Forty years have now passed since the Six Day War, which resulted in Israeli control over the Sinai Peninsula, Gaza Strip, West Bank, eastern Jerusalem and the Golan Heights.

Take this short quiz and test your knowledge on the history behind the events of June 1967, to better enable you to put the Six Day War into its proper context - even when the media fails to do so.

Click here to take the Quiz

Michael Gove, British Member of Parliament and former Associate Editor of The Times, announced yesterday that he was leaving the National Union of Journalists over its call for a boycott of Israel. From The Times:

I have been a member of a trade union for nearly 20 years now. The union to which I belong, the National Union of Journalists, kept me fed and watered when I was a young trainee and out on strike. I was grateful for the support and camaraderie of its members and appreciated the virtues of solidarity. As time has worn on I’ve kept faith with the union because it kept me going at a difficult time.

With the benefit of hindsight I realise that the strike for which I came out in support was mishandled. Better men and women than I, with much more to lose, lost it in a vain struggle. Yet they made those sacrifices in defence of a principle in which they believed, and they thought that their actions would protect younger journalists like me most. So it would have been more than churlish to fail to respect their sacrifice.

But now, reluctantly, I fear that I will have to part company with the union, even as I continue to respect the men and women who went out on strike, in its name, in Aberdeen nearly two decades ago. Because the NUJ recently passed a motion at its conference calling for a boycott.

This boycott is not of a repressive state that outlaws free expression (of which, sadly, there are still too many) but of one of the few states in the Middle East with a proper free press: Israel.

The NUJ exists to defend, among other virtues, freedom of speech. That virtue is better defended in Israel than in any other nation of the Middle East and it comes under assault daily from forces driven by fanaticism.

Now is a time, for all sorts of reasons, for showing solidarity with those defending democracy in that region, not for passing on the other side of the road. So, with no little sadness, I feel that I have to leave.

We have been asked to circulate details of the following event:

Foreign Policy Evening

organized by the Selsdon Group

‘Islamic Fundamentalism - the challenge to Western democracy’

Speakers:
Dr Julian Lewis MP, Shadow Defence Minister
Roey Gilad, Deputy Chief of Mission, Embassy of Israel

Date and Time:
Thursday, 12th April 2007 - 7:30pm.

Venue:
St Stephens Tavern
10 Bridge Street
London SW1A 2JR
(next to Westminster underground station)

For more details visit the Selsdon Group website.

Jewish-Arab researchers evaluate the economic dividends of peace
by Nicky Blackburn, Britain Israel Communications and Research Centre

A new report which shows that Palestinian-Israeli economic cooperation could lead to a huge growth in prosperity, a leap in exports, and a wave of lucrative tourism to the area is now being distributed to Israeli, Palestinian and international policy makers.

The research, which was carried out by Jewish and Palestinian economists at the Peres Centre for Peace and the Palestine Trade Centre (PalTrade), showed that more than 5.4 billion pounds in exports and 465,000 jobs for Palestinians, and 8.85 billion pounds in exports and 375,000 jobs for Israelis in agriculture, textile, construction and tourism could emerge within five to 10 years, once political stability is achieved between the warring sides.

Full report »

International Holocaust Remembrance Day, 27 January 2007

Anglicans for Israel is joining with St Paul’s Church, Kersal in Salford for a special Holocaust Remembrance Day event, to which all are welcome.
This is on Saturday 27 January, 2-4 pm. Venue: St Paul’s Church, Moor Lane, Kersal Salford M7 (near Manchester).

St Paul’s will also feature remembrance of the Holocaust in its Sunday services on 28 January. The Rector of St Paul’s, The Revd Lisa Battye, is a Patron of AFI.

Please also support the campaign Learn from History for Holocaust Day during Holocaust Week.

Please register your support on their website.

Broad Christian support for new Pan-European grassroot initiative to commemorate Holocaust Day

Brussels. 28 November, 2006

Christian leaders from a wide spectrum of traditions and denominations are expressing their full support for a brand new initiative to educate Europeans about the tragic realities of the Holocaust and what the implications are for today.

The campaign “learn from history” is initiated by the European Coalition for Israel in collaboration with a broad group of Christians leaders ranging from the charismatic movement to representatives from the Catholic church as well the Dutch reformed church.

“- History has proven that nobody is immune against the deadly virus of anti-Semitism. This is a message which is worth repeating year after year, especially at a time when anti-Semitic violence is again on the rise in Europe and the Jewish homeland is threatened with destruction”, says Willem Glashouwer, chairman of the European Coalition for Israel and an ordained minister in the Dutch reformed church. Glashouwer points out that “those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.”

The educational campaign is aiming at involving local churches throughout Europe to adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Day on January 27 as a Church day of remembrance and a day to learn from history.

