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Over on ‘Comment is Free’ the New Statesman’s Mehdi Hasan is faithfully crooning the Guardian’s latest refrain (entitled ‘Only ultra-hawkish right-wingers like Netanyahu think Iran is a problem’) with backing vocals from Harriet Sherwood – in stereo.
Last week it was Israeli Chief of Staff Benny Gantz who was conjured up to provide ‘evidence’ for the Guardian’s newest pet theory. This week it is former Shin Bet head Yuval Diskin, a whole bunch of other ex-spooks, opposition leader Shaul Mofaz and the great Israeli public.
Diskin is, of course, entitled – and perhaps even obliged – to voice his opinions (although naturally, Hasan appears to have carefully selected the specific lines which fit his own agenda). That’s the joy of a true democracy – and particularly one with independent and free-thinking media. Everyone can say whatever they feel. It doesn’t follow that they are automatically right – or wrong.
And just because a few of Diskin’s utterances happen to dove-tail with Mehdi Hasan’s agenda does not grant ‘etched in stone’ status to either the latter’s writings or the former’s opinions. The trouble with Guardian commentary on this subject is that the personal animosity of many of its writers towards the current Israeli government is so blatantly obvious that it colours their analysis with a subjectivity which, when taken together in context with the Guardian’s overall record on the Iranian nuclear issue, renders it almost comic.
At that same Friday ‘pensioners’ parliament‘ known as ‘Forum Majdi’, held fortnightly in a Kfar Saba restaurant, Yuval Diskin also made the following remarks about last summer’s social protests in Israel:
“What’s the difference between the revolutionaries – in quotation marks – of Rothschild Avenue and those in Tahrir Square? There’s a small but significant difference between them – the folks in Tahrir Square were prepared to pay a price and the folks on Rothschild Avenue, not so much.”
“The minute the folks had finished crapping in the yards of all the neighbours on Rothschild – summer was over and they went back to the universities.”
It will be interesting to see whether the Guardian affords quite so much hallowed (dare one even say ‘messianic’?) stature to Diskin’s words on this subject as it does to some of his other opinions.
Yuval Diskin at ‘Forum Majdi’, 27th April 2012
But let’s say for the sake of argument that Diskin and the Guardian are right and Netanyahu and Barak are not up to handling the Iranian issue properly. What is the next logical step? A banana republic-type coup led by Diskin and other unelected ex-secret service types? Much as that possibility might appeal to the Seumas Milnes of this world, that’s not how things are done round here.
No; the next step would be elections, in which the Israeli public, with which Mehdi Hasan is newly enamoured, could elect people they do trust to lead them through this tricky period of their history.
Well, it seems that possibility may just have come closer, but perhaps so has the probability that the Guardian will soon fall out of love with the Israeli public again because the latest polls suggest that Binyamin Netanyahu’s Likud party would gain 3 more seats than it currently holds in the Knesset.
Some might say that kind of knocks the bottom out of the Guardian’s latest pet theory.
Anyway, here’s the take on the Diskin affair by one British journalist who isn’t confined to the Guardian’s echo-chamber interpretations.
PS: are there any Israeli journalists reading who would like to write an op-ed (or twelve) about the ‘messianic rhetoric’ and ‘alarmist policies’ of David Cameron’s ‘right-wing’, ‘ultra-hawkish’ government which reportedly intends to place surface to air missiles on the roofs of London apartment buildings during the Olympics?
If there are – and seeing as that acme of tastefulness known as the Guardian Style Guide apparently does not frown upon using foreign prime ministers’ nick names – they should probably know that among his are ‘call me Dave’ and ‘Flashman’.
A guest post by AKUS
Since it is Passover, and organizations like Hamas and Hezbollah, and a country like Iran, have thousands of rockets which they launch into Israel with great regularity, you may have been wondering why this single North Korean rocket is different from all other rockets.
If you’ve been able to avoid the endless repetition on US TV of the Trayvon saga, you have probably been watching the media obsessing over the North Korean rocket launch.
For example, this is the headline in the Washington Post:
Our friends at the Guardian also reported the launch, pointing out that the North Korean have defied “international warnings” about this “provocation”:
This is what Time Magazine had to say about it in the build-up to the “scarier than you think” launch:
North Korea’s Space Threat Is Scarier Than You Think
But just the idea of North Korea aiming for space — and having the missile muscle to get there — led to hair-on-fire panic in east Asia and a more measured but very real angst in the rest of the world. A loonytoons country with nuclear weapons and global reach is no one’s idea of a good thing. The key questions — still unanswerable — are whether North Korea may soon have the technical chops to reach orbit and if they do, does that mean anything?
But, for example, this blasé mention of 300 Israeli casualties is how Guardian ace reporter Harriet Sherwood reported on the threat Hezbollah’s thousands of Iranian-supplied rockets represent to Israel:
So why is one rocket from North Korea creating such panic, while thousands aimed at Israel are not?
Well, you see, it turns out that Hezbollah’s rockets cannot reach Europe or the USA.
But North Korea’s rockets, eventually, will be able to.
It’s funny how attitudes change when the possibility of a rocket crashing through your roof becomes more real.
Lest I forget – the issue being hyped up now that the rocket launch failed is that in the past this kind of show-piece has been the lead-up to an underground nuclear test by North Korea.
It’s also funny how upset some countries seem to be about this, while being rather complacent about Iran’s nuclear program and assistance from North Korea to various Islamic countries. But perhaps they feel that Iran’s nuclear threat is, shall we say, more local at this time. It will be interesting to see if that changes when Iran launches its first intercontinental ballistic rocket and conducts its first underground (we hope) nuclear test.
And that, dear reader, is why a North Korean rocket, launched coincidentally during Passover, is different from all other rockets.
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As I noted in a previous post, an 84 year old former Waffen SS Nazi named Gunter Grass published a poem falsely accusing Israel of contemplating a nuclear assault on Iran, and therefore a threat to “already fragile” world peace.
I advanced a few arguments in the piece, the most basic of which were these:
That the spectacle of a former Nazi, a German who was complicit with history’s most lethal movement, is about the last person on earth to lecture Jews on morality; that it’s shameful to characterize as “brave” his promotion of the intellectually and morally unserious charge that the Jewish state represents a threat to world peace; and that Germans, if nothing else, have a profound responsibility to guard against the resurgence of Judeophobic discourse within their society.
You’d think even the Guardian would report the story in a manner.
However, they’ve published eight pieces on the row thus far, little of which suggest genuine moral outrage at Grass, and much of which vilify Israel for its’ reaction to the poem.
Here are some highlights:
1. Gunter Grass barred from Israel over poem, April 8, by Harriet Sherwood.
What title and narrative of piece evoke:
Israel repressing freedom of expression, unfairly barring someone from entering the state due merely to an offensive poem.
Relevant passages, representative of story’s theme
Some Israeli commentators said Grass had raised an important issue and that criticism of Israeli policies was routinely portrayed as antisemitism.
Writing on the +972 website, Larry Derfner said: “Günter Grass told the truth, he was brave in telling it, he was brave in admitting that he’d been drafted into the Waffen SS as a teenager, and by speaking out against an Israeli attack on Iran, he’s doing this country a great service at some personal cost while most Israelis and American Jews are safely following the herd behind Bibi [Netanyahu] over the cliff.”
Gideon Levy, the Haaretz columnist, wrote that Grass and other critics of Israeli policies were “not anti-Semites, they are expressing the opinions of many people”. ”Instead of accusing them, we should consider what we did that led them to express it,” he said.
By ending with two defenses of Grass, which characterize him as more deserving of moral sympathy than Israeli leaders, Sherwood is providing implicit support (or at least, legitimization) for such opinions. The broader message is that Israel is the guilty party, not Gunter Grass.
2. Letters: Israel, Gunter Grass and the right to artistic license, April 8
While there were two letters critical of Grass, there were also four strongly defending him and vilifying Israel: by Tim Llewellyn, John Severs, John Severs, Catherine Boswell.
Tim Llewellyn: Zionist conspiracies, the tragically misunderstood Republic of Iran, and a compliant media that is manipulated into denigrating the great Grass.
“What is so exceptional about Günter Grass’s verse that it should provoke such political and media hysteria? He merely points out what anyone who studies the Middle East knows: that Israel is trying to bounce the United States into war with Iran by wildly exaggerating Iran’s alleged “existential” threat to Israel, regardless of the cataclysmic consequences.
Israel has nuclear weapons; Iran does not. Iran has not seriously threatened Israel: even rhetorically, the textual evidence of any real menace to Israel from Ahmadinejad is overinterpreted and exaggerated. Conversely, Israel is certainly threatening Iran.
