This is a guest post from Jonathan Hoffman
How much lower can The Guardian sink into the mire of lying about Israel and demonising it?
On Friday two letters were published.
Both contained falsehoods. The first said that NGO Monitor is “part of a concerted Israeli government campaign ….” It is not of course – it is every bit as independent of the Israeli government as The Guardian is of the UK government.
The second letter – from a worker at the PSC – said that Israel’s Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman threatened to use nuclear weapons against Gaza, quoting Turkish PM Recep Erdogan. He never threatened any such thing – of course.
So I wrote a short letter to correct both false statements. It did not appear on Saturday or today. So I called. It has been rejected.
Blatant mendacious bias. Alan Rusbridger, hang your head in shame.
But of course he won’t.
Hawkeye
Omar2
WellofSense
Medusa
The Alchemist
Louise
Tosca
Maimon
Telling the Truth
Israelinurse
Adam Levick
Margie in Tel Aviv
Guest/Cross Post
50 comments
Comments feed for this article
November 3, 2009 at 2:32 am
JerusalemMite
Why am I not surprised.
The Guardian will hide behind ‘Editorial Policy’, non responsiveness and the laughingly termed ‘CI(F) moderation’ to suppress free speech unless, of course, it is in line with the GWV.
November 3, 2009 at 2:49 am
headfirst
To hang his head in shame he needs to pull his head out of his butt first.
November 3, 2009 at 5:33 am
Fairplay
Let them rave and rant about Israel on the Grauniad. If they libel Israel, they should be prosecuted.
As for the CiF, that small British mass of unwashed, impotent, semi-literate and racist mob of commentators, what must infuriate them most is that Israel, unlike them, is the master of her own destiny. No longer do Jews have to be passive and suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. Israelis can react, as they did recently in Gaza, or they can react by neutralizing Ahmadinejad, if they so please.
The Guardian is despicable, but we didn’t choose our enemies. These losers chose us.
November 3, 2009 at 6:34 am
nicoleS
Jonathan: If the Guardian won’t publish your letter correcting malicious falsehoods about Israel, might another of the broadsheets, such as the Daily Telegraph or the Times, publish a letter from you setting out the whole story and revealing the Guardian’s dishonesty? I cannot understand the Guardian’s behaviour, still less how it can be allowed to get away with it.
November 3, 2009 at 7:18 am
Jonathan
nicoleS
I will publish it here – I am told that CiFWatch’s readership is now in the many thousands ……..
The letter:
“Whereas ‘comment is free’, and a range of opinion is welcome, blatant untruth should, one hopes, have no place in The Guardian. It is depressing that the two letters you chose to print yesterday (October 30) condemning Israel constituted precisely that.
NGO Monitor – an organisation with which I am familiar – is an independent organisation with no ties to the Israeli government, and Avigdor Lieberman did not threaten to use nuclear weapons against Gaza. That is a complete (and absurd) lie.
Sincerely
Jonathan Hoffman”
November 3, 2009 at 7:38 am
Fairplay
How low can the Guardian go? Whenever you think it’s the shallowest intellectual rag in Britain, they manage to drain just a little bit more water from the pool. ( to adapt a line from ‘Seinfeld’ )
November 3, 2009 at 7:47 am
Denis MacEoin
If I had a shekel for every letter I’ve written to the Guardian trying to correct a falsehood, I’d be shekel-rich by now. Somewhere on the Internet one can find a letter from me to the Guardian’s managing editor, detailing their history of anti-Israel bias. Needless to say, it was never answered. Like most of the left, the Guardian claims to take an anti-racist, pro-human rights stance, yet it treats Israel in a way that contradicts all its professed values. The problem is universal and will only be remedied when, if ever, the left fully understands what human rights etc. are really about.
November 3, 2009 at 7:53 am
Fairplay
Don’t worry, Jonathan, be happy! You’re doing a great job, by the way.
What’s the difference between CiF and CiFWatch?
On the Guardian, if I told them I had good nukes and bad nukes, they’d ask for the good nukes first and I’d say: ” Israel “.
- ” That’s bad nukes ” – they’d reply. Ahmadinejad is their good nukes.
On CifWatch, if I said I had good nukes and bad nukes, you’d ask for the bad nukes first, and I’d say: ” The mad mullahs of Iran “. Israel is the good nukes, of course.
