Will this increase or decrease the likelihood of terrorist actions in America, Europe and the rest of the world?

If you were a member of a family murdered in this conflict, would you be seeking revenge?

Should Tzipi Livni and Ehud Olmert, be tried for war crimes if or when this conflict comes to an end?

What will the price of oil be in 4 weeks time?

Sivad,

Interesting.

But it would have been more acceptable, if Israel had shown more positive signs of negotiations over the last few years.

I would like to refresh some memories.

.

Estimates of Deaths during World War 2 vary, but are totalled at approximately of 75 millions, of these estimated Jewish deaths vary between 5.5 to 6.5millions.

I do not dispute the Holocaust claims, but I am fed up with what sometimes appears to be a dismissal of the total number of people killed during that period, without any comparisons being made.

Many of my wifes family were prisoners of war during that period; many relatives and friends were shot and killed during that period and as a consequence of that period. Many of those ended up in unmarked graves.

Members of my own family, were in that war and later unprepared to talk of their experiences of that period.

It was horrendous war. So were the Korean and Vietnam wars, etc.

That is why others of similar opinion to myself, do not want another bloody debacle in the Middle East or anywhere else.

The sabre rattling against Iran etc., can be seen as attempts to provoke a war. I am not suggesting that Iran is less than innocent,

.


I think and hope that the current Obamma administrations approach to the Middle East, and the rest of the world, will be more moderate than the previous American Administration.

I enclose, some more extracts from the House of Lords debate:

(Thank you for pointing me to a very interesting and informative debate.)




Lord Dykes (Liberal Democrat) Link to this | Hansard source******
My Lords, last week, the noble Lord, Lord Sheikh, and I disagreed over the euro, but this week I heartily agree with his sagacious words in this debate. He is clearly a man of peace who brings communities and people together. I thank him for his suggestions. We were particularly grateful to the Conservative spokesman on the Front Bench for referring to the change of attitudes in Turkey, which the noble Lord, Lord Sheikh, also mentioned. That is a significant factor.

Understandably, there has been repeated mention of terrorism; there is also the phenomenon of terrorism in uniform which, sadly, was practised by the British and American Armed Forces on hapless civilians in Iraq in the illegal invasion in 2003. As a party, we condemned that from our Benches. Terrorism in uniform was inflicted by the IDF on hapless and trapped Palestinian civilians. That may have been a turning point for IsraelI hope in a positive sense of achieving peace as a result of these terrible events. Z. Brezinski described what happened in Gaza as a "massacre". That is the only word that one can use. The foolishness and recklessness meted out by Israeli leaderspartly, even presumably, to win votes in the forthcoming election next week, which is an astonishing suggestionwas a crime on the Palestinians as well as a huge tragedy for Israel, shortly after celebrating 60 years of dynamic history. What an immense tragedy at this time for that country

Shortsighted Israeli voters may well, according to the polls, be preparing to vote for an extreme right-wing leader and party who apparently believe in perpetual Israeli warfare with the enemy. However, the real thinking voters in Israel know in their ever-sinking hearts that this is the road to total ruin for this important country in the Middle East. As I have been a friend of Israel for many years and, I hope, a thinking and candid friend, I pay the strongest tribute to the huge, never-before seen, Jewish protests at home, in the world diaspora and in Britain against the recent aggression by Israeli armed forces and their political leaders.

Noble Lords should make no mistake about it, this was Israel's Sharpeville, although, tragically, the killing, maiming for life and injuries were on a much bigger scale in the Gaza open-air prison that was created by western ineptitude as well Israeli misdeeds. It will never be forgotten, because footage by Al Jazeera television and other Arabian services have made sure that all this was seen on television by Arabian viewers and Palestinians in the West Bank.

