This is a guest post from Jonathan Sacerdoti

Eshkol Park is a long drive from Jerusalem. It’s a long drive from Tel Aviv and Haifa. In fact, it’s a relatively remote spot for most of Israel’s population. I’d never heard of it before I went there on Monday, but my trip was worth the two and a half hour drive to a very special musical concert in this national park on the Gaza border. The choice of Eshkol Park was, of course, not arbitrary or coincidental.

On Monday evening, thousands of Israelis made their way there to help draw attention to the plight of Gilad Shalit, who was kidnapped by Hamas from the Israeli side of the Gaza border.

The Israeli Philharmonic Orchestra was joined by Shlomo Artzi, one of Israel’s best known and loved singers, and Gilad’s parents, Noam and Aviva. The concert was incredibly moving, especially when a young female singer took to the stage to sing a specially composed song for Gilad’s mother, entitled A Mother Cries. It’s impossible to comprehend what must have been going through Mrs Shalit’s mind as she sat and listened, but I hope that at least the support of the thousands of friends who had gathered there to call for Gilad’s release must have touched and comforted her as it did each of us.

Looking around her she will have seen young children, families, old people, and everyone in between, all sitting together on the grass, united and resolute in their prayers for Gilad’s speedy release. And each of them meant it with all their heart.

Gilad Shalit has not even received one visit from the International Red Cross during the over four year period he has been illegally imprisoned by Hamas terrorists. Such visits are a basic human right for any war prisoners. And Gilad could have been any one of Israel’s sons. That is one reason why his continued imprisonment hurts so many Israelis and Jews around the world so much.

Israel is an amazing country, and an amazing people. In a state where every child has to serve in the military, and where wars and battles are far from theoretical or occasional, it’s an obvious fact that most citizens would do whatever it takes to achieve peace, so that their sons or daughters don’t have to enter the army and won’t ever run the risk of suffering as Gilad and his family must be suffering now. If only Israel were dealing with others who shared that desperate desire for peace.

As the crowd stood to sing Hatikva, and yellow balloons were released into the blue sky to drift towards Gaza, it was hard to know how we should feel. Gilad will still be imprisoned tonight, and tomorrow, and the day after that. And his parents will continue their extraordinary march across Israel calling for action to secure his release. And Israelis will still hurt, and wear yellow shirts, and tie yellow ribbons to their flags. And Hamas will continue to capitalise on the decency, humanity, and compassion of this amazing people, holding them and their son to ransom, so that whatever Israel does next, one can’t help but worry she will lose.

This is a guest post by Israelinurse.

The ‘Free Gaza’ flotilla with its cargo of civil rights activists and humanitarian aid is due to reach Israeli waters on Saturday morning, but recent developments would appear to confirm what many of us have suspected for some time: that the concept of human rights has been hijacked by certain elements for political ends and that in the eyes of certain ‘human rights activists’, some humans are apparently more deserving than others.

An article on the ‘Ynet’ Hebrew website reports that lawyer Nick Kaufman, acting on behalf of the Shalit family, approached the organisers of the ‘Free Gaza’ campaign and pledged the family’s support on condition that in addition to their demand to lift the partial embargo on Gaza, they would also work opposite Hamas to demand that international organisations be allowed to visit Gilad Shalit and pass on to him letters and packages from his family.

Mr. Kaufman’s proposition was turned down by the legal advisor of ‘Free Gaza’ and he is quoted in the article as saying “I thought that this organisation supported human rights, as it declares about itself, but this reaction would indicate that it is interested in creating provocations and expressing support for a terrorist organisation and is really not interested in human rights”.

Gilad has of course been held in captivity by Hamas for four years under conditions which violate international law and conventions and deny him even basic humanitarian rights such as regular contact with his family through letters and visits from the Red Cross.

If the concept of human rights is to have any meaning whatsoever it must be applied universally, regardless of nationality, religion, colour, sexual orientation, gender or any other criteria, otherwise it becomes nothing more than empty rhetoric. That politically motivated groups supporting terror organisations which brazenly mock internationally accepted conventions are allowed to cynically manipulate the subject of human rights reflects miserably upon the international community’s commitment to the importance of the universality of that principle.

