Guardian editorial in defence of Raed Salah

From the CST blog:

‘This Guardian editorial, however, like the constituency it educates and reflects, clearly cares far, far more with bashing Israel than it does with seriously contemplating anything to do with Islamist antisemitism; why Jews have every right to fear it; why British Jews have every right to request Government protection from it; and why the British Government has every right to deny people entry on the back of this.’

Do read the whole piece, by Mark Gardner.

Twitter – a place where rumours go to die

Six-pointed star spotted on Ghaddafi munitions? A no-brainer (if you’re prejudiced).

Keep clicking ‘Load more’ on this Andy Carvin piece, which ends:

“The moral of this story? For one thing, rumors gonna spread – and Twitter can serve as an easy vector for spreading them. But as I’ve said for a long time, Twitter can also be a place where rumors go to die.

In this particular case, a rumor perpetuated by several news sources was easily debunked by a group of people on Twitter who don’t know each other and likely will never meet each other in person. “

HT: Bob

When I say Israelis I don’t mean Jews; and when I say Jews I mean Israelis.

Mark Gardner over at the CST blog writes about the recent exchange of views on Caryl Churchill’s antisemitic play “Seven Jewish Children”. The original article is here.

From Kosher Conspiracy to Seven Jewish Children

By Mark Gardner.

Contemplation of the high (or low) points of contemporary British antisemitic discourse in recent years brings four episodes to mind, all of which are emblematic of the collapse in left-liberal elite sensitivities to antisemitism:

1.   January 2002. The New Statesman cover reading “A Kosher Conspiracy?” and showing a golden Star of David piercing a supine Union Jack. This has been widely quoted (by CST and others) as evidence that the left intelligentsia no longer recognised or cared about modern day antisemitism, even when it hit them in the face. The New Statesman belatedly – sort of – apologised.

2.   May 2003. The assertion by (then) ‘Father of the House’, Tam Dalyell MP, that “a cabal of Jewish advisors” surounded Prime Minister Tony Blair. Dalyell was criticised for this, but the criticism was by no means universal and he and his supporters denied that the outburst was antisemitic.

3. January 2009. The explosion of Israel equals Nazi Germany comparisons at the time of the Gaza conflict. For many Jews and others, this confirmed that the demonisation of Israel had become both limitless and detached from reality. The fear was concretised by the unprecedented outbursts of antisemitic race hate crimes at this time.

4. February 2009. The first performance of Seven Jewish Children, by esteemed playwright Caryl Churchill and carried on the Guardian website.

(Of course, there are hundreds of other examples that one can alight upon, but these stick in the forefront of my mind.)

Reflecting upon these four events, I cannot recall or see where either the New Satesman or Tam Dalyell suffered any serious reputational damage within their own circles: and this is surely not unconnected to the enthusiastic and urgent reception subsequently afforded to Walt and Mearsheimer’s book, The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy (2006). Basically, so long as you stuck to Israel, pro-Israel or Zionist, rather than Jew, you were (and remain) bang on trend.

The malaise and the conceit burrrowed so deep, that the Guardian could run aneditorial (24 July 2008) stating

When a presumptive US presidential candidate arrives in Jerusalem, he willingly dons a jacket designed by Israeli tailors.

Similarly, the profusion of Israel equals Nazi Germany comparisons never really impacted upon those who had made the equation, nor upon those who silently stood by. Besides, similar things had been said with depressing regularity by politicians and journalists since at least 2002, and none of them had really suffered for it either.

When Conservative Party-linked East European politicians try to relativise the Holocaust by comparing it to the suffering of their non-Jewish populations under Communism, then of course the intelligentsia hits top gear…but properly and consistently criticise people here in Britain for comparing Israeli Jews with Nazis, no way! Besides, this is Israel that’s being condemned and that’s not the same as Jews murdered in the Holocaust.

Seven Jewish Children, however, does not fit these patterns. It is not about a Jewish conspiracy that can be entirely kosherised so long as you remember to call it a pro-Israeli conspiracy. Neither is it about granting permission to relatavise the Holocaust, so long as you do it with Israel as the target. Instead, Caryl Churchill completes the circle, by writing a play about Israel and Israelis that is entirely referenced to Jews, Jewish history and Jewish emotions.

