By Gilad Atzmon

6 November 2011

Gilad Atzmon argues that, by regurgitating Israeli disinformation that the UK is ready to join the US and Israel in attacking Iran but without any attribution or substantiation, Britain’s Guardian newspaper has turned itself into a mouthpiece of Israeli propaganda.

Israeli hasbara insists that an attack on Iran is compatible with both Western interests and NATO strategy.

For example, this week Israel released information about an Israeli air force exercise in NATO’s bases in Italy. The statement was made to create the impression that any future Israeli aggression against Iran would enjoy Western backing. NATO, however, was quick to disassociate itself from any such attack. NATO Secterary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen confirmed at a news conference that the alliance has no intention whatsoever of intervening in Iran.

To date, we’ve not seen any British official statement suggesting that Britain is ready to back either the US or Israel in any possible strike on Iran.

Yet, it seems as if the Guardian, once a respected British newspaper, has already become fully integrated in the Israeli psychological war machine.

On 2 November it joined the hasbara chorus and informed us that the UK military has, “amid fresh nuclear fears”, stepped up plans for an attack on Iran.  

The Guardian didn’t even try to substantiate its claim. Instead, it produced a gossipy news story that didn’t adhere to the most minimal journalistic standards.

The Guardian reported that “British officials say that if Washington presses ahead it will seek, and receive, UK military help for any mission, despite some deep reservations within the coalition government”. This is a somewhat bizarre statement considering the complete silence of the government and the British Ministry of Defence [MoD] on the matter. Could Britain launch another criminal war (this time, potentially a nuclear world war) with no public discussion or even a single official government comment on the subject? I don’t think so.

Did the Guardian make it up? I doubt it – it’s just suspiciously too damn similar to the official Israeli hasbara line. On the face of it, it looks as if the Guardian has, quite simply, joined the Israeli war machine.

Interestingly enough, the Jewish Chronicle, Britain largest Jewish weekly, was a bit more credible than the Guardian. It wrote that “the talks [between British and Israeli military leaders] took place as reports suggested that Britain was ready to back the US in a possible strike on Iran”. Yet the Jewish Chronicle ended its report  by suggesting that at least “privately, senior MoD officials flatly refuted suggestions that Britain was ready to be part of a US-led attack on Iran”.

While the Jewish Chronicle still seems to maintain some journalistic integrity, this week the Guardian failed miserably. It was caught, whether consciously or unconsciously, disseminating Israeli propaganda. But this shouldn’t take us completely by surprise. As we know, this same “progressive” paper also censored WikiLeaks concerning Israel and Palestine.

As with 80 per cent of our ruling [Conservative] party MPs, who just happen to be  members of the Israel lobby group Conservative Friends of Israel, the Guardian also seems to be in open alliance with the Jewish state.

I guess that friendship with Israel must really pay.

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