The Norway massacre & the hypocrisy of the Guardian’s moralizing on conservative critics of Islamism

Here’s Guardian Associate Editor Seumas Milne, on what he feels is the role conservative critics of radical Islam played in the massacre in Norway committed by Anders Behring Breivik:

“The continuum between the poisonous nonsense commonplace in the mainstream media [by writers such as Bernard Lewis and Melanie Phillips toAyaan Hirsi Ali and Mark Steyn] in recent years, the street slogans of groups like the EDL and Breivik’s [massacre] is unmistakable.”

Indeed, many other Guardian reports have cast blame on Breivik’s shooting rampage upon other right-wing commentators who, like Lewis, Phillips, Hirsi Ali, and Steyn, have been rightly critical of threat posed by violent Islamist ideology, and have never once even entertained advocacy for violence.

Yet, here’s a Guardian editorial, from May 20th, on President Obama’s speech on the Middle East uprisings:

“The leaders of Fatah and Hamas were obliged to reconcile by the forces stirring the Palestinian street. The negotiators of Fatah had stopped negotiating, and the fighters of Hamas had stopped fighting. Both had to respond to a simple idea: if one million Egyptians can fill Tahrir Square demanding Palestinian rights, why can’t Palestinians, who taught the Arab world how to mount insurrections, and mounted two intifadasof their own.”

While official Guardian editorials sometimes employ sentences vague or blurry enough to plausibly deny that they are actually supporting violence, this passage is not compromised by such rhetorical obfuscation.  They seem to be clearly characterizing coordinated violence against innocent Israeli civilians (between 2000 and 2005) as something to be emulated.

The Guardian’s Associate Editor Seumas Milne assigns blame, on the terrorist atrocity in Norway, to conservative writers who merely were critical of radical Islam and, yet, his paper, in an official editorial, seems clearly to characterize the violence and carnage of the 2nd Intifada, which resulted in the murder of over 1,000 innocent Israelis (and crippling injures of thousands more) as something to be admired – the Palestinians’ gift to the Arab world.

The rank hypocrisy of the Guardian’s moralizing on the dangers of right-wing vitriol is never more evident that in this editorial.  

Not only are they demonizing Israelis – the way, Milne claims, conservative critics of Islam demonize Muslims – but seem to cite a coordinated terrorist onslaught by reactionary terrorist movements openly committed to Israel’s destruction (such as Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade) which targeted innocent Jewish civilians in coffee shops, restaurants, shops, crowded streets, malls, bus stations, dance clubs, homes,  and Yeshivot, as as a positive moral example.

Based on the Guardian’s standards the next time a terror attack occurs in Israel a good measure of blame should squarely be placed on those who demonized the victims, referred to them continually in the pejorative, and glorified the perpetrators as engaging in a commendable moral act.

The Guardian’s continuing glorification of Palestinian terror, it would seem, by their own definition of political causation, would render them morally culpable for future attacks against innocent Israeli civilians.

Written By
More from Adam Levick
The Abu Rahma Hoax, pt. 3 (Does this Palestinian version of events in Bilin seem credible to you?)
H/T Elder of Ziyon This map, from today’s issue of Ha’aretz, represents...
Read More
Leave a comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *