Marina Hyde’s Attack on Chris Williamson is an Example of the Guardian’s Slow Witted Viciousness

The Guardian Reserves its Venom for an anti-racist MP but has nothing to say about a Labour MP to whom the BNP once sent a bunch of flowers

Just what is the purpose of a journalistic permafilla like Marina Hyde?

 

There was a time when people would argue as to who was the best journalist on the Guardian – Jonathan Steele, John Palmer or perhaps David Hirst. Even its right-wing journalists such as Hugo Young were serious intellectuals.

Today you have abusive lightweights such as Marina Hyde who not only lack the ability to write a coherent article but seem to think that their puerile and remarkably unfunny ‘jokes’ are an example of their talent

Even Boris Johnson of 'piccaninies' with 'water melon smiles' is concerned about 'antisemitism'

It’s not just Marina Hyde.  There’s Suzanna Moore, Gaby Hinscliffe, the pretentious Rafael Behr’s and that’s just for starters. Even Jonathan Freedland’s trademark is a studied exercise in journalistic dishonesty and duplicity.  Someday someone will write a  on the decline of a once great British newspaper.

Marina Hyde’s latest effort is a piece of heavy laboured humour. ‘Of all the hills to die on why on earth has Labour chosen Chris Williamson.’ Of course Chris Williamson isn’t a hill  and Marina Hyde is not a valley or even a plateau.  If this military metaphor was intended to be humorous then like most of what passes for her journalism, it fell at the first hurdle.

Unfortunately Marina Hyde has no trace of Dr Jekyll about her

The real question is why, of all the MPs in the Labour Party or indeed Parliament, the female counterpart of Dr Jekyll’s Mr Hyde chose to attack one of the few consistently anti-racist MPs.

Hyde could have chosen Margaret Hodge, who once advocated a policy of only housing White families in Barking. So pleased were the BNP that she had adopted their policies that they sent her a bunch of flowers!

Margaret Hodge is the former leader of Islington Council who covered up child abuse at the Council’s children’s homes. When challenged she points to her relatives who died in the Holocaust, as if she is somehow unique amongst Jews in this respect.

Or she could have targeted Tom Watson, the barrel of lard who confessed to losing sleep over ‘poor Phil’ the racist Labour MP who was removed by the High Court for various electoral offences such as lying about his Lib Dem opponents.

In a blatantly Islamaphobic campaign ‘poor Phil’ stated that his opponents supported Islamic terrorism.  An email from his agent was uncovered which talked about ‘making the white folks angry’.

Watson himself is no slouch when it comes to dog whistle politics.  Watson was campaign chair for Labour in the Birmingham Hodge Hill by-election in July 2004. The campaign drew criticism for its dirty tactics, particularly a Labour leaflet proclaiming "Labour is on your side – the Lib Dems are on the side of failed asylum seekers",

Travellers are listed, alongside Rubbish and Alcohol as a  potential menace

Or then again Mr Hyde could have used her hobnail boots to good effect against John Mann who issued the Bassetlaw Anti-social Behaviour Handbook which described Gypsies and Travellers as examples of anti-social behaviour, alongside fireworks, alcohol, rubbish and neighbours from hell. A whole ethnic group was listed as an example of anti-social behaviour which is what the Nazis did with Gypsies. 

After complaints Mann was interviewed by Police but the Guardian’s Mr Hyde ignored the very real racism of the Labour Right in favour of fake ‘anti-Semitism’.  Far better to put the boot into Chris Williamson than into a genuine racist.

This journalistic trollope could have deployed her bile and venom against Louise Ellman who used two parliamentary debates on Palestinian children, on 6^th January 2016 and 7^th February 2018, to defend Israel’s treatment of children, Palestinian of course, not Jewish. Jewish children are subject to Israeli civil not military law.

Minor matters such as kidnapping children as young as 12 in the early hours of the morning, dragging them from their beds, blindfolding them, beating them, holding them in cold cells without access to clean water, toilets or food, refusing them access to their parents or lawyers, told to sign confessions in a language they don’t even understand. All of this passes unnoticed by the Guardian’s pet pirhana of a ‘journalist’.

