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Having watched Tony Lerman’s appearance on the BBC’s ‘The Big Questions’ and read his CiF column on the subject, I cannot describe either as particularly memorable. However many of the comments to Lerman’s article show only too well why Holocaust Memorial Day is needed and how ‘drawing a line under the Holocaust’ is more of a political campaign rather than the result of historical lessons having been learned.
25 Mar 2010, 2:36PM
I saw the programme. it didnt discuss anything really. Steel was trying to be controversial i thought but no one took the bait. Actually what he brought up was far more worthy of discussion.
And for the record i dont see why there should be a national holocaust rememberance day. it should just be added in with the other rememberance day. as far as i am concerned theres nothing to be gained from going over old ground and i had hoped that when the final holocaust survivors passed on then that would be the end of it.
25 Mar 2010, 2:43PM
The best sentence in this article:
Lord Steel, welcomed the fact that Britain had its Holocaust memorial day but said that “many holocausts” needed to be remembered and having just returned from Gaza he warned about a potential holocaust there.
There were a lot of unhappy campers below the line on CiF on March 4th when Adam Ingram’s largely sensible article appeared. On another forum this piece could have instigated an interesting discussion about the validity of comparisons between the Middle East peace process and that in Northern Ireland and the lessons, if any, to be learned from the latter in relation to the former.
Such a discussion would be of relevance particularly because many British politicians and commentators are fond of invoking the NI peace process as an example of best practice when discussing the Middle East precisely because it represents their primary experience of conflict resolution, although some very interesting studies and articles have been written which suggest that in fact it is not possible to take NI as a template for solving the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. Leaving this aside, there is no doubt that Adam Ingram holds a refreshingly realistic view of the conflict as indicated by his succinct analysis of Hamas.
“First, change in the right direction can only be brought about if we take a realistic view of what Hamas stands for. If it is to be engaged with and be part of the future – and it seems to me that we are a long way from that possibility – it is important that it is not allowed to hide behind a false profile. There are those across the political spectrum who consistently call for diplomatic engagement with Hamas, comparing it to the IRA, the South African ANC or even the Palestinian Fatah movement. However, all those movements had their roots in deep-seated nationalism. Crucially, Hamas has a strong religious and specifically political Islamist dimension, prohibiting it from making deals over the land it regards as holy and tasking it with imposing theocratic rule over the people of that land.”
I was just over at TheBrothersofJudea website which tracks antisemitism in the Huffington Post and caught this:
Now I haven’t actually ever seen a reader link to Stormfront on “Comment is Free” (though I have seen links to a variety of far-right websites) and it got me thinking about whether Stormfront types are attracted to “Comment is Free”, a blog that is supposed to be the ideological opposite of the far-right.
It seems though that “Comment is Free” has developed somewhat of a following among the far-right.
Antony Lerman is beginning to remind me of my former mother-in-law. Her experience of raising children had been gained in 1950s Casablanca and she had some pretty antiquated ideas (dentists; please look away now) such as tying a spoonful of honey into the corner of a clean cotton diaper to act as a pacifier for a new baby, or swaddling; supposedly to ‘straighten the spine’. As we were obviously newcomers to the job of raising our firstborn, she believed that her experience compared to our lack of it made her an authority to be listened to on every subject and no amount of explanation of the fact that times, practices and place had changed would convince her otherwise. So it is too with Lerman; in his CiF article of February 26th his basic premise is that he knows best when it comes to running a democracy and he proceeds to liberally dispense his unsolicited advice and admonishments.
“It’s hard to credit that a country that wants to be seen as on a par with EU members doesn’t understand that it’s a sign of democracy in practice to allow civil society organisations to operate freely. Restricting them in the way the new law proposes will thus undermine Israel’s democracy. The political landscape, especially as reflected in the Knesset, is already unreceptive to alternative civil society views.”
What exactly has got Mr. Lerman’s boxer shorts in such a twist this time? Well, it is the fact that Israel appears to have finally woken up to the fact (and none too soon) that not only are there numerous organisations working towards the undermining of the very fabric of Israeli society, but that some of them are being funded by foreign organisations and even governments. It is Israel’s realisation that such a situation cannot be allowed to continue unchecked which has irked Lerman to the point of making dramatic diagnoses regarding the supposed ill health of Israel’s democracy and seeing ‘right wing’ bogey men behind every statement or decision with which he happens not to agree.
