Israeli liberal democracy trashed as fake as Guardian campaign descends into farce
After a break of more than 24 hours (!), the Guardian’s campaign against Israel has resumed in some style with a truly ludicrous piece of writing designed to tarnish Israel’s reputation as a free society. I have written before about the opportunistic nature of the Guardian’s near daily assault on the Jewish state. But even by the paper’s any-stick-will-do standards, this one takes the biscuit.
Following one of the usual templates, the Guardian’s editorial team has dragged out a far-Left Israeli peacenik who is all too willing to buy his 15 minutes of fame by selling out the reputation of his country. This time around, the author, Gal Wettstein, has been given the task of trashing Israel’s reputation for free speech. The way in which this fits into the broader campaign of deligitimisation is clear. One of Israel’s most powerful defences is that it is the Middle East’s only free society. For anti-Israeli campaigners, that defence needs to be undermined…if at all possible.
The problem is that since Israel is in fact a genuinely free society with a commitment to free speech as strong as any in the Western world, the piece that emerges is so bad that, in places, it is difficult to avoid laughing out loud.
Even before we get to content, the absurdly melodramatic tone is a jaw-dropper. In paragraph two we are darkly warned of the risks our hero might be taking in writing for the Guardian.
“Even as I write,” he tells us, “I hear the clinking of the chains in my mind: how much do I dare expose? What might be the repercussions of this word, or that sentence?”
Pfff. The bravery of it all. So what’s coming next? He’s about to release details of the location of Israel’s nuclear weapons? He has the list of Israeli secret agents in Tehran and it’ll be up on his website in seconds? No actually, military secrets have nothing to do with it he says.
The justification for portraying Israel’s commitment to freedom of speech as little better than Stalin’s is the following: “…what constrain me,” he says, “are the social consequences of speaking certain taboos.”
So what would these taboos be then? Well, things like this:
“…stating opinions as innocent as a parity of value between the lives of Jews and Palestinians; or using the word “apartheid” in relation to the occupied Palestinian territories; or suggesting the Israeli army might have committed war crimes in Lebanon or in Gaza.”
Aha. Not really what one would call taboos, but let’s get back to the dire consequences he was talking about — the “clinking of the chains” and so on. What’s going to happen to him for saying these things? Thumb screws? The gulag? Er, not quite:
“There is no law against saying these things,” he confesses, “but there is certainly a price for saying them. Being identified with such opinions might cost one the recommendation of an already wavering superior. It might undermine a shaky friendship. It has even cost me romantic attachments, at their early stages.”
I honestly don’t mean to be cruel, but being turned down for a second date for voicing crude and infantile criticisims of the Israeli state does not constitute reliable evidence of an oppressive and restrictive attitude to free speech.
But the piece gets worse. It turns out that our hero is not simply having problems getting a girlfriend:
“Well, I can talk to my father about anything – except politics,” he says. “Within minutes a political discussion descends into a shouting match. Likewise with many friends and colleagues.”
Oh dear. Well, I’m sorry that poor old Gal Wettstein hasn’t got a girlfriend, has fallen out with his dad, no longer has any friends and is not the most popular chap at work but, in all honesty, this probably tells us far more about him than it does about Israeli society.
The content of the piece itself can be summarised in a single sentence: People with far-Left opinions who use defamatory analogies against their own country end up being unpopular, especially in war time. That is not exactly what you’d call a startling revelation. But as I said, for the Guardian any stick will do….
To read the full article, click here:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/libertycentral/2009/jul/26/israel-freedom-speech-censorship
Tags: Israel
July 27th, 2009 at 10:20 am
Great rebuttal Robin.
Thank you for your efforts.
I too describe the Guardian as obsessively anti Israel. They are conducting a crusade against Israel - the only true democracy in the whole Middle East.
It provides a platform for rank anti Semites to post their hate of Jews and the Jewish state under the camouflage of anti Zionism.
July 27th, 2009 at 11:47 am
Well said Mr. Shepherd. To be honest, I only read the Guardian for its entertainment value. I make little bets with myself every day as to how many anti-Israel articles will feature that day, and will they be written by far left Israelis or by their own editorial team. I am rarely disappointed (if that is the right word).
I once registered a complaint with Honest Reporting about the Comment is Free page, and they answered that CiF is so extreme that they have given up even mentioning it. They treat it as a lost cause.
Perhaps we shouldn’t be paying them so much attention and they will fade away.
July 27th, 2009 at 11:47 am
Robin Shepherd says in response to this comment: Another contact told me he had put up a link to my piece on the CIF website. It was deleted by the moderators in about 45 seconds. I suspect the same thing happened to yours!
A great debunking of the Guardian’s obsession with delegimitizing Israel.I posted a link to this article on CIF. Let’s see its life span before its deletion by those champions of free speech.
July 27th, 2009 at 11:59 am
The Guardian and Comment is Free revel in publishing pieces by Jews that are willing to demonize the Jewish state, especially homegrown ones from their own Comment is Free site that get elevated from BTL (below the line) status.
July 27th, 2009 at 12:03 pm
What do you expect from a Hadash voter,BTW another notorious Israeli who writes for them,is also Hadash voter.
It takes a certain type of person that is capable of turning on his own people.
July 27th, 2009 at 12:12 pm
Good article.
I don’t think that they had to drag this unreconstructed and immature idiot out from under a stone [my sense of al-Grauniad is that probably as a result of canvassing, there is a queue of them which probably stretches around the block, all waiting to put the boot in, all secure in the knowledge that no matter how outlandish their claims, or full of lies, or lacking in background research or context (hello, Seth Freedman!)] no-one will be allowed to argue with them on Comment is (not at all) Free.
Given that the Editor in Chief of Comment is (not) Free is divorced from reality enough to believe that she is performing a useful service, none of the above should be surprising.
Gal Wettstein’s attempt actually cheered me up. It proved that Comment is (not) Free is really scraping the bottom of the barrel.
Long may that continue.
And Clap Hammer, you have hit the nail on the head. As with any obsession, the more divorced from reality the claims, the more they are believed.
July 27th, 2009 at 12:26 pm
Gal went a great deal too far in his implications that Israel is a censoring society and the reaction from the AntiIsrael brigade was the proof of the thesis. He is young and as he will grow out of that we can hope that he grows out of his infatuation with parties that neglect his own best interests.
Israel is a great deal freer than the Guardian unsurprisingly. I find myself hypocritically censoring my entries or attempting to stay beneath the wire so that I can go on giving honest information in return for propaganda - by which I don’t mean Gal.
July 27th, 2009 at 12:34 pm
Robin Shepherd says: They were probably in an editorial meeting working out how to get Noam Chomsky to write for them. 42 minutes is extraordinary. May I recommend others to try putting up a link to my blog and report back on how quickly it gets deleted.
My post survived 42 minutes. Comment is Free!
July 27th, 2009 at 7:19 pm
To be honest, the Guardian is partially correct. If you look at the past 15 years of public discourse in Israel, you’ll find that free speech is only tolerated if the speech is left-leaning. All of the major issues regarding free speech have been when the speech in question is of a right wing nature. While there are some truly bizarre laws on the books limiting free speech in Israel such as defaming public officers or defaming religion, the selective application of those laws have been targeted at right wing opinions.
July 30th, 2009 at 2:26 am
Ah, but the best is: now Carlo Strenger, a flamboyant Tel Aviv prof for psychology and definitely a Tel Aviv celeb, has written a Cif-piece taking down Gal/TrueLeft a notch — but also, in the comments, inviting him for coffee!!! Well, good old Gal must be wondering to himself if these are the dreadful consequences he feared for airing his views!!!