Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
How did you formulate this question and why do you believe it important, esp in the light you believe it worthy of but a one word answer?
Labour & Anti-Semitism.
- Thread starter cantsin
- Start date
Sirena
Don't monkey with the buzzsaw
I saw this on Facebook
Nobody bothered to check who created that “anti-Semitic” image Naz Shah retweeted, did they?
Nobody bothered to check who created that “anti-Semitic” image Naz Shah retweeted, did they?
bimble
floofy
Don't be silly. He did not 'create' that. Finkelstein is a paraiah now, amongst the 'hard left', being an advocate of a 2 state solution and an opponent of BDS. His posting of it to his blog will have been not in earnest, ffs, even more 'tongue in cheek' than Shah's.
"“I loathe the disingenuousness—they don’t want Israel [to exist],” he said. “It’s a cult.” He had spent his time in a self-deceptive Maoist cult, he said; he wouldn’t do it again. “I’m not going to tolerate what I think is silliness, childishness, and a lot of left-wing posturing,” he said."
An Unpopular Man
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butchersapron
Bring back hanging
I see no definitive proof there that Finklestein created that image - it appears on all sorts of blogs and twitter feeds that same day, none of them attributing it to anyone but themselves. And in he hasn't mentioned it in any of his pronouncements since if he has - which you might expect him to do if he had. And he doesn't seem to run that site anyway - other people do, most entries seem to be from a 'jamie'. I think putting so confident a headline as 'Nobody bothered to check etc' then not doing proper checking yourself is well poor.
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
He's not a pariah on the hard left at all. He's a much quoted, much used and much respected as a serious historian and writer on the topics around these questions. And your equation of 'pro-palestinian' with hard left continues where your previous such ill-informed comments on 'the left' have left off.
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bimble
floofy
ok. It's wrong to equate hard left with pro palestinian.
I don't want to play here anymore, can't take it really. Just wanted to pipe up and say that it's absurd to suggest Finkelstein created that thing.
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
I think it's highly unlikely too.
goldenecitrone
post tenebras lux
Mark Regev just on Andrew Marr denouncing Livingstone as a perverter of history. Happy May Day, Ken.
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
This would be the same Norman finkelstein whose beyond chutzpah I mentioned above I suppose. Aren't his books published by a left wing publishers? Perhaps they don't know he's a pariah.
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
I think you're right solely on the basis he'd not have used a daft font and would have used a better colour scheme. From whence do you believe it emanates?
Sirena
Don't monkey with the buzzsaw
Finkelstein posted it on 4th August 2014 and Naz Shah reposted on 5th August, so it is reasonable to suppose he might have been her source.
bimble
floofy
In 2012 he started calling the BDS a dishonest cult that wants to eliminate Israel, and which has no hope of success.
He's for a 2 state solution. He says Israel is a State.
That makes him ...a Zionist now, doesn't it?
He no longer gets invited to speak at Palestinian Solidarity events, that's for sure.
So, I don't know.
Also haven't a clue if Verso will be publishing his forthcoming book, 'How to Solve the Israeli/Palestinian conflict', just because years ago they printed 'the Holocaust Industry'.
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
I thought we'd agreed that. I just don't think he *created* the image
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
Lots of people posted it on the 4th - people less well known than finklestein. It's just as likely he saw it from them and then shah saw it on finklestein. Again, there is very little to suggest that someone like him would make such a crappy image, and nothing to say that post on a blog was by him - and why hasn't he said he created it in the days since? It looks like some crappy facebook job - and the language used is also equally crude and simplistic 'israelis are loved by most americans'. So there are a host of other reasonable things pointing away from him creating it.
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
Anything you want to say to me should begin with an apology.
DotCommunist
So many particulars. So many questions.
regev has been manning the pumps ably trying to get the anti-zionist=anti-semite line accepted. Beeb lapping up every minute of it.
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
...and more to the point, she didn't get it from Finklestein - she says in her retweet exactly who she go it from.
belboid
Exasperated, not angry.
You confuse a lot of things, don't you? I'm beginning to suspect that it's quite deliberate
co-op
But....but cLoWnFiSh....
