Robert Ballagh & IPSC call on Riverdance not to tour Israel

by TD Fri Apr 29, 2011 18:07

Besides Robert Ballagh's principled stand, the mud pond hoofers should also address and take on board Ken Saro-Wiwa's words; “Dance your anger, dance your joys, dance your guns to silence, dance, dance, dance...”?.

by Jack Smith Fri Apr 29, 2011 18:38

Sadly some Irish people forget the 800 years of English oppression and support Israeli occupation of Palestine.

by Avi Weinstein Fri Apr 29, 2011 21:28

And those "some Irish people" are loathsomely represented by the likes of Alan Shatter and Geraldine Kennedy of the Irish Times.?

by Fred Mon May 02, 2011 22:48

Who do you think you are persuading or convincing ?

Riverdance likes to go to israel because they like them there

Spirit of the Dance was all the rage there last winter

No one is going to bring down the "regime " this way .

by Fred 2 - None Wed May 04, 2011 20:10

Will Robert also call on Riverdance not to preform for LIZZY when she comes or do we not care about the occupation of our land.

END THE OCCUPATION OF PALESTINE AND IRELAND

by opus diablos - the regressive hypocrite party Thu May 05, 2011 13:42

in today's Phoenix. Seems Geldof is deciding whether to accept an honorary degree from Ben Gurion University.

Sir Bob, whats the odds?

by Frank Sun May 08, 2011 15:39

Question needs to answer why (s)he is worshipping geography in defiance of human relations and respect for human differences? Just because the Six Counties are on the same Island of Ireland as the State of Ireland is not an obligation on both to be in one state nor to pretend to being one nation - otherwise Scotland should be in England and English, which it definitely is not; similarly with Haiti and Dominican Republic; Portugal in Spain - Portugal broke from Spain twice; and why should Pakistan not be in India? It does not need deep analysis to realise Pakistan is a separate state from India for the same reasons "in spades" that Israel declared independence from the Arab world as much as Britain.

It never fails to puzzle me why so many post-colonials wish to be more British than Britain or Spain. Whatever Question's age I was a contemporary witness to the Arab - Israel wars of '56, '67 and '73 and since. "With due respect," as the sergeant said to the rookie subaltern, is it not time the Arab parties admitted that they were wrong and worse, mistaken in rejecting UN 181 in 1947; and then not even acknowledging the Israeli June 67 offer to return to the Green Line in return for a peace treaty? Is it too much to respect Israeli Jewish self-determination as much as to respect Irish Roman Catholic self-determination?

Too many people who have grown up since 1967 have chosen to believe that only Israel, never mind Britain is wrong regardless - that omits questioning one's own rationale or taking precautions against Arabs being as bad as any in telling only their side of the story. Adults usually are cautious enough to hear and read both sides of an argument before playing jury. Siding with Palestine as a primary means of psychologically rerunning your own War of Independence from the safety of an armchair is not the way to establish peace.

Zionists bought every patch of their land in British Palestine which is a lot more than any Irish as British immigrants to North America or Australia ever did; that as already mentioned the Arabs opened this conflict by rejecting UN 181 and several other offers; and if you get what you pray for, you might have to take in a million or two Jewish Israeli refugees.

A parting thought to mull over: before the British Mandate who was the head of the State of Palestine? and what was its currency? its capital? its agreed frontiers? and language?

by V for vendetta Sun May 08, 2011 16:20

" if you get what you pray for, you might have to take in a million or two Jewish Israeli refugees."

well maybe if they didn't keep building settlements on palestinian land and systematically eating into it then the eventual and inevitable reversal of the Israeli occupation will not have to be quite so traumatic Frank!!

Its clear to me that you are just running interference for the Israeli agenda Frank. Not fooling anyone around here. Go have a beer with mark regev*
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zIQZ1-RFq6A

*and try not to vomit!!

by me Sun May 08, 2011 19:47

Franks : "Zionists bought every patch of their land in British Palestine which is a lot more than any Irish as British immigrants to North America or Australia ever did"~

this is the sort of blatant falsehood that Zionists excel at - they don't even seem to care if the evidence is freely available that shows them to be lying - they just repeat the lie as loudly and as often as possible, and scream 'Anti-Semite' at anyone that points out that they are blatant liars, in the hope that they can drown out the truth

The map below, based on land ownership statistics compiled by the British government in Palestine, summarizes the respective holdings of the Arab and Jewish communities in 1945, a mere 2 years before the Zionists commenced thier ethnic cleansing of the indigenous population of Palestine.

