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The following essay was written by Sharon Klaff , a founding member of pro-Israel activist group Campaign4Truth. (A shortened version of this appeared in The JC)
The Global March on Jerusalem demonstration took place last Friday evening opposite the Israeli Embassy in London. About 15-20 Israelsupporters turned up, the usual stalwarts who put themselves on the line to face a barrage of abuse from the bully boys of the PSC. It is hardly something Jewish organisations across the world would not have in their diaries, so it was a surprise to hear that the Zionist Federation had an urgent engagement in Hungary – and goodness knows what happened to all the other pundits who put themselves about.
So there we were, without a megaphone and a few of our Christian friends who had at least brought some flags, placards and banners. One little girl on her way home from school asked her mother to stop by to share with us her hurt at the vile bigotry shooting over from across the barriers, as though they were on the front line launching rockets into Sderot or Be’ersheva. She was sobbing as she bore witness to this hatred, whilst the child of a PSC supporter was thrust onto their podium, chanting venomous slogans over a huge megaphone, the woman beside her, presumably her mother, looking very pleased at this act of child abuse.
They arrived in their hundreds with their usual attire, wearing their tourist scarves from Jerusalem, hoisting flags showing all of Israel asPalestine - Arab Palestine, a land free of Jews according to the new Hamas-Fatah alliance leader Mahmoud Abbas. Tribal chants “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” cut through any pretence of peaceful desires. They vaunted their latest slogan accusing Israel of making Jerusalem Jewish, using the Nazi term Judaising, as though the Jews have no connection to the City of David, as though their mosque is not built atop the Jewish Temple, as though they were the historical heirs to Jerusalem (a notion they only cottoned on to after the Arab uprising in 1987), as though their Western supporters never did RE at school learning about Jerusalem as the capital city of the Jews.
This annual assault takes place each year around Pesach, time of year when we recount at the Seder table how the Jewish nation crossed the desert out of slavery to freedom; when we read how in each generation our enemies will return in an attempt to destroy us; when we learn to ask questions. For two thousand years we prayed as strangers in foreign lands to meet “Next Year in Jerusalem”, our capital city denied us by our enemies. In her song “Jerusalem of Gold” (1967) Naomi Shemer celebrates every Jewish person’s yearning for Jerusalem and its return to the Jewish people as its capital city. Now they demand it as their own, stealing our history for themselves.
The enemy of this generation had amassed across the barrier, hurling abuse, calling for our demise, using the heil Hitler salute, conversely accusing us of being Nazis, an insult they know digs deep into the consciousness of all Jews. In each generation those who will our demise operate in a different way, use different weapons, arrive in a different guise; yet they are the same. We need to continue to ask questions, to listen and to bear witness so that never again means exactly that – NEVER AGAIN.
As it was Shabbat we decided to light Shabbat candles and say some prayers. It was a poignant moment, the symbol of light over dark, eternal love over hatred – two women with two small candles; light and hope for a future standing proud against the anger and hatred.
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- Brainwashing children to hate Israel: The Palestine Solidarity Campaign way (cifwatch.com)
- Faces of the IDF & faces of stereotypes: Countering the Guardian’s crude caricature of Israelis (cifwatch.com)
- CiF gives platform to Sarah Colborne to promote terrorist-organized ‘Global March to Jerusalem’ (cifwatch.com)
- Fact Sheet: Global March to Jerusalem (GMJ), March 30, 2012 (cifwatch.com)
- The Global March to Jerusalem – another terrorist provocation on Israel’s borders (cifwatch.com)
Like this:
H/T Jeremy
It’s impossible to read the following story, as reported by Sky News, without recalling the Guardian’s advocacy on behalf of Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorist Khader Adnan, whose administrative detention by Israeli authorities made him a cause celeb among the anti-Israel ‘journavist’ community.
The Guardian published five separate sympathetic pieces about Adnan (including a risible CiF essay by his wife who characterized the spokesperson for a group responsible for terror attacks which murdered hundreds of Israelis as “selfless”) who they comically referred to as a Palestinian “baker”.
Likely never to grace the pages of the Guardian, nor interest their Israel correspondent Harriet Sherwood, is the story of two Palestinian journalists arrested by the PA for criticizing Palestinian leadership.
Per Sky News:
Tarek Khamis, who works for a West Bank news agency, was detained by Palestinian security forces in Ramallah after he used the social networking site to condemn the arrest of another local journalist and blogger.
Esmat Abdel Khalik is being held in solitary confinement after she accused Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas of being a “traitor” on her Facebook page.
A spokesman for the Palestinian Authority said Ms Abdel Khalik was being held for “extending her tongue” against the elected Palestinian leadership.
In a sign of a deliberate crackdown against local reporters, a third Palestinian journalist was arrested last week after writing an article alleging corruption in the Palestinian diplomatic mission in France.
Youssef al Sahyeb has been charged with slander and defamation after a complaint lodged by the Palestinian foreign minister Riad Malki. The reporter was released on $7000 (£4,400) bail after protests by fellow journalists in the West Bank.
The Arabic Network for Human Rightshas accused the Palestinian Authority of “assaulting the freedom of expression in the Palestinian territories”.
“Journalists are entitled to express their opinions without fear of being imprisoned and harassed,” the organisation said in a statement.
The Palestinian Authority has denied claims that it has set up a special unit to monitor blogs and social network postings.
Press freedom is meant to be protected under Palestinian law but the legislation allows for journalists to be prosecuted for activities which threaten “Palestinian unity or values”.
If you go to the Palestinian Territories page of the Guardian there’s no report on this flagrant assault on freedom of the press in PA.
Do I even have to ask what kind of coverage the Guardian would provide if Israel arrested Ha’aretz (or +972) journalists for criticizing Prime Minister Netanyahu?
Of course, such a scenario is inconceivable, as journalists here routinely engage in the most scurrilous critiques of Israeli leaders with complete impunity.
Moreover, those on the left who passionately advocate for the creation of a Palestinian state strangely never seem bothered by such stories – political phenomena in the PA which demonstrates their decidedly illiberal political culture.
Can any true progressive sincerely argue at this point that the new nation of “Palestine” will be even marginally democratic, pluralistic, or tolerant?
