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Mr.
Henry McDonald
Guardian/Observer
Dear
Henry:
Been
a while; hope you and yours are well.
This
past Sunday in The Observer, within an interesting
article on Irish anti-Semitism, you wrote: “Republicans,
for instance, try to compare the I[sraeli]D[efense]F[orce]
to SS Stormtroopers, the otherwise excellent The
Blanket E-zine, using hyperbolic phrases such
as ‘Hitler speaks Hebrew’.”
Your
point may literally be accurate, but it is unfair:
it incorrectly suggests that The Blanket has
given some sort of stamp of approval that phrase.
To my understanding, The Blanket has given
no such approval of any kind to any such views. That
phrase was the title of an article
written in April 2002 by Brendan Hughes (unlike with
printed newspapers, The Blanket, I have found,
accords its authors huge latitude in choosing their
articles’ titles).
People
who know The Blanket know that, editorially,
it accepts for publication submissions from a huge
range of writers on a broad range of political topics.
My understanding is that The Blanket’s
editors do not censor materials they publish.
If
The Observer published a letter to the editor,
or even an opinion article, including the phrase “Hitler
speaks Hebrew,” no one would rationally ascribe
such a political outlook to The Observer; such
views would have to be either rife within that paper
or expressly and specifically approved by its editors
before one could appropriately conclude that paper
to be anti-Semitic in its nature.
Likewise,
I believe no just cause exists to describe The
Blanket as being anti-Semitic or to make any such
implication. Doubtless your implication along those
lines was inadvertent, but you’re so widely read
that the implication would, of course, tend to be
damaging and ought, in fairness, to be publicly corrected.
Best
regards,
Paul
A. Fitzsimmons
cc:
Editors, The Blanket
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