Via National Review:

An Interview with Melanie Phillips

Phillips: “The treatment of Israel…is unique in its irrationality and moral and historical inversion. It takes a nation that is the historic victim of aggression and blames it for jeopardizing peace in the region and causing Islamic extremism worldwide – despite demonstrable evidence that this is simply untrue. It accuses Israel, wholly falsely, of “apartheid” and ethnic cleansing when Israeli Arabs have full civil rights and the Palestinian population has increased many times over – and when Jews are excluded from parts of the Arab world (including the putative state of Palestine).”

“It takes a nation that has been under exterminatory attack for six decades (nine, if you include the Palestine Mandate) and insists that it make compromises with its attackers, even as they continue to attack it. And if any Jew dares protest at the manifest injustice, lies, and bigotry in this unique delegitimization, they find themselves accused of ‘dual loyalty’ or being part of a covert global conspiracy to put the world at risk.”

“Jew-hatred…can surely never be eradicated. But the lies that currently fuel it – lies about Israel’s behavior, the history of the Middle East, and so on – should be publicly confronted and exploded. Similarly, the ways in which the blood libels about the Jews pouring out of the Arab and Muslim worlds are poisoning minds not just in that world but in the West should also be prominently discussed.”

“While the irrationality of Jew-hatred cannot be defeated by reason, there are many in Britain and the West who are not natural bigots but are actually people of high-minded conscience, who have merely been indoctrinated with falsehoods about Israel that are never publicly challenged. Some of those people, at least, can certainly be reached by addressing their ignorance.”

Click here to read about polygamy in Islam occurring in Gaza, and if you do bother to read this pathetic article about the “poorpowestinianpeepull”, try to skip the typical British deceit and anti-Israel commentary. Via The Economist.

In the crisp fourth floor office of Fahmi al-Atiri’s Islamic dating agency in Gaza, he explains that polygamous marriages were increasingly popular – a sign of fertility and status.

After all, Gaza’s burly interior minister, he noted, had six wives, though in accordance with Islamic tenets he had had to let two of them go.

For the sake of appearances, Atiri felt obliged to set a good example, though in a nod to gender equality had let his first wife select his second.

Gaza’s evenings now bubble with weddings. Open-topped trucks piled high with boys banging tambourines lead convoys of claxoning cars accompanying newlyweds through the streets.

Restaurants have mushroomed in the city in recent months, but are frequently fully booked for celebrations.

Via JPost:

Despite all of the Arab attacks in 1920, 1921, 1929 and 1936, the British response was to reward Arab aggression against the Jews and impose draconian restrictions on Jewish immigration. The pattern of Arab attacks and rewards would repeat itself time and again. Arab states, terrorist groups and the Palestinian Arabs believed that they could wage “wars of limited liability.” They could unleash attacks with impunity in an attempt to wipe out Israel, convinced that if they were defeated they could return to a status quo ante, or even achieve diplomatically what they couldn’t win on the battlefield. Territories captured by Israel would be returned and not annexed, terrorist leaders would be honored and not condemned, and Jews/Israel would be blamed.

Despite Arab aggression against the Jewish communities in Palestine in 1947 and 1948, Palestinian Arabs still demand today a “right of return” to areas within Israel’s borders since the 1949 Armistice. In 1956, Egyptian-commanded fedayeen terrorist attacks led Israel to join Britain and France in the Sinai campaign against Egypt. Two days into the war, President Dwight Eisenhower called Israel’s Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion. According to a biographer of Jewish leader Max Fisher, Eisenhower admonished Prime Minister Ben-Gurion: “You ought not forget that the strength of Israel and her future are bound up with the United States.” This was followed by specific threats: If Israel did not leave Sinai and Gaza there would be UN condemnation, U.S. aid would be terminated, the tax-status of charitable contributions would be challenged.”

In 1957, the U.S. pressure forced Israel to withdraw from Sinai without securing ironclad guarantees against Egyptian aggression and blockades. In October 1965, Max Fisher visited Eisenhower at his Gettysburg farm.

Eisenhower admitted to him: “Looking back at Suez, I regret what I did. I never should have pressed Israel to evacuate the Sinai.”

This is an absolutely sickening case of pandering to Islamism, but I shouldn’t be surprised, considering how deeply the British Empire loathes the Jewish people.  Time to divest from BMI.  Tell them how you feel.  Via INN:

The British airline, BMI, has removed Israel from the electronic maps displayed to passengers in some of its planes, Army Radio reports. The report claimed that the reason was to avoid offending Muslim passengers. However, the maps showed passengers the direction of Mecca.

Israel does not appear in maps on BMI flights between London and Tel Aviv, and Khefa, the pre-independence Arabic name for Haifa, appears on the maps.

In addition, the electronic maps display the distance between the plane and Mecca. The airline claims that the map has not been changed due to a “logistical problem.” Instead, it has presently been removed from the two planes that transport passengers to Tel Aviv.

This is indeed a sad story but it should be noted that this British rag of a paper, the Independent/UK,  never uses the word “sad” when Jews are killed by Muslim savages.  Via British rag:

“It is a sad fact, but it remains a fact, that a lot of Christians are leaving,” says Victor Batarseh, the Christian mayor of Bethlehem. One charge is that Muslims have been taking over Christian lands with the Palestinian authorities turning a blind eye. Yusuf Nassir, 57, is looking for a way to emigrate. “My house was attacked [by Muslims] over nothing. There was a dispute between a Muslim and a Christian boy, this turned into a communal fight and then around 70 men turned on us.” Nicola Lolas, 38, says: “What we are seeing now is organized extortion from some Muslims….In each case they have been forced to pay compensation even though they have done nothing wrong.” Mrs. Lolas says: “As an uncovered Christian woman I get insulted a lot more by Muslim men than I used to.”

From NGO Monitor. Highlights of their report:

• Christmas cards depicting the security barrier and conflating Jesus with the Palestinians are being marketed by War on Want and Amos Trust.
• Alternative Christmas carol event, with lyrics: “Twelve assassinations, Eleven homes demolished, Ten wells obstructed, Nine sniper towers…and an uprooted olive tree.”
• An “Alternative Gift” of donations to the Palestinian Grassroots Anti-Apartheid Wall Coalition, which supports the Durban strategy through boycotts, divestment, and sanctions (BDS).

Summary

In advance of Christmas 2008, several British NGOs have returned to previous theological offensives against Israel by combining emphasis on Bethlehem, stories of Palestinian suffering, and false allegations of Israeli cruelty. Through Christmas cards, carols, and charity fundraising, War on Want, Amos Trust, Pax Christi and others condemn Israel’s security barrier and erase the Palestinian terror campaign that necessitates it. As in previous years when NGOs used Underground station advertisements and greeting cards, these campaigns manipulate Christmas and Christian religious symbols to advance a political agenda, and in some cases, may be promoting antisemitic canards.

To read the full report, click here.

Via OneJerusalem:

The spokesman for the  Muslim Public Affairs Committee in the United Kingdom has said, “Muslims who fights against Israel and dies is a martyr and will be granted paradise.”

Read more about this defense of Jihad at the web-site of the The Centre For Social Cohesion.