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The Guardian’s infatuation with Raed Salah is not new. When the story of his arrest in the UK broke last year, the paper produced a plethora of articles, all eerily similar in their support for Salah and his British patrons and in the whitewashing of who Salah is (the various articles uniformly described him as a ‘Palestinian activist’) and what he stands for.
The Guardian’s Ian Black went so far as to describe the organisation its cause celebre heads in the following anodyne terms:
“The Islamic Movement campaigns for the rights of those citizens who refer to themselves as the “Arabs of 1948″ – those left behind while 700,000 others became refugees when Israel was founded. It fights discrimination and campaigns for the right of Palestinian refugees to return, as well as against house demolitions and expulsions in Jerusalem.”
Notably, the Guardian failed to report the fact that Raed Salah lost an appeal against the deportation order in October 2011.
Now however, in the wake of the recent decision by the UK immigration tribunal judge, the Guardian is back on the case, with two articles (so far) on the subject in one day. Along the way, the Guardian did not miss the opportunity to lash out once again at the CST, quoting David Miller and apparently having learned little from the last time it relied upon information provided by that known purveyor of outlandish conspiracy theories .
There are many reasons why a newspaper which likes to describe itself as both ‘Left’ and ‘liberal’ should not be trumpeting the cause of the leader of a religious ultra-nationalist movement which practices ethnic separatism, sex segregation and suppression of the rights of homosexuals, women and religious and ethnic minorities.
One of those reasons is that Raed Salah and his Northern Islamic Movement stand for everything which the liberal Left supposedly abhors. But the Guardian’s puerile ‘my enemy’s enemy is my friend’ stance means that it is dazzled by the fact that Salah is feted in anti-Israel circles as a leading ‘activist’, and so it is prepared to sell out its once firmly held Leftist and liberal principles and avoid exposure of Salah’s real background and agenda at all costs.
In 2003 the Or Commission – appointed by the State of Israel to investigate the riots of October 2000 in which 12 Arab Israelis, one Jewish Israeli and one Palestinian were killed – published its report.
”..thousands of demonstrators paralyzed the country, destroying Jewish property and attacking Jewish citizens on Israel’s main roads. In a number of instances Jewish citizens were just inches from death at the hands of an unrestrained mob.” One elderly Jewish man, Jan Bechor, was stoned to death as he sat in his car at an intersection on one of Israel’s main roads. The report also documented the use of firebombs, gunfire, rocks, and slingshots against both Israeli citizens and police.”
The report noted the incitement within the Arab sector which preceded the deadly riots:
“On September 18, 2000, two weeks prior to the outbreak of violence, more than 35,000 Israeli Arabs attended the seventh annual Northern Islamic Movement “peace” rally on the theme: “Al Aksa [Mosque] is in Danger,” hosted by Um el Fahm Mayor Sheikh Raed Salah. ”
“Salah reportedly told the crowd, “the Islamic world has exclusive rights to all the holy sites in Jerusalem and Israel has none.” The crowd responded with the chant, “In spirit and blood, we shall redeem Al Aksa.” Islamic affairs expert Dr. Guy Bechor noted that the entire rally took place as an act of incitement against the very existence of the State of Israel.”
The Or Commission did not recommend legal action against Raed Salah – a move which was severely criticized across the Israeli political spectrum.
“Former Meretz MK Amnon Rubenstein noted that “the Or Commission’s credibility was damaged by its refusal to recommend action against Arab MKs Abdel Malick Dehamshe, Azmi Bishara, and Um el Fahm Mayor and Northern Islamic Movement leader Raed Salah for inciting the Arab sector.”
“Former Defense Minister Moshe Arens wrote in Ha’aretz, ”It is difficult to believe that the Or Commission ignored the rapid rise of subversive activities and incitement against the state that occurred among a part of Israel’s Arab community since the Oslo Accords.” Druze MK Ayoub Kara said, “Israel must stop ‘touching up’ an ugly picture: the Israeli Arabs engaged in a civil rebellion to demonstrate their national solidarity with the Palestinians.”
Far from being the type of ‘human rights’ or ‘civil liberties’ movement as Ian Black suggested in his article quoted above, the Northern Islamic Movement is in fact the Muslim Brotherhood’s branch in Israel.
In 1997 it created controversy by attempting to build an unauthorized mosque on church-owned land outside the Basilica of the Annunciation in Nazareth. A year later it gained control of the local council and Christian residents of the city and visitors to it are still confronted by Islamist propaganda as they approach their holy sites.
Like its sister organization Hamas – also a branch of the Muslim Brotherhood – the Northern Islamic Movement rejects the existence of Israel completely and advocates the establishment of an Islamic state run on Sharia principles in its place.