Now we hear similar excuses for the killings uttered by shameless Israeli leaders, which make many Israelis feel utterly embarrassed. No wonder this situation is similar to what the apartheid rulers in South Africa used to say before apartheid was eventually abolished. Yet brave, fair-minded and decent Israelis in their thousands and hundreds of thousands, and many fellow Jews abroad, have protested as never before on a massive scale. We must all pay tribute, as has been said, to the tireless work of Jews for Justice for Palestinians, to rabbis who are in favour of Palestine being a state, to B'TSelem and the other outstanding human rights groups in Israel which do fantastic work, and to Peace Now which is a marvellous organisation whose UK committee is chaired by Paul Usiskin, one of the signatories to the recent protest letters. I have long supported those organisations. What a pity that Daniel Barenboim could not stand for the Knesset or do something in the Israeli election after the one next week. What work he has done to bring these two countries and communities together.

While Gaza 2008-09 can never be forgotten, the hope for the future lies in people such as those and the Palestinian moderates. In Israel, it lies with people whose family history of persecution and suffering has honed their sense of doing right for the Palestinians after 41 years of ever more brutal illegal occupation of what remains of Palestinian-owned land. I am thinking also of people such as Gerald Kaufman MP, who has already been mentioned. He is now being insulted by the hard-line IDF and its right-wing supporters for his brave speech in the House of Commons, which I heard. I visited the West Bank with him in November 2005 and saw the appallingthat is the only word for itsituation there, which has not significantly improved since then; in many ways, it has got worse for the ever patient Palestinians under the Palestinian Authority. It is right that such people, as well as this House in this debate, should be protesting about this matter.

This is not only about common sense; it is about generosity. The Palestinian Authority is officially asking for the return of only 22 per cent of the combined territory. Israel has so much and has created so much, but Palestinians are left with so little. Where is that traditional, legendary Jewish hospitality and generosity which we are used to seeing all over the world and which we have always strongly supported? I find it difficult to credit that people such as Olmert cannot properly negotiate after so many years of time-wasting and shoals of US vetoes allowing Israel to misbehave.
The only two countries in the world that now routinely and frequently bomb and kill civilians in other people's lands are the USA and Israel. I hope and assume that Barack Obama will now change all that poison in America, so can we please ask the Israeli authorities to do the same? Although these terrible events cannot be forgotten, it would then be possible, patiently and slowly, to return to long-lasting friendship between Arabia, Palestine and Israel. The so far disappointingly myopic Israeli politicians should have the courage to grasp this opportunity.

I know that people in Israeli government circles are hoping that, as time passes, the international community will lose interest in the subject of war crimes trials and all the rest of it, but that will not happen; people in the UN and elsewhere will not let this go. Interesting suggestions have been made by the Malaysian Parliament and Government about how to invoke the ICC provisions, as has been mentioned. George Bush could be indicted for war crimes in Iraq under those procedures, while only the ordinary procedure would be needed for Tony Blair, as the UK supports the ICC, I am glad to say, although that may never happen either. If the US dared to use its veto in the future, there would be such disgust with its conduct after what has happened, and after so many of its vetoes over the years have meant that Israel has not had to behave according to international law, that people would say, "Enough is enough".
It would be truly ironic if, after the election next week, the failure to respond by defiant and myopic Israeli leaders were to be the reason for the loss of their own Zionist state. No fair-minded person in the world wants to harm Israel. It is an excellent country that has achieved much in 60 years. However, that could be the end result, foolishly and unexpectedly, if the Palestinians decide to abandon the two-state solution and ask for citizenship in a single secular state in the combined areas.

There are other imperatives in this awful scenario of bitterness, pain and hatred over what has happened recently. First, Senator Mitchell must be allowed to succeed. There are no excuses left this time. The world is fed up to the back teeth with the endless saga of US Middle East peace envoys being hijacked and destroyed by US-Israeli joint manoeuvrings to prevent Israel from negotiating and obeying 242 and all the other resolutions after 41 years of occupation. We saw all the details of that in the remarkable book by John Mearsheimer and Stephen M Walt, published in 2007. Forty-two US vetoes preventing Israel from doing what was necessary have led to this impasse. What short-sighted behaviour by a country that, under President Eisenhower, was much wiser in dealing with imperial powers in the Middle East and with Israel. It is astonishing to me how many people in the US and the UK either do not know about the vetoes or think that they are not important.

