Tag Archives: Barack Obama

Mar 24 2013

Guardian distorts Obama’s remarks on settlements at Ramallah news conference

A March 22 edition of the Guardian’s ongoing Middle East Live Blog, edited by , included the following dispatch on President Obama’s March 21 news conference with Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah.

Palestinians had hoped for a gesture of friendship from Obama on his four-hour visit to Ramallah, instead, the president berated their leader Mahmoud Abbas for insisting on a freeze on new settlements as a precondition to re-starting peace talks, calling them merely “an irritant”. 

The text in the highlighted sentence contains a hyperlink which takes you to a March 21 Guardian report by Matthew Kalman reporting from Ramallah, titled ‘Obama wins few friends on flying stop to West Bank‘, which contained the same characterization of Obama’s remarks at the news conference:

Obama berated Abbas for insisting on a freeze on new settlements as a precondition to re-starting peace talks, calling them merely “an irritant”.

So, is that really what Obama said about the settlements at the Ramallah news conference with Abbas?

Hardly.

Here’s the relevant passage, (from a full transcript of the news conference) from Obama’s response to a journalist’s question about the issue of settlements:

Now, one of the challenges I know has been continued settlement activity in the West Bank area.  And I’ve been clear with Prime Minister Netanyahu and other Israeli leadership that it has been the United States’ policy, not just for my administration but for all proceeding administrations, that we do not consider continued settlement activity to be constructive, to be appropriate, to be something that can advance the cause of peace.  So I don’t think there’s any confusion in terms of what our position is.

I will say, with respect to Israel, that the politics there are complex and I recognize that that’s not an issue that’s going to be solved immediately.  It’s not going to be solved overnight.

On the other hand, what I shared with President Abbas and I will share with the Palestinian people is that if the expectation is, is that we can only have direct negotiations when everything is settled ahead of time, then there’s no point for negotiations.

So I think it’s important for us to work through this process, even if there are irritants on both sides.  The Israelis have concerns about rockets flying into their cities last night. And it would be easy for them to say, you see, this is why we can’t have peace because we can’t afford to have our kids in beds sleeping and suddenly a rocket comes through the roof.  But my argument is even though both sides may have areas of strong disagreement, may be engaging in activities that the other side considers to be a breach of good faith, we have to push through those things to try to get to an agreement…

The President’s clear point was that “settlements” are indeed an impediment to peace, but that they represents an issue (as with others) which can only be worked out through negotiations – not as a precondition before talks could proceed.

Further, if you want to argue that Obama was calling settlements a mere “irritant”, then, based on his full reply, you could similarly argue that he also characterized rocket attacks as a “mere irritant”.

The lead of the Guardian Middle East Live blog could just as easily have been the following: 

The President referred to thousands of rockets fired indiscriminately at Israeli men, women and children merely as an “irritant”. 

But, of course, that would be a selective and completely dishonest characterization of what the President said, wouldn’t it? 

Mar 22 2013

Guardian Mid-East editor legitimizes the political pornography of Ali Abunimah

The Guardian’s Middle East Editor, Ian Black, provided an analysis of President Obama’s March 21 speech in Jerusalem (titled ‘Obama shows emotional and political intelligence with Jerusalem speech‘) which represents a good example the Guardian Left tendency to impute ‘authenticity’ to the most radical and uncompromising activists.  

This journalistic tick can be seen, for instance, in Harriet Sherwood’s decision to award ‘progressive’ Hechsher labels to both Joseph Dana and slain terror-abetting anti-Israel campaigner, Vittorio Arrigoni. 

Such political posturing also colored their coverage of the so-called ‘Palestine Papers’ in 2011, where Mahmoud Abbas’s putative flexibility during negotiations with Israel over the refugee issue was characterized as ”craven” – as ”selling out” Palestinian rights – in a series of reports which seemed to reflect the media group’s attempt to ‘out-Palestinian’ the Palestinians themselves. 

Their institutional tendency to promote a radical chic (and even terrorist-chic) brand is also evident in their frequent decisions to publish Islamist extremists, and the dearth of space they provide to peaceful and truly moderate two-state proponents.

In his March 21 report Black praised Obama’s speech at the Jerusalem Convention Center as “appealing to ordinary Israelis over the heads of their political leaders”, and as representing “a smart combination of emotional and political intelligence in pressing the buttons that matter to mainstream Jewish opinion in Israel.”

Palestinians, however, observed Black, were not impressed.  He noted that some Palestinians complained that Obama’s speech lacked depth or substance, before citing a critique by Ali Abunimah, the American born, Ivy League educated son of a Jordanian diplomat who founded ‘Electronic Intifada’ (EI) – and who, from his home in Chicago, engages in hate-filled ”commentary” about the Jewish state with abandon.

ali

Indeed, the Tweets by Abunimah (a former ‘Comment is Free’ contributor) cited in the following passage by Black are a fair representation of the activist’s social media style.

Black writes the following: 

Ali Abunimah, an outspoken critic of the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, and a supporter of the one-state solution, tweeted in anger: “Palestinians yearning for peace live in a tough neighborhood, surrounded by racist settlers and a murderous US-backed sectarian ‘army.’ Obama’s ‘history’ of Israel is as delusional as his US history which still praises slave-owning, slave-raping founding fathers. This speech will drive liberal Zionists wild because it legitimizes their segregationist desires & dresses them up as ‘peace’ & ‘democracy.’”

The text cited, however, represents several separate Abunimah Tweets.  So, for clarity, here are the three (140 character or so) ‘meditations’ by Abunimah which the Guardian Middle East editor evidently found elucidating. 

Here are a few additional Tweets that day by Abunimah not cited by Black:

Zionist psychopaths: 

Israel slaughters children:

Israel is a “supremacist” state:

Though Abunimah blocks many pro-Israel activists from following him, it still isn’t difficult to locate his Twitter paper trail – which includes a tweet concerning the murder of Israelis by Hezbollah terrorists in Bulgaria in 2012, which clearly suggested a Mossad conspiracy,  and another one calling for Palestinians to start a 3rd Intifada.

However, Abunimah is no mere American pro-Palestinian activist.  He’s defended Hamas and has flirted with insidious Israel-Nazi analogies – once even Tweeting the following: 

nazi

The fact that the Guardian’s Middle East editor – who undoubtedly could have found a more moderate, lucid and truly peace-seeking pro-Palestinian critic to cite – decided to hitch his wagon to Abunimah’s hateful political brand is an apt commentary on the Guardian’s continuing  fealty to the most belligerent voices in the region.

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Mar 21 2013

Harriet Sherwood on today’s Palestinian rocket attack: An error & an improvement

Earlier today Palestinian terrorists in Gaza fired four Kassam rockets at Israel, triggering red alert sirens throughout the south.  One rocket landed in a residential courtyard in Sderot, seen here:

rocketAt 10:26 GMT, the Guardian’s Live Blog on President Obama’s visit to Israel included the following dispatch by Harriet Sherwood.

Two rockets fired from Gaza landed in Sderot, an Israeli city in southern Israel, this morning. It was the first time that militants in Gaza have fired rockets since a truce ended the eight-day mini-war, Operation Pillar of Defence, in November.

