You are currently browsing the tag archive for the ‘Blood Libel’ tag.
H/T Margie
A good barometer of the depth of Judeophobia among many regular Guardian readers is observing how they respond to a CiF commentary condemning the most egregious and undeniable expressions of Jew hatred.
As such, the hostility towards Jews expressed in various forms by CiF readers in response to a commentary by Andy Newman “Gilad Atzmon, antisemitism and the left“, Sept. 25, is a perfect illustration of this dynamic.
Newman, it should be noted, is a trade unionist and contributes to Socialist Unity website. That is, he is a leftist in good standing – a fact that didn’t seem to at all protect him from a volley of hate and vitriol from Guardian readers outraged at any suggestion that there is a problem with antisemitism on the left.
Newman’s commentary focuses on Gilad Atzmon, whose bigotry towards Jews recalls the most classic expressions of Jew hatred and antisemitic conspiracy theories throughout history.
Here are a few quotes by Atzmon which demonstrate his anti-Jewish racism.
Jews trying to take over the world:
“we must begin to take the accusation that the Jewish people are trying to control the world very seriously…. American Jewry makes any debate on whether the ‘Protocols of the elder of Zion’ are an authentic document or rather a forgery irrelevant. American Jews do try to control the world, by proxy. So far they are doing pretty well for themselves at least.”
Jews were responsible for their persecution by Nazis:
“Jewish texts tend to glaze over the fact that Hitler’s March 28 1933, ordering a boycott against Jewish
stores and goods, was an escalation in direct response to the declaration of war on Germany by the
worldwide Jewish leadership.”“Jewish lobbies certainly do not hold back when it comes to pressuring states, world leaders and even super powers. AIPAC’s behavior last week reminded me of the Jewish declaration of war against Nazi Germany in 1933.”
Israel is worse than Nazi Germany:
“We have heard the comparison between Israel and Nazi Germany. I don’t like this comparison because I really think that Israel is far worse than Nazi Germany.”
As you read the CiF comments below, also note that Newman’s commentary also mentioned, as another example of leftist antisemitism, Alison Weir, who published a piece at CounterPunch defending the libels advanced by the Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet about Israeli soldiers murdering Palestinians in Gaza to harvest their organs.
(It’s worth noting that the writings of Atzmon have recently received an unqualified endorsement from John Mearsheimer, the darling of the Israel lobby- fearing left.)
Here is a sample of some of the commentary beneath the line of Newman’s commentary.
Support, to varying degrees, of Israeli organ theft libel:
Zionists support greater antisemitism, as they see it as benefiting Israel.
Criticisms of Atzmon is a cynical attempt to silence all critiques of the Jewish right wing. Commenter endorses Norman Finkelstein.
Atzmon is not antisemitic at all. He is, rather, a compassionate and wise man whose words are just taken out of context and selectively edited.
Neuman’s essay is part of Zionist neocon campaign to smear Atzmon, who is merely revealing the world’s most sinister and racist ideology – Zionism.
Related articles
- Daniel Levy’s CiF essay on Jewish voters’ concerns with US Israel policy cites influence of Jews’ media megaphone (cifwatch.com)
- When CiF commentary about the Holocaust elicits contempt for Jews by Guardian readers (cifwatch.com)
- Is it possible to “understand” Ben White’s antisemitism? CiF again sanctions opposition to peace with Israel (cifwatch.com)
- Guardian readers claim leading Zionists during WWII rooted for Hitler. Comments not deleted by CiF Moderators (cifwatch.com)
- Berchmans’ off-topic Israel hatred of the day: On the IDF and dead Palestinian children (cifwatch.com)
This is cross posted from the blog of the CST, by Mark Gardner
Allegations of antisemitism are mounting against Sheikh Raed Salah of the Islamic Movement, as legal squabbles continue over Britain’s attempts to deport him back to Israel.
Salah’s public relations defence is being led by MEMO (Middle East Monitor), a UK Islamist lobby / media group under the directorship of Dr Daud Abdullah, a senior operator in the UK Islamist scene.
MEMO describe Salah as “the Gandhi of Palestine“, but they will now need to overcome a new allegation: that he - Salah, not Gandhi - wrote an article citing an antisemitic American Nazi hoax, the “Franklin document”. (More commonly known as the “Franklin prophecy”.)
As we shall see below, this is not the first time that Dr Daud Abdullah has found himself in the company of this particular American Nazi hoax.
First, a brief recap -
Last week, CST blog ran what claims to be a transcript of a speech by Salah repeating the Christian medieval ‘Blood Libel’: the filthy lie that Jews use the blood of children for making Matzos.
Then, on the Daily Telegraph blog, Michael Weiss ran what claims to be a scan (see here and here) of an Arabic language article by Salah, stating that “4,000 Jews…4,000 Jewish clerks” were warned to avoid work in the Twin Towers on 9/11. This supposedly appeared in the 5th October 2001 edition of Sawt al-Haq w’al-Huriyya (Voice of Justice and Freedom: the journal of Salah’s Islamic Movement in Israel, Northern Branch). It has been translated by MEMRI, the Middle East Media Research Institute. According to MEMRI, Salah’s article includes this:
Considering these endless mysteries, [we may conclude that] the unique mover had no problem adding yet another unprecedented mystery to American history, which is [has always been] riddled with ambiguities and with 1,001 questions, from the [Benjamin] Franklin document until today.
MEMRI claim that the next paragraph contains the antisemitic 9/11 hoax:
…to warn the 4,000 Jews who worked at the World Trade Center, so that they did not come to work on September 11, 2001, which is what actually happened. Was it a coincidence that 4,000 Jewish employees were absent from work, or what? On the other hand, this warning did not reach the 2,000 Muslims who worked at the World Trade Center. Consequently, there were hundreds of Muslim victims.
So, what is this “Franklin document” that MEMRI claim was cited by Salah immediately preceding the 9/11 hoax?
The “Franklin document / prophecy” is a foul little antisemitic hoax, written in the mid 1930s by an American Nazi, William Dudley Pelley. It falsely claims to be a contemporary account from 1789, of a speech by Benjamin Franklin warning against Jewish immigration to the USA “because they are vampires”. In 1942, Pelley was sentenced to 15 years imprisonment for Nazi sedition.
This is not an antisemitic hoax that is especially well-known. It is not, for example, on a par with the notorious Protocols of the Elders of Zion; nor with the aforementioned Blood Libel, or even the thoroughly modern 9/11 lie. It is one for aficionados.
