Last week, we posed a question that many in the media sphere have likely been asking for some time: How can a mainstream publication like The Guardian continue to associate itself with Owen Jones?
It’s a reasonable inquiry, particularly given how, since the October 7, 2023, Hamas terror attacks on Israel, Jones’ obsession with the Jewish state has spiraled into unhinged and antisemitic attacks on Jews and Israelis. He has also spread some of the most appalling and demonstrably false accusations about the war in Gaza.
We highlighted that Jones possesses not a shred of journalistic credibility, functioning more as a promoter of conspiracy theories that could have been lifted straight from the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. His claim that Israel is “using sexual assault and rape on an industrial scale against Palestinians” is emblematic of his grotesque rhetoric.
Apparently, our critique struck a nerve. Jones lashed out at HonestReporting on X (formerly Twitter) with several bizarre posts accusing us of “relentless apologism for some of the most depraved crimes of our age.”
According to Jones, HonestReporting is the “moral equivalent of apologists for the Rwandan genocide.”
What’s depraved is your relentless apologism for some of the most depraved crimes of our age.
You are the moral equivalent of apologists for the Rwandan genocide https://t.co/axuyvqS5I8
— Owen Jones (@owenjonesjourno) January 10, 2025
To even mention Israel’s war against Hamas—the result of the deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust—in the same breath as the Rwandan genocide is an act of intellectual dishonesty on an extraordinary scale.
But we suspect Jones knows the two are incomparable—not least because the Rwandan genocide was, unequivocally, a genocide, while Israel’s war against Hamas is not. He surely understands that the slaughter of 800,000 Tutsis in just over three months, accompanied by the systematic rape of 500,000 Tutsi women, bears no resemblance to Israel’s military campaign against Hamas. The casualty figures alone from over a year of conflict—claimed at 46,000 by the Hamas-run health ministry, with Israel asserting that at least 17,000 of those were terrorists—make such an analogy indefensible.
It’s not just the overwhelming evidence of Israeli soldiers repeatedly perpetrating sexual violence against Palestinians.
Israeli government ministers literally rioted on the streets of Tel Aviv IN SUPPORT OF RAPING PALESTINIANS. https://t.co/UxFPixa2HY pic.twitter.com/5hIoeTcYSH
— Owen Jones (@owenjonesjourno) January 10, 2025
In a follow-up post directed at HonestReporting, Jones doubled down on his initial conspiracy theory about the mass rape of Palestinians. He claimed there was “overwhelming evidence of Israeli soldiers repeatedly perpetrating sexual violence against Palestinians,” while asserting that Israeli government ministers had “RIOTED ON THE STREETS OF TEL AVIV IN SUPPORT OF RAPING PALESTINIANS.”
And the “evidence” Jones offers? A partial screenshot of an August 2024 article, which, as a simple Google search reveals, is from the website of Al Jazeera—the Qatari-owned network banned by both Israel and the Palestinian Authority. Conveniently, Jones cropped out the source of his citation.
Yes, that’s the extent of research you can expect from a “seasoned journalist” like Owen Jones.
That’s Jones for you: a conspiracy theorist, an Israel-obsessed fanatic, an online bully, and a Guardian columnist.
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Credit: Jwslubbock via Wikimedia Commons
