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Ben White
It would be reassuring to be able to write that the latest Ben White screed on ‘Comment is Free’ is the result of misunderstanding, ignorance or shoddy research.
Equally, comfort could perhaps be found were it possible to assign the fact that such crude anti-Israel propaganda passed the inspecting eyes of a Guardian editor to ‘hasn’t got a clue about a far-away place’.
Neither of these statements is, however, true.
Ben White is a prolific and energetic campaigner against Israel’s existence, as CiF Watch readers have known for a long time. The Guardian knows that too and hence the publication of this article amounts to nothing more than collaboration with White’s ugly campaign of incitement.
Let’s have a look at some of White’s recycled claims. He begins by stating that:
“The presence of a few Palestinian members in the Knesset (MKs) is often touted as a sign of Israel’s robust democracy. Yet elected representatives of the Palestinian community inside Israel face growing harassment by the state, by fellow MKs and the media.”
Actually, of the 120 members of the current (18th) Knesset, no fewer than fourteen are of Arab ethnicity. Eleven of them are not mentioned in White’s article, indicating that the vast majority do not, as he terms it, “face harassment”.
The Likud party includes in its Knesset members Ayoub Kara, a former deputy speaker of the house who also sat in the 15th and 16th Knessets. Kadima has Majalli Wahabi, also a former deputy speaker and acting President who was once a member of the Likud and has served in the two previous parliaments. Ta’al has Dr. Ahmed Tibi – now serving his fourth term. Labour includes Raleb Majadele – the first Arab Muslim Minister who is currently in his third term as a Knesset member. Yisrael Beiteinu includes Hamad Amar and the United Arab list has Ibrahim Sarsur, Masud Ghnaim and Taleb el Sana who is currently in the Knesset for the sixth time. Hadash is represented by Afu Agbaria, Hana Sweid and Mohamed Barakeh – also a former deputy speaker now in his fourth term of office. Balad has Said Nafa, Jamal Zahalka – on his third term – and Haneen Zouabi.
All of these representatives took an oath of office upon entering the Knesset. That oath states:
“I pledge myself to bear allegiance to the State of Israel and faithfully to discharge my mandate in the Knesset”.
Indeed, like most citizens of democracies the world over, Israelis expect their lawmakers – regardless of ethnicity – first and foremost to uphold the country’s constitution and its laws. If they do not, then democracy is a sham. In the cases of the three Knesset members named by White, there have been alleged breaches of laws made in the parliament in which they sit.
Mohammed Barakeh of the communist party Hadash faces charges of assault. The fact that the incidents took place at demonstrations would presumably not excuse the alleged slapping of a policeman or choking of a soldier in any democratic country in which assault is a criminal act. Mr. Barakeh, incidentally, is a graduate of Tel Aviv University; hardly a mark of the downtrodden and persecuted.
Said Naffaa of Balad was indicted on suspicion of breaking the law which prohibits visiting an enemy state without the advance permission of the Ministry of the Interior. That law too of course applies to all Israeli citizens, regardless of religion or ethnicity. In addition he is suspected of having met with members of two terrorist organisations.
Haneen Zoabi – also a member of the anti-Zionist party Balad and a graduate of both Haifa University and the Hebrew University in Jerusalem – is most infamous for her co-operation with the IHH (banned in Israel due to its connections to the Union of Good and Hamas) during the 2010 incident and her involvement in assaults on Israel’s legitimacy such as the Russell Tribunal on Palestine.
White’s concluding paragraph states that:
“Thus, as Palestinian citizens work for an end to decades of ethno-religious discrimination, a clear message is being sent through the targeting of their political leadership. The threat that is deemed intolerable by the state is devastatingly simple: the demand for equality.”
There are indeed citizens of all ethnicities and religions in Israel working hard to close the gaps and improve the situation of its minorities. Some of them can be found in the Knesset. They are the majority of diligent Arab MKs – ignored by Ben White – who loyally serve their communities within the framework of the law and, whilst upholding their voluntarily given oath of allegiance to the state, work for equal rights and opportunities for all.
As a distant relative of Haneen Zoabi complained last year:
“She and her party colleagues never deal with what matters to us,”
“They are always dealing with the rights of the Palestinians, but what does that have to do with us? We need infrastructure, education, and our salaries to arrive on time. They don’t do anything, while the Likud is actually trying to help us.”
Rather than indicating persecution of Arab members of the Knesset, the three MKs championed by White serve to highlight the fact that all citizens of Israel are equal in the eyes of the law. In a true democracy, equality includes both rights and obligations – which cannot suddenly be shelved when it comes to prosecution for breaking the law.
But of course Ben White does not actually want people such as Zoabi, Naffaa and Barakeh to be bound by full equality with their counterparts of other ethnicities. He believes that those who actively work towards the dissolution of the State of Israel and sometimes co-operate with some of its most violent enemies should not simply get their day in court like anyone else, but should be permitted to carry on unhindered.
And if Israeli society balks at the transgressions of those using its very democracy to try to bring about its demise, White will play the ethno-religious card and scuttle to the pages of the Guardian or the New Statesman shouting ‘persecution!’ That very same tactic has long been used successfully by Islamists in White’s native country in order to deflect criticism of a whole host of problems within British society.
Fortunately, Israeli society is not yet cowed by so-called ‘progressives’ and ‘liberals’ who are prepared to sacrifice their collective values on the rotting altar of misguided political correctness.
Related articles
- (Ben) White Wash at Amnesty (cifwatch.com)
- The Guardian welcomes back Ben White, tireless campaigner for the end of the Jewish state (cifwatch.com)
- Deputy Editor of ‘Comment is Free’ expresses concern for Ben White’s reputation on Twitter (cifwatch.com)
- Is it possible to understand Ben White’s antisemitism? CiF again sanctions opposition to peace with Israel (cifwatch.com)
- Ben White Backgrounder at CiF Watch
This is cross posted by Richard Millett
Ben White showing off his well-trolled quotes at Amnesty last night.
