Mark, I'm amazed by your untiring attempts to engage zionists in fair debate. It's becoming pretty obvious however that zionists never debate. It's a pretence at best. I'm not surprised that they binned your comments!
Not to discourage you though. Excellent posts!
Perhaps the most honest part is, "Commenters should not feel they have a right to have their comments posted--it is an editorial decision." That's like the sign over a French bar: "Do not be afraid to ask for credit--our way of refusing will be very polite."
The entire list of rules is a high fallutin way of saying, "We'll damn well do as we please, mate!" The Italian Fascist Italo Balbo had an incisive take on such official doublespeak: "Fascism unfortunately falls in love with gestures and tends to mime." One could say the same for Zionism.
i.e.
"I can only support the Chairman of Islam Channel in his call for Engagement of the Muslim Community in British Society, but this engagement must be one based on a position of strength and not weakness.
We must let the Government know that if anymore of our cities, Damascus, Iran or anywhere alse is attacked, we will not only protest in Parliament but we will Riot on the streets of Britain.
Every single Terrorism legislation has been aimed at the Muslim community and I tell you this Mr Blair, you can criminalise who you want, but I will carry on supporting the Intifadha in palestine, the Intifadha in Iraq and all the other Intifadhas."
But there are some problems with this Galloway quote… (apart from the fact that there is nothing inherently anti semitic about it.)
Firstly if you follow the link to the source of the (alleged) Galloway quote you will see it is actually written by an anonymous poster ("Gee...") in the comments section of the MPAC site. This ‘quote’ is then lifted by Harry’s Place and re-quoted as verbatim from Galloway. They do not explain this quote is, at best, unverified hearsay or attempt to check it.
Now interestingly a few comments below the post with the ‘Galloway quote’ is another comment from a poster called "Irfan" who asks the following question...
"Did Galloway really say that? 'Our cities'?"
This is a very good question which (suspiciously) went unanswered by Gee. If the Galloway quote is genuine how can we explain a Scotsman referring to Damascus as 'our cities'. And why would a highly skilled and educated speaker on the middle east such as Galloway go on to list another one of 'our cities' as the country of Iran! Are we to believe Galloway would make these basic mistakes and twice in one sentence?!
Nor do I believe Galloway would be as careless as to refer to the situation in Iraq as an ‘intifada’. Something is very troubling about this ‘Galloway quote’. These are not the sort of mistakes that Galloway makes. (Playing a cat on the other hand…)
You may not agree with his politics but everyone admits he is an excellent orator and a formidable opponent in open debate. He is not a man who makes two stupid and embarrassing errors in one sentence when delivering a public speech.
Any skeptical examination of the quote leads to the conclusion that the quote is clearly suspect. But this is classic Harry's Place - take a quote that is not verified in anyway, from an anonymous source and then write an article that misleads their readers into thinking it is unquestionably genuine. (Accuracy is not the goal of HP - attacking isalm and anyone who stands up for muslims is.)
What Professor Kramer has done by smearing Galloway using Harry’s Place as their source of evidence is the equivalent of writing that Oona King is an anti white racist based on a smear story published in Stormfront. Harsh? So why did the Professor not check the quote given the rancid source?
Whoever this Professor Kramer is I think serious questions should be raised over the veracity of their academic work. Because if this is the quality of their research I would not trust a word they wrote or a conclusion they reached.
This has to be one of the most disgraceful cases of drawing slanderous conclusions, based on your own personal prejudices and supported by non existent evidence that I have ever seen. This is not some guy off the street – this is a Professor at the country’s leading university.
Mind you it would not be the first time that a respectable person has been sucked into the heavily disguised hate being peddled on Harry’s Place every day. Maybe the Professor is a victim in all of this…
I think I got an emailsuggesting to me that the source for these elusive quotes are in the HP archive for 7th December, not 6th as the Professor said in his email to my friend. Again for a Professor to be so sloppy when he's making such a serious allegation is appalling when you consider where he's based. Or maybe he doesn't think anti-semitism is a serious allegation any more. Certainly the zionists have trivialised it almost beyond recognition.
Thanks. That makes more sense.
The HP article on the 7th December is a copy of the original letter sent by the Professor and the comments section below it has a post from David Hirsh from Engage which claims to link to a series of demonstrations of Galloway's anti semitism.
