This is a guest post by Margie in Tel Aviv
Part of the Guardian World View (GWV) is that it is permissible to accuse the Israelis of anything that happens to pop into one’s head without examining it for truth or actuality. We had an example of that when Michael White of the Guardian made, in passing in an interview on the BBC, a statement without foundation about people murdering each other a great deal in Israel.
Here is an example of how this sort of behaviour has a ripple effect. This is a comment found in the thread following Yoav Shamir’s defence of his documentary, Defamation.
25 Jan 2010, 3:29PM
Zamalek
As usual the Palestinian right to drive along route 443 trumps Israeli rights to drive along the road without being blown up or shot at.
So Israeli rights to use a highway, trumps Palestinian rights to travel in their own land! Not even apartheid South Africa denied blacks the right to travel along its highways! The Ulster govt never denied Catholics the right to use roads.
The not to be shot at requires the law enforcement authorities to take action to prosecute offenders, not blanket bans based on race or religion. this provides the evidence that Israel IS a racist state.
Zionists believe they are above the law. Robert Maxwell stole millions from UK pension funds, and donated the money to Israel. There has been no expression of regret or apology from Israel, nor one penny returned!
Israeli intelligence organizations carry out assinations anywhere they chose. Not even apologising when the kill an innocent Italian waiter, by mistake. These kind of acts create ill feelings among non-jews, and are an embarrasment to the diaspora.The bottom line is that the Zionists were allowed to enter a country where they had no business, and drive out the legitimate population by terror, with the connivance of a foreign occupier. Probably a much higher percent of Palestinians are genetic descendants of the original Hebrew nation, than are the settles from Europe and the USA etc. Zionism is a mirror image of nazism.
The problem is as with Hitlers gang they cannot see the other as an equal human being, only as an “untermensch” without rights.
This is a free association posting of a person I had never noticed before, answering Zamalek’s description of the fact that despite the danger involved, the Palestinians have once again been allowed to travel on route 433 by the Israeli High Court on the basis of legality. Oldonmk2, typically of the kind of person we are discussing, does not bother to examine the facts of the case or to use references but assumes blithely that it is because people are not Jews they had been barred from using the highway. He seems to think that the original provision barred people according to ‘race or religion’ without taking into account that more than twenty percent of Israelis are of a minority race or religion and yet are not barred from travelling on route 433 on those grounds.
Those barred were Palestinians – people of a different nationality, to prevent terrorist acts such as the one attempted by those who planted an inexpertly improvised explosive device (IED) on the side of route 443 set to explode at peak hour, with a little explanatory note attached explaining its manufacture by Al Aksa Martyrs Brigades, the Alla Abu Sharifa Unit.
Reflexively without thought or proof, oldonmk2 compares Israel to South Africa and finds Israel lacking.
Robert Maxwell, the British millionaire, “had used hundreds of millions of pounds from his companies’ pension funds to shore up the shares of the Mirror Group, to save his companies from bankruptcy. Eventually, the pension funds were replenished with monies from investment banks Shearson Lehman and Goldman Sachs, as well as the British government.” However the accusation by oldonmk2 presumably on the basis of the fact that Maxwell was a Jew is that the money from the pension funds was given to Israel. Proof? There is no proof. Who needs proof when we are dealing with Israel?
Our intrepid liar talks of Israel’s intelligence organisations killing an innocent Italian waiter, by mistake. The waiter in question was an Algerian-born Moroccan citizen in fact. Far from not apologising, in 1996, the Israeli government paid compensation equal to US$283,000 split between Bouchiki’s wife and daughter, and a separate settlement of US$118,000 to a son from a previous marriage.
His imagination and perhaps his education by the media is shown most clearly by his description of how Israel was created. Apparently this person has never heard of the UN or that they voted to grant Israel a state in the Palestinian Mandate territory. He says that Jews, who have lived continuously in Israel for millennia had ‘no business’ there, that they drove out the ‘legitimate population’ by terror, with the connivance of a foreign occupier – and here he has lost me completely. All his other lies and inventions have some grounding in the popular accounts, the media or even the hate sites, but who or what is this ‘foreign occupier’?
He has obviously half-read half-understood the results of some genetic studies and on that basis feels himself qualified to comment on the genetic heritage of Jews and Palestinians and to draw conclusions.
His statement that ‘Zionism is a mirror image of nazism’ is the antisemites’ creed.
This kind of comment, attributing all sorts of crimes to Israel without investigation and without examination is not limited to commenters on CiF. The media are rife with this kind of unexamined, unfair, unbalanced assumption.
