This is a guest post by an anonymous CiF Watch reader.
There are some other interesting features of McGreal’s original story, which readers might think give an insight into his methods. In what follows, all emboldened text is added by me.
The story (on the internet at least) begins with a picture of the signature page of an agreement dated 3 April 1975.
As can be seen above, this is described in the caption to the picture as: “The secret military agreement signed by Shimon Peres, now president of Israel, and P W Botha of South Africa.”
The sub-editor who presumably composed that must have gotten the idea from the article itself, which includes these two statements by McGreal:
“The two men also signed a broad-ranging agreement governing military ties between the two countries that included a clause declaring that “the very existence of this agreement” was to remain secret.
and
“Some weeks before Peres made his offer of nuclear warheads to Botha, the two defence ministers signed a covert agreement governing the military alliance known as Secment. It was so secret that it included a denial of its own existence: “It is hereby expressly agreed that the very existence of this agreement… shall be secret and shall not be disclosed by either party”.
(Notice in passing that the agreement is called “Secment”. Remember that word.)
In his subsequent article giving details of the documents on which all this is based, McGreal gave a web link to three pages of the agreement (which is apparently four pages long, so once again, incomplete), and himself described it thus:
(Notice also how he calls this the “Israel-South Africa agreement”. More on that later.)
In fact, if you take time to inspect it, the document is not a “military agreement”, nor is it a “broad-ranging agreement governing military ties”, nor is it an “agreement governing the military alliance” .
It is nothing more nor less than a “secrecy agreement”, i.e. an agreement that the parties agree to keep their dealings secret.
Here’s a snapshot of page 1 and page 2:
As you can see, Section 1 has been redacted with a marker. However, a little image enhancement shows that it states the following:
“This Agreement will be referred to as Security and Secret Agreement (SECMENT).
Section 2 contains a (redacted) definition of “secret information”, which is the subject of the agreement.
Section 3 states that “the very existence of this agreement as well as any other agreement relating to the activities defined in clause 2 hereof [i.e. the secret information] ……shall be secret…”.
The rest of the agreement appears to provide the machinery for the secrecy regime agreed on. Thus Section 4 describes the procedures by which secret information will be shared. We don’t have the third page, but we can be absolutely sure that if it contained a word setting up military ties or a military alliance, McGreal would not have omitted it.
It is thus a secrecy agreement providing that future agreements, if any, and future dealings, if any, between the parties are to be kept secret. No doubt each signatory to this agreement did not want the other party to put the information about their dealings into the public sphere. And obviously it was an agreement between the Ministers of Defence of both countries. And no doubt they had many reasons for not wanting their future dealings to be publicised.
“Secrecy agreements” are widely used wherever negotiations take place between different parties, be they private or public or governmental, and where the participants do not want the information which is to be exchanged, and the details of negotiation and co-operation, to be disclosed to public view.
I would imagine that every country in the world which has military dealings with other countries has a “secrecy agreement” of this sort to govern its relationship. For example, I have read in the paper that Britain supplies arms to many countries, including, I think, China and Brazil. If McGreal were to obtain a copy of the undoubtedly existing “secrecy agreements” between Britain and China, or Britain and Brazil, does anyone rate his chances of persuading his newspaper to proclaim that it had acquired a copy of the “broad-ranging agreement governing military ties between Britain and China”, or the “agreement governing the military alliance between Britain and Brazil”.
Don’t put money on it.
If you recall I mentioned you should keep in mind the characterisation of what we now know to be a secrecy agreement as the “Israel-South Africa Agreement”. The Israel South Africa agreement is referred to in Sasha Polakow-Suransky’s book “The Unspoken Alliance Israel’s Secret Relationship with Apartheid South Africa”, the basis for McGreal’s story, in the following terms:
“[Peres and P.W. Botha] also signed the original ISSA (Israel-South Africa) agreement, according to Dieter Gerhardt, then a high ranking South African naval officer, who saw the thick document when it was circulated for discussion throughout the South African military establishment…Gerhardt recalls the original ISSA agreement that Peres and Botha produced as “a very detailed layout of how they were going to cooperate on a technical level” and how each country would store spare weapons and parts for the other.” (pages 80 and 81)
So clearly the secrecy agreement and the Israel-South Africa agreement described above are two entirely different documents.
I said you should also remember the word “Secment”. Now let’s revisit the quote in which McGreal refers to this secrecy agreement, and see what use he makes of it:
“Some weeks before Peres made his offer of nuclear warheads to Botha, the two defence ministers signed a covert agreement governing the military alliance known as Secment. It was so secret that it included a denial of its own existence: “It is hereby expressly agreed that the very existence of this agreement… shall be secret and shall not be disclosed by either party”.
It illustrates what these critics of Israel have to resort to, to do their work:
1. The “offer of nuclear warheads” is based on a (so far, undated) draft document in which the words giving rise to this inference of an offer are actually deleted to show that they are wrong. This is ignored.
