400 Rabbi Yosef: Gentiles exist only to serve Jews. Rupert Murdoch espouses Zionism, in address to ADL

Rabbi Yosef: Gentiles exist only to serve Jews. Rupert Murdoch espouses Zionism, in address to ADL

(1) Rabbi Yosef: Gentiles exist only to serve Jews
(2) Sephardi leader Yosef: Non-Jews exist to serve Jews
(3) Major rabbi says non-Jews are donkeys, created to serve Jews
(4) Israel proposes Jewish state loyalty oath for new citizens
(5) Israel's proposed law is based on hatred and contempt for Arabs - Gideon Levy
(6) Rupert Murdoch espouses Zionism, in address to ADL
(7) Is Rupert Murdoch ignorant or an agent of Zionist deception? - Alan Hart

(1) Rabbi Yosef: Gentiles exist only to serve Jews

From: Adibsk <adibsk@cyberia.net.lb> Date: 20.10.2010 02:17 PM

http://www.jpost.com/JewishWorld/JewishNews/Article.aspx?id=191782

Yosef: Gentiles exist only to serve Jews

According to Rabbi, the lives of non-Jews in Israel are safeguarded by divinity, to prevent losses to Jews.

By JONAH MANDEL

Jerusalem Post

10/18/2010

The sole purpose of non-Jews is to serve Jews, according to Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, the head of Shas's Council of Torah Sages and a senior Sephardi adjudicator.

"Goyim were born only to serve us. Without that, they have no place in the world – only to serve the People of Israel," he said in his weekly Saturday night sermon on the laws regarding the actions non-Jews are permitted to perform on Shabbat.

According to Yosef, the lives of non-Jews in Israel are safeguarded by divinity, to prevent losses to Jews.

"In Israel, death has no dominion over them... With gentiles, it will be like any person – they need to die, but [God] will give them longevity. Why? Imagine that one's donkey would die, they'd lose their money.

This is his servant... That's why he gets a long life, to work well for this Jew," Yosef said.

"Why are gentiles needed? They will work, they will plow, they will reap. We will sit like an effendi and eat.

That is why gentiles were created," he added.

Yosef's Saturday night sermons have seen many controversial statements from the 90-year-old rabbi. In August, Yosef caused a diplomatic uproar when he wished a plague upon the Palestinian people and their leaders, a curse he retracted a few weeks later, when he blessed them along with all of Israel's other peace-seeking neighbors.

(2) Sephardi leader Yosef: Non-Jews exist to serve Jews

October 18, 2010

http://www.jta.org/news/article/2010/10/18/2741341/rabbi-yosef-non-jews-exist-to-serve-jews

JERUSALEM (JTA) -- Israeli Sephardic leader Rabbi Ovadia Yosef in his weekly Saturday night sermon said that non-Jews exist to serve Jews.

"Goyim were born only to serve us. Without that, they have no place in the world; only to serve the People of Israel," he said during a public discussion of what kind of work non-Jews are allowed to perform on Shabbat.

"Why are gentiles needed? They will work, they will plow, they will reap. We will sit like an effendi and eat," he said to some laughter.

Yosef, the spiritual leader of the Shas Party and the former chief Sephardi rabbi of Israel, also said that the lives of non-Jews are protected in order to prevent financial loss to Jews.

"With gentiles, it will be like any person: They need to die, but God will give them longevity. Why? Imagine that one's donkey would die, they'd lose their money. This is his servant. That's why he gets a long life, to work well for this Jew," said the rabbi, who recently turned 90.

An audio recording of some of the rabbi's remarks was broadcast on Israel's Channel 10.

The American Jewish Committee condemned the rabbi's remarks in a statement issued Monday.

"Rabbi Yosef's remarks -- suggesting outrageously that Jewish scripture asserts non-Jews exist to serve Jews -- are abhorrent and an offense to human dignity and human equality," said AJC Executive Director David Harris. "Judaism first taught the world that all individuals are created in the divine image, which helped form the basis of our moral code. A rabbi should be the first, not the last, to reflect that bedrock teaching of our tradition."

