Tag Archives: Comment is Free

Jun 19 2013

Guardian’s David Hearst participates in discussion on the power of the Israel lobby

Cross posted by Mark Gardner at the blog of the CST.

Swapping “Zionist” or “pro-Israeli” for “Jewish” is not opposing antisemitism. It is, at best, a lazy linguistic complacency that camouflages antisemitic ways of thinking: making antisemitism harder to expose and fight. An unusually explicit example of this can be clearly seen in the footage of a meeting at London journalist haunt, the Frontline Club. View it here (but read the below first).

The meeting, on 12 June 2013, used a book by British Islamist, Ibrahim Hewitt, as the basis for discussion about the media’s approach to the Israel-Palestine conflict. The discussion, between Hewitt, ex-BBC Middle East correspondent Tim Llewellyn, and Guardian foreign leader writer David Hearst, was chaired by Mark McDonald, a founder of Labour Friends of Palestine & the Middle East.

Under the title, “Anti-Zionism: the Frontline”, CST Blog had already warned what might happen at this meeting. We related some of the overblown anti-Zionist conspiracy theory and imagery that Hewitt’s group, MEMO, had previously published. We noted that Llewellyn might be worse than Hewitt. We recalled Hearst’s silence in the Guardian after a judge had found against Sheikh Ra’ed Salah’s denials of having made a blood libel speech. (The judge still granted Salah his appeal.) We asked, without optimism, if Hearst or McDonald might intervene if either of their fellow Frontline speakers strayed into territory occupied by antisemitism.

The footage shows that Hewitt did not repeat the wilder material from MEMO, and that Llewellyn was indeed worse than him. Hearst explained things calmly and without resort to conspiracy theory, but does not seem to have directly rebutted either Hewitt or, especially, Llewellyn. If anything, Hearst surely normalised his fellow speakers to the mainly young audience – rather than undermined them.

The footage also shows that there was only one intervention against a speaker who took things too far. This was against Llewellyn, when Hewitt pulled him up for saying“the Jewish Lobby”: whereupon the meeting chair, Mark McDonald, said that it should be “the Zionist Lobby” or “pro-Israel Lobby” instead.

Any serious objection to antisemitism must go far deeper than swapping “Zionist” for“Jewish”. Otherwise, it simply becomes an exercise in how to swap an antisemitic conspiracy theory for an ‘anti-Zionist’ one. The anti-Zionist left claims, furiously, to oppose antisemitism, but swapping “Zionist” for “Jew” is advising upon camouflage, not anti-racism.

The salient moment occurs approximately 30 minutes and 45 seconds (30:45) into the footage, when Tim Llewellyn asks David Hearst to explain why he says that newspaper editors “wilt under pressure”. Llewellyn:

Is it because. I can see it in the BBC. They’re frighten’, these people are quite aggressive, right. The Jewish Lobby is not much fun. They come at you from every direction.

Off camera, Hewitt says “no”, then, “its the pro-Israel lobby”. It is not exactly clear who says what after this, but it includes McDonald talking over Llewellyn, stating:

I mean that’s a very important thing to say, that it’s not a Jewish lobby. Can I interrupt a second. It’s not a Jewish lobby. It might be a Zionist lobby. It may be a pro-Israel lobby.

But Llewellyn won’t give it up. He retorts:

Yes, but they use Jewish connections to get you.

McDonald’s anti-racism intervention now wilts. He wants consensus, not a discursive analysis on the meaning of “they use Jewish connections to get you”. So, he lamely replies:

Yes, but it’s not necessarily a Jewish lobby, as in

McDonald’s words trail off. He does not say ‘its not necessarily a Jewish lobby as in the way that antisemites allege Jews run the media and politics, via intimidation, money and power’. Llewellyn gives an inch:

Alright, it’s an Israeli lobby. A friends of Israel lets say. Lets not be too polite about them, because they’re not very polite about us.

Llewellyn continues, asking why “we are afraid of them”:

Why are we afraid of them. That’s what I don’t understand. You know, I mean, we’re all British…I may be Welsh, but I’m British.

Nobody intervenes. Nobody asks Llewellyn to clarify if he is meaning to say that these lobbying, connected Jews are somehow not British. There are no more anti-racist interventions, not even half-hearted ones.

And so the meeting goes on, showing how easily anti-Zionist conspiracy can be normalised when people are willing to sit alongside it and treat it with respect.  In particular, Hearst and McDonald treat Llewellyn’s interventions as if they are entirely normal and legitimate. They are not merely bystanders in this, they facilitate it. The audience takes it all in.

Contemplate the following low points and note that all of them were treated as being entirely normal:

06.20 Ibrahim Hewitt stresses England football manager Roy Hodgson was right to visit Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial, but asks about his not visiting the nearby remains of Palestinian village, Deir Yassin.

08.57 Hewitt says that Abraham Foxman (of the Anti Defamation League) is the only person “guaranteed”  to get their letters published in the New York Times.

11.30 Hewitt says he enjoys reading the obituaries in the Guardian. Llewellyn interrupts, “any day now”.

21.55 Llewellyn asks “a deeper question” about BBC reporting:

why is it like this?…is it a sinister conspiracy…a lazy way of looking at, you know, the fact that the Israeli lobby is very powerful in all three of our main political parties. Is it the BBC being very fearful?

40.44 Hewitt’s curious use of the word “diaspora”: “one of the paradoxes…that the media in Israel is often more lively and robust on this issue than the media in the so-called diaspora in New York and Europe”.

41.11 Llewellyn jokily tells Hewitt, “learn to write in Yiddish”, to get his letters published in Israeli media. Someone (from the audience) says “Hebrew”, Llewellyn counters, “No, Yiddish”.

50.04 A well spoken English woman cites Moses, her ‘them and us’ style is a classic of the genre:

AIPAC, America’s Jewish Israeli lobby, they are sooooo well organised. And we’re too nice. Whether we’re the Palestinians, or the British, we are awfully nice, we, as you say, go make a cup of tea. They don’t make cups of tea…they are desperately tough…Moses said that they were a hard-necked people. They are. And they are so well organised… 

58.40 Llewellyn adds more about what “troubles” him. He objects to Europeans regarding Israelis as being like themselves, whereas Palestinians are not seen that way. He says “the Jewish lobby”, interchangeably with “the Israeli lobby”:

We talk about the Jewish lobby, the Israeli lobby, the friends of Israel. There is this people like us thing…   

1.01.20 Llewellyn brings the lobby’s political power into the BBC equation:

The BBC is pressured because its part of a Governmental system. There’s no question about the friends of Israel are big in each three political parties, right.

1.14.08 Hewitt reveals his theory about the “sleepers” that the Israelis are now allegedly activating in media positions of power around the world:

It’s very telling that…the Israeli Foreign Ministry actually issued a directive to the hasbara people, the propaganda people, around the world, start placing articles…so they were very confident that they had the ability, the people in place to be able to do that…said a lot, if they can just basically give this directive and all these sleepers all of a sudden wake up and start doing things. There are clearly people in positions of influence who are able to do this.

1.32.06 Finally, the last word at the meeting went to Tim Llewellyn:

The editor of the Guardian who said that comments were free and facts were sacred: was the biggest Zionist who ever lived.

(The footage link, again, is here.)

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Jun 17 2013

Glenn Greenwald: Hamas and Hezbollah are NOT terrorist movements

We reported recently that Guardian’s Glenn Greenwald has been speaking at the annual Marxist-Leninist conference, and we posted a few clips of his 2011 appearance at the conference, held in Chicago.  During his talk (titled ‘Civil Liberties under Obama’), the CiF columnist defended American al-Qaeda operative Anwar al-Awlaki, and downplayed the “scope” of the 9/11 attacks – which he suggested were much more limited (in the scale of violence) than what the U.S. has perpetrated in the Arab world.

