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On Jan. 22, the Guardian published Harriet Sherwood’s report, Palestinian children – alone and bewildered in Israel’s Al-Jalame Jail, which included accusations that Israel mistreats Palestinian teens charged with acts of violence, allegations largely based on information provided by one radical, anti-Zionist NGO.
Specifically, Sherwood charged that a substantial percentage of Palestinian children arrested by Israeli soldiers (for acts of violence) have been mistreated while in custody – which, it was claimed, includes physical abuse and long stays of solitary confinement.
In an over 2700 word long report only 230 were devoted to presenting the Israeli side of the story, and even those few passages curiously omitted the following emphatic denial by Israeli Security officials (which was provided to the Guardian prior to publication):
“The claims that Palestinian minors were subject to interrogation techniques that include beatings, prolonged periods in handcuffs, threats, kicks, verbal abuse, humiliation, isolation and prevention of sleep are utterly baseless.”
As HonestReporting noted, Sherwood also severely downplayed the offences Palestinian teens are charged with, which include:
[The recruitment by terrorist organizations...involvement in suicide bomb attacks, Molotov cocktail throwing, stone throwing and stabbing, grenade throwing, the use of explosives, shooting, car bombs, transfer of weapons, kidnapping, rocket launching, as well as assault and murder.
Today, eleven days following Sherwood's smear against Israel, 'Comment is Free' provided Amir Ofek, press attache for the Embassy of Israel in London, the chance to respond.
Ofek, consistent with the information made available to Sherwood prior to publishing her story, strongly refuted allegations that the torture and humiliation of Palestinian suspects was permitted, and categorically denied that "solitary confinement in order to induce a confession" is employed - all of which, Ofek argued, severely undermines the veracity of the Guardian report.
Moreover, while Sherwood provided meager space for the Israeli side of the story in her original report, she didn't see fit to include any information on the severity of the crimes Palestinian teens were arrested for, choosing instead to focus on the "emotional scars" inflicted upon those in custody.
As Ofek noted about the horrific nature of the atrocities that minors, some as young as 12, can be arrested for:
Hakim Awad, 17, is a minor. Last March he and his 18-year-old cousin, Amjad, brutally murdered the Fogel family while they slept. No mercy was shown to three-month-old Hadas, her two brothers (aged four and 11) and their parents. The scene of the crime, including the severed head of a toddler, left even the most experienced of police officers devastated. The duo proudly confessed to their killings, and they have shown no subsequent remorse.
Ofek added:
Between 2000-04, 292 minors took part in terrorist activities...Ismail Tsabaj, 12, Azi Mostafa, 13, and Yousuf Basam, 14, were sent by Hamas on a mission chillingly similar to the one involving the Fogels, aiming to penetrate a Jewish home at night and slaughter a family in their beds. In this case, the IDF fortunately stopped them in time.
Ofek further noted that Sherwood's dismissive claim that "most [Palestinian children arrested] are accused of throwing stones at soldiers or settlers”, shows a “bewildering disregard for the damage that throwing stones…can cause”, before adding:
“Judah Shoham never reached the age of many of these minors, as he was killed by Palestinians throwing stones, aged just five months. Similarly, Jonathan Palmer never reached his second birthday; he was killed with his father [Asher] when stones were hurled at their car last October.”
Indeed, most tellingly, while Sherwood’s report not only named the Palestinian teens who alleged Israeli mistreatment (and even included an eleven minute video of the teens telling their story), a search of the Guardian’s website didn’t turn up even one mention of the Israelis – Jonathan (Yonatan) Palmer and his father, Asher – murdered by Palestinian teen “rock throwers” who Ofek referred to.
The only mention of the deadly act of terrorism by Palestinian teens at all was a throw-away passage buried in a story about a mosque vandalized in Northern Israel, on Oct. 3., and a supremely callous characterization by Harriet Sherwood in a story titled “Israel approves new settler homes in East Jerusalem“, which referred to the victims in passing as a “Jewish settler and his son.” [emphasis added]
Wrote Sherwood of the Palestinian teens arrested by Israeli soldiers in her Jan 22 report:
“Following detention many children exhibit symptoms of trauma: nightmares, mistrust of others, fear of the future, feelings of helplessness and worthlessness, obsessive compulsive behaviour, bed-wetting, aggression, withdrawal and lack of motivation.”
As Sherwood continually demonstrates, the “trauma” suffered by family and friends mourning the loss of Israeli victims of terror (such as Asher and Yonatan Palmer) is simply not part of the narrative.
Palestinian teens profiled in Sherwood's report
Not seen in the Guardian: Asher Hillel Palmer, 25, and his one-year-old son Yonatan, victims of terror committed by Palestinian teens
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An exquisite convergence of anti-Americanism and anti-Zionism appeared in ‘Comment is Free’ today, written by Mark Weisbrot, perhaps the most prolific among CiF’s core of extreme left commentators.
Weisbrot’s sophistication and erudition, when expounding upon the U.S war against sadistic Taliban terrorists, was on display in his previous CiF entry, where he thriftily and pithily summed up the US campaign as “soldiers pissing on corpses [and] drones slaughtering civilians”.
He characterized the U.S. war against terrorism more broadly as arguably indicative of “a crusade against the Muslim world” – agitprop which seems to slip off Weisbrot’s tongue with the ease of someone schooled in the Noam Chomsky school of tyranny apologetics.
And, as I noted previously, Weisbrot quite explicitly accused the U.S. of committing a “Holocaust” in Iraq, accusing critics of such a characterization as guilty of “Holocaust Denial”.
Naturally, as part of his broader anti-American ideological package, Weisbrot is necessarily as hostile to Israel as he is sympathetic to Arab despots.
Weisbrot – whose output of anti-Zionist and (mostly) anti-American vitriol, at Znet and CiF, is quite impressive – today published “Why American ‘democracy’ promotion rings hollow“, Jan. 31.