Let me leave you with an example. Veteran political reporter Christine Amanpour finds it natural to say that Israel practises waterboarding without a smidgeon of proof. If she does it, why shouldn’t others?
There is something very telling about those posters that on a thread that has absolutely nothing to do with the Israel/Palestine conflict bring up the subject matter of Israel.
Papalagi
22 Jan 2010, 3:45PM
Indeed, Ms Clinton. Internet can spread a lot of useful information and created a forum for exchange of ideas. I would recommend you regularly reading of CIF.
“information networks are helping people discover new facts and making governments more accountable. “
Unfortunately governments answer to that with more propaganda efforts or with simple indifference as in the case of the Palestinians and of the last war against Gaza.
raymonddelauney
22 Jan 2010, 7:20PM
Papalagi
Unfortunately governments answer to that with more propaganda efforts or with simple indifference as in the case of the Palestinians and of the last war against Gaza.
Had China launched a similar Cast Lead “operation” against the beleagured Tibetans Mrs Clinton would be on her soapbox at the UN.
As it’s just a few sandal wearing Arabs who trouble the Israelis. Well …
theyislying
22 Jan 2010, 10:22PM
pity clinton doesnt feel the need to provide humanitarian aid for gazans, maybe their freedom doesnt count?
This is a guest post by Oliver Worth
It takes more than one reading of Antony Lerman’s recent CiF Piece, ‘Refusing to be defined by anti-semitism’ to put your finger on exactly what leaves such a sour taste in the mouth.
Lerman’s proactive attempts to discredit every major organization fighting to reduce anti semitism? His gleefully ignorant claims that a small nation’s only synagogue being burned down twice within the space of a week is unrelated to anti-semitism? His surreal claims that the fact that the crimes may have seen the involvement of non-Greek nationals renders the Greek authorities non-responsible for protecting Jewish inhabitants? Even the fact that the writer has the gall to accuse his contemporaries of using anti-semitism as a political tool whilst ruthlessly employing just this tactic? Try all the above.
Lerman’s supposed premise of the article is that Jews should not be ‘defined by anti-semitism’, no doubt a noble and true aspiration, yet he devotes no space in his article to explain how we should pro-actively define ourselves as Jews, preferring instead to needlessly slam those groups fighting to end anti-semitism and allow Jew’s to do just that – define themselves.
What Lerman does do is heap mountains of praise on the local Greek authorities and points out the local paper “carried a full page on the attacks”. Perhaps most disturbing about Lerman’s close minded view of anti-semitism is his view that Greece, a Western nation and member of the European Union, deserves such praise for carrying out it’s absolute obligation, to protect its minority citizens – and even then only once the synagogue has been burned for the second time.
But without doubt, Lerman’s most outrageous claim is his steadfast denial that the attacks were “intended to intimidate and terrorize Greece’s Jewish community”. And how does Lerman justify his claim? By pointing out that some of the “principle culprits were not locals”, like this somehow renders the fact the choice of attack was the only synagogue in Crete, incidental.
Just why Antony Lerman is so hellbent on burying his head in the sand and denying anti-semitism when it’s there for the world to see is anyone’s guess. But something is for sure. Lerman is doing absolutely nothing to help Jews ‘define themselves’ by purposefully hampering the work of those organizations whose raison d’être is to stamp out anti-semitism. And what’s more, there’s more than a smattering of irony in his claim that his colleagues use anti-semitism as part of a “self-serving political agenda”. Perhaps what Lerman really requires is a look in the mirror.
Tell me if this comment from the Avi Shlaim thread sounds familiar?
Here’s a comment from the recent Avi Shlaim thread from another gentle sandal wearing Guardian reader.
I do hope that someone in the Guardian had the good sense to report this to the police.
Here’s a good example from the recent Ben White thread of how anti-Israel bias plays into the moderation of “Comment is Free” threads:
As can be seen from the first comment, the poster is advocating the one-state solution, a position that denies the Jewish nation its right to self determination and which is repugnant and deeply offensive, not to mention antisemitic, to those that would have to live with its consequences. Contrast this with illimite’s deleted comment which supports a different kind of one-state solution.
Now if the moderators saw fit to delete illimite’s comment, why was his/her comment deleted but dizzylizzy’s not?
