Ed Miliband is so obsessed with condemning Israel that he cannot bring himself even to mention Hamas
Findings are available in the analysis below.1 finding We do not republish articles from The Jewish Chronicle. Our findings are below, each quoting the words it is about. Read the full article on the outlet's own site.
Read the original article on thejc.com (opens in a new tab)What we found (1)
Stephen Pollard's column calls Muslim voters "the sectarian Muslim vote" and ties them to a hatred that threatens Labour MPs. Earlier it coins "sectarian-Muslim-afeared" to cast Muslims as a force the foreign secretary fears. It offers no evidence about how Muslims vote, and its case against Ed Miliband is its own argument and is not judged here.
Opinion piece: read for false claims of fact and for fairness to the people it names, not for its opinions.
Vilifies a community
Severe
“pandering to the hatred of Israel that threatens Labour MPs through the sectarian Muslim vote”
- Why this matters
- The words "the sectarian Muslim vote" brand Muslim voters as a bloc as sectarian. They tie that bloc to "hatred" and present it as something that "threatens" elected MPs.
- The impression it gives
- A reader comes away believing that Muslims who vote are, as a group, driven by sectarian hatred and are a menace to British democratic politics.
- The context
- Muslims are a community defined by religion. The column offers no evidence about how Muslim voters think or vote. It assigns hatred and sectarianism to the whole group in its own voice, and it repeats the same framing earlier in the piece.
How we know
- Elsewhere in the article“his sectarian-Muslim-afeared knee”
“bend to his sectarian-Muslim-afeared knee”
- Why this matters
- The coined phrase "sectarian-Muslim-afeared" casts Muslims as people a senior minister fears. It also labels both the minister's stance and that Muslim presence as sectarian.
- The impression it gives
- A reader takes Muslims to be an intimidating sectarian force that bends British foreign policy through fear.
- The context
- Nothing in the column shows Muslim pressure on Miliband's statement, which concerned flooding and aid access in Gaza. The phrase frames a religious community as a threat with no supporting fact. The column returns to the same charge in its closing lines.
How we know
- Elsewhere in the article“the sectarian Muslim vote”
Written straight
Pollard could have argued that Miliband's statement was one-sided without attributing it to a religious community, for example: "Miliband's statement criticises Israel and does not mention Hamas."