While the broader narrative, mocking American democracy promotion in the Arab world is itself a work of political sophistry worthy of scrutiny, the following passage about Israel is a much repeated, if banal, narrative within Guardian-Left circles, and represents yet another casual assault on the Jewish state’s legitimacy.
Write’s Weisbrot:
Nowhere is [the hypocritical U.S. claim to promote democracy] more obvious than in the Middle East, where the US government’s policy of collaboration with Israel’s denial of Palestinian national rights has put it at odds with populations throughout the region. As a result, Washington fears democracy in many countries because it will inevitably lead to more governments taking the side of the Palestinians,
The notion that the Arab world, which continues to be defined by increasing intolerance towards religious and ethnic minorities, extreme antisemitism, and the denial of basic human rights – in stark contrast with Israel’s unique and enduring democratic prowess - possesses any moral credibility in denouncing the U.S. is a political inversion of the first order.
Arabs of Palestinian origin, whose rights are systematically denied throughout the (non-Jewish) Middle East, have become the propaganda tool of choice for far left ideologues such as Weisbrot – activists who similarly fail to mention the absence of such democratic values in Palestinian ruled territory.
The reason why Western liberals fear the upheavals in the Arab world is the increasingly clear slouch towards Islamist political movements which are, by definition, decidedly reactionary and illiberal, and at odds with true democratic values.
The romaticization of the Arab Spring, the edifice of a “democratic” revolution, is becoming increasingly difficult for those who claim intellectual integrity to maintain.
The Muslim Brotherhood and Salafists in Egypt, the Enhada Party in Tunisia, or major parties vying for power in Libya, can largely be defined (or may likely, one day, be defined) by a greater adherence to (in spirit or letter) Sharia law, and an atavistic, ideological antisemitism which bears little if any connection to the plight of the Palestinians.
As a report on antisemitism in the Arab world in the context of the ‘Arab Spring”, written by scholars at the Kantor Center for the Study of Contemporary European Jewry at Tel Aviv University, noted:
[While] the popular uprisings in the Arab world do not represent a general change in attitude towards Israel, Zionism and the Jews it seems the anti-Semitic discourse and incitement have become more extreme and violent,”
Charges of an international Jewish conspiracy have been a central motif in the anti-Semitic propaganda that has accompanied the Arab Spring uprisings. This motif has been emphasized in each of the countries especially by way of pointing a blaming finger towards Israel, Zionism and Jews conspiring against Arabs and Muslims
Of course, the continuing Arab antipathy towards Jews is not at all surprising to those who study the politics of the region, and the habitual denial of this endemic Judeophobic dynamic by Guardian reporters and commentators is documented continually on the pages of this blog.
But the mere ubiquity of voices like Weisbrot, at ‘Comment is Free’, who are willfully blind to the most malign anti-Jewish racism, makes it no less deserving of critical scrutiny, nor, especially, any less morally repugnant.
Related articles
- Reinforcing Prejudices: Mark Weisbrot’s subtle meditation at CiF on why America is so vile (cifwatch.com)
- Guardian publishes letter by supporter of Gilad Atzmon, refuses to publish rebuttal (cifwatch.com)
- The Perils of Self-Deception on the Root Cause of Antisemitism (cifwatch.com)
- Arun Kundnani, & a Guardian dog-whistle about the injurious effects of a wealthy American Zionist (cifwatch.com)
- The ‘Humanitarian Racism’ of Harriet Sherwood and the Guardian Left (cifwatch.com)
This blog’s “What the Guardian wont’ report” posts typically highlight news which we feel is vital to accurately understanding the Israeli-Palestinian (and Israeli-Islamist) Conflict, but which doesn’t comport to the Guardian’s political narrative and so is ignored by their reporters covering the region.
As such, it is impossible to engage in a rational debate about the root cause of the conflict without acknowledging the degree to which antisemitism and the glorification of violence against Jews permeates Palestinian society and, moreover, how such culturally normative racism represents one of the greatest impediments to peace.
At the end of the day, if Israelis aren’t reasonably sure that a future Palestinian state will accept the existence of a Jewish state, and will inculcate their children with the values of peace, tolerance and pluralism, most will continue to be skeptical of further territorial concessions which could strengthen the most malevolent Palestinian political movements.
The significance of the following story simply cannot be dismissed or rationalized by anyone sincerely passionate about promoting peace in the region.
As you recall, on March 11, 2011, five members of the Fogel family were killed in their home in the town of Itamar by Palestinian terrorists from the Awad family. Hakim Awad led the attack, killing the parents Ehud and Ruth and three of their children, aged 11 years, 4 years, and 2 months.
Per Palestinian Media Watch (PMW):
Official Palestinian Authority TV broadcast greetings to the murderers of the Fogel family from the relatives of the killers and from the PA TV host.
The weekly PA TV program For You dedicated to Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisons let the mother and aunt of one of the murderers praise the terrorists as “heroes.” After the mother of the murderer Hakim Awad explained how she is prevented from visiting her son for security reasons, the PA TV host said: “Go ahead, sister, we can convey your voice.”
On the phone, Hakim Awad’s mother “blesses” her “dear son,” and despite the fact that participants in this TV program normally do not mention the terror attacks for which their relatives are serving time, the mother mentions that her son is the one who “carried out the operation in Itamar and sentenced to 5 life sentences,” referring to her son’s brutal killings in the town Itamar.
Hakim Awad’s aunt also participated in the program and referred to the terrorists involved in the killings as “heroes,” calling Hakim Awad “the hero, the legend.” This prompted the PA TV host to add: “We, for our part, also convey our greetings to them.” [emphasis added]
As PMW noted, it was Hakim Awad who killed Ehud and Ruth Fogel and their young children by stabbing them repeatedly with a knife.
Ruth Fogel, 35, Udi Fogel, 36, and their children Elad, 4, three-month-old Hadas, and Yoav, 11
I suggest that you consider sharing the following video of the Palestinian program described above not as “hasbara”, but merely to reach those who are still open minded, so they might ponder the injurious impact of such morally toxic messages within Palestinian society on the peace process.