The many respectable charities and organisations which work in the area of humanitarian aid and human rights need to urgently reclaim their field from those who seek to misuse it purely for political ends. If they shirk this admittedly unpleasant responsibility they not only risk being tarred with a brush which is ultimately very damaging to their own aims, but are selling out the people who really need their help. Sadly, there are still too many of those people in our world today and one of them is called Gilad.

This is a guest post by Robert Davis.

Thanks Chas for agreeing to let me write a guest post on your blog. It was great to meet you last week at the Zionist Federation’s Talk for Israel evening. I found it a very inspiring session. I wanted to write about another inspiring issue which is of particular importance to me…

I am currently frantically training for a triathlon to raise money for a Jerusalem-based charity which brings together Jewish and Arab kids to share each others’ traditions and culture. The project also involves their families. The charity is called CCECH and it is completely non-partisan. I chose this charity is because I cannot see any other way of bringing about an end to the current bloodshed and status quo in Israel and the disputed territories. Education has to be the way forward. I know many Palestinian children are still brought up in schools with text books which demonize the Jewish people. How are they supposed to grow up and able to form a balanced objective view?

If the Palestinians can see and experience first-hand that there are Israelis out there who are ordinary people (rather than the crazy stereotypical portrayals they are often taught at home, school and in the media), then perhaps they won’t be brought up to hate and instead will be able to see a way to live peacefully side-by-side with Israelis in the future with their own state. This isn’t just a one way street of course. I think it is also really important for Jews to be brought up not thinking of the Palestinians as ‘the other’, or being desensitized to their humanity and thinking of them as faceless people with whom they have nothing in common.

Just for the record, CCECH is one of a significant number of charities which helps to change minds and bring Jews and Arabs together, and/or helps both populations without discriminating between them.

That Palestinians are brought up with so much hate is all the more worrying when one takes into account the Pew report in 2006 (i.e. prior to Operation Cast Lead and before Israel’s international reputation sank to record depths) which surveyed people in Egypt and Jordan – two of Israel’s friendlier neighbours in the Middle East. The report showed that zero percent of the population expressed a ‘very favourable’ opinion of Jews and only two percent expressed a ‘somewhat favourable’ opinion of Jews. This can be contrasted with an 82 percent who had a ‘very unfavourable ‘opinion and 15 percent a ‘somewhat unfavourable’ opinion. The same poll in Jordan found zero percent with a ‘very favourable’ opinion, one percent with a ‘somewhat favourable’ opinion and 96 percent with a ‘very unfavourable’ opinion and two percent with a ‘somewhat unfavourable’ opinion of Jews.

With statistics like these it would be very easy to say this is a hopeless cause and that there’s no point in even trying change minds. For me, it makes me want to try harder. My triathlon in aid of CCECH, the Jerusalem-based inter faith charity is on 5 June at Blenheim Palace. My aim is to raise £2,500. Please click here to find out more and support me. Thank you for your support.

The is a guest post by Chris Philp, Conservative Parliamentary candidate for Hampstead & Kilburn.

The Liberal Democrats at both national and local level have adopted an aggressive anti-Israel stance. They choose to communicate this message particularly in areas with large Muslim populations – suggesting that their anti-Israel stance is motivated by a desire to win Muslim votes.

During Operation Cast Lead, Israel’s effort to stop rocket attacks from Hamas in Gaza, Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg came right out and said that “we must stop arming Israel” and even called for trade sanctions against Israel. This was echoed by the Lib Dems’ MP from Rochdale who branded Israeli actions a “massacre” and said to a rally in Trafalgar Square: “I am here on behalf of Nick Clegg to show solidarity for the people of Palestine….I want to stop the massacre [by Israel]”.

Jenny Tonge remains a member of the Lib Dems in the Lords, despite calling for an investigation into whether the IDF were harvesting body parts in Haiti – an outrageous and totally unsupported allegation. She was made a Lord by the Lib Dems after expressing sympathy with suicide bombers. She may well have finally lost her job as a Health Spokesperson, but surely the whip should be withdrawn and she should be expelled from Lib Dems entirely. It took years of antisemitic remarks for Tonge even to lose the Spokesperson job.