This raises two questions. The first is on precisely what authority do people like Mr. Lerman and so many others deem it acceptable to try to influence Israel’s internal affairs? On the one hand, Lerman and his comrades at IJV and now JNews are constantly telling us that Zionism is not the only Jewish narrative. Fair enough, but surely in that case those who do not wish to identify with Israel and Zionism should just get on with their own affairs and stop interfering in a project in which they do not wish to play a part. If, however, they do wish to influence internal Israeli policy then the acceptable way to do that is to make aliyah, pay taxes, send their sons and daughters to the army and take part in Israel’s (frequent!) democratic elections. That, Mr. Lerman, is democracy, but of course it is also the more demanding choice: much easier to stay where you are and purchase influence using money channelled through outfits like the New Israel Fund which bypass Israel’s democratic process completely.
This is a guest post by Margie in Tel Aviv
There was panic in the ranks of the Bigots’ Brigade when Seth Freedman attempted to give his approval to a scheme backed by Israeli authorities in an article last month entitled “Building a peaceful future“. They read the words over and over and scrambled to find something derogatory to say. It was notable that even the lickiest lick-spittles didn’t come up with the usual phrases of adoration that we are used to read.
There was no, ‘Well done, sir.” No. “Brilliant article, Seth.” How disappointed he must have been to be deserted by his usual claque. The search for something to say was something to behold however.
What was he talking about? The scheme itself is a dual solution to housing and social problems, attempting to build a neighborhood in which both Jews and Arabs can live together and learn eventually to understand each other. The usual way that things are done in the Middle East is for people to keep to themselves and to live in homogeneous neighborhoods. A practised eye can spot an Arab village in Israel by the look of the terrain – imposing houses, much larger than those the Israeli Jews live in and characterised by the unusual town-planning. Streets go round houses in Arab towns. In Jewish towns houses are built side by side along a preplanned roadway. You can distinguish between a Christian Arab and Moslem Arab area by the presence or absence of minarets. It is unusual for Moslems and Christians to live side by side.
There is a great deal of resistance by the Arab communities to having Jews live within their towns. A proposal to build housing for Jews in the centre of Israel in Jaffa in a suburb called Ajami is bitterly opposed by the Arab residents who see it as a ‘settlement’. Whatever the political motives it shows the determination of the Arabs to keep themselves separate.
I’ll say one thing for the Guardian’s favourite anti-Zionist Theobald Jew. He never misses a chance to vilify Israel, safe in the knowledge that by doing so, he will open the spigot of hatred in the thread beneath.
A Yiddish poet dies and his obituary in The Guardian is penned by Lawrence Joffe, a member of the UK offshoot of Meretz (the far Left Party in Israel which failed miserably in the 2009 elections, winning only three seats despite merging with The New Movement). Joffe wrote “Official Zionism .. dismissed Yiddish as a defeatist diaspora argot.” The truth is that Eliezer Ben Yehuda had revived Hebrew and at the time of the founding of the Jewish State, there was naturally a keenness for everyone to learn Hebrew. It is the language more than anything else which has bound the otherwise amazingly disparate Israeli population together. And of course the Sefardi Jews who came to Israel from places like Iraq spoke Arabic, not Yiddish. But the notion that “official Zionism dismissed Yiddish as a defeatist diaspora argot” is fiction – fiction for all except Lerman, that is.
Lerman – who possibly for the first time admits “I no longer regard myself as a Zionist” – jumps on that half-lie by Joffe and embellishes it and dresses it up so that it becomes a lethal weapon of deceit in the hands of a twisted, bitter man.
the Zionist drive to stigmatise Yiddish has collapsed and the revival has spread to Israel. ……. It proves that Zionism failed to consign other forms of Jewish life to oblivion. It challenges hegemonic and defensive Jewish leadership.
One, there is no “Zionist drive to stigmatise Yiddish”. As SantaMoniker says in the thread, “Just walk around Jerusalem and Bnei Brak, and you will hear the orthodox speaking Yiddish, and even their Hebrew is often with the old Ashkenazi pronunciation rather than the modern Hebrew. There was a Yiddish theater for years in Tel Aviv.” And he also points out that the demise of Yiddish had a lot more to do with the murder by the Nazis of the millions of people who spoke mainly Yiddish in Poland, Ukraine, Belarus, etc. than Zionism ever did.
Two, the notion that Zionism ever tried to “consign other forms of Jewish life to oblivion” is absolute defamatory rubbish which amply demonstrates Lerman’s malevolence against Israel. The practice of Judaism in Israel is no different from that anywhere else in the world, with the minor difference that some Festivals have an extra day in the diaspora. Why would it be otherwise? And ‘Zionism’ is not some kind of esoteric alternative to diaspora Jewish life. It is simply about the existence of Israel as a Jewish State where any Jew can live.
Three, Jewish leadership is not by definition ‘hegemonic and defensive’ and even if it were it is utterly ridiculous to say that Yiddish “challenges it”. There are very few Jews for whom Yiddish is a first language, maybe a million or so Charedim – so how can Yiddish challenge anything?
