Howard Jacobson seems to grow in stature every time he squares up to the new anti-Semitism. Has he ever been as majestically eloquent as this?
Scan the comments, though, and weep. This is the first and by no means worst of those apparently deemed by the Indie not to be 'offensive or abusive':
'With a name like that....
'Why not just become a lobbyist for Isreal [sic] and have done with it? You are hardly impartial or objective.'
There's no way into a mind like that. I'm sure the writer would have no hesitation in dismissing Denis MacShane MP, despite his name, as an Isreali stooge. His is a valuable and all-too-rare non-Jewish voice, though. My only quibble, as you'd expect from my last post, is with the dig at the Pope's supposed 'embrace' of a Holocaust-denier. Benedict's on our side, Denis - haven't we got enough real anti-Semites to fight without creating imaginary ones?
Mr MacShane leaves in the air the question why non-Jews can massacre Muslims on a scale far exceeding the scale of destruction in Gaza without exciting a fraction of the Muslim indignation provoked by Israeli actions. Janet Daley supplies the answer, if one is needed. The 'I had one of them taxi drivers in the front of my cab' thing is a hoary journalistic cliche, but can be forgiven this time. Israel represents the theological abomination of Jews not knowing their place. The artlessness of the Luton cabbie, rather touchingly described by Ms Daley, can stand for the great majority of anti-Semites through the ages. This man is anything but a monster, but there are monsters inside his head, and they have been put there by people less innocent than he.
People like these (and credit to the Beeb for running this story); note how they, and the man from Hamas, feel about civilian casualties in Gaza.
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4 comments:
"...haven't we got enough real anti-Semites to fight without creating imaginary ones?"
Very sound advice, that, addressed to Denis McShane. But perhaps, my dear "Cyrus", you should apply it to yourself. I'm still waiting for a public retraction of your scabrous little smear against myself in a blog of yours of 2006 that I came upon recently.
Stephen Hugh-Jones
Dear Mr Hugh-Jones
I am glad you think my advice sound. I am also very glad to know you feel smeared by an accusation of anti-Semitism, and therefore glad that I have never made any such accusation.
I can fully understand your impatience. I regret that I am not currently able to blog to journalistic deadlines, but an extensive reply to your comments is almost ready for publication. I must warn you, though, that it will not be an apology.
As usual, another gutless quarter-truth from Cyrus. You didn't make a direct smear of anti-semitism, you just made one by clearly-intended implication.
In whatever form, it was false.
And you STILL haven't even the minimal honesty to put your real name to your mucky little smears.
Me, I sign what I write. I wonder (though not for very long) why you don't.
Stephen Hugh-Jones
Eight weeks later I am still waiting for the character assassin that peddles his libellous filth from behind the pseudonym of Cyrus to withdraw it. Come on, you grubby little smearbag.
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