polani
08.09.06, 07:14
Cancel Israel’ stickers on London buses
Stickers blame Mideast conflict on ‘kidnapping of Hamas members by Israel,
killing of 8 Palestinians picnicking on the beach’
David Amior Published: 09.07.06, 21:46
Stickers have been put on red double-decker buses in London calling on
readers to “cancel Israel” if they want “peace in the Middle East.”
The stickers accuse the media of “giving a false impression” about the Middle
Eastern conflict. The “current crisis” is blamed on “the kidnap of some
democratically elected Hamas (members) and the killing of 8 Palestinians
picnicking on the beach”. The words “cancel Israel” are written in the middle
in a large font.
Pictures of the stickers were originally displayed on the popular American
weblog Little Green Footballs, after they were sent in by an anonymous
reader.
To view pictures click here
The sentiment expressed in the stickers is at odds with the widely held view
that the current conflict was caused by the kidnap of
two Israeli soldiers by Hizbullah, and one by Hamas. The detaining of Hamas
leaders was part of the Israeli government’s response to these incidents.
The accompanying accusation that Israel killed 8 Palestinians at the Gaza
beach has been discredited, after the IDF announced that shrapnel taken from
an injured child was not from an Israeli shell. There is also no record of
the IDF firing at the beach at the time the explosion took place.
The phrase “cancel Israel” differs from the usual terminology of Israel’s
detractors, who tend to recommend that Israel be either ‘destroyed’ or ‘wiped
off the map.’
This incident has come just as the British Jewish Community Security Trust
(CST) has reported a rise in anti-Semitic incidents in Britain which
coincided with the South Lebanon conflict. The CST recorded 95 incidents in
July and 68 in August 2006, in comparison with 41 in July and 32 in August
last year.
A CST spokesman speaking to Ynet about the incident, commented, “We know that
when Israel is singled out for unique scrutiny and hatred, that this bias
propels anti Semitic attacks per se. The people who commit these attacks are
fanatics, who often take criticism of Israel as a license to hate and attack
Jews. Nobody ever asks the victim for their personal political opinions and
that is why these attacks are racist stereotyping in every sense, and
explicitly anti-Semitic.”
