Anti-Zionism’s links with anti-Semitism - RTE subscribes to Livingstone Formulation in Labour Party controversy

Ken Livingstone facing camera crews at Westminster (source: Youtube/C4News)

RTE, the public service broadcaster of the Irish Republic, has the capacity to immensely influence the views and moral stances of the Irish nation as seasoned commentator (and one-time senior RTE insider) Eoghan Harris has often pointed out. Due to a virtual broadcasting monopoly, the way in which RTE treats contentious issues of major social concern, such as terrorism, migrant waves, the resurgence of European anti-Semitism, etc., arguably has a greater impact on the thinking of the Irish Nation than equivalent broadcasting institutions in other countries, such as the United Kingdom’s BBC, that compete with a strong private sector.

RTE’s audience reach extends beyond the Irish Republic, with media saturation in Northern Ireland, and its radio and television channels are viewed quite widely abroad, particularly in the UK mainland.

King Newt strikes Jerusalem

The controversy over Ken ‘Newt’ Livingstone’s suspension from the British Labour Party, for defending Naz Shah, an MP accused of anti-Semitism, raged in the UK last month. Livingstone was suspended for an odd apologia of Shah’s actions – he claimed that Hitler supported the Zionist movement until he “went mad” and instituted the programme of mass Jewish extermination. Livingstone has since doubled-down in his attack on the Jewish State by claiming Israel’s creation was a “catastrophe”.

Livingstone’s comments were without any historical basis but he would attempt to back-up his claims with the use of bigoted ahistoric sources cited by neo-NAZI types in the shadier side of the Internet. His assertion that Israel should not have been created “because there had been a Palestinian community there for 2,000 years,” was similarly ahistorical, fitting the PLO’s old propaganda-narrative that Jesus Christ was the first Arab-Palestinian shahid (martyr). He also holds Israel responsible for the military aggression of the Arab-Islamic world, and the creation of ISIS, whilst conflating the risk of a nuclear-Iran with Israel’s arsenal.

Patchy coverage

The fracas has been given little attention to-date on RTE. Their sole article on the topic (‘Livingstone defends Hitler comments in Labour row’, 30th April 2016) was peculiar because it only featured Livingstone’s perspective and that of his defenders. The article also included Livingstone’s obviously fallacious strawman of Benjamin Netanyahu’s comments concerning Haij Amin al Husseini’s role in the Holocaust — the Israeli prime-minister never suggested that Hitler supported Zionism.

Broadcast coverage was similar. The story only featured passing mention on television, in an afternoon ‘RTE News Now’ bulletin on the April 28th, when the news of Livingstone’s suspension first emerged but was not featured in RTE’s lengthier prime news programmes later that same day. By contrast, the election of Labourite Sadiq Khan, the first Muslim mayor of London, received substantive coverage on radio and television throughout the May 6th/7th period, and featured more strongly in online content.

The lack of coverage on RTE is rather peculiar. British political events tend to feature quite prolifically in RTE news schedules due to the close connections between the two States. Moreover, Livingstone is a politician of some renown in Ireland. He was the first senior British political figure to openly engage in talks with Sein Fein-IRA, and one of the very few to have advocated loudly for the Republican group’s cause. While head of the Greater London Council, he talked prolifically with the terror group during an intensive period of its London bombing campaign, for which he earned a considerable degree of notoriority — principally hatred.

Livingstone also earned a lot of affection within the London-Irish community of yore by pandering to an exaggerated and unworthy victimhood. Indeed, Livingstone once charged that “What Britain did in Ireland was worse than what Hitler did to the Jews.” It is worth noting that Livingstone’s views would have also been percieved as extreme in Ireland! While many sympathesised with the very poor treatment of the Catholic populace in Ulster, few would have agreed with his expressions of support for the IRA. Sein Fein only found electoral pre-eminance in Ulster after the Good-Friday Agreement, and only obtained electoral success in the Republic in more recent years.

Labour’s electoral woes matter more?

Perhaps RTE’s most notable input on Livingstone anti-Semitism controversy came when Marian Finucane, a veteran RTE journalist and presenter of repute in Ireland, discussed the issue in the second hour of RTE Radio One’s ‘Marian Finucane Show’ on Sunday the 1st May 2016. Enda Brady, an Irish correspondent with UK broadcaster ‘Sky News’, was invited onto the show to provide some insights into the on-going row. However, the discussion was rather more revealing for its misleading and oddly slanted appraisal of the controversy.

The contributions to the radio slot focused far more on the impact that the controversy would have on the British Labour Party’s electoral ability, than on the actual anti-Semitic content of the remarks that led to the very controversy. This peculiar focus may have led some listeners to wonder if there was any real substance to the criticism of Livingstone’s remarks, beyond that of mere historical inaccuracy.

In a brief commentary to introduce the issue, Brady stated:

“Basically a row over comments Ken Livingstone had made earlier in the week defending a Yorkshire MP called Naz Shah. She had shared something on Facebook. She had shared a post calling for Israel to be relocated to the United States… Ken Livingstone waded in and attempted to defend her, and in doing so kept digging, making the situation just awful for Labour.”

Finucane: “Just coming up to elections?”

Brady: “Yes, local elections here on Thursday, and you know the focus should be on, you would imagine from a Labour perspective, the focus should have been on fighting a Conservative Government, and austerity, and cuts, and what have you to public spending, and yes Labour riven by internal strife and division, and a rather unpleasant nasty row over allegations of anti-Semitism. […]

But yes it’s a mess, and you just think the Conservative Party, David Cameron, everyone else, they must just be watching this with their mouths open”

Finucane: “Manna from heaven.”

Brady: “Yes precisely…”

Finucane and Brady would go on to discuss how the controversy could undermine Sadiq Khan’s prospects in the London mayoral election, with Brady adding:

“Again he’s [Khan] being embroiled in this as well, and just by association, questions being put, you know ‘are you anti-Semitic as well?’ It just looks terrible for Labour. It really, really does, with day after day of headlines, and of course I guess its been a comparatively quiet news cycle, this has just been leading every single bulletin for five six days.”

The questions surrounding Khan related to his own personal associations with extremists, rather than merely his being a member of the Labour Party. Senator Kevin Humphrys, a member of the Irish Labour Party, described the remarks as “wrong”, but similarly focused on the damage it would cause to the British Labour Party vote.

There was a vague reference to a broader concern about anti-Semitism within the Labour Party but there was no mention of the many egregious comments by other Labour members, which would have assisted in framing a discussion to which Irish audiences have limited media exposure.

To cite a few examples of the scale of this problematic behaviour: Gerry Downing’s suggestion that Marxists address what he termed “the Jewish Question”, descriptions of Hitler as the “Zionist God”, charges that Israel uses the Holocaust as “a financial racket in the West”, media reports that Labour secretly suspended fifty Labour members for issues connected with anti-Semitism, and the resignation of a Oxford University Labour Club chairman spurred by the endemic anti-Semitism of its members. To Brady’s credit, he did however note that Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn’s critics point out his poor performance in dealing with the issue.

