By “lip service”, I guess she means what the Obama administration is paying to the decades of Israeli concessions for peace, which have been met by nothing but increased terrorism.

Updates (Israel time; most recent at top)

11:10PM: Funny, they don’t look Jewish.

Story here.

7:42PM: The Israeli media and numerous blogs are today reporting what I posted about last week – Iranian and Israeli officials reportedly met and engaged in serious discussions on nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament last month. Needless to say, Iran is denying it.

5:30PM: Ma’an News has a report on the daughter of terror enabler Lauren Booth visiting Gaza for the first time. And while the whole article is infuriating, this section in particular struck me:

Eight-year-old Alexandra Darby, the niece of Quartet envoy Tony Blair, toured the West Bank this week on a bicycle, peddling an estimated 200 kilometers from Amman to Jerusalem.

Asked what she will tell her school friends about the Peace Cycle journey, Alex reflected, “I’ll tell them that the people here are very nice, not like they say in the newspapers.”

The West Bank is not a usual vacation site for most eight-year-olds. But, as mother, journalist and activist Lauren Booth explained, “She’s been asking me for the last five years why she can’t go to Palestine, and despite the fact that the Israelis can make it bloody trying to get in and out, the greeting here I knew would be so sensational for her that I didn’t have a reason not to bring her.”

Why doesn’t Alex think other kids get to come to Palestine? “Because, of course, the telly, which says Palestinians are not like us, that they are a revolting people, a violent people, a nasty people, it’s mad. In fact it’s the exact opposite, it’s the Israelis.”

In other words, this eight-year-old girl is stating Israelis are a “revolting, violent and nasty” people. Where do you think she gets this from?

Which goes to further prove that people like Booth are more anti-Israel than pro-palestinian.

Not that Booth’s brainwashing of her small children was not already apparent. You may recall I posted this video of her children here.

Incidentally, this is the same song quoted in the Ma’an article.

Getting nervous about the visit, Alex asks if we want to hear the song she will share with the children at the school.

“Are you ready?

Free my people Palestine – Sing it loud
We will never let you die – Sing it loud
Palestine West Bank Ramallah Gaza, this is for the child that is looking for an answer
I wish I could take your tears and turn them into laughter
Long live Palestine, Long live Gaza!”

Utterly brainwashed by her own mother.

Meanwhile, these vile views are not all that Booth Jr shares with her mother.

3:25PM: Bring out the flying pig, because The Independent – arguably the most anti-Israel daily in UK – has published an extraordinary article, which is mandatory reading for anyone genuinely interested in understanding the Middle East conflict.

But especially for those who aren’t (hat tip: Graeme).

It is a long article, but here are some of the more noteworthy passages:

It is a cynical but time-honoured practice in Middle Eastern politics: the statesmen who decry the political and humanitarian crisis of the approximately 3.9 million Palestinians in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and in Gaza ignore the plight of an estimated 4.6 million Palestinians who live in Arab countries. For decades, Arab governments have justified their decision to maintain millions of stateless Palestinians as refugees in squalid camps as a means of applying pressure to Israel. The refugee problem will be solved, they say, when Israel agrees to let the Palestinians have their own state.

—-

The inclusion of the descendants of Palestinian refugees as refugees in UNRWA’s mandate has no parallel in international humanitarian law and is responsible for the growth of the official numbers of Palestinian refugees in foreign countries from 711,000 to 4.6 million during decades when the number of ageing refugees from the 1948 Israeli war of independence in was in fact declining. UNRWA’s grant of refugee status to the children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren of the original Palestinian refugees according to the principle of patrilineal descent, with no limit on the generations that can obtain refugee status, has made it easy for host countries to flout their obligations under international law. According to Article 34 of the UN Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, “The Contracting States shall as far as possible facilitate the assimilation and naturalisation of refugees,” and must “make every effort to expedite naturalisation proceedings” – the opposite of what happened to the Palestinians in every Arab country in which they settled, save Jordan.

