Harry's Place

I think the media have a lot to answer for when it comes to the amount of hate and tension being built up in the UK.

I wonder how many of the (supposed) 100,000 that turned up to march for ‘peace’ last saturday know how many people people have been killed in the DRC, or displaced in Sri Lanka in the same period?

I’m interested in the I/P conflict, but i have a ‘vested interest’ and so i’d take note anyway. Why other people care so much about THIS issue and no other is completely beyond me.

There is something phoney in the head scratching rhetorical question in “I’m struck by the constant Israeli message that “any other country in the world would do the same”. Would they? ” too. Surely if he is really doubtful about this question he need only point to a counter example or two in the thousands of years of recorded human conflict where a nation state capable of military action has permitted a neighbour to make thousands of attacks across its borders with the declared intent of destroying that country without retaliation.

I totally agree. Last night I had a friend round for dinner (he has had a look at HP in the past) and when the talk turned to Israel he indicared that he would “rather not go there” as he was “so angry” at the treatement of the Palestinians by the Israelis.

Now anyone who has seen me argue on here knows that I am hardly pro-Israel to the point of excluding other arguments. But my friend (who also knows this) had formulated his reaction to events in Gaza and stuck me in the other camp to his own. When I pressed him on Gaza (merely comparing rocket attacks with IDF actions and comparing other conflicts around the world) he accused me of repeating an Israeli “mantra” which he had heard on blogs and the radio, although his own “mantra”, excluding Darfur and anywhere else to focus in on this one conflict seemed to me to be the height of weirdness. This chap has no trouble accepting that the KLA are “terrorists” but blanches at the same word applied to hamas.

It is really really odd that you cannot have a discussion around this issue without immediately being processed and wrapped up as a mantra-chanting Israeli sympathiser and it is even more odd that certain sections of “liberal” opinion “feel the pain” of one people much more than they do of any others.

Perhaps if the BBC had permanent offices in Darfur etc as they have in Israel we would be deluged with ‘news’ items about such places every day, and I mean every day.

But if you think that the I/P conflict is no more significant than, say, what is happening in DRC then why have there been dozens of posts about I/P and none about DRC at HP in the last couple of weeks?

The reason is that the I/P conflict has been hyped successfully by the idiot Left and their ignorant allies in the media as a proxy for conflict beween the US and the rest of the world. These scum see the conflict as an easy way to get support from unthinking people.

Also there has to be an anti-semitic element to it, I just don’t see otherwise why there is such wrath poured out solely against Israel. Just compare what is happening in Gaza to the way Russia destroyed Chechnya.

I don’t know of one that has the same capacity to enrage people all over the world,

It certainly enrages me and my rage is wholly directed against the murderous thugs of Hamas and Hizbullah, against their murderous sponsors in Iran, and against the Western tricksters who support their murder and thuggery such as the propagandist Bowen.

bowen….how about your anti semetic twat and your leftie mates at al-beeb love nothing more than stiring it all up.

Andrew Adams

This is a blog whose writers have a particular interest in Israel and its future security. I would hazard a guess that most of its writers are, what are currently called with some distaste “zionists”.

The BBC is a state funded broadcaster. Its World News is expected to bring World News.

If you don’t like the content of this blog you can….fly away.

MattG

Journalists! Don’t talk about things that might happen!

I do remember people on the left condemning Russia’s actions at the time but I agree that Chechnya got comparatively little attention compared with I/P, shamefully so. But that was across the board, not just among the left.
Don’t forget that WRT I/P there are strident and entrenched opinions on both sides and I think this is one reasons it tends to get elevated above other possibly worse conflicts.

Why does this one tiny conflict which involves a population roughly the size of London’s have more capacity “to enrage people all over the world” and greater “international ramifications” than any other

Cos its Joos and Joos are ONLY supposed to get killed and put up with things that no-one else puts up with.

The problem for Israel is that it doesn’t make a fuss. Why didn’t they complain to the UN every day that rockets were fired at Gaza? Why didn’t they just return a missile for every rocket fired at them so that the rest of the World would see immediate cause and effect?

In some ways they handled this badly but then there is merit in destroying Hamas – if possible.

You’ve sort of got a point andrew, I’m getting Gaza fatigue too, I suppose each OP writer wants to have their individual say on the subject and there isn’t an editorial meeting everyday where they get together and decide how many inches to devote to Gaza.

“I’m struck by the constant Israeli message that “any other country in the world would do the same”. Would they? Comparisons are difficult”

No they’re not, Jeremy! You total shit. Just do a little research and come up with an answer to this totally answerable question. Argh!

I don’t know how he gets away with it.

Having moved from the UK to Israel over 30 years ago and also as someone who goes to slightly less nice places in Africa for work, I think that answer to Mr. Bowen’s question is creature comforts, laziness and racism.

If you are a journalist you can come to country with a great climate and all the amenities of western Europe and yet cover a third world conflict not an hour or twos drive from your hotel. The added bonus is that the frisson of the Jews being involved allows you to implicate the issues of antisemitism in order to add a bit of spice. Stories about bad Jews seem to sell newspapers and get people noticed as well as soothing their consciences. Also, most people speak English relatively well.

Who wants to schlapp over to Sudan or the DRC or even Sri Lanka to post stories about one lot of ex colonised people killing another lot of ex colonised people without any white people being involved?

