Andrew Neil: hoist by his own petard over ‘beheaded babies’ lie
Andrew Neil: his aggressive response to criticism is inappropriate.
That mainstay of the UK’s right-wing media – Andrew Neil – seems to be coming unstuck because of his support for Israel in its conflict with Gaza.
Mr Neil was among those who rushed to push the story that Hamas beheaded Israeli babies in a kibbutz near the Palestinian territory:
Unconfirmed reports that Hamas has slaughtered 40 babies, beheading some, increasingly and sadly look like being true. Major news outlets now carrying the reports. The English language does not contain the vocabulary for an adequate response to this.
— Andrew Neil (@afneil) October 10, 2023
But since then he has rowed back. Take a look at the following response to a critic:
Show me where I ever reported 40 beheaded babies or delete your tweet. You self styled citizen journalists have a lot to learn before you start lecturing real ones. IF it was mutilation and slaughter rather than beheading do you think we owe Hamas an apology? https://t.co/cIqsb4p85i
— Andrew Neil (@afneil) October 14, 2023
We know now that there was no evidence of babies having been beheaded by Hamas; images were produced by the Israeli government a few days after the story broke, after it was questioned and far too late to be corroboration of the claim; they could have been fabricated. In fact, the circumstances suggest that they almost certainly were.
It was a matter of ease for Mr Neil’s original tweet to be brought back to light:
You owe an apology for propagating this heinous lie because this story went round the world like wildfire and, in many peoples eyes, lends justification to the unspeakable war crimes being commited in Gaza.
— Phil Gould 🇵🇸🖕🥁 (@bongosaloon) October 14, 2023
It seems to This Writer that Mr Neil’s only excuse is that he didn’t say 40 babies were allegedly beheaded – but the actual number is an irrelevance.
His tweet made it clear that he believed the claim – or at least, that he wanted the rest of us to believe it.
And, as Phil Gould points out, it is because of the endorsement of people like Mr Neil that the story “went round the world like wildfire”.
So Mr Neil has been shown where he reported that babies had been beheaded. He justified himself with a hypothetical question: if it was mutilation and slaughter, rather than beheading, would we owe Hamas an apology? That needs an answer too.
And it is obvious: we do not know that Hamas did anything that has been alleged. We were given allegations by a source that has been disproved – twice. That makes any claim extremely suspicious.
Israel wants the world to see it as the victim, while its hugely superior armed forces pummel the Palestinian region of Gaza into rubble. We are told 2,300 Gazans have already died – nearly twice as many Jewish casualties in the current conflict – and we know that children are among the deceased.
It is extremely hard for other people to see you as a victim if you have killed nearly twice as many people – innocent bystanders, remember; we don’t know if any of them were members of Hamas so must assume that they weren’t – as have died among your own numbers. That is especially true if children are among those casualties.
So it seems likely that Israel manufactured a false claim to make Hamas look like monsters – that isn’t even original. The claim of babies being murdered was used to justify the first Gulf War, and goes back at least as far as World War One.
Do we owe Hamas an apology? No.
A very large, unprovoked, campaign of mass murder was carried out on October 7, and Hamas has taken responsibility for it. That should be condemned.
But we should also condemn Israel for responding with equally unprovoked war crimes against two million Palestinian non-combatants – and we should not have to be distracted from that by false claims publicised by the likes of this so-called journalist.
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Mike, the Hamas surprise attack, barbaric though it was, was not “unprovoked”, as you put it. If living in an open air prison and experiencing frequent Israeli airstrikes doesn’t count as a provocation, then what does?
There was no direct act that triggered it off. I know what you mean, though, and I have made that point myself in many articles over the last week.
Yes, there were headless babies. It’s true, you anti-Semitic prick. I won’t say who I know out there, but they saw the poor babies. It’s not a hoax. You dismissed it because you support terrorists. SHAME ON YOU.
So you’re saying you know it’s true but you won’t show me any proof, and you’re subjecting me to verbal abuse – and lying about me supporting terrorists – for doubting the veracity of your claim?
I think I may be saying this on behalf of everybody here: FUCK OFF.
Can’t say who it is, sorry. However, there is another story in the mirror paper about a General holding a headless baby.
Absent of context that would mean nothing, of course.
Just because these people tell us things, it doesn’t automatically make them true. We have to be able to verify them and that has not been possible.
What others are you referring to? I’ve not seen any comments. Shame. I use to enjoy your posts, but this siding with terrorists, a mythical race of people, who are nothing more than muslims from surrounding muslim lands, and having a go at Isreal for defending itself, I have rather gone off you. I don’t post, or read as I use to. That’s a shame because otherwise, you put some great posts, not nasty about those on Benefits……. I guess on this issue, I will have to disagree.