It should be noted both Brady and Finucane briefly mentioned the hatred exhibited toward Jewish people in France, with Brady describing it as a “massive issue”. Finucane also noted that anti-Semitism is an unacknowledged problem, and disagreed with Livingstone’s view that Hitler supported Zionism. Ultimately however, it was a missed opportunity to discuss an issue that the Western mainstream media often seeks to avoid.

Naz Shah’s unfortunate ‘Facebookery’

Finucane’s radio segment reported that Naz Shah posted a Facebook entry stating that the conflict would be solved if Israel was moved to the US. Later the discussion strayed into flippant territory:

Finucane: “There’s a lot to be said for keeping away from Facebook.”

Sinead O’Carroll (News Editor with Journal.ie): “Absolutely, this started with a politician making a very flippant point on Facebook.”

Such opining infers that Shah did not really mean anything of substance when writing the post. Neither Finucane, nor the other contributors, explained why this particular post is thought by many to be offensive. Shah’s ‘transportation’ Facebook post was not intended to be a constructive idea (however bizarre) — another contributor later suggested that anti-Zionism is not necessarily anti-Semitic. Shah posted a kind of mocking info-graphic that suggested Israel was to blame for all of the troubles of the Middle East (presumably including Islamist terrorism spreading Westward), and that the existence of the Jewish State somehow made the world unhappy. By inference, the post recommends ethnically cleansing the Middle East of its Jewish people, much of whom were forced, by persecution, to flee to Israel from other regions of the Middle East in the first instance.

Finucane and O’Carroll present the post as little more than a ‘blonde moment’ but Shah added a comment that reinforced the message of the infographic, and the contributors also failed to note that she has a record for making other problematic comments in the past.

Shah has also posted critical content about “Jews”, compared Israel’s policies to those of Hitler, and promoted an article that likened Zionism to al Qaeda, which charged that the movement had caused Jews to act in negative ways, akin to neo-Nazi claims of normative Jewish behaviour, with respect to control of politics, the media etc. in European societies, and offered a solution to the “Jewish Question in Europe”. Shah was a relatively senior politician. She is an MP, was private secretary to the Shadow Chancellor, and more remarkably, a member of a committee combating anti-Semitism in Britain, so critics, both within and outside the Labour party, were fully entitled to raise concerns about bigotry.

By the time of the discussion on the Finucane Show, news had also emerged that Shah’s aide, Mohammed Shabbir, had engaged in overtly anti-Semitic messages, inferring that Orthodox Jewish people were engaged in child abuse, prostitution, used the neo-Nazi term “Zio”, suggested Israel created ISIS to serve as a pretext to invade Syria, compared Israel to NAZI Germany, etc. These views echoed some of Shah’s comments, thus raising further questions about her beliefs.

RTE’s Livingstone, I presume

At the end of the discussion, Finucane stated that she had been suprised when she found out that Livingstone was involved in a row over anti-Semitism

“I have to say I was very surprised — I certainly wouldn’t have anticipated that Ken Livingstone would be in any way anti-Semitic.”

Livingstone, who has been a guest on Finucane’s show previously, has intermittently caused a quite substantive level of controversy over many expressions that displayed a strong disregard and dislike of Jewish people. And has expressed strong support for the likes of Yusuf al-Qaradawi, an individual who not only supports Arab-Palestinian terrorism, but has openly expressed genocidal sentiments toward the Jewish people.

After the odd focus on Labour’s election worries, and some expressions of generalised concern about anti-Semitism in Europe today, the discussion strayed into contentious territory when Finucane stated:

“The tricky bit is that just because somebody says that they disagree with Israeli policy in Gaza, it does not mean they are anti-Semitic, and those lines have to be clarified. And they’ve kind of got blurred I think in this debate as well.”

Brady: “Yes I think that’s a fair point but I think in modern politics the speed the reaction of labour to clamp down on all of this, a lot of people here will feel very sore.”

Shah posted the offending infographic during the Gaza war so Finucane appears to be arguing that the comment was not in itself anti-Semitic. However, Shah did not merely criticise Israeli policy in Gaza. Shah took issue with Israel’s very existence. Another guest, Gerard Howlin, a former Fianna Fail Party advisor, agreed but also drew attention to the fact that anti-Zionism often coincides with anti-Semitism:

“There is this thing between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism. And of course they aren’t always the same. You can be perfectly anti-Zionist without being in any way anti-Semitic, and that should be very much acknowledged. You can be critical of Israel in particular without being in any way anti-Semitic. But of course Zionism is a response to anti-Semitism originally.”

Livingstone reformulated

Finucane advanced the argument that criticism of Israel is not necessarily anti-Semitic, and that the debate confused or conflated anti-Zionism (as inferred by her defence of Shah’s existentially anti-Zionist views) with anti-Semitism, as further indicated by Howlin’s response. By inference, such a position would suggest that the views of the two main players in the controversy — both Shah’s and Livingstone’s — were not necessarily anti-Semitic. Therefore, it seems that Livingstone was quite entitled to defend Naz Shah since the MP did not express views that were inherently anti-Semitic. Such argumentation would lead to the conclusion that if her views are not inherently or necessarily anti-Semitic then, in effect, they should ultimately not to be regarded as anti-Semitic because such accusations are no longer deemed to be fair (in view of the supposed power of the accusation that may be reputationally damaging) or morally legitimate, and so the charge is presented as a vicious ploy.

The stance endorsed on the ‘Marian Finucane show’ constitutes a category error, because it forms a fallacious conflation of two divergent categories of argumentation. There is of course an area where the two categories coincide because anti-Zionism must by definition be critical of the existence of the State of Israel, and efforts to defend its existence. Yet there are circumstances where criticism of Israel does not originate from anti-Zionist positions. Anti-Zionism is a different category of argumentation that is advanced by those possessing trenchant anti-Israel positions. Anti-Zionism is necessarily extremist because anti-Zionists advocate for the dissolution of the sole principally-Jewish State in existence, regardless of its borders and compromises it has attempted to make with Arab-Palestinian society.

Perhaps unwittingly, Finucane may have advanced a strawman’ argument created by anti-Israel advocates, not least by Livingstone himself (for whom David Hirsh coined the term ‘Livingstone Formulation’), who wish to attack those defending Israel in debate. Such advocates present opponents defending Israel (from what is seen as unjustified criticism) as being disingenuous and attempting to silence all criticism of the Jewish State by using the “anti-Semitism card” to trump legitimate debate.

However, it does not appear that anyone has ever argued that all substantive criticism of Israel is inherently anti-Semitic. This cannot be a normative pro-Israel position because it is not uncommon to find criticism of the Jewish State emanating from those who do support Israel in a substantive and meaningful way (in contrast to Peter Beinart, J-Street, et al, who only claim to support Israel but adopt staunchly anti-Israel positions). Rightly or wrongly, many who genuinely support Israel express reservations about Israeli government policy.

