The sad thing is that this woman probably legitimately does not consider herself to be anti Semitic.

For centuries, Jews in the European Diaspora have been making the same mistake over and over.

This is the unspoken mantra, that Jews in every generation repeat to themselves: keep our heads down; fit in; don't make trouble; work hard; do well; contribute; take care of our own; be generous to others.

It has never worked. It certainly didn't work for all those fabulously successful and assimilated Jewish communities in Germany, Austria, Holland and Czechoslovakia who were all but wiped out in the Holocaust. So why do British and French Jews believe they somehow are innured against the more extreme manifestations of a prejudice that has lasted for many centuries?

Anti-Semitism is not, as many gentiles would like to believe, the result of the actions of a few misguided and evil people ("Evil people exist everywhere, doncha know?"), but a consequence of a deep-seated cultural aberration. And such aberrations, like the cultures from which they spring, do not change overnight. Indeed, in most cases they are utterly immutable. One only has to look at Germany which has been subjected to an intensive and widespread re-education about Jews for decades now, and yet anti-Semitism has re-emerged in recent years in that country as if none of it had ever happened.

Anti-Semitism lies at the very heart of European culture ready to strike down its victims when the time is ripe. No amount of legislation or talk will ever change that.

The Jews of Europe should get out before it's too late, again.

Of course their is anti-Semitism - just listen to the far right, including the BNP. They're ignorant and vile and occasionally try to hijack the Palestine and anti-Zionist debate. I for one want nothing to do with them.

At the same time we should also recognise that hatred of Islam and Arabs is far more common: Islam and Arabs are portrayed in the mainstream media in ways which would be considered totally unacceptable if applied to Jews (for example Kilroy Silk's article would never have been even published if he'd written such ignorant and racist comments about Jews).

And attacks on Mosques and members of the Muslim community are daily occurances in the UK and elsewhere in Europe, barely meriting a mention. Just look at some of the awful, cretinous comments on this very site.

And there's the rub. Melanie Phillips has almost made a career in seeing anti-Semitism in very aspect of British life and yet she quite happily peddles an anti-Islam and anti-Arab agenda which - if not intented to promote intolerence and hatred - attracts support from those who openly do so. And when has she ever once condemned those who attack people because of their faith or their ethnic origin, who promote discrimination? In fact, when has she ever spoken out against those who post hate material here, provided it's aimed at an Arab or a Muslim?

Catnip for moral relativists.

"But then, of course, they're like that."

The same comment is made a million times a day about black people, Muslims and homosexuals. Fat people, people with spectacles, Scottish people, need I go on?

Yes, it's prejudice. No, I don't like it. But you'll be hard pressed to find a society anywhere on earth where no one ever makes a remark like this about some group or other.

The problem with Melanie's articles is that her built-in detector for anti-semitism has a much lower threshold than her detector for prejudice against Muslims, or homosexuals. Indeed, others have argued that she herself sometimes expresses prejudice against those groups, and at a rather higher level than the 85-year-old from Llanelli.

Unless one opposes all forms of prejudice, it is impossible to claim the moral high ground. One is merely showing off one's likes and dislikes.

A bit more humility all round would be a good thing.

Yet another moral equivalence "argument" from good old Brendan.

Moral equivalence: the leftists' favorite crutch.

Maybe Brendan could explain us the following: if anti-Semitism equals Islamophobia in Europe, how comes there were, 70 years ago, millions and millions of Jews in Europe and almost no Muslims, while now that nice continent is almost empty of Jews but has an exponentially growing Muslim population? Why did even the UK close its doors to the Jews when they were in danger, but keeps them wide open to Muslims in general and Arabs in particular? There's too much talk of this unexistent phenomenon called Islamophobia. The Europeans actually suffer from Islamophilia. Unfortunately, their love of Arabs and Muslims is not and won't ever be requitted. Nowadays, the Europeans are already born dhimmis. I wish you all good luck with your future masters, because they won't be nice or tolerant. Take a look at the way non-Muslims are dealt with in dar al Islam and see your own future my friends. And then, when the London, Paris, Brussels, Hamburg intifadas break out, pray for the Americans to come to your rescue and for the Israelis to give you a hand, because you'll need it quite badly.

Usual racist garbage. When I talk about Islamophobia I'm talking about the daily reality of attacks on mosques, beatings, stabbings....

And of course, barely concealed hate from the retards like lafontaine (incidentally, sounds a bit suspiciously foreign - maybe we should send it back)

'But then, of course, they're like that'

Aaargh! What a scarifying statement from this hateful 85-year old hag that Harry Mount has dug up in Llanelli!

Nobody would ever make comments about the percieved characteristics of the Welsh, would they?

Or is Melanie getting increasingly paranoid?

Go on, say something nice about the United Kingdom.....I dare you !

"The Jews of Europe should get out before it's too late, again"

Come to Sunny Israel says Charles......and then where ?

Nothing's changed.

http://www.george-orwell.org/AntiSemitism_In_Britian/0.html

April, 1945.

llater,

llamas

"barely concealed hate from the retards like lafontaine"

Thank you, Brendan, for your typically gracious post. Didn't they gas "retards" along with the Jews?

2.500 Jews are leaving France every year and where do you think they're going? Israel. Seems to hold a better future for them than Europe (and they're mostly young).In spite of the so oft proclaimed Islamophobia, I've not heard of Muslims departing Europe en masse. I wonder why. Shouldn't they feel safer, more at home, less persecuted in Egypt, Pakistan, Algeria, Syria etc? The only Muslims who seem to be returning to their homelands are Afghans and Iraqis. Curious, isn't it?
And, Brendan dear, unless you're only a teenager, in which case one can forgive you your lack of debating skills, let me remind you that whenever one applies, instead of reasoned arguments, an adjective to someone else's arguments, say, an adjective like "racist" (are you, by the way, acquainted with any other?), it means the following: "I don't know how to answer, but I hate, hate, hate, hate what you say, and if you don't stop saying that I'll start crying". In other words, it is a real shame that some Britons are beginning to argue as if they had learned how to do it in a mosque. But it is symptomatic nevertheless.
And Timbuktoo: Israel's sunny indeed and soon it'll be safer there than in Europe (it's safer than Europe has been for most of its history anyway, for Jews in particular). And when you're reduced to dhimmi status, where will you go? Israel too? The US maybe?

NO lafontaine I would not go to Israel because it has an ethnocentric immigration policy.

When Israel has as much history as a state as the United Kingdom it might be worth talking, but is is without defensible borders and suffers from a low birth-rate; so I ask (assuming you live in Israel and not Florida) just where your bolt-hole will be if Israel folds as previous Jewish kingdoms folded in that region ?

Back to the US ?

"your future masters"

"And when you're reduced to dhimmi status"

What are you talking about? We have only 2.7% Muslims in the UK. Are they planning to stage a military coup? Is there as mass invasion of Muslim crusaders planned?

What have I missed?