Of course, time will tell if the allegations against Salah in regard to the “Prophecy”are true, or if he himself has also fallen victim to a vicious forgery (and elaborate mistranslation). Nevertheless, it is not the first time we have seen the Franklin hoax here in Britain in a pro-Palestinian (rather than Nazi) context.
One version of it, entitled “Prophecy of Benjamin Franklin in regard of the Jewish race”, caused a minor outrage when it was distributed as a flyer by pro-Palestinian students to those queueing to enter a student debate at Manchester University in February 2002. The flyers bore the name General Union of Palestine Students. The debate motion was to boycott Israeli goods. It failed, but the preamble stated “Anti-Zionism or criticism of Israel is not anti-Semitism” and Jewish students suffered antisemitic attacks in the days after it. (See para 203 of Parliamentary Inquiry into Antisemitsim pdf, here.)
There is, however, a slightly more extreme variant of the “prophecy”. This is entitled“The Jewish Threat on the American society”. (Both versions appear to be carried on, for example, the notorious American neo-Nazi website, Stormfront.) It warns of Jews:
…they are Vampires and Vampires do not live on Vampires. They cannot live only amongst themselves
…I warn you gentlemen if you do not exclude Jews for all time, your children will curse you in your graves.
This is the version that appeared, in its entirety and without further comment, in issue 2 (Oct-Nov 2000 / Rajab-Sha’ban 1421H) of the English-language Muslim Association of Britain magazine, “The New Dawn”.
Two scans of this appear below. The first shows the article close up. It is short, so you should read it in full.
The second scan shows the article in context, comprising the bottom quarter of page 6 (the “Opinion” page). The only other thing on the opinion page is a continuation of the front page article. This is by Dr Daud Abdullah, one of two people then on the editorial board of The New Dawn, in addition to the General Editor.
This was before Dr Abdullah’s stint at the Muslim Council of Britain, and well before his current role as Director of Middle East Monitor.
CLICK TO ENLARGE
CLICK TO ENLARGE
Alan Dershowitz’s Jan. 13th CiF column on the use of the term “blood libel” in American political discourse – beyond its usage in the context of the “theologically based false accusations against the Jewish people” - produced an avalanche of hostile comments.
In the essay, Dershowitz defended the use of the term, arguing that, “no ethnic or religious group should claim ownership of language that might silence free speech.”
The following comment by ArseneKnows, received 462 “Recommends.”
My guess is that the irony of complaining about the pro-Israel lobby stifling free speech, while freely posting such an accusation in a paper read by millions of readers, was somehow lost on him.
Beyond that, its almost comical to argue that the pro-Israel lobby silences criticism of Israel in the very newspaper that habitually publishes the most incendiary and unhinged attacks on the Jewish state.
If the Israel lobby indeed attempts to stifle criticism of Israel, then even the most cursory review of the Western and non-Western media (not to mention International bodies such as the UN and UNHRC) – where vitriol directed towards Israel is simply legion – would suggest that “the lobby” is doing a simply horrible job at achieving that objective.
This graphic appeared on Islamist anti-Israel and antisemitic websites at the time of the Channel 4 Dispatches film "Inside Britain's Israel Lobby" (November 2009). It is a modern version of the same Jewish money power accusation shown in the 1962 British Nazi flyer, "Free Britain from Jewish Control." The 2009 graphic combines both anti-Israel and antisemitic imagery and shows an Israeli hand paying money to Parliament, which is held in the palm of a Jewish hand. The face of Conservative leader (and now Prime Minister) David Cameron MP smiles approvingly and the Israeli flag can also be seen.
The CST Antisemitic Discourse in Britain in 2009 Report is premised on the understanding that antisemitic discourse influences and reflects hostile attitudes to Jews. It can fuel antisemitic incidents against Jews and Jewish institutions,and may leave Jews feeling isolated, vulnerable and hurt. The purpose of the report is to help reduce antisemitism, by enabling readers to better understand antisemitic discourse, and its negative impacts against Jews and society as a whole.
Some of the key findings from the Executive Summary:
- Rhetoric against “Zionism”, “Zionists”or “pro-Israelis” is fostering hostility against British Jews and their representative bodies.
- In 2009, the Gaza conflict caused Israel to be compared to Nazi Germany and its supporters to be compared to Nazis. Previously a fringe phenomenon, the Nazi comparisons are now widespread and also appears in mainstream media. This causes significant upset to Jews and is antisemitic abuse of the memory of the Holocaust.
- The play “Seven Jewish Children”typified the emerging trend to depict Israel and Zionism as a mass Jewish psychological reaction to the trauma of the Holocaust.
- The ugliest medieval accusation,the Blood Libel, claiming that Jews steal children in order to use their blood, was strikingly revived in 2009.This feature of medieval village antisemitism now returned as a shocking example of antisemitic rumours in today’s global village.
- Two senior journalists at The Independent newspaper wrote separately about the supposed power of America’s “Jewish” lobby. It is quite common for The Independent and Guardian newspapers, in particular, to depict a dominant US “Zionist”lobby in America: which risks reflecting and encouraging antisemitic Jewish conspiracy allegations.
- The term “criticism of Israel” continued to be used as a catch-all defense against the raising of Jewish concerns about antisemitic manifestations, public speakers, groups, websites, agitprop and other phenomena.
More specifically, the report singled out the Guardian as one of the standard bearers of antisemitic discourse along with The Independent and Press TV together with individuals such as Guardian contributors, John Pilger and George Galloway. Examples of antisemitic discourse in the Guardian referenced in the report included:
- The Guardian’s online production of the antisemitic play “Seven Jewish Children” by Caryl Churchill.
- The favorable review of “Seven Jewish Children” by the Guardian’s theatre critic, Michael Billington.
- The Guardian’s promotion of Peter Oborne’s antisemitic documentary”Dispatches – Inside Britain’s Israel Lobby” positing the existence of a Jewish conspiracy (which even included CiF Watch among the list of conspirators!)
- The Guardian’s allegations that a Zionist or pro-Israel lobby dominates American foreign policy and American media as exemplified by a Comment is Free article “Israel barks, the US media wags its tail“ by none other than Peter Preston, former editor of the Guardian from 1975 to 1995.
