Here is a small selection of some of the comments left on The Guardian’s superblog, Comment is Free (CiF):
“Israel seems to have made it its mision (sic) to prove Hitler right.”
“The US political system has become far too dominated by hawkish, Zionist Jews in
recent years. Something that most people don’t know is that the neo-cons are
overwhelmingly Jewish; William Kristol, Richard Perle, David Wurmser, to name but
a few.”
“Maybe a jew can explain why jews are seemingly despised the world over? Well that’s
just an legitimate observation I take from history and the present.”
Read Jonathan Hoffman’s report for more of this - and for his explanation of why it matters on page 4.
For God’s sake, have you ever read the comments section of the Jerusalem Post, or of Haaretz? You’ll find the most vitriolic anti-Arab racism you can imagine.
And what about the paid advertisments Haaretz publishes from the unabashedly racist site Samson Blinded?
Comments sections of newspapers mean absolutely nothing. They’re even open to macchiavellian operations of planting incendiary comments to discredit the paper.
PD: After reading the Hoffman article, the impression I’m left with is that he’s calling on the Guardian to impose censorship on its readers. It’s a sad thing when proposals arise to curtail freedom in the name of political correctness.
I am not at all calling for ‘censorship’. I am calling for the same editorial standards to be applied to the blogs of newspapers as to the newspapers themselves. Would you deem ‘censorship’ the editing process that screens out racism in a newspaper? The BBC website has full premoderation so why can’t the Guardian? At the moment it has partial premoderation but that is not stopping the antisemitism.
If there is anti-Arab racism on the JP or Haaretz websites then of course the same principle applies. I am not familiar with those. I suggest you do a similar study to mine.
“For God’s sake, have you ever read the comments section of the Jerusalem Post, or of Haaretz?”
Yes, I have. There’s plenty of antisemitism there as well, especially in Haaretz. Thanks for pointing it out.
I just realized you were not talking about antisemitism. The “most vitriolic anti-Arab racism you can imagine”? Please, don’t make me laugh. There’s more antisemitism there than any “anti-Arab racism.”
And lest we forget about the most vitriolic antisemitism imaginable in the Arab press and media. And I’m not talking about the comment sections, but the newspaper articles, cartoons, television.
Well, I would have sworn that you were a regular reader of the Israeli press. You see where prejudice can lead one. In any event I won’t do a survey like yours, precisely because I believe blogs should be open to all ideas, however offensive.
Well, on a second reading of the report I’m left wondering if some of the claims made may not be tongue in cheek. For instance:
The Guardian’s Community Standards say “We recognise the difference between criticising a particular government, organisation, community or belief and attacking people on the basis of their race, religion, gender or sexual orientation” but then the Moderators do not seem to realise that talking eg about ‘apartheid’ in Israel and ‘ethnic cleansing’ is itself an attack on the basis of race (the Jewish race)
Is this seriously meant? By this standard, talking about apartheid in South Africa would also have been an attack on the basis of race (the Afrikaner race). I.e. critics of apartheid were all racists.
[In the Appendix with examples of antisemitism]
Ziongate: “94.6% of the barrier is actually constructed of metal fence.”
Wall, fence, barrier…..
Aushwitz was surrounded by barbed wire fences. Obviously that meant that those inside the camp were just fine and dandy, didn’t it?
Pathetic.
[The sentences in bold are highlighted as the antisemitic part of the comment]
How can anyone not understand the irony in the Auschwitz comparison? It’s not an analogy between Israel and the Nazis; it’s a Reductio Ad Absurdum argument: Ziongate was defending the Wall on the grounds that it’s not a wall but “just” a metal fence; RickB retorts that Auschwitz was surrounded by “just” barbed wire, so that the problem is not actually the material a barrier is made of, but the pain it helps inflict.
Actually, most of the examples are ironies that only taken literally by someone very lacking in sense of humor can be considered antisemitic.
Also, the report often claims something is antisemitic and uses this claim to prove that it is antisemitic. For instance, a reader is considered antisemitic for quoting Israel Shahak, because Shahak himself was an antisemite. But the latter is the report’s claim, not an established fact.
In short, the report strikes me as a juvenile effort at political essay. It has too many weaknesses to be taken seriously.
Ibrahim Ibn Yusuf
Apartheid was systematic racism whereby blacks were separated from whites eg at schools and Universities and hospitals, and blacks were denied basic rights such as voting. The difference with the situation of the Arabs in Israel is obvious. It is absurd of you to claim that the term ’apartheid’ is racist when applied to former South Africa. That was the situation for which the word was coined. When misapplied to Jews, however, it certainly is racist. “Claiming that the Jewish State is a racist endeavour” is antisemitic, see the EUMC Working Definition:
http://eumc.europa.eu/eumc/material/pub/AS/AS-WorkingDefinition-draft.pdf
That is the case – whether you like it or not, it is an internationally agreed definition.
[In the Appendix with examples of antisemitism]
Ziongate: “94.6% of the barrier is actually constructed of metal fence.”
Wall, fence, barrier…..
Aushwitz was surrounded by barbed wire fences. Obviously that meant that those inside the camp were just fine and dandy, didn’t it?
Pathetic.
RickB makes the comparison between the security fence and the fence surrounding Auschwitz. Again, this is antisemitic – see the Definition (‘Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis’).
You may think all the examples in my paper are humorous, that is your right. But you do not have ownership of the Definition of Antisemitism. As I say in the paper, it is a fundamental precept of laws on racism that it is up to the offended to define what is or is not offensive – not up to you.