The program, about which neither Harriet Sherwood nor Phoebe Greenwood will ever report, was broadcast on official state-run Palestinian TV on January 19, and repeated again on January 21.
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Inspired by Arun Kundnani’s scare story about the toxicity of Jewish money (“Newt Gingrich’s agenda-setting big donor“, Jan. 27) were a few predictable reader comments.
The text in quotes below are from another reader comment which “beachbear2012″ was responding to. Please note the final passage of the comment by “beachbear2012″, which helpfully fleshes out the full scope of the conspiratorial plot. And, when reading, remember, it’s Zionists he/she hates not Jews.
But, the following “truth-telling” comment about Jewish subterfuge (which received 12 “Recommends” before being deleted), posted under Paul Harris’s piece on Adelson, “Secrets of the billionaire backing Gingrich’s shot at the White House“, serves to make “beachbear2012″ seem downright philosemitic.
CLICK TO ENLARGE
Related articles
- Why is an essay on alleged Israeli racism in the “Jewish Belief” section of ‘Comment is Free’? (cifwatch.com)
- Arun Kundnani, & a Guardian dog-whistle about the injurious effects of a wealthy American Zionist (cifwatch.com)
- Why weren’t these deleted? CiF essay about Rosh Hashana elicits antisemitic comments (cifwatch.com)
- Guardian’s Ewen MacAskill sees Obama’s Israel support, in State of Union, reflecting need of Jews’ money (cifwatch.com)
- Gilad Atzmon takes aim at CiF Watch, accusing us of running “a Jewish supremacist site”! (cifwatch.com)
Arun Kundnani at Islamic Human Rights Commission Event
The 2012 Presidential Republican Primaries have just gotten started, and the Guardian has found their villain:
A ”secretive”, pro-Israel, bullying, racist Jewish billionaire exercising a nefarious influence on the American political process.
His name is Sheldon Adelson, and, in nearly 3000 words in two separate Guardian reports (both published on Jan. 28,), Paul Harris and Arun Kundnani have played to their Guardian base with the unmistakable evocation of the injurious effects of (Zionist) Jewish money on the American body politic.
Harris’s “The Secrets of the billionaire bankrolling Gingrich’s shot at the White House“, warning of a Jewish billionaire attempting to purchase the outcome of the U.S. elections, contains tropes similarly found in Arun’s piece, but Arun‘s account of Adelson, in ”Newt Gingrich’s agenda-setting big donor“, represents a far more egregious polemical assault on pro-Israel American Jewry.
Arun begins his critique of Adleson’s substantial donations to the Gingrich campaign by attempting to explain his motives, complaining that the New York Times and others in the MSM have been less than direct, and even coy, about Adelsons’ political views.
Writes Arun:
[The NYT] ignored the fact that the Adelson [family] uses their wealth to fund rightwing groups in Israel and anti-Muslim campaigns within the U.S.
Adelson is a friend of Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu… [and] has also funded the leading pro-Israel lobby group, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC)…known for its strong and effective advocacy of Israel’s interests.
Arun’s caricature of Adelson couldn’t be clearer: A wealthy American Jew attempting to manipulate the U.S. political system to promote not American but, rather, Israel’s interests.
He continues:
[Adelson] also reportedly supports the Clarion Fund, which produces scare-mongering films advancing the conspiracy theory that Muslims seek to impose sharia law in America.
One of the Clarion Fund’s films, “Obsession“, which I’ve seen, at odds with Arun’s characterization, does not contain anti-Muslim racism, and certainly does not trade in conspiracy theories. The film opens with a very clear explanation that their focus is not on the overwhelming majority of Muslims in the world, but merely on Islamists who espouse radical and violent views.
Indeed, the video largely consists of clips of Islamists on Arab TV (in their own words) advancing hate and inciting their followers to launch a global Jihad.
The suggestion there’s something bigoted about warning of the very real threats posed by radical Islam is one of the moral signatures of the Guardian Left – those who genuinely seem more concerned with the “agenda” of Zionist Jews than with proponents of a reactionary, violent, and theocratic movement inherently at odds with progressive values.
Arun continues:
While Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum have also declared their strong support for Israel, only Gingrich has embraced a vision of civilizational conflict between the west and Islam – a convenient narrative for the right in Israel, which fears growing international support for the human rights of Palestinians, and would prefer Americans to think of Israel as a bastion of western values threatened by Islamic barbarism.
Right out of the Guardian commentary playbook, Arun sows doubt on the morally intuitive understanding that Israel is indeed a bastion of liberal democratic values and human rights in a region awash in repression and religious totalitarianism.
Is it even debatable that the “human rights of Palestinians” continue to be abrogated by their decidedly reactionary Islamist leaders in Gaza?
What possible defense could Arun mount to evidence that the rights of women, gays, political dissidents and religious minorities are routinely violated in the Palestinian Territories?
Interestingly, Arun, a Soros fellow, has appeared at events about Islamophobia sponsored by the Islamic Human Rights Commission (IHRC).
To those unaware about the IHRC’s understanding of human rights, here’s Douglas Murray, former director of the Centre for Social Cohesion:
[The IHRC] campaigns for imprisoned extremists such as the “Blind Sheikh”, Omar Abdel Rahman, currently serving a life sentence in the US for his part in the first blowing-up of the World Trade Centre in 1993. The IHRC’s chairman, Massoud Shadjareh criticised the prosecution of Abu Hamza in 2006, claiming that the conviction created “an environment that can only further alienate the Muslim community”. Shadjareh has called Zionism a racist ideology, and, in a 2006 demonstration in London, called for support for Hezbollah. The IHRC also organises the annual al-Quds day parade in London – an event instituted by that well-known champion of human rights, Ayatollah Khomeini.
