A frontpage New York Times piece yesterday about the Iranian threat served as an echo chamber for hawkish Israeli opinion. The piece quoted seven Israelis and two Americans closely associated with the Israel lobby, almost all arguing that Iran is an “existential threat” to Israel and pushing for the US to threaten war on Iran.
The piece’s message:
“If the U.S. makes it clear to the Iranians that they may go to war, there will be no need for anyone to go to war,” one top Israeli official said.
And this:
a nuclear weapon, which virtually every leader here regards as an existential threat
Yes, the piece was datelined Jerusalem and concerned the Israeli government’s response to the latest IAEA report; but why do twitchy Israelis get such a frontpage platform in our media?
When the issue is another war in the Middle East, why should Americans only hear from: Ari Shavit, Yossi Melman, Deputy Prime Minister Moshe Yaalon (on twitter), Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman (on television), “a senior government official here”, “a senior government official,” “one top Israeli official,” and Uzi Arad, a former national security adviser for Israel.
As a bonus, the piece also quoted two Israel lobbyists: David Makovsky of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Martin S. Indyk of Brookings.
Shouldn’t the Times have to state that Brookings is funded by Indyk’s good friend Haim Saban, a former Israeli who is an ardent supporter of Israel? Shouldn’t it state that the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, which was spun off by AIPAC, is widely seen as ferociously pro-Israel? Shouldn’t it state that Uzi Arad has worked with the Washington Institute?
The Times didn’t quote Israeli leaders who say that Iran is not an existential threat. Nor the Israelis who say that Netanyahu and Barak have lost their sense of reality and can’t be trusted.
More to the point: When do American realists get their turn? When will American experts be quoted who say Iran can be contained, or that Israel should give up its nukes? What about the Indians who live with the Pakistani threat, and vice versa– can we hear from them? And aren’t Pakistani nukes a far greater threat to world peace?
This reminds me of the Times turning over its magazine to an Israeli journalist to argue for war; the Times is determined to serve as an echo chamber for the Israeli military establishment.
When do American realists get their turn?
when american realists own media.
Interesting, Phil, my thought was something like this:
This is an editorial masquerading as a 'news story'.It’s Sanger who is behind it. Once I was done reading the story, I clicked on his name and browsed the archive. He’s been writing Iran stories for months now. He’s like the NYT version of Jeff Goldberg.
People ask why the U.S. can’t break free of it’s stifling embrace of Israel; I say, look no further than Jews like Sanger who is very much an ethnonationalist and is using his career to promote Israel’s interest, just like Goldberg or Chait(although Chait does it to a much lesser extent).
Bonus:
I read an interview with Sanger which was conduected at the beginning of Obama’s term. He basically said that Europe was in for a rude surprise in Afghanistan because he felt the U.S. did most of the heavy lifting and he implied that not only would Obama slap them down, but Sanger approved of it.
This made me ask myself, halfamused; would Sanger approve of Obama getting to grips with Israel, which is doing far worse than being lazy in Afghanistan?
My guess is no, I don’t think he approves and his newsstory is a direct attempt to undermine Obama and promote the Likudnik line of ‘we need war now with Iran’.
His story is, as you pointed out, a who’s who of AIPAC.
A lot of those people are probably part of his social circles, if not his own personal friends.
It wouldn’t surprise me one bit if Sanger personally donated to AIPAC every year.
We use to have around 40 or 50 companies who produced our mainstream media–what is it now, six corporations? And who owns the essentially controlling shares of those?
Very surprising and interesting piece on Israel’s nuclear weapons by the Wapo Ombudsman here:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/patrick-pexton-what-about-israels-nuclear-weapons/2012/08/31/390e486a-f389-11e1-a612-3cfc842a6d89_allComments.html?ctab=all_&
Here’s Wiki’s “fair and balanced” view of Sulzberger Family’s NYT on this issue:
“For its coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, some have claimed that the paper is pro-Palestinian; and others have claimed that it is pro-Israel.[97][98] The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy, by political science professors John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, alleges that The New York Times sometimes criticizes Israeli policies but is not even-handed and is generally pro-Israel.[99] On the other hand, the Simon Wiesenthal Center has criticized The New York Times for printing cartoons regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that were claimed to be anti-Semitic.[100]”
A la Annie’s comment that we’d have no objective coverage on Israel until American realists get their turn at it. Wiki equates M & W credentials with Wiesenthal Ctr credentials.
Reminds me, if you recall, back in ’03 there were literally thousands of protesters in the streets protesting against Bush Jr’s suddenly announced war on Iran, and our mainstream media, under the banner of “fair and balanced,” showed some video of those thousands of protesters “balanced” with some video of a dozen or so cheering on that war, all edited and narrated as if the John Q Public numbers were the same or nearly so, pro and con. Remember that?
We are programmed by 6 gigantic media corporations. Bread and Circuses. And many in our Congress are doing their best to cut off the internet as an alternate source for facts–under the guise of national security and patent rights protection.