The UK’s right-wing Daily Mail newspaper is trying to use a 2014 article by Alison Weir in an odd, guilt by (remote) association hit piece against Jeremy Corbyn…
By If Americans Knew
Britain’s Daily Mail, the world’s largest English-language website, yesterday published an article about a 2014 report by If Americans Knew Executive Director Alison Weir. If Americans Knew is a nonprofit organization that provides information on Israel-Palestine, with particular attention to media reporting on the issue.
Weir’s report gives full information surrounding the tragic Munich attack, emphasizing the fact that all massacres are tragic and that all victims should be mourned. Her article focuses on and corrects a one-sided Washington Post article on the subject; reports on Israeli actions before, during, and after the attack; and poses the question “do only some massacres matter?” The article is posted below.
Unfortunately, the purpose of the Daily Mail article was to give Weir’s factual report a negative spin and use this to attack popular Labor Party leader Jeremy Corbyn through alleged guilt by (remote) association.
The Mail, a right-wing tabloid with a history of supporting Conservatives, stated that Weir’s article had been posted by “a hard-left campaign group led by Jeremy Corbyn.”
While it is true that Britain’s principled Stop the War Coalition published Weir’s article and that Corbyn supports human rights for all, including Palestinians, there is no indication that Mr. Corbyn was involved in choosing the items the coalition posted on its website.
The Daily Mail has been widely criticized for unreliable, unethical reporting that sometimes advances an agenda. A former Mail journalist wrote an exposé saying: “I saw basic journalism standards and ethics casually and routinely ignored.”
The Mail’s hit piece contains several embedded links, but does not provide a link to the article it’s discussing. Weir attempted to post a comment below the Mail article providing this link, but the Daily Mail did not post it. Below is the comment Weir attempted to submit:
It’s odd to see the Daily Mail attempting to use me to attack a British politician, although I’m glad the newspaper is promoting my article. I invite anyone interested in the facts to read it at https://ifamericaknew.org/about_us/massacres.html. While you’re on our website, you can also read the other information we provide.
“The Israel-Palestine conflict is deeply tragic and has generated numerous unnecessary wars. It’s essential that people learn the full information and research the issue for themselves. I hope you’ll also read my book, which gives a little-known but thoroughly sourced explanation for British involvement. It’s available on Amazon and the title is “Against Our Better Judgment, The Hidden History of How the U.S. Was Used to Create Israel”.
Below is Weir’s article:
Munich Olympics, Revisited: Do Only Some Massacres Matter?
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Everyone remembers the Israeli athletes murdered during the 1972 Olympic games, but no one commemorates the hundreds of people (mostly civilians) killed by Israel’s heavy air attacks in Syria and Lebanon launched the following day |
The Washington Post has published a moving article, “Russian Jews remember Israeli athletes murdered at 1972 Munich Olympic Games.” Unfortunately, it gets a few things wrong and provides a one-sided context for the tragedy.
Allow me to correct the report and fill in a few of the missing facts.
Just 23 years before the Olympic incident, Israel had been created through ethnically cleansing much of the indigenous Palestinian population.
This had been accomplished through at least 33 massacres and was maintained in the years following by still more acts of ethnic cleansing and additional massacres. (These included areas from which the Munich kidnappers came).
Five years before the Munich incident, Israel violently conquered even more Palestinian land (illegal under international law), pushing out another 325,000+ Palestinian men, women, and children, and killing at least 13,000 Arabs in all. About 800 Israelis died.
The violence continued, and beginning in 1968 Israeli forces repeatedly savaged 150 or more towns and villages in south Lebanon alone. By the time of the Munich Olympics, Israel held hundreds of prisoners in its notorious prison system.
It is widely known, but rarely stated, that the goal of the Munich hostage-taking was not to kill them; it was to return the athletes to Israel in return for Israel returning its Palestinian prisoners.
Many of these prisoners were also young people, and, if we could have seen them, they might have looked very much like the Israeli athletes, minus the physical health. Israel is not known for its merciful treatment of those it dislikes.
When the Israeli government refused to consider an exchange, the German police, with the Mossad at hand, were pushed into an ill-planned rescue attempt in which some of the hostages (no one knows how many) were killed accidentally by the attackers, and a German policeman was also killed.
The day after the botched and unnecessary “rescue,” Israel launched heavy air attacks against Lebanon and Syria, killing between 200 and 500 Lebanese, Syrians and Palestinians, mostly civilians.
While Washington Post reporter Kathy Lally gives a great deal of information about the position of Russian Jews, going back over 100 years, it would have been valuable for her to tell a little about what the Munich incident was about – and about all the tragic victims of violence connected to the event, not just the 11 preferred ones.
