If you want to understand the liberal media's behavior on Israel/Palestine, this is an important post. In it, a powerful editor admits that his views of the conflict are far more left than you'd ever know from his broadcast. He is self-censoring, or being censored (the difference is not significant).
The pro-Israel group CAMERA featured this first. It is a dialogue last February at the University of Colorado's "Given Institute" in Aspen between NPR foreign correspondent Anne Garrels and NPR senior foreign editor Loren Jenkins. CAMERA transcribed the tape; so I will let them frame it. Then I will comment afterward, along with Jeff Blankfort, who sent it along:
In reviewing a range of issues, Jenkins turned to explaining the deadlock in the Middle East which, predictably, he attributed to Israel alone. He said:
Israel has taken total control and colonized the West Bank — the occupied territories — to such an extent it's unimaginable that you would see a two-state solution at any time in the immediate future or even longer cause they've transformed the situation on the ground with settlements, roads that only Israelis can drive on and the Palestinians are forced to take dirt roads on the side so there — what was once a unified state or territory occupied by Israel since 1967 — is now almost already become colonized by Israel, and it's very hard to imagine that can be resolved when Obama tries. I mean certainly… he's just appointed George Mitchell as a new mediator who's going to go and talk about a peace process, but I don't think there is a peace process. And what one can expect is more conflict and more war.
At least one member of the audience was troubled by the distorted and erroneous characterization of the Arab-Israeli conflict [reader, remember that I'm letting CAMERA do the framing...] and concerned about the significance of such views being espoused by NPR's influential editor. He rose to pose a question to Jenkins, saying:
I do have a question — this may not sound like a question — but I just heard Loren Jenkins pretty much lay at the feet of Israel and its settlers, the entire blame for the impossibility of settling the dispute between the Palestinians and the Israelis. And it seems to me, that ignores the fact that the settlements have been a subject that has been discussed a great deal in the treaty negotiations and that the treaty that's been on the table for years now — since President Clinton — at the end of the peace talks — at the end of the Oslo agreement — at the end of 2000 — had in there that the Israelis would have three groups of settlements that would be agreed — that would stay with the center of Israel or part of Israel and that the Israelis would give an equal amount of land to the Palestinians.
And that the Israeli army would have to fight their own settlers and get them out of there. And they have done that in the past. It ignores, also, that the reason for these separate roads — and these separations you spoke of — was that the Palestinians were bringing bombs in to blow up night clubs and kill kids at pizzerias and various places like that. And little by little these checkpoints and separations [crowd murmering, interruption by podium]. Okay, I'll get to my question.
Anne Garrels interrupted the questioner with: "I think we know your question!" The questioner persisted: "My question frankly is — that if this kind of anti-Israeli, anti-Semitic news is called even-handed (interrupted) — if it’s called even-handed (interrupted) — if it’s called even-handed, why the heck should I give you any money?"
Jenkins shot back:
But if you want to go back to it, there is no treaty. There were negotiations between Israel, the U.S. and the Palestinians and it was never signed — it fell apart — it doesn't exist. Every time the U.S. government has asked Israel to help move the peace process along by shutting down construction of settlements, Israel has turned around within the course of a week or two, and signed more construction contracts. There are now 300,000 settlers in the West Bank which has changed the nature of it. It can never be turned over — it can never be another state. It'll be part of Israel. It'll be part of a colonized part of Israel.
(attempted interruption by questioner)
Jenkins continued:
Israel pulled out of Gaza because it was so hard to rule. (indistinct). As we've just seen, Israel has used Gaza as a bombing target practice and killed — for every Israeli killed, the Israelis killed 100 Palestinians. I'm sorry — if you look at the balance of that fight…That Gaza has been created — which is amazing that it was created by a Jewish state — that created the biggest ghetto we've known in society. A million and a half people surrounded — they're not allowed to cross the border — they're not allowed to have a livelihood — they're not allowed to trade abroad, are kept bound in — in this miserable place — and they are all going to be turned into Palestinian terrorists because they have nothing else to do. They have no outlook for life [interrupted by smattering of clapping].
Comments: 1, Jenkins is obviously what I call a "secret sharer," he shares my view of the situation, that the colonizer is chiefly to blame for Palestinian statelessness (along with American Jewish bodies, for their blind support of the colonizer, which no he doesn't get into). And he lets it go on public radio in Aspen. Many of these secret sharers are commonsensical Americans who are angered at the unfair treatment of Palestinians–they were promised a state 61 years ago and Kosovo and Pakistan and Uzbekistan and your momma have all gotten a state since, and no Arab state in Palestine– and angered that they have to suppress their opinions. You can see that anger in Jenkins, his flaring at the anti-Semite stuff.
2, The only question that remains after reading Jenkins's unbosoming, which the thugs of CAMERA wants him fired for doing, is, Why isn't this on NPR? Why isn't the honest description of colonization and apartheid on NPR? And it isn't on NPR. You have the senior foreign editor expressing highly-sensible views of the matter; and they are not to be found on NPR except in the interstices. Why, why o oracle?
