UPDATE
As we mentioned at the time, we took it in good faith that Niall Paterson’s comments were not deliberate in the way that Nigel Nelson’s were.
To his credit, Paterson has engaged with us on Twitter and acknowledged that the attribution of the argument he was inserting into the debate could have been made clearer. With his permission, we are publishing his tweets below.
Antisemitism in the UK’s Labour Party continues to create news. The party’s National Executive Committee has omitted parts of the widely recognized International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism in drawing up its own contentious antisemitism guidelines. This, in opposition to the British Jewish community and many of its own parliamentarians.
The subject of the IHRA definition came up in Sky News review of the media broadcast on July 29. And that’s when the discussion unraveled.
Dual Loyalty
According to the IHRA definition (which HonestReporting uses), antisemitism includes:
Accusing Jewish citizens of being more loyal to Israel, or to the alleged priorities of Jews worldwide, than to the interests of their own nations.
But for the Sunday Mirror’s Political Editor Nigel Nelson, when it comes to the IHRA definition:
There is one clause which I can understand them rejecting which simply says it would be antisemitic to accuse a Jew of putting Israel before their own country. I can see circumstances in which that would be a plain fact, and I can’t see why that would be antisemitic.
What circumstances would it be a plain fact that British (or other diaspora Jews) put Israel before their own country?
The charge of dual loyalty is one of the oldest forms of antisemitism and here it is unchallenged on Sky News.
Join the fight for Israel’s fair coverage in the news
Israel = Nazi Germany
The IHRA definition also includes:
Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis.
Sky News presenter Niall Paterson, following Nelson, said:
the example that is causing the most fuss is the removal of the example linking comparisons to Hitler and to Nazi Germany. The argument goes actually if you look at what Israel has been doing with the Palestinians for decades there has almost been a sense of segregation, it’s very arguable that in Israeli law, Palestinians are second-class citizens and actually there have been any number of prominent Israeli Jews, in fact, who have made the comparison between the modern state of Israel and Nazi Germany.
We are prepared to accept Paterson’s statements in a Twitter exchange with HonestReporting that his intention was to put forward a debating point for the guest news reviewers rather than to advocate that view.
Because I didn’t imply it. You wrongly inferred it. The argument has been advanced, including by Israeli Jews, that the IHRA example re Nazi Germany is unduly restrictive and that given the conduct of the Israeli Govt a comparison need not prima facie be anti-Semitic. 1
— Niall Paterson (@skynewsniall) July 29, 2018
Like it or not, it is a point of debate. But me asking about that point of debate is NOT the same as me arguing the point myself. End
— Niall Paterson (@skynewsniall) July 29, 2018
Even giving Paterson the benefit of the doubt concerning his intentions (and we would like to stress for the record that we do not believe he is an antisemite), how it came out on live television most certainly left it open to interpretation.
For HonestReporting staff members and others who watched the clip, it appears to be leading the debate in a particularly nasty direction rather than questioning the panelists’ views.
In addition, the argument that Israeli Jews may have compared Israel to Nazi Germany carries little weight. The IHRA definition recognizes that context is very important in recognizing antisemitism. Being Jewish and engaging in antisemitic behavior are not mutually exclusive while Israelis using inappropriate language when discussing their government is contextually different to that comparison being made by an Israel hater.
* * *
Debating the issues surrounding the IHRA definition in relation to Labour Party antisemitism is a legitimate subject for a news station. Actually breaching the IHRA definition while doing so is something else.
Watch the video clip and decide for yourself. If you believe that Sky News owes its viewers and the UK Jewish community an explanation if not an apology, send your complaints to [email protected].
