Sarah Colborne, Director of Campaigns and Operations at the Palestine Campaign, made a surprise visit to inspect her troops on the front-line on Saturday.
The Palestine Campaign sponsors the fortnightly anti-Israel demonstrations outside Ahava paying for the thousands of leaflets that are distributed to passers-by. There are obviously times when the planet need not be spared.
Anti-Israel activists were well down from the usual number. Bruce Levy, head-honcho of the troops on the ground, said everyone was at the Anarchist Bookfair.
Some did saunter along later to boost the ranks of the faithful.
The English Defence League were allocated their own pen by the police. As soon as the EDL arrived anti-Israel activists tried to capture that all important photo of a counter-demonstrator standing near the EDL so they can smear the counter-demonstrator as a racist.
This time there were just four EDL members present. As well as showing support for Israel they spent most of their time protesting against Hamas’ hatred of gays.
The day turned into the battle of the flags with the Flag of St. George and the gay rights flag hoisted in the EDL pen and Palestinian flags flying in the anti-Israel pen.
And on top of all the other celebrity boycotters even Elvis Presley came back to make an appearance in the anti-Israel pen.
As the Palestine Campaign is the chief sponsor of all these anti-Israel protests a few pro-Israel counter-demonstrators took the opportunity to make their objections known to Sarah Colborne.
She was asked whether she denounced Hamas for their call to kill Jews in their Charter (Article 7). She replied: “I will not engage with you.”
Now, I have no major problem with someone being anti-Israel, if that is their wish, but surely it isn’t too difficult to denounce an organisation that expressly wishes to kill Jews. Call me old-fashioned.
These days one has to make an expressed and clear denunciation of the EDL to prove that one is not a racist but not denouncing a proudly virulently anti-Semitic organisation like Hamas is, apparently, just fine.
If Sarah or Betty Hunter or anyone from the Palestine Campaign wishes, at any stage, to denounce Hamas after reading Article Seven of its Charter then please get in touch and I will publish any response on this blog.
Article Seven states:
…….the Islamic Resistance Movement aspires to the realisation of Allah’s promise, no matter how long that should take. The Prophet, Allah bless him and grant him salvation, has said:
“The Day of Judgement will not come about until Muslims fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Muslims, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him. Only the Gharkad tree, would not do that because it is one of the trees of the Jews.” (related by al-Bukhari and Muslim).
RichardMillett's Blog 
thank you Richard!!!
is “Elvis” the one in the grey track suit?
has Elvis an anti-Israel and/or anti-semitic record or is that eye-sore smearing the memory of the King?
ooops forgot to subscribe
Oh dear ! I missed Sarah & the inspiring “protest on Saturday as i passed by Monmouth Street at about 4pm. It is truly an inspiration – as my sister & i made an absolute beeline to shop at Ahava on our day out jolly in London.
Im afraid we got a bit carried away & spent rather a lot of money there.. bought some Dead Sea Mud & some moisturisers – the products are so good. Next time i’ll try to come a bit earlier & for every five minutes the ” protestors ” are there i will spend even more money. That’s a real additional incentive for me.
Perhaps the protestors might like to try boycotting something like their mobile phones computers that have Israeli manufactured or discovered chips or some of the many essential life supporting drugs from Israel.. no ? oh go on…
Very pleased to hear it J Davies! I only reaslised this shop was there because of the monkey chanting demonstration! So I bought products there in order to do my bit and now protest or not I am hooked on Ahava products. They are really great. I rave to everyone about the Mud Exfoliator (for all skin types) and here I am raving to you about it.
I have heard sales are always up on protest days.
43rd second. Is the rather ape-like lady shouting “Israel guerrillas”? Could anyone explain what she is referring to?
On seeing the mini-skirt clad lady at second 27 I was reminded of an unforgettable exchange between Jerry Seinfeld and George:
Jerry: She’s a Nazi, George! A Nazi!
George: Yeah but she’s kind of a cute Nazi.
“Zionist terrorists”? I did ask her but she was in her own little world.
“Everyone was at the Anarchist Book Fair”
Says it all, really …
You’ve really nailed their hypocrisy with that comment re the EDL, Richard!
“As well as showing support for Israel they spent most of their time protesting against Hamas’ hatred of gays.”
The EDL no more support gay rights than they support Israel. (ie not at all.)
The Jewish and gay members do though.
Yes, they have some fig-leaves but the horrific reality of the EDL is absolutely clear and well-documented.
I spoke to Bruce Levy & asked Him why Their website continues to smear members of the Counter-Demonstration even though He knows that these allegations are not truthfull ?
He walked off saying ” I don’t speak to Zionists ” .
what a cowardly thing to do – libelling people & then running away from discussion when You realise that You have lost the argument !
that’s why they are into slandering and hating Israel because it is the right place for cowards to be
Didn’t know Elvis was Jewish? The scum that stand outside the shop stopping people the right to shop where they like are extremists who would stop free speech in this country. Just look at some of their backgrounds.
Why is that woman at the end of the video clip chanting ‘Israel tourists?”
israel terrorists.
But Richard I put it to you that she perhaps hates “Israel Tourists” as well so she may well be monkey chanting “Israel Tourists” and not “terrorists?”
