Muhammad Idrees Ahmad

Martin Bright, Islamophobic political editor of the New Statesman and all round turd, has just returned from a junket to Israel paid for by Zionist hasbara outfit BICOM — and this tweety-bird sure knows how to sing for his money. Here Fanonite contributor Paul de Rooij picks apart Bright’s hasbara-inspired screed.

• Should any self-respecting journalist go on a tour of Israel organized by BICOM or any other hasbara outfits? Furthermore, this tour took place during the Israel at 60 celebrations… The visit included: Yad Vashem, “kibbutz”, Sderot, poor kiddies having to go to the army, Israel feeling threatened, Iran a threat… To read Bright’s ruminations about this is not surprising from this aspiring neocon, but it is surprising because it is published in a putatively leftie magazine. Alas, one can expect much more nonsense from this silly publication.
• Who is this pipsqueak to talk about the “British left” or for that matter any left. These aspiring neocons like Bright, Nick Cohen, David Aaronovitch… all create a left strawman, and then charge it with a barage of silly accusations. Ignoring the “threat” to Israel, …, all the way to anti-Semitism. And he states that in The Guardian’s Comment is Free or in the New Statesmen blogs one finds: “The language is so unpleasant that it is difficult not to draw the conclusion that many of the comments are driven by anti-Semitism.” Huh? Maybe Bright should document this. And is he suggesting that criticism of Israel borders or is anti-Semitic?Notice this:
  

  The Israel issue has become a terrible fault line on the British left and betrayal is felt on both sides. Israelis I spoke to dated the breach to the 1967 Six-Day War, when the Jews of Israel turned from passive victims to military victors and colonizers. There is something in the argument that the left loves a victim and the modern Israeli does not fit the mould.

  So, it is only after 1967 that the left had an issue with Israel! This is risible. Israel was always an aggressor; Israel is a colonial project. Bright doesn’t seem to acknowledge the 1948 ethnic cleansing; but taking into account this historical fact, one could hardly view the zionists or Israelis as “victims” then. Israel was never a victim, and simply Bright’s ruminations about “the left” are absurd.

• Bright states: “Propaganda aside”… Here is Bright visiting Israel paid for by a hasbara/Israeli propaganda organ, and he suggests that his comments about the “Israeli side” aren’t propaganda. Israel has always wanted to portray itself as victim, and it has consequently wanted to portray Palestinians/Arabs as aggressors.

  The paragraph continues to describe the Qassam threat… Of course, he is only looking at the Israeli side without for one second dealing with what has happened to the Palestinians. Israel has imposed a siege on Gaza and closed all its borders. Maybe one day Bright will ruminate about what he expects the Palestinians in Gaza to do. Perhaps starve to death quietly.

• Bright starts the article by quoting a South African woman now living in a kibbutz that she really objects to the apartheid analogy when referring to Israel. And of course, she is miffed that there is no support for her from European liberals… As a matter of fact, the apartheid analogy is apropos, and if anything the Palestinian experience is worse than that experienced in South Africa.
• For some reason kibbutzes are supposed to be socialist, enlightened, part of a new man experiment, etc. In reality, there is no difference between kibbutzes and settlements. Both were built on stolen land, caused ethnic cleansing, are out of bounds to the native population… so, despite her protestations Valerie Chikly lives in an apartheid community. Israel is so good about hiding its hafrada, the Israeli version of apartheid, that it doesn’t even elicit comment from the roving New Statesman reporter.

  Towards the end of the article Bright returns to her:

  Valerie Chikly reads the international media online from her kibbutz, and says she has given up expecting support. “One of the reasons I came here was because of the Holocaust,” she says. “I really believe we have to have our own country and we have to defend ourselves. Who else is going to defend us?”

  Israel wasn’t created because of the holocaust – the colonization predated it. Furthermore, why should the Palestinians pay for the European crimes against the Jews… And why does Israel attack the Palestinians and all its neighbors? So, yes, with this disposition Israel cannot escape the wrath of its victims; it simply is not part of the area. Of course, these simple points escape The New Statesman‘s well indoctrinated neocon.