Col. Richard Kemp speaks at the ‘We Believe in Israel’ Conference

[shira]

<snip>

This malevolent portrayal of the Israeli Defence Forces is carefully and systematically planned, cultivated, developed, expanded and relentlessly driven forward. It is the key part of what amounts to nothing less than a pernicious and increasingly dangerous global conspiracy of propaganda aimed at the total delegitimization of the state of Israel. A conspiracy that has so far exceeded in its international scope, anything dreamt of even by that master of propaganda, Dr Josef Goebbels himself, spreading the idea that Israel is so evil that it has no right even to exist, aiming for the point where that idea becomes an acceptable, mainstream argument in our societies.

It is no surprise of course that such a campaign has great popularity in the Arab and the wider Islamic world any more than Goebbels’s twisted propaganda machine succeeded in persuading so many Germans to his murderous cause. But what is truly shocking is the traction that this propaganda has gained in the west among student bodies, teachers, university authorities, academics, think tanks, human rights organizations, aid agencies, parliamentary bodies, and – perhaps most damaging of all, the mass media.

<snip>

Many people have contradicted my assertion about the IDF. But no one has been able to tell me which other army in history has ever done more to safeguard the rights of civilians in a combat zone. In fact my assertions about the steps taken in that conflict by the Israeli Defence Forces to avoid civilian deaths are inadvertently borne out by a study published by the United Nations itself. A study that shows that the ratio of civilian to combatant deaths in Gaza was by far the lowest in any asymetric conflict in the history of warfare.

The UN estimate that there has been an average three-to-one ratio of civilian to combatant deaths in such conflicts worldwide. Three civilians for every combatant killed. That is the estimated ratio in Afghanistan: three-to-one. In Iraq, and in Kosovo, it was worse: the ratio is believed to be four-to-one. Anecdotal evidence suggests the ratios were very much higher in Chechnya and Serbia. In Gaza, it was less than one-to-one. This extremely low rate of civilian casualties flatly contradicts many of Goldstone’s original allegations, and the bleating insistence of various other human rights groups about Israel’s alleged crimes against humanity.

more...
http://britishisraelcoalition.org/British_Israel_Coalition/News/Entries/2011/5/23_Col._Richard_Kemp__During_its_operation_in_Gaza,_the_Israeli_Defence_Forces_did_more_to_safeguard_the_rights_of_civilians_in_a_combat_zone_than_any_other_army_in_the_history_of_warfare..html

The entire article should be read by those wishing to understand the POV of Israelis and their supporters worldwide. No real progress for peace can be made by ignoring/minimizing what nearly all Israelis and their supporters know instinctively. To be very clear, this ugly and bigoted movement to delegitimize and ultimately destroy Israel does nothing to further peace prospects. In fact, it sets peace back.

[shira]

1. Related: The daily effects of non-Israeli privilege

Far from being privileged, Israel is held to standards that no other nation is held to – the definition of bigotry in its broadly understood term – and asked to live up to ideals that no nation in the world could uphold.

Not only aren’t Israelis privileged but something approaching the opposite is closer to the truth.

Here are the advantages (privileges) of waking up in the morning as a citizen of a nation other than Israel – the daily effects of non-Israeli privilege:



1. You can be sure that your country’s very right to exist won’t be questioned.

2. You don’t have your national aspirations characterized as inherently racist.

3. You can be sure that anger over your country’s actions won’t result in violent attacks against citizens (throughout the the world) who happen to share the majority ethnicity in your state.

4. Your nation’s democratically elected leaders won’t face arrest warrants when entering other countries.

5. Terrorist attacks against innocent civilians in your country won’t be described as mere “resistance”, or otherwise excused, by commentators in the mainstream media.

6. The United Nations won’t pass an egregiously disproportionate ratio of resolutions against your country condemning you for human rights abuses while ignoring far worse abuses by nations in the rest of the world.

7. Your nation won’t be subject to international calls for boycotts, sanctions, and divestment.

8. You can be sure that even when others criticize your country it won’t be compared to Nazi Germany.

9. When enemies committed to your state’s destruction fire missiles into your civilian territory, you can be positive the international community won’t condemn your nation for retaliating.

