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At Large
Prince Harry and the Jew-Haters
The British media is in one of its periodic fits of moralizing hysteria and convulsion over the fact that Prince Harry called a fellow officer a "Paki" -- a not-particularly-derogatory diminutive of "Pakistani" -- during Army training three years ago when aged 21, and long before his recent front-line service in Afghanistan. (Perhaps I could still sue someone over the fact that as an Australian in London I was frequently called an Aussie, but that's another story.)
It's not just the British media, of course -- with the dumbing-down of even the former "quality" papers in the last few years and the series of obnoxious scandals engulfing the BBC I doubt that the British media has much moral credibility left or that anyone takes it particularly seriously.
However, the whole affair has gone far beyond the media. While a large majority of the British public still seem backward enough to think that young officers occasionally do go large a bit, as Kipling put it, during training, it was reported that "Amid pressure from the Equality and Human Rights Commission, senior officers launched an informal investigation…" This despite the fact that the Pakistani officer himself had made no complaint.
"The Army does not tolerate inappropriate behavior in any shape of form," a Ministry of Defence spokeswoman said. The Prince's former press secretary, now occupying the position of communications director at the Commission for Racial Equality, weighed in castigating her former employer. Mohammed Sharfig, director of a Muslim youth organization called Ramadhan Foundation, claimed the Prince's behavior was "sickening." The pen of that incomparable satirist the late Peter Simple is badly missed.
Conservative leader David Cameron claimed the Prince's words were "completely unacceptable," though, given that the Prince had apologized, he stopped short of endorsing a suggestion put to him by the BBC that the Army should take further action. Inevitably, Nick Clegg, the leader of the ineffable Liberal Democrats, joined in.
A minority comment was that of Rod Richards, a former Royal Marine and former Conservative Foreign Office minister, who claimed: "I am a Welshman and it was quite common for people like me to be called Taffy… the use of the word Paki doesn't surprise me but in a military context it is not derogatory." Australian commentator Gerard Henderson remarked: "Nowadays it is acceptable to depict George Bush or Tony Blair or John Howard as Hitler-loving Nazis, but not to use such words as 'Paki' or 'raghead' -- even among consenting adults in private."
MEANWHILE, GIVEN MUCH less prominence in the media, and ignored by Britain's vast government-financed race relations industry, following Israel's invasion of Gaza an estimated 100,000 people turned out in London to demonstrate, sometimes violently, against Israel. Jews were physically attacked. Germany, with a population a bit over a third as large again, including a large Islamic Turkish population, could manage a total of only about 20,000 in three major cities. So years of Draconian anti-racism legislation and official activity in Britain seems to have produced a country with many times more active Jew-haters than Germany -- a tribute to the effectiveness of the British race-relations industries' work.
I suppose using terms like Jew-haters and anti-Semites in this context will attract some denial and criticism, no doubt phrased in the Left's usual polite terms. Nonetheless I see no reason to resile from them. At the very least I believe the onus of proof they are not Jew-haters is, in this situation, on the protestors (as distinct from rational critics of Israel's policies) and their apologists. Israel alone in the world is under attack by enemies sworn to its existential annihilation, who do not even pretend otherwise, and Israel alone in the world is being singled out as having no right to defend its people -- basically, as having no right to exist.
Of course, 100,000 in a city of eight or nine million and a country of 60 million is a tiny minority, but it is worth pointing out that no atrocities or massacres of the innocent in recent times have provoked anything remotely similar: not 9/11, not the 2005 London tube bombings or the IRA bombings before them, not the Spanish train-bombings, not Darfur, Rwanda or the Congo, not the Zimbabwe terror-famine, not the penal system of Equatorial Guinea, not the Clinton-Blair-NATO bombing of Belgrade (which produced not the smallest squeak of protest from the Left), not, further back in time, the Pol Pot genocide and other Communist atrocities. Not, recently, the Russian attack on Georgia. And there is a qualitative emotional difference between, say, writing to an embassy to protest a country's policies and taking to the streets in scores of thousands to fight with police and destroy property and assault people, especially in a country like Britain. This, I think, is the crucial fact: Jews attempting to defend their people and state had aroused a special kind of hatred.
Compare the chanting hysteria and attacks on Jews in London streets with the words of Egyptian foreign Minster Ahmed Aboul Gheit to Hamas: "The Israelis have been warning you that this was coming if you continued your cross-border rocket attacks. Egypt has been imploring you to stop firing rockets into Israel, but you ignored our words. We have been urging you to renew the ceasefire with Israel, but you refused. You have brought this upon yourselves. You are responsible for what is happening to the people of Gaza."
There is another thing: Even the great anti-Nuclear and anti-Vietnam demonstrations of the Cold War, however many useful idiots they deployed, were ultimately bank-rolled and organized from Moscow through various fronts and local parties. This outbreak of mass Jew-hatred, whether the Jew-haters are local or immigrant -- something that does not seem to have been investigated -- has a kind of horrible spontaneity about it. Further, it would not have happened in Britain even a few years ago -- in fact it didn't happen in Britain a few years ago when Israel defended itself.
The fact that the escalation of rocket attacks on Israel by Hamas in recent months is probably linked to power-struggles between competing factions in Iran is, in this particular context, not very relevant.
I AM NOT SUGGESTING that Israel should be immune from criticism -- it needs it, as does any country. There are at least rationally arguable propositions that the attack on Hamas is wrong or counter-productive which could be put in rational and civilized ways. But there is right now a stark, simple and obvious equation which no amount of sophistry or talk of proportionality can get around: the worse case for the inhabitants of Gaza if their fellow-Muslims continue to refuse to re-settle them is a continuation of the status quo; the worst case for the Israelis is annihilation.
This mass outbreak of Jew-hatred in the Western world, it seems to me, is somewhat more significant than Prince Harry calling someone a "Paki" three years ago. If seems, however, that the British anti-racism authorities, like the British media, do not share my view.
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macdaddy| 1.15.09 @ 9:34AM
Excellent article. Mr. Colebatch did not address the reason behind the differences in reactions, but it's a matter of simple cowardice: who's afraid of Prince Harry?
Guy Langley| 1.15.09 @ 10:08AM
Hal -
I was born and raised in the UK. I can tell you that the word "Paki" is extreemely offensive, its on a par with "N" word.
Imagine if one of the Bush daughters videotaped herself describing someone with the "N" word.
Now do you understand?
Jonathan Bush| 1.15.09 @ 10:41AM
Thanks for a clear and perceptive report - how refreshing in these days of dumbed down media. All these pundits were not called anything by Harry and the one person who was, has not complained. Whether or not it was OK for Harry, you make the point well that the furore is out of all proportion to the apparent invisibility of rapidly growing antisemitism here in the UK.
Spartuchis| 1.15.09 @ 11:03AM
Being a very Jewy, Jewy individual of the Hebraic persuasion I can honestly say that Israel Derangement Syndrome--and by extension, Jew Derangement Syndrome--baffles me, but is also understandable. The former is really just a 20th-century extension of the latter, which has been alive and well in Europe for many a century. Now there's an entire country, as opposed to a mere nebulous group identity, for the Loony Left to expend their feelings of insignificance and impotence on! There are lots and lots of genuinely stupid people out there who cannot articulate a reasoned, intelligent argument. Yaweh bless the Second Amendment, say I.
I was not aware that "Paki" is on par with "N----r" as a slur, however. I wonder, though, if Pakistani-heritaged individuals call eah other that, like American blacks do.
PopCON| 1.15.09 @ 11:09AM
Prince Harry serves in the military and is vilified by the British tabloids for using a harmless word in an offhand manner.
Meanwhile, Britain is being destroyed from within by Islamists. And it seems the only knights left to defend the once great nation are Sir Paul McCartney and Sir Elton John.
God better save the queen... No one else will.
