Guardian plumbs new depths in evoking Israeli villainy

An analysis by the Guardian’s Bethan McKernan explored the likely political motivations for China’s recent foray into the Israeli-Palestinian issue – in particular, Beijing’s efforts to facilitate talks between the parties predicated on a two-state solution.

The only thing notable in the piece (“China’s Palestinian moment is about global standing rather than peace”, June 12) was the opening sentence in the following paragraph:

Despite seeming parallels, there is no official Palestinian position on the plight of China’s persecuted Uyghur people. A delegation of Arab League diplomats visited Xinjiang province last week, a move widely criticised by rights groups as whitewashing Beijing’s human rights abuses against the Muslim minority.

If, as it seems, McKernan is suggesting “parallels” between China’s persecution of the Muslim Uyghurs and Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians, then this is among the more egregious examples of the outlet’s moral myopia and abject ignorance we’ve ever come across.

Let’s briefly unpack it.

The Uyghurs are a mostly Muslim, Turkic-speaking ethnic group living in the northwestern region of Xinjiang. China’s totalitarian regime has, since 2017, engaged in a systematic campaign of cultural genocide – an effort to erase entirely the Uyghur traditions, language, faith and ethnic identity.

Approximately one million Uyghurs are currently imprisoned in forced-labour and re-education camps merely for practicing their religion, having international contacts or communications, or attending a western university.  In these camps, many are forced to renounce Islam and swear their allegiance to the Communist Party.  They’re subjected to torture, sexual violence, forced sterilizations and abortions.

China’s campaign of ethnic cleansing against this Muslim group also includes the state’s destruction of thousands of Uyghur mosques, cultural sites and graveyards – and other steps, such as banning certain Islamic practices.

Further, reminiscent of Nazi propaganda videos purporting to show Jewish concentration camps inmates being treated well and thriving, the Chinese government has reportedly recorded a series of videos attempting to depict Uyghurs as happy with their lives, with some denouncing international criticism of China.

So, we’d like to ask Ms. Mckernan and her Guardian editors: Where precisely are Israel’s internment camps located? Where, in the West Bank or Gaza, are the destroyed mosques? Where are the examples of sexual violence, torture and forced sterilization/abortions? Where, in short, are the “parallels” between China’s morally unconscionable brutality against innocent Uyhgurs and Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians?

To all but the most ideologically-driven, obsessive anti-Israel activists, these questions answer themselves.  There’s no evidence of cultural genocide against the Palestinians because nothing even remotely resembling such a horrific crime is occurring, or has ever occurred.

Israel, like all states, has its flaws – including it’s handling of the Palestinian issue.

However, no amount of agitprop or rhetorical jujitsu can obfuscate the fact that it’s a liberal democracy, one that has arduously attempted to maintain its moral compass despite having been under siege throughout much of its history by forces wishing to undo 1948 – including in the years preceding the Six Day War, when Israel didn’t occupy one square centimeter of territory.

The imperative of evoking immutable Israeli villainy while denying Palestinians agency demands that all information that the complicates that narrative – including Israeli peace offers (rejected by PA leaders), Israeli territorial withdrawals and continuous Palestinian terrorism – be erased.

The fact that the Guardian journalist views the conflict she’s covering as a moral binary, a tale of Palestinian good vs Israeli evil, lies at the root of her egregiously skewed coverage of the region day after day.

If you think we’re exaggerating about the degree of McKernan’s bias, let’s recall that, while covering the Mid-East for the Independent, she in effect endorsed a book by an extremist alleging that pre-state Zionists collaborated with the Nazis to murder millions of Jews and then, after statehood, “emulated the Nazis” in planning and carrying out their own genocide against Palestinians.

This is who the Guardian hired as their Jerusalem correspondent, not by accident or because of a lack of due diligence, but because malevolence towards the Jewish state and its supporters is part of their brand.

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