But the Guardian’s antisemitic attack dogs are only too pleased to feed off the bone Lerman throws them. Here’s RaymondDelauney: “It’s such a shame that the conceit of modern Hebrew championed by Israel – puts at risk the whole European diaspora identity and history of Jews.”
I’ll leave the last word to Lipschitz: “Speak for yourself Anthony Lerman. Personally, I’m only bitter when faced with an article that masquearades as a homage to Yiddish, when its real purpose is to have a dig at Zionism for the amusement of CiF readers. Why not tell us about the role of Israeli institutes in teaching Yiddish? Why not tell us about all of the Yiddish speakers who would have survived the Holocaust if Zionism had achieved its goals by 1939??”
Indeed.
Antony Lerman’s CiF article last month on the subject of the arson of a synagogue in Crete was obviously tailored for its anticipated audience in that it was strewn with undertones guaranteed to prompt specific responses below the line. Many of the reactions were of course predictable and basically can be summed up as ‘yes, the vandalism at the Etz Hayim synagogue was awful, but….’
‘But the Jews bring it on themselves by supporting Israel…’
28 Jan 2010, 12:29PM
The atack on the Synagogue is utterly inexcusable, and rebuilding serves notice you will not be cowed.
Good for you.
But as you build ponder the reasons that men will commit such vile acts.
Only in understanding why you were attacked will you find peace.
28 Jan 2010, 1:00PM
Footienut
In mistaken reprisal for the actions of the State of Israel .
Are you hard of thinking.
28 Jan 2010, 2:32PM
a Judaism open to the world and not afraid to engage with people
I condemn anti-semitic attacks and ideology.
But that said, the Jewish community needs to take a good hard look at itself.
Because the day when the jewish community can turn as one to condemn and ostracise the racist, and the corrupt and powerful their midst will we see the day that jews can genuinely say that they, as a people and a creed, are open to the workd and not afraid to engage with people.
The fact is the actions of a few rich jews, who both have and continue to tanish the community as a whole. When we look at people like Bernie Madoff, many in the American banking community who let the economy burn, or the (largely) jewish russian oligarchs who made billions buying up russian assets at knockdown prices in return for Yeltsin being bankrolled by the same American Jewish financial fraternity (all while the russian population starved) – Because it is the actions of a few rich jews, who both have and continue to tanish the community as a whole.
Moreover, the inability of jews around the world to wholeheartedly condemn racist Israeli jews who treat palestinians as subhuman in their own land, only adds to the perception that all jews are guilty of this behaviour.
This is a guest post by Oliver Worth
It takes more than one reading of Antony Lerman’s recent CiF Piece, ‘Refusing to be defined by anti-semitism’ to put your finger on exactly what leaves such a sour taste in the mouth.
Lerman’s proactive attempts to discredit every major organization fighting to reduce anti semitism? His gleefully ignorant claims that a small nation’s only synagogue being burned down twice within the space of a week is unrelated to anti-semitism? His surreal claims that the fact that the crimes may have seen the involvement of non-Greek nationals renders the Greek authorities non-responsible for protecting Jewish inhabitants? Even the fact that the writer has the gall to accuse his contemporaries of using anti-semitism as a political tool whilst ruthlessly employing just this tactic? Try all the above.
Lerman’s supposed premise of the article is that Jews should not be ‘defined by anti-semitism’, no doubt a noble and true aspiration, yet he devotes no space in his article to explain how we should pro-actively define ourselves as Jews, preferring instead to needlessly slam those groups fighting to end anti-semitism and allow Jew’s to do just that – define themselves.
What Lerman does do is heap mountains of praise on the local Greek authorities and points out the local paper “carried a full page on the attacks”. Perhaps most disturbing about Lerman’s close minded view of anti-semitism is his view that Greece, a Western nation and member of the European Union, deserves such praise for carrying out it’s absolute obligation, to protect its minority citizens – and even then only once the synagogue has been burned for the second time.
But without doubt, Lerman’s most outrageous claim is his steadfast denial that the attacks were “intended to intimidate and terrorize Greece’s Jewish community”. And how does Lerman justify his claim? By pointing out that some of the “principle culprits were not locals”, like this somehow renders the fact the choice of attack was the only synagogue in Crete, incidental.
Just why Antony Lerman is so hellbent on burying his head in the sand and denying anti-semitism when it’s there for the world to see is anyone’s guess. But something is for sure. Lerman is doing absolutely nothing to help Jews ‘define themselves’ by purposefully hampering the work of those organizations whose raison d’être is to stamp out anti-semitism. And what’s more, there’s more than a smattering of irony in his claim that his colleagues use anti-semitism as part of a “self-serving political agenda”. Perhaps what Lerman really requires is a look in the mirror.
