The ‘New York Times’ is dead set on marginalizing Jewish anti-Zionism
US Politics
Philip Weiss on August 3, 2016 27 Comments
Hasia Diner
The New York Times is pointedly ignoring an important news story: the rise of
Jewish anti-Zionism. A battle is taking place among Jews over the dead end that
Jewish nationalism represents, but the paper of record is doing all it can to
pretend that battle isn’t happening, or that only lunatics are engaged, and
thereby suffocate an explosive discussion.
Two days ago Haaretz ran two stunning op-eds by American Jewish historians
Hasia Diner and Marjorie Feld titled, “We’re American Jewish Historians. This
Is Why We’ve Left Zionism Behind,” saying that they cannot go comfortably into
Jewish spaces that deny the Nakba any more. Diner, a professor at New York
University, related a struggle that will resonate in the hearts of many other
American Jews:
The Israel that I loved, the one my parents embraced as the closest
approximation to Eden on earth, itself had depended well before 1967 upon the
expropriation of Arab lands and the expulsion of Arab populations. The Law of
Return can no longer look to me as anything other than racism. I abhor
violence, bombings, stabbings, or whatever hurtful means oppressed individuals
resort to out of anger and frustration. And yet, I am not surprised when they
do so, after so many decades of occupation, with no evidence of progress.
I feel a sense of repulsion when I enter a synagogue in front of which the
congregation has planted a sign reading, “We Stand With Israel.” I just do not
go and avoid many Jewish settings where I know Israel will loom large as an
icon of identity.
Marjorie N. Feld
Then yesterday Haaretz ran a great piece by Gideon Levy titled, “Stop living in
denial, Israel is an evil state,” which cited the detention of Palestinian poet
Dareen Tatour and the cruel imprisonment/detention of the Palestinian hunger
striker Bilal Kayed as examples of “evil.”
Levy quoted Eva Illouz, a Hebrew University professor who has also used the
term “evil” for Israeli practices and who described the occupation as “slavery.”
Two days ago, Haaretz ran a piece by Yitchak Laor characterizing Israeli
society as fascist: “the volk has come to overshadow all other institutions –
democracy, the law, the army. Not to mention Palestinian blood.”
Not all the coverage is happening in Israel. Last year the Washington Post ran
an op-ed by two Jewish scholars at Harvard and Yale explaining that though they
love Israel they must support boycott of Israel in order to end the “permanent
subjugation of Palestinians” — even if that boycott brings about a single state.
This list of outright Jewish dissidents grows longer and longer by the moment.
But none of them gets a platform in the New York Times. That’s because the
leading American newspaper is pointedly refusing to cover Jewish anti-Zionism.
And not just refusing: but actively stigmatizing. Today the Times has a long
piece by Linda K. Wertheimer about the Middle East conflict on campus that
casts Palestinian solidarity activists, including Students for Justice in
Palestine, as anti-Semitic.
Many universities are grappling with how to balance students’ right to protest
with Jewish students’ fears that their culture is under attack…. S.J.P. members
insist they are anti-Israel, not anti-Semitic — a debatable distinction to
those who cannot separate the state of Israel from their Jewish identity.
The article fails to acknowledge that many SJP members are Jewish, and that
these Jewish students do separate the state of Israel from their Jewish
identity. It fails to state that many Jews are pro-Boycott, Divestment and
Sanctions (BDS). It fails to acknowledge a statistic that Jeffrey Goldberg, the
dean of US Jewish journalists, stated to Haim Saban, the dean of Jewish donors,
last year:
Our oldest daughter is a freshman at a liberal arts college in New England, a
pretty well-known school. And she reports to us that J Street at that street
represents the Zionist right [and] that the largest Jewish organization — 25
percent of this campus is Jewish — the largest Jewish organization is a group
called Jewish Voice for Peace, which is an Orwellian name for a group that
opposes Israeli’s existence.
In the Times article, Jewish Voice for Peace and Open Hillel are only mentioned
in a parenthesis. That’s blatant marginalization.
And though Wertheimer cites a poll showing that Jewish undergraduates face
anti-Semitism, if you look the survey up you will see that the pollees were
young people “who applied to go on a ten-day educational Israel experience with
Taglit- Birthright Israel.” That’s not all Jewish students, that’s
Zionist-oriented students.
