Will they succeed in holding the Guardian to account? No. Will they even be noticed? I hope so but am not holding my breath. Will they manage to preservere at the odious task of regularly reading CiF? That depends on how masochistic they are. Still, if they do, their effort will at least serve as a valuable resource.
The one quibble I have is their choice to remain annonymous. Their explanation is that they're wary:
Due to intimidation suffered by those that have spoken out about the very issues
that we raise, we have regretfully decided to remain anonymous.
I'm not a fan of such decisions. They don't live in Hamas-controlled Gaza, or Iran, or Egypt, or Syria, or all the many other places in the world where it's dangerous to have an opinion. And if they do, why stay there?
That one issue aside, however, they look like a group that should be encouraged. All you need do is bookmark them.
7 comments:
unfortunately, if it turns out that the contributors are jewish, then they will be 'outed' as paranoid zionist-fascists who are trying to stifle "debate" on israeli (wink wink) misdeeds.
I believe they should remain anonymous.
A couple of well-known, pro-CIFers actually mentioned the CIFWatch site on the Freedland thread and their comments were promptly deleted. The Guardian tolerates no significant deviation from the party line and Brits running CIFWatch will do well to keep their identities unknown.
In Britain people who fight antisemitism in their own name commonly get victimised at work.
I can understand their desire for a degree of anonymity.
It would be better if that wasn't the case, but the climate is such that precautions can be advisable.
Anonymity can be the friend of democracy. Some comments at CIFWatch are critical of Israel and the use of the holocaust by Israel.
Seems balanced to me whoever the 'owners' are.
However, none of the incensed debate as witnessed at CI(F) with the moderators putting their thumb on the scales to 'tip' to the Guardian World View.
And that's apart from the incessant trotting out of articles by sad marginalized extreme left wing Israelis whose views have been soundly rejected by middle of the road mainstream Israel.
Maybe these people prefer to remain anonymous because they want to continue to post on CIF too and disclosing their identity would get them banned there. The other reason I can think about,they are employees and their "second job" wouldn't be tolerated by their employers.
Nick Cohen author of "What's Left?" page 333/334 "I couldn't believe the antisemitism that hit me."
I learned it was one thing being called "Cohen" if you went along with liberal orthodoxy, quite another when you pointed out liberal betrayals."
If you are blogging and are not prominent and you get threats of baseball bats coming at you, the German police will tell you that they can do nothing unless something "real" happens, so anonymity is the only protection for the "normal" person, the lone warrior, if one intends to enter hazardous waters.
rgds,
Silke
Post a Comment