I think he should be able to say whatever the “f**k” he wants about Jews, as a private citizen certainly. My concern is that his behaviour might be considered undiplomatic, which rather undermines his ability to do his job. Also I am not sure exactly what the nature of his outburst (how disruptive it was in a public setting etc.), but I don’t think we should be judging the content of his ranting with a view to prosecution. Of course, from a moral point of view, he is a bit of a fool.

As a Jew myself I can’t think of any more honest reaction to the way Israel now behaves. What do you expect?

First, I wonder if right-wingers will rush out to condemn the ‘politically correct police’ and defend this idiot’s racist rants.

A more probable circumstance is that this is used as ammunition for the charge that those protesting against Israel’s actions are anti-Semitic and that the two movements are inseparable.

Does not sound as if he cannot remain calm and cool in a tense situation and therefore is he fit to be a diplomat?

As a Jew myself I can’t think of any more honest reaction to the way Israel now behaves.

One can condemn Israel all they want, but I draw the line at cursing an entire community. That also gives more credence to the view that all Jews agree with what Israel does, which is certainly not the case. Or that Israel represents the views of all Jews.

Nick: . My concern is that his behaviour might be considered undiplomatic, which rather undermines his ability to do his job.

That’s a given, certainly.

“First, I wonder if right-wingers will rush out to condemn the ‘politically correct police’ and defend this idiot’s racist rants.”

You don’t need to be a right winger to want to defend the right to freedom of speech (incidentally this man’s occupation or background is entirely irrelevant when we are talking about whether he has commited any crime). You correctly point out that the RRA is inconsistent and poorly drafted and the answer is to repeal it forthwith- it has no place in a free society.

Whether or not you agree with his views on the Israeli action on Gaza is irrrelevant- what is absolutely crucial is his absolute right to express it. If the complainant disagreed with his expressed view, his remedy was to enter into a political discussion with him rather than use fascist legislation to shut him up.

If he had been watching a documentary on Belsen and had said f***ing Germans, f***ing Aryans would he still have been guilty of a crime?

Pagar: Why the need to defend someone who is tarring all people with the same brush. Also, comparing Jews (a group that contains people that both want the Israeli action and don’t) to Aryans (people who just want to be the master race, mainly at the expense of Jews, with no wavering in that belief…as then they wouldn’t be Aryans) is more than a little crass.

The RRA has a place – and that is to give legal recourse to people who can prove they had been discriminated against on the basis of race. It doesn’t make our society any less ‘free’.

If he had been watching a documentary on Belsen and had said f***ing Germans, f***ing Aryans would he still have been guilty of a crime?

Legally, Aryans are not classified as a race. The point here is about creeping anti-semitism that can, and does, lead to more racial attacks on Jews.

It’s why every minority group worries about racism becoming prevalent and socially acceptable – because it leads to dehumanisation and more hate crimes.
(I’ve written an article on this for the Guardian but they haven’t published it yet or I’d link to it)

I wonder if the Israeli government could also be charged with inciting religious hatred, since they clearly have incited more hatred against British Jews than Rowan Laxton has.

I wonder if that same anti semite diplomat was cursing Hamas for torturing and killing Fatah supporters in 06.And I wonder if he was also doing the same with the slaughter in Dafur etc.I would bet he wasnt WHY! because Israel wasnt involved and to an anti semite if Israel isnt involved all bets are off.

“Legally, Aryans are not classified as a race. The point here is about creeping anti-semitism that can, and does, lead to more racial attacks on Jews.”

That is not really the point though. If people started harassing Aryans and, I dunno, impuning every blond and blue-eyed individual for the crimes perpetrated by various fascist organisations, they would quite quickly develop a stronger sense of identity and then become eligible, at least in principle, for protections under these weird laws. Which, of course, would look balmy.

The alternative is to let people rant and rave all they like about other people, short of allowing them to harass or threaten them with violence, and only intervene in order to protect people from physical harm or disruption to their lives. There is a principle there, but I think it is also pragmatic, in that I think it is probably, on balance, better to have people letting off steam about whoever they happen to hate, and being mocked for it when appropriate, rather than being arrested and turned into a martyr for it.

