The war party in print

Nearly missed this. Many thanks to Matthew Norman for naming names on 11/5/04.

" Meanwhile, which of the pro-war pundits will go longest without the hint of a mea culpa? Yesterday, the Mirror's Tony Parsons had the grace to admit dropping an orchestra, to borrow a racetrack term, while Boris 'The Jackal' Johnson came close when forced to adopt the hilarious Barbara Amiel line that at least when we torture people, we can debate it openly. Barbara isn't about to hold her hands up (and with all those cuffs about, can you blame her?), and nor is the Mail's Mad Mel Phillips, Mystic Mogg of the Times, Crazy Janet Daley of the Telegraph, our own David Aaronovitch [even he's starting to back pedal - see below]and several others. Champagne for any still explaining why it all makes sense come June 30. "

Yet more Israeli soldiers killed

Oh yes and still more Palestinians. In fairness to The Guardian. Israel killing Palestinians isn't exactly news. Palestinians are killed by Israeli soldiers every day.

Six Israeli soldiers killed

Oh and seven Palestinians killed too. No doubt the Readers' Editor of The Guardian. can find hundreds of examples of reports where the killing of Israelis is a mere afterthought in an article focusing mostly on Palestinians being killed.

Miracle in the Holy Land

An Israeli soldier goes on trial for killing somebody. A bit of a first this. When you consider all the Palestinians who have been murdered by the Israeli army you have to wonder what was so different about this case. The victim Tom Hurndall was British so perhaps that's it. No it can't because the UN's Iain Hook and Channel 4's James Miller were both British and both were murdered by Israeli soldiers. And what about the American, Rachel Corrie? She was murdered by an Israeli bulldozer driver and nothing happened, but then look at the amazing case of the USS Liberty. Well, a google search finds what a read of The Guardian. article didn't. According to the article in The Daily Telegraph. the accused is a Bedouin in a special Bedouin unit in the Israeli army. Oh, and another thing: the charge isn't murder; it's manslaughter.

British troops cleared...by David Aaronovitch

He couldn't stay out of the fray for long. David Aaronovitch is back supporting the continued occupation that most of the British public now opposes and most of the world always opposed. Thankfully he can't possibly be influential. Still his articles can be quite funny, particularly when you compare one to another and highlight the contradictions. For example it seems like only yesterday (it was last week) that he was praising the "remarkable restraint" of American troops. Now he's accusing them (and just them) of causing a "disaster" in Iraq...though he wants the disaster to continue.

UK public isolated from Blair

Independent. /MOP poll
Should British troops pull out of Iraq by 30th June?
55 per cent: YES
28 per cent: NO
17 per cent: DON'T KNOW

Exposed Aaronovitch plays it safe

In a letter to The Observer Kevin Downey of Derry shows he is wise to Aaronovitch's shenanigans:

David Aaronovitch attempts to plant the seeds of exoneration for what took place in Abu Ghraib prison (Comment, last week). In Northern Ireland this twisted logic used to be called 'whataboutery' (yes, the Loyalist murders are horrific but what about the Provo bombings?).

We must dwell on the vile incidents in Iraq precisely because they were perpetuated by the 'representatives of justice'. This evil cannot be forgiven on the back of other evil. The existence of the photos is a blessing. We already know about the Saddams, Pinochets, Suhartos and Sharons of this world. Evil is evil.

Kevin Downey
Derry

Thank you Kevin Downey for introducing me to that word. I'd never heard it before and yet a Google search for it yields 217 results - only a few less than "Jews sans frontieres" gets today. Poor old Aaronovitch has had a tough 8 days though. In last week's Observer he had to tell a bit of a porky, revising his statement that "the Americans... in many ways, have acted in Iraq with extraordinary restraint" to "the restraint [he] had witnessed on the part of US troops in Baghdad". And in The Guardian he had to be corrected from falsely attributing quite serious errors of fact to Naomi Klein. He's playing it safe this week by filing an article on the American cult TV show: Friends. I wish him every success in his new career as a TV critic. Politics clearly isn't his forté.

