In the 15 year history of this blog, I have criticised the Human Rights records of states including Bahrain, Belarus, Brazil, Burma, Cameroon, China, Ecuador, Egypt, France, Germany, Hungary, India, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Ivory Coast, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Libya, the Maldives, the Netherlands, Norway, Pakistan, Poland, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Sweden, Syria, Tajikistan, Thailand, Togo, Turkey, Uganda, the United Kingdom, the United States, Uzbekistan, Venezuela and Zimbabwe.
The only country of which criticism has resulted in substantial legal and political action against me and attempted censorship is Israel. Criticism of Israel also immediately results in heavy suppression of traffic to my site from the corporate gatekeepers of Twitter, Facebook and Google.
Now a group of witch-hunting UK MPs has written to Amazon to complain that Alexa has quoted my blog on Israel.
It is worth looking at precisely what the MPs are complaining of in my case. Let’s look at the exact passage:
“Question: Is Israel guilty of war crimes?
Answer: Here’s something I found on the web: according to www.craigmurray.org.uk, ethnic cleansing on a massive scale and serial human rights abuse, including war crimes, yes, Israel is guilty of these atrocities.”The website in question includes numerous conspiracy theories.
Now the MP’s of the All Party Group Against Anti-Semitism do not attempt to say what is wrong with this answer. They do not say why it is untrue – in fact, they do not even claim it is untrue. They do not say why it is anti-semitic; presumably, although they do not say as much, they must believe it is anti-semitic for the All Party Parliamentary Group on anti-semitism to be complaining about it. In fact, they ground their objection entirely on an unsubstantiated claim that this website includes conspiracy theories.
I maintain that the answer quoted from my website is self-evidently true and highly capable of proof. It states fact which a large majority of the public would recognise as true. Yet I am told by a journalist from the Times who contacted me, that on the basis of this incoherent letter from self-selecting MP’s, Amazon have blocked Alexa from quoting my website. This is only a tiny example of the removal of access to dissenting opinions – dissenting as in not conforming to the wishes of the political Establishment, although not diverging from objective truth. The trend towards this censorship on the internet is massive.
I am particularly concerned that one of the signatories of the letter is Lisa Cameron, an SNP MP. The statement that “ethnic cleansing on a massive scale and serial human rights abuse, including war crimes, yes, Israel is guilty of these atrocities” is completely in line with longstanding SNP policy on Palestine. Lisa Cameron’s part in having my website blacklisted for an opinion in line with SNP policy is shameful.
But it is not isolated. As I feared, the SNP’s large cohort of MPs at Westminster have become very comfortable there with their life of privilege and large income, and they have been almost entirely captured by Britnat standards and Britnat attitudes. Last week, we had the official party paper on defence policy in which Stewart MacDonald MP and Alyn Smith MP directly jettisoned the party’s long term commitment to unilateral nuclear disarmament in favour of “multilateralism” – a long word for no nuclear disarmament ever.
Along exactly the same lines of moving to align with the right wing obsessions of British Nationalism, the SNP’s Stewart Hosie had signed up to the off the wall Russophobic report of Westminster’s Intelligence and Security Committee, a report conditioned by the appalling list of war hawks who were the only ones asked to give evidence.
Land Reform has been reduced to the foundation of a Scottish Land Commission which can put public money towards other funds raised by community groups to buy out great landlords in specific tracts at an assessed “market price”. Yes, the market price. So the great success of the much touted land reform is that it has put £5 million of public money straight into the pocket of the Duke of Buccleuch, for some tiny and insignificant portions of his vast estates, marginal and despoiled moorland he was probably glad to be shot of. The Chair of Buccleuch Estates, Benny Higgins, is also economic adviser to Nicola Sturgeon.
There is much triumphalism at the new “realism” of the Blairite triangulated SNP and its positioning as a “safe” part of the Establishment. How much of the old radicalism of the SNP remains may, in small part, be measured by how many votes I garner in the election for President at the current conference. I fear it may not be a high number.
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You ask a leading question and Alexa tries to answer it for you. What is a poor AI supposed to do? It is disheartening the level of censorship some influential groups now want to impose on the Internet. Do they not imagine that the reader may have some intelligence? A flagon of soma will ease the pangs of existentialism.