Additionally, the following is a short clip from his 2012 presentation (also held in Chicago) in front of the ‘revolutionary socialist group’, where he addresses the topic of terrorism and how the word is, in his view, misused.

As Greenwald would have you believe that the sole objectives of Hamas and Hezbollah is to protect the citizens of Gaza and Lebanon respectively, here are a few facts about the putatively benign ‘anti-imperialist’ movements which may be useful:

Hamas

  • Hamas is the Arabic acronym for “The Islamic Resistance Movement” and grew out of the ideology of the Muslim Brotherhood movement which arose in Egypt in the 1920s.
  • Hamas’s founding charter cites the wisdom of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion to “prove” that Jews are indeed trying to take over the world, and cites a Hadith which calls for the murder of Jews.

Hezbollah

  • Hezbollah’ is a Shiite Islamist group founded in the Bekaa Valley of Lebanon in 1982 as an extension of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps, and adopted much of the Iranian doctrine, including the use of terror as a means of attaining its objectives.  Among the group’s goals in Lebanon is the creation of a fundamentalist Iranian-style Islamic republic and removal of all non-Muslim influences.
  • Before 9/11, Hezbollah killed more Americans than any other terrorist group:  More than 300 were murdered in six separate attacks, including 243 Marines in the 1983 Beirut barracks bombing. 
  • Hezbollah has incited its followers to carry out suicide bombings against Western targets all over the world (including in America), and the group’s leader, Hasan Nasrallah, has said the following: “Let the entire world hear me. Our hostility to the Great Satan [America] is absolute [...] Regardless of how the world has changed after 11 September, Death to America will remain our reverberating and powerful slogan: Death to America.”
  • The continuing military presence of Hezbollah in Lebanon (particularly their weapons smuggling) represents clear violations of UN Resolutions 1559 (2004) and 1701 (2006), both of which call for the disbanding of all such illegal militias which threaten the sovereignty of the country.
  •  Hezbollah has engaged in terrorist acts in Europe, Africa, South America, N. America and even in Arab states – including in Yemen and Bahrain.
  • Hezbollah’s Nasrallah has explicitly stated that Jews anywhere in the world are legitimate targets. Specifically, Nasrallah has said: “If they (Jews) all gather in Israel, it will save us the trouble of going after them worldwide”. (Daily Star, Oct. 23, 2002)

In addition to the risible suggestion that the two violent extremist groups are merely trying to protect Palestinian and Lebanese civilians from Israeli aggression, Greenwald was simply not telling his socialist friends the truth when he claimed the groups haven’t targeted American citizens. Moreover, as his willingness to defend even al-Qaeda operatives demonstrates, his apologias on behalf of violent Islamist extremists are clearly not limited to the Middle East. 

In contextualizing Greenwald’s columns in both Salon.com and the Guardian – where he routinely excoriates the U.S. for all number of ‘imperialist’ crimes against the Arab world and expresses sympathy for even the most violent, reactionary Islamist movements – it’s difficult not to marvel at the ideological dynamics within UK and U.S. politics whereby some genuinely see Greenwald as a “progressive” political voice.  

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Jun 16 2013

Arafat Jaradat and the torture of Palestinian prisoners that the Guardian won’t report

In late February, the Guardian devoted six separate news items (three stories and three photo posts) to the death of a Palestinian – named Arafat Jaradat – in an Israeli jail.  The stories, which all portrayed Jaradat and his ’cause’ in a sympathetic light, focused on baseless allegations by the PA that Jaradat, an Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade member who was arrested for terror activity, died as the result of torture – claims which were contradicted by the autopsy performed by Israel’s top forensic pathologists. 

Here are the Guardian’s reports:

Item 1 (Phoebe Greenwood)

1

Item 2 (Associated Press)

2

Item 3 (Phoebe Greenwood)

4

Items 4 and 5: (Two photos relating to Jaradat from the same Feb. 25 edition of the Guardian’s ‘Picture Desk Live’)

1 and a half

1 and a half part 2

Item 6 (Picture Desk Live, Feb. 26)

Though the PA’s claims of torture received significant coverage, subsequent reports (only a few days later) by Israeli pathologists – that the hemorrhages and fractured ribs found during the autopsy were caused by resuscitation attempts performed by medical staff, and not due to physical abuse – received no coverage in the Guardian.

Indeed, such myopic and at times obsessive focus on Israeli culpability is part of a pattern at the Guardian.

Similarly unreported by the paper are the myriad of credible charges of torture by Palestinian Authority security and prison personnel against Palestinian prisoners.  As Khaled Abu Toameh recently reported:

As a report [by Palestinian Independent Commission for Human Rights (ICHR)] shows, there has been a 10% increase in the number of complaints of torture and mistreatment by Hamas and the Palestinian Authority during 2012 compared with the year before.

More than half of the 306 complaints about torture that were received last year came from Palestinians who had been detained or imprisoned by Abbas’s security forces in the West Bank, the report revealed.

Altogether, 11 detainees died in Palestinian Authority and Hamas prisons last year, according to the report.

One recent example of torture by PA security personnel was detailed in an April ICHR report.

The complaint of torture filed by Muhammad Abdelkareem Dar Muhammad, from Hebron, was one of the major complaints ICHR received in this regard. He claimed that he was subjected to torture and ill-treatment while detained by the [Palestinian] Preventive Security Agency in Hebron. On [April 28] 2013, he was rushed to the Public Hospital of Hebron for the second time after suffering speech impairment and injuries due to being subjected to beating on the head while hand-cuffed in solitary confinement throughout the period of his detention.

Yet, in contrast to the Guardian’s intense focus on one unsubstantiated accusation of torture in an Israeli jail, we were unable to find any mention at all by Guardian reporters or ‘CiF’ contributors of Muhammad Abdelkareem Dar Muhammad’s case, nor any of the other instances of torture and abuse of Palestinian prisoners in PA jails.

Though we’ve often charged the Guardian with consistently engaging in ‘activist journalism’ – searching for evidence to buttress preconceived pro-Palestinian conclusions – this observation is likely only half correct. The ubiquity of reporting alleging Israeli mistreatment of Palestinians stands in contrast to the dearth of stories in the paper highlighting Palestinian mistreatment of fellow Palestinians – all of which suggests that advancing a narrative of Israeli oppression is of far greater concern to their reporters than genuine advocacy on behalf of Palestinian human rights.    

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Jun 14 2013

Glenn Greenwald at Marxism Conference: Defends Anwar Al-Awaki, calls 9/11 attacks “minimal in scope”

As was revealed in the blogosphere yesterday, Glenn Greenwald, the Guardian journalist who helped Edward Snowden launch the NSA leaks scandal, has addressed the International Socialist Organization’s  annual conference in 2011 and 2012 - and is set to address the radical group again later this year in Chicago.

The International Socialist Organization (ISO) is one of America’s main Marxist ‘revolutionary’ parties, and represents the “Marxist tradition, founded by Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, and continued by V.I. Lenin, Rosa Luxemburg and Leon Trotsky.”

The upcoming ISO event – which features, among other radical speakers, Ali Abunimah, as well as an anti-Zionist Jew named Sherry Wolf, who has justified Hamas terrorism, and characterized Zion­ist Jews as “white suprema­cist racists” - is sponsored by the Center for Economic Research and Social Change (CERSC).  CERSC is the publisher of International Socialist Review and Haymarket Books (which has published books by Abunimah, and sponsors the anti-Zionist blog Mondoweiss) and the publisher of Socialist Worker.

