The Guardian’s secular prophets see total Arab victory and Zionism’s complete demise

The following was posted in the comments section of CiF, and is being published here with the permission of the writer (whose moniker is Sarka“).  It’s a reply to today’s essay by Guardian foreign leader, David Hearst, titled Could Arab staying power ultimately defeat Zionism?, which, in the second post in as many days at CiF, represents a call for the end of the Jewish state. 

Unlike some, I don’t get myself in a froth about the fact that the Guardian publishes pieces by commentators with views I consider ludicrous and self-deceiving.  That’s part of debate, and when the commentators concerned actually come from the country or group concerned, or even more are actually involved in important ways in the politics of it all, then even if depressing the views expressed are instructive as a form of relevant news. 

Unlike some, I also don’t expect the Guardian, or any other newspaper, to be completely “objective” editorially. There is no such thing on any issue. I accept that Guardian editorial attitude on the Israeli-Palestinian issue is more anti-Israeli than my attitude – and when it expresses itself in reasoned, fact-based, intelligent form, this is absolutely fine, and adds to my understanding.

But there is something very dismaying about the fact that here we have a British journalist whose job it is to write “foreign leaders”, who in a personal comment piece (obviously he would not be allowed to write this as a leader, even in the Guardian) comes out with quite such disingenuous, inflammatory stuff. 

Hm. disingenuous? Maybe that’s a nasty word…i.e. it suggests rather nastily that David Hearst and others know in their hearts that in practice – any “one-state” solution at any foreseeable point in the future, would be unworkable – as unworkable as e.g. re-establishing Yugoslavia in the name of humanity and brotherhood – and so in fact what they are willing is the complete destruction of Jewish national aspirations with extreme prejudice, and even the likely flight of most of the Jewish population from former Israel.

Yet maybe they do not know this in their hearts, or maybe they do not know their own hearts. Hard to say. But perhaps a more charitable view of some is that they are desperately trying to preserve an almost theological conviction of the innocence and goodness of mankind.

This explains the frequently rather allegorical, moralising themes…Here it is the “steadfastness” of the wronged Palestinians – iconically n this context always very humble simple people (not more affluent or intellectual types, despite the fact that such Palestinians exist) .

This “steadfastness” will (MUST), for Hearst, overcome and redeem the forces of evil (Zionism – wonderfully iconographically focusing all the elements of modern “evil”, viz. the four horsemen of “racism”, “colonialism”, “militarism” and “money/capitalist power”).

Notably almost no attention is paid to precisely how this is to be brought about. It simply MUST happen through the sheer force of its rightness and necessity. It simply CAN and WILL happen if the Palestinians, and all right-thinking people, steadfastly believe in it. This is what means that not just the “Zionists” but anyone who expresses scepticism., who is not willing to see the Palestinians and Israelis iconically, does not just have a differing view, but is a terrible part of the problem – a person who does not just take the wrong view on I/P, but wickedly fails to believe in the vision of human innocence and virtue triumphant.

It’s funny to me that leftist anti-Zionists like to make so much of the kind of US Christian Zionist types whose support for Israel is based on prophecy and revelation…for in fact their attitudes are very much informed by a secular form of the same sort of narrative…and they often (as here) sound more like rather loopy preachers than political analysts.

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