The Times is contemptuous of any news event that features Jewish opposition to
Zionism. It behaves like an ostrich; it wants to believe this can’t be
happening.
A few months ago Gideon Levy was in the United States. A journalist who has
gotten death threats from his fellow Jewish Israelis, he gave an impassioned
speech in Washington; and there was a line of journalists seeking to interview
him afterward.
Not the New York Times. The New York Times does not care that Gideon Levy,
leading Israeli journalist, has had death threats. Jodi Rudoren never wrote
about Levy when she was the New York Times Jerusalem bureau chief (outside of
quoting him once or twice). Instead she touted rightwing Zionist Yossi Klein
Halevi, whom she extolled as a guide to Israeli life during her Zionist victory
lap last winter.
One of the journalists who interviewed Levy in Washington was Max Blumenthal.
Blumenthal first went to Israel on the Zionist propaganda journey, Birthright;
ten years later, he wrote a book called Goliath that anticipated the crackup we
are seeing today in Israeli political life, by boldly outlining the fascistic
currents in that society. But Blumenthal is an anti-Zionist, and his important
book has been completely ignored by the paper of record. Just as the Times has
done everything it can to pretend that Israeli leadership is not splitting
right now over “fascist” trends in the society.
The New York Times has several Zionist columnists, including Roger Cohen and
David Brooks. Brooks is one of four Times staffers whose children have served
in the Israeli Defense Forces. It goes without saying that it does not have an
anti-Zionist columnist.
Yes, the New York Times lately praised Ben Ehrenreich’s new book, The Way to
the Spring. But Ehrenreich’s Jewishness isn’t mentioned. You’d think that the
Times would want to interview him about his book and ask him the Jewish
question. Nope. Not interested. (Only Bob Herbst mentioned that on our site:
“Ehrenreich… was compelled to document [the occupation] as a way of standing up
against injustice that is a strong part of his identity as a Jew.”)
Earlier this year the Times ran a forum on whether anti-Zionism is
anti-Semitism. It included an excellent piece by Lisa Goldman saying, No way.
But Lisa Goldman was pointedly non-Zionist in her assertions; that is to say,
she did not take a position on whether Israel should be a Jewish state. Both
anti-Zionist pieces– i.e., we don’t think Israel should be a Jewish state– were
by writers in an Arab-American tradition. (Sherene Seikaly of Jadaliyyah and
Omar Zahzah). Publishing a critique of Zionism from a Jew is just too loaded
for the Times.
Three years ago the Times ran this important op-ed by Ian Lustick, who is
Jewish, titled the Two-State Illusion, saying that Israel and Palestine need to
be liberated from a failed paradigm that has only encouraged expansion and
corruption; but Lustick’s p-o-v was decidedly Realist. He was silent as to the
discrimination inherent in Zionism.
And while the Times ran pieces critical of Israel by the late Tony Judt, it
always slighted Judt’s assertion that Zionism is an anachronism; it simply
could not give airtime to a central accomplishment of that intellectual
leader’s career.
Two years ago the Times did run this piece on anti-Zionist Jews (among them
Chip Manekin, Alissa Wise and Corey Robin); but it is the exception that proves
the rule. And it was in the Beliefs column, a long time ago.
The Times is simply incapable of covering this important news. It knows what
will happen if it treats this story honestly: the discussion is explosive.
After the American Jewish professors wrote in Haaretz that they were putting
Zionism behind them, Jeffrey Goldberg was quick to go on the attack. He said he
was giving up on Haaretz because the newspaper’s “cartoonish… anti-Semitism can
be grating.” His tweets got wide coverage in the Jewish world. The New York
Times is worried about exposing itself to that kind of criticism from its
principal readers, and advertisers too. The Times grants Goldberg tremendous
power; it fell over itself to respond recently when Goldberg claimed he was
misrepresented by half a sentence in a magazine article.
“It is no exaggeration to say that for a century [the NYT] has served, in
effect, as the hometown paper of American Jewry,” former Timesman Neil Lewis
wrote. That’s a big responsibility now that the Jewish establishment is being
rocked by assaults on Zionism. Sadly, it has required the Times to serve as
Pravda, actively suppressing discussion of important news.
Thanks to Yakov Hirsch and Adam Horowitz and James North.
