Afterwards, we resolved to ask the question: what are the rules of British political behaviour that cause the Tory leader,his mass of MPs and parliamentary candidates to flock to the Friends of Israel lunch in the year of the Gaza invasion? And what are the rules of media discourse that ensure such an event passes without even being noticed?

During an investigation lasting several months, we have been able to reach several important conclusions. We maintain there is indeed a pro-Israel lobby in Britain. It is extremely well-connected and well-funded, and works through all the main political parties.

It’s the British version of Walt & Mearsheimer. But here, in my opinion, is the single action that blows “The Israel Lobby” meme in Britain out of the water:

The British government decided it was “in the overwhelming interests of the United Kingdom” to make Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi, the Lockerbie bomber, eligible for return to Libya, leaked ministerial letters reveal.

Gordon Brown’s government made the decision after discussions between Libya and BP over a multi-million-pound oil exploration deal had hit difficulties. These were resolved soon afterwards.

“The Israel Lobby” contributes money to British politicians and supposedly affects the U.K.’s actions toward Israel. Yet the U.K. refused to vote on the Goldstone report, is refusing to sell arms and spare parts to the IDF for certain items, constantly chides Israel regarding the current situation, and British media (particularly the Guardian) regularly excoriates Israel. In the meantime, Muammar Ghaddafi offers BP an oil deal, and the Lockerbie bomber, who murdered 270 people, including 11 people on the ground in the U.K., goes free.

Tell me again how powerful The Israel Lobby is in the U.K., because I could really use a good laugh.

Erekat: Israel is not a partner for peace. Meryl: The record’s stuck. The record’s stuck. The record’s stuck.

State-sponsored British anti-Semitism: Britain’s Channel 4 just ran an “expose” on the influence of The Israel Lobby (da-da-DUM!). Wow, what state moneys can buy in Jew-hatred. They were charged with racial hate (or whatever that charge is in Britain) when they ran an expose on terrorists recruiting in British mosques. Any guesses on whether they’ll get charged with inciting racial hatred on this one? Shyeah.

Oh, no way this goes wrong: The CIA is launching a campaign to recruit Arab-Americans. If their screening is as strenuous as the FBI and the Army, we can expect a lot more Major Hasan incidents.

Hackers Post Private E-mails of Historian and Accused Holocaust Denier
A group identifying themselves as “anti-fascist hackers” broke into the web site and AOL e-mail account of controversial British historian and accused Holocaust-denier David Irving and obtained his private communications as well as attendee lists for his current U.S. speaking tour.

The hackers posted Irving’s e-mail correspondence online, as well as the user name and password for his web site account and AOL e-mail account, which shared the same password. The hackers also posted the e-mail addresses and other personal information — such as names, phone numbers and shipping and credit card billing addresses — of people who made donations through his web sites, purchased his books or bought tickets for his appearances.

Irving’s username and password for his Authorize.net account, which handles the credit card transactions on his web sit, were also exposed.

The data was posted on the WikiLeaks site Friday evening in advance of Irving’s Saturday speaking engagement at the Catholic Kolping Society of America in New York City. The organization reportedly canceled the event on Friday after someone contacted it.

It’s going to take his provider a week to figure out all the damages. Score one for the black hats.

I know it’s really difficult telling the difference between a wall that was built to prevent civilians from being murdered, and a wall that was built to keep civilians from escaping their miserable lives in Communist East Germany, but somehow, people should just slog through and figure out a way to tell the difference. Or they can just draw anti-Semitic cartoons that would be at home in the pages of Der Sturmer, which find their way now into the pages of British mainstream newspapers and magazines (among others).

But he’s not sorry for any of it, really.

Are you sorry about anything?

“I’m sorry there are so many lies about me. Like for example that they say I wrote that the soldiers hunted for youths so as to take their organs. It’s obvious that’s a lie. Even the Palestinians don’t make a claim like that. And the other side attributes anti-Semitism to me. I’m sorry about that. I’m sorry I’ve become a political tool. I’m sorry the article caused damage to the struggle for human rights here. And above all, I’m sorry that no one took the article seriously and that they did not examine the suspicions. In Sweden too they didn’t take it seriously.”

