By blowing up their convoy in Khan Sheikhun.

Not to cut the Syrian regime any slack, but the "Allah Ackbar!" shouting types in the crowd don't exactly inspire a lot of empathy.

Why not? Well, the rebels haven't nearly won this fight yet, but the extermination and eviction of Syria's Christians by jihadists has already begun in earnest.

There are no good guys left in this fight.

Jonathon Narvey is the Editor of The Propagandist

Prolific blogger Richard Millett was bullied by racist thugs at a meeting at the School of Oriental and African Studies of the University of London. Anti-Israel "activists" taunted and intimidated him, trying to take away his camera and other items, for the "crime" of recording a presentation that others present were also recording.

You’re a typical Israeli, you know that,” one idiot man-child grumbled at him. Whatever the hell that means.

The defining observation of this disgusting incident was this: "At no stage did anyone in the 40 strong audience come to my defence in any way."

Jonathon Narvey is the Editor of The Propagandist

"What's truly horrifying reading through the diaries of those who lived through the events is the almost total absence of horror," says Lord Sacks, Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth, in a recorded message for Holocaust Remembrance Day.

Gunter Grass, the elderly German novelist and former Waffen-SS inductee, raised eyebrows recently with a controversial poem criticising Israeli foreign policy. The Propagandist’s crack team of investigative (literary) journalists began delving into the affair immediately, and have now submitted their conclusions. Unfortunately, they are obvious.

First, they say, Germany and Israel seem to have some kinda crazy history/ background/ story thing goin’ on. Secondly, for chrissakes, who but a German writes a poem about foreign policy? Thirdly, the following excerpts from other Grass poetry on Judeo-MidEast themes seem to reveal a certain... ambivalence on the subject.

I think that I shall never see
A poem as homely as Tel Aviv.
Poems are made by fools like me,
Poetry that analyses foreign policy
Which in German is called Poesituttheingotfermechten...

… Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falconer cannot hear Golda Meir.

The Air Flytilla has arrived in Israel. Sort of.

Instead of protesting the bloody tyranny in Syria, ethnic cleansing of Copts in Egypt or the torture of religious minorities and dissenters in Iran, a wave of "activists" tried to descend on the Middle East's only Western democracy that respects human rights -- and were mostly turned back by airlines that had no interest in paying for their tickets home when they would be rejected by immigration officials.

PALESTINIAN ACTIVIST. So, where are the rest of you?

FLYTILLA REP. What do you mean? Haven't more of our comrades arrived already?

PALESTINIAN ACTIVIST. Noooooo... And there aren't really enough of you guys to have a decent march.

FLYTILLA REP. I see.

PALESTINIAN ACTIVIST. So.

FLYTILLA REP. Have you got Scrabble?

As thousands are being murdered in Syria by the Assad regime and basic human rights are trampled upon by the fundamentalists in Iran, one may legitimately ask why the GMJ marchers are not marching on Damascus or Tehran. For that matter, you might ask why some of the most notorious terrorists and human rights abusers in the world are salivating at the prospect of jihad-happy "martyrs" throwing themselves at Israels borders in human wave attacks -- knowing full well that these mobs will likely be met with force.

If you think Israel would be out of line using violence against illegal intruders, try a little thought experiment: 2 million Pakistani "civilians" cruising towards the border with India; 10 million Mexicans simultaneously running towards Texas; 20 million Chinese going on a quick jog over the border with Russia; choose any two countries and imagine a massive migration happening in a single afternoon -- it doesn't matter whether the countries are friendly or not. In minutes, they wouldn't be... and Israelis are under no illusions already about just how friendly the people are just across their borders.

