The Hottest Potato 277


Taking on the Zionist lobby head-on is well nigh impossible.

I have written a stunning piece on Werritty, Israel and a neo-con plot to attack Iran. It contains information not published anywhere, even here. I have circulated it to several national newspapers, for each of which I have written many times. I have never had a piece refused before.

Several national papers have checked out my story factually and nobody has found a single hole in it. But nobody will publish it. I reproduce below every email I have received from any of these papers in reply. They show what a hot potato a serious anti-Zionist is – and I strongly suspect that the repeated inability of editors to make decisions which emerges from these emails shows they need on this subject to consult their proprietors.

The emails are given with the source removed and which is from which paper disguised, because I don’t wish to attack anyone in particular for this generic fear of the Israeli lobby, and also because I hope I may one day work for them again. In fact I still have not received an actual “no” from anybody – just a repeated batting off of the hot potato. The story is so good nobody can actually think of an excuse to refuse it, but they dare not accept it.

I think some of the individuals involved are ashamed. Each of the papers have had the article between five and ten days – which when you consider how the newspaper industry works, is an astonishing period in which nobody is able to make a decision.

“Sorry. … is the editor.”

“Just back in after being out most of day. Jury (i.e. editor) is still out on this one. I’ve spoken to …, and emailed him your copy. Will report back in the morning.”

“Dear Craig, sorry to have been slow back, but I’m on holiday. I’ve looked at your earlier email and can’t find the attachment you mention (of the long piece), but think I’ve got the basic idea. I’m no longer comment editor and don’t commission pieces, but would recommend getting in touch with …(who is comment editor, currently editing …) if you’re thinking of a comment piece. If it’s more news, then … worth talking to, or maybe one of the reporters who’s worked on the Werrity case. Let me know how you get on, all best,”

“Hi Craig OK, had some feedback from the editor. We can’t do anything on this this week, for various reasons. In an ideal world, we would like to hold on to it for another week. We would then have our politics team make some inquiries and then run your piece – or a version of it – alongside a news story on this particular issue (providing of course that our team can come up with one). Obviously there are quite a few ifs and buts here – we can’t guarantee that we will run the piece – so I completely understand if you feel that this is unsatisfactory and that you want to cut your losses and take it elsewhere. In that case, we’ll simply pay you the £200 we’ve already agreed and hope you will consider us again the next time you have something.”

“OK, thanks Craig. Will give you a call or drop you a line tomorrow.”

“I’m temporarily out of action- deal w …?”

“Well, we can pay £200 to hang on to it until tomorrow and then I’ll have to talk to the editor about what he wants to pay to run it but if we ran it at the length you sent it, it would be a minimum of, say, £1,500”

“Yes, there was talk of it on the Today programme as well.”

“Yes, sorry for delay in replying. The answer is we are interested in your piece. It’s too early in the week to say that we’re definitely going to run it. Can we sit on it for the time being and talk again late tomorrow? Naturally, we’ll pay you for the piece”

“Good stuff.”

“Hi Craig. Thanks for your email. This other meeting might allow us to take the story on and reprise a lot of the material which was left out of our original story. What do you think?”

“Hello Craig Thanks for this. Let me have a read and a think about it and then I’ll get back to you. Cheers”

“Craig Having now had a look at your piece, let me have a bit more time to think about it, would you? best wishes”

“Craig I’ve been out of town and offline until this morning. But I’m no longer comment editor, so I don’t commission any articles anyhow best wishes”

“Craig. As I mentioned, I am off this week. I’m sorry I didn’t get back to you on Saturday. I have handed your piece over to …, the Foreign editor, and recommended it to him. He is extremely experienced and will have its best wishes at heart as well as the knowhow to secure its place in the paper. I do hope he and you can make it work. With good wishes”

“Craig.. Thank you. I have read it and have now shown it to the editor. He is having a think. I’ll get back to you as soon as I know anything … ”

UPDATE

The banned article can now be read here


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277 thoughts on “The Hottest Potato

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  • ingo

    Maybe Press TV would like to have a last splash before Ofcom shuts their doors. Wikipedia has already got a network set up, I know they are skinned, but how much skinned they are I dare not guess, they might be bale to pay in instalments, have you tried Craig?

    Another angle might be the Irish press, with Higgins elected and their boat being subjected to piracy on the high seas, they might just have enough balls to go for it.
    If one of them publishes it, paid or not, it is automatically in the domain of all others. Then you would see who has the balls to pick it up and/or who is scared about the hasbara vitriolics that will follow.
    It must be a very hot potato, not just here, the fact that the Israeli media totally wiped the story of their news speaks volumnes.
    Watch yourself Craig, and have a second copy deposited somewhere, just in case. This website, should you decide to publish on monday, will be the target of all sorts, so MODS beware, a back up of sorts might be a good preventative measure.

