I kid you not but the title of this piece reflects one of the comments in response to Stephen Pollard’s measured commentary on the flare up in relations between the U.S. and Israel; the implication of such comment being that if you eat Kosher food you are a rank liar.
And this was certainly not the worst of the comments, not by a long shot. The apoplectic rage of the “below the line” commenters in response to the token pro-Israel article of the week was simply nothing short of astounding and should give the editors of “Comment is Free” pause for thought (yet again) as to the type of degenerate cesspit that “Comment is Free” has become.
And lest there be any doubt as to the type of commenter that is attracted to “Comment is Free”, Stephen Pollard himself sums it up well:
StephenPollardJC
19 Mar 2010, 1:10PM
Contributor Hardly a surprise that my article has led to the usual stuff on the comments section.
But what’s always so frustrating with this type of thing – but again, not a surprise – is that the angriest commenters rarely read what the piece says or, perhaps still more important, what it does not.
I am accused of defending the settlements and Israeli building in East Jerusalem. Where though? You will not find a word of that from me, anywwhere, in any piece, ever. Because I don’t defend them. I think the settlements are wrong morally, politically and practically, and I would to like to see some form of international protectorate over Jerusalem. And I’ve written that many times.
But the piece wasn’t a vehicle for me to spout such views; it was a piece in which I offer my views over the context of this crisis, and what lies behind it.
Still, I never expected anything else from the anti-Zionists, anti-Israeli brigade or whatever they choose to call themselves.
Quite the indictment.
So lets take a look at a selection of the voluminous comments that expressed utter outrage at the idea that a pro-Israel view is being propounded. And I urge you to take the time to review these comments because it is a stark demonstration of the depth to which the discourse on Israel has been poisoned with the anti-Israel narrative.
Bishopspost
19 Mar 2010, 1:48PM
For 16 years after the Oslo accords, such building was never an issue. Israel built; Israel and the Palestinians talked
Thats OK then.
Mr Pollard has eaten too many kosher pies.
fionda
19 Mar 2010, 9:31AM
What a dreadful article. It is so completely ludicrous that it would be funny if it didn’t deal with such a tragic matter.FitzchivalryFarseer
19 Mar 2010, 9:47AM
To put it as civilised as i can manage, a steaming pile of horse manure.
I’m not a fan of either side, both have a right to exist, but neither has a right to resort to bullying tactics to get its own way (which goes for both israel’s illegal building and settlements, and both sides attacks, bombings etc). The only way to resolve this finally is through multilateral talks, and the palestinians are right in saying that this can’t occur while israel continue to build, imposing their own belief of their right of disputed territories, while also claiming to want to talk about them.
Neither child should get to play with their toys, until they both agree to share.Marsattacks
19 Mar 2010, 10:12AM
HAHAHAHAHAAHAHA
marvellous satire!!
oh wait ….jesus….. i think he’s serious??RobbyP
19 Mar 2010, 10:32AM
This article has no real substance – it’s full of speculation, bias and paranoia.ThePrompter
19 Mar 2010, 10:41AM
mattseaton –“and I trust all users will treat it and it’s author with due respect and civility”
Having read the article I can’t see where any respect is due, it is a load of rubbish. Didn’t your mother ever tell you Matt, that respect has to be earned?retsdon
19 Mar 2010, 10:41AM
The whole article is Flat Earth Society stuff. I really don’t know why anyone is bothering to respond directly to it.MeandYou
19 Mar 2010, 11:10AM
“But to admit this would endanger the picture they have painted of Netanyahu as the roadblock, a picture which the Obama administration ? the most incompetent in foreign policy since Carter ? has completely accepted.”People like Stephen Pollard should be place firmly on the U.S no fly list. He’s by his comment a danger to rationality and civilisation.monstera
19 Mar 2010, 11:23AM
Matt Seaton, I look forward to articles from child abusers telling us all how it’s a perfectly fine pastime. After all, they have a point of view and therefore it should be heard, à la Pollard.
