Author Archives: The Alchemist

Sep 14 2011

A decade on, the Guardian Hadith remains…

10 years have passed since the greatest terrorist atrocity in history. A decade is a long time. In a decade our kids look different, they pass from one stage of life to another.

In a decade, we become experienced in whatever we do professionally. We garner credibility and experience which grants us wisdom and we even may reconsider some our our past follies in light of the new experiences. We grow, we enlighten.  The alternative is aging bitterly, succumbing to dogmatic entropy where self reflection is absent and the blame game is ever growing according to the new Democratic Party
 
The Guardian didn’t grow, didn’t evolve. 
 
 The Guardian re-asserted its defense of Islamic grievances, its dislike of any effort made by America to counter the terror and the ideology which produces the terror, Islamism. 
 
As the anniversary approached they rolled out their worse offenders. Seumas Milne was back defending his post 911 essay which blamed the attacks on the West. 
 
They also invited Inayat Bunglawala to contribute to an anniversary piece. This guy called Osama a “good Muslim” not long before the attacks and has been representing an organization which not only defended terrorists but also supplied the ideological indoctrination to British Muslims, the MCB. 
 
Mehdi Hasan was also staged once more, lecturing us about tolerance despite a dozen videos outing him as a hateful fanatic and bigot who calls non Muslims dogs and cattle.

Or George Galloway who is nothing more than the 21 Century version of Oswald Mosley, being the propaganda agent of a hostile regime, one, like the one Mosley promoted, planning another (or as they would say the first and only) final solution to the Jewish problem. 

 

I stumbled upon a post in CIF by  Edward Said which appeared on Sept 16th 2001. Edward Said is the guru of the so called progressive left when it comes to dealing with the affairs of the Middle East, Islam and the supposedly American / Western/ Zionist inspired clash of civilizations. 

Said was a great influence on Barack Obama and he embodies the Guardian World View where Israel, its lobbies and American capitalism are the causes of terrorism emanating from an “oppressed” Muslim street which is a victim of imperialism, Zionism and American capitalism. 

 Obama removed references to terrorism and radical Islam from the 911 ceremonies.  

 Said wrote in 2001: 

You’d think that ‘America’ was a sleeping giant rather than a superpower almost constantly at war, or in some sort of conflict, all over the Islamic domains. Osama bin Laden’s name and face have become so numbingly familiar to Americans as in effect to obliterate any his tory he and his shadowy followers might have had before they became stock symbols of everything loathsome and hateful to the collective imagination. Inevitably, then, collective passions are being funnelled into a drive for war that uncannily resembles Captain Ahab in pursuit of Moby Dick, rather than what is going on, an imperial power injured at home for the first time, pursuing its interests systematically in what has become a suddenly reconfigured geography of conflict, without clear borders, or visible actors. Manichaean symbols and apocalyptic scenarios are bandied about with future consequences and rhetorical restraint thrown to the winds.

Rational understanding of the situation is what is needed now, not more drum-beating. George Bush and his team clearly want the latter, not the former. Yet to most people in the Islamic and Arab worlds the official US is synonymous with arrogant power, known for its sanctimoniously munificent support not only of Israel but of numerous repressive Arab regimes, and its inattentiveness even to the possibility of dialogue with secular movements and people who have real grievances. Anti-Americanism in this context is not based on a hatred of modernity or technology-envy: it is based on a narrative of concrete interventions, specific depredations and, in the cases of the Iraqi people’s suffering under US-imposed sanctions and US support for the 34-year-old Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories. Israel is now cynically exploiting the American catastrophe by intensifying its military occupation and oppression of the Palestinians. Political rhetoric in the US has overridden these things by flinging about words like ‘terrorism’ and ‘freedom’ whereas, of course, such large abstractions have mostly hidden sordid material interests, the influence of the oil, defence and Zionist lobbies now consolidating their hold on the entire Middle East, and an age-old religious hostility to (and ignorance of) ‘Islam’ that takes new forms every day.

These paragraphs say it all. As if no other creative writer ever existed at the Guardian. Said is the prophet and the rest of the contributors must only repeat versions of his visions. 

Most writings on this conflict are, in one way or another versions of this narrative. This is the Hadith the Guardinistas quote day after day. Like Pakistani children sitting on the floors of Madrassas, they chant these passages only changing the order by which lines follow each other. 

America, arrogant, Zionism, lobbies, oil, Palestine, children of Iraq, children of Afghanistan (no mention of these children under Saddam and the Taliban), imperialism, colonialism, capitalism. The next day its Israel, America, imperialism, arrogant, Palestine, lobbies, Iraq, Afghanistan….you get the idea…

As if in a trance or in some Pavlovian experiment, these ideas and theories persist despite the world turning over to new chapters of history. 

A decade has passed, yet no maturity, no self reflection, no remorse, no rethinking. The text and its dogma are sacred. Like the Koran which cannot be amended, re-interpreted as that would be sacrilege. The Guardian is like the Muslim street. Never would it re-assess its views or its mistakes or see things even in a slightly different light. It merely re-asserts its demands and view which blame everything on the civilization under attack by its co-religionists.  

In this decade we saw more terror attacks. London, Madrid, Bali, Fort Hood, the attacks on Synagogues in Turkey, the attempts at more mayhem in the skies using liquid bombs and plots against the NY subway and the Frankfurt airport. We saw more “militants” in their videos calling for the world wide caliphate, sharia and the re-conquest of Spain and Palestine under the Ummah. Yet at the Guardian the attackers are us. We are the colonizers, we are the zionists and oppressors. No facts, no history will change that.

A religious dogma is defined as an unchangeable set of ideas transcending the tracks of time. They survive despite and not because of the changes in time. At the Guardian we are dealing with a religious dogma. A dogma which infused the Saidian version of history with the sour grapes hatred of capitalism in light of the fall of the communist block. The total rejection of the totalitarian imposed righteousness was the year 1989. The Guardian still didn’t acknowledge that. It still tries to depict the yearning for freedom by Eastern Europeans as a result of imperialist plots drawn up in the back rooms of MI5 or the CIA.  In Islamism they found another righteous totalitarianism. Another totalitarianism which claims to fight for the oppressed. Though just like the USSR in its days, it is the most imperialist of ideologies around today. The Guardian is the place where atheists can become Islamists.