All depends on how you define zionist. There used to be many people (including me) who would not use it to describe a proponent of Israel based on pre-1967 borders - but I am out of date on where the debate is now. Zionism was used in the 80s as an indication of support for a 'Greater Israel' that included the Sinai, the Golan Heights, the West Bank etc etc.
Personally I think that accepting Israel's right to exist is not an endorsement of "zionism" in a meaningful sense of that word. The two-state solution debate is harder to answer, it no longer looks credible to me, Israeli policy has been aimed at slowly throttling it and it's debatable to me whether that policy may now have got to the point where it's worked and made a viable independent Palestine impossible.
Brainaddict
slight system overdrive
Wow, people really tying themselves in knots over this, both here and on social media, many because they find it hard to hold two thoughts at once:
Livingstone's comments were well dodgy.
The right wing attack taking advantage of them is also well dodgy.
I know some people have posted articles that manage to make both these points at once, but for others it just seems too complicated. Anyway, here is something on left wing anti-semitism by someone who has thought more about it than you have (Jacob Bard-Rosenberg).
This includes the excellent comment
I realised that this is what made me uneasy about the comment on 'Zionist-led media' made by Malia Bouattia. It felt like a replacement that had been made without enough thought.
He also wrote a post for the more theoretically inclined.
Livingstone's comments were well dodgy.
The right wing attack taking advantage of them is also well dodgy.
I know some people have posted articles that manage to make both these points at once, but for others it just seems too complicated. Anyway, here is something on left wing anti-semitism by someone who has thought more about it than you have (Jacob Bard-Rosenberg).
This includes the excellent comment
I realised that this is what made me uneasy about the comment on 'Zionist-led media' made by Malia Bouattia. It felt like a replacement that had been made without enough thought.
He also wrote a post for the more theoretically inclined.
DrRingDing
'anti-human wanker'
"Destroy Zionism" last night in Tel Aviv
Dogsauce
I’ve got Skol but I’m not a Scholar
Strange that a couple of weeks ago the dominant media narrative was how the tories were a complete shambles over Europe, schools, cuts to disability benefits etc. Crosby has got serious mileage with this 'dead cat'. It's all they're talking about on the BBC.
DotCommunist
So many particulars. So many questions.
'this story that won't go away' as a beeb bod said with a straight face this morning. Rolling into the election of the back of the panama papers and the righteous hillsborough verdict, then ken opens gob and its going to be 'leftie antisemites' from now till the 5th. Rolling.
I see Sadiq has had his say as well. Great stuff.
J Ed
Follow Back Pro Expropriation
I don't think that serious academics like Finkelstein spend their time making may-mays like that...
J Ed
Follow Back Pro Expropriation
The Naz Shah thing would only have lasted a couple of days, especially since her apology at least seemed genuinely contrite, and may well actually have been really apologetic. Then Livingstone fucked it.
DrRingDing
'anti-human wanker'
It would be reasonable to argue that the BBC is the most influential news source in the UK. It also has significant reach around the world.
What is broadcast on BBC News is broadcast is controlled by a zionist.
What Malia was saying was overly simplistic although correct in the above instance and many others. The Israeli propaganda machine is multifaceted and well resourced. This allows them to saturate news desks with their version of events. Whereas the Palestinians don't have a pot to piss in.
Doctor Carrot
Marxist Henchman
He hasn't said they want to eliminate Israel he's said that because they take no position on whether Israel should exist or not it renders them unable to be taken seriously. This is because they keep talking about international law but Israel is a recognised state under international law, his point is you can't pick and choose the law to suit you. He also advocates a two state solution because basically the entire world does also, advocating for something different, like BDS does, isn't going to end the conflict any quicker. Those are his points, some of it I agree with and some I don't but he's certainly no pariah and I've seen lectures by him at Palestinian justic groups recorded last year.
Brainaddict
slight system overdrive
Let's just stick with this and say it's not a good subject to be making overly-simplistic statements about. I doubt MB is in any deep way an anti-semite, but I think it's clear she's spent a lot of time around people who, while they will police certain language very carefully, are strangely lacking in care about how they talk about the Israel-Palestine issue. This itself should be worthy of some self-examination.
teqniq
DisMembered
Meanwhile the day to day reality for Palestinians doesn't make it to the pages of UK publications.
Witnesses: Palestinian siblings posed no threat when shot dead
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