The press and Israel
I noticed that commenter “Severely Ltd.” recommended this article about press coverage of Israel.
It’s long, and I’ve only had a chance to skim it. But I thought I’d highlight it here for discussion, because it looks good.
I’ve seen articles very much like it over the years, but this one seems particularly comprehensive. And it has a special punch because it’s written by a former AP reporter and present liberal. I also noticed the following in the comments section to the article, of interest because we all know how hard it is to change a mind:
The greatest measure of any piece of critical writing is its ability to actually alter someone’s thinking, and this you have accomplished with me. I never really thought the antisemitism charges related to coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict had any basis in fact, but I begin to see your point, that the coverage of Israel and its actions are so disproportionate to covering the other horrors going on in the region.
The article didn’t appear in the MSM. It was published in something called Tablet: A New Read on Jewish Life. Would that it could reach a larger audience. Obviously, most of its readers are going to be Jews, religious or secular. The religious ones tend to already know all this, and are more likely than any other Jewish demographic to vote Republican, especially if they are Orthodox Jews. But since a lot of Jews (including religious Conservative and Reform Jews) seem to be liberals who swallow the MSM whole and support the Democratic (or even more leftist) Party, the article could do some good.
The political breakdown for Jews, according to a Pew poll taken in 2013, is as follows:
Neo, you write religious Jews will “tend to already know all this, and are more likely than any other Jewish demographic to vote Republican, especially if they are Orthodox Jews. But since a lot of Jews (including religious Conservative and Reform Jews) seem to be liberals who swallow the MSM whole and support the Democratic (or even more leftist) Party.” I was wondering if you see yourself as secular or religious, and whether this has had any effect on your own transition to conservatism?
the more distracted you are
the more likely you will vote liberal
because liberal preys on guilt
and what works best with jews? guilt
or do i have to point to the huge liberary of comedy about jewish mothers and guilt as a weapon?
Q. How many Jewish mothers does it take to change a light bulb?
A. None, “I’ll just sit here in the dark.”
Jewish Guilt
Keeping It In The Healthy Range
http://www.torah.org/features/spirfocus/guilt.html
and the other side of the coin
The Myth of Jewish Guilt
http://forward.com/articles/2381/the-myth-of-jewish-guilt/
I hope this doesn’t sound like just another plug, but beyond the article that Neo cites, I think that “Tablet” is generally worth a look.
I’m not Jewish, but I get a lot out of the magazine. Lee Smith often publishes there, and I’ve tried to keep track of his articles since reading his primer on Arab politics “The Strong Horse: Power, Politics, and the Clash of Arab Civilizations.”
Thank God for Israel. To survive, America needs patriotic Jews like Neo and Pam Geller who are willing to shed the leftist blinders and fight for our freedom. The situation is so dire that it is now all hands on deck if we are to survive.
Why is Israel so important? Because Jews in Israel do not have the luxury of basking in leftist utopian dreams. Reality will not be denied. Perhaps, someday, the experiences of Israeli Jews will enlighten our American Jews and will awaken them from their dogmatic slumbers.
Israel is important because it is a stronghold of western civilization in a region where barbarism holds sway. They must feel abandoned by American jews who support bho.
Don’t you think that one reason for the heavy emphasis on Israel by the American media is that they feel relatively safe and secure there?
It’s the closest thing to “home” in the ME, western culture, etc. They therefore take it for granted and feel safe beating up on it just like they feel safe beating up on America. Forty (40) AP journalists assigned to cover Israel’s goings-on, wow.
It’s the only real friend we have over there (besides “Kurdistan”) and all we do is piss on ’em. The copybook gods are right: Familiarity breeds contempt.
Strange. Jews are so smart in almost everything but idiots when it comes to Democrats.
We are brilliant at law, medicine, science, music, art, mathematics, business, and many other fields. But we suck at politics, have since the days of King Saul, and it doesn’t look like we’ll ever get any better.
I suggest reading Daniel Greenfield’s “Sultan Knish” blog piece on this topic. It’s called “There Are No Self Hating Jews” and is full of insight.
I rarely comment and have only begun reading your blog, Neo-Neocon. I read Daniels every day and now yours as well.
There Are No Self-Hating Jews
Rachelle and Richard S.: Amen. Yep. Excruciatingly true. I don’t ‘get it’ and never have.
Here and there, he was prompting me to Fisk him.
1) Of ALL the cities in America — he picks Seattle and New York City as evidences of displaced natives.
How touchingly provincial. The Dutch BOUGHT Manhattan from the locals — who were, no doubt, laughing their asses off. To the natives, Manhattan was utterly useless ground. It was hard to get to. You couldn’t grow beans there. And the fishing sucked. No-one lived there. The Dutch had bought a quit-claim on the dump!
