You are currently browsing the tag archive for the ‘New York Times’ tag.
H/T Carl
If you recall, an op-ed the New York Times published by Sarah Schulman, in Nov., actually accused Israel of attempting to demonstrate its liberal nature by highlighting the nation’s acceptance of gays.
Schulman employed the truly bizarre term, “Pinkwashing”, which she defined as “a deliberate strategy to conceal the continuing violations of Palestinians’ human rights behind an image of modernity signified by Israeli gay life.”
As David Harris, Executive Director of the American Jewish Committee, observed about Schulman, (who, he noted, advocates the academic boycott of Israel, and opposes the existence of the Jewish state within any borders):
So, if Israel takes pride in being a country where gays don’t have to live in hiding or terror, it’s actually nothing more, [to Schulman], than an elaborate ruse to distract attention from the country’s true nature.
[Does] it also mean that if Israel heralds its tenth citizen to win a Nobel Prize or the latest advances in life-saving medical technology, this is again nothing more than a smokescreen to distract attention from the “real” issues?
Argued Harris:
Were I a gay activist today, would my one shot at reaching the Times‘ global readership be devoted to Israel’s alleged misdeeds, even as I could live freely there and celebrate my lifestyle without hindrance?
Or would it center on the pressing plight of gays in those parts of the world, including the Arab Middle East and Iran, where open behavior can result in arrest, torture, and even death?
It’s actually a sorry commentary on anti-Israel activists that their venom against Israel is so extreme that they’re even able to see something sinister in the nation’s decision to highlight its quite obvious progressive advantages in the region.
So, it must have been simply devastating for such activists to learn today that Tel Aviv was voted the best gay city of 2011, according to an online poll on LGBT travel website gaycities.com. ”The gay capitol of the Middle East is exotic and welcoming with a Mediterranean c’est la vie attitude,” the website said.
As the Jerusalem Post reported:
Tel Aviv garnered 43 percent of the vote, far ahead of the next competitor, New York City, which raked in 14%. Other cities on the list included Toronto, Sao Paulo, Madrid, London, New Orleans, and Mexico City.
As Tel Aviv’s mayor Ron Huldai observed:
[Gays] are an integral part of the social and cultural fabric of the city,”Tel Aviv [is] a city that appreciates individual freedoms, allowing everyone to live by his principles and desires. This is a free city where any one can feel proud, and be proud of who they are”.
As Scott Piro observed, in a CiF Watch guest post, about the oppressive environment for gays in the Arab world, including the Palestinian territories:
Do you know where the Palestinian queer group alQaws for Sexual and Gender Diversity in Palestinian Society held their “Palestinian Queer Party” on October 21, 2011?
At a Tel Aviv club!
Any questions?!
IDF Soldier celebrating at 2009 (Jerusalem) Gay Pride Parade
Related articles
The New York Times has obtained a copy of the UN Palmer Report – a 105 page document which will be released on Friday – which finds that Israel’s naval blockade of Gaza is “LEGAL“, “appropriate”, consistent with international law, and that IDF Naval forces have the right to stop Gaza-bound ships in international waters.
While the report was also critical of some of the tactics used by the IDF in defending themselves from IHH terrorists, it also stated quite unambiguously that their use of force was morally justified, and noted that when Israeli commandos boarded the main ship they faced “organized and violent resistance from a group of passengers” and were therefore required to use force for their own protection.
The report also is hard on the IHH sponsored flotilla, Mavi Marmara, asserting that it “acted recklessly in attempting to breach the naval blockade.”
While the report certainly isn’t one-sided, and indeed includes some criticism of Israel pertaining to the way the IDF Navy responded to the violence on board the Mavi Marmara, it simply can no longer be honestly claimed, by anti-Israel activists or Guardian/CiF commentators, that the blockade enforced by the Israeli Navy to prevent arms from being smuggled into Gaza is in breach of international law.
As such, we can expect the Guardian – whose coverage of the flotilla incident represented an egregiously reckless, biased journalistic rush to judgment – to either downplay or totally ignore the report’s findings.
No word yet on whether Guardian cartoonists Martin Rowson or Steve Bell will revise their fictitious, defamatory and hideous caricatures of Israeli behavior on that fateful day.
Martin Rowson, Guardian, June 5, 2010
Steve Bell, Guardian, June 2, 2010
Steve Bell, Guardian, June 1, 2010
Related articles
I was invited, along with a group of journalists, to take a test run on Jerusalem’s Light Rail Project, which was preceded by a presentation by officials from the Jerusalem Transportation Authority responsible for its implementation.
