Jeremy Bowen, the BBC’s Middle East Editor recently stated:
I feel there are many serious questions that need to be asked about BDS and racism.
I have covered them many times before, but this handy Tumblr draws them together:
Twitter, Storify and how to spot a bigot.
[The above image was taken from one of the numerous antisemitic web sites that support BDS.
How do I know it was antisemitic? Because it rants on about 9/11, blaming Jews, and promotes Holocaust denial. That is how!]
If you ever wanted to understand bigotry in Britain then this UKIP poster from South Shields is a fine example.
It sums them up nicely, scaring people and putting out a simple xenophobic message.
Logan Smith wrote an intelligent piece on casual comments and racism. I think it has a wider application in society and in particular relationship to UKIP:
“It’s that the people I retweet – the vast majority of which appear to be teenagers – genuinely don’t understand whether they’re being racist. It’s a generation that never had to grow up during the times of Jim Crow, civil rights marches or apartheid, and has never been confronted by the institutional racism that older generations saw on a daily basis. As a result, many teens seem to think racism simply means active hatred of another race, and not the apparent prejudices and stereotypes displayed by the people I retweet. “
Speaking of prejudice, the BBC’s has not helped itself over the years, when it comes to the Jewish community, according to a recent poll:
“36% – The proportion of Jews who believe BBC news coverage is “heavily” biased against Israel, according to the report
14% – The number who say that the corporation reporting is “balanced” “
Over the years I have watched Jeremy Bowen display an unsophisticated vista of the Middle East, so I am surprised the 14% figure is that high.
The full report is here, Jews and the News: News consumption habits and opinions of Jews in Britain. Some 79% of those sampled replied they felt the BBC is biased against Israel. That is a lot, for one community to perceive the BBC’s way of reporting the news.
A reminder of where such prejudice leads, murder in Eltham.
Finally, Doreen Lawrence’s words.
Update 1: A reminder of Richard Dawkins’ stupid words from 2007:
“”When you think about how fantastically successful the Jewish lobby has been, though, in fact, they are less numerous, I am told – religious Jews anyway – than atheists and [yet they] more or less monopolise American foreign policy as far as many people can see. So if atheists could achieve a small fraction of that influence, the world would be a better place.”
Such views are common on the Far and Extreme Right. This essay explains the antecedents of such beliefs, What are “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion”? I do wish that Professor Dawkins would educate himself on these issues and not assume he knows everything.
Update 2: Any Richard Dawkins’ supporters who can not see the possible racist connotations here should examine the evidence and come to some reasoned conclusion.
Finally, try and work out why neo-Nazis would proffer such views?
Update 3: Apparently, UKIP banned extremists from its ranks, good first start but did not seem to inform its lay officials, Stand for Peace explains:
“Evidence has emerged that a senior UKIP figure, the Chairman of UKIP Hillingdon, Cliff Dixon has links to the English Defence League (EDL), a far-Right group with a long history of attacking Muslims.
Dixon, formerly involved with the English Democrats party, boasted on his blog, in 2011, that he has ”joined my friends from March for England to tag along on the EDL Tower Hamlets demonstration.”
Colin Cortbus, a Stand for Peace fellow, notes: “If Mr Dixon thinks extremists should get off our streets, perhaps he should lead by example.”
Mr Dixon’s blog also records his attendance at a number of nationalist marches, mainly through the relatively small ‘March for England’ group. One event was co-organised by the British Patriots Society, which is described by anti-extremism campaign Hope not Hate as “a tiny splinter of the English Defence League”.
One photo shows Dixon posing with EDL leader Kevin Carol and other EDL and BNP figures.”
Q:Can any of my readers suggest why UKIPers might be found associating with the neofascists in the English Defence League?
Continue reading
When next you hear a Tory, or one of his University chums at the BBC, explain that the “welfare changes” are really to help the poor and disabled, then do remind them of these relatively unreported examples:
“…[Henry Sherlock] had been “bullied and harassed” by Atos Healthcare, the French firm slammed for carrying out the humiliating eligibility tests for the Department for Work and Pensions.
