Do not be deceived. The murdered innocents of Gaza are not those who are really suffering. It is the liberal Jews like Hadley Freeman, victims of the new anti-Semitism.
Israel is a state openly founded on racist and theocratic grounds, in which Jews have an absolute right to live in Israel, wherever in the world they were born and their families have been for centuries, and nobody else does. The unfortunate pre-1946 occupants of the land have been mostly driven out into refugee camps, including in Gaza, while religiously motivated settlers continue apace to grab the best Palestinian land and water. The state does this for them precisely and explicity because they are Jewish. Those non-Jews who remained in Israel proper are subject to a whole raft of apartheid style legislation, even governing whom they may marry, and the quantity of this legislation is increasing. 140 Israeli laws specify treatment by race.
Israel is as a state entirely based and run on a racist premise. Its very foundation is racist. But while the Israeli state may steal land specifically for Jews, make provision for Jews, and make life difficult for non-Jews, anybody else who mentions Jews in the context of Israeli behaviour is a vicious racist and anti-Semite. This warped and ludicrous logic is enforced by political orthodoxy and the mainstream media.
It is as though, in opposing apartheid, it was taboo to mention it had been invented for the benefit of white people.
Reading Freeman’s long self-pitying self-centred whinge I was waiting to find out what had actually happened to her to occasion some distress. Had she had a brick through her window? Had she been assaulted in the street? Has somebody hurled racial abuse at her?
Apparently none of the above. It appears that she feels under unfair pressure to denounce the actions of Israel. And- horror of horrors – the Tricycle Theatre has cancelled a Jewish Film Festival in Kilburn because it was financed by the Israeli Embassy. Oh no, the agony! How can a poor girl survive in a North London which is so rife with anti-Semitism! It reminded me forcefully of the very first diplomatic social engagement of my professional career, in 1985 when our Afrikaaner hostess held forth on how she thought people looked down on her in Harrods.
I deplore racism with every part of my being, all racism. Freeman makes what is intended to be a smart observation that the Tricycle’s act “reminds me how very far I am from the States”. It is very plain that she regrets that and believes that the US attitude to Israel is better than the British one.
This then morphs into the meme that the reaction to the Gaza massacre is part of a wave of the “new anti-Semitism”. There have indeed been several deplorable anti-Semitic incidents in Europe in the last few months. But they have killed absolutely nobody in the last two years, while Israel has killed 1,500 people. There have been three terrible examples of racial murders of Jews in the past eight years, and there needs to be continued and unremitting vigilance against all hate crime. The disruption of Hadley’s cinema treats and the daubing of paint on a synagogue are in themselves bad things. But do they really compare to the massive disproportionate force being used to destroy over 1,000 women and children in a month in Gaza, and the context of the entire seventy year programme of ethnic cleansing and genocide of the Palestinian people?
You are right, Hadley. Just because you are Jewish does not mean you should be under special pressure to condemn Israel’s actions. But if you take it upon yourself to write a long article on the subject, we are entitled to expect you – as a human being – to condemn the massacre. And as in the article you write about nothing but your own angst and the evils of anti-Semitism, and manage not a single word of sympathy or regret for the victims of the terrible massacre in Gaza, we are entitled to form our own opinion.
And my opinion is that you are a wholly self-centred and self-regarding little person with an abject lack of moral perspective, who seems to think the murder of 1500 people is about the impact on your feelings.
Hadley, you are not disgusting because you are Jewish: you are just a disgusting human being.
can you compare gaza with the warsaw ghetto in 1944 or was it 43?
have you read ernst sommer’s book REVOLT OF THE SAINTS? (1949)
Its a must read
Yes, it is all about her.
One of the points which you make, and which you have made several times recently, is that you do not believe in the right of Jewish people to have a racially distinct state in the Middle East.
I myself do not know what I think about this. Your position has a lot of logic, and it is hard to see how the state of Israel as it is conceived can avoid a lot of trouble, but, when you look at the treatment Jewish people were getting around the time of WW2, its hard at least for me to argue against the idea. I think a lot of people think that and that is the basis of the two state solution proposal.
Hadley Freeman says ‘Please don’t tell me what I should think about Israel’.
