Was disgusted to find this blog was so friendly with Zionists.

However thought before i added my comments to the forum and posted the link forward to my own circle of friends it was my islamic obligation to find out the truth.

Can I ask an honest question..are you really a Muslim.

How do you justify you apparent friendship with Zionists?

Why do they “wish you good luck” on their blogs?

And why do you feel that attacking Muslims on their sites is Islamic adaab?

It’s a shame that you forgot to post down the details of your questions put forward to MPAC and how they were very robustly answered.

But then, ofcourse you will only put forward your side of the story huh?

I regret having to put the smack down but I will. Next time you have something to say to me about Islam I need credible sources. I am not held accountable to your opinions.

Now run along before I remind you of how much of an underachiever you are.

Before you respond let me remind you that I know how old Aisha (radiyallahu anha) was when her marriage was consumated. Now find another rabbit to pull out of your Toppenhat.

You always know you are doing something right when you piss off the moderate progressive Muslims.

The point I was trying to make about our beloved Palestinian brothers and sisters was that all they talk about is a Palestinians state. Why? Did Prophet Muhammed (sallalahu alaihi wa salam ever fight jihad on behalf of the dunyah, which is what a Palestinian state amounts to? For all those who dont come from that area and are Muslim exactly what signifigance would a state for those types of Arabs do for you? Nothing! Prophet Muhammed (sallalahu alaihi wa salam) said that if you fight and die on behalf of your tribe or nation you die a death of jahiliyah.

I would hate to see all those “martyrs” die a death of jahiliyah for an ethnic as opposed to an Islamic state.

While my comments about the refugee camps was rather callous I stand by them. Those Arabs have been running towards the hell fire for many generations now on behalf of thier BS politics much (if not most) of which has nothing to do with the deen of Islam.

Now sit back and relax you Muslims and the confused kafirs who bother them.

I also admit that my behaviour was a little erratic.

I am not a serial disrupter, as MPACUK alleges: that was the first political meeting I have been to in the UK in five years (in Italy in 2003, I attended various Socialist and Communist anti-war functions) and only the second time that I have been in Central London this year.

I have been mostly house bound for 1 1/2 years following a mountain accident and operation, and, I confess, enforced isolation has found my behaviour a little eccentric.

For which I apologise, especially to the other Jewish members sympathetic to Israel, in the audience. I should have kept silent and patient: I rather egoistically assumed that I was the only pro-Israel person present.

Anyhow, this is my account of what happened. I apologise for its non -academic presentation.

What Happened at the MPACUK meeting by Cormac:

I was late: not a good start. I only learned of the meeting from Saladin70 on the Delphi Middle East forum at 5 pm. It was a nightmare journey, and I am still post ankle operation.

I arrived, apparently, half way through the second speaker’s, Stephen Mark’s, talk. Immediately I heard his saying that anti-Zionism could not possibly be antisemitism, since it is completely different from 1930’s Nazi antisemitism.

I said, aloud, ‘No, it’s not’. And, of course, given the opportunity, could have adduced my argument.

I shouldn’t have, I know. And in a proper debate, would have done no such thing. But this was not a proper debate, as advertised, where there are two opposing sets of speakers.

Despite, ‘Zionism: the real enemy of the Jews”s, and Alan Hart’s calling for a gentile plegde not to repeat the holocaust if Diaspora Jews cease being Zionist’s being, I think, en effait, a de facto, not-so-veiled threat against most Jews who support Israel, I knew that there were no Zionist speakers present. Looking around the room, there were there no representative Zionist Jewish members of the audience that I could see (as if I could have recognised them!). Rather egoistically, I assumed I was the only one there. There were, in fact three others, and for their sakes, I should have kept silent.

To them, I apologise.

A very nice tall lady, charming and attractive-looking lady asked me to wait until the end of the session.

To be fair to Marks, he did say he would be happy to debate these points afterwards. Except that, obviously, there would not conceivably be sufficient opportunity or time to do so publically. Moreover, I think, MPACUK should have asked any Zionist Jews if they wanted to put the counter motion. That would have constituted a real debate, as advertised.

My personal host was a 6 footer, in Islamic green hoodie and black base ball cap, promising to physically to throw me out , if I didn’t behave. I confined myself to exclamations (‘shame’, ‘no’ etc the usual stuff), tsks and laughs.

He still enjoyed sharply fondling my shoulder, though.

After the speakers, Asghar Bukhari addressed the audience ‘Salam Alaykum’.

