Greta Berlin, Free Gaza And Racism

I have been away and missed the outburst of anti-Jewish racism from the Free Gaza movement via Greta Berlin.

Jeffrey Goldberg explains it:

“This last theory of his was largely forgotten until last week, when Greta Berlin, a co-founder of the Free Gaza Movement, published a message on the group’s Twitter feed: “Zionists operated the concentration camps and helped murder millions of innocent Jews.” It contained a link to a video of Mullins delivering his message.

The Free Gaza group, the leading edge of the international campaign to delegitimize Israel and bring about its end as the national home of the Jewish people, has always argued that it isn’t anti-Semitic, and is merely trying to break Israel’s blockade of the Gaza Strip. The group came to public attention in May 2010, when it organized a flotilla of ships to attempt to break the blockade. Israeli commandos boarded the ships and were set upon by passengers wielding pipes and knives. In a terrible overreaction, they responded by opening fire, killing nine. The incident has nearly destroyed Turkish-Israeli relations, and helped make the flotilla cause popular across the Middle East and Europe.
…
Then Berlin’s Twitter message was discovered last week. Berlin said she posted the video without watching it, and that the message was meant for a private Facebook group. Her critics pointed out that the private sharing of Nazi propaganda doesn’t fall into a different moral category than the public sharing of Nazi propaganda, and so she then argued the message was meant to be part of a broader discussion about the nature of hateful propaganda. Free Gaza has officially disowned the post and taken it down.
But this isn’t Berlin’s first dalliance with purveyors of anti-Semitism. She has also endorsed the work of an ex-Israeli Holocaust revisionist (yes, such a person exists) named Gilad Atzmon, author of “The Wandering Who?” Atzmon has argued, among other things, that it was the Jews who persecuted Hitler, and that Jews who commemorate the Holocaust are followers of the “the most sinister religion known to man.”

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Rev. Sizer, Please, Please Don’t Play The Victim

I suppose that I should be gratified that Rev. Sizer has linked to one of my previous posts, but I am not.

If you read the words of his post what you will see is obfuscation, rhetorical tricks and a desire to play the victim.

What he should have written was a simple apology for his linking, once more, to a racist website.

Rev. Sizer has made a habit of doing this: Palestine Telegraph: July 2011, Ugly Truth: 4 October 2011 Veterans Today: 1 March 2012, and more recently, WindowintoPalestine: 1 June 2012.

Now I can understand the desire to support the Palestinians, it is a most worthy cause, but it is not helped when its Western supporters link to anti-Jewish racism, for the fourth time.

It gives the impression that such Western supporters are more motivated by their animus towards Jews instead of a genuine concern for the welfare of Palestinians.

I am sure this is not the case with Rev. Sizer, however, his inability to distinguish between nonracist material and vile antisemitic garbage suggests that his judgement is faulty in these matters.

And, before he and his supporters drag out the most predictable, I should make it clear that I do not think that he is an antisemite, rather he strikes me as someone of poor judgement who swims in the effluent of modern “anti-Zionism” but can’t see an antisemitic turd when it steams towards him.

So please, Rev. Sizer, for the sake of your own conscience, make a habit of apologising when you are wrong, as in this case and please do not play the victim, it is unbecoming.

Rev. Sizer, Best Take Michelle Obama’s Advice

After reading one of his recent posts I thought this quote equally applied to Rev. Sizer:

“Barack and I have been in the public eye for many years now, and we’ve developed a thick skin along the way. When you’re out campaigning, there will always be criticism. I just take it in stride, and at the end of the day, I know that it comes with the territory.”

I had hoped not to have to return to this topic, but it seems that Rev. Sizer and his supporters are keen to humiliate the Council of Christians and Jews and make them apologise.

I have argued elsewhere that this is silly and counter-productive, but my impression is that Rev. Sizer and his fan club are not particularly good listeners or interested in the views of others.

Pity, the speed of his actions and those of his supporters tend to cast doubt on the sincerity of Rev. Sizers’ apology.

In his latest post, Rev. Sizer makes much of the fact that he removed the offending link to the Ugly Truth web site. However, Rev. Sizer only removed it after the racist nature of the site was pointed out to him, several times.

Astonishingly, before it was pointed out to him, Rev. Sizer didn’t investigate the antisemitic content of Ugly Truth as the CCJ points out:

“We are conscious that The Revd Stephen Sizer’s contributions have caused widespread disquiet and hurt in both communities and led to confusion and polarization of views. We have paid particular attention to a link posted by Mr Sizer on his Facebook page to ‘The Ugly Truth’, an antisemitic website.

