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We wish to show our solidarity with Seismic Shock who, as described in his guest post below, has been the victim of intimidation for shining a spotlight on the anti-Zionist theology of Reverend Stephen Sizer. As Ben Cohen at Z-Word says “We Are All Seismic Shock” and he urges readers to tell Sizer what you think by emailing him here. I similarly urge you to do the same thing. For more on this developing story, visit Harry’s Place, ModernityBlog and Engage. We will not be silenced.
This is a guest post by Seismic Shock.
As some people have noticed, I’ve been rather quiet in blogging about the Reverend Stephen Sizer’s activities of late.
After all, what more can be said of a man forwards emails from Holocaust deniers, shares platforms with Holocaust deniers, and shamelessly flaunts his anti-Zionist theology before Iran’s apocalyptic Holocaust-denying regime? As Iranian pastors are arrested and house churches closed down, why is the Khomeinist regime translating Sizer’s book on Christian Zionism into Farsi? How many more times can I point all this out?
The names of a few CiF regulars certainly come to mind after watching this. (h/t SarahLeah)
Of the large number of pro-Israel comments deleted yesterday on the Seth Freedman thread, this one stood out the most.
Needless to say that the Hamas Charter contains this:
“…the Islamic Resistance Movement aspires to the realisation of Allah’s promise, no matter how long that should take. The Prophet, Allah bless him and grant him salvation, has said: “The Day of Judgement will not come about until Moslems fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Moslems, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him. Only the Gharkad tree, (evidently a certain kind of tree) would not do that because it is one of the trees of the Jews.” (related by al-Bukhari and Moslem).” [Hamas Charter, Article 7]
And here’s a video from Hamas’ Al-Aqsa TV where the Hamas bunny, Assud, vows to eat Jews:
Come to think of it, maybe it was Bella Mackie that was on duty today because we already know that she thinks we’re making all of this up.
Remember this?
BellaM
03 Sep 09, 5:50pm
Staff They should swap Shalit for the 10,000 unnamed Arab prisoners and Marwan Barghouti.
Would you really want to show Hamas that you’re open to this type of negotiation? Israelis would be left incredibly vulnerable from this action. Hamas should not be allowed any kind of leverage from it’s action here. They cannot expect Israel to make any sort of progress with them until Shalit is given back to his family. The actions of Hamas in this story give credence to the myth that they don’t want peace. [emphasis added]
Interesting to see what generates the most comments…
Antony Lerman’s CiF article of January 14th provided an excellent example of how a manipulative above the line writer can produce a mirror image of his message in the comments below the line and in doing so create an impression of consensus of opinion.
As we all know, Lerman is an anti-Zionist who advocates a one-state ‘solution’ and believes that the Law of Return should be repealed. He is opposed to the EUMC Working Definition of Anti-Semitism, stating “[a]nd it puts out of bounds the perfectly legitimate discussion of whether increased anti-Semitism is a result of Israel’s actions.”
My impression is that Lerman employs three main arguments about antisemitism with the aim of furthering his political agenda. He claims that antisemitism is exaggerated, that people with pro-Israel sympathies try to use antisemitism as a method of silencing criticism of Israel, and most dangerously, if rather paradoxically, he claims that rising antisemitism in the rest of the world is the direct result of Israeli policy and actions.
Sure enough, in the below the line comments, all three of these claims were repeated ad nauseum.
First note the photograph; amidst the huge concrete blogs, the IDF soldier at his ease. It’s as if he doesn’t care at all about the alleged risks to the health of Palestinians in Gaza.
This is par for the course for a Guardian misrepresentation, but “Gaza blockade threatens health of 1.4 million, aid agencies warn” by James Sturcke, gives no opportunity to reply to the outright lies, omissions and half-truths in it. The report by the “more than 80 humanitarian organisations”, which include the WHO and the UN (as if that makes the report’s findings more objective and rigorous), says that Gazan lives are under threat because of lack of medical aid and, as usual, lays the blame at the feet of the Israelis.
This is a guest post by Tom Wonacott
The recent article by Nicholas Blincoe (“Welcome to Palestine, Avigdor”) is surely not a heavy weight read, but the author does promote the typical Guardian agenda. Blincoe sarcastically criticizes racism in Israeli society as well as Israel’s controversial settlement activity. He chides Israel’s new Foreign Minister, Avigdor Lieberman, for living in an “illegal”settlement and for purportedly racist statements that he made in the past, and then he sensationalizes Lieberman’s comments by comparing him to mass murderers, Slobodan Milosevic and Josef Stalin. Blincoe then berates the Jewish-majority state:
I have no doubt that it is possible for Israel to place the pursuit of a happy and secure Jewish life at its centre, while also offering equality, de facto and de jure, to all its citizens. Yet it has failed to do this, so far.
