The Guardian and the crisis in Israel and Palestine
JVL Introduction
We have not been great fans of the Guardian or its columnist Jonathan Freedland in recent years.
But something seems to be shifting. Freedland’s article Once this violence in Israel and Gaza ends, there can be no return to ‘normal’, has inspired some letters in response which we repost below.
They appear on the same day as Peter Beinart’s long read A Jewish case for Palestinian refugee return.
Let us hope this presages a far more critical approach generally, including a greater willingness to discuss matters like the Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism, the now widespread characterisation of the Israeli regime as an apartheid regime, and the mass protests in revulsion against the bombing of Gaza – issues on which the paper has so far largely remained silent.
This article was originally published by the Guardian on Mon 17 May 2021. Read the original here.
No end to the circle of violence in Israel and Palestine
Benjamin Netanyahu is prepared to pay any price to protect the status quo, writes Dr Anthony Isaacs; plus letters from Ian Reissmann, Colin Jones, Neville Pressley and Yasmin Atuallah
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I’m actually a bit mystified by JVL’s overview here that ‘things my be shifting’. Surely Freedland’s article is exactly what one has come to expect, almost offensively so? And only one of the letters (from Colin Jones of West Norwood) calls him out. The level of debate is beyond abysmal here and each day the TV and radion news becomes more and more welded into the template of ‘conflict between two sides’ , scraping around more and more desperately to pretend this is some kind of equal contest. What instead can we do, please, to support today’s strike of Palestinians inside Israel and express our solidarity with them?
I must I don’t share your optimism. Peter Beinart’s article was good in its firm support for the Palestinian right of return and his demolition job on those who blame the victims for becoming refugees.
But Freedland was and is his normal dishonest self. He says there can be no return to normal but he doesn’t say what should be the new normal. His refusal to countenance any change in the basic architecture of a Jewish supremacist state means his criticisms of the ethnic cleansing of Jerusalem and Sheik Jarrar is in the end mere liberal Zionist hand wringing.
For Freedland at the end of the day is prepared to defend to the hilt a Jewish Supremacist state, even whilst making carping criticisms from the sidelines, rather than forsake what he sees as the ultimate safeguard against a new holocaust.
The letters, with the exception of Yasmin Ataullah’s are little better. None of them see Zionism, the ideology of Jewish settler colonialism, as playing any part in what is a continuing Nakbah.
After the reverberations from the latest blitzkrieg have died down, the Guardian will return to the very normal that Freedland decries, because there is no other option whilst Israel remains what it is.
I read Freedland’s piece with a wry smile but a bitter taste in my mouth. He wrings his hands now but when there was an opportunity to have a Labour Leader who might have helped change the Groundhog Day script which has so devastated Palestinians’ lives, he was one of the forefront “midwives” strangling that possibility with his endorsement of weaponised antisemitism claims. His crocodile tears and hand-wringing count for nowt unless he owns up and issues a mea culpa.
yes I am no fan of Freedland or the Guardian when it comes to false narrative’s about anti Semitism. But the Guardian publishing letters critical of Israel and its gov and what is going on in Gaza may hopefully show a change of tack. One can hope because not going to get much from the rest of the media in UK.
Israel is not alone in ‘getting away with murder”. We see occupation by Russia in the Crimea and violence from Russia in Eastern Ukraine; we see oppression and ethnic victimisation against the Uighurs in China and despite these injustices being called out by the’International Community” nothing changes. But at least these injustices ARE called out. The actions of Israel are in the same family as those of the oppressive dictatorships on many Arab countries where half the population (women) are second class citizens and migrant workers are treated appallingly. The ‘family relationship’ is the fact that both Israel and the likes of Saudi Arabia have the favour and blessing of the USA.
I have given up commenting on the Guardian. The mods seem to be lying in wait for any post critical of Israel, any suggestion that the AS fuss was exaggerated fir political reasons, any questioning of the EHRC report, even to the extent of pointing out that its findings were not what the media have made them out to be. The writers above were fortunate in being able to air their views. Why is the media so terrified of the airing of verifiable facts? When, in particular, will they publicly acknowledge that Israel operates a system of apartheid?
I wonder what the delegates to the UN who voted for the establishment of a Jewish State by handing over somebody else’s land would make of what has happened since 1948. Did they truly believe the Palestinians would lie down and accept it? No matter where in the world such an act would have been resisted. Even as a schoolboy I knew that. If they didn’t anticipate violent action then they were either grossly naive, stupid or prepared to see death and suffering on grand scale. A situation that would last for decades. One should never say never but If there is no change to the attitude of the international community towards Israel then I can see no end to the conflict. The international community condemns similar oppression by China, Russia, Myanmar. It eventually after many years broke the white supremist regime in South Africa. Why is the Israeli government made an exception.?
The un-Worm Turns
After decades of taking point position in the UK as liberal apologist for the inexcusable, and heroic defender of the state with the fourth most powerful military machine in the world, and still devoid either of analytic capacity or of intellectual honesty (or perhaps both) in relation to the ineluctable consequences of settler-colonialism, the poster boy of Liberal Zionism has a sense that History may be about to feel his collar.
Tom Hickey