Richard Silverstein: UK Jewish Chronicle Hosts BNP White Supremacist Blogger

Categorized | Anti-Loons, Loon Media

Tags | Anti-Muslim, BNP, Carlos Cortiglia, Islam, Islamophobia, Richard Silverstein, Stephen Pollard, UK Jewish Chronicle, white supremacist, Zionism

Richard Silverstein: UK Jewish Chronicle Hosts BNP White Supremacist Blogger

Posted on 20 April 2012 by Garibaldi

Our friend Richard Silverstein at Tikkun Olam was the first to expose the UK Jewish Chronicle’s hosting a White Supremacist blogger by the name of Carlos Cortiglia. It was largely through his efforts that the Jewish Chronicle removed Cortiglia’s posts, but not before Silverstein got screenshots. The UK Jewish Chronicle has not explained why they gave Cortiglia a platform, they seem to be just covering it up (h/t: Jenny):

UK JEWISH CHRONICLE HOSTS BNP WHITE SUPREMACIST BLOGGER

by Richard Silverstein (Tikkun Olam)

UPDATE: I e mailed the Jewish Chronicle editor asking about Cortiglia’s status as a JC blogger. No one replied, but Ben White has noticed that the BNP leader’s posts are no longer publicly available on the site. So the response to my inquiry must’ve been to take the posts down. Their approach seems to hush this up so the embarrassment will not be too public. Hopefully, we can disabuse them of that notion.

Another JC reader notes that apparently any JC reader can set up their own personal blog on the newspaper’s website, which is what Cortiglia did. I’ve corrected my post title and text accordingly. Finally, Cortiglia’s four posts ~~are~~ were still available using these links (here and here). Whether or not Cortiglia was a featured blogger or a reader-blogger on the JC site, the fact remains that they published four of his posts, made them publicly accessible for eight months, and gave him a platform he wouldn’t otherwise have enjoyed.

UPDATE I: The JC has totally removed Cortiglia’s four blog posts, but we have screenshots for every one. The JC editor, Stephen Pollard, is lying when he told the Guardian’s Hug Muir that Cortiglia’s blog was taken down in September. The accompanying screenshot disproves this, as the four posts were on the site and freely accessible till yesterday. Such lies only exacerbate the offense of the JC hosting BNP PR for eight months. I don’t understand why, when faced with embarrassment, people don’t admit to the offense and move on. Lying only focuses more attention on the matter.

* * *

Stephen Sizer reports that the UK national Jewish community’s Jewish Chronicle has offered a blog-column toCarlos Cortiglia, a leader of the British National Party, the nation’s leading white supremacist political party. Cortiglia is the BNP candidate in the London mayoral race.

I asked Electronic Intifada’s Asa Winstanley to put BNP’s politics in a U.S. context, and whether it could be compared to the Tea Party. He replied that BNP carries more political weight, but its politics are more extreme:

Although they have moved towards a focus on Islamophobia and the counterjihad movement in recent years, their background is in the more traditional European neo-Nazi context and the National Front…

They used to be solidly anti-Semitic and it’s said [their national leader, Nick] Griffin used to deny the Holocaust. In recent years and especially since 9/11, they’ve decided they hate Muslims more than Jews or blacks so have put the focus on agitating against Muslims…

As part of their appeal to unite against Islam, they’ve made more recent attempts to distance themselves from anti-Semitism (although it can’t be far underneath the surface). Interestingly they are also now very pro-Israel.

This seems part of the growing convergence of the European far-right and pro-Israel ultranationalists. A perfect representative of this is of course Anders Breivik, who’s just gone on trial for murdering 77 young Norwegians. I’ve also written here about a group of Russian neo-Nazis who were welcomed to the Knesset by two far-right Jewish MKs. The operative concept here seems to be that the enemy of my Muslim enemy is my friend, even if he’s a Nazi.

But white supremacists? Is this how low the mainstream UK Jewish leadership are prepared to go? To make common cause with those who only a decade or so ago admired Adolf Hitler and denied the Holocaust?

