Mick Hartley

David Collier on the antisemitic protesters at Friday's Scotland – Israel match in Glasgow:

When Scotland played the serial human rights abuser Russia, there was no protest. In 2015 Scotland even played Qatar and the Scottish activists made no complaint. Only when the Jewish state sends its football team do Scotland’s ‘human rights’ activists turn up to demonstrate.

There were several different groups holding demonstrations at the ground before the match. We have seen them all before. The Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign (SPSC) held one, as did the Revolutionary Communist Group (RCG / FRFI). The SPSC are well known for having many hard-core antisemitic ‘groupies’. As previous research has shown, if you removed the antisemites from the SPSC, they would be unlikely to have enough people left to hold any demonstrations at all. The RCG are no better.

And the lazy media reporting:

There is a right to protest and a high level of freedom must be granted. The people who are really letting everyone down on this issue are the media. It takes just a few hours of research into any of the demonstrating groups to realise they are extremists, racists, antisemites, Holocaust deniers and terrorist supporters. Much of this research has already been done and the information is publicly available. Yet media such as the ‘Daily Record’ report it simply as a ‘pro-Palestinian’ protest, even quoting the rancid Mick Napier and having time to introduce an Apartheid comparison.

Heather Carrick in the Glasgow Times put together a montage of pictures for the ‘pro-Palestine protest‘, mentioning criticism of Israel’s record, but failing to point out the relevance of both the Iranian and Pakistani flag captured in her photos. She did make sure however, that ‘black lives matter’ was given a prominent place.

Caitlin Hutchison of the Scottish Herald was probably the worst offender. Her report laid out the extremist case word for word, including the Apartheid smear and a full description of the content of leaflets being handed out. Hutchinson even praised the ‘social distancing’ demands of the organisers. Her readers would not have a clue that she was describing the activity of antisemites, terrorist sympathisers and rancid extremists. She is a hack.

The BBC had the protest as a backdrop to an interview, giving them plenty of unnecessary publicity. It is unlikely the BBC bothered to tell anyone this was a band of extremists.

Only the Scottish Sun, correctly identified the protest as being ‘anti-Israel’ and was responsible enough to balance out their reporting with allegations of antisemitism and criticism of the protestors.

A group of extremists and antisemites gathered outside to protest the arrival of a football team from the Jewish state. That is the news story here. If it should be shared it should be done to show people just what type of people are supporting the boycott Israel movement. That failure to report the truth – the news – is the central reason why anti-Israel hate has been spreading for decades. Instead of being researched and identified, the media is giving these racists and extremists sympathetic publicity. They are openly spreading hate.