2. In order to get the inference up and running, not only are the deleted words treated as not deleted, but some additional words are added.
3. This inferred “offer” is then causally linked to a “secrecy agreement” which is misrepresented as constituting a “military agreement”, an “agreement governing the military alliance”, a “broad-ranging agreement governing military ties” and even the so-called Israel South Africa agreement (of which there is no proof of its existence other than the claims of Dieter Gerhardt, a former KGB spy who spied on Israel).
4. With a skip and a leap, or joining the dots as these conspiracy theorists like to put it, Israel offered nuclear weapons to South Africa pursuant to a military alliance between them.
Hawkeye
Omar2
WellofSense
Medusa
The Alchemist
Louise
Tosca
Maimon
Telling the Truth
Israelinurse
Adam Levick
Margie in Tel Aviv
Guest/Cross Post
Hadar Sela
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May 27, 2010 at 2:40 am
Guardian Hates Jews
One is left to ponder whether all the mistakes CiFWatch has so meticulously documented above, arise from simple incompetency on the part of the Guardian, or rather from malicious and willful prejudice against the Jewish state. Neither is pretty.
May 27, 2010 at 3:02 am
Andrew
Some years ago, I was a manager in a firm selling bespoke computer software. Our customers included many household names. It was standard practice for them to require a similar agreement to the one mentioned above (terms like non-disclosure agreement or confidentiality agreement were more commonly used) between us before entering into discussions. They wanted to ensure that their future plans would not become public knowledge or be leaked to their competitors.
If we made a sale, the contract for the software would always include a secrecy clause. But in many cases we didn’t end up doing business together, and the agreement simply protected our discussions, which were broad-ranging and commercially sensitive on both sides.
Clauses requiring the very existence of an agreement to be kept secret were commonplace, as the fact that two companies have had talks could be of value to a competitor.
The language of the document given above reminds me of these agreements. They are ten-a-penny in the business world – I used to sign a couple a month, and we had several binders full of them – and as the author said, they’re undoubtedly widespread in international relations as well. Big deal.
But the thing that made me laugh was the declassified stamps on the document. It may have been a secret agreement once, but not any more!
The way this document is being “spun” to give an anti-Israel slant is just crazy, and evidence of extreme bias.
May 27, 2010 at 3:40 am
benorr
That “document” looks like it was forged by a very bored teenager.But this wouldn’t bother the Guardian.It wasn’t interested in tiny details like the truth.
It never is.
May 27, 2010 at 4:12 am
GaryO
In its incessant dissing of Israel, Guardian puts even the Palestine Telegraph to shame. Maybe they’re one and the same just like you can’t tell the difference its editorial between BBC and al Jazeera.
May 27, 2010 at 4:18 am
Eliyahu
So if we join all the dots in the Guardian’s world of phantasmagoria, we reach the conclusion that the Guardian is doing an agitprop job, not only against Israel but against Jews. They are indeed preparing the ground for mass murder. Doubters ought to study how the Nazi Holocaust was prepared. It was not done in a day. Constant agitprop, and not only in Germany-Austria but in the UK, France, USSR, USA [recall Father Coughlin].
And the pretend moral arbiters of society join in the agitprop and the mass hatred, described in 1984. Recall the five minutes of hate everyday, or was it ten minutes or whatever? The “peace process” seems to aim most of all at peace of mind for antisemites.
May 27, 2010 at 4:34 am
Yvetta Bagel
I’ve been re-reading an excellent and illuminating article by Professor Alderman that appeared in the JC (13 Sept. 2002) under the apt heading “An overweening Guardian that is no angel” and characterising the Guardian as “a vehicle for a very raw species of anti-Israel bias going far beyond the bounds of acceptable comment …”. It is interesting to note Rusbridger’s words in The Spectator, quoted by the professor in that article, following a trip by Rusbridger to the land of his paper’s obsession:”Nothing had prepared me for finding quite so many echoes of the worst days of South Africa in modern Israel”.
CiF gives the lie to Rusbridger’s statement in an interview with Ian Mayes, quoted in the JC (14 June 2002): “The Israelis’ information network and monitoring of the press is much more active and professional than the Palestinians’. We have a role in articulating [the Palestinians'] case – giving a voice to the voiceless is how I put it – but not disproportionately or uncritically.”
May 27, 2010 at 5:24 am
Medusa
Hawkeye, excellent, painstaking work. Well done!
It should beggar belief that no apology has yet been made by the Guardian for this tissue of malicious lies, but it doesn’t.
After all the Guardian lost all contact with any semblance of truth or facts or ethical journalism long ago.
May 27, 2010 at 5:42 am
Joe Millis
Not entirely sure that’s Shimon P’s signature.
May 27, 2010 at 5:46 am
Duvid Crockett
Very clear, precise and illuminating article, which also demonstrates the absolute necessity for Cif Watch to continue monitoring The Guardian’s distortions and obfuscations.
May 27, 2010 at 6:13 am
GaryO
Hawkeye exposing Guardian exposing Israel.
