Suspicious minds

Stephen Pollard has an interesting and informative article about the history of senior Labour Party contacts with David Abrahams, the would-be-secret donor to the Labour Party, who seems to have achieved not only a spectacular degree of unwanted publicity, but to have been the source of the most devastating blow to Gordon Brown's premiership since he came to office.

I'm not that interested in the story anyway--it seems to be yet another in a series of insights into the realities of funding political parties, which from time to time highlights the murky and shamefaced side of each and every major political party's funding practices in the UK.

What I was however expecting any day soon was that this story would morph into the latest version of the UK slant on the international-Jewish-conspiracy angle, which we last saw in full cry over the way in which press innuendo was applied to Lord Levy over his role in both organizing funding for the Labour Party and acting as Tony Blair's envoy to the Middle East.

Here we have today's Telegraph report which of course does not mention the word "Jewish" or even "zionist", but hints with no more evidence than a photo op shot of what could have been a chance charity event encounter at links between David Abrahams and the outgoing Israeli Ambassador, Zvi Heifetz, who Tony Blair has appointed as an adviser in his role as Middle East envoy to the Quartet:

Mr Abrahams is described by friends as a "secretive" person who spends little money on himself but likes to rub shoulders with the great and the good at political and charity events.

Last year he was pictured shaking hands with the then Israeli ambassador, Zvi Heifetz, who was questioned then cleared over money-laundering allegations. Mr Heifetz was recently appointed as an adviser to Mr Blair in his role as Middle East peace envoy.

The idea that Zvi Heifetz or any other mysterious politically experienced donor who wished to keep his identity secret would choose a man like David Abrahams, with a track record of having been rejected by even a local Labour Party as a constituency candidate after his clumsy attempts to present himself as having a fake family is....well...ridiculous. If you do want to hint at a conspiracy, it's hardly convincing to present as main frontman for the plot a character who's a great deal more like Mr Bean than Gordon Brown, or even Harriet Harman.

What I suspect here is that perhaps an enterprising Mr John Rifkin, whose name is credited for the charity event photo showing Abrahams shaking hands with Zvi Heifetz, realised that he had a very nice little earner and seized his opportunity to cash in on it.

But that doesn't stop the Telegraph from building up a further story, which does repeatedly mention the Jewish angle, full of hints and draw-your-own-conclusions innuendoes based on the following:

Mr Abrahams is Jewish

Mr Abrahams is a strong supporter of Jewish and Israeli charities

Mr Abrahams assiduously attended Jewish and Israeli charity events

A former Israeli ambassador once visited his house

A doesn't-want-to-be-named friend of Mr Abrahams suggests:

"David attends dozens of Jewish and Israeli charity events. Even back in the 1980s... he was always attending functions at the Israeli embassy and I believe he carried out some unofficial diplomatic duties in Israel."

Er, diplomatic duties? On behalf of which country was that? Seems that this is the Telegraph's attempted recycling of the Lord Levy as-agent-of-the-international-Jewish-conspiracy saga being shifted onto the pathetic shoulders of this bungling millionaire nebbish.

Not that that will stop this story and this angle from growing and growing....

Comments

[Fran]

The Telegraph used to be the one paper which attempted some fairness in reporting events Israeli and Jewish, in that it allowed Israel's viewpoint to be presented.

Lately - well since the paper changed hands actually - it's reverted to the anti-Zionist default position of most of Fleet Street.

A pity.

[Joanne]

I'm from the States. You know, that's the country whose government and media are totally controlled by the Jewish Lobby. So maybe that's why I'm brainwashed enough to find this whole thing about Abrahams (and Levy) to be really weird.

OK, these guys are pro-Israel, but they're not the only donors and diplomatic representatives working with the British government or the Labour Party. There must be plenty of pro-Arab diplomats and businessmen who also donate their time and money. So what's the big deal?

But what really strikes me as strange is the fact that Levy's and Abrahams' Jewishness is seen as an unsavory thing in itself. I find it strange that the media only have to hint that some private donor is Jewish (as opposed to Arab, Scottish, Welsh, or Martian), and that's enough to give him an evil cast, as if he were some sort of Svengali.

One article in The Economist sometime back made a snide comment to the effect that the USA is notoriously sensitive on "the Jewish Question." For one thing, I couldn't believe that Economist would resort to the archaic and ugly concept of a "Jewish Question." This alone shows that the old taboos against Antisemitism are weakening. In any case, I think that the Economist article--as well as the brouhaha over Levy and Abrahams--indicate that it's Britain that's overly sensitive to "the Jewish Question," which is to say that it's overly sensitive to the presence of Jews in positions of influence or power.

[Joanne]

"The Telegraph used to be the one paper which attempted some fairness in reporting events Israeli and Jewish..."

I had always thought that the Telegraph stood out as being exceptionally pro-Israel, especially when compared to the other media in Britain. In fact, I heard that it used to be called the "Tel Aviv-graph."

But I have seen some recent complaints about a change in direction. I guess it's either more comforting to run with the pack, or the new owners buy into the conventional wisdoms about the Middle East.

[Joanne]

Oops, just one more thing: I remember reading some time back that new prospective owners of The Telegraph were German, and that they wanted to maintain a strong pro-Israeli line. I also read that the journalists working at the paper balked at that requirement.

Now I've just happened onto a BBC report about the "battle" for ownership of the paper. It seems that the German group Axel Springer was in the running. That must've been the company I had read about earlier, only I thought that they had already acquired ownership. It seems that they lost out to the Barclay brothers, who must be setting the new tone.

Still, it does go to show you that, even in its pro-Israeli prime, a lot of Telegraph journalists must've been relatively pro-Arab.

[jerry]

I think the British - Christian, post-christian and Muslim - would be quite happy to ban Jews from all influential positions - beginning with law and medicine, accounting and architecture. I believe that list should extend to waiters in restaurants and barbers, since the practitioners of these trades come into contact with influential members of the British public and represent far too great a risk of changing the national policies toward Israel. Also, if some isolated areas could be found for housing Jews, perhaps their residences might be limited to those places. They are quite the pain in the eye.