Blincoe is really advocating a bi-national or single state solution in Palestine. This is classic Guardian above the line delegitimization of the Jewish state. Blincoe’s tone is one of sarcasm, and he seems to enjoy calling Israel a racist society.
The Guardian has a knack for publishing anti-Israel articles. These are not just articles that legitimately question settlement expansion, but articles meant to undermine the legitimacy of Israel, itself – to demean Israel as a Jewish state. Some writers question Israel’s right to exist while promoting a single or bi-national state solution. Some compare Israel to apartheid South Africa and use apartheid terminology like “ethno-religious supremacist” state to describe Israel. Some seek to undermine Israel’s democracy, attacking the laws that favor Jewish immigration and land use, and some writers attempt to portray the very fabric of Israeli society as racist. The attacks on Israel have been ruthless and relentless, and have covered all walks of Israeli life.
If you are a British citizen or resident, please take the time to sign up to the following petition.
We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to introduce legislation now to prevent private individuals being able to issue arrest warrants for war crimes without the signoff of a government or judicial official (eg the Attorney-General).
Put a stop to the manipulation of the British legal system by those that seek to advance their warped anti-Zionist political agendas.
To sign up, click here.
This is a guest post from Mark Rogers of the Anglican Friends of Israel
My text is taken from Mr Anthony Lerman’s article, The pro-Israel lobby and anti-semitism, in The Guardian, 20 November 2009: “Unfortunately, Israel’s actions and incidents of violence in the Israel-Palestine conflict do provoke some incidents of antisemitism.” It is supplemented by remarks which Rabbi David Goldberg made to Mr. Peter Oborne in the latter’s programme about the Israel Lobby, to the effect that of course there are those who attack Israel out of antisemitism, and they must be set apart and dealt with differently, on their own, because it is an attack motivated by antisemitism.
It is an article of faith amongst those who attack (‘criticise’) Zionism/Israel/the policies of the Israeli government that they are not being antisemitic – except, of course, as Rabbi Goldberg noted, when they are. Virtue belongs to the critics – except when it doesn’t. But how tell them apart ? The implications of this ethico-logical problem are avoided, but let me give a graphic instance of the confusion.
For those of you that haven’t heard yet, there is a must read new book that is coming out next month: Trials of the Diaspora: A History of Anti-Semitism in England by the estimable Anthony Julius.
Philip Roth describes the book in the following glowing terms:
“This is an essential history and so it’s fortunate it has been written by a man with the extraordinary fluency,staggering erudition, scholarly integrity, intellectual acumen, and moral discernment of Anthony Julius.”
Similarly, Nick Cohen had the following to say:
“Anthony Julius has produced a brilliant and readable account of a shameful stain on the national reputation. The best dissection I’ve seen of Britain’s oldest and least acknowledged racial prejudice. “
You can pre-order a copy at Amazon UK by clicking here.
Reading the comments on the article written by Israeli MK Shai Hermesh on December 29th 2009,the overwhelming thing which struck me was the sheer lack of empathy on the part of CiF commentators both for the writer, a resident of Kibbutz Kfar Aza, and the thousands of others like him who have for so many years endured living with the menace of terrorist attacks from Gaza.
This lack of empathy for the suffering of fellow human beings based purely upon their identity is unfortunately far from new. In the world of psychiatry, lack of empathy is a symptom of various disorders, but my feeling is that this is different; it would be too easy to dismiss what we see manifested below the line at CiF as the ramblings of unfortunate people. Lack of empathy for the suffering of Israelis is the result of years of concerted effort on the part of Arab political organisations such as Hamas and the PLO and their sympathisers in the Western Media.
Today is Martin Luther King Day in the US marking the birth date of Dr. King in remembrance of the courageousness of Dr. King’s struggle against racial discrimination.
It is on this day that I am reminded of Dr. King’s response to a student that attacked Zionism
“When people criticize Zionists, they mean Jews. You’re talking anti-Semitism.”
An interesting phenomenon took place a couple of weeks ago at the Huffington Post. David Harris, Executive Director of the AJC, wrote an article specifically responding to the below the line commentariat of a piece on Israeli airport security that he wrote a few days earlier.
Here, in the wake of the Christmas-day terrorist attempt, I thought I was writing about enhancing our flight security by seeing what we might learn from Israel, a country with its own share of experience in this area.
