On Thursday night the Nation Institute and the Arthur Carter Journalism Institute at NYU held a “Backstory” panel on foreign reporting with Nir Rosen, Ann Jones and Aram Roston. Jones carried the evening with entertaining tales about how being a woman in the Middle East has allowed her to break stories others cannot (including the extent to which American forces have alienated Afghans by farting; and break was her word not mine).
For his part, Nir Rosen talked about the horrors of occupation. He faulted the tendency among embedded American journalists to laud the troops they’re with, even though “they are part of an occupying army.” And an occupier is by definition oppressive.
“They could be the Girl Scouts. Their mere presence is humiliating and alienating and lethal. That’s the very nature of what they’re doing,” Rosen said. Occupation is a “crime on an entire people.” And yes there are racial issues involved. “It is difficult for white people to identify with brown… Abuse of civilians is a routine thing in any occupation.” Including, he added, the Israeli occupation of Lebanon and Palestine.
Rosen said American editors don’t like writers to humanize the occupation story because it doesn’t make Americans look good. And when he criticized the American occupation, say in Fallujah, he got letters accusing him of “treason.” But (and I’m finally getting to the point) he comes “under less condemnation” for criticizing the American occupation than he does for criticizing the Israeli one.
Wait, you ask: How can there be condemnation stronger than the accusation of treason? Well that was just readers mouthing off; but it was evident from what Rosen said that editors don’t want to run stories about Palestinian victims of Israeli occupation.
And that is the point. It is easier in American media to criticize American policy than it is to criticize Israeli policy.
Other examples: Obama ran for president opposing the Iraq war, and defeated his primary rival in spring 2008 by staking out that position, but he could not say anything against the Gaza war in 2008-2009.
My congressman, John Hall, defeated a Republican incumbent in ’06 by attacking the Iraq war. He does nothing but praise Israel.
And this is my primary argument against those who say that Israel is just carrying out American policy in the Middle East. If that is so, how come mainstream liberals routinely criticize U.S. policy but they never criticize Israel?
How come the U.S. gov’t can build a governing coalition in Iraq with former Al-Qaeda-allied insurgent car-bombers– and meantime Hamas must be isolated forever and ever.
The answer in all these cases, Obama’s silence on Gaza, Rosen’s inability to criticize the Israeli occupation, and the perpetual isolation of Hamas even while we work with former Sunni terrorists and dicker with the Taliban, is the presence of the Israel lobby in our public life. That is to say, the double standard reflects the influence of Zionism inside the establishment, an anachronistic ideology that maintains strong roots in the empowered Jewish community and that sees Palestinians as lesser human beings than Israelis.
