Guardian assistant editor says on BBC that Israel murders political dissidents whose “style” it doesn’t like
Guardian cartoon about Israel
When the Guardian’s assistant editor slithers his way on to the BBC, there’s a good bet that something noxious is soon going to be coming across the airwaves. But, in its brazen and flagrant dishonesty, Monday’s contribution to BBC Radio London’s Breakfast Show by Michael White is something to behold.
In a discussion on security for political leaders pegging off the assault on Silvio Berlusconi the other day, White talked meanderingly about previous attacks on political leaders and, understandably for a British discussion show, brought in the case of Northern Ireland where Unionists and Nationalists in the main desisted from assassinating each others leaders. And then, like a flash of lightening out of a clear blue sky, this:
“In Israel they murder each other a great deal. The Israeli Defense Forces murder people because they don’t like their political style and what they’ve got to say and it only means that people more extreme come in and take their place.”
No interruption from the BBC moderator of course — apart from an approving “hmm”. No one to stop such appalling, defamatory lies in their tracks. There it is. On the record. A vicious calumny about Israel, pumping yet more sewage into the public mind as the Jewish state is portrayed as nothing better than a violent, totalitarian dictatorship which silences political dissent through the barrel of a gun.
To see just how mendacious White is being it is necessary to recall Israel’s policy of targeted assassination which was aimed at senior leaders of the terrorist infrastructure, mainly in Hamas. This, of course, would be White’s pseudo-defence.
But he and everyone else who follows the situation in the Middle East knows very well that democratic, pluralist Israel has never murdered anyone just because it doesn’t like “what they’ve got to say”. Or perhaps he is using the word “style” in a grotesque attempt at humourising the explosive belts packed with nails and ball bearings worn by suicide bombers by equating them to fashion accessories?
Friends and colleagues from outside the UK frequently ask me how intelligent people in Great Britain can really believe the kind of absurdities that Israel is charged with these days. What is hard to convey to them is the sheer casualness of the way such lies and distortions are now spread by Britain’s most powerful media outlets.
The extract quoted above is no more than 15 seconds in length. It is not the centre-piece of the show. There was no great fanfare announcing it. It is a quite casual reference, dropped on to the breakfast tables of London. People absorb this sort of thing day in day out. After a time, it simply becomes normal. This is how a nation’s reputation is being destroyed.
————–
To hear the extract — which will only be up for a limited time — click on the following link and move to 1 hr, 18 minutes and 50 seconds into the discussion:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/console/p005gypm
December 16th, 2009 at 2:25 pm
They (both the BBC and the Guardian, as is the so-called Independent - independent from common sense and journalistic ethics only perhaps?) have long ago forfeited their basic journalistic credibility.
December 16th, 2009 at 2:28 pm
http://www.humyo.com/F/8292457-2279342827
White’s disgusting libel is at 3 mins 30 secs in at the above direct link.
The clip will be archived, I presume, here:
http://www.honestreporting.com/articles/45884734/critiques/new/Guardian_Ed_In_Israel_They_Murder_Each_Other_a_Great_Deal.asp
Which has this direct link embedded:
http://www.humyo.com/F/8292457-2279342827
December 16th, 2009 at 3:28 pm
1) Here’s White, in early 2008, on the Holocaust (my titles):
The Holocaust is such a bore
“MPs had a short debate yesterday to mark Holocaust Day, a familiar ritual in many countries which causes backbenchers like Hendon’s Andrew Dismore (not Jewish himself, but hot on anti-semitism) to be dismissed in newspapers as ‘Holocaust bores.’ ”
Don’t be mean to the Nazis
“My own favourite parliamentary speech on this subject remains that of the late Thatcherite economist, Lord Peter Bauer. In opposing Lady Thatcher’s 1990 war crimes bill - she used the parliament act to force it through - Bauer said approximately this: ”My Lords, I am a Jew who lost much of his family in the Holocaust. But I oppose this legislation because it is retrospective and therefore undermines the rule of law.” He then sat down. Not bad. I must check which way Mr Howard voted at the time.”
http://tinyurl.com/3aysu3
2) Here, in late 2008, White criticises the extradition of Holocaust deniers, purely on principle, naturally. Look out for these special titbits: “an abuse of process in a country which has not - yet - succumbed to Germany’s “witch-hunt mentality”; “We should not forget, but it smacked of retrospective legislation, pandering again.” Jolly decent of White, however, to suggest that we should not “forget” the Holocaust:
“Two strands of the affair trouble me. One is the restriction on free speech inherent in the laws that some countries – not Britain – have against Holocaust denial. We have broader laws against racial incitement in general, which seems acceptable to me, though not to those who believe that older public order laws would have proved sufficient.”