(3) Major rabbi says non-Jews are donkeys, created to serve Jews

October 18th, 2010

by Khalid Amayreh

http://www.thepeoplesvoice.org/TPV3/Voices.php/2010/10/18/major-rabbi-says-non-jews-are-donkeys-cr

A major Jewish religious figure in Israel has likened non-Jews to donkeys and beasts of burden, saying the main reason for their very existence is to serve Jews.

Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, spiritual mentor of the religious fundamentalist party, Shas, which represents Middle Eastern Jews, reportedly said during a Sabbath homily earlier this week that "the sole purpose of non-Jews is to serve Jews." Yosef is considered a major religious leader in Israel who enjoys the allegiance of hundreds of thousands of followers.

Shas is a chief coalition partner in the current Israeli government,

Yosef, also a former Chief Rabbi of Israel, was quoted by the right-wing newspaper, the Jerusalem Post, as saying that the basic function of a goy, a derogatory word for a gentile, was to serve Jews.

"Non-Jews were born only to serve us. Without that, they have no place in the world-only to serve the People of Israel," Yosef said in his weekly Saturday night sermon which was devoted to laws regarding actions non-Jews are permitted to perform on the Sabbath.

Yosef also reportedly said that the lives of non-Jews in Israel are preserved by God in order to prevent losses to Jews.

Yosef, widely considered a prominent Torah sage and authority on the interpretation of Talmud, a basic Jewish scripture, held a comparison between animals of burden and non-Jews.

"In Israel, death has no dominion over them…With gentiles, it will be like any person-They need to die, but God will give them longevity. Why? Imagine that one's donkey would die, they'd lose their money.

"This is his servant…That's why he gets a long life, to work well for this Jew."

Yosef further elucidated his ideas about the servitude of gentiles to Jews, asking "why are gentiles needed? They will work, they will plow, they will reap; and we will sit like an effendi and eat."

"That is why gentiles were created."

The concept of gentiles being infra-human beings or quasi-animals is well-established in Orthodox Judaism.

For example, rabbis affiliated with the Chabad movement, a supremacist but influential Jewish sect, teach openly that at the spiritual level, non-Jews have the status of animals.

Abraham Kook, the religious mentor of the settler movement, was quoted as saying that the difference between a Jew and a gentile was greater and deeper than the difference between humans and animals.

"The difference between a Jewish soul and souls of non-Jews -- all of them in all different levels -- is greater and deeper than the difference between a human soul and the souls of cattle."

Some of Kook's manifestly racist ideas are taught in the Talmudic college, Merkaz H'arav, in Jerusalem. The college is named after Kook.

In his book, Jewish History, Jewish Religion: The Weight of Three Thousand Years, the late Israeli writer and intellectual Israel Shahak argued that whenever Orthodox rabbis use the word "human," they normally didn't refer to all humans, but only to Jews, since non-Jews are not considered humans according to Halacha of Jewish law.

A few years ago, a member of the Israeli Knesset, castigated Israeli soldiers for "treating human beings as if they were Arabs." The Knesset member, Aryeh Eldad, was commenting on the evacuation by the Israeli army of a settler outpost in the West Bank.

Faced with the negative effect of certain Biblical and Talmudic teachings on inter-religious relations, some Christian leaders in Europe have called on the Jewish religious establishment to reform the traditional Halacha perceptions of non-Jews.

However, while the Reform and Conservative sects of Judaism, have related positively to such calls, most Orthodox Jews have totally rejected the calls, arguing that the Bible is God's word which can't be altered under any circumstances.

The Bible says that non-Jews living under Jewish rule must serve as "water carriers and wood hewers" for the master race.

In Joshua (9:27), we read " That day, Joshua made the Gibeonites woodcutters and water carriers for the community and for the altar of the Lord at the Place the Lord would choose. And that is what they are to this days."

Elsewhere in the Bible, Israelites are strongly urged to treat "strangers living in your midst" humanely "because you yourselves were strangers in Egypt."

(4) Israel proposes Jewish state loyalty oath for new citizens

Loyalty pledge criticised as 'fascist' and an affront to country's Palestinian citizens, who make up 20% of population

Harriet Sherwood in Jerusalem

guardian.co.uk, Sunday 10 October 2010 18.20 BST

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/oct/10/israel-jewish-oath-new-citizens

The Israeli cabinet today approved a bill requiring new non-Jewish citizens to swear an oath of allegiance to Israel as a "Jewish and democratic state", in a move that has brought accusations of discrimination against Israel's Arab minority. One dissenting cabinet minister referred to a "whiff of fascism".

