At a recent Jewish Chronicle event in London, former Sun editor Kevin MacKenzie suggested that hostile media coverage of Israel is “a form of proxy for antisemitism by journalists in the West.”

Mackenzie said: “It is a massive puzzle because journalists normally are on the side of the little guy, and there can’t be a smaller guy in the Middle East than Israel.”

As for the media’s perplexing penchant for demonizing Israel, MacKenzie had this to say:

“Why do they think an anti-democratic force should be entitled to a better crack of the whip than [Israel] which is in favour of democratic rights?

“[Israel] is pro-gay, pro-democracy, pro-women. It’s the most liberal establishment probably for 1,000 miles in any direction. You would have thought every journalist would embrace that thought process — but for some reason they don’t.

“The most interesting thing was the way the people from Gaza treated those guys they claimed were Israeli spies — they shot them in public and dragged around their bodies.

“Compare that with the Israelis when they captured the guy who let off the bomb in Tel Aviv and then followed due process and the law. That is never portrayed in the British media. Never.

“Is British journalism basically antisemitic? Do they hide [their] antisemitism in the way they report the battle for survival of Israel?”

As The Algemeiner has reported, bias against Israel in the media has become so salient that it even prompted an op-ed by Israeli Ambassador to the United States Michael Oren in the Wall Street Journal in August 2012.