Warsi, Gaza and Israel

I'll be perfectly honest I've never understood why Baroness Warsi was ever in the House of Lords let alone in the government. I always thought it was purely because of her sex and religion and I think her resignation proves that to be the case. Problem being for Cameron now, yet again, he looks weak and tokenistic.

In the current battle in the Middle East my support is fully and unequivocally behind Israel. They have been far more tolerant of Hamas, who have been indiscriminately firing shells into Israel for years, than I would want my government to be if we were under attack. Yet when Israel defends her citizens the media bias is such that people would think Israel just woke up one morning with nothing to do so started attacking Gaza. Warsi didn't resign when Hamas were shelling Israel and our government did nothing to stop them.

It's very telling that around 1,500,000 Arabs live in Israel. There are no Jewish people in Gaza. Indeed Hamas, the elected authority in Gaza, have vowed to wipe Israel and the Jews off the face of the earth. Then what? What is now the only parliamentary democracy in the region would become just like Libya, Syria, Egypt, Iraq etc etc.  Would you want to live in a muslim country?

While the pro-Israel demonstrations around the world have been peaceful the pro-Palestine demonstrations have invariably ended in violence. Even in Manchester there have been car loads of muslim men driving through Jewish areas shouting that Hitler was right and hurling missiles at Jewish people. In Paris muslim mobs have attacked Jewish businesses.

I'm glad Warsi has gone and I do wonder whether muslims can actually put this country first or whether their faith always comes first. I certainly know that my Catholocism wouldn't have stopped me fighting Catholic Italy in 1939 had I been alive. But then most of us can see that people with whom we share a common faith or philosophy aren't always right, nor are  we.

Support Israel

Netanyahu at his best

Even those who aren't particularly sympathetic to Israel's Benjamin
Netanyahu, could get a good measure of satisfaction from this interview with
British Television during the retaliation against Hamas' shelling of Israel.

The interviewer asked him: "How come so many more Palestinians have been
killed in this conflict than Israelis?" (A nasty question if there ever was
one!)

Netanyahu: "Are you sure that you want to start asking in that direction?"

Interviewer: (Falling into the trap) "Why not?"

Netanyahu: "Because in World War II more Germans were killed than British
and Americans combined, but there is no doubt in anyone's mind that the war
was caused by Germany 's aggression. And in response to the German blitz on
London , the British wiped out the entire city of Dresden , burning to death
more German civilians than the number of people killed in Hiroshima ...
Moreover, I could remind you that in 1944, when the R.A.F. tried to bomb the
Gestapo Headquarters in Copenhagen , some of the bombs missed their target
and fell on a Danish children's hospital, killing 83 little children.
Perhaps you have another question?"

George Galloway and Anti-Israeli Hatred

Galloway's the one on the left.

We've known Galloway is a barking mad scumbag for years, but he used to try and hide it. But since he was outed a few years back for consorting with bloodthirsty Arab dictators he's dropped all pretence of being a civilised human being, let's face it even the Labour Party find him beyond the pale.

But just when you thought the Bradford MP for the ironically named 'Respect Party' couldn't stoop any lower guess what? He does! Just watch this:



So you accept an invitation to debate Israel but won't debate with an Israeli? Whatever 'mad as a box of frogs' means, Galloway is obviously it.

A Letter from Ashdod, Israel

The following guest blog is from an English friend living in Ashdod in southern Israel. It tells of his life living with the constant threat of shells landing from Gaza from where Hamas have been carrying out terror attacks on Israeli civilians for some time:

It’s impossible for someone who has never been in southern Israel during a rocket attack to fully understand the emotions and thoughts you have when the Banshee-like rocket sirens begin to wail. They are loud and mournful, almost as if an angel was foreseeing the deaths of innocent children. When they occur in the dark of night, they are especially haunting and fill every fibre of your being with fear, adrenaline, and foreboding. You know instantly that rockets are heading towards your location and that within seconds they could explode on top of you.  

I lost count of the number of sirens we heard in our city of Ashdod over the 8 days of Operation Pillar of Defence (14-21 November 2012). I think I read somewhere that there were 140 individual rocket barrages on Ashdod alone. That means 140 sirens, which is on average one attack every 1 hour and 37 minutes, over 8 days. They seemed to never end. Across Israel, over 1,456 rockets were fired by Gazan terrorist groups. 