    Finally, Wendy’s pro active idea is heartening, when will we stop chatting here and get proactive, we create hope and offer debate, but we never think of becoming and forming an alternative to this ramshackelled outfit.

    Lets organise a New Alternative politics conference, somewhere cheap and available, somewhere centrally on a mainline, not necessarrily in London, so as many can attend as possible, share lifts and then have a whole days worth of decisive talk, come away with concrete plans for a new direction.

    An alliance of Independent candidates, with or without a common goal/ten point policy programme/ a new party, anything that offers the mainstream a new direction that is not nobbled, is what is needed.
    This story, if it runs, will rupture the msm and the established party’s, with their resident BICOM infiltrators, it will also provide the momentum for something new and hopefull.

    Exited like a coiled spring…

  • craig Post author

    I stopped doing Press TV a couple of years ago. It is important to be aware of whose agenda you are serving, and I have no desire to serve a regime that hangs young gays from cranes in public. Because I do not think it is helpful either for those young gays and countless other innocents to get pulverised by US and Israeli bombs, does not make me a fan of Ahmadinejad.

  • Wiz

    Craig, everyone knew that Cheney wanted to start a war with Iran. That’s why Blair is still going round saying it would be a good idea. It’s the ‘blood price’, or whatever weird rubbish he came up with to justify our adventure in Iraq. There are these weirdoes who want to start a war. If there were some kind of proof that Fox wanted to invade Iran that would be news, undoubtedly. But if it’s just Werrity, it’s just a gay weirdo, or something. I just don’t understand the whole Werrity thing. Was he important, or not?

  • mick

    I’ll have a copy when you get around to releasing it …make it viral.

    mickmcc(AT)live.com

    mick

  • ingo

    OK, so you don’t like press TV, fine, what about the Irish press, would it be worth your while to try there, they have a straight line on the mavi marmara affair and not much crux with Israel’s machinations.
    How about sending it straight to the new poet/Presient Higgins at the same time you have got an OK from one of their papers?

  • havantaclu

    Craig – please publish your article here, and take up some of the suggestions for alternative publishers up-thread. We all want to read it (except perhaps Stephen! – and you’re right, he is a troll!).

    Re the Guardian – see this website for what happened re the ‘Peterloo Massacre’ group, and what they’re doing now.

    http://otmpeterloo.wordpress.com/

    #OTMP

  • anno

    If the mainstream media is so pro-Zionist, why does it give live radio time to Syrian Arab springers pleading for NATO air-protection, in other words Libya-style air-bombardment at 7 a.m. this morning on Radio 4?
    Like those fish that tuck under the water-stream of sharks.
    There is an obvious alliance between Muslim activists and UKUSIS + Saudi, their sweetheart, foreign policy.
    There is also an obvious drama of emnity being projected to the UK public between UKUSIS and Iran, their family pet mad dog.
    Perhaps the mainstream press know that the Israeli plot to start a war against Iran is as phoney as the recent restaurant assassination plot in the US? What do you think, Craig?
    Sometimes rats can get to know that the blue-green grain is bait. Sorry to mix metaphors. They are the ones mixing ideologies, until it is extremely difficult to understand who is on who’s side and why.

  • OldMark

    I do hope that, by describing the prevarications to which he has been subject, one of Craig’s correspondents in the MSM takes courage and publishes the article. Airing something in one organ of the MSM often results in the others taking an interest in the story, pied-piper like.

    If that doesn’t happen, for once I can say, on a Saturday morning, that I’m looking forward to what’s in store next Monday.

  • Randall

    You are not “antizionist” ……….. THEY are antiGENTILE.
    You are PRO-the-People-They-HATE, which is ALL NON-Jews.
    This does not even SUGGEST that you are anti-Jewish, you are just PRO-YOURSELF.
    antiGENTILISM is the cause of the mythical “antisemitism”, Humanity did not invent antisemitism, and then wait thousands of years for a Jew to come along, so Humanity could hate him for absolutely no reason. Judaism codified hate of all NON-Jews into their belief system, and worked hard to EARN the contempt of all Humanity.

  • Arsalan

    You can’t publish anti-Zionist stuff on the liberal white media.
    This is because liberal whites are shit scared of being accused of anti-Semitism.

  • Arsalan

    Craig it wouldn’t surprise me if even you, have some fear about being called it.
    When I read your articles on it, I do get the slight feeling you seem to pull your punches a bit when it comes to Israel as compared to any other country you right about?

    Israel is a career destroyer.
    You can attack the policies of any other country to whatever level you desire, but touch Israel.
    Well, that is a no no, it means you are tainted for life.
    And people will fear being associated with you.