But instead the links just lead to some absurdly convoluted essays that argue that criticism of Israel or Zionism is simply racism in disguise.
What can you say about Engage! I take them as seriously as I do David Duke.
And what a surprise to see that "David T" of Harry's Place is a member of Engage! (Plus Norm of Normblog who HP pushed like crazy to win blog of the year. Now I know why.)
So Harry’s Place accuses Galloway of anti Semitism and then relies on very dubious evidence provided by a group that conveniently has one of the main contributors to Harry’s Place as a member.
Hmmm… very cozy.
This whole thing stinks.
I cannot help but wonder if the Professor was primed to write the complaint by an academic colleague linked to Engage.
There seems to be something very circular about the story and the sources.
And how totally crazy is it that a guy who contributes heavily to a muslim hate campaign is a member of a group that is concerned about people running hate campaigns (but only against jews). What a scum bag…
And you are right. The professor knew exactly what he was doing.
Thank you for your recent correspondence concerning An Audience with George Galloway. I am really very sorry not to have replied earlier. I'm afraid the launch of our Panto and my Christmas holidays have meant that I have only just been able to discuss your letter with my colleagues at the Theatre and on our Board.
Yours was one of seven letters that we have received on the subject. A number of the letters we received were clearly written from a common script.
Having considered the matter carefully both in terms of our obligations to all sections of our potential audience and our contractual obligations we have decided that George Galloway will be appearing as scheduled on 12th February.
I understand that you may not wish to come along but trust that you will respect the rights of others to do so. You may be interested to know that there will be an opportunity to ask Mr. Galloway questions as part of the evening, should you wish to engage with him directly.
I am not willing to enter into correspondence with you about anyone else's political views, the detailed rationale for our individual programming decisions or the copy on our brochure. Our audiences are the ultimate judge of our programming decisions and we have to accept that some of our programming decisions will not be to the taste of everyone.
However I am grateful for your comments and will take them into consideration when making future programming decisions.
I will not be entering into any further correspondence on this matter.
Yours sincerely
Dave Murphy
Executive Director
Cambridge Arts Theatre"
You will note the very telling comment...
"Yours was one of seven letters that we have received on the subject. A number of the letters we received were clearly written from a common script."
This whole affair does stink. I wonder who was coordinating the letter writing and who was writing the common script.
Even then the plotters could only muster seven letters.
It would be pretty funny were it not so sinister.
I also note that Harry's Place did not print this reply - just the original smear from the patsy professor.
God bless Dave Murphy.
By the way here is the reply from the Cambridge Arts Theatre to the professor’s letter.
http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/
news..._big_mouth.html
These remarks have been broadcast to the nation along with much else he has been saying and doing. Galloway will have to do a lot more than sue some bloggers to get his credibility back.
I wasn't aware of what he was said to have said about that Rodman guy but his calling that Jodie woman a "trollop" pissed me off. And my son told me that Galloway just sat by while Pete Burn/s racially insulted a black woman. Still there'll be a post mortem after the show and then those of use who want to actually listen directly to Galloway rather than have a bunch of pro-Iraq war zionists tell us what he is supposed to have said can find out all about it.
Harry - it doesn't surprise me to see people with connections to each others' blogs and groups promoting each other without declaring an interest. On Nick Cohen's blog, Linda Grant thanked Engage for something or other without stopping to mention that she too is part of the Engage set up.
Likewise...
He is a very vain man and this will be his downfall.
However it is also clear that there is (and has been) an organised campaign on both sides of the Atlantic to destroy him through smears and lies. And that is what I do not like.
However it is amusing that we have had the world's 'intelligence' agencies running about the world for years, planting forged documents etc, in elaborate and complicated attempts to destroy his reputation and all that was really needed was to appeal to his ego and then let him destroy himself.
It is a pity only because Galloway is a serious intellectual bruiser and a fighter and these are useful qualities in this ugly world.
I cannot help but wonder who talked him into doing Big Brother. I also wonder what lies Channel 4 told him to make him think he could get some benefit out of it. I would not be shocked to hear that he was lead to believe his political views would be given some air time. That would be the bait. And of course once in the BB house he would have absolutely no way of knowing that all his political chat was being censored.
Time will tell...
Talking about smear merchants. Nick Cohen has reopened his comments boxes. I don't think it'll last. He'll probably do an Engage eventually. That's if he hasn't already. I've nothing to post there.
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