According to Israel’s Army Radio, one of the rockets exploded in the yard of the Haziza family. The mother of the family, Sara, said: “Let Obama come and see how people live, we build houses and villas but we live inside a cage, in a protected room. Nothing is worth it for us. Let Obama come and see how an eight-year old girl has to run to a protected room that is completely open, and how I can’t close the door of the protected room.”

Obama referred to the southern Israel city, which he visited before becoming president, in his short speech on arrival in Israel, saying: “I’ve stood in Sderot, and met with children who simply want to grow up free from fear.”

There were no casualties, and no immediate claim of responsibility. [emphasis added]

First, it is important to note that Sherwood’s brief post represents an improvement in comparison to how the Guardian typically covers news of such terrorist attacks. She personalized the Israeli victims, noting the name of the family whose home was nearly hit, and even included a quote by the mother of the family.  (For additional posts on Sherwood’s improvement in covering the region, see here and here.)

However, Sherwood made an error. Today’s rocket attacks were not the first since the end of ‘Pillar of Defense’.

On Dec. 23, 2012, Palestinians in Gaza fired a rocket aimed at Israel (but which didn’t reach the Israeli side of the border).  

Additionally, on Feb. 26, 2013, Palestinians fired an M-75 rocket at the city of Ashkelon.  (The rocket fell on a road south of the city.) Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, the terrorist group associated with the party of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, Fatah, claimed responsibility for the attack.  The group reportedly stated that the attack was a response to the death of Al Aqsa Brigades member Arafat Jaradat while in Israeli custody. 

Of further interest in the context of Sherwood’s omission, the the Guardian’s  actually reported the Feb 26 rocket attack on Ashkelon, on that day’s edition of their ongoing Middle East ‘Live Blog’.

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Mar 21 2013

CiF Watch prompts revision to Guardian op-ed which omitted Livni from coalition

On March 18 we posted about a curious omission in a March 17 Guardian editorial about President Obama’s (then upcoming) visit to Israel, titled “Obama in Israel: waiting for Godot“.

Here’s the passage we cited (emphasis added):

Rarely has a US president prepared to visit Israel amid such low expectations of what he can achieve there. By the time Barack Obama arrives, Binyamin Netanyahu’s government will have been sworn in, a coalition composed of the Likud-Yisrael Beitenu bloc: Yesh Atid, founded by former TV personality Yair Lapid; and Jewish Home, a party linked to the West Bank settler movement led by Naftali Bennett. The coalition is uniquely suited to dealing with domestic issues, such as the exemptions to military service granted to the ultra-orthodox. But it is uniquely unsuited to unravelling the occupation in the West Bank

We noted that, in the above passage and in the subsequent text of the op-ed, the Guardian failed to mention one of the four Israeli government coalition partners – Tzipi Livni’s Hatnua party.  This omission occurred despite Guardian editors’ inclusion of a hyperlink (in the above passage) which directed readers to Phoebe Greenwood’s March 14 Guardian report about the coalition agreement which specifically mentioned Livni’s inclusion.

Following communication with the Guardian, the passage has been revised, and the following footnote added.

revision

We commend the Guardian on their prompt revision. 

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Mar 20 2013

The Guardian’s Chris McGreal flubs Jewish demography

The Guardian’s Chris McGreal published ‘Obama urged: act tough on Israel or risk collapse of a two-state solution‘ on March 19, which contained two signature McGreal tactics. First, there is the suggestion of faux concern by the Guardian reporter, in the context of discussing a two-state solution, that Israel must be ‘saved from itself’, citing “growing warnings” from unnamed Zionist supporters. Also, he again advances his false claim (see also here) that Netanyahu didn’t in fact agree to a 10-month settlement freeze in 2009.

But then there was this especially curious passage:

Others have pointed up a recent Hebrew University demographic study, which showed that Jews are now in a minority in the occupied territories – suggesting that Israel’s democratic and Jewish character are threatened by its reluctance to give up territory to an independent Palestine.

His claim was further illustrated in the accompanying photo caption:

caption

As would be obvious to even the causal Israel observer, of course, Jews are a minority in “occupied territories” and have been so since Israel’s founding.  There are no Jews in Gaza, roughly 325,000 Jews in the West Bank, and another roughly 190,000 in eastern Jerusalem. If you include Golan (another 19,000) that’s 537,000 Jews.  Since the non-Jewish population of of the West Bank is over 2.5 million, you don’t need a demographic study to conclude that Jews are a minority. 

So, while it’s difficult to know for sure what McGreal is referring to, he may have been eluding to a recently cited study by Sergio DellaPergola, a Hebrew University professor and expert on Israeli population studies.  However, McGreal, at the very least, evidently flubbed the data.  DellaPergola was citing the population of Jews relative to non-Jews in the entire historic land of Israel – from the Mediterranean Sea to the Jordan River, including Gaza, the West Bank and Israel proper – a politically meaningless stat, and certainly not consistent with McGreal’s characterization of the area as the “occupied territories”.  

Here’s a passage from a story about the issue in The Atlantic:

The statistics DellaPergola assembled are clear and their implications are frightening. Right now, the total number of Jews and Arabs living under Israeli rule in Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza is just under 12 million people. At the moment, a shade under 50 percent of the population is Jewish.

Chris McGreal evidently conflated the data, confusing the Jewish population in the ‘occupied territories’ (in which they’re obviously a minority), with the total Jewish population the West Bank, Gaza, and Israel within the green line. 

Of course, there is one additional explanation for McGreal’s curious passage about “Jews now [being] a minority in the occupied territories“.  Such a passage would follow only if he considers all of Israel ‘occupied Palestinian territory’.

So, which one is it:

1. McGreal comically misunderstood the data?

2. McGreal understood the data (concerning the Jewish population in Israel, Gaza and the West Bank), but he embraces the claims made routinely by Palestinian extremists (and some “moderate” Palestinians) that all of Israel is ‘occupied’ Palestinian land?

images

Whilst the former seems more likely, we wouldn’t put it past him to be implicitly endorsing the ‘Greater Palestine’ argument in the latter. 

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Mar 18 2013

Guardian editorial removes Tzipi Livni from new Israeli government

On Jan. 22, shortly after exit polls were being published on the evening of the Israeli election, we posted a piece titled ‘The Guardian gets it wrong: Exit polls indicate no rightward political shift in election‘, observing that the Guardian’s predictions about the elections – warning of a dangerous shift to the right – were proven entirely inaccurate.  

We cited scare passages from their analysts and contributors, in the weeks before Israelis went to the polls, which included predictions of “a more hawkish and pro-settler government“, “a more right-wing and uncompromising government than Israel has ever seen before“, and ”the most right-wing government in its history“.

Exit polls, the results of which were confirmed when all the votes were counted a few days later, in fact showed a slight move to the left in comparison to the 2009 results. 

The Guardian invested heavily in promoting their desired political narrative of a Jewish state lurching towards a far right abyss, and they got it completely wrong.  In fact, the new Israeli government coalition, presented on March 16, is decidedly centrist and, for only the third time since 1977, actually excludes ultra-orthodox parties. 

