We write in support of Nathan Robinson, founder of Current Affairs magazine, who was fired as a columnist for The Guardian for a joking tweet critical of U.S. military aid to Israel. This is shocking behavior for a publication that has earned the respect and loyalty of millions of readers around the world for courageous journalism that has often offended the sensibilities of the powerful.
The paper has not denied that it terminated Robinson’s column over the tweet and has only said that it did not technically “fire” Robinson because it does not offer its columnists contracts. The Guardian’s US editor, John Mulholland, sent Robinson a “confidential” message saying that while Robinson was “free” as an opinion columnist to speak his mind, his tweet had antisemitic connotations. Though Robinson immediately deleted the tweet and apologized for violating the Guardian’s unwritten policy, the paper immediately stopped accepting his pitches before discontinuing his column entirely. It was made clear by an editor that this was a direct result of the tweet criticizing U.S. military support for Israel.
The Guardian has been criticized before for its casual use of antisemitism accusations against critics of Israel. We strongly condemn antisemitism. We also strongly condemn the deployment of the baseless charges of antisemitism to silence criticism of Israeli policy or U.S. support of that policy. Regardless of one’s opinions on the Middle East, everyone should be distressed by The Guardian’s act of blatant censorship.
Aside from the loss of Robinson’s contributions to the Guardian, we are worried that this action will have a chilling effect on other media workers, who will be under increased pressure to avoid straying from orthodoxy lest they lose their jobs. The ability to harshly criticize the policies of powerful governments is a basic freedom and is essential to preventing atrocities. Even if the Guardian regularly publishes material critical of Israel’s policies, which it does, by not making it clear what writers are and are not allowed to say, the paper chills the ability of its contributors to comment openly and freely on the issue.
The Guardian’s termination of Robinson has evoked widespread criticism. His firing has sent a message to writers at The Guardian and elsewhere that they will be punished if they post unapproved opinions on Israel. We demand that Robinson be reinstated and that Mulholland apologize for this crime against free expression. The Guardian must make clear that its writers have the freedom to comment critically on Israel without suffering career consequences.
Support for Palestinian rights and criticism of US policy toward Israel can’t be an exception to free speech.
Liza Featherstone, Jacobin & The Nation
Doug Henwood, Behind the News
Noam Chomsky, Laureate Professor of Linguistics, University of Arizona
Rashid Khalidi, Edward Said Professor of Modern Arab Studies, Columbia University
Johann Hari, author, Chasing the Scream and Lost Connections
Ilan Pappé, Director of the European Centre for Palestine Studies, University of Exeter
Avi Shlaim, Emeritus Professor of International Relations, University of Oxford
Dina Matar, Director, Center for Palestine Studies, SOAS, University of London
Nur Masalha, Professor, SOAS, University of London
Maximillian Alvarez, editor in chief, The Real News Network
Jason Stanley, Professor of Philosophy, Yale University
Corey Robin, Professor of Political Science, Brooklyn College
Greg Grandin, C. Vann Woodward Professor of History, Yale University
Noura Erakat, Rutgers University
Katie Halper, Rolling Stone & The Katie Halper Show
Sam Seder, The Majority Report
Katha Pollitt, The Nation
Cornel West, Harvard University
Glenn Greenwald, co-founder, The Intercept
Jeet Heer, The Nation
Meagan Day, Jacobin
Molly Crabapple, artist
Diana Buttu, Institute for Middle East Understanding
Andrew Cockburn, Harper’s
Steven Lukes, Professor of Sociology, New York University
Ben Burgis, Jacobin and Rutgers University
Robby Soave, Reason
Ryan Grim, The Intercept
David Palumbo-Liu, Stanford University
David Klion, Jewish Currents
Jonathan Cook, former Guardian journalist
Samuel Moyn, Professor of History, Yale University
Jodi Dean, Professor of Political Science, Hobart & William Smith Colleges
Natasha Lennard, The Intercept
Ken Klippenstein, The Intercept
Osita Nwanevu, New Republic
