Shall Bell be bonged? (UPDATED with Bell's response)

DECEMBER 3, 2013 12:42

I just sent this letter (alerted by felllow blogger EOZ) to the Canadian Globe and Mail newspaper, to the ''Letters to the Editor'' column, the editor at the Foreign News desk and the Public Editor. Why I did --- after you read my letter.

Michael Bell maliciously maligns Jews in his op-ed, "How Israel''s radical settlers stoke a political conundrum" (Dec. 3).

Not only was Danny Seidmann stoned by Arabs, as he himself admits, and certainly not by Jews, "settlers" or otherwise, but following his incident, an infant Jewish girl hit by a rock in the vicinity where Seidmann was struck by rocks. A few days later moreover, Arabs, after being misidentified as Jews, were also stoned there. As they testified in the Ynet report, "[the Arabs] They tried opening the doors and my wife begged them to leave us alone. She spoke to them in Arabic and only then did they understand that we ourselves are Arabs". In both cases suspected culprits were detained. They are Arabs.

I point out that Bell''s calumny is listed under "Editor''s Picks" which compounds the damage as well as the credibility of the newspaper and demands a clearly published retraction as well as an apology from Prof. Bell.

Is that not astounding? A professor and a former diplomat completely twists reality. And out of bias. He "knows" that Jews threw the stone at Jerusalem Terrestrial''s Danny Seidmann.

Of course, he could have contacted his friend Danny to confirm but Danny already informed us all via +972 what happened but that was, one presumes, unnecessary for Bell. For after all, we all know, don''t we, who throws stones at Jews?

I tweeted Danny, a friend, despite oir ideological disagreements, and he readily admitted that he would be contacting Bell to correct his error. But, borrowing a line from I tweeted back, borrowing for This Ongoing War:

It''s not "an error" if it''s predicated on an entirely bogus hypothesis blaming Jews based on "established patterns"

Bell need to be bonged, loudly.

This type of thinking - and from an academic and from someone who leads a Jerusalem study project - is intolerable and dangerous. It is, I would suggest, racist.

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To contact Michael Bell, as his site informs us, you have two options:

1. Professor Michael D. Bell, Department of Political Science, University of Windsor, 401 Sunset Ave.,

Windsor, ON N9B 3P4, mbell@uwindsor.ca, + 519-253-3000 ex. 2357

2. Jerusalem Old City Initiative, Department of Political Science, University of Windsor (as above),

rbadour@uwindsor.ca, + 519-253-3000 ex. 4069

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At 15;40, Israel time, I received this email:

Mr. Medad.

I take your point.

My information was received early on but was incorrect.

It needs to be made good.