There is a new Seth Freedman article on CiF about the problem of teen drinking in Israel, a problem hardly unique to many countries of the world.
Now we know that substance abuse is a subject close to Seth Freedman’s heart as he was a former user in his days of “Binge Trading”. Here’s an excerpt from his book:
So I’d unlocked the gates of Cocaine Towers, and I could see myself becoming a permanent resident. I forged a friendship with my new dealer, a loaded, Knightsbridgedwelling fi nancier with a Masters in International Banking. He sold, I bought, we went out drinking together and became mates. Meanwhile, I noticed that my sleeping habits had changed. I used to sleep at night. I didn’t any more. For cocaine was a jealous god; if I was going to get on it, I had to give up all activities that got in the way – and sleep was the first to go.
But does this really justify an article on the subject-matter?
I think the first comment in the thread sums this up (except about the part of enjoying Seth Freedman’s “journalism”).
Hullabamoo
18 Nov 2009, 11:40AM
I enjoy Seth Freedman’s journalism, but is anyone other than Israelis really concerned with teen drinking in Israel? There’s a commissioning editor somewhere who’s in need of a slap.
If you bother to visit the thread, click recommend on Hullabamoo’s comment but of course don’t comment in the thread.
Update
The Guardian has kept the thread open all night no doubt to boost the number of comments on the Freedman thread which have been on the wane since our launch. Anyway, for your amusement, here are a selection of some of the comments demonstrating that both the anti-Israel and pro-Israel crowd are getting tired of Seth Freedman.
WhatRecession
18 Nov 2009, 11:52AM
Israel isnt in Europe.
Who really gives a damn about Israeli teenage drinking other than Israelis?
No wonder Israel can’t sort out a fair peace deal for the oppressed Palestinian people they are too busy trying to sort out the drinking problem. The wall is there to hide their shame about the drinking rather than cause problems for the Palestinian people.
speaker
18 Nov 2009, 11:59AM
a quite pointless article for the majority of Guardian readers, butg for what its worth, I was in Tel Aviv two weeks ago for a wedding and spent a few night out and about in the evening. I can categorgly state that Tel Aviv is nothing like London. At no point did i feel threatened, have to avert my gaze in the direction of a group of teenagers for fear of being stabbed, slashed, botteled, beaten up or mugged. Which is often the case in London. The drinking culture in Israel and i could point out Jews in general is not really an issue, as its well know we cant handle our booze. Yes you’ll always get kids drinking under-age but thats growing up for you.
JJ139
18 Nov 2009, 12:25PM
I think this article is totally pointless except in trying to equate Israel as a ‘western/European democracy’. Well it is neither in Europe nor does it display European values in things like the free movement of goods and services and human rights for minorities etc.
Batleymuslim
18 Nov 2009, 12:26PM
Seth I think (As others have written) that 90% of the CIF population are more concerned about binge drinking in the Uk than in Israel.
blankedout
18 Nov 2009, 2:02PM
bloody hell how much negativity does this site have to post about Israel
some suggestions for new articles:
Israeli busses run late
Israeli weather is a bit too hot in August
Israeli man heard swearing in public
dog fouling a problem in Tel Aviv
football in Israel is crapetc etc etc
this is all getting a bit boring
saltyfishismydish
18 Nov 2009, 2:43PM
World news is important. But this, and a quite a few of Seth’s recent articles are getting pretty much like blogging for blogging’s sake. What has this told me that is important? Where is the investigation here? where is the journalism?
This is nothing but a – not particularly informed – opinion piece on an issue that isn’t very important or interesting. The same thing with the last one he wrote on Erdogan – what on earth are we supposed to learn from these blogs that we couldn’t find out in 10 minutes on Wikipeadia?
I can remember from his other articles he is a reasonably good writer and it is very interesting to learn about Israeli life, Jewish culture and the war with Palestinians. but what a lot of disappointments recently. I hope the standards improve soon.
BigNowitzki
18 Nov 2009, 2:47PM
Obviously a slow news day, unless there are ulterior motives for this article.
afancdogge
18 Nov 2009, 2:52PM
Elephants like to get drunk on rotten plums – what of lion grass and catnip ?
