Just in case you missed it, here's the YouTube Video concerning Desmond Travers..

I wonder who got the original removed from YouTube and why? Still fortunately I have a copy and so it can remain on here. I have added it as it contributes to my discussion with Colm below Oh yes and there's an election by the way...

A Quick Portrayal of a Modern Hypocrite and Fool..Colonel Desmond Travers IDF

Desmond here was part of an
investigation team that descended
into the production of propaganda

This is a quick article as I need to gear up for covering the pending election. Not that the election will change a single thing in Britain anyway. British Colonels and occasionally American ones have been occasionally portrayed in the media as blimp like figures. Often this is done for amusement. However that accolade now must surely belong to Desmond Travers of the IDF. No not that IDF this IDF the Irish Forces. So who is Desmond Travers? Well he is a former Senior Officer of the IDF and was one of the panelists that produced the Goldstone report for the UN. That is the report which accused both Hamas and Israel of war crimes during Operation Cast Lead. The Goldstone report is widely used to criticise Israel. In fact it has some authority in many people's eyes as it was produced by a UN body. Even though the body itself is a complete turkey which appointed Sudan as a member on May 4th 2004! Previous members have included Syria, Libya, Saudi Arabia and Cuba. You probably get the point. That was the esteemed body for which Travers worked.

So my concerns for Travers are? Well quite simply the man is not equal to the task of performing an investigation into human rights violations. He has serious baggage, it was his intent from the start to use the report as a means of attacking Israel. This man should not be trusted to run a bath let alone mount an investigation. Read the following report in the Jerusalem Post by Alan Dershowitz. The Goldstone report was never meant to be impartial. In fact it could not possibly have been. Travers would have seen to that himself. He wanted to use the report to attack Israel. Travers has also unsurprisingly made paranoid and anti-Semitic remarks about a 'Jewish lobby'. For proof of that and a video of the man displaying his limited grasp of debating skills look at this piece by my friend Chas Newkey-Burden. Note how Travers evades the question. Also his completely contradicts himself saying that remarks about mosques storing munitions, can only be made if supported by forensic evidence. He states assuredly that no mosque did store munitions in Gaza, yet he he conducted no forensic investigation himself. He then theorises that munitions would not ever be stored in a place of worship, as his ancestors had been insurgents during the Irish war of independence. His ancestors had not done so between 1919- 1921 so therefore Hamas would never do so in 2009! What fatuous nonsense! The video is below:





Desmond Travers is a hypocrite, a political actor and not an investigator and an utterly disingenuous fool. You don't like me calling you that Des? Tough plenty of other people are and you can always sue me. Only I'll use your own words as evidence for this claim.


Full text on Travers in the Jerusalem Post below:


When Irish Colonel Desmond Travers eagerly accepted an appointment to the Goldstone Commission, he was hell-bent on revenge against Israel based on paranoid fantasies and hard left anti-Israel propaganda. He actually believed, as he put it in a recent interview, that "so many Irish soldiers had been killed by Israelis," with "a significant number who were taken out deliberately and shot (in southern Lebanon.)" This is of course complete and utter fantasy, but it was obviously part of Col. Travers' bigoted reality.

Travers came to the job having already made up his mind not to believe anything Israel said and to accept everything Hamas put forward. For example, Israel produced hard photographic evidence that Gaza mosques were used to store rockets and other weapons. Other photographs, taken by journalists, also proved what everybody now acknowledges to be true: namely that Hamas, as its leaders frequently boasted, routinely use mosques as military munitions depots. When confronted with this evidence, Travers said, "I don't believe the photographs." Of course not; they don't comport with his politically correct and ideologically skewed world-view. This is what he had previously said about why he didn't believe that Hamas used the mosques to store weapons:


We also found no evidence that mosques were used to store munitions. Those charges reflect Western perceptions in some quarters that Islam is a violent religion. ...If I were a Hamas operative the last place I'd store munitions would be in a mosque. It's not secure, is very visible, and would probably be pre-targeted by Israeli surveillance. There are a [sic] many better places to store munitions."


But that is exactly what Hamas did, despite Travers' insistence on paraphrasing Groucho Marx's famous quip, "Who are you going to believe? Me, or your lying eyes?"

Most disturbing, however, was Travers' categorical rejection of Israel's claim that it attacked Gaza only after enduring thousands of anti-personnel rockets intended to target Israeli civilians, mainly schoolchildren. In fact, Hamas rockets hit several schools, though fortunately the teachers had dismissed the students just before the rockets would have killed dozens, perhaps hundreds, of them.

