Two incidents in recent days, one minor and one making rather a louder splash, highlight the twisted logic that anti-Semites have to use in order to make any sense of their anti-Jewish conspiracy theories.
The first incident, (via Mum) which seems to have flown under the radar, concerns the Austrian Foreign Minister who threatened Israel with the withdrawal of Austrian troops from the UN peacekeeping force on the Golan, and with other mysterious “consequences”. Israel’s “crime”? Not managing to make the Syrians keep the peace on their side of the border. Seriously.
Austria’s foreign minister threatened both Syria and Israel with the withdrawal of the country’s troops from the international peacekeeping force in the Golan Heights if the two nations are unable to better secure the border area. In a letter to the United Nations, the minister explicitly mentions Israel, demanding the UN address Jerusalem with “very clear words” and threaten it with “consequences.”
Michael Spindelegger’s comments this week drew criticism from the local Jewish community, whose leader emphasized that Israel has been fully cooperating with the UN peacekeeping forces since they started being stationed in the Golan in the 1970s.
[…]
The president of the Austrian Jewish Community, Oskar Deutsch, said it was understandable that Spindelegger called on the rival Syrian parties to safeguard the UN peacekeepers but that threats directed at Jerusalem were misguided.
“What exactly did the foreign minister mean when he called on the UN leadership to demand of Israel ‘with clear words’ and under threats of consequences to guarantee the peacekeepers’ safety?” Deutsch said in a statement. “Israel respects the demilitarized zone, treats injured UN soldiers in Israeli hospitals and makes itself available as a line of communication because Syria became too dangerous for us. Israel cannot be blamed for anything having to do with the UN troops in the Golan, yet Foreign Minister Spindelegger is apparently of the opinion that he can never go wrong threatening Israel ‘with very clear words and prospective consequences.’”
Very well said Mr. Deutsch.
Even though Spindelegger’s words might not be classified as anti-Semitic, the automatic reflex anti-Israel spin of events point to more than mere politicking. It shows up a bias against Israel which has no logic or reason behind it.
Just think about it. The perverseness of accusing Israel for not making its enemy behave better towards UN troops is quite mind-bending. And as Natan Sharansky would have said, when Israel is singled out amongst all the countries of the world, this fulfills at least one of the 3D standards of measuring anti-Semitism.
The second, much more publicised incident occurred in Britain where the Labour peer Lord Nazir Ahmed blamed the Jews for his imprisonment after having caused a fatal car crash. Yes, you read that right. I did say twisted logic in my headline, didn’t I?
Lord Ahmed, a Labour life peer, is alleged to have told a TV station in Pakistan that he was imprisoned in 2009 because of pressure on the courts from Jews “who own newspapers and TV channels”.
Labour immediately suspended the peer “pending an investigation” and Ed Miliband, the party’s leader, described Lord Ahmed’s reported comments as “disgraceful”.
He was jailed for dangerous driving after Martyn Gombar, a 28-year-old Slovakian was killed on Christmas Day in 2007 after his stationary car was hit by Lord Ahmed’s Jaguar.
Lord Ahmed served 16 days in jail after it was disclosed that he had been sending and receiving text messages minutes before the crash.
Lord Ahmed, who in 1998 became the first Muslim life peer, is said by The Times to have claimed that the conspiracy was a result of his support for the Palestinians in Gaza.
The peer is alleged to have made the comments during a TV interview in April.
In the TV broadcast it is alleged Lord Ahmed said of his jail sentence: “My case became more critical because I went to Gaza to support Palestinians. My Jewish friends who own newspapers and TV channels opposed this.”
Ed Miliband, the Labour leader said: “I think that the comments reported by Lord Ahmed are disgraceful comments.
In case you thought this was a one-off slip of the tongue, there’s more:
In 2007 he was highly critical of the awarding of a knighthood to Salman Rushdie, claiming the author had “blood on his hands.”
Lord Ahmed was last year suspended from the Labour Party amid reports that he offered a £10 million bounty for the capture of President Barack Obama and his predecessor President George W Bush.
Over at Engage, David Hirsh slams the Guardian’s assistant editor Michael White for a classic case of “whataboutery” in a Twitter conversation with Daniel Finkelstein of the Times, throwing in the settlements as a deflection from the words of Lord Ahmed.
White’s point is that when a newspaper exposes a clear example of anti-Jewish racism, then it is right to look for a sub-text, a hidden reason underlying the exposé. Finkelstein is described as “saintly” – IE “not saintly” – not innocent, but really its opposite.
Why? What is suspicious about a newspaper exposing clear and serious racist sentiment articulated by a Labour Peer?
