1. Judeosphere reports on the flap over Mazin Qumsiyeh’s article in the Davos forum’s Global Agenda magazine calling for a total boycott of Israel. The Davos forum has renounced the article and chalked it up to an editorial oversight.
What this NY Times account misses — and what Judeosphere does not — is that Qumsiyeh is the founder of Al Awda: The Palestine Right to Return Coalition. Throughout Al Awda’s “Points of Unity,” listed here, the word Israel is placed in quotation marks. Qumsiyeh, in his Global Agenda piece, favorably cites Gilad Atzmon as someone who is “questioning the Zionist narrative.” I have written about Atzmon’s crackpot antisemitism elsewhere.
This controversy isn’t about free speech, it’s about Qumsiyeh’s (thankfully unsuccessful) attempt to legitimize antisemitism in a publication of the World Economic Forum. By failing to note Qumsiyeh’s affiliation with Al Awda, the NY Times omits the relevant political context.
2. Kudos to Oprah for repudiating James Frey and disavowing her earlier statements. As she now admits, the truth matters.
3. This CNN story on George Galloway cites John Rees (not “Reese”) simply as an “anti-war activist.” Rees is in fact the general secretary of RESPECT, Galloway’s political party. He has a vested interest in defending GG. Rees is also European vice president for the annual Cairo conference, which refers to Israel as “the Zionist entity” and proclaims “solidarity with the Iraqi resistance and the heroic Palestinian Intifada.” That’s what passes for “anti-war” activism these days.
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