Ben White was last night handed the opportunity by Amnesty’s UK branch to call for the destruction of Israel. Not necessarily in the way Hamas would wish to achieve it, but White wants Israel changed from a Jewish state into another Muslim Arab state. This is what White thinks is “justice”.
Lest we forget that it was White who once wrote: “I do not consider myself an anti-Semite, yet I can also understand why some are”.
For that and other statements of his there was a small protest outside Amnesty last night. Once sign read “Amnesty is great, except on Israel”, which is probably about right. Amnesty will stand up against other human rights’ abuses except when they are against Israel. They raised their voice in anger when Gaddafi was cruelly tortured before being executed, but when Israeli soldiers are kidnapped or Israeli children are bombarded by Hamas rockets from Gaza Amnesty falls silent.
Amnesty’s opposition to Israel’s existence is now, sadly, almost policy. Virtually no month passes without there being an anti-Israel event and never will there be a pro-Israel voice on the platform. One of Amnesty’s roles is to try to bury Israel.
White was promoting his new book Palestinians in Israel: Segregation, Discrimination and Democracy and it will be instructive to jump straight to the end of last night’s talk.
After calling for “A future based on a genuine co-existence of equals, rather than ethno-religious supremacy and segregation”, with its obvious anti-Semitic connotation of Jewish supremacy, White said (see clip):
“Instead of asking ‘can we return?’ or ‘when will we return?’ Palestinian refugees can ask ‘what kind of return do we want to create for ourselves?’ I think that’s a kind of beautiful phrasing actually that speaks to the liberation of the imagination that has to take place as we move towards securing a peace with justice”:
I can’t see Israelis ever voting for their state being changed into a Muslim Arab state, so what White is basically promoting is more war and bloodshed.
White’s talk, probably like his book, was a long list of out-of-context and out-of-date quotes.
He started with an apparent quote by Balfour in 1919 – “in Palestine we do not propose to go through the form of consulting the wishes of the present inhabitants of the country” – and ended with one by Moshe Dayan’s father, MK Shmuel Dayan, from 1950 – “Maybe (not allowing the refugees back) is not right and not moral, but if we become just and moral, I do not know where we will end up”.
White must spend many nights trolling through the internet and old books looking for quotes that support his pursuit of Israel, but it is obviously a money-making exercise judging by the queue of people waiting for him to sign their copy of his 90-page book.
In between quotes he criticised Israel for what he calls the “Judaisation” of the Galilee and the Negev and for Israel not allowing “Palestinian citizens of Israel”, as he calls them, to live in Israel with their spouses who come from the West Bank and Gaza. The serious security implications for Israel if it allowed the latter are obvious, but Israel’s security isn’t high up on the list of White’s priorities.
During the Q&A he praised the protests during the Israeli Philharmonic Orchestra’s concert at the Royal Albert Hall saying that the protests:
“Were targetting a body, the IPO, that receives funding from the Israeli state and also does concerts and stuff for Israeli soldiers.”
He raised the accusation of anti-Semitism aimed at him and said:
“The irony of the accusation of anti-Semitism against me in this context is that it is precisely opposition to all racism that informs my personal opposition to Israeli apartheid”.
And when someone asked him about Hamas and its policies White simply said that the evening wasn’t about Hamas but he hoped that the questioner would “support efforts to end the discriminatory practices against the Palestinians”.
It seems that Hamas is not much of an issue for White or Amnesty, whereas the Jewish state’s existence is.
More clips and photos from last night:
Ben White on “Jewish and Democratic?”
Ben White on “Judaisation” -
I bought this last night as no one else was buying.
Related articles
- War Horse writer (& CiF contributor) Michael Morpurgo: Israel shoots Palestinian children ‘like a video game’ (cifwatch.com)
- The Guardian welcomes back Ben White, tireless campaigner for the end of the Jewish State (cifwatch.com)
- Jenny Tonge rants about the Holocaust and idolises Hamas leader, Ismail Haniyeh. (cifwatch.com)
- ‘War on Want’ at Russell Tribunal on Palestine: “More direct action coming.” (cifwatch.com)
- Harriet Sherwood, and the Guardian’s strange fixation on the survival of one Jerusalem bookshop (cifwatch.com)
My first guest post at CiF Watch, before becoming managing editor, was devoted to critiquing a Ben White essay published at ‘Comment is Free’.
I noted then, with intentional understatement, that White seemed an odd choice to provide “analysis” on anything having to do with the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict for ‘CiF’ readers.
I observed that White, the author of “Israeli Apartheid: A Beginner’s Guide”, is on record expressing sympathy towards those who hold antisemitic views - as an understandable reaction to Israel’s “Racial Supremacy” and a justifiable frustration with the Western media’s “subservience to Israel”.
I similarly questioned why any media group which fancied themselves “liberal” would license a commentator who morally justified anti-Jewish racism, and opposes the existence of the Jewish state within any borders.
White’s CiF essay on May 11, 2010, “Israel seeks to silence dissent” championed the cause of ‘human rights defender’, Ameer Makhoul, head of the Israeli NGO Ittijah, whose arrest by Israeli security officials White characterized as an attempt to stifle voices demanding accountability, and as a “crackdown on dissent and human rights work.”
Strangely absent was any follow-up by White on the Makhoul case, owed, presumably, to the inconvenient fact that Makhoul is currently serving 10 years in prison for spying for Hezbollah, after pleading guilty to charges including contact with a foreign agent, conspiring to assist the enemy in wartime, and espionage.
White’s May, 2010 commentary defended Makhoul, but his broader polemical objectives were, as always, to attempt to delegitimize Israel by questioning its status as the region’s only democracy, and championing “heroic” anti-Zionist NGOs who are striving to bring about the end of Jewish self-determination.
In fact the protagonist in his current tale of Israeli villainy, “This smear against Israeli human rights activists is all too familiar“, Jan. 4, is one Hassan Jabareen, of the NGO Adalah, who is on record stating the following, in what could be White’s defining mantra:
“Activists should try to portray Israel as an inherent undemocratic state” and use that as part of campaigning internationally.”