Meanwhile, the pathetic road map quartet, especially the cringingly embarrassing EU portion of it, must resolve to reform itself or, indeed, abolish itself if it cannot carry on properly and if it is not up to the task of insisting, at long last, on real, rapid negotiations between the parties. Russia, too, should pull its socks up and insist on all this when it hosts the March quartet summit.

Foreign peacekeeping forces will have to be stationed along these provocative frontiers pending the eventual full peace accord and a deal to set up a fully sovereign and genuine Palestinian state. Hamas must keep to the ceasefire offered, despite any provocations. It must renounce the use of violence and stop the rockets that give such an easy excuse for the Israeli military to go berserk. Then, it must be offered a full place in the negotiations right away. Fatah needs to recognise the legitimacy of Hamas, which in effect is much stronger than its own, and not only in Gaza. Mahmoud Abbas should maybe step down, as he is thinking of doing, and a much more realistic negotiator should be put in place as presidential candidateperhaps someone such as Barghouti, Erekat or even Ashrawi. Meanwhile, the EU needs seriously to consider trade and other sanctions if Israel is not seen to be complying with the demands of the international community.

The whole of Arabia is watching meticulously and sharply to see that Europe and the USA behave properly, openly and fairly with both sides. Any more blunders or kowtowing to the extreme Zionist lobbyin itself, a grossly exaggerated excuse anywayand legions of new young Arab terrorist volunteers will be spawned automatically for al-Qaeda and Islamic Jihad in their many forms. If Israel wants 100 years of war, it will surely have it in full measure, but I do not believe that it does; I believe that sensible people in Israel will avoid that by doing what is necessary. Mr Obama needs to use his Chief of Staff to explain carefully the new realities. Britain, France and Holland were initially foolishly slow to give freedom to their colonies, but they eventually cottoned on and acted pretty rapidly. Now it is the turn of Israel to show modern Judaeo-Christian common sense and wisdom.

Fred - that's sick.

Towards the beginning of your post (in the bit I could be bothered to read) you quote a figure of between 5.5 and 6.5 million jews killed during the second world war vs 75m others. You do this to try to belittle the effect of the holocaust on the jewish people.

You seem to think that all jews sat the war out in ghettos, concentration camps and death camps. Do you not realise that in addition to those killed in the death camps, jewish people were also properly represented as soldiers in the British, American, Soviet, Canadian, Australian and other allied armies?

And do you think that somehow the jewish civilians were exempt from the killing?

Do you deliberately exclude jewish military and civilian deaths from your figures?

The best current estimates of WW2 deaths are: 25m military, 48m civilian (of which 5.7m were holocaust victims). Jewish population in the allies mentioned above at the time was about 3% - and a disproportionately high percentage of them lied about their ages to join up and serve. Similarly, amongst the civilian population, the incoming bombs did not discriminate between religions.

If you want to be taken seriously (which you don't) then I suggest you redo the maths (which you won't).

Gausie-very well presented.

I agree with Gausie ragarding the Jewish dead. A huge number of Jews also served in the British and US armies as well. However, I do not see any connection with the existence of the state of Israel. The terrible things that were done to the Jews, Gypsies, Gays, Disabled and other groups in the war need to be separated from the problems in the Middle East.

An interesting article from The Guardian last October

Israel's own religious fanatics

The problem with any country fashioned along religious lines is that moderates get buried under rocks and a stream of abuse

Seth Freedman Friday 10 October 2008

During Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar, the port city of Akko erupted into race riots, after a clash between Jewish and Arab residents escalated into a battle involving hundreds of willing participants. The initial incident was sparked by a handful of Jews hurling rocks at an Arab man, after they took umbrage at his decision to drive through the Jewish side of town on Yom Kippur, an act that apparently offended their religious sensitivities.