In a revealing glimpse into media bias at play, the CST report recounted how in a Comment is Free article, David Henshaw, Executive Producer of the Oborne documentary, attempted to deflect complaints of antisemitism by quoting Alan Rusbridger, Guardian editor, as saying “it would be astonishing if newspaper articles critical of Israel led directly to racist attacks. Where was the evidence?” Yet according to the report, Henshaw contacted the CST asking for the “CST’s analysis that criticism of Israel in the media leads to anti-Semitic hate crimes” and despite the CST’s reply explaining the relationship between the two issues, Henshaw made no mention of it leaving “Rusbridger’s claim to stand without balance”.
As the CST pointed out in their report
“Racist or political violence is influenced by extremist discourse; particularly the manner in which perpetrators of such violence may be emboldened by support (real or imagined) from opinion leaders and society for their actions”.
Should we be surprised therefore that antisemitic incidents during the first six months of 2009 were higher than in any entire year previously on record?
Reader comments to Avi Shalim’s CiF essay, “This time in Washington, honest brokerage isn’t going to be enough”, included these (none of which have been deleted by CiF Editors)
The Jewish/Israel Lobby controls U.S. foreign policy:
Jewish lust for blood; Israel delights in murdering innocent Palestinians:
Its not enough that “Comment is Free” obsessively publishes material painting Israelis, Jews and the state of Israel in the worst possible light, “Comment is Free’ also takes to recommending similar such material in its so-called “Best of the Web” section on its home page.
Here’s a snapshot of what the Guardian is currently recommending:
As you’ll notice, item no. 2 on the list links to an article at truthout called “Farming in Gaza is a kind of resistance“. If you click through, you’ll come to an article by Max Ajl who after setting the scene of Palestinian women tending to “golden bunches of lentils” near the Gaza border with Israel, makes the following unsubstantiated claim:
Or farmers try to plant seeds there, and instead of demolishing vegetation, the Israeli Army kills cultivators, lancing them from hundreds of meters away with sniper shots to their heads and necks. Many die this way, according to the major human rights organizations in the Gaza Strip.
We were there to escort them as they harvested their crops. The thinking is that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) is less likely to kill peasants cultivating their crops in the presence of international witnesses.
The writer is clearly suggesting here that the IDF randomly takes pot shots at Palestinian civilians for target practice on a regular basis- and his evidence? Major human rights organizations say so. No link of course and no attempt to substantiate this bald faced attempt to once again slur Israel with a demonizing libel.
Why though a blood libel?
Well besides the fact that the fabricated allegation of the gratuitous murder of Palestinian innocents at the hands of Israelis amounts to a contemporary example of a blood libel, the accompanying image to the article shows blood splatter superimposed on an image of lentils as if to graphically drive the point home.
So in case you’re wondering who is Max Ajl, he apparently is a Jew heralding from Brooklyn that went to Jewish day school and is now based in Gaza/Egypt spending his days with ISM activists and running a blog called Jewbonics. Here’s a small excerpt from one of his recent blog posts:
Another celebration of Israeli Independence Day. In New York, the Salute to Israel Parade is enlisting gullible kids from my elementary school to celebrate ethnic cleansing and politicide, giving them, once again, no hint that Israel Independence meant Nakba to the Palestinians, an intolerable act that should be compensated in kind: return of the refugees. In Gaza, Israeli soldiers celebrated Yom Ha’atzmaoot by tapping out some warning shots to terrify Palestinian protesters trying to assert their right to free movement within the Gaza penitentiary, keeping them well away from the devastated buffer zone that could be growing crops but instead is raw dirt littered with bits of metal, bundles of useless wire, and broken irrigation tubing, the exposed earth constantly eroding and bleeding its carbon into the atmosphere.
A real modern day Theobald Jew.
And this is what the editors at “Comment is Free” see fit to recommend.
Says it all really doesn’t it.
Ha’aretz is reporting that the Guardian has been forced to admit yet another foul-up when it comes to their biased anti-Israel coverage of Israel.
According to the Guardian’s “corrections and clarifications” page al Grauniad admits
We should not have put the headline “Israel admits harvesting Palestinian organs” on a story about an admission, by the former head of the Abu Kabir forensic institute near Tel Aviv, that during the 1990s specialists at the institute harvested organs from the bodies of Israeli soldiers, Israeli citizens, Palestinians and foreign workers without getting permission from the families of the deceased (21 December, page 15). That headline did not match the article, which made clear that the organs were not taken only from Palestinians. This was a serious editing error and the headline has been changed online to reflect the text of the story written by the reporter.
Serious editing error. You don’t say.
As ModernityBlog pointed out in his excellent post on the subject earlier this week which we cross-posted here (and for which he can probaly take partial credit for the Guardian’s emabarassing admission of wrongdoing),
“the Guardian can write considered and thoughtful articles on the Alder Hey scandal, but when a similar situation arises in Israel it is used as a political stick to beat Israelis with, and any notion of thoughtful journalism is thrown out of the window.’
The fact of the matter is that the Guardian’s subsequent retraction buried in an obscure place in its website or in the back pages of its newspaper is too little, too late as the damage has already been done. The vile antisemitic commentary on the Antony Lerman thread this week only served to confirm this and I’ll wager that we’ll continue to see in the comment threads allegations of havesting of Palestinian organs along with the long list of blood libels such as the so-called “Jenin massacre” that are regularly trumpeted on “Comment is Free”.
And can we expect any change in the Guardian’s editorial policy? Not one that I can foresee and I tend to agree with CAMERA’s assessment on the subject who in their response to the Guardian’s retraction stated:
It’s unfortunately safe to expect that, with respect to the Arab-Israeli conflict, the newspaper we’ll continue to see won’t be the Guardian that corrected a distorted headline, but the Guardian that so frequently distorts the conflict, and the Guardian whose culture allows an editor to unblinkingly announce that “In Israel they murder each other a great deal” only because “they don’t like their political style and what they’ve got to say.”
Mere Rhetoric is running a poll on what the next media-legitimized anti-Israel canard is going to be.
To cast your vote click here.
The Guardian’s favorite Theobald Jew, Antony Lerman, was at it again fuelling the flames of Jew-hatred in the comment thread with an article entitled Israel’s doctors must allay doctor’s fears bearing the byline “[a]llegations of Israeli doctors colluding in the torture of Palestinians must be investigated”. There being no substance to Lerman’s article, the commenters seized upon this to focus on the news that during the 1990s Israel used organs from deceased Israelis, Palestinians and foreign workers without their consent.
