Soccer Dad

Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying ...

The headline reads, "Fury as Israel president claims English are 'anti-semitic'"
(via memeorandum), The Telegraph reports:

Shimon Peres said England was "deeply pro-Arab ... and anti-Israeli", adding: "They always worked against us."

He added: "There is in England a saying that an anti-Semite is someone who hates the Jews more than is necessary."

His remarks, made in an interview on a Jewish website, provoked anger from senior MPs and Jewish leaders who said the 87-year-old president had "got it wrong".

But other groups backed the former Israeli prime minister and said the number of anti-semitic incidents had risen dramatically in the UK in recent years.

As you can see, this is largely reported correctly, so the headline is misleading. He used an English definition of antisemitism, but he did not call England antisemitic. He called England "pro-Arab" and "anti-Israel." So unless those who are complaining think (like I do) that being anti-Israel is a proxy for being antisemitic.

But the reporters (and critics) took Peres's comments out of context by leaving out an essential qualification:

Our next big problem is England. There are several million Muslim voters. And for many members of parliament, that's the difference between getting elected and not getting elected. And in England there has always been something deeply pro-Arab, of course, not among all Englishmen, and anti-Israeli, in the establishment. They abstained in the [pro-Zionist] 1947 U.N. Partition Resolution, despite [issuing the pro-Zionist] Balfour Declaration [in 1917]. They maintained an arms embargo against us [in the 1950s]; they had a defense treaty with Jordan; they always worked against us.

Note what I emphasized. That's a pretty important qualification. Paraphrasing Shakespeare one could say that Peres's critics are protesting too much, or you could wonder what all that fury signifies.

Biased BBC wonders if the backlash against Peres's comments really extends past the Telegraph (so far).

Of course the anti-Israel nature of English politics isn't exactly a surprise. Perhaps you recall the grotesque picture of Ariel Sharon in the Independent. Or perhaps you recall Robert Fisk's interview of Walt and Mearsheimer?

Nor is this necessarily a recent phenomenon as observed by Yehuda Avner.

Begin listened intently to what Sir Isaac was saying, and in an English that was accented but perfect responded by thanking him profusely for his expressions of good will. Then, with a roguish glint in the eye, he asked, "So tell me, Sir Isaac, the British press, do they have a good word to say about me on my first day in office? Or am I still their favorite fiend?" Whatever Sir Isaac's answer was it wiped the impish look from the premier's face. Little by little it darkened into displeasure. He clucked his tongue, wagged his head, and in a tone huffy with disdain, shot back, "So The Times is at it again, preaching Middle East appeasement just as it preached German appeasement in the Thirties. "That's the newspaper, remember, which dismissed the atrocities of Hitler's Brownshirts as mere 'revolutionary exuberance.' Bah! What do they want of me now? Another Munich? Give up Judea and Samaria like Neville Chamberlain forced Czechoslovakia to give up the Sudentland? What are we supposed to do, commit suicide like Czechoslovakia?" . . . "And you tell me there are still people there in Britain who call me a terrorist and Yasser Arafat a freedom fighter? I have nothing but contempt for them."

I do think that Peres's critics are protesting too much. His remarks were qualified, and there's an awful lot of evidence to support him.