by Arieh Kovler

I’ve been having a Twitter argument with Yvonne Ridley. I know I shouldn’t.

This is the second argument I’ve had with Yvonne. The last one was in 2003 or 4, when I was at university. She came to speak at Bristol University as part of an official ‘response’ to a pro-Israel article in the student newspaper (another part of the same ‘response’ was a seven-page screed by Tim Llewellyn attacking the student journalist who wrote the article). I was a student in the mood for a good argument, so I challenged her from the audience with some of the more outrageous comments, like saying suicide bombers were martyrs. At the time I felt like I got the better of her, but perhaps that was just my student bravado.

Afterwards, one of her minders followed me out of the room. He addressed me by name, even though I hadn’t given it and he wasn’t a student. He made a couple of comments, smiling and friendly, but the thrust of them was that he knew exactly who I was. He never introduced himself.

Anyway, back to the present. Yesterday Yvonne suggested on Twitter that Israel was opening the Erez Crossing to plan a ““self-defense” pogrom, with as few outside witnesses as poss“. She also tweeted ”more Israelis die from peanut allergies than are killed or injured by rockets from Gaza“. Although she didn’t make her billed appearance at the pro-Iranian Quds Day rally in London, she’s been arguing with Jeremy Newmark, Joe Millis, CIF Watch and me about it.

The pogrom comment is clearly nonsense, and the peanut remark is disgusting and distasteful. It’s like responding to to domestic violence against women in by saying “more women die from breast cancer every year than are killed by their husbands“. It may be true, but it’s not to the point at all. Murder is different from accidental death.

It may be true. But is it true? Where has this claim come from in the first place?

When I challenged Yvonne on Twitter for her source, she responded that  ”the answer lies within Lowkey’s lyrics“.

Lowkey is a rapper and a fan of 9/11 troofer conspiracy theories. He’s popular among Stop-the-War and anti-Israel groups and is often performs at their rallies. The lyrics which Ridley directed to me are in Lowkey’s “Terrorist“. As well including references to popular troofer tropes (“Building 7″ and “nanothermite“) it has the following lyrics:

I know you were terrified when you saw the towers fall
It’s all terror but some forms are more powerful
It seems nuts, how could there be such agony
When more Israelis die from peanut allergies

Well, that doesn’t mean anything at all. More Israelis die than what? The song doesn’t say. Anyway, it’s just a song, not evidence or a statistic. I challenged Yvonne on this and she responded that she was quoting the “official stats” and had only mentioned the song in passing.

Where did these ‘statistics’ come from? My preliminary research didn’t turn up any official statistics on the number of peanut-allergy deaths in Israel, but it should be possible to make an educated guess based on other statistics.

Food allergies have become much more common in the last 30 years. Nobody knows why, though there are all sorts of theories. People with serious food allergies can go into anaphylaxis, which untreated can be fatal. Because of this, many allergic people carry epi-pens to inject chemicals that can stop the anaphylaxis.

According to a 2006 Department of Health study (pdf), anaphylaxis from allergens kills approximately 10-20 people a year in the UK, though it is not always recorded on the death certificate. Of these 10-20, not all will be the victims of food allergies; some might be allergic to chemicals, dust or other exotic allergens. Some certainly will be food allergy victims.

People can be allergic to all sorts of foods. In young children, milk and eggs are the most common allergies, though most children grow out of them. Other common trigger foods are celery, soya, shellfish, fish and citrus fruit, but one of the best-known allergies is the nut allergy (and the peanut allergy).

Peanuts aren’t nuts. They’re peas.

Peanuts are a legume, a bean that grows under the ground. True nuts grow on trees. Some people with nut allergies can eat peanuts, and vice versa, though many people who have one allergy have both.

Peanut allergies are common in much of the world, but in Israel they’re rarer. A 2008 study compared the incidence of peanut allergy between Jewish children in the UK and Jewish children in Israel. It found:

Jewish children in the UK have a prevalence of P[eanut] A[llergy] that is 10-fold higherthan that of Jewish children in Israel.