Is "Charles" already in Israel, or is he still doing missionary work in Britain or elsewhere?

I wonder how many of the two-thirds of world Jewry who have henceforth declined to make aliyah will be persuaded by current events that they and their children would be much safer in the Zionist paradise than in, say, Finchley or Crown Heights.

Perhaps Charles is already out in Erez Yisroel, helping to put the Wall up or flogging swimming pools to the settlers of "Judaea and Samaria".

Anderida

The retards formed their own political parties and groups - National Front, BNP, Combat 88.

"whenever one applies, instead of reasoned arguments, an adjective to someone else's arguments, say, an adjective like "racist" (are you, by the way, acquainted with any other?), it means the following: "I don't know how to answer, but I hate, hate, hate, hate what you say, and if you don't stop saying that I'll start crying".

Really? And you've told Melanie Phillips this have you. And all the Zionists. Because I've noticed that if anyone so much as dares criticise Israel they are automatically labelled as anti-Semites (and if they turn out to be Jewish themsleves they're self hating Jews).

Glad to see you think this tactic is childish and admission that the Zionists are wrong.

Brendan when was the last time Jews tried to blow the hell out of anyone in the West? Its not Islamo-phobia, well most of it isn't, its Islamo-realism. There is a significant amount of Muslims who would like to wipe Jews off the face of the earth and conquer the world for Allah.

When was the last time you heard Jews say that about Islam, the West or Christians? Unless, of course, you believe the Protocols to be real. All Jews want is to have country of their own. Is that so wrong?

Islamophobia is wrong, but it is islamofascism that creates it and the two go hand in hand..once abu hamza is kicked out of this country, and people like omar bakri are given the boot and the anti-western and anti-semitic preaching that occurs on our streets and in our cities is stopped, then hopefully prejudices against innocent muslims will cease. People like jenny tonge don`t do anyone any favours...i remember this clown on question time when president bush came to visit, she was bleeding her heart dry about those that carried out the bali bombing...pathetic really

Arabs are semites too, my dears. Charles is a close genetic cousin of Yasser Arafat.

Timbuktoo, dear. "When Israel has as much history as a state as the United Kingdom " maybe then they will have hold all their neighbours in captivity for centuries, like you Brits did with the Irish, Scots, Welsh etc., not to mention large parts of France. Maybe, by then, Israel will have occupied and colonized half of Africa, the whole of India, most of North America. And if you're against ethnocentric immigration policy, maybe you could say something about your glorious country that expelled the Jews and only accepted some of them back hundreds of years later as second or third rate citizens (as, btw, the Catholics were there too). And we shouldn't forget the ethnocentric immigration policy that, in the 30s and 40s, kept Jews out of your pleasant island and even after the war gave preference to all kind of nazi murderers (and now to Muslim terrorists) than to Jews. And how would you call the immigration policy implemented by your people in Mandatory Palestine, where any Arab could enter, but most Jews were turned away, back to Auschwitz?
Who are you, dear Europeans, to lecture anyone on ethnocentrism? How many black, Arab, Hindu etc. PMs do you have? And France, Germany, Italy?
And what does exactly ethnocentism mean in a country like Israel that has immigrants from all over the world, from Iran and Ethiopia to Lithuania and Ireland? You Europeans created the problem through your ethnocentrism, through your anti-Semitism and now you want to wash your hands? I understand: each and every European is responsible for the positive stuff created in the continent, but the Holocaust, for instance, if it took place, of course, is nobody's fault, except, perhaps, the Jews'.
Guy Chambers.
It seems you've missed a lot.
Del Vayo.
Judea and Samaria are the historic names of those places. Would you there to write "Palestine" (a name invented by Romans, that is, Europeans, who ethnically cleansed the region of the Jews) between scare quotes? I doubt it. The so called "palestinians" could get angry and blow up your bus. It's easier to attack people like the Jews in general and the so-called settlers (immigrants actually in a region from where people like you would to see them ethnically cleansed) because they won't go to your town and blow your family up. You see, there's no fatwa against Tom Paulin: he didn't even lose his BBC job.
Brendan.
The retards formed some other political parties too, from Old Labour to the SWP and that undeclared political party you all have to pay for and cannot even vote out of power: the BBC.
And I'm also amazed now with you argumenting skills. How could I imagine that you have mastered that marvellous tactics that consists in turning any accusation literally against the accuser? People can now learn from you. I foresee that one of these days, when Sharon call Arafat a terrorist, the "Palestinians" will say that the real terrorist is Sharon. Maybe even someone will come up with the idea, when Bush call Bin Laden a fundamentalist, to say that it is Bush who's the actual fundamentalist. Brilliant, Brendan, now you can get in touch with the Guardian, the Independent or the Beebs and get work as a real journalist.

Sorry.
The comments above appeared without my name, but they were written by me. Thanks for the attention.

Jews killing westerners?

Well, Menachem Begin kidnapped off duty British soldiers, tortured them and hanged them. Then he planted a bomb in the King David hotel and blew the British administrators to bits. They killed the UN representative ....

Oh, that was a while back wasn't it? Rachel Corrie, Tom Hurndall, James Miller ....

It was better to leave your name off lafontaine. You are rattled because the only place that has a fear of Muslim demographics is Israel.

Yes you will probably be able to get into ritain or the US or Canada when the population of Israel is predominantly Arab and you feel a beleagured minorit. How long do they estimate 10 years, or 20 ?

Must be very depressing watching the population imbalance change the whole prospects for the Jewish State. You can of course use your other passport and come back to Britain - we will forgive you your silly remarks...after all you did not want to put your name to them !

," like you Brits did with the Irish, Scots, Welsh etc., not to mention large parts of France. Maybe, by then, Israel will have occupied and colonized half of Africa, the whole of India, most of North America"

You are so envious ! Noone can be as successful as we were - lok how the US is struggling....Israel ? Do not even think f comparing Britain with a Bantustan like Israel

