Galway Free Palestine Campaign : The "common interests" of Nazism and Zionism

by TD - FPC Mon Sep 29, 2008 14:58

2

Yousuf (seated)

by Susan Tue Sep 30, 2008 12:31

Does this type of discourse really do anything to advance the cause of the Palestinians today ?

In the same way that those on the other side shout " The Mufti was an admirer of Hitler" and it happens to be true, this may be true and I am sure its all well researched , but is it relevant ?

Does it really matter how these things came to pass or the strange and frightening unions that were forged along the way? In a way one could say that this type of framing of the terms of the conflict make it more likely that the Palestinians will be associated with the Holocaust even if only in a vague manner. Such associations are always counter-productive for the Palestinian side. The Palestinian Israeli debate always goes to pot when each side starts wallowing around in each other's history and when the debate goes off on a tangent, it's more to the detriment of the Palestinian side.
Keeping the debate fuzzy and stumbling around the annals of history while the actual decisive facts on the ground solidify, has always been Israel's number 1 ploy.

by redjade Tue Sep 30, 2008 17:54

Susan asks: 'Does this type of discourse really do anything to advance the cause of the Palestinians today?'

No kidding! I feel sad for the Palestinians that have to put up with this borderline and not so borderline Anti-Semetic/Anti-Jewish and just plain crazy referencing being done by this campaign.

TD writes: 'Zionism's collusion with Nazism and the betrayal of the Jewish people leading up to and during the Holocaust'

Months ago they were hijacking the African Blood Diamonds campaign now they are leading us to believe that the Holocaust was caused by Jews! Can this campaign stoop any lower?!

And, thank you TD for showing the public your web browsing habits. We now understand where you are coming from.

At the bottom of this mostly unsourced rant, TD writes:

' Related Link: http://www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/article.asp?ID=1159 '

And what is 'Related'?...
If one goes to http://TheTruthSeeker.co.uk you find the top link that says: 'Click here: essential reading for newer readers'

Click on that link and you will find articles like:
• Who Are The Illuminati?
• Waco: The Untold Story.
• Was Timothy McVeigh Really Executed?
• The Man Who Would Be King - Some say that Prince Michael of Albany has a more legitimate claim to the throne of England than the Windsors. Are they right?

...and my favourite
• Asia Tsunami Proved the Biggest War Crime in History

One article even asks: 'Professor Dershowitz: can you provide the name, with proof, of one Jewish child who was killed in a gas chamber at Auschwitz?'

also on the TheTruthSeeker.co.uk website you find a prominent link to the famously anti-Semetic/Anti-Jewish website Xymphora and links to numerous '9/11 Truther' websites by Alex Jones and other nutters.

The rest of the website hides behind the legitimate and excellent journalism of people like Robert Fisk, John Pilger and people like Craig Murray. But, of course, they can do little to stop from being linked to or republished on such a website.

But back to TD's largely unsourced rant written above. No matter how well he may try to source it in his own defence, it must still be recognized in totality for what it is: a slightly sophisticated skirting of the borderlines of the well known memes of Anti-Semitism.

I suppose my question is this: Does the Galway Free Palestine Campaign, or Palestine Solidarity Society, or the Irish Palestine Solidarity Committee ( http://www.IPSC.ie ) wish to continue to be associated with TD's indymedia posts and writings?

And I will repeat Susan's question: 'Does this type of discourse really do anything to advance the cause of the Palestinians today?'

by TD - Free Palestine Campaign Tue Sep 30, 2008 19:38

For a supine world frantic to be deluded, the trompe l'oeil of an endless fraudulent "peace process" with a compliant stooge, Mahmoud Abbas, in which the West Bank and the hopes for a future viable Palestinian state are sliced, diced and consigned to the Magimix of history, I venture, is "Israel's number 1 ploy".

The accusation: "that this type of framing of the terms of the conflict make it more likely that the Palestinians will be associated with the Holocaust even if only in a vague manner," is deeply pernicious and offensive.

