in bathwater". But i think its closer to the first one.

[Jack Rabbit]

23. Thank you for clarifiying the point, Mr. Whale

!!

[drdon326]

30. Oh yes....Thank you for clarifiying the point, Mr. Whale

Jack...i'm happy that this is all clear now...

According to his posts that are above...

Mr.Whale was NOT present at the speech.

Mr. Whale "heard a PIECE on the local radio.

Mr. Whale did not comment on my question as to whether he heard the entire Birgin speech.

Mr. Whale did not comment on my question as to whether he heard other speeches on the radio.

Mr.Whale has excellent recall abilities.

Mr.Whale unfortunately has been unable , as I am to find the ACTUAL SPEECH.


Yes........i'm totally clarified.

[Jack Rabbit]

32. Indeed he clarified all that

And while we're at it, your posting (no. 5, below) of a report form the Jerusalem Post the same event did a great deal to clear up some of the misconceptions that were left by Ms. Phillips' piece which you used to anchor this thread. I don't understand why you didn't just use the piece from the JPost and spared us Ms. Phillips' piece.

While Israelinsider issues the standard disclaimer (Views expressed by the author do not necessarily reflect those of israelinsider), one may wonder why the editors of Israelinsider chose to categorize this article under the headings Anti-Semi(tism) and British Jew-hatred. In the brief article, the word Jew is mentioned only once:

We look forward to this principled opponent of apartheid denouncing the ethnic cleansing of the Jews from Palestine, advocated by the Palestine National Covenant.

It is a editorial aside in reference to remarks at the event by Husam Zomlot, the Palestinian envoy to Britain. Any professional report on the event would have omitted that kind of editorializing, as well as similar editorial asides Ms. Phillips makes about remarks by Mr. Birgin, Mr. Galloway, Mr. Benn and Mr. Mackney.

Intelligent readers are capable of making up their own minds. But why should Ms. Phillips take a chance such as that when she can take the opportunity to impose her own views on her readers?

Indeed, if one were to remove Ms. Phillips' editorial remarks, one would be hard pressed to find any overt anti-Semitism in the remarks she quotes. There is a great deal of criticism of Israel and advocating that Israel be sanctioned and boycotted for policies that the speakers find offensive, but nowhere does she quote anyone as stating that Jews as a group should be held responsible for these policies or that somehow the fact that Israel is a Jewish state makes such policies any more offensive than they are. The closest thing I find to a remark that can be construed as anti-Semitic in either article you posted was made at the end of the JPost piece where a member of an anti-Zionist Jewish group says, "Before Israel, Jews were living well in Arab countries." Perhaps that gentleman is ignorant of the pogroms against Jews in many Arab countries in the late forties. Another speaker quoted in the JPost piece, Azzam Tamimi, head of the Muslim Association of Britain, implies that Zionism is a "racist nationalism", but Mr. Tamimi makes it clear that he has reservations about all nationalism, including Arab nationalism. I can see where this could easily cross the line into anti-Semitism, but the ideas he presents seem loony enough even after giving him the benefit of the doubt.

I don't agree with much of what I am reading from these speakers, but very little -- and all of what little there is in the JPost piece -- that would persuade me that the characterization of anti-Semitism is justified. What I suspect is that Ms. Phillips through her editorial remarks and the editors of Israelinsider by placing her piece under the categories anti-Semitism and Jew-hatred are merely attempting to make the case that criticism of Israel is in and of itself anti-Semitic. That is just a lot of hooey.

[drdon326]

35. Thank you for your response.

Melanie Phillips is a British journalist and author. She is best known for her controversial column about political and social issues which currently appears in the Daily Mail.


Oh...omt......I have taken the liberty of sending Ms. Phillips your link re: her article and I will post her response if/when i receive it.

[Jack Rabbit]

36. I'm looking forward to it

!!

[idontwantaname]

33. your source wasnt able to provide a transcript either eh?

or do you not care?

[Englander]

31. I've just had a look at the posted "article"

& it's by Melanie Phillips!!

Which really does explain a lot.


"September 24, 2004
Hysteria and irrationality over Iraq

Debate over Iraq, 23 September 2004

Panel contribution at debate held at the Imperial War Museum among contributors to 'Authors Take Sides on Iraq and the Gulf War', published byCecil Woolf Publishers.

