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‘The Guardian’ Turns ‘Zionism’ Into a Dirty Word in One-Sided Hit Piece
How do you turn 2,000 years of Jewish longing for a return to Zion into an insult and a slur? By mainstreaming extreme voices, distorting history, and placing the entire onus for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict solely on the shoulders of the Jewish state.
This is exactly what The Guardian did in its recently published piece, “How ‘Zionist’ became a slur on the US left.”
While this piece aims to analyze the use of the term “Zionist” as a slur by those on the far left of the political spectrum in general, and those taking part in the anti-Israel encampments at universities in particular, it is not a balanced and nuanced take on the subject.
Instead, it uncritically echoes the distortions and manipulations of those opposed to the movement for Jewish sovereignty in the Jewish peoples’ historical homeland.
Leave it to @guardian to publish a piece discussing how the word “Zionist” (someone who believes in self-determination for the Jewish people in their historical homeland) is an insult.
Naturally, one of the “experts” the Guardian consulted is pro-BDS, Israel-obsessed professor… pic.twitter.com/PuJdvmvhVt
— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) May 13, 2024
Amplifying Anti-Zionists, Shunning Zionist Voices
For a piece aiming to answer such a thorny question, one would expect The Guardian to interview people with various viewpoints, including those who subscribe to traditional Zionism and those who oppose the Zionist movement.
However, aside from two brief references to a recent statement by Zionists at Columbia University and a quote by Bret Stephens on why he is a Zionist, this entire piece is filled with analyses and observations by those who are fully entrenched in the anti-Zionist camp.
While it is understandable that The Guardian quotes at length a representative for Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) and Simone Zimmerman, one of the founders of IfNotNow, in a piece about anti-Zionist student activists, the only two individuals interviewed are Peter Beinart and UCLA professor Saree Makdisi.
In typical Guardian fashion, Beinart’s fringe views are held up as evidence of supposed contradiction at the heart of liberal Zionism, while Makdisi is used to add context to the ongoing debates about Zionism on university campuses.
Aside from the fact that Saree Makdisi’s academic background is in literature and not Zionist philosophy, he is known for extreme anti-Israel views. As HonestReporting noted in 2016, he has a long history of questioning the Jewish State’s right to exist, spreading libels about Israel and the IDF, and demeaning those who express concerns about the extremes of anti-Israel activism.
Therefore, instead of offering readers what could have been a nuanced conversation about Zionism — that is, the movement for Jewish self-determination that has been weaponized into a slur — The Guardian offers nothing more than an anti-Zionist screed.
The Missing Context on Zionism and Zionist History
If The Guardian had included the opinions of Zionist academics or commentators, it is likely the piece would’ve taken a different tone. For one, readers might have been informed of the many distortions and manipulations expressed by both the writer and those interviewed.
First, this piece presents Zionism as a late-19th-century European ideology, ignoring the fact that one of the core precepts of Zionism (the return of the Jewish people to their historical homeland) has been a key element of Judaism for thousands of years.
By ignoring this historic continuation between Judaism and Zionism, this piece gives undue weight to the minority camp of anti-Zionist Jews who want to “reclaim Judaism from its association with Israel.”
It also means embracing the sheer absurdity of Saree Makdisi’s observation that he has no issue with a Jewish state in principle, just the issue of “where [the Jewish people] have this state.” This completely disregards the fact that the only just location for a Jewish state is in the land they have inhabited for thousands of years, which is the current location of the State of Israel.
In addition, the claims that Zionism “underpins the policies that drove their [the Palestinians’] mass displacement from what became Israel in 1948” and that the term “Zionist” is “emblematic of the violent state policies driving the war on Gaza” are ludicrous assertions that are unworthy of a serious piece of journalism.
Both claims are based on a superficial understanding of Israeli history, which apportions all blame for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to Israel and Zionism, ignoring the fact that Palestinian dispossession in 1948 was the result of both the Arab refusal to accept the UN Partition Plan and the choice to engage in war against the budding Jewish state, while the current war in Gaza is the direct result of Hamas’ atrocities on October 7.
