An open letter slams the Observer’s absurd attack on anti-genocide campaigners

On 6 October, the Observer published an article by author Howard Jacobson. In it, he essentially smeared as antisemites anyone who dares to criticise Israel’s murder of almost 17,000 children in Gaza in the last year. Because in doing so, he suggested, we risk bringing up the horrific ‘blood libel’ myth which defamed Jewish people many centuries ago.

Two days later, Turn Left Media shared an open letter slamming the Observer for publishing Jacobson’s piece. It insists on making a clear distinction between criticism of Israel’s horrific actions – which journalists have documented thoroughly – and the “malicious and lethal fiction” of blood libel accusations from the past. It adds:

Jacobson effortlessly conflates the savagery of the Israeli state with Jews. This is an old anti-Semitic Zionist trick. No one is blaming Jews for what Israel is doing bar Jacobson himself. It is the State of Israel and its partners in crime, Joe Biden’s Administration, that has enabled the genocide of Gaza’s children.

Jacobson’s wild arguments for Israel in the Observer

The author argued in the Observer that “the myth of ‘blood libel’ persists in the media coverage of Gaza violence”. He seemed visibly tired of having his faith in the Israel apartheid state tested, lamenting that:

night after night our televisions have told the story of the war in Gaza through the death of Palestinian children. Night after night, a recital of the numbers dead. Night after night, the unbearable footage of their parents’ agony. The savagery of war. The savagery of the Israeli onslaught.

And with no evidence, he suggests that, “for many, writing or marching against Israeli action”, this invokes “the savagery of the Jews as told for hundreds of years in literature and art and church sermons”. He adds:

Here we were again, the same merciless infanticides inscribed in the imaginations of medieval Christians. 

Some such people may possibly make that connection, of course, but we have certainly never met them. So where he gets his “many” figure from is anyone’s guess.

Maybe he hasn’t seen the many Jewish people regularly protesting against the genocide. Maybe he needs to get out more. But his imagination has conjured up the idea that people opposing Israel’s war crimes are somehow driven by antisemitism rather than anger at the murder of thousands of civilians.

“Hate on this scale seeks no rational explanation”, he says, “hate feeds off the superstitions that fed it last time round”. And he seems to accuse journalists of “dipping into the communal pile of prejudice and superstition and letting it pepper up our reports” by sharing the horrors the colonial state has been inflicting on occupied Gaza.

He also absurdly suggests Ukraine didn’t get enough media coverage in comparison, as if the media hadn’t just spent many, many months obsessing over Ukraine before Israel began its crimes of a much greater magnitude.

While we don’t want to repeat his exact words, Jacobson also argued that what we’ve been seeing in Gaza will ‘confirm the conviction’ of antisemites.

‘He doesn’t dispute the deaths. He just grants them no importance.’

Around a week into Israel’s genocidal campaign in Gaza back in October 2023, Jacobson wrote another piece in the Guardian. In it, he spoke about Gazans by saying “it’s very likely that they taught their children from the cradle to despise all Jews” – with no evidence. And on Israel, he said “we have to fight to the death for its survival”.

His warped, ignorant views on Palestine and his fervent support for Israeli colonialism were already crystal clear back then. And they had been for years before that too. Because he consistently took part in the cynical media attempts to paint longstanding anti-racist campaigner and peace-prize-winner Jeremy Corbyn as a racist.

As Jewdas responded to the 2024 article:

It is true that Israel’s killed thousands of Palestinian children. Jacobson does not dispute this. He just grants it no importance.

The point of "Blood Libel", the myth that Jews murdered Christian children to make make matza with their blood, is that it is a LIBEL, i.e. not true

It is true that Israel's killed thousands of Palestinian children. Jacobson does not dispute this. He just grants it no importance pic.twitter.com/RwgMQacpTP

— jewdⒶs // ייִדהודה (@jewdas) October 6, 2024

If you disagree with the Observer giving him a platform to offensively conflate Jewish people with the state of Israel while smearing anti-genocide campaigners as antisemites, you can sign the open letter here.

Featured image via the Canary