Alexandra Simonon: an apology

It pains me to admit it but I might owe Alexandra Simonon, of the zionist smearsite, Engage, an apology. You see some time ago I discovered that she had the same IP address as an abusive and contrary troll by the name of Alf Green. I emailed them both to see what they (or she or he) would say and I got no reply. So I ran the post headed Alf Green and Engage's Alexandra Simonon, are they by any chance related? Well of course the clear implication was that I was saying that they are one and the same person. I did say that I might be wrong but I didn't mean it because I never imagined that I could have been.

Well get this. I didn't know that Alexandra Simonon and Dr David Hirsh are an item. Yes, an item. I don't know if they are married (still less do I care) but they live together and have children. Dr Hirsh even mentioned his children in a post once before thinking better of it. I'm sure it's common knowledge among Engageniks that the two are an item but I didn't know. So that's why I feel an apology is in order. I mean Alf Green might be a pseudonym that Dr Hirsh uses to abuse critics of Israel and not a pseudonym for his partner.

The problem here is that that makes this sock-puppetry even worse. You see, Alf Green, when he isn't simply trolling to make a mockery of comment facilities (he was involved in the harrassment that led to my setting up moderating on this site), supports David Hirsh's comments on other sites and even on the Engage site. I think you'll find that Engage effectively belongs to Dr Hirsh and Ms Simonon. Alf Green has been used to support the Euston Manifesto (as did David Hirsh and Alexandra Simonon), to rebuke even Engage supporters for mild dissent from the Engage line or style and someone told me today about two forays Alf made into the hallowed ground of the Inside Higher Education website. He saw fit to comment on two posts on the academic boycott of Israel campaign. Here's the first and here's the second.

Read them and you will see all the usual misrepresentations, non sequiturs, insults, projection, etc, so loved by the Engage people. But please do read them. You'll have to scroll down a bit to find Alf. He's after David Hirsh in both cases.

Scrolling down further to the place where you can post comments you will see that you have to give your email address "for verification purposes." So what do they do to verify? Do they email commentors? If so, what did Alf do? I think we should be told because this sort of thing must surely give academia a bad name. I don't think you have to be an academic to commment on the site but I'm fairly certain that you have to exist.

So now someone using the same IP as Dr Hirsh's partner has endorsed the Euston Manifesto, rebuked dissenters on Engage, called for people to be banned from Engage when the moderators (ie Hirsh and Simonon) do that routinely anyway, supported Simonon's article on Comment is free and supported Hirsh as required. The whole thing stinks, and that's leaving aside the sheer ineptitude of these two watchdogs against "antisemitism."