Groupthink

Sopes, Maitlis and The Zurch gathered again for Americast this week to review the Kyle Rittenhouse verdict, absolute oozing disapproval of Kyle Rittenhouse and his defence team and his supporters. The Zurch complained about two-tier justice for the rich because of all the funding for Kyle R; while Maitlis asserted that his gun was illegal despite the judge saying it wasn't; and Sopes sneered at him for meeting Tucker Carson and for becoming ''a celebrity'' after killing two ''protestors''; and both Sopes and Maitlis were aghast at him being offered internships, and played clips of some of his ''far-out'' high-profile Republican supporters, mocking and sneering at them; then The Zurch talked of the ''tragedy'' of the men's killing and how the Right was turning Kyle R into Captain America. And then came their guest, and she ruled Kyle R ''morally culpable'' and thinks the case should have been made against him over his handling of the gun. The bias was in plain slight, and this might have been MSNBC.

Anyhow, have you read Stephen Daisley's latest Spectator piece, Kyle Rittenhouse and the collapse of media neutrality? Oddly, he doesn't mention the BBC. 

Update: Meanwhile, here's a little Twitter exchange that also, oddly, doesn't mention the BBC:

Spiked: The silence on the Waukesha massacre is shameful. Six people were slaughtered by a man in an SUV and there’s just silence from Hollywood, from influencers, from the woke set. Identity politics has corroded these people’s humanity, says Brendan O’Neill. 

Max Klinger: Brendan O'Neill on the horrendous attack in Waukesha and the predictable response to it in @spikedonline. He's correct. It's possible to predict when we will and won't witness massive displays of selective outrage with almost perfect accuracy.

So...Americast moved on from one episode to another in this past couple of weeks, covering Kyle Rittehouse and the killing of a black jogger, Ahmaud Arbery, in Georgia by three white men. 

Have a guess which murderous US event they didn't cover, as if to prove Brendan right?

Lets go Brendon!

Keep calm and carry on

The mini-drama that’s being acted out in the Spectator has a parallel relevance to this blog (my position here) 

Stephen Daisley is a divisive figure in the Spectator. The Marmite kind of divisive.

Here we have a comparatively niche article about the fortunes and misfortunes of two English language Jewish newspapers, The Jewish Chronicle and Jewish News. They’ve both gone into liquidation, but some kind of rescue plan seems to be in the offing.

The below-the-line discussion ignores the content of the piece and coagulates instead around the justification for publishing such a ‘minority interest’ issue in the Spectator. And, predictably, it has brought a few unpleasant realities out of the woodwork. 

Personally, I find the journalism in the Jewish News (in our sidebar) a little bland. Also, rather error-prone, but it sometimes comes up with some valuable insights.

The ‘best’ comment (according to Disqus’s “Best” league table) is from ‘ugly-fish’  - ugly by name - ugly by nature, maybe.

 Here it is:

“It's obviously a subject very close to the writer's heart, but why is he banging on about this in The Spectator? I and, I suspect, many other Speccie readers don't give a f*ck about The JC.”

That’s the first of several, to the effect that 

 'Jewy stuff like that has no business in the Spectator. No-one cares.'

So, should I conclude that the Spectator readership is mildly antisemitic? At the time of writing, out of the 13 comments,  seven support ugly fish,  three are against, and the rest seem indifferent or halfway between.

I’m not suggesting that Jewish issues deserve Special Status. I can easily imagine similar, or much more virulent responses if, say, the Spectator featured an article about some Muslim related media organ going out of business. 

It’s merely that in the current climate - rampant antisemitism everywhere - it hits a sore spot.

So,  with regard to this blog. 

I realise that antisemitism on the BBC - often in the guise of anti-Israel reporting, but not exclusively - coupled with its aggressively pro-Islam angle - is a far more serious problem than a few negative responses to articles by Stephen Daisley. 

The BBC has a wider reach and a much bigger influence on public opinion, which ultimately affects government foreign policy, so my focus on antisemitism and anti-Zionism has a rightful place on a blog about BBC bias.

I won’t pretend that it’s not dispiriting to be met with comparative indifference to my ‘Israel” posts, but as long as this blog exists, I’ll do what I do, and I hope Stephen Daisley keeps doing what he does too. 

"Palestine" and other non-coronavirus musings for April fool’s day 2020

Part One: Jeremy Corbyn

“Under his dull, dismal leadership, Labour has become a byword for animus against Jews and every strain of conspiracy theory that proceeds therefrom.”

So says Stephen Daisley 

“Every Labour MP returned in December, every Labour activist who knocked on doors or delivered leaflets, knowingly tried to elect an antisemitic government out of sentimentality and tribalism.”

This taints the whole lot of them as far as I’m concerned. Including  Hilary Benn, Yvette Cooper, Liz Kendall, Uncle Tom Cobley and all.  Might as well throw in the contenders for the leadership and deputy leadership while I’m at it.

“Decorbynisation cannot be a trim job; the diseased roots must be hacked out. As well as reforming the complaints process along the lines proposed by Lisa Nandy, Labour will have to rid itself of the fallen redeemer and his sullen apostles. Expel him. Expel everyone who nominated him. Expel everyone who voted for him. Burn it down and salt the earth.”

I love that expression: ‘salt the earth’. It reminds me of “Quick! Get rid before it lays eggs” if you see what I mean.  Yup. Sanitise all the surfaces, wash your hands to two verses of The Red Flag and mind you don’t catch your keffiyeh in the door on the way out. 

Part Two: Sarah Champion.

I have a long memory. Certain things, such as my longstanding awareness of Jeremy Corbyn’s petty-rebellious antisemitic antics are etched in the hard-wired department of my brain.   

I well remember Corbyn, (alongside characters like Andy Slaughter, Paul Flynn, Grahame Morris and a clutch of Muslim Corbyistas like Zara Sultana lobbying furiously and viscerally against Israel and for “Palestine”, but I won’t be joining the anti-Corbyn brigade when they cite Sarah Champion as some kind of martyr for being demoted by the dear leader for (belatedly) naming and shaming the ‘Pakistani grooming gangs’ that had been operating in her constituency (Rotherham). 