…
Henry worked for the DWP for 18 years until he was forced to retire on medical grounds eight years ago. He lost his sight after suffering meningitis and also has chronic heart disease, diabetes and depression. He said: “I found it such a shock being on the other side of the fence.“Being a claimant, you are treated with total disrespect.
More begging is what the Tories want:
“When I worked for the DWP it was the case that the client came first and they were given the best support possible but now all they are interested in is cutting costs. “
MSPs were told how a blind former health worker, Henry Sherlock, was reduced to begging after being interviewed and reassessed by the Department of Work and Pensions and Atos Healthcare, the private firm paid to carry out fit-to-work medical assessments, claiming both of them had “harassed and bullied” him.
He told how he had been threatened with having his benefits stopped after refusing to provide personal information after receiving an unannounced call from Atos one Saturday evening.”
Read what he said.
Brain-damaged amputee fit for work, says Atos:
“An amputee who cannot walk, struggles to talk and is brain damaged has been passed “fit for work” and had his benefits cut under government reforms.
Mark Evans, from Daubhill in Bolton, said his incapacity benefits were cut by £440 a month and has been left with just £220 to pay his monthly rent, bills and food.
The 50-year-old had received incapacity benefits, now known as employment and support allowances, since 1993 when he had a brain tumour. He also had his left leg amputated below the knee in 2004 after contracting deep vein thrombosis. “
Anxiety over Atos fit-for-work test brings on father’s heart attack:
“The controversial assessments by the French IT firm are part of a benefits shake-up by the Con-Dem Government, who are looking to cut billions from the welfare bill.
Former welder Jim, who had worked all his adult life until he suffered a heart attack 18 months ago, said: “It was very clear that I wasn’t 100 per cent.
“I was sweating profusely, my breath was very laboured and I had been confused during the interview.
“I wasn’t able to concentrate on a lot of what they were saying.
“They gave me a glass of water but that was it.
“They were more concerned with asking me questions such as, ‘Can you walk 200m and can you raise your arm up in the air?’”
Jim, of Cambuslang, near Glasgow, added: “I was telling them I was stressed and that I was anxious, and that I didn’t feel like I could go out and work at that moment.”
The very next day, he had a heart attack as he was walking down a street in Glasgow’s west end. “
Cecilia Burns:
“Ms Burns, a mother of two boys, was diagnosed in 2011. After surgery, she underwent months of chemotherapy, radiotherapy and was on the drug Herceptin until her death.
In March 2012, her employment support allowance was reduced by £30 and she was told she was fit to work, even though she was still undergoing treatment. “
The BBC gets a lot of stick nowadays, but this small clip, where Eddie Mair questions the London Mayor, Boris Johnson is worth its weight in gold.
Apparently, Boris Johnson: The Irresistible Rise will be broadcast on BBC Two at 21:00 GMT on 25 March.
Update 1: Who can forget Nye Bevan’s lovely quote on the Tories:
“That is why no amount of cajolery, and no attempts at ethical or social seduction, can eradicate from my heart a deep burning hatred for the Tory Party that inflicted those bitter experiences on me. So far as I am concerned they are lower than vermin.
They condemned millions of first-class people to semi-starvation. Now the Tories are pouring out money in propaganda of all sorts and are hoping by this organised sustained mass suggestion to eradicate from our minds all memory of what we went through.
But, I warn you young men and women, do not listen to what they are saying now. Do not listen to the seductions of Lord Woolton. He is a very good salesman. If you are selling shoddy stuff you have to be a good salesman. But I warn you they have not changed, or if they have they are slightly worse than they were.”
I wish the modern Labour Party had remembered that, particularly when it came to workfare.
Like many, I have read most of Orwell’s work, discussed and debated what he was trying to get at and even questioned some of his later decisions. Not unsurprisingly there is a lot to get to grips with. He was a multifaceted character living in turbulent times and profoundly affected by it.
David Aaronovitch does an excellent job in presenting the views of various scholars, friends and associates of Orwell. Nicely balanced. Over at the BBC Iplayer, The Road to Nineteen Eighty-Four.
