April 06, 2014

Good Faith in the Jewish Chronicle?

Wow! I'm surprised to see a very good letter in The Jewish Chronicle. Unfortunately they don't publish their letters on line.

In the interests of balance, for which the JC has never been renowned, the good letter followed two simply appalling ones, the first of which says that the BDS movement, "fails to recognise any rights of Jews to live within the pre-1967 boundaries of Israel".

Anyway, here's the good one, painstakingly copy-typed by me:

It is quite extraordinary that critics of some of the policies and actions of the state of Israel (Leader, Architects of Hate, March 21) still have to face accusations of antisemitism.

Surely it is not too difficult to understand the difference between an ethnic/religious group and a state.All states are open to criticism, and that includes Israel.  Indeed, the accusation of antisemitism is absurd: verging on defamation: 20% of Israelis are not Jewish, but many critics of Israeli actions are.

The distinction is so obvious that it is difficult to understand how the accusation can be made in good faith.

Prof David Pegg and Dr Monica Wusterman, St Paul's Square, York.
They're basically calling Stephen Pollard a liar so it was big of him to publish it. It would be bigger of him still if he stopped making these bad faith allegations in the first place.

No comments:

Post a Comment