NPR’s Raz cites Adelson support for rabbi candidate without any mention of Israel issue

by on September 17, 2012 13
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My jaw dropped last night hearing Guy Raz of National Public Radio do a piece on Shmuley Boteach, the Republican rabbi running for Congress against Democrat Bill Pascrell in New Jersey’s 9th District, without mentioning Israel. Not once. Boteach is a values candidate, or a life-style candidate. Something like that.

Raz did mention Sheldon Adelson, but without referring to Adelson’s number one issue:

Up until a few weeks ago, no one really took Shmuley’s campaign seriously — not even the Republican National Committee. That is until a superPAC created to support him received half a million dollars from the billionaire Sheldon Adelson, who is also backing many other pro-Republican groups.

Guess what: Adelson just held a fundraiser for Romney in Jerusalem. Before that he supported Newt Gingrich and said the Palestinians are an invented people and that a two-state solution is a stepping stone to the destruction of Israel. (Even the NYT mentioned that.) He supported George Bush to block the peace process in 2000, and succeeded. He has said that: “All we care about is being good Zionists, being good citizens of Israel, because even though I am not Israeli born, Israel is in my heart…”

Imagine if a Christian zealot was reviving a congressional candidate’s campaign and wanted to inject religion into politics….

About Philip Weiss

Philip Weiss is Founder and Co-Editor of Mondoweiss.net.
Posted in Israel/Palestine

{ 13 comments... read them below or add one }

  1. alan says:
    September 17, 2012 at 12:21 pm

    Don’t understand your comparison Phil. Maybe because I don’t know much about Adelson. Your post presents him as a self-proclaimed ‘good Zionist’ & ‘good citizen of Israel’. Surely this is nationalism on behalf of a foreign power, not religious zealotry.

    • Mooser says:
      September 17, 2012 at 12:57 pm

      “Maybe because I don’t know much about Adelson.”

      Use the Mondowiess archives and search functions. Adelson has been pretty extensively covered here as of late. You should get a pretty clear picture of the man, and the way he is covered in other media.

      • MLE says:
        September 17, 2012 at 2:00 pm

        I don’t think he gets glowing descriptions in other media outlets…he’s sort of seems like a Montgomery Burns type, the evil billionaire. The big thing is that most media downplays how deeply involved with Israel causes as he is.

  2. Kathleen says:
    September 17, 2012 at 2:02 pm

    Do you really expect anything else from Guy Raz? Protecting Israel no matter what they do and anyone who is in that same line up. He has been trashing Iran every since he has been on the air at NPR. He has regularly repeated unsubstantiated claims about Iran. He is one of the biggest promoters of feel good Israel stories or stories reminding listeners of the Holocaust. Raz is one of the people hired under the decades long “pervasive cronyism” atmosphere at NPR. Would not expect anything else out of Guy Raz. All of this has been “normalized” at NPR. Most people expect it.

    • Shlomo says:
      September 18, 2012 at 4:36 am

      NPR recently aired a show on whether it is biased or not. Amazingly, it “proved” it wasn’t by interviewing only pro-NPR listeners.

      Funny that.

    • Les says:
      September 18, 2012 at 7:12 pm

      Keep in mind that when the Adbuster’s publisher observed how many of the neo-cons were Jewish, NPR declared the statement to be anti-Semitic. Even though true, the statement was still anti-Semitic. The publisher noted that NPR’s observation of how very many Nobel prize winners were Jewish, was not considered to be anti-Semitic.

  3. Mndwss says:
    September 17, 2012 at 2:05 pm

    “All we care about is being good Zionists”

    What is a good zionist? What is a bad zionist?

    Adelson reminds me of DSK, who said: I wake up every morning and think about how I can help Israel.

    The day after the news broke that DSK had raped a woman, the wikipedia article about him was edited to remove everything about him being Jewish.

    I wonder what wikipedia will do the day after the news breaks that the Jewish state with help from Adelson has raped Palestine.

    Wikipedia will have to shut down for a long time to rewrite history…..?

  4. Kathleen says:
    September 17, 2012 at 2:08 pm

    Phil did you watch the Leslie “broke the Aipac being investigated story would love to know who she got that phone call from) Stahl interview with former Mossad Chief Dagan last night. Leslie failed to ask Dagan why Israel continues to refuse to sign the NPT and sits on massive stockpiles of nuclear weapons. Also failed to mention that Iran has the right to enrich uranium as a signatory to the NPT. In the morning we get David Gregory playing softball with Netnayahu and then in the evening Stahl continues the softball game. Normalized in our MSM. Although on Saturday. Up with Chris Hayes (Sam Seder sat in for Chris and did a fabulous job..he ask questions and then gets out of the way…not all about him) Seder is a breath of fresh air as a host and interviewer. Really like that dude. Seems fair and balanced. Great show lots about protest, Iran, Israel/Palestine. Phyllis Bennis and the rest of the panelist were breaking more ground on MSNBC. And the Ed show had Hillary Mann Leverett on to discuss protest and Iran. Hope Rachel Maddow, Chris Mattthews etc are taking notes

  5. ColinWright says:
    September 17, 2012 at 2:27 pm

    Shmuley Boteach is a repulsive creature. What’s his opponent like? Better — or just vile in a different way?

