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Seth Freedman’s piece today on the Aftonbladet libel is typical.
1. He attempts to say the article is not antisemitic because it attacks the IDF and not Judaism. Conveniently he forgets the inextricable links between Israel and Judaism, the same links which give him the right to Israeli citizenship under the Law of Return. Just because he no longer believes in the Jewish state does not mean that it is not widely accepted outside his own bubble of hate.
2. He fails of course to mention that Sweden is able to act when it is Muslims who become offended: what happened to free speech here?
3. He plays the Livingstone Formulation card. This suggests that the Israeli government – by protesting about the Aftonbladet libel – is trying to “stifle criticism” when it is doing nothing of the sort.
4. His attempt at righteousness is pathetic: “Israel has to start dealing with criticism in a measured and mature fashion”. Is this the same Freedman who on ‘Comment is Free’ apparently threatened to bottle another blogger with an empty glass and stated “ i’ve always said i don’t care what people say to me on the threads, as long as they can take what they dish out”?
Freedman’s sanctimoniousness towards a country which took him on – only to then be kicked in the teeth by him – is unbelievable.
If he dislikes Israel so much he can always go back to London and resume his glowing City career.
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Welcome to CiF Watch
August 24, 2009 in Uncategorized | Tags: anti-Zionism, Antisemitism, Antizionism, Comment is Free, Guardian, Guardian.co.uk, Islamophobia, Israel, Jew, Jewish people, Jonathan Hoffman, Matt Seaton, pro-Israel | by Hawkeye | 51 comments
Last year Matt Seaton, the then new editor of ‘Comment is Free’ stated “I can’t promise you that antisemitic comments and other instances of hate speech will disappear from the site overnight, but (from early June) I think you will notice a progressive improvement.”
In an article published a few months later highlighting hate speech in the mainstream media, Matt Seaton was quoted as saying “[w]e do not tolerate any hate speech, and our moderators will delete comments which are antisemitic or Islamophobic or otherwise racist , as soon as they are reported to us or when we see them ourselves. That happens in minutes rather than hours or days.”
While for a short period last year there was some improvement, antisemitism is again prevalent and thriving both “above the line” in the articles and “below the line” in the comment threads. We therefore decided to establish CiF Watch, which is dedicated to monitoring and exposing antisemitism on the Guardian newspaper’s ‘Comment is Free’ blog.
On the following pages of CiF Watch we have assembled a wealth of information that builds upon the report submitted to the UK Parliamentary Committee Against Antisemitism, on antisemitism, at ‘Comment is Free’ compiled by Jonathan Hoffman.
In the About Us section you can learn more about how antisemitism manifests itself on ‘Comment is Free’ and what our mission is. In How We Define Antisemitism you can learn about how we rely upon the EUMC Working Definition of Antisemitism as our metric for tracking antisemitism on ‘Comment is Free’.
In CiF Contributors, you can click on the name of your favorite ‘Comment is Free’ contributor and view examples of incendiary and antisemitic commentary “in their own words”. Similarly, in CiF Commenters, we have created a repository of comments posted by various commenters on ‘Comment is Free’ which, either individually or in the aggregate, are antisemitic, and most of which to this day have not been deleted!
In CiF in the Media, you can read what others are saying about ‘Comment is Free’ and in Resources we created a list of helpful links so that you can learn more about the issues. Finally, after all of this rather than muttering under your breath “those Guardian 8@57@rds” and moving on, please visit How to Get Involved and make your voice heard!!
Here at CiF Watch, we intend to regularly post articles exposing the bigoted and one-sided nature of the Guardian’s obsessive focus on Israel and, by extension, the Jewish people. We invite you to comment on our threads and send us copies of antisemitic articles and comments that you come across on ‘Comment is Free’ as well as “pro-Israel” comments that are deleted by the moderators. Most importantly, please tell your friends to visit CiF Watch.
In the meantime, feel free to check out the different areas of the blog and send us your feedback.
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