“- The lessons from history are clear,” says Glashouwer. “If we do not take the first warnings seriously we may wake up too late. This is what happened in the 30´s and the 40´s but we cannot let it happen again.

Hence, when a world leader such as the Iranian president Ahmadinejad openly denies the historical facts of the Holocaust and is threatening to extinguish Israel we need to speak out”.

Earlier this year the European Coalition for Israel together with other concerned NGO´s successfully ran a campaign to stop the Iranian president from coming to the football World Cup in Germany.

“-This proves that also dictators are sensitive to world opinion.” says Glashouwer.

The new campaign, which will become an annual event, will be supported by a multilingual website where church leaders can download speaking points, outlines for sermons and other information needed to take part in the campaign.

The English version of the website is already online and the German and French versions will be added shortly. Other languages will be included as separate documents to be downloaded from the site.

The website will be regularly updated with information on churches taking part in the campaign as well as endorsements from political and Christian leaders.

It is already clear that the vice-president of the European Parliament Dr Ingo Friedrich will be one of the speakers at the main event in Brussels on Monday 29 January where Members of European Parliament, EU-officials as well as religious leaders are expected to take part.

For local churches the whole week leading up to January 27 has been suggested as a thematic week of the Holocaust. Churches are encouraged to organise separate events to reflect on the horrors of the Holocaust and what it means for today. Other churches may chose to incorporate the theme in to their Sunday service.

“ -For many years Christians considered Holocaust remembrance day, which is adopted both by the European Union and the United Nations, as only having relevance for the political leaders. Now it is time to recongise that this day also concerns Christians”, states the organisers.

“ - The colours of anti-Semitism change. Sometimes it expresses itself as political right wing, other times as left wing. Today it is often viewed as Islamic but, as history proves, it can just as well be Christian. But regardless of the form and shape the end result is always the same, hatred against the Jewish people.” explains Willem Glashouwer.

“-If the Church had just believed scripture and understood God´s love for the Jewish people the Holocaust may not have happened or may not have become so tragic, brutal and devastating” writes Reverend Malcolm Hedding from the International Christian Embassy Jerusalem in his outline for a sermon. He concludes “ However, we can make a difference today and we should”.

The initiative is supported by all the five founding members of the European Coalition for Israel * as well as respected church leaders from different parts of Europe. For more information please visit www.learnfromhistory.eu

Britain’s Sun newspaper reports that a Muslim police officer was excused from guarding the Israeli Embassy in London:

THE decision to excuse a Muslim cop from guarding the Israeli Embassy was last night branded “the beginning of the end for British policing”.

PC Alexander Omar Basha told chiefs he was unable to carry out duties at the London embassy — a top terror target — due to moral grounds after Israeli bombings in Lebanon.

Top brass granted his request last week, but Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Ian Blair last night ordered an immediate inquiry after our story broke. He said: “Having learned of this issue I have asked for an urgent review of the situation and a full report.”

Critics slammed the decision. Ex-Met Flying Squad commander John O’Connor said: “This is the beginning of the end for British policing.

“If they can allow this, surely they’ll have to accept a Jewish officer not wanting to work at an Islamic national embassy? Will Catholic cops be let off working at Protestant churches? Where will it end?

“This decision is going to allow officers to act in a discriminating and racist way.”

Read the full report »

Some remarks on Jostein Gaarder’s Julemysteriet / The Christmas Mystery
by Sylvia Haworth

I gather a furore has erupted in Norway concerning author Jostein Gaarder’s fairly hostile remarks about the state of Israel.

I cannot say I am surprised.

You see, I have read Gaarder’s highly-acclaimed children’s book, Julemysteriet/ ‘The Christmas Mystery’ (1992; English translation 1996; abridged English translation, 2002).

A Norwegian child named Elisabet vanishes in December 1948. She makes a mystic pilgrimage southward in space and backwards in time, through European Christendom to Bethlehem where she witnesses the birth of Jesus. After that, we are led to assume, she suddenly finds herself in 1948 ‘Palestine’, is adopted into an Arab ‘Palestinian’ family (p. 95, and p. 139) and becomes an advocate for their cause. There is a hint that the ‘mystical’ reading of her journey may parallel a this-worldly reading. I quote:

Elisabet thinks she was kidnapped by some very unhappy people who were willing to do almost anything so that the world should have its eyes opened to the suffering of the Palestinian people… Elisabet thinks they must have intended to take her back. Perhaps the people who kidnapped her wanted to try to get her father to write in the papers about all the people who were driven from village to village and finally herded into huge refugee camps outside their own country (pp. 156-57).

