Anti-Semitism Embedded in British Culture

Excerpted from an interview with Robert Wistrich, from Anti-Semitism Embedded in British Culture via DailyAlert:

Anti-Semitism has been present in Great Britain for almost a thousand years of recorded history. English literature and culture are drenched in anti-Semitic stereotypes.

In the new century, the UK holds a pioneering position in promoting academic boycotts of Israel. The same is true for trade-union efforts at economic boycotts. There is also no other Western society where jihadi radicalism has proved as violent and dangerous as in the UK, and where the anti-Zionist narrative has greater legitimacy.

Successive British governments neither share nor have encouraged such attitudes - least of all Prime Ministers Tony Blair and Gordon Brown.

Prof. Robert Solomon Wistrich has held the Neuberger Chair for Modern European and Jewish History at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem for almost twenty years. Since 2002 he has been director of the Vidal Sassoon International Center for the Study of Antisemitism at the Hebrew University and is editor of its journal Antisemitism International.

EU forces British taxpayers to fund the abolition of Israel

Did you know that the EU forces British taxpayers to fund NGOs campaigning for the abolition of Israel? The EU diplomatically supports a two state solution to the Mid East conflict based on two democratic entities which have secure borders, however, NGOs which oppose a two state solution, advocate the abolition of Israel, equate Israeli Liberal Democracy with apartheid South Africa and advocate recognition of and engagement with Hamas receive EU grants.

A report by NGO Monitor entitled “Europe’s Hidden Hand, EU Funding for Political NGOs in the Arab-Israeli Conflict" details (in as much depth as the public can access) who Brits are funding and what the groups advocate.

Its findings are pretty shocking.

Today in Jewish History - Kislev 9

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In 1940, a boatload 1,600 Jewish immigrants fleeing Hitler's ovens was denied entry into the port of Haifa; the British deported them to the island of Mauritius. At the time, the British had acceded to Arab demands and restricted Jewish immigration into Palestine. The urgent plight of European Jewry generated an "illegal" immigration movement, but the British were vigilant in denying entry. Some ships, such as the Struma, sunk and their hundreds of passengers killed.

Three British Women Activists and Members of ISM Caught Destroying Jewish Vineyards

Destruction under the guise of Humanitarian Assistance brought to you by some of the she-pigs at ISM. Greta Berlin must be so happy. From INN:

Jewish-owned vineyards in Samaria were once again destroyed by leftist “humanitarian groups” Friday. This time some were caught in the act and arrested.

Shortly after residents of Dolev, located north of Jerusalem, discovered Friday that a local synagogue had been burned to the ground overnight, they saw that 3,000 plants in nearby vineyards had been destroyed. This is the third case of major agricultural vandalism in the region in recent months.

Vines were torn from the ground, and expensive irrigation equipment was damaged. The Jewish locals saw a group of foreign activists and Arabs heading toward an additional Jewish agricultural plot and alerted the police and IDF. The group fled, but three female activists from the United Kingdom were slower and were caught by police.

The three British women who were apprehended by police are accused of responsibility for the destruction Friday. Police also have evidence, however, that the women were part of the group that destroyed farm equipment in the nearby town of Neria in an earlier incident as well.

The women are activists with the International Solidarity Movement, a militantly anti-Zionist group that seeks to enable provocative actions against the IDF and Jewish residents of Judea and Samaria, under the assumption that their foreign citizenship will raise the threshold on the response of security forces. The lines between ISM and local terrorist groups are quite blurry. In the past, British terrorists even carried out a suicide bombing after being embedded in an ISM cell.

Most of the vandals also take part in clashes with the IDF near the Arab village of Bilin. The militants were recently handed a victory by the Supreme Court, which ordered the IDF to move the security fence in the area of the weekly protests.

The International Solidarity Movement, founded in August 2001 by Adam Shapiro, Huwaida Arraf, Ghassan Andoni, and George Rishmawi, describes itself as "a Palestinian-led movement committed to resisting the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land." Though professing a commitment to nonviolence, ISM members openly advocate the "liberation" of Palestinians "by any means necessary," including "legitimate armed struggle." Led by Palestinians working closely with American recruiters, ISM invites American volunteers to travel to the Palestinian territories and disrupt the actions of the Israeli Defense Force, which is engaged in anti-terror operations in the region.

