Richard Millett: Banksy-inspired film that demonises Jews is shown at SOAS.
Jews are about to be demonised in the soon to be released From Balfour To Banksy, a new documentary film by Martin Buckley. In it Jews are portrayed as Nazis, thieves and thinking they’re the superior race.IsraellyCool: Deconstructing From Balfour to Banksy: “From Balfour to Bigots”
Buckley is ex-BBC and now senior lecturer in journalism at Southampton Solent University. In From Balfour To Banksy, which was shown at SOAS on Monday night, he interviews Palestinians living next to Israel’s security wall. His cameraman/editor is Alexander Wilks, a 23-year-old graduate just out of film school. The producer is Miranda Pinch, a Christian-believing Jewish woman.
Soon into the film we hear a Palestinian describe Gaza as a “child concentration camp”. This evokes the image of Jews as Nazis.
We are also sold the lie that “Jewish-only highways feed the settlements”. Then, after more accusations that Israel is an “apartheid state”, Buckley says:
“It’s surely amazing that Israel, built by the survivors of Hitler’s Holocaust, could be accused of the notorious human rights violation that scars South Africa. But for over a decade critics outside and inside Israel, Jews as well as Arabs, have been accusing Israel’s right-wing governments of practising apartheid. Shocking as the accusation of apartheid is it has serious formal backing.”
In Jerusalem Buckley then finds a Jewish-Israeli family who invite him over for dinner. One of the family members tells Buckley that Israeli children are taught in school: “We are the chosen ones, everyone else is beneath us.” This false accusation is an antisemitic trope.
The scene moves to Tel Aviv where we are told “Palestinians have lived for hundreds of years”, eventhough Tel Aviv was founded in 1909. Buckley interviews Palestinian students at Tel Aviv University. The claim is made that TAU is built over a Palestinian village.
Like A State of Terror, the makers of this film will want to make it an icon of ‘human rights’, to be shown to young people at institutes of learning worldwide. So it’s important to deconstruct it in detail. The footage is accompanied by interviews conducted by Martin Buckley who is ex-BBC. See his Facebook page for a clue as to where he stands on Israel:
(The film also includes an irrelevant dig at Brexit supporters by Buckley…). I didn’t manage to write down the names of all the interviewees but they included: Sut Jhally, Lucas al-Zouaghi (not sure this is spelt correctly, I couldn’t find his name using Google), Robert Cohen, Edra Gluckman (Women In Black) , Raed Sadeh, Terry Boullata, Mahmoud Muna, Ofra Yeshua-Lyth, Fida Jiryis and Sir Vincent Fean. Plus a young Palestinian called Georgina (not a common Arab name) who clearly attends a good school in East Jerusalem and was clearly coached.
‘Israel has committed genocide and theft’ – Jhall
‘Child concentration camp’ (referring to Gaza) – al-Zouaghi
‘Illegal settlements; Jewish only highways’ – Buckley
(No Court has ever ruled them illegal. The ICJ did but it’s not a proper Court. Those roads can be used by any citizen of Israel regardless of religion – the rule is for security).
‘The settlements are illegal according to the Geneva Convention’ – Cohen.
(Wrong. The Convention refers to forced transfer. No Jew in Judea/Samaria was ‘forced ‘ to move there).
‘Israel’s policies are relentlessly anti-Palestinian’ – Buckley
(Nonsense. The Palestinian leadership consistently refuses peace offers)
‘The Wall is ineffective – kids jump over it’ – Sadeh
(Obvious nonsense)
‘Jews are forcing their way back into the City [Hebron] because they feel they have a historic right to do so’ – Ofra Yeshua-Lyth
(Hebron has a long and rich Jewish history and is the site of the oldest Jewish community in the world).
Dore Gold: Is It True the UN Created Israel? 70 Years since UN General Assembly Resolution 181
It is often incorrectly asserted that the United Nations created the State of Israel by means of UN General Assembly Resolution 181, what is also known as the Partition Plan, which was adopted on November 29, 1947, 70 years ago. That is completely untrue.
UN Resolution 181 called explicitly for an independent Jewish state alongside of an Arab state and provided international legitimacy for the Jewish claim to statehood. It was a morally significant action, but like all UN General Assembly resolutions, it was not legally binding.
What established Israel was not the action of the UN. What actually established Israel was the Declaration of Independence by Israel's first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, on May 15, 1948. To this day, what establishes states are not actions in the UN, despite what Mahmoud Abbas might hope.
When I served as Israel's ambassador to the UN, a campaign began which called for reviving Resolution 181, led by the Palestinian UN Observer, Nasser al-Qudwa. At the time, Israeli Foreign Minister Ariel Sharon said to me, "Go back to Ben-Gurion's speech in the Knesset from December 1949."
When Arab armies converged on the nascent State of Israel, put Jerusalem under siege, and bombarded the Old City with artillery, the UN did nothing. As Ben-Gurion told the Israeli Knesset in December 1949, "The UN didn't lift a finger."
Ben-Gurion declared, "We cannot regard the decision of the 29th of November 1947 as being possessed of any further moral force since the UN did not succeed in implementing its own decisions." Eight days later he moved the capital of Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem just as the Jewish state was being reborn.