This @jimwaterson attempt to explain the controversy about the antisemitic conspiracy theory that Israel trains American cops to be racist and violent shows exactly why the @Guardian can’t seem to get it right on this issue.
theguardian.com/politics/2020/…
1/
theguardian.com/politics/2020/…
1/
He doesn’t say that this conspiracy theory has been lurking online for years and comes up predictably whenever police violence is an issue, not just in the US but also, for example, in France.
2/
2/
He doesn’t mention that in 2019 a massacre at a kosher supermarket was carried out in Jersey City by an assailant who believed he was getting revenge against Jews for police violence against African-Americans.
3/
3/
He doesn’t cite the long record of antisemites tying any social ill to Jews or Israel and then using it as an excuse for violence.
4/
4/
He doesn’t mention that Maxine Peake has a long record of signing letters dismissing concerns about antisemitism in Corbyn’s Labour Party as a “smear by people who should know better” or that she defended Ken Linvingstone in his antisemitism meltdown.
5/
5/
In other words, that her sincere belief that the tactic that killed George Floyd was something invented and taught by a malevolent Israel was not something she read wrong in a rush while she was piously perusing human rights material, but...
6/
6/
...part of a comprehensive worldview that puts the Jewish state at the center of global evil and holds that Jews in the West who worry about antisemitism are fakers who are manipulating public sympathies for their own profit and political benefit.
7/
7/
He makes no reference to US police having similar exchanges with police forces from other countries like Canada, UK, Mexico, Germany, Australia, France, and others, so he never needs to comment on the weirdness that people only seem to connect police violence to Israel.
8/
8/
He does give a link to a scandalously piss poor @AmnestyUSA blog post which mixes innuendo and guilt-by-association to imply that Israel is responsible for what ails American policing, but which actually provides zero evidence of any kind.
9/
9/
He also links to the wholly disreputable “news” web site Middle East Eye, an organization with opaque financing, shady political affiliations, and a decidedly pro-Hamas bent (and edited by a former Guardian leader writer).
10/
10/
Just to give you a taste of this site, here’s an article where they claim Israel opened a dam which flooded Gaza. There is no dam nearby, and no river either, and this stupid story somehow pops up every winter when there is a lot of rain.
middleeasteye.net/news/slow-deat…
11/
middleeasteye.net/news/slow-deat…
11/
He also notes that the @Independent “contextualised” Peake’s false claim with a denial from Israeli police and a reference to the Amnesty blog post. But this contextualisation itself is a perfect example of the problem he can’t see.
12/
12/
Here are the screenshots of before, after, and after-after. Important here that Peake didn't cite Amnesty (as was later claimed). The Amnesty reference was added to make her sound less bigoted and give her claim a patina of plausibility. Then they had to remove even that.
13/
13/
@jimwaterson’s “contextualisation” aims to do the same, writ large. Leaves out the antisemitism of the claim to make it look like a misreading. Leaves out the clear ideological bent of the woman making it to make it look like...
14/
14/
...she messed up or succumbed to some regrettable private prejudice. Leaves out the murderousness of the conspiracy theory in question to make it look like Jews who are concerned are overreacting.
15/
15/
Oh, and for good measure includes a reference to an Israeli police “training” that took place — dun dun dunnnn! — eight miles from Minneapolis where George Floyd was killed, in order to create the impression there might be something there after all.
16/
16/
But go and click the link and you’ll find that it was instructions on defusing bombs and IEDs, which again makes sense for a counter-terror briefing, but no so much sense for a global conspiracy to harm people of color.
17/
17/