November 3, 2009 at 7:56 am
Fairplay
Denis – we’ve all admired your letter thanks to CifWatch which featured a thread on it about 2 months ago. Well done !
November 3, 2009 at 7:57 am
Margie
Jonathan: Good letter. It should be emphasized that it is natural for the Guardian to think that a government might be subsidising NGOs in Israel because the British FO does precisely that, subsidising Btselem among others.
November 3, 2009 at 8:05 am
AKUS
What is also infuriating is the way the current editorial crowd has hijacked a paper that once stood for something worthwhile
They have traded on the Guardian’s former reputation and turned it into a sort of lowest common denominator of hatred for Israel and Western countries maintained by errors, lies (the letters Jonathan refers to, for example), omissions (the list of Nobel prize winners excluding Israeli PMs, for example) and cyber-mobbing of those opposed to its GWV (such as Melanie Phillips, Rivka Carmi, Jeremy Sharon, Uri Dromi etc.).
November 3, 2009 at 8:14 am
JubelFoster
There is no difference between the Guardian and Der Sturmer. The Guardian no longer makes any pretense of being fair.
November 3, 2009 at 8:28 am
Josh Baskin
There is a way to be assured that your letter or oped submission will be published in the Guardian. It is to be sure to state that you are Jewish and then go on to bash Israel in a way that is overheated and crazed. That is how Lerman and Freedman got their columns. One of the Guardian favortie Jewish guest writers is Henry Siegman. Siegman does double duty with the New York Times, another publication that promotes Jewish critics of Israel. In his latest submission to the Times, Siegman wrote that it was not just Israel’s government that prevented a just peace. It was also the citizens of Israel, from Baor to Likud, who rejected the Palestinian and Arab plea for peace. The Times piece was basically a rewrite of Siegman’s previous work for the Guardian. The Times, of course, prominently mentioned that Siegman had been a director of “The American Jewish Congress.” What the oped editor of the Times would not tell readers, was that Siegman has also served as a director of The Arab Bankers Association of North America (ABANA). Siegman has no background in banking. Heck, he has never even worked as a bank teller at the local of branch of Barclays. So logically, one would wonder what he has to offer a sophisticated banking organization like (ABANA). Well, with his helpful columns in the Guardian and the NY Times, I think we know the answer.
November 3, 2009 at 8:30 am
MindTheCrap
How low can it go ? Today’s excellent thread by Hussein Ibish in support the plan of the Palestinian Authority (PA) to build the infrastructural, administrative and economic framework of a Palestinian state (in response to the pathetic one by Ahmad Samhi Khalidi last week) drew a comment from none other tham No2Genocide (Yael Oren Kahn).
Her long comment concentartes entirely on Jack Teitel, beginning with the defining sentence “Israel is a brutal occupier involved in destroying Palestinian lives”.
What does this have to do with Ibish’s arguments about Palestinian nation building. Although totally off topic the CiF moderator has not deleted this bit of Israel-bashing for nearly 90 minutes.
November 3, 2009 at 9:25 am
Ilan
The Guardian used to be the anti-racist paper.
It is now the most racist paper in Britain.
It patronises Muslims and demonizes Jews.
November 3, 2009 at 9:44 am
FoolMeOnce
Notice the logo on the upper right corner of the “Palestine solidarity campaign” homepage:
http://www.palestinecampaign.org
Revealing.
November 3, 2009 at 9:45 am
FoolMeOnce
Upper left corner that is.
November 3, 2009 at 10:24 am
Ariadne
The “white phosphorous”?
November 3, 2009 at 10:30 am
Ariadne
Oops! PhosphorUS!
November 3, 2009 at 11:13 am
JerusalemMite
Denis MacEoin – The problem is universal and will only be remedied when, if ever, the left fully understands what human rights etc. are really about.
For the extreme left, everything now revolves around anti Americanism and human rights infringements, however serious, are ‘trumped’ by ‘anti Americanism’. Thus on CI(F) criticism of Islam, Arab countries (The anti Western ones), Chechnya, Darfur and Iran are stifled behind the crazed anti Americanism.
This is what the extreme left has been reduced to.
November 3, 2009 at 11:16 am
cityca
Well done Jonathan. It is very concerning that two UK media organisations, the Guardian and the BBC, demonstrate such extraordinary bias and in the Guardian’s case, appear to be actively encouraging racism.
