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The man with all the comic timing of the Bay of Pigs Invasion

Monday, July 21, 2008
Yes, our very own, very dear Prime Minister:

"Poor Gordon Brown," a senior official in the Foreign Ministry said on Sunday, "he just happened to visit Israel the same week U.S. presidential candidate Barack Obama is expected to arrive and isn't receiving much attention." Indeed, visiting Israel on the same week that Obama is expected to arrive is like being the opening act for the Beatles.

There were few signs on the streets of Jerusalem yesterday that the prime minister of one of Israel's most important allies...For some reason, Union Jack flags were nowhere to be seen in the capital.

Brown's arrival is also in the shadow of the recent visit by French President Nicolas Sarkozy. Sarah Brown may be a founding partner in a public relations firm and a supporter of charities, but she's no Carla Bruni". Thanks to Haaretz.com for the extract.

Shades of his disastrous trip to the US when he was, unsurprisingly, overshadowed by the Bishop of Rome. Don't the idiots in his office ever check diaries and the like?

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Taking sides

Monday, July 07, 2008
Worldpublicopinion.org has been polling 'the world' on the Palestinian- Israeli conflict and whether national governments should take sides. And pretty depressing the results are too:

UK -

Pro Arab- 8%, neutral - 79%, pro Israel - 2%.

And there was I thinking that that kind of wretched moral equivalence went out with square wheels.

The Americans fare somewhat better:

Pro Israel - 31, neutral 71%, Pro Arab - 2%

Figures for India are intriguing - Pro Israel - 24, neutral - 22, pro Arab - 24. Perhaps 24% have some knowledge of Indian history....

Muslim countries are rather better at siding with their own than we are, with absolute or relative majorities for the Arabs in Iran, Turkey and Egypt

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People you would not invite to your party...

Thursday, June 12, 2008
From Hansard:

Mr. Amess: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs to what events held in Israel to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the founding of that State, (a) he, (b) Ministers in his Department and (c) officials have been invited; what invitations have been (i) accepted and (ii) declined; and if he will make a statement.

Dr. Howells: My right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary [the boy Miliband] did not receive any invitations to go to Israel to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the founding of the State of Israel.

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The hazards of public life

Wednesday, June 11, 2008
From the J Post:

"A female member of Knesset is claiming that she has been sexually harassed in dozens of lust letters that she has been receiving from an unknown sender for over a year...She requested to remain anonymous".

Not good, clearly. However, a little research shows that there are all of 17 women in the Knesset, so it is reasonable assumption that there is going to be an awful lot of speculation.... I will stick my neck out and hazard that 73 year old Sara Shalev is not the victim.

Enthusiastic followers of electoral data and the like might note that the Knesset lists dates of birth, with the youngest MK born in '77 and the oldest in '26.

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The UN - doncha just love it?

Thursday, June 05, 2008
Latest insanity from Turtle Bay:

"Cuba requested the revocation of the [World Union of Progressive Judaism]'s status following a Human Rights Council session in Geneva in January titled "Human Rights Violations Emanating from Israeli Military Incursions in the Occupied Territories," where, in protest at the session's exclusive focus on Israel, World Union representative David Littman tried to read passages from the Hamas charter calling for the destruction of Israel.

Littman was interrupted three times by the presiding officer on the grounds that Hamas's ideology was not the topic before the council. Before he took his seat, Littman told the presiding officer that "something is rotten in the state of this council."

This statement led to complaints largely from Muslim countries that the UN had been insulted by the Reform representative. The World Union was informed of the initiative at the NGO committee last Thursday, and given a week to prepare its response".

...

But the World Union's prospects are uncertain. Sudan chairs the committee, which also includes Pakistan, Cuba, Egypt, Angola and Qatar". Source

And what a selection of human-rights loving liberal democracies that little lot are. Quite what benefit the WUPJ gains from its participation in this mummery is moot.

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Can't Brown get anything right?

Thursday, May 08, 2008
Just spotted this in the transcript of his speech about the Miracle on the Med (not that he called it that):

"Naturally I agreed to do it and I spent some time writing the lecture. It was only at the last minute, literally a day or two before, when I was making arrangements to get to the Hilton Hotel that I discovered it was not the Hilton Hotel in London where I was to speak, but the Hilton Hotel in Tel Aviv".


Either he (or rather his flunkeys) could not find Brown's backside with the aid of both hands, a bank of klieg lights and shouted out instructions, or this is the lamest attempt of humour this year.

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Three cheers for us, the Americans, the French, the Costa Ricans and the Belgians

Thursday, April 24, 2008
Because the accredited UN bods of those places walked out when the Libyan representative compared Gaza with the Shoah.

Which all rather begs the question whether the Irish, Canadians, Dutch, Germans etc all thought the comparison apt.

