The Shortest way with F. R. Mackenzie

Sir: One wonders how The Spectator saw fit to give a prize to the story 'The Shortest way with Trespassers' July 17.

The obscure and turgid wording conceals a host of delusions popular amongst pro-Arabs. The dispossession of Arab land by Israelis — when mostly Arabs fled

their own accord, to be replaced .1:15e Jews driven from Arab countries. The refugees living jobless in scnolor — a squalor encouraged by Arabs for political purposes yet actively and successfully combatted by Israelis in the territories occupied since 1967. With the same one-sidedness, the author castigates the press as sycophantically approving of Israel as 'the highest bidder,' when Israel in fact does not spend a tithe of the millions of pounds spent by the Arabs on propaganda.

One could go on a long time in similar vein, although hardly as long as the author — the reason perhaps that he won his prize. Is it not, however, sad that a responsible journal should descend to such a lavatorial level in the socalled cause of ' literature. 'The Arab case is worthy of something better. "

Stephen McAdden\ House of Commons, London, S.W.1.

Sir; Now 'tis the season when the Gales of Calumnie do .blow upon the House of Jewrie. A Gael of Krack'd Wit cloth in sarcastick vein attack their sovran liege Queene. Pretending to be a learned Jewe he doth impute to her sovran Majestie deeds that ne'er were done, and doctrines that ne'er were subscribed unto. In other places the Grub Street hacks do howl that the Holie Citie of lerosolyme has returned unto the Jewes.

Full many a year did the sons of Mohomet rule in lerasolyme where they tore down the synagogues, and hurled turds against the Wall of the Gnashynge of the Teeth. Then did those blasphemous scribblers, whose abode is nigh unto the Fleet Prison, give no tongue.

Now that the Israelitish sway is once more established o'er the Holie Citie, all the fanes cf religions, both true and false, are Open to all believers, and the doctrine of cujus regi oejus religio is enforced no more. Even the Paschal ceremonie, which in olden

tyme made the streets of the Frankish lands incarnadine with Hebrewe blood, is still allowed. The grace of -the Israelitish overlordship finds no favour in the scabrous quills, who see much ,tnonie in sensatioun and less work in dishonest imaginatioun than in honest investigatioun.

The ignorant mob now howles fbr a concourse of All Natiouns to rule o'er lerosolyme, failing to realise that this would include the Muscovite Anti-Christ, Gallic miscreants, and Romish believers in the damnable doctrine of transubstantiation, soon to be joined by the Golden Hordes of Mao from far Cathay. As they cut each others throats for masterie, all order would break down and Tolut Battu would reign in the Citie.

So let vile Calumnie cease, and all the believers who wish to pray in honestie do so under the continuing Pax Judaica.

D. M. Jacobs 22a Thurloe Street, London, SW7.

Sir: It was with a mixture of sadness, boredom and pity that I noted that you had decided to award a prize to a meretricious and seemingly endless essay entitled 'The Shortest Way with Trespassers.'

Apart from its turgid verbosity, this piece of unnecessarily savage anti-Israel propaganda was quite uncalled for. Indeed, it seemed completely out of place in a journal whose enlightened traditions have only recently been blurred by an absurdly prejudiced attitude towards Britain's proposed entry into the Common Market. May we now look forward to less Grub-Street effusiveness, masquerading as literature? Obscurantist students of Left-Wing folklore already supply more than enough medicine through the courtesy of Tribune, the New Statesman, and selected BBC programmes. Could not the Spectator offer its readers therapy of a higher order? John Crorst House of Commons, London, SW1.

Dear Aunty Albion: Aunty! Oh Aunty! What are you about? You know we often chided you for being so generous, an easy lie for any greasy wanderer from across 'Our Stream.'

Now we hear that you are think

ing of joining them! We just can't understand it. Look dearest Aunty please think, yes stop and think. Remember how the family got rich, remember how we had the cash tills jingling all round the world?

How gold was thy coast oh Africa! Our ships laden with gleaming ebony, we stuffed the holds! By Wilberforce we did; two or three million of them.

How brave was our 'New World!' Hollywood, they never knew the half; Westerns? OUR FAMILY showed them. Three million Indians bit the dust, or was it more? Wide open spaces the family wanted, and by God we got them. That's what the Frogs and Krauts never really had, them wide open' spaces, with all the natives just cleared away; it was just out of this world.

