From Allen Keep

Wednesday, 30 July 2025

It's been interesting to find out about the persecution of a number of religious/ ethnic groups via Vivienne's prompting. I knew very little for instance, about Coptic and Assyrian Christians although I knew more about the Maronite Christians in Lebanon. 

They were extremely influential in the Phalange whose militia acted as Israel's proxy in Lebanon during the civil war there. The militia, at Israel's behest, and following the agreed withdrawal of the PLO from the Palestinian camps in Beirut slaughtered up to 3000 Palestinian refugees in the Shabra and Shatila camps in under 48 hours and committed acts of mutilation and rape. All of which might sound familiar. No doubt the Maronites of today feel perfectly safe when Israel repeatedly bombs Lebanon.

I also knew about the plight of minorities in Iran and I'd be happy to take part in the support campaign that Vivienne no doubt has planned for these groups as I am against all persecution on religious/ ethnic grounds and absolutely against the Iranian regime. I certainly hope none of those minorities were killed or injured when Israel attacked Iran. No doubt the most moral and technically precise army in the world has ways of sparing the minorities Israel so obviously and publicly supports and campaigns for on the world stage from their bombs.

I knew too about the genocide of the Yezidis although I can't recall Israel or its allies intervening with its unmatched airpower in the Middle East to do anything specifically about it. The UK has somewhat belatedly recognised this genocide despite it not being taken through the ICJ unlike in the case of Palestine where we must await "proof" apparently. Of course the genocide was at the hands of ISIS and here's where Vivienne's argument kicks in. 

Vivienne appears to want us to believe that there is a fundamentally common link connecting these events which cumulatively amount to a genocide, not in Gaza of course, oh no, but in the Middle East as a whole against everyone who is not, drum roll please, Muslim and is perpetrated exclusively by Muslims. And so, for instance, we can neatly equate ISIS with, oh I don't know, who could it be?...ah yes, Hamas. No need to worry about any tiny details like ISIS detest Hamas and that Hamas are simply not comparable to ISIS apart from being Muslims who apparently all believe the same thing and have the same interpretation of their religion. 

Maybe Vivienne could remind me what we call people who believe all Jews have the same belief system and the same interpretation of their faith and are all committed to the same goal? 

But wait. Let's not miss an opportunity to demonise a particular Muslim people. For this it is necessary to name this group not just as "Arabs" (also all the same really) but as "Palestinians". They of course, all of them, and now their children and their children's children and probably their children too were hypnotised by Al Husseini the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem and Isreal's favourite bogeyman.

Apparently, he convinced the entire population of Palestine to believe in Hitler in 1941 and they remain dedicated to Nazism up until today or, as Vivienne says, in a chilling dehumanising  phrase, "locked into their present toxic stasis".

And there we have it. All Muslims in the Middle East are Nazis and are hell bent on the genocide of all non-Muslim minorities and especially tiny Israel, the perpetual minority in the region in a land they came to colonise from Europe. The perpetrators of Genocide are, in fact, the victims of genocide and, of course, it goes without saying that the one true democracy has an exemplary human rights and justice record when it comes to its own minorities. 

Of course it does. Ask the Bedouin or the "Arabs" in Palestine, or the Christians. Or indeed, ask about human rights and equality for Israel's own Jewish population if they happen to be Ethiopian or Mizrahi. Non-white, non-European Jews really thrive in Israel, just look at their representation in Israel's social elites (look hard).

But why is Vivienne saying all this? The only way to decipher the post is to understand that Vivienne speaks to a particular political ideology as a Zionist. While there are all sorts of Zionists from those who might see themselves as liberals, probably like Vivienne who opposes Netanyahu, to the openly fascist monsters like Smotrich and Ben-Givr the unifying factor, sadly but undeniably, is that Zionism is a racist and supremacist ideology.

It is vital to say, straight away, that Zionism is not Judaism and absolutely does not speak to or for all Jews, far from it. In fact Zionism doesn't even speak for all the Jews in Israel. We must therefore distinguish between a critique of Zionism from the labelling of all Jewish people as Zionists or indeed of any particular supposed negative characteristic as that would be racist. It is the state of Israel that claims to speak for all Jews, we do not categorise all Jewish people as the same in response. In simple terms, to be anti-Zionist/anti the Israeli state is not anti-Semitic no matter how often and how vociferously the defenders of Israel attempt to label us as such. 

Zionism is the political ideology of the Jewish settler colonial movement in Palestine and then the state of Israel and its subsequent history to the current day. It is the social DNA that connects the unbroken thread of that history from the Nakba (which Vivienne mistakenly thinks everyone knows about) aka the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people from their own land, through illegal and barbaric occupation from 1967 of the Palestinian territories to today's genocide in Gaza and the on-going ethnic cleansing of the West Bank.