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The ‘New York Times’ is dead set on marginalizing Jewish anti-Zionism
US Politics
Philip Weiss on August 3, 2016 27 Comments
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valid.
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Hasia Diner
The New York Times is pointedly ignoring an important news story: the rise of
Jewish anti-Zionism. A battle is taking place among Jews over the dead end that
Jewish nationalism represents, but the paper of record is doing all it can to
pretend that battle isn’t happening, or that only lunatics are engaged, and
thereby suffocate an explosive discussion.
Two days ago Haaretz ran two stunning op-eds by American Jewish historians
Hasia Diner and Marjorie Feld titled, “We’re American Jewish Historians. This
Is Why We’ve Left Zionism Behind,” saying that they cannot go comfortably into
Jewish spaces that deny the Nakba any more. Diner, a professor at New York
University, related a struggle that will resonate in the hearts of many other
American Jews:
The Israel that I loved, the one my parents embraced as the closest
approximation to Eden on earth, itself had depended well before 1967 upon the
expropriation of Arab lands and the expulsion of Arab populations. The Law of
Return can no longer look to me as anything other than racism. I abhor
violence, bombings, stabbings, or whatever hurtful means oppressed individuals
resort to out of anger and frustration. And yet, I am not surprised when they
do so, after so many decades of occupation, with no evidence of progress.
I feel a sense of repulsion when I enter a synagogue in front of which the
congregation has planted a sign reading, “We Stand With Israel.” I just do not
go and avoid many Jewish settings where I know Israel will loom large as an
icon of identity.
Marjorie N. Feld
Then yesterday Haaretz ran a great piece by Gideon Levy titled, “Stop living in
denial, Israel is an evil state,” which cited the detention of Palestinian poet
Dareen Tatour and the cruel imprisonment/detention of the Palestinian hunger
striker Bilal Kayed as examples of “evil.”
Levy quoted Eva Illouz, a Hebrew University professor who has also used the
term “evil” for Israeli practices and who described the occupation as “slavery.”
Two days ago, Haaretz ran a piece by Yitchak Laor characterizing Israeli
society as fascist: “the volk has come to overshadow all other institutions –
democracy, the law, the army. Not to mention Palestinian blood.”
Not all the coverage is happening in Israel. Last year the Washington Post ran
an op-ed by two Jewish scholars at Harvard and Yale explaining that though they
love Israel they must support boycott of Israel in order to end the “permanent
subjugation of Palestinians” — even if that boycott brings about a single state.
This list of outright Jewish dissidents grows longer and longer by the moment.
But none of them gets a platform in the New York Times. That’s because the
leading American newspaper is pointedly refusing to cover Jewish anti-Zionism.
And not just refusing: but actively stigmatizing. Today the Times has a long
piece by Linda K. Wertheimer about the Middle East conflict on campus that
casts Palestinian solidarity activists, including Students for Justice in
Palestine, as anti-Semitic.
Many universities are grappling with how to balance students’ right to protest
with Jewish students’ fears that their culture is under attack…. S.J.P. members
insist they are anti-Israel, not anti-Semitic — a debatable distinction to
those who cannot separate the state of Israel from their Jewish identity.
The article fails to acknowledge that many SJP members are Jewish, and that
these Jewish students do separate the state of Israel from their Jewish
identity. It fails to state that many Jews are pro-Boycott, Divestment and
Sanctions (BDS). It fails to acknowledge a statistic that Jeffrey Goldberg, the
dean of US Jewish journalists, stated to Haim Saban, the dean of Jewish donors,
last year:
Our oldest daughter is a freshman at a liberal arts college in New England, a
pretty well-known school. And she reports to us that J Street at that street
represents the Zionist right [and] that the largest Jewish organization — 25
percent of this campus is Jewish — the largest Jewish organization is a group
called Jewish Voice for Peace, which is an Orwellian name for a group that
opposes Israeli’s existence.
In the Times article, Jewish Voice for Peace and Open Hillel are only mentioned
in a parenthesis. That’s blatant marginalization.
And though Wertheimer cites a poll showing that Jewish undergraduates face
anti-Semitism, if you look the survey up you will see that the pollees were
young people “who applied to go on a ten-day educational Israel experience with
Taglit- Birthright Israel.” That’s not all Jewish students, that’s
Zionist-oriented students.