Raed Salah’s ‘activism’ must be examined by any objective observer in that context, rather than in the cherry-picking manner adopted by those who choose to present him merely as a pro-Palestinian activist. Their support of Salah and, by extension, his movement’s aims is in fact support for an aspiring non-democratic theocratic regime with in-built persecution of minorities and discrimination against numerous sectors, not least moderate Muslims.
As cited in the Or Commission report, Raed Salah is well known for his ability to incite violence, conflict and unrest either through his signature rabble-rousing speeches or by other – sometimes imaginative – methods. Here he is speaking at a rally after his participation in the Mavi Marmara flotilla, glorifying ‘martyrdom’.
Salah’s support for Hamas and its genocidal aims is not, however, confined merely to inflammatory rhetoric and boat trips. Its practical side includes the Northern Islamic Movement’s links to terror attacks.
“Nonetheless, three terrorist attacks have been carried out during the past decade by members of the Islamic Movement, primarily by its radical faction: The murder of soldiers near Kibbutz Gal-Ed in 1992; the murder of an Israeli couple in the Meggido Forest in August, 1999; and the explosions of the bomb-carrying cars in Tiberias and Haifa in September, 1999.”
Whilst the Northern Islamic Movement may not have provided the logistic support for these terror attacks (that apparently came from Hamas) it certainly did provide the background atmosphere to them.
“Members of the extremist faction maintain contacts with HAMAS in the Territories. Dr. Saliman Aghbariyya, an activist in this faction from Um el-Fahm, has been arrested more than once for having financial connections with HAMAS. Sheikh Ra’id Salah, leader of the extremist faction, is a member of the board of governors of the Islamic University in Gaza; the most important stronghold of the HAMAS in terms of organization and education. Sheikh Ra’id rushed to Jordan, at the head of a mission, to congratulate Khaled Mash’al for surviving an attempt on his life by Israel’s Mossad in September 1997. Similarly, he and his supporters went to Gaza to congratulate Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, the leader of HAMAS, upon his return home after being released from prison in Israel.”
As is well known, Raed Salah has spent time in prison in Israel due to his role in the transferal of funds to Hamas. That, of course, is no coincidence: Salah has been named as sitting on the board of trustees of Yusuf Qaradawi’s ‘Union of Good’, the raison d’etre of which is to provide financial support for Hamas. On the basis of that support to a terrorist organisation, the ‘Union of Good’ was outlawed by the United States and by Israel – along with its various supporting charities.
Several of those supporting charities are based in Britain and, despite repeated public pressure, continue to function openly; rubber stamped by the Charity Commission of England and Wales.
Raed Salah’s 2011 speaking tour of the UK (cut short by his arrest) was promoted by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign and the Palestinian Forum in Britain. The advertisements show that it was also a fundraiser for ‘Human Appeal International’ which is one of the members of the ‘Union of Good’.
‘Human Appeal International’ was named in the trial of Ahmed Salatna of the Jenin Zakat Committee as one of the organisations via which funds were transferred for Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorist activities.
Raed Salah’s supporters (the Guardian included) in the UK have tried very hard throughout the entire affair to confine discussion of the case to semantic wrangling over his anti-Semitic statements and A-level English Literature-style dissections of his ‘poetry’. In that, they appear to have largely succeeded.
That ‘victory’ should, however, send chills down the spines of any genuine members of the liberal Left remaining in the UK. By focusing the public and legal discussions on the various interpretations of Raed Salah’s sermons and writings, interested parties have managed to create a smoke-screen of ‘Jewish over-reaction’, with an added measure of anti-Semitic conspiracy theory-style ‘untoward Jewish influence’, adding fuel to the fire of an already intimidating atmosphere as perceived by many British Jews and non-Jews alike.
But the ins and outs of British immigration law and Salah’s so-called poetry should – in theory at least – be of far less interest to Left liberal commentators than the fact that there are groups within their own society (some with members in very high places) who laud and support a man whose beliefs and ideas are the antithesis of the values of liberty, equality and human rights which Western liberals claim to embrace.
It is possible to agree or disagree with the principle behind Salah’s banning from the UK, but there is certainly no reason for any genuine liberal to invest as much energy as the Guardian has done into trying to disguise the fact that the aim of his visit was to spout his incitement, promote his ideas of theocratic-based separatism and do a bit of round-about fundraising for a terror organisation on the side.
The Guardian’s treatment of the whole protracted Salah affair shows how meaningless a term ‘Left liberal’ has become in the ‘progressive’ circles it inhabits. But that writing was on the wall right from the beginning of the saga when a Guardian editorial on the subject informed us that “[i]f the home secretary is unwise enough to start applying her “prevent” policy to all Palestinian activists Israel has a problem with, Britain will face a backlash in the Arab world.”