 Some people regard the article in the Sun that got her into trouble with Corbyn as an ‘act of bravery’  - but it took her long enough to get round to writing about a crime that had been going on under her nose for some time and the true nature of the crime had already been pointed out by others as they expressed sympathy with the victims. 

I’m afraid I well remember Ms Champion sitting at the head of the table presiding over a 99.9 % Asian council committee meeting castigating Israel with great gusto at the time of Israel’s 2014 incursion into Gaza. Where Ms Champion is concerned, I believe a large dollop of opportunism is involved as articles on this blog can testify.

Part Three: Lovely Poem

Today Programme

On #R4Today some of the BBC's best known voices will offer their favourite poems of #comfortandhope.

Here @MishalHusain reads 'On Time' from The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran. https://t.co/tSSau3acnC pic.twitter.com/4NTeotibGW

— BBC Radio 4 Today (@BBCr4today) April 1, 2020

“That was lovely,” said Nick Robinson, choking back emotion.

Part Four: "Palestine"
There’s no sport, due to the lockdown, but sports commentators are still in full swing, so Rob Bonnet interviews 10-year-old skateboarding whizz, Roxanna Howlett, from Exeter. Roxanne is a versatile skateboarder and she has travelled widely through her sport.

RB

"Well, I hear that you travel a lot with your skateboard. Where’ve you been” (as if he didn’t know)

RH

"Palestine, Sweden, Berlin, Amsterdam, America

RB
"Goodness me, you’re the best, well-travelled ten-year-old I think I've ever met. That’s fantastic! What about Palestine? What was that like?

RH
It was amazing, actually. It’s quite a poor country.

RB
What did you do there?

RH

We met up with the State Pal, they’re a charity and they help children from all around the world

RB

How much equipment did they have in Palestine?

RH
They didn’t have very much it was quite bad to see but they had brilliant skate parks

Good to know Rob Bonnet has such a keen interest in …. “Palestine”.

Complaints from both sides.

No 36 “Bias by uneven standards” - (is this the same as bias by false equivalence?)

I contend that claims of equivalence between complaints from the left and complaints from the right are false. 

The Input. The Beeb’s employees are organically/biologically sourced from the Guardian. Some subsequently move on to al Jazeera. What I'm saying is -the BBC's balance point is out of kilter. 

(The definition of a balance point is when a place's heat 'right' output equals the heat 'left' input, or when weight is equally distributed when resting on a single spot.) 

The output. To achieve impartiality (where the ‘left’ output equals the ‘right’ output) the input must also be from both the left and the right. In other words “it’s the input stupid”.

Most complaints about 'right-wing bias' that the BBC cites in its defence come from the extreme left. The complainant is frequently outraged at anything they/he/she/xe deems ‘not left-wing enough’. On the other hand, complaints about left-wing bias are a) far more numerous, b) much more articulate, c) patently more substantive. I think there is now a pretty widely-held consensus to that effect.

Contrary to what the esteemed and rather self-deprecating DG might say, there is no equivalence between antisemitism and Islamophobia. Antisemitism is a (recognised) term for hatred of Jews. It traditionally comes from the right, as in extreme nationalism or ‘white’ supremacy, and - more overtly these days - from the left, where we see a ballooning of the (cognitively dissonant) alliance between left-wing anti-capitalists (mainly anti-Christian / agnostics) and pious Muslims who specialise in demonising Jews using extreme paranoid projectionism. This involves accusing the Jews of the very revealing wish-list kind of stuff that’s going on in their own heads, particularly but not exclusively, a burning desire for world domination.

Anyway, Jew-hate is blanket bigotry based on suspicion, envy and hatred of a ‘people’ whereas Islamophobia is a mechanism designed to silence criticism of an unnatural religious ideology. 

I don’t know why I even bothered to say that.

Anyway, here’s Stephen Daisley (£) saying what I (might have) written -  or if I haven’t, I meant to. 

He thinks the so-called moderate Labour MPs are guilty of enabling. Good article. (Did you realise that Lisa Nandy, for all her wisdom, nuanced reasoning and 'moderation', is chair of Palestine something or other. So there. And Boris doesn’t think much of BDS.

I contend that the BBC is equally guilty of enabling. It’s the Corbynism, stupid.

"That makes him Jewish"

One of the first tweets I saw after getting home from work today was this:

Stephen Daisley: Labour’s candidate in West Dunbartonshire, Jean Anne Mitchell, responded to Nick Robinson’s questioning of Jeremy Corbyn over antisemitism by highlighting the BBC presenter’s Jewish heritage. She shared a post about his ethnicity to a WhatsApp group.

The Daily Record quotes the post that the Corbynite Scottish Labour candidate shared:

We watched the BBC Leadership Debate chaired by Nick Robinson. Throughout the debate we felt that Robinson gave Johnson an easy time, allowing him to avoid answering the audience’s questions and instead giving him free reign to attack Corbyn. We thought he was biased. And then we Googled him. His mother was born in Shanghai, where her German-Jewish parents fled during the 1930s. That makes him Jewish.

The paper continues [with my comments added in parentheses and italics]:

Contacted by the Record, Mitchell said she had shared the message “for information purposes, nothing more” and was “absolutely” not endorsing it. 

["For information purposes, nothing more". Seriously? Jeremy wept!]

She said: “I’ve got so many Jewish friends and I would never, ever, ever to do anything that was in any way anti-semitic.” 

[The "Some of my best friends are..." defence, usually descried by the Left as the inevitable starting phrase for racist bigots].

After being read the section on Robinson’s Jewish heritage, she said: “I did not read that message properly. I was tired, I had been out campaigning all day. I came in, I sat down, I watched the debate, I came in and I shared that with the group because it was to do with the programme. 