Just like during the Cold War when Anglo Saxons have proudly allied with the nastiest Russian Pan Slavic nationalism (Stalinism as others may know it) at the Guardian today we see Anglo Saxon Islamists. People who are not Muslims but subscribe to the ideological goals and myths of Islamism. Ignorant of the texts upon which their new allies founded their hateful vision, the Guardinistas fight on for their cause like the loyal little Communists under the pay of Moscow during the Cold War, attacking the institutions and ideas of liberty and freedom. 
They merely see it through their own selfish prisms which have been formulated during the Cold War or during their spoiled middle class childhoods where disappointment in a selfish demand resulted in a nihilistic hatred of the one denying the demands. 
“What I cannot have I will destroy” is the real motivation behind the “modern leftist”.
A decade has passed since 911. There are soldiers today in Iraq and Afghanistan who were children on that day. They played with toys, watched cartoons and wondered why their parents were glued to the TV for so many days following that evil morning. Today they are fighting the war which was launched by these attacks. They have grown, they have matured and they are aware of what we are facing.
Yet at the Guardian - 
We saw more hate, more obfuscation and lies. Some blatantly repeated like Simon Jenkinswho claimed Palestinian solidarity with America on 911 despite decades of video evidence showing Palestinians handing out sweets and chanting in euphoria learning of the fall of the WTC.  We see the same dogma not rejected or even questioned, but alive and well, ready to poison the intellectual space for another decade. In that decade kids born in 2001 will be adults. Those who lived through it will be even more wiser.
I fear that the Guardian staff will still be like those Pakistani children chanting on the floors of Madrassas repeating the same passages: America, Arrogant, Zionism, Lobbies, Capitalism, Imperialism, racism and Palestine…
Mar 16 2011

The lunatic in Roger’s head

Roger Waters, founding member of Pink Floyd, has joined the chorus of artists, activists and agitators calling for boycotts, divestment and sanctions against Israel.

There is something to be said about the mind of the artist, sensitive, emotional, always searching for drama .

It is what fuels the creative process.

Waters, who hasn’t really written any new material since the late 80s, has embarked on a road which he first padded with the last Pink Floyd album he wrote, The Final Cut.

The album sealed the fate of his membership in the band as, by this time, he refused to accept the material his partner David Gilmour wrote for the project, opening the door for one of the nastiest break ups in the music industry. Law suits followed in which Waters attempted to prevent the rest of the group from using the name Pink Floyd.  Fans were divided, and Waters was left on the sidelines writing two solo projects, both resembling old Pink Floyd records, while the rest of the group moved on with a series of big sellers and sold out tours.

In The Final Cut, Waters sings about the state of current affairs at the time, opening with the verses:

“Brezhnev took Afghanistan and Begin took Beirut, Galtieri took the Union Jack”

Those were 80s.  The Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in 1979; the Lebanese civil war has been raging on, aggravated by the the PLO’s destructive presence. Argentina just invaded the Falklands and Thatcher was just elected PM, taking the UK away from a long line of Left leaning Labour governments.

These events, I guess, marked Waters as the whole record was devoted to mocking Thatcher, the uselessness of the cold war and other mundane political topics which diverted Pink Floyd away from the psychedelic style they were known for, the symbolism which rendered the songs open to interpretation while, musically, it suffered from a lack of originality, a quality which previously defined Floyd.

Originality and innovation were out, political activism was in. It was painful to listen to. Instead of the magical sounds and poetic lyrics, fans were treated to monologues by a bitter self-indulgent man.

The Final Cut sounded like an attempt by a 70s band to fight on in the 80s where New Wave and Punk were taking the youth away into a more apolitical anti establishment direction. Waters sounded like a professor lecturing a group of students who no longer seemed to “need no thought control”.

Notice his reference to Israel “taking” Beirut, as if the PLO just entered the country with student visas. Nor did his artistic and political sensibility allow for burdensome nuance, such as the fact that Israel was defending itself against mounting PLO terrorist attacks (which upon expulsion from Jordan had nestled into Beirut) launched from Lebanon. Aside from killing Jews, the PLO was responsible for atrocities committed against the Lebanese: rapes, robberies, killings and kidnappings. This mounting violence and terror, committed by the Palestinians under Arafat, was so severe that at one time the three warring sides of Lebanon put their differences aside and came together in an effort to oust this terrorist entity from their country.

However in Waters’ fanciful imagination the PLO never “took Beirut”. Israel did.

Little has changed since. Israel is still besieged by rocket attacks.  There were over 30 in this year alone and, despite withdrawals from S. Lebanon and Gaza, terrorism persists – as morbidly noted by the recent slaughter of a Jewish family sleeping in their beds in Itamar.

Israel’s enemies (and “critics”) haven’t changed either. Israel takes, attacks, conquers, occupies and oppresses while its enemies are granted impunity over their violence and fanaticism.

I watched Roger Waters recently on Al Jazeera and am glad he was frank in acknowledging that he gets his news from the BBC and Al Jazeera.  No wonder he considers Israel the bad guys.  And, it is only natural that his contribution as a reporter would appear on the pages of CiF.

The “Holy Trinity” of biased news and anti-Israel hate sits well in his head it seems.

Waters’ uses his masterpiece work, The Wall, to not so subtly advance his demonization of Israel.

He brings up the requisite South Africa Apartheid analogies, the hallmark of such efforts at delegitimizing the Jewish state.

Granted, “The Wall” was a masterpiece. It was based on Waters’ life story, one which begun in the early years of WWII and the wounds of losing his father (who died fighting the Nazis in Italy) as it festered through his private and creative life.