The project has a simple aim which has never changed, which is to secure the maximum amount of Land for the State of Israel in Palestine with as few as possible Palestinians in it. This however, creates a tension, a permanent and inherent problem of how to deal with the indigenous people which must be be solved. The state has struggled to find such a solution since its conception.

Despite the Vivienne's egregious and ridiculous claim that owning 0.18% of the Middle East is "too much for Jews" the truth is that the emerging violent, supremacist Jewish state founded on terror and ethnic cleansing was granted 60% of what remained of the British Mandate of Palestine in the UN partition agreement when the Mandate ended despite currently owning only 6% of the land. 

It was indeed not enough for the Zionist colonisers and the Israeli state is now in effective control of 100% of that land at least 20% of which is still via brutal and illegal force. This is of course, not withstanding the continued legitimate and rightful resistance of the Palestinian people there simply by virtue of their continued existence and their refusal to be destroyed, hence the slogan "existence is resistance. 

Meanwhile, Israel openly declares it's intention to re-settle the Gaza strip which has remained occupied continuously since 1967 while, just last week, the Knesset committed yet another democratic atrocity by uniting pro and anti-Netanyahu Zionists alike to vote for the annexation of the West Bank. In the meantime Israel denies the possibility of any sort of peaceful and democratic coexistence with the Palestinian people and always has which is why a "two-state" solution is a gaslighting fantasy. 
The final solution has therefore been an inevitability waiting to happen and the time is now. This is what we are witnessing. This is what the world can see, so clearly, for the first time for so many around the world. The name we give to this final solution is genocide.

If there is any doubt (and how can there be?) then consider Rafah which many will remember was the redline City and district that the Western allies of Israel said should not be occupied just over a year ago. It was also named in an order to Israel to mitigate against the crime of genocide by the ICJ. Israel, of course, occupied Rafah anyway. Rafah is now totally destroyed - it simply doesn't exist. On its ruins Israel now plans to re-build. Not homes for the Gazan people and not even a Riviera for their own people and a lucrative theme park for their Western allies. They are building a concentration camp to coral the remaining Gazans they haven't bombed or starved to death. 

Israel does not disguise this and the Zionist fanatical right revel in it. Vivienne evokes the Nazis in her argument but she has turned reality upside down. As the incredible Israeli Jewish journalist Gideon Levy said very recently when referring to the the Israeli state, "nobody but the Nazis spoke like this before now". 

That reality, and it is an undeniable reality, is breaking many Jews the world over and even from within Israel from Zionism although clearly not the author of this post. Vivienne does not speak for all Jews any more than Israel does of course and I am very glad and proud that we have many extremely active Jews in our ranks here in Calderdale who stand with our Palestinian sisters and brothers against the Zionist terror state of Israel as it nears that final solution.

Paradoxically however, while seemingly and terrifyingly at the point of the culmination of it's inherent purpose, the Zionist state itself is in utter turmoil. Unfortunately, for Zionists like Vivienne, Isreal may well tear itself apart and self-destruct just as it nears its final victory.

Israel can't defeat Hamas and short of total annihilation, which it has also not yet achieved despite its best efforts, it will never break the Palestinian people either. 

There is a resultant constant political upheaval which I believe could lead to civil war in Israel and deepening economic instability. The elites are leaving in droves back to their European or American homelands, the IDF is struggling to maintain discipline and morale and avoid desertions and refusals to follow orders. Israel's own human rights organisations now term the occupation of Gaza as a genocide and not a "defensive war" which in any case the majority of Israelis want to end via some sort of negotiated deal which the state will not allow.

Frakenstein's monster, made in Europe and  America is completely out of control. The state is now totally reliant on American aid and diplomatic cover from an unstable lunatic and his fawning political allies/fellow war criminals in the West. But these elites are increasingly vulnerable too and they are beginning to crack under pressure. 

Israel is as, Vivienne says (and rightly so), the state the world loves to hate, a pariah, becoming ever more marginalised, isolated, vilified and fragile. The game is up. For Israel, it is the beginning of the end.

Sorry Vivienne, but the reason for that is not that we are not lining ourselves up with Nazis, nor are we "self righteous". We are not aligned with "terrorists" and many of us have now learned enough and seen enough to understand the reality of your state. We are not anti-semites and we don't hate Jews although the behaviour of the Zionist state will only increase anti-Semitism which we will also fight. 

Many, many of us are Jews. Our leaders and speakers, our writers and theorists and scholars and journalists and activists and campaigners are Jews. We are Jews and gentiles, Muslims and Christians, all faiths and none. We are humanitarians and campaigners for justice, everywhere. We don't single Israel out, Israel has made itself an exception. 

We are just people and Israel has ignited millions of us across the world against its state. We won't be silenced and we wont be diverted. In our millions, we are all Palestinians and we are all the children of Gaza.