“The other problem I have with this is process. When the European Arrest Warrant came into force in 2004 to help police fight cross border crime - and post 9/11 terrorism - more effectively it abolished the “dual criminality” principle.”
Once again, in the same piece, White attacks the war crimes bill:
“Holocaust denial is a lesser offence than involvement in war crimes themselves. Britain has a different problem here in that, in the chaos after 1945 when it was often hard to sort victim from persecutor, a lot of bad people slipped into this country and led quiet, guilty lives.
In 1991 Margaret Thatcher used the parliament acts to override the House of Lords, which had thrown out her war crimes bill, passed by the Commons. The average age of current MPs in 1939 was six, one peer remarked during the debate: let it go. But some 300 suspects live on in the UK, countered the bill’s supporters.
At the time I sympathised with the critics. It was all a long time ago, witnesses and accused were old, far away or even dead, their memories faulty at best. We should not forget, but it smacked of retrospective legislation, pandering again.
Last time I looked there had not been a single successful prosecution. Other more recent war crimes dominate the headlines. Who’s right?”
http://tinyurl.com/3w38vc
3) Here, in the style of Patrick J. Buchanan (see piece below), White defends John Demjanjuk:
John Demjanjuk should not be on trial
[Just two of the many appalling lines]
“So string up Demjanjuk? That’s what the Israelis tried to do when he first went on trial in Jerusalem in 1988.”
“there are plenty of bad things that we can try to do something about going on in the world of today rather than weep again for the likes of Sobibor.”
http://tinyurl.com/y8gfel7
The True Haters by Patrick J. Buchanan
http://tinyurl.com/d5aqn8
————
This is what Julie Burchill, the English writer and columnist, has to say about the Guardian:
“This was gleefully picked up and proclaimed by The Guardian, the newspaper I left some years ago in protest at what I saw as its vile anti-Semitism.”
http://tinyurl.com/ye5ceco
Is Ms. Burchill right? What do you think?
December 16th, 2009 at 3:40 pm
why isn’t lawfare being used in Britain against these people…Are not libel laws in Britain favorable to the plaintiff…
December 16th, 2009 at 7:38 pm
Response to PW Virginia from the US - The answer to your question (many-many seemingly naive or uderinformed people ask this very same uestion on diff threads) is that many of these judges in Britain usually form a cast. They don’t have the slightest intention to be impartial - so when an unsuspective bona fide real human rights campaigner would initiate such a warrant against Islamists for example coming to Britain, they simply wouldn’t issue any warrant. They simply wouldn’t do anything at all. I know this is shocking to some, but not for me. What’s so hard to understand about it?
December 16th, 2009 at 7:49 pm
Listened to the quote. The guy’s a complete idiot. Let’s not agonise about this. The ever more popular assumption that Israelis are inherently sub-human leads to two consequences … 1) Britain becomes a less pleasant country for someone like me to live in and 2) it means there’s no reason whatsoever why Britain should be involved in future Middle East negotiations. It has absolutely nothing to contribute. I trust the Israeli government now recognises that fact.
December 16th, 2009 at 11:21 pm
What a steep decline from Churchill and Thatcher! What happened to the Brits? Where is pride of country? (Of course, we’ve got Obama who is rarely overseas with condemning the USA!) At least the Swiss banned minarets for Mosques - the last place I would have expected a backbone. But then in three or four decades Europe will be under sharia law. Where the US will be is not far behind. But then evolution is not linear. We had the anti-Semite and utterly incompetent President Carter that led to Ronald Reagan, maybe Carter II (only worse) will lead us to a new Reagan? Let’s hope. We’ll barely survive to 2012 - maybe the Mayans were right! Could they have foreseen Barak and his stooges: Pelosi, Reed, Schumer, and friends?
December 17th, 2009 at 12:15 am
Gabor…I am thinking of a civil suit for libel against the reporter and station carrying these said libels…though I find it hard to believe that an entire “cast” of judges would refuse to accept a warrant against an Islamist I wouldn’t be overly surprised by any European behavior toward Jews…
December 17th, 2009 at 12:54 am
Pathetic. Labour Friends of Israel in action. How many children have you people killed?
December 17th, 2009 at 1:01 am
This comment,along with the BBC pro-arab commentaries and the summons for Tzipi
Livni,led me to email bbc as to when Britain expected to adopt Sharia law instead of western law. The British state department arabists (Laurence of Arabia types) have prevented Queen Elizabeth from making a state visit to Israel,and even prevented her husband Prince Phillip from visiting his mother’s grave in Israel,where she is buried as a righteous gentile for sheltering a Jewish family during WW11.Unfortunately,this idiot editor relects the ignorant popular press.
