While the hate preacher, Raed Salah, awaits the verdict on his challenge to the bungled attempt to exclude him from the United Kingdom, the Guardian is busy spinning his case.
The Guardian has published a report on the Salah case, based on government correspondence considering the merits of excluding Salah. The article is written by David Hearst, the Guardian’s Foreign Leader writer. David Hearst is pretty close to the pro-Hamas lobbying organisation, Middle East Monitor, who have been touring him around the Middle East. The source of the information on which the report is based is plausibly Salah’s lawyers, Tayyab Ali: who is close to Hizb ut Tahrir.
So this is how David Hearst deals with one of the most serious incitements by Raed Salah, reported by Haaretz:
The head of the Islamic Movement in Israel’s Northern Branch, Ra’ad Salah, was charged Tuesday in Jerusalem Magistrate’s Court with incitement to violence and racism, over a fiery speech he gave a year ago in which he invoked the blood libel.
During the speech at the February 16, 2007 protest in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Wadi Joz, Salah accused Jews of using children’s blood to bake bread.
“We have never allowed ourselves to knead [the dough for] the bread that breaks the fast in the holy month of Ramadan with children’s blood,” he said. “Whoever wants a more thorough explanation, let him ask what used to happen to some children in Europe, whose blood was mixed in with the dough of the [Jewish] holy bread.”
“Great God, is this a religion?” he asked. “Is this what God would want? God will deal with you yet for what you are doing.”
This is how David Hearst deals with that allegation:
In other alleged quotes, words were interjected to change their meaning, said Salah’s lawyers. In the blood libel accusation, the word Jewish was interjected, when the original referred to the murder of Christian and Muslim children during the Spanish inquisition and a part of the speech in which Salah said defended the right of Jewish worship in synagogues deleted.
Have a look at Salah’s words, as reported by a Left wing Israeli newspaper. How could they possibly refer to the murder of Christian and Muslim children during the Spanish inquisition? Have you ever heard it suggested, anywhere, that the Spanish inquisition mixed the blood of Christians and Muslims in “holy bread”?
Hearst also pushes the claim that “a part of the speech in which Salah said defended the right of Jewish worship in synagogues deleted”. That is not true. In fact, the opposite is true. Here’s the part of the speech in question:
Not only this, for we are not malicious and will not be malicious, and we will also protect the honour of the Jews’ synagogues.
In the transcript of the speech set out in the Israeli indictment against Salah, he then goes on to say:
We have never allowed ourselves, and listen well, we have never allowed ourselves to knead the bread for the breaking of the fast during the blessed month of Ramadan with the blood of the children. And if someone wants a wider explanation, you should ask what used to happen to some of the children of Europe, whose blood would be mixed in the dough of the holy bread. God all mighty, is this religion? Is this what God wants? God will confront you for what you are doing…”
Far from deleting the “protecting synagogue” passage, the Community Security Trust was the first to publish it.
This is disgraceful crap, and transparently so: eagerly recycled by David Hearst and published in the Guardian.
The Guardian, of course, has never acknowledged any of the many other charges against Raed Salah. No mention of his claim that 4,000 Jews skipped work at the World Trade Centre on 9/11. No mention of his political party’s paen to “the Martyr, Sheikh Osama Bin Laden“, whose killers had “sold their consciences to Satan”. Nothing on his use of the Nazi movement’s invented “Franklin Prophecy“, in which Benjamin Franklin warns against Jewish power. And so on and so on.
Instead, David Hearst simply says this:
As a Palestinian with Israeli citizenship, he came to prominence for his defence of the Muslim holy sites and his participation on the Mavi Marmara, the Turkish boat that was stormed last year by Israeli navy as it attempted to break the siege of Gaza.
Let’s just remind ourselves of what Raed Salah did when he “participated” on the Mavi Marvara. He attended the launch and reportedly “related a hadith in which the Prophet Muhammad explained the virtue of jihad and of the ribat”. The Mavi Marvara passengers chanted:
“Khaybar! Khaybar! Oh Jews! The army of Mohammed will return!”
Khaybar is a reference to the battle in that town in Arabia, when Mohammed and his army crushed the Jews, killing their leaders and degrading the survivors.
Here’s what Andy Newman wrote in The Guardian today:
It is incumbent upon the left and the Palestinian solidarity movement to both be aware of the conscious effort of far-right antisemites to infiltrate the movement, and to vigorously oppose and exclude antisemites. We would not hesitate to condemn racists, homophobes or sexists, and must be equally robust in opposing anti-Jewish hate-speech.
This evidently isn’t a matter that worries David Hearst at all.
The problems at The Guardian run deep.
UPDATE
On 28 September, the following message was posted by Giorgio Torrieri, posting as “lun”:
What a day: today we learn of the extend HP’s campaign against Salah was based on lies and baseless smears:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011/sep/26/may-warned-case-sheikh-salah
HP celebrates these records by publishing more lies and baseless smears, this time by former torture camp guard Jeffrey Goldberg. Any reason why, after his 2002 lies about Iraq’s nuclear program and Al Qaeda connections, this guy is still considered credible?
The phrase “former torture camp guard” echoes Gilad Atzmon’s description of Goldberg as a “former concentration camp guard”
You will see that Giorgio Torrieri believes that it is a “lie” and “baseless smear” to describe Raed Salah as an antisemite. However, the evidence on this post shows that it is the Guardian that is wrong.
Giorgio Torreri is quite a prominent academic. He is also part Jewish.
