"You don't like the message, so you try to attack the author and divert attention onto another country. You accuse others of hatred, and yet you yourselves display hysterical hatred."

Whaddya expect? They're loxists.

Ben White "“I do not consider myself an anti-Semite, yet I can also understand why some are.”

I don't consider Ben White a racist cunt, yet I can also understand why some might.

"Janet Green
06 February 2012 at 16:41

Steve Mann - I want Israel to recognise the right of Palestinians to live normal lives with equality in the area formerly known as Palestine."

The Palestinians have a home. It's called Jordan. Just one more mess left by the British for the world to clean up.

Hilarious. Israel IS a liberal country, David. It's a parliamentary democracy with universal suffrage where the elected executive cannot be overridden by unelected bodies. Name another country in the ME that can say the same. It guarantees equality before the law for both genders and for sexual minorities. Name another country in the ME that can say the same.

Gideon Polya cites his discredited methodologies to support his case. Tell me, Gideon: are you using assumptions as valid as the one where you assumed the same avoidable death rate in pre-British India as being equivalent to that in the early 20th century USA?

Ronny claims that poll cited by another writer is suspect because it was carried out by Israeli Jews. Well, we all know they're born liars, aren't they?

AJ accepts facts as incontrovertible because they correspond with his/her own personal beliefs. You and intelligent scepticism, AJ-you really ought to try to get together sometimes.

What a bunch of ethically selective people you are. Of course Israel has treated Palestinians like shit sometimes, and that's unacceptable. But useful idiots like the above don't really help, do they? All you do is to provide ruthless men like Netanyahu the evidence to reinforce a seige mentality, and to act as mouthpieces for a bunch of bigoted jihadis who despise you and the liberal values you calim to stand for. Let's face it-for anyone with any inclination to dissent in terms of their religious beliefs or ethnicity or sexuality, or for any woman, Israel is the safest place in the Middle East to be.

More utterly false, defamatory, ad hominem abuse from evidently pro-Zionist bloggers, made more obnoxious for being made with the courage of anonymity - all this the sine qua non of pro-Zionists trying to defend the indefensible e.g. 0.2 million post-invasion Occupied Palestinian under-5 infant deaths, 0.8 million Occupied Palestinian children highly abusively imprisoned in what the Catholic Church describes as the Gaza Concentration Camp for the asserted "crime" of being Indigenous Palestinians living in a tiny bit of the land inhabited continuously by their forebears for thousands of years to the dawn of history.

Those who ignore, deny, minimize, obfuscate, support, advocate or are otherwise complicit in horrendous, race-based crimes against children have crossed the line separating decent humanity from awfulness.

How appropriate that e-LIARS is an anagram for ISRAEL.

Decent, anti-racist, humanitarian Jews - and indeed all decent folk - condemn the genocidal crimes of racist Zionist-run Apartheid Israel. For an alphabetically-listed compendium of opinions of outstanding Jewish and non-Jewish scholars and writers exposing and condemning the ongoing Palestinian Genocide see "Palestinian Genocide": https://sites.google.com/site/palestiniangenocide/ .

Thus for example, 18 outstanding writers, including 3 Noble Prize winners, namely Jewish British playwright Harold Pinter, African -American Toni Morrison and Portuguese writer Jose Saramago, have condemned the ongoing Palestinian Genocide in an Open Letter that slams "[Israel's] long-term military, economic and geographic practice whose political aim is nothing less than the liquidation of the Palestinian nation" (see: https://sites.google.com/site/palestiniangenocide/18-famous-writers ).

Genocidal, race-based Apartheid Israel is no more a democracy than was US-, UK-, Apartheid Australia- and Apartheid Israel-backed Apartheid South Africa.

Thus South African Nobel Laureate and celebrated anti-Apartheid activist, Archbishop Desmond Tutu on Apartheid Israeli occupation and anti-Apartheid Israel divestment (2002): “The end of apartheid stands as one of the crowning accomplishments of the past century, but we would not have succeeded without the help of international pressure– in particular the divestment movement of the 1980s…a similar movement has taken shape, this time aiming at an end to the Israeli occupation... if apartheid ended, so can this [Apartheid Israeli] occupation, but the moral force and international pressure will have to be just as determined. The current divestment effort is the first, though certainly not the only, necessary move in that direction” (see: https://sites.google.com/site/nonjewsagainstracistzionism/tutu-desmond ).

