Gilad Atzmon writes:

Jonathan Freedland, the Guardian newspaper’s prime Israeli propaganda mouthpiece, praised Israeli President Reuven ‘Ruvi’ Rivlin in an article published on 31 December.

Freedland wrote that that in spite of being a “lifelong member of Israel’s Likud party, and on the right of that right-wing bloc… ever since his elevation to Israel’s largely ceremonial presidency in June he [President Rivlin] has acted as something like his country’s conscience”.

Let’s examine how Freedland justifies his dubious choice for 2014’s hero.

In November the Israeli cabinet backed a Jewish state bill that would enshrine discrimination against Israel’s 1.7 million Arab citizens, denying them the full rights of citizenship accorded to Jews. Liberals and leftists denounced the bill but, according to Freedland, “ the most potent attack came from the presidential mansion”.

Freedland doesn’t tell the entire truth. The Israeli “liberals” (such as war criminal Tzipi Livini) and the hawk president who opposed the bill didn’t deny that Israel is a Jewish state but argued that Israel is the Jewish state anyway and the bill didn’t add any new powers.

Though President Rivlin spoke in favour of civil rights, his primary argument was with the true meaning of the new bill: it exposed the deep intrinsic discrepancy between “Jewishness” and “democracy”. Speaking against the bill, Rivlin asked: “Does this proposal [the National Bill] not in fact encourage us to seek contradiction between the Jewish and democratic characteristics of the state?”

Yes it does.

While Netanyhau and his cabinet are willing to admit the truth that the Jewish state is, by its nature, exclusivist; the Jewish left, the Guardian, Freedland and President Rivlin prefer to keep the truth deeply hidden or at least obscured. Freedland and

Rivlin may agree with each other that lying for the cause is kosher.

Freedland also seems to be overwhelmingly awed by a cheesy Israeli propaganda video made for Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year. In the video the 75-year-old Israeli president sat alongside an 11-year-old Palestinian boy who had been the victim of bullying. The two held up a series of cards bearing slogans calling for mutual respect and dignity.

But Rivlin and Freedland know very well that in the so called Jewish “democracy”, with and without the National Bill, this young Palestinian boy will never be president in the Jewish state, nor could he be a minister. This young boy is destined to face constant abuse that is intended to make him leave Israel to find a better life somewhere else.

As far as I am concerned, the Guardian of Judea is anything but the hero of 2014.