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This is cross posted by Mark Gardner at the blog of the CST
The suggestion by Paul Flynn MP (Labour, Newport West), that Britain ought not to have a Jew as Ambassador to Israel, fuels the growing sense that it is becoming increasingly acceptable to say things about Jews that we had hoped were consigned to history. It also infers that Jews in public life must undergo systematic loyalty tests throughout their careers. Such logic is plainly racist, even if Flynn did not mean it to be.
If this phenomenon were restricted to ‘the usual suspects’ of the far right, then it would be easier to comprehend. The depressing reality, however, is that far too many such accusations come from within mainstream liberal-left sources in Parliament, media and campaigning circles. Indeed, Flynn’s outburst occurred in a Select Committee hearing with Britain’s most senior civil servant, Sir Gus O’Donnell.
When the accusations are openly about Jewish conspiracy (eg Tam Dalyell MP in 2003, “a cabal of Jewish advisers”), it is relatively straightforward to call them for what they reveal. (Although Paul Foot in the Guardian famously argued otherwise.) When the accusations come against pro-Israel lobbies, or Zionists, it can be more challenging. The instinct is to accuse certain MPs, media outlets and journalists of hiding their antisemitism behind a cover of anti-Israelism or anti-Zionism, but the reality is surely far more complex: as keenly shown by this example, with Rob Halfon MP writing in the Jewish Chronicle that he does “not believe for one moment that Mr Flynn is antisemitic”.
It was Rob Halfon himself who interjected against Flynn’s outburst, and the former head of Conservative Friends of Israel is an unforgiving opponent of antisemitism and extremism. So, his saying that Flynn is not an antisemite is important here. Indeed, the remainder of Halfon’s article (aptly titled “A Shocking Outburst of Prejudice“) is sternly critical of Flynn and the phenomenon his words reside within. As Halfon puts it
…when I tried to interject, Mr Flynn then accused me of being a neo-conservative and part of a clique that wanted to bomb Iran.
Mr Flynn’s actions betray an extraordinary mindset on the left, that allows normally highly intelligent and engaging individuals to lose all sense of proportion when the word ‘Israel’ is mentioned.
…[this mindset ignores Syria and Iran], preferring to focus on Israel as part of some vast international conspiracy – usually involving American and British Conservative politicians.
This strikes to the heart of the matter. The framework for the attack is one of right wing conspiracy, and adjectives such as “Zionist” or “pro-Israel” or “neo-Con” provide a nasty dog whistle spin that is heard only by those who either oppose antisemitism, or are turned on by it.
The fact that the left also uses this hate lexicon to denote miscreants within their own ranks (as seen with the excoriation of Tony Blair and the excommunications of David Aaronovitch and Nick Cohen) makes matters only worse: reinforcing the notion that once you are labelled with Zionism or Israel, you are understood to be an insidious alien threat to the body politic.
Nevertheless, those blowing this dog whistle are blissfully self-assured of their progressive anti-racist credentials; and perceive themselves as having the courage and insight with which to explain Western embroilment in Afghanistan, Iraq and (rapidly) Iran. Worse still, the whistlers’ instinct is to interpret objections and concerns as further proof of just how embedded the pro-Israel conspiracy has become.
All of this constantly reinforces the vicious cycle of accusation and counter-accusation.
Any regular reader of the London Review of Books, New Statesman, Guardian and Independent cannot fail but be struck by their urgent warnings of Israel’s singular wickedness; and of the powerful, perfidious reach of the lobby that sustains it (sometimes “pro-Israel”, sometimes “Zionist”, sometimes “Jewish”, even “kosher” – sometimes any combination of the above, even in the same article). The temptation is to blame such media for creating an environment from which suggestions such as Flynn’s emerge. Again, the reality is more complex and more depressing: because these outlets display the intellectual and political milieu of their leading influences, whilst also reflecting (and reinforcing) the attitudes of their readers.
Whilst Paul Flynn MP should be publicly disciplined by his party for this outburst, we should note that his initial intervention towards Sir Gus O’Donnell was on the basis of his representing two constituents who had written to him concerning their having been detained by Israel, and their belief that the Ambassador had been more concerned with Israel’s interests, rather than their own.
In representing his constituents’ concern, Flynn always risked being seen as agreeing with it, and there may be those who consider his age (he is 76) as mitigating his lack of politically correct language. Nevertheless, his “neo-con…bomb Iran” reported attack on his fellow Committee member, Rob Halfon MP, was surely absent from his constituents’ letter (even if it did most likely reflect their opinions); and shows a thoroughly modernist approach to the subject area.
