The blood libel continues at Fox News and the Guardian

Following on from my article and updates about the anti-Semitic blood libel behind the 'anti-Islam' film furore (which was also taken up strongly by Debbie Schlussel - the first person publicly to state that the story was a fraud in the first place, well before the AP reported it as such) I did an internet search to see the extent to which even major news channels were still promoting the blood libel that Sam Bacile was an Israeli Jew funded by 100 wealthy American Jews. The results are frightening. A search for "Sam Bacile" (who note does not exist since he was revealed to be the pseudonym of Egyptain Copt Nakoula Basseley Nakoula) takes you to many major outlets still running the original anti-Semitic blood libel.  There are far too many to mention, but two are especially notable. The Guardian story originally posted on 12 September is STILL there today:

Guardian headline: still on web 16 September (5 days after the story was debunked)

The story DOES have an update (14/9/12) underneath stating that AP reported the identify could be a fake. However, they have not removed ANY of the original story and its anti-Semitism.

But even more remarkable is Fox News - the supposedly 'pro-Israel conservative news station'  STILL has its Sam Bacile is an Israeli Jew story up and there is no update or correction.

Fox News headline: still on web as of 16 September (5 days after the story was debunked)

This story leads with the following statement (not claim, please note):

An Israeli filmmaker based in California went into hiding Tuesday after his movie attacking Islam's Prophet Muhammad sparked angry assaults by ultra-conservative Muslims on U.S. missions in Egypt and Libya, where a U.S. ambassador and three other Americans were killed.

Note the direct blood libel here: The Israeli's actions caused the death of four Americans. The report continues:

Bacile, a California real estate developer who identifies himself as an Israeli Jew, said he believes the movie will help his native land by exposing Islam's flaws to the world.
"Islam is a cancer, period," he said repeatedly, his solemn voice thickly accented.
The two-hour movie, "Innocence of Muslims," cost $5 million to make and was financed with the help of more than 100 Jewish donors, said Bacile, who wrote and directed it.

There are too many other examples to note and the blogosphere is simply teeming with 'look what the f*cking Jews have done this time' venom. Well done Western liberal media.

And, despite this affair being possibly the most serious example of anti-Semitism in recent history,  I have yet to hear a single 'official' Jewish spokesperson say a word in public about it.

The latest blood libel against Israel and Jews

Even the most basic fact checking by the media would have immediately discovered that the so called "Israeli Jew living in America"  Sam Bacile (supposedly the man behind the anti-Islam film making the news) was a fabrication. And the idea that his film was funded by "100 wealthy American Jews" was so obviously false (the claim fits the classic Arab conspiracy theories) that it should have set alarm bells ringing for any self-respecting journalist or news editor.

Yet on Tuesday (September 11th - no coincidence about that)  when Muslims in Egypt and Libya 'spontaneously rioted' in protest at the film every major media outlet in the UK - including the BBC and Sky news - stated as an uncontested fact that the film had been directed by an Israeli with $5million funding provided by 100 wealthy American Jews.

When 'Sam Bacile' was quickly discovered to be an Egyptian Coptic Christian, named Nakoula Basseley Nakoula the media seemed strangely reluctant to point this out and rectify their earlier blood libel error). So if you do a quick search of the internet you will find thousands of articles and blog postings still spitting their anti-Semitism about Sam Bacile.. Even worse is that the main stream media (including Sky News) is continuing to feed the blood libel by still citing the nonsense about the "100 wealthy American Jews" funding the film. For example, Britain's most popular newspaper the Sun states in today's issue (still available online here) that:

The two-hour film cost £3.1million to make — and it is claimed was financed by 100-plus Jewish donors.

Even while the same article makes it clear that Nakoula is a con-man it fails to state the only person who ever claimed that the film was funded by 100 Jews was Nakoula himself. That's the same Nakoula who also claimed that the actual director was "Israeli Jew Sam Bacile" who turned out to be a pseudonym for Nakoula himself. Anybody with the slightest knowledge about Egyptian Copts will know exactly why Nakoula has acted in the way he has. Firstly, as a Copt he will be especially concerned for the fate of Copts in Egypt under the new Islamic regime - they are being brutally persecuted. Secondly as a Copt there is one group of people he will hate even more than the Islamists, and that is the Jews (see here). So by framing his film as a classic Israeli-Jewish conspiracy he was able to kill two birds with one stone.

