In an earlier post, Tom Wilson asked if Guardian columnist Karma Nabulsi was implicitly calling for the Palestinians to reject negotiations and return to another violent intifada.
However, the commentary (by Ted Honderich, a professor of philosophy at University College London) published in today’s Guardian “Letters” section, represents something more than merely an implicit justification of killing Israeli civilians.
It should be noted that this is not a reader comment below the line, which could be characterized as merely a failure by CiF moderators. The above letter represents a decision by Guardian editors to publish, and therefore give license to, an explicit justification of terrorism – a call to violence against Israeli men, women, and children.
As Israelinurse noted in her previous post, the Guardian’s Jonathan Freedland dismissed concerns about the potential injurious effects of publishing the “Palestine Papers” by stating, “The consequences are for others to manage.”
However, those of us who actually live in the region and don’t have the luxury of seeing the Israeli-Palestinian (and Israeli-Islamist) conflict as a mere abstraction – those who must, and will, bear the burden of such toxic ideas – simply can not afford to be as flippant as Freedland.
The justification of terrorism found on the pages of the Guardian is quite simply incompatible with even the broadest definition of progressive thought – something editors may wish to consider as they continue to express their increasingly ludicrous aim to be the world’s leading liberal voice.
