This morning, multiple news outlets reported that the British government will adopt the Working Definition of Antisemitism. Downing Street said that the WD would assist “in efforts to fight hate crimes and incitement targeting Jews” and by ensuring that “culprits will not be able to get away with being antisemitic because the term is ill-defined, or because different organisations or bodies have different interpretations of it”.
Even if you are not convinced that the Zionism = Racism canard is not antisemitic in intent, it is undeniably antisemitic in effect, because such a characterization necessarily means that Jews (the overwhelming majority of whom are Zionists) support a racist ideology.
Today, the National Union of Students (NUS), the body representing seven million students in the UK, has its national conference. One Jewish delegate, Izzy Lenga, has written an article “Why I won`t be at tomorrow`s NUS NEC meeting”, in which she describes the hostile environment that Jewish students are facing on campus in general, and from student leadership in particular.
If the Guardian journalist had done some fact checking, he would have easily found such evidence clearly contradicting the WCC spokesperson’s claims that they have “no connection to BDS”.
As readers of The London Magazine will learn in the latest issue of the publication, the American writer Ben Ehrenreich thinks “that the word ‘terrorism’ forms this very powerful narrative function in silencing Palestinian voices and giving the sole authority to Israelis.”
The Independent continues to lead the British media pack when it comes to story selections designed to paint Israel in the worst possible light. Here’s a recent example from the Indy’s Israel page of two stories published within a day of each other which each focusing on sexual attitudes within Israeli society.
Though most in the West could be forgiven for failing to appreciate that Israelis have a life beyond the conflict and actually occupy themselves with quotidian concerns such as ‘What’s on TV?”, the reality is that – in addition to the fact that Israelis can now (legally) enjoy popular Netflix shows like The Crown and House of Cards – the country has actually become one of the world’s leading exporters of home-grown tv show formats.
When the Guardian talks about Benjamin Netanyahu`s election victory, there is no semblance of balance. Netanyahu is described as having “crossed red lines,” “dealt a grievous blow to any prospect of peace process,” and is accused of having “trampled” upon democratic principles
Here’s the latest installment in our ongoing series of posts highlighting BDS Fails.
We contacted Times of London editors to ask if they typically use the word “Jews” (in their headlines) as a synonym for “Israel”, “Israelis” or “Israeli MKs”.
Yesterday, we posted about an article titled: ‘The Economist Explains: The status of Arabic speakers in Israel‘, included the bizarre claim that “Arabic songs were banned from Israeli radio for several decades.” We contacted the editor responsible for the article, who promptly responded to inform us that they upheld our complaint and removed the sentence in question.
A Nov. 27th article in The Economist titled ‘The Economist Explains: The status of Arabic speakers in Israel’, included the claim that “Arabic songs were banned from Israeli radio for several decades.” However, evidence suggests there couldn’t possibly have been such a ban (“for several decades”) on Arabic songs.
Our point isn’t to debate the merits of the Knesset’s muezzin bill, but to question why Fraser highlighted only Israeli efforts to limit noise from mosque loudspeakers – in a column focused on noise from a British airport – when he could have used similar examples from anywhere in the world.
Arab leaders have always treated Palestinian refugees as a political, rather than a humanitarian issue, and have placed political attacks against Israel above the welfare of the Palestinian people.
As the Jerusalem Post noted, the most recent FBI hate crime stats for 2015 showed that a shocking 53.3 percent of the religiously motivated hate crimes (or 664 incidents) were directed at Jews, who make up less than 2 percent of the population.
By uncritically repeating such toxic canards, and fail to make a serious effort to separate facts from anti-Zionist fiction, the Indy may increasingly be viewed by many within the British Jewish community as something akin to a purveyor of fake news about the Jewish state.
Though the PSC (whose Patrons include Jenny Tonge and Caryl Churchill) has every right to spread this kind of propaganda, the New Statesman – which, despite it’s hostility to Israel, fancies itself a serious news magazine guided by “scepticism” and “free thinking” – owes its readers more than to amplify, license and legitimise such one-sided, intellectually unserious hyperbole.