Today he is just a has been.

While its difficult to not appreciate the artistic genius which produced the Dark Side of the Moon, The Wall, and Wish You Were Here, his politics lacks the edge his creative mind was able to express for four decades.  The analytical part of his mind does indeed seem quite comfortably numb.

Waters, writing for CiF, March 11, calls for sanctions against Israel, accuses the Jewish state of practicing apartheid, and demands that their security fence be torn down – a barrier which has dramatically reduced terrorist attacks.

This barrier is what gave rise to the rockets which, though deadly and capable of instilling terror for residents within their menacing range, doesn’t compare to the carnage caused by suicide bombings before the “wall” was erected.

He calls the people of Gaza “besieged”.

By whom?

To Waters the answer is easy: Israel, of course, and certainly not the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood which took power after Israel evacuated every last Jew from the territory - a regime which just the other day attacked Gazans who demonstrated peacefully for Palestinian Unity; A regime which forbids women from smoking and men from cutting their beards, and one which destroyed every bit of infrastructure left behind by the Israelis in order to build bunkers, tunnels and rockets.

Waters wants to lift the blockade so that ships like the Victoria could sail into the Gaza and equip its Iranian backed terrorist regime with more weapons, explosives, missiles and guns which will be used to kill more Israelis and kill and intimidate more Palestinians who dare speak out.

Waters’ doesn’t mention the Nazi ideology embedded into the Hamas charter, along with the Protocols and the Islamist dogma which, if left to its own devices, would turn Gaza (and all of Palestine if they had a chance ) into another Taliban-style polity.

Not once does the word “terrorism” grace his essay.

And it doesn’t even stop there. Waters demands that Israel allow the “refugees” to settle back to Israel proper. The code for the dismantling of the Jewish state.

This puts Waters solidly into the camp of those who want more from Israel than mere territorial compromise – those who want it to become the 51st majority Muslim state, where Jews would, yet again, become a minority vulnerable to the whims and wishes of a hostile majority.

What could possibly go wrong?

The wall (and lunatic) is in his head…

Feb 9 2011

The Guardian’s Brotherhood


Muslim Brotherhood

Jack Shenker and Brian Whitaker are rolled out by the Guardian to teach its readership about the Muslim Brotherhood as they become prominent in the Egyptian revolt to oust Mubarak.

In an “exclusive” interview granted by the Brothers to the Guardian we are treated to the same old platitudes and shades of dark grey learning less about who the Brotherhood is but more about the Guardian – shown once more as the central place to whitewash Islamism, bigotry and hate.

Yes it is mentioned that the Brotherhood is not supportive of gay rights. Wow. I suppose many readers may have thought the Brotherhood is some grander version of “Queers for Palestine” before being educated by Whitaker.

However there is zero mention of the fascist roots of this movement. The Guardian, expectedly omits the direct Nazi links and Nazi inspiration both in the article and the accompanying picture album showing the “turbulent” history of the Brotherhood.

That turbulence, according to the Guardian, stems from the anti-colonial nature and roots of the movement, opposing British industry and Arab dictators from Nasser to Mubarak.

Here’s another example of how Guardian writers express their lost novelist side when educating their readers on aspects of Islamist fanaticism:

“But placating foreign powers was not what Hassan al-Banna founded the movement for in 1928. It was Britain’s presence in Egypt that led to the brotherhood’s creation. Six Egyptian workers employed in the military camps of Ismailiyya in the Suez Canal Zone visited Banna, a young teacher who they had heard preaching in mosques and cafes on the need for “Islamic renewal”.

Cafes, students and mosques. One might think this was a Middle Eastern version of 1968 Paris by reading this.

In this passage we are led to believe that this movement is a peaceful one and has not been linked to anything nasty since 1954.

“The brotherhood was also implicated in an attempt to assassinate President Gamal Nasser in 1954, but it has long since renounced violence as a political means in Egypt. By the 1980s it was making determined efforts to join the political mainstream, making a series of alliances with the Wafd, the Labour and Liberal parties. In the 2000 election it won 17 parliamentary seats. Five years later, with candidates standing as independents for legal reasons, it won 88 seats – 20% of the total and its best electoral result to date.

Well they were also implicated in the assassination of Anwar Saddat but I guess that fact may not jive well with the phrase “long since renounced violence”

No mention of Quttb’s association with – and ideological affinity for – Adolf Hitler, nor any mention of the central role played by the infamous Mufti of Jerusalem in establishing this movement.

Should we even mention the plan to take over and destroy the West from within?

Probably not, as that would disturb the romanticization of such extremists that the Guardian often succumbs to.

No mention that Al Queda’s number 2, Ayman Al Zawahiri was originally a Muslim Brotherhood activist. (He was supposedly more of the mosque type than the café type.)

It seems that the Guardian must lack access to Google, as even a cursory search would provide a clear outline of the fascist links and roots of the movement – how it was inspired by the emerging Nazi party in Germany (how anti-colonial is that) and influenced by its ideals, and how the brotherhood was the leading purveyor of anti-Semitic propaganda in the Middle East.

The Brotherhood is exactly the opposite of what Whitaker and Shenker would want us believe. They are the ultimate colonizers. They lack the means at present but their plans and ambitions are anti-colonialist only to the extent that they oppose the colonialism of others. They want a Caliphate ruled by Sharia where non-Muslims pay Jiyzia to the Ummah for protection.

From Mein Kampf to the Protocols, the Brotherhood has been influenced by the vilest hate literature – an enmity responsible, in large measure, for the current state of affairs in Muslim-Jewish relations.

The Guardian omits the links to Hamas and other nasty outfits, omits that the Brotherhood is at the root of modern Arab-Muslim anti-Semitism and whitewashes once again a nasty hate based movement as some progressive assembly of well-meaning pious men whose only imperfection is that they do not get on board with rights of sexual minorities.

