Antisemitic Discourse in Britain in 2008 Discourse Report 2008.pdf · depictions of Gaza as being somehow comparable to the Warsaw Ghetto. • During 2008, the Iranian state-backed

Antisemitic Discourse in Britain in 2008

Graffiti at a bus stop on Finchley Road in the heart of North London's Jewishcommunity. The graffiti was sprayed on the night of 30 December 2008 duringIsrael's conflict with Hamas in Gaza and Southern Israel. It reads "KILL JEWS"and "JIHAD 4 ISRAEL". (The "4" means "for", as in the style of mobile telephonetext messaging).

Executive summary

Introduction

Antisemitic Discourse and Antisemitic Incidents

Antisemitism: Context of UK Jewish life

What is Antisemitism? Definition, Impact, Historical Background

British Jews

Anti-Zionism: A ‘Lingua Franca’ for Political Extremists

Archbishop Rowan Williams: The Lesson of Antisemitism

Poll of UK and global attitudes to Jews

Antisemitic Discourse: Misconceptions and Smears

American Politics and Contemporary Antisemitic Discourse

Anti-Israel Boycotts and Antisemitism

“Zionist...pro-Israel lobby...Jewish”

National Union of Students act against antisemitic leaflet

Abuse of the Holocaust

Denial and Trivialisation of the Holocaust

Terrorism and Antisemitism

Mainstream Media Blogs: Facilitating and Normalising Extremism

ISBN: 978-0-9548471-2-8

The text and illustrations may only be reproduced with prior permission ofthe Community Security Trust.

Published by the Community Security Trust. Registered Charity Number1042391

Copyright © 2009 The Community Security Trust

CST Antisemitic Discourse Report 2008 / 3

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Holocaust denial on the website of Press TV. The station is sponsored by Iran andhas an office in London. Press TV is widely available via the Sky TV network. Thearticle, and Holocaust denial, are analysed in further detail on pages 48 and 49of this report.

• Explicit antisemitic discourse, openlytargeting Jews on the basis of their religionor ethnicity, is extremely rare inmainstream British media and politics.

• Explicit antisemitism faces similar socialand legal prohibitions as do other forms ofexplicit racism and prejudice.

• Antisemitism is a concern for British Jews,but it should not be regarded as thedefining or most important characteristic ofJewish life in Britain today. Nevertheless,antisemitism is an important matter thatmust be better understood and challengedbefore it worsens any further.

• Contemporary antisemitic discourse iscomplex and multi-faceted. It is most oftenrevealed in language and imagery thatevokes the central antisemitic allegation ofa powerful and hidden Jewish conspiracyagainst all non-Jews; and is particularlyvisible in portrayals of America’s pro-Israellobby. Such discourse may well not bedeliberate or understood on the part of itsproponents.

• The words “Zionism” and “Zionist” arerepeatedly abused by extremists fromdiverse backgrounds. So-called ‘anti-Zionism’ is increasingly common, despiteits growing resemblance to historicalantisemitic discourse about powerful andessentially alien Jews. This linguistic abuseof “Zionism” - and the ready dismissal ofits attendant antisemitic resonance andimpact - is rarely challenged, andoccasionally repeated, within mainstreammedia and politics.

• Rhetoric against “Zionist” or “pro-Israel”lobbies fosters hostility to mainstreamJewish personalities and organisations. Thisis especially visible in the regularmisrepresentation of Jewish concerns about

antisemitism, particularly by otherwisesincere anti-racists.

• A 2008 poll of racist attitudes showedBritish respondents are more favourablydisposed to Jews (73% positive) than toMuslims (63%), and less so than toChristians (83%). Unfavourable attitudes toJews were admitted by 9% of respondents.This is similar to attitudes to Christians(7% unfavourable), and significantly lessthan towards Muslims (23% unfavourable).

• The memory of the Holocaust isincreasingly abused by depictions of Israelas the successor to Nazi Germany, and ofPalestinians as having replaced Jews as itsvictims. In 2008, this was seen indepictions of Gaza as being somehowcomparable to the Warsaw Ghetto.

• During 2008, the Iranian state-backedEnglish-language station, Press TV (carriedon Sky TV featured Holocaust denial on itswebsite, and extreme anti-Zionism in itsprogrammes. This is a significant shift inthe potential for future mass mediapromotion of antisemitic incitement.

• The blogging sections of mainstream mediawebsites continue to host and spreadblatant antisemitism that would not betolerated in their print or broadcasteditions.

Executive Summary


6 / CST Antisemitic Discourse Report 2008

This CST Antisemitic Discourse Reportanalyses written and verbalcommunication, discussion and rhetoricabout Jews and Jewish-related issues in Britain in 2008. It is the second studyof its type into antisemitic discoursewithin the UK mainstream publicsphere, following CST’s 2007 Report1.

This Report concentrates uponmainstream discourse that is relevantto the study and understanding of antisemitism today. To this end, the Report cites numerous mainstreampublications, groups and individuals,who are by no means antisemitic, but whose behaviour nevertheless, has an impact upon attitudesconcerning Jews and antisemitism.

These are not surveys of marginal orclandestine racist, extremist and radicalcircles, where antisemitism is common.Where such material is quoted withinthis report, it is usually for comparisonwith more mainstream sources.

The ground breaking 2006 Report of the All-Party Parliamentary Inquiryinto Antisemitism2 noted the importanceof antisemitic discourse, the complexityof defining what is (and is not)antisemitism, and urged further study of the subject. By 2008, the ParliamentaryInquiry process had led to the issuing of the first progress report of theGovernment’s taskforce againstantisemitism. It described antisemiticdiscourse as follows3:

“Antisemitism in discourse is, by its nature,harder to identify and define than aphysical attack on a person or place. It is more easily recognised by thosewho experience it than by those whoengage in it.

Antisemitic discourse is also hardto identify because the boundaries of acceptable discourse have becomeblurred to the point that individuals and organisations are not aware whenthese boundaries have been crossed,and because the language used is moresubtle particularly in the contentiousarea of the dividing line betweenantisemitism and criticism of Israel or Zionism.”

Introduction

1 “Antisemitic Discourse in Britain in 2007”Published by CST,London. ISBN 0-9548471-1-3.http://www.thecst.org.uk/docs/Antisemitic%20Discourse%20Report%202007_web.pdf

2 “Report of the All-Party ParliamentaryInquiry intoAntisemitism”.Published September2006, London. The Stationery Office.www.thepcaa.org

3 “All-Party Inquiryinto Antisemitism:Government ResponseOne year on ProgressReport”. Published 12 May 2008, London.The Stationery Office.http://www.official-documents.gov.uk/document/cm73/7381/7381.pdf


For ease of analysis and discussion, CSTdistinguishes antisemitic discourse fromactual antisemitic incidents4, which arerace hate attacks against Jews or Jewishorganisations and locations.

Racist or political violence is influencedby extremist discourse; particularly the manner in which perpetrators of such violence may be emboldened by, real or imagined, support from opinionleaders and society for their actions.

Antisemitic discourse influences and reflects hostile attitudes to Jews and Jewish related issues. It can fuelantisemitic incidents against Jews andJewish institutions, and may leave manyJews feeling isolated, vulnerable and hurt.

The purpose of this Report is to helpreduce antisemitism, by enablingreaders to better understandantisemitic discourse and its negativeimpacts against Jews, and society as a whole.

Antisemitic Discourse and Antisemitic Incidents

4 CST’s annual AntisemiticIncidents Report is a comprehensiveanalysis of the scale and nature of antisemiticrace hate attacks. The “AntisemiticIncidents Report 2008”and recent predecessorsmay be accessed via the publicationspage at CST’s website:http://www.thecst.org.uk/index.cfm?content=7&Menu=7


OverviewAntisemitism should not be used as the defining characteristic of British Jewry.

Jewish life in Britain today is diverse and extremely well integrated into widersociety. Indeed, the Jewish community is often referred to by Government and others as the benchmark of successfulminority integration.

British Jews have full equal rights andprotection in law. Overt antisemitism isboth illegal and socially unacceptable.Jews who wish to live a Jewish life haveevery opportunity to do so, be iteducational, religious, cultural or political.

Nevertheless, many Jews regardthemselves, and future generations, as being increasingly vulnerable toantisemitic attitudes and impacts thatthey perceive within anti-Israel hostility.This perception of Jewish vulnerabilityis worsened by the statistical evidenceof antisemitic race hate incidents and crimes, which have increasedsignificantly since the turn of themillennium and rise sharply inimmediate reaction to Middle East events.

The 2005-2006 All Party ParliamentaryInquiry into Antisemitism noted “that there is much truth”in the apparent contradiction betweenthe extremely positive situation of British Jewry, and the rising mood of vulnerability and isolation5.

“In his oral evidence, the Chief Rabbistated: “If you were to ask me is Britain an antisemitic society, the answer is manifestly and obviouslyno. It is one of the least antisemiticsocieties in the world.”

However, the President of the Board of Deputies of British Jews told us:“There is probably a greater feeling of discomfort, greater concerns andgreater fears now about antisemitismthan there have been for manydecades.” Having considered all of theevidence submitted, we are of theopinion that there is much truth in bothof these ostensibly contradictory views.”

HistoryIndividual Jews were present in the British Isles in Roman times, but organised settlement began after the Norman conquest of 1066. Massacresof Jews occurred in many cities in 1190,most notably in York. In 1290, all Jewswere expelled by King Edward I, butsome converts to Christianity and secretadherents to Judaism remained.

Following the expulsion of Jews from Spainin 1492, a covert Jewish communitybecame established in London. The presentBritish Jewish community, however, hasexisted since 1656, when the expulsionwas removed by Oliver Cromwell.

By the early 19th century, Jews hadvirtually achieved economic and socialemancipation. By the end of the 19thcentury, Jews also enjoyed politicalemancipation. From 1881 to 1914, the influx of Russian Jewish immigrantssaw the Jewish community’s populationrise from c.60,000 to c.300,000. This met with antisemitic agitation fromtrade unions, politicians and others.

DemographyThere are an estimated 300,000 to350,000 Jews in Britain, two-thirds of whom live in Greater London. Jews live throughout Britain,predominately in urban areas.

Antisemitism: Context of UK Jewish life

5 “Report of the All-PartyParliamentary Inquiryinto Antisemitism”.Published September2006, London. The Stationery Office.http://www.thepcaa.org/Report.pdf


Other major Jewish centres are inManchester, Leeds, Brighton and Glasgow.

The religious composition of the Jewishcommunity is highly diverse, and rangesfrom the strictly orthodox to non-practising. Many Jews can trace theirBritish identity back to the mostsignificant influx of Jewish immigration,from Russia at the turn of the 20thcentury. Others can trace their Britishidentity considerably further. There is also

a substantial number of Jews of othernational origins who have arrived inrecent years, from countries includingSouth Africa, Israel and France.

The Jewish population is in decline due to low birth rate, intermarriage and emigration. The strictly orthodoxminority is experiencing sustainedgrowth due to larger family sizes and may in future comprise the majority of the Jewish community.

Jewish teenagers attending a course in personal safety anddevelopment, run by the community’s Streetwise initiative.

Definition: summaryIn essence, antisemitism is discrimination,prejudice or hostility against Jews.

Antisemitism is also used to describe allforms of discrimination, prejudice orhostility towards Jews throughout history.

Antisemitism focuses upon ‘the Jew’ ofthe antisemitic imagination, ratherthan the reality of Jews or Jewish life

It is not necessarily antisemitic tocriticise Israel or Zionism, even if thecriticism is harsh or unfair. Theantisemitic aspect largely depends upon:

• The motivation for the criticism: To what extent is the critic driven by the Jewish nature of Israel and/or Zionism?

• The form of the criticism: Does it useantisemitic or otherwise racist themesand motifs? The more deliberateand/or inaccurate the usage, the more antisemitic the criticism.

• Who is the target for the criticism:Are local Jews being singled out asrecipients for criticism or bias thatostensibly derives from anti-Israel or anti-Zionist hostility?

‘The Jew’ of the antisemiticimaginationPhilosopher Brian Klug has stressed theimportance of the imaginary ‘Jew’ toantisemitic discourse, “where Jews areperceived as something other thanwhat they are…Thinking that Jews arereally ‘Jews’ is precisely the core ofantisemitism.”6

Klug depicts the antisemitic caricatureof ‘the Jew’ as follows:

“The Jew belongs to a sinister peopleset apart from all others, not merely byits customs but by a collectivecharacter: arrogant yet obsequious;legalistic yet corrupt; flamboyant yetsecretive. Always looking to turn aprofit, Jews are as ruthless as they aretricky. Loyal only to their own,wherever they go they form a statewithin a state, preying upon thesocieties in whose midst they dwell.Their hidden hand controls the banks,the markets and the media. And whenrevolutions occur or nations go to war,it is the Jews – cohesive, powerful,clever and stubborn – who invariablypull the strings and reap the rewards.”

Antisemitic impactsAntisemitic impacts may arise fromentirely legitimate situations that haveno antisemitic intention.

Statistical evidence shows thatperceived members of an ethnic orreligious group can suffer hate crimeattacks when public events related tothat group take place. Media coverageor political comment of such publicevents may be entirely legitimate andoverwhelmingly in the public interest;yet still spark a hateful reaction fromothers. This dynamic is repeated inantisemitic incident levels7, rising inrelation to public events involvingJews, Jewish institutions, or Jewish-related subjects such as Israel.

Furthermore, members of targetedgroups can feel vulnerable due topublic debate on matters that theyperceive as being closely associatedwith them. This dynamic is alsorepeated within the Jewish communitywhen there is public debate on Jewishrelated issues.


What is Antisemitism? Definition, Impact, Historical Background

6 Brian Klug “The Concept ofAntisemitism”.Speech, OxfordUniversity, 2009. Also,“Submission ofEvidence to the All-Party Inquiry intoAntisemitism”.December 2005.

7 Shown repeatedly inCST’s annual“Antisemitic IncidentsReport”. http://www.thecst.org.uk/docs/Incidents_Report_08.pdfAlso, Iganski, Kielinger,Paterson “Hate CrimesAgainst London’s Jews”.Institute for JewishPolicy Research,London, 2005.

Antisemitism: historical backgroundAntisemitism is an important warningof division and extremism withinsociety as a whole. It is a subject thatshould be of concern not only to Jews,but to all of society.

The near destruction of EuropeanJewry in the Holocaust rendered openantisemitism taboo in public life, but it has led many to wrongly categoriseantisemitism as an exclusively farright phenomenon that is essentiallyfrozen in time.

Antisemitism predates Christianity andis referred to as “the Longest Hatred”8.Its persistence is not doubted, yetprecise definitions of antisemitism arean issue of heated debate.

Antisemitism repeatedly adapts tocontemporary circumstances andhistorically has taken many forms,including religious, nationalist, economicand racial-biological. Jews have beenblamed for many phenomena, includingthe death of Jesus; the Black Death; theadvent of liberalism, democracy,communism, capitalism; and for incitingnumerous revolutions and wars.

A dominant antisemitic theme is theallegation that Jews are powerful andcunning manipulators, set against therest of society for their evil and timelesspurpose. The notion of Jewish power -codified within the notorious forgery,“The Protocols of the Elders of Zion” -distinguishes antisemitism from othertypes of racism, which often depict theirtargets as ignorant and primitive.

Today, antisemitic race hate attacks haveapproximately doubled since the late1990s. This phenomenon has occurred in

most Jewish communities throughout theworld, and there is a clear global patternwhereby overseas events (primarily, butnot exclusively, involving Israel) triggersudden escalations in local antisemiticincident levels. The situation is made farworse by ongoing attempts at masscasualty terrorist attacks by globaljihadist elements against their localJewish communities.

Antisemitic ideology: Jewish conspiracyThe ideological component of antisemitismwas defined by Steve Cohen, as follows:9

“The peculiar and defining feature ofanti-semitism is that it exists as anideology. It provides its adherents with a universal and generalised interpretationof the world. This is the theory of theJewish conspiracy, which depicts Jews as historically controlling anddetermining nature and human destiny.Anti-semitism is an ideology which hasinfluenced millions of people preciselybecause it presents an explanation ofthe world by attributing such extremepowers to its motive force – the Jews.”

