ambient-entropy:(via J.K. Rowling takes on ‘anti-Semite’ fellow author in Twitter spat over Corbyn |
ambient-entropy:(via J.K. Rowling takes on ‘anti-Semite’ fellow author in Twitter spat over Corbyn | The Times of Israel) Simon Maginn attacks ‘Zionists’ in support of UK Labour Party leader; Harry Potter author challenges, ‘What other minority would you speak to this way?’By JTAJ.K. Rowling went head to head with a fellow British writer on Twitter over his criticism of Jewish complaints about anti-Semitism in the Labour Party.Simon Maginn, who has written five thrillers under his own name and satirical comedies under the name Simon Nolan, on Sunday in a tweet called Jewish outrage over Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn’s 2013 comments indicating that “Zionists” do not understand British culture “patently synthetic outrage,” and called on a Jewish tweeter to “Explain your deep and wounding sense of injury.”Rowling, who is not Jewish, tweeted in response: “How dare you tell a Jew that their outrage is ‘patently synthetic’?”She added: How dare you demand that they lay bare their pain and fear on demand, for your personal evaluation? What other minority would you speak to this way?”Explain it to me, then. Explain your deep and wounding sense of injury. Explain the wrong that’s been done to you. Explain your patently synthetic outrage. Explain yourself. Publicly.— simon maginn (@simonmaginn) August 26, 2018Maginn then called on Rowling to explain, noting that Corbyn has said that his comments did not refer to Jews but was “a rather complicated joke about the Palestinian Ambassador’s fluency in English.”The opening salvos set up a back and forth that lasted throughout Sunday. Rowling tweeted several quotes from Jean-Paul Sartre’s “Anti-Semite and Jew” — a famous essay on anti-Semitism by the philosopher — and lambasted Maginn for demanding that a British Jew explain how he feels under anti-Semitic attack “when there are literally hundreds of accounts currently online explaining how British Jews currently feel?”And rather than bully from the grandeur of your immense twitter following, why not try to engage intellectually with someone? Anyone can sling mud and run. Let’s talk about it rationally. How about it?— simon maginn (@simonmaginn) August 26, 2018'it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti‐Semites have the right to play.’ Jean-Paul Sartre, 'Anti-Semite and Jew’.— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) August 26, 2018Maginn accused Rowling of “libel” for publicly calling him an anti-Semite in one of her tweets, but tweeted that “I’m not going to mount a legal action against you because I haven’t got any money and you’ve got a lot, but false + defamatory = libellous. What a class act you are. What a nasty vicious little bully. Blocked.”And thus did the anti-Semite loftily indicate that he was no longer interested in debate.— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) August 26, 2018Early Monday morning he continued his harangue, opening with a tweet reading: “BREAKING NEWS: From today, any statement by Jeremy Corbyn or his supporters is now *automatically antisemitic*, unless cleared by a panel comprising Dan Hodges, J K Rowling, Stephen Pollard and (wild card entry) David Baddiel.”Dan Hodges is a columnist for the Daily Mail who has accused Corbyn supporters of overt anti-Semitism. Pollard is the editor of London’s Jewish Chronicle newspaper, and Baddiel is a British comedian and activist who campaigns against anti-Semitism in British soccer matches.Maginn called on Rowling to apologize for “a sickening personal accusation against a complete stranger who disagrees with you politically,” also tweeting that “your followers surely deserve better than this kind of behaviour from you. So do I. I deserve an apology.”Rowling, who has 14.4 million followers on Twitter, did not respond.Maginn has tweeted against Jews in the past. In July, in response to the Labour Party rejecting the complete international definition of anti-Semitism, he wrote: “Astounding isn’t it, that a group which claims to be silenced, oppressed, powerless manages to keep the story running day after day, week after week, month after month, in every Tory paper and on the Tory BBC. Must be terrible to be so oppressed, so silenced.”It is not the first time that Rowling has debated anti-Semitism on Twitter. In April, she posted a screen grab of a non-Jew attempting to explain what Judaism is — “Judaism is a religion not a race” — and explained why this is hardly relevant to defining anti-Jewish bias.She tweeted: “Most UK Jews in my timeline are currently having to field this kind of crap, so perhaps some of us non-Jews should start shouldering the burden,” she said. “Antisemites think this is a clever argument, so tell us, do: were atheist Jews exempted from wearing the yellow star? #antisemitism.”She also responded when someone argued that Arabs can’t be anti-Semitic because they are Semites. “The ‘Arabs are semitic too’ hot takes have arrived,” she tweeted.READ MORE:Jewish Times J.K. Rowling Jeremy Corbyn anti-Semitism anti-Semitism in BritainHarry Potter British Jews2,939sharesCOMMENTSMoe Litman: Ms. Rowling, we appreciate your support, humanity and insight. Corbyn and Maginn are fighting for political status and power. If they genuinely are fighting for victims of the “Zionist Project”, they give their imprimatur, by viture of their words and presence, to those who seek justice by killing civilians and sacrificing their own, even women and children. We Jews fight for life, liberty and self determination. History, over and over, for 2 thousand years, including in Arabia where the so-called Palestinians emenate from, has taught us that we Jews need a sanctuary, a place where we have a fighting chance to ward off the haters, oppressors, thieves and killers and make a normal, productive, life for ourselves. We have had no choice but to return to the place where, as a people who were indigenous to Judea/Samariah (renamed Palestina by the Roman occupiers, a name happily adopted by the Muslim occupiers). We have laboured and sacrificed our lives so as to achieve our goals of security, normalcy and self determination. We have done so despite implacable, violent (viscious), ignorant emnity from Arabian and other peoples who not only violently occupied Jewish lands but even stole the label of Palestinian that the Romans foisted on the Jewish people (not that we are interested in being called Palestinians). We have been lambasted for defending ourselves. Yes, we have been aggresive in doing so, but when people seek to kill you, one doesn’t responsd with nicety. Indeed, given the continued goal of eliminating the Jewish people from the land of Israel, it is clear that Israel’s response to attacks initiated by her enemies has not been sufficiently forceful. Those attacking Israel feel considerable sucor and are encouraged and even assisted by those who accept the notion that Zionists are malum in se. Maginn doesn’t seem to be able to relate to or inform himself of the rather easy task of understanding the fragility and repeated existential vulnerability, indeed the horrendous victimization of Jews over the centuries and, given the quantum of antisemtic acts, even today. Rowling is right. If Maginn wants an explanation, all he has to do is read, on line or in British, French, Swedish, Norwegian, American, German, Dutch, and Arab, etc., newspapers (amongst others). All he has to do is examine the U.N. Human Rights Council to see that “Zionists” (Jews seeking safety and self determination) are treated entirely differently than other vulnerable peoples seeking the same goals and this treatment is meted out by horrendous villians. Antisemitic incidents, including terrorism targeting Jewish civilians, are rampant, viscious antisemtic cartoons are omnipresent and the sanatized version of antisemitism, which focuses on the false distinction between Jews and Zionists, is heavily relied on in “intellectual” circles. Let me just say that, as a person born in a displaced persons camp, a camp converted from a killing machine, and now fortunate enough to be living in North America, and who has from time to time experienced antisemitism first hand and read, dail, an enormous amount of viscious antisemitic trash, I am able to sleep much better at night because of the Zionist project (namely the safety and security that Israel provides). If the madness reappears, at least there is a chance to run to a place where finally we Jews, reduced in numbers as we are, have a fighting chance. -- source link