Like White, Adalah – which, he noted, has received funds from NIF – also campaigns for the end of the Jewish state, which it has characterized as a “colonial enterprise which implements a system of apartheid”. Adalah also accused Israel of representing an “institutionalized regime of systematic oppression and domination by one racial group over another.”
Beyond the particulars of his efforts to delegitimize Israel, it needs reminding the degree of malevolence White possess towards Israel, which are restrained by few if any moral boundaries. White is on record characterizing ”pure” Zionism as an ideology of “extermination”, has conjured a villainous Israeli caricature which forces Palestinians on “death marches”, and has even defended Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad from “charges” that he denied the Holocaust.
Beyond contextualizing White’s obsessive and malign anti-Zionism, and expressed sympathy for those who hold antisemitic beliefs, the decision by editors at ‘Comment is Free’ to continually sanction White’s campaign to rid the world of the malignancy of Zionism can not be easily dismissed.
Guardian Readers’ Editor Chris Elliott’s mea culpa “On averting accusations of antisemitism” warned the paper’s writers, reporters and editors to refrain from using language, and employing tropes, which evoke antisemitic narratives – a moral guideline, it would seem, that should similarly apply to commentators they chose to publish.
By licensing Ben White – whose antipathy towards the Jewish state, and comfort level with Judeophobia, is undeniable – as a voice somehow consistent with “respectable” liberal opinion, the Guardian again demonstrates that, whatever the solitary musings of one editor, the institution continues to be compromised by a callous disinterest in the dangers of modern antisemitic thought.
Related articles
- Guardian publishes letter by Tony Greenstein suggesting comparison between anti-Israel protests & those against Nazis (cifwatch.com)
- Why do they hate the Jews? The Guardian and the toxicity of liberal racism. (cifwatch.com)
- Richard Silverstein, evidently in an attempt to ‘heal the world’, exposes & endangers pro-Israel blogger (cifwatch.com)
- Is it possible to “understand” Ben White’s antisemitism? CiF again sanctions opposition to peace with Israel (cifwatch.com)
- Fight or flight? CiF Watch, David Yehuda Stern & Ben White (cifwatch.com)
- CiF piece critical of Gilad Atzmon elicits storm of antisemitic reader comments, including organ theft libels (cifwatch.com)
A guest post by Sam Westrop (A version of this essay originally appeared in the Jerusalem Post)
In 2000, Norman Finkelstein published his book, The Holocaust Industry: Reflections on the Exploitations of Jewish Suffering, which posited that the accepted account of the Holocaust is merely a Zionist narrative, which is cynically used to justify putative Israeli ‘cruelties’. Finkelstein frequently invokes his family’s suffering during the Holocaust as a premise to sanitise his obsessive demonisation of Israel, and frequent use of antisemitic tropes.
Finkelstein’s method is not lost on a new breed of anti-Israel activists, who often employ the memory of the Holocaust to sanitise their abhorrent views on living Jews.
Enter Gary Spedding.
Garry Spedding
Spedding is chair of the Queen’s University Belfast Palestine Solidarity Society, the group which orchestrated the attack upon Solon Solomon, a former legal adviser to the Knesset Foreign Affairs committee, who was invited to speak to law school students at Queen’s University. Solomon was heckled by members of the university’s Palestine Solidarity Society (PSS) and the youth wing of Sinn Féin (the political wing of the Irish terrorist organisation the IRA) during a lecture, and the protesters then attacked the car in which Solomon escaped, attempting to smash its windows.
After being contacted about the attack, Spedding stated he does ‘not condone violence’, yet is evidently proud of his relationship with Holy Land Trust Director, Sami Awad - characterizing him as his ”Best Friend, Mentor, colleague and leader” - who certainly does not condemn terrorist violence. Wrote Awad:
“[non-violent resistance] is not a substitute for the armed struggle. This is not a method for normalization with the occupation. Our goal is to revive the popular resistance until every person is involved in dismantling the occupation.”
Spedding’s mentor Awad has also hosted the extremist Greek Orthodox priest Atallah Hanna – who can be seen here condemning the “Satanic” and diabolical Zionism, and promising that Palestine will be free “from the river to the sea”- at the Holy Land Trust.
Sami Awad and Atallah Hanna
In fact, both Sami Awad and Atallah Hanna have defended the quite reactionary Raed Salah, and Hanna has expressed support for suicide bombings.
Further, about Awad, Spedding has written:
“Sami you have taught me so much and I hope that I have represented you in a good way in my writings, you are a light to me in this time much as Jesus Christ is a light for all of us! … My deepest love goes out to you, my thanks and appreciation nothing can really substantiate in words what you mean to the people here or what you mean to me!”
Spedding also has echoed Deborah Orr’s claims that Jewish supremacism guided Israel’s deal with Hamas to exchange over 1000 Palestinian terrorists to secure the release of Gilad Shalit. :
“There is a point that needs addressing in the use of language by media outlets because of the specifics in the deal surrounding Shalit’s release especially in the mainstream media in the USA and Israel reporting along the lines of ’1000 or more terrorists to be exchanged in prisoner swap for Gilad Shalit’ this viewpoint is highly inaccurate it degrades the Palestinian prisoners being swapped for Gilad Shalit whilst reinforcing the current view among many right wing Zionists and their supporters that 1 jewish life is of more value than say 1000 Arab lives which is incredibly racist in and of itself.”
Spedding also wrote this about the brutal murder of the Fogel family:
“The J’post article sickening invokes the cloudy and unclear death of the Fogel family an attack which I have the report and pictures of in my email inbox from the day after it happened. I find it sick that the J’post is still using this attack for political gain suggesting Palestinians are to blame when there has been no further information, news or otherwise released about the murders since the IDF conveniently caught two Palestinians kept them in torture for a month until they ‘confessed’ and then announced they had caught the killers despite the evidence and speculation of it being the work of a migrant worker from asia.”
This was published months after the murders, when it was clear that Palestinian terrorists were responsible for the murders. The theory about a migrant worker was put forth by the Palestinian Authority’s propaganda unit, and was discounted as agitprop months before Spedding’s comments.