UPDATE, April 4. Per Challah Hu Akbar:
On Thursday, Abdel Khalik’s detention was extended for 15 days and she was put into solitary confinement. Ma’an News Agency now reports that, according to a member of the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate, Khaleq was transferred, on Tuesday, to a hospital after her health deteriorated.
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- Harriet Sherwood celebrates ‘Int’l Women’s Day’ by championing the cause of Islamic Jihad terrorist (cifwatch.com)
- Fatah arrests 8 Hamas members. Israel arrests 1. Which do you think Harriet Sherwood reported? (cifwatch.com)
- The Guardian’s Harriet Sherwood Gets 2012 Off to a Shoddy Start (cifwatch.com)
- Harriet Sherwood again takes up the cause of innocent Palestinian “baker”, Khader Adnan (cifwatch.com)
- Harriet Sherwood feels Islamic Jihad terrorist’s pain (cifwatch.com)
- Video of Harriet Sherwood’s Palestinian “Baker”, Khader Adnan, calling for suicide bombing (cifwatch.com)
- Propaganda by wife of Islamic Jihad terrorist, Khadr Adnan: Courtesy of the Guardian (cifwatch.com)
- What Peter Beinart won’t report: PA TV thanks Palestinian children for fertilizing land with blood (cifwatch.com)
On Jan. 9, the Palestinian Times reported that Fatah arrested 8 Hamas members, including a journalist, in the West Bank over several days. The report also alleged that Fatah arbitrarily extended the detention of other Hamas members, and of firing a teacher who is a member of the group.
Fatah arresting Hamas members in the West Bank
On Jan. 19th, Israel arrested one Hamas member Aziz Dweik , on suspicion of involvement with terrorist activity.
On Jan. 20th, Harriet Sherwood rushed to advocate on behalf of the Hamas terrorist arrested by Israel, posting a piece titled “Israeli jails Palestinian parliament speaker without trial“. However, further in the article, even Sherwood acknowledges that Dweik is a Parliament speaker in name only, as the Palestinian Legislative Council has not sat since the summer of 2007, when Hamas – which had won elections the previous year – took control of Gaza in a bloody battle with Fatah.
The Guardian also posted a video on Jan. 20 championing the cause of the Hamas speaker of the non-existent Parliament.
Yet, strangely absent from the Guardian’s Israel, Palestinian Territories, or Gaza pages are any mention whatsoever of Fatah’s arrest of eight Hamas members. Nor mentioned, in service of providing background to Sherwood’s story, was the fact that in 2008 PA security forces aligned with Abbas arrested hundreds of Hamas members and supporters and, further, in 2009, nearly all Hamas-controlled municipal officials were replaced by Fatah officials.
Context similarly missing from Sherwood’s report is the fact that Hamas arrested thousands of Fatah loyalists in Gaza in 2010 alone, including PA legislators. And, a report in the Palestinian Press as recently as Dec. 30, 2o11 noted that such arrests of Fatah members continued through 2011.
Sherwood characterized the arrest of Dweik as an effort by Israel “to undermine democratic institutions in Palestine”, and hinder reconciliation between the two groups.
Yet, the Palestinians, by any measure, have failed miserably on their own at establishing anything resembling genuinely democratic institutions, as President Mahmoud Abbas is currently serving the seventh year of a four year term, and, per Freedom House, the PA is listed as “not free“.
“In the Palestinian Authority administered territories, political rights rating declined from 5 to 6 [7 is the worst score] due to the expiration of President Mahmoud Abbas four-year term in January 2009, the ongoing lack of a functioning elected legislature, and an edict allowing the removal of elected municipal governments in the West Bank.”
So, while the arrest of one Hamas member by Israel elicits a storm of criticism by the Guardian, scores of arrests by Fatah of Hamas officials, and Hamas members by Fatah officials, is evidently considered insignificant to contextualizing the lack of a functioning democracy in the Palestinian controlled territories.
More broadly, both this latest report, and Sherwood’s continuing reports from the region, seem to possess a unique capacity to blame Israel in some manner for every conceivable Palestinian failure, while similarly denying Palestinians basic moral agency (the definition of liberal racism) – a journalistic dynamic which prevents honest reporting on the I-P Conflict.
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- Question to Harriet Sherwood: How are Gazans living in sovereign Palestinian state still “refugees”? (cifwatch.com)
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- Hamas, Harriet Sherwood and the Guardian Left’s continuing antisemitic sins of omission (cifwatch.com)
- The Guardian’s Harriet Sherwood Gets 2012 Off to a Shoddy Start (cifwatch.com)
The Guardian published two stories (here and here) on comments by former U.S. Congressman, and Presidential candidate, Newt Gingrich, which questioned the historic existence of a Palestinian national identity.
While Gingrich’s suggestion that there currently is no Palestinian people is incorrect - as a sense of collective or national identity is, by definition, determined by those within a group who identify as such – he was correct that historically there wasn’t a distinct Palestinian identity, certainly not under the Ottoman Turkish Empire which ruled the region from 1517 to 1917.
Indeed, the idea that Palestinians form a distinct national identity is quite recent – typically understood to be a phenomenon of the aftermath of the Six Day War in 1967, when Israel assumed control of the previously Egyptian and Jordanian controlled territory in the West Bank and Gaza.
However, even Gingrich later clarified that he supports a two state solution,
In fact, roughly 125 of the 193 UN member states already officially recognize the non-existent state of Palestine.
Surprising? Perhaps.
But, the number of nations which recognize a state which hasn’t yet been admitted to the UN as a member isn’t nearly as interesting as the number of states which still don’t recognize the State of Israel. Over 62 years after the UN accepted Israel as a member state , there are still 36 nations which don’t recognize Israel and have no diplomatic relations with the state, 30 of which are Muslim majority countries.
Nations (in green) which still don't recognize the Jewish State
Indeed, the much flaunted 2002 Arab Peace Initiative included the promise of recognizing Israel (establishing normal relations) if it withdrawals to pre-June 1967 borders – including evacuating from the Golan Heights.
That more than six decades after her birth, Israel is being “offered” recognition suggests a truly surreal political dynamic, one adeptly characterized by Israel’s former Ambassador to the UN, Abba Eban.