Why do our commentators fall such easy prey to the machinations of the Israeli state and its supporters, and denigrate a great and wise writer who, after all, is only trying to give us due warning of a disaster in the making?”
Published by the Guardian: Conspiratorial narrative of a Jewish state so powerful it can goad an unwilling world super power into war with Iran; An incomprehensible lie that Iran has not threatened Israel; and the notion that commentators are manipulated by Zionists into denigrating a great and wise former Nazi.
John Severs: Three cheers, or more, to Gunter Grass!
“Three cheers, or more, to Günter Grass for exposing the hypocrisy of Israel’s stance and continuing complaints, with no evidence, about Iran developing nuclear weapon capability. Israel has significant nuclear-warhead capability, and it is constantly threatening to bomb Iran or organise land-based raids, thus creating mayhem across the Middle East. Grass might well have also mentioned the shocking Israeli blockade of Gaza and their illegal appropriation of land and water, and destruction of huge tracts of olive groves and orchards on the West Bank.
I note that, once again, a critic of Israeli policy is branded anti-Jewish. Is it no longer possible to criticise Israel as a nation without being accused of being antisemitic?
The brave Gunter Grass, who speaks truth to power, and says what must be said: Iran is the victim of Israeli aggression, a Jewish state which not only threatens world peace but destroys olive groves as well! Plus, bonus claim: Poor former Nazis are silenced, and can’t even level hysterical warnings of a Jewish state representing the greatest threat to world peace without being called antisemitic.
Catherine Boswell: The Mossad targeted my husband for being critical of Israel!
“My late husband, the German poet Erich Fried, was a colleague of Grass. In 1974 Erich published a whole book of poems about the Arab-Israeli conflict entitled Höre Israel, which has been republished recently by Melzer Verlag.
Grass’s admission that he served in the Waffen SS in his teens serves as ready ammunition for the Zionists to use against him; for Erich it was the fact of being a Jew. For taking a critical stance of Israeli policies, he was dubbed an antisemite and even targeted by Mossad for a few years. It amazes me how this shameful – not to say quite illogical – equivalence can be so widely accepted.”
This letter is more proof you can engage in the most bizarre, unhinged, conspiratorial anti Zionist rhetoric and get published in the Guardian. The notion that the Mossad was targeting her husband for engaging in criticism of Israel is so ludicrous as to be almost a parody.
3. Gunter Grass and changing German attitudes towards Israel, April 5, by Hans Kundnani
Theme of commentary:
Grass’ poetical attack on Israel is not an isolated view in Germany, and represents increasing German anger at the Jewish state, due to its move right, and Germans’ feeling that they’re not allowed to say what they really think. (Kundnani doesn’t necessarily endorse such German and equivocates by use of words such as “rightly or wrongly” this is what Germans think.)
Key passages:
what makes the publication of the poem significant is that it expresses a sense of anger against Israel that – justified or not – many Germans seem increasingly to share. This anger is partly a response to Israel’s rightward shift during the past decade. But it seems also to be a product of developments in Germany and in particular the way that the Holocaust has receded in significance during the last decade. Increasingly, Germans seem to see themselves as victims rather than perpetrators.
A poll in January 2009 – during the Gaza war – suggested that German attitudes to Israel were in flux. Nearly half of respondents said they saw Israel as an “aggressive country” and only around a third of respondents said they felt Germany had a special responsibility towards Israel. Sixty per cent said Germany had no special responsibility (the figure was even higher among younger Germans and among those living in the former East Germany).
This anger against Israel is exacerbated by the sense some Germans have of not being able to say what they really think – as Grass suggests in the poem. This has created a pent-up resentment towards Israel that could at some point explode.
Last year, Germany voted in favour of a UN resolution demanding a halt to Israeli settlement expansion – an unusual break with Israel. Later in the year, Germany opposed the Palestinian statehood bid at the UN. But according to one poll, 84% of Germans supported Palestinian statehood and 76% believed Germany should act to recognise it – an even higher proportion in each case than in France or the UK.
An Israeli military strike on Iran could create a sudden rupture between Germany and Israel in the way that the Iraq war did between Germany and the US. My sense is that were Israel to launch a military strike on Iran, what remaining sympathy there is in Germany for Israel would evaporate almost overnight.
Again, in addition to the disturbing fact that, evidently, Germans now see themselves as victims, notice that Grass’ victimological conceit (that Germans can’t say what they truly feel about Jews and Israel without opprobrium) is, per the writer, arguably true, and shared by a large percentage of Germans.
4. Hit Gunter Grass with poetry not a travel ban, April 10, by Robert Sharp, a blogger at the far left site (and Guardian partner blog) Liberal Conspiracy.
Major Theme:
Banning Grass from traveling to Israel amounts to state censorship
Relevant passages:
On Sunday, the controversy surrounding Günter Grass’s poem Was Gesagt Werden Muss (What Must Be Said) escalated, with Israeli interior minister Eli Yishai confirming Grass was now considered a persona non grata in Israel, which amounts to a travel ban. This is a form of state censorship against an author, purely because of what he has written, which is wrong and an infringement on free speech.
Agree or disagree with the travel ban, such a restriction has absolutely nothing to do with censorship or free speech, which would be an apt description if, for instance, Grass’ poems were banned in Israel. Grass is not a citizen of Israel and has no right to be allowed entry. His former role in the Nazi Waffen SS is enough moral justification for keeping him out of the country.
5. Pass notes No 3,156: Günter Grass, April 10 (no author cited)
Finally, the Guardian published a quite whimsical take on the row over the former Nazi’s poem. Here’s a sense of the light-hearted take on the topic: a brief bio of Grass, and a series of short answers to the questions surrounding the row:
Age: 84.
Appearance: Like a potato.
That’s a little unkind: OK, a potato with a pipe.
Occupation: Writer, sage, controversialist.
Most telling passage:
Do read: His early novels The Tin Drum, Cat and Mouse, and Dog Years (the “Danzig trilogy”, named after his birthplace), published in the late 1950s and early 60s.
Don’t read: All his other stuff.
That’s a ridiculous thing to say. Hey, this is Pass Notes, not the LRB. Like the Israeli government, in this case, we specialise in kneejerk reactions and blanket condemnation.
Israel, home to roughly 180,000 Holocaust survivors, is characterized (in the context of their condemnation of Grass’ poem) as a country specializing in “knee-jerk reactions and blanket condemnations”!
Overall conclusion of Guardian’s coverage: Main points.
- Exceedingly more criticism of Israel’s reaction to Grass’ poem than of the former Nazi’s atrocious vilification of Israel.
- No commentary on the antisemitic undertones of Grass’ characterization of the Jewish state as the biggest threat to world peace.
- A paltry amount of outrage at Grass, and the fact that he hid his Nazi past for sixty years while assuming the role of moral “conscience” of Germany.
- Israel’s travel ban on Grass characterized as “censorship” and a threat to free speech.
- Publishing (editorial sanctioning) of letters not only supporting Grass, but containing thinly veiled antisemitic and anti Zionist conspiracy theories.
You’d think that, as a paper which fancies itself a liberal voice, the Guardian would be cautious in defending a former Nazi (who hid his role as a member of a Nazi unit, singled out by the Nuremberg Trials for engaging in crimes against humanity, for sixty years) who engaged in a scurrilous attack on the Jewish state - a moral inversion which juxtaposed Iranian “loudmouths” with sinister Israelis contemplating genocide.
Finally, the coverage of the incident again demonstrates that, for the Guardian, criticizing Israel provides impunity to even the most morally compromised commentators.
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I’ve never believed that children inherit the sins of their ancestors.
In the American context, the history of slavery and segregation (de facto and de jure) doesn’t impute guilt to Americans several generations removed from such hideous institutions, nor does it absolve the nation completely of the profound responsibility of “never again”.
Never again will the U.S. allow any form of institutional racism to reign within its shores.
Similarly, I don’t, in most respects, view modern Germany through a Nazi lens. When I backpacked through Europe in my 20s, and interacted with Germans who must have seen the Star of David prominently displayed beneath my chin, I saw modern, liberal, democratic Europeans unburdened by the bondage of a Judeophobic ethos.
Here’s a poem by a “liberal” German writer named Gunter Grass, dutifully published at the Guardian.
Grass revealed in 2006, 60 years after WWII, that he had been a member of the Nazi Waffen SS during the war.
What must be said
Why have I kept silent, held back so long,
on something openly practiced in
war games, at the end of which those of us
who survive will at best be footnotes?
It’s the alleged right to a first strike
that could destroy an Iranian people
subjugated by a loudmouth
and gathered in organized rallies,
because an atom bomb may be being
developed within his arc of power.
