Stuart Littlewood reviews some of the features of this year’s “silly season”, from US President Barack Obama’s capitulation to Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin “Bibi” Netanyahu, to the unedifying spectacle of Israeli war criminal Ehud Barak being welcomed as an honoured guest at Britain’s Labour Party conference, to extortionists and misfits issuing threats and “religious rulings”.
This year's traditional “silly season” has been... well, exceptionally silly.
We've seen Netanyahu make an exhibition of himself in front of the UN with his ignorance of justice and utter disrespect for his neighbours. He may have impressed certain adoring Western leaders but he didn’t fool the rest of us.
We've seen The Most Powerful Man in the World meekly cave in to Netanayahu's desire to carry on building illegal settlements and screwing up any hopes of peace. Darling Bibi must be allowed to pursue his wrecking tactics with impunity. In less than a year in office, President Obama has lost all credibility in the Middle East, and for this and other blunders he is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize – the ultimate daftness.
We watched with a mixture of amusement and despair as the great Western powers were ducking and weaving yet again in order to shirk their duty to hold Israel accountable for its non-stop violations of international law, acts of piracy on the high seas and defiance of UN resolutions, while they eagerly lined up to slap down Iran for... well, for what?
Here in Britain we've been treated to the unedifying spectacle of Israel’s Ehud Barak, who has been referred to the International Criminal Court for war crimes against the people of Gaza, swanning around the Labour Party conference and welcomed as an honoured guest when he should have been clapped in irons and transported to The Hague.
We've seen the British government, cowards to a man, running away from the UN Human Rights Council vote that endorsed the Goldstone report and failing to face the truth about the atrocities in Gaza.
On a personal level, the silly season saw me branded an enemy of Palestine then menaced by some crazed Christian-Zionist in Canada, who called me an enemy of the Israeli people and demanded 10,950 US dollars or he and his 55,000 “disciples” would have me removed from my job, barred from the Holy Land and put under close surveillance.
As if that wasn't enough excitement I’ve just had the following fatwa slapped on me:
COALITION AGAINST PALESTINIAN WAR CRIMES File No. TG-4617
A fatwa has been issued against you by the World Muslim Zionist Organization in Dhaka.
It proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that you are one of the world's top Jew-haters, with an extensive history of collaboration with the Palestinian war criminals in Gaza and Ramallah.
It calls on jurists, NGOs and governments to immediately take all the necessary measures to have you incarcerated as a traitor to the British people.
Other procedures are stipulated, including the application of the Sharia laws to disloyal individuals like you who emanate from the People of the Christian Book and live in the Dar al-Harb.
As an NGO, we will do our part to bring you, the kuffir, to justice.
A copy of this letter has been handed to the Home Secretary. It is also being sent to Interpol and deposited with the UK Council of Imams.
We have been promised an investigation by MI6 which may entail the seizure of your computer files.
Muhsir al-Mutawakil Chairman
Al-Mutawakil’s fatwa is couched in the sort of language calculated to incite hatred or worse. I don’t believe he has any dealings with MI6 but that can be arranged, as I’m forwarding his document to both Scotland Yard and MI6 to ensure his threats are on file the next time he sets foot in the UK.
I urge anyone else who has been threatened by fanatics to do the same.
Fatwa scribbler launched “worldwide boycott” against Palestinians trying to earn an honest living
As it happens, there’s a news item on Yisrael Medad's myrightword blog claiming success for a worldwide campaign launched a year ago to boycott goods and services from “so-called Palestine”. It’s a kind of reverse Boycott Israel and the source is again Canada, a favourite hang-out it seems for Zionist extremists.
The man behind the Boycott of Palestinian Goods and Services (BPGS) is one Muhsir Mutawakil. Could this by any chance be our fatwa scribbler? If so, he’s a busy little bee working his butt off to damage Palestinian interests. His boycott movement is trying to persuade global distributors to stop importing products from Gaza and the West Bank and buy from other sources.
"The Islamic oppressive regimes in Gaza and Ramallah are enforcing apartheid rule against 120,000 Palestinian Christians and over two million women. This religious and gender apartheid must stop at once," he is quoted as saying.
According to Mutawakil, multinational business is sensitive to handling products from exporters who are engaging in war crimes, and he expects a measurable decline in shipments to Western markets, including Canada, of flowers, soap, handicrafts, olive oil, figs, dates, pita and Cremisan wine from "so-called Palestine".
Mutawakil, says the blog, has held talks with businesses in Canada, Australia, the USA and the UK. "There is a growing realization that fostering business dealings and exchanges in the travel, professional, educational and medical sectors with these apartheid-based regimes is counter-productive. Already, commitments made for 2009 are being renegotiated or dropped entirely," he said.
The Cremisan Monastery, which Mutawakil has targeted, supplies their Bethlehem altar wine to Christian churches throughout the Western world. The product is certainly not handled by people engaged in war crimes, as he claims. So what justification does he have for wishing to harm their trade? Last year the Israeli authorities blocked Cremisan’s exports and many churches in the UK and elsewhere had to go without their wine at Christmas. Is Mutawakil claiming credit for this unkind victory (some would call it sheer religious hatred)?
And what precisely has he got against all the other businesses he hopes to crush?
Furthermore, it is nonsense to suggest that Christians are victims of "religious apartheid" by the Palestinian regimes in Gaza and Ramallah. They are victimized by the brutal Israeli occupier.
Mutawakil sounds like a mischief maker who loves dishing out collective punishment just like his Zionist buddies. What intrigues me is why any self-respecting Muslim would associate himself with Zionism, and why he thinks the UK Council of Imams would even give him the time of day.
A footnote on the blog-page helps explain the mystery. It says: "Muhsir Mutawakil is a Palestinian Arab from the town of Rafah in the Gaza Strip. His parents were tortured to death by the Hamas gang currently ruling Gaza. He converted to Judaism in 1994." If true, such a loss must be hard to bear and my heart goes out to him.
Would Hamas leaders care to comment please, for the record?
Meanwhile I tend to agree with colleagues that all this is another example of Zionist desperation. Tel Aviv’s mafia are busy creating a rash of loud-mouthed propaganda cells, in many cases just a one-man lying machine belching religious-flavoured poison from a computer in their fly-blown kitchen.
Stuart Littlewood is author of the book Radio Free Palestine, which tells the plight of the Palestinians under occupation. For further information please visit www.radiofreepalestine.co.uk.
