Britain’s Israel Hating Mob
Filed under: Anti-Semitism, Britain, Israel, Media Criticism, Morons — Michael van der Galien, Editor-in-Chief on April 27, 2007 @ 7:15 pm CEST
A great OP-ed over at The Jewish Daily Forward by Nathan Jeffay about the decision of the British National Union of Journalists to boycott Israel.
The first thing I did after I started working as a staff reporter at the London-based Jewish Chronicle was to join the National Union of Journalists. Those dependable union reps, I was told, would safeguard my every interest.
Holding on to that belief has become rather hard, now that the organization I had considered my ally in the effort to uphold informed and intelligent discussion in British society has taken its place at the front of the slogan-yelling, Israel-hating mob.
Earlier this month the National Union of Journalists voted to boycott Israeli goods. Some 40,000 journalists, including those on all the United Kingdom’s leading publications and channels, are meant to abide by the ban. The union is also committed to pressuring for “a boycott of Israeli goods similar to those boycotts in the struggles against apartheid South Africa, led by trade unions… to demand sanctions to be imposed on Israel by the British government and the United Nations.”
Already a range of unions, representing all sorts of trades and professions, have sacrificed nuance for the sake of cheap polemics. It seemed we had reached rock bottom when unions of teachers and academics, the people responsible for the education of our society, jumped on the bandwagon. But the tirade against accuracy has reached new levels if we journalists — the people who control the flow of information — are joining in.
The advancement by the National Union of Journalists of this black-and-white understanding of the Middle East conflict — this absurd notion that Israel is the absolute baddy of the Middle East and the Palestinians the fair innocents — is especially obtuse at a time when one of our own, the BBC’s Alan Johnston, is being held hostage by a Palestinian group.
Amen.
The hypocrisy is infuriating.
1 Alan
April 27, 2007 @ 7:54 pm CESTAren’t the British pretty anti-Semitic? Weren’t there a lot of British pro-Nazi groups during WWII?
2 Alan
April 27, 2007 @ 7:54 pm CESTOr am I confusing history with Jack Higgins novels?
3 mvdg
April 27, 2007 @ 8:15 pm CEST;No, as far as I know that’s most certainly true.
4 Marlowe
April 27, 2007 @ 8:15 pm CESTAlan said: “Aren’t the British pretty anti-Semitic? Weren’t there a lot of British pro-Nazi groups during WWII?”
You’re thinking of Mosley, who was one of the more absurd European fascists. In the “Jeeves and Wooster” stories he was parodied brilliantly. OT, but of interest perhaps: Mosley was married to Diana Mitford, the most beautiful of the famous Mitford sisters (look them up, a fascinating family…Unity and Diana were close friends of Hitler - Eva Braun was intensely jealous of Unity…while another sister was a radical Communist. Then there was Nancy Mitford, who became a popular writer and novelist).
Jews have always been very prominent in Britain. Disraeli - the most famous PM after Churchill - was of Jewish descent. Numerous others.
However, British intellectuals have historically tended to be particularly fascinated with the Arabs. There’s a great line in “Lawrence of Arabia” where Faisal comments cynically on the British “love of empty spaces” as drawing Lawrence to Arabia.
I think this current obsession Michael notes in the UK is more a “Euro” fashion for anti-Israel/anti-Semitic thinking. c.f.: The French ambassador to the UK famously dismissing Israel as that “shitty little country” (sorry about the language).
Michael’s closing comment above is illustrative of the breathtaking bizarreness of this story…I mean, Palestinians kidnap and threaten death to a British journalist, and the British journalist union advocates a boycott of…Israel?!!
It strains the intellect to be sure. If tomorrow al-Queda were to blow up the Houses of Parliament, there would probably be a campaign for sanctions against Israel.
The mind boggles.
5 lthomas
April 28, 2007 @ 1:58 am CESTWho dares say that Journalists have agendas. I see agendas in every story bandied around on the networks, in the papers and on the internet.
Journalists have really lost most of my respect. While I understand they are humans like everyone else, they have let the integrity of their profession succumb to the agenda driven media now because that seems to be what sells.
No one wants the truth anymore. They want to get their message out more then they care for the truth.
6 mvdg
April 28, 2007 @ 2:32 am CESTThomas: I share your concern regarding the media. It goes so far that somebody even told me that the CNN we see in Europe, is farther to the left and more critical / negative of / about America than the CNN you all see in America.
7 yonason
April 29, 2007 @ 9:53 pm CESTSARCASM=ON
What, the Brits hating Jews? What balderdash!
http://www.melaniephillips.com/diary/?p=1166
And the Media, that bastion of impartiality, distorting the truth. Please, sir!
http://www.melaniephillips.com/diary/?p=1506
I just don’t know where people come up with this nonsense!
SARCASM=OFF