What. A. Tool. The human rights he’s talking about? Palestinians being killed by soldiers. The fact that the Palestinian that was killed, the one that inspired his story, was a terrorist battling the IDF seems to have been conveniently left out of Bostrom’s narrative.

Note that he’s not sorry at all that Israel’s enemies have another Mohammed al-Dura club to wield. What a jackass. This guy is considered a journalist in Sweden?

Do you think the IDF killed people to get body organs?

“I don’t think soldiers behaved like that. I don’t think they killed in order to gather organs. The truth is that they kill them without a trial and their bodies are taken to Abu Kabir. We don’t know whether they take out the organs. That has still to be further investigated. No one opened up the bodies after they were returned and only one man knows the truth, Prof. Yehuda Hiss, the director of the forensic institute. “

Actually, any medical doctor knowledgeable in transplants could tell you the truth: The organs that were “harvested” in such a way would be useless. But don’t let the facts get in the way of your spreading lies.

You have already had scandals at your forensic institute with other bodies, he says, and there is illegal trade in organs, so there is a need to investigate.

In other words: Have you stopped beating your wife yet? Guilty until proven innocent. Except when Israel offers the proof, the world will still insist that Israel is guilty. And then there’s the fact that he’s being accompanied by a bodyguard, paid for, no doubt, by Israeli taxpayers. Why? Um. Because he was met by protesters at the airport. Oooh. Scary.

Then there’s the conference itself, where he was booed and challenged on his made-up facts:

Lapid shot back, “To say this without a shred of evidence, that Israel possibly harvested organs from Palestinians who disappeared, in other words, whom we kidnapped, killed, and robbed their organs, is a degrading and monstrous idea.”

In response, Bostrom said that he understands why people are angry, saying that everyone lies while at war. He said that it is difficult for reporters to distinguish between what is correct and what is a lie. “If it were just one family, fine. But there were many families. Mothers have a right to know what happened to their sons,” claimed Bostrom.

Bostrom was told to his face that he was an anti-Semite. Of course, he responded that not all critics of Israel are anti-Semitic. Kudos to Yair Lapid for this:

Lapid concluded, “You are an anti-Semite because you are prepared to believe that there is a possibility that the government and the authorities would take part in such a monstrous thing. The only thing I can say in your favor is that you don’t know you’re an anti-Semite.”

I don’t think that counts very much in his favor. In fact, let us all chant the Yourish.com mantra for our Swedish photographer who says he really, really, really likes Israel, no, really: Anti-Semites of the world, just die already.

Minister for Development of the Negev and Galilee Silvan Shalom will not be attending the Dimona media convention, in protest of the attendance of a controversial Swedish journalist at the event.

Shalom also directed his office to cancel funding for the convention, a total of roughly NIS 200,000 (about $60,000.)

Shalom’s decision came after he discovered that Swedish journalist Donald Bostrom, who claimed the IDF was trafficking Palestinian body parts, was slated to take part in the event.

“I’m unwilling to be a party to a convention that grants a platform to an enemy of Israel like Bostrom,” Shalom said. “I will not allow the State of Israel to fund a convention that grants a platform to such man.”

This is not a journalist. This is the man who said he had no proof whatsoever of the charges he was making, but that Israel should investigate them because a Palestinian brought them up. Except that the Palestinian he quoted in the article said they never even spoke to him.

Why, exactly, is this anti-Semitic jackass being invited to an Israeli media convention? Because too many Jews are stupid. Instead of shunning the scum who are giving our enemies the weapons they use to ustify killing us (cf: Richard Goldstone), we try to be evenhanded and fair, even to proven liars.

Good for you, Minister Shalom, for taking the official Israeli seal of approval off this event. Now watch Journalists Without Borders use this as another charge that Israel is mean to its press.

Don’t worry, it won’t be determined an anti-Semitic attack: Two Jews were shot in the legs inside a synagogue in Los Angeles this morning, but I’m sure it will be determined that it wasn’t anti-Semitism. Violent attacks on Jews in America seem to always be the work of a lone, crazy gunman. I guess we should be happy this guy was not only crazy, but a lousy shot.

But he’s not a Democrat, so no one will care: Gunshots were fired at Lou Dobbs’ home while his wife was standing outside. So, someone who doesn’t like Dobbs’ stance on immigration tried to kill his wife? Nice. This is what you would call a case of domestic terrorism. The gunshot followed a series of threatening phone calls.