Blankfort wisely points at the questioner who plans to blackmail NPR for Jenkins's views:
"This may explain why the critical coverage from Israel/Palestine has been almost nil in the last couple of months and why there has been no report of the highjacking of the Spirit of Humanity or the imprisonment of Cynthia McKinney and the Irish Nobel Laureate. Several years ago, CAMERA launched an attack against WBUR, the NPR station in Boston, claiming it was pro-Palestinian and its campaign cost the station a million dollars in lost underwriting. [Weiss: Are you sure about that number, Jeff?] I wish it was conjecture, here it is. And here [from the venerable Geneva Overholser.]"
I would add 2 factors: Media Culture, and Money. Media culture means that Jews, including me, are all over the media for whatever reason and most Jews have an unreconstructed view of Israel/Palestine. I wonder how plain Jenkins is about these ideas with Ellen Weiss, the NPR vice president for news who is married to Rabbi David Saperstein, who supported the Gaza massacre, or Daniel Schorr, whose views of the PLO are motheaten. Saperstein and Schorr influence Jewish identity far more than I do. Second, as Blankfort says: Money is huge in this conversation, Jewish money, which composes over half of Democratic Party giving and probably the lion's share of NPR's too. Jewish identity is still based largely on Israel. That is changing, witness the tabernacle that J Street and IPF and Peace Now have built in the desert. But until Jewish identity is untangled from the militarist colonialist project in the Middle East, many of our sharers will stay secret.
Related posts:
- I semi-lose it at a party over new-media/old-media but meet a secret sharer
- I think Tom Ricks is a secret sharer, and he’s coming out of the closet
- ‘Dissent’ Editor Smears Soul-Searching Over Jewish Identity and Foreign Policy as ‘Anti-Semitic’
- Giving Obama room to maneuver, ‘Washington Post’ editor slams Israeli government’s ‘dodges’
- General Election Will Feature Rev. Wright vs. Rev. Hagee on Palestinian Rights. Hallelujah!
{ 27 comments }
This is not on NPR because it is a load of crap. Jenkins blathers on about the Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria, but doesn't say a word about the hundreds of Arab settlements that have popped into existence during the same 40 years he whines about. It is both illegal and anti-Semitic to discriminate against Jews for eviction. And the root of the problem has zero to do with land and everything to do with Islamic bigotry and Arab racism.
The Arabs of Palestine were not promised a state 61 years ago. They were promised a state 87 years ago and the British stole 75% of the Jewish homeland to create it. It happens to be occupied by colonialist invaders called Hashemites right now. Odd the so called Palestinian Arabs accepted Hashemite occupation of Judea and Samaria for 19 years without a peep. Why oh Oracle would this be?
This is my point. And it's not anti-semitic. It's sociological. We cannot have an honest discussion on race/religion/etc. in this country without people dishonestly playing ideological games to silence dissent.
BRAVO!! also this fall, in English, Shlomo Sand's "The Invention of the Jewish People" de-constructing myths of nation-building.
Its not anti-semitic to criticize policy at all. It is innaccurate to state that Israel is THE cause of lack of progress. It is a shared dance, that the powers that be in EACH (Hamas and likud) contribute to stalemate. It is a truth that Hamas' terror campaigns in the 90's and early 2000's were for the purpose of stopping ANY compromise that the PA would enact. They succeeded, and joined a dance with likud that similarly did not want any compromise with the PA. The practical civilists, the humanists, WANTED to resolve the issue fairly (or grow to). Its IMPORTANT to reject the militant position. "I am Viet Cong" is NOT the position that got the US out of Vietnam.
RE: "…they are not to be found on NPR except in the interstices. Why, why o oracle?" THE ORACLE SPEAKS: I'm assuming that was a rhetorical question, Phil. If not, please resubmit.
Loren was one of the first Jounos into Sabra and Shatila. He's been around, he's not an idiot, that said, you don't last long in this business by pissing off the ruling class.
RE: "…you don't last long in this business by pissing off the ruling class." Yes Tom, I must agree with you. Well now, I'm off to afternoon tea.
Money is huge in this conversation, Jewish money, which composes over half of Democratic Party giving and probably the lion's share of NPR's too. But the problem with money in this venue, our nation’s media conversation, is that Jews are doing to NPR listeners what Madoff did to the economy of people who thought they had invested wisely with him. Cheating them.