It shows that the Jewish population of Palestine legally owned less than 7% of the land
at that time.

How can you establish a Jewish state in a place where such a small fraction of the land is in Jewish hands, except by taking over, by force, that large proportion of the land that belongs to non-Jews? If Zionism could be achieved only by taking Palestinian land from its legal owners because from an ethnic-religious perspective they happen to be the wrong sort of people, what is that other than racist supremacist ethnic cleansing?

The second grahic, a table, shows the population of the two states that the UN proposed to create by partitioning Palestine - against the will of most of its people - in 1947. Despite large-scale Jewish immigration into Palestine under the British Mandate - again, against the will of a large majority of its existing population - Palestinian Arabs still comprised about two-thirds of the population of Palestine.

Even after drawing generous boundaries to ensure that the influence of Palestine's Jewish minority population is amplified by gathering almost all of the Jewish population into a single polity, the Palestinians' overwhelming numerical advantage means that the UN's "Jewish Palestine" is demographically not a Jewish state, but a bi-national state. It is called "the Jewish state" because it contains the overwhelming majority of Palestine's Jews, not because an overwhelming majority of its inhabitants are Jewish. Even worse from the Zionist perspective, Jewish Palestine is not only a bi-national state, but a bi-national state whose large Arab minority is guaranteed equal treatment under the terms of the partition.

Under those circumstances, how can you have the "Jewish state" that Zionism envisaged? David Ben-Gurion knew you couldn't, because

"There are 40% [actually 45%.] non-Jews in the areas allocated to the Jewish state. This composition is not a solid basis for a Jewish state. And we have to face this new reality with all of its severity and distinctness. Such a demographic balance questions our ability to maintain Jewish sovereignty... Only a state with at least 80% Jews is a viable and stable state."

He also knew what kind of "severity and distinctness" was required to render 80% of the population Jewish, specifying that the Arab population "can either be mass arrested or expelled; it is better to expel them"

If the only way to establish a dominant Jewish majority among a Palestinian population that remains stubbornly diverse is by expelling en masse those people with the "wrong" ethnic-religious background, what is that other than ethnic cleansing, a crime against humanity?

Do us all a favour, Frank - STOP LYING

Palestine, land ownership 1945 - click to enlarge

Palestine, population stats - 1947

by Frank Mon May 09, 2011 10:59

The fact that the Zionists by 1947 had only purchased 6% and whatever decimals is undeniable, being registered according to the same British map you flashed.

Equally true is the Zionists BOUGHT their holdings even as Abraham bought the Cave of Macpelah otherwise the Tomb of the Patriarchs and King David BOUGHT the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite now the centrepiece of the Temple Mount/ Haram es Shareef.

No Arab bought the Arab countries from the Christian Byzantines nor the Persian Sassanids. The Arab World is the biggest imperialism between Rome and maritime Europe - otherwise Spain and Britain - and all the fruit of Arab swords. None of the 35 million American Irish, and millions more Australian Irish ever bought one acre of American or Australian land from the Indians and Aborigines who were all booted into touch without UNWRA rations, clinics and schools.

The fact that you do not think UN 181 "fair" is besides the point that it was passed by the UN and the Arabs failure to create their state IN Palestine is NOT Israel's fault but the incompetence of Arab governments then and since for not cutting their losses as Michael Collins and Gerry Adams did by taking the part loaf offered. Nobody wanted poverty stricken Arab and European Jews between the 30's and 60's inclusive.

