Update: Today Emily Wilder issued a statement saying that the Associated Press fired her two days after editors assured her that her previous activism was not a bar to her being a reporter. Wilder said this shows that reporters cannot “share the painful experience of Palestinians” without being “smeared” and accused of being “irredeemably ‘biased.’“
In the midst of the expulsions in the occupied East Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah, the Israeli police attacks inside Al-Aqsa, Palestinian Israeli protests inside the green line, and the call and response of the devastating, targeted IDF attacks (240 plus killed) on Gaza and rocket attacks into Israel from Gaza (12 killed) – the unceremonious firing of the young journalist Emily Wilder at the Associated Press seems like small potatoes. The problem is, however, that her firing, is an important structural exemplar of the system that helps to enable continued US support for Israeli settler colonial occupation.
Wilder was “Twitter-outed” by the Stanford College Republicans, (a completely unbiased group, with only the best of intentions, surely) for being a member of Jewish Voice for Peace and Students for Justice in Palestine (and for having described Sheldon Adelson as a “mole-rat looking billionaire.” I’m thinking this is an insult to mole rats, but that’s just me). Both groups are notorious for advocating for an end to the occupation, BDS, and stopping US military support for Israel, The right-wing echo chamber ginned this up into a social-media campaign that had the AP first supporting her.
“Not long after the thread started to gain steam on Twitter, Wilder says an Associated Press editor called her and said she would not get in trouble for her past activism and social media activity. Then came the rest of the week.” – Wilder told SF Gate.
Wilder only a few weeks after being hired, was fired. No specific reason was given other than “violations of AP’s social media policy during her time at AP” In an interview with SF Gate, Wilder unambiguously cited real “cancel” culture:
“There’s no question I was just canceled,” Wilder told SFGATE by phone Thursday afternoon. “This is exactly the issue with the rhetoric around ‘cancel culture.’ To Republicans, cancel culture is usually seen as teens or young people online advocating that people be held accountable over accusations of racism or whatever it may be, but when it comes down to who actually has to deal with the lifelong ramifications of the selective enforcement of cancel culture — specifically over the issue of Israel and Palestine — it’s always the same side.”
And this is precisely the point, I would claim that if Wilder had conservative-normative views on Israel/Palestine, that nothing like this would have transpired. If you look at most of the Jerusalem bureau chiefs and writers for the New York Times over the decades, (Isabel Kershner, David Halbfinger, Judi Rodoren, etc) many have had extremely strong, explicit and proud ties to Jewish Israel, this was never considered (by those in power) to be an objectivity problem requiring correcting, let alone firing. I am not implying that such ties and background are disqualifying, on their face, but simply that they exist and seem far more germane to the reporting, at hand, than does Emily Wilder’s past middle east work to her local AP reporting in Arizona.
Indeed, thinking that her previous activities and writing on Israel/Palestine have anything to do with her current reporting in Maricopa county, Arizona, seems a deep form of maximalist paranoia.
The Washington Free Beacon, a conservative publication suggested, irrationally, that AP’s “objectivity” could be compromised by keeping Wilder, given the AP office in the bombed Gaza building alleged by Israel to house Hamas offices. Other conservative, reactionary, voices also chimed in, Fox News and the Federalist, as well as Senator Tom Cotton.
It should be made clear that “objectivity” is a chimeric conceit assuming that reporters should only report the “facts” – a convenient myth that allows establishment positions to become default objective positions. And all humans, including reporters, have opinions and points of views that will always intrude on any particular story.
The good news is that Wilder is getting strong support –
“Amazing how quickly a talented young reporter’s career can be snuffed out by a Twitter mob that decided to feign outrage over some college tweets,” tweeted the Washington Post’s Glenn Kessler. “And if [Wilder] somehow violated @AP’s social-media rules, the solution is to offer guidance, not termination, to a new reporter.”
Emily Wilder said “It’s devastating of course,” she said. “I love journalism and part of what I think makes me such a capable, powerful journalist is how much I care about the people I write about, particularly the marginalized.”
