A portrait of the extremist mainstream in Great Britain, a man with a problem with Jewish names
Richard Ingrams
“I have developed a habit,” he said, “when confronted by letters to the editor in support of the Israeli government to look at the signature to see if the writer has a Jewish name. If so, I tend not to read it.”
As I have said on many occasions (see previous entry for example), there is now no price to be paid in mainstream Britain for such attitudes. They are taken as normal. Now consider his latest piece of writing, this time in the Independent, as an example of what happens when such “normal” attitudes are allowed to fester.
Ingrams writes his column in the form of a diary which then goes on to address other subjects. Yesterday, he opened his piece by reflecting on Britain’s decision last week to expel an Israeli diplomat over the Dubai assassination of a Hamas terrorist. Here is what he said, with my italics to highlight the tone he adopts:
“The expulsion of a Mossad man from London following the affair over the forged passports used by a gang of Israeli assassins in Dubai is welcome, if only to remind us that regardless of this single expulsion Mossad operates openly out of London with the full approval of the British Government.
“This is surprising considering the kind of things that Mossad gets up to – forging passports, assassinating the political opponents of the Israeli government, kidnapping those like the nuclear technician Mordecai Vanunu (who spent 12 years in solitary confinement for daring to tell the world about his country’s nuclear weapons) – behaving in other words like state–licensed gangsters. Surprising, too, is the way politicians are happy to describe themselves, even when engaged in expulsions, as friends of Israel. The Prime Minister himself comes into this category, as his friend Sir Martin Gilbert [NB: Martin Gilbert is a well-known British Jew] recently reminded us.
“What this amounts to is that these people are proud to be friends of a country that operates a system of apartheid in territory which it has illegally occupied and colonised, that subjects the people who live in that territory to intolerable restrictions, that thinks nothing of killing large numbers of them, including women and children, to punish them for daring to launch rockets and that continually lies about its actions as it does about the criminal activities of Mossad.
“If in the days of apartheid you had proclaimed yourself a friend of South Africa you would have been regarded as some kind of right-wing racist. Yet no special odium nowadays attaches to those friends of Israel from Gordon Brown downwards. It is all rather puzzling.”
This is the writing of a fanatic. It is also symptomatic of the group hysteria over Israel which has now sunk its claws into mainstream British society. No other country is talked about and written about in such terms.
Apart from the substance, also notice the style. The sheer intensity of the feelings that motivate the writer is stark. Those feelings can be summed up in a single word: hatred.
And so deep seated is that hatred that it extends beyond Israel to anyone who dares to stand up for that country. For Ingrams, those who call for a reasoned and balanced approach to Israel deserve a “special odium”. We are to be ostracised and vilified, to be treated with disdain and contempt.
This is a sickness, and it goes very deep. But let me just leave you today with an image of Richard Ingrams from the biography on his wikipedia entry. I think it illustrates the nature of the problem in Great Britain rather nicely:
“Ingrams plays the organ in his local Anglican church in Aldworth, Berkshire each Sunday. The Romney Marsh Historic Churches Trust was formed under the patronage of Ingrams and the then Archbishop of Canterbury Robert Runcie.”
Truly idyllic….
Tags: Israel
March 28th, 2010 at 2:36 pm
Robert Runcie? There’s a surprise. I always thought he was a genuine friend to Israel.
March 28th, 2010 at 4:10 pm
During Ingrams’s editorship, Private Eye was replete with anti-semitic jibes and crude innuendo, as its readers will recall. For all I know, having long ago lost all interest in that publication, it may be the same today. Ingrams has always displayed an almost pathological loathing of anything and everything Jewish.
March 28th, 2010 at 5:00 pm
How lucky we are that we now have a state away from these types
March 28th, 2010 at 5:19 pm
A classic piece of unadulturated antisemitism.The facts are wrong,the double standard is obvious.
QUID LECIT BRITTANIA NON LECIT JUDEA
ENJOY PASSOVER AND EASTER!
March 29th, 2010 at 3:11 am
If Mr. Ingram is a proponent of replacement theology - espoused by some Christians and many atheist Leftists - then it is rather inconvenient that the Jews will not just go away. They are such pests. Perhaps it is Mr. Ingram’s goal to assist the Jews in dispersing, disappearing or disintegrating.