Briahna Joy Gray, Bad Faith, former press secretary for Bernie Sanders
Ryan Cooper, The Week
Jim Naureckas, Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR)
Janine Jackson, Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR)
Julie Hollar, Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR)
Luke Savage, Jacobin
Branko Marcetic, Jacobin
Jonathan Rosenhead, Emeritus Professor, London School of Economics
Ana Kasparian, The Young Turks
Laura Kipnis, Northwestern University
James Livingston, Rutgers University
Michael Moore, filmmaker
Jon Schwarz, The Intercept
Gar Lipow, Author
Lucinda Rosenfeld, Novelist
Djene Rhys Bajalan, Missouri State University
Kathryn Levy, Poet
Lisa Maya Knauer, UMass Dartmouth
Norman Solomon, Institute for Public Accuracy
Joel Schalit, The Battleground
Elayne Tobin, New York University
Colette Shade, Writer
Zephyr Teachout, Fordham University
Dave Zirin, The Nation
Cara Hoffman, New York Times, Daily Beast
Hugh Miller, Emeritus, Loyola University Chicago
Darwin Tsen, Carthage College
John Michael Colón, The Point
Steven Vial
Kevin Schultz, Hartwick College
Ammon Allred, University of Toledo
Charlie Marcotte, Attorney
Pepijn Uitterhoeve
Christopher Nolte, Millikin University
Philip Kunhardt
Featured image: Nathan Robinson of Current Affairs (left) and John Mulholland of The Guardian.





How many citizens in Israel are actually semitic?
Netanyahu is Polish–and many are European, American or some other genetic background. Although the Saudis are semitic .
Maybe it’s time to drop the screech of, “anti-semitic,” altogether. Having an opinion different than what Israel thinks is just—having an opinion different than what Israel supports. Isn’t it time to get rid of that term?
We mostly agree on a topic WW. No person should be fired for publishing an opinion. Nor should they be banned from Twitter or Facebook (though we all know that 1st amendment rights are about government control). We should all stand up for freedom of speech EVERYWHERE. The 1st amendment is about protecting speech that others don’t like. Nobody is interested in curtailing speech like, “have a nice day.”
Organizing boycotts, while legal, is also wrong. BDS is wrong as is any other organized boycott. Legal, yes. Good for our society, no. There are many things we don’t do because wrong, not because they are illegal.
Most of the major advancements in our society were the result of boycotts: civil rights bill; union organizing; end of child labor; etc.
It is also how apartheid ended in South Africa, if you want something more recent.
I support BDS because it is the only tool left to change behavior of country that politically is insulated from its harrowing policies.
But Tim:
BDS helped to bring down apartheid in Africa…the Palestinians are trying to end apartheid against Palestine—and how could anyone object to that?????
Bringing down apartheid in Africa was good. There is not apartheid in Palestine. Israeli government has Palestinians in cabinet positions. The opposite cannot be said about Palestine. Israeli doctors help Palestinians. The opposite cannot be said. Palestine starts shooting at Israel. Israel only retaliates. Palestinians are causing the problems. Boycott them if you feel the need to boycott
Israelis themselves acknowledge they have apartheid. But there are likely thousands of “tims” – some likely employed by Israel’s IDF cyber-command who are paid to run around all over the internet telling lies.
https://apnews.com/article/religion-race-and-ethnicity-israel-mediterranean-sea-west-bank-3c9adae04858a7735b031e58e3419c64
An appalling conclusion. Wretched even.
My comment above was to Tim.
Hey Wondering Woman,
Maybe I misinterpreted, but it seemed like you were claiming there are such things as “Polish” genes, or “American” genes, and “European” genes. As far as I can tell, this is false.
Geographical locations and raw genetic data are incommensurable with one another, without the ancestral story that goes with the data. Ancestry is the map, the geographical locations are the territory, and we should never try to say the map is equal in all respects, to the territory.
It also seems like you are equating cultural differences to being the same as racial differences. This too is obviously false. There are plenty of examples of people of similar race who do not share cultural values with one another.