Well, White seems to think that the story should be contextualized, or balanced by, or mitigated by, or explained by, the bad behaviour of those Jews who organise or who defend or who facilitate settlements in the West Bank.
[…]
Antisemitism is no longer just, simply, and on its own, to be condemned, exposed, explained and opposed. Now we have to ask whether the Jew crying antisemitism was wearing a short skirt at the time, or had had a drink, or had been nagging the antisemite. What did the Jews do to deserve this antisemitic treatment?
It happens very often, that a person who raises the issue of antisemitism is accused of doing so in bad faith, dishonestly, as part of a secret ‘sub-text’ of de-legitimizing Israel. See The Livingstone Formulation.
Harry’s Place and CifWatch have also reported on White’s nasty comments.
Stephen Pollard weighs in on Lord Ahmed’s antisemitism with the astute remark that “if a Labour politician said something rude about Muslims they’d have been drummed out immediately“:
Here are some facts. A 28 year old man died on Christmas Day in 2007 after his car, which was stationary, was hit by Lord Ahmed’s Jaguar. The man who had been elevated to the peerage by Tony Blair had sent and received a series of long texts while he was driving – at speeds of up to 70mph. The last text was sent less two minutes before the crash.
Mr Justice Wilkie said that Lord Ahmed was guilty of “prolonged bad driving involving deliberate disregard for the safety of others”. It was, the judge said, “of the greatest importance that people realise what a serious offence dangerous driving of this type is”.
In Lord Ahmed’s mind, however, it’s the Jews’ fault.
But the point about Lord Ahmed and his fellow anti-Semites is that facts and truth are irrelevant. There is a Jewish conspiracy and everything follows from that.
And that is the essence of antisemitism in a nutshell, so visibly demonstrated by these two seemingly disparate incidents – an illogical, irrational hatred that blinds the senses to reason and yet is a unifying theory making sense of the entire universe. It’s all the Jews’ fault.
Anne's Opinions 
Don’t forget to look at the Engage article immediately below the one linked to above on the same subject. It refers to the original story, broken by The Times (of London). Both links have been sent to simplyjews.blogspot.com, so that Snoopy the Goon will have them in his in box when he wakes up tomorrow morning, his time. Please note that The Times devotes the equivalent (but it’s behind a paywall – I bought a copy today) of a page to the story, plus an editorial, which reminds us that the paper has a proud history of rejecting antisemitism and also exposed The Protocols way back in 1922 as a fabrication. By contrast, The Guardian staggers to a couple of column inches and no editorial – unless you count Michael White’s sneering at Daniel Finkelstein as an editorial
The full story on the Protocols and The Times of London at Anne’s request.
Brian, thanks for the tip to look at the original article on Lord Ahmed’s conspiracy theory at Engage. I’ve linked it here so that readers can find it.
Re the Times and the Protocols, do you have a link or the article that you can email to me? Sounds fascinating!
Anne, allow me to reprint an extract from my guest post last March, about my visit to the London Jewish Book Week:
“…to Umberto Eco and his new book “The Prague Cemetery”. He insisted, at his session (chaired by David Aaronovitch, author of “Voodoo Histories”, on conspiracy theory), that all the characters in his latest novel are all real bar one. The exception is the central character’s grandfather, about whom no records exist except “the letter” (read the book to understand this cryptic comment), and for whom Eco had to invent a back story. Essentially, the novel is about the man who created “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion”, and it wasn’t some grubby member of the Tsarist Okharana, but Captain Simonini a compulsive and successful 19th Century forger. You’ve never heard of him? As Cohen says in the introduction to his latest [book on censorship], “you can either be a famous forger or a successful one. You can’t be both.”
However, Simonini provided the information to one Joly, who printed a book, in French, in Geneva in 1864, but about the Masons. I’ve even held a photocopy of a legal agreement between a Times of London foreign correspondent, Philip Graves, and one Michel S. Raslovleff, an exiled White Russian, for a loan to the latter in exchange for a copy of the book mentioned above. This led to The Times declaring The Protocols a fabrication in 1921. Not that anyone took any notice. It was only much later that Simonini sold the same forged information to a Russian, only this time, it was about Jews. To make matters worse, Simonini apparently never met a Jew in his life.”
I’m not convinced that, in fact, Simonini actually existed, but still…it’s a good story! Down to the leaders of Freemasons Lodges meeting in the same Prague cemetery as the Rabbis.
Sorry for coming in but your comment is fascinating.
Freemason come second only to Jews in list of preferred kind of people fools like to hate. No surprise that one of them could be easily replaced by the other in conspiracy theory.
