Guardian sinks into gutter on Corbyn – again
by Jonathan Cook
This is way beyond a face-palm moment.
Jeremy Corbyn today launched a review into the Labour party’s supposed “anti-semitism crisis” – in fact, a crisis entirely confected by a toxic mix of the right, Israel supporters and the media. I have repeatedly pointed out that misleading claims of anti-semitism (along with much else) are being thrown at Corbyn to discredit him. You can read my criticisms of this campaign and Labour’s reponse here, here and here.
In his speech, Corbyn made an entirely fair point that Jews should not be blamed for the behaviour of Israel any more than Muslims should be for the behaviour of states that are Islamic. He said:
Our Jewish friends are no more responsible for the actions of Israel or the Netanyahu government than our Muslim friends are for those of various self-styled Islamic states or organisations.
But no matter what he said, the usual suspects are now accusing him of comparing Israel with Islamic State, even though that is clearly not what he said – not even close.
First, even if he had said “Islamic State”, which he didn’t, that would not have meant he made a comparison with Israel. He was comparing the assumptions some people make that Jews and Muslims have tribal allegiances based on their religious or ethnic background. He was saying it was unfair to make such assumptions of either Jews or Muslims.
In fact, such an assumption (which Corbyn does not share) would be more unfair to Muslims than to Jews. It would suggest that some Muslims easily feel an affinity with a terror organisation, while some Jews feel an affinity with a recognised state (which may or may not include their support for the occupation). That assumption is far uglier towards Muslims than it is towards Jews.
But, of course, all of this is irrelevant because Corbyn did not make any such comparison. He clearly referred to “various self-styled Islamic states or organisations”. A spokesman later clarified that he meant “Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Iran or Hamas in Gaza”. In other words, “various self-styled Islamic states and organisations” – just as he said in the speech.
Surprise, surprise, the supposedly liberal Guardian’s coverage of this incident is as appalling as that found in the rightwing Telegraph. The Guardian has an article, quoting rabbis and others, pointing out the irony that Corbyn made an anti-semitic comment at the launch of an anti-semitism review – except, of course, that he didn’t.
In fact, contrary to all normal journalism, you have to read the Guardian story from bottom-up. The last paragraph states:
This story was amended on 30 June to correct the quotation in the second paragraph. An earlier version quoted Corbyn as saying: “Our Jewish friends are no more responsible for the actions for the actions of Israel or the Netanyahu government than our Islamic friends are responsible for Islamic State.”
Or in other words, the Guardian reporter did not even bother to listen to the video of the speech posted alongside her report on the Guardian’s own website. Instead she and her editors jumped on the same bandwagon as everyone else, spreading the same malicious rumours and misinformation.
When it later emerged that the story was a complete fabrication – one they could have proved for themselves had they listened to what Corbyn really said – they simply appended at the bottom a one-par mea culpa that almost no one will read. The Guardian has continued to publish the same defamatory article, one based on a deception from start to finish.
This is the very definition of gutter journalism. And it comes as the Guardian editor, Kath Viner, asks (begs?) readers to dig deep in their pockets to support the Guardian. She writes:
The Guardian’s role in producing fast, well-sourced, calm, accessible and intelligent journalism is more important than ever.
Well, it would be if that is what they were doing. Instead, this story confirms that the paper is producing the same shop-soiled disinformation as everyone else.
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The Graund has been in the gutter for a long time. I would accept, however, that the Guardian has actually sunk to lower depths than the gutter – as in a cesspit?
Reblogged this on Worldtruth.
Oh you know how this goes:
An utterance which might be construed or tortured into being interpreted as antisemitic in the broadest possible meaning of the word – is a solid proof that you are an antisemite and should be shouted from rooftops.
A lifetime of opposing antisemitism – is a lame excuse and is not worth mentioning.
Absolutely agree with above article…its such a comfort to have Off-Guardiian journalists (and comments) to set the record straight. Thanks to you all
I wasn’t aware that the Guardian had risen from the gutter in the first place.
