Remember when Netanyahu said we have three existential threats– Iran, Hamas, and Goldstone? Well Goldstone has taken himself off the list but taking the podium now is… The New York Times. A day after the Israeli government’s last attack on the New York Times, here comes another one. Ambassador Michael Oren criticizes Tom Friedman’s historic “bought and paid for by the Israel lobby” column, suggesting that it’s the latter day Protocols of the Elders of Zion. From the JTA:
Israeli ambassador Michael Oren said New York Times columnist Tom Friedman “strengthened a dangerous myth” when he said Congress was “bought and paid for by the Israel lobby.”
“This allegation is profoundly disturbing,” Oren told JTA. “The term ‘Israel lobby’ implies the existence of a Zionist cabal wielding inordinate economic and political power. Unintentionally, perhaps, Friedman has strengthened a dangerous myth.”
Friedman’s Dec. 13 column … warned Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu not to take seriously standing ovations he enjoyed during his address to Congress last May, saying the applause “was bought and paid for by the Israel lobby,” that sparked outrage.
A number of Congress members decried Friedman’s allegation, and Oren said Friedman missed the real admiration Israel has in the body.
I didn’t know it was a number. I just heard about Steve Rothman.
The attack on Friedman reminds me of the late Tony Judt defending the book The Israel Lobby at Cooper Union 5 years ago. Do anti-Semites agree with some of the things we’re saying? Yes, Judt said. But he quoted Arthur Koestler saying that just because vile people said awful things about Communism didn’t mean the charges weren’t true.
This sounds almost like a schism. Now clearly Friedman’s column got cleared by the editorial board of the NYT. Is it yet another one-shot audacity by a mavericky, bored and pompous oped writer or is it the sign of a schism between the UWS and Netanyahu/Likud/settlers…?
If it’s the latter, it’s about time and let’s get some popcorn.
So when does the IAF attack the NYT?
“it’s the latter day Protocols of the Elders of Zion”
What isn’t?
Phil, reading you at times like these brings to mind again how far ahead of this move you were, your instinct on this issue has been nothing short of stupendous clear eyed vision.
I hope they don’t elevate the charges all the way up to blood libel.
Them’s serious allegations if they escalate it to that level.
And these m&f’n sadists’ actually make the world go round,
maybe we are just the realist fools they said we would be, constantly being left behind while they are the protagonists in world history.
Lawyer up.
Soon ,NYT will make a list of “self-hating newspapers.”
Looking back at similar cracks in the propaganda wall, it is a fair bet that these remarks about the NYT are part of a concerted campaign, of the type they waged against Goldstone. Now watch for the amen chorus to swing into action, the dutiful echo chamber expressing their faux ‘outrage’, hysterical accusations of anti-semitism and the usual predictable synthesis of shopworn tales of the impending apocalypse should the NYT carry on disobeying the unwritten rules of the lobby.
The tactic is the same every time – relentless pressure, smearing and misrepresentation of the facts, wild denunciations and repetitions of the increasinly threadbare and tarnished Israeli myths. The goal is to intimidate, get a retraction, or just pressure them not running pieces which expose the truth. It has worked all over the Western media world – the result a convenient silence and avoidance of in-depth reporting, the resultant grief considered not to be worth the shitstorm the lobby can apply to people who buckle under its bullying intimidation. It is an extension of their tactics against the Palestinians.
If this is a straw in the wind, the NYT’s reaction will tell us its significance – whether they stand up to the vindictive bullying and realise that there are principles at stake or, like so many others, quietly drop the justified criticism, and bow to the power of the paranoid, aggressive little tantrum-prone rogue state.