I wish you the best Hotlips in town.
May 27, 2010 at 6:21 am
JerusalemMite
Yvetta Bagel
It is interesting to note Rusbridger’s words in The Spectator, quoted by the professor in that article, following a trip by Rusbridger to the land of his paper’s obsession:”Nothing had prepared me for finding quite so many echoes of the worst days of South Africa in modern Israel”
Do you have a link to that little delicacy Yvetta??
I did google the quoted Rustbucket words and turned up the following two links, the same article by the same man and rather shows people like myself, who detest The Guardian and the GWV, what I and them are up against.
http://old.nationalreview.com/comment/comment-gross110101.shtml
and
http://www.aish.com/jw/mo/48924097.html
Personal experiences and ‘hands on’ consideration are as nothing when confronting Rustbucket’s bigotry.
May 27, 2010 at 7:17 am
AKUS
Superb forensic analysis from this anonymous reader.
I notice that unlike its efforts in similar cases, when the Guardian has spun these kinds of reports out for weeks (take the Gaza issue as the most extreme case- still an “editors pick”) they have rather hurriedly shut up on this one.
I hope that Israel’s FO and PR crowd are reading this.
May 27, 2010 at 7:56 am
AKUS
From a different time and place, but nevertheless timely for this issue, from the Washington Post. It demonstrates just how some of these “secret agreements” work.
Although I doubt the Guardian will be around 35 years from now judging by the way its going, will some eager-beaver dredge this up to prove something or other about Petraeus and the USA that suits their agenda ?
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/25/world/25military.html
U.S. Is Said to Expand Secret Actions in Mideast
The secret directive, signed in September by Gen. David H. Petraeus, authorizes the sending of American Special Operations troops to both friendly and hostile nations in the Middle East, Central Asia and the Horn of Africa to gather intelligence and build ties with local forces. Officials said the order also permits reconnaissance that could pave the way for possible military strikes in Iran if tensions over its nuclear ambitions escalate.
——–
Mind you, this doesn’t seem to be such a well kept secret.
May 27, 2010 at 9:28 am
peterthehungarian
From the Jerusalem Post
Guardian nukes story ‘simply ludicrous’
Ex-South African president denies report Israel tried to sell nukes.
Recent reports that Israel offered to sell nuclear weapons to South Africa are “simply ludicrous,” to a FW de Klerk, the last president of apartheid-era South Africa.
The news Web site IOL quoted the Nobel Peace Prize laureate as saying that he had “never been informed of any such developments” as those reported in the Guardian’s report earlier this week.
The Guardian’s report, which claims to contain “the first documentary evidence” of Israel’s possession of nuclear weapons, alleges that in 1975, South African Defense Minister PW Botha met secretly with President Shimon Peres, who was then Israel’s defense minister, and asked for nuclear warheads, which Peres allegedly offered “in three sizes.”
The paper wrote that in the same meeting the two also signed a secret, broad-ranging military agreement.
De Klerk flatly denied the story, saying, “I have no reason to question the information that was consistently conveyed to me by the relevant authorities that South Africa developed nuclear weapons on its own.”
The former South African president’s comments were in line with a sharp denial which Peres issued on Monday, saying that the claims had “no basis in reality.”
May 27, 2010 at 10:12 am
JerusalemMite
Someone mentioned above. The do seem to have ‘dropped’ the story very quickly.
I am patiently awaiting the first posts about the Heroic attempts to get aid to Gaza.
Israel has announced that the boats will be allowed into Ashdod port and all the supplies transferred to Gaza by lorry.
I was wondering where Berchmans iz/woz. Perhaps he is with the ‘flotilla’. It shouldn’t be difficult to spot him. Someone full of bullshite.
But then, everyone on board will be full of bullshit.
May 27, 2010 at 10:18 am
Toko LeMoko
Eliyahu
the Guardian is doing an agitprop job, not only against Israel but against Jews. They are indeed preparing the ground for mass murder.
Well, thank you, Eliyahu. I’ve been assaulted on CinF, here, and in other venues by the see-no-evil crowd (e.g., Pretzel) for drawing exactly those conclusions.
May 27, 2010 at 11:38 am
Yvetta Bagel
JM, I’m a subscriber to the hard copy Jc, which enables me access to the JC online website Archives. If you’re a subscriber you can link up, and by simply typing Rusbridger into the search index, you can find it.
I would need your e-mail to send the page to you via the JC onsite provision, so that’s a bit tricky.
May 27, 2010 at 12:24 pm
Mitnaged
Eliyahu, mankind made the mistake once before of not believing that a people could be targeted for death simply because they were who they were. In order for that to happen the society in which they lived, and from which the murderers arose, had to be prepared over time not to be disturbed by extremism and the violence and brutality associated with notion of that “cleansing” of their society from the people they targeted. They had to be ready, brainswashed, into objectifying their targets, the more easily to murder them.