Finally, here’s Spedding expressing support for Finkelstein’s unique understanding of Israel.
“Ah but Anny, I do live in Palestine and i know a lot about this conflict! accusing people of not knowing about the conflict by the way just because they don’t live there is silly really, theres countless middle east experts who don’t live in Israel who know about the conflict in great detail, my friend Norman Finkelstein for one…. i would agree with my friend Norman Finkelstein when he describes Israel as a lunatic state.”
And, evidently inspired by Finkelstein’s example of invoking the memory of the Holocaust in the service of legitimizing extreme anti-Israel politics, Spedding has recently decided to volunteer with Holocaust Memorial Day Trust - a charity which works to raise awareness of Holocaust Memorial Day.
Interestingly in the context of Finkelstein’s critique of the “accepted” Zionist account of the Holocaust in Israel as a ploy “to justify putative Israeli ‘cruelties”, Spedding’s flirtation with antisemities and proponents of terror attacks against Jews would suggest this his association with such a Shoah remembrance organization is itself a supremely cynical attempt to sanitize his alliances with those possessing a decidedly Judeophobic orientation.
You can visit the FB page of Holocaust Memorial Day Trust (or email them at enquiries@hmd.org.uk) if you wish to express your displeasure with their association with Spedding, whose presence is an insult and abuse of genuine Holocaust memory.
Related articles
- Simon Wiesenthal Center’s 2011 Top 10 anti-Israel and antisemitic slurs (cifwatch.com)
- Guardian gratuitous anti-Israel photo of the day (& a story about the photojournalist behind the lens) (cifwatch.com)
- The Guardian, PalFest and the ‘culture’ of anti-Israel activism (cifwatch.com)
- Tell us why you love Israel…in as many words as you like! #WhyILoveIsrael (cifwatch.com)
- The New York Times’ Thomas Friedman and the Guardian’s increasing notoriety (cifwatch.com)
- Antisemites, terror supporters, & Holocaust deniers: aka, just another Palestinian Solidarity Campaign event (cifwatch.com)
Recently, we were followed on Twitter by a Mr. Lee Barnes.
Who is Lee Barnes?
He’s the former Legal Director of the racist, extreme right British National Party, and currently a member of the BNP inspired ‘British Freedom Party‘,
Lee Barnes
Per Harry’s Place:
Barnes is…utterly obsessed with supposed Zionist conspiracies, which he exposes with the help of information taken from anti-Semitic hate sites, Holocaust denial outfits, and other extremist websites including Socialist Worker.
Titles of his blog posts include:
June 7th: ‘Israel and the 911 cover up’.
June 8th: ‘911 is exposed as an inside job’.
Further:
[In a] July 2nd [blog post]: Barnes cites a Press TV article and claims:
“Now we know what the take over of the Greek nation means, its surrender to the power of global capitalism and the Zionists. The Greek nation is now a nation of debtors and Zionist whores abasing themselves before the US and Israel.”
It certainly didn’t take long for Barnes to attempt to get our attention.
We heard from him shortly after we Tweeted the following about Iranian PressTV:
Barnes, evidently seeing our anti-PressTV Tweet as a chance to pounce, immediately came to the defense of the brave, crusading Iranian broadsheet.
Yes, I think the right wing extremist, Mr. Barnes, has ‘Comment is Free’ contributor Ben White just about right.
White certainly would never be accused of “abasing himself before the Zionists and their cabal of cronies, crooks and arse lickers”.
Lee Barnes, meet Ben White. Ben White, meet Lee Barnes. I’m sure the two of you have a lot to talk about!
Recommended Links:
Lee Barnes and the Psychedelic Revolution (Harry’s Place)
David Yehuda Stern
I have no doubt that David Yehuda Stern is a decent, honorable, committed activist and proponent of social justice.
Nor, based on his resume and a quick search of his writing, is there any question that he’s passionate about both his Jewish identity and Israel.
However, though I’ve only just come across Stern’s blog (Cartoon Kippah: The voice of animated British Jewry), there’s something in the title of his latest post alone which gets to the heart of the skewed political reasoning which informs the views of many well-intended leftist Jews regarding the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict.
Here’s the title of Stern’s latest blog entry.
Words that destroy, words that build: CiF Watch and Ben White
Stern opens his post thusly:
For those of you not familiar, CIF Watch is an online blog, “Combating the assault on Israel’s legitimacy in the UK Guardian’s ‘Comment is Free’ blog.”
On an altogether different mission is writer and activist Ben White, who has dedicated his professional life to advancing the rights of Palestinians.
Both CIF Watch and Ben White have admirable goals but it is their aggressive, often intimidating rhetoric, that disengages the majority of the public from their important messages leaving all but the bitter taste of hate in the mouths of many who come into contact with their work.
So, immediately, there’s a suggestion that CiF Watch and Ben White are both pursuing admirable goals but are compromised by hyperbolic rhetoric.
Perhaps Stern can be forgiven for such a comparison, as he’s evidently not aware of White’s record
So, here’s a snapshot.
White is the author of the book “Israeli Apartheid: A Beginner’s Guide”, an obsessive anti-Zionist and supporter of the one-state solution. He also routinely accuses Israel of ethnic cleansing, and has even used language suggesting parallels between Nazi Germany and Zionism.
White also recommended an essay by a prominent Holocaust denier.
Further, in an article entitled Is It ‘Possible’ to Understand the Rise in ‘Anti-Semitism’?, for the radical anti-Zionist site CounterPunch, White stated, “I do not consider myself an anti-Semite, yet I can also understand why some are”.
He then linked the rise of antisemitism with “the widespread bias and subservience to the Israeli cause in the Western media”.
Stern, in his blog post, writes:
Ben White’s attitude to the Israeli/Palestinian Conflict may be the mirror opposite to that of CiF Watch but his tone is practically identical. Like CiF Watch his tweets present only one side of a very complicated situation, resulting in the dehumanization of Israeli citizens and Israel’s supporters.
He then concludes:
Legitimate frustration seems to fuel both CiF Watch and Ben White’s aggressive tones and they certainly have the freedom to tweet as they see fit. But will their current approach best serve their causes? I think not.