Arun also appeared in 2006 UK forum titled “Racism, Liberty and the war on terror”, whose co-panelists included a who’s who of Islamists and their supporters, including Moazzam Begg, former Taliban supporter and al-Qaeda member, and Salma Yaqoob, the former vice-chair, of the Respect Party who described the 7/7 terror attacks as reprisal attacks against American aggression.
Arun is an editor at the journal, ‘Race and Class’, which frequently publishes essays by those opposed to Israel’s existence, including one by Hilary and Steven Rose which championed the virtues of a complete cultural and academic boycott of Israel.
Arun has also, in an interview, spoken favorably of Islamist thinkers like Hassan al-Banna (founder of the Muslim Brotherhood), Tariq Ramadan (a proponent of Islamism who happens to be the grandson of al-Banna) and Sayyid Qutb (the Islamist writer who’s been credited with inspiring the ideology of Islamist groups like al-Qaeda).
Moreover, in the Marxist-inspired, ideological spirit of Guardian Associate Editor Seumas Milne, Arun has derided the West’s war against Islamist terrorism as nothing more than another form of “neo-colonialism“.
Finally, and arguably the most chilling passages in his ’Comment is Free’ piece, Arun concludes:
The number of Americans holding [Adelson's pro-Israel anti-Islamist] views [are] declining. One index of this shifting mood was the that the standing ovation Netanyahu received at Congress was “bought and paid for by the Israel lobby”, implying that money rather than shared values underlies the special relationship. Yet there remains a reluctance to fully discuss these issues for fear of fueling the old hate libels about Jewish money controlling world events. This is a real concern: antisemitism continues to be central to much far-right ideology in the US and Europe. Equally, though, we should not be discouraged from properly scrutinising the millions of dollars being spent to advance the career of a politician who promotes conspiracy theories about a Muslim takeover of America and is running for the presidential nomination while espousing a Greater Israel agenda. [emphasis added]
Arun here is marveling, indeed celebrating, the American lurch towards the mainstreaming of classic antisemitic tropes; seeing its resurgence as a hopeful, indeed progressive, indicator of the changing political climate: The fear of American Jews loyal not to their own country, but to a “greater Israel”.
Arun is speaking truth to power, bucking the politically fashionable concerns of a resurgent antisemitism.
But, perhaps Arun’s greatest conceit, and most deceitful narrative, involves the suggestion that antisemitism “continues to be central to much far-right ideology in the US and Europe”.
Is there really anyone who’s intellectually and morally serious who believes that Judeophobia is an ideological vice primarily found on the right?
Can anyone aware of the malign, often annihilationist, anti-Jewish rhetoric emanating from the Middle East – in their media, popular culture, and during sermons delivered in mosques located in Cairo, Damascus, Riyadh, Gaza City, and Ramallah – honestly suggest that the the most serious, pervasive and endemic antisemitism in our day lay not in the Islamic world?
Arun’s profound moral obfuscation about Islam’s Jewish problem, couched in an essay itself laden with classic Judeophobic tropes regarding the corrosive effects of Jews’ money, represents a supremely cynical moral inversion.
Yet, Arun’s polemical assault on the motives and loyalties of American Jews represents the kind of bigoted propaganda continually, and audaciously, couched in progressive terms at the ideological space known as the Guardian Left.
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As I’ve noted on several occasions, the allegations by Guardian reporters that Jews living anywhere beyond the green line (that is, where Jews have lived for centuries, with the exception of the period between 1949 and 1967) are in violation of international law are leveled as frequently as they are lazily. Such reports rarely even bother inserting a hyperlink to a source on the adjudication of the illegality of such Israeli communities.
Charges have been legitimized by the Guardian’s Harriet Sherwood that Jerusalem’s light rail line – which audaciously serves both Arab and Jewish neighborhoods – is arguably a violation of international law.
Israelis attempting to violate international law by boarding Jerusalem's Light Rail
And, more recently, Israeli quarry mining in the West Bank, which provides economic activity and employment for Jews and Palestinians alike, was characterized in a report by Harriet Sherwood similarly as a possibly ‘illegal” act per international law.
Internationally outlawed economic activity: Quarry Mining
And, until recently, I thought the most surreal accusation that Israel was in violation of international law was when the Jewish state stood accused, by the NGO Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, of committing a WAR CRIME when they, in 2010, reopened a synagogue in Jerusalem’s Jewish Quarter, which had been destroyed by the Jordanians following the the 1948 War.
Synagogue in historically Jewish neighborhood of Jerusalem: Violation of International Law
However, the following report by International Middle East Media Center truly jumps the shark with such accusations.
Their story, titled “International media complicit in legitimization of Israeli settlements“, Jan. 27, by Alessandra Bajec, includes the following:
Unbelievable, but true: over 70 journalists from international mainstream media took part in a tour through Israeli settlements in the Palestinian West Bank last Thursday 19th… guests of the Head of the Samaria Regional Council Gershon Mesika and the Minister of Information and Diaspora Yuli Edelstein.
Participants included journalists from well-known media outlets such as the British Guardian, the Reuters news agency, as well as reporters from France, Poland, China, Germany, South America, the United States, Radio London and several TV stations from Russia.
Bajec can hardly contain her rage:
What calls immediate attention is the very fact that a (large) delegation of international media professionals went on a tour around Israeli settlements, all deemed illegal under international law. In other words, a host of media people, from the same countries that condemn illegal settlements in occupied Palestine, partook in something that essentially breaks international law.
The simple act of touring settlements in occupied Palestinian territory is an affront to international law…international media buying into a tour of this kind shows that they are complicit in covering up Israel’s war crimes.
Who’s to blame for such a journalistic apostasy, per Bajec? Yeah, you guessed it:
…pro-Israel lobbies and Zionist networks…and the Israel influenced mainstream news agencies for whom they work [which] made them turn a blind eye on the topical settlement issue…
While I really wish I knew which Guardian journalist participated in the tour and, thus, flagrantly violated international law, I guess, any way you look at it, it’s becoming harder and harder to avoid reaching the conclusion that the Guardian Group is merely another tool of the international Zionist network.