Cross posted from the blog of the Zionist Federation Prolific anti-Israel campaigner Ben White has announced the publication of his latest book: “The 2014 Gaza War: 21 Questions And Answers.” Given that […]
At times we take our collective memory of Guardian coverage of Israel for granted, so we’ve decided to provide a list of some egregious examples of bias and over the years – information helpful in contextualizing our ongoing analysis of the ‘liberal’ British newspaper.
The goal of journalism is to report the facts and inform the reader. When the Independent chose to mislead with a photo of Netanyahu, they were not engaging in journalism, but were involved in polemic and slander.
In the Guardian mentality, you cannot carry a story of an ex-muslim persecuted for his apostasy for fear of inspiring hate against muslims. Thus a genuine case of hate crime is ignored on the grounds it could lead to other, imagined hate crimes.
The British do need to “reflect on a painful legacy”. Balfour was written in 1917. By 1922 the Mandate was in place. If the British had swiftly finished the job they had been given international license to carry out, just how many Jewish lives could have been saved?
At present there is no approval process for booking rooms in Parliament. This is clearly unsatisfactory. I hope people will write to their MPs to support the implementation of such a process — so that extremist meetings like that hosted by Tonge will never again be held in Parliament.
Indy readers interested in learning about the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict are informed that Israel destroys Muslim graves, shoots innocent Palestinian children, breaches Palestinian rights to development and violates the academic freedom of pro-Palestinian Britons.
“When you look at the events at UCL…the intention of the protestors was the same as in the 1970s when Jewish Societies were banned: to declare Zionism outside the boundaries of the democratic community of a Students’ Union. This inevitably places most Jewish students outside that boundary and restricts their rights and activities in comparison to other students on campus.”
On Friday, we spotted the following error in an Independent article written by Matt Broomfield titled “Israel: Prayer protesters in violent Western Wall clash with ultra-conservative Orthodox Jews”. False claim @Independent. No, the […]
What the Indy sold to readers as the wanton destruction by Israeli officials, who “stormed” a historic cemetery to destroy Muslim “graves”, can more accurately be characterized as a cynical public relations stunt within a long pattern of Palestinian efforts to destroy Temple Mount antiquities and erase Jewish history.
There are many reasonable criticisms of British and French involvement in the war, but to characterize the military action to end an illegal blockade of Israeli ships as an “unprovoked” attack is just absurd.
Mazzig and Jewish attendees were repeatedly intimidated and harassed and eventually had to be evacuated by police. The incident prompted a chorus of criticism from MPs and Jewish organizations, which led to an announcement by the university that an official investigation would be launched. UK news outlets reporting the incident include the Times of London, the Telegraph, the Daily Mail, the Independent, the Express, the Evening Standard, Channel 4 News and LBC. Yet, the ‘anti-racism’ campaigners at the Guardian have thus far completely ignored the story.
Here’s the latest installment in our ongoing series of posts detailing BDS fails: Political BDS Fails British Jewish Groups Welcome Suspension of UK Funding to Palestinian Authority as International Concerns Over Terror […]
I tried dialogue pointing out the carnage taking place across the Islamic world and asked why they were indifferent to the slaughter of their co-religionists in industrial numbers but they were not interested. Nothing could placate them. Israel was the focus of their universe and the fount of all evil with Hen as the object of their mania.
As we’ve argued repeatedly, the Indy – which facies itself a progressive voice whose aim is to ‘comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable, and to ‘speaks truth to power’ – has demonstrated its shameful moral confusion when covering acts of violence and intimidation against Jews by activists who are illiberal, anti-democratic and, more often than not, outright antisemitic.
Beyond a few outspoken voices within the artistic community (and the editors at Haaretz), it’s difficult to find evidence of “a growing chorus of criticism” within the country over the national theatre company’s decision to perform in a community across the green line.