The westerners Israel killed weren't, as far as I can tell, in their hometown or homeland. They were in the Jewish homeland trying to help the Arabs and doing their best to send Jews to Poland, Germany, not to mention Cairo, Damascus and Baghdad. They killed more Jews in the Jews' country than Jews killed Brits there. And remember, while the Jews there were trying to enlist in your army to help you fight the mutual enemy, you were trying to keep the Jews out and backing the Arabs whose sympathies were with the nazis. But fortunately, the Brits (1 British soldier for every 5 Jewish inhabitants of Israel) were defeated by the Jews. Jews are easy to kill when surrounded and without arms. It's easy to kill Jewish kids in a bus. But both you, Brits, and the Arabs discovered that, when they're prepared, they're a bit tougher. Jews are not like the French, for instance, who were beaten by the Algerians: what a joke. For God's sake, the UK lost more soldiers to the Argentinians in the Falklands than Israel in 67.
Now, if the Arab population's growing: fine. There will be more of them to kill each other, their favourite sport. Remember: for every Jew the Arabs kill, they, the Arabs, murder thousands of their own. They are not really a trouble and France will be an Islamic republic and your own Parliament will approve at least a bit of the Sharia before the Jews are moved out of their country. Look, they weren't beaten when there was half a million of them badly armed. Do you really think they will be now? On the other hand, as soon as you merge your army with the Krauts and the Frogs, and since the French have to ask permission from Egyptian and other Muslim authorities to legislate in their "own" country, what do you think the UK will become? On the other hand, it's much better to be beleaguered by Arabs than Europeans. The Europeans killed 6 million Jews in 4 years, while during this whole stupidfada the Arabs barely managed to kill a thousand Jews. Still much safer to be a Jew in Israel. And, if the Muslim population there is growing, that's not Israel's problem: all those nice guys want to go to Londonistan, Paristan, Hamburgstan and so on. And they are already going. Israel will at least have a wall to keep them out, but you, in Europe, how will you do it?
Then, Corrie and the others, well, they haven't been invited into a war zone, were they? And what about those nice British subjects who went to Israel to murder Jews, those two British Pakistani guys? What about your IRA friends who train Middle Eastern terrorists?
Now, about being envious of the British empire, don't kid me. Haven't you read the Protocols of the Elders of Zion? Don't you know the Jews control the world, the UK included? Don't you remember the Kosher conspiracy? And frankly, as empire builders and warriors the Mongols were a thousand times better than you (and they kept their possessions for much longer too).

help you fight the mutual enemy, you were trying to keep the Jews out and backing the Arabs whose sympathies were with the nazis.

That well-known Arab Avraham Stern - Nazi to the core

"For God's sake, the UK lost more soldiers to the Argentinians in the Falklands than Israel in 67."

The Falklands was a real war, and like Israel its ally Argentina launched a pre-emtive war of aggression against Britain

"don't kid me. Haven't you read the Protocols of the Elders of Zion? Don't you know the Jews control the world, the UK included? Don't you remember the Kosher conspiracy? "

Cannot have it both ways sunshine - either the Europeans are evil-doers soon to be Muslims, or those like yourself who believe in Okhrana fiction like The Protocols must think it is all a big Jewish Plot....you sound so like Goebbels lafontaine that I think you actually believe the rubbish you write. Your inferiority complex is a major handicap for you in dealing with Europeans; we shall try to be tolerant of your childish outbursts and realise you are very young.

"On the other hand, as soon as you merge your army with the Krauts and the Frogs, and since the French have to ask permission from Egyptian and other Muslim authorities to legislate in their "own" country, what do you think the UK will become"

Dementia Praeceps

Yes, that well known Arab, Avraham Stern, whom you've killed, and that well known Jew, Hajj Amin Al Husseini, whom you've protected, as you've been protecting his successor, that other well known pacifist Jew, Yasser Arafat. And also that other well known Jew: Glubb Pasha, who was probably born in Krakow or Wilno, right? Not to mention those other nice Jews, Kim Philby and his dad.
The Falklands a real war? And I thought you were only fighting against a rotten and absolutely incompetent banana republic largely created by you in the 19th century to supply you with beef... Maybe I've missed that there was some other serious country in that "war" fighting against the UK. What you did to the Argentinians was nice (even your ally Pinochet was happy with the result), but come on, couldn't you be militarily more competent? I know how hard it is for the UK to fight any war when they don't have at hand Anzac, Polish, Czech, Hindu, Canadian, South African and other troops to do the job. Maybe the Brits will fight better when, instead of the Union Jack, they'll do it under the crescent.
If I were discussing with the Taiwanese, South Koreans or Americans, I'd probably feel a kind of inferiority complex. But with Europeans? I mean, the members of that noble race that is the conscience of mankind? The inhabitants of the most civilized and less murderous continent on the face of earth? No, then it is not a case of inferiority complex, but simply of awe. I feel moved to call you all bwana or sahib or simply masters.

"I feel moved to call you all bwana or sahib or simply masters"

I do not understand why you don't; you sound like you need guidance in your jumbled thoughts. You forgot to add in your list:"Anzac, Polish, Czech, Hindu, Canadian, South African and other troops " Muslim troops, and we had many of them in the Indian Army -.

Yes, it was right we liquidated Stern in 1942, even Ben Gurion was pleased with that; but Shamir survived to become a Stern Gang Prime Minister so there is hope for Yasir Arafat - terrorism is no impediment to Government.

"The Falklands a real war? And I thought you were only fighting against a rotten and absolutely incompetent banana republic "

and a close trading partner of Israel supplying weapons to Argentina to kill British troops. Find a scummy regime on the planet and guess how often the arms are flowing from Israel..........as for wars, the attackers advantage was Israel's in 1967; and Egypt's in 1973.........good that President Nixon saved your bacon.

the Guatemalan army received weapons from Israel between 1977 and 1981, a time when tens of thousands of people "disappeared"; and Israeli arms were shipped to the Medellin drug barons in Colombia. Other major customers in the 1970s and 80s included the Galtieri regime in Argentina, Chile, Bolivia, El Salvador, Haiti, Nicaragua under Samoza, Noriega's Panama, and Sri Lanka - all of which had been accused of gross human rights violations. Israel was also apartheid South Africa's leading arms supplier with annual two-way sales worth more than $500m in violation of a UN arms embargo.44 In fact, selling arms to countries boycotted by other arms exporters has helped Israel become a leading arms exporter

according to Saferworld, UK-based arms brokers organised arms transfers from Israel to Rwanda during the genocide in 1994 despite a UN embargo.45 More recently, Israel has sold air-to-air missiles and F-7 fighter upgrades to the military junta in Burma, and in 1997 it upgraded Cambodia's MiG-21s and supplied avionics for L-39trainers - a time when the country was on the verge of civil war.46 China, Burma and Zambia are all Israeli customers despite the fact that the US either embargoes or severely restricts its own arms sales to those countries. It was also reported that the UN had to ask Israel to stop supplying warring countries Ethiopia and Eritrea with arms. Pariah state Zimbabwe has also recently become a customer with a $10m order for riot control vehicles from the Beit Alfa Trailer Company.

http://www.caat.org.uk/information/publications/countries/israel-1002.php

A little over a year ago, U.S. customs agents found Israeli military equipment on board an Ecuadoran cargo plane which was refueling at New York's Kennedy Airport. Administration officials said that the plane was destined for Argentina, which at the time was in a war with Britain over the Falkland Islands and in desperate need of war supplies. Argentina, together with Peru, purchased close to $150 million from Israel's munitions factories last year.
http://www.wrmea.com/backissues/061383/830613003.html

Through the late 1970's Iran was Israel's biggest customer, but since the overthrow of the Shah in 1979 Israel has only been able to export to the Khomeini regime supplies such as aircraft tires and small arms. However, it was still selling them to Iran even during the period when American diplomats were being held hostage.

