Further to yesterday’s post, I can confirm that contrary to the press statement issued by Cambridge University, Stephen Hawkings HAS chosen to align himself with Palestinians and boycott Israel.  Here is what he has to say for himself..

I accepted the invitation to the Presidential Conference with the intention that this would not only allow me to express my opinion on the prospects for a peace settlement but also because it would allow me to lecture on the (sic) West Bank. ‘However, I have received a number of emails from Palestinian academics. They are unanimous that I should respect the boycott. In view of this, I must withdraw from the conference. ’Had I attended, I would have stated my opinion that the policy of the present Israeli government is likely to lead to disaster.’

Since Dr Hawkings is such a big thinker, here is some further food for thought for his mighty brain…..

Personally I have never been that impressed by Stephen Hawking despite the often mawkish adulation but now I am positively unimpressed!

“Physicist Stephen Hawking has dropped plans to attend a major conference in Israel, sparking a new row over treatment of Palestinians. The world-famous scientist had earlier agreed to attend the Israeli Presidential Conference, hosted by President Shimon Peres, in late June, but has now changed his mind.   Israeli officials believe he has joined a boycott organised to protest Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians.

I note Hawking’s advisers say his sudden non attendance is for “health reasons”. Fair enough, let HIM spell out his rejection of any boycott of Israel. That will prove the suspicions of Israel are unfounded.

In light of the ludicrous promulgation of the “Jews are khazars”, here are a few FACTS!

“The Khazar theory for the origin of the Jews was invented by the womanizing communist intellectual Arthur Koestler in his 1976 book The Thirteenth Tribe. The Khazars, a Turkish polity that came to dominate the Caucuses in the 7th century, disappeared eventually several hundred years later, like many other tribal mini-states established in that area during the period. Some of the Khazar elite supposedly converted to Judaism.

Koestler wrote his book without historical training in the history of the Caucuses and primarily as an intellectual provocation about the history of the Jews.

When he came to the part about the fall of the Khazar empire, he noted that “where the historians’ resources give out, legend and folklore provide useful hints.”

Based on his intellectual exercise, which was grounded in nothing more than whimsical thinking, Koestler concluded: “Here, then, we have the cradle of the numerically strongest and culturally dominant part of modern Jewry.”

Read the rest here!

No, really?

Since the US taxpayer pays for those settlements the President is in a rather strong position to do something about it. He won’t, of course. As dumb as the settlement building policy is, even for those who don’t wish to see Israel wiped out, Washington’s policy towards them hasn’t changed one bit under him.

The matter of military aid to Israel can be seen in its own light, but Obama might do worse than tell Natanyahu that if one more brick is laid in the West Bank then the military aid gets cut back. Even George W Bush criticised settlements as “outposts which need to go”. It’s time we saw some action in that case. It’s time then for presidents to man up and start backing up the peace rhetoric.

So the Obama Administration is really cheesed-off with Israel.

What with the ‘Settlements’, the Wall, the total lack of progress towards the ‘Two-State Solution’ so beloved of the American Left; the infuriating way in which these pesky Jews ignore all the high-minded orders and advice handed out so frequently from the American equivalent of Mount Olympus.

It really does make the Americans wish that they could really do something which would really attract Israel’s attention to the well-founded annoyance of the one Nation whose power, influence and arms have held back the onslaught for so long.

And now they have!

You have to wonder at the sanity of Israel’s governors, as well as if they’ve left nursery school:

Jerusalem Post: Israel okays building of 3,000 units in Jerusalem, West Bank

Israel approved the construction of 3,000 new housing units in Jerusalem and in the West Bank on Friday in response to the UN approving the Palestinian UN bid for  non-member observer state status, government officials stated.

The inner cabinet also decided to give the go ahead for the planning of thousands of housing units in area E1 that connects Jerusalem and Ma’aleh Adumim.

“In the West Bank”, meaning “not Israel”.

A map shows the idea is to join up Jerusalem with a large and existing settlement to the east. Life’s about to become alot more inconvenient for many Palestinians who currently travel through the gap between the two even if they don’t occupy it.

The White House response could hardly be more insipid, describing it as “counterproductive”. It would be counterproductive if Obama were to tell Netanyahu that this isn’t the act of a regime intent on peace, that the move must be reversed, that all settlement building must be halted – or the cash and military hardware stops. Not only would it be a justified response, it would be the right one.

