I posted the following comment to to an online debate of the proposition "This house believes that Barack Obama's America is now an honest broker between Israel and the Arabs" on The Economist (UK).
As you will read below, my comment was removed from their web site...so much for "debate". I invite others who have been similarly silenced (or not) to comment here.
Here, first is my comment:
Dear Sir,
How can one act as an "honest broker" between a murderer and his intended victim.
Surely the murderer must be brought to account?
Ever since the British appointed the anti-Semitic Haj Amin al-Husseini asMufti of Jerusalem, in 1921, the Arab leadership has opposed all Jewishimmigration to Palestine. The Mufti engineered the bloody riots against Jewsin 1929 and 1936. He also instituted assassinations and suicide bombings,targeting Arabs who refused to support his violent opposition to the Jews. Thus a rejectionist Arab leadership took hold, violently persecuted Jews, andlaunched a relentless campaign, against the interests of their own people, toobliterate the Jewish national revival ...BEFORE any “occupation” andeven before the establishment of the State of Israel (not as a "resistance"to it).
They flatly rejected the restoration of the Jewish homeland as mandated bythe League of Nations in 1920. Even after Jordan was created from 80% of theBritish Mandate of Palestine, they rejected the still-legally-valid-todayinternational right of Jewish settlement ANYWHERE in western Palestine (theremaining 20%, west of the Jordan River). They also rejected the 1937 PeelCommission proposal to partition western Palestine.
The Mufti later went on to collaborate with Hitler and planned with him to set up a death camp in Cairo modelled on those in Europe. Fortunately theAllies, largely thanks to the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZACs), held the Nazi forces off at Tobruk and turned Rommel back at El-Alemein inNorth Africa, otherwise we would have seen the Jews in Israel also fall victim to the Nazi Death Camp industry at a subsidiary in Cairo.
But for the Arabs' violent attempt to abort the 1947 UN partition of westernPalestine, there would have been no war, no dislocation and no “PalestinianRefugees” (as uniquely defined by UNRWA) in the first place. After the war, the Mufti spent the rest of his life fomenting violence against Israel.
In 1948 he issued a fatwa: "I declare a Holy War, My MuslimBrothers! Murder the Jews! Murder them all!" And the Arab rejection of Jews (not just Israel, but Jews) continues to thisday. In 1949, Israel offered to return captured land as part of a formal peaceagreement. Arab rulers refused. From 1948 to 1967, Israel did not control the West Bank and Gaza.
The Islamo-totalitarian Yasir Arafat continued the legacy of his relative, the Islamo-fascist Mufti.
The PLO could have demanded an independent state in theWest Bank and Gaza from Jordan and Egypt, but did not. Had they sought peaceand reconciliation, instead of rejection and global terrorism, a Palestinian state could have been established from the 1960’s. They rejected the offer of Palestinian autonomy in the 1979 Egypt-Israel peace negotiations. They scuttled the Oslo process that began in 1993 leadingtoward the creation of a Palestinian state, by violating their commitments.
In 2000, they also rejected the offer at Camp David to create a Palestinian state.
And they rejected an even better offer from caretaker-prime-minister Olmertin 2008.
The fact that now in 2009 they demand that the West Bank be ethnicallycleansed of Jews, just emphasises their century-old rejection of co-existence with Jews.
What is needed here is not trite moral equivalence, but a real "honestbroker" who holds the parties to account for their own actions. ----------
I received the following email from CommentsModerator@economist.com in reference to my comment:
Dear Sir,
The attached comment, posted under the pen name stevelieblich, has been deleted from Economist.com. The comment was removed because it breaks our comments policy...
...We ask that future comments be made in the spirit of good-natured debate. Repeated violation of our comments policy will result in your being blocked from posting comments on Economist.com.
Yours sincerely,
Comments ModeratorEconomist.com
My response follows:
Dear CommentsModerator@economist.com
In what way does the comment you deleted contravene your policy?
In what way does that comment contravene the "spirit of good-natured debate"?
The entire comment is a statement of factual history. What offends you?
RegardsSteve Lieblich
Editor, "Jewish Issues Watchdog"
What do you think?? let's have your comment...
2 comments:
The Economist is a rag I wouldn't line my bird cage with. I used to subscribe until it became a mouthpiece for anything anti-Israel and the overall standard dropped to a level not worth reading. This is blatant censorship because the facts get in the way of the revisionist narrative being peddled by the islamists and their sympathisers.
I received the following reply from The Economist:
Dear Sir, I have reviewed the decision taken by the comments moderation team to remove your comment in light of your complaint. I agree that the comment should not have been removed and apologise for this mistake. The comment has now been reinstated.
Best,
Comments Moderator
I responded as follows:
Dear Comments Moderator
Thank you for revising the original decision to remove one of my comments to the current live online debate on the topic "This house believes that Barack Obama's America is now an honest broker between Israel and the Arabs" and for reinstating that comment.(Please note that I was invited to participate in that debate by Reagan Miller, Strategy Development Associate.)
However I regret that the damage has already been done, because the comment was absent from the debate for some days, and is now buried amongst the older comments. I will repost the comment later today in an attempt to have it properley aired.
However I urge you to consider this matter further.
It seems that a member of your Comments Moderation Team found my comment, a brief summary of the history, to be offensive or to somehow contravene the "spirit of good-natured debate". May I suggest that that person has so unquestioningly accepted the Arab "narrative" (version of history) that he/she found an accurate recount to be "offensive" because it holds the Arab side accountable for the decades of misery we all now deplore?
May I also suggest that the managers of the Comments Moderation Team and the appropriate people responsible for editorial policy at The Economist should consider why a member of your team would act in such a way, which stifles open debate, and to counsel the members on the correct policy?
Regards
Steve Lieblich
Editor, "Jewish Issues Watchdog"
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