There is near total congruity between the worst Blairites, from Blairzebub itself down, and total subservience to the Israel First Lobby. Follow the money trail.
I just had to laugh when the email from La Viner came to me asking for desperately needed funds to continue providing ‘quality journalism’ in these fractious times, even as its readership is supposedly growing by leaps and bounds. Into the trash it went along with the rest of the crap I haven’t got around to unsubscribing from.
Corbyn’s statement wasn’t the whole truth. Of course one cannot assume that any one Jew supports land theft, ethnic cleansing and cruelty in Israel. But the reality is that there are powerful lobby groups with legal standing in the UK, supported by politicians whose existence is to promote and support Israel. Furthermore my understanding, right or wrong, is that most Jews support Israel, that it is hard to feel yourself Jewish if you don’t. There is no such formalised support for ISIS in the UK, and I’m pretty sure most Muslims are opposed to terrorism.
There has to be a way of talking about pro-Israel lobby groups and Jewish community support for Israel without the pusillanimous and the morally compromised screaming ‘antisemitism’.
Actually, some of the most vehement critics of the actions of the State of Israel are Jewish.
Names like Ilan Pappe, Norman Finkelstein, Gilad Atzmon, Noam Chomsky, Miko Peled
and many others spring to mind.
They have paid a heavy price in terms of ostracism, attack and baseless criticism.
It seems that part of the human psyche – the dark side – becomes enraged by folks
who, on the basis of our shared humanity, just tell the truth regardless.
RE : “Actually, some of the most vehement critics of the actions of the State of Israel are Jewish.
Names like Ilan Pappe, Norman Finkelstein, Gilad Atzmon, Noam Chomsky, Miko Peled
and many others spring to mind.”
Sure. But why begin with “Actually…”? That suggests a counter-point to the one you make–namely that some of the most vehement critics of the actions of the State of Israel are Jewish.” They are indeed. Just as it’s also true that a vocal minority of courageous defenders of truth and justice for the Palestinians’ cause are Jewish and are living in Israel.
But, none of that in any way diminishes the accuracy of the point made in the post to which you’ve replied–namely : …” the reality is that there are powerful lobby groups with legal standing in the UK, supported by politicians whose existence is to promote and support Israel. Furthermore my understanding, right or wrong, is that most Jews support Israel, that it is hard to feel yourself Jewish if you don’t. There is no such formalised support for ISIS in the UK“…
No, there is NO such way, anywhere in the West. In fact ‘antisemitism’ has long been nothing but a stand-over racket used to intimidate and vilify anyone who dares criticise the barbarous Israeli state, or ANY Jew ANYWHERE, no matter how vile their behaviour and how universal would be the criticism of that behaviour would be if committed by a goy. And the antisemitism racket is reaching new heights of frenzy as the Israel First Lobby has its stooges in the West banning, even criminalising the BDS movement, and extending that repression to criticism of Israel, falsely labeled as ‘antisemitism’. At the same time the tsunami of Islamophobic hatred grows and grows, much of it created and disseminated by the same Rightwing Jews who demand that their actions NEVER be criticised. And Western politicians and the MSM join in this Israel First Crusade, with fervour, and any who dare stand in its way, like Corbyn, guilty of treating Palestinians as humans, are subjected to an intense and blatant campaign of lies and vilification.
The point is we must resist the simplistic temptation to think in terms of race – even if we are dealing with those who do. The state of Israel is a legitimate target of criticism – as is every other state. Discussing how many Jewish people do or do not support it is not productive. Yes Israel – like many other morally bankrupt enterprises – uses racial identity to divide people and rally support for its crimes. But that makes it more important we do not agree to discuss the issue on those terms. I do not care what race the supporters of Israel belong to, and even if some of them see it as a racial issue, I do not, and will not, because the mere acceding to that view gives them a victory.
So it’s racist to speak of a Jewish lobby then? Well, a lot of people share your thinking.