It is obvious that the blacker someones skin, the less interested the media (including the avowed anti racists like the Guardian and the BBC) are.

I’m afraid this is what we have to expect from Abu Bowen.
If anyone has any doubt as to how he sees the situation and its background, just read his one sided polemical rant against Israeli militarism in his book “Six Days”. Actually, don’t bother.

MattG,

Fine, HP’s writers have a particular interest in Israel. But if they have strong feelings on the subject then they can hardly complain when others do too, so to ask Why does this one tiny conflict which involves a population roughly the size of London’s have more capacity “to enrage people all over the world” seems to me a bit disingenuous.

What Andrew Adams said. Plus a snicker of amusement at Jeremy Bowen being savaged by people not qualifed to make his tea. If a sign of a good journalist is winding up the partisans of both sides, he’s obviously doing his job.

“But if they have strong feelings on the subject then they can hardly complain when others do too”

Maybe we don’t have strong feelings on the subject, but strong feelings on the injustice that other people do to the exclusion of all else. Maybe our string feelings are about why other people are obsessed with Jews.

Latest headline on the BBC – Israel is “sowing the seeds of extremism” in the region. Syria claims

Can’t access the article yet but I bet nobody points out that Hamas is a flully fledged poisonous plant. Planted by Iran.

Jon d, as far as I’m concerned HP can have as many posts about I/P as they like (my complaint has been about the tone of the pieces rather than the volume), it’s their site and if we don’t like it we can go elsewhere. I just find it a bit odd to then complain about other people according the subject undue significance.

I don’t think it can be put down entirely to anti-Semitism. Israel/Palestine is not just any old place, it’s been of central importance to world history and much of the world’s culture. Add to that the fact that Israel is a relatively new state, an experiment of sorts, and that is bound to add to the fascination.

Also, there is a distinction between the reaction of ‘the Left’ and the reaction of the Muslim world. For the Muslim world, this is indeed the cause above all others, and it matters not if the number of Muslims killed by others, including by Muslims, is greater by a factor of ten or a hundred or a thousand.

But for ‘the Left’, the obsession with the Arab-Israeli conflict is similar to the obsession with Iraq and Afghanistan… the war becomes the summit of state evil, irrespective of who’s doing the killing or why or what’s happening in other wars. To me, this indicates that it’s not about dead civilians, or civilians killed by Jews, but civilians killed by ‘us’ – Britain, America, the West. And because people assume Israel is basically European, and supported by ‘us’, it is included in the club.

There is a commonality, though, between this self-loathing and anti-Semitism, which is that both emerge from deep, powerful but inchoate feelings of guilt. In the case of anti-Westernism, it’s colonial guilt and class guilt. In the case of anti-Semitism, it’s the guilt of the persecutor. Only this explains the ferocity and irrationality of the anger.

Yes, Bowen totally misses the elephant in the corner – Islamism, and the theological roots of the conflict, in the Islamic need for dominance in the Middle East (= ‘lands of Islam’).

If this was a debate over land, and land alone, it could have been amicably resolved in 1948.

The theological illiteracy and willful blindness of the likes of Bowen just astonishes me. I agree that the secular media is a huge part of the problem, as they automatically filter out theological reasons from the picture.

Andrew

In my view the constant posts here are to a large extent responses to the media coverage of Israel/Gaza.

With regard to your wider point, I do think that the question “Why does this one tiny conflict which involves a population roughly the size of London’s have more capacity “to enrage people all over the world”

is valid.

Bowen shouldn’t just be constantly be making this assumption. he should analyse it. I would say that the coverage here in the UK in particular has been driven and characterised by, among other things:

1) Ignorance

2) A desire to keep the UKs muslims onside

3) Anti-Semitism

4) A natural empathy with ‘the underdog’ in this case seen as the Palestinians

I think number 2 has been very, very important. I think the desire of the UK media to score goodwill points with the UKs muslims post Iraq & Afghanistan (even though those conflicts continue; albeit you wouldn’t know from the coverage they get) has been very evident on the BBC in particular.

To analyse why this conflict has such huge importance would, in my opinion, highlight issues that the UK media and BBC in particular are uncomfortable discussing (arab anti-semitism, desire for a caliphate, Islamism etc) so they choose to ignore it.

And Israel is the fall guy.

MattG

What Mike and Adam said.

N8-)

“What Andrew Adams said. Plus a snicker of amusement at Jeremy Bowen being savaged by people not qualifed to make his tea. If a sign of a good journalist is winding up the partisans of both sides, he’s obviously doing his job.”

What absolute rubbish. There are many, many journalists I respect, but don’t agree with. Bowen is pretty universally acknowledged by people I talk to (of all political persuasions) as a pretty poor reporter.

Incidentally, the argument that you make in the final bit of your paragraph is one that the BBC likes to make about its coverage in general. It is of course a quite laughable analysis (if we upset both sides we must be doing it right etc etc) but not one I can waste my work time talking about.

Mattg

devorgilla
14 January 2009, 1:06 pm

“Yes, Bowen totally misses the elephant in the corner – Islamism”

Indeed. He knows its there though.

MattG

“If a sign of a good journalist is winding up the partisans of both sides”.

It isn’t.