10. Your national passport won’t make you persona non grata in neighboring countries.

http://cifwatch.com/2011/02/15/non-israeli-privilege/

[bemildred]

14. Fear is driving Israelis to obtain foreign passports

The numbers are climbing rapidly and the phenomenon is intriguing: Many Israelis are longing for a second passport. If Shimon Peres (now president ) once promised "a car for every worker," a second passport is now becoming the object of desire. If our forefathers dreamt of an Israeli passport, there are those among us who are now dreaming of a foreign passport.

A Bar-Ilan University study published in the journal Eretz Acheret has found that roughly 100,000 Israelis already hold a German passport. Over the past decade, the trend has strengthened and some 7,000 more Israelis join them every year. To these should be added the thousands of Israelis who hold foreign passports, mostly European countries. The excuses are strange and diverse, but at the base of them all are unease and anxiety, both personal and national. The foreign passport has become an insurance policy against a rainy day. It turns out there are more and more Israelis who are thinking that day may eventually come.

In recent years the Israeli passport has become useful and effective. It opens the gates of most countries of the world, except for parts of the Arab and Muslim world. It is hard to believe that those applying for a second passport are doing so in order to vacation in Tehran, tour Benghazi or take in the sights of San'a. The alibi that a European passport makes entering the United States easier cannot fully explain the phenomenon, which has no equivalent in other developed countries.

It should not be condemned, though. It reflects a mood, a natural and understandable consequence of the real and imagined fears that have been sown here. When Avrum Burg boasted of his French passport several years ago, a public outcry arose, but in vain. Presumably some of those who cried out did so because they do not have the option, like he does, of obtaining an additional passport for themselves. The others may have since crowded onto the line at one embassy or another.

http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/opinion/fear-is-driving-israelis-to-obtain-foreign-passports-1.365454

[shira]

2. CNN Poll Shows Highest Support for Israel; Lowest for Palestinians in History By Barry Rubin

According to a new CNN Poll Americans sympathize more with Israelis than Palestinians by 67 to 16%. Sympathy with Israel is up from 60% in 2009. While 65% says the U.S. should not take either side in the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, 35% say the U.S. should take Israel's side while just 1% favors backing the Palestinians.

I read the second question as people's desire not to become directly involved or their understanding that as would-be mediator should appear to be balanced. This shows how Obama policy is totally unrepresentative of American views.

http://rubinreports.blogspot.com/2011/06/cnn-poll-shows-highest-support-for.html

[shira]

3. US Jews strongly support Israel, new poll shows

Ninety-four percent of respondents said that if Israel “no longer existed tomorrow,” they would feel that was a tragedy, with nearly one in four saying they would consider such an event to be the “biggest tragedy of my lifetime.”

Eighty-five percent said that Israel is “right to take threats to its existence seriously,” and that Israel’s concerns are not irrational or overstated.

“Some news media accounts have tended to amplify a vocal fringe in the American Jewish community that espouses extreme views and politics far out of the mainstream,” Levin said. “This poll clarifies what American Jews actually feel and believe.”

Levin said “the overwhelming majority of American Jews” are aware of threats to Israel, protective of Israel and strongly opposed to boycotts against the Jewish state.

While eighty-four percent of American Jews expressed the belief that the Israeli government is committed to establishing genuine peace between Israelis and Palestinians, respondents were more skeptical of the corresponding Palestinian commitment. Seventyseven percent of respondents consider Palestinian incitement against Israel – its “culture of hatred” – to be a major obstacle to peace.

Seventy-eight percent of respondents consider it to be “very to 100% necessary” for Palestinians to recognize Israel as a Jewish state, and 77% say Israel should “refuse to negotiate with the Palestinian Authority until Hamas renounces terrorism and officially recognizes Israel’s right to exist.”

Thirty-four percent of respondents said that the major obstacle to peace between Israel and the Palestinians is the Palestinian refusal to accept Israel as a Jewish state.

More than two-thirds of respondents believe that a Palestinian state in the West Bank would attack Israel. Seventy-two percent fear Iran would support terrorism against Israel by the Palestinians.

Seventy-one percent of American Jews strongly oppose the boycott, divestment and sanction campaigns against Israel; 68% oppose such action focused solely on settlements.

The poll’s respondents were 58% female, 42% male, with 33% of respondents being between the ages of 50 and 64. Forty-one percent had not corresponded with an elected official or attended a political rally in the past two years.

