Holocaust hack watch!

I got this little gem from Private Eye tonight. It's from a chap called Matt Dickinson, chief sports correspondent with the Times in London. The piece is headed SENSE OF PERSPECTIVE as in NO sense of perspective:

Avram Grant, the Chelsea first-team coach, has a perspective on life because of the traumas his family suffered in the Holocaust, but even he was struggling to find the words to ease the pain of Terry, who was white with shock.

I googled - "avram grant" holocaust - to see if such silliness could be found elsewhere and with 18,100 sites such silliness seems to be everywhere.

Comments down

The haloscan comment facility isn't working. I noticed on Lenin's Tomb there's a notice where the comments are supposed to be that says "comments down". Mine's even worse, it doesn't say anything. Anyway I haven't closed the comments, that's what I want to say.

UPDATE: You can now see the invitation to comment now but when I just tried to leave a comment, I completed the form, clicked on "publish" and it disappeared. So instead of wasting time typing a comment that might disappear please type the word "test" and publish that. If it the screen doesn't then go blank, it's probably been successful and I'll approve when I can. Ta

UCU gets academic intifada back on track

'Ere we go. The Universities and Colleges Union has overwhelmingly passed three resolutions supporting the Palestinians.

UCU Motions:

SFC10 Composite: Palestine and the occupation University of Brighton – Eastbourne, University of Brighton – Grand Parade, University of East London Docklands, National Executive Committee

Congress notes the

1. continuation of illegal settlement, killing of civilians and the impossibility of civil life, including education;

2. humanitarian catastrophe imposed on Gaza by Israel and the EU;

3. apparent complicity of most of the Israeli academy;

4. legal attempts to prevent UCU debating boycott of Israeli academic institutions; and legal advice that such debates are lawful

Congress affirms that

5. criticism of Israel or Israeli policy are not, as such, anti-semitic;

6. pursuit and dissemination of knowledge are not uniquely immune from their moral and political consequences;

Congress resolves that

7. colleagues be asked to consider the moral and political implications of educational links with Israeli institutions, and to discuss the occupation with individuals and institutions concerned, including Israeli colleagues with whom they are collaborating;

8. UCU widely disseminate the personal testimonies of UCU and PFUUPE delegations to Palestine and the UK, respectively;

9. the testimonies will be used to promote a wide discussion by colleagues of the appropriateness of continued educational links with Israeli academic institutions;

10. UCU facilitate and encourage twinning arrangements and other direct solidarity with Palestinian institutions;

11. Ariel College, an explicitly colonising institution in the West Bank, be investigated under the formal Greylisting Procedure.

SFC11 Gaza emergency University College London

Congress notes
1. The humanitarian catastrophe that developed in Gaza in March 2008, following a long siege and military bombardment, during which over 100 people died.
2. The call by the Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions (PGFTU) to international trade unions to put pressure on their own governments to take action to stop the escalation of violence and relieve the humanitarian crisis.
3. Students and academics have been among those trapped in Gaza.

Congress resolves
To organise a fact-finding delegation to Gaza after the bombing stops and to send delegates on future TUC-sponsored visits.

SFC12 Palestine National Executive Committee

Congress notes the report of the Trade Union Delegation to Palestine in January 2008, facilitated by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, in which 4 representatives of UCU took part.

Congress notes that the delegation was generously hosted in Nablus by the Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions.

Congress deplores the failure of the Israeli Histadrut to pay the approximately 2.5 million Euros owed to the PGFTU since 1995, representing 50% of the official organisational dues of Palestinian workers working in Israel, under the terms of the Framework Agreement of March 1995 following the Oslo Accords of 1993.

Congress calls on the Histadrut to pay the dues owed to the PGFTU; to call for an end to the siege of Gaza; and to call for an end to the occupation of Palestinian and Syrian territory.

I got all that in an email, googled the text in my subject bar and Lenin's Tomb was first out of the stocks, given the yellow highlighting, presumably from the same email.

It is also on Just Peace UK with one comment that the votes against the motion were about 30 out of 250, the vote being so overwhelming a count wasn't taken. Last year it was 100 against. Has Engage done it again? I can only guess because they haven't reported on it yet.

Finkelstein round up

I described Finkelstein's ban from Israel as a "turn up", that is, a surprise. What has happened is that Shin Bet banned him, they claim, as a "security risk". They claim that the threat to Israel's security is on the grounds of meetings he has had with Hizbullah, and he claims that they accused him of meeting with al Qaida. It has been pointed out in various quarters that regardless of the rights or wrongs of Finkelstein's ban, the reason Israel has given is a lie. He is not a security risk. Israel could have banned him for consorting with an enemy or they could have withheld the reason behind the ban. They chose to lie.

Perhaps not so surprising to most people is the way the so-called non-zionists of Engage and other Eustonistas have swung into action to smear Finkelstein and the pack has even widened the hunt to include a Guardian reporter on the saga. Actually I was surprised to see Engage supporting the ban on Finkelstein and the clearly dishonest reason given by the State of Israel for doing so.

At Engage Mira Vogel seeks to justify Israel's ban and its explanation by reference to Finkelstein's

explicit and repeatedly expressed hope that Hesbollah will attack Israel in earnest

As I have already said, and Seth in the comments tried to say, the link to a MEMRI film of an interview with Finkelstein is bogus. The dishonest implication being that the film has Finkelstein, actually expressing the aforementioned "hope" when it does no such thing . They also rejected a comment by Ben White, simply linking to and quoting from the Magnes Zionist site. But suppose Finkelstein had expressed the "hope" that Hizbullah would attack Israel, so what? How does that constitute a "security risk"?

What I find not surprising but puzzling is that Engage is lying to support the ban. Now you might think that they could simply say that they understand the ban on one who, like Finkelstein, has consorted with the enemy but they could then, as academics (ie seekers after truth), condemn the dishonest reason given. It would be a bit inconsistent with their opposition to the academic boycott but it would at least be honest hypocrisy.