On a somewhat related subject, Electronic Intifada reports that the faux progressive UK Jewish rights group, Engage, surreptitiously accepted funding from the UK Jewish Board of Deputies in order to mount an anti-BDS campaign. All the while Engage touted itself as an independent Jewish progressive voice, when it was a paid shill of the monied pro-Israel interests of the UK Jewish leadership. When you’ve been doing this as long as I have you develop a sense of smell about groups like this. They make a pretence of believing one thing and do something entirely different. Engage is one, as is StandWithUs.

Cassandra

Didn’t Israel support South Africa during the apartheid years, to the point of providing weapons to the apartheid regime?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel%E2%80%93South_Africa_relations#Israeli_relations_with_apartheid_South_Africa

Just google Israel and apartheid South Africa and see what articles pop up.

Not surprised at all that rightwing Jews would cozy up to Nazis, although given what the Nazis historically did to Jews in Europe, I find this move to be inexplicable.
Luther Blissett

Pollard is a journalist and editor, and while that gives him influence and power, he is not a community leader and he does not have a mandate to speak on behalf of British Jewry.

This incident is now being used to smear all British Jewry as Islamophobes. But only the names Pollard, Hoffman, and CiFWatch have been given in evidence to me by Silverstein.

Let’s look at the facts. Pollard is a journalist/editor not a community leader. CiFWatch is run by an American Israeli who used to work for NGO monitor. Hoffman, who is renowned for running petty and vindictive smear campaigns against his fellow British Jews whose political opinions he doesn’t agree with, had his motion to boycott the Guardian Newspaper rejected by British Jewish leaders. I note also that these names mentioned to me by Silvestein have, online in their blogs, taken pot-shots at Silvestein for his blogging and viewpoints).

I have raised objections with Silverstein as to the use of this incident to smear all British Jewish leaders as Islamophobes, which is what he’s been trying to do on twitter. His responses to my saying that have been hostile & insulting. I feel that one can’t extrapoloate from this blog-incident in a newspaper, or extrapolate Pollard’s political view, CiFWatch & Hoffman, to smear British Jewish leaders (of our community).

When I told Silverstein that our Jewish organisations have been exemplary in their rejection of Islamophobia, he rejected this, but when I began giving evidence to Silverstein as to the contrary, mentioning BoD, JCoRE and others, he told me my “acronyms & inside references are gobbledy gook”.
So clearly he is not familiar with British Jewish community organisations and their leaders at all, or of their interfaith work, and antiracism work.

Anyone with an awareness of the term Islamophobia and it’s nature, and who is active in rejecting and opposing Islamophobia in Britain, hopefully realises that I first mentioned JCoRE_UK to Silverstein as it was Richard Stone – as the first JCoRE chair – who chaired the Runnymede group that came up with the term “Islamophobia” to describe the anti-Muslim bigotry being peddled in the media.

Unfortunately Silverstein has now accused me, a long-time opponent of all bigotry and racisms, of all manner of rude and unpleasant things, of covering up for Pollard, etc. If he hopes to repair the world, then this was the wrong way to go about it. I am deeply saddened by both his approach and his subsequent smears of all British Jewish community organisations and their leaders because the BNP exploited an open-blog platform and because of the highly criticised political viewpoints of rightwing journalists/bloggers/activists.
Luther Blissett

Abdul-Rahman – the rightwing on both sides of the zionist-antizionist spectrum appear to have made common cause with white supremacist & US/UK/EU patriot/nationalist groups against either Muslims, or Jews. It’s important to be honest about this. I call them palaeo-neonazis (the antiJewish ones) and neo-neonazis (the antiMuslim ones).
Luther Blissett

Jenny,

I read the JC in print mainly (I have it delivered, along with the Jewish Telegraph). I also link to it on twitter when they run a story about the BNP, EDL, or any of the far-right Counterjihad activists, and when they run a story about Jewish-Muslim interfaith relations and common issues.

I have no connection to Pollard, politically or personally.
Abdul-Rahman

This “unique” pairing is becoming more and more common as rabid Zionist groups are finding common allies with white supremacist groups against Muslims.
Baltics

This is not the first time that the editor of a Jewish paper has supported ultra nationalist Zionists. The Jerusalem Post’s Caroline Glick who claims the USA is no friend of Israel yet is happy to use it to further the Israeli ultra nationalist plan.

