Difference between revisions of "Jonathan Freedland"

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(anti-semitism)
(How The Guardian betrayed not only Corbyn but the last vestiges of British democracy)
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'''Jonathan Saul Freedland''' is a [[British]] [[journalist]], who writes a weekly column for ''[[The Guardian]]'' and a monthly piece for ''[[The Jewish Chronicle]]''. He is also a regular contributor to ''[[The New York Times]]'' and ''[[The New York Review of Books]]'', and presents [[BBC Radio 4]]'s contemporary history series, ''[http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/history/longview.shtml The Long View]''. Freedland's family background is Jewish. <ref>[http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/may/18/death-life-mother-rescued-by-love In death – as in life – my mother was rescued by love] - The Guardian 18 May 2012</ref>
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'''Jonathan Saul Freedland''' is a [[British]] [[journalist]], who writes a weekly column for ''[[The Guardian]]'' and a monthly piece for the ''[[Jewish Chronicle]]''. He is also a regular contributor to ''[[The New York Times]]'' and ''[[The New York Review of Books]]'', and presents [[BBC Radio 4]]'s contemporary history series, ''[http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/history/longview.shtml The Long View]''. Freedland's family background is Jewish. <ref>[http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/may/18/death-life-mother-rescued-by-love In death – as in life – my mother was rescued by love] - The Guardian 18 May 2012</ref>
  
 
==Reporting==
 
==Reporting==
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===Middle East===
 
===Middle East===
Jonathan Freedland has been termed the paper's '[[gatekeeper]]' on the [[Middle East]] conflict. According to [[Jonathan Cook]], Freedland is "helping to confect an [[anti-semitism]] crisis in the [[Labour Party]]".<ref>[[Document:Labour’s witch-hunt against Ken Livingstone]]</ref>
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Jonathan Freedland has been termed the paper's '[[gatekeeper]]' on the [[Middle East]] conflict. According to [[Jonathan Cook]], Freedland is "helping to confect an [[anti-semitism]] crisis in the [[Labour Party]]".<ref>''[[Document:Labour’s witch-hunt against Ken Livingstone]]''</ref>
  
 
==="Democracy"===
 
==="Democracy"===
 
In May 2019 he argued that ''Politics may be broken. But it’s only politics that can save us''.<ref>https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/may/31/politics-broken-trump-brexit-democracy</ref>
 
In May 2019 he argued that ''Politics may be broken. But it’s only politics that can save us''.<ref>https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/may/31/politics-broken-trump-brexit-democracy</ref>
  
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==Destroying Corbyn==
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In August 2020, [[Jonathan Cook]] wrote:{{QB|If anyone gave the weaponisation of [[antisemitism]] against [[Jeremy Corbyn|Corbyn]] an air of bipartisan respectability it was Freedland and his newspaper, ''[[The Guardian]]''. They made sure Corbyn was hounded by the [[antisemitism]] claims while he was [[Leader of the Labour Party|Labour leader]], overshadowing everything else he did. That confected narrative neutralised his lifelong activism as an anti-racist, it polluted his claims to be a principled politician fighting for the underdog.
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Freedland and ''The Guardian'' not only helped to breathe life into the [[antisemitism]] allegations but they made them sound credible to large sections of the Labour membership too.
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The rightwing media presented the Corbyn project as a traitorous, hard-left move, in cahoots with Putin’s [[Russia]], to undermine Britain. Meanwhile, Freedland and ''The Guardian'' destroyed Corbyn from his liberal-left flank by portraying him and his supporters as a mob of leftwing Nazis-in-waiting.
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Corbynism, in Freedland’s telling, became a “sect”, a cult of dangerous leftists divorced from political realities. And then, with astonishing chutzpah, Freedland blamed Corbyn’s failure at the ballot box – a failure Freedland and ''The Guardian'' had helped to engineer – as a betrayal of the poor and the vulnerable.}}
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===Helping Johnson===
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{{QB|Remember, Corbyn lost by less than 3,000 votes in a handful of Labour marginals in [[UK/2017 General Election|2017]]. Despite all this, Freedland and ''The Guardian'' now pretend that they played no role in destroying Corbyn, they behave as if their hands are clean.
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But Freedland’s actions, like those of his newspaper, had one inevitable outcome. They ushered in the only alternative to Corbyn: a government of the hard right led by [[Boris Johnson]].
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Freedland’s choice to assist Johnson by undermining Corbyn – and, worse, to do so on the basis of a disinformation campaign – makes him culpable, as it does ''The Guardian'', in everything that flowed from his decision. But Freedland, like ''The Guardian'', still pontificates on the horrors of the Johnson government, as if they share no blame for helping Johnson win power.<ref>''[https://www.jonathan-cook.net/blog/2020-08-10/how-the-guardian-betrayed-not-only-corbyn-but-the-last-vestiges-of-british-democracy/ "How the Guardian betrayed not only Corbyn but the last vestiges of British democracy"]''</ref>}}
 
{{SMWDocs}}
 
{{SMWDocs}}
 
==References==
 
==References==
 
{{Reflist}}
 
{{Reflist}}

Revision as of 11:35, 12 August 2020

Person.png Jonathan Freedland   Powerbase Twitter WebsiteRdf-entity.pngRdf-icon.png
(journalist, editor, gatekeeper?)
Jonathan Freedland.jpg
Jonathan Freedland "helping to confect an anti-semitism crisis in the Labour Party"
Born25 February 1967
NationalityBritish
Alma materWadham College, Oxford
ReligionJew
SpouseSarah Peters
Interests • Israeli–Palestinian conflict
• anti-semitism