“Our country is led by people who were trained as spies, secret agents. Their view is if you are not with us you are against us” – Oleg Vinogradov (Russian Opposition MP) – July 2006
The Guardian prides itself on taking antisemitism seriously. Part of the effort to eradicate antisemitism should surely be to move towards balance in the commissioned articles. You would think that the editors would bend over backwards to commission articles about Israel that are balanced, given the chronic lack of these on CIF. Israel-bashing above the line simply encourages the haters below.
So the threat to outlaw Professor Geoffrey Alderman for continuing to write for CifWatch was a massive ‘own goal’ for CiF. As Alderman relates, shortly after penning this he received an email from the Commissars threatening to cast him to the wind:
If I dared to continue writing for CiF Watch, I would no longer be able to contribute to CiF. It was, I was summarily warned, “an either/or choice”.
How childish – but how typical. Remember when they denied Robin Shepherd the right to correct a complete misrepresentation of his book by Tony Lerman?
Such spiteful, nasty behaviour is typical of the unreconstructed left which is in the ascendancy in the UK at present.
It is a sign of the Guardian’s lack of confidence in their editorial stance – of weakness, not strength. It means that all our other guest posters are also persona non grata with the Guardian. We hope they will stay with us.
It is of course part of the creeping delegitimisation of Israel and all those who are not prepared to join the haters or stay silent. It is the same mentality as those who gagged Benny Morris in Cambridge this week, as those who want visiting Israelis arrested and as Stephen Sizer’s clumsy attempts to silence Seismic Shock, using the police. It is anti-democratic and censorious.
Who better than Professor Alderman to have the last word:
As for C P Scott; he must surely be turning in his grave.
We would be fascinated to know what Professor Alderman’s colleague at the JC, Jonathan Freedland – a Guardian columnist – thinks of his Editorial colleagues’ treatment of Alderman.
Mr Freedland, if you would like to put your thoughts in writing we would be pleased to publish them.
Antony Lerman’s CiF article of January 14th provided an excellent example of how a manipulative above the line writer can produce a mirror image of his message in the comments below the line and in doing so create an impression of consensus of opinion.
As we all know, Lerman is an anti-Zionist who advocates a one-state ‘solution’ and believes that the Law of Return should be repealed. He is opposed to the EUMC Working Definition of Anti-Semitism, stating “[a]nd it puts out of bounds the perfectly legitimate discussion of whether increased anti-Semitism is a result of Israel’s actions.”
My impression is that Lerman employs three main arguments about antisemitism with the aim of furthering his political agenda. He claims that antisemitism is exaggerated, that people with pro-Israel sympathies try to use antisemitism as a method of silencing criticism of Israel, and most dangerously, if rather paradoxically, he claims that rising antisemitism in the rest of the world is the direct result of Israeli policy and actions.
Sure enough, in the below the line comments, all three of these claims were repeated ad nauseum.
This is a guest post from Mark Rogers of the Anglican Friends of Israel
My text is taken from Mr Anthony Lerman’s article, The pro-Israel lobby and anti-semitism, in The Guardian, 20 November 2009: “Unfortunately, Israel’s actions and incidents of violence in the Israel-Palestine conflict do provoke some incidents of antisemitism.” It is supplemented by remarks which Rabbi David Goldberg made to Mr. Peter Oborne in the latter’s programme about the Israel Lobby, to the effect that of course there are those who attack Israel out of antisemitism, and they must be set apart and dealt with differently, on their own, because it is an attack motivated by antisemitism.
It is an article of faith amongst those who attack (‘criticise’) Zionism/Israel/the policies of the Israeli government that they are not being antisemitic – except, of course, as Rabbi Goldberg noted, when they are. Virtue belongs to the critics – except when it doesn’t. But how tell them apart ? The implications of this ethico-logical problem are avoided, but let me give a graphic instance of the confusion.
The Guardian’s favorite Theobald Jew, Antony Lerman, was at it again fuelling the flames of Jew-hatred in the comment thread with an article entitled Israel’s doctors must allay doctor’s fears bearing the byline “[a]llegations of Israeli doctors colluding in the torture of Palestinians must be investigated”. There being no substance to Lerman’s article, the commenters seized upon this to focus on the news that during the 1990s Israel used organs from deceased Israelis, Palestinians and foreign workers without their consent.
The first volley of comments in the thread set the tone for the entire thread:
orwellwasright
22 Dec 2009, 12:10PM
This on top of the admission by the Israeli government that they were indeed harvesting the organs of Palestinians – after accusing anyone who saw any credibility to the allegations revealed in the Swedish press of being “anti-Semitic conspiracy theorists”.
