Guardian editorial on Palmer Report dismisses findings at odds with their desire to vilify Israel

When asked whether our blog’s efforts to combat antisemitism and the assault on Israel’s legitimacy is effective, and whether we are winning hearts and minds, I typically respond by first breaking the public into three (admittedly broad) categories:

1. Zionists and philosemites who we don’t need to convince of the righteousness of our cause, but may still appreciate our efforts to state the case for Israel clearly, and without apologies.

2. Those in the broad middle whose minds are open to our arguments.

3.  And those who possess a bigoted, or ideologically-inspired, hostility towards Israel – and often Jews as such – which is impervious to facts, reason, or moral persuasion.  

While our target audience are clearly those in the first two categories, the Guardian and those who take seriously the paper’s views on Israel fall squarely in the third category, are beyond reach, and simply need to be fought and exposed.

The Guardian editorial on Sunday, Sept. 4, “Israel and Turkey: sailing into choppy waters”, is a case study that the paper’s editors possess a hostility towards the Jewish state that is seemingly immutable.

Despite the Palmer Report’s findings that Israel’s blockade is consistent with international law, which characterized the IHH sponsored incursion as a reckless and dangerous provocation, and concluded that IDF Navy personnel was met by organized and violent resistance, a recent Guardian editorial on the continuing diplomatic fallout between Israel and Turkey demonstrates that the Guardian views the report – which wildly contradicts their initial coverage of the 2010 flotilla incident – as a journalistic liability whose conclusions should be ignored or undermined. 

The editorial line is clear by the second paragraph, which interprets the disagreements between Israeli and Turkish authorities over how best to repair the diplomatic damage as an example of Israeli intransigence.

The editorial argues:

“In offering regret and compensation but refusing to apologise, Binyamin Netanyahu’s government made a conscious decision: once again Israel chose a tactical victory over a strategic relationship.”

Naturally, it is simply inconceivable that the Guardian could conclude that, perhaps, by refusing Israel’s offer of an official expression of regret for the loss of life, and monetary compensation, Turkey is the obstinate party.

The editorial continues:

“Where the Mavi Marmara went, Turkey will follow by challenging the Gaza blockade in the international court of justice. And rightly so.”

So, not only has the Guardian learned nothing from the report’s findings, on the legality of Israel’s blockade – and the broader conclusions that there is no humanitarian crisis in Gaza, and that  that “all humanitarian missions wishing to assist Gaza’s population should do so through established procedures” – the paper’s editors seem to be egging on Turkey to continue their belligerence against Israel, and, further, provide moral encouragement to hostile groups intent on again challenging the blockade.

Such a strategy would seem, at the very least, egregiously inconsistent with the editorial’s seeming initial concerns over the diplomatic riff between Israel and Turkey.

But, the Guardian editorial then descends even further.

“If, as Palmer found, the siege is legal in international law, the occupation is too. This must be challenged in court.”

Now, even by Guardian standards, this is simply an unintelligible passage. The basis of the legality of Israel’s blockade stems from their reasonable determination that Gaza is a hostile state and that lsrael’s blockade has a legitimate security objective: “To  prevent weapons, ammunition, military supplies and people from entering Gaza and to stop Hamas operatives sailing away from Gaza with vessels filled with explosives”

But, finally, and most troubling, what “occupation” are they referring to?

Are they really advancing the perverse logic of Israel’s most implacable foes that Gaza remains “occupied”?   

Six years after Israel withdrew every last remaining Jew from Gaza, and five years after a plurality of Palestinians voted to elect a hideously antisemitic terrorist movement dedicated to Israel’s destruction – a government which has, since elected, launched thousands of missiles into Israeli civilian communities – the Jewish state, is trying desperately, as any state would, to defend her citizens.

Yet, the Guardian is not only unmoved by the plight of the Jewish democratic state, but increasingly parrots the the vile logic of her decidedly reactionary enemies.

This is what the Guardian has become:  Enablers, if not defenders, of the most explicitly antisemitic movements in the world today – a  grotesque moral perversion of what was once a truly liberal voice.

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