—-

After 60 years of failed wars, and failed peace, it is time to put politics aside and to insist that the basic rights of the Palestinian refugees in Arab countries be respected – whether or not their children’s children return to Haifa anytime soon. While Saudi Arabia may not wish to host Israeli tourists, it can easily afford to integrate the estimated 240,000 Palestinian refugees who already live in the kingdom – just as Egypt, which has received close to $60bn in US aid, and has a population of 81 million, can grant legal rights to an estimated 70,000 Palestinian refugees and their descendants. One can only imagine the outrage that the world community would rightly visit upon Israel if Israeli Arabs were subject to the vile discriminatory laws applied to Palestinians living in Arab countries. Surely, Palestinian Arabs can keep their own national dream alive in the countries where they were born, while also enjoying the freedom to work, vote and own property?

A practical solution to the crisis of the Palestinian refugees in Arab countries will focus on Lebanon, Syria and Jordan, which together play host to approximately 3 million of the estimated 4.6 million Palestinian refugees living outside the West Bank and Gaza. While each of these countries has chosen different legal and political approaches to the 1948 refugees and their descendants, they share a political desire to sublimate the rights of Palestinian residents, treating them as unwanted guests or as tools to be used in pursuing wider political interests – but rarely as fully-fledged members of society. Lebanon, where Palestinians led by Yasser Arafat are widely blamed for having sparked the 1975 civil war, is the worst offender against international norms. Yet even in Jordan, which is in many ways a model for the humane treatment of a large refugee population, Palestinians today feel markedly less secure than they did two decades ago, or even five years ago.

—-

The fact that the living standard of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon has been deemed “catastrophic” by both UNRWA and by the Lebanese government can therefore be understood as a deliberate result of official state policy that is supported by all parties across Lebanon’s divided confessional spectrum. As a member of the Lebanese parliament, Ghassan Moukheiber, explained in an interview with the ICG, “our official policy is to maintain Palestinians in a vulnerable, precarious situation to diminish prospects for their naturalisation or permanent settlement”.

—-

For many of these refugees at the bottom of Jordan’s social and economic pecking order, life without papers means hiding from the police who constantly patrol their camp’s streets, being too poor to send any of your eight to 10 children to college, a lifetime of menial labour, and only a threadbare dream of returning to a homeland that most of them have never seen. There is strong suspicion of the state, but also of their neighbours, who are divided into “‘48 people” and “‘67 people”. “Some of the newcomers would give away Al Aqsa for a Jordanian identity card,” says Heba, a mother of eight, mentioning Islam’s celebrated mosque in Jerusalem, one of its holiest shrines.

“We’re Jordanians,” says her son, Mustapha, a slender, 20-year-old in a bright orange T-shirt emblazoned with meaningless words in unknown languages. “This is the best place in the world,” he says, pointing around the bare living room whose worn rugs and threadbare pillows cover the floor on which he and all his siblings sleep. “We would never leave here. But I’m loyal to my country, and I would like to visit it one day.”

He seems perplexed when asked which is his country – Jordan or Palestine. “We have no security here, but we are Jordanians,” replies Mustapha, who lounges on a mattress in a two-storey cement house down the road while one of his five daughters offers tiny glasses of steaming herbal tea and cardamom-scented coffee. “Everything I have is here. This house. My car. My job. What would I have in Nablus or Be’ersheba?” he declares. “My children know nothing but Jordan. And we will stay here.”

I’ve been making these points time and again on this blog, but the article’s publication in The Independent should expose these facts to more people, and especially to those who need them.

11:52AM: Sesame Street is set to go to Gaza, where the gang will talk about peaceful conflict resolution and promote self esteem for palestinians.

This represents bad news for Ernie and Bert.

8:28AM: Richard Goldstone in yet another interview with Al Jizz.