Readers will remember how the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) outsourced to Atos, eligibility assessments of the disabled. Atos, in return, have been roundly criticised for declaring people to be “fit for work” only to have them die a few weeks later. Charities and other organisations connected with disabilities have pointed out the flaws in Atos’s methodology.
But now, in a bizarre twist, Atos are outsourcing many of those assessments to the NHS.
So the Public sector outsources to the private sector, a nasty task, who in turn outsource it back to parts of, the once, Public sector.
Atos is using this to deflect criticism on how many of those declared fit either die or end up destitute, whilst Atos rakes in millions.
From Lebanon, Hezbollah has been attacking Syrians with rockets.
Mapping child poverty, not something the Tories or their LibDem allies will welcome.
In other news, a UN official wonders about food banks in Britain. I am just waiting for some idiot Tory to trumpet them, saying “…at least we are world leaders in food banks!”
The privatisation of education continues a pace as Gove brings in help to sack people.
Polly Toynbee on the bedroom tax and housing.
Not above shelf stacking.
Finally, NHS privatisation: Compilation of financial and vested interests, well worth a read. I can’t even imagine how scathing George Orwell would have been, of a society which attacks the poorest and weakest whilst selling off the family silver, and for once a Tory was right about something.
Paul Mason’s report on the resurgence of Spanish neofascism is a must see.
It is available on Iplayer, starts 01:05.
The Wikipedia entry on España 2000 is quite revealing.
I hope that Newsnight have the wits to release the clip onto YouTube, allowing it to reach a wider audience.
Rupert Murdoch ate a mountain of humble pie at the Levinson inquiry and looked distinctly uncomfortable with his newfound humility.
That’s a thing of the past. Murdoch reveals his true feelings on Twitter:
“Told UK’s Cameron receiving scumbag celebrities pushing for even more privacy laws. Trust the toffs! Transparency under attack. Bad.”
Charlotte Church was a bit annoyed.
Over at the NHS they are not happy, according to one of its honchos:
“The head of the NHS has laid bare his fears that the government’s controversial reforms of the health service could end in “misery and failure”.
Women in the media, why the disparity?
An ex-Wikileaks supporter explains why:
“For a long time now I was a strong supporter of Julian. I used to donate regularly to him. I defended and supported his actions because I believed in the cause that he was fighting for. Since the days of the original attack I ran the primary South African Wikileaks mirror (www.wikileaks.za.org). Back in those days thousands of us rallied to support Wikileaks when it was under constant DDOS attack.
Now I see the absolute disdain the Assange`s treat this cause with I can no longer put my support behind the idea. To the Assange’s it has become the Assange Road Show. Wikileaks is all about them and their own personal agenda. “
Malatesta covers the activity of the British Far Right with humour, look out for Mike Mosley, yet another neo-Nazi that likes guns.
This is a piece of understated reporting if ever there was one.
French antisemitism comes to the fore on Twitter.
An indicator, if one was needed, of Tory failures, food banks serving more.
In Australia, the definition of misogyny is being updated.
When Universal Credit is introduced in Britain, the disabled will lose out.
Radovan Karadžić’s lying know no bounds.
When you think about buying an iPhone remember that Foxcon are still using youngsters to make their bits.
Worried by Americanisms? Linguistic traffic is not one way, as the Beeb shows.
Good news, neo-Nazi’s plans for social media thwarted by Twitter.
Tens of thousands have disappeared in Syria.
Paramilitary abuse and raped in Colombia, one woman’s tale.
Thanks to the UK Human Rights Blog and Irène Solomon there is an unofficial English translation of the Rachel Corrie judgment.
The Beeb and its mistakes over the Jimmy Savile investigation.