I doubt that, within memory of the horrors of WWII this could happen as easily but the Guardian/Sturmer is evidencing a similar attitude Jews/Zionists/Israel to the German newspapers in the 1930s. Its visceral Jew- and Israel hatred is like water on a stone. Eventually the water/ drip. drip, drip of hatred wears away the stone of resistance to it.
We should not underestimate the power of mass media, even when it is second-rate and comprises work by grossly disturbed people.
CiFWatch is a vital antidote to the poison and lies that they spread but they should not let up at all and particularly not now.
May 27, 2010 at 12:36 pm
Serendipity
JersualemMite, re “heroic attempts to get into Gaza” – on another thread was a link to an account of an offer by Gilad Shalit’s father to help the Useful Idiots’ Flotilla to negotiate entry to Gaza in return for their agreeing to exert their influence on Hamas to allow the International Red Cross to visit Gilad and to allow him medical treatment and other aid. He has not had such visits since he was kidnapped; indeed no-one knows whether he is still alive.
The flotilla leaders refused point blank.
Jewish human rights are not, it seems, as important to them as confrontation.
The story can be found at http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3895077,00.html
Also in the article is a link to the IDF’s statement about how they intend to deal with the Useful Idiots’ Flotilla. Notable is that they (the IDF) will take the aid, search it for arms and other goods which Hamas could use to make explosives and confiscate those if they are found, and then distribute it to the people who need it.
We’ll see then how important the “poor Palestinians are to these wretches; whether the bleating and wailing from the Useful Idiots’ Flotilla will be because they themselves didn’t get the publicity they were after, or whether they go calmly and announce that they are thankful that the aid at least will get through.
May 27, 2010 at 12:45 pm
JerusalemMite
Yvetta Bagel
jerusalemmite@gmail.com
Thanks
May 27, 2010 at 12:48 pm
JerusalemMite
Serendipity
Jewish human rights are not, it seems, as important to them as confrontation
In the mean time. They have changed their minds and have agreed to accept a parcel from the Shalit family which will in some way, be handed to Gilad.
I suspect all kinds of shenanigans.
May 27, 2010 at 1:11 pm
Serendipity
Thanks JM
Just ONE parcel?!
When the allegedly starving Palestinians are getting eight boatloads of aid (assuming of course that it isn’t the sort of aid which explodes when it’s aimed at Israelis)!
What about putting pressure on Hamas, any word of that?
They daren’t in case they’re slung out.
May 27, 2010 at 1:17 pm
Gábor Fränkl
Nota bene AKUS: Please do NOT bring links from the NYT or such IF there is a completely similar or even identical one from the JPost, please – for obvious reasons! Thank You!
May 27, 2010 at 1:25 pm
Gábor Fränkl
Toko Le Moko! No, sometimes you just really give the impression of an over-the-top nitpicking bully bent on throwing the “anti-semite” charge on anyone who is dissonant to your strain of mind. Pretzelberg, while he may be a bit simplistic or bona fide naive (he IS the 1 who could be “charged” by that I think) occasionally, he is as far from being an antisemite I believe as the Guardian from the Bible.
May 27, 2010 at 1:41 pm
George Theofiledes
Way back in 1978, the New York Times did a huge investigative article about the ties between the apartheid government of South Africa and Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries and African countries such as Nigeria. The Saudi Arabian oil and other petro products was far more important to South Africa then anything they could scrounge from Israel. The NY Times article also mentioned that unmarked airplanes went from Saudi Arabia to Lagos, Nigeria and then on to South Africa. Chris McGreal would never have the slightest interest in writing about all of this. McGreal never cared about Blacks in South Africa. His only concern is an obsessive and crazy loathing of the State of Israel.
May 27, 2010 at 2:00 pm
Serendipity
Yvetta Bagel, your quote from Rusbridger “… “The Israelis’ information network and monitoring of the press is much more active and professional than the Palestinians’. We have a role in articulating [the Palestinians'] case – giving a voice to the voiceless is how I put it – but not disproportionately or uncritically.”
not only shows him to be a liar but he also admits that al-Grauniad has a pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel agenda.
May 27, 2010 at 2:05 pm
Gábor Fränkl
George, 5 *!
May 27, 2010 at 2:52 pm
Toko LeMoko
Gabor
Toko Le Moko! No, sometimes you just really give the impression of an over-the-top nitpicking bully bent on throwing the “anti-semite” charge on anyone who is dissonant to your strain of mind. Pretzelberg, while he may be a bit simplistic or bona fide naive (he IS the 1 who could be “charged” by that I think) occasionally, he is as far from being an antisemite I believe as the Guardian from the Bible.
But now you are bullying.
1. I haven’t charged any other poster here with anti-Semitism, other than Pretzel. Even there, I charge him with the anti-Semitism of indifference, not of malice.
2. There is a difference between naïveté and the willful blindness – that is, the anti-Semitism of indifference. Pretzel often denies blatant examples of anti-Semitism (such as his attribution of Arab pro-Nazism to simple anti-colonialism, or his questioning whether “Jews control the media” is anti-Semitism).