Note in particular:

• Goldstone repeating the untruth that the criticisms of his report do not go to the substance (to paraphrase Yoda, chopped liver we are?)
• Goldstone describing the Obama adminstration’s response to the report as “ambivalent” (he’s right)
• Goldstone referring to the case of palestinian children being deliberately shot as “indicating an unfortunate lack of discipline in the Israeli army,” and then responding to the interviewer’s question as to whether it is indicative of a lack of discipline or an issue of IDF policy by saying this is why there is the need for an investigation “to see where it comes from”, rather than whether or not the allegations of deliberate killings are true to begin with. In other words, he seems to be accepting the allegation of such an occurrence as fact, and defining the parameters of an investigation as determining why it happened, not if it happened.

6:05AM: Israel has reacted with caution to news that representatives of Iran, US, Russia and France accepted a draft agreement committing Iran to shipping 75 percent of its enriched uranium stockpile to Russia for further enrichment.

While both the Prime Minister’s Office and the Foreign Ministry have made no comment on the development – saying it was premature to discuss – others have not been quite as mum.

The Iranian nuclear threat is “still alive and kicking,” a senior official in Jerusalem told Ynet in the wake of reports about a draft agreement between Tehran and global powers in respect to Iran’s nuclear program.

However, it appears Israeli officials are divided on the implications of the draft deal, with some claiming that it marks an initial achievement in the battle against Iran. Supporters of the deal claim that Iran’s nuclear efforts will be set back by a year or more should the agreement be approved.

However, other officials in Israel are concerned that the agreement will be tantamount to giving Iran the go-ahead for continuing its uranium enrichment efforts.

“The great fear is that this kind of agreement will make it appear that Iran is indeed showing a reconciliatory attitude, while it continues the basic enrichment of uranium in Natanz and in the secret site exposed in Qom through the West’s intelligence work,” one official said.

“The expected deal takes care of Iran’s openly available uranium which it enriches for seemingly civilian aims, while it continues to secretly enrich uranium for military aims,” he said.

Israel officials are also looking to Washington, which expressed satisfaction over the agreement being formulated, as it was reached via dialogue rather than threats. At this time, Jerusalem will refrain from an official response to the draft agreement.

You may have thought she would have removed her foot from her mouth and shut up. But, alas, I guess she very much enjoys eating anything – even her foot – that is, anything but humble pie.

Here is an interview with her that is guaranteed to raise your blood pressure.

“Gaza is a concentration camp,” she fumes. “Why am I using an inflammatory term? Because underplaying the situation in Gaza and being sensible has done them no good at all.

“That’s not the same as mincing with the truth – it’s that the situation there has been underplayed for too long.

“Gaza isn’t a prison – a prison is somewhere guilty people go, somewhere people are locked up for the good of society.

“Sixty-one per cent of the population there are children. They are not prisoners, they’ve had no due process – it is more like an internment camp.

I would love to know Booth’s source for this statement. Even the pro-palestinian Palestine Media Center has the figure at 56%, and another more objective source has the percentage of children under 14 at around 47%.

“They are being tortured for their race or, the latest excuse, their political opinions. That – under the Oxford English Dictionary definition – is a concentration camp and I want people to be shocked by it, I want them to see the civilian life there.

Actually, they are suffering because a segment of their population is committing heinous terrorist acts against innocent people in Israel, including firing rockets deliberately at civilian areas, and the vast majority of Gazans are either supporting these terrorist acts or certainly not acting or speaking out against them.

“If they cannot escape, they’ve got soldiers around them, people keeping food from them – what else is it?”

It is proof that when the IDF withdraws unilaterally from territory captured in a war of self-defense, terrorism intensifies, and this terrorism is at best ignored, and at worst supported, by people like Booth.

Ok, so up until this point you might conclude that Booth could very well be a kind-hearted person who just happens to be woefully ignorant.

I think the next paragraphs indicate that this woman is not merely ignorant, but willfully ignores the truth.

Likewise, she finds it backs up her argument that Palestinians are a peace-loving people.

She admits: “When I was going to Gaza I had a moment thinking, ‘Well, what about Islamic jihad, is that going to be dangerous?’ I walked around as the sister-in-law of Tony Blair – God as my witness – I walked around Rafah refugee camp at night on my own.