Well, this being the Guardian, we didn’t expect a mea culpa, but today’s official Guardian editorial on Obama’s visit to Israel, ‘Obama in Israel: waiting for Godot‘, which lamented the ‘dim prospects’ for a breakthrough in peace negotiations, made a quite telling mistake.  They completely omitted one member of the new government.

Here’s the passage:

Rarely has a US president prepared to visit Israel amid such low expectations of what he can achieve there. By the time Barack Obama arrives, Binyamin Netanyahu’s government will have been sworn in, a coalition composed of the Likud-Yisrael Beitenu bloc: Yesh Atid, founded by former TV personality Yair Lapid; and Jewish Home, a party linked to the West Bank settler movement led by Naftali Bennett. The coalition is uniquely suited to dealing with domestic issues, such as the exemptions to military service granted to the ultra-orthodox. But it is uniquely unsuited to unravelling the occupation in the West Bank

Somehow, in the above passage as well as in the rest of the op-ed, they failed to mention the one coalition partner which is clearly the most dovish on the Palestinian issue – Tzipi Livni’s Hatnua party.

While conducting “research” for the editorial, Guardian editors  must not have read a newspaper published since the new government was formed, nor seen their paper’s own Israel page, where they would have read a Phoebe Greenwood March 14 report noting Livni’s inclusion – which, remarkably, was embedded as a link in the op-ed passage cited above.

Livni

Greenwood noted that the former foreign minister under Ehud Olmert will be in Bibi’s inner cabinet, be a member of the security cabinet and will lead a small team of personally appointed staff into peace talks with the Palestinians.

So, is it possible that the Guardian innocently forgot the one coalition partner whose political presence in the new government just happens to contradicts their previous disproven narrative regarding a dangerous lurch right prior to the election, as well as the new editorial’s gloomy predictions about a resumption of new peace talks?

Anything’s possible, but I think we can be excused – familiar as we are with the Guardian habit of tidying up facts to comport with their ideological brand – for being just a bit skeptical.

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Mar 17 2013

Jonathan Freedland promotes the myth of ‘non-violent’ Palestinian protests in Bil’in

Jonathan Freedland’s latest essay at ‘Comment is Free’, about President Obama’s upcoming visit to Israel, is boilerplate Guardian: It promotes the idea that a US President needs to coax truculent Israelis who have lost their soul to ‘the occupation’ into pursuing peace, while failing to acknowledge Israeli concerns and ignoring Palestinian responsibility for the conflict.

Indeed, while much of what Freedland writes, in ‘You’re not a tourist, Obama, go to Israel with a message‘, March 15, is quite consistent with the ideological left’s tendency to view Palestinians as a mere abstraction, the following passage in the essay is worth examining. 

It’s too late to change Obama’s itinerary, but perhaps not too late to influence the in-flight entertainment on Air Force One. It’s a long journey, so the president should have time to see two films, both Oscar nominees. The first is not Les Miz or Argo, but 5 Broken Cameras. Shot by an amateur Palestinian film-maker in the West Bank village of Bil’in, it is a powerful eyewitness account of the everyday reality of the occupation, from unarmed villagers clashing with Israeli soldiers to Bil’in’s cherished olive trees set aflame by nearby settlers.

The depiction of Palestinian protests in the film which Freedland is referring to, however, is egregiously skewed.

The documentary, ’5 Broken Cameras’, focuses on the Palestinian village of Bi’lin, where the local population, in conjunction with international (largely European) supporters, has been demonstrating on a weekly basis to protest the Israeli security fence a few kilometers east of Modi’in.

int'l

European and Palestinian protesters, Bil’in, Aug 2012

The protests, which commenced eight years ago, have continued each week despite the relocation of the fence as the result of an Israeli Supreme Court ruling which enlarged Palestinian territory, making the village more suitable for Palestinian agricultural.

english-map-of-new-sec-fence

Map outlining the new security fence route bordering the Palestinian village of Bil’in 

The film never mentions that the security fence which is the object of protest was erected as a result of the Palestinian terror war in 2000-2005, in which waves of suicide bombers attacked Jewish civilians indiscriminately – constructed for the sole purpose of preventing terrorists from walking into Israeli cities and blowing themselves up.

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A photojournalist covering Bil’in security fence protest, Aug 2012.

More importantly, the narrative, advanced in the film and evidently accepted by Freedland, that protests are staged by “villagers” who are “unarmed”, represents a gross distortion.  

Indeed, the film reportedly edited out scenes of the Palestinian ‘protagonists’ engaging in violence against Israeli soldiers.  And, while they may not possess firearms as such, they certainly engage in violent rioting each week, typically throwing rocks and metal objects, as well as firebombs, at Israeli security forces.

Over the past several years more than 200 Israeli security personnel have been injured by Palestinian rioters in Bil’in.

Like so many symbols of the Palestinian “resistance”, the weekly protests at the security fence near Bil’in are not spontaneous, grassroots acts of civil disobedience but, rather, choreographed, media-friendly acts of violence.

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Dec 16 2012

Chris McGreal vs. Harriet Sherwood on Israel’s 2009 settlement construction freeze

mcgreal and sherwood

As we reported on Nov. 8, Chris McGreal’s post-election analysis, Obama’s in-tray – Israel/Palestine, Nov. 7, included this passage:

“Obama sought to pressure the Israeli prime minister to halt Jewish settlement expansion in the occupied territories, including East Jerusalem, at their first meeting in the spring of 2009. Netanyahu not only resisted but humiliated the president by publicly lecturing him about Jewish history.” [emphasis on all quotes are added]

McGreal’s latest post, ‘International criminal court is a lever for Palestinians on Israeli settlements‘, Dec. 15, repeats the historical revisionism suggesting that Israel did not in fact implement a temporary settlement freeze.

“An ICC ruling in favour of the Palestinians might have another effect. When Obama first came to power four years ago, he attempted to strong-arm Netanyahu into taking an agreement with the Palestinians seriously. The president began by demanding a total freeze on settlement construction. The Israeli prime minister outmanoeuvred and humiliated Obama, and carried on as before.”  

Not only is it untrue that “Netanyahu “resisted” Obama’s request, but, in fact, the 10-month Israeli freeze on new construction in the West Bank, declared in Nov. 2009, was reported by the Guardian (and through wire services on their site) as an uncontroversial fact.

Tellingly, Harriet Sherwood, the Guardian’s Jerusalem correspondent, has also unambiguously reported Israel’s 10-month freeze in reports continually over the past few years.

Here’s Sherwood on Nov. 9, 2010, in ‘Israeli plan to build hundreds of homes in West Bank settlement risks US anger‘:

“The Ariel and East Jerusalem proposals came six weeks after the end of a 10-month partial freeze on settlement construction.”

Here’s Sherwood, on July 5, 2010, reporting on US pressure to extend the 10-month freeze on settlement construction, titled ‘US to press Binyamin Netanyahu to extend freeze on settlements‘:

“The 10-month moratorium, which excludes building in East Jerusalem, is due to end at around the same time as the four-month period set for proximity talks comes to an end.

…

And Settlement Watch, an Israeli organisation, said that preparations are being made for a massive construction boom this autumn on the assumption the moratorium will be lifted.