Here’s the official trailer for the 2013 event.

What follows are clips of Greenwald at the ISO Conference in 2011 speaking about Anwar al-Awlaki, and other related issues.  Al-Awlaki was an American and Yemeni Imam, and the al-Qaeda regional commander (killed by U.S. forces after Greenwald’s 2011 speech) who was a senior ‘talent recruiter’ for the group, and who likely influenced the jihadist rampage of the Fort Hood shooter and the attempted attack by the ‘Underwear Bomber‘.  

Greenwald can be heard during the video characterizing al-Awlaki as someone whose only crimes were ”speak[ing] effectively to the Muslim world about violence that the U.S. commits in [Yemen] and the responsibility of Muslims to stand up to this violence.”

Here’s a clip of Greenwald later in the same speech where he expresses his hope for a weakening of the United States and its malign “imperialism”, and characterizes the 9/11 attacks by Al-Qaeda as very “minimal in scope”.

(Here’s his full 2011 speech. And, here is his speech to the ISO in 2012.)

As I argued recently, Greenwald is not a mere civil libertarian or a ‘progressive’ commentator but, rather, a radical, anti-American activist, who aids our enemies by amplifying their toxic rhetoric.   

Whatever may come from the debate currently underway about NSA surveillance techniques, we can not let those, like Greenwald, inspired by a palpable loathing of America frame the debate concerning how best to defend the country against reactionary Islamists extremists openly committed to the murder of our citizens. 

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Jun 13 2013

‘Comment is Free’ contributor Abdel al-Bari Atwan sympathizes with Osama Bin Laden

Abdel al-Bari Atwan is the editor-in chief of the London-based Arab newspaper Al-Quds Al-Arabi, and has been named among the 50 ‘most influential Arabs’ by Middle East Magazine.  His pro-Palestinian, anti-Zionist politics can be best summed up by his fanciful boast a few years ago that he would dance in the streets in London’s Trafalgar Square if Iranian nuclear missiles were to hit Tel Aviv.

iran

In fact, Atwan’s satisfaction when contemplating the murder of Jews wasn’t theoretical, and certainly was not a one-off.  

In March 2008, for instance, Atwan said that the Mercaz HaRav Jerusalem terrorist attack, in which a Palestinian gunmen murdered eight students (aged 15 to 26), was “justified”, and that the celebrations in Gaza following the attack symbolized “the courage of the Palestinian nation”.  Atwan also praised the 2011 Palestinian terror attack on civilians in southern Israel which resulted in 8 dead and 25 injured, and was even critical of Mahmoud Abbas’s recent condemnation of the abduction of Israeli soldiers, in an essay which praised Hamas for its achievement in releasing over 1,000 prisoners as part of the Gilad Shalit deal.

As my colleague Hadar Sela recently noted, Atwan is regular guest on BBC’s Newsnight. He is also, unsurprisingly, a frequent contributor to ‘Comment is Free’ – having penned 12 essays at the Guardian blog over the past two years.

Most recently, MEMRI reported, Atwan told Egypt’s Channel 2 on June 2nd that Osama Bin Laden was only “half a terrorist,” since his organization’s attacks against American forces in Saudi Arabia could not be considered terrorism, before adding:

If you support the Palestinian resistance, you do not consider [Bin Laden's attacks] terrorism. But if you are with America, Europe, and Israel, you do consider it terrorism…It depends on your definition of terrorism.

Here’s the video:

According to Atwan, who in 2010 characterized the late al-Qaeda leader a “great man“, the question of whether or not Bin Laden was in fact a “terrorist” depends on your definition of the term.

Sound familiar?

As we’ve reported on multiple occasions, ‘Comment is Free’ correspondent Glenn Greenwald has advanced similar arguments, alternately decrying the “meaninglessness” of the word, suggesting that the term is ‘racially loaded’ and that it typically represents rhetorical propaganda exploited by the U.S. to justify ‘state violence’ against Muslims. 

However, lost in the “debate” about whether fanatics like Bin Laden are terrorists is the much more important truth regarding the ideology which inspires their tactic of terror.  The West opposes al-Qaeda, and other Islamist extremist groups, not merely because they support the use of violence against innocent civilians, but also due to the fact that their political objectives include replacing liberal, democratic governments with Taliban-style tyrannical regimes antithetical to democracy, religious pluralism, gender equality, and sexual freedom.

Terrorism, for al-Qaeda and like-minded jihadists around the globe, represents merely a ‘strategy’ in their dangerously reactionary political crusade. 

As those like Atwan and Greenwald continue to engage in such cynicism and sophistry – in an attempt to make us debate the narrow question of the meaning of the term “terrorism” – it’s vital to remember that we fight such enemies not solely due to the extremist (terrorist) methods they employ, but because their political vision is diametrically opposed to the progressive values we cherish.

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Jun 13 2013

Glenn Greenwald and the anti-American conspiratorial tradition

Here are a few paragraphs from my essay published today at PJ Media:

Glenn Greenwald is a former blogger at Salon.com and currently a columnist on civil liberties and U.S. national security issues for the Guardian. His political orientation embraces a brand of “anti-imperialism” — common within the UK far-left — informed by a palpable loathing of America, a nation characterized as a dangerous force in the world. Greenwald’s anti-Americanism is so intense that he once compared the U.S. overthrow of Saddam Hussein in Iraq to the Nazi conquest of Europe.

As is the case with many Guardian-brand commentators, Greenwald’s anti-imperialist ideological package includes a strong hostility to Israel, and a corresponding belief in the injurious influence of organized U.S. Jewry on American foreign policy in the Middle East. Indeed, Greenwald has not infrequently advanced explicitly antisemitic narratives, darkly warning of the Israel lobby’s total “stranglehold” on American policy which, he’s argued, represents a control over political debate in the U.S. so complete that it’s even eroded free speech protections afforded by the U.S. Constitution. Greenwald claims that the “real goal” of the Israel lobby is to ensure “suffocating control” on U.S. foreign policy, so that Americans aren’t even allowed to debate their country’s “indescribably self-destructive, blind support for Israeli action.”

Greenwald also often imputes the darkest, most ignoble motives to his political opponents, once, for instance, accusing conservative Jewish columnist Charles Krauthammer of possessing a “psychopathic indifference to the slaughter of innocent people in pursuit of shadowy, unstated political goals.”

Understanding Greenwald’s imputations of bad faith and conspiratorial (often bigoted) narratives is vital in contextualizing the story which he broke at the Guardian last week about the NSA collection of phone records of Verizon users, and allegations that big tech companies granted the government access to private user information via an operation called PRISM. While significant allegations included in Greenwald’s “scoop” — such as the claim that the NSA had attained “direct access” to company servers, and the casual suggestion that the NSA has been acting illegally — don’t seem to hold up to critical scrutiny, he has also engaged in characteristically risible hyperbole in attempting to frame the issues.

Read the rest of the essay, here.

Jun 10 2013

Martin Rowson: Israel lobby uses antisemitism to silence critics of Zionist brutality

Yesterday, we commented on a cartoon by the Guardian’s Martin Rowson depicting Henry Kissinger which drew upon the visual language of antisemitism – and included the stereotypically large hooked nose, a sneering expression and oversized blood dripped hands.

We briefly noted that, in January, Rowson had defended, in a Guardian commentary, the Gerald Scarfe cartoon depicting bloody, mangled Palestinian bodies buried over with cement, laid by the bloody trowel of a sinister Israeli Prime Minister.  However, he did also acknowledged the history of “Streicher’s foul Nazi rag” which “regularly published the vilest antisemitic cartoons imaginable” – an acknowledgment would suggest that he clearly is familiar with the visual genre of Jew hatred.