Journalists' partaking in an internationally illegal meal in Shomron Region
Related articles
- Israel’s latest cruel, oppressive & shocking violation of international law per Harriet Sherwood: Quarry Mining! (cifwatch.com)
- Note to Harriet Sherwood and the EU: No Israeli is “illegal” (cifwatch.com)
- Jews to build new bridge. Guardian characterizes it as a provocation. (cifwatch.com)
- No, Harriet, Jews living across the green line are not in violation of international law (cifwatch.com)
This is cross posted by Richard Millett
Ben White showing off his well-trolled quotes at Amnesty last night.
Ben White was last night handed the opportunity by Amnesty’s UK branch to call for the destruction of Israel. Not necessarily in the way Hamas would wish to achieve it, but White wants Israel changed from a Jewish state into another Muslim Arab state. This is what White thinks is “justice”.
Lest we forget that it was White who once wrote: “I do not consider myself an anti-Semite, yet I can also understand why some are”.
For that and other statements of his there was a small protest outside Amnesty last night. Once sign read “Amnesty is great, except on Israel”, which is probably about right. Amnesty will stand up against other human rights’ abuses except when they are against Israel. They raised their voice in anger when Gaddafi was cruelly tortured before being executed, but when Israeli soldiers are kidnapped or Israeli children are bombarded by Hamas rockets from Gaza Amnesty falls silent.
Amnesty’s opposition to Israel’s existence is now, sadly, almost policy. Virtually no month passes without there being an anti-Israel event and never will there be a pro-Israel voice on the platform. One of Amnesty’s roles is to try to bury Israel.
White was promoting his new book Palestinians in Israel: Segregation, Discrimination and Democracy and it will be instructive to jump straight to the end of last night’s talk.
After calling for “A future based on a genuine co-existence of equals, rather than ethno-religious supremacy and segregation”, with its obvious anti-Semitic connotation of Jewish supremacy, White said (see clip):
“Instead of asking ‘can we return?’ or ‘when will we return?’ Palestinian refugees can ask ‘what kind of return do we want to create for ourselves?’ I think that’s a kind of beautiful phrasing actually that speaks to the liberation of the imagination that has to take place as we move towards securing a peace with justice”:
I can’t see Israelis ever voting for their state being changed into a Muslim Arab state, so what White is basically promoting is more war and bloodshed.
White’s talk, probably like his book, was a long list of out-of-context and out-of-date quotes.
He started with an apparent quote by Balfour in 1919 – “in Palestine we do not propose to go through the form of consulting the wishes of the present inhabitants of the country” – and ended with one by Moshe Dayan’s father, MK Shmuel Dayan, from 1950 – “Maybe (not allowing the refugees back) is not right and not moral, but if we become just and moral, I do not know where we will end up”.
White must spend many nights trolling through the internet and old books looking for quotes that support his pursuit of Israel, but it is obviously a money-making exercise judging by the queue of people waiting for him to sign their copy of his 90-page book.
In between quotes he criticised Israel for what he calls the “Judaisation” of the Galilee and the Negev and for Israel not allowing “Palestinian citizens of Israel”, as he calls them, to live in Israel with their spouses who come from the West Bank and Gaza. The serious security implications for Israel if it allowed the latter are obvious, but Israel’s security isn’t high up on the list of White’s priorities.
During the Q&A he praised the protests during the Israeli Philharmonic Orchestra’s concert at the Royal Albert Hall saying that the protests:
“Were targetting a body, the IPO, that receives funding from the Israeli state and also does concerts and stuff for Israeli soldiers.”
He raised the accusation of anti-Semitism aimed at him and said:
“The irony of the accusation of anti-Semitism against me in this context is that it is precisely opposition to all racism that informs my personal opposition to Israeli apartheid”.
And when someone asked him about Hamas and its policies White simply said that the evening wasn’t about Hamas but he hoped that the questioner would “support efforts to end the discriminatory practices against the Palestinians”.
It seems that Hamas is not much of an issue for White or Amnesty, whereas the Jewish state’s existence is.
More clips and photos from last night:
Ben White on “Jewish and Democratic?”
Ben White on “Judaisation” -
I bought this last night as no one else was buying.
Related articles
- War Horse writer (& CiF contributor) Michael Morpurgo: Israel shoots Palestinian children ‘like a video game’ (cifwatch.com)
- The Guardian welcomes back Ben White, tireless campaigner for the end of the Jewish State (cifwatch.com)
- Jenny Tonge rants about the Holocaust and idolises Hamas leader, Ismail Haniyeh. (cifwatch.com)
- ‘War on Want’ at Russell Tribunal on Palestine: “More direct action coming.” (cifwatch.com)
- Harriet Sherwood, and the Guardian’s strange fixation on the survival of one Jerusalem bookshop (cifwatch.com)
The following was written by Geoffrey Alderman, and published yesterday at The JC
Earlier this month, the Board of Deputies declined to adopt a resolution urging “all those who oppose antisemitism to refrain from buying the Guardian or advertising in it”.
The proposal, tabled by Zionist Federation vice-president Jonathan Hoffman, had already been rejected by the Board’s defence division but the division’s own alternative motion (a wrecking tactic if you ask me), noting the paper’s “continued biased and anti-Israel reporting”, and deploring the lack of action by the Press Complaints Commission, was also rejected.
So, apart from rejecting both propositions, the Board did precisely nothing.
But my concern today is not with the Guardian (for which I have written in the past), or with the concept of a free press – an argument that was, I gather, deployed by opponents of Hoffman’s initiative. My concern is with the Board.
We can argue whether the Guardian really is an antisemitic newspaper and whether – if so – an Anglo-Jewish boycott of it would do any good. In the 1930s, there was a highly effective Jewish-led boycott of the pro-fascist Rothermere press. Lord Rothermere was a supporter of Oswald Mosley. Jewish companies were persuaded to withhold their advertising patronage from his newspapers. Rothermere soon came to heel, signalling that he had done so by ordering the papers to run articles praising the Jewish contribution to British life.