Talk about a complete, institutionalised rejection of morality…
ellymiranda
22 Dec 2009, 12:11PM
Yes, now when Israel officially admitted that their physicians have stolen organs from both Israelis and Palestinians, it is time to put it all on the table.
Of course, this kind of perversion of the truth is a well known tactic employed by the hate-Israel crowd. Predictably, orwellwasright and ellymiranda manipulated the false headline that “Israel Admitted to Harvesting Palestinian Organs” using this as proof that the Aftonbladet blood libel (that Israeli soldiers harvest the organs of Palestinians for trafficking) is true, despite the fact that such charges are completely unsubstantiated and Donald Bostrom, the Aftonbladet “reporter”, has since distanced himself from the story.
As Yaacov Lozowick observes
Antisemitic allegations almost always start from some grain of fact. What makes them antisemitic (or even merely slander) isn’t the original grain of truth but the edifice built on it. In the Rostom blood libel earlier this year the slander was that IDF forces were regularly killing Palestinians so as to harvest their organs. The grain of truth uncovered here (which actually isn’t news at all, it has been known in Israel for years, which is one reason Hiss no longer heads the Abu Kabir institute) has nothing to do with those allegations, and doesn’t substantiate them in any way.
But to point out that what orwellwasright and ellymiranda were doing was propagating antisemitic blood libels was met with this:
orwellwasright
22 Dec 2009, 12:21PM
I wonder how long it’ll be until the usual suspects come here and start making excuses for this? They do it for the slaughter of children, so why not for the complicity of the medical establishment in torture or the harvesting of organs?
orwellwasright
22 Dec 2009, 12:25PM
ThePrompter: “What I’d like to know is, as far as Israelis are concerned, what isn’t antisemitic?”
Praising the IDF for shooting children, perhaps?
bill4me
22 Dec 2009, 12:30PM
Or praising Hamas for raining rockets down on civilian populations?
KrustytheKlown
22 Dec 2009, 2:48PM
Rubbish! The whole point about the article to which you refer was that it claimed that Palestinians were being killed in order to obtain their organs without a shred of evidence being offered to support the claim.
Did the article make this claim?
From what I’ve read (admittedly I haven’t read a translation of hte original article) the newspaper did not make this claim, but rather reported the remarks of individual Palestinians who did make this claim. Not at all the same thing.
It is, btw, really quite chilling to see how so many of our zionist posters are playing down Israel’s admission that it stole organs from members of an occupied people. If that kind of carry-on really isn’t so bad after all, why then did the Israeli govt throw out the usual pathetic ‘anti-semite’ accusation at Aftonbladet, and demand an official condmemnation from the Swedish governemnt?
maskdmaverick
22 Dec 2009, 3:58PM
This story just shows how Israel has been willing to label any criticism as anti-semitic. Great to see them fall flat on their face.
orwellwasright
22 Dec 2009, 4:55PM
deWinter: who on earth is talking about Israeli hospitals and the standard of care?? The topic is specific allegations of doctors assisting in torture.
It would be a good idea of those on CIF who go around making sweeping statements bothered to read both the article and the subsequent comments properly before spouting out irrelevant posts.
MeandYou
22 Dec 2009, 5:31PM
According to the Huffington Post Israel do more than torture:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/12/21/israel-admits-harvesting_n_399623.html
“(AP) JERUSALEM – Israel has admitted that in the 1990s, its forensic pathologists harvested organs from dead bodies, including Palestinians, without permission of their families.”
The only thing that seems illegal in this War Machine state is any criticism of it.
And then we have Jay’Reilly who described Jews who challenge this kind of discourse as the “absolute dregs of the Jewish diaspora”. Do you think he will get banned for making such a blatantly antisemitic comment? (Its a rhetorical question – this is CiF, the incubator for this kind of discourse.)
JayReilly
22 Dec 2009, 12:50PM
“This on top of the admission by the Israeli government that they were indeed harvesting the organs of Palestinians – after accusing anyone who saw any credibility to the allegations revealed in the Swedish press of being “anti-Semitic conspiracy theorists”. “
Its amazing how a country that goes in for such regular depravity is seemingly untouchable on the world stage. We are desperately rewriting our laws to protect their war criminals, the global talks on racism were walked out on by most of the West because Israel’s fine name had been sullied, they threatened Sweden for not backing their grotesque cover up, the UK was silent over their assaults in Lebanon, and to cap it all off the absolute dregs of the Jewish diaspora relentlessly scream about anti-semitism when these things are raised.
And for a further insight into the depraved mind of JayReilly we have this.
JayReilly
22 Dec 2009, 2:14PM
“And by jove, he’s irrationally angry: “
Irrational? How so? A country that operates apparently on a different moral and legal basis to the rest of the world with the overt support of my government, my objection to its practices are “irrational”. Please explain.