Proud Muslim mother photographs her child at Sydney demonstration (for more on the Muslim Sydney riots 'against the film' see here)

They say that a lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is still putting on its shoes. It never takes much of a lie about Jews to be quickly consumed as a fact by the entire Muslim (and leftist) world. But the extent to which the Western media has fed and perpetuated such an obviously preposterous lie as this one is on a scale of cynicism previously unseen. For a typical posting about the story here - and it is one of thousands like it still up. It provides yet more proof of the deep-seated anti-Semitism of much of the media.

And the media's main spin on the riots - that they are only inspired by this film's 'provocation of Muslim feelings' - also reveals their pandering to Islamism and total lack of understanding of Islamist politics. The film has been available on YouTube since July, yet an Arabic translation of it was broadcast in Egypt by the Muslim Brotherhood - just in time for them to riot on September 11th, while the attack on the US embassy in Libya had clearly been planned well in advance.

UPDATE: I have been looking at further coverage of the story tonight and I can find no main stream media article which has made any attempt to consider the issue of the false original claims. Whereas every article emphasized the "Jewish Israeli" nationality orginally claimed, none of them mention the Egyptian Coptic nationality of the actual director. In fact many main stream media articles fail to mention Nakoula at all while others are happy to keep the blood libel very much alive, For example, tonight's Evening Standard covers the story on Page 24. The writer Rashid Razaq does not mention the name Nakoula once. He does, however, describe a banner held up in one of the protests as saying "It is the duty of all Muslims and Christians to kill Morris Sadek and Sam Bacile and everyone who participated in the film.” Razaq makes no atemtp to point out the obvious error here. So, as far as the Evening Standard is concerned, the Israeli Jew Sam Bacile not only exists but he is the one to blame for all of this. Still, I guess this is par for the course for the Standard's Middle East reporting.

UPDATE 16/9/12: Although some of today's Sunday newspapers have mentioned the anti-Semitic angle to the story (well done especially to Toby Young in today's Sun) most people in the UK have accepted that is was 'the Jews' behind all of this because that message was forcefully rammed home on TV and radio where it has not yet been corrected. One person emailed me the following:

Edgar
Same problem with James O'Brian on the LBC phone in . He repeatedly referred to the producer being an Israeli Jew . In order to reinforce the stereotype , he mentioned the standard trope of a ' shadowy group of cigar chomping individuals ( early Hollywod Jewish moguls smoking cigars ) and congratulating themselves on achieving the desired outcome. I eventually got through to one of his team informing her that as of the previous evening , AP and the Huff had identified him as being a 55 year old Coptic Christian from Egypt. It was obvious O Brian's researchers had not done their homework or as more likely were closed down.  Needless to say I was not put through and O Brian was allowed to carry on slating the Jews for something that was nothing to do with them.  I'm not surprised . O'Brian has previous form on Israel and it's all bad .
Joke is, on the same programme he went on to castigate the Sun for their reporting of the Hillsboro disaster labelling the Sun gutter press .
Man is a hypocrite without parallel .

James O'Brien is indeed a nasty piece of work (I can no longer bear to listen to him). A real old-fashioned anti-Semite. I've put in formal complaints to LBC before about his anti-Israel bias and have been totally ignored. O'Brien is on every weekday spewing his nonsense from 10.00 until 13:00. But there is no relief on LBC on Saturdays. From 07.00 until 10:00 there is the classic "as a Jew" James Max whose ignorance about Israel and the Middle East never fails to stop him pushing the classic leftist narrative (despite the fact that he calls himself a conservative). Then from 10:00 until 13.00 there is the double act of two of the biggest anti-Semites ever to have been MPs, namely Ken Livingstone and David Mellor. The joke is that Mellor is supposed to be the 'conservative counterbalance' to Livingstone.