…

The freeze, which began last November, was wrung out of Netanyahu by the White House after months of negotiation and against the opposition of the prime minister’s rightwing coalition partners.”

Here’s Sherwood on Nov. 10, 2010, in ‘Israeli settlement plan sparks international outrage‘:

“The Ariel and East Jerusalem proposals come six weeks after the end of the 10-month partial freeze on settlement construction.”

Here’s Sherwood, on March 13, 2011, reporting on the Israeli response to the murder of five members of a Jewish family in Itamar, in ‘Israel to expand settlements after family killing‘:

 ”Israel is to build hundreds of homes in West Bank settlements in response to the murder of five members of a Jewish settler family…

…

The homes are to be built in the large settlement blocks which Israel expects to keep under any peace agreement with the Palestinians. It is the biggest tranche of construction announced since the end of the settlement freeze almost six months ago.”

Here’s Sherwood on July 26, 2012, in ‘Population of Jewish settlements in West Bank up 15,000 in a year‘:

“A 10-month partial freeze on settlement expansion came to an end almost two years ago, since when there have been no meaningful talks.”

Here’s a passage in a report by Sherwood on Oct. 22, 2012, in ‘Israel’s cranes reprove Barack Obama’s failure to pursue two-state solution‘.

“On the Israeli side, Obama said the US did not accept the legitimacy of Jewish settlements. “It is time for these settlements to stop,” he said bluntly.There followed protracted negotiations between the US and Israeli governments which resulted, in November 2009, in Netanyahu reluctantly acceding to a temporary construction freeze in West Bank settlements.”

Here’s Sherwood on Oct. 30, 2012, in ‘EU urged to re-think trade deals with Israeli settlements in West Bank‘:

“Settlement growth has accelerated in the past two years, since the end of the temporary construction freeze brokered by the US.”

So, which Guardian reporter is correct?

Was there a settlement freeze, or did Netanyahu resist Obama’s request for the temporary halt in construction across the green line?

Of course, the fact that it’s difficult to find a reporter other than McGreal, working for the Guardian or any other paper, who has argued that Israel didn’t in fact agree to a construction freeze would seem to vindicate Sherwood.

As I’ve noted previously, Chris McGreal is perfectly entitled to dislike Israel and take the side of the Palestinians.  However, as a professional journalist, he is not free to lie or misrepresent the facts to suit his ideological agenda.

Related articles

Dec 5 2012

CiF editor questions Anna Wintour’s fitness to be US Ambassador but avoids thorniest issue

‘Comment is Free’ editor Natalie Hanman asked a question today: Should Anna Wintour be the next US Ambassador to the UK?, CiF, Dec. 5.

Anna Wintour

Anna Wintour

Hanman begins her piece on speculation that Wintour, the editor-in-chief of American Vogue, may be nominated as Ambassador to the UK, thus:

“The rumour – and it is far from being confirmed – that Barack Obama is considering nominating Anna Wintour, editor-in-chief of American Vogue, as his next ambassador to either the UK or France has been met with gasps of outrage.”

Hanman quotes Nile Gardiner, in the Telegraph, questioning Wintour’s qualifications for such a prestigious diplomatic position, but then cites Carla Hall of the LA Times suggesting that criticism of Wintour’s background is unfair.

Hanman concludes by asking:

“What qualities and experience do you think qualifies someone for a job as a diplomat?”

While the question is a fair one, it seems that Hanman must have been at pains to avoid the diplomatic elephant in room: Wintour’s involvement with a notorious decision at Vogue back in 2011 to publish a glowing piece, for Vogue’s 11 million readers, about the Assads.

asma_al-assad-_a_rose_in_the_desert_-_vogue_daily_-_vogue-capture_0

Here’s a passage from the Vogue story, which went to print while uprisings against the despotic regime were already under way.

“Asma al-Assad is glamorous, young, and very chic—the freshest and most magnetic of first ladies. Her style is not the couture-and-bling dazzle of Middle Eastern power but a deliberate lack of adornment. She’s a rare combination: a thin, long-limbed beauty with a trained analytic mind who dresses with cunning understatement. Paris Match calls her “the element of light in a country full of shadow zones.” She is the first lady of Syria.”

But, the Vogue spread didn’t merely glamorize Mrs. Assad, but the Baathist butcher as well.  Here’s a photo from the Vogue feature of the casually dressed Bashar playing with his children.

image003

Note Assad’s fashionable jeans!

The puff piece on the Assads was met with a wave of criticism, and Vogue’s editor was accused of taking part in a PR campaign on behalf of the regime.

Indeed, according to the NYT, ”the article was part of a public relations offensive launched by the Assad regime, which included paying a US public relations firm $5,000 a month for acting as a point of liaison between Vogue and Mrs Assad.”

Within a month or so, the article was removed from Vogue’s website.

However, at the site ‘PresidentAssad.net’ you can find the full article, which includes this passage from the original:

Asma al-Assad empties a box of fondue mix into a saucepan for lunch. The household is run on wildly democratic principles. “We all vote on what we want, and where,” she says. The chandelier over the dining table is made of cut-up comic books. “They outvoted us three to two on that.”

But, it get’s better.

The Vogue profile on the Assads ends thusly:

Two nights later it’s the annual Christmas concert by the children of Al-Farah Choir, run by the Syrian Catholic Father Elias Zahlawi. Just before it begins, Bashar and Asma al-Assad slip down the aisle and take the two empty seats in the front row. People clap, and some call out his nickname:

“Docteur! Docteur!”

Two hundred children dressed variously as elves, reindeers, or candy canes share the stage with members of the national orchestra, who are done up as elves. The show becomes a full-on songfest, with the elves and reindeer and candy canes giving their all to “Hallelujah” and “Joy to the World.” The carols slide into a more serpentine rhythm, an Arabic rap group takes over, and then it’s back to Broadway mode. The president whispers, “All of these styles belong to our culture. This is how you fight extremism—through art.”

 Brass bells are handed out. Now we’re all singing “Jingle Bell Rock,” 1,331 audience members shaking their bells, singing, crying, and laughing.

“This is the diversity you want to see in the Middle East,” says the president, ringing his bell. “This is how you can have peace!” [emphasis added]

A. Jay Adler, who posted about the Vogue spread shortly after it was published, described the piece as “the creepiest, most morally repugnant journalism of the year”, explaining further:

“Might Anna Wintour and the other editors of that glossy dross, reeking of ancien regime parfum feel more chastened now to think it, worse, in bad taste? For there were only decades to know of the barbarous tyranny of Syria’s Ba’athistregime, no different from any other party in the Middle East under that banner, with one decade of Syrian interference in Lebanon sufficient to know the nature of Assad junior.”

By June of 2012, after tens of thousands of Syrians had been murdered by Assad, Wintour was finally ready to break with the fashionable couple, explaining:

“We were hopeful that the Assad regime would be open to a more progressive society” but “as the terrible events of the past year and a half unfolded in Syria, it became clear that its priorities and values were completely at odds with those of Vogue.“

It took over a year for Wintour to acknowledge that her optimism about the progressive credentials of the Assads may have been misplaced!