Thirty-four percent of respondents considered themselves to be moderate liberals; 74% of respondents had voted for Barack Obama.

http://www.jpost.com/JewishWorld/JewishNews/Article.aspx?ID=221750&R=R1

[bemildred]

4. Richard Kemp

Kemp was educated at Colchester Royal Grammar School. He then served as a soldier and officer in the Royal Anglian Regiment from 1977 to 2006. He started his training as an infantry soldier in 1977 at Bassingbourn Barracks, Cambridgeshire. The following year he entered the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst and was commissioned as second lieutenant on the General List on 5 August 1978.<3> He was posted back to the Royal Anglian Regiment on 3 March 1979,<4> his first regimental appointment was as a platoon commander with the 3rd Battalion, based in Palace Barracks, Belfast. After leaving Belfast he subsequently saw service around the world, including Germany, Kenya and Cyprus. Throughout his military career Kemp completed seven tours on Operation Banner in Northern Ireland, including West Belfast, South Armagh, Derry City and County Londonderry; and a Spearhead tour to Armagh. He was promoted lieutenant on 5 August 1980,<5> and captain on 5 August 1985.<6> He later became an instructor at Bassingbourn before a posting to the 2nd Battalion as the second in charge (2IC) of a Company, Milan Platoon Commander, and then Battle Group Operations Officer, serving across the world including a tour as part of UNFICYP in Cyprus.

Kemp spent much of his early career working in mechanized and armoured infantry, including command of a Warrior company and command of the Armoured Infantry Training and Advisory Team covering British military units in Germany and the UK. He wrote the military operations manual, 'Armoured Infantry Company Group Tactics', which remains in use today forming a part of British Military doctrine.

As a captain in the Royal Anglian Regiment he took part in the first Gulf War, in 1990–91, commanding Brigadier Patrick Cordingley's 7th Armoured Brigade Tactical Headquarters.<7> He was promoted major on 30 September 1991.<8> In the late 1990s, he devised a new system for training Warrior AFV crews in gunnery combined with tactical movement, utilising standard armour ranges. The system was a development of US armoured infantry training techniques, and was subsequently adopted by elements of the Royal Armoured Corps.

Following tours with the headquarters of the 7th Armoured Brigade, at Camberley Staff College and in Headquarters Northern Ireland, he returned to the 2nd Battalion of the Royal Anglian Regiment as Point Company Commander, leading the company in Bosnia, Germany and Canada. In Bosnia, he served on operations with the United Nations (UNPROFOR). He then took over the Armoured Infantry Training and Advisory Team based at Hohne and Sennelager, and held a staff appointment in the Ministry of Defence. He was promoted lieutenant-colonel on 30 June 1997,<9> and commanded the 1st Battalion, Royal Anglian Regiment in Oakington and Londonderry from 1998 to 2000. After this command, he was appointed Commander of the Operational Training and Advisory Group and then spent six months as Counter Terrorism and Security Advisor to the Government of Macedonia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Kemp

[Never Stop Dancin]

5. why are you copying from Wikipedia, in response?

We support you, Kemp.

[bemildred]

6. To annoy you.

[azurnoir]

7. Lol

:thumbsup:

[kayecy]

8. Ex-IDF officer admits to systemic brutality against Palestinian children

1. Former Israeli military commander, Eran Erafti:
In an interview with BBC, a former Israeli military commander, Eran Erafti, detailed the widespread abuse and torture of Palestinian youth by occupying Israeli soldiers.
"You take the kid, you blindfold him, you handcuff him, he’s really shaking. ... Sometimes you cuff his legs too. Sometimes it cuts off the circulation."
The children, he says, are as young as nine or 10. Most of them are arrested for throwing rocks at the occupying forces. Showing great courage, they throw rocks at their illegal occupiers, heavily armed soldiers and tanks.

http://www.pslweb.org/liberationnews/news/09-08-28-exidf-officer-admits-to-systemi.html



2. Former Mossad deputy director Shmuel Toledano:
"the Israel Defense Forces has
lost its morality and military ethics."

http://www.urban75.net/vbulletin/archive/index.php/t-84483.html



3. Colonel W. Patrick Lang, retired senior officer of U.S. Military Intelligence:
<snip>
In Beit Suhur outside Bethlehem, I have seen IDF troops shoot at Palestinian Christian women hanging out laundry in their gardens. This was done with tank coaxial machine guns from within a bermed up dirt fort a couple of hundred yards away, and evidently just for the fun of it. In Bethlehem a lieutenant told me that he would have had his men shoot me in the street during a demonstration that I happened to get caught in, but that he had not because he thought I might not be a Palestinian and that if I were not the incident would have caused him some trouble. I have seen a lot of things like that.
<snip>

http://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2009/01/the-idf-ground.html

[shira]

9. Awful stories, but tell me, what do they prove to you?

And what do you think of the first two posts that opened the thread?

