Son of a bitch, if one doesn’t know American (en français: fils de pute, ordure, salopard…). It is banal and commonplace to call George Galloway an a-hole—the man is utterly despicable and beneath contempt, and has been so forever—but what he did last night at Oxford Univeristy—storming out of a public debate when he learned that one of the participants was an Israeli—was on another level of despicability altogether (see here and here for details, and do watch the video). A couple of comments. What Galloway—an MP in the House of Commons, pour mémoire—did would be inconceivable for a deputy in the French National Assembly, whether on the hard left or extreme right. If a French elected representative behaved in such a way to an Israeli—or to someone of any nationality and on the sole basis of that person’s nationality—, there would be a public firestorm and the elected representative would be formally sanctioned. Secondly, it is inconceivable that Galloway would have acted toward the debate participant if the latter had been anything other than Israeli. This rather strongly suggests that George Galloway is an anti-Semite, pure and simple. Period.
How an MP can get away with such behavior in Britain—despite the condemnations—but not in France is an interesting question, that I will perhaps attempt to address at some point. In storming out of the Oxford debate, Galloway invoked his support of the BDS campaign. I have much to say about BDS—which I do not support, needless to say—and that I will come back to soon.
the same George Galloway who said people must not be allowed to walk out on Ahmadinejad’s holocaust denying speeches: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sAh_N5KDKOo
Galloway really is a piece of work and always has been.
I think he may have slightly overplayed his hand in terms of how he treated this young man. He’s gotten more push back on this in the British press than anything I can remember.
Nevertheless, I don’t believe he can be sanctioned because the political party he represents consists mainly of George Galloway and the area he represents is, apparently, virulently anti-British. From what I am told, this is the kind of thing that will play extremely well in his constituency where they don’t like the Jews or the English or the institutions of the English such as Oxford University.
Just the latest stage in the ‘Arabization’ of Galloway’s public persona (with due apologies to the many Arabs I know who might find the idea offensive). For quite a while now he’s has been speaking (or yelling) with a definite Arab twang at events like the Quds Day rallies, dropping Arabic vocab in his talks like-it-ain’t-no-thang (despite not understanding the language), referring to Baghdad and Jerusalem as ‘your beautiful [Arab] daughters’, and championing Bashar al-Asad as the ‘last Arab leader’ – among much else.