Writing in the New York Times, in 1981, Eban argued:
Nobody does Israel any service by proclaiming its ‘right to exist.’
Israel’s right to exist, like that of the United States, Saudi Arabia and 152 other states, is axiomatic and unreserved. Israel’s legitimacy is not suspended in midair awaiting acknowledgement….
There is certainly no other state, big or small, young or old, that would consider mere recognition of its ‘right to exist’ a favor, or a negotiable concession.”
Far more noxious than the impolitic remarks of the former U.S. Congressman about Palestinian identity is that the Muslim world (including the “moderate” Palestinian leaders such Mahmoud Abbas), by and large, still refuses to accept the moral and legal rights of the world’s only Jewish state.
Moreover – and more pertinent to the mission of this blog – as ‘Comment is Free’ continually licenses commentary by those similarly opposed to the the existence of Israel within any borders, the Guardian lacks even a modicum of moral authority on the issue of denying Palestinians a right to national self-determination.
While Israel certainly doesn’t require the Guardian’s approval or legitimization of their right to exist – and, certainly, this Israeli will not grant the Guardian that power – we similarly won’t be lectured on the moral imperative of supporting a Palestinian national movement which still refuses to grant similar fundamental political rights to Jews.
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- Obama condemns Arab antisemitism in UN speech. The Guardian’s first reaction? Outrage. (cifwatch.com)
- A small victory against Palestinians’ continuing “mission” to wipe Israel off the map (cifwatch.com)
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This is cross posted by Benjamin Lazarus at The Commentator
A rare sight in Palestine: Elections
In George Orwell’s, 1984, he coined the term‘double-think’, which refers to the idea that an individual can hold ‘two contradictory beliefs’, whilst simultaneously accepting and believing both opposing convictions.
Despite the dismay of much of the new liberal establishment, the likely failure of the Palestinian bid to become the 194th member state of the United Nations would be wholly correct. Quite simply, to support the birth of a Palestinian state as it stands politically today, and to simultaneously support the Arab spring would be to commit the action of ‘double-think’.
The Arab Spring is essentially the spread of democracy throughout the Middle East; allowing the populations of each oppressive regime to overthrow their autocratic rulers, and to attain the very basic principle of the vote.
Thus, if one is to support this movement how can one then possibly justify supporting the official birth of an un-democratic regime in the very same region?
Mahmoud Abbas, the man presented as a supposed moderate to the Western world, has no democratic right to his position.
He was elected in 2005 for a four year term but this expired in January 2009. He then decided to extend his reign for a further year – until January 2010. This extension has now quite clearly expired – and yet Abbas still refuses to leave his post, despite his actions being in sheer disregard to the Palestinian constitution.
Indeed, Article 65: ‘The Basic Law’, grants presidential legitimacy to the speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC). Therefore, under the Palestinian constitution, Hamas’s Deputy, Abdel Aziz Dweik has been robbed of his democratic position by Mahmoud Abbas.
Furthermore, the imaginary nation presented to the UN general Assembly did not have the aptitude to hold either presidential or legislative elections as required by Article 47 of its Basic Law. This is because competing Palestinian rulers will not permit it.
Whilst Abbas’s term has expired, the PLC legislatures are also over-due an election, since their period of legality expired on the 25thJanuary 2010. Indeed, Article two of The Palestinian Elections Law no.9, which is recognized by Hamas as legally binding requiresan election – so where are the ballot boxes?
A government also needs to have the capacity to function – to legislate. But this unfortunately is not the case in the Palestinian territories today.
Since January 2006, the PLC has not legislated once, neither has it conducted any meetings in the last four years, nor passed on any ministers. It is essentially an impotent, undemocratic and constitutionally corrupt administration, and one that surely no serious person could advocate was actually ready for statehood (In this sense, it is actually similar to the Arab spring states – there is simply not enough civil life to make it ready for democracy).
Those who advocate hacking away at the UN – Palestine umbilical cord would do well to think twice about why democracy should be starved from the Palestinians, but not their Arab brothers and sisters across the region.
Unfortunately, one suspects the liberal-left’s anti-Israel hysteria plays a prominent role here; the overthrowing of Mubarak’s pro-American government, with the seemingly inevitable replacement of the Muslim Brotherhood will create a rabidly visceral anti-Israel government in Egypt.
The likelihood of the Arab spring resulting in several more Islamist anti-Israel regimes is very great (as already seen in Tunisia with the recent electoral success of Ennahda).
Perhaps, this is actually what the liberal-left wish to see. A Palestinian state, whether democratic or not, will be a serious threat to the existence of the state of Israel, and thus, such an action of ‘double-think’ may not actually be ‘double-think’ after all.
Benjamin Lazarus is a political analyst with a particular interest in the Middle East and Islamic extremism.
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H/T Margie
When it comes to reports about Israel at the Guardian, their inventory of misleading anti-Israel images are clearly quite abundant.
Indeed, the Guardian received an Honest Reporting ”2010 Dishonest Reporting Award“ due to this memorable photo, and accompanying headline:
Eyewitness: Palestinian youth run down
In addition to the curious fact, noted by HR, that the camermen (among others) just happened to be “in the right place at the right time”, the fact that an innocent Israeli motorist was trying desperately to avoid harm, from a pre-planned ambush by seven rock throwing Palestinians, evidently wasn’t a compelling enough narrative.
For the Guardian, such messy details can never get in the way of tales of Israeli villainy, especially those involving the infliction of harm upon Palestinian children.
A Guardian report by Chris McGreal, “UN vote on Palestinian state put off amid lack of support“, Nov. 11, included the following photo:
I must admit, the propaganda value is simply off the charts: Israeli soldiers juxtaposed with an innocent Palestinian boy holding a sign with an image of Mahmoud Abbas, which included text asking, in Dickensian fashion, “Please sir, I want a state”.
Of course, my guess is that the Palestinian Authority rejected text, to accompany the graphic, of Abbas’s quote from a recent speech, reported by the PA news agency, accusing settlers of releasing trained wild hogs to attack Palestinian Arabs.
And, they likely similarly rejected one of the many Abbas quotes insisting that he will never recognize a Jewish state; his praise for Hamas’s kidnapping of Gilad Shalit and support for armed “resistance”, or his administration’s refusal to allow Palestinian refugees to settle in, and become citizens of, a new Palestinian state.