My "framing" as you put it, shines a light on the nature of the beast, the psychopathology and provenance of Zionism - historical amnesia, it appears, is your nostrum for a solution to the conflict rather than a just solution anchored and illuminated with understanding gleaned through "stumbling around the annals of history."

by Susan Tue Sep 30, 2008 22:07

TD

Whether the world be deluded by a trick of the eye with faux peace processes, or a trick of the mind with convoluted historical narratives the end result is as I said and as you have agreed : to detract from the facts being created on the ground whilst the Greater Israel project trundles ever onwards to what end, even it does not know at this stage.
My point is that there are current day problems facing the Palestians that you will be fully aware of. The siege on Gaza not being the least pressing. The tragic split in Palestinian unity, the Settler attacks etc.

These are the problems that we should be presenting to the Israeli people as their legacy of the birth of the state. It will be hard enough to even get them to acknowledge that a fraction of the current disaster facing the Palestinians is a direct product of their statehood. I dare say they couldnt give a Flying F""k about "The "common interests" of Nazism and Zionism "and all it achieves is to identify the Palestinian struggle for Independence with a bunch of spurious negativity that is irrelevant to their current problems.

This type of subject when associated with the immediate needs of the Palestinian people will serve to either confuse or alienate the potential sympathiser, in my opinion.

by TD - Free Palestine Campaign Wed Oct 01, 2008 13:16

It seems I'm in bed with strange bed fellows, indeed, fellows with a penchant for lurid raving: "One article even asks: 'Professor Dershowitz: can you provide the name, with proof, of one Jewish child who was killed in a gas chamber at Auschwitz?'' ... Asia Tsunami Proved the Biggest War Crime in History", but wait, according to "redjade" in his low, ad hominem attack, the same website sports the "excellent journalism of people like Robert Fisk, John Pilger and ... Craig Murray," (with the excellent William Hughes, powerful writers that I would happily climb into bed with for some serious, platonic, hanky panky, as it were) but, reprehensibly, for the purpose of rubbishing the messenger, Hughes is lumped in with the dark denizens of this Pandora's box rather than Fisk, Pilger and Murray , to put it to you point blank, the source is irrelevant, even if I gleaned all the information from the website of notorious Holocaust denier, David Irving, but the info was solid documented fact and fit to be inscribed, let's say, on stone tablets atop Mount Horeb, then it's fit for further dissemination?. Pray tell, where in my "not so borderline Anti-Semetic (sic)/Anti-Jewish ... rant" are the historical facts twisted, slimed, perverted and inverted and my painting of the dark provenance of Zionism is commensurate to your contemptible charge.?

by Peed off with ISPC (Galway) Wed Oct 01, 2008 14:06

You provide an emotional connection between Israel and Nazism, which is quite simply a piece
of propaganda which simplifies the issues reducing the core of your argument to present day
jews wishing to create an Apartheid State against Palestinians. The issues are not that simple.

There is no geo-political analysis within the piece of propaganda which you chose to publish
on Rosh Hashanah- New Year and in the cycle of ten days to Yom Kippur.

The problems , not least amongst them the overt interference by the current US regime in the region are not that simple.
Indeed the whole anti-Israeli propaganda can be reduced to an overtly emotional political analysis
based in' Irish chip on the shoulder 'empathy and/or the deep problems of enforced Arab diaspora.

Why cannot you provide an analysis based in a presentation of the issues that both Jews
and Palestinians are working on together through multiple sites, organisations and groups?

Why cannot you present the issues in the forms of symposiums with invited speakers?

Instead there is a bleak attempt at racial empathy with Palestine that actually borders on the
deeply patronising and is based in sheer reductionism on your part.

Things are not as simple as you would want them to appear and Palestinians have been
searching for ways of talking on the issues with Israelis for some time. This is not the first time
that the ISPC (based in the Galway region) has sought to ring-fence the issues into appalling
language and propaganda (and it won't be the last). One of your previous reports had the wording
changed which was deeply offensive to many people who read this newswire. If you choose
to adhere to a propagandist's portion in extremity-what kind of reaction do you expect?
It does a disservice to those who are working to deal with these issues at multiple levels:
reducing the issues to such a quantifiably simplistic analysis.

(This and other reports by Galway ISPC have indeed bordered on hate-language and
radical anti-semitism).

by Anon Wed Oct 01, 2008 14:15

http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2008/10/409793.html

Look at the Signs, Listen to the People!

by Susan Wed Oct 01, 2008 16:23

And my point is still the same.

