The Economist fancies itself a centrist magazine, one which provides “authoritative insight and opinion” to its 1.4 million subscribers, and stands in opposition to “privilege, pomposity and predictability”. On Israel, however, it continues to lean in a decidedly predictable direction – one which conforms to the egregious bias adopted by the ‘herd of independent thinkers’ within the British radical left.
Indeed, the facile paradigm adopted in the following graphic commentary, published in the March 6th print edition of The Economist, on the speech delivered last week to the US Congress by Israel’s prime minister evokes the agitprop routinely expressed in Guardian cartoons by propagandists such as Steve Bell and Martin Rowson.
The cartoon isn’t difficult to unpack. Whilst the Americans and Iranians are both trying to reach a peaceful solution, an adolescent, attention-seeking Netanyahu – led by Republican House Speaker John Boehner – is causing trouble by attempting to scuttle a diplomatic agreement.
Even leaving aside the regime’s genocidal rhetoric against the Jewish state, the suggestion that the intentions of the Islamic Republic – which the US State Department has characterized as one of the top exporters of global terrorism – in the current talks are peaceful (rather than reflecting their narrow desire to end economic sanctions) is absurd.
Whether you agree or disagree with the details of the possible agreement taking shape between Iran and the six world powers, it takes an awful lot of ideological conditioning to look at the conflict between Jerusalem and Tehran and see the former as the belligerent party.
Economist cartoon contrasts peaceful Iran with belligerent Israel
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