Melanie, you are wasting your time talking to people like Caroline Lucas (though I know you need to counter her 'arguments'). These people make a virtue of ignorance and stupidity.

Posted by: Derek at January 23, 2004 03:47 PM

MPs of all parties (as well as the BBC) bend over backwards to appease Arab Terrorism. I can't for the life of me tink why. It reminds me of the time the left supported CND - they wanted to rid the world of Nuclear weapons - but the western democracies first. Its the same in this case it is easy to critisise democracies as they are just that democratic - but the Arab states are not democratic therefore disent from the official line is wrought with danger. If the Lib Dems had supported Kilroy over his remarks I could sympathise with them backing Tounge in the name of free speech but they didn't.

Posted by: Jon at January 23, 2004 04:01 PM

Which land do Tonge & Lucas regard as occupied? Do they, like the suicide bombers, want the state of Israel abolished?

Posted by: at January 23, 2004 04:07 PM

A very well-written piece. Israel is an all too convenient excuse for terror-apologists; once again European thought is behind it.

Posted by: Justin at January 23, 2004 05:07 PM

Well I am always continually amazed when an english person steps up for the palestinians....

England and the English exist on other peoples land.....The Cornish and Welsh are the remnants of the peoples of whose land the English took. Today the Cornish are not recognised by the English govt or the CRE when they complain. Our constitutional rights have been usurped - google cornish stannary parliament. Our people in Australia refused entry to live and work, our human rights abused and yet we have people like Jenny Tonge batting for a fictional people. Palestinans are no different to other arabs...what is the language, music of Palestine? who were the kings? what was the capital? Does Palestine have its own culture cuisine??? Then compare this to Cornwall and the Cornish? Lets hope Jenny never has to understand our rage......

Posted by: Cornish Intifada at January 23, 2004 07:06 PM

The problem with the "liberal" intelligentsia is that they assume all people are fundamentally Good. Hence the need to "explain" the behaviour of terrorists by reference to desperation, humiliation,poverty,etc...and also the reluctance to punish criminals, however evil.
What is really needed is a campaign to educate people about the true nature of Islam - but that would be "racist".

Posted by: GrimReaper at January 23, 2004 07:16 PM

It's funny how the desperation is born of 'occupation'.
In the case of the latest suicide bomber, her father-in-law had her kicked out of the house some six months earlier because she did not get along with the other women in the family.

Then: " Israeli intelligence officials said that the 21-year-old woman, a member of a wealthy Palestinian family that ran a battery factory and had business interests in Israel, had been caught in an extramarital affair. The reports said that her husband, a Hamas activist, forced her to carry out the attack as a form of honor killing.

"Unlike the case of male bombers, most of the women have personal reasons to do what they do," said Boaz Ganor, the director of the International Policy Institute for Counter-Terrorism based in Herzliya, north of Tel Aviv. "
http://www.sunspot.net/news/printedition/bal-te.journal21jan21,0,3630098.column?coll=bal-pe-asection

It is a pity that politicians in general are incapable of anything more than the most simplistic ideas.

Posted by: Barry at January 23, 2004 09:54 PM

To Cornish Intifada - I agree it is also about time that the Saxons stopped ruling over the Kingdom of Northumbria.

Posted by: Jon at January 23, 2004 11:29 PM

If Cornwall is not recognised as a country in its own right, it is not recognised by a british government, not an English one.The british government is predominatly Scottish, Cornish intafada should take it up with them.

Posted by: tally at January 24, 2004 02:03 AM

What angers me, is that even if the Palestinians were desperate, or had a just cause, they still aren't going about it the right way. If they want to fight, why not attack Israeli military targets, instead of discos, pizzerias, buses, etc? I can understand defending an armed resistence, but not one that deliberately targets civilians.

Posted by: Jeremy at January 24, 2004 03:32 AM

Certain segments in Europe are trying to use the Palestinians to fight a proxy war against the US. The fence greatly agitates them precisely because it has the potential to take the Palestinians off the board.

Posted by: wm. tyroler at January 24, 2004 04:56 AM

Melanie was brilliant on R2 - she wouldn't take any nonsense from that other terrorism-apologist Caroline Lucas MEP! What concerned me was the fact that Jeremy Vine then went on to interview a woman whose son was shot dead by Israeli soldiers when he (a Brit) was off protesting for the rights of the Palestinian people.