Today in Jewish History - Av 18

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In 1946, the British government ordered all illegal immigrants bound for Palestine to be deported to camps on the island of Cyprus. According to the terms of the British White Paper of 1939, immigration to Palestine was limited to 75,000 Jews over a period of 10 years. Following the end of World War II, many Holocaust survivors had nowhere else to go, so they crammed onto old ships bound for the Holy Land. Some ships succeeded in slipping through the British naval blockade and unloading their human cargo on desolate beaches. Several ships sank in tragic circumstances. Other ships were apprehended and the passengers sent to British detention camps -- complete with barbed wire, military towers and guards. The Exodus is the most famous immigrant ship from this era. Today, one of the ships, the Af-Al-Pi ("in spite of it all"), stands in a museum in Haifa.

They Went to the Gallows Singing "Hatikva"

From They Went to the Gallows Singing "Hatikva":

The 12th day of the Hebrew month of Av, which falls this year on Friday July 27, marks the 60th anniversary of the execution by the British authorities in Palestine of three members of the Irgun underground - Avshalom Haviv, Yaakov Weiss, and Meir Nakar. This column is dedicated to their everlasting memory.

As 1947 dawned, the British governing authorities, driven by an irresistible hubris of self-interest and colonial blindness, and embracing the delusion of decaying imperialists in every age that punitive brutality will cow the rebels into giving up their resistance, began sentencing captured Irgun fighters to the most severe forms of capital punishment: flogging for relatively minor offenses, and hanging for relatively major ones. The executions were frequently carried out in the Acre fortress, a Crusader citadel restored by the Turks and considered impregnable. In May 1947, in what was probably the Irgun's most daring exploit, a wall of this great bastion was breached, allowing for a mass escape. Three of the attacking party - Haviv, Weiss, and Nakar - were captured, tried and condemned to death. The writer served on the personal staff of five Israeli prime ministers.

The BBC's platform for Jew-hatred

Via Melanie Phillips:

On the Harry's Place website, Mark has posted disturbing news of the BBC's refusal to remove antisemitic foulness from its Radio Five Live website, along with an analysis of its provenance:

BBC Radio 5 Live message board moderators have refused to remove a posting from the 5 Live website, which states that

'Zionism is a racist ideology where jews are given supremacy over all other races and faiths.

This is found in the Talmud.

There is a law called Baba Mezia which allows jews to lie as long as its to non-jews. many pro jewish supporters will cringe at this being exposed because they know it exists, yet they keep quiet about it, hey frip, jla and co The Law of Baba Mezia!! Tsk tsk tsk! Its in the Talmud.'

When I brought the mailing to the attention of the moderator, "The BBC Communities Team" emailed back, stating

'we have decided that it does not contravene the House Rules and are going to leave it on site'.

Apparently, at least three others have also complained to the BBC.

The message was posted by 'Iron Naz'. A brief Google search on this name suggests that he is unlikely to be a (bottom of the class) Jewish theological student.

Only 'Iron Naz' himself knows how he came to hear of the supposed Law of Baba Mezia. The bastardisation of Talmud quotes, however, is normally rooted within 'The Talmud Unmasked', a classic core antisemitic text written at the end of the 19th Century by a Jew hating Russian Catholic Priest, Rev. Father Justin Praniatis, who gave evidence at the infamous Beilis blood libel trial in Kiev, 1913.

Praniatis argued that the Talmud advocated ritual murder, but was shown by Jewish and Christian scholars to be a charlatan with no knowledge of the Talmud. The all Christian jury found Beilis innocent. The influence, however, of Rev. Praniatis' work has of course spread well beyond the confines of Imperial Russia.

Today, the core text, 'The Talmud Unmasked' is distributed by neo-Nazi booksellers via the internet. It gained a brief surge of publicity in the UK in the early 1990s as part of a series of mass antisemitic mailshots by a coterie of veteran Jew haters led by the notorious Dowager Lady Jane Birdwood. She was eventually convicted in 1994 of distributing 'threatening, abusive and insulting material' on account of an antisemitic compendium, 'The Longest Hatred', the contents of which included the Talmud material.