While, as most Israelis know, the project is well behind schedule and over budget (another indication that Jerusalem is a normal municipality with all the requisite bureaucratic and administrative red tape and inefficiencies), when the first phase of the Light Rail is completed (maybe by late August), as well as subsequent phases which are to expand service to additional parts of the city, it will likely solve many of Jerusalem’s traffic issues, and offer a much more efficient way to travel around the city.
Dubbed the ‘Red Line’, it will initially have 23 stations and is planned to run from Pisgat Ze’ev in the northeast, south along Road 1 (intercity) to Jaffa Road (Rehov Yaffo). From there, it is planned to run along Jaffa Road westward to the Jerusalem Central Bus Station, and continue to the southwest, crossing the Chords Bridge along Herzl Boulevard to the Beit HaKerem neighborhood, and finishing just beyond Mount Herzl next to Bayit VeGan.
As you can see by the map below, it the first line will run through the East part of the city, and serve Arab neighborhoods, such as Shu’afat, and the Project planners noted that they consulted with, and gained the approval of, resident associations there – many of which will benefit by the increased ease of access to the center of town, and a rise in property values – which, according to Rail planners, has already occurred.
As media events in Israel go, this was, for most journalists covering the story, quite non-controversial, and the smooth, quiet ride we took on the modern rail car, on a small section of the route which runs through the center from Yaffo to the road along the Arab section of the Old City, was a quite pleasant experience.
However, during the Q&A session after the presentation, both by transportation officials, and then later, in our group’s meeting with Jerusalem’s Mayor, Nir Barkat, two American journalists – one from National Public Radio (NPR) and the other from the New York Times – noted Mahmoud Abbas’s opposition to the project (Abbas actually tried to initiate a boycott of the European companies involved with its construction) and asked whether the fact that the route runs though the East part of the city (serving Arab neighborhoods) was an impediment to peace.
Indeed, anti-Israel NGOs have gone even further than Abbas – with the Swedish NGO Diakonia characterizing the Light Rail Project as a “Violation of Humanitarian International Law.”
What they were parroting, of course, was the specious argument that any Jewish presence in “East” Jerusalem was illegal, the myth of “historically Arab” East Jerusalem, and the belief that only the only possible way peace could be achieved would be to divide the city – with Israel retaining the West part, and the Palestinian State including the East.
As we noted earlier, polls indicate that the overwhelming majority of Palestinians living in East Jerusalem DO NOT want to divide the city as part of a peace agreement.
More broadly, while listening the NYT and NPR correspondents question Mayor Barkat on the political implications of the Light Rail Project, I began wondering what the reaction would be if the Arab neighborhoods were excluded from the Rail’s route. Is there any question that the narrative would have been one of racism and discrimination against Jerusalem’s Arabs?
Further, would it be preferable if the city were to delay addressing such major municipal problems until a peace agreement is one day achieved?
I’d challenge reporters (such as Harriet Sherwood and the Americans I encountered on the Light Rail tour) who insist on inserting politics into every aspect of life in Jerusalem to move beyond their comfortable ideological boundaries, and challenge their preconceived conclusions, by talking to average Arab, Jewish, and Christian residents of this incredibly diverse, vibrant, and largely successful city – as I suspect they’d learn that (despite the reality of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict) the daily concerns of Jerusalemites are not much different than those who live in New York or London.
A familiar narrative of the mainstream media about Palestinians who voted for Hamas in 2006 was that their decision to vote for the Palestinian Branch of the Muslim Brotherhood was not based on ideology, nor did it represent an embrace of the terrorist group’s anti-Semitic charter but, rather, was merely a rejection of the corrupt Fatah, and motivated by a simple desire, as all people in the world have, to improve their quality of lives.
Interestingly, the assumption of the universality of Western progressive values (which Richard Landes refers to as cognitive egocentrism) by such journalists is often strangely absent when reporting on, and imputing values to, Israelis.
As Jonathan Spyer noted, those who are obsessively critical of Israel see the country not as it is, but often as “a [mythical] place of uninterrupted darkness and horror, in which every human interaction is ugly, crude, racist, brutal.”
As a resident of the city, I can attest to the fact that the mythical Jerusalem which the Guardian, NYT, and NPR often conjure has almost no resemblance to the real, complex, layered and unimaginably dynamic reality of everyday life here.