On Sunday, January 22nd 1995, my former husband set off early in the morning to drive to Tel Aviv for work together with a neighbour who had asked for a lift as he was starting a month’s reserve duty and needed to get to his base as early as possible. A couple of hours later their route brought them to the Beit Lid junction, where their journey came to a dramatic halt. They had arrived just seconds after a double suicide bombing which killed 21 Israelis and wounded some 69 others. Our neighbour happens to be an army medic and my former husband a Magen David Adom ambulance volunteer, so they lost no time and set to work treating the injured as best they could until the emergency services arrived with proper equipment. A few weeks later, one of the soldiers they had saved from bleeding to death got in touch, together with his parents, to say thank you. There’s a saying in Hebrew that ‘anyone who saves a life saves a whole world’, and everyone who has ever had the privilege of being able to save a life will know just how true that saying is.
On Friday, January 22nd 2010, Seth Freedman took a cheap and very nasty pot shot at Israel’s rescue mission to Haiti in yet another CiF article written in his own Bri-nylon journalistic style. Freedman concluded “It is a damning indictment of Israel that it is prepared only to come to the aid of those who fit certain political critieria, rather than that of every victim crying out for intervention.” Actually, it is a damning indictment of the writer of that sentence that because of his own political criteria he chooses not only to ignore, but to deliberately conceal the many ongoing Israeli projects which have supplied Palestinians with aid, even in the midst of war, both official and unofficial, benefiting people and even animals. Were Freedman’s aims purely humanitarian, he would surely have something to say about the PA’s cynical denial of vital medical care to some of its population. Sadly, Freedman apparently sees no moral quandary in employing his selective viewpoint as a means to push his warped political agenda and solicit praise and agreement from his below the line clones.
Check out this pair of deleted comments from yesterday’s Mark Gardner thread.
Before…
After…
And here’s the explanation for the deletion of the 1.16pm post (and presumably also the 1.07pm post) from the thought police.
Here’s a comment from yesterday’s Adam Levick thread.
Though Shimon Peres is not mentioned in the comment above, it is clear from the comment below that the person that Matzpen thinks should be “put against the wall” is Shimon Peres.
Oh and Matzpen’s comment is undeleted despite the inexplicable deletion of numerous pro-Israel comments from the same thread.
Update
After over 27 hours, the comment was deleted, no doubt because of this posting.
So much for being able to remove these type of comments in 7 minutes. Unsurprisingly, Matzpen has not been banned for making such comment for as we learnt in the Bapthorpe affair, you still remain within the circle of trust for a number of weeks even if you advocate the murder of Jews.
This is a guest post by Joy Wolfe
So Ben White knows better than all the financial experts and Palestinian spokespeople when he claims that stories of the remarkable growth in the Palestinian Authority economy in the West Bank are false.
Yes, the same Ben White who is currently congratulating himself on being instrumental in a facebook campaign which resulted in the Cambridge University withdrawing an invitation to Benny Morris, calling him a racist. Whatever happened to the hallowed concept of freedom of speech that is used to ensure terrorists, Hamas supporters and pro-Palestinian speakers who call for the destruction of Israel and “death to the Jews” to be welcome on campuses such as Birmingham and Manchester?
But back to the real subject in hand.
It is a well documented fact that the growth of the economy in the West Bank is nothing short of remarkable and said to be among the fastest growing economies in the world at the moment
A British Trade Union fact finding group which recently returned from visiting the West Bank reported how surprised they were by the conditions there and the economic growth and potential.
What the Palestinians really need is for people like Ben White and others who devote their energies to demonising Israel, calling for boycotts which potentially damage the Palestinian economy, to put their efforts into improving the situation of the Palestinian people, and also to encourage them to get back to the peace negotiating table.
Does Ben White seriously think his negative actions do anything to really help the Palestinians? If he does he is seriously deluding himself, and badly letting them down.
Does he think that by destroying the infrastructure and the greenhouses that were providing some economic stability in Gaza, the authorities there did anything that improved the prospects and quality of life of the people.
Does he think that a suicide bomber who had been treated in an Israeli hospital trying to get through a checkpoint to go back to that hospital to kill and maim is conducive to the removal of checkpoints and Israel’s much needed security measures?
Does he condone and agree with an outrageous inciting sermon in a mosque last Friday that was broadcast on PA TV which promoted the view that “Jews are the enemies of Allah and humanity” and “The Prophet says: ‘Kill the Jews’.
What Ben White and his cronies in the Palestine Solidarity Campaign should be doing is encouraging the Palestinians to stop inciting hate and teaching their children to kill Jews, but to engage in positive cooperation at grass roots level that can start, albeit very slowly, to sow the seeds of trust and interaction that could eventually lead towards peace.
