Jody McIntyre’s dream of setting London alight comes true at last.

Jody McIntyre in One World's anti-Israel Freedom For Palestine video promoted by Lush.

In January I blogged about Jody McIntyre’s speech at a Palestine Solidarity Campaign event where he said:

“I say this at a time when people across the Arab world are setting alight to themselves in protest against their governments. We must take inspiration from them this year when we set the streets of London alight.”

As you will see in the video clip below these sentiments were applauded by Palestine Solidarity Campaign chief Sarah Colborne, PSC chairman Hugh Lanning and the rapper Lowkey.

Since then McIntyre has been feted by the left-wing media.

He was profiled in The Observer newspaper, invited to blog at The Independent newspaper and has appeared on countless news programmes. In yesterday’s Huffington Post, when asked by Dina Rickman “Do you think Footlocker is the right target?” he replied:

“On a personal level I think Brixton police station would be a better target than footlocker….I find it very difficult to condemn the looting myself. I feel sympathy when small cornershops and people’s homes are damaged but I don’t feel any sympathy for JD sports or M&S”

His high media profile has gained him a following of over 10,000 people on Twitter. Not bad for someone who cut his teeth on political activism outside Ahava in Covent Garden where he advocated for a boycott of Israel.

However, yesterday he was finally sacked by The Independent for tweeting the following:

“Be inspired by the scenes in #tottenham, and rise up in your own neighbourhood. 100 people in every area = the way we can beat the feds.”

His Independent blog page now reads:

“Following his recent tweets and statements on the London riots, The Independent will no longer be taking blogs from Jody McIntyre”.

With London still smoking and livelihoods ruined after a night of rioting and scenes of people jumping from burning buildings you would think he would lay low for a bit but, unrepentant, he tweeted in the early hours of today:

“I would suggest young people hit the streets tomorrow with three central demands.”

One of those demands is for the Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister to resign “with immediate effect”.

Not only was McIntyre applauded by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, but he and Lowkey appear in One World’s Freedom for Palestine video, which is being promoted by Lush in the “Ethical Campaigns” section of their website.

Straight after McIntyre’s call for London to be lit up at the PSC event he goes onto say that “Palestine has been occupied since 1948”, which just goes to show the thinking behind the Freedom for Palestine song. It is not about ending “the occupation”, but ending Israel’s existence.

So, “ethical” Lush has shops in Saudi Arabia, where women are not allowed to work or drive, and it is promoting a video in which both McIntyre and Lowkey appear.

Quite incredibly McIntyre has just tweeted the following after taking some criticism:

“I have never supported looting local businesses + starting fires. Not in London, and not anywhere. Nice to have a scapegoat though?”

I also have three demands:

1. The Palestine Solidarity Campaign that applauded McIntyre’s sentiments and which recently hosted Sheikh Raed Salah, who has said that homosexuality is a crime, be shut down with immediate effect.

2. Lush stops promoting the vile Freedom for Palestine song and video.

3. We hear no more from McIntyre until he apologises for his comment calling for London to burn and for not condemning the looting.

Video:

Here’s McIntyre at the Palestine Solidarity Campaign event in January calling for the streets of London to be set alight. Sarah Colborne is sat next to him, Hugh Lanning is next and, finally, Lowkey. Watch for them applauding.

Sheikh Raed Salah at a recent Palestine Solidarity Campaign event.

Lowkey in One World's Freedom for Palestine video promoted by Lush.

 

Thanks to cifwatch’s Adam Levick for the help.

Advertisement

Pro-Israel activist brutally attacked at “Celebrate Palestine” festival.

(Updated on Monday morning)

As many will be aware by now a pro-Israel activist was brutally attacked at the “Celebrate Palestine” festival at SOAS today.

Allegedly, the activist was told by a festival-goer that the Jews were cowards for walking so meekly into the gas chambers, that it was a shame the Nazis didn’t finish the job and that it is a shame it can’t happen to the Jews now living in Israel. The activist was then, allegedly, bitten on his cheek by another festival-goer.

The attack drew blood from the pro-Israel activist’s cheek and there was blood around the alleged assailant’s mouth.

Film will eventually be released of the attack as well as of the aftermath. Arrests were made and the pro-Israel activist went to University College Hospital to be treated.

One would like to say that the “Celebrate Palestine” festival lived up to its name, but, as stated in my previous blog, one of the introductory speakers was more concerned with viciously tearing down Israel and Zionism, instead of celebrating Palestine.

This is some of what Lowkey had to say to the students at SOAS (the actual audio is at the end):

“If we understand Palestine, first we have to understand Zionism. And what is Zionism? Zionism was never about self-determination. This is a myth and this is a lie. Zionism is about colonialism, Zionism is about supremacy.

