Since the launch of CiF Watch, one senses the growing frustration in the ranks of the moderators on the I/P threads as their anti-Jewish bias continues to be exposed by us.
Take for example, the Ben White thread that opened late afternoon yesterday. The first comment was an ominous off-topic warning from the moderator, a now regular appearance in I/P threads.
CifEditor
02 Oct 09, 4:36pm
PLEASE STAY ON TOPIC
Comments should relate to matters discussed in this article. Off-topic comments may be removed by the moderators.
Staff When discussion turned to settlements – spurned by Ben White’s oft-used and specious reference in his article to settlements in East Jerusalem and the West Bank as “colonisation”, the moderators lashed out with the following warning:
CifEditor
02 Oct 09, 5:17pm
OK, that’s enough about settlements. Please return to the main topic.
Perplexed by this, Keo2008 writes:
Keo2008
02 Oct 09, 5:21pm
Have I missed something here? I can find nothing inthe article suggesting what deal might be struck.
I’m not sure how we are expected to comment on a proposed compromise or deal if we dont know what it involves
Anotnyms then pipes in with this:
Antonyms
02 Oct 09, 5:43pm (about 12 hours ago)
can we please have an adult discussion WITHOUT nanny moderator deciding for us what is on topic?
really, this is a national newspaper blog. It is something I encourage young adults to read in order to educate and inform themselves with.
Not on this topic, not on this page, not on this blog and NOT WITH THIS DRACONIAN MODERATION.
Sounds like the the cifeditor isn’t a popular fellow on the threads with these off-topic warnings.
So in case you’re wondering what is considered “on topic” you need only look as far as Ben White’s recent piece about Salam Fayyad where cifeditor weighed in with this:
CifEditor
24 Sep 09, 10:12am
OFF-TOPIC WARNING
This is an article about Salam Fayyad and West Bank politics. Please confine your discussion to that. Further comments about Hamas may be deemed off-topic and deleted by the moderators.
Got it. Don’t mention Hamas which is code for don’t mention the Hamas Charter. And if you are in any doubt about what you can and can’t talk about on the threads then take a look here at the Guardian talk policy.
So where does that leave us. Well the growing frustration of the moderators as evinced by the increasing number of “warnings” (which are almost exclusively limited to I/P threads) and the contemptible outbursts of Brian Whitaker here, here and here serve to underscore the fact that something’s definitely amiss.
Perhaps if the Guardian ceased its endless obsession with the Jewish state, the Jews and Zionism things would change.
Somehow though, I don’t see that happening. Guardian management is just too steadfast in its arrogant, bigoted and self-righteous belief that Zionism is a racist ideology to realize the monster they have created.
Hawkeye
Omar2
WellofSense
Medusa
The Alchemist
Louise
Tosca
Maimon
Telling the Truth
Israelinurse
Adam Levick
Margie in Tel Aviv
Guest/Cross Post
Hadar Sela
19 comments
Comments feed for this article
October 3, 2009 at 3:00 am
Margie
If the mods know what they want the public to write they ought to be allowed to give mod recommendation points so that the claque that regularly applauds the articles has an indication of what they are supposed to deliver. Failing that, the mods could write the comments themselves. Then they could be happy
We of course are free to write the truth here as it appears to us and if the cifwatch-watchers have the guts to defy the mods they would join us here despite the fact that there are no sneaky abuse reports to get overly Jewish comments removed. We could then discuss the issues unhampered.
October 3, 2009 at 3:54 am
FibularSarcosis
It certainly does seem to be that CIWatch has CIF in a tizzy.
Hardly a change of emphasis of theirs to demonise the Zionist state in the osessive flow of articles nit picking and negative points in Israeli society and legislation),but they certainly seem more sensitive to some of the offshoots of that policy. (open and covert anti-semitism by many of their coveted and protected commenters)
However. The basic intent to demonise Israel is still there and will continue to be there as long as the present Guardian management continues to function.
It is ‘who they are.’
October 3, 2009 at 4:31 am
Ariadne
Hawkeye
All there was when I clicked on the link was a “Sorry” notice.
October 3, 2009 at 4:42 am
Ariadne
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/oct/02/fatah-hamas-palestinian-unity-deal
October 3, 2009 at 4:50 am
Ariadne
In the comments on the “diplomatic immunity” issue a warning was given against mentioning UNSCR 242. “Sabra and Shatila” appeared to be on topic.
Should we be looking for rationality?
October 3, 2009 at 6:20 am
sababa
Ariadne, rationality is strictly rationed, I’m afraid: Hamas are the worst enemies of Fayyad, and that’s just one more reason for Ben White to really really like Hamas. But probably, one couldn’t say any of this on Cif, since the mods put this warning:
“This is an article about Salam Fayyad and West Bank politics. Please confine your discussion to that. Further comments about Hamas may be deemed off-topic and deleted by the moderators.”
October 3, 2009 at 7:00 am
Yvonne
Yes, CiF does seem to have its collective knickers in a knot, doesn’t it?
Schadenfreude rules OK when I say, “Oh dear, what a shame!”
Of course it remains to be seen whether “on-topic” includes the sort of filth usually trotted out there against Israel (which is really meant to insult Jews) and we shall see. For myself I believe that if the mods are really trying to keep the threads on topic then certain people should never be allowed to post.
White seems to be possessed of a short-term memory deficit about Hamas’ treatment of Fatah after Cast Lead and how this ought to get in the way of any collaboration between them – because nowhere is this mentioned as a serious obstruction. It should be for normal people:
The throwing of their people off buildings or kneecapping them or putting out their eyes and otherwise torturing them, sometimes in front of their families, ought to give Fatah pause for thought about entering into any deal with Hamas, but perhaps Fatah, too, has a short-term memory deficit, or more worryingly they are willing to trust the totally untrustworthy in order to try to overthrow their common enemy?