Antisemitism: legal definitions,Race Relations Act, and StephenLawrence InquiryThe 2005-2006 All-Party ParliamentaryInquiry into Antisemitism summarisedantisemitism by reference to the RaceRelations Act 1976 as follows10:

“Broadly, it is our view that any remark,insult or act the purpose or effect of which is to violate a Jewish person’sdignity or create an intimidating, hostile,degrading, humiliating or offensiveenvironment for him is antisemitic. This reflects the definition of harassmentunder the Race Relations Act 1976.


8 Edward H Flannery“The Anguish of theJews: Twenty-ThreeCenturies ofAntisemitism”. Firstpub. 1965. ReprintPaulist Press, 2004.Robert S Wistrich“Anti-Semitism TheLongest Hatred”,Methuen, 1991; alsoScreen Guides forThames Television“The Longest Hatred”,1991.

9 Steve Cohen “That’sFunny, You Don’t LookAnti-Semitic”. Beyondthe Pale Collective,Leeds, 1984.http://www.engageonline.org.uk/resources/funny/index.html

10“Report of the All-PartyParliamentary Inquiryinto Antisemitism”.Published September2006, London: The Stationery Office.www.thepcaa.orghttp://www.thepcaa.org/Report.pdf

This definition can be applied to individualsand to the Jewish community as a whole.”

The Stephen Lawrence Inquiry definitionof a racist incident has significantlyinfluenced societal interpretations of what does and does not constituteracism, with the victim’s perceptionassuming paramount importance.

CST, however, ultimately defines incidentsagainst Jews as being antisemitic only

where it can be objectively shown to bethe case, and this may not always matchthe victim’s perception as called for bythe Lawrence Inquiry. CST takes a similarapproach to the highly complex issue ofantisemitic discourse, and notes themultiplicity of opinions within and beyondthe Jewish community concerning thishighly sensitive and frequentlycontroversial subject.


A poster in Golders Green advertising Barnet Council's January 2009 Holocaust Memorial Day was

targeted with graffiti reading "JIHAD 4 ISRAEL". This was one of many sites in the heart of North

London's Jewish community to be sprayed with graffiti during the December 08-January 09

conflict between Israel and Hamas in Gaza and Southern Israel. In many other instances the

"Jihad" call was accompanied by "KILL JEWS". (Also: see inside cover).


Relationship with Israel and Zionism Modern day Israel and Zionism are, in significant part, Jewish responsesto the long and often tragic history of antisemitism. The multipledynamics between antisemitism, anti-Israel activity and ‘anti-Zionism’are fundamental to the nature,content and impact of contemporaryBritish antisemitism; and to theconcerns of British Jews.

As stated elsewhere in this report, CST(and other UK Jewish bodies) do notbelieve that it is necessarily antisemiticto criticise Jews, Israel or Zionism, evenif that criticism is harsh or unfair.Antisemitism is, however, a form of racistand political activism. Because of its verynature, antisemitism thrives uponcriticism of Jews, Israel and Zionism,regardless of how fair or unfair that criticism happens to be.

In recent years, Israel has become the subject of repeated criticism and outright hostility from relatively large sections of the liberal-left, includingcampaigning groups, trade unions,politicians, journalists and the NGOsector. British Jews hold varyingperspectives on the legitimacy and motivation of this behaviour: rangingfrom those who play a leading part in theanti-Israel activity, to those who regardanti-Israel actions as antisemitic per se.

Criticism of Israel or Zionism is notantisemitic per se. However, it risksbecoming so when traditional antisemiticthemes are employed or echoed. Thiscommonly occurs when the word“Zionist” or “Israeli” is substituted where“Jew” would have previously appeared.

Calls for the actual destruction of Israel or‘Zionism’ transcend both criticism andhostility. Such incitement may not beregarded as antisemitic by its proponents;but if they were to succeed, it would beprofoundly shattering to the morale andself-identity of many British Jews.

British Jews

The bastardisation of the word“Zionism” is crucial to contemporaryantisemitic discourse.

To many self-described “anti-Zionists”,the word “Zionist” now resonates as apolitical, financial, military and mediaconspiracy that is centred inWashington and Jerusalem, and whichopposes authentic local interests. Many“anti-Zionists” believe themselves to be sincerely opposed to antisemitism,but extreme definitions of “Zionism”echo previous antisemitic beliefs about ‘the Jews’.

Worse still, the prejudices of consciousantisemites are reinforced by the ever-evolving anti-Zionist lexicon of words,phrases and charges. This discourseencourages antisemites, many of whomtake expressions such as “pro-Israel” or “well-financed” to be coded publicexpressions for their own publiclyrestricted opinions.

Lessons from anti-racismIsrael’s critics should limit the antisemiticcontent and impact of their behaviour by utilising the basic principles of anti-racism. They should avoid inflammatorycatch-all terms such as “Israel’ssupporters” and “Zionists” – both ofwhich can be easily understood to meanmost Jews, but are frequently used in ademonising and dehumanising manner.They should avoid replicating olderantisemitic narratives and themes inmodern guise. Furthermore, anti-Israelactions such as boycotts should at leastbe acknowledged by their proponents asactivities that will genuinely concern andisolate many Jews.

The Parliamentary Inquiry intoAntisemitism found that:11 “…discourse

has developed that is, in effect,antisemitic because it views Zionismitself as a global force of unlimited powerand malevolence throughout history. Thisdefinition of Zionism bears no relation tothe understanding that most Jews haveof the concept; that is, a movement ofJewish national liberation, born in thelate nineteenth century with ageographical focus limited to Israel.Having re-defined Zionism in this way,traditional antisemitic notions of Jewishconspiratorial power, manipulation andsubversion are then transferred fromJews (a racial and religious group) on toZionism (a political movement). This is atthe core of the ‘New Antisemitism’ onwhich so much has been written.”

Continuities between antisemitismand anti-ZionismThere are numerous continuitiesbetween historical antisemitic themesand modern anti-Zionism. These include:

• Alleging that Jewish holy books preachJewish supremacy and that this is thebasis for alleged Zionist racism.

• The image of the shadowy, powerful“Zionist” repeats the antisemiticcharge that Jews are loyal only toeach other, and that Jewish leaderssecretly conspire to control media,economy, and government for theirnefarious ends.

• Historically, Jewish converts to othermodes of identity, such as Christianity,nationalism or communism, had to showthat they had cast off their ‘Jewishness’.Today, some people (mainly on thepolitical left) expect Jews to declare theirattitude to Israel before they will treatthem decently. No other section ofBritish society is similarly treated.


11 “Report of the All-PartyParlimentary Inquiryinto Antisemitism”.Finding 83.

Anti-Zionism:A ‘Lingua Franca’ for Political Extremists

• Dehumanising antisemitic languagecomparing Jews to rats, cancer,plague and bacteria is now repeatedin some depictions of Israel andZionists12. This reduces its target to a pest or disease, encouraging the notion that ‘cleansing’ or‘extermination’ must occur.

• Scapegoating Jews as “the other”;blaming them for local and globalproblems; and demanding theirdestruction or conversion as a vital stepin the building of a new, better world isechoed in the notion that Zionism isuniquely illegitimate; and that thedestruction of Israel is paradigmatic oftheological and political struggles forthe future of the world.

• The image of Jews as alien corruptorsof traditional, authentic society andestablished moral values survives incontemporary portrayals of pro-Israellobbyists as illegitimate hijackers ofthe true will and nature of peoplethroughout the world. It persists insome mainstream UK media depictionsof American pro-Israel lobbyists.

Antisemitic impacts of anti-ZionismAnti-Israel and anti-Zionist discourse,especially from the liberal-left, media,charities and trade unions may not in any way be inspired by antisemitism.Indeed, these activists may specificallywarn against the danger of antisemiticoutcomes arising from such activities:because they understand that hostilediscourse about Israel and Zionism can - however inadvertently - haveantisemitic impacts. Nevertheless,otherwise sincere anti-racists sometimesadopt, echo or condone antisemiticpositions that are ostensibly fostered by their hostility to Israel and Zionism.

Antisemitic impacts arising from anti-Israel, and, in particular, anti-Zionist discourse, include the following:

• British Jews and British Jewishorganisations fall victim to antisemiticrace hate attacks over internationalevents that are blamed upon Israeland/or Zionists. These attacks,combined with the threat of antisemiticterrorism, impact against Jewishmorale, and require a security responsethat imposes further psychological andfinancial burdens.

• Providing concealment,encouragement and self-legitimisationfor antisemites.

• Depicting the Jewish state as a uniquelyracist or imperialist enterprise serves tothreaten, isolate and demonise all thosewho believe that Jews have a right tostatehood. Indeed, anyone who showssupport for Israel or Zionism risks beingdefined and castigated for thisbehaviour, rather than gauged by any of their other actions and beliefs.

• The fostering of a reflexive hatred,fear, suspicion or bias against Jews,leading to Jews and Jewishorganisations being prejudiciallytreated due to their supposed supportfor Israel or Zionism.

• Extreme hostility to mainstreamJewish representative bodies thatactively support Israel.

• The use of “Zionist” as a pejorativedescription of any organised Jewish(or Jewish related) activity, such as the “Zionist Jewish Chronicle” or the “Zionist CST”. These bodies are then maltreated for being


12 For example, commentby “joe90” on 30August 2008, athttp://www.socialistunity.com/?p=2767,referring to “Zionists”at the EdinburghFestival as “ethniccleansers trying toinfect the world’sbiggest arts festivalwith their racist plaguebacilli”.


allegedly Zionist, rather than properlyengaged with in their own right.

• Contemporary antisemitism is judgedby its supposed utility to Zionism andis reacted to on that basis. There iswidespread contempt for mainstreamJewish concerns about antisemitism.No other minority’s concerns abouthate crime are treated so harshly bythe self-professed anti-racismmovement. Similarly, Holocaustcommemoration is sometimes judgedby its supposed utility to Zionism andis reacted to on that basis.

• Employing anti-Israel rhetoric oractions specifically because they haveunique resonance for Jews. Forexample, comparing Israel to NaziGermany, or advocating an academicboycott of Israel on the basis thateducation is a particularly Jewish trait.

• Enacting anti-Israel activities,especially boycotts, that inevitablyimpact against local Jews far morethan any other sector of society.

There are numerous points ofcomparison between traditionalantisemitic themes and contemporaryleft wing anti-Israel and anti-Zionistpropaganda. The poster above, isfrom Nazi Germany in 1943/44, and is entitled 'The Jew, the inciter of war,the prolonger of war'.

The cartoon left, is from 2008 anddepicts (then) US President Bush Jr as a monkey to (then) Israel PrimeMinister Olmert's organ grinder. Thecartoonist, Latuff, is highly regardedby 'anti-war' activists and websites;and received second prize of $4,000in the notorious Holocaust-themedcartoon competition of 2006, run by leading Iranian newspaper,Hamshahri.

This particular cartoon is from Latuff's "Tales of Iraq War" series.

Religious hatred and religiousoffenceOn 29 January 2008, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams,presented the James CallaghanMemorial lecture, entitled “ReligiousHatred and Religious Offence”13. This lengthy speech was a detailedphilosophical analysis of freedom of speech and blasphemy laws, and illustrated many aspects on the highly complex subject of discourse and, “the social meanings of anti-religious language or behaviour”.

The speech also included relatively briefmentions of historical and contemporaryantisemitism, in which the Archbishopused the lessons of antisemitism to frameand make his point. These elements of the speech are analysed below:

Having introduced his speech, the Archbishop explained that he would“concentrate on the borderlandbetween the legal and the moral, in the hope of clarifying a little the social meanings of anti-religiouslanguage or behaviour”.

He then stressed the “foundational”role of antisemitism in the understandingof hatreds, and the continuity(“slippage”) between discourse and ostracism from society:

“I do so in the consciousness that we have just marked Holocaust MemorialDay: there is a sense in whichthe foundational form of religioushatred and religious offence in ourculture has been and remainsantisemitism. Its history in Europeshows how the slippage can occur fromabusive words and images to assumptions about the dangers

posed by a community stigmatised as perpetual outsiders to actionsdesigned to remove them for good”.

Next, the Archbishop explained howreligious tradition and modernsecularism can be a “lethal mixture”:

“The lethal mixture of a Christiantradition of anti-Jewish polemic and routine humiliation – interspersedwith murderous outbreaks of popularviolence – and a post-Christian,pseudo-scientific philosophy of raceillustrates how religious hatred can be generated by both intra-religiousand secular forces”.

He continued by explaining thedifficulties that arise in defining wherediscourse moves from “criticism” to“contempt” and then to “violence”:

“one of the most demanding aspects of trying to make sense of this set of problems around religious offence is the clarifying of where the border liesbetween criticism and contempt and between contempt and violence.The history of antisemitism does not suggest that we shall find a comfortingly clear answer.”

Further on in his speech, the Archbishopaddressed the relationship of “power”to “freedom of speech arguments”:

“And this at last brings us to howpower is at work in all this. The classical free speech argumentswere largely formulated against a background of resistance to a dominantculture administered by non-accountableauthorities: blasphemy functioned as one form of protest against tyranny…”.


13 “Archbishop's lecture -Religious Hatred andReligious Offence”. 29 January 2008http://www.archbishopofcanterbury.org/1561

Archbishop Rowan Williams: The Lesson of Antisemitism

He explained that this notion of freedomof speech remains as “the tribalmemory” when commentators discussreligious offence; yet the reality is thatthe overall context has considerablyshifted. The history of antisemitismilluminates the consequence of this:

“But what is harder to cope with is a situation in which this kind of folkloric,David-and-Goliath pattern is not reallyapplicable. Yet again, we shouldremember some of the history of anti-Semitism.

Some of the passionate polemic againstJewish people in the New Testamentreflects a situation in which Christiangroups were still small and vulnerableover and against an entrenched religio-political establishment; but thelanguage is repeated and intensifiedwhen the Church is no longer a minority and when Jews have becomemore vulnerable than ever.”

From this point, the Archbishopexplained the need for mythology withinantisemitism, and specifically the needfor a mythology of Jewish power,realised today in the fantasy depictionof “Zionism”:

“It is part of the pathology of anti-Semitism (as of other irrationalgroup prejudices) that it needs to workwith a myth of an apparent minoritywhich is, in fact, secretly powerful and omnipresent.

It is the pattern we see in the workingsof the Spanish Inquisition, searchingeverywhere for Jewish converts whomight be backsliding; it is the myth of the Elders of Zion and comparablefantasies of plots for world domination;

it is the indiscriminate attribution (not only by certain Muslims) of all the evils of the Western world to an indeterminate 'Zionism'.

A rhetoric shaped by particularcircumstances has become soembedded that the actualities of powerrelations in the real world cannot touchit. There are many instances where the habit of imagining oneself in termsof victimhood has become so entrenchedthat even one's own power, felt and exercised, does not alter the mythology.”


The latest Pew Global Attitudes Projectsurvey14 asked respondents around theworld for their views on Jews, Muslimsand Christians.

In Britain, the survey showed that 73% of people are favourably disposedto Jews, whereas 9% are unfavourable.This is a considerable and verywelcome gap between positive andhostile attitudes, and was surveyed as57% being “somewhat favourable” toJews; 17% being “very favourable”; 6% being “somewhat unfavourable”;and 3% being “very unfavourable”.

The poll was conducted in March-April 2008by Princeton Survey Research AssociatesInternational. There were between 700 and1,000 adult respondents in most of thecountries surveyed. In Britain, the 753respondents were surveyed by telephone.

Results provide useful indicators for bothpositive and negative opinions of Jews;how these opinions have changed overtime; how these opinions compare withattitudes to Muslims and Christians; andhow Britain compares with othercountries regarding all of these factors.

