MELANIE PHILLIPS: BEYOND THE PALE
http://www.spectator.co.uk/melaniephillips/6672569/beyond-the-pale.thtml
Israel’s ambassador to the UK, Ron Prosor, has written an absolutely blistering attack on the Guardian for publishing its so-called ‘Palestine Papers’, previously discussed here and here. Prosor states flatly that, with this coverage, the Guardian has now established itself beyond doubt as the mouthpiece for Hamas – and he furthermore accuses columnist Seumas Milne (although not by name) of effectively endorsing terrorist mass murder:
For one newspaper, the Palestinian leadership is not Palestinian enough. From his London salon one senior columnist bemoaned the ‘decay of what in Yasser Arafat’s heyday was an authentic national liberation movement.’ For him, it seems, Palestinian authenticity can only be achieved through the massacre of athletes at the Munich Olympics, the hijacking of planes or the suicide bombing of civilians in shopping malls and pizza parlors. In his eyes, negotiations are an affront to the romanticized fetishism of ‘resistance.’
… Throughout the region, tensions are erupting without the slightest connection to Israeli-Palestinian relations. The eyes of the world are now firmly fixed on the unrest in Egypt, which erupted after revolution swept Tunisia. Yemen is disintegrating. In Lebanon an Arab state has fallen into the hands of a non-Arab power and is now officially, not just practically, under the control of an Iranian proxy. Hezbollah has successfully deposed Saad Hariri, whose own father was murdered in all likelihood by the Shia militia, Syria or a combination of the two. Its puppet is now the prime minister. It reads like the plot of a gangster movie. Certain commentators must be swooning at the ‘authenticity’ of it all.
… Hamas and its Iranian backers hope the unrest will spread to the West Bank. A media axis between Doha and London seems determined to grant their wish… The leaks have made it less likely the Palestinians will loosen their current strategy of blocking talks. PA negotiators already needed to sell concessions to the Palestinian street. We didn’t realize they also needed to sell them to Fleet Street.
I can’t recall ever reading such a savage attack on a British newspaper by another country’s ambassador. In the Jewish Chronicle, meanwhile, which last week also went for its throat, the Guardian’s International News Editor Charlie English writes a defence of the ‘Palestine Papers’ coverage and denies that the Guardian is at the heart of a ‘nexus’ that is trying to delegitimise Israel, as the JC claimed. But this in turn is further denounced by the JC, which clearly now has fire in its belly. In an editorial opinion, it says:
But in its riposte the paper simply ignores the major areas of complaint against it, of ‘distortion, bias, agenda, spin and breathtaking arrogance’.
And it also publishes a further analysis of the coverage by BICOM which says:
In order to advance their particular story, Al Jazeera and the Guardian have had to misread or misrepresent significant portions of the text, omit other key sections, and demonstrate virtually no appreciation for the history of the negotiations.
This all adds up to a devastating charge sheet which goes far beyond complaints of bias or even bigotry. In essence, the Guardian stands accused of crossing a line from the journalism it has grossly abused into a manoeuvre designed to further a war of extermination in the Middle East.
The reason why Charlie English’s defence is so feeble is surely that there simply is no defence to this most shocking of charges. The Guardian is caught in a pitiless spotlight – and the devil of it is that it has shone it upon itself.
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