When word of their attack spread around the Arab community, the response was swift, and as utterly unacceptable as the initial violence meted out by the Jewish attackers. Mobs of Arab locals went on a rampage, smashing cars and vandalising shops belonging to Jews, until police took control of the streets and forced them to a halt. As soon as the Israeli press got back to work after the Yom Kippur hiatus, the reaction was fast and furious, with both sides rushing to condemn the other via the media.

When I likened the wanton destruction I witnessed in Nil'in to a pogrom, I was hauled over the coals by my detractors for the language I employed. A few months on, and it appears that the word is enjoying something of a renaissance: Ehud Olmert using it to describe a wave of settler attacks on Arab villages, and last night at least three MKs calling the Yom Kippur war in Akko a pogrom, albeit from polar opposite sides of the spectrum.

Yuval Steinitz, a firebrand Likud politician took the view that "Israel has become the only country in the world where pogroms against Jews are taking place"; hot on his heels came Estherina Tartman's racist outburst, in which she claimed "The pogrom in Akko is another proof that the Arabs of Israel are the real threat to the state". Countering these claims was Ahmed Tibi, one of Israel's few Arab parliamentarians, who called the events a "Jewish pogrom", accusing the police of discriminating against Arab residents of the city during the disturbances.

Last night, a second round of clashes brought heavy police intervention, with the mixed city seemingly unwilling or unable to return to its pre-Yom Kippur state of calm and tolerance. While there is little doubt that what took place during the disturbances definitely walked and quacked like a pogrom, focusing on the symptoms rather than the disease is an unhelpful way of addressing the situation.

That anyone should feel so affronted by a non-Jewish citizen driving his car on Yom Kippur that they hurl rocks in response is as absurd a reaction as the recently-exposed ultra-orthodox vigilantes in Jerusalem, who take the law into their own hands to uphold religious law. For a country so determined to criticise rightly the Taliban-style behaviour of many Arab states, it is incredible that such practices are not clamped down upon when they occur closer to home.

Religious fervour has an alarming way of dragging its followers, and their unfortunate victims, back to Bible times. Stoning women in Iran is matched by stoning Arabs or anyone else daring to contravene Jewish law in Israel; the violators apparently deserving to be injured or killed for simply exercising the free will that the modern world extends to them.

I spent the entirety of Yom Kippur in synagogue, paying no attention whatsoever to what others might or might not be doing while I was fasting and praying. The only way I could have been offended by others' actions would have been if it directly impeded on my ability to carry out my religious obligations: if anyone had played music beneath the synagogue's windows, for example. However, catching sight of the hundreds of cyclists who come out of the woodwork every Yom Kippur wasn't offensive in the slightest; their violations of the day being their look-out, and no one else's.

The inherent problem with any country fashioned along religious lines is that the moderates get buried under a pile of rocks and a stream of abuse; a state of affairs to which both Israel and Gaza can attest. Jews attack other Jews for daring to contravene the seating arrangements on "modesty buses"; Palestinians do likewise to their non-believing brethren in similar acts of fundamentalist rage.

Sceptics will say that Akko was a tinderbox waiting to explode, and that religious sensibilities played little part in the initial outburst of violence, in the same way that Sharon's infamous tour of al-Aqsa was dismissed by rightwingers as incidental to the outbreak of the second intifada. However, the fact remains that politicians and commentators alike have been only too quick to jump on the religious bandwagon, claiming to be mortally hurt by the Arab driver's actions, as though Israel's otherwise untainted religious purity was irredeemably stained by his decision to quite legally drive on Yom Kippur.

The local police chief described the incident as a "deliberate provocation" by the driver, while saying precious little about the decision by his assailants to resort to hurling rocks and bottles to express their displeasure. But in that case, why don't the police end the nationwide tradition of bike-riding on Yom Kippur, if such acts are deemed to be a provocation to those adhering to religious law? The answer's pretty clear, and gives the lie to any claim that Israel is any more tolerant than its peers in the Arab world.