Mira Vogel doesn't like the fact that the Guardian says that Finkelstein has been banned for "mere criticism" of Israel and it likens the treatment of Finkelstein to that of Pappe. She doesn't openly accuse the writer of dishonesty but she does refer to a conversation between two zionists, Nadine Gordimer and Amoz Oz, to demonstrate how tolerant of "mere" criticism Israel is. I should point out though, that the Guardian didn't describe Finkelstein as a mere critic, but a fierce critic. I don't think Gordimer or Oz could be described as "fierce" critics of Israel.

But Engage's dishonesty and its commitment to Israel isn't my only point here. It's the fact that the attacks on Finkelstein have an air of co-ordination to them. Not in a methodical sense obviously, but it seems to me that these people all know roughly what to say to smear a critic of Israel without reserving any criticism for Israel. I think this issue may have caught them on the hop and they just made themselves look silly (and dishonest) in their rush to attack Finkelstein and defend Israel. If they had been a little less hasty they could have avoided the tosh about the "hope" business, supported the ban, but opposed the lie.

Vogel's finishing touch to the piece was to link to Harry's Place and to a blog I'd never heard of before called Martin in the margins.

So here we have David t (for Toube) of Harry's Place. He claims that Finkelstein, who has visited Palestine many times before, deliberately courted arrest, deportation and ban in spite of the fact that none of these things have happened to him before. This was so stupid I think he must have made it up just to stand out from the crowd himself. But the smear merchant goes one further by accusing the Guardian's reporter, Toni O'Laughlin, of dishonesty or of an error calling for correction. Here's Toube:

If the Guardian was genuinely not aware that Finkelstein had in fact met and then written about his meeting with Hezbollah, and that he had in fact been banned merely for “criticising Israel”, then it looks as if they’ve had the wool pulled over their eyes. If they did know that Finkelstein had met with a top Hezbollah commander, then they’ve pulled the wool over the eyes of their readership.

Here's the Guardian:

Shin Bet interrogated him for around 24 hours about his contact with the Lebanese Islamic militia, Hizbullah, when he travelled to Lebanon earlier this year and expressed solidarity with the group which waged war against Israel in 2006. He was also accused of having contact with al-Qaida. But Finkelstein rejected the accusations, saying he had travelled to Israel to visit an old friend.

And here's Toube again:

Also, see Engage and Martin in the Margins, who thinks that the Guardian’s reporting was “disingenuous, not to say deliberately mischievous”.

The Guardian has a Readers’ Editor to correct such errors. Unfortunately, if the Guardian did make it clear that they’d misreported this affair, it would only prove to some the supernatural powers of the Jewish Lobby.

No Mr Toube, it would show that in spite of reporting in similar vein to Ha'aretz, the Jerusalem Post and Ynet, the Guardian has buckled to the this-worldly efforts of liars like David t. In this instance the Guardian has simply told it how it is and thrown in a legitimate suspicion that they may well have got from the Jerusalem Post:

Officials said that the decision to deport Finkelstein was connected to his anti-Zionist opinions and fierce public criticism of Israel around the world.

Finally, for the hasbara blogs Martin in the margins. He claims that

All the reports I've read agree that Finkelstein was denied entry because of his well-publicised contacts with Hezbollah, a terrorist organisation that recently launched an aggressive war against Israel.

So the article's headline - 'US academic deported and banned for criticising Israel'- whether written by reporter Toni O'Loughlin or added by a sub-editor - was a blatant lie.

Now this is curious because all the reports I linked to mention the fact that whilst Israel claims that he is being banned as a security risk because of his meeting with Hizbullah people they also mention the fact that the fierce criticism of Israel was what may well have done for him and the Jerusalem Post comes straight out with it. Martin doesn't link to any of the reports he claims to have read except the Guardian which he accuses of a "blatant lie" for using a headline that tallies with the quote the Jerusalem Post attributed to Israeli officialdom. Anyway, I left a comment that led to this update on Martin's blog

Update

There are now links to this post over at Engage and at Harry's Place. I'd refer Levi9909 aka Mark Elf from Jews san Frontieres, who has left a comment below, to David T's post [uh-oh!!] at the latter. I won't get into a debate with Mark about the pros and cons of the Finkelstein ban - as I said above, I instinctively recoil from all such restrictions on freedom of speech and movement. But I stand by what I said about the dishonesty and misinformation of the Guardian report. They may have taken the bare facts of the case from the Israeli media, but the headline was just plain wrong, and the parallel with the completely different case of Ilan Pappe was misleading. Final point: critics of the admittedly questionable Israeli action should be wary of making a human rights cause celebre out of Norman Finkelstein, whose comments praising sectarian Islamist militia Hezbollah were a disgrace.

Leaving aside my difficulty with taking a referral to Harry's Place as a serious response to a comment, the Guardian headline was not plain wrong. Actually, it may be wrong, but one can only honestly describe it confidently, if one is confident, as possibly wrong, without knowing what was going on in the minds of those who banned him. Equally, the headline is possibly right. It is certainly not fair, reasonable or even honest to call it a lie. It is a suspicion held by many and one given credence by the quote above from the Jerusalem Post, which of course went further than the Guardian by attributing the banned-for-criticism quote to Israeli officialdom itself. It's also highly suspect for someone to say that Norman Finkelstein has praised "sectarian Islamist militia Hezbollah" when Finkelstein is on record saying that he knows nothing of their politics but that he respects their courage, their discipline and their resistance. This is a similar abuse of Finkelstein's own words to that of Mira Vogel at Engage.