Oct 18 2010

The hubris (and amnesia) of Charles Johnson

Almost two months ago I wrote a piece here about my personal reflections on how we started CiF Watch and how I got started in blogging.

I mentioned that it was the Guardian coverage of the Lebanon war of 2006 which prompted me to actively enter the blogging world. It was then when I started posting at Comment is Free (CiF) fighting the enemies of Jews and Israel who inhabited that space between out right anti-Semitism and leftist “anti zionism”.

What I did not write about was how I stumbled upon CiF, and the coverage the Guardian afforded to the war on terror and issues pertaining to Israel. Finding out that the Guardian had contributors seemingly sympathetic to Hamas and Hezbollah (and radical Islam more broadly) was not an easy pill to swallow. It was actually quite shocking. It was also jarring to learn that comments were so anti-Semitic in some instances that they competed with the vile rhetoric typically associated with the far right. Aryan Nations, the KKK and similar outfits were infamous for such explicitly anti-Semitic rhetoric, and it was quite counter-intuitive to see echoes of such hateful narratives at British liberal mainline publications.

The place where I got my education in Guardian variety anti-Semitism – as well as the broader threat posed by radical Islam – was Little Green Footballs. Charles Johnson’s blog, was, at the time, the go to place for discovering the nastiness inhabiting the radical left. It was on LGF that I learned about the Al-Durah fraud, the Guardian contributors sacked for terror sympathies and allegedly even threatening Johnson with throat cutting for his exposes by Inayat Bunglawala, who was also the CiF contributor, and who praised Osama Bin Laden as a “good Muslim”.  I read the investigation Johnson did on that post. Though it wasn’t conclusive, it was still extremely creepy and must have been frightening to receive.

Johnson was so angry at the Guardian that, as a LGF reader, my first posts actually ended up landing on CiF, and not his blog  - which I used more for news than discussion.

Johnson was diligent in exposing Pallywood productions and Palestinian media savvy rituals following deaths in their ranks. I think he coined the term car swarm – depicting the crowds of Palestinians gathering around a wrecked vehicle (for transporting terrorists) hit by the Israeli Air Force.

Johnson exposed Rachel Corrie as something other than a “peace activist” (he ran that famous picture of the ISM activist burning the American flag together with Palestinians) and he ran with the nickname given to Corrie by one of his posters “Saint Pancake” after she met her fate under an Israeli bulldozer.

Like everyone else in the blogging world, I too was aware of Charles Johnson’s ideological metamorphosis from right to left. He had his reasons, but what was disappointing, aside from losing such a diligent researcher and ally, was the way he went about his change of sides. He made it a personal issue between himself and some of his previous blogging friends.

I was always of the view (perhaps by spending too much time in management school) that one should not bring one’s personal life into the professional one and vice versa, as both will ultimately suffer.  Most importantly, personal issues cloud one’s vision in the work they do.

Case in point: this Guardian article which was later reposted at LGF and Harry’s Place.

This piece which was called an “investigation” was one which encompassed all great anti-Semitic tropes. Money, subversion, manipulation, influence and conspiracy.

It argues that certain right-wing American Jews are intent on funding and consulting the EDL in return for assistance for the Tea Party to be more like the EDL (read violent anti government fascist insurrection).

Press TV would have been impressed with this stuff. Yet it was run by major center left blogs. The fact that none of the meetings and associations actually existed (even the article talked about plans of meetings) escaped those who wanted to attack their political enemies. In this case, the Tea Party and Pamela Geller.

This CiF comment following the article best illustrates the typical Guardian pattern we have been exposing since our inception — how articles inspire the conspiracy theories which follow, such as the Joo-Tea-EDL conspiracy theory.

Continue reading →

Aug 26 2010

A personal reflection on our one-year anniversary

Almost exactly 4 years ago, a conflict ignited on the Lebanese-Israeli border when Hezbollah terrorists attacked an Israeli border patrol convoy, which led to a 30 day war between the Jewish state and the Iranian backed terror group. I watched it unfold on CNN, as well as on the local news – reports suggesting that Israel was intentionally killing Lebanese civilians in its response to the provocation.

That narrative was a usual one when discussing wars involving Israel and Arabs despite that, by this time, we have seen the Coalition invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq unfold and have seen the tactics deployed by Jihadists seeking martyrdom. As a matter of course, they were hiding behind civilians, civilian structures, and even dressed like civilians when ambushing American, Canadian and British soldiers who were seeking out the enemy among an undeniably unfortunate civilian population.

Yet when Israel responded to the kidnappings and rocket barrages of Hezbollah, the media reported Hezbollah casualties as “civilians”. Each day, 100, 200, 300 “Lebanese civilians” died while Hezbollah declared (and the media reported) that they lost 3 or 5 fighters on a given day. It sounded insane. I recall one report near the end of the war which stated that Israel lost 138 soldiers, but killed 1200 Lebanese civilians, while Hezbollah lost 15 fighters. No sane person would believe such nonsense so why, I asked myself, was this on the news.

Something seemed out of tune here. Something seemed really wrong with that picture.

Like many of us, 9/11 changed me. I was always aware of terrorism and radical Islam but starting that day, I entered the online world of news and commentary, and discovered scholars, experts and personalities who‘s work probably did not matter as much on September 10, 2001. During those long nights sitting at the computer reading people like David Horowitz, Robert Spencer and Steven Emerson, to name a few, I plunged into a new world. A world where I have discovered issues and conflicts similar to the ones my father told me about when he was growing up during WWII. One of those issues was anti-Semitism and persecution of Jews. Not long after the attacks on New York and Washington, conspiracy theories were spreading that Jews were the actual culprits and Israel was the one benefiting from this and that Bush was under the control of a Jewish cabal and as such needed to declare a war on Muslims.

I found these ideas so silly that I laughed at them and assumed nobody could possibly believe such nonsense. I was wrong. Many have, and many more believed other, even crazier, conspiracy theories. I also realized that these 9/11 Jewish conspiracies were not created in a vacuum but were the culmination of a long and steady effort of demonizing Israel and the Jewish people, which started before I really cared to notice. The internet was always a crazy place. Conspiracy theories were all over it for years. How those ideas managed to find themselves in mainline publications was the question I needed answering.

