Vegans Reviewing Burgers: Sunday Times Travel Review on Israel Book
March 6, 2013 12:04 by Simon Plosker
What was The Sunday Times thinking when it allowed Anthony Sattin to write a short review of a newly published travel guide on Israel?
While Sattin is a travel writer, allowing this self-declared critic of Israel to review the Israel Baedeker Guide was the equivalent of sending a vegan member of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) to review a new steak and burger restaurant.
Sattin was a signatory to an open letter to then British Prime Minister Gordon Brown that appeared in The Times on December 1, 2009, expressing support for the infamous Goldstone Report that accused Israel of committing “war crimes” during its Operation Cast Lead.
That Sattin is hostile towards Israel is clear from his short yet blatantly politicized book review:
Israel has tried hard over many years to normalise its occupation of Palestinian territory, something the UN and many governments, including our own, have resisted. Baedeker seems unaware of this as it wraps the Palestinian territories inside its new guide. Nowhere on the cover is the word Palestine mentioned. Inside, we are told Jerusalem is the capital of Israel, something that will come as news to the many nations that have their embassies in Tel Aviv. The map confirms this annexation: Ramallah, home of the Palestinian Authority, ought also to be marked as a capital, but is listed as a “seat of administration”. The only Palestinian included in a feature on 17 famous people is Yasser Arafat — what of Edward Saïd, Hanan Ashrawi, or the Orwell prizewinner Raja Shehadeh? This and many other seemingly insignificant slips appropriate Palestine into Israel in a way that will please Zionists, but fails to do what a good guide should, present an authoritative but balanced overview.
With a dig against “Zionists” at the end, is this really a review of a travel guide or is it just another excuse for attacking Israel?
Sadly, this isn’t the first time that a travel review has been turned into a tool for anti-Israel activism. Only in September 2012, a review of a cruise trip to Israel that appeared in The Sunday Times’s sister paper, The Times also turned into something less than stellar for the Israeli tourist industry.
Is this part of a trend developing where tourism becomes one more focus for the hateful Boycott, Sanctions and Divestment (BDS) movement?
Image: CC BY-SA HonestReporting.com, flickr/Evil Erin, flickr/Gabriel Amadeus.
Kessef
9:02 pm
Mar 06, 2013
I am surprised that there was no complaint from Anthony Sattin, of the picture on the front cover of the book. It is a picture of the Dome of the Rock, and not, say, of the Western Wall.
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Barry
1:16 pm
Mar 07, 2013
The Sunday Times hasn’t learnt much from the Scarfe affair, then.
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EthanP
3:07 pm
Mar 11, 2013
I’m shocked, shocked! The NYTimes giving negative reviews to something Israel.
I guess hell didn’t freeze over.
Hot debate. What do you think?
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Hillel Wallick
4:37 pm
Mar 11, 2013
Ethan, please pay attention to the HR copy. The review was in The Sunday Times, the British newspaper, not the New York Times.
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EthanP
5:41 pm
Mar 11, 2013
Thanks for the correction. I’m so used to the NYTs anti Israel coverage ? Not the first mistake I’ve made and probably not the last.
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Brent Pudsey
4:18 am
Mar 12, 2013
Good commentary on noting the bias and anti Israel Rhetoric of a noted journalist. I wonder if Anthony Sattin has ever even been to Israel and experienced the culture and the warmth and love coming from hospitable people welcoming you to their homeland?
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Augustus Silverton
12:01 am
Mar 14, 2013
a) no matter whether you’re a mega lover of Israel or rather not: To write SUCH a travel guide as this fella SATTIN here, would NOT have been possible in the sixties. Its political subjectiveness is one thing, the mix-up between touristical info and political really pathetic demagogue-like ranting is another, the basic offense I see here clearly:
A “travel” guide should in fact warn anyone — from CHINA’s MASSMURDER government.
I would write: “Don’t go there. You”ll be killed”.
About Israel, I would only write positively, and only between the lines politically.
What this SATTIN writes, is what HITLER said and did: massmurder.
Someone should accuse him in court. Actually.
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