And that is precisely the trouble with the Guardian’s Israel obsession: it blinds it from seeing the world – and its own little corner of it – in focus and causes it to sell out the principles to which it – and too much of the liberal Left – used to once adhere.
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H/T Al
A quick summary:
Within 24 hours of our post in October of 2011 on the fact that the Guardian’s online bookshop was selling Gilad Atzmon’s egregiously antisemitic book, The Wandering Who?, they removed the book from their shop.
However, as we noted recently, at some point following October the Guardian placed the book back on their online shop.
Last week, however, we learned that, following an email exchange with the Guardian’s book editor by a CiF Watch reader, the Guardian reversed course and, noted that “The Wandering Who has now been removed from the Guardian Bookshop site”. They attributed the availability of the book to “a problem with [their automated] feeds.”
Yesterday, Chris Elliott, the Guardian’s Readers’ Editor, addressed the issue in “…On the inclusion of controversial titles in our bookshop“, March 11.
Wrote Elliott:
If you put the words Mein Kampf into the search function of the Guardian’s online bookshop you get two editions offered for sale…the second carries the following text:
“Hitler’s infamous political tract…contains a detailed introduction which analyses Hitler’s background, his ideology and his ruthless understanding of political power.”
It espouses a rabidly antisemitic view of the world among other things….I am entirely convinced that it is a book that should be available to be read because it has an important lesson from history; suppression would only lend an unjustified mystique. In this area waders or a wet suit are more suitable than a standard pair of wellington boots to navigate through the depths of this subject.
Should every book legally published be available in the Guardian’s online bookshop? This is where it becomes even more difficult. Part of me says, yes. I am opposed to the suppression of books and believe in the power of readers to make rational and intelligent decisions. Bring things into the light. But even where the sale of a book is legal, there will always be a selection process. Where the Guardian is involved in that selection process, it has the right to do what all good bookshops do and select what it offers according to its own principles such as when it is publishing its own books. Where the Guardian is not involved in selecting the title, then it has a duty to tell potential shoppers that that is the case.
…Gilad Atzmon’s The Wandering Who? was removed because of the controversy it has caused. Atzmon says he is anti-Zionist but he has been accused of making antisemitic remarks, including past praise for the “prophetic qualities” of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a falsified tract purporting to show plans for Jewish domination of the world that was written by agents of Tsarist Russia. [emphasis added]
…After strong protests last November about the inclusion of Atzmon’s book in the Guardian’s online bookshop, we removed it from the electronic feed but it was later restored on our bookshop lists and therefore other newspapers’ feeds. One reason was the technological problem but the others were considered to be broader issues. At the time Guardian executives considered that:
• If a book is removed, the impression may be created that the Guardian “approves” of all the other books on the Guardian’s bookshop feed.
• Removing a book lends an unjustified cachet to it.
When the book was restored to the list, a much clearer explanation of what the list represents for the Guardian was used:
“In addition to our recommendations, our browsable selection of books also includes a feed of the top 5,000 bestselling titles through independent booksellers (not including Amazon) as supplied by Bertrams. Inclusion in this automated feed does not necessarily denote recommendation by GNM.”
Now the book is off the list again following renewed protests. It will remain so. [emphasis added]
While I applaud their decision to remove Atzmon’s book from their shelves, it is necessary to address Elliott’s comparison with Mein Kempf. As Elliott noted, the synopsis of Mein Kempf on their site notes, “Hitler’s infamous political tract…contains a detailed introduction which analyses Hitler’s background, his ideology and his ruthless understanding of political power.”
That is, the book is being characterized as a hateful book, whose availability is owed to its historical significance in understanding the Nazi regime’s murder of six million Jews.
The Guardian synopsis of Atzmon’s book, however, included the following:
So, the publisher’s synopsis characterized an overtly antisemitic book – by an author who has claimed that Hitler’s views about Jews may one day be proven right, and who explicitly charges that Jews are indeed trying to take over the world – as a “unique crucial book” which tackles the issues of Jewish “ideology and their global influence”. [emphasis added]
Finally, unsurprisingly, a Guardian reader wrote the following below Elliott’s post:
Yes, the Guardian cravenly caved to the weight of “pressure” exerted by groups who fight antisemitism!
As I noted in a subsequent comment on the thread, the word “censorship” refers to a government which legally prohibits certain books from being sold. What we’re dealing with here is an independent bookseller making the decision not to sell a truly vile book. That is their right.
As I’ve argued before, if David Duke’s books (or books by the BNP, or other extremist groups) were among the top 5000 in their automated feed, would the Guardian be obligated to sell them?
Of course not.
“Censorship” or “Zionist pressure” has absolutely nothing to do with it.
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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.
