Frankie Boyle: The hypocrisy

The 'comedian' Frankie Boyle is all over the news today. The media are outraged at his 'racist' remarks in his latest Channel 4 show. This is the same media of course who were totally indifferent to his several previous barrages of vicious anti-semitism dressed up as hatred of Israel.

So why the outrage this time? They are outraged that he used the "P-word" (the media are not even allowed to spell out 'Paki') and the "N-word". But if you actually read what he said, you can see that by P's and N's he was clearly referring to Arabs/Muslims and, in contrast to his open hatred for Jewish Israelis, he was actually expressing genuine sympathy with them (and especially the Taliban); this was not an anti-P or anti-N attack but a typically ignorant attack against the British armed forces and Defence establishment:

• He said: “Basically we are murdering a load of shepherds. What gets me is our callousness as a society when we read out our dead on the news first, because our lives are more important. Other people’s aren’t worth as much.”
• Adopting a newsreader’s tone, he added: “A bomb went off in Kandahar today, killing two British servicemen, three UN relief workers and a whole bunch of P****.”
• Later he said: “The Ministry of Defence? At least in the old days we were honest, it was The Ministry of War.”
• In a posh phone voice he added: “Hello Ministry of War, department of n*****-bombing, how can I help?”

So Boyle genuinely thinks the Taliban and Al Quaeda are just a bunch of innocent shepherds who deserve our sympathy, while the British armed forces are racist murderers. But not one media report focused on this aspect of Boyle's show. They were only concerned about the offense cause to Ps and Ns.

Now, isn't there something wrong here? When Boyle issues blood libels against Jewish Israelis, Jews have no right to feel offended. And when Boyle slanders British troops at the same time as showing his sympathy with the Taliban and Al Qaeda, the outrage is not against these disgusting views promoted without response to millions of (mainly) politically ignorant and easily influenced teenagers. No, the only outrage allowed is his use of the P and N-words (in a context where he was actually expressing sympathy with all P's and N's, but most of all sympathy with all Muslims).

Frankie Boyle has proved himself a racist that's for sure. But his racism is against loyal Englishmen, Jewish Israelis and any Jew who does not believe the State of Israel should be wiped out. And in the eyes of the media those people have no right to be offended no matter how viciously they are slandered.

The JC sinks lower and lower

Daphne Anson has another very good article exposing the transformation of the Jewish Chronicle that I have also blogged about recently. Rapidly the JC is morphing into a Guardian look-alike, with its increasingly central contributions from anti-Zionists.

Daphne's article highlights the fact that Nicholas Saphir, the Chair of the anti-Zionist New Israel Fund (UK), is a trustee of the Kessler Foundation, which owns the Jewish Chronicle. Last week the New Israel Fund had a 4-page pullout in the JC, and rarely a week goes by nowadays without some major positive focus/article about the NIF.

Today's JC confirms the trend towards the JC's antipathy/indifference toward Israel. Forget the week's barrage of rocket attacks from Gaza or the many stories this week confirming the existential threats against Israel (not a mention anywhere in the paper). Forget even the incredible revelation this week that Henry Kissinger, when he was Sectretary of State in the US in 1973, stated that he could not care less if the Russians gassed all the Jews left in Russia (and that he would certainly not allow the US to intervene if they did so). That fails to get a mention either. No, the big front page story is a rather sympathetic account of a senior editor of the Board of Deputies urging the Board to invite PA envoy Manuel Hassassian to address the Board. What the story of course fails to tell readers is that Hassassian is nothing other than a terrorist supporting liar as revealed clearly by Elder of Zyon.

Digging deeper into the paper things do not get any better. There is a near full page article by Orlando Radice arguing that the real extremists we have to worry about are the Jewish ones. And the letters page has two letters responding to the comments of Isi Liebler (who had had the audacity to criticise 'we must speak out against Israel' UJIA boss Mick Davis). Naturally, both letters are indignant at Isi trying to crush Davis's right to free speech. The only pro-Israel piece in the paper is the regular column by Geoffrey Alderman, but even he is forced on the defensive and no doubt will take the usual flak in next week's letters page.

Imagine if the London student riots had taken place in Israel

Whatever the rights and wrongs of last week's riots in London over student fee increases, there is no doubt that there was violence on both sides, with the police responding to appalling provocation by hardcore anarchists/leftists who infiltrate all such protests.

Quite reasonably, the media response to these incidents has been unanimous condemnation of the protesters and sympathy with the police having to deal with a volatile situation. Although some minor concerns have been expressed about the police 'kettling' tactics, the concept that there could be any mainstream media anger directed at the police is fanciful and the notion that any foreign country might express an opinion of any kind - let alone one which openly criticises the British police and/or government, it simply too bizarre to consider.