Jonathan Saul Freedland is a British journalist, who writes a weekly column for The Guardian and a monthly piece for the Jewish Chronicle. He is also a regular contributor to The New York Times and The New York Review of Books, and presents BBC Radio 4's contemporary history series, The Long View. Freedland's family background is Jewish. [1]

Reporting

Seamus Milne, fellow Guardian editor, observed that "A senior editor of a national British publication who has written frequently for The Guardian's opinion section, told me that he was aware that all coverage of the Israel-Palestine issue was "tightly controlled" by Jonathan Freedland, the Guardian's executive editor for opinion."[2]

Middle East

Jonathan Freedland has been termed the paper's 'gatekeeper' on the Middle East conflict. According to Jonathan Cook, Freedland is "helping to confect an anti-semitism crisis in the Labour Party".[3]

"Democracy"

In May 2019 he argued that Politics may be broken. But it’s only politics that can save us.[4]

Destroying Corbyn

In August 2020, Jonathan Cook wrote:

If anyone gave the weaponisation of antisemitism against Corbyn an air of bipartisan respectability it was Freedland and his newspaper, The Guardian. They made sure Corbyn was hounded by the antisemitism claims while he was Labour leader, overshadowing everything else he did. That confected narrative neutralised his lifelong activism as an anti-racist, it polluted his claims to be a principled politician fighting for the underdog.

Freedland and The Guardian not only helped to breathe life into the antisemitism allegations but they made them sound credible to large sections of the Labour membership too.

The rightwing media presented the Corbyn project as a traitorous, hard-left move, in cahoots with Putin’s Russia, to undermine Britain. Meanwhile, Freedland and The Guardian destroyed Corbyn from his liberal-left flank by portraying him and his supporters as a mob of leftwing Nazis-in-waiting.

Corbynism, in Freedland’s telling, became a “sect”, a cult of dangerous leftists divorced from political realities. And then, with astonishing chutzpah, Freedland blamed Corbyn’s failure at the ballot box – a failure Freedland and The Guardian had helped to engineer – as a betrayal of the poor and the vulnerable.

Helping Johnson

Remember, Corbyn lost by less than 3,000 votes in a handful of Labour marginals in 2017. Despite all this, Freedland and The Guardian now pretend that they played no role in destroying Corbyn, they behave as if their hands are clean.

But Freedland’s actions, like those of his newspaper, had one inevitable outcome. They ushered in the only alternative to Corbyn: a government of the hard right led by Boris Johnson.

Freedland’s choice to assist Johnson by undermining Corbyn – and, worse, to do so on the basis of a disinformation campaign – makes him culpable, as it does The Guardian, in everything that flowed from his decision. But Freedland, like The Guardian, still pontificates on the horrors of the Johnson government, as if they share no blame for helping Johnson win power.[5]

 

Related Documents

TitleTypePublication dateAuthor(s)Description
Document:Guardian’s Zionist gatekeeper rewrites Holocaust historyArticle22 August 2024Tony GreensteinA leading protagonist in the false anti-Semitism campaign in the Labour Party between 2015 and 2019, Jonathan Freedland's choice of a non-Zionist Jewish Holocaust hero as the subject of a book is therefore curious to say the least. It appears that Freedland’s motive was in order to both justify Rudolf Vrba’s silencing by Zionism’s Holocaust historians and obscure his message that Zionism was a quisling Jewish movement during the Holocaust.
Document:Jonathan Freedland rewrites history to hide an ugly truth about Israelblog post25 August 2024Jonathan CookThe anti-Zionist Rudolf Vrba's story exposes the ideological foundations of Israel to be fully in sympathy with ugly European ethic nationalisms that culminated in Nazism. Vrba's story explains how Israel was always capable of, and is now committing, a genocide in Gaza.
Document:Labour’s witch-hunt against Ken Livingstonearticle31 March 2017Jonathan CookLabour's kangaroo court trying to justify suspending Ken Livingstone for stating the fact that Hitler supported Zionism
Document:The American Jewish scholar behind Labour's "antisemitism" scandal breaks his silenceInterview3 May 2016Norman Finkelstein
Jamie Stern-Weiner
Norman G. Finkelstein is clear: "It’s time to put a stop to this periodic charade, because it ends up besmirching the victims of the Nazi holocaust, diverting from the real suffering of the Palestinian people, and poisoning relations between the Jewish and Muslim communities. You just had an antisemitism hysteria last year, and it was a farce. And now again? Another inquiry? Another investigation? No."
Document:The EHRC’s report into Labour antisemitism is the real ‘political interference’blog post7 November 2020Jonathan CookIt is instructive to compare the certainty with which the EHRC treats Councillor Pam Bromley’s ambiguous remarks as irrefutable proof of antisemitism in Labour with its complete disregard for unmistakably antisemitic comments from Boris Johnson, the man actually running the country. That lack of concern is shared, of course, by the establishment media and Jewish leadership organisations.
Document:UK Labour Party is right to drop racist IHRA guidelines of anti-SemitismArticle6 August 2018The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) Anti-Semitism definition guidelines the Labour Party are correctly omitting, are designed by Israeli propagandists to aid their many mass lobby attempts to stop international solidarity with the Palestinians and to deny Palestinians the right to express the nature of Israel’s 70 years of violence and racism towards them.
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