In 2006 when the Lebanon war coverage was taking up most of the afternoons on CNN, and occupied most of the space on the popular blogs (which I read but never commented on seeing no real purpose to do so), I read a couple of articles and exposes on the Guardian and its comments section which was, according to these reports, filled with anti-Semitic conspiracy theories and Islamist propaganda. In fact I recall the Guardian being in the news when it was revealed that CiF contributor Inayat Bunglavala had praised Osama Bin Laden.

During the start of the Lebanon war, I started to read the blog of the Guardian, called ‘Comment is Free’. I was curious to find out what the fuss was about as much was written about CiF on American Blogs, exposing the often explicit anti-Semitism and, at times, apparent sympathy for terrorist movements.

What I found was more than I could have ever bargained for. Comments about the inhumanity of Jewish fighters during the 1948 war, and even rhetoric about the “savagery” of the Jewish fighters during the Warsaw Ghetto uprising (according to SS officers) caught my eye. This was a rude awakening.

What I saw was the complete and perfect merger of anti-Israel rhetoric with old anti-Semitic tropes. It was like reading a magazine from 1936 Germany but instead of “Jew”, “Zionist” and “Israeli” were the descriptive words.

Continue reading →

Jul 18 2010

Hezbo-Laa-Laa

Recently Hezbollah, CiF’s favorite Fascist terrorist group (sorry, “resistance force”) lost one of its “spiritual” leaders.  Hussein Fadhallah entered the gates of hell on July 4th 2010.  His “Guardians” were promptly at those gates attempting to assure his passage to progressive heaven.

Ian Williams, writing in The Guardian, even made a snide remark about the date of the passing of this creep, being the 4th of July.

“Some might even see significance in his death, at 75, on July 4th, which will doubtless bring up his support for the attack on the American marine barracks in Beirut. But then they might also think about the joint Saudi/alleged CIA operation that tried to kill the Ayatollah with a massive bomb but ended up killing 80 men and women worshippers at his Mosque.”

Ian should have known better. The 1983 bombing was not just an attack on Americans. It was an attack on the UN. The same day a similar attack killed dozens of French peace keepers also sporting the Blue Berets. The reason Ian should know better is because he used to work for the UN .

In fact Hezbollah hung an American UN officer, video taped the murder, and presented it to the world. Nice progressive “resisters” they are.   Those Hezbollah attacks ended US participation in UN peace keeping.

Of course nobody has figured out what Hezbollah is currently “resisting”, after Israel withdrew its forces from every last inch of Lebanese territory in 2000.  Aside from the existence of Jews as a people, there is little left to resist.

He also should have known that this Mullah, who has supported the right of women to wear lipstick and nail polish – indicating his strong feminist credentials – denied the Holocaust and expressed genocidal intent toward Jews a number of times.

Merely entering his name into Google will yield this wiki quote:

“The Hebrew state is preparing to celebrate its 60th anniversary – 60 years since it plundered Palestine – in a festival, which will be attended by the countries of the world, most of which still support the Jewish state and consider the resistance movement to be terrorism. This is what led German Chancellor Merkel to visit that plundering country, which extorted and continues to extort Germany, using as a pretext the German Hitlerist-Nazi past, and the placing of the Jews in a holocaust. Zionism has inflated the number of victims in this holocaust beyond imagination. They say there were six million Jews – not six million, not three million, or anything like that… But the world accepted this [figure], and it does not allow anyone to discuss this.”

These are basically a repeat of the words of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the leading official Holocaust denier and President of Iran – patron of Hezbollah, its proxy terrorist force. Was Ian Williams lacking internet access when he was writing this piece?

No, likely he just took a page out of The Guardian’s “progressive” manifesto – an ideology which influences otherwise sharp minds to minimize the relevance of ideas such as Holocaust Denial and Fascism by insisting on putting such messy hatred in its proper political “context”.

Jul 3 2010

See no Nazi Hear no Nazi Speak no Nazi

At what point does the doctrine of denial of the obvious become so ridiculous that the deniers themselves will admit that the circus has left town and what reality remains is the droppings of the horses and elephants?

Many of us are aware of the Islamic Nazi alliance from World War II.

Many of us are aware that Mein Kampf is still a best seller in Muslim countries.

From Arab nations like Syria and Jordan to Asian nations like Bangladesh and even nations at the doorstep of Europe like Turkey.

In fact the connection between the Nazi executed genocide and the Armenian genocide (a term which can land one in jail in Turkey) happens to be the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem during WWII, Amin Al Husseini.

Yet mere mention of these connections and the whole idea that Jew hate is at the center of the rabid anti-Israel scene forces us to the fringes.

Shortly after the flotilla incident, among the many demos where we no longer even notice signs that say “Gods chosen terrorists”, one in Vienna has presented a sign which said “Hitler Wake Up!!“. This would actually be a crime in Austria. Praise of Hitler, Nazis and Holocaust denial are crimes in the birthplace of Hitler, as well as in Germany, the birthplace of Nazism. Yet when confronted with this evidence, the authorities reaction was apparently one of confusion. How can a leftist demo praise Hitler? “Strange” was the exact term used. Its strange so therefore no need to worry or enforce the laws.

Now there is another example surfacing and making the rounds on the web: a Nazi flag flown at a Turkish demonstration in Istanbul supporting the flotilla “peace activists” organized by the Islamic Saadet Party.

[Source:
http://www.habervesaire.com/haber/1868/
]

Along with a sign saying: “Legendary leader Adolf Hitler, our patience is running out, we need your spirit.”

Again not a peep from the media. Denial mode is still in effect. The narrative that Israel is a racist aggressor would not fly far when its “victims” fly Nazi flags and sing praises of Hitler.