3. Shift gears just a moment, to any other minority. We would not doubt for a moment that one who insists stubbornly that “blackface” or “Memín Pingüín” could not possibly be racist, obviously has a problem with blacks.
4. I know nothing abot your habits, but I question whether you display adequate sensitivity to the experience of “unassimilated” religious Jews.
In countries other than Israel and the USA, their situation has become one of daily incidents. The second-largest Jewish diaspora community, in France, often fears to wear a kippa in public and are slowly being driven from ther homeland.
This horrendous situation is attributable only partly to the actual North African bigots responsible; a second component of the problem lies in the “native Europeans” like Pretzel who are witness to the anti-Semitism, yet stubbornly and willfully pretend not to see.
Indifference kills; ask Ilan Halimi.
May 27, 2010 at 3:16 pm
Gábor Fränkl
“Even there, I charge him with the anti-Semitism of indifference, not of malice.”
1st, I don’t really believe it, however you try to twist it to look it like you want.
2nd, that’s definitely NOT antisemitism. That pseudo-definition is way too arbitrary forreasonably ccalled antisemitism. What you peddle here is patently asbsurd.
I know everything what you write here, Ilam Halimy, French Jews, I even broaden your knowledge by mentioning Sebastian Sellam who was also brutally murdered in paris – BEFORE Halimy, mind you! I really just don’t think you can add anything to my information on virtually anything touching modern-day 21th century antisemitism in Europe and elsewhere in the so-called liberal Western world. (I wrote articles about it in my country’s quality liberal press – a weekly magazine.)
With this in mind, what you peddle here about Pretzelberg is absurd stretched to such an extreme that is not only ridiculous, but counterproductive in the extreme.
Stop.
As someone said here before there are so oversensitive people here that they are practically risible. The mirror image ofthe “Racist! Racist!”-braigade. This comedy and farce by yours (plural) got to stop!
Gábor Frankl
Budapest, Hungary
P.S.: And don’t come with the idiotic “Jobbik” for me, b/c I am perfectly aware of our own home-grown neo-Nazis, so cut the crap of lecturing me any more! Thank You!
May 27, 2010 at 3:25 pm
Yvetta Bagel
Indeed, Serendipity. I hope Rustbucket wasn’t implying that “the Zionists” (we know who *they* are) control the press …
May 27, 2010 at 3:30 pm
Yvetta Bagel
Righto, JM – I will send it to you – it’s Prof Alderman’s article containing the quote from the Spectator, not the Spectator piece itself (don’t know where that is or its date).
May 27, 2010 at 4:09 pm
pretzelberg
Toko LeMoko
the “native Europeans” like Pretzel who are witness to the anti-Semitism, yet stubbornly and willfully pretend not to see
Absolute tosh. But far worse is the following:
Pretzel often denies blatant examples of anti-Semitism (such as his attribution of Arab pro-Nazism to simple anti-colonialism, or his questioning whether “Jews control the media” is anti-Semitism)
I never said any such thing!!!
Either Toko is a bare-faced liar or his mind is so twisted that he actually believes the nonsense he’s typing.
I’d be outraged if I took Toko even remotely seriously.
May 27, 2010 at 4:27 pm
Toko LeMko
Gabor, the speed of your response means you aren’t bothering to think about it. Not a good sign.
I really just don’t think you can add anything to my information on virtually anything touching modern-day 21th century antisemitism in Europe and elsewhere in the so-called liberal Western world.
That’s quite an arrogant statement. For whom do you take yourself? For the representative of all European Jews? For all you know, I am a pseudonym of Stéphane Juffa or Henri Hajdenberg.
Which does His Highness Gabor think I should give greater weight – the daily experiences of my own family of anti-Semitism (both of malice and of indifference), or the self-proclaimed expertise of His Highness Gabor Frankl?
I know everything what you write here
Thank you for your self-confident statement of omnipotence and omniscience, but you don’t know everything; and if you think you do, you’re dangerous. You display the same grotesque absence of self-awareness, as Pretzel. If you know everything, why do you bother to read CW?
Now for the substance.
2nd, that’s definitely NOT antisemitism. That pseudo-definition is way too arbitrary forreasonably ccalled antisemitism. What you peddle here is patently asbsurd.
Bullsh-t. Obstinate denial of bigotry, is itself bigotry. We already know the result over the centuries of indifference to anti-Semitism; Hitler counted on indifference at least as much as upon the outright collaborators – and he explicitly cited the world’s indifference to the Armenian holocaust, as reason for his prediction that he would get away with the Shoah. We also know the results of Western indifference to bigotry against minorities from Uighuir to Copts, even in recent times.
But Pretzel goes further than indifference, to quite simply whitewashing anti-Semitism. There is simply no other reasonable interpretation of his denial of the anti-Semitism inherent in “Jews control the media” or his cavalier apologia for Arab pro-Nazism as simply anti-colonialism (thus implying some justification).