The New Yorker on Romney:
“Romney’s conviction is that the broad swath of citizens who do not pay federal income tax—a category that includes pensioners, soldiers, low-income workers, and those who have lost their jobs—are parasites, too far gone in sloth and dependency to be worth the breath one might spend asking for their votes. His descent to this cynical view—further evidenced by his selection of a running mate, Paul Ryan, who is the epitome of the contemporary radical Republican—has been dishearteningly smooth. He in essence renounced his greatest achievement in public life—the Massachusetts health-care law—because its national manifestation, Obamacare, is anathema to the Tea Party and to the G.O.P. in general. He has tacked to the hard right on abortion, immigration, gun laws, climate change, stem-cell research, gay rights, the Bush tax cuts, and a host of foreign-policy issues. He has signed the Grover Norquist no-tax-hike pledge and endorsed Ryan’s winner-take-all economics. “
Finally, the CST’s Online radicalisation. ‘Lone wolves’ of all stripes.
I think Martin Shovel doesn’t get the recognition that his wit and drawing skills deserve.
In this case he details with the BBC’s attitude to the NHS:
Those readers unfamiliar with the issues would do well to read Oliver Huitson’s and openDemocracy contribution:
“The BBC’s coverage of the NHS bill represents a profound failure to inform the public on an issue of the utmost importance. To summarise, it appears that:
– the BBC never questioned or explored the lack of democratic mandate for the changes to the NHS
– they consistently presented the bill using the government’s own highly contested description
– expert critics were not given the space and opportunity to highlight the true nature of their objections
– financial links between healthcare firms, the Conservatives and the House of Lords were never reported
– the significant role of the private sector in Lansley’s new health market was never explored
– fears over privatisation were occasionally stated but never explored or explained
– the role of private firms in commissioning care was not properly explained, if at all
– the role of private firms in creating the bill was never examined or reported
– sources with significant links to private healthcare were presented without a disclosure of their interests
– the BBC censored key stories, particularly as the bill reached its final stages. On 19 March 2012 when the bill was finally passed in the Lords, BBC Online published not a single article of news or analysis on the bill. “
A slightly delayed round up from a few weeks back.
Lest we forget, Exhibit focuses on scientists’ role in Holocaust.
How did this come about? As HOPE Note Hate comments.
Individual tragedy from the Middle East, the Oasis of Peace’s sad news.
Still no freedom for poorer rural women in South Africa.
The Women of Afghanistan:
“A recent study by Human Rights Watch, which interviewed 58 women and girls in prison, found that half were jailed for acts that any reasonable person would not consider a crime, like running away from abusive situations. People who force women into marriage, often at very young ages, or subject them to violence, are rarely prosecuted, the group said. Female victims get little support from police and judges, and they face the added injustice of being punished for committing “moral crimes,” like “zina” — sexual intercourse between two people not married to each other. Criminalizing zina is contrary to Afghanistan’s international obligations, the group says. “
No means no, lest George Galloway and his supporters forget that.
ADL’s Snapshot of Al Quds Day 2012:
“While the largest Al Quds Day events generally take place in the Middle East, protests are also held in cities across the United States. The protests, which took place last Friday in a dozen U.S. cities, were rife with extreme language, including signs that compared Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians to the Holocaust.
In New York, L.A. and Houston, large banners reading “Stop Palestinian Genocide” were on display, as well as other signs that read, “Israel is a Cancer,” “Down with Zionism,” Holocaust in Palestine” and “Gaza=Auschwitz.” A woman in New York held a sign that said, “Free Palestine! End ZioNazi Apartheid! No $$ to ‘Israel!’ Boycott ‘Israel’.” “
WNN is a superb source of underreported news. Recommended.
Continue reading
I had hoped to do many more individual posts, particularly on the issue of a minutes silence at the 2012 Olympic games in memory of the athletes that were murdered in Munich 1972, but instead I present another round-up of news and events.
Jonathan Freedland at the JC:
“They sought to resurrect a lost and ancient tradition, at the centre of which was the high ideal known as the Olympic truce.
The official Olympic website traces this back to Greece in the 9th century BCE, when three rival kings agreed to halt hostilities while the Games were under way: “During the Truce period, the athletes… could travel in total safety to participate in or attend the Olympic Games and return afterwards to their respective countries.”
Today’s International Olympic Committee still proclaims that goal, insisting that it is committed to “protecting” all athletes as well as “searching for peaceful and diplomatic solutions to the conflicts around the world”.