She, like Pollard is an Islamophobe.

Caroline Glick has links to Gates of Vienna, the neo nazi site that pretends a philo semitism because it begs for money from Israeli righters.

Read this news story by Farha Khaled, with photos of the culprits. I believe Loon Watch featured this story once,

Caroline Glick Cited As One of Israeli American Tipsters By Gates of Vienna Where Fjordman Appears To Be Back
http://farhakhaled.blogspot.co.uk/2011/10/caroline-glick-cited-as-one-of-israeli.html
Islamophobic blogs like Gates of Vienna popular with white supremacists have Israeli American fans who have adopted a hard line pro Israel agenda at odds with US foreign policy. It appears that ‘Fjordman’ is back at Gates of Vienna. He was cited as a tipster alongside Caroline Glick, the senior editor at The Jerusalem Post, recently.
Tingly

Jewish Chronicle Editor Threatens Lawsuits Over White Supremacist Blog It Hosted

http://www.richardsilverstein.com/tikun_olam/2012/04/21/jewish-chronicle-editor-threatens-lawsuits-over-white-supremacist-blog-it-hosted/
Jenny

Luther Blisset

I do hope you are right, about his BNP and I could accept your word. Nevertheless, he is anti Muslim, and anti Palestinian. That is a cause for concern.

May I ask what your connection is if any to Pollard? Or the JC?
NurAlia

People…ask yourself…whatr exactly has Zionism brought to this world that is positive, that has NOT been at the expence of another person’s peace, security, safety, dignity and humanity.

I am not talking about Jews, or Israelis who have certianly contributed to our world in very important ways…I am talking about Zionists.

The answer is…absolutly nothing.

So…it is not surprising that the BNP would side with Zionists and zionism, and the zionists would side with the BNP. Each one of them ‘legitimises’ the other to a different audience.

To the western blind followers, the BNP legitimises itself by claiming to ‘love Israel’…when in fact, most of them want Israel to be ‘over there’…rather than have a Jewish neighbour next door. The Zionists legitimises itself with the BNP…because it has ‘White Christian’ footsoldiers to rally the cry against Muslims, because of thier campaign to blame Islam for not being able to claim ‘thier homeland’ without violene.

I dont know why westerners cant see this. This is not about Islam, this is about one hate group making love to another and spawning people like Spencer, Geller, and Brevik.

Belive me…as western society gets more intrenched the ‘chosen ones’…they will become less sensitized to thier own fate…which will be…one day, they well turn on themselves.
Luther Blissett

mjasghar – yes, BNP are finished electorally, and their CVF-assisted replacement, British Freedom, are not fielding nearly enough candidates to be of concern this year. Right now, it’s the nutzis non-democratic actions that are a cause for concern – increased violent vigilantism and encouragement to violent vigilantism against their perceived enemies – Muslims, Jews (depending on which nutzi group they belong to) and of course those pesky ‘reds/commies/pinkos/leftists* (*delete as appropriate).
mjasghar

The BNP are finished electorally.
They had some success and it was sickening how some media (talksport esp) sucked up to them and the EDL thinking they were a way to tap into ‘white van man’ demographocs.
They even fooled carol vorderman. But their racist, misogynist etc views and policies soon came out and broke them. Moderates who got fooled into joining as shills left them (a female blackpool councillor springs to mind) and the last straw was when Griffin went on Question Time. That’s a serious weight political debate program, and people wanted him banned. But others realised the best way was to show him up.
Lo and behold he made a fool of himself.That was the beginning of the end.
The final nail was their decision to go for the european elections – that effectively destroyed them as UK party as when smaller parties go that route they are seen as doing it for the gravy train and expenses. With Griffin spending most of his time away from the UK but keeping a dictatorial grip, and the BNP losing influence on policy due to the Norway massacre/ good old british lampooning of nutters/ association with the EDL, they are finished.
Luther Blissett

Muezzin and Jenny,

I am not going to bother Stephen Pollard’s entire worldview here, but I found an article, which I won’t link to here (you can search for it), by the white supremacist Kevin MacDonald, where MacDonald rips into Pollard for saying the following:

Pollard:”anti-Muslim #EDL and #SIOE are racists who would expunge all who do not fit their supposedly native White Anglo-Saxon Protestant definition of English society”, and;

“The Government pretends to make a distinction between Islamism, the political ideology that would forcibly convert unbelievers, and mainstream Islam, which is no more of a threat to Western society than the Quakers. But in reality it lumps almost all Muslims together, and in so doing does the dirty work for racist groups such as the EDL and SIOE.”