So the “boycott” was highly effective. But this took place three-quarters and more of a century ago, before the internet age. I rarely buy the Guardian, preferring for a variety of reasons (not primarily economic) to read it online. Much of its advertising is placed by international conglomerates which, however “Jewish” some of them might appear, would be unlikely, in today’s economic climate, to forego exposure to make a political point.
Read the rest of the essay, here.
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When I originally wrote about an essay at ‘Comment is Free’ by Wajahat Ali titled, “Fighting the defamation of Muslim Americans“, in August, I wasn’t as aware with the left-wing think tank, Center for American Progress (CAP), which published the report on Islamophobia that Ali co-authored and introduced in his post.
I did note suspicion about the the CAP report, as it included in their list of those guilty of disseminating anti-Muslim bigotry – titled “Fear, Inc. Exposing the Islamophobia Network in America” – a vast network of institutions which included Fox News, The National Review, and the Washington Times, Middle East Scholar Daniel Pipes, and Terrorism expert Steve Emerson.
But the recent scandal, involving bloggers associated with CAP engaging in antisemitic rhetoric, places Ali’s report, and his contribution to CiF, in a different light.
Briefly, for those unaware, CAP is a Washington-based policy organization that serves as a source of ideas for the Democratic party, and is very influential among policy makers in the Obama White House. The controversy arose when it was discovered that Zaid Jilani, who blogged for CAP’s ThinkProgress website, used Twitter to call US supporters of the Jewish state “Israel Firsters” – evoking the classic (typically far right) antisemitic narrative that American Jews are more loyal to Israel than to their own country.
Maryland historian Jeffrey Herf, who has authored books on anti-Semitism, expressed concern that such dual-loyalty conspiracy theories, which typically existed mainly on “the far Left and far Right of American politics” may be seeping into the center of American politics.
Further, Matt Duss, CAP’s Middle East Progress director, wrote on ThinkProgress that “the entire Israeli occupation” of the Gaza Strip is “a moral abomination” comparable to the former Jim Crow South in the US.
The Jerusalem Post obtained an e-mail in January in which Faiz Shakir, editor-in-chief of ThinkProgress, acknowledged that Jilani’s words charging supporters of Israel with dual-loyalty was “terrible anti-Semitic language.”
The think tank has been engulfed in the affair since December, resulting in strong condemnations from civil rights organizations, and resulted in a White House Jewish affairs official terming the situation at CAP to be “troubling.”
But, perhaps more concerning than antisemitic terms being employed by commentators association with CAP, is the background of the activist, Wajahat Ali, they chose to ally themselves with in the 40 page report on anti-Muslim racism.
As I observed previously, Ali has demonstrated a tendency to engage in accusations of “Islamophobia” quite liberally.
For instance, he leveled the charge of Islamophobia against the U.S. government in the context of the FBI prosecution of the Holy Land Foundation for the “charity” group’s ties to terrorism – a prosecution which resulted in five convictions, including “conspiracy to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization, providing material support to a foreign terrorist, and conspiracy to commit money laundering.”
Further, a little more research into the background of Wajahat Ali reveals that the author holds some decidedly illiberal views about another historically oppressed minority.
Ali is a contributor to the radical anti-Zionist site, Counterpunch, where, in one essay, he likened Israel to Apartheid in S. African, and characterized the Gaza war as an “Israeli blitzkrieg that repeatedly bombards a beleaguered Palestinian refugee population.” Ali also published, in Counterpunch, an extremely sympathetic interview with Norman Finkelstein, about “The Holocaust Industry” – a book which characterizes Israelis as “basically Nazis with beards and black hats”.
Essays at Ali’s own blog, Goatmilk: An intellectual playground, are often cross posted at the English Website of the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) and, additionally, he was a board member of the Muslim Students Association, an organization established by members of the MB.
Further, Ali clearly demonstrates a propensity to use his “intellectual playground” to promote voices hostile to Jews and opposed to Israel’ existence.
On June of 2010, he included in his blog, as the “Essay of the week”, a cross-post of a piece by Ilan Pappe, the universally discredited radical Israeli “historian” who advocates the end of the Jewish state. Pappe, in the essay, commenting broadly about Israel in the aftermath of the May, 2010 Mavi Marmara incident, accused the state of practicing ethnic cleansing, and opined that “only sustained pressure by Western governments [similar to the pressure placed on S. Africa] will drive the message home that the strategy of force [and] oppression are not accepted morally or politically by the world to which Israel wants to belong.”
In April of 2009, Ali posted a piece by Sasha Rabkin titled, “A Jewish American man’s defense of self-hatred” which characterized Zionism as an “identity centered on racism, military might, ["fascism"] and occupation,” and later characterized Jewish Zionist identity as a “Judaism devoid of soul and love and oppressing the most occupied people in the world”. He also characterized Israel’s War of Independence as an act of “genocide” against Arabs.
Rabkin’s defense of Jewish self-hatred, which Ali evidently endorses, concludes with this passage:
“the two main forces of the 20th century who sought to separate Jews were the Nazis and the Zionists. This is not to fully equate the two. There are obvious differences. But, both sought to single out the Jews, to show them as special and in need of segregation. They both contributed to the death of Jews. Most importantly, they both have sequestered Jewish identity in a militarized, confrontational and racist corner.
Finally, Ali’s thoughts on the CAP “Israel Firsters” row, can possibly be explained by his retweet of a Max Blumenthal Tweet.
The link leads to a Glenn Greenwald post, “The ‘anti-Semitism’ smear campaign against CAP and Media Matters rolls on“.
Greenwald, who himself trades in antisemitic tropes about dual loyalty with abandon, summed up the CAP controversy thusly.
