Luke Howard wrote:And Mohammed is totally impartial?
I know. Poor old
Mohammad (indicative cough), he really ought to get out of the West Bank and see more of the world. In the meantime, I'll recommend him the Guardian as a corrective. (btw Sheren Khalel is the article’s author.)
But
Mohammad’s not the only one who seems confused. Is Peake’s claim a ‘conspiracy theory’ or is it ‘fake news’? Definitions please; you’ve used both. The Independent article only says that Peake’s
specific claim (that the kneeling bit was learnt from Israeli secret services) is ‘unfounded’, and that the Israeli
police have denied such a policy exists (someone should tell that dastardly partial Mohammad). But Peake’s general point about Israeli-US ‘knowledge sharing’ in the militarisation of police tactics is well documented and thus not even news, let alone fake news. Starmer was even more confused (in an ‘incisive’ way, of course), spotting multiple ‘conspiracy theories’ in the one article (it must be his lawyer’s training; no-one else noticed them).
And then we come to the ‘anti-semitism’ bit, and for all your scampering through the trees and thickets you’ve yet failed to discover the clearing (but cheer up; as you say, it's ‘a very complicated issue’). Peake slighted no particular Jew, nor any group of Jewish people; but she did have a pop at the ‘Israeli secret service’. Again, where’s the ‘anti-semitism’ bit? There is none, unless of course you want to claim that the Israeli secret service (and, by extension, the Israeli state) somehow ‘represents’ Jewish people collectively, such that a slight on the former is a slight on the latter, as Starmer and yourself appear to be doing. But to do so is to skirt dangerously close to the edges of anti-semitism yourself, as it is precisely this kind of identification that is a recurring trope in anti-semitic discourse.
But, as I’m so wrong headed, maybe I’ll take your advice and consult ‘our UK Jewish community’. Who would you suggest? The chief rabbi? Well, perhaps not, as he only ‘represents’ some 30% of ‘our UK Jewish community’. The BoD? But they ‘represent’ mainly the synagogues, and only 56% of ‘our UK Jewish community’ are members of synagogues. The Haredi? They’re synagogue members, after all; but, oh dear, they’re not affiliated to the BoD. Should it be orthodox or reformed? Maybe I should have a word with the JVL or the JSG, or some Jewish atheists or some Jewish anarchists. Confusing innit? You do see where I’m going, don’t you? There are many Jewish ‘voices’, and it’s a bit… er… anti-semitic to suppose they all speak with the same accent.
Perhaps I’ll learn something from Michael Rosen (is ‘Michael’ an acceptable name to you?). After all, he’s Jewish, he’s English, and some of his relatives died in the Holocaust. Check him out and get back; you know me, I’m such a ‘bollard’ I might end up speaking to ‘the wrong kind of Jew’.
http://michaelrosenblog.blogspot.com/2020/01/im-in-another-mainstream-jewish.html