There is much to be said for respecting others' religions and customs, but at the same time "your freedom ends where my nose begins" cannot and must not be allowed to extend to a national scale. When that happens, and when the state apparatus fails to condemn such behaviour, then the game is well and truly up. And all the screams of "pogrom" in the world won't cover up who the true Cossacks are in such a case.

I don't know the word "pogroms". I would be grateful if somebody supplied its meaning for me.

pogrom
noun: organised persecution of an ethnic group (especially Jews)

My posting about WW2 mortality was in reference to part of Sivads
Posting.

There really was
a Holocaust. I realize you've been taught otherwise. I know,
that ever since

During WW2 and following it many states and small countries were subjugated by firstly by Germany and then for a longer period by Russia.

Although there is no love lost for Germany and Russia in recent years many these areas have become independent states or countries and move on. They have accepted the realities of the time.

I dont like the term mover on as it is commonly used, but when I use it I am no suggesting that War Crimes and other crimes should be forgotten or brushed aside. I am inferring that previous actions should not prevent decent relationships now and not be the controlling factors on present day thinking.

The crimes have been committed and attempts should be made to prevent replay of such behaviour.

The reasoning behind the crimes should be analysed and remembered, but they should not be a strangle hold on the future.

Piptrade, Thank you. I tried looking it up but couldn't find it.

pogrom is a Russian word, literally "devastation", and was used to describe the organized massacre of Jews in Russia and Eastern Europe.

Fred - hard for people in Gaza to "analyse and remember the reasons behind the crimes" when they are taught that it didn't happen. I think the point in that latter was that for people in Gaza can learn something about the Israeli position from a true understanding of the historical background. Surely you would agree with that.

PS Fred have you looked at post 821 yet to see some of the other things children in Gaza are taught? I know you were a busy chap at the time but judging by length of your recent posts seems you have more time on your hands now ;)

Isaacs, Still havent read the suggested post.

The indoctrination by the Nazis of their children and youth eventually failed. There are very few Germans holding to their views in Germany now, although I did meet one when I was wandering around Europe, who travelled with his picture of Hitler. He was to say the least, very strange.

The same applies to many of those born in communist states, although many remain adherents to that political philosophy.

This probably would apply to what you appear to be suggesting to be happening in Gaza, to some of the children, I think attempt to use the process

I suggest there are many rabbis are preaching equally crazy ideas or belief with religious fervour. Some of their followers will mature and question those teachings.

Many, Catholics become atheists.

(If you have time and have not read Graham Greenes books, have a look how he portrays the dilemmas of his own beliefs.)


The problem with historical information or knowledge is it that it is never completely impartial.


As far as my time is concerned, being retired allows me to read and wander where I wish.

"Does Israel have the right to exist? I am not sure of that."

Oh yeah? Really ?!
Why do people even think that any existing nation doesn't have a right to exist?
What sort of presumption and arrogance is that?
Why don't people say that about any other country? Huh?
The Palestinians have a right to a country of their own and will have it one day and most Israelis know that and want that - they just want to be sure that such a Palestinian state won't constantly attack them like Hamas.
Most countries are born in pain, revolution, civil war, terror. France, Italy, Germany, United States, Cyprus, Kenya, the list is endless
Why do people even announce they don't know if Israel has a right to exist. Outrageous.
What sort of deep seated dark thoughts are beneath that, I wonder?
Well, whether anyone likes it or not, Israel is here to stay.
Don't like it?
Too frackin' tough.

Fred -

As far as my time is concerned, being retired allows me to read and wander where I wish.

Which doesn't include the video in post 821, eh, Fred?

LOL Fred so it is only "some" of the Gaza childen that are being taught that the holocaust didn't happen and is a Jewish and many other terrible things about Jews but there are "many" rabbis preaching equally crazy ideas. You really are glass half full regarding Gaza and Hamas but glass almost empty when it comes to Israel.

MrCharts
The difference is that Israel was created atificially from an area known generally as Palestine which was occupied by Arabs.

In 1917 there was the Balfour Declaration, stating that the British Government "viewed with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people"..." it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine".