Attacks on the Talmud are also an increasingly routine component of Arab and Islamist antisemitism, anti-Zionism and Israel hatred. Until now, however, the BBC was not known to have joined this particular part of the club.

It is bad enough that it is up to readers to police what the BBC publish on their own websites, but it is far sadder that this public body should actively refuse to remove the filth, and give no explanation for their actions - or perhaps its just that 'The BBC Communities Team' agree with the essential element of the posting:

'Zionism is a racist ideology where jews are given supremacy over all other races and faiths.'

It is simply beyond appalling that the BBC is giving house-room to this vileness. There are no fig-leaves here. This is pure, undiluted Jew-hatred. And the BBC is refusing to remove it because it 'does not contravene the house rules'.

Incredible.

The Real Exodus

From The Real Exodus:

Ike Aronowitz, 83, is former captain of the illegal immigrant ship Exodus. He is known to the world as the blond, blue-eyed Paul Newman, who played Aronowitz in Otto Preminger's 1960 film Exodus, based on Leon Uris' blockbuster novel. Both film and book tell the story of the postwar illegal immigration ships bearing a human cargo of Holocaust survivors who tried to break the British blockade of Palestine in the last days of the Mandate. But it was a fairy tale. In Uris' version, the Jewish refugees, stranded on Cyprus, are saved by a sympathetic British general who convinces the British government to allow the ship to land. In real life, the British army boarded, killed three people, loaded the passengers on to prison ships and took them back to Hamburg, Germany, where they were re-incarcerated in refugee camps. It was a PR catastrophe. "Back to the Reich," one U.S. newspaper put it. "Return to the death land," said another.

BBC Apologizes to Muslims for Stating Jerusalem as Capital of Israel

It is outrageous to the extreme that the global community would dare to tell a sovereign nation what is - or is not - its capital. What a bunch of pandering cowards the BBC is. The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) issued an apology this week to Muslims for having referred to Jerusalem as being the capital of Israel in one of its broadcasts.

The apology came in response to complaints by four Muslim-British organizations:
Arab Media Watch,
Muslim Public Affairs Committee,
Friends of Al-Aksa and,
the Institute of Islamic Political Thought.

The reference to Jerusalem that drew the complaints occurred on March 24th, when a presenter on BBC’s Football Focus program mentioned that Jerusalem was, in fact, the capital of Israel, as well as her “historic soul."

The BBC's Editorial Complaints Unit issued an official response to the complaint, stating, "The reference was a passing one in a context where the focus was on sport, not politics. While recognizing the sensitivity of the issue of the status of Jerusalem, the ECU took the view that the program-makers had taken sufficient action by acknowledging the error and rectifying the website."

But don't nod in agreement with the Muslims, folks, Learn your history, not Muslim revisionism. Daniel Pipes, in Exploring the Strength of Ties to Jerusalem, writes:

Historically, the religious standing of Jerusalem for Muslims waxed and waned six times through 14 centuries. British rule over the city in 1917-48 galvanized a passion for Jerusalem that had been absent during the 400 years of Ottoman control. Throughout the Jordanian control of the walled city in 1948-67, Arabs largely ignored it.

Jordanian radio broadcast Friday prayers not from Al-Aqsa mosque but from a minor mosque in Amman.

The PLO's founding Covenant, which dates from 1964, contains no mention of Jerusalem.

Muslim interest in the city revived only with the Israeli conquest of Jerusalem in 1967. By 1990, the Islamic focus on Jerusalem reached such a surreal intensity that Palestinian Arabs denied the city's sacred and historical importance to Jews.

The Camp David summit of July 2000 saw the Israeli government put forward its demands for sovereignty over parts of the Temple Mount. As Dennis Ross, an American diplomat present at the summit, put it, Arafat "never offered any substantive ideas, not once" at the talks. However, "He did offer one new idea, which was that the Temple didn't exist in Jerusalem, that it was in Nablus." With this, Jerusalem's pseudo-history became formal Palestinian Authority policy.

What is actually remarkable is that Muslims know that Jerusalem is holy to Judaism and to Israel. If they didn't, they wouldn't have been busy destroying archaeological remains of the Jewish temples, mimicking the destruction of the Buddhist statutes in Bamiyan by the Taliban Islamists in Afghanistan.

