What a day! In the morning my friend Marian came for her normal dose of French conversation with me. She tells me she is sorting out equipping herself with Skype, as she doesn't want to lose touch with me in Haifa, and will continue one hour at a set time every week. Lovely lady! She used to be the welfare officer at Broughton House for retired service personnel, opposite my house. She is a great friend.
Then Anthony Julius phones and says that Haifa is his second favourite university, after Cambridge, and that Haifa is a lovely place and that he wishes me luck. Nice of him!
Then I went to pick up the Church papers which I peruse once a week for the Jewish community and leave the community officers to photocopy. We giggled over the statement by Bishop Riah of Jerusalem, that we are no longer the chosen people. Nice of him to tell us: hadn't realised that he is so deluded as to think of himself as God. Not that we're worrying: he seems completely batty to us.
Then down to the aliyah office to submit my passport, recently renewed and to sign a document stating that I now intend to emigrate to Israel as an olah hadashah. They even let me in and out the door that they use as personnel: as if I am now one of the family. Louise in the office also offers to photocopy any personal documents and notarise them, thus saving me the trouble. She also sends copy of my passport photo page to Robinsons, the company which will be shipping my belongings in less than a week.
As for what to pack in that shipment, deodorant is apparently expensive in Israel, but otherwise most things are not worth stocking up on in advance in this country. if any of you know different, please let me know.
I finished sorting out my files and folders and thought I had lost the originals of my PhD and PGCE certificates, but I contacted Les at work and he reminded me that they were in frames with our photos.
Then I sharpened countless pencils and tried out loads of pens, listening to Classic FM, which was playing the theme tune to Schindler's List, which I found unbearably moving and then the D minor Piano Concerto by Mozart, which I once played at a public concert with orchestra, in the days when I was seriously considering being a pianist and not a blogger.
And in the middle of all this, around 4.00 pm, the door bell rang, and there stood my friend Lucille. Are you OK for coming with me to Liverpool? She said. 'Not half', I replied, packing two apples, one for her and one for me. She lives in South Manchester, but was up here on business and was on her way to hear the Revd Stephen Sizer at Liverpool's Anglican Cathedral, speaking about ethical investment (i.e. divesting from Caterpillar in Israel) and the history of Israel/Palestine.
In the car, Lucille said, in that way she has of hers, is your hubby coming, knowing he works in Liverpool. So I rang him up to ask him the best way to Hope St. from Manchester and to suggest that he might like to be present at the event as well. He agreed: knowing how serious the situation might become, seeing as how I was nearly lynched at Clitheroe's Church, which I have portrayed in an earlier blog - at least that is how it felt to me at the time.
We arrived early, and the President of the Manchester Jewish Community was there and a journalist friend. And then Les sauntered in. And we made our way to the Lady Chapel.
Then we saw friends from Liverpool, both Jewish and Christian and the Dean introduced the proceedings.
I have seen much of Sizer's writings and I think he realised pretty quick that with the audience not being total groupies of his, he would have to tone things down. But it was still an unsightly mix of demonisation, innuendo, half-truths, outright lies and propaganda, making use of many of the techniques used by Jew-haters throughout the ages (even though he of course stated that some of his best friends were Israeli Jews).
The first half blamed Napoleon (this was a new one on me) for starting the ball rolling, offering the Jews a home in Israel. Wrong! The Jews were already living there under the Turkish Ottoman Empire, and rejected Napoleon. Better the devil you know! Sizer stated that France was trying to cut Britain out by doing this. Absolute rubbish! He then said this goal was taken up by the British as a foil to France, and mentioned various 19th century luminaries. To him (you had to pinch yourself to remember that he is a vicar) everything had negative political motivations of empire and imperialism: nothing at all to do with 3,500 years of Jewish history in Israel, of course.
He even said, without naming names, that Germany in 1917 had offered the Jews a home in Palestine (not a State, he added meaningfully), so the Brits got in quick. Well, if this is true, I certainly haven't come across it in my many years of teaching Jewish history, inter alia. But not mentioning his sources was particularly suspect to me.
He accused Balfour of duplicity towards the 'indigenous' population, which were, according to Sizer, of course the so-called Palestinians and not the Jews. Mentioniong 1948 and 1967, he never once mentioned the Arab States' wars against tiny Israel. He just said that they didn't accept Israel. You can say that again!
Then it got really offensive. The first bit had been factually inaccurate. This was pure demonisation. There are five roadblocks to peace in the Middle East, he said (which he called his ABC): apartheid, bantustans, concealment, distortion and ethnic cleansing. No, Sizer, that is what you are trying to do to the Jews, and not the other way around. He kept citing United Nations Resolutions of 1973 and 1975, but did not mention Kofi Annan's much more recent pronouncement that the Jewish community has every reason not to trust the United Nations.