Forty years ago, the Olympic truce was violated in direct and brutal fashion. At the Munich Games of 1972, 11 athletes discovered they could not, after all, travel in “total safety” and that they would not, after all, be protected.
For Jews again to be killed on German soil was almost too much to bear.
The 11 were members of the team representing Israel. In their quarters in the Olympic village, they were seized by eight Palestinian gunmen disguised as athletes, taken as hostages, and finally killed in a botched rescue effort at a nearby airport. “
Personally, I would have preferred if Freedland had written it for the Guardian directly, but Jennifer Lipman does that and you can imagine what the comments boxes are full of? Disdain and barely concealed contempt for Jews and Israelis.
Helen Lewis at the New Statesman looks at online harassment and women.
Brown Moses has a fascinating post on Manaf Tlass:
“Hama Echo pointed me in a direction of a couple of picture of Manaf Tlass which may indicate that this defection is more about saving his own skin than any ideological differences with the Assad regime. In August 2011 the French anti-fascist website Reflex posted an article about members of the far right in France, including Frédéric Chatillon, founding a new website, InfoSyrie, to correct what they stated was the gross misrepresentation of facts by the Western media in the pay of the US and Israel.
The article goes on to describe links between the far right in France and the Alawite and Assad regime members in Syria, and describes a visit arranged by Chatillon for his associates, that include Thierry Meyssan, chairman of the Voltaire Network; Dieudonné M’bala M’bala, a anti-Semitic political activist; essayist Alain Soral; Ahmed Moualek, president of La Banlieue S’exprime (LBS); and Marc George to Lebanon, via a 5 day stop over in Syria.
This stop over in Syria is reportedly largely financed by the Tlass family, including hotels, sightseeing and drivers for their far right friends, including this meeting with Manaf Tlass (and other family members) pictured second from the left. “
There is a conspiracy theory doing the rounds concerning Arafat’s death. The NPR asks two key questions and read Hussein Ibish.
There’s another antisemitic attack in France (and I don’t expect BBC News or the Guardian to cover it in any significant way) but events in France are extremely worrying:
“A French Jewish teenager, who attends the Toulouse school where Islamist gunman Mohamed Merah shot dead three children in March, has suffered a violent anti-Semitic attack on a train, French media reports said on Thursday.
The attack on Wednesday took place on a train travelling between Toulouse, which is in the south-west, and the city of Lyon in the south-east, Le Figaro newspaper reported, quoting an interior ministry statement.
“A teenager aged 17 wearing a distinctive religious symbol, who attends Ozar Hatorah school in Toulouse, was taken to task and insulted by two individuals,” the ministry was quoted as saying.
He was then attacked near the toilets “by the same two individuals, who beat him up,” the statement said, adding that the attack ended when a fellow passenger and train conductors intervened. “
A rather naive Max Blumenthal eventually realises the company that he keeps.
The best and worst places in the world to be a woman.
A rye view of events in Israel.
Jon Stewart Mocks Mitt Romney, not hard, don’t mention Venn diagrams.
Undressing the Underwear Bomb Plot?
I tried to argue with Norm over the hyphen in antisemitism but he’d been there.
EDL activist jailed for 9 years.
Surreal? LBJ and Gordon Brown compared.
Ziad J. Asali has some hard questions for One Staters.
Still, polishing a turd? The Lobbying company trying to help improve Assad’s image.
Meanwhile in the US, Alabama Pastors Conference Invites Only ‘White Christians’:
“A group of pastors in Alabama says that they are not racist even though only “white Christians” were invited to their three-day conference, which will include a cross burning and be attended by Ku Klux Klan (KKK) members.
Residents in Guin, Alabama became outraged earlier this week after they noticed flyers posted around the town that read, “Annual Pastors Conference All White Christians Invited.” The groups Christian Identity Ministries and the Church of God’s Chosen told WIAT that they just didn’t have the “facilities” to accommodate non-whites.
“We’re seldom ever have been invited to black Muslim events and we never have been invited to NAACP events and we never have been invited to join Jewish synagogues events and stuff,” Christian Identity Ministries Pastor William J. Collier explained.