Communicationalist19 Mar 2010, 11:50AM
Can an above-the-line commentator be legitimately accused of trolling?
This article certainly raises the question…fuksushi
19 Mar 2010, 12:47PM
Who the flyingfuck is Stephen Pollard? How did this one get by the editorial desk
Did he really pick up a cheque for this dribble. Nice comment Papalagi.RepublicanStones
19 Mar 2010, 12:47PM
What an utterly ridiculous article. So the Palestinians are to blame for objecting to something which should not be happening.
Truly a strange world Mr Pollard dwells in.VictorKahn
19 Mar 2010, 1:18PM
What I’m finding fascinating in the current (the latest in a long line may I add) impasse is something that Stephen has not mentioned (which all in all isn’t that surprising).
What has Stephen and his fellow neo-cons are really rattled about is the comments coming from American military leaders who have for the first time in a long time linked Israel’s actions as being detrimental to American national interests, namely to their military operations.For the duration of my lifetime, I’ve pondered how the actions of America in supporting Israel to evade or disregard UN resolutions has in anyway been in their national interest – leaving aside the lobbying and funding that Zionists throw at congress. Making enemies of a billion people, especially those nations on which the US is dependent for oil seems like a no brainer but now, finally, US Generals are linking Israel’s actions as being against US interests.
No wonder Stephen and his fellow Cabal members are worried.
They should be…
retarius
19 Mar 2010, 1:22PM
I read the first two paragraphs…an apologist for the murderous Israeli regime…I’m tired of reading this sort of shit in what is supposed to be a quality newspaper
monstera19 Mar 2010, 1:50PM
I can only conclude from what the Guardian choose to publish and what they decide to delete, that they think ethnic cleansing is fine and this is merely a jolly good polemic.
When it comes to rallying cries for ethnic cleansing, I prefer Alderman.moriarty1
19 Mar 2010, 1:51PM
This article is a catalogue of lies! I too have recenttly returned from Ramallah, Hebron, Nablus, Bethlehem and Jericho and I recognise a concentration camp when I see one. Israel is constantly stealing Palestinian land and helping the settlers in their provocative attitude to the Palestinians. The people in Hebron would just like to be able to walk in their own streets where at present heavily armed Brooklyn Zionists strut like peacocks under the watchful eye of the IDF. Palestinian children run the gauntlet of stone throwing settlers’ children every day. If I was a Palestinian, I would be a resistance fighter.
I would like Mr Pollard to take me to his ‘New Jerusalem’.
Nissa19 Mar 2010, 2:10PM
Surely today is not the 1st April.
….afterall, it appears that Mr Pollard is taking us for fools.Hendall
19 Mar 2010, 2:46PM
The EU does not oppose Israels refusal to allow building materials into Gaza so that the homes it flattened can be rebuilt.
I’m wondering whether the Guardian is trying to prove the (false) accusations of anti-semitism everytime it prints anything that is critical of Israel, are wrong, by showing ‘balance’ and printing this frighteningly paranoid and risible and analysis by the editor of a respectable and mainstream newspaper. This is the most irrational and unprofessional piece of journalism I have read for a long time.
The EU have a “have a kneejerk hostility to Israel”? Really!!!
The EU has a preferential trade agreement with Israel.
The EU does not oppose Israels indefensible sea blockade of Gaza, and gunboats shooting at Palestinian fishing boats within the two mile limit.I say frighteningly paranoid because this twisted thinking is all too common on the part of my co-religionists who are blind to what Israel does. This article reinforces my view that Israel does not want and will not make peace and will continue to play games and pretend to negotiate, and Pollard of course is only too happy to blame the “failure” of negotiation on the Palestinians.
Yes Pollard, there are people of Jewish Heritage who are disgusted by what you have written.rockinred
19 Mar 2010, 3:07PM
Do we have to put up with this bigoted shite in a supposedly serious publication?
Mazin19 Mar 2010, 3:27PM
From what planet does this blinkered, ignorant, moronic, zionist author come from?