“The ‘regular depravity’ which, because of the complex ethical, moral, legal, problems involved, has engulfed 200 hospitals here. In regularly depraved UK?”
The UK is about as depraved as any developed demoracy, yes. Maybe if we were illegally occupying Wales and taking organs from the Welsh who we regularly pounded to dust with illegal munitions, maybe then I’d find it even worse than depraved and actually become “irrationally angry” about it. Funny thing context, isnt it, its almost like it actually matters.
“Now on to Livni and a magistrate’s warrant which can be issued without evidence by politically motivated activists but has not and will not be issued to Messrs Blair, Clinton, Putin, Mugabe, Assad.”
Aside from the crass wotaboutery at the end, are you saying magistrate’s are “political activists”? The warrant must be issued by a court, not the activists.
“Were anti-semitic literature was sold in the foyers?”
I was under the impression one of the principle complaints was the description of Israel as a “racist state”, something that appears factually irrefutable.
“In there with a chance: Israel ‘threatened’ Sweden? Did they? What was the threat? And what is the cover up?”
Forgive me, Israel voiced its displeasure and politely requested the Swedish government take steps against the paper. Apologies for the error.
“An unsubstantiated accusation” – which it has now been found was pretty close to the truth.
“Try and refute or explain, it’s screaming and our Jay describes someone like me as part of ‘the absolute dregs of the Jewish diaspora’.”
I said in very plain English that those who respond to all criticism with cries of “anti-semitism” are the “dregs of the diaspora”, yes. Whats the problem, and what have you got to do with it? I didnt realise you were one of the “anti-semitic!!!!!!” crowd.
Anyway lets see what other characters are attracted to a thread like this.
Well in time honored CiF fashion, we have the Jewish conspiracy theorists:
doask
22 Dec 2009, 12:56PM
curiously israeli organ harvesting has not yet reached bbc broadcast news .. in fact nor has the continued collective punishment of gazans nor the threat by admiral mullin to iran of military action in 2010.
is the bbc reporting anything other than weather these days?
Rgk78
22 Dec 2009, 1:02PM
curiously israeli organ harvesting has not yet reached bbc broadcast news .. in fact nor has the continued collective punishment of gazans nor the threat by admiral mullin to iran of military action in 2010.
is the bbc reporting anything other than weather these days?
why has govt been silent of the israeli abuses?
My view point is that the pro-Israel Murdoch media report items in a way that is 95% bias towards Israel.
The UK government policy is about 90% pro-Israel.
The BBC is about 75% pro-Israel and this is low enough to be accused of anti-semetism.
And then there’s those that make Nazi analogies:
Rgk78
22 Dec 2009, 12:42PM
I don’t know if doctors in Israel take the Hippocratic Oath but you have to question your morals if you have any part in this. A doctor should not ever participate in anything like this.
Being complicit with the government echoes regimes that I dare not mention at the risk of being shouted down.
ThePrompter
22 Dec 2009, 1:08PM
There were people in Germany who’s indiscriminate support for the Nazi regime to a large extent allowed that regime to commit the atrocities that it did.
The un-discriminating appologists for the Israeli state are in danger of making the same mistake.
I am not saying that Israeli behavior is comparable to the behavior of Nazi Germany, but to contend that Israel doesn’t have questions to answer is just ridiculous
FrankFinlay
22 Dec 2009, 1:23PM
So are Israeli doctor’s complicit in torture or not?
The world needs an answer. My God, I hope they aren’t. If they are then the moral compass of the world has truly been inverted. Which would mean that Israel could no longer claim a special moral position because of the terrible history of the Jewish people. History does not excuse evil.
phindrup
22 Dec 2009, 3:22PM
What I’d like to know is, as far as Israelis are concerned, what isn’t antisemitic?
Odd isn?t it? Though some Jews are also Semites, many, especially the European Jews are not, and never have been.
Palestinians however, are definitely Semites, there is absolutely no doubt about this.
Isn?t it time that the charge of against anybody questioning the behaviour of Israel was described correctly? Whatever a person supporting the Palestinian cause might be, they are not anti-Semitic.
Why is Israel ?singled out? for criticism?
The fact that in 1947 Jews owned less than seven percent of the land in Palestine.
Today, Israel occupies 87 percent of Palestine. It controls the airspace, the land and sea borders and all food, water, fuel, electricity, medical supplies and access to medical aid, building materials, spare parts, etc.?Gaza is an immense concentration camp — 1.5 million people squeezed into 140 square miles hemmed in on all sides by 25-foot-high walls separated by a vast expanse of bulldozed earth. The 2005 “pull-out” left Gaza still controlled by Israel from air and sea, its entries and exits prisonlike mazes electronically controlled and under constant surveillance. Bombing it, assaulting it with tanks and Uzis, is like shooting animals in a pen.?