Anti-Zionism is necessarily anti-Semitic

There is a strong material link between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism, both in more traditional and the newer forms, the latter of which manifests most overtly as an intensive and aggressive demonisation of Israel, which is notably singular in its treatment. This reality leads to another question: ‘Is anti-Zionism necessarily anti-Semitic or is it possible to be anti-Zionist without holding anti-Semitic beliefs or being discriminatory by holding the Jewish collective to a different standard to that of other peoples?’

Anti-Zionism is notable for white-washing anti-Semitism. It disregards the oppression that Jewish people experienced in the Christian and Islamic worlds for over a Millennia, which arose with hatreds that continue to exist, albeit in a modified form in the Western World which normatively adopt the language of humanitarianism. It often re-writes the oppression Jews experienced in the Islamic world.

Anti-Zionism disregards the ancient cultural link between Israel and the Jewish People, which may only continue with Jewish self-determination, given the continued rejection of Jewish religious rights within Arab-Islamic societies throughout the Middle East, and the likelihood that a Jewish presence in the region would cease to exist in a would-be Palestinian Nation, as it has ceased throughout almost all of the rest of the Middle East. Trenchant anti-Semitism is normative at all levels in Arab-Palestinian society, of a form that incites violence, terrorism and genocidal sentiment. Rather, anti-Zionists portray wholly improbable results to their advocacy, claiming (in contravention to all available evidence) that peaceful democratic and pluralistic scenarios would result, rather than a further purging of the Middle East.

Anti-Zionists do not accept the two-state solution. They unjustly blame Israel for Arab-Palestinian rejectionism. Ultimately, peace cannot be made with Israel — rather this nation must be compelled to surrender all and effectively abandon the aim of Jewish autonomy, or be cleansed ethnically — the Jewish people should all “go back to Europe”, even if they are Mizrahi purged from Arab nations.

While people can hate a nation for a variety of reasons, hatred that motivates criticism of Israel is typically anti-Semitic, because it directly or indirectly focuses on the Jewish character of the State, which can often be seen in those people who form negative obsessions about a distant nation, which they problematize, often by holding it to absurdist double-standards. They do so while wholly ignoring (or sometimes defending) the manifest wrongdoing of Israel’s regional opponents. Such posturing effectively denies the Jewish State’s right to defend its own citizens.

Indeed, if Israel’s existence is a fundamental wrong visited on another people, then it must necessarily follow that the military defence of Israel’s physical integrity, particularly from attacks by its enemies seeking to remedy supposed wrongs that resulted in the Jewish State’s creation, must also be wrong.

As a consequence, it is difficult not to conclude that anti-Zionism is a form of anti-Semitism that singles out one particular ethnicity of the world’s diverse tapestry, as not deserving of autonomy in its homeland, whilst simultaneously denying the dangers of anti-Semitism that gave rise to Zionism.
These advocates often engage in hysterical demonising language, and sometimes classically anti-Semitic imagery. They project insidious forms of wrongdoing on their opponents, such as arguing that those who disagree are part of a ‘Zionist cabal’ engaging in ‘hasabara’. Anger of an unusual intensity toward other perspectives is common in those advancing anti-Israel stances, whether it be in discussions in the media or on marches, and indeed it is common to see anti-Israel activists disrupting or preventing pro-Israel speakers from expressing themselves, whilst commonly claiming that supporters of Israel silence their own arguments at various levels in political, media and academic domains.

True to form

RTE’s treatment of the Livingstone controversy provides an illustrative example of their failings when dealing with issues that do not sit very easily with the normative political culture found at the Broadcaster. Unlike most of her colleagues at RTE, Marian Finucane does deserve some credit for having the presence of mind to allow space for other perspectives on the Israeli-Jewish/Arab-Islamic conflict, besides the common anti-Israeli stances that pervade the media. Similarly, Brady and her guests were largely sympathetic to the difficulties Jewish society faces in Europe today. However, there are limitations, arguably due to RTE’s staunch political culture, where those on the left always have to be the good guys. Red Ken, and so many others in the anti-Israel movement, professes to care about racism and deny being anti-Semitic so it must be thus! Such a level of trust and faith is not displayed toward the political right.

This bias, a kind of cognitive schtoma, thoroughly taints RTE’s political coverage, where opponents of the recently defeated Fein Gael-Labour government were never meaningfully scrutinised, so leading to an unprecedented degree of political instability, and the grave consequences of the leftistcause celeb of abolishing the new water-charges regime was rarely analysed by the media as a whole despite the longstanding failure to adequately fund Ireland’s ancient water infrastructure, which has led to grave economic and public health issues, and etc., etc.

While it is fair to say that most people in Ireland do not particularly care all that much about the Jewish-Israeli/Islamic-Arab conflict, there is still an unthinking insistence that those loudly lambasting Israel possess only the very best of motives. Such people tend to insist their activism is motivated by humanitarianism but their activism in relation to other conflicts, such as the Assad slaughter in neighbouring Syria, is conspicuously absent, as one well known critic of the movement has noted. Supposed Jewish wrongs matter a lot more.

For a long time RTE has played no small role in advancing and reinforcing such perceptions, which neatly fit the Broadcaster’s reflexively anti-US/pro-Islam posturing. Thus, the recent migrant waves are typically described as “refugees”, and the spate of Islamist attacks on European soil are borne of economic disadvantage and Western Islamophobia and/or racism rather than anything remotely associated with intolerance borne of religious ideology. The absolutist uniformity of RTE’s narratives can be startling — the same on-message NGOs are trotted out for interviews and sound-bites, with nary a murmur of dissent ever afforded the briefest of airtime.

This blindness extends to the levels of coverage afforded to a given topic. RTE audiences are much more likely to hear about the enthusiasm British Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn has for Motown’s style of music, than last year’s concerns that he held anti-Semitic views after defending an anti-Semite of some notoriety, giving support to an anti-Israel Holocaust denier, etc., etc.

And when such unfortunate matters come to a head, and so demand to be addressed, we may expect just one perspective. Therefore, we only hear voices in defence of Livingstone’s actions. But even when the ‘right’ or ‘good’ team wins out, it is difficult to find balanced coverage. For example, RTE presented several unopposed voices defending Labour’s newly elected London Mayor, Sadiq Khan, with inferred charges of Islamophobia against competitor Zac Goldsmith and the wider Tory Party, even though it is widely known that Khan repeatedly shared a platform with an ISIS supporter, has assisted other unsavoury characters, and has described moderate Muslims as… “Uncle Toms”!

RTE, like the UK’s BBC, the US’ NPR/PBS programming, Norway’s NRK, et al., are more than conventional media sources. They are institutions constructed to serve the public of a given nation, funded in an enforced manner by the self-same public, with licence fees or a portion of the national tax spend. Thus there is every right to expect the highest of journalistic standards, which in turn can foster fair and informed debate, particularly as such institutions often have an especially powerful role in broadcasting. However, public service broadcasting has almost become a by-word for slanted unduly politicised commentary of a form typically reinforcing left-wing narratives.

