MELANIE PHILLIPS ON SHIMON PERES AND “NO WIN JOURNALISM”
No-win journalism
http://www.spectator.co.uk/melaniephillips/6180804/nowin-journalism.thtml
Sunday, 1st August 2010
When I saw today’s story about Shimon Peres in the Sunday Telegraph, I blanched. Under the headline
Fury as Israel president claims English are ‘anti-semitic’
the story states:
Israel’s president has accused the English of being anti-semitic and claimed that MPs pander to Muslim voters. Shimon Peres said England was ‘deeply pro-Arab … and anti-Israeli’, adding: ‘They always worked against us.’
He added: ‘There is in England a saying that an anti-Semite is someone who hates the Jews more than is necessary.’ His remarks, made in an interview on a Jewish website, provoked anger from senior MPs and Jewish leaders who said the 87-year-old president had ‘got it wrong’.
I blanched for two reasons. First, although Jew-hatred is certainly part of the English historical story, so too is philosemitism, as well as just plain indifference towards Jews; and although Jew-hatred is undoubtedly a crucial, if itself complex, part of the mix, the anti-Israel bigotry currently consuming Britain is the product of a confluence of a number of factors. So such a blanket denunciation of the English themselves — as opposed to the discourse, which is a different matter — would be quite wrong. And second, it is a favourite device of the Israel-bashers to fend off criticism by falsely accusing all those who defend Israel of claiming in turn that its accusers are all ‘antisemites’. So to find Israel’s President saying something quite so false and damaging was dismaying.
But Peres did not say this in these bald terms at all. The Sunday Telegraph had picked up on an interview he had given on the on-line Jewish magazine Tablet with Israeli historian Benny Morris. This is the salient part of the interview in full (Morris’s questions are in bold type):
Our next big problem is England. There are several million Muslim voters. And for many members of parliament, that’s the difference between getting elected and not getting elected. And in England there has always been something deeply pro-Arab, of course, not among all Englishmen, and anti-Israeli, in the establishment. They abstained in the [pro-Zionist] 1947 U.N. Partition Resolution, despite [issuing the pro-Zionist] Balfour Declaration [in 1917]. They maintained an arms embargo against us [in the 1950s]; they had a defense treaty with Jordan; they always worked against us.
But England changed after the 1940s and 1950s. They supported us in 1967, there was Harold Brown and Mrs. Thatcher [who were pro-Israeli].
There is also support for Israel today [on the British right].
But in Labor there was always a deep pro-Israeli current.
But [the late 1940s prime minister and Labor leader Clement] Attlee was [anti-Israel].
Anyway, this [pro-Israeli current] vanished because they think the Palestinians are the underdog. In their eyes the Arabs are the underdog. Even though this is irrational. Take the Gaza Strip. We unilaterally evacuated the Gaza Strip [in 2005]. We evacuated 8,000 settlers and it was very difficult, after mobilizing 47,000 policemen [and soldiers]. It cost us $2.5 billion in compensation. We left the Gaza Strip completely. Why did they fire rockets at us, for years they fired rockets at us. Why?
Maybe because they don’t like us?
Peres: You fire rockets at everyone you don’t like? For eight years they fired and we refrained from retaliating. When they fired at us, the British didn’t say a word.
Maybe it is anti-Semitism?
Yes, there is also anti-Semitism. There is in England a saying that an anti-Semite is someone who hates the Jews more than is necessary. But with Germany relations are pretty good, as with Italy and France.
But there is erosion of public pro-Israel sentiment—at the universities, in the press. I’m not talking about the governments.
I’ll tell you why. On television there is an asymmetry that can’t be corrected. What the terrorists do is never broadcast. Only the response is broadcast. And then critics charge: “This is disproportionate.†You don’t see the terrorist act. When a lawful nation fights a lawless nation there is a problem in the media. When an open regime fights a secret regime there is a problem.
As can be seen from this, Peres first talked about the problem Israel has with England without referring to ‘antisemitism’ at all. When the question was raised, he agreed it played a part. But it is quite clear from his remarks that he ascribes anti-Israelism in England, which he says is not shared by all, to a range of factors – large numbers of Muslim voters, historic pro-Arab feeling, support for the underdog, distorted media coverage – with Jew-hatred included as an afterthought. So for the Sunday Telegraph to say
Israel president claims English are ‘anti-semitic’
and then further to whip up some
fury
over a distorted version of his remarks, and to put this whole inflammatory hype on the front page, no less, is pretty shoddy journalism.
For which there are two possible explanations: malice or sloppiness. It’s possible that this was a malicious attempt to whip up more anti-Israel feeling. But it’s surely more likely that the Daily Telegraph writers elided anti-Israel feeling with Jew-hatred because they themselves think that each flows into the other.
If so, it is really very telling. For the Israel-bashers tell us ad nauseam that to be anti-Israel is not the same as being anti-Jew. Yet when the Israeli President talks about anti-Israel hatred, he is said to be talking about anti-Jewish hatred pure and simple, with no other factors acknowledged.
Thus Israel’s defenders get it in the neck either way. It’s what might be called ‘no-win’ journalism. And only one country is treated to it.
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