Ben White and the Christian speaker who forgot to mention that Palestinians were massacred by…Christians.

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“Israel Apartheid Week” kicked off on Tuesday night with star guests Ben White and Dr Ang Swee Chai speaking at a UCL Friends of Palestine event on Medicine And Apartheid in Palestine.

Dr Ang Swee Chai, an orthopaedic surgeon, set up Medical Aid For Palestinians and is a self-confessed fundamentalist Christian. She said that when she was growing up she had lots of Jewish friends and supported Israel. Then in 1982 she turned on the TV and saw Israeli planes dropping bombs on Lebanon. Many of those killed and wounded, she said, were non-combatants.

So she immediately resigned from her hospital job and flew to Beirut under the auspices of Christian Aid. She ended up joining the Palestinian Red Crescent Society, which, she admitted, was affiliated to the PLO.

She worked in Beirut’s Gaza Hospital near to Sabra and Shatila and learnt from Palestinians that “many lost their homes when Palestine became Israel”.

She said that the first two things Palestinian children in Sabra and Shatila learn are “their name and the village in Palestine they came from”. “Palestine was never a desert, but a rich centre of civilisation, culture, art and dance,” she continued.

Then she turned to the horrific events of 16th-18th September 1982 in Sabra and Shatila. She said that the day before 700 Israeli tanks drove from South Lebanon to Beirut and when the Israelis arrived they started shooting people.

At Gaza Hospital, she continued, the Israelis demanded that any foreigners leave. She presumed they were going massacre the patients. But two doctors refused to leave and so “our patients survived”.

Throughout her talk she showed graphic images (see below) of dead, dying and badly wounded  people and of a mass grave containing, she said, “800 t0 1,000 bodies”. She finished off with that notorious map of a “disappearing Palestine”.

She described how an 11 year old boy, who survived, was lined up along with his family as they were “systematically killed” and how he “heard his sister and aunties being raped and crying”.

She finished with an emotional plea:

“I realised what was going on. If I had any doubt about what the Palestinian refugees said to me about how they lost Palestine and had been brutalised, I had no doubt now. Why was I brought up to be so bigoted and prejudiced against the Palestinians. Will G-d give me a chance to do something right for the rest of my life? This story should be told. The Palestinians are still dying and suffering today.”

During the Q&A a Jewish student asked her whether being Christian was the reason for her failure to mention that the massacres at Sabra and Shatila were actually carried out by Christians, to which she responded (see clip here):

“This particular group of Christians was trained by Israel. Six of them confessed that Israel set them up…Where this kind of atrocity happens we need to know who made it possible, who planned it, who sealed the camps so nobody can escape, who flared the skies so the massacre can continue, who provided the bulldozers and all that. The Israeli Kahan Commission found Sharon indirectly responsible. The Christian militia itself was actually under the command of Israel.”

She said she now has further evidence, which has upset her Jewish friends, that the IDF were inside Sabra and Shatila when the massacres occurred.

She was awarded the Star of Palestine.

Meanwhile, Ben “I do not consider myself an anti-Semite, yet I can also understand why some are” White did his usual “Israel is an Apartheid state” rant using slides to attempt to make some sort of case (see below). One slide is humorously headed “Israel is worried”.

Inevitably, White explained the aims of the BDS (Boycott Divestment Sanctions) movement, called for a boycott of Israel and finished off quoting ex-IAF captain Yonatan Shapira:

“It is no longer enough to try and change Israel from within. Israel has to be pressured in he same way apartheid South Africa was forced to change.”

White didn’t mention that Shapira once sprayed “Free Gaza” and “Liberate all the ghettos” on to a wall nearby the Warsaw Ghetto where so many Jews lost their lives at the hands of the Nazis.

The same Jewish student asked White why anything he says about Israel is to be trusted considering he “is an anti-Semite”. White responded (see clip here) by saying that he had already made his “opposition to anti-Semitism perfectly clear”. It was a shame White wasn’t pressed about this racist tweet.

When I asked White to explain the difference between the tactics of the Nazis targeting German Jews in the 1930s and those of the BDS movement targeting Israeli Jews in 2014 he kindly plugged my blog before responding (see clip here):

“In one case you are talking about a fascist regime targeting a minority and persecuting them on an anti-Semitic basis. The other case you’re talking about a tried and tested method of civil society to resist oppression, a way of the weak challenging the powerful…Most people can tell the difference…”

White will be doing a reprise of his UCL talk at Amnesty International’s HQ in London on 21st March.

It’s obviously a very quiet time in foreign affairs for Amnesty to be hosting such an event.

Images used by Dr Ang Swee Chai:

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"Mass grave of 800,000 bodies."

“Mass grave of 800,000 bodies.”

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Slides used by Ben White:

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26 responses to “Ben White and the Christian speaker who forgot to mention that Palestinians were massacred by…Christians.

  1. Did JSOC manage to get their act together in order to counter this unsubstantiated agit prop from Ang Swee Chai ?

  2. Only 800,000 bodies in the mass grave, no wonder no one ever knew about it…I don’t think even the Nazis managed a single grave of those proportions, and the logistics of disposing of such a vast amount of human flesh was something they were honing to perfection. Maybe in this crazy world 800,000 is more believable that 800 or even 80, it’s the big lies that get swallowed more easily.

  3. “800,000 bodies in a mass grave” is a proof of the gullibility of the speaker and the idiots who invited her. All her statements are to be taken as bloody lies. Nothing new: blood libels are all these brainwashed racists can produce from their infertile brains.

