Are we all about to be Charlie Hebdo again?

I ask because I just saw an article from (I think) yesterday's Observer. I only think it was because it's on The Guardian website and dated yesterday.  The Guardian doesn't seem to do that "article history" thing any more and I don't buy the print editions so I can't be sure if the article was in print or not.  Anyway, the article was by some chap who writes for Charlie Hebdo who is really angry because he claims that the English speaking critics of Charlie Hebdo don't know French.  I don't know who specifically he is referring to or how he knows they don't know French but that's what he claims to be so cross about.

The headline of the article is The scurrilous lies written about Charlie Hebdo.  The subtitle says:

A year after the Charlie Hebdo killings, francophone writer Robert McLiam Wilson deplores the reports in English by the ignorant for the ignorant

Yup, the anniversary of the Charlie Hebdo killings is on 7th January and so Robert McLiam Wilson is getting uptight about Charlie Hebdo's critics.

The thing is he was also similarly, indeed equally, uptight nine months ago in April last year when he wrote pretty much the same article for New Statesman.  That one was titled, If you don’t speak French, how can you judge if Charlie Hebdo is racist?

Now I can well understand this guy's feelings of hurt and anger over the atrocity at the Charlie Hebdo offices. What I don't get is how he can loose off about the knowledge of French (or lack of) of people he doesn't seem to know or name. I also don't get why the Observer or the Guardian was so quick to publish an article so similar to one he wrote only nine months ago.

Bibi goes where he's invited and where he's not invited

And not only that, this racist war criminal claims to speak for all Jews.

Here's Ha'aretz:

Netanyahu: I will go to Congress like I went to Paris – to speak for all Jews

Prime minister says he will go anyplace he is invited to convey Israel's position on Iran

Obviously claiming that one or some Jews speak for all Jews is antisemitic but there's another issue here.  It seems like only yesterday that Bibi turned up in Paris for an electioneering junket in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo attack in spite of being asked by the French president not to go.  Again here's Ha'aretz:

Hollande asked Netanyahu not to attend Paris memorial march

Absence sought as part of attempt to keep Israeli-Palestinian conflict out of European show of unity; After Netanyahu insisted on coming, French made it clear Abbas would be invited as well.

The man's utterly shameless.

Does my But look big in this?

I've only just seen Flying Rodent's post on the great But controversy.  Titled But-head.  Clever.  It's a denunciation of the many articles post-Charlie Hebdo which:

screech, wave [their] arms around and call down the vengeance of Heaven upon people who say that cartoonists deserve to be shot, while containing absolutely no examples

But it mostly uses Howard Jacobson's recent Independent article titled, Try ‘and’ instead of ‘but’ and you’ll find that America and Israel are not to blame for all the world’s atrocities as a foil.
Check out the post itself and see Organic Cheeseboard in the comments.  Both OC and FR conclude that Jacobon was being wilfully dishonest in at least two of his claims. Here's OC quoting both Jacobson and the Chomsky article that was the supposed source of Jacobson's criticism of the "But Brigade":

Jacobson says:

how about, “Gunning down the staff of Charlie Hebdo was an atrocity, ‘but’ Israel kills journalists in Gaza.” Would anyone say that? Unless I dreamt it, Noam Chomsky just has.

He hasn't, though. What he's said is that when the USA and its allies intentionally kill journalists simply because they are journalists, they go as far as parading it as a PR triumph, and nobody makes nearly as much fuss as they did over the Charlie Hebdo massacre where journalists were murdered for the crime of being journalists. Chomsky is really clear, in fact:

The more we can blame some crimes on enemies, the greater the outrage; the greater our responsibility for crimes -- and hence the more we can do to end them -- the less the concern, tending to oblivion or even denial.

Now what's particularly impressive about OC's comment is that the quote from Chomsky forms the bulk of a letter Chomsky wrote to The Independent  drawing attention to Jacobson's misrepresentation of what Chomsky had originally written.  Chomsky's letter was published after OC's comment:

I read with much interest Howard Jacobson’s denunciation of the “But Brigade” (24 January) and my culpability in this crime. But (apologies for using the correct word) I’m afraid that he was very careful to miss the point, completely.