19% of British respondents did notanswer the question about their attitudeto Jews. This compares to 1% of Frenchrespondents. As a consequence, Frenchrespondents were both more favourableand less favourable to Jews than theirBritish respondents. It is hard to discernif the 19% British non-response ratereveals greater ambiguity of feeling; areluctance to be seen to be antisemitic;or, (less likely perhaps), a reluctance tobe seen to be philosemitic.

Bearing in mind the above caveat,the survey shows the following:

• British attitudes to Jews weremarginally less favourable in 2008

(73% positive) than in 2004 (76%),2005 (78%) and 2006 (74%).

• British attitudes to Jews are morefavourable (73% positive) than toMuslims (63% positive), and lessfavourable than to Christians (83%positive). This shows a consistent10% ‘favourability’ gap betweenMuslims and Jews, and between Jews and Christians.

• British hostility to Jews is the samenow as in 2004 (9%) and marginallyworse than in 2005 and 2006 (6% both years).

• In Britain, expressed attitudes to Jewsare less hostile (9%) than attitudes toMuslims (23%), and more hostile than toChristians (7%). This suggests thatexpressed levels of hostility to Jews andChristians are basically similar, whereashostility to Muslims is significantly worse.

• British respondents were less likely toanswer the question about Jews (19%)than they were about either Muslims(16%) or Christians (10%) -suggesting that people hold less strongfeelings about Jews; and/or do notknow Jews; and/or feel more restrictedin saying what they feel about Jews. If even half of this 19% are actuallyconcealing their hostility to Jews, thenhostility against Jews would be twice asbad as the survey states.

• British favourable and hostile attitudesto Jews, Muslims and Christians, arehighly consistent with attitudesexpressed in America and Australia.Other European countries (exceptFrance) surveyed tend to be morehostile to Jews, Muslims and Christians.Muslim countries surveyed haveoverwhelmingly hostile attitudes toJews, favourable attitudes to Muslims,and mixed attitudes to Christians.


Poll of UK and global attitudes to Jews

14 Pew Global AttitudesProject 2008 survey.http://pewglobal.org/reports/pdf/262.pdf

Survey results include the following:“Please tell us if you have a very favourable, somewhat favourable, somewhat unfavourable, or very unfavourable opinion of Jews”. (Figures as given by Pew).

Comparing attitudes to Jews, Muslims and Christians (figures as given by Pew)

VeryFavourable

SomewhatFavourable

TotalFavourable

TotalUnfavourable

VeryUnfavourable

SomewhatUnfavourable

Don’t know /Refuse

Britain 16 57 73 9 3 6 19USA 41 36 77 7 2 5 17

Australia 16 57 73 11 3 8 16

France 14 65 79 20 6 14 1Germany 8 56 64 25 4 21 11

Spain 2 35 37 46 18 28 18Poland 4 46 50 36 11 25 14Russia 11 36 47 34 12 22 20

Turkey 2 5 7 76 68 8 17Pakistan 1 3 4 76 65 11 21 Egypt 0 3 3 95 92 3 3

Indonesia 2 8 10 66 36 30 23

India 2 13 15 32 21 11 53China 2 18 20 55 17 38 24

Nigeria 11 23 34 43 22 21 23Mexico 3 17 20 46 23 23 35

Attitude to Jews Attitude to Muslims Attitude to Christians

Favourable Unfavourable Favourable Unfavourable Favourable Unfavourable Britain 73 9 63 23 83 7

Australia 73 11 60 29 84 8USA 77 7 56 23 87 3

France 79 20 62 38 82 17Germany 64 25 40 50 83 12

Spain 37 46 33 52 67 24Poland 50 36 35 46 88 8Russia 47 34 56 32 88 7

Turkey 7 76 86 9 10 74Pakistan 4 76 99 1 24 60Egypt 3 95 100 1 52 46

Indonesia 10 66 95 2 51 41

India 15 32 36 56 49 37China 20 55 20 55 22 55

Nigeria 34 43 74 20 78 17Mexico 20 46 16 45 47 28


British Jewish leaders and representativebodies, including CST, the Board of Deputies of British Jews and the ChiefRabbi, have repeatedly and sincerelystated that it is entirely correct thatIsrael should be subject to criticism, just as any nation-state.

Despite this, some mainstreamcommentators and activists wronglyaccuse Jewish representative bodies ofdishonestly manipulating antisemitism asa smear with which to target any and allcriticism of Israel. This effectively labelsBritish Jewish representative bodies asliars and concealed front groups for Israel.As a result, British Jewish representativesare often treated with derision andcontempt whenever they do actually raise concerns about antisemitism.

Each repetition of the charge that Jewsabuse antisemitism, serves to reinforceantisemitic bias, as it implies that:

• Jewish communities and leaderseverywhere cannot be trusted.

• Jewish concerns about antisemitismshould not only be dismissed, theyshould also be actively opposed and exposed as a sham.

• Victims of racism deserve support,but Jews are the exception. They are unlike all others, because they cryracism in order to act as agents of a foreign government (Israel)- or a foreign ideology (Zionism) -both of which are ill-disposed towardsall other nations and philosophies.

• If Jews complain about antisemitism,then it proves the efficacy of anti-Israel campaigning and the value ofintensifying it.

The smear charge may be accompaniedby the additional claim that politiciansand journalists are too fearful for theircareers and personal safety to speakout against Israel and the allegedJewish cover-ups on its behalf. Thisallegation is itself partly reliant uponthe antisemitic notion of an all-pervasive and all-powerful pro-Israeliconspiracy that is somehow able tokeep the truth from leaking out to the general public.

Dave Brown, cartoonist, The IndependentOn 3 November 2008 the Independentcartoonist, Dave Brown, wrote anarticle concerning cartoons that hadprovoked controversy15. The articleshowed a number of controversialcartoons, and included Brown’s owninfamous Independent cartoon16

showing Israeli Prime Minister ArielSharon campaigning for votes: byeating a Palestinian child whilst saying,“What’s wrong you never seen apolitician kissing babies before?”.

The cartoon - originally published on Holocaust Memorial Day in 2003 -had immediately provoked a furiousand dismayed reaction from many Jewsand non-Jews who perceived a resonance in Brown’s cartoon withthe important historical antisemitic“Blood Libel” allegation that Jews killand eat non-Jewish children. Browncountered that he had meant to implynothing of the sort, and that thecartoon had clearly included the words“(After Goya)” in reference to itscomposition being copied from Goya’spainting, “Saturn Devouring his Children”.

Nevertheless, when republishing thecartoon nearly six years later, Brown’s


Antisemitic Discourse: Misconceptions and Smears

15 Dave Brown “A Century of Satire,Wit and Irreverence”.The Independent, 3 November 2008.http://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/online/a-century-of-satire-wit-and-irreverence-986844.html?action=Popup&ino=10

16 Dave Brown cartoon.The Independent, 27 January 2003.


accompanying caption repeated hisGoya statement, but then explained thecontroversy by stating, “The followingday, the Israeli Embassy complainedand sent the image round to Jewishgroups in America. It elicited a hugeresponse, not all of whichwas bad”.

Brown provided no further explanationfor the controversy. He made nomention of the concerns expressed byBritish Jews, nor the referral to thePress Complaints Commission17 of over 100 complaints, including one(ultimately unsuccessful) from ArielSharon and the Israeli Embassy in London.

By limiting his explanation, Brown mayhave encouraged readers to assume thatthe reaction to the cartoon had beenmanufactured by the Israeli Embassyand unspecified American Jewish groups.This could also imply that AmericanJewish groups act under orders fromIsraeli embassies around the world.

This caption therefore not only ignoredthe reason for an entirely authentic localand international response, it also riskedreinforcing the insidious modern dayantisemitic canards that Jewish groupsaround the world are little more thanlocal agents of Israel; and that theirconcerns regarding antisemitism arefaked in order to defend Israel.

17 http://www.pressgazette.co.uk/story.asp?storyCode=22998&sectioncode=1

This cartoon, by Dave Brown, sparked outrage from Jews throughout the world when itfirst appeared in the Independent newspaper on Holocaust Memorial Day, 2003.

In 2008, Brown recalled the controversy and implied that it had resulted from "the IsraeliEmbassy" circulating the cartoon to "Jewish groups in America".

Johann Hari, columnist, the Independent, “Loathsome smearing” Commentators who allege thatantisemitism is being maliciouslyabused, often fail to adequately specifywhom they are - and are not - actuallycharging with this allegation. Suchfailures risk leaving the reader with theoverall impression that you must nottrust Jews when they complain aboutantisemitism.

One particularly vivid example of thisanalytical failure occurred in theIndependent newspaper, 8 May 2008,where columnist Johann Hari wrote anarticle entitled “The loathsome smearingof Israel’s critics”18. Hari has repeatedlybeen explicit in his condemnation of antisemitism, but nevertheless believesthat the term is prone to abuse19.

The opening paragraph of his articlestated:

“In the US and Britain, there is a campaignto smear anybody who tries to describethe plight of the Palestinian people. It is an attempt to intimidate and silence– and to a large degree, it works. There is nobody these self-appointedspokesmen for Israel will not attack as anti-Jewish: liberal Jews, rabbis,even Holocaust survivors.”

Hari’s article was premised upon angryresponses that he had received to a previous piece, in which he used the themes of Israeli “raw untreatedsewage” and “shit” to help explain whyhe could not bring himself to celebrate60 years since Israel’s creation.20

Hari’s article named four allegedperpetrators of this “loathsome

smearing”. These were two internet-based American pro-Israeli organisations,Honest Reporting and CAMERA;American lawyer/activist, Alan Dershowitz; and British writer, Melanie Phillips. Hari described them as “some of the most high profile “pro-Israel” writers and mediamonitoring groups…These individualsspray accusations of anti-Semitism so liberally that by their standards, a majority of Jewish Israelis have anti-Semitic tendencies”.

Hari also wrote that “Liberal Jews – the majority – are now setting up rivals to the hard-right organisationsthey [i.e. those who allegedly smear]work with, because they believe thiscampaign of demonization is damaging us all.”

Hari cited Melanie Philips but made no mention whatsoever of the manyother diverse British groups andindividuals who speak on antisemitism:such as the Board of Deputies of BritishJews, CST, the Engage network and David Hirsh, and the ParliamentaryCommittee Against Antisemitism.Similarly, he made no mention of the American groups and individualswho speak on antisemitism: such as the Anti Defamation League and Abe Foxman, or the American JewishCommittee and David Harris. (Indeed,by stating that “Liberal Jews – the majority– are now setting up rivals to the hard-right”, Hari risks leadingthe reader to assume that noalternatives to the allegedly maliciousgroups and individuals currently exist.)

David Hirsh wrote to The Independentthat Hari’s article “comes close to accusing anybody who is concerned


18 Johann Hari“The loathsomesmearing of Israel’scritics”. The Independent, 08 May 2008.

19 For example: Johann Hari“Don't let theLivingstone row blindus to the real and growing threat of anti-Semitism”.http://www.johannhari.com/archive/article.php?id=571

20 Johann Hari“Israel is suppressing a secret it must face”.The Independent, 28 April 2008

about antisemitism of acting in badfaith”. (The letter was not published)21.

Howard Jacobson, writing in his ownIndependent column22, respondedcritically to Hari, saying that,“he is mistaken in this instance –mistaken tactically and in fact – to invoke the spectre of a campaign, a front mobilised with aforethought to defame anyone who speaks ill of Israel.”

Caroline Lucas, Green Party: Jews,Israel, “universal human rights” In some instances, those who accuseJews or Israel of abusing antisemitism,nevertheless sincerely try to ensure thattheir words are not taken as a blanketcondemnation, despite the ‘catch all’nature of their initial remarks.

Caroline Lucas, leader of the GreenParty, writing in the Spring 2008 issueof Jewish Socialist magazine23,explained why the recent Green Partyconference had “controversially adopteda policy of boycott, sanctions and divestment with regard to Israel”.She explained that the policy wasintended as a call to peace for bothIsraelis and Palestinians, and wouldbenefit both peoples. The boycott waspartly needed because Israel hadhitherto hidden behind the “incendiaryclaim” of antisemitism, and the supportof America:

“Financial and moral support from the United States means that Israel hasbeen able to act with relative immunity,hiding behind its incendiary claim that all who oppose its policies are anti-Semitic”.

Lucas then continued, “This does agreat disservice to the many Jewishpeople who support the principle of

universal human rights, and whooppose the current policies of theIsraeli state”.

This clarification by Lucas shows the problems that can paradoxicallyarise from trying to distance Jews perse from Israel. By referencing “the many Jewish people who supportthe principle of universal human rights,and who oppose” alleged Israeli policies,Lucas may leave the impression thatonly that minority of Jews who are actively against Israeli policies canbe for universal human rights. This risks essentially branding themajority of Jews as not being in favourof universal human rights, or as actively obstructing the struggle foruniversal human rights because of theirsupport or sympathy for Israel.

The suggestion that Jews cannot be assumed to favour human rightsessentially divides Jews into ‘good’ and ‘bad’ categories, depending upontheir attitude to Israel. It is exceptionalfor British citizens to first have to declare their attitude towards an overseas conflict before beingconsidered as decent people.


21 http://www.engageonline.org.uk/blog/article.php?id=1877

22 Howard Jacobson “If there really is a smear campaign to try to silence the critics of Israel, it isn't working”. The Independent 10 May 2008

23 http://www.carolinelucasmep.org.uk/2008/05/01/no-green-light-for-occupiers-jewish-socialist-magazine-spring-2008/

Background: Jewish power andJewish warsHistorically, antisemitism has repeatedlyalleged that leading Jews manipulate non-Jewish dupes to go to war on their behalf.

Today, only the most extreme andmarginal groups would openly repeatsuch ugly allegations of Jewish moneypower, non-Jewish dupes, Jewish mediacontrol and vengeful Jews. Neverthelessthe same charges – minus the wordJew – are made against the Americanpro-Israeli lobby.

American Politics: pro-Israelbecause of Jewish power?In 2008, the American presidentialelection campaign showed theimportance that some mainstream UKmedia outlets attach to the supposedrole of pro-Israel power in Americanpolitics. This phenomenon had alsobeen seen in 2007, with the excitedreaction in some UK media to thepublication of the book “The IsraelLobby and US Foreign Policy”.

This is certainly not to say that suchdiscussion is not legitimate. It is entirelyreasonable to discuss the relationshipbetween America and Israel, and to question the role of the American pro-Israel lobby within this process.

The long history of antisemitism,however, suggests that care ought to betaken in how these arguments areexpressed; in particular, it is importantthat the American pro-Israel lobby istreated in a manner that is consistentwith other lobby groups: as a legitimateand normal part of the American bodypolitic, employing essentially the samemethods as other lobbies, and subjectto similar constraints.

Failure to take sufficient care in thisregard will help inspire antisemiticnotions, such as those shown in thechain of comments with which Guardian“Comment is Free” readers respondedto a Guardian editorial on the subject of Barack Obama, America and Israel(see page 28).

In the context of the Americanpresidential campaign of 2008, BarackObama and John McCain were depictedat various times by some commentatorsand media outlets as pro-Israel dupes.The accumulative effect of thesedepictions was to render Obama andMcCain as little more than twin sides ofthe same pro-Israeli coin, waiting toimplement Israel’s will, regardless ofwho won the election. This echoed oldantisemitic motifs of Jews controllingpoliticians from all sides of politics; aninsidious notion that carries the implicitsuggestion that Jews (or in this instance“pro-Israelis”) are alien from the bodypolitic, and are insincere turncoats.

Guardian cartoon: John McCain,USA confrontation with Iran: forIsrael or Jews?A Guardian article on 10 July 2008,entitled “Defiant Iran tests missiles toshow strength in face of US warnings”,was illustrated by a cartoon from SteveBell24 that could be taken as implyingthat Presidential candidate John McCainwas controlled by either Jews or Israel;and that America’s confrontation overIranian nuclear development wastherefore at the behest of Jews or Israel.