L
amcinwashington
18 Nov 2009, 9:53PM
Two questions for Mr. Freedman. (1) Why is teen drinking in Israel more worthy of attention in the Guardian than teen drinking in other countries, like, say, Britain? And (2) is there any subject, issue, topic, or field of human endeavor that you might ever be interested in writing about that does not involve saying bad things about Israel or Jews? Bonus question: have you ever entertained the possibility that you might benefit from a few sessions of analysis?
Poor Sethele.
Hawkeye
Omar2
WellofSense
Medusa
The Alchemist
Louise
Tosca
Maimon
Telling the Truth
Israelinurse
Adam Levick
Margie in Tel Aviv
Guest/Cross Post
Hadar Sela
37 comments
Comments feed for this article
November 18, 2009 at 10:29 am
TomWonacott
Hawkeye
Does the Guardian measure the success of an article by the amount of comments or the amount of readers (the amount that click into the article)?
Are we boycotting CIF Watch today?
November 18, 2009 at 10:42 am
sethofcocainetowers
All that Cocaine Towers must have effected his brain.He writes that-”and sleep was the first to go”.And what went next,his brain?.
A dull article,and most of the comments to his article are even duller.if that is possible.He gets paid for this.Still they pay bellamack,why not a cocaine addled seth.How in heavens name did this junkie get into Israel.
A cocaine sniffer writes a muddled article about Israeli teen drinking.
November 18, 2009 at 10:56 am
sethofcocainetowers
You get some really weird articles in the Guardian.This one from seth would have to be among the worst.Seth from golden boy to cocaine boy.
November 18, 2009 at 11:26 am
Biodegradable
Any stick to beat the Jew is OK for The Guardian.
Spain has a far bigger youth binge drinking problem than Israel, but of course Israel has to be more perfect than any other state in the world.
http://www.google.com/search?q=binge+drinking+spain
November 18, 2009 at 12:23 pm
sababa
This is really getting pathetic, almost too embarrassing to comment on. Hard to tell who’s getting more desperate: the Cif-staffers who allow Sethboy to post any crap that he comes up with, or Seth himself, who’s apparently proud to churn out whatever crosses the empty space between his ears.
November 18, 2009 at 4:14 pm
Josh Baskin
Actually, accusing Israeli teens of being drunks is an improvement over what Richard Goldstone and Christine Chinkin have said about young Israelis. Goldstone accused Israeli soldiers of being trigger happy racists. In contrast, Goldstone portrayed Palestinians who launch rockets at Sderot as nice but impractical boys.
Maybe Seth Freedman will write a column next week on how he saw teen age boy at the mall in Netanya smoking a cigarette in the men’s room.
November 18, 2009 at 4:44 pm
Juan P. Lewis
Come on guys, the article was pretty dull, but quite sympathetic to Israeli society. I usually detect a hint of social conservatism in many of Seth’s threads, maybe due to his alleged allegiances to orthodox Judaism, combined with a past too close to Charlie. This was no exception, the word “decadent” was there, straight from a conservative life-style manual. But his conclusion is that the doom is not nigh. Yes, the Guardian might be obsessed with Israel, but Seth needs the money, and he might have not found any shocking story to write about.
November 18, 2009 at 4:53 pm
sababa
Juan, forget about the “poor-boy-needs-money”-sob: in his early Cif-shows, he used to drop gentle hints that he made so much money in his stock-broking-coke-smoking-days that he won’t have to work for money ever again… One time he also hinted that there were people he knows who made tons of money on 9/11 — I wouldn’t be surprised if he was one of those people. But you’re right: there is a whiff of conservatism about him, and when he writes about the City, you could think you’re reading someone from the “greed-is-good”-school…
November 18, 2009 at 5:25 pm
DY
The article is bad enough,BTW he just lifted it off an Israeli web site,what is worse are the usual anti-Israeli comments that are posted on his treads,by these idiots who consider him a kindred spirit.
November 18, 2009 at 6:33 pm
StickyMickey
“One time he also hinted that there were people he knows who made tons of money on 9/11 — I wouldn’t be surprised if he was one of those people.”
Does he have shares in Halliburton?
November 18, 2009 at 6:41 pm
Irish
AKUS
Should you come this way – Google Hard Talk Shlomo sands – interesting but will probably cause steam to come out of your ears.
