Daniel Finkelstein must think his readers are fools
...and it is The Times*, so he might be right.In this post here he defends himself against complaints that he was accusing Richard Dawkins of anti-semitism in this post here:
Because I didn't accuse the Professor of anti-semitism. I just noted his comments and said I found it frightening that he could believe that. Which I do. It is pretty standard this. A comment is made about Israel or Jews and when that comment is questioned the originator or their defenders says: "Ooh, don't get all shirty and come the politically correct with me. Don't accuse me of anti-semitism every time I criticise you". But they haven't been accused of anti-semitism at all. No one even mentioned it. They are using the idea that they are being accused of anti-semitism as a cover for insupportable remarks. [My italics]
In the comments he even gets a little exasperated:
I didn't call him an anti-semite. Perhaps it would have made your life easier if I had. But I didn't. Live with it.
There's a major problem with his protestations though, even if you don't accept that the post was implying Dawkins is an anti-semite. That is the subject heading, or category, that Finkelstein gave to his original piece, which was...
ANTI-SEMITISM [his capitals]
I can't imagine why people though it was about anti-semitism.
* Actually I found copy on the Tube the other day and I have to say the news pages are pretty good these days, perhaps better now than the Telegraph, which has slipped into Mail/Independent style campaigning.
Labels: anti-semitism, The Times
posted by Matthew @ 10/17/2007 02:37:00 PM
Comments: 7
