Does Steve Bell read Stormfront?

Steve Bell is a nasty little man. Perhaps he mourns the thousands of Israeli lives that have been saved by the security barrier?

Speaking of walls, the dividing line between The Guardian and the racists of this world long since came down.

Wikipedia lists fifty separation barriers here, including Iran-Pakistan, UAE-Oman, Cyprus, Saudi-Yemen, and Indo-Bangladeshi barriers. Many of the fifty dwarf the Israel-Palestinian barrier, with far lesser justfication.

One wonders why Bell or the Guardian or Stormfront are obsessed with one barrier of those fifty.

On second thought, we know why. Bell, the Guardian and Stormfront all hate Jews.

By the way, Bell needs to re-learn undergraduate maths.

The Berlin wall was approximately 199km long. The concrete (“wall”) portion of the Israeli separation barrier is to be approximately 35km long, the rest being simple fence. “Four times as long” is thus inaccurate.

Since the Guardian has published Bell’s (possibly Stormfront-derived) image, perhaps the Guardian’s fact-checkers can collaborate with Stormfront’s.

Bell, of course, did not mention that the so called “wall” is only on the westerly side of the West Bank and only to prevent terrorists from entering Israel. The so called ” wall” was not built in the southern part of the West Bank and Palestinians have used the lack of a barrier there to enter Beersheba and commit some horrific acts of terrorism in Beersheba, such as the double bus suicide bombings in which scores of Israelis were killed and the spraying of bullets and bombs at the snack bar in Beersheba in which a dozen Israelis were Killed. Another terrorist attack from Hebron in which the terrorist simply walked southerly from Hebron to Beersheba was made easy because there is no barrier there. Now of course, Bell would not show that there is no fence on the easterly side of the West Bank and Palestinians are free to enter Jordan whenever the Jordanians (motly Palestinians) allow them too. And coincidentally, Bell did not show the reopening of the road going from Jenin to Afula. Jenin was one of the worst centers of terrorism from 2000 to 2007 and it is an act of faith on the part of Israel to allows traffic between Jenin and Afula, despite the murders of so many Israeli when there was no barrier.
Bell might have shown the fence and barriers and armed guards that Cuba has erected to keep Cubans from fleeing to freedom. Cuban guards with lethal weapons patrol the waters around Cuba to prevent Cubans from leaving.
Bell’s whole problem comes from the fact that he is a terribly insecure man. He is rather frail and delicate and overcompensates with his antiSemitic but boring cartoons. But he will tell you that Tony Lerman is his friend so how can be an antiSemite.

The links to Steve Bell’s other cartoons seem to suggest an infatuation with blood. But Steve Bell is no “lone gunner” in this ugly media war.

UK cartoonists have always had a soft spot for old Israel. This one was “cleared of antisemetism” to win the U.K. most prestigious cartoon award:

http://web.israelinsider.com/Articles/Diplomacy/3020.htm

This one featured on the ever vehement “The Independent”, the only English-speaking newspaper that features a foreign news reporter who openly supports Hezbollah, Mr. Robert Fisk. (Or perhaps the only one other than the Guardian)

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_CFaWFwKkBYM/SWR7idyMsMI/AAAAAAAAD-0/2qGo8_w5X74/s1600-h/GAZA+CARTOON.jpg

Again, blood blood blood. Terrific sophistication, really.

And then there’s possibly the worst of them all, featured on the Washington post, of all places:

http://www.rawstory.com/news/2008/Oliphant_IsraelGaza_cartoon_called_hideously_antiSemitic_0325.html

Compared to these Bell’s cartoon is like Snoopy. And I’m not sure Bell’s wall cartoon stems from anti-Semitism per-say, but perhaps just from acute shallowness and stupidity, brought on by mindless absorption of Palestinian PR. But maybe I’m giving him the benefit of the doubt.

I see that the BBC has seen fit to remind its readers on the anniversary of the fall of the Berlin wall that the Belfast Wall is still in place:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/northern_ireland/8351569.stm

… one of the 42 interface barriers in Belfast, the most recent of which was built in 2008.

But for some reason Steve Bell thinks that Israel’s separation barrier is more relevant for Guardian readers than the wall in their own back yard.

For those who are unfamiliar with the height of the British Belfast wall:
http://www.boston.com/globe/nation/packages/good_friday/gallery3/01.htm

FooledmeOnce, you may be right that it’s not blatant antisemitism, but it’s still feeding the Guardian’s Big Lie philosophy, isn’t it, about Israel?

