Mondoweiss and its Friends: Ratbag commentators

This is a guest blog by Professor William D. Rubinstein.

He writes:

Mondoweiss has been the subject of three previous guest blogs by me on the Daphne Anson site, here and here and here

For those who don't look at "Mondoweiss," it is a virulently anti-Israel website run by two American Jews.

Well-produced and obviously well-funded, it is updated daily, and consists of giving a platform to every conceivable critic of Israel, most of whom are marginal figures totally unknown outside of extremist circles, and of highlighting every act by the Israeli government and the Israeli military.

Needless to say, there is absolutely no balance of any kind on Mondoweiss, which consistently whitewashes Islamic and Palestinian terrorism by ignoring it.

Many followers of Mondoweiss have asked whether it is antisemitic. Few readers of Mondoweiss probably have the patience or the stomach to go beyond the articles it publishes to read the comments that it posts below each article. They are usually sent to the site a day or two later, by a rather predictable group of regular commentators.

Needless to say, too, no blog is responsible for the ratbags, bigots, and trolls who are attracted to it and post comments, but every blog is responsible for monitoring them and removing offensive postings. Mondoweiss allegedly has a "Comments Policy" that includes "no racist or sexist comments" and "no trolling," which is more honoured in the breach than in the observance, probably because if they were removed, there would be nothing left.

Below is a highly typical selection of comments received about its postings in the last week or ten days. They are not taken out of context, and I could easily have substituted another twenty very similar or identical set of comments of the same ilk.

Readers will have to judge for themselves whether they are antisemitic, and also what kind of blog it is which attracts sewer-level commentators on a daily basis.

"Eljay" believes that:

"It's time for the Zio-supremacists of England to abandon Zio-supremacism, to stop defending the colonialist, (war) criminal and religion supremacist state of Israel and to embrace their English homeland..."

"Emory Riddle" asks:

"Which nations in the ME is Israel destroying? It has destroyed Iraq, Syria, Palestine, Lebanon, and via the installation of violent repressive leaders, Egypt, Jordan, and Lebanon." (In other words, Israel ordered the Egyptian army to remove President Morsi from power and install al-Sisi, and then got 96 per cent of the Egyptian electorate to approve of al-Sisi's installation. If the Israelis can do that, they should also be able to get Egypt to move the Pyramids and the Sphinx to Tel Aviv as tourist attractions.)"

"An American Critic" believes that

"Strong support' of Israel at AIPAC constitutes direct support of discrimination based on race, ethnicity, and/or religion, violence, ethnic cleansing, and a host of other policies that constitute war crimes or crimes against humanity."

Another commentator who believes that Israel possesses supernatural powers is "Ossinev":

"Any road up the Yahoo [sic] has made it clear what his [Obama's] American minions must do so nothing much has changed in the Zionist scheme of things- the so-called greatest power on earth being controlled and directed by a tiny little Fascist cult colony in the Middle East. Americans should feel proud that Zionists have chosen them as their favored Untermensch."

Hillary Clinton is often singled out for special excoriation, for instance by "Pauline":

"Hillary Clinton, who has openly endorsed Israeli occupation, apartheid, and genocide as she positions herself as the candidate of the Zionist killing machine"

This message was endorsed by "Kalithea," who claims that

"The Queen [Hillary Clinton], benefactress, and soon-to-be priestess of Zionism is about to be crowned by the Lobby and just wanted to ensure Zionist purity. Let's not forget how deeply plagued with insecurity their fanaticism is. Only fascists need to dot every I and cross every T. Their control must be absolute, as with all supremacist ideologies everyone else is inferior and suspect..."

"Amigo" is certainly no friend of Israel, and nor, it seems, of Jewish holidays: 

"Palestinians Under Repressive Israeli Monsters

I am sure your so called most moral army will keep the Undermenschen suitably imprisoned while your Zionist Ubermenschen enjoy your holiday [Purim] without a care in the world for those you oppress and ethnically cleanse. Jews celebrating their saving as they murder, oppress, imprison, starve, and generally treat the Palestinians as subhumans. Disgusting."

 "Xanadou" is pessimistic about the future:

"For now and in the absence of anyone else who is not an outright uncritical panderer, I need to believe that the Palestinian nightmare may end before the savage hordes that comprise the israeli army and settler gangs, will escalate the deadly rampages into hekatombs [sic]...Perhaps I'm delusional, but the stories and images of unconscionable savagery perpetrated daily in fascist Israel will haunt well into the distant future..."

And so on. Every day sees commentary just like this on Mondoweiss, often even more extreme than that quoted here and regularly even more incoherent.

Enjoy.