Simon Schama frothed and ranted against Jeremy Corbyn this morning, while Kim Hill maintained a silence closely resembling collusion and agreement.
RNZ National, Saturday 6 July 2019, 9:10 a.m.
The first part of this interview by Kim Hill goes as you would expect it to: Simon Schama is a smooth talker, and formidably well informed about art. He sports an impressive résumé, and he loves telling a good story. One of the stories he tells is of meeting Henry Kissinger, who when Schama arrived at his apartment was preoccupied with feeding his dog. "I tried my best not to like him," Schama remembers fondly to Kim Hill, but he was charmed by the great man. "Kissinger is not all bad."
That endorsement of a notorious war criminal is a brief hint of the moral vacuum at the heart of this glib and superficially clever chatterbox. At one point he criticizes President Trump—"stupid", he sniffs contemptuously—for moving the U.S. Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem; this was wrong, Schama claimed, because it "undermined even further the Palestinian Authority." Schama doesn't care a jot for the people of the Occupied Territories; a ferocious supporter of the Israeli state, he is merely concerned about the influence of the collaborationist P.A. After that, he slips smoothly into equating opposition to Israel with being anti-Jewish. The attack on Corbyn, equally dishonest, flows naturally from that.
Following are selected highlights, or lowlights, of the interview, starting with his arch and pretentious comments about art and climaxing with that mad blitzkrieg against the leader of the British Labour Party….
KIM HILL: Um, "the besetting sin of contemporary art," you have said, "is its callow, orgiastic narcissism."
SIMON SCHAMA: I don't know about "narcissism." I wouldn't defend that over-fearfully.
KIM HILL: You were involved in the Paris protests in 1968! You have described yourself in those days as "a barbarically feckless youth, stoned on self-righteousness."
……….
SIMON SCHAMA: I reviewed Henry Kissinger's book Diplomacy. I didn't think it was as good as it could have been. He rang me and invited me to his apartment to talk about it. I was thinking of the bomber of Cambodia, and I tried my best not to like him. But when he answered the door, he was feeding his dog. Kissinger is not all bad. ….
SIMON SCHAMA: The Russians and the North Koreans have got Trump to do exactly what they want…. By and large since 1945, America's commitment to its alliances has actually kept the peace. But Trump doesn't know anything about diplomacy. …dismantling the hard-won Iran Nuclear Deal…. moving the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem has undermined even further the Palestinian Authority. …
KIM HILL: Do you think there is anything to these allegations of antisemitism against Jeremy Corbyn?
SIMON SCHAMA: There are very, very good people in the Labour Party, like Tom Watson. Jeremy Corbyn has been extraordinarily culpable in not paying attention to the POISON coursing through the veins of the Labour Party. … Young MPs like Luciana Berger have been subjected to DEATH THREATS! … I don't think he wants to drive Jews into concentration camps, I'm sure he doesn't. … Criticism of Israel morphs into anti-Semitism. …. He's dug his heels in SO MUCH. I don't know quite what we call it, but it amounts to vicious, malignant intransigence. … The Protocols of Zion, that terrible forgery, has never had so many readers—-
KIM HILL: Seriously?
SIMON SCHAMA: Yeah. On the Web.
KIM HILL: Oh, the Web is making us STUPID, and believers in mad conspiracy theories….
… ad nauseam.
After this abortion, I sent Kim Hill the following email, which she read out on air just after the 10 o'clock news….
Dear Kim,Simon Schama, admirer of Kissinger, spouter of lies against CorbynSimon Schama's extraordinary partisan broadside against Jeremy Corbyn, full of invective but devoid of evidence, was one of the ugliest few minutes of radio, on any station, this year. It's a pity you didn't ask him to back up his wild accusation that Corbyn is guilty of "vicious, malignant intransigence." It would have been almost as interesting, perhaps, as listening to him explain how he came under the thrall of Henry Kissinger.Yours in contempt for smooth and sinister liars,Morrissey Breen (Northcote Point)