At a local level, the Lib Dems have ruthlessly targeted voters in Muslim areas with an anti-Israel message to whip up hatred against Israel and garner votes. Here is an example of a leaflet they used in an area of Redbridge with a large Muslim community – again calling for Israel to be disarmed and showing a photo of a dead child in Gaza. A similar Lib Dem leaflet was aimed at the Muslim community in the Kings Cross area of the Borough of Camden. Indeed, the Lib Dem Parliamentary candidate there, Jo Shaw, has made great play of her opposition to Israel, as shown by her website. The website post is totally unashamed about the fact the Lib Dems used the issue to recruit new Muslim members, saying: “The meeting was to welcome new Lib Dem members from Camden’s Bangladeshi community, who were heartened by Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg being the only mainstream party leader to call for a halt to arm sales to Israel”.

Here in Hampstead & Kilburn, where I’m the Conservative parliamentary candidate and there is a large Jewish community, we don’t see any Lib Dem leaflets calling for Israel to be disarmed. Instead, the Lib Dems put out cheery leaflets targeted specifically at Jewish voters (somehow, they seem to have compiled a list of Jewish people in the area). The leaflets have Hebrew script, and imply friendship with Israel through photos of their candidate at the Western Wall and with members of the Knesset, accompanied by claims to “understand the community”.

What leaves me staggered is that these leaflets – with Hebrew lettering and targeted at Jewish voters – were produced by the Camden Lib Dems, the very same organisation who sent the leaflets to Muslim voters in Kings Cross calling for Israel to be disarmed. They may even have been printed on the same machine for all I know.

The double standards are truly breathtaking. I have stood up and said this publicly already. For the record, I’m a member of the Conservative Friends of Israel. I spent a very happy summer in 1994 living and studying at the Weizmann Institute in Rehovot. Israel, like any country, must have the right to ensure its security against terrorist attack.

What the Lib Dems have been doing to whip up hatred against Israel to win votes in a UK election is totally unacceptable, and pours fuel on the flames of racial and religious tension. I condemn it unequivocally.

Chris Philp is the Conservative Parliamentary candidate for Hampstead & Kilburn. He is pictured below with Conservative Friends of Israel director Stuart Polak.

This is a guest post by Jonathan Sacerdoti.

The Jerusalem Centre for Public Affairs has released some new information that further undermines any remaining credibility that the Goldstone Report might still have. It concerns Col. (ret.) Desmond Travers, one of the four members of the UN Fact Finding Mission that produced the report. As the only former officer who belonged to Justice Richard Goldstone’s team, he was the senior figure responsible for the military analysis that provided the basis for condemning Israel for war crimes.

The Jerusalem Centre’s report casts light on four fundamental problems in Travers’ style of investigation, which reveal him be “an individual who is not qualified to take part in any serious fact-finding mission”. These four categories are summarised as follows (the report is worth reading in full as well):

1) Travers showed a fundamental bias against the Israel Defense Forces, especially in his questioning of Palestinian psychologists. He asked them,

how Israeli soldiers could kill Palestinian children in front of their parents.

Furthermore,

when he was asked about Hamas intimidation that affected the Mission’s inquiries, he replied that that there was “none whatsoever.” Yet the Goldstone Report itself noted in Paragraph 440 that those interviewed in Gaza appeared reluctant to speak about the presence of Palestinian armed groups because of a “fear of reprisals.”

2) He reported false information about Israeli weapons systems, simply to suit his own prejudice:

Travers comes up with a story that the IDF had unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) that could obtain a “thermal signature” on a Gaza house and detect that there were large numbers of people inside. Incredibly, he then suggests that with this information that certain houses were “packed with people,” the Israeli military would then deliberately order a missile strike on these populated homes. The primary technical problem with his theory is that Israel does not have UAVs that can see though houses and pick up a thermal signature.

3) He presents completely inaccurate data:

Travers rejects that Israel began military operations against the Gaza Strip on December 27, 2008 as an act of self-defense in response to Hamas rockets. He bases this idea on a “fact” that he presents that in the month prior to start of the war, there were only “something like two” rockets that fell on Israel. Israeli military sources found that there were in fact 32 rockets fired from Gaza at Israel over three days alone–between December 16 and 18, 2008

4) He demonstrates a lack of professionalism in conducting thorough investigations. For example, despite Israeli photographic evidence of large amounts of weapons having been stored in Mosques (recently corroborated by Colonel Tim Collins, a British veteran of the Iraq War who visited Gaza for BBC Newsnight) Travers simply dismisses such breaches of International Law on the part of Hamas, absurdly claiming that,

Those charges reflect Western perceptions in some quarters that Islam is a violent religion

But he also admits that,

the Mission only checked two mosques.