James Jaeger| 1.15.09 @ 11:29AM
As a white, heterosexual, pro-life, Christian, conservative male, you can imagine all the derogatory and offensive names I am called on a weekly and monthly basis - exclusively by those tolerant and diversity-requiring leftist elitists - simply for daring to inhale oxygen.
I could whine and sue and take to the streets in moral outrage, I guess, demanding social justice and “speaking truth to power” (whatever that means).
Or I can live my life in joy and with thanksgiving; considering the source of all that bitter bigotry is from hateful, hypocritical, narcissists whom are not content with only making themselves miserable, but insist on thrusting their wretchedness upon everyone else.
Gary| 1.15.09 @ 11:38AM
James, You're not alone. I am also a white, heterosexual, pro-life, Christian conservative male. I have been labelled as a "hate-monger" even within my own family. I agree totally with what you said. Always remember what Jesus said. The world hated Him first.
It amazes me that these leftists who claim such tolerance and diversity don't tolerate this diversity when it doesn't agree or fit with their left-wing agenda or viewpoint. That is the exact opposite of tolerance.
Keep the faith, brother.
Ed | 1.15.09 @ 11:48AM
I wonder what those guys at Rourke's Drift called the Zulu's attacking them? If they called them Zulu's today would they get a spanking?
L. Ross| 1.15.09 @ 12:03PM
I wonder what happened to freedom of speech. Why hasn't anyone wondered about the abridgement of Harry's freedom to have fun and express himself comfortably with his fellow officers. The military is mostly a working class outfit, and we are a bit rough around the edges. If Harry wasn't going to come off as an effeet boob, he had to, in the words of Clint Eastwood in Grand Torino, "Man up a bit". I call my good friends in the military offensive names all the time. It's the people I don't like that I call by their actual names. Poor guy, goes off to war, serving his country in a freezing hell like Afghanistan, and all anybody can say is that he called somebody he worked with "Paki". We're all doomed.
Sara| 1.15.09 @ 12:28PM
About ten years ago I spent some miserable time reading the "multi-cultural" tribal doctrines put out by Leftist academians. They are racist, suffering from delusions of racial superiority and of the exclusion of lessor races in all their colors.
A common theme of hate among all the Left's tribe doctrines is towards the Jews. This hate is what unites all the perferred "minority" race doctrines of the Left in the US. Christians are hated by the Leftists as well, but this hatred is not a common theme among their race doctrines because there are many white, hispanic and black Christians. Progress has nothing to do with the title "progressive."
Boria| 1.15.09 @ 12:58PM
Any society/nation/culture/religion which cedes to another its belief in its superiority is doomed. Can anyone imagine Churchill punishing someone for using the words Huns, Krauts, Commies during WWII?
It is absolutely incomprehensible that peoples who come to live in the West want to change it to make it the shithole they left.
We better assimilate them forcefully before they annihilate us.
I leave soft and "smart" power to the Clinton effetes on the East Coast...
Marc Jeric| 1.15.09 @ 1:41PM
I spent my youth under a comminist regime - talk about political correctness! We were taught by our parents incessantly about the dangers accompanying careless words. Today's political correctness is just a tool of the far left by which to enslave us all.
Fe | 1.15.09 @ 1:48PM
Wow, just for that shortened word, the media made a very big deal of that. I am Filipino and don't mind being called "pinoy(male), pinay(female). There is nothing derogatory about his used of the word "Paki", probably he shortened the word "Pakistani". If you are in the military (try to be one) you will hear all this name calling or nicknames that are given to everyone and everywhere around the camp, so what is this overblown issue about Prince Harry.
ruth| 1.15.09 @ 4:19PM
Paki is short for Pakistani, how is that offensive? People are nuts.
RM| 1.15.09 @ 4:40PM
I love the line in Apocalypse Now where Col Kurtz says, ‘We train young men to drop fire on people. But their commanders won't allow them to write "f--k" on their airplanes because it's obscene!.’