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- 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)
Simon Tisdall’s “Drumbeat of war with Iran has a familiar sound“, CiF, Feb. 24, included these passages:
A recent analysis of US public opinion revealed deeply ambivalent attitudes on Iran, with the majority of Americans apparently favouring diplomatic solutions. Yet as Republican presidential candidates exploit the issue, as the Israelis lobby America, and as Iranian factions manoeuvre ahead of parliamentary polls, the likelihood grows that doves and doubters will again be either converted or ignored.
Netanyahu’s belief that Israel faces an imminent, existential threat is visceral rather than fact-based.
Tisdall’s piece elicited this on the Gaza “concentration camp” and the Jewish state’s violation of the Ten Commandments.
Ed Husain’s CiF commentary, “GOP debate foreign policy: prolific proliferators of confusion“, warned that GOP Presidential candidates’ bellicose rhetoric on the Iranian nuclear issue was evidence of an “Israel-centric” bias.
Husain’s piece elicited these:
On Israel’s manipulation of U.S. government policy, and a bonus reference to the conspiratorial belief, still popular among antisemitic sites, that Israel intentionally sank the USS Liberty.
Zionist lobbies dictate what the US believes about the Middle East.
Another commenter on Zionist control of U.S. foreign policy.
Finally, there was Nushin Arbabzadah‘s “The story of the Afghan Jews is one of remarkable tolerance“, Feb. 28, which included this passage:
The Afghans’ isolation from the rest of the world was a blessing in disguise for the Jewish community because being cut off from global political trends meant that ordinary Afghans were untouched by the raging, European-led, antisemitism of the early 20th century. Even at the height of the Nazi influence in Kabul of the 1930s, it was Afghan nationalism rather than antisemitism that led the government to introduce economic measures that bankrupted Jewish money-lending families.
Arbabzadah’s piece elicited this, on the Jewish practice of usury, and the Jewish domination of the financial industry.
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As Hadar Sela noted in her recent reports on the upcoming ‘Global March to Jerusalem’, scheduled for March 30, 2012:
The organisers are a conglomerate of people representing the ‘red-green alliance’ the world over. Radical Leftists, Muslim Brotherhood-connected Islamists, [antisemites] and representatives of and sympathisers with the Iranian regime have once more come together with the aim of engineering an event which will…advance their long-term assault on the legitimacy of the Jewish state.
So, it wasn’t surprising when I read, at Anti-Defamation Leagues’s site devoted towards exposing extremists, that an antisemite as prolific as Gilad Atzmon will be speaking in Oakland, California, on February 25, at a “benefit for the Global March to Jerusalem – North America.”
Here’s the flyer promoting the event.
As we’ve noted repeatedly, Atzmon’s musings on the threat to humanity posed by Jews is literally indistinguishable from what you’d find at websites of white supremacists, and so his common cause with Islamists and other extremists inspired by dreams of the Jewish state’s demise represents quite an intuitive ideological synergy.
Finally, note the blurb from the Guardian on the flyer, which refers to this 2009 interview of the “London saxophonist” by the paper’s literary critic, John Lewis, which included this photo of the urbane, sophisticated artist.
Lewis’ glowing profile included this passage:
It may come as a surprise to some that Atzmon is a saxophonist at all. His career as a musician has long been drowned out by the clatter of his extra-curricular activities: the furious attacks on Israel (he writes and edits for the website Palestine Think Tank); the philosophical texts on Jewish identity that get discussed by the likes of Noam Chomsky; the two comic novels that have been translated into 24 languages.
Just to be clear, Atzmon’s extreme antisemitic musings predated Lewis’ 2009 praise of Atzmon by many years. Here’s a quote from Atzmon’s website, posted in 2003.
American Jewry makes any debate on whether the ‘Protocols of the elder of Zion’ are an authentic document or rather a forgery irrelevant. American Jews (in fact Zionists) do control the world.. So far they are doing pretty well for themselves at least.
The problem with Atzmon, wrote Lewis, later in his piece, is ”that trenchant politics often sit uneasily alongside music, particularly when that music is instrumental.”
Yes, that’s truly the problem with Gilad Atzmon: His incisive politics on Jews’ evil sits “uneasily” with his sublime artistic expression.
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- You know you’re an antisemitic Guardian reader when…you defend Gilad Atzmon (cifwatch.com)
- Another pejorative reference to Jews as “Chosen People” by a Guardian contributor (cifwatch.com)
- The Guardian, Khaled Diab and the Gilad Atzmon antisemitism test (cifwatch.com)
- Following our post & complaint, Guardian amends Khaled Diab’s CiF essay: Removes Atzmon passage (cifwatch.com)
- Guardian publishes letter by supporter of Gilad Atzmon, refuses to publish rebuttal (cifwatch.com)
- Gilad Atzmon takes aim at CiF Watch, accusing us of running “a Jewish supremacist site”! (cifwatch.com)
- CiF Watch Special Report: Extremists & terror supporters organizing ‘Global March to Jerusalem’ (cifwatch.com)
As David T of Harry’s Place observed about Guardian Associate Editor Seumas Milne.