The concern of the Right for 'antisemitism' is in strange contrast to their attitude to other forms of racism

Being a gormless slow witted thug masquerading as a ‘journalist’ Marina Hyde chose to emulate her namesake rather than Dr Jekyll.  Instead of attacking a Zionist MP who defends the indefensible she chose instead to attack one of the few consistently anti-racist and anti-Zionist MPs.

Marina Hyde is herself a walking, talking metaphor for the Guardian.  A bully in print, a savant without an ounce of wit using a pen dripping with bile.  She prefers butchery to surgery and the result can be seen in an indigestible article full of animus and in humour.

Below is a letter which I sent to the Guardian.  It was not, of course, published.  Guardian Letters, which used to be one of the few areas of free speech left on the Guardian has succumbed to Freedland’s baleful influence.

Tony Greenstein

Letters Editor

Kings Place,

90 York Way

London N1 9GU 

Dear Sir/Madam,

The cynicism and slow-witted viciousness of Marina Hyde’s attack on Chris Williamson is nothing more than would expect these days. In her normally snide asides Hyde asks ‘“HOW FAR WOULD YOU GO TO DEFEND CHRIS WILLIAMSON?” [Of all the hills to die on, why on earth has Labour chosen Chris Williamson? Guardian 28^th June]

Can I suggest that most Labour Party members, including its Jewish members, would go quite a long way? The fact that 118 Labour MP’s and peers chose to sign a letter demanding Williamson’s resuspension was all the more reason to resist the very political interference in the disciplinary process that they purported to deplore.

Contrary to the assumption in her remarkably unfunny column Chris Williamson is one of the few consistent supporters of the Palestinians and anti-racists  in the Parliamentary Labour Party. 

The letter was headed by Deputy Leader Tom Watson. The same Tom Watson who, in 2011 defended Phil Woolas who was removed as a Labour MP by the High Court  for lying about his opponent, in the course of a campaign based around ‘making the white folk angry.’  Tom Watson is on record as having said that he had lost sleep thinking about ‘poor Phil’. 

The idea that Tom Watson or any of the other  signatories were motivated by anti-racism or opposition to anti-Semitism is risible.  The real agenda was getting rid of Jeremy Corbyn and once again Corbyn has demonstrated his weakness when standing up to these bullies.

Yours etc.,

Tony Greenstein

The Idiocy and Dishonesty of the British Press is Highlighted by Simon Kelner, former Independent Editor

Kelner of the 'i' is either a fool or a knave (or both) when he attacks Derek Hatton for ‘Anti-Semitism’

I confess the times have long since gone when I purchased a daily paper.  Even when I was on the dole I regularly bought a copy of The Guardian.  Before it went tabloid, physically and politically, it was a good newspaper with some excellent columnists such as Jonathan Steele, John Palmer, David Hirst, and the late, great Michael Adams, their Middle East correspondent and the first western journalist to tell the truth about the brutality of Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. A journalist whom their present Zionist correspondent-in-chief Jonathan Freedland isn’t fit to wipe the boots of. 

Today I take the ‘i’.  Not because it is a particularly good paper. It isn’t.  The local hotel always has free copies so I take one! Apart from Robert Fisk and Patrick Cockburn it has nothing to recommend it.  Simon Kelner, former Editor of The Independent has a column. Kelner’s articles are always a boring slog, excelling only in the mundane. However the 'i' is no better or worse than the Guardian or Times and it is free! 

However my eye caught the headline of a recent article of Kelner's about Corbyn and Anti-Semitism and so I read further.  Kelner excels in taking his time to say nothing, however I noticed his attack on Derek Hatton, the former Deputy Leader of Liverpool City Council. Hatton had apparently tweeted in 2012 that ‘Jewish people with any sense of humanity need to start speaking out publicly against the ruthless murdering being carried out in Israel.’

It is true that if you blame Jewish people for all the ills of Israel that is anti-Semitic. But Hatton wasn’t doing that.  He was associating the Israeli state with Jews, which is quite understandable.  Israel calls itself a state of the Jews, not just Israeli Jews but all Jews.  Zionists defend Israel as a Jewish state. Indeed they proclaim in Israel's defence that it is the only Jewish state in the world, as if this gave it some unique merit.