Though nobody knows for sure, scientists note that in Israel, babies eat peanuts from a very young age in the form of Bamba, and that this might be one reason for the lower allergy rates. It’a not all good news though; Israel’s ‘version’ of the peanut allergy is sesame allergy, which is much more common than it is in Europe or America.

Reviewing what we know:

• In the UK, 10-20 people die a year of all allergies
• Some of these 10-20 are food allergies, and some of these are peanut allergies.
• Israel has abut 10% of the population of the UK
• Israel has 10% of the incidence of peanut allergy compared to the UK

Based on these statistics – even allowing for possible better acute care in the UK – you’d expect about one or two allergy deaths a year in Israel, of which only a few, say one every few years, was a peanut allergy death. A recent case in Israel involving a hazelnut allergy fatality (not peanuts) was a major national story.

Where does this wrong statistic come from? I can’t be sure, but the best candidate is the earliest reference I can find: in late 2008, on a Youtube video made by Steve Johnson for the US-focused website stopfundingIsrael.com. This website calls YouTube “Jew-tube”,  and warns of the:

“zionist infiltraitors (sic) in Australia, Canada, UK and USA. They have infiltrated the Govt. They have infiltrated the media even popular culture…”

Steve Johnson co-wrote a ‘book’ called The Truth: Mossad did September 11th 2001. His speciality piece seems to be calling up those who he considers supporters of Israel, hassling them, and making them into
YouTube videos for the Stop Funding Israel youtube channel.

This channel is fascinating. Most of the videos are by Steve Johnson. The first one claims that the Norway massacres were a false flag operation done by Israel. The next is an interview with a climate-change-sceptic scientist who also seems to deny plate tectonics: earthquakes are caused because the Earth is getting bigger. Really. There’s also a video saying the Bali bombings were really the work of the Australians.

It is Steve Johnson who called up the International Fellowship of Christians & Jews to complain about their advertising campaign, which highlighted the threat of rockets from Gaza. He said:

“From 2000 to 2008, 458 have died from peanut allergies. That’s 24 times the amount that have died from Hamas rockets”

Note that unlike Yvonne Ridley, Steve Johnson doesn’t say more Israelis die from peanut allergies than are killedor injured by rockets from Gaza; only more than are killed. But even Steve Johnson can’t even back up this weaker claim. After being challenged on his peanut statistics, he added the following in the comments to that YouTube video:

Researching the Peanut Allergy I found surprisingly that because Israel feeds their young peanuts and peanut allergies have in fact the worlds LOWEST casulty rate.

The research statistics I was quoting were actually from SESAME ALLERGY REACTIONS within Israel..Which runs from 150-200 per year.

So, he wasn’t talking about peanut allergies, and he wasn’t talking about deaths. He was comparing Israeliskilled by Hamas rockets with Israelis who had allergic reactions to sesame. If the original comparison was disgusting, this one is obscene.

Still, lies are persistent and lies about Israel – even accidental lies – find themselves being repeated year after year.

Rocket fire on civillian populations is a weapon of terror. The rockets don’t have to kill very often for people to be frightened of them crashing into their homes, their schools and their places of work and worship. Since this Thursday, an Israeli has been killed by a rocket and tens have been injured. A synagogue was hit, hurting worshppers. A school has been hit too, injuring children.

All this means that Yvonne Ridley is not only being offensive and insensitive when she says “more Israelis die from peanut allergies than are killed or injured by rockets from Gaza“.

She’s also wrong.

update: Yvonne Ridley has responded in the comments, below. Between insults, she writes:

 I suppose I should be flattered all the same, you follow my words closely. problem is you have no idea when someone is pulling your leg, exhibiting a bit of satire or being serious.

Anyone have any idea what that means? Is she saying she was only joking?

On the one hand, many of its members and activists don’t believe that Israel should exist. PSC does not support a two-state solution.

