The Warped Mirror: The British debate on Israel

It was too straightforward to qualify as "diplomatic" when Ron Prosor, Israel's ambassador to the UK, argued in an article published last week that "Britain is a hotbed of anti-Israeli sentiment". Prosor noted that in the British media, "coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is routinely tainted with bias and a surprising lack of context". Emphasizing that "Israel is a democracy under fire", Prosor argued that "when this context is neglected, it clears a path for the unhealthy, unacceptable demonisation of Israel", and he expressed concern that "the most extreme elements of the debate have been allowed to hijack the mainstream."

Inevitably, Prosor's views were quickly challenged - not least by those who arguably had done their part to convince the Israeli ambassador that there was reason to be concerned about a "demonization of Israel". Brian Klug, a prominent member of the controversial British group "Independent Jewish Voices", claimed that Prosor's "intemperate attack on his opponents, with its sweeping generalisations and uncorroborated slurs, is itself a form of demonisation and an attempt to delegitimise two perfectly valid debates."

The two debates that Klug set out to defend as "perfectly valid" relate to the so-called "one-state solution" and the campaign for an academic boycott of Israel. While Klug didn't present his arguments in a very straightforward way, he assured his readers that he himself neither favors a "one-state solution" nor an academic boycott of Israel; yet his stance ultimately boils down to the belief that it is "perfectly valid" to debate Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state, and that it is "perfectly valid" to argue in favor of a boycott of Israeli academics in order to pressure the Israeli government to withdraw from the West Bank. Klug's defense of such debates relies on his claims that the issues involved are very "complex", and that many people who favor a "one-state solution" or an academic boycott of Israel may be motivated by the noblest sentiments.

But it is hard to believe in noble motivations or the "goodwill" Klug explicitly invokes when the debate is about denying Israel's legitimacy as a Jewish state or targeting Israeli academics in order to punish them for a situation that they as individuals have no power to change and that they may even oppose. If anything, Klug's defense of such debates therefore only reinforces Prosor's claim that "Britain is a hotbed of anti-Israeli sentiment".

However, what Klug doesn't spell out, even though it is often the ultimate justification for the views he defends, is the claim that proponents of the "one-state solution" and boycotts against Israel are not motivated by anti-Israel sentiment, but by their emphatic pro-Palestinian stance. Indeed, both the "one-state solution" and campaigns that advocate boycotts against Israel are strongly supported by Palestinian activists in Britain. All too obviously, this supposedly "pro-Palestinian" stance is expressed in ways that betray a strategy that rests on the bankrupt assumption that there is something to be gained for the Palestinians by delegitimizing Israel.

It is also noteworthy that some of the most important points made by Prosor are not even mentioned in Klug's passionate attempt to refute the ambassador's criticism of the British debate on Israel. Prosor had argued that the popularity of anti-Israel sentiment on British campuses was in no small measure due to a media coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that he criticized as "routinely tainted with bias and a surprising lack of context." As Prosor noted:

"The average British citizen is painfully unaware that, since Hamas seized control of Gaza last year, 1,400 rockets and 1,500 mortar bombs have landed on Israeli soil. No government in the world would tolerate such a sustained attack without taking action. Israel is a democracy under fire, but when this context is neglected, it clears a path for the unhealthy, unacceptable demonisation of Israel."

Lack of context in British media coverage of Israel is indeed listed as one of the most common violations of industry-accepted journalistic principles by the recently launched media monitoring site "Just Journalism". Unfortunately, even if there were no longer any such violations, there is no doubt that lasting damage has already been done over the years by the biased coverage that reflects a simplistic villain-victim narrative and eagerly produces screaming headlines about alleged Israeli atrocities such as the "Jenin massacre", while later reports that correct exaggerated or false claims are rarely given similar prominence.

However, it may well be true, as the British minister for higher education argued in response to Prosor's article, that when it comes to the "climate of hatred" against Israel on British campuses, it is really only a small minority that holds hostile views of Israel. At the same time, there can be little doubt that both in British academia and in the media, it is a very influential minority - not least because they express their views in a language that is readily understood by millions around the globe. When this minority believes that there should be no red lines in the debate about Israel and that it is even acceptable to deny Israel's legitimacy as a Jewish state, one can only conclude that the concerns expressed by Israel's ambassador in the UK are entirely warranted.