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“Sharing even the most benign opinions online is terrifying, so I was particularly worried about how something so personal would be received. That’s why I was surprised and humbled by the overwhelmingly affirmative response, with fellow American Jews publicly and privately agreeing they’re no longer able to accept the party line on Israel-U.S. relations. They’ve been grappling with the version of Israel presented on trips organized by groups like Birthright versus what they’ve seen unfold on the ground, how to square their love for their people and history with their commitment to racial and social justice, and how Israel’s actions in Palestine seem to fly in the face of ‘tikkun olam’ — the Jewish principle of improving the world through action.
“Jeremy Slevin also saw his Twitter thread on the intrinsic tie between Jewish American identity and Israel touted widely, with more than 18,000 (and counting) retweets. The 33-year-old senior communications director for Congresswoman Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) wrote, ‘In truth, Israel is a state, like many others, founded on the displacement of others. Its Jewish exclusivity is predicated on the exclusion of millions who continue to live on that land. Political exclusion based on religion, by definition, leads to hatred, repression, and eventually ethnic cleansing. Jews should know this more than anyone.'”
All these cases of firing matter enormously, especially if the victim is also blacklisted, because most people depend on jobs for their livelihood and are effectively deterred by awareness of what happens to those who defy the Zionists. It is essential to find ways to weaken the disincentive effect. To this end a special organization should be established specifically to help people who have been fired for opposing Zionism, including help in finding another job, legal aid, and also a fund for financial assistance where needed.
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Jewish-American Support of Israel Will Never Be the Same – Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone, May 22/21 “Young American Jews Have Reached a Tipping Point With Israel.”
“Many American Jews are finding it difficult to square Israel’s actions in Palestine with their progressive domestic politics” by Marisa Kabas
EXCERPT:”There’s a story from last week I can’t get out of my head: A Palestinian family takes a taxi to their daughter’s home in Gaza City, five minutes away, on the last day of Ramadan, because they thought they’d be safer from the ongoing Israeli airstrikes. They’re unpacking the car when suddenly a military drone strikes, killing the taxi driver, the father, the mother, and wounding the son, 28. For many American Jews who were raised to see Palestinians as the enemy, it might come as a shock to recognize the Israeli military as the aggressor in this situation, or to mourn the victims of that strike. But this week, I mourn.
“I was raised to unequivocally support Israel. As a second-generation American Jew and granddaughter of a Holocaust survivor, I never questioned Israel’s existence, actions, and connection to the United States — not because debate wasn’t encouraged in my house, but because I never even thought to ask.
“Four days after Israeli police invaded Al-Aqsa Mosque, a Muslim holy site in East Jerusalem, the questions and the words finally came to me and I took to Twitter to share my newly crystallized feelings to see if they would resonate. ‘Being an American Jew is a mindfuck,’ the now-viral thread began; it goes on to describe how American Jews are raised to believe in the infallibility of Israel, how the intergenerational trauma of the Holocaust shapes our view of the region, and how our history of oppression should make us even more empathetic to the displacement and killing of Palestinians.” (cont’d)
@- Emily Wilder = MAD respect! The AP’s cowardly accommodatonism must be confronted at the low tide mark. AP damaged its professional reputation in the service of Fox/WFB/Cotton/College Republicans/et. al. This is the first major success of the stigmatizing campaign of Canary Mission and it must not be allowed to take root in the MSM, or anywhere. This blatantly anti-democratic and perhaps even illegal employment termination and must be exposed, condemned and outlawed. What’s next? African American journalists being fired because they support/supported BLM? Or Indigenous Americans not hired/fired because they embrace intersectionality?
The AP’s action is a shot across the bow of secularism, the meritocracy and the professional traditions of the American free press. I cannot imagine any rational, independently-minded professional journalist anywhere not rising to resist and defeat this effort.
Perhaps a good way forward is to publish the past political statements/actions/memberships of all “pro-Israel” correspondents thereby taking the Canary Mission delegitimitizing campaign and turning it around to involve/indict those journalists who are privileged by AP/MSM in spite of their long and varied connections to Israel/Zionism? IOW broaden the Canary Mission effect: once NYT/WP/WSJ/MSNBC, et. al. reporters see their past political/personal affiliations/statements re-published, questioned and used to disqualify them professionally they will lead the charge against Canary Mission. Perhaps if AP suffers significantly from its vile treatment of Emily Wilder, maybe the rest of the MSM will think twice before it squanders its reputational capital in the service of Zionism?
Q: Is it antisemitic according to IHRA to say this, or to fail to say this?