If Wintour is appointed US Ambassador to the UK, I simply can’t wait for the moment she has an audience with the Queen, and gets to formally present her diplomatic credentials to Her Majesty. 

Nov 29 2012

CST report on antisemitic discourse slams the Guardian: Singles out Orr and McGreal

The CST, the official body advising the UK Jewish community on matters of security and antisemitism, just released a comprehensive report on antisemitic discourse in the UK for 2011 and singled out the Guardian for opprobrium.  In fact, CST devotes an entire section of their 36 page report to the Guardian.

CST noted the following:

In 2011, the Guardian faced more accusations of antisemitism than any other mainstream UK newspaper.

Here are some specific highlights from the full report:

Context:

CST:

Concerns within the Jewish community and elsewhere regarding the Guardian, relative to other mainstream media outlets, have persisted for many years now – a situation that will probably worsen as the paper’s Comment is Free website grows.

Comment is Free website: overview

CST:

Comment is Free website hosts many more articles than the Guardian’s actual print edition –and has lower editorial standards. Articles critical of Israel and its supporters are commonplace and routinely attract hundreds of comments from members of the public. Counter-articles are far less common.

The Guardian: overview

CST:

Specific accusations of antisemitism against the Guardian itself usually arise from opinion pieces that reflect the hostility of the writer to Israel or those they associate with it. These articles are rarely, if ever, explicitly antisemitic. Rather, they usually contain remarks and attitudes that echo antisemitic motifs, such as Jewish conspiracies of wealth and power, and the notion that Jews are loyal to no one but each other. In their hostility, these articles afford little or no room for mainstream Jewish voices or perspectives.

[Not] innocent in the war of words about Jews and Israel

A March 2011 opinion piece in the Jewish Chronicle by its deputy editor, Jenni Frazer, appeared to capture the feelings of many Jews and mainstream UK Jewish communal bodies towards the Guardian. She wrote: “…I cannot count the number of complaints we have had from readers who do not understand the Guardian’s obsession with Jews and Israel, the poisonous letters or op-eds it publishes.”

Typifying the Guardian’s problems regarding antisemitism, according to the CST, were comment articles by Washington correspondent Chris McGreal, a piece by weekly columnist Deborah Orr and its coverage of the Sheikh Raed Salah deportation case.

Chris McGreal: “George Bush slavishly refusing to pressure the Jewish state”

CST:

In an article concerning American Jewish voting patterns, senior Guardian correspondent Chris McGreal wrote: “Obama [told] American Jewish leaders that he would put some ‘daylight’ between the US and Israel after eight years of George Bush slavishly refusing to pressure the Jewish state to move toward ending the occupation.”Following protests that this risked reading as if former President Bush had somehow been a slave to Jews, the word “slavishly” was changed to“consistently”. The Guardian stated that this would“clarify the intended meaning” of the sentence.Given President Obama’s ethnicity, it seems unlikely that the Guardian would have allowed the word “slavishly” to be as readily used as in relation to former President Bush.

Nevertheless, the importance of conspiracy theory to antisemitism requires the newspaper (and others) to show sensitivity to risking such associations. In this regard, the Guardian’s alteration of “slavishly”to “consistently” maintained the overall meaning of the sentence, while reducing (but not entirely removing) the potential antisemitic sting.

Deborah Orr: “lives of the chosen”

CST:

In October 2011, Israel exchanged over 1,000 Palestinian prisoners in return for a soldier, Gilad Shalit, who had been held captive in Gaza for five years.Guardian columnist Deborah Orr sparked outrage when she used the phrase “the chosen” in an article about the exchange:  “…there is something abject in their [Hamas’]eagerness to accept a transfer that tacitly acknowledges what so many Zionists believe –that the lives of the chosen are of hugely greater consequence than those of their unfortunate neighbours.”

Writing in the Jewish Chronicle, commentator David Aaranovitch explained his (and others’) concerns with Orr’s use of “the chosen…when the predicted complaint [about the Shalit exchange terms] was made in the predictable place (the Guardian’s opinion columns), the source surprised me. Deborah Orr is a clever, sensitive writer, as little given to bombast or prejudice as any columnist.“…What was so shocking to me about this phrase was its casualness – not its deliberation. The writer just didn’t realise, it seemed, that this charge about ‘chosenness’ – as applied specifically and categorically to Jews (whether ‘Zionists’ or not) is one of the most recurrent and poisonous tropes in antisemitism… Had she been confronted with the suggestion that, say, blacks were a bit childlike,undisciplined, sensual and physical rather than intellectual, she’d have recognised immediately the contours of old-time racism. The alarms would have gone off, the thought would have been interrogated, the problem noticed.“…Orr’s reaction seems to come from a place that deems all Zionism – all belief in a Jewish homeland– to be beyond respectability.“…What worries me here, as it increasingly has done for a decade, is the way in which the Palestinian issue is leading to a slippage in sensibilities, from concern, to partisanship, to an almost unconscious acceptance of the characterisation of Jews or Zionists or Israelis which replicates ancient libels….”

Blood libel allegation, Sheikh Raed Salah

CST:

Controversies concerning alleged antisemitism from Islamist sources were typified by the 2011–12 visit to Britain of Sheikh Raed Salah, a leader of the Islamic Movement in Israel. In particular, the Guardian newspaper was highly partial in its reporting of the case. Some coverage of the case (including, in part, by the Guardian) asserted or assumed that the Salah controversy had been engineered by the Israeli Government and carried out, at its behest, by its ‘local’ supporters and forced, somehow, upon the Home Secretary. These allegations about Israeli Government involvement were both unreferenced and untrue.

Guardian summary

The case exemplified the manner in which UK Islamists and pro-Palestinian activists defend their political allies from accusations of antisemitism. It is normal for such groups to act in this way and for them to misrepresent British Jewish concerns; but Blood libel allegation CST argued that Salah’s presence was unwelcome, primarily because of a speech he had made in Jerusalem in 2007 that had alluded to the “blood libel”, the notorious medieval charge that Jews kill Christian children in order to use their blood for religious practices.

These images, of medieval, Nazi, Syrian and modern day Hizbollah origin, each depict the notorious antisemitic blood libel charge.

As the controversy developed, Salah and his supporters claimed that Israeli officials had brought no charges against the speech, then said charges had been brought but dropped due to lack of evidence, before admitting that the case remained outstanding in Israel, but Salah and his supporters now claimed he had been discussing the Spanish Inquisition, not the behaviour of Jews.The final hearing (which Salah won) agreed with CST’s interpretation of the speech.

In February 2012, Justice Ockelton ruled in Salah’s favour against deportation, despite Section 59 of his own ruling finding that Sheikh Salah (“the appellant”) had indeed referred to the blood libel and that the Home Secretary had been right to consider this.  This finding has never been acknowledged…in any Guardian articles.”

Justice Ockelton’s statement included:

“In our judgment this [Salah’s counterargument] is all wholly unpersuasive. The appellant is clearly aware of the blood libel against Jews…The truth of the matter is that the conjunction of the concepts of ‘children’s blood’ and ‘holy bread’is bound to be seen as a reference to the blood libel unless it is immediately and comprehensively explained to be something else altogether.”.