The state of Israel has a special status in the world. No other state in the world has a comparable status, a protected status, and perhaps this is why HF thinks she can float above the debate about Gaza while taking potshots at liberals.
I am confused about this but it seems to me the real debate is about the parameters of the state of Israel, and anticipating some of the reaction I am liable to get on this blog, the problem needs more than slogans and vitriol, it needs some reason.
I imagine that’s scuppered your chances as the future Scottish ambassador to Tel Aviv. Keep up the good work. Cheers.
How much anti-Semitism is blowback against perceptions of racist pro-Israeli anti-Palestinian propaganda and Israel Lobby influence? The latter in turn play upon anti-Semitism; extremes thus support each other in dynamic tension.
Poor Hadley.
Now,if North London delicatessens run out of tofu and muesli i fear the girl might crack completely.
I think your article does Hadley Freeman a gross injustice. It wasn’t an article on the Israeli/Gaza conflict so she didn’t need to express her regret at the loss of Palestinian life. I’m sure as a liberal she’s appalled by it.
It was a piece about the overspill of criticism of Israel into anti-Semitism as evidenced by the decision of the Tricycle Theatre. It is not for anyone, let alone them to tell Jews how they should behave towards Israel.
You would do well to remember what happened in Germany in the 30s. You’re all deluded if you think there aren’t strong strands of anti-Semitism appearing and it’s very disturbing.
You should also be aware that there are 1.5m Arabs living with full and equal rights in Israel. They actually have more rights there than they have in any other Arab country. The situation in the West Bank and Gaza is different, appalling and needs to be addressed but your labelling of Israel as racist is factually inaccurate and further fans the flames of hatred. It will get us nowhere.
Bang on Craig
‘This warped and ludicrous logic is enforced by political orthodoxy and the mainstream media.’
Today must have been hogwash day in America, when the president looks desperately at his lack of actions, how he could possibly be seen as a Humanitarian taking an interest in these persecuted minorities, whilst not looking at the massakers done, with his say so, by Ukrainian fascists or the pre determined murder of hundreds of gaza’s children by his Israeli handler Bibi in Gaza.
So he promises some bombing to stop genocide, it gets amplified by his world wide bitches and transmitted all day long, the majoprity believes this chaff and think ‘good on him’ when he merely goes through the motion of opening his cake hole.
Humanitarian action promised today by Obama is equallyu racist. Its fine to ‘stop genocide’ in Iraq, albeit from great hight and only sporadic, one would not want to agrieve one’s Saudi/ ISIS backers now, would one?
The differences are stark, Gaza’s Arab Muslim population experiencing a reprehensible death toll on its civilian population, is no subjected to Israeli genocide of its people, does not in any way equate to racism. But Syria’s Yazidi orthodox Christians, having been pressurised and abused by these Saudi mercenaries and rapists, are in fear of their lioves fleeing into the mountains, here the term genocide is appropriate.
Our media does not want or dare to ask the right questions and it is more important for our national public broadcaster to cover George, sniff, snortel Osborne’s manky cat, than it is to have a principled debate as to what and what does not qualify as genocide.
Westminster, Putin’s a murdering monster, the Whitehouse we must stop Putin, the UN and the EU we must enforce sanctions on Putin, in contrast, Israels genocide of the Palestinians in Gaza, its all the fault of Hamas.
As for anti-Semitism the IDL are opening branches all over the world,here’s the latest one.
http://news.nationalpost.com/2014/08/01/controversial-jewish-defence-league-to-open-new-canadian-chapters-in-wake-of-violent-protests-over-gaza/
And with Israel now recognised as a country, its opening embassies and consulates all over the world, Israel now has over 98 embassies and consulates scattered around the globe,backed up by the IDL.
http://embassy.goabroad.com/embassies-of/israel
Palestine has no such luck.
“Just because you are Jewish does not mean you should be under special pressure to condemn Israel’s actions. But if you take it upon yourself to write a long article on the subject, we are entitled to expect you – as a human being – to condemn the massacre.”
