This is along reply to Pilger’s hatefilled screed and will post it in a few parts.

“This was journalism as it had been before corporate journalism was invented, before the first schools of journalism were set up and a mythology of liberal neutrality was spun around those whose "professionalism" and "objectivity" carried an unspoken obligation to ensure that news and opinion were in tune with an establishment consensus, regardless of the truth.”

If Pilger’s journalism isn’t journalism it’s temper tantrums disguised as journalism.

Imagine a journalist raging against objectivity. It’s like a scientist attacking the scientific method.

“Read American Dreams: Lost and Found by the masterly Studs Terkel…”

Studs wasn’t a reporter or journalist he was a radio interviewer for most of his life.

“Two years ago, this anti-war vote installed a Democratic majority in Congress, only to watch the Democrats hand over more money to George W Bush to continue his blood-fest. For his part, the "anti-war" Obama voted to give Bush what he wanted.”

This is crap. Pilger is adept at taking complex issues and simplifying them to the point of inanity. The Democratic win in Congress was a matter of changing a few seats. People here voter for Congress for local reasons and not for national much less for such abstractions as “anti war” sentiments.

“Yes, Obama's election is historic, a symbol of great change to many. But it is equally true that the American elite has grown adept at using the black middle and management class.”

This is insulting to the Black middle class. Pilger makes it seems that Black people can decide for themselves what their interests are.

Interesting this kind of language used to thrown around by white supremacist organization like the KKK and the American Nazi party who used to say that Jews dominated the civil rights movement.

Pilger is coming close to articulating the same views.

"Short answer : because they weren't in the process of building a Jewish state, and there was no imported European anti-semtism of the viurlent Nazi strain at the time. "

ignoring the stupidity of the latter, the former is surprisingly accurate.

there were very few Jewish people living here, and they were NOT creating an exclusionist State based upon religious and racial heritage.

lets ponder that.

in 1808, there was no Palestinian/Jew murders, massacres, or other Terrorism from either side. That there were occasional such pogroms etc in other countries is like saying Estonians can be found guilty by Australian Aboriginals for what the English settlers did in Australia. You cannot blame the Pals for that, no matter how much you try.

so 200yrs ago, there was no 'Middle East conflict'. Equally, 200yrs ago, there was also no conflict between Switzerland and Canada.

Lets jump forward 150yrs, and suddenly there's conflict in the Middle East. But still no conflict between Switzerland and Canada, oddly.

what has changed? You said it yourself - the people living in the region called Palestine, were being expelled from their ancestral lands, which for feudal-age land-locked peasants - as the Palestinians were at that time - was a sentence of extreme hardship and/or death.

what has not changed between Switzerland and Canada? Why are they still at peace? Well, Switzerland has not sent settlers to colonise Canada, to create a Nation State that regards the Canadians as a lesser Culture & People. Funnily enough, if it did, i suspect relations would drop dramatically, wouldn't you?

now, if one were looking to apportion blame, if there had been an conflict between Switzerland and Canada, by what mental effort of will could you manage to blame the Canadians for the conflict?

or would you argue that the invaders were at fault for causing the conflict?

gosh, that would be radical, definitely "anti-Swissistic" racism!

It's funny in grotesque sort of way. From my perspective I've always thought of John Pilger as a rather moderate, old-fashioned, middle-of-the-road, social-democrat! I didn't real seen him as a Marxist at all, or as someone on the extreme left-wing. I must have been missing something over the years!

To call his article 'anti-semetic' is stretching things. Using the word 'Zionist' isn't racist is it? Joe Biden has termed himself a Zionist. It isn't something Pilger invented, it's just a fact, but perhaps they don't matter very much anymore? Emanuel is a Zionist too. There's nothing remotely controversial about calling him one. These two men aren't ashamed of being Zionists and supporters of Israel, so why should anyone take offence when Pilger calls them Zionists?

What is Pilger's real 'crime' then? It's simply that he's an influential and famous journalist who supports justice for the Palestinians and that he's critical of many aspects of Israeli policy, and what's wrong with that? Being critical of Israel isn't a crime in itself is it? One can also be anti-Israel if one chooses. There surely can't exist an absolute demand that one simply has to support Israel without question, or be called anti-semetic or racist?

Most of the above criticisms of Pilger are purely destructive and so over-the-top, they are ridiculous. It's like there's a posse waiting for anything that Pilger writes, and they charge forward and attack what he's written regardless of the subject matter or the actual content. It's like clockwork, a very brutal and ignorant clockwork machine, designed to destroy and not debate.

Of course it's not about rational or civilized debate at all. It's a form of warfare using words as weapons on the battlefield. Destroy Pilger, the ends justify the means, no matter what defend Israel and smash those who criticize her!

John Pilger describes the 1960's Kennedy assassination writing of Penn Jones Jnr editor of the Midlothian Mirror as " journalism as it had been before corporate journalism" and he goes on to say that Penn Jones Jnr "Week after week, painstakingly assembled evidence that all but demolished the official version of Kennedy's murder." Really. Penn Jones was one of the first crackpots who felt the United States government was behind the assassination - probably a conspiracy involving military intelligence. He always thought LBJ and the CIA was behind it somehow. No evidence of course. Somewhat similar to Pilger's own work. I suppose that's why it takes one crackpot conspiracy theorist to recognise and praise another crackpot conspiracy theorist. What next John. Who shot Martin Luther King? Bobby Kennedy? JR?

Using 'anit-Semtic' as a smear tactic everytime Pilger writes something critical about Israel, is monotonous and loses its effect after a while. It's so tiresome.

Pilger didn't say that Israel is responsible for Jihadists terrorism, and even if he had, it wouldn't be anti-Semetic. He wrote that the US support for Israel and the denial of justice for the Palestinians is the root cause of the problem. One can choose to disagree with him, but his opinion, and he isn't alone in this, cannot be classified as anti-Semetic.

Pilger isn't keen on Colin Powell, or large sections of the black middle-class who've 'joined the system', that doesn't mean one is 'racist' or 'anit-black'. It isn't a criticism of a 'race' but of a class. Surely one is allowed to criticise Black politicians without being smeared with the label of racist?

One of my friends teaches history in Israel in Tel Aviv. He expresses views pretty much in line with Pilger's. Granted he is a 'Marxist', but I find it difficult to think of him as 'anti-semtic', he's just a professional historian. When other Jews/Israelies call him 'a self-loathing Jew' and a traitor, it hurts him everytime, even though he's used to it by now. He's concerned that the extreme right-wing in Israel is becoming 'unhinged' and moving closer towards using violence against those who disagree with them and the direction Israel is moving in. This fear is justified.

Dissent and criticism are part of what makes democracy healthy and helps it work properly. In a democracy one can criticise individuals and individual countries as much as one likes. No politicians are out-of-bounds. No country is 'holy' and untouchable. This absurd idea, that any criticism of Israel is, per definition, anti-Semetic, is ridiculous in the extreme.

It's an attempt to crush debate, undemocratic and at root, fundamentally totalitarian in nature, and only illustrates why my Israeli friend is so fearful about the right-wing threat to Israel's future.