Anyway, so much for three hasbara brigadiers:

Here's are the Israeli headlines that I have seen:

Jerusalem Post: American Israel critic denied entry to country

Ha'aretz: Israel denies entry to high-profile critic Norman Finkelstein

Ynet: Norman Finkelstein deported from Israel

I suppose that last is the only one that the hasbara brigade would approve of but there is one more little gem and that is today's Ha'aretz editorial which you might think would put even the shameless to shame. Headed Who's afraid of Finkelstein? it repeats the suspicion that David Toube at Harry's Place says is either a lie or mistake calling for an editorial correction, Engage only hints is dishonest and Martin in the margins calls "a blatant lie"

Considering his unusual and extremely critical views, one cannot avoid the suspicion that refusing to allow him to enter Israel was a punishment rather than a precaution.

All of which brings me back to Howard Jacobson's absurd claim that zionists do not "hunt in packs". Ah, I see, three's a crowd, not a pack. Well done Howard, you were right.

I'm sure there are more posts and articles on this by now but one I have just seen is on Comment is free by Richard Silverstein. Comments are closed for the night and whilst Engage has been banning any comment questioning Mira Vogel on her post, they have one (among seven) calling on those who don't have GIYUS software to go to Cif tomorrow to highlight Finkelstein's exhortation to Hizbullah to defeat Israel! But even if he did do that, what was the security risk?

Tony Greenstein now has a post on his blog about this. He focuses mostly on Engage's sheer hypocrisy in supporting the ban.

UPDATE: I deleted a short paragraph from this where I claimed that none of the hasbara brigade had linked to any Israeli media. Actually HP and Engage both linked to Ha'aretz which makes it all the more puzzling that they can discount the idea that Finkelstein couldn't possibly have been banned for being a critic.

Engage supports ban on Finkelstein

A bit of background:

Norman Finkelstein has been arrested and deported from Israel and he has been banned for ten years.

Israel is claiming that Finkelstein is banned on security grounds because he has met with Hizbullah people. That of course does not make him a security risk so it looks like the ban is for some other reason and the Jerusalem Post said that:

Officials said that the decision to deport Finkelstein was connected to his anti-Zionist opinions and fierce public criticism of Israel around the world.

Now since Engage is such a vociferous defender of the rights of academics, even those that support colonial settlement, ethnic cleansing and racist laws, you'd expect them to support someone whose banning, the Jerusalem Post claims, (let's have that again) "was connected to his anti-Zionist opinions and fierce public criticism of Israel around the world." But no. They support the ban. Well I presume Mira Vogel discussed her post with Engage colleagues. She tries to add a little to mere meetings with Hizbullah by reference to

his (Finkelstein's) explicit and repeatedly expressed hope that Hesbollah will attack Israel

She even helpfully provides a link to Harry's Place's upload of a Finkelstein interview. The suggestion being that here is one such occasion when Finkelstein had expressed his "hope". Go see. He does no such thing. But again, suppose he did "hope", does an academic's "hope" amount to a security threat even if we are yet to see evidence of such a hope? Of course it doesn't. So why is Engage supporting a ban on an academic who, like Dr Hirsh, Alan Dershowitz, the nearly late Ariel Sharon and almost everyone else on the zionist spectrum, supports the two state solution?

Mohamed al Dura case not quite closed

I smelled a rat when zionists started crowing about their great victory in the Mohamed al Dura libel case being heard in a French court just recently. The decision of the appeal court is so nuanced if you google the name al Dura you will mostly get the bragging of zionist blogs rather than zionist inclined mainstream newspapers. You saw the film purporting to be of Mohamed al Dura and his dad being shot several times by Israeli soldiers. You saw this picture:



The film was beamed around the world, Israel owned up fairly instantly and then set about destroying much of the evidence while it worked on a cover up. Sam Kiley, a very pro-Israel journalist, left Rupert Murdoch's Times newspaper because his editor wanted a story on the unit that killed al Dura but without any mention of the boy they killed. This was a definite case of Israel killing a child and by no means an isolated case.

So what's this trial business all about? Some guy accused the film makers of falsifying the film. The film-maker/s sued and won their case first time around. The accuser appealed and won his appeal. Case closed, zionists cock-a-hoop and Israel has carte blanche to carry on killing children with gay abandon and not even a tut tut from western liberal media, except, ironically, Israeli media.

Speaking of Israeli media, Ha'aretz carries a report from Reuters on the appeal. The headline is perfectly responsible:

French court: Claim that Al-Dura tape doctored isn`t libelous

You see that? The claim that the al Dura tape is doctored isn't libel. Does that mean it's true? Er no. It just means that a court has decided that it wasn't libel. Now I don't quite know how the French court can decide that a campaign to sully someone's reputation isn't libel but it looks like the film-makers were put in the position that they had to prove that the film was not doctored. I should have thought that such proof would be impossible but let's see what the report says:

The Paris court ruled in favor of media critic Philippe Karsenty, who called into question the veracity of the report, but it also said that it did not rule out that journalists at France 2 had acted professionally.

Eh? So the "media critic" did not libel the film-makers but the film-makers did not act unprofessionally. This is bizarre. The crux of the "media critic's" case was that the film-makers had acted unprofessionally so how did the court find that no libel had been committed?

Let's see what the court said:

The court said in its ruling the new footage "did not allow to rule out the opinion of (France 2) professionals," but it also rejected claims by state prosecutor Antoine Bartoli that the new evidence was "neither complete nor serious."

It seems to be saying that the original film was not doctored but if you jump through enough hoops you could present what looks like a sincere case that Israel did not kill Mohamed al Dura. I can't see any other interpretation.

So how did France 2's lawyer take it?

Francis Szpiner, France 2's lead lawyer, said he was disappointed with the decision but pointed to nuances in the ruling and said his clients would take the case to France's highest appeals court.

"One cannot make the ruling say what it did not - because the court states that Karsenty did not provide proof of his allegations," he said.

Unfortunately the full ruling isn't yet available but that hasn't stopped the bloggers for whom truth is irrelevant cheering their victory in a court in a country where any criticism of Israel is rapidly becoming illegal.

ADDITION: I just had a look at the Jerusalem Post report on the same thing and it has a quote from France 2 (the film's makers) as follows:

"the appeals court ruled that Karsenty's words were, in fact, libelous, and that Karsenty failed to prove that the news was staged and/or false."

