I had this bit of news come today in an email newsletter from the Stop the War Coalition. Following the fatal shooting of a journalist for Arab news agency, al-Jazeera, the Coalition are organisation a protest tomorrow, 14th May 2022, outside the Beeb’s headquarters in Portland Place in the Smoke. The email reads
‘Protest for Palestine – Tomorrow!
Israel’s murder of Al-Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh in occupied Jenin is part of an escalation of violence against Palestinians. She was fatally shot in the head by Israeli forces while reporting on a military raid in the Jenin refugee camp yesterday. Her murder is described by Al-Jazeera as an “assassination in cold blood.”
The shameful and disturbing scenes of occupation forces attacking her funeral today highlight the urgent need to end Israeli apartheid. People across the world are taking to the streets to demand that Israeli forces are held to account and push for an end to the oppression of Palestinians.
Join us tomorrow at midday outside the BBC on Portland Place. The Palestinian people need our solidarity now more than ever.
Somehow I don’t think the lady’s shooting was entirely accidental. One of the articles in the Counterpunch book about the decline of critical reportage, especially of Bush and Blair’s Gulf War, End Times: The End of the Fourth Estate, discussed the number of journos who’d been killed covering the war. This isn’t exactly suspicious in itself, as war reporting, by its very nature, is extremely dangerous. But these were journalists who didn’t follow the approved Pentagon line, and were determined to show what was really happening rather than follow American state propaganda. William Blum in one of his book on American imperialism attacked the hypocrisy of the American government for decrying enemy attacks on civilian news broadcasting stations and journalists, while at the same time doing exactly the same. One major example was the American strike against the Serbian state broadcaster during the war in Yugoslavia. It looks to me that Abu Akleh was deliberately shot because she was a journalist for al-Jazeera, and therefore would have been instrumental in producing footage and commentary of what was really going on, outside Israeli and American spin.
Postscript are a mail order company specialising in books. Leafing through their catalogue for December 2020, I found one on the propagandakompanien, the Nazi reporters, photojournalists and film crew, who were placed in the German armed forces to provide positive coverage of the War. The book’s entitled The Propagandakompanien: Preparation, Development, Training and the Beginning of the Conflict, by Nicholas Ferard, published by Histoire & Collections. The entry for it in the catalogue reads
Formed in 1938, the ‘Propagandakompanien’ (Pk) comprised motorized units of reporters, film cameramen and photographers, all with military training and attached to Wehrmacht, Waffen SS or Luftwaffe forces. Reproducing many of the unit’s wartime photographs, this volume gives a full account of the organisation of the Pk and describes their work in print, film and radio during campaigns in Poland, France and the Eastern Front.
This is chillingly relevant to contemporary media manipulation and particularly the methods used by the American military-industrial complex to ensure media support for the Iraq invasion. Because they’re almost exactly the same. In their book End Times – The Death of the Fourth Estate, Alexander Cochburn and Jeffrey St. Clair of the radical American magazine Counterpunch collect a series of articles describing the way the American media censored itself and produced biased, propagandistic reporting in order to whip up public support for the Iraq invasion and George Dubya’s wretched ‘War on Terror’. And this included embedding journos in military units so that they would develop a positive sense of fellowship with them and so produce favourable reports.
One of the documentaries about the Nazis shown on the History Channel years ago had the simple title The Nazis – A Warning from History. It’s a good title, and far more relevant than I think the series’ producers realised. Because more and more aspects of the Nazi and Fascists regimes are being adopted by the current right-wing and ‘centrist’ administrations in America and Britain. A few days ago Mike on his blog listed the number of features of Fascism that were in Johnson’s Conservative party. It was a long list, and showed very convincingly that Johnson and the Tories are definitely Fascistic, although obviously they’re not quite appearing in uniform and holding torchlight rallies. Well, not just yet. One of the left-wing, anti-racist YouTubers said in an interview that he noticed several years ago that the Tories were adopting policies previously advanced by the BNP as British politics moved rightward. This is true. We are heading towards a Fascist dictatorship, especially with the Tories’ wretched Crime and Policing Bill which seeks to ban any kind of public demonstration if someone thinks its a nuisance or offensive.
And they’re using the same techniques the Nazis’ used to manipulate the media. Except that in Tory Britain, the media is a willing partner.
The Tory campaign to divert us all from the horrific mess they’ve made of Britain and their mass killing of its people continues. Once again, it’s all about illegal immigrants. Mike and Zelo have put up several excellent articles this hate campaign, with Zelo Street pointing out that the number of these asylum seekers coming to this country is trivial: 4,000 compared to 40,000 applications for asylum last year, and 677,000 people immigrating to the UK in 2019. Nevertheless, the Tories are describing it as an invasion. Zelo Street today has posted an excellent Tweet from the author Cole Moreton, who has named these disgraceful bigots. Moreton writes
Here are the names of 23 MPs and Lords who claim the desperate men, women and children risking their lives to cross the Channel in tiny rubber boats in search of peace are “invading”. Anyone here on the coast who has met them knows how obscenely ludicrous that is.
They are
Sir John Hayes CBE MP, South Holland and the Deepings
Sir David Amess MP, Southend West
Lee Anderson MP, Ashfield
Gareth Bacon MP, Orpington
Scott Benton MP, Blackpool South,
Rob Blackman MP, Harrow East
Philip Davies MP, Shipley
Nikc Fletcher MP, Don Valley,
Sally-Ann Hart MP, Hastings and Rye,
Tom Hunt MP, Ipswich,
David Jones MP, Clwyd West,
Daniel Kawczynski MP, Shrewsbury and Atcham
Pauline Latham, OBE MP, Mid-Derbyshire
Jonathan Lord MP, Woking,
Sir Edward Leigh MP, Gainsborough
Karl McCartney JP MP, Lincoln,
Stephen Metcalfe MP, South Basildon and East Thurrock,
And Mike’s also named a few names in a piece in his blog.
Mike notes that Priti ‘Vacant’ Patel was told back in November that her policy was forcing migrants to use more dangerous routes into the UK. She ignored the report because it recommended establishing more legal routes into the UK, as well as doing something about the reasons they were leaving their home countries in the first place. Patel’s innate ruthless caused her to reject all this. She just wants to stop them, and so is determined to make this route unviable. Mike notes that she uses the word ‘shameful’ in her Tweet about this, to divert attention from the fact that the real disgrace here is her.
Mike then goes to cite a Beeb report on one of the boats, where they were forced to use a plastic container to bail it out. When asked where they came from, the migrants replied ‘Syria’. In 2018 the UK voted to bomb Syria following reports that its government had bombed its own people. But the materials used to manufacture the bomb were supplied by Britain. Mike writes
Now, I don’t know the personal situations of the people on that boat, but it seems entirely likely that the UK is the reason they have been fleeing their own country.
If you approve of this behaviour by your country’s leaders then you are a jingoistic, sabre-rattling racist.
Fortunately, the evidence I’ve seen suggests that few people do. Most of us appear to have reacted with disgust – both at the government and at the BBC.
He then provides a few tweets by people disgusted with this contemptible hate-mongering.