December 17th, 2009 at 3:56 am
I had read a transcript of the quote on CiFWatch, but it was listening to it that really brought home how utterly horrifying it is - as you say, Robin, dropped in apropos of nothing, like asking for a another cup of tea, since this person (and the interviewer) clearly accept that this is what everyone believes, and should believe.
Add this to the Guardian editorial today demanding that Britain prosecute Israelis visiting,specially, of course, Israeli politicians, even as it is embroiled in Afghanistan, and it is clear that the brain-washing of Britain os moving ahead rapidly, in a way that Goebbels would have approved. The Guardian has made it a major part of its business strategy to promote the incessant attacks on Israel (5 articles in the space of the last 24 hours). This man is an assistant editor, parroting the party line casually, as a Nazi might have done in the 1930’s.
England is really in serious danger from these brainwashed Israel-bashing robots, and the Jews should be fighting back or leaving.
December 17th, 2009 at 10:38 am
“The British state department arabists (Laurence of Arabia types) have prevented Queen Elizabeth from making a state visit to Israel,and even prevented her husband Prince Phillip from visiting his mother’s grave in Israel,where she is buried as a righteous gentile for sheltering a Jewish family during WW11.”
He did make a private visit back in 1994:
“Duke will tiptoe to his mother’s grave: Prince Philip sidesteps a 46-year ban on royal visits to make a private trip to Jerusalem’s Mount of Olives
The Duke is coming to Arab East Jerusalem, annexed by Israel in 1967, as a guest of Israel - and is therefore breaking a long-standing ban on visits by the Royal family to the Jewish state, dating back to the end of the British Mandate over Palestine, and the creation of Israel in 1948.
The Royal Family’s past coolness towards Israel has been interpreted by many Jews as an anti-Israeli snub. Whatever the private views of the Royals may have been, the ban was instituted on the advice of the Foreign Office, which saw it as a way of registering disapproval of Israel’s policies.”
http://tinyurl.com/yjdpfsd
Charles and Edward have also made private visits to Israel:
“Prince Edward, the earl of Wessex and the youngest son of Queen Elizabeth, arrived in Israel Wednesday, marking the first royal visit here in more than a decade. But despite his high-profile four-day tour, the prince’s visit has been categorized as “private” and so the situation remains unchanged: not a single member of the British royal family has ever been to Israel on an official visit.
Prince Edward, who is seventh in line for succession to the British throne, is the third member of the British royal family to visit Israel. Both his father, Prince Philip, the duke of Edinburgh, and his brother, Prince Charles, have been here on unofficial visits.”
http://tinyurl.com/yepuayy
But this in 2007:
Prince Charles’ aides try to thwart Israel visit
http://tinyurl.com/yf3k5sa
December 17th, 2009 at 11:03 am
“Add this to the Guardian editorial today demanding that Britain prosecute Israelis visiting,specially, of course, Israeli politicians,”
If this were to occur then the consequences for the UK would be utterly horrifying. I would envisage a massive economic boycott of that nation by very many American Jews and tens of millions of non-Jewish supporters of Israel in the United States. I also don’t suppose that the US Congress would stand idly by in these circumstances. At a time when the UK is one step removed from the poorhouse this is I imagine the last thing she needs.
December 17th, 2009 at 12:37 pm
Don’t much like White’s style myself; wearing those black shirts on TV to emphasise that his name is White. Reminds me more of Mosley’s blackshirts, as do his scribblings. But the Guardian is going bust fairly quickly. Could be that White, Rusbridger (the editor), Bella M (the editor’s daughter nepotistically employed as a moderator on Cif), Georgina Henry, Victoria Brittain, Seumas Milne et al will soon be queueing up at the Job centre. More likely they will all be employed by the licence fee payer under Jeremy Bowen at the BBC if the Guardian goes under. Birds of a feather flock together. Alternatively, a jihadi billionaire will buy the whole Guardian kit and caboodle and keep it going ad infinitum.
December 17th, 2009 at 8:48 pm
This blog is sadly a reflection of the totaly negation of democracy when it comes to Israel. If you dare to raise a whimper in protest of or use a prejorative term like White did which may pose technical difficulties but is in many respects hard to deny when it comes down to it (The Gazans have been collectively punished for supporting Hamas)you get shot down in flames with the strong suggestion being your a horrible, bigtoed anti-semite being thrown into boot.
Do you not appreciate the irony of complaining Israel is branded as totalitarian then behaving a in a totally intellectually totalitarian way?
