The Guardian’s Anti-Semitic Explanation For Shalit Deal
October 24, 2011 14:49 by Simon Plosker
Over the years, we’ve covered some vicious and despicable pieces in the media, many of them published in The Guardian. But amongst the many commentaries and analyses of the Gilad Shalit prisoner deal, one by Deborah Orr in The Guardian’s print edition really plumbs the depths.
Orr writes:
All this, I fear, is simply an indication of how inured the world has become to the obscene idea that Israeli lives are more important than Palestinian lives. Netanyahu argues that he acted because he values Shalit’s life so greatly.
Yet who is surprised really, to learn that Netanyahu sees one Israeli’s freedom as a fair exchange for the freedom of so many Palestinians? Likewise, Hamas wished to use their human bargaining chip to gain release for as many Palestinians as they could. They don’t have much to bargain with.
Is Orr really suggesting that Israel’s desire to get back one of its soldiers at such a high price is driven by some racist sense of valuing Israeli or Jewish life above all others? Apparently so:
At the same time, however, there is something abject in their 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 neighbours.
The abuse of the concept of the “chosen people” refers specifically to Jews and is commonly employed by anti-Semites to falsely assert that Jews claim to be superior to non-Jews not only in a theological sense but also in a racial one.
As Joseph Telushkin asks:
Does Judaism believe that chosenness endows Jews with special rights in the way racist ideologies endow those born into the “right race”? Not at all. The most famous verse in the Bible on the subject of chosenness says the precise opposite: “You alone have I singled out of all the families of the earth. That is why I call you to account for all your iniquities” (Amos 3:2). Chosenness is so unconnected to any notion of race that Jews believe that the Messiah himself will descend from Ruth, a non-Jewish woman who converted to Judaism.
The fact that Israel values the life of a solitary individual so much that it is prepared to release hundreds of Palestinians responsible for some of the most appalling terrorist outrages instead tells us how much Israel values human life. This overwhelming desire to return one of its own people is a value to be proud of.
Deborah Orr
Orr appears to be distressed at the implication of a deal that sees one Jew as the equivalent of 1000 Arabs. If this is the case, then Orr would be better directing her ire at Hamas for demanding and setting such an unbalanced equivalance.
That Deborah Orr is prepared to descend to the depths of anti-Semitism to claim that Israel is motivated by racism says much about her own warped values. That The Guardian was prepared to publish such an obscene commentary merely confirms the publication’s vicious anti-Israel bent.
Send your considered comments to The Guardian -letters@guardian.co.uk
UPDATE
Jonathan Freedland
Writing in a Guardian commentary in the October 26 print edition, it is clear at whom Jonathan Freedland is aiming this paragraph:
It should go without saying that Israelis would have preferred a one-to-one exchange, releasing a single Palestinian prisoner, rather than more than a thousand – many of them guilty of horrendous acts of violence – in return for Shalit. But, contrary to what some have suggested, it was Hamas, not Israel, that set that 1:1000 exchange rate; it was Hamas, not Israel, who decided that the freedom of a single Israeli was worth the freedom of a thousand Palestinians.
Still no sign, however, of The Guardian publishing any proper rebuttals of Deborah Orr, either in its opinion section or on the letters page.
UPDATE 2 – DEBORAH ORR RESPONDS
The intense criticism and the deluge of emails from HonestReporting subscribers and other concerned parties to The Guardian has had some effect. The October 27 print edition contains a response from none other than Deborah Orr herself.
See our Special Update – Deborah Orr’s Disgusting Excuse For an Apology
Annie Sivan
6:40 pm
Oct 24, 2011
This was my letter to The Gaurdian:
Dear Sir,
The article by Deborah Orr on the abduction of Gilad Shalit was one of the most disturbing pieces of anti-semitism i have ever seen. The prisoner exchange was nothing more than an exorbitant ransom paid to Hamas. Same as when thugs kidnap a child and then ask the parents for a million dollars. They might try two million. The idea is to get as much as possible because the kidnappers know they have taken something that is priceless to the victim’s family and extorting them for all they can. What an idiotic, racist thing to say that Israel CHOSE to release so many dangerous murderers that put its citizens lives at risk because they inherently believe that they’re better than Arabs. These prisoners have MURDERED over 500 Israeli citizens! What Deborah Orr is accusing the Jews of is so disturbing, it reminds me of Nazi propaganda. It’s a sick world, and the Gaurdian has sadly become a platform for some of the vilest racist editorials I have ever seen.