  • elisabeth angel

    Well, Craig,

    You have not published my previous comment, at which I am not surprised — but perhaps you took note of what I said and will do some research on the subject yourself if you have not already.

    It is a topic that is even more radioactive than the Zionist lobby conspiring to start a war with Iran, and for a good reason: as I said in my previous comment the truth about it undermines the whole existing world order.

    Thanks for reading this.

  • craig Post author

    Elisabeth,

    Having spent four years at the British Embassy in Warsaw and having a chance to see for myself, meet eye witnesses and gather a great deal of genuine first hand information, I am firmly of the view that holocaust deniers are simply nuts and sometimes not well motivated. I don’t allow the victims – jewish, gypsy, polish or other slav, gay, political activists – to be insulted here.

  • Komodo

    At risk of seeming obsessive, here’s the latest deal between Trader Media and the Guardian. Which looks to me very much like Apax (prop. Sir Ronald Cohen, who accepted the Jubilee Award for services to business in Israel from Netanyahu’s own hand -see above -) bailing out Guardian Media Group as its cashflow problems deepen:
    .
    http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/aug/08/guardianmediagroup-pressandpublishing
    .
    If it is asserted that the MSM are being pressured to keep the spotlight off Israel, some substantiation is a good idea. I’ve tried to provide this in my posts above. The Guardian has suddenly become pusillanimous on a sensitive subject. Why?
    .
    Follow the money, not the ethnicity.

  • larry Levin

    Laser Eye Surgery, is done privately, over the years the cost of laser eye surgery has fallen heavily, is this an example of private companies doing good. I had an idea that we could test if private companies really could be cheaper than the NHS, why not say if you break your left leg you go to NHS and if you break your right leg you can go private. over time we can monitor which is cheaper, The NHS is good in theory but is very corrupt in the sense it is easy to steal from it.

  • larry Levin

    Dear Craig Murray

    I have recently learned that david cameron at the age of 24 went to south africa and helped the Iraeli’s to obtain 9 nuclear weapons is this true, is it is why has not the mainstream media said anything.

    Also the fact that an Israeli Arms dealer helped to fund David Camerons leadership campaign.

  • craig Post author

    Larry

    Three nuclear weapons, I think. I don’t racall all the detail but I have known about it since around 1993.

  • Arsalan

    I notice Muslims, Arabs and Palestinians are not present on that list?
    I have also noticed many of the Zionists trolls here are free to insult them without limits, but my counter insults are deleted?

  • wendy

    “Have you tried Al Jazeera website?”
    .
    .
    hahaha al jazeera ??? hahahaha
    .
    .
    you might as well send it to fox news these days

  • wendy

    “The ridiculous censorship is so endemic that no one dares to even call it censorship, the fear sewn by the zionist overlords has got everyone running for cover.”
    .
    .
    apart from losing ones job .. i suspect its also the inherent threat of losing ones life .. as we know zionists / neo cons arent to be crossed lightly

  • elisabeth angel

    So are you saying that you are unwilling to examine the forensic and other evidence for yourself? It doesn’t take very long to look at a few scholarly papers. One side of an argument usually sounds convincing until you hear the other side.

    For my whole life I believed the conventional view of the Holocaust without question until a few years ago when, after reading about how the historical narrative on the founding of Israel had changed following the release of classified documents in 1998, I took it one step further and started researching what had gone on in Europe that preceded and enabled the founding of Israel.

    I notice that you say you don’t allow the “victims” to be “insulted.” What is insulting about my suggesting that people do research on a topic and decide the truth for themselves? Facts are either true or false — they are not insulting; they are what they are. People’s responses to them may vary, but the truth is merely the truth.

    And the truth is, apparently, that this topic is the very hottest of potatoes, and you are now experiencing a little bit of the same disquieted feeling that the mainstream media editors experienced in reading your article.

    Those editors have, of course, very cogent reasons to think carefully before printing your article — just as you have for not publishing comments normalizing “holocaust denial,” on your site — which is why I wrote that I was not surprised you hadn’t published my first comment.

  • Komodo

    I’ve abstracted this, omitting commentary which may or may not be justified, and redacting antisemitic tropes, from a conspiracist website which has nevertheless done some interesting research. Is it inaccurate?

    In the British press (Sir Ronald) Cohen is portrayed as a wealthy …ish supporter of (Gordon) Brown and New Labour. Cohen’s third wife, the Los Angeles-born Sharon Harel-Cohen, is usually described as a film producer whose father, Yossi Harel, commanded the …ish refugee ship that became known as Exodus in 1947. Her Israeli nationality is seldom discussed.

    What the controlled media doesn’t tell us about Sharon Harel-Cohen is that she is an Israeli-American whose father was one of the founding chiefs of the Mossad and Israeli military intelligence until his death in April 2008….