Israel also quite uniquely for a state does not have a nationality.  There is a good reason. Israel is a state not of its own citizens but Jews all over the world, in theory anyway.  That means that I can ‘return’ to a place I’ve only visited once whereas Palestinians who were born there have no such right.  In anyone’s book that is racism.  As Netanyahu recently proclaimed Israel is not a state of all its citizens but of Jews only.

Michael Adams was a pioneering journalist on the Guardian - the first Middle East correspondent who accurately reported the truth from Palestine and who was called an antisemite repeatedly - if only Corbyn could remember that antisemite is a term of abuse not a term of racism any longer

In 1972 in a case George Tamarin v State of Israel Tamarin was an Israeli Jew who wanted to change his nationality from “Jewish” to “Israeli.” Justice Agranat ruled that he couldn’t. He said:

‘the desire to create an Israeli nation separate from the Jewish nation is not a legitimate aspiration. A division of the population into Israeli and Jewish nations would … negate the foundation on which the State of Israel was established.’ 

The court ruled that

‘There is no Israeli nation separate from the Jewish People. The Jewish People is composed not only of those residing in Israel but also of Diaspora Jewry.’ 

So now we have it.  According to Simon Kelner the State of Israel is an anti-Semitic state!  And this is true.  The idea that Jews belong in Israel is an anti-Semitic idea.  But being a fool and a knave, Kelner is unlikely to accept or even understand this.

Below is the letter I have sent to the ‘i’.  I somehow doubt they will print it! (they didn't)

Tony Greenstein 

Brighton

Thursday, 28 February 2019

Letters Editor,

The ‘I’

i@inews.co.uk

Dear Sir or Madam,

I know that Simon Kelner was the Editor of the Independent and is now a columnist on the ‘i’ but either he is a knave or a fool or possibly both.

In yet another column on the fake anti-Semitism campaign in the Labour Party ‘How has Corbyn survived the anti-Semitic storm?’ Kelner manages to take up a whole column saying nothing.

However even I was taken aback by Kelner’s dissimulation.  Kelner quotes Derek Hatton as saying:

Jewish people with any sense of humanity need to start speaking out publicly against the ruthless murdering being carried out in Israel.’

This seems to me to be a very reasonable comment given that Israel calls itself a Jewish state. The Jewish Nation State Law passed last summer makes it explicit that Israel is a State of the Jewish People, all the Jewish people, wherever they may reside.

That is why when Netanyahu went to France in 2015 in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo murders and those of 4 Jews in the Hypercacher Supermarket he was quoted as saying that ‘"I went to Paris not just as the prime minister of Israel but as a representative of the entire Jewish people.’

Was Netanyahu being anti-Semitic? Did Kelner accuse him of this?

Quite amazingly Kelner says of Hatton’s statement that: ‘The connection between all Jewish people and the actions of the State of Israel is clearly anti-Semitic’.  But the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of anti-Semitism, which Kelner has also previously supported, states that an example of anti-Semitism is:

‘Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor.’
  If Israel is the outcome of Jewish self-determination then clearly Jewish people, all Jewish people, are responsible for the actions of the Israeli state.

Kelner knows full well that the Board of Deputies of British Jews, which styles itself the representative organisation of British Jewry, regularly speaks on behalf of British Jewry. When the BOD supports Israeli actions it speaks or claims to speak on behalf of all British Jews.  Has Kelner accused them of anti-Semitism, if not why not?

Only last May the Board of Deputies issued a statement supporting Israel’s use of snipers to murder unarmed demonstrators in Gaza. The statement read: ‘“The responsibility for the violence lies with Hamas’ .  According to Kelner, anyone believing what the Board said was anti-Semitic.

Did Kelner attack the Board as anti-Semitic? I doubt it because Kelner is just one more media muppet willing to say whatever pleases the powers that be.

Yours faithfully,

Tony Greenstein

The Guardian’s Pathetic Editor @kathviner censors Steve Bell Cartoon on the murder of Razan al-Najjar

In the eyes of the Guardian’s racist editor Katherine Viner, a fireplace becomes an oven becomes the Holocaust 

It’s not often that words fail me, but the decision of the Guardian’s  editor, @kathviner literally leaves me speechless.

A 21 year old girl, Razan al-Najjar, was murdered in cold blood by an Israeli sniper in Gaza.  She had her hands up whilst running to help the wounded.  What is the reaction of the Guardian’s gutless corporate editor, Kath Viner?  To censor the cartoon of the Guardian’s brilliant socialist cartoonist, Steve Bell, which features Netanyahu and Theresa May at Downing Street with Razan in the fireplace.

In the twisted, racist mind of @KathViner, the fireplace has become an oven.  And as we all know ovens are only used for burning Jews.  No one in Britain has an oven unless it is for cremating dead Jews who have been gassed.  

Such is the absurdity of the fake and false anti-semitism campaign that has hit the Labour Party.  And in what passes for Viner's malevolent mind a fireplace = Holocaust.  Steve Bell’s cartoon becomes an anti-Semitic trope.

Viner once helped produce a play on the murdered International Solidarity Movement activist Rachel Corrie, bulldozed to death by the Israeli military.  Viner has since become the Guardian’s editor and whatever principles this apology for a human being had have long been discarded.

Yet another reason why any socialist or supporter of human rights should boycott the alt-Right Guardian, whose ‘anti-Semitism’ campaign against Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour Party has shown it up in its true colours.

BOYCOTT THE RACIST GUARDIAN

As I never tire of saying, I was brought upon a Guardian which had fearless Middle East correspondents like Michael Adams and David Hirst.  Now it has as its chief censor Jonathan Freedland and the paper is simply another part of the corporate media, using ‘anti-Semitism’ to counteract any criticism of Zionism and Israel.

Meanwhile the Israeli army ‘investigation’ into the murder of Razan has taken its normal course.  It is an attempt to justify their cold blooded murder of Razan.  Its agenda from the start has been to blacken the name of Razan and justify what happened.  After all, given that the army employed 100 snipers to mow down unarmed protestors what else can we expect?

I know the Zionists won't like it but asking the Israeli army to investigate itself is like asking the Nazis to conduct an investigation into the murder of Jews.  It didn't happen and it ain't gonna happen.

That is why Netanyahu has opposed any idea of an independent inquiry.  The last time the UN held an independent inquiry under Judge Goldstone it found Israel had committed human rights crimes and Goldstein, despite being Jewish was accused of, well you know, ‘anti-Semitism’.

Apparently Razan wanted to shield the wounded and, horror of horror, she apparently threw a smoke bomb.  Well that justifies her murder if anything does.  Of course she was murdered with her hands held up but who cares, Hamas put her up to it and they bear the responsibility. The poor innocent sniper couldn’t possibly have murdered her.  It must have been a ricochet or possibly he or she missed and killed her instead of someone else.

Israeli ‘investigations’ start from the premise that Israel is innocent. They are an exercise in allocating guilt to the Palestinians. And if they can’t find an excuse, as they couldn’t during Operation Protective Edge when 4 Palestinian children were murdered by an Israeli plane machine gunning them, then it is all a ‘tragic accident’.  Of course when Palestinians kill Israelis, then it is never an accident although it is always tragic.

Such is the narrative of the racist and colonist.  But what is worse is when racist journalists like the Guardian’s @kathviner act to protect Israel’s murderers with the bogus excuse of ‘anti-Semitism’.

Please tweet  @kathviner to let her know what you feel about the Guardian’s racism and email the Guardian letters page 

guardian.letters@theguardian.com to let these racists know what you feel.  Because western papers covering for Israel’s foul murder of innocent civilians and even medics with the bogus ‘anti-Semitism’ smokescreen are every bit as despicable as those who commit these foul murders.

Israeli murderers couldn’t get away with their foul deeds unless journalists in this country covered for them.  In many ways it is the Kath Viners of the British press who bear as much culpability as the person who pulled the trigger on Razan.

Tony Greenstein

A top IDF general and spokesperson on Thursday said the Palestinian medic shot dead during clashes along the Gaza border last week was “no angel of mercy,” as the army released a video purportedly showing the woman lobbing a smoke grenade toward Israeli forces.

“Razan al-Najjar is not the angel of mercy Hamas propaganda is making her out to be,” IDF Arabic spokesman Avichay Adraee tweeted.

The video was released two days after the army said an internal review had determined Najjar was not intentionally targeted by snipers, following international outcry over her death.

