The Guardian, and the company they keep

CiF’s “Best of the Web” included an essay published by Slavoj Zizek on the radical anti-Zionist publication, Counterpunch.

Slavoj Zizek, just to be clear, is a communist, who said:

“However, what one is tempted to add here is that, in the very case of Nazism (and Fascism in general), the constellation of violence is rather the opposite one: crazy, tasteless even, as it may sound, the problem with Hitler was that he was not violent enough, that his violence was not “essential” enough”

And:

“The only way to conceive of what happened on September 11….is to locate it in the context of the antagonisms of global capitalism.”

Let’s recall that Counterpunch published (CiF commentator) Ben White’s apologia for Jew hatred, entitled “Is it possible to understand the rise in anti-Semitism“?  In the essay, White said:

“I can…understand why some are [anti-Semitic]. There are, in fact, a number of reasons. One is the state of Israel, its ideology of racial supremacy and its subsequent crimes committed against the Palestinians.”

Counterpunch has also published essays by Gilad Atzmon, a pro-Palestinian advocate who’s on record as saying:

“‘I’m not going to say whether it is right or not to burn down a synagogue, I can see that it is a rational act.”

In a Counterpunch essay, he wrote:

“Israelis and Zionists are very unusual creatures that do not follow any recognized human pattern of empathy, therefore we shouldn’t expect them to feel any sensation of compassion or guilt regarding their own crimes against gentiles in general and Palestinian people in particular.”

And, this:

“Israel is the only remaining example of a nationalistic state based on racial purity. The Jewish state isn’t a legitimate concept anymore.”

Also,

“Facing a moment of truth, many Israelis will be happy to leave Zionism behind and rejoin the human family.”

In another essay, Atzmon has written:

“”we must begin to take the accusation that the Jewish people are trying to control the world very seriously.”

Even CiF contributor Tony Greenstein has characterized Atzmon as anti-Semitic.

In 2009, a Counterpunch article by Alison Weir published an article which alleges that the blood libel is true and is related to purported Israeli thefts of human organs from Palestinians.  Writer Adam Holland noted, “The Counterpunch article may be the first instance of an American leftist media outlet promoting the blood libel.”

Counterpunch published an essay by Jennifer Lowenstein which said:

“How, for example, would the 47-year-old Sapir College student like to know that his death has been far more useful to his State than his life? For in death he provided another pretext to carry out mass murder of the Arab Untermenschen blocking the otherwise pleasant view to the sea in the southeastern Promised Land. His death challenged the Israeli rules of combat: the “We kill and You Die” warfare, the only type allowed by the Neo-Jewish Masters and their allies in the United States who have no intention of making a just peace with the lower forms of life in their midst. The sanctimonious demand that the Qassams must be stopped is a deliberate lie intended to make you forget that the Qassams provide a near fool-proof pretext for grabbing more of Gaza and setting more of it to ruin; and that the Qassams are the result of systematic national torture and evisceration, borne themselves of occupation, caused by it, improved upon by periods of siege, sadism and mass killing.”

Steven Plaut has characterized Counterpunch as:

“…so openly anti-Semitic these days that it goes well beyond merely calling for Israel’s extermination. It endorses anti-Semitic conspiracy “theories” (such as the morally imbecilic idea that Jews were behind the 9-11 attacks!) and increasingly publishes Holocaust Denier columnists. Some of its columnists moonlight as writers for Neo-Nazi web sites and organizations. Almost every literate Jewish anti-Semite writes for this publication.”

The line separating left-wing and right-wing anti-Semitism has indeed blurred over the years – with left-wing writers engaging in tropes consistent with classic paleoconservative anti-Semitism (dual loyalty, and Jewish power).  Though CiF Watch typically describes the Guardian’s brand as left-wing (they, after all, aspire to be the “world’s leading liberal voice”), I think its a fair to ask whether their “left-wing” politics are really just “right-wing” politics with a left-wing veneer.   The Guardian’s decision to link to, and thus legitimize, Counterpunch, raises serious questions about what exactly the term “liberal” means in the political context of the UK.  At the very least, the characterization of left-wing anti-Semitism as the “Socialism of Fools” seems more apt all the time.