Michael Morpurgo’s loose talk could cost more Jewish lives.
Warhorse writer Michael Morpurgo is back. Not with a new book but to repeat the unsubstantiated allegation he made last year during his Richard Dimbleby Lecture that Israel shoots Palestinian children “like a video game”.
Morpurgo was speaking at this year’s Daily Telegraph sponsored Hay Festival and his speech was covered by Anita Singh, The Daily Telegraph’s Showbusiness editor.
Sadly, Singh wasn’t covering showbusiness but hideous propaganda that could have dangerous consequences for Jews everywhere.
Morpurgo’s speech wasn’t worth reporting as it wasn’t newsworthy; the speech was a repeat of a section of his Richard Dimbleby Lecture of February 2011!
But Anita Singh thinks Morpurgo had just returned from Gaza and that he was, therefore, giving a personal account of continuing horror there. She says:
“The War Horse author recently visited Israel and Gaza as an ambassador for Save The Children.”
But, the visit, as Morpurgo pointed out in that Richard Dimbleby Lecture, was made in November 2010. Some 19 months ago!
At Hay, as in that February 2011 lecture, Morpurgo described what allegedly happened as he was waiting to leave Gaza in November 2010:
“I heard the shots, then the screaming, saw the kids running to help their wounded friends. Now I really was outside the comfort zone of fiction. A doctor from Medecins Sans Frontieres told me that the shots were not fired by snipers from the watchtowers on the wall, as I had supposed, but that these scavengers were routinely targeted, electronically from Tel Aviv, which was over 25 kilometres away – ‘Spot and Strike’, the Israelis call it.
It was like a video game – a virtual shooting, only it wasn’t: there was blood, his trousers were soaked in it, the bullets were real. I saw the boy close to, saw his agony as the cart rushed by me.”
But there were some mysterious additions to Morpurgo’s Hay speech which seriously dent his credibility on this:
1. In his Richard Dimbleby Lecture Morpurgo said that the children were “sometimes targeted, remotely, electronically from Tel Aviv”. According to Anita Singh’s report Morpurgo stated at Hay that “these scavengers were routinely targeted, electronically from Tel Aviv”.
2. At Hay Morpurgo added a UNICEF quote that “that 26 children were shot like this in 2010”, which wasn’t in his Richard Dimbleby Lecture.
3. In his Richard Dimbleby Lecture Morpurgo quoted the Palestinian child death toll from Operation Cast Lead as being 300. Come Hay he has suddenly revised that figure upwards to 347!
Finally, in his Richard Dimbleby Lecture Morpurgo stated of the allegations that Israel targets children remotely “I don’t know if these claims are true”, but Anita Singh doesn’t report his inclusion of this admission at Hay.
If Morpurgo doesn’t know if such claims are true then why the hell is he going round repeating them?
How many Jewish children might now be targeted just like the three Jewish youngsters shot dead by the Islamist in Toulouse who believed the exact same propaganda now being spread by Morpurgo?
Basically, it seems that Morpurgo saw nothing of the shooting that took place as he was waiting to leave Gaza. He just believed what he was told by others.
I can’t do better than finish with this comment left by worldview21 under Anita Singh’s report:
“Morpurgo’s word that he witnessed an innocent boy shot by remote control is not believable. Where is the evidence? Who else saw it? Why did he not take any photographs? How can he assert that the bullet came from an unmanned IDF gun?
This story is the product of an anti-Zionist’s wilful imagination, maliciously designed to arouse a knee-jerk wave of hatred and indignation from a baying rabble of baiters and haters.
It has done the trick.”
RichardMillett's Blog 
i must remember not to read his book. He sounds like a typical sentimentalist, who have a tendency to be ruthless and unscrupulous. Sentimentalism itself is the midwife to violence. Morpugo is a hypocrite and double standards are his game.
Yes, Roger. I have added this slug to the list of of hate-filled bastards whose output is banned from my house.
and add him to the list of clueless Jews who indulge in wilful ignorance and lies about Israel. I have nothing against fair and accurate criticism of Israeli policies and society…….something freely practised in Israel itself…… but that’s not what Morpurgo is about.
