Anyone who writes or edits stories about Israel and the Palestinians gets used to the extreme reactions they frequently produce. But even by the standards of this combustible issue, the attack on the Guardian mounted by Israel's ambassador to London last week was breathtakingly splenetic.
Writing on this website, Ron Prosor suggested that the paper's coverage of the Palestinian Papers, a trove of previously unseen documents chronicling 10 years of the peace process, left its "affinity for Hamas" beyond doubt. "Never has a British broadsheet so openly served the agenda of Middle Eastern extremism."
The ambassador went on to suggest that one Guardian columnist hankered after "the massacre of athletes at the Munich Olympics, the hijacking of planes or the suicide bombing of civilians in shopping malls and pizza parlors" and concluded by drawing parallels between the Hamas charter and the stance of a paper which has supported Israel's right to exist since long before 1948.
It would be tempting to laugh off Mr. Prosor's bilious onslaught if the charges he made were not so serious. But they are grave and, since Mr. Prosor speaks with the authority of the Israeli state, they demand a response.
The first thing worth pointing out is what the ambassador doesn't say: anything at all about the 15,000 or so words of reporting which the Guardian published based on the documents, which were initially obtained by Al Jazeera and independently authenticated and scrutinised by a Guardian team.
In a series of reports over four days, we revealed how Palestinian negotiators had made dramatic, previously unknown concessions during 2008 negotiations including an offer of "the biggest Yerushalayim in history" that would allow Israel to annex all but one of the settlements in East Jerusalem.
Other documents showed that Palestinian leaders had been prepared to accept the return of as few as 10,000 of the more than 5m Palestinian refugees, a dramatic shift from the PLO's public demand that any family displaced during the 1948 conflict should be allowed to return.
The documents contained fewer revelations about the Israeli side, partly because the positions its representatives struck inside the negotiating room were remarkably close to the ones it declared in public and hence were already known. But they did show, for instance, how former Israeli foreign minister Tzipi Livni proposed that several Arab villages straddling the green line that are now in Israel be redesignated as part of a new Palestinian state.
Since Mr. Prosor does not mention any of these reports, comprising the vast majority of words the Guardian published on the subject, we must assume he does not dispute the accuracy of our reporting.
Instead, his caricature of the Guardian as a media outpost of Hamas is based on a highly tendentious reading of a single op-ed column and a single line of one of two editorials which the paper ran on the Palestine Papers.
Quoting from a commentary by Seumas Milne in which he argued the Palestine Papers revealed "the decay of what in Yasser Arafat's heyday was an authentic national liberation movement" Mr. Prosor suggested the Guardian columnist regarded negotiation as "an affront to the romanticized fetishism of 'resistance.'"
In fact, far from rejecting the idea of negotiation per se, Milne's column argued that the Palestine Papers revealed "not a picture of genuine negotiation and necessary compromise, but of a gross imbalance of power that can't deliver peace, let alone justice."
Perhaps more significant once more, though, was what Mr. Prosor did not mention: that Milne's column was only one of a broad range of comment articles which the Guardian published on the Palestine Papers that ranged from Ha'aretz editor-at-Large Aluf Benn, former CIA officer Robert Grenier, the PLO's Saeb Erekat and Guardian columnist Jonathan Freedland all of whom defended the concessions offered by the Palestinian Authority, to, yes, Osama Hamdan of Hamas and Karma Nabulsi of Fatah, who were both highly critical of the PA.
The second exhibit in Mr. Prosor's case against the Guardian was an editorial which suggested Palestinian negotiators emerged from the documents looking "craven and eager to shower their counterparts with compliments." The ambassador suggests that readers would struggle to "notice a substantive difference between the paper's editorial line and the opinion piece by a Hamas spokesman splashed across its pages two days later."
It's a curious claim to make about a newspaper which has long been and continues to be a consistent advocate for a two-state solution -- not quite the Hamas take on things. The same editorial Mr. Prosor quotes from finishes by calling for urgent action, on both sides of the conflict, to save a two state solution. And just 48 hours later the paper ran a second editorial which Mr. Prosor chose to ignore. It concluded: "People should see the Palestine papers as a chance to put the search for a durable two-state solution back on track. Let there be no doubt. A two-state solution remains the only show in town."
One of the most striking aspects of Mr. Prosor's broadside is how out of kilter it is with most reaction to the Palestine Papers in Israel, where the Guardian's reporting was widely followed and debated. Ha'aretz's chief political columnist Akiva Eldar wrote that the Palestine Papers "are much more important than the documents recently released by WikiLeaks." Their significance lay in the fact that "the leaked documents completely discredit the claim that there is 'no peace partner' made by... Ehud Barak, and his boss, Benjamin Netanyahu."