This is what Travers said about Hamas rockets:


...the number of rockets that had been fired into Israel in the month preceding their operations was something like two. The Hamas rockets had ceased being fired into Israel and not only that but Hamas sought a continuation of the cease-fire. Two had been fired from Gaza, but they are likely to have been fired by dissident groups, [i.e. groups that were violating a Hamas order not to fire rockets]." (emphasis added).

Again, Travers' rendition defies the historical record and tells us more about Travers than it does about what actually provoked Israel into finally taking action to protect some million civilians in range of Hamas' rockets. In fact Israel complied with the cease-fire, under the terms of which Israel reserved the right to engage in self-defense actions such as attacking terrorists who were in the process of firing rockets at its civilians.

Just before the hostilities began, Israel offered Hamas both a carrot and a stick: it reopened a checkpoint to allow humanitarian aid to enter Gaza. It had closed the point of entry after the checkpoint was targeted by Gazan rockets. Israel's prime minister, Ehud Olmert, also issued a stern, final warning to Hamas that unless it stopped the rockets, there would be a full-scale military response.

This is the way Reuters reported it:


Israel reopened border crossings with the Gaza Strip on Friday, a day after Prime Minister Ehud Olmert warned militants there to stop firing rockets or they would pay a heavy price. Despite the movement of relief supplies, militants fired about a dozen rockets and mortar shafts from Gaza at Israel on Friday. One accidentally struck a house in Gaza, killing two Palestinian sisters, ages 5 and 13." (emphasis added)


Despite the opening of the crossings, the Hamas rockets continued - not none, not "something like two," but many - and Israel kept its word, implementing a targeted air attack against Hamas facilities and combatants.

Not surprisingly, Travers said that he "rejected ... entirely" Israel's claim that its "attack on Gaza was based on self-defense." Instead, he compared Israel's attack on Hamas to the unprovoked Nazi bombing of "Guirnica."

Travers has repeatedly claimed that "no substantive critique of the [Goldstone] report has been received." This is an out-and-out lie. I have read dozens of substantive critiques, and have written a 49-page one myself. The truth is that Travers has studiously ignored and refused to respond to these critiques. And of course he blames everything on "Jewish lobbyists."

Nor was Travers the only member of the commission with predetermined views and an anti-Israel agenda. Christine Chinken had already declared Israel guilty of war crimes before seeing any evidence. Hina Jilani had also condemned Israel before her appointment to the group, and then said that it would be "very cruel to not give credence to [the] voices" of the victims, apparently without regard to whether they were telling the truth. And then there is Richard Goldstone, who told friends that he too took the job with an agenda, which he says was to help Israel! Why any reasonable person would pay any attention to a report written by four people who had prejudged the evidence and came to their jobs with agendas and biases is beyond comprehension.

Who likes freedom of Speech? Not these guys, OIC Seeking to outlaw criticism of Islam at UN...

These guys are pleased at the OIC proposals.


From the WEA the Organisation of Islamic Conferences (a multi national Islamic bloc vote at the UN), attempts are being made to outlaw defamation of Islam. Why does this matter? Well for one thing it's an earnest attempt to introduce aspects of Sharia law. Furthermore it would give legal sanction to attempts to stifle criticism of Islam and the problems we face as a consequence of political Islam. Furthermore we should be free to state and honestly discuss all areas concerning religions. By that I mean for instance:





1. In parts of the Islamic world sexual abuse of children is institutionalised by marriage. This follows the example of Muhammad who 'married' a six year old girl whilst he was 54. (according to Hadith).





2. Islam's scriptures mandate warfare against 'non believers' including Jews and Christians until they submit to Islam, (Qur'an 9,29).

3. Islam suppresses women and condones violence against them if they are disobedient. (Qur'an 4, 34).

Now why not have frank and honest discussions about the above? Not according to the OIC you should not.

