{"id":376625,"date":"2018-09-08T23:21:48","date_gmt":"2018-09-08T22:21:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/are-brits-easily-confused-when-judging-anti-israel-comments-rt-uk-news\/"},"modified":"2018-09-08T23:21:48","modified_gmt":"2018-09-08T22:21:48","slug":"are-brits-easily-confused-when-judging-anti-israel-comments-rt-uk-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/are-brits-easily-confused-when-judging-anti-israel-comments-rt-uk-news\/","title":{"rendered":"Are Brits \u2018easily confused\u2019 when judging anti-Israel comments? \u2014 RT UK News"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>        A banned British teacher had his comments deemed \u201cnot anti-Semitic,\u201d but racist after posting \u201cIsrael should be wiped off the planet\u201d on Facebook. Some argue the anti-Semitism confusion in the UK only harms critics of Israel.<\/p>\n<div>\n<p>Harpreet Singh, 48, was suspended in June 2017 from his role as maths head at Sandye Place Academy in Bedfordshire, after colleagues raised concerns about posts he made to his social media.<\/p>\n<p>Among Singh\u2019s public posts and comments to his personal Facebook page he <a href=\"https:\/\/www.timesofisrael.com\/uk-teacher-who-wrote-of-course-we-hate-jews-found-not-anti-semitic\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">claimed<\/a>: <em>\u201cEvery sane human is anti-Semitic. Because you b******s have made Zionism synonymous with the mistreatment of Palestinians. Billions are anti-Semitic and proud of it.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Another said <em>\u201cOf course we hate Jews. Israel is the most evil regime on the planet. Supported by Jews from within, and from around the world.\u201d\u00a0<\/em>Later dismissed by the school, Singh defended his comments by saying he was provoked, his comments were taken out of context and he was <em>\u201cextremely sorry and regretted\u201d<\/em> them.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"media__youtube-frame\" width=\"100%\" height=\"300px\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/OrJbRKXh6vM\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Calling the comments <em>\u201coffensive and racist,\u201d<\/em> but not <em>\u201canti-Semitic,\u201d<\/em> the misconduct panel banned him from teaching until 2021. He can apply to have the ban lifted after the three years.<\/p>\n<p>Reactions to the panel\u2019s verdict have been mixed. Speaking to RT on a street poll, two women described the panel ruling as <em>\u201cone big contradiction,\u201d<\/em> suggesting that you <em>\u201ccan\u2019t have one without the other.\u201d\u00a0<\/em>However, one taxi driver suggested: <em>\u201cHe was only giving the opinion of the whole of the Arab world quite frankly.\u201d<\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.rt.com\/uk\/437796-israel-posters-ihra-definition\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong\/><\/a><\/p>\n<div class=\"arcticle__read-more read-more\">\n<p>Read more<\/p>\n<p>    <a class=\"read-more__link\" href=\"http:\/\/www.rt.com\/op-ed\/437593-anti-semitism-israel-uk-corbyn\/\" target=\"_blank\"><br \/>\n                    <img decoding=\"async\" class=\"read-more__cover\" src=\"https:\/\/cdni.rt.com\/files\/2018.09\/thumbnail\/5b8e748dfc7e9358648b457d.jpg\" alt=\"London, September 4, 2018 \u00a9 Henry Nicholls\"\/><br \/>\n    <\/a>\n<\/div>\n<p>The panel\u2019s verdict comes at a time when the issue of anti-Semitism in British politics is at the forefront of media debate. In particular, with opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn\u2019s Labour Party. Corbyn in the past has gone on record as saying that it was not anti-Semitic to brand some of Israel\u2019s policies as racist.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.rt.com\/uk\/437796-israel-posters-ihra-definition\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong> READ MORE: &#8216;Israel is a racist endeavour\u2019: Police investigate posters scattered around London<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Last week, the Labour adopted the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of anti-Semitism after a much heated debate. The party, however, included a caveat saying the adoption of the definition did not undermine free speech on Israel, prompting even more outrage.<\/p>\n<h2>\u2018Confusion enables victimhood\u2019<\/h2>\n<p><em>\u201cPeople are easily confused between the terms anti-Semitic and anti-Israeli,\u201d<\/em> Amir Oren, a columnist with Haaretz newspaper told RT in relation to the ongoing debate in the Labour Party.<\/p>\n<p><em>\u201cBut then again there are people who are not so innocent, who are trying to speak for certain policies of the current Israeli government and hide under the guise of being criticized by the anti-Semitic critics of Israel.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<p>For Oren, the Israeli government should be able to <em>\u201ccope with the criticism\u201d<\/em> of their policies without the need to hide behind claims of anti-Semitism which he deems <em>\u201cvery convenient but inaccurate.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong><em>Think your friends would be interested? Share this story!<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>Via <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rt.com\/uk\/437973-british-teacher-racist-anti-semitic\/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=RSS\">RT<\/a>. This piece was reprinted by <a href=\"http:\/\/rinf.com\">RINF Alternative News<\/a> with permission or license.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A banned British teacher had his comments deemed \u201cnot anti-Semitic,\u201d but racist after posting \u201cIsrael should be wiped off the planet\u201d on Facebook. Some argue the anti-Semitism confusion in the UK only harms critics of Israel. Harpreet Singh, 48, was suspended in June 2017 from his role as maths head at Sandye Place Academy in [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":376626,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-376625","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/376625","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=376625"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/376625\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/376626"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=376625"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=376625"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=376625"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}