The cartoon showed John McCain andIranian President, MahmoudAhmadinejad, with swords raised, soaringtowards each other across the sky. In thecartoon, Ahmadinejad stands atop a


American Politics and Contemporary Antisemitic Discourse

24Steve Bell cartoon,

Guardian, 10 July 2008.

flying rocket, the shape of which isreminiscent of a nuclear explosion, but ismade out of the face of the late AyatollahKhomeini and his turban type head-covering. Ahmadinejad wears asuperhero type outfit and cloak in thecolours of the Iranian flag, and on hiswhite front has a red atomic star symbol.

McCain also stands on a flying rocket,in his case reminiscent of a fighter jetderived from the face of the thenPresident, George Bush Jr. McCain isslightly lower than Ahmadinejad, butthe two are on a collision course.McCain also wears a superhero typeoutfit; with pants and cloak made fromthe Stars and Stripes of the Americanflag. On his blue front, however, is awhite Star of David. This is similar tothe Israeli flag, but not identical: as theIsraeli star is blue not white, and theflag bears two horizontal white stripes.It is therefore debatable whetherMcCain is being depicted as being at

the service of Jews or Israel as hehurtles towards war with Iran.

Guardian editorial: Barack Obama,“jacket designed by Israeli tailors”. On 24 July 2008 the Guardian publishedan editorial25 about Barack Obama’svisit to Israel. Entitled “The messagethat matters”, the editorial praisedObama’s commitment to search forIsraeli-Palestinian peace if he wereelected, but criticised the extent towhich his actual visit had followedIsrael’s agenda.

The editorial’s opening paragraph was:“When a presumptive US presidentialcandidate arrives in Jerusalem, hewillingly dons a jacket designed byIsraeli tailors. He is compelled to callthe country a miracle, to visit theIsraeli Holocaust Memorial Yad Vashemand to link the memory of the 6 millionJews who died in Europe to Israelivictims of Palestinian violence today.


25Guardian leader 24 July

2008, “The message that

matters”.

This Guardian cartoon of 10 July 2008 comments upon Americanwarnings over Iran's nuclear programme: but what role does the Star ofDavid symbol play on the shirt of (then) US Presidential candidate JohnMcCain? Furthermore, is the Star of David representing Jews or Israel?

It was no accident that at Yad VashemBarack Obama met the policeman whostopped the rampage of a Palestinianbulldozer driver that injured 16 Israelison Monday.”

Unlike the remainder of the editorial, thisopening paragraph is referring to allwould-be presidents (rather then justObama) who visit Israel. It is any“presumptive US presidential candidate”who “willingly dons a jacket designed byIsraeli tailors” before then being“compelled to call the country a miracle”and visit the national Holocaust memorial.

The paragraph does not state that thecandidate is now “compelled” to doIsrael’s bidding per se; rather, this is saidin the context of his having to “call thecountry a miracle” and visit the Holocaustmemorial. Nevertheless, the imageryevoked by this narrative is striking: itsuggests that any realistic presidentialcandidate must beat a path to Jerusalem,where he will be “willingly” measured andfitted into his Israeli colours, before being“compelled” to do as he is told.

Political commentator, Norman Geras,analysed the editorial on his blog underthe headline, “Barack Obama and theJewish tailors” 26 , thereby alluding tothe “Israeli tailor” comment recallingthe stereotype of the Jewish tailor.Geras described the opening paragraphas “oozing cynicism…foul stuff” and a “fetid introduction”.

Geras further noted that whilst theGuardian may not consider Israel’spost-Holocaust creation as “a miracle”,it is still a considerable achievement,“that the Jewish people, after whatbefell them in Europe and surroundedby enemies, created a Jewish

homeland…”. He continued, “We are tobelieve, for example, that he [Obama]would not have gone to Yad Vashemjust on his own steam? How does theGuardian know this? We are to believethat the Israelis have a way of gettingvisiting politicians to do what theyotherwise mightn’t? Being Jews, they’llhave the knack for that, I suppose...”.

Guardian editorial: “Comment isFree” readers response – openantisemitism, and antisemiticcharges recycled in modern guiseThe above Guardian editorial alsoappeared on the Guardian’s own“Comment is Free” (CiF) website. Globally,this is one of the leading websites of itstype, and the sheer quantity of commentsinvolved, and the complexity of gaugingwhen reasonable comment breachesstandards of decency, results in someobjectionable material not being removed.Nevertheless, CiF’s moderation policiesand efforts27 have consistently improvedin recent years, as it adapts to meet theconsiderable challenge.

Those CiF readers’ responses28 to theGuardian editorial that were not removedby moderators include examples thatillustrate how antisemitic motifs or modesof thinking endure in contemporaryattitudes to Israel and America. Thisincludes comments that are by no meansclear cut examples of antisemitism, butmay reflect older antisemitic ways ofthinking: in particular, the charge thatJews run the media, now recast asZionists run American media.

(NB. All spellings are as in the originalpostings).The first comment, from “halgee184”at 12:32am, implied that the Americanmedia is under Israel’s control:


26 http://normblog.type

pad.com/normblog/

2008/07/barack-

obama-and-the-

jewish-tailors.html

27 See quote from CiF

editor, Matt Seaton, at

http://www.thejc.com

/articles/web-

boosting-hate-

speech%E2%80%99-

says-cst

28 http://www.guardian.

co.uk/commentisfree/

2008/jul/24/barackob

ama.usforeignpolicy?s

howallcomments=true

“Good editorial. I hope that Obama andhis people read it. This is great muchbolder comment than New York Timescan ever say in matters concerning P/I[Palestine/Israel] conflict!...” .

The second comment, at 12:34am from“gavinbullock”, echoed the editorial’simagery about American presidents,candidates and Israel:

“I don’t think we can expect anyAmerican president (or presidentialcandidate) to be even handed betweenthe Palestinians and Israel…”

At 09:14am, “socialistMike” placedAmerica as subservient to anunspecified “global elite” that opposesthe rest of “humanity”. This is similar toformulations that were previously usedagainst Jews, but are now madeagainst so-called Zionists:

“Obama will continue to support Israel’soccupation and repression. It is [sic]the US’s geopolitical interests, to havean armed, aggressive proxy in theregion and there is no reason whyObama will change that…

…I predict Obama’s first war crime willcome early in his presidency – he willneed to reassure the global elites thathe places their interests abovehumanity’s as soon as possible.”

At 11:17am, “tehrankid77”29 replied tothe above “socialistMike” comment aboutPresident Obama by stating that thePresident would be assassinated if he didnot follow Israel’s orders to America:

“~~socialistMike Obama will continue tosupport Israel’s occupation andrepression.~~~

I don’t think he really has any choicebetween being assassinated or giveway for more occupations andrepressions in the OT [OccupiedTerritories]…the guy has no choice butto take orders from uncle [sic] Sam’ssuperiors in Tel Aviv!!!”

At 12:59pm, an American contributor,“neoc”, repeated the notion that the USmedia conspires to perform Israel’sbidding:

“The US media is doing a brilliant job infostering a distorted pro-Irsael agenda.Can you imagine the NY andWashington papers writing editorialsalong the line of theGuardian/presenting a truthful pictureof the I/P conflict?

You cannot fool all of the people all ofthe time though…”

At 1:44pm, “bass46”, took the imageryof the Guardian editorial’s opening to itsseemingly logical conclusion, about Israelcontrolling American politicians (who inturn dominate British Prime Ministers):

“Its humiliating to watch US Presidentsand candidates prostrate themselvesbefore the Israeli lobby in order tosecure their electorally vital but morallydubious support. It’s a little likewatching UK PM’s throw themselves atthe feet of whoever is in theWhitehouse [sic] in the hope ofgleaning an iota of favour,embarrassing in the extreme…”

“Bass46” posted again, at 2:23pm, andrepeated the increasingly widespread claimthat the Holocaust has rendered Israelpsychologically compelled to re-enact thenear genocide suffered by European Jews -


29 Soraya Tehrani was

later asked to

contribute a CiF

column. The offer was

withdrawn when CiF

became aware that

she was the same

person as “Tehrankid

77”, “…we cannot

have a comment

contributor whose

posting in threads has

been subjected to

moderation for

antisemitism. We were

not aware that this

was an issue with

Soraya Tehrani”. See

http://www.hurryupha

rry.org/2008/10/03/th

e-guardian-sacks-

racist-blogger/

30 http://www.guardian.

co.uk/books/2008/

oct/04/unitedstates.

militarism

only this time as perpetrators, with thePalestinians as victims:

“…Basically, it seems that not only didthe holocaust shape Israeli thinking inthe immediate aftermath, but for evermore. It’s a little like watching anabused child, unable to escape theconditioning created by the abuse theymarch inexorably towards the same fateeven as they deny whats before them…”

At 3:58pm, a posting by “littleroy”repeated the claims of Israel runningAmerican politics, and said that his “Professor” had told him this.Furthermore, “littleroy” specified that itwas “pro-Israel Jewish Senators” whoenforced the control. (i.e. that it wasnot pro-Israel senators per se):

“My Professor says Israel actually runsWashington. Just have a close look atUS policies. They submit everytime todozens of pro-Israel Senators like MrLieberman…Now over two billionpeople, quarter of earth’s populationshout “Death to America”. Professorsaid that US cannot maintain this levelof opposition for long. It must changecourse: Either make Israel into 51stState, or ditch the Israelis. The burdenis too great for Washington to carry”.

Guardian Books Review: Obamamust “genuflect” The American Israel Public AffairsCommittee (AIPAC) is the leading pro-Israel lobby group in the USA. It is alsoone of America’s leading lobby groups,and is often the focus of allegations thatAmerican politicians are subservient tothe pro-Israel lobby’s demands.

One such instance occurred in theGuardian Books section on 4th October

2008, in which Pankaj Mishra reviewedthree books about “US entanglement inIraq and Afghanistan”30. Mishra notedthe importance of Israel in Americanattitudes to the Middle East andclaimed that Israel’s “continuingexpansion into the West bank isprobably the greatest source of so-called Arab rage”. He carefully chartedthe relationship between America andIsrael, giving examples of previouspresidents (including Eisenhower,Kennedy, and Reagan) disagreeing withIsraeli policies.

Mishra then wrote that “Bush Sr wasactively hostile to Israeli expansionism”and quoted his secretary of state, JamesBaker to make the point. Nevertheless,in doing so, Mishra accused AIPAC ofnow being so powerful that “even”Barack Obama (who had recentlyaddressed AIPAC) must now “genuflect”(i.e. bend his knee in worship orreverence) before the group. Thisparticular section of Mishra’s article,within its broader context, thereforeimplied that AIPAC has taken control ofAmerican foreign policy in very recentyears. The section reads as follows:

“His [Bush Snr.] secretary of state,James Baker, had only blunt wisdom(“Forswear annexation. Stop settlementactivity. Reach out to Palestinians asneighbours who deserve political rights”)to impart to the American Israel PublicAffairs Committee (AIPAC), the powerfullobbying outfit for Israel, to which evenObama must now genuflect.”


This British Nazi cartoon from 1962 is a stark warning ofthe potential antisemitic resonance of some contemporarymainstream depictions of America's "Zionist" or "pro Israel"lobbies.

In the cartoon, a wealthy Jew uses his money whip todominate leading Labour, Conservative and Liberalpoliticians. The Jew's other hand holds open a sack of coinsand his belt buckle is a Star of David. The politcians cower,beg like a dog and lick the Jew's shoes.


Robert Fisk, the Independent:Obama “supine” in Israel; Biden“being set up to protect Israel”. On 30 August 2008 journalist Robert Fiskwrote an article in the Independent,rhetorically entitled, “Why do we keepletting the politicians get away with lies?”31

The article was published with asentence from the article copied andhighlighted in bold. This read:“Biden’s being set up to protect Israelwhile Obama looks after thetransportation system in Chicago”.

Any casual reader of the Independent notreading Fisk’s quite lengthy column wouldtherefore assume that there is a linkbetween politicians getting “away withlies” and the then vice-presidentialcandidate Joe Biden “being set up toprotect Israel”. Worse still, Biden wasbeing “set up” - by an unnamedpowerbroker - whilst the then presidentialcandidate Barack Obama “looks after thetransportation system in Chicago”.

The Independent’s juxtaposition of theheadline and highlighted sentencetherefore risked its readers taking anantisemitic message; namely, that thereal power in American politics wouldbe given to the person nominated todefend Israel, whilst the apparentleader would only be permitted tohandle relatively trivial matters.32

In the actual article, however, Fisk hadnot personally written this offensivesentence. Rather, he quoted it as havingbeen said to him by “one of the Arabworld’s most prominent commentators”,and had approved it with anaccompanying qualification that it was “acruel remark with just enough bitterreality to make it bite”. (This qualification

did not appear in the highlighted sectionthat repeated the “cruel remark”).

The “cruel remark” quoted by Fiskfollowed his having written of Joe Bidenand Barack Obama,

“No doubt in government he’ll [i.e.Biden] be teamed up with those old pro-Israeli has beens, Madeleine Albright andMartyn Indyk, whose new boss, Obama,virtually elected himself to the IsraeliKnesset with his supine performanceduring his “international” tour.”

Before attacking Biden and Obama, Fiskhad stated in relation to a speech byCondoleeza Rice in Jerusalem, “Oncemore, US foreign policy was dictated by Israel. And again, the worldremained silent”.

It is not necessarily racist to say that onecountry’s foreign policy is dictated byanother country. Nevertheless, depictingpresidential candidate Obama as “supine”before Israel’s parliament (i.e. lying flatwhilst facing upwards; having the palmof the hand turned upwards; lethargicpassivity) invites the classic antisemiticimagery of Jews controlling the world.

John Pilger: Obama, Zionism & “worst of American power”. One week after Barack Obama’spresidential election victory, the NewStatesman published an article33 by JohnPilger entitled “Don’t believe the hype”.The article was subtitled “Barack Obamais being lauded by liberals but the truthabout him is that he represents the worstof American power”. It characterised themanner in which Zionism is becomingincreasingly synonymous for somecommentators with much of what theybelieve to be wrong with the world.

31 Robert Fisk “Why do

we keep letting the

politicians get away

with lies?”,

The Independent,

30 August 2008.

32 NB: Barack Obama

has extensive links

with Chicago,

including serving as

senator for the state

of Illinois.

33 John Pilger “Don’t

believe the hype”,

New Statesman,

13 November 2008.


Pilger’s article makes no mention ofJews per se, and in its closing lines heexplicitly blames “corporatedictatorship, managed by peopleregardless of ethnicity”. Nevertheless,the article showed a leading intellectualmagazine explaining American foreignpolicy, politics and media by referenceto various alleged undermining,controlling elements that run counter to the interests and wishes of theAmerican people; malign elements thatare frequently defined as Zionist, alongwith other loose terms.

This is not antisemitic per se, but it hasdistinct and worrying echoes of earlierantisemitic Jewish power motifs; and it reduces Zionism to a derogatoryepithet, rather than its root meaning of being the desire for Jewish self-determination in Israel.

Pilger’s article began by praising aninvestigative Texan journalist from the1960s “before corporate journalism wasinvented…and a mythology of liberalneutrality was spun…in tune with anestablishment consensus, regardless ofthe truth”. Pilger then claimed that,“ordinary American attitudes…seldomconformed to the stereotypes promotedby the corporate media on both sides ofthe Atlantic”. He cited popular supportfor healthcare and opposition tomilitarism to support this “in spite of theburden of a form of brainwashing placedon most Americans…that theirs is themost superior society in theworld…[justifying] the spilling of copiousblood, in maintaining that superiority”.

Pilger described the above as the“subtext” to Obama’s “oratory”. Heclaimed that the Democrats had wontheir 2006 majority in Congress due to

public anger with “the bailout of WallStreet” and being “fed up with war”;before castigating Obama and theDemocrats for handing “over moremoney to George W Bush to continuehis blood-fest”.

Pilger then briefly acknowledgedObama’s election as “historic, a symbolof great change to many” beforecontinuing, “But it is equally true thatthe American elite has grown adept atusing the black middle andmanagement class”. Pilger then setabout proving how “the American elite”had “used” blacks: he noted that MartinLuther King had realised this, had linkedblack American rights with Vietnamesehuman rights, “And he was shot”. Pilgercontrasted King with Colin Powell, who“was used to “investigate” andwhitewash” the My Lai massacre, “andwas considered ideal to lie” to theUnited Nations about Iraqi weapons ofmass destruction. He then alleged thatCondoleezza Rice continued the pattern:

“Condoleezza Rice, lauded as a successfulblack woman, has worked assiduously todeny the Palestinians justice.”

