Dale Farm: Dirty Gypsies Are Jewish Settlers Occupying Luton
DALE Farm: Anorak’s at-a-glance look at the non-travelling Essex travellers in the news:
The Sun: “Dale Farm gypsies start up ‘illegal’ new site”
A neighbour said: “I used to look out of my bedroom window and see a beautiful park. Now it’s caravans. I’m sure the gypsies won’t cause trouble. Let’s hope it stays that way.”
No trouble, then. But good of the Sun to feature a quote that there might be.
Caravans from Dale Farm travellers’ site have upped sticks and set up an illegal camp 55 miles away leading residents to fear that many more are on their way.
Fear?
Around 20 families have moved from Essex to Stockwood Park, close to Luton in Bedfordshire, after gaining access to a 100 hectare piece of land. Those who stayed at Dale Farm, where travellers have been in a 10-year battle with Basildon Council, were given a last-minute reprieve from the High Court after a judge ruled that the proposed measures ‘may go further’ than the terms of the enforcement notices.
One of the travellers at the site said there were another 40 caravans on their way as people in Luton feared there would be a similar situation to that in Essex.
How.The travellers do not own Stockwood Park. In Dale Farm, they own the site but have been refused permission to build on all of it. They are not squatters.
The Mail describes Dale Farm as “strewn with mobile homes“.
The Sun has news that involves Tony Blair:
THE leader of the anti-eviction protest at Dale Farm went to school with the children of former Prime Minister Tony Blair, The Sun can reveal. Jake Fulton, 22, is the son of two respected academics — and studied at Cambridge University.
While you marvel at how a bright lad can support the travellers, the Bucks Free Press looks at local camps sites:
COMPLAINTS from angry residents have poured in to a council after plans for a travellers’ site in Chalfont St Giles were submitted.
Villagers fear the site, next to Misbourne Farm, could become ‘another Dale Farm’ – the illegal Essex travellers’ site currently at the centre of an eviction battle with authorities. Many residents have objected to the development on the grounds it is in Green Belt land, because of the impact on school places and they raised fears slow moving vehicles exiting the site would be dangerous for fast cars on the A413.
Residents Pauline and Paul Schurer said in a letter to Chiltern District Council: “What is going to prevent the site increasing to such an extent, possibly over a short period of time, to replicate that at Dale Farm in Essex? We have seen the recent adverse and costly eviction involved and we would want to avoid such a situation which no doubt would also be the feeling of the local council.” Another villager, John Denyer, said: “The site will end up an eyesore, with rubbish left in adjacent properties and also ending up in the river. I believe this site, if allowed, would have a major detrimental impact on the local environment and would be a disaster for the River Misbourne and the wildlife therein.”
Those dirty gypsies, eh. Tsk!
And Lisa Mayhew said: “A travellers’ site does not have to adhere to regulations or restrictions that are applied to businesses. The authorities would be virtually powerless to apply any restraint to any anti-social activities that may arise.”
Lou, voice of the Express & Star, puts things in perspective:
National treasure Sir Cliff Richard was forced to demolish a conservatory that he had erected at his home because it breached planning laws – and we know the Dale Farm residents have been driving a cart and horses through that legislation so now have to pay the price.
Menwhile over at Dale Farm, the PA reports:
Travellers at the UK’s largest illegal site are due to start clearing barricades blocking access to the site, in line with a court order.
Residents of Dale Farm in Essex won an 11th-hour court injunction on Monday preventing the clearance of 51 unauthorised plots until Friday. The court injunction required Basildon Council to give a plot-by-plot breakdown of how they plan to clear Dale Farm in Essex. But the authority wanted residents to stop blocking access to the site and to discourage non-travellers from protesting.The travellers have said they and their supporters will work together to move barricades blocking access to the site, allowing families to bring their trailers back on to their plots, and to allow access for emergency vehicles, but they said they would oppose any attempt at entry by bailiffs.
Yep, travellers comply with the law.
The Belfast’ Telegraph’s Eamonn McCann sees racism:
Resident Michelle McCarthy said: “With this court ruling we’re finally hopeful that common sense will prevail, so we’re moving our caravans back into Dale Farm. We’re reasonable people and we urge the council to find a way that we can continue to live in peace as community. We’re all working together to open the gates and we’re so grateful to our friends and supporters for helping us.”
It was while speaking about civil rights in a Leitrim pub that I first became aware of the significance of aberrant ashtrays. I had seen the ashtrays on the ledges around the walls as I’d addressed a decent-sized audience about the Sixties anti-war movement, Martin Luther King, Jan Palach, the Bogside, etc. Afterwards, I asked the organisers: how come the ashtrays?
“It’s for when the knackers are in town.” My perplexed response prompted fuller explanation.
Since the smoking ban, customers had become used to stepping outside for a cigarette. But this made for problems when knackers were around. They’d “nip in before you’d know it” and, once in, “threaten you with the law if you didn’t serve them.” So, any time word spread that the knackers were coming, doors were barred and smoking permitted inside.
None of the half-dozen included in the company seemed at all fazed at the tenor and drift of the conversation. Racism against Travellers is so deep-rooted it isn’t felt as racism at all. For the most part, it isn’t felt any more than we feel ourselves breathing.
Kevin Macguire attempts to compare the Dale Farm homes to goings on in Israel:
Settlements across the occupied West Bank are permanent towns – not Dale Farm encampments.
Dale Farm’s homes are not permanent? Why not?
Can Basildon Council be compared to the Arabs who triggered the Six Day War with such words as:
“We aim at the destruction of the State of Israel. The immediate aim: perfection of Arab military might. The national aim: the eradication of Israel.“ – Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser, 1965
“Our forces are now entirely ready not only to repulse the aggression, but to initiate the act of liberation itself, and to explode the Zionist presence in the Arab homeland. The Syrian army, with its finger on the trigger, is united….I, as a military man, believe that the time has come to begin a battle of annihilation.” – Syria’s Defense Minister Hafez Assad (later to be Syria’s President)
Arabs were not expelled from the West Bank or Gaza, both seized in that war.
Also, the lands are not Occupied. Theya re duisputed territories. It all depends on your view.
Some parts of the West Bank would have been part of Israel as defined by the UN Partition Plan, but were overrun in 1948. There were Jewish communities such as Kfar Etzion, not to mention the Old City of Jerusalem, that fell in the fighting of 1948. Jews were either killed or expelled from these areas conquered by invading Arab armies. The League of Nations Mandate explicitly recognized the right of Jewish settlement in all territory allocated to the Jewish national home in the context of the British Mandate. The British Mandate covered the area that is currently Israel, all the disputed territories (and even what is now Jordan). These rights under the British Mandate were preserved by the United Nations, under Article 49 of the UN Charter.
Posted: 21st, September 2011 | In: Key Posts, Reviews Comment | TrackBack | Permalink
