A
few anti-Semites took aid and
comfort when it appeared that
their prejudices were shared
by a magazine of authority and
standing
-- The New Statesman
|
London, Friday, February 8, 2002
Editor sorry for
'anti-Semitic' image
Statesman
apologises over cover
By LEON
SYMONS
THE EDITOR of the New
Statesman has
apologised
for the publication of a cover
illustration which many readers considered
anti-Semitic.
However,
Peter Wilby defended the two
articles promoted by the offending January
14 cover, which depicted a large Magen
David standing on a Union Jack above the
words: "A kosher conspiracy?"
Writing in today's issue. Mr Wilby
admitted: "We [or, more precisely,
I] got it wrong.
"The cover was not intended to be
anti-Semitic; the New Statesman is
vigorously opposed to racism in all its
forms.
"But it used images and words in such a
way as to create unwittingly the
impression that the New Statesman was
following an anti-Semitic tradition that
sees Jews as a conspiracy piercing the
heart of the nation."
He acknowledged that "a few
anti-Semites [as some comments on our
web-site, quickly removed, suggested],
took aid and comfort when it appeared that
their prejudices were shared by a magazine
of authority and standing. Moreover, the
cover upset very many Jews, who are right
to feel that. in the fight against
anti-Semitism ... this magazine ought to
be on their side."
Mr Wilby was bullish in his response to
criticism of the articles by Dennis
Sewell, on an alleged "Zionist media
lobby" in Britain, and by John
Pilger, on the relationship between
Tony Blair and Ariel
Sharon.
"Sewell's report was fair and balanced
and many critics [including Jews]
in asking me to express regret for the
cover, have also asked me to make that
clear." he pointed out.
Mr Pilger's contribution was "more
contentious, but it was not
anti-Semitic."
The issue elicited a flood of angry
e-mails and letters from readers,
academics and other journalists.
A
website bonne-bouche
The
traditions of Der
Stürmer
|
|
Stürmer
was notorious for its vile
anti-Semitic caricatures, like
the one above, from its
children's guides to the Jewish
"enemy".
David Irving writes:
Ignorant wafflers often refer to
Der Sturmer , easily the
most poisonous tabloid published
in the Nazi era, without ever
having seen it. The publisher was
Julius Streicher,
gauleiter of Nuremberg, who was
hanged by the victorious Allies
at Nuremberg probably for no
other reason than this
publication -- no doubt the
Taliban would have dealt equally
fiercely with Hugh Hefner
or the editors of the Sun
and News of the World for
their pornographic excesses.
Adolf Hitler had a soft
spot for Streicher, who was one
of the few privileged to address
him as "Du"; but he despised the
magazine. Even Dr Joseph
Goebbels found it impossible
to control the beast, but it was
so popular among street-level
Nazis that it remained outside
the propaganda ministry's
control. Streicher was stripped
of his gauleiter position in
1940, after he fell out with
Hermann Göring (he
not inaccurately published the
story that the Reichsmarschall's
daughter Edda, born 1938,
was the product of artificial
insemination, a pioneering
procedure in those days).
See:
Index
to the Origins of
Anti-Semitism
on this website
|
Last week, four East London Jews staged a
brief "invasion" of the magazine's
premises to seek an apology.
Labour Party general secretary David
Triesman wrote: "I have read, agreed
and disagreed with the New Statesman
for 40 years. I never thought I would
come to regard it as anti-Semitic. I do
today." Professor Stefan Reif, of
St John's College, Cambridge, described
the cover as being "in the best traditions
of Nazi Germany's Der
Stürmer."
Referring to the protesters from East
London, Mr Wilby said the New Statesman
would not respond to "a self-appointed
group of unknown standing which walks in
off the street."
But he conceded that "this episode has
reached the point where we owe our
readers, and the Jewish community in
general, some statement of our
position."
Relevant items on
this website:
-
New York outrage at New
Statesman article: Specter
of "Zionist Lobby" in UK
-
-
-
- David
Irving comments:
-
- THE JEWISH
community is so brainless that it
does not realise that by their very
action in applying pressure on
The New Statesman, not a
journal for which we normally have
much sympathy -- and now publicly
boasting about it -- they are
justifying the main thrust of the
articles complained of: the baleful
influence of their community on the
British free press.
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