The Guardian’s Double Standards – we see you!
JVL Introduction
Despite The Guardian publishing some very good articles about what is happening in Gaza, and even the West Bank, its criticism of Israel is muted (at best), and while, there have been some signs of this shifting, eg here and here these are still firmly relegated to the Opinion pieces. Many Guardian journalists have been frustrated for some time but the different treatment of two renowned authors, Palestinian- American Susan Abulhawa and British Jew, Howard Jacobson and has put these double standards into plain sight.
Jacobson was free to express how the situation occurred for him in his published piece on 6th October that shockingly claimed that “the media’s attempts to draw attention to Israel’s mass killing of Palestinian children are reviving the antisemitic blood libel that Jews ritually sacrifice children” and yet Abulhawa’s use of the word “holocaust” to refer to what is happening in Gaza was not permitted even though several holocaust scholars have said that it is legitimate to use that word and, of course, that is how it occurs for her – and many others.
This detailed piece explores their different treatment and the reaction to that. Particularly given the context of the British state ramping up its clamping down on independent journalism see here, here and here for example, the need for journalists – and editors – to stand up for honest reporting even in the face of heavy criticism is more crucial than ever.
LL
This article was originally published by Novara Media on Fri 18 Oct 2024. Read the original here.
Discontent Deepens Among Guardian Staff Over Palestine ‘Double Standard’
‘Please pass on my deepest fuck you.’
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Has The Guardian thought about how it could go about some sort of restorative justice for its support for the Confederacy ? Maybe they could skim some of the papers profits and/or salaries of its higher ups to pay reparations.
‘The piece attracted widespread scrutiny outside of the Guardian, prompting The New Yorker to run a coruscating interview with Jacobson entitled “Rationalising the horrors of Israel’s war in Gaza”. “Howard, I think maybe we’re in a bit of a worrisome place if you see photos of dead children on television and your first thought is, They’re trying to make me, a Jew, hate my people,” the magazine’s sharp-tongued interviewer Isaac Chotiner challenged Jacobson. …’
I got the impression Jacobson was desperately struggling with knowing what he didn’t want to know, anguished that “his own” Jewish people were capable of this, perhaps disowning the first signs of guilt and placing it on messengers of the media. I suppose novelists can resolve cognitive dissonances by writing, not exculpatory works, but ones where they face themselves, bleakly and without excuses based on tribal loyalties.
https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/rationalizing-the-horrors-of-israels-war-in-gaza or (Archive) https://archive.ph/qS2vr
In its gleeful collusion and support of the project to demonise Jeremy Corbyn, The Guardian has made a rod for its own back.
The success the Israel lobby had in destroying Corbyn’s reputation and leadership has encouraged them and others to routinely label every criticism of Israel as being at root, motivated by antisemitism. Tories and Israel supporters alike routinely describe demonstrations for peace and in support of Palestinians as “hate marches”.
On top of this we have the provisions of anti-terrorist legislation being routinely used to intimidate those with opinions judged “wrong” by the Establishment. It’s pure 1984.
So much for having a human rights lawyer as PM.
I used to trust the Guardian and its political columnists but that stopped after one particular incident. OJ had written a piece which presented Chris Williamson as an antisemite. This shocked me as I had met Williamson once at the City Council for a group meeting – I was a Labour member then – and thought he was a nice guy. However, somebody on the comments section of OJ’s piece, pointed me in the right direction, a video on YouTube clarified what Chris Williamson said was taken out of context. Williamson wanted people to stand up to bullies, and he, because of this, became the victim of one.
I do not believe Mr Williamson is perfect; however, OJ’s self righteous actions towards him after this incident, in which he continued to pursue Mr Williamson on Twitter, along with the other Guardian journalists’ treatment of Mssrs Corbyn, Abbott, etc demonstrated that the Guardian can spread fears and scapegoat persons as much as the Sun and the Mail.
People are entitled to their opinions, but to distort information and strongly push forward a false narrative is always dangerous. Adverse situations will occur in which even the perpetrator is likely to fall victim to. The Guardian in this sense, is responsible for its share in making certain we are all now living in interesting times.
I wonder how big a part Jonathan Freedland plays in directing Viner’s policy on Zionism. He was a serious contender for the job she eventually got. In an eight page letter I sent to Viner telling her why I was cancelling my subscription after forty plus years of being a loyal reader, I included this link to a very revealing article about Freedland and his ultra Zionism and highlighted this below
Daphna Baram quotes Freedland in her 2004 book (pp 227-228) as follows: “Some Guardian people might wish it were otherwise, but it is a fact that the vast majority of Jews in the world today identify themselves with Israel, and see any attack on it as an attack on themselves. The result is that much of what we publish can and does offend our Jewish readers. My view is that if we are regularly offending most members of an ethnic minority, then that has to be a cause of concern…. [S]upport of Zionism is part of the Guardian’s own history. This is our heritage and we cannot break from it lightly.” That is, the Guardian should tailor its coverage of Israel to its Jewish, rather than its Arab or Palestinian, readership. And anyway, pro-Zionism is in the Guardian’s DNA.