But I don’t know of another one which has so many international ramifications, and above all I don’t know of one that has the same capacity to enrage people all over the world, even if they have never been to this small patch of the planet.

He’s right of course; but as Brett points out, he fails to give a good reason as to why Israel should be a special case and that this should have ‘international ramifications’ and the capacity to ‘enrage’ over and above say the Tamil claim on Northern Sri Lanka, the demand by Scottish Nationalists for independence from the UK, or Basque separatism… is firstly Islamic imperialist obsession and secondly old fashioned, frothing, Jew hatred.

Also Bowden’s been notably tendentious in this conflict, he’s part of the problem.

Because this is round 15, and there will be a 16,17,18…

Other conflicts cool off, this one gets hot every even year.

Al Bowen is not going to change his anti-Israel propaganda. He didn’t change after the kidnapping of Alan Johnston by the Islamists. Alan Johnston has not changed his views after his kidnapping. In fact he has just done a round-up programme of his old buddies’ opinions from Gaza. That BBC diplomatic correspondent who got his legs blown off by Islamists, whose name I cannot remember has not become pro-Israel. Terry Waite has not changed his views since his release and neither has Norman Kember after he nearly got his head sawn off.

Waste of time asking questions; just be quicker with the channel switch in future; and switch to the internet.

Flanker said: “Because this is round 15, and there will be a 16,17,18…
Other conflicts cool off, this one gets hot every even year.”

Really? Kashmir’s been on the boil a fair while now – as long as the Arab-Israeli conflict, in fact. Darfur’s ongoing, with deaths from the various Sudan conflicts since the seventies now topping 2.5 million. Sri Lanka only now looks to be drawing to a close.

Chechnya ‘cooled off’, in the sense that the Russians razed the place to the ground, killing probably 200,000 people. Somehow I suspect that if Israel took that approach, interest in the conflict wouldn’t go away.

‘I’m struck by the constant Israeli message that “any other country in the world would do the same”. Would they?’

No, Jeremy, they wouldn’t. They’d level an entire city and butcher its inhabitants, like the Syrian regime did with Hama in 1982. Or they’d dump a shit-load of nerve agent and mustard gas on their rebels, like Saddam Hussein did with the Kurds in the 1980s. Or they’d send bands and militiamen to slaughter and rape civilians, like the Sudanese in Darfur. Or they’d just be content with sending in the police and the goon squads in to wallop the crap out of demonstrators, like the Iranian authorities do in Ahvaz.

Matt
With respect, I have never heard Bowen castigated by anyone who doesn’t have an extremely strong sympathy with one of the sides in the middle east conflict. I must admit, I’ve never read his Six-Day War book but much of the criticism of it comes from comparing it unfavourably to a superior work by an Israeli academic, Michael Oren. This seems a tad unfair, Bowen is a journalist trying to provide an overview, Oren is a professional historian with the luxury of more extensive research resources.

Interesting take on the BBC’s Gaza reporting here.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/jan/12/bbc-reporting-gaza-conflict

“That BBC diplomatic correspondent who got his legs blown off by Islamists, whose name I cannot remember has not become pro-Israel’

It’s not a BBC journalist’s job to be “pro” any side.

Jeremy Bowen’s bias against Israel is well-documented.

Oh well, that’s settled then.

Zech touches on an important point at 1.03 pm above. I’m increasingly thinking along similar but nonetheless different lines. It seems reasonable enough to blame antisemitism for so much of the world’s obsession with Israel, with what Israel does or has done, when many other countries (and with no existential threat hanging over their heads) do and have done much worse. But it seems to me that antisemitism involves casting the Jew in the rôle of the ultimate ‘other’, so much so that the Jew’s very commonality of personhood with the non-Jew is questioned. Could it be that Israel’s problem is really the opposite: that it isn’t seen as ‘other’? Could that be why so many insist on holding Israel to standards to which those who are really thought of as ‘other’ (Africans, Arabs…) are not expected to adhere? So it isn’t antisemitism at all (for most people – I’m not suggesting that antisemitism has nothing to do with it for some people). And it isn’t Western self-loathing either. On the contrary, the ones who get the free pass are the ones thought less of.

Mike

To be fair, not may people on the arab side ‘castigate’ Bowen.

Regarding the link to The Guardian, im afraid I dont go there. Its a personal choice, i may miss out on the occasional piece of wisdom, but I don’t like the paper.

Incidentally I didn’t like Orens book. Not because it was pro or anti anyone. I just found it very dull.

Look, Im not going to change your opinion, nor do I intend to. You, or someone you agreed with, made what I thought were some simplistic statements; i just wanted to challenge them.

MattG

Brett just to make clear – are you suggesting that it is because of antisemitism that the world’s media and the UN gives this conflict more attention than others? Also US Presidents, I guess.

“Brett just to make clear – are you suggesting that it is because of antisemitism that the world’s media and the UN gives this conflict more attention than others? “

Got it in one.

Of course, some of the attention – like our own – is reactive in the sense that we’re reacting to it being a big deal, not making it a big deal.

What’s your theory?

Rule of thumb: whenever an HP poster asks a question, the answer is always ‘anti-semitism’.

Not that they’re obsessed or anything.

