With a new report out this week revealing that European antisemitism is still alarmingly high, few will be comforted by the recent articles published by Ben White, the journalist who understands European cultural antisemitism.
Unlike Sabeel and the Christian Peacemaker Teams who at least attempt a veneer of pacifism and publicly discourage violence, Ben White is open about his support for Hamas, Hezbollah and the one-state solution.
This week, White has published an article in the Guardian’s Comment Is Free which uses the recent events surrounding the disappearance and return of Philip Rizk to criticise Egypt’s social and foreign policy.
Philip Rizk is an Egyptian-German film-maker who supports the Muslim Brotherhood (still outlawed in Egypt)’s Palestinian chapter Hamas. Ben White considers Rizk as a good friend, and both men are virulent Christian anti-Zionists of the Sizer/McRoy tradition.
White’s article in CiF is critical of both Egypt’s foreign and domestic policies, and indeed suggests a link between the social repressions of Egyptians with Egyptian foreign policy towards Israel. White also criticises Saudi Arabia as being repressive.
Yet White’s outburst has come following the recent criticism of Arab leaders as ‘corrupt’ by Hamas supporters both in the West and in the Arab world. I would suggest that the recent anger among Hamas supporters against the leaders of Egypt and Saudi Arabia is not so much due to their social repression as their lack of support for Hamas.
I say this as Hamas itself has been criticised in the Arab world for its brutal treatment of Fatah supporters and other Palestinian citizens.
Having shown his support for Palestinian human rights in 2008 even if it risks playing into Israel’s hands, why is White so quiet about Palestinian crimes against other Palestinians now?
Seismic Shock 
Note also how White labels Abbas’ government as “quisling” in the comments thread at http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/jul/30/middleeast.humanrights – this was the label given to the Norwegian government which was appointed by and cooperated with the Nazis in WWII – so presumably in White’s mind Israel, the US and the EU are akin to Nazis. Ben is now silent about Palestinian crimes against other Palestinians because he doesn’t really care about the Palestinians, he just wants to use any angle he can to demonise and vilify the world’s one Jewish state.
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The weird thing is that Eygypt is well known for it discrimination against its Chritian minority, a problem that would worsen if the Muslim Brotherhood groups came to power,