Is the Guardian’s ‘Israel Obsessive Disorder’ in remission?

Over the past several years the Guardian has averaged over 1000 reports or commentaries annually tagged with “Israel”, an average of over 2.7  Israel-related posts per day, representing a statistically disproportionate (overwhelmingly negative) focus on the Jewish state in comparison to other nations – a dynamic we’ve noted continually at this blog.

However, recently there has been a brief but noticeable change to this pattern. Remarkably, there has not been an Israel related entry at the Guardian since June 30 – an unprecedented ten-day respite from the jaundiced and obsessive coverage of the region which, as much as anything, has come to define their institution’s brand of pseudo liberal activist journalism.

Israel page
Snapshot of Guardian’s Israel page, July 10th.

Additionally, save for one piece in the culture section of The Observer (sister site of the Guardian) about Arab films, there has been nothing on the Guardian’s ‘Palestine’ page since June 30, and nothing new on their Gaza page since June 24.

Whilst it’s possible that the civil war in Syria and the political upheavals currently taking place in Egypt have (organically) driven Israel off the ‘front page’, such a theory doesn’t square with the fact that, up until now, the violence and unrest throughout the Middle East since the start of the “Arab Spring” in 2011 hasn’t even minimally resulted in less Israel-related coverage at Guardian Group sites.

However, one thing is certain: the failure of the “Arab Spring” to bring genuine democracy or nurture even a minimal ethos of tolerance and pluralism – and the contradictions within Arab nationalism more broadly – contrasts markedly with the success of Jewish nationalism and the state’s thriving, progressive polity, and demonstrates the irrelevance of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict to the political pathos which haunts the Arab Middle East. 

Far be it from us to even suggest that Guardian editors may have actually learned something and allowed new information to penetrate their ideologically-inspired myopia, but it would certainly represent an invaluable gift to their readers if the recent dearth of Israel-related content reflected even a minimal awareness of the supreme folly of their long-time obsession with the Jewish state.

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