“People knew who I was, I was welcomed and I was safe. The Hamas police force has pledged safety as much as possible for the people living there – that is not to say they are perfect – but the organisation that kidnapped Alan Johnston is all but finished now.”

The fact that Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and company fire rockets at population centers in Israel is of no concern to Booth. As long as they do not harm her and do good for palestinians, they are alright, and the palestinians who support them are “peace-loving.”

This theme of peace among Palestinians is one to which the journalist continually returns.

When stranded in Gaza, she says a woman took her in, offering her daughter’s clothes to her.

“It’s raised time and time again that within Islam there’s an inherent hate for Judaism – it’s a lie,” she says.

I have seen plenty of Quranic verses that would suggest otherwise. But you needn’t go much past the Hamas Charter for proof she is talking out of her arse.

“I have been in homes and I hear and I see people want to live in peace with their neighbours. There is a genuine feeling of welcome.

“The danger for someone visiting is that you’ll get loved to death – force-fed mint tea and biscuits.”

Now this I am inclined to believe.

As for not speaking out against palestinian terror, Booth wants you to know it is not because she denies its existence. It just does not interest her.

No one can deny violent attacks and terrorism have been committed by people living in Palestine. But her real argument is that the Palestinian people are being punished indiscriminately and permanently for it.

“I don’t condone any violence at all,” she says. “Why am I talking about Palestine? Because they are under occupation and I have seen the suffering first-hand.

“I don’t want to talk about anything else - just the human rights abuses.

Clearly, Booth does not consider rockets fired at Jews to constitute a humans right abuse.

And here’s the kicker:

“If Londoners went through what Gazan people go through for one day, we would commit massacres, we would riot. They’ve been going through it for 60 years.

At least she admits the palestinians commit massacres.

And that, my friends, is terror supporter Lauren Booth.

Update: Honest Reporting has discovered that Booth is on Iran’s payroll.

..while palestinians of all ages engage in good, clean fun..

Meanwhile, the palestinians of occupied Ramallah endure horrendous pain in various Zionist torture devices.

In conflicting reports about the circumstances behind her departure, some reports have her being lifted out of Gaza with a crane, while others have her sent out kicking and screaming “Where the hell am I going to find such a great range of canned foods?”

3 Weeks Ago (left); Last Week (right)

This Week

In her latest rant, Booth managed to compare Gaza to both the concentration camps and Darfur.

In a telephone interview with Ynet on Wednesday, Booth slammed Israel’s policies and called Gaza “the largest concentration camp in the world today. I was startled the Israelis agreed to this.”

Despite her current predicament, Booth said she has no regrets. “My children are the ones who are suffering, because I’m being prevented from leaving and they can’t see me. I don’t regret it, because I wanted to come here and help these children who are suffering on a daily basis,” she said.

Booth asserted that the current siege is not the result of the policies of the Hamas government. “There’s been a siege for 20 years already. Palestinians’ freedom of movement has been restricted since the 80s. This is an inexcusable outrage on an international level.”

She spoke of the situation in Gaza and said, “Yesterday, I visited mothers of children under the age of five. Nutrition here has deteriorated threefold over the last two years because it is impossible to bring food through the crossings. Unemployment has risen, so people can’t even afford to buy what food there is left.”

‘It’s as bad as Darfur’

When asked about Israel’s right to respond to incessant attacks emanating from Gaza, Booth evoked Holocaust-related rhetoric. “There is no right to punish people this way. There is no justification for this kind of collective punishment. You were in the concentration camps, and I can’t believe that you are allowing the creation of such a camp yourselves.”

“The Palestinians’ suffering is physical, mental and emotional,” she went on, “there is not a family here in which someone is not in desperate need of work, shelter or food. This is a humanitarian crisis on the scale of Darfur.

I think anyone with half a brain realizes that these comparisons are not merely fallacious; they are highly offensive.

Meanwhile, I decided to put Booth’s food shortage/lack of nutrition claim to the test. Below are two photographs of Booth. The one on the left was taken two weeks ago, when she first arrived in Gaza, and the right one was taken a week ago.