It’s likely that the PA rejected the following, which more accurately reflects the politics of a “President” now in the sixth year of a four year term.
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Per Ynet, a would-be Palestinian suicide bomber freed by Israel in the prisoner swap for Gilad Shalit told cheering schoolchildren in Gaza the day after her release on Wednesday she hoped they would follow her example.
“I hope you will walk the same path we took and God willing, we will see some of you as martyrs,” Wafa al-Biss told dozens of children who came to her home in the northern Gaza Strip.
Freed terrorist, turned children's motivational speaker in support of Jihad, Wafa al-Biss, with her mother
Biss was travelling to Beersheba’s Soroka hospital for medical treatment in 2005 when IDF soldiers at the Erez border crossing noticed she was walking strangely. They found 10 kgs (22 lbs) of explosives had been sewn into her underwear.
A member of al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, an offshoot of President Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah party, Biss was sentenced to a 12-year term for planning to blow herself up.
After she spoke, the children cheered and waved Palestinian flags and chanted: “We will give souls and blood to redeem the prisoners. We will give souls and blood for you, Palestine.”
Perhaps the only thing more certain than the fact that Palestinian terrorists released in the deal to free Gilad Shalit will continue on the path of Jihad, and implore others to follow in their example, is the fact that you will never read about such immutable malice towards innocent Israelis on the pages of the Guardian.
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Simon Tisdall
The Guardian is well-known for providing space for proponents of radical Islam who advance politics which are decidedly racist and politically reactionary.
However, Simon Tisdall’s defense last year of Sudan’s President Omar al-Bashir - charged with genocide for launching attacks on the black non-Arab population of Darfur which resulted in up to 400,000 dead (much like Noam Chomsky’s defense Mao and Pol Pot) – is an exquisite example of where the extreme left becomes indistinguishable from the extreme right.
The money quote from Tisdall (in his Dec. 27, 2010 essay) pertained to his complaint that al-Bashar has been “ostracised by western governments, [and] makes an easy target. America always needs bogeymen and Bashir fits the bill: big, bothersome, bad-tempered, black, Arab and Muslim.”
That final sentence should be placed in a museum of intellectual thought as a representation of the far left’s capacity to synthesize anti-Americanism, post-colonialism and a perverse understanding of anti-racism in order to defend the morally indefensible.
Tisdall’s appalling defense of al-Bashar provides the moral context by which to judge his recent “analysis” of Israeli politics, in ”Gilad Shalit swap has split opinion on Benjamin Netanyahu“, Oct. 18.
Of course, bashing the Israeli right is something of a sport at the Guardian, and Tisdall’s piece certainly doesn’t break any new ground.
Tisdall criticizes Bibi’s lack of strategic vision which, he observes, manifests itself in the Israeli Prime Minister’s failure to “use resulting momentum [of the Shalit deal] to bridge the impasse over the blockade of Gaza or kickstart stalled peace negotiations.”
I read over that passage a few times and still don’t quite understand what it means, or, specifically, how precisely Israel’s decision to set free 1027 terrorists in exchange for Gilad Shalit relates to a blockade of Gaza necessitated by Hamas’s little habit of importing deadly weapons from Iran to use against Israeli civilians.
Even more unclear is how Tisdall’s squares his complaint that Bibi has failed to use the Shalit swap to “kickstart stalled peace negotiations” with his subsequent complaint, in the following passage, that “the deal has further weakened the Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas in relation to his more militant rivals.”
So, which one is it?
Is Bibi’s sin his failure to use the momentum of the Shalit deal to “kickstart the stalled peace negotiations” or, rather, his decision to sign off on the Shalit deal in the first place, which, Tisdall simultaneously argues, “further weakened the Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas in relation to his more militant rivals.”
Either Bibi’s decision on the Shalit deal weakened Abbas and the peace process or his decision created new opportunities to “kickstart stalled peace negotiations” which he failed to capitalize on. Logically, the two suppositions are inherently contradictory.
As further proof of Bibi’s villainy, he quotes a former U.S. Defense Secretary complaining that ”Netanyahu is not only [an] ungrateful [ally], but [is] also endangering his country by refusing to grapple with Israel’s growing isolation and with the demographic challenges it faces if it keeps control of the West Bank.”
Tisdall, like so many other experts in the West obsessively critical of Israel, frames his hyper-criticism as a form of paternalistic tough love – saving Israelis from their own worse destructive impulses. Jews, crippled as they are by irrational fears and a lack of strategic thinking, are unable to see clearly what is painfully obvious in the salons of New York and London.
The failure of Israel to overcome the animosity of Hamas, Hezbollah, Syria, and Iran is merely owed to an appalling lack of Jewish sechel.
If only Israeli Jews will relent in their stubborn refusal to accept the collective wisdom of the intellectuals, poets, artists and journalist sages of our day, peace would be just around the corner.
Tisdall opened his surreal defense of Sudan’s genocidal madman, in 2010, by complaining:
“Bashing Omar al-Bashir is a popular pastime in progressive circles”
And, bashing and demonizing Israeli leaders has become something approaching a secular religion among Guardian left circles.
Related articles
- Guardian publishes letters arguing Shalit’s release (in exchange for 1027 terrorists) is unfair to Hamas (cifwatch.com)
- Gilad Shalit swap has split opinion on Binyamin Netanyahu | Simon Tisdall (guardian.co.uk)
- Lost in anti-Zionist translation? Guardian’s McGreal repeats mistranslated answers of Shalit in Arab interview (cifwatch.com)
- Guardian’s Middle East Editor, Ian Black, equates Gilad Shalit with Palestinian terrorists (cifwatch.com)
- Guardian readers view release of Shalit for 1027 terrorists as evidence of Israeli racism! (cifwatch.com)
On Friday, whilst all eyes were on events taking place at the UN building in front of that horrible green marble wall (talk about crimes against interior decorating), the Guardian published an article at ‘Comment is Free’ by one of its favourite anti-Zionists (and peace process rejectionists) – Ghada Karmi.
Veteran CiF readers will, by now, be familiar with her uncompromising stance.