“We have taken into account that the same sermon contained more moderate language and concepts and positive references to Jewish prophets and synagogues. Nevertheless we do not find this comment [by Salah] could be taken to be anything other than a reference to the blood libel against Jews…”

“The Guardian: pro-Salah bias:

Throughout the controversy, the Guardian…reported the views of Salah’s UK Islamist hosts and defenders, but failed to adequately ask for, report, or consider, the concerns of CST and the UK Jewish community.  It ran no articles countering Salah’s position.

Haneen Zoabi

On 29 June 2011, the Guardian ran an article by Haneen Zoabi, entitled, “An Israeli trap for Britain”.This framed the Salah controversy as being an Israeli ploy, carried out by its “supporters abroad”. It essentially reduced the allegations against Salah to the status of lies, concocted by Israel and its British supporters to defend racism and then forced upon the Home Secretary. Excerpts included: “…Unable to produce any legal evidence, the Israeli establishment and its supporters in Britain accuse him of antisemitism….It appears that the charge of antisemitism is being used as a way of suppressing criticism of Israeli policies…it seems that the British government has bowed to pro-Israel pressure even when it comes to inshore affairs.

Next, Zoabi alluded to Zionists being responsible for Islamophobia, repeated her dismissal of the allegations against Salah and ended by implying that “Zionist racism” and “the pro-Israeli lobby”were controlling UK policy: “Pro-Israel organisations in Britain and elsewhere are manipulating growing European Islamophobia to discredit us by falsely portraying the democratic Palestinian struggle against racism and discrimination in Israel as antisemitic.“…The British authorities have fallen into an Israeli trap…until now, Palestinian citizens of Israel have been struggling for our political rights in our country, and confronting Zionist racism inside Israel. But now it seems we have to confront Zionist racism abroad as well.“The pro-Israeli lobby must not be allowed to determine politics in Britain…”

Official Guardian editorial

On 1 July 2011, the Guardian ran an editorial in support of Salah. Its title, “Muslim Brotherhood activists: unwelcome guests?” signaled the newspaper’s failure to properly address the antisemitism allegations against Salah, or what this meant for British Jews, Muslim-Jewish communal relations and the Government’s recently tightened anti-extremism guidelines.

The editorial echoed Haneen Zoabi’s opinion piece by crassly suggesting that the UK Government was moving against “all Palestinian activists Israel has a problem with”, before appearing to accept Salah’s denials at face value: “…he says [the allegations] were fabricated, and for which he has started libel proceedings…Mr Salah has not been convicted of antisemitism”.

Additional coverage of Salah by the Guardian.

On 26 September 2011, the Guardian reported upon Salah’s forthcoming appeal. The story summarised the antisemitism allegations against Salah and ran his lawyer’s rebuttals of them. This included implying that CST had “doctored”the Koranic poem and the “blood libel” speech to include mentions of “Jews”.

Following CST’s intervention, the story was altered on the Guardian website, clarifying that these were the lawyer’s claims, not the Guardian’s, and stating:“there is no suggestion that CST doctored the quotes”.  A line suggesting CST had not checked the quotes for accuracy was removed; but a further clarification that CST had actually found and supplied the accurate versions of the poem and speech was not included.

On 30 September 2011, the Guardian reported that Salah had won compensation for two days of wrongful immigration detention.  

On 26 October 2011, Salah lost his first appeal. Despite its extensive prior coverage (at least articles prior to this date), this verdict did not appear to be reported by the Guardian. Indeed, the paper seems to have made no further mention of Salah until 9 April 2012, when he won a further appeal. This was covered at length by the  two articles, which implied that Salah had won on all charges, whilst making no mention of the ruling dismissing Salah’s denial of having made a blood libel speech.

It also ran an article by Salah himself, entitled, “Britain’s duty to the Palestinian people”.

Salah’s CiF piece included the claim that “The Palestinian issue can only be resolved if Israel and its supporters in Britain abandon the dogmas of supremacy…”

Conclusion:

CST’s 2011 Report on Antisemitic Discourse clearly demonstrates the Guardian’s continuing antisemitic sins of ‘commission and, just as dangerous, ‘omission’: their silence in the face of clear evidence of antisemitism when covering a story. 

While this blog’s mission is clear, and we’ll continue combating antisemitism and the assault on Israel’s legitimacy at the Guardian and ‘Comment is Free’, we also have a related mission: to name and shame the Guardian as an institution which fancies itself the “world’s leading liberal voice” yet continues to display tolerance towards decidedly illiberal opinions about Jews.

It is incumbent upon all those who consider themselves passionate anti-racists to join us in this fight.

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Nov 8 2012

Chris McGreal lies about Israeli building freeze

Chris McGreal’s latest Guardian report is illustrated with a photo recycled from five days ago, in David Wearing’s one-state proposition, ‘A two-state solution is the practical route for Israel and Palestine‘, but, oddly, the photo was used by the Guardian at least as far back as 2007.

Chris McGreal, who has proven himself hostile to Israel, it’s prime minister, and Jewish supporters of the state, published the following post-election analysis, Obama’s in-tray – Israel/Palestine, Nov. 7.

(The caption for the photo, which has little to do with McGreals’s report, curiously uses language evoking the Guardian’s narrative on the ‘Palestine Papers’ series, which contextualized thousands of documents in a manner suggesting that Palestinians were too week and conciliatory during negotiations with Israeli PM Ehud Olmert in 2008.)

McGreal, whose characterization of the US President’s in a previous report, as engaging in “slavish” support for Israel, was deemed inappropriate, and arguably antisemitic, by Guardian editors, and removed, argues in his Nov. 7 report that a newly re-elected President Obama likely has more leverage over Israel’s Prime Minister on the Palestinian issue.

However, McGreal makes a claim during the course of his report that is simply a lie, when he writes the following:

“Obama sought to pressure the Israeli prime minister to halt Jewish settlement expansion in the occupied territories, including East Jerusalem, at their first meeting in the spring of 2009. Netanyahu not only resisted but humiliated the president by publicly lecturing him about Jewish history.”

However, Bibi’s 10-month freeze on new construction in the West Bank, declared in Nov. 2009, was reported by the Guardian (here, here  and here).

Bibi did resist Obama’s request to extend the freeze another 10 months, but reading McGreal’s report you’d think that Bibi resisted and didn’t in fact implement the original freeze on settlement construction in the West Bank.

McGreal’s report is extremely misleading and we’d recommend contacting McGreal and the Guardian’s readers’ editor  to seek a correction.

Here’s McGreal’s Twitter account: https://twitter.com/ChrisMcGreal

Here’s the email address for Chris Elliott, the Guardian’s Readers’ Editor: reader@guardian.co.uk

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Sep 7 2012

The Guardian’s Ewan MacAskill and Jewish money

Walter Russell Mead, in an essay at his blog, cited the following quote:

“American Presidents have long been criticized for being too in thrall to the Jewish lobby. The American Jews influence US foreign policy and that explains Washington’s unwavering support for Israel.”

He then posed the question: “Who made this statement? (a) A disgruntled fringe neo-Nazi (b) Some poor soul ranting on their Facebook page (c) The BBC?”