The bill, originally promoted by the rightwing foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, who has made the issue of loyalty a hallmark of his political career, was passed by a big majority despite the opposition of Labour party members.

The loyalty oath will be required of non-Jews seeking to become Israeli citizens, mainly affecting Palestinians from the West Bank who marry Palestinian citizens of Israel.

The latter, who make up 20% of Israel's population, have vigorously criticised the proposal – which needs approval from the Knesset before becoming law – as provocative and racist. It has also drawn protests from Israeli Jews, including those in the cabinet.

Isaac Herzog, the social affairs minister, told Israel's army radio: "There is a whiff of fascism on the margins of Israeli society. The overall picture is very disturbing and threatens the democratic character of the state of Israel. There have been a tsunami of measures that limit rights ... We will pay a heavy price for this."

Lieberman campaigned in last year's election for a loyalty oath to be required of all existing Palestinian citizens of Israel. The bill put to the vote today drew back from that, applying only to future citizens. "I think this is an important step forward. Obviously this is not the end of the issue of loyalty in return for citizenship, but this is a highly important step," Lieberman said.

At the start of the cabinet meeting, the prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, said: "The state of Israel is the national state of the Jewish people and is a democratic state in which all its citizens – Jewish and non-Jewish – enjoy full equal rights ... Whoever wants to join us, has to recognise us."

It was suggested that Netanyahu backed the bill as a quid pro quo for support from rightwing parties within his coalition government should he bow to US pressure to extend the freeze on settlement construction. The moratorium, which expired two weeks ago, is threatening to scupper talks on a peace deal with the Palestinians.

Ahmed Tibi, an Israeli-Arab member of the Knesset, condemned the cabinet's decision. "The government of Israel has become subservient to Yisrael Beiteinu [Lieberman's party] and its fascist doctrine," he said. "No other state in the world would force its citizens or those seeking citizenship to pledge allegiance to an ideology."

The speaker of the Knesset, Reuven Rivlin, also criticised the proposal. "This law will not assist us as a society and a state," he said. "On the contrary, it could arm our enemies and opponents in the world in an effort to emphasise the trend for separatism or even racism within Israel."

Likud cabinet members Dan Meridor, Benny Begin and Michael Eitan opposed the bill along with Labour ministers.

Writing in today's Haaretz, liberal commentator Gideon Levy said: "Remember this day. It's the day Israel changes its character ... From now on, we will be living in a new, officially approved, ethnocratic, theocratic, nationalistic and racist country."

(5) Israel's proposed law is based on hatred and contempt for Arabs - Gideon Levy

http://www.israeli-occupation.org/2010-10-15/gideon-levy-time-to-stick-it-again-to-the-arabs/

Gideon Levy: Time to stick it again to the Arabs

By Gideon Levy, Haaretz – 15 Oct 2010

http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/opinion/time-to-stick-it-again-to-the-arabs-1.319207

[IOA Editor: The original Hebrew article is entitled "Only Hate and Contempt Remain."]

Gideon Levy

Underneath everything is hatred – hatred and contempt for Arabs. The ideology of the right has been dead for some time, nothing of its former glory remains; primeval emotions are now its true driving force. This is what is behind the right wing's nationalist laws and its so-called "peace." Lurking beneath all the unpretty words are not just political considerations, but a lack of any systematic ideas – only dark and dangerous instincts.

Hate crimes "occur when a perpetrator targets a victim because of his or her perceived membership in a certain social group, usually defined by racial group, religion, sexual orientation, disability, class, ethnicity, nationality, age, gender, gender identity or political affiliation" (according to Wikipedia, quoting Rebecca Stotzer). Most hate crimes are aimed at members of minority groups, and it's the same with Israel's latest proposed legislation.

Don't be led astray by pseudo ideas. True, they do not lack loathing, racism and nationalism, but at bottom lies hatred for Arabs. From Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to MK Danny Danon, from Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman to MK Anastassia Michaeli, from MK Michael Ben Ari to MK Yaakov Katz – all of them are Arab haters, whether openly or not. Most of them have never even met an Arab, but they know everything about them. Not one of them has even begun to think of Arabs as being equal to Jews.