Of course it isn’t, roger. That’s not what empty-headed Islingtonite members of the negative-IQ ‘intelligentsia’ are interested in. They only want to follow the herd and bleat with the rest of the stupid sheep. Independent thinking is so hard on their tiny brains, don’t you know.
Last week one of Morpungos ‘ scavengers ‘ cut through the Gaza border fence in order to carry out a terrorist atrocity . Armed to the teeth , he killed an Israeli soldier before being killed .
There is a no go zone up to the fence in order to prevent ambushes , placing of mines , and of course tunnelling in order to capture Israeli soldiers .
Morpungo air brushes out the cause and effect of Palestinian terrorism and simply focuses on Israels response .
This should come as no surprise as Morpungo is simply adopting the anti humanitarian position which denounces Israels right to defend itself while ignoring the cause .
On wonders whether Morpungo saw fit to denounce the slaughter of Israeli citizens in buses , shopping malls and restaurants etc during the second Intifada and question why he did not consider giving a Dimbleby lecture on that subject .
Good grief Richard I know long holiday weekends are slow news times but this is really scraping the barrel. Harvey dont forget to see our new improved version you are quite a star.
Filed under ‘ Bunny boiler ‘
Is there a word for male bunny boilers?
I ask because in my real life I have witnessed one female bunny boiler in action and she restricted herself to the telephone believing (wrongly) I was after her boyfriend.
OTOH I have witnessed at close quarters 5 male bunny boilers in action, fortunately the most harmless of them was the one pestering me.
As I understand it stalker is gender neutral – thus am I right in seeing there an undeserved preference given to my sex?
Self Appointed Keen Defender of Equal Rights for all Sexes
scraping the bottom of the barrel = finding a coating of slime calling itself ‘rich’.
It should be noted that Michael Morpurgo is Jewish. Another anti-Zionist Jew to turbo-charge the antisemites’ cause, unfortunately,
‘anti-zionist’ being the polite euphemism, of course.
Rich or whoever you are . I just took a glance at your blog or what passes for a blog .
To be honest , I skimmed over it as just going by the green , red , and the ‘ shouting ‘ type used , you have a deeply unhealthy manic obsession with my colleague .
My apologies for any previous untoward remarks . It’s quite apparent you need help dealing with your issues .
Colleague Harvey ?
It seems to me as an American, that to advance in the UK, especially for a Jew aspiring for acceptance in the British “artistic” and “academic” community, it is necessary to come out as “anti-Zionist”.
Never mind that it wasn’t “Zionists” who bombed London transport on 7/7/05, bombed Pan Am 103, spit on British troops in Luton, threaten the UK with 9/11 magnitude massacres.
When I read this I thanked Richard for blogging the Dimbleby Lecture as I realised this pseud regurgitates dangerous fabrications. Such stories cause deaths like the Fogel family and the Toulouse killings. Funny he forgets to tell anecdotes about real murders!
I have met Michael Morpurgo, and honestly believe he was brainwashed by the Hamas in Gaza. He never saw the new shopping malls or the hotels, and we all know some of the wrecked buildings are deliberately kept that way to impress visitors.Sadly, the PR of these thugs is far better than Israel, which both surprises and alarms me. I did not know Morpurgo was Jewish (is that a fact or con jecrture?). I do know he is to have a church wedding soon as he had a civil; wedding when a student and the lady was pregnant.
Michael Morpurgo both is and isn’t Jewish. See http://www.thejc.com/arts/arts-interviews/interview-michael-morpurgo
From the above link:
”Morpurgo’s latest book, due to be published “this or next year”, also touches on a Jewish identity to which this 65-year-old gentile stepson feels more connected than his late Jewish stepfather. It is called The Kites are Flying and it is about a Palestinian and an Israeli child who communicate with each other by flying kites from either side of the [security] wall that divides their peoples.”