There is at least a certain honesty in this. The play, far more than most anti-Israel propaganda, at least acknowledges (both implicitly and explicitly) the centrality of Jews, Jewish history and Jewish emotions to everything concerning Israel. Nevertheless, the antisemitic resonance of the play (primarily the extent and meaning of its concentration upon the blood of the children who are the Jews’ victims) has seen it become a celebrated fault-line in the superheated arguments regarding what is and is not antisemitic in regard to Israel.

The fault-line has been spewing once more this week, in the Guardian letters page with Caryl Churchill taking exception to Jonathan Freedland’s citation (in the Guardian) of Anthony Julius’s deconstruction of the play. (Extracted from Julius’s brilliant analysis of British literary antisemitism, contained in his book, Trials of the Diaspora. Of course, the book itself has become another fault-line in the battle.)

Freedland’s excellent piece (analysed here on CST Blog) was published in the Guardian on 3 March. Churchill replied in the letters page the following day, saying (in part)

Jonathan Freedland (G2, March 3) denies that criticism of Israel is often wrongly called antisemitism. His point isn’t helped by quoting Anthony Julius’s allegation that my play Seven Jewish Children “tap[s] into the ‘blood libel’”. The line he is referring to is “tell her there’s dead babies, did she see babies?” It refers to babies killed in the attack on Gaza in 2009 and shown on TV. When people hear of babies killed in a war, they don’t usually think of medieval accusations of Jews consuming Christian children’s blood, but of babies killed in a war…

This prompted Julius to reply (in part)

…In this play, Jews confess to lying to their own children and killing Palestinian children. They also confess to something close to a project of genocide. And they freely acknowledge the source of their misanthropy to be Judaism itself.

None of this seems to bother Churchill – nor, indeed, the Guardian. As she correctly notes, the play is available on your website.

Next, Churchill replied to Julius

…What he doesn’t seem to realise is that these lines are not spoken as he suggests by “Jews” in general but by individual Israelis, desperate to protect their own child, during an attack of disproportionate violence on Gaza…It should be possible to pillory the defensive self-righteousness and racism of some – not all – Israelis without being called antisemitic.

For now (at any rate) the Guardian Letters page appears to have called time on its hosting of this particular debate. The arguments will, of course, continue, but there are two things that need saying right now.

Firstly, Normblog has this to say on Churchill’s “individual Israelis” argument

Her play wasn’t anti-Semitic because it featured individuals, rather than Jews as a category…

…And this is a playwright, with some knowledge of cultural matters! One is bound to wonder why anyone ever had a worry about Shylock in The Merchant of Venice…

Secondly, there is the point that my colleague Dave Rich and I made in our Comment is Free article, at the time of the Guardian’s own production of Seven Jewish Children

It is Jewish thought and behaviour that links the play together, not Israel. The words Israel, Israelis, Zionism and Zionist are not mentioned once in the play, while Jews are mentioned in the title and in the text itself. We are often told that when people talk about Israel or Zionists, it is mischievous to accuse them of meaning Jews. Now, we are expected to imagine that a play that talks only of Jews, in fact, means Israelis.

The play is only eight minutes long. We wrote the above almost two years ago. One does not need to be an anti-racist theoretician, a leading playwright, nor a literary critic to get the absurdity of saying

When I say Israelis I don’t mean Jews; and when I say Jews I mean Israelis

Then again, isn’t that the same absurdity that lay, back in the day, behind the New Statesman and Tam Dalyell getting let off the anti-racist hook?

How to put people off talking to you

On Andrew Collins’ blog, a story of internet commenters and their obsessions.

Wikileaks and the conspiracist view of history

By Bob From Brockley, this piece on Contested Terrain.

Mark Gardner on Mark Steel

It is neither CST’s desire nor role to act as a public relations outlet for Israel.

However, when antisemitism arises, directly, because facts have been deliberately omitted from an anti-Israel article, we will say so.