I was looking at a video of Galloway the other day (thanks Jerusalem Mite) and it dawned on me that he is simply going where the money is, i.e. playing to the gallery in order to make the best possible living and he has chosen to patronise (in the literal sense) Islam in order to boost his popularity.
Blair headed a right of centre ‘New’ Labour government but Brown looks unlikely to succeed at election in 2010. Could it be that the Guardian, the left and radical Islam supporters are using the waning moments of Labour to air their deeply unpleasant prejudices in the anticipation of a more right of centre Conservative government in 2010?
We are seeing numerous strikes and threats of strikes now. Perhaps the left are taking the dying moments of a Labour government (I hope) to inflict what damage they can.
November 3, 2009 at 11:18 am
Guardian Hates Jews
Apparently, to the anti-Semites who manage the Gardian, anything a Muslim says aout a Jew is automatically correct – notwithstanding the complee absence of any proof.
What if the same approach were to be applied to the Guardian? If anyone were to assert, without proof, that Rusbridger or Henry had threatened to bomb the Knesset?
November 3, 2009 at 11:18 am
Margie
Denis: For those who have not yet read your exemplary letter it is found here.
November 3, 2009 at 11:21 am
Guardian Hates Jews
What if the same approach were to be applied to the Guardian? If anyone were to assert, without proof, that Rusbridger or Henry had threatened to bomb the Knesset?
And then work that unsupported accusation into an entire article, complete with headline, “Rusbridger, Henry THreaten Knesset Bomb”?
The only people about whom the Guardian would accept such shoddy, defamatory journalism, are Jews.
November 3, 2009 at 11:45 am
Fairplay
Repeating ad nauseam that the Guardian is antisemitic is not going to change things. Crying wolf is a dangerous policy.
There are antisemitic individuals and for sure, they are all anti-Zionist to a man, but accusing them point blank is not going to bring positive results and may even aggravate matters. Patience, good humour and case-by-case evidence may do the trick, however. Jonathan Hoffman should be congratulated.
Sometimes, I feel like going back to CiF because over there at least, Jews are all-powerful bullies who control the whole world, while over here on CW we’re forever the victims. ;-)
November 3, 2009 at 11:52 am
Guardian Hates Jews
Denis wrote, it treats Israel in a way that contradicts all its professed values
Correct. But it does not contradict the Guardian’s true (but hidden) values:
1. Brown is good; white is bad.
2. Jews are (thought by the Guardian to be) white, ergo bad. Arabs are (thought by the Guardian to be) brown, ergo good.
3. Jews are familiar and adaptive, ergo bad. Arabs are exotic and violent, ergo good. (After all, what more could a true armchair revolutionary like Henry want – exoticism, blood, sex, gore. It’s just Jewish blood, so it doesn’t matter.)
4. Some minorities – Jews in particular – must stay in their place. How dare they demand self-determination?
5. Palestnians have a right to recompense for their 60 years of suffering since Partition. But Jews have no right to recompense for their one-and-one-half milennia of subjugation and persecution by Islam.
6. The Palestinians are a distinct people even though sharing language, religion, history, culture, and genetics with neighbouring peoples. The Jews are not a people despite three millennia of distinct language, religion, history, culture, and genetics.
7. Jews have no right to be different. They have no right to a country. They have no right to a different lifestyle. (The Guardian even insisted British Orthodox must assimilate.)
What does the Guardian want? In its denial of any country or visible identity to the Jews, the Guardian is joining the leftist-Muslim camaign for the complete cultural cleansing of the Jewish people from the planet.
These are the obectives and morals of the Libre parole ad the Sturmer.
November 3, 2009 at 11:54 am
Guardian Hates Jews
Fairplay,
Repeating ad nauseam that the Guardian is antisemitic is not going to change things. Crying wolf is a dangerous policy.
Except when it’s true. As we know from Burchill (and from the evidence at CiF), the Guardian is shot through and through with the most vile of anti-Semitism. It is just a slicker version of the same filth appearing in the Nazi or Arab press.
Fairplay, hiding one’s head in the sand is an even more dangerous policy.
November 3, 2009 at 11:58 am
Guardian Hates Jews
JerusalemMite mentions “crazed anti Americanism”.
