19th J
anuary 2017. QMUL. This was my first anti-Israel university event of 2017. The start of an extremely busy time in the annual calendar. Apartheid Week, an intensive period of vicious anti-Israel activity on campus is only a month away. To highlight this intensity, this was one of only three events taking place I could have chosen. The other two were at SOAS, and Salisbury.
It was also my first event since Al -Jazeera launched a visible attack on British Jews, via an undercover operation driven from within a deeply antisemitic paradigm. As I pointed out at the time, even though sane people watched the show and saw nothing, for the antisemite, the show was the delivery of proof of Jewish conspiracy. So how would this play out on the UK campus?
The event itself was at Queen Mary University of London (QMUL) campus, ‘discussing the BDS movement, its impact and importance’. Hosted by the QMUL Friends of Palestine Society, it was a Friends of Al Aqsa (FOA) event, and a bag of FOA material was handed out to all attendees.
On the panel was Ben White, Malaka Mohammed, Prof. Moshe Machover and Shamiul Joarder. The range of hate that lines up against Israel. Islamic thought, the Palestinian, the Marxist Jew, and well, the other, the British guy who attaches himself to Islamic thought and Jewish Marxists, to push a highly dubious and quintessentially hypocritical humanitarian cause.
The evening began with a short clip. I have provided just 10 seconds below, all that is needed to highlight the disgraceful distortion of history that is behind the BDS campaign:
Notice the conflict begins in 1948. There is no history here, no Jews living in the land, no Balfour, no partition. But then the really abusive twist. Notice the attack comes from the outside. In 1948, Jews invaded Palestine with tanks and ethnically cleansed the Palestinians. The historical reality was that the only invading tanks in 1948 were those of the Arab armies who had come to commit genocide against Jews living in British Palestine / Israel. This lie is vile, shameful, and being shown on a university campus near you today to persuade students to boycott the Jewish nation.
Yet the evening had only started. What I witnessed at QMUL was a disgrace. A room full of people, almost all of them fully believing, that the Jewish students of QMUL were planted operatives instructed by another government. Jewish students who had turned up, *on their own university campus*, to argue against lies being spread by a vicious propaganda machine were in the eyes of the audience, foreign agents, spies. The classic role of ‘the alien Jew’
The attack did not only come from the audience, it was driven from within the panel. The first question came from someone wearing a Jewish head covering, who questioned why BDS was so single minded, in focusing only on Israel. The response he received, rather than a direct answer, was truly shocking:
These Jewish QMUL students were visibly shocked by the treatment they received on their own campus. Once the panel had given these students such disrespect, the audience followed. At one point, a member of the audience who had told them to ‘f..k off’ because they were ‘Zionists’, began dealing with the way one of the Jewish student looks. “She is actually good looking”, “you don’t suit your looks” “It’s a shame your attitude don’t match your looks”, giving them the ‘one fingered salute’ and so on.
The Al Jazeera ‘documentary’ was referenced in several questions, and was brought up by most of the panelists. It was an undercurrent through the entire evening. I always think it is these FOA events that expose the humanitarian pretense for what it is. On a question about Al Aqsa mosque, there is talk about “fantasy Jewish temples” Jerusalem is described as a city that has “historically not been out of Muslim hands for more than 100 years”, Jewish people wanting to pray on a site they too consider holy are called ‘infiltrators’, and someone actually suggests what is needed to free Palestine is the “Islamic community of Muslim militaries”. One can only guess as to what specific groups he was referring to.
And the panel, who are there under the guise of supporting equality and justice, simply promote boycotting Israel for whatever reason is in the head of the people in the audience. Anti-Israel thought is never tempered, never moderated. It is always fuelled. It would have been easy for any one of the panel to deal with the ‘fringe reality’ of third temple extremists, but that defeats the object. Israel is guilty of all crimes, of every disease, and must be removed. Even so it seems if they need the help of the “Islamic community of Muslim militaries”.
I have spoken before to Ismail Patel, founder of FOA. He speaks of Muslim ownership, of allowing Jews only within the umbrella of Muslim supremacy. FOA only use BDS as a tactic to bring about their goal of Islamic control. This is the part of the Islamic stream that lines up against Israel. And sitting on a platform with them of course is Ben White. How can anyone speak against antisemitism at the same time as they align themselves with movements that are clearly about Islamic control and Jewish subordination.
There is a visible deterioration in the situation on campus now and I am deeply concerned about the environment for Jews on campus within the UK. These Jewish students were not in 2017 UK anymore, they had entered a den, where women are mere objects, Jews are spies, ‘Islamic militaries’ should destroy Israel and all counter opinion is rejected. This is the campus of the Queen Mary University of London. Do you know what is happening on your local campus?
