Having It Both Ways

We're all too familiar with the double standard the press revels in when it comes to Israel. No less familiar and no less significant is the license they take in accusing Israel of anything that suits their fancy and their narrative, without any adherence to fact, logic or even reason. Yesterday's Financial Times reported on the growth of the protest phenomenon in Israel. They note:

His coalition government is deeply dependent on the support of lawmakers from pro-settler and ultra-Orthodox parties. Discord on the streets is bad enough for the prime minister. Conflict and strife inside Mr Netanyahu’s unwieldy coalition may be even worse.

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While just the other week, Peace Now (of all places) reported, also on the protests:

“The protests in the streets are actually making [the coalition] more stable and the ones who could give Netanyahu problems are not interested in bringing down this government,” [Prof. Shmuel] Sandler told The Media Line. “Also, March is a long way off. Netanyahu will likely come to an arrangement with the settlers, maybe give them other land, and he’ll take it (Migron) down.”

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So it's an unwieldy but more stable coalition. Damned if we do, damned if we don't. Our protests don't involve tanks or riots, but the press doesn't feel the need to report on that, in light of what's going on in "civilized" countries like England or Syria.

Only in Israel.

It's Everyone Else's Fault

Just stumbled across this jewel of a rant from the Guardian. I have no expectations that opinion pieces should be any less biased than actual news articles, but it would be nice to cite at least one source, instance or even anecdote to prove your point. And then there are the dizzying inaccuracies. For instance:

Half of the Palestinian population at the time were displaced from their homes.

Where did you get that number? Oh wait:

As if the forced dispossession from 78% of their homeland was not enough,

So which is it, half, or 78%?

Another:

Israel had planned for that occupation long before the war.

Yes, we planned to be cut off from the Straits of Hormuz, then invaded by Egypt, Syria and Jordan.

This is my favorite:

Year after year the Palestinian leadership offered concession after concession, trying to reach an equitable resolution to their dispossession and military occupation.

Please, please give me one.single.instance of a concession. Arafat at Camp David with Barak? Anything?

Past procrastination has only created irreparable damage on the ground invoking a dire need for an end game, not yet another starting point.

I agree, but I'm not exactly in agreement with him, knowwhatimean?

Thus spake the prophet:

This new shift will see Palestinians dropping their desire for independent statehood in a fraction of their historic homeland and instead will find them, within a genuinely representative political structure, articulating their desire for self-determination within their historic homeland, even if that homeland today is called Israel.

In other words, law and order.

He softens the blow at the end, after ranting about Israel's colonial criminality:

Now, the sooner Palestinians and Israelis realise that our destiny is to live together as equals, the sooner we can begin to rehabilitate our communities and build a single society whose citizens are all equal under law and equal as human beings.

It is your desssssstiny...

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