In 1947 Arabs owned only 24% of the Palestine Mandate land as 70% was desert waste and some crown/ public. Further given the anti-minority fury of Arab nationalism currently expelling Christians since Arab nationalists saw the Jews left in the 50's and 60's; the existence of the State of Israel is very much to the advantage of Arab nats elsewhere, as much as the erstwhile nasty nats of Europe - West as much as East. Ireland did not take in even a thousand Jews in the 30's and 40's and the Jewish community of Belfast and Dublin have been dwindling throughout my life.

by me Mon May 09, 2011 13:57

Equally true is the Zionists BOUGHT their holdings

Frank, irrespective of whatever ridiculously hypocritical nonsense you come up with to try an justify the racial supremacist ethnic cleansing perpetrated by your Zionist heroes against the indigenous Palestinian population from 1947 until today:

it will not change the fact that they stole almost all of the land that they now live on.

It will not change the fact that they are STILL stealing land from the rightful owners of that land, the indigenous Palestinians,

it will not change the fact that the racial supremacist Zionists are still carrying out ethnic cleansing today.

it will not change the fact that ethnic cleansing is a Crime Against Humanity.

So you can blather on about those dastardly 'ARABS!!!!!' all you want, but it still won't make the current-day actions of your beloved racial supremacist ethnic cleansing murdering Zionist heroes anything but Crimes against Humanity

by me Mon May 09, 2011 14:45

http://mondoweiss.net/2011/05/as-nakba-day-approaches-i....html

"63 years ago today, before the Arab armies had entered Palestine, and before Israel had declared its independence, Zionist militias were engaged in the conquest and ethnic cleansing of dozens of villages, from Abu al-Fadl near present-day Ramle to Akbara, which was 2 kilometers south of Safed.

This week, as Palestinians plan to observe the formal anniversary of their ethnic cleansing on May 15, or “Nabka Day,” the Jerusalem Post’s Benjamin Speier reported that Israeli soldiers from the 202 paratrooper battalion “put their skills into action by conquering a simulation Arab village.”

Whether or not the Israeli army is training to literally seize a village and expel its residents, the reliance by modern day Israelis on a colonial vocabulary exposes the state’s essential mission. When Israelis refer to the occupation of the West Bank, they use the term “kibush,” or the conquest, underscoring the permanence of the settlement project across the 1949 Armistice Line and its connection to the military campaign of ethnic cleansing that enabled the racist Jewish state to emerge in 1948."

by ZionistTerminator Mon May 09, 2011 15:05

way to go "me"

You just handed frank his ass

feeling any deja vu frank? well get used to it on these threads. Because you're defending the indefensible.

of course needless to say, frank will be back again and again like some kind of zionist terminator.

by me Wed May 11, 2011 03:44

given the anti-minority fury of Arab nationalism currently expelling Christians since Arab nationalists saw the Jews left in the 50's and 60's

I love how, whenever current-day Zionist Crimes Against Humanity are mentioned, hard-core Zionists such as Frank shake each and every battle fought since The Flood, in everyone's face and every and any slight they heard about for the last 3,000 years as justification for their own actions and beliefs,

They are incensed, I tell you, insulted, deeply hurt, and emotionally distraught, about any event in the past where someone claiming Jewish extraction might have even so much as been mildly slighted, but for some reason they have absolutely no problems when the Modern-day Zionist State carries out ethnic cleansing, when it murders and steals and lies it 's way to a 'Goyishe-cleansed Lebensraum' - they dredge up past slights/transgressions against their beloved 'race/people/tribe' to try and blind themselves and other from the Crimes against humanity still being committed daily by the Zionist State more than 60 years after it's murderously-bloody Birth

by opus diablos - the regressive hypocrite party Wed May 11, 2011 12:28

By the same token, Frank, if you do not protest the abuse of the Palestinians by theocratic bible-fundamentalists who claim inhabited land as their hereditary(on ancient folk-legend premises) ' land without people..', what are your objective 'bona fides' for solicitousness for any consideration of the case of the invading and usurping Zionists, who have a history of betrayal of the Jewish people to further their state-corporate militarised expansionary agenda?
Zionism emerged in parrallel with ultra-nationalism in nineteenth century Europe, and has been a classist, elite-dictated pseudo-credo since its virulent inception. You cannot demand an objectivity from others you are blatantly not practising yourself.

