Charles Johnson hopes LGFers can't read

Jenny Tonge, a Libdem MP, wrote a report about her visit to Israel and the West Bank for BBC News Online. She opens it with these words: "My remarks last month, expressing empathy with suicide bombers, had been misinterpreted by the tabloids as meaning sympathy and approval." It seems our LGF super-hero, Charles Johnson, likes to stoop to similar levels as the tabloids in his attack on this piece by selectively quoting juicy bits out of context and wilfully reinterpreting what Tonge says (http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=9882_Jenny_Tonge_Is_a_Disgusting_Woman). Eg: he ignores the opening line, in which she plainly states that she does not sympathise with suicide bombers.

He also ignores the following: "I would challenge anyone to spend a few days here and see the contrasts between modern Israel and its affluent citizens and the third world of Palestine. The blame lies with both sides - I know that - but the ordinary Palestinian has to live in this third world while most Israelis never go there."

What Charles does seize upon is this: "They had heard about my remarks and were pleased that I understood the reasons why they were terrorists, even "proud" of me. This was spine-chilling." Charles is irate. He is beyond himself: How dare she suddenly disavow her comments from the ideology of suicide bombers??! But Charles has an idea. He'll pretend she said the opposite, and hope his minions and casual passers-by never bother to read original quotes. So he simply states: "This incredibly stupid woman sits with terrorists who tell her they’re proud of her, and it causes not one flicker of cognition inside her empty skull." Notice how, even while quoting her as saying she was chilled by the AAB guys words, he says she wasn't moved? Is this some sort of lizardoid doublespeak Charles?

Now back to what Charles ignores. Tonge: "More re-assuring was the statement that they now accepted that Israel had a right to exist and their campaign would stop when Israel withdrew to its 1967 borders, removed settlements and returned Jerusalem to the Palestinians. It is a different message from the one we have been used to." Indeed. It's also something you'll never read on LGF. Because it don't fit their think-patterns. What can you do?

Charles is a master of mis- and half-information. Cutting out the choice bits that fit into his slimy scheme and hurridly overlooking anything that marrs the picture. Like the end of Tonge's piece: "[L]ate in the day, we met a single mother whose 15-year-old daughter had been killed in the local supermarket by an 18-year-old female suicide bomber. Grief-stricken, she had tried to contact the bomber's family, only to find they were "proud" of their daughter. But then she received a letter from a Palestinian mother expressing her condolences and asking for a meeting. Her young, civilian son had been killed by an Israeli soldier. They were going to meet. I left this woman feeling that there was the first sign of reconciliation; we know there are many such people in Israel and Palestine, fed up with the stupidity of their leaders." And the stupidity of Charles Johnson, I hope. Her Charlie, why don't you talk a bit about Tonge's meetings with suicide bomb victim families in Israel? Or are you worried that'll make her look, you know, more intelligent than a hate-filled blogger?