Perils of criticising Israel - BMJ (British Medical Journal)

[grassfed]

BMJ (British Medical Journal)

Personal paper
Perils of criticising Israel

Karl Sabbagh

The BMJ’s acting editor received 1000 emails after the journal published an article criticising Israel in 2004. Karl Sabbagh examined them and is reminded of what happened when the magazine World Medicine criticised Israel 27 years ago. In October 2004, the BMJ published a personal view by Derek Summerfield in which he expressed his concern at what he saw as systematic violations of the fourth Geneva Convention by the Israeli army in Gaza.1 The article claimed that many of the actions deemed necessary to root out and prevent terrorism had had the foreseeable effect of killing or maiming large numbers of Palestinians, including children, who had played no part in attacks on Israelis. (This issue is, of course, at the heart of worldwide criticisms of Israel’s actions in Gaza last month.) Summerfield supported his arguments with figures published by reputable international organisations, such as the United Nations and Amnesty International.

Summerfield’s article provoked hundreds of responses, about 550 of which the BMJ published as rapid responses.2 Of these, a small proportion were broadly supportive of Summerfield’s article, but most were hostile. Reading them might give the impression of a civilised debate in progress, but the published responses were a skewed sample of what had been received, as abusive and obscene contributions were not posted.

Emails to editor

In addition to responses sent to the website, almost 1000 emails were sent directly to Kamran Abbasi, the BMJ’s acting editor at the time. An analysis of all these emails provides a less benign view of what editors face when entering this thorny debate. A general flavour of the feedback can be gathered from a few verbatim quotes (box 1).

...

Box 1 Extracts from emails sent to Kamran Abbasi

Denial
"The IDF, unlike the Arabs, has NEVER killed innocent civilians."
"It is known that the Israeli army is one of the most moral armies of the world, and is not allowed to shoot to kill children—unless they are a direct threat to Israeli soldiers."
"The great extent to which Israel goes to avoid unnecessary civilian enemy casualties is truly remarkable . . . a tribute to the Jewish people’s long history of serving as a beacon to the world on ethical behavior."
"No non-combatant child who was clearly that has ever, ever been deliberately targeted and killed or maimed by any Israeli soldier. ... As a Chartered Accountant I am by nature and training not given to making sweeping statements without caveat but on this there is no doubt whatsoever."

A far off country
"Remember, prior to 1967 there was no mention of a ‘Palestinian State.’ The Countries of Egypt and Jordan were where most of these Arabs lived."
"I might also add that the land, including the parts which had to be bought from the Palestinians by the Jews, was nothing but barren and diseased land. It was the Jews who made it flourish, and developed it into a first-world country. It is by no means Israel’s fault that the Palestinians couldn’t be bothered to do the same."
"If Israel did kill every one of the Arab Muslims there most Americans would not miss a beat. We hate Islam—we hate Arafat and you just don’t get it. America hates you evil bastards—you support evil—you live evil and you will die evil."
"The problem is they procreate like rabbits and someday they will come to kill you."

Personal attack
"Your journal, having an editor with your clearly, mid-eastern name, the spewing of such published garbage seems inevitable."
"You miserable animal . . . I’m glad HonestReporting is on to your filthy hate and lies. You can spew your lies and garbage until you breathe your last breath, and then it’s the fiery furnace for you, and that will be for all eternity."
"I am a physician in the USA for 30 years. You are a moslem terrorist sympathizer who hates Israel and the Jewish nation. You have hijacked the BMJ to publish anti Israeli garbage propaganda. Please don’t show your filthy shit covered hands in this country. May you rot in hell you bastard son of a bitch."
"You believe that killing chilren in self defence is moraly wrong? Give me your address, and I will pay a few kids to stone you to death. Believe me, 3-4 kids, 14-15 years old will kill you in a matter of minutes. Please give me your address. They can also kill your daughter for free. If you will not give me your address, then it means that you don’t really believe that when Israely soldiers kill a kid there is anything wrong with it. Waiting for your reply. By they way, if you really piss me off, I will hunt you down myself, and kill you with rock (10-15 times hit you over the head until your brain will show up). Hey, that is ok right? as long as I don’t have weapon in my arms."

...

It seems likely that most of the hostile emails resulted from a request from HonestReporting, a website operated from the United States and Israel (box 2). It claims to be "the largest Israel media advocacy group in the world," and describes its mission thus: "To ensure Israel is represented fairly and accurately HonestReporting monitors the media, exposes cases of bias, promotes balance, and effects change through education and action."

more
http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/338/feb24_2/a2066

[Larkspur]

1. The pro-Israel fanatics remind me of the fanatical KKK members

who used similar language to describe Jews, Catholics and African Americans. Hate speech is hate speech and pro-Israel fanatics can sure dish it out.

[henank]

2. It is so perilous

that the esteemed journal can publish an article criticising Israel and then one criticising the criticisers. I'm sure the Israeli Mossad will be knocking on the journalists' doors tonight.

:sarcasm:

[Violet_Crumble]

8. Interesting how you see those hateful responses as mere criticism...

Maybe you'd like to explain how some of that hatred that was sent in response to the article qualifies in any way as anything other than hatefilled rants from blindly partisan twits...

[LeftishBrit]

3. Oh well...

The BMJ has been one of our top medical journals since 1840, so I don't think it will fold up just because a few people sent it nasty e-mails!

[Violet_Crumble]

9. No-one suggested the point of the emails was to try to close the BMJ up...

The point of the article was that the issue is such a contentious one that there are organised angry campaigns like that of 'HonestReporting' and that the intent of these is to try to silence the writers by greeting them with such a negative reaction that they won't want to write anything critical of Israel again. A similar tactic to that has been used against the BMJ by anti-abortion groups in the past, and personally the hate and ugliness displayed by both lots do much more harm to their respective causes than good...