Religion of tolerance confiscates bibles: But yes, Islam is tolerant of other faiths. Just ask them. They’re confiscating the bibles because they referred to God as Allah. I’m trying to think if there has ever been a case where Israel confiscated bibles or korans. Hm. Thinking… no, give me a minute, I’m sure I’ll find an example… uh, no. I’m out.

Saudi Arabia joins the seventeenth century: The King had to step in and cancel a medieval punishment, but hey, those Saudis are really modernizing. They’re not going to give a woman 60 lashes with a whip for having worked on a television show where a man talked about sex. Except she had nothing to do with that show. The man, meantime, was sentenced to a prison term, plus lashes. So maybe the Saudis aren’t quite out of the fourteenth century yet. I wouldn’t know… when did Christians flog people for talking about sex in public?

Orwell noted that anti-Semitism had been driven underground by the war and that the authorities and media went out of their way to avoid offending Jews in order to establish their credentials as not being antisemites. He recounts how, for example, a man he knew as an antisemite and former fascist was eager to attend a ceremony in a synagogue on behalf of the Jews being persecuted in Poland.

Two-thirds of a century later, Orwell’s article has some interesting things to tell us in an era when antisemitism is reviving throughout the world. Sometimes, the word “Zionist” or “Israeli” is substituted for the word “Jew.” But the tip-off is that the accusations continue to be basically the same ones: allegedly hating and deliberately oppressing non-Jews, greed, conspiracy, mysterious power, irrational behavior, and the goal of world conquest.

One place where antisemitism is rather fashionable is Egypt.

What makes them all the more remarkable is that, contrary to stereotype, they do not have particularly ancient roots in Egypt. Until Egypt’s Jews were expelled by Gamal Abdel Nasser in the 1950s and ’60s, Egypt had a millennia-old, thriving Jewish community. As late as the 1930s, Jewish politicians occupied ministerial posts in Egyptian governments and participated in nationalist politics.

But all that changed with the rise of totalitarian and fascist movements in Europe, which found more than their share of imitators in the Arab world. When Egypt’s monarchy was overthrown in 1952 by a military coup, anti-Semitism became an ideological pillar of the new totalitarian dispensation.

Since then, Egypt has evolved, coming to terms (of a sort) with Israel and adopting some market-based economic principles. But anti-Semitism remains the glue holding Egypt’s disparate political forces together. This is especially true of the so-called liberals, who think they can traffic on their anti-Semitism to gain favor in quarters where they would otherwise be suspect.

Despite having a peace treaty with Israel, Egypt still remains one of the most openly antisemitic countries in the world.

It doesn’t make a lot of sense.

UPDATE: Unfortunately, the outrage of Egyptain antisemitism goes largely unnoticed. This past week the Susan G. Komen foundation had a conference in Egypt. Lynn Context followed the back and forth as to whether Egypt – a country with a peace treaty with Israel – would allow Israeli researchers to attend.

In the end as James Taranto noted, the Egyptians relented at the last minute but the Israelis having been yanked around, understandably were not much interested in attending.

We spoke with Komen’s Emily Callahan, who tells us that there was in fact time for the Israeli scientists to come, as the weeklong conference had only begun when the matter was resolved. She tells us the Israelis decided not to go–and one can hardly blame them after being jerked around like that. She also says that Komen agrees entirely that this should not have happened, and that the organization acted immediately when it received word of the disinvitations.

There are still a few troubling aspects to this episode. One is that not one person who pushes Israel to make further concessions, objected to this treatment of the Israelis. If Egypt could get away with such a blatant violation of the spirit of peace, wouldn’t that just encourage Israel’s other opponents that violations of treaties will be tolerated. Maybe, as those lecturing Israel point out, you only make peace with your enemies, but once you make peace they should no longer be your enemies.

And even if the peace processors couldn’t be bothered, isn’t there at least one feminist organization that would object to antisemitism being allowed to interfere with an effort to improve women’s health?