Leni
November 18, 2009 at 7:22 pm
DY
Does Seth have shares in the Guardian,the way that the Guardian tolerates him and his drivel,I would have to say Yes Yes.
November 18, 2009 at 9:23 pm
AKUS
Leni – I’ll check it – but, BTW – I am not Hawkeye …
November 18, 2009 at 9:30 pm
AKUS
I’m probably about to get a really good comment deleted, but maybe it would have been deleted anyway:
amcinwashington
18 Nov 2009, 9:53PM
Two questions for Mr. Freedman. (1) Why is teen drinking in Israel more worthy of attention in the Guardian than teen drinking in other countries, like, say, Britain? And (2) is there any subject, issue, topic, or field of human endeavor that you might ever be interested in writing about that does not involve saying bad things about Israel or Jews? Bonus question: have you ever entertained the possibility that you might benefit from a few sessions of analysis?
November 18, 2009 at 9:50 pm
Irish
AKUS
I know you’re not Hawkeye. Why do you think I do?
L
November 18, 2009 at 10:39 pm
JubelFoster
Seth Freedman’s article does not even sound like original reporting. It sure sounds familiar. My educated guess is that he lifted it from somewhere else. In any event it is typical Guardian. Now they even accuse Israelis of excessive drinking. Any survey of alchohol consumption would show that the amount of alchohol consumed in Europe far exceeds that consumed in Israel. Of course the Guardian and old Seth do not care about that. They just want an excuse to bash Israel.
November 19, 2009 at 12:38 am
DY
Berchmans must be on day leave,seriously do they pay this jackass to post his garbage.His posts are disjointed,confused,illogical.He fits in nicely in Seth’s cheer squad.
November 19, 2009 at 1:29 am
Margie
As if there weren’t interesting things to write about Israel. A trip from his flat in Yafo to Kiryat Atidim (half an hour in traffic) and a chat with a few software companies there would give Settt a great deal of material for fascinating articles. But no, they might be positive and that would never do. His brief is to slam Israel in any way he can – and he can’t any more.
November 19, 2009 at 2:02 am
The Alchemist
I kinda glanced over the article. Or actually the preview cif puts up.
Anyway. Seth was saying something along the lines of Israeli youth looking West and thus drinking mad.
I was wondering if he was arguing for Israeli to look East and not drink?
I could also be paranoid but that’s another story.
November 19, 2009 at 2:20 am
DY
What seth didn’t mention,is Arab binge drinking,where Arab drunken louts beat up Jews,the last incident happening in Ramle where their victim ended up in intensive care.And that incident in Tel Aviv beach where an Israeli was murdered by Arabs.
There are numerous of these cases,that never get reported.
November 19, 2009 at 3:48 am
Juan P. Lewis
AKUS
“Two questions for Mr. Freedman. (1) Why is teen drinking in Israel more worthy of attention in the Guardian than teen drinking in other countries, like, say, Britain?”
Eer, Seth lives in Israel and writes about Israel It was an opinion piece about a comment by a conservative PM on teen drinking in Israel. In fact, what Seth said is that teen drinking is not too much of a problem in Israel, even if it has increased a bit due to a “relaxation of the customs” (we’ve heard that trope since Cato the censor).
“(2) is there any subject, issue, topic, or field of human endeavor that you might ever be interested in writing about that does not involve saying bad things about Israel or Jews?”
Seth sometimes writes about the City… you’d rather have him talking about stinking public toilets in Haifa…
DY
“What seth didn’t mention,is Arab binge drinking”
He didn’t because he was talking about secular Israelis in contrast to religious Israelis
“The only sectors of the public that reject alcohol consumption are religious Jewish and Muslim communities, and even in the case of the former alcohol is not considered an out-and-out taboo”
He also said that binge drinking was more prominent among immigrant communities, mainly Ethiopians and surely Russians. What I read is that most Jews and most Arabs don’t seem to have a problem with binge drinking (yes, yes those Ethiopians are Jewish and so are these Russians, but you get what I mean)
“I was wondering if he was arguing for Israeli to look East and not drink?”