Sincerely,
Annie Sivan
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Sivvy
4:41 pm
Oct 28, 2011
I read of a suicide bomber who was in the last stages of a terminal illness, a woman who was about to be murdered for being barran, a mentally retarded boy. The desire to live and have the NEXT guy give up his life is very strong even in the “Palestinians.” I think we have fallen for yet another Palywood myth. What we need to do is execute the terrorists and wrap their bodies in pig skin. Oh, yeah, and burn down their houses. Their parents and siblings will not encourage suicide missions if it means they’ll be out on the streets.
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viiit
7:05 pm
Oct 24, 2011
She is RIGHT.
Jews are racists, unfortunately not nearly as racist as Arabs, but still racist like the overwhelming majority of normal people.
The life of one Israeli Jew is easily worth the lives of 1000 Pal-Arabs.
This equation was not established by Israel. Israelis would have liked to exchange Shalit for one Pal-Arab! So don’t blame them. The price was set by Hamas with fool agreement of their entire population. All Arabs supported that deal, thereby confirming the legitimacy of the equation.
In the future, when Israel kills less than one Arab for each Jews killed by Arabs, this should be considered a disproportionate response.
Likewise when Arabs catch one Jew, the Jews should set conditions: Release him, or else we kill 1027 Arabs, and you go ahead and kill the one Jew you have.
This proportional response will make Arabs think (almost an oxymoron) twice before kidnapping a Jew.
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Researcher
9:14 pm
Oct 24, 2011
Unfortunately, that would not deter the Muslims. Remember, these people are happy to become martyrs. They send their own children to be martyrs. We are looking at a deep mental illness here. These are not normal people. The hatred that they have for the Jews and others shows that they are trying to dump their misery on others so they can avoid dealing with it themselves. Again, unfortunately, the deeper the mental illness, the less likely the person is to seek help or get better. Deborah Orr is just another spokesperson for this sickness. The Guardian is a group of people who share this outlook.
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Aliza Tamara Lowell
11:41 pm
Oct 24, 2011
I believe, they WOULD think twice. Most of countries do not have death penalty, and I agree with that. However, I do believe that we SHOULD bring back death penalty for terrorists only. I might would add serial killers and pedophiles to the list though. The deserve death penalty without parole. Immediate court marshal! Execution within 24 hours!
I
But when we treat them as the other criminals, aka. trying to rehabilitate them, grant them more rights than we do the victims, then it’s no wonder that we end up with an upside down world.
Terrorists can not be rehabilitated. They are not petty thieves, or addicts. Terrorists are much worst then serial killers, and neither can be rehabilitated. They seek death? Well, if anyone is lucky to capture them, should grant them their wishes: give them death, death penalty instantly! So, everybody gets happy.
Than let’s exchange a single one dead Israeli soldier for 100s of 1000s of Pal-Arab terrorists. I’ll believe, we could say “we’re in business”!
I wonder how long terrorism would still go around….
Are the Pal-Arabs so much in worship in their death-cult that would willing to allow their race to became uninhibited? or maybe, just maybe, death-cult is not as much desired by them after all as much they would like us to believe it.
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Aliza Tamara Lowell
12:14 am
Oct 25, 2011
I mentioned court marshal earlier, that terrorists if captured should be executed within 24 hours.
Then I was thinking: better yet if don’t take prisoners, just shoot them on the spot!
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Yael PW
7:07 pm
Oct 24, 2011
Ms. Orr’s comment is as stupid as the thesis published a few years ago that proved israeli’s are racists because they do NOT rape Arab women.
Israel did NOT CHOOSE to release 1000 prisoners in exchange for 1 soldier. We were coerced into this wquasion!! By guess who?? The Quartet for one.
When you hate someone, anything they do seems negative.
Deborah Orr, go fly a kite.
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Dale Schaan
12:03 am
Oct 25, 2011
I was born a Catholic of German heritage. Both groups have historically persecuted Jews and have been rife with antisemitism. Thankfully I have inoculated myself of this disease of hatred that has infected much of the modern world by seeking out Truth which has lead me to the originator of Truth, Jesus Christ. Jesus taught to love all people and to love Truth. This has allowed me to observe the conflict over Israel’s right to exist with complete objectivity. I go wherever the evidence leads me, not affected by prejudices to either side.