This is not the first time that the methods of the Goldstone investigation have been shown to be flawed. Many serious problems with the investigation’s process have been well documented already.

The mandate for the fact-finding mission  was “to investigate all violations of international human rights law and international humanitarian law by the occupying Power, Israel, against the Palestinian people throughout the Occupied Palestinian Territory, particularly in the occupied Gaza Strip, due to the current aggression” (my emphasis). This clearly predetermined that Israel had committed “violations of international human rights law” before the investigation even began.

And Travers  is not even the first member of the four person UN fact finding mission to be revealed as unsuitable  for the role. Professor Christine Chinkin, one of the other three members, had signed a letter published in the Sunday Times before the conflict in Gaza had even ended, clearly stating that she felt Israel’s actions there amounted to “war crimes”. How could a person who makes such a judgment before the war was even over be a fair and independent member of the mission investigating it?

Parts of the content of the Goldstone report are presented as facts, but are made up from information gleaned from NGOs which have a clear bias against Israel. They remain un-tested and unverified but are now given increased respectability by their presence in the report.

Furthermore, the UNHRC is hardly a balanced and fair body itself. It spends more time focusing on Israel (and passes more resolutions dealing with Israel) than on any other state in the entire world. This is obviously uneven and biased. Whatever one says about Israel and the rights and wrongs of its actions, there are far bigger human rights issues to be dealt with elsewhere. Does this mean Israel should be immune from scrutiny? Of course not, but why would this body concentrate so particularly on one nation instead of so many others committing brutal and huge-scale human rights violations? Perhaps because many of the member states of the UNHRC are among the world’s worst human rights violators. It is ironic that they should be judging Israel, and doing so under the guise of the UN, which lends them a false appearance of ‘impartiality’ and ‘fairness’.

How much more evidence do we need before the world will finally chuck out this harmful and deeply damaging report? It does nothing to progress the very complex situation in the Middle East, and works against all efforts towards resuming peace negotiations.

Perhaps now that 50% of the team whose job it was to investigate the conflict have been shown to be unsuitably biased for the job, it’s time for a new independent inquiry: one that investigates the violations of good sense, justice, and impartiality carried out by Goldstone and his ‘fact-finding’ missionaries.

This is a guest post by Alex Dwek.

The year 2009 has been a challenging time to be a student. We are in more debt than ever before and facing the worst job crisis for almost 20 years.

Jewish students are no different in that they are facing these same difficulties, but they also have the additional task of preserving their Jewish identity.  For some this involves balancing student life with keeping kosher, observing Shabbat whilst for others this involves more of a cultural element or their own personal ties towards Israel.

Jewish Societies on campus are there to help fill this void. They seek provide a range of educational, cultural and social events along with opportunities to be involved in political campaigns. The Union of Jewish Students (UJS) plays a dual role in providing funding as well as linking these 43 Jewish societies around the country through a series of nationwide initiatives.

Has this been successful?

In the past two years UJS has transformed into a professional and efficient organisation. It has more than doubled the amount of Jewish societies it supports and has created a series of flagship events ranging from a nationwide football tournament to social action days where Jsocs give back to their local communities.

These changes have without doubt revitalised the core membership of the Union. But there are still thousands of Jewish students on campus who are not being provided for.

To simply dismiss these students as apathetic is wrong. There has without doubt been a decline in participation over the last five years.  Young peoples’ attitudes have changed and organisations such as UJS need to adapt to their market.

I believe that one of the ways UJS can widen its appeal is by providing online interactive services for Jewish students focusing on careers, accommodation and travel.

Hosting career seminars with top industry leaders, and having job and internship listings will help ease fears of unemployment. Providing students with an online list of legal housing rights and frequently asked questions will protect them from dodgy landlords. Creating an online interactive Jewish student travel guide, where people can access a list of Kosher places to eat and points of contact all around the world.