1: APARTHEID
He then quoted emotive feelings as facts, culminating with the interesting observation that 'Orthodox Jews in Israel do not have to pay taxes'. Well, I'm sorry, bloggers, at this point I got up and said, 'That is an out-and-out lie: all my Orthodox friends in Israel pay tax'. Unlike at Clitheroe, I was not accused of harassing the speaker, but instead was asked to wait to speak in the interval. But others in the audience were not having it and called him an out- and -out liar who needed to be corrected as he went along, since he was making the whole thing up (bless the Liverpudlians: at their best, you can't beat them: I really miss living there at times like this).
He also said that Israeli citizenship was based on racial origins, that Arabs were restricted in their jobs, their infant mortality rate was much higher than those of Jews, their schools were segregated etc etc.
2: BANTUSTANS
He said that Israel had erased Arab villages in Galilee, and demolished a home every one and a half days,to remove the rightful owners and to build their own settlements. The Israelis had denuded and destroyed olive tress. He supported Yassir Arafat's rejection of Barak's offer of Bantustans to the Palestinians. He said that in 1967 Jerusalem had been annexed and Gilo taken. He said that Israel will probably give Gilo up in any settlement. He mentioned restricted movement, checkpoints, constrictions, exclusive roads of Jews, Jericho surrounded by a ditch, the wall going into the occupied territories, in order to isolate the Palestinians, who cannot travel through directly. The separation barrier (a wall in urban areas) is twice as big as the Berlin Wall [shades of the Anglican Peace and Justice Network deliberation on Jerusalem here, which led to the ACC voting for divestment, and Synod following suit: very emotive language].
Then it came, the replacement theology: 'the Jericho road, which Jesus used, is now blocked'. Well excuse, me, Jesus was a Jew and Jericho was till recently under Israeli jurisdiction and its Christians flourished. I know this because I met them and they wanted nothing to do at that time with the Palestinian authority. How dare he mix up theology and politics like that. He constantly used anatomical imagery of blood supply loss etc etc, in order to demonise the Israeli government. He named one overhead the 'Matrix of control', another demonic image used by Jew-haters through the ages: the Jew as a clever, scheming, crafty controller. No thought of what Israel has to do to defend herself.
3: CONCEALMENT
60% of UN resolution have been about Israel and the USA has vetoed them: this is concealment. No it isn't: this is common sense. Who makes up the UN, exactly? Then Jenin,April 2002: we were in Israel at the time, and experienced the bias of the media first hand, as they were staying in our hotel, the nearest to east Jerusalem in west Jerusalem. But, oh no, he stated that houses were demolished, Israel committed war crimes 5 times. Amnesty and B'tzelem had said so. Human shields had been used and torture carried out in Israeli prisons.
Then he said something so startingly untrue, I couldn't believe it: when Christians go on pilgrimages, he said, they visit Yad Vashem, the Knesset, use Israeli bus campanies and local Christians are not met by 95% of Christian tourists. What an absolute lie: the opposite of the truth, but I bided my time, determined to speak later.
Bishop Riah, he said, stated that churches were designated as European, none are Greek Orthodox etc. What was Sizer talking about? Riah apparently complains that these tourists come back to Britain having seen the holy sites (including Yad Vashem?) which are a distortion of reality. Gee, thanks!
Then it hotted up: Melanie Phillips, he said [for those who don't know, she is a prize-winning journalist, who writes a column in the Daily Mail and has just written Londonistan] had written an article citing Bishop John Gladwyn ([he of the spot of bother in Kenya at the moment, and chairmanship of Christian Aid] and Sizer himself, but had libelled them. And this was at the time that the new Archbishop of Canterbury was to be elected and her article had ruined Gladwyn's chances!! Oh dear!! Sizer had been told at the time that they had a case to sue for libel, but they felt it would be too expensive. A very serious allegation about an excellent journalist, this, and I brought it up later.
He also said people distort the plight of the Palestinian Christians. Also, they are allowed to say things about Arabs, that wouldn't be allowed to be said about Jews. What planet is he actually living on?
4: DISTORTION
Palestinians live in a ghetto.
5: ETHNIC CLEANSING
The indigenous people (i.e. not the Jews) are being deprived of land: he showed a picture of barbed wire and someone looking like Mordechai Vanunu behind it. 9,000 Christians had emigrated to Canada, Australia and Britain in the last few years. More Ramallans live in Sydney than in Palestine (someone shouted out: who could blame them?). The Palestinians are the largest refugee community in the world today: one in four refugees is a Palestinian. 13,000 Palestinian couples have been separated. He ended by quoting Lord Carey as saying that the plight of the Christians is truly awful in the area.