Hutton answers

Well Hutton himself doesn't actually answer but I wrote to the inquiry website on 19/4/2004 and they replied just the other day. Now read on....

Dear Sir/Madam

Lord Hutton (aka "Hutton") said that he would investigate the leaking of the Hutton Report (aka "Hutton") to a newspaper. I haven't heard anything about the "Hutton" investigation into "Hutton". I wonder, has "Hutton" done a "Hutton" on "Hutton"? Or was he serious about an investigation?

Yours faithfully

Mark Elf
www.jewssansfrontieres.blogspot.com

Here's the reply [name deleted to protect the innocent]

Thank you for your email of 19th April 2004 and I apologise for the delay in replying.

The investigation is still continuing into the disclosure by "The Sun" newspaper of some of the conclusions of Lord Hutton's report before its publication. In the light of the outcome, Lord Hutton will review what further steps he wishes to take.

I hope that this is helpful. [helpful? hmmm, not sure, what do you think?]

[Name here]

Inquiries Policy Division
Department for Constitutional Affairs
Selborne House
54-60 Victoria Street
London, SW1E 6QW

I'll see how people get on with The Guardian. slaughter saga and maybe run another £10 competition like guess when Hutton delivers his verdict on the leak. I'll think about that one. Hutton could tip someone off or pass himself off as someone else, take a guess, announce the findings and pocket my tenner. Hmmm, too risky. I'm gonna save my tenner.

Jewish Chronicle update

Obviously there's a fair bit about Sharon "losing" the referendum on "withdrawal" from concentration camp Gaza, leaving no Zionist presence but the army and the watchtowers. There's a quirky piece about a Professor Gideon Shimoni publishing a book that warns that Israel is in danger of becoming. an apartheid state. Of course, if it does, he says it will be the fault of the Arabs and "national religious right" in Israel, and nothing to do with Israel's ethnic cleansing, segregationist land laws or its malnutrition-causing barrier around the Palestinian ghettoes.
Don't go, there's more. There was a holocaust memorial event at the House of Commons on Tuesday. Now these events don't bother me but this one was organised by the so-called Holocaust Education Trust, Chaired by Lord Janner. They established their name by campaigning against. holocaust education in the form of the late Jim Allen's play: Perdition. Finally, as racist a letter as you will find in a community newspaper. In last week's JC it was said that a Palestinian woman became a suicide bomber to purge her "guilt" over not being able to have children. This, according to the letter writer was an "indictment of Palestinian. thinking and demonstrates the sheer impossibility of reaching "a settlement with such a morally corrupt society". No one in the JC seems to want to ask why the suicide bombings only began in 1994. It's almost as if they don't want their readers to know.

Suzanne Goldenberg does U-turn on Palestine

I have this unfortunate tendency to skim over the "factual" reports on Palestine in the mainstream media. I go for the comment, Op-Ed and so on. So I didn't notice until quite recently how pro-Israel The Guardian's. Conal Urquhart is. Also, whilst I've had some doubts (ok only one doubt that I can recall now) about Suzanne Goldenberg before, I don't know when she performed the U-turn that has her describing the armed fascist activists of Israel's illegal settlers in occupied territory as a "Jewish presence" as if the Jewish presence. is the problem and not the exclusivity of that presence, or the fact that the presence is armed, dangerous and extremely anti-Arab, or the fact that it overuses water and other resources while Palestinians suffer water shortages and third world rates of malnutrition. She is also suggesting that Bush is somehow making a concession to the Arabs by having this or that diplomat or government official, or even his very own house slave - Colin Powell - talk to this or that Palestinian as long as its not a real live Palestinian leader. Inexplicably they can talk to Arafat appointees but not to the elected Arafat himself.

Letter in The Independent

Democratic Palestine

"Sir: Peter Salomon's solution for Palestine (letter, 5 May) is for both sides not to look back, which is fine for the Israeli occupiers who have now annexed 90 per cent of the country, a no-go area for the indigenous Palestinians. Hopefully, he really means to see the demolition of the Apartheid Wall, the opening of roads to all, the reconstruction of Palestinian towns and villages, an end to 'targeted killings' and the repatriation of Palestinian refugees. The country could then call itself 'the only democracy in the Middle East'."