There was no “but” in the article of mine that elicited his fury. Rather, the article provided a series of illustrations of a highly significant general principle that was stated quite explicitly: “The more we can blame some crimes on enemies, the greater the outrage; the greater our responsibility for crimes – and hence the more we can do to end them – the less the concern, tending to oblivion or even denial.”

I can easily comprehend why Mr Jacobson would insist that the demonstration of the principle must be suppressed, but (apologies again) I see no reason to accede to his demand.

Noam Chomsky
Massachusetts Institute  of Technology
Cambridge, Massachusetts

But really the reason  for this post is that I noticed Chomsky's bracketed apologies for his use of the word "but" which reminded me of my own bracketed comments following my use of the word "but" in my previous post.  I don't always agree with Noam Chomsky but (oh never mind).

CH wasn't racist? Does anyone still say so?

Here's a quirky article I just found via Twitter. It's an op-ed on the Ricochet website by a chap called Leigh Phillips who says that assertions that Charlie Hebdo is or was racist were simply wrong or as the article's title has it, "Lost in translation...." by "the unilingual left" that is.

Now I didn't much get into je suis Charlie stuff here or on Twitter though I didn't like what I saw as hypocritical outpourings for free speech by various politicos and journos who seemed to be writing a script and insisting we all read from it.  It was a bit like that Life of Brian bit where Brian tells the adoring crowd that they are all individuals and they all, in unison, agree with him.

Anyway, I don't intend to get into whether or not Charlie Hebdo is racist or has carried racist cartoons but (sheesh, I was also uncomfortable with the war on the word "but") I did notice this Leigh Phillips chap hedging a tad on the output of the late Christopher Hitchens - the CH in my title, geddit!?  See this:

For all of Hitchens’ support for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, I couldn’t at any point suggest he was a racist.

I've posted this before but I was actually at a London Review of Books meeting on the "war on terror" where panelists included Tariq Ali and Christopher Hitchens and in response to a questioner the latter seemed to berate him more for being from "the Subcontinent" than for what he actually said.

Q[uestioner]. Tariq Ali was the only one I think who mentioned that the United States is the sole global power that we have now and what we are seeing is the dawn of a new imperialism. So why is it that we are so – we, meaning the global community – why are we so content at letting America have its say regardless of what the rest of the world thinks of it. It has committed a whole host of crimes on a vast scale in international law. It is suspending civil rights as far as the al-Qaida prisoners are concerned. It is actually riding roughshod over all norms of international law and why – where is Russia, where is Japan, where are all these countries? 
........
C[hristopher] H[itchens]. ....I will not reject the challenge from the comrade, who I would say was from the Subcontinent. I would ask him this. He wanted to know why a country that – I think I have you right, sir – was indifferent to the norms of international law, was not more opposed by Russia and China, was that how you had it? Where was Russia, you said, where is China, why do they lie down under this lawlessness? I think your question answers itself: I think you had a real nerve asking it actually, or shall I say Chechnya or Cambodia or North Korea or Tibet or Kurdistan? It wouldn’t make any difference to you – would it? – any more than if I asked you how many people are currently flooding to the borders and ports of your country to immigrate to it – or to Russia or to China. Ask yourself that. One of the greatest problems that the United States has at the present moment is that everyone wants to come and live there: they’re wondering now how generous they can be. We should all have such problems; you will never have a problem like that, and nor will your ideology

Now Mr Phillips may not have been aware of that particular outburst but I'm sure Hitchens's enthusiasm for the war on terror sometimes verged on the genocidal.

I said the article was quirky and that Hitchens bit was just one of many quirks. But (it's that word again) it is worth a read and the comments are worth more than a skim too.

UPDATE: I'm indebted to Gert in the comments for drawing my attention to this blog post by Richard Seymour at Leninology which I think is safe to call a take-down of the Leigh Phillips piece.