Which is of course what she did
“Proud as I am to work for a paper that covers the atrocities in Palestine so diligently,”
Perhaps some should reflect that it was Europe’s last bout of anti-Semitism that actually provided much of the impetus for the founding and international approval of the State of Israel and not just a racist premise as Craig states. Those who cannot distinguish between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism, of which there are not a few on this blog, perhaps ought to just reflect a little how they actually divert attention away from the truly atrocious behaviour of the Isreali Government.
Adam
“You should also be aware that there are 1.5m Arabs living with full and equal rights in Israel.”
Absolutely nobody believes that any more. Your propaganda is thirty years out of date.
Craig wrote:
“Those non-Jews who remained in Israel proper are subject to a whole raft of apartheid style legislation, even governing whom they may marry, and the quantity of this legislation is increasing. 140 Israeli laws specify treatment by race.”
Adam wrote:
“You should also be aware that there are 1.5m Arabs living with full and equal rights in Israel”
You can’t both be right and I rather suspect Craig is correct.
“How much anti-Semitism is blowback against perceptions of racist pro-Israeli anti-Palestinian propaganda and Israel Lobby influence? The latter in turn play upon anti-Semitism; extremes thus support each other in dynamic tension.”
For once I agree – the thing that needs to done is to condemn both extremes for the examples of truly disgusting behaviour that they are – rather than playing silly games of moral relativism.
Oops – didn’t notice your reply, Craig.
Bleb
We were simultaneous, I think!
Being Jewish and being Arab are not mutually exclusive, you’ll find even the Arab or North African Jews are second or third class citizens in Israel. Top dogs are the Ashkenazim from Eastern Europe, often via New York, who are the least religious. Race is the issue not religion, it is really a white european people oppressing, killing ‘natives’. Apartheid.
Anyone know which day the march in London against the Islamic State’s genocide is planned for?
Couldn’t agree more. Excellent piece.
The Grauniad is by far the most cynical and repulsive national daily by a distance.
It seems to me Hadley Freeman’s article is very muck lacking proportionality in the broader context.
Secondly,and also worrying,is that her article seems to have offered a platform for some frankly insane commentators to promote the idea that anti-Semitism is now “Cool Racism” for The Left.
Which is,in my opinion and experience complete and utter bollocks.
Must try harder Hadley,Grauniad…
Very poor.
Some people are wondering if it’s different this time.
Israel is now well used to western media providing cover for their ongoing crimes but some have suggested that cracks are appearing even in mainstream coverage.
Perhaps that explains this rather desperate ad, rejected by The Times, but accepted by The Guardian, that accuses Hamas of Child Sacrifice, no less.
This is the Human Shields argument which even Jeremy Bowen has pooh poohed.
http://www.theguardian.com/media/greenslade/2014/aug/08/hamas-thetimes
You do have to marvel at a mind that blames its own victims for their fate whilst claiming transcendental victimhood to itself. Sounds remarkably like a psychopathic mind.
One thing’s for sure. The ledger of Israel’s crimes against humanity grows ever thick as time passes.
It’s precisely because the Israeli state makes claims upon Jews all over the world that they need to speak out, and of course many do. Those who don’t are complicit by their silence.
But yes. A self-obsessed fashion journalist is perhaps not quite what we’re looking for.
Adam @ 7.32pm “You should be aware that there are 1.5 million Arabs living with full and equal rights in Israel”. Sorry that’s nonsense. Link to ‘The Laws that enshrine Israel as a racist state’ http://occupiedpalestine.wordpress.com/2013/03/20/the-laws-that-enshrine-israel-as-a-racist-state/
They are not Christians and are in fact Zoroastrians (Ancient Persian/Iranian religion).
========
Someone in the other thread had written about Palestinian children in Gaza were writing their names on their limbs and body, to ensure that their body parts could be identified and gathered together for burial, after a zionist bomb has torn apart their undernourished and small bodies.
This reminded me of the Iraqis during the US invasion of Iraq tattooing their identity; name and address on their back because experience had proved that these parts were more likely to survive and their remains could then be identified returned to their families.
History shall not recall the above, for these Untermenschen do not deserve to be remembered, their fears, aspirations and matter of fact and routine deaths do not herald any lessons to be drawn upon.