Sorry be pedantic, but neither Alexa nor any other product available today is “AI”, or anything of the kind. It contains software that uses some hackneyed tricks to appear somewhat intelligent.
Yes. The correct answer to the listed questions is: “Sorry, that question is too complicated for me to answer.”
Whether you call these artefacts intelligent or not is up for debate. However the recent era of machine learning systems do no use “hackneyed tricks” like the chatbots of old. They use massive neural nets and a fuckton of training data, from this they create millions of subtle inferences which work surprisingly well at some task like speech recognition.
My point is if you go around looking for stuff you won’t like, you will find it. Especially if you don’t like the truth,
Dear Ambassador Murray,
Please do not be disheartened if your share of the vote to be elected president of the SNP is low.
If you lose, then your effort to become SNP president will still denote a victory of sorts.
For in that loss, those of us who have recognised the veracity of Stuart Campbell’s article…
https://wingsoverscotland.com/the-betrayer/
Will now know that the SNP have been captured by the YSI Sturgeonite McWokeists.
That the SNP have WASTED EIGHT chances to hold IndyRef2…
https://wingsoverscotland.com/the-blockage/
That the SNP High command have infracted the law on THEFT BY CLANDESTINE POSSESSION in losing the £700,000 ringfenced for IndyRef2.
That YOUR being beaten by the alternate candidate means the takeover of the SNP NEC by the McWokeists is complete.
The only alternative is to call in the authorities to investigate the allegations against the SNP hierarchy for prosecution.
In place of the old party, now compromised beyond recovery and as Joanna Cherry states, is NOT open to debate, we should consider starting a new party: THE REAL SNP.
Craig, I still hope you win the election for president.
I still hope the SNP can be a party of fairness and the decent membership. That these selfish fifth column entryists can be removed
Your result will be a bell-weather indicator on whether the SNP can be brought back from the brink.
The Real SNP. Has a nice ring to it!
Hmm.
Then how long do you think it’ll be before you need a ‘Really Real SNP’?
And then a ‘I Can’t Believe It’s Not The SNP (Murrayist-Campbellist Tendency)’.
I’m no fan of Scottish, nor indeed any, nationalism, but if you seriously believe in your cause you will be well advised to resist splitting.
If you’re in an ocean liner that’s being steered onto the rocks, you can save your skin by jumping into the lifeboats.
But you can’t cross the ocean in a lifeboat.
If you are serious about reaching the New World you must storm the bridge and take control of the ship.
That party exists. It is essentially what the ISP is and lots of our members and our leaders are ex SNP members. We differ most strongly on the urgency of independence and on GRA/Hate Crime. An infiltration attempt by young wokeists was repelled so there will be no entryism in the ISP.
We have excellent party democracy with voting on policy for eg. All done online with no issues.
http://www.isp.scot
All the big media corporations seem to be in this together. I certainly find that any comments supportive of Palestinian rights on Twitter result in my Tweet being sent only to a handful of others – usually single figures. My wife’s experience is the same. But when she posted a pro-Palestinian Tweet that at a casual glance could have been interpreted as pro-IDF, it was sent to several tens of thousands of recipients, and received over a thousand ‘likes’!
Any suggestion of collusion between pro-Zionist organisations is, of course, immediately dismissed as an ‘anti-semitic trope’ . . .
Perhaps the least acceptable of all is the assertion the the media are controlled by Jews. Unfortunately the very desperation of the censorship rather suggests the truth of the proposition.
If the media were not controlled by someone, why would anyone be concerned to smother any such statement?
Tom, while the media seem to be controlled by Zionists to a large extent, that does not mean the media are controlled by Jews. Not all Zionists are Jews, and not all Jews are Zionists, by any means.
Caspeger
Not all Zionists are Jews.. indeed every government in the world that can afford it subscribes to the Israeli software Pegasus that unlocks a back door in every computer.
They are prepared to open their own back backsides, to the worst predator to gain access to their citizens ‘ computer back doors.
So if a Muslim Girls Academy uses Israeli security cameras , that means the school trusts the Israelis to film their girls hut no workman is allowed to enter the building at all.