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Bad news for Jewish smokers

Sunday, April 20, 2008
Either go cold turkey for Pesach or break The Law:

"In an unprecedented initiative, numerous leading rabbinical arbiters have warned the public in signs posted in haredi neighborhoods that cigarettes and cigars "contain essences that are leaven [hametz] and that they should not be smoked during Pessah". Source.

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Out of the mouths of babes and Latin American thugs

Monday, March 03, 2008
Our old friend Chavez:

"Colombia is [the] Israel of Latin America". Well, it is a liberal democracy with a market economy...

I suppose Venezuela would have to be the Iran of the continent - ever intent on mischief and destabilising its neighbours.

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The world's oddest pairing of town twins

Monday, February 11, 2008
Odder even than the non-descript French town (so non-descript I forget its name) twinned with Ouagadougou, the capital of Burkina Faso: Tel Aviv is twinned with Gaza City. Yes, really.

Unsurprisingly, the Likud deputy mayor is not best pleased about this, and wants to terminate the agreement, but the mayor - of uncertain political hue - has succeeded in going no further than suspending the agreement.

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"A tasteless rewriting of history"

Tuesday, January 29, 2008
If I was choosing to be especially euphemistic, that's what I might call this too:

"The distribution in the Netherlands of a free postcard depicting Anne Frank wearing a Palestinian scarf will not be stopped, according to editor-in-chief Pascale Bosboom of Boomerang publishers". Source

Opinions seem to differ as to the precise cultural indicators thrown out by red headscarves (I am pretty sure I read Hamas the other day, but I cannot find the reference ...), but it certainly does not show loyalty to the 'moderates' in Gaza and Judea Samaria. Wiki suggests the PFLP and the rest of the alphabet soup end of PLO leftists, none of which are especially lovable. The EU and the US have designated the PFLP as a terrorist organisation.

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Virtue compelled, or clamping down on economic acts between consenting adults

Thursday, January 17, 2008
Let us say that one is an Israeli, not religious, and one who fancies making a bit of cash by working an extra day per week. Try that, and there will be trouble:

"According to the Work and Rest Hours Law, no Israeli employee may work on the day of rest that his or her religion dictates, unless he or she works in a specially designated list of occupations or workplaces. For Jews, that day of rest is Shabbat; for non-Jews, it is either Friday, Saturday or Sunday".

As some individuals have just found out, "In the event of a conviction, the court may impose a fine of up to NIS 12,900 (£1764) per worker, per day".

Now this is not a question of an employer coercing employees, but rather to all concerned agreeing to working a Saturday . One might add that compelling virtue on the part of shopkeepers but not shoppers is a little skewed.....

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Good grief....

Wednesday, December 05, 2007
Always supposing one was a keen green, would targeting the use of candles be the top of one's agenda for 'saving the planet'?

Well, it is for the Green Hanukkia movement, as the Jerusalem Post reports. Fellow goyim may not be aware that Hanukkah commenced yesterday, and continues for a further seven days. In very basic terms, it commemorates the miracle of the candle oil after the re-dedication of the Temple after the victory of the Maccabees. (Brief sidetrack - there is the old joke that all Jewish holidays can be abbreviated thus: They tried to kill us. They failed. Let's eat!)

So, the use of candles is central to the celebration, but the tree huggers have calculated that each candle emits 15g of carbon dioxide. Just as a point of comparison, the average person will breathe out 60 times as much in a single day, apparently. The campaign notes, "We have many environmental traditions in Judaism like Tu Bishvat and Succot, but there are also traditions like Lag Ba'omer and Hanukka that made sense when they were instituted but are more problematic now in the days of global warming".

Truly the apocalypse is upon us.

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Looks like he'll be relying on his memoirs

Tuesday, November 06, 2007
The 'he' in question being Mr Tony. (I would not say I miss him, but at least one never had the impression that the nation was one bad news story away from the Supreme Leader having a nervous breakdown)

Anyway, Blair is making a nuisance of himself in the Levant, and at least some of the locals are far from impressed:

"How would you rate Tony Blair's performance as Mideast envoy?"

69% - Poor
21% - Fair
10% - Good

Given that this is a self-selecting click poll, I suppose family members might have been voting for him.

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Hurrah for the good sense of the Lib Dems, including Lembit Opik

Tuesday, September 18, 2007
(Yes, I am a bit bewildered to be writing that).

And for why? Because they have rejected calls for an academic boycott of Israel, and "a motion condemning it passed overwhelmingly".

The motion itself hits a bullseye:

"It said that academic freedom and the exchange of ideas are of "paramount importance," adding that it is wrong to boycott individuals on account of their nationality, "whatever policies their country's government pursues." Israeli academics "can no more be held accountable for Israeli government policy than British academics can be for British government policy," it said.