Those are Pollard’s words.

I don’t get any idea from those words that he’s been covertly courting BNP or white supremacists, and to claim a conspiracy to that end doesn’t wash with me. I am not here defending Pollard’s entire worldview here, just concentrating on his attitude to the British far-right.

As for the BNP blog, it’s clearly the BNP opportunistically capitalised upon the JC open blog platform, and that the sign-up was unfortunately unnoticed for months, until it was pointed out. There’s nothing sinister going on. All the JC’s articles are clearly against BNP, EDL and SIOE. From this, I really don’t get any idea that Pollard wants to make allies with “Muslim-hating pro-Israel neo-nazis”, and the British Jewish leadership are not about to make a pact with the far-right neo-neonazis or paleo-neonazis.
Jenny

bbboyblue,

Yes, and Cortiglia is a traitor to the British.

Hugh Muir wrote this in the Guardian today,

A BNP bigwig writing for the Jewish Chronicle. Some mistake surely?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2012/apr/19/hugh-muir-diary-cortiglia-jc-blog?INTCMP=SRCH
With their party in laughable disarray, most members of Nick Griffin’s far-right BNP seem content to keep their heads down. But others have careers to build and division to sow. Thus, even in this period of hibernation, they seek a profile. One such is Carlos Cortiglia, who needs to put himself about, not least because he is standing as the party’s mayoral candidate for London. But platforms are hard to find. What to do? His solution has been nothing if not canny; he has been blogging on the Jewish Chronicle. It was easy, for until recently the paper had a system where any reader could set up their own blog and publish their thoughts. He penned at least three blog posts there, all moderate by the standards of JC bloggers, in fact “completely innocuous” as described by editor Stephen Pollard.

and

We know him. For isn’t this the same Carlos Cortiglia quoted in the Argentinian newspaper La Nación in 2006 saying

“Y me siento muy ligado emocionalmente a la República Argentina. En 1982 me ofrecí como voluntario para ir a las Islas Malvinas”?

Which means, as we pointed out last September:

“I feel very connected emotionally to Argentina. In 1982 I volunteered to go to the Falkland Islands.”

That sort of comment means he is unlikely to win a British election or score very well as regards his patriotism. Still, he would probably get along with Sean Penn.
Jenny

Luther Blissett

The Jewish Chronicle may not have officially given him a platform, but given his anti Moslem rhetoric and hatred for Palestinians, and his record for courting pro Israeli politicians even if they are anti Semitic, means he may have known and kept his silence, after all Cortigla has said he would have fought against the British during the Falklands war. Cortigla is Urugayan originally, and his comments would not go down well with the British. There was an article in the Guardian today.

Actually the British MCB first covered this story.

Islam Expo: Apology
http://www.spectator.co.uk/essays/all/6232858/islam-expo-apology.thtml
28 August 2010
Stephen Pollard and the Spectator apologise for the unintended and false suggestion in a blog published on 15 July 2008 that Islam Expo Limited is a fascist party dedicated to genocide which organised a conference with a racist and genocidal programme. We accept that Islam Expo’s purpose is to provide a neutral and broad-based platform for debate on issues relating to Muslims and Islam.
islamispeace

@Rookie

That’s shocking but not altogether uncommon. In the summer of 2010, a friend of mine went to the West Bank as a member of the Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT). He was assaulted by a group of settlers and ended up with a broken nose. The actions of these settlers are often ignored by the IDF.
Muezzin

Richard Silverstein has an update to this story, with some interesting comments, about Cortigla and the JC editor, Stephen Pollard. It seems like Stephen Pollard wants allies with Muslim hating pro Israeli neo nazis.