Clearly this is more sentimental drivel and whimsy, reminiscent of that appalling film ‘The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas’. Sentimentalism and simple-mindedness is an epidemic in the UK, a toxic plague, and Morpugo has a bad dose.
Morpurgeo is one of those who thought the Emperor’s New Clothing were spun from the finest silk.
This blog site is a laugh a minute. My only regret is I didn’t get my head around it sooner. But better late than never.
rich, FIRST you have to pull your head out of your rear end.
LOL
I can’t imagine him to be that nimble
in fact he strikes me as distinctly lacking in nimbleness
this is the only kind of nimbleness he is capable of
The theme of the Jew as the killer of non-Jewish children is a perpetual theme in anti-Semitic literature – its function is to turn the victim into a perpetrator of evil.
In the Middle Ages in Europe the Jew was usually weak, defenseless and vastly outnumbered by his haters. Even then the basic sense of fair play that most decent people have would resist the idea of his being persecuted. The ideal tool was the “Blood Libel”. Now the Jew was no longer the unfortunate prey, but became instead the persecutor and murderer of the child who was weaker than him. He suddenly ceased to be David, becoming the giant Goliath instead.
This was also the purpose of the creation of the “Palestinian People” in 1964. Since the Holocaust the Jews had been perceived as the victim, this perception was reinforced when the regular armies of five neighboring Arab countries attacked a much smaller and less well armed nation in 1948. The myth of the Palestinian People in a moment re-dealt the cards. It was no longer a tiny country with a tiny population defending itself from the other 99.75% of the Middle East, but instead the poor Palestinian David throwing stones at the evil Israeli conquering Goliath.
It is for that reason that our enemies will forever endanger the lives of their youngest and weakest in the hope of using their suffering as tools of propaganda. Rockets are launched from the playgrounds of unevacuated primary school in the hope that Israel’s response might make good news footage and children are fitted out for suicide attacks in what is to their mind a win-win situation. Either they kill us, or we kill their kids.
I’m not a pessimist by nature, but I do know that Golda Meir was right that peace will not come until they learn to love their children more than they hate us.
Yaacov Lozowick once had a video of some Idf-soldiers in a potentially tight situation walking up a street where a sniper could be behind every window i.e. the soldiers nerves may have been tingling a bit. A group of parents let their little kids walk up to these soldiers and yell their abuse with their most shrill and high-pitched voices available into their faces without ever recalling them. I’d never allow a kid to taunt an armed young man whose nerves are likely under strain, never. I would not even allow one to taunt an armed watchman patrolling peacefully at say Frankfurt airport. Misunderstandings happen so easily.
And if ever one of these oh so young men should for very very understandable reasons snap, waht then? A hurt child and a colossal Israel bashing, all for the callousness of these parents.
Or I think it was when Ambassador Oren got heckled. There was this father oblivious of his toddler tugging at his father’s clothes, crying, asking to get comforted in this hell-house of yelling people and what did that good American father do? keep yelling, disregarding his son. Only when orderlies asked him to go did he remember to pick up his son.
Comparatively small stuff like that tells me all I need to confirm that Golda Meir was right.
Daniel your capacity for Judeo fascist racism never ceases to amaze me. Just when I think I have grasped it you surpass yourself.
These are called OSFAC or One Size Fits All Comments. They are quite unrelated to either the topic or the opinion to which they profess to relate. They make no attempt to challenge its factual basis or analysis. They must be fundamentally ad hominem in nature, because anything else would require some knowledge or familiarity with the matter under discussion. They can be used against any opponent in any discussion.
They are the great levelers of debate. A mathematician might present a thesis that I am wholly incapable of understanding or relating to in an intelligent manner, but I can always say that he’s barmy or a “fascist”. I don’t even have to understand the terms he’s using. If he gets drawn in and attempts to prove that he is none of these things, I’m playing at home and that’s half the battle.
You asked me in a previous page for my vision of the future of the Palestinian People. I answered your question in a serious and detailed way and unable to deal with any of the points I made ran off to write silly things about me to your little friends. This time I have sought to explain occurrence and reoccurrence of the anti-Semitic “the Jews are killing children” theme. You might accept or reject it, but other than giving you the chance to get your say in, what did calling me silly names actually achieve?