One of them is by Richard Murphy, who points out
We can apparently put the RAF over the Channel today to needlessly spot dinghies but have only allocated £5 million for emergency relief for Beirut. In terms of humitarian crisis management haven’t we got almost everything wrong?
Kerry-Ann Mendoza:
I’d like to say “I can’t believe England is calling for the extra-judicial murder of displaced people in dinghies” but I can believe it. There are great & compassionate communities in England. But others seem bent on regressing it into a spiteful, cold, grim little island.
Zarah Sultana MP:
People fleeing war, famine and persecution shouldn’t be confronted by gunships and hostility, but instead offered safe, legal routes to asylum. Our common humanity demands nothing less.
Carole Hawkins contrasted the attitude with Lebanon, which has accepted 1.5 million refugees
Lebanon with all its problems has accepted 1.5 MILLION REFUGEES & Spaffer/Patel going loopy over a few hundred so much so that Spaffer wants to change or make new laws. This is Trump politics – executive directives which Spaffer is also doing. Totally non democratic.
Mike points out that this demonisation may not stop if you vote for Labour, because of the right-wingers who voted to bomb Syria. According to Ben, they were
Stella Creasy
Liz Kendel
Yvette Cooper
Neil Coyle
Hilary Benn
Margaret Hodge
Margaret Beckett
Maria Eagle
Angela Eagle
Lucy Powell
Harriet Harmen
Bridget Phillipson
Alison McGovern
He concludes ‘This lot chose to destroy these migrants homes’. Yes, yes, they did. Not because they were outraged at a government killing its own people, but because they’re bog-standard Blairite neocons. The Likud-Republican alliance has a list of seven countries, whose governments they want overthrown because they’re a threat to Israel and an obstacle to American imperial interests. One of these is Syria, because the ruling class and government are a Shi’a sect and allied with Iran.
And he starts his piece with this brilliant meme:
Wise words from Tony Benn. And its exactly right. Food banks originally appeared under New Labour, when Blair and Brown passed legislation forbidding illegal immigrants from claiming benefits. Then the Tories decided that it would be a wizard system to inflict on the native, British population – by which I mean all Brits, who have been here for generations, Black and Asian as well as Brown – as they cut away the welfare state. The result is mass starvation.
Counterpunch and the late critic of the American empire, William Blum, have published several articles pointing out that what the west does to the rest of the world supporting Fascist dictators ultimately comes back home. Those same governments then set about militarising the police force and stripping back people’s civil rights, all in the name of protecting us from terrorism, of course.
After Patel has finished rounding up desperate men, women and children fleeing real war and violence in their countries of origin, she will try to turn to the guns on us. And scumbags like Hillary ‘Bomber’ Benn, Margaret ‘F***ing Anti-Semite’ Hodge, Angela ‘Gentler, Caring Politics’ Eagle and the rest will help her.
What did Orwell say the future was? ‘A jackboot stamping on a human face. Forever’. It’s in 1984. And Patel, the 23 Tory MPs and their New Labour collaborators are all ready to polish it.
Great news from across the Pond! According to a brief report in today’s I, Bernie Sanders is ahead of Joe Biden for nomination as the Democratic candidate for the presidency in a poll in New Hampshire. The report reads
Surveys suggest US senator Bernie Sanders and former vice-president Joe Biden are locked in a tight race for the Democratic presidential nomination. Mr Sanders led a poll of New Hampshire voters with 25 per cent support. Mr Biden is on 16 per cent, according to a poll by CNN and the University of New Hampshire.
The American left-wing magazine, Counterpunch, had a piece about this last Friday by David Swanson. He stated that CNN had broadcast a very biased debate the week before intended to discredit Bernie’s campaign. The poll was intended to show CNN how successful they’d been. But they hadn’t. Support for Bernie was up 7 per cent, and down 2 per cent each for Biden and Warren. Swanson reports that Bernie won in the following categories, writing
Among men the winner is Bernie. Among women the winner is Bernie. Among whites the winner is Bernie. Among non-whites the winner is Bernie. Among registered voters the winner is Bernie. Among those paid less than $50k the winner is Bernie. Among those paid more than $50k the winner is Bernie. Among non-college graduates the winner is Bernie. Among college graduates the winner is Bernie. Among non-white college graduates the winner is Bernie. Among 18-49 year olds the winner is Bernie. Among independents the winner is Bernie. Among liberals the winner is Bernie. Among those with their minds made up the winner is Bernie. Among those without their minds made up the winner is Bernie.
Biden, by contrast, is only the winner among White college students, the over 45s, Democrats and moderates.
CNN asked people which candidate agreed the most on the issue that mattered to them, and who best understood the problems facing them. The answer to both was Bernie. But they reported that most people responded Biden when asked which candidate would best unite the Democrat party. This is highly questionable, as Biden is hugely offensive to large numbers of people. The broadcaster also reports that Biden is the candidate with the best chance of beating Trump. This is probably because the public has been told that Biden will, over and over.
Swanson concludes, however, that CNN’s bias is counterproductive. If people know that CNN wants them to vote against Bernie, then CNN has lost and Bernies wins. And Bernie should win, as he has the most support. But CNN has got to obscure that.
The good news is that what CNN tells people is becoming the opposite of effective. If CNN and its fellow corporate media outlets can convince people to vote against their own interests and to imagine that they came up with that idea themselves, Bernie Sanders is done. But if word leaks out that it’s CNN telling people to vote the way CNN wants, then CNN is done, and Bernie Sanders is headed to the White House.
The most electable candidate is the candidate with the most support. Only if this simple fact can be successfully hidden, can CNN continue its role as overseer of elections.
Although Sanders is running for the Democratic nomination, he’s a member of Democratic Socialists of America. He wants Americans to enjoy strong unions, worker-owned cooperatives, an America that supports working people, and most of all, Medicare For All. The state should pay for their medical treatment similar to the healthcare systems of the other western countries.
And the corporate elite have been desperate to stop him because of this, with the corporativist wing of the Democrats intriguing against him in favour of Hillary Clinton. And it was also pretty clear a few days ago that the extreme right was frightened of him after this poll, as Carl Benjamin aka Sargon of Akkad, the man who bust UKIP, put up another hit piece against Bernie on his YouTube channel.
But this is very optimistic news. If Bernie wins, he will transform America. And because America is still the dominant superpower, that influence will spread around the world to empower working women and men everywhere.
John Mann is the former Blairite MP John Mann, who has spent most of the past few years of Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership spreading the smears that his party was awash with anti-Semites and that it was all the fault of its leaders. This, he claimed, was the reason he finally left the party. He was then given the post of ‘Anti-Semitism Czar’ by the Tories, presumably in return for services rendered. It’s not exactly the best of titles, considering that the czars were notorious for anti-Semitism and the last years of the Russian Empire were marked by horrific pogroms. And how seriously the Tories and Mann take accusations of anti-Semitism in their ranks is shown by their massive lack of response to the concerns of the writer, lecturer, former children’s poet laureate and Holocaust educator Michael Rosen.