“For 16 years after the Oslo accords, such building was never an issue.”Neither was it an issue in the 17th century, but you can’t go back in time to an arbitrary point where it just so happens to illustrate your argument.
A number of years AFTER the Oslo accords came the well publicised “Road Map”. To which Israel seems to be singlehandednly trying to thwart by putting up a road block at every metre and creating enough diversions on the “Road” to make transport planners envious. As part of the “Road Map”, Israel agreed to halt ALL settlement building. It was only after that agreement that we got the excuse from Israel that East Jerusalem wasn’t part of that halt. And when they got away with it, it became East Jerusalem and it’s municipalities. Then it became expanding current settlements to accomodate for “natural growth”. After that it became settlement building under “exceptional circumstances”. Talk about giving them an inch and taking a mile.
Israel has gotten away with so much injustice, and this settlement building is only ONE example.
“A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong gives it a superficial appearance of being right ” – Thomas Paine, Rights of Man, 1791theeightyonekid
19 Mar 2010, 5:01PM
Good God Mr Pollard! What planet do you live on? Israel murders, abuses, steals from, humiliates and tricks the Palestinians (the indigenous population!) for over 60 years. And you accuse them of being the guilty party!
You even admit in your article that Israel has been building on the occupied territories for the last 16 years!! Israel gets $4 BILLION of aid from USA alone every year. Palestine are lucky if they get $25 million. Palestinians deserve our support in spite of their sometimes incompetent leaders.
Shame on you.alef
19 Mar 2010, 5:04PM
All what Israel is doing is creating a single state outcome. Unless the Palestinians somehow will disappear from the land – and there are many in Israel but even more in US, who think its possible.
And Stephen Pollard is most likely one of them.
In any event, he is not the one who is going to pay the price (on Earth at least).macro42
19 Mar 2010, 5:48PM
Mr Pollard should see a psychiatrist immediately. He is the victim of a condition known as ‘projection’ which is a symptom of psychosis.
And from the sounds of the type of comments above, it is clear that Matt Seaton’s protestations below fell on deaf ears.
mattseaton
19 Mar 2010, 10:52AM
Staff @ exiledlondoner:
You may want to express yourself robustly, but you also know how to stay within bounds. So I’m just appealing to people to make their points in an appropriate way. What are you proving by posting a ‘provocative response’ which you clearly have an expectation will fall foul of moderation? I’m sure you have things worth saying here, so find a way of saying them that doesn’t risk deletion by mods. Please.
(Hint to Matt – you wouldn’t have this problem if you banned half these commenters, but as we all know you’re more interested in generating threads with 500+ comments to boost advertising revenue – you don’t fool us).
And for an insight into why it is that commenters reacted in such an unacceptable manner, take a look at these two comments which encapsulate the myopic view of the Palestinian narrative that has been swallowed wholeheartedly by the Guardian readership:
beenthereseenit
19 Mar 2010, 2:53PM
Jubilation1
I would like to think that no one is so stupid as to believe the fairy tale that Palestine was a “jewish” country before 1948. Until the Zionist endeavour, and for quite a while after it started, Palestine was inhabited by people, the majority of whom were NOT jewish. But while the local population was looking after their olive trees, tilling the land and grazing their sheep and goats, a group of zealous Zionists who had inhabitted European countries for generation upon generation, were feverishly engaged in colonizing, I will repeat, colonizing the country. Buying a house here, a plot of land there, then one more … and in 1948 the guilt racked victors of WWII gave them half of someone else’s country. THAT is land grab, dear Jubilation1, and you know it. As regards reasonably good relations that existed between muslims and jews not only in Palestine, but Spain, Ottoman Turkey to name but two are too well documented. Please do not instruct me what to read, and I will not instruct you what to read, but try to think for yourself. Talk to the people who were there. That tensions flared from time to time is no secret, but on the human level people were happy to live side by side. Until, that is, the one side artificially swelled its numbers and the other side was thrown out of their homes.