That’s what transpires from this article. If there’s anything you could say about it is that is a piece of Orientalism, in which the East is seen as the cradle of spiritualism and virtue, while the West represents a more liberal decadent society.
This is something that really surprises me from Seth. He seems to have a soft spot for religion, esp. orthodox Judaism but maybe Islam too. I would have thought that he would come out as more straightforwardly secular, esp. thinking how religion has made the I/P conflict almost intractable.
November 19, 2009 at 4:09 am
peterthehungarian
I see that there is a low supply of usable subjects for fueling Jew hatred on CIF.
I compiled a short list list customized for different asajew and gentile contributors:
Tony Greenstein: Untenable circumstances in Israeli holding cells for creditcard thieves.
Seth Freedman: In according to Moshe on the cleaner the restrooms on te TA stock exchange are stinking… with the reach of grass.
Victoria Brittain: Israeli agents are using British journalists for moneylaundering.
Brian Whitaker: The hand of the MEMRI in the the Algeria – Egypt football controversy
Anthony Lerman: Unsuccesful contenders for leading positions are attacking the the institurtions where they didn’t get the jobs in Jerusalem.
These only free demos, anybody interested can contact CifWatch for a detailed pricelist.
For Richard Silverstein special discounts!
November 19, 2009 at 4:16 am
peterthehungarian
Sorry I pushed the submit button before checking the spelling.
The corrected version:
I see that there is a low supply of usable subjects for fueling Jew hatred on CIF.
I compiled a short list customized for different asajew and gentile contributors:
Tony Greenstein: Untenable circumstances in Israeli holding cells for creditcard thieves.
Seth Freedman: In according to Moshe the cleaner the restrooms on the TA stock exchange are stinking… with the reach of grass.
Victoria Brittain: Israeli agents are using British journalists for moneylaundering.
Brian Whitaker: The hand of the MEMRI in the the Algeria – Egypt football controversy
Anthony Lerman: Unsuccesful contenders for leading positions are attacking the institurtions where they didn’t get the job in Jerusalem.
These only free demos, anybody interested can contact CifWatch for a detailed pricelist.
For Richard Silverstein special discounts!
November 19, 2009 at 6:13 am
SilverTrees
Good posts peterthehungarian.
And poor Sethele – as challenged as ever
November 19, 2009 at 6:26 am
MITNAGED
Juan P. Lewis – Freedman lives in Israel but what he writes about Israel is ill-researched and biased opinion often with only a nodding acquaintance with fact. He is desperate to be noticed and it matters little to him whether this is by means of notorious behaviour or not.
His article about the blood libel in AftonBladet was the most egregious example of this playing to the gallery. (The author of the original article now admits that his “facts” were hearsay but deafening silence from Freedman and the poison from his article endures on CiF).
I may well be very old fashioned but I still believe that there should at least be a semblance of ethical conduct even on the part of half-witted writers for blogs like CiF. Freedman bends facts for effect, but below the line the commenters are not aware of the distinction between supposition and fact. CiF is on a mission to demonise Israel. Freedman, an Israeli citizen is helping them. In my book that’s akin to traitorous behaviour. I am intrigued as you why you seem to want to defend him.
amcinwashington on the thread itself suggests analysis. Have pity on the poor therapist who could never hope to dent the distorted and overinflated self-image of a person who thinks he’s perfect already.
November 19, 2009 at 6:33 am
Serendipity
@Juan P Lewis – “…I would have thought that he would come out as more straightforwardly secular, esp. thinking how religion has made the I/P conflict almost intractable…”
Don’t forget how confused Seth Freedman is. He’ll play the religion card whenever it suits him and he thinks it will get him hits on CiF (and he’ll wheel out his family who aspire to knowledge about Judaism to support him) on one day, and write something completely “other” on the next, according to what he thinks he will get paid for.
He’s the archetypal chameleon on this manner, and it’s all skin-deep.
November 19, 2009 at 6:40 am
Juan P. Lewis
“I am intrigued as you why you seem to want to defend him”
I didn’t agree with this website criticism of this article by Seth Freedman. I think that if you shout anti-Semitism at everything, it undermines the case of those who fight real anti-Semitism, which is a real problem out there, unfortunately a growing one. Seth has had many lows, but if anything, this article was quite sympathetic to Israelis in general, esp. to the religious ones. If Cifwatch wants to be respected, they should be fair with their criticism of other authors. I thought Cifwatch hinted that Seth was giving a negative image of Israel in his article and found that conclusion wrong and just expressed my opinion. Hope that’s enough.
For the record. I’m Yanpol on Cif, in case you want to know my take on the conflict and anti-Semitism.
November 19, 2009 at 7:39 am
margie
Yanpol I have always enjoyed your postings and your reasoned approach, even, or especially, when I don’t agree with you. Glad to see you here.
November 19, 2009 at 8:15 am
AKUS
Juan P. Lewis
The comment I provided was not mine but that of someone called amcinwashington.
Interesting moniker – that’s a big multiplex in the Union Station complex.
Another alert US CiFWatcher, apparently.
And he was right.
Peterthehungarion:
Great topics – I have another one for Victoria Brittain following the heavy rain in Israel a couple of weeks ago:
Jews create torrential rains in an attempt to flush Gaza into the sea.
Its the sequel to an earlier article in which she accused Israel of causing flooding in Gaza when it rained, totally unaware that this happens throughout the coastal region in Israel too. (“Only last week, camps in Gaza City and Khan Yunis saw waist-high water flood homes and roads after heavy rains because the pumping system was not working”.)
Yes – the Israelis have finally figured out how to concentrate the rain over Gaza ….
November 19, 2009 at 8:40 am
AKUS
Juan P. Lewis – in this case, I don’t think anyone on CW is “shouting anti-Semitsm” as Freedman, as richly as he deserves the accustaion (see my earlier article on “Nazi Analogies on CIF” which has been his trademark for describing israelis).
I think most are just amused at the depths to which this pathetic creature is sinking in his attempts to find negative reports he can publish about israel.
Have you ever seen a report from Freedman on the booming economy, the huge hightech parks in Herzlia, Ramat Hasharon, Atifim, Yokneam? The brilliant research that is leading to one Nobel prize after another? The phenomenal night life? The great multicultural music, dance and other artistic events fromthe world’s greatest artists that are the daily fare of cultural life in Israel? The American-Israeli rabbinical student who just became the world champion for his weight? Windsurfing of the beaches? Hang-gliding from the Gilboa or Golan? Rafting in the Galil? Hiking though the Negev?
All you get from Freedman is grumble, moan, hate, despise …
He paints a picture of Israel – a sort of muscular Darfur of his warped imagination – that is so divorced from the reality that most of us who live or have lived there, or who visit find incredible.
Or, as in this case, ludicrous. An sad, pathetic bit of smut about teenage drinking in Israel from someone who wrote a barely-selling book about his drug and drinking addictions called “Binge Trading”
November 19, 2009 at 9:32 am
Yohoho
Yanpol/Juan P Lewis – can you explain to me how you yourself would recognise an antisemitic remark on CiF? I am genuinely interested.
For myself, I believe that regular posters there, whatever their political bent or allegiance are in danger of becoming inured to anti-Jewish racism which is in the warp and weft of CiF to the extent that they no longer recognise it.
November 19, 2009 at 9:46 am
Yohoho
“…Yes – the Israelis have finally figured out how to concentrate the rain over Gaza ….”
Well may you laugh, AKUS, but we are talking about Palestinian people who all too easily believe, for example, that Israel is distributing hormone-laced bubble gum to Palestinian youth to make them horny, as well as buying into every conspiracy theory known to the imagination and a whole subset of Guardianista society who’ve themselves forgotten how to distinguish between fact and CiF fiction and therefore haven’t the intelligence to try to reason them out of such outlandish ideas.
DY, scuttlebutt has it that Seth Freedman had or has shares in a certain person in the Guardian – nudge, nudge, wink, wink….. :0)
November 19, 2009 at 1:33 pm
Mita
I remember one Israeli Independence Day when Saeb Barakat complained of the fireworks and asked plaintively what kind of emotional torture the Israelis were subjecting the Palestinians to now. Whatever Israel does is interpreted in the light of how it affects the Palestinians.