The first volley of comments in the thread set the tone for the entire thread:
orwellwasright
22 Dec 2009, 12:10PM
This on top of the admission by the Israeli government that they were indeed harvesting the organs of Palestinians – after accusing anyone who saw any credibility to the allegations revealed in the Swedish press of being “anti-Semitic conspiracy theorists”.
Talk about a complete, institutionalised rejection of morality…
ellymiranda
22 Dec 2009, 12:11PM
Yes, now when Israel officially admitted that their physicians have stolen organs from both Israelis and Palestinians, it is time to put it all on the table.
Of course, this kind of perversion of the truth is a well known tactic employed by the hate-Israel crowd. Predictably, orwellwasright and ellymiranda manipulated the false headline that “Israel Admitted to Harvesting Palestinian Organs” using this as proof that the Aftonbladet blood libel (that Israeli soldiers harvest the organs of Palestinians for trafficking) is true, despite the fact that such charges are completely unsubstantiated and Donald Bostrom, the Aftonbladet “reporter”, has since distanced himself from the story.
As Yaacov Lozowick observes
Antisemitic allegations almost always start from some grain of fact. What makes them antisemitic (or even merely slander) isn’t the original grain of truth but the edifice built on it. In the Rostom blood libel earlier this year the slander was that IDF forces were regularly killing Palestinians so as to harvest their organs. The grain of truth uncovered here (which actually isn’t news at all, it has been known in Israel for years, which is one reason Hiss no longer heads the Abu Kabir institute) has nothing to do with those allegations, and doesn’t substantiate them in any way.
But to point out that what orwellwasright and ellymiranda were doing was propagating antisemitic blood libels was met with this:
orwellwasright
22 Dec 2009, 12:21PM
I wonder how long it’ll be until the usual suspects come here and start making excuses for this? They do it for the slaughter of children, so why not for the complicity of the medical establishment in torture or the harvesting of organs?
orwellwasright
22 Dec 2009, 12:25PM
ThePrompter: “What I’d like to know is, as far as Israelis are concerned, what isn’t antisemitic?”
Praising the IDF for shooting children, perhaps?
bill4me
22 Dec 2009, 12:30PM
Or praising Hamas for raining rockets down on civilian populations?
KrustytheKlown
22 Dec 2009, 2:48PM
Rubbish! The whole point about the article to which you refer was that it claimed that Palestinians were being killed in order to obtain their organs without a shred of evidence being offered to support the claim.
Did the article make this claim?
From what I’ve read (admittedly I haven’t read a translation of hte original article) the newspaper did not make this claim, but rather reported the remarks of individual Palestinians who did make this claim. Not at all the same thing.
It is, btw, really quite chilling to see how so many of our zionist posters are playing down Israel’s admission that it stole organs from members of an occupied people. If that kind of carry-on really isn’t so bad after all, why then did the Israeli govt throw out the usual pathetic ‘anti-semite’ accusation at Aftonbladet, and demand an official condmemnation from the Swedish governemnt?
maskdmaverick
22 Dec 2009, 3:58PM
This story just shows how Israel has been willing to label any criticism as anti-semitic. Great to see them fall flat on their face.
orwellwasright
22 Dec 2009, 4:55PM
deWinter: who on earth is talking about Israeli hospitals and the standard of care?? The topic is specific allegations of doctors assisting in torture.
It would be a good idea of those on CIF who go around making sweeping statements bothered to read both the article and the subsequent comments properly before spouting out irrelevant posts.
MeandYou
22 Dec 2009, 5:31PM
According to the Huffington Post Israel do more than torture:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/12/21/israel-admits-harvesting_n_399623.html
“(AP) JERUSALEM – Israel has admitted that in the 1990s, its forensic pathologists harvested organs from dead bodies, including Palestinians, without permission of their families.”
The only thing that seems illegal in this War Machine state is any criticism of it.
And then we have Jay’Reilly who described Jews who challenge this kind of discourse as the “absolute dregs of the Jewish diaspora”. Do you think he will get banned for making such a blatantly antisemitic comment? (Its a rhetorical question – this is CiF, the incubator for this kind of discourse.)
JayReilly
22 Dec 2009, 12:50PM
“This on top of the admission by the Israeli government that they were indeed harvesting the organs of Palestinians – after accusing anyone who saw any credibility to the allegations revealed in the Swedish press of being “anti-Semitic conspiracy theorists”. “
Its amazing how a country that goes in for such regular depravity is seemingly untouchable on the world stage. We are desperately rewriting our laws to protect their war criminals, the global talks on racism were walked out on by most of the West because Israel’s fine name had been sullied, they threatened Sweden for not backing their grotesque cover up, the UK was silent over their assaults in Lebanon, and to cap it all off the absolute dregs of the Jewish diaspora relentlessly scream about anti-semitism when these things are raised.
And for a further insight into the depraved mind of JayReilly we have this.
JayReilly
22 Dec 2009, 2:14PM
“And by jove, he’s irrationally angry: “
Irrational? How so? A country that operates apparently on a different moral and legal basis to the rest of the world with the overt support of my government, my objection to its practices are “irrational”. Please explain.
“The ‘regular depravity’ which, because of the complex ethical, moral, legal, problems involved, has engulfed 200 hospitals here. In regularly depraved UK?”
The UK is about as depraved as any developed demoracy, yes. Maybe if we were illegally occupying Wales and taking organs from the Welsh who we regularly pounded to dust with illegal munitions, maybe then I’d find it even worse than depraved and actually become “irrationally angry” about it. Funny thing context, isnt it, its almost like it actually matters.
“Now on to Livni and a magistrate’s warrant which can be issued without evidence by politically motivated activists but has not and will not be issued to Messrs Blair, Clinton, Putin, Mugabe, Assad.”
Aside from the crass wotaboutery at the end, are you saying magistrate’s are “political activists”? The warrant must be issued by a court, not the activists.
“Were anti-semitic literature was sold in the foyers?”
I was under the impression one of the principle complaints was the description of Israel as a “racist state”, something that appears factually irrefutable.
“In there with a chance: Israel ‘threatened’ Sweden? Did they? What was the threat? And what is the cover up?”
Forgive me, Israel voiced its displeasure and politely requested the Swedish government take steps against the paper. Apologies for the error.
“An unsubstantiated accusation” – which it has now been found was pretty close to the truth.
“Try and refute or explain, it’s screaming and our Jay describes someone like me as part of ‘the absolute dregs of the Jewish diaspora’.”