Related articles
- Who supports dividing Jerusalem? Not the Palestinians (cifwatch.com)
- The myth of “historically Arab” East Jerusalem (cifwatch.com)
- A brief note to Harriet Sherwood on her return to Jerusalem (cifwatch.com)
- Harriet Sherwood erroneously places Knesset on Arab Farmland (cifwatch.com)
- In Praise of Yaacov Lozowick (cifwatch.com)
- More “Nakba Day” violence: Riots in Qalandiya and Jerusalem (cifwatch.com)
- Guardian “East Jerusalem” series features quote characterizing Israeli Jews as a “swarm of ants” (cifwatch.com)
- Censored by Harriet Sherwood: Jewish Voices from Jerusalem (cifwatch.com)
- Don’t Divide Jerusalem (cifwatch.com)
- Israel, wave your flag! (cifwatch.com)
This is cross posted by Simon Plosker, the Managing Editor of Honest Reporting. The essay originally appeared in Ynet
Israeli soldiers being beaten with metal rods by "activists" on Mavi Marmara in 2010
“We are in a battle, and more than half of this battle is taking place in the battlefield of the media.” So said Al-Qaeda’s new leader Ayman al-Zawahiri in November 2005. But what happens when the media attempts to define the physical battlefield by becoming active participants in the story?
We should all be extremely concerned by the announcement that among those sailing on the imminent flotilla to Gaza are journalists representing mainstream media, including the New York Times and camera crews from CNN and CBS.
This is a clear example of the symbiotic relationship between the media and anti-Israel agitators such as those behind the flotilla. After all, it wasn’t the violent actions of the passengers on board the Mavi Marmara that caused Israel so much damage – it was the diplomatic and public relations fallout from an incident that occupied the international press for days after the event.
The “martyrdom” of nine Turkish passengers constituted a PR success for the IHH organization and its cohorts. Clearly then the only reason the mainstream media would jump on board the next flotilla would be the prospect of capturing a repeat performance. Likewise, the flotilla’s organizers are counting on the media to publish a story whose narrative has already been written – namely that of some plucky “peace activists” attempting to break a brutish and illegal naval blockade of the poor Palestinians in their open-air prison.
Imagine that the Israeli Navy boards the flotilla’s ships one by one, forcing the vessels to dock without incident for inspection in an Israeli port. This would be the ultimate failure on the part of the organizers to create a major incident as well as for the media on board who hope to be on the scene reporting on the biggest news story of the day.
‘Useful idiots’
Having established that both the flotilla participants and the accompanying media need each other, can we honestly count on the New York Times, CNN and CBS as well as other “embedded” journalists to report on the situation with objectivity even if the story doesn’t turn out to be as dramatic as they would hope?
Or will the mere presence of the media act as an invitation for confrontation and potential violence as so-called “activists” play for the cameras? And what of the journalists themselves? While over the years, some reporters have been inadvertently killed or injured by the IDF, we cannot expect soldiers entering a potential warzone, as the Mavi Marmara became, to run the added gauntlet of avoiding media personnel who have purposely positioned themselves in the crossfire. It not only risks the lives of the journalists but also those of Israel’s soldiers.
The Israeli government closed off access to the Gaza Strip for journalists during Operation Cast Lead, ostensibly for their own protection and to spare IDF troops from yet another factor outside of their control on the battlefield. There was a valid argument that this worked against Israel’s interests. The media, camped on a hilltop overlooking Gaza, was antagonized and vengeful while the images from Gaza itself were dominated by al-Jazeera and other less than objective sources.
This time, Israel would do well to remind those journalists on board the flotilla that they will be active participants in an illegal attempt to break what is a legal naval blockade under international law.
We can only hope that the mainstream media will not be influenced by the ideologues and “useful idiots” that make up the disparate groups on board, whose dominant zeitgeist is a hatred of Israel rather than a love of universal human rights. We will have to rely on the professionalism of the journalists to capture the reality of what occurs free from the prejudice that colors so much of the reporting on Israel.
Based on previous experience, however, we shouldn’t have high expectations. This ship has sailed. Will Israel be left clinging on to flotation devices, drowning in a sea of negative publicity or will this be a fishing expedition in calm waters?
The flotilla is sailing. It’s time to baton down the hatches once again.