It’s not racist per se, no. But it allows the discussion to be framed in terms of race, which is really to allow racists and racial-supremacists of all kinds to control the debate. Just because they think in terms of race doesn’t mean they should be able to force us to do the same. If some person wants to back Israel because he believes in Jewish supremacy, or wants to back Aidar because he/she believes Slavs are subhuman, that is up to him/her, but if I accept his framing and discuss the question in terms of the racial identities of his supporters/opponents he’s actually already won.
And if we imagine these elites give a damn about “Jews” or any other race as a collective I think we’re deluding ourselves. The only divide they see is between the super-wealthy (who matter) and the non-super-wealthy (who don’t). It’s the power and influence of those backing Israel that signifies, not their race.
The question must be ‘What is a Jew?’ Is it a religious, racial or social construct? And, flowing from that, why is there a separate, and plainly more important, form of bigotry against them, more weighty than all the other bigotries in the world? Is it because they are ‘God’s Chosen People’, a higher form of existence than mere goyim? Plainly some Jews, and even many goyim, like the ‘Christian Zionists’, believe just that, so why is discussion of that fact totally verboten in the West, although we are free to discuss the worst doctrines of any school of Islam, and freely impute their wickednesses to all Moslems?
And why are some Jews allowed to vilify and intimidate others for their free expression? Wny, when we shout and gibber about the absolute Freedom of Opinion of the Charlie Hebdo hate-mongers, free to vilify and parody Islam, is ANY criticism, real or entirely confected as with this latest smear on Corbyn, of Jews or of the state of Israel, utterly forbidden, and in the process of being criminalised in many Western States? Why are goyim in the West forbidden to say things about Jews and Jewish power that Jews in Israel and the Diaspora freely discuss? And why, when the evidence is so absolutely irrefutable, are were forbidden to speak of ‘Jewish power’ in Western politics, business and the MSM, as if they were totally impotent and without influence? Why, in short, is this one group treated so very differently from the rest of humanity?
Is it because of the Nazi Judeocide? In that case, why are the Roma, or Poles, or Serbs, or the inhabitants of the former Soviet Union not granted such privileges, and why have their sufferings not been turned into a de facto State religion in the West? Why are there ‘Holocaust’ Museums all over the USA, and none to the Native American victims of genocide, or the African victims of the Atlantic slave trade? Could it have something to do with the money power of the Jewish elite in the West, and their staggering ‘generosity’ when it comes to political contributions? There must be some reason why the denizens of the US Congress vote unanimously to support every Israeli massacre of children in Gaza, or fall about, slavering, ululating and gesticulating maniacally whenever that paragon Bibi Netanyahoo addresses them, his contempt barely disguised. But, there you go-I’ve just committed Thought Crime and uttered a strings of vile ‘blood libels’ and ‘antisemitic canards’. What a monster I must be, to think that Jews are human beings and ought to be judged by their actions, like the rest of the ‘other ranks’.
The question of why some victims of genocide are deemed more important than others is a good one. The Nazis did indeed have policies of eradication for other ethnic groups beside Jews. Slavs, gypsies and others were equally despised. Indeed the current calls for the forced removal/murder of ethnic Russians in Ukraine is a direct descendant of the Nazi creed.
The answer though is geopolitics and convenience, not racial ascendancy. The state of Israel is a beneficial foothold for the elites in the ME. Narratives are spun to justify it. The Russian people need to be demonised, so narratives are spun to justify that. It’s convenient to remember the Jewish victims of genocide, convenient to forget the Slavic victims. The point is for the elites the racial issue is just another tool. A method of manipulation, of selling narrative, of dividing and conquering.
If people express their anger through internecine hatreds, if whites blame blacks and blacks blame whites and everyone decides to blame “the Jews” or the “Arabs” or the “Mexicans” or “Russians” for the crimes of the 0.1% then they can be left to have their riots and racial wars, while the 0.1% get on with whatever lunacies they have in mind for globalisation or neo-feudalism or whatever.
The same thing was true in the 1930s/40s. In the final analysis the Nazis were mere tools of the money barons, their racist nonsense was simply a means of bringing chaos and disorder, channeling hate, turning people against other people, prepping them for war.