UPDATE 16/9/12: Fox News and the Guardian perpetuate the blood libel

The curious case of the Jewish Music Institute and the anti-Semite

Last Sunday I posted the following message with the title "Leading antiSemite plays at Jewish festival":

I arrived  at today's annual Jewish music festival (Klezmer in the Park) at Regents Park London just in time to hear the presenter announce that the previous performer had been Gilad Atzmon.
While I was aware that Atzmon considered himself a Jazz (not Klezmer) musician he is much better known as being one of the UK's leading anti-Semites. Describing himself as an "Israeli born ex-Jew" he is a Holocaust denier who believes in the Protocols of the Elders of Zion and a world-wide Jewish conspiracy. You can see a summary of his profile here. He is, of course, also prominent in the anti-Israel movement, although his open anti-Semitism has been an embarrassment even to some of the most virulent anti-Israel fanatics.  There's plenty more on him here and here, but if you think that is all one-sided criticism then just look at his own website.
So the question is: who made the decision to invite Azmon to play at this event, and why? And what irony that this should happen at a time when Atzmon's cohorts ensure that every performance by Israeli musicians or actors in the UK is disrupted or forcibly cancelled.
As can be seen by events like the Jewish book week, the Jewish Comedy festival and Jewish film festival there is a tendency among the cultural elite who organize these kinds of events to give prominence to those with strong anti-Israel views. But an invite to Gilad Atzmon surely trumps anything that's gone before. Perhaps we can look forward to a cameo role from George Galloway - or maybe even a few surviving SS officers - at future London Jewish cultural events.

Shortly afterwards I got an email from the Jewish Musical Institute which simply said: 

Hello Edgar, I am events manager for the jmi. The Jewish music institute. What you have written about the event is not true. Please remove it from publication. Thank you Gil 

I duly removed the posting and responded as follows:

Gil, I've removed the post. But can you explain why the announcement was made that he played?

I got no response to that message or to two follow-up messages over the following two days. So I sent the following message on Wedneday:

Gil

I would be grateful if you could respond to either of the messages that I sent you yesterday. I want to know the answer to the following very simple question: -Why did the announcer say that the previous performer was Gilad Atzmon? I was considerate enough to remove the original blog posting when you said it 'was not true' (even though you did not specify what was not true in my article).

If you do not reply within 24 hours then I will put up a blog posting saying exactly what I heard and that the JMI can offer no explanation why the announcer said what he said (and hence leave it to readers to draw their own conclusions). I'm reasonably confident from your response that Atzmon was not formally invited to play. For what it's worth I'd say the most likely explanation for the announcement is that a recording of Atzmon was played. But I would like to be assured that Atzmon did not simply turn up and play.

This finally prompted the following response today:

Dear Edgar

Gilad Atzmon did not perform at Klezmer in the Park nor was he invited to do so. A piece of his music was played at one point, which presumably is why you heard an announcer mention his name. Until your complaint on Monday we were unaware of Atzmon’s political views.

Regards The Jewish Music Institute

So while I am very happy to put the record straight it does actually appear that - contrary to the original rather rude and abrupt message from the JMI - it is NOT the case that 'what I had written was not true'. I never said I saw Atzmon perform there; I made a perfectly reasonable assumption after hearing his name announced as the previous performer.

I find it very interesting that the JMI was unaware of Atzmon's political views. His anti-semitism - not his music - is what defines his public personna. It is difficult to be aware that Atzmon is a musician at all without being aware of his anti-Semitism. Indeed the only link to Atzmon and Klezma music at all can be found here.  Note that every song title has a clearly implied anti-Israel theme; the first three are

1. Dal'ouna on the return (trad. Palestinian) 4:45
2. Al-Quds (Gilad Atzmon) 9:59
3. Jenin (Gilad Atzmon) 5:50

I also noticed that the next publicized event by the JMI involves David Rosenberg leading a musical tour of the East End. Presumably the JMI are also unaware that Rosenberg - leader of the Jewish Socialist Group, is a very active and visible anti-Israel campaigner. In fact, he works with the anti-Semitic Palestine Solidarity Campaign to boycott all Israeli goods and tourism (see this document) and to delegitimize Israel.

While these kind of people seek to boycott and disrupt every cultural event involving Jewish performers from Israel (irrespective of their political beliefs) I would never dream of disrupting a performance by anybody because of their nationality or even their obnoxious racist views. But neither would I choose to go to - or even listen to -  performers who are hypocritical Israel haters. Therefore having such people either invited to - or simply promoted - at main stream Jewish events is something I find both offensive and ironic.