So what if the Mufti idolised Hitler - is that any reason to diminish the urgent and drastic condition of the Palestinians or to question their rights under internaitonal law ? So what if strange and alarming things happened along the way between the Zionists and the dark forces of Nazism. For your average Israeli who might one day be convinced to take note of his government's actions in the occupied territories all that is irrelevant crap.

.Now , predictably, this thread has descended into typical farce and the Urgent issues facing the Palestinians are absolutely nowhere to be seen buried under a pile of irrelevant crap. I cant see how anything is gained.
And worse . now the door is wide open for the usual mob of bullshitters to wade in with their fake outrage in order to blur the pages more and more and it plays straight into the hands of the right wing zionists that the IPSC is supposed to be opposing in solidarity with the Palestinians.

by TD - Free Palestine Campaign Wed Oct 01, 2008 17:29

"You provide an emotional connection between Israel and Nazism, which is quite simply a piece of propaganda" : Anti-Semitic free, irrefutable fact and history is what I was aiming for and if the sordid collusion of some Zionists with Nazis in the past engendered anger and disgust in some readers, I understand.

"Why cannot you provide an analysis based in a presentation of the issues that both Jews and Palestinians are working on together through multiple sites, organisations and groups?" : See postings;

SS Free Gaza and SS Liberty break the siege of Gaza http://www.indymedia.ie/article/88808

Jeff Halper : An Israeli in Galway, Resisting Dispossession, Redeeming Israel http://www.indymedia.ie/article/87835

Free Palestine/Tibet Campaigns hoisted a different torch than China's last weekend in London http://www.indymedia.ie/article/87115

Solidarity for Bil'in, contempt for CRH, brutality from the IOF in the West Bank http://www.indymedia.ie/article/86492

The Free Palestine Campaign publicised and expressed solidarity for a number of weeks in Galway for the breaking of the Gaza siege - two of the participants working in tandem with Palestinians and internationals to effect this were Holocaust survivor, Hedy Epstein and the sweet and courtly, Jeff Halper, co founder of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (an activist FPC became much enamoured of when we met him at our Shop Street info stall). FPC also protested last April with Neturei Karta Jews, Palestinians and UK Palestine Solidarity Campaign activists outside Windsor Castle where Prince Philip was hosting a gala dinner for the Jewish National Fund (scroll down photos), wearing my then IPSC hat I protested with Israeli Anarchists Against the Wall (awesomely brave) in Bil'in and attended briefings by the Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, B'Tselem, when I was recently over in Israel and the West Bank. Shalom!

by TD - Free Palestine Campaign Wed Oct 01, 2008 18:53

"Does this type of discourse really do anything to advance the cause of the Palestinians today ... Does it really matter how these things came to pass?" : Including the collusion of Mohammad Amin al-Husayni, Grand Mufti of Jerusalem with the Nazis, addressing the history, nature and driving force of the Israeli/Palestine conflict and its participants at the very least advances understanding which, hopefully, leads to action for Palestine.?

If you are contemptuous of history as a means to gain insight, Israel is very much au fait with its emotive propaganda value to cynically gain sympathy and neutralise conscience: Gideon Levy, in a recent article in the Israeli newspaper, Haaretz is withering in his contempt for this: "(Israel) is depicted to our guests as a stockpile of tragedies and catastrophes; a fragile, threatened entity where the real fun takes place when its citizens wallow in its disasters. Only in Israel is it incumbent upon a guest passing through to see every wrong done to its people lest the visit not be considered legitimate .... If only there had been just a bit more time, Obama's hosts would not have missed an opportunity to include our national suicide memorial on the itinerary, Masada, just as they did when President George W. Bush was in town, or the grave of Yitzhak Rabin, to which many other guests have been guided. And there's of course the mandatory flyover to show him Israel's "narrow waist," the Achilles' heel of a small, weak country, that same country whose arsenal of weapons includes practically every firearm known to man ... Even the memory of the Holocaust will one day run dry. So perhaps we should act preemptively and change direction? Maybe it's time we return to the days when we were proud of our accomplishments and not our suffering ... Like a beggar who shows off his amputated limbs in broad daylight, Israel portrays its disasters for all to see, without shame and with quite a bit of cynicism, in the hope that someone will throw a coin or a bone in its direction. Except that Israel is not a beggar and its amputated limbs do not arouse more pity than those of a good number of other countries in much more difficult predicaments. The difference is that those other countries have not turned their sighs and grunts into a national anthem"

by sylvia - none Thu Oct 02, 2008 09:42 sylvia_m at hotmail dot co dot uk n/a

You don't have to be anti-Jewish or anti-Israeli to take on board the following facts