I don’t think it is even possible to whittle the Israeli Palestinian conflict down to one couched solely in racial differences. Especially since there is no genetic basis for race, and there are plenty of brown Israelis who would have to be left out of such narrow race-based analysis.
My sister and I share a parent. I challenge a single geneticist to figure out where our shared parentage differs racially, using only the genetic information….it cannot be done. All the geneticist can tell (based on our genetic readouts alone) is that we are sister and brother. Yes, the record will show that we share a parental gene, and that the other parental line is different. However, the genetic differences alone cannot inform the geneticist about which one of our parents is the “White” one and which is the “Black” one, without the rest of the story (ancestry flow charts, geographical lineage etcetera.)
All I’m trying to point out is that there is an ontological side to all of this, one that only exists in our minds (the map.)
Since race is a social construct, basing our analysis of the Israeli Palestinian situation mostly on racial differences, leaves out a lot of other relevant information to talk about as well.
What about the eternal religio-cultural struggle going on there? Or how about the socio-economic one? To me, it is far more productive to look at class structure in Israel to cast the widest net of comparisons.
We can ask what class of people has most to gain by settler colonialist behavior in the region? Or, which class of people has the most to lose from settler colonialism?
Unity should be the metaphysical driver for our desire for peaceful solutions to the conflict, not just economical or political pressures alone.
I am for BDS, along with a myriad of other methods too though.
Thanks, and peace be with you.
This is over-complicated claptrap. The only thing you said that made any difference was that you support BDS. Good for you. This notion that Tim has about boycotts being fundamentally wrong, on some unstated moral grounds, should be the target of your considerable cogitation, however.
To Bill Luker Jr,
“overly complicated claptrap”? Lol. Fair enough…you’re probably right. Incommensurability is heavy-stuff to try and get to the bottom of in a FAIR comment section.
But maybe try looking in the mirror about “pretentiousness” eh? I mean damn bro, you sound as if you own the copyright to a bullshit meter that tells you which is worse:
WonderingWoman’s specious and false claims about race and genetics.
Or
“Tim” the chatbot’s phony adversarial comments about boycotts and BDS.
Who cares about a damn chatbot? I have repeatedly challenged that planned oppositional software “Tim”, here and elsewhere, about its faux libertarian philosophical programming. Whomever or whatever is behind the commenter “Tim” is…it is obvious that it ain’t high on human values.
All I was trying to do was point out to WW that it is nonsensical to focus on race and genetic ancestry, then try to use that—a la Critical Race Theory– to apply to Israel.
Israel has its problems, but no serious historian would claim “American-style racism” is one of them.
There…is that “dumbed down” enough for you?
There is absolutely nothing wrong in commenting on the actions of governments. Why would you fire someone for doing such a thing unless you are yourselves corrupt?
Rehire Nathan Robinson.
Not only what ‘WonderingWoman’ wrote is shocking, but it is a criminal joke that the world forgets that Palestinians themselves are also a Semitic people!
Co-signed
Co-signed
Co-signed
How often has the Guardian included a columnist or an editorial offering a counter analyses of the economy or a critique of their articles. If you look through the mirror of history progress always came from those who opposed the status quo. Aristotle, Spartacus, Copernicus, Galileo, Robespierre, Lenin, Chomsky, Assange, Snowden, and many others who spoke truth to power, so the power silenced them. Truth does not exist when it is bought through Ads. It is the Ad seller, self-interest that silences the truth and progress. Self-interest has brought us the present reality where education is just one step ahead of human extinction.
Most Mainstream Media journalists still consider themselves as the best informed, the most qualified “experts” regardless of the topic. If we thrash the ones that they thrash we become qualified to comment. Just imagine half of America thinks that Biden and the Democrats speak for the ‘left’.
Editors always criticize the entire world even though they speak one language, present one view, and have not travelled beyond their office. If they have travelled what they print is anecdotal observation. If they have travelled in Europe they marvel at the architecture of London, Paris, St Petersburg, Vienna, and Madrid, but they never stop to think that all of this was built on slavery and the death of others.
Like when people on the left try to silence people on the right by going after their advertisers.
I can easily list 40 cases that happen from the left for each 1 listed that happens on the right.
