generalspeaking

The Triumph of Slander

Rumours associated with gossip are such delicious things. Someone has an idea, whispers it to someone else, and the thread is taken up with gusto, in the process becoming corrupted and twisted and only partially resembling the original rumour. Becoming more delectable as it undergoes a series of suggestions, first by innuendo, then by outright accusation, and suddenly the fevered rantings of a fantasist become reality through a cascading effect of vitriol directed against a third party.

The end result is poisonous slander, but slander that resonates with those who wield it, believing as they do that what their statements represent are truth. Certainly a kind of reality as they believe it to be. As they wish to believe it to be. They gloat over their received wisdom, eager to share it with all others who believe as they do. And how better to gain a larger audience than to advance this communication to the media who love a good story and who, in publishing it, invite a wider audience to comment.

And, as fortune has it, there is always one living source in which all the ills of humankind have come together to form a cesspool of errant and dangerous psychopathy. This can be seen in an individual, in a group, in a nation. What they all share is their Judaic heritage. Arab countries call the nation the "Zionist entity", and some Muslim countries term it the "little Satan". This is a country, existing in a geography that isolates it by the nature of its religious, social and political structure, from all its neighbours.

Muslims in general may see little reason to believe in the purported collective sociopathy of Jews, and may have no wish to support the Islamist cause of vilifying and isolating and shaming Jews and their national homeland, but they remain largely silent. Islamist theocracies and monarchies and totalitarian governments feel otherwise, and join ranks to express their hatred in the very international venue that heralds peace between nations. And they do it successfully, sharing a searing hatred with others who subscribe to similar sentiments.

The movement to achieve the destruction of the State of Israel enjoyed a great impetus with the the UN Human Rights Council's endorsation of a pre-ordained report singling out the one democratic country in the Middle East for condemnation of human rights abuses, by defending itself from violence from its avowed enemies whose purpose is its destruction. A resolution was passed condemning "all polices and measures taken by Israel", and that "condemned the recent Israeli violations of human rights in the Occupied Territories".

One voice stood out in defence of Israel when British Col. Richard Kemp spoke to the Council stating his professional understanding that war crimes accusations against the IDF were misplaced: "The IDF faces a challenge that we British do not have to face to the same extent. It is the automatic, Pavlovian presumption by many in the international media, and international human rights groups, that the IDF are in the wrong."

Pointing out, as he did, that "extraordinary measures" were undertaken by Israeli forces to notify civilians in Gaza of areas to be targeted, through the dropping of millions of leaflets, and through notification warnings by way of 100,000 telephone warning calls. "Despite all of this, of course innocent civilians were killed. War is chaos and full of mistakes. But mistakes are not war crimes", Col. Kemp emphasized.

Yet the media are immensely suggestible, particularly elements in the West, eager and willing to accept the old canard of blood libel. Unquestioningly accepting a casual suggestion that perhaps some really dreadful and inhumane operations took place during the Gaza offensive. Say, for example, murdering people to extract their bodily organs. As an institutionalized and deliberately methodical practise.

And so, a throwaway accusation initiated by Hamas was picked up and elaborated upon by a Swedish journalist, his story published in a mainstream and respected newspaper. And the story just grew, and took on the aspect of reality when Swedish journalist, Donald Bostrum published the anguished Gazan story of organ plundering by the Israel Defence Forces, in Sweden's leading daily, Aftonbladet.

Admittedly unsubstantiated claims, but sensationally effective in establishing guilt by denunciation; otherwise how could it be published in a respected newspaper? The claims have been happily reproduced in mainstream Muslim media, having had the imprimatur of a Western newspaper. Cartoons of Jews stealing body parts and drinking Arab blood have now been published in Syria, Qatar, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates and Oman, according to the executive director of the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America.

There have been reports that Algerian children have been abducted and rounded up by Jews to be brought into Israel where their organs are removed, and put on the black market for sale to the highest bidders. Iranian Press TV is pleased immensely, to report that "An international Jewish conspiracy to kidnap children and harvest their organs is gathering momentum." A vastly impressed National Federation of Algerian Journalists presented Bostrom with an award for excellence in reporting.

For his part, Bostrom did not disappoint, regaling his adoring audience with the news that fully one thousand Arabs had been victims of organ harvesting in the past fifty years. Obviously, a hidden and very remunerative industry in Israel. And here it was generally thought that China had the market on organ transferal, from imprisoned political prisoners willingly serving their country by relinquishing their right to life and surrendering their organs for the greater good of humanity.

Israel has remonstrated diplomatically, refuting and deploring the report by Bostrom and its publication in Aftonbladet, but the Swedish government, honouring freedom of the press, will not intervene. That this horrendous slander may play a part in setting back what potential may remain in the on-again-off-again peace process is of no moment. And Aftonbladet, while acknowledging that no evidence has surfaced to support the charges, feels justified in demanding an official investigation.

Steadily, stealthily, and publicly to great acclaim the process of de-legitimizing and stigmatizing Israel proceeds.

Labels: Anti-Semitism, Israel, Political Realities, Traditions

posted by Pieface @ Wednesday, October 21, 2009