The Guardian: The Palestinians taught the Arab world how to mount intifadas

Adam Levick

In another glaring example of the Guardian’s capacity to romanticize and glorify the use of violence to achieve political ends, while simultaneously showing a callous – indeed malicious – disregard for the real world consequences of such acts, today’s editorial (Middle East: Obama weaves an uncertain path, May 20) on President Obama’s speech on the Middle East included this chilling passage:

The leaders of Fatah and Hamas were obliged to reconcile by the forces stirring the Palestinian street. The negotiators of Fatah had stopped negotiating, and the fighters of Hamas had stopped fighting. Both had to respond to a simple idea: if one million Egyptians can fill Tahrir Square demanding Palestinian rights, why can’t Palestinians, who taught the Arab world how to mount insurrections, and mounted two intifadas of their own.

While official Guardian editorials sometimes employ sentences vague or blurry enough to plausibly deny that they are actually supporting violence, this passage is not compromised by such rhetorical obfuscation. It seems quite clear that the Guardian sees the initiation of violent intifadas which target innocent men, women, and children as a cultural and political achievement, something admirable – the Palestinians’ gift to the Arab world.

However, not only is such wanton violence (which claimed over 1100 Israeli lives between 2000 and 2004) morally indefensible, it represents, in the culture of violence and death it nurtures, the supremely destructive values – of hate, intolerance, and nihilism – which continue to prevent the political and social progress necessary for Palestinian statehood.

In short, their continuing belief, despite all the evidence to the contrary, that violence is the only true path to statehood continues to feed Israeli suspicions that jihad is not a means to a peaceful solution, but is an end in itself – a malevolence towards the Jewish state which will not be sated by Palestinian sovereignty.

The Palestinians’ continuing glorification of such “jihad”, and violent “intifadas”, is perhaps the single biggest obstacle to their national aspirations – a profound political pathos which is continually nurtured by the Guardian.