Whether it’s references to failed peace negotiations or the disappearance of the Jewish movement for a binational state before the creation of Israel, The Guardian seems intent on absolving the Palestinians of any responsibility for the violence that has wracked the region.
For a piece filled with one-sided bias and distorted facts, why did The Guardian present it as an objective news report instead of an opinion piece?
The author is a contributor to HonestReporting, a Jerusalem-based media watchdog with a focus on antisemitism and anti-Israel bias — where a version of this article first appeared.
The post ‘The Guardian’ Turns ‘Zionism’ Into a Dirty Word in One-Sided Hit Piece first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Vancouver police raid a home linked to the director of Samidoun—which is now a terrorist entity in Canada
Vancouver police arrested and released one person at the home of Charlotte Kates, director of the terror group Samidoun, in a dramatic raid on Nov. 14. The raid was conducted […]
The post Vancouver police raid a home linked to the director of Samidoun—which is now a terrorist entity in Canada appeared first on The Canadian Jewish News.
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Trump Won A Majority of Votes In Heavily-Jewish New York City Precincts, Election Data Claims
Republican presidential candidate and former US President Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally at the Forum River Center in Rome, Georgia, US, March 9, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Alyssa Pointer
President-elect Donald Trump won an overwhelming majority of the votes in New York City (NYC) precincts that were at least a quarter Jewish, according to a data analysis by the Republican Jewish Coalition (RJC), a prominent Washington DC-based political group.
RJC presented data on Friday affirming the notion that Trump won a higher proportion of the NYC Jewish vote than in previous elections, potentially signaling an ideological shift in the traditionally-liberal voting bloc. According to RJC data, Trump received the “overwhelming” majority of votes in precincts with a Jewish population of at least 25%.
Trump’s 2024 performance among Jews in NYC seems to mark a substantial improvement over the 2020 and 2016 elections, contests in which the president-elect struggled to make inroads among Jewish voters.
Voting data from the 2024 election also indicate that there was a significant shift among Jewish voters in Pennsylvania. President-elect Trump also enjoyed greater success in heavily-Jewish enclaves of deep-blue cities such as Chicago and Los Angeles, according to data compiled by the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners and the Los Angeles Times, respectively.
Trump’s increased success among Jewish voters in the Big Apple comes amid simmering anger over surging antisemitism across the country.
In the year following the Hamas slaughter of roughly 1200 people throughout southern Israel, college campuses have become embroiled in an unrelenting onslaught of protests opposing the Jewish state. Moreover, many Jews have expressed dissatisfaction with the Biden administration’s handling of the Israel-Hamas war, suggesting that the president has not been a firm ally of the Jewish state.
Over the past year, NYC has been ravaged with raucous, often-violent anti-Israel demonstrations and an unrelenting spate of antisemitic hate crimes.
Columbia University, one of the most prestigious higher education institutions in the world, became a poster-child for the anti-Israel campus movement, erecting encampments and holding protests calling for the destruction of the Jewish state. Many NYC public schools came embroiled in scandal after teachers presented students with lesson plans that accused Israel of committing “apartheid” and “genocide” against the Palestinians.
Though most national Democrats continue to express support for Israel’s right to defend itself from Hamas terrorists, some figures in the party have, over the past year, adopted a more adversarial posture toward the Jewish state, often citing the humanitarian situation in Gaza as a key reason.
High-profile Democrats such as Sen. Elizabeth Warren (MA) have suggested that Israel has perpetrated a “genocide” against Palestinians in Hamas-ruled Gaza, where Israel has been waging a military campaign targeting terrorists since the Oct. 7 atrocities. Earlier this year, a group of dozens of Democratic lawmakers, including former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), sent a letter to US President Joe Biden, urging him to “reconsider” approving offensive arms shipments to Israel.