Those who really want peace really ought to show that they mean it and stop pretending that Israel’s the central obstacle to peace in the Middle East.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

Israeli officials across the board have condemned the report, saying their country had little choice but to take harsh action against militants who were terrorizing southern Israel. They also blame Hamas for civilian casualties, saying the Islamic militant group took cover in residential areas during the fighting. However, Goldstone’s strong credentials as a respected South African jurist, his Jewish faith and past support for Israeli causes have made it hard for Israel to dismiss the claims.

Last year, when the UNHRC was looking for someone to head the inquiry into Gaza—the mandate of which was as follows:

“to investigate all violations of international human rights law and international humanitarian law by the occupying Power, Israel, against the Palestinian people throughout the Occupied Palestinian Territory, particularly in the occupied Gaza Strip, due to the current aggression,”

it couldn’t get its number one choice to head the commission. Mary Robinson, who is known to be an unfriend to Israel at best, refused, saying the mandate was a foregone conclusion against Israel alone. But Judge Richard Goldstone, eminent jurist from apartheid South Africa, self-proclaimed Zionist, and Jew, did not refuse. When the UNHRC tapped him, they won the lottery. If Israel objected to the report, the UNHRC could point out the facts. Goldstone is Jewish, he’s pro-Israel (even though we haven’t found much more than he and his daughter saying he’s very pro-Israel), and he says he’s a Zionist. These facts allow the UNHRC to counter the anti-Israel card in one fell swoop. The logic goes like this: Since Goldstone is not biased against Israel, how can he submit a report that is biased against Israel? Indeed, that is exactly what the commission’s defenders are saying.

But it’s so much more than that. The media are also doing much of the water-carrying for the UNHRC. The fact that 26 out of 32 UNHRC resolutions concern Israel is never brought up. The fact that the OIC dominates the council is irrelevant. What is relevant is that Richard Goldstone is a Jew who says he is pro-Israel and a Zionist, and therefore, the report cannot be anti-Israel.

And so, when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu decries the Goldstone Commission’s report, the AP explains that Israel is going to have a hard time disproving the report because Goldstone is Jewish and pro-Israel. When you have Israel’s supporters across the world pointing out the many errors, obfuscations, and outright lies in the report, you get Israel’s detractors pointing out that Goldstone is Jewish and pro-Israel, and therefore, the report can’t be biased.

Look again at the quote above. The AP does not refute Netanyahu’s statements that Hamas used human shields and hid within civilian areas. The AP does not refute Netanyahu’s statement that Hamas was terrorizing Israel. Instead, the AP emphasizes that Richard Goldstone is Jewish, pro-Israel, and a respected judge from apartheid South Africa—and therefore, Israel is going to have a hard time “dismissing” the report. In other words, Goldstone is Jewish and pro-Israel, and therefore the report can’t be biased.

It’s one of the logical fallacies. It’s known as “argument from authority,” and it is utterly vapid and meaningless. But the world is full of people who take what they read in the newspaper at face value, so this meme is going to succeed in its goal. The Goldstone Commission report’s job is to delegitimize Israel in the eyes of the international law crowd. The Palestinians will be pushing for trials at the Hague as hard as they can, and if the Obama administration doesn’t push back hard enough, the trials will happen.

That will be the slippery slope down which Israel must not go. The Arab and Muslim nations are trying to defeat Israel in the international arena, because they cannot defeat her on the battlefield. They are using a strategy that has been used against Jews for thousands of years: They found one of our own to be the figurehead for their anti-Jewish actions. Because if a Jew is speaking out against other Jews, well, then, he can’t possibly be biased. Just ask known Israel-haters Gilad Atzmon or Noam Chomsky. They’re Jewish. They can’t possibly be biased.

Right.

You know which ones crack me up the most? The ones who accuse me of being a racist and then go on to tell me that all Jews are Nazis, or something like that. I figure most of those are the ones who have to wipe the spittle off their screen when they’re done reading my post.

Or they’re the ones with the little tiny dicks. Peabrains go without saying.

Then again, I do have a lot more fodder for my Freakmail folder. Time for another post of the lovely sentiments of the anti-Israel crowd, at least, when I can delve back down into the sewers again.

By the way, one thing I haven’t done in a while is invoke the Yourish.com mantra: Anti-semites of the world, just die already. That includes all the ones who left me the lovely, unapproved comments.