What I have found through 4 decades of observation and study, is the Israelis are far more tolerant of terrorists and being attacked and threatened with extinction than any other nation has been historically or would be today. We seen what Russia,China, the US and several other nations do to terrorists. They imprison, kill and torture a great number of terrorists and also many innocent people. If Israel retaliated this disproportionately they would be condemned and even attacked. Try to imagine what the response would be if Native Indians wanted to reclaim land stolen from them (and having much more legitimate land claims than the Palestinians),and they started firing missiles into US towns and cities. Would it last 7 days not alone 7 years as it did in Israel? Definitely not! They would be slaughtered as happened after other Indian uprisings in American history. Would any other country put up with the hatred and terrorism that Israel has, without resorting to disproportionate slaughter of the enemy. Not a chance! The prejudiced lies against Israel by much of the worlds media and the blind acceptance of these lies by the Jew haters of the world feeds the conflict and keeps the suffering on all sides going. God will judge them all with I’m sure a special place in Hell for the propagandists who know better!
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Zvi Avidror ex Royal Navy Fleet Air Arm 1942-46
8:01 pm
Oct 24, 2011
Ms.Ors name in Hebrew means LIGHT.Apparently someone should light a candlle so she might be able to see the light of truth.
Zvi Avidror
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Jackie Bourque
8:21 pm
Oct 24, 2011
“Deborah Orr ~ YOU’RE FIRED”
Moreover, you don’t know the Scriptures.
The “converted Ruth” became King David’s Grandmah…From whom Messiah’s roots/ancestry must derive from.
Is it okay for this French Canadian girl….who has just recently taken back Judaism from where my ancestors left off during the Inquisition? Long story ~ But I’m back Home from what was stolen from me.
Can I call you inconsiderate mashugah??? hehehehe
My goodness …You’d sell me for a ham ‘cheese sandwich in a flash.
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Asher
8:37 pm
Oct 24, 2011
While I never cease to be amazed by the stupidity of the really smart people in this world, this one crosses the boundary to the point that it is so stupid it has to make sense. Not making sense?
Deborah (Jewish or?) must work for a Jewish organization trying to discredit the credibility of the Mail & Guardian.
Nothing else makes sense.
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Uzi Hill
9:18 pm
Oct 24, 2011
I think sombody should point out to Ms Orr that the palestinians make their own blood cheap by so willingly using their lives to take others. If only they didn’t have the radical islamic mindset that suicide is OK as long as you take Jews with you…
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Sivvy
9:29 pm
Oct 24, 2011
Upon further thought, Ms. Orr implies that the following conversation took place:
Arabs: You give us Muhammed and we’ll give you Gilad.
Jews: No, no, no. That implies equality. We give you ALL the terrorists in our prison and you give us Gilad.
Arabs: No, we can’t accept, it’s just not fair! You give us Muhammed and Sayed and we’ll give you Gilad.
Jews: Absolutely out of the question! That means that two of you are worth one of us. You must take at least 2,000 terrorists!
Arabs: You just don’t want all those mouths to feed! We’ll accept 1,000 terrorists and that’s our final offer!
Jews: Make it 1,027 and it’s a deal.
Does Ms. Orr THINK about what she’s writing?
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Roland Berger,South Africa
9:30 pm
Oct 24, 2011
This article really confused me. I understand that,if Israel would not have agreed to this swap,Mrs.Orr would have called Israel “peace obstructionist and fascist” But ,since it agreed,Mrs.Orr labels it “racist” .One cannot cease to wonder…Besides,my dear Mrs.Orr,don’t you know that today the saying goes that in the M.E. the “exchange rate is 1:1000 ” ?
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Suz
9:41 pm
Oct 24, 2011
Guardian mail, fit for one use only , the toilet. But wait, there’s better for that as well! Reguarding ms Orr,There is none so blind as those who will not see. Read Zephania to see what will happen to these people, would not like to be in their shoes. And… What does it say for Israel seeing the physical condition of the 1000 or so prisoners compared to 1 Mr Shallit? I leave it there!
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Steve from Raleigh
9:57 pm
Oct 24, 2011
Well she IS writing for the Guardian. So if she prances around in an SS uniform screaming for the extermination of all Jews everywhere, she’s merely following editorial policy. You seem shocked by this.