On Monday Mike published an article reporting that a very distinguished group of Jewish academics, journos, politicos, lawyers and other activists, including the actor Miriam Margolyes, had published an article in the Groaniad accusing Boris Johnson of anti-Semitism. This was partly based on a Jewish character, or perhaps caricature, in his wretched 2004 novel, 72 Virgins. This is a wish-fulfillment fantasy in which a bicycling Prime Minister, who bears an uncannily resemblance to Johnson himself, foils an Islamist plot to bomb parliament. The book talks about ‘Jewish oligarchs’ running the media and fiddling elections. There is a Jewish character, Sammy Katz, who is described as having a ‘proud nose and curly hair’. Katz is malevolent, stingy, and snake-like, exploiting immigrant workers for profit. The letter-writers comment, ‘There is nothing subtle about this. We know what antisemitism looks like.’
Further evidence of Johnson’s vile attitude to Jews comes from his editorship of the Spectator. He used to publish articles by Taki Theodorocopoulos, who really is an anti-Semite, claimed that Blacks have lower IQs than Whites and hailed Enoch Powell as ‘a great man’. They could also have added that he has also described the Greek neo-Nazi group, Golden Dawn, as just a group of patriotic Greek boys. The writers also note that even now Johnson is cosying up to Trump, despite the Orange Buffoon’s own support for neo-Nazis and comments about Greek disloyalty.
The writer’s state that they aren’t surprised by Johnson’s hatred of Jews, considering his general hatred for the poor and marginalised – minorities, women and LGBTQ+. But they reject Johnson’s cynical attempts to exploit the Jewish community’s fears about anti-Semitism in the Labour party to distract attention from his own bigotry.
The writers concluded their letter
A vote for the Conservatives is a vote for a far-right government that poses an existential threat to all minorities. As Jews, we understand that our fate is bound up with that of other minorities. We will only find safety through solidarity. We call on allies of the Jewish community to reject hate and vote the Tories out.
Now Mike and Zelo Street have reported that Mann and his fellow Blairite, the odious Ian Austin, have blocked Michael Rosen and called him a ‘troll’ after Rosen tried to pass on a few more instance of Tory anti-Semitism. Rosen had complained about anti-Semitism in the Tory party and provided examples. He got a reply from Mann simply stating that he wasn’t responding to incidents as they came up. Which Rosen flatly contradicted, saying he did. Rosen then annoyed the gruesome twosome of Mann and Austin by investigating the claim that Paul Golding, the fuhrer of the islamophobic Fascist group, Britain First, had joined the Tories. Rosen found that he hadn’t, and said so. But this refutation of what is a damaging rumour to the Tories infuriated them. Austin tweeted
“Looking forward to [Michael Rosen] a) apologising for trying to belittle and undermine [John Mann]’s work on Antisemitism, and b) resolving not to stupidly give horrible racists like Paul Golding and Britain First the publicity they crave”.
Rosen corrected him,
“I don’t undermine [John Mann]’s work on antisemitism: I provide him with examples he hasn’t retweeted so that he can slot them alongside the ones that he does”.
At which point Mann himself waded in, tweeting
“All trolls are blocked. Another trolled added. Thank you”.
Tim Fenton, telling this tale, is astonished that Mann, supposedly an anti-Semitism campaigner, called Michael Rosen a ‘troll’ and blocked him. And so were other people. He quotes a couple of observers who also weren’t impressed. ‘Funny Tinge; Twitter Dinosaur’ commented
“Lord John just blocked [Michael Rosen] for raising concerns about Anti Semitism. How do you think this looks John, that you, the AS tsar has just blocked a prominent Jewish figure from highlighting areas of concern he has? Cause to me it looks really really bad. Be better”.
Malcolm Finch also tweeted
“Just take this in for a minute! The AntiSemitism Tsar John Mann has blocked Jewish Holocaust author & educator Michael Rosen for asking for feedback on alleged AntiSemitism in the Conservative Party”.
The Zelo Street article concludes
‘John Mann gives every indication of not being impartial. I’ll just leave that one there.’
In fact, as the article also points out, Mann has form in overlooking anti-Semitism in the Tory party. He ignored Suella Braverman’s comments about ‘cultural Marxism’, Priti Patel on the ‘north London metropolitan elite’, Gove conflating Jews with Israel, and Rees-Mogg calling two leading Jewish MPs, one of which, I believe, was John Bercow, ‘Illuminati’ and claiming the Remain campaign was funded by George Soros.
Rosen commented on his treatment by Mann thus:
‘Interesting: a public figure, so used to having the right to talk at us, comes on to twitter expecting to do the same. Then, when he finds that people offer him a view of the universe different from his, he does a bit of name-calling and stomps off.’
and concluded
‘I’ll have to report the Antisemitism Tsar to the Antisemitism Tsar.’
The anti-Semitism smears were never about protecting Jews. They were all about stopping Corbyn getting into government. The Israel lobby were afraid that he would do something to help the Palestinians and the Blairites and Tories afraid that he would return Britain to the social democratic consensus that had actually empowered working people.
The cynicism with which these accusations are wielded by the Israel lobby was demonstrated a few days ago in a Counterpunch article about Labour’s election defeat. They attributed this among other causes to the massive disinformation campaign by the British press, including flagrant breach of electoral law by Laura Kuenssberg, and the anti-Semitism accusations. The article quoted Jacob Baime, the leader of the anti-BDS campaign, the Israel on Campus Coalition, about how these accusations are psychological warfare intended to throw those accused into confusion. And the article makes the point that this is what happened with the Labour party:
Labour’s pathetic acquiescence to Zionist bullies inside (e.g., Tom Watson, John Mann) and outside the party (e.g., the Board of Deputies of British Jews) allowed “anti-Semitism” (of which few claims were genuine, as Justin Schlosberg and others have documented) to act as a blanket to hide Labour’s actual policies. Labour internalized the problem and apologized for things its staff never did. This opened the floodgates to more Zionist abuse and the lowering of party morale, as was the Zionists’ intentions. For example, Jacob Baime, the Executive Director of the anti-boycott organization, the Israel on Campus Coalition, explained how “anti-Semitism” accusations work: “It’s psychological warfare. It drives them crazy. They either shut down, or they spend time investigating [the accusations against them] instead of attacking Israel.”
Mann is not going to pay any attention to anti-Semitism in the Tory party, no matter how many supporters of Boris Johnson and Jacob Rees-Mogg are outed by people like Jacobsmates claiming that the Jews are behind non-White immigration because they want to destroy the White race.
Mann simply isn’t interested in anti-Semitism per se.
He’s only interested in anti-Semitism as a weapon against the socialist in his former party.
Yesterday Mike put up a great piece yesterday reporting that after Tory Chief Rabbi and friend of Johnson and Netanyahu Ephraim Mirvis had taken to the pages of the Times to smear the Labour party once again, British Jews from right across society, from ordinary Brits to the noted actor Miriam Margolyes, had take to social media to condemn Mirvis’ comments. One of the first was an open letter which was circulating on the Net, which read:
Dear Chief Rabbi, you have shamed your office today and rendered the Jewish people even more vulnerable to real antisemitism by reinforcing the fake, media-induced antisemitism that you recklessly impute to Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour Party.
