Anti-Semitism

“The third lesson of this episode stretches far beyond Israel-Palestine…”

Pete Baker on May 5, 2018, 3:02 pm

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The Palestinian leader, President Mahmoud Abbas, has been widely condemned for his anti-Semitic remarks in a televised speech addressing a meeting of the Palestinian National Council on Monday 30th April. Among his critics, as the Belfast Telegraph notes, former US Secretary of State John Kerry Former US Secretary of State John Kerry wrote on Twitter: “These comments are wrong, ugly, and unacceptable – anywhere from anyone – but particularly from anyone who says he wants to be a peacemaker. No …

Full circle: Kevin Myers takes the rap and offers full contrition

Brian Walker on August 1, 2017, 5:22 pm

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But Kevin is right: editors should edit and take responsibility for all copy. What more is there to say? Except that I hope he has a good pension plan. In his first comments on the issue, Myers said he believed “five or six” people would have seen the copy before it went to press. “I am the author of my own misery, I am the master of my soul, the author of my own misfortune. I must answer for what …

Do the Irish papers emerge with credit over how they handled Kevin Myers? You decide

Brian Walker on August 1, 2017, 10:23 am

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The Irish Independent has at last joined the Irish Times in entering the row over Kevin Myers, who has written for both papers in his time. Former Indo editor Gerry O’Regan resorts to psychology and family background in Leicester and Ireland to explain Kevin’s “ inner rage.” As his editor O’Regan says their relations were…. “unnecessarily uneasy and strained; his propensity to take umbrage at even the slightest criticism in time simply became tiresome. It is a character trait which …

The limited case for Kevin

Brian Walker on July 31, 2017, 9:11 pm

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The Irish Times for which he once wrote and even more significantly the Jewish Council of Ireland have mounted a limited defence of Kevin Myers. As I labelled him a disgrace for the bonkers claim that two BBC presenters won bigger contracts because they were Jewish, I’m very happy to carry here the case for Kevin warts and all, such as it can be made. There is indeed more to him than this but it’s a pretty unsightly wart. The …

The perfect poem for Labour’s anti-semitism row

Barton Creeth on May 29, 2016, 11:27 pm

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Those following the anti-Semitism row in the Labour Party will be aware of the recent suspension of Momentum vice chair, Jackie Walker. Following an investigation into comments she made on Facebook about Jews and the trans-Atlantic slave trade, she’s been reinstated into the party. The Walker incident, and similar incidents, have opened a fierce debate about the Left and anti-Semitism, and where anti-Zionism crosses the line into racism. But let’s step back from the intensity of the frontlines of this …

Open Society at a crossroads in France

Paul Evans on January 10, 2015, 2:14 pm

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The attacks on Charlie Hebdo, followed by the targeting of Parisian Jews has laid the frail state of France’s ‘Open Society’ bare for all to see. Jewish businesses and synagogues are staying closed for their own safety and the far right Front National is, ironically, poised to benefit from an attack on free speech.

The home of the European Enlightenment is at a crossroads.