Jun 21 2010

Eulogy of a Jew Hater

On June 18th, Friday, Jose Saramago  died. He was a Nobel Laurate, writer, poet, communist and Jew hater. Saramango symbolized what happens when the line between anti-Zionism and all out antisemitism is blurred and in fact crossed.

In “Death of a Jew Hater” David Frum writes:

But unlike other European anti-Zionists, Saramago explicitly connected his dislike of Israel to his feelings about Jews.

In a speech in Brazil on Oct. 13, 2003, Saramago reportedly unburdened himself of this thought about the world’s Jews: “Living under the shadows of the Holocaust and expecting to be forgiven for anything they do on behalf of what they have suffered seems abusive to me. They didn’t learn anything from the suffering of their parents and grandparents.”

It was Judaism itself that Saramago blamed for everything he disliked in Israel. He wrote in the Spanish newspaper El Pais on April 21, 2002:

“[C]ontaminated by the monstrous and rooted ‘certitude’ that in this catastrophic and absurd world there exists a people chosen by God … the Jews endlessly scratch their own wound to keep it bleeding, to make it incurable, and they show it to the world as if it were a banner. Israel seizes hold of the terrible words of God in Deuteronomy: ‘Vengeance is mine, and I will be repaid.’”

A few weeks previous, Saramago had visited Ramallah. The visit occurred shortly after the Passover 2002 suicide bombing at the Park Hotel in Netanya, Israel that killed 30 people and wounded 140 more. Saramago expressed no grief for these murdered innocents. Instead, he toured areas damaged during fighting between Israeli and Palestinian armed forces and pronounced to a Portuguese radio interviewer: “[I]n Palestine, there is a crime which we can stop. We may compare it with what happened at Auschwitz.”

Sounds like a familiar mind. Compares Israel to the Third Reich, pisses on Judaism from the perspective of an atheist sophisticate (makes no mention of the monstrous certitudes in Islam) and makes excuses for leftist dictatorship. The perfect personality for a Guardian eulogy which came promptly.

…He was born into a humble rural household in the small village of Azinhaga. The family moved to Lisbon when he was two, and Saramago left school early to contribute to the household bills by working as a mechanic. Gradually, he progressed through numerous jobs towards his central literary interest. He worked as a draughtsman, publisher’s reader and freelance translator, and in the editorial and production departments of a publishing house. He also worked on several newspapers, including a stint as a literary reviewer for Serra Nova and, after the death of the dictator António Salazar in 1970, as political commentator on the Diário de Lisboa…

…Political wranglings, and Saramago’s own uncompromised and uncompromising communism, were at least partly responsible for his being fired in 1975. The following year, he devoted himself exclusively to his books. “Being fired was the best luck of my life,” he said. “It made me stop and reflect. It was the birth of my life as a writer.”…

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Jun 5 2010

The Seumas Horror Picture Show

Reading Seumas Milne reminds me of the times when I was a kid and almost sensed myself growing up by feeling less and less scared of horror movies and haunted houses. It was like sliding on a scale moving from very scary to not scary but goofy. Though sometimes seeing a really creepy scene in the already “goofy” movie, striking me as if I were back at the top of the scale dreading each lead up moment in the film once more. Seumas is one of those movies. There is always one paragraph or sentence in the otherwise seemingly goofy pieces he offers to the CiF Haunted house which make me cringe and force me to seeing a mental picture of what the world would be like with people like Seumas  in charge. Or actually my world, I must admit selfishly, as there are already places which are run by people like Seumas or more precisely, people Seumas worships. Goofy places yet capable of the occasional burst of a frightening scene turning our ridicule quickly to dread, if for no longer than a single news cycle. Such was the North Korean kidnapping of the two Current TV reporters, snatched from China displayed like bounty by a very goofy regime  or the outbursts of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad about wiping off and burning things ahead of some zombie imam awakening from centuries of slumber to rule the world and kill the Jews.

The B movie section of the news never ceases to entice us to dip our feet into the weirdness, often serving up that frightening scene once in a while.

A Seumas thread is like that speech by Nicolai Caucescou, the last one he made when his adoring crowd turned on him and revised the chant from “o great leader glorious party” to down with the bastard down with the tyrant“.

Moderation on Seumas threads is like a Caucescou regime. Posters are so afraid of criticizing him that I see often posts referring to him as Mr Milne. How goofy is that? Otherwise they descend into a mock fest of the author. A result mods are much too keen on avoiding. So instead of sparing us from Seumas, they hyper-moderate his threads.

Goofy is the way Seumas always takes his time adding his bit to a current event. His posts usually come late in the news cycle, when most facts are already out and a debate is already taking place. Still his posts are the most one sided and are ridiculously off-base, more likely to illicit laughter and eye rolls than an actual desire to respond.

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May 9 2010

Stupid Times Squared = Guardian

On the day of 911, I was awoken by a call from a friend back East telling me a plane hit the WTC.

It was around 5 30 AM my time, I said “OK Sure” and went back to sleep.

She called me back once more knowing this hasn’t registered with me enough, being still in slumber and forced me to turn the TV on.

Wow.

Around noon and already immersed into CNN, another friend came to visit me. He was of Lebanese Christian background and I recall him yelling out of his car “Hezbollah!!” as he was approaching my driveway. He used to do this when he was expressing shock, displeasure or dismay. It was his personal curse word. He told me he just came from the Donair shop we always frequented when downtown to see movies or shopping. He told me that the shop owner, a Lebanese Muslim, was cursing at the TV in front of his customers saying “I know this was an (expletive) Arab who did this and now we are doomed, the world will hate us. Needless to say, I still love this guy’s falafel, the best in town among the Arab style falafels. (Israeli and Greek falafels are different as are their pitas). He is a sweet man as is his overworked family hustling this product from morning until late night from a 250 sft spot always with a smile and always with his accompanied complaints about rising rents, rainy weather and hard to come by reliable help.