Mead then wrote:

Sadly, as you can see in [this] clip…the answer is C. This ugly assertion is the host’s opening line in an episode of this past week’s BBC HARDtalk program. This vicious garbage isn’t “sort of” or “almost” anti-Semitic; it is the real thing: vivid, unapologetic, odious and wrong.

Explicitly antisemitic commentators often complain that Jewish money distorts U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East and warn of the broader danger posed by Jewish influence in politics.

Such narratives can be found on the extreme left, the Jewish far left, the extreme right, and Islamic /Arab sites. 

And the Guardian is certainly no slouch when it comes to employing such corrosive rhetoric in their attempt to explain the U.S. political process. 

In two separate Guardian reports (both published on January 28th, 2012), Paul Harris and Arun Kundnani evoked the injurious effects of (Zionist) Jewish money on the American body politic.

Harris’s “The Secrets of the billionaire bankrolling Gingrich’s shot at the White House“ and Arun’s piece, ”Newt Gingrich’s agenda-setting big donor“, both took aim at the political activities of a Jewish pro-Israel billionaire named Sheldon Adelson – warning of his nefarious influence on the American political process.

The Guardian’s new U.S. correspondent Glenn Greenwald has gone even further, complaining (in a post at his former Salon.com blog) of the “Israel-centric stranglehold on American policy [and] the US Government.”

However, Greenwald represents an especially egregious example and most commentators do not employ such tropes so explicitly. 

Ewen MacAskill, the Guardian’s Washington DC bureau chief, writing on January 25th about Obama’s State of the Union address, argued thus:

“On foreign policy, a president who has been at loggerheads with the Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, over a Middle East peace process promised unflinching support for the state.With an election looming and in need of votes and funds from American Jews, some of whom have been unhappy over his approach to Israel, Obama referred to “our iron-clad, and I mean iron-clad, commitment to Israel’s security”. “

More recently, MacAskill posted a story about the Democrats’ decision to reinsert language into their party platform – which appeared in 2008 – supporting Jerusalem as the Israeli capital, in ‘Democratic convention erupts over reinstatement of Jerusalem to policy‘, September 6th.

MacAskill writes:

“ Barack Obama intervened personally to try and head off a mounting clamour from Jewish donors and pro-Israel groups who objected to the dropping of a line supporting Jerusalem as the capital of Israel from the Democratic policy platform.

…

Jewish donors, particularly in New York, and pro-Israeli lobby groups are generous supporters not only to Obama but to individual senators and members of the House, who are also facing election in November. The changes were pushed through after Obama contacted party leaders asking for their reinstatement.” [emphasis added]

MacAskill would have us believe that Obama feared money from Jews might dry up over the language in the Democratic Party platform, failing to explain why such Jews, inclined to vote for Obama anyway, would suddenly – after 4 years of his presidency – abandon ship over text which has no effect on policy decisions of the government.

But, moreover, it is difficult to understand why evoking the specter of ‘New York Jewish money’ now often passes for respectable liberal opinion.  

When you watch the following clip of liberal journalist Seymour Hersch explaining to Amy Goodman why so many Democrats have expressed grave concern about the possibility of a nuclear-armed Iran, please consider what, in your mind, stands out.

Here’s the text:

“Money. A lot of the Jewish money from New York. Come on, let’s not kid about it. A significant percentage of Jewish money, and many leading American Jews support the Israeli position that Iran is an existential threat. And I think it’s as simple as that. When you’re from New York and from New York City, you take the view of — right now, when you’re running a campaign, you follow that line. And there’s no other explanation for it, because she’s smart enough to know the downside.”

Antisemitic reasoning, broadly speaking, is often the product of lazy minds attempting to find simple answers to complex questions.

However you couch it, a narrative which warns that ‘Jews deploy extraordinary wealth with almost superhuman cunning in support of the Jewish agenda’ is necessarily inconsistent with the liberal values of tolerance and anti-racism.

Walter Russell Mead, further along in the essay cited above, wrote:

“anti-Semitism is both a cause and a consequence of a basic failure to comprehend the way pluralistic and liberal societies behave. As a result, nations and political establishments warped by this hatred tend to make one dumb decision after another — starting at shadows, warding off imaginary dangers, misunderstanding the nature of the problems they face.

…

Failing societies and weak minds, on the other hand, are easily seduced by attractive but empty generalizations. The comment attributed to August Bebel that anti-Semitism is the socialism of fools can be extended to many other kinds of cheap and superficial errors that people make. The baffled, frustrated and the bewildered seek a grand, simplifying hypothesis that can bring some kind of ordered explanation to a confusing world; anti-Semitism is one of the glittering frauds that attract the overwhelmed and the uncomprehending.” [emphasis added]

Such grand, simplifying and bigoted hypotheses – on the root causes of political phenomena –  are what routinely pass for sophisticated, liberal thought at the Guardian Left.

Jul 30 2012

Mitt Romney’s trip to Israel & Harriet Sherwood’s miscalibrated American political ‘Jewdar’

The strap line for Harriet Sherwood’s Guardian report of July 27th, Mitt Romney woos Israel by considering U.S. strike against Iran, reads as follows:

Sherwood writes:

“An American military strike against Iran‘s nuclear sites should not be ruled out, Mitt Romney has said in interviews with the Israeli media before his visit to the Jewish state.

He also suggested it was not “right” for the US to act as a negotiator between Israel and the Palestinians, and he accused President Barack Obama of publicly criticising its “friend and ally”.

…

Romney has repeatedly attacked Obama over his administration’s stance on Israel and is attempting to win over Jewish voters in the US.“ [emphasis added]

A July 29th report by Sherwood, Romney declares unity with Israel over nuclear threat, repeated this narrative about Romney’s visit to Israel.

“…a senior Romney aide said the candidate would back unilateral military action by Israel against Iran’s nuclear sites. “If Israel has to take action on its own, in order to stop Iran from developing that capability, the governor would respect that decision,” Dan Senor, Romney’s senior national security aide, told reporters.

Romney’s speech touched many key buttons for his target audience of Jewish voters in the US.” [emphasis added]

However, a recent comprehensive survey by the American Jewish Committee demonstrated that Israel (and the Iranian nuclear issue) are not nearly the most important issues for Jewish voters.

Per the following results, Israel was the most important issue for only 6% of Jews surveyed, while the Iranian nuclear issue was the top issue for only 4% of Jewish voters.  (The economy and healthcare represent Jewish American voters’ two biggest concerns.) 

Alternatively, support for Israel is a top concern for evangelical Christian voters.  This group is important for Romney both because it constitutes a large share of the American population – about 26% – and because it provided President George W. Bush with 40% of his total votes in the 2004 presidential election.

Adding additional doubt to Sherwood’s working assumption about the intent of Romney’s visit are numbers regarding the contrasting voting strength of Jews and evangelicals.

While, according to exit polls, Jews made up 2% of the overall votes in the 2008 elections, born-again/evangelical Christians made up 38%.

Further, while 74% of evangelicals voted for John McCain in 2008, 78% of Jews voted for Barack Obama.