I said in very plain English that those who respond to all criticism with cries of “anti-semitism” are the “dregs of the diaspora”, yes. Whats the problem, and what have you got to do with it? I didnt realise you were one of the “anti-semitic!!!!!!” crowd.
Anyway lets see what other characters are attracted to a thread like this.
Well in time honored CiF fashion, we have the Jewish conspiracy theorists:
doask
22 Dec 2009, 12:56PM
curiously israeli organ harvesting has not yet reached bbc broadcast news .. in fact nor has the continued collective punishment of gazans nor the threat by admiral mullin to iran of military action in 2010.
is the bbc reporting anything other than weather these days?
Rgk78
22 Dec 2009, 1:02PM
curiously israeli organ harvesting has not yet reached bbc broadcast news .. in fact nor has the continued collective punishment of gazans nor the threat by admiral mullin to iran of military action in 2010.
is the bbc reporting anything other than weather these days?
why has govt been silent of the israeli abuses?
My view point is that the pro-Israel Murdoch media report items in a way that is 95% bias towards Israel.
The UK government policy is about 90% pro-Israel.
The BBC is about 75% pro-Israel and this is low enough to be accused of anti-semetism.
And then there’s those that make Nazi analogies:
Rgk78
22 Dec 2009, 12:42PM
I don’t know if doctors in Israel take the Hippocratic Oath but you have to question your morals if you have any part in this. A doctor should not ever participate in anything like this.
Being complicit with the government echoes regimes that I dare not mention at the risk of being shouted down.
ThePrompter
22 Dec 2009, 1:08PM
There were people in Germany who’s indiscriminate support for the Nazi regime to a large extent allowed that regime to commit the atrocities that it did.
The un-discriminating appologists for the Israeli state are in danger of making the same mistake.
I am not saying that Israeli behavior is comparable to the behavior of Nazi Germany, but to contend that Israel doesn’t have questions to answer is just ridiculous
FrankFinlay
22 Dec 2009, 1:23PM
So are Israeli doctor’s complicit in torture or not?
The world needs an answer. My God, I hope they aren’t. If they are then the moral compass of the world has truly been inverted. Which would mean that Israel could no longer claim a special moral position because of the terrible history of the Jewish people. History does not excuse evil.
phindrup
22 Dec 2009, 3:22PM
What I’d like to know is, as far as Israelis are concerned, what isn’t antisemitic?
Odd isn?t it? Though some Jews are also Semites, many, especially the European Jews are not, and never have been.
Palestinians however, are definitely Semites, there is absolutely no doubt about this.
Isn?t it time that the charge of against anybody questioning the behaviour of Israel was described correctly? Whatever a person supporting the Palestinian cause might be, they are not anti-Semitic.
Why is Israel ?singled out? for criticism?
The fact that in 1947 Jews owned less than seven percent of the land in Palestine.
Today, Israel occupies 87 percent of Palestine. It controls the airspace, the land and sea borders and all food, water, fuel, electricity, medical supplies and access to medical aid, building materials, spare parts, etc.?Gaza is an immense concentration camp — 1.5 million people squeezed into 140 square miles hemmed in on all sides by 25-foot-high walls separated by a vast expanse of bulldozed earth. The 2005 “pull-out” left Gaza still controlled by Israel from air and sea, its entries and exits prisonlike mazes electronically controlled and under constant surveillance. Bombing it, assaulting it with tanks and Uzis, is like shooting animals in a pen.?
“Israel may have the right to put others on trial, but certainly no one has the right to put the Jewish people and the State of Israel on trial.” Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, 25 March, 2001
29numbers
22 Dec 2009, 4:09PM
They consider them a lesser specie but still use their organs. Hypocrites.
And then we have a commenter that uses the “chosen people” trope.
need4enlightenment
22 Dec 2009, 4:22PM
Man, I heard about the harvesting of organs…. sick bastards. By the way I am NOT calling ALL Israelis sick bastards, only those that cut numerous organs from a dying persons body, sow them back up and dump them in the street… Oh or dump phosphate on people from a great height…. oh, or blockade ports knowing full well the people will starve… yeh, if you do none of that you are a nice person, perhaps even gods-chosen…
And then there are those that think they’re history experts because they’ve read some Pappe or Shlaim:
ThePrompter
22 Dec 2009, 5:21PM
SantaMonika -
“Oh, the endless attempts here to rewrite history by the biased and ignorant” etc.
1947-49
There were indeed 7 Arab armies, however they were outnumbered by the Zionist forces. They never invaded the land that the Zionists had been given, all of the battles took place on the land that was to be the Palestinian state, and they only attacked the Zionists after the Zionists had committed a number of massacres including Deir Yassin where 100 Palestinian men, women, and children were killed, on Palestinian land. By the end of the war Israel had control of all of Palestine except The West Bank and Gaza, 750,000 Palestinians had become refugees, and over 500 Palestinian towns and villages had been obliterated. It was, and still is, the Israeli Zionists who are the aggressors.It’s all pretty well documented you know……
ONeill70 4.33pm -
You are making the same mistake as SantaMonika, I do happen to know quite a lot about Nazi Germany and the Israeli/Palestine conflict, based on a lot more than CiF or Israeli propaganda sites.
However I suggest we drop this subject because it’s getting seriously off-topic.
ThePrompter
22 Dec 2009, 3:48PM
TawdryDog -
“This forum is not appreciative when others point out the absence of criticism of ‘freedom fighters’ and their masters in Tehran”
My comment was clearly aimed at the Israeli state and it’s un-critical supporters, but even if it wasn’t clear enough for you, you should have realised what I meant because the Palestinian ‘freedom fighters’ don’t have a state, Israel nicked it 61 years ago.
And the historical distortions continue with this:
MmeEAB
22 Dec 2009, 3:43PM
Why is anybody surprised at anything horrible which is done by israelis to the original inhabitants of the land these northern european refugees occupy?
And to top if off, perhaps one of the only comments which was on-topic – in that it addressed the subject of torture raised by Antony Lerman – gets deleted. Read this comment – I can only surmise that Tom Wonacott expressed a view that did not fit in with the Guardian World Veiw. Bad boy Tom! You should know better by now.
TomWonacott
22 Dec 2009, 1:43PM
“……..Even though Israel’s supreme court in 1999 finally ruled that methods of torture used at that time by the security forces were illegal, a loophole was left for interrogators who tortured in “ticking bomb” situations, which ultimately allowed old forms of torture to creep back in by the mid-2000s, as a 2007 report by PCATI showed. So there is good reason to be seriously concerned about the use of torture today……..”