20% of all deaths of children under 1 year old are as a direct result of the Israeli checkpoints.
Of the 73 pregnant women held at Israeli checkpoints attempting to be allowed through for
medical attention, ONE THIRD died in childbirth right there at the checkpoints.

That is NOT history - this is within the past 2 years.
Now all you apologists for Israel can justify these figures by saying that the checkpoints are necessary
to prevent suicide bombers.
I say to you that you would not let a dog die in this way.

by Susan Thu Oct 02, 2008 11:03

Sorry TD, I still dont see the use for this in the debate on Palestinian rights

I am always interested in the writings of Gideon Levy. As an Israeli writer he brings much to the debate that is generally missing from the Israeli side of the table, honesty and objectivity being foremost among them. The point Levy is making as he goes through Israel's litany of woes that it fervently rubs in the face of every would be friend, is that sooner or later the trough of potential sympathy will run dry for Israel. So rummaging through the vaults of historical negativity is counter productive to progress in his opinion. To that end , he finishes his article with the abrupt phrase : "Enough with sobbing in this country, already."

I say similar to you,: "Enough with the moribund runinations of the past".

In the words of another great Jewish intellectual, recently interviewed Norman Finkelstein had this exchange with the questioner.

Levesque-Alam:
In an interview I did with you about four years ago for Left Hook, I asked you about your description of Zionism as a response to and a reciprocation of Gentile anti-Semitism. And I asked you about the sustainability and appeal of Zionism, and you said, “it’s an interesting question that would require a subtle answer,” and you went on to catalogue some positives like the revival and preservation of the Hebrew language and then of course some of the negatives.

Given that you’ve been working on a new book on American Zionism, do you have new insights about the viability of Zionism and the future trajectory or trajectories that are available?

Finkelstein:
If we are serious about trying to resolve the conflict, we should not get sidetracked by abstract ideological questions. We should take Zionism as an ideology out of the debate. Rather, we should focus on political issues. The right question is not, “Are you now or have you ever been a Zionist.” The questions should be, “Do you support the demolition of homes and torture?” “Do you support Jewish-only roads and Jewish-only settlements?” “Do you support a political settlement embraced by the entire world apart from the U.S., Israel and some South Sea atolls?”

http://www.dissidentvoice.org/2008/09/an-interview-with...tein/

by redjade Thu Oct 02, 2008 11:13

'Now all you apologists for Israel....'

Sylvia, no one on this thread has said anything pro-Israel (so far) - all comments made thus far have been pro-Palestinian.

by TD - Free Palestine Campaign Thu Oct 02, 2008 14:30

Does it really matter how these things came to pass ... Irrelevant subjects distract people.?" : Clearly, they don't matter to you and the monstrous collusion of some sections of the Zionist movement with the Nazis, in your benighted uglification of the debate and preachy point of view, are "irrelevant", only "distract people" and should not be vented. I'm afraid, I can't acquiesce in your wished-for sanitizing and burying of history, for the logical consequences of your argument, if projected onto a history or discussion of the Jewish, German and European people - if such malodorous questions of similiar stripe to yours are asked and acted on - will inevitably lead to such sanitizing: "Does it really matter how the Holocaust came to pass ... The Shoah is an irrelevant subject and only serves to distract people".

Zionist collusion with the Nazis is the elephant in the parlour, it cannot be ignored, and in comparison, a quantum leap beyond that on the scale of evil, the Holocaust. Shame on you!

by Danya IPSC (personal capacity) Thu Oct 02, 2008 15:42

TD you are obsessed. You are destroying support for the Palestinian cause. given your activities including your past postings on Indymedia there is reason to suppose that you are Anti-Semitic. I'm just glad you are no longer in the IPSC.

by Susan Thu Oct 02, 2008 16:21

Well once again that is my point exactly.