As for Seattle, no natives lived there, either. It’s a brutally steep location, actually hard on the ankles… even now. Nothing grew there. It had absolutely the worst fishing in the entire Sound. (All the good spots were not ever up for negotiation. During ALL of the critical years, Seattle was inside the British-Canadian zone! It took President Polk to acquire Puget Sound from the British. To get the 49th parallel extended to the Pacific, Polk had to permit the Hudson’s Bay Company unrestricted access up the Columbia River as long as London extended its charter.
Years later, Whitehall made sure to NOT extend the Hudson’s Bay Charter into the Washington Territory — for the larger purpose of Anglo-American amity.
Would that some American have vetted his exposition, for there were many examples that wouldn’t be so glaringly wrong.
2) As far as I’ve read, he STILL doesn’t get that the ‘Israeli story’ isn’t even about Israel or the Jews!
It’s about putting the AMERICAN anti-Leftists on their back heels.
ALL of the ‘Jewish sins’ are EXACTLY those the Left imputes to WHITE AMERICAN CULTURE.
Since there are no active locations for the Left to indict America and its interventions against Putinist/ Islamic expansion — Israel will just have to do.
The real reason that Hamas can’t be fingered as the criminal enterprise that it is — turns on keeping America’s Muslim opponents Lilly white and innocent.
The horrific bloodletting of James Foley didn’t stay on the narrative — no not at all.
Even more disturbing: Bibi is tying ISIS into the philosophy of Hamas.
&&&
No small amount of the AP press releases he’s issued turn on the New York Times ‘market’ for Jewish guilt.
Taken as a whole, the New York Times is as functionally anti-Jewish as Der Sturmer! No Jew can catch a break in that broadsheet.
Instead, Jewry is held to a standard that would challenge the saints and the dead.
Such an editorial bias actually ENCOURAGES Islamic agitprop — much in the manner of a TV crew at a sit-in. (Without the TV publicity, who the heck would conduct a sit-in?)
THIS is the real motivation behind the rocket-propaganda video-war erupting out of Gaza.
Yet, he does not see it.
I refuse to follow the black sheep around the corral. I don’t trust it.
What say you?
Neo…
The Jewish political sanity issue dates as far back as Moses.
As we all recall, Moses no sooner descends but what he finds that his ‘followers’ have smithed up a planished bull/ calf — whatever.
This craft can still be seen in the King Tut exhibit.
Which is EXACTLY why Moses was upset, for the boys were exhibiting a pharaonic icon! That’s right, the iconography of the very pursuers who had only recently been evaded at the Red Sea by the hand of God.
Moses, correctly, figured that it’d take forty-years of walk-about before that ideological travesty had been purged from living memory.
[ Forty-years = (2) X (1-generation) … do the math ]
Rachelle: too many chiefs — so few braves.
Also, consider this:
http://medicalhypotheses.blogspot.com/2009/11/clever-sillies-why-high-iq-lack-common.html
This ^^^ is a huge factor in Jewish intellectual life.
It’s linked to the study of the Talmud, and particularly to the Gemara. Every young Jewish boy is inculcated into imprinting his own comprehension and analysis into the logic and history of Judaism.
One result is perpetual fractiousness in daily politics. This can be seen in every Israeli cabinet that was ever established.
Great intellectual debates lead to volcanic social dynamics — especially when all the marbles are in play.
&&&
As for the rest, as per neo, a mind is a difficult thing to sway; especially on that has largely made its own arguments to itself — compounded by group-think.
When most American Jews got off the boat, they were imbued with an ‘against-the-system’ mentality — straight from the Pale/ Poland/ Europe.
Since the GOP (Protestant) was BY FAR the dominant party, Jews promptly slipped into political anti-alignment. Having just left the boat, they had no American connections — at least not the leading wave.
There WERE Ashkenazi Jews that were in the Colonies at the Revolution. They were overwhelmingly GOP voters. To such established American Jews, the newbies were poverty stricken hicks. It was at this time the epithet ‘kike’ was tossed out — by old-line American Jews — against the off-the-boat crowd. It’s some sort of Yiddish slur — more towards ‘hick’ or country-bumpkin.
Outside of the Jewish community, Americans didn’t even have a clue that ‘kike’ was an insult, well, at least at first. But since Americans – of all stripes – have always picked-up fresh slang insults with alacrity, ‘kike’ soon was in fulsome use, now bouncing back against old-line, wealthy, cultured, established, urbane Jews. (!)
Well, with insults like that being tossed around, it can be no wonder that the off-the-boat crowd shunned the GOP and embraced the Democrat party… fulsomely corrupt as it was.
[See: Boss Tweed, epic corruption in Boston/ New York and all points Atlantic.]