When we talk about the struggle of the Palestinian people, we are talking about the struggle of indigenous people, of native people. This is about indigenous people resisting a foreign occupying presence.

When we look at the aboriginal people of Australia, over 500 nations were genocided (sic) to create one. We look at Christopher Columbus, we look at Captain Cook, they have a brother in Theodore Herzl, a brother in supremacy.

Why are we allowing this settler ethnic cleansing entity to continue to wreak havoc on the world? As much as that may pain some of us to admit, this is the case.

We are not talking about a normal country when we talk about the state of Israel, we are talking about a state which has invaded and occupied every single one of its neighbours from Syria to Lebanon to Egypt. Why is this ok? Why is this something we are allowing to happen, that this government is fully supporting? From the Balfour Declaration to now, why is it supporting this colonial conquest?

All the European states are in full agreement that the settlements that currently house over half a million illegal Israeli settlers on Palestinian land, all of them are in agreement that the settlements are illegal. But why is there this continued collaboration of the EU with Elbit Systems, with the weapons manufacturer of unarmed drones that wreaked havoc on the Gaza Strip?

Everyone knows the settlements are illegal. This state is expanding. It is an expanding state in the middle of the Middle East. It is an expansionist state. It is a state involved in expansion.

What is the price of this expansion? The price is the seven million Palestinian refugees worldwide. That is the price of this experiment, this racist experiment.”

Lowkey at SOAS

(Lowkey begins at 2mins 50secs. Before that is Karma Nabulsi finishing her talk).

Palestine festival organisers call police to remove peaceful pro-Israel protest.

A small pro-Israel protest was held outside the “Celebrate Palestine” festival at SOAS today, but it wasn’t long before the organisers complained to security who called the police to have the protest removed.

While the pro-Israel protesters were outside arguing their case to remain, inside Lowkey was rapping to the students about Israel being an apartheid, supremacist, colonialist state.

Back outside the police eventually relented after realising how ridiculous it would be to remove a peaceful, static protest.

The protesters then moved on to Ahava in Covent Garden outside of which an anti-Israel mob had congregated for their usual Saturday hate-fest.

Ahava seemed to be doing alright and my friend, Ian, presented me with one of their Lavender and Chamomile Warming Pads as a belated birthday present.

When someone erected a placard with photos of the massacred Fogel family it was immediately surrounded and covered up by a Palestinian flag. Anti-Israel protesters were parroting the line from Palestinian Authority affiliated news agencies that the massacre at Itamar was committed by a Thai worker.

Well done to Stand With Us UK which produced the placards, leaflets and very eye-catching “We support a two-state solution” stickers.

Peacefully protesting outside SOAS before the police were called.

Explaining Israel's case to a student.

Lowkey rages against the "Zionist state" in the JCR at SOAS.

Outside Ahava.

Ahava besieged.

Covering the placard of the murdered Fogel family with the Palestinian flag.

Standing up for Israel and for all the oppressed in the Middle East.

The Egyptian Revolution comes to Holborn.

John Reece shows off his photos of his trip to revolutionary Cairo.

Just before last night’s Stop the War Coalition’s meeting in London in support of the Egyptian Revolution began I turned to Jonathan Hoffman and asked him how long he thought it would it take before they mentioned Israel.

“Immediately”, was his grim response.

And he wasn’t wrong. The first speaker up was Bernard Regan of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (see clip below).

Next was Daud Abdullah, not known for his pro-Israel sympathies. Referring to events in Egypt he said there will be casualties but “the greatest casualty will be Israel.”

Lowkey, a rapper best known for his tune Free Palestine, couldn’t help himself either, ending his speech with the cry, “The path to the liberation of Jerusalem runs through Cairo”.

The finale was left to George Galloway who described Mubarak as a “murderer, torturer and dictator” who would “be lucky to avoid being strung up from the street lamps”.

But when Galloway met Saddam Hussein, also a murderer, torturer and dictator, he said to him: “Sir, I salute your courage, your strength and your indefatigability.” (Galloway claims he was addressing the Iraqi public, not Sadaam.)

George roused an already buoyant crowd further by saying that “the Palestinian hand will be immeasurably strengthened by an Arab Egypt.” (see clip below.)

Two Egyptian activists were eventually allowed to speak. Their cause wasn’t totally hijacked (no pun intended) and they didn’t mention Israel once. They just wanted to be free.

We also heard from two Stop the War Coalition activists who, while 30,000 Brits. are trying to leave Egypt, actually flew in to Cairo for the weekend especially!

John Reece showed us his photos (see background above) and informed us of the massive under-reporting in the British media of the people on the streets of Egypt.