Understandably, this woman stood by everthing Jenny Tonge MP said, and made the usual noises about 'understanding but not condoning terrorism'. This was followed by an interview with a spokesman for the Muslim Council of Britain - again, very sympathetic to the supposed 'plight' of the Palestinians and in agreement with the remarks made by Dr. Tonge.

So, out of four people interviewed, three were in general agreement with Jenny Tonge, and only Melanie was against. And still, the BBC seem to think that they are impartial. Surely, the a fairer approach would have been to interviewed two people on each side of the debate, rather than three on one side and one on the other.

This feature on the JV programme, and the sympathetic way Vine questioned the mother, all amounts to pro-Palestinian bias. His predecessor, Sir Jimmy Young, would NEVER have pandered to one side of the argument - things have clearly gone downhill since his retirement. But would we expect anything less from today's BBC?

Posted by: Jonathan at January 24, 2004 10:56 AM

British politician Jenny Tonge has lost her position as the Liberal Democrats' spokeswoman for children due to making the following statement:
"This particular brand of terrorism, the suicide bomber, is truly born out of desperation.

Many, many people criticise, many, many people say it is just another form of terrorism, but I can understand and I am a fairly emotional person and I am a mother and a grandmother. I think if I had to live in that situation, and I say this advisedly, I might just consider becoming one myself. And that is a terrible thing to say."

This is being depicted as a statement in favor of terrorism, and even as an incitement of terrorism. Obviously, it is neither.
She later said:
"I was just trying to say how, having seen the violence and the humiliation and the provocation that the Palestinian people live under every day and have done since their land was occupied by Israel, I could understand and was trying to understand where [suicide bombers] were coming from."

Her sin was saying what no one is allowed to say, that the actions of the state of Israel against the Palestinians have created such intolerable conditions that it is completely understandable that a human being might find becoming a suicide bomber a rational choice. Has anyone noticed that we are currently in a position of a complete Orwellian freeze on speech about Israel, with what certainly seems like a conspiracy of international Zionism to use every weapon possible against free speech to stop even the slightest comments on the immorality of the actions of the state of Israel?

Here are some of a huge list of recent examples of Zionist repression of free speech:

- the constant use of the term anti-Semite to stifle anyone who makes any criticism on Israel;

- Daniel Pipes' attacks on academic freedom through the brown shirts at Campus Watch;

- attacks on the Ford Foundation as some of its grants go to Palestinian organizations;

- prevention of the showing of the movie Jenin Jenin on the Jenin massacre;

- attempts to stop Palestinian scholar Hanan Ashrawi from receiving the 2003 Sydney Peace Prize;

- the New Zealand Herald's firing of cartoonist Malcolm Evans for allegedly anti-Semitic cartoons (see especially here and here and here and here);

- attempts at censorship by preventing the distribution of the children's book 'A Little Piece of Ground' by Elizabeth Laird because it attempts to portray the life of a Palestinian boy in the Occupied Territories;

- the punishment of Oxford University professor Andrew Wilkie for rejecting an Israeli student because he had served in the IDF.

The censorship is NOT working. The Zionist attempts to repress the awful truth of what the state of Israel is doing confirms the justice of supporting the cause of the Palestinian people.

Posted by: M. John at January 24, 2004 03:50 PM

M. John: all the things you cite are simply Israel's supporters exercising THEIR right to free speech. "Stifling free speech" means putting people in prison for what they say. Israel's supporters have just as much right to accuse Israel's critics of anti-semitism (which many of them - not all - clearly are)as you have to write all these things wherever you want. For example, what are we supposed to make of your mention of the "Jenin massacre" which it is now widely admitted never occurred? Why should Israelis simply sit back and let even more hatred of them be stirred up by a film telling of something that never happened? As for Jenny Tonge's remark, as others have said, the main point about it is that it is simply wrong. All the evidence shows that suicide bombers are not driven by poverty or despair, but by fanatical and religious hatred of Jews. (Ask yourself why not one of the bombers has been a Palestinian Christian, for example.) So another example of lies, or at least ignorance, stirring up more hatred against Israel.
It is well known that many if not most Israelis want to make peace with the Palestinians and have a 2 state solution. The effect of the suicide bombers is to make Israelis (even left wing Israelis) believe that they have no partner for peace and that any concessions would simply be seen as weakness and invite more terror, so they harden their attitudes. Couldn't it just be that that is exactly what the suicide bombers - or at least the people who send them - want? If you still have an open mind, think about that. Because if they really wanted peace, the door would be wide open.