The WEA article:











The OIC & the UN: Islamophobia and "defamation of religion"
Nov 15, 2008
By: WEA RLC Principal Researcher and Writer, Elizabeth KendalTHE OIC & THE UN: ISLAMOPHOBIA AND "DEFAMATION OF RELIGION"(OIC: Organisation of Islamic Conference)Durban I -- the UN's first World Conference on Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance -- which was held in Durban, South Africa, in early September 2001 ended with a walkout over its virulent anti-Semitism. Yet sadly it now seems clear that the Durban Review Conference (or Durban II), which will be held in Geneva in April 2009, is shaping up to be even worse.As a prelude to Durban II, a Second Preparatory Session of the 20-state Preparatory Committee -- of which Libya has been elected chair with Cuba, Pakistan and Iran as vice-chairs -- was held in Geneva from 6 to 17 October 2008. The resulting "Draft Outcome Document for the Durban Review Conference 2009" is now available on the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) website at LINK 1.It is clear from the draft document, as well as from reports emanating from the subsequent 63rd UN General Assembly meeting held in Geneva during the first week of November, that a central focus of Durban II will be "Islamophobia", which is being presented as "a new form of racism".Muslims, the draft declaration asserts, are at dire risk of a racial "holocaust" due to "a new form of racism" -- "Islamophobia" -- which is incited through "defamation of Islam".The draft declaration recommends that local, national and international laws and human rights covenants be reviewed and amended as necessary so that "defamation of Islam" is made a criminal offence, losing the protection it has long enjoyed under the "pretext" of "freedom of expression, counter terrorism or national security". It recommends that legal instruments be established to punish offenders -- that is, those who "defame" Islam by associating it with violence, human rights abuses or terrorism.Anne Bayefsky, a York University professor and human rights lawyer who attended the Second Preparatory Session in Geneva, warns: "This is the new dimension of Durban 2, which in many ways makes it a greater threat than Durban 1. It's really setting up a war of ideas, that has rough implications, between Islamic states and everybody else. . . . Durban 1 was called an assault on Israel; a demonisation of Israel as racist and analogous to Apartheid South Africa. But in addition, Durban 2 is an assault on freedom of expression and other essential democratic rights and freedoms." (Link 2)---------------------------------The draft declaration has built on the 17 August 2007 report by Mr Doudou Diene, the then UN Special Rapporteur on Contemporary Forms of Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance, and the OIC's Observatory of Islamophobia.For background see:UN Human Rights Council: Watershed days. 18 Sept 2007WEA RLC News & Analysis by Elizabeth Kendalhttp://www.worldevangelicals.org/commissions/rlc/reports/articles.htm?id=1411 (This posting gives a thorough critique of Doudou Diene's August 2007 report and considers its implications in terms of the Islamisation of international human rights.)ANDOIC: Eliminating "defamation" of Islam. 25 March 2008WEA RLC News & Analysis by Elizabeth Kendalhttp://www.worldevangelicals.org/commissions/rlc/reports/articles.htm?id=1725 (This posting analyses the OIC's Observatory of Islamophobia which was launched at the OIC Dakar Summit in March 2008. The Observatory of Islamophobia, which is built on Doudou Diene's August 2007 report to the UNHRC, must be seen in the context of the OIC's "Ten Year Program of Action" through which it aims to address the most "prominent challenges facing the Muslim world today". This posting also presents scenarios and means through which the OIC might fulfill its goal of establishing international instruments to punish -- under the pretext of peace and human rights -- those whom they charge with inciting Islamophobia through "defamation" of Islam.)----------------------------------------Canada and Israel have already pulled out of Durban II while several other Western states have threatened to boycott -- most notably Denmark. As reported by Jette Elbaek Maressa in Jyllands-Posten (28 Oct 2008), Danish foreign minister Per Stig Moller told his Arab partners during a round trip to the Middle East that if the Organisation of Islamic Conference did not withdraw its proposal to make criticism of religion equivalent to racism, then Western countries will stay away from Durban II. "If the OIC pushes through this draft resolution, they shall not expect European or Western countries to be present at the table," he said. (Link 3)The Non-Government Organisation "UN Watch" has released a paper on the Durban II Draft Declaration. Entitled "Shattering the Red Lines: The Durban II Draft Declaration", it examines a "small selection of the 646 provisions of the Durban II draft declaration, highlighting several that breach the EU's red lines" (i.e. the lines the EU determined should not be crossed).In its opening summary, UN Watch charges that the draft declaration seeks "to distort human rights laws for the purposes of Islamic censorship" by "inserting a prohibition against 'defamation of religion' designed to restrict free speech and impose the censorship of Islamic anti-blasphemy laws".UN Watch's paper provides a clear, thorough and yet concise overview and analysis of the most contentious elements of the Durban II draft declaration. It is recommended reading. (Link 