Levick - On the Guardian’s characterization of Marwan Barghouti as the Palestinians’ Nelson Mandela

Adam Levick
CiF Watch
29 July '11

http://cifwatch.com/2011/07/30/on-the-guardians-characterization-of-marwan-barghouti-as-the-palestinians-nelson-mandela/

In a brief update on the region from the Guardian’s “Middle East Live” page on July 20th – their blogging on “Uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa” – Marwan Barghouti was characterized as “a Nelson Mandela for the Palestinians”.

Yes, really.

For those unaware: Barghouti, the founder of Fatah’s military wing, the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades, is currently serving five life terms in Israeli prison for orchestrating suicide terror attacks which killed dozens of Israeli civilians.

He has referred to Israel as “the worst and most abominable enemy known to humanity and modern history,” and continues to call for armed “resistance” against Israeli civilians.

The al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades, it should be noted, is an organization designated as a terrorist group by the United States, Canada, Japan and the European Union, due to their orchestration of dozens of suicide bombings and many more shooting attacks against Israeli vehicles.

Here are some of the group’s most notable attacks:

January 2002: Bat Mitzvah massacre, when a gunman killed six and wounded 33 in a Bat Mitzvah celebration.

March 2, 2002: suicide bombing in Beit Yisrael, Jerusalem - 11 killed.

January 5, 2003: Southern Tel Aviv central bus station – 22 killed.

January 29, 2004: Rehavia, Jerusalem, bus line 19 – 11 killed.

March 14, 2004: Port of Ashdod - 10 killed (together with Hamas).

To compare Barghouti to Mandela – that is, as a leader who can become a political catalyst to peace and reconciliation between Israelis and Palestinians - is an appalling, if unsurprising, Guardian moral inversion.

Barghouti is a terrorist leader who possesses no remorse for the dozens of innocent Jewish civilians his group has murdered.

The degree to which the Guardian can spin such a malevolent bigot as some sort of progressive force demonstrates once again the extreme pathos which informs the ideology known as the Guardian Left.

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