Oct 20 2012

The Guardian and the “Zionist SS”


The Guardian’s Jonathan Freedland wrote a superb essay for ‘Comment is Free’ on Oct. 19 titled “We condemn Israel. So, why the silence on Syria?“.

Here’s an excerpt:

 ”Nearly four years ago Israel launched Operation Cast Lead, designed to halt Hamas rocket fire from Gaza. It resulted in some 1,400 Palestinian deaths. For nearly a month that story was never off the front page, and it often led the TV news, here and around the world. There were large and loud public demonstrations. The DEC set up a fund and sought to air a televised appeal, famously refused by the BBC.

There is no such clamour now. The Stop the War Coalition is not summoning thousands to central London to demand an end to the fighting, as it did then. On the contrary, its statements are content simply to oppose western intervention – of which there is next to no prospect – while politely refusing to condemn Assad’s war on his own people. Caryl Churchill has not written a new play, Seven Syrian Children, exploring the curious mindset of the Alawite people that makes them capable of such horrors, the way she rushed to the stage to probe the Jewish psyche in 2009. The slaughter in Syria has similarly failed to move the poet Tom Paulin to pick up his pen. Apparently, these Syrian deaths are not worthy of artistic note.”

Freedland’s argument is unassailable, and represents a welcome dose of polemical sanity at a media group mired in a culture of obsessive anti-Zionism. 

However, also of note was Freedland’s critical reference to the Irish “poet” Tom Paulin. 

Freedland links to a vile poem written by Paulin in response to the Al-Durah incident, on Sept. 30, 2000, titled “Killed in Crossfire.” (See a good summary of the Al-Durah hoax here.)

First, for some background, here’s a brief collection of quotes by Paulin, courtesy of CAMERA:

On the validity and existence of the Jewish state:

“An historical obscenity.”

“I never believed that Israel had the right to exist at all.”

“It is an artificial state.”

On Palestinian violence:

“The Palestinians need good anti-tank weapons. They have got to meet force with force. They have to be cunning and forceful.”

On suicide bombers:

“I can understand how suicide bombers feel. It is an expression of deep injustice and tragedy. I think — though — that it is better to resort to conventional guerrilla warfare. I think attacks on civilians in fact boost morale. Hitler bombed London into submission but in fact it created a sense of national solidarity.”

On killing Jews:

“[Brooklyn-born Jewish settlers] should be shot dead. I think they are Nazis, racists, I feel nothing but hatred for them.”

The particular poetical smear by Paulin which Freedland linked to in his recent essay explicitly compared Zionism with Nazism.

However, even more noteworthy was the site where the poem appeared in 2001.

If you follow Freedland’s link it takes you to the following British newspaper.

Interestingly, these days, reader comments below the line at ‘Comment is Free’ which accuse Zionists of being Nazis will typically be deleted by CiF moderators, as such insidious antisemitic defamations are deemed inconsistent with the Guardian’s “community standards”.

Evidently, in years prior, such ‘observations’ were not only judged to be morally acceptable by Guardian editors, but worthy of cultural merit.

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23 comments on “The Guardian and the “Zionist SS””

  2. As well as being an anti-semite, Paulin is a bully.

    In a race discrimination case, Judge Jonathan Playford stated that Paulin had made an “unattractive attempt to coerce two distinguished Arabists … to secure favourable treatment for his protégé” by threatening them with “legal action and unfavourable publicity”.

    Even the Guardian (in its slightly better days when Rod Liddle was writing for them) called Paulin a “naive, deluded, self-righteous, egregious bigot”.

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2002/apr/17/race.books

  3. Good research.
    The more the groan prints this trash scum the better. They are in a hole and keep digging. Shame about the betrayed dead Syrian children.

  4. Freedland wrote:

    ”Nearly four years ago Israel launched Operation Cast Lead, designed to halt Hamas rocket fire from Gaza. It resulted in some 1,400 Palestinian deaths. For nearly a month that story was never off the front page, and it often led the TV news, here and around the world.

    Correct. The story was never off the front page especially at the Guardian where he has been employed. At the time he seemed very comfortable with this editorial policy. What happened?
    Maybe he only wrote to the Guardian and never read it (including the Israel bashing and openly anti-Semite BTL posts attached to his articles? Maybe he was not aware that his employer gave forum to Hamas, Hezb’allah representatives and dirt like Atzmon , Churchill, Paulin and Orr? Maybe his invitation to an elegant dinner party lost in the web? Due to the financial difficulties of the Guardian someone considered to cut his pay?
    I don’t have to be a cynic to not believe someone who during many years was part of the Guardian’s attempts of delegitimizing Israel as its house-Jew and now suddenly started to worry about the Syrians.

    • One commenter asked why Jonathon Freedland was still working at the Guardian, given its virulent and dishonest campaign against Israel.

      Needless to say, the moderators deleted the comment.

      • He does seem to be getting ready to desert a sinking ship though. I would imagine that only the BBC would hire anybody who had been employed by the Guardian though. And that is assuming that they themselves dont pass through a huge ‘letting go’ of their extreme radical delusional leftie foundation.

  6. I don’t know anything about Klemperer’s politics – but i note that quote was dated to 1934, making it less completely egregious then than now. But for Paulin to quote it before his horrible poem is foul.

  7. Tom Paulin – poet? A joke surely.

    Now here’s a poem:

    To antisemites like Tom Paulin
    Every Jew who lives is gallin’.
    Confusing Jews with the SS,
    His mind must be a Jew-hate mess.,

    • Second verse:

      That’s why the Guardian comes a-callin”;
      Seeking the worst Jew-hate scrawlin’.
      For bottom feeders they’re a-trawlin’;
      Catchin’ scrawler Tom; a-Pallin’.

  8. Its always fascinating that among the most virulent critics of Israel are various Irish. They apparently have some idea that Israel, surrounded by millions of Arabs, is to the Arabs as Britain is to tiny Ireland.

    There was a great article by one Irish person in his 20′s, previously anti-Israeli, who actually went to Israel, and came back very pro-Israeli – perhaps its time to organize trips from Ireland to Israel for various people there to see the reality for themselves?

  9. The 4th comment down below the Freedland article – from EarlHigh – went something like “Typical, Jews claiming victimhood again.”

    Berchmans, of course, called the post an example of fake, “black flag” anti-Semitism.

      • I wouldn’t pay too much attention if I were you Pretz.

        I put it down to you being an annoying, stubborn but well meaning person.

        • So people are voting down my posts despite agreeing with the content.

          Wow – what a bunch of juvenile dickheads, wouldn’t you agree?

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