So how would you feel – as a typical law-abiding Brit or even as a member of the British government – if Barak Obama, Nicolas Sarkozy, Angela Merkel and the leaders of every other Western government issued statements expressing their deep concern about the UK’s disproportionate police actions and referred the matter to an emergency session of the UN Security Council? And what about if the leaders of every Muslim government, including such beacons of liberty as Gaddafy, Ahmedinejad and Assad, while chairing UN Human Rights committees issuing condemnations of the UK and calls for a worldwide boycott against, also called on British students to rise up and kill every British policeman? And how would you feel about worldwide street protests, whipped into a frenzy by the media, in which thousands march in every capital of the world demanding the total destruction of the UK as a just penalty for its anti-student actions? And finally, I'd imagine you would not be too impressed if every major international charity (led by Oxfam, Christian Aid and War on Want) launched massive appeals, which although initially focused on funding students who were physically or psychologically 'harmed' by the riots, would ultimately be handed to the anarchists so that they could organise new, and more vicious riots.

All pretty bizarre? Not if you further imagine that these riots – with exactly the same level of protester provocation and police response -- had taken place in Israel and if the protesters were mainly Arabs. Actually, it is not hard to imagine because even the most minor skirmish in Israel involving Arab protesters is treated as an international crisis. And for this level of violence all of the above worldwide reactions would have taken place. With absolute certainty.

Perhaps Bibi Netanyahu should start the ball rolling by issuing his own condemnation of the British police in the Knesset, with a direct appeal to David Cameron and William Hague to ‘stop the British police violence immediately’. Then if, in response, Cameron told the Israelis to mind their own business, perhaps Netanyahu might also know how to respond the next time the British and others feel compelled to publicly condemn the Israelis for far less 'crimes'.

LSE 's New Middle East Centre eradicates Israel

In recent years the prestigious LSE (London School of Economics) has seen an increasing number of anti-Israel incidents, including an occupation of the Old Theatre in 2009 that was ended only after the School's craven capitulation to the demands of the anti-Israel extremists. Only last week the LSE hosted rabid hate merchant Abdul Bari Atwan, which is especially ironic since last year it banned the brilliant Douglas Murray, on 'security grounds' simply because he was prepared to speak in defence of Israel.

It still comes as a great shock, however, that the LSE has inaugurated a new Middle East Centre, funded by £9.2 million from the United Arab Emirates, which appears to not recognise the state of Israel. In the map accompanying the article (see left) about the new Centre in the latest copy of the LSE Connect Magazine, Israel - and all of its cities - has been completely eradicated. It certainly cannot be for reasons of space since Gaza, Lebanon and Beirut are all clearly marked in the space where Israel should be.

It is difficult to understand why an outstanding scholarly institute like the LSE would wish to be associated with a Centre like this. But clearly the LSE is taking money from wealthy Arab regimes to further delegitimize the only true democracy in the Middle East and promote the cause of Islamic fundamentalism.

See important update to this post (15 January 2011)

Israeli tragedy: Arabs rejoice, rest of world yawns

By any measure the tragedy that occured in Israel today, with fires engulfing the North and a busload of cadets killed in a fireball (40 dead) while on their way to help evacuate inmates of a prison, was a major international news story especially as the disaster is ongoing. 40 dead Israelis is equivalent in relative population terms to 2400 Amercians - similar to the number killed on 9/11. The fact that there are claims this may have been a terrorist act (see e.g. here, here and here) compound the importance of the story.

But, as usual, dead Israelis elicit a very different response compared to victims from any other country.

• The West ignores it (not a single mention on the main bulletins tonight on Sky News or even Fox News - not even on the ticker-tape).
• The Arabs rejoice in it. So it is a major story on Al Jazeera while Arabs in Israel are actually celebrating.

Whether or not this was a natural disaster or a terrorist act is not the issue. It is the world reaction to it, which will be no different no matter the scale of disaster that hits Israel. Which is exactly what Ahmedinejad, Hamas and Hezbollah understand very well.

Update, 5 Dec: Three days on and the story failed to get a single mention in the UK's most popular newspapers (the Sun and the News of the World). Althought the story got a very brief mention on some of the UK TV news programmes, there was no mention of the special tragedy of the young firefighters in the bus and of course no mention of the further blood curdling Arab rejoicing and gloating over burnt Israeli bodies (and these were all young people going to help evacuate Palestinian TERRORISTS).