However every school kid will have been shown the serial numbers tattooed on the arms of the concentration camp survivors.
The contrast in the almost blithely discount of the suffering and deaths of millions of Iraqis, Palestinians, Afghans, ….. that is in addition to the millions of dead in WWII, and millions more incarcerated in concentration camps are a natural progression of the Jewish Supremacy, that finds these “goy” (plural goyim) not worthy of lamentation or note. After all who ever heard of anyone mention the numbers of the dead heifers, cows, pigs, lambs and chickens?
The goyim deaths are of no consequence, and thus the history is shaped, the convergence of the interest of those professional murderers and those with access to nodes of power, evolve in to the discount of the millions of deaths and the sufferings of millions more, these are to be eclipsed by the suffering of a particular group of people that in turn defines the past, as well as defining the gold standards of suffering and above all the defacto index of evil that caused such gold standard suffering in the first place..
This in turn has been shaping the thoughts of those descendants of the special group who are taught to remember the sufferings of their ancestors at the hands of the goyim beasts. Thus when Hadley is slighted and upset she is truly experiencing the horrors that goyim beasts can inflict as they did to her ancestors. The fact is our collusion in playing the part of the dumb goy has further entrenched the feelings of entitlement to exceptional ism.
As already Craig has mentioned;
The simple fact is how can a group of people whom have suffered exceptional injustice ever come to trust their tormentors?
The fact that Hadley is so concerned to be told what to think is in fact a glimpse into her minds set; How dare goyim cattle to even entertain such notions as cancelling the events in theatre, or to consider the conduct of the group that has suffered so bitterly, in ensuring their survival, that is through destruction everyone else!
I am on record the acquiescence to Jewish supremacy brings about an absurd situation that none dare to even mention the elephant in the room; the rabidly racists and disgusting behaviour of the Jewish supremacists!
As we write about eleven thousand Palestinians have been maimed and injured, these have no medical facilitates to rely on, they have no access to pain killers, drugs, and medicine, then have no access to clean drinking water, they are left to live side by side with sewage running in the streets, all the while the medical equipment, medicine, etc. donated by others is sitting on the tarmac in the Cairo airport in compliance with the continuation of the medieval siege of Gaza.
The suffering of these Palestinians is nothing compared to the suffering of those in the Warsaw ghetto! We all know that! Right?
The Islamic state/ISIL/ISIS is a US/Israeli/Saudi creation, so anti-zionist protests serve also to condemn the west’s proxy terror gangs operating in the Syria and Iraq, trying to sever control of Iraq’s northern oil resources from the Iraqi government in Baghdad. The wholly imaginary and unrecognisable ‘Islamic State’ do not control the vast territory they claim, can only show up (speeded in brand new trucks provided by the US and Saudis) and shoot the place and the people up before speeding back to their cia/mi6 masters protection. Any Kurdistan that might emerge from these circumstances would be a client state under the thumb of the US completely and would itself in the end be overthrown by the Kurds, Iraqis, Syria, Iran and Turkey together, unless that Kurdish state, created simply to loot the oil reserves and pump it to Israel, was a ferociously brutal repressive hardline regime in conflict with its ‘own’ population and neighbours. Iraqi Kurds would be freer sooner and the violence halted, if the western/saudi mercenaries were ejected and they co-operatively sought autonomy from Baghdad and lasting friendly relations with Syria.
So all the Arabs in this Wikipedia post http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab_citizens_of_Israel are a figment of my imagination? All Israeli propaganda? There aren’t Arab members of the Knesset? There isn’t an Arab Supreme Court Judge?
There’s no balance to what you write and you accuse me of spouting propaganda. Perhaps you need to seek a definition for the word?
Another excellent post Craig.
The Guardian is losing money and needs to curry favour in the US to grow its brand.
As a result its becoming increasingly pro-Israel. It wasn’t always this way!