This “neo-con…bomb Iran” aspect reveals a very worrying overlap between the opinions of serious anti-Israel activists and those of an MP who has previously holidayed in Israel with his family. It strongly suggests Paul Flynn is symptomatic of a far deeper attitudinal malaise, whereby things that ought to be restricted to openly racist circles may now be voiced within progressive ones. In fact, the malaise is now so utterly axiomatic in proper far left media and activist circles that the Palestine Solidarity Campaign’s attempts to disown the worst of the antisemitism around it, now risk seriously splitting the anti-Israel movement.
Where anti-Zionist attitudes prevail, they inexorably present an essentialised image of anybody whom you might (rightly or wrongly) associate with Israel. The essential trait is the same as that underpinning the Jewish conspiracy myth: Jews cannot truly assimilate into the surrounding body politic, they are forever alien and therefore always at risk of working for their mutual interest against the rest of society.
Put this mindset into practise and there is only one logical outcome. Namely, loyalty tests for Jews in public and political life, wherever and whenever they might come into contact with areas of interest to the pro-Israel / Zionist / Jewish lobby: and that is why Paul Flynn MP should be publicly disciplined by his party, regardless of what he meant, or which of his constituents he was representing when he began descending this slipperiest of slopes
Related articles
- On a political culture which tolerates accusations that British Jews aren’t sufficiently loyal to UK (cifwatch.com)
- Labour MP & anti-Israel activist accuse British Ambassador of greater loyalty to Israel than the UK (cifwatch.com)
- The far right and the far left agree: The Guardian is a Zionist tool! (cifwatch.com)
- U.S. Ambassador blames Israel for European Muslim antisemitism: Teachable moment for the Left? (cifwatch.com)
Earlier in the month, after a mild rebuke of Gilad Atzmon in a CiF essay for engaging in antisemitism which hurt the Palestinian cause, the Guardian provided Atzmon a platform to respond.
As we noted at the time, it is no exaggeration to state that Atzmon’s antisemitism is no less virulent or odious than what can be found on the website of David Duke.
Briefly, Atzmon believes that Jews control the world, has given credibility to Holocaust denial, and indicated that modern-day antisemitism should be seen as a justifiable reaction to Jewish villainy.
A review of Atzmon’s latest book, “The wandering who?” – which rehashes many of the same antisemitic narratives advanced in his blog – by the CST’s Mark Gardner, can be read here.
But, who needs to rely on reviews of “The wandering who?” written by Jews who, Atzmon would no doubt argue, are immutably crippled by obtuse ethnic loyalties when you can read the book yourself and reach your own conclusions.
In fact, you don’t even have to go to Atzmon’s website to purchase his book, as the Guardian decided that Atzmon’s musings on Jewish villainy is something their discerning readers need to know:
Per the Guardian’s online bookshop:
Note the editor’s synopsis of Atzmon’s book:
“An explosive unique crucial book tackling the issues of Jewish identity Politics and ideology and their global influence.“
To be clear, here’s how the Guardian describes the aim of their online bookshop:
“The aim of this site is to present you with a tailored selection of handpicked books that reflect the Guardian and Observer’s well-respected literary coverage and reviews.
So among the “tailored selection of handpicked books which reflect the Guardian and Observers well-respected literary coverage and reviews” is an expose on world Jewry’s injurious “global influence”.
And, how helpful of “the world’s leading liberal voice”: the extremist Judeophobia of Gilad Atzmon is ready to ship in just one business day – and 20% off the cover price!
The Guardian: Your one-stop, hassle-free, 24/7 purveyor of antisemitism.
Related articles
- Gilad Atzmon vs Tony Greenstein, in “Battle of the self-hating Jews” (cifwatch.com)
- Jew hatred as liberal commentary: Guardian provides platform to vicious antisemite, Gilad Atzmon (cifwatch.com)
- Andy Newman’s racist left: And, how I became a “right wing troll” (cifwatch.com)
- Andy Newman’s socialism of fools: The remarkable staying power of leftist antisemitism (cifwatch.com)
- CiF piece critical of Gilad Atzmon elicits storm of antisemitic reader comments, including organ theft libels (cifwatch.com)
- Lauren Booth on “Jewish supremacism”, why antisemitism is justified, & the wisdom of Gilad Atzmon (cifwatch.com)
- Legitimizing antisemitism: Guardian provides platform to Alison Weir, blood libel promoter (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
H/T Harry’s Place
As we noted (here, & here), and as CST also commented on, the Dec. 29 CiF piece by John Whitbeck was not only another egregious example of hateful Israel bashing at the world’s leading liberal voice. It crossed that line by leaps and bounds by advancing the classic anti-Semitic narrative of a dangerously powerful American Jewish community controlling the reigns of government.