If there is truth to the old saying, that “being on the left means never having to say you’re sorry,” then it may be presumed that public service media advocacy of certain political narratives play a significant role in the notable deficits of public scrutiny across their associated segments of the political spectrum.






Published at Crethi Plethi.

RTE: On the Origins of Ukrainian-Crisis Propaganda, is the Western World Anti-Russian?

Carole Coleman with Dmitri Tsiskarashvili, April 17 2014, RTE-Player screen-grab

RTE’s 6.1 News, the prime TV news show of Ireland’s public service broadcaster, featured a special report on the Ukrainian crisis on the 17th April, by Carole Coleman, one of the broadcaster’s principle reporters covering foreign news stories.

Transcript

During the report in question, ‘Russia and the US accuse each other of exaggeration’, Coleman narrates:

“The air is thick with warnings and accusations. Not just on the ground in Ukraine, but in Washington, Kiev, Moscow and, by extension, the mass media. It’s called ‘The Propaganda War’, and Dmitri Tsiskarashvili from Trinity College Dublin, thinks Vladimir Putin is winning it.” […]

“The most effective propaganda is disinformation. Take Russia’s claim that uniformed men in Crimea were not its troops. Today Vladimir Putin admitted he had special units in Crimea. The US paints Russia as a power-hungry player bent on destabilisation, an accusation repeated so many times that NATO is stepping up its presence in the Baltic region.” [Cue footage of a Russia Today interviewer asking how NATO is advocating a peaceful solution whilst increasing its troop presence]

“So what is real in the fog of war and what is bluster?”

Tsiskarashvili: “During [the] Soviet time, it was straightforward naïve and stupid propaganda. But now I think the Russians became very [much] more skilful, more educated because they [are] learning from the United States, how to do a proper propaganda [campaign], especially during a time of war or some kind of financial crisis.”

Coleman’s narration continues:

“The mainstream media has adopted its own biases too. Last winter we described those on Maidan [Square] in Kiev as ‘pro-European protestors’. Now we are more likely to call the pro-Russians in the East, ‘militants’ and ‘separatists’.”

“As in all wars, the words are almost as dangerous as the weapons.”

Carole Coleman report citing 'Russia Today' (RT), April 17 2014, RTE-Player screen-grab

Media Bias?

Carole Coleman’s report is remarkable for equating, with respect to the Ukrainian crisis, the propaganda coming from the Kremlin, with similar content broadly emanating from United States.

Coleman takes issue with the word ‘militant’, as used by the media. To do so suggests she believes it is a misnomer, but it is surely an uncontroversial use of English, to describe well-armed groups as such.

As a parallel, Coleman criticised the use of the words ‘pro-European protestors’, used by the international media to describe those protesters who took to the streets of Kiev late last year, after the government pulled out of an EU trade deal. The Ukrainian government of the time opted instead for an arrangement with Russia. Whilst many protestors likely opposed the government on a variety of issues, such as corruption, they were nonetheless protestors that favoured closer economic ties with the European Union. Why then would Coleman take issue with such unproblematic terminology?

Whilst presenting the report in seemingly balanced terms, Coleman’s examples are revealing of a pro-Russian sympathy, for she criticised a positive descriptor of one group, and a negative descriptor of their political opponents. Her criticism was surprising, since her colleagues used these terms as well.

An unfortunate relativism

Carole Coleman’s report featured Dr. Dmitri Tsiskarashvili, supposedly an expert on media matters, stating that Russian propaganda had become more sophisticated, more akin to that of the US media.

Whilst few governments do not attempt to influence their media to some extent, the US possesses a level of press freedom that is diametrically opposed to that of the Russian State. Thus, it is an absurdity to present these nations as on a par.

Rather than having expertise in media analysis, Coleman’s source, Dr. Tsiskarashvili, is an assistant professor in Russian Studies at Trinity College Dublin, who, of course, focuses on academically-themed Russian pursuits. His roles include ‘Business Studies and Russian Language Programme Coordinator’.

Likewise, in another report on April 12th, entitled “Unrest grows in east Ukraine”, Coleman interviews Sergei Tarutin, a Russian newspaper editor, who criticised the Ukrainian government for a perceived weakness, and for failure to communicate with its Russian speaking populace. Coleman failed to provide any space for a Ukrainian counterpoint.

A propaganda war of two sides?

In reality, there certainly appears to have been a considerable effort to feed disinformation into the Russian media. A significant amount of this content has been debunked although such information is unlikely to undermine the force of the initial propagandistic stories.

The Russian authorities have long been claiming the government in Kiev is controlled by fascists, and accusations of Ukranian anti-Semitism appear to be coming from Russian govermental sources. Russian Jewish leaders have made similar claims which have been stoutly rejected by Jewish leaders in Ukrane itself.

In early April, a Russian propaganda video came to the international media’s attention, because it inverted reality to an extraordinary extent. The video showed a poorly organised array of Russian fighters defending Russian soil from a fascistic Ukrainian Army invasion! Thus, there is good reason to doubt Dr. Tsiskarashvili’s account of a growing sophistication in Russian propaganda.

John Lough, a Eurasian specialist at the Royal Institute of International Affairs (Chatham House), argued, on RTE’s Drivetime (April 15th), that fear is motivating Russian-Ukrainian separatism:

“Russian propaganda has been carrying a very simple message over recent weeks… you would be astounded at the level of disinformation, and the impression being cultivated by the Russian media, which are successful in those border areas of Ukraine, that a group of people have come to power in Kiev who are predominately fascists, anti-Semites, anti-Russian individuals, who are going to discriminate against Russian speakers in Ukraine. They used this argument in Crimea, and it’s now being transported to the South-East regions of Ukraine… to get the population frightened, and fearful of what might happen next in Ukraine. You’ve got 40,000 troops on the border, you’ve got indications Russia, publicly, is very concerned about the security situation, so I think in those circumstances its not hard to find supporters for a particular cause, which is to say it’s important to federalise Ukraine…”

Meanwhile, in the face of a resolute and rather combatitive Russian State, many commentators and politicians are pointing to US president Barack Obama’s rather uncertain foreign policy stance over the issue, a view Obama has himself acknowledged to some extent. Thus, it is wholly out of kilter to suggest the US is being as hawkish as Russia, in any fair-minded understanding of the conflict.

Moreover, it is quite absurd for Coleman to blame NATO’s increasing mobilisation in the region on the US’ rhetoric, rather than on Russia’s incursion in the Crimea, and mobilisation at Ukraine’s border.

Conclusion

Whether or not the aims of Russian speaking separatists are legitimate, for in truth few in Western Europe can claim to be particularly knowledgeable on the political climate in Ukraine, it nonetheless seems that a powerful Russian media-orchestrated fear campaign is motivating a desire by these people to separate, or at least distance themselves, from the government in Kiev.