Having thus summarised and dismissedRice, Pilger stated that, “Obama’s firsttwo crucial appointments represent adenial of the wishes of his supporters onthe principal issues on which they voted.”

Obama’s “crucial appointments” thatdenied his supporters’ “principal issues”(i.e. war and the economy) were thenexplained by reference to Joe Biden andRahm Emanuel. Biden was defined as a“proud warmaker and Zionist”, whilstEmanuel was a “fervent neoliberaldevoted” to economically disastrouspolicies, and an “Israel-first Zionist” to boot.


The curious phrase, “Israel-first Zionist”,appears to signify that Emanuel issomehow worse than Biden (a mere“Zionist”). Indeed, a search of “‘Israel-first’ Zionist” on Google34 suggests thatit is most commonly used in Americanfar right circles to allege Jewish controlof America. At the very least, Pilger’sreaders might understand him to implythat Emanuel is a fifth-columnist. Theremainder of this paragraph stated:

“The vice-president, Joe Biden, is aproud warmaker and Zionist. RahmEmanuel, who is to be the all-importantWhite House chief of staff, is a fervent“neoliberal” devoted to the doctrinethat led to the present economiccollapse and impoverishment ofmillions. He is also an “Israel-first”Zionist who served in the Israeli armyand opposed meaningful justice for thePalestinians – an injustice that is at theroot of Muslim people’s loathing of theUS and the spawning of jihadism.”

In its entirety, this paragraph couldtherefore be construed:

• To cast Zionism as integral to thebetrayal of American (and global)optimism for change

• To render Zionism as synonymouswith warmaking, global economiccollapse and impoverishment

• To blame Zionism for Muslims “loathing”the US and the “spawning of jihaidsm”

Pilger then claimed that, “No seriousscrutiny of this is permitted within thehistrionics of Obama mania”, andcontinued, “This is especially marked inBritain, where America’s divine right to“lead” is important to elite Britishinterests”. He made no further mentionsof Zionism, but ended the article by

condemning American “ideals” andmorality, and the media’s failure toscrutinise Tony Blair, and now Obama:

“since 1945, the destruction of 50governments, including democracies,and 30 popular liberation movements,causing the deaths of countless men,women and children…liberalism as anarrow, supremely arrogant, war-making ideology is destroying liberalismas a reality. Prior to Blair’s criminalwarmaking, ideology was denied by himand his media mystics…

…liberal democracy’s shift towards acorporate dictatorship, managed bypeople regardless of ethnicity, with themedia as its clichéd façade…” .

Within the wider context of the piece,the centrality afforded to Biden andEmanuel may imply that Zionism is an important component of all of themodern evils that his essay railsagainst. In particular:

• American and British “corporate media”(and their preventing “serious scrutiny”of everything claimed by Pilger)

• the “brainwashing” of Americans tobelieve that the “superiority” of theirsociety can be maintained by “allmeans…including the spilling ofcopious blood”

• “the American elite” (and theirmanipulation of middle class Americanblacks such as Condoleezza Rice who“has worked assiduously to denyPalestinians justice”.)

• “[American] ideals…destruction of 50 governments…deaths of countlessmen, women and children”

• the destruction of liberalism and itsreplacement with “a narrow, supremelyarrogant, war-making ideology”

34Google Internet search,

April 2009, key words

“Israel-first Zionist”


Alan Hart, “Zionism, the realfear of the Jews”Former ITN and BBC journalist, AlanHart, is a regular speaker atmainstream pro-Palestinian events, andhosts his own television show, “Hart ofthe Matter”, on the Iranian state-backed satellite channel, Press TV(broadcast on Sky). He depicts his anti-Zionism as being fundamentally pro-Jewish, repeatedly makes a point ofdistinguishing between Zionists andJews, and has interviewed numerousJews on his Press TV programme.

The interview shown below is a strikingexample of how even someone who isself-determinedly pro-Jewish like Hartcan, nevertheless, still evoke antisemiticconspiracy theories about Jewish moneypower and resultant control of politiciansand media. Furthermore, whilst suchallegations are relatively commonagainst American Jews and Zionists, thisinterview also shows how suchprejudices may be seamlesslytransposed into the British context.

Hart’s reputation is premised upon hisbroadcasting background, and hishaving authored a large book,published in two volumes in 2005 and2007, entitled “Zionism: the RealEnemy of the Jews”35. The book’sinside cover depicts Zionism as being toblame for an impending andcatastrophic global war, yet alsosummarises the author’s attempt to beboth anti-Zionist and yet pro-Jewish(bold and italics as in the original):

“Can a Clash of Civilisations, Judeo-Christian v Islamic, be averted?

…The Zionism of this book’s title is Jewishnationalism…the modern state of Israel...

political Zionism…is not to be confusedwith the spiritual Zionism of Judaism.

Zionism: the Real Enemy of the Jewswas chosen by the author as the titlefor this book because, in seven words, it reflects two terrifying truths of our time.

The first is that more than half acentury on from the obscenity of theNazi Holocaust anti-Semitism is onthe rise again in Europe andAmerica, where most of the world’sJews live…spiritual Zionists…

…The second, a great and tragic irony, is that the behaviour of politicalZionism’s child, Israel, where only aminority of the world’s Jews live givingsubstance to Jewish nationalism in action,is the prime cause of the re-awakening ofthe sleeping giant of anti-Semitism.

…a must read for all who wish tounderstand why, really, the countdownto Armageddon is on. And how it canbe stopped.”

Hart was interviewed on 22 October 2008by the official Iranian news agency,IRNA36, about his book. Nevertheless, the IRNA interview reveals that Hart’sapparently pro-Jewish anti-Zionism isparadoxically underpinned by notions thatappear to be rooted in antisemitic theory.

IRNA entitled the interview, “Zionism,the real fear of the Jews”. Hart beganby stressing the differences betweenZionism and Judaism, and betweenJudaism and all Jews per se.Nevertheless, having stressed thepolitical and recent “colonial” nature ofZionism, he then paradoxically statedthat all of Judeo-Christian history is premised upon it:

35 Alan Hart “Zionism:

the Real Enemy of

the Jews”, Vols 1 &

2, World Focus

Publishing, Kent

2005 & 2007

36 The interview is

available on many

websites, including:

http://www.911truth.

ch/modules/news/arti

cle.php?storyid=817


“The most amazing thing about thestory of Israel and Zionism is that itsversion of history is what the wholeJudaic/Christian history is constructedon. But it’s a lie from beginning to end”.

Hart next warned against blaming all Jewsfor Zionism, and said that Zionism hadpreceded “the obscenity of the NaziHolocaust”, having been established “in1897 by people who told lies even at thestart” (a reference to the first ZionistCongress). He continued, claiming thatZionists do not trust non-Jews, saying thatZionism “has been the most successfulterrorist organisation of modern times”,and praising “one of my dearest Israelifriends”, revisionist historian, Ilan Pappe.

Responding to IRNA’s question, “Somemake a direct link between Zionism andAmerica?”, the avowedly pro-JewishHart used discourse that is clearlyrooted in antisemitic conspiracy theory:citing “organised Jewish money”, and“organised Jewish vote” as the basis ofalleged “Zionist” lobby and moneycontrol of American politics. Hart’s replyeven claimed that “The Jews” choose tolive in key areas in order “to becomeorganised into Zionist lobbies”. Hisreply was as follows:

“You talk about a link but it is a factthat the main Zionist lobby in America,the AIPAC, is controlling the policy shotsvis-à-vis the American policy making.

As part of a truth line, I should say thatin American politics you cannot run forobvious [sic] for the Lower House ofRepresentatives, the Senate and eventhe White House without a great deal ofmoney and this is a fact that AmericanJews, who account for only two percentof the US population, is putting up

about 50 percent of all US finance.And there are so many books that havedocumented that American politicians arescared of offending the Zionist lobby.

In fact its not just organised Jewishmoney in America, in major places suchas Pennsylvania and Florida where theelections are tight, it can be theorganised Jewish vote.

The Jews are mostly concentrated insuch areas in order for them to becomeorganised into Zionist lobbies. So it’sthe organised Zionist money which runsthe American politics.

Actually, it is the totality of Zionism’sinfluence that most shapes Americanforeign policy.

It is in fact true about the Americanmedia. The mainstream media areterrified of offending Zionism.

It’s good news that Jews in Americaand Britain, even in small numbers, arebeginning to speak out that the Zionistlobby is not speaking for us and doesnot represent our interests.”

IRNA next asked “Is the case ofZionism [sic] lobby in America also truein Britain?”, to which Hart replied “Yesit is” and then alluded to the financialimperatives behind his previous reply,saying that Tony Blair: “was the worst British prime ministerregarding Middle East affairs. Blair likethe British media and politicians is trulyterrified by Zionism.

If even newspapers want to writeagainst Zionism, their main source ofincome which is from selling advertisingspace will disappear.”

Anti-Israel boycotts exemplify thehighly charged debate over what is andis not antisemitic, in the context ofanti-Israel activities.

For some, unique treatment of theworld’s sole Jewish state is itself a primafacie case of antisemitism. Boycottsupporters, however, strongly deny suchmotivation, and often claim that thecharge of antisemitism is knowingly andfalsely levelled against them in order toshield Israel. Opinions are furtherpolarised by the ensuing cycle of debate.

Most leading British Jewishrepresentative groups (including CST)avoid categorising anti-Israel boycottsas antisemitic per se, but are extremelyconcerned by the actual and potentialantisemitic impact of the boycotts.Enacted boycotts of Israeli people,products and culture would haveoverwhelmingly negative physical andpsychological impacts against BritishJews (such as the removal of manykosher goods), in a manner quitedifferent to how it would impact againstother British people37.

In direct contrast to the boycotters’stated motivations, the Jewish collectivememory of boycotts is that of the Naziboycott of Jews, regarded as animportant step towards the eventualHolocaust. The two boycotts cannot beequated, but British Jews fear the realand imagined link between Israel andJews means that anti-Israel boycottsinevitably cause a degree ofstigmatisation and isolation againstmainstream Jewish communities. Thishas already been the case on campus,where Jewish students are targeted byanti-Israel campaigners, and Jewishstudent societies have, in previous

years, faced threats of banning unlessthey denounce Israel and Zionism.

In summary, anti-Israel boycotts leadmany British Jews to fear that theirfreedom is becoming dependent uponunfair reactions to an overseas conflictthat is beyond their control orresponsibility. The fear is compoundedby the fact that boycott campaigns areled by supposedly progressive sectionsof society from whom Jews havepreviously expected protection and acceptance.

University and College Union The often threatened so-called“academic boycott” by the Universityand College Union (UCU) has been thefocus of the anti-Israel boycott debatein recent years.

Writing on the Engage website, leadinganti-academic boycott campaigner, DavidHirsh said of the UCU boycott debate38:

“Antisemitism within the UCU started tobecome a serious problem when peoplein the union began to support thecampaign to exclude Israelis fromBritish universities as a protest againstIsraeli human rights abuses. Thiscampaign has dominated academicunion Congresses in 2003, 2005, 2006,2007 and 2008.

It is an antisemitic campaign. There isno proposal to boycott any academicsfrom any country other than Israel. Itseeks to exclude a significant proportionof the world’s Jewish academics…

Predictably the campaign for thisantisemitic exclusion creates anantisemitic atmosphere within theunion. The boycotters maintain that

Anti-Israel Boycotts and Antisemitism

37 Israel is a leading

researcher and

producer in many

hi-tech fields,

including computing,

telecommunications

and health. A boycott

of these products

would significantly

impact across all

of British society

38 http://www.engage

online.org.uk/blog/

article.php?id=2058


“Jewish atrocities in Palestine go unpunished…Boycott Jewish Goods &Services”. British neo-Nazi sticker c.1962, which displays both blatantantisemitism and hatred of Israel.


anyone who raises the issue ofantisemitism does so in bad faith inorder illegitimately to protect Israelfrom boycott, so the standard way ofrelating to Jews within the union is totreat them as though they areconspiratorial and dishonest.”

Hirsh’s article, posted on 22 August2008 was prompted by the case ofSheffield College lecturer, Jenna Delich,who had posted a link to the website offormer American Ku Klux Klan leader,David Duke, within a UCU onlinediscussion forum argument about theboycott. Hirsh noted:

“Jenna Delich’s emails on the activistlist have already been subject to twoformal complaints to the union. TheUCU process judged that the evidencewas not persuasive. Now the UCU iscirculating links to David Duke’s websiteon behalf of Delich.”

Delich, writing in support of another pro-boycotter, had posted on the UCU list:

John, In support to your link this maybe a long but also an interestingreading: http://www.davidduke.com/general/humanitarian-disaster_595.htmlNo comment necessary. The facts arespeaking for themselves.

The article on Duke’s website39

included this suggestion of a Jewish (or pro-Israeli) global conspiracy:

“Yet the Israeli government does a verygood job of convincing the whole worldthat it is the victim in the conflict. Howcan this be? Israeli control of the press?Could that ubiquitous “conspiracytheory” actually be closer to aconspiracy fact?”

The article ended with a sentence thatdemonised Israel’s leaders and spoke ofthem in global conspiracy terms:

“To the Israeli oligarchs, the death ofPalestinian civilians is ‘superb’, andthey feel nothing when they kill womenand children…either someone doessomething about these sickpsychopaths, or they, and their kind inWashington and around the world, willdestroy us all.”

On 27 August 2008, Delich was publiclysuspended from the UCU onlinediscussion list by moderator, MattWaddup, who stated:40

“I have received complaints from listmembers about the linking by anothermember to a website which containshighly offensive, racist material.

I acted to suspend the posting rights of the list member as soon as the unionbecame aware of the link, and havingreviewed this and previous conduct; I have now suspended their listmembership indefinitely.”

Delich was subsequently defended byother UCU list members. This includedan email from leading pro-boycottactivist Sue Blackwell who describedthe offending article as non-racist and“perfectly reasonable”:

“…Jenna did not post a racist article noreven a link to one. She posted a link toa perfectly reasonable article which,unbeknown to her, was on a websiterun by a racist on which racist materialappeared which she had not seen. Shehas apologised. Please give her a breakand reinstate her. I’m sure she haslearnt her lesson.”

39http://www.david

duke.com/general/hu

manitarian-

disaster_595.html

40http://www.hurryup

harry.org/2008/08/28/uc

u-boycotters-still-dont-

see-the-problem/

The ease with which the terms“Zionist”, “pro-Israel lobby” and“Jewish” can be amalgamated wasdemonstrated by an article41 in ThirdSector, publication for the non-profitsector, including charities, NGOs andvoluntary organisations.

The article, written by Rosie Walker,was an interview with John Hilary,executive director of the charity War onWant (WoW). Walker stated that Hilarywould not be changing the charity’s“forthright approach” and reported himas citing Israel to show this. Walkerwrote that “War on Want staff say theyhave received abusive calls fromZionists”, before stating that twocomplaints by MPs to the CharityCommission about WoW’s criticism ofIsrael had not been upheld. She thencontinued:

“This type of complaint, which Hilarysays is part of an ongoing strategy byan organised pro-Israel lobby and theJewish press, is of as much interest tothe media as the charity’s reports”.

It is not clear from the article if theseare Hilary’s exact words, or if he hasbeen paraphrased by the writer. Thisparagraph is followed by a directquotation from Hilary, so it is likely thatthis preceding paragraph is not a directquote from him.

If the paraphrasing is accurate then itsuggests that Hilary has employed theterms “Zionists”, “organised pro Israellobby” and “Jewish press” as if all threeare fundamentally identical. If theparaphrasing is inaccurate, then thefault would seem to lie with RosieWalker. In either case, however, theeditors at Third Sector evidently see

nothing wrong with amalgamatingthese terms. Furthermore, the phrasingrisks evoking the notion of an unnaturalJewish conspiracy. This is no ordinaryset of complaints: it is, rather, “anongoing strategy by an organised pro-Israel lobby and the Jewish press”.