Whatever their motives, I would imagine that anything which puts Israel in more danger would be acceptable to the nasty little White.
And to CiF
October 3, 2009 at 7:02 am
Yvonne
Ariadne askes, “Should we be looking for rationality?”
‘Fraid not, Ariadne. Anything obsessive which is driven by hatred and the authoritarian personalities which run CiF is absolutely NOT rational
October 3, 2009 at 8:30 am
Ariadne
Yvonne
All well put except that I would rewrite one clause: ” It WOULD be for normal people”.
I noticed that in the Afua Hirsch article a convention against torture is mentioned rather than the customary red herring.
Funny that Islamist real torture always fades out of sight and the 3D apparatus is pulled into place.
4D, in fact. Demonisation, delegitimisation, double standards and deceit.
October 3, 2009 at 8:32 am
Ariadne
sababa
What an opporunity we have to say it all here. Or at least a lot of it.
October 3, 2009 at 9:17 am
Yvonne
Ariadne, I see what you mean re lack of mention of Islamist torture (and presumably in that you would include in this mental and emotional torture too).
Not a dickey bird on CiF against the following, for example, to be found at
http://adelsoninstitute.com/FullArticleViewer.aspx?id=281&member=a
which has to constitute the mental torture of Shalit’s parents and illustrates perfectly the depths to which these barbarians are prepared to sink.
The article there by Yossi Klein Halevi includes the following:
“….Gilad Shalit: At a recent mass rally in Gaza, Hamas put on a play about Gilad Shalit, the kidnapped Israeli soldier. The character playing Shalit pleaded to be returned to his mommy and daddy, as members of the audience laughed. For Israelis, it was one of those formative moments of resolve, a reminder of the nature of the enemy Israel faces. …”
October 3, 2009 at 9:35 am
modernityblog
Just looking at that Ben White article at CiF [the link above needs fixing, seems to be missing off the last 'l'].
Isn’t it noticeable that seemingly no one in the Western media want to criticize Hamas for the kidnap and incarceration of Gilad Shalit, without access to the norms of the Geneva convention, etc?
October 3, 2009 at 11:34 am
sababa
Yeah, this play about Shalit was just disgusting, showing them for the absolute creeps they are. And that was not the only such incident: about a year or so ago, there were reports in the Israeli press about videoclips being sold in Gaza, to download on your phone, making fun of Shalit — I don’t remember what the price was, but there was an interview with one guy at a store who said he had sold thousands of those downloads — which was also a telling illustration of the grinding poverty plaguing the Gaza “concentration camp” inmates.
October 3, 2009 at 12:25 pm
Margie
Yvonne: White seems to be possessed of a short-term memory deficit about Hamas’ treatment of Fatah after Cast Lead and how this ought to get in the way of any collaboration between them
———-
Fatah is suffering from severe attacks of hypocrisy and it is worth reading Khaled Abu Toameh’s article on how they play both sides against the middle –
which is themselves in fact. Just as the whole world has forgotten the rockets and as Goldstone (about whom I have much to say but won’t) forgot that Israel sent scores of letters about the rockets to the UN so Fatah has chosen to forget how it egged Israel on to destroy Hamas completely.
October 3, 2009 at 1:32 pm
Yvonne
Margie, this is typical of Islamists, isn’t it? I remember reading an old Arab proverb:
“I against my brother; my brother and I against my cousin; my kin and I against the neighbors; the neighbors, kin, and I against everyone else.”
which accounts for the every changing “loyalties” (if one can define them as such) between them.
October 3, 2009 at 1:48 pm
Margie
Yvonne you may well be right about the atmosphere of suspicion that surrounds them. I think it is the lack of straightforwardness that makes it all so much harder to gain our goal of peace. Fatah’s hypocrisy and Hamas’s lies about Cast Lead are all of a piece for me. A society in which nobody can believe a word that anybody says will never be one in which justice or tranquillity can reign.
It costs me a lot to admit these facts but facts they are. I ask myself whether I am being a racist and the answer is that I am not, since there is no way in which Palestinians are a race. I certainly do not believe that this is a genetic trait. It is just that they have a culture in which being direct is not practised in situations in which it is not convenient to do so.
October 3, 2009 at 2:52 pm
Yvonne
Margie, Islam permits people to lie and dissemble although I don’t believe by any means that all Muslims do it or make a habit of it.
Islamists, however, do. There is no requirement to tell the truth to kufr and no injunction anywhere in the koran or hadiths against bearing false witness, because their prophet himself lied and dissembled regularly and these people believe that they should emulate their prophet.
When one is reared in an atmosphere of deceit it’s easy to become paranoid. It is impossible to reality test what is told you because you cannot trust the “reality” you are presented with and because you know that people can lie and probably regularly lie to you.
I believe that this is why the conspiracy theory has such importance in Muslim/Arab society.
October 3, 2009 at 7:52 pm
zkharya
I said this
ellis’s profile picture ellis
03 Oct 09, 12:01am
The Hasbara critics I can understand: they have stolen someone else’s country and they’ll spew out propaganda as long as it takes to confirm title.
constitutes hate speech, against any and all those expressing sympathy for Israel or her situation.
But there was no way they’d delete it since it had 58 recommendations. Farcical.
October 4, 2009 at 5:29 am
Mita
Zkharya:
Equal situations in which an insult balances an insult would constitute a venue in which a reasoned discussion might conceivably be held.
An exactly parallel posting in which one says:
The Hamasbastards I can understand since they didn’t want their own country, tried to steal ours by force of arms and failed. Then they used terror, failed and now they are using vile lies, threatening civilians daily and will spew out propaganda as long as it takes to get back what was never theirs
Will not be allowed to stand for more than ten minutes.