“Israel may have the right to put others on trial, but certainly no one has the right to put the Jewish people and the State of Israel on trial.” Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, 25 March, 2001
29numbers
22 Dec 2009, 4:09PM
They consider them a lesser specie but still use their organs. Hypocrites.
And then we have a commenter that uses the “chosen people” trope.
need4enlightenment
22 Dec 2009, 4:22PM
Man, I heard about the harvesting of organs…. sick bastards. By the way I am NOT calling ALL Israelis sick bastards, only those that cut numerous organs from a dying persons body, sow them back up and dump them in the street… Oh or dump phosphate on people from a great height…. oh, or blockade ports knowing full well the people will starve… yeh, if you do none of that you are a nice person, perhaps even gods-chosen…
And then there are those that think they’re history experts because they’ve read some Pappe or Shlaim:
ThePrompter
22 Dec 2009, 5:21PM
SantaMonika -
“Oh, the endless attempts here to rewrite history by the biased and ignorant” etc.
1947-49
There were indeed 7 Arab armies, however they were outnumbered by the Zionist forces. They never invaded the land that the Zionists had been given, all of the battles took place on the land that was to be the Palestinian state, and they only attacked the Zionists after the Zionists had committed a number of massacres including Deir Yassin where 100 Palestinian men, women, and children were killed, on Palestinian land. By the end of the war Israel had control of all of Palestine except The West Bank and Gaza, 750,000 Palestinians had become refugees, and over 500 Palestinian towns and villages had been obliterated. It was, and still is, the Israeli Zionists who are the aggressors.It’s all pretty well documented you know……
ONeill70 4.33pm -
You are making the same mistake as SantaMonika, I do happen to know quite a lot about Nazi Germany and the Israeli/Palestine conflict, based on a lot more than CiF or Israeli propaganda sites.
However I suggest we drop this subject because it’s getting seriously off-topic.
ThePrompter
22 Dec 2009, 3:48PM
TawdryDog -
“This forum is not appreciative when others point out the absence of criticism of ‘freedom fighters’ and their masters in Tehran”
My comment was clearly aimed at the Israeli state and it’s un-critical supporters, but even if it wasn’t clear enough for you, you should have realised what I meant because the Palestinian ‘freedom fighters’ don’t have a state, Israel nicked it 61 years ago.
And the historical distortions continue with this:
MmeEAB
22 Dec 2009, 3:43PM
Why is anybody surprised at anything horrible which is done by israelis to the original inhabitants of the land these northern european refugees occupy?
And to top if off, perhaps one of the only comments which was on-topic – in that it addressed the subject of torture raised by Antony Lerman – gets deleted. Read this comment – I can only surmise that Tom Wonacott expressed a view that did not fit in with the Guardian World Veiw. Bad boy Tom! You should know better by now.
TomWonacott
22 Dec 2009, 1:43PM
“……..Even though Israel’s supreme court in 1999 finally ruled that methods of torture used at that time by the security forces were illegal, a loophole was left for interrogators who tortured in “ticking bomb” situations, which ultimately allowed old forms of torture to creep back in by the mid-2000s, as a 2007 report by PCATI showed. So there is good reason to be seriously concerned about the use of torture today……..”
The ticking time bomb scenario is one of the most controversial “loopholes” used to condone the practice of torture. In a November 3, 2005 New York Times editorial, ?The Prison Puzzle?, the New York Times stated:
“We’re not naïve enough to believe that if the C.I.A. nabs a Qaeda operative who knows where a ticking bombs hidden, that terrorist will emerge unbruised from his interrogation…”
Thus, even the New York Times believes that under certain circumstances, torture is warranted. What leader would give in to principal when faced with the loss of a significant amount of innocent lives? For me personally, its not so much the use of torture, but when to apply the ticking time bomb scenario – and what criteria makes torture the preferred technique to gather important, life saving information.
I read the account of one suspect (Bajat Yamen) who was clearly tortured in 2004. This was done toward the end of the second intifada when more than 1100 Israelis lost their lives from suicide bombings and other attacks that targeted Israeli civilians for murder. In 2004-2005, nearly 100 Israelis lost their lives from suicide bombings alone.
Identifying Palestinian suicide bombers is difficult at best because they blend in with the population (and many look a lot like the Israeli Arabs that reside in Israel). While the use of torture is illegal, no one can blame Israel for torturing high value targets to protect their citizens during a war (at least in my opinion) -especially from those who target civilians for murder which is (just as) illegal under the Geneva Convention. Protecting Israel citizens is the number one priority of the Israel government.