The article prompted Jon Benjamin andJeremy Newmark, respectively chiefexecutives of the Board of Deputies ofBritish Jews and the Jewish LeadershipCouncil, to write a joint letter to ThirdSector42 stating (in part):

“…harassment from Zionists, pro-Israelis and Jewish newspapers. Theseterms are not interchangeable. Thedemonisation of Zionists, Zionism andIsrael that is increasingly prevalent inparts of the third sector and NGOcommunity can slip very easily intodemonisation of Jews and mainstreamJewish institutions...”


“Zionist...pro-Israel lobby...Jewish”

41 Rosie Walker, “In the

war zone”, 30th July

2008, “Third Sector”

42 Letter, “War on Want

should expect a

response”, 20th August

2008, “Third Sector”


The General Union of PalestinianStudents was excluded from the April2008 National Union of Students (NUS)conference after having distributed ananti-Israel leaflet43 that was deemedantisemitic by the conference.

The leaflet bore the headline (in capitalletters), “why ‘Jewish State’ not asecular state?” and carried twocartoons by the Brazilian anti-Israelillustrator, Latuff. The NUS conferenceagreed with concerns raised by theUnion of Jewish Students (UJS) that the leaflet was antisemitic. In doing so, both NUS and UJS invoked44 theEuropean Union Monitoring Centre for Xenophobia and Racism “workingdefinition of antisemitism”45 ,previously adopted by the NUS in 2007.

The students’ concerns were voiced as:

• The Latuff cartoons compared Israelto Nazi Germany. This is an offensivecomparison that causes hurt to Jews.

• The leaflet claimed that “Israel can’tbe Talmudic and democratic at thesame time”. Israel is not a “Talmudic”state, and it is a double standard toclaim that a Jewish state alone of allstates cannot be democratic.

• The leaflet denied the right for Israelto exist as a Jewish state. No othercountries are denied a similar right toexist. For example, the Organisationof the Islamic Conference lists 57 member states. It is a doublestandard to deny Jewish nationalismbecause it is Jewish, not because it is nationalist.

National Union of Students act against antisemitic leaflet

43 “Why “Jewish State”

not a secular state?”.

General Union of

Palestinian Students

leaflet, April 2008

44 http://www.ujs.org.

uk/news/c-419/jewish-

students-fight-and-

win-at-nus-conference-

antisemitism-defeated-

and-great-new-

president-elected/

45 http://www.eumc.eu.

int/eumc/material/pub

/AS/AS-

WorkingDefinition-

draft.pdf

This photograph was taken on one of the many anti-Israel demonstrations that occurrred in Central Londonduring the December 08-January 09 conflict between Israel and Hamas in Gaza and Southern Israel.

BackgroundThe Holocaust was an act ofindustrialised genocide without parallel inhuman history. It remains the dominanttrauma in the collective memory of Jews.

Mainstream Jewish belief in the necessityfor Israel’s existence (and thereforeZionism in the essential meaning of theword) are central to the Jewish responseto the Holocaust. Indeed, the UnitedNations creation of Israel was also largelyin response to the Holocaust.

The comparison of Israel to NaziGermany is essentially antisemitic:

• It is a grotesque abuse of Jewishhistory and memory

• It causes direct and significant hurt to Jews

• It trivialises and essentially denies the enormity of the Holocaust

• It attempts to displace Jews asvictims of the Holocaust andsupersede them with Palestinians.

Furthermore, Jews who speak outagainst this abuse, are at risk of beingdecried as “Zionists”. In this context,the “Zionist” accusation effectivelydismisses and condemns theoverwhelming majority of Jews,whether “Zionist” or not.

Israel–Nazi Germany comparisonToday it is increasingly commonplacefor mainstream commentators andpolitical activists to compare Israel withNazi Germany, or for Holocaust imageryto be used when depicting the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This is historicallyindefensible, and is an essentiallyantisemitic enterprise that bears aunique hurt for all Jews (not just Israelior Zionist Jews), despite whatever the

stated and sincerely held intentions of those who make the comparison may be.

Israel, the new and enduringNazi GermanyThe Israel-Nazi Germany comparisoninvites a highly damaging thoughtprocess that eases the blame for theHolocaust from the perpetrators andbystanders, and then transposes it onto the Jewish victims. Furthermore,Palestinians are increasingly depicted as today’s enduring victims of theHolocaust, thereby suggesting thatIsraelis must be today’s enduring Nazis.

Israel-Nazi Germany comparisonas Holocaust denialThe Israel-Nazi Germany comparisonsand analogies may lack the transparenthatred of outright Holocaust denial, butthey are far more insidious andtherefore deeply damaging to Jews.This is significantly heightened by thefact that on many occasions, those whomake the comparison claim to be doingso as defenders of human rights, ratherthan as Holocaust denying neo-Nazithugs or Islamist Jew-haters.

Nevertheless, the act of comparing Israelto Nazi Germany is itself a form ofHolocaust denial, or more accuratelyHolocaust trivialisation, in that itdiminishes the enormity of the Holocaustinto something unremarkable in the globalhistorical context of war and conflict.

Hypocrisy and singling out JewsIt would often seem that Nazi analogiesare more likely to be used in the Israelcontext, rather than in relation to otherconflicts that actually involve fargreater loss of life and human rightsabuses.


Abuse of the Holocaust

The impression given is that the Nazianalogies are gratuitously employed inrelation to Israel, precisely because of theshock that they cause in a Jewish relatedcontext. This impression is worsened bythe way in which some of those whoemploy such comparisons will resolutelycondemn its usage in non-Jewishcontexts; for example, to the branding byAmerican or British politicians of SaddamHussein as a new Hitler.

Campus: “From the WarsawGhetto to the Gaza Ghetto”Jewish students and campaignersagainst antisemitism were dismayed bya meeting of the Palestine TwinningCampaign at the Students Union ofGoldsmiths College, University ofLondon, on 12 November 2008, entitled“From the Warsaw Ghetto to the GazaGhetto”. A similar meeting was held thefollowing day at Manchester University,entitled “The Gaza Ghetto – A talk withSuzanne Weiss”, but the title avoidedthe explicit comparison (and thereforeoffence) of the Goldsmiths meeting anddid not attract the same publicity.

The Goldsmiths meeting, and reactionssurrounding it, displayed much of thecomplexity and polarisation about Israel,Zionism and antisemitism that may befound on many campuses throughoutBritain today. It showed the increasingsense of isolation and vulnerability thatis felt and expressed by many Jewishstudents and academics, and especiallythe manner in which their emotions aredismissed or scorned by anti-Israelstudents and staff.

Advertisements for the meeting includedthe claim that the speaker, SuzanneWeiss, “will be speaking about her timein the Warsaw ghetto in Poland as a child

and her experiences in the ghettos of theGaza Strip”46. The speaker is a memberof a Canadian group called, “Not in ourName: Jews against Zionism”. Her self-identification as a Jewish anti-Zionist -and as being a Holocaust survivor - addsto the complexity of defining whendiscourse about Jews, Zionism or Israelceases to be legitimate.

Nevertheless, in this instance, auniversity hosted the promotion andstaging of a meeting that compared the Warsaw Ghetto47 to the Gaza Strip today. Furthermore, in the actualmeeting, Weiss made no mention ofever having been in the WarsawGhetto. Rather, she had been born inFrance and had been sheltered there,despite her family having perished atAuschwitz.48

The meeting organisers had previouslyreceived a £200 donation from the localbranch of the lecturers union, UCU, thesame union that has repeatedlythreatened to boycott Israeli academics.Jennifer Jones, campaigns andcommunications officer of the StudentUnion, and an administrator of theTwinning Campaign, stated:

“The Students Union supports the eventand we are formally hosting SuzanneWeiss. The Goldsmiths Staff Union (UCU)also support the Palestine Twinning andare therefore supporting the event”.

In response to criticism of the event,Jones trivialised the hurt that had beencaused; and reduced complainants tothe status of isolated “Zionists”. Shesaid she hoped that49, "the few vocalZionists on campus become involved in a more positive capacity to supportthose suffering under the occupation".


46 http://www.facebook

.com/event.php?eid=37

560722722

47 The United States

Holocaust Memorial

Museum cites 265,000

Jews being deported

from the Warsaw Ghetto

to the Treblinka death

camp, and a further

118,000 dying in the

Ghetto: 35,000 of whom

were directly murdered

by the Nazis, and

83,000 of whom

perished of starvation or

disease.


online.org.uk/blog/article

.php?id=2216

49 http://www.thejc.com/

node/8265

David Hirsh and Mira Vogel are twoleading opponents of antisemitism.Both are academics at Goldsmiths.

Hirsh wrote of Jones’ response50:

“I hear the sense in which JenniferJones uses the term ‘Zionist’ asexceedingly threatening and it is noteasy to communicate why, to a personwho is unable to see why forthemselves. I understand the word‘Zionists’ in this context to mean 'Jews’,except that it does not include acategory of exceptional ‘good Jews’.The category of ‘good Jews’ here shouldbe understood as those Jews who arenot disgusted by the designation ofIsraeli Jews as Nazis – those Jews whoare prepared publicly to kosherize sucha designation as being legitimate on theantiracist left.”

Vogel attended the meeting and wroteof her unease about its content andwider context. She noted51:

“This idea that, while a good Palestiniancan be a Palestinian nationalist, Arabnationalist or even an Islamist, a goodJew cannot be a Zionist, is a current ofthought which is also familiar in theboycott campaign in UCU which manywho oppose it have experienceddirectly. It is false and corrosive.”

George Galloway and LaurenBooth, Gaza: “Concentration camp”Lauren Booth is perhaps best known for being sister-in-law to former PrimeMinister Tony Blair, but she is ajournalist in her own right and haswritten for many leading UKpublications. She is also a presenter onthe Islam Channel and on the Iranian-state media outlet, Press TV.

Booth entered the Gaza Strip in August2008 aboard one of the “Free Gaza”boats that arrived from Cyprus topublicise the Israeli and Egyptianclosure of Gaza’s borders. She did not,however, depart with the boats and wasunable to leave Gaza for six weeks. George Galloway MP, one of Britain’sleading anti-Israel critics, is also apresenter on Press TV. He interviewedBooth on Press TV during her time inGaza and asked her52, “Why are theykeeping you cooped up in theconcentration camp called Gaza?”

Booth replied, “First of all I want to saythank you George for using the wordconcentration camp because the wordprison has been applied over the pastfew years to Gaza and that’s a lie.Because in a prison as we recognise itin the West you get three meals a day;in a prison you get visits fromoutsiders, from family; in a prison youget a nourishing diet and you even gethobbies and rehabilitation and herethere’s none of that”.

In a subsequent telephone interviewwith Israeli news website,ynetnews.com53, Booth called Gaza“the largest concentration camp in theworld today. I was startled the Israelisagreed to this.” When asked aboutIsrael’s right to respond to attackslaunched from Gaza, she replied,

“There is no right to punish people thisway. There is no justification for thiskind of collective punishment. You werein the concentration camps, and I can’tbelieve that you are allowing thecreation of such a camp yourselves.

The Palestinians’ suffering is physical,mental and emotional, there is not a



online.org.uk/blog/

article.php?id=2217


online.org.uk/blog/

article.php?id=2216

52 Jonny Paul, “Booth:

Gaza a massive

concentration camp”.

Jerusalem Post

18 September 2008

53 http://www.ynet

news.com/articles/

0,7340,L-3595097,

00.html

family here in which someone is not indesperate need of work, shelter orfood. This is a humanitarian crisis onthe scale of Darfur.”

Booth was subsequently ridiculed onnumerous websites54, which showedpublicity photographs of her touringGaza, including in a well-stocked foodshop, contrasted alongside photographsof Darfur and Nazi concentration camps.

Booth wrote a lengthy account of herexperience, published by the Daily MailOnline55, entitled “Marooned in Gaza:Life in the ‘world’s largest prison’”.Despite the headline, Booth did notrefer to Gaza as the “world’s largestprison” in the article. Rather, sherepeated the earlier depictions, calling it “this concentration camp”.

The Guardian: Paul Oestreicher,“The legacy of Kristallnacht”56

On 4 November 2008, the Guardianpublished an article by Canon Dr PaulOestreicher, a former chair of AmnestyInternational UK, marking seventyyears after Kristallnacht.

Oestreicher, who’s German father was“born to Jewish parents”, recalled hiswitnessing “the great pogrom”(Kristallnacht); and told how he and hisparents managed to escape NaziGermany, despite the refusal ofcountries across the world to acceptJewish refugees.

Oestreicher then wrote, “I tell my storyon this anniversary not just for itshistoric and personal interest, butbecause it brings into sharp focus thefar from humane attitude of Britain, theEuropean union and many other richcountries to the asylum seekers of

today…This is not quite our 1938, butthe parallels are deeply disquieting”.

Next, Oestreicher reached theconclusion of his article. He began byportraying Israel’s creation in 1948 asHolocaust survivors having expelledPalestinians (making no mention of the1947 United Nations partition plan, northe failed Arab attempt to destroyIsrael after its 1948 declaration ofindependence); and then portrayed thisas both a threat to world peace, and asbeing today’s legacy of historicalantisemitism and the Holocaust:

“An even sadder consequence of thisstory of anti-Jewish inhumanity isthat many of the survivors who fledto Palestine did so at the expense ofthe local people, the Palestinians, halfof whom were driven into exile andtheir villages destroyed. Theirchildren and children's children live in the refugee camps that nowconstitute one aspect of the Israeli-Palestinian impasse that embittersIslam and threatens world peace: all that a consequence of Nazi terrorand, indirectly, of the Christianworld's persecution of the Jewish over many centuries.”

Having cast Palestinians as thecontemporary victims of historicalantisemitism and the Holocaust,Oestreicher claimed that fear is “bred intoevery Jewish bone”, resulting in “manyIsraelis” wishing to expel Palestinians;and that this reaction denies “all that isgood in Judaism”, repeats the behaviourof Nazi-era Germans, and threatens“another holocaust”:

“With fear bred into every Jewish bone,it is tragic that today many Israelis say


54 http://www.hurryup

harry.org/2008/09/12/

lauren-booth-in-gaza/

55 http://www.dailymail.

co.uk/home/moslive/

article-1060229/

Marooned-Gaza-Life-

worlds-largest-prison-

Lauren-Booth.html

56 Paul Oestreicher, “The

legacy of Kristallnacht”,

the Guardian 4

November 2008

of the Palestinians, as once the Germanssaid of them: "The only solution is to send them away." Howeverunderstandable this reaction may be, to do so, or even to contemplate it, is a denial of all that is good in Judaism.To create another victim people is tosow the seeds of another holocaust...”

The article then recalled how in the1930s a British bishop had been wronglyaccused of being anti-German when hecalled for British opposition to Hitler.Oestreicher compared this with his ownposition on Jews and Israel; insinuatingthat only a very small number of Israeliscare about Palestinians, and that anyonewho supports such Israelis is accused of antisemitism.

“…Today, those of us who offer oursolidarity to the minority of Israelisworking - in great isolation - for justicefor the Palestinian people, are oftenaccused of being antisemitic. Theopposite is true. It is a tragic parallel.”

By calling these accusations a “tragicparallel” with the British bishop andNazi Germany, Oestreicher reinforcedthe notion that Palestinians are the newJews, thereby implying that Jews arethe new Nazis of the 1930s, andreinforcing his previous warning about “sowing the seeds of anotherholocaust”.

These themes were then furtherreinforced by the two closing sentencesof the article, which stated that thelesson of Kristallnacht had now moved“far beyond” antisemitism and GermanNazis; and ended by demanding thatreaders acknowledge and respond totoday’s “victims” of Kristallnacht andthe Holocaust :

“…Berlin’s Holocaust memorial and othermemorials in many German towns andvillages, where once the synagogue stood,are mute reminders of what began thatday. But the significance and the shameof that day stretches far beyond thosewho set the synagogues alight. Who, weneed to ask, are the victims now, bothnear and far, and what is our response?”