When I was researching this piece about the Guardian’s stupid response to the Time Square attack I wanted to look at the writers whose pieces the Guardian published on the subject.

Was I delighted in more ways than one…

One of them was Wajahat Ali, a Pakistani American writer whose piece Against Terror, our liberty is our best defense. appeared on Cif a day after the arrest.
His Guardian piece reads like…well a Guardian piece.

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Apr 28 2010

Human Righteous Watch

Back in September of last year, we ran a piece about how Guardian Middle East Editor Brian Whitaker has come to the defense of Human Rights Watch when a poster mentioned their efforts at raising money from Saudi Arabia by emphasizing the organization’s critical positions on Israel.

Brian sprung to action by entering the thread defending against the attempted “smear” of HRW. Needless to say, he was proven wrong.

What has since emerged though is that we at CiF Watch may have been wrong also. Not about the Saudis, HRW or Whitaker but about Mark Garlasco. The Nazi memorabilia collecting military expert at the employ of HRW at the time. It turns out Mark is a collector of army memorabilia from a few nations along with Germany and it also seems that despite his fetish of having iron crosses on his T shirts, he was among the few actual defenders of the Jewish state’s military actions due to his military background himself and general familiarity with the Middle East and its complexities.

We stand corrected.

- Still, Mark, the Iron Cross T Shirt wasn’t the best wardrobe choice.

Of course having satisfaction at seeing Mark as the strongest defender of Israel at HRW is still a big pill to swallow. So for water lets read this next piece by Benjamin Birnbaum in the New Republic published yesterday, titled Minority Report Human Rights Watch fights a civil war over Israel.

Please read the whole thing as it not only sheds light on the increasing anti-Israel and anti-war (of any kind) bias of the organization but tells us about how some members of this organization, up to its founder and former chairman, have found themselves in a climate so biased against Israel that only through airing these dirty sheets in public would they have any chance at redressing them. A decision not taken lightly by any institution these days. The piece navigates the reader through the famous road marks of Goldstone, Gaza, phosphorous and Hamas tactics with the occasional view of the “Right of return” and other goodies guaranteed to satisfy any reader familiar with the Israel-Palestinian conflict and familiar with the workings of institutions built on noble callings only to become servants of the self righteous.

Mar 16 2010

Of articles and directives comrades

I think we should start classifying Cif articles by Soviet Propaganda Labels:

1)The “Kill the Kulak Thread”
Attacking a group of people (neocons, zionists, capitalists, the West etc). Posts disputing the wisdom of the mob call get deleted.

2) The Sing along thread
Posters must sing along the thrust of the argument of the thread. Mild solo-ing is permissible however once out of tune, you re deleted !! Songs praising Chavez, Palestinians, Arab rulers and Iranian populism are to be expected and the music will be loud and dissent prohibited.

3) The Cry with us crocodile tears thread
Thread where one is demanded to mourn together with the writer. Usually appears when a Hamas leader dies (preferably via means of an Israeli strike or a new blood libel is on promotion (blue kids, poisoned water, starvation, excessive noise from F-16s). Disputing the tears shed by the author or his/her motivation will be deleted.

Mockery of the author in times of mourning will be met with force by placing in pre-moderation or outright banning.

4)The  Praise Allah Thread.
Threads which appear on the regular making sure we are reminded that Islam is only about peace and tolerance and terrorism is our fault. Islam is the root of all Western knowledge and advances in science and Islamic norms should be internalized into the West.

Any reference to texts disputing this “call to prayer” (including the Koran itself) will be deleted. Any criticism of Islam will be deleted. Any criticism or exposing of Tariq Ramadan as anything other than a polite, noble sage will be deleted.

Any reference showing the author being either paid for by or member of Islamic pressure groups will be deleted.

Attacks on Christianity and Judaism are encouraged and rewarded with many recommends. Posts not fully praising Allah the all Mighty but in receipt of more than 7 recommends will be deleted.

5) The I am the Ideal Jew for the Party Thread.
Great example of one of these was the Weingarten thread and I must say probably the best so far in demonstrating the ideological purifying of the debate practiced by the so called “moderators”.

The ideal Jew will appear on the Guardian usually after some controversy (real or manufactured) occurs in the ME/IP conflict.

The Ideal Jew thread will get periodic posting access, usually to prevent North American Jews from posting (unless they re unemployed loners up at 3AM).  This way the Guardian makes sure the debate is fair and balanced given that Jews own North America and its people have been brainwashed by Zionist ideology making their opinions less valuable than the intellectually superior posters from Europe who are free of Zionist mind control.

The ideal Jew thread commands that other Jews will not dispute the wisdom the Ideal Jew has put forth. No challenge shall be mounted, not from Talmudic references (even if the ideal Jew used such references in a callous and self serving way), not historic truths and most of all NO DISPUTING of the IDEAL JEW’S assessment of Antisemitism.  Such posts will be automatically deleted and violators are to be warned of being segregated into the ghetto of pre-moderation.

The Ideal Jew thread is the one which will change Judaism to the benefit of the GWV. Thus it is imperative that the Ideal Jew Threads remain clean of dissent, mockery, humour (except jokes about Bush, Palin and Lieberman).  Readers must learn that Jews are ashamed of having their own country and ashamed for being hated by the intellectually advanced and ultra sophisticated European Left. The ideal Jew thread thus serves both Jews and gentiles for a peaceful co-existence devoid of distracting debates and ideas which disturb the great work of the Guardian Counsel.

Any questions?

Jan 15 2010

Where have we seen this before?

Front Page Magazine ran a piece yesterday about a topic and phenomenon we know all too well at CiF Watch: antisemitism leaking into leftist discourse through a site which publishes articles inviting the vilest of haters in its comment section.

The site is popular, in fact influential and is home to commentators and public figures revered in society and the corridors of power. This is the first on line publication to get a White House Press pass and is the most funded (and rumored to be losing money) e-magazine attracting the biggest advertisers in America. In other words, this is supposed to be the CiF of America.

