“The ugly return of anti-Semitism” is charted by Tim Stanley in a column at CNN.com:
On Sunday, there was a rally in London to protest something I never thought would need protesting in modern Britain: the rise of anti-Semitism.
The rally was in reaction to a series of strange, unsettling incidents that took place during the recent demonstrations against Israeli military actions in Gaza. In one case, the manager of a supermarket in London decided to take all the kosher food off the shelves. He apparently feared that demonstrators outside might trash the shop; one member of the staff reportedly said, “We support free Gaza.” The supermarket chain called it “an isolated decision … in a very challenging situation.”
Isolated it may have been, but it is part of a bigger picture. There have always been people in the West who disagree with aspects of Israeli foreign policy and there has always been a peace movement ready to protest Israel’s actions. But what has made the 2014 protests different is the growing conflation of Israel in particular with Jews in general.
On Sunday, there was a rally in London to protest something I never thought would need protesting in modern Britain: the rise of anti-Semitism.
The rally was in reaction to a series of strange, unsettling incidents that took place during the recent demonstrations against Israeli military actions in Gaza. In one case, the manager of a supermarket in London decided to take all the kosher food off the shelves. He apparently feared that demonstrators outside might trash the shop; one member of the staff reportedly said, “We support free Gaza.” The supermarket chain called it “an isolated decision … in a very challenging situation.”
Isolated it may have been, but it is part of a bigger picture. There have always been people in the West who disagree with aspects of Israeli foreign policy and there has always been a peace movement ready to protest Israel’s actions. But what has made the 2014 protests different is the growing conflation of Israel in particular with Jews in general.
As CNN notes at the start of his column, “Timothy Stanley is a historian and columnist for Britain’s Daily Telegraph. He is the author of the new book ‘Citizen Hollywood: How the Collaboration Between L.A. and D.C. Revolutionized American Politics.’ The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the author.”
They’re certainly not shared by everyone at CNN, where remarks such as these from their journalists keep happening…“unexpectedly” as Bloomberg.com might put it:
On Sunday, CNN’s Brian Stelter interviewed terror and Sharia-supporting cleric Anjem Choudary. As the Weekly Standard noted Stelter confronted Choudary’s “joke” made during a mic check:
BRIAN STELTER: You talk about wanting the truth to prevail, but here’s what bothers me. When we were setting up for our interview here, the audio engineer asked you to do what every guest does, to count to 10, check their mic. And you started to do that, but then you said “9-11, 7-7, 3-11.” Is this all some sort of a joke to do that?
ANJEM CHOUDARY: Well, you know if you had a sense of humor, maybe you would have laughed. It was just a sound check. You know you shouldn’t take any of these things that seriously. Obviously, you know —
STELTER: A sense of humor? A sense of humor.
CHOUDARY: We were setting, we were setting up the sound check, and I said “1-2-3-4-5-9-11-7-7” making sure you could hear me. It’s not a big issue, it’s not a big deal. If you want to make it a big deal, by all means do so. But it makes you look much more shallow than me.
STELTER: I have nothing more to say. But thank you for joining me.
CHOUDARY: You’re always welcome.
STELTER: What a world we live in.
But as the Weekly Standard added, “Stelter told terror-supporting cleric Anjem Choudary that he ‘respect[s] that you try to get your message out however you can.’ He made the comments after Choudary said sharia was coming to America.”
Magnay, Nasr, Christiane Amanpour, Eason Jordan, Soledad O’Brien and other past and present CNN employees who make a career out of what historian Paul Johnson once dubbed “the theory of moral relativity” couldn’t have said it any better.
Or as Roger Ailes summed up CNN’s international channel a decade ago:
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