Whataboutery? No, dear Reader. It’s through-the-looking-glass mote-and-beamery

This is a guest post by Geary

Nobody’s perfect and every country has its dirty linen; Israel is no exception. But even the most distracted visitor to CiF won’t have failed to notice how the Guardian gets its rocks off by sniffing around – quite exceptionally – for Israel’s. If it can’t find any, it’ll employ one of its crew ofAs-a-Jewsto wash some in public (if you’ve ever thought, for instance, “What is the point of Seth Freedman?”, now you know). But should you point out on CiF that many of Israel’s sworn enemies never ever wash their smalls and that the stench cries out to heaven, you will – as sure as paint dries – be accused of whataboutery.

We’ve recently been treated to the spectacle of one Mya Guarnieri (who?- quite) using Israel’s immigration policy – a carbon copy of that of most European countries, even though Israel inhabits a rather more dangerous part of the world – as proof of the unique “inhumanity” of the country. Come again? I hear you say. We’re talking about  a region of the world where it’s common practise to sequester migrant’s passports, beat them, even keep them under lock and key, where expulsion without recourse is quite normal. But should you think to write this on CiF, you will be accused of whataboutery: “Don’t come up with ‘what about Saudi?’ or ‘what about Lebanon?’ – it’s Israel we’re currently (as ever) dumping on”.

You might recall not long ago how the Guardian joined in the Turkish government’s somewhat manufactured incandescent rage that nine members of a lynch-mob met their fate at the hands of Israeli special forces on board a ship carrying gift hampers to Hamas. You might also have read how the same week that self-same Turkish government was bragging about the numbers of Kurds it had slaughtered (130 it reckoned). Did you point out this irony on CiF? If you did you were almost certainly accused of whataboutery: “Don’t come up with ‘what about Turkey?’ – it’s Israel we’re currently (as ever) dumping on”.

Cast your mind a little further back, dear Reader. Was ever a human construction – a Syrian torture prison or Iraqi mass-grave, maybe – greeted with so much outraged opprobrium at the Guardian as Israel’s security barrier? Even now, after all the lives it has saved on BOTH sides, the Guardian still picks at the scab.  And it occupies so much attention that there’s no room to contemplate the other walls going up around the world. You would, dear Reader, be excused if you had never heard, say, of the 4,000 km barrier that India is building to keep out Islamic terrorists and immigrants from Bangladesh. Scores of people are killed trying to breach this barrier every year. Mention these on CiF: “mere whataboutery – it’s Israel we’re currently (as ever) dumping on”.

But no, fear not, dear Reader. It is not you who is unhinged. It is not you who is guilty of whataboutery but the Guardian and the Gardianistas who are guilty of deliberate, ideological and ultimately immoral through-the-looking-glass mote-and-beamery. Oh Guardian, why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother Israel’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in the eyes of its enemies? (Matthew 7: 1-5. Sort of)

If you hissy fit over Israel’s perfectly normal immigrations laws but look to the floor and shuffle your feet at the widespread and often sadistic abuse of foreign servants in Saudi Arabiawho, at times, live in almost slave-like conditions – you are guilty of mote-and-beamery.

If you foam at the mouth when Israel takes out one of its murderous enemies in a surgical strike but have little to say about Turkey’s ongoing slaughter of the Kurds (and let’s not even go to Chechnya or Darfur or Sri Lanka), you are guilty of mote-and-beamery

If you scream blue murder at the blessed security fence and turn two blind eyes to the unspeakable so-called “refugee” camps for Palestinians in Lebanon and all the other  appalling Arab-on-Palestinian maltreatment or indeed the security walls in the rest of the world, you are guilty of mote-and-beamery.

If you tell lie after lie about Gaza, ignoring the aid and medical facilities provided by Israel, if you then ignore the extreme human rights abuses throughout the Middle East, if you shriek “war crime” every time Israel defends itself against attacks by its genocidal enemies – Iran, Hamas, Hezbollah – you are guilty of mote-and-beamery.

Why does the Guardian do it? No other mainstream quality English-language newspaper is so crudely and relentlessly and immorally prejudiced against a civilised nation. Is it simply so blinded by the great big ideological beams in both its eyes? Or could it be that in days when Muslim punters outnumber Jewish ones in the UK by six to one (not to mention all those deranged leftist fellow travellers of the Islamist agenda), it has cast away all semblance of journalistic integrity in pursuit of revenue?

Thou hypocrite Guardian, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of others’ eyes.

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