The statement added that the case was nevertheless overturned because "the court believed Karsenty had the right to stridently criticize the [France 2] report, since it dealt with an emotional topic, and that Karsenty's investigation into the matter convinced the court he was being sincere."

A source close to Enderlin's side of the case explained that "you can get out of a libel suit either by proving you're right, or by showing you were sincere and had some research. The court found the latter to be the case."

The source also said Enderlin and France 2 would appeal the verdict, noting that they had won three out of four instances of judgment in the matter.

I also had a little look at Harry's Place. Now that really is a site for which the truth is irrelevant but I notice that David t rather smartly just ran the Ha'aretz report and linked to the Jerusalem Post one that he had reason to expect to be more stridently pro-Israel. Even Engage's Dr Hirsh is a little circumspect in his defence of the child killers. He simply links to the Jerusalem Post article without any comment of his own.

The fact is that there is still no hard evidence of the fact that the film of al Dura's killing was doctored and every reason to suppose that the child, Mohamed al Dura, like hundreds of other Palestinian children, was killed by Israel.

The only lesson I can see here is one I tend to adhere to anyway and that is, don't sue, it's a mug's game.

Israel denies Finkelstein the right of return

Well here's a turn up and proof positive that the biggest threat to zionism and the State of Israel is the truth. Norman Finkelstein has been arrested and is being held in an Israeli jail pending his deportation and a probable ten year ban:

Jerusalem - The US political author and critic of Israel Norman Finkelstein was denied entry to the Jewish state on Friday, his lawyer said.

Finkelstein landed at Ben Gurion international airport near Tel Aviv in the early morning and was told by a representative of the ministry of interior that he would not be allowed into the country on 'security' grounds, attorney Michael Sfard told dpa.

'This usually means a 10-year ban on entry,' Sfard added.

Finkelstein, who is Jewish and the son of Holocaust survivors, has written critical books on Israeli policies in the Palestinian territories and on what he called 'exploitation' of the Jewish tragedy during World War II.

Finkelstein has received with the fierce disapproval of some authors and academics, while others have praised his controversial works.

A bit garbled at the end there but that's what it said in Monsters and Critics.

There are several reports on this around the web. I got the news from the Just Peace UK list. Desert Peace refers people to Norman Finkelstein's site for updates and the Camden Abu Dis group again on the Just Peace list has sent out a plea from Sam Bahour in Ramallah for Americans and Israelis to contact their relevant state officials to do what they can/should to enable Finkelstein to get to the occupied territory he was bound for when he was arrested.

I wonder if the smear campaign against Finkelstein, now rearing its ugly head in the UK, is anything to do with all this.

ADDITION - I was just having a little natter with Mooser in the comments to this post and it occurred to me that if Israel can deny someone entry on security grounds because of what they write or say, any state signed up for the ludicrous war on terror can do it. You see whilst honest people recognise in Israel a particularly repugnant ideology at work, the western states that back Israel all the way like to pretend that Israel is "normal" by their standards. Of course that's just not true but that is the claim that is made for these war criminals. Remember the Abu Ghraib torture business? Remember how one of the lawyers for one (or more?) of the torturers said, straight faced, that these are Israeli techniques? If Israel is a role model then what's to stop other western states banning people on account of their criticism of the racist war criminals of Israel, their apologists in governments, "opposition", the media, and Israel's fundraisers?

This may well be the thin end of the wedge though. As I said above, there are people urging letter writing to stop this thing. Protest emails and faxes are being directed to:

Mr. Meir Sheetrit, Minister
Israeli Ministry of the Interior
Jerusalem
mshitrit@knesset.gov.il
Fax: 00 972-2-670-1628

I saw a couple of emails that suggested that this fascistic behaviour by Israel was bad for Israel. If I thought that was true I'd ask Israel for more of the same.

UPDATE: I don't think this had hit the net when I posted the above but I gather Israel is using meetings Finkelstein had with some Hizbullah people as an excuse for arresting, deporting and banning him. I got that from a comment by someone called Shlemazl. So thank you, Shlemazl. Actually, as a hasbara foot soldier Shlemazl couldn't resist accusing me, by innuendo, of suppressing this vital information by reference to it appearing in the papers. It hadn't appeared in any paper I read when I did the post but I'm still left wondering how this makes Finkelstein a security risk.

Close, but no Cigar

Israeli "fighter jets" almost sent Tony Blair to hell.

But hell said no can do; the tenth circle is still under construction.

Alex Brummer "on" Norman Finkelstein and Howard Jacobson on Israel's random defenders

I'm a little anxious that the headline to the previous post was a little, let's say, enigmatic. I wanted to write about a grotesque slur on Norman Finkelstein by a chap called Alex Brummer, media commentator of the Jewish Chronicle and Finance Editor of the Daily Mail. I also wanted an excuse to show Howard Jacobson up a bit for getting sillier with each comment he makes on Israel. So here I am repeating the previous post only I've cut to the chase.

I should say that the Brummer has a little bit of form when it comes to smearing Israel's critics. Well now He's surpassed himself by coming as close as anyone from the mainstream has to accusing Norman Finkelstein of being a holocaust denier. The wholly false allegation comes in a piece claiming that Johan Hari, in a recent Independent article, was wrong to accuse zionists of a "loathsome smearing of Israel's critics". As is so typical in these cases, the denial amounts to a confirmation of Hari's allegation.

The language used by Hari was crude, even for a “right on” tyro writer, and produced a stinging response from Israel’s defenders, including Melanie Phillips in her Spectator blog.

Most columnists would have left the matter there and moved on. But Hari, evidently, is not someone who takes criticism lightly. In a second column on May 8, he took aim at his challengers. He charges that anyone who draws attention to the plight of the Palestinian people is intimidated in order to silence them. Among those cited are the media monitoring groups Honest Reporting and Camera, who he says regard him as “an anti-Jewish bigot”.

He goes on to bracket Professor Alan Dershowitz and Phillips as “the two most prominent figures sent in to attack anyone who disagrees with the Israeli right”, as if these two writers — on opposite sides of the Atlantic — are acting in concert. Most bizarrely, perhaps, he accuses the pro-Israel lobby of hounding the American political scientist Norman Finkelstein from office.

Hari makes no reference to the fact that Finkelstein has described American Jews as “parasites” and calls Holocaust survivors “frauds and hucksters” who have exploited the Shoah for their own gains. Hari suggests Finkelstein was removed from the faculty at De Paul University “simply for speaking the truth”.

Actually there's a distortion of what Hari wrote by reference to crude language. Early in the article Hari notes that he has been accused by certain islamists of being "a "a Jew-lover", "a Zionist-homo pig" and more". There the crude language begins and ends.

But what of Finkelstein? Brummer takes a little detour to praise the increasingly absurd Howard Jacobson's response before returning to smearing Finkelstein:

Hari clearly feels very strongly about the social and economic condition of the Palestinians, as readers of his body of work can testify. What is harder to justify is Hari’s use of discredited figures like the historian Ilan Pappe and the Holocaust revisionist Norman Finkelstein to justify the positions he takes. Pappe, as Jacobson notes, has been questioned at every turn by fellow historians. Finkelstein’s views have been tested in the High Court in London and found wanting.

If he had any integrity at all, Brummer would explain just what it is about Ilan Pappe's work that has been discredited. But let's leave that to one side.

The "holocaust revisionist historian Norman Finkelstein"? What's that? This is a clear allegation that Finkelstein is a holocaust denier. Is it not? Well look at Wikipedia on the difference between holocaust denial and holocaust revisionism:

Because the term "revisionist" has become associated with Holocaust deniers, Holocaust historians today generally avoid using it to describe themselves, though they continue to study and revise opinions on aspects of the Holocaust.

Hmm, it's not quite clear what is meant by holocaust revisionist but what is clear is that Brummer does not use revisionist as a compliment. But there's more:

Finkelstein’s views have been tested in the High Court in London and found wanting.

Really? Finkelstein's views have never been tested in the High Court in London. He seems to be confusing, deliberately, David Irving, the holocaust denier, and Norman Finkelstein, who doesn't actually write about the holocaust itself. He just writes about the way various "parasites", "frauds and hucksters" have exploited the holocaust and its survivors for financial gain and to cover for the crimes of the racist war criminals of Israel.

In the final paragraph, Brummer congratulates the Indie's approach:

In this debate some credit must go to the Independent. It not only allowed Hari to embarrass himself in public, it also found the space for Jacobson’s muscular reply.

You see. You can criticise Israel, but be prepared for some "loathsome smearing."

Anyway, so much for Alex Brummer. Let's just hope that when Finkelstein is back from a lecture tour Brummer gets "tested in the High Court in London and found wanting."

I just want to take a look at the responses to Jacobson's piece on how if the zionists are trying to silence Israel's critics then they're not being very successful because people know that Palestinians are aggrieved. That's pretty much what he's saying. Cop this for a response:

Sir: Howard Jacobson's claim that there is no evidence of a campaign to silence Israel's critics is just plain barmy (Opinion, 10 May). Ask any Israeli politician why the government spends millions on campaigning groups such as Bicom, Aipac and Memri and they will tell you that it makes good PR sense. I agree that these campaigns are becoming less effective in recent years, largely because of the internet, but let's not forget that it is only relatively recently that even the basic facts of Palestinian dispossession have been aired in the Western mainstream media. They still aren't in the US.

Also, Jacobson's suggestion that evidence of Israel's ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in 1948 is merely a view of the historian Ilan Pappé is ridiculous and demonstrates either his ignorance or deceit. This ethnic cleansing is well documented by Israeli historians from left to right, anti-Zionists and Zionists.

Alex Hogg

London W10

What is it with these sane people who make claims that are "just plain barmy"?

Editors are pieces of sh....

...you know what. That's what someone in the comments below called AP editors. It reminded me of something in last Friday's Jewish Chronicle that I only saw last night. Alex Brummer is the Finance Editor of the Daily Mail and the media commentator for the Jewish Chronicle. He's an old fashioned chap who seems to think that we live in the good old days when all media output on Israel was for Israel so he says the most ludicrously demonstrably false things he can think up. So a few years back when a woman on BBC's Question Time recommended that people watch MEMRI as an objective source on the Middle East and George Galloway calmly pointed out that it was an Israeli site, Brummer described that as a "ferocious intervention". Unfortunately you only have my word as the BBC's archives aren't readily available. More recently when John Mearsheimer comfortably held his own in a kind of comedy chat show, Brummer claimed that he had been subjected to "skewering" by the humour of his host, Stephen Colbert. See the video for yourself to see how far Mearsheimer was from a "skewering".

Well now Mr Brummer has surpassed himself by coming as close as anyone from the mainstream has to accusing Norman Finkelstein of being a holocaust denier. The wholly false allegation comes in a piece claiming that Johan Hari, in a recent Independent article, was wrong to accuse zionists of a "loathsome smearing of Israel's critics". As is so typical in these cases, the denial amounts to a confirmation of Hari's allegation.

The language used by Hari was crude, even for a “right on” tyro writer, and produced a stinging response from Israel’s defenders, including Melanie Phillips in her Spectator blog.

Most columnists would have left the matter there and moved on. But Hari, evidently, is not someone who takes criticism lightly. In a second column on May 8, he took aim at his challengers. He charges that anyone who draws attention to the plight of the Palestinian people is intimidated in order to silence them. Among those cited are the media monitoring groups Honest Reporting and Camera, who he says regard him as “an anti-Jewish bigot”.

He goes on to bracket Professor Alan Dershowitz and Phillips as “the two most prominent figures sent in to attack anyone who disagrees with the Israeli right”, as if these two writers — on opposite sides of the Atlantic — are acting in concert. Most bizarrely, perhaps, he accuses the pro-Israel lobby of hounding the American political scientist Norman Finkelstein from office.