  6. hughsansom says:
    September 17, 2012 at 3:01 pm

    Raz is a perfect example of what is so absurd with the false balance/objectivity dogma that infects US mainstream media. There is little pretense that American ‘journalists’ are entirely without their own opinions — just that they are experts at not allowing their opinions to influence their reporting. Raz is one whose opinions routinely and clearly influence his garbage on NPR (much like Terry Gross on Fresh Air or Isabel Kershner at the New York Times). If we had a sense of where they actually stand, we could filter their reporting accordingly. Instead, to maintain the false objectivity pretense, they contrive feeble pseudo-objective reports that are obviously nothing of the kind. The absurd outcome is that those reports are made more impenetrable by the lack of any clear accounting of where the journalists’ opinions really lie. Observers are left to reverse engineer the positions of the reporter or the media outlet based on the omissions, the misrepresentations, etc., as in this case.

    As for Boteach, he’s very much like Dov Hikind (familiar to any who know New York City politics) — proudly, viciously racist.

  7. DICKERSON3870 says:
    September 17, 2012 at 5:29 pm

    RE: “Imagine if a Christian zealot was reviving a congressional candidate’s campaign and wanted to inject religion into politics. . . .” ~ Weiss

    MY COMMENT: Billionaire Foster Friess (of “‘gals’ used to put Bayer aspirin between their knees” infamy) spent a great deal of his own money trying to keep Rick Santorum alive in the race for the Republican nomination for president. He is described on Wikipedia as “an American businessman and supporter of conservative Christian causes.”

    FROM WIKIPEDIA [Foster Friess]:

    [EXCERPT] . . . Friess has been an active patron of religious and conservative causes. He has been instrumental in keeping the political campaign of the 2012 presidential hopeful Rick Santorum alive by financing a super PAC, the ‘Red, White and Blue Fund’, which runs television advertisements on behalf of Santorum, who was unable to run a television campaign with his own funds. According to campaign filings with the Federal Election Commission, Friess’s contributions to the ‘Red, White and Blue Fund’ amount to more than 40% of its total assets – or, $331,000 as of 31 December 2011.[5][6] He had donated $250,000 to Santorum’s re-election campaign in 2006, and at least that amount to the Republican Governors’ Association.[7] In the wake of the New Hampshire Republican primary, 2012, and before the South Carolina primary, Friess told ‘Politico’ that he was “putting together a challenge grant to encourage other wealthy donors to give to the ‘Red, White and Blue Fund’, … he said [the fund] received a $1 million check” the day after the New Hampshire vote.[8] The Million-dollar donation was conveyed in four checks between November, 2011 and January, 2012.[6]
    In addition to Santorum’s faith, pro-life stance, and hawkish foreign policy leanings, the possibility of defeating incumbent President Barack Obama was a major component of Friess’s decision to back Santorum’s campaign.[9] Friess is reportedly considering major contributions to ‘American Crossroads’ in hopes to influence key 2012 senate races.[10]
    Friess has also donated $100,000 to Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker to help defeat the Democrats’ recall effort in 2011. In addition, he has reportedly donated more than $3 million to the conservative commentator Tucker Carlson’s ‘The Daily Caller’ website.[7] At one of the semi-annual, private seminars held by the Koch brothers in June 2011, Friess was recognized for his donation exceeding $1 million to the Kochs’ political activities.[11] . . .

    SOURCE – link to en.wikipedia.org

    • DICKERSON3870 says:
      September 17, 2012 at 5:35 pm

      P.S. ALSO SEE: “Father First, Senator Second”, By Mark Leibovich, Washington Post, 4/18/05

      [EXCERPT] In his Senate office, on a shelf next to an autographed baseball, Sen. Rick Santorum keeps a framed photo of his son Gabriel Michael, the fourth of his seven children. Named for two archangels, Gabriel Michael was born prematurely, at 20 weeks, on Oct. 11, 1996, and lived two hours outside the womb.
      Upon their son’s death, Rick and Karen Santorum opted not to bring his body to a funeral home. Instead, they bundled him in a blanket and drove him to Karen’s parents’ home in Pittsburgh. There, they spent several hours kissing and cuddling Gabriel with his three siblings, ages 6, 4 and 1 1/2. They took photos, sang lullabies in his ear and held a private Mass.
      “That’s my little guy,” Santorum says, pointing to the photo of Gabriel, in which his tiny physique is framed by his father’s hand. The senator often speaks of his late son in the present tense. It is a rare instance in which he talks softly.
      He and Karen brought Gabriel’s body home so their children could “absorb and understand that they had a brother,” Santorum says. “We wanted them to see that he was real,” not an abstraction, he says. Not a “fetus,” either, as Rick and Karen were appalled to see him described — “a 20-week-old fetus” — on a hospital form. They changed the form to read “20-week-old baby.”
      Karen Santorum, a former nurse, wrote letters to her son during and after her pregnancy. . .

      ENTIRE ARTICLE – link to washingtonpost.com

      P.P.S. Meet the Archangel GayBriel as he begins God’s mission to give guidance to all the Republican Presidential Candidates praying to him for help in making the difficult decision about running for President against the Great Satin Obama.
      • PART 1 [VIDEO, 02:27] — link to youtube.com
      • PART 2 [VIDEO, 02:35] — link to youtube.com