The Guardian’s role in the delegitimization of Israel

This essay I wrote was recently published in The Jewish News.

The Guardian’s initial editorial upon release of “The Palestine Papers” contextualized thousands of secret Palestinian documents – classified notes, obtained by Al-Jazeera, of their negotiations with Israel over the last ten years – in a way which managed to affirm the paper’s consistent narrative of Israel: as a crude, bullying goliath who has no interest in living peacefully with its neighbors.  The paper likened the Jewish state to a thuggish “nightclub bouncer”.

Additional “Palestine Papers” commentary crossed extremely dangerous lines: referring to Palestinian leaders who show flexibility during negotiations as “craven”, providing a platform to a Hamas member (who issued a thinly veiled threat of violence), posting a political cartoon from a notorious anti-Semitic extremist, and publishing multiple letters justifying the use of suicide bombing as a legitimate political tool.

No longer merely a vehicle for anti-Israel activism, Guardian editors have shown themselves shamefully tempted by the most lethal political orientations – those which, throughout history (whether in the service of left-wing or right-wing ideologies), contain a couple common denominators: They fetishize radicalism and political extremism, and, most dangerously, sanitize – even romanticize – the use of violence to achieve political ends.

Such extreme views about Israel, of course, are nothing new, and merely represents one example in a continuing rhetorical and political assault on Israel which simply has no contemporary parallel.

While nations across the globe are of course criticized, and some even vilified, no state other than Israel is targeted by an international network of state and non-state actors who characterize the nation as morally beyond the pale.  Whether such actors are explicit in their desires – such as Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran – or seek to achieve such objectives by advocating what’s known as the “one-state solution” (the radical political reconstitution of the world’s only Jewish state into the 51st majority Muslim state) the myriad of opponents facing Israel all attack the fundamental political legitimacy of the Jewish nation-state.

To read the rest of the essay, open this link and turn to page 11.

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