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Ruthie of America
10:17 pm
Oct 24, 2011
Deborah Orr’s Guardian story is enhanced by a photograph of Wafa al-Biss with happy Gazan children. Although it is captioned “Wafa al-Biss, one of the freed Palestinian prisoners, on her return home to the Gaza Strip”, the photo was taken the day after Wafa’s return on the occasion of her speech to schoolchildren when she said, “I hope you will walk the same path we took and God willing, we will see some of you as martyrs.”
How charming! Career advice from a woman who tried to explode a bomb at the Israeli hospital where she had been kindly treated and helped for months. She failed to kill the doctors and nurses who worried about her failure to show up that day because, unwisely deciding to sew 22 lbs. of explosives into her panties, the Israeli border guards noticed she was walking funny.
She tried twice to pull the detonator; but it failed. The Israelis, who clearly valued Wafa’s life more than she did herself, didn’t kill her; she received a 12-year jail term.
I wish I could find the name of the Palestinian woman who tried to explode a suicide bomb to kill Israelis WHILE SHE WAS PREGNANT. Those bigoted Israelis saved her baby’s life as well as her own. Then the propaganda for the “poor innocent Palestinian women” accused Israel of keeping “Palestinian children” in jail. Would it be better not to allow the baby to stay with her mother for a couple of years?
The truth makes a mockery of people like Deborah Orr.
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Leonie Lachmish
10:27 pm
Oct 24, 2011
Ruthie, Please send your letter to The Guardian. A student at the College where I was a teacher, who was on reserve duty, and 3 other soldiers were killed at the Erez crossing during the 2nd Intifada because they felt sorry for a limping Palestinian who claimed she would “beep” because she had metal in her leg (which was true). She then blew herself and them up. The whacky anti-Israel , so called pro-Palestinian elements of the west don’t know about or ignore the dilemmas our soldiers face and how they have to get used to the fact that ambulances, kindergartens, hospitals – all are “fair game” in the eye of the enemy who see us as “frayerim” – sentimental fools ready to be all humane towards an enemy. And I call them “so-called pro-Palestinian” because anyone who really cared about them would care about the abused women and most of all, the children, who are brainwashed to murder and encouraged as part of the culture to be homocide bombers and die as martyrs!
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Merlyn
10:20 pm
Oct 24, 2011
Surely this type of defamation is against the law. Can we not sue?
It would never have got past the first post if it was about Muslims.
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Taking apart a Guardian idiot - ScrollPost.com
10:20 pm
Oct 24, 2011
[...] rather than fully fisk her here, you can read the many articles that destroy her imbecilic piece: Honest Reporting Pro-PalArab Simian Ovoid CiFWatch Professor Alan Johnson Normblog Jeffrey Goldberg Alan A at [...]
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Leonie Lachmish
10:29 pm
Oct 24, 2011
Julie Burchill wrote this (appropriately on 29th November!) when she left The Guardian in 2003:
If there is one issue that has made me feel less loyal to my newspaper over the past year, it has been what I, as a non-Jew, perceive to be a quite striking bias against the state of Israel. Which, for all its faults, is the only country in that barren region that you or I, or any feminist, atheist, homosexual or trade unionist, could bear to live under.
I find this hard to accept because, crucially, I don’t swallow the modern liberal line that anti-Zionism is entirely different from anti-semitism…
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shira dvora gazman
10:34 pm
Oct 24, 2011
What is crystal clear now and history can attest, each country demonstrates the values it holds dear. What is evident is that Israel as a country, a society of free people places value not only on life in general, but on an innocent life. To echo the words of the Sage Rambam, it is the life of one innocent that is worth the lives of 1000 criminals. In the exchange for Gilad Shalit, Israel shows it “walks the walk”. Israel stands at the stage and does not stutter on its definition for the value of one human life.
As for those that are “all mouth and no trousers”, I find it exceedingly interesting that a British paper is using a Jewish journalist as a shield for its defamatory remarks, especially since the Guardian’s piece is largely a moral commentary. I might ask those that run the morally upstanding “Guardian” to define for us the fine British ideals that have, through-out its history, supported the value of human life. The Guardian might want to mention historical highlights from Britain’s occupation and colonization of Africa, North and South America, Caribbean, and Australia as a start. I have no doubt there will be very important moral gems that not only highlight and bring to bear Britain’s definition of the value of one human life, but how the life of a single Englishman was weighed against “those of their unfortunate neighbors”.
