Poor Melanie
Phillips, the Islamophobic Zionist journalist, seems rather confused:
Racism
is bad… when it's against Jews.
Racism is fine… when it's against Muslims.
Free-speech
is great… when Kilroy attacks Arabs.
Free-speech is awful... when Desmond Tutu criticises Israel.
We're used
to her hypocritical articles in the Daily Mail and Jewish Chronicle.
However her latest rant was in the normally more reasonable newspaper,
the Observer: http://observer.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,6903,1153419,00.html
Please
write to the Observer - Here's some points to use, in your own words:
- Melanie
Phillips displays article 'Return of the old hatred' (22/2/04) was
extremely hypocritical, rightly condemning anti-Semitism, yet happily
stereotyping Muslims as "Islamic Jew-haters".
- Phillips
has often been responsible for inciting hatred of Muslims, for example
she described British Muslims as "a fifth column in our midst"
(Sunday Times 4/11/01) and Islam as "fundamentally intolerant"
(Spectator 11/5/02).
- Phillips
objects to questioning the "Britishness" of British Jews,
but she is happy to make the same accusations against British Muslims
- "they not only keep themselves separate from British society
but expect it to change to accommodate their own values" (Daily
Mail, 10/12/01).
- While
Phillips supported Kilroy's incitement of hatred against Arabs under
the banner of 'free speech' (Daily Mail 19/1/04), she attacks Desmond
Tutu's right to criticise those who support Israeli oppression.
- Rather
than taking Phillip's hypocritical and selective attitude we should
unite in combating racism and religious discrimination in all its
forms.
- It
is not anti-Semitic to oppose Israel's existence as a Zionist state
- a state intended for a particular race, founded on ethnic cleansing.
Many secular and religious Jews oppose Zionism, for example the orthodox
movement, Neturei Karta.
- To
deny that comparisons with South African Apartheid are legitimate
is to close your eyes to the facts: In the West Bank and Gaza the
Palestinians are indisputably second-class citizens to the Jewish
settlers. Within Israel 93% of land is administered by the Jewish
National Fund and cannot be sold to non-Jews (who make up 1/5 of the
population). Palestinians within Israel are not allowed to serve in
the army and yet many jobs are only open to applicants who have done
army service. Israeli proposals for a Palestinian 'state' have closely
resembled South Africa's Bantustan policy - indeed Israel alone recognised
South Africa's Bantustans.
- Investigations
by respected human rights organisations such as Amnesty International
and Human Rights Watch don't exactly support Phillips glowing view
of the Israeli Army's actions in Jenin.
- Of course
Israel isn't the only country in the world with a poor human rights
record. But surely not anti-Semitic to expect Israel to live up to
higher standards based on its own rhetoric of democracy, and evocation
of the memory of horrors of the Holocaust.
Send
to: letters@observer.co.uk
(Remember
to include your full name, address and contact telephone number so that
your letter can be considered for publication - you can request contact
details remain confidential).
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