It turns out, instead, that for some readers my last piece, posted December 31, provided a handy excuse to unleash their unbridled hostility toward Israel.
What Harris describes is an all too familiar scenario at “Comment is Free” whenever a pro-Israel contributor challenges the conventional wisdom of the Guardian World View. One of the worst examples of this was witnessed last year when Sir Harold Evans wrote an article critical of the Goldstone Report resulting in the unleashing of a vitriolic attack that would put your typical Stormfront thread to shame.
To their credit the HuffPo afforded Harris a right of reply “above the line” to address the barrage of anti-Israel bigotted commentary.
Wouldn’t it be interesting to see Matt Seaton affording a similar right of reply to David Hirsch to address the below the line bigotry that was generated in response to Hirsch’s measured critique last week of Yoav Shamir’s documentary, Defamation.
Somehow though I don’t see this happening. It would for one thing constitute an acknowledgment that there is a problem with antisemitic commentary below the line, something which Guardian management has difficulty in admitting.
Anyway, to see how how Harris responded to his “chorus of critics”, click here.
(h/t Backspin)
Many in the Western world seem to have convinced themselves that the Middle East conflict is no more than a dispute over land. In fact it is about much more than that, but any comment alluding to this can meet with swift deletion on CiF as we saw the other day on the David Hirsh thread. Here are some examples from that thread:
15 Jan 2010, 3:47PM
gazagirl
You are side stepping again. Shall we play a game of who shows compassion and who does not?
‘We’ don’t have to.
‘We’ do not indoctrinate our children to value death over life and try to give them an education that makes them useful citizens for the world.
15 Jan 2010, 4:12PM
@ Gazagirl
I agree with you on many things and salut your love of children.
But why aren’t you protesting in the streets to correct their so wrong racist school programms?
Are you scared to get knee capped, thrown of building or stoned to death (after raping you?)
Doesn’t stop the Iranians!
Step up and stand for your freedom with the same passion you stand against Israelis and we’ll get along sooner than you’ll believe!
15 Jan 2010, 5:50PM
Ercia
Jenin, Beirut, Sabra and Shatillah, Palestinian refugee camps.
Does that justify a homeland?
No they certainly do not. Whatever makes you think they could?
Jenin was home to mass murders, Beirut to organisations dedicated to the destruction of the Jews, Sabra and Shatillah a base for the PLO, and the refugee camps are where those that sought to kill the Jews and destroy Israel before it was born ended up. I see no merit there.
As we all know, much has been written over the past few days both here and elsewhere about the supposed ‘indoctrination’ of Israeli youth with over-exaggerated beliefs about antisemitism in the world around them. As an Israeli parent of five, I would classify this claim as simply silly and completely untrue, but I find it very interesting that surprisingly little is written in the Western media about the kind of indoctrination which actually does go on in our environs – something of which we in the Middle East are all too aware, particularly as many Israelis are speakers of Arabic, including most of our children who learn the subject at school.
Hawkeye
Omar2
WellofSense
Medusa
The Alchemist
Louise
Tosca
Maimon
Telling the Truth
Israelinurse
Adam Levick
Margie in Tel Aviv
Guest/Cross Post
Hadar Sela
Despicable Seth
January 23, 2010 in Uncategorized | Tags: Antisemitism, Comment is Free, Guardian, Seth Freedman | by Hawkeye | 90 comments
This is a guest post from Joy Wolfe
It is not Israel who is indifferent to the suffering of the Palestinian people, it is their own leadership who, for the past 61 years, have deliberately deprived them of a decent standard of life and any benefit form the millions of dollars of international aid that should have guaranteed them statehood and, proper living conditions and all the benefits of peace.
But irrespective of that, to accuse Israel of double standards when she goes to the aid of disaster victims, fully equipped and ready to get straight on with the rescue effort, is truly contemptible. There is a long catalogue of disasters where Israel has been at the forefront of the mercy missions and it is not to gain brownie points or recognition. The Israelis put themselves in physical danger when risking their lives to save victims, and subsequently provide medical attention and care that is second to none. Amazingly, the international media has fully recognised the quality and quantity of Israel’s aid. It is hard to comprehend the sheer scale of the field hospital that was set up in such a short space of time. But Seth Freedman seeks to highlight the tiny minority of sick minds who tried to diminish this effort, even making obscene allegations that only appeared in little known outlets, but he needed to give them more exposure. Watching the dedicated medical teams at work, seeing and hearing the gratitude of the Haitian people whose lives they touched, makes the thought of the accusations totally reprehensible.
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