” … Jews are defined as a race under British law while Christians, Muslims and Hindus (and atheists of course) are not”

Sunny, you seem to be oblivious to the fact that Jews are actually a race! Of course the law accepts that there is such an ethnic group. Who would deny it? But this is something quite apart from the religious faith – hence the concept of secular Jews, Jewish atheists and so on. There is no such thing as a Christian, Muslim, Hindu or atheist race, and it would be odd for the law to pretend that there is.

You really ought to be careful about implying that people of Jewish faith are getting some kind of special benefits under the law that have not been ‘extended’ to other faiths. If people who happen to be of Islamic faith are subject to racist abuse for being, say, Asian, then they have just as much legal protection as do people who happen to be of Jewish faith who are subject to anti-Semitic abuse. Equally, people are just as free under the law to slag off the Talmud as to slag off the Gospels or the works of Richard Dawkins.

I do accept it’s a curious anomaly to treat Sikhs as a racial grouping, by the way – but it’s one you’ve explained.

Lee, Sunny do you have to sound so pompous and, dare I say, sanctimonious ?

A banal episode of Tourettes from a low level diplomatic drone is elevated to an attack on an entire people.
I mean seriously, do you guys really inhabit such a simplistic world ?

You know nothing about this man – his wife, boyfriend or best friend may be Jewish for all you know – his outburst may represent a sublimated form of self loathing, etc, etc.

Very few are educated by one dimensional sermons, I’m afraid.

“If he had been watching a documentary on Belsen and had said f***ing Germans, f***ing Aryans would he still have been guilty of a crime?”

I think the answer I got from Lee and Sunny was no- because of the arbitrary definitions of what constitutes a race in the RRA (and the degree of assumption that has to be made to come to any definition). And yet logically, there is no real difference between the above and what was said.

Racists are stupid and can be quickly shown to be so in any argument or discussion. To asssign attributes to an individual or make judgements about them based on their ethnicity is plainly bonkers. Thus, it is clearly wrong to condemn Jews collectively because of the heinous actions of the Israelis in Gaza and it would be equally crazy to blame Nazi atrocities on people with blond hair and blue eyes. (I know the linkage of these examples will seem provocative to some but stick to the point of the argument).

So lets have all such discussions out in the open- because the racists cannot ever win them. The effect of the RRA in the current political and social climate is to suppress racism and that is dangerous because it festers below the surface of society and can actually become stronger. I suspect, at the moment, it is becoming so
and, for many non-racists, legislation that attempts to dictate what can be thought , said or freely done is unacceptable.

Stick to the basic principles of free thought and free speech- any law that is intended to suppress either is always iniquitous.

Good on you Sunny.

Surely the obvious parallel is to ask what would happen if, say after 7/7 or after watching a documentary about the Muslim Brotherhood, this guy had ranted about f**king Muslims. Never mind legal definitions of race.

I can see that he might lose his job I find it fairly astonishing that because he shouted obscenities at the TV he should face 17 years , I pretty much start shouting at the BBC before I turn it on . Is that really a possibility? I admit I had no idea we had slipped so far down the road to a totalitarian state . Silly man but an actual law , come on…..
The Jews are a good example of how to assimilate generally. The numbers are not so large or concentrated as to threaten the host culture and their Public culture is mainstream. Its not neat and tidy certainly but if our other immigrants groups , particularly the Muslims were more like the Jews we would be better off .We would not have to suffer endless lectures about how we owe it to them to re arrange our country , prescriptive laws , impositions on our freedom , the threat of murder from a minority , and an unknown number who actually support them .We are supposed to pretend that this does not make a difference but it does. We are supposed to pretend we do not make judgements or have suspicions, but we do . We do because we ‘think’ . This ‘thinking’ is essentially what the RRA is trying to stop by yanking in irrelevant references to pseudo science of the early 20th century so enthusiastically adopted by the Fabians . It is nothing to do with race it is to do with different groups of people..
Orwell put it well
“Till recently it was thought proper to pretend that all human beings are very much alike, but in fact anyone able to use his eyes knows that the average of human behaviour differs enormously from country to country. Things that could happen in one country could not happen in another. Hitler’s June purge, for instance, could not have happened in England. And, as western peoples go, the English are very highly differentiated. There is a sort of back-handed admission of this in the dislike which nearly all foreigners feel for our national way of life.”

from country to country = From Culture to culture

I actually don’t care what the guy said, I frequently lambast all Christians clumsily when something part of their religion has done annoys me. But then I don’t actually inherently hate Christians, and I don’t know if this guy inherently hates Jews, either way his position as a diplomat means he needs to be more, well…diplomatic.