The day that world football died

So, in its quest for outreach and multiculturalism FIFA (one of the world's most corrupt organisations) has awarded the 2022 World Cup to one of the most anti-Semitic, corrupt nations in the world - Qatar. As proof of how surreal a decision this was it even led to the first ever statement made by Obama that I agreed with (he said simply that “FIFA made a mistake”, but no doubt if the USA had not been one of the other bidders he would have been cheering another instance of ‘Muslim outreach’). This story is also well covered here.

Anyway, I've just sent the following self-explanatory letter to the FIFA President:


Dear Mr Blatter

If FIFA is prepared to countenance the idea that the World Cup could be awarded to a country that has never qualified for the world cup (nor any record of footballing achievement), no prospects for football development, no suitable football stadiums nor even football supporters, then we can certainly at least expect any such a country to be one which abides by laws of basic human decency. For example, one which allows entry to visitors irrespective of race or nationality. And we certainly would expect such a country to be free from institutional racism, homophobia and sexism. Since the World Cup is the greatest sporting celebration on earth, it would also surely be expected that in such a country alcohol would not be banned, and it would help if it was physically possible to be outside in such a country in the summer for more than 5 minutes without suffering sunstroke in temperatures guaranteed to be above 45 degrees centigrade. And we would certainly expect such a country NOT to be the major financier of Al Qaeda and other Islamic terrorist organisations.

Indeed, the latest version of FIFA statutes document states prominently (in its own section, page 7):

• Discrimination of any kind against a country, private person or group of people on account of ethnic origin, gender, language, religion, politics or any other reason is strictly prohibited and punishable by suspension or expulsion.

Can you please therefore explain the rationale for awarding the 2022 World Cup to Qatar - a country which not only breaches FIFA’s statutes, but which somehow fails to satisfy a single one of the above-mentioned very modest criteria of basic respectability. Qatar, the country:

• that does not allow entry to nationals from another of FIFA’s own countries, Israel. In fact, not only does it not allow entry to Israeli nationals, nor does it allow entry to nationals of any country who have their passport stamped from a visit to Israel.
• where homosexuality is punishable by death and where even an American citizen was sentenced to six months imprisonment and 90 lashes for homosexual activity.
• which, through its international Al Jazeera propaganda news network, is the world’s major exporter of anti-semitism and anti—Western jihadism.
• which through its newspapers and TV programmes, that are exported to the Muslim world, not only perpetuate consistent holocaust-denial but provide continually novel anti-Semitism. Indeed, a country which, despite being considered by the USA as an ‘ally’ was identified by the White House in 2003 as being a persistent and unacceptable source of vicious anti-Semitism .
• which hosts ‘the world’s leading Islamic Sunni scholar’ Yusuf al-Qaradawi who, apart from his open hatred of fellow Shiite Muslims, is best known for issuing the fatwas that a) formally allowed Islamic suicide bombers to target women and children and b) formally allowed women not only to become suicide bombers but also to wear western clothing in the act of their suicide bombing in order to deceive their victims (in fact this is the sum total of his contribution to advancing the rights of women in Islam).
• where even taking photographs of ‘local people’ is illegal.

Given FIFA’s statutes stated above, I know that Qatar’s discrimination against Israeli and Jews are especially problematic for you (and I know this because I have seen some of the documentation of the bid). For the first time in World Cup history there will be a host country that does not allow entry to nationals from another of FIFA’s own countries, Israel. I understand that the Qataris have explicitly assured FIFA that they will allow entry to Israelis for ‘the duration of the tournament’. I have even heard that FIFA regards this as an indication of its own “positive influence” ; but that is a bit like saying it would have been a good thing to award the Olympic Games to Nazi Germany in 1936 if the Nazis agreed to postpone their pograms against the Jews for the duration of the tournament... Oh wait a minute ... that is exactly what did happen (so it seems the ethical choices of international sports committees have not changed much over the years).

I understand that the Qataris have also assured FIFA members by noting that Israeli sports participants have previously been allowed into the country and that they have even hosted Israeli trade delegations. What they would not have told you is how exceptional these events were and how bitterly they were received by the country’s small but indoctrinated population. The fact that Qatar has refused to establish diplomatic relations with Israel, and will not do so by 2022, is all that you really need to know.

What is certain is that many football supporters who would love to attend the 2022 World Cup – homosexuals, Jews, women, Israelis, or just supporters who also like to drink beer or take photographs – will effectively be denied the opportunity to attend.

If it is not too late for FIFA to reconsider its decision then you simply must do so.

If it is then today was the day that world football died. In either case I would like some explanation of your decision.

Update 2014: 14 reasons why the Qatar World Cup will be a disaster