Finally (and thanks to commenter amie for pointing this out) the JMI has serious form when it comes to an ambivalent attitude towards Israel. In March 2011 they rejected Israeli funding for one of their events when they came under pressure from the anti-Semitic boycott brigade. In fact the Jewish Chronicle report is rather too kind on Geraldine Auerbach the Head of the JMI. In this report by the boycotters themselves you get a much more detailed understanding of the extent to which the Auerbach bent over backwards to meet the boycotters demands:

In correspondence with the protesters, Geraldine Auerbach, the head of the Jewish Music Institute, stated “I confirm that there is no funding directly or indirectly from the Israeli Government or institutions”. Subsequently all reference to the Israeli- related organisations was removed from the conference’s online publicity materials. Similarly Ms Auerbach, who had stated in the Jewish Chronicle that the Israeli Embassy was helping to promote the Conference, now stated that no such promotion had taken place.

Co Op refuse to answer any of my 20 my questions

I have finally had a response from the Co-op to my previous letter that asked 20 questions about the Co-op's choice of criteria for boycotting countries. Here is the letter from Amanda Bailey.

The fact that she has made no attempt to answer even one of my questions means it is safe to conclude that the only rational definition of what constitutes an abuse of their “Human Rights and Trade Policy” is that the country must be named "Israel". In particular we can conclude that:

1. ‘Occupation’ is the only criteria they consider as part of their “Human Rights and Trade Policy”

2. Denial of equal rights to women and/or minorities is NOT one of their criteria of interest

3. Persecution of gays and lesbians is NOT one of their criteria of interest

4. Brutal suppression of ethnic minorities and political dissidents is NOT one of their criteria of interest

5. Sponsoring and glorifying terrorism is NOT one of their criteria of interest

6. State sponsored anti-Semitism is NOT one of their criteria of interest

7. The Co-Op is happy to trade with all 58 Muslim countries in the world even though they are all guilty of the human rights abuses listed in 2-6.

8. Conducting "illegal wars far from a country’s own borders” is NOT one of their criteria of interest and that is why the Co-Op is not boycotting goods from the USA, France, Italy, Holland ... and the UK etc.

9. The Co-op is selective in which 'international consensus' it accepts. In particular, it rejects United Nations resolution 242, which specifies that the West Bank does not belong to any national territory but rather is considered disputed territory whose borders are to be determined under a final status peace agreement.

10. The Co-op also rejects the findings of the recent Levy Report

11. The Co-Op is not aware  that the only legal basis for denouncing the Jews who returned in 1967 to the homes that they had been expelled from in 1948 as “settlers” is by recognizing the Jordanian conquests of those territories, even though those conquests were never recognized or accepted. Not even by the international community.

12. The Co-op are not aware that one of the ICC ‘judges’ who was responsible for the 'international legal ruling' they refer to was Al Khasawneh who had a blatant conflict of interest, since he was an advisor to the King of Jordan and later became the Prime Minister of Jordan

13. The Co-op's notion of occupied territories fails to include the approximately 160 other territories around the world that are ‘disputed’ (each of which necessarily involves one country ‘occupying it’ against the wishes of some other country or national group)?

14. The Co-op's definition does not include genuinely brutal occupations such as: the Chinese occupation of Tibet, the Turkish occupation of Northern Cyprus, or even the Russian occupation of Abkhazia, especially as China, Russia and Turkey all of have infinitely worse human rights records than Israel

15. The Co-op are not aware that one of the disputed international territories is the Falklands Islands, which Argentina claims is illegally occupied by the UK and that a significant majority of countries in the UN now agree with the Argentine position.

16. The Co-op are not aware that any notion of an ‘international consensus’ is fundamentally irrelevant because the United Nations contains 58 Muslim states – all human rights abusers as described above - who provide a built-in ‘consensus’ on any anti-Israel motion that anybody cares to think of

17. The Co-op is happy to “continue to seek increased trade with Palestinian businesses.” despite the corrupt Palestinian Authority being guilty of all of the human rights offences listed above

18. The Co-op believes that Israel – the only liberal democracy in the Middle East where all minorities have equal rights – is a worse human rights violator than Syria, Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, the Palestinian Authority, Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, Russia, China etc

19.  The Co-op's policy to boycott goods produced by Jewish communities in the West Bank is indeed pure anti-Semitism

20. The Co-Op did indeed get hoodwinked into a nonsensical hypocritical policy (that will ultimately be self-damaging) by a small group of congenital anti-Semites disguised as ‘pro-Palestinian’ activists.