As for the bad lads of the family, well they did well for themselves Down Under, got the old Afos on the hop, yes a good clearing job there. Hardly a native in sight in God knows how many million square miles! Remember the stuff we took out of India? It was fabulous. We didn't have enough ships to get the loot out fast enough. Yes the ' FAMILY ' did it, and did it all alone, with no itchy palmed merchant bankers from Jerusalem lousing up the pitch. So Aunty dear think of OUR FAMILY and all we have done in the past to get the cash flowing. Return please to thy Capital and bide alone.

Your loving nephew MA CM/CKLE Sir: Whilst it is impossible to judge the quality of the other entries for the Spectator New Writing Prizewinner 1971, one must presumably assume that your choice was dictated by a proper regard for the excellence of the writing and your well-known insistence on the highest objective standards as regards subject matter. Heaven, and the Editor alone know what the others were about, and just what it was that they lacked that made Mr Mackenzie's epistle so attractive. Perhaps a short analysis of his subject matter might give us a clue.

As this week's contribution to the search for peace in the Middle East, Mr Mackenzie has set out the following propositions either directly or by implication. The reference are to the paragraphs in Mr Mackenzie's epistle: I. (pare 2) British Journalists who propound the Arab Cause are deprived of their jobs at the insistence of the Israeli Government.

2. (pare 3) Arabs at present living under the control of Israel live in squalor and in hovels. 3. Cruelty is enjoined by the Jewish religion as a whole.

4. (para 11) The Israeli authorities practise slavery (helotry). 5. (pare 11) The Israeli authorities practise torture, flogging and other forms of corporal punishment, as also castration, removal of finger-nails, eyes, ears, etc etc. . .

6. (para 13) Independent evidence disproving these allegations is dismissed by Mr Mackenzie as follows. Insofar as independent witnesses do testify that these allegations are false, they are induced to do so by bribery.

7. (para 14) Israelis are racialists.

8. The Israeli authorities present ly practise genocide, and devoutly wish to practise more in the future.

9. The British Press composed of ' hacks ' insofar as it espouses the Israeli case at all, is paid to do so by the Israeli government. (Observer and Guardian please copy.) 10. (pare 24) The British clergy have been similarly suborned and bribed.

11. (pare 31) The Israeli authorities are planning a pre-emptive strike and nuclear war.

This, then, constitutes the bulk of this excellently written excreta. Mr Mackenzie's experience as described in his short curriculum vitae in 'Aspects of Propaganda ' is well attested in this sample of his work. Unfortunately for him, and fortunately for us, it is hardly likely to find its proper scope in his present job preparing news' summaries. No doubt after this week's effort, the BBC will be congratulating themselves, and dessrvedly so, in having found a properly constructed niche for his talents.

This,, however, is not the point.

Mr Mackenzie may be assailed as a liar, which objectively he is, or pitied as a man demented — (not even the most fanatical Arab nationalist could, whilst still claiming sanity, read this sort of diatribe without at least some degree of embarrassment), or dismissed as the very sort of hack he so ably describes for holding these views, but he is at least entitled to hold them, he makes no secret of them. The fact that everyone, be he Jew or Arab will agree with the expression of such views and the perversion of facts on which they are based, makes the genuine search for settlement that much harder to achieve, is immaterial in his case. It is not his job to seek it. (With this much hate in him, how could he?) But it is yours, or it is supposed

to be. You do have responsibility — at any rate to your readers, all of whom may not be equally wel1‘. informed on these issues. How simple, and at the same time deceitful to present an essay containing monstrous allegations, with no right of reply, and ostensibly because it is well written (and it is well written). How delightful that there are still those who can present material which au fond is a combination of the bilge of Der Sturme, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, and Professor Kichko's Judaism Without Embellishment, all beautifully written as though by some resurrected Dean Swift. The writing does deserve a prize. So do you.

For deceit. Because to permit views of this nature to reach your readers, under the guise of a journalistic talent competition without a word of comment to redress the balance, is deceit. If those are your views, you have ample editorial space in which to make them clear, and we shall all then know where you stand.

Meanwhile, and I write as a reader of your Inagazine for more than twenty years, if these views are taken to have your approval and are an example of your objectivity, then not only are you presently unfit to sit in judgment on a whole nation, but you are equally incompetent to judge my dog.

F. Barshah 40 James Street, Wigmore Street, London, WI.