Alan Brooks| 1.15.09 @ 7:15PM
Harry gets his fifteen minutes of noodle lashing.
rtkrhj| 1.15.09 @ 7:27PM
i have pakistani friends who call each other paki - so i guess it is exactly the same as nigger- all fun and games until a white guy says it
ruth| 1.15.09 @ 8:24PM
Harry's friend (the Pakistani kid) didn't mind it, so why should we? Also, my son and his black football team-mates all call each other 'nigga' in the locker room. It just means brotha' or bro. Whatever.
Alan Brooks| 1.15.09 @ 9:34PM
we must never hurt anybody's wittle feelings else they get their panties in a bunch.
Alan Brooks| 1.15.09 @ 11:17PM
i get my wittle bitty feelings hurt, and know what?
it hurts
Thomas J Smith| 1.16.09 @ 12:53AM
Paki is like the n-word ? Sorry Mr." Langley" but could you tell me if there were segregated Paki bathrooms in the UK? How many Pakis have been lyched in Britain in the last say 150 years? Were Pakis relegated to the back of the those big red double decker buses in London? Did the Prime Minister have to send the House Guard to let Pakis attend classes at Oxford? Enough I'm tired of coddling over sensitive middle easterners who want to cry foul at every percieved slight. Either live like a Westerner or head back East.
M Harris| 1.16.09 @ 5:43AM
Paki is a deeply offensive word, as one British Pakistani has written, when fascist thugs were kicking his head in (in front of his young son), they used the phrase. Paki is the language of thugs, and shouldn't have been used by the Prince.
As for the ridiculous comments on the Gaza marches, if people protest against the Israeli attack on Gaza (which serious lawyers believe could lead to charges of war crimes against certain generals), it doesn't make them anti-semites or Islamofascists, though of course a tiny minority will be.
Paul Nelson| 1.16.09 @ 6:22AM
M Harris:
I did not even know that Hamas "leaders" called themselves generals, but if Israel should capture some, I am sure that they could be tried for war crimes.
M Harris| 1.16.09 @ 6:58AM
Do you think the same punishment should be applied to Israeli generals who have bombed schools packed with civilians?
As HAMAS is a non-state organisation, its generals cannot be tried to war crimes (a flaw in international law). If captured, those who have organised the firing of rockets into southern Israeli towns should be tried.
I detect you'd not apply the same rules to Israeli generals.
Ed| 1.16.09 @ 10:09AM
m harris, it is so obvious you know NOTHING about military operations. Your leftist stooges in the media dutifully report BOGUS stories told to them by PATHOLOGICAL LIARS, hamas. A school packed with civilians my butt. Where were the little kiddies? Were they at the bomb making factory? This is EXACTLY the M.O. from the so-called Jenin massacre.
Israel is doing EVERYTHING possible to MINIMIZE civilian casualties. If they were doing what you accuse, where are the stacks of bodies? If they were on a mission to kill civilians, they could kill them ALL. Comment on something you know about, like basket weaving.
Ed| 1.16.09 @ 10:12AM
AND the I.D.F. IS giving hamas a trial... A TRIAL BY FIRE, which is what they asked for!!!!!!
ruth| 1.16.09 @ 3:32PM
Mr. Harris, was anti-tank fire coming from these civilian packed schools first? If so, should these HAMAS combatants be punished for this heinous act, or do you give them a pass?
Nick| 1.18.09 @ 11:51AM
M Harris,
So if the thug was yelling: "take this you Pakistani", that would be OK with you? Are you more upset that he was called Paki or that he was kicked in the head?
Just because someone uses a racial slur while committing a crime doesn't make that crime worse.
In our ever vanishing system of justice, motive is an element of the crime. As in "Means, Motive, Opportunity." Motive is not used to determine culpability for a crime. That would be intent. The intention of the accused is what determines what he is charged with.
And for those of you in Rio Linda, racial bigotry is not intent.
"Oh yes it is Mr. Racist!! He beat that guy up because of his race, it was his intent."
OK, pay close attention here. Motive is why someone does something. Intent is what they planned to do.
