‘The Guardian's behaviour this week, even by its own often disreputable standards over Israel, has been simply shocking,’ Mr Pollard writes, inter alia.
‘Not presented them so much as lobbed them, doused with petrol, into a tinderbox – and hoped for a result....
What is very wrong is the way the paper chose to present its story: the distortions, the bias, the agenda, the spin and the breathtaking arrogance of its handing down instructions to the Palestinians of how they should behave. Make no mistake: the Guardian's presentation was, as David Landau puts it, "intended to poison the Palestinians against their leaders". And to poison the world against Israel....The Guardian crossed a line this week. It has not practised journalism but rather hardcore political activism, playing with people's lives.’See the entire editorial here: http://www.thejc.com/blogpost/guardians-shame
And here’s Jonathan Sacerdoti, executive director of the UK Zionist Federation, in a discussion with Guardian journalist Polly Toynbee, London-based Palestinian editor Abdel Bari Atwan, and others on BBC News 24's "Dateline London" programme today.
(Hat tip: Jonathan Hoffman)
The ventriloquists's dummy and sock puppet Abdel Bari Atwan, who Al-Beebzeera love to roll out to cause those of us who honour truth to become apoplectic, reminds me of a taxi driver I encountered last year in Bethlehem who said ''I give you good Arab price, good Palestinian price'' and then charged me 10 times the going rate. As for Polly Toynbee, she should stick to hosting tupperware parties.
ReplyDeleteDaphne,
ReplyDeleteI very much doubt that the PA ever made the offer that the Palestine Papers claim they did. There's just no logic to it. They would know they could never sell that deal to the Palestinians or the Arab world in general. And they would know that the Israelis could blow the fact that they'd made the offer any time they wanted to and kill their credibility with their people - and hand the latter straight over to Hamas. They would be hostage to potential blackmail forever.
I think these papers were doctored - as Abbas himself said, they switched the speakers around, so what was the Israeli position was attributed to the Palestinians. Abba was quoted as saying something like, 'Of course there can be no right of return. That would mean the end of Israel and that's unacceptable'. Now an Israeli would say that, but it's quite unfeasible that Abbas would - and on the record to boot.
The worst part of this is that what was alleged (I believe falsely) to be the PA's position is realistic and pragmatic and what most reasonable people would recognise as the only possible final settlement.
Now, thanks to al Jazeera and al Guardian, the Palestinian leadership will never be able to walk itself to that position, nor attempt to take its people there.
Even if I was not on the Side of Israel, against anti-Semitism, against the vilification of Jews, against the global Islamisation that is happening, even then I would find the way in which the anti-Jewish/pro Arab/Islamist lobbyists interrupt and shout over their protagonists*, extreeeemly irritating . And they do it each time. Here in France at the moment, being a political animal, I am in heaven with their nearly wall-to-wall political discussion programmes on TV, but that irritating modus operandi above is so much in evidence that I often simply switch off in frustration.
ReplyDelete*) in this discussion above (although for a BBC person, the moderator here seemed surprisingly even-handed and in control), you still see the that Arab editor rudely interrupting Mr. Jonathan Sacerdoti and talking over him when he mentiones "neighbourhoods", while no-one interrupted his tirades.
Thanks, Roger, Rob, and Rita!
ReplyDeleteI haven't blogged re Palileaks - nothing I could possible say would improve on the great coverage and analysis on CiF Watch.