New wave antisemitism

The BBC hasn’t reported this story, but it reached the Times (£) today. 

TV film on migrant Muslims’ hate of Europe’s Jews axed

You’d think the BBC would be interested, since it concerns a TV film about migrants. 

TV film. Migrants. What’s not to like?

But no. This story is not so much about migrants; it’s more about censorship. The BBC knows about that too, but probably isn’t keen on giving this particular censorship-related revelation the oxygen of publicity. You’ve probably seen the story. It was blogged by Not a Sheep, Breitbart, Pamela Geller and The Times of Israel. 

COLOGNE — A new documentary on European anti-Semitism was financed with over €170,000 of taxpayer money. So why is it not being shown to the public? Because the TV networks holding the rights refuse to broadcast it. 

The 90-minute film, “Chosen and Excluded — Jew Hatred in Europe” by German producers Joachim Schröder and Sophie Hafner, was commissioned by German public TV broadcaster WDR on behalf of its French-German partner channel Arte. 

Presenting the various ways in which anti-Semitism is expressed in contemporary Europe, the documentary shows right-wing Neo-Nazis, BDS activists and a demonstrator dressed like a hippie who designates himself a libertarian and praises the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion.” Anti-Semitism among worker’s rights activists in France is featured alongside cases of Muslim Jew-hatred, some of which culminate in the torturing and cold-blooded murder of Jews. 

However, once the documentary was submitted — and approved by the editor — the heads of the networks decided that it would not be broadcast because the movie allegedly “fails to meet formal requirements.” 

Throughout Europe, the decision has roused much criticism: The French daily Le Monde and German anti-Semitism researcher Monika Schwarz-Friesel, among others, call it a case of censorship. 

Paying special attention to the denigration of the state of Israel as one of the most prevalent contemporary forms of Jew-hatred, the documentary highlights the activities of NGOs that engage in anti-Semitic Israel bashing while receiving European tax money. In order to contextualize anti-Semitic libel about the Jewish state by contrasting it with the reality on the ground, the producers included footage from Israel and the Palestinian territories. 

That footage, ironically, is what Arte program director Alain Le Diberder, states as the major reason for pulling the plug on the production. 

In a press statement Le Diberder claims that the producers failed to comply with the requirement to deliver a documentary about anti-Semitism in Europe, because they included too much footage from Israel and too little from European countries. 

“This is ludicrous,” says Serap Güler, a member of both the WDR network’s program council as well as the executive committee of German chancellor Angela Merkel’s CDU-party. 

Michaela Engelmeier, a Social-Democratic member of the Bundestag (Germany’s federal parliament), likewise calls Le Diberder’s statement “incomprehensible.”

Read it all. 

What’s fascinating, in a morbidly ironic way, is that RT has also featured the story, but they’ve angled it in a different way. They’re focusing on the backlash. “French-German broadcaster faces backlash after ditching anti-Semitism film”    Look how the piece is illustrated.

The comments below the line are rabidly antisemitic, proving a diametrically opposite point to the one intended. 

Backlash? Of a sort, maybe; but not against French-German broadcaster channel Arte. Just unadulterated Jew-bashing mayhem. 

Among the writers and bloggers who are nonplussed by the avalanche of antisemitism unleashed by Labour’s popularity is Marc Goldberg. His piece is enigmatically titled “The Irrelevance of Antisemitism.” ( Harry’s Place)  Of course he didn’t mean he thinks antisemitism is irrelevant. It means he’s staggered by the number of labour voters and supporters to whom it actually is. They deny that antisemitism exists in the Labour Party because "legitimate criticism of Israel is not antisemitic" and accuse the accusers of perpetuating smears.

Were you aware that Jeremy Corbyn wrote to Theresa May in January because he was “concerned that there was a plot against British democracy” ? 

I can’t remember if I knew about it at the time and had forgotten or if it was new to me, but either way it says more about Jeremy Corbyn’s stupidity and spitefulness than it does about hyperbolised theories about Israelis plotting to undermine democracy. 

The plot in question was, of course, al Jazeera’s undercover film that caught a junior member of the Israeli Embassy on camera “plotting” to “take down” Alan Duncan, (which sadly came to nothing.) 