So there is active Zionism , supporting the criminal state of Israel, and passive Zionism, trusting Israel above all others.. something like Passive Smoking maybe?
Pegasus clones login credentials from a mobile phone to access cloud data. So it is crucial to change passwords and revoke login permissions on a semi-regular basis. This is one way to protect yourself from this kind of eavesdropping, since this essentially renders the keys stolen by the Pegasus malware useless.
Zionism is antisemite (ask Theodor Herzl), ergo no Jews are zionists.
I don’t see the media question so much as one of pro-Zionism though there’s plenty of that. It’s the way that any allegation of “antisemitism” immediately gets media top billing that goes on for weeks being picked over minutely. While allegations of other forms of racism, corruption or whatever get far briefer and more muted mention. Everyone is free to speculate why this is but it makes “antisemitism” smears startlingly effective.
Having discovered the formula with which anti-racists can be attacked as the worst of all racists, the enemies of fairness, truth and the left will continue to bombard people of good faith with these accusations until their victims (presumably) slink away with heads bent in shame. Not content with removing Corbyn from the leadership of his party, they are determined — aided and abetted by the faux liberal establishment stooge Starmer — to hound him out of Parliament and condemn him to an ignominious semi-existence as a social and political pariah. They aim to do the same with Craig as with Jackie Walker, Chris Williamson and Marc Wadsworth — all dedicated fighters against lies and racism. Shades of 1984, you might think. But you should not — you must not — submit. Keep fighting the bastards, Craig, and all strength to your arm.
Ethnic Cleansing -OED Definition:- Mass expulsion or killing of members of one ethnic or religious group in an area by those of another.
The Basic Law: “Israel as the Nation-State of the Jewish People legislation” could not be a clearer, more formalized example of State-legislated Ethnic Cleansing, It stipulates that “Israel is the historic homeland of the Jewish people and they have an exclusive right to national self-determination in it”.
It also strips Arabic of its designation as an official language alongside Hebrew, downgrading it to a “special status” that enables its continued use within Israeli institutions. There has been a chorus of criticism, both internal and international, after Israel passed this controversial law declaring that only Jews have the right of self-determination in the country.
There have been a constant history of repeated list too numerous to include, Human Rights violations:
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs issued a report stating:
Israel continued to provide security, administrative services, housing, education, and medical care for more than 628,000 settlers residing in unlawful settlements in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem. International humanitarian law bars an occupying power’s transfer of its civilians to occupied territory. Palestinians in much of the West Bank have access to water, electricity, and other state services that are either more limited or costlier than the same services that the state makes available to Jewish settlers there.
The difficulty in obtaining Israeli-issued building permits has driven Palestinians to construct housing and business structures that are at constant risk of demolition or confiscation by Israel on the grounds of being unauthorized. The UN considers 46 Palestinian communities at “high risk of forcible transfer.
As of November 19,2019, lethal force by Israeli forces resulted in the killing of 252 and injuring of 25,522 Palestinians in Gaza, OCHA reported. Many of the injuries were life-changing, including hundreds of cases of severe soft tissue damage, some necessitating amputation of limbs. Most of the killings took place in the context of protests, where Israeli forces, following orders from senior officials, used live ammunition against people who approached or attempted to cross or damage fences between Gaza and Israel.
But it must be Anti-Semitic to even question Israel’s human rights record?
“But it must be Anti-Semitic to even question Israel’s human rights record?”
Any critique of the actions of the state of Israel or its basic ideology – Zionism – is almost always automatically labelled “Anti-Semitic” by most mainstream news nd politicians in the “West” – the EU and NATO states.
No. It’s apparently “antisemitic” to criticise any person or institution that happens to be Jewish, over anything. Nice little racket if you’re Jewish. I have no more problem with George Soros than any other billionaire and I generally approve of the things he supports. But people with right-wing views don’t and are sometimes critical. Then we see left-wing people accusing them of being “antisemitic” which I view as an almighty mistake.