“It has nothing whatsoever to do with any kind of racism or hate or anything like that,” he added. “And anybody who would brand it as that would be a racist and a hater themselves, you know.” “
Finally, if you didn’t know about Higgs Boson then this might help:
One of the least reported stories in the media recently was the crazed and racist speech at a event in Tehran, AP explains:
“According to The New York Times, Mr Rahimi blamed Zionists, a term used by some for Jews supporting the state of Israel, for illegal drug trade, and said that Talmud, a Jewish religious book, taught followers that they were a superior race.
He said: “The Islamic Republic of Iran will pay for anybody who can research and find one single Zionist who is an addict.
“They do not exist. This is the proof of their involvement in drugs trade.”
He proceeded to blame the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution in Russia on Zionists, and said that they ordered gynaecologists to kill black babies. “
Not unsurprisingly, it was not covered by the BBC and barely by the Guardian.
Can’t say I am that shocked, nowadays it is more in the Guardian’s line to give VP Mohammad Reza Rahimi a column than criticize his disgusting racism, but back to the real issue.
John-Paul Pagano has provided a detailed breakdown of Rahimi’s speech:
“He added: Eighty percent of American wealth is in the hands of 6 percent of the Jewish world and a U.S. researcher says that in order to reduce the population of American Indians a Jewish doctor of obstetrics and gynecology rendered 8000 of them sterile — all of these teachings are in the Talmud. “
وي افزود: هشتاد درصد ثروت آمريكا در دست شش درصد از يهوديان دنياست و يك محقق آمريكايي ميگويد يك پزشك زنان و زايمان يهود براي كاهش نسل سرخپوستان هشت هزار نفر از آنها را عقيم كرده است و همه اين مباحث در آموزههاي تلموت است.
“
I wonder if any “anti-Zionists” will ever admit the depth of racism at the heart of the Iranian leadership?
Or perhaps, like the BBC, it really isn’t an issue for them.
I was about to put out a number of individual posts, but it is probably more worthwhile to include them in a round up:
Surprise, surprise, neofascist killer, Breivik took drugs before going on his murder spree.
I wonder if the chess playing Israeli boycotters will avoid the games of Boris Gelfand?
The singing neo-Nazi, Gary Marsden I’Anson, is on his uppers.
Whilst I had appreciated the level of uranium enrichment completed by the Iranian regime, the actual volume and size of the material, some 6 tons of UF6 enriched to 3.5 percent, was a shock to me. That is a lot of enriched uranium.
Searchlight on Journalist falls for EDL’s absurd claims.
This evening’s BBC Panorama programme investigated neofascism and football in the Ukraine and it was horrific to watch.
The blurb states:
“With just days to go before the kick-off of the Euro 2012 championships, Panorama reveals shocking new evidence of racist violence and anti-semitism at the heart of Polish and Ukrainian football and asks whether tournament organiser UEFA should have chosen both nations to host the prestigious event.
Reporter Chris Rogers witnesses a group of Asian fans being attacked on the terraces of a Ukrainian premier league match and hears anti-Semitic chanting at games in Poland. And with exclusive access to a far right group in Ukraine which recruits and trains football hooligans to attack foreigners, Panorama asks: how safe will travelling football teams and their supporters be at this summer’s European festival of football? “
It is available on the BBC Iplayer and will be rebroadcast on Thu 31 May 2012, 04:30 – BBC News Channel, Fri 1 Jun 2012, 01:35 – BBC One and Sun 3 Jun 2012, 20:30 – BBC News Channel.
Also see the HOPE not hate blog.
The CST does the admirable job of providing security, assistance and help to the Jewish community in Britain.
But not only that, its annual reports detail the rise (and occasional dip) in antisemitism.
Further, the CST blog describes in detail instances of racism towards Jews and is a required reading for anyone seriously opposed to antisemitism.