    • Not gullible . Hate filled and brain washed . They want to hear these lies so that it gives substance to their warped agenda .
      Here is one of their US colleagues having a melt down after the UCLA 7-5 vote against divestment . Saved version after BDS turned it private

      • Very revealing, thanks. This clip shows clearly one of those 99% of haters who are simply covering up desperately for their own inadequacy. Anything to vent their frustration, anger and hatred on someone else. It’s just another version of kicking the (under)dog but excusing it with a lot of hooey and hot air.

      • Valuable lesson. Any video that embarrasses the left MUST be copied, backed up to save it from inevitable socialist censorship.

    • richardmillett

      Thinking about it in hindsight and just for the record I was stunned when i heard 800,000. It could well have been “800 to 1000” she said. But then it did sound like 800k.

      • The doctor was off 1,000 percent? I hope she prescribes medicine with more care than she rattles off propaganda.

  4. Christopher Proudlove

    As is customary in such meetings, those present were not given the reason why Israel was forced to take military action in order to preserve the lives of its citizens.
    After failing to take over Jordan in a bloody rebellion in the 1970s, the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO) was forced to relocate to Lebanon where they proceeded to cause mayhem in that country.
    According to Israel Resource Review, the Jewish state had long sought a peaceful northern border, but Lebanon’s position as a haven for terrorist groups has made this impossible. In March 1978, PLO terrorists infiltrated Israel. After murdering an American tourist walking near an Israeli beach, they hijacked a civilian bus. The terrorists shot through the windows as the bus travelled down the highway. When Israeli troops intercepted the bus, the terrorists opened fire. A total of 34 hostages died in the attack. In response, Israeli forces crossed into Lebanon and overran terrorist bases in the southern part of that country, pushing the terrorists away from the border. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) withdrew after two months, allowing United Nations (UN) forces to enter. But UN troops were unable to prevent terrorists from re-infiltrating the region and introducing new, more dangerous arms.
    Violence escalated with a series of PLO attacks and Israeli reprisals. Finally, the United States helped broker a cease¬fire agreement in July 1981. The PLO repeatedly violated the cease-fire over the ensuing 11 months. Israel charged that the PLO staged 270 terrorist actions in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza and along the Lebanese and Jordanian borders. Twenty-¬nine Israelis died and more than 300 were injured in the attacks.
    Meanwhile, a force of some 15-18,000 PLO members was encamped in scores of locations in Lebanon. About 5,000-6,000 were foreign mercenaries, coming from such countries as Libya, Iraq, India, Sri Lanka, Chad and Mozambique. Israel later discovered enough light arms and other weapons in Lebanon to equip five brigades. The PLO arsenal included mortars, Katyusha rockets and an extensive anti¬aircraft network. The PLO also brought hundreds of T¬34 tanks into the area. Syria, which permitted Lebanon to become a haven for the PLO and other terrorist groups, brought surface-to-air missiles into that country, creating yet another danger for Israel.
    Israeli strikes and commando raids were unable to stem the growth of this PLO army. The situation in the Galilee became intolerable as the frequency of attacks forced thousands of residents to flee their homes or to spend large amounts of time in bomb shelters. Israel was not prepared to wait for more deadly attacks to be launched against its civilian population before acting against the terrorists.

  5. 130,000+ dead in Syria – Arabs/Muslims killing Arabs/Muslims.
    Poison gas, a WMD, used on the people of Syria.

    Yawn….

    • richardmillett

      The head of Pal Soc said the last meeting about Syria was two months ago!

      • The PalSoc is having trouble with Power Point.

        A dog ate their USB drive with the presentation on Syria.

        How about “Hands Off Ukraine”, “Russia Out of Crimea” by the FAKE anti-war crowd? Too counter revolutionary?

    • Amazing that they haven’t found a way to blame it all on the Jews.

  6. Brian Goldfarb

    I take it that Dr Ang Swee Chai gave detailed map references for that (or those) mass graves, whatever the figure? Oh, she made just made the usual assertions, with no evidence in sights, common to all BDS, etc, partisans?

    Why am I not surprised that evidence was not forthcoming and, apart from Richard and the occasional opponent, no-one requested, ever so politely, support for her assertions?

    • Did Dr Ang Swee Chai go to the same medical school as Dr. mengele?

    • richardmillett

      Brian, she offered to take the student that questioned her to the camps to show him where the atrocities supposedly committed by Israel occurred. I doubt she would ever really do that, but it sounds very effective in a student lecture theatre.

      • Yes, most students don’t have enough functioning brain cells to recognise a demagogue.

      • Brian Goldfarb

        In other words, Richard, she evaded the request for evidence. Further, if you report her accurately (i.e., her actual words), she only offered to say “look, this is where the massacre happened”, without offering to show any evidence of what happened.

        In the former Yugoslavia, the actual mass graves had to be found to act as evidence of the massacres and ethnic cleansing that took place. So, she’s still just asserting, not showing.

      • richardmillett

        She offered no evidence of anything, except showing photos of lots of dead and badly injured people and a map of “disappearing Palestine”. When someone shows that map then you know that the lecture they gave is for propaganda purposes.

  7. zaccaerdydd

    800 000 bodies. Could she have mispoke, Richard? In what context did she say that?

    • richardmillett

      Hi Zac,
      She could have mispoke. I will try to check the tape. As i said below she may have meant 800-1000 bodies. She was speaking in the context of a mass grave in Lebanon. In that context, although I do not want to belittle 800-1000 dead people, 800,000 could well fit the context she was describing.

      • Without belittling anything, a 800K mass grave is something uneard of, even during Nazi times and in much more populated countries than Lebanon. 800-1000 is possible but cannot be blamed on Israel, except by a total idiot. Especially since one has never heard about Tsahal burying victims anytime and anywhere.

    • richardmillett

      I just listened to it and she did say “800 to a 1000 bodies”, so i will change it. It did sound like 800,000 though.

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