Related articles
- ‘Freedom Flotilla 2′ – Staying Pointless. (cifwatch.com)
This is cross posted from the blog, Anne’s Opinions
Two articles that I have read in the last 24 hours have been enough to bring my blood pressure to boiling point. I will address the first one here. The other will be addressed in my next post.
Both articles have several similarities. Both are written by Jews, both authors have a – shall we say – problematic attitude towards Israel, and both authors feel that they have a right, nay a duty, to berate and chide Israel as if she was a child, and in the more public a forum the better.
The first article in question, Postcard from Cairo, by Thomas Friedman in the New York Times, was brought to my attention by my dad although I had caught a mention of it in today’s Ynet. (Just judging by the huge number of comments it generated in Ynet one can see how much outrage it caused).
Thomas Friedman starts his article with one true sentence, and then ruins it right away.
For anyone who spent time in Tahrir Square these last three weeks, one thing was very obvious: Israel was not part of this story at all.
Correct!
And then…
the two big countries they knew were against them were Israel and Saudi Arabia. Sad. The children of Egypt were having their liberation moment
and the children of Israel decided to side with Pharaoh – right to the very end.
Bzzzt! Wrong wrong wrong! His chutzpah and outright lies are breathtaking, even for a journalist known for his tangential relationship to the truth. He insidiously uses Biblical language to promote the idea that the Jews have switched sides, from Moses to Pharaoh.
But on what basis has he decided that Israel is on the side of Pharaoh? Where is his evidence? He brings none; he just skips over this staggering pronouncement and moves on to his next bugbear:
Israel today has the most out-of-touch, in-bred, unimaginative and cliche-driven cabinet it has ever had.
I might even admit “out of touch”. But in-bred?? Unimaginative? Cliché driven? From where does this malice spring? Does he use this same spiteful language when talking about the Saudis? In fact you will see that the Saudis, having been mentioned once in the first paragraph of the article, merit not one more word in the entire screed. Israel was lumped in with the Saudis purely to make a nasty – and untrue – point.
Friedman continues:
Frantically calling the White House and telling the president he must not abandon Pharaoh – to the point where the White House was thoroughly disgusted with its Israeli interlocutors
Once more he cannot resist bringing in Biblical allusions to entice the reader to relate the Jewishness of the State of Israel to the diplomatic events on its doorstep – no matter that once again he brings no proof, no quotes from the White House; in fact he brings no proof at all that anyone in Israel ever said those words or implied that intention.
Friedman graciously allows that Israel is entitled to feel nervous because of the possible abrogation of the 30-year old peace treaty between itself and Egypt, but immediately demands that Israel should dive in and
“need to get to work immediately on building a relationship with the dynamic new popular trend here”
Never mind that the Muslim Brotherhood is waiting in the wings, despite Friedman’s frantic denials. Never mind that this “Facebook-driven, youth-led democracy uprising” had no organisation behind it, and as of Friday the army is back in control.
He may have a point that:
Most of all, it is not about some populist upsurge that craves restarting the war with Israel. It is all about a people who crave the chance to restart their own future, their own lives.
but the point is lost amongst the distortions and outright fiction that he provides. He certainly does not take into account the realities of the region; the fact that the revolution has no leader, no organization, and the fact that nature and politics abhor a vacuum. Where there is no leader, a ready-made one will step in. The only opposition leaders with any organizational ability are those of the Muslim Brotherhood. And the Egyptian Army. In this respect we in Israel need to breathe a (non-politically correct) sigh of relief that it was the army and not the Brotherhood who took control.
The story is anyway not over yet and we still need to be on our guard. Will the army be able to address the Egyptian common man’s grievances? Unemployment, corruption, lack of personal freedom are rampant. Will anything change or will the revolution re-ignite?
The Egyptian uprising indeed is not directly connected to Israel although its results have a huge potential for either good or terribly bad for the whole region. Despite Israel’s justified concern regarding the eventual outcome of this revolt, Friedman is completely wrong in accusing Israel of demanding that the white House “rescue Pharaoh”. He misreads reality, makes up stories where facts are missing, and is willing to sacrifice Israeli lives for the sake of a nebulous possibility that lions and lambs will indeed lie down together in Egypt.
Never mind reality; don’t confuse him with facts. You’re ruining Friedman’s nice pink daydream of peace in our time. And if Israel has to be sacrificed and make sacrifices to achieve his dream – well, they must go ahead. If not Friedman will think we are in-bred.