Milne’s greatest contribution to the Guardian Comment Pages has been to turn it into a soapbox for the RESPECT and Stop the War Coalition (StWC) projects: a Red-Green-Brown alliance between Stalinists, Trotskyites, and Islamists associated with the Muslim Brotherhood. Milne evidently regarded his appointment to Comment Editor as an opportunity to promote the obnoxious politics of this alignment.
So, it didn’t come as a surprise to see Andrew Murray, of StWC, publish an essay at ‘Comment is Free’, “An attack on Iran must be stopped“, opposing a UK or U.S. attack on Iran to prevent the Islamist regime from attaining nuclear weapons.
What was a bit surprising however, was that Murray, whose essay warns of the threat posed by “Anglo-American aggression addicts” who are “gearing up for yet another crack at winning a senseless war in the Middle East,” didn’t once, in a nearly 700 word essay, mention the word “Israel”. Rather, Murray argued against a war with Iran in the context of what he sees as the folly of the West’s broader war on terror, and U.S./UK military involvement in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Of course, the mere omission of the words “Jews”, “Israel”, “Zionism” or “Lobby” didn’t prevent ‘Comment is Free’ readers to not so gently move the narrative away from military decisions made by UK and U.S. political leaders, and pivot to a more desired target.
Powerful Jewish lobbies in U.S. and UK are pushing Obama to war against Iran (29 Recommends)
Jewish lobby used the Holocaust as an excuse to give Israel the bomb, and developed anti-Islamic ideology to justify aggression against the Arab world. (11 Recommends)
Further, after reading many of the 286 comments in the thread, and noticing a characteristic fixation, I decided to have some fun with the web site Wordle.
The beauty of Wordle is that it allows you to quantify the degree to which comments beneath the line, in any given CiF essay, slant in one particular direction.
Wordle was fed every word from each of the reader comments posted after Murray’s piece and, excluding commonly used words like “the” (and the word “Iran”, because, well, that was what the topic the essay was supposed to address!), churned out the following graphic of the most used words – represented in a size proportional to the frequency of their usage:
Note the enhanced size of Israel (a word used 220 times by CiF commenters), in contrast to words “U.S.” and “UK”.
In fact the words “Jew” “Jews”, or “Jewish” were used more times (42) than the words “U.S.” or “United States” (33).
And, finally, and quite ironically given the following CiF commenter’s malign obsession with the Jewish state, note the moniker above the gigantic “S” in the over-sized word “Israel”. Yup, Berchmans!
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- Guardian Reader Comment of the Day: Israel Obsession “Rorschach Test” Edition (cifwatch.com)
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- Guardian’s Simon Jenkins suggests Obama’s sanctions against Iran caused by Israel lobby (cifwatch.com)
- Guardian’s Ewen MacAskill sees Obama’s Israel support, in State of Union, reflecting need of Jews’ money (cifwatch.com)
- CiF piece by Brian Whitaker on “why media believes worst about Iran” draws on conspiracy blog (cifwatch.com)
- Guardian reader comment of the day: On the prospect of a few million dead Israelis (cifwatch.com)
- The Iranian Guardians: CiF readers come out in force to demonize Israel, & defend Islamist regime (cifwatch.com)
- Arun Kundnani, & a Guardian dog-whistle about the injurious effects of a wealthy American Zionist (cifwatch.com)
- More Pro-Iranian “Hasbara” at ‘Comment is Free’ (cifwatch.com)
There was nothing especially interesting about Guardian columnist Hadley Freeman’s recent essay, “Running for president or for an Oscar – which is the bigger waste of money?”.
Freeman cheekily, if cynically, compared the vast sums of money spent on both the Oscars and the U.S. Presidential Campaign, conjuring “shadowy menacing puppet masters” controlling both outcomes – Harvey Weinstein, Karl Rove, the Koch Brothers, Super PACs, etc. – as if to ask “why bother paying attention to either contest”?
Freeman’s commentary elicited a few sober, if satirical, comments beneath the line, inspiring the Guardian journalist to cheerfully comment, “Thanks everyone! What nice comments so far. 2012 is starting off very kindly on CiF, I must say.”
Alas, the decency level soon declined, as one commenter felt the need to respond to the erstwhile humorist, thusly:
Of course, it would be easy to dismiss the reader’s Israel ‘Obsessive Compulsive Disorder’ as just a stray ‘off-topic’ comment, except that, as you can see, the comment received 50 “Recommends” by fellow Guardianistas (in a post which has thus far only generated 59 comments), and hasn’t been deleted. So, presumably, it isn’t deemed unrelated to Hadley’s commentary by CiF Moderators.