But Pagar, you tried to compare condemning a group of people that are all individual (and are most certainly NOT a race, Peter) and have varying views for and against the Israeli government, with a group of people that would ONLY call themselves Aryan if they agreed with each other when it comes to Belsen. The comparison is no where near accurate, and you’re an idiot if you think otherwise.

“Thus, it is clearly wrong to condemn Jews collectively because of the heinous actions of the Israelis in Gaza and it would be equally crazy to blame Nazi atrocities on people with blond hair and blue eyes. (I know the linkage of these examples will seem provocative to some but stick to the point of the argument).”

If this is what you’d actually said, rather than Aryans, I’d have agreed with you.

I’m seriously worried about our freedom of speech when someone can’t have a rant at a TV in a gym. I am Jewish and don’t mind this man airing his views, at least we will know about them and he can’t hide under political correctness. I feel other people will just stop talking in public for fear of arrest, but they won’t actually stop feeling their racism.
I can’t really see how charging and arresting people is going to reduce discrimination

From what I understand, the diplomat was shouting abuse anti-semitic abuse in a public place. It was not a private affair. Plus, his behaviour worried staff and customers to the extent that they called the Police. There was no comical angle and he couldn’t claim it was said whilst in a row or a fight. It is worrying because this man plays a part in advising the Govt and has a role in determining policy. Like others, I don’t believe he should be prosecuted as he was not inciting hatred. If he uttered the same abuse in front of a rent-a-mob of left-wing students, then that would be cause for action. However, he should lose his job. Then we can look on the positive side; one less pension parasite burden on taxpayers.

To those that believe he was right to express his views, would you say the same if whilst watching a report on of the many murders committed by black youths in London, he said: “Fucking blacks!”. I think not.

Lee, are you as keen to lambast Muslims about their religion as you are Christians?

“a group of people that would ONLY call themselves Aryan if they agreed with each other when it comes to Belsen.”

“In Nazi Germany the principal legal meaning of “Aryan” was “non-Jewish”. In colloquial modern English it is typically used to signify the Nordic racial ideal promoted by the Nazis.”
Wikipedia

Lee

From what you say above, I don’t think we are disagreeing here.

But the important aspect of this debate is not racism, it is the misguided and counter productive use of legislation to combat it by restricting freedom of speech. Let’s hear your liberal principles applied to that issue.

“Lee, are you as keen to lambast Muslims about their religion as you are Christians?”

I’m an equal opportunities lambaster. I know when I do it unfairly and then even lambaste myself for being too general.

Curiously then, Sikhs and Jews are defined as a race under British law while Christians, Muslims and Hindus (and atheists of course) are not

I thought the reasoning for this was that Jews and Sikhs for the most part are from one ethnic group where as Christians etc aren’t wholly.

the day I see Christians blowing up civilians and shouting death to non Christians then dancing in the streets when thousands of innocent civilians are slaughtered will be the day the leftwing nuts might then stop attacking them and start making politically correct excuses for their actions.

“I thought the reasoning for this was that Jews and Sikhs for the most part are from one ethnic group where as Christians etc aren’t wholly.”

Ah, so a temporary definition that ignores those such as the African Jews as an annoying anomaly, and can change at a whim based on the belief decisions of the world population? Good solid definition then.

The question is what was on the screen at the moment when he had his outburst because “fucking israelis” in response to a government official justifying the military action in Gaza feels proportionate. “Fucking Jews” less so but watching the Question Time addition with the editor of the Chronicle uttering his pompous hate speech I wondered aloud more than once how I was meant to avoid racism in my emotional response to him and the audience members that supported him. The simple truth is that you can’t separate Israel’s campaigns from Judaism and the campaigns are wrong and it’s hurting the religion. I’m sick of British Jews justifying murder, I just wouldn’t vocalise it so simplistically in public and this guy’s mistake was that he allowed an outburst of the anger he felt in public.