And thats without going near the raft of half-truth and distortion you just pumped.

by me Wed May 11, 2011 12:33

As everyone can plainly see, Frank STILL has absolutely no problem when the Modern-day Zionist State carries out ethnic cleansing, in fact he even demonstrates his extreme hypocrisy when he tries to use false moral-outrage (the only type beloved of Zionist racists everywhere)

"Even sadder is sneering at history that has happened in living memory. If it can happen once, and recently, it can easily happen again. "

even sadder is that just a few words before Frank had the gall to say:

"It is a funny sort of ethnic cleansing where the numbers of - Arabs in this case - in the area under discusson are tenfold superior in their numbers to those in the area three generations ago! "

Spoken like a true racist hypocrite, Frank., well done - your Zionist masters would be pleased, not only have you perfected the hypocrisy, you have also perfected the false moral-outrage members of the Zionist-racist club have become famous for the world over.

Ethnic-cleansing refers primarily to clearing people from the areas of land - and the Racist Zionist state has done that in spades. It is not possible, even for one as deluded and hypocritical as you Frank, to claim that indigenous Palestinian Land-holdings have increased, in the area under control of your Racist Friends the Zionists.

So instead you choose to concentrate on numbers. It is true that the numbers of Palestinians have increased, but the areas they occupy and control, the amount of land that Israel and Israelis are willing to accept qualifies as owned and controlled by Palestinians, gets smaller and smaller by the day

Frank tries every strawman trick in the book in all his posts, to try and provide some cover for his racist ethnic-cleansing friends as they murder and steal and lie their way to a 'Goyishe-cleansed Lebensraum'.

YOU may be able to blind yourself from the Crimes against humanity still being committed daily by the Zionist State more than 60 years after it's murderously-bloody Birth, but you're wasting your time if you think that the rest of us will allow ourselves to be hoodwinked by you strawman tacticsw.

by me Wed May 11, 2011 14:00

this is one of the ways that the zionists carried out ethnic cleansing in Palestine, which the Zionist Racist Ethnic-Cleansing-loving 'Nakba Denier' Frank above attempts to deny ever happened

Israel admits it covertly canceled residency status of 140,000 Palestinians - http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/israel-admits...60935

"Document obtained by Haaretz reveals that between 1967 and 1994 many Palestinians traveling abroad were stripped of residency status, allegedly without warning. . . . .

. . . .Maj. Gen. (res. ) Danny Rothschild, who served as coordinator of government activities in the territories from 1991 to 1995, said he was completely unaware of the procedure, even though it was in use during his term. "If even I wasn't told of the procedure, one may infer that neither were residents of the occupied territories," he said.

The Central Bureau of Statistics says the West Bank's Palestinian population amounted to 1.05 million in 1994, which means the population would have been greater by about 14 percent if it weren't for the procedure."

by me Wed May 11, 2011 23:42

Israeli forces, tanks cross into Gaza - http://presstv.com/detail/179435.html

Israeli soldiers apparently entered the Palestinian territory from Karni crossing on Wednesday and advanced hundreds of meters toward the east of Gaza City.

According to Press TV's correspondent in Gaza, Israeli soldiers dug a series of holes in the area and filled them with explosives.

Israeli soldiers then blew up the explosives, causing loud explosions in the area, our correspondent added.

Israeli officials claim that the troops were searching and destroying "possible tunnels" in the area that could be used by Palestinian resistance fighters to enter Israeli posts and capture Israeli soldiers.

But analysts believe the Israeli attack aimed at provoking Palestinian fighters into firing on Israeli troops, which could have escalated the situation.

by me Wed May 11, 2011 23:59

Illegal Racist Jewish Colonists storm school, post racist slogans - http://www.palestine-info.co.uk/en/default.aspx?xyz=U6Q...O4%3d

Illegal Racist Jewish Colonists stormed a Palestinian secondary school for girls in Sawiya village, south of Nablus, and placed racist, anti-Arab posters on its entrance in Hebrew.

