Love of the Land: Guardian calls Israel “an arrogant nation”, and also gives op-ed to Foreign Office grandee who complained about Jews on the Iraq inquiry

Guardian calls Israel “an arrogant nation”, and also gives op-ed to Foreign Office grandee who complained about Jews on the Iraq inquiry

Robin Shepherd
Robinshepherdonline.com
24 March '10

Charles de Gaulle once famously referred to the Jews as an “arrogant and domineering people”. The Guardian newspaper in its editorial today refers to Israel as “an arrogant nation that has overreached itself”. Not the government of Israel — castigated by the Guardian for using British passports in a “Mossad murder squad” in Dubai, as well as over the spat with Washington — but the nation of Israel itself.

I suppose they would argue that that there is still enough daylight, however thin a sliver of it, between de Gaulle’s open disdain for Jews and their equally open disdain for the Jewish state.

But let’s leave whatever room for discussion may still be available on that particular question to one side for a moment, and move on to an op-ed piece published alongside the editorial by a senior Foreign Office mandarin who last year made one of the meanest anti-Semitic remarks to have been made in mainstream Britain for many years.

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Love of the Land: Guardian calls Israel “an arrogant nation”, and also gives op-ed to Foreign Office grandee who complained about Jews on the Iraq inquiry

Love of the Land: Is British anti-Semitism in danger of getting out of control?

Is British anti-Semitism in danger of getting out of control?

Robin Shepherd
RobinShepherdonline.com
28 November 09

Last week, Oliver Miles, Britain’s former ambassador to Libya and a pillar of the country’s foreign policy establishment, put his thinking cap on, put pen to paper and came up with the following thoughts in a column in the Independent newspaper about the presence of the esteemed historians Martin Gilbert and Lawrence Freedman on the board of the UK’s latest Iraq Inquiry:

“Both Gilbert and Freedman are Jewish, and Gilbert at least has a record of active support for Zionism,” he said. “…if and when the inquiry is accused of a whitewash, such handy ammunitionwill be available. Membership should not only be balanced; it should be seen to be balanced.” (My italics)

In other words, Jews are an embarrassment. Ban them.

Hold that thought. Now consider the words of the celebrated journalist Richard Ingrams — a man who once said he does not open emails about Israel if the writer appears to have a Jewish last name — writing in the same paper today.

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Love of the Land: Is British anti-Semitism in danger of getting out of control?

Love of the Land: Miles of prejudice

Miles of prejudice

Melanie Phillips
The Spectator
26 November 09

A Times leader yesterday referred disparagingly to, but did not properly deal with, the disgraceful attack by Oliver Miles, Britain’s former ambassador to Libya, on two members of the Chilcot inquiry into Britain’s involvement in the war in Iraq. Writing in the Independent on Sunday, Miles drew attention to the curious appointment to the committee of the historian Sir Martin Gilbert and the professor of war studies Sir Lawrence Freedman. Miles states:

Both Gilbert and Freedman are Jewish, and Gilbert at least has a record of active support for Zionism. Such facts are not usually mentioned in the mainstream British and American media, but The Jewish Chronicle and the Israeli media have no such inhibitions, and the Arabic media both in London and in the region are usually not far behind.

Sir Martin Gilbert is one of Britain’s most distinguished historians, while Sir Lawrence Freedman also enjoys a stellar reputation as a professor of war studies. That is why they were appointed to the inquiry. But to Miles, they are suspect not just because Gilbert once compared Bush and Blair to Roosevelt and Churchill while Freedman was the supposed architect of intervention in Kosovo and Afghanistan (hello?) as well as Iraq (so it was All His Fault) but because they are Jews -- and even worse Gilbert supports Zionism.

This would appear to be part of the ‘Jewish conspiracy’ theory so fashionable in the UK intelligentsia that the war in Iraq only occurred as a result of pressure from a trans-national Jewish conspiracy acting in the interests of Israel to put the world at risk. The fact that Israel in fact advised at the time that it was Iran they were worried about rather than Iraq does not trouble the propounders of this malevolent libel.

The Times called Miles’s comments

extraordinary and disgraceful

but did not spell out the reason why they were so. The paper pulled its punches. Miles’s comments were an example of anti-Jewish racial prejudice. The notion that Jews cannot be trusted to be impartial because they only act in the interests of other Jews and to the detriment of everyone else is a staple of anti-Jewish bigotry down through the ages.

It is a baleful comment on the state of British public discourse that this man felt able to say this so openly. Normally the ‘Jewish conspiracy’ theorists hide behind camouflage words such as ‘Zionist’ or ‘neo-con’ to disguise their prejudice. Miles doesn’t even bother with such fig-leaves: he is confident enough, now that anti-Israel bigotry and anti-Jewish bigotry-denial is running at epidemic levels, to be entirely brazen about it.

Love of the Land: Miles of prejudice

Love of the Land: The world is tired of hearing Jews complain

The world is tired of hearing Jews complain

FresnoZionism.org
24 November 09

News item:

A British diplomat has criticized the appointment of two leading Jewish academics to the UK’s Iraq Inquiry panel, stating it may upset the balance of the inquiry.

Sir Oliver Miles, a former British ambassador to Libya, told The Independent newspaper this week that the appointment of Sir Martin Gilbert, the renowned Holocaust historian and Winston Churchill biographer, and Sir Lawrence Freedman, professor of war studies and vice-principal of King’s College London, would be seen as “ammunition” that could be used to call the inquiry a “whitewash.”

Miles said the two academics were Jewish and that Gilbert was an active Zionist. He also said they were both strong supporters of former prime minister Tony Blair and the Iraq war…

“It is a pity that, if and when the inquiry is accused of a whitewash, such handy ammunition will be available,” he added. “Membership should not only be balanced; it should be seen to be balanced.”

There you go. In regard to any issue which even tangentially touches on Israel, Jews are suspect. I recall someone saying, “when I read a letter to the editor about the Middle East, I immediately look to see if the writer has a Jewish name.” Then I presume she discounts whatever was in the letter.

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Love of the Land: The world is tired of hearing Jews complain