How, then do we explain his caricature of Kissinger? 

Again, here is a side by side comparison of Rowson’s Kissinger with the Jew depicted in the Nazi-era book published by Julius Streicher titled ‘The Poisonous Mushroom’.mushroom

Our suspicion that, whatever the inspiration for this particular cartoon, Rowson doesn’t seem to take serious critiques (that his work draws upon antisemitic stereotypes) seriously was confirmed by an interview he gave a few months ago for a leftist magazine – with a predictably anti-Zionist bent – called ‘Red Pepper”.

The journalist at Red Pepper wrote the following: 

Though as a satirist you’d think Rowson would use the forum to launch a vigorous defense of the right to offend, the following exchange shows that he makes exceptions to this principle.  During the interview Rowson is clear that ‘freedom of speech does not absolve the cartoonist of the responsibility for judging what to draw and when‘. While no forms of authority are to be declared ‘off-limits’, the power to ridicule must be exercised judiciously. He is fond of the describing the task of the satirist as ‘afflicting the comfortable and comforting the afflicted’.

Rowson then expands on this subject, responding to a question from the interviewer about the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten’s publication of images mocking Muhammad, by adding the following:

You have to question the motives behind this commission, and to bear in mind the context of years of anti-immigrant propaganda in Denmark. There was no real point behind publishing this stuff other than to feed this victimisation of a minority.

After questioning the judgement of the Danish cartoonists over their decision to draw a cartoon about Muhammad which offended Muslims, Rowson then interestingly pivots to another group – the Jewish community. 

‘The Israel lobby is particularly masterful in using this to silence criticism of their brutally oppressive colonialism.

..

I drew one cartoon for the Guardian which had the boot of an Israeli soldier stamping on a dove of peace after it had left Noah’s ark. Then I had a stream of abuse from a Zionist group which accused me of anti-semitism.

In fact the “Zionist group” in question may be CiF Watch – as we posted about the cartoon here and here.  

Here’s the 2010 Guardian cartoon he’s referring to, published a few days after the flotilla story had broken, which, as you can see, uses biblical imagery in depicting murderous Israeli troops killing the dove of peace, while another soldier is seen aiming his weapon at two unicorns:

screenshot110

Rowson continues:

‘[One man] said the animals in the picture were specifically referenced in the biblical text – it’s a calculated insult to the Jews. I’d already anticipated this line of attack so had deliberately thrown in a few more for good measure.

(Part of the conversation below the line of his Guardian cartoon he’s referring to was actually recounted in a CiF Watch post, here.)

Rowson continues:

So I said, perhaps you would be so kind as to point me to the biblical references to the beavers, the orang-utan, the walrus and the okapi – a species first identified at the turn of the last century. At which point he accused me of being in denial about my anti-semitism!

Finally, he complains:

‘You can’t win – [antisemitism is] the ultimate trump card. No matter how many innocent people the Israeli state kills, any criticism is automatically proof of anti-semitism. No wonder idiots like Ahmadinejad want to deny the holocaust. They are jealous. They’d love to silence their critics like that.’

In addition to the strawman he evokes, and his deftness at employing what’s known as the Livingstone Formulation, Rowson truly seems to wake up in the morning concerned that Israel is not subjected to enough criticism.  He not only draws upon often crude antisemitic stereotypes, but attempts to frame his confrontation with this miniscule and historically oppressed ethnic minority as an act of bravery.

Rowson believes that he is not just a ‘truth teller’, but part of a cadre of fearless writers and artists who are unafraid to speak truth to Jewish power. 

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Jun 5 2013

What the Media Won’t Tell You About ‘Palestinian Prisoners’

Harriet Sherwood’s April 9, 2013 Guardian report, about efforts by John Kerry to restart Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, discussed concessions demanded of Israel by Mahmoud Abbas before he’ll agree to resume negotiations, and included this passage:

The Palestinians also want the release of 123 political prisoners who have been in jail since before the Oslo accords were signed almost 20 years ago, and for Israel to present a map showing proposed borders. [Emphasis added]

After CiF Watch complained to the Guardian readers’ editor – demonstrating conclusively that the pre-Oslo prisoners were all convicted of violent/terrorist-related crimes and can not honestly be characterized as “political prisoners” – the language in Sherwood’s report was revised to note that it is only the Palestinians who view them as “political prisoners”.

However, use of such euphemisms and biased terminology is only part of a larger problem involving the mainstream media outlets’ whitewashing of the terrorist acts and violent crimes committed by ‘Palestinian prisoners’, who often fail to mention the crimes at all or significantly downplay the degree of violence.

The following report on the media’s highly misleading (often ideologically motivated) coverage of the ‘Palestinian prisoner’ issue includes data released by Israel’s Ministry of Justice on the pre-Oslo prisoners – detailed information which has been translated from the original Hebrew and is being published for the first time exclusively at CAMERA.

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Jun 3 2013

‘Comment is Free’ contributor: Is the “Global war on Terrorism” all about Israel?

For well over a decade now the U.S. has been “a nation at war”, explains Andrew Bacevich in a May 28 essay at ‘Comment is Free’, before asking: “Does that war have a name”?

namelessBacevich employs the opening query to lament that the ‘Global War on Terror’ which began on September 11, 2001 is nameless, writing thusly:

When it comes to war, a name attached to a date can shape our understanding of what the conflict was all about. To specify when a war began and when it ended is to privilege certain explanations of its significance while discrediting others

After providing a bit of background on the imperfect names given to other wars – such as the Civil War, World War I, and World War II – Bacevich considers some possible monikers for the current military enterprise “we’ve been waging…in Iraq and Afghanistan [and] other countries…across the Islamic world”.  He proposes names such as “The Long War”, “The War against al-Qaida”, “The War for the Greater Middle East”, and even “The War Against Islam” or “The War for/against/about Israel“.  

Bacevich devotes a bit of space making the case for each possibility, and writes the following as a possible justification for the latter Israeli-centric title: 

It began in 1948. For many Jews, the founding of the state of Israel signified an ancient hope fulfilled. For many Christians, conscious of the sin of anti-Semitism that had culminated in the Holocaust, it offered a way to ease guilty consciences, albeit mostly at others’ expense. For many Muslims, especially Arabs, and most acutely Arabs who had been living in Palestine, the founding of the Jewish state represented a grave injustice. It was yet another unwelcome intrusion engineered by the west – colonialism by another name.

Recounting the ensuing struggle without appearing to take sides is almost impossible. Yet one thing seems clear: in terms of military involvement, the United States attempted in the late 1940s and 50s to keep its distance. Over the course of the 60s, this changed. The US became Israel’s principal patron, committed to maintaining its military superiority over its neighbors.

In the decades that followed, the two countries forged a multifaceted “strategic relationship”. A compliant Congress provided Israel with weapons and assistance worth billions of dollars, testifying to what has become an unambiguous and irrevocable US commitment to the safety and wellbeing of the Jewish state. Meanwhile, just as Israel had disregarded US concerns when it came to developing nuclear weapons, it ignored persistent US requests that it refrain from colonizing territory that it has conquered.

When it comes to identifying the minimal essential requirements of Israeli security and the terms that will define any Palestinian-Israeli peace deal, the US defers to Israel. That may qualify as an overstatement, but only slightly. Given the Israeli perspective on those requirements and those terms – permanent military supremacy and a permanently demilitarized Palestine allowed limited sovereignty the War for/against/about Israel is unlikely to end anytime soon either. Whether the US benefits from the perpetuation of this war is difficult to say, but we are in it for the long haul.

