Jeff Blankfort calls this Jewish McCarthyism, and I'm hard pressed to deny it. After Gaza--yes, Gaza changed everything--a Bay Area pro-Israel guy called Jim Sinkinson made a collection of angry letters re Israel published in the Berkeley Daily Planet and brought them around to advertisers, to demonstrate the “shocking pattern of anti-Semitism and Israel-bashing,” as he put it.
The Daily Planet freaked. To its credit, it ran an editorial titled an open letter to advertisers and readers, and called Sinkinson’s actions a “campaign of intimidation” that
included “pressuring advertisers to withdraw their support” and
“accusing the paper of anti-Semitism.”
Having been in the press throughout similar wars, I can tell you that pressure campaigns have a real effect. Writers lose work over this kind of stuff. The discourse narrows. Now, the reporter whose coverage I have glossed, Amanda Pazornik of the Jewish publication J. Weekly, wrote a piece rationalizing this in tribal terms. If you're in the tribal bubble you do rationalize this stuff. It got rationalized at Columbia University, too, when it was professors getting monitored.
And the bottom line is, Americans can't learn about the most important foreign policy issue in the Middle East. Pazornik:
Just the opposite happened in the Daily Planet. Its open letter sparked an endless stream of letters to the editor, praising the independent newspaper for taking a stand against Sinkinson.
Personally, I’m a firm believer in the First Amendment. I wouldn’t be able to do my job as a journalist without it. But it is my Jewish identity that takes precedence when analyzing this situation.
It's hard to hate someone with a name like Amanda (which means "she who ought to be loved"), but we gotta do it, people.
McCarthyism is alive and well amongst America's allies, as well.
Pazornik complains about a column by an Iranian. Yet by my standards the Iranian has been totally mentally colonized by Zionism in his belief in the persistence of anti-Semitism through the ages.
Then she is not a journalist. Her identity takes precedence over the First Amendment? Moreover, a religious identity? In a country with separation of Church and State as one of its founding principles? Shame. She wouldn't last eight hours in Reporting 101. Shame.
@MRW
I disagree with you.
Amanda Pazornik admit her cognitive dissonance re Israels and IDF's atrocities. Let her keep her lies and illusions for now. After all she is aware of them-and that's a start. The first and most important step in mental healing is to realize you have a problem.
"Personally, I’m a firm believer in the First Amendment. I wouldn’t be able to do my job as a journalist without it. But it is my Jewish identity that takes precedence when analyzing this situation."
Whether you place the First Amendment, or your Jewish identity first, the decision to defend Israel's policies and actions in Gaza is a fateful one that, in my view, amounts to supporting or enabling the slaughter of innocents. You forfeit a lot when you support or enable the slaughter of innocents. Like a respected place in liberal society.
Amanda, go read the Lawyer's Guild report published today on this blog. Are you horrified, or does your mind race to think of ways to rebut and smear and discount and cover up this record of atrocity, the 288 children murdered? Then make your bed and sleep in it, if you can.
How come you link only to Zionist sources on this controversy, Phil?
People should read for themselves the very eloquent (IMO) open letter from the editors and publisher of the Daily Planet – it's at link to tinyurl.com
Also, since the first article you link to has Sinkinson denying that he's trying to shut down the Planet and says he's merely trying to "shed light" on the situation, people might want to check out some first-hand testimony – a piece written by one of the advertisers Sinkinson's group approached, who says straight-up that the packet they sent her urged advertisers to break their ad contracts with the paper and even included a "sample notice of cancellation" for her to to sign and send. That one's at link to tinyurl.com
"Personally, I’m a firm believer in the First Amendment. I wouldn’t be able to do my job as a journalist without it. But it is my Jewish identity that takes precedence when analyzing this situation."
Compare:
Personally, I’m a firm believer in the First Amendment. I wouldn’t be able to do my job as a journalist without it. But it is my identity as a human being first that takes precedence when analyzing this situation.
Or even:
Personally, I’m a firm believer in the First Amendment. I wouldn’t be able to do my job as a journalist without it. But it is my identity as an American first that takes precedence when analyzing this situation.
So, where are we on this?
Which source is most inclusive?