4)63rd UN GENERAL ASSEMBLYReliefweb has published a report on the 63rd General Assembly that was held in Geneva subsequent to the Durban Review Conference Second Preparatory Session. LINK 5The report describes representatives from Egypt, Sudan, Libya and Pakistan all expressing great concern over the threat posed by this "new form of racism" -- Islamophobia -- which is incited by "defamation of religion". According to the Libyan representative, freedom of speech is not the issue -- at issue is the "misuse" of that right.The representative from Iran told the assembly that modern-day racism is no longer based on supposed inequality between races, but is based on culture, nationality or religion. He claimed that xenophobic acts against migrants, refugees and asylum seekers; defamation of religions; religious intolerance and racial profiling are all expressions of this new form of racism which seeks legitimacy and protection under various pretexts such as combating terrorism.According to the representative from Saudi Arabia, Islam rejects all forms of discrimination and so in Saudi Arabia there are legal provisions to protect all the rights of all persons regardless of race, religion, status or gender.Various free, multi-racial Western democracies (a minority in the UN) denounced racism while making strong and clear defences of human rights including religious liberty and freedom of expression.The representative from France (speaking on behalf of the European Union [EU]) reminded the assembly that the EU had supported the organisation of a Review Conference as long as certain conditions were met and certain lines not crossed. He said that the primary goal should be the full implementation of existing normative framework and that new norms should only be drawn up if they were deemed necessary, were subject to a broad consensus and did not go back on universal achievements by restricting the current scope of human rights.He expressed the European Union's concern that the "thought process" on the possible creation of complementary norms was moving in a direction that could reduce the level of human rights promotion and protection. According to Reliefweb, the representative from France said the EU would "not allow the United Nations principles to be undermined" and would work in accordance with the principles that had been set out in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. He said the Review Conference should concentrate on the implementation of the existing framework without restricting any human rights, establishing any hierarchy among victims, or excluding any one group. As well, the review conference should show how promoting human rights, especially the freedom of speech, could play an important role in fighting racism.The representative from the USA expressed concern at the trend of conflating issues of racism and religion which he said were two distinct issues. He likewise asserted that the cure for intolerance is more dialogue, not less.The representative from Israel regretted that alliances had trumped ideals and warned that nations with a genuine desire to promote peace should guard against the co-opting of legitimate language and ideas by racist demagogues. He expressed concern that Durban II risked becoming itself a platform of racial incitement, and he feared that words might quickly turn to actions.--------------------------The OIC formulated its Ten Year Program of Action (TYPOA) in Makkah in December 2005. Item VI on the TYPOA is "Combating Islamophobia". The OIC determined to do this by means of: 1) establishing an Observatory on Islamophobia tasked with monitoring Islamophobia and "defamation" of Islam and issuing annual reports; 2) getting the UN to adopt an international resolution on Islamophobia, and call on all States to enact laws to counter it; and 3) establishing international legal instruments to enforce anti-defamation laws and deliver deterrent punishments to those charged with inciting Islamophobia through defamation of Islam.The Observatory of Islamophobia was launched in Dakar in March 2008 and the UN has been passing resolutions against Islamophobia and "defamation" of religion ever since the OIC and Arab League-incited Cartoon Intifada of February 2006. All that is left on the OIC's agenda for combating Islamophobia is the legitimisation and implementation of national and international laws and legal instruments to punish offenders. It looks like Durban II might be a step in this direction.By E N KendalLinks1) Draft Outcome Document for the Durban Review Conference 2009http://www2.ohchr.org/english/issues/racism/DurbanReview/session2-documentation.htm2) Durban 2: New site, same debacle.Kevin Libin, National Post (Canada) 25 October 2008http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=9070043) Danish foreign minister threatens Western boycott of Durban IIJyllands-Posten 28 Oct 2008By Jette Elbaek Maressahttp://europenews.dk/en/node/154734) Shattering the Red Lines: The Durban II Draft DeclarationSelected provisions of United Nations draft published at Second Preparatory SessionBy UN WATCH http://www.unwatch.org/ (Oct. 2008).5) Strengthening respect for human rights key for preventing conflict, stabilizing post-conflict situations, Third Committee told.GA/SHC/3933Sixty-third General AssemblyThird Committee33rd & 34th Meeting (AM & PM)Hears from Special Rapporteur on Racism, Chair of Mercenaries Working Group; Religious Defamation, Progress towards Durban Review Conference among Issueshttp://www.reliefweb.int/rw/rwb.nsf/db900sid/SHIG-7L3D9X?OpenDocument