This remarkably ahistorical account of the Israeli-Palestinian (and Israeli-Islamist) Conflict – which erases over six decades of Arab wars, terrorism and belligerence – is provided to buttress the argument that the ‘Global War’ against Islamist extremism is arguably rooted in an understandable grievance against Israeli policy.  

Bacevich’s facile analysis of course ignores Islamism’s expansionist and reactionary political pedigree (the Muslim Brotherhood movement which gave birth to modern Islamism seeks the universal imposition of Sharia law, and proclaims that violent jihad and martyrdom is their path), as well as the obvious timeline (the Brotherhood was founded twenty years before Israel’s birth, and by the 1930s was already calling for boycotts against Jewish owned businesses in the Middle East).

However, even if we were to give credence to such specious ‘Zionist root cause’ arguments for modern terror (which ignore both chronology and ideology), proponents of such arguments often go further than merely asserting causation, suggesting that there’s in fact something reasonable, or even just, about such ‘grievances’ about Israel’s very existence.

No, the ‘War on Terror’ – or whatever Bacevich prefers to call the West’s battle with global jihadism – isn’t about Israel.  However, even if a malign obsession with Israel did indeed represent the root cause of their violence, its difficult to understand how any truly liberal commentator could implicitly assign blame to the Jewish target of such antipathy.    

Indeed, Bacevich – quite interestingly in light of his gig at ‘Comment is Free’ – has also contributed to Pat Buchanan’s paleo-conservative magazine, the American Conservative’, and penned a piece there in 2012 titled ‘How we became Israel‘.  His essay includes a characterization of the US ‘War on Terror’ – and America’s willingness since 9/11 to use force around the globe – as a dangerous sign that “U.S. national-security policy increasingly conforms to patterns of behavior pioneered by the Jewish state”, what he terms the ”Israelification of U.S. policy”.

The Zionist footprint on the war on terror, for Andrew Bacevich, is simply undeniable, and arguably global.

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May 28 2013

CiF Watch prompts Guardian correction to report on Palestinian prisoners

On April 10, we commented on a Guardian report by Harriet Sherwood, titled ‘John Kerry: talks with Netanyahu and Abbas very constructive‘, about efforts by US Secretary of State John Kerry to restart Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.  Sherwood’s report included several passages about concessions demanded of Israel by Mahmoud Abbas before he’ll agree to resume negotiations, including the following:

[Abbas] also wants the release of 123 political prisoners who have been in jail since before the Oslo accords were signed almost 20 years ago, and for Israel to present a map showing proposed borders. [emphasis added]

As we attempted to demonstrate at the time, using merely open source information, the Palestinians she was alluding to were all convicted for their involvement in murder, or attempted murder, and that the characterization of them as “political prisoners” – suggesting that they were imprisoned merely for their beliefs – seemed to be flatly untrue. 

Additionally, some time after our post CiF Watch was able to obtain detailed information on the pre-Oslo prisoners from Emi Palmor, the Director of Pardons at the Israeli Justice Ministry, which included the crimes, dates of conviction and other relevant facts on every Palestinian prisoner in question.   Palmor’s information proved conclusively that all of the prisoners consisted of common criminals convicted of murder and (mostly) terrorists who murdered or attempted to murder Israeli civilians, soldiers, or foreign tourists.

Some time after providing the Guardian with proof that the Palestinians in question can not fairly be referred to “political prisoners” they agreed to revise the passage, which now modifies the claim to note that the pre-Oslo prisoners are merely described as “political prisoners” by the Palestinians:

The Palestinians also want the release of 123 prisoners, viewed as political prisoners by the Palestinians, who have been in jail since before the Oslo accords were signed almost 20 years ago, and for Israel to present a map showing proposed borders.

As we noted at the time of our original post, many Palestinians regard even compatriots convicted of deadly terrorist acts euphemistically as “political prisoners”, and that Sherwood’s text, intentionally or otherwise, served to legitimize the Palestinian narrative which glorifies even terrorists convicted of the most gruesome crimes as ‘victims’ of Israeli oppression. 

Our efforts to secure the definition of the term “political prisoner” – which is clearly understood to mean ‘those who are imprisoned for their political beliefs’ - represents an attempt to fight back against the manipulation of language, in the service of an egregiously pro-Palestinian agenda, which is routinely advanced by the Guardian and their fellow political travelers.

This Guardian revision represents one victory within the larger cognitive war.

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May 28 2013

Guardian provides PR for failing BDS campaign against EU football championship in Israel

The 2013 European Under-21 Football Championship (UEFA U-21) - hosted by Israel from June 5th through the 18th – represents the 19th staging of the event.  National football teams from all over Europe will compete, with England, Germany, Spain, Italy, Russia, the Netherlands and Norway, alongside Israel, all vying for the title of champion.

Anti-Israel boycott campaigners (branded as “Red Card Israeli Racism”) are campaigning for the tournament not to be held in Israel as part of a sporting boycott of the Jewish state. And, though their BDS efforts will certainly fail, the Guardian has begun providing these anti-Israel campaigners with the publicity they desire. 

Indeed, the latest two Guardian reports on their site’s Israel page are a letter calling on the UEF (Union of European Football) to reverse their decision to choose Israel as a venue (‘Uefa insensitivity to Palestinians plight’, May 27), and a story, in the sports section, reporting on the publication of the very same letter the Guardian had just published (‘Uefa accused of ignoring anti-Palestinian bias‘, David Feeny, May 28).

uefa

Here’s the text of the May 27 Guardian letter:

On Friday, delegates from European football associations gathered in a London hotel for Uefa‘s annual congress (Report, 24 May). They agreed new, strict guidelines to deal with racism, suggesting a commendable determination to combat discrimination in the sport.

We find it shocking that this same organisation shows total insensitivity to the blatant and entrenched discrimination inflicted on Palestinian sportsmen and women by Israel.

Despite direct appeals from representatives of the sport in Palestine and from anti-racist human rights campaigners across Europe, Uefa is rewarding Israel’s cruel and lawless behaviour by granting it the honour of hosting the European Under-21 finals next month.

Uefa should not allow Israel to use a prestigious football occasion to whitewash its racist denial of Palestinian rights and its illegal occupation of Palestinian land.

We urge Uefa to follow the brave example of world-renowned scientist Stephen Hawking who, on advice from Palestinian colleagues, declined to take part in an international conference in Israel. We call on Uefa, even at this late stage, to reverse the choice of Israel as a venue.

Here are the signatories to the BDS call in the Guardian. As you’ll note by reading our brief bios, the group is dominated by ‘Patrons’ from the fringe group, Palestine Solidarity Campaign:

Archbishop Desmond Tutu:  Former civil rights leader in South Africa with an apparent blind spot when it comes to Jews.  Tutu, for instance, has evoked classic antisemitic stereotypes and tropes about Jewish “arrogance”, “power” and money.

Frédéric Kanouté: A footballer who, we revealed in early December, had falsely claimed that several other footballers had called on European football’s governing body to cancel Israel’s hosting of the Under-21 Finals.

John Austin MP: Palestine Solidarity Campaign Patron and Former Labour MP for Woolwich.

Rodney Bickerstaffe: Palestine Solidarity Campaign Patron.

Bob Crow: Palestine Solidarity Campaign Patron.

Victoria Brittain: Palestine Solidarity Campaign Patron and former Guardian associate foreign editor, who once chaired an event at the pro-Hamas group, MEMO.

Jeremy Corbyn MP: Palestine Solidarity Campaign Patron and an obsessively anti-Israel campaigner who had participated in a meeting organized by the openly pro-Hamas group MEMO, and has actually opined quite explicitly in defense of both Hamas and Hezbollah.