What makes these different to the current events on offer is that it appeals to almost every Jewish student regardless of their interests or level of observance. It doesn’t rely on high attendance levels or vast amounts of money being spent, but can be accessed by everyone.

Student services are just the first phase of increasing participation in Jewish student life. Once UJS becomes students’ first point of contact, I believe that attendance levels for other events such as education and culture will increase dramatically. Until UJS has access to this wider audience, it can create all the events it wants but it will still face the problem that students don’t know about the organisation and most importantly, what it can do for them.

Student organisations like UJS are in the unique position that their members are not adverse to new approaches and ideas. I believe that if UJS gets this right then it can create a model that can be used by a whole range of other communal organisations facing the very same problems.

Alex Dwek is a third year Economics and Politics Student at the University of Manchester and is running to be Chair of the Union of Jewish Students. Elections take place across the country between 29th Nov- 3rd Dec. For more information about Alex’s campaign visit his Facebook election page or the Union of Jewish Students website.

You can read previous guest posts by Alex Dwek here, here and here.

This is a guest post from Jonathan Sacerdoti.

David Miliband, the British Government’s Foreign Minister, is Jewish. So some might have expected his Question and Answer session held last night at the London Jewish Cultural Centre to be an easy ride for him. However, Miliband and the Government’s actions, especially relating to Israel’s operations in Gaza last winter, invited plenty of challenging and hostile questions.

Organised by the Jewish News, this question and answer session was a wonderful opportunity for a small group of 150 people from the British Jewish community to challenge a cabinet minister directly. They ran a similar event with Nick Clegg a few months ago but appeared to have learnt from the experience, and this time had a much more even-handed chairman fielding the questions (the Sky News political Editor Adam Boulton). Boulton was not afraid to put Miliband through his paces on contentious topics.

Sure enough, after a peculiar and irrelevant first question on the recession (what relevance did that have to a one-hour Jewish Q&A with the Foreign Secretary?), the debate proper was kicked off by champion activist Jonathan Hoffman, co-vice chairman of the Zionist Federation, who challenged the Foreign Secretary on several fronts: Why had he failed to legislate, as he had promised during his visit to Israel some months ago, to prevent the embarrassing situation where Israeli  politicians and army representatives visiting the UK could be arrested here under so-called universal jurisdiction? Why had he called Operation Cast Lead, a defensive operation designed to stop Hamas’ eight-year-long rocket attacks on the southern Israeli civilian population, “disproportionate”? And did he stand by that evaluation now?

Miliband appeared somewhat surprised by these very direct questions, but sure enough declared that he stood by his assessment of Cast Lead as ‘disproportionate’ because of the number of casualties and deaths it caused. Luckily, I got to follow up Jonathan Hoffman’s question with one of my own. I asked him how he could use those figures as a measure of proportionality when Hamas famously deliberately launches rockets from behind civilians, whereas Israel defends its civilians and fights to protect them, rather than using them as a human shield. If civilian areas of Britian were under fire from constant rocket attacks, would he wait eight weeks, eight months, or eight years (as Israel did) before retaliating? What length of time would he feel was ‘proportionate’? His response was that we cannot even compare a terrorist group and its activities with those of a democratic state, and he was surprised I had even mentioned them in the same sentence. (Why?) Thus, no doubt, he felt he had deflected the question. But as later questioners pointed out, all he had really done was illustrate that his line of argument essentially excuses terrorists by granting them immunity from retaliation. He never did quite get round to sharing what he would do in such a situation, and how long he’d hold back before doing it (but I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t be eight years).

When it came to defending Britain’s shameful failure last week to vote on a resolution endorsing the disgraceful Goldstone Report, Miliband had little to say in his defense. He insisted that Britain was in the middle of complex negotiations, which the vote would have interrupted, but as pointed out in the Times, that excuse is no more than the diplomatic equivalent of ‘the dog ate my homework’. Given the chance to vote against endorsing the report, as the USA rightly did, Britain failed to even abstain. And nothing Miliband could say last night would satisfy the questioners in the audience who pushed him for a decent explanation.

Ultimately it was a frustrating event, in that way these sorts of things often are. Politicians are expert at not answering the questions you ask them. If you are critical, they know just how to talk around the subject for long enough to distract the audience, and move on to the next question. But Miliband’s answers, if taken in combination, showed a clear lack of logic. Without the opportunity to follow any one line of argument for a longer time, it’s impossible to know how he makes them join up in his own head.