Carole Coleman’s coverage of the Ukrainian crisis presents as subtly pro-Russian, a rather rich irony considering her accusations of Western media bias. Coleman doubles-down on her irony quotient, by using footage from Russia Today, a satellite channel widely known to be a highly successful propaganda arm of the Kremlin.

Coleman has long been noted for possessing stridently anti-American views, and, in this instance, she unjustly equates an evidentially apparent Russian media campaign, with relatively strong rhetoric emanating from the White House. Such a stance seems indicative of a rather odd paranoia of the US, NATO, and the Western media.

Also published at Crethi Plethi.

Harry Browne, and the Hypocrisy of the Irish ‘Academics for Palestine’ Boycott

Harry Browne (left) with a journalism graduate, 2013, screen-grab
from the Dublin Institute of Technology website, Feb 27th 2014.

Journal.ie recently published a piece by Harry Browne, entitled ‘I’m supporting a boycott of Israeli academic institutions – here’s why’.

Journal.ie innocently describes Browne as ‘a lecturer in journalism in DIT’. However, this statement doesn’t begin to qualify as the journalistic disclosure of an interested party, a failure perhaps fitting for Journal.ie, given the highly-prejudicial slant of its coverage on the Arab-Israel conflict.

Harry Browne, an American of Irish descent, today largely writes for left-wing publications. Browne is perhaps best known for his book The Frontman: Bono (In the Name of Power). It is a typical example of Browne’s hard-left worldview. He attacked the famous Irish singer, for attempting to assist the Third World in a fashion he found politically unfitting. Browne’s thesis: Bono’s supposed egomania allowed him to become a patsy ‘for a system of imperial exploitation’. Browne also took issue with Bono’s low-level association with Israel.

Browne on Boycotting

Browne opens his pro-boycott apologia by citing a rift between Oxfam and Scarlett Johansson, to suggest an:

"…extraordinary index of the growth in consciousness about Israel’s illegal occupation and settlements on Palestinian land…"

Browne justifies this statement by claiming Oxfam is ‘not especially associated with the Middle East.’

Whilst not as oriented toward the region as some, Oxfam’s stance has nonetheless long been characterised as anti-Israel. In 2003, Oxfam notoriously produced anti-Israel propaganda, featuring blood-libel imagery. Last year, it was discovered that Oxfam was funding an Arab-Palestinian NGO that published anti-Semitic material. Oxfam is also associated with groups closely linked to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.

Browne claims the Johansson row ‘shows the success of the wider campaign for boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against Israel.’

Whilst the BDS movement has had some very modest successes in academia, ultimately the project has been a notable failure. For example, Israel’s export market remains extremely healthy, despite the focus on economic boycotting.

Browne states:

"That campaign, far from being a creature of western do-gooders, originated nine years ago with a call from a broad coalition of Palestinian civil-society groups."

The oft-parroted propagandistic line, that BDS constitutes a ‘call from Palestinian civil-society’, is a deeply deceptive whitewash. In actual fact, the BDS movement developed due to the fostering of an anti-Israel alliance at the anti-Semitic 2001 Durban I conference, and boycott campaigns emerged soon afterward.

Thus, BDS is an evolution of the old anti-Semitic pan-Arab boycotts, with a modified humanitarian façade, due to the notable success in the international boycott of Apartheid-era South Africa. Certainly, the endgame is the same, a demand for the cessation of the Jewish State’s existence. BDS is very much part of the pan-Arab/USSR move at the UN to isolate Israel diplomatically, after the Yom Kippur War defeat. Browne states:

"But even people who avoid Israeli avocados may feel uncomfortable about academic and cultural boycotts, of the sort recently endorsed by the 5,000-member American Studies Association in the US. What about dialogue and the free exchange of ideas? Well, try explaining those concepts to Palestinian artists, students, lecturers and researchers under Israeli occupation."

The ‘Palestinian artists, students, lecturers and researchers’ are not so much under ‘Israeli occupation’ as what might be termed ‘Palestinian Authority suppression’, since the majority of Arab-Palestinian society is controlled by the PA under the Oslo Interim Accords, and Hamas, under a defacto statelet.

Indeed, it may be worth noting that academic freedom in Arab-Palestinian society is suppressed by the same forces that have long suppressed journalistic freedom, and political opposition. Perhaps the failure to even hold elections, in what have become near-totalitarian environments, should be reflected upon, or is only one side in this conflict to be deemed blameworthy, à la the notable disinterest these campaigners have of Syria?

Browne cites the “American Studies Association” boycott. The boycott advocates conducted a campaign with little debate prior to the ballot. Indeed, the move has even been deemed akin to the 1930’s Nazi boycott by a surprising source.

‘Academics for Palestine’

Judging by its themes, Harry Browne’s article, is probably part of a co-ordinated effort to push through a March 6th National University of Ireland-Galway Students Union referendum, advocating an Israeli boycott.

Indeed, Browne finds time to hail the launch of a supposedly new group, ‘Academics for Palestine’:

"This week saw the launch of a new group, Academics for Palestine, which has gathered about 140 signatures from people who teach in universities and ITs throughout Ireland, north and south."

According to an article, ‘UCD Academics Sign Pledge to Boycott Israeli Collaboration’, in the College Tribune, ‘Academics for Palestine’ (AFP) was officially launched on February 20th, and the head of the organisation is Jim Roche, a long-time anti-Israel activist.

Various sources also note that David Landy is the founding member of this group. Rather than being new, “Academics for Palestine” appears to have existed for a year, or perhaps more. The group is mentioned as playing a role in last year’s Teachers’ Union of Ireland boycott, notable for being the first European trade union involved with academia to adopt a resolution calling on its members to ‘cease all cultural and academic collaboration with Israel’. Interestingly, both Jim Roche and David Landy played a leading role in achieving the boycott.

Browne parrots the oft-spoken line that the ‘boycott is aimed at institutions and does not mean Irish academics can’t work with Israeli individuals.’ Such a sentiment is highly misleading. Boycotts inevitably impact upon dealings with individuals. What exactly do these apologists think academic institutions are made of? Individuals, perchance? And when engaging in activities of an academic nature, these Israeli individuals will almost inevitably have some degree of association with Israeli universities for funding etc. Thus, this attempt to forward a boycott is almost as much an attack on individuals, as it is on broader Israeli society, regardless of which side of the 1949 Armistice Line!

Last year, Landy, also claimed that ‘the Palestinian call for an academic boycott of Israel is an institutional boycott, not a boycott of individuals.’ However, ‘Trade Unions Linking Israel and Palestine’, which attempts to bring these divergent communities together, asserted that the TUI boycott resolution was highly indiscriminate since it includes students and academics who support self-determination for the Palestinians. Thus, this defence should be seen as duplicitous.

An IPSC front?

Some have suggested that ‘Academics for Palestine’ is little more than an ‘Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign’ (IPSC) front. The IPSC is the largest anti-Israel group in Ireland. Jim Roche, a member of the IPSC leads ‘Academics for Palestine’. The group’s founder, David Landy, is also a senior IPSC figure.