Once this alignment took hold, it’s been pure ethnic bloc voting — on down through the generations.
For a pure example of this — study up on Hawaii’s polity. Other than Whites, every ethnic group is dedicated to just one party. This is so, even though Filipinos and Whites are frozen out of Democrat party spoils. These are the exclusive preserve of the Japanese.
Anyone that votes out of column is deemed a race traitor.
This dynamic is just another reason why permitting Latino immigration at current levels is a divisive disaster. (Remember, Barry was brought up as a teen in Hawaii’s faction politics. It was discussed EVERY DAY at the diner table. That’s why Barry entered politics in the first place. He’s fulfilling a familial expectation.)
The age-old question: Why are Jewish people so liberal, even when it seems clearly to not be in their best interests, as Jews, to be so liberal? Such as when it comes to the Hamas/Palestinian-Israel issue.
It almost seem to be hard wired in. Maybe not in DNA terms, but in cultural terms. And going back a long way. Maybe to Moses.
What’s ironic is that’s the part of the essence of Jesus’s (a Jew) teachings: compassion and forgiveness.
If/when anyone threatens me and mine, there is no quarter given nor mercy. This is what I can not grok about jews. There is no substitute for an eye for an eye, make that 10,000 eyes for an eye.
Yes, Jews historically have a soft spot in politics. Politics is a Devil’s game, and most Jews do not accept the very existence of the Devil, or of evil altogether. And when evil erupts on a horrific scale, the Jews are caught completely off guard. Christians are generally more aware of existence of evil, especially Bible-versed Christians.
Such Jews as I have known looked to be all over the lot although, of course, I wasn’t watching them vote. So I don’t know about my friends.
But in general….
One might write a book about them voting against their own interests and…..call it “What’s The Matter With Jews?”
But, as has been said here and there, concern for Israel is not automatically a concern for Jews. It seems to be assigned to them from the outside and they are judged when failing that assignment.
We don’t, for example, expect Polish-Americans to be particularly concerned about Poland’s troubles, although they frequently are. But Polish-Americans’ ancestors came from Poland and they don’t see it as a possible refuge for the bad times.
The relationship between Jews and Israel is different, I submit, than the relationship between any ancestral homeland and Americans carrying that homeland’s ancestry.
That would be the reason for the assignment I mentioned earlier.
It is infuriating to see educated, active, Jews voting with the people who can tell the Kardashian sisters apart or who know how many there are. The latter know hot what they do.
“know not what they do”
GA at 8:54AM:
Your last sentence was better with the Freudian slip, LOL!
i hope neo covers this, as no on else is
and to note that when WWI started and WWII, we were in the same position of knowing as the newspapers then did not want to discuss what was happening either. which is why investigations today into things is such a muddled mess…
the war i said was going to start has started..
what we dont know is if it will yet go ful bore
but note… what is the easiest way to fix the financial crisis? remove the debtors? default due to war (which is more acceptable than the plain old argentinian kind of default)?
Russian columns enter Ukraine; leader urges calm
http://news.yahoo.com/strategic-ukraine-town-under-rebel-control-083655022.html
Russian media report ‘invasion of Ukraine’
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-28965597
lots of other things… but i neglect to pyt them up… because mostly people dont want to discuss it, they would rather discuss other things, as if this thing dont toss that other stuff up in the air.
When you choose the Left, don’t complain when the Left hires Hamas to blow you up.
Liberalism is notoriously selective. It is one of the least principled human philosophies. Today’s liberal is tomorrow’s conservative. I wonder if people believed they were buying “classical liberalism”.
Revealed: How Obama SET FREE the merciless terrorist warlord now the ISIS terrorist warlord
The U.S. once had Islamic State of Iraq and al-Shams (ISIS) leader Abu Bakr al Baghdadi in custody at a detention facility in Iraq, it was revealed Friday
Al Baghdadi was among the prisoners released in 2009 from the U.S.’s now-closed Camp Bucca near Umm Qasr in Iraq
NATO Releases Satellite Evidence That Russia Is Lying About Invading Ukraine
http://www.businessinsider.com/nato-satellite-photo-evidence-russia-lying-about-ukraine-2014-8
Putin, at least, understands Obama completely. Too bad the sonderkommandos at the New York Times still adore him and think he is actually competent.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/08/28/us-usa-immigration-townhalls-idUSKBN0GS0AS20140828
new press game
write the article put it up, then change the color of the font to be so light its too hard to read..
been happening in several locations. not sure if its the intent or not… but if so, what a nice way to get the low information reader who wants to be entertained more than informed to walk away
Artfldgr:
We’ve had an earlier discussion on this blog about whether it was Obama who released al Baghdadi or not. It is not at all clear. See this as well as this.