This is why we need to absolutely refute such thinking. It directs us to ask the wrong questions of each other. If a person supports Israeli genocide or US imperial wars it doesn’t matter what race they belong to. They are either super-wealthy and serving their own perceived class interests or non-wealthy and deceived. In the first case we oppose him/her as best we can, in the second we try to reach out and inform.
That’s all. In the final analysis the 0.1% don’t give a stuff about racial identity. The “poor” are all just vermin to them. If they don’t differentiate then why should we?
I really want to jump into the fray, here, but unfortunately I don’t have any time to cobble together anything remotely coherent on the spot. Perhaps later this evening . . . Then again, I’m not sure I’d really be able to add anything to what you’ve already said, Catte.
Yes, ‘we’ have to guard against entrapping ourselves in the logic of narratives that give precedence to notions of ‘difference,’ such as ‘race,’ ethnicity, culture, etc. Otherwise we have already been deflected away from what needs to be addressed and discussed, namely, the political and economic marginalization of the majority.
At any rate and at bottom, such constructs are mere mystifications, albeit delusions opportunistically exploited by the politically powerful to better divide and control their subalterns.
Absolutely: such thinking needs to be refuted at every opportunity, both in our own minds and in the arena of public debate.
Catte
The idea that overarching goal is to avoid being racist, to prioritise the sensibilities of supporters of the most racist country on the planet, serves only Zionists, and not the causes I believe in. I see organisations and individuals who claim to be, eg pro-Palestine, but actually spend their energies combating ‘antisemitism’ as gatekeepers.
I repeat: There has to be a way of talking about pro-Israel lobby groups and Jewish community support for Israel without the pusillanimous and the morally compromised screaming ‘antisemitism’.
1 – I believe I suggested a way of doing that.
2 – As I already said above, the Zionists benefit from reducing the dialogue to questions of racism. They indeed are inciting such a dialogue. They want you to attack the system on racial grounds – it’s so easy to refute and acts to alienate large numbers of your fellow 99%. Avoiding racist reductionism is the best way to defy them.
3 – On moral grounds alone, and if for no other reason, avoiding racism and race-hate should be a priority for any civilised person.
If that is true why didn’t they call the black support for the hell bitch as the antisemitism it was?
The zionists have no honor,and will do anything to defend their creepy wacko state of psychopaths.
Hi Barbra,
You write:
“The idea that overarching goal is to avoid being racist, to prioritise the sensibilities of supporters of the most racist country on the planet, serves only Zionists, and not the causes I believe in.”
It is every bit as much of a ‘non sequitur’ to believe that eschewing bigotry or racism when engaging Zionists is to defer to their racist sensibility as to equate in true Zionist fashion all and any criticisms of the State of Israel with antisemitism.
Neither the first claim nor the second bears rational scrutiny.
You are effectively saying that individuals who decry all forms of discrimination sanction Zionist bigotry, which is a contradiction in terms. Your logic is tantamount to that of the Zionists: I do my utmost to avoid being racist, therefore I’m a supporter of Zionism and Israel; I criticize the State of Israel for pursuing a policy of genocide against the Palestinians, therefore I’m an anti-Semite. Peas in a pod, eh.
However, one can very well be both the opposite of a bigot or racist and deny that criticizing the state of Israel is a manifestation of antisemitism. Zionists may claim that all Israelis are Jews, but they’d be wrong on two counts: not all Israelis are Jews and not all Jews are Israelis, and even less so is it the case that all Jews and even all Israelis are Zionists.
You cannot therefore logically judge all Jews or even all Israelis on the basis of the genocidal and bigoted policies pursued and sanctioned by the State of Israel, which very much appears to be animated by the spirit of Zionism, an ideology that is essentially in its form fascist and reactionary.
To make accusations against the State of Israel is not to make accusations against “all” Jews, nor even against Israelis as such. The accusation, from a non-racist perspective, distinguishes between, on the one hand, the citizens of Israel and ‘all’ Jews, and on the other hand, the State of Israel, in the very same way that the same distinction can be made, and as a matter of course is made, between the state of any other so called nation and its citizens.