Moreover, any good student of CiF America knows, per two recent commentaries (here and here) on the undue influence of one American “Israel-Firster” named Sheldon Adelson, precisely what kind of “shadowy puppet master” controls the U.S. political system.
The degree to which some CiF readers are capable of explaining so many unpleasant political dynamics, in either the Middle East or the U.S., in a manner which imputes maximum malice to Jews, Zionists or Israel can be nearly comical, but is often not unrelated to the Guardian’s continuing legitimization of such obsessions.
Guardian commentators know their audience’s biases, they know them well, and they continually aim to please.
In politics it’s typically known as “playing to your base”.
A guest post by AKUS
Adam Levick has already demonstrated the prevalence of typically anti-Semitic language and themes that form the core of the disgusting article by Arun Kundnani, Newt Gingrich’s agenda-setting big donor, with its implication of “Jewish money” setting the agenda for the US elections, and the twinned article by Paul Harris, The Secrets of the billionaire bankrolling Gingrich’s shot at the White House, with its juicy hint of a secretive Jewish donor manipulating the Republican nomination campaign.
Arun Kundnani claims that Adelson is “setting the agenda” for Gingrich by donating money to a Super-PAC that supports Gingrich’s candidacy.
This, of course, is nonsense. A PAC does not “set the agenda” for a candidate. All PACs promote the agenda of candidates they find consistent with their donors’ views by placing advertizing in the media. Kundnani basically admits as much:
Of course, like all private funding of politics, there is no way of knowing with certainty what the Adelsons expect to achieve with their money.
Precisely. There is no way to know what donors expect other than they hope their preferred candidate will win the nomination and will, therefore, implement polices the donors support – but do not control. The idea that because Adelson is Jewish (and even worse – a Jew who loves and supports Israel) he must be setting Newt’s agenda is clearly a reversion to the age-old theme that “Jewish money” controls politics (among other things).
Money is flooding into the coffers of all candidates now that the Supreme Court has (foolishly, I believe) opened the doors to corporate donors. The Sunlight Foundation has been tracking Super PAC money, and it reveals that although the pro-Gingrich Super PAC that Adelson supports, Winning Our Future, has spent $8,511,433, the pro-Romney Super PAC, Restore Our Future, has outspent Gingrich’s Super Pac by more than 2:1 – $17,485,657.
PACs supporting other candidates have spent or raised amounts in the $1 million to $4 million range, including, by the way, a PAC that supports perennial Guardian favorite, the anti-Israeli Ron Paul.
Yet we do not see an investigative piece in the Guardian that tries to tie Romney’s donors to powerful and wealthy Mormons, or Ron Paul’s PAC to – well, some lunatic fringe Texan, I suppose who hopes to “achieve something with his money” such as restoring the US to the gold standard.
In fact, while Adelson might support Gingrich because Gingrich supports Israel is very likely true, it is apparently not necessarily true that Gingrich is supporting Israel to court “Jewish money”. Even the virulently anti-Israeli Guardian journalist, Chris McGreal, has dropped his blinkers long enough to note what everyone else already realized some time ago – that Newt’s real audience is the vastly greater evangelical voting bloc:
But Gingrich’s vocal support of Israel has less to do with support from the Jewish community than the votes of a much larger group: Christian evangelicals, who are strongly supportive of Israel for theological reasons
McGreal went on to cite a person claiming that the evangelicals are to the right of Netanyahu’s government when it comes to the Israeli-Arab conflict. Nevertheless, he also could not avoid bringing Adelson into the mix, even though he is only one of Gingrich’s donors and we have no way to know how he compares with other donors – for example, to donors to Romney’s far greater Super PAC. For those interested, it is worth noting that Jeffrey Katzenberg has donated $2 million to Barak Obama’s Super PAC, but the Guardian editorial pool does not seem to feel that this donation raises the specter of “Jewish money” at work distorting the electoral process.
Harris article, The Secrets of the billionaire bankrolling Gingrich’s shot at the White House, was typical of the worst of the Guardian’s feeble attempts at investigative reporting. In more than 2,000 words, Harris revealed “secrets” that a few milliseconds on Google would turn up. The gist, of course, was that as a result of the Adelsons’ support, heavily outspent Gingrich “…suddenly has an outside chance of becoming president”. Perhaps to put this whole affair in perspective, take a look at the billions spent by lobbying companies listed at OpenSecrets.org.