Yet why do I hesitate to name
that other land in which
for years—although kept secret—
a growing nuclear power has existed
beyond supervision or verification,
subject to no inspection of any kind?
This general silence on the facts,
before which my own silence has bowed,
seems to me a troubling lie, and compels
me toward a likely punishment
the moment it’s flouted:
the verdict “Anti-semitism” falls easily.
But now that my own country,
brought in time after time
for questioning about its own crimes,
profound and beyond compare,
is said to be the departure point,
(on what is merely business,
though easily declared an act of reparation)
for yet another submarine equipped
to transport nuclear warheads
to Israel, where not a single atom bomb
has yet been proved to exist, with fear alone
the only evidence, I’ll say what must be said.
But why have I kept silent till now?
Because I thought my own origins,
Tarnished by a stain that can never be removed,
meant I could not expect Israel, a land
to which I am, and always will be, attached,
to accept this open declaration of the truth.
Why only now, grown old,
and with what ink remains, do I say:
Israel’s atomic power endangers
an already fragile world peace?
Because what must be said
may be too late tomorrow;
and because—burdend enough as Germans—
we may be providing material for a crime
that is foreseeable, so that our complicity
will not be expunged by any
of the usual excuses.
And granted: I’ve broken my silence
because I’m sick of the West’s hypocrisy;
and I hope too that many may be freed
from their silence, may demand
that those responsible for the open danger
we face renounce the use of force,
may insist that the governments of
both Iran and Israel allow an international authority
free and open inspection of
the nuclear potential and capability of both.
No other course offers help
to Israelis and Palestinians alike,
to all those living side by side in emnity
in this region occupied by illusions,
and ultimately, to all of us.
There’s so much pathos in Grass’ political “lyricism” its difficult to know where to begin.
- The Holocaust denying Iranian President who openly seeks the end of the Jewish state – representative of a regime which has provided religious and moral justification for genocide against Israel, a fatwa on the lives of millions of Jews – as merely a “loudmouth”.
- The classic antisemitic victimological conceit: that criticism of Jews will bring unfair “punishment” over false claims of antisemitism…and, that such critiques of every conceivable sin, real and imagined, of the Jewish state are brave and, yes, rare. Grass is “breaking the silence“!
- The fiction that Israel is considering a nuclear “first strike” against Iran. Anyone following the issue would surely know that the only thing Israel (and, it should be noted, the U.S.) is contemplating is a strike (with conventional weapons) specifically targeting Iran’s nuclear weapons facilities.
- There are at least nine nations with nuclear weapons, yet Grass’ poem is strangely concerned with the nuclear capabilities of just one of those countries – not North Korea, not Pakistan, and not the U.S. (which possesses the largest nuclear arsenal by far with over 5,000 warheads, and the capacity to strike any target in the world).
- Finally, it is only “Israel’s atomic power [which] endangers an already fragile world peace.
Its truly hard, especially in the context of Grass’ past, not to contextualize this grotesque caricature of a Jewish state which threatens world peace with the Nazi fear of world Jewry, whose very existence was similarly seen as a threat to humanity.
Modern day anti-Zionist imagery includes similar tropes:
Trafalgar Square, London, 2011: Al Quds Day rally organised by the Islamic Human Rights Commission
It would be easy to dismiss Grass’ contempt for the Jewish state as a one-off, the musings of a perhaps senile octogenarian former Nazi, but, as a recent essay in ‘Comment is Free’ by Hans Kundnani (editorial director at the European Council on foreign relations) argued, the poem can reasonably be seen in the context of Germany’s increasing anger at Israel:
what makes the…the poem significant is that it expresses a sense of anger against Israel that – justified or not – many Germans seem increasingly to share. This anger is partly a response to Israel’s rightward shift during the past decade. But it seems also to be a product of developments in Germany and in particular the way that the Holocaust has receded in significance during the last decade. Increasingly, Germans seem to see themselves as victims rather than perpetrators.
Nearly half of respondents said they saw Israel as an “aggressive country” and only around a third of respondents said they felt Germany had a special responsibility towards Israel. Sixty per cent said Germany had no special responsibility…This anger against Israel is exacerbated by the sense some Germans have of not being able to say what they really think… [emphasis added]
Please, any Germans out there within range of this post, by all means tell me what you think.
We can start off by telling you what I (a Jewish citizen of Israel) really think about what responsibility you have towards us – what you owe the Jews.
To those of you without ancestors who were complicit in Nazi crimes – those who simply inherited the shared national legacy of German’s attempt to annihilate the Jews, all you owe us is a passionate commitment to defend against even the slightest resurgence of antisemitism in your country, and moral seriousness in the face of similar (often murderous) Judeophobia in the larger world (whether from the radical left, the radical right, Islamist movements, or the Republic of Iran.) That’s what “never again” should mean to you.
To those of you whose parents or grandparents were complicit in the Nazi’s murder of one out of every three Jews on the face of the earth, I think its fair to say that, although you don’t inherit the sins of your fathers, neither can you ignore them. You have a greater responsibility.
Perhaps, an understanding of what I mean can be derived from a particular Jewish tradition.
The most profound Jewish principle I came across during my time of study (on the traditions of death and mourning with Judaism) following my father’s death in 1997, and one which I still find relevant and inspiring, was “The merit of the children“. What this means, according to Jewish tradition, is that the surviving child, by living a moral, just, and purposeful life, can, in the eyes of G-d, redeem the imperfect life of his deceased parent.
At first, the ethical connection between my current life and my father’s previous life (a quite counterintuitive moral calculus) eluded me. How could what I do now in any way effect how the life he once lived is judged? After some time, however, the inspired moral logic became apparent. The way I live my life is necessarily connected to the way he lived his life – serving as a living testament to who he was, as a father, and as a man. For, I am the living embodiment of the sum of his moral life. My virtue inherently emanates from his virtue. I am, after all, and will always be, my father’s son.
So, to Germans struggling with how to deal with the sins of your fathers, the merit you achieve in this world necessarily reflects both on you and your family. It doesn’t provide posthumous moral atonement, but how ethically you behave and the values you teach your children is a powerful testament to the redemption of your family’s name, your country’s honor.
The historical context of your national T’shuvah (recognizing and repenting for a sin) necessarily must involve a responsibility to living Jews, not simply the millions of souls who were murdered (in death camps named Auschwitz, Sobibor, and Treblinka) 65 years ago.
This is what you owe us: a rigorous duty to never again succumb to classic (and still supremely dangerous) antisemitic narratives of Jewish villainy.
And, finally, a quick word to Gunter Grass, who, in your own life, and out of your own volition, was guilty of complicity with indescribable evil:
If this ever gets translated to German I sure hope the admittedly far less than lofty prose I’m about to employ is properly expressed in a manner which native German-speakers can understand.
If you served in the Nazi Waffen SS killing machine, perhaps the best thing you can do when contemplating lecturing Jews on morality – what you owe us, and the world, if you have even a shred of decency remaining in your soul - is to show humility, feel a healthy degree of shame, and, to please, whatever you do, keep your damn mouth shut!
Gunter Grass' POW record
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- German writer Gunter Grass launches poetry attack on Israel (thejc.com)
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H/T Peter Cannon at the Henry Jackson Society
One of the more common traits of self-styled liberals at the Guardian is that – though they often view themselves as erudite, morally enlightened intellectuals – the “logic” which informs their polemics is often remarkably facile. Particularly, they demonstrate a tendency to recycle the same “right-wing” villains in response to any political phenomenon they find displeasing.
A perfect example is Marina Hyde’s CiF essay, “War on Iran? It is too soon to reminisce about Iraq, let alone have a repeat“, March 23.
Before getting to her simply astonishing defense of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, here are a few highlights.
First, this sophisticated Brit’s language is indistinguishable from what was employed by the most sophomoric anti-American left back when I was in college. Hyde includes, among the antagonists of her tale, “The U.S War Machine”, “U.S. War Mongers”, and “creatures of the US military-industrial complex”.
Hyde writes:
The near immediacy of it renders fusty the idea of history repeating itself as farce. It would be farce repeating itself as farce, were it not all so sensationally unfunny. The very idea that US hawks should seek to double down on their fiascoid adventure in Iraq by aiming their sights on Iran should be deemed too far-fetched even for satire – instead, it gains daily traction in the most familiar of places. It’s not just the same news outlets; it’s the same faces.
With a handful of exceptions such as Dick Cheney, who is living off the fat of the last outing in the region, the Class of 2002 are back in business and beating the drums.
But while the amnesia cycle contracts every time, the one thing that takes far longer than it used to is extricating ourselves from these wars. The Republican party seems to need them more than ever, unified only when defining themselves against the so-called common enemy.