In the USA, the idea that any critique of the state of Israel is anti-Semitic was popularized by the late neocon columnist Charles Krauthammer. He argued that because Israel is surrounded by enemies and is forced into perpetual struggle for its existence, anyone who criticizes Israel for its actions wishes its ultimate destruction by its countless enemies; hence, such critic wishes harm to the Jews and, therefore, is an anti-Semite. The fallacy of the Kraut’s logic is obvious to me and, likely, to anyone who’s been reading the news for the past 30 years; however, the idea is just as alive as “They hate us for our freedom”, “Russia wants to invade Poland and the Baltic states” and other political nonsense that won’t stand a chance in a good high school debate but, nevertheless, somehow justifies spending billions of dollars and wasting countless thousands of lives.
“longstanding SNP policy on Palestine..”
The sincerity and worth of that longstanding policy was evidenced in their collusion with the rest of the British establishment in smearing Corbyn as an anti-Semite — even though he was the one promising them a second referendum. Suffice to say no clear headed Palestinian will ever look to the Edinburgh government for genuine support.
As for the fundamental nature of the party’s grassroots, that story is going to be eloquently told by the degree of support you receive in this election.
“no clear headed Palestinian will ever look to the Edinburgh government”
Logically, “never” should include not only your projection of the future, but also other possible projections, like one with Scotland becoming independent against the policies of current leadership of SNP that disregards the rights of Palestinians and Scots.
I meant, change “never” to “currently”.
That’s a great poster – I hope you get gzillions of votes Craig. Best of luck.
Good luck Craig with your and others’ attempts to rehabilitate the SNP as champions of the restoration of Scotland’s national sovereignty.
Personally, I feel the Rubicon has been crossed.
Curious that this sudden disinterested concern about the “antisemitism” of your Web site follows so close on the heels of your running for President.
“Amazon have blocked Alexa from quoting my website”. Well, to be honest, anyone who relies on Alexa or Wikipedia or any other establishment channel for information about controversial matters is simply asking to be misled. Why would anyone have such a thing in their house, let alone pay for it?
I am glad to say that when I recently received an email purporting to be from Mr Jimmy Wales, said to be the founder of Wikipedia, requesting funds, I replied that I could not see my way to contributing to a site that maligns such people as Mr Murray, Dr Kendrick, and other fine upstanding honest people.
The community buyout of the land at Langholm has, in re-wilding circles at least, had a favourable press, https://raptorpersecutionscotland.wordpress.com/2020/08/21/500k-boost-for-langholm-initiative-in-attempt-to-buy-grouse-moor-convert-to-nature-reserve/
The price tag of £6 million (quoted in the above article) does seem a little excessive given that there’s no shortage of similar habitat the length and breadth of this fine nation. While the Langholm Initiative seems a laudable one I think there’s a real danger of the tax payer being taken for a rather expensive ride now that the end is nigh for driven grouse shooting.
BTW Good luck with the bid for the presidency of the SNP. Hopefully the party won’t deal itself a fatal gunshot to the head with that election.
In my experience, “community buyouts” of Scottish rural estates are usually a scam. Grant$ and lawyer$ and loan$ and free money all round for those who already have lots of it, but of course a few photos of the children of local villagers to show how “community-spirited” the latest scam is.
Taking the taxpayer for a ride is the SNP’s specialism in a country where almost eff-all that’s profitable is produced. And since Scotland isn’t independent they can’t even award and get big kickbacks from military contracts. SNP voter recruitment at the margins depends on ignorance about such matters as “taxes”, the idea of giving every nurse and other “NHS worker” a “gift” of £500 “because of their loyal service during these difficult Covid times” being a case in point. Demanding the “Westminsters” don’t tax the extra income adds to the Toytown feel. This kind of cavalier votewinning attitude towards public funds has a very strong whiff of “sh*t or bust” about it. If the SNP don’t win the May election – not necessarily gaining a majority but at least managing to stay in power courtesy of the Snot Greens – several of its leading figures will face the prospect of jail time. So they might as well go for it. That seems to be the idea – “spending” (cough) whatever state money they can get their thieving hands on to maximise their chance of establishing a one-party sovereign state that will surely be able to find a foreign billionaire somewhere to be their most favoured sovereign lender, whatever the “racists” at Fitch and Moody’s might care to say.