This Zionist state has created in Gaza a place unlike any other on the planet where an ethnic/ religious group are being exterminated as a people and it's witnessed, documented and live streamed for the world to see.

Gaza is the most dangerous place in the world by far to be a child. It is a place where no one is safe if they are Palestinian, where no one has any peace or security, where no one has a home, where everyone is starving, everyone. It is a place where you are assassinated for being a health worker, a provider of aid or a journalist or you are abducted, raped and tortured for being the same or your family is targeted and your children and your elderly are slaughtered while you work or seek rest. 

It is a place where there is no longer health care, transport, education, culture and barely no access to the absolute essentials of life. It is a place where when you try to access those essentials you are shot or bombed as target practice for the IDF. It is a place where the people cannot be a people and cannot, in the words of Omer Bartov the Jewish genocide scholar, re-constitute themselves as a people, that is  a place where the very existence of its people is all but impossible.

I am genuinely saddened that Vivienne seems unable to bring herself to recognise and accept this reality and oppose it. Instead, at this very moment, she chooses to serve up a double-down of Zionist propaganda, falsifications of history, distortions, deflections and obfuscations to distract and deflect from that reality.

Vivienne says she condemns "carnage" but it's irrelevant, meaningless, as empty as the words of Stamer and Lammy who are utterly complicit in this genocide. Even more sadly, there is not a single word of compassion or care for the Palestinian people in Vivenne's post, not a single one. No acceptance of Isreal's responsibility, no remorse, no contrition, none. 

Instead, as an increasingly desperate deflection we are offered only the demonisation and dehumanisation of the Arabs and Muslims of the Middle East, particularly the Palestinian people, and the denial of that people's alienable right to self-determination, freedom, justice and indeed existence as a people itself. 

No humanitarian can support that, it is literally unconscionable. And so, Vivienne, ask yourself who and what you are aligning yourself with. It is never too late to break with Zionism, to shed its racist and supremacist ideology and bring yourself onto the right side of history and humanity. 

I, for one, will welcome you with open arms.

Free Judaism from Zionism. Peace, security and freedom from racism for Jewish people the world over.

For a single, democratic, secular state for all in the land of Palestine with equal democratic rights and justice in peace for all its citizens.

From Vivienne H

Monday, 11 August 2025

The British broke off 70+ % of the Mandate for Palestine territory, to form the exclusively Arab state of Jordan. The river was meant to be the dividing line between Jordan, and the 30% on the western side where Jews could settle. It is that 30% which has been subject to innumerable divisions, leaving Israel 9 miles wide at one point, without the defensible borders its neighbours have repeatedly proved  are necessary. 

Lebanon used to be the only Arab state in which Christians were a 60% majority. They are around 25% now. Mr Keep denounces the Phalangists, without mentioning that the attack on Sabra & Shatila was revenge for the earlier, murderous, Palestinian attacks on the unprotected Christian villages of Damour and Chekka, which were completely annihilated. Two days earlier, the new Christian President, Bashar al Gemayel, had been assassinated. Note that Mr Keep chooses to ignore Coptic and Assyrian annihilation, because unlike the Maronites, they cannot resist Islamist attacks, so cannot be blamed as stooges of Israel.

The PLO had been ejected from Jordan, because they tried to assassinate the king and caused a civil war, so they moved on to Lebanon, and so comprehensively wrecked that beautiful country it has never recovered, and became easy prey for Syria and Iran, who created Hizb'ollah to take over the country by force, prompting a Christian exodus as Shi'ites rose to power.

Before Islam, Syria was 80% Christian. Pre-civil war, 1.5 million Christians formed 10% of the Syrian population. Although they were leaders in the anti-colonial pan-Arab movements of the 20th century, they're now less than 2%,  and since al- Jolani/ aka Ahmed al Sharaa seized power, their small communities have been attacked by his jihadist followers, including the recent suicide bombing at a church,  in which half the attendees were maimed or killed. The casualty rate was not 100% because one Christian threw himself on the bomber,  and absorbed much of the initial blast. Al Jolani was an al Qaeda commander, who broke away and formed Jabhat Nusra and then Hayat Tahrir al Sham, not because of an ideological disagreement, but because he wanted to Islamise Syria first. 

There were 4 very old Jews who came out of hiding in Damascus last February. That is the sum total of the surviving Jewish population, in a city where Jews had lived for 2500 years.  1500 Alawites have been killed recently, in horrible ways, and the local Bedouin, supported by government militias, massacred the Druze in Suwayda, even going into the hospital to murder the injured, accusing them of being heretics. Attacks on the Kurds have been unrelenting. They've been ethnically cleansed from several of their towns, by Islamist militias funded by Turkey, and by aerial bombardments conducted by the Turkish state.

13 million people are living in food insecurity in Syria, but apparently they are the wrong kind of victims to garner any Western, sympathy. Al Sharaa's government has been issuing leaflets enforcing  Shari'a compliance to every government body,  including schools. What place in that set-up for the free women of Rojava?