March 29th, 2010 at 3:29 am
Ever since I heard about Ingrams’ vile anti-semitism, I too have developed the habit when confronted by articles about Israel (or any other topic), to look to see if the writer of the article is Richard Ingrams. If it is, I tend not to look at it.
It’s an excellent habit, and avoids wasting time on his bigoted drivel.
March 29th, 2010 at 7:43 am
http://www.thejc.com/blogpost/ingrams-right-on-cue
Hopefully Alexander Lebedev - who has bought The Independent for £1 - will tell Ingrams to sling his hook and return to Stormfront where he belongs.
March 29th, 2010 at 1:29 pm
“During Ingrams’s editorship, Private Eye was replete with anti-semitic jibes and crude innuendo, as its readers will recall.”
Yes, indeedy:
“[Jonathan] Miller once described the Eye’s editorial conference as like watching naked, anti-Semitic public schoolboys in a changing room, flicking wet towels at defenceless victims.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_Eye
March 29th, 2010 at 3:08 pm
Very good article Robin, with a very good title. This kind of writing is now the extremist mainstream in Britain.
March 29th, 2010 at 5:49 pm
” Ingrams plays the organ in his local Anglican church in Aldworth, Berkshire each Sunday. The Romney Marsh Historic Churches Trust was formed under the patronage of Ingrams and the then Archbishop of Canterbury Robert Runcie.”
If your account of this man’s beliefs and feeling is right, then he appears to be enjoying some of the beautiful trappings and traditions of the Church of England…while utterly missing the spiritual and moral point of Christianity, which is that that Christ came to Earth as a Jew in order to teach the world about G*d and His plans for it and for all of Mankind.
I don’t see anything to do with universal love in such attitudes when other express them, and if he’s truly like this then he might as well take up bird-watching or making model aeroplanes as spend time in a Chrsitian church where he seems to be deaf to the message of the faith’s Founder.
March 29th, 2010 at 6:15 pm
Perhaps someone should tell him Jesus was Jewish.
March 29th, 2010 at 9:28 pm
I don’t see the problem. Ingrams is not an expert on the Middle East, in fact he’s not an expert on anything. His trashy views are appearing in a worthless rag of a newspaper. So what ?
March 30th, 2010 at 12:18 am
People like Ingrams remind us why the state of Israel was established in the first place. He can’t see it, but he and those who share his racist views are one of the best arguments for Zionism there is.
March 30th, 2010 at 9:57 am
Daph says “How lucky we are that we now have a state away from these types”
We do? Where is this state, in the clouds, in fairyland? Oh you mean Israel where the paper of record Ha’Aretz had an editor who remarked that he hoped that Israel gets raped by America (well he got his wish hope he’s happy now). It’s also the paper of record that on its front page reported non-existent atrocities by the IDF (the Danny Zamir affair) in the aftermath of the Gaza war that it later was forced to retract but by then the damage had been done. Ever spent time on TAU campus (and it’s not the only one) where anti-Semitic profs rail against the IDF that is all that stands between them and another Holocaust. A restaurant/bar in Tel Aviv would not let soldiers in uniform enter, because of the Jewish staff’s open contempt for the IDF. If I were to repeat word for word conversations I have had with Jewish Israelis (never mind the Diaspora Jews) on the Middle-East you would think I was making some of their self-loathing and cluelessness up, it is beyond parody and satire.
Israel has a restless Muslim extremist population in the North, in Jerusalem in which Jew-hatred is their daily diet. And then Israel is a country that attracts Jew-hating Western visitors in the thousands ever year (I am not kidding), it’s a magnet for them even as they come or came to volunteer on kibbutzes (kibbutz volunteering is pretty much moribund if not totally dead now) and to work in Jew-hating NGO and diplomatic positions. And those North American JINOs, they are the worst. Their entire character structure is masochistic, they need help, years of therapy. Maybe medication. Like a lot of their “Jewish” Israeli cousins.
March 30th, 2010 at 10:53 pm
To Larry: “A restaurant/bar in Tel Aviv would not let soldiers in uniform enter, because of the Jewish staff’s open contempt for the IDF.” Thank God this “custom” of the extremist anarchists was abolished there. I checked it.
