This is a guest post from Israelinurse
Last Thursday’s excellent piece by Isi Leibler on CiF elicited a tediously predictable barrage of every type of offensive comment in the book – a veritable Gala Performance of Guadianistas in their element.
First, we have the ‘one-liner’ school of philosophy:
26 Nov 2009, 12:47PM
I always knew there was an alrternate universe where black is white and white is black.
Ladies and gentlemen Cif give you that very universe in this article.
26 Nov 2009, 12:48PM
Israel Phosphorus Gaza Need we say anything more?
Then there’s the ‘chosen people’ trope:
26 Nov 2009, 12:52PM
I?m quite happy to engage with moderate Jews with whom a constructive discussion is possible ? but not those from the extreme wing or those who refuse to accept bsimple facts .
Borrowing from Melanie Phillips definition of a moderate Arab:
My own personal litmus test is their attitude to Palestine and the Arabs in general. If they get that one right – that is, if they understand that fundamentally the Palestinians are the victim in the Middle East, that the Palestinians are a benign and unaggressive people and that the Jewish world has been brainwashed into a demented and paranoid hatred of the Arabs – then such people generally also get most other things the right way round too.
Next, the ‘Israel is a racist state’ libel, in all of its various permutations:
26 Nov 2009, 12:57PM
I don’t even know where to begin. What a tissue of blatant lies!
Demonisation of Israel has become the surrogate for traditional Jew-hatred? The left and many liberals have succeeded in hijacking human rights groups to serve as vehicles to undermine the Jewish state? The automatic majority of Islamic and other radical states guarantees the passage of all anti-Israeli resolutions initiated at the UN? Israel has made more and more concessions over the last decade? Arab citzens in Israel have equal rights? Two Israeli prime ministers offered to cede virtually all of the territories gained in wars initiated by Israel’s enemies seeking to destroy it? The Sharon government unilaterally disengaged from Gaza?
The Minitruth propaganda and rewriting of history goes on. How did this almost surrealistic distortion of reality ever get published?
… most European states nevertheless apply double standards against the Jewish state.
That at least is true. Against the wishes of its people, Europe continues to arm the revolting apartheid State of Israel and fund its theft, massacres and repression with preferential trade agreements, while cynically denouncing, punishing and even militarily attacking States guilty of far lesser crimes.
This article is truly horrible.
26 Nov 2009, 1:53PM
It’s a simply a truism that Israel, in it’s current form, is a discrimantory state. A state which denies the legal and moral right of return to their homeland for millions of Palestinian Arabs for no other reason than they are Arabs, rather than Jews. They’re being denied their rights on the basis of their ethnicity. How is that *not* discriminatory?
There are other forms of systematic and overt discrimination, like the Citizenship and Entry into Israel Law, which again denies Palestinian Arabs their basic rights based on nithing more than them being the wrong ethnicity.
All this without even getting into the discriminatory practices enforced in the Occupied Territories (settler only roads, house demolitions, Israeli law for settlers, military law for Palestinians, distribution of water resources, etc).
If you’re so concerned about people calling Israel a ‘racist’ or ‘apartheid’ state, why not campaign to bring an end to the laws and practices which give people reason to say this?
Followed by a dose of conspiracy theory:
26 Nov 2009, 2:03PM
My mistake. Zionism has no connection with Wall Street. There is no Jewish Mafia. And there were no Palestinians in Palestine.
And where would we be without the ever-popular ‘Giyus’ conspiracies too?
26 Nov 2009, 2:25PM
@QuinceTree
And, please tell me you don’t honestly believe that the Israeli government is funding my views!
Now if you’d talked about the Israeli government funding you, I would have said I honestly didn’t know.
But as for your views, the answer is yes. Have you never heard of Hasbara? See the Guardian article below, about Israeli government propaganda on the Internet.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2006/nov/20/mondaymediasection.israel
26 Nov 2009, 1:34PM
@QuinceTree
And so why does Israel gather so much ire – and yet humanity-loving Guardianistas don’t give two hoots abou the Congo?
I think you’ll find that “Guardianistas” care deeply about the Congo. One of the differences on CIF is that the Congolese government does not fund and orchestrate the mass presentation of official Congolese propaganda on CIF’s pages.
If you feel there are too many comments on this page, why are you posting? Or is it just you feel that anyone opposed to Israel’s criminal policies should not be posting?
Not to mention the ubiquitous ‘double standards’ method:
26 Nov 2009, 2:53PM
“in which demonisation of Israel has become the surrogate for traditional Jew hatred ? just as Jews in the middle ages were blamed for all the ills of mankind, so today the Jewish state is increasingly held responsible for the principal woes facing humanity.”
Really? OK, you go first – which of the principal woes facing humanity is Israel responsible for?
Hunger? Nope, Drought, nope, AIDS, nope…
Such ridiculous hyperbole does nothing to advance your cause.
The truth of the matter is that Israel is held up to rather more rigid scrutiny because it pretends to be a modern democracy, with a social and political environment similar to a modern European state.
That’s why we don’t get too hung up about say the antics in Yemen, beause we know that Yemen is just a glorified shit-hole full of armed bandits and nothing else, so our exectations aren’t too high.
But Israel pretends to be like us, only better. After all, God told you to kill all those peole, didn’t He, in order to ensure your nation’s racial purity?