He appears to be a wannabe British Pamela Geller,

Jewish Chronicle Editor Lies Regarding Publishing UK White Supremacist Blogger
http://www.richardsilverstein.com/tikun_olam/2012/04/20/jewish-chronicle-editor-lies-regarding-publishing-uk-white-supremacist-blogger/

Stephen Pollard’s Strange View of Antisemitism

http://www.jewdas.org/2009/08/stephen-pollards-strange-view-of-antisemitism/
http://tweetsrhymesandlife.wordpress.com/ bboyblue

What’s even more bizarre given the BNP policies on immigration, is that their mayoral candidate for the Capital city of England is a Uruguayan immigrant.
Zakariya Ali Sher

I think the newfound love for Israel amongst the BNP and other white supremacist groups is interesting, but perhaps not unexpected. In a way, it makes sense. Not all of them necessarily want to KILL non-whites – except of course for nuking Mecca and mass genocide of us dirty Muslims – they just want them to go away, stop immigrating and mingling with whites. This becomes clear even in Brevik’s bizarre manifesto; he talks about allowing some South Asian laborers into Europe on the basis they live separate from the whites and are returned to India.

That’s why Israel is so important to them. It’s a Jewish state, where Jews can live away from Europe. It only takes land away from Arabs/Muslims, and it means they don’t have to have a multicultural society. I think the expectation in the fantasy world that these white supremacists create for themselves is that ALL of the world’s Jews would immigrate to Israel, leaving a purely Norwegian Norway, a purely English England, a purely German Germany and so forth. Of course, given the overly simplistic (and nationalistic) way that these racists envision the world, I can only imagine what they think of us American mongrels
Sir David : Man on a phone with a french spell check

Very odd goings one.
Luther Blissett , the soccer star?
mindy1

Ewwkay :/
rookie

Truly “brave” Israeli soldiers

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/israel/9207905/Israeli-soldier-suspended-after-hitting-protester-with-gun.html
the_voice_of_reason

Strange is not the word for it. Uruguay born Carlos Cortiglia of the British National Party is on record as stating “I am Argentine Eastern, or in other words, Uruguayan of birth, and I feel very bound emotionally to the Argentine Republic. In 1982 I offered myself as a volunteer to go to the Malvinas.” In fairness, it should be stated that he denies saying this, although offers no coherent explanation as to why anyone would go to such lengths to smear an obscure member of a fringe political party.
Luther Blissett

Meh. Okay.

The JC did not give Cortiglia a platform.

There was, at that time, an open blog policy, where any reader could register as a user, and open a blog. That’s how the little-known Cortiglia managed to get a user blog at the JC. Cortiglia was not a featured blogger. He was not an invited blogger. The JC did not publish his posts – he self-published them using the open blogging facility by pressing the send-button.

Neither the CST, the BoD nor the JC have made common cause with British white supremacists – all have consistently decried Islamophobia and BNP as well as Counterjihad Europa Project-assisted EDL, SIOE and the latest wingnut incarnation, British Freedom. They have also disavowed JDL, JTF, Tea Party and other US-influenced wingnuts. Mainstream British Jewish organisations – CST, BoD, JCoRE – have consistently rejected Islamophobia. I have been quoting from those for the last 3 years and am known for opposing and countering Islamophobia in UK.

What Pollard does with his time, of course is another thing entirely (no comment). But he is not the British Jewish mainstream. He does not speak for all British Jews when he speaks. He’s just a journalist.

Cortiglia’s blog was not taken down until The JC were made aware of it, which was yesterday. Silverstein found that the blogs were still available on a JC mirror site, which means The JC only removed from their main site.

I’m not sure what the mirror site is used for (the ‘here and here’ where blog was still available after removal), but noted that the mirror site’s blog-front page was seriously out of date. Perhaps it was used for testing. I don’t know, someone will have to ask The JC if they think it’s that important.

Finally, the only valid inference worthy of note is the political opportunism & underhandedness of BNP activists. They infested the MPACUK forums and website comments box for years, around 7 years ago, planting antisemitism as Obsession’s Jenvey did.

What happened is unsurprising on an open blog platform – BNP have been shmoozing British Jewish mainstream for years, but they have been consistently rejected. That is not going to change.
http://www.youtube.com/user/GargamelGold?feature=mhee CriticalDragon1177

@Garibaldi

Now these are strange bedfellows!