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If the Jews really did invade with tanks from the East in 1948, the Palestinians should protest against the Arab states who apparently allowed the Jews right of passage in order to do so.
Thus is one of many contradictory, nasty and patently false lies of the sheer evil and Bizarro World that is the leftist/radical Islamic alliance. I am glad history is not on their side.
An excellent article. Sadly, I had other commitments last night, but would have loved to have been there.
What lessons can we learn? The first is that the pro-Palestine movements on the campuses of the UK are employing tactics that the Nazis used in the 1930s to Nazify Germany. The tactic were to encourage the Nazi philosophers such as Ernst Bergmann and many others to brainwash the students. This worked as it does now with the PSC and FOA.
Secondly, Zionist Jews must not be intimidated by the aggression and arrogance of the PSC or FOA and their cohorts. They have strength in numbers but, as individuals, they are lame and shy.
Where is the firebrand spirit of the Jewish soul that I grew up with.
Remind the audience of the 7/7 attack on London transport, the attack on Charlie Hebdo, Bataclan, Nice, 9/11, Orlando, Boston Marathon, beheading of Lee Rigby, Daniel Pearl and others and the 500K+ dead in Syria (Muslims killing Muslims), the 8 year Iraq/Fascist Iran war.
Too bad someone didn’t call “machover” a KAPO, a COLLABORATOR, a SELF HATING JEW.
This is truly appalling. To close down free speech like that is reprehensible. This is raw, undiluted Jew hatred. NO other community is treated in this way! No one who expresses views that differ from the conference organisers should be accused of being sponsored by a foreign power (Israel). And surely accusing someone who is visibly Jewish of being an agent of Israel’s government is coming close to committing a hate crime? The fact that the BDS cause is based on lies, half-truths and gross distortions of history proves, without a shadow of doubt, the moral bankruptcy of the BDS movement. It is clearly about Jew hatred and very little about peacemaking. The only positive from this is that as more and more Jews in our community are exposed to, or read about, hateful incidents like this, (and they seem to be almost weekly, now) the more aware they become of the dreadful danger posed by the anti-Israel movement. Thank you David for all your hard work. Articles like this do an excellent job of exposing the hatred and informing the community of the danger they find themselves in for the first time since the 1930s .
I agree with Norman 100%.
Thank you, David, for all you do on behalf of Israel and the community. All power to your elbow. Keep up the good work.
You are an inspiration David . A window into the disease infecting so many of our universities. I’m not sure how we combat it ,but by exposing it and presenting it to the university authorities will Im sure eventually generate results . It’s a matter of time .
David, As you know, I used to teach Islamic Studies at Newcastle University and much of my research has been historical. The presentation of such blatantly false stories within a university causes great concern. Does the university not have a responsibility to ensure that naive stuydents are not given false versions of modern history? I don’t mean different takes on well-established fact, something historians do all the time. But to show tanks from Israel invading Israel and denying the Arab invasion is beyond discussion, it is positively evil. Can the Jewish students approach the responsible person in order to explain that, while they may be upset about attacks on Israel, they are disturbed to find outright lies being promulgated on their own campus. What if the pro-Palestinians brought in David Irving to explain that there was no Holocaust in fiull denial of the historical record? This is little different.
Denis, it is interesting you should mention this. I had a conversation with a reporter just yesterday who asked me for precise details about the ‘bias’ in the video. I stopped him right there, for the very detail you mention. Bias in reporting is an inclination, it is ever-present and unfortunately an element impossible to ever completely remove. Suggesting the UK is a nation on the planet mars is not bias. It is a lie, it may well be deliberate, it has to be opposed, exposed and removed. You are 100% right and we have to educate our community to stop referring to the lies as bias.
Wonder who is the publisher of their history books!!!
The tide is turning against the McCarthyism we are witnessing above and below the line here. The AJ thing has been a bit of a help here.
You guys are not going to like the report on the UCL incidents when it is published.
The AJ thing as you put it proves only that the Jewish community will not allow Labour antisemitism to go unchallenged and neither is it prepared to see Jewish student societies intimidated and harassed by elements of the far left and islamo fascist thugs .
As for the UCL report into the physical no platform of an Israeli speaker , I am only too aware that our universities are awash with Arab money .
Is that really the best you can do way of a pre-emptive debunk Harv.
I am equally aware that Jewish student orgs are awash with Israeli money.
Oh Stephen, ‘awash’ ‘Israeli money’….they wish…..