This is grade school reasoning. Anyone should be able to grasp the basics of this argument.
Otherwise, one remains trapped in a world of competing group identities, be they racial, national, linguistic or ethnic in kind.
One needs to stop thinking of both oneself and others in these terms, and acknowledge the simple truth that we are all and at bottom simply human, despite all of our accidental and inessential differences.
Oh, I agree. The Israel First Lobby, the sayanim who control Western polities and the Israeli state apparatus are definitely only a fraction of Jewry, however you wish to define them, or they themselves. The Jewish elite are the enemies, not Jews in toto, just as US elites are the enemies of humanity, not Americans as a whole.
But the Israel First Jewish elites ceaselessly propagate the false narrative that criticism of these elites is hatred for all Jews, based on nothing but bigotry based on envy. That is where, I believe, one must NOT bend too far backwards to evade the false accusations of bias as an ‘antisemite’ that will come no matter how correct and morally decent is your criticism, even of massacres of children in Gaza. Moreover, the truth is that the Jewish fraction of the ruling global elite is overwhelmingly powerful and influential. No other group has such disproportionate power and influence, for ill, in the Western world, and to deny that fact is simply lies or cowardice and pre-emptive capitulation to vilification.
Here’s where the argument collapses into an anti-Semitism no different from that of the European elites of the 19th and the first part of the 20th century:
“Moreover, the truth is that the Jewish fraction of the ruling global elite is overwhelmingly powerful and influential. No other group has such disproportionate power and influence, for ill, in the Western world, and to deny that fact is simply lies or cowardice and pre-emptive capitulation to vilification.”
One can find similar accusations in the German (but not only German) press of the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s.
Vaska
‘One can find similar accusations in the German (but not only German) press of the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s.’
Richard le Sarcophage, as I understand it, is saying that Jewish Elites have undue power and influence and this power is not used for the common good, or at least not for justice in Palestine. Are you saying he is inaccurate or merely that it is bad taste to mention it?
All ‘oligarchs,’ regardless of their religion or nationality or the color of their skin, have undue power and influence, and absolutely none, whether Zionist or not, and collectively speaking, really give a fuck about Palestinians. It’s in bad taste to think that only Zionist oligarchs suffer from this psychopathy.
The same claim — that Jews (Jewish elites) have undue influence on the non-Jewish world — was used 80 years ago to justify the slaughter of millions of men, women, and children. I should think this is common knowledge.
Palestine would not be in need of justice today were it not for the British Empire and its Middle East policy in the first place, and the post-WWII US foreign policy in the second. It behooves us to acknowledge that the West could impose sanctions on Israel in a heartbeat, if it wanted to do so, and no Jewish lobby could prevent it.
For God’s sake! A carefully uttered and irrefutable argument concerning the disproportionate power and influence of Jewish elites in the West, and NO discussion, NO refutation (there being none) and NO honest attempt to say what this means, how it came about and why discussion of it is TOTALLY VERBOTEN, and it is answered with a smear. I rather think it proves my point and reinforces Voltaire’s dictum about knowing who the powerful are from who it is forbidden to criticise. Why, for instance, do you not smear me with the accusation of ‘anti-Americanism’ when I criticise US elites, too? Or even ‘anti-elitism’?
Ok Richard let’s have this “discussion.” Though it’s a finite one because I believe I have more important things to do.
I’ll start by being frank. I find your position either disingenuous or poorly reasoned. “Anti-Americansim”? “American” is not a race. Anti-Americanism is a political stance. Anti-Semitism is not. But I suspect you already know that and are simply grandstanding for reasons of your own.
The bottom line here is this. There’s an unfair system that impoverishes 99.9% of humanity and enriches the remaining .1%. Some of that 99.9% are white. Some are black. Some are Hispanic. Some are Celts or Slavs or Jewish or Arabs or Asians etc etc… But they are all equal exploited. Some of the .1% (in fact most) are white. Some are black. Some are Hispanic. Some are Celts or Slavs or Jewish or Arabs or Asians etc etc… But they are all equally the .1%.
