I think I was unfair to Joel Greenberg last night in attributing his skepticism on the Abu Rahmah case to Israel-centeredness. I took down the post when someone sent me the facts below, which are reflected in my headline. Then just now I put the original post back up, right under this one, in all its naked flawed glory.
Because I am pressing for a conversation about the Jewish presence in mainstream newspapers’ coverage from Israel/Palestine. In the wake of Taghreed El-Khodary leaving the Times because Jerusalem correspondent Bronner’s son entering the IDF destroyed the paper’s credibility among Palestinians— I want to know, are there any Palestinian correspondents or Arab-American ones covering this deal for the big American papers? How many are Jewish? I’m not for quotas. I’m sadly ethnocentric; I like my Jewish friends getting good jobs; but I want a conversation about Jewish identity and Zionism. And per the pro-Greenberg facts below, I want more information. I think the “personal political philosophy” of a 55-year-old man is hugely important in how he writes stuff; can any reporter put that on the back shelf? I’d like to know what drew Greenberg to Israel in the first place, what he thinks about the survival of the Jewish state. I bet he has an opinion. Norman Finkelstein says we want to avoid the conversation, Are you now or have you ever been a Zionist? Well I don’t want to avoid that conversation. I don’t think it should happen in star-chambers, I think it should happen in conferences.
Anyway, Jewish Week’s Jonathan Mark reported this about Greenberg. (Though I don’t think Greenberg was ever Jerusalem Bureau Chief):
Other Times correspondents in Israel faced greater involvement with the IDF than Bronner. Joel Greenberg, before he was Jerusalem bureau chief but after he was already having bylines in the Times from Israel, actually served in the IDF.
Did that make him more sympathetic to Israel?
In fact, the American-born Greenberg served an Israeli jail term in 1983, when he was 28, for refusing to serve in Lebanon, and then covered, a few years later, military reservists who also refused to serve. And yet, after writing about Greenberg’s conflicts, journalist Tom Gross said he received a note from a “respected senior journalist” who said Greenberg “has been careful to not allow his personal political philosophy [to interfere] with his reportage … Joel’s articles should therefore be critiqued on their merit, without regard to his politics.”
