Wonderful, yes, that today the Times ran George Bisharat's op-ed piece saying Israel committed war crimes in Gaza. But Bisharat is a Palestinian-American. And do you notice the pattern? Jeff Blankfort does:
I have noticed that, almost without exception, the only critics of Israeli policy that are given op-ed space, not only in the NY Times, but elsewhere in the mainstream media, are either Palestinians such as Rashid Khalidi, Saree Makdisi, or George Bisharat, or in the most extreme example, Libyan president Muammar Qaddafi, being given space to promote a one-state solution (an assignment that, quite clearly, was intended to permanently marginalize the idea). It has long been the same with the Times letter section, in which criticism of Israel seems also to be reserved for writers with non-Western names. I know of several people, besides myself, Jewish and non-Jewish, who have attempted, without success, to get letters published in the paper but to no avail and have since given up. The thinking behind the Times' decision as to who does or doesn't get their words in print is to not so subtly portray the Israel-Palestine conflict as being "them vs. us," the "us" being those who identify with Israel thanks to the cleverly oversold and mistaken notion that "we" and the Israelis have "shared values." Those values are never spelled out. They don't have to be. It's one of the earliest and most successful examples of "Israelispeak" and demonstrates how a lie, repeated over and over, becomes the conventional wisdom.
My friend James North makes the same point. The reader sees Bisharat and says, Well, he would feel that way, he's Arab, and it's an ancient feud. But there are many non-Arabs who would gladly lift a pen against the oppression done in our name.
The New York Times is a propaganda organ for the Israel Lobby. All the news that's fit to print concerning America's involvement in the Middle East appears on Mondoweiss.
I am so sick of hearing that it is an ancient feud, when it is not more than a century old.
That's why the NYT has become irrelevant. Wait until its completely broke and irrelevant.
Ditto Hollywood. And that day is approaching. Americans wont stand for this calumny in the end. Mark my words.
You're right, Doppler.
Momdoweiss it the only blog that writes the truth and invites the truth. We get the crazies here, for sure, but the irrationality of their pronouncements are only heightened when they do.
The crazies here are outnumbered by the brainwashed merkin normals.
I don't agree that Mondoweiss is the only blog that writes the truth and invites the truth. AngryArab writes the truth about Israel, Lawrence of Cyberia writes very important truth, often historical truth, about Israel. Helena Cobban at justworldnews.org writes another kind of truth about Israel. This is a valuable site, but it is not at all the only one.
Helena Cobban always seems to me to be a bit of a lickspittle. I think it has something to do with her Quakerism, which is a very low-church form of Christianity, but appears to involve revering 'the Jews'.
The views of an anti-Zionist or an anti-Israeli Jew would dispel the illusion that all Jews support Israel and that their views are monolithic.
When radio station WBAI {Pacifica Network) had an anti-Zionist Jewish author on, the phone lines were lit up with people wanting to discuss.
The moribund and grey times can try to keep the lid on, but anti-Zionist Jews will keep pushing to get the truth out, along with everyone else who seeks to unbind the Israeli/American PR lies.
ellen
Where did the 'ancient feud' meme start?
probably some time in Hollywood.
The Times doesn't print many Jewish critics of Zionism because it doesn’t want it to get out that a significant number of Jewish intellectuals oppose Zionism. It wants to present a unified Jewish front, as do all Zionists.
As for printing European-Americans critiques of Israel, remember Jeffrey Goldberg's recent dialogue with Arie Roth? Goldberg said: "my general position is that I don't need to listen to Europeans lecture Jews on morality." No doubt that's the New York Times’ position, too. It's also a very left-wing position in that the Left doesn't believe whites have the moral authority to lecture ANYONE on morality. But Jewish Zionists apparently also consider Jews the most moral people on earth, so in the case of Goldberg and probably the NYT, there's that conceit, too.
My own position is that I don't need to listen to Jewish Zionists lecture Western civilization on morality. I also don't need to listen to Leftists lecture Western civilization on morality. But as a defender of Western civilization, I will listen to their cliques, and expect them to listen to mine. But the Jews don't want to hear it, and the Left doesn't want to hear it.
Perhaps the phenomenon should be titled: “The Impenetrable Moral Superiority of Sublime Self-Hypnotized Victimhood.”
There is zero difference between Jewish Zionist victim conceit and Leftist victim conceit, so it’s ironic that one reason many on the Left despise Jewish Zionists is because of their false seizure of the “victim” mantle, and their leveraging it for maximum personal and group political and economic gain. Leftists have been playing that same game for ages, right along with the Jewish Zionists, all as part of the same group. Lately, though, the two are diverging syndicates.
I should add that the Right has its own moral superiority complex, but it hasn't historically played the victim card so much, other than Hitler and the Neocons.
Correction: "as a defender of Western civilization, I will listen to their CRITIQUES, and expect them to listen to mine."
Ed, the fact that you 'expect' people to do things is not in itself a factor in determining whether they do them or not, you dig?
@ Rowan,
I was using myself as a metaphor for the traditional Western perspective, which a child should have been able to comprehend.
As a dogmatic Leftist, all you can comprehend and relate to is strict ideological guidelines wherein some (pseudo) elite/chosen formulate the talking points and their sheeple followers just ape them like drones.
Rowan, you represent a left-wing version of hasbara, and are equally intellectually stunted. Sorry to inform you, but clever quips don’t make for intellectualism. Usually, they're merely a mask for deep emotional and intellectual insecurity, kind of like sarcasm.
The parallels between the stunted Leftist and the stunted Zionist are truly remarkable, likely due to political cross-pollination. And now that the US elite have become so cross-pollinated with Zionists, they too are politically and intellectually stunted.
Is that so :-)
"…he's Arab, and it's an ancient feud." Huge numbers of the population hear 'Arab' or 'Israel' and turn their attention elsewhere with just that conclusion.
I'm think it grew out of post WWII ennui following the Six-Days War. Israel had widespread legitimacy then as the realization of a people's hope. Perhaps it was planned rather than spontaneous. Interesting question. Guess it's time to reread Uris' Exodus again, after all.
Perhaps it also is an association strengthened by the Christian Bible which identifies Arabs and Jews as ancestral enemies. I wonder how much the views of the religious right influences the general population regarding Israel? If there are few voices, those heard are loud in the absence of others.
That's not a realm I intend to challenge – influence there has to come from a Christian to be effective, I think.
Both old and new testaments identify bipolar worlds in constant conflict–if memory serves, all the old testatment and all the new, except for one possible disciple, were written by jews. The mid-90's Zimmerman affair, wherein an Isaeli historian saw lots of similarities with Hebron youth and Hitler Jugend, makes the point dramatically. The bibles are part of the problem.
@ Citizen,
IMO, the bibles are only a problems insomuch as they are widely interpreted, or allowed to be interpreted by those with a political agenda, as racial documents. What are they, really, but a series of tribal morality tales and a historical documentation of some hard truths, combined with a veneration of the Jews, followed by a veneration of one Jew in particular that advocated the veneration of God above tribe?
If one drops the racial component, and reads them as a series of lessons applicable to all of humanity, then where's the problem?
The failure is not in our stars, but in ourselves: Fascists for adapting the bible to their racial agenda, and others for failing to call them on it.
But the Jews only look to the old testament. The new testament is rejected by jews, the rejection
of any God who would honor those beyond tribe. That's the whole point of the schism, no?
Wasn't Jesus the first monotheist-humanist advocate (in the modern sense?)? Or rather, not he, but St. Paul (Saul)?