While we can only wonder who she’s referring to as those “beating the drums” for war, evidently lost on Hyde is the fact that a Democratic, and decidedly liberal, U.S. President is now the Commander-in-Chief.
But, in what can only be described as a quintessentially Guardian example of an ideologically inspired capacity to engage in almost incomprehensible propaganda, Hyde writes:
The airwaves and newswires teem with politicians and pundits shrieking and pointing at Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s years-old exhortation to “wipe Israel off the map”, even though this translation has been repeatedly debunked – a fact that conveniently never sticks with those seeking to make hay. And once again, their strident voices drown out the experts.
Whatever one’s opinion about possible military intervention in Iran, the mendacity those who run interference for the Iranian regime’s transparent and well-documented malevolence towards the Jewish state can’t be overstated.
Here is a sample of what Hyde’s “experts” evidently were unable to locate.
- Ahmadinejad’s original words, that Israel should be “wiped off the map”, have appeared draped over Iranian missiles in military parades.
- Ahmadinejad also said of Israel: “Our dear Imam set the regime occupying Quds as the target of his fight…Very soon, this stain of disgrace will be purged from the centre of the Islamic world – and this is attainable.”
- In 2006, during the Israeli operation in Lebanon, Ahmadinejad told Muslim leaders: “the main solution is for the elimination of the Zionist regime”.
- In 2008 he said: “I must announce that the Zionist regime, with a 60-year record of genocide, plunder, invasion and betrayal is about to die and will soon be erased from the geographical scene,”
- In a public address on IRINN TV, Ahmadinejad stated: “The Zionist regime has reached a total dead-end. Thanks to God, your wish will soon be realised, and this germ of corruption will be wiped off.”
- In 2010, he told Hezbollah supporters in Lebanon: “your enemies, who are the enemies of humanity, are on their way to demise and annihilation.”
- In 2011, he said of Israel: “Like a cancer cell that spreads through the body, this regime infects any region. It must be removed from the body.” .
And, it’s not just Ahmadinejad.
- In February 2012, Ayatollah Khamenei told a Friday prayer meeting at Tehran University: “From now onward, we will support and help any nations, any groups fighting against the Zionist regime across the world, and we are not afraid of declaring this. The Zionist regime is a true cancer tumour on this region that should be cut off. And it definitely will be cut off.”
- A website with close ties to Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khomenei outlined why it would be religiously acceptable to kill all Jews in Israel – a doctrine (seen here) which details why the destruction of Israel and the slaughter of all its people would be legally and morally justified, and in accordance to Islamic doctrine.
The suggestion that Iranian leaders have not indeed called repeatedly for Israel’s destruction is, it seems, in some ways intellectually similar to Holocaust denial. In both cases, conclusions are reached based on the political and ideological causes they serve.
Whether or not Holocaust deniers truly believe their own rhetoric about the Holocaust is one issue. However, just a vital is the political ends such narratives serve – the notion that Jews are not victims, not worthy of our sympathy, and the implicit suggestion that there has been a successful Jewish conspiracy to convince the world of this historically fictitious mass murder.
Similarly, those who deny Iranian leaders’ calls for Israel’s destruction appear to be at least partially motivated by the belief that such “propaganda” is advanced by those with ulterior motives – right-wingers, Zionists, and similarly villainous war-mongers who seek a military confrontation with Iran.
Whether or not such commentators making such claims are motivated by antisemitism is beside the point.
Ultimately, the politics which represent the foundation of their belief that Ahmadinejad has never in fact called for Israel’s destruction rests, in large measure, on a conspiracy theory and extreme malice towards their political opponents.
Headline from a conspiracy blog: http://tiny.cc/ty5pbw
It’s not enough for Guardian columnists to simply make a case against war with Iran. They must impute, to those one the other side of the debate, the worst faith and most ignoble motives, conjuring caricatures of cynical, malevolent, manipulators disseminating propaganda in service of a covert, dangerous agenda.
That commentators such as Hyde actually believe themselves free of what they see as intellectually crippling right-wing closed-mindedness is a stunning self-delusion.
Those self-described “liberals” who sow doubt regarding even the most explicit calls for the mass murder of Jews have come to resemble the very right-wing caricatures they’re so fond of demonizing.
Related articles
- CiF reader sees Zionist fingerprints in international condemnation of Syria (cifwatch.com)
- CiF readers blast Jonathan Freedland’s critique of Guardian Left orthodoxies on Syria, Iran & Israel (cifwatch.com)
- On the Syrian-Seumas Milne anti-Zionist, anti-Imperialist Axis (cifwatch.com)
- Berchmans’ dehumanizing comment about Israelis: 266 Recommends & not deleted by CiF moderators (cifwatch.com)
- Guardian’s false accusation of “false accusations of antisemitism” (cifwatch.com)
- The Iranian Guardians: CiF readers come out in force to demonize Israel, & defend Islamist regime (cifwatch.com)
- Berchmans or Ben White? Deep thoughts at ‘Comment is Free’ on why Jews are hated (cifwatch.com)
- CiF contributor David Wearing Tweets about ‘huge propaganda campaign whitewashing Israel’s crimes’ (cifwatch.com)
- Seumas Milne or Ahmadinejad? Guardian warns attacking Iran would be ‘criminal aggression’ (cifwatch.com)
The prolific Denis MacEoin wrote a letter which was published in the Guardian today, March 18, in response to Peter Beaumont’s Observer essay, ”A better understanding of Iran might save us from catastrophe, March 11.
While you should read Beaumont’s apologia for the Islamic Republic in full, which (of course) vilified Israel and blamed the regime’s nuclear ambitions largely on Western belligerence, MacEeoin’s letter demonstrates a few of the more important inconvenient truths about Iran which Beaumont, for some reason, failed to include.
Related articles
- Dennis MacEeoin blasts the Guardian’s Seumas Milne, de facto spokesman for Iranian regime (cifwatch.com)
- Ethnocentric Facial Hair Bias: Guardian Left’s latest bizarre apologia for a loathsome terrorist (cifwatch.com)
- How to become an anti-Zionist martyr on the pages of the Guardian: Jenny Tonge edition (cifwatch.com)
- Guardian moral equivalence watch: Iran edition (cifwatch.com)
- More Pro-Iranian “Hasbara” at ‘Comment is Free’ (cifwatch.com)
- Guardian’s Simon Tisdall fears Romney’s belligerence (& Israel’s obsessive fears) may push U.S. to war (cifwatch.com)
- On the Syrian-Seumas Milne anti-Zionist, anti-Imperialist Axis (cifwatch.com)
H/T Mark
The first indication that the essay by Tareq Baconi, “Hamas is making a tactical appeal to the grassroots“, CiF, March 8, was going to represent yet another example of a Guardian whitewash of a terrorist group committed to the Jewish state’s destruction was the accompanying photo.
The beloved Ismail Haniyeh, a true man of the people.
But, it gets much worse.
Baconi writes:
Hamas officials have said that in the event of a war between Iran and Israel, they will not become involved on Tehran’s side.
Historically, Hamas has always gone to great lengths to assert its independence from any foreign influence. It is widely recognised that it receives support from powers such as Syria (until recently) and Iran. Yet this has never been worn as a badge of honour by the movement.
Rather, its leadership has consistently asserted that the movement cannot be influenced or directed by any external power. It has insisted that it charts its course based on the will of the people – in stark contrast to Fatah and its leadership, who have frequently been portrayed as the pawns of western powers and Israel.
Hamas: Authentic, boldly asserting its independence from imperial powers while engaging in terrorism.
Fatah: A pawn of the U.S. and Israel.
Baconi continues:
Hamas, which governs Gaza, is also territorialised, limiting its resistance to historic Palestine.… Unlike the Palestine Liberation Organisation…Hamas has rarely if ever meddled in regional or global affairs, either rhetorically or through acts of resistance.
[and has] limited its war to a well-defined battle: that of liberating Palestine from “Zionist occupation”.
At a time when people at the grassroots are calling the shots across the region, Hamas is prudently differentiating itself from other regimes and parties by visibly siding with the people.
This is not a new concept for Hamas, since it has always derived its legitimacy and popularity from Palestinians [emphasis added]
Please read the above passages over.
The euphemisms are meant to communicate the following:
- Hamas, unlike the more moderate Fatah, is not guilty of cravenly being influence by Western powers, charts its own path, determined by the will of the Palestinian people.
- As such, Hamas limits its terrorist attacks by targeting merely Israeli civilians (those living anywhere in pre or post 1967 borders): The murder of innocent Jewish men, women and children in Israel as an act of restraint.
Yes, “resistance” means murderous terror attacks.
Yes, “historic Palestine” means the entire nation of Israel.