This vast trade in war supplies keeps 20 percent of Israel's workforce in jobs related directly or indirectly to the production of weapons-and provides cash flows on which the nation's finances are heavily dependent. Israel obviously intends to keep the arms industry growing.

For example, there are American Congressional constraints on selling arms to China because of China's human rights problems. So what Israel does is it tinkers with American arms just enough that they can be considered Israeli arms, and in that way bypasses Congress.
For the most part, Israel is the subcontractor for American arms to the 'Third World.' There is no terrible regime - Columbia, Guatemala, Uruguay, Argentina and Chile during the time of the colonels, Burma, Taiwan, Zaire, Liberia, Congo, Sierra Leone - there is not one that does not have a major military connection to Israel. Israeli arms dealers are there [acting as] mercenaries - the guy behind Noriega was Michael Harari, an Israeli, who got out of Panama. Israeli mercenaries in Sierra Leone go around the UN boycotts of what are called blood diamonds, same in Angola. Israel was very involved in South Africa, of course, during the apartheid regime

Pariah state Zimbabwe? You mean that same Zimbabwe that's 100% backed by the free post apartheid South Africa and whose president or whatever Mugabe has just been received with all pomp and cerimony by your neighbours and close EU partners the French who, by the way, kept in place the Hutus in Rwanda and Mobutu in Zaire? And I can imagine that the UK sells arms only to certified Scandinavian democracies, right, as the Germans, French, Russians and Americans do, right? It's only Israel who does business with rogue countries and human right violators: those damned Jews. By the way, South Africa must have been an Israeli, not a Dutch/British creation, while Zimbabwe's earlier name, Rhodesia was an hommage to some Jew surely, because Rhodes is probably an anglicization of Roth or something like that. The UK and US were in pretty good terms with the Argentinians before their Falklands adventure and most Brits in the war were killed with French, not Israeli weapons: does the name Exocet tell you something? Your neighbouring island's Eammon de Valera was a much more successfull terrorist than Avraham Stern (and he did back the nazis) and now, in Northern Ireland, you don't seem to have trouble in negotiating with his successors. And what about all those nice British deals with democratic Saudi Arabia? There's an awfull lot of Britons living and working there. Then, if the UK could supply Israel's enemies (those model democracies like Jordan) with weapons and training, I can't see why Israel couldn't do it in the case of the UK's former friends, like Argentina. I've not heard you criticize the French for the equipment they sold them. It's a free market and, unless I'm wrong, both you and Israel were, for most of the Cold War, on the same side. Hey, you even fought a war against Egypt together, didn't you? That's it, when Jews are needed to protect your (and the French interests) in the Suez, they're fine. Otherwise, they're bloody murderers. Tell me a little bit more of Giscard D'Estaing's diamonds, those he got from the ruler of the Central African Empire; tell me a little bit more of all the "ex"-nazi Germans who went on to train (unsuccesfully) the Egyptian army. Oh, and Nixon probably sent troops to fight along Israel in 73, but there wasn't a single Russian pilot there, was there? And neither the Americans nor the Europeans put any pressure on Israel not to destroy the Egyptian army, did they? What's the trouble with Israel selling arms? Is the UK losing its best clients? Are you afraid of competition?

"Rhodesia was an hommage to some Jew surely, because Rhodes is probably an anglicization of Roth or something like that. "

Actually, I believe his father was an Anglican clergyman. Why you mention Rhodes I don't know, he's been long dead and had never met Robert Mugabe.... but no doubt they will.

You must be getting confused with Rhodes and Bernie Barnato, or is it the Oppenheimers at Anglo. Just why you try to divert attention away from State-to-State Arms trading towarss individuals in history I do not know.

It just so happens that the scummy regimes on the planet know just where to obtain weapons to beat their people into submission; and that French Exocets were trans-shipped by certain regimes in the Middle East as John Nott mentions in his autobiography....
"
It was a remarkably successful operation. In spite of strenuous efforts by several countries - particularly Israel and South Africa - to help Argentina, we succeeded in intercepting and preventing the supply of further equipment to the Argentines, who were desperately seeking resupply."

"In many ways, Mitterrand and the French were our greatest allies. They had supplied the Argentines with Mirage and Super Etendard aircraft in the earlier years; but, as soon as the conflict began, Mitterrand's defence minister got in touch with me to make some of these available so that our Harrier pilots could train against them before setting off for the South Atlantic. The French also supplied us with detailed technical information on the Exocet, showing us how to tamper with the missiles."

Tel Aviv-based Explosive Industries Ltd. (EIL). Nations listed in the trade press as acquiring IMI mines include Argentina, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Nigeria and Zaire.[9] EIL’s No. 4 plastic antipersonnel mine was found by British deminers in the Falklands/Malvinas.1[0]

http://www.icbl.org/lm/1999/israel.html

"Oh, and Nixon probably sent troops to fight along Israel in 73, but there wasn't a single Russian pilot there, was there"

You are silly. When I spoke to Richard Nixon about this, he explained how Brezhnev had Soviet marines ready in the Black Sea and wanted US troops to go in; but Nixon did not want Us and Soviet troops to get involved.

He also mentioned how he had raided NATO stores to fly equipment via the Azores to save Israel's bacon.

I think he knew what he was talking about; you don't.

That should be "Barney" Barnato. Rhodes wasn't Jewish. He was a British Israelite, a member of the popular Victorian cult which held that the Brits were the lost Twelfth Tribe and had inherited the Jews' divine commission to be a light unto the Gentiles.

Queen Victoria herself was keen on the idea, esp. when Disraeli (her favourite PM) plugged a proto-Zionist creed which associated the Brits with the Jews. Dizzy offered to make her Empress of India as a symbol of our civilising mission. British Israelitism was strong among the governing class well into the 20C; it helped determine foreign policy in the Near East during WW1 when the Balfour Declaration was drafted by Leo Amery, a disciple of Rhodes and a covert Jew.

Thanks WJP you are right - it was Barney....an interesting man contrasting with Alfred Beit.....but the Barnatos saved Bentley in the 1920s and Barney's son raced them I think. Seems larger than life, but so was Cecil.....

It was Beit who saved the Rhodes Trust as Cecil had spent up and Beit had to rebuild the fund; he also donated bridges and scholarships in Rhodesia....the Beit Fund I think.