For Jews antisemitism is no laughing matter.
Interesting points; allow me to respond.
1) I’m in Argentina, and I’m not sure the EUMC Working Definition is binding for me. Also, definitions by international bodies are in many cases debatable. Wasn’t it the UN that once declared that Zionism was a form of racism? The Working Definition is the product of a politically hiper-correct committee that wants to be holier than the Pope and is very fearful of harming certain sensitivities.
2) Israel proper is not an Apartheid state, but it has certain elements of Apartheid. For instance, hate against Arabs is taught in State-subsidized Israeli schools. See:
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/997629.html
Be sure to notice the hair-raising racist language used: “exploitative,” “abnormal phenomenon” (i.e. dating an Arab), “sleeping with the enemy,” etc.
3) The situation in the West Bank, however, is one closely resembling Apartheid: Israeli-only roads; Arabs dumped into countless cantons with no contiguity; settlers given total freedom to harass the local population; an absolute segregation of the Jewish and Arab populations; natural resources overwhelmingly allotted to the settler population to the detriment of the native Arabs; etc.
Again, this is antisemitic – see the Definition (‘Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis’).
But RickB is making no such comparison; he’s making a Reductio Ad Absurdum argument.
Much to my astonishment, you were dead serious with your report and actually aim at suppressing free speech in the name of political correctness. That is a dangerous agenda, and needs to be stopped.
The left seems to adore the most vicious and repressive of ideologies, from Stalinism to Maoism to Islam.
The moderate swing to the right in some venues may indicate a recognition of the left’s moral bankruptcy.
The Guardian’s anti-Zionism, anti-Judaism, and Islamophilia are simply symptoms of the left’s stinking, diseased soul.
The playground of the Looney Left is CI(F). And CI(F) encourages anti Israel sentiment in such a way that it becomes very difficult to distinguish antisemitism from anti Israel feelings.
Some of the anti Israel posters post all day long rants about ‘evil Israel’. I find difficulty seeing this as anti Israel in isolation. It would seem to be based in antisemitism and CI(F) is the vehicle generously provided by the Guardian in its anti Israel crusade.
IbnYusuf - “…I’m not sure the EUMC Working Definition is binding for me..”
Why not? It should make sense and be binding for all civilised people.
“Elements of apartheid?” - Israeli Arabs have the vote and sit as Members of the Knesset. What’s apartheid about that?
And comparisons of the barbed wire around Auschwitz with the closed borders of Gaza are “irony?” I am not even smiling. The clue here lies in the intent, which was to insult Jews/Israelis. When a country is hated so vehemently and insulted using the identical tropes as have been used by Nazis, Arab countries and the benighted on CiF against Jews then it’s hardly too great a leap to deduce that hatred of Israel’s POLICIES is blown out of proportion because of hatred of her PEOPLE because they are Jews.
Arguing against Jew-hatred is not tantamount to suppressing free speech. I would bet that you would be first in the queue for suppressing me if I wrote the same rubbish and filth about Muslims and Islam.
ClaptheHammer - Israel-hatred on CiF is the equivalent of King Charles’ head in “David Copperfield” - it will keep getting into everything.
And of course CiF is anti-Semitic and every anti-Israel thread on it acts as CiF’s whore because it garners more hits.
The Guardian’s affinity for politically-correct evil, from anti-Semitism to Islamism to even Japanese imperial fascism, is superbly analysed by this poster on Pilger’s Hiroshima thread:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/aug/06/secondworldwar.warcrimes?commentid=cf0c5d5f-f78b-4e88-9d06-bfbb78d4f596
Aetrus
Aug 07 08, 2:11pm
I am often sympathetic to Pilger’s view: he acts as an antidote to the prevailing world view. But this is historical revisionism of the worst kind brought on by a visceral dislike of the USA.
Imperial Japan was a vicious, racist, fascist and militaristic regime. It brought us such genuine war crimes as Nanjing, Harbin and the Bataan Death March. The US sacrificed hundreds of thousands of lives to end this evil. They brought it to a swift conclusion by using the best weapon available. The ’starve them out kindly’ option would have taken years and led to more US casualties and quite possibly more Japanese ones.
Any attempt to paint the US as the perpetrator is just the support and justification of fascism. Sorry John, that is the simple reality. Everything else is casuistry.
Ibrahim Ibn Yusuf I couldn’t care less if you’re in Timbuctoo - it’s obvious that little binds you to acceptable behaviour.
All this guff about apartheid means absolutely nothing when (though I doubt it would penetrate the fog you seem content to exist in) you consider what would happen if folk like you got their wish, for Israel to be sufficiently delegitimised so as not to exist. Muslim engendered apartheid and its correlation,dhimmitude would be the least of Israel’s worries.
Israel only roads are a must when you consider what would happen if terrorists and their accoutrements were allowed to move freely between Gaza and the West Bank.
Interesting isn’t it, how during a discussion on Jew hatred your “contributions” consist solely of anti-Israel rhetoric. This supports Mitnaged’s argument above.
“..actually aim at suppressing free speech in the name of political correctness..”
WHAT???!
So it’s “free speech” is it, by your definition, to insult Jews/Israelis (and since CiF and many Arab states don’t care to distinguish between the two, neither shall I for these purposes)?
May I take it that you support similar insult to Palestinian and other Muslims, very much in the spirit of equal opportunities and freedom of expression?
Please confirm that this is what you mean, because if it is I’d like to get cracking asap.