Nonsense as fact

Tom Gross also flags up a perfect example of the Mark Twain quote that a lie can travel half way round the world before the truth has got its boots on. And it concerns - surprise, surprise - Seymour Hersh and Robert Fisk.

Emmanuel Sivan (professor of Islamic History at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem) has an analysis in Haaretz of the origins of Hersh's ludicrous allegation that the Bush administration, "embracing realpolitik, was siding with the Sunnis in their conflict with the Shi'ites". This led the administration to cooperate even with those who are hostile toward the United States, including groups linked to Al-Qaida. To back up his claim, Hersh wrote that the United States was transferring funds to the government of Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora, even though it knew some of the money was going to the Palestinian group Fatah al-Islam in the Nahr el-Bared refugee camp in northern Lebanon."

As Sivan continues: 

Sharp-eyed reporters in Beirut read the article in astonishment. Siniora, of the Lebanese Sunni establishment, was assisting allies of Al-Qaida who had split off from a pro-Syrian organization? And the United States was aware of this and might even be planning it, in order to strike at Hezbollah? And all this was in the context of aid to the Sunni forces in the Middle East in their conflict with Shi'ites backed, according to Hersh, by Iran? A world turned on its head. How could it be?

But it was published in The New Yorker, a magazine known for its meticulous fact-checking. The Lebanese reporters began investigating the story on their own.

And guess what they came up with:

Hersh said he heard the story from Robert Fisk, the bureau chief of The Independent's Beirut office. But Hersh did not check out the story himself. For his part, Fisk said he heard the unconfirmed report from Alastair Crooke, a former British intelligence agent and the founding director and Middle East representative of the Conflicts Forum, a non-profit organization that aims to build a new relationship between the West and the Muslim world. Crooke, who gained his reputation through his involvement in the conflict in northern Ireland, does not know Arabic. When Lebanese journalists spoke to Crooke about the report, they said he told them only that he had heard it "from all kinds of people."

 I think the trio of Hersh, Fisk and Crooke might best be termed an axis of bias.

I've just noticed the Melanie Phillips also recounts this story. So it's even more appropriate that i point you to her recent post about Crooke, and the BBC's use of him and others of his view. Taking the Hersh story and the BBC's recent coverage together, they're object lessons in how Twain's phrase is even more true today than it was in his own time.

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Warped boycott

Here's an example of Israel's 'apartheid' universities:

Just by attending a university, Abokaf is part of a revolution of sorts in her deeply conservative Bedouin community: She is among some 250 Bedouin female students now enrolled at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev.

In recent years the school has made attracting and retaining Bedouin students, many of them female, a top priority.

Clearly, such an institution should be boycotted.

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Iran's plan

Tom Gross links to a good cartoon by Yaakov Kirschen ('Dry Bones') on what's been happening in Gaza.

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Can anyone in this world tell me why...

There's a good article here on the responsibility for the state of the Middle East today borne by the worst US President in history, Jimmy Carter:

The truth is the entire nightmare can be traced back to the liberal democratic policies of the leftist Jimmy Carter, who created a firestorm that destabilized our greatest ally in the Muslim world, the shah of Iran, in favor of a religious fanatic, the ayatollah Khomeini.

Carter viewed Khomeini as more of a religious holy man in a grassroots revolution than a founding father of modern terrorism. Carter's ambassador to the UN, Andrew Young, said "Khomeini will eventually be hailed as a saint." Carter's Iranian ambassador, William Sullivan, said, "Khomeini is a Gandhi-like figure." Carter adviser James Bill proclaimed in a Newsweek interview on February 12, 1979 that Khomeini was not a mad mujahid, but a man of "impeccable integrity and honesty."

The shah was terrified of Carter. He told his personal confidant, "Who knows what sort of calamity he [Carter] may unleash on the world?"

Let's look at the results of Carter's misguided liberal policies: the Islamic Revolution in Iran; the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan (Carter's response was to boycott the 1980 Moscow Olympics); the birth of Osama bin Laden's terrorist organization; the Iran-Iraq War, which cost the lives of millions dead and wounded; and yes, the present war on terrorism and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

But equally noteworthy is this post in the comments after the piece, a real cri de coeur:

36. can anyone in this world tell me why..
23-year old Persian - IRAN_Khuzestan
06/20/2007 04:59

me a young Iranian speaking 4 languages, seeking for knowledge, born after the revolution just as the war with Saddam was going on,1. has to use internet cracks to reach this site. 2. not being appreciated by this regime, 3. every time I speak of freedom and human rights they hit me in the head! God why am I suffering for games others played with my country? am I a terrorist? do I want to destroy Israel? to I want war? no, no and no to all of these queations! I have respect for all human beings!

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Royal Ascot

After my post on Royal Ascot, one of the commenters asks if I've got any tips. Just one: ignore any tips I might give on this site.

(I did back Miss Andretti yesterday, though, so it wasn't too bad, even if I thought Cockney rebel was a certainty.)

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enoughsenough - intellectually dishonest

There's an ad in the papers today - full page, indeed - by an organisation called enoughsenough.

It's a campaigning group with the slogan, 'Cut the cr£p out of politics - cap all donations to political parties'.