Normal every day activities you hardly think about become a matter of intense discussion and frequent hesitation. Going to the toilet, taking a shower, changing clothes, boiling/frying food in pans, taking the dog a walk, taking the bins out, going for a nap … going to bed at night, all become things you think about twice and then thrice, and do with a certain urgency. For example, during one attack I was caught in the shower and had to dry my feet (to avoid breaking my neck on the tiled floor) and run outside, wrapped in my towel, to the neighbour’s shelter all in the space of 45 seconds. 

We didn’t have a shelter or safety room of our own. Every time a siren sounded we had to race next door and into their safety room via their living room and kitchen. Once inside, when the sirens stopped, the rockets began to land or be taken out by the impressive Iron Dome missile defence shield. The explosions of the Iron Dome intercepting the rockets were huge and frequently occurred right over our location. The walls shook, the ground vibrated, windows sometimes smashed nearby and the audible volume of the explosions were akin to a car backfiring nearby.  

Sometimes the rockets landed. It’s quite easy to differentiate between an Iron Dome interception and a rocket hitting the ground. The interceptions mid-air are like someone whacking a large drum and frequently occur in groups. A rocket hitting the ground is more of a thud, and somehow, you hear … feel … and then visualize in your mind (within a split-second) the rocket impacting concrete. Again, it’s impossible to put into words, you have to experience it. In Ashdod alone, a number of buildings suffered direct hits and fires resulted. Many people suffered from shrapnel wounds, injuries from falling over, and probably the most underappreciated injury one can suffer during an attack, that of shock.  

The Assassination of Ahmed Jabari 

I knew immediately upon reading reports that Ahmed Jabari (head of the Hamas military wing) had been killed that we’d have rockets fired on our city within a few hours. There was no doubt about it, southern Israel would be under intense rocket fire that would rival any previous experience I had had in the two years I’d lived in the port city of Ashdod. The assassination of Jabari was a huge hit and would unleash a tightly coiled spring of fury that had been waiting to leap forth for many months.  

There had been a number of flare ups over the previous month or two, each one resulting in a brief lull. The latest exchange had started a week before the assassination (10th November 2012) when an Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) jeep on routine patrol next to the Gaza Strip border was attacked with an anti-tank missile. The two sides exchanged fire and rockets (over 100) began hitting southern Israeli communities, including a single attack here in Ashdod. All the major cities were hit, many people were wounded, and all schools were cancelled. Residents were upset that the Israeli response to the rocket fire was so weak, with barely any air strikes in retaliation.  

Things then went quiet (13th November 2012) amid rumours of a ceasefire. Most people, including myself, estimated this relatively brief exchange was over until the next one in a few months. However,   worst was soon to come. Israel had secretly decided upon a course of action in order to punish the terror group’s unprovoked attacks on Israeli civilians.  

The Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak had given a clue to the imminent strike, saying "Israel's reaction will come at the appropriate time”. Israelis shrugged off such words as typical inaction and delay in the face of rocket fire. Another minister Benny Begin said "the current exchange of hostilities seems to be over”, which made me and most other people think that was that. It no doubt also made the terrorists think they had got away with their rocket fire.  

Preparing for Rocket Attacks 

BOOM! On a Wednesday afternoon (14th November 2012) I was finishing off a bit of work. As I usually do during or after a flare-up in tensions, I began my hourly check of the Israeli news sites, expecting to see very little that was new. There it was in black and white, the breaking news reports that a senior terrorist had just been killed inside his car minutes before. I sat for the next half an hour refreshing the news websites reading the new details emerging about the strike. When the target’s name was revealed, I knew the gates of hell were about to open on our heads. 

I made phone calls and sent text messages to people telling them what had happened and what was about to happen. People needed to know, not for celebratory reasons (the extinguishing of a terrorist head who was instrumental in the abduction of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit for nearly 6 years was something to be pleased about) but because they would need to make arrangements for their families and perhaps drive home earlier from work. I would have put all the money I owned on the fact there would be rockets before the end of the day. I was right. 

Ceasefire 

After 8 days of constant action, here’s now a ceasefire which, at the time of writing, seems to be holding. Hamas and other terrorist groups in the Gaza Strip such as Islamic Jihad have suffered immense damage to their arsenals and infrastructure. However, they were not destroyed and they will rebuild and return to firing rockets in the not too distant future.  

Residents of southern Israel will once again hear the rocket sirens sound and race for the nearest shelter. The international media will of course ignore these attacks unless an Israeli is killed. When Israel finally loses patience and fires back at another terrorist leader, the events of the previous week will be repeated. 

What Israel can do about this situation is for another article but suffice to say, the various options will all result in loss of life on both sides.  

More rockets? 

Let me make a couple of estimates.

My first estimate is that the first post-ceasefire rocket will land in Israel’s Eshkol or Sha’ar Hanegev Regional Councils (those that border the Gaza Strip) by the end of November. My second estimate is that a post-ceasefire rocket will be fired at one of the big cities (Ashkelon/Ashdod/Beersheva) before June 2013.  

If you want to know what it’s like during a rocket attack on southern Israel, watch this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-wETUOJDmc 

For more news and updates on Israel follow me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/edward_bea

Ayn Rand on Israel

"If you mean whose side one should be on, Israel or the Arabs, I would certainly say Israel because it’s the advanced, technological, civilized country amidst a group of almost totally primitive savages who have not changed for years and who are racist and who resent Israel because it’s bringing industry, intelligence, and modern technology into their stagnation."

Q and A session during taping of Donohue, Live in New York

Very hard to disagree with her. What Israel is suffering is an extremely concentrated version of what the rest of us face from Islamist extremists.

Co-Op To Boycott Israel

I have just received the following message from the British Israel Coalition:

 

The Co-op boycotts Israeli companies. They seek to justify this bigotry by invoking ‘ethical policy’.

 

But when you read their ‘ethical policy’, it is clear that it exists to demonise one country: Israel

This week at the Gmex convention centre in Manchester, there is an international expo hosted by the Co-op. The British Israel Coalition is supporting the activists protesting Co-op's highly discriminatory treatment of Israel and working to get this one-sided boycott removed.

Please come along and help us on Thursday or Friday this week to distribute leaflets and help us get across our case.

If you can help, please get in touch with the activists in Manchester:

 

Here is a link to the British Israel Coalition website.

The Experiences of an Englishman in Rocket-Hit Israel

A friend of mine is now living in Israel and kindly agreed to write the following guest blog:

There’s nothing to prepare you for the myriad of emotions that flush through your mind and body when a rocket alert siren sounds. Then there are the thoughts and feelings that grab hold when you hear ground shaking explosions and the sound of police cars and ambulances racing through the city streets soon afterwards. One moment you are going about your daily routine, which might include being in a deep sleep and the next, you are rushing like a startled rabbit towards your designated shelter.

I’ve been living in the southern Israeli city of Ashdod for nearly a year after meeting and falling in love with a beautiful and charming Israeli woman. In this time period there have been approximately a dozen rocket attacks on our city and hundreds more on cities, towns and villages in the surrounding region, including Ashkelon, Beersheba and the unfortunate Sderot. The rockets originate in the Gaza Strip, just over 20 miles away from Ashdod and are being fired by Islamic terrorists intent on killing as many Jews as possible and eventually taking Israel for their own Islamic state.

Let’s briefly study the anatomy of a rocket attack on a major Israeli city. When terrorists fire a rocket, a satellite system picks up the trajectory of the missile and instantly calculates where it is likely to fall. The system then activates a city-wide siren in the location where the deadly warhead is heading. The siren sounds and people rush to either a communal shelter, a safety room within their home or any other place which might offer protection from an explosion and related shrapnel. In Ashdod, we have 45 seconds to get to this safe place. In neighbouring Ashkelon, it is even less.

The rocket alert siren sounds for around 40 seconds. The sound is very similar to the World War 2 siren you hear in old black and white war films. It is omnipresent and comes at you from multiple directions. It’s also very loud and there’s no chance you’ll mistake it for a car alarm. Strangely enough, whilst the siren is sounding, you know you are relatively safe. The danger comes when it stops. That’s when the rockets fall. In nearly all cases that I have experienced, the explosions occurred within 15 seconds of silence descending on the city. It’s a haunting silence for you know everyone is doing the same as you and that is listening for the thuds of falling rockets. Two weeks ago we heard 4 explosions hit the city, one after the other and each louder than the next. Elsewhere on that day, an Israeli civilian who was a father of 4, was killed by shrapnel.