By the way, I have always thought that this conflict will be resolved in a fair and just manner, mostly because of my faith on the one hand in the englightenment of the Jews and on the other hand in the warm, hospitable, generous nature of the Palestinians. But after 60 years, the Palestinians are embittered and angry, and where is the enlightnement of the Jews of Israel?SeanThorp
19 Mar 2010, 3:34PM
The Palestinians and their allies in Europe have been engaged in a long-term plan to delegitimise IsraelSure Zionist Jews like Pollard are doing a bang up job on this score themselves. I don’t know anybody these days who thinks Israel should be a Jewish state, it’s only a matter of time before they start saying it shouldn’t be there at all.
19 Mar 2010, 1:39PM
You might find that attitude changes once Palestinians feel secure in their own place, Until that time it is understandable that the sale of land to Jews by Palestinians would be considered treasonous since each such sale – as things stand – compromises further the establishment of a viable Palestinian state. History would bear this out.it make take generations for the extremism to be diluted sufficiently. Some Jews still live with the horror of the Holocaust at the forefront of all their thinking. Some Gazans are currently suffering a similar fate albeit on a smaller scale. How long it will take to get over this is anybodys guess.
And accusations that Israel is a racist state:
TwoSwords
19 Mar 2010, 3:01PM
HebrewHammer
“Please tell me which aspect of life in Israel is for Jews only .”
Let me see- the nature of the very state is such that it is a state for Jews not a state for its own citizens the majority of which just happen to be jewish. The state actively seeks to maintain a jewish majority as a matter of national policy and operates a discriminatory immigration policy.
The equivalent would be England declaring itself as being not “for” their citizens regardless of race or religion but being for the Anglo-Saxon race or the Anglican church, having a active state policy of seeking to limit numbers of non-Anglo-Saxons or non-Anglicans and operating an immigration policy based around Anglo-Saxon ethnicity or Anglican religion.
We’ve had this conversation before and you never learn. The fact that you allow Arabs to live as second class citizens doesn’t mean you aren’t a fundamentally discriminatory state. You are. You are not a civic state. You are a racial and/or sectarian state (the founders of Israel clearly saw it as a racial state).
We dont do that. The racists of Israel do. The policies that Israeli governments have followed for decades are policies that the only the BNP in Britain support. That is the difference between us. That is why you are not a wholly legitimate country.mlev
19 Mar 2010, 5:34PM
@ Ilovedoggies
The reason why the one state solution is not possible is because that would mean the end of the only jewish state on the planet.
There is no unconditional right for the existence of a Jewish state. Since Jews are defined by maternal descent (with very rare exceptions) a Jewish state is intrinsically a racist state that discriminates against non-Jews. For example, in Israel, there is no such thing as “Israeli nationality” – there is only “Jewish nationality” (similar racist definitions were applied in the 3rd Reich and in USSR). No-one has the right to found a state that discriminates against part of its citizenry on racist grounds.
Jews have the right to live in a state in which all citizens have equal rights, for example a single Israeli-Palestinian state. But this cannot be a Jewish state.
Sorry, but there’s no way. Zionism is dead. There is no getting around it. It’s only a matter of how soon one gets there, and by which route. Israel and its Zionist supporters seem to want to get there by suicidal politics.
And when Zionists are called liars (both undeleted comments I might add – as were a good number of the comments above), we know exactly what the commenters really mean:
TwoSwords
19 Mar 2010, 4:13PM
HebrewHammer
“but I don’t see how this law is anything else than Internal Israeli politic problem and got nothing to do with anyone else .”
And it is our internal matter to declare you racists and put sanctions on you for your policies. Do you see? I am explaining what is objectionable about Israel – if you care about your relations with other states listen – if not, don’t. There was no suggestion that I would change the Law of Return. I’m suggesting you do it.
As for Matt Seaton’s comments I’ve explained why its a false analogy. And you know it.
zacharyesterton
Your lies are clear for all to see – standard operating procedure for a zionist!.