A free exchange of ideas is essential for us to find the truth. This free exchange should happen in the press (nobody should be fired for an opposing view). It should also happen on social media.
Yeah okay Tim,
Cool….let us see that list of:
“40 cases that happen from the left for each 1 listed that happens on the right.”
Try to not include examples of companies who pulled their ads from right-wing pundits who were cancelled because of sexual harassment.
Try to have empirical evidence and credible sources with references to back up every example.
Unless, as usual, you are straw manning your way through FAIR’s comment section….spreading fake news conjured up in far right echo chambers (which you do all the time)…
Lou Dobbs just got cancelled over on Fox Business News. Why? He and his producers were spreading baseless lies about a couple of corporations. Such libel, exposed Fox Business News, to legal liability under defamation protection laws.
You didn’t list one
Tim,
I knew you were full of shit.
To be clear, my position is that no such list exists, and the burden of providing the list is on you, since you were the one who FIRST brought it up by stating the following:
Tim said this ———> “I can easily list 40 cases that happen from the left for each 1 listed that happens on the right.”
Then I asked you for that list and all you did is duck and dodge like you always do.
Ha ha ha ….wow!
The burden is on the one who made the initial claim, and that is you home slice.
Again….I am also still waiting for your answer to how the Montgomery Bus Boycotts were “wrong” and not “good for our society”.
First, I said I could. Second, you never listed one.
I’ll list 40 if you list one. I don’t want to spend my day listing 160 if you list 4.
Tim,
REPEAT, my position is that…
THERE IS NO SUCH LIST. How am I to provide you or anyone with one example from a list that doesn’t exist?
Are you even a human being or are you some creepy chat bot with algorithmic dysphasia?
I’m willing to be convinced of your point, if only you (or your programmers) would provide actual evidence.
Since you’ve had three chances now and have not produced your “listy-list”, and since you have also dodged my question about the Montgomery Bus Boycotts, Occam’s Razor would remove to tell me that…
YOU ARE FULL OF SHIT
To Tim,
One way to (maybe) discern whether or not you are a chatbot; in the second-to-last sentence of my last post to you, the one that starts with “Occam’s Razor”, there is an unintentional grammar mistake. Do you “see” it?
If you cannot comprehend where the mistake appeared, from here on out, I’ll assume Tim is a chatbot.
Even though, you didn’t list one (too lazy I suppose). Here are 40 that are being boycotted by the left simply because they advertise on Fox:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/18a-iAQEdbEBiA7ok0tisYb5PiGJ8jk6vbi7XlK2YA2w/edit#gid=0
“Tim”,
Shut up chatbot.
“Tim”
That list you linked to is a caller campaign list, not a boycott. I guess even a calling campaign crosses the line with you eh? Asshole.
The “list” you provided is not a boycott. It is simply a Change.org list of advertisers phone numbers, along with a request for Change.org’s members to contact the advertisers and:
“Let them know why they should stop supporting a ‘news’ organization that pushes white nationalist rhetoric and conspiracies theories, and lowers the level of public discourse.”
You also have still not answered my question about the Montgomery Bus Boycotts….
If you’re too naive to know that these companies aren’t being asked nicely but are threatened, that is your problem.
Tim,
Okay good. So you agree that you have failed to produce a list of 40 leftist “boycotts” to every right wing nutter boycott. Outstanding!
And, I see you have STILL not answered my question about what it is with Boycotts that you think is “wrong”, and no good for ‘our’ society?
This is the kind of sociopathic rhetoric that you keep spewing, which makes me think you are a non-human entity.
Well? What was “wrong” and no good for society about the Montgomery Bus Boycotts?
Co-signed
Co-signed
Co-signed
Co-signed.
No free speech exceptions for anyone!
Co-signed.
Co-signed.
He made amends.
You’re copping an attitude that looks Zionist to me. What’s the agenda here?
Co-signed
Any one who, as the Guardian did, confounds anti-Zionism with antisemitism is co-opting a legitimate moral concern, discrimination against Jews, to advance a disgusting political agenda.