Netanyahu cloaks his hatred and condescension with cloying love of the nation, Katz with hollow love of the land. But love has nothing to do with it. The only thing they are trying to do is obscure its opposite. Behind their initiatives, wrapped in the flags of the Jewish nation, their hatred and perceived lordship seethes. They know, to their chagrin, that the Arabs will remain here for all time, despite all the measures being taken against them. The only explanation for these lawmakers' actions is that they are giving vent to their heart's desire.

Do they think their hate laws will alter the Arab people's consciousness? That the Arabs will declare "loyalty" to Israel and then be loyal? That this will prevent them from marking the Nakba and transform them into Zionists? Their homes will be demolished and they will be bond servants? They will recognize the state as Jewish and forgo their aspirations?

The newly installed Border Police checkpoints in Lod (and not in crime-ridden Netanya, for example ) and the demolition of homes in the Bedouin village of al-Arakib (and not in the settler outposts ) are only two examples of this approach. Instead of addressing the problems that gave rise to the Bedouin housing crunch and to the crime in Lod, we see only the use of force – the proper way to treat Arabs.

No one would express such abhorrence for MK Hanin Zuabi (who was aboard the Gaza-bound flotilla ) if she were not an Arab. The only reason for setting forth the loyalty law – and on the memorial day for those killed by the police during the October 2000 disturbances – and for the MKS provocative tours through Silwan, the Arab village adjacent to Jerusalem's Old City, is to stick it again to the Arabs. We will embitter their lives, make things bad for them, and the worse off they are the better off we will be. Sounds simplistic? It is, but all the rest is meaningless.

Repressive force is the primary means used by the government against the Arabs in Israel and the Palestinians in the territories. The police, the army, the Shin Bet security service and the Border Police are the government's principal agents in these sectors. The right wing believes force will preserve the occupation and prevent the Arabs of Israel from rising up; but above all, it will hurt them. And that is a pathological approach. It is not only generated by hatred, it also fuels hatred among its victims. In the end, it will be self-fulfilling and the Arabs of Israel really will rise up in revolt. So besides being amoral, this ethnic hatred is also not very smart.

All that remains from the doctrine set forth by Ze'ev Jabotinsky and Menachem Begin, which contains liberal and democratic elements, is hatred. Begin has morphed into MK Miri Regev. There is no agenda, no vision. Try to find out what the right expects to see in another decade; all that remains is their loathing of the Arabs. That is the right's problem. The problem of the other camp, if it still exists, is that it has no one who can stop the right.

Manifestations of hatred are received with sympathy or indifference, even by those who should be standing in the breach: the opposition, the media and the education and judicial systems.

The damage the right wing is inflicting upon us will linger for many years after it leaves office. It's hard to uproot hatred that has been planted so deeply. The right may not be leading us anywhere, but the garbage it is spreading in the meantime is piling up higher and higher.

(6) Rupert Murdoch espouses Zionism, in address to ADL
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/no-ceasefire-means-no-peace-in-war-on-israel/story-e6frg6ux-1225939379357

No ceasefire means no peace in war on Israel

Rupert Murdoch

The Australian

October 16, 2010  12:00AM   

THE threats facing Jews today are real.

THE Anti-Defamation League was founded in 1913 in response to something we cannot imagine in America today: the lynching of an innocent Jew.

In the century since then, the league has fought anti-Semitism wherever you have found it. You have championed equal treatment for all races and creeds. And you have held America to her founding promise.

So successful have you been, a few years ago some people were beginning to say, "Maybe we don't need an ADL any more".

That is a much harder argument to make these days.

My own perspective is simple: we live in a world where there is an ongoing war against the Jews.

For the first decades after Israel's founding, this war was conventional in nature. The goal was straightforward: to use military force to overrun Israel. Well before the Berlin Wall came down, that approach had clearly failed.

Then came phase two: terrorism. Terrorists targeted Israelis both home and abroad from the massacre of Israeli athletes at Munich to the second intifada. Terrorists continue to target Jews across the world. But they have not succeeded in bringing down the Israeli government nor weakened Israeli resolve.