Well spotted Hawkeye. The similarities between the Nazi loving Stormfront and the Steve Bell cartoon are too great and too disturbing to be ignored. I had a look at the Stormfront’s rant on the subject and noted that though many accusations are made there is no sign of a link or source given. The sick scribbler makes it all up out of whole cloth. Posters on the thread on CIF do the same:
Moeran
11 Nov 2009, 11:14AM

And yes, we know all about the “right of appeal” that Palestinians have if their land is stolen. And what happens next.
Either the settlers win; or the IDF wins; in whatever case, the indigenous population lose their land.
But Jubilation knows that . Really.
Really?

Here’s another:
Stealthbong
11 Nov 2009, 11:19AM

A contemptible comment and an argument so absurd that only the willfully blinkered could put it forward as justification for the wall.
These fantasists seem to think that because they say it is so it must be so, despite any proof to the contrary, just like Stormfront

“Hatred” even!

I see Jew-basher Ben White has scraped his knuckles across the comments to the cartoon.

“This Wall will also fall.”

Thus does this man who understands antisemitism yearn for the day when suicide bombers can run rampant in Israel again, murdering Jews.

I’ve seen him asked many times what – in the absence of the wall – he would do to stop such a slaughter.

He never has an answer.

AKUS

I see your point in comparing Fascist blood motifs with Freedman’s style which often employs all kinds of skewed metaphors from the world of anatomy and biology. I hope he’s indeed toned it down.

Maybe he often resorts to such banal and ugly phrases as “virus coursing through the veins” also because he’s just a very poor writer?

On second thought I take it back- it’s more than bad writing when someone uses such phrases. Your’e right- it’s most likely intentional.

Freedman’s new page-filler- Boy, is that one awful piece.

Not even inflammatory in his usual style. Had absolutely nothing to say.

FoolMeOnce

Great link to the Iraqi defamation suit.

The sort of defamation suit that the Iraqis brought is exactly what is needed to tear down the wall of “free speech” that the Guardian hides behind.

The amount of the award was trivial (GBP 52,000) but they very likely spent, or will spend, far more than that defending themselves, and tying up resources in doing so.

The British Jewish community should be doing this on a daily basis every time something like this Steve Bell cartoon appears.

Its not important to win the case – its important to make the Guardian realize that there is a heavy price to pay for providing a home for anti-Semites.

Guardian Hates Jews: “…Since the Guardian has published Bell’s (possibly Stormfront-derived) image, perhaps the Guardian’s fact-checkers can collaborate with Stormfront’s…”

How do you know that they don’t already?

The Guardian plays host to some of the nastiest,craziest,scuzzballs,that could be found on the internet.They feel right at home on the Guardian.

That Steve Belll,and Ben White,are in a class all of their own.

While anti-Semitism can obviously include subtle statements and images that do not directly attack Jews in general – on what basis do you deem this cartoon “disgustingly antisemitic”?

I’m all ears …

@ armaros

Nobody said he was “one of them”.

Oh, but they have done above.

the ideological convergence of far left and far right and the glue binding them being antisemitism.

You are talking here about a tiny minority of idiots. And what – primarily – connects them is a hate of capitalism and American predominance. You are wrong re. the glue – albeit with exceptions.

[the Bell cartoon] clearly is antisemitic.

But you fail to specify why.

alluding to another nasty comparison involving periods of German history and Israel.

Are you introducing the Nazi element?

Both Stormfront and the Guardian formulated their position from the same root concept.

What concept would that be, then?

Regarding Erdrogan, Erdrogan has one unabashed cheerleader in the media. That is the British columnist for the New York Times, one Roger Cohen. Cohen’s opeds have appeared also in the Guardian and lately the Tehran Times, house organ of the Islamic Government of Iran, has picked up Cohen’s column. Finally Ahmedinejad has a Jew he admires. Cohen wrote a whole column a few months ago positively glowing over his London hotel interview with Erdrogan and Cohen tripped all over himself lavishing praise on Erdrogan for browbeating the 86 year old Shimon Peres in Davos. Cohen glowed when Erdrogan said that he (Erdrogan) had no regrets over smacking down Peres. Peres could easily have riposted Erdrogan by asking Erdrogan if Erdrogan was pround of the Turkish air force invading Iraqi airspace and then bombing and strafing Kurdish villages. Hundreds of Kurdish villagers were murdered by the Turkish bombs. Peres, for political and strategic reasons, chose not to respond. But any decent journalist would have asked Erdrogan the questions that Cohen refused to ask. Cohen showed that he is not a journalist but a propagandist for the leftwing European view of the MiddleEast conflict. Dohen’s views are pretty much the same as Ken Livingston or George Galloway although the latter two are better speakers than Cohen (who speaks in a monotone).

