Amnesty says Israel is an apartheid state. Many Israeli politicians agree

Chris McGreal’s analysis of how pro-Zionist groups and media commentators in the United States have reacted to the Amnesty International report is like a blast of fresh air: the sort of journalism that restores faith in the trade. That he can list the names of Israeli politicians who have used the term “apartheid” over many years is answer enough to those in America and Britain who – in the face of truth – reach for smears and tired lies.

But the most striking aspect of the Guardian’s coverage of the Amnesty report in the context of our own domestic politics is that there isn’t any. Nobody at the Guardian seems to have thought of asking Keir Starmer, the leader of the Labour Party, how he squares his support for Zionism with a document which sets out in relentless detail how Israel’s treatment of the Palestinian people is built on a belief in racial superiority. That is odd, considering that apartheid is an internationally recognised crime and Keir Starmer is supposed to be a human rights lawyer.

Given that Amnesty has more than 200,000 members in the UK – many of whom may still be Guardian readers – it seems strange that the paper doesn’t feel the need to pursue that line of inquiry. Or perhaps I am missing something….?

This silence, this extraordinary lack of interest by a newspaper which is usually so concerned with human rights abuses in other countries, is thrown into even sharper relief by the attention it has given to Whoopi Goldberg.

Both stories broke on 1 February. So far the Guardian has carried three reports about off-the-cuff remarks by an American talk-show host: her apology, her suspension and an explanation of how little Americans know about the Holocaust. All in, 1,905 words.

Compare that to Amnesty’s analysis of the systematic dehumanisation of the Palestinian people – the product of four years’ work by one of the world’s biggest and most respected human rights organisations – to which the Guardian has given 1,588 words. And more than half of those have come from Chris McGreal.

When the Guardian’s editorial bigwigs decide that their first duty is to ensure that Keir Starmer is not asked any awkward questions, and their second is to smother any British debate on apartheid, then their journalism putrefies and they betray their readers.

I suggest that JVL members and readers of your website do what the Guardian is too cowardly to do: ask Keir Starmer what he thinks of the Amnesty findings?

I’m amazed that the Guardian has not yet found an excuse to get rid of McGreal – one of a small band of fast vanishing brave journalists left on this once left of centre paper. Novara media has an item that Viner has hired the Daily Mail journalist Emine Sinmaz the journalist who authored the scurrilous ‘Corbyn’s wreath at Munich terrorists’ graves’ which was amongst the worst of many lying and damaging articles by the msm designed to damage Corbyn.