Are We Part of the UK Israel Lobby?

Backspin/Honest Reporting
25 November 09

Simon Plosker, HonestReporting's managing editor, was interviewed on JNet Radio, where he discussed Dispatches: Inside Britain's Israel Lobby. Listen to it on Humyo or by clicking below.

Related HonestReporting links responding to Channel 4:

• Why We Didn't Talk to Channel 4
• 'Myself As Exhibit A'
• Under Attack: HR Accused by UK TV Documentary
• HonestReporting Responds to Channel 4
• Oborne's Opening Shots at the Israel Lobby
• A Warped Look at Britain's 'Israel Lobby'

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United against Britain's 'Israel lobby'

Petra Marquardt-Bigman
The Warped Mirror
22 November 09

Lavish praise was heaped on some of Britain's media in the English-language Saudi Arab News, where columnist Neil Berry hailed last week's screening of "a groundbreaking Dispatches documentary for Britain's Channel 4 television, trailed by an article in The Guardian newspaper, [that] investigated the covert influence of Britain's 'Israel lobby.'"

If you take Berry's word for it, Tony Blair was a Zionist stooge, the British Labor party is run by the "Israel lobby," and if the Conservatives come to power in Britain, things will get even worse - if that's at all possible. But Berry assures his readers that not all is lost: he describes the publication of the Mearsheimer/Walt book on "The Israel Lobby" in the US as "an epoch-making event" that has led over the past few years "to a sea change in the climate of Western intellectual, as well as general public opinion, vis-à-vis the boundaries of debate about the Jewish state."

Indeed, relating to another event that caused much debate in Britain last week - namely the publication of the English translation of Shlomo Sand's new book, The Invention of the Jewish People - Berry confidently asserts that this book "is of similarly cardinal significance."

So let's try to get this straight: first the Jews (or maybe the Zionists?) invented the Jewish people, then the Jewish people and/or the Zionists proceeded to invent the Jewish Lobby - no, make this the "Israel lobby" - and then all these inventions went on to control much of the world.

Obviously, the idea that every Jewish achievement, including nowadays the Jewish state, comes at the expense of non-Jews and is somehow due to one big conspiracy that needs to be uncovered and undone, is hardly new. It unmistakably echoes the idea "Die Juden sind unser Unglück," that is: "the Jews are our misfortune," a concept first made popular by the German historian Heinrich von Treitschke in the 1880s and later adopted by the Nazis.

The makers of the British documentary on the "Israel lobby" were clearly well aware of the sordid history of this calumny, and therefore emphasized in an article published before the program aired: "It is important to say what we did not find. There is no conspiracy, and nothing resembling a conspiracy."

Mind you, this statement comes right after a paragraph that includes claims of an "operation" that is supposedly "carried on against media organisations that criticise Israel's foreign policy," and there is also the assertion that "Israel has a long reputation for bullying the BBC." It's a pretty clever formulation, because all it says is that there are people who believe that Israel is bullying the BBC - and no doubt, there are people who believe that.

Criticism of the program's "barely concealed antisemitic undertones" is thus hardly unfair. That this criticism is indeed richly deserved is also illustrated in an excellent post at the CST blog that examines the question "Who liked Dispatches?"

(Full article)

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Under Attack: HR Accused by UK TV Documentary

Honest Reporting
18 November 09

HonestReporting responds to a Channel 4 investigation of the UK's 'pro-Israel lobby'.

On November 16, the UK Channel 4's flagship documentary program, Dispatches, broadcast an investigation of "one of the most powerful and influential political lobbies in Britain, which is working in support of the interests of the State of Israel", directly attacking and smearing HonestReporting in the process.

"Despite wielding great influence among the highest realms of British politics and media, little is known about the individuals and groups which collectively are known as the pro-Israel lobby," the program noted.

Aside from inventing a non-existent "lobby" that conjures up images of some of the worst forms of anti-Jewish prejudice, the documentary attempts to discredit and delegitimize HonestReporting and the thousands of its subscribers who care about accurate reporting of Israel in the media.

The documentary is available to view in full on YouTube or by clicking on the video below to see the specific segment concerning HonestReporting.)

While the program had been in the making for several months, it was only in the few weeks prior to the transmission when those UK Jewish communal and pro-Israel organizations targeted by C4 were contacted by Hardcash Productions and political commentator Peter Oborne.

We at HonestReporting found the premise of the entire program to be highly offensive and prejudiced. For, as commentator Tom Gross notes:

Whereas there is a pro-Israel lobby with some influence in the U.S. (though not the kind of influence ascribed to it by anti-Semites), contrary to what Channel 4 and others think, there is no effective pro-Israel lobby in Britain.

The complete lack of any effective pro-Israel lobby in Britain (as opposed to well organized anti-Israel groups) goes a long way to explaining why some of the coverage of Israel in the British media is among the worst in the world, and sometimes rivals the Iranian and Egyptian media for its sheer nastiness.

Others, including individuals and organisations targeted by C4 have already commented on the nature of the program, which we do not intend to dissect in its whole.

We do, however, wish to respond to the content aimed directly at HonestReporting that appears in the program from 35-42 mins.

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