The openness with which antisemitism is being expressed is one thing. The fact that it is based on so much misinformation is something that the BBC has the means to correct, and if they do not do so soon, they will look just as guilty as the next antisemite.

Fine Line of Duty

“The terrorist is still alive, the dog” warns a Hebrew voice on a video. Two minutes later an IDF solder shoots Abdel-fattah al-Sharif in the head, according to Gregg Carlstrom’s report in yesterday’s Times, as well as assorted pro-Palestinian sources.

“An Israeli soldier has been arrested for fatally shooting a Palestinian man in the head when he was already incapacitated after carrying out a stabbing.”

The video has been widely disseminated. From this armchair it looks as though everyone present on the scene is behaving oddly and callously.

The Times of Israel adds more:

“That terrorist is still alive, the dog! Don’t let him attack us!” one medic is heard saying after apparently seeing the Palestinian moving. 

“It looks like he has a bomb on him,” shouts another voice. “Until a sapper comes, nobody touches him!”

There is an interesting below the line  debate on Harry’s Place, following Marc Goldberg’s article about the incident in which he is highly critical of the soldier and cites Israel’s declining moral values.

Obviously Marc Goldberg and many other idealists would prefer it if Israel could permanently occupy the moral high ground, no ifs, no buts. Who wouldn’t? 

However, the demand is that Israel must never do anything morally questionable under any circumstances. Were it possible to satisfy such uncompromising standards, it would simply be ‘bye-bye Israel’.

As it is, we’ll have to settle for the fact that the soldier has been arrested, and that Israeli spokespersons have issued statements  “including from Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who called it a violation of the army’s ethical code.”

Awkward, isn’t it? It could turn out like previous occasions, where the Israeli government’s initial expressions of regret are viewed as admissions of guilt. This enfeebles any extenuating circumstances that might come to light thereafter. But if the Israeli authorities don’t immediately condemn this kind of incident, it looks even worse. 

We mustn’t completely lose sight of the fact that these Palestinian young men had just stabbed a soldier.

Strangely enough, the Palestinians don’t even bother to pretend of any kind of regret about their citizens murdering unarmed Israeli civilians. In fact they’re out and proud, and no-one in the Times, the Guardian, the BBC is in the slightest bit interested.

This report on the BBC website is almost unforthcoming in its robotic, staccato presentation. Uninformative is better than overtly hostile I suppose. Maybe the BBC is afraid to open its mouth. (only joking) 

It’s odd that this incident echoes the new series of “Line of Duty”, in which an armed policeman shoots and kills a disarmed criminal. We’re given to believe that as the story unfolds, this is not the cold-blooded execution it appears to be. We’ll have to wait and see how it pans out, no?

Family matters

Several recent stories raise this question. Are there circumstances in which self-examination is justifiably  kept ‘within the family’? 

I wrote about this once before, with regard to an angst-ridden article on Harry’s Place by Marc Goldberg.  More recently he’s come up with another piece, which outlines his misgivings about what he sees as  the IDF’s gratuitously callous behaviour towards Palestinians.

I wrote, then: 

“Fundamentally Goldberg is a staunch Zionist, but his criticisms of the Israeli government, albeit well-meant, are beginning to look a bit disloyal. No matter how affectionate and constructive a given criticism might be,  in a particular context it’s often wise to keep them ‘within the family’.
As far as Israel is concerned, all criticism is a potential gift to the enemy.   The argument in the b.t.l. comments on that thread seems to be whether or not Harry’s Place is enough of an ‘insider ‘- a family member - to bear what might be considered internal wrangling, by airing its dirty linen in public, without undermining  its delicate fundamentals; whether, as far as pro-Israel site Harry’s Place is concerned, Israel’s reputation can withstand continual bashing from one of its own.Problem is, if you criticise the critic, you’re damned as an unreasonable ‘Israel Firster’, and if you don’t the world just grabs the criticism and runs with it.”

That response to Marc Goldberg’s latest piece still applies, and the below the line comments take up the argument. Some commenters query Marc’s interpretation of events and the validity of his recollections. Sadly, they’ll all be gone soon, as Harry's Place deletes comments after a week.

The fact is, Marc offers some troubling examples of the IDF behaving badly.