Mike S. Of course it is a journalist’s job to be pro one side or another. Mostly it is the side the proprietor or advertisers want. Usually it is the side that tries to stop the journalist getting his legs blown off.

Then, of course, you could be threatened with the sack if you do not become a TV foreign correspondent in a war zone and toe the proprietorial line, go out there and get shot dead. Not that I am saying this happened to that lady BBC foreign correspondent a few weeks back. After all, her news editor went on air to say it was not so.

Are you an unemployed journalist by any chance Mike?

I’d suggest it gets a lot of coverage because it is an important conflict to the west, and the media naturally focuses on such things.

* Primarily I’d say it is important because it does have international ramifications greater that most international events through its capacity to bring in/affect other actors in an unstable and important region of the world where western powers have long intervened. For example, in 1973 it almost brought the world to nuclear war and did lead to an oil crisis that brought severe economic dislocation. More recently it has been used as justification by international terrorist groups to attack western interests.

Some other suggestions:

* It appears ongoing and without resolution. Israel will always win battles militarily but this does not solve the long-term issues. Thus it seems in need of outside intervention (and hence attention).
* The west has a direct interest in the conflict through US subsidies for Israel and Egypt, two players in the conflict. Furthermore both are western allies, as are – to lesser or greater extent – other countries in the region.
* The west has a historical interest in the conflict as Palestine was the UK’s responsibility, and then a UN mandate.
* It’s a rare conflict in which one side is a developed economy.

I don’t doubt some are more important than others, and some are also true of other conflicts, but I would suggest a combination of these, rather than anti-semitism or media-pressure (through anti-semitism) is why US presidents have spent more time trying to resolve the dispute than they do on ones in Africa or Latin America. I’d argue against your anti-semitism argument for many reasons, but one simple argument would be that the non-reactive coverage is too widespread across all different types of media organisations to simply be anti-semitism

In short then I expect if this conflict was being played out between two African countries then it would get a lot less coverage, but then of course we’re back to square one. Does it get more coverage than wars (e.g the Falklands war in the US) when a western power is involved? I suppose we could check the NYT archive to see.

What’s your main evidence for your anti-semitism theory?

I’m struck by the constant Israeli message that “any other country in the world would do the same”. Would they? Comparisons are difficult, because the century-long conflict between the Arabs and the Jews is one of a kind.

No i think the Beeb reporter has a point. Israel is determined to compare themselves with any other modern state, but it never entirely convinces because everyone knows this particular state was essentually set up on someone else’s country, and still occupies Palestinian land in the west bank.

It really isn’t the same as any other modern state, so the comparisons to what ‘any other state would do’ doesn’t quite wash.

The BBC reported in a very small piece at the end of 2008 that: “More than 400 people have been killed by Ugandan rebels in the Democratic Republic of Congo in attacks since Christmas day, aid agency Caritas says.

The head of Caritas in DR Congo told the BBC some 20,000 people had fled to the mountains from the rebels, who have denied carrying out the attacks.

An eyewitness told the BBC that five people in Faradje had their lips cut off by Lord’s Resistance Army fighters.

They were told that it was a warning not to speak ill of the rebels.”

This is just one example of the disparity in coverage. I don’t believe that the Uganda story even made it to the BBC TV or Radio news and yet at that point more people had died than had died in Gaza.

So why the disparity in coverage?
To the BBC are Congolese lives worth less than Palestinian lives?
to the BBC are black lives worth less that white lives?
To the BBC are the Ugandan rebels less evil than the Israelis?
Or is just that the BBC’s hatred for Israel removes all sense of proportion from their news coverage?

Matt’s suggestion is a lot more convincing that just blaming the attention on international Jew-hatred. I would also add

*the location of the conflict is associated with some of the ‘holiest’ sites to numerous religions, including the big boys Islam and Chirstianity, which brings it to the attention of people for whom religion floats their boat

The Beeb and wider media will also prioritise reporting of who has won Celebrity Big Brother over reports of atrocities in Uganda.

Why?

Hey… Isn’t HP proof positive that Bowen is right?

Not only that, but its been confirmed by world leaders, including Blair and Bush, who are constantly saying that the the Arab Israeli dispute is key to peace in the wider Middle East.

Matt, I take your point re the media, but how you explain the ultra Left (and that of many Liberals) response re marching and campaigning ? They only ever really get excited by I/P issues it appears.

Again when Russia destroyed Chechnya did the SWP and others stage marches and vigils daily ? Were there calls from “the Left” for Russian businesses to be boycotted ?

France was found recently to have committed terrible acts in the Rwandan conflict but I haven’t heard a peek from “the Left” on that.

What possible explanation is there for such a concentration on the bad acts of Israel ?

Ultimately, we’re not going to be able to know whether many of these people are anti-Semitic or not. Only they know – or maybe even don’t.

The more interesting point is that whatever the real reason for their outrage, [i]it’s not what they say it is.[/i] Most of them are not upset about the killing and displacing of innocents, or else they’d be equally or even more upset by the killing and displacing of many, many more innocents in places like Chechnya, Sudan and the Congo.

It’s not even the killing and displacing of Palestinians that upsets people. Who on ‘the Left’ or in ‘the Muslim community’ cared when Jordan killed tens of thousands of Palestinians, or Kuwait expelled 400,000? Not enough to fill Trafalgar Square, at any rate.