I should point out that knee-jerk hatred of anything American (or Israeli), and a knee-jerk tendency to blame any problem on the Americans, is as much bigotry as knee-jerk hatred of blacks and attempts to blame any problem on blacks.
That’s what’s meant by the term “primary anti-Americanism” – pure bigotry.
The GUardian is the mirror-image of the BNP.
November 3, 2009 at 12:04 pm
nicoleS
Margie: Your link to Denis’s letter does not work.
November 3, 2009 at 12:09 pm
mostly harmless
Fairplay – ‘If they libel Israel, they should be prosecuted.’
I don’t think you can libel a country.
November 3, 2009 at 12:16 pm
Margie
NicoleS: Thanks for checking. Here it is http://cifwatch.com/2009/10/07/must-read-critique-of-guardian-editorial-bias/ again.
November 3, 2009 at 12:20 pm
Guardian Hates Jews
Mostly, see definitions 2a and 2b1 below.
Main Entry: 1li·bel
Pronunciation: \ˈlī-bəl\
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English, written declaration, from Anglo-French, from Latin libellus, diminutive of liber book
Date: 14th century
1 a : a written statement in which a plaintiff in certain courts sets forth the cause of action or the relief sought b archaic : a handbill especially attacking or defaming someone
2 a : a written or oral defamatory statement or representation that conveys an unjustly unfavorable impression b (1) : a statement or representation published without just cause and tending to expose another to public contempt (2) : defamation of a person by written or representational means (3) : the publication of blasphemous, treasonable, seditious, or obscene writings or pictures (4) : the act, tort, or crime of publishing such a libel
November 3, 2009 at 12:26 pm
Guardian Hates Jews
Mostly’s comment reminds us that Israel and its supporters are doing poorly.
We are defending Israel against “lawfare” but failing to take the initiative, to wage lawfare in return.
November 3, 2009 at 12:35 pm
JerusalemMite
Guardian hates Jews – We are defending Israel against “lawfare” but failing to take the initiative, to wage lawfare in return.
Even if lawfare against The Guardian was successful, you cannot predict what will be the resultant public opinion and that is what we are actually fighting for.
The perception of Israel and Jews in the eyes of the UK opinion formers from BBC Question Time panel down to the local Church Times writer.
November 3, 2009 at 12:45 pm
MindTheCrap
Fairplay:
“Repeating ad nauseam that the Guardian is antisemitic is not going to change things. Crying wolf is a dangerous policy.”
Agreed.
November 3, 2009 at 1:25 pm
Fairplay
Who’s hiding his head in the sand? Vigilence is the price of freedom but armchair warriors on CW are not going to get results unless they organize effectively. I don’t even live in Britain.
November 3, 2009 at 1:27 pm
Fairplay
You accused the laughing postman of antisemitism and look where it got you.
November 3, 2009 at 1:47 pm
canadaneil
Fair comments and a good piece, but again, what to do?
You know there is something in clinical research called selection bias. CiF gives huge emphasis to a bunch of folk who are obsessed with what they see as the unrivaled evil of Israel, the manipulation of the Holocaust by the jews, and the undue influence of the Israel lobby on US policy.
The more that is written supporting these points of view the more it feeds the frenzy and group think. CiF is dominated by those who have the time to beat others into submission by excessively long posts.
Someone made an interesting comment (not sure where, maybe here) along the lines that it is simply not trendy to support Israel any more especially on campuses around the world, much the same as being a member of the young conservatives. Peer pressure dicatates that support if Israel is not (and hasn’t been for some time) acceptable in “liberal circles”.
November 3, 2009 at 3:42 pm
MITNAGED
Please publish the letter here, Jonathan.
Someone on the Melanie Phillips thread said that he/she believed that the main reason for this enduring hatred – even in the face of objective evidence that it is misplaced at best and frankly idiotic – is that The Execrable Al-Babbler, Brian Whitaker, Matt Seaton and Georgina Henry were in bed with Islamists like Hizb ut Tahrir.
Having read the recent eye rolling/mouth frothing contribution by Ed Husain (and I have read his book, too, in which he sets out how HuT members are made to be deliberately aggressive and hate-filled) I cannot rule that out. He may have left HuT (or he says he has) but he is still very much theirs when placed under any duress.