I have a certain sneaking respect for the Tony Greenstein’s of this world. I may disagree with all his views about Israel, but at least the guy does his homework and no less importantly, he doesn’t just talk the talk, he walks the walk. He goes to demonstrations, takes personal risks and pays a price for the views in which he believes.
Then there’s you. You know nothing about the subject under discussion and I’d be willing to place good money that your anti-Zionism is restricted to angering Anglo-Jews on blogs with ad childish hominem attacks.
Here’s my proposal for what it’s worth. A 3-state solution. One for the Jews, one for the Muslims, and a secular one for those without metaphysical rhetoric clogging up their minds and spirits, where theology and politics are not mixed, where there is no freedom of religion because religion is banned, where irony abounds, where people do not speak the language of absolutes and others are regarded as equals, irrespective of gender, ethnicity or previous religion.
quelle horreur – will it be allowed not to be ironic, to be earnest, to believe that there are values, that feelings of others matter?
Actually you didn’t answer it. Oh hang on maybe you did. Some fraction of 5% of Palestinians could apply for citizenship on an individual basis right ? Apply for citizenship in the land in which they were born and in which in most cases their families have lived for generations. And the rest ?
Most hadn’t lived for generations at all! Even Arafat was Egytpian, wasn’t he? Anyway, in 1948 the Arab leadership of BMP chose war not citizenship, which has been the status quo ever since. It will remain the status quo until that leadership decides it wants peace.
And the rest will carry on living under “Palestinian” rule, by their “democratically elected” leadership. They will have full control of their lives, and all the rights enjoyed by their brothers all around the Middle East.
They won’t be allowed to kill Jews, which may seem a bit of hassle at first, but my German friends tell me that you get used to it quite quickly.
Daniel
you only get used to it quite quickly, if and only if power is under the control of occupiers who keep for years a firm lid on the Aryan-Dream.
And that included not least selecting and/or approving the people who were allowed to write the new constitution (Grundgesetz).
Now wouldn’t the latter procedure be a good starting point to ween your neighbours from their craving for other people’s blood?
(Today it seems like the lid-keeping by democratically minded occupiers was more (at least a bit) conducive to long-term mind change than the real-socialistic one.)
And I think it’s not my knowing ” nothing ” that bugs you. It’s my knowing too much.
Will Rogers once said about Hoover, “It’s not what he doesn’t know that bothers me; it’s what he knows for sure that just ain’t so.”
That was Will Rogers talking about Hoover.
Well deduced!
<<<<<<<< blushing
Silke- how did you come upon the url for your picture riposte to rich? Do you have any connection with Duluth? Thanks for that serendipity anyway, as my son is decamping to Duluth soon, where he is taking up an associate professorship at the University of Minnesota. I know next to nothing about the area, and he also found the link useful.
amie
I am innocent – I swear it – I didn’t know what I was doing –
I googled for contortionist and no picture fit what I wanted to say, so I settled for this one while having no idea how it managed to make it to the contortionists.
May your son prosper in Minnesota and may his choice turn out to have been a good one.
Thanks for the good wishes Silke. The academic climate in the UK currently is dire, both economically, and the anti Jewish and anti Israel ethos.
another gross distortion “and in which in most cases their families have lived for generations.”
A short time ago I was assailed on a parallel page in the following enlightening manner:
“… Daniel you are old ( you were born old ) your hands are grey. We have heard your dirty stories. three thousand years, three thousand years….. of your God damned glory…”
Not being a psychiatrist and am lacking in the tools required to fully analyze this dehumanized psyche. I have no idea what he imagines that “grey hands” symbolize nor do I know to which three thousand years he refers – perhaps King David? However, his calling me “old…born old” is of great interest, and specifically why he considers this to be offensive.