So, it’s something else.

NotaSheep asks:

“To the BBC are the Ugandan rebels less evil than the Israelis?”

The answer, I fear, is ‘Yes’. Ugandan rebels are not thought of as having moral agency. That’s where the real racism lies.

Israelis, on the other hand, are like ‘us’. They are responsible for their actions and can therefore be condemned for them.

“Is it not time the media took a step back to see if they are wagging the dog?”

With a free press, isn’t the media driven primarily by the need to sell papers, etc? So, if people are obsessed with the x-factor, the media will respond with stories about it. Or whatever.

So maybe the real issue is not whether the tail’s wagging the dog, but why is the dog so obsessed with Israel and Jews?

How does the virus of anti-semitism transplant itself from one culture to another, and from one generation to the next?

Where the question of what does provoke massive protest demonstrations (Israel/Palestine) and what doesn’t (Darfur, DRC…) is concerned – and it’s not quite the same as the question of media coverage – might this not also be, in a weird way admittedly, a compliment to Israel? The demonstrators (and I’m talking about the ‘indigenous’ Western ones here) basically know – for all their sloganeering about a fascist state – that Israel is a democracy and that it is possible to influence democracies in a way that it simply isn’t with genuinely oppressive, totalitarian states. What’s the point in marching against Sudan? Will Bashir give a damn? Israel, on the other hand…

… not that I’m suggesting that Israel is likely to be influenced by anybody stupid enough, whatever the nobility of their own motivations, to march alongside Hamas. But that’s another matter.

So, in brief, I’m increasingly coming around to the view that antisemitism is probably less important in all of this than other factors (again, I stress, where Westerners are concerned; it’s undoubtedly a major factor – probably the major factor – for actual signed-up Hamas supporters).

Mike: ‘Israel was set up on someone else’s country.’ What country was that, then? Whose was it? Did a Jewish army march in and steal it? Do tell us where we can read about that.

Why is everyone talking about the BBC and left wing newspapers? I wasn’t aware that the Telegraph or the Mail or Fox News dedicated equal time to Darfur and Congo as they do to Israel.

In reply to “Notasheep” I would simply note that the same could be true of a million stories on BBC and other newsites. 400 deaths receives one story, and the murder of man in Kensal Rise gets pages of coverage. I’m not sure it’s to do with hatred of Israel.

“More Media Nonsense” raises an interesting point, but I don’t know much about far left so can’t really comment. I note that there was a very large march against the Iraq war which had little to do with Israel though, and I think George makes a valid point.

France/Rwanda is somewhat different in that we have a western power, and ally, but the lack of protest and outrage probably stems from the fact that it was 15 years ago.

George –

In reference to your 2:01 post, I agree. Most people don’t know that at least until the recent Russian emigrations, more than half of Israelis were of Middle-Eastern origin or descent. So they tend to view it as a essentially a European colony, ‘one of us’. What I guess I’m interested in is that this makes them worse, not better, than genuinely ‘other’ states that brutalise their own or other populations much more barbarically.

Re the question of influence, I’m not sure that’s right – I think protesters just care far more about Israel-Palestine than they do about other conflicts. But there is something in Israel’s being so small. The likes of Russia and China are considered big enough to do as they please – “Jerry can do as he likes in his own backyard”, so to speak. But it’s considered an affront to common sense that Israel can push its weight about… as a small, new nation, it should be dependent, accountable…grateful.

The other factor, which i think maybe Matt mentioned above, is fairness. People have a very childish sense of what is fair and unfair – we can see this in the “if we can have nukes why can’t Iran” argument. It makes no difference to explain that the A-I conflict is between two victimised peoples, or that many other displaced poplulations (including the Jews) have eventually stopped trying to get the land back. What they see is a powerful Westernised state battering a poor, poorly-armed semi-state, and what seems to stick in the craw is US and British support for the dominant side.

In fact, searches at foxnews.com for Gaza gives 488,000 results, at bbc.co.uk gives 55,500. In comparison, searches for Darfur gives 2,320 and 3,400, and Congo gives 2,610 and 9,210. Hence the BBC devotes a far, far higher proportion of its time to conflicts other than I/P than Fox does.

There are people, mosly upper-class from what I,ve seen, who take a malign pleasure in seeing Jews depicted as persecuters and oppressers.

It seems to take some weight off their chest concerning their own history of discriminating against Jews.

If you can portray Jews as oppressers, it eases the guilt they’ve been feeling about their own history of opression­.

Israeli action in Gaza allows them to displace that angst and to thereby temporarily enhance their sense of moral wellbeing.

They can then feel at ease with their anti-semitism; in fact, they can even celebrate it and justify it by pointing the finger at Israel and saying that Jews, too, are ‘guilty’ of committing ‘atrocities’.

Were they ever to admit to themselves that Israel’s actions are justified and, in fact, totally defensive in nature, the fun would end and the angst would immediately return.

Zech,

Thanks for coming back on my points. What I was trying to get across is that it is precisely because people see Israel as ‘one of us’ that they think Israel is worse. Their racism is less of the antisemitic variety than of the ‘you-can’t-expect-savages-to-behave-any-better’ variety. They expect Israel to behave better because they think of Israel as an equal. They wouldn’t say that, of course – and probably wouldn’t even think it in any conscious, coherent way – but I just have this strong feeling that it’s there in the background.

