Irene Lancaster, a person and a blogger I respect very much, posted an article under a headline Has The Guardian made history? An article sympathetic to Israel on Comment is Free.
My comment to it (something happened with the comment during the posting) starts with a sentence “I would say, let’s not get overexcited“. Eternal pessimist, me.
But today even my trained pessimist receptors were overwhelmed by a unprecedented tsunami of mass celebration… of a kind, at least, in the above mentioned rag. At least six entries in the on-line edition:
- Leader: Hidden words
- How the word Israel was deleted
- The FO’s case to the information tribunal
- Israel’s weapons – a diplomatic no-go area
- The Foreign Office is extraordinarily sensitive about Israel
- Iraq dossier secrets
Judging by the sheer quantity of pieces on the same subject, one could have surmised that something really awful has happened. Like a terrorist bomb killing a hundred people in Afghanistan. Or another thousand victims expired from strife and hunger in Darfur. Or a tyrant retired from his office. Or a French securities trader stealing a few billions for his bank. Or a fuel tank of a spy satellite falling in the backyard of The Guardian, exterminating a busload of best and finest in British press (oops, this couldn’t have happened).
No and no to all of these awful possibilities. What happened is, to extract the essence from the avalanche of crapola, the following:
During preparation of the (in) famous Iraq dossier on Saddam’s WMDs, some FO mandarin put a word “Israel” in the margins of the draft document.
It referred to a sentence which said of Saddam’s Iraq: “No other country has flouted the UN’s authority so brazenly in pursuit of weapons of mass destruction.”
Whether the learned mandarin was right or wrong* in his (assumed) logic is immaterial. What is material that the discovery of The Word, omitted (or, rather, not entered at all) in the final version of the dossier, caused this unbelievable deluge of orgiastic frenzy. If you read the leader, the pompous wording will make you think that indeed, omission of that lonely fart by a bored mandarin is the sole cause of Iraq war (well, most of the Guardian regulars don’t need another proof of Israel being the sole reason anyhow).
Wow… what can I say? Just a remark or two:
- Dear Guardianistas and the regulars: do you really need such a flimsy excuse for more Israel-bashing?
- Dear Guardianistas: why have you wasted so much ammo in a single day? Is there something left for tomorrow (well, I guess, we’ll see…)?
- Dear Guardianistas: that other mandarin that defended the FO’s decision to exclude the mention of Israel knows precisely why: you see, there is a remotely operated nuke under 10 Downing Street. And guess in whose pocket the remote control resides – between all these summons to police investigations and bounced checks? Yes, you are right.
- Dear Guardianistas: remain calm – there is nothing under the Guardian offices. No reason.
- Dear Guardianistas: I really don’t blame you. It is all because of Irene Lancaster (start reading this post again now).
(*) He was wrong, by the way – the history of the (alleged) development of nuclear weaponry by Israel has a very different background and very different interaction with UN, but this is really not that important.
Cross-posted on SimplyJews.
