The Media's Anti-Semitic Hate Machine

Daniel Greenfield
Sultan Knish
25 August '10

The Nazi propaganda rag Der Sturmer may have gone out of publication around the time that the Fuhrer's ashes were smoldering in his bunker beneath the Wilhelmstrasse, but its motto is present today in almost every liberal newspaper in the Western world. Der Sturmer's daily invocation of "Die Juden sind unser Unglück!" or "The Jews are our misfortune!" is omnipresent in the media coverage of almost anything involving the Middle East or Islamic terrorism.


The theme is much the same now as it was then, the Jews are responsible for all our problems. The presentation is of course much more subtle, but then Der Sturmer was considered vulgar even by much of the Nazi hierarchy, which preferred the more staid Völkisch Observer. Today's papers prefer to be in the Observer mode, the Storming they leave to the "plausible deniability" blogs of an Andrew Sullivan or a Glenn Greenwald, material that they pay for, but like a lot of the Nazi hierarchy and Der Sturmer, don't necessarily want to be too closely associated with.

The ideas however are not particularly original. The Jews are to blame both for the wars and for losing them, a propaganda paradox put to good use by the Nazis. The idea that the Jews were physically responsible for 9/11 is an area that the media leaves to the fringe, but the suggestion that the Jews provoked Bin Laden's anger against America shows up in countless columns and op-ed's. One is a radical conspiracy theory, while the other is a mainstream media talking point, but in terms of consciously stoking hate, what exactly is the difference. Only that the latter is vague enough to be defensible, especially when bolstered by a few selectively chosen quotes from the man himself.

By linking Islamic terrorism to some form of Israeli provocation, and from there to the support for Israel by American Jews-- the same media which would commit seppuku rather than blame Muslims for Islamic terrorism, instead blames Jews for Islamic terrorism. The steady drumbeat of such rhetoric, which exonerates Muslims but indicts Jews, for the actions of Muslims, is brilliantly perverse. And it also puts the lie to the media's defense that it avoids attributing terrorism to Islam because it does not want to stoke bigotry. In reality, the media has no problem with using Islamic terrorism to stoke bigotry. It just has a different target in mind.

Behind the media's long ugly history of misreporting terrorism against Israel, has been that one fundamental narrative, that it is not Muslims who are responsible for Muslim terrorism, but the Jews. When a Muslim terrorist attack happens in Tel Aviv, Madrid or New York-- it turns out that the Jews are the ones to blame. It really doesn't matter whether an Israeli soldier kills a Muslim terrorist, or a Muslim terrorist kills a Jewish father of four driving home from work, it is never the Muslim that is at fault. Always the Jew. Forget about even splitting the difference. There is never any difference to split. It is always Israel's "humiliation" of Arab Muslims that is at fault for provoking their righteously murderous anger. A familiar theme that recalls Hitler's constant invocation of "German humiliation" at the hands of the Jews.

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The Peace Process Story So Far: Israel's Cooperation with the US

Barry Rubin
The Rubin Report
03 August '10

In one of his out-of-control anti-Israel rants, Andrew Sullivan included in his list of alleged evils that Israel had repeatedly "defied" the United States. That point stuck in my mind and made me reflect how demonstrably untrue is that charge contrary to what people might think.

Certainly, there have been incidents of friction and disagreement--though always fairly short-lived--and at times Israel has either convinced U.S. policymakers of its position or the two sides agreed. Yet consider on all the key issues of the last twenty years how Israel did heed every major U.S. request.

In 1991, President George Bush asked Israel not to respond to Iraqi attacks. This was a huge request for any country whose civilians were being targeted by missiles and especially for Israel which has always believed that retaliation is essential to maintain its credibility. I can speak from personal experience here, with the nearest hit about ten blocks away. The country not only faced the terror of sudden missile attacks, with the possibility of bacteriological or chemical warheads, but was also largely shut down economically for weeks. Yet Likud Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir agreed, and Israelis stood by passive while the United States fought Iraq in Kuwait and Baghdad shot missiles onto its soil.

The Oslo agreements were an Israeli initiative yet during the nine years of negotiations that followed, Israel and the United States cooperated closely. Israel made a very forthcoming offer in 2000 supported by the United States that was rejected by the Palestinian leadership. There were no major incidents of conflict during the Clinton Administration.

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The New Media Giveth, The New Media Taketh Away

Judeosphere
19 June '10

( Interesting point, good ending.)

Critics of Israel who believe that the “mainstream media” (whatever that is, these days) is “controlled” by the minions of the Israel Lobby tend to cite a one-word solution to this alleged stranglehold on the news: Internet.

In his recent editorial declaring his “break-up” with Israel, Andrew Sullivan noted:

The blogosphere has also mattered. Before the internet, opinion journalism in Washington was dominated by a few organs, almost all of which were fanatically pro-Israel. The Washington Post, The New Republic, The Weekly Standard and National Review were all neoconservative on the Israel question – and The New York Times wasn’t far behind. You could barely get any criticism of the Jewish state into the American press. Now, an entire generation of younger writers – Jewish and Gentile – has emerged online outside of the old media gatekeepers to kick-start a real debate.

Likewise, here’s John Mearsheimer:

But the Internet is a game changer. It not only makes it easy for the opponents of [Israeli] apartheid to get the real story out to the world, but it also allows Americans to learn the story that the New York Times and the Washington Post have been hiding from them.

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Thank You, Andrew Sullivan

I’ve lost count how many times I’ve seen this frickin’ map on websites, blogs…even protest signs:


Judeosphere
18 March '10

Recently, Andrew Sullivan stirred-up a controversy in the blogosphere when he posted the map on his site. Sullivan’s “reliable source” for the map was blogger/pseudo-academic Juan Cole—a guy who once claimed that Israel only wages war in the summertime, because that’s when American and European universities, the “primary nodes of popular opposition,” are closed down. (I mean, let’s face it, nothing strikes fear into the heart of the IDF like the prospect of thousands of anthropology undergrads waving “We are Hezbollah!” signs.)