Ron Prosor is a cultured and highly intelligent diplomat, a powerful advocate for Israel and, I'm pleased to say, a frequent contributor to the Guardian. But his crude and dishonest attack on our reporting of the Palestine Papers does neither him nor his country a service.
Ron Prosor: The Guardian's Assault on Peace in the Middle East
Carlo Strenger: Messianic Theology is an Obstacle to Middle Eastern Peace
Because Israel is the BOSS of the USA. Many thanks to few
Americans (mostly POLITICIANS: Democrat & Republicans) who are more Israelis than Americans and will do for the Foreign country (Israel) what they will never do for the USA....
and that my friends is TREASON!
Beys Afroyim is Israeli-American
while poor Christian (most likely)
Perez is Mexican-American
The MASTER has privileges that the SLAVE does NOT have
Many thanks to American COURTS run & controlled by biased JUDGES who are more Israelis than Americans and SPANISH combined!!
History shows that the land grab continues. With more and more Palestinians losing their homes and their farms so that Israel can expand their borders and create new settlements. Settlements that have been deemed illegal by every independent international body of Law. Yet to report this would be considered unbalanced towards Israel.
The Palestinians it would seem from the “Palestine Papers” have conceded to most of the Israeli demands. Yet there still is no Palestinian state and Israel claims that they have no partners for peace. To report this is considered to be unbalanced towards Israel.
The truth is the defense to libel. The truth is also the defense to balance. I ask my News Papers and Media to tell me the truth. If reporting the truth is unbalanced reporting against Israel, then the problem lies with Israel not the media. It is interesting that instead of attempting to change the actions that brought about a negative reaction by the media, Israel puts pressure on the media to change how the media reports on their actions.
Free speech includes people who disagree with you. Get the heck over it.
So, in all fairness, I am going to use the term "Isbara", since you're using ethnicity with Hasbara. Cool?
2- Take it as the standard shot across the bow to make you all think twice next time.
III- Remember the trend for next time so this pattern of isolated incidents is recognized for what it is rather than chalking it up to a guy having a bad mouth day. The ideology is creeping into the corporate media as normal instead of radical.
And I don't carry brief for Hamas, but I do support the third, no-violent path. So do hundreds of Palestinians and an increasing number of Israelis who are languishing, sometimes tortured in Israeli prisons. Funny, the ambassador doesn't like to talk about them.
This document demonstrates that, in 2008, the PLO wrote a paper describing the legal rights of Jews to lands that they owned prior to 1948 in Judea and Samaria (land confiscated by the Jordanians when they took control of the territories after 1948 war).
Here’s one paragraph:
“Jews who owned land have the right to have their land restored to them or to be compensated, if restitution is not materially possible. Jews are entitled to compensation for other material and non-material losses, including lost profits, lost income, etc. caused by their displacement and dispossession.”
As we reported during the “Palestine Papers” expose, the Guardian didn’t so much as mention compensation for such refugees, and, indeed, in a piece prior to the “Palestine Papers”, Rachel Shabi completely dismissed the broader issue of Jewish refugees from Arab lands – characterizing the issue as relatively unimportant, and Israeli efforts to highlight the plight of such Jews, during the course of negotiations, as insincere or cynical.
The Israeli Arabs are a time bomb. Their slide into complete Palestinization has made them an emissary of the enemy that is among us. They are a potential fifth column. In both demographic and security terms they are liable to undermine the state. So that if Israel again finds itself in a situation of existential threat, as in 1948, it may be forced to act as it did then. If we are attacked by Egypt (after an Islamist revolution in Cairo) and by Syria, and chemical and biological missiles slam into our cities, and at the same time Israeli Palestinians attack us from behind, I can see an expulsion situation. It could happen. If the threat to Israel is existential, expulsion will be justified..."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benny_Morris
And how can the Guardian be burying information it chose to reveal in the first place, along with Al Jazeera?
