{"id":143575,"date":"2015-02-13T22:03:42","date_gmt":"2015-02-13T22:03:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/?p=143575"},"modified":"2015-02-13T22:03:42","modified_gmt":"2015-02-13T22:03:42","slug":"jonathan-freedland-isnt-fit-new-editor-chief-guardian","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/jonathan-freedland-isnt-fit-new-editor-chief-guardian\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Jonathan Freedland Isn\u2019t Fit to be the New Editor-in-Chief of the Guardian"},"content":{"rendered":"

Should Jonathan Freedland, the Guardian\u2019s<\/em> Executive Editor, Opinion, take over the editor-in-chief\u2019s post from Alan Rusbridger? Freedland\u2019s instalment is rumoured to be a condition set by the New York Times<\/em> if the two enlightened North Atlantic papers are to merge, but even without this his chances seem good.<\/p>\n

A central topic for both papers, as for the world in general, is Palestine, Israel, the Middle East. The topic is said by Freedland himself to have been his specialty for some twenty years. I have read through 100 of hiswritings<\/a> on the subject in the Guardian<\/em>, the Jewish Chronicle<\/em> and theNew York Review of Books<\/em> and conclude that their content should worry the Guardian<\/em> staff, its readers and his employer The Scott Trust. His support for Israel is unbalanced, violates the Guardian\u2019s commitment to liberalism and is rooted in an ethnocentricity that enables him to alternatively ignore Palestinians and justify their forced transfer out of Palestine.<\/p>\n

In order of decreasing importance:<\/p>\n

* He justifies the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians.<\/p>\n

* His writing is Israel-centric and biased towards Israel.<\/p>\n

* His Mideast world is largely free of Palestinians.<\/p>\n

* He conflates criticism of Israel with \u2018anti-semitism\u2019.<\/p>\n

* His narrative is largely that of Israeli hasbara<\/em>.<\/p>\n

* <\/strong>Ethnic cleansing condoned<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Freedland\u2019s friend and Ha\u2019aretz<\/em> journalist Ari Shavit made a stir in 2013 with his portrayal<\/a> of Israel\u2019s ethnic cleansing, by murder and expulsion, of the Arab-Palestinian town of Lydda in July 1948. In one<\/a> of his reviews of Shavit\u2019s story Freedland correctly writes that Shavit \u201cmeticulously reconstructs events in the mainly [sic] Arab town of Lydda in July 1948, when soldiers of the embryonic [sic] Israeli army emptied the place [sic] of its Palestinian inhabitants and\u2026 killed more than 300 civilians\u201d. He confirms Shavit\u2019s admission that \u201cZionism carried out a massacre\u201d; it resolved that the Arabs of Lydda be \u201cexpelled quickly\u201d: \u201cif a Jewish state was to exist in Palestine an Arab Lydda could not exist\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

In another<\/a> review of Shavit his claim is incorrect, however, that Shavit only \u201ctouches on<\/em> the question of justification too\u201d and \u201cavoids a direct answer\u201d. Shavit\u2019s \u2018shoot and weep\u2019 approval is very clear. He writes that \u201cthe choice is stark: either reject Zionism because of Lydda or accept Zionism along with Lydda\u2026 I will not damn the brigade commander and the military governor and the 3rd<\/sup> Battalion soldiers. On the contrary, if need be, I\u2019ll stand by the damned, because I know that if not for them the State of Israel would not have been born\u2026 They did the dirty, filthy work that enables my people, myself, my daughter, and my sons to live.\u201d Shavit harbours righteous anger towards the \u201ccritics of later years who condemn what they did in Lydda but enjoy the fruits of their deed.\u201d His final solution is the status quo: \u201cDo I wash my hands of Zionism? Do I turn my back on the Jewish national movement that carried out the destruction of Lydda? No.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Should Jonathan Freedland, the Guardian\u2019s Executive Editor, Opinion, take over the editor-in-chief\u2019s post from Alan Rusbridger? Freedland\u2019s instalment is rumoured to be a condition set by the New York Times if the two enlightened North Atlantic papers are to merge, but even without this his chances seem good. A central topic for both papers, as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-143575","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143575","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=143575"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143575\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=143575"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=143575"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=143575"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}