The motion called it "perverse" for academics to boycott only Israel when other countries with far worse records of academic freedom are not also to be boycotted. "Israeli universities are centres of free debate and discussion including Jews, Christians and Muslims, Israelis and Palestinians," it added".


Our man with interests in the Balkans voted in favour of the motion above, and my regulars will not be surprised that the odious Tonge was the only 'name' in favour of a boycott.


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Mrs Guy Ritchie - "impur[e] and evil"

Monday, September 17, 2007


Or so says a nameless director at a Jerusalem Kabbala yeshivot. Madonna, for it is she, is visiting the Miracle on the Med, being something of a fan of things kabbalistic, and the Rabbinate is not best pleased, as the J Post notes:

"It is a known fact in Kabbala that impurity and evil are inherently attracted to sanctity...That's why people of Hollywood, a place of iniquity and lasciviousness, are naturally attracted to the holiness of Kabbala".

Other folk, bar the Ritchies, along for the ride are "Demi Moore and her husband, actor Ashton Kutcher, ex-talk show host Rosie O'Donnell and fashion designer Donna Karan".

I think she looks quite sedate in that picture, but never mind.

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Maybe she doesn't like gefilte fish....

Friday, September 07, 2007
Haaretz notes that Israel is getting a visit from the royal Z-list in the form of Prince Edward, although it is 'a private visit'. Furthermore, Israel has never had a state visit by Her Maj or any other members of the family Battenberg / Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. The Duke of Edinburgh and the Prince of Wales have visited 'privately'.

I appreciate that she is a busy woman and no longer in the first flush of youth, but she has gone sightseeing in the following beacons of liberal democracy:

  • Panama - 1953
  • Iran - 1961
  • Turkey - 1971
  • Yugoslavia - 1972
  • Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, UAE, Oman, Saudi Arabia - 1979
  • Tunisia, Morocco, Algeria - 1980
  • Jordan - 1984
  • China - 1986

And she's had time to visit our Canadian friends no fewer than 22 times.

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Having your cake, eating it, and showing it at Olympia CakeEx

Wednesday, September 05, 2007
That is what the all together odious individuals at the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) (and no, I am *not* linking to them, not now, not ever) seek, judging from a whiney press release I found at Labourstart.org, starting with this absolute jaw dropper of a headline:

"Upholding Debate as a Necessary Component of Academic Freedom".

The average sentient human being might think that the scales had dropped from PACBI's eyes, but no, not a bit of it, rather they are all a-fluster because "No sooner had the [UK’s University and College Union] motion been passed than dozens of American and Canadian university presidents and rectors rushed to condemn the Union". (The scoundrels at UCU passed resolutions that accorded with PACBI's agenda in May). And note the excellent use of 'mostly' in the subsidiary clause to the preceding quote: "basing their attacks on mostly false or inaccurate data".

Meanwhile, let it be noted that before the 'evil Zionist oppressors' re-took Judea Samaria, there were no universities in that part of the world. "Birzeit University is the first institution of higher education to be established in 'Palestine'...the College announced in 1972 its plans for the development of a four-year program leading to a Bachelor degree in Arts and Sciences...With the addition of the fourth year, the name of the College was changed officially to "Birzeit University". Source.

Might we have a new candidate for chutzpah defined, superseding the joke about the child who killed his parents and pleaded for clemency because he was an orphan?




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Israel in expansionist mode again.

Thursday, August 16, 2007
Regrettably it is not going to make the day of numerous Arabs and give Gaza direct rule from Jerusalem, but rather there is talk of building an airport on reclaimed land off the coast of TA.

Sounds like it would be quite a feat of engineering: "Our sea is not calm," Danny Kaiser, who was Tel Aviv's city engineer from 2000 to 2005, told the Post. The Mediterranean coast experiences high winds and waves, and reaches great depths, he said. "To build an artificial island, one must have a very good reason".

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From the wonderful people who brought you the Al Yamamah arms deal

Tuesday, August 14, 2007
This from the Jerusalem Post:

"The British government has blocked almost one third of British military exports to Israel this year, citing possible threats to regional stability and fears the equipment might facilitate human rights violations".

Meanwhile, "The report also reveals that during 2006 the UK authorised the export of more than 15,000 sniper rifles to countries including Pakistan, Jordan, Turkey and Saudi Arabia. Saferworld said the exports to Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Turkey were of concern because the UK has no way of finding out where the weapons end up. Export licences approved included components for military aircraft and tanks for China, heavy machine guns for Colombia, and components for combat aircraft and armoured vehicles for Russia". Source.

And all of the countries above are peaceful, stable, human rights-loving liberal democracies with interests that no way clash with our own......

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