March 31st, 2010 at 2:36 am
Larry: Sounds like you could use some medication yourself. You’re plucking the worst of the worst and making it sound like daily life. Come on!
March 31st, 2010 at 6:51 pm
Jonathan Karmi
“I don’t see the problem. Ingrams is not an expert on the Middle East, in fact he’s not an expert on anything. His trashy views are appearing in a worthless rag of a newspaper. So what ??
He applies his inexpertise to the abuse and murder of children writing foul invective against those whose duties are employed in the protection of innocents against the malign intentions of their guardians. He is a bully.
April 1st, 2010 at 7:34 pm
#16 vildechaye
either what I say is true or it isn’t. It is. I wish I were wrong and were making it all up, unfortunately I am not. Either Ha’Aretz is the “paper of record” in TA or it isn’t. It is. You live in Israel? I’m Israeli and I’m not a young man anymore neither, please don’t lecture me about this nation. I have daily contact with Israelis and Diaspora Jews from all walks of life, do you? Obviously the ones I speak of with contempt are in a small minority, however in a sane society there would be far far fewer of them than there are and they would not have editorial control of our most internationally recognised newspaper and the point is nobody really gives a damn or appears to notice so the apathy is very real and widespread. That is a main point of mine, the apathy to Jewish self-loathing by those of us who are not ashamed that Israel dares to exist and fight for its survival, the apathy among the best of us - this is what is scary. Such apathy does not bode well for a nation fighting for its survival not only against Iran and Hezbollah and Hamas and Fatah and Syria etc but the west too which is following the path of appeasement and where Jew-hatred is at its heighest levels since WW2.
A whole political party is insane, even if it is a marginal one (Meretz). If Israel was only semi-sane Meretz would not even exist. Just in the last four days I have met two North American JINOs who fit the pattern I describe, I have only met three North American Jews in the last few days and two of them fit the pattern! Maybe that was a bad little run but it is hardly unusual. I have one aunt and two uncles in TA who are also filled with Jewish self-loathing. I know them and you don’t. At least one cousin of same type. Actually only one cousin filled with self-loathing thank HaShem. However the fact that I am grateful only one cousin of mine is a self-loathing Jew tells you how insane things are. In a sane or even semi-sane society I should not have to be grateful that only one of my first cousins is a self-hating Jew. It ought to be as rare as having a family relative think he is Napolean or Julius Ceasar or the messiah himself. It isn’t that rare or unusual among Ashkenazi Jews (especially in TA), unfortunately not. Many of the Westerners (esp Europeans) who visit here are anti-Semitic, simple fact as many Israelis can tell you, as are many of the Arab Muslim population in Israel proper. Many of course are not, thankfully.
It is not so much self-loathing alone or even predominantly, it is denial, and I mean extreme DENIAL rooted in a wilfull ignorance of Middle-East realities, because the reality is too difficult to bear. A seperate parallel reality is where many Jews live, a fairyland, one that has no bearing to the real world at all, this is in fact a major neurosis and its consequences can be deadly to us. In fact there was a very good book on this subject by Harvard pyschiatrist Kenneth Levin entitled ‘Oslo Syndrome - Delusions of a People under Siege’. Of course this is a syndrome hardly unique to Jews, but what Levin calls Oslo Syndrome is its peculiar Jewish variant. Robin Shepard is arguably more of a Jew than most English language Diaspora Jewry (and sleepwalking North American Jews for sure), and when I say that, it is intended as a compliment.
April 2nd, 2010 at 11:10 am
Has lawfare closed down Harry’s Place comments?
April 3rd, 2010 at 1:52 am
Nobody has heard of Richard Ingrams on our side of the pond. His villainy is contained for now.
I agree with Larry that the “The Oslo Syndrome” is a good explanation for Jewish appeasement of their oppressors. Author Kenneth Levin fails, however, to discuss how traditional rabbinism has ill-prepared the Jewish people for the world of nations. Neither has Ruth Wisse in her book, “Jews and Power”. Although the rabbis, in general, taught their people self control (see Richard L. Rubinstein, “The Religious Imagination”) under powerless circumstances, they offered little practical guidance where a Jewish state and some Diaspora communities can apply many more tools.