And, yes, ‘Comment is Free’ published a commentary suggesting that brutal terrorist attacks against Israelis are consistent with the responsible and admirable behavior of a legitimate “resistance” movement.
Related articles
- The anti-Zionist malice of ‘Comment is Free’ contributor Mya Guarnieri (cifwatch.com)
- Hamas, Harriet Sherwood and the Guardian Left’s continuing antisemitic sins of omission (cifwatch.com)
- Fatah arrests 8 Hamas members. Israel arrests 1. Which do you think Harriet Sherwood reported? (cifwatch.com)
- The Guardian’s Phoebe Greenwood promotes the new kinder, gentler, peaceful Hamas (cifwatch.com)
- Jenny Tonge & the Hamas Lobby (cifwatch.com)
- Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh announcing Global March to Jerusalem (cifwatch.com)
- Rocket attacks on Israel, and reporters without borders (of integrity) (cifwatch.com)
- Guardian’s biased coverage of terrorist hostilities in Israel’s south: Numbers, headlines and photos (cifwatch.com)
- Fascinating Twitter exchange between Guardian’s Seumas Milne & Hamas member Azzam Tamimi (cifwatch.com)
- Guardian moral equivalence watch: Iran edition (cifwatch.com)
- Hamas’s immutable malice towards Jews that the Guardian won’t report (cifwatch.com)
Since Friday, March 9, when hostilities between Israel and terrorists in Gaza began – upon the IDF’s disruption of a Popular Resistance Committee planned multi-pronged terror attack on Israel’s south, the Guardian has devoted 8 stories to the issue.
Total words and stories: 4485 words in eight separate pieces (including a video story)
Headlines sympathetic to Gaza/Palestinians: 7
Headlines sympathetic to Israel: 0 (One was neutral)
Story photos sympathetic to Gaza/Palestinians: 7
Story photos sympathetic to Israel: 1
Number of passages in the eight stories clearly sympathetic to Palestinians: 22
Number of passages in the eight stories clearly sympathetic to Israelis: 12
What the Guardian didn’t report or severely downplayed:
Number of rockets fired from Gaza since Friday: 303
Number of Israelis injured since start of hostilities: 17
Number of Palestinian terrorists killed since the start of hostilities out of 24 total deaths:20 (Civilian to Combatant ratio of 4 to 20) H/T Challah Hu Akbar
Average civilian to combatant death ratio in recent conflicts involving the U.S. or NATO forces: 3 to 1 (3 civilian deaths for every one combatant death)
Number of Israeli citizens who spent the weekend on high alert, with alarm sirens regularly warning people to rush to bomb shelters: Over 1 million
Who has been responsible for most of the rocket attacks on Israeli civilians? Popular Resistance Committee and Islamic Jihad. (both funded by Iran, and the former controlled by Hamas)
Stated goals of Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Popular Resistance Committees: The destruction of Israel.
Most cynical and cruel Palestinian attack since Friday not reported by the Guardian: Kerem Shalom incident
(Two vehicles en-route to delivering humanitarian goods to the Gaza Strip were struck by three mortars on Monday morning close to the Kerem Shalom crossing. Activity at the crossing was only temporarily suspended, with the decision made to continue operations at the crossing. Despite escalating rocket fire in recent days, the Kerem Shalom and Erez crossings continued to function, with over 180 trucks with aid transferred to Gaza on Sunday.)
Finally, here are the photos and headlines which accompanied the eight Guardian stories:
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Today, the Guardian had a live online reader Q & A with contributors Saeed Kamali Dehghan and Richard Norton-Taylor, on the Iranian nuclear issue (the Iran nuclear crisis: Q & A with Saeed Kamali Dehghan and Richard Norton-Taylor, March 12).
The piece was introduced with this:
The prospect of armed conflict with Iran seems to grow more likely by the day. Israel has warned that it will not countenance an Iranian nuclear weapons programme, and the US has argued that, while it wants to give diplomacy time, all options remain on the table.
The rhetoric was ratcheted up again last week with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s visit to Washington DC. But to what extent should we take the sabre-rattling at face value? And what’s being said inside Iran?
So, I decided to weigh in, and wrote this:
(I also provided links in my original comment to buttress my claims)
Saeed Kamali Dehghan then responded to me:
First, Iranian leaders haven’t just been “crazy with their words”. As I pointed out, and what Saeed ignored, they’ve also been crazy with their deeds: funding and arming Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Hamas and Hezbollah.
And, when has Israel called for the annihilation of Iran, or offered a state-sponsored religious justification for the mass murder of Iranian civilians?
Second, yes, we can “measure which one is more dangerous to the world”.
According to the U.S. State Department, Iran is the most active state sponsor of terrorism in the world.
Finally, his last point suggests that both Iran and Israel discriminate equally against “others”.
Boy, where to begin?
Has Israel hanged gays like Iran? No.
Actually, Israel has only executed one person since its founding: Adolf Eichmann.
And, more to the point, Israel is, by far the most gay-friendly nation in the Middle East. In fact, Tel Aviv was voted the most gay-friendly city in the world in poll conducted by the LGBT travel website gaycities.com.
Has Israel discriminated against their religious minorities like Iran? No again.
While, in Iran, the Bahai face systemic persecution, and a Christian pastor faces imminent execution for refusing to recant his Christian faith, religious minorities – Muslims, Druze, Bahai and Christians – are thriving in Israel, and their numbers have grown considerably since the Jewish state’s founding in 1948.
Further, while women in Israel are free and represented in all sectors of society, Iran systemically denies women equal rights - and even executes women for the crime of adultery.
Also, note that Saeed didn’t even attempt to address the fact that Iran arms and funds at least three proscribed terrorist groups on Israel’s borders. That is, the Islamic Republic of Iran has been engaged for years in a proxy war against Israel, arming groups with the explicit aim of destroying the Jewish state.
Finally, this blog has long argued that the Guardian Left simply does not represent genuinely progressive values in even the broadest sense of the term.
Israel’s liberal advantages over Iran are stark and simply beyond debate.
A genuinely liberal voice would understand this painfully obvious moral truth.
Related articles
- Rocket attacks on Israel, and reporters without borders (of integrity) (cifwatch.com)
- More Pro-Iranian “Hasbara” at ‘Comment is Free’ (cifwatch.com)
- Anti-Zionist propaganda as literary criticism: How the Guardian demonizes Israel without really trying (cifwatch.com)
- Guardian “reporter” Chris McGreal & the socially acceptable antisemitism of the Left (cifwatch.com)
- Buried by the Guardian: The paper fails to report Iranian leader’s religious justification for genocide (cifwatch.com)
- Guardian changes course & (permanently) removes Gilad Atzmon’s book from their online shop (cifwatch.com)
- AKUS @ AIPAC Conf: House leader vows Congress will declare red lines for action on Iran (cifwatch.com)
Cross posted by Mark Gardner at the blog of the CST
According to an article by “M.S.” on the Economist blog, Israel and its Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu fear Iran because they suffer from “Auschwitz complex”. Furthermore, this “Auschwitz complex” supposedly links with the Jewish festivals of Purim and Passover. At its end, we are told that Netanyahu’s fears over Iran, reveal his “ghetto mentality”.
The Holocaust, Jewish history and religion are crucial to the Israeli national psyche and the decisions of its leaders: but this is not a serious article on that multifaceted subject. Instead, this article’s lack of accuracy and sensitivity make it little more than an abuse of the Holocaust and Jewish religion in order to stick two fingers up at Netanyahu. (The Economist is perfectly entitled to criticise Netanyahu: but to do so on the premise of supposed Jewish psychological, religious and historical traits takes us into altogether different territory.)
To begin, the article’s title, “Auschwitz complex”, belongs more on the websites of Gilad Atzmon (eg “Swindler’s List”) and David Irving (eg “Auschwitz: the End of the Line”) than it does on that of the Economist. It is a cold joke, poking fun at the Holocaust to evoke a wry grin and not a little coldness in the heart of the reader.
The article opens with an attack upon Netanyahu for telling President Obama (in the context of Iran’s nuclear ambitions) that Israel seeks to remain “master of its fate”. The author ridicules the notion that any individual country, especially one in conflict with its neighbours, can be master of its own fate in an inter-dependent world. This is a facile straw man argument that sets the tone for what follows.
Next, Israel and Netanyahu are blamed for every failure of the Oslo Peace Accords and for the ongoing conflict situation. There is nothing unusual about such condemnation, but in this context it is required by the author to justify the notion of an “Auschwitz complex”, whereby Israel’s and Netanyahu’s actions are presented as a mix of premeditated ideological malice and unwarranted paranoia. (It is possible that the title, “Auschwitz complex” was written by the Economist, not the author. Nevertheless, the article is woeful; and if the Economist chose the headline, then that is, in a sense, even more depressing.)
