On Thursday, we emailed Guardian editors to complain about an egregious example of antisemitism in a review of a book by Rashid Khalidi (“The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine by Rashid Khalidi review – conquest and resistance”, May 7).
.@guardian Have you learned nothing from the #LabourAntisemitism crisis? Israel is the 'tail that wags the dog?"' Seriously? https://t.co/Xbk0WGkn6q pic.twitter.com/K5tdlFvulv
— CAMERA UK (formerly UK Media Watch and BBC Watch) (@CAMERAorgUK) May 7, 2020
In our email to their Readers’ Editor, we communicated our deep concern over the use of such an toxic antisemitic trope – popular with both the far-right and far-left – suggesting that Israel controls the United States. Though editors upheld our complaint and deleted the reference to Israel as “the tail wagging the dog”, the addendum, as you’ll see, didn’t address the reason for the revision:
This is completely unacceptable.
The editor’s note should have been clear on what was amended (the use of an antisemitic trope), and included an apology to readers. Further, we urge the Guardian to investigate how such a clear example of anti-Jewish racism got past editors in the first place.
Further, we’ll be publishing a follow-up post tomorrow that examines the Guardian book review in detail – addressing the distortions, falsehoods and offensive references that remain.