Boycott Israel: Zionists are “the most hateful people imaginable”, their latest entry looks at the inflammatory and disparaging language which is invariably found within boycott Israelis type groupings:
“The website of the London branch of the boycott Israel movement (the people who intend to disrupt next week’s Israeli performances of The Merchant of Venice), carries an article stating that Zionists are
the most hateful people imaginable
The boycott Israel article also describes Zionism as:
a murderous, parasitic doctrine
Dehumanisation and demonisation are the basic building blocks of racism and racist violence. Zionism is a political choice, so anti-Zionism is not exactly racism.
Still, most Jews are Zionists; and Zionism is inextricably linked with Jews, Judaism and Jewish history. To be a Zionist in a post-Holocaust world is, for many Jews, simply the most basic issue of survival.
In 2010, JPR’s survey showed that 72% of British Jews self-categorise as “Zionist”.
If Zionists are “the most hateful people imaginable” then surely Zionists, as well as Israel, ought to be boycotted? Hell, Zionists probably deserve a good kicking also. After all, who ever complained when neo-Nazi skinheads get assaulted?
So, if you dehumanise and demonise Zionists there will be an antisemitic outcome.
Nobody asks Jewish victims a survey about Zionism before hitting them over the head, or trying to burn down their synagogue, or trying to murder children at a Jewish Primary school. (Indeed, this is why the anti-Zionist leftists have nothing to say about any of this, not even when it comes down to dead children.)”
[My emphasis on last part.]
Such rabble-rousing language amongst anti-Zionists is all too common and has filtered into the mainstream, evidenced by the content of Comment Is Free or the thinking behind BBC’s HARDtalk, as another CST post demonstrated:
“Jewish conspiracy theory is fundamental to antisemitism. It relies on the notion of Jewish wealth and power, working against the rest of society. It is commonly expressed as Jews controlling politicians and the media.
This does not render discussion of Jewish political and media influence illegitimate. It does, however, require discussion of them to be sensitive and careful. If one is not discussing a Jewish conspiracy, then a responsible journalist should say so, explicitly. For example, Peter Oborne knew the antisemitic risks in his Channel 4 programme, ‘Inside Britain’s Israel Lobby’. He explicitly stated that he had found no conspiracy, nor anything resembling one. (Sadly, the risks were made clear when many of those covering the programme made no such distinctions.)
Unfortunately, BBC’s flagship HARDtalk programme took no such care in its recent interview with the controversial Norman Finkelstein. On the contrary, the interview proceeded as if American foreign policy is beholden to Israel and that this can only be explained by “the Jewish lobby”.
Complaints to the BBC solicited the answer you would expect: this is HARDtalk, so we have to reflect the views of our guest, Norman Finkelstein, and we then robustly challenge those views.”
There is some debate as to whether or not it was appropriate for an exam paper to ask:
“Explain briefly why some people are prejudiced against Jews.”
My gut feeling was how inappropriate such a question might be for children, and the result of mainstreaming of anti-Jewish racism within academia. We have seen it manifest before.
But on reflection (and I’m glad that Norm seems to agree with me), I think discussing racism is a good idea, even if the wording is poor.
Opening up the subject, not letting it fester away in the corner, but facing all our prejudices, both individual, collective and societal is a good idea.
It helps us address the question, why is antisemitism still prevalent in western societies?
In Syria, according to the BBC there is continued killing of civilians in Rastan. Not unsurprisingly there is little indignation in the Western media concerning the shelling of the defenceless by Assad’s murderous gang.
Elsewhere, Chris Dillow makes an acute observation on Leveson inquiry:
“Tittle-tattle about whether Hunt should resign or not symbolises an ideology that disfigures our politics – the idea that what’s needed for proper decision-making is men of the right character. But this is not enough. You also need the right systems. And these have not been in place. If Hunt does have to resign – and I can think of nothing I care less about – he will pay the price for a political system which over-rates the role of personality and under-rates the role of structure.
Alfred North Whitehead famously said that “civilization advances by extending the number of important operations which we can perform without thinking of them.” By this standard, government hasn’t advanced very much. “
Over in Egypt.
I have never much followed the Daily Beast but Hussein Ibish is a must read for anyone serious about understanding the Middle East. His, Stop Settler Violence, is a very necessary post.