    …Sharon Ruth Harel was born in Los Angeles on March 6, 1952. Her mother, a “Julie Berez” married Mossad officer Joseph Hamburger (a.k.a. Yossi Harel) in 1950 while he was stationed in Los Angeles. Harel was, most likely, engaged in the illegal procurement of weapons, ships, planes, and military technology for the Israeli military. The reports that Harel, one of the highest Mossad agents, was studying at UCLA or M.I.T. are neither substantiated nor credible; this was only his cover. Harel also had two sons, whose names are not known to the author.
    .
    But Cohen is no blind Labour backer. He has his snout firmly in the Big Society trough, and is well-known to Cameron:
    .
    http://www.thirdsector.co.uk/news/Article/1082559/Big-Society-Bank-changes-name-appoints-chair-chief-executive/

  • Komodo

    Three 18.5 Kt weapons, it was:
    …young Tory researcher, David Cameron (under the apron strings of Maggie Thatcher), went to South Africa on a sanctions-busting all-expenses-paid trip (paid by ARMSCOR) to Pellindaba, a nuclear weapons facility. David Cameron was accompanied by Sir Kenneth Warren and the purpose of the trip was to purchase three, battlefield ready 20kt nuclear bombs that the Conservatives wanted to use on Saddam in the event he did not toe the line. (Peter Eyre, cited on whale.to)
    .
    And he lost them. Apparently they never reached Iran:
    http://freedomnewsnetwork.co.uk/al-qaeda-and-thatchers-missing-nukes-2
    Kelly is also mentioned…

  • passerby

    @ Wendy,
    Ditto, I was roflpmp too.
    Some of these posters are a little bit behind the curve in the fast moving world. Say, suffering from inertia, if it cannot be misconstrued as uncharitable.
    ,
    ,
    ,
    Craig,
    What about the she devil Thatcher hand outs to Israel (whilst she was cutting on all the services, and starting the generational long austerity UK has been under) covering the costs of the development of Israeli nukes in South Africa, and their test blasts thereof in the same continent?

    Also not forgetting David Ysrael Davids, the Foreign office chappy whom went to Israel and reported back to Tony Benn the then Minister; all is well, and Israelis are not making nukes. That is before UK supplied the Lithium Six isotopes for the said nukes too.

    I love the smell of Democracy, and accountability in the morning.

  • pollok

    Well done Craig in reminding your readership that press TV is nothing but a front for those lovable rogues in Iran, and that the Holocaust did actually happen…

  • wendy

    “I stopped doing Press TV a couple of years ago. It is important to be aware of whose agenda you are serving, and I have no desire to serve a regime that hangs young gays from cranes in public. Because I do not think it is helpful either for those young gays and countless other innocents to get pulverised by US and Israeli bombs, does not make me a fan of Ahmadinejad.”
    .
    .
    well its not as if we dont do nasty things here or abroad .. we have just finished being responsible for the deaths of upto 50 000 libyans, already some 30 000 afghans and of course possibly a million plus iraqis ..
    .
    .
    the issue is that you want a message to be broadcast but youre not going to do it because of presstv and iran but youre quite prepared for it to be published via bbc/guardian who are as agenda driven as anything else and have been driven by anti iran propaganda regardless of the facts surrounding the iaea reports.
    .
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    the issue is the message, of course your message will be manipulated where ever you go .. but dont you expect that some of your readers/listeners will have the intelligence to separate the corporate/state agenda from the facts that you are wanting to send out?
    .
    .
    again you have to have the “george galloway” view – make it clear where you stand .. that they are your views alone .. and drive home the message. at this level then any media outlet is just as much your tool as anyone else and stick to live broadcasts.

  • craig Post author

    Arsalan,

    you catch me on a point of genuine ignorance. I genuinely don’t know if the Nazis sent Muslims to concentration camps. I am inciled to think that if they had done so in great numbers, I would have come across it.

    Elisabeth Angel

    you seem no to read the bit when I say that I know that the holocaust happened from my own observation of physical evidence and eyewitness accounts I heard while I served in Poland. I almost certainly have more first hand experience of the actual evidence than you do.

  • wendy

    “Well done Craig in reminding your readership that press TV is nothing but a front for those lovable rogues in Iran, and that the Holocaust did actually happen…”
    .
    .
    however distasteful and ugly ahmedinejads view is (and he plays the numbers game not that persecution of jews didnt happen) he does have the right to question the official story .. what the guardian and channel4 might call ‘fact check’ not that it didnt happen but that it did happen but not quite in the way as defined in stone. curiously whilst one cannot deny the holocaust it is open season to deny islam, muslims .
    .
    .
    the truth will always expose , just as it has exposed blair, cameron , ahmedinejad and to the point it would appear werrity/fox .. we should all be open to debate .. and criticism .. isnt that what we are told – the way that all muslims should behave?

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