New Torygraph owners demand fealty to Israel from staff

The Zionist new owners of the Telegraph — already a hard-right, pro-Israel rag — have made support for Israel compulsory among its staff. Despite claiming ‘free speech’ as a core value, support for Israel is also “core” and non-negotiable — and second on its list of priorities.

Germany’s Axel Springer media is taking over the paper after the Labour government of ‘Zionist without qualification’ Keir Starmer approved the buy-out. Group boss Mathias Döpfner has told staff, including journalists, that the values of the group’s founders are:

1. …freedom, freedom of expression, the rule of law, and democracy.
2. …the right of Israel to exist and oppos[ing] all forms of antisemitism.
3. …advocat[ing] the transatlantic alliance between the United States and Europe.

For good measure, Döpfner made clear that he expects his writers to toe this partisan line completely, telling them that there is “no such thing as neutral journalism”. He expects the Telegraph’s ‘journalism’ to be “pluralistic and surprising, fair, and fact-based” — but clearly it must always be pro-Israel.

The Telegraph rejects both discrimination and Palestinians

A journalist at the rag told Owen Johns that:

To be firmly told by our new parent company-to-be’s CEO that the second most important guiding principle is affirming the right of a country committing genocide and ethnic cleansing is more than a little concerning. It also raises the question of how any reporting from the paper can be considered factual if that is our core principle.

While the paper’s principle list says it “rejects” “all forms of discrimination”, this is not compatible with support for an apartheid ethno-supremacist state still attacking, and stealing land from, its neighbours as well as committing genocide against the Palestinian people that it openly wants gone. The list also says it rejects “political and religious extremism”, but that is not compatible with the ethno-fascism of an occupation that has just passed a death penalty law that only applies to Palestinians and routinely rapes and tortures the thousands of civilians it holds in indefinite detention.

Rather, as Jones notes:

Instead, “oppose all forms of antisemitism” is fused directly with “support the right of Israel to exist.” That conflation matters. Because we know that defenders of Israel have repeatedly blurred the line between antisemitism and opposition to the actions of the Israeli state.

The group’s late founder made explicitly clear how he expects his companies — and indeed European society as a whole – to apply this ‘support’ for Israel. Axel Springer — in a quote still featured on the corporation’s website — said that Israel is “not just any state” and that:

It is the task of our generation to stand firmly by Israel’s side, even if this causes difficulties for our policies elsewhere… [Israel] does not need encouragement, but advocacy… [this is] a German duty.

So committed was Springer to the cause of the ethno-state that his company still boasts, on the same page, that if it wouldn’t have had an adverse impact on sales, he would have “print[ed] his papers in Hebrew”. In case the point isn’t clear enough, it then adds:

At the end of the 1960s, a research institute discovered that there was one single topic on which Axel Springer’s newspapers all took the same stance – namely Israel. Axel Springer dealt confidently with such accusations: “Does anyone want to turn that into an accusation? That’s something I carry with great composure.”

His successor Döpfner, clearly cut from the same cloth, told employees at the group’s German companies that anyone who had an issue with the company flying the Israeli flag should “look for a new job”. But even that was too wishy-washy. Döpfner later said that his political worldview was:

Zionism über alles

which means, “Zionism above everything”.

‘Palestinian’ is ‘antisemitism’

He also described support for Palestine and opposition to Israel’s Gaza genocide as “an almost global wave of antisemitism”, and condemned TikTok’s users for posting millions of comments supporting the Palestinians but only a few tens of thousands “standing by Israel”. “Free Palestine”, said Israeli Presidential Medal of Honor recipient Döpfner, equated to “pro-Hamas”. Döpfner has also amplified false atrocity propaganda about the events of 7 October 2023, including the long-debunked ‘beheaded babies’ lie.

His reference to TikTok is significant. When the US Israel lobby realised that TikTok’s mostly young user base was using the platform to share information about Israel’s genocide and crimes against humanity, its first reaction was to have the US government ban it.

However, it then solved the issue by the ultra-Zionist billionaire Ellison family buying its operations outside China — along with US news outlet CBS. No more pro-Palestinian ‘problem’ in either of them. The purchase of the Telegraph was not necessary to quell any pro-Palestinian output — there was none. But it forms part of the lobby’s push for control of UK ‘mainstream’ media and this country’s political narrative.

Far-right media moves further right

It also bodes ill for freedom of speech in the UK. Keir Starmer is already waging war on pro-Palestinian speech, journalism and activism, but the Springer purchase of the Telegraph will only push that even further. German tabloid Bild, one of the company’s main media outlets, has — as Al Jazeera reported — relentlessly demonised anti-genocide demonstrators as “antisemites”, “mobs” and “Israel-haters”, both in Germany and in the US. Germany’s state enforcers treat peaceful anti-genocide protesters even more brutally and dishonestly than in the US and UK.

For the Telegraph, the buy-out means “business as usual, but even more intensely”. For what survives of free speech and democracy in the UK it is a very bad sign indeed.

Featured image via the Canary