It is the delicious conjunction of “Adelson” – “Jewish” – “Israel”- Abe Foxman” – “AIPAC” and, of course, “money” that makes the whole issue of Adelson’s very public “secrets” so interesting to Harris and the Guardian. The Guardian even foolishly added the sub-header claim, ludicrous to every sane observer of the Republican nomination process, that is being debunked even as I write this, that “Sheldon Adelson is not running for office – but his cash could swing Tuesday’s Florida primary”.
Well, it may not. Romney is trouncing Gingrich in the Florida primary polls.
If it is inappropriate for wealthy people to support Gingrich, why is it not inappropriate for Romney to raise at least twice as much money, and far more than twice as much before the Adelsons stepped forward with their donation or donations? There is really only one answer, and it runs like a shameful thread through all three articles. It is because Adelson is Jewish and a supporter of Israel, and Newt has been more outspoken in his support of Israel than Romney (but less, by the way, than former candidate Michele Bachman, for example).
The Guardian moderators were out in force shredding comments BTL to Kundani’s article. One of the comments deleted was this one, and I would say that SantaMoniker only got it half right:
The fact is, there was nothing “wink, wink, nudge, nudge” about the articles by Kundnani and Harris, in particular. They were blatant invocations of the age-old anti-Semitic idea that “Jewish money” controls politicians. The Guardian has been slipping more and more frequently into the sewer of anti-Semitism, and this time was in it up to its neck.
But the Republicans of Florida will vote, and it appears that Romney will trounce Gingrich.
Will we then see a shame-faced retraction by the Guardian? Of course not.
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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
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- 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 previously, merely characterizing Gilad Atzmon as antisemitic doesn’t do him justice. Atzmon advances hateful, demonizing rhetoric about Jews which is on par with the most vile Judeophobic charges ever leveled, and which is often as crude and malevolent as what would be heard at a meeting of neo-Nazis or Islamist extremists.
In brief, he repeatedly refers to Judaism as “supremacist“‘ faith, a term popularized by David Duke. And, Duke, the former grand wizard of the KKK, has strongly praised Atzmon’s writings.
Atzmon also has questioned whether the Holocaust occurred, while simultaneously arguing that, if Hitler’s genocide did occur, it can partly be explained by Jews’ villainous behavior. On this latter note, he claimed that Hitler’s views about Jews may one day be proven right.
Atzmon also explicitly charges that Jews are indeed trying to take over the world, and has endorsed of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, arguing about the document that “it is impossible to ignore its prophetic qualities and its capacity to describe” later Jewish behavior.
The Guardian has a history with Atzmon which includes; a 2009 review of his music (Atzmon is an Israeli born Jazz artist now living in the UK), which barely touched on, as the Guardian’s John Lewis so carefully put it, Atzmon’s ”provocatively anti-Jewish rhetoric”. Additional reviews of Atzmon’s music in the Guardian, in pieces published in 2011, 2006, 2004, 2003 and 2001 virtually ignored his politics altogether.
Then following a CiF essay by Andy Newman last September which included Atzmon in his (rather mild) criticism of leftist antisemitism, the Guardian published a letter by Atzmon in response, defending the ideas in his book, The Wandering Who? – a work which the CST has characterized one of the most antisemitic book published in the UK in years.
Shortly after that incident, CiF Watch discovered and subsequently posted about the fact that the Guardian’s online bookstore was selling Atzmon’s book, which included this chilling synopsis:
“An explosive unique crucial book tackling the issues of Jewish identity Politics and ideology and their global influence.“
Evidently embarrassed, and unable to defend their decision to carry and promote such hate, the book was removed form their site within 24 hours of our post.
The latest incident involving Atzmon involved an essay at CiF by Khaled Diab published last week which positively cited an Atzmon observation in the context of what Diab characterized as Israeli surprise over the alleged Saudi hacking of computers at El Al and the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange.
Here’s this passage:
Some commentators went even further. “The Jewish state is pretty devastated by the idea that a bunch of ‘indigenous Arabs’ are far more technologically advanced than its own chosen cyber pirates,” Israeli jazz musician Gilad Atzmon observed wryly on his blog.
After we objected to Guardian editors about both the positive reference to Atzmon, as well as his specific pejorative reference to Jews as “chosen” – which, per the Deborah Orr affair, they had acknowledged was antisemitic – the piece was amended and the passage removed, noting that the language was inconsistent with their standards.
Well, sometime after the piece was amended, Atzmon learned of the incident and wrote about it in his blog, beginning:
Two days ago, I discovered that CIF Watch, a Jewish supremacist site interested solely in cleansing British press of any criticism of Israel and Jewish power, was boasting that the Guardian surrendered to their pressure and removed an Atzmon passage [which included the "chosen" comment]. [emphasis added]
Interesting. While we now only typically check our blog’s rankings in Technorati’s world politics category (where we’ve been consistently ranked within the top 25), it looks like we’d now be wise to similarly check our listings in the evidently new category of “Jewish supremacist blogs” – a blog niche I must admit that I never previously considered!