On the other hand, PSC as been working hard in order to attract Trade Unions and MPs as affiliates. To do this, PSC has had to wear moderate clothes. Most of the Trade Unions that are affiliated to PSC have a pro-two-state policy, and so do some of the MPs who are involved in it. If you asked some of these MPs or Union General Secretaries whether the Palestine Solidarity Campaign supported Israel’s continuing right to exist, they’d say “of course it does”. I know this because I’ve done it.

PSC works hard to stop its most high-profile supporters learning what they’ve signed up to, but they can’t hide the most obvious clue: the PSC logo, which includes a map of the whole of Israel, the West Bank and Gaza.

PSC's logo

This week’s Jewish Chronicle reveals that Green Party MP Caroline Lucas has written to the PSC to raise the issue of their logo. She writes:

“It has been brought to my attention that the PSC logo appears to reflect 1917, pre-creation of Israel, borders and as such could be open to interpretation by some as implying non-recognition of Israel’s right to exist. I am following this up with the director of the PSC since I am quite sure that PSC does indeed recognise Israel’s right to exist, and it is unhelpful and damaging if any other impression is given.”

Caroline Lucas is not a friend of Israel, and the Green Party’s policy on Israel (such as their support for boycotts) is harmful and wrong. However, she has done exactly the right thing here and shown leadership. Other MPs and Trade Unions who work with PSC should do the same and not allow the PSC’s leaders to equivocate.

Ultimately, if the PSC does not change its logo that wipes Israel off the map, then Caroline Lucas – and all of us – will have our answer.

• CST explain why the EUMC definition is important here
• Ben Gidley has an excellent piece on why this motion is so problematic here

The motion comes after five years of UCU passing boycotts of Israel, inviting racists to speak, ignoring the resignations of Jewish members and allowing a deeply uncomfortable atmosphere for Jewish members to persist in the union.

Before the motion, Jewish leaders wrote to UCU General Secretary Sally Hunt. They also contacted Trevor Phillips of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, who confirmed that nobody from UCU consulted with the Commission. He restated the importance of the MacPhearson definition of a racist incident, saying:

“..if the object of harrasment or attack regards her treatment as being anti-semitic, even if the perpetrator maintains that their action is politically motivated, the presumption is that the victim’s perception is what defines the incident.”

None of this made any difference. The motion was proposed by the Union’s own National Executive Committee and passed by a huge majority. See Engage’s live blog of the debate.

We now believe that UCU is an institutionally racist organisation. If you agree, join our Twitter campaign and help spread the word. We tweeted:

We believe that @UCU is an institutionally racist organisation. RT if you agree.

If you’re a Twitter user and you agree with us, then join in, tweet and spread the word.

“UCU’s treatment of its Jewish members over the last five years includes assaulting their identity, ignoring their harassment in the Union and refusing to investigate their resignations. Now UCU has gone further and simply redefined ‘antisemitism’ itself. UCU will actually campaign for other organisations to stop fully fighting antisemitism, and has changed its procedures so complaints from Jewish members will be treated with suspicion.

The truth is apparent: whatever the motivations of its members, we believe UCU is an institutionally racist organisation.”

For a live report of UCU’s vote on redefining antisemitism, see ENGAGE.

Fair Play wrote a letter to Moyle Council pointing out that they’d be linking to Hamas and exactly what this means. The letter was tabled at a recent Council meeting and has now been covered by the Ballymoney Times:

‘Hamas for tea’ at Moyle Council?

Published on Tuesday 19 April 2011 16:16

REACTION TO Moyle Council’s support for a twinning arrangement with Gaza has come in from the Israeli community.

The Council split on the issue but a majority did back the proposal brought forward by Independent councillor Padraig McShane who visted Gaza last year.

Cllr McShane says the ‘twinning’ will help give humanitarian aid to Gaza.

Gaza is ruled by Hamas, a group which Israelis heavily criticise.

