David Baddiel attempted a bit of a pile on against me a couple of weeks ago and in so doing seems to have accused Ken Loach of Holocaust denial.
The smearing of Ken Loach begins with the BBC wildly misrepresenting a speech by Miko Peled at a fringe meeting hosted by Free Speech on Israel at the Labour Conference 2017. Labour had done remarkably well in the general election of that year and the establishment decided to focus all the smearing on exaggerated, manipulated or fabricated allegations of antisemitism. Anyway, here's Miko Peled:
There was no discussion, just that remark by Miko Peled. Anyway, let's see now what the BBC did with that:
It's interesting but at some point in the interview the interviewer notes that Loach is alleging that some Labour MPs - actually it was mostly Labour MPs - were "confecting" allegations of antisemitism before going on to do exactly that herself. But anyway, this is the interview where Loach is wrongfooted by a Beeber flat out lying about what had occurred at the aforementioned FSOI meeting. She said that there had been a discussion as to whether or not the Holocaust had happened. Having no clue what she was talking about but knowing she was lying, he couldn't straight up condemn Holocaust denial or debate because that would have seemed like confirming that the discussion that had not taken place had taken place. Wow, I just looked at the video again and the Beeber was such an outrageous liar. Look from 01.44 "there was a discussion about the Holocaust, did it happen or didn't it?" Loach shakes his head vigorously and says "I don't think there was a discussion". She then says "well it was reported and it was on the [unintelligible]" She then says 01.57 "would you say that is unacceptable?" Loach then says "I think history is there for us all to discuss", thereby turning to a generalisation about history, not the specifics of the Holocaust.
This is one of the most lied about lines of the whole long smear campaign and the BBC's tweet truncating the clip so as to lie about Loach is still in place. Dave Rich of the Israel lobby and security group, Community Security Trust, couldn't resist his own mischief, tweeting that "Ken Loach said....whether the Holocaust happened "is there for us all to discuss".
But Dave stops short of calling Loach a Holocaust denier. He was challenged by Linda Sayle.
Now if you look, even Dave Rich wasn't stooping to accusing Loach of denial, just of tolerance towards deniers and debate with them.
Poor Linda didn't know how Dave likes to play with quotation marks. Do you see how his quotes are simply around "is there for us all to discuss", not "whether the Holocaust happened"? Dave does that all the time. Anyway, Dave did not, repeat not, call Loach a Holocaust denier. But note, he stops short of denying "scattering accusations of antisemitism around like confetti". He should have stopped at "I have no idea".
Anyway, David Baddiel picks up and runs amok with Dave Rich's smear and, for the book, sexes it up just a tad. See page 66 on:
The film director Ken Loach was made a judge of a school competition run by Show Racism the Red Card, which is a football anti-racist charity similar to Kick It Out. In 2016, [it was 2017] during an interview at the Labour Party conference, Loach said, on being asked about the presence at a fringe meeting of a speaker alleged to have questioned the history of the Holocaust, [Miko Peled in the above clip] ‘Well, I think history is there for us all to discuss.’ He has since very strongly refuted being a Holocaust denier*, [my italics] but nonetheless this appointment led to protests from the Jewish community. For a while, SRtRC reacted angrily, doubling down, getting Eric Cantona to tweet about what a great anti-racist Ken Loach was and suchlike. In the end, Loach did step down from judging the competition, but as ever there was no outcry from progressive quarters – only Jewish ones – about the possible incongruity of his appointment.
I wouldn’t particularly mention this – it’s just a standard, everyday example of #JewsDontCount – were it not for the fact that while this minor furore was going on, a man called Dave Rich, who works for a charity, the Community Security Trust, which provides security against racist attack for Jewish schools, synagogues and community centres, [and lobbies the government for Israel and smears Israel's critics] tweeted this:
Followed by a second tweet that just said: ‘I can think of better judges for an anti-racism competition.’ I retweeted it. And then Ken Loach’s son, Jim, tweeted this:
First up Baddiel misrepresents Miko Peled. Baddiel has written a book which he intends to be taken seriously. Clearly he is either lying about Miko Peled or he simply didn't check anything, even the thread that he RTd a tweet from. In fairness the lack of checking is possible given he gets the year wrong. But even without checking, surely he realised that Dave Rich was being slippery with the Ken Loach quote. If he didn't know any of this or didn't reason any of this for himself, then why did he ignore most of Jim Loach's tweet? "@Baddiel casually retweets internet trolls like @daverich1 who defame my father @KenLoachSixteen".
Jim Loach protests Baddiel RTing "internet trolls like @Dave Rich who defame" his father. No pause for thought over the word "defame", no? Jim Loach is accusing Baddiel and Rich (and by extension and most concerning of all, the BBC) of lying about Ken Loach, which they all were. But Baddiel had points to score and scores to settle so he takes the opportunity to show what a know-nothing he really is.
