Mehdi Hasan’s recent post, “Debunking Israel’s 11 Main Myths About Gaza, Hamas and War Crimes” is simplistic to the point of childish.

Take a list of straw man arguments then knock them down with cut and paste using any paragraph from the web which might support the alternative view. This is journalism? This is political commentary? Well sadly it often is when we are talking about Israel.

Successful writing for a liberal-left journalist about the Israeli-Palestinian arena is easy. All you have to do is write about how nasty Israel is, and 10,000 twitter sheep will say ‘baaa’ before you can say ‘gone viral’.

It seems to me there are two Israels. There is ‘nasty Israel’, a dark and ghoulish place which exists in the minds and prejudices of certain political columnists and their readers, where Israeli policy makers act out of pure malice, and any accusation of evil doing is presumed automatically to be true.

Then there is actual Israel – where I have lived for the last eight years – a young, open, vibrant, democratic society, managing extraordinary national security threats, in which varied sectors and ideological groupings are competing to determine the future of the country.

Many commentators and journalists appear blind to real Israel. I think it’s because they are in love with ‘nasty Israel’ – the one their followers enjoy reading about so much. Of course, the truly horrific consequences of the current fighting in Gaza are a field day for those who like to write about ‘nasty Israel’.

Read the article in full at Huffington Post.