Fake outrage as UK press distorts Israeli president’s remarks about anti-Israel sentiment in Britain and then stokes more anti-Israel sentiment

 

by Robin Shepherd

 

The fake outrage now sweeping through British media and political circles about Shimon Peres' analysis of anti-Israel hostility in the UK is something to behold. Peres had made a series of remarks about Britain and other European countries to Tablet Magazine.

As anyone who reads the comments can see (link above) Peres was measured and fair in his analysis which centred on long standing pro-Arab sentiment in important parts of the British establishment, attempts to appease Britain's Muslim population and traditions of anti-Semitism in some quarters. He did acknowledge that there was also some support for Israel in Britain but portrayed that as a minority pursuit largely confined to sections of the British right.

So, nothing much to take issue with here, right? Not according to Conservative parliamentarian Andrew Rosindell who was quoted in the Daily Express as describing Peres' remarks as "wholly inaccurate" and "inappropriate". "Maybe he should spend more time here, get to know the British people and realise we defeated the Nazis in the war," said Rosindell, making the embarrassingly elementary mistake of confusing correlation with causation — Britain's brave stance in WWII stopped the Holocaust from being completed, but we did not go to war to stop the Holocaust. We went to war to prevent German expansionism and save our own skins.

But it gets worse.

The Daily Mail — Britain's second best selling newspaper and the best read on the internet — ran a headline saying: "Israel accuses UK of anti-Semitism". The article slammed Peres for making an "astonishing outburst in which he accused the English of being anti-Semitic". But he didn't accuse the English of being anti-Semitic, not at least in the blanket sense in which the Mail implies. And since Peres is very clear on this point — after listing a host of reasons for anti-Israel sentiment he says there is "also anti-Semitism" — this must mean that the distortion is deliberate and malicious.

So even as the Mail indignantly attempts to refute the charge of anti-Israeli behaviour it simply cannot stop itself from engaging in it.

The "pro-Israel" Sunday Telegraph was up to the same tricks, headlining its own article: "Peres: the English are anti-Semitic; English accused of anti-Semitism."

This all follows a familiar pattern in which anyone who raises the problem of anti-Israel sentiment is routinely accused of launching false accusations of anti-Semitism. The aim is to trivialise the nature of the problem by portraying the critic as hysterical, irrational and unreasonable.

Even more worryingly, the Telegraph quoted James Clappison, the Conservative MP, as saying: "Mr Peres has got this wrong. There are pro and anti-Israel views in all European countries. Things are certainly no worse in this country." Bear in mind that Clappison is vice-chairman of Conservative Friends of Israel! So if Britain's best supporters of the Jewish state are so utterly sheepish, so unwilling to acknowledge the extent of the problem in Britain, and so quick to jump on the bandwagon of false accusations against the Israeli president you get a pretty clear impression of the overall environment.

This is not to say that I agree with everything Peres says on the matter. For example, he seems to paint an overly rosy picture of the situation in some other parts of Europe. "…with Germany relations are pretty good, as with Italy and France", he says.

Unless he is merely thinking about the personal relationship with the heads of government in the respective countries I am not sure that he is right about this. I quote in my book, A State Beyond the Pale, a major opinion poll from Germany in 2004 in which more than half of the respondents said Israeli behaviour towards the Palestinians was similar to the way the Nazis treated the Jews. French duplicity towards Israel is legendary and enduring, and Italy displays much the same anti-Israeli characteristics as all other west European countries.

But all of this could form the basis for a reasonable debate. What no reasonable person can deny is that there is a massive problem in Britain, that Israel is singled out like no other country in the world in the British press, that rising Muslim populations are bringing a new anti-Israeli dynamic into the equation, that the foreign office tends to support the Arabs against Israel — it imposes a Royal boycott on Israel, for example, while there have been several Royal visits to Arab countries — and that in some cases there is a problem with anti-Semitism.

That's what Peres broadly said, and that is a fair picture of what is going on. The deniers and the distorters merely prove his point.

 

Robin Shepherd

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