In 1948 the British left the area and David Ben-Gurion, declared the creation of the State of Israel, in accordance with the 1947 UN Partition Plan which suggested a split of Palestine and Jerusalem to be UN monitored.

Arab League members Egypt, TransJordan, Syria, Lebanon and Iraq declared war and announced their rejection of the UN partition decision.

The Arabs were poorly equipped and lost the short war.

In 1967 there was another Arab - Israel war which only lasted about 6 days. The result was that Israel annexed land not belonging to them, which they have never given back, Moreover they continue to settle this land belonging to the Arabs.

There is no good reason for Israel being there at all and the Arabs are clearly not going to accept it. partition of countries and terrotories seldom works in the short to medium term. Many are still unresolved ven now after long periods of time such as Ireland, Korea. Israel.

Although the United States supported the Balfour Declaration of 1917, which favored the establishment of a Jewish national home in Palestine, President Franklin D. Roosevelt had assured the Arabs in 1945 that the United States would not intervene without consulting both the Jews and the Arabs in that region. The British, who held a colonial mandate for Palestine until May 1948, opposed both the creation of a Jewish state and an Arab state in Palestine as well as unlimited immigration of Jewish refugees to the region.

In 1949 Israel drew its own borders, occupying 70% of Mandatory Palestine, fifty percent more than the UN partition proposal allotted them. They have continued to take land ever since.

Jews have lived in the land of Israel for thousands of years.
Over time the population of these lands became very mixed, just like many other countries.
Except it wasn't an Arab or Muslim nation state.
Much of the Middle East (and the Indian sub-continent and other places) is made of nations whose current borders were drawn by British civil servants. Yes, "created artificially" ! Alright for other countries, different for Israel, huh?
So competing peoples/cultures arguing over the same land (again like many situations around the world) gives rise to conflict. The land was divided. Israel agreed, the Arabs did not and made war and lost.
Like all nation states, Israel has done things it shouldn't. Made mistakes of policy and actions. No one and certainly no state is perfect. Oh but with Israel that somehow delegitimises and demonises the country and people. Typical basic propaganda and the mindless fall for it - if they are ripe to do so by the effects of previous propaganda and lies dressed up as fact and/or deep seated biases/hatreds etc.Like all nation states, but most especially democracies, Israel has a population with supporters of the extreme right and the extreme left, the moderate right and the moderate left, and a large percentage in the middle. All views and attitudes reflected.
Show me another democracy in the Middle East............no, thought you'd find that difficult.
Its neighbours threatened to annihilate Isreal, usually attacking her. They lost and in losing they lost land.
Look at a map of the Middle East and see what a tiny sliver of land Israel is.
Go on, just look.
Like much else in that last post, this is one of those blatant lies:
"The result was that Israel annexed land not belonging to them, which they have never given back".
Absolute nonsense.
What about Sinai, won by Israel, and handed back to Egypt in exchange for peace.
No-one has the right to declare an existing nation doesn't have the right to exist (same with a Palestinian state). Outrageous.
What should be done in the minds of those with such a high and mighty self-righteous attitude?
Push the population into the sea. Slaughter them all. Send them back where they came from. Where have we heard all that before.
Israel shouldn't exist. Oh, really.
How about the United States built on war, revolution and terror and the cruelties and seizures of land from the Native Peoples of America.
No, only Israel and its Jewish population doesn't have a right to exist.
Again what dark thoughts lie beneath the surface, huh?
Israel is here to stay.
Don't like it?
Well, too frackin' tough
Richard

Anti-Semitism never really died after the Holocaust, it just became unfashionable. That is no longer the case. In the wake of the Gaza War and with the global economy in a tailspin, disturbing events have been occurring in Britain - events that do not bode well either for the future of British Jewry or for the future of British democracy.