The ticking time bomb scenario is one of the most controversial “loopholes” used to condone the practice of torture. In a November 3, 2005 New York Times editorial, ?The Prison Puzzle?, the New York Times stated:
“We’re not naïve enough to believe that if the C.I.A. nabs a Qaeda operative who knows where a ticking bombs hidden, that terrorist will emerge unbruised from his interrogation…”
Thus, even the New York Times believes that under certain circumstances, torture is warranted. What leader would give in to principal when faced with the loss of a significant amount of innocent lives? For me personally, its not so much the use of torture, but when to apply the ticking time bomb scenario – and what criteria makes torture the preferred technique to gather important, life saving information.
I read the account of one suspect (Bajat Yamen) who was clearly tortured in 2004. This was done toward the end of the second intifada when more than 1100 Israelis lost their lives from suicide bombings and other attacks that targeted Israeli civilians for murder. In 2004-2005, nearly 100 Israelis lost their lives from suicide bombings alone.
Identifying Palestinian suicide bombers is difficult at best because they blend in with the population (and many look a lot like the Israeli Arabs that reside in Israel). While the use of torture is illegal, no one can blame Israel for torturing high value targets to protect their citizens during a war (at least in my opinion) -especially from those who target civilians for murder which is (just as) illegal under the Geneva Convention. Protecting Israel citizens is the number one priority of the Israel government.
Oh well. Another day in the parallel universe of the Guardian.
This is a cross post by Gilead Ini from CAMERA
Victoria Brittain’s Dec. 9 column in the Guardian has all the elements that typify the newspaper’s simplistic, distorted accounts of the Arab-Israeli conflict. There are the innocent Palestinian victims and aggressive Israeli culprits; the falsehoods; the failure to consider any Palestinian responsibility for their state of affairs; and the brazen omission of information essential for understanding the situation.
The particulars of Brittain’s article, entitled “Who will save Gaza’s children?,” are especially dramatic. Gazan babies are being poisoned, and the antidote is as simple as one Israeli phone call, which, for no apparent reason, Israel refuses to make. In the columnist’s own words:
Among all the complex and long-term solutions being sought in Copenhagen for averting environmental catastrophe across the world, there is one place where the catastrophe has already happened, but could be immediately ameliorated with one simple political act.
In Gaza there is now no uncontaminated water; of the 40,000 or so newborn babies, at least half are at immediate risk of nitrate poisoning – incidence of “blue baby syndrome”, methaemoglobinaemia, is exceptionally high; an unprecedented number of people have been exposed to nitrate poisoning over 10 years; in some places the nitrate content in water is 300 times World Health Organisation standards; the agricultural economy is dying from the contamination and salinated water; the underground aquifer is stressed to the point of collapse; and sewage and waste water flows into public spaces and the aquifer.
The blockade of Gaza has gone on for nearly four years, and the vital water and sanitation infrastructure went past creaking to virtual collapse during the three-week assault on the territory almost a year ago.
What would it take to start the two UN sewerage repair projects approved by Israel; a UN water and sanitation project, not yet approved; and two more UN internal sewage networks, not yet approved? Right now just one corner of the blockade could be lifted for these building materials and equipment to enter Gaza, to let water works begin and to give infant lives a chance. Just one telephone call from the Israeli defence ministry could do it – an early Christmas present to the UN staff on the ground who have been ready to act for months and have grown desperate on this front, as on so many others.
The most disturbing message of the column is 1) the assertion that there is a high incidence of methemoglobinemia or “blue baby syndrome” in the Gaza Strip, 2) the implication that this is a result of “the blockade of Gaza,” and 3) the central premise that Israel is responsible for this public heath disaster because it refuses to make “just one telephone call” to allow building materials and equipment into Gaza, and thus”immediately ameliorate” the catastrophe.
If the first point is true, the latter two can only be described as an attempt by Brittain to sharply mislead readers.
| “Methemoglobinemia” is a blood condition characterized by unusually high blood levels of Methemoglobin. One environmental cause of methemoglobinemia is excessive exposure to nitrates, for example, as a result of drinking water with high levels of nitrates. |
No Full-Blown Cases
When discussing methemoglobinemia in the Gaza Strip, it is first important to note that, according to an October 2009 BBC report, “the World Health Organization has not discovered any recent, full-blown cases in Gaza.” Tellingly, Brittain doesn’t share this essential point with her audience.
Nor does she let on that Marianne Stuart of the British Geological Survey believes the reported levels of nitrate in Gaza’s groundwater are “worrying but not exceptional.”
Still, even without “full-blown” methemoglobinemia, there is reason for concern about the prevalence of milder cases of the disorder in the Hamas-run territory. Studies have found higher-than-normal levels of methemoglobin in the blood of Gaza children. And while mild cases of methemoglobinemia are not fatal, they can lead to skin discoloration around the hands, feet and mouth, as well as diarrhea, vomiting, or lethargy. (See, e.g., here, here and here.)
In other words, even if methemoglobinemia in Gaza isn’t a “catastrophe,” it is a problem that deserves honest examination. But Brittain does a disservice by letting her fervent anti-Israel ideology trump fair-minded concern for public health. (Brittain’s ideology involves tireless calls for a boycott of Israel, which she labels an apartheid state, while devoting sympathetic words to Hamas, Hezbollah and other unsavory characters.)
In her zeal to blame Israel, the truth is thoroughly abused. The problem goes beyond outright falsehoods — such as her credulous relaying of UNRWA director John Ging’s bogus claim that “we have 80 percent unemployment” in Gaza, or her assertion that there is “no uncontaminated water” in Gaza. (In fact, according to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics’ most recent figures, unemployment in Gaza is about half that number — 42.3 percent.
And according to a UN report cited in her column, which she presumably read, there is indeed good quality water in the Strip. An analysis of tankered water from Rafah “indicated good quality water that met WHO guidelines for drinking water.” The report further points out that “distribution tanks like the one the sample came from were observed all over the Gaza Strip.”)
Such notable misstatements of fact are problematic, but even worse in this piece is the Brittain’s broader obfuscation of the problem, driven by grave errors of omission.
The Farmers’ Role
The main environmental cause of methemoglobinemia in Gaza is high levels of nitrates in the groundwater. And the main cause of nitrates in Gaza’s groundwater, it turns out, is well beyond what could be accomplished by any Israeli phone call. The main contributors to the pollution are Palestinian farmers.