[azurnoir]

4. The responce to the BMJ article is hardly a surprise

however I found the "HonestReporting" website quite interesting

[Jefferson23]

5. snip* from above:

"a tribute to the Jewish people’s long history of serving as a beacon to the world on ethical behavior."


Yea, and Bush and his policies have been a beacon to the world too, lol.

[shira]

6. nice LOL at smearing the entire Juice people

I imagine that if "a tribute to the Jewish BLACK/GAY/ARAB people’s long history..." were written instead, it would provoke even more understandable LOL's from concerned "progressives" here.

oh...right, of course I'm only imagining the ugly underbelly of this anti-zionist discourse.

silly me.

:eyes:

[Jefferson23]

7. What you imagine is your problem, not mine. The hypocrisy of that

statement stands imo, and it also stands for those in the USA who still believe the Bush administration did what it had to do, torture, to keep Americans safe, it is all bullshit.

[shira]

10. Honest Reporting responds to BMJ

British Medical Journal Attacks HonestReporting
The BMJ falsely accuses HonestReporting of attempting to stifle debate and freedom of speech.


One of the most prominent weapons deployed by Israel's detractors is to accuse pro-Israel organizations and their supporters of being part of a shadowy and highly effective "Israel lobby". The charge of shutting down all criticism of Israel and destroying freedom of speech is usually deployed, however, precisely to delegitimize organizations such as HonestReporting and curtail their own right to respond to anti-Israel bias.

Needless to say, if an "Israel lobby" was so influential over the media, there would be no need for HonestReporting to exist. Yet as the Jerusalem Post reports:

The editors of the 'BMJ' (British Medical Journal)'s widely read print and Internet editions have declared that they will "ignore" all "orchestrated e-mail campaigns" related to politics, and have just published an article strongly criticizing the "pro-Israel lobby" for using this weapon in the form of "pornographic," "abusive" and "obscene" attacks - many by people "who have never read the original articles" they comment on.

In its latest edition, the BMJ devotes some five articles (1, 2, 3, 4, 5) reviewing the "perils of criticizing Israel" and a substantial amount of print is concentrated on attacking HonestReporting itself.

Chief amongst these is Karl Sabbagh's analysis of hundreds of e-mails sent to the BMJ in response to an article published way back in 2004. According to Sabbagh, "It seems likely that most of the hostile emails resulted from a request from HonestReporting, a website operated from the United States and Israel." Citing HonestReporting and holding it responsible for a number of abusive e-mails, he states:

There is nothing intrinsically wrong with organising an effective lobby group, but lobbying for Israel seems to be in a different category from, say, lobbies against fluoridation and MMR vaccine. The ultimate goal of some of the groups that lobby for Israel or against Palestine is apparently the suppression of views they disagree with.

We certainly concede that abusive e-mails are absolutely unacceptable from both a moral standpoint and because such responses to the media are entirely counterproductive. We would remind our subscribers to always write courteously and from an informed perspective. (Click here to see letter writing tips.)

HonestReporting is not trying to block people from expressing themselves. It only holds people accountable for their statements. This is how democratic discourse is advanced. In addition, HonestReporting is promoting, not stifling, debate by getting the public involved in the issue. Those who accuse the organization of stifling debate are actually the ones seeking to suppress the voices of our readers – the people who express themselves through emails to editors.

Indeed, the writer summarily dismisses the legitimacy or relevance of the hundreds of e-mails received by the BMJ from HonestReporting subscribers. It is easier to dismiss such people as deranged or part of an organized conspiracy than to actually deal with the content of their complaints, which the BMJ fails to do. HonestReporting stands by its original critique of Derek Summerfield's 2004 article that compared the IDF's acts to those of the 9/11 terrorists.

Also writing on this topic in the BMJ, Jonathan Freedland even states that "Derek Summerfield's mistake was to open his piece with a clear error, one that inevitably made his essay appear tendentious." So why shouldn't HonestReporting and our subscribers hold Summerfield and the BMJ accountable for such an error?

Is the BMJ's shot across our bows in preparation for upcoming articles that may be critical of Israel? Is this a pre-emptive strike meant to discredit us and our subscribers in order to make it harder to respond to the BMJ in the future? While we are not asking you to play into the BMJ's hands by responding to its latest articles, HonestReporting will certainly not be silenced if we feel that any future BMJ (or any other publication's) material deserves a response from you, our subscribers.



http://www.honestreporting.com/articles/45884734/critiques/new/British_Medical_Journal_Attacks_HonestReporting.asp

[TomClash]

11. "HonestReporting, a website operated from the United States and Israel"

What a surprise.

"There is nothing intrinsically wrong with organising an effective lobby group, but lobbying for Israel seems to be in a different category from, say, lobbies against fluoridation and MMR vaccine. The ultimate goal of some of the groups that lobby for Israel or against Palestine is apparently the suppression of views they disagree with."

No doubt. Very good article.

[LeftishBrit]

12. 'a different category from, say, lobbies against fluoridation and MMR vaccine'

Have you ever *tried* supporting the MMR vaccine against any of the real anti-MMR fundies? See how long it takes before you're accused of being a shill for the Pharma companies, personally harming children, and all sorts of vile stuff! They would certainly like to suppress views that they disagree with - which they genuinely think are a danger to their children, etc. Similar for the anti-abortionists, etc.

People with strong and extreme views usually would like to suppress other views. It's not unique to extreme pro-Israelis. It's a characteristic of extreme pro-anythings.

[TomClash]

13. No but in the US

The Israeli Lobby has a greater ability to ruin an opponent's career than any other single lobby I can think of. Ask Norman Finkelstein. Not sure the anti-MMR lobby can do that.