I believe that the best way I can do is to support the pro-Zionist organizations here in the US and let people know I support Israel. If they strongly disagree, I offer some logical arguments. If that fails, I just shrug my shoulders and move on. They get more bent out of shape than I do. The local anti-Zionists who know me fume at my calm, quiet effrontery. They think I have a hotline to the Mossad. But it’s important to persistently offer a counter-narrative, else the bad guys completely dominate the field. Fortunately, many non-Jewish Americans share that counter-narrative.
April 3rd, 2010 at 3:33 am
Haepenny: The answer is yes. I emailed David T yesterday when I saw there were no comments and he confirmed the “legal risk was too great.” He did say he hoped to be able to reopen them sometime in the future, but i wouldn’t hold my breath.
Larry: You write well, if somewhat overheated. A few points. 1-I didn’t lecture you about Israel or anything else. 2-i do think you’re painting an overly black picture. firstly, haaretz is the “intellectual” paper in Israel but it is hardly the “paper of record” or for that matter anywhere near the best-selling daily, as you well know; nor is it routinely “anti-israel”. Some writers and editors are; others aren’t. 3-Meretz IS insignificant, if Israel had a first-past-the-post system they wouldn’t have a single parliamentarian. Conversely, if, say, Canada (where i’m from) had pure proportional representation we’d have parties far crazier, and, i daresay, more self-destructive, than Meretz. 4- there have always been self-hating jews. My parents and grandfathers, who hailed from poland, told me stories about “shabbasgoys” who would stand in front of shuls on yom kippur eating pork. There were kapos who enjoyed their cruelty. There have always been Jews who converted to Christianity, became inquisitors, etc. etc. You think it’s a pathology that you have a cousin who is anti-israeli; i can assure you, it’s the same everywhere, with all peoples, only the stakes are higher in Israel. I do sympathize, but I still think you need to take a chill pill.
April 7th, 2010 at 10:44 pm
I wrote to the editor of the Independent some months ago to complain about Richard Ingrams’ barely concealed (and sometimes not concealed at all) contempt for Jews and, of course, his more “acceptable” hatred of Israel. Unsurprisingly I didn’t receive a reply. The editor presumably thinks: “hey, we’ve got Howard Jacobson on the previous page so that cancels it all out - see how balanced we are!”. As if anti-Semitism is merely a point of view. I buy the Independent every Saturday and eagerly turn to Ingrams’ comment pieces first. Why? To prove the point to myself that I’m looking at the work, well-written as it is, of a blatant Jew-hater. For out of every three items in his weekly column one will be virtually guaranteed to include an unfavourable reference to some prominent Jew, with the odd smear on Israel thrown in for good measure on alternate weeks. Don’t believe me? Just check the archives. Sometimes he uses hack-journalism techniques, such as unnecessarily describing the authors of a critical book on the American Israel lobby with words like “authoritative” or “well-respected”. As if he’d know whether they were or not. Other times he pushes as far as he can go, as in the gratuitous display of a full-plate sized picture of Fagin from David Lean’s Oliver Twist, a grotesque Jew-caricature picture if ever there was one. But again, hey, it’s Charles Dickens, David Lean, Alec Guinness so I dare you to complain! Funnily enough, I like reading Ingrams on other subjects for he is an intelligent man. But not so much that I think he should’nt be unceremoniously got rid of, along with the editor that employs him, by the new owners of the paper. His column is the unacceptable face of journalism and too bad that there evidently aren’t more people like me who have raised this issue with the Independent in the past. Although I otherwise like the paper I’m in the peculiar position of applauding the decline in its readership; every time the increasingly-lower circulation figures are published I rejoice in the fact that there are now fewer people being incited or encouraged by Ingrams’ seemingly respectable brand of Jew-loathing. Once he’s put out to grass I’m sure Ingrams will be able to find a nice little sinecure for himself at a British public school, the well-known anti-Semitic breeding ground from which he himself once emerged.
April 8th, 2010 at 11:46 am
Let’s perform a thought experiment: An article is submitted for publication in a scientific journal in the early years of the last century. The editor immediately looks at the signature to see if he can guess the ethnicity of the author. “Einstein”, he says. “Probably a Jew. I won’t bother to read this…”
June 10th, 2010 at 4:04 am
this is why israel must exist