Now a full page ad in the national press doesn't come cheap. So one might reasonably ask from where - from whom, in fact - enoughsenough gets the money to pay for them. Who set the organisation up? Who runs it?

You might ask that, but you'll not get an answer. Have a look at their website. There's no hint of an answer to any of these questions. All it says is that the organisation is "funded through voluntary donations by its members". Well, that's no use. There is no party in the country which couldn't say that. No one is compelled to give money to parties - yet (although I'd be amazed if enoughsenough doesnt want to have tax funding of parties). And until the word 'exclusively' is added to the words "funded through voluntary donations by its members", they are meaningless. Labour could say the same thing and be wholly honest. The fact that it also gets corporate donations is not in conflict with that statement, without the addition of the word 'exclusively'.  So it's perfectly possible that enoughsenough, too, is also getting large institutional donations. 

We know who funds the parties. enoughsenough might not like the amounts they give, but above a certain level their identity must be revealed. We have absolutely no idea who funds or is behind enoughsenough. And that, on its own, renders anything it says not merely suspicious but, I would argue, intellectually dishonest.

It may be that their arguments are spot on, or that they are indeed worthy of consideration. But they should tell us who they are before they start lecturing the rest of us about how politics should be run.

(BTW, one of my first decisions when I took over a few months ago as President of the Brussels think tank, Centre for the New Europe, was to make total transparency of funding a core part of our modus operandi. I think if you've got nothing to hide, you shouldn't hide it. We're relaunching our websites in a few weeks and all that information will be up there.)  

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Royal Ascot - ugh

Words cannot describe how much I loathe Royal Ascot. Five of the best days racing of the year, utterly ruined by the people who are actually at Ascot to...I was going to write 'to watch' but that's the point. They're not there to watch but just to be there. Most of them couldn't tell the front end of a horse from a handbag.

I can't tell you how much more I started to get out of Ascot once I stopped going. There was nothing more frustrating than being stuck in a crowd of airhead fashion girlies, up-themselves party types and city boys, louts in morning suits and general wannabe aristo know nothings, when some of the finest racehorses on the planet were a matter of yards away.

Instead, I stayed at home and watched on the BBC. Now, it's perfect - I don't even have to watch the inane, fashioned obsessed BBC lowest common denominator coverage, and can watch instead on At The Races (channel 415) coverage which focuses on the racing and not some idiot fashion drivel. (I just flicked over to BBC1 to be told by the fashion chap that 'black and white is crucial this year'. Purlease.)

Still, it's only nine months to Cheltenham!

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Brown's dilemma

I have a piece in today's Wall Street Journal Europe about Gordon Brown's dilemma over the outcome of this week's EU Summit:

Politics, a long-deceased British statesman once said, is the art of the possible. For Gordon Brown, who takes over as the U.K.'s prime minister on June 27, politics is going to be the art of the impossible.

Imminently, Mr. Brown will be faced with an intractable dilemma. Call it a treaty, call it a constitution, call it a series of amendments to existing treaties, but something is going to emerge from this week's European Union summit. And how Mr. Brown reacts to that document will decide his political future. But whatever he does will be the wrong decision.

...There are only two choices open to him. Either will be disastrous.

I think the link is subscription only, but this it it. 

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Lord Ahmed: at it again

Lord Ahmed is at it again. The man who is happy to cavort with a virulent antisemite, giving Israel Shamir a platform in the House of Lords, has now waded in to the Sir Salman Rushdie controversy:

Labour Lord Ahmed, 48, said Verses triggered “violence around the world”.

...Lord Ahmed added: “Honouring a man who has blood on his hands goes too far.”

He told BBC Radio 4: “Two weeks ago the Prime Minister was calling for building relations between the Muslim world and Britain, then suddenly this knighthood is given to a man who has not only been abusive to Muslims but also to Christians — because he used abusive language towards Jesus Christ.”

He went on: “This man not only provoked violence around the world because of his writings, but there were many people who were killed around the world.”

What a revealing piece of logic. Sair Salman wrote a book. That's all. It didn't instruct anyone to do anything. It didn't recommend anyone do anything.

The inspiration for violence - no, not the inspiration, but the command - came from Ayatollah Khomeini's fatwah. Not one jot of responsibility for any violence with Sir Salman.

BTW, this is no laughing matter but the Sun's headline is inspired:

Pakistan orders smoked Salman

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The price of freedom

As Daniel Finkelstein writes:

The decision to recommend that Salman Rushdie receive a knighthood was a bold and correct one. In addition to the merit of his literary work, the author is a symbol of free speech.

The counter-attack was bound to come, and it has.

I think it is important that we show that we are not prepared to be cowed by this sort of threat.

Daniel has submitted a petition to 10 Downing Street to that effect, and it should be signed when it appears there. Waste of time as most such petitions are, the very fact it is a Downing Street petition is why it is valuable in showing to the enemies of freedom that we will not be cowed by their threats.

It's all the more important given the grotesque words of the Pakistani religious affairs minister:

If somebody has to attack by strapping bombs to his body to protect the honour of the Prophet then it is justified.

The price of freedom is indeed eternal vigilance - against the Islamists and other extremists who threaten our civilisation.

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