The education office in southern Nablus said in a statement that the Illegal Racist Jewish Colonists, who were as usual protected by racist Israeli army troops, also glued other posters on the school’s walls inciting against the legally resident indigenous Palestinian residents

The racist Israeli occupation forces provide protection for such violations of this school in the village and other schools in the region, which are routine practice on the part of the
Illegal Racist Jewish Colonists .

Meanwhile, groups of Illegal racist Jewish Colonists barged into the Palestinian Wadi Al-Hilwa grazing area in the northern Jordan Valley and threatened the legally resident indigenous Palestinian shepherds there and told them to leave the area.

Local sources said that the Illegal racist Jewish Colonists came from the nearby Illegal racist Jewish Colonit of Maskiot and were planning to steal the Palestinian land to their settlement, which was already established on stolen Palestinian land.

by me Thu May 12, 2011 00:10

Israeli government funds an ultra-racist organization, which campaigns against “miscegenation” and assimilation

http://972mag.com/government-quietly-funds-kkk-like-org...ions/

You could claim that, ideally, Zionism could exist without being racist. Practically, however, it’s hard to think of a form of Zionism – Jewish ultra-nationalism – which could promote equality. Israeli law does not recognize equality to be a basic legal right.

by me Thu May 12, 2011 12:12

Research suggests BBC Arabic coverage not objective - http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=270870

Ma’an – 23/03/2010

Ramallah – A researcher at Birzeit University submitted findings Saturday outlining what she found to be un-objective coverage around “the question of Palestine” on BBC Arabic’s broadcast news.

The study, focusing on the daily news program World News This Evening’s broadcasts between 8 November and 8 December 2008, found external political motivations swayed coverage of Palestine only weeks before Israel launched its Operation Cast Lead on 26 December 2008.

Masters student Buthayna Hamdan, who pioneered the study, explained that she measured the objectivity of the reports by BBC’s own standards, and basic precepts of news coverage.

Benchmarks for measurement included: Omission of facts, clear differentiation of facts and opinions, and avoiding prioritization of accounts.

The research found that the news coverage employed Israeli terminology, describing the military as “defense forces” when its actions were offensive, labeling locations with Israeli place names like the illegal settlement Har Homa, built on appropriated land known as Jabal Abu Ghnaim.

Because the settlement and the expropriation of land is illegal under international law, the study argued, the area where the settlement is located should retain its Arabic name.

Not once in the month of broadcasts on BBC Arabic did newscasters say the word “occupation” in relation to Israel or Palestine, the study said. It also noted the use of the term “military arsenal” to describe home made projectiles fired toward Israel by militant factions in Gaza.

During the study period, the research found 25 news events in Palestine, including the death, injury and detention of Palestinians including children, that went unreported by the news program. The same period saw the full coverage of every home made projectile launched from Gaza into Israeli territory, a total of 14.

by me Thu May 12, 2011 12:27

Terrorist Menachim Begin admits Israeli lies and duplicity in publicly stated desire for peace with a Palestinian State

For 40 years Israel practiced deceit in its purported plans for Palestinian autonomy (and that deceit required a partner) http://mondoweiss.net/2011/05/for-40-years-israel-pract....html

I’ve transcribed the above interview because it sheds light on this crucial change in Israeli policy with regard the West Bank. The West Bank settlement project was to pave the way toward annexation. Following Begin’s election, his associate, Ariel Sharon, launched Israel’s major national project that, three decades later, defines the State of Israel internally and is the dominant international issue surrounding Israel. In this interview with Begin, you see the manipulative use of the term “pro-Israel”, his belief in the efficacy of “hasbara”, and his contempt for principled positions of elected U.S. officials, as well as the rejection of a more reasonable Israeli approach. All these still have currency today.

The interview exposes the deceit that Begin carried with him into the peace treaty talks with Egypt. He never intended to grant the Palestinians autonomy toward statehood.

Finally, it bears repeating that Begin & Sharon could not have accomplished the West Bank settlement project without the explicit support of the leaders of the U.S. Jewish community. Since Begin was not yet ready to annex the West Bank (with the exception of East Jerusalem), the only legal instrument he had for colonizing an occupied territory was through the World Zionist Organization. The world’s Jews were complicit in this. Today, as non-Israeli Jews, we have a right and a duty to publicly oppose Netanyahu and what he stands for.