C CAMERON
Martlesham Heath, Suffolk

Aaronovitch wrong: official

Get this. This is Corrections and clarifications in The Guardian. today: "In David Aaronovitch's report from Iraq, headlined So this is free Baghdad (G2, page 2, April 9), he said: "There are six, maybe 700 people outside the hotel ... where Saddam's statue was brought down ... This same demonstration that I witnessed was, according to Naomi Klein, composed of several thousand people, who were fired on by Iraqi army units, who killed four." In fact, Naomi Klein did not say that fire from Iraqi army units had killed four people. She said that there were reports of three demonstrators killed at a protest that took place the day before." So let's take stock of this. David Aaronovitch managed to get the number of the dead and the day they were killed wrong. These things happen. But this happened in a report about a recent report published in The Guardian. and this from a man who poured scorn on, the admittedly scornable, Michael Moore, for owning up to inaccuracy thus "How can there be inaccuracy in comedy?" Seemed fair enough to me especially when you consider the factual inaccuracies in Aaronovitch's writing. I don't have time for many now but my personal favourite was Aaronovitch using the death of an ANC stalwart to condemn a suicide bomber so: "Meanwhile, in South Africa, they mourned the death of Walter Sisulu, who lived a long life, showed a distinct lack of enthusiasm for violence, and was one of the greatest revolutionaries of the past 100 years. It's a shame that Sharif [the bomber] never met him." Shame Aaronovitch didn't either. Walter Sisulu was the founder the military wing of the African National Congress: Umkonto we Sizwe. (Spear of the Nation). The liberal Guardian. keeps Aaronovitch as an illiberal irritant. Surely they could get a more accurate one. Perhaps Richard Littlejohn's too expensive.

Guardian readers' editor goes for the £10 challenge

I wrote to The Guardian's. readers' editor yesterday to complain at what I said was Conal Urquhart's pro-Israel bias and to offer my reward if he could locate any reports. in The Guardian. describing killings by Israel as "slaughter". Well he enthusiastically rose to the challenge; in fact a bit too enthusiastically. He suggests that there are hundreds of articles in his database when you punch the words "slaughter", "Israel" and "Palestine" into the search bar. Well he obviously didn't grasp the rules of the challenge. I didn't say that The Guardian. never uses the word "slaughter" when reporting on Palestine; I said that they only use that word to describe the killing of Israelis. Also even if all 360 articles did describe Israeli killings of Palestinians as "slaughter" entrants have to give the link to a specific report doing this. Must try harder. Still he is saying that such reports exist so keep trying out there.

Still no takers

I know ten pounds sterling isn't a princely sum but all you have to do is look for balanced reporting in a "liberal" newspaper. I have received one attempt at finding the word "slaughter", used in The Guardian. newspaper, to describe the killing of Palestinians by Israel. That turned out to be a description of a Palestinian attack on Israelis. So until 18/5/2004 (or 5/18/2004 if you're American) the tenner is still on offer to the first. person to find an emotive report in The Guardian. describing dead Palestinians as the victims of "slaughter".

£10, €15 or $15 challenge

Yesterday The Guardian's. Conal Urquhart described a Palestinian attack on a settler family in Gaza as "slaughter". I am offering £10 sterling or the non-sterling equivalent to anyone who can find a report in The Guardian. describing the Israeli killing of Palestinians as "slaughter". It has to be in a "report" and not Op-Ed as they say. The report has to be from between when Ehud Barak made his "generous offer" ie September 2000 and now. It should be easy to win this tenner. The ratio of the dead is 3 Palestinians to every 1 Israeli. The Guardian. has two reports on the "slaughter" of Israelis. So there must surely be a report in a liberal newspaper like The Guardian. describing the killing of Palestinian civilians, women and children as "slaughter". Go on it's easy. Go to The Guardian. website and punch the word "slaughter" into their search bar. Then when you find the article describing an Israeli massacre as "slaughter", email me with your name and address and I'll send you the tenner. Simple or what? I've even sent The Guardian's. Jonathan Freedland an invitation to place a bet. He obviously doesn't need the money.