Now the war has entered a new phase. This is the soft war that seeks to isolate Israel by delegitimising it. The battleground is everywhere: the media, multinational organisations, non-government organisations. The aim is to make Israel a pariah.

The result is the curious situation we have today: Israel becomes increasingly ostracised, while Iran - a nation that has made no secret of wishing Israel's destruction - pursues nuclear weapons loudly, proudly and without apparent fear of rebuke.

For me, this ongoing war is a fairly obvious fact of life.

Every day, the citizens of the Jewish homeland defend themselves against armies of terrorists whose maps spell out the goal they have in mind: a Middle East without Israel.

In Europe, Jewish populations find themselves targeted by people who share that goal.

And in the US, I fear that our foreign policy only emboldens these extremists.

There are two things that worry me. The first is the disturbing new home that anti-Semitism has found in polite society, especially in Europe. The second is how violence and extremism are encouraged when the world sees Israel's greatest ally distancing herself from the Jewish state.

When Americans think of anti-Semitism, we tend to think of the vulgar caricatures and attacks of the first part of the 20th century. Now it seems that the most virulent strains come from the Left. Often this new anti-Semitism dresses itself up as legitimate disagreement with Israel.

In 2002, Harvard president Lawrence Summers put it this way: "Where anti-Semitism and views that are profoundly anti-Israeli have traditionally been the primary preserve of poorly educated right-wing populists, profoundly anti-Israel views are increasingly finding support in progressive intellectual communities. Serious and thoughtful people are advocating and taking actions that are anti-Semitic in their effect if not their intent."

Far from being dismissed out of hand, anti-Semitism today enjoys support at both the highest and lowest reaches of European society from its most elite politicians to its largely Muslim ghettos. European Jews find themselves caught in this pincer.

We saw a recent outbreak when the European Trade Commissioner declared that peace in the Middle East is impossible because of the Jewish lobby in America. Here's how he put it:

"There is indeed a belief - it's difficult to describe it otherwise - among most Jews that they are right. And it's not so much whether these are religious Jews or not. Lay Jews also share the same belief that they are right. So it is not easy to have, even with moderate Jews, a rational discussion about what is actually happening in the Middle East."

He did not suggest the problem was any specific Israeli policy. The problem, as he defined it, is the nature of the Jews.

Adding to the absurdity, this man then responded to his critics this way: anti-Semitism, he asserted, "has no place in today's world and is fundamentally against our European values".

Of course, he has kept his job.

Unfortunately, we see examples like this all across Europe.

Sweden, for example, has long been a synonym for liberal tolerance. Yet in one of Sweden's largest cities, Jews report increasing examples of harassment. When an Israeli tennis team visited for a competition, it was greeted with riots. So how did the mayor respond? By equating Zionism with anti-Semitism and suggesting that Swedish Jews would be safer in his town if they distanced themselves from Israeli actions in Gaza.

You don't have to look far for other danger signs: the Norwegian government forbids a Norwegian-based, German shipbuilder from using its waters to test a submarine being built for the Israeli navy; Britain and Spain are boycotting an OECD tourism meeting in Jerusalem; in The Netherlands, police report a 50 per cent increase in the number of anti-Semitic incidents.

In Europe today, many of the most egregious attacks on Jewish people, Jewish symbols and Jewish houses of worship have come from the Muslim population.

Unfortunately, far from making clear that such behaviour will not be tolerated, too often the official response is what we've seen from the Swedish mayor, who suggested Jews and Israel were partly to blame themselves.

When Europe's political leaders do not stand up to the thugs, they lend credence to the idea that Israel is the source of all the world's problems and they guarantee more ugliness.

If that is not anti-Semitism, I don't know what is.

That brings me to my second point: the importance of good relations between Israel and the US.

Some believe that if America wants to gain credibility in the Muslim world and advance the cause of peace, Washington needs to put some distance between itself and Israel.

My view is the opposite.

Far from making peace more possible, we are making hostilities more certain.

Far from making things better for the Palestinian people, sour relations between the US and Israel guarantees that ordinary Palestinians will continue to suffer.

The peace we all want will come when Israel feels secure, not when Washington feels distant.

Right now we have war.