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Rabbi Spiegel
6:16 pm
May 30, 2013
Hi my wife was trying to contact you Your phone # has changed Kol tuv
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Aliza Tamara Lowell
10:38 pm
Oct 24, 2011
“unfortunate neighbors”?
Oh, really!
Someone is trying to put a blame on “Jewish supremacy”?
Jews DO value life, while Muslim glorify and worship death!
I have 2 questions:
Why should we value the lives of the Muslims’ when they don’t value their own lives themselves?
If they would value the lives of their own people, they wouldn’t sent them into suicide mission.
Why should we care about the lives of the Muslim children, when their own parents don’t value the lives of their own children?
They train them and send them to commit suicide combined by murder. These kind of acts certainly doesn’t characterize loving and caring parents.
Someone here confuses the meaning of “Jewish supremacy” with Muslim death cult.
There is no “supremacy” from Jewish side, it never was. Jews simply value human life (not just Jewish life, but ANY human life).
While Muslim glorify death, they made death their industry!
They have only one goal in their lives, to murder (honor killings, stoning to death, beheading for any reason or no reason at all), to die untimely; the younger the better,
and when dying, at the same time using that death in a way to drug as many others in to death as much as possible.
Many misguided minds, like this women, thinks that accusing a nation, a people, with crimes of “supremacy”, will justify, legitimize, or even nullify another nation’s crime committed against other people in the name of their death cult.
Well, I don’t think so.
There’s isn’t “Jewish supremacy”, it’s only Islamic – Muslim barbarism, a worship of death cult!
When the lady was looking for someone to blame, she looked at the wrong place. She looked for supremacy and when found none, she created one. She should have looked instead other places, she might would found the real reason for misery: death cult!
She would do well for herself and for all of us, if she would move to “Palestine”, to be with those whom she simpatizes with.
If there is a legitimate claim for supremacy, it can be found in Islamic-death-cult! And that is no mistake!
Shame on her!
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Gregory K. Tobkes
11:04 pm
Oct 24, 2011
Dear Editor,
Please continue these types of attacks on Jews/Israel.
The more you expose your anti-Jewish position the better for all.
As the adage goes ‘The Devil you know is better then the one you don’t”.
It’s when anti-Semites like you and your staff of pueril pundits go underground to their rat holes that I worry.
Keep up the vile work and become what you apparently desire most: A Satrap of the Persian/Muslim Empire!!!!
LL&P,
Greg
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Aliza Tamara Lowell
11:18 pm
Oct 24, 2011
Perhaps it wasn’t the Jews who thought that 1 Jewish life worth more than hundreds or thousands of Palestinian lives.
I believe, it was the other way around:
the Palestinians thought that hundreds or thousands of lives of their own’s doesn’t even worth as much as a single Jewish life!
Who should really be blamed for that? A
Are we really talking about “supremacy” of one nation, or should we talk about distorted-self-image of another nation instead?
So, there you go lady. Think this over and perhaps after you figured it out, you can rewrite your article for the Guardian. Or just quit journalism, that will do it too. If Deborah darling, all you can do is misinformation, then you have no place in journalism anyway!
You are so pathetic, Deborah!
Talking about distorted-self-image; Debora should make an appointment with a psychiatrist to examine her own self-image. It is very distorted! If going on this path much longer, she could end up in a loony-been at the end. Not that it would be a huge loss for the society, though…
just sayin’
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David Barrett
11:18 pm
Oct 24, 2011
The fact is that reporters who have never ever stayed in Israel for longer than a week have nil concept of life in Israel or the ME; neither do they understand the conflict nor its origins. Their lack of historical knowledge, even of their home country, is worrisome and it behooves how they ever got a job reporting in the first place.
Mind you we now know how they FIX the news reported from here – they have no scruples!
Bash the Jews and get a headline!
At the moment it is fashionable to bash Israel and appease Muslims – a form of sociopathic liberalism.
There will be a rebound one day and I hope that such reporters will have to crawl on bended knees before apologising.
One thing for sure – Israel is here to stay and I guarantee that the Pallys will miss their opportunity and remain the Arab pariahs of the ME.
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