On influence, we may just have to agree to differ. It isn’t even necessarily about influencing Israel directly but there is a sense in which Israel is part of the same world as the one we live in and that it might be influenced by our governments if not by us.

Just to clarify that when I wrote “They expect Israel to behave better because they think of Israel as an equal”, I meant ‘better’ as they would define it.

I have serious reservations about some of Israel’s actions in the Gaza offensive but no doubt as to which side started this and which side has shown the greatest indifference to civilian suffering.

And – not at all part of my ongoing stream of consciousness here- Short order cook has made a very pertinent point about coverage in the right-wing media.

That’s a very good piece of research, “Short order cook”, but I think Brett’s point, which is why I made sure to check is, is either:

that all media suffers from anti-semitism, so your numbers just show that Fox is more anti-semitic than the BBC,

OR

Fox is only writing those articles reactively, i.e. it is fired up over other (anti-semitic) media reporting of the conflict.

Given your numbers, however, Fox’s articles would have to split 9:1 reactive:non-reactive to support the latter point with respect to Darfur, and about 25:1 with respect to Congo, so the second explanation doesn’t seem too likely; at the very least Fox News must be as anti-semitic as the BBC.

George,

I do think that’s right. I suppose what I was trying to say in my first post – and I’m aware that this reads like a desperate attempt to get anti-Semitism in by the back door, but anyway – is that I feel there’s a kinship between the psychology of anti-Westernism and that of anti-Semitism.

The crux of it is in precisely the duality you’ve drawn attention to. The states of ‘the West’ – usually the US, UK and Israel, as the more bellicose nations in that group – are both considered somehow the best, and also, or for this very reason, the worst of states. They provoke the anger of guilt and disillusion. Similarly, much of the history of anti-Semitism has to my mind been about the peculiar dual status of the Jew – inferior but (by their own lights) superior, carrying the authority of the older, father religion, but the stain of Christ’s victimisers. I have a couple of friends who are strong Judaeophiles, who consider Jews cleverer, wiser than most people and – crucially – expect more moral behaviour from them. One even confesses to ‘Jew envy’. This sort of thing makes me feel quite uncomfortable, because to me it’s just the other side of the coin. If you irrationally consider someone better than you, and expect greater morality from him, might you not react with irrational anger when he lets you down, as likely he will?

I think the guilt of the post-colonial mind provokes a similar kind of rage to the guilt of the anti-Semitic. But anyway, sod it. As Howard Jacobson put it, at the end of the day there are worse things to be than an anti-Semite, or anti-Westerner. You could be a child-murderer. Or an anti-Semitic, anti-Western child-murderer. Personally I’d rather people went out and peacefully protested against IDF brutality than didn’t, I’d rather they exerted pressure on the US to keep Israel in check than didn’t… I just wish they applied the same standard to everyone else.

‘Israel was set up on someone else’s country.’ What country was that, then? Whose was it? Did a Jewish army march in and steal it? Do tell us where we can read about that.

Well it was a collection of other countries who had taken over the area, then Britain had mandate to look after it and keep the peace. The Jewish minority used terrorism against the UK mandated troops and British civilians in order to force us out, then in 67 they launched a preemptive war and took over a lot of the rest of the land.

That’s about right, isn’t it?

Maybe I should have said it was someone else’s land, not ‘country’.

That’s about right, isn’t it?

No.

It’s not.

Mike: You missed out the fact that rather than accept a partition plan several Arab states attacked the new state of Israel in 1948 to try to destroy it. That is when many Palestinian Arabs left (and the Arab countries have left them to fester in refugee camps ever since). Israel, rightly or wrongly, disputes the legal status of the land it took in 1967, and has said it will give it up in return for guarantees of peace. All this is easy to look up and verify. Jews are not perfect, nobody is, but to say that they stole someone else’s land is a calumny.

Spiked on the recent anti-Israel demonstration, with some good photos. Enjoy.

Looks like the Furedi mob are engaged in one of their periodic reorientations around the latest “hot button” issue.

Likewise Nicole, the 1937 Peel partition was rejected by the Arab states.

Notice the size of the Jewish state under that plan -

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Peel_map_pd.png

Jews are not perfect, nobody is, but to say that they stole someone else’s land is a calumny.

That’s not how the world sees it. The land taken after 67 is not disputed legally in terms of international law.

It’s also true that Jews were a minority in the area of Palestine before Israel was created. That’s why it’s caused so much trouble ever since.

Mike, you do appreciate that the Arab states decided to attack the nascent Israeli state in 1948?

Israeli successfully defending itself against those attacks is the sole reason that the Israeli state 1948-1967 was some 50% larger than the 1947 UN partition.

To suggest that it is the Jews fault for the size of their state is to get things totally arse about tit.

Not according to international law and the opinion of every government in the world.

But my point was a broader one – Israel is not like other modern states in that it was set up in large part on someone else’s land within living memory, and still to this day occupies Palestinian land. Therefore there is no direct comparison to what ‘any state would do’. The circumstances are different.

That’s not to say Israel shouldn’t exist. It may have been a terribly bad idea in the first place for both Jews and Arabs – we can all agree on that – but we’re stuck with it now. The point is, much of Israel’s problems go back to that original bad decision.