The responses range from ‘No army in the world can guarantee 100% purity’ to (in the current climate of ant-Israel rhetoric and demonisation) ‘Israel can’t afford any deviations from the path of righteousness‘ ; the argument about airing one’s dirty linen in public goes on and on.

Of course, public displays of individuals’ crises of conscience will be seized upon by the opposition. As far as the Israel Palestine conflict is concerned we pro-Israel bloggers do our fair share of exploiting such opportunities whenever such a thing is handed to us. 

Unfortunately though, such opportunities are few and far between, at least in comparison to the hand-wringing and breast beating that goes on amongst Israelis, which play to the powerful negative tropes that guarantee  applause from  outsiders.

You can lambaste a family member but woe betide an outsider who dares to do the same.

Criticism made with intimacy or affection, or if not that, at least with understanding, is quite different from that which comes from dispassionate or hostile sources. 

The example Marc Goldberg used to illustrate questionable behaviour and provocation by an Israeli solder in his article was an unfortunate choice. 

It has proved controversial for a number of reasons. 

First, because the Palestinians in the film are part of a notorious family of activists and provocateurs, the Tamimi family. The girl shown biting the soldier is little Shirley Temper aka Ahed Tamimi, and the boy with the familiar  Tamimi scream is her brother Mohammed, who has been filmed sporting a plaster-cast either on the right or left arm. 

The Tamimi family have been feted by pro-Palestinian activists and are about to embark on a European speaking tour with the encouragement of Amnesty International.

The British press have handled this tale with more caution than they would once have done. The Telegraph pulled it, after being tipped off that it was a ‘Pallywood Production’. The Guardian initially ignored it, then published what might pass for a nuanced piece, which was ultimately fiercely  pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel.

“In a conflict where young Palestinian stone-throwers are too often shot dead by Israeli soldiers, this was a confrontation that remained on the threshold of more serious violence.” 

The Daily Mail initially fell for it, but later reversed their angle and ‘revealed’ the ‘truth’.  

Whatever truths the incident exposed it makes no difference to those working against Israel.  If you want, you can donate to the “Tamimi Family Care Package’. They engineer these situations for effect, and your cash will boost their activities.

 The media is an essential part of this pantomime.  That is another good reason for keeping your criticisms in the family.

Now there’s another subject which is bound to raise these questions yet again. Censored Voices, a film about self-doubt, crises of conscience and anguish from Israeli soldiers who fought in the the 1967 six-day war. The filmmaker took a particular angle, which was that the Israeli government had originally censored these damning statements by as much as 70%. This turns out not to have been the case at all, but it’s a long and convoluted tale, which is set out in full here. 

The same complex arguments are also explored in the form of various responses. 

One is by the eloquent Israeli journalist Matti Friedman, and his article includes some important passages:

“All of this raises a key question for Israeli public life as well as for individual Israeli writers and artists. Given the way any scrap of critical information is seized upon, shorn of context, and hammered into a weapon to be used against us, must we Israelis temper the harsh self-analysis that has always been a national point of pride?”

“My modest suggestion is that Israelis must become more aware of the dangerous tropes that are establishing themselves where their country is concerned, and avoid them to the extent possible. Although this may sound strange to friends of Israel abroad, many Israelis, including journalists and directors, don’t grasp the nature of the international discussion of their country, or the degree to which much of that discussion is unprecedented in its scale and hostility. Such ignorance might have been forgivable five or ten years ago, but it isn’t any longer. Playing ball with the “moral striptease” genre is hard to resist—because of the international interest that comes with it, and because it saves you the trouble of actually creating stories and characters with compelling universal appeal. But it should be resisted nonetheless. Self-flagellation, if performed at the behest of someone else, with money from somewhere else, is no longer just self-flagellation, and there is nothing honorable about it.”

Despite the fact that the Pallywood film has ‘gone viral’, or at the very least created a lot of media interest, as far as I can see the BBC has stayed away from the story. The only sign it’s out there is in the “Elsewhere on the Web” category. It’s probably a subject that the BBC thinks is too hot to handle, and in many ways it’s probably just as well.

The fact is that when these Friday rituals occur - Palestinians protesting against the occupation and the Israelis almost obediently ‘reacting’, the whole shebang is accompanied by photographers. In a way, it’s just as much the media's creation as anyone else’s.