In his CiF column, Whitbeck, a 9/11 truther, and someone who’s been quite explicit in his desire to see Israel’s destruction – referring to Zionism as a “racial supremacist settle colonial experiment” which is inconsistent with “human decency” – actually characterized the U.S. as submitting to a slave-like (“slavish”) subservience” to Israel. (He also referred to “Israel-American Global Domination”.)
Sometime after Whitbeck’s vitriol was published, the CST’s Mark Gardner wrote to the Guardian’s Readers’ Editor, and said the following:
“Can you please explain to me how this notion that the USA is subservient / slavishly subservient to Israel is any different in its rationale to the old antisemitic myth about Jews running the world through domination of politicians, finance and media?…I do not mean this as a joke, although it does read like a sick joke when it appears upon the website of a publication such as yours.”
In response to Gardner’s exchange with the Guardian, the word “slavish” has been removed from “slavish subservience to Israel”; and the phrase “Israeli-American global domination” has been entirely removed. The new piece is here and carries this at its end:
“This article was amended on 17 January 2011. Language that is inconsistent with the Guardian’s editorial policy has been removed.”
We commend our friends at CST for their persistence, and are glad to see the above acknowledgment.
However, it is still appalling that the editors at the Guardian don’t understand that it wasn’t merely the language which was offensive but, rather, the IDEA which the language served to convey. Language is merely a conduit – a means to achieve ideological ends. One could even say that the language in any CiF column is inextricably subservient to the political agenda of the author.
Guardian editors made a decision to publish an essay by a known conspiracy theorist; a man who accepts and propagates dangerous tropes about the injurious effects of Jewish power; and someone who views Zionism – the very notion of Jewish national sovereignty – as something which (justice demands) should perish from the earth.
That they chose, weeks after the fact, to delete words which made explicit anti-Semitic narratives typically advanced only implicitly doesn’t in any way absolve them of their broader decision to provide a platform for such historically lethal and odious ideas.
Like this:
This is a cross-post from the CST blog with thanks to the author, Mark Gardner of the CST
The Guardian is Britain’s leading left of centre opinion maker. In recent years, the British left has displayed an increasing ignorance of what antisemitism is. These are not unrelated phenomena.
The websites of the Guardian, the Times and the Telegraph all covered Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s 24th September 2009 speech at the United Nations in New York. The Times and the Telegraph both explcitly called Ahmadinejad’s speech anti-Jewish or antisemitic. The Guardian did not.
The Guardian interpreted the world’s most dangerous antisemite as ‘merely’ having attacked Israel in his speech to the UN. Compare what the Guardian wrote with how other newspapers covered the same story (all emphases added by the author):
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s renewed attack on Israel hastens walkout
The Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, faced a series of walkouts at the United Nations general assembly last night after launching a renewed attack on Israel, which he accused of genocide, barbarism and racism.
Within minutes of his criticism of Israel for its treatment of the Palestinians, delegations from various countries began to rise from their seats and noisily left the chamber.
Many other countries had left before he even began, partly because it was the evening and partly in protest over his brutal crackdown on the Iranian opposition after June’s election and partly over comments last week again questioning whether the Holocaust had taken place.
…The Palestinians had suffered from attacks on defenceless women and children, seen their homes destroyed and faced an economic blockade in Gaza that amounted to genocide. He described Israeli attacks on Gaza as barbaric.
He suggested that Israel could get away with this because of extensive lobbying and political influence in the US and Europe. “It is unacceptable that a small minority should dominate large parts of the world through a complex network in the US and Europe to retain its racist ambitions,” Ahmadinejad said…
Live: world leaders’ speeches at General Assembly
…Several delegates, including the United States and Costa Rica, walk out of the General Assembly Hall when Mr Ahmadinejad alludes to a supposed worldwide Jewish conspiracy. The offending comment: “It is no longer acceptable that a small minority would dominate the politics, economy and culture of major parts of the world by its complicated networks, and establish a new form of slavery, and harm the reputation of other nations, even European nations and the US, to attain its racist ambitions.”…
Britain walks out of Iran’s Ahmadinejad’s anti-Semitic speech at UN
Britain walked out of a speech by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran at the United Nations on Wednesday night in protest at anti-Semitic remarks.