This is a truly disgusting spectacle: these [CAP] commentators…are being publicly smeared early in their careers as anti-Semites as part of a coordinated, ongoing campaign planned by Josh Block and carried out by numerous journalists with large media platforms, and aided and abetted by Jewish groups trading on their credibility to suppress debate….about crucial policy matters in the U.S.,
And, I simply can’t imagine why anyone would find such tropes about the injurious effects of Jewish power, and the disloyalty of “Israel-Firsters”, by CAP bloggers, authors, and their supporters to be antisemitic!?
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- What the Guardian won’t report: FBI Hate Crime Stats again disprove claims of rising Islamophobia (cifwatch.com)
- U.S. Ambassador blames Israel for European Muslim antisemitism: Teachable moment for the Left? (cifwatch.com)
- CiF contributor characterizes Israel’s relationship with India as an alliance based on Islamophobia (cifwatch.com)
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On Jan. 9, the Palestinian Times reported that Fatah arrested 8 Hamas members, including a journalist, in the West Bank over several days. The report also alleged that Fatah arbitrarily extended the detention of other Hamas members, and of firing a teacher who is a member of the group.
Fatah arresting Hamas members in the West Bank
On Jan. 19th, Israel arrested one Hamas member Aziz Dweik , on suspicion of involvement with terrorist activity.
On Jan. 20th, Harriet Sherwood rushed to advocate on behalf of the Hamas terrorist arrested by Israel, posting a piece titled “Israeli jails Palestinian parliament speaker without trial“. However, further in the article, even Sherwood acknowledges that Dweik is a Parliament speaker in name only, as the Palestinian Legislative Council has not sat since the summer of 2007, when Hamas – which had won elections the previous year – took control of Gaza in a bloody battle with Fatah.
The Guardian also posted a video on Jan. 20 championing the cause of the Hamas speaker of the non-existent Parliament.
Yet, strangely absent from the Guardian’s Israel, Palestinian Territories, or Gaza pages are any mention whatsoever of Fatah’s arrest of eight Hamas members. Nor mentioned, in service of providing background to Sherwood’s story, was the fact that in 2008 PA security forces aligned with Abbas arrested hundreds of Hamas members and supporters and, further, in 2009, nearly all Hamas-controlled municipal officials were replaced by Fatah officials.
Context similarly missing from Sherwood’s report is the fact that Hamas arrested thousands of Fatah loyalists in Gaza in 2010 alone, including PA legislators. And, a report in the Palestinian Press as recently as Dec. 30, 2o11 noted that such arrests of Fatah members continued through 2011.
Sherwood characterized the arrest of Dweik as an effort by Israel “to undermine democratic institutions in Palestine”, and hinder reconciliation between the two groups.
Yet, the Palestinians, by any measure, have failed miserably on their own at establishing anything resembling genuinely democratic institutions, as President Mahmoud Abbas is currently serving the seventh year of a four year term, and, per Freedom House, the PA is listed as “not free“.
“In the Palestinian Authority administered territories, political rights rating declined from 5 to 6 [7 is the worst score] due to the expiration of President Mahmoud Abbas four-year term in January 2009, the ongoing lack of a functioning elected legislature, and an edict allowing the removal of elected municipal governments in the West Bank.”
So, while the arrest of one Hamas member by Israel elicits a storm of criticism by the Guardian, scores of arrests by Fatah of Hamas officials, and Hamas members by Fatah officials, is evidently considered insignificant to contextualizing the lack of a functioning democracy in the Palestinian controlled territories.
More broadly, both this latest report, and Sherwood’s continuing reports from the region, seem to possess a unique capacity to blame Israel in some manner for every conceivable Palestinian failure, while similarly denying Palestinians basic moral agency (the definition of liberal racism) – a journalistic dynamic which prevents honest reporting on the I-P Conflict.
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- The Guardian’s Harriet Sherwood Gets 2012 Off to a Shoddy Start (cifwatch.com)
This is cross posted by Simon Plosker at HonestReporting
NBC News reports:
The images grow no less shocking with time — a gaping wound on a tiny skull, the hair matted with blood; a gunshot that pierced the skin of a small torso and went straight toward the kidney; and finally, the broken neck and severed penis of a 13-year-old boy, his mangled body contorted on a plastic sheet.
This isn’t, however, a story from Israel but the shocking example of what is happening to Syrian children being tortured and murdered by the Assad regime.
Meanwhile, in Israel, The Guardian runs a special report on the alleged mistreatment of Palestinian children detained by the Israeli military. With the report is an 11 minute video which includes footage of an interrogation. A Palestinian child cries, not as a result of torture but because he is going to miss some school exams.
By opening this critique with the emotive and disturbing description of a dead child, we could be accused of being deliberately manipulative. Just like The Guardian’s Harriet Sherwood who also set the scene in a similar fashion:
The room is barely wider than the thin, dirty mattress that covers the floor. Behind a low concrete wall is a squat toilet, the stench from which has no escape in the windowless room. The rough concrete walls deter idle leaning; the constant overhead light inhibits sleep. The delivery of food through a low slit in the door is the only way of marking time, dividing day from night.
This is Cell 36, deep within Al Jalame prison in northern Israel. It is one of a handful of cells where Palestinian children are locked in solitary confinement for days or even weeks. One 16-year-old claimed that he had been kept in Cell 36 for 65 days.
It is an ugly scene for an equally ugly story that paints Israel as a serial abuser of Palestinian children. The real child abuse in reality, however, is that caused by Palestinian society and media that glorifies terrorists, suicide bombers and “martyrs”, encouraging Palestinian youth to follow the same path.
A vulnerable child is easy pickings for recruitment by terrorist organizations. In recent years the most predominant activities characterizing involvement of minors were involvement in suicide bomb attacks, Molotov cocktail throwing, stone throwing and stabbing. Minors have also been involved in grenade throwing, use of explosives, shooting, car bombs, transfer of weapons, kidnapping, rocket launching, as well as assault and murder.
See here for more on Children Dying to Kill.