See, Muslims destroyed all Jewish synagogues in the old city of Jerusalem and they were desecrated to symbolize the supremacy of Islam over Judaism. But Islam is not better than Judaism. How can Islam be better when it commits crimes against humanity and destroys historical artifacts of other religions and cultures that can never be replaced.

Jerusalem has been the heart of Judaism for three thousand years, in the same way that the Vatican is the heart for Catholics.

See, what IslamoNazis are trying to do is gain territory and they do so through lies and deceptions so that they can control the borders of Israel and then claim they are victims. Muslims are not victims; they are predators.

But Rebbetzin Esther Jungreis reminds us, the Talmud relates that after the destruction of our Holy Temple, Rabbi Akiva and the Sages of Israel were walking on the streets of Jerusalem. As they came to the Temple Mount, they beheld a devastating sight. There, where the Sanctuary had once stood in majesty and splendor, where the Holy of Holies had been, were only ruins, and wild foxes were roaming about.

The Sages broke down and wept.

"Woe is us," they wailed, "that we have seen this with our own eyes."

But Rabbi Akiva did not weep. Instead, he smiled.

"How can you smile at such a time?" his colleagues asked, shocked.

"I smile," Rabbi Akiva answered, "because today I have seen the fulfillment of prophecy, for the same prophet who foretold the destruction also foretold that the Temple shall be rebuilt. The same prophet who prophesied our exile, also prophesied that we shall return to Jerusalem in joy. And so I smile, for now that the first part of our prophecy has come to pass, the second part will surely come to be."

"Akiva," the Sages declared, "you have comforted us."

Folks, be counselled. Be comforted, those of you who love HaShem with all your heart and all your soul. Be comforted.

And to the BBC and to all Muslims and Arabists, you disgust me. I am disgusted by those of you who delegitimize non-Muslims. Who do you think you are trying to dictate to us Jews who we are and where we belong and what our borders are? It is time you learned that we reject you. We reject your views on immigration, culture, religion, ideology, law enforcement, military strategy - and God.

There is no law on earth that requires the Jewish people to accept the revision of their history and the division of Israel borders, nor their own demise merely because Muslims say we should.

As for the shills over at the BBC; you've been diapering and bottlefeeding Muslims for so long, you've prevented them from growing up. Muslims aren't exactly chained to their homicide belts and kassam rockets. Stop being so afraid of them. They're not immortal. Muslims are on the move, they are a dysfunctional body, they are on the move to take over the world. Stand up for something principled, BBC. Take the moral high ground for once.

It is time to clean house. It is time to speak up for the innocent. And this time, the Jewish people are in the right. I know, I know it takes courage. Stop being weak. Stop pandering to Muslims. It will be your pandering that will enable your city and your railways to get hit again.

British Academics' Boycott of Israel Provokes Reaction

It's about time somebody with integrity, grit and resolve did something. From British Academics' Boycott of Israel Provokes Reaction:

Few could have predicted the scale of the backlash to the University and College Union's resolution to boycott Israel. Tony Blair phoned the Israeli prime minister to reassure him that the motion did not reflect wider public opinion. In Israel, MPs began drafting a bill to label British imports - allowing consumers to stage their own counter boycott. In the U.S., 2,000 American scholars - including at least nine Nobel laureates - have vowed to stay away from any event from which Israelis are excluded.

Prominent lawyer and Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz says he has mustered a team of 100 high-profile lawyers on both sides of the Atlantic to "devastate and bankrupt" anyone acting against Israeli universities. Prominent UK lawyer Anthony Julius said Israel was being treated in a way reminiscent of the anti-Semitism of the medieval Christian church. "I sometimes think that Jews born in the 1940s and 1950s have been living through a golden period, but that the closed season on Jews has now come to an end."

See also University of Miami President Donna Shalala Supports Israeli Academics

See also Petition of Solidarity with Israeli Academics

British university union votes to gag Jewish society

The student union at a prominent British university has voted to gag the Jewish Society from complaining against an increasingly intense anti-Israel campaignby the university's Palestinian society.

The student union at the University of Leeds, home of a large Jewish student population, last Friday voted on a motion proposed by the Palestinian Solidarity Group to ignore complaints by the Jewish Society "as long as Judaism as a faith is not offended."

