“I demand an immediate retraction & apology from the @Jerusalem_Post,” Hannity tweeted Friday evening. “Israel has no greater friend, ally and supporter in the U.S. than me. I have a record of unwavering and passionate support for the state of Israel for 33 years on radio and 25 years on TV.”Hannity mentioned what he described as friendly relations with Israeli Prime Ministers Benjamin Netanyahu, Ehud Barak, and the late Shimon Peres, which he misspelled Perez.
I've noted before the frequent usage of pro-Israel attitudes as an attempted "get-out-of-antisemitism-free card", but it seems time we give it a more formal name.
A related practice, it seems, is "the Livingstone Formulation", where one dismisses accusations of antisemitism on the grounds that those accusations actually stem from naught but a desire to silence "criticism of Israel". I've dubbed "the full Livingstone" as those cases where this dismissal is made even when the conduct that is accused of being antisemitic has nothing to do with Israel (as it was not in Livingstone's original case).
So, from that, I'd suggest that where someone dismisses an allegation of antisemitism by noting they are a "strong supporter of Israel", we dub that a "reverse Livingstone." And when, as here, the allegation of antisemitism has nothing to do with one's views on Israel, then that would be a "reverse full Livingstone", or, perhaps, the "Hannity".
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