Defamatory ad hominem abuse by anonymous pro-Zionists on this thread has now, again, extended to false, defamatory and criminal Identity Theft (05 February 2012 at 20:57) which is being reported to the New Statesman.

Maria,

Don't you think that the British intelligentsia discuss Israel too much?

After all there are only 8 million Israelis.

Some 300 million in the other countries, who rarely get discussed.

It is as if British intellectuals don't like discussing other parts of the Middle East?

Maybe a hangover from colonialism?

Don't the other 300 million deserve a look in?

What do you think?

White writes that he is not an anti-Semite but he can understand why some people are. With that gem as a background, it's not hard to understand why White has an obsession with Israel, much as does the Guardian.

For a start, it's good business. Look at the Guardian's CiF and you'll quickly see that the largest number of of replies to articles are about Israel and the Palestinians. Most of the people going there are pretty much disinterested in most other stuff, but give them a bone to chew over Israel, or even more so, religious Jews, and all the creatures come out of the wood work.

Now I'm not saying that Ben White is an anti-Semite - I don't have to. His obsession makes him stand out like a lighthouse in a storm. He did at one time - perhaps still does - live in Brazil. Has anyone read anything by him about life in Brazil? Anyone read anything of his about the police, who used to clear the roads of child beggars by apparently shooting them?

No, neither have I and you know why? Because Jews is news and this deeply unpleasant young man has decided that he can make a living out of the pockets of many who also love to read about Jews in a negative way - oh sorry, did I say Jews, I meant of course Zionists.

cityca - instead of making wild accusations against Ben White shouldn't you at least consider how Israel denies the Palestinian people their human rights and answer the question in the title.

Green - they're not wild accusations - look up White's history.

WRT the Palestinian Arabs, about whom you and White and so many others cry crocodile tears while putting the boot into Israel, I have the utmost sympathy for their situation.

Made refugees originally because the Arab states could not allow a Jewish state to exist in their midst, they have been kept living in refugee camps for 64 years.

Why? Because the Arab League policy of 1949 was to ensure Palestinian Arabs were not to have citizenship, passports or meaningful employment in any Arab state.

Led by homicidal kleptomaniacs, they have been taught to hate Jews and Israelis, to such an extent, that they willingly lend their children to be blown apart in suicide bombings.

They have been taught to think of themselves as victims, even though they receive more aid proportionally than any other people in the world.

So in a nutshell I am desperately sorry for the Palestinian Arabs, but not so sorry as to see Israelis blown apart or cut to shreds to satisfy the wishes of that most ruthless of their 'supporters', the Arab League, who cannot even sort out the carnage in Syria.

Finally, White doesn't pose a question, he's just taking another stab at delegitimising the only Jewish state, but then that's what an anti (Israel) obsessive does, isn't it?

Fuk Ben White, the Jew hating kunt, When is he going to write an article on the Genocidal threats from Iran to slaughter the 7.5 Million population of Israel?

AYATOLLAH: KILL ALL JEWS, ANNIHILATE ISRAEL

Iran lays out legal case for genocidal attack against 'cancerous tumor'

http://www.wnd.com/2012/02/ayatollah-kill-all-jews-annihilat...

see the Iranian masterplan, scroll down for english, nukes not factored in yet.

http://www.alef.ir/vdcepw8zwjh8ewi.b9bj.html?14226

@Imraky aren't you an example of what the article is talking about. Born in England, presumably having no contact with the middle east, but as a jew, able to emigrate to israel and strut about on and lord it over lands which are not yours; while the majority of autochthones get by on the rubble left by regular military incursions of the IDF, looking over the rubble, the corpses, through the barbed wire, towards the light emanating from the wonderful liberal democracy which is Israel. Except that they can't see it directly because of the wall. They can imagine it, and be grateful that Israel is in the hands of such wise men and balanced, as Netanyahu, as Avigdor Lieberman, and you.