To interfere politically at this point in an election in a way that could affect the only party that could bring hope and social justice to this country is beyond contempt and renders you unfit for office.
As a Jew and a Labour Party supporter, I am proud to be part of a venture that I see as a continuity of so many of my Jewish forbears who have fought for social justice here and in Europe.
You talk about ‘the soul of the nation being at stake’ yet have you not noticed what has happened to that soul over the last nine years where: 1. The poor have been vilified 2. The ill have been attacked 3. The mentally ill have suffered 4. Inequality has soared. 5. Greed and financial rapaciousness has flourished 6. Austerity has been unnecessarily applied after a financial crisis brought about by an out of control finance sector that has benefited the wealthiest.
Where was your voice about the nation’s soul then?
Yet you inveigh against a decent and honest man who, even now, maintains integrity in the face of manifest manipulation, deceit and digital sleight of hand from the Tories.
You have shamed your office, the justice-loving tradition of the Jewish people and laid the grounds for future tensions in the most irresponsible way. You seem to lack the acuity of intellect to even spot the most obvious use of this bogus antisemitism as a political weapon.
Justin Schlossberg of the Media Reform Coalition called the antisemitism saga ‘a disinformation paradigm’ and made a detailed study of the issue. The great scholar, Norman Finkelstein, likewise, sees this a purely politically motivated attack.
How dare you, amateurishly intervene in this, betraying the great Jewish scholarly tradition of intellectual and analytical acumen embodied in the Talmud and the exegetics of the Chumash.
The letter is signed, “With profound sadness and considerable disgust.”
Labour supporter Hasan Patel retweeted a piece from Margolyes’ comments about the affair on Channel 4. The actor said
I don’t think people are looking at the real issue. In Rabbi Mirvis’ statement, the word ‘Israel’ does not appear and that to me is the heart of the problem. People are not anti-Semitic, they are anti-Zionist as I am myself. It doesn’t mean that I’m anti-Semitic. I fight anti-Semitism and prejudice wherever I find it and so does Jeremy Corbyn and I think that the Chief Rabbi whom I respect because of his position is just making a terrible mistake. It is completely wrong to listen to what people are saying about Jeremy Corbyn. I just don’t understand it. I don’t believe that Jeremy Corbyn is anti-Semitic. I’m sure that he’s handled it badly. Everybody makes mistakes and I’m sure he’s made mistakes. But he hasn’t become an anti-Semite, he doesn’t support anti-Semitism, he loathes it, as every right-thinking person does. And I just feel desperate that we are prepared to take on board as Prime Minister a shoddy liar like Boris Johnson. How can you believe a thing he says? The man is a complete falsehood from start to finish. He’s a blustering bully, and I think if you have to choose between the two for goodness’ sake choose Jeremy Corbyn.
Margolyes has been a long-term critic of Israel’s barbarity towards the Palestinians. Nearly a decade ago she condemned the bombardment of Gaza ‘as a proud Jew, and an ashamed Jew’. She came out as a lesbian a few years ago, and works with a Jewish organisation aimed at combating anti-gay prejudice in the Jewish community, Gay Yids.
Children’s Poet Laureate David Rosenberg attack Mirvis’ silence on Tory racism. He tweeted
Chief Rabbi has had nothing to say on Tories hostile environment and Windrush Scandal, nor on formal Tory links with antisemitic gov’ts in Poland and Hungary. Think he’s sitting on his moral compass. #notmychiefrabbibruv
And ordinary Jewish Brits were also angry that Mirvis was using their community identity to attack Corbyn. Dr. Simon Goodman tweeted
Today I’m feeling terrible that my religious identity is being used to argue that an obvious anti-racist is an #Antisemite. #Antisemitism is awful and must always be fought, but it is simply not the case that #Corbyn or #Labour is antisemitic. #jewsforjeremy#Jews4Labour
And Juliette Emery said
Off for today I need to calm down, it’s not healthy to be this angry Too many lies and mendacious attempts to undermine the only leader I know that wants peace, equality and a fairer society for us all whilst protecting this planet we all call home
Mike comments that British people dislike being told what to think, and this seems especially true of Jews. Exactly! I got the impression that Jews see themselves as a people particularly given to debate and argument. It’s been that way ever since the Talmud recorded the debates and disagreements over the Law by the rabbinical sages of antiquity. ‘Two Jews, three opinions’, as the Jewish saying goes. Years ago I bought an old book of papers from a wartime American academic conference, in which religious groups, philosophers, people of letters and scientists put forward arguments to show that their disciplines upheld and promoted the liberal, democratic values under threat from Fascism. A group of Jewish scholars put forward a fascinating paper to show that Judaism was intrinsically democratic. This included a piece from the Haggadah, extra-Biblical Jewish legend, which called for Jews in leadership positions to be concerned to create consensus and agreement, rather than impose their decision by fiat.
The story is that when God gave Moses the Torah, He commanded Moses to first go to the Jewish people to see if they would accept it. The Lawgiver replied that there was no need, because they would have to accept the Torah as the express word and law of the Almighty. ‘Nevertheless’, said God, ‘God to the people.’
They also argued their point on a remark about the Bible from one of the great rabbis, whose views are recorded in the Talmud. When asked what the most important sentence in the Hebrew Bible was, he replied ‘And these are the generations of men’. Not God, not Jews, but humanity as a whole. God’s revelation is intended to benefit all of us. Liberal Jews writing in the American radical magazine Counterpunch have said that they came to their values through the teachings of the Talmud, just like the author of the open letter at the start of this post. They stated that to be a Jew means always identifying with the oppressed, never the oppressor.
But Mirvis is defending the oppressor in seeking to conflate anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism in order to smear Corbyn and his supporters. And to support a Tory party determined to impoverish and disenfranchise ordinary working people, whether they be Jews or gentiles. And for many British Jews, this is intolerable.
I watched Ian Hislop’s Fake News: A True Story last night. I blogged about it a few days ago after reading the blurbs for it in the Radio Times. It seemed to me that part of the reason for the programme’s production was the Beeb, and by extension, the mainstream media as a whole, trying to reassure the public that they were truthful and reliable by tackling what is a genuine problem. I don’t think I was wrong. Hislop is a good presenter, and the programme was well-done, with eye-catching graphics. As you might expect from Hislop’s previous programmes on British heroes and the the British education system, it was strong on history. He pointed out that while Donald Trump used it to described factual news that he didn’t like, because it criticised him, the term actually predated Trump all the way back into the 19th century. He illustrated this with quotes and contemporary cartoons. But it was also a very much an establishment view. The last piece of fake news created by the British state it mentioned was a story concocted during the First World War that the Germans were boiling down human bodies for their fat and other chemicals. It presented the main threat to truthful reporting as coming from the internet, specifically software that allows the mapping of a public figure’s face onto the body of another to create fake footage of them, Alex Jones and Infowars, and, of course, the Russians and their adverts and propaganda for the American election. We were assured that the British state no longer interfered in the politics of other countries. A former BBC official, now running the New York Times, appeared to talk to Hislop about how papers like his now spend their time diligently fact checking stories. He also talked to the MP, who called for an inquiry into fake news in parliament. All very reassuring, and very misleading.
