Guardian fills (un)subscriber with disgust

Here's a letter to the Guardian from my friend Deborah Maccoby to her former friends at The Guardian:

Dear Sir,

As a signatory of Jews for Justice for Palestinians, I am so outraged by your decision to publish the infamous Eli Wiesel/Shmuely Boteach ad that I have decided to make a protest by cancelling my subscription to the Guardian.  I do this with great regret, as I have been a long-standing Guardian reader and subscriber.  I switched many years ago from reading the Times to reading what seemed to me to be the much more interesting and informative pages of the Guardian. But even the Times refused to publish this ad.  

Freedom of speech does have some limits in a newspaper with civilised standards. The ad includes the sentence:  "It is a battle of civilisation versus barbarism".  This ad is barbaric.   After 1,400 Palestinian civilians, including over 400 children, have been massacred in an utterly unnecessary and avoidable onslaught, in what is a war crime and a crime against humanity, it is an outrage to publish an ad that effectively exculpates from responsibility the Israel soldiers who did the killing.  Even the Murdoch press could not stomach this ad, so why did the Guardian publish it?

Deborah Maccoby

Sadly there's a crop of letters in today's Guardian all (most anyway) making the same bogus argument that they wouldn't know what the zionists were saying if the advert hadn't been published.  That's absurd, the reason there were so many complaints before the ad was run was because the ad had been shown elsewhere so its content was known and The Guardian had already reported on it.  Of course, if they want to know broadly what Zionists are saying all they have to do is read Jonathan Freedland.

Another why oh whine from Jonathan Freedland

Here he is in today's (or yesterday's) Guardian:

I'm weary of those who get so much more exercised, so much more excited, by deaths in Gaza than they do by deaths in, say, Syria. An estimated 800 died under Assad during the same eight days of what Israel called Operation Pillar of Defence. But, for some reason, the loss of those lives failed to touch the activists who so rapidly organised the demos and student sit-ins against Israel. You might have heard me make this point before, and you might be weary of it. Well, so am I. I'm tired, too, of the argument that "We hold western nations like Israel to a higher standard", because I see only a fraction of the outrage that's directed at Israel turned on the US – a western nation – for its drone war in Pakistan which has cost an estimated 3,000 lives, nearly 900 of them civilians, since 2004.

Well it's easy to simply say, it's the ethnic cleansing stupid!  That is the ethnic cleansing, recent, current and on-going, without which Israel could not exist as a state for Jews that rubs a lot of people up the wrong way.  Those of us who remember apartheid in South Africa remember being told that there were more human rights abuses elsewhere in Africa but racist rule, enshrined in a state's basic laws was considered a no-no.

There is also the fact that Israel has apologists throughout the western media and enablers and supporters in all western governments.  This doesn't apply in the case of Syria.

The question about the USA could be more serious.  Remember that Jonathan is:

tired, too, of the argument that "We hold western nations like Israel to a higher standard", because I see only a fraction of the outrage that's directed at Israel turned on the US – a western nation – for itsdrone war in Pakistan which has cost an estimated 3,000 lives, nearly 900 of them civilians, since 2004.

Here the media cover for the US is about the same as it is for Israel but he might be wondering, why demonstrations against America's wars tend to be smaller than demonstrations against Israel. Unfortunately the basic premise is wrong. Demonstrations against America's wars tend to be between 10 and 20 times the size of Palestine Solidarity demos. Actually, I think there should still be more outrage against Israel because of its core lack of legitimacy than there is against America. After all, if America stopped the drone strikes the USA would still be the USA. If Israel stopped the colonial settlement, the ethnic cleansing and the segregation it  would no longer be Israel and then it's periodic culls would end and so, I'm guessing, would the outrage they cause.

Jonathan Freedland's problem with getting his head around the sheer repugnance of the State of Israel in the eyes of humanist opinion is that he, like the Israel he supports, is in a perpetual state of denial.

Netanyahu on Palestinian unity

There's a piece in yesterday's print edition of The Guardian (Monday's online edition) by Harriet Sherwood about a unity government being formed by Fatah and Hamas.

The rival Palestinian factions Fatah and Hamas have agreed to form a new unity government in the West Bank and Gaza, which will be headed by Mahmoud Abbas, it was announced on Monday.

Reconciliation talks between the two factions have struggled to make progress since an agreement in principle was signed last spring.

I'm sure there have been many articles on this subject over the years but a couple of points stood out here. First, Sherwood, while highlighting a potential rift within Hamas, equates violence with rejecting Israel's "right" to exist and she contrasts both violence and rejectionism with "popular resistance:

There was no immediate response from Ismail Haniyeh, the de facto Hamas prime minister of Gaza. Over recent months, a rift has openedbetween the Gaza-based leadership of the Islamist organisation and its external leadership on the group's future strategy.

Israel and the United States have voiced concern about a closer relationship between Fatah and Hamas, and are opposed to any unity government that includes Hamas. Despite Meshaal's efforts to turn Hamas towards a strategy of popular resistance, it has not formally renounced violence and accepted Israel's right to exist.

The print edition contains a final paragraph missing from the online version. It's this:

Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu said if the new government went ahead, "Abbas will have chosen to abandon the way of peace and to join with Hamas".

Now why does any unity agreement among Palestinians amount to Abbas abandoning peace and not Hamas embracing peace? Regarding the latter, I'm not saying they should embrace peace as unconditionally as Abbas has done. I'm merely pointing out the scope for interpretation that Netanyahu has completely ignored.

The end of zionism?

This David Hearst article appeared in the main section of The Guardian yesterday.  In it he explores the possibility of a one state solution for Palestine:

 If Israel ends its occupation of the West Bank, and allows it to join with Gaza, the result could be two states – a Palestinian one alongside an Israeli one. But if you accompany that with a civil rights movement inside Israel, the goal could be very different – a secular, democratic state "for all its citizens", where Jew, Christian and Muslim are equal. A one-state solution in which Jewish citizens lose an inbuilt majority. The end of Zionism, no less.

It's a fairly innocuous article but it seems to have caused some panic at Harry's Place.

UPDATE: From Wodge in the comments:  The panic seems to have spread with Norman Geras reporting the article under the headline, To hell with the Jews, no less.  In his panic he went and let on as to why Jews are not a suitable case for self-determination which he takes to mean granting people of a given ethnicity a power of veto as to whether compatriots can come, remain or return to their homeland.  A quick surf around other usual suspects suggests that it must be August and some dodgy academics are on holiday.

Neutrality on Israel?

Two letters in today's Guardian, one following on from a report of the appointment of an "Israel studies professor at Oxford University and the other commending The Guardian for a report on how the Palestinian village of Lifta was ethnically cleansed in the 1940s and is now being lined up for settlement by Jews only:

Derek Penslar (First professor of Israel studies at Oxford vows neutrality, 27 May) says he will strive for political neutrality in a professorship created with a £3m donation from long-standing supporters of Israel. But claims to be politically neutral generally obscure particular political positions since "you cannot be neutral on a moving train" or while riding the back of an angry crocodile. The report shows the difficulty of achieving neutrality by referring to "the Jewish state" as one might refer to the UK as a Christian state or Egypt as a Muslim state, none of which could be seen as politically neutral positions since they elevate the power of one group of citizens above others. States are defined by their borders. So in struggling to achieve neutrality, perhaps Derek Penslar will inform us of his politically neutral position on the borders of Israel.

Tony Booth

Cambridge University

• We commend you for putting Lifta in the news (We will never forget this village, G2, 30 May). Its Palestinian population was attacked and terrorised between Christmas 1947 and February 1948 and forced to leave by Menachem Begin's IZL and Yitzhak Shamir's Stern terror gangs. By February 1948 the village was emptied and its inhabitants were trucked to East Jerusalem. Now, the Israel Land Authority plans to parcel Lifta's private land and sell it to Jewish developers in an attempt to create a luxury enclave for Jews only. The international community must not remain silent in the face of this continued theft of private Palestinian land.

Antoine Raffoul

Co-ordinator, 1948: Lest We Forget

Actually there appeared to be an error in the report on Lifta not mentioned in the letter. See this:

The development plan was approved by the Jerusalem municipality five years ago, but earlier this year the Israel Lands Administration – the state agency that took ownership of Lifta's land under the Israeli law governing property deemed to be abandoned – began marketing the plot to private developers. A legal challenge stayed the tender process, but a decision is due any day on whether to proceed. The proposal is for 212 luxury housing units, expected to be advertised to wealthy expatriate Jews, a chic hotel and shops, and a museum. It suggests that some of the ruins be restored. But Lifta as a sanctuary and de facto heritage site will be lost.

Expatriate Jews? Where might they be? The largest number of expatriate Jews, understood as Jews living away from their country of origin, lives in Palestine. It wasn't me that noticed the error, it was Frank Fisher at the Just Peace UK list.

Israeli victims?

In case you were wondering how the UK government is going to justify changing the law to allow Israeli war crimes suspects a free pass to enter and leave the UK without the fear of prosecution, yesterday's Guardian showed the way in an article by Alan Travis and Ian Black:

Changes in the law to remove the threat of foreign politicians becoming victims of "politically motivated" war crime arrests every time they visit Britain have been postponed until after the general election.

So that's it. Israelis suspected of crimes against humanity are to be considered victims now. Poor little lambs.

Thank the Guardian!

I remember when I was active with Arab Media Watch they used to send out action alerts to draw attention to this or that article that they thought was either good or bad. Well on those very rare occasions that they thought something was good they'd head the email "THANK THE GUARDIAN" or whatever. Well here's a letter to the Guardian doing just that:

Thank you for publishing Caryl Churchill's play Seven Jewish Children online. I knew there must be some reason I've been buying the Guardian for 40 years. Perhaps Channel 4 News will now have the courage to follow suit.
Eva Figes
London

It took them 40 years to do a decent thing? Goodness gracious! Maybe she should try the Independent, they have an anti-zionist article once every 20 years I'm sure.

Karmi, Simons and Strawson on Ahmadinejad

Sorry to return to this but I just noticed yet another bit of weirdness on the Engage site. What was I doing there? Well I was looking to see if they had any condemnation of the Anti-Defamation League for harassing that academic I did the previous post on but there was nothing. Scrolling down I noticed John Strawson had been enlisted to rubbish two letters that had appeared in the Guardian in response to Ahmadinejad denouncing zionism at the Durban II conference.

Dr Hirsh heads the piece ""Anti-racists" think Ahmadinejad was right" and tries to create the impression that the "anti-racists" he has in mind are agreeing with Ahmadinejad's holocaust denial. The video clip beneath his headline is itself headed, "Iran's Ahmadinejad on the Holocaust". Beneath that are quotes drawn from the letters of Gharda Karmi and Geoff Simons that the Guardian published on Saturday just gone, 25th April 2009.

“…Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s UN speech on 21 April struck many as obnoxious, but in terms of understanding the 1948 roots of the Middle East conflict he was spot on. Vilifying him may feel good, but it is a diversion form the real issue.”

Ghada Karmi, Author, Married to Another Man: Israel’s Dilemma in Palestine

“However we may deplore the tone of President Ahmadinejad’s speech at the UN conference on racism, it is difficult to deny the principal facts that he presented…”

Geoff Simons, Author, The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine

Karmi thinks Ahmadinejad was “spot on” in his understanding of the roots of the Middle East conflict.

Simons agrees with the “principal facts” that he presented.

Neither stops to wonder why it is they agree with a genocidal anti-Jewish racist on the central question concerning Jews in the contemporary world. Perhaps it is just a coincidence? A stopped clock is right twice a day?

But perhaps there are other lessons to be learnt from the fact that they agree with Ahmadinejad.

And why is the Guardian printing this support for the understanding and analysis of the world’s most powerful antisemite on its letters page?

What happened was that Ahmadinejad had brought up the issue of the zionists' colonisation and ethnic cleansing of Palestine. He actually vented the bad analysis that it all happened or at least the west supported it on account of the holocaust. Now as far as that goes, Engage can't complain because David Hirsh also says that Israel exists because of the holocaust and he has even justified the UK Labour Party's call for the wholesale ethnic cleansing of Palestine back in 1944 on account of the holocaust. So Hirsh might just as well ask himself how it is that he is in agreement with Ahmadinejad but I won't hold my breath and wait for that admission.

But look at the extracts from Karmi and Simons's letters or read the letters in full which Hirsh does link to, they're not saying that the holocaust has anything to do with the establishment of the State of Israel and they're certainly not saying that the holocaust didn't happen. They are saying that the root of the problem goes back to the founding of Israel and not its expansion into what we now call the "occupied territories" of Gaza, the West Bank and Jerusalem.

So why does Hirsh go on to say this?

If people don’t understand what is racist about holocaust denial then they should make use of Deborah Lipstadt’s magnificent website, which is an excellent resource, Holocaust Denial On Trial. http://www.hdot.org/

Holocaust denial is antisemitic firstly because denial was part of the crime itself. Those who were murdered were told that nobody would ever believe that this happened and that nobody would ever know that they even existed. Denial is not a response to the Holocaust but it is part of the Holocaust.

Secondly because Holocaust denial necessarily assumes that the Jews are sufficiently powerful and sufficiently evil to have invented such a horrible lie and to have made believing it a precondition for acceptability in public life. It is antisemitic conspiracy theory.

Hmm, thank you Doctor, but what has that to do with what Karmi and Simons wrote?

So what's John Strawon's beef here?

UPDATE - John Strawson adds:

Karmi and Simons rely on ignorance of history in order to make their case: a case that Ahmadnejad is able to trade on.

“Their” history is that Western guilt for the Holocaust meant that the Jews were given Palestine in order to make amends. Nothing could be further from the truth. Reading the United Nations documents that led to the partition plan – debate in the General Assembly May through November 1947 and the report of United Nations Special Committee on Palestine (UNSCOP) – there are no Western expression of guilt whatsoever. The only speeches that linked the creation of a Jewish State to the Holocaust were from the Soviet Union and Poland.

Indeed what is striking is that despite many anti-Semitic remarks, not one Western country rises to object. The partition plan itself explicitly stated that it was plan for the future of government of Palestine and not a solution to the “Jewish question” - the latter formulation being a reference to the survivors of the Holocaust in displaced peoples’ camps. Far from guilt there is indifference bordering on callousness. The Jewish population of between 600,00-650,000 (and 18,000 in detention in in Cyprus) [UN figures]) were of course in Palestine in 1947.

They constituted a clearly constituted a national community. It is this national identity that the Karmi et al wish to deny. Modern anti-Semitism mainly takes the form of discrimination against Jews as national community - something that the Durban II statement reinforces when it places anti-Semitism between “Islamaphobia” and “Christianophobia.” (draft article 10)

There is no ignorance of history betrayed in their letters. Both of them argue that the origins of the Arab-Israeli conflict go back to the ethnic cleansing of Palestine.

As it happens, having falsely accused two people of ignorance of history by falsely accusing them of invoking the idea that the holocaust was the motivation for Israel's existence, Strawson does steer his comment back to something close to the crux of the matter.

See this again:

They [presumably Jews in Palestine] constituted a clearly constituted a national community. It is this national identity that the Karmi et al wish to deny. Modern anti-Semitism mainly takes the form of discrimination against Jews as national community

This mealy mouthed statement is saying that Jews in most of Palestine had a perfect right to carry out an ethnic cleansing campaign against the native predominantly Arab population. There is no other interpetation since Gharda Karmi probably doesn't care one way or another if Jews are a national community or not. The issue is that Jews in Palestine carried out an ethnic cleansing campaign to establish a state specifically for Jews at the expense of Palestine's natives. Gharda Karmi is a victim of the ethnic cleansing but for Strawson she is being antisemitic for objecting to it.

For John Strawson, it would appear that a national community is not a civic affair but an ethnic one and once it is decided that a community is national then that community has a perfect right to carry out an ethnic cleansing campaign against those that do not belong to the national ethnicity. And to object, even as a victim, is to be racist against the perpetrators of ethnic cleansing.

But Strawson has a strange relationship with Engage and Engage is a strange animal anyway. During "Operation Cast Lead" aka, the assault on Gaza, Strawson co-signed a letter to the Times castigating Israel for its war crimes. At the time, David Hirsh, or you might say Engage itself, was supporting what Israel was doing in/to Gaza. Last I checked, Strawson was on the "editorial board" of Engage and yet his co-signing of a letter to the Times was reckoned by one commenter to be a contradiction of the Engage position on "cast lead".

The letter to the Times noted that Hamas's rocket attacks were illegal acts warranting a "reasonable and proportionate" response from Israel but went on to say:

As things stand, its invasion and bombardment of Gaza amounts to collective punishment of Gaza’s 1.5m inhabitants contrary to international humanitarian and human rights law. In addition, the blockade of humanitarian relief, the destruction of civilian infrastructure, and preventing access to basic necessities such as food and fuel, are prima facie war crimes.

Any casual observer familiar with Engage will see this as quite a profound departure from the usual fare and as I said, one commenter (Keith P) did notice this. It was in a thread to a post where Dr Hirsh had graphically compared a call by Naomi Klein for a boycott of Israel to the nazi boycott of Jewish shops back in the 1930s:

This analysis seems inconsistent in tone, content, and logic to all that presented here and advanced by David in the name of Engage. Are we to assume that Engage’s editorial board is fundamentally divided as to whether what we are witnessing and have been witnessing in Gaza is a war crime or a justifiable act of defence against an existential threat to the lives of Jews?

Now this is where we get an insight into the relationship of Hirsh and Engage's collective existence, if indeed it has a collective existence. Here's Hirsh:

Engage has no collective position on “whether what we are witnessing and have been witnessing in Gaza is a war crime or a justifiable act of defence against an existential threat to the lives of Jews?”

Engage is a campaign against antisemitism, not an Israel/Palestine campaign or discussion group.

I tried to sum up what I feel are some of the central ideas of Engage, but it is only my attempt. Here http://engageonline.wordpress.com/about-engage/

John Strawson is one of the most incisive and committed campaigners against antisemitism that I know. I’m proud that he thinks of himself as being part of Engage.

Well something gave this fellow the impression that the Engage position on "cast lead" was that it was "a justifiable act of defence against an existential threat to the lives of Jews" and that Strawson was bucking what must have been the position of most of the other Engage associates that Hirsh had been linking to at that time. But within a minute of Hirsh's disclaimer, Strawson was on the thread:

Kieth P should read the letter more carefully. It is making a certain legal point - which I have made in comments here. The letter in addition to making it clear that Hamas’s rockets and suicide attacks are war crimes ends by saying

“We condemn the firing of rockets by Hamas into Israel and suicide bombings which are also contrary to international humanitarian law and are war crimes. Israel has a right to take reasonable and proportionate means to protect its civilian population from such attacks. However, the manner and scale of its operations in Gaza amount to an act of aggression and is contrary to international law, notwithstanding the rocket attacks by Hamas. “

Keith P had clearly read the letter and linked to it so the admonition suggesting he hadn't was purely gratuitous if not downright dishonest.

Hirsh then (two minutes later) provides another insight correctly stating that:

Incidentally Keith, I don’t think I’ve written anything at all on the current conflict in Gaza.

That was true at the time. All Hirsh had done was link to various articles supporting Israel in Gaza and denouncing Israel's critics as antisemitic. And he didn't link to the Times letter that Strawson had co-signed.

Well now Keith is very confused and so am I and so must you be, dear reader:

Thanks for your replies, David, John.

I did read the letter carefully. I understand that it includes the condemnation of Hamas’s actions as contrary to international law, and i did not for a second mean to imply John had meant to entirely absolve Hamas and entirely fix blame on Israel.

What I was surprised about was the fact that this letter includes clear and unequivocal statements describing the PAST year (+)’s “siege” of Gaza and the CURRENT/RECENT attacks on the Gaza Strip as war crimes. This may or may not be the case - i am not arguing against this on a legal basis (I am unqualified to do so) or suggesting it is false.

But I do think it departs from Engage’s previous posts and comments concerning both the “siege” and the conflict in content and tone. David, I know you say that Engage has shifted its concerns over the years and is less attentive to points on the conflict than it used to be perhaps, but you’ve also conceded that “Engage business overlaps with wider political issues in Israel and in Palestine - so these are editorial decisions and not clear and automatic rules.” (http://www.engageonline.org.uk/blog/comment.php?id=1551) and I think that its clear from your covererage of both Lebanon 2006 and the current violence, that the posts on Engage are either themselves concerned with the conflicts or are selected as ways of directing readers to sources selected from amongst many possibilities; it therefore follows that there is some position being articulated and not a random or ambivalent approach to the way the conflict is parsed here at Engage.

This brings me back to my original comment/question, which is whether or not Engage’s (and if its easier to answer David I would understand if you’d prefer to answer as an individual rather than for the whole campaign) position (unavoidable and implicit in the selection and recommendation of sources on the conflict) is also that the Israeli government and military are presently comitting war crimes and that they have been doing so for at least the last year in the form of the “siege” of Gaza.

I am not suggesting that there needs to be uniformity on the subject across your editorial board, but I am aware of and puzzled by the following:

1. Falk (a co-signatory of John’s) has been condemned quite harshly for “israel-hatred” and in particular for making Nazi-Zionism analogies that Engage has criticised very forcefully. David, I think you have yourself charged him with”being used by antisemites as cover” (http://www.engageonline.org.uk/blog/article.php?id=1806) and have reproduced a “Flesh Is Grass” commentary where he Falk is charged with “publicity-seeking exaggerations and falsehoods” (again I’m for or against Falk - just observing that this appears to indicate a position which departs from the co-signing of statements with someone quite a bit) (http://engageonline.wordpress.com/2008/12/18/flesh-is-grass-on-richard-falks-exclusion-from-israel/)

2. If Engage does agree with the statement a member of its editorial board has signed on the current conflict - then surely it makes sense for it to be reproduced here or linked to in the way some dozens of external reports and commentaries on the current conflict have been linked to over the past fortnight.

3. If Engage does not agree with the statement made by its editorial board, how does it situate this statement published in the mainstream UK press that Israel is, and long has been, engaged in war crimes within its overall context of “defining and defending” the limits of “legitimate criticism” - is John, like Falk, not preparing the ground for demonization? is he lending credence to the arguments as well as the vocabularies of co-signers like Falk? Or is the attribition of war crimes to the Israeli state and armed forces unproblematic in this scheme?

Oh look at the time. I need to set myself a time limit. It's so easy to get carried away. Anyway, no further response from either Hirsh or Strawson was forthcoming.

So what have we learned here? Engage appears to be Dr David Hirsh with people described as contributing editors and editorial board members who are simply well wishers that agree with the central motive of Engage to try to set parameters as to what is permissible in criticising Israel. You might say that the mission is simply to protect Israel and especially zionism from serious criticism. But what of Strawson? He has clearly hooked up with people considered by Hirsh to be beyond the pale and yet Hirsh is proud if Strawson wants to consider himself an Engagenik even though that might not actually mean anything at all in terms of what you do for Engage or what you think about Israel, Jews, zionism, war crimes, Palestinians, Arabs or indeed, er, anything at all.

Is Engage a collective or is it Hirsh with a list of people saying "we like Hirsh, er, broadly speaking"?

And what of Strawson? What's he playing at? He has clearly misrepresented what Dr Karmi and Geoff Simons had to say in their letters, that the ethnic cleansing of Palestine explains the conflict over Palestine but then he comes close to misrepresenting a letter he signed himself when he pretends that it does significantly differ from condemning Israel's war crimes in Gaza during "cast lead" and the on-going war crime over the siege of Gaza.

But on the matter of whether or not Israel's existence is explained by reference to the holocaust, Hirsh's view is a little closer to Ahmadinejad's than the view expressed by Karmi and Simons. That could be better illustrated by the old Engage website but that is down at the moment unless it has been disappeared as happens with Engage posts sometimes.

7 Jewish children: a play for Gaza

I just watched this again and the idea that it is antisemitic is so dishonest it's quite breathtaking that anyone can watch it and make that false allegation whilst keeping a straight face. The smearing of Caryl Churchill isn't a job for the hasbara flock, this is one for the hasbara professionals, seasoned smear merchants. And boy, have they been busy lately.

Most of the play dwells more on the legitimate fears of Jews before it moves to Palestine and finally to Gaza and the whole thing takes the form of argument, one parent arguing one thing, the other counter-arguing and yet the the play is accused of portraying Jews as this one thing, or that one thing, or the other one thing. How can that be if Jews are arguing different points? How are Jews portrayed in an unfavourable light when they are arguing different points most of which are not unfavourable?

The hasbara brigade has claimed that the title of the play, 7 Jewish children, is itself antisemitic then they have selected this or that line, distorted its meaning and then claimed that one distorted line to typify the whole play. But the title of the play is 7 Jewish children: a play for Gaza and it's that last bit that makes it antisemitic in the wacky world of hasbara.

I don't know what the copyright issues are here so watch it while it lasts and if you can't see it here go watch it at at the Guardian site.




As I watched this for the umpteenth time I was reminded of the old cliché that two Jews need three synagogues to accommodate all their opinions. If the cliché is true then Caryl Churchill has portrayed it excellently as her Jewish parents argue over what to tell their Jewish children. So where do the zionists get the idea that this play is a uniformly negative portrayal of the Jews? It was a short play, maybe they weren't paying attention. Surely they wouldn't falsely accuse people of antisemitism?

Guardian hosts 7 Jewish children so Harry's Place hosts Jud Süß

I thought I had a bit of a scoop yesterday when someone wrote to me saying that David T of Harry's Place had literally gone mad over the Guardian's hosting of a film clip of one woman doing a reading of Caryl Churchill's play, Seven Jewish Children: a play for Gaza. The guy told me that there was a ridiculously over the top post followed by a thread that was pretty nutty even by HP standards and that later in the day, Engage style, the embarrassing post had disappeared. But no, my contact was wrong. David Hirsh disappears embarrassing posts but David T is made of mm, er, better? no that's not the word, worse? no that's not it either. David T is different from David Hirsh; a little bit anyway. That is, he didn't disappear the post that if he had any shame at all he would be painfully embarrassed about.

So what's all this? The Guardian decided, what with all the hooha about the play, they would commission an actor to perform 7 Jewish children: a play for Gaza. I posted the script some time ago, here. So now you can watch the play and read the script. I couldn't get into the script but it is very ably performed, indeed the script really comes alive when performed by Jennie Stoller so if you haven't watched it yet you might want to do so before reading on.

The HP post simply says the following:

Guardian Stages Seven Jewish Children

David T, April 25th 2009, 1:15 pm

You can read the Guardian’s self-justification here.

You can watch it online here.

This is the Guardian’s next theatrical project.

And the next theatrical project is the notorious antisemitic nazi propaganda film, Jud Süß.

So that's all there is to the post. The Guardian has produced and presented 7 Jewish children and that apparently compares to a nazi propaganda film made, I believe, by Goebels and HP hosts the a youtube clip of Jud Süß helpfully subtitled in Magyar as if to emphasise (not) the widespread nature of antisemitic propaganda throughout the Anglosphere. The antisemitism of the play is held to speak for itself, in the title, in the comparison with Jud Süß and of course in the fact that HP has a beef about it. It's a curious paradox that for a hasbara parrot, David T isn't too big on the explain thing. He prefers enigmatic assertions, rhetorical questions and implied, sometimes even expressed, allegations.

See what I mean in the comments. The first one is quite a good one from an Andrew Adams :

So they’re staging a reading so that people can actually see for themselves what the fuss is about and make their own mind up. And that’s the same as showing a Nazi propaganda film. A sense of proportion is required here I think.

And the riposte from DT?

”tell her we’re chosen people”

See what I mean by enigmatic or am I doing it now? Is he saying that no Jewish children ever get told that they are chosen people? Where did the expression come from? Why was that film about frummer and reformers called "The Chosen"? or where I saw it, The Chosen PG. What about Tevia in Fiddler on the Roof? Why did he tell G-d to choose someone else? A similar thing gets said by one of the characters in the film Defiance. The chosen people thing runs very deeply in the Jewish religion and means different thing to different people but its incorporation into the zionist ideology, whether secular or religious, as an idea of Jewish superiority can't seriously be gainsaid. Personally I have had several Jews, Israelis and Christians say to me that Jews are the chosen people. So what's he saying?

DT needs time to think about what he is to say to firm up on the allegation that Caryl Churchill's play is comparable to a nazi propaganda film, so one minute after his first response comes his second:

Let me put it this way, Andrew.

You’re not an anti-racist. You’re happy to give anti-semitism a pass, as long as it is plausibly dressed up as anti-Zionism.

Goodness, all he said was it was a bit disproportionate suggesting that the Guardian was close to hosting nazi propaganda. For all we know Andrew might be very concerned about racism and possibly about antisemitism in particular. You really can't say one way or the other from the comment he made and sure enough, Andrew's having none of it:

You’re not an anti-racist. You’re happy to give anti-semitism a pass, as long as it is plausibly dressed up as anti-Zionism.

Crap. I don’t have a view about whether the play is anti-semitic or not, I haven’t seen it or read it. But it has certainly attracted a lot of controversy so why not give people an opportunity to make their minds up for themselves.

Typically the thread meanders a good bit while people try to outdo each other for allegations of antisemitism (I'm skimming) so whilst it's not entirely clear who DT is responding to here I'll assume it's this Andrew guy:

I’m not suggesting it should be banned.

I’m just explaining that people who do put on a play, the thesis of which is that Jewish children are told to celebrate the deaths of others, because they are “the chosen people” are antisemites.

I also think that people who do not see this is a racist argument, are tolerant of racism.

So Caryl Churchill has written an antisemitic play and anyone who hosts it for any reason is antisemitic. This includes the liberal zionist Jewish lobby theatre, Theatre J.

Now a lot more drivel follows, especially from DT but then in wades The Hasbara Buster :

It’s very amusing to see how many of Caryl’s negative reviewers have written critiques imitating the “Tell her that–” model. The play has hit home, not because of its literary merit, which it absolutely lacks, but because of how effectively it ridicules Zionist brainwashing. The crude, childish indoctrination depicted in the play is in fact what young –and adult– Jews are fed by their political and religious leadership.

You don’t like it? Then stop repeating moronic clichés like ”they never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity,” “we’ll have peace when they love their children more than they hate us,” or “we can forgive their killing our children, but not their forcing us to kill theirs.” Each time you Zionists repeat them you expose yourselves as the brainwashed lot you are.

Now that was good, what are they going to do now? Up steps Gene:

It’s very amusing to see how many of Caryl’s negative reviewers have written critiques imitating the “Tell her that–” model.

On a first-name basis now? Does she call you Hasbara?

No, she calls you hasbara, Gene, at least she would if she knew you.

Things go from weird to weirder when "Joshua" suggests, by quoting Theodor Herzl's notorious acceptance of antisemitism, that resistance to antisemitism is futile given that:

anti-Semites and anti-Zionists will achieve the same result in their newspapers and on their blogs. They will simply redouble their efforts and attempt to diminish you and those like you at every turn.

What? DT's not having any of that with all his achievements and ends his response by saying:

we most certainly aren’t standing around doing nothing. Our enemies have a pretty good idea of what we’ve achieved and it makes them very nervous.

Oo-er! But back comes Joshua:

The notion that you have had anything but the slightest effect on those anti-Semites and anti-Zionists is utterly absurd. You have made them nervous? Hubristic twaddle.

Sorry about that. Two lunatics slugging it out over whether nazi propaganda can be stopped at the Guardian is no better than just the one. I just wanted to show that little hint of a Napoleon complex on DT's part.

Back to the Hasbara Buster, picking up on some of David T's claims within the thread:

1. Jews have not threatened violence over this, or any other of they myriad racist defamations to which we’ve been subject

Robert Faurisson has been repeatedly beaten to a pulp by Jews, and Serge Klarsfeld has approved of the beatings.

To the deafening silence of world Jewry.

Hmm, not a great move, that one. Earlier in the thread DT had said:

What a hilarious play Churchill has written. I would spit in her face.

And he gets support from a fan, Chas Newkey-Burden :

“What a hilarious play Churchill has written. I would spit in her face.”

Join the queue.

Ah, now when someone else with an appalling hasbara blog of his own writes the same thing as DT did, DT can see what a stupid thing it was to say and hastily withdraws:

Actually, I hope I wouldn’t. I hope I’d have the grace to walk away.

Me too, I'd hate him to bring the Jews into disrepute.

But HB plumped for an incident involving a holocaust denier. What a gift from HB to HP and especially to DT. Straight away, ignoring the point completely HB is asked if he supports Faurisson:

No; I’m just debunking the myth that Jews don’t threaten violence over the defamations they’ve been subject to.

And he was and he did and he moved on to debunk another myth in the making.

2. This play claims that Jewish parents encourage Jewish children to revel in the dead of a civil war. That is, quite frankly, untrue. It is also essentially a rehashing of the Blood Libel.

Where, David? Where does the play claim this? It is these small misrepresentations that in the end lead you to call the play antisemitic.

The play says:

Tell her about the family of dead girls, tell her the names, why not, tell her the whole world knows why shouldn’t she know? tell her there’s dead babies, did she see babies? tell her she’s got nothing to be ashamed of. Tell her they did it to themselves.

The play claims that Jewish children are told to blame the victims — NOT to take pleasure in their deaths.

We ALL know this is true. We all know the official Zionist line is that the dead children is something the Palestinians did to themselves.

You don’t live in Israel. However, a journo who does live there said:

I heard comments similar to these from some of my relatives during the war. Going back through the 24 years I’ve lived here, I’ve heard comments like these from relatives, neighbors, fellow soldiers - I’ve heard it and read it all over the place. I’ve heard it from Diaspora Jews too.

Caryl Churchill told the truth and she’s called an antisemite. The usual prescription.

This goes to the heart of the issue. Caryl Churchill's play is being grotesquely misrepresented. The worst possible spin and improbable spin is put on her words and her intentions and Hasbara Buster appears to have demonstrated that the overall allegation of antisemitism is based on a false interpretation of what was written. Now you'd expect David T to respond to that but instead he pretends to take this paranoid Joshua seriously and continues his discussion with him. Meanwhile, Hasbara Buster is now being accused of antisemitism, holocaust denial and being a nazi.

So where is DT? Ah here he is, a few trolls in tow and he thinks he's found a get out from his silly notion that Jews never threaten violence when something offends their political sensibilities and that is because the example out of many that HB chose was a holocaust denier who seems to have been beaten up by a small gang of Jewish youths. So anyway, here's DT:

I’m not getting into that; I’ll only say that Faurisson was beaten by Jews, who in turn were praised by a leading Jewish personality, for the sole crime of exercising his right to free speech.

You bloody well are getting into that!

“I’ll only say…”

You scumbag Faurrison supporter.

See, what a dumb move. The point in that discussion was never the views of Faurisson, it was whether he was beaten up by some Jews or not. By all means check but I think HB made his case very well. But that's not the main point either. The idea that someone can in all seriousness say that Jews never threaten violence over their political sensibilities being offended is downright silly even without reference to specific examples but this was a side issue.

The issue was the play and many zionists are saying it is antisemitic and David T is saying that it is antisemitic to even show the play for any reason and to make his case he is misrepresenting what it actually said. Hasbara Buster demonstrated that in a significant passage the play wasn't as represented by DT. And yet David T, having accused Caryl Churchill and certain unnamed people at the Guardian never returned to the thread to discuss his bizarre take on the play and the ludicrous comparison he made of the play with a nazi propaganda film.

Now, if you still haven't taken in the reading of 7 Jewish children: a play for Gaza, at the Guardian site, then I suggest that you do that now.

Wiping Palestine from the map?

The Guardian has been running these fact files setting out some stats and what have you about the member states of the United Nations plus Kosovo, Taiwan and the Vatican. I wouldn't have notice but for mild mannered complaint about the omission of Palestine in today's Guardian:

Your Fact Files are interesting and informative, but I was dismayed to discover that Palestine is subsumed under Israel. The page "Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories" shows only the Israeli flag and quotes only the Israeli anthem. Why not a page each to Israel and to the Palestinian territories?
Jill Osman
Hebden Bridge, West Yorkshire

But Palestine is subsumed under Israel and hiving off the occupied territories won't change that.

Comment is free is even less free than it used to be

Tony Greenstein had a post yesterday protesting the fact that the current editor of the Guardian's Comment is free, Matt Seaton, appears to be a zionist moderator. It begins with Antony Lerman's article about that cartoon by Pat Oliphant.

Tony left this comment:

The concern of Mr Foxman and all the other slavish apologists for Israel's actions about a cartoon, stand in marked contrast to their silence, indeed their exculpation of the murder of over 400 Palestinian children in Gaza.

Just imagine - 400 Jewish children slaughtered by an intensive air, land and sea bombardment in an attack against their ghetto (which is what Gaza is)? The hypocrisy is breathtaking.

Oh we know the excuse. Hamas are hiding behind civilians - just like Haganah, the Zionist pre-state militia. Presumably the British would have been right to shell kibbutzim, synagogues (where weapons were definitely stored).

But at least the soldiers who committed the atrocities in Gaza were honest. The children will only grow up to be 'terrorists' hence why killing them too is legitimate. The tee shirts Israeli soldiers had made up to 'celebrate' their deeds - such as the picture of a pregnant Palestinian woman in the cross-hairs of a gun sight - 'one bullet 2 kills' is indeed an example of the Nazi mentality. As are slogans such as 'we have come to annihilate you'.

But of course this misses the point. For years Zionists and apologists for everything the Israeli state does to the Palestinians have done so in the name of fighting the Nazis. The settlers invoke the Nazis and ‘never again’ to justify their deeds, the attack on Beirut was likened by Begin to an attack on Hitler’s bunker.

And likewise the Israeli opponents of their State’s barbarism also resort, quite correctly, to analogies with the Nazis. ‘We must demand of the entire nation a sense of shame and humiliation. That soon we will be like Nazis and the perpetrators of pogroms," wrote Rabbi Benyamin’. This was written after the cold-blooded murder of 46 Palestinians at the Kfar Quassem village just prior to the Suez War. Likewise, after some of the events of the 1947-9 war Aharon Zisling, later to become Minister of Agriculture for the Zionist Mapam said at a cabinet meeting that ‘I have not always agreed when the term Nazi was applied to the British. I would not want to use that expression with regard to them, even though they committed Nazi acts. But Nazi acts have been committed by Jews as well, and I am deeply shocked.’ [Tom Segev, the 7th Million, pp. 300-1]

And yet I cannot recall Foxman or the Hoffmans of this world criticising the use of Nazi analogies to demonise the Palestinians because that is their view too. It is only when the victims use such analogies that they are verboten. Strange that.

But maybe the apologists for Israel’s latest slaughter in Gaza have forgotten that it was in 1933, when the Head of the Gestapo’s Jewish Department, Baron von Mildenstein visited the Yishuv, Jewish Palestine, for 6 months, that he not only wrote a series of laudatory articles in Der Angriff when he returned to Germany, having been the guest of Histadrut and the Kibbutzim, but he even had a coin minted – with the Swastika on one side and the Star of David on another. But this was when the World Zionist Organisation had decided that parleying with the Nazis was better than the anti-fascist boycott of them!

But I forget - boycotts too have been compared these days to Nazi ‘boycotts’. And who has made the comparison? Ah yes, the same people who object to such comparisons when the Palestinians make them!!!

Tony Greenstein

But it was deleted. So Tony wrote to Matt Seaton:

Dear Mr Seaton,

I refer to the article published by Antony Lerman in the Guardian’s Comment is Free blog last Thursday 2nd April.

The article argued that the cartoon by Pat Oliphant, showing a ‘headless Nazi-like, goose-stepping, jackbooted figure, with one arm raised and outstretched, holding a sword, and the other wheeling a head in the form of a Star of David’ may have been offensive but it was not anti-Semitic.

Lerman argued that ‘political cartoons are often very offensive, and offensive – even when it involves comparing Israelis with Nazi’ but that ‘does not automatically mean antisemitic.’
It is an argument which is, I would have thought self-evident. Especially when, as Lerman goes on to point out:

‘The effect of the complaints of antisemitism made by the American Jewish organisations is to attempt to protect Israel from legitimate, if deeply unpleasant, criticism…. All it seems to be doing is devaluing the currency. If the ADL and the Wiesenthal Centre don't like or agree with the comparison, why can't they just argue that it's wrong?.. This only makes it increasingly difficult to raise concern about genuine instances of antisemitism and to develop effective means to prevent them.’

This was a well argued article about the pernicious effects of labelling critics of Israel and Zionism as anti-Semitic. I therefore wrote in to support the main thrust of the article and to point out the hypocrisy of those who label others as anti-Semitic when they don’t hesitate themselves to make comparisons between their opponents and the Nazis. In particular I highlighted:

The fact that Israeli soldiers returning home from Gaza had tee-shirts printed legitimising the killing of children and in particular one which showed a pregnant woman in the cross-hairs of a rifle with the slogan ‘one bullet, two kills’. The Nazi mentality behind such thinking should be obvious to all.

The comparisons that have regularly been made between Palestinians and Arabs and the Nazis by Zionists and gave Begin’s comparison of Arafat in Beirut with Hitler in his bunker as but one example.
I recalled the fact that even internal critics of Israel, Zionists themselves, had drawn comparisons to earlier massacres such as that at Kfar Quassem, and the Nazis. I cited Aharon Zisling, later to become a Mapam Minister in the Israeli government who said of the above massacre that ‘Nazi acts have been committed by Jews as well, and I am deeply shocked.’

I noted that on no occasion have those, like Abe Foxman of the Anti-Defamation League ever criticised Zionist comparisons between Palestinians and the Nazis as anti-Semitic.

I drew attention to the trip that Baron von Mildenstein, Head of the Gestapo’s Jewish desk, made a journey in 1933 to Jewish Palestine for 6 months at the invitation of the Labour Zionist movement. Now I wouldn’t expect you to know this, clearly you don’t, but it is documented in Jacob Boas’ ‘A Nazi Travels to Palestine’ which was printed in the January 1980 edition of History Today, a journal which isn’t usually considered on the wilder fringes of the political spectrum.

And finally I drew attention to the fact that those who deprecate comparisons between Zionism and the Nazis have no hesitation in making just such comparisons themselves eg. between BDS campaigns against Israel today and the Nazi ‘Boycott’ of Germany in the 1930’s. Indeed the very same people who objected to Oliphant’s cartoon make this comparison.

I cited as a source for the Zisling and other quotes, the book, 7th Million, by ex-Haaretz journalist, Tom Segev, about the survivors of the Holocaust who emigrated to Palestine/Israel after 1945.

I posted this comment at 1.09 pm last Saturday 4th April and, because of previous experiences of censorship at the Guardian’s Comment is Free site, took the precaution of saving it. Sure enough, when the same petty-minded censors of CIF ( ‘moderators’) got round to dealing with the inevitable Zionist complaint, my comment was removed.

Now I understand that moderators can fulfil a useful function of removing libellous, defamatory and generally ad hominem comments, whose only purpose is to disrupt debate. But my comment was a contribution to, not an attempt to disrupt, a debate. Clearly this is a difference you are having trouble with. Nor was it in any sense anti-Semitic, though its logic was certainly bound to offend our narrow minded opponents and your tiny-minded moderators.

There was a time when CIF, under Georgina Henry, had no hesitation in encouraging debate such as this. It would seem that you on the other hand were brought in as Editor of CIF precisely in order to clamp down on controversial debate, CIF having been subject to a concerted campaign by the Zionist Federation and their allies who were and are afraid of any debate they cannot control.

I look forward to an apology for the deletion of this comment and failing that I would hope that you are honest enough to rename CIF to something more appropriate such as ‘Comment is Free Except When We Censor It’ or ‘Comment is Free (in moderation)’. At the moment CIF is a tribute to Orwell’s Newspeak where censorship is called free debate.

Regards

Tony Greenstein

Comment is free was always loaded in favour of the zionists and whether it's Georgina Henry or Matt Seaton, the only question they ask when told to jump by the ZF or other zios is "how high?"

Guardian Gaza war crimes special

Check out these clips at the Guardian while I figure out how to upload them to the blog here.



These are stills from clips on the use of drones, the use of human shields and the attacks on medics.

Azmi Bishara

I've seen a terrible thing in the Guardian. Azmi Bishara was a Palestinian member of the Israeli parliament but had to flee because of trumped up charges that he had aided Hizbullah. Well among the many zionist pieces in the Guardian's Comment is free there was one making out that Azmi Bishara fled because he was guilty of something rather than that he was being framed and threatened with life imprisonment or even death. The piece is by Jonathan Spyer:

The Lieberman phenomenon is far more complex. He has managed to tap into a considerable anger among many Israeli Jews at the growth of Islamism and nationalist radicalism among Israel's 20% Arab majority. This process is best exemplified by the flight from the country of Balad party leader Azmi Bishara, under suspicion that he aided Hezbollah in the 2006 war. Lieberman spotted that this issue was regarded as too controversial by the mainstream parties, and focused on it.

The controversy seems to be over the fact that the details of any charge against Bishara range from secret to ludicrous. Or they might now not be secret, just ludicrous.

Here's Bishara's own take on the whole business in the LA Times.

During my years in the Knesset, the attorney general indicted me for voicing my political opinions (the charges were dropped), lobbied to have my parliamentary immunity revoked and sought unsuccessfully to disqualify my political party from participating in elections — all because I believe Israel should be a state for all its citizens and because I have spoken out against Israeli military occupation. Last year, Cabinet member Avigdor Lieberman — an immigrant from Moldova — declared that Palestinian citizens of Israel "have no place here," that we should "take our bundles and get lost." After I met with a leader of the Palestinian Authority from Hamas, Lieberman called for my execution.

The Israeli authorities are trying to intimidate not just me but all Palestinian citizens of Israel. But we will not be intimidated. We will not bow to permanent servitude in the land of our ancestors or to being severed from our natural connections to the Arab world. Our community leaders joined together recently to issue a blueprint for a state free of ethnic and religious discrimination in all spheres. If we turn back from our path to freedom now, we will consign future generations to the discrimination we have faced for six decades.

I wrote to the Cif editor to point out that whilst the Guardian has always been happy to post articles by the justifiers of Israel's ethnic cleansing in the past, I think this must be the first time they've hosted an apologetic for ethnic cleansing in the future.

Rallies for carnage might encourage antisemitism!

For a change I’d recommend folks to read the comments under a CIF piece. I think the story is there. The piece isn’t exceptional; it’s by Jonathan Freedland blaming the ‘liberal left’ for not being attentive enough to antisemitism during the Gaza invasion, something that has lead to an upsurge in antisemitism. He contrasted this to the ‘liberal left’ warning against islamophobia in the wake of 9/11 and 7/7

The upsurge is real enough – CST documented 250 incidents in the three weeks. (And yes, I know one can’t trust CST, but one trusts that they exaggerate consistently about these things, which indicates a genuine jump in incidents.) What the commentators didn’t accept is Freedland’s attempt to blame opponents of Gaza for this upsurge. This is surprising, usually there’s a kneejerk response to accusations of antisemitism. Instead comment after comment was saying things along the line of the following:

Sorcey 04 Feb 09, 10:52am
• There is very little or no anti-semitism in the news. After 9/11 and 7/7, there was a call for all Muslims to face a loyalty test, or worse, to be deported. Islamophobia was rife - you couldn't avoid it. Only a little while ago The Sun was caught out distorting news in order to foster Islamophobia. This was still happening years after 7/7.
Has anyone distorted news to foster anti-semitism? If so it should be condemned. But if not, then a key cornerstone of this article has no foundation.
Furthermore, there is no one in the Muslim community that has equated criticism of any or all Muslim states with Islamophobia. However we are constantly reminded by a large and vocal group that any criticism of Israel is anti-semitism, always and without exception.
"Progressive voices insisted that Muslims were not to be branded as guilty by association, just because the killers of 9/11 and 7/7 had been Muslims and had claimed to act in the name of all Muslims."
This is a hard one, as British Muslims and especially their community leaders went out of their way to say that these were atrocities and were not committed in their name. There were no rallies in support of the bombers or calling for more. However, some British Jews did hold rallies in support of Israel during it's three week long carnage. I've never seen a rally for such carnage before.

Brian Klug in his response also made the point that people wouldn’t equate Israel with the Jews if the Board of Deputies also didn’t do so.

A fair few comments were saying that it was incumbent on Jews, like Muslims after 9/11, to show their opposition to the crimes committed in their name. Like Freedland, I’d be queasy about that demand – it’s a not very heavily disguised loyalty demand.

However, it struck me that the intelligent folks in the Jewish establishment must realise by now that whatever about criticising Israel, rallies to support it make very little sense any more. One of the main reasons for such rallies is that supporting Israel supports diaspora Jews. Ok, readers of this site might know this to be baloney, but it was genuinely felt.

It would be hard now, given the unprecedented negative reactions to such support both among Jews and in the ambient society, to believe that such rallies are anything but counterproductive for British Jewry and their position in it.

So here’s my prediction. There will be more wars (not a hard prediction, that one), but the rally on January 11th will be the last mass rally called by the Board of Deputies in support of these wars. You read it here first.

Wossisname again?

One for the Brits, or Bwits only I'm afraid. Well, I'm not afraid. I hope Jonathan Ross isn't known abroad. Here, for those who know Jonathan Ross and Melanie Phillips and who also know that the BBC is helping Israel with its criminal blockade of Gaza, is Martin Rowson's cartoon in today's Guardian:



I thought that it was by Steve Bell and when I couldn't find it on line I emailed him to ask for a copy. I hope I didn't offend him. I thought the Guardian was scared of Mad Mel Phlips!