Pumping the Party Line

Eight days on after the incident aboard the Mavi Marmara, the Guardian still refuses to differentiate between the wood and the trees. In yet another faceless editorial on the subject on June 7th, the florid and highly-charged language which has become a hallmark of the Guardian’s reporting of this incident begins right from the opening words of the strapline: “Israel’s defiant reaction to the raid on the Gaza aid convoy is almost as appalling as the attack itself”.
In true ‘disgusted of Tunbridge Wells’ parochial style, the writer of this editorial chastises Israel for not apologizing for the deaths of nine highly violent protestors who brutally attacked Israeli soldiers and tried to kidnap a number of them. Actually, there have been numerous expressions of regret for the loss of life from Israeli leaders and spokesmen and that sentiment is echoed upon the Israeli street, but should Israel offer an official apology to Turkey for defending itself and the lives of its soldiers against terrorist facilitators intent upon helping an enemy with whom Israel is at war? Only the Guardian could lead the battle cry for such a preposterous demand.
Israel’s decision to decline to agree to the UN Secretary General’s demand for a multinational investigation of ‘Israel’s raid on the Gaza boat flotilla’ has the writer of this editorial in near apoplexy. He or she states that:

“There are real questions to answer, such as testimony that shots were fired before the commandos hit the deck of the Mavi Marmara, that the victims had multiple gunshot wounds to the head, apparently contradicting the claim that commandos only fired in self-defence.”

If readers are by now experiencing something of a sense of déjà vu it is hardly surprising. Once more, a la Cast Lead, we hear wild claims of Israeli atrocities from ‘witnesses’ who can hardly be deemed objective and have a particularly sharp political axe to grind. Once more the international community is demanding that, as we say in Hebrew, we prove that we do not have a sister. Once more that most discredited of organizations, the UN Security Council, issues instant condemnation of the deaths aboard the Mavi Marmara, but strangely has nothing to say about the fact that terrorist sympathizers and activists were aboard a so-called ‘peace ship’.
The current scenario is all the more surrealistic when one considers that Turkey is currently a member of the UNSC, along with Lebanon, and that the UNSC’s counter terrorism committee is currently chaired by a Turkish representative whose job description includes taking steps to:

* Criminalize the financing of terrorism
* Freeze without delay any funds related to persons involved in acts of terrorism
* Deny all forms of financial support for terrorist groups
* Suppress the provision of safe haven, sustenance or support for terrorists
* Share information with other governments on any groups practicing or planning terrorist acts
* Cooperate with other governments in the investigation, detection, arrest, extradition and prosecution of those involved in such acts; and
* Criminalize active and passive assistance for terrorism in domestic law and bring violators to justice.

Logic would suggest that the UNSC should actually be concentrating its energies on investigating that rather thinly-veiled terror facilitator known as the ‘Free Gaza’ movement and its brazen masquerade as a human rights organization, in particular as on April 8th 2010, the UNSC held a presentation on ‘maritime security and terrorist acts committed at sea’ which it is highly recommended to take the time to read.
Predictably, that other UN bastion of truth and justice, the UNHRC, has also weighed in on the subject, with Navi Pillay stating that “[i]nternational humanitarian law prohibits starvation of civilians as a method of warfare and it is also prohibited to impose collective punishment on civilians”. As well as being factually inaccurate on both counts, (one does have to wonder why time and time again the UN allows itself to be represented by people who apparently lack the skill of connecting between brain and mouth) this unfortunate statement serves only to enforce one’s impression that Mary Robinson was right when she said that “[t]his is unfortunately a practice by the Council: adopting resolutions guided not by human rights but by politics”.
Apparently though, the average Guardian editor is unable or unwilling to comprehend that the inclusion of such well-known champions of exemplary human rights such as Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Pakistan, Jordan, Indonesia, China, Bangladesh and Bahrain on the UNHRC’s line-up may go some way towards accounting for the fact that Israel is the only country in the world ever to have been specifically condemned by that same body and of course the only member state of the UN not allowed to sit on the UNSC.
If the UN were worth the paper on which its condemnations are written, it would by now have addressed the subject of the attacks taking place against Israeli citizens in Europe. As charged a word as pogrom is, there is no better way of describing the violent attack this week upon Israeli businessmen in Madrid or the attack upon Israel’s Deputy Ambassador in Manchester given the organized nature of this violence and the fact that whilst it may not be state sanctioned, the countries hosting such attacks cannot be seen to be actively trying to prevent or condemn them in any way, for reasons which to some of us are painfully obvious.
Those anti-Israeli groups which organize and carry out such indiscriminate attacks upon people simply because they are Israelis are being fed and nurtured by an atmosphere cultivated by organizations such as the UN, assorted ‘charities’ and ‘human rights’ groups with specific political agendas and irresponsible media organizations, including the Guardian, which deliberately present a highly unbalanced and emotionally-charged version of events, this editorial being a prime example. For well over a week now the Guardian has been publishing an hysterical torrent of articles which – when boiled down – are for the most part like Martin Rowson’s recent cartoon, in that they are doing nothing more than trying to turn Turks brandishing crowbars into doves of peace. Recognition of the moral contortions so obviously necessary to perform such an act can only lead the reader to one of two conclusions; either the mind which is capable of such cognitive dissonance is, to put it bluntly, severely lacking or its owner is driven by his own anti-Semitism, even if that goes unrecognized by him.
As in the micro world of the Guardian, so in the macro world of international affairs and the UN; too many officials and statesmen seem to be determined to avoid the real issues thrown up by the ‘Free Gaza’ flotilla and their broader implications. Too many are too quick to toss around condemnations, censure and calls for an inquiry which it is difficult to believe that in the climate that these bodies have already taken great care to create, could possibly be impartial in that vast portions of the whole picture are deliberately being ignored.
But then, the world leaders, the officials, the activists and the journalists all know only too well that (thankfully) no Israeli or Jew is going to attack the artist who draws an anti-Semitic cartoon. No windows will be smashed or embassies set on fire because of an article or book at which Jews or Israelis may take offence. No flags or effigies will be burned in the streets. No lives threatened nor fatwas issued on public figures which make unacceptable statements. Secure in this knowledge, the Guardian editor and many others like him can continue to pump the party line day after day without ever needing to confront their own motivations for such desperate cowardice.

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