With in the context of freeing Palestine and highlighting the continually ongoing and worsening situation of the Palestinians in the Occupiued Palestinian lands it is correct to say : It doesnt really matter how the Holocaust came to pass ... The Shoah is an irrelevant subject and only serves to distract people.

And while you may be also correct when you say that Zionist collusion with the Nazis is the elephant in the parlour, you need to accept that it is not sitting in the Palestinian parlour. It's the occupation that is sitting in the Palestinian parlour.
It is also not sitting in the parlour of the people of Israel who ultimately will not care about your issue when it comes to achieving security for their children.

In the interests of Israeli Security and Palestinian Independence the Israelis need to be reflecting on the current evident crimes of the occupation and not on the past alleged crimes of zionist politics.
Outside and inside Israel the people who are being asked to show solidarity with the Palestinians or even with the Israelis for than matter, need to know that the blame for the lack of both their respective dreams, lies directly at the feet of those in the Knesset and the IDF of 2008 not those of 1948.

by FrankAdam - private citizen Fri Oct 03, 2008 10:14

Little nations are obliged to tiptoe between the tulips. In the end Israel saved and rehabilitated lots of Jewish survivors and refugees from Arab riotous nationalism; and the PLO has failed - so far - to make peace in which to rehabilitate and prosper its people.

Whatever the fringe activities of Eichmann, Kastner and the Lehi; come the crunch of the Spanish Civil War Jewish members of the International Brigades notoriously outnumbered and out percentaged their populations; in WW II a million Jews fought Hitler and Mussolini in Soviet and US uniforms; it would be nice to know if the many Irish who joined the UK forces (more than in Ulster!) outnumbered the 55 000 UK Jews who fought in UK forces in WW II? or even the 26 000 Palestine Jews who fought in British colours?

Just how many Arabs fought Hitler and Mussolini?

Any individual twit can start a fight - as the Palestine Arabs did by rejecting UN 181; but it takes both parties to an existing fight to agree to end it. UN policy is still partition two states for two peoples. When are all the Arab parties going to accept that?

When are all Arabs recognising the Arab mistake of pursuing the Greater Palestine one state solution? that because of their mistaken policy the Arab refugees of 1948 are not returning if peace is to be made? For that matter when are the Palestine Arabs going to show they can live at peace democratically with their own violently tribal and sectarian selves?

When Galway drops his own obsessing demons, he might actually notice that one reason why Israel is in Judea and Samaria is because when she left Gaza - intending to then leave Judea and Samaria - the Gaza Hamas merely continued their vanity war. If they had kept their powder dry Israel would have also left the West Bank of Jordan, but then the Arabs would not have sounded plausible blaming their incompetence at self government on Israel. FDA

by TD - Free Palestine Campaign Fri Oct 03, 2008 15:26

"I'm just glad you are no longer in the IPSC" : A state of mind I plead guilty to, even more so, my absolutely necessary resignation prompted by the Ireland-Palestine Solidarity Campaign shamelessly, short shrifting and betraying two pro-Palestine activists and myself when the two were overtly, racially abused by Republican Sinn Fein stalwarts at a Galway Alliance Against War rally by issuing an abject, spineless official apology to RSF after I took vigorous exception to that outfits racism on Indymedia.

“the IPSC has a clear policy of co-operating with all political parties working in common cause for the Palestinian people” was the only, for the want of a better word, "reason," proferred to me for this Judas cringe - when contacted by the outraged activists in question, contemptuous silence was the IPSC's only proferring and still is.