Caryl Churchill: Palestine Solidarity Campaign Patron and author of the antisemitic play Seven Jewish Children’.

Rev Garth Hewitt: Palestine Solidarity Campaign Patron, and singer/songwriter.

Dr Ghada Karmi: Palestine Solidarity Campaign Patron, one-state promoter and ‘Comment is Free’ contributor.

Bruce Kent: Palestine Solidarity Campaign Patron.

Ken Loach: Palestine Solidarity Campaign Patron, and a film-maker who has participated in countless anti-Israel campaigns, and has even participated in the kangaroo court known as the Russell Tribunal on Palestine where he accused the Jewish state of adopting a policy of ‘racial purity’.

Michael Mansfield QC: A British lawyer and Palestine Solidarity Campaign supporter, who has endorsed the Muslim Brotherhood-led ‘Free Gaza’ campaign – and also has participated in the Russell Tribunal on Palestine.

Kika Markham: Palestine Solidarity Campaign Patron, Actor, and supporter of Viva Palestina

Luisa Morgantini: Former vice-president, European parliament. 

Prof Hilary Rose, Prof Steven Rose: Palestine Solidarity Campaign Patrons, and among the founding members of British Committee for Universities of Palestine (BRICUP). Their obsessive criticism of Jews, and of the Jewish state, inspired Anthony Julius to observe that they seem “proud to be ashamed to be Jews”. 

Alexei Sayle: Author and comedian, Palestine Solidarity Campaign Patron and Marxist.

Jenny Tonge: Most notable for her remarks that she might have been a suicide bomber had she been born a Palestinian, as well as her claim that “the pro-Israeli lobby has got its grips on the Western World, its financial grips [and] a certain grip on [the Labor] party”. Tonge also is infamous for calling on Israel to “investigate” the IDF in light of charges they were stealing organs in Haiti. 

Dr Antoine Zahlan, Palestine Solidarity Campaign Patron and Arab academic.

Geoffrey Lee: Affiliated with the group leading efforts to boycott Israeli football, ‘Red Card Israeli Racism‘ 

Tomas Perez: According to the Guardian, he’s affiliated with the group Football Beyond Borders

John McHugo: Chair of Liberal Democrat Friends of Palestine, board member of CAABU, the Council for Arab-British Understanding. He has also contributed essays for the website of the pro-Hamas group MEMO.

Roger Lloyd Pack: Actor best known for his role as ‘Trigger’ in the BBC series ‘Only Fools and Horses’

Whilst this campaign, like so many other abysmal attempts to isolate Israel by the anti-Zionist left, will certainly fail, it’s important to contextualize BDS in all of its manifestations as the political derivative of various Arab (and Soviet) led boycotts which have been used for many decades as weapons in the war against Israel.  In its modern incarnation BDS represents the main component of the “Durban strategy” – adopted by the NGO Forum of the UN’s Durban Conference (2001) – adopted by pro-Palestinian groups to completely isolate Israel by promoting economic, academic, cultural and even (as in this case) sporting boycotts of Israel.

As NGO monitor summed up the BDS movement:

  • Boycotts are the antithesis of dialogue, cooperation, and developing peaceful ties between Israelis and Palestinians.
  • Ali Abunimah, major BDS speaker and head of “Electronic Intifada,” labels Palestinian leaders who negotiate with Israel “collaborators.”
  • BDS activists promote “one-state” solutions, meaning the elimination of Israel as the historic homeland of the Jewish nation. (A political goal which is codified as antisemitic by the EU.)

Further, this particular boycott movement – targeting Israel by attempting to politicize European football – has garnered almost no traction beyond marginal figures and a few extreme anti-Israel movements.

Foreign Secretary William Hague said after Liberal Democrat MP Bob Russell asked why the government was supporting the tournament: “I do not believe that sporting fixtures should be an obstacle to political progress of any form”. Responding to the president of the Palestinian Football Association, FIFA President Platini said that UEFA did not believe in “punishing people and isolating them”.

Additionally, it is worth noting that the Israeli U21 squad comes from a range of backgrounds, and includes Jewish Israelis, Arab Israelis and foreign football players.

We’ll leave you with a video featuring two outstanding Israeli players – Captain Eyal Golasa, a Netanya native who plays for Maccabi Haifa, and Moanes Dabur, an Arab-Israeli player for Maccabi Tel Aviv – talking about the Israeli national under-21 team and showing off their skills.

May 27 2013

Ali Abunimah goes to Gaza

Cross posted by Petra Marquardt-Bigman 

He tried and failed several times before, but this week, Ali Abunimah finally made it to Gaza.

Obviously, the co-founder of the Electronic Intifada and passionate anti-Israel activist has devoted fans in the Hamas-ruled territory, and they eagerly awaited his arrival. Everyone – including Abunimah himself – was apparently a bit worried that there might be problems crossing the Egyptian-controlled border, which had been recently closed by Egyptian police to protest the kidnapping of several colleagues by Islamist gunmen. And it’s safe to assume that the fact that Israel couldn’t be blamed for the closure and other problems at the crossing made it all so much harder to bear.

Obviously, during his stay in Gaza, Ali Abunimah will do his very best to come up with many reasons to blame Israel. Indeed, his popular “narratives” about the bottomless evils of Israel and Zionism have presumably led to his invitation to the currently ongoing Palestine Festival of Literature (PalFest) – though it is a bit strange that an activist who likes to present himself as a serious reporter and political commentator would be invited to a festival that is supposedly devoted to literature and the arts. But perhaps Ali Abunimah’s advocacy should indeed be regarded as an art form that deserves to be featured in an event supported by organizations like the British Council and the Arts Council England?

I for one would never accuse Ali Abunimah of sticking to facts or bothering much with reality.

And sure enough, one of his first tweets after crossing from Egypt into Gaza illustrated one of Abunimah’s favorite fairy tales: that Israeli cities like Ashkelon are “occupied” Palestinian towns.

fishing

Of course, Hamas terrorists have similar views:

qassam

Unsurprisingly, Ali Abunimah is an outspoken supporter of the kind of “resistance” Hamas advocates and practices, and just like Hamas, he doesn’t waste time pretending that he is for peaceful co-existence: Hamas claims a Palestine extending “from the river to the sea,” and Abunimah wants to see this territory as “One Country.” Similarly, while Hamas denounces the Jews as the incarnation of evil, Abunimah makes his living demonizing “the Zionists” as inhumane Nazi-type racists who like nothing better than inflicting untold suffering on the poor Palestinians.

Given the fact that most Israeli Jews are committed  Zionists, it’s of course a bit puzzling why Abunimah would want to condemn the Palestinians to share “One Country” with such evil people.

Moreover, Abunimah’s claims that his “One Country” would be a democratic secular paradise with equal rights for everyone are laughable given the well-documented reactionary and even extremist views of many Palestinians.  As blogger Elder of Ziyon highlighted, a recently published Pew survey of Muslim views demonstrates that Palestinian Muslims “are among the most religiously conservative and intolerant” of the Muslim publics polled by Pew.

It is noteworthy that this preference is reflected in the proposed constitution for a Palestinian state, which stipulates that “Islam is the official religion in Palestine” and that the “principles of Islamic Shari’a shall be the main source of legislation.”

While Ali Abunimah is usually very good at ignoring the unpleasant Palestinian realities that can’t be blamed on Israel, he seemed somewhat upset to come across examples of Sharia enforcement in Gaza. Thus, he was clearly dismayed to find out that for web users in Gaza, “Dating sites are blocked!” – but naturally, he was reluctant to blame Hamas and suggested that “the censorship is done by the PA,” i.e. the Palestinian West Bank authority that he despises so heartily.

