presented to you here below is the rudely deleted comment which i posted late last night on david hirsh's jerusalem post article: if corbyn wins. my response to his piece on our mangy moth-eaten messiah was clearly way too morally sophisticated for goldsmiths' college's david hirsh and the jerusalem post to handle - well, either that, or israelis can't take the criticism they dish out, and therefore refuse, or fear, to engage in proper debate.
david hirsh's attack on dirty corby was, to my mind, intellectually slack, politically sloppy, journalistically lazy, and definitely not up to scratch in comparison with the sheer academic standards we have traditionally come to expect from our highly talented jewish friends...but there again, i suppose...what do you really expect from a jumped-up souf-london sociologist? i think 'conceit', 'arrogance' and 'complacency' are the key words which spring to mind here - obviously these israeli guys just don't want to compete on a level playing-field, and are really fucking bad losers.
"i certainly agree that mr corbyn, in common with many on the far left of british politics, appears to have far too cozy a relationship with islamists and former members of the irish republican army, but in his defence, his stated policy is one of inclusivity, dialogue, and the promotion of peace - the exact opposite of that which the american, israeli, french, and british governments have historically espoused.
anyway, why should, for example, jeremy corbyn take up the case of israeli lobby groups, when their views are already well represented in the british parliament by so many fanatically pro-israeli members? and why should he not commend press tv and russia today for criticizing the british and american governments, when the british broadcasting corporation and other mainstream western media outlets have time-and-again proved themselves to be intellectually and morally incapable of providing such analytical depth, let alone any semblance of objectivity?
many british citizens are sick-to-the-back-teeth of war, as dictated by our aggressive western foreign policy of military intervention, and they sincerely hope that mr corbyn possesses the requisite diplomatic skills and experience to resolve many of the issues which lead to these devastating and wickedly destabilizing conflicts in today's world - do israelis truly share these same hopes for peace?
so please, what is the distinction between criticism of israel and anti-semitism, when serious criticism of israel inevitably seems to precipitate the deliberately discussion-distracting charge of anti-semitism?
i lived for some time amongst the hasidic jewish community located in stamford hill, london, which, as i understand, strongly opposes the actions of the state of israel, and even the very foundation of the state of israel, on ideological grounds - does this therefore constitute anti-semitism on their part? the hasidic jewish community of which i speak lives in harmony with its palestinian neighbours, and sometime in the early 1990s - check in the hackney gazette, if you please - i even remember the spiritual leaders of this tranquil hasidic community joining with local palestinians to perform a ceremonial burning of the israeli state-flag in protest over israeli repression - was that an act of anti-semitism by the rabbi in question? i also believe that members of the hasidic jewish community are politically anti-zionist - is this to be considered anti-semitic?
appallingly, i now hear that this peace-loving jewish community has become the target of ignorant, brutish, neo-nazi thugs.
i agree that organized boycotts of israel are wrong, just as the socially-damaging economic sanctions against iran and iraq were wrong - it is estimated, by some observers, that millions may have died as a consequence of the western sanctions against the iraqis, many of them children; sanctions are not only socially and physically devastating, they are immoral, because they have fatal effects on an innocent civilian population which may already be experiencing severe oppression; sanctions can also have disastrous political repercussions, and tend to assist the rise to power of tyrannical régimes such as the islamic state - in fact, i'm sure you must be aware that allied sanctions against germany following the first world war directly fostered the public discontent which catapulted to power adolf hitler and the nazi party.
truly, i am surprised that jeremy corbyn backs boycotts as policy - boycotts did nothing to end apartheid in south africa, and moreover, the nineteenth-century equivalent of sanctions against ireland, the corn laws, a protectionist trade policy promoted by benjamin disraeli, for one, helped turn a potato famine into what eventually became the de facto irish holocaust.
however, mr hirsh, in respect of the current crisis in iraq, i frankly find it churlish that you seek to justify a string of fundamentally immoral, neo-colonial wars by selectively referencing the rôle played by the royal air force and the american air force in saving yazidis from the islamic state, when you perfectly well know that the primary objective of these western forces was, and is, to protect western oil interests - in fact, i judge your comments to be especially obtuse in light of the fact that the islamic state, essentially armed by the west to fight assad's government, has arisen from the ashes of an illegal, immoral, and completely misjudged western war in iraq, which has itself precipitated the genocide of millions of arabs...
