Scotfella: Israel’s Ambassador to UK singles out Guardian’s Deborah Orr for criticism at Manchester conference

Monday, 28 November 2011

Israel’s Ambassador to UK singles out Guardian’s Deborah Orr for criticism at Manchester conference

While delivering an impassioned speech to the more than 700 attendees assembled at the Big Tent for Israel conference in Manchester on Sunday, Israel's new Ambassador to the UK, Daniel Taub, singled out the Guardian's Deborah Orr as an especially egregious example of the media assault on Israel's legitimacy.

Taub specifically mentioned Orr's October 19th colum n in the Guardian, during the course of his keynote speech, paying particular attention to the following passage about Israel's prisoner swap with Hamas to gain the release of Gilad Shalit:

"...there is something abject in [Hamas's] eagerness to accept a transfer that tacitly acknowledges what so many Zionists believe – that the lives of the chosen are of hugely greater consequence than those of their unfortunate neighbors.”

The Guardian's disproportionate role in the delegitimization of Israel was also the focus of presentations delivered by several panelists in the two conference sessions which I participated in, including Jonathan Hoffman, Richard Millett, and Michael Weiss (of the Henry Jackson Society).

The event was inspired in large measure by a Reut Institute report which highlighted London as the international “Hub of Hubs” of the campaign of Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) whose express purpose is to challenge and undermine the legitimacy and existence of the State of Israel.

While news of the Guardian's notoriety in the UK is always welcomed, the fact that Orr's contemptuous swipe at Zionist Jews continues to be the focus of so much opprobrium is especially heartening given her subsequent non-apology, and unwillingness to engage in anything resembling actual reflection.