Atzmon continues:
Shocking but typically, the Guardian surrendered immediately to the Zionist’s demands.
Yes, Guardian editors consistently, and cravenly, succumbing to Zionist demands! What only appears to the untrained eye as a media group viscerally hostile to the Jewish state is, in fact, yet another institution bullied by Jews into Zionist subservience.
Turning to his book, Atzmon writes:
The book attempts to grasp the bizarre continuum between Israeli barbarism…the Palestinian Solidarity Campaign surrender to rabid Zionist bodies and the ‘Guardian’s regulation’. [emphasis added]
In conclusion, Atzmon writes:
I’m not one bit surprised by the surge of Jewish power. I wrote a book about it. But, being intimately familiar with Jewish history, I know exactly where it will lead. Jewish political arrogance has always proved to be, above all, devastatingly dangerous for Jews.
For the sake of peace, both Jews and gentiles must confront the prominence of Jewish identity politics. We should never be afraid to question ideologies and lobbies that impose a threat to peace, our value systems, freedom of thought, humanity and humanism. [emphasis added]
In that comically gratuitous passage lay the rhetorical thread which runs through much of the hardcore antisemitic bravado through the ages – their belief that they are not just criticizing Jews and Judaism, but speaking truth to power, and boldly defending civilization from a dangerous, yet furtive, Jewish onslaught.
CiF Watch may appear to be merely a media watchdog blog, but Atzmon’s piercing intellect sees us for who we really are: a threat to freedom of thought, world peace and humanity itself.
On a shoestring budget, and a group of dedicated volunteers, we have managed to become larger than ourselves:
Grassroots pro-Israel activism no more.
The Protocols of the Elders of CiF Watch Zionists have arrived!
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- At the Guardian’s online bookshop, antisemitism is shipped within 24 hours! (cifwatch.com)
- Within 24 hours of CiF Watch post, Guardian removes Gilad Atzmon’s book from their online shop. (cifwatch.com)
- Guardian publishes letter by supporter of Gilad Atzmon, refuses to publish rebuttal (cifwatch.com)
- The Guardian, Khaled Diab and the Gilad Atzmon antisemitism test (cifwatch.com)
- Jew hatred as liberal commentary: Guardian provides platform to vicious antisemite, Gilad Atzmon (cifwatch.com)
- Gilad Atzmon vs Tony Greenstein, in “Battle of the self-hating Jews” (cifwatch.com)
What was being called a “car protest” was staged today by Palestinian activists in the West Bank to protest security restrictions on some roads enacted to protect Israeli citizens residing in nearby from terrorist attacks.
However, the protest (which Joseph Dana declared over about 25 minutes ago) didn’t generate much if any interest in the media (even, at the time of this post, at the Guardian!), which prompted one frustrated Twitter #carprotest activist to Tweet the following.
Sorry, I’ve seen a lot of complaints that Israel/Jews control the media, but I think this is the first time I’ve seen it suggested that even the Islamic Republic of PAKISTAN is under the Zionist grip!
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CiF reader comment of the day: How the Israel lobby defeated Ken Livingstone
May 7, 2012 in Comments which are off-topic, ad hominem, racist, vulgar or include threats of violence will be deleted | Tags: anti-Zionism, Antisemitism, Comment is Free, Delegitimization, Guardian, Israel Lobby, Jewish Conspiracy, Jewish Power | by Adam Levick | 27 comments
H/T Margie
Call it Israel Derangement Syndrome, or Reductio ad Israelum, or what you will, but the capacity of Israel’s critics to find a Jewish/Zionist connection to any political phenomenon they find displeasing is constantly on display below the line at ‘Comment is Free’.
Dave Hill’s CiF commentary (So, Boris Johnson remains mayor and it’s not all Ken Livingstone’s fault, May 4) elicited over six hundred comments, many of which touched on Livingstone’s relationship with the UK Jewish community.
The following, by a commenter using the moniker “brothermacdub“, was deleted by moderators, but you can see text from the post cited by “Kawtara1″ (which begins, “Typical response from the lobby” and ends,”swing an election”.), quoted before offering his/her response.
So, London’s Jews, who are more loyal to a foreign power than the UK, singlehandedly defeated the former mayor who should nonetheless be proud that he didn’t give in to the “hateful Israel lobby”.
Interestingly, the suggestion that Jews swung the mayoral election for Boris Johnson was advanced in a letter published by the Guardian today, albeit by someone seemingly friendly to UK’s Jews.
At the very least, the letter represents a rather curious editorial decision.
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