This cartoonist appears to plaigirize his cartoons from Der Sturmer. You can look at 1930s nazi cartoons and his and you can not see any difference. He is not even a competent artist. The only place he could work is the Guardian.

pretzelberg – I didn’t want to detract from this thread too much by harping on Freedman, who is as useless a contributor as it is possible to find, except for urging on the merans and morons of the world.

But now that CW has shamed the Guardian into essentially canning the Steve bell cartoon, let me just say:

Why oh why does the Guardian think that this ignoramus, who never even made it to college and can barely string together a coherent paragraph without using a 6th grade mixed metaphor has some deep insight into Turkish politics?

Have they no sense of how he lowers the standing of their own paper?

pretzelburg – When I saw Bell’s cartoon I thought: what a tw*t. But I still believe this is about politics, not Jew hatred.

How do you explain the obsessive negativism of the Guardian about Israel when people are being slaughtered all over the world and many are starving.

They ‘dismiss’ so much other human suffering to concentrate on the IP conflict trying to elevate it into a threat to world peace.

Sri Lanka is not a threat to world peace.

Chichenya is not a threat to world peace.

Georgia is not a threat to world peace.

Muslims in Western China are not a threat to world peace.

Venezuela’s call to arms is not a threat against world peace.

Only Israel. Tiny little Israel.

There has to be more at work than simple anti Zionism?

Add to that their in depth negative examination of the life style of Haredim.

Where do you think it is all coming from?

Pattern, Pretzelbrain, pattern – a whole is greater than the sum of its parts. In the case of the Guardian, the parts are the drip, drip, drip of Sick Frogman articles and Bell caricatures, adding to a whole of quite evident institutionalised, virulent anti-Semitism – the institution being the Guardian.

Mel and Julie have it right.

Rysk – he just doesn’t like those uppity Jews with their own state and guns, who don’t know their place.

Well. Lots of people may feel that way but they don’t make a career from demonizing Israel.

Ben White does.

QED

Yes, Ben White is aiming to make a career out of his anti-zionist (anti-semitic) obsessions, but I can’t imagine it’ll be a very lucrative career, not if you go by the likes of Jonathon Cook who until only recently had a begging page on his webiste with a paypal link asking for donations.

Ben’s a reasonable bright lad, anti-semitism aside, I just think he missed the cut on the BBC/ Guardian / Independent grad schemes, and faced with the choice of learning the ropes on a local paper and attending local council meetings on supermarket planning applications, his fragile ego just couldn’t handle that prospect so he thought he’d do what so many other wannabe rock star journalists do and become a self-proclaimed expert on the middle east.
A self-proclaimed expert who speaks no Hebrew or Arabic, has never spent more than a university summer in the region (munching on falafels whilst posting from the comfort of a Ramallah internet cafe), and who now casts his wisdom from the vantage point of Sao Paolo?!

PS. A part of me wants to say that pretzelberg has a point.
Steve Bell is not an out-and-out antisemite. He only knows the leftist, Guardianista world of fantasy.

Part of me wants to say that armaros has a point: the Left and the Right are as bad as one another ( though the Guardianistas can always justify Stalinism to a certain extent ) and judeophobic to the core.

Part of me wants to say that all this energy expended on White, Freedman, Berchmans, and the rest, is way over the top. White and Freedman weren’t even born when the likes of AKUS, peterthehungarian, or myself were around, during the Yom Kippur War. How can their generation understand what Israel meant to us in ‘67 or ‘73 ?

Note to Hawkeye and co. : It’s not enough to rebut the antisemitism on CiF. You should create a space for positive, lyrical articles about Israel which will make the anti-Zionistas scream in rage and envy. AKUS, here’s your chance to show us what you can do. Don’t just mock ; get even !

Bye bye for now!