I was then allowed to speak. I said that I lectured at Manchester University and that it had been Lord Carey himself who had appointed me as a Trustee to his Foundation for Reconciliation in the Middle East, CEO, Canon Andrew White, vicar in Iraq and Chair, Christopher Segar, formerly HM Ambassador in Iraq. I said that FRME were the official religious wing of the Middle East peace process. I therefore knew, I said, exactly where George Carey stood on Israel and that he had been cited completely out of context by the speaker. I said that FRME had started at the very same hotel, the Har Zion in Jerusalem, which had been used by journalists and others during the Jenin episode and that Canon Andrew White's recollection of it was greatly different from Sizer's. The manager of the hotel had been Jewish, the deputy manager Muslim and the barman, Charlie, a Christian. So what was this about apartheid and segregation?
I went on to say that I had started my career teaching biblical Hebrew mainly to members of the Church of England in Liverpool and had really enjoyed it. The last time I had been in this beautiful cathedral, I said, was on the occasion of the awarding of an honorary doctorate to the Dalai Lama by Liverpool John Moores University in 2004. He had asked to meet with Les and me for three quarters of an hour beforehand, an event televised by the BBC, in order for DL to find out more about Judaism. In his subsequent address to the assembled thousands, DL had cited Les' words on Jewish ethics and had pronounced himself extremely pro Jewish. On previous occasions he had also waxed lyrical about Israel itself.
I stated, more in sorrow than in anger, that I was very saddened to see the famous Liverpool Anglican Cathedral play host to someone who knows all the techniques of misrepresenting the facts without raising his voice, utilizing innuendo, omission and trickery to put across his warped viewpoint. I said that I was amazed to hear about Orthodox Jews not paying taxes, as it was completely untrue. I also mentioned my daughter's work in an Israeli think-tank advising on the infrastructure and other matters he had spoken of. Sizer's historical overview had been faulty and one-sided and the use of language particularly disturbing, aimed as it was at demonising the Jewish people. In addition, what was said about tourism was the complete opposite of the truth: Andrew White is always bemoaning the fact that Christian tourists only meet Bishop Riah and other anti-Jewish propagandists.
I said that in two months I was emigrating to Haifa, where the university has 20% Arab staff and students, a mixed population, plenty of good interfaith and interethnic relations, and the segregation he spoke of was a misrepresentation of the facts. Most meaningfully, Sizer hadn't once mentioned Fatah, Hamas, or suicide bombings.
A Palestinian woman from near Haifa spoke next and said that there were only two Arab villages left near Haifa, she had been tortured to death and wears a number to distinguish her from Jews.
My daughter's former headmistress of the King David Jewish School, who I hadn't seen in 10 years of leaving Liverpool then spoke: she said that she had never in her life heard such antisemitism from a speaker and that the Church was desecrating itself by inviting him. She said that homes had been built in Gaza for refugees who had not been allowed to take up the offer. And why was this, she asked? Others spoke about the speaker's one-sidedness and imperviousness to the truth.
During the interval a woman came up to me and reminded me that 13 years before, when my daughter was going to study in Jerusalem, she (a Christian) had taken her clothes to her on a trip over. She was very supportive throughout this evening, as were many of her friends. It was amazing.
The next part was about Morally Responsible Investment and rehearsed all the arguments about how ghastly Caterpillar is and how the divestment motion came to be made to Synod. According to Sizer, he had given a talk in the Guildford Diocese, based on notes written on the back of a cigarette packet: Keith M. (can't remember his surname) who had put the motion eventually to Synod, had sent it to the Deanery and it was they apparently, who had taken it to General Synod. So, all the talk of it having been around for ages was untrue. It was accepted straight away by those who run Synod: shame on them. Whereas, Anglicans for Israel's reasoned rebuttal was disallowed.
Sizer mentioned War on Want a great deal: a charity chaired at one time by George Galloway and he also quoted journalist Robert Fisk as the oracle.
Of most import and concern, however, was the statement that six weeks ago he, Sizer, had debated with Neville White, secretary of the Church's Ethical Investment Advisory Group, who for some reason, refuses to answer my e-mails to him. I spoke to White in May of last year and told him of the great concern in the Jewish community in Britain about the divestment campaign. He told me then that I was the first person ever who had told him that there was a link between Jews in Britain and Israel. I repeated this statement to the Anglican Cathedral and was accused by some of lying, but it was the truth. Any way, it appears from Sizer that White told Sizer six weeks ago that EIAG does not want to visit the area because they know what they will see and, according to Sizer, White therefore publicly agreed that abuses were being carried out by Caterpillar in the area.