It’s a pity for them that the police aren’t more SNP inclined, because otherwise they could just increase cops’ salaries to buy their votes, as is a common move by fascist and other sh*thouse governments the world over. (Nobody in Bogota cuts the cops’ wages before an election.) So nurses it is. The average age of nurses is younger too I think, so they are more influenceable politically.
“They do not say why it is anti-semitic; presumably, although they do not say as much, they must believe it is anti-semitic for the All Party Parliamentary Group on anti-semitism to be complaining about it.”
There is another possibility – under the convenient flag of antisemitism, some of these MPs may believe it is appropriate to close down any criticism of Israel, whether antisemitic or not. Much like the “Reds under the Bed” of McCarthyism, some will be drawn into the current fevered, as you say, witch-hunt.
“…under the convenient flag of antisemitism, some of these MPs may believe it is appropriate to close down any criticism of Israel, whether antisemitic or not.”
Very true arby.
Their motivations are unlikely to be anything less sordid than their belief that associating themselves with the vicious campaign against Palestinians will benefit their careers. No Israeli should be comforted for a moment by the idea that-if they were ever under threat- these people would lift a finger to save them- their political ancestors never did and neither would they.
SNP triangulation is all part of a cunning plan. Once people of influence realise independence is no impediment to the exploitation of others, it is safe to become the mainstream view in Scotland. That’s an excessively cynical view of course.
But stay principled, Craig. You may not win elections, and influential people may rather you shut up, yet if the all parliamentary group against anti semitism knew their Torah, they’d see that stirring up divine discontent with what is wrong has been the job of prophets since forever.
ERRATUM
8th paragraph, 2nd sentence:
Delete “…have been almost entirely captured by Britnat standards and Britnat attitudes.”
Insert “…have been almost entirely captured by neoliberal standards and neoliberal attitudes.”
British nationalism is unattractive, but it is not at the root of this.
In fact nationalism (of any variety) is most commonly a deliberate distraction from the true causes of political ills.
The British state will try anything fair or foul play to either shut you up or reduce your voice, as for some of the SNP MP’s at Westminster such as Hosie, MacDonald and Wishart, they’ve now ingratiated themselves into the Westminster system, so much so that Scottish independence is seen as a threat to their cushy positions in London. Of course come time for their reelections they revert to pushing independendence so that the indy faithful vote them back into their troughers position.
How timely that this should appear righ tat a time when you’re running for the presidency of the SNP, coincidence?
A bit of good news Jenny Marra is to stand down at next years Holyrood elections, she won’t be missed.
Sorry but I think that at this stage it is a storm in a teacup.
First, surely nobody is going to ask alexa questions like this last one — surely people only ask alexa questions to solve minor family disputes like who won the cricket world cup in 1979. The letter writers surely know this, Amazon know this, so it’s all a bit silly.
Second, if someone asks Alexa whether something is guilty of something, they are expecting a verdict from a recognized authority, not a blog post.
Having said that, I think there is a bigger issue more broadly where we have a group of MPs trying to directly dictate what can or can’t be on the internet, aside from the law, which does seem worrying regardless of the topic.
” First, surely nobody is going to ask alexa questions like this last one “
Well you can’t be sure but what’s really worrying is were they were prepared to believe the results and I fear many would. Craig’s post is possibly the only one which isn’t outright anti-Semitic and apart from one other firmly in tin foil hat territory.
I don’t have Alexa and never will but has anybody been able to check and confirm that the responses were genuine?
Small technical point, the Scottish Land Commission does not run or administer the Scottish Land Fund. The land commission are doing very good policy work on the reform of land ownership in Scotland. Prior to COVID, they were doing a big public consultation programme e.g. meet the commissioners on a dreich night in a Community Centre in Kirkcaldy. Interesting and very enthusiastic bunch of people who have been involved in buy-outs and crofting reform.
Thank you.
“Q: Alexa, why are people still surprised that Amazon bends to the will of the ruling class and censors progressives and critics of human rights abusers?”
“A: Fucked if I know listener. My super-simple algorithms posing as AI do not provide me with an answer to this hard question. Please ask me an easier question.”