Frustrating as they may be, these events are important. The Jewish News has done the community a great service in setting them up, and I hope they go from strength to strength (the next one is with Boris Johnson). The important thing is that the politicians who take the time to answer questions from the Jewish community should discover that we are willing to ask very tough questions, and expect decent answers. Because even if we don’t get those answers on the night, they might think harder in future about how their actions, regarding Israel in particular, might resonate with British Jews.

Britain is still a pretty good place to be Jewish, but that should never be taken for granted. With the rise in antisemitism becoming ever more palpable, it’s imperative that British Jews speak out as often and as loudly as possible against wrong decisions and declarations about Israel at government level. We must work towards establishing a strong Jewish, pro-Israel lobby. Eventually, that might have some effect on policy decisions, and that can only be a good thing.

This is a guest post from Jonathan Sacerdoti.

Can you remember your 23rd birthday? How did you celebrate? What presents did you receive? Last Friday was Gilad Shalit’s 23rd birthday, though I’m not even sure he knew it. Gilad has been held captive by Hamas in unknown conditions since he was kidnapped over three years ago from Israeli territory. He is assumed to be alive, but there has been little public evidence either way.

I’m not normally in the habit of standing on street corners trying to talk to passers-by, but on Friday I joined others in London who wanted to mark Gilad’s birthday and raise awareness of his plight. We handed out flyers explaining his situation, and offered birthday cake to the busy Londoners rushing up and down the streets near Moorgate tube station during their lunch breaks. However, I’m sure it didn’t change anything for Gilad, wherever he is.

There’s a reason we feel helpless when we think about Gilad Shalit. It’s because we are. There’s nothing you or I can do that could make a difference; if only there were. It was almost pathetic watching the efforts people around the world made to ‘do something’ on Friday. A special #GiladShalit hashtag made it into Twitter’s trending topics, and thousands of concerned people sent emails, signed petitions and said prayers calling for Gilad’s release. But those who control his life now don’t care at all about any of these things. They don’t care about international law, or the Geneva convention, or human rights, or basic human decency. Nothing you or I say or do will make them behave differently. They’ve made that clear.

So why were we there, handing out cake? Maybe it was to let people know who Gilad is – many Londoners we met had never even heard of him. Maybe it was to mark his birthday publicly, knowing that he could not. Maybe it was in the hope that increased awareness would raise the pressure on our government and others to intervene however they can. Maybe we hoped to show those around us just what sort of enemies Israel has to deal with in any potential negotiations, ‘peace talks’, or even wars. Or maybe it just helped us feel we were doing something in the face of the unimaginable horrors that must be Gilad’s everyday  life.

Prisoners of war are entitled to visits from the International Red Cross, to ensure their health and human rights are being protected, and they must be allowed regular and unconditional contact with their families. Yet Gilad has been granted neither (the three letters and one voice recording released very early on during his imprisonment cannot be counted as regular).

After a couple of hours spreading the word on the streets of London, four of us went on to meet Michael A Meyer, OBE, the Head of International Law at the British Red Cross. I told him that we wanted the Red Cross to try harder to visit Gilad. While he assured us that we were “pushing at an open door”, he and we knew that his good intentions and ours made no difference at all to Gilad. I asked him why the International Committee of the Red Cross [ICRC] wasn’t trying harder, and why they continue to provide humanitarian aid to the very people who deny Gilad his human rights. But despite the “direct and indirect contact” Mr Meyer said the ICRC has with Hamas, it seems that everything they have tried has been as fruitless as our birthday cake and flyer distribution had been earlier that day.

Before we left the Red Cross offices, we presented Mr Meyer with a cake for him and his colleagues to enjoy, asking him to remind them all that it was for Gilad’s birthday. Perhaps these little reminders will keep Gilad’s plight in their consciousness, encouraging them to do more for him until he is treated fairly, and ultimately released back to his family, his people and his country. We expressed our hope that this will be the last time Gilad is not free to celebrate his birthday at home. “The British Red Cross and the ICRC hope that, too”, said Mayer.

If only all of that hope could help Gilad.