The New York Sun Moon Hoax and the Spanish-American War
The programme began with the 1836 Moon hoax story run by the New York Sun. The Sun was one of the first tabloid newspapers, aimed at a working class audience with the low price of only a cent, a price a sixth that of its competitors. It published a series of articles claiming that an obscure British astronomer had discovered man-bats, unicorns and bison on the Moon. The story ran for six days until it was exposed as a hoax by a rival newspaper. The next item in this list of journalistic infamy was about the attempts by Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst to start a war with Spain in support of Cuban rebels at the end of the 19th century. There wasn’t much fighting going on, and there weren’t any available reports of Spanish atrocities to inflame the patriotic, moral sentiments of the American public. So they made them up. The papers first claimed that a young American woman had been brutally strip-searched by suspicious Spanish male officials. Well, not quite. She had been searched, but privately by a respectable older Spanish woman. When that didn’t work, they seized on an explosion that destroyed an American ship in harbour. In all likelihood, the ship was destroyed by an accident. The papers claimed, however, that it had been destroyed by the Spanish, while issuing a small caveat stating that the cause had yet to be determined. And so the papers got the war they wanted.
The programme then moved on to the American Civil War, and the exploits of one of the world’s first photojournalists. This gentleman used photography to bring home with hitherto unknown realism the horrors of that conflict. But he was not above faking some of the photographs. One of these was of a young Confederate soldier lying dead in a trench. In fact, the photographer had dragged the corpse into the trench from elsewhere, move the head so that it faced the camera to make it even more poignant, and added a rifle that the photographer himself always carried. This little episode was then followed by the story of William Mumler and his faked spirit photographs. Mumler ended up being prosecuted for fraud by one of the papers. However, while the judge sympathised with the papers, the prosecution hadn’t proved how he had faked it. They merely showed he could have done it in nine different ways. And so the case was dismissed, Mumler went back to faking his photos for a satisfied, grieving clientele, one of whom was the widow of Abraham Lincoln.
Deepfake and the Falsification on Online Images
This brought Hislop on to the Deepfake software, used by pornographers for adding the features of respectable actors and actresses onto porn stars. This was used to map Hislop’s own features onto the mug of a dancer, so that he could be shown doing the high kicks and athletic moves. He also interviewed a man, who had used it to parody Barack Obama. Obama’s face was mapped onto a Black actor, who mimicked the former president’s voice. This produced fake footage in which Obama said, with statesman like grace and precision, that Donald Trump was a complete dipsh*t. He also interviewed another young man, who was producing fake stories on the internet, which were nevertheless clearly labeled satire, intended to rile the Alt-Right by feeding their hate and paranoia. Hislop asked him if he wasn’t actually encouraging them. The man stated that he wasn’t converting anyone to the Alt-Right. They were already angry, and stupid if they didn’t read the statements that what they were reacting to was fake. He was just showing up their stupidity.
The Protocols of the Elders of Zion
The programme then moved on to the noxious Tsarist forgery, the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, which is one of the main sources for the bogus conspiracy theories about the Jews running everything. He pointed out that it was first run in Russian newspaper, which blamed them for introducing capitalism and democracy into Russia. Then in 1917, they were updated to claim that the Jews once again were responsible for the Bolshevik Revolution. Hislop said very clearly, waving a copy of the infamous book he’d managed to get hold of, that it was long and contradictory. It had also been disproved as long ago as the 1920s, when the Times in a series of articles showed that it was based on an 18th century novel that had nothing to do with Jews. This showed how the press could correct fake news. He himself said that, whereas when he started out as journalist, he spent move of his time trying to get new stories, now he spent most of his time checking them. Despite its falsehood, the Protocols were seized on by Goebbels, who insisted that it was spiritually true, if not literally, and had it taught in German schools. This was a different approach to Hitler, who had argued in Mein Kampf that it’s very suppression by the authorities showed that it was true. Nevertheless, the wretched book was still available all over the world, illustrating this with Arabic versions on sale in Cairo bookshop.
Infowars and Pizzagate
The programme also showed a contemporary conspiracy theory. This was the tale spun by Alex Jones on Infowars that the Comet pizza parlour was supplying children to be abused and sacrificed by the evil Democrats. Talking to the parlour’s owner, Hislop heard from the man himself how he and his business still suffer horrendous abuse because of this fake story. But it got worse. One day a few years ago a young man, incensed by what he had heard online, came into the story with a high-powered rifle, wishing to free the children. The conspiracy theory about the place claimed that there was a basement and tunnels running to the White House. The proprietor tried explaining to the man that there was no basement and no tunnels. The gunman went through the building until he found a locked door. He fired a few rounds into it, destroying the store’s computer. Hislop found this ironic, considering computers were the medium that spread it in the first place. The man then lay his gun down, put his arms up and let himself be arrested. It was a peaceful end to a situation which could have resulted in many people dead. But even this horrible incident hadn’t silenced the conspiracy theorists. They still believed that the stories were true, and that the incident had been faked with an actor as a false flag.
Russian Interference
The programme then went on to talk about Russian interference in American politics, and how they had set up a bot army to spread adverts aimed at influencing the result of the American election. RT was deeply involved in this, as the Russian state-owned news service was defending the country and its leader, Putin, from allegations that this had been done. It had also spread lies denying that Russia was responsible for the Skripal poisoning.
British Propaganda and the First World War
Had the British state done anything similar? Yes, in 1917. This was when the War Office, tired of the First World War dragging on, had seized on the news that the Germans were boiling down animal carcasses for their fat, and elaborated it, changing the corpses into human. Some might say, Hislop opined, that this was justified, especially as the German had committed real atrocities. But if we told lies like that, that meant we were no better than they. Stafford Cripps, who served in Churchill’s cabinet during the War, said that if winning it meant using such tactics, he’d rather lose. The fake story about human carcasses also had an unforeseen, and deeply unpleasant aftereffect. Following the realisation that it was fake, the first news of what the Nazis were doing in the concentration camps was also initially disbelieved. We don’t do things like that now, he said. And in a side-swipe at the ‘Dodgy Dossier’ and Saddam Hussein, he said, that no-one would believe stories about a mad dictator possessing weapons of mass destruction.
The Message: Trust the Mainstream Media
Hislop and his interlocutors, like the MP, who’d called for an inquiry into fake news, agreed that it was a real problem, especially as over half of people now got their news from online media. But the problem wasn’t to regard it all with cynicism. That is what the retailers of fake news, like Putin and RT want you to do. They want people to think that it is all lies. No, concluded Hislop, you should treat online information with the same scepticism that should apply to the mainstream media. Because there was such a thing as objective truth.