Peter McKay, Daily Mail:Auschwitz trips to makeschoolchildren “take Israel’s side”Daily Mail columnist Peter McKayclaimed that Prime Minister GordonBrown was backing trips for Britishschoolchildren to go to Auschwitz-Birkenau, so that they would learn to “always take Israel’s side”. McKayexplicitly stated that this was the case,rather than the publicly given reason ofeducating schoolchildren about thehorrors of Nazism and racism. He wrote:

“…why are British children herdedaround Auschwitz, for which we had noresponsibility? I can see an argumentfor bussing German children therecontinuously. Except that it mightencourage a new strain of the Nazivirus. There’s only one reason I canthink of why our children have theirnoses rubbed in German excrement. It’s not to make sure ‘this neverhappens again’ – that’s beyond theircontrol. It’s in the misguided belief that it’ll make them always take Israel’s side.”


BackgroundHolocaust denial refers to attempts todeny the true extent of the Holocaust.This appeals to those who wish toremove the shame of the Holocaustfrom Nazi Germany and itscollaborators in Nazi Occupied Europe;and to those who believe that denyingthe Holocaust will undermine therationale for the existence of Israel.Holocaust denial also appeals toantisemites and conspiracy theorists.

In most instances, the actual content ofHolocaust denial centres upon fraudulentpseudo-scientific claims that massgassing never occurred.

Holocaust denial is not specificallybanned in British law. Nevertheless, itis widely recognised as antisemitic andoften contravenes race hatredlegislation. Many other countries,particularly in mainland Europe, havespecifically outlawed Holocaust denial,reflecting their different legal systemsand particular national histories.

Antisemitic conspiracyThose who promote or adhere toHolocaust denial require an explanationfor the prevailing ‘belief’ that theHolocaust did occur. The explanationsare fundamentally rooted withintraditional antisemitic conspiracy theory:

• Jewish-controlled WWII era American,Soviet and British politicians, generalsand media all conspired to fake theHolocaust. This was sealed by theNuremberg Trials

• The successful fabrication of theHolocaust enabled the creation ofIsrael, and is being sustained viaJewish (now commonly “Zionist”)exploitation of German financial

reparations and Western guilt• Jewish (now commonly “Zionist”)

controlled media, particularlyHollywood, ensures that the worlddoes not forget the Holocaust. Outputon the subject increases as nationalistforces arise again; and also as Israelfaces heightened criticism

• Jewish (now commonly “Zionist”)controlled politicians introducecompulsory Holocaust education toindoctrinate future generations todefend Israel and oppose nationalism

It follows, therefore, that Holocaustdenial actively promotes antisemitism. It is not possible to promote Holocaustdenial, without simultaneously explaining‘belief’ in the Holocaust as revealing theexistence of a phenomenally successfulJewish (or “Zionist”) conspiracy. Indeed,some observers have stated that thosewho deny the Holocaust only do sobecause they have the desire to helpperpetrate it again.

Press TV: Holocaust denial Press TV is an English-language newsstation, funded by the Iraniangovernment, and launched in 200757. It is widely available, including in Britainvia Sky TV. Presenters include GeorgeGalloway MP and former BBC journalists.

The Iranian government, and inparticular President MahmoudAhmadinejad, have engaged in bothHolocaust denial and in ridiculing anddiminishing the Holocaust. The processis repeated on the website of Press TV,which carries an essay of over 3,200words entitled “The Walls ofAuschwitz”58. This summarises pseudo-scientific studies (including thefraudulent Leuchter Report) that claim toprove that gas chambers never existed.


Denial and Trivialisation of the Holocaust

57 “Iran launches English

TV channel” 2 July

2007. http://news.bbc.

co.uk/2/hi/middle_east

/6260716.stm

58 Nicholas Kollerstrom

PhD, “The Walls of

Auschwitz - A Review

of the Chemical

Studies” 18 May 2008.

http://www.presstv.ir/

Detail.aspx?id=56287

&sectionid=3510303


The essay (partly reproduced on page 4of this report) is written by NicholasKollerstrom, a conspiracy theorist whohad previously written anotherHolocaust denial essay, “The Holocaustgas chamber illusion” on the Americanfar right website, CODOH59.(Nevertheless, Kollerstrom reportedlydescribes himself as an active supporterof the Green Party, Respect and CND)60.

Kollerstrom’s original article on theCODOH website appears61 to have been“revised” on 24 May 2008 to remove itsworst excesses. Its original form waswidely quoted, in particular thisparagraph62:

“Let us hope the schoolchildren visitors areproperly taught about the elegantswimming-pool at Auschwitz, built by theinmates, who would sunbathe there onSaturday and Sunday afternoons whilewatching the water-polo matches; andshown the paintings from its art class,which still exist; and told about the camplibrary which had some 45,000 volumesfor inmates to choose from, plus a rangeof periodicals; and the six camp orchestrasat Auschwitz/Birkenau, its theatricalperformances, including a children’s opera,the weekly camp cinema, and even thespecial brothel established there.”

This paragraph came to public attentionin the Jewish Chronicle63 and othermedia in April 2008 after Kollerstromwas interviewed by the BBC for aprogramme about conspiracy theoriesand the London underground bombingsof 7 July 2005. Public exposure of thisarticle led to University College Londonstripping him of his research fellowship.

It is likely that the controversy aroundKollerstrom, UCL and the BBC brought

him to Press TV’s notice. Over threeweeks later, Press TV posted itsKollerstrom article entitled “The Wallsof Auschwitz”.

Press TV’s introduction to his article isas follows:

“In his essay, Dr Nicholas Kollerstromargues that the alleged massacre ofJewish people by gassing during WorldWar II was scientifically impossible.

The distinguished academic wasdismissed on April 22, 2008 withoutany explanation and a Holocaustconference held on 16-18 May in Berlinrefused his article and warned that hewould be arrested if he attended theconference and presented his essay.

The West punishes people for theirscientific research on Holocaust but thesame western countries allow insults toprophets and religious beliefs…[sic]”

There are no qualifying statementsagainst Kollerstrom’s subsequent essay,other than a routine legal note at theend of the screen page stating, “Theviews expressed and the links providedon our comment pages are the personalviews of individual contributors and donot necessarily reflect the views ofPress TV”.

59 CODOH: Committee

for Open Debate On

the Holocaust

60 Nick Cohen “When

academics lose their

power of reason”. The

Observer 4 May 2008.

61 http://codoh.com/new

revoices/nrillusion.html

62 http://www.thejc.com/

articles/2008425671/col

lege-rejects-shoah-

denier

63 ibid

Background: recent history ofantisemitic terrorist attacks For decades, terrorist groups haverepeatedly targeted and attackedJewish communities throughout theworld64. Targets have ranged fromcommercial premises such asrestaurants, to cultural centres,synagogues, and leading communalfigures. Perpetrators have included neo-Nazi extremists, far leftists, Palestinianand Arab nationalists, and, in recentyears, Islamist extremists. The attacksmay be perpetrated by anything from a lone extremist, to a formal networkoperating under the instruction of aforeign sovereign state.

The impact of a successful terroristattack against a single Jewishcommunity can be extremelydamaging. This applies not only in the physical sense of casualties andwrecked lives and buildings, but also in the psychological impact against the entire Jewish community, who may question the safety of leading their Jewish lives as they choose. In addition, such terrorist attacks mayraise fears and tensions amongst therest of society about the threat to theirown security that is supposedly causedby having Jews in their midst.

Furthermore, Jewish communities inBritain and elsewhere face thepsychological burden of the fear ofterrorism, and the financial cost ofsecuring the community against attack.

Often Jews will be attacked in the nameof anti-Israel hatred, rather than explicitantisemitism. (For example, the murderof Jews and Israelis by supposedly “anti-Israel” terrorists65 in a Jewish centre inMumbai, India, November 2008).

The Internet has facilitated both thespread of ideological extremism and the knowledge of how to perpetrate aterrorist attack. Furthermore, in Britaintoday, there are many expressions ofpublic support, sympathy or empathyfor potential and actual antisemiticterrorist groups, particularly Hizbollahand Hamas66, resulting in a greaterpotential for terrorist actions in supportof either group.

There is widespread condemnation ofboth far right and Al Qaeda terrorismfrom all sectors of society.Nevertheless, in the case of Al Qaeda,police and senior politicians talkrepeatedly of thousands of supportersand scores of would-be terrorists underinvestigation67. Terrorism from the farright is also an increasing concern, withMuslims, Jews and immigrants all facingconsiderable threat. In Britain, both thefar right and Al Qaeda constitute active,ongoing terrorist threats that maypersist for many years.

Al QaedaBackgroundIn December 2001, the antisemiticterrorist threat increased significantlywhen Al Qaeda instructed its supportersto attack and kill Jews throughout theworld. Since then, jihadist terrorists havesuccessfully perpetrated suicide attacksagainst Jewish communities in Tunisia,Turkey and Morocco, causing scores ofdeaths. Police actions have repeatedlyrevealed the targeting of other localJewish communities by similar groupsthroughout the world, including inEurope, North America and Australia.

Kill Jews “everywhere”On 23 March 2008, Al Qaeda’s deputyleader, Ayman al-Zawahiri, released an


Terrorism and Antisemitism

64 Over 400 such attacks

are analysed in CST’s

report, “Terrorist

Incidents Against Jewish

Communities and Israeli

Citizens Abroad 1968-

2003”.

http://www.thecst.

org.uk/downloads/Terror

ist_Incidents_Report.pdf

65 Brenda Gazzar

30 November 2008

Jerusalem Post

“Lashkar-e-Taiba is

behind Mumbai terror” -

http://www.jpost.

com/servlet/Satellite?pa

gename=JPost/JPArticle/

ShowFull&cid=1227702

367673

66 http://en.wikipedia.

org/wiki/Cairo_Anti-

war_Conference;

http://www.cpgb.org.uk

/worker/635/demo.htm;

http://www.wrp.org.uk/

news/1388;

67 http://www.manchester

eveningnews.co.uk/new

s/special_reports/editors

/s/1022830_rise_in_nu

mber_of_terrorists

audio message entitled “A call to helpour people in Gaza”. This calledexplicitly for attacks against Jewsaround the world:68

“O Muslims. Today is your day. Attackthe interests of the Jews and theAmericans and all those taking part inthe offensive against the Muslims.Select your targets, collect theappropriate funds, assemble yourequipment, plan accurately and thencharge towards your targets, whileplacing your trust in Allah and askinghim to permit you to die as martyrsand ascend to paradise…

…There is no place today for those whoclaim that the battlefield with the Jewsis limited to Palestine, and we have toobey the call of Allah to ‘fight theinfidels everywhere as they fight youeverywhere’…Let us hit their interestseverywhere, as they hit our interestseverywhere.”

Zawahiri followed this on 2 April 2008with another audio message, in theform of answering questions to AlQaeda’s media arm, As Sahab. Hestressed Al Qaeda’s commitment tocarry out its threats against Jews:69

“We promise our Muslim brothers thatwe will strive as much as we can todeal blows to the Jews inside Israel and outside it, with Allah’s helpand guidance”.

Hizbollah and IranBackgroundIranian and Hizbollah threats constitutean ongoing psychological war againstIsrael and Jewish communities aroundthe world.

Indeed, both parties were heavilyimplicated in the worst antisemiticterrorist attack in recent years. Thisoccurred on 18 July 1994, and followedHizbollah warnings that it had “a longerarm” than Israel70. In the attack, asuicide terrorist exploded a vehiclebomb outside the AMIA Jewishcommunity centre in Buenos Aires,Argentina, causing the collapse of thebuilding and the deaths of eighty fivepeople. Two hundred others wereinjured. Subsequent investigations ledto Argentina and Interpol issuinginternational arrest warrants andwanted notices71 against high rankingIranians and a Hizbollah suspect.

Why not “attack all thesupporters of the Zionistseverywhere in the world?” On 26 January 2008, conflict betweenIsrael and Hamas in Gaza and SouthernIsrael prompted Hossein Shariatmadari,editor of leading Iranian newspaperKayhan International72 to issue an op-ed threatening attacks against“Zionists” around the world, andagainst their supposed allies inAmerica, Europe and the Muslim world:

"The slaughter being carried out by theZionists in Gaza…savage crimes, isdisgraceful for the Zionists, and forAmerica and its European allies.

…But aren't most of the sensitivecenters of the Zionists, of theAmericans, and of some Europeanstates that support Israel alreadysituated within the arms' reach of the Muslims? And aren't the Zionists[vulnerable] and located within arms'reach of the Muslims at the fourcorners of the earth? What human andlegal basis can prevent an attack on


68 http://www1.nefa

foundation.org/miscellan

eous/FeatureDocs/nefaz

awahiri0308.pdf

69 http://www.islamonline

.net/discussione/messag

e.jspa?messageID=117

160

70 David Schenker,

“Beyond Rhetoric:

Hizballah Threats after

the Mughniyeh

Assassination”

28 February 2008.

PolicyWatch #1347.

Washington Institute for

Near East Policy

71 http://www.haaretz.

com/hasen/spages/9216

08.html

72 Hossein Sharatmadari

“The Defenders of the

Enemy”, Kayhan

International 26.01.08,

cited at

http://memri.org/bin/art

icles.cgi?Page=archives&

Area=sd&ID=SP182808

#_ednref1

these centers and people? Why mustthe savage, blood-letting Zionists andAmericans be permitted to choose thefield of battle as they wish?...

…America and its European and Zionistsupporters must know that theirsupport for Israel's crimes will costthem very dearly. Once they discernthat this support will cost them theproperty and lives of their citizens, theywill doubtless reconsider their supportfor the savage Zionists...

…Every time a movement rises upagainst the Zionist occupier and acts toliberate its homeland, America and itsallies accuse it of terrorism, and everystate that supports these movements is punished. Why wouldn’t the Muslimsact the same way, and attack all thesupporters of the Zionists everywherein the world?...”

“Zionists…let this war be open”On 12 February 2008, Hizbollah directorof operations, Imad Mughniyeh, waskilled by a car bomb in Syria. This wasblamed by Hizbollah upon Israel (whichdenied involvement), and a series ofterrorist threats followed from bothHizbollah leaders and Iranian media.

The morning after Mughniyeh’s death,Hizbollah official Ismail Sukeyir stated73

"Hizbollah has the right to retaliateanywhere in the world and in any wayit sees fit."

Hizbollah leader, Hassan Nasrallah,expanded upon this in his address viasatellite to Mughniyeh’s funeral rally,alleging that “Zionists” were responsiblefor Hizbollah’s conflict with Israel nowspreading from its Lebanon-Israeltheatre to “the whole world”74 :

"You have crossed the borders…Withthis murder, its timing, location andmethod Zionists - if you want this kindof open war, let the whole world listen:Let this war be open."

On 25 March 2008, in a rally to mark theend of 40 days of mourning for Mughniyeh,Nasrallah repeated the threats and notedthe fear that they were causing75:

“…As for the Israeli zionists, they arescared and anxious inside Palestine andacross the world. Let them stay like thisand drink from the same cup they usedto make us drink from. Why wouldanyone volunteer to pacify them?

The one who killed our commandermust be punished. The killers must bepunished, and they will be punished,God willing. We will choose the time,place and manner of punishment…”

In an article headlined, “Hizbollah’s new tactics”, the Tehran Times of 19 February 2008 added its own hint of menace76:

“…Although Israel uses the mostsophisticated surveillance in its waragainst the resistance fighters in theoccupied territories, it is impossible for itto protect its interests all over the world.