There are many people waging this war. Some blow up cafes. Some fire rockets into civilian areas. Some are pursuing nuclear arms. Some are fighting the soft war, through international boycotts and resolutions condemning Israel. All these people are watching the US-Israeli relationship closely.

In this regard, I was pleased to hear the State Department's spokesman clarify America's position this week. He said the US recognises "the special nature of the Israeli state. It is a state for the Jewish people."

This is an important message to send to the Middle East. When people see, for example, a Jewish prime minister treated badly by an American president, they see a more isolated Jewish state. That only encourages those who favour the gun over those who favour negotiation.

Ladies and gentlemen, back in 1937, a man named Vladimir Jabotinsky urged Britain to open up an escape route for Jews fleeing Europe.

Only a Jewish homeland, he said, could protect European Jews from the coming calamity.

In prophetic words, he described the problem this way. "It is not the anti-Semitism of men," he said. "It is, above all, the anti-Semitism of things, the inherent xenophobia of the body social or the body economic under which we suffer."

The world of 2010 is not the world of the 1930s. The threats Jews face today are different.

But these threats are real. They are soaked in an ugly language familiar to anyone old enough to remember World War II.

And these threats cannot be addressed until we see them for what they are: part of an ongoing war against the Jews.

Rupert Murdoch is chairman and chief executive of News Corporation, publisher of The Australian. This is an edited extract of his speech to the Anti-Defamation League in New York on Wednesday

(7) Is Rupert Murdoch ignorant or an agent of Zionist deception? - Alan Hart

From: Sami Joseph <sajoseph2005@yahoo.com> Date: 30.10.2010 11:53 PM

http://www.alanhart.net/is-rupert-murdoch-ignorant-or-an-agent-of-zionist-deception/

Is Rupert Murdoch ignorant or an agent of Zionist deception?

By Alan Hart

In a recent speech at an ADL (Anti-Defamation League) dinner, Rupert Murdoch, arguably the most influential mainstream media chief on Planet Earth, made some extraordinary statements which must be challenged. But first it's necessary for us all to be clear about what ADL's role is.

Its proclaimed objective is to "fight anti-Semitism". In reality its main purpose under the leadership of Abe Foxman is to smear, harass, silence and preferably destroy those of all faiths and none who are critical of Zionism in action – critical of Israel's policies in general and its contempt for international law in particular; and critical of the awesome power of the Zionist lobby, in America especially.

In his speech Murdoch said his own perspective on the evil of anti-Semitism was "simple". He put it this way (my emphasis added):

"We live in a world where there is an ongoing war against the Jews. For the first decades after Israel's founding, this war was conventional in nature. The goal was straightforward – to use military force to overrun Israel."

That was Murdoch's carefully understated way of endorsing Zionism's assertion that for the first decades of its life Israel lived in danger of annihilation, the "driving into the sea" of its Jews. As I document in detail through the three volumes of the American edition of my book Zionism: The Real Enemy of the Jews, Israel's existence was never, ever, in danger from any combination of Arab force. Zionism's assertion to the contrary was the cover that allowed Israel to get away where it mattered most (in America and Western Europe) with presenting its aggression as self-defense and itself as the victim when, actually, it was and is the oppressor.

The main event during the period in which Murdoch asserted that the Arabs were trying to "overrun" Israel was the 1967 war. Zionism's story of it, which the mainstream media still peddles to this day, is that Israel went to war either because the Arabs attacked first or were intending to attack. Both, the either and the or, are Zionist propaganda nonsense. It was a war of Israeli aggression.

I don't expect Murdoch to pay any attention to what the Gentile me has to say on the subject, but if he is not an agent of Zionist deception (i.e. if he is merely ignorant), he ought to consider what various Israeli leaders have said. I quote them in America Takes Sides, War With Nasser Act II and the Creation of Greater Israel, Chapter 1 of Volume Three the American edition of my book, which is sub-titled Conflict Without End?

I preface the quotes of Israeli leaders with this observation.

"If the statement that the Arabs were not intending to attack Israel and that the existence of the Jewish state was not in danger was only that of a goy, it could be dismissed by Zionists as anti-Semitic conjecture. In fact the truth the statement represents was admitted by some of the key Israeli players – after the war, of course. Before we look at what actually happened in 1967 and why, here is a short summary of some pertinent, post-war Israeli confessions."