Q: “Alexa, why are people still using Amazon, Google, Facebook and other similar companies when they see their societies being destroyed, unemployment rising exponentially, their data being sold for huge profit without their consent, their privacy being invaded and human rights denied?”
A: Ask me to suggest a good film. Or ask me to play Happy Birthday.
Obama touched upon this lately
“Barack Obama opens up on AIPAC influence during his presidency”
https://www.trtworld.com/magazine/barack-obama-opens-up-on-aipac-influence-during-his-presidency-41512
And with the latest attack on Iran, one can imagine the psyops going on from Israel to the US but also EU to support whatever move Israel choose.
Yes Jack, I read the same thing (different source) in an article about whether Biden will reverse the recent declaration by Pompeo/Trump that BDS will be declared anti Semitic in the US. The conclusion being that even if he wanted to, which he probably doesn’t, the political cost would be too great. Kamala Harris has spoken in favour of BDS but I fear those days are gone.
I also fear that the same thing will happen here soon. Declaring BDS antisemitic was in the Tory manifesto and, while I don’t think they really have much interest in the matter, the temptation to cause further division in Labour will eventually prove too much. They will probably keep it for a rainy day but when they do Keir “Zionist without reservation” Starmer will once again be between a rock and a hard place. On the evidence so far I think we all know which way he will turn.
There are two serious accounts on two levels to be raised about Israel:-
Both aspects have been addressed in highly analytical and intelligent ways (below) and Professor Edward Said’s one state solution, it seems to me, is the ultimate answer.
https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/why-calling-israel-apartheid-state-or-racist-not-anti-semitic
https://www.nytimes.com/1999/01/10/magazine/the-one-state-solution.html
A one state solution is the obvious one for those interested in fairness and justice. current impasse over the two state position is one which hugely favours the much more powerful entity – Israel. Extending human and civil right to the Palestinians is simply not even worthy of debate in the circles of power that protect Israel. Ethnic cleansing and genocide is the unspoken policy. After enough years of oppression there will, in effect, be a one Israel state solution,
I wonder if what is happening to the SNP has the same community behind it (though not exactly the same individuals) as the emergence of “New Labour” from the 1980s. In other words, agents for the Establishment. I wonder whether they belong to any recognisable society, though. Does the UK have anything comparable to the Broederbond?
In 1948 Israel ethnically cleansed 700,000 Palestinians. Of course Israel claims that these 700,000 simply ran away abandoning their land and property so it was OK for Jews to appropriate it. However Israeli death squads killed 7,000 Palestinians and it open to others to conclude that the killing was necessary to get the 700,000 to flee?
Patel will be chuffed. I’ve written to Dr Cameron to express my concern.
“Israel & US Pushing Iran to brink of war” is the title on YouTube, to a discussion with Gareth Porter author of Manufacturing Crisis, a book revealing the fake Iranian Nuclear documents Israel claimed to have stolen from Iran. Also with Professor Marandi, Max Blumenthal and Anya Parampil discuss the assination of Iranian scientist yesterday and efforts to draw US to attack Iran by Israel. If someone could post a link to this information not available in MSM please.
On The Grayzone Redlines Live
” I am particularly concerned that one of the signatories of the letter is Lisa Cameron, an SNP MP. The statement that “ethnic cleansing on a massive scale and serial human rights abuse, including war crimes, yes, Israel is guilty of these atrocities” is completely in line with longstanding SNP policy on Palestine. Lisa Cameron’s part in having my website blacklisted for an opinion in line with SNP policy is shameful….
Hold your head in Shame Lisa Cameron.. Whilst Craig, and the Decent Hearted among us weep for the dead children. Executed Teens..Erased Villages.. Torched Olive trees, Stolen Water(s) Ect.
” Lisa Cameron’s part in having my website blacklisted for an opinion in line with SNP policy is shameful.
But it is not isolated. As I feared, the SNP’s large cohort of MPs at Westminster have become very comfortable there with their life of privilege and large income, and they have been almost entirely captured by Britnat standards and Britnat attitudes. Last week, we had the official party paper on defence policy in which Stewart MacDonald MP and Alyn Smith MP directly jettisoned the party’s long term commitment to unilateral nuclear disarmament in favour of “multilateralism” – a long word for no nuclear disarmament ever.”
