Israel was the sixth most written about country by the Guardian website in 2010, coming in front of Pakistan, Iran and Zimbabwe.

The Jewish state featured in 1008 stories during the year; more than double the combined total of mentions for its Middle Eastern neighbours Jordan, Syria, Lebanon and Egypt.

Jordan appeared 39 and Syria 85 times, while there were 126 reports about Lebanon and 219 about Egypt.

Israel was mentioned almost 100 times more than the next popular choice, France, while the only countries with more stories on them were the UK, USA, Iraq, China and Afghanistan.

Around a quarter of the stories about Israel were comment pieces.

Following the devastating earthquake last January, Haiti was mentioned 436 times in 2010 while Chile, where 33 miners were rescued from deep below the desert, came in at 195.

Despite large scale ethnic violence in Kyrgyzstan last June, Guardian journalists offered only 82 stories related to the Central Asian country.

The author of the Inside Guardian blog wrote: “So we're obsessed with our home country, captivated by the US and disproportionately preoccupied with Israel? Maybe.”

While Israel was a popular choice for the Guardian website, it could not eclipse the iPad, which was the subject of 1,252 website stories.