Hari makes no reference to the fact that Finkelstein has described American Jews as “parasites” and calls Holocaust survivors “frauds and hucksters” who have exploited the Shoah for their own gains. Hari suggests Finkelstein was removed from the faculty at De Paul University “simply for speaking the truth”.

Actually there's a distortion of what Hari wrote by reference to crude language. Early in the article Hari notes that he has been accused by certain islamists of being "a "a Jew-lover", "a Zionist-homo pig" and more". There the crude language begins and ends.

But what of Finkelstein? Brummer takes a little detour to praise the increasingly absurd Howard Jacobson's response before returning to smearing Finkelstein:

Hari clearly feels very strongly about the social and economic condition of the Palestinians, as readers of his body of work can testify. What is harder to justify is Hari’s use of discredited figures like the historian Ilan Pappe and the Holocaust revisionist Norman Finkelstein to justify the positions he takes. Pappe, as Jacobson notes, has been questioned at every turn by fellow historians. Finkelstein’s views have been tested in the High Court in London and found wanting.

If he had any integrity at all, Brummer would explain just what it is about Ilan Pappe's work that has been discredited. But let's leave that to one side.

The "holocaust revisionist historian Norman Finkelstein"? What's that? This is a clear allegation that Finkelstein is a holocaust denier. Is it not? Well look at Wikipedia on the difference between holocaust denial and holocaust revisionism:

Because the term "revisionist" has become associated with Holocaust deniers, Holocaust historians today generally avoid using it to describe themselves, though they continue to study and revise opinions on aspects of the Holocaust.

Hmm, it's not quite clear what is meant by holocaust revisionist but what is clear is that Brummer does not use revisionist as a compliment. But there's more:

Finkelstein’s views have been tested in the High Court in London and found wanting.

Really? Finkelstein's views have never been tested in the High Court in London. He seems to be confusing, deliberately, David Irving, the holocaust denier, and Norman Finkelstein, who doesn't actually write about the holocaust itself. He just writes about the way various "parasites", "frauds and hucksters" have exploited the holocaust and its survivors for financial gain and to cover for the crimes of the racist war criminals of Israel.

In the final paragraph, Brummer congratulates the Indie's approach:

In this debate some credit must go to the Independent. It not only allowed Hari to embarrass himself in public, it also found the space for Jacobson’s muscular reply.

You see. You can criticise Israel, but be prepared for some "loathsome smearing."

Anyway, so much for Alex Brummer. Let's just hope that when Finkelstein is back from a lecture tour Brummer gets "tested in the High Court in London and found wanting."

I just wan to take a look at the responses to Jacobson's piece on how if the zionists are trying to silence Israel's critics then they're not being very successful because people know that Palestinians are aggrieved. That's pretty much what he's saying. Cop this for a response:

Sir: Howard Jacobson's claim that there is no evidence of a campaign to silence Israel's critics is just plain barmy (Opinion, 10 May). Ask any Israeli politician why the government spends millions on campaigning groups such as Bicom, Aipac and Memri and they will tell you that it makes good PR sense. I agree that these campaigns are becoming less effective in recent years, largely because of the internet, but let's not forget that it is only relatively recently that even the basic facts of Palestinian dispossession have been aired in the Western mainstream media. They still aren't in the US.

Also, Jacobson's suggestion that evidence of Israel's ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in 1948 is merely a view of the historian Ilan Pappé is ridiculous and demonstrates either his ignorance or deceit. This ethnic cleansing is well documented by Israeli historians from left to right, anti-Zionists and Zionists.

Alex Hogg

London W10

What is it with these sane people who make claims that are "just plain barmy"?

Associated Propagandists

AP does its bit in shaping the way the world looks to millions of readers who don't have the time to double read every word.

Barak to Mubarak: No truce with Hamas unless attacks stop

The title implies that the negotiations between Israel and Hamas are stuck on this point. Hamas refuses to stop "terrorist attacks." If only Hamas were ready to stop killing civilians, peace would be possible.

Of course, the title doesn't say that, for that would be a lie. AP doesn't lie.

The article itself says what the stumbling block really is:

Hamas has said it wants a temporary truce with Israel. But Israel fears the group will use the lull to rearm and prepare for a new round of fighting.

Barak added that any truce or cessation of hostilities with Hamas should also involve the release of captured Israeli soldier Cpl. Gilad Schalit.

What AP actually says is that Israel is afraid that a cease fire would benefit Hamas, and that Israel refuses to stop killing Palestinian civilians until Hamas releases a captured soldier. Perish the thought that there is a casual link between these two facts.

As more and more countries realize one must talk to Hamas, the Israeli Junta understand that only a major conflagration can prevent a Hamas diplomatic victory. But they need to sell it as Hamas's fault. This is were the press comes in.

I'm not saying that the AP editor is taking orders from the people who pay his or her wages. That would be a lie. The editor is just smart enough to test the wind's direction before taking a piss.

The White Man's Burden is getting really really heavy

Meyrav Wurmser, Likudnik, director of the Middle East program at the Hudson Institute, and contributor to the New Middle East manifesto "Clean Break", explains the poor reception for Bush in the Middle East on his last tour:

I think those speeches showed that....it's not so easy to give these people
democracy.

After the U.S. gave democracy and freedom to the indigenous people of America, then successively to African slaves, to Mexicans, to the people of Hawai, Cuba, the Philippines, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Argentina, Korea, Vietnam, Puerto Rico, Nicaragua, El-Salvador, Colombia, Somalia, Nigeria, Pakistan, South Africa, Greece, Indonesia, and countless other people....

What happened? Did the magic touch wear off, or are Arabs just so much harder to liberate?

And how could the people of the world ever repay the U.S. for so much freedom and democracy? Billions of gratitude stricken people all over the world are racking their brains at this problem. The debt is just so crushingly enormous.