On ‘Facebook’ many people in Gaza have welcomed the decision by Moyle to twin with Gaza but the Jewish Chronicle newspaper reported that Steven Jaffe, co-chair of Northern Ireland Friends of Israel, said: “Is Moyle District Council prepared to turn a blind eye when it invites Hamas officials to tea at the town hall?”

And the London-based pro-Israeli ‘Fair Play Campaign Group’ has contacted Moyle Council on the matter.

Arieh Kovler said the Fair Play group is an organisation created by the Board of Deputies of British Jews and the Jewish Leadership Council, the main institutions of the British Jewish community.

The letter said: ‘I am writing to express extreme concern at media reports that Moyle District Council is proposing to twin with Gaza city. The Council should be aware that Gaza City is ruled by Hamas.

‘Hamas is recognised by the USA, UK and the Republic of Ireland as a terrorist organisation. Hamas has been linked with more than 400 terrorist attacks including more than 50 civilian-targeted suicide bombings.

‘The Hamas charter rejects all peace negotiations with Israel and calls for Israel to be obliterated. Hamas came to prominence in the 1990s by rejecting the Oslo peace process which sought to established a Palestinian state alongside Israel.

‘The manner which Hamas governs Gaza has brought widespread concern internationally relating to the killing and torture of political opponents, the treatment of women and homosexuals and the indoctrinating of children as young as eight to anti-Jewish hatred and violence.

‘A twinning between Moyle District Council and the Hamas-dominated Municipality of Gaza City would make a formal and symbolic link between your Council and an antisemitic, internationally proscribed, terrorist organisation. This has very serious ethical and legal ramifications for the Council.

‘I would be obliged if you would please bring these concerns to the attention of the councillors.

‘If Moyle District Council wishes to make a humanitarian gesture towards Palestinians who are suffering because of the conflict there are many organisations which are seeking to brihg together Palestinians and Israelis.

‘I would be delighted to provide information about appropriate initiatives which the Council would, I am sure, approve and may wish to support,’ said the letter.

There was no discussion of the letter when it was tabled in front of councillors at the main April monthly meeting of the Council.

In another development, Moyle councillors did not like the “tone” of a letter sent to them about Gaza by the head of Nenagh Council in County Tipperary.

Moyle Council has a long standing association with Nenagh but recently when the SDLP said they wanted more information on the Gaza proposals, before they finally backed it last month, Seamus Morris had been touch urging the Council to back the Gaza link.

But, at a recent meeting, Councillor Catherine McCambridge (SDLP) proposed, seconded by Councillor Willie Graham, ‘That a letter be sent to Nenagh Council to express Council’s disappointment at the tone of the letter sent by the Mayor to Moyle Council regarding the proposed twinning with Gaza.’

On a vote being taken, there were nine votes in favour of and none against the proposal which was carried.

Earlier this year Nenagh Mayor, Cllr Seamus Morris (Sinn Fein) urged Moyle Council to back Cllr McShane’s Gaza proposals

In the letter, Cllr Morris said: ‘Back in the 80s when it was not a popular thing to do Nenagh Town Council twinned with Moyle District Council.’

And in the letter Cllr Morris said it was a “mystery” to him why SDLP councillors were ‘holding up’ the plan.

Last year Moyle Independent councillor Randal McDonnell said he would rather go to ‘Outer Mongolia’ than Nenagh.

At the time, Seamus Morris said he wouldn’t allow the comment to sour relations between the two towns

You can see a summary here.

The full report is in Microsoft Powerpoint format and can be downloaded here.

Dear Archbishop Desmond Tutu, I write to you with a heavy heart.

You are a revered leader in South Africa, but recently have added your iconic voice to the campaign for sanctions against Israel.

Archbishop, I believe you are making a terrible mistake. Without truth there can be no justice, and without justice there can be no peace. The Talmud says: “The world stands on three things: justice, truth and peace.” These three values are inseparable. Archbishop, I am convinced that the sanctions campaign against Israel is morally repugnant because it is based on horrific and grotesquely false accusations against the Jewish people.