That alone is deplorable. Such an individual is also aiding and abetting genocide and crimes against humanity. And that’s unacceptable. Boycott the Guardian, just on those two grounds. Then there’s the matter of retaliation and censorship.
The Guardian is a private media company. On that basis alone, it should not be given trust or credibility to serve the public. But now, after this decidedly pro-genocide bias, it cannot be trusted to inform the public. It’s charter or business license or what ever writ allows it exist, must be revoked. The crimes against Palestine warrant eradicating this dreadful enterprise from polite society.
The Wiemar Republic led to the rise of Hitler because the Social Democrats canceled the left.
Even though they preferred the left, the angry rural folk who were the hardest hit by the economic downturn, had nowhere to turn but Hitler.
Please include me as a signer of the letter to The Guardian.
He should not have been fired. Stop with all this woke b.s. and respect the first amendment and this country.
Co-signed. Dump the Guardian.
Co-signed
However, the reality is that Mr Robinson’s Tweets implicitly suggested a Jewish/Zionist/Israeli lobby so powerful that they can influence US politics. The Tweets sadly appeared anti-semitic as they espoused the lie of the Jewish Conspiracy.
Lobbying is available to all parties and in the US the Mighty Dollar speaks volumes. It is the system that is at fault, not those who exploit it.
Cancel Culture is rife and is used without sanction against both the political Right and Left and again, that is the issue that needs addressing.
Mr Mullholland has stated that Robinson was not “fired” as he had no contract with The Guardian. As a journalist, Robinson surely understands the power of language and its ability to sway; “Illusory Truth” is at work here: repeat a falsehood often enough to become familiar and everyone will believe it. Mullholland has also stated that Robinson is more than welcome to submit work to the paper.
As the newspaper is a private enterprise, it has the right to use/employ whomsoever it wishes, or do the signatories of this letter believe in state intervention into private companies?
So, is Coral Ash Tim’s relief pitcher, come in to save the game from his moronic fumblings? I read her post and the word that immediately comes to mind is casuistry, a cynical attempt to gaslight what’s going on here. to cut out a tenuous middle space with a kind of smarmy logic that assumes away much more than it illuminates. in short, fake. we all know that Israel and the Israeli Lobby in the UK-US has an enormous and disproportionate say over what gets printed and said about Israel and its psychotic and murderous right-Zionist and fascist policies in Palestine. it’s not an anti semitic “trope” but rather a bald-faced statement of Western political and ideological reality in 2021. Not to mention the chilling effect of the right-Zionists’ stranglehold on US-UK public opinion, in what we as citizens can say about our own governments’ militarism and militaristic policies, in connection with Israel’s rank opportunism in advancing the interests of the US-UK-Israel weapons industry axis. A bit out of breath so I’ll stop.
Dude Bill,
I’m pretty sure “Tim”, is a chatbot.
How else to explain the inane, insane and inhumane drivel that plops out of its server farm?
No to capitalist censorship.
Co signing. Unequal treatment, anti-free speech, and blindered sensibilities are a fearsome troika.
Co – signed
How may one sign this letter?
Shame on The Guardian for censoring columnist Nathan Robinson. Recommence publishing him immediately!
To the serial FAIR b.s.-artist Tim,
You said boycotts are “wrong.” I’d like to know how the Montgomery Bus Boycotts were “wrong”, and not good for our society? I’ll wait.
I haven’t followed the story of Nathan Robinson closely because The Guardian lost my respect and my paying custom years ago. The Guardian may have “the respect and loyalty of millions of readers around the world” but in the UK it is viewed with a mixture of contempt and derision by many people on the left. Its new global audience has saved The Guardian because it was sliding into irrelevance because its loyal print readers were deserting it because they knew what sort of a business it is and what sort of people run it.
The Guardian is a dishonest newspaper. It publishes statements that it knows to be false, it doesn’t remove statements that are later found to be false and it doesn’t check statements before it publishes them. It claims to live up to the values of its former editor C.P. Scott which are summed up in his oft-quoted line “Comment is free, but facts are sacred” but at The Guardian comment is not free and facts are not sacred and fairness and integrity were similarly disposable. The Guardian doesn’t have any principles: it has interests and if anything that threatens its interests it will be whatever it feels is justified to protect them.