Having built the platform, we get the crux of the article:
Having trapped themselves in a death struggle with Palestinians that they cannot acknowledge or untangle, Israelis have psychologically displaced the source of their anxiety onto a more distant target: Iran…the notion that it represents a new Holocaust is overstated…But Iran makes an appealing enemy for Israelis because, unlike the Palestinians, it can be fitted into a familiar ideological trope from the Jewish national playbook: the eliminationist anti-Semite.
Where to begin with this? For the sake of brevity, two points:
Firstly, it is plain wrong to say that Palestinians cannot be “fitted into a familiar ideological trope from the Jewish playbook: the eliminationist anti-Semite”. Palestinian and Arab threats to destroy Israel have consistently formed an “ideological trope” in the Israeli psyche, just like today’s Iranian threat. Prior to the state’s creation, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem was (and still is) reviled in this manner, just as Egypt’s President Nasser was in the 1950 and 60s. Then, Menachem Begin’s leadership of Israel (1977-1983) was marked by his characterisation of Yasser Arafat and the PLO as Nazi inheritors. Similarly, the Hamas charter bears comparison with any“eliminationist” text.
Secondly, as the ever-excellent Professor Alan Johnson points out, “let us note that far from the concept of eliminationist antisemitism – being part of some ‘Jewish national playbook,’ it was the absence of such an orientating concept among the Jews of Europe that made the nature of the Nazi assault so difficult to understand and respond to.”
The author, “M.S.”, then draws upon Netanyahu’s presentation to Obama of the Book of Esther, which tells how a Persian king was persuaded by (the Jewish) Queen Esther to prevent the massacre of his country’s Jews. The story is read at the festival of Purim, which coincided with the Netanyahu-Obama meeting. We are then told how Passover includes the “Ve-hi she-amdah” prayer, “Because in every generation they rise up to destroy us, but the Holy One, Blessed be He, delivers us from their hands”.
The article says that Netanyahu “seems to be wooing Mr Obama and the American public just as effectively” and that this “resembles” a “doomed marriage” in which
the more stubborn and unstable partner drags the other into increasingly delusional and dangerous projects whose disastrous results seem only to legitimate their paranoid outlook.
No consideration is given to Iran’s past and present actions. No mention is made of its nuclear programme, its goal of regional domination, its leader’s apocalyptic outbursts, its denial of the Holocaust, its terrorism against Jews and Israelis. It is simply all down to Israeli delusions, which rest upon paranoid Jewish religious and Holocaust foundations. This is superior to Gilad Atzmon’s work, such as “Trauma Queen [Esther]…Pre-Traumatic Gas Syndrome…From Purim to AIPAC”, but it is still reminiscent of it. Surely the Economist ought to have far higher standards than the dross psychology and selective facts that comprise and compromise this article.
Finally, the author signs off with a couple more digs at Netanyahu, claiming his concerns over Iran (and Palestinians), and his Book of Esther gift to Obama reveal the failure to fulfil “the Zionist mission…to give the Jewish people control over its destiny”, and his being “still in” “the ‘Ghetto mentality’”.
By comparison, the Jerusalem Post (traditionally a somewhat more pro-Israel publication than the Economist), noted that against American advice, Israel had very successfuly declared independence (1948), launched the Six Day War (1967) and destroyed the Iraqi nuclear programme (1981). The editorial also had this to say about Netanyahu, the Book of Esther, Zionism and Iran:
That message from the Megila [Book of Esther] that encourages Jews to proactively take their fate into their own hands is also the story of the Zionist movement and the State of Israel. Refusing any longer to reconcile themselves to traditional passivity vis-à-vis the creation of a sovereign state, Jews who adhered to Zionism called to take hold of their own destiny.
…Unfortunately, they failed to achieve their goal before the Holocaust, which proved beyond a doubt Zionism’s premise that the Jewish people could not rely on the compassion of others.
…The message of the Megila is not one of militarism.
The lesson that Netanyahu wanted to impart to Obama was not that Israel must launch an attack against Iran to stop its mullahs from developing nuclear weapons.
However, the Megila does value Jewish action over Jewish passivity and recognizes that whether through ingenuity, good luck, divine intervention or a combination of them all the Jewish people, when given the chance, have managed to foil the plans of their many enemies. Let’s hope we have the same success in facing the Iranian challenge.
Related articles
- AKUS @ AIPAC Conf: House leader vows Congress will declare red lines for action on Iran (cifwatch.com)
- Oh, That’s It – Just That Pesky Ol’ Auschwitz Complex (Victor Davis Hanson)
Like this:
Roger Lloyd Pack - "intellect has rapidly diminished over the years until it reached its current level of hilarious stupidity"
Cross posted by Richard Millett
It’s a shame when one of Britain’s best-loved comedy actors joins with the forces of darkness to come to the defence of one of the world’s most reviled regimes, but such is the fate of Roger Lloyd Pack who played Trigger in BBC’s Only Fools and Horses.
Lloyd Pack is a seasoned anti-Israel activist and so it is no surprise to find his signature among the usual suspects in a letter to yesterday’s Guardian supporting Stop The War Coalition’s Don’t Attack Iran Campaign.
Ironically, the BBC website even gives the following description of Trigger:
“Although initially a (relatively speaking) sharp-minded villain Trigger’s intellect has rapidly diminished over the years until it reached its current level of hilarious stupidity.”
Who said art doesn’t sometimes mirror life?
The Guardian website even generously links the letter to the Don’t Attack Iran Campaign website. Why take out an expensive ad in a national newspaper, hire an expensive London venue or print millions of leaflets when all you need do nowadays is write a letter to The Guardian who will give you free advertising space if you’re anti-Israel.
The familiarity of these hardcore anti-Israel signatories is positive in as much as it shows how so alone they are in their support for such an oppressive ideology:
Tony Benn,
Jeremy Corbyn MP
Brian Eno
Lindsey German
George Galloway
Kate Hudson,
Jemima Khan
Ken Loach
Roger Lloyd Pack
Lowkey
Len McCluskey
John McDonnell MP
John Pilger
Michael Rosen
Jenny Tonge
You’d have thought that after her forced resignation from her party after wishing away Israel’s existence they might have left Jenny Tonge off for once but, then again, her recent statements that “Israel is not going to be there forever” and “then they will reap what they have sown” ties in nicely with Ahmadinejad’s genocidal desire to wipe Israel off the map.
Some say Ahmadinejad was mistranslated and that he merely wanted to eradicate Zionism. It’s the same weak defence that commentators like The Guardian’s Michael White and The New Statesman’s Mehdi Hasan put up for Tonge.
Let’s forget that Israel and Zionism are not mutually exclusive and gloss over Ahmadinejad’s “mistranslation” and listen to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei who, as reported by Press TV, “described Israel as a cancerous tumor that must be removed”. It doesn’t get more unambiguous than that and straight from the fool’s and horse’s mouth.
And calling it an attack on Iran is like calling Operation Cast Lead an attack on Gaza or on the Palestinians when, in actual fact, it was a legitimate attack on the terrorist group Hamas in self-defence. Attacking Iran’s nuclear sites will also be a legitimate act of self-defence unless Iran opens itself up to a full nuclear inspection in accordance with its non-proliferation treaty obligations, something that it has so far proved suspiciously unwilling to do.
And calling itself Stop The War Coalition is as equally disingenuous. Let Them Die Coalition would be far more accurate judging by their calls for non-intervention in Libya and, now, Syria.
The Guardian letter compares the build up to a possible war with Iran to that with Iraq. But Stop The War Coalition’s approach is itself reminiscent of Neville Chamberlain’s appeasement of another evil regime.
Galloway and German say they aren’t pacifists and Galloway has said that World War Two was a just war, but how can he, and we, be so sure he would have called it that at the time.
Stop The War Coalition is, basically, an organisation that supports non-intervention against regimes that are anti-American and/or anti-Israel. They were ecstatic when pro-American/pro-Israel Mubarak fell in Egypt but have criticised NATO’s ousting of anti-American/anti-Israel Gaddafi and will no way want Assad to fall with the negative impact that would have on Iran and, ultimately, Hezbollah and Hamas.
The hypocrisy of the signatories to The Guardian letter is fully exposed when Stop The War Coalition feels comfortable standing back watching Libyans and Syrians slaughtered in their droves while defending the vile Iranian regime and staying silent about the continued oppression of Iran’s women, gays, Jews (the 25,000 strong community is limited to one MP), Bahais, Kurds and anyone wanting to live a life in Iran as free as those signatories themselves can do in the west.