Adraee accompanied his tweet with a short video compilation allegedly showing Najjar on several occasions during the recent Gaza border clashes.

The video, and Adraee’s comment that she was “no angel of mercy,” seemed designed to raise doubts about the volunteer medic’s innocence during the clashes, though the army did not indicate that it considered Najjar to be a legitimate target, raising questions among some commentators about its overall intentions with the campaign.

In one part of the clip, Najjar is seen giving an interview to an Arabic news outlet, saying that she wanted to serve as “a human shield” for protesters.

“I’m here on the line being a protective human shield saving the injured,” Najjar, 21, said in the interview.

The IDF clip cut her statement after “human shield.”

Another part of the clip shows a Palestinian woman, whom the military claimed was Najjar, hurling a smoking canister. The army said the smoke grenade was thrown toward Israeli forces.

“By her own admission, she was a human shield for the rioters and saboteurs, demonstrating how Hamas exploits all of Gazan society for its own purposes as well as Iran’s,” said the IDF general.

“Do medics in other countries throw bombs and participate in riots and refer to themselves as human shields?”

Palestinians and human rights groups have accused the Israeli military of using excessive force against protesters during the weeks of Hamas-led protests along the Israeli border. Najjar’s death sharpened the criticism, with UN officials saying that witness reports indicated she wore clothing that clearly identified her as a health worker.

In two months of mass protests at the Gaza border, some 110 Palestinians were killed and thousands wounded by Israeli military fire. Dozens of the fatalities were members of terror groups, Hamas and Islamic Jihad acknowledged.

Earlier this week, the IDF said an initial investigation into Najjar’s death revealed that while troops did fire at protesters near the fence east of Khan Younis where she was working, the volunteer medic was not intentionally targeted.

This appeared to indicate that Najjar was hit either by a mis-aimed shot or a ricochet as she tended to an injured man, while wearing a white coat clearly marking her as a medical professional.

The Palestinian Medical Relief Society and eyewitnesses at the scene said Najjar was less than 100 meters from the border fence, treating a man who been struck by a tear gas canister, when she was shot.

IDF Spokesman in Arabic, Avichay Adraee at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Jerusalem on September 6, 2017. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

After the incident, the UN’s envoy for the Middle East, Nickolay Mladenov, said in a tweet that “Medical workers are #NotATarget!” and that “Israel needs to calibrate its use of force and Hamas need to prevent incidents at the fence.”

On Tuesday, the army said the official investigation into Najjar’s death, which is led by the Southern Command, was ongoing. The IDF said that the General Staff also launched its own probe into the incident, the findings of which will be presented to the Military Advocate General to determine if criminal proceedings are necessary.

Israel faces weekly attacks by violent protesters at the border. Israel says its forces have opened fire to stop attempts to harm soldiers, damage the fence, infiltrate Israel, and attempt to carry out attacks. Israel accuses the Hamas terrorist group, with which it has fought three wars since 2008, of seeking to use the protests as cover to carry out violence.

Guardian refuses to print letter from 650+ members challenging the lie that the Labour Party is anti-Semitic

Why no self-respecting socialist or Labour supporter should buy the Guardian

I have long campaigned for people to shed their illusions in the Guardian and not buy it.  The Guardian for a long time was something like Israel’s Ha’aretz.  It contained a variety of different views and the only coverage of Israel/Palestine that differed in any way from the mainstream press.  It boasted correspondents like Michael Adams and David Hirst, both knowledgeable about the Palestinians and Zionism.

Today it’s Middle East coverage is pitiful.  It’s Comment is Free blog, which was supposed to be a space for free speech on issues, including Israel, has felt the heavy hand of Guardian censorship as its moderators take the scissors to any anti-Zionist critiques.  Comparison of Israel with Nazi Germany is a particular no go area, even though Israelis make the comparison every day.

The following story from Jewish Voice for Labour site is about how the Guardian has refused to print a letter from over 650 members of the Labour Party counteracting it constant barrage of lies that the Labour Party is overrun by anti-Semitism.

