antisemitism

Mondoweiss: Check if people are Jewish before you read their opinions

by Joseph W

Ben White – who understands why some people are anti-Semites – has found a new home to spout his anti-Zionism on the quite nutty website Mondoweiss.

Here, you can read a typical Ben White conspiracy piece on Mondoweiss.

White imagines a Zionist conspiracy, which explains why there are two new academic posts at SOAS for teaching Israel studies. Ben White’s conspiracy involves the Pears Foundation, BIRAX, the Reut Institute, and Israeli diplomats, amongst others. The Reut Institute give a pretty comprehensive response to White, here.

Now Mondoweiss want you to check letters pages to editors, to see if a Jewish person has written in.

This week we read:

Also, let’s be honest. When you read an article on Israel/Palestine or a letter to the editor, isn’t one of the first things you do to check the name and see if the person is Jewish or not? Doing so is not giving in to anti-semitism. It’s a simple way to prepare yourself for possible bias on the part of the reporter or letter-writer.

A horrible recommendation, frankly.

Richard Ingrams said something similar, a few years back.

Between authors who understand why people are anti-Semites, authors who blame Zionism for all the world’s ills, and authors who boast of checking letter pages for Jewish names in order to spot their bias, there’s a lot of grim reading at Mondoweiss.