For years, before and during my time in Israel, I’ve heard people in the West referring to the rocket attacks as mere fireworks that do little damage other than a bit of smoke and cracks in the road. I knew this to be untrue, even prior to hearing and seeing the damage they do first-hand. Every day I pass a building still gutted from when a rocket scored a direct hit a few years ago. On Youtube you can see video clips of a 6-storey block of flats half demolished from just one rocket. The only reason why more people are not killed is because of the safety measures the government here has taken in the form of rocket shelters, drills, sirens, surveillance drones and frequent information on what to do in the event of an attack.

The rocket attacks are brutally hard on parents and their children. I’ve been with families when the siren sounded and witnessed the fear in the eyes of burly fathers who would not otherwise flinch from tackling a burglar in the middle of the night. They carry their little crying daughters in their arms and rush to their safety room, knowing full well that a direct hit on their home could mean death. I’ve also seen a mother vomit with fear after rushing her kids into a shelter. They have every reason to be terrified for their children’s safety. In 2004, a toddler and baby were killed when a rocket exploded inside their home in Sderot.

When you don’t have children, the sense of danger and fear is less but not altogether absent. Most rocket attacks have taken place during the night hours when we are asleep. The shock of being awoken by loud Banshee wailing and instinctively racing towards the front door (our shelter is next door) is quite a blow to one’s nerves, especially when you know there is a serious and genuine threat to life careering through the night skies towards you. Yet people here have adapted to these intrusions and within minutes you see people resuming their normal activities, even when there is every chance of another siren sounding any second.

I’m a proud Englishman with a great fondness for the State of Israel. This bond was formed prior to meeting my Israeli girlfriend and came about through sympathy and support for their existential cause. The Jewish people’s brave fight against the theo-political ideology of Islam which has Jew hatred written in their scriptures is one that all decent Europeans and Americans should back Israel in. For years I wished I could do something more for Israel instead of writing essays on why it deserves to exist in peace, from a safe and comfortable desk in England. Finally I got that chance. On most days I feel like any Englishman would, living in, or visiting, the Near East or Mediterranean and that is, a foreigner, which of course is natural. However, on those days when the skies rain rockets and the sirens sound, I feel, if all but briefly, very much an Israeli.

Guest post by Edward Beaman-Hodgkiss
Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/edward_bea


I've also included 2 links to relevant Youtube videos which will help readers gain insight into events here in Israel. Click on links below to view.

1. Block of flats half demolished (as mentioned in the post)

2. Rocket siren at night in Ashdod 2 weeks ago.

Baroness Jenny Tonge-The Dark Side Of The Lib Dems

I've been working on a script about the Lancashire witches today and made the mistake of having BBC Radio 2 on in the background. My radio became a twenty-first century broomstick and carried the vile Lib Dem witch Dame Jenny Tonge into my living room.

She shouted down James Delingpole with her irrational hatred of Israel while supporting Iran's possible development of nuclear weapons. I always find it annoying when people defend the actions of an anti-semitic nutcase like the President of Iran by constantly attacking Israel. Remember, Tonge was defending a man who has threatened to "wipe Israel off the face of the earth".

I remember when Tonge was condemned by her own Lib Dem colleagues for stating about Palestinian suicide bombers: "If I had to live in that situation - and I say that advisedly - I might just consider becoming one myself."

Lovely people these Palestinian lovers aren't they?

Supporting Israel

Why is it that every Tom, Dick and Harry thinks it's open season on Israel? George Galloway and his ilk go over there stirring the pot while condemning the USA and every other western country for imperialism, now nearly 1000 interfering sods from around the world think it's OK to sail into Gaza with weapons including machetes and guns. It's sad that people lost their lives, and maybe it wasn't the IDF's best ever operation, but I applaud Israel for defending herself.

Those who took part in the attempt to break the Israeli blockade of Gaza are dangerous lunatics with an agenda. If Israel lifted the blockade then Iran would be in a position to start shipping weapons to the Palestinians, as they have done previously, surely that could only escalate the violence. While life may be difficult in Gaza people are not starving. When questions are asked about the military operation it may be a good idea to find out why Turkey allowed the boats to sail in the first place.

I just hope that those condemning Israel today aren't the same people who so often wish that our government stood up for us a bit more robustly.