Posted by: ilana at January 24, 2004 04:30 PM

I psoted this on a previous thread

"The only thing the suicide bombers are desperate about is to ethnically cleanse the Jewish minority out of the Middle East. If Jenny Tonge understands this desperation, I can only wonder which of Britain's ethnic minorities she is desperate to exterminate."

Posted by: Travis at January 24, 2004 05:55 PM

Melanie: I'm a dual national, so I listened to the R2 interview with some interest in your accent. Impeccable upper class intellectual,save for the one instance when you lost your temper and said, "If you don't mind...". The "don't" would have done justice to Bertie Wooster discussing "polo" and you sounded, there, a bit like royalty.

Indeed, it was an aristocratic performace during which you struck just the right tone: "...your other guest," e.g. Your condemnations of terrorism were morally precise. Excellent work.

I just wish you had shouted at that Green Party person, "The Berlin Wall was built to keep people IN, you moron. The Israeli Wall is to keep murderers, such as Tonge "understands", OUT. Tell us more about how they are alike."

Posted by: Theodopoulos Pherecydes at January 24, 2004 07:47 PM

Ilana

a) "Stifling free speech" means putting people in prison for what they say.

Are you SURE about that? If so, I am afraid you are a very naive individual.

b) what are we supposed to make of your mention of the "Jenin massacre" which it is now widely admitted never occurred? Why should Israelis simply sit back and let even more hatred of them be stirred up by a film telling of something that never happened?

April 2002 - estimates of between 100 to 500 dead, 1000+ injured, 4000 left homeless at Jenin by the Israeli defence force who cut food, water and electricity to the camp for several weeks during and after - sounds like a massacre to me. What would you call it ?
The Israeli English language newspaper, The Jerusalem Post, on 9 April quoted Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres as admitting that "what happened in Jenin was a massacre."
Of course the Israeli state and media, who did everything possible to cover up the attrocity have denied any wrongdoing.
Why did the IDF block all relief and medical aid during and for several days afterwards and why did they fire on clearly marked ambulances, medical workers and civilians ?
Why did armoured, 60-ton bulldozers tear down every house in the huge central area of the camp killing many civilians (men, women and MANY children as gleefully reported by the drunk, mentally unstable Israeli bulldozer driver Moshe Nissim in Yediot Aharonot) ?
Why was there no independent investigation allowed by Israel ?

c) All the evidence shows that suicide bombers are not driven by poverty or despair, but by fanatical and religious hatred of Jews.

How about being driven to suicide bombing by a hatred of Jews, in response to the poverty and despair that Israel has imposed upon them ? Maybe that is more understandable.

d) It is well known that many if not most Israelis want to make peace with the Palestinians and have a 2 state solution.

Do they want a FAIR 2 state solution and what is the chance of this, given the zionist decision-makers that dictate Israel's policy ?

Posted by: M. John at January 24, 2004 08:51 PM

I was very impressed by your excellent debating presence(cool, to-the-point response based upon careful listening) and your balanced factual, reasoned, and humanistic stance. You seem to be an independent thinker(i.e. "outside of the box"). I was very delighted to hear your alternative views on the otherwise pro-Palestinean biased BBC.
Why would one feel any more sympathy for( or assign any nobility to) a 'suicide bomber' than towards any other terrorist/soldier who willingly endangers and/or forfeits their life in order to cause death, mayhem, and terror in the general populace of a nation? They are definitely not in any way ethically equal in their actions to those of the self-immolating Buddhist monks of the Vietnam War.
It seems to me that the Palestineans might be better served to refocus their energies and develop themselves educationally and economically while continuing to maintain their political position. For the general populace of Palestinean individuals, their 'political' behavior has resulted in poor health, education, and economics similar to any third-world (or welfare dependent) people; ultimately mostly benefitting Israel as well as other Arab nations. Thanks.
Also, as a side thought: What is the future(in 20 to 30 years) of oil-dependent nations in the face of alternative and replacement energies? When and how will they react to such an economic debacle?

