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| Last
uploaded : Monday 14th Nov 2005 at 01:17 |
| Contributed
by : Carol Gould |
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London--
Many readers wanted to know if I had any opinion on the astonishing statement by the President of Iran that he wishes to see Israel obliterated from the map.
Well, first of all, over the past thirty years I have heard this refrain so often from otherwise sane British and European people who have invited me to dinner; from work colleagues; neighbours, shop owners and tradesmen that it seems to have passed me by when the Iranian leader made his vile pronouncement.
In January 2001, 'The Guardian' printed a substantial editorial by Faisal Bodi entitled 'Israel Simply Has no Right to Exist.' In recent years the British columnists Brian Sewell, AN Wilson, Polly Toynbee and Robert Fisk have torn into Israel -- and its 'Zionist neocon' partner the USA -- with ferocity. Various editorialists have suggested that the United Nations Resolution effectively validating the existence of the new Zionist Entity be reversed, as the fifty-eight year experiment in Jewish Statehood had obviously turned into a permanent bloodbath caused by successively brutal Israeli regimes.
British and UK/Euro-based Arab commentators love to obsess on the 'keys held' by Palestinians whose parents or grandparents handed them over on their deathbed, eliciting a promise that they will one day seize back the homes wrested from them by rampaging hordes of Jews in 1947-48.
Over these decades of life in this green and pleasant land, the British Isles, endless reams of newsprint and hours of radio and television airtime have reminded the public of the relentless cruelty of the Israeli army and security services. A picture has been painted of a land filled with blood-curdling soldiers rampaging through the streets of the tiny country looking for Palestinians to torment.
Rarely have Israel's universities, research centres, charitable works, opera and ballet companies or theatre companies been profiled. When Cabinet Minister David Blunkett was forced to resign two weeks ago for not reporting consultancy work, television commentator Michael Crick literally spat out the word 'ORT' when desciribing the Jewish-Israeli educational charity for which Blunkett had been a consultant.
Now, the Iranian President has made the point one has heard across Britain for what has seemed an eternity. Countless British servicemen have said to me through the years that they wish they had shot dead Dayan, Rabin and Begin in the 1940s and that Israel had never been allowed to continue its short life after 1948. One British veteran who used to run a local shop would tell any customer that would listen that 'one day the Israelis will lose a war and hopefully that day will be soon, teach them a lesson, bloody arrogant sods..'
It is therefore not surprising that 15,000 souls turned out in Italy to protest the statement by the Iranian genocide advocate. There was no protest in Great Britain. Much discussion has been had about this on blogs. Is Anglo-Jewry yellow? Moribund? It is reported that most of the Italian marchers were ordinary Catholic citizens.
My theory, though not a popular one with Jewish activists, is that the Muslim community in Great Britain is so vociferous, so angry and so loud that any such peaceful quiet protest would be drowned out by screaming, anti-Israel Britons with megaphones. Such ugly demonstrations may be witnessed outside Marks & Spencer department store in London every Thursday evening. (One of the claims screeched over the megaphone outside M&S is the assertion that four million Palestinians were rendered homeless in 1948. Were there four million PEOPLE in Palestine in 1948'') Oddly enough, the Iranian exiles one meets in London are as furious with their 'leader' as are Jews about the call for obliteration of Israel.
It has reached a point in Britain that if one wishes to have a quiet life and any form of social contact one does not ever murmur the words 'Israel' or 'USA.' This may be evidenced, again on Thursday evenings, on BBC 'Question Time,'the live debate programme that has a studio audience. Heaven forefend any panellist who wanders into the territory of 'the right of Israel to exist in peace.' More often than not, anyone who dares continue in this thread is shouted at, foot-stomped and otherwise intimidated by the audience, whose age range is eighteen to eighty.
All of the right noises have been made by world leaders and by the UN, but Clifford May reports
http://www.defenddemocracy.org/in_the_media/in_the_media_show.htm'doc_id=317233
that at a recent conference in Dublin, Tim Llewellyn, a former BBC correspondent, actually suggested it was wrong to silence those who agree with the Iranian President's view on Israel's right to exist.
Britain is in a bizarre conundrum at present: when one speaks to the average working man or woman, the anger at the Muslim community can barely be contained. Anger at the rejection by the House of Commons of the 90-Day Detention rule is rampant in the street, but if one were to say 'Israel' to the same people a lecture would ensue about apartheid and genocidal acts against Palestinians.
Now that Her Majesty the Queen has become the latest potential target of al-Qaeda, as broadcast on Fox News and reportedly on al Jazeera, perhaps the great British public and its media will realise that Israel and the Jews are not the threat, but that thousands of fifth columnists may be lurking and about to strike at the heart of our green and pleasant land.
 
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