Hanan Chehata
Middle East Monitor

EDL's Roberta Moore. The Zionist Federation’s Jonathan Hoffman (right)

The increasingly cosy relationship between the extremist, racist EDL movement and the ultra-racist Zionist movement in the UK is becoming more and more visible with each passing demonstration that they attend. It is now a common sight to see a mass of Israeli flags at an EDL rally and a mob of EDL members at a pro-Israel rally. This is an association which is at once revealing as to the true nature of the Zionist movement whilst also a source, one would assume, of much distress and embarrassment to right minded Jews who would blanch at such a self-defeating and counter-productive association.

For their part, the EDL clearly scrape the bottom of the barrel for members. It is hardly a thinking man's organisation. Typically comprised of thugs and louts it is scarcely a group that any sane individual would be proud to be a member of; and yet hundreds of Zionists have signed up to be a part of the new EDL "Jewish Division". This includes individuals such as Roberta Moore, who makes a habit of inciting hatred against Muslims while running around with an Israeli flag tied around her neck like a cape. Exposing her ignorance with statements such as "Islam is not a religion but a cult" she does seem to fit the EDL's low criteria for membership. The foul vitriol she spewed at one recent EDL rally not only betrayed her ignorance of Islam but her desire to incite hatred against more than 1.5 billion Muslims worldwide.

This is nothing knew and many have been forced recently to openly recant their spurious statements about Islam and Muslim organisations. Take for instance, the apology issued by The Spectator last week following Stephen Pollard's grossly absurd statement that Islam Expo is a racist, fascist and genocidal organisation! When challenged in court he claimed the remark was unintentional. Justice was served in this instance and Islam Expo won their case against The Spectator including an apology, legal costs and damages.

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Hanan Chehata
Middle East Monitor

Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, left, and Tony Blair on the right. From
1995, at a cermony commemorating the death of Yitzhak Rabin, who
was assassinated by a Jewish terrorist. (Brian Hendler/AP)

In yet another revealing speech, this time delivered at a symposium at IDC University in Herzliya, Tony Blair has exposed himself for what he truly is; not a "peace envoy" by any stretch of the imagination but a shameless mouthpiece for the State of Israel. Just days before direct negotiations are due to take place in the Middle East, in which he is supposed to be taking a neutral stance representing the Quartet (UN, EU, Russia and the USA), Blair has taken it upon himself to set aside any pretence of impartiality and reaffirm his "passion" for Israel. He has taken on the role of Israel’s defence attorney to plead with the world to try to empathise with Israel and to understand Israel’s point of view when it commits atrocities, human rights abuses and breaches of international law. He acknowledged that Israel is often perceived as "arrogant, overbearing and aggressive" but instead of examining why that might be such a widespread perception he went on to defend Israel’s crimes. Not for one moment, however, did he stop to ask anyone to consider the Palestinians’ point of view.

In this one short speech there were so many blatant attempts by Tony Blair at misdirection and misinformation that it is hard to know which was his most serious breach of professional decorum and where to start pointing out his now publicly-admitted bias; but regardless of where you start pretty much every statement he made was a crude attempt to spin the Israeli narrative. His whole speech was geared towards defending Israel and condemning the critics of Israel. He raised a whole host of issues which he seemed to have on a checklist and went through them one by one, making an attempt, and a very poor one at that, to defend Israel’s illegal actions.

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