Posted by: Joel at January 24, 2004 09:19 PM

Melanie - I love you for saying what you do !

There are hundreds of political causes across the world - yet it is only the palestinians who brainwash their people into becoming human bombs and kill women & children - therefore these people are uniquely evil in using this tactic and exporting it other countries.

middle class white boys and girls that get shot in the crossfire - have no idea what they are dealing with - they are pathetic

Posted by: clive at January 25, 2004 12:45 PM

Tally - The ¨British¨ parliament legislated the Cornish parliament out of existence when the Cornosh were starving. It may surprise you to learn that Cornwall is in fact more legally independent than say Wales and that Prince Charles is in fact head of state. There is a legal instrument that he gets 7mil pounds annually - it may surprise you that the reciprocal side is that the heirs and successors of the Cornish get the right to their own parliament and the right to veto westminster legislation. Muslims and others are occupiers and oppressors here they were not invited in by the Cornish.....they pay taxes to support the oppression of the Cornish...employing similar arguments used by Islamists in this country they are ¨legitimate targets¨ for ¨resistance¨.
As I said lets hope Jenny and OTHERS understand our rage and address issues such as the non-recognition by the CRE etc BEFORE someone decides that the world needs to hear our voice in a violent manner......

Posted by: Cornish Intifada at January 25, 2004 01:47 PM

Caroline Lucas is a Class A loon. She is an MEP which means a list-system; and she has always been wacko. She is a typical Flat-Earth Left-Causes CND type.

http://www.carolinelucasmep.org.uk/

In January, in addition to her parliamentary commitments, Caroline Lucas will be:

travelling on a fact-finding mission to Israel and Palestine (click here for more information);

appearing at a number of stalls around the region to promote the findings of her time in Palestine and Israel, and selling fairly-traded Palestinian-grown olive oil;

speaking about her experience in Palestine to a meeting in the House of Commons, to mark a mass lobby of parliament organised by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (click here for more details);

Green Party MEP Caroline Lucas has added her voice to the campaign to stop the construction of a 'security fence' - dubbed the 'apartheid wall' by those living in its shadow - dividing Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories.

Speaking on her return from a week's fact-finding visit and peace mission to the region today, Dr Lucas, who represents South-East England and is vice-president of the EU's intergroup on Peace Issues, said: "The terrible terrorist attacks of the past years explain why Israel is so justifiably concerned with the security of its citizens.

"But on the basis of what I have seen this week, it is clear that this Wall has very little to do with security, and much more to do with an
aggressive and illegal land-grab.

"The Wall will be over 450 miles long, between eight and ten metres high, and will cost almost £2 billion. The Israeli government's claim that it is being built for security reasons is undermined by the fact that it is not being built on, or in many cases near, the 1967 Green Line, but rather cuts deep into the West Bank, expanding Israel's annexation of Palestinian land and resources.

"I've seen at first hand how this Wall, which is over twice as high as the Berlin Wall, and over four times as long, is destroying the lives of whole communities. It cannot be allowed to be continue - the international community must act now."

Dr Lucas met with both Israeli and Palestinian groups during her visit, and talked with Israeli groups who are also campaigning against the Wall.

Dr Lucas, whose new year 'peace mission' to the Holy Land was undertaken on behalf of Greens in the European Parliament after lobbying from constituents across the South-East, has now called for the EU-Israel Association Agreement, which governs Israeli relations with the EU, be suspended in response to the human rights' implications of the wall's construction.

"This Wall is destroying thousands of acres of farmland, uprooting hundreds of thousands of trees, demolishing homes and shops, and leaving thousands of families landless, jobless, hungry and hopeless," added Dr Lucas.

"An increasing number of towns and villages are being encircled by an 8 metre high concrete wall, with trenches, electric fences, sensors, cameras, military patrols and armed watchtowers. Farmers are prevented from reaching their fields, children from reaching their schools, and those in need of health care from reaching clinics and hospitals."

Dr Lucas has written to Foreign Secretary Jack Straw asking him to propose to his EU counterparts that the EU-Israel Association Agreement be suspended.