The Mainstream Media and Its Lies: What the Programme Didn’t Say
Which is absolutely right. There is an awful lot of fake news online. There’s also an awful lot of fake news being retailed, without any objection or scepticism by the lamestream media. And the only people tackling this fake news are the online blogs, vlogs and news sites. I’ve mentioned often before the anti-Semitism smears against Jackie Walker, Marc Wadsworth, Ken Livingstone, Mike, Martin Odoni, Tony Greenstein, Chris Williamson, and too many others. It’s all fake news, but there is not a word against it in the lamestream press, including the Eye. I’ve also mentioned how the British state during the Cold War had its own disinformation department pushing fake news, the IRD. This also turned to smearing the domestic, democratic Left in the shape of the Labour party and CND by claiming that they had connections to the Communist bloc. And in the case of Labour, that they supported the IRA. This is documented fact. Is it mentioned by the Beeb and the rest of the lamestream media? Don’t be daft! Is it still going on today? Yes, definitely – in the shape of the Democracy Institute and the Institute for Statecraft, which have connections to British intelligence and the cyberwarfare section of the SAS. And they are smearing Corbyn as too close to Putin, along with other European dignitaries, officials and high ranking soldiers. And we might not seek to overthrow government, but the Americans certainly do. The CIA has a long history of this, now given over to the National Endowment for Democracy, which kindly arranged the 2012 Maidan Revolution in Kiev, which threw out the pro-Russian president and installed a pro-Russian one. As for the New York Times, the editors of Counterpunch showed in their book on official propaganda in the American media, End Times: The Death of the Fourth Estate, how the Grey Lady ran a series of articles of fake news to support George Dubya’s invasion of Iraq. The Beeb has also done its fair share of broadcasting fake news. It’s supported the bogus allegations of anti-Semitism against Corbyn and his supporters. It altered the footage of the fighting between police and miners at the Orgreave colliery during the miners’ strike to show falsely the miners attacking the police. In reality, it was the other way round. And then there was the way they edited Alex Salmond in a press conference during the Scottish Referendum. The Macclesfield Goebbels, Nick Robinson, had asked Salmond a question about whether the Edinburgh banking and big financial houses would move south if Scotland gained its independence. Salmond replied with a full answer, explaining that they wouldn’t. This was too much for the Beeb, which edited the footage, subsequently claiming that Salmond hadn’t answered fully, and then denying that he had answered the question at all. It was fake news, courtesy of the Beeb.
Mike and the Sunday Times’ Smears
None of this was mentioned, unsurprisingly. The result is a cosy, reassuring view of the mainstream media. Yes, fake news is out there, but it’s being done by internet loons and nasty foreigners like the Russians. But never fear, all is well. The mainstream media can be trusted to check the facts, and give you the truth. Except that they don’t check the facts, or when they do, immediately ignore them. As Gabriel Pogrund and the editor of the Sunday Times did when they wrote their nasty hit piece on Mike. Pogrund rang Mike up, Mike explained very clearly that he certainly was no kind of Jew-hater and certainly did not deny the Holocaust. Pogrund and his editor ignored that, and published their piece anyway. Complaints to IPSO then followed. Mike won, but some people still continue to believe the lies.
You can’t trust the lamestream media. Instead, I thoroughly recommend you go for corrections and alternative views to the left-wing blogs, vlogs and news sites like Mike’s, Vox Political, Another Angry Voice, Zelo Street, the Skwawkbox, Gordon Dimmack and the American sites, Sam Seder’s Majority Report, The Michael Brooks’ Show, the David Pakman Show, Democracy Now! and the work of Abbie Martin attacking the American Empire and Israeli apartheid and ethnic cleansing. Those sites provide an important corrective to the lies and falsehood being daily fed to us by the lamestream media. Including the Beeb.
From the Israeli far Right to the British sort. Jacob Rees-Mogg was in the I today, 2nd April 2019, denying that he had endorsed Germany’s far right Alternative Fuer Deutschland. Mogg had yesterday reposted one of their videos stating that it was no wonder Britain saw bad faith behind every move from Brussels. The article in the I, entitled ‘Rees-Mogg denies far-right support’, runs
Jacob Rees-Mogg has denied supporting a German far-right party after he was criticised for sharing a speech by its leader.
The MP said that the address by Alice Weidel of the Alternative for German (sic) (AfD) party was “of real importance” because it showed a “German view of Brexit”. He shared a clip of the speech on social media. Labour MP David Lammy accused him of “promoting Germany’s overtly racist AfD party”.
Mr Rees-Mogg told LBC radio: “I’m not supporting the AfD, but this is a speech made in the Bundestag of real importance because it shows a German view.” (p. 7).
Zelo Street covered this story when it broke yesterday. In the Sage of Crewe’s account, one of those stating that Mogg had indeed endorsed the far right outfit was Jeremy Cliffe, of the Economist, who described the AfD as ‘racist’. This statement might carry more weight for Tories, as the Economist is the magazine of right-wing free market orthodoxy. The article in Zelo Street also drew on a feature from last September’s Suddeutscher Zeitung to show precisely what kind of party the AfD was. Bjorn Hocke, the leader of the AfD in the Bundestag, was at a demonstration in Chemnitz with Lutz Bachmann, the founder of the rabidly islamophobic movement, Pegida. And that February, Pegida chiefs had visited a convention of the Saxon branch of the AfD in Hoyerswerda. The newly elected state chairman, Jorg Urban, had declared that the two organisations had similar goals, and that AfD state organisations should decide independently whether to work with Pegida.
Musa Okwongo also posted comments on Twitter stating that the AfD has also asked for the reintroduction of Nazi terminology to political discourse, and made speeches that one political commentator in the Bundesrepublik called ‘full-on neo-Nazi’. I’m not remotely surprised. A few months ago I put up a piece about an article in the American radical magazine and website, Counterpunch, on the Alternative fuer Deutschland. That article presented very extensive evidence that the AfD was viciously racist with Nazi connections. Some of its financial backers, who live outside Germany, have connections going back to Nazi Germany. Not only does the party hate and vilify Muslims and other immigrants, it has demanded the return of reichsburgerschaft. This is the Nazi doctrine that only White, ethnic Germans should be citizens, somewhat similar to the NF/BNP doctrine of racial nationalism. Leading members of the AfD have also attacked Germany’s Holocaust memorial as ‘a national shame’, and one has gone so far as saying that if they get into power, they would open ‘underground trains to Auschwitz’. Which sounds very much like they’d like a return of the Holocaust.
Zelo Street’s article also reports that Pegida also has connections to Tommy Robinson. Well, I think Robinson did found, or at least try to get into, Pegida UK. Lutz Bachmann has been friends with Robinson ever since the two met in Tenerife, where Robinson was having a holiday with his family and Bachmann has a holiday home.
Zelo Street also points out that this isn’t the first time Mogg has had connections with the far Right. Way back in 2013, when the Observer embarrassed him by reporting that he had been guest of honour at the annual dinner of the Traditional Britain Group. They’re a far-right, anti-immigrant outfit in the Tory party, whose leaders also have an unpleasant fixation with the Nazis. Mogg had been warned not to attended, but he dismissed the warnings as a smear. He claimed that he checked with Tory HQ, who told him they had nothing on them. Zelo Street comments that this is no excuse, as enough was known about the TBG at the time for Mogg to have known to keep well away. But he didn’t, and so it’s no surprise that he’s now again genuflecting before the far right.