In September 2005, Israel completed the "disengagement plan," which included the dismantling of all the Israeli settlements in the Gaza Strip, the evacuation of their residents to Israeli territory, and the withdrawal of all Israeli army forces from the area. After the plan was completed, Israel issued an order declaring the end of the military government in the Gaza Strip. The changes following the disengagement resulted in some improvement in the ability of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip to run their lives. Most importantly, they are now able to move about freely in most of the territory. However, Israel continues to hold decisive control over important elements of Palestinian life in the Gaza Strip, as follows: "
http://www.btselem.org/english/gaza_strip/gaza_status.asp
How do you explain this:
Dov Weisglass, senior Sharon advisor during the 2005 Gaza "disengagement:"
"The significance [of the pullout] is the freezing of the political process. And when you freeze that process you prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state and you prevent a discussion about the refugees, the borders, and Jerusalem. Effectively, this whole package that is called the Palestinian state, with all that it entails, has been removed from our agenda indefinitely. And all this with authority and permission. All with a presidential blessing and ratification of both houses of Congress. What more could have been anticipated? What more could have been given to the settlers?"
There you go: the words are staring you right in the face. Take off your Zionist lenses for a few minutes and read!...
This is the perfect comment to show the line so many walk around here. Being anti-israel is not anti-semitic. ok. But the actions of israel are responsible for anti-semitism...?
So basically, jews around the world should expect to be held accountable for the actions of israel. Yet no criticism of israel is actually anti-semitic, because that is just a label put on legitimate critics of israel.
The idea of improving their behaviour seems to not have occurred to them.South Africa changed why not israel ?
http://www.truth-out.org/the-palestine-papers-or-how-everything-you-thought-you-knew-about-peace-process-was-wrong67611
The new Israeli ambassador to Britain, Ron Prosor, is devoting much of his time these days to trying to enhance his country’s image as the British public continues to be disillusioned with Israel’s colonialist polices in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
In recent months, Israel killed hundreds of Palestinians, including numerous innocent civilians in the occupied territories. Moreover, the harsh Israeli blockade of the estimated 1.5 million Gazans goes on unabated, reducing the impoverished coastal territory to a modern-day version of Ghetto Warsaw.
Prosor thinks that aggressive and proactive PR can eventually morph critics of Israeli occupation and racism into loyal lovers.
Speaking to reporters in London recently, Prosor described the British public opinion as “more extreme than the political establishment in its criticisms of Israel.”
“If there is one thing I want you to take home with you it is this: Israel is a democracy under attack that is dealing with difficulties that no other country is facing.”
http://www.tlaxcala.es/pp.asp?reference=4503&lg=en
Really?
Palestinians living in ‘Area C’ of the West Bank, under full Israeli control, are required to obtain a permit to construct a rainwater collection cistern, or any structure at all, and Israeli authorities stopped issuing these permits completely in 2000. Claiming that the cisterns are constructed ‘without a permit’, the Israeli forces move in on a regular basis to dismantle and destroy them.
The head of the Palestinian Water Authority countered the claim that water cisterns require permits, stating, “In addition to preventing the rehabilitation of Palestinian water cisterns, particularly in Area C, the Government of Israel has recently intensified its campaign of destroying these same cisterns. The rehabilitation of water cisterns does not require prior approval from the Joint Water Committee (JWC), nor does it require a construction permit from the Israeli Civil Administration.”
There are also a number of cases documented of Israeli soldiers invading a certain area firing directly at water tanks and cisterns to cause them to leak."
http://occupiedpalestine.wordpress.com/2011/02/05/un-condemns-israeli-destruction-of-palestinian-water-systems-international-middle-east-media-center/
http://www.pchrgaza.org/portal/en/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&id=84&Itemid=183
"Dear Ambassador Dr. Zion Evrony,
Further to my telephone call to your office this morning I wish to reiterate some of the points which I made in the conversation with your secretary, and to elaborate on them a little further.
1. I am sick to the teeth of the lies you are telling on RTE and in the Irish media about what is happening in Gaza. Israel has killed over 400 people there on the pretext that a cease-fire had been broken unilaterally by Hamas. You know this is not true.
2. You said that Israel is trying to avoid civilian casualties but that Hamas use their civilians as shields for Hamas soldiers. You know that this is not true. Gaza is smaller in area than our smallest County, Louth, and is over-populated with 1.4 million people, before your country reduced the population with murder from the sky.
3. Your Army invaded Gaza prior to an election and in the interregnum between the Presidencies of George W. Bush and Barack Obama. You kill over 400, injure over 1000 and promise more killings and injuries. And you blame Hamas for all of these killings and injuries. You know that it is not true that Hamas are to blame for your murders. You, the State of Israel and the IDF, are to blame for the people you kill and injure, no one else but you."
http://www.indymedia.ie/article/90404
Shalom.