Canadaneil, you make interesting points. There is certainly a self-selecting bias at “the other place” and where that doesn’t work for the CiF hate fest then the moderators “select” some more, by deleting posts which disagree with the rubbish, by and large, above the line.
November 3, 2009 at 3:45 pm
Guardian Hates Jews
JerusalemMite & Fairplay, there has actually been an organisation recently formed to wage lawfare on behalf of Israel. I’ll post a link should I find it.
November 3, 2009 at 3:51 pm
Guardian Hates Jews
Peer pressure dicatates that support if Israel is not (and hasn’t been for some time) acceptable in “liberal circles”.
Not just liberal circles.
Several observations:
1. The “big lie” technique works.
2. If enough mud is thrown (eg at Israel), much sticks.
3. I’ve encountered quite a few neutral, well-meaning people of good faith who beieve Israel devastated Lebanon, killed al-Dura, etc.
In other words, the Euroleft-Islamist jihad of propaganda and lawfare against Israel works. Israel and the Jewish community had better wake u and wage war back.
One example: At the time of Oslo, Rabin thought that “we could just re-occupy” if it doesnt work. But the Euroleft-Islamist alliance’s propaganda has prevented that, severely limiting Israel options in self-defense.
The Euroleft-Islamist anti-Israeli propaganda and lawfare must be opposed with (at a minimum) the same techniques.
November 3, 2009 at 3:53 pm
Guardian Hates Jews
then the moderators “select” some more
Guardian moderators are quite immoderate, no?
November 3, 2009 at 5:36 pm
AKUS
Of course, the State of Israel and Lieberman himself should be suing the Guardian for publishing those letters.
The timidity of the response – or lack of response – only permits this kind of slander to go on.
November 3, 2009 at 5:42 pm
exposed
The problem with hiding your head in the sand, it still leaves your butt exposed.
November 3, 2009 at 7:53 pm
Jonathan
Mitnaged
It’s there: 07:18 this morning
November 3, 2009 at 10:52 pm
Canadaneil
Guardian Hates Jews
I accept that it is not just liberal circles, but the opinions are legitimised by them.
AKUS
Do you think that suing is a good idea? You may be “right” but the legal route usually backfires
November 3, 2009 at 11:13 pm
AKUS
CanadaNeil –
how on earth could it backfire?
The objective is not to win a case or two but to put an end to the anti-Semitism and Israel bashing that is the meat and potatoes of the Guardian’s reason for existing at this time. Whether we would win the cases or not, the implications for the Guardian in terms of time and money would be horrific.
Suppose a really good legal team was put together that would spend years dragging the Guardian through the courts for every single anti-Semitic comment or letter published, one by one – heavily funded by people who had an interest in seeing the Guardian tied up in knots spending its money on its own lawyers – the level of invective would immediately drop, and n fact the wretched rag might actually be put out of business if it spent enough money.
I for one would gladly donate to the cause.
November 3, 2009 at 11:22 pm
AKUS
Canadaneil
BTW – it is true that there seems to be a self-selecting coterie of about a dozen obsessives who come to CIF day after day to beat up on Israel (e.g., moron, nakomel, arkasha, papalagi, orwell,teacup, berchmans, talknic in his multiple incarnations – talknic takes sick obsession to a new level, actually – he literally cannot keep away and I must confess to enjoying taking the piss where he is concerned – Free Eora!!).
Their incessant posting makes the threads look longer than they really are but you will occasionally see dozens of recommendations for their comments, so unless they are hitting the “recommend” button themselves under various guises (and we know from a few comments that they communicate with each other and could be doing this while screaming about the Great Zionist Conspiracy) there are a few dozen lurking in the background.
So the influence of the lies, fallacies, made-up quotes, anti0Semitic references, is greater than those who choose to comment there.
November 4, 2009 at 5:33 am
mostly harmless
Guardian Hates Jews
‘Mostly’s comment reminds us that Israel and its supporters are doing poorly.
We are defending Israel against “lawfare” but failing to take the initiative, to wage lawfare in return.’
Is this the kind of thing you are thinking of?
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3797828,00.html
November 4, 2009 at 5:36 am
mostly harmless
Guardian Hates Jews
‘Mostly, see definitions 2a and 2b1 below.
Main Entry: 1li·bel’
Thanks for confirming you can’t libel a country