However, a Twitter user from Gaza contradicted him, asserting that “Hamas blocked dating sites recently. Part of their ‘modesty’ policing.”

just like

datingBy and large however, Ali Abunimah energetically focused on what he was invited for: demonizing Israel and advocating the abolition of the world’s only Jewish state in favor of his “One Country”-fantasy. Judging from some of the images that were tweeted, it unfortunately looks as if just a handful of people attended his workshop, but there were clearly some enthusiastic fans who listened attentively to “@AliAbunimah debunking the two-state solution. Awesome #PalFest.”

deb

In addition to fulfilling his PalFest obligations by sharing his tips on creating “narratives” to demonize Israel, Abunimah was busy looking out for any new material that could somehow be used to rail about Israel. Among his finds was a sign in Hebrew that he promptly photographed and tweeted with the devastating comment: “Hebrew is still omnipresent in Gaza. #colonialism.” He was also appalled to find out that Gazans use Israeli currency.

Then it was time to echo the popular Palestinian “blood-and-soil”-theme. Visiting Khuza’a in the southern Gaza Strip right at the border with Israel, Abunimah tweeted a picture of a handful of grains with the melodramatic comment: “Palestinian wheat grown in #Gaza with sweat and tears under the occupier’s guns.” Another picture of the area, showing what seems to be a tower in the distance, comes with the claim: “New occupier watch tower regularly fires on farmers working their land in Khuza’a.” However, tweeting yet another picture of apparently the same area, Abunimah lamented that “Land once full of olive trees now barren thanks to occupier bulldozers and tanks.”

While in the real world the plight of Khuza’a’s farmers is due to the unfortunate fact that Gaza terrorists like to use their farmlands to launch attacks on Israel, in the world of Ali Abunimah and his fans, there is of course no reason whatsoever to wonder why the “occupier” would be so cruel to poor, innocent, hard-working Palestinian farmers – it goes without saying that shooting them and making their lives hell is what the evil Zionists like to do just for fun!!!

Let’s all hope that Ali Abunimah will be able to avoid any encounter with farmers in Gaza who attend Israeli fairs and workshops to improve their production – and hopefully, he will not ingest any of their produce! Admittedly, though, should any such misfortune befall him, he surely would find a creative way to spin it into an edifying story about oppressive-colonial-supremacist-racist-Zionist subjugation, exploitation, occupation and much worse…

* * *

Update:

Thanks to some hardworking – surely female – artisans in Gaza, Ali Abunimah has found an embroidery of his “One Country:”

ali

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May 27 2013

Guardian deletes ALL reader comments from Glenn Greenwald’s Woolwich related posts (Updated)

A CiF Watcher recently informed us that every one of the comments beneath the line of Glenn Greenwald’s two Woolwich terror attack related commentaries disappeared without warning.  

Greenwald’s posts (‘Was the London killing of a British soldier ‘terrorism‘?’, May 23, and ‘Andrew Sullivan, terrorism and the art of distortion‘, May 25) both elicited an extremely large volume of comments, all of which at some point disappeared, prompting Greenwald to write the following beneath the posts.

For reasons I’ll let the Guardian explain, all of the comments to all of the columns and articles posted on the London attack were deleted, and the comment sections then closed. I hope that won’t happen to today’s column here, as the topics discussed here are not really about the attack but the broader debate about terrorism. But it’s possible that it will happen again. Those wanting to post comments should be aware of this possibility before spending your time and energy to write one.

Additionally, the comment function seems to have been turned off on every other Woolwich related commentary we could find at CiF, even beneath a post by the Guardian’s readers’ editor Chris Elliott which addressed the paper’s coverage of the attack.

Below Greenwald’s brief explanation, the Guardian has added the following:

Comments have been removed for legal reasons. Further explanation of UK law around active court cases here

The link takes you to a post by Bella Mackie, from over a year ago, titled ‘Why we sometimes turn off comments‘, which cites the Guardian’s director of editorial legal services, Gill Phillips.  Here is his explanation:

As publishers we are legally responsible for all the output that we produce whether it be news stories, comment above or below the line, and our tweets etc. This applies equally to matters of contempt as it does to matters of defamation.

Section 1 of the Contempt of Court Act 1981 states that it is a contempt of court to publish material that creates a substantial risk of serious prejudice in proceedings from the period that a defendant is arrested to the date that they are sentenced or found not guilty of an offence. This is known as the active period. This provision is designed to ensure that people get a fair trial and applies once anyone has been arrested. Section 1 creates a “strict liability” offence, so intent is irrelevant.

Legally speaking, charging a suspect has no particular significance in terms of what can or cannot be reported because the active period starts on arrest. Practically speaking however, it can be said that the risks of adversely affecting a trial increase once someone has been charged, particularly with a serious offence because (i) you know there will be a trial; and (ii) you know that the trial will be before a jury; (iii) and you know that the trial will take place sooner rather than later. The closer the trial gets, arguably the greater the risk because matter will start to stick in the minds of potential jurors.

The sort of matters that traditionally have been held to be in contempt include (i) publishing anything that suggests the defendants are in fact guilty or prejudges the outcome; (ii) publishing “bad character” material or previous convictions about them; (iii) publishing derogatory matter about them; (iv) publishing any material/evidence which it is possible the jury would not be told about.

We have to be particularly cautious about tweets and about “below the line” discussions of matters which are not pre-moderated and where we cannot expect members of the public to know the subtleties of the law of contempt.

There is a defence to contempt for “fair and accurate” court reports that protects us for example in terms of reporting the Leveson inquiry, providing we do so “fairly and accurately”. Often below-the-line comments do not simply “fairly and accurately” report what was said as opposed to passing comment on it so, as we have responsibilities as the publisher of all the material on our website (whether above or below the line), we do have to be very careful about allowing comments on Leveson pieces that touch on or refer to anyone who has been arrested. Generally speaking therefore, given that we would not want to run the risk of prejudicing someone’s right to a fair trial, it is sensible for us to maintain a situation where we restrict comments on pieces once people have been arrested because of the dangers of people posting prejudicial remarks.”

Mackie then adds additional possible reasons why CiF may turn comments off, none of which seem to apply in this case.

So, did the Guardian remove all of the comments beneath Greenwald’s commentary – and turn off comments for the other Woolwich related CiF pieces – for fear of prejudicing the future trial of Michael Olumide Adebolajo and the other suspects?

Greenwald has been uncharacteristically silent about the matter on Twitter, but we’ll do our best to try keeping you updated on this strange decision by Guardian editors as more facts become available. 

UPDATE: ‘Comment is Free’ editor Natalie Hanman just posted an explanation why comments were turned off for the Woolwich related commentary. Here it is:

There has been some confusion from commenters as to why we have turned off the ability to comment on Comment is free articles about the Woolwich attack. In an ideal world, we would allow our readers to debate all of the articles we run on the site, but we felt it was sensible for us to restrict comments on these pieces because once people have been arrested there is a risk of contempt of court if users post prejudicial remarks about the case. Following consultation with our lawyers and community moderators, we will endeavour from now on, where resources allow, to have one premoderated thread on the topic open each day. Today’s article from Boya Dee is here.