[Poor thing! She was so tired she missed the 'That makes him Jewish' bit that was the message's concluding point.]

She also said: “I am really, really troubled that someone in a candidate group has actually let that be shared outwith the group. That is really pretty alarming.” 

[Eh? Is that the main thing that's troubling her? And what exactly is troubling her here? That an antisemite in her group let it be shared "outwith the group"? Or that a whistleblower within her group blew the whistle?]

Wake up BBC!

If anyone spots the BBC reporting this, please let us know. This is a star BBC presenter after all that the Corbynista antisemites are going after.

Labour worries

Labour worries

Regular readers will know that I often indulge myself by addressing matters only tangentially related to the BBC, but it’s my blog and I’ll cry if I want to. So can Craig if he wants to too.

I’ve read an article by Stephen Daisley on the Spectator, which expresses concerns that are increasingly bugging me. 

Titled: The shame of Labour’s liberal supporters, I urge everyone to give it a try. 

Before I start, the good news is that Sir Richard Evans, professor emeritus of history at Cambridge has changed his mind. After Anthony Julius’s open letter Sir Richard Tweeted thusly:

“Back from a visit to Germany to find Anthony Julius's persuasive open letter to me in the New Statesman. As much as Corbyn's lamentable failure to apologise in his tv interview, or the intervention of the Chief Rabbi, this has persuaded me to change my mind and not vote Labour.”

However, at the time Daisley’s Speccie piece was written, Sir Richard’s message had been:

‘I’m voting Labour. Great manifesto, pity about the leader, shame about Labour’s support for Brexit, though at least they promise another referendum. The failure to deal with antisemitism in the party makes me very angry. But in my constituency only Labour can beat the Tory.’

(For the record: 

“Sir Richard is the greatest living scholar of modern German history but many know him as the famed Nazi-slayer of Irving v Penguin Books and Lipstadt. When Holocaust-denying pseudo-historian David Irving sued academic Deborah Lipstadt for calling him such, it was Sir Richard who eviscerated the anti-Semite’s reputation as a scholar and helped secure victory for Lipstadt, the truth, and the dead.)

“Those seeking an answer to the undying question, ‘How did good people come to let it happen?’, might turn to Sir Richard’s definitive The Coming of the Third Reich but the man himself has provided a more succinct account. Anti-Semitism makes him ‘very angry’ (as though he were talking about a dog that keeps running through a flowerbed) but ‘only Labour can beat the Tory’ where he lives.” 

explains Daisley.  Then:

“The same question may be asked of Labour MPs like Jess Phillips and Wes Streeting, of the party’s other academic enthusiasts, of its media outriders, of those who will not vote Labour but silently sympathise with Corbyn on this subject. Anti-Semitism is ‘the organisation of politics against the Jews’ but to succeed it requires those who are not anti-Semites to agree to be so organised, to learn to dismiss the Jews, then to blame them, and eventually to hate them.

I think it’s gone beyond the time when the remaining moderates can legitimately claim they’re better off fighting ‘from the inside’.

“There is a nexus of complicity between anti-Semites, their defenders and amplifiers, and those who fail to resist the organisation of politics against the Jews. It includes those who, though awake to the evils of anti-Semitism, will still vote, campaign and stand for an institutionally anti-Semitic part

The toxicity within social media shows that there’s much to worry about. Recent polls indicate that Labour is on course for a humiliating defeat, but it’s also been suggested that polling via landline is nowhere near an accurate representation of ‘the many’. Mobile phones have replaced all the old stuff - landlines, MSM and apparently, common sense and education too. Threads that consist largely of Momentum-orchestrated  Twitterstorms are truly alarming. The vitriol heaped upon Rabbi Mirvis is but one example of where we’re heading.

For once, the below the line commentary is largely sympathetic. Daisley’s pro-Israel themed articles often attract nasty comments, ether innuendo-laden or downright racist from a small but regular group of right-wing contributors. 

There’s a certain type of middle-class left-wing Guardian reader who embodies the righteous “I can’t possibly be an antisemite” delusion. I recognise them and I see them everywhere. Guardian-reader, special middle-class hairdo, nice clothes, well-spoken and unaware of the depth of their ignorance. If they were a race, I’d be the massive racist they already think I must be.

Not another one

This isn’t about the ‘generalection’, but I’m stealing the phrase in this title from Brenda from Bristol as a nod to people who are truly fed up with seeing articles about antisemitism.

Scroll past, those people.

This is only very tangentially connected to the BBC. In fact, some people may not see any connection at all to our national broadcaster. Of course, some of us may feel that attitudes to practically everything under the sun are affected by the Beeb.

This concerns Stephen Daisley’s piece - I spotted it in our sidebar, so it was more or less a case of ‘in yer face’. What I’m saying is -I didn’t trawl through the www for an excuse to wang on and on about my specialist subject. 

Banning Halal and Kosher slaughter would be un-British   (It’s already been displaced I see. So much for my excuse) 

When I first read it I found some outstanding paragraphs. The problem was that Daisley did the very thing that (I think) is completely misconceived. He lumped Jews and Muslims together. And he did so without even acknowledging the fact that on the whole, your average Muslim in the Clapham omni-mosque dislikes Jews. There are some notable exceptions to that rule, whom I salute.

If you can’t be bothered to read it, I’ll select a couple of the ‘best bits’

“There is a balance to strike between animal rights and the religious freedom of human beings but where the two are irreconcilable, the latter should generally be accorded more weight than the former. That does not excuse wanton or negligent cruelty but it acknowledges that people are a higher priority than animals. 

Mother nature says we’re carnivores; ‘tooth and claw’ and that. So if vegetarians and vegans refrain from eating flesh, that’s fine, good on them.  But it seems anthropomorphic rather than fundamentally righteous to me.

“Dogmatic secularists are far from the only ones lining up to give Jews and Muslims a kicking. The Labour Party, once home to lively philosemitic and Zionist tendencies, now threatens British Jews with a horrific prospect: an antisemitic political party on the brink of government.

