Hating Your Friends

As you may have already read on LGF, black Jewish Labour MP Oona King, attending a war memorial, has been pelted with eggs by Muslim residents.

The campaign for what promises to be one of the most bitterly contested parliamentary seats got off to an explosive start yesterday when the MP Oona King was pelted with eggs and vegetables as she attended a memorial to Jewish war dead.

 

Miss King, 37, the black Jewish Labour MP for Bethnal Green and Bow, was attacked as she joined mourners to commemorate 60 years since the Hughes Mansions Disaster, when 134 people, almost all Jewish, were killed by the last V2 missile to land on London.

  
The eggs missed her, but one hit a war veteran, Louis Lewis, 89, in the chest and an onion struck Richard Brett, a bugler from the Jewish Lads and Girls Brigade who sounded the Last Post at the ceremony.

 

Miss King, who enraged many of her Muslim constituents when she openly supported the war in Iraq, told the crowd that the attack was one of the “saddest” things she had ever witnessed.

 

Clearly angry, she said: “I think they were aimed at me but the sheer ignorance never mind the lack of respect is shocking. They have no idea where their freedom came from and who gave it to them.

 

“They don’t know they are lucky to be here. That is truly one of the saddest things that I have ever seen. There were people who helped save this country, having eggs pelted at them at a time when they are remembering those they had lost. It is disgusting.”

 

The incident demonstrated how high feelings are running in the east London constituency, which has 55,000 Bangladeshi Muslims, more than half its electorate, most of whom bitterly opposed the war in Iraq. Such is the resentment that George Galloway, one of the leading anti-war MPs, has targeted the seat for himself and his newly formed Respect party.

 

Even though he has no connections to the constituency – his former seat is 400 miles away in Glasgow – he hopes that personal animosity towards Miss King will help him overturn her 10,000 majority.

 

Yesterday’s display of hatred proved he may be on to something. Even a police van called in to make sure the ceremony remained peaceful was pelted with eggs.

 

The incident also showed the changing face of the East End. Back in 1945 when the bomb struck, the area was predominantly Jewish.

 

But since the war most of those have moved out, and been replaced by Muslims.

 

Yesterday’s mourners, many who had lost friends and family in the attack, wholeheartedly supported the MP.

Unfortunately for her most of them now lived in the suburbs.

 

One of the few who remains, Irene Rosenthal, 80, a grandmother, who lives in the East End with her husband Leslie, 79, a taxi driver, said: “She is lovely. I will be voting for Oona. I don’t like George Galloway. He knows nothing about the area.”

 

But many of the Muslims, especially the young men, now living in Hughes Mansions resented her presence.

 

Ibn Alkhattab, 21, said: “It will be all about the war. There is enormous anger. No one will vote for her.”

His friend added: “She represented these people and then voted for the war. We all hate her. She comes here with her Jewish friends who are killing our people and then they come to our back yards. “It is out of order. What do they expect?”

Israellycool reader (and neighbor) Melvyn tells me that Richard Brett, one of the people struck by the projectiles, is one of his closest friends and was best man at his wedding.

 

While this incident highlights the anti-Jewish sentiment amongst these UK Muslims, it also demonstrates that they are unaware that Ms King may just be one of the better friends that they have.

 

Consider this “Eyewitness account from Gaza”, taken from Ms King’s website:

The no-man’s land separating Israel from the Gaza Strip gives way to what can only be described asdesecrated land. Razor wire and crushed buildings line the route. Torn slabs of concrete look like tattered cardboard on a rubbish heap. In front of us two huge Israeli tanks block our path. Behind us, although we don’t know it, the border will shortly be sealed to prevent Palestinian reprisals for the helicopter attack launched against a militant leader hours earlier.

 

The Hamas leader, Rantissi, is still alive. A Palestinian woman and her young child, on their way to hospital, are dead, and 35 injured. Within hours demonstrations grip Gaza. Later that afternoon we hurriedly leave the building we are in when the dull thud of a missile lands nearby.

 

As two BritishMPs traveling with Christian Aid, myself and Jenny Tonge are faintly alarmed. For residents of Gaza this is business as usual. Over 1 million Palestinians live here. In some areas of this tiny piece of land – smaller than the Isle of Wight – more than three quarters of the population live on less than 1.30 [sterling] a day. Life below the poverty line for these Palestinians contrasts starkley to the 5,000 Israeli settlers who occupy one third of the land and enjoy well-watered gardens, first-world housing, and protection at all times from the Israeli army.

 

This protection means Palestinians wait for hours – sometimes days – at Israeli checkpoints, whether trying to find work or access essential services such as medical care.

 

The sun is setting on Gaza. From my hotel balcony I hear demonstrations in the street below. It suddenly occurs to me that I can put on a headscarf and slip into the crowd as a Palestinian. No one will guess I’m Jewish, still less that I’m a British MP.

