ADC Action Alert: Protest Extremely Hateful Coverage of Palestinians in Slate

Brandon Orr[1], with the particular rhetoric that marks fascism, has invented the charge that Ariel Sharon is my “mentor.”[2] If, as a regular reader of the journal, the logic escapes you it is because there is no logic to this fascist rhetorical technique.
Never get in a smelling contest with a skunk; never get caught up in a detailed series of polemics with those who make dishonesty a conscious part of their political work.
Rather, I reprint in its totality, those articles from the journal in which the “Ariel Sharon” was mentioned.
In passing, I mention the recent quantified spam of several newsgroups by anti-Semites of an ostensible list of the original revolutionary government in Russia showing its domination by Jews.
If pro-fascist forces can spam, then certainly libeled anti-fascists can post objective material in a fashion that is not spam.
— tallpaul (Paul Kneisel)
Editor: The Internet Anti-Fascist

[1] A.K.A. Daedra Morrighan, vanguard at antisocial.com, saintjackoff at
corporatedirtbag.com, etc. etc.
[2] From: saintjackoff@corporatedirtbag.com (Johann Sebastian Bot
V.2)
Newsgroups: alt.revisionism, alt.conspiracy, alt.politics.communism,
soc.culture.jewish, alt.anarchism
Subject: `Paul Kneisel’s Mentor: War Criminal Ariel Sharon, ‘the
Bulldozer’
Date: 23 May 2001 15:16:28 -0700
Message-ID: <28196220.0105231416.3bd2c697@posting.google.com>
* * * * *
ADC Action Alert: Protest Extremely Hateful Coverage of Palestinians in Slate
American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC)
14 Oct 00
The explosion of hostile and biased anti-Arab sentiment in the American media during the past two weeks of the uprising in the occupied Palestinian territories has escaped no one’s attention. However, yesterday’s edition of the online magazine Slate includes some of the most hostile and biased coverage yet seen, including the use of outright obscenity to describe Palestinians, something rarely if ever seen in the US press. This outrageous article by someone called Scott Shuger can be read online at
.
Please post responses to this racist trash on the Slate site by clicking on the “post a message” link at the bottom of the page. Address Slate Editor Michael Kinsley and demand an apology or that Slate from now on use similarly obscene language to describe Israelis who commit atrocities.
OPEN LETTER TO SLATE EDITOR MICHAEL KINSLEY:
October 14, 2000
Michael Kinsley
Editor, Slate
via email
Dear Mr. Kinsley:
The article in yesterday’s Slate, “Peace in Pieces” by Scott Shuger (web posted Friday, Oct. 13, 2000, at 4:29 a.m. PT), is completely beyond the pale. Shuger writes about the killing of two Israeli undercover soldiers by a mob of Palestinian civilians: “And then there are the pictures. The most unforgettable, credited to Agence France Presse, appears on everybody’s front–in it, a piece of shit posing as a human being is only too proud to show the other turds below that on the West Bank, ‘having someone’s blood on your hands’ is not just an expression.”
While the killing of the Israeli soldiers was a brutal and inexcusable act, this characterization, “a piece of shit posing as a human being is only too proud to show the other turds below,” has no place in any publication, including an online publication, that aspires to any form of respectability. In the past two weeks, over one hundred Palestinians, mostly unarmed civilians, have been killed by Israeli soldiers. Has Slate called these Israelis “pieces of shit posing as human beings?” Over 20 of the killed Palestinians have been children. Has Slate called the Israeli soldiers who killed them “pieces of shit posing as human beings?” 12 year-old Mohammad Al-Durah, his father and an ambulance driver who tried to save them were shot down in cold blood by Israeli snipers on television. Has Slate called the Israeli snipers “pieces of shit posing as human beings?” Several Palestinians have been murdered by rampaging.
Israeli settlers, including one who was brutally tortured with hot irons and then burned to death. Has Slate called the Israeli settlers who did this “pieces of shit posing as human beings?” Likud leader Ariel Sharon, whose outrageous visit to the Muslim holy sites in occupied East Jerusalem triggered the current conflict, has been responsible for numerous atrocities far in excess of the killing of the two Israeli soldiers, most notably the 1982 massacre of up to 2,000 unarmed Palestinian civilians at Sabra and Shatila. Has Slate called Sharon a “piece of shit posing as a human being?” The Director-General of the Israeli Defense Ministry, which has killed so many Palestinians over the past two weeks, Major General Amos Yaron, was commander of the Israeli occupying forces in the Lebanese capital during the same massacre. Has Slate called Yaron a “piece of shit posing as a human being?” Has or would Slate ever call any Israeli “a piece of shit posing as human being,” or is such language reserved only for Palestinians and other Arabs? We both know the answer to this question.
The past two weeks have been a period of extreme pain for the Arab American community, as we have witnessed scores of unarmed Palestinian civilians killed by Israeli soldiers and settlers. This pain has been deeply exacerbated by biased, hostile and racist references to Palestinians by a scandalously large number of American journalists who have revealed their deep antipathy towards Arabs in their coverage of the recent tragic events.
Mr. Shuger’s outburst, however, is among the worst we have seen. The prevalent double-standard has been appalling, but this “piece of shit posing as a human being” business is simply too much. You should seriously ask yourself, and tell us, why the blood of two Israeli soldiers draws so much more ire and outrage from Slate than the blood of 20 Palestinian children.
It seems to me you have only three options. You must apologise and retract this characterization, start describing Israelis who commit comparable atrocities in similarly obscene terms, or admit that Slate embraces a racist double-standard for obscenity and invective.
I look forward to hearing from you soon on this vital matter.
Yours,
Hussein Ibish
Communications Director
American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC)
hibish@adc.org

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