Related articles
- Chris McGreal Tweets away any possible claim to “liberalism” or journalistic integrity (cifwatch.com)
- How to become an anti-Zionist martyr on the pages of the Guardian: Jenny Tonge edition (cifwatch.com)
- Guardian’s former Iran correspondent legitimizes bizarre anti-Israel conspiracy theory (cifwatch.com)
- Guardian readers skew conversation about UK, U.S. & Iran in a decidedly Semitic direction (cifwatch.com)
- Mavi Marmara’s Ken O’Keefe compares Jews to Nazis at Middlesex Univ. Event: The Footage. (cifwatch.com)
- More Pro-Iranian “Hasbara” at ‘Comment is Free’ (cifwatch.com)
- Jenny Tonge & the Hamas Lobby (cifwatch.com)
- Seumas Milne or Ahmadinejad? Guardian warns attacking Iran would be ‘criminal aggression’ (cifwatch.com)
No, the blurring of news and opinion is not exclusively a Guardian phenomenon.
However, the recent report, on March 5, by Chris McGreal (the Guardian’s Washington correspondent, and former Jerusalem correspondent) contained a headline which is a perfect example of the capacity to contort any news in a way consistent with a journalist’s political sympathies. His headline was:
“Barack Obama tells Israel conference: too much loose talk of war”.
Of course, if you read Obama’s nearly 3500 word speech, a meager 86 words were employed to counsel against such unnecessary ”bluster”, while the overwhelming majority of his address focused on his unequivocal resolve in preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, including, if necessary, the use of US military force against the Islamist state.
McGreal could have led with this Obama quote:
Israel’s security is sacrosanct. It is non-negotiable.
Or, he could have used a version of this Obama quote:
No Israeli government can tolerate a nuclear weapon in the hands of a regime that denies the Holocaust, threatens to wipe Israel off the map and sponsors terrorist groups committed to Israel’s destruction.
Or this:
A nuclear-armed Iran is completely counter to Israel’s security interests. But it is also counter to the national security interests of the United States.
Or, McGreal could have highlighted this passage from Obama’s speech:
…the entire world has an interest in preventing Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon. A nuclear-armed Iran would thoroughly undermine the nonproliferation regime that we’ve done so much to build. There are risks that an Iranian nuclear weapon could fall into the hands of a terrorist organisation. It is almost certain that others in the region would feel compelled to get their own nuclear weapon, triggering an arms race in one of the world’s most volatile regions. It would embolden a regime that has brutalised its own people, and it would embolden Iran’s proxies, who have carried out terrorist attacks from the Levant to southwest Asia.
Or, this:
I have said that when it comes to preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, I will take no options off the table, and I mean what I say. That includes all elements of American power…a military effort to be prepared for any contingency.
But, McGreal is generally not burdened by such quaint notions as fairness, balance, proportion and context. He was clearly determined to frame Obama’s speech in a way suggesting that the US President gave the pro-Israel Jewish community a tongue-lashing on their “war talk”.
However, while McGreal’s reports for the Guardian at least typically contain the veneer of journalism – rather than ‘Comment is Free’ style hyperbole – his recent Tweets on the AIPAC convention are free of even the pretense of journalistic integrity. And, indeed, as you’ll see, McGreal’s use of 140 characters to let loose his political id make (the new NYT Israel correspondent) Jodi Rudoren’s recent Tweeting frenzy seem quite tame and sober in comparison.
First, there was this ReTweet by McGreal, on the Jewish state’s “psychosis”, from anti-Zionist blogger Tony Karon.
McGreal also had a series of exchanges with The Commentator:
So McGreal is mocking those who read the Jerusalem Post, which he derides for its Semitic sympathies, lacking objectivity – in contrast, are we to suppose, to the Guardian’s fair and balanced non-ideological reporting?
This is just comical. Oh yes, those Jews and their slick videos! I imagine that other national lobby groups produce amateurish, unprofessional films (shot with cheap hand-held cameras) at their conventions.
Again, try to remember that McGreal, who we’re to believe is a serious reporter for a major broadsheet, referred to the Israeli PM as “the President of doom”.
McGreal also Re-Tweeted Tony Karon again.
Pro-Israel Jews (and many non-Jews) as dim-witted teenagers pumped up with testosterone – an ugly caricature of Zionists which McGreal evidently believes.
And, there was this
As if we need to know what he’s getting at!
But, just for the fun of it, I Tweeted McGreal to request that he complete his thought, go beyond the dog whistle, and explain what precisely this is telling of, but (while we had a very raucous debate) he never came close to answering my question.
Of course, narratives regarding the injurious influence of the Israel/Jewish lobby on US foreign policy is something approaching conventional wisdom at the Guardian. Reporters like McGreal believe, as a matter of faith, that the power of the Israel lobby explains why the US Congress is pro-Israel, despite overwhelming empirical evidence that support for Israel among Americans is overwhelming and has represented something of a political consensus over the last 45 years.
A good understanding of McGreal’s views can be gleaned from a September report he wrote for the Guardian which included the following passage:
Obama [told] American Jewish leaders that he would put some “daylight” between the US and Israel after eight years of George Bush slavishly refusing to pressure the Jewish state to move toward ending the occupation. [emphasis mine]
As the CST wrote to the Guardian, in relation to another CiF contributor’s use of the term “subservience” to characterize America’s relationship with Israel:
“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?
Shortly after McGreal’s report on the “subservient” American government, we contacted the Guardian, who upheld our complaint of antisemitic bias in McGreal’s report and they later removed the offending passage from the essay as “inconsistent with their standards”.
So, while its clear that McGreal buys into classic (historically right-wing tropes) about the dangers of Jewish power and influence on the body politic, it’s always difficult to determine what’s in someone’s heart – whether folks who engage in such classically antisemitic narratives possess a genuine antipathy towards Jews as such.
However, evidence on McGreal’s views towards Jews can reasonably be found in a series of reports on the alleged cooperation between Israel and S. Africa – a two-day special report in the Guardian Feb. 6th and 7th 2006 which attempted to delegitimize Israel by portraying the Jewish state as an apartheid and colonial state. But, it went much further than merely defaming Israel, and lashed out at Jews more broadly. Wrote McGreal, in the context of comparing Jewish behavior to that of the Afrikaner S. African regime:
[Israel's Jewish] backers question how anyone can accuse them, as Jews at the end of a long line of persecuted generations, of racism, or in any way of resembling the old Afrikaner regime. But for years, much of South Africa’s Jewish population and successive Israeli governments made their own pact with apartheid – a deal that exchanged near silence by most South African Jews on a great moral issue for acceptance, and clandestine cooperation between Israel and the Afrikaner government that drew the two countries into a hidden embrace.
Of course, I likely shouldn’t have to dignify McGreal’s smear against Jews, but it needs to be noted that most S. African Jews, in fact, had actually voted against the apartheid National Party, instead casting their votes for either the Progressive Party or the United Party, and that Nelson Mandela, wrote about Jews in South Africa: “I have found Jews to be more broad-minded than most whites on issues of race and politics, perhaps because they themselves have historically been victims of prejudice.”
Finally, being a Jew has historically meant constantly being on the defensive, and I am loath to give McGreal’s vitriol against Israel and her Jewish supporters any legitimacy, nor treat him as a respectful interlocutor.
My hope is that genuine liberals (those who are passionately anti-racist) will recognize McGreal’s ugly smears against the Jewish community, and condemn such decidedly illiberal views.
While McGreal’s Tweets have eroded any trust that he can separate his toxic political views with his responsibilities as a journalist, his past commentary should motivate others to justly name and shame the Guardian’s Washington correspondent as the bigot he is.
Related articles
- Jewish money: The Guardian leaps once more into the sewer of antisemitic conspiracies (cifwatch.com)
- Guardian’s Simon Jenkins suggests Obama’s sanctions against Iran caused by Israel lobby (cifwatch.com)
- How pejorative characterization of U.S. supporters of Israel crept into Guardian essay about Rick Santorum (cifwatch.com)
- A case about the torture & murder of a Palestinian in the W. Bank the Guardian won’t report (cifwatch.com)
A guest post by AKUS
Just returning from my first AIPAC conference, one of 13,000 attendees, including 2,000 students from campuses across the nation, it appears that the press has largely overlooked the most important speech at the conference by focusing on the speeches by Barack Obama and Benjamin Netanyahu.
Obama reiterated that he wants to give sanctions time to work, especially after (if?) the Europeans make good on their promise to halt all oil purchases from Iran after July 2012. At the same time, he has repeated that his policy is not one of containing Iran, but of preventing Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons. He believes that Iran is at least two years away from building its own nuclear weapons, but he made no reference to the possibility that it could acquire nuclear weapons from another state, such as North Korea or Pakistan. It is not clear if that possibility has entered his, or the USA’s, strategic calculus.
