Financial Times Loses Grip on Reality
May 5, 2011 14:40 by Simon Plosker
The so-called “Arab Spring”, the results of which are still not clear, have prompted many reassessments of the misleading yet previously accepted wisdom that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the fulcrum at the heart of the Middle East’s troubles.
Even Yasmin Alibhai-Brown who has a long history of Israel bashing has concluded that Israel is not to blame for everything. The Financial Times (click through Google News), however, appears to be living in a different reality. Prompted by the demise of Osama bin Laden, an editorial refers to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict:
The Arab uprising has so shaken up the Middle East that support for revolution implies the urgent resolution of this festering conflict at the heart of regional instability.
When it comes to degrees of extremism, of course, Osama bin Laden represents the most destructive nihilism. This does not mean, however, that Hamas should be favorably compared to Al Qaeda as the FT does:
It is outrageous that Hamas – and a disservice to the Palestinian cause – has acclaimed bin Laden as an “Arab martyr”. Yet it has robustly put down bin Ladenism inside Gaza and pledged to enforce a truce with Israel after joining a national unity government. It must be held to that, but not to the prior recognition of Israel demanded by international mediators.
The preconditions set for Hamas were designed to isolate rather than engage it, a shield against an election result the US and Europe could not stomach. Recognition of Israel should come once its borders are defined at the conclusion of a treaty establishing a Palestinian state, not while Israel is expanding its state on Arab land.
It is inaccurate hyperbole to claim that Israel is “expanding its state on Arab land”. If the FT is so concerned at defining borders, it should make it clear that Israel’s borders have certainly not expanded and any Israeli building that is taking place in the West Bank is doing so within the boundaries of existing settlements and not expanding into new areas.
In addition, does the FT really believe that borders are at the heart of the conflict? Hamas’s entire ideology is based on the non-recognition of any Jewish state in the Middle East irrespective of its borders. Are the lack of defined borders the reason that Hamas is prepared to fire anti-tank missiles at Israeli school buses? Would Hamas really be interested in peace with an Israel that has agreed upon borders?
Compare the FT’s stance on Hamas with an editorial in The Times of London (subscription required) that sees Hamas for what it really is and why Israel and the international community should not be so quick to welcome it into the fold:
In its current form, Hamas is nobody’s partner for peace in the Middle East. An extremist, Islamist, anti-Semitic organisation part-funded by Iran, it holds in its charter the ideal of a Palestinian state from the Jordan to the Mediterranean. It continues to allow rocket attacks on Israel and sponsor suicide assaults. Last September, when Israel and Palestinians began their first direct peace talks in two years, Hamas attempted to disrupt them with an attack that killed four Israelis, one of them a pregnant woman. Stability in the West Bank has come at the price of Fatah’s relentless refusal to tolerate its activities. History does not suggest a peaceable outcome should the jails open and hundreds of militants emerge.
No responsible international government can engage with an administration that includes Hamas without the gravest of reservations.
While The Times gets it, the Financial Times shows scant regard for genuine Israeli security concerns. Hamas is what it is and no amount of criticism of Israeli policy or whitewashing of reality on the part of a newspaper’s editorial will change that. Hamas may be the de facto ruler of Gaza but its essence is still very much that of a vicious terrorist organization that refuses to recognize Israel’s right to exist in the Middle East.
Send your considered comments to the Financial Times – letters.editor@ft.com
Faige Lobel
3:54 pm
May 05, 2011
Thank you for reacting to the incorrect (and vicious) editorial printed in yesterday’s Financial Times. I am most pleased that HonestReporting is “on the ball”, responding quickly and effectively to written attacks on Israel.
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Ervin Kohn
4:06 pm
May 05, 2011
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Asher Garber
5:10 pm
May 05, 2011
I am not sure why Israel has to speak to Hamas. The latter doesn’t believe Israel has a right to exist, and Israel had existed for decades before Hamas took the realm of a “political” organization. Not only can they not change their charter, they can’t stop dressing in bunny suits to tell little children that be a shahid is most wonderful thing. Heck, there is still a 1000 prisoner for one Gilad Schalit exchange sitting on the table. Hamas doesn’t deserve any respect or credibility.
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Bella
4:09 pm
May 05, 2011
The FT is essentially withdrawing its recognition of the existing state of Israel by stating, “Recognition of Israel should come once its borders are defined at the conclusion of a treaty establishing a Palestinian state, not while Israel is expanding its state on Arab land.” What other reading can there possibly be of that statement?
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Stephanie
4:24 pm
May 05, 2011
Ervin,
Hamas may be a reality, but it is a terrorist reality. It is on the US list of terrorist organizations, which the US thus far does not engage diplomatically. I see no reason why Israel should do so with an organization whose Charter calls for killing all Jews and acquiring the entire territory of Israel. Israel needs, not peace, but secure borders, and it well knows how to accomplish that mission. It’s wimps like you who aid and abet efforts at the dissolution of Israel.
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Ervin Kohn
4:45 pm
May 05, 2011
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Daniel
5:10 pm
May 05, 2011
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Yoc
5:51 pm
May 05, 2011
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wilinsky
6:14 pm
May 05, 2011
Yikers! Do you really think Hamas gives a damn what is in the PLO charter or what is in any so-called peace treaties the PLO may have signed? Even the PLO doesn’t care or follow what is in the agreements they have signed. ‘Formally responsible’? Once again, who cares about that? Certainly not Hamas nor the PLO. And by the way, I don’t agree that recognition of Israel is included in the PLO charter, so even if Hamas cared what is in it, there would be no problem continuing in their role as a terrorist proxy for Iran.