Yes indeed. That is a genuine fear, which I share. And I’m secular through and through. 

“Right-wingers, meanwhile, take a peevish satisfaction in making Muslims feel unwelcome while demanding they fit in. This is the Muslim assimilation paradox: self-segregate and you threaten social cohesion, become too involved in public life and you are taking over.

Stephen, if you read the comments below your article you’ll see that right-wing antisemitism is alive and kicking. I was truly appalled by it - and I’m the one who usually says it’s really the absurd left-wing / Islam coalition that we need to worry our pretty little heads about. Now I’m not so sure.

“Ending the religious exemption to stunning would send devout Muslims and Jews a message that they do no belong here and that their way of life is inconsistent with British values. It would make it substantively more difficult to be a Muslim or Jew in the UK, all without appeasing those bent on eradicating public accommodations of religion. Ban non-stun slaughter and its opponents will return soon for a ban on importing its products. The slippery slope is not always a logical fallacy. It is a plain description of how authoritarians operate.

Ok, we know that there are a number of ultra-religious Jews in Britain who would feel unable to exist without their kosher supplies. I have no idea how many of them there are. But I imagine there are far more British Jews whose dietary habits are flexible. Wasn’t Ed Miliband neutralised by his fondness for a bacon sandwich? It seems extra cruel to shoo the ultra-orthodox off to Israel at the same time as encouraging the non-existence of that country.

Anyway, it’s the lumping together that always disturbs me. It seems completely disingenuous. The white supremacists over on the Spectator are truly out and proud. Rampant actually. They’re “weaponising” (silly term but you know what I mean) cruelty to animals as if the fine line was between ‘stunning’ and ‘not stunning’, rather than 'killing' and 'not killing'. I mean once you’ve decided to be a carnivore, you have to kill an animal. Unless you wait till it expires through natural causes - not especially appetising probably. Confining oneself to roadkill might get around that I suppose. I understand there are people who do that. Squashed badger for tea again darling?

If the issue boils down to ‘humane’ slaughter versus ‘inhumane’, then we must examine our ordinary slaughterhouses and our Halal and Shechita methods of dispatch. I freely admit that I am an ignoramus on this issue. I saw an undercover documentary about a Halal slaughterhouse, which might not be truly representative, but it did indicate that sloppy and extremely inhumane practices are real and commonplace. The same applies to your common or garden non-religious slaughterhouses. Animals sometimes fail to get stunned and so on. Animal ‘husbandry’ in general is not always up to scratch. 

What about the Jewish method? I have only read defensive articles about it. They claim it is quick, scrupulously ‘respectful’ and as humane as any other killing. I’d like to believe it, but I’m not prepared to stick up for something I know little about. Unlike the commenters below Stephen Daisley’s piece.

Nowadays you have to limit your speech. If you say the wrong thing, avalanches of bile spew forth. I only wish I hadn’t felt the need to write this piece, and I kind of wish Stephen Daisley hadn’t, either. That’s how bad it is.

Half-hearted valedictory

fretting

Before I throw in the towel, (I haven’t quite made up my mind yet) I have to relieve myself of some of the things I’ve been fretting about.

First of all, a number of worrying articles have popped up recently concerning potential Labour Party candidates, which reveal depressing indications that the Islamisation of this country is inevitable

Although ‘racism’ is deemed a crime beyond the pale, and antisemitism (unfortunately for some) is universally accepted as racism in its purest form, I can’t understand how the BBC gets away with - not just turning blind eye to antisemitism, but actively promoting individuals with antisemitic views. Everyone colludes in this charade, all the time. Let’s pretend it isn’t there. Massive elephant.

*******

As regular readers will know, I enjoy reading the once-upon-a-time left-wing, pro-Israel website Harry’s Place. The current left-wing antisemitism issue has put the kibosh on HP’s default pro-Labour position, but this radical swing could be purely down to the Corbyn factor since enthusiasm for Conservative politics isn’t really there either. 

Personally, I believe the Labour Party’s antisemitism and Islamisation have already gone too far. It’s endemic, at least as fas as its outright and vote-winning opposition to Israel and Zionism is concerned, and the potential resignation or abdication of Jeremy Corbyn, with or without the shadow chancellor, will make very little difference. It’s irreversible - and it still will be even if the antisemitism factor itself manages to creep back under the stone for another while.  

If you follow the links on our sidebar you will have noticed these posts. 

“Labour’s Crank Candidates – Salma Yaqoob, Ali Milani, Jo Bird, Luke Cresswell” and the debate about Shaista Aziz, which is particularly interesting because she styles herself as a modern Muslim who “dabbles” in stand-up comedy. (Mind you, going by the clip I’ve seen my advice would be not to give up the day job) The fact is that any headscarf-wearing person has a lot to overcome before she can win me round. Is that bigotry?

There are several other 'openly anti-Jew' individuals standing (or who wish to be selected) in the forthcoming ‘generalection’ as it’s known, and you can quite easily find them by looking at various strands and sub-strands of Twitter.

******

A conundrum I’ve been wrestling with a bit is this piece in the Spectator by Qanta Ahmed. The terrifying reaction to a panel debate on Islamophobia. It’s a good article, and she’s bang-on about Sayeeda Warsi - but I’m struggling here with a question that seems pretty obvious to me. Why is Qanta Ahmed still a Muslim? 

******

There are some outstanding pieces online. I admire Stephen Daisley for his  brave and forthright piece in the Spectator “A Vote For Labour Is A Vote for Antisemitism”  but I always dread looking at the comments, as articles like this attract hostility from the same handful of right-wing antisemitic stalwarts that inhabit the btl ‘community’ that lurks around the conservative blogosphere, (including The Conservative Woman, the Spectator and The Times)

A link within that article takes you to a detailed and lengthy study by Ruth R Wisse; National Affairs. The Functions of Anti-Semitism was written in 2017,  and due to its length and depth it’s not for everyone, but for those of us who are interested in this topic, it’s well worth the effort. One sentence that seemed particularly apposite (for this blog as well as this post) is:

"What we require is less a law to punish discrimination than a commitment to foster awareness of the facts." (emphasis mine)

The steady stream of ahistorical and politically biased misinformation peddled by the BBC plays a huge part in fuelling the problem. 