“For Irish return, for instance, all you need show is proof of one Irish citizen grandparent.”
Having a grandparent with CITIZENSHIP is different to having a grandparent who is of the correct race. Israel’s immigration policy doesn’t look to citizenship but race. It even distinguishes between citizens passing on citizenship on the basis of race – compare an Israeli Jew who marries a non-Arab and seeks citizenship for their spouse with an Israeli Arab who marries a Palestinian Arab who seeks citizenship for their spouse.Maruthi
19 Mar 2010, 4:47PM
You silly Zionist apologists always twist the facts.
Did anyone else notice Anthony Julius on ‘Start the week’ stating that the problem for Israel is that the British settled the Jews in a territory surrounded by hostile nations.
Now I know that the Zionist mentality has an infinite capacity for self justification but this was choice.
If it’s all the same to the settlers where they live why don’t we Brits let them go and live among the penguins in the Falklands.
Could work.
Then we have a comment straight out of the Protocols:
meffisto
19 Mar 2010, 4:52PM
@zacharyestertonJews have been regarded as an exiled ethno-national group for most of Christian and Islamic history, including Palestinian Christian and Islamic history.
And it is also probable that many of the non-exile Jews that remained in Palestine during the initial spread of Islam converted to Islam. As such, many of the Palestinians that are denied right of residency in Israel are most likely of Jewish descent.
The whole Zionist argument is irrational. A need for diasporic Jews to have a homeland because of oppression: have you not noticed the wealth and power US Jews wield? The whole argument for the necessity of Israel as an ethno-national refuge is simply ridiculous!
And of course what would an I/P thread be without the pro-Israel deletions:
Tewks
19 Mar 2010, 12:30PM
Who says it’s Palestinian land?
It was Jordan until in 1967 they started a war which they then lost, so now that land belongs to Israel.
Just like in 1939 Germany started a war which they lost, and so part of their earlier territory is now part of Poland.
Ilovedoggies
19 Mar 2010, 3:09PM
Hamas (purportedly Hamas) fired a rocket this week and killed an East Asian guest who was working an a kibbutz. What was the point of this despicable act?STAN58
19 Mar 2010, 5:56PM
@Keo2008: The History is very simple, when you know it :
1. Jews are the original inhabitants of Israel in the last 3300 years. There is no another peple in world, except maybe Chinise, which history is so long.
2. Matk Twain, when visited the country in 1870, found there almost no population at all, except Jerusalem, in which the majority were the jews, so talking about populatino proportions in that time is nonsense.
3. The majority of arab populatin in 1947 was only the first or second generation in the country. The rest were the descandants of jewish population converted to Islam by force, since the 7 century, when they have been conquered by arabs. It explained why they have escaped so fast, instead ot fight for “their” land. To remind you, they was also been calledf by their arab “brothers” to live the country for while and come back with “victorius” arab armies after all the jews will be killed.
4.Why the local arabs under Jordanian occupatin did not demand indepandant state ? Because they feel themselves the part of this already exist “Palestinian” state . Remind you, the British colonizators illegaly gave in 1922, as gift, the eastern part (80 %) of the country to the Hasemite king Abdalla from Saudi Arabia. The 70 percent of Jordanian population today are the “palestinians”, exectly the same arabs that living in Israel. So why to establish another “Palestinian” state ? It is only to have excuse to demand Israel extermination.
5. There are lot of peoples in Europe itself in the the other corners of the world, they have not achived religious/national/ethnic/historical right to their own country/. So why the “palestinians” have the right for 2 states and they do not have even for one ? Why the so “liberal and freedomlovers” Westerns, like you, does not demand their freedm ? Maybe it is because of the financial and economacal selfinterests that you have ?
And finally there is no such thing as Zionist claim.
The jews have stopped to claim 62 years ago and started to do..
So there you have it. This is the legacy that Georgina Henry is leaving to her successor.
Nice job Georgina – hope you’re proud of yourself.
