https://www.councilestatemedia.uk/p/centrist-journalist-james-obrien
The tide is slowly but surely turning
Aug 15, 2024

I’ve probably said this before, but the tide is slowly turning when it comes to the mainstream coverage of Israel and Gaza. Not only did the BBC finally name Israel as the killer in one of its headlines, but a centrist journalist has indicated that he has revoked his support for Israel.
The BBC apparently updated the headline due to public pressure

LBC presenter James O’Brien, who wrote a book entitled: How to be Right, unironically refers to people like himself as “the sensibles”, blocked every leftist on Twitter, and spent years legitimising the smears against Corbyn, is going viral for speaking against Israel in surprisingly strong terms. He even called for sanctions against Israel, which is interesting considering our government’s opposition to BDS and O’Brien’s support for our government. (In case you missed it, the International Court of Justice basically just said that BDS is a moral obligation.)

You might be asking who the hell is James O’Brien, and why should we care about his opinion anyway? Well, let me explain…

O’Brien has previously offered criticisms of Israel’s actions, but he comes from a place of being sympathetic towards Israel and amplifying its propaganda. He once called Corbyn’s Labour “the party of holocaust denial” and accused the late Hajo Meyer of using the fact he was a holocaust survivor as “camouflage” for anti-Semitism. Meyer had compared the treatment of Jews by the Nazis to the treatment of Palestinians by Zionists. O’Brien told a caller who defended Corbyn and Meyer: “You, pal, are the problem. You're the reason why this country is on its knees.”

Imagine suggesting a holocaust survivor, who pointed out there are similarities between Israel’s actions in Gaza and what the Nazis did to their friends and family, is an anti-Semite. This is how much mainstream journalists lost their minds during the Corbyn years.

It would be interesting to know if James O’Brien stands by his smears of two good men. It would be interesting to know if he considers Jeremy Corbyn’s position on Gaza to be more racist than Sir Keir Starmer’s comments about Israel having a right to starve Palestinians. We could have had an anti-genocide prime minister, but the “sensibles” preferred the pro-genocide guy. If you think I’m being harsh on Starmer, consider he has just hired the woman who sent the NYPD to brutalise peaceful protesters at Columbia University, and he has previously hired an Israeli spy.

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O’Brien defended Starmer’s position on Gaza in November last year when his frontbenchers resigned in protest at their leader’s refusal to back a ceasefire. He said “as long as Hamas exists, Hamas will attack Israel” when he could have said: as long as Palestine exists, Israel will attack Palestine. He even said: “You can desperately want a ceasefire, but also wonder whether calling for it is helpful”.

I’m unclear if O’Brien is still a Starmer apologist and whether his latest Gaza rants are simply performative, but I suspect there is some sincerity. It’s hard to see how this genocide would not prick his conscience.

We have witnessed O’Brien shifting his stance before our eyes, and to be fair, I think many of us have been there. I was once pro-Israel, due to media propaganda, until I saw what was really taking place. O’Brien apparently saw the light after hearing about the horrors at Sde Teiman concentration camp and the ensuing public support in Israel for the rapists. He described what happened as an “absolute abomination, but compounded by [Israeli] public support for the culprits.”

O’Brien went on:

“If you cast your mind back to October of last year when it was almost a capital offence to point out that the Palestinian people in Gaza had legitimate grievances about their historical treatment […] nobody who takes money on a monthly basis to comment on current affairs has, to the best of my knowledge, publicly revoked their support for Israel, publicly acknowledged that things have now gone to a point that they cannot credit and cannot even begin to condone. They have all gone silent and I don’t understand why, because look, let me show you how easy this is: this is barbarism. This is behaviour so disgusting, so despicable, that just when you think you might have got your head around it, along come [Israeli] protesters demanding the release of the [rapists].”

This was mostly a good rant, let down by centrist naivety so let me help O’Brien understand:

First of all, I’m sorry to say James will be told he is an anti-Semite who is using Hamas talking points, unless he issues a grovelling apology or shuts the hell up. Given the moral clarity of his position and the way he has attacked others for staying silent, I just don’t see how he can do those things.

Unless O’Brien is playing dumb, he doesn’t understand journalists can’t talk openly about Israel because all the ones who do, get fired: Marc Lamont-Hill, Sangita Myska, Mehdi Hasan, etc. Given one of those people was sacked by his employer, perhaps O’Brien felt calling this out would be a step too far.

O’Brien had previously claimed in response to Myska’s sacking that no one had ever been sacked from LBC for their coverage of the Gaza conflict. He doesn’t seem to understand they haven’t gone for him because he earned some capital among centrists by joining in the Corbyn smears and being the anti-Brexit guy.

It’s noteworthy that O’Brien spoke of revoking support for Israel because his previous criticisms had involved insisting the genocide was all Netnayhu’s fault. He now seems to be realising there is a sickness in Israeli society, but whether he would dare use those words is another matter. I’ve yet to hear him call out the Labour government for its support for Israel. Whether or not he does will be the real test of his character.

O’Brien acknowledged this thing did not start on October 7th, and suggested that back then, saying so was “almost a capital offence”. If he were in Gaza where journalists are murdered almost every day, he would find it is a capital offence. In defence of O’Brien, he has criticised Israel for not allowing foreign correspondents into Gaza.

I read recently that a mainstream journalist privately told someone (sorry, I can’t remember who) that journalists are waiting for the mass rape story to go away, presumably because they’re not allowed to report on it. The more sinister possibility is they support the mass rapes and I suspect some do. The fact our mainstream media has given so little attention to Israel’s mass rapes is clear evidence of just how depraved our media is. However, I find it hard to believe everyone in the mainstream media is that evil. Maybe some of them have simply been cowardly and the conviction with which O’Brien condemned Israel will compel others to do the same.

Even a US spokesperson struggled to defend Israel when challenged by a journalist about the IDF using human shields to enter tunnels and check for explosives because they were losing too many dogs. When centrist journalists are turning against Israel, and the White House can’t defend Israel, Israel has a problem. Even Trump has acknowledged Israel is losing the PR war and needs to finish the war fast. Problem is Netanyahu is doing everything he can to derail peace, including murdering the negotiators.

We’ve reached the point where even Israel’s most ardent supporters cannot defend or ignore what it’s doing without looking insane. Whether or not they are prepared to look insane is another matter…