And while it suits Palestinian propaganda to promote the image of children armed with stones facing Israeli armor, the reality is that stones can kill. As recently as September 2011, Asher Palmer and his infant son Yonatan were killed after the vehicle he was driving overturned as a result of Palestinian rock throwing.
The Israeli response: Unpublished by The Guardian
There are often complaints that Israel does not react in a timely manner to address allegations such as those made by The Guardian. While Israeli Government spokesman Mark Regev does appear in The Guardian’s video along with a token paragraph in the main article, most of the Israeli Security Agency’s (ISA) response went unpublished as Harriet Sherwood picked out only a few quotes.
Here, for the record, we are including the response from the ISA that was sent to The Guardian before its article was published. In it, the ISA states:
- The claims that Palestinian minors were subject to interrogation techniques that include beatings, prolonged periods in handcuffs, threats, kicks, verbal abuse, humiliation, isolation and prevention of sleep are utterly baseless.
- Those detained for ISA questioning receive the full rights for which they are eligible, in accordance with international treaties of which the State of Israel is a signatory and according to Israeli law, including the right to legal counsel and visits by the Red Cross.
Click here for the full ISA response.
DCI-PS: A Politicized, Anti-Israel NGO
We already know only too well from bitter experience, The Guardian’s anti-Israel agenda. But what of Defence for Children International – Palestine Section, the non-governmental organization (NGO) that collected Palestinian testimonies and collaborated with The Guardian?
According to NGO Monitor:
- DCI-PS supports BDS campaigns, and is an active participant in boycott efforts in the framework of the UN and other venues. Also lobbies the UN and the EU to promote these campaigns.
- Calls for Israel to “accept historical and legal responsibility for the Nakba, and recognise the principle of the right to return that was endorsed by the United Nations General Assembly in its Resolution No. 194 in 1948.”
- Published an ‘urgent appeal,’ calling the UN Human Rights Council members to “endorse all the recommendations contained in the Goldstone report…and submit the report to the General Assembly and the Prosecutor of the ICC for appropriate action.”
This is only a small selection of examples of DCI-PS’s politicized and anti-Israel agenda that puts its credibility in doubt. After all, if this NGO is actively seeking evidence with which to attack Israel, then coaxing questionable testimony from minors of questionable character who may have already been involved in criminal or terrorist activity may be easier than it should.
The Guardian’s Agenda Journalism
If any further proof were needed of The Guardian’s brand of agenda-driven journalism, it appeared the day after the original article. This follow-up focused on the UK government’s response to the allegations raised by The Guardian.
This is a prime example of how a biased and one-sided article in the media can have damaging consequences way beyond simple public relations damage.
Commenting to The Guardian is Sandra Osborne MP, who has been leading the campaign in Parliament. The photo below of Osborne with Hamas PM Ismail Haniyeh taken in July 2011 is an indication of where her sympathies lie.
Harry’s Place blog documents Osborne’s thought’s on the “moderate” Hamas leader:
We were also able to meet with Ismail Haniyeh who is recognised as PM in Gaza (while Fayyad is still seen as PM in the West Bank), who heads up the successful Hamas Parliamentary Group. He is a popular figure, living modestly locally in Gaza. He has been pivotal in taking Hamas down a more moderate road leading to a renunciation of violence and keeping the more militant factions within Hamas under control while promoting engagement with rival Fatah. We discussed a wide range of issues but he made it clear that some of the most important could not be seriously addressed until Israel recognised the Palestinian State and real progress was made.
Advocacy journalism is not, by itself, unacceptable. After all, it is the job of a free media to shine the spotlight on untoward behavior wherever it might be found. Indeed, the Israeli press is usually the first to expose issues that need to be investigated in a functioning liberal democracy.
What is unacceptable, however, is The Guardian’s relentless campaign to portray Israel in as negative a light as possible. If only the children of Syria or any number of other places in the Middle East had Guardian reporters advocating on their behalf instead of on the one place where the mechanisms of accountability and rule of law actually exist.
It would be naive to believe that there have never been any Israeli violations of those laws specifically meant to protect the rights of minors in detention. If these cases exist, there are authorities tasked with investigating and dealing with such deviations. This is not, however, the norm.
The Guardian, in collaboration with DCI-PS, has deliberately and falsely portrayed Israel as a country that tolerates the torture and abuse of Palestinian children, which is definitively not the case. Having to arrest, prosecute and imprison minors is by its very nature a difficult issue. Unfortunately, Israel has been forced out of necessity to address a problem arising from Palestinian society.
So where then is the real child abuse?
Send your considered comments to The Guardian – letters@guardian.co.uk
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CiF Watch Gossip of the Day: Harriet Sherwood “Head Spinning” Edition
February 3, 2012 in Comments which are off-topic, ad hominem, racist, vulgar or include threats of violence will be deleted | Tags: Comment is Free, Delegitimization, Guardian, Harriet Sherwood, Herzliya Conference, Honest Reporting, HonestReporting, Jewish Chronicle, Stephen Pollard | by Adam Levick | 13 comments
Via a highly reliable source, there was a truly quality moment at the 2012 Herzliya Conference today – at the Interdisciplinary Center (IDC) – as the Guardian’s Harriet Sherwood evidently unwittingly sat next to Simon Plosker of HonestReporting in the IDC cafeteria.
If you recall, the Guardian was the winner (in a landslide!) of HonestReporting’s 2011 Dishonest Reporter Award – an award attributed to, among other factors: Sherwood’s bizarre and unprofessional diatribe directed towards the Jewish Chronicle’s Stephen Pollard in response to a JC essay she disagreed with, her false claim that the Knesset was built on the ancestral farmland of the abandoned Palestinian village, as well as the
journalist’sactivist’s fishing expedition on board a Palestinian vessel (more than 3 nautical miles) off the coast of Gaza.While I’m not sure if Sherwood knew she was seated next to one of her many Zionist nemeses while at the IDC, my guess is that this photo, from a couple of years ago, would accurately represent her possible reaction if so informed.
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