As first reported by blogger David Collier last night, and picked up by Times of London today, a Palestine Return Centre meeting at the House of Lords hosted by Baroness Jenny Tonge included the accusation that world Jewry was responsible for inciting Adolf Hitler to launch the Holocaust.
Beyond the truly risible charge that Israel is guilty of ‘perpetuating’ racist stereotypes towards ancient communities within extinct empires, the Indy op-ed again demonstrates how Jews’ historically undeniable connection to Israel is seen by activists like White as necessarily undermining the anti-Zionist agitprop which lies at the very core of pro-Palestinian movement.
The Indy failed to note that the “news organizations” in question (Quds News Network and Shehab News Agency) are both reportedly affiliated with terror groups, and neglected to tell readers that the “journalists” had their Facebook accounts reinstated within a day of the suspension. A Facebook spokesperson apologized, saying the suspensions had been “accidental”.
In a new essay at Tablet, Shany Mor argues that though UNESCO was rightly criticized for passing a resolution omitting Jewish ties to the Temple Mount, what their resolution affirmed about the ‘connection’ between al-Aqsa Mosque and violence is much more troubling.
The following is a clip of Rich talking at a Fathom Forum on Oct. 20th on: antisemitism and Labour: where has this crisis come from, how has it impacted the UK Jewish community, what must the party do now to put things right?
This antisemitism has infested Labour; it is infesting the church too. Those institutions infected will not be rid of it until they cleanse the anti-Zionist myths from within.
As far as UNESCO is concerned, the site where once the Jewish temples stood – and where the Christian Bible situates important events in the life of Jesus – should rightly be known as the Muslim “Holy Site Al-Aqsa Mosque/Al-Haram Al-Sharif.”
The Guardian headline accompanying an article by Harriet Sherwood on UNESCO’s resolution denying Jewish connection to the Temple Mount represented a classic example of burrying the lead, which we pointed in a tweet.
Anti-Israel propagandists, no matter how ludicrous their accusation, can always expect a fair hearing and ample publicity from the Guardian – especially as it involves BDS.
As we approach Yom Kippur, the holiest day on the Jewish calendar, we highly recommend a thoughtful meditation on the Jewish culture of self-criticism by Ruth Wisse recently published in the Wall […]
Though the terrorist nature of the attack, and the nationalities of the perpetrator and victims, were never in doubt, Times of London editors chose the following vague and anodyne headline to accompany a Oct. 10th print article by Gregg Carlstrom: “Man shoots two dead in tram attack”.
One of the more curious things said by Jackie Walker, recently suspended by the Labour Party and removed as Vice-Chair of Momentum (although retained on its Steering Committee) for comments she made at a Labour Party training event on antisemitism, was that she hasn’t “heard a definition of antisemitism that I can work with”. To aid Jackie, and for anybody else wondering about definitions of antisemitism, here is a quick guide to some of the definitions currently in use:
Once again, we see the lengths British media outlets will go to avoid admitting error.
The Working Definition makes a clear distinction – as do most campaigners against antisemitism – between criticism of Israel which crosses the line to antisemitism and that criticism (when leveled in a manner similar to criticism of any other country) which “cannot be regarded as antisemitic”.
We’d like to wish those celebrating Rosh HaShanah a happy, healthy and peaceful new year. Shana Tova!
Here’s the latest installment in our ongoing series documenting BDS fails.
The headline of the Sept. 28th piece, “Shimon Peres was no peacemaker. I’ll never forget the sight of pouring blood and burning bodies at Qana”, says it all. Don’t remember Peres, Fisk is saying, as a statesman who held every major government position during his career, or a Nobel Peace Prize Winner for his efforts to reach an agreement with the Palestinians. Rather, he suggests, the thought of Peres should rightly evoke memories of tortured humanity inflicted by Israel’s cruel machines of war – a legacy of “blood, fire and slaughter”.
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