Moreover, he displays not the least sense that he is posting fom a continent drenched in 1600 years of Jewish blood, from auto-da-fés at the Iberian end, to post-World-War-2 pogroms by French and Polish, to Rivesaltes and the Rafle du Vél’d'Hiv and Ohrdruf in the centre. That makes all the worse his strange compulsion to deny the anti-Semitism inhrent in “Jews control the media.”
This comedy and farce by yours (plural) got to stop!
Sorry, you don’t get to censor my thoughts.
May 27, 2010 at 4:31 pm
Toko LeMko
Pretzel
I never said any such thing!!!
Liar. You disputed the obvious anti-Semitism of “Jews control the media” and you minimised the Arab’s genocidal pro-Nazism as merely anti-colonialsim. It is memorialised for eternity on the CiFWatch Bataween thread – and I earlier gave the links.
May 27, 2010 at 5:04 pm
Yvetta Bagel
Well, well, well. Look what else turned up in the JC Archives.
The issue of 6 September 1996 carries a report of the Advertising Standards Authority’s ruling that a half-page advertisement which had netted The Guardian (under Rustbucket’s editorship) a cool £8000 “went beyond the bounds of reasonable free speech and was likely to cause serious offence to some readers”. The advertisement in question had been referred to the Authority by David Hunt, a Tory MP who chaired the Inter-Parliamentary Council against Anti-Semitism and complained aboout the ad’s “classic anti-Semitic propaganda” (I’m using the hyphen because I’m quoting). The offensive half-page advert had appeared in the paper in May that year, during the Haj pilgrimage (the report doesn’t say what organistion placed the advert). The advert contained the following endearing sentiments by Ayatollah ul-Udhma Khameini:
- an attack on “bloodthirsty Zionists”
- describing Zionists as “a malignant cancerous tumour” who are “anti-human” and control the western media [Evidently not Rustbucket's section of it, eh?!]
- describing Israel as a “usurper regime” in the “heart of the Islamic region”.
The Authority accepted the Guardian’s defence that its acceptance of the ad did not suggest endorsement.
The Guardian also explained that it had taken the advert on the grounds that it was “within the bounds of taste and decency” [!!!] and that it had not considered it antisemitic [!!!]; moreover, the Guardian continued, the advert appeared following a period of “Israeli attacks on civilians in Lebanon” and was therefore “understandably vigorous and uncompromising”.
Rustbucket is quoted in the report as telling Hunt that in the light of his complaint the Guardian was “examining our procedure” in order “to make sure that any similar subjects in future would undergo proper scrutiny before appearing in the paper”.
May 27, 2010 at 5:07 pm
Gábor Fränkl
Pretzelberg, ignore him! This man is deluded and a lunatic, however good some of his observations re: Guardian are. And by the way my granny was an A-B prisoner for half a year, man – from May ’44 to liberation. (Birkenau deportee, who had the misfortune to see in REALITY the commander of the camp played by Ralph Fiannes – may him rot in hell for his anti-Israeli biased setiments! – in Schindler’s List. Yeah, I don’t have such in my family, nooooooo! (Sarcasm) That’s what I will do as well. (And I don’t dignify him by adding that – “nominally” – I am also in the tribe if it occured to him to just surmise that I’m not…)
May 27, 2010 at 5:18 pm
Ariadne
Yvetta Bagel & JerusalemMite – and anyone else who is interested
http://www.aish.com/jw/mo/48924097.html
May 27, 2010 at 5:41 pm
AKUS
I really think that Toko lo Moko or whatever and Gabor should just stop their mudslinging – it doesn’t do much credit to either of you.
Pretzel, I noticed you taunting those idiots ibrows and raymonddelauany (Dotty?) on one of the threads today – well done!
May 27, 2010 at 6:15 pm
Fairplay
Akus:
I beg to differ. Mudslinging is fun for the readership and livens up the place from time to time. We’re only human..
May 27, 2010 at 6:22 pm
Ariadne
Rusbridger is also a Philistine (if there isn’t anything worse in the field):
Naturally no-one at the Guardian (conscious of editor Alan Rusbridger’s dictum that .“Any half-trained reporter can hammer out a story on… archaeology”.) will have seen the Nov/Dec 2006 issue of British Archaeology, so here it is, with a story on the English landscape trailed from the front with… After all, a broadsheet newspaper with a circulation of 370,000 and teams of editors and designers needs no help from a magazine editor with an old iBook in a spare bedroom
http://www.britarch.ac.uk/ba/ba96/news.shtml
This should attach to the Shabi comment?
May 27, 2010 at 6:51 pm
AKUS
Fairplay
We’re only human..
Mmm..hmmm..
