A few years after his son served in the Israeli army, journalist Ethan Bronner is going to promote that military force, in New York. The 92d Street Y’s Facebook page features an event a week from Sunday. Bronner is managing editor for international news at Bloomberg. Ticket prices are $32.
Top Israeli espionage expert Michael Bar-Zohar is joined by Ethan Bronner for a riveting look inside the most daring and white-knuckle missions of the Israeli Special Forces, as told in his new book, No Mission Is Impossible.
They spotlight some of the soldiers and top commanders from Israel’s past and present—including Ariel Sharon, Ehud Barak, the brothers Netanyahu, and others—who made them happen, revealing the skill, strength and incredible courage of the men and women behind these crucial missions that shaped Israel and the world at large. They will also address the role of the Mossad, the subject of Mr. Bar-Zohar’s previous bestselling book, Mossad: The Greatest Missions of the Israel Secret Service.
Bronner was of course formerly the New York Times deputy national editor and before that its bureau chief in Jerusalem, where we frequently asserted that he was way too sympathetic to Israeli claims. His son served in the Israeli army and Bronner used to say it was his son’s choice. Sounds like there was some home cookin!
Notice that the event will praise Benjamin Netanyahu. From Wikipedia:
Netanyahu joined the Israel Defense Forces shortly after the Six-Day War in 1967 and became a team leader in the Sayeret Matkal special forces unit. He took part in many missions, including Operation Inferno (1968), Operation Gift (1968) and Operation Isotope (1972), during which he was shot in the shoulder. He fought on the front lines in the War of Attrition and the Yom Kippur War in 1973, taking part in special forces raids along the Suez Canal, and then leading a commando assault deep into Syrian territory.
PS. Last night at an event I did with Ghada Karmi in NY, a questioner asked why US politics are so skewed to favor Israel. I said it is because of the organized Jewish community, and that’s why I organize in my community chiefly. Consider this event, a liberal Jewish venue that has censored Palestinian voices, and consider Bronner’s career, unimpeded by this conflict of interest, installed now in a media organization headed by a man who has funded clinics in Israel (and flown to Israel when it is engaged in slaughters, to give solidarity, and who has spoken of the anti-semitism that marred his own father’s life), and — well, this is the heart of the Israel lobby.
I recall Michael Bloomberg talking to Tavis Smiley, telling Tavis about his emotional attachment to Israel. I suppose that’s why Charlie Rose’s interviews on Bloomberg Media NEVER truly bring up the Palestinian perspective. And the Palestinians he does interview know enough to curb the facts or they’ll never be invited back. It’s painful to watch somebody with Charlie’s intelligence and intellectual curiosity be so painfully muzzled. Zionism is an obvious cancer on America’s freedom of speech and democracy.
Really telling that Bronner never suffers any consequences for his massive bias..in fact does incredibly well. When you try to wrap your mind around the control and power over this issue in both the NYBloody Times and Bloomberg News…you are ever so appreciative of the internet.
Mondoweiss helping bring down the walls of silence and false claims about the ccnflict.
Would be great to have a venue with Breaking the Silence soldiers at the same time.
JWalters:
I often feel that there is a confusion between the (or various) Jewish Community(ies) and the leadership of the big Jewish organizations, synagogues, etc. The leadership is solidly Zionist and attempts to train and constrain the communities to be Zionist. A lot of social pressure there. Top down.
Once in America there was “society” — a/k/a “the 400” — as the cream that rose to the top, and then there were hoi polloi, nowadays called “the 99%” who might be a human community but were certainly not “society”.
Well, there is perhaps a Jewish “community” (or many of them), but there is only one creme de la creme, the big-money folks, often the stalwarts of AIPAC, usually (it seems tp me, but I could be wrong) Zionists born, made, convinced, or by association, or merely not wanting to rock the societal [Zionist] boat, as society folks are wont to wish not to do — and this cream, this 1% so to speak, owns newspapers, TV stations and TV networks, dictates to synagogues and the great Jewish organizations, for none of these things can exist or be run without a lot of money.
Charlie Rose may work for big-Zion, NPR may be run by big-Zion, WNYC may be run by big-Zion, NYT ditto, and the reason for so supposing is in what they produce. The USA’s government does not censor. But there is societal censorship. Big-Zion censors. I am not convinced that Jewish communities have always censored or always will. Compare Open Hillels and JVP to AIPAC. But, again, the Jewish “society” censors, demands unanimity on Israel. And big-Zion appears to control the American MSM.
I’m not sure that the Jewish communities are wholly irrelevant to all this and that their taking up the cause of Palestine might not have an effect, but they do not run the USA’s MSM. It is big-Zion that does.
And it is not “the people” that run the USA, but the 1%, the plutocracy (or oligarchy) that do. A recent cartoon shows a psychiatrist’s office, the patient on the couch is the USA and is complaining that he spends too much money fighting useless wars and asks the psychiatrist why he does it. The psychiatrist replies, “You do it because you have a military-industrial complex”.
And the USA also has an Israel-complex. I call it big-Zion. AIPAC and friends.
Prof Cole has a good one up about Shimon Peres serious doubts about the direction Israel has and continues to move.
They spotlight some of the soldiers and top commanders from Israel’s past and present—including Ariel Sharon, Ehud Barak, the brothers Netanyahu.
War criminals!