Uhm. Let's see. Balfour's so called pro-Zionism was basically used by the UK to cheat the French out of what they had been promised in the Sykes-Picot agreement. As soon as England managed to lay its hand on what it wanted (dissolving in the meanwhile the Ottoman empire and creating chaos in the region), it obviously started backpedalling on the Balfour declaration, and did this until it was expelled from the region by the Jews, leaving behind them such protectorates as Jordan, with Glubb Pasha commanding its Arab Legion.
Nixon didn't save Israel's bacon, but rather Egypt's and Damascus' that would have been nuked by Israel, and thus saved his own from a nuclear confrontation with the Soviets, who had been much more generous in equipment and training of their Arab allies than the US with their Israeli ones. Besides, Nixon was saving the US geostrategic position in the Mideast on the cheap, sending weapons but allowing the Jews to do the fighting. The Russians, on the other hand, sent pilots, not a few, to the battle. Thanks to Israel, the USSR was demoralized in the region in 73. The Europeans, on the other hand, did their best not to allow the Americans to resupply Israel, but didn't interfere with the Russian resupplying of the Arabs. (And it wasn't all about oil for Europe, was it?) Fair as usual. And wait: you mean that when your great friends, the French, were selling Mirages to Argentina (those same they denied to Israel), that nice South American country was a thriving democracy? And that when Chile backed the UK in the Falklands war it was also a democracy, right? Those same nice French friends of yours sold Saddam the Mirages with which he bombed Kurdish towns out of existence. In the meanwhile, the UK, to please its Arab clients, denied Israel spare parts to the airplanes it had sold her. Where do the explosives with which British soldiers are now being killed in Iraq come from? Israel? Or Russia, France, Germany? Will you declare war on them? What about the Muslim Britons who attack Israelis AND, in Iraq and Afghanistan, British and American troops? How many Jews will you find in Guantanamo bay? Jewish insurgents in mandatory Palestine were hanged, but those Britons in Guantanamo bay you want to set free. Funny.
Then again, if the EU, of which you're part, is and has been for decades an ally and sponsor of the Palestinians and other Arabs (all of them human rights respecting model democracies) who want to exterminate the Jews, I don't see why Israel shouldn't sell weapons to anybody else. Again, what's the trouble, fear of competition?

Lafontaine you really are digging in the bran tub. Poor old Arthur Balfour converted by his sister to the cause of a Jewish homeland and by the efforts of Chaim Weizmann.....you think it was a poor decision I see.

In all your rantings you never once mentioned war in 1914-18.....you seem oblivious to the fact that Turkey and the ramshackle Ottoman Empire was allied to Germany and obviously would have its feathers plucked if it flashed them at Britain and France......quite right too.....just as Tanganikya and Southwest Africa (where Goering's father was Governor I believe) were lost.

But I am intrigued lafontanine that you believe Balfour was wrong to issue his Declaration; I had not thought to hear that from you, but it is all the more convincing for that.

"At the same time we should also recognise that hatred of Islam and Arabs is far more common: Islam and Arabs are portrayed in the mainstream media in ways which would be considered totally unacceptable if applied to Jews (for example Kilroy Silk's article would never have been even published if he'd written such ignorant and racist comments about Jews)."

Ridiculous, Brendan! Kilroy-Silk's pronouncements were the truth.

"And attacks on Mosques and members of the Muslim community are daily occurances in the UK and elsewhere in Europe, barely meriting a mention. Just look at some of the awful, cretinous comments on this very site."

What a whole lot of CRAP!!! It is the attacks by Muslims of Jews that hardly get a mention. And then there are the daily murders around the world by Muslims of ANYONE, including other Muslims, with whom they disagree. Muslims have killed HUNDREDS just this week and Millions in the last few years. Many of them were other Muslims.

And BTW—both Jews and Arabs as well as other middle easterners "are like that"—not to mention Mexicans and any culture that likes to bargain. While it may not be a "nice" phrase—it is the truth. Get over it. Everything is not bigotry.

When Muslims stop preaching murderous hatred in their mosques both in Islamia and the West, while sending young men and women out on suicide missions to murder innocents, then you can talk.

Let Muslims stay in their lands and live under sharia! Don't come to the West and try to make us submit to Islamic backwardness. I'll take the learned, intelligent, productive Jews any day of the week to the nihilistic, backward Muslims who think they should rule the world because the Qur'an tells them so.

• "Fight against such of those to whom the Scriptures were given ... and do not embrace the true Faith, until they pay tribute out of hand and are utterly subdued." (9:29)

• Slay those who believe neither in God nor the Last Day, who do not forbid what God and his apostle have forbidden, and who do not embrace the true Faith, until they pay jaziah out of hand and are utterly subdued Surah Al-Tawbah (Repentence), Ayah 29, . .

Live and let live. Too bad Muslims don't want to let anyone do that.

Lili

Whatever made Balfour sign the declaration, it was used by his majesty's government to legitimize its Palestinian mandate at the League of Nations and to get for it some lands that it had earlier promised to the French. Don't tell me you are not acquainted with those machinations. (And, yes, many European politicians made promises to the Jews because, believing in their own lies, they thought the Jews were very powerfull and influential all around the world, particularly in the US.) Well, as soon as Britain got what it wanted, it began to betray both the letter and spirit of the Balfour declaration, imposing ever more restrictive quotas to Jews who, trying to get out of your nice continent, didn't have any other place to go. Why that? To please the Arabs.
Now, fighting against the Ottoman empire was no reason to dismantle it and the same applies to the Austro-Hungarian one. Thanks to the anglo-french dismantling of those two empires, we have been having some confusion lately in the Middle East and the Balkans. In the Middle east it is easy for you Europeans to say that the only serious mistake was the birth of a Jewish state, but what do you have to say about the "order" you've left behind in Africa, the Balkans, the Indian sub-continent and so on? Do you really think that if the Europeans haven't tried to exterminate the Jews they would have left Berlin and St. Petersburg, Krakow and Budapest, Vienna and Prague and, yes, Paris and London too, to live in a scorpion and Arab infested desert? Do the following, send your Muslims back home, invite the Israelis to settle in Europe, give them a state, say, made of half of Austria, and you'll see that the Jewish-Arab dispute will be over in no time. Then, the Arabs in particular and the Muslims in general will be your exclusive problem.

"Ridiculous, Brendan! Kilroy-Silk's pronouncements were the truth."

What, including the bit where he described Iran as Arab?

BTW, Brendan, what do you know about Arabs? Whi is an Arab, when did they begin to use the name? Bet you don't know because neither they do.

"Whi (sic)is an Arab, when did they begin to use the name? Bet you don't know because neither they do (sic).

Right. And they're illiterate too, eh?

"What, including the bit where he described Iran as Arab?"

A minor error that he addressed. Persians/Arabs=Muslims.

But, the rest was the truth. Islam has produced NOTHING in the last 500 years to benefit humanity. Some export oil, bought and paid for by the West—others export Islamic terrorism—some, like the Saudis do both.

And yes, much of the Islamic world is illiterate, almost 50% and most of those illiterates are women. All of the Arab wold's GDP is less than that of Spain, while they have a population greater than that of the U.S.

Here is a nice quote from a Muslim who knows all about the problems of Islam:

"Today we are the poorest, the most illiterate, the most backward, the most unhealthy, the most un-enlightened, the most deprived, and the weakest of all the human race" http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/1824455.stm

But, what the Hell—at least they have the bomb.