The article concludes
Jacob Rees Mogg gave Traditional Britain Group, a deeply unpleasant convocation of racists and xenophobes, a legitimacy it did not, and does not, merit. He’s now begun to flirt with a group linked directly to the far-right both in its native Germany, and here in the UK.
Yet he remains an ostensibly mainstream Tory MP, is talked of as a candidate for high office, and his views are eagerly sought by media outlets. I’ll just leave that one there.
The situation becomes much worse when you consider that Mogg is a member of the European Research Group, along with Boris Johnson, who were reported a few days ago as calling themselves ‘Grand Wizards’. As any fule kno, this is one of the grades in the Ku Klux Klan. Laura Kuenssberg, who reported this, then tried to backtrack after it sparked understandable outrage. First she said that the information came from only two sources, and then that the ERG didn’t realise the Fascist connotations of the term when they thought of it. Which I frankly don’t believe. The Tories have a very long history of right-wing individuals dressing up as or behaving like Nazis, even when they don’t have real links to the far right. Like back in the 1980s when the Union of Conservative Students was singing ‘We Don’t Want No Blacks or Asians’ and ‘Hang Nelson Mandela’ and demanding the introduction of racial nationalism as official Tory policy. And then there were the various members of the aristocracy and Tory party, who formed pro-Nazi organisations just prior to the Second World War like the Link and the Anglo-German Fellowship.
If this had been done by someone in the Labour party, there would have been no question that they would have been attacked as a racist and their expulsion demanded. Corbyn did the most of all the party leaders to campaign for remaining in the EU, but he was still pilloried for supposedly not giving his absolute support to the Remain campaign. At the same time, the Right and the Israel lobby are still trying to oust him from the Labour leadership by claiming that he is not doing enough to combat the nonexistent wave of anti-Semitism in the Labour party.
But as Zelo Street has pointed out, Mogg has been now caught several times in connection with the far right, first with the TBG and now with the AfD. But he’s still being considered as a respectable Tory ready for high office, and a suitable subject for media interviews.
This shows exactly the alarming double standards about Fascism and racism in both the Tories and the media.
Last week the Israel lobby was on the warpath again. We had the Blairites and Likud sycophants in the Labour demanding that Jenny Formby show them what’s being done to root out all the anti-Semites they claim are in the party, the Jewish Labour Movement, formerly Paole Zion, and the recidivist liars and Fascist shills the Jewish Chronicle hysterically proclaiming that there was a culture of anti-Semitism within Labour. And Rachel Riley, Frances Barber and their army of trolls tried attacking Mike and Owen Jones as anti-Semites, and got their rear ends royally handed to them. And Wes Streeting decided that he could combat Jew hatred by falsely accusing a 70-year old woman of it and doxing her.
This video below from the Middle East Monitor might explain why some of that rage and fear suddenly erupted. The Dail – the Irish parliament – a fortnight ago passed legislation banning Israeli exports from the Occupied Territories. And predictably Netanyahu was not amused, and accused the Emerald Isle of anti-Semitism.
The video’s just under two minutes long, and begins with footage from the Irish parliament of Fianna Fail senator Niall Collins saying, ‘We need to do the right thing here and that is what that legislation simply sets out to do. The video explains that the Irish parliament has passed a bill banning the import of Israeli settlement goods. Senator Collins asks, ‘Why should we turn a blind eye to blatant and flagrant breaches and abuses of international law?’ This video goes to say that the legislation
‘would make Ireland the first EU country to take such a bold action against the Israeli occupation despite attempts by the US and Israel to thwart it. The bill was backed by all of Ireland’s opposition parties and was voted in with an overwhelming majority of 78-45.’
The video then shows Frances Black, an Independent senator, explaining that ‘The Occupied Territories bill is a modest piece of legislation that stands up for basic human rights and international law.’ It then moves to Senator Collins, who says, “It simply isn’t good enough condemning the ongoing expansion of settlements across the West Bank’.
It then goes back to scenes inside the Dail, and explains that ‘after the vote Israel reprimanded the Irish ambassador, and quotes the office of Israeli prime minister Netanyahu. Which ranted
‘Israel is outraged over the legislation against it in the Irish parliament, which is indicative of hypocrisy and anti-Semitism.’
It then goes back to a speech by Senator Collins, in which he very effectively rebuts these accusations by Netanyahu’s minions. He says,
‘This outrage and offence which has been built up by Israel that we’re somehow anti-Semitic. We’re not! We recognize the state of Israel and we will trade with them but they are on the off-side line in terms of the Occupied Territories.’
The video goes on to say that ‘the move is seen as a great victory for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement.’ It quotes a tweet from Senator Black, who said ‘Ireland will always stand for international law + human rights, & we’re one step closer to making history, Onwards!’ The backdrop to the tweet shows a group of Irish and Palestinian adults and children, a Palestinian man wearing the distinctive keffiyeh, while the kids have the tricolor on the cheeks in facepaint.
The law very obviously isn’t anti-Semitic. It’s not against Jews nor Israel as a whole. It’s only against Israeli goods produced in occupied Palestine. Now I’m sure there are anti-Semites along with other varieties of racist in Ireland, and the country, like just about every other western nation including America and the nascent Jewish colony in Palestine also had a Fascist movement. This was Owen O’Duffy and his Blue Shirts. They fought in the Spanish Civil War but seem to have vanished after that. I’ve certainly not heard of them surviving into the Second World War. I doubt most people in Ireland and elsewhere have even heard of them. They’re only claim to fame is that the great Irish poet, W.B. Yeats, was briefly a member c. 1919 before giving up on them. Most people when they think of Irish nationalism are far more likely to think of the various Irish independence movements and associated militant groups, like the Fenians and later the IRA and other Republican terrorist organisations in Ulster. They one thing the majority of folk won’t associate with Irish nationalism or national identity is Nazism and anti-Semitism.
However, the Irish, it seems to me, do take state terrorism and Fascism in other nations very seriously. Way back in the early ’80s, when Reagan was backing the Contras in Nicaragua and other Fascist butchers in Latin America, there were mass protests when he decided to pay a state visit to Ireland. I think it was during his birthday, as the news showed footage of him being given a present by someone in full Irish patriotic dress, who told him that it came from Irish-Americans everywhere. Well, I wonder, as I always under that Irish-Americans in New York were traditionally the backbone of the Democrats. And Reagan was definitely not welcomed by a large part of the Irish population. There were boycotts and demonstrations at the airport and at Trinity College in Dublin, as I recall. The explanation the Beeb gave was that Ireland was closely involved with the Roman Catholic charities working in Latin America. And therefore they weren’t going to be impressed by Reagan and these Fascist regimes’ death squads torturing and murdering the very people they were trying to help. I got the impression from reading some of the pieces written by Irish contributors to the radical American magazine and website, Counterpunch, that left-wing Irish people see themselves and their country as anti-imperialist, and this piece of BDS legislation strikes me very firmly as within that tradition.