How much enrichment is really just for medical purposes? You decide:
“There are civilian uses for 20% enriched uranium, but it is also a significant technical step towards producing weapons-grade uranium.
Iran has told the agency it was a mistake in starting up the cascades of centrifuges, the machines used to enrich uranium.
Nuclear experts say that is plausible. But one senior diplomat in Vienna refused to speculate. “It can happen,” he said, “it needs to be checked”. “
Mystical Politics explains it better.
Apparently, EU to look into antisemitism on continent.
Racism is a common theme in many Western societies.
Nowadays it is less conspicuous than it was, but its still around.
Many had thought that the Metropolitan Police had been cured of overt racism, or at least, banished it to the deepest reaches.
Stephen Lawrence’s murder and the subsequent bungling produced many changes in British policing, but there are still problems as Channel 4 reported:
“Exclusive: As a senior Met Police officer says warnings of racism have fallen on “deaf ears”, Channel 4 News reveals 120 race-related cases over the past decade – and only one officer dismissed.
The figures, which were obtained under the Freedom of Information act, come as the Metropolitan Police reveal that nine staff, including one civilian, have been suspended amid allegations of racism.
Ten cases have been referred to the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) and they include allegations of racist assaults in broad daylight as well as the racist abuse of prisoners behind closed doors.
The statistics come 13 years after the Macpherson Report , launched after the murder of black teenager Stephen Lawrence, branded the force “institutionally racist”.
Channel 4 News can reveal that between 1999 and 2011:
• 120 police officers at the Metropolitan Police were found guilty of racist behaviour
• Of these, 21 received some kind of sanction, most commonly a fine
• Six were forced to resign
• Just one police officer of the 120 was dismissed “
Doreen Lawrence argues the Met hasn’t changed, and the case of Kester David suggests as much.
The antisemite, Mel Gibson, is in the news again.
BBC One had a rather good programme, The Story of the Turban.
It deals with the Sikh faith and the importance of the Turban, but in passing it shines a light on racism in Britain from the 1970s to the Nineties, which is still very relevant today.
The BBC’s Today Programme gave Jenny Tonge a platform and an opportunity to justify her offensive and ahistorical remarks.
She was in a hole, but she kept digging.
I will await a full transcript, but here are a few of her comments that I heard:
Tonge: “This State [in an exasperated tone] angers everyone and irritates everyone.”
“….Now trying to take the whole area for themselves.”
“He’s [Ken O’Keefe] a brave man “.
Frankly, I wish we could hear more of Tonge, as with each passing moment her idiocy becomes plainer.
Such people needs their views exposing for the polite racism that they are.
A copy of the programme can be downloaded here as an MP3.
Update 1: Been thinking.
It would be better next time if interviewers tackled Tonge on her conspiratorial ideas, and asked her some harder questions like:
“Baroness Tonge, do you believe that ‘Zionists’ control American foreign policy?”
“Didn’t you say that Israelis should be investigated for organ theft in Haiti?”
“Baroness Tonge, do you believe, as you said in 2006 that ‘”The pro-Israeli lobby has got its grips on the western world, its financial grips. I think they’ve probably got a grip on our party.” ?”
“Baroness Tonge, didn’t the Palestine Telegraph, which you were a patron push the video of the antisemite, David Duke, on-time Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan? Why did they do that?”
Jenny Tonge is a professional politician and does not deserve the kid gloves treatment that she gets from the British media.
We hear far too little about the rampant killings that have gone on in Syria for months and months, so this BBC documentary is rather timely:
It is also available via iplayer, Syria: Inside the Secret Revolution
The British National Party are a bunch of misfits, hard core racists and assorted neo-Nazi types.
Not only that, they are chronically incompetent. The BNP can’t even manage to comply with British electoral laws.
Earlier the BBC’s Panorama exposed the fraud, stupidity and corrosive racism at the heart of the BNP.
The program can be viewed via the BBC’s iplayer, BNP: The Fraud Exposed.
For those unable to access the Beeb iplayer I am sure a copy will be available somewhere across the web, shortly.
The Beeb covered the BNP before, 2004, and in the Secret Agent which can be found on YouTube.
Soupy One 