Caption: Video Id: dycFO7cY7zk Type: Youtube Video
Jewish Zionist terrorist Menachim Begin, ex-prime minister of Israel, admits blatant duplicity of the Jewish State

by me Thu May 12, 2011 12:40

[Israeli Newspaper] Yediot’s legal editor cites Nuremberg Laws, Eichmann trial, in critique of new Rabbinical ruling - http://coteret.com/2010/12/08/yediots-legal-editor-cite...ling/

The infamous Nuremberg Laws forbade, in 1935, mixed marriages between Jews and Germans, and barred Jews from employing German maids (under age 45) and laborers. This prohibition was intended to portray the Jews as a kind of pest, not quite human. They became a persecuted bloc on the basis of generalizations and slander. Gideon Hausner, the prosecutor at the Eichmann trial, would later say that in Israel, “we do not make ethnic distinctions.”

But [in Israel] rabbis, who receive their pay from the state coffers, forbid people to rent apartments to Gentiles, to Arabs, because it “causes evil and makes the public commit the sin of intermarriage,” and because they have among them “enemies and people who persecute us to the point of endangering lives.”

The racism does not start with the rabbis. Discrimination is everywhere, in almost every neighborhood. For this very reason, we must not stand by when people try to turn it into ideology. In 2004, the Association for Civil Rights in Israel sought to rein in inciting rabbis by instituting disciplinary proceedings against them based on the Jewish religious services law, which forbids a rabbi to behave “in a manner unbecoming the standing of a rabbi in Israel.” Nothing was done. The feeble response only increased the rabbis’ impudence. And so it happens that rabbis can excel in quoting Biblical verses but still have the morals of gang leaders. If they cannot be prevented from holding benighted opinions, they can be prevented from receiving a salary from the state, a salary that is also funded by taxes paid by Arabs. The criminal code states explicitly that “anyone who publishes something with the aim of racist incitement is subject to five years of imprisonment.” Racism is defined there as “persecution, humiliation, shaming… or inciting antagonism towards… parts of the population… due to affiliation with a particular race or national-ethnic origin.” The silence of the law enforcement agencies towards displays of racism is not a sign of liberalism or tolerance. It is a sign of weakness. If this law is not implemented, darkness will prevail in which we will not be able to distinguish rabbi from charlatan, angel from demon. In practice, this could mark the end of the rule of law.

by me Thu May 12, 2011 15:05

Under the rule of the Zionist terrorist Menachim Begin, Israel, the self-declared 'Jewish state', attacked Iraq in 1981, bombing the power station at Osirik, claiming it was a clandestine weapons factory. Subsequent examination of the ruins following the 2003 invasion proved Israel had lied.

In 1982, again under the rule of the Zionist terrorist Menachim Begin, Israel invaded Lebanon. This led to the Massacres at Sabra and Shatilla, for which another Israeli Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, was found by the Israeli Kahan Commission, to bear responsibility.

In February 2003 Israel stages incursions into Gaza and Nablus.

In September 2007 Israel bombs Syria, again insisting they are destroying a clandestine weapons laboratory. Again there is no evidence to support Israel's claims.

In 2006, Israel attacks Lebanon, killing 1200, mostly civilians, several UN observers, and littering the landscape with land mines on their way out.

In February 2008 Israel again raids Gaza, killing over 100. HAMAS agrees to a cease fire and keeps it for 6 months until November 4, when Israel again braeks the ceasefire and attacks, killing 6 HAMAS members, launching operation CAST LEAD. 1300 Gazans, mostly civilians, are killed. Israel loses 13 soldiers.

Violations of international law include the use of White Phosphorus incendiary bombs against civilians and non-military targets.

The United Nations investigates, but Israel refuses to cooperate.

In May 2010, Israel attacks an international aid flotilla bring food and medical supplies to Gaza in international waters. 9 people are murdered including an American from New York. Add to it the numerous assassinations such as last year's embarrassment in Dubai, and you get the picture, even without the overtly racist and apartheid statements coming from Israel's rabbis.