Despite being “trapped” in Gaza, Booth certainly does not look like she has been short of food. If anything, she seems to have gained an extra chin.

Update: Elder of Ziyon also sees the similarities between Gaza and Darfur.

British journalist and peace activist Lauren Booth, sister-in-law of former British premier Tony Blair who is now an international Middle East peace envoy, shops at a grocery store in Gaza City on September 3, 2008. Booth said today she is trapped in Gaza as Israel refuses to let her leave the Palestinian territory she entered aboard a protest boat. ponders the devastating food shortage in Gaza.

(hat tip: SoccerDad)

But Booth needn’t worry for too long – help is on its way!

International human rights advocates plan to stage another siege-breaking voyage to the Gaza Strip on 22 September after two boats challenged an Israeli military blockade in August.

Palestinian lawmaker Jamal Al-Khudari, head of the Popular Campaign Against the Aiege, announced on Thursday that the activists will set sail from Cyprus, and that the new boat will have on board members of the European Parliament and doctors.

The Boat will also pick up nine international activists who are stranded in Gaza following the first voyage of the Free Gaza Movement. Among the stranded foreigners is British journalist Lauren Booth, the sister-in-law of former British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

What makes this even more miraculous is that the first voyage alone has the Free Gaza tools $300,000 in debt. Lucky they are all socialists, I guess.

Update: Jamal Al-Khudari, the “Palestinian lawmaker” mentioned above who is obviously in touch with the Free Gaza tools and is helping to coordinate things, is a member of Hamas.

Just a picture of a man with a rocket launcher. Nothing to see here, move along.

What really interests me about this story is not the fact this woman is Tony Blair’s sister-in-law. It is what she reveals about her mindset.

Middle East peace envoy Tony Blair’s sister-in-law, who arrived in Gaza with a boatload of activists protesting an Israeli blockade last month, said Tuesday she was stranded because both Israel and Egypt had denied her entry.

Lauren Booth, sister of the former British prime minister’s wife Cherie, revealed her predicament as Blair visited the region to further Western-backed efforts to achieve a limited Israeli-Palestinian peace deal.

Booth was one of 44 foreign “Free Gaza” activists who set sail from Cyprus, docking in Gaza last month, and was one of 10 who remained when the others sailed back to Cyprus on Friday.

Israel allowed the activists to dock in Gaza on August 23 despite its blockade of the coastal territory since Hamas Islamists, who oppose Israel’s existence, seized control last year.

Booth said she has tried unsuccessfully over the past few days to leave through Gaza’s land crossings with Israel and Egypt.

“I tried through the proper channels, through the United Kingdom’s embassy, but I was told I was not allowed to come through,” she said after trying in vain to enter Israel.

An Israel Defense Forces spokesman, Peter Lerner, confirmed Israel had denied Booth entry, saying there was a policy of refusing entry to anyone from Gaza who did not get there via Israel.

“There is no possibility to let in those people who entered by the sea. They cannot enter Israel,” Lerner said.

Egypt would not let Booth through its Rafah terminal with Gaza on Saturday. She was turned away along with two other activists, Booth said.

“We were all turned back by the Egyptians,” she said, adding that she had received no explanation but had “heard through contacts Egypt was under pressure from Israel to act that way.”

Israel has eased some restrictions on Gaza since an Egyptian-brokered truce in June that has largely stopped rocket attacks from Gaza into Israel.

But land crossings have remained largely shut to some 1.5 million Palestinians living in Gaza.

Booth said diplomatic efforts were still being made to permit her to leave. “Thanks to Israel for letting us feel a real taste of Gazan life,” she added.

In other words, even though Egypt has also refused her passage, she refuses to apportion any “blame” to them, and will only blame Israel. If Egypt refuses, then they were obviously instructed to do so by Israel. And it is only Israel that has allowed her to “feel a real taste of Gazan life”, even though Egypt also shares a border with Gaza.

I have a strong feeling that Lauren Booth – and many, if not all, of her fellow Free Gaza tools – are more about hating Israel than loving the palestinians.