Right wing journalist Peter Oborne’s comment piece on his Dispatches programme on the pro-Israeli lobby said :
“It is important to say what we did not find. There is no conspiracy, and nothing resembling a conspiracy.”
Why say this unless he had pre-conceived ideas ? Did he expect to find a conspiracy , did he look in vain for one ? Or maybe Oborne is a conspiracy theorist.
November 17, 2009 at 12:00 am
A careful reading of Oborne’s article does indeed suggest that he surprised himself by _not_ finding a conspiracy. Indeed, some of his language is rather suspect, such as the following:
“The pro-Israel lobby, in common with other lobbies, has every right to operate and indeed to flourish in Britain. But it needs to be far more open about how it is funded and what it does. This is partly because the present obscurity surrounding it can, paradoxically, give rise to conspiracy theories that have no basis in fact. But it is mainly because politics in a democracy should never take place behind closed doors. It should be out in the open for all to see.”
The question that needs to be asked is whether he has, does or would say the same of, for example, oil lobby, or the armaments lobby, or, even, the Labour or Conservative Friends of Palestine. And he does come perilously close to repeating the Walt/Mearsheimer thesis.
November 17, 2009 at 9:05 am
The CST piece is excellent.
November 17, 2009 at 10:11 am
Jew shouts at Guardian Editor
Guardian Editor gets Upset
Guardian Editor keeps Job
My, what a story!
This is a useful link for those who are interested,
http://www.thecst.org.uk/blog/
November 17, 2009 at 7:16 pm
Look who else has seized upon it, also no surprise
http://stephensizer.blogspot.com/2009/11/exposing-israel-lobby-in-britain.html
November 18, 2009 at 2:30 pm
The documentary was a remarkably poor piece of ‘journalism.’ Oborne presents the ‘Israel lobby’ as a sinister network that unduly influences British politicians (even though he admits that many CFI members openly criticise Israel) and contradicts himself (covers his ass?) with footnotes like “there is no consipiracy” and the following (taken from a booklet on the C4 website):
“The pro-Israel lobby does nothing wrong, or illegal. It is not
sinister and it is not unusual.” http://www.channel4.com/culture/microsites/D/dispatches/israel/proisraellobbypamphlet.pdf
Nu, so why waste time making a one hour documentary about it then?