Jonathan Freedland - a member of the foreign policy elite and an ardent Zionist and columnist for the right-wing Jewish Chronicle has pioneered the censorship of anti-Zionist voices at The Guardian

Unfortunately the Guardian has been getting worse for some time ago. I have published a series of articles over the years detailing how the Guardian has moved further to the Right and how it has become more friendly to Israel and Zionism under its senior editor Jonathan Freedland

How The Guardian has sold its Soul

Guardian Cowardice as it abandons Antony Loewenstein to Israel’s Ministry of Information

Palestine Is Not an Environment Story - How Nafeez Ahmed's Article on Gaza's Gas was Censored

The Guardian and Jonathan Freedland's tedious Campaign against Corbyn

The disgusting ad that the Guardian carried in 2014 as the Israelis were committing massacres in Gaza

People may recall that in 2014 the Guardian printed an advert from Elie Wiesel during Operation Protective Edge, which killed 2,200 Palestinians in Gaza, including 551 children.  It's title was  'Jews rejected child sacrifice 3,500 years ago now it's Hamas' turn.' Electronic Intifada's Asa Winstanley best summed up this decision: “Liberal” Guardian to print pro-genocide ad

The Guardian's disingenuous attempt to defend its appalling decision

Even Rupert Murdoch's Times rejected the advert, but not the Guardian.  At a time when Palestinian children were being slaughtered by Israeli armaments, the Guardian printed this vicious racist propaganda.  All the letters it printed were hostile.  Today it would seem such letters would not even be printed.

Tony Greenstein

Guardian denies space to 650+ Labour Party members challenging hostile media coverage

The Guardian has refused to publish a letter submitted over a week ago challenging hostile media coverage of the Labour Party, even though it attracted more than 650 signatures from party members in barely 24 hours.

Those who signed, and hundreds more who sent in their names after the noon deadline on Friday April 6, are entitled to ask why the Guardian cannot feature the views of huge numbers of ordinary Party members while devoting so much space to attacking Jeremy Corbyn.

This is especially pertinent today, Monday April 16, as the Parliamentary Labour Party is due to meet this evening for the first time since March 26 and a parliamentary debate about antisemitism is scheduled to take place tomorrow, Tuesday April 17.

We hope that the latter debate will pay ample attention to the virulent antisemitism expressed by friends of the Tory party in this country and across Europe.

To give voice to the silenced Corbyn-supporting members of the Labour Party, we publish below the original letter as submitted to the Guardian.

For clarification, JVL recognises that there is evidence of racist attitudes, including antisemitism, among some party members. This is why we propose, in line with recommendations in the Chakrabarti Report, open debate and discussion combined with non-factional training to help members recognise and deal with prejudices which have no place in an anti-racist party.

We also recognise that we live in a racist society in which many prejudices persist, including towards Jews. This is true within the Labour Party as elsewhere, but we do NOT accept, as widely alleged, that party members are especially susceptible to holding antisemitic views, unconscious or otherwise.

Please share this post widely on social media and invite more Labour Party members to join in demonstrating support for Corbyn’s leadership.

ORIGINAL TEXT OF SOLIDARITY LETTER

We are Labour Party members who have watched with growing astonishment and anger as our Party has been traduced with claims of widespread antisemitism. We stand absolutely against any form of discrimination and if there are any in our Party who are guilty of racist attitudes or behaviour then they should be expelled. But such action should only be after due process including evidence and the right to appeal and not through the trial by media which we are currently seeing.

Most importantly we do not accept that the disputed actions of a tiny minority of people in any way represent our Party as a whole and its 570,000 members. Neither do we accept the absurd claim that racist attitudes are widespread but we are somehow unable to recognise them because they are unconscious.  We recognise racism because we have been fighting it for much of our lives and that fight was a key reason for joining our Party in the first place.

The current febrile atmosphere has been encouraged by a hostile right-wing media and by those who seek to damage the Party or its leadership for their own ends. We absolutely reject the gross calumny which is thus being perpetrated against the Party as a whole and the integrity of its members.

There is a great task ahead of us, to re-build and regenerate our society so that all may live with security and dignity.  The cruel legacy of successive governments has left people desperate for change. The Labour Party led by Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell can achieve that transformation. Let us make certain that nothing can distract us from this historic opportunity.

Signed by 650+ Labour party members

A few of the monotonous Guardian articles on the fake antisemitism campaign against the Labour Party

The right-wing and anti-migrant Daily Express sings from the same song sheet as the Guardian