Whose Land?: A Reply to Colonel Richard Kemp
Colonel Richard Kemp – formerly of the commander of the British Army’s ‘Royal Anglian Regiment’ when he retired in 2006 – has reinvented himself as an ‘expert’ on the Middle East and pro-Israel pundit. (1) As he appeared as an ‘expert’ introducing the pro-Israel documentary ‘Whose Land?’ that is being distributed by organisation ‘Christians United for Israel’ or CUFI for short.
Happily CUFI decided to transcribe his remarks, which I will reply to as I go.
‘“The documentary film ‘Whose Land?’ is not intended to justify the right to exist of the state of Israel. I find such an argument abhorrent. Questioning Israel’s right to exist is pure antisemitism. Such fundamental prejudice should not be dignified by response or contrary argument.’ (2)
This is nonsense of the first order, because Kemp is simply dodging this difficult question by claiming that it is ‘abhorrent’ and ‘pure anti-Semitism’. However as Stefan Molyneux might rightly remark: that isn’t an argument. It is merely rhetoric designed to dodge the question at hand and avoid the uncomfortable discussion that as Sizer has pointed out: there is no biblical mandate for Zionism. (3) It also sidesteps the whole long-running controversy about the ethnic cleaning of Palestine by jewish Zionists during the Israeli War of Independence. (4)
It is also worth pointing out that Kemp has track record of accusing his opponents of ‘anti-Semitism’ regardless of what they actually believe. (5)
Kemp continues by asking rhetorically:
‘How often is the right of Great Britain to exist called into question?’
This is an amusing thing for an aspiring political pundit to claim given that this is the very mission of – for example - the Scottish National P arty and they almost succeeded in this in September 2014.
Other significant political parties such as Plaid Cymru and Sinn Fein do so on a regular basis as well.
He then continues to spew rhetoric when he continues by adding that:
‘Or the United States, Germany, France, China, Russia, India, Saudi Arabia, Iran, any other country.’
Yet forgets the significant States Rights and Independence movements in the France, Germany and the United States etc ad infinitum.
Whoops: eh?
Kemp then digs himself even deeper by asking rhetorically:
‘How often is the right to exist of any country other than Israel questioned, argued over, debated, discussed?’
As before: frequently, but that wouldn’t facilitate Kemp’s rhetorical dodge now would it?
‘To do so is exceptional.’
Yet it isn’t as I have pointed out and Kemp well knows.
Apparently hanging around with and defending jews turns you into a congenital liar.
Who knew?
‘Exception applied only to the Jewish State.
It therefore amounts to antisemitism pure and simple.’
Note Kemp’s deceitful sleight of hand here in that he talks about countries that are not ethno-states as well as countries that enforce their state religions like Iran and Saudi Arabia, but then immediately replacing his religious angle with an the ethnic/racial one. As Kemp is well-aware ‘anti-Semitism’ is not opposition to either Judaism or Israel, but can be held in addition or in opposition to those ideological positions. (6) Yet Kemp asserts that if you dare to criticize Judaism let alone Israel then you are an ‘anti-Semite’.
Well if to criticize a jew makes me an anti-Semite then I am an anti-Semite.
The point in that statement is that Kemp’s defence of Israel and Zionism as a political ideology isn’t reasoned let alone logical, but rather consists of pointing at the offending party and screaming ‘anti-Semite’, ‘Six Million Jews’, ‘Holocaust’ and ‘Nazi’.
Oh and then promptly strutting around like an overstuffed peacock acting like you have made a profound intellectual statement.
Speaking of Nazis it isn’t long before Kemp brings up the Third Reich when he states that:
‘In Nazi Germany, the right of Jews to own businesses to own property, to join the professions to go to school to receivemedical treatment to live a normal life in the community. All of these were denied them.’
Aside from the fact that jews could own property and could join the profession and certainly could receive medical treatment – after all even Auschwitz had a camp hospital that treated inmates with the only legal caveat being that they could only work with/be treated by other jews and not Germans.
Apparently Kemp that jews shouldn’t be treated by others jews... isn’t that a bit... well... ‘anti-Semitic’?
But yes... sorry mere details of history, which isn’t what Kemp is concerned with because he’d rather betray Great Britain for Israel.
At least we know where his loyalty really lies.
‘Today, Israel’s enemies demand that the Jewish state be isolated, ostracised, banished from the community of nations.’
Given how much Israel shrieks and demands special treatment – pun intended – then can you really blame them?
Who wouldn’t isolate, ostracise and banish an international Typhoid Mary?
‘These people are the Nazis of the 21st century.’
Is it just me or is ‘Nazi’ just the modern version of the cry of ‘Witch’?
Someone being a ‘Nazi’ or not doesn’t impact whether they are right or not after all or perhaps it does in Kemp’s jaundiced perception of the world?
One wonders what is next: will he claim that pigs can indeed fly?
‘Their arguments must not be dignified with a response.’
So in other words: Kemp has no arguments other than to scream ‘Nazi’ and accuse critics of Israel of being ‘anti-Semites’.
After all if you have arguments then you’d use them not claim you have them but don’t want to use them because it ‘beneath your dignity’ to do so.
That rather sounds like the typical cop out of an abject coward: don’t you think?
‘These modern-day Nazis’
Yes: I am a modern-day Nazi.
Can I help you?
‘are responsible for the greatest slur campaign in the history of humanity spreading false narratives, falsifying and distorting history, lying, deriding, rejecting and despising without cause’
Yet Kemp cites no examples, because... well... Zionists don’t have to use arguments because they are obviously right as their opponents are all Holocaust-denying jew-hating members of the modern Nazi party that no one knows about but Richard Kemp.
‘and for one purpose to abolish the nation state of the Jewish people, Israel.’
One wonders why the jews need a nation-state given that they seem to want to move into everyone else’s nation-states and tell them how they run them.
Perhaps a modest proposal here would be to gather up the jews and deport them to Israel so they can go live in their new Gan Eden in harmony with the rather upset Palestinians who they have spent the last few decades trying to ethnically cleanse while screeching that they aren’t doing anything of the kind.
‘‘Whose Land?’ does not set out to justify the right of Israel to exist. Instead, it simply tells the truth – a truth that is clear, undeniable and unequivocal. The truth, that for the sake of human civilization and decency, must be heard above the growing cacophony of those who clamour to turn the world against the Jewish state and whose false propaganda not only maligns the innocent and brain washes the unwary but also incites violence and inflames hatred.’
So I am guessing that the truth isn’t quite as ‘clear, undeniable and unequivocal’ as Kemp claims given that CUFI felt the need to produce and distribute ‘Whose Land?’ while contracting Kemp to use his fame to market it on their behalf.
Strange how people seem to increasingly dislike and disbelieve the state of Israel and its paid shills like Richard Kemp when they put forward such convincing arguments like ‘anti-Semite’, ‘Holocaust Denier’ and ‘Nazi’: isn’t it?
References
(1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Kemp#Controversy
(2) https://www.cufi.org.uk/news/colonel-kemp-questioning-israels-right-to-exist-is-pure-antisemitism/
(3) Stephen Sizer, 2004, ‘Christian Zionism: Road-map to Armageddon?’, 1st Edition, Inter-Varsity Press: Nottingham, pp. 106-205
(4) Cf. Ilan Pappe, 2006, ‘The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine’, 1st Edition, One World: Oxford
(5) For example: http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=17178&page=0
(6) As explained so well by Albert Lindemann, 1997, ‘Esau’s Tears: Modern Antisemitism and the Rise of the Jews’, 2nd Edition, Cambridge University Press: New York