Although, Reece said, the Egyptian army reported one million in Cairo every one he knows spoke of two million. He estimates that the figure was somewhere between four and eight million for Egypt as a whole.

Judith Orr said the demonstrators told her that “we are not Muslim, Christian or Jewish. We are all Egyptians!”

But George Galloway told her, and others, what he thought of that:

“We have no need to go round saying this is not a Muslim revolution. Egypt is overwhelmingly a Muslim country and there’s nothing wrong with that. There are Christians and Muslims, Socialists and Communists, Liberals and Centrists, and non-political people, who just want freedom who are involved in this Revolution. But a very significant number of the people of Egypt support the Islamic Movement of Egypt and that Movement has no need to hide itself under a bushel.”

Egyptians should heed George’s words and put all notions of freedom to the back of their minds for now just in case the Muslim Brothers are, indeed, eventually successful.

Clips from last night:

Jody McIntyre: “We will set the streets of London alight”

The Neturei Karta picking up some tips on Tuesday night.

On Tuesday night there was yet another of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign’s rallies to try to delegitimise Israel’s attempts to defend its citizens against Hamas’ rocket attacks.

Unsurprisingly, the PSC called the rally “Remembering Israel’s War on Gaza”.

First, Hugh Lanning, the PSC Chair, recited his poem (below). Then we rose for a one minute silence to remember the “1400 people slaughtered in Gaza”. Murdered Israelis were ignored:

They stole my land,
Burnt my orange trees,
Destroyed my house,
Took my water,
Bombed my country,
Killed my mother,
Took my job,
Starved us all,
Humiliated us all,
And I am to blame for I shot a rocket back.

So they stole more of my land,
Burnt my orange trees,
Destroyed my house,
Took my water,
Bombed my country.

Tony Benn (see clip below) then told us that “what we have in Palestine is an Israeli state which is, in effect, an American colony” and gave us this synopsis of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict:

The Palestinians had lived for thousands of years in Palestine.
The Balfour Declaration was to bring America into World War One.
“Rich Jews came in and they bought farm and land off the Palestinians”.
“The Jews settled in Palestine and then in 1948 they declared a state, got recognition and the Palestinians were driven out of their homes.”

From Jody McIntrye (see clip below) we got fighting talk.

McIntrye is the new darling of the far-left. He was profiled in the Observer recently in an article on internet radicals and was, inexplicably, pulled from his wheelchair by the police during the violent student riots in London, which gained him even more media exposure. He blogs at Life on Wheels.

He pulled no punches:

“Whether you are fighting against Millbank or Mubarak, if you are fighting for freedom, we are with you.”

And with reference to the recent self-immolations in the Arab world: “We must take inspiration from them this year when we set the streets of London alight.”

The far-left loves McIntyre, but not as much as they love the rapper Lowkey.

Lowkey (see clip below) gave us a lecture on why you should be proud to be an anti-Zionist and how anti-Zionism is not anti-Semitism.

His reasoning was that the French resistance against the Nazis was not because of anti-German feeling and objection to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan was not due to anti-American or anti-British feeling. Similarly, anti-Zionism does not mean you hate Jews.

But he told us: “Israel today is every bit the supremacist state that Theodore Herzl intended it to be.”

It was Lowkey who played the meeting out with his rap anthem: “Free Palestine, Free Gaza”.

Sadly, George Galloway (who was in Beirut), Gerald Kaufman, Ghada Karmi, Jenny Tonge and Caroline Lucas, who we were promised, were absent last night but they sent messages of support.

Mohammad Sawalha, of the British Muslim Institute and who organises the Gaza flotillas, updated us on plans for the next flotilla, which is due to be launched from London to arrive in Gaza for the anniversary of the Mavi Marmara tragedy in May.

Meanwhile, this Friday night at the Trinity United Reform Church from 6pm to 10pm is the 6th Camden Festival for Palestine. Frank Dobson MP is due to be joined by Roger Lloyd-Pack, who played Trigger in Only Fools and Horses, and Ivor Dembina, who is described on the flier as “Jewish stand-up comedian”.

And Ahron Cohen, of the Neturei Karta, is speaking at LSE on 1st February (room E171, East Building, 6pm-7.30pm.)

Cohen will talk on, surprise, surprise, “Are Judaism and Zionism incompatible?”

Harry’s Place recalls that Cohen stated that the Holocaust would never have succeeded “if the victim did not deserve it in one way or another”.

Feel free to go and express polite disapproval of Mr Cohen.

Gaza similar to Haiti?

Republique d'Haiti

Having attended the Stop the Siege of Gaza rally on tuesday night at Conway Hall, Red Lion Square, London I have an apology to make. In my last post I suggested that Haita might not be high on these people’s minds but i was wrong. It was. Well, sort of.

