So Amnesty International has confirmed that it will host Middle East Monitor (MEMO) and the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) at its Human Rights Action Centre in London on Monday evening.
Let’s recap the story.
MEMO is the pro-Hamas internet platform of Daud Abdullah of Istanbul declaration infamy and Ibrahim Hewitt, the chairman of Interpal, a charity that serves Hamas.
MEMO is an internet home for racists, extremists and lunatics such as Khalid “Kikes” Amayreh. Just yesterday MEMO published a piece by an American called Mike Gravel where he pretends to care oh so much about Jews. Gravel is a 9/11 troofer. He has threatened a federal terrorism prosecutor and his children. He has also spoken at a conference of Barnes Review, a sick far right Holocaust denial group.
Yesterday MEMO also published a “MEMO Commentary” littered with “rich Jews control America” lines:
Only hours before the President delivered his speech, Jewish fundraisers belonging to the Israel Lobby in America laid their marker before Obama; either he stops pressuring Israel’s Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu over the illegal settlements in occupied Palestinian or he must do without their funds for his re-election campaign. Can a democracy that is hostage to big money in such a way be reconciled with the universal values of freedom and justice that Obama spoke of?
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Faithful to the script approved by his American Jewish funders he even called for recognition of Israel as “a Jewish state and the homeland for the Jewish people”.
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The unpalatable fact is that America is part of the problem in the region and, in his heart, Obama might possibly acknowledge it if it wasn’t for his dependence on the Israel Lobby’s money and influence.
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As for the Palestinians, well, justice and freedom for them would be just too much for Obama’s paymasters to stomach, and he knows it.
The PSC is an ideal partner for MEMO. It is a group for fanatical Israel haters who enjoy street thuggery. It is also happy to help Hamas. Its formal participation in George Galloway’s Viva Palestina Hamas support mission makes that clear.
This video illustrates just how close Viva Palestina (and its Turkish allies IHH) are to Hamas. It records Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh thanking them for “your efforts and jihad” in October 2010 at the end of a convoy operation. That jihad line is skipped in RePress TV’s subtitles, so here is an independent translation:
We welcome all the brothers and sisters in the name of our Palestinian people. We express our happiness, delight, pride and exultation with all of you. We ask God, Glorious and Exalted, to bless your efforts and Jihad, and that He make your actions and deeds a firm step on the way to liberation of Jerusalem and al Aqsa. The blessed number which constitutes the Life [sic] convoy to Palestine and besieged Gaza carry with it those with a living conscience, who rejected this humiliation, rejected the occupation and rejected the siege; and acted with their consciences, morals and values from various nations. These convoys, oh brothers and sisters, are a step and a strong blow against the walls of the siege. They are a shout in the face of international organizations who continue to be silent about this historic injustice.
This is is the PSC’s world.
In fact, Sarah Colborne of the PSC is the company secretary of “Britain 2 Gaza”, a company set up earlier this year to support the next flotilla mission in support of Hamas. The directors of the company are Hamas UK operatives Mohammed Sawalha and Zaher Birawi . To get an idea of what Sawalha does for Hamas from London and how long he has been at it, see the US indictment of Hamas leader Abu Marzook and other operatives. Birawi is covered in this profile.
You can also see Sawalha in a beige suit and white baseball cap towards the end of the video above, minding access to his leader at a “hug Haniyeh” reception for convoy participants.
The speakers at the MEMO / PSC event include Abdel Bari Atwan, who will “dance in Trafalgar Square” if Iran nukes Israel, loves Israelis-are-Nazis abuse, and was a fan of Saddam Hussein; Tim Llewellyn, a freelance Israel hater with quite a taste for antisemitic language; and Victoria Brittain, who has made a career out of promoting some of the worst extremists. Abu Qatada of Al Qaeda, for example, is a victim of “casual racism”.
Amnesty’s “Human Rights Action Centre” is not a commercial venue open to all. This is what Amnesty itself says:
Please note that our facilities are only available to non-commercial organisations working on human rights or social justice issues.
In addition:
Our vision is to provide a centre for human rights activism in the UK: building capacity within the human rights community; encouraging activism and raising awareness of human rights issues amongst a wider audience. Please use the space below to give a brief description of your event and how it fits with Amnesty’s vision for the Human Rights Action Centre.”
Neither the PSC nor MEMO are “human rights” or “social justice” organisations. Their mission is to support and promote extremists, including Hamas.
Amnesty obviously has no problem with this. It should be challenging extremists. Instead it is hosting them and thereby lending them the remaining legitimacy of its name. That is exactly why extremists try to book well-known and nominally reputable venues.
Amnesty are not alone. Now Liberal Conspiracy has chipped in, publishing a ridiculous piece defending the event and smearing critics of Amnesty’s decision. The author? Sarah Colborne.