The Guardian has tried to make much of Obama’s statement that too much loose talk only helps Iran by driving up the price of oil, as if it was directed only at Israel. Obama, I suspect, regrets the statement since it was so open to misinterpretation. He was clearly referring to the endless discussions in the MSM and elsewhere, by everyone, not just Israel and Israelis.
A clearly downcast Netanyahu made a largely platitudinous speech at the conference, reiterating his responsibility to keep the safety of Israel uppermost.
He made much of Israel’s ability to strike at its enemies without needing assistance or approval, unlike 1944, pointing to a copy of a letter he has from the time when Jewish organizations begged the Allies to bomb the train tracks to Auschwitz only to be told the resources to do so would be more effectively deployed elsewhere. He was clearly drawing a parallel with existential threat posed by Iran and the Holocaust, and demonstrating his skepticism that sanctions will be effective against Iran. He stated that Israel would take steps to defend its people, unlike the situation that prevailed in 1944, before the State of Israel was founded. I for one do not believe Israel can go it alone in Iran, at least with any effect – time will tell.
But the most striking and potentially important speech was delivered by Mitch McConnell, the Republican Minority leader in the Senate. He made it absolutely clear that not only is “overwhelming force”, as he repeatedly called it, an option, but that it is THE option that will be used against Iran if sanctions do not work – and he appeared to say quite clearly that he believes that sanctions have been applied too late to stop Iran now.
McConnell called for a “clear declaratory statement” from the Administration that if Iran enriches uranium to the level that it can be used in nuclear weapons, or if it acquires a nuclear weapon (presumably from a third-party), the USA will respond with overwhelming military force. Since he feels Obama is not willing to make such a statement, he intends to use the Republican majority in the House to put through such a resolution, and he believes that there is a majority in the Senate that would support the same proposal.
If this happens, it is a major new element in what has till now been largely a war of words against Iran finally accompanied with sanctions that are clearly hurting.
Perhaps McConnell, unlike others, has a clearer understanding that a government like Iran, not as strongly beholden to an electorate as fully democratic states, can allow continuing sanctions to be enforced, as such economic pressure – they believe – may only serve to inflame their population against the outside world rather than causing a change in the regime’s behavior, or a change of the regime itself.
A few quick notes about the conference:
The conference was attended by a massive 13,000 delegates, including many African-Americans, Christians, and, notably, 200 members of Congress supportive of Israel. Another notable guest speaker was supermodel Kathy Ireland. The entire cavernous Washington Convention Center was filled to capacity.
Much is made in MSM like the Guardian of the financial clout of AIPAC. The presence of the Congress-men and –women belies that. They were there, and constantly appear at the conference year after year, because of a genuine feeling that the U.S. and Israel share the same values and the same threats and concerns. Yes, AIPAC is exceptionally well-organized to lobby Congress, but those who think it can buy off hundreds of Congressmen with money simply do not understand how close and deep the ties are between the two countries. AIPAC lobbies on values and security issues shared by both countries.
The conference also showcased Israel advances in electric cars and water purification, and military coordination with the USA. Especially interesting was an enormous Humvee that has been equipped with Israeli anti-IED technology and which is used by American forces in Afghanistan, and, formerly, Iraq. The (non-Jewish) mother of a returned US veteran who used such vehicles spoke movingly about her visit to the factory in Israel where the special armor is made and how she values the assistance Israel has given to making US soldiers’ lives safer.
Finally –one of the highlights for me was an address by Yehuda Avner, former speech writer to Israeli Prime Ministers Ben Gurion, Eshkol, Meir, Rabin and Begin, promoting his book “The Prime Ministers”, which comprises memoirs of those leaders and their interactions with other national leaders. By now well into his eighties, I would think, he spoke engagingly and often hilariously of events from 1947 onwards and the words and actions of the leaders involved. I recommend the 700+ page book to all – you can download an electronic copy to your Kindle, iPad or NOOK.
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Guest/Cross Post
Hadar Sela
Overview of Guardian coverage of Israel: April 30th to May 27th 2012.
May 27, 2012 in Comments which are off-topic, ad hominem, racist, vulgar or include threats of violence will be deleted | Tags: BDS, Boycott, Comment is Free, Delegitimization, Distortion, Gaza, Guardian, Iran, Israel, Terrorism | by Hadar Sela | 1 comment
Last month we published a review of the Guardian’s coverage of events in Israel during April, highlighting the subjects it chose to address and – no less important – those it did not. Several readers suggested that this should become a regular exercise, so here is a breakdown of the subjects tackled during the period from April 30th to May 27th 2012.
During that four-week period, 58 articles appeared on the ‘Israel’ page of the World News section on the Guardian’s website. Two of those actually appear twice, so in fact we are addressing 56 articles, eleven of which also appeared on the ‘Israel’ page of ‘Comment is Free’.
Three items dealt with the subject of boycotts against Israeli targets whilst three others were obituaries. One article pertained to literature and one other was a video report in Jon Ronson’s series about ‘astroturfing’.
Six articles dealt with the Iranian nuclear issue and two pertained to the subject of the British government’s reaction to a hypothetical Israeli military strike on Iran.
Two articles speculating about early elections in Israel were followed by five articles about the Kadima party’s joining the coalition government.
One article contained archive material concerning the Manchester Guardian’s coverage of Israel’s declaration of Independence in 1948 whilst four items dealt with the subject of events on Nakba Day 2012. Five articles were published on the subject of the Palestinian prisoners on hunger strike whilst a further four dealt with subjects which can be classified as carrying a theme of ‘Israeli authorities against Palestinians’.
Two articles were connected to the subject of the Olympics – one concerning the IOC refusal to mark the Munich terror attack and the other about disabled Palestinian Olympians. Two items related to the Israeli TV series ‘Hatufim’ – one of which still carries the spelling mistake “Israeil” in its by-line.
Four articles (three of which appeared on the same day) were about the subject of illegal migrants in Israel, one dealt with the subject of the Mavi Marmara flotilla and potential compensation arrangements and two articles can be classified as relating to ‘settlements’ or ‘settlers’.
Six items appearing on the ‘Israel’ page have little if any connection to Israel, including one about the Hamas clamp-down on the ‘Palfest’ event in Gaza, one about Palestinian Authority actions against Palestinian journalists, one about human rights in Bahrain and another concerning Egypt and Saudi Arabia.
So what did the Guardian choose not to report during the same period of time? A partial list includes the following:
On April 30th a rocket fired from the Gaza Strip fell near the town of Sderot. (source)
On May 1st shots were fired from the Gaza Strip at Israeli soldiers engaged in routine activities on the Israeli side of the border fence. During the week May 2nd to May 8th, two rockets and one mortar fired from Gaza hit the western Negev.(source)
On May 3rd, two Palestinians carrying knives and explosives were arrested at Tapuach Junction. Later the same night, a Palestinian carrying a knife tried to infiltrate the village of Elon Moreh.
On May 7th, Israeli soldiers thwarted an attempt to smuggle weapons through the Kalandia checkpoint. On the same day, a Palestinian carrying three pipe bombs was apprehended near Tapuach Junction.
During the week May 9th to May 15th, one rocket fired from the Gaza Strip hit the western Negev. On May 10th Egyptian security forces apprehended three vehicles containing weapons – including 40 anti-tank missiles – being smuggled from Libya. (source)
Also on May 10th, two Palestinians carrying pipe bombs and fire bombs were arrested by the Border Police near Tapuach Junction.
On May 20th a Palestinian tried to stab a soldier at a roadblock. During the preceding month, three Israeli civilians were wounded in stabbing attacks. Information concerning the apprehension of a Ramallah area based terror cell which planned to abduct Israeli civilians was made public, including details of attempted kidnappings:
“During March 2012 the cell tried to abduct an Israeli several times:
(source)
In addition, incidents of rock-throwing at Israeli vehicles continued throughout the month.
As we saw in the previous review, the Guardian’s coverage of Israel goes out of its way to avoid any mention of the daily threats posed to Israeli civilians. Whilst Guardian readers world-wide may now be familiar with the TV drama ‘Hatufim’ the paper does not inform them about real-life attempts to kidnap Israelis. The same readers now know all about the Palestinian prisoners’ hunger strike, but little or nothing about the type of ongoing terror activities which lead to the arrests of Palestinians. Whilst the subject of building in towns and villages beyond the ‘green line’ is covered, an attempt by an armed Palestinian to infiltrate one of those villages is ignored.
Once again, the Israel-related news which Guardian editors elect to avoid telling their readers is no less significant than the stories they do choose to tell.
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