Nicky Larkin is an Irish artist and filmmaker whose documentary on Israel and Palestine Forty Shades of Grey is a shaping up as splendidly refreshing outbreak of insolence in the tradition of Brendan Behan ("the first duty of an author is to let down his country") and Oscar Wilde ("a gentleman never offends unintentionally"). Writing in Sunday's Irish Independent:

An Irish artist is supposed to sign boycotts, wear a PLO scarf, and remonstrate loudly about The Occupation. But it's not just artists who are supposed to hate Israel. Being anti-Israel is supposed to be part of our Irish identity, the same way we are supposed to resent the English. But hating Israel is not part of my personal national identity. Neither is hating the English. I hold an Irish passport, but nowhere upon this document does it say I am a republican, or a Palestinian. . .

Here's the paradox. The better and braver Irish writers and artists have long resisted the reduction of Ireland's necessarily and properly confounding Forty Shades of Green into the boozy brogue and blarney caricature that stage-Irish and low-brow American culture likes so much. But Ireland's own literary and artistic establishment has happily collaborated in a rendering of the dystopian complexities of the Israeli-Palestinian tragedy into a caricature no less adolescent than the most maudlin shamroguery of a Wolfe Tones rebel song.

NETANYAHU. The Iranians want to kill us.

OBAMA. I know.

NETANYAHU. Can you help us?

OBAMA. We've got your back, bro. You can count on us.

NETANYAHU. Really? That's great.

OBAMA. Totally. All options are on the table. Diplomacy, economic sanctions, you got it.

NETANYAHU. But, uh, if we have to go in to take out their nuclear program...

OBAMA. Dude, you worry too much. Whatever you need, diplomatic pressure, economic sanctions, strongly worded letters to the United Nations, preventing Iranians from exporting their oil, talking with out allies, freezing of Iranian assets, diplomatic pressure, economic sanctions, strongly worded...

NETANYAHU. Yes, but...

OBAMA. Bibi, relax. You know what the state motto of Hawaii is? "The Life of the Land is Perpetuated in Righteousness." Listen to the dulcet sound of the ukulele. Feel that island breeze. "The Life of the Land..."

NETANYAHU. This conversation has been very illuminating, Mr. President. Thank you.

Jonathon Narvey is the Editor of The Propagandist

Last week was Israel Apartheid Week at the University of British Columbia. Israeli Apartheid Week has as its sole aim the de-legitimization of the State of Israel through the assertion that the state of Israel is an inherently racist, oppressive, hateful, illegal, criminal and genocidal entity, merely by virtue of its being the national homeland of the Jewish People. This was affirmed, for instance, by Omar Chaban, former President of the SPHR at the University of British Columbia, on Friday, when he stated to the audience of a BDS speech by Nada Elia that "it is impossible for Israel to be a Jewish State without being an apartheid state; for Israel to be a Jewish State, it must be an apartheid state"; the audience, applauding Omar's comment loudly, apparently agreed.

In light of that premise, "ending Apartheid" in Israel thus means, for members and supporters of SPHR, the campus group that organizes Israel Apartheid Week, destroying the Jewish National Homeland, as confirmed by the students at the Apartheid booth in the Student Union Building, who regularly voiced their support for a "one-state solution" coupled with the "right of return", two policies, which together amount to demographic suicide for Israel. That these hateful policies are designed by rabidly anti-Jewish, anti-Zionist groups to destroy "the Zionist cancer" is well-documented and does not need recounting; that they should be allowed free reign on campuses is another question.

Those of us who are committed to finding a peaceful solution to the thorny issue of the Arab-Israeli conflict - one which will allow both Palestinians and Israelis to live and prosper without the eternal threat of violence – can be sure of one thing. The extremism, hatred and incitement employed by terror organisations and their fellow travellers in the Red-Green alliance are constantly at work to try to douse that tiny flame of hope.

As was the case in previous years, new attempts to undermine Israel's legitimacy by engineering highly publicised stunts with potentially violent outcomes are planned for the coming months. The first of these is scheduled for March 30^th 2012 and is named the 'Global March to Jerusalem'.

The concept is to have masses of people (the organisers are hoping for a million) gathering on Israel's borders with Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Egypt and demanding to reach Jerusalem. Concurrently, demonstrations are planned in the Palestinian-administered territories and against Israel's diplomatic missions in cities around the world.