Anti-Israel smears get new boost all across Europe as Pink Floyd star sprays preposterous remarks on security barrier
So what happens when you put together an ageing British rock star, a Finnish director, and a spokesman for the United Nations to launch a short film about Israel’s security barrier, sorry, “Apartheid Wall”? Let’s begin with the money quote. As Pink Floyd front man Roger Waters had it this week (using the catch line from one of his most famous songs) in a story quoted all across Europe by French news agency Agence France Presse (AFP):
‘”It fills me with horror, the thought of living in a giant prison,” Waters says as he spray-paints “We don’t need no thought control” on the wall.’
Oh dear, oh dear. One of the problems with political fanaticism, of course, is that the people who participate in it quickly lose all sense of what they are saying and doing. But this — ‘We don’t need no thought control’? — is preposterous even by anti-Israeli standards. Time then for a bit of loopy logic from the United Nations just to guarantee this particular piece’s entry into the idiotic-story-of-the-year competition.
For full effect, I have left the narrative and the quotations from the AFP story intact:
‘Philippe Lazzarini, the head of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said he hoped the virtual disappearance of [suicide bombing] attacks in recent years would encourage Israel to rethink the barrier.
“The number of suicide bombings has dropped from about 38 a year to one in the last two years,” he said ahead of the premiere. “This might be an opportunity to reflect if the reasons still prevail for continued construction at the expense of tens of thousands of Palestinians.”‘
Hmmm. So let’s get this right. The security barrier has been highly successful in preventing suicide bombings. Since its success is now proven, this obviously means that it should be removed.
Make of that what you will.
The film, entitled ‘Walled Horizons’ and narrated by Waters, takes its cue from the fifth anniversary of the notorious ruling by the International Court of Justice in 2004 which said, in a purely advisory capacity, that the route of the security barrier was illegal and that it should be torn down.
Yohan Eriksson, the Finnish director of the film, was quoted by AFP as saying of his production:
“It is first and foremost a reminder that the world’s highest court has essentially said you cannot build a fence on your neighbour’s yard.”
Actually, in a world of sanity and decency it would “first and foremost” be a reminder of the brutal realities of Palestinian political culture which necessitated the barrier’s construction in the first place.
But as AFP reminds us: ‘The Palestinians view it as an “Apartheid Wall”‘. With which casual and seemingly innocent reference the notion of Israel as the modern day equivalent of Apartheid South Africa is once again pumped into Europe’s collective mind. And so it goes.
Tags: Israel
August 20th, 2009 at 11:53 am
Hilarious. Are these people retarded? But as you say, this is what happens when people give up their rational faculties in favour of the pursuit of an insane and hateful agenda. Great piece. Keep it coming Robin.
August 20th, 2009 at 1:15 pm
Many people fail to see that their position on the security barrier, and much else re Israel is the same as Muslim radicals the world over and the same as neo-Nazis who naturally want the barrier removed as well, and for the same reasons. At least Al-Queda and neo-Nazis are honest about their aims – death to the Jews. Many on the Left support the same aim, death to the Jews, but label it human rights and non-racism and freedom for Palestine.
August 20th, 2009 at 1:44 pm
Robin,
I think you’re being quite unfair to Sr Lazzarini: he makes no causal link between the existence of the wall and the drop in suicide bombings, so clearly the two are unrelated. The drop in bombings is probably more to do with Hamas’s moderating influence, so since the wall has had no effect, and is illegal anyway, it seems quite reasonable to question whether now mightn’t be a good time to dismantle it.
August 20th, 2009 at 2:00 pm
To the previous poster, Miv Tucker:
I’m not entirely sure what you mean by “Hamas’s moderating influence”. But with all due respect, your wider argument strikes me as strange. Unless Lazzarini lives on another planet (something which cannot be excluded) he must know that the security barrier has been instrumental in preventing suicide bombings, as must you. Of course, Israel has had a multi-track policy: the security barrier has stopped many suicide bombings while targeted assasinations and arrests have stopped others. But it is grotesque and illogical of him to say that because suicide bombings have now been reduced to a minimum (primarily due to the barrier) the barrier should now be dismantled so the terrorists can start up again. The thinking is topsy turvy. But that is typical for the UN…. BTW, the barrier is not illegal. The ICJ ruling was an advisory ruling, nothing more. And Israel can claim self-defence as a perfectly reasonable justification in international law.
August 20th, 2009 at 5:21 pm
“The drop in bombings is probably more to do with Hamas’s moderating influence, so since the wall has had no effect,”
Those who enjoyed the illogicality of this statement will find more of Miv Tucker’s priceless thoughts sprinkled liberally across the internet. My own personal favourite is the following which came in response to the news that an Arab gentleman driving a bulldozer had deliberately upended a bus and mown down several cars in Jerusalem:
“Miv Tucker
July 3rd, 2008 8:41am
The fact is, this was a Caterpillar bulldozer. If only War on Want had been able to force the Church of England to ethically disinvest from the company, thereby obliging it to cease trading with Israel, this needless tragedy might so easily have been avoided.”
http://tinyurl.com/l2nnth
I can guarantee you this: All those self-righteous types who are only too delighted to play fast and loose with Jewish security would take a wholly different tack if they and their families were the targets of homicidal maniacs. I have in mind particularly a certain prominent American professor of economics who at his blog came out with all guns blazing in defence of the Allied bombing raids at Dresden. The very next day, he suggested that the Israeli government had large quantities of blood on its hands. When I pointed out the hyposcrisy of this position, Pecksniff removed the post immediately.