Indeed, this is far from the first time that Karmi – the Palestine Solidarity Campaign patron, CAABU board member, signatory of the Stuttgart Declaration (which calls for an end to the Jewish state) and Exeter University lecturer – has pushed for ‘Greater Palestine’ on the Guardian’s pages.
And, she will apparently be encouraged to continue to do so no matter how much suffering and bloodshed her historical revisionism is likely to bring about.
Karmi’s article berates Mahmoud Abbas for going ahead with his statehood bid at the UN on the grounds that it represents an unacceptable compromise. Her position is, in fact, no different to that of Hamas and the other Palestinian factions which reject a negotiated two-state solution.
“But the UN drama now unfolding is no more than a dangerous sideshow detracting from the real issue. The statehood debate has hijacked the historical facts and created a new reality: that the Israeli-Palestinian problem is about the 1967 Israeli occupation, and dividing historic Palestine into two states is the solution. This is the reality the international community has been encouraged to accept. In fact the conflict dates from the 1948 expulsion of the majority of Palestine’s inhabitants to accommodate Israel’s creation, as today’s 6.5 million Palestinian refugees can attest. Redressing that terrible injustice is the only durable solution. While Palestinian statehood in a fifth of the original homeland might seem attractive given the power imbalance between both sides and Israel’s obduracy in peace negotiations, this was the worst historical moment to push for such a paltry aim which Palestinians may live to regret.”
This article does not represent a mere expression of an outlandish opinion in an op-ed: the frequency with which the Guardian publishes the opinions of Karmi and others with the same agenda implies that these are opinions which find sympathy among its higher echelons.
Of course the comparable ideology on the other side is not – even in the name of ‘balance’ – granted exposure on ‘Comment is Free’. In fact one only has to read the Guardian editorial which was published a couple of hours later to see what the Guardian considers ‘rejectionist’.
“If Mr Netanyahu or any future leader were ever to cross a line, it would not be by repeating that everything is on the table when plainly it is not. It would be by turning to Israel and saying that peace would involve giving up what he still refers to as Judea and Samaria, words which in a two-state context are rejectionist.”
So, even referring to a geographical area by its original name is, according to Guardianspeak, ‘rejectionist’, (users of terms such as Cymru and Nah-Eileanan Siar may care to take note of that) but apparently demanding the dissolution of an entire country is not.
The concept of ‘Greater Israel’ (as promoted by a handful of Israeli extremists who will never find their way onto the pages of ‘Comment is Free’) and the concept of ‘Greater Palestine’ (as promoted by Ghada Karmi, Sam Bahour and assorted Hamas op-ed writers who do appear there quite regularly) are both archaic, irrelevant and extremely unhelpful ideologies which do nothing to advance a much-needed solution to the current conflict. Both are uncompromising in their essence and neither should have a place among liberal voices truly seeking the wellbeing of all the peoples involved.
By publishing polemics such as this, by Ghada Karmi, the Guardian shows itself to be way outside mainstream liberal opinion and firmly in the camp of the extremists and the real rejectionists of a negotiated peace process.
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- Israel Needs a More Realpolitik, Machiavellian Palestinian Strategy (cifwatch.com)
”Every form of addiction is bad, no matter whether the narcotic be alcohol or morphine or idealism.”
Carl Gustav Jung, ‘Memories, Dreams, Reflections’, Ch. 12
When reality contradicts perception, those incapable – for whatever reason – of adjusting their way of thinking inevitably resort to the employment of mechanisms which enable them to tailor that reality to their beliefs rather than the other way round. Denial is one such escape mechanism; if we convince ourselves that something does not exist, we therefore have no need to deal with it.
The Guardian’s live-blogged account of Mahmoud Abbas’ UN speech on September 23rd presented a classic example of this dynamic.
As any objective listener could not have failed to notice, Abbas’ speech was replete with lies, historical distortions and even some downright crazy political hallucinations. The Guardian’s Richard Adams however was having none of it; his report contains only sanitized excerpts from the speech and carefully avoids chronicling anything which may undermine the Guardian addiction to idealisation of Palestinian victimhood.
Let’s take a look at the quotes from Abbas’ speech which Richard Adams chose to use in order to convey its essence to his readers. (All typos from the original)
“The question of Palestine is intricately linked with the United Nations,” Abbas says, plunging into the issue at hand.
Mahmoud Abbas’ PR consultant (if he has one) could not have asked for a better airbrushing job of the speech. Adams has made the long-since unelected PA President appear reasonable and even statesman-like. But of course it is the long sections of Abbas’ speech which Richard Adams failed to report which provide the real insight into the realities which the Guardian World View cannot stomach.
Parts of Abbas’ speech which the Guardian chose not to quote include the following:
“…UNRWA – which embodies the international responsibility towards the plight of Palestine refugees, who are the victims of Al-Nakba (Catastrophe) that occurred in 1948.”
According to Abbas the ‘Nakba’ simply ‘occurred’ like some kind of natural disaster; no responsibility is taken for the fact that Arab nations attacked the newly-born Jewish state in a war of extermination.
“We entered those negotiations with open hearts and attentive ears and sincere intentions, and we were ready with our documents, papers and proposals. But the negotiations broke down just weeks after their launch.”
Abbas of course neglects to mention the fact that he wasted 90% of the 10 month-long building freeze avoiding negotiations at all costs as well as the fact that it was his side’s insistence upon contorted pre-conditions which stymied the negotiation process.
“The core issue here is that the Israeli government refuses to commit to terms of reference for the negotiations that are based on international law and United Nations resolutions, and that it frantically continues to intensify building of settlements on the territory of the State of Palestine.”
Beyond the fact that Abbas’ own procrastination and intransigence (not to mention that of his predecessor) have ensured that there is no ‘State of Palestine’ and therefore no territory belonging to it, no new settlements have been built by the Israeli government for almost 20 years – certainly not in the areas presently under the control of the Palestinian Authority. Last year’s ten month building freeze on housing within the recognized perimeters of existing towns and villages clearly contradicts Abbas’ claims of intensified building.
“Settlement activities embody the core of the policy of colonial military occupation of the land of the Palestinian people and all of the brutality of aggression and racial discrimination against our people that this policy entails.”