The Palestinian Solidarity Group, which has a historyof hostile campaigning against Israel, using terms such as "apartheid" and "racist," claimed that the existing practice of considering every complaint received by the student union as a real complaint constituted "an arbitrary use of authority."

Students have voiced concern that the motion singles out the university's Jewish students and denies them basic rights enjoyed by other students and student societies.

Leeds University Student Union (LUU) released a statement on Thursday saying:

"LUU are committed to maintaining the freedom for all our members to follow individual beliefs in a positive and harmonious environment. Following the outcome of the recent referendum, LUU will continue to build positive relationships between groups and individuals on campus, and we assure all students that regardless of belief or background that their safety and welfare are paramount."

Policy passed by the referendum in no way changes Jewish students' right to support the State of Israel or debate the issue. The Union is an organization which supports and provides opportunities for debate and expression; however we will not tolerate behavior which strays into the realms of racial or religious hatred, and any instances of anti-Semitism will be dealt with in a timely and appropriate manner.

"We believe all students have a right to study in anopen and fair environment without fear of prejudice. We intend to continue our fight for equality followinga year in which LUU received national coverage for itsfight against fascism, and are constantly looking forways to strengthen interfaith relations on campus,through LUU's interfaith forum. We remain committed to maintaining the freedom for all our members to follow individual beliefs in a positive and harmonious environment."

Mitch Simmons, campaigns director of the Union of Jewish Students, said: "While there is concern about
the events at Leeds University as part of a wider movement on campuses to delegitimize Israel and the connection to the Jewish people, UJS along with the Jewish societies across the UK will be fighting to ensure the right of Jewish students to show about how proud we are to support Israel and be a Zionist and Jewish on campus."

He said the motion will be raised again at a referendum in February, when it is expected to be defeated.

Daniel Pipes to debate London Mayor Ken Livingstone

Folks, show your support for Daniel Pipes as he debates the Jew-hater Ken Livingstone, the mayor of London, England. For more on Ken Livingstone, click here. Received by email from Daniel Pipes:
----------

Ken Livingstone, the mayor of London, England, has invited me to debate him on Saturday, January 20, 2007, 10-12 a.m., at the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre in London. This event will be the centerpiece of a conference organized by the Greater London Authority, the city’s government, titled “A World Civilization or a Clash of Civilizations.”

For more details on the conference, see this.

To sign up for (free) tickets, go here.

I would be delighted if you can attend.

Yours sincerely,

Daniel Pipes

"My Name Is Rachel Corrie" closes in New York today

After a year of controversy and debate, "My Name Is RachelCorrie" is - thank G-d - closing. The play was put together by Alan Rickman and Katharine Viner from the writings of the American-born palestinian-rights Rachel Corrie who was accidentally killed in 2003 by an IDF bulldozer in the Gaza Strip when she stepped in front of it. After its final performance on Dec. 17, "Rachel Corrie" will have played 9 previews and 71 regular performances at the Minetta Lane Theater in GreenwichVillage. The run of "Rachel Corrie" was tranquil compared with the uproar that preceded its arrival. The production was initially scheduled to move in March from the Royal Court Theater in London to the New York Theater Workshop. But when the workshop's artistic director, James C. Nicola, decided to postpone the show, many in the theater community erupted in protest. In June, Dena Hammerstein and Pam Pariseau (please note the fascists who supported this show) announced that they would produce it for a commercial run Off Broadway.

An important point that seems to have been lost on many commentators

Amazingly, when the venemous M.P. George Galloway appeared on The O"Reilly Factor and asked why Iran was any different from Israel, O'Reilly failed to give him the following simple answer.

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has said Israel's "policy of ambiguity on nuclear arms has proved its worth, and it will continue".

"Israel has to hold in its hand all the elements of power necessary to protect itself by itself.

Israel has never signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), designed to prevent the global spread of nuclear arms.

As a result, it is not subject to inspections or the threat of sanctions by the IAEA.

Jenny Tonge, British MP: "I'd be a suicide bomber"

Jenny Tonge of the Liberal Democrat Party, told a House of Commons meeting the Palestinians engaged in terrorism because of the "everlasting humiliation" of Israeli occupation, the London Sun newspaper reported.

Yeah, right. Did you feel the same way about the British occupation of Palestine? Did you feel the same way about British occupation of other countries? Did you applaud when Hezbollah blew up 250 American Marines?