The media has such a lot to answer for with regard to the demonisation of Israel, the misrepresentation of the history of the conflict and the pro-Palestinian bias which fuels the Palestinians’ sense of grievance, which can do nothing but prolong the misery on both sides.

The current Israel/Palestine situation is unique. Pleading for less reporting on certain unfortunate incidents rather than the obsessive focus on them that we’re more accustomed to is one case where the epithet “You’re not helping’ might justifiably be thrown back at the BBC.

Chickens and Foxes

I wanted to write about two interesting blog [cross] posts by Marc Goldberg on Harry’s Place. The comments there are nearly always as interesting as the original post, and that’s why that website, and for me those  threads in particular, make compulsive reading. 

Incidentally, does Marc Goldberg seem a bit surprised that the BBC-educated British believe so wholeheartedly in the so-called Palestinian narrative they’ve been fed by the likes of the BBC?

The first piece is about popular author Iain Banks’s article in the Guardian, where he expounds on his support for BDS.

I have to say I haven’t read it, and I’m becoming more and more squeamish about celebrities’ wrong-headed opinions about I/P seeping into my subconscious, so I don’t intend to. However,  the excerpts I’ve read are quite enough to see that he uses the "You of all People” argument, which Chas Newky-Burden very neatly demolished after David Ward MP said something, less literary in substance perhaps, but very similar in tone.

What makes this business even more irksome is that Iain Banks has announced his regrettable, premature, imminent death from cancer, which has catapulted him to a Special Saintly Situation, whereupon supernatural powers of wisdom are bestowed upon him and all his musings. 

No doubt, as the MP for Bradford with its high ‘Muslim demographic’, it’s in Mr. Ward’s political interest to promote the anti-Israel agenda as his constituents very likely have a strong preference for such a stance. But Iain Banks?  Why would this issue be of particular interest to him?  Why choose it as the subject of his high profile farewell? If his intention was to bow out on a cloud of self righteousness, I think he miscalculated because as time goes by more and more people will come to recognize his words as those of a sanctimonious fool.

To clarify, in his second post concerning the holocaust Marc Goldberg discusses: “Lessons that ought to have been learned by the Jews” .

 “............ YES the Holocaust was an education for our people. During the Holocaust we learned very well. We learned that a fool wins an argument with the smartest man alive so long as he is a fool with a rifle. We learned that it doesn’t matter what promises are made to us or how safe we think we are, we will always be the expendable ones, we will always be the ones you will throw under the bus, we learned that if we wish to survive as a people then we will need to get down in the dirt and behave like all of the other peoples of this world, that we cannot depend on the Iain Bankses of this world to stand up for us because when it comes down to it, for all their talk they won’t.”

 And Chas Newky-Burden says:

”Let us strip the “they-of-all-people” argument down to its very basics: gentiles telling Jews that we killed six million of your people and that as a result it is you, not us, who have lessons to learn; that it is you, not us, who need to clean up your act. It is an argument of atrocious, spiteful insanity.”

Here’s a foxes and chickens analogy. You’re asking the (Jews) chickens to remember what it was like being killed, and then say to themselves “we have learned our lesson; we Jews (chickens) must not inflict such suffering on the (Palestinians) foxes because we know what suffering is like.”

That argument presupposes that the  Palestinians are inherently intent on annihilating the Jews, which they obviously are, which is what the West steadfastly fails to admit. It’s the antisemitic nature of fundamentalist Islam  that is the big flaw in this “good example” philosophy. It just doesn’t work. It was the major flaw in the philosophy of the unilateral nuclear disarmament movement and in Obama’s naive hand of friendship maneuver.

 Don’t be stupid chickens, the lesson is: You, (Jews) of all fowls, (human beings), don’t ever let them do that to you again.

Chickens aren't stupid

So you (Jews) of all fowls (humanity)  are the very ones who must protect yourselves. No-one else will. The UN (farmer) is fast asleep, and the bystanders (Western Liberal World) think the poor fox is cute, and if his babies are hungry the chickens are cruel not to just let themselves be eaten for lunch.

Anyway that’s it.    Instead of writing about what I intended to, I wrote about chickens,  and you may see it as an Aesop’s analogy or just a few more words from another sanctimonious fool.