Lili

Actually, according to the UN, half of their womenfolk cannot read or write, and if you consider having read only the Koran as literacy, well...
Now let me tell you: if an Arab is a native speaker of the language or his descendents, irrespective of their religion, then more than half of the Israeli population is composed by Arabs of the Jewish faith who have been ethnically cleansed from countries where their families had been living since before the Arabs themselves invaded them. If an Arab is an Arabic speaking Muslim, neither Hanan Ashrawi nor Edward Said could count as Arabs. If an Arabs is an Arabic speaking Muslim or Christian (and these didn't either speak Arabic till the 19th century nor did they consider themselves Arabs) then it seems a bit racistic to exclude the Arabic speaking Jews from the group, don you think so? Now, most of the inhabitants of Iran don't speak Arabic, but, first, there are many of them there and, second, they have mixed a lot with Arabic speakers. Then, for Muslims, it is much more important to be a Muslim, and most Iranians (besides the Ba'hai who have been persecuted and massacred) are Muslims, than to speak Arabic, a language that, by the way, the whole Iranian clergy, that is, the Iranian ruling class speaks.

Lafontaine is a bit harsh on the Brits re the Ottoman Empire. It was pratically moribund before the Great War broke out: the CUP ('Young Turks') had already almost succeeded in converting it into a constitutional federation in 1908, and the Arabs didn't need incitement from TE Lawrence to get cracking.

Another interesting figure of the post-WW1 period was Edwin Montagu, the assimilated British Jewish Cabinet minister who presciently denounced the Declaration in August 1917 in these terms:

“I wish to place on record my view that the policy of His Majesty’s Government is anti-Semitic in result and will prove a rallying ground for anti-Semites in every country of the world...It seems inconceivable that Mr. Balfour should be authorized to say that Palestine was to be reconstituted as ‘the national home of the Jewish people.’ I do not know what this involves but I assume that Mohammedans and Christians are to make way for the Jews…”

Russian and East European Jewish immigration to Britain (esp. the East End) had produced many tensions over the previous 30-40 years. The Cabinet majority saw Palestine as an alternative destination, siphoning off anarchistic or socialistic troublemakers. After the success of the Russian Revolution-- in fact, a putsch led by Jews and communists-- the danger of Britain being swamped by such types seemed less acute... and the danger of stirring up the Arab and indigenous Jewish populations by decanting hundreds of thousands of Zionists on to them seemed the worse option.

Actually Lafontaine, the Austro-Hungarian Empire was falling apart before 1914; and the two collapsing Empires - A-H and the Ottoman were getting attention from the Russians....you might recall the Treaty of Berlin 1878 and the prospect of war over Serbia.

As for your comments about Balfour, you mean Jakob Schiff of Kuehn Loeb and his influence in fund-raising for Russia and Britain in WWI...yes he was German I believe; and did cause Britain significant problems in financing the war - Britain's bankers being J P Morgan.

As for Balfour, you really can't address that matter to me.....noone in my family was allowed to vote when he was in power. I disagree with British foreign policy from 1911 onwards, esp. the secret agreements with the French to fight Germany. Then again after the failure of the Kaiser to renew the Reinsurance Treaty of 1887 I suppose war was inevitable........you seem to think that Jakob Schiff should have been even more obdurate. Is it true he financed the Bolsheviks ? I understand a lot of files are still under time-seal relating to US financial support for Lenin and his crew in 1917.

Anyway, you have an abiding hatred of the British and see them as the instigators of all evil in the world; it is what Kipling called "The White Man's Burden" and we have grown inured to the ravings of frustrated inadequates throughout the world........

I really think Turkey did much better without the deadweight of the crumbling Ottoman Empire and Kemal Attaturk was able to save Turkey from being dragged into the same debilitating mess as the whole region.

BTW lafontaine - you would do well to read up on Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points.......they did after all lay the foundations for the Second World War

X. The peoples of Austria-Hungary, whose place among the nations we wish to see safeguarded and assured, should be accorded the freest opportunity to autonomous development.

Fourteen Points

XII. The turkish portion of the present Ottoman Empire should be assured a secure sovereignty, but the other nationalities which are now under Turkish rule should be assured an undoubted security of life and an absolutely unmolested opportunity of autonomous development, and the Dardanelles should be permanently opened as a free passage to the ships and commerce of all nations under international guarantees.

Sorry, Timbuktoo, no hatred of the UK at all, but some serious disagreements that, I believe, have been also shared by many Britons. You had your share of bad guys, but you had others, from Orde Wingate to Churchill. The UK's record, at least with its own Jews, when compared to continental Europe, is shining: no pogroms (though the Tsars maybe did the Jews a favour by encouraging them to go to the US), no gas-chambers. But Britain's policy at the time of the greatest danger for the Jews could have been much better. Had the Brits been less ambiguous, they'd made the Arabs accept Israel: in the case, they've managed both to hostilize Jews and Arabs. Remember that, after all, the 36-39 Palestinian revolt led by the Mufti was crushed by your troops in a much harsher way than Israel is trying to crush the Intifada today.
Now, now, isn't it curious that while Jews have to accept that criticism of Israel is not necessarily anti-Semitic (though it is also true that each and every anti-Semite is a critic of Israel), you, Brits, cannot accept criticism of your country's actions without labelling the critic as a hater of anything British. But the same kind of criticism you've made of Israel (and that I have not branded as anti-Semitic) can be levelled against most countries I know. And is it so hard to recognize that, among the more than a hundred countries that were created after WW2, Israel has been one of those under most pressure and that even compared to its immediate neighbours it has proved to be more civilized, not gassing, for instance, either its own population, or even its enemies, as both the Iraqis and Egyptians have done, not destroying its own towns, as the Syrians did with Hama, not lynching its dissidents and so on? And, sincerely, do you think there would be any need of creating Israel were it not for Europeans anti-Semitism and the Holocaust? What do you think the Jews should have done? Gone back to Poland, for instance? You know that even many Poles who served in the British army refused to go back to their country when it was conquered by the Russians and settled in the UK. And what about the Jews from Arab lands? You'll say everything would have been fine with them were it not for Israel? Then explain me, please, why since the middle of the 19th century Christian Arabs have been leaving the Muslim lands en masse. There are now many times more Lebanese Maronites in the Americas than in Lebanon. The same applies to the Iraqi Assyrians or to the Egyptian Copts. And have you ever heard about the Farhud, the great anti-Jewish pogrom in Baghdad in 41, a massacre that had nothing to do with a still unexistent Israel, but all to do with the pro-nazi leanings of the majority of the Arab elites? Surprise: they're still pro-nazi. Is it so hard for the Brits, who fought the nazis heroically, to recognize this? Even when fighting against the UK between 45 and 48 the Israeli Jews were among the most Anglophilic peoples in the world. But the closer the UK gets to continental Europe, the more it risks resembling the peoples on the Channels other side.

