On the May 7 episode of ABC TV's Q&A show, there was an interesting exchange between author Randa Abdel Fattah and columnist Greg Sheridan.
GREG SHERIDAN: I don't believe criticism of Israel is generally labelled as anti-Semitism. I reject absolutely the proposition of the question. However, I do think anti-Semitism has swept back both into the western world and the Arab world. Many scholars have examined anti-Semitism in the Arab world. Notorious tsarist forgery, the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, which is meant to show Jewish conspiracy to control the world, figures prominently on Egyptian television, in Saudi Arabia and so forth. You Google the Hamas Charter, you'll see that the Jews control the Rotary Clubs and the Lions Clubs in order to enact their vicious conspiracies and so forth. It's perfectly legitimate to criticise Israel, as it is any other nation, when it does something wrong. But the insane, absolutely over the top emotional hostility towards Israel from people who couldn't care less about 300,000 Darfuries, aren't fussed about the status of women in Saudi Arabia, couldn't give a bugger about the 300,000 people in North Korean gulag, but Israel somehow is their enemy - there is something going on there which is psychological and very nasty.
TONY JONES: Randa?
RANDA ABDEL-FATTAH: I totally disagree with that. I know you've said before that being anti-Israel is fundamentally irrational and evidence of psychological and ideological dysfunction...
GREG SHERIDAN: I've never said that. No, I've never said that.
RANDA ABDEL-FATTAH: When you accepted the Jerusalem Prize for being a supporter of Israel...
GREG SHERIDAN: Yeah. Yeah. I never said that Randa. That's just untrue.
RANDA ABDEL-FATTAH: Well, I...
GREG SHERIDAN: That's a lie, Randa. That's a lie.
RANDA ABDEL-FATTAH: I've got it in print. I'll show you after the show.
GREG SHERIDAN: Yeah, well it may be in print, but I never said it, I can tell you that.
Mr Sheridan said that he never said these words. His column on 3 May 2007 must have been a figment of our collective imaginations. Here are some excerpts:
... recently I did get a remarkable piece of mail. It told me that if I would
accept, I would be awarded the Jerusalem Prize.
Sponsored jointly by the Israeli Government and the local Jewish community, it is awarded to people who have supported Israel conspicuously.
Since I believe that Israel is a democracy in good standing I was delighted to accept the award, which has been won by sundry heads of government, foreign ministers, social democrat and conservative European politicians and many others over the years ...
Anti-Americanism, anti-Semitism and anti-Israel sentiment are all different, yet they are all intimately related. They draw from diverse sources, yet they are all, in their virulent forms, fundamentally irrational and evidence of psychological and ideological dysfunction rather than genuine analysis.
And so, as I look outside my window and admire the latest fleet of Qaantas pigs taking off, I cannot help but wonder why Randa could tell such clear and obvious lies on national television.
Words © 2009 Irfan Yusuf
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