Adam
There are just a dozen Arab members of the Knesset. There won’t be in future as the Knesset has just changed the electoral law specifically to exclude them.
http://972mag.com/knesset-approves-bill-that-could-push-arab-parties-out/76755/
Already if they open their mouths in the Knesset to protest they get chucked out
http://www.jewishpress.com/news/breaking-news/feiglin-expels-arab-mks-who-call-idf-soldiers-murderers-video/2014/08/04/
It is not just Ms Freeman whilst she manages to stay aloof from the conflict in Gaza, the publication she works for is having a questionable motives moment:
http://www.theguardian.com/media/greenslade/2014/aug/08/hamas-thetimes
from the article:
“The Times is under attack for refusing to run an advert about the conflict in Gaza. The paper is accused of being part of a British media “infamously skewed against Israel.”
The ad is a statement, written jointly by Elie Wiesel, the Nobel prize-winning author, and Shmuley Boteach, an outspoken American-born Orthodox rabbi.
It calls on President Obama and other political leaders across the world “to condemn Hamas’s use of children as human shields”, which amounts to “child sacrifice”.
The advert has been carried in five US newspapers, including the New York Times, Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal, which is published by News Corporation, the owner of The Times. The Guardian has agreed to run the advert on Monday.”
So, when I try, twice to post links to MAP http://www.map-uk.org/ a charity providing medical aid to Palestinians in the comments section of one of the Graun’s articles it is removed by moderators. Yet it would seem they are prepared to run this ad.
A tapestry of Palestinian life: remembering Samar Alhallaq
Jan Chalmers Iain Chalmers
On July 20, 2014, our friend Samar Alhallaq, who was aged 29 years, her 6-year-old son Kenan, her 4-year-old son Saji, and her 8-month unborn child were killed in Gaza, together with five other members of their wider family. An Israeli shell demolished the residential building to which they had fled in trying to seek shelter from Israel’s attacks.
We came to know Samar and her little boys when they came to Oxford, UK, during the summer of 2013, to join Samar’s husband Hassan. Hassan was the third annual scholar awarded the Gaza Oxford Brookes University Scholarship, which was established after Israel’s attack on Gaza in 2008—2009. Hassan won the Technologies Prize awarded by Oxford Brookes University’s Department of Computing and Communication for outstanding achievement in the Masters Degree of Science in eBusiness.
We saw quite a lot of the Alhallaq family last summer, and, despite not having any language in common, Kenan and Saji seemed to get on well with Millie and Layla, our grandchildren who live with us. On one of the family’s visits to our home, we introduced Samar to the Palestinian History Tapestry Project, which has been set up to extend friendship and support to Palestinian women.
[..]
As one of us wrote in The Lancet after Israel’s 2008—2009 attack on Gaza: “Israel defines itself as ‘the Jewish State’; yet, within the territory it controls and continues to colonise, there is now approximate parity in the numbers of Israeli Jewish people and non-Jewish, Palestinian Arab people (of whom 3·7 million live in the occupied territories and 1·2 million in Israel). For many, Israel will continue to be judged by its attitudes and actions towards the non-Jews whose lives it controls.”
The UK has special responsibilities for what is happening in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territory today, because of its repeated betrayal of its century-old promise to protect the rights of the non-Jewish Palestinian people. As we write it is clear that Samar, Kenan, and Saji are just three among hundreds of civilians who have been killed during the Israeli attacks this year. When can we expect the UK Government to require Israel to observe international law and to observe the Geneva conventions?
We are biased in favour of the oppressed and biased against oppressors.
http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736%2814%2961223-X/fulltext
~~~
Sympathy and condolences to Hassan now a bereaved father and husband. Terrible.
Sir Iain Chalmers – http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(06)69879-6/fulltext
No Arabs can marry or for that matter sleep with any Jews, and those doing so will be punished for rape!
The land of honey and milk, private Jews only roads, free lands and free homes (they belonged to those terrorists Palestinians).
All the while the blanket of infantile lies and more lies is to be further pulled over by the keyboard offence brigade whom are probably getting paid from the various aid provisions out of our tax funds to tell us all; what racist bunch of ill informed morons we are!
Hadley resents anyone telling her what to think but sure as the day is long she will be in agreement with telling us goyim cattle how horridly antisemi… we are!
Aidworker1 C P Scott was a supporter of Zionism.
http://www.manchesterjewishstudies.org/cp-scott-manchester-guardian/