When the war in Iraq started, I believed that it was legally justified and morally imperative. Saddam posed a threat to the world. And it was legal because the combination of UN resolutions 678, 687 and 1441 expressly allowed all reasonable means to be taken if Saddam was in breach of the ceasefire condition at the end of the first Gulf War. This condition required him to prove he had dismantled his WMD and other forbidden weapons programmes. It was laid down because the world agreed that, despite the liberation of Kuwait, Saddam was still a threat on account of his weapons programmes. After 9/11, that threat did not in itself change. What did change was the whole calculus of risk according to which the free world had previously lived, so that the threat could no longer be tolerated.

What do I think now? I still think the war was justified. Nothing that has happened since then has changed that view. And this is despite the appalling situation in Iraq that we now watch daily unfolding, caused by disastrous mistakes made by the coalition from the fall of Baghdad onwards. The risk was always entirely predictable. After all, following every war there is a vacuum which, if it isn’t immediately filled by the good guys gets filled instead by the bad guys. Most distressingly, that’s what happened in Iraq, with the dreadful consequences we are now witnessing. But nevertheless, that does not mean it was not right to get rid of Saddam in the first place. Indeed, this is a non sequitur which, now being repeatedly argued, illustrates a kind of collective madness which I believe has now engulfed the Iraq debate.

Don’t get me wrong. I am not saying that those who were against the war are somehow out of order. I have every respect for those who believed as a matter of principle that war was the wrong way to deal with the threat posed by Saddam. But now the ground has shifted. Now history is being rewritten to claim that Saddam never posed any threat at all to anyone other than his own people. Indeed, we are re being fed one irrational assumption or simple falsehood after another.

We are told that since no WMD were found, none ever existed. But this does not follow at all. Absence of evidence is not the same as evidence of absence."

Contd at;
http://www.melaniephillips.com/articles/archives/000821.html



:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:
:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

[drdon326]

11. Pssssssst ....Jack......

I heard that you are really shrubs illegitmate son and you once had an affair with Condi Rice and that youre really a right wing plant here to convert everyone to become a jihadist.








end of sarcasm.

[Jack Rabbit]

15. My, if I'm Shrub's bastard, he was starting early

He's only about four and half years older than I am.

[drdon326]

16. You know I was joking....I was trying to make a point.

.

[drdon326]

13. Why was this post deleted ??

[drdon326]

5. (((YAWN)))........Calls for Israel's destruction in London

A central London rally organized by the British Palestine Solidarity Campaign on Saturday heard Respect Party MP George Galloway advocate a general boycott of Israel, as well as other speeches calling for Israel's destruction.

Dark gray clouds poured heavy rain on London's Trafalgar Square, as a crowd waving Palestine flags and anti-Israel banners filled the square to hear speakers shout vitriolic anti-Israel speeches. Demonstrators chanted Islamic slogans and flags calling for "victory to the intifada" were waved. Leading figures in Britain's anti-Israel coalition also lined up to attack Israel.

Andrew Birgin, of the Stop the War Coalition, urged the destruction of the State of Israel. "Israel is a racist state! It is an apartheid state! With its Apache helicopters and its F-16 fighter jets! The South African apartheid state never inflicted the sort of repression that Israel is inflicting on the Palestinians," he said to loud applause. "When there is real democracy, there will be no more Israel!" concluded Birgin. "Allahu Akbar!" yelled several men repeatedly in response.

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1116642367186&p=1078113566627

[not systems]

9. Real democracy means one person one vote...

so maybe that is not such a shocking statement.

Lucky for Israel its laws prevent democracy, that is
why a second state must be formed soon and be viable
or simple human decency will require universal suffrage
within the geographic area of Israel and Palestine.

[Jack Rabbit]

18. Thank you for the alternate report

Speaking to The Jerusalem Post, Birgin said he was referring to Israel "in the sense that it exists now," and said he wanted to see a "democratic secular state in which peace can move forward."

Perhaps Mr. Whale will comment on this piece as well.

[Lithos]

14. bennywhale

Please see your inbox.

[bennywhale]

21. Couldn't answer directly to you for some reason, but see my above post

i heard it on local radio, and the context within which it is reported is wholly misleading. I'm searching for a transcript of the speech but my original post is what was said by Mr Birgin, at no point did he call for the end of Israel.