The truth, archbishop, is that Israel is simply not an apartheid state. In the State of Israel all citizens – Jew and Arab – are equal before the law. Israel has no Population Registration Act, no Group Areas Act, no Mixed Marriages and Immorality Act, no Separate Representation of Voters Act, no Separate Amenities Act, no pass laws or any of the myriad apartheid laws.

Israel is a vibrant liberal democracy with a free press and independent judiciary, and accords full political, religious and other human rights to all its people, including its more than 1 million Arab citizens, many of whom hold positions of authority including that of cabinet minister, member of parliament and judge at every level, including that of the Supreme Court. All citizens vote on the same roll in regular, multiparty elections; there are Arab parties and Arab members of other parties in Israel’s parliament. Arabs and Jews share all public facilities, including hospitals and malls, buses, cinemas and parks. And, archbishop, that includes universities and opera houses.

The other untruth is the accusation of illegal occupation of Arab land. Like the apartheid libel, this is outrageously false. There is no nation that has a longer, deeper or more profound connection to its country than the Jewish people have to the land of Israel and the city of Jerusalem.

Archbishop, you and I as religious leaders always turn to the Bible as a source of truth. What does it mean that Israel is the “promised land”? It means, as we both know, that it was promised by God to the Jews – the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. This promise was first fulfilled by God more than 3,300 years ago, when Joshua led the Jewish people into the land of Israel. Since then there has been an unbroken Jewish presence in the land, albeit small during the Roman exile.

All the books of the Old Testament – Joshua, Judges, Samuel, Kings, Isaiah, Jeremiah, etc. – describe the deep connection between the Jews and the land of Israel, including the West Bank, known in the Bible as Judea and Samaria – the area that contained the great cities of the two previous Jewish commonwealths, such as Jericho, Shiloh (where the Tabernacle stood for hundreds of years), Beit El (where Jacob had his vision of the ladder) and Hebron (where Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are buried with their wives Sarah, Rebecca and Leah).

Three thousand years ago, there was no London or Paris, no Washington or Moscow, no Pretoria or Cape Town, but there was a Jerusalem, capital of a Jewish state.

“If I forget thee O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget its cunning… if I fail to elevate Jerusalem above my foremost joy.” Those words from Psalms are recited by Jews at every wedding. At every funeral, the statement of comfort given to the mourners refers to Zion and Jerusalem. Jews pray for Jerusalem three times a day, and also after every meal.

Archbishop, the Arab/Israeli conflict is not a struggle against apartheid or occupation. It is a century- long war against the very existence of Jews and a Jewish state in the Middle East. There have already been seven major Arab/Israeli wars since the birth of modern Israel.

Today the front includes an alliance between Iran, Syria and Hizbullah, the latter now with 40,000 rockets aimed at Israeli cities. Iranian officers train Hizbullah forces, while Iran pursues nuclear weapons and openly declares its intention to wipe out Israel. Hamas, the terrorist Palestinian government in Gaza, sides with Iran and Hizbullah in rearming with the declared aim of destroying Israel.

Since 1967, one aspect of this century- long conflict has been the demand for a Palestinian state. In spite of the deep historical and religious roots of Jews in all of Israel, generations of Jewish leaders have been prepared, for the sake of peace, to give up ancestral and covenantal land to establish a Palestinian state.

SO WHY has there not been peace? The ANC taught us you can’t make peace on your own. No matter how deeply the ANC was committed to a peaceful resolution of the South African conflict, until the National Party was prepared to accept that black South Africans had a place in their own country, there could be no peace. And so too, until the Arab/Muslim world accepts that Jews have a right to a state of their own on their ancestral land, there will be no peace.

In 1948, the Jews accepted the UN resolution establishing a Jewish state and a Palestinian state, but the Arab world rejected it and five Arab countries invaded Israel to destroy it.

After that, the West Bank and Gaza were in Arab hands until 1967.

There was an opportunity then – every day for almost 20 years – to establish a Palestinian state. It never happened. And since then there have been numerous opportunities – each rejected by Arab leaders.