Did I say chutzpah?
Julian Assange (Wikileaks founder)
The egregious hubris of journalists in liberal, democratic societies was on full display in Simon Jenkins column in CiF, in the very title of the piece:
“US embassy cables: The job of the media is not to protect the powerful from embarrassment: It is for governments – not journalists – to guard public secrets, and there is no national jeopardy in WikiLeaks’ revelations.”
In that brief headline, and subtitle, we have, in short, a journalistic ethos that is both narcissistic as it is adolescent – demonstrating a media elite who don’t allow themselves to be burdened with such quaint notions as citizenship and responsibility. Whether or not such leaks – classified diplomatic communications from U.S. diplomats abroad – harms national security or endangers lives are questions the likes of Jenkins clearly are not burdened with.
Notably, the Guardian just released a video commentary on the Wikileaks affair – which includes comments from Guardian editors and correspondents. Especially relevant were the comments from Jonathan Powell, former Chief of Staff of Tony Blair, who said: “there may of course be in those [wikileaks] telegrams be [sic] revelations that do actually endanger lives….so I think there is a risk to people’s lives in those telegrams.”
Jenkins and the Guardian (as well as La Monde, El Pais and The New York Times) are, after all, doing what a proper liberal pedigree commands them to do: “Comforting the afflicted, and afflicting the comfortable.”
Jenkins asserted the following early in his essay:
“Anything said or done in the name of a democracy is, prima facie, of public interest. When that democracy purports to be “world policeman” – an assumption that runs ghostlike through these cables – that interest is global.”
No, Mr. Jenkins, not everything said or done in the name of democracy is of public interest. In the real world, free, democratic nations are engaged in serious battles (militarily and diplomatically) with very real enemies – closed totalitarian regimes (like Iran, N. Korea, Syria, and China) – who, by their very nature don’t have to worry about their own state secrets being revealed, and can (and do) use such asymmetry to their advantage.
It is sad that journalists such as Jenkins likely would snicker at the notion that patriotism should play a role in their decision-making. However, while responsible journalists in democratic nations should rightly view their job as investigating, and reporting on, the truth in all matters relating to the public interest, such an admittedly noble ideal must also, at the end of the day, be balanced with their responsibilities as citizens of the country in which they live. It’s not called “selling out.” Its called being a responsible adult.
U.S. Senator Joe Lieberman quite eloquently summed up the Wikileak controversy when he said:
“To keep our country safe, some information must be kept secret. This is a balancing act that the American people themselves ultimately control through our democratically elected representatives and our institutions. What Wikileaks is doing is to short-circuit this entire democratic process – claiming for itself the exclusive, unilateral, and unchecked power to decide what should and shouldn’t be made public. This is therefore not only an attack on our national security, but an offense against our democracy and the principle of transparency.”
I couldn’t agree more.
What are your thoughts?
A guest post by AKUS
For better or for worse, CiFWatch is achieving its mission in forcing change at the Guardian through informed criticism and satirical commentary over the last year or so. There is a new line-up of writers and the viciously anti-Israeli amateur “as-a-Jews” seem to have been given their marching orders. Very few of the columns written by the new set of authors appear on CiF. Perhaps the message finally got through, with the disappearance of Georgina Henry and Matt Seaton, that the endless denial of Israel’s legitimacy accompanied with anti-Semitic commentary and nauseating attacks on Israel has added little value and caused a great deal of damage to the Guardian’s reputation no matter how many mouse clicks the faithful generated for them
As a kind of score-keeping device, and using some recent columns as my source, it appears that the editorial staff has divided the workload as follows:
Political matters:
Ana Carbajosa in Jerusalem – generally writes in Spanish for El País (Spain). Articles:
Israel’s cabinet split over fresh building freeze despite US offer of military aid
Chilean miners accept Israeli invitation – if their relatives can go too
Flotilla matters:
Owen Bowcott – Owen Bowcott is a senior reporter for the Guardian. He was formerly the Guardian’s Ireland correspondent and also worked on the foreign news desk. Articles:
Gaza aid team trapped on Greek boat
Gaza aid convoy Britons held on Greek captain’s ship
Religious matters:
