Two days ago Gene covered the Palestine Telegraph’s interview with the Holocaust denier Fredrick Toben.
Today a “statement of clarification” appeared on the Palestine Telegraph’s website:
The Palestine Telegraph doesn’t adopt any idea or opinion published in the opinions or views section therefore nobody can hold it responsible for anything published, we support the freedom of expression and the freedom of media.
In the same time, if an article crossed the line we immediately take action because we aren’t biased.
We decided to delete Toben’s interview, it was written by Kourosh Ziabari, one of the contributors in the Opinions Section but it doesn’t speak of The Palestine’s Telegraph policy at all, since it stirred a wave of anger we saw it will be better to remove it.
Furthermore:
I will be more specific, Toben’s interview doesn’t represent the opinion of Mr George Galloway, Mr George thinks that the Holocaust was a crime and we agree on that too that’s also a reason of why we will remove the article, we care about our patron’s image, feelings and opinions.
Well, it seems something else has been deleted from the website: the list of patrons. They were George Galloway, Press TV presenter Lauren Booth, and Luisa Morgantini, a left wing Italian MEP.
In these circumstances it is worth noting that Galloway joined as a patron just after the Palestine Telegraph published a video of former KKK grand wizard David Duke, which had prompted Jenny Tonge to resign as a patron. If Galloway is unhappy about the Toben interview, his position is laughable. What did he expect from people who promote David Duke?
In fact, the Palestine Telegraph thinks this is a good occasion for an Israelis-are-Nazis slur:
If anybody understands the struggle and misery of the Holocaust its us Palestinians since our country goes through a struggle too.
The statement continues:
We promise to be more careful in publishing any opinion from now on so we wont allow any hostile direction to attack us just because we published an opinion of a person that doesn’t represent us.
Yeah, right. How about regularly featured resident columnist Peter Eyre? This is from one of his latest tirades:
It is fact that organisations such as the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and the many Friends of Israel Political groups that exist in the US, UK and EU really dictates all the policies that favour Israel.
These groups are the background of so called political democracy and clearly corrupt the political elite by continuously donating vast sums on money into the coffers of political candidates and their respective political parties. What we see here is the US Congress and the British Houses of Parliament being almost totally run by Pro Israel lobby groups.
“Clarification” should be a full time occupation for the people behind the Palestine Telegraph. Even better, they should simply give up and stop promoting hatred.