Oh, and by the way: if you, Brits, who live in a safe and strong country that is not threatened with immediate extinction and the population of which hasn't been massacred by its enemies for a long time, are so sensitive about your homeland, why do you expect the Jews to be less caring about the one place on earth that won't close its doors to them the next time someone tries to herd them in the gas-chamber? And, about selling weapons to all kinds of clients, have you ever read Shaw's Major Barbara?

Lafonatine,

Trying to infer Naziesque qualities in regimes (e.g. Milosovich as the new-Hitler, Saddam as the new-Hitler, Israel as the "new-Third Reich" etc)seems to have become mainstream to the point where it is becomes both historically tenuous and downright offensive to the victims of what was a uniquely systematic wave of genocide.

On the question of "so-called settlers (immigrants actually in a region from where people like you would to see them ethnically cleansed)"

I don't see many "immigrants" in Bradford setting up separate road networks, siphoning off water supplies or setting up checkpoints every few kilometers. This is called colonisation.

It is not a question of "ethnic cleansing". Surely it is legitimate to question the impact of Israeli colonies upon Palestinian freedom of movement or access to resources. Furthermore, it is surely legitimate to question the reasonableness of Israeli Jews founding settlements on land they take to be religiously significant whilst systematically denying Palestinian Arabs the right to return to houses within what is now Israel, to which they still hold keys.

Lili,

On Kilroy-Silk - (IGNORE IF BORED WITH THIS DEBATE)

1) As has already been pointed out, he classifies Persian's/Iranians as Arabs - rather like getting Romans and Greeks mixed up.
2) He claims Arabs have contributed nothing to Western Civilisation. Not "within the last 500 years". Never.
3) In interviews, he claims to have only been talking about "Arab Regimes" yet his article explicitly refers to "Arabs" in general supporting 9/11. Now, not only is this complete rubbish (I'm sure most Arabs were shitting themselves in anticipation of a US response and immediately scared about what implications the event would have in terms of invigorating attacks and prejudice against Muslim followers)but it also destroys his "Arab Regimes" backtrack. At least, if he is referring to "Regimes", then he has a hell of a lot of work to do in suggesting that the US's most favored clients in the region (Saudi Arabia or Egypt, for example) would want to support such attacks.
4)He also talks about all Arabs as wife-beaters. Now, I believe 50% of them must be female. Entirely illogical.

I could go on.

Now, it is entirely right that we challenge the appauling human rights records and overiding cultural backwardness of Middle Eastern States. Yet holding up such an obviously incoherent, illiterate and ignorant individual as a standard bearer seems to do no one any favours, especially those Arab citizens who are the main victims of such barbarism.

Hey lafontaine, at last we can cut through the barrage and discuss properly. You see my point exactly, how it looks to a Briton to have all this negativity downloaded - it makes us very prickly and hostile.

The fact is we live in 2004 and whatever happened 60 or even 1000 years ago is merely the route-map that got us to where we are, but we are the ones with the issues today.

Personally speaking, if I had the kind of lunacy coming out of the PA - ie suicide bombings, I would send in troops and take direct control......that strikes me as being well in order. What is not, is for troops to lose discipline and to loot or gratuitously smash things up or intimidate civilians......that destroys cohesion of an army.....which is why the worst thing you can do to an army is to make it police civilians.......Talleyrand once said you can do anything with bayonets except sit on them.

I have no patent cure for the situation in Israel; and I cannot accept suicide bombing nor justify it in any way; it demeans Palestinian life...but demographics are such that they treat it cheaply because it is abundant, and Israel values it because it is scarce......

There is no solution by looking at the past. Germany destroyed the British Empire in two tranches of war, and destroyed itself.....hard to see what advantage it conferred on either side; but nowadays it seems quite an absurdity that it ever had to happen....but that is our history.

So, we have to accept that governments do not have 100% public support and we inherit our history, but we make the stuff we bequeath our children, ie. their history.

BTW lafontaine - still looking for some clarification vis a vis the new Arab invasion. Should I be scared?

Guy Chambers.
The French, with more or less 10% of Muslims, mainly Arabs, are beginning to get worried. They've just discovered that they haven't imported new loyal citizens who want to melt in their pot and become proud Frenchmen. Because of this, there are already many suburbs around Paris and other French towns where not even the cops will go.
Call me a racist if you wish, but I don't think that either Arabs or Muslims have some kind of immutable genetic problem. They're however going through a period of collective madness similar to that which Christian Europe went through during the Great Witch Hunt and the Jews, almost at the same time, when they started following false messiahs.
I don't know (nobody knows) about most Muslims, but those who count and speak louder won't assimilate and will use European democratic guarantees to conspire against them as fascists and communists did earlier.
Then, assimilating ethnic, religious and other minorities is not easy: take a look at how long it took for the US to really begin to assimilate its blacks. But the trouble with Arab/Muslims is more serious because they belong to a proud and conquering culture and, unlike, say, most groups who immigrated to America, they are keeping their ties quite alive with their home countries, something much easier nowadays, with all the communications and transport technologies.
In short, Europe has imported a problem. A big problem. And the solution for it is not in Europe. For the Muslims to be able to assimilate, their ties with the Mideast will have to be cut and the Mideast itself transformed from an exporter of people and madness into something more stable and reasonable. (Israel is not the problem, just a symptom: a good way of knowing whether Arabs and Muslims are outgrowing their madness is to see if they become less obsessed about this subject. But backing the Arabs in their obsession is no way to get rid of the madness, it is rather a way of perpetuating it for short time gain.)
Migrations are usually the exportation of local problems. Some countries may benefit from this and, thus, it is not habitually a zero-sum game. But what the Muslim world is doing is to export its problems in order to perpetuate them at home and reproduce them abroad.
If the Mideast is democratized, then Europe's Muslim problem will be eventually solved. Otherwise, the fanatics there will radicalize your Muslims and, if we take into account what 19 fanatics did on 9/11, think what may happen in the UK if only 1% of your Muslims become active suicidal terrorists.

Timbuktoo.
The Palestinians have been instrumentalized both by their leaders and by their neighbours. I don't think the solution goes through two states. There won't probably be a Palestinian state because it will destabilize the whole region and draw Egypt and Jordan into war with Israel. Israel will erect its fence and, as soon as Arafat, who alone keeps Gaza and Cisjordania united, is out of the picture, Egypt will in some way begin to intervene in Gaza and Jordan in Cisjordania. Both countries will eventually absorb their Arab/Muslim brethren (and their territories too), something that's somewhat more reasonable than forcing Jews and Palestinian Arabs to live together in one state.
I believe this is the solution that the new masters of the region, the Americans, are planning. But it would help a lot if much of Europe stopped to pour petrol on the fire through the demonization of Israel and the sanctification of the Palestinians. Through this, the Euro elites are not only making any solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict more difficult, but are assuring that any solution that doesn't involve the dismantling of Israel will be much less acceptable to their own Muslims than even to Israel's Arab neighbours.

