My main gripes with Netanyahu’s use of ‘judenrein’ are

a) that he was speaking English but felt it necessary to use a German word (and therefore prompt immediate Nazi connotations)
b) that he said it to the German foreign secretary (who sat there in an embarrassed silence) - as if the latter needed a reminder of his country’s horrific legacy from WWII!

@ Philo-Semite
You seem to be confusing me with somebody else.

“Is it not a bit of moral effrontery for the Guardian, or Pretzelberg, to attempt to tell the Jewish state how to view the Holocaust?”
- I am doing no such thing. Where on earth did you get that from?

“Is it not worse for the Guardian, or Pretzelberg, to use such a flimsy excuse to attempt to tar the Jewish state with the “Nazi” label?”
- I’ll have to insist you withdraw this preposterous accusation. FYI I have in the past repeatedly clicked on the report-abuse button on seeing such attempts on CiF.
Your comment is complete fiction and is indeed “Nauseating”.

I would add to Robin’s response to Pretzelberg.

The principal country of refuge for destitute and ill Holocaust survivors was Israel. And for the moment it is Netanyahu who is Israel’s democratically-chosen leader.

Who more appropriate to decide the proper use of “Judenfrei” than the democratically-chosen representative of the Jewish state, itself the destination and country of refuge of the victims themselves?

Is it not a bit of moral effrontery for the Guardian, or Pretzelberg, to attempt to tell the Jewish state how to view the Holocaust? Is it not worse for the Guardian, or Pretzelberg, to use such a flimsy excuse to attempt to tar the Jewish state with the “Nazi” label?

Nauseating.

A tiny cadre of the privileged controls money & power and makes the decisions on the party line. That’s the reality of “democratic centralism”.

The party faithful are required to know all the lines and dutifully regurgitate them on demand. This saves them of course from the tedium of the least tinge of uncertainty let alone moral ambiguity or independent thought, which is a dangerous sign of bourgeois individualism. When occasion demands they must completely switch lines at the will of the leadership (as happened to the CP in Britain when the Hitler-Stalin pact was signed, and instantly again when Hitler invaded the Soviet Union, and as satirized in “1984″.)

They are highly simplified for the great majority whose main role is to be the foot soldiers, selling the paper and schlepping new members. Hence “four legs good, two legs bad”. Their whole world view would fall apart if they did not have such simplicities and matching parrotspeak to cling to.

He runs a web site called Al-bab which exists to celebrate Arab culture (of which he declares himself a devotee) and is a portal to English language Arab web sites. For years, it was subsidised by the Bahreini govt. In his previous ME Editor role Whitaker commissioned the article by Faisal Bodi which celebrated “martyr bombers” two weeks before 9/11. In 2004 he also ran a piece by Osama Bin Laden. His reporting of all Israeli issues was always full of strongly anti-Israel language.

Yes, he might run the odd one or two pro-Israel or neutral answers, each of which will be drowned out by both ferocious individual responses and the huge number of pro-Arab pro-Islamists CiF pieces he commissions.

Incidentally, I have made a formal complaint about the Zizek article, submitting my own blog post as evidence of its anti-semitism. I have had an email informing me the Readers’ Editor is away on holiday, after which she will consider it. So it will sit there untouched projecting its lies to the world because of course the Guardian feels it can take a holiday from responding to complaints about racist bias in their articles.

The Palestinians are the only ones complaining of genocide, when their population keeps growing!

I still can’t understand why the left-wing mindless masses fall for this gratuitous propaganda. They keep the blinkers on when it comes to “Palestinians”, but when it comes to Jews (and Christians) being ethnically cleansed, they keep VERY silent.

A correct comment. The gentile historian Paul Johnson, in his History of the Jews, has commented that the surest indicator of an anti-Semite is one who cannot keep himself from feverishly mixing Jews with Nazis.

Its a pity the entire article does not appear there - have you considered submitting it for publication there?

Robin Shepherd says: Thank you for your kind words, and for your suggestion. As you can see from the Cif website it is not all that easy to get neutral or pro-Israeli pieces published. However, I might start trying again.

Indeed. I can think of no human being on the planet who has more right to decide the use of the term Judenrein, than the prime minister - the primary elected representative - of the nation which is itself the primary refuge of the survivors of history’s archtypical genocide and Judenreinheit attempt.

…”Will write for falafel Need to sell all, Slavoj is the new star, Berchmans and Morean left me for the hairy one who stole my separation wall”…

Is this just me, but I am starting to miss the apartheid comparisons.

I seriously think the next stage will be horns and demons, ritual child killing and swine flu.