…South American delegations also marched from the grand hall at UN headquarters when the controversial leader denounced what he said was a global Jewish conspiracy, amid a long rant against capitalism and Western hypocrisy.
He denounced a “small minority dominating much of the world through a complicated network”, and went on to call Iran a “glorious, democratic nation”.
The United States, Canada and Israel decided earlier to boycott the speech before the annual UN General Assembly, after Mr Ahmadinejad repeated his denial of the Holocaust in a speech in Iran on Monday. He has also regularly called on Jews to leave Israel…
The Independent newspaper (like the Guardian, not exactly pro-Israel) also managed to see the wood for the trees, saying of Ahmadinejad:
He also delivered an oblique tirade against the Jews, condemning the “private networks” that he said largely ran the world.
The headline in The Evening Standard quoted UK diplomats as having walked out over Ahmadinejad’s “anti-Semitic” speech. Nevertheless, the actual article referred to both criticism of Israel, and antisemitism, as the reason for the walkout:
Britain joins walkout after Ahmadinejad’s ‘anti-semitic’ rant
British diplomats walked out during a speech by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad over “anti-Semitic” remarks by the Iranian leader.
Mid-ranking UK officials at the UN joined their US counterparts as they left in protest at Mr Ahmadinejad’s comments about Israel in his speech to the UN General Assembly
A spokeswoman for the UK delegation said the walk-out was prompted by “anti-Semitic” rhetoric.
Mr Ahmadinejad condemned Israel for what he said was a “barbaric” attack on the Gaza Strip last winter.
…In his speech, the Iranian President accused Israel of “inhuman policies” in the Palestinian territories.
Mark Kornblau, spokesman for the US Mission to the UN, said: “It is disappointing that Mr Ahmadinejad has once again chosen to espouse hateful, offensive and anti-Semitic rhetoric.”
The manner in which the Standard slipped from antisemitic, to Israel and back to antisemitism is illustrative of many people’s confusion between the terms anti-Israel and antisemitism.
It also illustrates the genuine differences of opinion that people sincerely hold over when the two terms should be used. For the vast majority of people – especially on the left - this difference of opinion appears rooted in their attitude to Israel. Those who are hostile to Israel regard their own hostility as fair criticism and unconnected to antisemitism. Unfortunately, all too often, they ascribe their own self-image to that of other critics of Israel: including those who are not merely critics, but those who believe in an anti-Zionist ideology that is rooted not in opposition to real Zionism, but in opposition to the Zionism of the antisemitic imagination.
This Zionism of the antisemitic imagination replaces the word Zionist for the word Jew and then regurgitates age old antisemitic imagery and themes in a contemporary “anti-Zionist” form. The Times, Telegraph, Independent, Evening Standard, and delegates from many nations (inclduing the UK and US) at the United Nations get it. Sadly, the Guardian does not.
POSTSCRIPT
It is difficult to discern if the Guardian correspondent, Ewan MacAskill, actually heard Ahmadinejad’s speech; or if he knew (and ignored) that the UK and US delegates stated their walkouts were due to antisemitism.
The walkouts followed the previous pattern of what happened when Ahmadinejad addressed the UN anti-racism conference in Geneva on 20th April 2009. This speech followed an earlier diatribe from him at the UN General Assembly in New York on 23rd September 2008 (in which there was no mass walkout) when he said the following:
“The dignity, integrity and rights of the American and European people are being played with by a small but deceitful number of people called Zionists. Although they are miniscule minority, they have been dominating an important portion of the financial and monetary centers as well as the political decision-making centers of some European countries and the US in a deceitful, complex and furtive manner. It is deeply disastrous to witness that some presidential or premiere nominees in some big countries have to visit these people, take part in their gatherings, swear their allegiance and commitment to their interests in order to attain financial or media support.”
“This means that the great people of America and various nations of Europe need to obey the demands and wishes of a small number of acquisitive and invasive people. These nations are spending their dignity and resources on the crimes and occupations and the threats of the Zionist network against their will.”
It is not known if either Ahmadinejad or his speech writers read the Guardian. There is, however, one sentence in the above section that bore a striking resemblance to a Guardian editorial that had been published only two months earlier during the US Presidential election campaign.
This is the sentence, “It is deeply disastrous to witness that some presidential or premiere nominees in some big countries have to visit these people, take part in their gatherings, swear their allegiance and commitment to their interests in order to attain financial or media support.”