The use of the word ‘colonial’ clearly reflects Abbas’ intent to portray Jewish Israelis as some foreign element which does not belong to the region. This point is later accentuated when he neglects to recognize the importance of the region to people of the Jewish faith, stressing only its relevance to Muslims and Christians.
“I come before you today from the Holy Land, the land of Palestine, the land of divine messages, ascension of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) and the birthplace of Jesus Christ (peace be upon him)..”.
A further example of Abbas’ inability to take any responsibility whatsoever for the current situation in the Middle East comes in the following quote:
“…accelerated construction of the annexation Wall that is eating up large tracts of our land”
Naturally, no mention of the PA initiated, executed and funded terror war against Israeli civilians which necessitated the building of the anti-terrorist fence in the first place. Note also the insidious use of the term ‘annexation Wall’.
“The occupying Power also continues to refuse permits for our people to build in Occupied East Jerusalem, at the same time that it intensifies its decades-long campaign of demolition and confiscation of homes, displacing Palestinian owners and residents under a multi-pronged policy of ethnic cleansing aimed at pushing them away from their ancestral homeland.”
The statistics of course expose Abbas’ rhetoric for the empty lie that it is; the Arab population of Jerusalem has increased since 1967 from 24% to 36% of the city’s total. The 1967 census reported 66,000 Arabs living in the previously Jordanian occupied part of Jerusalem and the surrounding areas. By 2008 the number had risen to 208,000 according to Abbas’ own Palestinian Central Bureau for Statistics. Even the most fertile of imaginations could not describe that as ‘ethnic cleansing’.
“The occupying Power also continues to undertake excavations that threaten our holy places, and its military checkpoints prevent our citizens from getting access to their mosques and churches, and it continues to besiege the Holy City with a ring of settlements imposed to separate the Holy City from the rest of the Palestinian cities.”
Now in the realms of utter hallucination, Abbas is clearly attempting to whip up anti-Israeli fervor in the broader Arab world by making dishonest claims regarding imaginary threats to Muslim holy sites. As is well-known, only under Israeli rule have members of all religions been able to visit their holy places, but beyond the dishonesty, there is a deeply sinister – and highly irresponsible – aspect to Abbas’ willingness to play so frivolously with the potentially lethal spark which is the subject of supposed damage to Muslim holy places.
No less disingenuous is Abbas’ fanciful description of operation ‘Cast Lead’ (which of course excludes any mention of the Hamas attacks upon Israeli civilians), during which he publicly supported the Egyptian initiative that clearly held Hamas responsible for the commencement of the hostilities.
“At the same time, the occupying Power continues to impose its blockade on the Gaza Strip and to target Palestinian civilians by assassinations, air strikes and artillery shelling, persisting with its war of aggression of three years ago on Gaza, which resulted in massive destruction of homes, schools, hospitals, and mosques, and the thousands of martyrs and wounded.”
Obviously, it is necessary to appreciate that Abbas’ UN speech was orientated primarily towards his domestic audience and designed in no small part to save his own hide and that of his Fatah party from the threats presented by Hamas and other rejectionist organizations by embracing some of their positions and supposedly showing that only he can bring them to the world stage with a positive reception. The extent to which Abbas knows he lives on borrowed time is clearly expressed in his remark that “[t]his settlement policy threatens to also undermine the structure of the Palestinian National Authority and even end its existence.”
Abbas’ lies continue with the statement that “Israel reoccupied the cities of the West Bank by a unilateral action“, completely ignoring the fact that it was the very real necessity of capturing Palestinian terror cells which forced Israel to carry out ‘Operation Defensive Shield’ in 2002 – a whole 19 months after the commencement of the second Intifada – and that no Palestinian city is today ‘occupied’. He even lies about an issue he has previously put on record – his own family’s voluntary abandonment of their home in Tsfat in 1948 – now claiming to be among “those, including myself, who were forced to leave their homes and their towns and villages”.
Further, Abbas indicates precisely what he means by ‘Palestine’ (and what his refusal to declare an end to any territorial claims by recognizing Israel as the Jewish State implicates) in the following statement:
“Thus, we agreed to establish the State of Palestine on only 22% of the territory of historical Palestine – on all the Palestinian Territory occupied by Israel in 1967.”
This point is later reinforced when Abbas declares “after 63 years of suffering of an ongoing Nakba: Enough.” In other words, not only did the ‘occupation’ not commence in 1967 from his point of view, but he is unwilling to pay the price of losing war after war initiated by his fellow Arabs.
This next quotation is particularly ridiculous in light of the fact that Abbas has no control whatsoever over Hamas or any other of the various armed Palestinian factions which reject his leadership, let alone the Palestinian street which was busy throwing rocks and Molotov cocktails in Qalandiya only hours before he addressed the UN. Not only can Abbas not even set foot in half of the territory he claims for his state, he does not have a legal and valid mandate to make any commitment on behalf of the Palestinian people because his term of office expired well over two and a half years ago.
“The PLO and the Palestinian people adhere to the renouncement of violence and rejection and condemning of terrorism in all its forms”Our people will continue their popular peaceful resistance to the Israeli occupation and its settlement and apartheid policies and its construction of the racist annexation Wall, and they receive support for their resistance, which is consistent with international humanitarian law and international conventions and has the support of peace activists from Israel and around the world, reflecting an impressive, inspiring and courageous example of the strength of this defenseless people, armed only with their dreams, courage, hope and slogans in the face of bullets, tanks, tear gas and bulldozers.”
Abbas’ repeated use of the inaccurate and inflammatory term ‘apartheid’ and his description of the fence constructed to prevent the suicide bombers sent and funded by his own PA into Israeli towns and cities as ‘racist’, in conjunction with his failure to mention the rockets, mortars and missiles which Hamas has stockpiled with the aid of Iran, once more indicate that he is unwilling and unable to address the issues pertaining to Israeli security which must form part and parcel of any peace treaty. He even attempts to delude the international community regarding the so-called ‘national unity’ with Hamas.
“We succeeded months ago in achieving national reconciliation and we hope that its implementation will be accelerated in the coming weeks.”