*****

Oh yes, and before I sign off for the day, I’d like to recommend a sympathetic and sensitive review of a book I haven’t yet read, by Norman Lebrecht “a British commentator on music and cultural affairs, a novelist, and the author of the classical music blog Slipped Disc.” 

I used to look at that blog quite a lot, especially when alleged bullying and abuse, sexual and - I don’t know - coercive (?) at music colleges and conservatoires was topical. (We knew some of the individuals concerned.)

One of the things that struck me then, which I’d gleaned from the odd comment on the blog and from personal experience, is that on the whole, many musicians of the ‘millennial’ generation have been sucked into the anti-Jew animus that goes along with left-wing thinking. (Not that Norman Lebrecht went along with that, but he seemed to me to be ‘keeping out of it’ if you know what I mean) 

I was pleased to read about his book (a taster can be seen here) Genius & Anxiety; How Jews Changed the World 1847 -194J. The first review I read was in the Spectator, titled: Is there no field in which the Jewish mindset doesn’t excel? by David Crane, but the one that I wish especially to recommend is by Tanjil Rashid in The Times:

Jewish Makers of the Modern World   The review is generous and respectful and - go on, I’ll say it - tonally unIslamic.

*******

I can’t praise Margaret Ashworth enough for the fabulous series about Jewish composers that have been appearing in The Conservative Woman over recent weeks. The Melody Makers etc. Her enjoyable, readable posts about hymns and music are gems, packed with video clips and biographical information, they’re jewels in the www crown

******

 Incidentally, I see David Collier hasn’t updated his blog for a while and in the vacuum, a stubborn infestation of Jew-haters has taken hold. Now we’re on that subject, it seems that Collier’s tenacious approach has borne fruit. For those of you without access, I reproduce the Telegraph report by Camilla Turner, education editor (£) over the page in full

Not Brexit part 1

This is another belated point I wanted to make back along, away from Brexit - (I wonder how many Tourettes sufferers have “Brexit” as a tic?) (If I had a tic, that would definitely be it.)

Stephen Daisley is a controversial writer. They say he’s a bit of a lefty, but since I gravitate selectively towards his Middle East pieces I have little to say about that. However, though he has produced some outstanding articles on I / P over the years, the one I read a couple of weeks ago seemed to me to be a bit of a curate’s egg. The real Racism Against the Palestinians.

                     

“I’ve always railed against liberal blindness and hypocrisy on Palestinian extremism as a product of anti-Israel bias. I’m not so sure anymore. I’m starting to wonder if the real bias is against the Palestinians.”  

I wonder if Daisley just means the racism of low expectations. The racism of treating the Palestinians, or Palestinian society, as inferior; a biased value-judgement that assumes merely ‘being Palestinian’  inherently entails intellectual inferiority (to our own superiority.)

“Yes, Palestinian culture has a lot of work to do to catch up on democracy, human rights, minority rights, and much else besides. But none of this is inherent to being Palestinian; these are political and social values and they, and the cultures that espouse them, can change. This, however, is at odds with the underlying assumptions of Western policy on the Middle East in which Israeli misdeeds are aberrations to be condemned and corrected while Palestinian misdeeds are shrugged off, excused or justified. This is just who they are.”

That’s all well and good, but “the cultures that espouse them can change? Can they though? The missing piece of the jigsaw in this hypothesis is, obviously, Islam. That’s the spanner in the rather optimistic forecast that “things can change.” Islam isn’t going to change any time soon. It’s part of Islam's integral Mobius strip that says it can’t and won’t. 

“The sentiment is sympathy but the logic is pure bigotry. We are not friends of the Palestinians. We are not lending them solidarity by indulging their outrages. We are treating them like a savage tribe from an Edgar Wallace adventure, benighted but noble in their own way, wide-eyed grateful to the white man for understanding their backwards customs. There is your racism.”

It’s not exactly racism though, is it? It boils down to what some people might brand “Islamophobia”. In other words, we are indulging their outrages. Islam-shaped outrages - and we're on the way to indulging the Islam-shaped outrages everywhere else, to boot.

Along the way, Daisley cites two significant examples of the way in which Israeli and Palestinian societies differ. 

1) The murderer of British student Hannah Bladon was given a lenient sentence by the Israeli court because he was seriously mentally ill. 

2) The Palestinian court, however, also gave a lenient sentence to a Palestinian who was convicted of the heinous crime “attempting to sell land to a Jew”. He was sentenced to a lifetime of hard labour - apparently only avoiding the customary death sentence for that offence as he also holds US citizenship, and the state department is reportedly working to extradite him.

“If you get your news from the BBC, you might have missed this story, what with it not appearing to merit a single word on the corporation’s website. Happily, there was space on the Middle East page for a puff piece on Kholoud Nassar, ‘a Palestinian Instagrammer in the Gaza Strip [who] wants to show us a different side of life there’.” 

Stephen Daisley knows perfectly well what’s behind it but he doesn’t say so explicitly. To do so would be judged inflammatory and Islamophobic.

Anyway, “Brexit !!!”

Fetishising Palestinian extremists

I’ve been out of the country, and have missed most of the last couple of week’s domestic news. However, one morning on internet radio I caught a Palestinian speaker decrying the “Israelisation of Palestine”, and perpetuating the falsehood that “The Jews” are interlopers on “our land”.  Unchallenged, of course, by the interviewer. I can’t be bothered to go off in the pointless pursuit of a link, but it reminded of the Tamimi clan’s extensive publicity tour, where they’re busily perpetuating the same “our land”  theme.  