Anybody has an idea?

His Master's Voice

Playing table tennis on this blog is fun. So let me make a comment on Mark's recent comment on Hardball.

It is indeed "excruciatingly painful" to watch. But that is because we are viewing it as fellow human beings. Watching a person being humiliated in public is painful, even when he deserves it.

But watch it again as a potential employer reading a cover letter for a cv. If you are looking for a hack to hire, Kevin James's Hardball performance should definitely loosen your wallet.

He came on the show to defend Bush and take a swipe at Obama. He defended what Bush said about Obama. He defended Bush making that attack in Israel which is probably a line of argument he didn't expect. He attacked both Obama and Clinton. He never gave a single inch of ground to the "enemy." He was told to his face that he was a "blank slate." It was proven to his face that he had no clue what he is talking about and he was humiliated before an audience of millions. And he still did not give ground, did not apologize, did not show the faintest sign of recognition or shame. When the host clarified the distinction between talk and action, instead of examining his shoes, he grabbed the distinction like a pro and inverted it, accusing Clinton of talking instead of doing, and being responsible for 9/11.

Kevin James is a bit too youngish, a bit too exuberant, but he will learn to show more "gravitas." His ignorance will be corrected by a few generic history books. He will eventually be able to distinguish Normandy from Anbar Province on a map. These things are easily learned. The important thing is that he possesses the character of a good hack--loyalty, tenacity, intelligence, and shamelessness.

"The face of the age is the face of a dog." I will bet Kevin James is destined to be a 7 figures hack. We will see him again on TV, in think tanks, in government. Chris Matthew's final judgement on him, after replaying the interview, was "But he‘s a good guy. And we‘re going to have him back."

Yes we will!

Bush withdraws from golf!

See this, it's part two of an MSNBC Special Comment by Keith Olberman on a recent George Bush interview:



Part 1's just as good but part 2 was better headline material.

Jews dominate liberal press!

Well not really but Deborah Maccoby and I did get a letter each in, respectively, the Guardian and Independent today. Deborah's was a response to Benny Morris's ludicrous article which appeared on Friday:

Benny Morris repeats the myth of Barak's generous offer at Camp David in 2000. But the offer was not that generous. The West Bank would have been cut in two by roads going to Israeli army bases; there was no equitable land swap; there would have been no Palestinian control of borders, water or airspace; the Israelis would not allow Palestinian sovereignty over the Temple Mount and wanted to keep large blocks of settlements surrounding Palestinian areas.

Professor Morris writes of "the implacable enmity of the Arab world ... towards the Jewish state, and the serial rejections by the Palestinian Arabs of two-state proposals for a solution". The whole Arab world offered Israel complete normalisation of relations if it would withdraw from all the territories captured in 1967. It is Israel that has rejected a two-state solution. Its ever-expanding settlements and land-grabbing wall are evidently intended to put the Palestinians into bantustans and perpetuate Greater Israel.
Deborah Maccoby
London

And mine was in response to a letter in Friday's Independent:

Sir: Dr Jacob Amir is being disingenuous when he says that the Zionist movement accepted the UN's plan to partition Palestine (letter, 15 May). David Ben Gurion told his supporters to accept publicly what they truly found to be unacceptable so that Israel could build an "outstanding army" and conquer the rest of Palestine "within 20 years". This is too well documented to deny.

There is no evidence to suggest that if the Arab states had accepted the partition plan, events would have unfolded any differently from how they did. On the contrary, the ethnic cleansing of Palestine by Zionist forces began as soon as the partition plan was announced and there were already 300,000 Arab refugees from Palestine by the time the Arab states mobilised.

Mark Elf

Dagenham, Essex

So there!

Israel's uniqueness revisited

Here's Mike Marqusee in the New Humanist on Israel's 60th on what it is that makes Israel stand out like a sore thumb among the states of the world.

After a resumé of the details of the conquest and ethnic cleansing of most of Palestine he settles on the ludicrous idea that Israel has a right to exist as a Jewish state and that anyone who argues against this is somehow demonic. He also gets into the lies we were told for decades before it became ok to tell the truth because some Israeli historians decided that a little honesty might be a good policy. He eventually gets to the bit that makes zionists look so silly when they claim that Israel is being singled out:

Israel is “Jewish” in a sense that no existing state is Christian, Muslim, Hindu or Buddhist. Though these religions are privileged in various states, none of those states claims to be the sole global representative of the faith; none grants citizenship to people solely because of their religion (without regard to place of birth or residence). Maintaining a Jewish state in Palestine means maintaining a sizeable Jewish majority population which enjoys privileged access to land, work and civic rights.

Actually there's an article on Israel in the New Humanist immediately below Marqusee's. It's by Eliase Glaser. Glaser wants to be a zionist. She has family in Israel. But she sees the state of denial and she's uncomfortable with it. It's interesting in an annoying sort of a way. Worth a look at but if I hear one more word about Israel's sodding "bauhaus architecture" I swear I'll....

Drop shoah from the Hebrew language?

Who would demand such a thing? Well if Israel's Foreign Minister, Tzipi Livni wasn't Israeli or Jewish maybe she would. So what's all this then?

According to Ha'aretz, Israel has protested to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon over his use of the word "Nakba" in a phone call to Mahmoud Abbas. I thought it was the Security Council that could authorise wars not the General Secretary. Obviously the zionist war on reality doesn't count. Anyway, what's Livni got to do with this:

Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni on Thursday said that the Palestinians will be able to celebrate their independence day on the same day that the word "nakba" or catastrophe is erased from their lexicon. Livni was referring to the Palestinians' "Nakba Day" which is commemorated on May 15, the day Israel was founded in 1948.

Actually, I got the "drop shoah" idea from MondoWeiss, the blog of Philip Weiss. He made the same point only about the word "pogrom".

There is of course a serious point to this. Israel having got so much from UN that it wasn't entitled to, like recognition, is now trying to have its own way on everything. Nothing new there. What is new is that Israel didn't get its way and Nakba isn't just a part of the Palestinian lexicon but that of the United Nations itself.