August 20th, 2009 at 5:43 pm
David S.
Irony, sarcasm …
August 20th, 2009 at 7:52 pm
The day I start taking Roger Waters seriously as a political/security matters expert is right after I take Jimmy Page seriously as a financial adviser.
August 20th, 2009 at 8:09 pm
I think Miv Tucker was being ironic. At least, I hope so!
August 21st, 2009 at 12:23 am
“I think Miv Tucker was being ironic.”
One of the tricks the Dutch pulled on Jews who had been rounded up was to ship them to the East in first-class carriages. Their anxieties thus allayed the Dutch Jews offered no resistance reasoning that if the style of carriage was anything to go by their fate in the East would be much less worse than they had feared. Of course, once they arrived in Auschwitz reality dawned. There are stories of middle-class Jewish matrons going into hysterics when they realised they had arrived in hell. They simply could not believe that in the middle of the twentieth century a place like that could exist. Irony in such circumstances, at least effective irony, is impossible. Similarly, I would submit that irony in these circumstances when such truly wicked charges have been made – charges that would have not been out of place in the 14th century when Jews were blamed for the Black Death – is also both inappropriate and ineffective.
I listened recently to a really wonderful lecture by Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz (see link below). One of his chief points is that in reality we Jews are not a people or a race or an ethnic group but a very large family (converts too who are adoped members of our family). He suggests it is for this reason that although generally we fight like billy-o amongst ourselves, when we come under attack from outside, we unite almost as one. And, the more violent the attack, he goes on, the more we come together, the stronger the bond that is created. That is why, he postulates, why both Intifadas were such failures. And that is, I suppose, why when I heard of these charges from Sweden I became more proud of being Jewish and more determined to support Israel in any way I can. And I expect that is exactly how those Israeli tennis players felt recently when the Malmo authorities in Sweden banned spectators from the Davis Cup matches because of fears about anti-Israel protests. Like those Intifadists before them, I don’t suppose the anti-Zionists at Malmo realised that their exertions would result in an Israeli victory. So I say to all those anti-Semites and haters of Israel, go ahead, give it your very best shot, because you ain’t going to win, not now or ever again.
Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz on Rethinking Jewish Identity at the 92nd Street Y
http://tinyurl.com/lng5b7
August 21st, 2009 at 10:27 am
Joshua:
“He suggests it is for this reason that although generally we fight like billy-o amongst ourselves, when we come under attack from outside, we unite almost as one.”
So, let me try to understand this…all the Gilead Atzmons of this world, and all those self-hating Jews for Justice for Palestine types urging economic and academic boycotts, are actually standing shoulder-to-shoulder with their fellow Jews?
Doesn’t sound too likely: I don’t think Reb Steinsaltz has thought his arguments through properly.
August 21st, 2009 at 4:22 pm
“Doesn’t sound too likely: I don’t think Reb Steinsaltz has thought his arguments through properly.”
Oh please, I only gave a rough approximation of his argument. He obviously provides a number of caveats. I didn’t list them because my post was discursive enough and I didn’t wish to bore readers too much. If there is a fault here then, it is all mine. For you to suggest that any argument presented by one of the truly great thinkers in the Jewish world hasn’t been thought through properly is rather like an A level student of physics complaining that Einstein really should have got his act together.
Not only does his argument explain Israel’s defeat of both Intifadas but also the virtual elimination of Israel’s extreme left and much of the so-called peace movement. The barbarity exhibited by the various Palestinian movements only succeeded in unifying Israelis round the belief that no matter how much is offered, Palestinians really don’t want peace with Israel, or at least a peace with which the vast majority of Israelis could live. I think it also explains how the Jewish people could have come together just a few years after the Holocaust, an event that would have utterly destroyed most nations, to create Israel out of virtually nothing and in the teeth of enormous opposition.
Incidentally, I do not for one moment believe that those Jews you talk about are self-hating at all. In actual fact, I think they love themselves beyond measure.
August 21st, 2009 at 5:05 pm
Joshua:
I agree with every word. In my case too, all this Jew-hatred — so obvious for what it is behind the casuistry — serves only to make me proud of being Jewish and determined to help and support Israel.
May I also say, it moves me deeply to discover non-Jews like Robin Shepherd, who fight a principled fight on behalf of Jews and Israel, even when it comes at a professional price. For these rare and remarkable individuals I feel an enduring respect and gratitude, just as I feel a bottomless contempt for those who hate us.
And finally, thank you for my “Miv Tucker moment” (Comment 5, August 20, 5:21pm. It had me chuckling till bedtime!
August 22nd, 2009 at 6:32 am
This is another example of who is against the ‘two state solution’ and who is promoting it.
The wall is essentially a border between the two states. There should be some changes in it but these need to be negotiated by the two states. The objection to it started by the Palestinians because it was the first manifestation of the separation even though in most places it is built on the 67 borders.
Now we have the argument and those who get visa to Israel should automatically be able to visit the west bank. As if visiting the US gets you permission to enter Canada or Mexico as well.
September 6th, 2009 at 11:54 pm
Just by the way – How can the term apartheid be applied to the Israeli/Palestinian situation? They do not inhabit the same country although the Palestinians would like Israel to belong to them.