There’s an H L Mencken quote for everything, and that even includes the Guardian.

Mencken, a journalist with a fantastically bitter turn of phrase, wrote that “a newspaper is a device for making the ignorant more ignorant and the crazy crazier.” He didn’t have Britain’s most infamous publisher of antisemitic bile in mind – I’m sorry, I don’t what came over me, I meant Britain’s finest progressive newspaper – but boy oh boy did he nonetheless hit with a bullseye.

You might think that, barely a few days after the decision of the Guardian’s editorial team to publish a cartoon that would have fitted in well on the pages of Der Sturmer, they would be on the alert for anything which might confirm the view of many that, in dealing with almost anything related to Jews, the Guardian has what one might charitably call an uncharitable agenda.

You might think that, but to be frank you’d only think that if you’re unaware of the Guardian.

Because it doesn’t just have a good line in antisemitic cartoons. When it comes antisemitism generally, the Guardian has not so much a blind spot as an unbridgeable moral vacuum. This is how, in February, it could publish in its leader column an assessment of Jeremy Corbyn’s issues with Jews that informed readers that he “has a formidable record fighting against racism and in speaking up for many persecuted peoples, but in this case he was too slow and too defensive. To show how much better he was than some of his critics allowed, he should have tried harder to engage with their criticisms.”

Poor St Jeremy, if only he had been a bit more nimble everything would have been fine. And if only those beastly Jews hadn’t pushed him around like they did.

The point is this: don’t look to the Guardian for serious treatment of Jew-related issues. Look only for poison.

That applies in spades to its coverage of the world’s only Jewish state. For decades now, the Guardian’s reporting has distorted key events, ignored basic facts and behaved as if Israel is some sort of crazed military regime bent on murdering Palestinians out of blood lust.

Sure enough, this week saw a prime example of this in a long report of how Israel is supposedly deliberately destroying Palestinian farms by removing access to water. According to the paper’s Jerusalem correspondent, Bethan McKernan, “In occupied West Bank villages, Israeli-owned farms are flourishing, while Palestinians often do not have enough water to drink”.

“Israel is the world leader in water management and technology” Ms McKernan tells us. “Last year, a first-of-its-kind project began pumping desalinated seawater from the Mediterranean northwards, to replenish the shrinking Sea of Galilee.” But she goes on, “These successes are to the detriment of Palestinians; Israel controls about 80% of water reserves in the West Bank, but both the West Bank and Gaza Strip face severe water stress and drought…”If we had more water, the village would grow more than beans and za’atar. But sometimes in the summer we don’t even have drinking water,” said Jamal Deeb, a resident of Qaryut.”

Those bastard Israelis, eh?

The Guardian’s story is not – of course it isn't, this is the Guardian we are talking about – even close to the full story, because it leaves out key facts, as a deconstruction of the piece by Honest Reporting showed. For one thing, Israel gives more water to the Palestinians than the Oslo Accords require. Far from being denied access to water, “Palestinians have full access to the largely untapped eastern aquifer under the West Bank but have failed to drill there properly, wasting opportunities to increase their water supply.” And why do the Israelis have superior yields? “Israelis use recycled water for agriculture while Palestinians use mostly potable water for agriculture - this allows for greater agricultural yields on the Israeli side.”

As Honest Reporting points out, issues with water in Palestinian areas are due to mismanagement, lack of maintenance of pipes and failure to develop their water infrastructure, even in Areas A and B, where Palestinians have full control. (I recommend reading their full report.)

The issue of Israel’s supposed starving of the water supply to Palestinians is a sort of modern blood libel. This time it’s not Jews drinking the blood of gentiles but – in a neat twist - refusing to allow anyone who isn’t a Jew to drink.

Is there anyone who is surprised it is flourishing at the Guardian?