Both she and Freedland are an utter disgrace.
What a contrast to the speech Gary Younge, sadly no longer with the Guardian, made at today’s rally in Trafalgar Square. And although not related to this article I cannot end before mentioning JVL’s own Glyn Secker’s amazingly powerful speech which won wide applause from all.
I stopped buying the Guardian over ten years ago. It has since become worse.
I was appalled by the article
Astounded
Amazed that was the best he had
Another Zionist finding any way to shift any critism of Israel to antisemitism and poor me
I can not find any excuses or justification for his article
I did not buy the paper the following week, but did see in it some very good articles responding to his tirade
BUT I remain seriously concerned that the papers editors put it in the paper
The Guardian’s weakness in the face of accusations of antisemitism by various Zionist organisations dates back to at least the 1970’s when they dropped Michael Adams as a freelancer for writing articles critical of Israel. See his book with Christopher Mayhew “Publish it Not”.
Roshan Pedder (@ 21:29 today) makes good points. I’ve wondered the same thing about Mr Freedland, especially when I recall a brief email exchange with him around the time of the “antisemitism” panic when the Guardian was taking part in the ‘oust Corbyn’ coup. The sociologist David Hirsh wrote much the same to me some years ago. But we can’t have it both ways, identify ourselves with Israel AND protest when others associate us with Israel’s crimes. People sometimes distinguish between Israel and its governments, but that doesn’t stand up to the scrutiny of history. Supremacism and eliminationism run like threads through the history of Zionism. It’s not by chance that Daphna Baram’s book was titled ‘Disenchantment: The Guardian and Israel’. Leafing quickly through it now makes me compare Starmer’s approach to Israel with Harold Wilson’s when he was PM. I wonder if that’s fair to Wilson
This really is worth reading to know just how vile and extreme a Zionist Jonathan Freedland is.
https://www.counterpunch.org/2015/02/13/why-jonathan-freedland-isnt-fit-to-be-the-new-editor-in-chief-of-the-guardian/
The Guardian has never been very good on Zionism as the example of Michael Adams exemplifies but at least they broke ground by employing him in the first place. He didn’t get everything in but he did get quite a lot in.
Back when Comment is Free first started in 2007 I wrote a number of articles b4 the Zionists pushed back.
But whereas the Guardian used to employ socialists to write for it, today they have absolute nonentities like Marina Hyde. There are no John Palmers, Jonathan Steeles.
Where once the Guardian used to refuse to take part in the D Notice system it abandoned its opposition.
The Guardian has moved to the neo-liberal right under Kath Viner which is why it led the fake anti-Semitism smear campaign. Its publishing of Jacobson’s piece, which had no cognitive or other merit, just demonstrated that it is prepared to publish any and every bit of Zionist nonsense.
The treatment of Susan Abulhawa is outrageous but not out of the ordinary. Viner got rid of Steve Bell, its brilliant cartoonist and the only real socialist on the paper.
What gets me is that there are still fools who are prepared to donate to the Guardian, as if it were a charity, despite Viner’s salary of over half a million pounds.
Having had some experience of working in the British newspaper industry, I found this article shocking and depressing – but not surprising. Anyone paying attention to the Guardian in recent years will have realised that it was being hollowed out from the inside in terms of journalistic integrity.
The Guardian likes to quote CP Scott’s famous dictum: “Facts are sacred, comment is free”. How do the Guardian bigwigs – Ms Viner, Ms Toynbee, Mr Kettle and Mr Freedland – square that boast with their refusal to allow Ms Abulhawa to use the word “holocaust”? Do they not understand the origin of the word? Of course they do. Their refusal to allow “holocaust” is driven – I believe – by a simple lack of moral courage. They are afraid of being criticised.
I am reminded again of the words of Jacob Bronowski near the end of his great television series “The Ascent of Man”. Stooping down to grasp a handful of the mud and ashes beside the gas ovens of Auschwitz, he looked up and said: “…… that was not done by gas. It was done by arrogance. It was done by dogma. It was done by ignorance. When people believe that they have absolute knowledge, with no test in reality, this is how they behave.”
I have a suggestion: since most journalists working for the Guardian are members of the National Union of Journalists (well, I hope they are), and it appears that many of them are unhappy at the paper’s unqualified support for Zionism, why don’t they call a meeting of the NUJ chapel to discuss the meaning of “facts are sacred, comment is free” and collectively pass a resolution asking the editor to implement it?
The G certainly needs to change for me to start reading it again. After over 50 yrs since university days I stopped regular reading of G. I now will occasionally read it when for example Nesrine Malak is writing. I wrote to Viner 4 yrs ago cancelling my subscription because of its anti Corbyn stance. It got worse when it got rid of Steve Bell the brilliant Political Cartoonist. He was the last straw for me. As for Polly Toynbee she seemed to have totally lost it re her criticism of Corbyn. Freedland well less said the better. He has been an absolute disaster.