To coin a cliché, I was born at a very young age 51 years and look my age, give or take a year or two. My hairdresser claims that dying my hair would flatter me greatly, but Jewish law and my own vanity prevent me from taking his advice. Regarding my hands, they are a pinky red color and I supply photographic evidence:
Therefore, having established my age and the color of my hands, I return to my question as to why being “old” is considered an affront.
I believe that in the eyes of Judaism, Christianity and Islam old is synonymous with experience and wisdom acquired over years. Intuitively we know that this is not always the case and Rabbi Meir recognized this:
Rabbi Yossei the son of Judah of Kfar HaBavli would say: One who learns Torah from youngsters, whom is he comparable to? To one who eats unripe grapes and drinks [unfermented] wine from the press. One who learns Torah from the old, whom is he comparable to? To one who eats ripened grapes and drinks aged wine.
Said Rabbi Meir: Look not at the vessel, but at what it contains. There are new vessels that are filled with old wine, and old vessels that do not even contain new wine.
Of course the young can be wise and the old foolish. The old sometimes become forgetful or impatient and less open to new ideas. Certainly they are physically weaker than before and with the years become more dependent on their loved ones or society in general. They frequently require more medical care and social services and this, just at the time when they are often working less and “contributing” less to society.
Perhaps that is the reason that all major religions command their followers to respect and care for the aged. They may not be hearing or seeing as well as once and they may not be as “fun” to be with, but that is exactly why we are commanded. Would any of us really want to live in a society whose old are sent off to die in the snow?
The Bible promises us “Honor your father and your mother in order that your days be multiplied…”
The question could be asked as to how parental respect lengthens a child’s life; surely it ought to lengthen that of the parent?
In my opinion the answer is that our children watch us to see how we treat the old and they learn from our example. There is no better insurance policy for old age than respecting the aged so that somebody will respect you one day.
On the other hand, turning aging into a curse quite literally is a very short-sighted policy. The world may belong to the young, but let’s not forget that those young are tomorrows old folk.
As to “grey hands” Google provides quite some answers.
I kind of like this one though its list of what causes grey hands seems to be far from comprehensive. And while I am at it let me confess that I am sure that the author of these lines wasn’t mentioning dirt with any metaphorical intent:
In general, grey hands are caused by dirt. The grey color may wash off. Grey hands can also be a symptom of severe frostbite, or death, but in those cases you probably would have noticed. Other than that, if you have been washing your hands in some unusual chemicals, staining is possible.
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_causes_grey_hands
As to old as a derogatory description – yes the Zeitgeist currently favours some strange language
And while I am at it – what is a “reffering expression”? Even if I assume that reffering is not a word reserved for philosophers and try to get it as
God and even G-d is not a referring expression.
I am lost. And I am equally lost with the sounding to me very learned
And existence isn’t a predicate.
However, since that one seems to be related to Kant and I find his imperatives a bit impractical that should surprise me.
Hi Silke,
A couple of tears ago I wrote an abridged version of the Curious Case of Benjamin Button for Burlington Books.
http://www.burlingtonbooks.com/Spain/Page.aspx?PageID=1669
Now there was a man who was born old!
Yes, the thought of grey hands symbolizing death had crossed my mind. Perhaps in his eyes I’m old and dead – fair enough. I blog, therefore I am!
Truthfully, I’m hardly surprised. When one loses sense of reality, its place is often taken by wishful thinking denial, and fantasy. With the passing of years I have tried to make it a point neither to mock nor ridicule such afflictions. Who is to say that Rich’s world where I have grey hands, Israel cruelly oppresses the Palestinians and I am Benjamin Button, brings him less contentment than reality might?
Daniel
I must admit, that I am not that concerned about rich feeling contented or well.
He claims having gotten a high class education and now thinks it his inalienable right, to write sentences which would do a Pythia proud.
You see in Germany a lot of the cost for studying is born by “normal” working people’s taxes and after having their degree they feel it entitles them to sneer at “us”. Really! And his sybillinic nonsense is a way of sneering. I could find excuses for a self-educated working guy but not for a certified professional.
On another note: this is a very nice typo
A couple of tears ago