I say prosecute him to the fullest extent of the laws. After all, these PC laws are good enough for the proles, they’re good enough for a toff. And this toff is no ‘low level diplomatic drone,’ BTW, but a high ranking member of the diplomatic corps.

BTW, he’s being prosecuted for ‘incitement to religious hatred’ and frankly his behavior (yeah I’m a Yank) makes one wonder if he’s cut out for toadying up to the powers that be in South Asia (which was his job, judging from his CV).

No, he shouldn’t be arrested.

But he should be sacked.

Were he sacked, you can be certain that this will be trumpeted as proof of the huge Jewish conspiracy against anybody who dares to speak the truth ect ect ect.

The simple truth is that you can’t separate Israel’s campaigns from Judaism

Can you seperate Islamic muder from Islam ?

Sunny, you seem to be oblivious to the fact that Jews are actually a race!

Erm, no they’re not. If I converted to Judaism tomorrow, would my race change? Don’t be absurd.

Leon: I thought the reasoning for this was that Jews and Sikhs for the most part are from one ethnic group where as Christians etc aren’t wholly.

Nope. Then Hindus would also be classified as a race. Jews wouldn’t because there’s so much ethnic diversity among them. The classifications are entirely because of the peculiarities of the RRA, and the need to ensure some people couldn’t be discriminated against despite it.

pagar:
The effect of the RRA in the current political and social climate is to suppress racism and that is dangerous because it festers below the surface of society and can actually become stronger.

Not really. There’s no evidence for this. The BNP/National Front were much stronger in the 70s.

Did you even read my post, Sunny? I made a clear distinction between Judaism as a faith and Jewish ethnicity precisely because the confusion of the two leads to such absurdities! If there isn’t such a thing as Jewish ethnicity, then what is anti-Semitism? Opposition to the teachings of the Torah and Talmud rather than racism?

“then what is anti-Semitism? Opposition to the teachings of the Torah and Talmud rather than racism?”

…established through a discriminatory and potentially harmful disapproval of the individual that follows those teachings. There’s no race involved.

This is getting ridiculous. When someone is described as half-Jewish or quarter Jewish, what does that mean? They only accept a fraction of the faith? I can’t believe some of you are denying facts known to every literate person when your argument falls apart.

If people want to define their peerage by the type of religion their parents had or didn’t have, that’s their issue. To my experience Jewish people do treat the faith as something that runs in the blood, but that doesn’t stop it being a faith and nothing more. Just because people make it sound more like it’s genetic doesn’t mean it happens to be.

Race = genetic
Judaism = thought and belief.

Simple, put that in your literate pipe and smoke it.

I thought it was generally accepted that Judaism is a religion but that there is also a Jewish race. Trotsky was both an atheist and a Jew for example.

From wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secular_Jew

“The Jewish people is generally considered to be an ethnoreligious community rather than solely a religious grouping;”

“Christians blowing up civilians and shouting death to non Christians then dancing in the streets when thousands of innocent civilians are slaughtered will be the day the leftwing nuts might then stop attacking them”

Its a good job fundamentalist christians in the US never actually bombed abortion clinics, because if they had you’d look pretty stupid.

Jonathan Miller once said ‘I’m not a Jew. I’m Jew-ish. I don’t go the whole hog’.

I like Miller.

Racial definitions are a mine-field. It’s a discursive phenomena made up of phenotypical stereotypes in some cases, cultural practices in others, a shared history and a great deal of legalistic fudging. If my family had been Black, so would I be – and yet I don’t seem to have inherited any Irishness.

As to the case in hand, yes he should be sacked, but no, he should not be prosecuted.

Just how big do you want prisons to be, Sunny?

Planeshift (37): how many abortion clinics have been blown up, and when? It doesn’t compare with the number of Islamic terrorist acts, does it?

The invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan were lead by people with a hotline to the Baby Jesus though.

Just one example really, I was also toying with using the lords resistance army in Uganda, acts committed by christian terrorists in India and whatever else google with throw up. But I think the point is obvious.

Its also rather pointless getting into a ‘my deathtoll is bigger than yours’ as they tend to come down to semantics (do you include sectarian killings in northern ireland, or attribute them to local/regional politics – in which case you also logically attribute killings by Hamas and Hezbollah to local/regional politics) which means the point tends to be lost.