You see, Jim Loach references one of Baddiel's racist outbursts, this one against the former footballer, Jason Lee who Baddiel encouraged famously racist football fans to mock by way of Baddiel donning blackface makeup and wearing a pineapple on his head to represent dreadlocks.Googling Baddiel, pineapple, Jason Lee, stuff like that, you will happen upon many an article with Jason Lee saying that Baddiel never apologised to him for what he did. Baddiel claims he apologised. He doesn't say who he apologised to and doesn't seem to realise even what he did wrong. Now see page 70:
What the apologies make no difference to is the recurring presence of that photo on my Twitter timeline. Particularly since I started speaking out publicly about anti-Semitism, whether it be anti-Semitism in general or on the left. In fact, it can seem that what the people demanding apologies from me want is not apologies. What they seem to want, really, is silence. They want me to shut up, particularly about anti-Semitism. As far as they are concerned, the photo of me as Jason Lee is a trump card that means I cannot speak about racism...
There is a tactic some of you may be aware of called Whataboutery.
Yup, there is a tactic called Whataboutery. It's when you justify your own wrongdoing by reference to the wrongdoing of your opponents. But Jim Loach is not accusing Baddiel of doing what his father has done. He is correctly calling Baddiel a liar about his father and a hypocritical liar over antisemitism.
But there is another charge of hypocrisy to be made against Baddiel. He says that his own racism is used to try to disqualify him from talking about racism in other situations, in particular in his case, against Jews, He says this is a #Jewsdon'tcount instance. But that's exactly what Baddiel is saying about Ken Loach. The only difference is that Baddiel, Rich and the BBC all lied about Loach. You don't have to look far to find examples of Baddiel's racism. That is, you don't have to lie to make a racist out of Baddiel.
Here he is saying he looks like a "pikey".
Here he is essentialising Blacks, Asians and Jews by occupation. He got some rare mainstream flack for that, albeit in the Guardian's letters page.
But really mentioning two (three with blackface - many with blackface many times) examples of Baddiel's racism spanning over 20 years doesn't convey nearly enough of it.
He does another slippery thing. He claims that people have tried to silence him since he started talking about antisemitism as if this postdates the examples of his racism which go back to the 1990s but I'm sure I saw him alleging antisemitism against Israel's leftist critics back in the 1990s, which you could say was Baddiel's racist heyday if only it was over.
But the final thing is this. I remember the first time I read Baddiel's stupid book, the line about Ken Loach that baffled me the most was after Baddiel claimed Loach was challenged about "the presence at a fringe meeting of a speaker alleged to have questioned the history of the Holocaust" we have what looks like a non sequitur:
He has since very strongly refuted being a Holocaust denier
Now remember Dave Rich insisted he certainly wasn't accusing anyone, certainly not Loach, of Holocaust denial. So who did accuse Ken Loach of being a Holocaust denier? Why would Baddiel say he denies it?
It rankled with me as I was sure my skim reading had let me down. That's one reason I got the Kindle version, so I can cross-reference, search, copy and paste, etc.
But then a couple of weeks ago I was googling for something, probably Baddiel related and I found that Baddiel himself has been "confronting Holocaust denial", ie, debating with Holocaust deniers,ie, what I thought Baddiel, Dave Rich and the BBC were falsely accusing Ken Loach of promoting.
I noticed that in the BBC puff for the stuff two Holocaust deniers are named and it appeared that Baddiel goes off to debate these people. I tweeted that Baddiel was doing what he falsely accused Ken Loach of doing, ie, debating the Holocaust. Actually, it's worse, it's publicising not simply the fact that some people deny the Holocaust but their names. This meant that people intent on denying the Holocaust could hone and further publicise their arguments by going to the go-to names.
I tweeted my criticism in a four tweet thread.
The BBC's lie that Jewish socialists discussed whether or not the Holocaust happened was the most disgusting of all the lies in a smear campaign that is still ongoing. In fact, Baddiel's book with the Loach smear replicated in it is the most recent contribution to the campaign.
That could have been that but rather then respond to my first tweet that QRTd his tweet, he grabbed the fourth one which didn't name anyone and didn't tag him. He knew that I was slagging him over Loach but none of his followers could know because he grabbed the tweet, he didn't QRT it. Sneaky huh? Look:
Now even in the tweet he grabbed there is no suggestion he is a Holocaust denier. That's just silly and his followers are silly. Many of them replied to him saying how illogical I was and some had a go directly at me. I responded pointing out that I had said that he condemned Loach for promoting Holocaust debate whereas by confronting Holocaust deniers he is engaging in the debate that he falsely condemned Loach for promoting.
Well in all the toing and froing, I finally said to someone, the only way Baddiel's tweet tagging me works is if he thinks that me comparing what he is doing to what he accused Loach of doing is if he is accusing Loach of Holocaust denial. Oh wait! Finally the penny dropped. "He [Loach] has since very strongly refuted being a Holocaust denier" followed by the word "but". Baddiel seems to be flatly contradicting his mentor, Dave Rich (or maybe Rich is Baddiel's mentee). Baddiel appears to be accusing Ken Loach of Holocaust denial. I wonder.
By the way, the smearing of Ken Loach is yet another score settling exercise in Baddiel's stupid book. This time it is more aimed at Ken's son Jim. What a piece of work that Baddiel (aged 55) is.
