Robin Shepherd’s op-ed

Given the paucity of the arguments, it would be tempting to dismiss the whole thing as unimportant. Would that we could. The documentary has already provoked a torrent of abuse against British Jews... If this sort of language takes hold, a bad situation in Britain may be about to get a whole lot worse.

Jewish leadership organizations have long feared accusations of divided loyalty between Britain and Israel and, ironically given the charges now being made against them, are frequently criticized in their own communities for failing to be sufficiently robust in Israel's defense. The risk is that some may now be panicked into silence.

Non-Jews who call for a more reasoned discussion of Israel—already a small and diminishing group in Britain—will likely face additional slanders against their integrity: Since there is supposedly no reasonable case to be made in favor of the Jewish state, we must have sold out to the ‘Lobby.’

Such calumnies cannot be allowed to stand.

It is very unfortunate that Sheikh Yusuf Al-Qaradawi has been barred from visiting the UK since early 2007 by the British government, following pressure from pro-Israeli lobbies. Sheikh Al-Qaradawi is an Islamic scholar who commands huge respect among millions of Muslims worldwide. As a regular past visitor to the UK, he would consistently urge British Muslims to shun all forms of extremism and to focus their energies on ensuring that their children excelled in education. His long experience of dealing with youths influenced by extremist and takfiri ideas (ideas involving accusations of backsliding from Islam) would

Until a short while ago Shepherd, now Director of International Affairs at the Henry Jackson Society, was a senior fellow at The Royal Institute of International Affairs -- commonly known as Chatham House -- in charge of its European programme. After two years he left in bitter circumstances, claiming he had been forced out principally because of his publicly expressed support for Israel – a version of events that Chatham House contests.

The fact remains, however, that his attitude towards Israel is one that is indeed unsayable within Britain’s foreign policy establishment, because it does not take an Arabist position but starts from the premise that Israel was not born in sin but is a legitimately constituted country legitimately entitled to defend itself against attack – and that the entirely illegitimate and unwarranted attacks upon it emanate not merely from the]]> 2009-11-17T23:48:34+00:00 http://www.spectator.co.uk/melaniephillips/5548126/this-sceptred-isle.thtml
Reflecting on that Dispatches programme, Tom Gross writes:

I wonder whether the directors of Britain’s well-regarded Channel 4 television, or the program-makers, have read — or even care about — the European Union’s working definition of antisemitism, part of which reads:

'Making mendacious, dehumanizing, demonizing, or stereotypical allegations about Jews as such or the power of Jews as collective – such as, especially but not exclusively, the myth about a world Jewish conspiracy or of Jews controlling the media, economy, government or other societal institutions.'

The program — which may leave many viewers with the impression that Britain’s 290,000 Jews somehow control the rest of the British population of 62,000,000 — has been widely plugged by neo-Nazi and left-wing antisemitic groups.

Do the program-makers care? Apparently not.

Presumably they won’t care either about the hatred they have already stirred up, as exemplified by this letter to Theresa Villiers MP:

Dear Theresa

I received, this morning, an email from a former friend. The email was an unsolicited comment as a result of the C4 Dispatches last night.   To be honest, I have not yet seen

I now see things in an entirely different light. I now realise that the power of this unique cabal is so vast and unprecedented in its truly demonic power – a power given to no other lobby – that both the Labour government and Tory opposition slavishly and unquestioningly support Israel’s military actions and that the Guardian and the BBC have found themselves totally unable to publish or transmit anything other than wholehearted support for Israel.

I now realise that, every day, a cowed and intimidated Guardian publishes story after story in support of Israel, focusing relentlessly upon the beleaguerment of its citizens under the onslaught from Hamas while never carrying anything in favour of the Palestinians, presenting the Middle East entirely through a pro-Israel prism and never even reporting the Palestinian point of view except for a few contemptuous references suggesting that they are always lying.

I now realise that every day a cowed and intimidated BBC transmits only the most admiring reports of Israeli soldiers being]]> 2009-11-16T23:14:55+00:00 http://www.spectator.co.uk/melaniephillips/5543376/britains-least-effective-lobby.thtml
In respect of tonight’s TV programme on the allegedly malign influence of the Israel lobby in Britain -- previewed here in today’s Guardian by presenter Peter Oborne -- readers may find enlightening these comments by Robin Shepherd, who takes issue with Oborne’s claim that he is not peddling ‘Jewish conspiracy theory’, and Tom Gross, who observes that there is no effective British pro-Israel lobby.

A propos, in view of Oborne’s suggestion that pressure from pro-Israel donors upon the Tory party silenced criticism of Israel’s Operation Cast Lead in Gaza by the Tories’ foreign affairs spokesman William Hague, it is instructive to see what Hague actually said about that operation.

He first called for restraint from Israel:

‘We deeply regret the loss of civilian life in Gaza today.  We call on the Israeli government to show restraint. At the same time we call on Hamas to stop the rocket attacks which are an unacceptable threat to Israel’s security, so that the ceasefire, which Hamas failed to renew, can be urgently restored’.

A few days later, he amplified this when he called upon Israel]]> 2009-11-16T14:24:11+00:00 http://www.spectator.co.uk/melaniephillips/5541731/the-flight-from-reason-in-jihad-denial-syndrome.thtml
Two essential pieces on the hallucinatory madness of the reaction to the Fort Hood jihadi attack: the first by Mark Steyn and the second by Barry Rubin. Read, and tremble.

Read the whole thing here.

A British white guy – well dressed, plummy accent – asked me if I was British. I said I was. ‘Well you can’t be, if you are Jewish’ he said – several times, before I told him he was a Nazi. That’s the kind of pondlife these events attract, like fleas to a dog.

Alas, such sentiments are not confined to inverterbrate life forms but are now routinely heard in the most refined dinner-party discourse of the British intelligentsia.