SH – “The RRA has a place – and that is to give legal recourse to people who can prove they had been discriminated against on the basis of race. It doesn’t make our society any less ‘free’.”

Well as a person Sunny would probably describe as Right Wing, yes, I think this is an unfortunate piece of politically correct nonsense. The idea that someone ought to go to jail for seven years for some words is disgusting. No one was hurt – by definition not only a Victimless Crime, but a Victimless Thought Crime. The threat is to punish someone for a thought, admittedly a disgusting one, that they had and vocalised.

Now Sunny can say what he likes but in fact the RRA does make our society less free. It means that we have all lost the freedom to refuse to rent a house to a minority we do not like for instance. Perhaps that is not a freedom worth having, but there is no denying that we are less free because of the lack of that freedom. It also means that we all have to look carefully at everything we do in case we unintentionally break the law – and in fact, as we have seen this week, we have to watch our language when talking even to friends and colleagues in case they will denounce us to the State for our Thought Crimes. That constant intimidation means that this law makes Britain a worse place in dozens of ways. Even if, as I accept, the intent is good.

It is also absurdly politically correct. Jews are not really a race but they are included. Hindus pretty much are – they do not convert much and pretty much all of them are South or South-East Asian in origin – but they are excluded. What we see is that the politically connected have used the RRA and the politically disorganised have not.

However, this man clearly should not be employed by the Foreign Office. He would seem to be the very definition of an unsuitable candidate for a job that requires discretion and impartiality.

Look – it is only natural. The IRA killed 600 British soldiers and obviously that led to anti-Irish feeling. Islamic terrorists blew up the twin towers and naturally that led to anti Muslim feeling. The Israelis are behaving like the Nazi army, so it can only lead to anti Jewish sentiments. What else can you expect, that everyone will say that we Jews are the most cultured and tolerant of people who are only forced to defend ourselves under the most dire and appalling of circumstances? Nobody believes that rubbish any more. Israel is a disgrace to everything that the great Jewish people ever stood for. They have become mad dogs who will destroy our own people.

Anti-Irish feeling predates the IRA by hundreds of years and anti-Semitism goes back over a thousand.

Hatred is not the issue here because hatred is a mental state, not an action.

A civilised country does not criminalise mental states, it criminalises actions: that’s why its illegal to possess drugs but not to be stoned, unless being stoned itself impacts on your actions (e.g. driving while under the influence). A civilised society recognised the independance of the mind: only tyrannies attempt to dictate what goes on in your head.

Words are an expression of mental states. Arrest the fuckers who put Starbuck’s windows through as a ‘response’ to the attacks on Gaza, not some ranting fucknut who went Mel Gibson at the gym.

If there isn’t such a thing as Jewish ethnicity, then what is anti-Semitism?

Peter – bigotry and prejudice aimed at people of one religion isn’t racism… it’s just hatred towards a particular community. In the UK there are people who hate ‘Muslims’, regardless of their race. Does that make them into a racial group?

As to your other point. Being minorities in most countries they’ve lived in, Jews have tied their religion and way of life with a sense of ‘cultural heritage’, that makes it possible for people to identity as non-practicing Jews because they still see themselves as part of the heritage even if they don’t follow the religion.

There are other examples. Hinduism, in India, is so prevalent that you cannot separate the religion and culture. Ergo, you can be a non-practicing Hindu quite easily by indulging in Holi, Diwali and other festivals and marrying another Hindu girl of the same village. In fact Hinduism even has a strand of atheism!

There will be a point when Sikhs will also adopt the same model, as they are the only other major religion without a majority in any country (though they are the majority in the state of Punjab).

My point is, defining Jews as ‘a race’ is a bit too simplistic. It has much more to do with active attempts to preserve their identity, traditions and heritage even if the children became secular and assimilated (something Jewish leaders encouraged).

Hope that clarifies.

Words are an expression of mental states. Arrest the fuckers who put Starbuck’s windows through as a ‘response’ to the attacks on Gaza, not some ranting fucknut who went Mel Gibson at the gym.

Very well put.

Though Laxton’s mental state clearly makes him unsuitable for his diplomatic job.
So don’t arrest him; sack him.

“Sunny, you seem to be oblivious to the fact that Jews are actually a race! Of course the law accepts that there is such an ethnic group. Who would deny it? But this is something quite apart from the religious faith – hence the concept of secular Jews, Jewish atheists and so on.”