 

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May 26 2013

Commentators slam Glenn Greenwald for claiming ‘it’s our fault’ when Islamist terrorists attack

“terrorism” does not have any real meaning other than “a Muslim who commits violence against America and its allies”, so as soon as a Muslim commits violence, there is an automatic decree that it is “terrorism” even though no such assumption arises from similar acts committed by non-Muslims” – Glenn Greenwald, ‘Comment is Free’, April 22, 2013

…the term [terrorism] at this point seems to have no function other than propagandistically and legally legitimizing the violence of western states against Muslims while delegitimizing any and all violence done in return to those states. – Glenn Greenwald, ‘Comment is Free’, May 23, 2013

As this blog has documented continually, Glenn Greenwald is perhaps the most enthusiastic promoter of the Guardian Left narrative which suggests that there is no significant moral difference between reactionary Islamist movements and liberal Western democracies.  Greenwald often attempts to impute such moral equivalence by arguing, with varying degrees of explicitness, that the US (and other democracies involved in the war against Islamist terror) intentionally murder Muslim civilians.  

So, per Greenwald’s logic, the murder of Muslims qua Muslims by the West is what – quite understandably to Greenwald - inspires the wrath of Islamists in the West to commit lethal terror attacks against innocents, such as the recent savagery in London in which a British soldier named Lee Rigby was hacked to death by a British born convert to Islam named Michael Adebolajo

Greenwald’s specious moral logic, which serves to amplify the Islamist message that the West is indeed at war with Islam, has been exposed at this blog, and by quite a few other commentators.  

Here are a few suggested posts which effectively take on Greenwald, or at least fisk the logic he employs to arrive at the conclusion that it is our fault when Islamist terrorists murder civilians in the West.

Terry Glavin: ‘Fibbing about Terrorism and Badgering Muslims‘:

In my Ottawa Citizen column today I notice how moral illiteracy defines the way such reliably creepy arbiters of hip opinion as the Guardian’s Glenn Greenwald and the American celebrity bullshit artist Michael Moore are responding to the Woolwich atrocity. Michael Moore tries to get a laugh out of his Twitter followers about it, in his usual cheap and vulgar way, but it is only the fuzzy timidities around the definition and the common use of the term “terrorism” that allow Greenwald to so easily and completely normalize what he presents as perfectly understandable Muslim revenge violence.

Zach Novetsky: ‘Glenn Greenwald Terrorizes Logic‘:

Whenever a radical Islamist commits a horrific act of violence or an act of terrorism, Glenn Greenwald is there with the same all-powerful explanation: it is our fault. More specifically, it is the fault of anyone living in the United States or any “loyal, constant ally” state, as he put it on Twitter. Terrorists, it seems, have no agency.

Norman Geras: ‘The pristine logic of Glenn Greenwald‘

Given the swamp of apologetics and obscurantism into which the Guardian newspaper has turned itself during the last decade, it may seem unfair to pick out one particular contributor to this ongoing journalistic enterprise as especially egregious. Over the years there have been so many voices to choose from in that regard: the Buntings, the Milnes, the Steeles, the Gopals; and then also all those occasionals who, just like the regulars, can’t wait to put together some soft piece of advocacy to the effect that we, the Western democracies, are just plain no good – though, having nothing better to offer for the time being themselves, these commentators make what effort they can to excuse regimes and movements for which no compelling case could be made by anyone of mature moral sensibility.

It has to be said nonetheless that the swamp has now acquired its own special low point, the name of which is Glenn Greenwald.

Marc Goldberg: ‘Terror according to Glenn Greenwald‘

There were several things that surprised me about [Greenwald's] article as they were so counter intuitive for me to read. I say counter intuitive because I thought that his views were based on concern with human rights and being anti prejudice. It is for that reason that I was surprised by his consistent use of the word Muslim. His own rhetoric in fact mirrors the rhetoric of al Qaeda

Alexander Wickham: ‘This weeks utterly disturbing Leftists’

Greenwald’s equating of British soldiers to Islamist terrorists is even more repugnant. Of course the Left – and the Right for that matter – have legitimate criticisms over foreign policy, but to become so blinded by self-loathing that he blurs the distinction between good and evil, for me, makes Greenwald an apologist for terror

Richard Kemp: ‘Michael Adebolajo’s dangerous ignorance about Afghanistan‘

Michael Adebolajo, the knife-wielding, blood-soaked brute who is suspected of killing Drummer Lee Rigby told passersby he was fed up with people killing Muslims in Afghanistan. If that was the reason for Wednesday’s attack on Drummer Lee Rigby, Adebolajo should have travelled to Helmand and started wielding his knife against Taliban fighters. It is they who kill most Muslims in Afghanistan

Alan Johnson: ‘We need to talk about Islamism‘

In our intellectual culture religion is a mystery. That’s why the commentators mostly refuse to believe religion, any religion, can have anything to do with terrorism. So they either translate terrorists screaming “Allahu Akbar!” into something they can understand – economics, foreign policy, identity – or just change the subject altogether, writing instead (not as well) about the dangers of a racist backlash, the threat of the loss of civil liberties, and so on.

May 22 2013

Top 10 warning signs you may be a ‘Guardian Left’ anti-Semite

H/T Seumas

The Guardian’s associate editor Seumas Milne – who, in case it needs reminding, worked for the pro-Stalinist communist publication ‘Straight Left’ earlier in his career – was kind enough to Tweet a link to a piece in Foreign Policy Magazine by Stephen Walt.

The piece is titled ‘Top 10 warning signs you are a liberal imperialist‘.

The essay itself, written by the co-author of a book widely condemned for its shoddy scholarship and for arguing that Jews wield too much power in Washington, D.C., is unintentionally quite comical – a kind of ‘Western Guilt-Driven Guide to the Universe for Dummies’ – and includes, as #1, the following:

You frequently find yourself advocating that the United States send troops, drones, weapons, Special Forces, or combat air patrols to some country that you have never visited, whose language(s) you don’t speak, and that you never paid much attention to until bad things started happening there.

Whilst I don’t speak fluent academic-ese like the esteemed Harvard professor, I have become adept at deciphering an even more obscure dialect – the language of the Guardian Left.

So, in the spirit of Walt’s mockery of those who ‘unknowingly’ are compromised by a deep-seeded imperialism lurking in their subconscious, here is CiF Watch’s own ‘Top 10 warning signs you may be a Guardian Left anti-Semite‘ – a list, per the links below, inspired by real life Guardianistas!)

1. You claim the mantle of human rights yet find yourself running interference for anti-Semitic world leaders and helping to spread the propaganda of Islamist extremists - and even terrorist leaders who openly call for the murder of Jews.

2.  You claim to condemn racism at every opportunity yet are strangely silent or seriously downplay even the most egregious examples of antisemitic violence.

3. You claim to be a champion of progressive politics yet often use terms and advance tropes indistinguishable from classic right wing Judeophobia - such as the argument that Jews are too powerful, use their money to control politics, and are not loyal citizens.

4. You support nationalism, and don’t have a problem with the existence of more than 50 Muslim states, yet you oppose the existence of the only Jewish state in the world.

5. Even when putatively condemning antisemitism you can’t help but blame the Jews for causing antisemitism.

6. You condemn the Holocaust yet also obsessively condemn living Jews for their alleged ‘inhumanity’ and even argue that Jews haven’t learned the proper lessons from the attempt to annihilate their co-religionists from the planet.

7. You not only support Palestinian rights, but support their “right” to launch deadly terrorist attacks on Israeli Jews, under the mantle of anti-imperialist ”resistance”.

8. You characterize extremist reactionary Islamist movements as “progressive“.

9. You accuse Jews of cynically misusing the charge of antisemitism to “stifle” debate about the Jewish state.

10. You champion diversity and multiculturalism of all kinds, yet suggest that Jewish particularism represents an inherently tribal, ethnocentric and racist identity.

I’m sure there are more than ten – so please feel free to add to our list in the comment section below.

(This post was revised at 15:15 EST to correct a mistake concerning Seumas Milne’s work at Straight Left.)

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