Instead last year he wrote an article that runs counter to what the vast majority of people today believe that a two state solution is the only way to achieve peace, he writes a book calling Israel an apartheid state when no country in the world is less deserving of that label, and he tours the UK spreading his negative anti-Israel message.
What would be of greater benefit would be for him to heed the words of highly respected Palestinian journalist Khaled Abu Toameh when he spoke at a meeting in the House of commons last month. Asked what could be done to help the Palestinians he said,
“Instead of telling me how bad Israel is, why don’t you go over there and try to bring Jews and Arabs closer together? It’s much more important. Instead of organising Israel Apartheid Week, why don’t you come and teach Palestinian children about democracy and freedom?”
I commend those words to Ben White and suggest he looks at what he can do to promote better understanding instead of continuing to incite misunderstanding and hatred.
Apparently, a certain someone is a bit bent out of shape as a result of revelations of how threats were made against Professor Geoffrey Alderman for writing for CiF Watch, as was reported by Professor Alderman in this week’s Jewish Chronicle.
Ahh. The hallowed right of reply. Just like the one that you gave to Robin Shepherd when Antony Lerman misrepresented Shepherd’s excellent book, A State Beyond the Pale?
Matt, your chutzpah knows no bounds and you should be utterly ashamed of yourself.
All I can say is that the chickens are coming home to roost and that if the Guardian was run like any normal organization, you, Georgina and Brian would all have been slung out onto the streets a long time ago.
Here’s an example of a pro-Israel comment deleted from the recent Aluf Benn thread:
Before….
After…
And for the benefit of the completely ignorant and biased Guardian moderator (BellaM???) that deleted this comment, Jubilation1 was referring to the infamous Ramallah lynching, an event in the Israel/Palestine conflict that will forever be seared into the minds of those of us that appreciate the true nature of the spine-chilling barbarity of what we are up against.
This is a cross post of an article by Julie Burchill which was originally published in the Jewish Chronicle on January 21, 2010
One of my dearest Jewish compadres, the young writer Emma Forrest, once said to me — after observing me simultaneously talking to my cat, reading Heat magazine, drinking a blue cocktail at noon and watching the live streaming of Big Brother — “Wow, you really are a goy, aren’t you?”
I thought of this recently when I cancelled my plan to attend the University and College Union seminar in Brighton on antisemitism because said cat was under the weather. But, all in all, I think it was for the best. As my husband put it: “If the antisemites attack the Jews quietly, you’ll defend them loudly, and you will look like the nutter!”
He wasn’t wrong. The world of left-wing antisemitism is indeed such a parallel universe of pretzel logic and inverted values that even a mild-mannered, scrupulously fair, middle-of-the-roader like myself can be tarred with the Zionist-thug brush just for venturing the opinion — in a teeny-tiny, pleasantly rural-type voice — that Israel is not the worst country in the entire world when it comes to human rights.
My mind roamed back to last summer when, after a meeting of the excellent Trades Union Friends of Israel, an Israeli comrade came up and spoke to me in Hebrew because my prolonged snarling at antisemitic hecklers was of such a sustained level that she couldn’t believe that any well-behaved British Jew — let alone a gentile!— would react in such a way.
Hawkeye
Omar
WellofSense
Medusa
The Alchemist
Louise
Tosca
Maimon
Telling the Truth
Israelinurse
Inconvenienced
February 9, 2010 in Uncategorized | Tags: Antisemitism, Brian Whitaker, Comment is Free | by Hawkeye | Leave a comment
Check this comment out from Brian Whitaker from a thread a few days ago:
Is Whitaker seriously suggesting that Peres is more important than the Queen? What sneering condescension.
Has it escaped Whitaker that Israeli diplomats face far graver threats from a worldwide network of terror groups than that of the Queen? Only last month an attempt was made on the life of four Israeli diplomats in Jordan. And in Britain just two nights ago we had a chilling reminder of how serious the atmosphere of hate is in anti-Israel circles when a member of the audience at the Oxford Union called for “Death to the Jews” in Arabic during a talk by Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister, Danny Ayalon.
As a supposed expert in the Middle East, you’d think that Whitaker would display a little more sensitivity to the threats faced by Israeli diplomats especially when only a few days ago in Whitaker’s own backyard there was a poster that advocated the execution of none other than Shimon Peres.
Then again when it comes to open calls for violence against the Jews its business as usual.