The Guardian’s Harriet Sherwood wrote a highly misleading profile of Israeli Member of Knesset (and ironically, anti-Israel extremist) Haneen Zoabi.
An unduly flattering profile that excludes critical context is known in the news industry as a “puff piece.” It is also a breach of journalistic ethics and a disservice to Guardian readers.
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Sherwood portrays Zoabi as a civil rights activist who stands up for abused Palestinians while fighting institutional resistance to her noble cause. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Just a few of Zoabi’s dubious “accomplishments” as a member of the Israeli Knesset, that The Guardian saw fit to hide from its readers:
- Zoabi sailed on the 2010 “flotilla” attempting to break the Israeli naval blockade of Gaza. While the article mentioned this fact, it omitted that the blockade is actually an arms embargo which interdicts maritime weapons smuggling to the Strip. Zoabi’s attempt to break such a blockade could be viewed as technical act of war against her own country, also known as treason. At the very least, she directly attempted to place her own fellow Israeli citizens in danger by supporting the smuggling of rockets that are fired on Israeli civilians.
- Zoabi has worked to persuade the international public that Israel is an “apartheid state” despite the irony that she herself is a full citizen and member of Knesset.
- On the anniversary of the Holocaust event of Kristallnacht, Zoabi visited Amsterdam where she gave a speech accusing Israel of “ethnic cleansing modeled on Nazism.” Zoabi’s statement squarely fits the international definition of anti-Semitism, which has been adopted by most countries in the western world, including the United States of America and the United Kingdom.
- Zoabi has also justified the idea of Israeli Arabs joining Islamic State (ISIS) even while she called the IDF “worse than ISIS,” and provocatively met with the families of terrorists who killed Israelis.
- Zoabi has supported the Israel-hating author Ben White, defended the anti-Semitic Sheikh Raed Salah, and even allied herself with the terror group Hamas, which openly seeks the total destruction of Israel and the murder of all Jews.
- In 2014, Zoabi wrote an op-ed in a Hamas publication justifying its rockets which are fired against Israeli civilians.
As if this level of misleading journalism weren’t enough, the Guardian also hid from its readers that many Israeli Arabs and Palestinians do not see Zoabi as a rights activist at all, but rather as a liability at best, or even as a traitor.
For example, prominent Arab Israeli journalist Khaled Abu Toameh writes that Zoabi has betrayed her constituents by grandstanding in the Knesset and intentionally working to inflame racial tensions, rather than working to address the daily life issues that Arab voters entrusted her to address.
Haneen Zoabi’s nephew Mohammad Zoabi slammed her (in fluent English, Hebrew and Arabic) as a “traitor” an “anti-Semite” and a “supporter of terror.” Muhammad pointed out that Israel has been a good home to him and to many Arabs and that Haneen Zoabi seeks to harm that very home.
As a result of his statements, Mohammad Zoabi was forced to temporarily flee Israel due to death threats, a course of action that Haneen Zoabi has never had to face, even while openly supporting terrorism against the very country that elected her to its parliament.
https://youtu.be/yPtOIp4BlxA
While it is entirely fair to write an in-depth analysis of an Israeli Member of Knesset, it is also essential to provide a balanced and accurate picture of her place in Israeli society.
MK Haneen Zoabi has built her political identity around proud and open support for terror, violence and anti-Semitism. The fact that she remains a member of the Israeli Knesset is, at the very least, a statement about the remarkable openness and tolerance of Israeli society, even toward those who seek its destruction.
The fact that none of this entered Sherwood’s puff piece, says something else about the journalistic ethics and biased agenda of The Guardian.