Jill Hamilton – The Duchess of Hamilton has an MA in Near and Middle East Studies from SOAS at the University of London. For the past five years – while completing her PhD on Patriarchy, the Dark Side of Legal Pluralism – she lived partly in the Christian quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem. She writes for the Catholic Herald and has written numerous books including God, Guns and Israel (History Press) now in its third edition. Articles:
Pilgrims fill Jerusalem’s streets
An end to Bethlehem’s unholy row
Crazy Stalinist Opinions:
Seumas Milne – Seumas Milne is a Guardian columnist and associate editor. He was the Guardian’s comment editor from 2001-7 after working for the paper as a general reporter and labour editor. He has reported for the Guardian from the Middle East, eastern Europe, Russia, south Asia and Latin America. Articles:
The Palestinians of Israel are poised to take centre stage
West Bank and Gaza:
Harriet Sherwood in Jerusalem: Largely banished from reporting inside Israel. Articles:
Israeli plan to build hundreds of homes in West Bank settlement risks US anger
UN in Gaza orders weapons to protect its head
Israeli army chief’s letter on military conduct to be read to every soldier
Battery hens’ reality on Israeli farm exposed by hidden webcam
Putting a negative spin on Israel using Israeli literature
Jonathan Freedland – Jonathan Freedland writes a weekly column for The Guardian. He is also a regular contributor to The New York Times and The New York Review of Books, and presents BBC Radio 4′s contemporary history series, The Long View. Articles:
My family, the enemy
David Grossman: ‘Israel is a lofty idea, and it’s worth fighting for’
Pure hatred section:
The “Letters” page has been handed over to the anti-Israeli brigade – frequent “contributors” such as Tony Greenstein, Ken Loach, and the rest of the IJV, PSC XYZ we-hate-Israel alphabet soup brigade getting letters published there when they cannot get columns of CiF, or even, in Greenstein’s case, are banned from commenting there.
Of course, this still means that Israel gets more coverage than any other country in the world except the USA and Europe at the Guardian.
For the time being, largely gone are Seth Freedman, Rachel Shabi, Ben White, Tony Lerman – the motley crew that, day in and day out, used CiF as their platform to attack Israel’s legitimacy and Israel’s very right to exist in the language of 1930’s Nazi columnists (and allegations that Israel exhibits Nazi-like behavior and practices apartheid) with creatively made-up “facts” and historical distortions. We’ll have to wait if the new approach really is fairer to Israel or if the loss of mouse clicks will encourage a return to the bad old ways. In the meantime, we still need to get them to clean up the “Letters” page.
H/T Elder of Ziyon:
Evelen Gordon, writing in Commentary Magazine’s blog, Contentions, noted:
The New York Times tucked a remarkable statistic into the tail-end of an article on WikiLeaks’s latest document dump, one with ramifications for the ongoing delegitimization campaign against Israel: for most of the last century, the normal civilian-to-combatant wartime fatality ratio has been 10:1.
Civilians have borne the brunt of modern warfare, with 10 civilians dying for every soldier in wars fought since the mid-20th century, compared with 9 soldiers killed for every civilian in World War I, according to a 2001 study by the International Committee of the Red Cross.
This elicits an obvious question: if civilians routinely account for 90 percent of all casualties in modern warfare, why is the world up in arms about the civilian casualty rate in last year’s Israel-Hamas war in Gaza — which, by even the most anti-Israel account, was markedly lower?
Hawkeye
Omar2
WellofSense
Medusa
The Alchemist
Louise
Tosca
Maimon
Telling the Truth
Israelinurse
Adam Levick
Margie in Tel Aviv
Guest/Cross Post
Hadar Sela
Buried by the Guardian: The paper fails to report Iranian leader’s religious justification for genocide
February 7, 2012 in Comments which are off-topic, ad hominem, racist, vulgar or include threats of violence will be deleted | Tags: anti-Zionism, Antisemitism, Comment is Free, Fars News Agency, Guardian, Holocaust, Iran, New York Times | by Adam Levick | 8 comments
The book, “Buried by the Times: The Holocaust and America’s most important newspaper“, written by Laurel Leff, is an in-depth look at how The NYT failed in its coverage of the fate of European Jews from 1939-1945. It examines how The Times consistently downplayed news of the Holocaust, and how news of Hitler’s ‘final solution’ was hidden from readers, resulting in the minimizing and misunderstanding of modern history’s worst genocide.
Of course, in our post-Shoah world, the homage paid to Jewish victims of the Nazi genocide is nearly universal among the respectable liberal media and opinion leaders – pieties which are often observed, if often perfunctorily, by even the most shrill critics of the modern Jewish state.