The Guardian was wrong to throw Nathan Robinson under the bus but people who know The Guardian well know that throwing people under buses is something that The Guardian does and know that it’s not the worst thing The Guardian has ever done, by 3342 miles.
The Guardian has been co-opted by British intelligence since the Edward Snowden leaked documents were published. At that time, MI6 (and other English law enforcement) raided The Guardian and literally made them physically destroy every hard drive or USB stick that had any of the information on them. Never mind that this information was already publicly available (that which Glenn Greenwald and Pierre Omidyar didn’t withhold from the public for no good reason, and which still isn’t obtainable), they were out to send a message.
The Guardian received that message loud and clear. From then on, they likely have in their employ MI6 cutouts or actual agents to whom stories are provided for censorship prior to publication.
Hardly surprising that they’d have an EIC who kowtows to right wing Israeli policies and politicians.
Co-signed.
The Guardian has long been nothing more than the guard dog of the Liberal status quo, and defender is Israeli apartheid…they unashamedly undermined Bernie in 2916 and were just relentless on Corbyn..serious Left wing thinkers and journalists need to think long and hard about writing for The Guardian thereby giving it Left wing credibility.
Based on the point 3 of the IHRA definition of antisemitism, his firing itself is almost certainly an antisemitic act. His firing implies that criticism of Israel amounts to an attack on all Jews, ie that all Jews are responsible for the actions of a group, Israel.
The issue tweeted about is aid to Israel, and Robinson’s suggestion that all aid to Israel has to be military. The 38 billion package of aid to Israel authorized by Obama during his last days in office and implemented by Trump (who claimed the “credit” for it) was accompanied by the condition that ALL of it be spent on US military equipment.
The Guardian (the Graund) has been hopeless ever since it changed ownership more than half a decade ago. It tilts with the winds of power consistently. It was spineless in its actions regarding Julian Assange, fires good columnists and keeps toadies like Luke Harding aboard and leaves up patently false information—such as Harding’s assertion that Paul Manafort met with Julian Assange in the Ecuadorean Embassy—not once, but three times. Utter balderdash, but there it remains.
n(Aaron Maté took Harding down several notches in a classic interview which can still be seen on YouTube.)
No, count the Graund as being one more slippery and unaccountable publication for the Establishment.Their glory days are no more. They stand (vacuously) on hollow principle.
It’s important not to equate criticism of Israel with antisemitism; or any criticism of policy toward Israel as an attack on Jews, or any defense of Palestine as anti-Israel.
It behooves me to see the injustice, that I continue to witness, which blindly favors Israel. Israel in recent years has carved a policy that defends and protects it against criticism. I do not condone antisemitism. it is when the expression of antisemitism is used to cover up and defend unjust policy by Israel, that I object to. No wonder there are so many courageous, humanitarian Jews who cringe at issues that are done “IN THEIR NAME’, These Jewish professors, writers, philosophers, rabbis, journalists and organizations like JVP and others are to be admired.
Stop all funding to genocidal terror state Israel.
No Shit Sherlock. Criticizing the US for sending arms to anyone given the plethora of wars we already have going in the world should be anyone’s stated opinion unless your newspaper is owned by Israeli forces. Then I can understand.
Israeli partisans apparently scrutinize how EVERY editor working in major US media permits reporters and editorial writers to cover Israel – and lets editors know
what can be said @ Israel and what is not permitted. A recent example: in Jan 2021, President Biden appointed to the staff of the National Security Council a cyber security expert, whose family foundation had made a $500 million dollar gift to AIPAC. That’s half a billion dollars, to the lobby arm of a foreign country. As if they are all edited from Israel, NO major US print media has reported this gift. The NYT and the WaPo reported the appointment but made no mention of the gift to AIPAC. As far as I can tell, the Asssociated Press did not even report the appointment to its subscribers. You can check these facts by googling Anne Neuberger.