This is a guest post by Karl Pfeifer, a veteran anti-fascist and journalist based in Vienna.
“There is no call for hating the Israel-hating Israelis,” writes Ari Shavit. “At the end of the day, their position is a pathetic one. Their self-righteousness is not at all righteous, and their moralizing has no morality.”
Some Israel-hating Israelis are to be found in Israeli academia. And some of them are the cherished interviewees of the state owned German radio. Today, the journalist Birgit Kolkmann interviewed Prof. Moshe Zuckermann of Tel Aviv University, who said, about the conflict in Gaza:
“Time and time again civilians are affected. Also this time about 25 to 30 percent of the victims - one speaks in the meantime about more than 400,000 dead victims - are civilians.”
(In the German original: “es sind immer wieder Zivilisten in Mitleidenschaft gezogen. Auch diesmal waren ungefähr 25 bis 30 Prozent der bislang Umgekommenen - man redet mittlerweile von über 400.000 Todesopfern - Zivilisten.”
I’ve listened to the original broadcast, and there is no mistake: Zuckermann really did speak about 400.000 dead victims. (However, in the transcript of the interview, someone has corrected the number - it is perhaps easier to deceive the ears than the eyes.)
If somebody utters a big lie like Zuckermann’s, it is the duty of a journalist to correct it - or at least to ask if what was said is truly correct. But Birgit Kolkmann did not ask any questions. So my conclusion is either that she does not know her job or that she is ideologically motivated to let such a brazen lie pass. After all it is better to let an Israeli do the lying than to do so herself.
Zuckermann probably imagines that his lie rings true and believes in the credulity of the listeners. As a historian, he must know the deep wish of so many Germans and Austrians to hear that the Jews are no better than the Germans were at the time they murdered six million Jews…
But do you think that Zuckermann expected to be believed? It seems truly bizarre. Perhaps he didn’t hear what he himself said and his interviewer thought (but didn’t say) that he must have meant 400 (which would have been accurate). (Sometimes when I say something I only realize later that I really did misspeak myself - I didn’t hear what I actually said, only what I thought I said). But certainly the radio station should then have issued a correction on the air with the accurate number.
Rebecca, of course that could have been a mistake by him. But the journalist should have asked right away: did you mean 400.000? She did not ask, and in the transcription one could read 400.000. Then, after publication of the story, they corrected the number to 400.
If I would have the time to watch and hear all that is said these days on German and Austrian TV and radio I could write every day several articles about the “mistakes”
For instance on Austrian state radio, one could hear about “Israeli settlements near the border” when they spoke about Sderot Ashkelon and Ashdod.
This was not the first time they did it and I am afraid it is not the last time.
Of course what could you expect from Austrian State owned ORF, when a commentator who made racist remarks about Barack Obama is not fired.