More than one speaker made the point that if the soldiers could rush out to a disaster like the Haiti earthquake, then why could they not do the same for Gaza?

Anas Altikriti of the British Muslim Institute spoke of “crocodile tears” over the crisis in Haiti and questioned why no troops had been sent to Gaza (at this point I was dying to put my hand up and mention the relief brought to some Haitians by the Israel medical team, outdoing medical teams from all around the world and even the USA, but I thought I could be lynched).

Jeremy Corbyn MP, said that now it was time to call for economic sanctions against Israel. Then a moment of hope. He was concerned with the people of Haiti but ruined it all by saying that the cause of Haiti was an earthquake but the cause of the problems in Gaza is Israel. So the death and destruction in Haiti was mentioned again but mainly in the context of promoting the Palestinian cause.

Joseph Healey of the Green Party spoke. This is the same Green Party that is supposed to be lobbying our politicians to create alternative sources of energy and lobbying industrial companies to stop chopping down the rain forests. But environmental damage takes a backseat when Israel is on the agenda. Mr Healey spoke of the Green Party’s policies of sanctions and divestment from Israel. In all fairness he did denounce Egypt for building its own wall and he said that Caroline Lucas, his supreme leader, also thought Egypt a disgrace.

Then there was Simon Dubbins, the UNITE union’s head of international affairs, who spoke. The aim of UNITE is to “meet the great challenges facing working people in the 21st century”. These workers can be forgotten though when there is an opportunity to denounce Israel. Mr Dubbins called for boycott, sanctions and divestment from Israel to be put into concrete effect (not much care for Israeli workers then). He committed himself to continue his work with the Palestine Solidarity Campaign to end the “siege” of Gaza, to bring the Israeli war criminals to trial and, get this, bring justice and peace. Thank the Lord for Mr Dubbins!

Then up popped Ismael Patel, of the Friends of al-Aqsa , who gave a stirring speech. Apparently Operation Cast Lead was all about Israel restoring its deterrent factor which it had, apparently, lost in Lebanon in 2006. He spoke of the friends of Israel who might be powerful but they are few and far between. He screamed his closing paragraph to the delight of his salivating audience: “We will bring down the Zionist state so Christians, Jews and Muslims can live as one people from the river to the sea”.

Then there was Lowkey, a rapper. Lowkey is half-British, half-Iraqi and very, very angry about what is happening to the Palestinian people. He almost rapped his way through his speech. History, or maths, isn’t his strong point though. He spoke of 60 years of military occupation. Seeing that the occupation started in 1967 that just doesn’t add up, Mr Lowkey.

Daud Abdullah, director of Middle East Monitor, gave an interesting comparison. He said that Israel had destroyed 45 mosques in Gaza but then asked us to “imagine the reaction in Britain if one synagogue was destroyed”. He then praised Hugo Chavez and signed off by calling Israel a “brutal, totalitarian, racist, apartheid state”. Cue, huge applause.

For me though biggest insult was given by the Chairman for the evening. Hugh Lanning, Palestine Solidarity Campaign’s Deputy General Secretary, started off by saying that 1400 Palestinians had been killed in Operation Cast Lead but “just 13 Israelis”. Sorry, Mr Lanning, was that not enough for you? I suggest that next time you state that “1400 Palestinians were killed and 13 Israelis”.

Then it was time for the big denouement. The creme de la creme of Palestinian activists who sat silently throughout as 15 or so speakers came and went, George Galloway.

George mentioned how he is now banned from Egypt while “this dictatorship” is in power which he prayed will not be for very much longer (rather ironically George can freely visit Israel). He also gave Israel some advice: They should not even think of going back into Gaza or it would cost the lives of thousands of Israeli soldiers. He also asked why a “tiny settler state of six million people” can be allowed to repeatedly imperil the security and stability of the world.

Lowkey, left, a rapper.

Charmingly, George then went on to say that Israel has very few supporters outside the “cesspits” of the Zionist Federation, the Centre for Social Cohesion and Harry’s Place (Cesspit: covered pit for liquid waste and sewage). But, he continued, Israel has friends in the British police who committed brutal attacks against supporters of Palestine during last January’s London protests. He failed to mention that a British bobby had been knocked unconscious

Finally, George turned to the situation with Turkey and said that in a couple of months time Turkey will lead a flotilla of ships into Gaza to break the siege. He finished off with pointing out that the borders to Gaza may be locked by Israel and Egypt but the sea is open to those who have the courage to take it, “we do, you’ll see”. Cue, standing ovation.

Fighting talk, George. Yes, we will see.

Alexei Sayle: Ullo John got a new motor?