I don’t side with terrorists.
You should not refer to Palestinians as a “mythical” race. They are as real a race as “Israelis”.
I am not “having a go at Israel for defending itself”. Israel has killed twice as many INNOCENT Palestinians as the number of Israelis who died in the Hamas attack. That is not defence.
I’m glad that you have at least toned down your comments to something approaching civilised discourse. What a shame the factual content remains lacking.
Sorry, but there is no race called palestinians. No place called palestine. It was called that by the Romans who did that to deligitimise Israel and the Jews. There is no palestinian language, no money, no archaeology items……… they are Muslims from neighbouring muslim countries. So that is, Egypt, Morocco, Saudi Arabia,…….. Israel can prove the land is theirs land archaeologically, Bible, ………..
I guess the lie they are palestinian and live in palestine is repeated enough, it is believed. I feel sorry for the muslims in gaza under the rule of the terrorist group, hamas, who mistreat, terrorise ,and kill their own people. The son of the leader of hamas left and became a Christian, said the terrorists would often put young children on railings where they told to leave the area, as they they score points against Israel who were then vilified. They put women and children on the tops of towers where they knew Israel would strike, who had already warned the people to leave. The gazans were told they had 24 hours to leave to the other side of gaza. Unfortunately, hamas told them to stay. Something has to be done as Israel can’t go like this. Nor can the gazans, for want of a better word. Israel intends to take out hamas. If that is achieved, things will improve dramatically.
Palestine has existed as a geographical region since the 5th century BC (or BCE if you like): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_name_Palestine.
The people of that region are Palestinians. You are now arguing with history.
You are either a monstrous creature(I won’t call you an animal, since that would be insulting to animals, my dog is a better human than you are), or you are a Zionist schill.
The Israeli Defence speakers have admitted that there is no evidence of babies being murdered & beheaded and you have a “source” you are unable to name and the likelihood is that source does not exist.
If you want to be racist, then why are you even visiting this site, unless it is to throw racist and bigoted invective at anyone and everyone who does not support Israel’s illegal and murderous occupation of Palestine?
How much do you hate Muslims?
How much do you love Zionism?
I think we all know the answer to the above questions.
So….. do us a favour & crawl back under the stone from which you came!
Ema, this idea of yours that Palestinians are a “mythical race of people, who are nothing more than muslims from surrounding muslim lands” is not only ahistorical Israeli propaganda, but very, very outdated ahistorical Israeli propaganda that was debunked long, long ago.
It is contradicted not just be the historical record (see the work of one of your own country’s leading historians, Ilan Pappe of the University of Haifa) but also by the statements of the Zionist movement’s own leadership before the establishment of the state of Israel. Ukrainian Zionist leader Leo Motzkin said at the Second Zionist Congress in 1898 after having been sent on a fact-finding trip to Palestine:
“Completely accurate statistics about the number of inhabitants do not presently exist. One must admit that the density of the population does not give the visitor much cause for cheer. In whole stretches throughout the land, one constantly comes across large Arab villages, and it is an established fact that the most fertile areas of our country are occupied by Arabs.”
Russian Zionist intellectual Ahad Ha’am said after a trip to Palestine in 1891:
“We tend to believe abroad that Palestine is nowadays almost completely deserted, a non-cultivated wilderness and anyone can come there and buy as much land as his heart desires. But in reality this is not the case. It is difficult to find anywhere in the country Arab land which lies fallow.”
Palestine is literally mentioned twice in Zionism’s Holy Writ, the Balfour Declaration. If Ema is saying that the BD is inaccurate, then she is saying that it is unsafe and that therefore the deal between WWI Britain and the Zionists is invalid. So we must now move the entire Israeli population out of Palestine and give it back to the Arabs.
Thanks, Ema, for your support for the revival of Palestine!
If people think that Israel and its lackeys the US,UN,EU and the UK will stop at the annihilation of Palestine and the Palestinian people, think again!
Oh, there is absolutely no chance of the Israelis stopping there, it would run contrary to the Zionist doctrine. The current Israel is more or less “full” at a little under 10 million people, including 7.25 million Jews. (This doesn’t include the 2.2 million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and the 3 million Palestinians in the West Bank.)
The founding idea of Zionism is that Israel should be a country to take in any and all Jews who are facing antisemitic persecution. That hypothetically could at some point include every Jew on Earth. So the ultimate aim has to be to make Israel big enough to accommodate every Jew.
Even with ALL the former Palestine swallowed up into Israel, that barely provides half of the space and resources required to, potentially, accommodate all Jewish people; depending how you define a Jew, Israel would need enough land and resources to sustain possibly as many as 24 million people. Once Palestine is gone completely, Israel will resume stealing land from its neighbours, principally from Lebanon.