Baroness Warsi: Muslim supremacist still in Cabinet and with much greater authority

Nothing sums up David Cameron's pandering to the Islamist agenda better than his relationship with Baroness Warsi the unelected Pakistani born Muslim woman who, until yesterday, was the Conservative Party Chairman (one Tory MP  described her as "the worst chairman we have ever had"). So desperate was Cameron after the 2010 election to show his 'diversity' credentials that he saw Warsi as the perfect face of the new 'tolerant' conservatism - young, Muslim, Northern accent and female. Cameron ignored all rationality in his appointment of Warsi since in 2005 she had not only lost  the only election she ever run,  but was also criticised for election literature which was described as "homophobic". Her corrupt dealings were also evident before Cameron appointed her as Party Chairman, because as a life peer (appointed as such by Cameron 2007) she claimed more than £50,000 in expenses in 2009 which included a fully tax payer funded trip to Pakistan where she attended a family wedding.

But if Warsi was simply just a useless corrupt unelected politician I would not be writing this article. Unfortunately, she is far more dangerous than that. The 'homophobic' literature (along with her strong opposition to a burka ban in the UK, her ambivalent attitude toward Islamic terrorism, and her obsession with 'Islamaphobia') should have been a warning to everyone that the modern anti-fundamentalist veneer that Warsi has tried to cultivate was always just a cover for a typically hard-line Muslim supremicist world-view. That world view has always been evident whenever subjects like the Middle East arise (she led the Conservative abuse of Israel during the Gaza war in 2010). But it came into sharp focus earlier this year when it was revealed that her business partner and relative Abid Hussain was a senior member of Hizb ut-Tahrir - the terrorist supporting Islamist supremacist organisation that Cameron himself had promised (but failed) to ban. Not only had Warsi invited Abid Hussain into Downing Street but he also accompanied her on some of her many 'official' trips to Pakistan and other Muslim countries (these trips were official only in the sense that the UK taxpayer paid for them; there was never any rational reason for the Party Chairman - whose job should always have been focused exclusively on grassroots UK activities - to make them; imagine the outcry if the Party Chairman was a Jew and all 17 foreign trips he made in one year were to Israel). When Warsi was also discovered this year to have failed to declare her business interests with the House of Lords authorities, and to have claimed an allowance for accommodation while staying at the home of a party donor who said he did not charge rent, you would have thought that Cameron would finally see sense and sack her.

For a few moments yesterday it appeared that Cameron had finally came to his senses. Warsi herself - in breach of Cabinet confidentiality rules - announced her dismissal as Party Chairman on twitter before it was officially announced. She also turned down Cameron's offer of the role of Commonwealth Minister (the Sun quotes her friends as saying "this job was so tokenistic it was ridiculous"). But, instead of telling the ungrateful traitor and cretin where to go, Cameron decided he could not do without her. He has actually created a new Cabinet post for her that gives her two ministerial positions with much greater authority than anything she has had before. And it appears that Warsi herself chose the two positions; they are the two ministries where her Muslim supremacist agenda can be used to the maximum: she is now Foreign Office Minister (with only Hague above her in seniority) and Minister for "Faith and Communities". In the former role expect a massively enhanced strategy of deligitimzation of Israel and even more millions of terrorist supporting foreign aid cash to Pakistan and Palestine; in the latter expect a massive drive to further criminalize criticism of Islam and soften opposition to the advances of Sharia law.

This is one of the worse days in the history of British politics. And it is being totally ignored by the main stream media, most of whom have managed to spin the story as being a 'humiliating demotion' for Warsi, who is the 'victim of Tory Islamaphobia, racism, and sexism'.

UPDATE (6 Sept): It gets worse (and the UK media is still ignoring this). The Pakistani media is reporting far more (and more worrying) details:

Warsi will continue to have a seat at the cabinet table but more importantly she also now has a seat at the National Security Council meetings. Her brief in the new job involves a long list of areas but the most important ones are Af-Pak policy, withdrawal of British troops from Afghanistan, Organisation of Islamic Countries (OIC), and central Asia, Commonwealth, United Nations, human rights and consular policies. In her role as the Faith and Communities minister, a role specifically created for her in the Communities and Local Government (CLG) where she will have two special advisors to assist her, she will work towards the enhancement of faith in the social and public life.

UPDATE (8 Sept) Melanie Phillips has also picked up on the potential seriousness of this now. She has some very revealing quotes by Warsi that provide evidence that she is one of the last people any rational Brit would want at a National Security Council meeting.

UPDATE April 2014: Two years on my worst fears about Warsi have all been realised.