Pilger is making an accusation not only of Israeli racism - a standard trope of the extreme Left - but also of Israeli anti-semitism. It's not a misprint: it's a libel he fully intends.Kamm goes onto dissect the contorted thinking behind such a charge and concludes:
I'm no fan of Pilger's, but I think this calumny is the most egregious remark I've come across even from that source. What's wrong with it is that it reduces the suffering of the Jewish people - most obviously the attempt in the last century to kill every Jew in Europe, but a Judaeophobia that has lasted literally millennia - by means of semantic trickery.Howard Jacobson has been angered by similarly egregious remarks in the British press. I caught a little of the pre-publication buzz and bought the Independent on Saturday solely to read his column.
Jacobson’s piece is titled “The unexamined hatred on our doorstep”. The unexamined hatred he refers to is anti-semitism and the doorstep is that of the Independent itself.
I am angry not so much with what my fellow columnists have been opining as with what they have been taking for granted, what one might call the complexion of their assumptions, or worse, the poetry of their prejudices.I’d say read the whole thing, but it’s only available from the Independent on pay-to-view.
David Aaronovitch found life unbearable at the Independent and left for the Guardian earlier this year. I wonder whether it will be much longer before Howard Jacobson feels the need to move on, if only to get away from the malign influence of someone Aaronovitch once referred to as “the fascist hyena”.