In an interview published in Le Monde on 28 February 1968, Israeli Chief of Staff Rabin said this: "I do not believe that Nasser wanted war. The two divisions which he sent into Sinai on 14 May would not have been enough to unleash an offensive against Israel. He knew it and we knew it."

On 14 April 1971, a report in the Israeli newspaper Al-Hamishmar contained the following statement by Mordecai Bentov, a member of the wartime national government. "The entire story of the danger of extermination was invented in every detail and exaggerated a posteriori to justify the annexation of new Arab territory."

On 4 April 1972, General Haim Bar-Lev, Rabin's predecessor as chief of staff, was quoted in Ma'ariv as follows: "We were not threatened with genocide on the eve of the Six-Days war, and we had never thought of such a possibility."

In the same Israeli newspaper on the same day, General Ezer Weizman, Chief of Operations during the war and a nephew of Chaim Weizman, was quoted as saying: "There was never any danger of annihilation. This hypothesis has never been considered in any serious meeting."

In the spring of 1972, General Matetiyahu Peled, Chief of Logistical Command during the war and one of 12 members of Israel's General Staff, addressed a political literary club in Tel Aviv. He said: "The thesis according to which the danger of genocide hung over us in June 1967, and according to which Israel was fighting for her very physical survival, was nothing but a bluff which was born and bred after the war." In a radio debate Peled said: "Israel was never in real danger and there was no evidence that Egypt had any intention of attacking Israel." He added that "Israeli intelligence knew that Egypt was not prepared for war."

In the same program Chaim Herzog (former DMI, future Israeli Ambassador to the UN and President of his state) said: "There was no danger of annihilation. Neither Israeli headquarters nor the Pentagon – as the memoirs of President Johnson proved – believed in this danger."

On 3 June 1972 Peled was even more explicit in an article of his own for Le Monde. He wrote: "All those stories about the huge danger we were facing because of our small territorial size, an argument expounded once the war was over, have never been considered in our calculations. While we proceeded towards the full mobilisation of our forces, no person in his right mind could believe that all this force was necessary to our ‘defense' against the Egyptian threat. This force was to crush once and for all the Egyptians at the military level and their Soviet masters at the political level. To pretend that the Egyptian forces concentrated on our borders were capable of threatening Israel's existence does not only insult the intelligence of any person capable of analyzing this kind of situation, but is primarily an insult to the Israeli army."

The preference of some generals for truth-telling after the event provoked something of a debate in Israel, but it was short-lived. If some Israeli journalists had had their way, the generals would have kept their mouths shut. Weizman was one of those approached with the suggestion that he and others who wanted to speak out should "not exercise their inalienable right to free speech lest they prejudice world opinion and the Jewish diaspora against Israel."

It is not surprising that debate in Israel was shut down before it led to some serious soul-searching about the nature of the state and whether it should continue to live by the lie as well as the sword; but it is more than remarkable, I think, that the mainstream Western media continues to prefer the convenience of the Zionist myth to the reality of what happened in 1967 and why. When reporters and commentators have need today to make reference to the Six Days War, they still tell it like the Zionists said it was in 1967 rather than how it really was. Obviously there are still limits to how far the mainstream media is prepared to go in challenging the Zionist account of history, but it could also be that lazy journalism is a factor in the equation.

For those journalists, lazy or not, who might still have doubts about who started the Six Days War, here's a quote from what Prime Minister Begin said in an unguarded, public moment in 1982. "In June 1967 we had a choice. The Egyptian army concentrations in the Sinai approaches did not prove that Nasser was really about to attack us, We must be honest with ourselves. We decided to attack him."

My own favourite Israeli quote is the one I use to draw the Prologue to Volume One of my book to a conclusion. In 1980 I had a number of conversations with the best and the brightest of Israel's Directors of Military Intelligence, Major General (then retired) Shlomo Gazit. Over coffee one morning I said to him: "I've come to the conclusion that it's all a myth. Israel's existence has never, ever, been in danger." He replied: "The trouble with us Israelis is that we've become the victims of our own propaganda."

In his speech to the ADL dinner, Murdoch said that phase two of the "ongoing war against the Jews" (after the failure to "overrun" Israel by force) was "terrorism" He seems to have no idea of reality on this front either.