Gordimer mentioned in another dispatch

This time it's in the Guardian. I'm not sure if this Cif piece by Ian Jack appeared in the print edition but I think it must have because it turns up on the list when you search for Israel on the Guardian website. When the piece is only on Cif it doesn't turn up on the search. Anyway, the piece is on his and Roddy Doyle's trip to the Palestine Festival of Literature.

Apparently Roddy Doyle and Ian Jack were asked if they thought it was wrong for Nadime Gordimer to appear at Israel's International Writers Festival in Jerusalem given her stance against apartheid in South Africa back in the day. Roddy Doyle responded that:

"We don't know what she will say. Let her come and let's hear what she says before we condemn her."

Then came Ian Jack's response which you could call cowardly but it was actually brave given his audience:

I suggested that to equate apartheid in South Africa with Israeli behaviour towards Palestinians in the occupied territories was still "a big step" for most people in Europe and North America. Really, I was talking of myself: it was a big step for me and one I was reluctant to take.

He then realises that the avoidance of the apartheid analogy was becoming increasingly untenable as he travelled around the West Bank.

checkpoints are the least of it. Throughout the West Bank, Israel is steadily, relentlessly and apparently unstoppably imposing what old South African regimes used to know as "separate development". Israeli and Palestinian cars have different number plates (yellow and green) [I thought the latter were blue] and travel on separate roads (the Israeli roads newer and straighter). Jewish settlements march east into Palestinian territory in acts of illegal conquest unknown even to Dr Verwoerd. And then there is The Wall, more properly known as the West Bank Barrier, which when complete will run eight metres high for 400 miles north to south, often looping forward impudently to take 10% of the West Bank's land

Now unlike the Alan Johnson article of two days ago, comments are still open on this one.

After 2,000 years I now know what suffering is

Now it's your turn. Watch this. It's a chap called Kevin James totally humiliating himself on TV. If you're like me you'll find it excruciating at first but hang in there:



The host raises the important subject of Israel being a "speakers' corner" for American politicians. He also points out that when this word "appeasement" is hurled around it often has no substance. It means acceding to demands in breach of your own professed principles. I suppose we could say then that Israel is the world's main beneficiary of western appeasement being a colonial settler state in, indeed after, the age of decolonisation.

Anyway, back to the show. I'm indebted to Andrew r in the comments to an earlier post for drawing my attention to the youtube clip and to the Wikipedia entry on the man (Kevin James) himself.

No comment on Alan Johnson

Gabriel Ash's post earlier, justly ridiculing the Engagenik and Eustonista, Alan Johnson, for his "concern" about "antisemitism" had me looking at the (not so) original article so as to paste the whole post into the comments. By the time I got there comments were closed. The Guardian has this annoying habit of closing comments over night on the Palestine and zionist posts and closing comments altogether after 3 days but I didn't realise that they closed comments for good early. Well they did in the case of this Alan Johnson piece. Look at the penultimate comment by CifEditor:

This thread will be closing shortly

.That was 9:09 am, less than 48 hours after the article appeared. Then at 9:29 am, the final post, and guess what:

Hermine

Your impotent rage against anything Israeli has passed beyond a joke and is now thoroughly boring.

We're sorry for the sad loss your lot suffered in 1948, in 1967 and in 1973.

But get over it. You can no more undo them than the French can undo Waterloo.

Yes, it was a pro-Israel post. Apparently you can't unlose a war after it's been lost and that was a point worth making and the CifEditor saw fit to close comments on a pro-Israel note on a piece designed to justify Israel's ethnic cleansing, its Jewish supremacy and its persistent atrocities against the civilian population of Gaza.

So anyway, that made me curious about just who this Alan Johnson character is so to the Cif profile:

Professor Alan Johnson is founder and editor of Democratiya, a free online journal of international politics. His latest book, Global Politics After 9/11: The Democratiya Interviews was published by The Foreign Policy Centre in late 2007. He is also an advisory editor of Engage Journal, a founder member of Labour Friends of Iraq, and the co-author of Unite Against Terror and the Euston Manifesto. An opponent of the invasion of Iraq, since 2003, he has supported the work of Iraqi democrats, including Abdullah Muhsin of the Iraqi Workers Federation. Their book Hadi Never Died: Hadi Saleh and the Iraqi Unions was published by the TUC in 2006.

Alan is a Professor of Democratic Theory and Practice at Edge Hill University, where he teaches a course on the Holocaust. [uh oh]

A lot of links, huh? Why no link for his opposition to the war on Iraq? People have been pilloried for that by the eustonistas.

Ach, I'm just playing here. I'm more concerned about what seems to be the manipulation of the comments of Cif in favour of zionists, not that they're ever happy of course. But let's get back to the article. Johnson has been berating the words of Hamas throughout until the last paragraph where he realises that the occupation might have something to do with Hamas's words and deeds:

Isaac Deutscher famously likened the creation of the state of Israel to a man jumping from the burning ship on to a raft. However, Deutscher also pointed out that the raft was occupied and so the survival of Israel, as well as justice for the Palestinians, demanded accommodation based on "common language". This demands much of both sides. No solution was possible with the language of "Eretz Israel". The occupation must end. Equally, no solution is possible with the language of the Hamas charter and al-Aqsa TV

Deutscher was being famously disingenuous of course. The zionist idea of a state for the world's Jews by way of the removal of the Arabs was formulated and given organisational expression in the 1890s and imperial backing certainly by 1917. The survival of Israel as a Jewish state is incompatible with justice for the Palestinians no matter how clever Deutscher was and Israel is guilty of far more than the language of Eretz Israel and there is no reason why the language of Hamas's charter should impede the withdrawal of Israel from the occupied territories. The way western commentators and governments allow Israel to use the language of its enemies, who would still be its enemies without such language, is a bigger impediment to peace than anything Hamas could say or do.