Over the course of his campaign, Trump repeatedly touted his support for the Jewish state during his singular term in office. While courting Jewish voters, Trump has boasted about his administration’s work in fostering the Abraham Accords, promising to resume efforts to strengthen them once he retains office in January.
Trump also recognized Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights, a strategic region on Israel’s northern border previously controlled by Syria, and also moved the US embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, recognizing the city as the Jewish state’s capital.
The post Trump Won A Majority of Votes In Heavily-Jewish New York City Precincts, Election Data Claims first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Attempted Robbery of Jewish Man in Brooklyn Puts Orthodox Community on Edge
Screenshot of masked men who attempted to rob Jewish man in Crown Heights, Brooklyn on Thursday. Photo: Screenshot
The Jewish community in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn, New York was the target of another attack on Thursday evening, as three men attempted to rob a Hasidic man after stalking him through the neighborhood.
Footage of the incident was shared on X/Twitter by Yaacov Behrman, liaison of Chabad Headquarters and founder of the Jewish Future Alliance (JFA) nonprofit. It shows the men, whose faces were concealed by hoods and ski masks, chasing the man into the street and through the neighborhood after attempting to accost him.
No arrests have been made.
“He doesn’t give in easily, and I don’t think they got anything,” Behrman tweeted. “The Jewish Future Alliance is deeply concerned not only about the increase in crime but also the fact that, once again, the perpetrators were wearing masks. We need to reinstate mask laws.”
The explosion of an antisemitic hate crime spree in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn has set the Orthodox Jewish community on edge in recent weeks.
Last Tuesday, two men beat a middle-aged Hasidic man after he refused to surrender his cell phone in compliance with what appears to have been an attempted robbery. According to multiple accounts, the assailants were two Black teenagers.
That incident was the third time in eight days that an Orthodox resident of Crown Heights was targeted for violence and humiliation. Before then, an African American male smacked a 13-year-old Jewish boy who was commuting to school on his bike in the heavily neighborhood, which is heavily Jewish, and less than a week earlier, an assailant slashed a visibly Jewish man in the face.
Most recently, a masked man was caught on video approaching a visibly Jewish father walking with his two sons and grabbing one of the children in broad daylight. He was unable to secure possession of the child, whose father fought back immediately and did not let go of his son. Police later identified the man as Stephan Stowe, 28 — a suspect gang member with an extensive criminal history which includes 33 prior arrests — and charged arrested him attempted kidnapping and endangering the welfare of a child.
In each case, the suspect was allegedly a Black male, a pattern of conduct which continues to strain Black-Jewish relations across the Five Boroughs.
Black-on-Jewish crime is a social issue which has been studied before. In 2022, a report published by Americans Against Antisemitism (AAA) showed that Orthodox Jews were the minority group most victimized by hate crimes in New York City and that 69 percent of their assailants were African American. Seventy-seven percent of the incidents took place taking in predominantly Orthodox Jewish neighborhoods in Brooklyn. Of all assaults that prompted criminal proceedings, just two resulted in convictions.
“We’ve never seen anything like this,” AAA founder and former New York State Assemblyman Dov Hikind (D) told The Algemeiner. “Shouldn’t there be a plan for how we’re going to deal with it? What’s the answer? Education? We’ve been educating everybody forever for God’s sake, and things are just getting worse.”
The problem has become acute in recent years. In July 2023, for example, a 22-year-old Israeli Yeshiva student, who was identifiably Orthodox and visiting New York City for the summer holiday, was stabbed with a screwdriver by one of two men who attacked him after asking whether he was Jewish and had any money. The other punched him in the face. Earlier that year, 10- and 12-year-olds were attacked on Albany Avenue by four African American teens.
According to a report issued in August by New York state comptroller Thomas DiNapoli, antisemitic incidents accounted for a striking 65 percent of all felony hate crimes in New York City last year. The report added that throughout the state, nearly 44 percent of all recorded hate crime incidents and 88 percent of religious-based hate crimes targeted Jewish victims.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post Attempted Robbery of Jewish Man in Brooklyn Puts Orthodox Community on Edge first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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