Jonathan Freedland carefully picks up the wrong end of the stick

Hard to pin down Jonathan Freedland sometimes. Here he argues that Israel was held to account over Jenin and that therefore Britain and America should be held to account over Falluja. He also says that the US and Britain are occupiers too. Two problems here. First, Israel has never been held to account over Jenin. Second, Israel is not just an occupier; it is an apartheid state based on ethnic cleansing. Further, he subscribes to the "blow to Sharon" school referring to the Likud's rejection of his "disengagement plan" but Zionism always deploys its hard right to make any offer to the Palestinians look like a concession. I remember when Rabin won an election quite narrowly on a "peace ticket", the late Chaim Bermant said that "Rabin did not do as well as he feared"! Nothing has gone badly for Sharon so far and this Likud vote is no exception.

Guardian thanked for sympathy with armed fascist activists

An American, Alan Kolnik, has written to The Guardian. to thank them for Conal Urquhart's openly siding with the war criminals. Mr Kolnik's flattery has clearly paid off. In the same issue Urquhart describes the killings of a settler woman and her daughters as "slaughter". I'm offering a reward for anyone who can find a mainstream report in The Guardian. that refers to the Israeli army "slaughtering" Palestinian women and children since September 2000. The condition for the reward is that it must be in a report, not a comment or opinion. It must be by a Guardian. man or woman in Palestine. It must be between September 2000 and today. So the reward is UK£10 to the first person who emails me a link to a Guardian. report where the word "slaughter" is used to describe Palestinians being killed by Israelis. Offer closes midnight 18/5/2004, that's 5/18/2004 if you're in the US.

Ariel Sharon writes for The Guardian

Blow [what blow?] for Sharon as Gaza plan rejected
Consider the following paragraphs from Conal Urquhart's report on the Likud party membership's rejection of Sharon's partial annexation of the occupied territories.

CONAL URQUHART: But the prime minister hinted he would not take no for an answer, promising merely to "examine" the result before proceeding with a plan to deliver peace and security. [my italics].

ARIEL SHARON: One thing is clear to me - the Israeli people did not elect me to sit on my hands for four years. I was elected to find a way to bring the peace and security. [my italics] that (Israelis) so deserve.

Then consider the headline: "Blow for Sharon" What blow would that be? The fact that the Likud membership has made Sharon's plan look like the "painful. concessions" he has said he is willing to make? Is that a "blow for Sharon"? I'm thinking about this. Aha! the penny's dropped. The Likud movement has struck a "blow for Sharon", hence Urquhart's celebratory headline.

Why doesn't The Guardian just cut out the middle man and let Ariel Sharon write up his own reports?

Aaronovitch still can't let go

Aaronovitch admits he was wrong! Not really. He's just slightly rewritten an article from 11/4/2004. In today's Observer
he says that he attracted criticism over "talking about the restraint [he] had witnessed on the part of US troops in Baghdad. ". What he actually said was "the Americans....in many ways, have acted in Iraq with extraordinary restraint". [note: not just Baghdad - Iraq. ] Not quite the same as US troops watching their manners in front of the world's press in Baghdad.

Howard Jacobson: Only Jew haters love Arabs

Check out Howard Jacobson in The Independent. today. He has two basic arguments here that are so Judeocentric they should be laughable. The problem, as with so much Zionist apologia and polemics, it's being published in a serious newspaper. Anyway, in a nutshell, people compare the ethnic cleansing, expansionist war criminals of the State of Israel to the Nazis to upset Jews because when you mention the Nazis you "remind Jews of their greatest loss" and you suggest that all Jews deserved the Holocaust. Impeccable logic! The other point is that the only reason people like, sympathise with or have (in Jacobson's words) "romantic feelings" towards non-Jews in the Middle East is because they hate Jews. Really, that's it. This quote is given specific prominence in the print version of the article: "It chills my heart, this entertaining of romantic. (my italics) feelings towards non-Jewish inhabitants of the Middle East". In other words hate Arabs as Jacobson and the Zionist movement do lest you chill the heart of these media savvy polemicists and smear merchants.