May 27, 2010 at 6:56 pm
Ariadne
A libel suit against The Guardian by Tesco:
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2009/jan/15/a-chill-on-the-guardian/?pagination=false
There seem to be secret documents in it…
May 27, 2010 at 7:08 pm
AKUS
This is interesting, from Maurice Ostroff from 2007:
http://maurice-ostroff.tripod.com/id122.html
From Maurice Ostroff
To The Readers’ Editor,
The Guardian.
cc. The Press Complaints Commission
June 2, 2007
Dear Murray Armstrong,
Brothers in Arms by Chris McGreal
…it must be mentioned that tritium is not used only for weapons. It is also used for example, in self-powered lighting devices such as watches, road and exit signs…
…
A modicum of deeper research would have revealed that tritium can only be used to amplify the output of an implosion bomb not a gun type bomb. According to the Nonproliferation Review, South Africa opted for a tungsten gun type, using tungsten from Rhodesia, Zaire, and Zambia rather than an implosion device. The tritium therefore could not used in SA’s nuclear weapon program and instead it was eventually used in devices such as road signs.
…
This [a small amount of tritium] is the only material imported from Israel in a long list of major equipment, including 6 to 7 kg of heavy water supplied by Norway, enriched uranium and complete reactors by the USA, France, Belgium, Switzerland, China, Pakistan, the Federal Republic of Germany and Western Germany as detailed in appendix A hereto.
…
May 27, 2010 at 7:08 pm
AKUS
Maurice Osrtoff continued:
The following information has been garnered from several sources including a paper “Chronology of South Africa’s Nuclear Program” by Zondi Masiza published in The Nonproliferation Review/Fall 1993 and from a report by the The Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI) and the Nuclear Control Institute, Washington .
See http://www.nti.org/e_research/profiles/SAfrica/Nuclear/3493.html
http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/npr/vol01/11/masiza11.pdf and
http://www.nci.org/i/ib12997.htm
In 1981, China supplied South Africa with 60 tons of unsafeguarded enriched uranium that may have enabled South Africa to triple weapons-grade uranium output.
Norway exported approximately 450 tons of heavy water between the 1930s and 1988, when the Brundtland government banned further exports. South Africa received 6 to 7 kg.
In 1965 Allis Chalmers of the US supplied the 20 MW Safari-1 nuclear reactor with 90% enriched uranium
1976 the French consortium of Framatome-Framateg undertook to “…supply capital works, nuclear fuel and services for Koeberg Units 1 and 2.”
1977 South Africa barters 50 metric tons of yellowcake for 30 grams of Israeli tritium.
South Africa and Israel are suspected of conducting a joint nuclear test in the South Atlantic. Later investigations indicate this test did not actually occur.
1980 1982. Two German firms, Neue Technologien GmbH (NTB) and Physikalisch-Technische Beratung (PTB), exported an ultrasound device used in the fuel fabrication process and in 1982 MAN-Energie of the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) supplied the Koeberg nuclear power station with inspection equipment; for Koeberg-1 and -2 reactor pressure vessels.
Three batches of UF6 for Koeberg power plant arrived at the Franco-Belge de Fabrication de Combustibles (FBFC) nuclear fuel fabrication plant in Roman, France. Ihe UF6 comes from Synaton of Belgium and the Kaiseraugst nuclear power firm – a joint venture of Switzerland, France, and West Germany. The material was enriched at the Tricastin gaseous diffusion plant, a Eurodif facility.
South Africa purchased enriched uranium from Kaiseraugst (a Swiss utility) thus reducing US leverage over South Africa.
The Koeberg nuclear power plant was provided by Framatome of France featuring technology from Westinghouse and quality assurance practices from Gilbert/Commonwealth (US).
Swuco and Edlow International of the US, broker a deal between European the Swiss Power Utility Consortium, Belgium’s Synatom, and South Africa’s ESCOM for transfer of approximately 100 tons of excess enriched uranium to South Africa.
1983-84 Framatome of France sent a repaired set of 18 control rod drive mechanisms to the Koeberg plant
South Africa secretly hired 25 US reactor operators and technicians to work at the Koeberg nuclear power plant; (less than 5% U-235).
The Swiss Foreign Affairs Department looks into charges that Sulzer Brothers, a Swiss firm, is considering selling a heavy water plant to South Africa.
1986 In spite of sanctions imposed by France, Framatome was still supplying the Koeberg nuclear power station with nuclear fuel and Scandiflash of Sweden sold South Africa a “roentgen absorber” which makes it possible to carry out a nuclear explosion under laboratory conditions.
1987 France delivers a Thomson-CSF simulator to the Electricity Supply Commission to simulate that company’s two Framatome/Alsthom units.
1989 It was reported that about 300 nuclear experts work for the South African nuclear program.
Argentina’s Comisiion Nacional de Energia Atomica (CNEA) shared design information on nuclear fuel cycle technology with South Africa.
1990 Framatome supplied the Koeberg PWR with new control rod guide tube split pins and assists ESCOM in replacing the rods.
1991 Framatome replaced all 114 control rod guide tube split pins at South Africa’s Koeberg-2.
1992 According to a Danish researcher, South Africa was providing employment for about 500 experts from the former Soviet nuclear arms industry.
1993 A laser expert from Bulgaria joins South Africa’s Atomic Energy Corporation(AEC) as a consultant to provide technical assistance.