Yes, yes, I KNOW that back in October 27, 2005, Iranian President Ahmadinejad declared in Persian that his country would “wipe Israel off the map.” (Some commentators in the United States, most notably University of Michigan professor Juan Cole, argued that the phrase was a mistranslation and that Ahmadinejad did not have genocidal intent.[1] But, the Islamic Republic’s official English translation rendered the phrase “Israel must be wiped off the map,” [2] and the regime reiterated its English translation on billboards and murals.[3])

BUT leaving that small matter of genocidal intent to one one side, wonder what you make of this?

“Iranian scientists have run computer simulations for a nuclear weapon that would produce more than triple the explosive force of the World War II bomb that destroyed Hiroshima, according to a diagram obtained by The Associated Press.”

Rubbish. It HAS to be a mistranslation. Yes, that feels better, doesn’t it? Denial is such an easy alternative to dealing with REALITY.

In the present somewhat amateur attempts at mass assassination by the terrorists of Hamas, and the more qualified and targeted killing responses by the Israeli Air Force, I have noticed a somewhat telling similarity in the reporting of the conflict, not only from the entirely-predictable BBC (Israelis….really nasty, brutal and bad); and the Palestinians (noble, hard done-by and forlornly waging a war against a brutal oppressor): but also from such as Sky, CNN and others.

Let me tell you a story, and see if it sounds feasible!

You are living in a country which has been at war for over four years, your Nation’s leaders have made some really bad judgements, but there is still an overwhelming support for the war to be fought, and won. Your Armed forces, alongside your Allies, have crossed the narrow waters which separate your lands from the Occupied Continent; landed successfully along a broad beachhead, and have broken through heavy defences, and are making headway towards the enemy’s borders. Your Eastern Allies, who indeed have suffered more than any other are moving ever westwards, seeking revenge. The nightly raids, the incessant terror-bombing of your cities and towns, which destroyed so much, and killed so many, is now but a distant memory, because your Country’s bombers are heading outwards at night, along with your Allies’ bombers during the day.

You live in a quiet street in a West London suburb called Chiswick. You have heard the enemy bombers as they drone menacingly overhead, you know when to take cover, or hasten to the shelter areas. The air-raid sirens’ wail is still well-remembered, and your relatives have drilled it into your head that any warning is better than none at all. So you are as relaxed as is possible, as there are no alarms, or warning noises, or indeed official broadcasts or warnings. You have no warning before being blown into smithereens, along with two others, together with 22 injured; the explosion also demolishes 11 houses, and seriously damages a further 22. The crater measures 30 feet across, and is 8 foot deep. You are the first victims of the V2 ballstic missile, the V standing for  Verwaltungswaffen, or retaliation weapon. Boosted by a sixty-five-second explosive burn from an rocket engine, the V2 soared some fifty miles into the stratosphere in a parabolic arc which ended with the detonation of just under a ton of explosives upon impact. There was no defence, as the missile was faster than the speed of sound; no defence, as radar could not possibly interrogate the path of this terror weaponry. If your Nations’ main enemy can manufacture enough missiles, they can strike anywhere. The only means of retaliation is to destroy the means of missile production.

If Hamas gets a new delivery of more sophisticated Iranian weaponry, Tel Aviv and Jerusalem will come under daily bombardment, despite Jerusalem being the third holiest place for all Muslims.

Is Israel willing to move? Is Hamas suicidal enough to continue encouraging their rocket attacks on Israel?

Place your bets!

The stakes might just have got alot higher.

The Jerusalem Post reports that two (Iranian-made) Fajr-5 missiles have been intercepted over Tel Aviv. Report and video here. It’s one thing for the people of Sderot and Ashkelon to live with Qassam rockets. As dangerous as they are if they hit your building, militarily they are relatively puny. Tel Aviv is Israel’s financial and business centre, with 3 million people living in its metropolitan area. If Hamas can now hit Tel Aviv, well that’s another thing altogether. I’m wondering: is it this which will persuade Israel that it must crush Hamas? If so, that would be a very bloody operation.

As Pete points out below..good news!

The head of the (sic)  military wing of the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas has been killed during Israeli air and naval strikes in the Gaza Strip. Ahmed Said Khalil al-Jabari and another Hamas official died when the car they were in was hit in Gaza City. It follows a wave of rocket attacks against Israel from the territory.

Love the way the BBC report cannot BRING itself to admit that ol’ Ahmed was a TERRORIST leader. Here’s hoping Israel sends more of his vile anti Semitic associates to a premature meeting with the 72 virgins. Those who choose to lead terrorist groups deserve ALL they get.