Ignorance of history is so widespread that one is resigned to the fact that the battle for hearts and minds is truly lost. The BBC’s role in the public’s ignorance about Israel was highlighted the other day by Col. Richard Kemp on this BBC related clip.  H/T EoZ

Talking of ‘Ahed Tamimi the icon’, the BBC has fallen for another cynical Pallywood stunt and perpetuated it in a sickeningly partis pris manner. BBC Trending picked it up and featured it, fanboy fashion, online with the headline: Gaza protest image likened to famous Delacroix painting.

Elder of Ziyon had a laugh about it, and BBC Watch dissects it more seriously here, but the most pertinent response to it that I’ve seen is by Stephen Daisley in the Spectator.

“As a live Palestinian, Amro, who was snapped mid-rampage on Monday, will not have the same impact on low-information media consumers. He has, however, stirred that morbid romanticism which draws Western progressives to the Palestinians, ever since Laleh Khalili, a professor at SOAS, tweeted the photograph and the words ‘Holy shit what an image’ on Tuesday. Khalili’s tweet has been retweeted 48,000 times and liked 124,000 times. 

Newsweek gushed of ‘the now-iconic photo’ that ‘some [are] suggesting the image is reminiscent of the Biblical story of David and Goliath’. The New Zealand Herald wrote it up under the headline ‘Palestinian goes viral while leading the people’ and told its readers the image had ‘drawn comparisons with the iconic French Revolution painting, Liberty Leading the People, by Eugene Delacroix’. It topped The Guardian’s best photos of the day gallery and The Atlantic’s photos of the week list. Social media is awash with the picture and there is scarcely an anti-Israel agitator who has not tweeted, Facebooked or Instagrammed it. A student dorm room poster has been born.”

So it’s not only the BBC. But the BBC should have higher standards. Some hopes.

Consider the aftermath

Dear Prime Minister,

It is with great regret that I am resigning as home secretary. I feel it is necessary to do so because I inadvertently misled the Home Affairs Select Committee over targets for removal of illegal immigrants during their questions on Windrush.
Since appearing before the select committee, I have reviewed the advice I was given on this issue and become aware of information provided to my office which makes mention of targets. I should have been aware of this, and I take full responsibility for the fact that I was not.
The Windrush scandal has rightly shone a light on an important issue for our country. As so often, the instincts of the British people are right. They want people who have a right to live here to be treated fairly and humanely, which has sometimes not been the case. But they also want the government to remove those who don't have the right to be here. I had hoped in coming months to devise a policy that would allow the government to meet both these vital objectives - including bringing forward urgent legislation to ensure the rights of the Windrush generation are protected. The task force is working well, the residence cards are being issued well within the two weeks promised, and the design of the compensation scheme is making good progress.
The Home Office is one of the great offices of state and its job is to keep people safe. It comes with the responsibility to fight terrorism, support and challenge the police and protect people against the abuse, as well as manage migration.
It has been a great privilege to serve as your home secretary. I have seen first-hand the second to none commitment and bravery of our police, fire and intelligence services, they truly are the best in the world and we should rightly be extremely proud of them.
I have been particularly pleased that we were able to set up the first Global Internet Forum for Counter Terrorism which has led the way with encouraging social media sites to go further and faster in taking down radicalising and terrorist material, which plays such a dangerous part in increasing extremism.
Setting out new laws to tackle the scourge of knife crime and acid attacks and helping to steer our young people away from a life of crime and violence by providing them with credible alternatives have been particularly important to me.
Opportunities to work on issues that safeguard the vulnerable, champions women and make a lasting impact on people's lives particularly stand out for me. New policies to fight domestic violence and abuse against women are out to consultation, and will lead this country to taking a new approach. Helping to bring thousands of refugees, including child refugees from both Calais and the Middle East region, and meeting some of the families who fled the terrible situation in Syria and have now been given a chance to rebuild their lives here in the UK in safety and security is something we can be proud of.
It has been an honour to work on a new security treaty with the EU as part of our new partnership going forward and to participate in your Brexit sub-committee helping to ensure that we have the best possible EU deal for our economy, businesses, jobs and people across the UK.
The new Economic Crime Centre that i launched with the first use of unexplained wealth orders will be important to the confidence of London as a financial centre.
I will continue to support the Home Office ministerial team whenever possible on all these important subjects, supporting the government from the back benches and continuing to work hard for my constituents of Hastings and Rye.
Best wishes,
Amber Rudd

Here is the prime minister's response:

Dear Amber,
Thank you for your letter of this evening tendering your resignation as home secretary. I was very sorry to receive it, but understand your reasons for doing so.
When you addressed the House of Commons and the Home Affairs Select Committee last week on the issue of illegal immigration, you answered the questions put to you in good faith. People who have entered the United Kingdom illegally or overstayed here should expect to face the full force of the law and know that they will be removed if they will not leave this country voluntarily. Just as importantly, people who have come here legally and enriched the life of our country should not expect the state unreasonably to challenge their presence here; rather, it should help them prove their right to continue living here and contributing to the life of our nation.
Under your tenure, the Home Office has been working to enforce a firm but fair immigration policy - working to increase the number of illegal migrants we remove, while ensuring that we continue to recognise the huge contribution of everyone who has come to the UK legally, and remain open to the brightest and best from across the globe.
When you spoke in the House of Commons, you said that you had not agreed specific removal targets, but that the Home Office's Immigration Enforcement command had been using local targets for internal performance management. You also said that you were not aware that those operational targets had been set.
I understand why, now that you have had chance to review the advice that you have received on this issue, you have made the decision you have made and taken responsibility for inadvertently misleading the Home Affairs Select Committee.
I am very sorry to see you leaving the Home Office, but you should take great pride in what you have achieved there - working with internet service providers to set up the first Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism and take extremist and terrorist content offline; countering the cyber threat to British families and businesses; standing up for the victims of crime, abuse and domestic violence; offering shelter to refugees from Syria and elsewhere; and advancing the cause of equality as minister for women and equalities.
This comes on top of the considerable contribution you have made to Government since 2012 - first as a whip, then as minister and subsequently secretary of state at the department for energy and climate change - as well as the devoted service you have always given, and will continue to give, to your constituents in Hastings and Rye.
As a former home secretary myself, I appreciate the particular demands of that great office of state. You should take great pride in the way you have led the Home Office and its dedicated public servants through a number of serious challenges, including five terrorist incidents and other complex national events. You have done so with great integrity, compassion, and selflessness - notwithstanding the personal and political challenges you have faced during this period.
I know that you have a great contribution still to make to national life, and look forward to seeing you do so.
Yours,
Theresa