November 19, 2009 at 2:17 pm
Juan P. Lewis
Thanks for the responses,
Hi AKUS,
“All you get from Freedman is grumble, moan, hate, despise …He paints a picture of Israel – a sort of muscular Darfur of his warped imagination – that is so divorced from the reality that most of us who live or have lived there, or who visit find incredible”
Seth seems to have gone through a sort of shock disillusion with Israel (he used to be more positive) and he tends to focus on the dark side of the country. You could say that he is in a campaign to demonize Israel, but I’m not that sure. I see it more as a sort of “Zola syndrome” to put it some way. Since J’accuse a lot of journalists see themselves as sort of moral reserves of their nations and so they try emphasize what’s wrong with the society they live in. They won’t write about all the stuff you mention because they already see them as morally good, so they don’t need to worry about it. I think that’s something good for society, even though it makes those journalists and writers look like moaning people riding a high horse sometimes. One thing Israelis are very proud of is the fierce criticism they submit their country to. I think that’s one of the Jewish and Israeli strengths and something that has appeal to people like me, who are not Jewish.
Seth also has the prophetic tradition of the Old Testament to justify himself, which I reckon it gives him the idea that he is keeping an ancient Jewish tradition alive. This is all speculation, but I’m trying to think why he writes what he writes. He supported Operation Cast Lead, however, so I don’t think he is as anti-Israeli as he may appear… but he tends to be quite contradictory sometimes, so I don’t know.
November 19, 2009 at 2:17 pm
AKUS
Leni – one of the problems of e-mail or this type of “discussion” is that ts easy to misunderstand – I assumed from your comment about Sands that yo thought Iwrote this article.
WRT Sands, I think he has made a horrible mish-mash of what could be a legitimate and interesting discussion. (I must confess, having read several refutations of his book, I have not read it and have no interest in it, any more than in Ilan Pappe’s novels).
While drawing attention to, and accepting, the possibility – or even probability – that many WB Arabs are descendants of Jews forced to convert to islam, he has for some reason then gone on to assume that those Jews who went into exile (or even just left looking for a better life) during the horrific Roman occupation of the Jewish state as it then was are somehow not Jews.
This is a totally false reading both of history and the genealogical record as it exists through DNA testing, tradition, and history. Moreover, the fact that some non-Jews married int the Jewish group during the 2000 years of exile, or some Jews are the result of the rape of Jewish women during pogroms does not change make the Ashlenazi Jews any less Jewish, or need an invented history to “prove” or create their Jewish heritage dating back to the land of Israel.
I cannot for the life of me see why it is so difficult to accept both halves of this story – some of today’s WB Arabs and Bedouin come from Jewish roots (and maintain some Jewish traditions in secret like the Spanish conversos)
and Jews from around the world derive from that same group, but were either driven into exile, left for economic reasons, or both. There is no need to create a myth about the origins of the Jewish people.
November 19, 2009 at 2:30 pm
Juan P. Lewis
Yohoho,
“Can you explain to me how you yourself would recognise an antisemitic remark on CiF? I am genuinely interested”
Some remarks that I regard as anti-Semitic is when people rationalize hatred for the Jews for certain decision the Israeli government makes, even when those people don’t live or have never lived in Israel. As I said it the other day, nobody targets Russian Britons for the butchering of Grozny… somehow some people think that Jews are different.
Other type of remark that I find anti-Semitic is when people deny the Jews their right to self-determination. As I said many times on Cif and elsewhere, I think Israel is a legitimate entity because a people who couldn’t put up with discrimination any more decided to choose a future for themselves and migrated to another land (like the Pilgrims did to America). That land was occupied by the Ottomans and they the Brits and as occupying powers they decided to give the Jews their homeland. Whether the ties of the Jewish people to the land of Canaan were built in 3000 AD or 1920 is irrelevant to me. Israel is a country recognised by the UN and the five victorious power of WWII. That’s enough for me in my book.
If someone thinks that Israel is illegitimate because he thinks that all states are illegitimate, I have no problem with that. If someone thinks that Israel is not legitimate, but all other states are, then I think they have a problem…
November 19, 2009 at 5:48 pm
sethofcocainetowers
Trust the Guardian to take a cokehead who sold crap stock to unsuspecting suckers,and turn him into a “journalist”.Whose only journalist credentials are his hatred for a country that accepted him,despite him being a junkie.