The Times is contemptuous of any news event that features Jewish opposition to
Zionism. It behaves like an ostrich; it wants to believe this can’t be
happening.
A few months ago Gideon Levy was in the United States. A journalist who has
gotten death threats from his fellow Jewish Israelis, he gave an impassioned
speech in Washington; and there was a line of journalists seeking to interview
him afterward.
Not the New York Times. The New York Times does not care that Gideon Levy,
leading Israeli journalist, has had death threats. Jodi Rudoren never wrote
about Levy when she was the New York Times Jerusalem bureau chief (outside of
quoting him once or twice). Instead she touted rightwing Zionist Yossi Klein
Halevi, whom she extolled as a guide to Israeli life during her Zionist victory
lap last winter.
One of the journalists who interviewed Levy in Washington was Max Blumenthal.
Blumenthal first went to Israel on the Zionist propaganda journey, Birthright;
ten years later, he wrote a book called Goliath that anticipated the crackup we
are seeing today in Israeli political life, by boldly outlining the fascistic
currents in that society. But Blumenthal is an anti-Zionist, and his important
book has been completely ignored by the paper of record. Just as the Times has
done everything it can to pretend that Israeli leadership is not splitting
right now over “fascist” trends in the society.
The New York Times has several Zionist columnists, including Roger Cohen and
David Brooks. Brooks is one of four Times staffers whose children have served
in the Israeli Defense Forces. It goes without saying that it does not have an
anti-Zionist columnist.
Yes, the New York Times lately praised Ben Ehrenreich’s new book, The Way to
the Spring. But Ehrenreich’s Jewishness isn’t mentioned. You’d think that the
Times would want to interview him about his book and ask him the Jewish
question. Nope. Not interested. (Only Bob Herbst mentioned that on our site:
“Ehrenreich… was compelled to document [the occupation] as a way of standing up
against injustice that is a strong part of his identity as a Jew.”)
Earlier this year the Times ran a forum on whether anti-Zionism is
anti-Semitism. It included an excellent piece by Lisa Goldman saying, No way.
But Lisa Goldman was pointedly non-Zionist in her assertions; that is to say,
she did not take a position on whether Israel should be a Jewish state. Both
anti-Zionist pieces– i.e., we don’t think Israel should be a Jewish state– were
by writers in an Arab-American tradition. (Sherene Seikaly of Jadaliyyah and
Omar Zahzah). Publishing a critique of Zionism from a Jew is just too loaded
for the Times.
Three years ago the Times ran this important op-ed by Ian Lustick, who is
Jewish, titled the Two-State Illusion, saying that Israel and Palestine need to
be liberated from a failed paradigm that has only encouraged expansion and
corruption; but Lustick’s p-o-v was decidedly Realist. He was silent as to the
discrimination inherent in Zionism.
And while the Times ran pieces critical of Israel by the late Tony Judt, it
always slighted Judt’s assertion that Zionism is an anachronism; it simply
could not give airtime to a central accomplishment of that intellectual
leader’s career.
Two years ago the Times did run this piece on anti-Zionist Jews (among them
Chip Manekin, Alissa Wise and Corey Robin); but it is the exception that proves
the rule. And it was in the Beliefs column, a long time ago.
The Times is simply incapable of covering this important news. It knows what
will happen if it treats this story honestly: the discussion is explosive.
After the American Jewish professors wrote in Haaretz that they were putting
Zionism behind them, Jeffrey Goldberg was quick to go on the attack. He said he
was giving up on Haaretz because the newspaper’s “cartoonish… anti-Semitism can
be grating.” His tweets got wide coverage in the Jewish world. The New York
Times is worried about exposing itself to that kind of criticism from its
principal readers, and advertisers too. The Times grants Goldberg tremendous
power; it fell over itself to respond recently when Goldberg claimed he was
misrepresented by half a sentence in a magazine article.
“It is no exaggeration to say that for a century [the NYT] has served, in
effect, as the hometown paper of American Jewry,” former Timesman Neil Lewis
wrote. That’s a big responsibility now that the Jewish establishment is being
rocked by assaults on Zionism. Sadly, it has required the Times to serve as
Pravda, actively suppressing discussion of important news.
Thanks to Yakov Hirsch and Adam Horowitz and James North.
From Mondoweiss
