On Monday 1 March 2010 over two hundred supporters of Northern Ireland Friends of Israel turned out in Belfast to protest against the Boycott Israel campaign being waged by several trade unions in Northern Ireland.
 
NIFI co chair Terry McCorran spoke out against the campaign which has seen calls to ban the Israeli football team from playing in Belfast and to picket the Leonard Cohen concert because the singer was also performing in Tel Aviv. He also condemned the harrassing of Israeli workers at Castlecourt shopping centre in Belfast  and the intimidation of shoppers and staff at Marks and Spencer. McCorran spoke in a private capacity as his union UNISON has a resolution in place to boycott Israel as does the Irish Congress of Trade Unions and the Northern Ireland Public Services Alliance.
 
Guest speaker Eric Lee from Trade Union Links with Israel and Palestine explained what the Boycott campaign was all about, who supports it and who opposes it, why it is a bad idea and how it can be countered. He argued that positive engagement with both sides was the best way to support  peace between Israelis and Palestinians.
 
Reverend Chris Hudson, who served as a full-time union official for over 18 years and was a leading member of the anti-apartheid movement in the Republic of Ireland, said it was "a big lie" to describe Israel as an apartheid society. Referring to the recent decision of the town council at Carrickmacross, County Monaghan, to tear out the page from the welcome book signed by the Israeli ambassador, Hudson asked: "what exactly is the Jewish community in Ireland to make of that? The ambassador of no other country on this earth would be treated that way".
 
"This meeting marks a first organised stand against the boycott of Israel in Northern Ireland" Steven Jaffe, NIFI co chair, remarked, "and the fact that we had standing room only at our meeting indicates this issue is deeply divisive. The vast majority of our supporters are not Jewish. In Northern Ireland of all places we know that dialogue, however difficult, is the only way forward towards peace, not sterile and negative boycotting".
 
NIFI acknowledges support of Stand With Us, Trade Union Links with Israel and Palestine and Trade Union Friends of Israel for this meeting.

255 Palestinian medical patients and accompanying individuals from the Gaza crossed into Israel for free medical treatment in Israeli hospitals. 222 staff members of international organizations crossed into Gaza.

Essential food and humanitarian aid products, including milk powder, baby food, rice, cooking oil, flour, hygiene products and medicals supplies including a CT scanner were among the goods that Israel have already sent into Gaza this past week.

A further 1,216,297 litres of diesel fuel and 992 tons of cooking gas was also sent into Gaza from Israel within the last seven days.

We in the West benefit greatly from these high quality products however Palestinian Arab activists throughout Europe have been protesting that Israeli manufacturers should not benefit from trade deals within Europe because these areas are disputed areas and cannot be considered as being in Israel. This ruling also follows a case in Germany involving the drinks import company Brita.

The court ruled as follows; "The European Union takes the view that products obtained in locations which have been placed under Israeli administration since 1967 do not qualify for the preferential treatment provided for under [the EC-Israel Agreement],"

No matter how ridiculous this sounds Israeli products made in Samaria and Judea will now become more expensive and will not be able to compete on price alongside products made by the Palestinian Arabs who produce goods in the same area. 
In December the UK government said that food labels would distinguish between goods from Palestinians in the so called “occupied territories” and produce from Israeli communities.

“With God on our side takes a look at the theology of Christian Zionism which teaches that because the Jews are God’s chosen people they have a divine right to the land of Israel.
Aspects of this belief system lead some Christians in the West to give uncritical support to Israel government Policies, even those that privilege Jews at the expense of Palestinians, leading to great suffering among Muslim and Christian Palestinians alike,  threatening Israel’s security as a whole”
 
The film deceives Christians and leads them away from the true cause of poverty and suffering.

Both Sizer and Speakman sadly ignore the facts which prove beyond doubt that both Palestinian Muslims and Christians are victims of their own leaders Policies and ideologies and cannot be blamed on anyone else.

Both men also ignore the fulness of scripture in an attempt to press home their own Agenda.

CST recorded 924 antisemitic
incidents in 2009. This is the
highest annual total since
it began recording antisemitic
incidents in 1984, and is 55
per cent higher than the previous
record of 598 incidents in 2006.
• The total of 924 incidents
is an increase of 69 per cent
from the 2008 total of 5461
incidents, and follows two
years of falling incident totals
in 2007 and 2008.
The main reason for this record
high is the unprecedented
number of antisemitic incidents
recorded in January
and February 2009, during
and after the conflict between
Israel and Hamas in Gaza.
68 incidents involved Jewish
schools, schoolchildren
or teachers as targets
Of the 924 incidents recorded
by CST, 460 took place
in Greater London,206 occurred in Greater
Manchester, a rise of 65 per
cent from 2008.
The following are some of the incidents that were reported.
March: A visibly Jewish man
took his children to a play area
in north Manchester. While he
was there two white people
attacked him, shouting:
“F**king Jew, they should
do over here the same
as they did in Germany.”
May: Two white youths
attacked a Jewish family
on a street in north Manchester.
One of the perpetrators shouted
“You f**king Jews, we will
get you, we will kill you”,
before kicking one of their
victims in the head and
headbutting another.
February: A 12-year-old
pupil who is the only Jewish
girl in her school was attacked
by a group of 20 other schoolchildren
of mixed races, who
pulled her hair and shouted:
“Death to the Jews, kill all Jews.”

January: A synagogue
in north west London was set
alight in an arson attack.
The arsonists tried to break
a window to pour petrol into
the building but failed due
to protective film that had been
put on the windows by CST.
Instead they set light
to the front door of the premises,
causing superficial damage.

The Community Security Trust, a Charity who records anti-Semitic attacks in the UK is due to Publish its figures for 2009 tomorrow. The figure is expected to be over 900 compared with 541 last year. The Community Security Trust say they have never seen figures over 600 previousley.

Christians for Zion will report the exact figures for the UK on the CfZ web site when they are published tomorrow.