Why? Because this war has been more about the destruction of the Jewish state than about the establishment of a Palestinian state. Even today, so-called moderate Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas denies Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state.

In 2000, the Palestinian leadership launched a massive wave of suicide bombers into Israel, leading to more than 1,300 civilian deaths and 10,000 injuries. Proportionately, such carnage in South Africa would mean more than 10,000 killed and over 80,000 injured! Israel erected a security fence with checkpoints to shield it from such attacks launched from the disputed territories.

Archbishop, you compare these checkpoints to apartheid South Africa. But they are not about pass laws, which don’t exist in Israel. The checkpoints are on the border between sovereign Israeli territory and the disputed territories of the West Bank and Gaza in order to keep civilians from being murdered, and have been very successful in doing so. These checkpoints – like those found in all airports – are there to prevent suicide bombers from blowing up innocent people.

Archbishop, do not bestow respectability on an immoral sanctions campaign that is an affront to truth and justice, which prevents peace and prolongs the terrible suffering of people on both sides of this painful conflict. Archbishop, let us pray for an end to all this agony, and for the fulfillment of the verse in Isaiah: “And the Lord God will wipe away the tears from all faces.”

The matter-of-fact Office of Judicial Review ruling, reprimanding Judge Bathurst-Norman for making observations based upon personal political views, may seem a little lame. Despite the involvement of the Lord Chancellor and Lord Chief Justice, this will not overturn the trial verdict itself; it is very hard to retry people once they’ve been found Not Guilty.

Nevertheless, coupled with last week’s confirmation by William Hague that Parliament will now consider new laws to prevent abuse of Universal Jurisdiction, this decision represents a significant setback to those working to import the Israel/Palestine conflict into our judicial systems by engaging in what has been aptly described as “Lawfare”.

Groups including the Board of Deputies and Zionist Federation were right to pursue a series of official complaints against Bathurst-Norman. This was always about more than the grotesque comparison between Israeli actions and Nazi atrocities. This was the thin end of the wedge. It opened the possibility of UK Foreign Policy being made in our courtrooms, circumventing the democratic process.

This is not just a matter of Israel Advocacy. Lawfare also threatens to impact upon our lives as British Jews. Other recent cases have used legal justifications which argued that vandalism and disruption in the UK can be legalised by political anger at events in the Middle East. Ironically, they claim that international law gives them the right to commit these crimes. This trend surfaced in the assault on BICOM’s office during Operation Cast Lead, the attacks upon Carmel Agrexo warehouses, and vandalism of Starbucks branches during anti-Israel protests. Less dramatically, but arguably more significantly, attempts to challenge the legal status of Jewish schools based upon their teaching of Zionism show how prevalent Lawfare is starting to become.

The Office of Judicial Review may appear to have only slapped Bathurst-Norman on the wrist. In fact it has established an important precedent – that political attitudes to the State of Israel will never be an acceptable defence for criminal activity. This is a serious setback for those who seek to institutionalise the delegitimisation of Israel in the UK.

Jeremy Newmark is Chief Executive of the Jewish Leadership Council, and a member of the Board of the Fair Play Campaign Group

The following joint reaction to the sacking of Baroness Tonge by Liberal Democrat Leader Nick Clegg was issued by the Jewish Leadership Council and the Board of Deputies of British Jews:

“Baroness Tonge’s support for an investigation into baseless accusations of organ harvesting by the Israeli rescue teams are outrageous and a calumny.

Baroness Tonge has promoted this libel against Israel by utilising historic themes that are classically deployed to attack the Jewish People. She has dishonoured the noble efforts of Israeli soldiers and civilians who engaged in a selfless humanitarian effort to save lives in Haiti.

Whatever her motives, Jenny Tonge’s persistent use of Antisemitic tropes has no place in British politics. Nick Clegg has responded swiftly and correctly. We welcome this. Nevertheless, any further use of antisemitic rhetoric must result in Tonge’s expulsion from the party and loss of the whip.”