The war in Gaza combined with the global economic downturn has revealed a dark side to British society as demonstrated by the extent to which the British media, intelligentsia and political class have buckled in the face of the Islamic jihad. On average, according to the Observer, there are seven anti-Semitic attacks every single day in the UK attacks that have come in the form of graffiti, vandalism, arson, violent assaults on Jews in the streets, and hate e-mails. Jewish schools have been granted extra protection, and the Community Security Trust, which monitors anti-Semitism in British society, continues to issue dire warnings. According to British police, Jews are four times more likely to be attacked because of their religion than are Muslims. As a result, every synagogue service and virtually every Jewish communal event now requires guards to be on the lookout for violence from both neo-Nazis and Muslim extremists. Orthodox Jews have become particular targets; some have begun wearing baseball caps instead of skullcaps and concealing their Star of David jewelry for fear of being attacked.



Melanie Phillips, writing in the Wall Street Journal (Europe) expressed her concern in historical terms: Years of demonizing Israel and appeasing Islamist extremism within Britain have now coalesced as a result of the media misrepresentation of the Gaza War as an atrocity against civilians, in an unprecedented wave of hatred against Israel, and a sharp rise in attacks on British Jews and the authorities have done little or nothing to quell such incitement. In one case, students at Oxford University gleefully proclaimed that in five years, their campus "would be a Jew-free zone," and in another, the London-based Royal Court Theatre is staging a viciously anti-Israeli play by Caryl Churchill suggesting that the Holocaust perpetrated by the Nazis on the Jews of Europe is now being constructed by the Jews of Israel for the Palestinians the implication being that Jews have forfeited the "right" to "benefit" from the guilt and sorrow spun off by the Holocaust - a "right" now properly transferred to the Palestinians.



You can attack the Israelis/Jews in this fashion because there are no Jewish suicide bombers, but condemning Muslim atrocities - well that's another matter. Recently, Dutch parliamentarian Geert Wilders was banned from Britain by the British Home Office as a genuine, present and sufficiently serious threat because his film Fitna graphically and honestly documented the brutality of radical Islamists and twinned their actions to specific verses in the Quran. As Bat Yeor wrote recently in National Review Online: His crime is maintaining that Europes civilization is rooted in the values of Jerusalem , Athens , Rome , and the Enlightenment and not in Mecca , Baghdad , Andalusia , and al-Quds. He fights for Europe s independence from the Caliphate, and for its endangered freedoms.



In all this, it is becoming clearer with each passing day that Londonistan is no longer a safe place for Jews to practice their religion, nor are many places in Europe which is demographically morphing into Eurabia. In a recent comment in The Spectator, one reader opined: "I for one resent the fact that I can no longer congregate outside my synagogue. I resent the fact that my children attend Jewish school protected by security fences, concrete blocks and guard posts. I resent the fact that my eldest daughter ...... should feel intimidated on campus and questioned in a hostile, finger pointing manner how she feels as a Jewess on the question of Gaza , and if she supports the Israeli actions." And a Birmingham school is investigating reports that twenty children chased a 12-year-old girl (the only Jewish pupil in the school) chanting "Kill all Jews" and "Death to Jews".



Listening to the hatred reflected in the cries of Death to the Jews, one could conclude that it must have been the Jews who were behind the 9/11 attacks, burned down the Danish embassies throughout Europe and the Middle East two years ago over the Mohammed cartoons, planned and executed the suicide bombing attacks on the London tube and Madrid railway stations, decapitated Daniel Pearl, Nick Berg and scores of other infidels, train their children to become martyrs for Allah, use the web to incite hatred and jihad, strap explosives to their bodies and self-detonate in restaurants, subways, pizza parlors, buses, shopping malls, coffee shops, marketplaces, hotels and tourist resorts in France, London, Bali, Yemen, Jordan, Kenya, Algeria, Istanbul, Dar es Salaam, Mumbai and Israel and are waging a vicious religiously-inspired holy war against non-believers.