And, herein lies the heart of the matter.
While Stern admirably condemns White’s dehumanizing vitriol towards Israelis, he suggests that employing passionate, uncompromising rhetoric to combat such moral assaults on Jews is out-of-bounds.
As an Israeli citizen, I’d really like to know how I’m supposed to civilly respond to those, like White, who don’t think my nation deserves the right to exist under any circumstances – within any borders.
And, similarly, I’m at a lost to understand how to calmly, respectfully exchange views with those who find antisemtism an understandable reaction to Israeli behavior.
The degree to which CiF Watch aggressively refutes anti-Zionist and antisemitic commentary – both by posts on our blog, and within the necessarily less expansive rhetorical parameters of social media such as Twitter – is informed by a quite sober understanding of Jewish history, and an intimate familiarity with the limits of reasonableness and the assumption of good intentions.
This blog certainly believes in what’s known as “Big Tent Zionism”, and we’ll certainly continue to civilly debate those who don’t necessarily share our views on how best to defend against the assaults on Israel’s legitimacy – and, similarly, how most effectively to fight antisemitism – but, of course, the key word in the phrase “Big Tent Zionism” is, “Zionism”.
I won’t engage in a calm tête-à-tête with those who defend, rationalize or excuse antisemitism, nor those who find my nation’s existence morally abhorrent, not worth fighting for, or in any way expendable.
In psychology there’s a phrase called “fight or flight response”, which refers to the human capacity, or lack thereof, to accurately identify threats and respond accordingly.
There is a time for compromise and a time to fight.
Jewish history – indeed world history – is replete with the injurious effects of the failure of just, sensitive souls to discern the former from the latter.
Jews – especially Israeli Jews – simply do not have the luxury of making such mistakes again.
Related articles
- +972 and a revealing Twitter exchange between CiF Watch and a radical left Israeli Jew (cifwatch.com)
- Deputy Editor of ‘Comment is Free’ expresses concern for Ben White’s “reputation” on Twitter (cifwatch.com)
- Anti-Zionist CiF commenter accuses CiF Watch of the insidious tactic of trying to “sway” opinion (cifwatch.com)
- Is it possible to understand Ben White’s antisemitism? (cifwatch.com)
The most infamous essay of CiF contributor Ben White was a 2002 CounterPunch piece titled, “Is it possible to understand antisemitism?”.
First, there was this passage:
I do not consider myself an anti-Semite, yet I can also understand why some are. There are, in fact, a number of reasons. One is the state of Israel, its ideology of racial supremacy and its subsequent crimes committed against the Palestinians. It is because Zionists have always sought to equate their colonial project with Judaism that some misguidedly respond to what they see on their televisions with attacks on Jews or Jewish property.
And he further linked the rise of antisemitism with “the widespread bias and subservience to the Israeli cause in the Western media”.
But, equally as pernicious was this:
[There was a] controversy in Germany over alleged anti-Semitic remarks made by Jürgen Möllemann, the deputy leader of the FDP party, when he compared the Israeli government’s actions to those of the Nazi regime. Since his remarks Jewish groups have taken to the streets to call for Mr Möllemann’s resignation.
Comparisons between the Israeli government and the Nazis is unwise and unsound, since the Israelis have not (at the time of going to press) exterminated in a systematic fashion an enormous percentage of the Palestinians. Cold-blooded killings, beatings, house demolitions, vandalism, occupation, military assaults, and two historical pushes at ethnic cleansing–yes. Full fledged genocide–no.
However, the comparison is not anti-Semitic. It does not make racist assumptions, nor does it smack of bigotism.
(Also of note, White has recommended an essay by Holocaust denier Roger Garaudy, in his book on “Israeli Apartheid”.)
Regarding the Israel-Nazi analogy, White has also employed language which at least evokes this political parallel, such as in the following passage from an essay posted on his website:
“Palestinians, who, in the name of a ‘social-democratic experiment’, had to endure massacres, death-marches, and ethnic cleansing…”
In addition to such comparisons being intellectually unserious, such morally obscene comparisons between Israel and Nazi Germany are codified as antisemitic by the EU Working Definition.
Flash to a Twitter exchange yesterday which involved Sunny Hundall, editor of Guardian partner blog, Liberal Conspiracy, Louise Mensch, British MP, and David Shariatmadari, deputy editor of ‘Comment is Free’.
The row began after White posted an essay at Liberal Conspiracy, titled “Mensch to speak at ‘extreme’ Israeli conference“, which criticized Mensch’s upcoming appearance at a Stand With Us conference, and leveled simply unserious accusations that StandWithUs “donors accused the group of having “a web of funders who support organisations that have been accused of anti-Muslim propaganda.”
There was, of course, quite a bit of vitriol below the line, which included defenses of the Israel=Nazi Germany comparison after one commenter brought attention to White’s defense of this view.
Here is a snippet from the Twitter exchange which followed.
Then when Ben White joined the exchange, taking issue with Mensch’s characterization of his views, Mensch responded thusly:
Then, Comment is Free editor, David Shariatmadari, chimes in:
So, the Guardian’s Shariatmadari evidently finds it morally relevant whether or not White was defending comparisons between Israel and Nazi Germany broadly (not as bad), or whether there was a specific charge that Israel exterminates Palestinians in Auschwitz-like concentration camps.
Did Mensch really have to Tweet this morally intuitive argument to the Guardian’s ‘Comment is Free’ deputy editor?
Further, Shariatmadari’s grave concern about Ben White’s “reputation” speaks volumes about a media group who continually licenses commentators who may possess a liberal veneer but are morally compromised by an undeniable antipathy towards Jews.
