If only those Israeli leaders would realize that what they do “impacts” Mick Davis’s social life in London - perhaps they wouldn’t insist so rudely that Israel should continue to exist.
That’s the welcome message that Mr. Mick Davis gave to his fellow South African Jew Peter Beinert at a London public meeting Saturday night. http://tinyurl.com/23dl9dw Davis, who chairs Britain’s UJIA (which stands for United Jewish Israel Appeal, but you could strain your eyes trying to find the full title on their website - so please don’t spread it around) and is a member of the Jewish Leadership Council, had a brave message for the amateurs and idiots running Israel these days:
“I think the government of Israel …have to recognise that their actions directly impact on me as a Jew living in London. When they do good things it is good for me, when they do bad things, it’s bad for me. And the impact on me is as significant as it is on Jews living in Israel… I want them to recognise that.” http://tinyurl.com/2appr9r.
No one doubts that if Mick Davis were running things in Jerusalem rather than serving as CEO of the $65 billion mining company Xstrata, everything would be sorted out. But he can’t. So let’s not have Israeli voters whose decisions determine the llife and death of their children and the continued existence of their country doing things that might cause Mr. Davis discomfort in the face of a BBC interviewer or a Guardian reporter.
After all, the Jewish Leadership Council is devoted to helping other Jews “articulate a confident and compelling narrative of Mainstream Jewish life in the United Kingdom.” But when the actuality of Jewish life - and the actuality of the threats to Jewish life - interferes with a narrative that is “confident” (trans. we won’t bother you about anything) and “compelling” (nothing we Jews do will bring a blush to the cheek of a Guardian reader), it’s clear what Mr. Davis would have diaspora Jews choose: the narrative, not the life of the Jews in Israel or the right of people to have a nation if they have the misfortune to be Jews.
As Mick Davis would no doubt put it, “Please, Israel - don’t impact Mick Davis negatively any more!”

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