And, before I forget it. The function of Palestinian style terror is not victory or something like that: it is the burning of bridges. What the terrorists did was to assure that for at least a generation or two there won't be any possible trust between Jews and Arabs in the region. The best solution for the Arab-Jewish problem would have been if, in peace, both populations began to mingle freely, without uneasiness until, in four or five generations, most became indistinguishable from each other. Until this second Intifada, most Palestinian towns were self-administering and self-policing without Israeli soldiers; and the Palestinians worked freely in Israel. The result of the terror attacks has been that of creating a deep incompatibility between both peoples, something that will last long. This, for me, is proof enough that what the Palestinian leadership and terror groups wanted wasn't independence or any kind of compromise, but the perpetuation of hostilities till a final victory that would mean expelling the Jews from the region.

The key lies in terms such as "Europeans" of whom there are 550 million; "Euro-elites" of whom there are several thousand; and of "European Union elites" of whom there are several hundred.........too many postings on this site have spent time attacking the 550 million in a scatter-gun approach invoking irritation.

There are very few cititzens in Europe who feel their own government is responsive to them, let alone the European Union.

Having seen the workings of some Western European countries (not the UK, in this case), I have to agree with you. Old Europe doesn't seem to be a brilliant example of the best representative democracy nowadays and, well, Brussels much less so. State bureacracies and the executives seem to be powerful, but Parliaments and the Judiciary in general look pretty weak. There's a certain lack of those checks and balances in the continent and the EU began already from the point of relative irrelevancy to which the Parliaments of many member countries have slowly arrived. And I imagine that if France and Germany get their way, things will be even worse. As it happens, I cannot fully understand Blair: one day he risks his career to back the US and invade Iraq, while the next he risks it again to help impose on the UK the EU constitution. Sounds contradictory to me, but what do I know?

The Communists kept politicians in the West attuned to their electorate; they seemed frightened the voters would be seduced by the Communist Way........in Germany they piled social benefits onto the workforce to buy off the seduction of the GDR and subsidised everyone to buy compliance as a border state.

With the collapse of the Communist System the politicians started being responsive to commercial interests, ignored the broader electorate in favour of lobby groups and cash; and have become completely de-linked from the broader electorate and now have no foundation in society but are free-floating jetsam on an increasingly turbulent ocean.

Yes, there still is a lot of anti-semitism in society and it is something that genuinely shocks and disturbes me.

But no more than the homophobia that Ms Phillips spouts and legitmizes.

I deplore prejudice, ignorance, and stereotyping.

I would also never seek to deny the rights and privileges I enjoy to other members of society, due to my ill founded prejudices.

Pity Ms Phillips doesn't share my universal dislike of prejudice

Two passages from an interview with one of Israel's most acclaimed authors, Aharon Appelfeld, published in Ha'aretz on Friday, February 13, 2004:

1) "Certainly. I remember myself going home in Czernowitz in first grade and all the children shouting God-killer at me. You dog and son of a dog, you killed God. That was the convention. It was in the blood. It was the heart of the Jewish-European story. From the day we first set foot in Europe, that was the story. Because someone who killed God can't be good."

2) "We are not saints and not angels. But nevertheless, there are not yet trains from Jenin to concentration camps in the Negev. There are no smokestacks. Yet, the Guardian and Le Monde feel the need to draw that comparison every day. To say of the Jews that they are a little like the Nazis. Not exactly Nazis, just a bit. When I see that, I say that there is something very deep in European civilization: the need to demonize us runs very deep. Because to this day, Europe has not given itself a full reckoning of what happened between 1939 and 1945. Because it is not only the Nazis, you know, it's not only Germany. Women and children were taken from France openly. There was collaboration all across the continent. And it didn't happen in Zimbabwe or in Nicaragua; it happened in the very heart of Europe. Therefore, because to this day they haven't made a confession, the Europeans feel the need to say of the Jews that they are no better than them. On the contrary - they are worse."

When you see this process, does it frighten you? Does it evoke associations?

"We fled from them. We fled for our lives from them. So that we are the refugees of Europe. You would expect Europe to say to itself that it bears some responsibility for its refugees. You would expect Europe to think that it has a moral duty to protect its survivors. To ensure that no harm befalls them. But instead, Europe says that you are actually Nazis. That time, you didn't have the chance, but this time you have the chance, and you are Nazis. And when I see this process, I understand that an alibi is already being prepared. They are already preparing the argument that if something happens to the Jews again, it will be the Jews' fault, not theirs. Don't say we didn't tell you, the Europeans are saying, we warned you. We pointed it out beforehand. And if another catastrophe befalls you, don't come to us with complaints."

Excellent exchange between Timbuktoo and Lafontaine; informative and thought-provoking. Hope Sebastian Cody dips into Melanie's blog and notes. An "After Dark" on these issues is long overdue. Lafontaine and Timbuktoo should be approached and invited, Melanie Phillips another.
It would be fascinating. Not sure who could chair it though. Any suggestions?

"I don't think the solution goes through two states. There won't probably be a Palestinian state because it will destabilize the whole region and draw Egypt and Jordan into war with Israel"

Actually lafontaine, I think Arafat has proven why such a 'state' would in fact be a rickety fiefdom; he failed to establish a proper, accountable state with institutions and instead ranb a kleptocracy with warring factions who would tar each other apart if they did not have Israel as a unifying enemy.

Frankly, I would not be happy with a hostile state able to cut my country in half and head for the sea. It is classic as a military tactic and no nation could permit this knife at the jugular.

Arafat should have settled 50 years ago, even 40, but he has run out of life and led his people out into the desert, betraying everyone over the years with opportunism and corruption.

It's not only that the communists kept Western European politicians attuned to their electorate. This seems to be in part the history of continental democracy since the French Revolution, that is, the rulers had to keep buying the loyalty of their populations because of the dangers presented by the enemies accross the borders. That's not altogether bad: countries that have no dangerous borders (most of the South American ones, for instance), since they don't need the continuous backing of the people, are freer to oppress them. The trouble with continental Europe nowadays seems to be the result of the fact that the US nuclear umbrella left the European political elites with too much money in their hands for too long and, instead of buying their citizens' loyalty with it, they used their half century of largesse to de-politicize the people, in other words, social benefits were paid not to assure the defense of the country when needed, but to convince the population that politics was over, that all now was but a matter of administration or technical management better left in the hands of specialists. Thus, in a very curious way, the Western European political elites (both on the left and on the right) used the social benefits, the welfare state and so on not to buy social peace but to remain in an almost hereditary way in power. My impression is that, for instance, the French population has less of a say in their country's business nowadays than they had in the 50s. There's a de-democratization going on in continental Europe and the idea of the EU has been kidnapped exactly by the same guys who managed to turn the European parliaments into toothless rubbr-stamping institutions. Maybe Euro anti-Americanism performs the same function as Arab anti-Israelism: it is a way for the rulers to keep the eyes of the people or electorate away from the politicians' hands.