The
firings provoked an
international outcry. Prof
Greenblatt, a world authority
on Shakespeare, described them
as ‘repellent’, ‘dangerous’
and ‘morally
bankrupt’.
—The
Daily Telegraph, London,
which seems however to be
campaigning for the firing of
an academic critic of
Israel
[All
images, from the West Bank and the Warsaw
Ghetto, added by this
website]
More fine, unbiassed reporting from Britain’s premier daily newspaper . .
.
London, Sunday, 29 September 2002
Professor’s anti-Israeli tirade revives sacked academics row
By David Harrison
A SECOND academic at the University of Manchester Institute of
Science and Technology (Umist) is being investigated for alleged anti-semitism.
Umist acted after The Telegraph
passed it an e-mail from
Michael Sinnott, a professor of paper science, in which he described
Israel as “the mirror image of
Nazism”.
David
Irving comments:
IN the good old days of journalistic ethics, newspapers reported news — they did not
make it.
There is something distinctly unsavoury about a newspaper of the standing of The Daily Telegraph
(and old Morning Post)
furtively “passing” a letter written by an academic, making a perfectly justifiable comparison between Ariel Sharon and the Nazi methods, to that academic’s employers. It seems that the letter’s recipient, a
Professor Greenblatt (with all the professional detachment that name implies) decided that the correct scholarly
course for him was to go yelping to a
British national newspaper about this not unwarranted criticism of
Israel. The Daily
Telegraph has now stooped so low in its kowtowing to its moneyed friends that it is close to the famous gutter into which, so legend has it, runs all the printer’s ink after it is sponged out of recycled newsprint.
Lord
Camrose and the Berry family must be turning in their graves.
Related file:
Our dossier on some of the origins of anti-Semitism
University officials said they were
“angered” by the anti-Israeli
tirade, which
claimed that there was “a real Zionist
conspiracy” worldwide. Two months ago
The Telegraph revealed that Prof
Mona Baker, the director of Umist’s
centre for translation and intercultural
studies, had sacked
two scholars for being Israeli. An
internal inquiry
into her actions is continuing.
The latest anti-Israeli comments were made in an e-mail to Prof Stephen
Greenblatt, a Harvard scholar who had highlighted Prof Baker’s decision to dismiss the Israelis from two of her journals.
Prof Baker
said that her decision to sack Dr
Miriam Shlesinger and Prof
Gideon Toury on the ground of
nationality was part of an academics’
international boycott of Israel.
The firings provoked an international outcry. Prof Greenblatt, a world authority on Shakespeare, described them as
“repellent”, “dangerous” and “morally bankrupt”.
Prof Sinnott, who is described as head of paper science research and whose recent work concerns the
“binding of linked cellulose binding domains to transformer papers”, was infuriated by Prof Greenblatt’s comments.
He sent Prof Greenblatt an e-mail expressing “my disgust and anger at your orchestration of a campaign of press vilification of one of my colleagues, and of this institution”.
He said: “[Israel’s] atrocities surpass those of Milosevic’s
Yugoslavia. Uniformed Israeli troops murder and mutilate Palestinian children, destroy homes and orchards, steal land and water and do their best to root out
Palestinian culture and the Palestinians themselves.”
Prof Sinnott went on:
“With the recent crop of
atrocities the Zionist state is now
fully living down to Zionism’s
historical and cultural origins as the
mirror image of Nazism.“Both ideologies arose in the same city, within 30 years of each other, and are both based on ideas of a superior/chosen people whose desires override the rights of the rest of us.
“Zionist atrociousness has been slower to develop, but victims learn from their victimisers, and, with the atrocities in Jenin, Israel is about where Germany was around the time of
Kristallnacht.”
[West bank]
Prof Sinnott condemned “the power of the American Jewish lobby” and added that in seven years he spent working at the
University of Illinois at Chicago, “I was always amazed that the Israeli atrocities for which my tax dollars were paying were never reported in the American news media which were either controlled by Jews or browbeaten by them in the way you have just exemplified”.
[Soldier aiming]
He concludes: “When the bulk of the
American population finds it has been duped by a real Zionist conspiracy . . . all the traditional and supposedly long-discredited Jewish conspiracy theories will gain a new lease of life.”
Last night Prof Greenblatt, the president of the Modern Language Association of
America, said he had received “scores of letters on this subject, mostly supportive” but was “surprised by the vehemence and extremism” of Prof Sinnott’s e-mail.
“It was over the top and not the sort of letter I would expect from a university professor.
Clearly he has a problem with Jews.”
Prof Greenblatt, who has never met or corresponded with Prof Sinnott, added:
“I would have thought that it
was a bit late in the day to invoke
19th-century Jewish stereotypes and
talk of an international conspiracy.“I have tried hard not to make this an issue about Jews or Israel. The question I asked originally was whether an academic boycott made any sense.
Academics should not be fighting because somebody is Israeli or Iraqi or any nationality or colour or creed.”
A Umist spokesman denied that the university was a hotbed of anti-Israel extremism. “Umist does not have a view on the Middle East situation,” he said. “The e-mail has left us very angry and we have launched an investigation.”
After consulting university officials,
Prof Sinnott attempted to distance himself from the views he had expressed. He said:
“The e-mail was a mistake. It was written in the heat of the moment after reading what I considered to be an unfair article about the sackings in The
Telegraph. I deeply regret sending it and regret any offence it has caused.”
Prof Baker declined to comment pending the results of the investigation into her actions.
© href=”https://fpp.co.uk/Germany/docs/Witzsch180792.html” target=”_blank”>German Is it any different from the target=”_blank”>MSNBC Forum: 300
Copyright of Telegraph Group Limited
2002.
Government
warns Texas Business against Boycott of
Israel
UK
Scholars Debate Boycott of
Israel
Hadassah
Is Boycotting All Boycotts
Department
of what goes around, comes around:
Israeli fury at anti-Israel boycott: British
Journals Oust 2 Israeli Scholars From
Their Boards
Harvard
President Sees Rise in Anti-Semitism on
Campus
press reports teacher jailed for
expressing doubts in private letter to
a Jewish historian: latter turned it
over to state political police
A
glitch in the Matrix – CNN’s skewed
reporting on the Middle East
Who
owns and controls the Polish press
today?
situation in the rest of the
world?
The
former New York Times editor writes on
the alleged Jewish Bias of the
newspaper
Jeff
Jacoby in Boston Globe: A wave of Jew
bashing in Europe follows Ariel
Sharon’s “self-defense” invasion of
Palestine
publishes astonishing list of US
journalists who back Israel without
qualification
Israeli
medical association (Dec 2001): OK to
break fingers of Palestinian prisoners
during interrogation
Stern
Gang: The Rich History of Jewish
Terrorism”
Jan
29, 2002: Nottingham University cancels
David Irving’s address to
messages of support flood in to
students who invited him |
Mr
Irving’s regret (Radical’s Diary) |
previously: Outraged
opponents of free speech threatened
violence | Nottingham
students stood firm on invitation |
Outraged
Jewish Chronicle editorial |
Mr
Irving’s Radical’s Diary