Though understandible, Britain too made a huge mistake by caving into terror and the political correctness of the time that said Jews deserved their own state because of the holocaust. It’s just brought Jews, and Britain, more problems in the long run, however well meaning.

“George
Ugandan rebels are not thought of as having moral agency. That’s where the real racism lies.”

By George hes got it. I wish I could have articulated Red-Racism so well.

“That BBC diplomatic correspondent who got his legs blown off by Islamists, whose name I cannot remember has not become pro-Israel’

This seems to be a reference to Frank Gardner. His memoirs are worth a read. Incidentally, I reckon one of the reasons he’s actually so dispassionate is that he had a career before journalism.

Incidentally, and OT, sad news about Patrick MacGoohan (RIP):

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=9AL7npkSXZE&feature=related

Very sad news about Patrick McGoohan. I can remember having some very heated debates with my school friends about whether he was better in “Danger Man” than “The Prisoner.” I used to prefer “Danger Man.”

“I reckon one of the reasons he’s actually so dispassionate is that he had a career before journalism.” Thanks for the tip. What are Frank Gardner’s memoirs called and what was his job before he became a journalist? I must learn about it and try to hold it down rather than change jobs like him. Clearly he has now made two catastrophic decisions in his life.

Very good post Brett and more proof that Bowen appears to be dried up well that should have been capped long ago.It’s like having to listen to some rambling red nosed gent in a deerstalker in a suburban pub giving us the benefit of his “insights”.

Yes, there does appear to be a lot of interest in this conflict Jeremy. Thanks for pointing that out to us.

Mike – have you actually read any history? It was the UN that agreed the partition in 1947. Britain promised the Jews a homeland back in 1917. One can argue that was a stupid thing to do, but they did do it and it was pretty clear in 1947 that the Arabs had no intention of allowing Jews a homeland there.

But what do you think about Europeans taking over New Zealand from Maoris some 80 years prior to that. Or Brits taking land from the Aborigines in Australia? Or Europeans taking land from the Native Americans and Mexicans. Or Zulus taking land off the Bushmen in South Africa between 1500 and 1800? Or China’s occupation of Tibet. Or Indonesia’s occupation of Irian Jaya? Or India’s occupation of Goa? Or China’s occupation of Hong Kong? Or China’s claim to Russian lands? Or Iraq’s claim to Kuwait? Or Morocco’s claim to Western Sahara? Or the expulsion of Greeks from Turkey in the 1920s and vice versa? Or the expulsion of Germans, Hungarians and others from their ancestral homes? Or the removal of Crimea from Russia to Ukraine by Stalin?

I could go on, but you get the point. There has been a lot of injustice and disputed territory over the last 100 years. Why does this one conflict exercise people quite so much?

Yes, it’s in a strategic area. But I don’t think that explains it all.

What does explain it much more is the role of the Jews in the Christian psyche.

Mike- it’s not really accurate to suggest that Britain caved in to some PC post-war notion that the Jews deserved a state of their own because of the Holocaust. Indeed after the end of the war in 1945 the British still turned away the Jewish refugees trying to leave Europe and get to Mandate Palestine. A lot of these Jews who had survived the Nazi death camps ended up in British detention camps on Cyprus.
Britiain’s attitude to the question of a Jewish homeland – including the Balfour Declaration – was never motivated by any particular concern for the Jews or belief that they had a right to self-determination, but purely by what the British perceived to be in their interest at the time.
Indeed Balfour’s pre-cursor Lord Shaftsbury only promoted the idea of a Jewish state because he was a deeply religious Christian who believed that it was essential to return the Jews to their homeland in Israel so that the second coming of the Messiah could come to pass. After the Messiah’s second coming, the plan was to convert all the Jews to Christianity, and a church was even set up in Jerusalem for that specific purpose.

As for the “why does Israel get more media attention” debate -In addition to all the valuable points made above – I remember a very different atmosphere in the British media during the Yom Kippur war. Yes, the whole media was less intense, more stiff upper lip then, but then Israel was the tiny brave state ruthlessly attacked by several arab armies at once. As Israel has become stronger and more sucessful (and less likely to disappear in some people’s minds) it seems that the West has felt a need to find a different underdog to root for.
I think that the media long ago stopped reporting news and started to believe that it is its responsibility to create it and that in itself is problematic. I would not underestimate the combined influences of the media and the remarkable propaganda work done by Palestinian ex-pats (really – hats off to them -they’re much better at it than the Israelis are) in influencing ordinary public opinion.
I also am constantly surprised by the sheer lack of factual historical knowledge on the part of most Brits I meet regarding the Middle East, which I am sure influences opinions too: if people don’t know the history they will more easily accept the version they are given by the media or pressure groups with a vested interest.

I could go on, but you get the point.

No I don’t get the point at all. All those other cases are either hundreds of years ago or remain controversial today, like Tibet.

Actually appeasing the Arabs was much more in British interests at the time.

“Thanks for the tip. What are Frank Gardner’s memoirs called and what was his job before he became a journalist?”

“Blood and Sand”, I think. He was in banking in the Gulf States until he was in his mid-30s.