One of a number of summary truths about terrorism is this. In Palestine that became Israel, it was the Zionists who turned to terrorism first – to drive out the occupying British and then the indigenous Arabs.

Murdoch spoke of the terrorists targeting Israelis at home and broad – "from the massacre of Israeli athletes at Munich to the second intifada." Fact: All but two of the Israeli athletes in Munich were killed by German security forces after Israeli Defense Minister Dayan insisted, against Prime Minister Golda Meir's own best judgement, on a shoot-out to prevent a negotiated end to the hostage drama. Fact: The second intifada, which PLO Chairman Arafat was doing his best to prevent, was provoked by Ariel Sharon to improve his prospects of becoming prime minister by seeing off a challenge from Netanyahu.

A second summary truth about Palestinian terrorism is this. The Palestinians were not and are not "at war with the Jews". Black September's Munich operation, for example, was terrorism for a public relations purpose – to draw the attention of the world to the fact that the Palestinians existed, were occupied and oppressed and in need of some justice.

A summary truth about general Arab and wider Muslim terrorism is this. It is primarily a response of the weak and oppressed to Israel's arrogance of power and insufferable self-righteousness; to the impotence, corruption and repression of Arab and other Muslim regimes which are correctly regarded by their masses as little more than puppets of America-and-Zionism; and to the deadly double-standard of Western foreign policy – in particular its unconditional support for Israel right or wrong. (In at least one respect the Arab and other Muslim masses have much more wisdom than Western leaders. They, Arab and Muslims masses, know that unconditional support for Israel right or wrong is not in anybody's best interests, not even those of Israel's Jews).

According to Murdoch "the war against the Jews" has now entered a new phase. "This," he said, "is the soft war that seeks to isolate Israel by delegitimizing it. The battleground is everywhere – the media… multinational organizations … NGOs. In this war, the aim is to make Israel a pariah."

It is true that in the eyes of many if not most peoples of the world (and probably many of their governments behind closed doors) Israel is increasingly being seen as a pariah state. But that's a consequence of Israel's policies and actions, war crimes and all.

What Murdoch sees as the rise of anti-Semitism is, in fact, the rise of anti-Israelism. The danger for the Jews of the world is that it will be transformed into violent anti-Semitism at a foreseeable point in the future if the Zionist state is not called and held to account for its past crimes and is allowed by the major powers to go on committing new ones.

It is a fact that prior to the obscenity of the Nazi holocaust, most Jews were opposed to Zionism's colonial enterprise. One of their fears was that Zionism would one day provoke anti-Semitism if it was allowed by the big powers to have its way. As I never tire of writing and saying, this fear was given a fresh airing by Yehoshafat Harkabi, Israel's longest serving Director of Military Intelligence. In 1986 he published a remarkable book, Israel's Fateful Hour. It contains this warning (my emphasis added):

Israel is the criterion according to which all Jews will tend to be judged. Israel as a Jewish state is an example of the Jewish character, which finds free and concentrated expression within it. Anti-Semitism has deep and historical roots. Nevertheless, any flaw in Israeli conduct, which initially is cited as anti-Israelism, is likely to be transformed into empirical proof of the validity of anti-Semitism. It would be a tragic irony if the Jewish state, which was intended to solve the problem of anti-Semitism, was to become a factor in the rise of anti-Semitism. Israelis must be aware that the price of their misconduct is paid not only by them but also Jews throughout the world.

Nearly a quarter of a century on I think it can and should be said that Israel's "misconduct" has become the prime factor in the equation that could transform anti-Israelism into anti-Semitism.

If I had the opportunity to address Mr. Murdoch directly, I would say to him the following. If you really care about the Jews (I mean the Jews as people as opposed to their money), you would put your media empire at the service of the truth of history.

I would also tell him that when I joined ITN (Independent Television News) as a very young reporter many years ago, its great editor-in-chief, Geoffrey Cox, gave me the mission statement in one short sentence. "Our job is to help keep democracy alive."

I would then say to Murdoch that my charge today is (generally speaking) that the mainstream media has betrayed democracy. And I would add, "You, sir, are the greatest betrayer, traitor, of them all."