Dr. Karsten Osenbrück, a researcher for Germany’s Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research who studied Gaza’s groundwater, explained that while wastewater from human sewage plays a role, an analysis of nitrogen isotopes revealed “the nitrate in the Gaza groundwater comes primarily from manure used as fertilizer.”
Dr. Awni Al Absi, a researcher at Gaza’s Al Aqsa Univeristy who studied methemoglobin levels in the territory, argues that Gaza farmers “usually apply an excess of manure to the crop to ensure that [there is] enough nitrogen available for growing,” a harmful practice exacerbated by “over-irrigation of [the] agriculture area.” Gaza’s “over-use of organic manure” has likewise been noted in the Western press.
Remarkably, the role of Palestinian agricultural practices is ignored by Brittain, even though, insomuch as there is any “simple” solution to Gaza’s complex environmental problems, that solution might be for Palestinian farmers to cut back on the excess manure.
Other Factors
Similarly, Brittain says nothing about other causes of environmental degradation affecting Gaza’s water. While she notes that Gaza’s “underground aquifer is stressed to the point of collapse,” she neglects to explain why, instead lumping the problem together with methemoglobinemia as another issue supposedly in Israel’s control.
According to researchers in Gaza, though, one of the most common causes of groundwater pollution in the Gaza Strip is “over-pumping from wells for domestic and agricultural use leading to diminishing groundwater levels and hence seawater intrusion….”
This over-pumping is intimately tied to the hundreds or even thousands of illegal wells drilled by Gaza Palestinians after Israel’s withdrawal from the territory. Add to this “several years of drought, ” and the result, according to the UN Environmental Programme, is that “at least three times more water is extracted [from Gaza’s aquifer] than is replenished each year.”
Palestinian Water Authority ecologist Nahed Abu Dayyia has highlighted another phenomenon related to nitrate concentrations in Gaza’s groundwater. “The quantity of fresh water available has been severely reduced because new tarmac roads are preventing rainwater from filtering through sand to replenish groundwater levels,” the UN-affiliated IRIN news service paraphrased him as saying. This water, if allowed to run its natural course, would have diluted the pollutants, including nitrates, in Gaza’s aquifer.
In other words, as with a cutback in the amount of manure used to fertilize Gaza’s agricultural fields, Gaza’s water quality would benefit from increased Palestinian control over illegal wells and better land management to maximize recharge of the aquifer.
Prevention
As long as high levels of nitrates in Gaza’s water continue to be an issue, there is another straightforward solution to the methemoglobinemia problem, also beyond the control of Israel, that is highlighted in the aforementioned report by Al Absi of Al Aqsa University. The “recommendations” section of the report notes:
Breast feeding is considered the best solution to avoid infant methemoglobinemia, and for those women who are not breast feeders, the use of bottled water in infant formula preparation offers the safest solution.
Other research validates this conclusion. (See, e.g. here.)
Wastewater
Brittain, however, ignores any Palestinian responsibility for contributing to and protecting against the methemoglobinemia problem. To promote her preferred narrative of Israeli culpability and Palestinian helplessness, she omits entirely from her column the role of manure and over-pumping in causing, and of breast-feeding and cautious water intake in staving off, the methemoglobinemia problem.
The journalist instead focuses mainly on wastewater. In this way, she can apportion blame — all of the blame — on Israel by suggesting that its restrictions on imports into Gaza are responsible for the poor state of its wastewater infrastructure and, by extension, the methemoglobinemia.
But even if one goes along with this selective focus on wastewater — undoubtably a (secondary) source of nitrate contamination in Gaza’s groundwater — Brittain’s story of Israeli responsibility for the crisis doesn’t hold up.
The consistent closure of Gaza’s border crossings began in June 2007, when Hamas took full control of the Gaza Strip by routing Fatah in a bout of internecine fighting. (See details here.) But studies have found an incidence of methemoglobinemia matching the levels described by Brittain, and high levels of nitrates, long before the closure. (See, e.g., this study of data from 2002, this one of data from 1998, and this one of data from 2001-2007)
Likewise, Gaza’s wastewater infrastructure was in disrepair long before Israel’s lockdown of its Gaza border (and long after Palestinians gained full control over the infrastructure in 1994). According to the UN report mentioned above, it has been a major environmental problem for decades. The challenge was made worse the fighting in Gaza, but even before Operation Cast Lead, the environment in the Strip was degraded “due to underinvestment in environmental systems, lack of progress on priority environmental projects and the collapse of governance mechanisms.” Other sources reveal the problem was exacerbated by the theft of sand from sensitive sewage installations by Palestinians who then sold the sand to local companies.
According to a UN official quoted by the BBC, it was clear even before Hamas’s 2005 electoral victory that sewage treatment plants were likely to fail, and that improvements were stymied by Gaza’s precarious security situation:
Fadel Kawash, head of the Palestinian Water Authority, told AP several sewage projects, including one in the village, had been halted after international funding dried up in the wake of the election victory of Hamas in January last year.
“We had a project to treat sewage in north Gaza, it was worked on for two years,” he said.
“We built a pressure pipeline and pumping station but it was stopped after… troubles began.”
Hamas also blamed the flood on the withdrawal of foreign aid.
But Stuart Shepherd, the UN’s humanitarian aid officer in Gaza, said the Umm al-Naser plant had not been affected by the aid boycott, noting there had long been warnings about the plant.
A UN report in 2004 had warned that the sewage facility was at its maximum capacity, and flooding was inevitable unless a new waste treatment plant was constructed.
Mr Shepherd said foreign investment had been secured to build the treatment plant, but construction had not gone ahead because of security risks in the area.
So while Hamas and the head of the Palestinian Water Authority blamed the international community for withholding funding, and a UN official suggested that the problem preceded the boycott, and improvements were held back due to the security situation, neither Kawash nor Shepherd told the BBC reporter that Israel is responsible.
Perhaps this is because, contrary to Brittain’s innuendo, Israel has taken some steps meant to help Gaza overcome its water issues, and building material has entered the territory.
Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said of a sewage project in Beit Lahiya that “Israel approved drilling to conduct treated wastewater to the aquifer, and the required equipment was brought in to construct the facility, including cement, iron and aluminum.”
To be sure, Israeli and Egyptian restrictions on what enters the Gaza Strip have an effect on the territory. Cement and metal, which could be used for improvements to Gaza’s wastewater infrastructure, are especially sensitive, as they are likely to be diverted by Hamas to military uses. Yigal Palmor, spokesman for Israel’s foreign ministry, recently explained that “Hamas has used cement for fortifications and bunkers,” and that “[i]n the past, a lot of cement has been diverted from civilian use to purely military use as instructed by Hamas.”