“I must learn about it and try to hold it down rather than change jobs like him. Clearly he has now made two catastrophic decisions in his life.” This reads like a sneer at a courageous and very smart guy who has had the guts to reclaim his life after being put in a wheelchair. It really doesn’t become you.

Mike S. I notice you did not answer my question about your own background.

Thanks for telling me about Frank Gardner’s memoirs. I will try to read them. I am not sneering at him when I say that, on the face of it he does not appear to be what you term a “smart guy”. Leaving a job as a banker voluntarily to go to a war zone full of Islamists is just not smart. You may call him courageous. I would call him foolish and reckless.

“Don’t go there” is an axiom that has become common parlance. It is self-evident. Neither Terry Waite, Alan Johnston, the late Tom Hurndall and Rachel Corrie nor Norman Kember paid it any heed. If there is one characteristic none of these volunteers possess or possessed, it is the instinct for self-preservation. English law says volenti non fit injuria.

I also seem to remember Frank Gardner had a native interpreter who was killed in the mine explosion in which Frank Gardner lost his legs. Possibly he had little financial alternative but to accept the BBC’s danger money. I wonder what his family thinks of Frank Gardner or whether Frank Gardner’s memoirs address the question of who got him into the situation that caused the mine incident. The responsibility for the mine clearly lies with those Islamists who planted it. But who allowed Frank Gardner to visit a war zone with minefields in it if not himself.

RP Dahl, I think you’re getting Gardner confused with someone else. Gardner was shot and crippled by AQ gunmen in Riyadh in June 2004. His cameraman – an Irishman called Simon Cumbers – was shot dead:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Blood-Sand-Frank-Gardner/dp/055381771X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1232012639&sr=1-1

Gardner was a banker, but he had also learnt Arabic and travelled around Egypt, Sudan and Jordan in the 1980s. His memoirs were good because they avoided the ‘great I-am’ tone of other BBC reporters’ memoirs (John Simpson – take a bow, you win the pomposity award again).

I was also struck by the section on the Iraq war; critical, but dispassionate. It avoided the ‘this is the most terrible crime ever in the history of the world!’ tone that most Anglophone journalists adopt.

Thanks S&A. Sorry, my mistake. I must do some more reading.

Not according to international law and the opinion of every government in the world.

Eh? Not quite sure what you are disputing here. Not, I hope, that it was the Arab states that attacked Israel in 1948 – or indeed that the resultant size of Israel was purely the outcome of a successful repulsion of those attacks.

Israel is not like other modern states in that it was set up in large part on someone else’s land within living memory

No, I’m afraid this is totally wrong.

The “someone else’s land” was a part of the British Empire, in which some Jews and Arabs lived.

The Arabs, and Arab states, repeatedly refused to accept partition plans that followed, more or less, the main population concentrations of the two separate parties.

They then invaded the internationally-recognised Israel when it declared statehood, having defined its borders according to the UN partition.

What we have is a refusal on the part of Arabs to countenance any Jewish state at all in the Middle East. Of course, if they had accepted such a proposition, no doubt the Israeli state that would have resulted would have been tiny in comparison with the present-day Israel.

It is only their intransigence that is to blame.

Mike

No palestine was not mandated by the league of nations to keep the peace.

The league of nations establised themandate of palestine after the 1st World war and granted it to britain for the EXPRESS PURPOSE OF IMPLEMENTING THE BALFOUR DECLARATION.

Britain and France in their carve up of former ottoman territory had other concerns, such as creating a whole list of made-up nations that had never existed before.

The Ottoman Empire has produced in its steady erosion by the Western powers, Russia and Persia’s geop-political games, since the 19thC over 40 successor states, with the vast majority appearing after WW!, with significant boundary revision after WW11 and the Balkans wars of the 1990s.

A few of these nations, Egypt, Greece and the Southern Slavic nations can lay claim to an ancient ethno-territorial existence, but this prescence does not correspond to present geopolitical boundaries.

Jews also have a ethno-territorial claims in the Middle East in countries contiguous to Modern day Israel and in the territory itself for over 2 thousand years.

seen in this light israel is no more a made up and illegitimate nation, than Iraq or Jordan carved out by the British from trans-Jordan, Syria of lebanon.

Modern Turkey and Greece are equally made up nations formed out of the largest forced population exchange ethnic cleansing and genocide in history.

Peninsula Greece was the home to a minority of ethnic Greeks until it absorbed the remnants of the millions murdered orforced out of Ottoman territories from the Black sea and Anatolia to Damascus and Alexandria.

The idea that Israel is the sole product of the children of Holocaust survivors stealing a land because of an ancient book is the biggest anti-semitic trope of all.

In fact if you add the numbers of israeli Arabs to the number of israelis of Mizrahi, Arabic speaking , origins (who would be called Arab Jews, if we use the term Arab Christians) you find that 70 +% of the people of Israel are of Arabis origin.

Indonesia did not even exist as a territory until after 1945 and its borrowed national language derived from trade Malay, is still spoken as afirst language by a minority.

Israel is as just as much of a state as any in the World today and the starting point should be today, otherwise looking at historical atlasses we could abolish, or double, the number of states in the world today at whim

Mike – if by any chance you glance at this thread – have a read of Martin Gilbert’s Israel – A History.

I hope that will correct some of the misapprehensions you have.

And what mettaculture said.