It is the Huffington Post. Founded by former conservative millionaire trophy (and pretender) wife turned extreme leftist, Ariana Huffington. Ariana is a celebrity in the USA. She is a frequent guest on Larry King and other prime time shows and has won an Emmy. She is number 42 in the Guardian’s Top 100 in Media List.

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Nov 30 2009

The Guardian ups the “Anti”

I have been wondering for a while how antisemitism flourishes in the Guardian. Is it intentional?

Is it at all pervasive or merely subconscious and circumstantial? Or is it rooted in the false interpretation of Marxism attributed to the great Jean Baptiste Lamarck, that is, if the will can be shaped, so will evolution.

 Of course they read Lamarck backwards as Lamarck’s theory was one based on the individual rather than the collective. The Guardian, like the Marxists before them, does however posses an idea of what a Jew, and also what an American should be like. Though theirs is about shaping and exemplifying rather than a nihilistic hatred of destroy and rebuild later.
 
What we have seen during the last few weeks on the pages of the Guardian would, if looked upon a hundred years from now in some journalism history class (assuming that Bat Ye’or wasn’t right and such classes will still exist), hand over the perfect snapshot of what questions everybody must have (or should have) asked themselves when reading this publication.
 
Starting with the Forth Hood terror attack; the first successful terrorist attack on American soil since 9/11. Not an insignificant milestone if one asked me. One probably not lost on Obama who is fighting so hard not to have this attack defined as terrorism.
  
The Guardian went on an offensive against America almost the same day the blood of its sons and daughters was mopped up from the floors of the rooms this creep sprayed with his bullets while crying out “Allah’u Akbar”.
 
How does that relate to antisemitism? Well directly it doesn’t. But the process in which the story was dealt with on CiF showed the neuron firing sequence all too similar to the sequences dictating the oldest hatred in which it was automatically assumed that the victim is the real perpetrator and the perpetrator is the victim.
 
Now of course the Guardian is much more crass with Americans than Jews, America hatred is fashionable. In fact, it supposedly displays a sense of sophistication required to enter some high circles of European or British thought.
 
I made this last distinction on purpose especially since Channel 4 aired their masterpiece of investigative work and since I read an excerpt from Dennis McShane’s brilliant book “The New Antisemitism”. The piece I read was called The Bigots of Westminster. As someone born in what became the EU, I can testify that just as in the UK a Jew’s loyalty is questioned, in the EU, or Europe as a whole, the loyalty of the British is also questioned. Probably even more often than not. And every time Americans are lambasted by British columnists, a disdain much worse is expressed toward the British on the “Continent”.
 
Fish & Chips score no higher than cheeseburgers friends, especially among wine drinkers.
 
Just like with Jews, Israel and Zionists, the Guardian has its coterie of American contributors who spared no effort  in attacking the US Army, American society and of course policies right after the deed of Nidal Hasan Malik. And just like the Guardian’s ”dissident” Jewish contributors fighting against the so-called “Islamophobia” (as opposed to anti-Muslim racism), these American writers  shamefully demonstrated why the American Left is incapable of ever fighting a war or beating an enemy for it sees more of an enemy in America than among those who really want to destroy it.
  
First and foremost, we had Michael Tomasky who in American for better or worse argued before the facts were in, that Hasan should not be “hated” for who he is but what he did. Well, he turned out to be an Al Queda recruit and overall hating incompetent hypocritical nut.

Can I hate him now Michael?

Then we had Dan Kennedy who in Finding the truth at Fort Hood wrote the following:

“Nidal Malik Hasan’s dangerous mental state is a legitimate subject for investigation, not an excuse for fear-mongering”

Fear mongering of what? Al Queda attacking the homeland? Of course, notice how terrorism becomes a psychological problem in the mind of the liberal.

“A state of mind”. A breakdown I suppose. And as the case with psychosis, there is a victim here. Like with cancer, the victim is now a patient. So Hasan is no more guilty than a cancer patient. Probably less guilty than a smoking cancer patient but I’ll let that slide for now.

The fact that the “patient” was a psychiatrist himself is negated to the wayside. A practicing psychiatrist MD shoots his patients and colleagues but he is “suffering” from a mental state. Well so was Hitler and probably Stalin and everybody in history commmitting great atrocities. By this reasoning Hitler was probably even sicker than Bin Laden and Bin Laden sicker than Hasan.

All this suffering all around us. I must say, we need to reform health care in America. Some terrorist families may go bankrupt fighting this disease, so what about them?

Not one CiF piece has been published since the revelations demolishing all the silly and dangerous excuses the CiF writers have pored over Nidal Hasan. Not one.

They have moved on since.

The American contributors have now consecrated their efforts at the pursuit of the “real danger”, Sarah Palin.  Probably wishing she would be paralyzed not Hasan who has now awoken from his slumber but remains in his bed, probably never capable to stand up to be shot.  Then again, he never was a soldier for real. Only a parasite and traitor.

The rest of the CiF team was handed the greatest of gifts. A documentary on Channel 4 about the secret Jewish lobbies and conspiracies shaping Britain toward the ugly abyss of Zionism. And just like Tomasky and Kennedy attacked America on the pages of the Guardian, Antony Lerman defended Channel 4 while attacking those who criticized it.

Notice the similarities?

In the mind of the hater there are always some made-up conditions upon which the hater may graciously remove his hatred.

“If all Jews were like you, I would not have these opinions”. If all Americans were like so and so, or will speak A,B or C, there will not be all this scorn.

This is what was illustrated at the Guardian, especially in the last few weeks. They do not hate like radical haters do. They do have an idea what their hated should be like and what they should say in order that the sanction of hatred can be lifted.

There is the chance of some conditional love here. And if you follow the examples, you will be rewarded.

“Follow the examples comrades… These are your heroes…These are your models and if you follow, you will get our smug sophisticated love and respect for we only respect the image of you we made…That image is just and fair to all of us…

We have shown you the path so follow…

…or else.”