"The EU says it is committed to promoting human rights, and the Association Agreement explicitly provides for its own suspension if either party is found to be undermining human rights. In the light of the many documented and explicit human rights abuses associated with the construction of the Wall, it is clear that the Agreement must therefore be suspended."

Dr Lucas is hoping that the findings of the International Court of Justice in the Hague will support her case. The ICJ was asked in December by the United Nations General Assembly for an Advisory Opinion on the legality of the construction of the wall. It is currently gathering evidence, with a deadline of 30 January for submissions.

Posted by: Romulus at January 25, 2004 05:34 PM

Romulus
If you really want to see an example of a 'Class A loon' I suggest you take a glance in the nearest mirror.
But thanks for posting the article which shows that some people have a bit of compassion than your sad self.

Posted by: Steve Flint at January 26, 2004 10:49 AM

I could not see you in my mirror Steve Flint.

Posted by: Romulus at January 26, 2004 04:30 PM

While we were at it Steve Flint, just what purpose does an MEP serve ? Why do we need a European 'Parliament' ?

It seems to have little effect on matters in Europe.

Posted by: Romulus at January 26, 2004 04:32 PM

Melanie, I just saw you on Newsnight. I was appalled to watch you sympathise with the state terrorism of Israel and speak of their apparatus as if it were a benign system in a quandary not of their own making.

Terrorism is bad no matter who does it. In Israel/Palestine, it is carried out by both sides of the conflict.

If a state does not wish to be on the receiving end of terrorism, the solution is quite simple: it should not take part in terrorism.

Posted by: AtomicKitten at January 26, 2004 11:49 PM

"April 2002 - estimates of between 100 to 500 dead, 1000+ injured, 4000 left homeless at Jenin by the Israeli defence force who cut food, water and electricity to the camp for several weeks during and after - sounds like a massacre to me. What would you call it ?"

Even the Palestinians finally admitted there were no more than 50 dead, most of them fighters. One of them was interviewed by Egyptian news saying exactly that. There were exactly 2 square blocks razed out of a huge camp - you can see the aerial photograph. And I doubt the story about the food and water, too.

You been told some lies, my friend.

And what is that saying about a lie can travel round the world in the time it takes the truth to get out of bed?

Posted by: Yehudit at January 29, 2004 08:31 AM

"Melanie, I just saw you on Newsnight. I was appalled to watch you sympathise with the state terrorism of Israel and speak of their apparatus as if it were a benign system in a quandary not of their own making."

So you were appalled to hear her tell the truth?

""The Wall will be over 450 miles long, between eight and ten metres high,"

Wrong. The wall is a barb wire fence and a ditch for over 90% of its length. The only parts that are a high wall are where highways run next to the border and there have been people killed driving in their cars inside the Green Line, and in Jerusalem.

"How about being driven to suicide bombing by a hatred of Jews, in response to the poverty and despair that Israel has imposed upon them ?"

While the West Bank was under israel's rule, the Palestinian standard of living rose to the point that they were the most middle-class Arabs in the world. Israel built them universities and hospitals. When Arafat took over after Oslo, their standard of living went down as he and his mafia took cuts of their businesses and skimmed aid money for his Swiss bank account, and kills as many Palestinians as Israelis do (as collaborators). So why don't they kill Arafat and his goons if they are so poverty-stricken?

Posted by: Yehudit at January 29, 2004 08:38 AM

Yehudit,

"So you were appalled to hear her tell the truth?"

I was appalled to hear her speak of the nice people who run Israel and their terrible problem with those evil Palestinians. Do you honestly think that is the way it is? If so, who is being "lied to"?

Just to put things in perspective, the Middle East Policy Council [http://www.mepc.org/public_asp/resources/mrates.asp] puts the figures as 840 Israeli citizens versus 2670 Palestinian citizens killed since the beginning of the 2nd intifada. Hardly an eye for an eye is it?

I put it to you to deny that the state of Israel engages in terrorism.

"While the West Bank was under israel's rule, the Palestinian standard of living rose to the point that they were the most middle-class Arabs in the world." - Palestinians must therefore be grateful? Reminds me of Life of Brian - "What have the Romans ever done for us?".

Posted by: AtomicKitten at January 29, 2004 01:53 PM