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Aaronovitch Apologises for Anti-Semitism Accusation & Pays £1,000 to FOBZU

Tony Greenstein | 02.12.2007 00:43 | Anti-racism | Palestine | South Coast

On July 6th this year, a particularly unpleasant Zionist activist who goes by the name of Mikey Mikey aka Michael Ezra posted a comment on David Aaronovitch’s Times-on-line blog asserting that Tony Greenstein spent his time ‘harassing Jews’ and for the past 30 years had been intimidating Jewish students at NUS Conference.

What made this clearly actionable is that the blog is moderated and could therefore only have been put up with Aaronovitch’s approval. After much huffing and puffing by The Times, who trawled through a barrel of allegations courtesy of the Union of Jewish Students, whose speciality is defaming those who disagree with them, including allegations that even I hadn’t heard of before, they agreed to settle. Their barrister Richard Rampton QC, of David Irving fame, couldn’t make his mind up from the one letter I received from him, whether or not The Times had a defence! What was the defamation alleged he asked. Thanks to a friendly socialist academic lawyer from Oxford University, I produced a concise answer – anti-Semitism! And breach of section 3 of the Race Relations Act, i.e. a criminal offence.

Some people may think it is an attack on free speech to issue libel actions and in general I agree. However accusing people who are not anti-Semites of being anti-Semitic, is a tactic which we see employed in the USA in particular, to destroy free speech. People like Tony Judt, Norman Finkelstein, Joseph Massad, Professors Walt and Mersheimer and even Desmond Tutu and Jimmy Carter have felt the lash of this particularly vicious allegations and smear. In Britain it has been used to try and prevent anti-Zionists like myself and Roland Rance from speaking on campuses. That is why I felt the need to bring a defamation action.

The rationale behind the posting is of some interest. Mr Ezra defended his decision to make the posting in a letter The Times sent me of 6th August:
“I was a student myself in the period X-Y and I can assure you that when I heard Greenstein speak, I felt very intimidated - and yes I was a Jewish student. In fact my current fascination with collecting information about Tony Greenstein and trying to deconstruct all of his arguments, psychologists might put down to getting some revenge for the stress he caused me with his pamphlets and speeches as a student.”
Well I’m not a psychologist and don’t have much time for psycho-babble. But it would seem that the very act of political debate and argument, if it upsets someone’s settled views, is an act of ‘intimidation’ and from there to violence.

The Mikeys of this world claim that views which are ‘offensive’ are best not be heard because they fear the reality of what they believe in being laid bare. It is one of the problems of the ‘diversity’ agenda and identity politics that even the most reactionary identity, founded upon the oppression of another, is held to be equally valid, regardless of the content of that view. It was because of the ‘offence’ he may cause that even Desmond Tutu was banned from The University of St. Thomas in Minnesota. It’s Vice President Doug Hess stated that “We never made a judgment that he is anti-Semitic. We have not made that judgment. We have only been told by members of the Jewish community that his words have been hurtful,”

One wonders whether a speaker whose words is ‘hurtful’ to the torturers of Guantanamo might also be banned from certain US campuses.

That is why I sought to set the record straight publicly.

Tony Greenstein

 http://timesonline.typepad.com/david_aaronovitch/2007/11/tony-greenstein.html

Tony Greenstein
- e-mail: tonygreenstein@yahoo.com

Comments

Display the following 43 comments

  1. Tony Greenstein - an authoritarian censor and Islamophobe? — ftp
  2. Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough — Michael Joseph Jakobsohn
  3. "political backwardness" — ftp
  4. Beat it! — Michael Joseph Jakobsohn
  5. Michael Joseph Jakobsohn — ftp
  6. Black or White — Michael Joseph Jakobsohn
  7. Thank you — ftp
  8. Could someone give a quick summary of what's going on here? — Confused
  9. Tony's views on what the Palestinians themselves think — thecutter
  10. The Man in the Mirror — Michael Joseph Jakobsohn
  11. First you missed the actual racism .... — ftp
  12. Opinions on Palestinian politics — thecutter
  13. Opinions on Palestinian politics — thecutter
  14. Peace, Propaganda, and the Promised Land — Media Education Foundation
  15. Bad — Michael Joseph Jakobsohn
  16. MJJ — name
  17. Greenstein and his Jewish friends of the Palestine (JAZ) — Baby
  18. Weak Trolls — Typical
  19. Last one. — Michael Joseph Jakobsohn
  20. The name with no brain — Dr. Doolittle
  21. Greenstein has a criminal record — knuckles
  22. knuckles — Rheumatoid Arthritis
  23. reply — name
  24. The Palestinian struggle belongs to the Palestinians. — ftp
  25. Name — Dr. Doolittle
  26. Indymedia moderator FTP throws in his lot with the anti-Semites — Tony Greenstein
  27. Irony Not Lost — Troll Intent To Distract
  28. Erm — ftp
  29. the usual disingenuous dodge from ftp — gehrig
  30. you mean like this? — gehrig
  31. gehrig — ftp
  32. Ahhhh, poor ftp — gehrig
  33. Greenstein the thief clutching at straws — knuckles
  34. gehrig - this is just boring now — ftp
  35. FTP Fluffs It Again — tony greenstein
  36. Zionism irrelevant within... this context! — MJJ
  37. Ooooh, now you've done it. — gehrig
  38. It's not libel to call you a thief, is it, Tony? — knuckles
  39. ALL in caps as well. — thecutter
  40. "Comin for to carry me home" — MJJ
  41. MJJ, try to read before you go blah-blah! — knuckles
  42. Baffled — MJJ
  43. Interview: Atzmon on Indymedia — knuckles
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