We consider this to be wholly unacceptable.

We cannot accept it was an accident, because Mr Sizer was alerted to the antisemitic nature of the website in November and again in December, but only removed the link in January when contacted by the Jewish Chronicle. “

[My emphasis.]

If, this unfortunate episode had been a one off, then Rev. Sizer would have had a stronger case, but he has made this same mistake at least three times, by my reckoning.

That is a lot for a highly intelligent man, an academic and community leader. Surprisingly, I can not find any apology from Rev. Sizer on his previous poor choice of material and certainly no embarrassment.

Still, as he reminds us about his “Jewish friends” I can’t help thinking that they might not have known of the extent of Rev. Sizer’s blunders?

Whilst I seriously doubt that Rev. Sizer or his supporters harbour any antisemitic feeling, there is not much evidence of them understanding the issues, or the need for a certain sensitivity.

It all speaks of a very poor sense of judgement in these matters.

Overall, what I see in these instances from Rev. Sizer and his supporters is a lack of insight, a desire to hit back and above all wounded pride.

It might be time, as Michelle Obama recommends, for Rev. Sizer to develop a thicker skin. Or for him not to link to racist material in the first place?

Jeremy Moodey and The PSC Set Me Thinking

[Warning: by necessity this post contains links to racist web sites, as evidence. Apologies. ]

After my brief exchange with Jeremy Moodey I decided to test a theory.

I wondered how long it would take me to find something really unsavory in the posts of a pro-Palestinian activist? A day? A week? Or even longer?

As I knew Jeremy said he doesn’t “have an anti-Semitic bone in my body”, and I believe him, he seemed a good candidate.

If Jeremy was right it would take ages or be an impossible task.

Sadly, it was shockingly easy.

Exhibit no. 1, Jeremy Moodey’s Twitter account is following the unusually named wikizionism. They seem to be a neo-Nazi creation as suggested by their publishing of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion and a piece by William Pierce. He was the brains behind the National Alliance, the American neo-Nazis and the author of the Turner Diaries. There’s a lot more racist filth there, but that enough.

That took about 30 seconds, allowing for a slow Twitter.

Next, I wondered if Jeremy had pushed any links to antisemitic sites in his tweets, by mistake of course.

That I thought would be harder and take forever, as Jeremy wasn’t some crank.

In fact, Jeremy was a potential Tory candidate and is an ex-Banker. Obviously he’s very smart, not a hothead or flake material, so presumably would see through any disguised racism.

Exhibit no. 2, Jeremy approvingly links to a Palestinian Telegraph article:

“Article on how the Board of Deputies stifles free speech in the UK through unfounded accusations of anti-semitism dld.bz/a88Qb”

Readers will remember how the Palestine Telegraph published a David Duke video and wrote revolting articles accusing Jews of organ theft. I could go on, but a quick scan of their articles reveals that same disgusting conspiratorial racist tone. Yuck.

Exhibit no. 3,

“#PSC is under pressure from allegations of a Marxist takeover and (wrongly) anti-Semitism. Should be an interesting AGM bit.ly/z8yIHY“

I was going to stop there, but it occurred to me that Jeremy had, conceivably, a dark sense of humour when he linked to the racist Uprooted Palestinians blog. Or perhaps I am being charitable?

It is a Gilad Atzmon fan site and run by the cranks, Stephen Lendman and Stuart Littlewood. If you ever want to see naked racism and 9/11 truthers then such a blog is made for you.

That took about 3 minutes.

So in the space of about 4-5 minutes it was trivial to find how a PSC supporter (and I assume Jeremy is one) used racist material, linked to it or at the very least read it.

I imagine the defence would be something like “these were mistakes, trivia, not of consequence” or something similar. The problem with that excuse is, I should not have been able to find any racist material in the first place, connected to a PSC supporter but I did.

As I said, I believe him when he says “I do not have an anti-Semitic bone in my body “.

But then again maybe we define antisemitism differently?

I am sure that Jeremy is one of that 81% of PSCers that reject Holocaust denial.

I can only guess what would have happened had I looked into the PSC’s 17%. It doesn’t bear thinking about.

[But enough of the humour, just in case people misunderstand me. Having read Jeremy Moodey’s tweets with some care, I do not believe he is an antisemite, or anything close to that. He strikes me as having a genuine concern for Christians in Israel/West Bank.

Yet it is disturbing to find racist material so nearby. Not 100% sure what to make of it.]