Jewish Terrorists Attack Academic

'Self-hating' Jew is often a term applied to those that criticise Israeli policies, so why not also apply it to those ultra-rightist Jews that attack their fellow Jews? Like the nasty characters that carried out this attack:

A well-known Israeli critic of Jewish settlement in the occupied West Bank, Zeev Sternhell, has been slightly wounded in a bomb attack.

Police suspect ultra-nationalists Israelis were behind the attack.

Professor Sternhall has also strongly opposed the Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip, describing it as immoral and ineffective.

Earlier this year, Professor Sternhall was awarded the prestigious Israel Prize for political science.

Mr Sternhell suffered minor shrapnel wounds in one leg.

Israeli police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said several assailants were waiting for Mr Sternhell shortly after midnight on Wednesday outside his home in Jerusalem.

Reports say police investigators found posters in Mr Sternhell's neighbourhood offering a reward of $320,000 to anyone who kills a member of Peace Now, an Israeli group that campaigns against settlement building to which the academic belongs.

The BBC, Palestine and Half a Story

Nabbed the headline from one of the far-right cretins at Biased BBC, seemed appropriate for this little story I found on the BBC's website. In a report on the rocket attacks from Gaza into Israel, the BBC reported the following:

Hamas, which does not recognise Israel and opposes the peace process, ousted Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas's forces from Gaza in June. Mr Abbas remains in control of Palestinian-administered parts of the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

However, there is no explanation of the circumstances surrounding the 'ousting' of Abbas' forces. Like the fact that Fatah attempted to seize control of Gaza and the West Bank from the democratically elected Hamas government. Or the fact that Abbas' forces had been attempting to assassinate the leader of a democratically government. A more appropriate description of the situation would be that Abbas' forces had attempted a coup against a democratically elected government and failed. But then I guess that wouldn't fit in with the anti-Palestinian rhetoric that is prevalent in the West.

Chemical Weapons Used in West Bank

Here's a story you won't find on Melanie Phillips' hate-filled blog over at The Spectator (from The Guardian's letters page):

Israeli ambassador Ron Prosor (Response, November 30) denies Israel used chemical weapons in Gaza. Claims and counterclaims about the use of such weapons have a long history and are often hard to verify. Mr Prosor's denial must be judged against the reports by health workers in Gaza of injured Palestinians suffering from "severe convulsions, muscle spasms, vomiting, amnesia or partial memory loss" after exposure to Israeli gas attacks (multiple references available). Last year the IDF fired powerful gases at a peaceful joint Palestinian and Israeli demonstration against the wall being driven through B'lin, a village in the occupied West Bank. My colleagues and I were able to obtain a sample of the munition. It contained a powerful irritant derived from capsaicin (the analysis was published in the international peer-reviewed journal Medicine, Conflict and Survival in October last year).

Claims that the IDF used white phosphorus in the Lebanon war last year were initially denied. They were finally admitted by the Israeli minister Jacob Edery in October 2006. White phosphorus causes intense burns and generates choking fumes. I suspect the Israeli government is basing its denials on a technical quibble about whether the chemicals concerned are explicitly banned in international law - to which, anyhow, it is not a signatory.

Professor Steven Rose
London

All part of the policy of ethnic cleansing that appears to be supported by Ms Phillips and co.