"Anti-Semites like Russia" – The Guardian

by Frank

Is there a day that goes by without some Russophobic tripe masquerading as journalism appears in the Guardian? The latest example being Paul Mason’s piece. The racist hijacking of Microsoft’s chatbot shows how the internet teems with hate. The piece was ostensibly about the alleged rise of ‘anti-semitism’ particularly in the media and on the left. Maybe he is right – anti-semitism has a long history – but of course the charge of anti-semitism is also used to silence any criticism of Israel which is deemed to be above criticism. But that is another issue.

What particularly irritated me was the following pearl of wisdom:
Interestingly, among the British anti-semites I’ve been monitoring, there is one country whose media is always believed, whose rulers are never accused of conspiracy with the Jews, and whose armies in the Middle East are portrayed as liberators, not mass murderers. This is Putin’s Russia…”

But of course! Anti-semitism? The Russians are behind it; this is taken to be axiomatic. No proof, no evidence, just flat assertions. And then Russia’s armies (I think he means the Syrian Arab Army) are apparently not liberators but mass murderers in Syria. Funny thing this, and here was I thinking that the mass murderers were the ISIS, Jabhat Al Nusra, Al Qaeda, and the various other jihadist fruitcakes might have had something to do with it.
But the given Mr Mason’s political background this is hardly surprising. He is an ex-Trotskist once involved with a ultra-left British sect calling itself Workers’ Power but he has apparently had a Damascene conversion (an appropriate metaphor perhaps) and has imbibed the neo-con world-view with alacrity, hence the Russophobia. This is very similar to the Grandfather of the Neo-con faith, one Iriving Kristol who underwent the same political/ideological metamorphosis along with a group of New York intellectuals. Trotsky’s theory of socialist permanent revolution was repackaged as the theory and practise of capitalist counter-revolution. The evangelical mindset doesn’t change with the switch from left to right.
I suggest that if Mr Mason is looking for anti-semites then he might try looking in Lviv in the far west of the Ukraine. There they customarily have a Waffen SS Galizia Division reunion every 28 April, as does Latvia. Another shrine to racial and ethnic tolerance in this neo-nazi stronghold is the statue of Stepan Bandera, customarily lovingly adorned with flowers. Bandera’s outfit the OUN-UPA (Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists and Ukrainian Insurgent Army) openly collaborated with the Nazis in Galicia during 1943-44 taking part in the extermination of tens of thousands of Jews, Poles, and Russians. It is easy enough to check, but it rather spoils the narrative. Their political descendants are now a significant political force in the Ukraine, both inside and outside of the Rada Verhovna.
Of course there is no mention of this in the Anglo-American media. All that we do get treated to is the daily gruel of the fashionable Russophobia of the ruling political and media elites. Eerily comparable to the ‘two minutes hate’ that party members had to undergo in Orwell’s 1984.
‘Facts are Sacred’ Yeah, right!

Thanks for reading...

You can help us keep doing what we do. Every little helps and is hugely appreciated.

For other ways to donate, including direct-transfer bank details click HERE.