The IPSC has run very similar academic petitioning campaigns for at least a decade. They largely featured the same old names, and didn’t achieve any particular success. Thus, ‘Academics for Palestine’ is a useful way to lend new boycott crusades some credibility, by avoiding the controversial baggage surrounding the IPSC’s activities over the years.

Disclosure of ‘Academics for Palestine’s’ character would be philosophically fitting, given its mantra, but, interestingly the group does not mention any prior IPSC connections in its ‘About Us’ website page. Similarly, the IPSC’s gushing piece, heralding the organisation’s achievement, failed to mention its links to ‘Academics for Palestine’.

It is unclear whether Browne is himself a member of the IPSC. He has written heading articles for IPSC journals, and defended the rather shocking tactics the IPSC adopted against Irish folk group Dervish, to prevent them performing in Israel.

Browne forcefully characterised reportage of this shameful behaviour as a ‘miscarriage of journalism’. In the article, he claimed:

"I am not a member of the IPSC but have supported and advised it on media matters, including the case discussed in this article."

It may be inferred, from Browne’s claim, that an apologia is acceptable, from a journalistic perspective, if one has collaborated extensively with a group, just as long as one is not a card-carrying member.

Browne appears to have been involved with the attempted boycott of Israeli produce, in an ambitious ‘two-week petition drive’ to ‘enlist Dunnes customers in Dublin, Cork, Belfast, Limerick,…’ etc. The authors of the text are identified as belonging to the IPSC: ‘Freda H and Harry Browne – IPSC’, ‘Freda H’ abbreviating ‘Freda Hughes’, a leading member.

Browne also appears to be a full member of “Academics for Palestine”, since his mobile phone number is being disclosed freely in promotional press material for the purposes of contacting the group. If he is indeed a member, it would represent a further possible journalistic non-disclosure in the well-publicised Journal.ie article.

A moderate, with a change of heart?

Subsequently, Harry Browne portrays himself as the wholesome ingenue:

"For years I felt I couldn’t support the boycott, though I did oppose the privileges Israel enjoys in EU research funding. I thought academics and their institutions should be talking to each other, exchanging ideas. Freely, you know? Then, last year, I visited Gaza. The conditions endured by 1.8 million people there under Israeli siege were sickening to behold, but so was their determination to live normal lives"

What of the fact that Israel vacated Gaza, whilst Egypt also employs an embargo on the defacto statelet? Is Browne calling for similar treatment against Egypt? No, it would seem not. Do the people who elected Hamas in 2006, on a mandate of continued “armed resistance” against Israel, have any culpability for causing this crisis?

Hamas is widely understood to be creating conditions that have led to a desperate fuel shortage, whilst taxing Gazan’s to the hilt. Yet, once again, Browne lets everyone off the hook except Israel, a nation that continues to electrify and water the belligerent area. Recently, Israel took steps to lessen Gaza’s fuel crisis by increasing power transfers.

In another article, Browne stated:

"I recently returned from Gaza, where comparative death-tolls are frequently wielded to highlight the brutality of the 2008-09 war (roughly 1,400 dead Palestinians versus 13 Israelis) and the one last November (160 versus six)."

Notably, Browne still speaks of an old debunked death toll advanced by Hamas, which was uncritically accepted by anti-Israel NGOs, such as B’Tselem. Similarly, it is estimated that half, or perhaps more, of those killed in 2012’s Pillar of Defense were militants. However, Browne, like so many others, conveniently conflate militant combatants, with civilians. Evidence of vast massacres would be more easily found next-door in Syria.

Most puzzling of all, Browne claims to have only objected to some supposed preferential treatment of Israeli academia in the past. Is this the same Harry Browne who for years has been one of the harsher critics of Israel, in a nation where criticism of the Jewish State can almost be described as a past-time?

An article by David Landy, entitled ‘Irish academics call on EU to stop funding Israeli academic institutions’ (Electronic Intifada, 16th September 2006), might at first suggest Browne’s claim is correct, as he is a signatory to the letter described therein. However, the letter, as published in the Irish Times, does in fact call for a relatively broad anti-Israel boycott. Landy noted that whilst:

"this letter does not call for a comprehensive boycott, it does demand that European academic institutions cease funding collaborative projects with Israeli institutions. It also calls for academics to refrain, where possible, from institutional collaboration with Israel. Such actions are to continue until Israel abides by international law, part of which is ending the occupation."

Therefore, it would seem Browne has lent his support to considerably more than just a lessening of EU funding. Browne put his name to another letter in January 2009, which attacked Israel for defending itself during a November 2008 Hamas border incursion. To quote a description of the text by an anti-Israel website:

"The letter was organised in response to the Israeli attack on Gaza and the Palestinian call for an academic and cultural boycott. The letter demands that the EU cease funding collaborative projects with Israeli institutions."

Browne’s presentation, as a moderate recently turned by suffering, should be received with scepticism.

A veritable roll-call of one-state ‘Rwanda solution’ advocates

An article that makes extensive use of the opinions of other individuals, in order to justify its claims, may be measured by the broader stances of such individuals, even outside the topical domain of a given article. Thus, if an author uniformly cites the opinions of extremists, we may assume an extremist stance, as an underlying theme, is being put forward in the article. And so with Browne’s advocacy:

"I met, for example, Ayah Bashir, a great young scholar determined to become Gaza’s first woman PhD in English. But the things any student or academic should take for granted — the books you need, the capacity to travel to your college — were so rarely available."

Ayah Bashir is in fact a university lecturer and activist, who seeks an absolute boycott. She is also part of a group, ‘Real Democracy’, seeking to subvert the legitimate vote of the Israeli electorate.

"And in Gaza I met Miko Peled. Son of a famed Israeli general, he told an audience of Palestinian students that BDS was the only message his society would understand. He firmly and finally convinced me."

Miko Peled seeks a one-state solution, namely the destruction of Israel as a principally Jewish state, whilst spreading rather ugly untruths about the conflict. He cheapened the memory of the Holocaust, describing Gaza as an ‘enormous concentration camp’. Peled also peddles other obvious historic falsehoods, e.g. claiming Israel is to blame for the Six Day War.

And what list of arch anti-Israel defamers would be complete without mentioning Ilan Pappé?

'In fact the famed Israeli historian Ilan Pappé sent a message to the boycott organisers here: “The recent pledge by Irish academics to boycott Israeli academic institutions is yet another landmark in the growing international refusal to allow Israel to continue its oppressive policies against the Palestinians.”'

Browne’s reference to Ilan Pappé might seem a little disingenuous to those familiar with this ‘historian’. Pappé, now in situ at the English University of Exeter, was instrumental in peddling overt untruths, which have defamed Israel over the years. He is one of the most sustained and prolific pro-boycott advocates in the world, where his speaking events helped generate toxic environments on university campuses.

