Can you imagine the reaction if I wrote a column expressing my “pleasure” at the strangulation to death of an unarmed, peace activist at the hands of Islamist terrorists? I suspect I’d be clearing my desk here at New Statesman Towers rather than writing this blog post. I’d have columnists, bloggers and activists up in arms over my heartless and sickening remarks, demanding my resignation or sacking. Perhaps I’d be accused of being an “Islamist” or an “extremist” myself.
After all, which non-extremist revels in the murder of civilians? Well, if you really want to know, Geoffrey Alderman, that’s who. Alderman is the writer and historian who defended Israel’s war on Gaza, and the deaths of 1,400 Palestinians, on the basis that “every Gazan citizen who voted for Hamas” was a “legitimate” target for the IDF. (Can you imagine the response if a Muslim or Arab argued that “every Israeli citizen” who voted for Ariel Sharon was a legitimate target?)
On 13 May, however, Alderman went one step further, writing in his Jewish Chronicle column:
Few events — not even the execution of Osama Bin Laden — have caused me greater pleasure in recent weeks than news of the death of the Italian so-called “peace activist” Vittorio Arrigoni.On Thursday 14 April, Arrigoni was murdered in Gaza by members of Jama’at al-Tawhid wal-Jihad (JTJ), who had him strangled and then dumped his body in a deserted Gaza apartment. This same group had previously had him kidnapped in order — apparently — to compel the Hamas government of Gaza to release the group’s leader, Sheikh Abu al-Walid al-Maqdisi.
He added:
The death of a consummate Jew-hater must always be a cause for celebration.
This is not the language of a respectable or mainstream columnist or historian; this is the vile, heartless, bigoted language of the terrorists that Alderman claims to despise.
Yet the piece was published by the Jewish Chronicle. It is still there, unamended, on the JC website and defended by the Chronicle’s editor, Stephen Pollard.
[Hat-tip: Harriet Sherwood of the Guardian.]
Content from our partners
Related
