Guardian’s Rachel Shabi spins Israeli concerns over Muslim Brotherhood as evidence of racism

Adam Levick
CiF Watch
07 February '11

Rachel Shabi’s animosity towards Israel seems to have no boundaries, and is not governed by even the most rudimentary sense of journalistic fairness, or decency. I’m overstating the case, you say. Hardly.

Shabi’s latest smear job, “Israel’s government raises alarm at events in Egypt”, begins thusly:

As pro-democracy demonstrations continue in Egypt, Israel‘s reaction has been of rising panic…”The Israeli government is freaking out,” said Dr Shmuel Bachar, at the Israel Institute for Policy and Strategy. “For the past 30 years we have depended on Egypt’s peace treaty with Israel.”

Of course the word “panic” to characterize Israel’s concerns over the fate of their 30 year peace treaty with Egypt is nothing but hyperbole, and is also completely at odds with the sober and measured way the Jewish state has responded to much worse threats over the years (which included several Arab invasions).

Shabi continues:

Israel has been troubled by sight of masses of Egyptian people on the streets calling for democratic rights, freedoms and the ousting of Hosni Mubarak…in a poll published by mass-circulation daily Yediot Ahronot, 65% of Israelis think Mubarak’s removal from office would be a bad thing for Israel.

This passage is something approaching rhetorical malpractice. First, it implies, bizarrely, that Israel – the only real liberal democracy in the Middle East – is somehow hostile to democratic rights and individual freedoms. Then, it misleadingly cites a poll demonstrating Israeli concern over the upheavals in Egypt - and the potential that the crisis could lead to a government even more hostile to Israel – as evidence of the nation’s contempt for Egyptian democratic aspirations.

(Read full "Guardian’s Rachel Shabi spins Israeli concerns over Muslim Brotherhood as evidence of racism")

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