@ armaros

I did explain why it is antisemitic. Comparing Israel to Nazis, Stalinists, Apartheid SA is antisemitic.

I object to all such comparisons – but there is IMO no way you can automatically call them anti-Semitic. Likewise the Berlin Wall comparison.

Where exactly have you actually explained why these are anti-Semitic allegations?

@ margie

Obviously today’s anti-Semites (well, most of them) are not stupid or crazy enough to peddle the old blood libel/matzo accusations. Their ways are indeed far more subtle.

Perhaps you missed what I said, i.e. that I likewise consider Bell’s choice of target inappropriate. But Bell’s cartoon is not “an objection to the protection of Jewish lives”. It’s a far more complex issue than that.

@ Guardian Hates Jews
Clearly there is a massively overproportionate focus on I/P at CiF. But you can’t just put that down to Jew hatred.

Personally I would welcome the removal of Anthony Lerman, Richard Silverstein and Ben White from CiF.

Pretzelberg

Clearly there is a massively overproportionate focus on I/P at CiF. But you can’t just put that down to Jew hatred.

Any other explanation?

Irreasonable hatred of Israel = Jew hatred.

Take this post:

———————————————————————————————-

yorkandy
12 Nov 2009, 4:25PM
raze all zionist colonies and repatriate the occupants…….easy!

———————————————————————————————–

Please explain that tolerating this kind of incitement is what? Anti-Zoroasterism?
If yorkandy consider the implementation of his suggested project is so easy maybe he personally should cooperate in it.
I would be very happy to prove him that there could be some difficulties on the way.

“the Left and the Right are as bad as one another ( though the Guardianistas can always justify Stalinism to a certain extent ) and judeophobic to the core”

Hmmm. Just what is meant by “to a certain extent”? Fifty million corpses’ worth of justification is a big ask, even for The Guardian.

…And though it might sound evenhanded and be politically correct to declare that “the Left and the Right are as bad as one another” in being “judeophobic to the core”, I’d really like to see how the evidence stacks up. The openly antisemitic “Right” are, in most cases, racist/nationalist Leftists — i.e. chronically aggrieved people who brim with resentment and look for scapegoats (such as those bloated plutocrat Jews and so forth) to blame for their failed lives. They believe in and propound muscular and often radical statist solutions. They’re not by any reasonable definition “conservative”.

Indeed, the “Far Right” is largely the contemporary Left’s much-hated twin, both being the fruit of the same socialist womb in the pre-war decades of the last century: the fact that International Socialism is le dernier cri whereas National Socialism is near-universally reviled merely shows what a thorough job the victorious Marxists in the academy and the media have done in dissociating themselves from the sins of their nationalist sibling.

There are exceptions of course (in America the average white-supremacist antisemite distrusts powerful interventionist government, and could not be said to be truly statist — a rather curious instance of American exceptionalism, perhaps). But for the most part, those who are called “Far Right” should really be called “Far Left”.

O! That the day would come, the grand family reunion! …When the scribblers at the Grauniad finally acknowledge that Hitler, Mussolini, Mosley and all the other populist utopian state-mongers have far closer blood ties with them and their readership than with Reagan, Thatcher or Churchill.

I don’t think that everyone who is interested in the I/P conflict is an antisemite. I spent relatively long time in East-Africa and I follow their politics in the media. Makes this me an anti-black/anti-white?

You and me are private persons and not establishments whose job to inform their readers about far away events as objectively as possible.

FYI I don’t think that the Guardian’s primary agenda is Jew hatred.
They belong the unreasonable left, their main goal to fight capitalism and its most powerful representative the US with every available means. Maybe you are aware of the huge quantity of totally gormless US bashing stuff on CIF too. Unfortunately after realizing that they don’t have any relevant mass support in the West they sought and found an other ally, the political Islam.
Naturally they pull to CIF the “classical” anti-semites and tolerating/supporting them objectively makes them Jew haters irrespective what they think about themselves. As you can see from their preferred contributors/posters they don’t give a broken bedpan about the Palestinians or peace.

pretzelberg

If anything, it’s a question of shameless apologism – and even then this applies to individual posters and not to the paper itself

Brian Whitaker and Seumas Milne are members of the Guardian’s staff. And they are only examples there are many more. They are “the paper itself”

I’ve made it to the end. Thanks for putting it together. Lots of things I didn’t know. BOOKMARKED!