In reality, of course, no agreements of ‘reconciliation’ have been signed and no dates for the long overdue elections set because Abbas knows full well that both moves would be more than likely to put an end to his current hold of the keys to the Palestinian Authority.
There is, as we well know, no particular love of Mahmoud Abbas and Fatah among the ranks of the Guardian editors, correspondents and Middle East ‘analysts’; not for them the route of negotiation and compromise as was indicated by the paper’s decision to publish the ‘Palestine Papers’. But nevertheless, the Guardian addiction to the narrative of Palestinian victimhood and childlike non-agency – however distorted, untruthful and often downright fictitious – renders them incapable of objective, serious reporting and analysis of Abbas’ UN speech and thus all the morally problematic passages are carefully eliminated from view in order to enable the comforting process of denial to take effect.
Abbas’ speech provided ample evidence of the fact that he is incapable of leading his people along the road to peace. The Guardian’s readers will, however, not be made aware of that fact because its addiction to its own idealism inevitably trumps the readers’ right to know.
the Guardian Live Blog yesterday included the following update at 12:22 PM
First, as the Guardian didn’t provide a source for the “report” from Ma’an that Israeli police have been fining Arabs who display the Palestinian flag, and after receiving a speedy reply to my inquiry to the IDF Spokespersons Unit unequivocally denying the report, I attempted to hunt down the origins of the claim.
I couldn’t find any mention of the story at the English site of Ma’an, but did find some Tweets eluding to the Ma’an story (all without a link), including one by Rania Zabeneh, an AlJazeera journalist based in the West Bank. (This site reported that the Guardian Live Blog Update which eludes to this story had been Tweeted 52 times.)
The only other place where I could find a reference to this claim (other than a few sites which simply repeated the Guardian text verbatim) was the site of the Palestinian Mission UK, which used language quite similar to the Guardian report, and also cited, as the source, a Ma’an story, without providing a link.
They wrote:
It is reported that the Israeli authorities are imposing fines on Palestinians for flying flags on their cars in support of our campaign at the United Nations. It is not a crime to show pride in your country, nor to support the cause of freedom, with symbols that do no harm. Israel seems incapable of understanding the idea of peaceful protest at its illegal occupation. The Israeli forces would be better employed dealing with real crimes, by its own citizens – the settlers who are waging a campaign of provocative violence by attacking Palestinian villages.
As reported by MaanNews, Israeli police placed a checkpoint between Barta’a and Jenin, north of West Bank and imposed fines on Palestinians for flying flags on their cars. For the small flag they imposed 40$ fine and 68$ fine for the big one.
Finally, I was able to track down a link from this Tweet, which took me to the site of the WAFA Palestine News and Information Agency, and this story in Arabic.
WAFA is the propaganda organ of the PLO, and is under the direct control of Mahmoud Abbas. As noted by Elder of Ziyon, WAFA excels at re-writing history and denying the Jewish connection to Israel. For example, WAFA has said multiple times that there was never a Jewish Temple in Jerusalem.
Moreover, PLO control of WAFA certainly explains why the Guardian report on the alleged fining of Palestinian motorists included a perfect anti-Israel quote by the Palestinian President.
Here’s the WAFA story on the alleged event, as translated by a supporter of CiF Watch who works as a professional Arabic translator.
The Occupation Authorities Confiscate Palestinian Flags in Salfit
Salfit – September 22, 2011, Wafa
The Occupation Authorities confiscated Palestinian flags of Palestinian civilians and vehicles today, Thursday, in the town of Yasouf in the Salfit Governorate.
A security source in Salfit has told Wafa that the Occupation Army has set up a military roadblock this morning at the entrance to the town (one of the main gateways to the city of Salfit), begun searching for Palestinian flags and confiscated flags belonging to citizens.
‘Adnan Yousef, a driver from the town of Masha, said that the Occupation Police issued a thousand shekel fine to one of the drivers for having Palestinian flags in his belongings while he (i.e. the driver) was on his way to participate in one of the marches of support for President Mahmoud ‘Abbas for turning to the UN, yesterday.
First, note how the Israeli police are not just fining Palestinian motorists for displaying the flag in this story, but actually confiscating the evidently contraband national symbol. Also, note how the fines – reported elsewhere to be $40-$68 – are, in this original story, a thousand shekels ($270).
However, more importantly, it seems as if the sole “source” of the Guardian allegation against Israel was the claim of one official from the PA -controlled Palestinian security service, as relayed to the PA-controlled media.
Moreover, anyone not blinded by ideologically inspired antipathy towards Israel would immediately be skeptical of such a rumor, as it flies in the face of the most rudimentary understanding of the rights of free expression in the Jewish state – which explains, of course, why it was published in the Guardian.
Related articles
- “It’s All Netanyahu’s Fault,” the Guardian and much of the MSM Say. But Is It Really? (cifwatch.com)
- Photo of a 16 month old Israeli baby injured by Palestinian rocks that the Guardian would never post (cifwatch.com)
- Obama condemns Arab antisemitism in UN speech. The Guardian’s first reaction? Outrage. (cifwatch.com)
- Guardian Newspeak pro-Palestinian Headline of the Day (cifwatch.com)
- Guardian live blog on Abbas’s UN statehood efforts quotes Palestinian waiting to “launch third intifada” (cifwatch.com)
- Debunking the the Palestinian/Guardian narrative of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict (Video) (cifwatch.com)
H/T Margie
(Guardian Newspeak: closely based on English but with greatly reduced vocabulary by the removal or words, narratives, constructs or headlines which accurately distinguish between free societies and tyrannies or which reveals Palestinian/Arab hostility to Israel’s existence. The ultimate aim of Guardian Newspeak is to make any alternative pro-Israel thinking a “thoughtcrime”, or “crimethink”.)
The headline of this report by the Guardian’s Harriet Sherwood and Chris McGreal is something which could have been published by the state run Palestinian media:
Yes, the magnanimous Mahmoud Abbas, a man so committed to peace he’s willing to overlook the snub he received at the hands of a U.S. President who dared to condemn the very terrorism and antisemitic incitement which the Palestinian President himself foments.
Evidently, when Abbas repeatedly honors terrorists who murdered innocent Israeli civilians, refuses to recognize the existence of a Jewish state, and advances bizarre anti-Zionist conspiracy theories, it only appears, to the untrained non-Guardian eye, that he’s obstructing peace and reconciliation with Israel.
