5. El País (i)
The March 14th editorial in El Páis dealing with fallout from Biden’s visit is titled “Dark Horizon”, and starts like this,
The U.S. Vice President, Joseph Biden, arrived in Tel Aviv last week with the intention of promoting a rapprochement between Israelis and Palestinians, but he was received by the Netanyahu Government with the announcement of new settlement projects: 112 housing units in the West Bank and 1,600 in East Jerusalem.
Continue reading ‘Biden’s Visit in The Guardian and El País III’
3. The Facts
The controversy arose from the fact that during a visit in early March from Vice President Biden, Israel announced its intention to build 1600 new housing units in a part of the city of Jerusalem captured from the Kingdom of Jordan during the Six Day War. Given that Biden was in the country to make encouraging noises to both sides in the then approaching proximity peace talks, the timing of the announcement was unfortunate to say the very least. Biden himself immediately condemned the move while Secretary of State Hilary Clinton described it as “deeply negative” and David Axelrod, a senior adviser to President Obama, described it both as an “affront” and an “insult”. Michael Oren, Israel’s Ambassador to the United Sates, is alleged to have said that the row amounted to the worst crisis in US-Israeli relations in 35 years, though he later claimed to have been misquoted. Prime Minister Netanyahu claimed that he was unaware that the announcement was to be made during Biden’s visit, expressed regret about its timing and set up a committee to ensure that such a decision would not be made public without his approval in the future. The Palestinian side reacted by threatening not to participate in the proximity talks.
Continue reading ‘Biden’s Visit in The Guardian and El País II’
1. Introduction
The purpose of this piece is to compare some aspects of the coverage of the recent diplomatic tension between the United States and Israel arising from Israel’s announcement of its intention to build new homes in a disputed part of Jerusalem during the recent visit to Israel of United States Vice President Joe Biden. The Guardian, of London and El País, of Madrid were the newspapers chosen for examination because they are usually regarded as leaders in the advocacy of liberal and progressive politics in their respective countries and progressive and liberal opinion in some democratic nations has in recent years taken a sharp turn against Israel. Putting it very roughly, when Israel was frequently involved in large-scale conventional warfare and expanding the territory under its control it was generally seen in sympathetic terms. Now that it has withdrawn from huge extensions of territory conquered in war, made comprehensive peace deals with two of countries that border it and abandoned fantasies of remaking the map of the Middle East to suit its proposes, it is increasingly seen as a uniquely evil state, illegitimate from birth, perverse in its policies, cruel in its behavior and ruled by a nefarious ideology, Zionism.
Continue reading ‘Biden’s Visit in The Guardian and El País I’
As readers may be already aware, two Israeli soldiers and two Palestinian gunmen were killed in clashes just inside the Gaza Strip today. Writing in El País Juan Miguel Muñoz says that the dead Israeli soldiers were killed “during one of their habitual incursions into Palestinian territory”. He also parrots a Hamas statement that the fatal clash occurred when the IDF “invaded” Gaza.
Continue reading ‘Gaza, Occupation, Invasion and Incursion’
El Páis of Madrid is a wonderful newspaper. In the lead editorial of today’s edition it fearlessly condemns the supposed assassination by Israel of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh.
As well as being legally reprehensible and morally unacceptable the policy of selective assassination, or to put it another way, the dirty war only contributes to the illusion that there are alternative solutions to the one that Israel will sooner or later have to face: an end to the occupation and the opening of talks with the Palestinians on the basis of a two state solution.
Continue reading ‘El País, Pots And Kettles’
1.
As readers of this blog will be well aware, Juan Miguel Muñoz, is a man of constant sorrow. He’s the Jerusalem correspondent of El País and over the last couple of years it has fallen to him to report on the daily outrages against the conscience of humanity committed by Israel.
However, in this piece in today’s edition of Spain’s most popular serious newspaper he seems a bit more cheerful. The world, as he sees it, is finally waking up to the reality of the many evils that allowing the Jews to govern themselves has brought upon the world. His analysis, however, doesn’t resist serious consideration.
Continue reading ‘Freedom for Juan Miguel Muñoz!’
There’s an editorial in today’s El País about Gaza and Israel’s policy towards it that offers a nice mix of rank prejudice and preconceptions masquerading as analysis.
Continue reading ‘El País in Gaza’
Juan Miguel Muñoz write in El País today about the efforts threats to arrest Tzipi Livni if she visits London. He says that
Worried Israeli leaders are resorting to ferocious diplomatic pressure in response to legal incidents like this in Europe.
Continue reading ‘More Of The Same From Muñoz’
You remember all the fuss at the start of the year about Israel’s supposedly disproportionate use of force in Gaza, no? Well, unless you are a close student of Afghan affairs it may have escaped your attention that last Thursday Spanish forces killed 13 members of the Taliban without suffering so much as a scratch on their own side.
Continue reading ‘Because Wars Are Either Won Or lost’
Judge Fernando Andreu of Spain’s Audiencia Nacional court is investigating the assassination by Israel of Salah Shehadeh, a leader of Hamas, in 2002. The investigation has been described as “lacking the slightest degree of systematic rigor”, resting on an “opportunist interpretation” of the law and being based on a “conceptual error”.
Continue reading ‘Spanish Shehadeh Investigation “Opportunist”’
It is possible to be very critical of Israel and its actions without being antisemitic; the Spanish writer Jordi Soler proves it in this op-ed published in El País, part of which I translate below. You could argue with some of his points and not everything is phrased in the most judicious manner. Nevertheless, the attempt to offer a harsh critique of the actions of the Israel while simultaneously separating himself from the mile-wide streak of antisemitism in many similar critiques is as noteworthy as it is laudable.
Continue reading ‘The Barbarian Streak in Spain’
Lluis Bassets a journalist at El País. Not just any journalist either, he’s the newspaper’s associate editor and is in charge of its op-ed section. Naturally, he also has own blog on the paper’s website. There you can read stuff like this.
Continue reading ‘El País and the Satan-Nation’
In an article in El País, José R. Ayaso sets out to clarify the use of such terms as “Jew” and “Hebrew ” in Spanish. In principle this is a laudable project, as one often comes across such barbarisms as “the Hebrew army” in Spanish language media.
Continue reading ‘Gaza, Antisemitism And Carelessness With Words’
Not everyone in Buenos Aires has lost their marbles with regard to Gaza. Writing in Perfil Jorge Castro says that,
Continue reading ‘Israel’s Objectives in Gaza’
Writing in El País about the breakdown of the ceasefire between Hamas and Israel Ana Carabajosa says,
Continue reading ‘Spain’s Most Prestigious Newspaper’