December 18th, 2009 at 12:33 am
Perhaps it doesn’t fit here, but the Israeli press (Haaretz more, JPost less, so far) starts to report on the new EU Foreign Affaires chief. I already recognize that Catherine Ashton is almost totally behind the Pal’s position in virtually any of her statements. This will certainly be very interesting to see how all this will play out. It’s absolutely mind-boggling how SHE can get away with the fact that she identifies with the, HELLO!, MINORITY position within the EU. Britain, Sweden, Ireland, Belgium, Portugal, the *occupied* Cyprus and Malta somehow don’t appear to precisely and adequately represent the common EU position on this issue - but it doesn’t seem to disturb anyone. Who does this “individual” think she is? Stay tuned…! (There’s drama ahead - plenty of it!)
December 18th, 2009 at 12:40 am
Sorry, 1 more thought: I can’t help the “conspiracy theory” - Is Ashton Brown’s and Miliband’s-cum Foreign Office’ Troyan Horse in the European Union???
December 18th, 2009 at 2:16 pm
Darrell, you are desperate. You have no concept of “democracy”, “totalitarian” etc. etc. Perhaps you heard these expressions somewhere, memorized them cleverly and now want to use them without knowing their correct meaning. Did you come from the Guardian?
December 18th, 2009 at 3:25 pm
I really like Julie Burchill.
December 18th, 2009 at 4:48 pm
Darrel
“In Israel they murder each other a great deal. The Israeli Defense Forces murder people because they don’t like their political style and what they’ve got to say and it only means that people more extreme come in and take their place.”
How can this be understood in relation to what happened in Gaza ? The IDF shoots those that fire rocket from Gaza to Israel. After 8 years of these rockets, their was the operation in Gaza that you disapprove of because the Palestinians are the nice guys and Jews in Israel do not deserve to live they deserve the rockets .
Is this what you call a difference in opinions? I assume that when somebody comes to kill you, you agree because you do not shoot anybody over a difference in opinion.
December 19th, 2009 at 7:17 am
Darrell
Criticism of Israel these days has been nothing less than demonization of a whole country, its citizens and its identity. Much of what is being said, like White’s recent clumsily put throw-away comment, is untrue and is prejudice, which has been allowed to go unchecked. In other words much anti-Israel comment is now perceived as clear as day anti-semitism which is no longer taboo. Discussion and fair criticism becomes almost impossible, because the motives of those who make such statements are really not that interested in debate or democracy when it comes to israel. To that extent I can agree with your first comment:”This blog is sadly a reflection of the totaly (sic) negation of democracy when it comes to Israel.” But I must take issue with your last comment (”Do you not appreciate the irony of complaining Israel is branded as totalitarian then behaving a in a totally intellectually totalitarian way?”). The author of this blog is entitled to deconstruct the arguments raised against Israel and to challenge those who make statements when the motives are clearly not in pursuit of truth but to demonize and to denigrate. Those who engage in an israel bashing argument do so because it gives them a sense of self-importance. There is little concern for any of the parties involved nor do they usually have any interest in finding a real solution.
Is Robin Shepherd being “totalitarian”? I don’t think so. I think he cherishes democratic values, as I do, and so should you.
December 19th, 2009 at 3:39 pm
Totally love Darren’s spoonerism concept of the “bigtoed antisemite.” Wouldn’t have gone quite that far; maybe merely “ingrowing toe nails.”
December 19th, 2009 at 6:26 pm
Good news: Ayalon, Foreign Ministry, stands up to the EU and Ashton: http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3822112,00.html
December 20th, 2009 at 2:38 pm
I made a complaint to the BBC about the programme, in which I pointed out that White’s remark was false and slanderous, and that it should not have been allowed to stand and further poison attitudes to Israel and British Jews. The BBC reply apologised for causing me any ‘offence’, which I had not mentioned at all, but not for its poor journalistic standards, which I had, or anything else. Here is an extract:
‘He was putting forward his own views with his own choice of words, and, as with other commentators, the listener is free to make up their own mind on the validity of his arguments. The BBC’s advice to its own journalists would be to use plain and simple language, rather than make value judgements, but we cannot apply the same guidance to interviewees.
Mr White’s comments about Israel were a brief aside, along with other remarks about Northern Ireland, during the interview about Signor Berlusconi. In these circumstances, the presenter had to judge whether to divert the interview into a discussion about what Israel calls ‘targeted killing’ or his comments about Northern Ireland rather than concentrate on the matter in hand.’
‘Value judgements’? ‘Targeted killings’? Oh yes, and the presenter considered leaping to Israel’s defence but wisely decided not to get sidetracked. This is all so preposterous that I wonder if the BBC is running a little scared. It would be nice to think there is some point in keeping up the complaints.