Israeli Settlement Produce

So now, kowtowing to the leftist militant supporters of Palestine, the government is to introduce a form of anti-Semitic food labelling. Produce from the Israeli West Bank is to be marked 'Israeli settlement produce' so that the pinko liberal middle classes can boycott in favour of 'Palestinian produce'.

Why not go the whole hog and put a Star of David on it and the word Jew? But at least it means I can do my bit and make sure I buy nothing Palestinian.

Miss England

How apt that Lance Corporal Katrina Hodge (left) should become the new Miss England. When she proclaims "I want to see peace in the world" for the first time it will be said by someone with conviction, how refreshing.

I always thought the British Army could give the Israelis (above) a run for their money in the beauty stakes!

Israel Defence Force-Colonel Richard Kemp

The following video is a must watch:



With thanks to Edward on Twitter.

Mash The Swedes

We tend to think of Sweden as a liberal, tolerant and generally very civilized kind of place. But no, it is just as sick as any other decaying Western 'democracy' according to this report from an English language Swedish newspaper.

Israel puts up with Arabs firing bombs at her from Gaza and eventually, quite rightly, reacts in self-defence. Loonies in Sweden, and elsewhere, liken Gaza to South African apartheid or, even more ludicrously, the Warsaw ghetto. As a consequence the local authorities, where Sweden are due to play Israel in the Davis Cup, are refusing to open the tennis competition to the public in protest. There will be no spectators, how very tolerant. Good luck to Israel I say.

It reminds me of when I visited Guernica in Spain. Guernica is famous for being bombed in the Spanish Civil War, then becoming the subject of a painting by Picasso. It too is a cause celebre for the left, much as Gaza is today.

However, if you look into Guernica properly it was not the innocent picturesque little town, bombed to crap by evil fascists that the lefties make out. It was actually extremely wealthy because for decades, while Spain remained neutral, it produced the arms that fed the First World War and many others, including the Republican side in the civil war. Tough on Guernica I say, no sympathy whatsoever.

And in solidarity with Israel, we won't be having swedes with our Sunday dinner this week!!

George Galloway and Gazza

Left; the famous Gazza strip (England not Spurs).

With all the furore about Paul Gascoigne's deteriorating health due to alcohol problems, it is good to know that the latter day St Jude (George Galloway) is organising national support for our ex-footballing hero, including a national rally:

Gazza: A Message of Support from George Galloway, Respect MP

(Surely that should be Gaza? Ed.).

New Labour New Hamas

I've found the last week or two very strange. Young Miliband and the New Labour government desperately calling on Israel to cease fire in its defensive action against Hamas. Strange, unless there is even worse media bias than I thought, that they weren't quite so vociferous in their condemnation of Hamas when launching rockets into Israel for the last few years, the Egyptian government was more vociferous in its condemnation.

But then I thought about it, and our government's action in Iraq is the moral eqivalent of Hamas's actions against Israel in recent years, a pointless aggression that had nothing to dowith defence. Also, in 1970s socialist style the New Labour government daren't be seen to be too supportive of Israel, it might upset the left-wing anti-Semites/anti-capitalists.

The Middle East really does create strange bedfellows. Here is a neo-Nazi blog called Final Conflict. Here is the website of the Workers' Revolutionary Party. Similar in so many ways, the main two being anti-democratic and anti-Semitic.

Nice Mr Obama

As people question Barack Obama's recent 'I'm the Leader of the Free World Tour 2008' more shenanigans from the great one's camp have emerged. This is a report from Israel National News.

It seems there has been a spat in the Israeli media about who leaked the contents of a private religious message left by Obama in the Kotel when he visited. It made Obama look like an all round decent chap, buffing his Christian credentials and showing his "humility". Problem is he leaked it himself. Not very modest that.

The United Nations

For a very long time I have believed that the United Nations is a sham, its existence seems to be solely to give assorted tyrants and unsavoury Third World despots the chance to lord it over the Western democracies, with special venom reserved for Israel.

This article from the Spectator very nicely proves the point. It's about time the whole thing was ripped apart and consideration given to John McCain's suggestion of a League of Democracies. However, I suspect any new organisation would end up just as corrupt and undemocratic as other supranational bodies, such as the EU, so would favour loose alliances as and when we feel they would benefit us.

Who knows, if the Spectator carries on with a line like this, I may even renew my subscription, cancelled after the Cameron grovelling current editor, Matthew d'Ancona took control.