17 January 2009 – UK Rallies this weekend

5 Comments

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  Nigel Blumenthal

  18 January 2009 at 8:30 am

  I would dearly like someone to explain why the people of Britain seem to get so exercised over the issue of stopping Hamas in Gaza. It’s not as if most of them have any relatives there, or friends, or have even been there. Is it the “flavour of the month” protest? When was the last time there was this much activity organised for anything else, whether Sudanese war crimes in Darfur, Mugabe’s genocide in Zimbabwe, or the ceaseless slaughter of Sunnis by Shias or Shias by Sunnis, all over the world? What is it about Brits that so many people buy conspiracy theories about Starbucks? Are you all crazy? My dog is more intelligent than some of those thugs who went on the rampage throught London yesterday.

  • 

    Alexia

    18 January 2009 at 1:27 pm

    I think you meant Israel rather than Hamas didn’t you? It fits with the rest of your post.

    As you know, Palestine was a British Protectorate until 1948 when the partition of Palestine was agreed by the UN. It is also close to Europe and Europe of course has the residual guilt from what happened 70 years ago all of which are reasons which may or may not be sufficient. Currently though I think interest is aroused by the sheer brutality of the Israeli attack on Gaza. Keeping the journalists out of Gaza was probably not a sensible thing to do as it has just made them more determined to report.

    Starbucks is always singled out because the CEO used Starbucks money to support the illegal settlements in the west bank and is a fervent supporter of Zionism/Israel. Obviously there are other companies that are equally supportive, but the CEO does single himself out by allowing himself to be so closely associated with the breach of the Geneva Convention.

    You are right about the kids yesterday, but it’s the same with all youth. Too much testosterone and not enough wisdom add the enthusiam and you can have a recipe for disaster. We should all be concerned about this, these kids have been radicalised, but don’t understand the nuances or issues properly. Whilst I’m happy that our muslim community feels comfortable enough to come out onto the streets and peacefully protest (they don’t usually), I fear for the outcome of this radicalisation.

    A lot of the kids I’ve spoken to down the last couple of demos are good kids, they are just off track. They’re not being taught that there are other, more effective ways to protest and effect change in this world of ours. The one thing our education system doesn’t do is teach children critical thought nor the infrastructure of society and how citizens can use it. It’s always in the best interests of those who are trying to control us not to have us look too closely at their words and actions.

    We demonise these kids at our peril.

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  Nigel Blumenthal

  18 January 2009 at 3:43 pm

  Thanks for your response, Alexia and, although you suggest that I meant “Israel”, I did mean “Hamas”. I meant “stopping Hamas from indiscriminate targeting” of Israelis, “stopping Hamas from using its own women and children as shields and formerly suicide bomb carriers”. My post was explicit in asking why Brits care so much about residents of Gaza, when they don’t seem to care at all about other groups who are at least as badly off as the Gazans claim to be.

  And we’re not talking about 1948, or any kind of “residual European guilt” here. There has been a Jewish homeland in Palestine for at least the last 2,000 years – we won’t go any further back than that, because I know you’ll disagree with me – and the centre of the Jewish religion was there for five hundred years. That piece of territory has been administered by many different regimes through history – Greek, Roman, Ottoman, British to name but a few – so to raise the issue of residual guilt is, to me, a red herring.

  Your excusing the singling out of Starbucks also contains some interesting language. First, why should the CEO not be a fervent supporter of Israel? Last time I checked, that wasn’t an open invitation to empty-headed thugs to smash you up. You refer to the West Bank settlements as “illegal”, and the two words are now used so frequently together that it’s almost impossible to separate them in the minds of some. I prefer the word “disputed” – after all, territory that is claimed and won during a war either belongs to the victors (see world history for the last 5,000 years) or is disposed of and given back as part of a postwar settlement. Prior to the 1967 war, the West Bank was under the control of Jordan. Therefore, if it’s not going to be administered by Israel, it should be returned to Jordan, right? Pending that, there’s no point in leaving it as desert. Might I remind you that funds donated by world contributions from Jews and others were also used to put infrastructure into Gaza in similar settlements, which Israel left behind when they pulled out in 2005, and gave over to the nascent Palestinian administration in that territory. The issue of the $14million in tomato-growing infrastructure and greenhouses is too well known to bear repetition – or at least it is here in Canada.

  If world Arab opinion cared as much about the residents of Gaza as they claim, where is the funding for major projects there? Where is the building of infrastructure, the medical training, the education – and I mean real education – of children? Most world governments turn their backs on the Gazans, and their administration cynically uses them as cannon-fodder in an ideological battle. Successfully too, if the reaction of dumb, easily led British kids is anything to go by.

  I also have to say, however, that I do agree with your last paragraph. It’s always been like that, though – the interests of those who claw their way to power are usually concerned with retaining that power, at whatever the cost, as long as it’s a cost to someone else. Just look around the world right now.

  • 

    Alexia

    18 January 2009 at 8:29 pm

    This response will be brief as I’m running out of hours in the weekend, but here goes:

    You asked me what I thought the reasons were for Britain singling out Israel and I gave them. You obviously don’t agree and imply it’s anti-semitism. If that’s not how I should read your response then please tell me what you think the reasons are.

    you asked me why starbucks was singled out. I gave them. They’re not excuses they’re reasons. I can’t help it if the CEO is such a fervent supporter of those settlements nor that he has been honoured by an Israeli group http://www.hallagulla.com/urdu/discussion-corner-65/4601849-post26.html (ignore some of the language, it’s a bit inflammatory)

    You’re right about the misplaced attacks on starbucks. A boycott would be much better, but unfortunately this ties in people not thinking things through properly. Your comment on this being a british phenomenon is a tad racist and untrue. This is a worldwide radicalisation of youth and the Brits don’t have a monopoly on this kind of violence. So your comment I assume was designed to be disparaging and insulting.

