The other day LA Times Op-Ed editor Nick Goldberg said that he gets many more letters of complaint from readers supporting Israel than from any other group. Sometimes it’s an "assault." I know whereof he speaks. When I attended a CAMERA event last October, after several hours of stern lectures on the media, the group broke up into a letter-writing seminar, to show the army of followers how to write letters to publications. The director of CAMERA said that letters work, and that CAMERA members should target Haaretz. "Write, phone, challenge, speak out… Haaretz is now affecting all of us"–in greater Israel, presumably, which includes the U.S.
Lately, CAMERA and its friends are focusing on the Washington Post, for humanizing suicide bombers and their families. There is this objectionable report:
"A young man, he can’t work; there’s a siege all over Gaza; the borders
blocked and people dying everywhere’ in Israeli airstrikes. ‘We don’t
know what he is thinking in this moment,’ the father said.
CAMERA thanks the assiduous Leo Rennert, a former McClatchy newspaper reporter turned watchdog, who has said that the Post and its Jerusalem correspondent are "dedicated to Israel-bashing as their highest journalistic priority."
Rennert is presumably speaking of Jerusalem bureau chief Scott Wilson. Wilson’s latest crime was to say that Israel had helped reduce Gaza to "beggar status." According to Washington Jewish Week (sorry can’t get the link), a new group called Eye on the Post, has formed to "educate" the Post’s advertisers about the newspaper’s portrayal of Israel as "belligerent, mean-spirited and racist" country. There are hints of a boycott. And here’s a website that shows readers how to write the Post about the noble Scott Wilson.
Whether or not you think these statements are right or wrong or crazy or effective, they are undoubtedly newsworthy. They are part of a concerted pressure campaign that is highly unusual in the world of journalism. They are part of the frontline in the war of ideas. My challenge is to journalists: This campaign should be covered. Yes, even to do so would be to say, There is an Israel lobby, but admit it, haven’t Walt and Mearsheimer given you some breathing room? Readers have a right to know about the pressures that journalists who cover the Middle East are subject to.
P.S. I gather Wilson has lately become the paper’s Foreign Editor. Maybe he will do the story!