Paul Goodman on Con Home

“Amber Rudd seemed slowly to be escaping the worst of her troubles yesterday.  Now she has gone.  Did she come to consider her position too vulnerable, after all?  Has she simply had enough? Or is there some twist to the tale – some as yet undiscovered Home Office document or exchange – that we don’t yet know about?  At the moment, it looks as though the second is the case, but we will doubtless find out more in due course.
So Michael Fallon, Priti Patel, Damian Green and now Rudd have left the Cabinet that Theresa May formed last summer.  That’s a departure rate of almost one of its members every three months – an indication of this Government’s essential fragility.  The Prime Minister will not have wanted to lose a senior former Remainer from her Cabinet who can now cause her Brexit trouble – and perhaps tell recent tales of dealing with both May’s Home Office legacy and her internal management of leaving the EU

I thought the first part of Paul Goodman's article was fine, but I'm not quite so keen on the speculation about who will replace Rudd in the latter part of the piece. Let’s hope May isn’t forced (by ‘quota maths’) to choose someone weak, vulnerable and colourless.

I like Stephen Daisley. He goes on to make some interesting suggestions for revamping the Home Office; do read the whole thing in the Spectator.

The Home Office is not a government department; it’s a nervous breakdown minuted by civil servants. It is too big, too unwieldy, and too overstretched. It is an uber-bureaucracy of overlapping remits and contradictory objectives, at once sclerotic and dementedly populist. Tony Blair recognised this and hived off courts, prisons and probation to the Ministry of Justice. It was a good start but the decade since has proved that more radical restructuring is needed. 

Sometimes it’s vital to know who said what to whom and who knew what when, but I feel that the media is placing far too much emphasis on that aspect of the 'targets' affair in this case.

I prefer to look at the wider picture. In the Conservative press, there is some sympathy for Amber Rudd, in particular with regard to her competence in seeing through the proposals for putting things right for the Windrush generation. On the other hand, the Guardian was at the head of the campaign to depose her. Just imagine what the Home Office would be like under Diane Abbott. Is that really what the Guardian is aiming for?

After the business of the left dismissing the latest racism scandal in the Labour Party as a politically motivated smear, how can Diane Abbott get away with pretending that her crusade-like campaign against the government is any different?  

Let’s hear the BBC’s flagship political experts like Smith, Marr and Humphrys challenge Labour as ‘robustilly’ as they have been doing with the Rudd, May and anyone who ventures to defend them.

Depose the fragile Conservative government and usher in an utterly shambolic and vindictive opposition?  As in the Iraq debacle, this time please let’s consider the aftermath!

Update
Ah! It's Sajid!

Laundering antisemitism

Several people have drawn my attention to an article by Stephen Daisley on (of all places)  STV news. 

I was surprised to find it there because ever since Dunbartonshire  sparked off a wave of Scottish Israel-bashing by flying a Palestinian flag over their town hall I’d mentally written off Scotland and all who sail in her. 

But look. Here’s a piece which stands out amongst the avalanches of seemingly ineffectual Corby-critiquing (reams and reams, all listing Corbyn’s dubious associations and friendships, about which apparently none of his fans could care less) It stands out because it tackles antisemitism within the political left. (!) Surely Corbynistas and others from the left might at least give it a second look.

Analysis: Jeremy Corbyn is not an anti-Semite. It’s so much worse than that. 

Like Corbyn’s other critics, Daisley begins by outlining many of the obvious examples of Corbyn’s misdemeanours.

Hamas and Hezbollah  - both considered terrorist organisations, both ideologically committed to obliterating Israel, both counted by Corbyn as friends, although hindsight has caused him to broaden the meaning of ‘friend‘ to include debating partners, and to add a mysteriously vague reference to “those with whom one profoundly disagrees”.    

That, as well as pleading forgetfulness or ignorance, indicates a somewhat sloppy ‘That should cover it!’  attitude to these challenges.

David Hirsh from JPost:

“In truth, Corbyn says that Hamas and Hezbollah are “dedicated towards the good of the Palestinian people.” He says that they are dedicated to “bringing about long-term peace and social justice and political justice in the whole region.” He presents himself as a democratic supporter of a two-state solution but actually he supports and embraces those in Palestine who oppose peace with all the resources of their Iranian paymasters.”

Daisley mentions Raed Salah, of ‘Jews bake bread out of babies’ blood’ infamy, Jahjah and Eisen. He  hasn’t even got round  to Stephen Sizer and Ibrahim Hewett. 

Dan Hodges has written a Corbyn themed piece in the Telegraph, "Jeremy Corbyn will be cheered by racists and terrorists" which ends with some powerful, original observations:

“I have been one of the Labour Party’s fiercest critics. But I never thought I’d see this day: the day Labour started to launder prejudice. The day its commitment to standing against all forms of bigotry was so casually slaughtered on the altar of political ideology and expediency.
Soon Jeremy Corbyn will become Labour leader. When he does, his supporters will cheer his victory. And Paul Eisen and Stephen Sizer and Raed Salah and Dyab Abou Jahjah will pause a while from Holocaust denial, and conspiracy theories and Blood Libel and dreams of dead British soldiers. And they will stand at the very top of their platforms. And they will cheer his victory too”

Daisley again:

Jeremy Corbyn is not an anti-Semite. How I wish that he were. How much easier it would make things. We could chalk all this up to the prejudices of one man and we could avoid the raw, awkward conversation we’re about to have. Because this isn’t about Jeremy Corbyn; he’s just a symptom and a symbol. The Left, and not just the fringes, has an anti-Semitism problem. 

