The (disappointing) Economist, perpetrating antisemitic tropes.

I don't really know how to deal with this topic. One, after all, expects better from The Economist than actually allowing one of its columnists (even in the online edition of the journal) to wittingly (or hopefully otherwise) repeat an antisemitic trope. Yet here we have someone identified only as "MS" saying the following, according to the Community Security Trust "Israel and its Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu fear Iran because they suffer from “Auschwitz complex”. Furthermore, this “Auschwitz complex” supposedly links with the Jewish festivals of Purim and Passover. At its end, we are told that Netanyahu’s fears over Iran, reveal his“ghetto mentality”."

This is nasty stuff. Personally, I don't have much time for Bibi (bear in mind that I'm not an Israeli and I don't live in Israel), but the last thing I'd associate with him is anything along these lines. Mark Gardner, the author of the article, adds, in part that "[t]he article says that Netanyahu “seems to be wooing Mr Obama and the American public just as effectively” and that this “resembles” a “doomed marriage” in which 'the more stubborn and unstable partner drags the other into increasingly delusional and dangerous projects whose disastrous results seem only to legitimate their paranoid outlook.' No consideration is given to Iran’s past and present actions. No mention is made of its nuclear programme, its goal of regional domination, its leader’s apocalyptic outbursts, its denial of the Holocaust, its terrorism against Jews and Israelis." {note the internal links in the article}

I really don't want to go on: please read it for yourself. There is another article on this topic by Petra Marquardt-Bigman at Warped Mirror.

Oddly enough, while one increasingly expects "right-wing" journals to be more objective (given my prejudices, more pro-Israeli) these days, while being disappointed by The Economist's lack of editorial control, The Spectator doesn't let its down. The 10 march issue (hard copy, and I failed to access this issue online) has an article by Jeffrey Goldberg (not every right-wingers pin-up boy) on this very topic, much more balanced, meaning…you guessed!

By Brian Goldfarb.

Remark by editor: For the sake of fairness, the title of the Economist article referred in this post and in the original CST response, was changed from the original "Auschwitz complex" to "Masters of their fate?". With the following note from the editor:

Editor's note: The original headline of this blog post was inappropriate and has been changed at the instruction of the editor in chief. No offence was intended and we apologise unreservedly.

The contents of the anti-Israeli rant, however, remained unchanged, and the quantity of the anti-Israeli comments accompanying the article, keeps growing.