Yet, I suspect that if the British students who called Israelis Nazis and likened Gaza to the Warsaw ghetto (the idea being that Jews have now betrayed the Holocaust and have somehow become unworthy of benefiting from it), and who attended the seventeen sit-ins and demonstrations held at British universities to protest Israeli massacres in Gaza had chanted "Death to all Muslims" (as they screamed Death to all Jews during the Gaza War), the British Left and civil rights organizations would have been all over them demanding staff resignations, boycotts of their schools and colleges, the arrest of the student organizers, and compensation to the British Muslim community. It appears, however, that only the Jews merit such revulsion.



These actions reflect more than an anti-Israel stance. They represent a sickness gaining prevalence within British society - a sickness reflected by the growing social acceptance of the most ancient of religious hatreds. Neither the British media (that excels in the art of whitewashing Muslim extremism) nor British society generally seem to care much that radical Islamists like Hamas are involved in at least twenty-five conflicts going on around the globe including, but not limited to Afghanistan, Algeria, Bangladesh, Bosnia, Congo, Ivory Coast, Cyprus, East Timor, India, Indonesia (2 provinces), Kashmir, Kazakhstan, Kosovo, Kurdistan, Macedonia, the Middle East, Nigeria, Pakistan, Philippines, Somalia, Sudan, Russia-Chechnya, Tajikistan, Thailand, Uganda and Uzbekistan.



Nor are they especially concerned (as Phillips points out) that the government of Sri Lanka is attempting to eradicate terrorism by a military campaign in which, according to the UN, an estimated 70,000 civilians have been killed, thousands made homeless, hundreds of thousands displaced, and to which, as food shortages grow, the government refuses to allow access to journalists. Despite all this, there are no sit-ins on British campuses against the Sri Lankans, no violent protests outside its High Commission, no calls to boycott Sri Lankan products and academics, virtually no media coverage and certainly no calls for the obliteration of Sri Lanka.



Nor do I recall any protests against Hamas for firing thousands of missiles at Israeli cities, towns and villages for years, not to mention terrorizing over 250,000 men, women and children who have spent the better part of the past three years running to bomb shelters several times a day. Somehow, the deaths of 1,300 Gazans (two-thirds of whom were terrorists hiding behind Palestinian human shields) have evoked more outrage in Britain than the estimated two million dead in Congo, the tens of thousands of Iraqis slaughtered by Sunni and Shia terrorists in Iraq, or the massacres of civilians killed by their own governments in Zimbabwe, Uzbekistan, Burundi, Chad, Afghanistan, Columbia, Guatemala, Haiti, Guinea, Rwanda and West Bengal.



For a country that never has nor ever will produce a suicide bomber or that has never lobbed missiles on a daily basis into Gaza s cities to be so reviled and hated, verges on international moral turpitude. If anyone should be charged with war crimes in Gaza , it should be Hamas not Israel . But not according to British public opinion. The bottom line seems to be - if you are willing to excuse terrorist attacks against Jews in southern Israel where a tiny democracy is seeking to protect its people against terrorism, its just as easy to turn a blind eye to Jews being attacked elsewhere, even in the streets of London or Birmingham or the suburbs of Paris.



In many ways, Jews are the barometers of the societies in which they live the canary in the mineshaft of democratic societies - which accounts for why the U.S. , Canada and Australia remain resilient, vibrant democracies where minorities continue to thrive. But these countries have become more the exception than the rule. The history of the 20th century suggests that as it has gone with the Jews, so it has gone with democracy, and as it has gone with democracy, so it has gone with the Jews. By that standard, the events surrounding the Gaza War combined with the global economic downturn foreshadow a difficult period ahead not just for British Jewry, but for British (and by extension European) democracy. The results of a recent survey show that 31% of Europeans blame Jews for the global economic meltdown (including more than half of Hungarian, Polish and Spanish respondents) and 40% of Europeans consider Jews to have too much power.



There is little doubt that the Gaza campaign merely provided a pretext to unleash deep-seated anti-Semitism in Britain , across Europe and even prior to the war - to the slaughters in Mumbais Chabad Center . That being the case, there can be no better justification for the existence of a Jewish State than the persecution of Jews outside of it.