Anyway, I feel that Sullivan inadvertently performed a public service: By creating a controversy over the map, he encouraged long-overdue public scrutiny. Enter the Economist, which gives the map a royal fisking:

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This Land is Mined

Richard Fenandez
Belmont Club/Pajamas Media
14 March 2010

The recent exchange of testy words between Washington and Israel over the approval of new construction in East Jerusalem is ostensibly over the fate of the “peace process” now being shepherded by the US. VOA says that “for decades he United States has tried to act as a bridge between Israelis and Arabs. President Barack Obama, following in the footsteps of his predecessors, is looking for ways to end hostilities and bring about a long-elusive peace.”

The announcement of the East Jerusalem construction was said to have undermined Vice President Joe Biden’s diplomatic efforts. “This was supposed to be a period of heightened U.S. diplomacy in the Middle East, with U.S. envoy George Mitchell named as a go-between in indirect talks between Israelis and Palestinians, and Vice President Joe Biden making a high-profile trip this week to Jerusalem.” But what were the odds that Biden’s efforts were actually going anywhere? And if not, then why?

One line of thought is that peace is within reach if only Israel would give way. Andrew Sullivan, for example, lectured Prime Minister Netanyahu about Israel’s aggressive past. Did Netanyahu know, he asks, how much land the Jews have grabbed? Did Netanyahu slaver, he asks, at the prospect of an apartheid state? The Economist points out that Sullivan’s arguments are nonsense, but it too is willing to concede the principle that if Israel gave something back then peace might be attained. Israel must still give; the only question is how much. Tom Friedman also seems to think that Israel has missed the party by “driving around drunk.” Friedman wrote:

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Sullivan Actually Sullies Himself This Time

Yisrael Medad
My Right Word
15 March '10

Go on, have a real hearty laugh at the stupidity of Andrew Sullivan when he writes in The Atlantic:

...Jerusalem was 84 percent Arab in 1946 and well within Palestinian authority under the partition plan the Palestinian Arabs rejected. It is undoubtedly true that Palestinian and wider Arab refusal to recognize Israel's right to exist has been a huge part of this problem - arguably the central reason for this conflict. But it remains true to my mind that the current Israeli government needs an attitude adjustment, and soon.

In case you are wondering why I am laughing and why you should laugh, well,

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"What Often Happens to Israel's Critics"?

GI
CAMERA/Snapshots
18 February '10
Posted before Shabbat

Andrew Sullivan, in a series of recent posts his blog The Daily Dish, purports to describe "What often happens to Israel's critics."

What happens, we're meant to believe, is that these critics are met by little more than "smears and character assassinations."

Of course we've heard this all before from the likes of former president Jimmy Carter, Gaza investigator Richard Goldstone, and Independent columnist Johann Hari. And of course, in each of these cases, the cry of "character assassination" was intended to denigrate and distract from the many serious, substantive critiques of their work. Put another way, the smears were not targeted at Israel's critics, but rather employed by them and directed at the critics' critics (including CAMERA).

But what about the latest charge by Sullivan?

Well, his exhibit one is nothing other than a repeat of a May 2008 column by Johann Hari. Apparently Sullivan hadn't seen the Hari column until now. And apparently he didn't realize, or didn't care to reveal to his readers, that Hari's accusation has long been debunked.

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Andrew Sullivan's 'pulverization of Gazans'

Petra Marquardt-Bigman
The Warped Mirror/JPost
14 February '10

A bitter and protracted war of words has developed since Leon Wieseltier, the literary editor of The New Republic, suggested in a recent article that some of the commentary of the popular Atlantic blogger Andrew Sullivan on Israel seemed to reflect "something much darker" than mere opposition to Israeli policies. Inevitably, the resulting debate in the blogosphere has once again fuelled the longstanding controversy about the question of if and when criticism of Israel can be described as anti-Semitic.

The complaint that critics of Israeli politics always risk being unfairly accused of anti-Semitism is rather common, not least because many people refuse to acknowledge that debates about the Jewish state and its policies are sometimes "heavily indebted to anti-Semitic tropes." Likewise, the glaring double standards that are routinely applied to Israel - summed up recently by Anthony Julius in a superb article in The Jewish Chronicle - are all too often ignored or denied.

Instead, it's rather popular to pretend that anti-Semitism has been frozen in time. Writing in defense of Sullivan, an Economist blogger urged:

We American Jews have simply got to stop accusing people who object to Israeli policies of being anti-Semitic, unless they're literally waving around drawings of hook-nosed bankers and arguing that Auschwitz never happened."

No doubt: if we built on this and came up with similar definitions for other cases of bigotry and racism, we would soon be able to declare that mankind is close to eradicating all such forms of prejudice. But somehow, I can't quite imagine that anyone would want to argue, for example, that accusations of racism against blacks are only justified if the perpetrator "literally" wears a Ku Klux Klan outfit and threatens a lynching...

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Andrew Sullivan: It’s Time to Invade Israel

Marine Barracks/Beirut

23 October 83

Noah Pollak
Contentions/Commentary
06 January '10

Click here to visit crazy town:

My own view is moving toward supporting a direct American military imposition of a two-state solution, with NATO troops on the borders of the new states of Palestine and Israel. I’m sick of having a great power like the US being dictated to in the conduct of its own foreign policy.

Presumably the direct American military imposition of a two-state solution would involve the Marines going house to house in Gaza City. Talk about American soldiers dying for Israel! For someone who has spent the past few years denouncing the hubris of American military intervention in the Middle East, this is heady stuff.
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