Did he plan to beat the guy up? Did he bring a baseball bat or tell someone he was going to beat this guy up? Or was it an argument/heat of the moment thing? Intent.
Why did he beat this guy up? Because he is a racist? Because the guy owed him money? Motive.
Hate crimes laws are Stalinist.
Frosty| 1.18.09 @ 2:55PM
The thought police have decreed that some people are more 'special' than others under the law.
K| 1.18.09 @ 4:40PM
I read this article to get a balanced view.
It turned out to be a sickening experience.
K| 1.18.09 @ 4:46PM
I am referring to the comments here
The LAND of the BARBARIANS| 1.19.09 @ 10:55AM
It's funny, how the people who live in one of the most racial biased country on earth, have so much to comment on Prince Harry.
This same group of people who are still, Lynching Black People for being Black in America. Surprise, surprise, the first to speak about terrorism. Yet don't bat an eye, on their own brand of terrorism around the world on people of colour. They don't think much of the people who fight and lose their lives in these illegal wars who are black. I wonder which is worse?
Nick| 1.19.09 @ 12:23PM
Hey Barbarian,
If we are committing "terrorism around the world on people of color", then what do you call what the British Empire did for 200 years to people of color?
ruth| 1.19.09 @ 2:07PM
Yeah, we're so danged racist we went out and elected a black man to be president. Crazy tool.
Kat| 1.19.09 @ 2:12PM
K, you did get a balanced view, unlike the monolithic, Politically Correct BS you want to hear. It's called Freedom of Speech, tool.
Scott A Joseph, MD| 1.21.09 @ 3:37PM
I used to be an Anglophile. But living one year in New Zealand made me quite the Anglophobe. I fully concur with the American officer in WWII who described his British colleagues as "bastards with elegant mannerisms...and no manners at all."
The Brits are worthless swine in the War on Terror because the encourage vicious antisemitism. They have always been antisemites, not in the same league with the Russians, Germans, or Poles, but disgustingly so, nonetheless. Perfidious Albion, indeed!
Scott A Joseph, MD| 1.21.09 @ 3:39PM
Hmas was using schools to launch missiles and mortars into Israel, and yes, they fired first. Defending Hamas is akin to defending Nazis. No difference.
J| 1.22.09 @ 10:34AM
Criticism of Israel for gross negligence of its responsibilities under the Geneva Conventions as an occupying power, much less criticism for its grossly disproportionate response in the current situation does not make one a "Jew hater". There seems to finally be a growing realization in the west that Israel has got to be reined in, particularly as we in the west are responsible for supplying Israel with the material support that makes it possible for it to continue pursuing this course. I understand the historical context, but you can't stay in the victim role forever when you are actively perpetrating human rights atrocities, resulting the the deaths of hundreds of non-combatants. (Your denial of this does bring to mind those white supremacists who still deny the holocaust.)
Which brings me to my final point. I am confused by the assertion that those who condemn Israel's bad behavior are the left -liberals. Where I come from, (the US deep south) liberals have been historically the ally to Jewish people, and have given Israel a lot of leeway and benefit of the doubt in its dealings in the territories it occupies. Whereas, those on the right, who are mostly Christian, could care less about Jews or Muslims, quite frankly, unless they can convert them, or as they say "enlighten them". Do you really think those people are your friends?
K| 1.24.09 @ 11:59PM
One question for "L": Did he protest when the communists used poison gas in Laos?
Scott A Joseph, MD| 1.30.09 @ 7:46PM
When I practiced medicine for seven years in the Deep South, (Cullman Alabama) I found Conservatives tended to be quite Pro-Israel.
It is hard to be an occupying power in a gentle fashion when the people you occupy will send pregnant women to blow themselves up. The Israelis are fighting people who behave like Zombies---brainless, shambling, bloodthirsty monsters who cannot be talked to or reasoned with.
The Palestinians voted for Hamas in a free and open election. They cheered the missiles. They're getting less than they deserve.
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