Spot the difference at The Guardian

The Guardian ran an article by Peter Beaumont on Friday with the headline, Why are French Jews returning to Israel in such numbers?  Someone emailed me about it wondering why The Guardian was promoting the idea that Jews settling in Palestine amounted to "returning".

I read the article and found that whilst Peter Beaumont referred to Jewish "immigration" he didn't once use the word "return" or "returning" so I tweeted this query to him:

.@petersbeaumont writes of Jews' "immigration" to Israel. @guardiannews headline says "returning" http://t.co/tmX2nDjQja … Who wrote latter?
— Jews Sans Frontieres (@jewssf) January 16, 2015

Unfortunately I didn't do a screengrab but here is a screengrab of The Guardian's tweet of the article:

And here's the embed though, on past performance it might not last:

Why are French Jews returning to Israel in such numbers? http://t.co/WAi6XE93lq
— The Guardian (@guardian) January 16, 2015

Anyway, now look at the headline of the article itself:

Why are French Jews heading to Israel in such numbers?

Now scroll down the article and look for where they say they amended it.  Don't spend too long on it because you won't find it.  I thought it was standard practice at The Guardian to announce their amendments.

Anyway, I wonder what led to their correcting the headline.  In fact I asked Peter Beaumont:

Spot the difference at @guardiannews between this http://t.co/eDyqWJ1VWL and this: https://t.co/qthomIVBC7 Thank @petersbeaumont or me?
— Jews Sans Frontieres (@jewssf) January 18, 2015

I'm guessing he won't answer but he does seem to be one of the good guys at the graun, in fact, he's well worth a follow on twitter.

What kind of low-life politicises suffering?

The Liberal Democrat MP, David Ward did a couple of tweets referencing the shameless appearance of Bibi Netanyahu at the Paris march after the attack on Charlie Hebdo.  Here they are:

#Netanyahu in Paris march - what!!!! Makes me feel sick
— David Ward (@DavidWardMP) January 11, 2015

Je suis #Palestinian
— David Ward (@DavidWardMP) January 11, 2015

Fairly standard stuff.  Many of us were disgusted at the sheer hypocrisy of this mass killer of civilians attending a march supposedly for the victims of a murderous attack on civilians. I think I might have tweeted about it.  Let me see.

At least #Bibi #Netanyahu's presence in Paris will expose the "anti"-terrorism charade for the sheer hypocrisy that it is. #Gaza
— Jews Sans Frontieres (@jewssf) January 11, 2015

Ah yes, I did.  Twice actually:

Never one to miss a #hasbara opportunity #Bibi heads to Paris http://t.co/RT1TOD6uyS #CharlieHebdo
— Jews Sans Frontieres (@jewssf) January 11, 2015

But of course it wasn't just Bibi's attendance at the march that caused such disgust.  He took the opportunity to call on France's Jews to join him as colonial settlers in occupied Palestine.  This had even some zionists running for cover. 

I searched in vain for the Jewish Chronicle's report on Bibi's disgrace but what I did find was condemnation of David Ward's tweets.

Tweet sents from Mr Ward’s account read: “Netanyahu in Paris march – makes me feel sick. Je suis Palestinian”.

In a letter to deputy prime minister Nick Clegg, ambassador Daniel Taub wrote: “Mr Ward’s statement is a disgraceful attempt to politicise suffering.

“It also exhibits a callous disregard for the Jews of France, many of whom look to Israel as they are increasingly targeted merely because of their religion.

Does Zionising suffering not count as politicising?

Free speech in France?

France has banned all demonstrations against the Mohamed cartoons published in the French satirical magazine, Charlie Hebdo.  Here's Reuters:

By Brian Love

PARIS, Sept 21 (Reuters) - France confirmed on Friday it would allow no street protests against cartoons denigrating Islam's Prophet Mohammad that were published by a French magazine this week.

Interior Minister Manuel Valls said prefects throughout the country had orders to prohibit any protest over the issue and to crack down if the ban was challenged.

"There will be strictly no exceptions. Demonstrations will be banned and broken up," he told a news conference in the southern port city of Marseille.

This is a bizarre and hypocritical response given the free speech arguments used by defenders of Charlie Hebdo.