More than £767,000 of public money from the Arts Council has gone to the London Review of Books – a publication “virulently hostile” to Israel and Zionism, according to a new report by the media monitoring body, Just Journalism.

The literary journal received its grants from the council – which is funded by the Government and the National Lottery – over a 30-year period, JJ says.

Reviewing the London Review of Books’s coverage of Israel since 2000, Just Journalism says it has “consistently portrayed Israel as a bloodthirsty and genocidal regime out of all proportion to reality, while sympathetic portraits abounded of groups designated as terrorist organisations by the British government such as Hamas and Hezbollah

“While the Palestinian narrative was fully represented, Israel’s narrative on its legitimate security concerns, Arab rejectionism and terrorism was near absent.”

The LRB has been edited since 1992 by Mary-Kay Wilmers, herself Jewish, who has admitted being “unambiguously hostile” to Israel.

Since 2000, the journal has received more than £188,000 from the Arts Council to pay contributors.

http://www.thejc.com/news/uk-news/41450/report-public-money-goes-anti-israel-journal