If one superimposes the mystic reading on a this-worldly reading, then one must accept that the ‘angels’ and ’shepherds’ and innocent gambolling lambs that escort Elisabet on her journey, are pro-Palestinian political activists. Except - small problem - I’m not sure that such people existed in 1948, especially in Norway. Anyway:

Elisabet grew up in a little village near Bethlehem; the people there lived off the poor land they tilled, but even this poor land was taken away from them. When I met Elisabet in Rome in the spring of 1961 she had lived in different refugee camps, first in Jordan, afterwards in Lebanon. She went to Rome in order to explain the refugees’ situation… (pp. 155-56) Elisabet really did go to Bethlehem in December 1948. She came to poor, persecuted people who needed God’s help (p. 156).

Gaarder’s novel is a brilliant, exquisitely sentimental, and - once one thinks it through carefully, reflecting on its silences and reversals - thoroughly creepy piece of what Jacques Ellul called ‘Palestinianism’: a merging of Jesus with the Palestinian Arab cause which has gained ground in some Christian circles. Jesus’s Jewishness is never really imagined or emphasised; 2000 years of Jewish agony in exile are totally eclipsed by the (unique and unprecedented?) suffering of the Palestinians. In one scene, Elisabet and the angels stand among the ruins of Jerusalem in 71 AD: the angels tell her that ‘the Jews’ arrested Jesus and also that they rebelled against Rome. Their city was smashed and ‘from this time on the Jews will be scattered over the whole world’ (p. 126). End of story - we are not encouraged to feel any sympathy for them. Bethlehem in 4 BC collapses into Bethlehem in ‘Palestine’, 1948 and the Palestinian Arabs become THE archetypal innocent victims. We are not-so-subtly encouraged to weep with sympathy for these peaceful, simple Palestinian Arabs, gentle unwarlike shepherds and farmers one and all, who have been treated so very badly. At least ‘Tebasile’ isn’t represented as a member of the PLO - yet.

The timing of the story’s beginning is interesting. December 1948 was when the resurgent Jewish state, having survived a savage invasion by Arab attackers, was seeing off the last of the Egyptian forces. But Gaarder, in this very year in which the Jewish state of Israel was reborn, takes Elisabet back in time to Bethlehem not, so it seems, primarily in order for her to witness the birth of Jesus the [Jewish] Messiah but so that she may take part in the apocalyptic moment of the ‘birth’ - in unjust suffering - of the Arab Palestinian ‘nation’ and become one of them, their servant and advocate. This witness is her divine mission, given her by the angels - which the novel wants us to share. This is the gospel of Palestinianism.

I still can¹t work out why the author thinks April 1961 is important - except that Adolf Eichmann was put on trial, and the Jordanians protested to the UN concerning an Israeli independence day parade in Jerusalem.

And Gaarder’s book was first published in Norway in 1992, after Europe had seen twenty-plus ghastly years of PLO terrorism. (Perhaps this is why the novel has Elisabet/ Tebasile appear in Rome as a Palestinian advocate in 1961, but does not say anything at all about anything that has happened in the world between then and 1991/ 92 when the story closes - Elisabet is about 50 when she comes back to Norway).

No, I was not surprised by Gaarder’s attack on Israel.

Dr Sylvia Haworth studied English at the University of Queensland with an honours thesis on comedy in Chaucer and Langland, and later wrote a doctoral thesis on pre-modern English translations of Boethius’s ‘Consolations of Philosophy’, De Consolatione Philosophiae, at the University of Sydney.

A report yesterday (with thanks to Tom) tells of the incredible discovery of an ancient book of psalms in a bog in Ireland:

The approximately 20-page book has been dated to the years 800-1000. Trinity College manuscripts expert Bernard Meehan said it was the first discovery of an Irish early medieval document in two centuries.

“This is really a miracle find,” said Pat Wallace, director of the National Museum of Ireland, which has the book stored in refrigeration and facing years of painstaking analysis before being put on public display.

But even more amazingly, the book was open at Psalm 83. Here are some select verses from the psalm:

See how your enemies are astir,
how your foes rear their heads.

With cunning they conspire against your people;
they plot against those you cherish.

“Come,” they say, “let us destroy them as a nation,
that the name of Israel be remembered no more.”

With one mind they plot together;
they form an alliance against you

…

Gebal, Ammon and Amalek,
Philistia, with the people of Tyre.

Even Assyria has joined them
to lend strength to the descendants of Lot.
Selah

A miracle find indeed!

For some light relief in these troubled times, we note that Carlos the Jackal is suing a leading French agent over claims that he was illegally adbucted from Sudan in 1994. For those who do not recall the career of this illustrious personality, the BBC reminds us:

Carlos, 56, gained international notoriety as a mastermind of deadly bombings, assassinations and hostage-takings.

So the international terrorist and hostage-taker was “illegally restrained”? Somehow we doubt that the French authorities will see the error of their ways on this one.

BREAKING NEWS: Bin Laden sues US military for restraint of trade. “My core business has been severely disrupted,” claims mountain dweller Osama in an exclusive interview with CNN…