‘Sholem Aleichem’, I said.

‘There’s always a clown’, said he, obviously not best pleased.

‘Why?’ I asked, ‘Because I said, Sholem Aleichem?’.

Of course, I should have said neither.

The nice tall lady and Chairlady again warned me that I would be removed if I was not silent.

Bukhari then gave a rousing address: ‘Zionism is your enemy’, and warning, like Marks and Hart later, how it all powerful, cunning and evil it is.

I confined myself to guffaws and such like. My minder told/asked me ‘You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?’

‘Yes’, I said.

‘Listen to the truth’, said he. ‘It’s not the truth’, I said. He looked daggers at me again, as though I were a vampire he had to slay. I couldn’t help bursting out laughing.

Marks and Hart now began answering questions, and I tried to keep track of all his distortions and misrepresentations. I knew it would be impossible to address even a fraction of them in a post-speaker q/a sesssion when, obviously, many people, predominantly non-Jewish anti-Zionist, would prevent the few Zionists’ making a case.

Again: ‘not my excuse, just an explanation for my eccentric behaviour.

I looked for my bag to find a pen, only to find it had been removed by a little fellow who had decided to sit next to me, put his arm around my shoulder and begin, ‘My friend’, in that way that is not intended to be reassuring.

It was also quite hypocritical, since Bukhari had just told all MPACUK members present that ‘Zionism is your greatest enemy’.

‘I’m not your friend’, I interupted, ‘I’m your enemy. Give me back my bag. And you had better move up a chair, because I find your proximity threatening’.

Obligingly, he did so. I rummaged around in my bag, but couldn’t find a pen. All the while I was being ‘fondled’ by my escort. Apparently Bukhari thought I was reaching for a gun or a knife.

A chap had introduced himself from the Independent, and said that he it would have been nice if more Zionists had been present, so that there could have been a proper debate. To the Independent fellow I indicated that I was a Zionist, ‘I am sure this Brother would like to have a say at some point, then’, he said.

Marks was now citing the fact that the largest single block of Jews voted for the Polish Bund in 1939, as though it had some anti-Zionist significance. I continually raised my hand wishing to point out that

a) the Bund were Jewish nationalists -you cannot use them to prove Zionism is illegitimate on the grounds that the Jews are not a nation.

b) it was not only shunned by, Polish Socialists, as they saw themselves, who, like Polish society as a whole, were not a little antiSemitic themselves but also had been effectively dissolved by the Soviet authorities, since they refused to recognise Jews right to regional or ethnic autonomy.

c) that even though the Soviet Union refused to recognise the Bund’s claim to Jewish nationality, until 1989, every Jewish citizen of the U.S.S.R. had papers which read ‘Natsionalnost: evreiski’, Nationality: Jewish’.

d) that by 1939, 1 400 000 European Jews were paid up subscribing members of Zionist organizations -nearly 10 % of European Jewry and hardly an insignificant percentage.

e) the pre-and post-war Soviet Russian and Polish Jewish experience proved the Bund a failure, not through its own faults, necessarilly, but because the circumstances it tried to address were radically more hostile than it could cope with or anticipated.

But that was only one of a string of points that needed a Zionist response.

If it had been a proper debate, a Zionist panel could have made it.

In time, the Chairlady invited me a stand, introduce myself, and ask a question.

I apologised for being late, giving an explanation (‘Too much information’, an antiZionist Jews said’ )

‘I have read Mr Hart’s summary of Jewish history in The Land, consisting in the ‘70 years of sovereignty under David and Solomon’, which is straight out of the P.L.O. convenant circa 1970…’

I wanted to continue how that hardly constitutes an adequate address of Jewish historical and traditional attachment to The Land, but I was interupted by some fellow’s spuriously raising ‘Josephus (?)’, and the Chairlady’s pressing me to move on.

‘My name is…, I am not a non-Jewish Jew, an anti-Jewish Jew. I am not an anti-Zionist non-Jewish Jew. I am a fairly regular Jewish kind of Jew, and, like most Jews I am pro-Zionist, I support Israel’

By now the Chairlady was getting impatient ‘What’s your question’, she pressed.

‘Well’, I said, ‘by 1984, most Israeli Jews were descended from most of the Arab Jews of whom the Arabs, effectively, ethnically cleansed the Arab world. By mid-2006 Israel will be the largest Jewish community in the world and by mid-21st century, even if no more Jews emigrate to Israel, because the Diaspora is disappearing, through assimilation and intermarriage, Israel will simply be the place in the world, where most Jews live.