In addition, the fact that the Zionistregime’s military and intelligence agenciesare on red alert will cost Israel tens ofmillions of dollars every day and willeventually exhaust its soldiers and spies…

…Hizbollah, whose international statushas risen as a result of the 34-day warwith Israel in 2006, now regards thescope of its operations to be expanded,and the future will show that Tel Aviv


73 Yoav Stern and Yossi

Melman, “Syria: We

condemn Mughniyah

killing as a cowardly

terrorist act”

13 February 2008.

http://www.haaretz.com

/hasen/spages/953974.

html

74 CNN website, “Hezbollah

leader: Israel faces

'open war'”

14 February 2008.

http://edition.cnn.com/2

008/WORLD/meast/02/

14/lebanon/index.html

75 Mohamad Shmaysani,

“We Choose How,

When, Where to Punish

Murderers”. Al Manar TV

25.03.08. (note: Al

Manar is Hizbollah’s TV

channel).

http://www.almanar.co

m.lb/newssite/NewsDeta

ils.aspx?id=38681&lang

uage=en.

76 Hassan Hanizadeh,

“Hezbollah’s new

tactics”. Tehran Times

19 February 2008.

cannot withstand the onslaught ofmillions of Muslims…the experiencedforces of the resistance movement willavenge the death of Mughniyeh.”

A number of subsequent news reportsin international media have suggestedthat Hizbollah has undertakeninformation collection against potentialtargets, including synagogues77.

Denied entry to UK: SheikhYusuf al-QaradawiSheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi is the seniortheologian of the international MuslimBrotherhood network. This comprisesmany different organisations throughoutthe world, including Islamist lobbyinggroups in Britain and Hamas in Gaza. Al-Qaradawi is based in Qatar and plays a leading role in providing theologicaljustification for Hamas terrorism againstall Israeli civilians. His 2007 publication,

Fatawa on Palestine78, showed the extentto which he regards Hamas terrorism aspart of a wider theological and politicalstruggle against Jews per se.

Al-Qaradawi is banned from entering theUSA, and had last visited Britain in 2004in a highly controversial trip where hewas part hosted by the then LondonMayor Ken Livingstone. In 2008, Al-Qaradawi applied to visit Britain formedical treatment, but was refused entryby the Home Office on the basis that79:

“The UK will not tolerate the presenceof those who seek to justify any acts ofterrorist violence or express views thatcould foster inter-community violence”.In response, the Muslim Council ofBritain criticised the Prime Minister forbuckling80 “under immense pressurefrom the pro-Zionist and neo-conservative lobby”.


77 For example: Richard

Esposito and Brian Ross,

19 June 2008, ABC News

“Hezbollah Poised to

Strike? Officials Say

"Sleeper Cells" Activated

in Canada”.

http://abcnews.go.com/B

lotter/story?id=5203570

78 http://www.democra

tiya.com/review.asp?revi

ews_id=172

79 BBC website “Muslim

cleric not allowed into UK”

7 February 2008.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/

hi/uk_news/7232398.stm

80 Muslim Council of Britain

press release 6 February

2008. “MCB Deplores

Government Decision to

Bar Sheikh Qaradawi”

http://www.mcb.org.uk/

media/presstext.php?

ann_id=286

81 Channel 4 “Dispatches:Terror in Mumbai”programme 30 June2009.

"As I told you, everyperson you kill where you are is worth 50 of theones killed elsewhere." 81

Telephone instructions of terrorists’ commander to the attackers at Mumbai’s Chabad JewishCentre, November 2008. Nearly 200 people died in attacks across Mumbai, India, including six at the Chabad House.

BackgroundPrior to the Internet, the distribution ofextremist racist ideology in Britain wasessentially an underground enterprise,requiring considerable effort on the partof its distributors and consumers. Itoperated in a semi-covert manner fromPO Box addresses and the like, andinvolved little more than poorlyproduced hate-screeds, the circulationof which was limited to an isolatedfringe of fanatics that actively soughtout the material.

As recently as fifteen years ago it wouldhave been inconceivable for suchmaterial to be facilitated by amainstream media group or publication.Today, however, it is routinely found inthe comment threads that followarticles in mainstream media blogs.These mainstream media spaces aretherefore facilitating the transmissionand exposure of extremist racistideology. This is of particularimportance to younger generations ofmedia consumers, for whom theInternet can be a preferred (perhapsprimary or only) source of news media.

Failure of code of conduct andmoderation policiesIt is extremely regrettable that manymainstream media blogs do notadequately protect themselves fromracist intrusions. Worse still, because allmainstream media blogs do have codesof conduct and do remove somecomments, the failure to remove othercomments leaves the impression thatthey do not contradict the codes ofconduct; they appear to be deemedacceptable by the institution.

In some cases, mainstream mediablogs operate a ‘pre-moderation’ policy,

meaning that blog moderators claim toread all submissions before they placethem upon the comment thread. It isnot, however, always clear to thereader if such a policy is being enacted.If extremist material appears on a sitethat claims to be pre-moderated, thenthis furthers the impression that thematerial is deemed acceptable.

Where mainstream media blogs do notoperate a ‘pre-moderation’ policy, theconfusion is even greater. Themoderators will remove offensivematerial after they notice it upon thesite; but how can the reader visiting anactive comments thread know whatremaining comments have been seenalready (and therefore approved) bythe moderators?

Complaints procedureIn all cases, mainstream media blogsoffer readers the facility to complainabout existing comments, which willthen be removed if the moderatoragrees with the complaint. This is avital facility, but it is used by too manymainstream operators as a cover fortheir inadequate initial moderatingprocesses. Moreover, how is the readerto know what comments have alreadybeen complained about, but havepassed the moderators’ consideration?

‘Passing the buck’ to anti-racistsBy failing to proactively moderate, manymainstream media are effectively passingthe onus for monitoring their owncontent onto third parties. If anti-racismorganisations and activists were toadequately conduct this monitoring, thenthey would have to expend tremendousresources in reading all the comments inall the virtual media spaces: to be thenfollowed by actually making arguments


Mainstream Media Blogs:Facilitating and Normalising Extremism

for the removal of offensive postings tothe moderators concerned.

ConclusionPerhaps most importantly, readers ofblog comment threads only see asnapshot of the thread at the time theyenter it. Whether a moderator does ordoes not belatedly remove offensivematerial is irrelevant to the consumerwho has already read that offensivematerial in situ.

The fact remains that the racism hasbeen disseminated by a mainstreammedia outlet; and the reader is unlikelyto return to that part of the commentthread at a later time or date tocompare and contrast what has (andhas not) been belatedly removed.

Blog case study: New StatesmanGeoffrey Wheatcroft reviewed fivebooks by Jews about Zionism andJewish identity in the Books section ofthe 2 October 2008 edition of the NewStatesman. In his opening, Wheatcroftnoted, “The whole topic of Zionism, itscauses and consequences, is aminefield. No other subject is sofraught emotionally, as well asintellectually, so rarely discussed sineira et studio [without anger or bias].”

Wheatcroft’s article appeared on theNew Statesman website and led to 55comments in reply82. This included eightfrom a blatantly antisemitic blogger bythe name of “platonicnumber”; six froma “New World Order” conspiracy theoristby the name of “Carl Jones”; nine fromanother conspiracy theorist, “gnuneo”;six from yet another conspiracy theorist,“Douglas Chalmers”; and seven fromthe antisemitic “fairplay”. In all, 36 ofthe 55 comments were among these

individuals, each with extreme opinions,largely disagreeing with each other; andalso with other contributors who hadattempted to post rational replies.

Some of the comments thread arereproduced below. (Spellings are as inthe originals and all remained on NewStatesman website as of April 2009).Not all the content is antisemitic per se,but it shows the complex and bizarrenature of such comment threads; thedifficulties faced by those who moderatethem; and how mainstream media sites,responsible for writing more balancedpieces can be overwhelmed by irrationaland extremist material.

Carl Jones 02.10.08, 1915hrs “…I don’twant to focus on Israel, or Jews…theyhave lives to live like most otherpeople. My focus is on elite ---- andthey make up a large section of theNWO…” (NWO – New World Order).

platonicnumber 1928hrs “…Nothingabout this so called country [Israel]addes up, and if we dare put all this inthe context of the current economicand political woes, a more sinisterpicture emerges of this unsustainablecolony; that the Zionist settelers wouldhave us believe is actually a ‘country’!

Well, Israel is not a country and thoseof us who have been on the receivingend of its wars, its never ending hatecampaigns and fear mongering, know it for what it is; an unsustainable wetdream of religious fanatics, who will go to extraordinary lengths ofdeception to propagate and justify their supremacist ideology.”

Carl Jones 2020hrs “Platonic number,so you should focus on London and


82 http://www.new

statesman.com/books

/2008/10/israel-

jewish-zionism-jews

New York. They are the reason whyIsrael is what it is.”

platonicnumber 2203hrs “Carl Jones:How inventive you Zionists are when itcomes to fear mongering. What am Imeant to focus on London and newYork exactly!?…

…I suppose you are, clumsily, trying toimply that people who are not fans ofIsrael, must also harbour a destructivehatred of Western Civilisation, asembodied by the great cities of Londonand New York ie terrorists or potentialterrorists…

…The sad thing of course, is that sincethe tragedies of 911 and 7/7, the'embedded' intellectuals in our mediaand phony bloggers like you, have beenmaking hay by peddling the “us andthem” argument and painting adeceitful and distorted picture, in whichthe enemies of Israel have morphedinto the enemies of the world.

Well guess what, the world is not buyingit any more so go FUD some where else!”(FUD – fear uncertainty disinformation)

gnuneo 03.10.08, 0615hrs “PN: what Ithink Carl meant, was that Israel wasset up…for the agenda of a group ofpower-brokers in Washington andLondon…[against Palestinians, Arabsand] ALSO not in the best interests ofthe Jews who moved to Israel – thenormal Jews, whose children have beenbrainwashed into a suicidal hatred oftheir surrounding civilisations…”

platonicnumber 1542hrs (Responding toa pro-Israel commenter) “…Of course thisis not a new fake sob story for If onewas to believe your miserable history

then it seems that you have spent thelast 3000 years escaping “persecution”form every civilization known to man…

…The true persecution, is what‘embedded’ Zionists in Western media,Hollywood and political organisations,have enacted against Arabs/Muslims… I wouldn’t be surprised if, in currentclimate, I was to read a headlinesaying, ‘Israeli scientists discover thatArabs cause cancer' !!!

And for the record, I dislike allorganized religion in equal measure.”

gnuneo 04.10.08, 1733hrs (Respondingto a pro-Israel commenter on thesubject of Arab and Palestinian violencein the 1930s and 1940s) “…I am not atall condoning this violence…You shouldhowever note the Western Powers werefully aware that this reaction wouldhappen, and left the Jews almostundefended – even at this stage, Israelwas seen as part of the Final Solution…”

Douglas Chalmers 05.10.08, 1334hrs“The Jewish state was born in theshadow of the control and manipulationof the Arab world by the West. Theholocaust was merely a conveniencemaking millions of western Jewishmigrants immediately available. Jewshave been deliberately suckered into an“its either them or us” mentality eversince…Semites are both Arab andJew…”Anti-Semitism” is a learnedWestern misnomer. So much forwestern ignorance about Asia, uhh…”.

platonicnumber 1848hrs “At the risk ofsounding jingoistic; who is doing thelying and who is doing the dying. Intoday’s world it is not Zionists nor is itJewish People.


So lets us look at something moretangible, than the rich tapestry ofdelusions and distortions that youwould refer to as ‘history’; lets look atthe present. Jewish people are by nomeans victims today, on the contrary,some, and I am one of them, mayargue that Jewish people are the mostpowerful religious and politicalcollective on the face of the earth.

For example, Zionist Jewish peoplehave an almost exclusive control ofHollywood… This phenomenon of Zionistdomination is mirrored in other UScentres of political and financial power;the current White Houseadministration-and the nextadministration of the soon-to-bePresident Obama for that matter, thePentagon, the CIA and the Orwellian‘Department of Home Land Security’are a few examples. As an example ofZionist political control, one only needsto study the recent career set backs ofHillary Clinton and Ken Livingston, onthe other side of the pond. This trendcan also be perceived in the UK andFrance, but in a far less overt manner.Of course the subtle Zionist Europeanapproach may well be out of thewindow with the dawning of the age ofMonsieur Sarkozy…

…[many Muslim countries] are in, orhave been in military conflict with the USor the UK, even though this is againstthe common interests of all of the partiesinvolved; except Israel of course. See atrend, or as the great Billy Bragg wouldsay: “Must I draw you a picture”.

The first thing a psychopath does is toconvince himself that he is the victim;after that he is able sanction anything.And it is this psychopathic sense of

victim hood that Israelis and terroristshave in common; with the exceptionthat Israel’s is phoney and far far moredevious and powerful.

It is another aspect of this phoneysense of victim hood, that the Zionistled media is exploiting in ‘TheWest’...Basically, since 911 enemies ofIsrael have morphed into enemies ofthe entire planet, if we are to believethe likes of the BBC and its plethora ofprofessional liars…

This is done by reawakening, the thusfar dormant European monster of‘Racial Superiority’ and ‘Racial Purity’-in2004 a Jewish woman, PatriciaRichardson (nee Feldman), won acouncil seat in Essex for the BNP!...

…does anyone remember in 2004/05,certain big department stores in London,who would not put up Christmasdecorations, lest they offend Muslims!?Can anyone hazard a guess at what linksthe ownership of these companies?

…thanks to decades long Zionist drivencultural and political onslaught, the dailyexperience of the Zionist settler in the1980s and 1990s Israel, has beentransplanted into that of the currentdaily experience of many a cosmopolitanEuropean. Israel’s enemies are also TheUS and Europe’s enemies. A few fancymoves and Israel’s fight with itsneighbours becomes ‘The War onTerror’; absolute genius.

…The BBC is Israel’s biggest friend barnone. The BBC is a formidable globalinstrument of Zionist propaganda; like noother… Zionist Jewish People, are not thevictims. On the contrary, the real victimshave a couple of things in common:


i Firstly they are soldiers, sons anddaughters of citizens and subjects ofcountries scared out of their wits by aZionist led media hate campaign and abought and paid for political apparatus; allliving their lives in a state of unexplainablefear and anger at home, while abroadtheir sons and daughters are dying in theservice of the expansionist dreams of‘God’s chosen people’.

ii-And on the receiving end of thisZionist whipped-up ‘fear and loathing’are those perceived to be enemies orpotential enemies of the Zionist state ieArabs and Muslims…”

fairplay 06.10.08, 0942hrs, poses anumber of questions to a pro Israelcommenter, including:

“…why do we have labour friends of israeland conservative friends of Israel in theuk when no other “nation” gets this? Is itpolitical and financial blackmail?...

…do you think the people inentertainment/media world arehypocrites after their crusades againstsouth africa? do you think if they are itsbecause they don’t want to rock theirpaymasters boat by criticising israel?...

…if israel attack iran will warning begiven by israel to the iranian jewsbeforehand?

why is the enemy of the west now“islam” when it never was in the pastand without media interventionwouldn’t be now either?

Honest questions. my jewish mates allreel off the same answers to thesequestions which are basically what isforce fed down their throats at birth…

by the way, this is not a dig. i wouldlike a constructive discussion about it…”

Carl Jones 1117hrs: “…The NWO wouldeven consider using Israel as a sacrificeto further their global agenda. The antisemitic lable is used to gag anyone whoquestions this global agenda. TheBritish arrest of Tobin, [ie Holocaustdenial activist Frederick Toben]…LOLEuropes holocaust denial laws are ajoke…” (LOL – laughing out loud).

Douglas Chalmers 07.10.08, 1041hrs“French FM and co-founder of Medicinssans Frontieres, Bernard Kouchner,seems to be making the most of theirpresidency of the EU to exhort/permitIsrael to launch a nuclear strike againstIran in exchange for peace with theArab Palestinians.

Europe may freeze this winter thanks tohim and fellow Jew + Neocon puppet,president Sarkosy, uhh!...”

Carl Jones 2011hrs: “…Sarkozy is aMassad agent…Sarkozy is the NWO’sdirect replacement for war criminalTony Blair LOL.”


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Documents

Antisemitic Discourse in Britain in 2008 Discourse Report 2008.pdf · depictions of Gaza as being somehow comparable to the Warsaw Ghetto. • During 2008, the Iranian state-backed