[shaayecanaan]

10. Probably a bit more than Colonel Kemp's speeches...

He has spent time in Afghanistan, but not in either the West Bank or Gaza, unless he has taken a paid trip to the West Bank of which I'm unaware.

To be honest, I am not sure on what basis the hasbaradoes hold him forth as some kind of expert.

[shira]

11. Kemp doesn't say the IDF is perfect or that nothing bad ever happens...

In fact, he's written/spoken about bad things happening in all militaries.

He said, however, that in comparision to other conflicts the IDF did more to protect citizens than any other military in the history of conflict - and that UN/NGO reports to the contrary is mendacious, ugly propaganda. His view is backed by facts as the IDF ratio of civilian to combatants killed is significantly lower than that of any other military involved in similar conflicts.

I suspect you believe it's okay for the UN, NGO's and media to misrepresent what the IDF did in Gaza b/c of the occupation, right? If only there were no occupation then reports would be more honest about the IDF. Yes? As soon as the occupation is over and the IDF has to fight again, UN and NGO reports will then be more factual, honest and accurate and Israel will finally get a fair shake like any other nation?

[Never Stop Dancin]

12. Kemp speaks hard truths

but some are covering their ears, like children. The IDF is the world's most moral army.

[shaayecanaan]

13. Whether he does or does not hardly matters...

he is a military officer of unexalted rank and intellect opining of a matter in which he has no experience or expertise.

If this is the best brass man that they hasbaradoes have, then they are in trouble.

[shira]

15. A little more from Kemp...

I had the opportunity to ask Col. Kemp about the personal cost he has paid for standing up for Israel. He said that there was no longer any neutral opinion concerning Israel in the UK. You were either anti-Zionist or treated as a nutcase and with considerable contempt.

However, despite the vitriol to which he has been exposed, he declared that he supported Israel because it was the decent and right thing to do and that he was proud to be criticized by those who wished Israel harm.

He mentioned other incidents where Western armies have made mistakes resulting in large numbers of civilian casualties or examples of naval blockades enforced by other navies in similar fashion to the Israeli blockade of Gaza. Yet, in none of those cases did the media react in the same manner as they do when Israel is involved.

Kemp also referred to an international conspiracy to delegitimize Israel as her enemies were in no position to defeat Israel on the battlefield.

Colonel Kemp – I salute you. As a respected former member of Britain’s armed forces with over thirty years experience, including commanding British forces in Afghanistan, you have no need to stick your neck out on Israel’s behalf. But you have and that is the sign of a true friend.

http://honestreporting.com/colonel-richard-kemp-a-true-friend/

[shira]

16. What led to Kemp's support of Israel...

During the questions that followed his address, Col. Kemp was asked what prompted his extraordinary showing of support for the Jewish state. Col. Kemp responded with the following:

“Aside from my experience actually working with the IDF, which would have been enough for me to testify as to its character, there are two incident in particular that stand out.”

“The first happened in when I was Commander of British Forces in Afghanistan. Suddenly, we were confronted with an enemy whose many tactics included suicide bombings. We had never before had to confront suicide bombings, and we had no strategy with which to combat them.”

“I telephoned an Israeli contact of mine, who arranged for a Brigadier General in the IDF to meet with me in London. This man (a full-time commander of an operational unit) took the time to fly to Britain within two days of my having called and we sat in a lobby in a London hotel. For four hours, he spoke; I took notes. It was from that meeting that the entire counter-suicide-bombing strategy by the British army was devised. And for that, I was grateful.”

“The second incident happened a couple of years later, after the terrorist attacks on London on July the 7th, 2005. We in the UK were left deeply shaken by the attacks, and the first people to call to offer help – in fact, for several weeks, they were the only people to call – was the IDF. It was then we knew who our real friends are.”

http://idfspokesperson.com/2011/06/13/former-british-armed-forces-commander-speaks-about-the-idf/