You see where I’m going with this?
Personally I simply do not care what race the man impoverishing my world is, even if he does. He’s not impoverishing my world because he’s Jewish/Slavic/Arabic/blah blah blah. He’s doing it because he’s part of the .1%. Mr Cohen who runs the dry cleaner’s is not impoverishng my world. He is working his arse off and being ripped off like the rest of us.
Yes, there are traditional ties between Jewish people and banking. Yes, therefore, more than average number of the banking elite are Jews. This fact is as old as civilisation. But so what? Why do you care?
That’s a serious question. Do you think this statistic reveals something arcane or occult to you? Will it help eradicate exploitation? Should we treat the Jewish elites differently? Despise them more? Prioritise their Jewishness over their membership of the elite? Will this assist us in breaking the system?
Another serious question – how is this a factoid interesting to anyone but racists? I mean if we consider a racist to be someone who wants to assign evils and virtues in terms of genetics or skin color, how is it not racist to think that being exploited by Jews is worse than being exploited by nice white people like the Queen?
This is a truly excellent comment, Richard.
I see that there is no opportunity to reply to Catte and Norman above. As to Norman, he is correct that all the ruling Western psychopaths care not a fig for the Palestinians, or any of the other hundreds of millions of oppressed peoples, but it is the Zionists who are actually doing the day-to-day killing, torture, land theft, house demolitions etc, in regard to the Palestinians, so they really must get a special mention, as we would do in regard to the Saudi psychotics and the suffering in Yemen and Bahrain. Moreover it is the Israelis who are mobilising their political control in the West to ban and even criminalise opposition to their crimes, and the BND movement, on the spurious basis that such opposition is ‘antisemitism’.
Catte accused me of ‘grandstanding’ when comparing anti-Americanism to antisemitism. Well, I don’t regard ‘antisemitism’ as other than a propaganda device and weapon (Judeophobia is definitely different and malignant)to silence criticism of Israel and Jewish elites in the West, and her assertion that ‘antisemitism’ refers to a ‘race’ is, in my opinion, misguided. Jews are a religion, with many schools, and a culture, with many manifestations, but a ‘race’? I doubt it, myself. No more than Roman Catholic is a race.
Then she really breaks me up with that nonsense about ‘banking’ being a traditional Jewish occupation, so, therefore, Jews will be over-represented in the ranks of the banksters, and why does that concern me. Well it concerns me because the financial elite run the planet, their depredations have immiserated millions and destroyed societies, they control most of the great multi-national corporations, they had trillions lavished on them when their crimes caused the GFC, and they are always first and foremost in demanding ‘austerity’ be inflicted on societies like Greece. That is why it concerns me that one tiny group, the elite of a community that represents 0.5% of humanity, has so much sway over this, the most important element in the entire neo-feudal neo-liberal edifice.
Viner was imitated by the lying times,as they pleaded for funds to support their mission from Zion also.
The Graun used to be one of the best sites.When they let Freedland and all his pos Zionist buddies take over,its gone on a suicide mission.The commenters that are left are mostly morons for the hell bitch,Israel and pinkwashing.Oy.
This is just more of the same old crap. If it weren’t for Off-Guardian, I would never know what The Guardian says anymore. They are not readable.
They’re still spinning this shit. It’s farcical. Illiterate. Gutter ‘journalism’ – that word has to be in quotes.
But they won’t stop, will they?
Interesting to see that the Chief Rabbi, Rabbi Sacks has joined in, too, to this vicious campaign against democracy in the Labour Party. It’s a real drive to destroy Labour and return it to the hands of the Blairite Sabbat Goyim.
Reblogged this on TheFlippinTruth and commented:
Any Corbyn article in the Guardian is worse than its counterpart in the Torygraph. It just shows how Blairite the Guardian became and remains.