...and given that these wars have constituted a gross act of criminality, is it extremist for a muslim man to wish to defend his lands against insurgent british forces? were british forces to invade israel, would it be extremist for israelis to resist militarily? furthermore, what meaning has the word 'extremist' in the context of a repressive western polity, where merely to criticize our western-initiated wars automatically results in one being labelled an 'extremist' by those propagandists such as formed mr blair's government? has not the term 'extremist' now been completely devalued by widespread casual, flippant and unexamined use?
i agree that mr corbyn's left-wing supporters may possibly be tempted by totalitarianism, and i fully intend to take this matter up with him on a personal level - but are not all politicians, power-seekers, and governments, worldwide, tempted by totalitarianism? do not many regard israel and the united states themselves as totalitarian states?
as a non-aligned blogger engaged in the promotion of non-violence, who has been put under permanent 24-hour surveillance by the new labour and successive governments, simply for voicing strong opposition to the iraq war and american foreign policy, am i not entitled to view the british government as totalitarian? for daring to express my views, i have been intimidated and physically threatened by violent labour activists in hackney, london, and have suffered a prolonged and personal hate campaign, which was initially mounted against me, in secret, by local officials with links to the new labour government - am i not then entitled to regard mr blair and the new labour government as totalitarian? words are cheap, but lives are not - in a civilized society, at least.
therefore, whilst i concur with much of your criticism of mr corbyn, i am convinced that israel has many serious charges to answer as well - the zionism instrinsic to israeli society and politics has doubtless created a superiority complex amongst its jewish citizens, infecting the wider jewish diaspora also, which encourages many jewish people to falsely judge other cultures and ethnicities as distinctly inferior to their own, not least societies of african-origin, whose members are routinely regarded by a preponderance of jewish people as really little better than sub-human, and indeed, it is this conceited attitude of jewish racial and moral superiority which has gravely infected the politics of the middle-east to the point of almost utterly destabilizing that region.
another serious charge which israel must face - along, it has to be said, with america, france and britain - is the genocidal exploitation of the african continent; so long as israel refuses to act against and prosecute the american-israeli businessmen who have criminally facilitated, in league with the cia, the plundering, for astronomical profit, of militarily and commercially valuable mineral resources from that continent, most notably in congo - where a bare minimum of 5 million people were massacred during the course of the clinton inspired coups and resultant wars - black people, all around the globe, will never be able to trust israel, nor jewish people in general.
if you wish to frame my criticism of israel as conspiracy theory or anti-semitism, please be my guest, but to deny the truth concerning the cultivation of this multi-national, multi-cultural evil, in which israel and jewish people have undoubtedly played their fair share, is tantamount to condemning humanity to oblivion.
yes, many british people wish to see mr corbyn elected as leader of the labour party and opposition, and maybe even progress to fill the post of prime-minister of the united kingdom - and they do so because, for the first time in british history, they see a real possibility that a british government, of whichever political hue, could actually formulate a foreign policy which signally fails to treat black and brown people as fair-trade farm-animals and convenient commercial cannon-fodder...
...now why would israelis or jewish people want to object to that, my son?"
breaking-news-update:
i am sorry to report that one of our most experienced, respected and revered commenters, namely lady laaardidah of lordship road, has been brutally banned from expressing herself on the jerusalem post website. iz it coz she iz black? or iz it coz the jewish race consider themselves to be above comparison with rastafarians? shame really - because, having done much business with jewish entrepreneurs in the past, i was always under the confirmed impression that jewish guys loved a good laugh about their religion...and since, on the grounds of their deeply and strictly observed faith, the two communities here in question, rastafarian and hasidic, both abstain from eating pork, both wear their hair in dreadlocks, both subscribe to the custom of wearing hats, and both get a bit narked about the state of israel, i cannot for-the-life-of-me understand why such obvious comparison should pose a problem?
anyhow, once again, i will re-publish the offending comment here below, which was made, in all innocence, in response to the above-mentioned one of my own, and allow readers the opportunity, for themselves, to decide upon whether the bounds of good taste and decency have been wantonly breached by our highly esteemed, if occasionally verbally-accident-prone, legislative representative - needless to say, lady laaardidah is, at this very difficult time, totally and utterly inconsolable, suspecting as she does that this extreme course of exclusive action constitutes a prima facie case of the most vile and cynical discrimination.
"hi davy, darling...love your gig bro...
ya, those hasidic guys...
they're like errr...the jewish rastas, aren't they?
you know...sort of mystic religious anti-establishment-rebel types, ok ya...?
oh and errr...i see you caught the drift of my latest expression...
ya, there's a new wind blowing through british politics...
and to be honest hunny, most of it's coming straight outta my arse."
well, i can't actually see the problem myself, can you?