Only those well-schooled in the Guardian Left’s sophisticated, ideologically-conditioned, syntax can understand that when Palestinians praise terror, they’re really praising peace; when they refuse to recognize the existence of a Jewish state, they’re really upholding the values of tolerance and diversity; and when they propagate conspiracy theories they’re really elevating the debate.
In short: “War is Peace” Freedom is Slavery” and “Ignorance is Strength.”
Related articles
- What the Guardian won’t report about Palestinian Independence: It wouldn’t solve the refugee problem (cifwatch.com)
- Obama condemns Arab antisemitism in UN speech. The Guardian’s first reaction? Outrage. (cifwatch.com)
- Guardian live blog on Abbas’s UN statehood efforts quotes Palestinian waiting to “launch third intifada” (cifwatch.com)
- The tortured logic which informs yet another anti-Israel Guardian editorial (cifwatch.com)
- Guardian’s Chris McGreal accuses former US President of “slavishly” succumbing to pro-Israel pressure (cifwatch.com)
- “It’s All Netanyahu’s Fault,” the Guardian and much of the MSM Say. But Is It Really? (cifwatch.com)
- Harriet Sherwood’s report on ordinary Palestinians seeking statehood includes profile of Abu Ahmed: Profession, Terrorist (cifwatch.com)
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The Alchemist
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Tosca
Maimon
Telling the Truth
Israelinurse
Adam Levick
Margie in Tel Aviv
Guest/Cross Post
Hadar Sela
Harriet Sherwood promotes the mantra of “death of the peace process”.
April 25, 2012 in Comments which are off-topic, ad hominem, racist, vulgar or include threats of violence will be deleted | Tags: Ahmed Qurei, Geneva Accords, Guardian, Harriet Sherwood, Mahmoud Abbas, Oslo Accords, Palestine Papers, Yossi Beilin | by Hadar Sela | 6 comments
Just hours ahead of the Independence Day celebrations in Israel, Harriet Sherwood chose to promote an advocate of the ‘one-state solution’ in an article published in the World News section on the Guardian website.
The Guardian has, of course, been active in promoting the concept of the demise of a negotiated two-state solution for some time. Its ‘Palestinian Territories’ page still carries the headline “Secret papers reveal slow death of Middle East peace process” first published in January 2011 at the time of its leaking of the so-called ‘Palestine Papers‘ in collaboration with the Qatari regime-controlled Al Jazeera.
In Sherwood’s latest piece she promotes the recent statements by two of the architects of the Oslo Accords – Yossi Beilin and Ahmed Qurei (Abu Ala).
Beilin recently published an open letter to the de facto PA President Mahmoud Abbas (whose term of office long since expired), calling upon him to dissolve the Palestinian Authority. Qurei wrote an article last month in the London-based, Palestinian ex-pat owned newspaper Al-Quds Al-Arabi (edited by occasional Guardian contributor Abdel Bari Atwan) in which he called for the ‘reconsideration’ of the ‘one-state solution’.
Returning to the official Guardian line from the days of the ‘Palestine Papers’, Sherwood states that:
“Both men reflect a view held by many observers of the stalled peace process, that the window of opportunity to create a Palestinian state has closed or is about to close. The alternatives to two states, they say, are a continuation and entrenchment of the status quo, or one state which denies equality to a large and rapidly growing minority, or one binational state of equals which would no longer be Jewish in character.”
Sherwood’s “many observers” are neither quantified nor identified and understandably so, because in fact they exist outside the consensus of mainstream opinion which still seeks to achieve two states for two nations through negotiation. Likewise, the chimera of an imminently closing “window of opportunity” is now practically a joke, having been invoked time and time again over so many years.
Of course Sherwood does not pause to ask herself why the general population on both the Israeli and Palestinian sides of the divide should pay any attention whatsoever to the latest ideas of two of the people responsible for a previously failed initiative which led to the deaths of thousands. Neither does she seem to think it worthy of comment that both Beilin’s and Qurei’s explanations of the collapse of the Oslo Accords include no recognition whatsoever of the initiative’s basic flaws, but instead place the blame exclusively at the doors of others.
Qurei and Beilin come from two very different starting points, both of which connect neatly to the ‘Guardian world view’. Beilin’s far Left approach to the subject of the Arab-Israeli conflict represents a minority view within Israeli public opinion and even considerable financial backing from various European governments for the purpose of marketing his ‘Geneva Accords‘ project did not change that fact.
Beilin’s attempts to twist arms by persuading the PA to dissolve itself – thereby hoping to shock the Israeli government into taking some sort of action, the nature or consequences of which he does not appear to be sure, but which may include unilateral withdrawal from Judea and Samaria – do not take into account the lessons learned after the unilateral withdrawal from the Gaza Strip which now shape mainstream Israeli opinion. Neither does Beilin’s ‘master plan’ build on any of the other lessons learned as a result of the failure of the Oslo Accords.
Sadly, that kind of blinkered view of the conflict – one which appoints responsibility for its creation and solution almost exclusively to the Israeli side, with a remarkable lack of recognition of Palestinian agency – is all too prevalent in the far Left circles inhabited by many a Guardian writer and editor.
Qurei, on the other hand, is representative of the type of Palestinian leadership which – in common with the far Left, but for different reasons – also blames Israel for all its ills and crucially is unable to confront its people with the fact that a solution to the conflict cannot include the ‘right of return’ of Palestinian refugees to Israel. For those subscribing to the Qurei school of thought, the ‘one-state solution’ is both a way of avoiding that confrontation and a rejection of the presence of a sovereign Jewish state in the Middle East.
As we well know, the Guardian does not shy away from promoting the various proponents of the ‘one-state solution’, whether they are members of Hamas and its sympathizers, activists from the BDS movement, or members of the far Left.
It therefore comes as no surprise to see Harriet Sherwood promoting the ideas of two exponents of fringe views under the well-worn mantra of “the imminent death of the two-state solution”. Unfortunately, her paper’s ideological and practical investment in that mantra prevents her from making clear to her readers just how far removed from mainstream opinion – both in Israel and the world in general – those ideas are.
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