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.That's right - ONE article.
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.
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
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