Pappé is a ‘famed historian’ but perhaps partly for the wrong reasons, unless the repeated fabrication of Ben Gurion quotes is a worthy move for historians. He advocates a one-state solution so is hardly representative of Israeli academia.

Moreover, despite Browne painting Pappé’s intervention as a major development, he has repeatedly supported the IPSC’s boycott calls for years, and to little avail. He has also visited Ireland on several occasions to promote this agenda so Pappé’s ‘message’ is hardly a major development.

In a section entitled ‘I believe in justice’ Browne makes much of cultural links with Judaism – he comes across as almost wishing to claim he is Jewish, so keen is his professed love of Jewish Culture:

"I have to admit it – I have philosemitic tendencies. Growing up as I did in the US, with Rabbi Gottlieb next door, with Jewish girlfriends, with that sweet old couple nearby with the terrifying Nazi-assigned numbers tattooed on their arms, I came to believe, and sneakily still keep somewhere in my consciousness, the idea that as a people Jews have more often than not represented the most genuinely civilised traditions of an otherwise dissolute ‘western civilisation’."

…and promptly utilises another well-worn sophistic tool: look the Jews don’t want a militarised Israel!

"Politically, it should be enough that a representative swathe of the oppressed Palestinian people have asked for BDS… But this time, me personally, I must confess that I take my lead from Israelis and other Jewish people (Pappé, Peled, Haim Bresheeth, Hilary and Steven Rose, Judith Butler, Naomi Klein) who insist that militarised Zionism does not represent them, and who have called for an international campaign to rid Israeli society of the shameful injustice."

Most of these people have called, in one fashion or another, for a one-state solution, and have displayed a deep unerring hostility to Israel. Thus, it is hardly a matter of wonder that these people do not want a Jewish state that can defend itself. To take Judith Butler as an example: she described the viciously anti-Semitic ‘Hamas [and] Hezbollah as social movements that are progressive, that are on the left, that are part of a global left, [which] is extremely important.’ Haim Bresheeth advocated a witch-hunt against Israeli academics whilst taking considerable sums for projects from the Jewish state. He, of course, advocates for the elimination of Israel.

Hilary and Steven Rose also seek the abolition of Israel, whilst Naomi Klein, a one-time member of ‘The Free Gaza Movement’, has inverted the truth of the Durban I anti-Semitic hate-fest. Klein, like many others, seems to have a real issue with Jewish people possessing conservative opinions. She even finds Jewish people blameworthy for economic conditions that may, in time, give rise to Fascism!

Like Browne, these people also share a distinctive left-wing-inspired hatred for the West, whilst largely ignoring the wrongdoing, or even supporting, the wrongdoing of opposing entities. Yet, after citing the opinions of so many other extremists, Browne still wants to insist he doesn’t want to cut all Israeli ties:

"…the real object of BDS. Not to cut off discussion with Israelis — that would be impossible even if it were desirable, which it is not."

As with the insistence that BDS won’t harm individuals, this mellifluously apologetic line presents mere sophistry, to reassure an audience disturbed by the singling-out of the sole Jewish state in existence.

Miscellaneous expressions of extremism

Some of Harry Browne’s views on the Israel-Arab conflict are nothing short of extraordinary. He spoke of Ireland’s media having a biased pro-Israel stance:

"Harry Browne, journalist and lecturer in DIT, spoke of the mainstream media bias in favour of Israel and its official sources which he said were often accepted at face value without the application of critical analysis on behalf of reporters. He stressed that some of the best and most honest reporting from Gaza came from Gazans themselves, like Sameh Habeeb, because very few Western media outlets had a presence there when the war was launched. He referred to this as ‘real reporting’."

This is a staggeringly counter-factual belief to possess, particularly for one involved with the Irish media itself. It is typical for Irish coverage of Arab-Israeli controversies to give little space to the Israeli perspective, whilst dwelling on Arab-Palestinian complaints. Elements of the Irish media are linked with anti-Israel posturing amongst Irish political elites, as Rory Miller noted.

Reading between the lines however, Browne is clearly suggesting that any response from Arab-Palestinian sources should be treated with absolute credulity. This is a disturbing deviation from the basic premise of journalistic impartiality, one that a mentor should be wise enough not to advocate.

Furthermore, Browne praises Sameh Habeeb, who runs a website called the Palestine Telegraph, which has published content by neo-Nazi’s, under the pretext of freedom of expression.

Indeed, Browne asked his readers

"Given the ubiquitousness of political violence, the relevant question about Gaza is not “how dare they fire those rockets?”. We should ask, instead, what decent or fearful or otherwise-restraining impulse causes Palestinians to use violence as little as they do?"

Such a sentiment should of course be seen as a moral legitimisation of Arab-Palestinian terrorism.

Browne on the abandonment of ‘critical faculties’

On January 30th 2010, Harry Brown appeared on a TV chat-show challenging the conspiratorial views of Jim Corr. Brown rightly questioned Corr’s stance, and referred to components of conspiracy theory having links to anti-Semitism. Of course, many objected to even the mere mention of the word ‘anti-Semitism’, and the conspiratorially minded even suggested that Browne was a shill for the programme-makes, working for the government etc. Such conspiracists commonly support the Arab-Palestinian cause, and deem Israel to have colluded in 9/11, as well being as a central part of Zionist-World-Government.

Was Browne’s conscience pricked when he left a detailed comment (November 9th, 2006) on the extreme-left site Indymedia? His views provide an insight into the moral wiggle-room those possessing nigh-on indefensible political stances seek to create. When the Irish Anti-War Movement invited Ibrahim Mousawi, a known anti-Semite, to Ireland, Browne stated:

"The arguments against hearing a Hezbollah speaker don't convince me -- of course it makes sense to take (though not endorse) our anti-imperialists as we find them, however we might wish them to be; the IPSC runs a tour of ex-CIA analysts..."

Thus, Browne thought there was no moral problem with a Hizbullah speaker being invited to speak on at a political conference in Ireland, since the act of doing so does not necessarily endorse a given individual’s perspective. This stance is self-evidently untrue, when a speaker’s views are in close conformity with that of the organisers, and he likely knew this was far from an act to provide another viewpoint for balance. The IAWM did indeed act as if they supported Mousawi’s stance, and had previously expressed strong support for Hizbullah itself.

"the warmth of the IAWM embrace… seems indeed to be worth discussing in some detail. This speaker, after all, does not represent the courageous military resistance to Israeli aggression, nor the laudable social commitments of Hezbollah 'on the ground'."

The desire to have ones cake and simultaneously consume it continued, by expressing disapproval for the IAWM’s great welcome to Mousawi, since he is part of Hizbullah’s propaganda wing, rather than being at the vanguard of the struggle against the Jewish State! Thus, Browne appears to have no issue with these terrorists, only one wing disseminating hatred.