RE: "Loren was one of the first Jounos into Sabra and Shatila." SEE: A Letter to Janet About Sabra-Shatilla, By FRANKLIN LAMB, 09/14/07 (EXCERPT) At least 1,700 Palestinians were slaughtered on Israel's say-so, 25 years ago this week Dearest Janet, It's a very beautiful fall day here in Beirut today. Twenty-five years ago this week since the massacre at the Palestinian refugee camps at Sabra-Shatilla. Bright blue sky and a fall breeze. It actually rained last night. Enough to clean out some of the humidity and dust. Fortunately not enough to make the usual rain created swamp of sewage and filth on Rue Sabra, or flood the grassless burial ground of the mass grave (the camp residents named it Martyrs Square, one of several so named memorials now in Lebanon) where you once told me that on Sunday September 19, 1982, you watched, sickened, as families and Red Crescent workers created a subterranean mountain of butchered and bullet-riddled victims from those 48 hours of slaughter. Some of the bodies had limbs and heads chopped off, some boys castrated, Christian crosses carved into some of the bodies…. ENTIRE ARTICLE – http://www.counterpunch.org/lamb09142007.html
Terror, schmerror. Anti-schmemitism, meh. It's the REDs got their knickers twisted. The radicals. All the rest is a soap opera of pretty people spouting platitudes.
Terrific post, Phil. Thanks.
I would argue that Hamas' rise in the '90s is directly attributable to Israel's acceleration of "settlements" in that time period. That is, Arafat signs on to Oslo, and what do the Palestinians see immediately? The land that is supposedly reserved for their state under Oslo being colonized by the tens of thousands (with all sorts of new walls, checkpoints and Jews-only highways being built) at the behest of the Israeli government that, supposedly, was Arafat's "partner for peace." You harp on Hamas' "obstructionism" in the '90s, Witty, but you never seem to realize how Israel's settlement activities enabled Hamas to a ridiculous degree.
So let's all email NPR right now demanding that they cover the hijacking of the Spirit and the kidnap of those aboard. Without threatening not to contribute, please, but referring to this article and the Given Center presentation. HW
Loren Jenkins' bias is well known for a very long time. Hardly a "secret" sharer.
Bias?
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Lubovitcher Rebbe and Jewish Taqiya (تقية)
"It is a truth that Hamas' terror campaigns in the 90's and early 2000's were for the purpose of stopping ANY compromise that the PA would enact." Hamas came into being because of financial aid and support from Israel. The purpose of this was to limit the influence of the PLO, so both Israel and Hamas were on the same team. Israel has always done whatever possible to avoid a political settlement.
Hamas came into being on its own. Israel supported its social service work, and did misguidedly assist it politically as a countervailing then less politically assertive force relative to the PLO.
The settlement project is an affront to Palestinian identity, individual Palestinian's rights, international law as to the responsibilities of a temporary occupying force, and clearly an attempt to make the greater Israel project a fact that could not be turned back. It should have been objected to assertively. Hamas deterred that unified assertion. It sought its own party's standing at the expense of unity on valid Palestinian arguments, that had never been compromised by the PA in practise. With Rabin (a person who allowed himself to be personally guided and to govern by an Obama-esque greater good), Palestinian arguments would have and did see the light of day. Hamas intentionally disrupted every real greater good, for its version of greater good as comprised of a past-oriented defense of the Islamic waqf, undifferentiated, with Israel/Palestine as part of the Asian/African Islamic world, and not part of the COSMOPOLITAN Mediterranean one.
Jewish Taqiya? Jesus christ, get eaten by a bear already.
No argument there. What this reveals is that Israel played the game of divide and conquer by trying to dilute the PLO's influence, because simpy put, they didn't want to give away land.
Interesting post. I'd like to see more of this style of back-and-forth commentary and analysis from Phil and Jeff. I remember a bit about CAMERA 2001-2002 boycott/attack on NPR and WBUR specifically. I live in the Boston area, do activist work here, and listen to WBUR regularly, and the attacks on NPR and our local affiliate from CAMERA, JCRC (Jewish Community Relations Council) and other Zionist attack groups haven't subsided, despite the fact that WBUR has in fact markedly "toned it down" over the last few years.
It's been a while since I read the original, but I recall that in his letter to Yemeni Jews Maimonides counseled Jews to practice taqiya, but it is possible that he used the essentially equivalent term kitman.
"Media culture means that Jews, including me, are all over the media for whatever reason and most Jews have an unreconstructed view of Israel/Palestine." The claim here is that there is a deliberate effort to distort the news on Israel by a heavily Jewish media. Should we then expect Jews in influential positions in the government to put group interests first? How about Jews in finance? Is it possible that Jewish tribalism in all areas is the main problem, and that Israel really is just a side issue? Is it possible that most Jews just have an "unreconstructed" view of Jewish tribalism, and that is the real issue?
Hamas is a reactionary force, both in terms of military resistance, and in terms of giving humanitarian aid to fellow Palestinians. Would you point to the resistance who preemptively attacked German forces in occupied lands as the instigators? No. You have no moral or mental integrity when it comes to Israel. What have you done to protest and actually act against the greater Israel project?
Stop taxpayer dollars to NPR and to Israel. They are zionist occupied entities.
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