Related articles
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- Guardian publishes letter by Tony Greenstein suggesting comparison between anti-Israel protests & those against Nazis (cifwatch.com)
- UK philosopher Ted Honderich repeats his Guardian refrain that Palestinians have the right to murder Israelis (cifwatch.com)
- CiF piece critical of Gilad Atzmon elicits storm of antisemitic reader comments, including organ theft libels (cifwatch.com)
- Guardian issues ‘progressive in good standing’ card to Carlos Latuff: racist and anti-Semite (cifwatch.com)
- #PropagandaWaves: The Guardian’s Roy Greenslade or the ‘Free Gaza’ Movement? (cifwatch.com)
- Guardian publishes letter stating “Israel forfeits right to be treated as member of the community of nations” (cifwatch.com)
- Why is an essay on alleged Israeli racism in the “Jewish Belief” section of ‘Comment is Free’? (cifwatch.com)
- MEMO and Carlos Latuff, “respectfully” criticizing Israel (cifwatch.com)
- CiF comment, justifying antisemitism as normal reaction to Zionism: 74 “recommends” & not deleted (cifwatch.com)
- +972 and a revealing Twitter exchange between CiF Watch and a radical left Israeli Jew (cifwatch.com)
- The Guardian’s abusive Deborah Orr (cifwatch.com)
Yossi Gurvitz is a 40-year old journalist, blogger and photographer who writes for several Israeli publications, including the financial daily Calcalist and the Nana portal, and +972.
Notes Gurvitz on his bio at +972:
”I was raised as an Orthodox Jew, graduated from a Yeshiva (Nehalim), but saw the light and turned atheist at about the age of 17.”
Gurvitz also believes that Israel is one of the main causes international anti-Semitism.
In an essay he published at +972 in September 2010, “The Jewish Problem”, he suggests that anti-Semitism in Europe is an understandable reaction by non-Jews to Israeli policy, and that the reactionary anti-Semitic canard that Jews outside of Israel are more loyal to Israel than their own country is the fault, not of those who hold such views, but of modern Zionism.
Says Gurvitz:
“We now see that the creation of Israel did not solve any problem. Rather, Israel is itself becoming the problem of the Jews.”
“[Israel] almost singularly, [is] responsible for creation of a new anti-Semitic [canards].”
Recently, CiF Watch engaged in a Twitter exchange with Gurvitz, which elicited some revealing comments.
The conversation arose as the result of a disagreement that Gurvitz was having with two writers who oppose the existence of a Jewish state within any borders - Ben White (@benabyad) (author of Israel Apartheid for Beginners) and Ali Abunimah (@avinunu) (author of One Country: A Bold-Proposal to End the Israeli-Palestinian Impasse).
(Note: Gurvitz has an NIF horn in his twitter image, though he claims not to be connected to NIF).
Related articles
- Guardian issues ‘progressive in good standing’ card to Carlos Latuff: racist and anti-Semite (cifwatch.com)
- Yes, denying Jews the right to self-determination is inherently anti-Semitic. (cifwatch.com)
- Immutable Victim: The Guardian continues to champion Jewish anti-Zionist writer, Tony Kushner (cifwatch.com)
- Geary Theory: A Goy contemplates “As-A-Jews” (cifwatch.com)
- Carlo Strenger again uses the Guardian as a platform to characterize Israel as “totalitarian” (cifwatch.com)
H/T Harry’s Place
Ben White, who thinks that Israel shouldn’t exist and has a soft spot in his heart for anti-Semites, evidently also believes that UK citizens cleaning up their neighborhoods after several days of destructive rioting represents “broadly white” “popular fascism.” He Tweeted this:
The article he linked to, by Dr. Sofia Himmelblau, claims:
“By the symbolic cleaning, cleansing and casting out of the rioters from the community, the sweepers appear to enact the closest thing to popular fascism that we have seen on the streets of certain ‘leafy’ bits of London for years.”
The suggestion that those cleaning up after the riots are white fascists is simply hysterical and beyond caricature. In addition to giving a H/T to Harry’s Place, I should also give one to Mr. White, as his endorsement of such ludicrous ideas certainly puts his obsessive hatred of Israel in some perspective.
You should read the whole Harry’s Place piece, as it also highlights some politically convenient photo cropping of the cleaners (sorry, “fascists”) by the esteemed Dr. Himmelblau.
FASCISM!
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A while ago, Elder of Ziyon published an article well worth a re-read in which he explained why these commonly found maps are both inaccurate and deliberately misleading.
(By the way, here is the much more relevant map, which Elder created and posted, illustrating how much land Israel has given away, since ’67, for the sake of peace:)
Commonly found they indeed are, but I for one did not realise just how broad their spread has been on the internet until I decided to try to find their origins. These maps, usually entitled “Palestinian loss of land 1946 – 2000″ get 2,800,000 search results on Google. They appear on neo-Nazi forums (to which I will not link), on the English language website of Hamas’ Izz a Din al Qassam brigades, on the sites of various ‘peace campaigners’ such as ‘Vermonters for a Just Peace in Palestine/Israel‘ and on some new-age hippy sites. They can be found on Greek, Swedish, Irish and Malaysian sites among others and are promoted by Canadian 9/11 ‘truthers’ and the Evangelical Lutherian Church in America. They are advertised for sale on the internet in post-card form by both ‘Friends of Sabeel North America’ and the Ann Arbour Quakers.
They also appear on this Palestinian website where they are accredited to the University of Bethlehem with a 2006 copyright date. So, is the University of Bethlehem their point of origin? That seems unlikely because on the ‘Friends of Sabeel UK’ website, where the maps are also used, they are accredited to one Tim Biles and said to be taken from his book “A Puppy Dies: And Other Stories from the Holy Land”. The book was published in 2003 and that was the earliest reference I was able to find to these maps.
So who is Tim Biles? Well, actually his full title is the Reverend Canon Timothy Biles and he’s a retired Anglican vicar from Dorset. He still does a bit of preaching, such as this recent sermon in which he manages to display some of his prejudices by inserting his own politically hued interpretations into the New Testament story of the Good Samaritan.
“The Samaritans of the story lived – then, and now – in a wild and rugged patch of mountainous land sandwiched between Galilee in the north and Jerusalem in the south. The Jews wanted that land so that they could make the journey from Galilee to Jerusalem for the Festivals without let or hindrance. The Samaritans barred the way.”
