I have two news items from the Desk of Michael Walsh in Britain and a small but interesting, somewhat related item sourced as "From the newsroom of the BBC World Service":
* ETHNIC CLEANSING - ISRAEL ACCUSED
Israel and international Jewish groups are desperately trying to head off a United Nations (UN) declaration accusing Israel of "the ethnic cleansing of the Arab people in historical Palestine."
The conference scheduled to take place in Durban at the end of August will declare that Israel's settlement policy in occupied Palestine "is based on racial discrimination, a new kind of evil apartheid, a crime against humanity, and a serious threat to peace and security."
Israel's Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon reviled as "The Horror of Haifa" has already had to duck out of a scheduled Belgian visit for fear he would be arrested as a war criminal. He was given an impolite welcome in the United States and hastily left France after grudgingly admitting that "they didn't see eye to eye." Only Britain and the equally compliant Germany welcomed the international pariah.
TRADE EMBARGOES THREATENED The bandit state of Israel ... is desperate to water down the UN declaration and is issuing threats, especially of a trade and aid embargo nature, on states that lend support to the UN's crackdown on Israeli genocide.
One of the states buckling under Jewish/American pressure ironically is the host nation of South Africa. The "rainbow" country's President Thabo Mbeki wants the subject of Zionism left off the agenda but reluctantly conceded that the South African government did not have the power to delete certain items.
The UN resolutions goes on to charge the Israeli government on the "racist practices of Zionism." This has far reaching consequences for Israel's allies such as Britain and Germany who could find themselves subject to international outrage and negative response to trade with both countries.
As Britain heads for the biggest recession since 1991 it will find that its friendship with the Bandit State will cost tens of thousands of jobs.
* SO MUCH FOR RELIGIONS TOLERANCE
The Jewish manager of two of Adelaide's leading hotels has ordered his staff to remove Gideon Bibles from guestrooms. London-born Graham Goldberg was adamant in his refusal to reconsider, saying: "What we are doing is offering suitable reading material for all popular creeds and religions."
It appears that Christianity's Bible, the most popular reading material in the world, is neither suitable nor popular. The Gideon Society's administrative manager surmised: "We distribute Bibles in more than 175 countries, most of which are not Christian. Yet we have had no objections anywhere."
* THUGS TERRORIZE BELGIAN AMBASSADOR'S RESIDENCE
TEXT:
Thursday, 5 July, 2001, 18:35 GMT 19:35 UK: Belgian diplomat house vandalised in Israel
The Belgian Consulate in Jerusalem has been attacked by vandals.
Windows were smashed and graffiti scrawled on the walls saying "Jew haters out".
A Belgian judge is currently investigating whether the Israeli Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, could be tried in Belgium for the massacre of Palestinian refugees after the Israeli invasion of Lebanon he headed in the early 1980s.
The Belgian consul general in Israel, Leo Dass, said he understood the frustration felt there because of the case brought against the Mr Sharon but said it was a judicial, and not a political, issue.
Thought for the Day:
"Our destiny exercises its influence over us even when, as yet, we have not learned its nature; it is our future that lays down the law of our today."
(Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche)