Friday, December 13, 2019

Heading Steadily Toward Brexit

"At the end of the day, you're still a bloody Jew. It's a good reminder that you are still a stranger in whichever country you are."
"I'm speaking as someone in his 70s. I don't think anyone in their 20s or their 30s would agree or understand. But, just remember, it's not a permanent home."
Joseph Deutsch, 74, retiree, Orthodox Jew, Golders Green, London

"Literally, if it were anyone but him, [we] would be Labour. He is extremely anti-Semitic."
"[She would be happy to vote for an earlier iteration, a Tony Blair or a Gordon Brown, but voted Conservative in protest]."
Tanya Ohana, 24, retail worker, Golders Green

"Even if Jeremy Corbyn leaves tomorrow or Friday, this could be generations before there's confidence and trust between U.K. Jews and the Labour party."
"The once great anti-racist party has  vanished."
"The anxiety is really high, and it's genuine. This really is how the Jews feel. This is not a smear."
"It's heartbreaking to see all this here. We hope for a good outcome, but there's no good outcome. There's no winners, whatever the result of the general election."
Marie van der Zyl, president, Board of Deputies of British Jews

"Anti-Semitism in any form is vile and wrong. It is an evil within our society."
"There is no place for it -- and under a Labour government, it will not be tolerated in any form whatsoever."
Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn
Jeremy Corbyn (second from left) holding a wreath during a visit to the Martyrs of Palestine, in Tunisia, in October 2014. (Facebook page of the Palestinian embassy in Tunisia)

Other than for the other very clear messages that have come through to the public and which have riveted Jewish attention to the sentiments, the expressions, the company he keeps and the moods he encourages within the Labour party that convince anyone with eyes to see, ears to hear, and the intelligence to interpret, that the Labour party has been well infiltrated with haters who have followed the example of their leader, a man who consorts with terrorists, finding them fine people, and who personally appears to believe that Jews are an evil menace.

An astounding number of British Jews, of a British community that has lived in Great Britain for at least a thousand years, are convinced there will be no place for them in the country of their birth and heritage, should Labour, with Jeremy Corbyn as its head, lead the country by winning the popular majority vote of the 12 December general election which was supposed to be all about Brexit but which has become suffused with a musty air of anti-Semitism.

When, in 2011 he appeared on Iranian television to state his belief of "bias" by the BBC when it claimed "that Israel has a right to exist", this was one signal, but there were many before that, and many more to follow, none oblique nor nuanced, all clearly 'biased' in favour of rancid anti-Semitism. At the end of the day, however, Britain voted. Jews who despaired that most of their countrymen had no investment in the agony of their exposure to racist tropes that once again targeted Jews, had a reprieve.

The Conservative Party was given a mandate by the British voters to proceed with Brexit, and the European Union knows it now has the opportunity to bargain for a UK-EU trade agreement that will benefit both parties. The sigh of relief exuded by the Jewish community in Britain is echoed by that of the Jewish communities everywhere in the diaspora and Israel. But the bitterness at betrayal by Labour, and the fears that arose when Jews in Britain felt they were being ostracized will remain, and perhaps fade with time.

History...repeating itself...time and again...inexorably...distressingly...does it foretell the future?
"The relief among the Jewish community is palpable. And the gratitude."
"But as the days and weeks move on, there is something on which we will reflect: the willingness of so many of our so-called allies to campaign for and embrace Jeremy Corbyn."
Stephen Pollard, editor, Jewish Chronicle newspaper

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posted by Pieface @ Friday, December 13, 2019

Thursday, August 22, 2019

IRA Redux : Violence on the Horizon


Embedded video

"I am of the firm belief this [bombing] was a deliberate attempt to lure police and ATO [Ammunition Technical Officers] colleagues into the area to murder them."
"We've six attempted attacks to murder police officers this year. ... When you add all that up, we do believe that there is a time for reflection and a time to question what type of society we want to live in here."
"Many of us ... sense that things are becoming more entrenched and progress that has been made is slipping back a little bit." 
"Terrorism of this nature is a societal problem. We shouldn't take our peace for granted."
Deputy Chief Constable Stephen Martin, Police Service of Northern Ireland

"Slipping back a 'little' bit"; quite the understatement, that. The Irish Republican Army resurrected, back for phase two, brought back by popular acclaim in some quarters. Police do, of course, suspect that the Continuity IRA [New IRA] representing two small Irish nationalist militant groups claiming responsibility for several recent attacks, were also responsible for the blast, where no injuries resulted, but a very emphatic message was delivered of more to come.

Militants? Hardly; that soft wording fails to describe what the IRA represented in their hey day of murderous atrocities committed with a sense of entitled impunity. An attack planned for the town of Craigavon last month alongside a bomb discovered under an officer's car in Belfast in June bespeak similar attacks which failed to succeed in causing actual deaths but did succeed in putting authorities on notice, all tracked to what the police politely call nationalist militants.

The lethal estrangement between the two sects of Christianity, Protestant and Catholic, behind the carnage, the threats, the murders, the fear, which authorities denied had anything much to do with religion and everything to do with territorial ambitions. In the bombing that took place in County Fermanagh where police were investigating a suspicious device on Saturday discovered to be a hoax, the scene was set for another explosive device nearby exploding at 10:35 a.m.
Police
Police at the scene of the explosion near Fermanagh   Pacemaker

Timed to go off as an army bomb disposal team -- Ammunition Technical Officers -- along with police were close to the scene. This accords with the recent months of attacks on police in Northern Ireland. Groups opposed to British rule, still seething over the betrayal of their cause by the 1998 peace accord ending decades of sectarian violence. The message: the IRA lives! And remains invested in its life-and-death struggle to reclaim what they feel is theirs alone.

Deputy Police Chief Martin indicated that despite having no intelligence that would link Monday's attack to Brexit, he felt it likely that uncertainty over Britain's departure from the European Union along with Northern Ireland's suspended government impacting on the future added to tensions and precipitated the attacks.

Britain's sole land frontier with the European Union on departure from the EU with or without a transition agreement represents the single most contentious portion of negotiations.

Irish nationalist and pro-British politicians condemned the blast that took place on Monday. But that violence is once again taking centre-stage in Northern Ireland, resurrecting bitter animosities is clear enough, as it was when a New IRA gunman opening fire at police during a Londonderry riot in April saw journalist Lyra McKee shot dead.
Paul Faith, AFP | Traffic crosses the border into Northern Ireland from the Irish Republic



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posted by Pieface @ Thursday, August 22, 2019

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