BRITISH JOURNALISTS WALLOW IN ANTI-ISRAEL MYTHS, IGNORE PALESTINIAN JOURNALISTS' PLEAS FOR HELP AGAINST FATAH AND HAMAS

There's a bile-inducing pamphlet being passed around the left, the point of which is that an anti-Israel boycott just around the corner. It's what you'd expect, but if you want to track them down this Google News search will produce four or five different versions. The main point is that the pro-boycott vote by British journalists - where they blamed Israel for interfering with the work of reporters in the Gaza Strip and West Bank - was a dramatic turning point. We're not sure about the conclusions of the article. But it's undeniable that the votes of British journalists had a drip-drip-drip effect on global sentiment - the kind of "change what people can reasonably say out loud" tactic that Ahmadinejad has exploited so successfully to deny the Holocaust. It's also undeniable that there's something a little strange about the obsession that British journalists have with the Jewish State. For instance, if they were genuinely concerned about reporters - well, one would think that this might matter a little bit more:

Palestinian journalists on Sunday announced a series of protests to demand that Hamas and Fatah stop targeting them. The announcement... came after a crackdown on newsmen in both the Fatah-controlled West Bank and the Hamas-run Gaza Strip. Embattled Palestinian reporters said such attacks had become the norm in the Palestinian territories. "Both Hamas and Fatah are targeting journalists," said a Ramallah-based journalist. "We are caught in the cross fire between Hamas and Fatah." Another member of the press from Jenin said he had been receiving death threats on an almost daily basis in recent months. "One day it's from Fatah, and another day the threats come from Hamas," he told The Jerusalem Post. "For the past month, I haven't been able to write anything under my name out of fear for my life."

The reason British journalists are targeting Israel is because Israel is the one interfering with reporters in Gaza and the West Bank. Obviously.

[Cross-posted to Mere Rhetoric]

SUSPICIOUSLY INCONSISTENT BRITISH BOYCOTT OF THE DAY - BRITS NOT BOYCOTTING THE SIDE THAT STRAPS SUICIDE BELTS TO BRITISH JOURNALISTS

Israeli and Jewish organizations are devoting enormous resources to countering the myriad British boycotts - from journalists and doctors and trade unions and academics - that have recently been leveled against the Jewish state. You know who doesn't have to worry about British boycotts? The Palestinians who strap suicide belts to British hostages and force them to plead for their lives in front of cameras.

It's almost like there's a double standard at work here.

Or - even more unbelievably - that British animus towards Israel is being driven by something other than level-headed analysis regarding the genuine scope of imagined Israeli human rights violations.

While we're on the topic of hypocrisy, make sure you check out the photogallery of Hamas insanity that Anne has up at Boker Tov, Boulder. Safe for work and somewhat less nauseating than some of the other images that have come out of that train wreck - more "they're totally batshit crazy" than "that is a stomach turning and inhuman atrocity".

[Read an extended version of this post at Mere Rhetoric]

ISRAELI PUBLIC DIPLOMACY EXPERT: BRITISH BOYCOTT IS VICIOUSLY ANTI-SEMITIC

Public diplomacy - having put its faith in the ability of governments to appeal directly to foreign populations - is not precisely a home of radical right-wing sensibility. It presumes, among other things, that people who hate America or Israel do so for the reasons that they give, and that if those reasons are answered then their hate will be somewhat mitigated. Within the public diplomacy community, Israeli Prof. Eitan Gilboa is easily among the most prominent scholars. So it's worth noting how totally conclusive he is about the motives behind the British boycott:

The radical Left that stands behind the initiatives to impose boycotts on Israel is attempting to create the impression that it is only harshly criticizing Israeli policies vis-a-vis the Palestinians. In fact, it is negating Israel's right to exist and is conducting the harshest campaign of demonization and de-legitimization since the UN ruled that Zionism was racist. The boycotts are the result of several causes, including fervent Palestinian activity in the public diplomacy sphere referred to as PR (hasbara) in Israel. The Palestinians have joined the radical Left, which has succeeded in taking over trade unions in several Western countries. They are also assisted by several dubious Jews and Israelis. On the other hand, Israel has neglected this front, which has become a key tool in running foreign and defense affairs.

You can quibble with his solution - to demonstrate Israeli good will by appealing directly to the British public in the form of expanded cooperation. But when an international scholar of not exactly rightist reputation is saying these things about colleagues in other universities - to say nothing of his low opinion of Israeli useful idiots - then intellectualized anti-Semitism has gone from nudge-nudge wink-wink to openly vicious and vaguely genocidal.

[Read an extended version of this post at Mere Rhetoric]

WE'RE GOING TO MISS WESTMINSTER ABBEY - SHARIA COURTS IN BRITAIN

We mean this without sarcasm: we are not looking forward to the day when lunatic Islamists finally get around to rampaging through Westminster. Here's how bad things are going:

This presents the British authorities with an opportunity to reassert the fact that all in Britain must abide by British law: they could move decisively to shut down these courts, and to criminalize Sharia in Britain. Will they do any of that? Probably not... Muslim radicals have established their own draconian court systems in Britain. Controversial Sharia courts have been set up in major towns and cities to impose Islamic law and enable Muslims to shun the legitimate British legal system. Last night religious leaders and politicians expressed outrage that Sharia law is gaining an increasing foothold in our society. Critics insisted that the Government is allowing a two-tier legal system to flourish in the name of political correctness and that the authority of UK justice is being undermined.

Add this to shameless public calls for sharia law, and the situation looks less like an excess and more like a trend. And in case you were wondering how British journalists are choosing between confrontation and appeasement, here's another article about execrable Journalists boycott of Israel. This one identifies the journalists' moral cowardice partly as an attempt to make nice with the radical Muslims in their midst. In addition to latent anti-Semitism and fashionable European leftism (is there a difference any more?), it's probably not far from the mark.

[Read an extended version of this post at Mere Rhetoric]