Israel Matzav

Your tax pounds at work: The London Review of Books' hostility to Israel

In the last ten years, the British taxpayer has paid some £767,000 for the London Review of Books (LRB) via the Arts Council England. Of that amount £188,000 has gone to pay contributing writers. During the period in question, according to a report issued by Just Journalism based on a Freedom of Information request, LRB has commissioned 92 articles on the Israeli - 'Palestinian' conflict. Guess how many of them have included a mainstream Israeli viewpoint. Answer at the end of this post.

Literary magazine the London Review of Books has used funds from nearly £190,000 of taxpayers’ money to pay contributors to depict Israel in a uniformly negative light. A report published today by Just Journalism uncovers ten years of unswervingly anti-Israel rhetoric, coupled with apologetics and sympathy for groups shunned by the British government as terrorist organisations.

The report, entitled, ‘London Review of Books: Ten years of anti-Israel prejudice’ is a comprehensive review of the 92 articles commissioned to external writers on the subject of Israel-Palestine between 1 June 2000 and 31 May 2010. The findings show an unremitting hostility to the Jewish state, embodied by the views of editor Mary-Kay Wilmers who has described herself as “unambiguously hostile to Israel”.

Despite the volume of coverage devoted to Israel-Palestine, only one article deviated from the fringe anti-Israel narrative and presented the situation from a mainstream Israeli perspective. Given that the London Review of Books receives government funding via the Arts Council, it is striking that the Israeli perspective is near totally absent.

That's right - ONE article.

Read the whole thing. Full report is here (pdf) or here (HTML). Are you sure it was the French ambassador to Britain who called Israel "that s***ty little country" and not the other way around?

Labels: Just Journalism, London Review of Books

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 10:16 PM