Even the Guardian, arguably the most egregious example of the modern respectable left’s disenchantment with the national aspirations of living Jews, has a Holocaust page, and typically shows appropriate reverence for survivors and other expressions of Holocaust remembrance.
However, the Guardian also seems quite comfortable sanctioning voices which accuse Jews of exploiting European Holocaust-guilt to defend Israel, or even those who suggest a moral equivalence between Israel and the Nazi regime, and seem incapable of taking annihilationist antisemitism in the Arab world seriously – even when such malign ideologies are espoused explicitly within the Palestinian territories, part of the region to which they devote a disproportionate degree of coverage.
Similarly, the Guardian’s reporting on the Iranian nuclear threat, in both commentaries and reports, possess several consistent themes: Sowing doubt over evidence that the regime in Tehran is attempting to build a nuclear weapon; arguments that, even if they do aspire to acquire such weapons, the dangers of war with Iran to thwart their nuclear ambitions are not worth the risk; and, finally, skepticism that a nuclear Iran would pose any real risk to the Jewish state, and that Israel’s fears are overblown.
Of course, such consistent “anti-war” rhetoric, downplaying the threat posed by a nuclear Iran, creates a necessary journalistic corollary. If Guardian readers are to head the calls from the Guardian’s London salon on the inherent madness of taking seriously the manufactured Iranian threat, then any evidence of the Islamist regime’s malign intent against the Jewish state must be buried.
Thus, nowhere on the Guardian’s Iran page will you find mention that a website with close ties to Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khomenei has outlined why it would be religiously acceptable to kill all Jews in Israel – a doctrine, as reported by the Mail Online, which details why the destruction of Israel and the slaughter of all its people would be legally and morally justified, and in accordance to Islamic doctrine.
As the Washington Times reported:
The government approved essay at Fars News Agency (seen here, which is in Farsi, though you can read it via Google Translate) cites the last census showing Israel has a population of 7.5 million, of which roughly 5.8 million are Jewish. Then it breaks down the districts with the highest concentration of Jews, indicating that three cities (Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and Haifa) contain over 60 percent of the Jewish population that Iran could target.
The Guardian’s cadre of commentators and reporters, so sensitive to every conceivable inequity in Israel between Jew and Arab, Israeli and Palestinian, and so quick to frame every instance of Israeli racism as evidence of an endemic, dangerous national lurch towards political darkness, evidently doesn’t view a religious ruling, by the highest authorities of the Islamist state, laying out a detailed plan of extermination to be relevant in properly contextualizing the drama surrounding Iran’s nuclear ambitions.
While the Iranian President’s record of support for wiping the Zionist state off the map is well-documented, Khomeini’s Koranic justification, a Fatwa or sorts on the lives of millions of Jews, crosses a line – a moral threshold.
There is, to be sure, the danger, which some have succumbed to, of engaging in hyperbole about the Iranian threat.
No, this isn’t the 1930s, and hatred of Jews, which the German journalist Wilhelm Marr rhetorically sanitized as “anti-Semitism” – reflecting the scientific racism of his day – which, though proven resilient (having morphed and adapted to comport to the current political zeitgeist), certainly has lost most of its social grandeur in the democratic world.
Jews in the West are afforded protections unimaginable in centuries past, largely are no longer helpless victims of mob animus, and are not continually ‘the accused’ in diaspora’s trials.
Moreover, the Jews have a sovereign state. For the first time in 2000 years Jews are masters of their own fate, and can exercise force, both diplomatic and military, in defense of both its interests and, far too often, its lives.
However, the requisite sobriety in assessing the vulnerability of the modern Jewish polity need not devolve into starry-eyed idealism, nor the vice of the liberal egocentric impulse to impute reasonableness and good intentions to those whose malign intent towards Jews is undisguised and apparent to all who wish to see.
The stakes are not, and have never been, between war and peace. Whether sanctions, covert action, or military force is required to assure the continued existence of Israel, at the end of the day we’re left with a stark moral choice.
The decision we’re presented with is whether to allow a regime openly committed to the Jews’ destruction the means to do so.
As Churchill remarked after Chamberlain returned from signing the Munich pact with Hitler:
If I’ve learned anything by studying the Guardian Left, it’s that when faced with a choice between war and dishonor they will choose dishonor every time.
And thus, my Jewish state will more likely face the grim prospect of war.
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