Any fair-minded journalist discussing the issue would take this into account, along with the fact that metal in Gaza has been used to make Qassam rockets that kill and terrorize Israeli civilians, before claiming, as did Brittain, that a decision to allow cement and steel into Gaza is a “simple political act.”
Cement Still Reaches Gaza
Brittain is also predictably silent about the estimated 600 tons of concrete that is smuggled into Gaza. As Hamas controls not only the territory, but also the tunnels through which the concrete is smuggled, they could surely requisition this cement and direct it to be used for improvements to the wastewater infrastructure. Or better yet, they could purchase that cement with money that until now has gone to replenishing and improving their supply of rockets which have been fired at civilian targets in Israel. Considering that the most basic of the rockets can cost $400 or much more, it could have been helpful for Brittain to call on Hamas to take the simple political decision to apply that money to improving Gaza’s environment and health situation.
Water Rejection
Brittain’s column also conveniently omits another remarkable and relevant point related to Gaza’s water crisis. A recent Israeli offer to supply water to Gaza was rebuffed by Palestinian authorities. Uri Schor, a spokesperson for the Israeli Water Commission, told IRIN that Israel “offered 20 million cubic metres a year of water from our Ashkelon desalination plant” to be transferred to Gaza.” An official from the Palestinian Water Authority acknowledged the offer was rejected, citing the cost of the water and displeasure with the fact that the water was desalinized.
If Brittain truly took seriously the UN report she cites in her article, and if her overriding concern were the health of Palestinian babies, one would have expected her to urge that the Palestinians accept the Israeli water, just as forcefully as she upbraided Israel for not transferring concrete and metal to Gaza. After all, that report points to desalinization as a potential solution to the water crisis. And unlike concrete and metal, the transfer of desalinized water would not put at risk the lives of Israelis.
But it seems clear, based on the egregious omissions in her column, that Brittain is not driven by concern for the environment, or even by a desire to improve the health of Gaza’s children. The piece is just another dishonest attempt by the veteran activist to delegitimize Israel.
From Cox and Forkum, Hat tip: Richard Landes
This is a guest post by Jonathan Hoffman
“Contaminated water is poisoning babies in Gaza” – so reads the strapline to the disgraceful article by Victoria Brittain today. Anyone who knows anything about medieval Jew hatred will shudder at the similarity to the “Jews poison the well” trope.
Says Brittain: In Gaza “there is now no uncontaminated water; of the 40,000 or so newborn babies, at least half are at immediate risk of nitrate poisoning….Incidence of “blue baby syndrome”, methaemoglobinaemia, is exceptionally high; an unprecedented number of people have been exposed to nitrate poisoning over 10 years; in some places the nitrate content in water is 300 times World Health Organisation standards.”
I first heard the methaemoglobinaemia allegation from Omar Barghouti at the BRICUP meeting in London last Friday. Neither Barghouti nor Brittain cited any medical evidence in support of their claim. Given the agenda of both these Israel-haters, their credibility is at rock bottom …. except among the true believers of CiF. Brittain for example has blamed Israel for flooding in Gaza, totally unaware that when it rains heavily, the coastal areas of Israel are prone to flooding too.
Much of Brittain’s article is based on the recent Amnesty Report which has been comprehensively gutted here by CAMERA and here by me (and elsewhere too, no doubt CiFWatch readers will offer more links).
Indeed CAMERA has written no fewer than six pieces deconstructing the mostly fictional Amnesty Report!
Here is the comment on the Brittain thread by the estimable Petra Marquardt-Bigman:
Almost exactly a year ago, Ms. Brittain wrote an article complaining that the horrendous atrocities in Congo got some attention from British officials, instead of them focusing on Gaza (From Goma to Gaza, was the title). A year later, she complains that instead of all the fuss about global warming, the international community should focus on Gaza… Looks like a pattern to me.
But anyway, who will save Gaza’s children? How about Gaza’s rulers, who had no problem equipping an army that they boast has some 15 000 fighters, who had no problem building up an elaborate network of bunkers and tunnels for military purposes, who had no problem organizing the building of tunnels for smuggling, who had no problem setting up and running a TV station to “educate” their population in the way Hamas wants them to see things — ah, and btw, yesterday there was a new type of rocket launched from Gaza into Israel, and recently, Hamas reportedly tested a rocket that could reach Tel Aviv. So all in all, it seems that they don’t have a problem to get the things they care about done. Apparently, Ms. Brittain recently visited Gaza, given the colorful description she is giving here, maybe she should go back and ask the Hamas leaders why they don’t do anything about the sewage and water problem in order to “save Gaza’s children”.
Indeed. And Victoria Brittain has a track record of putting the facts in second place behind her personal agenda.
It has been said of her that “Victoria Brittain has never met a terrorist, jihadist, or enemy of a liberal and multicultural society that she doesn’t admire….”
Sounds ideal for a Guardian CiF author ….
Hawkeye
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Telling the Truth
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Guest/Cross Post
Hadar Sela
Guardian readers note CiF Watch’s presence, & object to our suggestion that blood libel against Jews is false
September 27, 2011 in Comments which are off-topic, ad hominem, racist, vulgar or include threats of violence will be deleted | Tags: Alison Weir, anti-Zionism, Biased Moderation, Blood Libel, Comment is Free, Gilad Atzmon, Guardian | by Adam Levick | 10 comments
As a follow-up to our post earlier, “CiF piece critical of Gilad Atzmon elicits storm of antisemitic comments, including organ theft libels“, we observed that some CiF readers have taken notice of our blog.
And, then there was this, by a commenter praising CiF Watch for holding CiF Moderators accountable:
Finally, here’s a comment by “wh1952″, a reader who evidently was shocked to learn that his/her pro blood libel comment was noted by CiF Watch:
Here is the comment in question, by “wh1952“, which we published in our previous post:
Yes, as you can clearly see, our blog is so politically correct that we would condemn “out of hand” the charge that Israel murders Palestinians for the purpose of harvesting their organs.
Do charges by Alison Weir (and other sensitive anti-Zionist souls) that the medieval blood libel against Jews may indeed by historically accurate, and may help explain the recent organ harvesting charges against Israel, “have legs”?
Inquiring, un-PC, open-minded, liberal Guardian Left readers want to know.
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