Today’s Independent provides one very small example of this. In this instance, the anti-Israel criticism, with not a word about Jews, is provided by columnist and comedian, Mark Steel.

Steel’s article is a disgraceful perversion of a Jerusalem Post interview with Israeli commandoes from the Turkish flotilla clash. Steel claims that Israeli “Sgt S” said the six people he shot “were without a doubt terrorists”.

Read the rest on the CST blog.

Gaza flotilla – some alternative views

Martin in the Margins writes:

“The lack of comment on the Gaza flotilla incident from progressive pro-Israel voices has allowed knee-jerk anti-Zionists to dominate online reaction – well, Twitter, anyway. I guess most people are waiting for the dust to settle and the full story of this awful tragedy to emerge. It’s almost certain to be less straightforward than the ‘Israel-murders-harmless-aid-workers’ narrative that’s currently doing the rounds. In the meantime, here are some useful alternatives to the dominant narrative.”

Updates as I come across them:

• Seth Freedman on CiF
• Hamas turns away the aid
• Meretz USA calls for inquiry
• Ameinu calls for inquiry
• Qassams fired into Israel
• Israel has the lion’s share of scrutiny on the world wide web
• International community to get involved in securing Israel?
• Martin in the Margins further round-up
• Bob From Brockley
• Tayyip Erdogan plans to sail to Gaza. This is a good tactic to drive a wedge between Israel and the rest of the world but it doesn’t solve the problem of Hamas’ preparations for war or launching of missiles.
• Linda Grant
• Sean Matgamna
• Rumbold
• Fania Oz-Salzberger
• Modernity
• Moshe Yaroni on non-violence and the flotilla.
• David Grossman on the heavy-handed and condescending approach of the Israeli government.
• Modernity again on the Turkish extreme right presence on the Mavi Mara.
• Daily Mashup
• Never Trust a Hippy on whether national populism is shaping Israeli policy, and considering alternatives.

Polish city displays two faces to its few Jews

In Torun there are hardly any Jews, and yet a Franciscan monk with a vision of dialogue founded a Higher School of Hebrew Philology. Across the river, the Catholic Maryja radio station broadcasts antisemitic poison and is criticised by the Pope. The Forward.

Saul Asks A Question.

Saul by email asks :

John Demjanjuk is accused of the murder of 29,500 people in Poland in
1943 as part of the planned systematic extermination of Jews.

Antisemites deny the Holocaust happened.

I have two genuine questions about this letter published in today’s Guardian.

“What kind of justice is it that proscribes the normally accepted
right of the accused to challenge the assumption that a crime had, in
fact, occurred? Normally the prosecution is obliged to prove beyond
reasonable doubt that the crime of murder had taken place. This is not
the case in the trial of Demjanjuk. The court will, without proof,
arbitrarily accept that the crime took place. Being stripped of his
most powerful defence, the accused is reduced to pleading mistaken
identity or that he had nothing to do with an unproved murder.”

1. Is this letter doing what I think it is doing, that is, denying the
facts of the Holocaust? Or is some other interpretation possible?

2. If so, why did the Guardian think it fir to publish? or is
Holocaust Denial now part of “legiitimate debate”?

Saul.

UPDATE. Modernity sheds some light on the letter writer’s views.

SAUL ADDS : On an update at Modernity, this has now been placed on the relevant letter’s page at the Guardian,

“Editor’s statement: We published a letter by John Mortl in the Guardian of Thursday 3 December and on this site relating to the case of John Demjanjuk, who is accused of assisting in the murder of 27,900 people in Poland. Unfortunately, we misread the letter. The underlying meaning, we now realise, implied Holocaust denial. As soon as we realised our mistake, we removed the letter from the site. It should never have been published and we apologise unreservedly that it was.”

I’d like to thank Modernity for the information he has thrown on this matter, as well as those who posted their comments, especially Jeremy.
Regards,
Saul

“Jew-Wise” Ingrams is at it again.

Jew-Wise Ingrams is up to his usual tricks : Will Zionists’ links to Iraq invasion be brushed aside?. This is in defense of the
antisemitic article last week in the same paper by ex diplomat, turned lobbyist Oliver Miles.