    The EU pays for most of the infrastructure in gaza. Each time israel destroys it, it is rebuilt by them. This diverts funds away from other more positive projects. There is no justification for Israel to destroy most of the things it does, but that’s the way Israel plays it in Gaza and unfortunately the world (up until now) has said and done nothing.

    They are very interesting points you raise re darfur, sudan etc not just for the points themselves, but for the fact that wherever I’m seeing discussions on Israel the same talking points keep being raised.. i.e. why is israel being singled out, what about darfur et al, even starbucks keeps getting a mention. This equivalence question, while valid (after all, why aren’t we more concerned with the unpleasantness in this world?), ignores the extreme violence that has been perpetrated by the Israeli forces and lets face it, it doesn’t look good if you have to compare yourself to places like zimbabwe and darfur to divert the discussion.

    As a digression, I’ve always envied the media watch groups that the pro-Israeli supporters have. Listing who to target and what to say helps mobilise people as they don’t need to think or analyse their reasoning, just act. It’s a great way to ensure a consistent view is put across. and what I’ve seen in the last few days is pretty consistent.

    It’s not just palestine where the claim of cannon fodder can be made. Have you seen the kinds of things Israel teaches its children as part of the propaganda for Israel? The stuff around the Shoah is unhealthy. The point is that each culture reacts to events in different ways. It doesn’t make it right and it’s up to the friends of the culture to say something when things are out of line. which is the point you made re the rest of the ‘arab world’ The same complaints you make are applicable to both sides and it’s time for everyone to take responsibility for this mess.

    We’re all complicit in letting this get out of control (as with all the other countries in the world where rights abuses happen) but that doesn’t mean that we can’t finally shoulder our responsibilities and start to sort this out

• 

  Nigel Blumenthal

  19 January 2009 at 6:44 am

  Hi Alexia:

  I was more than somewhat puzzled by your response, so I’ve carefully re-read the thread. However, I’m still puzzled.

  First, you claim that you answered my question about why Brits were so one-sidedly interested in Gaza. The only response I can find that might even marginally relate to that was in your first post, where you say “Currently though I think interest is aroused by the sheer brutality of the Israeli attack on Gaza.” You didn’t deal with my question, which could be re-phrased as “why this particular alleged brutality, and not other alleged brutalities?”. You’d have to be reading my posts with a particularly twisted lens in order to think that I’m accusing anyone of anti-semitism (although if the cap fits…), although you are quite right about the inflammatory language in that website you sent me to.

  That site, by the way, led me to check out the Starbucks site (I never accept the first thing I’m told without checking), where I saw this in their “About us” section:

  “We partner with Alshaya Group to operate Starbucks stores in Egypt, Kuwait, KSA, Bahrain, Qatar, Oman, UAE, Jordan and Lebanon in the Middle East region.” Looks like it’s Arab coffee, not Zionist coffee!!!

  In singling out Starbucks, you clearly don’t understand the Jewish community. There are two words there – “Jewish” and “community”, and both words are important. Mr. Schultz may or may not be Jewish – I have no personal knowledge of that, although I suspect he is – but we Jews as a whole do tend to consider each other as brothers and sisters. That means all sorts of communal activities, such as buildings, schools, hospitals, burial societies, mutual aid funds and free-loan societies, and many others. That’s the “community”. I think it’s fair to say that most Jews have at some time in their lives donated to communal or Israeli projects, and we have a lot to be proud of. It’s hardly a crime to donate to a charitable cause, even if certain people would like to make it so.

  And my main point of this Starbucks digression was to wonder why some obviously fake email would have more traction than easily verifiable facts. I’m sure you get emails every week telling you of huge fortunes just waiting your return phone call, or cheques from Microsoft or Google for which all you need to do is apply. You know they’re junk. So why did this achieve such wide credibility? Why did so many people simply suspend their credulity? What is it about British – and, you’re right, other European – gullibility that gave this such wide currency?

  And as for your comment about my posting being “a tad racist” – well, no. Racism is defined as a person’s attitude to what a person is. My objections are to what people do, and the two are at opposite ends of the spectrum. Sorry, but the UK seems to have, if not a monopoly, then certainly the corner on the market for this kind of anti-social silliness. Not helped, of course, by the “stand-back-and-let-it-happen” attitude of many of our police.

  You do seem to be able to discuss this in a relatively rational way, and it would be good to continue the discussion. I will say that I too am concerned over the numbers of Gazan casualties, although I do know that, if Hamas were as concerned about their people as they and the rest of the world claim, they would have been smuggling food and medical supplies, not guns. There’s a lot of cloudy rhetoric over the Gazan land claims, not the least of which is the definition of “occupied territory” used by various spokespeople. Funnily enough, no journalist I have heard ever seems to follow up on that point, and ask interviewees exactly what they mean by “occupied land”.

  Hopefully the cessation of active hostilities will continue, and also hopefully the people will be able to come to some sort of modus vivendi. We have friends in Israel who told us about friends they had in a nearby Arab village, and the two communities used to share medical facilities and expertise (both men are doctors). That was some time ago, unfortunately, and the families don’t see each other much any more because it’s not as safe as it used to be. Most people just want to be able to get on with their lives in peace, and it’s the people who have a vested interest in stopping that that I have the most difficulty with. Maybe “shouldering our responsibilities” includes telling our friends, and others, that some conduct is simply not acceptable, and has to stop.