What is now Turkey was formerly at the heart of the Christian Byzantine empire, with Constantinople as its capital. In 1453 it fell to the Ottoman Turks, who renamed the capital Istanbul, and turned the great cathedral of Haghia Sophia into a mosque. It became a museum in the short-lived 20th C.  drive towards secularism, but Erdogan has made it into a mosque again.

The late Ottoman Empire and early state of Turkey conducted genocidal attacks on Greeks, Assyrians and Armenians, all Christian. 3 million were murdered. There was a pogrom in Istanbul in 1955. There was a ruinous tax imposed on non- Muslims in order to distribute, in today's money, $4 billion in Jewish and Christian  assets to Muslim Turks.  Similarly in all the newly created Arab states, Jewish communities, some 850,000 people,  had their land, businesses,  homes, bank accounts and personal property taken from them before they were driven out, penniless. 

Now, Erdogan has created a new "International Association to Champion the Prophet of Islam". Its founding members included Khaled Mashaal, the former leader of Hamas (an acronym for Harakat al Muqawama al Islamiya, the Islamic Resistance Movement); al Zandani, a former spiritual advisor to bin Laden; a Turk who was a founder member of Hizb'ollah - whose participation in the new organisation Erdogan won by releasing all the Hizbollah terrorists in Turkish jails - and Nureddin Yeldiz, an antisemitic cleric who calls for armed jihad and incited the murder of the Russian ambassador in 2016. Erdogan has assembled this group for the purpose of supporting Hamas and other Islamist groups internationally. Putin invited Hamas and Hezbollah to joint talks in Moscow in 2023.

I have given 3 examples of the way Jihadist Islam continues to destroy Christian minorities, and my earlier post alluded to other groups similarly afflicted, by the same perpetrators. It is not Islamophobic to observe verifiable facts.

Mr Keep asserts that I believe all Muslims, or all Arabs,  are the same. I do not, any more than I claim Israel is always virtuous. Arab cultures differ throughout the region. There are a myriad variations of Islam. Read Nawal al Saadawi, Fatima Mernissi, Irshad Manji, Yasmine Mohammed, Ahdad Soueif, writings by Sufis and Ahmadis. Read about the Gnawa influence on Moroccan Islam. Watch Yoseph Haddad, an Israeli Arab,  in a YouTube conversation with a pro- Palestine student in Auckland, or debating at the Oxford Union rebutting the proposal that Israel is an apartheid state.

But what predominates now in the Levant, and parts of Africa, is a vicious jihadist interpretation, influenced by the antisemitic Nazi ideology imported in the 1940s, which believes in annihilating non- Muslims, especially the Jews who refuse to be subjugated again. The concept of the Islamic waqf  dictates that any area once conquered by Muslims belongs to Islam forever. Takfiri Islamists also attack Muslims who don't follow its rigid and brutal prescriptions. This is the reason the Gulf Arabs, Jordan and Egypt have signed peace accords with Israel: they recognise a common enemy.

Hussain Aboubakr Mansour, whose autobiography is subtitled "The Unchaining of an Arab Mind", has extensively documented the incorporation into Arab thought of the worst aspects of German Romanticism, as a precursor to full-fledged Nazism. See YouTube.

Anyone who  advocates for a  "two state solution"  de facto aligns themselves with the determination to finish what Hitler started, as demonstrated by the rape, torture, burning, kidnapping and slaughter of Jews on October 7, as well as the "collateral damage" to Bedouin Muslims, and Buddhist Nepalis and Thais. Refusing to read the Hamas Charter and then saying you didn't know, doesn't absolve you of complicity.

Turning a blind eye to the sight of a starving Jew held underground for 667 days, mocked, forced to dig his own grave inside the narrow tunnel, or excusing it - like those who say rape is  a tool of resistance -  is not progressive. You are colluding with the deliberate, staged, antisemitic cruelty of a triumphalist Islam. Yes, there are squabbles between Islamist groups, and between Sunni and Shi'a, but they have a common goal.

The Charter makes it clear that Hamas, an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood,  intends to "raise the banner of Islam over every inch of Palestine". To claim they would permit a secular democratic state is arrant nonsense, and the plight of Christians and other minorities in the region shows that Jews are not their only targets.

The slogan of the Muslim Brotherhood, funded largely by Qatar, repressed in Egypt and supported by Turkey, is "Allah is our objective, the Prophet is our leader, the Quran is our constitution, jihad is our way, and dying in the way of Allah is our highest hope."

From Article Two of the Hamas Charter: "The Islamic Resistance Movement is one of the wings of Moslem Brotherhood in Palestine. Moslem Brotherhood Movement is a universal organization which constitutes the largest Islamic movement in modern times."