So that’s all right, then…
As if all this did not suffice, we were also treated to a bit of celeb glitter in the form of none other than the newly re-vamped moderate himself:
26 Nov 2009, 1:01PM
Contributor
*Liebler: ‘It is in this context that Israel remains the only country in the world whose very right to exist is challenged.’*
No, that would be Palestine.
No amount of star quality, however, is a match for the ever impressive, infinitely patient and delightfully precise Petra MB :
26 Nov 2009, 3:29PM
Contributor
Inayat got close to 100 endorsements for asserting that it is not Israel’s right to exist that is being challenged, but Palestine’s.
In 1947, the Palestinians were offered a state. They turned it down, because they thought that by refusing their state, they could also deny Israel’s right to exist. Accordingly, from 1948-1967, nobody talked about establishing a Palestinian state, even though the Westbank and Gaza were not occupied by Israel. The PLO was established in 1964, the territory they intended to “liberate” was Israel, i.e. they denied Israel’s right to exist. Until today, everybody who supports the so-called one-state solution is denying Israel’s right to exist.
The PLO got around to at least declaring that they accepted a Palestinian state alongside Israel in the late 1980s, i.e. 20 years ago. Not long after that, the Oslo process began, and the idea was that the PA would gradually build up the infrastructure for a Palestinian state. Most of the donor money given for that purpose vanished in Swiss bank accounts, and the only thing that was built up was a large number of armed militias, with more than 20 000 armed members. Serious negotiations for a final status agreement in Camp David and Taba 2000-01 failed when Arafat rejected the proposals; though some 2 years later, he said that this was a mistake:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2002/jun/22/israel
It took until Salaam Fayyad came into office barely 2 years ago before somebody finally got serious about building the institutional infrastructure for a Palestinian state, though it is by no means clear that this effort enjoys widespread popular support among Palestinians. A year ago, Olmert proposed a Palestinian state on the equivalent of 100 percent of the pre-1967 Westbank-Gaza territory, with East Jerusalem as Palestine’s capital, and a connection between the Westbank and Gaza. Abbas turned it down. Now he seems to regret it:
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1124682.html
So, Inayat, who exactly is denying Palestine’s right to exist?
And every now and then, we have news reports like this one from earlier this year:
February
Hamas spokesman Ismail Radwan reportedly said that the group will not recognize Israel nor meet the condition set by the Quartet, and noted that Clinton’s request was unacceptable to the Palestinians.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1235410738729&pagename=JPArticle%2FShowFull
March
Former Fatah security commander Muhammad Dahlan on Tuesday called on Hamas not to recognize Israel’s right to exist, pointing out that Fatah had never recognized it.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1237114855755&pagename=JPArticle%2FShowFull
June
Recognizing Israel is completely unacceptable.
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2009/06/18/hamas_rejects_carter_plea_to_recognize_israel/
September
De facto Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh on Monday evening reiterated Hamas? refusal to recognize Israel
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=222841
So when people make statements that have no basis in fact, as Inayat did here, it’s kind of hard to see how this qualifies as “oh but it’s just legitimate criticism of Israel”.
It is, of course, entirely to be expected that a writer of Isi Leibler’s calibre should bring the CiF crowd out in force as he manages to shake their world view to the very core. It is probably also of no surprise to regular CiF watchers that the more eloquent the pro-Israel argument above the line, the more virulent the comments below.
But the last word has to go to ImranZeb, who seems to be pondering the same questions as I when it comes to the mysterious connection between antisemites and bad spelling:
26 Nov 2009, 2:37PM
Homeboy…
Were you on crack when you wroe this…
That israel is an illegal State which practices apartied & has a human rights record only equal to fascist China;that Palestinioan children ae killed as easily I I just drank taht cup of coffee may be a reason why people have a beef with Israel & your still on the ‘woe is me’ tip
Indeed, one does wonder…
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COMMITTEE FOR ACCURACY IN MIDDLE EAST REPORTING AND ANALYSIS
A Gala Performance
This is a guest post from Israelinurse
Last Thursday’s excellent piece by Isi Leibler on CiF elicited a tediously predictable barrage of every type of offensive comment in the book – a veritable Gala Performance of Guadianistas in their element.
First, we have the ‘one-liner’ school of philosophy:
Then there’s the ‘chosen people’ trope:
Next, the ‘Israel is a racist state’ libel, in all of its various permutations:
Followed by a dose of conspiracy theory:
And where would we be without the ever-popular ‘Giyus’ conspiracies too?
Not to mention the ubiquitous ‘double standards’ method:
As if all this did not suffice, we were also treated to a bit of celeb glitter in the form of none other than the newly re-vamped moderate himself:
No amount of star quality, however, is a match for the ever impressive, infinitely patient and delightfully precise Petra MB :
It is, of course, entirely to be expected that a writer of Isi Leibler’s calibre should bring the CiF crowd out in force as he manages to shake their world view to the very core. It is probably also of no surprise to regular CiF watchers that the more eloquent the pro-Israel argument above the line, the more virulent the comments below.
But the last word has to go to ImranZeb, who seems to be pondering the same questions as I when it comes to the mysterious connection between antisemites and bad spelling:
Indeed, one does wonder…
Like this:
What you won't hear about the Middle East in the Guardian
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