And this is the Guardian editorial from 24 July 2008
Obama in Israel
The message that matters
When a presumptive US presidential candidate arrives in Jerusalem, he willingly dons a jacket designed by Israeli tailors. He is compelled to call the country a miracle, to visit the Israeli Holocaust Memorial Yad Vashem and to link the memory of the 6 million Jews who died in Europe to Israeli victims of Palestinian violence today…
Now of course the Guardian would never mean it like that – well, not like Ahmadinejad means it anyway. And of course the Guardian would neither threaten another Holocaust, nor deny the last one.
Nevertheless, the Guardian as an institution – and as a consequence much of its constituency – has clearly allowed its hostility against Israel to erode both its understanding of antisemitism; and its vigilance against imagery that evokes deeply rooted antisemitic stereotypes.
This is not so much a conscious decision, or some covert antisemitic conspiracy: it is simply what happens when, over time, basically decent people lose sight of the dividing line between criticism and hatred, and between scathing political comment and racist abuse. There are, of course, exceptions to the rule at both the Guardian and throughout the wider Left, but they are swimming against the tide.
POSTSCRIPT 2
Whilst Ahmadinejad’s readership of the Guardian is unknown, the BBC is certainly an avid reader: and it would appear to have caught the ’see no antisemitism’ bug.
The BBC coverage of another antisemitism-related controversy at the UN this week, over the leadership election to UNESCO, avoids mentioning that the Egyptian culture minister, Farouk Hosny blamed Jews for his failure to get the leadership of the international body. Rather, the BBC choose to report that Hosny said he failed to land the post because of “Zionist pressures”.
The Associated Press coverage shows that this wasn’t all he said:
“It was clear by the end of the competition that there was a conspiracy against me,” Hosny told reporters at the airport upon his return from Paris.
“There are a group of the world’s Jews who had a major influence in the elections who were a serious threat to Egypt taking this position,” he said.
The AP coverage was carried in many newspapers, but Egypt’s Daily News was even more explicit:
Hosni said he was a clear winner since he received 22 votes in the first round, and the runner-up received only eight.
“Then the Jewish game started by the US and big nations that claim democracy, and transparency. They all conspired against me,” he added.
“It was clear by the end of the competition that there was a conspiracy against me…There are a group of the world’s Jews who had a major influence on the elections and who saw a serious threat in Egypt taking this position,” he said.
Hosni also accused the American ambassador at the UNESCO specifically of working against him.
Hosni also lamented that he had had the Western press and “Zionist pressures against him every day.”
[With thanks to Arieh Kovler for having brought the Guardian's 24.09.09 coverage to CST's notice]
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Misleading Guardian report on UK government funding to help secure Jewish schools (Updated)
January 27, 2012 in Comments which are off-topic, ad hominem, racist, vulgar or include threats of violence will be deleted | Tags: Antisemitism, CST, Guardian, Holocaust Memorial Day | by Adam Levick | 46 comments
CST recently noted that “the Guardian has chosen to mark Holocaust Memorial Day by attacking the funding provided by the government to pay for security guarding at Jewish state schools in England and Wales.”
A Guardian report by Rob Evans titled “Michael Grove criticized for awarding public funds to organization he advised“, Jan. 27, cited criticism by the group Spinwatch that “Michael Gove, the education secretary, awarded £2m of public money to an organisation that he promoted as an adviser for four years”.
As CST noted on their site, “The Guardian story is misleading as it suggests that the money provided by the Department for Education pays for CST to provide security at Jewish schools…[while] the funds are “merely administered by CST and distributed in full to the Jewish schools who then use it to employ their own security guards” (not from CST).
CST added further:
Moreover, the funding from the UK Department of Education only accounts for a fraction of the total costs associated with the CST’s work to secure over 300 synagogues, over 120 Jewish schools, more than 1000 Jewish communal organisations and buildings; and nearly 1000 communal events, from antisemitic attacks and potential acts of terrorism.
Further, CST noted, “the overwhelming bulk of CST’s funding is provided by voluntary donations from the UK Jewish community”.
In 2010, there were 639 reported incidents of antisemitism in the UK, the second highest since the CST began keeping records in 1984, which included 58 incidents targeting Jewish schools, students, or teachers.
UPDATE 1: After a complaint from CST, the Guardian has now added a paragraph near the end of their article which reads:
However, the acknowledgement that the grant does not pay for CST’s work isn’t reflected in the headline or opening paragraph of the article, which have not been amended.
UPDATE 2: Harry’s Place has some fascinating information on the background of David Miller, the Spinwatch official who brought the complaint to the Guardian’s attention in the first place. Seems like the crusader for ethics and transparency has a soft spot for antisemites. (See here.)
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