 

On the street I follow the sound. It leads me to the hospital where the Hamas leader Rantissi is being treated. He is a particularly odious extremist. A Palestinian reporter surrounded by a crowd speaks to a camera crew. Cars rush into the compound, horns blaring, men hanging out of the windows. A man carries an injured girl into the hospital. But most of the Palestinians just stand waiting. It is what they are used to. They wait for Israelis to stamp their permits, and they wait for a Palestinian state.

 

Like Jews I suspect they will wait thousands of years, if necessary, for their homeland. They are no different to us: deny them human rights, and they will respond with unacceptable terrorist violence. That’s what Jews did when they set up the Stern Gang and blew up the King David Hotel in the 1940s. Ninety four people died.

 

The leader of that terrorist group, on Britain’s ‘Most Wanted’ list, went on to be the Israeli prime minister.

 

Many Jews revere him, even while they abhore the terrorism that ruins their lives today. Israelis must be freed from terrorism. All terrorism, not least Palestinian terrorism, is utterly unacceptable. But it is also predictable. As someone who visited numerous holocaust museums as a child, I now realize that perhaps Israeli treatment of Palestinians is also predictable. Those who are abused and brutalized with cruelty beyond imagination, often perpetuate the cycle, and become the abuser.

 

The original founders of the Jewish state could surely not imagine the irony facing Israel today: in escaping the ashes of the holocaust, they have incarcerated another people in a hell similar in its nature (though not its extent) to the Warsaw Ghetto.

 

Any visitor to the Palestinian ghetto can see the signs: residents are sealed off from the outside world and live under curfew; the authorities view torture as acceptable and use collective punishment as a means of control; soldiers arrive at any moment and drive families from their homes, confiscate property, and demolish whole neighbourhoods; unemployment runs in places at 80%, and basic utilities such as water are witheld; the economy has ‘client’ status, and is subservient in every way to the needs of the occupying power; and last but not least, as Primo Levi showed brilliantly in ‘If This Is A Man’, and Roman Polanski showed poignantly in ‘The Pianist’, the devil is in the detail. The simplest task requires a bureaucracy that is both dehumanising and endless.

 

So what can be done? For a start, Israel must comply with UN Resolution 242 and withdraw from territories occupied in 1967. As the occupying power, Israel must uphold the Fourth Geneva Convention and end all collective punishments. Illegal settlements must be dismantled.

 

In the past few days Ariel Sharon has announced the closure of 8 illegal settlements. But 7 were uninhabited, and only involved removing a flag from illegal outposts. Repair of water, sewage, and other essential infrastructure must take place immediately. Just under 80% of all water resources in the West Bank & Gaza Strip are redirected from Palestinians to Israelis.

 

The international community must recognize the scale of the humanitarian disaster facing Palestinians. George Bush must place greater pressure on Sharon to give meaning to the Road Map. And the Jewish community must recognise our responsibility – as the more powerful side – to pursue peace. Yes, there are two sides to every story. But no story should hold within it the horrors I have witnessed here, so similar in detail to the humiliations suffered by the Jews.

 

Finally, I must sadly conclude that given the scale of the atrocities and collective punishment waged by the Israelis against the Palestinians, I have no choice
but to boycott Israeli products
. On reflection, whether Jewish or not, you might decide to do the same.

Heck, after reading that, I wouldn’t mind throwing an egg or two at Ms King myself.

4 thoughts on “Hating Your Friends”

  1. A great demonstration of the mentality, of out-of-control Muslim thugs.

    Look what nice types Britain and European trendies have imported into their ranks.

    The morons throwing the eggs probably have never read King’s website and likely have no real idea about her ‘ except that she is Jewish, and that as we know is enough to ‘hate’ her. The comments about her support for the Iraq War are just a smoke screen for their blind hatred and disgusting antics.

    King’s comment here especially profound ‘They have no idea where their freedom came from and who gave it to them.’

    These creeps don’t live in Gaza or the West Bank, but they behave almost as if they do. They can live in a democratic society, slagging off the freedoms and opportunities that exist ‘ and still its not enough; they’re still ‘angry’.

    Doesn’t matter whether they are Muslim or Orange People. They are scum.

  2. King, the Muslims and the eggs thrown at her all deserve each other. What a disgrace to the memory of the Jewish WWII bombing victims to have such a virulent enemy of Israel officiating at the ceremony.

    To Scott, I don’t know many Orange people and I doubt that their holy books breathe the hate of Jews and Christians into them as part of their religion’s foundations. Yours is truly a comparison of apples and oranges.

    Shy Guy

  3. Heck, after reading that, I wouldn’t mind throwing an egg or two at Ms King myself.

    Fine – just DON’T HIT RICHARD!

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