Julia, you're wasting your time here. Once the left were all for humanity and decency but they've lost their way, lost their moral compass.

They've gotten into bed with haters and racists and fascists and call them friends. The red green alliance means that they are happy to talk and meet and support and take funding from some of the most horrendous tyrants and despots and defenders of inhumanity.

Hamas, Hezb'Allah, Ghadaffi, Sadam, Al Qaradawi, the left have befriended them all.

Nick Cohen got it right when he wrote What's Left.

@willoyen

Good point. Imraky actually helps prove the article's point. I guess he doesn't live anywhere near Lifta, the last remaining Palestinian village in Israel which was abandoned when the residents fled in 1948.

@Lox
When did I ever "claim" to despise anybody? Except you; for making me into a Welshman. Willy owen indeed!

That Israel is a racist state founded and maintained through ethnic cleansing is hardly news. The idea that a wider debate about it will be started is simply wishful thinking. Israel's management of the media paticularily it's ability to depict itself as the victim rather than the victimiser is total.

I predict a torrent of negative comments on this article which should be incontroversial as a simple statement of well estanlished facts.

Zionism needs to be dismantled for the sake of Israel and beyond.

What can be a greater insult to the memory of Holocaust and the Jewish humanistic tradition than the policies of the modern-day state of Israel? The facts on the ground testify for the creation of ethnocentric (that is racist) monstrosity.
“Israel the 'liberal democracy' was founded on the basis of ethnic cleansing and mass land expropriation; that the only reason there is a 'Jewish majority' at all, is because of the historic fact of the forced exclusion of Palestinians from their homes and lands.”

AJ is right. Just read Noam Chomsky on the subject. Zionists have a multiplicity of means of influencing opinion formers in the West. I heard today (R4) that in the job description for the new Chief Rabbi is the requirement that he/she (?) must promote the state of Israel.
Israel's biggest asset however is it's grip over US politicians; witness Gingrich's recent statements about the legitimacy of Israel and Obama's impotence in the face of the Israeli government's intransigence.

Well, who cares about all this noise ? Say whatever you may, we have our country and you are losing yours.

AndyPW
Sorry that you cannot see the facts in Shepherd's article - for me, the most relevant paras are as follows.
"But make no mistake about it. In an interconnected world, the validation of prejudice is no longer something with a purely local character. You do not need to be standing in front of a crowd with a megaphone to have an effect on people.

What White and the New Statesman are part of is a globalised agenda of hate. They won’t be the ones to pull the trigger. They’ll just help the person who does pull the trigger feel that his victim had it coming all along."

If that makes White a hatemonger, then I hope those following him wise up, and soon, because back in the '30s it was the Jews they came for first...

Exaggeration? Paranoia? Maybe, but only a fool with no memory ignores the lessons of recent history.

Frank Adam
Spot on. The only country in the world it seems which is denied, by some, it's ethnicity, is Israel, the sole, only and unique Jewish state.

Saudi Arabia refuses entry to Jews and has Muslim only roads clearly signposted. Abbas has recently stated that in an independent Palestine, Jews would not be permitted to live.

In virtually all the Arab states, there are barely a handful of Jews remaining if any. In newly freed Libya, a former Libyan Jew who returned to renovate his old synagogue has been threatened by the mob and told to leave the country.

In places like Egypt, the native Coptic Christians, who predate Muslims in that country, are under threat, but White and his ilk concern themselves obsessively with Israel.

He claims he is not an anti-Semite, although "he can understand people who are", but even if that were so and I have my doubts, is not his obsession with Israel enough to make one wonder about his motives?

It is depressing to see that a once radical publication, the New Statesman, provides an outlet for turgid and predictable anti-Israeli propaganda.

While thousands of people are being killed in Syria, there is little harsh analysis of Russia and China's role from Ben White.

Whilst the military in Egypt kill people, not much is said by Ben White.

Whilst 20+ countries in the Middle East are run by dictators, authoritarians and the military, the New Statesman and Ben White still bang on at Israelis.

How intellectually pathetic, how regressive.