‘Mr Hart, you want to persuade us to stop being Zionist or supporting Israel. Suppose you don’t? What exactly are you going to do about it?’

Marks answered first, saying, in short, that he recognised the Arab Jewish nature of Israeli society (though he disputed ‘ethnic cleansing’), we could call ourselves what we pleased so long as we removed disciminatory legislation, which would be illegal in Britain (It’s a different situation, I said), and recognise the historial injustice done to Palestinians (But what about he historical injustice done to Jews: Palestinian Arab Muslims and Christians have been quite happy to define the Jews as a nation dispossessed by g-d, through Rome, for their sins, for most of Christian and Islamic history -I began to say, but was drowned out almost immediately).

‘So, what are you going to do about it? I pressed. ‘Well, what can we do about it?’ he replied -and to be fair, he, Hart and Bukhari had already spent a good while decrying the invincibly evil nature of the Zionist Movement.

Hart began by saying how much he admired Zionism, and that if President Bush could wave a magic wand and put Israel behind the ‘67 borders, creating a Palestinian state with a capital in East Jerusalem then, he said, ‘I am sure he would have over 90% of the Arab world behind him’.

Another anti-Zionist Jew half-turned to me, saying how he wished that there had been a proper debate, for, he said, the issue of the Arab Jews was a lot more complicated than ‘ethnic cleansing’.

‘Why don’t you ask the Arab Jews?’ I asked, ‘I have lots of Arab Jewish friends’.

He seemed to hesitate, ‘Why’, I continued, ‘do you think you have more Arab Jewish friends than me?’

At this point he seemed to start looking questioningly at Marks but, by then, my escort obviously found he could contain himself no longer, and graduated from sharply fondling my shoulder to full body-contact manhandling.

‘Don’t touch me!’ I shouted, standing up and turning towards him. I had tendonitis in both wrists following repeatedly spraining them on crutches, but I still made to throw a punch at him.

Bukhari then leaped from the speakers’ table, presumably to his friend’s defense, screaming, ‘Don’t touch my mate!’

‘He touched me first!’, I protested.

A crowd of others had begun to pile in and the tall, nice lady shouted, ‘What have I told you guys before? No violence!’

I made to sit down, but she grabbed my wrist (how did she know?) and took my coat.

‘You really must leave now’.

I was not really in a position to refuse, and, after securing permission to walk out slowly at my pace, I began to walk out.

On the way, a gentleman, who afterwards told me he was the publisher of ‘Zionism: the real Enemy of the Jews’, asked if he might walk with me.

Passing behind the speakers, I tried one last question, but the audienced drowned me out and clapped. I bowed and began to sing Yerushalayim Shel Zahav.

Descending the stairs to the exit, Tony, for it was he, said that I must understand that they really did not want the book launch associated with that kind of event.

‘There was a lot of courage in that room’, he said thoughtfully. ‘Whose courage?’ I asked.

‘Stephen Mark’s’, he said, ‘yours’.

‘You know’, I said, ‘he started speaking about the Bund: they weren’t Zionist, but they were Jewish nationalists’.

‘But a different kind of nationalist’, he objected.

‘Zionism is the national liberation movement of the Jewish people. That is what most Jews believe. And, sooner or later, you are going to have to address that.’

‘We could debate this for hours’, he said whistfully.

‘Yes’, I said. Hadn’t that been the idea?

He then told me that to understand the Balfour declaration, one must understand its context.

‘Yes’, I said, ‘the first world war’.

The Russian Revolution, he disputed, to address the threat of ‘Jewish Bolshevism’. I said that the evidence was that it had been made by the British to encourage American Jews to persuade America to enter the first world war.

Again, whistfully, he reflected what a great debate we could have had.

‘Have you read the book?’ he asked, ‘And I do not ask you that only to sell it’.

‘Of course not’, I replied, ’ No, not yet. I have many books to read, though I am sure I will give it a look when I get the chance. My mother is buying ‘Palestine: 634-1099’, for a present’.

‘Who is the author?’ he asked.

‘An Israeli, Moshe Gil. It is the best history of that period; it draws on Greek, Latin, Hebrew, Aramaic, Arabic, Syriac and Yiddish sources’.

Then, we bade each other goodnight.

You mention on the Engage web site that Bukhari is stepping down. Are you aware of the reasons for this or do you know anything further about it?

I’m no fan of the Palestinians, but that was pretty callous. You are evidence that Islam attracts the worse and the most mentally unhinged.