Of course nowhere in Luke chapter 10, verses 25 to 37 is any reference whatsoever made to Jews trying to gain control of Samaritan land, but Tim Biles exploits his position as a trusted member of the clergy in order to introduce to his listeners the idea that the Samaritans in the story are the equivalent of today’s Palestinians and that the self-interested Jews were intent on ‘land-grabbing’ even back then.
This very subtly imparted promotional message is indicative of something that goes on a lot in various churches these days; a type of subliminal advertising which establishes concepts in the minds of an audience convinced that their source is beyond reproach by virtue of the clerical robes worn by the promoter. The somewhat unspiritual intent behind it is actually the promotion of a specific narrative surrounding the political situation in the Middle East.
Tim Biles also acts as editor and consultant for an Anglican Church newsletter produced by the UK charity the Jerusalem and the Middle East Church Association. There, among the news items, he promotes various writers on the subject of the Arab-Israeli conflict such as the far- Left activist and founder of ‘Gush Shalom’ Uri Avneri and Rabbis Howard Cooper and Marc H Ellis – both known for their anti-Zionism. In this issue, a book by Sabeel’s supercessionist leader Naim Ateek is reviewed by the veteran anti-Israel campaigner and Anglican vicar Stephen Sizer. In this edition, former British diplomat and member of The Council for Arab British Understanding (CAABU) Sir Howard Walker promotes the notion that “Washington seems to be in perpetual thrall to the Zionist lobby” and there is a feature on Garth Hewitt and the Amos Trust which promotes both the Kairos Palestine Document (which provides pseudo-religious justification for boycotts of Israel) and the ‘Just Peace’ campaign which is co-ordinated by anti-Israel activist Ben White.
British readers may recall that in December 2009 The Amos Trust, together with CAABU, ‘Jews for Boycotting Israeli Goods’, the ‘International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network’ and ‘War on Want’ organised an ‘alternative’ Christmas carol service at a church in Covent Garden, London, which featured re-written versions of traditional songs.
The chorus to “The Holly and the Ivy” for example, became:
O the rampaging of settlers
And the rolling of the tanks;
The grinding of the bulldozers
As olives fall in ranks.
“Once in Royal David’s city” was re-written as follows:
Once in royal David’s city
Stood a big apartheid wall;
People entering and leaving
Had to pass a checkpoint hall.
Bethlehem was strangulated,
And her children segregated.
Though this city is a symbol
To the world of peace and love,
Concrete walls have closed around her,
Settlements expand above.
And apartheid Israel stands
All around on stolen lands
Predictably, a message of support for the event was sent by the Anglican Bishop in Jerusalem which helps bring us to the unpleasant conclusion that quite a few members of the Anglican Church are involved in the spread of the assault on Israel’s legitimacy.
Tim Biles may or may not have drawn up those fake maps himself, or he may have acquired them elsewhere. Whatever the case, according to Friends of Sabeel UK they apparently appear in his now out of print book. I have found no evidence of Biles having corrected FOSUK’s accreditation or of any objection on his part to being associated with what is blatant anti-Israel propaganda. Had he wished to do so, the task would not have been difficult; FOSUK’s officials include more than one prominent member of the Anglican Church. Neither is any evidence to be found of the Church disassociating itself from Biles as a result of the use of fake maps; in fact it continues to allow him to engage in partisan editing of newsletters and preach in its establishments. The Salisbury Diocese’s own Sarum College held a book launch for Biles’ latest literary work only last year.
Obviously, the Anglican Church of the United Kingdom, with Her Majesty the Queen at its head, is not immune to the influences of the kind of political extremists who have also led the British Methodists and Quakers down the slippery slope of singling out the Jewish state as a unique target for unprecedented hostility and campaigns of exclusion. It is sad to see yet another once respected religious institution harbouring at the very heart of its establishment extremists who make cynical use of lies and dishonest propaganda such as the above maps, among other things, in order to propagate and spread a very ancient form of hatred.
The Church, of all institutions, and in particular given its own past history of which we have had a sombre reminder in recent days, should know better.
Related articles
- ‘Friends of Sabeel UK’ : promoting BDS and harming interfaith relations. (cifwatch.com)
- The Great Methodist BDS Hijack (cifwatch.com)
- Traitors, dupes, and double standards: Another chapter in the Guardian’s campaign against Israel (cifwatch.com)
- Lessons from the York Pogrom of 1190 (cifwatch.com)
A photo which seems to contradict Ben White’s account, in the Guardian’s Live Middle East Blog, that Palestinians were peacefully protesting “Nakba Day” in and around Jerusalem.
A masked Palestinian youth throws a fire bomb towards Israeli forces during clashes following Friday prayer in Arab East Jerusalem on May 13, 2011.
This is cross posted by Elder of Ziyon
It is fun to watch how Israel haters react to my series of posters celebrating Zionism.
One such hater is someone named Ben White, who apparently is one of the leaders of the anti-Israel crowd. He wrote a book called “Israeli Apartheid: A Beginner’s Guide” and has been praised by the usual crowd of anti-Zionists like Ali Abunimah and Ilan Pappe.
His reaction to my posters was to put up his own spoof poster on Twitter, replacing “Zionism” with “Hasbara” and tweeting “Israel at 63: This is Hasbara!”:
Not having ever heard of him, I thought this was a compliment, because I think it is a very good example of what hasbara should be. Only when MargieInTelAviv responded
ah can’t stand the truth can you? Why not check it out?
Did I realize it was meant to be an insult.
I responded:
Of course it is #Hasbara. And it is true. Hasbara is no more an insult than #Zionism!
Ben:
#hasbara in 2011 = treating kids in Haiti, evicting kids in #Palestine
He then included a link to “Hasbara Buster” who claims that Israel’s good deeds aren’t good in themselves, but an insidious plot to redirect the world from talking about Israeli crimes.
Me:
You are a sad man to get so upset over Zionists doing good things.
Ben:
you are a not-so-bright man if u think it’s the “doing good things” bit that’s objectionable
Me:
Ah. One sided propaganda against Israel=good, telling the other side=evil. Got it.