Sizer referred to colonisation of Palestine and mentioned his call to the churches to boycott Caterpillar and also to boycott the Church Board of Finance, until it complied with the vote of General Synod, the legal branch of the Church.
Then came the comparison with South Africa and Bishop Harris of Oxford's role in trying to boycott SA. However, as I pointed out later, Bishop Harris, who has recently retired, has stated categorically that he is against divestment from Israel. For Sizer omitted to state that Harris is also a former President of the Council of Christians and Jews.
Sizer ended with a quote from Martin Luther King, but MLK also said that ant-Zionism is anti-semitism.
Various people spoke after the second half. Les said that he was an expert on brainwashing techniques and that is what we had seen this evening in a very cleverly organised immoral and one-sided presentation, aimed at demonisation. The title may have been 'Morally Responsible Investment', but the speaker had been anything but morally responsible this evening, Les stated.
The Chair of Liverpool CCJ, an Anglican, stated that she was ashamed to be a Christian listening to this attack on the Jewish people and felt that the Dean of the Cathedral should take responsibility for allowing it, and to remedy the situation, should arrange another talk with a speaker putting the other side and telling the facts how they are.
I stated that, once again, Sizer had taken quotes out of context and misrepresented the views of Bishop Harris, for instance, on Israel. The whole point being that Harris, unlike Sizer, does not equate South Africa with Israel. I added that immediately after the Synod vote to divest, the Bishop of St. Albans (current President of CCJ) had phoned to say that he had been 'completely wrong-footed' and hadn't been forewarned of this private member's bill, so his speech against divestment had been rather weak. I also mentioned my phone discussion with Neville White, secretary of EIAG, a year last May, in which White had shown complete ignorance of the British Jewish community. I also said I had been privy to other correspondence, which would seem to contradict what White is reputed to have said at the public meeting with Sizer.
I was, of course, booed and hissed, as were others who spoke on behalf of Israel and against the lies and distortions.
The amazing thing is that Sizer was terribly nice to me in the break and says he wants to meet me again, and even patted my hand more than once, which is something I am totally unused to in the ministers and clergy I meet every day in Manchester, and told me that he had read my articles in the Church Press. I ended by asking him: Why do you think I am emigrating to Haifa? Do you not realise that people like you are making it impossible for us to live here?'
But I am proud of what we did tonight, even prouder of the Christians who supported the few Jews who attended and glad to have met up with people I haven't seen for so many years.
And yes, I may even take Sizer up on his offer to meet down south, to have a chat, but I shall make sure to take a body-guard with me.
Because, as Andrew White says, talking to the nice people is not what dialogue is about any more. You have to talk to the nasty people in order to get through to them, even if they are wolves dressed in sheep's clothing and would rather that you would go away, leave them alone and let them get on with destroying Israel.
And I realised to my horror, and discussed it with Lucille on the way back, that this had been worse than the famous mediaeval Spanish disputations forced on the Jewish community by the Catholic church, because at least in those days you were given plenty of notice and allowed to speak as long as the other side, whereas in 2006 in Liverpool's Anglican Cathedral, it was taken for granted that the speaker was speaking, not with forked tongue, but the truth and that the others were just out to get him. And this is the real tragedy of Britain at the moment.
But don't let that worry you: first NATFHE, then Sizer, whatever will tomorrow bring?
Good night and sleep well.
For what it's worth, Afula's Ha'Emek hospital which serves some 500,000 people has an Arab as chief of Cardiology. Then again one of the Supreme Court Judges is an Arab.
A Druse woman entrepreneur was honored this past Independence Day in front of the whole country, for her industrial success producing soaps from olive oil, by being invited to light one of the twelve torches at the opening ceremony.
Tomorrow Shavuot starts and the Israelis who are Jewish are going crazy shopping for dairy products to put on their tables.
While Palestinians are killing alleged collaboraters, Israelis are celebrating their agricultural feats with TV showing off the cherries they now cultivate in this mainly desert region,
and a religiously observant woman scientist with seven children has just announced a new technique she pioneered to identify HIV and Hepatitus C infections in a matter of days instead of waiting the usual weeks and months for the antibodies to appear.
Hag Sameach.
Posted by: Cynic | May 31, 2006 at 11:22 AM
What a riveting account of this meeting, Irene. Well done for speaking up as you did in such an intimidating atmosphere.
Such lies as Sizer tells are commonplace in the Church of England, and it says much about the Dean and Chapter of Liverpool that they invited this man with his loathsome views and techniques of misrepresentation of the truth.
I hope this doesn't reflect the views of the Bishop of Liverpool, who I rather admire!
Posted by: Huldah | May 31, 2006 at 11:38 AM