"TD you are obsessed" : another mea culpa, perhaps,? that piece of flung slime can perhaps illuminate the motivation which prompted me to spend ten hours last Saturday in Shop Street striving for Palestine or as you would put it (or more to the point, have to put it) wallowing in my "Anti-Semitic" ways, then again, conscience might be the motivation not to stand idly by and do something - for instance, another 8 or 10 hours tomorrow.? What do you do when you're not getting your jollies and "gladness" by spitting your venom (in a personal IPSC capacity,of course) from the long grass, composing further apologias to RSF, perhaps.?

by Yousuf Loughnane - Palestine Solidarity Society - NUIG Fri Oct 03, 2008 17:23 uniteblasian at gmail dot com

Danya, how can you claim to be in solidarity with the Palestinians when you release verbal bile like that in your comment? How can you say you are in support of Palestine and at the same time spit insults like that at a stalwart like TD? He does more to spread awareness of the Palestinian cause in 8 hours on shop street then you do in a whole year's campaign. And as an answer to a previous question, Yes, I will always asscoiate myself with TD and that is not only in a personal capacity but also as the Auditor of the Palestine Solidarity Society in NUIG, he is the sole reason most people in Galway are aware of the real truth of the Palestine-Israel conflict. Finally, to see through the mist of crap that has come out of the responses to TD's very insightful understanding of the reasons why we must raise awareness for Palestine in the first place; if someone says "Islamic Terrorists" are the new nazis, then there would be no petty comments in respnse but silent agreement, but once someone highlights the hidden truth that Zionism is Naziisms close cousin, then lo and behold out come the dye-in-the-wool fence-sitters to say "hey, keep it balanced", double standards is what I say, DOUBLE STANDARDS.

by redjade Fri Oct 03, 2008 20:32

Yousuf wrote: '...the hidden truth that Zionism is Naziisms close cousin...'

(Apologies to Susan) I would like to modify and ask you Susan's question:
'Does questioning the Holocaust [or rewriting its history] really do anything to advance the cause of the Palestinians today?'

by Susan Fri Oct 03, 2008 23:29

With respect, redjade, but if it is to be my question then I will have to modify your paraphrase in accordance.

To whom it may concern,

Does discussing the Holocaust , or questioning history, really do anything to advance the cause of the Palestinians today?

by Susan Sat Oct 04, 2008 14:24

Y-O-U-S--U-F,

you said : " I am merely promoting the unveiling of information that will shine light on why the Israelis are acting in the way they are towards the Palestinians in the present day "

Well great , if thats what you are doing then well done !

So can you please explain to someone who obviously doesnt feel passionate enough about the cause to understand on their own, how the topic of this article shines any light on why the Israelis are acting in the way they are towards the Palestinians in the present day ?

You see if I thought that this article could do such a thing then I wouldnt be questioning the vailidity of the topic.

by Susan Sat Oct 04, 2008 19:53

Yousuf

I'll have to beg to differ, as on my third reading of the thing I didnt find a single reference to the crimes being endured by the Palestinians today. I didnt see a single comparison made that might show how large numbers of modern Israeli politicans are similar in manner to these older zionists mentioned in the article. I certainly didnt see anything that might prove that these modern day Israeli politicians have no regard for their own Jewish people, and want to use Palestine as a dumping ground.
In the actual review, there similarly appears no comparisons that might reinforce the theory that we are being invited to make a comparisons between the two. Furthermore and perhaps most indicative of the fact that this article does not shine light on any reasons for the current crimes being committed against the Palestinians is the fact that the review and indeed the title of the book ; Lenni Brenner's "51 Documents: Zionist Collaboration with the Nazis " do in no way purport to draw the attention of the reader to the current occupation or draw comparisons between Zionist / Nazi Collaboration and Israels crimes against the Palestinians.

I am not saying that the book is not a legitimate piece of scholarship or that it is does not tackle important issues and questions. I am not implying that I have any inkling of or interest in the motives of anyone posting such an article or supporting the posting of such an article.

I am simply asking if any body believes that this type of discourse can really do anything to advance the cause of the Palestinians today ? And also asking generally if discussing the Holocaust , or questioning history surrounding it can really do anything to advance the cause of the Palestinians today?

Personally I believe that the answers to those questions is a resounding "No"

I fully accept that i might be wrong but am certain that everything I have read on this page does more to refinorce my position that contradict it.

by On the other hand Sun Oct 05, 2008 01:04

If the Jews of Palestine supported the Nazis, why did 30,000 of them fight in the Jewish Brigade Group and the Jewish battalions of the British Army between 1940 and 1945?