Would Hizbullah’s terrorist wing not endorse the same opinions? Are they not part of the same entity, Mousawi and his colleagues merely inculcating hatred, the ‘militants’ acting it out, with the ultimate objective to annihilate the Jewish State, despite its complete withdrawal from Lebanon? Al Manar, the propagandistic Hizbullah channel that Mousawi ran, glories in the violent deeds of Hizbullah’s jihadists, those jihadists that Browne vocally supports. Al Manar is not an independent agent – it is a mere tool assisting in generating the hate that reinforces Hizbullah’s belligerency, in which Jewish civilians are seen as a legitimate target.

Besides Browne’s admiration of those with deeply problematic views, he has himself written for the leftist anti-Israel site‘CounterPunch’. It is noted for possessing a very disturbing attitude toward the Jewish race and its history. Browne asks those of his ‘anti-imperialist’ persuasion to keep their ‘critical faculties intact’. If his concern about anti-Semitism is sincere, then he should consider taking some of his own advice.

This article was first published in the New English Review in March 2014. Harry Browne posted a detailed response in the comment section. I decided not to post a reply because he should have the space afforded for a right-of-reply. Readers are of course welcome to raise any of the issues in his response in the comment section on this blog.

Vincent Browne and the Israeli “cancer” that poisons Western foreign policy

Controversy erupted when firebrand left-wing Irish broadcaster Vincent Browne referred to Israel as a “cancer” on the 23^rd October, during his popular TV programme Tonight with Vincent Browne (TV3).

When discussing the final US presidential debate between Obama and Romney, Browne was critical of what he saw as a failure to discuss American support for Israel. In an outspoken fashion, he stated:

Israel is the cancer in foreign affairs. It polarises the Islamic community of the world against the rest of the world…. It’s a massive injustice. They [the Jews] stole the land from the Arabs. 

Browne later defended his remarks which he justified by using an extremely dubious historical argument:

The reality is the Israeli State was founded by confiscation of land previously occupied by Arabs. That injustice is at the centre of the conflict.

Actually the conflict is founded on the fact that Israel is located in what Muslims refer to as “Dar al-Islam” — hence its very existence (pre or post 1967 borders) is an offence. Furthermore, his assertion is a gross oversimplification as most Jewish habitation was placed on Miri or public land and waste land as defined in Article Six of the British Mandate, and legally purchased land. Brown went on to state that the word “cancer” was ill chosen:

I didn’t mean it [Israel] should be eliminated. It was an infelicitous use of the word.

Browne’s insistence that he does not wish to see Israel “eliminated” can be doubted with good reason. The problem with his explanation is that he appeals to the historic founding of Israel in his subsequent explanation, and seemingly in his initial criticism as well. Thus, his stance stands in stark contrast to common criticism of Israel for it being located on its June 1967 borders, a consequence of the Six-Day War, in which they took possession, during a defensive conflict, of the Sinai, West Bank, and the Gaza Strip. Therefore, it would seem Browne takes issue with Israel’s presence even in its pre-1967 form.

Notwithstanding the point above, was use of the word “cancer” ill-chosen or in keeping with Browne’s previously expressed views? Arguably it is the latter for his prejudice against Israel is very well known.

For example, Browne can quite often be heard on his show expressing the belief that Israel is simply filled with European Jews colonising the land. That point is illustrative of Browne’s ignorance of Israel’s history because much of the Jewish populace within Israel today is descended from Jews that were persecuted and expelled from Arab lands. Moreover, the principles upon which the Jewish State was founded, the need for a haven for the Jewish People, is both a moral right in itself and a necessity following persecution for in excess of a millennia in both the Islamic and Christian worlds. The Jewish People qualify as a displaced indigenous group but Browne’s casual and contemptuous assertions also by inference amount to a denial of their historic roots, and their moral right to return to their homeland.

Browne’s issue with Israel and the West, and a corresponding support for Islamism, is a long standing one. In the aftermath of the 2010 Gaza Flotilla he described the terrorism emanating from Gaza as little more than stone throwing. To quote an article by David Quinn some years ago:

In The Irish Times the other day we had Vincent Browne calling for the West to give into virtually all of the demands of al-Qa’ida, Hamas, Hizbollah, the Iranians, and I suppose the Taliban as well. He imagines that if America pulled the plug on the Saudi royal family… and if the West generally stops interfering in the affairs of Muslims countries, then all will be well… If all these things happen, Muslim rage would continue to burn because Browne, like the left in general, misdiagnoses the real cause of that rage.

Thus, it would seem Browne’s use of the word “cancer” conforms closely with his views on the Middle East. His views are extreme to say the least, and the fact that he is happy to express them in a show that ought to be impartial on complex issues suggests he is ill suited for a popular slot on the Irish airwaves.

Little wonder Enda Kenny, the highest ranking Irish politician at present, has consistently refused to accept Browne’s invitations for interview. Sadly however, his firebrand style of leftist posturing has become popular in a nation struggling at an individual and collective level with severe banking debt.

Many did not view his reply to the criticism favourably. Regarding the fashion in which he addressed the comments in a subsequent show:

He didn’t apologise… He also behaved like a typical bully and said he was being blackmailed.

So to sum up, horrid pro-Israeli’s and Israeli-Jews (presumably) have blackmailed poor Mr. Browne by criticising him for word use that is more appropriately found in the vocabulary of a hate-filled Iranian ayatollah than an experienced political journalist with decades of experience in the industry.

Postscript (3^rd March 2013)

It was announced this week that the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland (BAI) upheld some complaints by viewers concerning Vincent Browne’s anti-Israeli comments. The BAI said that the item in the show carrying Browne’s remarks "failed to meet the requirement for fair, objective and impartial treatment of news and current affairs". They disagreed that the remarks constituted anti-Semitism but added that the comments about Israel were made without apparent relevance to the discussion at hand.

TV3 will be forced to issue an apology on Television for Browne’s remarks, leading Brendan O'Connor to quip during his monologue on the popular Saturday Night Live (RTE) TV show: "TV3 is to apologise to Israel for Vincent Browne. That’s all very well but when are they going to apologise to the rest of us?"

 

Also published at Crethi Plethi.

Bomb alert at the Israeli Embassy to Ireland

Image: Andy McGeady

The Israeli Embassy, situated in Dublin, was hit by a hoaxed bomb alert yesterday, which led to the Irish Army’s bomb disposal squad attending the scene. It may have links with three additional bomb alerts during the same day, in residential areas of the country. One of these alerts was also a hoax, and the other two featured viable devices or bomb components.

There have been very frequent reports in the Irish media concerning the appearance of (presumably primitive) explosive devices in recent years. The source(s) of these devices remains unclear as the media reports are notably vague. It may be non-political criminal gangs and/or Irish republican groups, which in Ireland are typically of a hard-leftist political persuasion.

Until now the Israeli Embassy appears not to have been a target of these incidents, although it has been the target of bomb/chemical hoaxes in the past.

The Israeli Embassy is subject to weekly pro-Palestinian demonstrations, and continuous demands to have the Ambassador expelled. Attempts in recent years to control or take the Embassy over have also been made by left-wing politicians and activists, such as Richard Boyd-Barrett.



Also published at the Iconoclast.