Economically, I’m not sure how much damage this will do. Ireland’s a small country with a small population. I think it might be around 4-6 million. But culturally the country is a very big hitter. There’s a large Irish diaspora spread across the globe, particularly in Australia and America, where it’s very politically important. Irish music and literature are enjoyed everywhere. Classic Irish bands include the Dubliners, Planxty, Clannad and the Chieftains, and you can’t get away from the Pogues’ ‘Fairytale of New York’, which is played every year at Christmas along with Slade’s ‘So Here It Is, Merry Christmas’. The Dail’s vote to pass this legislation could be immensely influential simply because of the country’s immense cultural cachet.
And that’s what Netanyahu and his thugs are afraid of. Because once one EU country passes legislation banning goods from Occupied Palestine, others may follow suit. It’s why the Israeli state and its minions over here have been trying their level best to smear Jeremy Corbyn and his supporters as anti-Semites, simply because he supports the Palestinians and genuinely condemns further Zionist expansion and human rights abuses.
The Israeli state is running scared. Thanks to the BDS movement, 1/3 of Israeli businesses in the West Bank have been forced to close. Young Jewish Americans are increasingly turning away from Israel. Many are repulsed by its treatment of the Palestinians. Others simply think that it’s ridiculous for them to be expected automatically to support a country they were not born in and have no intention of moving to, when the indigenous inhabitants of that country are being forced out. It’s why the Likudniks are increasingly looking to Evangelical Christian Zionists for support in America instead of the country’s Jews.
Now that Ireland has banned Israeli goods from occupied Palestine, it’ll be interesting to see how many other countries start to debate doing the same. And you can bet the angry smears of Corbyn and his supporters will get even louder and more shrill over here on this side of the Irish Sea, as the Israel lobby fears that under him, Britain will be next.
Ho ho! Another fascinating story Mike put up today is a piece reporting that Microsoft Newsguard, a piece of plug-in software designed to warn users if the news website they’re looking at is unreliable, has flagged up the Daily Mail’s Mail Online as fake news. If you onto the Daily Mail while using the software, you get a message telling you that
“this website generally fails to maintain basic standards of accuracy and accountability” and “has been forced to pay damages in numerous high-profile cases”.
Mike quotes the Guardian on the software, which says that it is run by veterans of the news industry, who are trying to establish industry-standard benchmarks for judging how trustworthy news sites are. It employs experts to analyse sites to see if they meet certain journalistic standards. It makes all its judgments public and invites news outlets to respond to criticism and improve their standards.
So how bad is the Fail? Well, according to the site Tabloid Corrections, it’s pretty terrible. In fact, it’s worse even than the Scum. It was sanctioned 28 times by the press regulator, IPSO, last year, 2018. The Times was second with 18 sanctions. Behind the Times came the Scum, with 16, the Mirror with 10, the Express and Torygraph with 7, and the Star with 4. Still, the Fail has improved. In 2017 it violated journalistic rules 50 times.
Mike comments that this probably won’t affect the Daily Mail, as most people regard it more as a comic. They only read it to laugh at the nonsense inside. And, sadly, some probably read it only to ogle the scantily clad women in the very sexist newsroll on the right of its webpage. I’m not so sure about this. Years ago a friend of mine said that he thought the Mail was more dangerous than the Scum, because while the people who read the Scum treated it as a joke, those who read the Heil take it seriously. I think he’s partly right, but even this is far too optimistic. Yes, the Scum and the Mail are viewed with contempt by very many people, with more sophisticated tastes and attitudes to the news and journalism, at the same time I’m sure that their readers do take them absolutely seriously.
Mike also states that the Beeb’s Politics Live has also been discussing fake news, but hasn’t mentioned the Mail, concentrating instead on a piece about the UK parliament but which confuses it with the American political system.
Mike concludes
The issue is one that This Site has highlighted recently – that anyone claiming to quote facts about political issues must provide proof, usually in the form of references to their sources. Then readers can check those sources.
If there aren’t any references then you assume the claim isn’t true – and draw your own conclusions about the person or organisation making it.
Mike’s piece is interesting not just because of what it says about the Heil, but about the rest of the UK media. The Heil is Britain’s worse paper for misreporting, but the second and third worse are the Murdoch papers the Times and the Scum. The Scum will be no surprise to anyone. But the Times prides itself on being Britain’s paper of record. This shows how vacuous and spurious that claim is. And I don’t regard its sister paper, the Sunday Times, as any better. Not after the repeated way it has libeled Labour party leaders and members, like Michael Foot and Mike himself. It’s not up there on the list, but it still slanders and smears decent people simply for the benefit of the Tories, big business, and in Mike’s case, for New Labour and the Israel lobby.
It will also be interesting to see if Private Eye reports this in their ‘Street of Shame’ column. It’s always reported the findings of press regulators, particularly when one of the most notorious rags has been claiming that it is the paragon of journalistic standards and has never made anything up or libeled anyone ever. And Private Eye is now casting its critical gaze over the alternative news sites. Last issue, for the 11-24 January 2019, it carried the article ‘Skwawk-boxed’, reporting that ‘Britain’s sole state-approved press regulator’, Impress, had made its eighth ruling against the Skwawkbox because it misrepresents or distorts the facts, and confuses fact with comment. It claims the regulator oversees 111 titles, but over the past two years has been called in to deal with 15 complaints. More than half of these have been against the same publication, and at least five have been upheld. This is against the Skwawkbox, which it describes as
‘the ultra-partisan Corbynite website run by Labour activist Steve Walker, which specializes in paranoid conspiracy theorizing and simultaneous attacks on the “MSM” for fake news.’
I dare say that this piece is correct, as far as it goes, and its criticism of the failure of journalistic standards in the Skwawkbox is probably correct. But I trust the Skwawkbox far more than I trust mainstream news. The MSM does present appallingly slanted news, including the Beeb, which it hypocritically maintains is objective, trustworthy fact. The massively biased coverage of Corbyn and the Labour party is a case in point. The media has smeared him and his supporters as Trotskyites, misogynists and anti-Semites, when the opposite is true. And there are organisations with very hidden agendas manipulating both the news and government policy. These are the various intelligence agencies, right-wing thinktanks, and industry groups trying to manipulate official policy to promote the neoliberal agenda of privatization, poor wages, destruction of the welfare state and workers’ rights and the invasion and exploitation of the Middle East under the pretense of combating terrorism. You can read about this over at Lobster, Counterpunch, and in the books of and website of Greg Palast and the now sadly departed William Blum and his Anti-Empire Report. Walker might have to tighten up his journalistic performance, but I don’t doubt that there’s more truth in what he writes than in the Fail or the rest of the mainstream media.
And he and the other left-wing news sites supporting Corbyn and genuine socialism in the Labour party clearly are frightening Private Eye along with the rest of the old media. Otherwise the Eye wouldn’t have published this, and another story attacking the excellent the Canary. The genuine left-wing news sites are catching up on the old media very quickly. It’ll be interesting to see if next fortnight’s Eye includes this story, as it did the piece on the Skwawkbox.
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