Romney is unlikely to be specifically courting the Jewish vote in the U.S. as the vast majority of American Jews are going to vote Democratic (based on past results as well as recent polling on the upcoming November election). The great support for Israel right now is in the evangelical community, which is a huge part of the Republican base and, per many reports, is still quite skeptical of the Mormon candidate’s credentials.

So Romney’s trip to Israel is a way of firing up this enormously important Republican base. 

As Jonathan Tobin of Commentary Magazine wrote:

“Romney needs a huge turnout of evangelicals — a group that often fails to maximize its numbers at the polls — this fall if he is to beat President Obama. As conservatives work to register and mobilize conservative Christians, expect to hear more about Israel from Romney. It may be that most Jews don’t care if Romney is more sympathetic to the Jewish state, but support for Israel is an issue that a great many Christians believe is a deal breaker.”

David Brog, executive director of Christians United for Israel - an extremely large and well-funded pro-Israel group – told the Washington Examiner that for many evangelicals, support for Israel is a key motivating factor in elections.  On the Iranian nuclear issue, Brog added:

“Whether there’s an Israeli strike or not, the issue of Israel threatened by Iran and a perception that the administration has not confronted Iran’s march towards nuclear weapons with sufficient courage and clarity, is absolutely going to motivate the base.”

The belief – which is implicit in Sherwood’s coverage of Romney’s visit and consistent with the narrative routinely advanced by Guardian contributors – that American politicians are pandering to Jews by expressing support for Israel is simply not supported by the empirical data regarding voting habits of various religious groups.

Sherwood’s superficial take on the motivations of the American Presidential challenger demonstrates that Israel is not the only country whose politics she egregiously misinterprets.   

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Oct 13 2011

Meet Moazzam Begg: Al-Qaeda and Taliban supporter, and latest Guardian contributor

Moazzam Begg

For some reason, the Guardian never publishes essays by prominent liberal Muslims such as Irshad Manji, Hasan Afzal, or Khaled Abu Toameh.

However, when it comes to radical, terror-supporting Muslims, the world’s leading liberal voice is typically happy to oblige.

Recently, they published an essay by former Guantánamo Bay prisoner Moazzam Begg, of the group Cagedprisoners (“Why is Canada acting like a Guantanamo Bay camp guard“), Oct. 13th, on Canada’s decision to refuse him entry into the country.

Begg was apparently refused entry on the grounds that his name is on a U.S. no-fly list and because he has admitted to being a former member of Al Qaeda and the Taliban.

In his CiF column, Begg, in characterizing the injustice of being detained by Canadian officials, likened himself to Nelson Mandela and implied he was just another victim of Western Islamophobia. 

However, evidence regarding Begg’s history of active support for terrorism is overwhelming.

Begg is widely believed by American intelligence officials to have been a member of Al-Qaida, and attended terrorist training camps in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and England “so he could assist in waging jihad against enemies of Islam.”

Begg assisted several prominent terrorists and discussed potential terrorist acts with them; recruited young operatives for global jihad; and provided financial support for terrorist training camps.

Moazzam Begg is also ideologically associated with the Taliban and had a longstanding relationship with al Qaeda cleric Anwar al Awlaki, the senior recruiter and motivator who was involved with planning operations for al-Qaeda who was recently killed by U.S. forces.  Al Awlaki’s sermons are alleged to have helped motivate at least three terrorist attacks inside the United States.

Begg’s group, Cagedprisoners, lobbied to free al Awlaki from Yemeni custody after he was detained in 2006, broadcast a live message from al Awlaki during a fundraising event and reproduced Awlaki’s propaganda on its website.

Cagedprisoners’ goal seemed to be to spread Awlaki’s terrorist message in the UK — which Awlaki has repeatedly targeted as a recruiting ground.

In fact, Moazzam Begg confirmed, in his own autobiography, that he is a jihadist.

Despite Begg’s claims, in his CiF essay and elsewhere, that his confessions (regarding his links to jihadists) were made while tortured, the U.S. Department of Justice’s investigation failed to substantiate Begg’s claims of torture, and found that his confession at Gitmo was voluntarily given

Following the death of Osama bin Laden, Begg’s site, Cagedprisoners, posted this sick parody titled “BREAKING NEWS: BARACK OBAMA IS DEAD”, which included this:

American War Criminal Barack Obama has been killed by Pakistani security forces in the UK, Prime Minister Hasan Abdullah of Pakistan has said.

Obama was shot dead at a compound near Camberley, in a ground operation based on Pakistani intelligence, the first lead for which emerged last August.

Mr Abdullah said Pakistan forces took possession of the body after “a firefight”.

Obama is believed to have ordered almost 200 attacks in North and South Waziristan between 2009 and 2011 in which almost 2000 people were killed, when he served as Commander-in-Chief of the US Armed Forces. Obama is also believed to have ordered the continued bombardment of Afghanistan during the same period in which thousands of others were killed.

The satire, supposed to be read as an exercise in moral equivalence between Obama and Bin Laden, included the following image.  (FYI, this photo is the censored version):

The Guardian’s definition of what passes for liberalism seems to include even those advocating the most extreme religious intolerance, racism, and terrorism – with one small caveat.

Such “activists” must, of course, also possess the requisite hostility to the U.S., Israel, and the West.

Aug 10 2011

Anti-Zionist blog attacks CiF Watch and defends racist depiction of Obama by Carlos Latuff

A post at the anti-Zionist (and often unintentionally hilarious) blog, Dessert Peace, took exception with my post from Aug. 3, The Guardian’s Martin Rowson uses slave imagery in cartoon about Obama a budget deal.”

Our post called out Guardian cartoonist Martin Rowson on a depiction of President Obama which included a chain tied around his neck, being pulled by white Republicans, which suggested either that the black President is acting like a slave by making political concessions to his political opponents or that Republican activists are treating America’s first black President as a slave.

We then noted that even more explicit slave imagery in depictions of Obama have been employed by extreme anti-Semitic political cartoonist, Carlos Latuff.

The post, which is anonymously published at Desert Peace, titled, “Does Refusing To Kiss Obama’s Black Ass Make Me A Racist?”, begins:

“According to one of Britain’s zionist watch dogs, yes. A site called CIF Watch (monitoring and exposing antisemitism on the Guardian newspaper’s ‘Comment is Free Blog)  has determined that myself and Carlos Latuff are not only antisemites, we are racists as well.”

They then quote from my post, where I noted, ”the…narrative [that Obama is acting like a slave in concessions he's made to his opponents] has been advanced quite explicitly by the extreme left political cartoonist, Carlos Latuff. Either way, the viciousness and gross racial insensitivity of such imagery is simply undeniable.”

The blogger at Desert Peace then notes:

Pretty amusing when a zionist  (who is a racist by definition) calls full-time anti racists ‘vicious and grossly racially insensitive’ [emphasis mine]

So, just to be clear, here’s the cartoon that Carlos – the full-time anti racist – Latuff published:

Then, below the line, Latuff himself chimed in:

Yup. That’s anti-racism for you.  

If a right-wing troll wanted to invent a blog to discredit the extreme left, it would likely look a lot like Desert Peace.

(Final note: Included in Desert Peace’s recommended links is the Guardian.)

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