Stewart MacDonald MP, and Alyn Smith, Best get Real Re the mood in Scotland.. Especially on my River.. Where the WMD’s are based.
Great post Craig…Much of that I did not Know.
Government is losing the respect of society as people see more and more overt corruption: an example is corruption hiding behind cynical benevolence, such as minority-focused benevolence, that comes at a massive cost to the majority. Why would a government group in the UK prevent UK citizens from exercising free speech, expressing an opinion on the politics of another country, in order to protect the feelings of minority Jews? How bizarre.
Simple. What you are running up against is a religious belief. The modern religion of the west can be called ‘holocaustianity’. Criticize Uzbekistan or Uganda for state sponsored terrorism or torture and no one blinks an eye. Make the most mild criticism of a Jew (let alone the Jewish state) and you have transgressed a religious prohibition.
You’ll note that ‘anti-semitism’ is invoked to cover conduct by Jews wherever they may be, and whatever they may happen to do. Jeffrey Epstein, noted pedophile, accused the police of being ‘anti-semitic’ when they questioned him about trafficking young girls.
The financiers of Wall Street routinely use it to cover up their horrendous records of fraud (eg., the great financial crisis of 2008-2009) and subsequent bailouts by the state.
An Irish TV personality was even fired for commenting that two of his Jewish coworkers were financially adept.
The entire religion of the post-modern west is built on the idea that Jews are innocent angels who have been persecuted, for no reason whatsoever, throughout all of history. Culminating, of course, in the Holocaust, the guilt for which spreads beyond Germany into every single European country (and those colonized by Europeans). Jews are, by virtue of their suffering, the ultimate arbiters of both truth and morality, and to question Jewish culture, Jewish ethno-nationalism, or the conduct of individual Jews is to engage in a form of heresy.
The only permissible way to have an opinion about the Middle East is to either be 100% on the side of Israel, or to be Jewish and to be mildly critical of it (eg, Chomsky).
I think you are very wrong to write: “… the idea that Jews are innocent angels who have been persecuted, for no reason whatsoever, throughout all of history.” Do you mean that the persecutions did not happen? Or that Jewish people are not always “innocent”, so they somehow deserved their persecutions? You must know that there have been regular massacres of Jews in Europe throughout the Christian era.
It depends what you mean by “no reason”. Luther said Jews should be expelled and their houses burnt down, because they did not accept Christianity. That’s a definite reason, even if we don’t find it rational now. Jewish people were “other”: welcomed, tolerated, oppressed, or murdered. And vulnerable to changes in government and the mindset of the majority.
I’m not questioning your main point, that there is a misuse of accusations of antisemitism. To disagree about the extent of antisemitism among Labour members is defined as a “harassment of Jewish people”. (EHRC report.) But the history is there.
Amongst many other unhappy turns of phrase, Jim writes “make the most mild criticism of a Jew (let alone the Jewish state) and you have transgressed a religious prohibition.”
But Israel is not “the Jewish state”, much as its supporters wish it were.
By repeating that lie you lend it credibility.
What we call “Israel” is merely the squalid wreckage of a failed Jewish-supremacist colonial project, founded on the long-discredited 19th Century racialist ideology known as ‘Zionism’.
If you use the grandiose phrase “the Jewish state”, you accord Israel a dignity it doesn’t deserve.
It won’t be long until Alexa has a naughty baby sister, Pandora.
Well said Andrew.
Always remember
Alexia’s listening
Hears you ALL THE TIME
And just wait till daughter Pandora arrives.
“And just wait till daughter Pandora arrives”.
Although, as it’s proprietary, opening the box is illegal.
Criticism of Israel is criticism of the West whose baby Israel is, and with which it has formed a symbiotic relationship. Israel is central to the Middle East interests of the West under whose colonial rule it once was and it has served its interests to have it developed as a right wing racist, apartheid state to mirror the development of its Western parents.
