Even I was surprised by Jodi Rudoren’s latest piece in the New York Times, a profile of the Israeli Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked that portrayed a woman who has endorsed genocide against Palestinians as feisty and principled. Rudoren brags that she got the first interview with Shaked, but I couldn’t help imagining what Rudoren would have done as a reporter if the Times had sent her to Selma, Alabama, in 1965, and she’d met, say, Betty Jones, a leader of the Daughters of the Confederacy who had just announced for Congress.
Real Rudoren in the Times today:
For Ms. Shaked, a former computer engineer, the main thing is “to strengthen the Jewish identity” of Israel, “to have a democratic, Jewish, strong state.”
Imaginary Selma Rudoren:
For Mrs. Jones, a former bookkeeper, the main thing is “to strengthen the white identity” of Alabama, “to have a democratic, white, strong state.”
Real Rudoren:
Hanan Ashrawi, a Palestinian leader among the throngs who fulminated over Ms. Shaked’s new role, said it “is not only a threat to peace and security, but generates a culture of hate and lawlessness.”
Imaginary Selma Rudoren:
Martin Luther King Jr, a black leader among the throngs who fulminated over Mrs. Jones’s new role, said it “is not only a threat to peace and security, but generates a culture of hate and lawlessness.”
Real Rudoren:
Ms. Shaked said her best friend has described her as a “robot,” and her husband calls her “the computer” because of her methodical approach. “They say that I’m very calculated and not very sensitive,” Ms. Shaked explained in an interview, her first since her recent rocket rise.
Imaginary Selma Rudoren:
Her husband describes her as an adding machine because of her methodical approach, Mrs. Jones said, in her first interview since her meteoric rise. The Times could not obtain interviews with Lester Maddox, George Wallace, and Bull Connor, but maybe after this article, they will change their minds.
Real Rudoren:
A flash point came last June, when Ms. Shaked posted on Facebook a never-published article by a settler activist who had died. It described the entire Palestinian people as “the enemy,” called youths who become “martyrs” while attacking Israelis “snakes,” and said their mothers should “go to hell” with them.
Bloggers accused her of promoting genocide….
“It was a mistake,” Ms. Shaked said in the interview, a day before her swearing-in. “I’m doing a lot of mistakes, like every human being.”
Imaginary Selma Rudoren:
A flashpoint came when Mrs. Jones wrote a letter to a local Alabama paper endorsing the Birmingham church bombing that killed four black girls and the Philadelphia, Mississippi, lynching of three civil rights workers as the only way for white people to work out a future with black people.
Mrs. Jones says her letter may have been a mistake, and she’s made a lot of mistakes, like every human being.
Real Rudoren:
To call her a lightning rod seems an understatement. But unlike other headline-grabbing, flame-throwing politicians, Ms. Shaked is disciplined, a doer.
Imaginary Selma Rudoren:
To call Betty Jones a lightning rod seems an understatement. But in stark contrast to the politicians who grab headlines by standing in schoolhouse doors or provocative activists who burn crosses on front lawns and chant Death to Negroes, Mrs. Jones is disciplined, a doer.
Real Rudoren:
Erez Eshel, who met Ms. Shaked at Tel Aviv University . . . recalled going to see her during Israel’s 1999 election campaign. . .
“She said, ‘Erez, don’t talk, let’s do action,’ and we simply went out and removed all the signs of the Labor Party from the streets of Tel Aviv. From 11 until 4 o’clock in the morning,”
Imaginary Selma Rudoren:
Mrs. Jones is a person not of words, but of hard work. Friends say that last week she walked through the streets of the black neighborhoods of Selma all night long, removing posters calling for a peaceful march for voting rights.
Real Rudoren:
Ms. Shaked asked to be asked about Arab citizens. She said they “should be an integrated part of the Israeli society,” denied they face discrimination and said more spots should be created for them to do national service in lieu of the military.
Imaginary Selma Rudoren:
Mrs. Jones denied that black people face discrimination. There are plenty of opportunities for them all over Alabama. They need to know their place is the issue, she said.
Real Rudoren:
She danced ballet, was active in the Scouts and excelled at math.
Imaginary Selma Rudoren:
She danced ballet, was active in the Scouts and excelled at math.
Well done, James North!