[Englander]

25. I think because you've said no....

to the option of allowing other users to
send you Private Messages,that means that you
can't send PMs?

[bennywhale]

26. I didn't realise i had said no. Just thought i was

unpopular. lol. Do you know how to alter this.

[Englander]

28. Ha! Go to Latest,then Options,

which looks like this;


then Edit Your Preferences;

And say Yes to;

"Allow other registered users to send you private messages?"

Hows that? :)

[bennywhale]

29. Its done Englishmen, i await a flood of compliments and/or abuse

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

34. Thought we had a rule against posting bigoted shit at DU

[Englander]

37. More on Melanie;

From The Daily Telegraph;

"There was a link between Saddam and al-Qa'eda
By Melanie Phillips
(Filed: 20/06/2004)

To the anti-war lobby, it was cause for jubilation. "No Qa'eda-Iraq tie" crowed The New York Times. "White House misled the world over Saddam" exulted our own Independent. And presidential candidate Senator John Kerry claimed that the Bush administration had "misled America over the need for war".

The excitement was over a preliminary assessment of evidence about al-Qa'eda by the US commission investigating September 11. The only problem was that the press coverage was untrue. The report does not rule out links between Saddam Hussein and al-Qa'eda. On the contrary, as the commission's chairman, Thomas Kean, confirmed: "There were contacts between Iraq and al-Qa'eda, a number of them, some of them a little shadowy. They were definitely there."

As so often in the coverage of Iraq, those who make the (illogical) claim that there was no such contact and therefore no cause for war saw in this report only what they wanted to see."

Contd at;
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2004/06/20/do2001.xml&sSheet=/opinion/2004/06/20/ixopinion.html


:rofl: :rofl: :rofl:
:rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

__________________

Found in "Progress",a magazine for Blairite members
of the UK Labour party;

"November 04

Burning passions
Zealous converts to the loony right have more than their own heretical reputations at stake. It's time their careers went up in flames

>snip

Take Christopher Hitchens. Or Melanie Phillips. Or Georgia Democratic Senator Zell Miller. All have two things in common. First, they are barking rightwingers. Second, they are always introduced as people who are, or were previously, on the left. They are the darlings of the right because they are supposed to prove that people on the left are misguided – as though being left is a hormonal balance or a fever of youth. Actually, it is usually the other way round. These people move from an interval of lucidity to full-fledged membership of the brigade of rightwing sky pilots.

>snip

Melanie Phillips’ biography on the BBC reads: ‘Styled a conservative by her opponents, she prefers to think of herself as defending authentic liberal values against the attempt to destroy western culture from within.’ Pilgrim might well prefer to think of himself as a toned love god, but sadly it just ain’t so.

But why is it so important anyway for Melanie Phillips to claim she isn’t a conservative, and to stress her time at the Guardian, when she so long ago made up her bed on the right? Why does Zell Miller not cross over to the Republicans? Why does Christopher Hitchens still haunt the leftwing media? Why can’t these people let go? Why have they still got one foot in the leftwing closet?

It serves the rightwing media to have these perpetual prodigals. They eternally relive the glorious moment when they crossed over the threshold. The apostates themselves get to cry out that they have not changed but the left has abandoned them."

More at;
http://www.progressives.org.uk/report/default.asp?action=magazine&articleid=813

[Jack Rabbit]

38. It seems Ms. Phillips is the one who sees what she wants to see

Intelligent people knew long before the first missiles flew over Baghdad in the spring of 2003 that there was no working relationship between Saddam and al Qaida. For her to continue as late as June 2004 to claim that there was is simply incredible.

The war against Iraq was not justified. There were no ties to al Qaida. Saddam was not a threat to his weakest neighbor. The intelligence was being cooked, or, to use the term of the Downing Street memo, being fixed to fit the policy. We knew this in February 2003 when millions of us marched against Bush's plans. I've been using the term "pack of lies" to denote the neoconservative case for the war for so long that I almost feel I should sue Mr. Galloway for copyright infringement.

The invasion of Iraq was on its face a war crime. It was an unjustified war of aggression. It was colonial piracy, pure and simple. Those who planned it knew that what they were saying was not justified by or was even contradicted by the intelligence they had at hand. Anyone who continues to continues to defend this war or those who perpetrated it is either a liar or a fool.

[bemildred]

39. I must say it takes a certain chutzpah to bring up ethnic cleansing

in this context.