I actually missed the start of the rally for Israel, sorry, for "Israel and Gaza", but having got there two hours after the start time I thought I'd catch the finish or see some signs that there had actually been a demo. As it turned out there was almost no sign of there having been a rally except there was a stage being dismantled and I eventually noticed a placard produced by the the organisers.

It was fixed to a lamppost and the message of the rally, "End Hamas Terror" was facing the lamppost itself and on the blank side there was in print the words "LOST CHILDREN". Presumably an assembly point for children at the rally who were lost but possibly a sick joke based on the fact that the war on Gaza has resulted in the loss of many children, never to return to their loved ones.

I remember the zionist demonstration in support of the re-invasion of the West Bank back in 2002. There may have been 50,000 people in Trafalgar Square for what was billed not just a demo to support Israel's actions in, for example, Jenin but its right to exist. Four years later, zionists in the UK organised a demo to support another zionist campaign of slaughter, this time in Lebanon. That was said to have mustered maybe 4 or 5,000 people to a rally at which the Chief Rabbi famously said, "Israel you make us proud". Well this rally seems to have been a flop given what I saw today and given the way the BBC and the Jerusalem Post have reported the event.

Cop this from the Beeb. The headline, Thousands call for Mid-East peace, set the dishonest tone for the whole report. Ehud Barak has said it is a "fight to the finish" against Hamas and the Board of Deputies said it was "hurt" by a hoax that suggested that the Board wanted a ceasefire and a "political solution". The expression "thousands" implied many in attendance but when compared to the tens, possibly hundreds of thousands, of anti-zionist demonstrators, the turnout was a flop. Then look at the film. No film of the square itself, only close-ups in the crowd. Ok, they made the mistake of showing children dancing with their Israeli flags as if the clear absence of peace in Gaza right now was cause for celebration but apart from that inadvertent display of zionist ghoulishness the report was deliberately misleading.

Curiously, the report on the BBC site looked very similar to the report on the Jerusalem Post site except the BBC had the wit to pretend that the zionists were demonstrating for peace and not simply for Israel. The Jerusalem Post report is headed Thousands support Israel at UK rallies indicating that the Post, unlike the Beeb, doesn't expect its readers to be as appalled by a display of support for Israel at this time as visitors to the BBC site. Like the BBC, the Jerusalem Post wants its readers to think that the rally (or in the JP's case, rallies) was a success. It wasn't, and on a weekend when the Jewish leadership in the UK had disgraced itself, the community as a whole can take some comfort from those who voted with their feet by staying at home.

Source: Jews Sans Frontieres

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