Oh well. Another day in the parallel universe of the Guardian.
This is a guest post from Israelinurse
Antony Lerman has a CiF article on the subject of the trials of war criminals, and in particular the ongoing case of John Demjanjuk.
He opens by stating
“I have never accepted the argument that any remaining suspected Nazi war criminals must be so old that prosecuting them perpetrates an injustice. The passing of time hasn’t made the crimes any less heinous. The memories of Holocaust survivors are still all too fresh. The desire to see justice done remains strong.”
All well and good, but from then on, Lerman’s arguments become increasingly laborious and convoluted. He continues by arguing that “the trial of Demjanjuk could constitute a mockery of the law” and seems to claim that the process of bringing Nazi war criminals to trial is in some way counter-productive in that it has the effect of “encouraging people to believe that we have come to the end of dealing with the consequences of the Holocaust.”.
He then claims that Auschwitz “obscures rather than reveals the full breadth, depth and multi-faceted nature of the Holocaust” and declares that “[i]n western Europe, Belarus doesn’t figure in our memory”. Towards the end of this tortuous article, Lerman tells us that “I deplore the extent to which it [the Holocaust] shapes Jewish identity” without any further clarification. He goes on to describe the trials of suspected Nazi war criminals as “a phase that must pass.”.
Go back a moment to that opening paragraph: the level of confusion and contradiction, mixed together with Lerman’s projections of his own opinions onto others is really quite astounding.
If, like me, you reach the end of Lerman’s article feeling as though you have been lost for hours in Hampton Court Maze, help is at hand. Over at normblog a post entitled ‘Straw Lerman’ will help clear your head and lend clarity to Lerman’s piece which is otherwise absent.
“Talk about inventing an argument so that you’ve got something to write to the contrary.”
Talk about hitting the nail on the head, Norm!
Hawkeye
Omar2
WellofSense
Medusa
The Alchemist
Louise
Tosca
Maimon
Telling the Truth
Israelinurse
Adam Levick
Margie in Tel Aviv
Guest/Cross Post
Hadar Sela
The Upside Down World
April 26, 2010 in Uncategorized | Tags: Antisemitism, Antony Lerman, Comment is Free, Delegitimization, Guardian | by Hawkeye | 21 comments
This is a guest post by AKUS
There are times when not only do I detest the Guardian’s “Comment is Free” website, I wonder about the intelligence of those who run it. Presumably they (Brian Whittaker and Matt Seaton, primarily) do not simply post the rubbish that so frequently appears there, but actually read it first and approve it. Yet, especially with regard to articles about Israel, there seems to be clear evidence of a total inability or unwillingness to try to separate fact from fiction, or to keep articles off their website that are far removed from reality.
Surely it is time that the Guardian realized that its attempt to legitimize its incessant criticism of Israel by employing contributors simply because they are Jewish, or, in Antony Lerman’s case, having once had some affiliation with Israel (via the Habonim youth movement), does not hide their obvious bias?
Thus it is with Lerman’s latest article, Im Tirtzu: delegitimising the ‘delegitimisers’ , April 22nd, which is an attempt to turn the very real issue of the campaign to delegitimize Israel on its head – and blame Israelis for the sort of articles that he himself writes and the Guardian loves to print. It is, in fact, a rewrite of a similar article that appeared on April 19th on Jnews – Incitement against human rights groups on Israeli Remembrance Day – a blog dedicated to thrusting every negative article it can find or write about Israel in front of British readers, where Lerman is listed as a “Trustee”. The Jnews article lists its sources as NIF (New Israel Fund), Ha’aretz, Im Tirtzu, Adalah, PHR (Physicians for Human Rights) -Israel . With the exception of Im Tirtzu, of course, these are organizations that consistently attack Israel in the foreign press. Then, like a snake swallowing its own tail, Jnews lists Lerman’s Guardian article under its “Commentary” section.
What caught my attention in the comments to Lerman’s thread in the Guardian was how many actually took issue with his one-sided attempt to protect one of “his” favored groups, the New Israel Fund (NIF) by refusing to accept the truth behind the complaint that there is, in fact, a broad attempt to attack the legitimacy of Israel’s existence, and its role as a Jewish state – an accusation of racism never directed at the many countries that are proud to claim that they are Islamic states.
Lerman first takes issue with the term “delegitimization” of Israel (I’ve just added it to the dictionary on my computer, by the way). He opens fire with the statement:
Lerman’s intention is clear – he regards this as a sort of “dirty trick” used by Israelis and their supporters, even though he offers no alternative way for them to defend Israel’s positions:
The definition of “delegitimization” given in the Merriam Dictionary, dating back to usage from 1968, is:
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