1.

El País carried an article by Juan Miguel Muñoz titled “Gaza after the Massacre” on February 22^nd. This article was the subject of a complaint to Milagros López Oliva, the newspaper’s readers’ editor, by Raphael Schutz, Israel’s ambassador to Spain. The readers’ editor today publishes her response, a response which also contains a lengthy statement from Javier Moreno, the editor-in-chief of the flagship of liberal and progressive opinion in Spain.

2.

El País runs its response under the headline “Is criticizing the government of Israel antisemitic?” I don’t have access to the entire text of Ambassador Schutz’s complaint but there’s nothing in those parts of it quoted to suggest that he thinks that criticizing the government he represents is necessarily antisemitic, or that such a belief formed any part of his complaint. Fomenting hatred of Israel, rather than Jews in general, through biased and inflammatory reporting constitutes the core of Schutz’s accusation and nobody familiar with what usually gets published in El País about Israel can doubt that this complaint is amply justified both in general and in the case of the screed by Muñoz published on February 22^nd.

3.

Moreno’s response chides the ambassador for failing to understand his proper role which he - Moreno - understands to be,

… to represent the position of his country and not just that of his government. Mr. Schutz is also ambassador of those citizens of who disagree with the policies of the government that happens to be in power and who didn’t vote for it.

Remarkable stuff. On the basis of this definition of the proper basis for diplomatic activity I look forward to the embassy of Spain in Buenos Aires running events at which Basques will be given a platform to explain the repressive and colonialist nature of Spanish rule in Euskadi. I think we may also detect here an attempt to distinguish good and acceptable Jews, who oppose the policies of their state, from the nasty and repugnant ones who endorse them.

4.

López Oliva concludes her response to Schutz (not “Schulz”, as she spells it) with the following remarks:

Journalists should never forget that their first obligation is to look for the truth, and that is based on facts, not in stories arising from propaganda strategies. The systematic sending of letters to those in positions of responsibility in media such as El Pais can also form part of such a strategy, as can seeking the protection of the readers’ editor. After receiving the letters [of complaint from the Israeli embassy] I had very friendly conversations with people in the embassy, the tone of which was in sharp contrast with those of the written complaints. Perhaps this very response will figure prominently in a report from the embassy to its government about the information war being waged as intensely in Spain as in the rest of the world. And perhaps the ambassador will receive congratulations for having got me to write it.

In conclusion, I think we are in the presence of an interesting variation of the Livingstone formulation. A complaint which didn’t characterize criticism of Israel as necessarily antisemitic is labeled as doing just that and an ambassador is criticized for defending the policies and actions of the government he represents. Not only that, his complaints are held to reflect no real concern about the deep anti-Israeli prejudice evident in much of the material published by El País, they are simply salvos in a global information war and are further designed to win favor with his superiors.