She may well be referring to your clip here
I put it to you that this monkey chanting by this charming lady could be about her regret at missing out at all the happy singing and dancing Jewish style in your above clip.
Had I have noticed her there on Saturday, I would have given her a one woman show of hora dancing and singing Shalom Halechem so she could put that in her bannana and smoke it.
I will now check out the mini skirted cute Nazi that Daniel Marks is referring to.
Rutytutty, it is Israel’s success, and the happiness of her people, against all odds, which drives these deranged haters crazy. And talking of tourists, Israel is having a record year for visitors.
Drives them crazy – and I love it!
What drives them craziest is when people go into the shop to buy and come out and wave the bags in their faces. So come along on November 20 or 21 to the ‘Buycott” event (where you will get 10% off).
Or come along any other demo day and buy.
Is there any way we could get the ape-like lady on this excellent blog to clarify what she was shouting? I’m still pretty certain it’s “Israel guerrillas! Israel guerrillas! Israel guerrillas! Israel guerrillas!..etc ”
I propose that she may be a recent arrival to the UK with a relatively limited vocabulary and modest linguistic skills. In the fullness of time and as her English improves she’ll be able to improve her chant to:
Israelis are guerrillas!
I like Israeli guerrillas!
You are Israelis, we are guerrillas!
As I write it occurs to me that the camera may have begun begun filming at the wrong time and she was, in fact, shouting “Guerrilla Israel, Guerrilla Israel etc”. That would make much more sense.
Finally, I’m glad to hear that as well as being great lovers of Israel the EDL are heroic defenders of gay rights. Are you sure these guys are Nazis? They seem like very nice Nazis anyway.
Daniel
I am still watching and I still assume that the EDL is fertile ground sprouting all kinds of plants and that it is too early to say which ones will dominate.
LGF Johnson “promotes” the Leicester-video in the US using it for his attack on Pamela Geller as the hugest news ever while Telegraph and BBC report very unexitedly about the rally not confirming that the window smashing vandals were from the EDL. (Goldberg helped) Of course I know nothing about the counter-demo-participants, some kind of anti-fascists, but since our German Antifa seems to prefer black clothes and enjoys its vandalism with the best of them and “serious” media didn’t tell me who the vandals were …
I wait and see, always remembering that from our throwing stones at police APO evolved a by now seemingly respected everywhere former foreign minister and at least parts of the Greens.
Okay, after having revisited the ape-like lady I now believe that she us singing:
“Is-ra-el Tu-tu-rillas!” It’s a catchy little song and she is being considered by the IBA as a possible Israeli candidate for the next Eurovision Song Contest. They are insisting that she dons the EDL lady’s mini skirt for the occasion and she wants the old hags in the background to be singing, “No Palestinian rights in the West Bank!” Negotiations are on-going.
With regard to the lady singing ‘Israel terrorists’, can we be careful about the issues of accents and highlight only what she’s saying? We don’t know who she is, her history, why she is here and what she might have witnessed, although we could make an educated guess. Her politic and chanting content are what I disagree with, not her inability to articulate quite clearly.
I thought you might find this interesting; my take on my first visit to the Ahava counter-protest. http://www.thejc.com/blogpost/ahava-first-sight
Regards,
Isca
“We don’t know who she is, her history, why she is here and what she might have witnessed, although we could make an educated guess. ” – On what exactly are we basing our “educated guess”?
Sorry, I used the ‘royal we’ out of an expressive habit; to clarify: I based my guess on the particular ‘pen’ she was standing in, the things she was chanting and on the discussion I over heard her having.
Well Isca, I guess we’ll have to agree to disagree. I see no reason to “highlight what she’s saying”. We are not terrorist, and if that’s what she’s calling Israel, she’s either pig-ignorant or she knows the truth and she’s lying.
If there was some specific critique of this governments foreign or domestic policies, I could consider it and agree or otherwise.
However, she’s an inarticulate old sow standing in a pen repeating meaningless slogans that I suspect she couldn’t even spell. She and her ilk seek to destroy the only Jewish State in the world. We occupy 0.25% of the Middle East and less than a quarter of the land area of Eretz Israel – that, however, is too much for them. The fact that they have no chance of success makes them no less evil.
If you don’t believe me, next time you’re there ask her if there are any borders which they would recognize as legitimate for the existence of Israel as a Jewish, democratic state. Then spit in her ugly mug.
Sounds like progress. Hope the end is in sight for Ahava and that it will be free of anti-Ahava demonstrations. Time for the demonstrators to move on and the police to get back to hunting muggers and bike thieves. However, may be it is just getting colder? Hamas are worse than EDL but I suspect that it partly down to the lack of power for EDL.
Silke – educate the casual blogger rather than take him apart. If you demolish people they will merely stop reading the blog and that won’t help Richard or your cause.
Attila
my upper eyelids are having a mongolic slant (said the contact lens salesman) so I have justified hopes to have been somewhere way back then the fruit of the loins of one of real Attila’s men. So since I have an expert’s testimony as to my hunnishness I am excused, if I just can’t help myself.
here is another surviving branch of that stone throwing crowd of Joschka Fischer’s youth:
youtube.com/watch?v=RrirAUP44x0
and then there is this one which kind of confuses me. In case it bores you ff to the break at 1:25
youtube.com/watch?v=mmn0OzQHDo4