An article in the Guardian newspaper listing its support for a Jewish national homeland as among “its worst errors of judgement” has been described as “breathtakingly ill considered” by Board of Deputies President Marie van der Zyl.
The piece, which was featured in today’s edition, also cited other ‘errors’ it has made over its two-hundred year history, including extoling the virtues of asbestos and a belief that the death of Archduke Ferdinand would have no effect on politics in Europe!
The BOD President commented that “in its eagerness to disassociate itself in any way from its early support for Zionism, the Guardian chooses not to focus on the simple fact that had such a national homeland existed even a decade earlier than 1948, many millions of Jews – our close relatives – murdered in the Holocaust might still be alive.”
The view of the Board of Deputies is that it supports the creation of a Palestinian State alongside a safe and secure Jewish State, something which the Balfour declaration does not negate, and something that the BOD President felt The Guardian would also be “best advised to advocate for this rather than its current position, which seems to be to do everything it can to undermine the legitimacy of the world’s only Jewish state.”
The original article can be read here: https://www.theguardian.com/media/2021/may/07/guardian-200-what-we-got-wrong-the-guardians-worst-errors-of-judgment-over-200-years