(Have a 2nd look at this: Imaginary Selma Rudoren:
To call Betty Jones a lightning rod seems an understatement. But in stark contrast to the politicians who grab headlines by standing in schoolhouse doors or provocative activists who burn crosses on front lawns and chant Death to Negroes, Ms. Shaked is disciplined, a doer.”)
@James
Ayelet Shaked is a sophomore. She ran in the Jewish Home primary against seated members of the cabinet and kicked their asses. She’s a very talented politician and well liked. Jewish Home is well liked by the NYTimes readership. The NYTimes reflects the position of its readership and its readership is well to the right of you. The American population is even more to the right of you on this issue than the NYTimes readership.
Your “Imaginary Selma Rudoren” is to right of where the American people were in 1965, especially in the NorthEast. Legal equality had a substantial majority support in the North a century before Selma. Most of the northern states never even had anti-miscegenation laws. If you want an analogy you want to pick a southern newspaper on civil rights or an issue in which the NYTimes would have been in favor of the discrimination. Say something like their coverage of the animal rights movement or abortion where they do believe in discrimination. And you will find them being quite comfortable with pro-choice or anti-animal rights politicians. Or go further back and pick an 1765 paper in the North on the Indian wars: that’s a far better analogy because there you have an indigenous ethnic group refusing to assimilate into the now dominant society. The vast majority of northern papers are going to be extremely hostile to England’s attempts to hold back the colonists from western expansion.
The NYTmes accurately described her positions: That translates, in policy terms, into promoting Israeli annexation of most of the occupied West Bank and ousting African asylum-seekers. It means curtailing the power of the Supreme Court, giving politicians more sway over judicial appointments and prohibiting foreign funding of advocacy groups — which could put the main internal critics of Israeli actions out of business. And it entails a “nationality bill” that many see as disenfranchising Israel’s Arab minority, about 20 percent of the population. They didn’t harp in a negative way and try and demonize her, because don’t hate Israelis and Jews. They want to cover her like they would a popular politician from a rightwing party because they consider Israeli a country like any other and Jews a people like any other. You don’t and so…
Finally on genocide. They even mentioned the post you are focusing on. But politicians are allowed to retract. People speak hastily. Isn’t that your whole point about Steven Salaita that his teaching shouldn’t be judged by his equally genocidal tweets, which he incidentally did not retract? She made statements in the heat of war, they either were misunderstood or she thought better of them, and then retracted them. She’s stated her well thought carefully considered positions many times and those are the positions of her party.
“She made statements in the heat of war, they either were misunderstood or she thought better of them, and then retracted them.”
What about when she alleged that Arabs in Jaffa torched a Jewish cemetery? Was that also in the heat of the moment? Or is she simply incapable of getting her facts straight before pronouncing sentence? Great instincts for a “justice” minister.
She’s a fascist and Israel deserves her.
Hat’s off to James North.
While Rudoren can’t entirely deny that Ayalet Shaked is a racist, she (Rudoren) can and does try to minimize it.
One important difference between the plight of the Palestinians now and the plight of African-Americans in the Jim Crow south:
The Palestinians are much more segregated than African-Americans were. Southern whites had more contact with African-Americans than Israeli Jews and Palestinians do now. Some jobs (bad jobs) were reserved for Afro-Americans in the south. For example, many white families had black domestic servants. This didn’t mean racial equality, but there was contact.
In contrast, Israeli Jews and Palestinians today have very little contact.
A full discussion would include the role of religion. Southerners – black or white – were nearly all Christians, while Jews and Palestinians adhere to different religions.
The language barrier between Hebrew-speakers and Arabic-speapers is a big problem for anyone trying to organize across racial lines.
Iin the Jim Crow south, white southerners did not actually hate African-Americans.
White southerners respected and even liked any blacks who were willing to accept a position of inferiority. White southerners really did hate anything that smacked of racial equality.
Finally, Ayelet Shaked and people like her clamor to expel the Palestinians. Very few southern whites called for that, because the Southern economy needed black labor.
I love when the editors/contributors of MW use constant analogies to -among others-the US civil rights movement but consistently accuse Zionists of ‘whataboutism’ whenever they make their own anologies to the hypocrisy in the i/p conflict. Always legitimate when its against Zion and never legit when its defending Israel. Got it.