Cif's Matt Seaton censors himself?

I'm putting the question mark there because I'm not one hundred per cent sure of what happened in the comments to Antony Lerman's comment is free piece on the plan to criminalise zio-nazi comparisons. Some guy calling himself Lord Summerisle referred to Denis MacShane, a maniacal zionist MP, as Denis the Menace. Well Matt Seaton intervened to object to that description of MacShane and offered a description of his own that MacShane is a "sound democrat" who Seaton said he would be inviting to reply to Lerman's article. I was and am disgusted that Seaton would intervene in a comment is free thread to support a zionist, especially one who is trying to have a lot of forms of criticism of zionism and the State of Israel criminalised. I went back to the comments tonight but at first all I could see that bore on what I was looking for was a deleted comment by Lord Summerisle but not the comment by Seaton. Here's how the deleted comment appears:

• LordSummerisle

  24 Jul 09, 10:05am

  This comment has been removed by a moderator. Replies may also be deleted.

• 
  

Now I think this must be the comment that caused the intervention by Seaton but I can't now find the comment by Seaton. However, I have found a response to it by Lord Summerisle:

• LordSummerisle

  24 Jul 09, 11:05am

  ... but in general he's a sound democrat, trade unionist, and pro-European

  ... and defender of id cards, DNA retention, CCTV surveillance, wider police powers of arrest and many other anti-libertarian government policies.

There you go, a part of Matt Seaton's ludicrous comment describing a man who wants criticism of Israel criminalised. I should mention that he wants the whole shebang of the former European Union Monitoring Committee's working definition of antisemitism enshrined in the laws of member states of the EU. That means likening Israel to apartheid South Africa, likening Israel to the nazis, saying that Israel is a racist state and criticising Israel over things that you haven't criticised other states over will all be criminalised if he has his way. "Sound democrat" is a strange thing to call such a person but Matt Seaton said it and now he seems to be covering his tracks except, as sometimes happens, they are supposed to delete responses to deleted comments but he seems to have missed a few which is good news for me.

Oh, here's one I seem to have missed. Someone seems to have replicated the whole of the comment Matt Seaton wants to hide:

1nn1t

• 24 Jul 09, 11:24am

  mattseaton

  Not sure why on earth you consider Denis a menace. You don't have to agree with him on antisemitism, but in general he's a sound democrat, trade unionist, and pro-European. As he is a regular parishioner here, and we hold him in high regard, we will, of course, be inviting him to respond to the criticism of this report.

  This is a joke?

I don't know if the emphasis was added to highlight Seaton's grovelling sycophancy to a manipulative bullying zionist like MacShane but you now get a better idea of why Seaton, who has some form for intervening for zionists in the threads and in articles, might want to disappear the comment. But what's this? Another comment from Matt Seaton grovelling to Denis MacShane:

mattseaton

• 24 Jul 09, 3:47pm

  Staff

  I mentioned earlier that we would be inviting Denis MacShane to respond to Tony Lerman's critique. Despite being on holiday in Spain (see what a hard-working MP he is!), he has written a riposte, which we will run on Cif tomorrow.

  But here is a sneak preview:

  The portrayal of Israeli Jews as SS Nazis, which is widespread in the cartoons published in the Arab press, is not an attack on Israel as a state but an attempt to dehumanise its Jewish citizens – Jews everywhere. There is a rich vocabulary of abuse, invective and denuniciation that can be used to attack Israel. But in using Nazi imagery, the crudeness of the anti-semitism is obvious.

  Impressive what sun and sangria can inspire...

That's impressive? How the eff does a "portrayal of Israeli Jews as SS Nazis" amount to the dehumanisation of anybody let alone all Jews? Denis MacShane, the MP to whom Matt Seaton has grovelled twice so far in this thread is suggesting that Israelis are representative of all Jews. That's antisemitic as is the ludicrous EUMC working definition of antisemitism.

UPDATE: 27/7/2009 - Denis MacShane's avoidance of a response is here. The last I saw MacShane's article it was listed on the "most comments" list whereas Lerman's article wasn't. At the time Lerman's had received more comments than MacShane's. System issue? Who knows.