While most media outlets condemned Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's Durban II speech, a few commentators took the opportunity to defend his views on Israel. One of those is Martin Jacques of Britain’s magazine the New Statesman in a recent article: “Israelis offer a sad example of the intractable and ubiquitous nature of racism. After the horrific suffering of the Jews during the Holocaust, the west sought to salve its conscience by taking land from the Palestinians, in an area that had been colonised by the European powers, and using it to help establish the Zionist state of Israel. The latter has, unfortunately, always borne many of the characteristics of a transplant, and was bitterly resented by those whose land was stolen....”
“The way many Arabs in Israel are treated as second-class citizens, and the brutality and cruelty shown during the Israeli assault on Gaza early this year, are eloquent testimony to the racism endemic in Israel. It is ironic that a people who suffered from racism on such an enormous scale should themselves display the same kind of attitude towards the Palestinians and their neighbors.