Lord Andrew Phillips’ problem with Israel

Anti-Zionism is Antisemitism

Today’s Guardian yielded yet another nasty surprise (perhaps I shouldn’t call it a surprise. After all I expect nothing better from the Guardian) with a letter from Lord Andrew Phillips about “hopes and dangers in the Middle East“.

In this letter Phillips betrays the zero-sum wish of Palestinian supporters that Palestine can only win if Israel is destroyed. Not for the likes of Phillips is the ideal where both sides could win if peace was achieved. Thus he feels able to say:

The tragic irony is that doing the right thing by the Palestinians now will be seen in the not-so-long term, even by the doubters, to have been doing the right thing by Israel.

Phillips does not explain why it is tragic or an irony that doing right by the Palestinians is also doing right by Israel. However, this is all of a piece with the Guardian’s worldview that anything that be beneficial to Israel has to be automatically bad for the Palestinians and vice-versa. The fact that this is a sure-fire way to more war and bloodshed is irrelevant to the Guardian it seems.

That the Guardian published a pro-Israel letter following Phillips’s screed, for “balance” I presume, in no way mitigates the antisemitic flavour emanating from Phillips’ letter.

Andrew Phillips, who is a Liberal Democrat peer (which speaks volumes about the Liberal Democratic party) has lots of form in his anti-Israel (dare I say antisemitic?) point of view. See CiFWatch’s articles about him. Read them and weep.