Remove the blinkers and see the truth

Seth Freedman is back. Seth's a British Aliyah with four years under his belt in Israel. Author of a series of Comment is Free articles on the injustices meted out to the Palestinian people by Israel's Occupation, he appears now to have written his last word (at least for now?) on the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. It's perhaps not his best piece ever, slightly succumbing to the Manichean trap that those with strong opinions on the I/P conflict tend to fall into (undersigned pleading guilty too, at least occasionally).

The most interesting (but also the most predictable) part of Seth's pieces (or any other pieces on I/P in The Guardian) is almost always the comment section, in particular the commentary flowing from the 'Israel-can-do-no-wrong' crowd. There is in the expression of their opinions such a vehemence and accompanying tendency to smear, slur and slime their opponents, to the extent that an uninformed onlooker would have to conclude that those who are critical of Israel's actions in the West Bank and Gaza are all potential, if not de facto, mass Jew-murdering scum.

Remove the blinkers and see the truth

For two years on Cif, I've detailed the miscarriages of justice I've witnessed. But many are still convinced Israel can do no wrong

I find people over here who keep harping on about 'human rights' violations by Israel conveniently forget or ignore that if Seth were to live in any, yes, ANY Arab or Iranian country in the neighbourhood, he would have been jailed, abused and then deported, if not accused of being a 'zionist' spy and then condemned to capital punishment.

Two years after penning my first piece for Cif, there is still no getting away from the kind of criticism seen in the comment above. No matter that the thrust of georgeindia's rant had nothing to do with the subject of my article, anyone perusing the thread is encouraged to believe that the fact that the Israeli regime has not beheaded me for my dissent is ample proof that all is well in our little corner of the Middle East. Which, of course, it isn't, despite the best efforts of Israel's squadron of cheerleaders to convince the world otherwise.

Read on. And don't forget to read the near-endless list of comments...