Ok so all this time I have been at pains to rant at the ‘Israeli’s’ in Gaza rather than ‘Jews’ lest I be called anti-semite (which I’m not), and all the while I should have been saying Jews?!

I’m confused about this. So according to the logic stated, any view that is anti-Israli is actually anti-semitic then?!? I guess its like Black people all being one race and any view against say Mugabe is anti-black and as such racist – simplistic example but my brain doesn’t know how to deal with this latest revelation on Liberal Conspiracy?!

Are Jews a ‘race’ of people or not? Are my anti-israeli views really just anti-jew or not? Have I been an anti-semite for all these years without actually knowing it, and if so have I been wrong to stand up to those that are simply anti-jew? And where the hell do the falasha’s of Ethiopia fit in to all this because I thought they were African or Ethiopian who happened to practice judaism?

Jew is not a race it is a religion, though several ethnicities are far more likely to have Jewish religious members than others. Ashkenazis, Sephardics and Mizrahim are ethnic groups (roughly) who usually follow the Jewish religion, but neither they are all Jews nor all Jews are part of these ethnicities. There are Ethiopian Jews, Indian Jews, Chinese Jews plus anyone who converts to Judaism is considered Jewish, while anyone born Jewish who converts to Christianity is often considered non-Jewish (including by the state of Israel), but someone who becomes atheist oddly is still considered Jewish. Furthermore most Jewish communities are a mix of people of Middle Eastern Jewish backgrounds and converts from the places they moved to (conversion to Judaism was far more common until 2000 years ago), although even today some Jews are converts. Also someone whose mother’s mother’s mother is Jewish and the rest of them isn’t would be considered entirely Jewish despite only being 1/8 Jewish ‘race’ (if one existed)

As for being anti-Israel being anti-Semitic this is pure stupid as not all Israelis are Jewish and not all Jews are Israeli or even Zionist (in fact Orthodox Judaism was once nearly unanimously opposed to the creation of the state of Israel til the Messiah came) and this is the view of people who want to oppose debate over Israeli actions as they cannot morally justify it so they play the race card. In fact within Israel a large proportion of recent immigrants have been Russians with mostly very loose links to Judaism and while people whose grandfather converted to Judaism can move to Israel someone of pure ancient Israel stock who converts to Christianity cannot become an Israeli citizen (although this is only since 1975, before then blacks couldn’t move to Israel even if they were practising Jewish). Also there is a lot of racism between Jews in Israel primarily directed at Middle Eastern Mizrahim Jews, which wouldn’t exist if Jews were some monolithic race as people claim, as they’d all look the same

Further to the above I would add that hatred directed to Jews as a group or against the members of any other religion as a group is discrimination even if not racist (but this is not the same as criticism of a religion itself as this is of course an acceptable use of free speech). For instance Ian Paisley’s hatred of Catholics is no more acceptable than an equivalent level of anti-Semitism (and far worse than this case as people like him actually put this hatred into law for a long time) not would hatred of Muslims be any better than anti-Semitism but yet due to the law they are considered as not as serious which is discrimination in itself

I notice, without comment, that this remains undeleted on this website:

ray vison

“The Israelis are behaving like the Nazi army, so it can only lead to anti Jewish sentiments. What else can you expect, that everyone will say that we Jews are the most cultured and tolerant of people who are only forced to defend ourselves under the most dire and appalling of circumstances? Nobody believes that rubbish any more. Israel is a disgrace to everything that the great Jewish people ever stood for. They have become mad dogs who will destroy our own people.”

“Its a good job fundamentalist christians in the US never actually bombed abortion clinics, because if they had you’d look pretty stupid.”

First let me say any deaths of innocent people by these ant-abortionists is abhorent to TRUE Christians.There have been at least 24 murders since 1989 and none since 2001.But if you compare that with the murders carried out by muslims then there is no comparison it numbers in the thousands if not hundreds of thousands.And Ive yet to see any Christians dancing in the streets when a clinic has been bombed.Jesus said “by their fruits you will know them”… these so -called “christians who kill innocent people are “bad fruit” and in no way represent the 99.99%of Christians who are peaceful even if we disagree with abortion.