Ben:
No, it’s called using acts of charity in strategy 2 defend apartheid. But nice #projection though
Me:
Even your example disproves your thesis. Org is private. But your hate overrides all. Sad.
He then tried to change the subject, with a photo that I suppose is meant to illustrate Zionist evil. Which is the usual modus operandi of people like him – they need to change the playing field in order to pretend to win.
But think about his main argument: he believes that when Israel – or in this case, ordinary Israelis – do good things, they have an ulterior motive: to cover up crimes. And when people like me publicize how great Israel is, we also have an evil motive: to cover up Israel’s crimes.
In other words, to these mental midgets, Israel is inherently evil. Everything it does is evil. This is the premise that informs all of their activities. No shades of grey, no nuance, not even the possibility of admitting that things are more complex than they pretend. When Israel does something seemingly bad, it proves it is evil, when it does something good, it’s just more proof that it is evil.
Logical people, who make up their minds based on evidence, can look at both sides of a story and decide. Haters, however, already know the answer, and any evidence to the contrary they use to “prove” their own point!
Let’s once again look at the oppressed Palestinian Arab cancer patients who enjoyed a day in the snow courtesy of the IDF, the subject of my first poster:
Looking at these photos drives the haters crazy, as we have seen. They cannot reconcile the idea of Israelis – especially Israeli soldiers – actually doing something nice for the people they supposedly despise and who are, they believe, being ethnically cleansed by the very same soldiers. The cognitive dissonance must be painful. They must therefore invent their own elaborate frameworks of bizarre conspiracy theories to reconcile the obvious truth about Israel with their own, twisted, hate.
How can oppressed Palestinian Arab kids allow themselves to be used as pawns by the evil IDF? How dare they laugh and smile and have fun with the symbols of Zionist atrocities? Better that they refuse to go sledding in Mount Hermon, and stay in their hospitals, than go and have fun when there is a slight chance that someone might photograph them and use them in such a terrible evil hasbaristic way! Don’t they see that they are exactly like the Jews in Theresienstadt before the Red Cross visited it in 1944? Their smiles are lies! Their fun is a lie! The pictures are probably Photoshopped! The IDF was probably mowing them down with machine guns!
There is an entire industry out there, with people who are emotionally – and, in this case, financially – invested in demonizing Israel. Showing the truth is a direct threat to their worldview, and for them, this cannot be allowed. To them, Israel is a uniquely evil entity that must be destroyed, and tons of solid evidence showing that they are completely, irrevocably wrong is simply something else that they must do battle with their only weapon: lies.
Hawkeye
Omar2
WellofSense
Medusa
The Alchemist
Louise
Tosca
Maimon
Telling the Truth
Israelinurse
Adam Levick
Margie in Tel Aviv
Guest/Cross Post
Hadar Sela
As Islamic extremists take power in ME, New Statesman publishes vicious attack on Israel by Ben White
February 6, 2012 in Comments which are off-topic, ad hominem, racist, vulgar or include threats of violence will be deleted | Tags: anti-Zionism, Antisemitism, BDS, Ben White, Boycott, Cross Post, Delegitimization, Guardian, New Statesman, Robin Shepherd, The Commentator | by Guest/Cross Post | 12 comments
This was written by Robin Shepherd, the owner/publisher of @CommentatorIntl. You can follow him on Twitter @RobinShepherd1
Ben White has taken to the New Statesman to attack Israel yet again
Of all the bigotries in the world today, one stands out for special consideration. That is not simply because it is so odious, though it is certainly that. It is because it is the one bigotry that presents a clear and present danger of translating into a genocidal outcome. It is also the one form of bigotry that has been openly accepted and internalised by large sections of a British and West-European political intelligentsia that remains dominated by the liberal-Left.
I am talking, of course, about anti-Zionism – a uniquely discriminatory agenda aimed at deligitimising the State of Israel and ending that country’s existence as the national homeland of the Jewish people.
In the context of Iranian threats to destroy the country, the loss of Turkey as an ally and the new pre-eminence of extreme, anti-Israeli Islamists in Egypt, the rantings of Western anti-Zionists have now acquired a new and more dangerous significance.
Think of it this way: it’s one thing to spout abuse about black people to a group of equally bigoted but basically passive racists when nobody else is listening; it’s quite another to do exactly the same thing in front of a frenzied, knife-wielding mob of skinheads heading towards a black neighbourhood.
I make no direct analogy, but enter Ben White, author of, “Israeli Apartheid: A Beginner’s Guide”. On Sunday, he published an extensive piece in the leading weekly magazine of the British Left, The New Statesman. Essentially, it’s a trash job on Israeli democracy. It, perversely, charges a British pro-Israel grouping, BICOM, with having unwittingly revealed, in a series of recent essays, that Israel is not in fact a proper democracy at all: it’s a racist“ethnocracy“ run by and for Jews.
You’ve heard it all before, of course. And I will come to the “substance“ (if such a word is appropriate in the circumstances) in a moment.
But let me first re-emphaise the point made above, and make it relevant to the fate of Israel in the Middle East.
For there is nothing new about fanatical hostility to Israel in the British and European mainstream. The Guardian newspaper – the media-intellectual home of the British Left and, effectively, the house journal of the BBC – has been at it for years.
What is new is the context in the Middle East where Israel now looks set to be ensnared in a potentially deadly triangle of annihilationist regimes. On one point on that triangle is Turkey – a country that in little more than a blink of an eye has moved from being an ally to an enemy; a country whose leadership is increasingly using anti-Israeli rhetoric as a rallying cry and which has even gone so far as to threaten sending its warships to protect pro-Hamas “aid“ flotillas to Gaza.
Now draw a straight line from Ankara to Cairo for the second point on the triangle. Egypt’s parliamentary elections were resoundingly won by the Muslim Brotherhood and the Salafists – both of which combine extreme forms of anti-Semitism with resolute opposition to the existence of the Jewish state. Together, they took over 70 percent of the seats.
Now go to Tehran, drawing the line necessary to complete the triangle from both Ankara and Cairo. (Iranian hostility to Israel surely needs no elaboration.)
Read the rest of the essay here.
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