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Stanley Tee
7:41 pm
May 05, 2011
Actually, the PA charter continues to call for the destruction of Israel (just as the Hamas charter does). The PLO promised to amend it as part of its Oslo obligations and they convened a meeting where they agreed to amend it, but they actually did not amend it. Surprise, surprise; in fact, it would be easier to count the Oslo obligations the PA has NOT lived up to than the ones it has.
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SHmuel
6:43 pm
May 05, 2011
1) The PLO charter does not recognize the state of Israel
2) The PLO continues to inculcate its population with hatred of the Jew and the dissoultion of the State of Israel. They just do not communicate the message in English.
3) To assume that once the Pals have their own state, Israel can act militarily against palestinian terrorism with the support of the international community is naive. Examples, the withdrawal from Lebanon with the ensuing war started by Hezbollah did not gain favor with the world.
4) International law states that any land that was gained by a nation in a defensive war and is not privately owned, is under the ownership of the nation that was attacked. The territory can be traded for peace or it can be allowed to be populated. Therefore, it is not occupied territory!! Maybe be disputed, but not occupied.
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dragos ghita
7:27 pm
May 05, 2011
Islam and democracy are 2 very opposite things. If you are of islamic religion you can not be democratic. And if the majority in a country are islamists there will never be democracy. It is so hard to understand? the history is the proof. but now the world leaders are going up-side-down and they have no reference point to know which is which……too bad.
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BH
7:45 pm
May 05, 2011
I find it facinating that so many apparently intelligent well educated people can believe that Hamas and most Arabs in general have any other long term plan besides the annilation of Israel. Don’t confuse them with historical facts. Don’t believe the statements from the Muslim world straight out calling for an end to Israel. I guess the bottom line answer is these western journalists agree with the Muslim world that Israel shouldn’t exist. They just don’t find it fashionable to be quite as blunt about saying so.
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Didi
7:48 pm
May 05, 2011
Wow!!! FT does not know that Israel have completely withdrawn from Gaza strip 5 years ago? They must do some homework!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1
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Sid
9:26 pm
May 05, 2011
In days of yore, cira 1999, both the FT foreign editor Richard Dawkins and the editor Richard Lambert were prepared to listen and discuss issues.
Now the group owners Pearsons have major foreign investors – “The Libyan Investment Authority (LIA), the crisis-stricken country’s main financial vehicle, spent £224m on a 3% stake in Pearson, the education group behind the Financial Times, last June.” and I am sure there is more – so we know who dictates policy and why their reports and editorials are written the way they are. Was it not a former Govenor General of Mandatory P who stated hit the Jews in their pocket – now it appears the pocket of the others guides the FT thinking.
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LEN
10:49 pm
May 05, 2011
Face it!
The Financial Times is a commercial enterprise. As such, it has to sell it’s papers.
Outside of Britain,which has a very large moslem population, most likely to the Middle East , certainly not Israel. to consider as readers of the FT.
One has to look at the FT in this way as being unfriendly to towards Israel.
So I’m not surprised for the anti-Israel FT report.
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Nathan Zafran
11:26 pm
May 05, 2011
As the name implies, The Financial Times, as named, is run by finance. The name of the game is OIL, PETRODOLLARS AND ARAB/ISLAMIC TERRORISM that dictate to a spineless and perfidious public how to behave and what to say/not to say.. All talk of honest reporting, non-bias, integrity and decency are all BULLSHIT. British government policy inevitably leaks down to the media and to the public – with destructive and vile results.SHAME on Albion that has lost all shame.
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jacko
7:05 am
May 06, 2011
No one really cares about the Palestinians. even other Arabs. How can so called liberals ansd humanists support an entity that attacks Christians, homosexuals subjects women to abuse and fires rockets into civiliam areas. The answe is not that they love Hamas and the Palestinains but they have a visceral hatred of Israel and the Jewish people
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Deborah J. Boyd
12:05 pm
May 06, 2011
The fact that Libya has invested in Pearson and Pearson owns FT is enlightening. The land occupied by Israel today is land granted after WWII officially but is also the ancestral land of Israel going back 3,000 years. Arabs have always lived in the general area but never did much to develop the land or participate in world affairs. Without oil the Arabs have made few modern contributions to advancing world civilization. I wish we could bring back the days when great Islamic scholars worked with Christian and Jewish scholars to advance scientific understanding. Whatever “the Palestinians” refers to is a rather loose nit hodge podge of mostly unemployed and uneducated Arabs that promote hate vs. cooperation. Meanwhile their are people in Israel helping young people of Palestine get a decent college education for their future. The dictator Arab countries are just using Palestine as a way to increase the price of oil.
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John
3:35 am
May 07, 2011
To expound on what Bella said, the article’s author’s position that the “Recognition of Israel should come once its borders are defined at the conclusion of a treaty establishing a Palestinian state, not while Israel is expanding its state on Arab land” is an absurdity. ISRAEL EXISTS, it doesn’t need this Jihadist apologist’s recognition!
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Henry Tobias
10:35 am
May 09, 2011
Do not be too quick to praise Yasmin Alibhai-Brown. In the article which you mention she calls for the unrestricted ‘right of return’ the code word for the destruction of Israel. Read it carefully.
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