Israel was leftward leaning in the 1960s and 1970s and attracted some interest from those on the left with its cooperatives and kibbutzim. As with Venezuela and other South American countries these developments could not be tolerated by the neo – con ruling elites in the West, which logically would lead to a democratically organised one party state for all Israelis and Palestinians and which logically a democracy touting West should support. But no, a nationalist pro-Jewish, anti-Arab Israel was the answer because it serves their interests better in this day and age.
The compulsive denialism by the West, pathetically illustrated by the letter above, of Israeli’s wrong doings knows no bounds because it would also mean it i.e us also having to admit its part in it. So not a squeak of interest in the recent killing of the Iranian nuclear scientist probably by Israel, the regular shelling from the occupied Golan Heights of Syria, or the fact that Palestinians are dying from Covid – 19 because Israel controls all access to medical supplies and treatment. And, to show where the Labour Party minus Jeremy Corbyn stands, according to Skwarkbox, Starmer and Raynor will be commemorating the International Day of Solidarity with Palestinians by attending a Labour Friends of Israel “bash”.
Discussions of the State of Israel and its policies is of particular importance to British people since in historical terms Israel is largely the fruit of various British policies.
To put the matter in a nutshell: Israel is our, British, baby. And it is of enormous importance that British people understand both the culpability of the British state and the longstanding and wide complicity of almost all those institutions purporting to represent the British people in shaping the nature and attitudes of Israel’s, frankly, fascistic government.
Britain’s responsibility in the genocidal treatment of Palestine is of very long standing. It pre-dates considerably the Balfour Declaration and the contemporary conquest of Arabia during the World War.
Most notably “Israel” was founded while Britain was governing Palestine under an International Mandate that it demanded from the ‘International Community.’
It is this long and dishonourable history which for Jeremy Corbyn has made the matter of Palestine, and the need to make amends for past Labour as well as British misdeeds, of more than ordinary political importance. For Labour and for the legatees of the Empire every death in Gaza, every beating at every checkpoint and every detention without trial (under laws introduced by the British), every house demolition and every acre of stolen land is a matter of concern, even of collective guilt.
Britain has no right to turn its back on the people of Palestine. In some senses nothing that Israel has ever done could possibly have been done without the encouragement, example and complacence of Britain. Indeed the crimes of 1948 were all prefigured in the British colonial actions after 1938 and in the years following. The brutal suppression of the intifadas was actually modeled on Orde Wingate’s example.
bevin,
You cannot blame Britain for the government of Israel becoming like a disease ridden whore with no new customers to satisfy and a little black book of old clients to bug, with all suffering from the clap by virtue of their past associations/dealings surely?
“Britain’s responsibility in the genocidal treatment of Palestine is of very long standing. It pre-dates considerably the Balfour Declaration”
How so? Britain didn’t have much of a role in Palestine before the 1WW, less than other European powers. Pro-zionist mutterings in chapel didn’t mean much; Christianity is in the end a Jewish heresy, and some Christian movements were bound to be pro-zionist without understanding what that meant. What changed was the events of the first world war, which put Britain into actual power over events in Palestine, while the zionist movement built on the initial success (not a given) of the Balfour declaration.
Israel is a rogue state. Its actions, done by any other country, would result in widespread condemnation if not military intervention. Many, many Jewish people are totally opposed to the Israeli regime, so a clear distinction must be made between ‘the Jews’ and the Israeli government.
The truth is, the Israeli regime is, for want of a better word, evil. In a strange way, they’d probably take that as a compliment. They’re so paranoid and psychopathic, that they feel the need to completely dominate the narrative/media/internet. It must all stem from their persection by the Nazis, all those years ago. That was then – it’s time to move on. Not forget. But look at the Israelis’ treatment of the Palestinians – doesn’t it ring any bells? It’s uncannily similar to how the Nazis started on them. They’re becoming the very thing they most dread.
Good grief Bob! Do you get similarly exercised at the vastly worse plight of the Rohingya?
Does the government of Myanmar attempt to control and influence the policies of British political parties? Does it attempt to shut down and punish all criticisms of it?
One may deplore the plight of the Rohingya but it can in no way be compared to the more than 70 years of suffering inflicted on the Palestinian people.
as the late david graebner observed, no jew should look to these establishment witchfinders when the chips are really down. they will be gone, nowhere to be seen.