Contrary to left-wing mythology, anti-Jewish prejudice has never been the exclusive preserve of aristocratic snobs or skinhead fantasists. "The Jew is the enemy of the human race," declared Proudhon. "One must send this race back to Asia or exterminate it." Bakunin labelled Jews "bloodsucking people" while Orwell, self-consciously anti-Semitic, even obsessed over the excessive number of Jews sheltering in London's Underground during World War II. (No matter what the Jews do to protect themselves, it's always disproportionate.) Marx, the grandson of a rabbi, essayed: ”Once society has succeeded in abolishing the empirical essence of Judaism – huckstering and its preconditions – the Jew will have become impossible”. 

The contemporary Left, in most cases, would recognise these statements as irrational prejudice. But what if we substituted "Zionist" for "Jew", what would happen then? How many would object to "Zionists" being termed enemies of the human race? How many would be glad to see the "Zionist" become impossible? Anti-Zionism has removed much of the need for classical anti-Semitism by recycling the old superstitions as a political critique of the State of Israel. Why risk the ridicule that comes with quoting The Protocols of the Elders of Zion when you can cite The Israel Lobby and win eager nods from academics and commentators? Why deny the Holocaust when you can throw it back in the Jews' faces by fictionalising Gaza as a concentration camp? Why hurl rocks at a Jew in the street when you can hurl endless vexatious UN resolutions at Israel? 

Every pathology of the anti-Semite can be visited upon the Jewish state in the flimsy guise of "anti-imperialism" or "human rights". It's all okay because it's "Zionism" you're against and that's not the same thing as Jews and what about Jews who are anti-Zionist. The hallmark of a bigot is seizing on dissonant voices within a minority community and using them to delegitimise the mainstream of that community. The exception becomes the rule and those whose only connection to Jewish communal life is signing onto letters to the Guardian denouncing Israel become more Jewish than everyone else. 

It shouldn't have to be said but since stupidity is nearing pandemic levels these days I'll say it all the same. There is nothing anti-Semitic about criticising Benjamin Netanyahu, the Likud-led government, or the policies of the State of Israel. There is nothing anti-Semitic about sympathising with the plight of the Palestinians (though it might be nice to recognise their culpability in the conflict too). There is nothing anti-Semitic about lacerating Israel for walls and checkpoints and bombs (though do address your alternative strategies to Beit Aghion, 9 Smolenskin Street, Jerusalem, Israel.) 

I think that last paragraph needs a slight adjustment: “There is nothing anti-Semitic about criticising Benjamin Netanyahu, the Likud-led government, or the policies of the State of Israel.” 

No, there isn’t, but only if you make allowances for the fact that (because of the people Jeremy Corbyn supports) Israelis are forced to conduct their affairs on a war footing. If you view the predicaments faced by the Israeli government as though you were in Islington, you are unlikely to come up with an non-antisemitic critique.

“The Left’s unhinged antipathy towards the State of Israel has let loose ugly sentiments wholly unmoored from such legitimate criticisms. Israel is execrated as uniquely malignant and its enemies held up as plucky freedom-fighters or victim-idols. Corbyn and his like sup with Hamas and Hezbollah, they say, because we must talk to all sides to resolve the conflict, even the extreme and unpleasant. It would never occur to them to invite representatives of the Jewish Defence League to Parliament or to count Baruch Marzel or Michael Ben-Ari as “friends””

I said something similar yesterday, complaining that the BBC failed to challenge Corbyn on that last point.  

Daisley continues with a cornucopia of examples of  antisemitic anomalies, activities and utterances from other left-wing politicians (MP Paul Flynn Jenny Tonge) and the press, (The Independent, the Guardian).

He ends with a summary of the shaky antisemitic theories and solutions promoted by the Left, many of which are actively disseminated through platforms provided by the BBC: 

“If only Israel allowed Hamas to build up its terror statelet in Gaza unimpeded, angry Muslim youths wouldn’t riot in the French banlieues. If only Jews were driven once again from Kfar Etzion and Giv'on HaHadasha — this time not in blood but in cushioned, air-conditioned UN buses — there would be no more 9/11s. If only Jews had no national homeland, returned to rootlessness and the kindness of Christian and Islamic hosts, synagogues would no longer be daubed in swastikas and Free Gazas. 

As the left-wing Israeli novelist Amos Oz wrote: "When my father was a little boy in Poland, the streets of Europe were covered with graffiti, 'Jews, go back to Palestine', or sometimes worse: 'Dirty Yids, piss off to Palestine'. When my father revisited Europe fifty years later, the walls were covered with new graffiti, 'Jews, get out of Palestine’.”To be an anti-Zionist is to say the Jews alone have no national rights. The Left are committed internationalists; they just make an exception for every country in the world besides Israel. Today a European leftist is someone who sees "Jews, get out of Palestine" on a wall and tuts, before scoring out "Jews" and writing "Zionists" above it. 

Jeremy Corbyn is not an anti-Semite and nor are most people on the Left. He is a petition-signer who never reads the small-print, a sincere man blinded as so many radicals are by hatred of the United States and Western power. But his ascendancy comes at a time of great upheaval and populist torrents battering the centre-left and centre-right. It is a storm in which the organisation of politics against the Jews could once again prove an anchoring force in Europe. 

Corbyn has declared: "We all have a duty to oppose any kind of racism wherever it raises its head, in whatever form it raises its head." When he is elected Labour leader next month, Corbyn will become a pivotal figure on the international Left. He should use that office to mature his own politics and shepherd his comrades towards a civil and tolerant radicalism.

I thought I had plucked all the best bits out of Daisley’s piece, but you might not agree. To prove me wrong, do read the article in full.