Carmel Gould at Just Journalism simply rips to shreds Mya Guarnieri’s ugly essay in The Guardian, entitled, “Children are just Israel’s Latest victims.”
The picture painted by Mya Guarnieri in her Guardian Comment is free article, ‘Children are just Israel’s latest victims’ is stark. Readers unfortunate enough not to know better would doubtless reach two false conclusions: first, that Israel treats its migrant worker population exceptionally badly; and second, – and perhaps the most demonstrably untrue – that Israel is a ‘white’ country, which does not like non-white people.
The trigger for these accusations is a decision by Israel in 2009 to deport back to their countries of origin a group of illegal migrant workers, including up to 1,200 children who were born in Israel. The story’s headline, standfirst and opening paragraph together implied that the children were to be sent away alone but the second paragraph actually admitted that the minors were in fact due to be sent back ‘along with their families’.
Guarnieri’s central complaint is that the children were born in Israel and that sending them to their parents’ countries of origin would be an act of ‘inhumanity’ completely out of step with civilised behaviour. This provides the context for her accusation that the policy is born of a racist country.
Click here to read the rest of the article.