1997 South African police and immigration officials report that 40 Chinese nuclear technicians are working in the South African zirconium tubing plant. It is not confirmed when the technicians exactly started working
The Sunday Independent and SABC-TV reveals that China is selling titanium processing plant to the Atomic Energy Cooperation (AEC) of South Africa for $10 million, reportedly in exchange for a zirconium tubing plant worth $5 million to be provided to China. Allegations were denied by the S. African nuclear export authority.
May 27, 2010 at 7:12 pm
AKUS
McGreal lies have been printed not for 4 years in the Guardian.
On May 20, [2006] Maurice Ostroff wrote:
To The Readers’ Editor
The Guardian.
Dear Ms. Siobhain Butterworth
I refer to the article “Brothers in arms – Israel’s secret pact with Pretoria” by Chris McGreal published in the Guardian in February 2006. Under the subheading “Going nuclear” McGreal dramatically, but incorrectly alleged “The biggest secret of all w”s the nuclear one. Israel provided expertise and technology that was central to South Africa’s development of its nuclear bombs”.
Not only was this statement completely erroneous, Mr McGreal misleadingly attributed the incorrect information to Alon Liel. Immediately following the above paragraph he wrote “All that I’m telling you was completely secret,” says Liel.
I have discussed the matter with Mr. Liel who informs me categorically that while he did discuss conventional arms he did not in any way refer to nuclear technology as he has no knowledge of this subject. I trust you will agree that this is a violation of the Guardian’s code of conduct which requires that direct quotations should not be changed to alter their context or meaning.
May 27, 2010 at 7:20 pm
AKUS
More McGreal lies and exaggerations appeared in 2006:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2006/feb/07/southafrica.israel
and drew the following response from CAMERA. The Guardian cannot pretend that it does not know that McGreal is simply inventing and exaggerating stories to blacken Israel’s name.
http://www.camera.org/index.asp?x_context=2&x_outlet=69&x_article=1083
…Under the heading “A-bomb technology was Israel’s ‘gift’ to Pretoria,” McGreal claims the Jewish state “provided expertise and technology that was central to South Africa’s development of its nuclear bombs.”
…
The following is a sampling of the detailed list of arms supplies to South Africa provided by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI):
UK 14 Westland Wasp helicopters supplied in 1973 and 1974
France 38 Mirage fighter aircraft supplied in 1974 and 1975
Jordan 717 Tigercat missiles suppplied in 1974
Italy 80 military aircraft supplied in 1974
UK 41 Centurian tanks supplied in 1974
France 48 AS-12 air to surface missiles supplied in 1975
France 2 submarines supplied in 1975
France 2040 air to surface missiles supplied between 1976-1983
Italy 96 Impala counter insurgency equipment supplied between 1976-1983
Spain 60 centurion tanks supplied in 1979
SIPRI’s yearbook describes Israel’s major contributions during that time period as limited to a dozen patrol boats.
The SIPRI Yearbook for 1985 reports that France, West Germany and UK were the only countries listed as supplying SA with military equipment in 1984. Between 1963 and 1975 the largest suppliers of arms to South Africa was in order: France, UK, USA, West Germany.
Similar assessments have been provided by UNESCO and other sources.
May 27, 2010 at 7:39 pm
Ariadne
On a roll, AKUS! Brilliant!
May 27, 2010 at 8:09 pm
Toko LeMoko
Akus, your research is brilliant, but I disagree with you concerning Pretzel and Gabor.
Specifically, outside the USA and Israel, visibly-identifiable Orthodox are subjected to daily discrimination, harassment, and physical intimidation while the “native” European population pretends it just doesn’t see.
The ignorant, see-no-evil approach of Pretzel and Gabor is not only arrogant, it is a second victimisation of those who still today suffer from anti-Semitism daily.
There is no reason for a Jewish site to sanction such appeasement.
May 27, 2010 at 8:19 pm
Ariadne
Toko LeMoko
I agree. I lived in Golders Green a long time ago and there were attacks on such Jews then. And quite recently of course there was a tremendous fuss about an eruv, which is almost nothing to impinge on anything.
One man I particularly liked would sing as he walked along the road.
London has over a thousand mosques.
May 27, 2010 at 8:45 pm
sababa
All this is completely mind-boggling.
To start at the end: AKUS, you MUST publish all this information you now posted here in another piece!
So McGreal has been obsessed with this story for years, interesting innit? Maybe he’s been cheering on Sasha PS while he was doing his “research”?
Then, to work my way up a bit:
Ariadne, your AISH link is really a must-read; should be among Cif Watch “recommended reading”. It shows how deep (and high up) Israel hatred runs in the Guardian.
And, last but not least: great job by the Cif Watch reader! It really is a forensic analysis of the shoddy way the Guardian crew works to fan the flames of hate against the Jewish state. It was particularly valuable to show it in this instance, where they thought that by reproducing a few de-classified documents, they would impress everyone with their solid research and sources.