Michael Oren had to renounce his US citizenship in 2009 to take his last job as Israeli ambassador to the U.S., but no matter– now he’s been named a commentator on CNN, the Jerusalem Post reported yesterday. I’m gobsmacked in Gotham:
Oren… has now joined CNN as an analyst and contributor.
He appeared on air as an analyst three times in the last week and also penned an obituary on Ariel Sharon for the CNN website.
This is not the first time Israeli ambassadors have made the jump from diplomat to network analyst, though it is believed to be the first time a former Israeli ambassador has signed a contract with CNN.
Oren, who now lives in Tel Aviv, told The Jerusalem Post that he saw the position as an opportunity to give “balanced but insightful commentary on pressing Israeli and Middle East issues.”
Wikipedia says that Oren will join a team that includes Ari Fleischer and Lanny Davis, both flacks for the Jewish state. No Arab-Americans that I can see in the roster. And at the risk of being nativist, are there any other non-Americans on that list? I think not. Oh and watch CNN’s Paul Begala, flanked by Fleischer and Wolf Blitzer (formerly of AIPAC), bragging of the Democrats, “We are a party that is strongly pro-Israel.” (I don’t know where Hilary Rosen stands, but she’s a party operative who worked for Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who just attended the Sharon funeral, so odds are…).
I have to believe there’s a financial angle to the move. CNN’s competition Comcast is now the largest media company in the world. It’s headed by two pro-Israel executives, one of whose former political associates, the pro-Israel Ed Rendell, is on air all the time; and Chris Matthews can’t talk about the most important overseas political story, the Israel lobby angle to the efforts to kill the Iran deal. It just pays to be pro-Israel.
P.S. Maybe you saw, but last week, a clown Chinese billionaire who was trying to buy the Wall Street Journal and New York Times said, as if to prove his bona fides, “I am very good at working with Jews.” It’s a joke and it’s not a joke. What signal is CNN sending?
H/t William McGowan
“I’m gobsmacked in Gotham:”
Why? The only way to control the memes is to run a tight ship in the media. You never know with apparently loyal goys like Amanpour- they could always lose focus.
Oren’s hire is a sign that the game is getting serious- that they can’t trust third parties to do what it says on the tin any longer.
It probably also says they are very afraid of what’s happening to hasbara.
Ultimately I think it’ll come back to their Ur-problem- they just don’t have enough people to leverage the US to serve Israel indefinitely.
They got the spons but we got the numbers
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3tHPsphg9xc
And it’s more like twenty to one
Caroline Glick, the senior editor of JPost wrote a column about the left and Israel in the waning days of 2013.
I found her analysis idiotic, as usual, but it’s still useful to read your opposition for a sample of their mentality if for no other reason.
What intrigued me the most was her proposed remedies. She essentially said that the entire response has to be about the money. Namely, if the democratic party is going to stay
pro-Apartheidpro-Israel, it’s all up to the donors. Then she started to count them. I read that with an amused smile. That’s the kind of thing that gets Mondoweiss accused of anti-Semitism on a regular basis but here she is, a fanatically pro-settler woman, essentially demanding that Jewish money has to be spent on controlling the Democratic party’s position on Israel.All of this is quite telling, because it rhymes with what Beinart has said on numerious occassions; that the Jewish establishment has succeeded all too well in Washington these last few decades. It’s the only game they know by now and as such they have lost touch with the grassroots of America. Everything should be dealt with through congress resolutions or media blackouts.
This is why the only real substantative reply to the ASA vote was through intimidation of slashing funding through Congress. Do these people think that is a viable strategy? It will only server as a reminder that those who talk about the power of the Israel lobby were right all-along.
Then, the mega media conglomorates like Comcast or major news networks like CNN will adopt a line on Israel which white ruled-South Africa could only dream of. Until the better end.
This is what Beinart meant by the importance of Jewish ethics; that we cannot just be ruled by victimhood alone when 3 Fed chairs in a row are Jewish and major media corporations are headed by pro-Israel Jews. The 1930s are long over, but mentally there has been an ice age which hasn’t abated.
ugh. I have, for all intents and purposes, stopped watching CNN and MSNBC. Fox has never been an option for me. This pretty much closes the teevee options for me. I listen to NPR in the car, but have to turn that off too, much of the time. The BBC gave me the news about ruthless and really stupid Ya’alon last nite– nothing on NPR.
Thank goodness for MW and other outlets on the internet.
And poor Phillip gets sidelined again.
there are no arab americans on the staff of mondoweiss either