27 July 2006

Please take a minute to thank the Evening Standard and Will Self for an excellent, courageous commentary today entitled "I may be Jewish but Israel is wrong this time."

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There is no link to the commentary on the Standard's website, so following are extracts:

"... there's also the current indefensible behaviour of the Israeli army in the Lebanon (I can't bring myself to utter the oxymoron 'defence force'). While I, too, consider that Israel has the right to exist and to defend itself, I don't think it's an unconditional right. But the Israelis have a conception of themselves as a helpless and abused child who can ask the parental West for unconditional love."

"It's this that explains their hatred - and apparent targeting of the UN. A multilateral organisation aimed at promoting peace smacks too much of maturity to Baby Zion. That's why he stamps on their mandates."

"It's time the Israelis grew up and recognised that just as their own aspiration to nationhood first manifested itself as terrorism, so the terrorist activities of Hammas and Hezbollah can only be ended once they, too, are talked to like young adults, rather than savagely beaten with 500lb bombs."

"A large proportion of British Jewry finds the behaviour of Israel as indefensible as I do, but is unwilling to speak out for fear of giving succour to a nebulous - but terrifying - anti-Semitic enemy. They, also, are emotionally blackmailed by the pro-Israel lobby into believing that to do so would be, in some way, to deny the reality of the Holocaust."

"In truth, British Jews must dissent strongly from the aggressive and apartheid policies of Israel, just as many moderate Muslims dissent from the nihilistic madness of the Islamist extremists."

"With the US and British governments prepared to be endlessly indulgent parents, it's up to Diaspora Jews to say, softly but firmly: 'Enough is enough'."

"This is the sort of Jew I'm prepared to be, rather than the kind who either continues to infantilise Israel or treats this babyish nation with what they imagine to be a benign neglect: handing out sweetie 'donations' instead of firm remonstration."