The stunningly anticlimactic showing of the British Liberal Democrats in last week’s election precipitated a front-page story on website of the liberal Israeli daily Ha’aretz: ‘Israel diplomats breathe sigh of relief at Clegg's poor poll showing.’ Characteristic though it may be for Jerusalem to monitor the political vicissitudes of its western allies, a ‘sigh of relief’ seemed a mite strong. The Lib Dems may be to the left of Labour, and to the distant left of the Conservatives, but in the wake of leader Nick Clegg’s nimble debate performances they had emerged as a serious third party alternative with impressive pre-election poll numbers. They had become, in other words, part of the British mainstream.
The problem is with what that mainstream now comprises: the continued de-legitimization of Israel, regular apologetics for jihadism, Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaigns and, most troubling of all, extreme rhetoric appearing the mouths of so-called progressives. Two Labour Party MPs were recently reported to have made inflammatory and prejudiced claims regarding Jews and Israel, this time at a March meeting of British NGO ‘Friends of Al Aqsa’, which describes itself as concerned with ‘defending the human rights of Palestinians and protecting the sacred al-Aqsa Sanctuary in Jerusalem.’ Addressing the meeting, which was convened at the British Parliament, MP Martin Linton claimed that ‘Israelis and pro-Israelis’ were ‘trying to buy a Conservative victory’. Further prejudiced characterization came in his assertion: ‘There are long tentacles of Israel in this country who are funding election campaigns and putting money into the British political system for their own ends.’
Historical amnesia or a kind of cultural autism may have accounted for Linton’s poor choice of metaphor, but on a bad day, the political attitudes and postures of the British left can indeed be indistinguishable from those of the nationalist far right. Where these attitudes and postures first gain a foothold is in the ideologically promiscuous fringe media.
Three weeks ago Liberal Democrat Baroness Jenny Tonge withdrew her patronage of The Palestine Telegraph, a Gaza-based online newspaper aimed at an English-speaking audience. Her reason? The Palestine Telegraph had prominently featured on its homepage a video of American white supremacist and former KKK Grand Wizard David Duke suggesting that Israel was responsible for terrorism in the United States.
Well, it’s certainly good to know where Baroness Tonge draws the line. Yet when it came to previous effusions of anti-Semitism in the pages of The Palestine Telegraph, Tonge had formerly been defiant. Last February, she was asked by Britain’s Jewish Chronicle what she thought about an article that appeared on the website accusing Israeli doctors of stealing organs from Haitian earthquake victims. She responded that there ought to be in independent inquiry into the allegations. The article, written by Stephen Lendman, was certainly not based on any hard evidence and certainly would not have been noteworthy in itself save for the fact that Tonge was not a low-level politician but the acting Liberal Democrat health advisor. She was subsequently sacked from this shadow cabinet position although not expelled from her party by Nick Clegg.
Tonge’s departure from the board of patrons may have been the result of a genuine crisis of conscience or electoral gamesmanship in a year where her party suddenly found itself polling better than expected. But it created an opportunity for another MP, George Galloway, to take her place. Galloway was expelled from the Labour party in 2003 after encouraging British soldiers in Iraq to disobey orders. He represented, up until last Thursday, the constituency of Bethnal Green and Bow as part of the Respect Party, which in its 2010 manifesto stated that if elected if would ‘strengthen legislation to tackle racism, sexism, homophobia, anti-Semitism, Islamophobia and all forms of bigotry.‘ However, Galloway has little concern for Hamas’ anti-Semitism, homophobia, racism and sexism since his Viva Palestina ‘charity’ group has already convened three convoys to Gaza where he has personally handed over money and automobiles to Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, not forgetting to boast of how these donations violated UK and EU laws, which deem Hamas a terrorist entity.
Having recruited as patrons two members of Britain’s political class, The Palestine Telegraph has also snagged its own mainstream media figure-- journalist and broadcaster Lauren Booth, perhaps best known for being Tony Blair’s sister-in-law. Booth writes regularly for the right-of-centre tabloid newspaper The Daily Mail and is also presenter of a regular programme on the Iranian state-owned English-language channel Press TV. Privately, she has raised money for Interpal, a legally registered charity which the UK Charity Commission determined in 2009 had failed to vet the partnerships it kept, namely with organizations that promote “terrorist ideology.” One of these was The Union of Good, a Hamas front headed by radical cleric Yusuf al-Qaradawi, who in 2005 was banned from entering Britain for his frequent incitements to ‘martyrdom.’ Qaradawi is also infamous for saying unpleasant things about Jews and homosexuals and for applauding wife beating and the punishment of raped women. Not waning to leave her own political views to the vagaries of interpretation, Booth has also cited approvingly the more noxious statements of a British-Israeli contributor to Palestine Telegraph, Gilad Atzmon, who regularly promotes conspiracy theories about Jews (he believes the Protocols of the Elders of Zion to have been ‘prophetic’) and whose own website hosts anti-Semitic cartoons. The Palestine Telegraph features a competitive collection of these as well.
Booth, Tonge and Galloway, which sounds like the name of a Dickensian solicitors’ firm, have got miles to go before approaching the outspokenness of The Palestine Telegraph’s owner and editor, the British resident Sameh Habeeb. Last week, Habeeb granted an interview to the Leeds University student newspaper in which, when queried about the coverage of the Arab-Israeli conflict in outlets such as the BBC and Sky News, he said the following: 'They are certainly pro-Israeli. I think you have to ask yourself who controls the media.'
I think we have to ask ourselves where such bouts of lunacy end and where the conventional wisdom in 21st-century Britain begins. It used to be unthinkable for an elected official of a so-called liberal party to support a far-right propaganda mill masquerading as a pro-Palestinian news source.
Michael Weiss is the executive director of Just Journalism, a London-based think tank focused on how Israel and Middle East issues are reported in the UK media.
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