Just another piece of cake : Paris subway was in part result of Monsieur Bienvenue’s ( incidentally Jew )work. Well it was told at the time that Jews and Freemason built their lodges and Joachim and Boaz columns down there and – if I am not wrong – there was a similar story in the Protocols.
XIX obscurantism would you say ? No, it happened the same in Milan after Second World War in a modern update ( speculation on real estate prices made by Jews and Freemason bankers )
Well image if someone has the privilege of being Jew ,Freemason and banker at the same time. I am missing at least two of these unfortunately !
Is Lord Ahmed “alleged” to have made the reference to Jews or to Zionists? Or is it alleged that he referred to Jews but actually meant Zionists? Supposing he had said Jews carried out ethnic cleansing in Palestine in 1948. Would that qualify as antisemitic? Or anti-Zionist?
Let’s parse your words in the same way you’re parsing Ahmed’s words.
He said: “My Jewish friends who own newspapers and TV channels opposed this.””
I think that shows quite clearly that he meant, you know, Jews. No mention of Zionists.
Now let’s say he said that it was Zionists who caused his incarceration. Would that make any more sense? The man caused a fatal car crash for heavens’ sake! Why should he NOT get a prison sentence? In fact I think there’s a conspiracy afoot in that he was released after a pathetic 16 days. No other citizen would get off like that.
Now if I were that way inclined I could also claim a conspiracy – a Muslim conspiracy to get their co-religionist out of prison. But I’m not that way inclined. I think a British judge handed down a reasonable sentence and politicians worked their darnedest to get him out early.
And supposing he said the moon is made of green cheese. He didn’t say it did he?
And supposing he said the moon is made of green cheese.
But let us, for the purposes of this discussion, say he DID say that. Then he would be delusional, or a deliberate liar, or both.
Excellent point cba.
Then he must be a Zionist supporter of Israel and it’s manifold crimes.
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Not one word of what you write makes any sense.
Leaving aside the actual offence,conviction and sentence.The remarks are one’s he is alleged to have said. Previously he was alleged to have said other things equally left-field and these allegations were subsequently deemed to be false.
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No, he is not alleged to have said them. He was recorded on TV saying them.
He was not found to be innocent of previous comments. He was found guilty and punished by Labour by being temporarily suspended – which you would know if you read my actual article and links. But you’re too busy responding to comments with what you think are razor sharp wit and intelligence, and is in reality dumb illiteracy.
How on earth did he onlyget 16 days? Its laughable & a real slap in the face for the family of the deceased. If thats the general time of imprisonment then either life is extremely cheap in England or as you say a muslim conspiracy is afoot. More likely they’re terrified of more riots for a “wronged’ man. I wonder how long a “regular” member of the public would have got had they driven like this? Has a precdent been set ? It would be interesting to know
Yes life is cheap in Britain.But,not as cheap as in occupied Palestine.
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Provide statistics and evidence.
Wow… spratty must be off his meds. He’s been pooping incontinently over CiFWatch (his usual
stompingpooping ground), but even though people are responding to his inanities, that doesn’t seem to be enough for him and now he’s pooping here as well.Although they DO say that addicts need to keep upping their dosages to get the same high… shame none of his friends will do an intervention. Of course, for that he’d need to HAVE friends.
Well said cba. I presume he’s followed me over here from CiFWatch and decided to try his damnedest to derail threads here and hijack them for his own one-track purpose instead of genuinely engaging. Well, it’s not going to be tolerated here.
reality, I’ll reprise a comment I made on this topic elsewhere. The court noted that there wasn’t an actual causal link between the texting and the crash: the texting ended two minutes beforehand, according to the timeline and other evidence. Nor, apparently, was he driving over the speed limit – 70 mph – at the time of the accident. Thus, given that he wasn’t drunk or under the influence of drugs, he got a sentence of 12 months. Mainly because he had been texting and that in itself is an offence while in charge of a moving vehicle.
Had he been actually texting at the time of the accident or within seconds of it, then he would have been guilty of causing death by dangerous driving, a crime that carries sentences of years.
He got out after 16 days for the reasons given in the articles linked to.
So sprattyville really doesn’t know what s/he’s talking about, either legally or in relation to the local culture.
Sorry Brian, your post was held in moderation because you mentioned the shittyville’s name. His name will automatically put a post into moderation now.
Anne, Ironically, he was only let off his sentence to allow him to continue his good work promoting relations between Muslims and the rest of the community! (How’s that going?)
Hi Suzanne! Welcome to my blog. 🙂
Yes, his “bridge building” was basically more of the same incitement. The British are too politically correct for their own (and our) good. It will be interesting to see if his suspension becomes permanent. He’ll probably blame that on the Jews too.
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