David that wasn’t meant for the digestion of the real world. It was for Harv. Makes more sense in the context than awash with Arab money. Well and for certain other nutters you are fond of hanging out with. Sit down Jonny Hoff.
Why debunk when I can let Labour hang themselves . Will be interesting to see what Jeremy has to say on the matter of his brothers overt antisemitism .
http://www.israellycool.com/2017/01/21/piers-corbyn-brother-of-uk-labor-leader-jeremy-exposes-himself-as-vile-antisemite/
who cares what Jeremy has to say on anything. He is a wimp
Labour hangs itself………………………………………….. http://hurryupharry.org/2017/01/19/the-inventors-of-the-zionist-lobby/
Ironic that the woman in the picture is using an Apple computer which has a flash drive designed and built in Israel by Anobit.
It’s time we demanded that all these propagandist, history distorting and revisionist universities were de-funded.
They could then be renamed for what they are, Islamist propaganda institutes.
If David Irving was invited then you can ask Deborah Lipstadt to also speak.One has to fight fire with fire. Hold pro Israeli student debate. Organize high profile speakers to attend.Start giving out pamphlets with accurate pictures.For your Marxist audience guess who saved the state of Israel, Joseph Stalin by supplying weapons.
I don’t think that’s a remotely helpful response, Edward.
This is what I said in response to Edward’s final sentence on the UKMediawatch blog:
“To liken Palestinian national identity (with its obvious and predominant Islamic element) to pigs is as wrong as comparing Israel to pigs. It is as wrong to deny the Palestinians the right to self-determination as it is to deny that right to Jews. I believe we should support those in both nations who desire a peaceful, two-state solution. And yes, I hear and largely agree with comments you might make about both the recently constructed nature of Palestinian national identity and the fact that the Palestinians have generally failed to show that they are ready for statehood. That doesn’t mean that we/they should stop trying.”
James the point is that it takes two sides to make peace. At the moment only one side desires a peaceful two-state solution. Palestinians could have their own state tomorrow if they wanted to live in peace with Israel.
I don’t disagree with you, Norman. But that’s no excuse for likening Palestinian national aspirations to pigs (think how we rightly react when people do this to Jews/Zionism), nor to discount Palestinian national aspirations altogether. As I said, I believe we should support those on both sides who desire a peaceful, two-state solution.
Well, yes, as you say Edwards comments were not helpful. But a two-state solution is simply a dream at the moment. There are religious and political reasons why a Jewish state will never be tolerated on Arab lands. Once you realise this, the reasons for the twists and turns in Arab/ Israel relations over the last 70 years, becomes clear. A solution MAY be possible once militant political Islam has been defeated. I think once this happens the Israelis and the Palestinians have more chance of a sustainable future. You may find this article enlightening/ enraging http://www.thewhatandthewhy.com/thinking-through-trumps-views-on-the-islamic-state/
I basically agree with you, though I wouldn’t pin my hopes on Trump!
It was a great talk I had been to. BDS is not about or against Jewish people for being Jewish. It is against Zionists who kill and murder the Palestinian people on a daily basic.
If I gave you a questionnaire on the conflict, you’d score less than 25%. It is that simple. On the basis of disinformation, lies and propaganda, you are willing to boycott the only democracy in the ME out of existence. It is horrific. The very basis of our judicial system is that guilt has to be proven before punishment can be applied. We set rigorous standards on the ability of the state to investigate and if the police make a small mistake we are willing to let the suspect walk free because the judicial process is placed above all else.
All of this means nothing to those like you who suggest ‘Zionists kill and murder Palestinians every day’. I could show you 100 places where you have believe a lie and you’d shrug and reaffirm that Israel needs to be punished anyway. You are part of a lynch mob, driven by its own hatred and ignorance. It is as frightening as it is absurd.
BDS is an antisemitic movement aimed at the complete dismantlement of the Jewish state. Denying the Jewish people alone the right to our own state is, by definition, antisemitism.
QM: Your claim that “Zionists…kill and murder the Palestinian people on a daily basis” is a complete and utter lie. And, by the way, if you claim otherwise, I hereby challenge you not only to prove your claim with names, dates and verifiable links, but also to specify, in each case, whether it was a case of murder or of some other kind of killing.
QM cannot back this up because it is an antisemitic lie. The anti-semites build a case against us based on fantasy, historical distortion and jew hatred. If these jew haters actually told the truth there would be no Israel boycott, no conflict and the Palestinians would have their own state. Instead, they throw themselves behind the Palestinian leadership who have grown fat and wealthy on western aid money. In this way they perpetuate a multi-generational war against Israel that will bring nothing but heartache and misery to Palestinian Arabs.