Jenny Tonge, I bet you wouldn't give up a single cup of tea or a single crumpet to get off your high horse if it meant you could no longer pass judgement on the Jews.

Jenny Tonge, did you know that when the Palestine Problem was created by Britain in 1917, 70% of the land was British (first Ottomon) state land, the Arabs only owned a fifth of the total land, and the majority of that fifth was by wealthy landowners?

Did you know that during the thirty years of British occupation and rule, the Jews were able to purchase only 3.5% of the land of Palestine, in spite of the encouragement of the British Government? And that much of this land was transferred to Jews by the British Government directly, and was not sold by Arab owners?

Jenny Tonge, did you know that, considering the British owned just over 70% of the land, they could give it to anyone they wanted to, it certainly wasn't stolen from the Arabs, that's for sure. It's pretty nervy of you to tell someone else what they should do with their own land. It's also incredibly ethnocentric to claim that only a certain ethnic group has rights to own land, as is the claim by the Arabs.

Jenny Tonge, did you know that when British passed the Palestine Problem to the United Nations in 1947, Zionists owned 8.6% of the total land area of Palestine?

Jenny Tonge, did you know that it is Jordan that occupies the largest landmass of what was once considered Palestine? How "interesting" that there is no concern that the Hashemite king owns most of Palestine, but the Jews' existence on a small strip is the basis for a continuous ethnic and religious war at the insistance of guess who.

Jenny Tonge, did you know that what the Arabs call "territorial expansion" before 1948 is known by the rest of the world as LEGAL PURCHASE OF LAND?

Jenny Tonge, did you know that after 1948, the land of Arabs who left the territory of Israel was assigned to an administrator of absentee lands, and under Israeli law the absentee Arabs could return and reclaim their land? Thousands of them did so (the figures I have seen are over 15,000). As to those absentee Arab land owners who refused to deal with Israel, their land was taken by eminent domain (called "compulsory purchase" in British law, or "expropriation" in European civil law), and they were paid fair market value plus interest. This is a story that for some reason has not received any publicity, an act of informational neglect that from the point of view of hasbara is positively criminal. This story should be told. Don't take my word for any of this. Check it out with your Israeli sources. I believe that the Office of Administrator of Absentee Property still exists in Israel. Check it out, you elite bitch.

Jenny Tonge, did you know that Israel remained, ever since its inception, a total stranger in the emerging world of Afro-Asia; and that Israel has been refused admission to any inter-state conference of Asian, African, Afro-Asian, or Non-Aligned States ever held?

Jenny Tonge, did you know that you should insist on some resolutions condemning China's brutal occupation of Tibet, or Morocco's occupation of Western Sahara, or Turkey's occupation of Cyprus? What's interesting is that none of these nations need the land they occupy. The same is not the case with Israel. Israel is not allowed to live on its own land, but these other countries are allowed to occupy that land because they want to. Nice.

Jenny Tonge, did you know that the overwhelming majority of Arabs left on their own two feet a) either because they were tricked into doing so by their own so-called brethren, or b) because they were encouraged to do so in order to facilitate the Arab armies creating a Judenrein Palestine? The evidence is over-whelming on this.

Jenny Tonge, did you ever question why are there still refugee camps in areas under the PA for the past, oh, 7 years? What about how the Jordanians and Egyptians kept the Palestinians in refugee camps, doesn't that matter? Of course not, it only matters if Israel can get blamed somehow, otherwise, forget it.

Furthermore, the reason why Israel keeps a tight lid on the Palestinian territories is because they, "the Palestinians" stupidly won't shut up about the fact that their ultimate goal is to destroy Israel at the first given opportunity.

Arabs want to continue to call for Israel's destruction, of course, launched from the West Bank and Gaza, yet they refuse to understand why Israel keeps a tight grasp over them.

Jenny Tonge, did you know that you should tell the Arabs to shut the f*** up about destroying Israel, and instead, usher the Jew hating Arabs to launch a successful peace campaign, end their ethnocentric boycott, stop their calls for holy war, stop misappropriating Jewish holy sites, and then talk peace. Arab nations only want Israel to be weak so they can overwhelm her with their hostile hoards and you, Jenny Tonge, you and your stink are their accomplices.