Russian invasion force consists of 1,000 troops, 100 tanks, APCs, rocket launchers; invaders fire Grad missiles / 20,000 troops poised across border;
Deep trenches dug around Mariupol, a city of 450,000
neo-neocon, this is a new article on the issue from the UK
if they have it wrong, i am sure there is some contact us link we can click and write them… i am just passing the information as it comes in..
your articles are from a few days ago to a week, the one i posted is todays news… maybe its a refresher, i dont know as i have been more focused on the world war we are missing…
note that the new equipment russia is using is comparable to US stuff… so much for the constant drumming of how backwards they are…
correction.. my article is NOT current on the issue of release
Artfldgr:
The allegation that it happened under Obama’s watch has been going on for months, as well as the argument about whether that is the case or not. I haven’t seen any new information that would indicate it is true. The entire incident is clouded in mist at this point.
sergey:
Secular Jews may not acknowledge evil (except for the evil Right). But religious Jews most definitely do. There are many sophisticated discussions about it in Judaism. Plus, it is Christians who tend to believe in turning the other cheek to it. Jews believe you must meet evil with force, “Those who are kind to the cruel end up being cruel to the kind.”
Don’t confuse secular Jews with religious ones.
“Don’t confuse secular Jews with religious ones.”
I’ve heard this before. I guess it’s true but I don’t really understand it. Maybe it’s because culturally I’m a Scots-Irish protestant Christian (though admittedly not a very good Christian). I would probably be seen by many devout Christians as pretty damned “secular”, but I still have a Christian/Western worldview, set of values and mores (all of which derive in large part from Judaism), and I highly value — and would fight for — what’s left of Western civilization, which includes Israel. I know I’m not alone in this perspective and have a really hard time understanding why secular Jews wouldn’t at least feel the same way as we secular “gentiles” do about the West generally and Israel in particular. Is it simply the influence of Marxism? I could see them not caring much for America, but the Jews of Israel – religious and secular alike– are of their very culture, their “tribe” if you will (and please don’t take offense of my use of that term, I’m using it strictly in the anthropological sense and with respect; each of us is a member of some smaller sociological/cultural unit).
Have these people truly become so alienated from their [literally] marvelous culture?
carl in atlanta:
I haven’t read it, but this book is supposed to be a good discussion of issues such as the one you raise.
Notice that those who practice Judaism and have Jewish children lean right while those who are disappearing lean left
That’s why the Leftists in power in Israel pulled the Jewish hard core believers from the settlements, since the security leaders believed it was better that way. It formed a coalition.
There are a number of reasons that one could offer. I don’t know if any are THE cause, or if there aren’t more good ones, but here goes:
1. The only effective opposition to Czarist Russia were the communists and socialists. Since Imperial Russia was so horrendous for Jews, they naturally identified with the left.
2. When the mass wave of Jewish immigration from Eastern Europe arrived here (1890 – 1922), the Democrats were the party of immigrants and ran the cities. Since the Jews were immigrants and lived in the cities, they identified with the Dems.
3. The early Zionist Chalutzim (pioneers) were socialists (see the kibbutzim, the only real place socialism actually worked — longer than in the Soviet Union, in fact!). Since they were viewed by American Jews as heroes, again, American Jews identified with leftism.
4. For reasons that escape me, FDR was identified as the great saviour of the Jews, even though he was nothing of the sort. Many Jews today seem to think Roosevelt is still President.
5. The suburban country clubs, golf courses, hotels, neighborhoods, etc. that excluded Jews in the 30s, 40s, and 50s were populated by Republicans, for the most part.
6. Reform and Conservative (“liberal”) Judaism were taken over in the 60s by wooly-headed red-diaper baby rabbis from Ivy League schools. Among other things, they managed to conflate the Jewish concern for charity and justice into “social justice,” and we all know where that leads.
7. John Foster Dulles was responsible for carrying out Eisenhower’s furious reaction to the Sinai Campaign of 1956. Dulles was also anti-Egypt, but since nobody would say they didn’t “like Ike,” Dulles kind of became the fall guy. (You might think that Nixon’s personal intervention to save Israel in the 1973 War, over the objection of his Jewish Secretary of State, would have turned things around. Needless to say, it didn’t.)
8. Bob Dylan (nee Zimmerman).
Richard Saunders:
I thought you made some good points right up to #9.
Bob Dylan has been pretty mum about his own politics. But there are hints he’s rather conservative and quite pro-Israel at this point, and has been for quite some time.
That was an attempt at humor, neo.
Richard Saunders:
I lost my sense of humor in November, 2012 🙂 .
another major point. when the pogroms occurred, the leading rabbis recommended staying in eastern europe because going to America would mean assimilation. Hence, the most ardent jews stayed in Europe while those most predisposed to becoming gentile went to America. This was the opposite of the Spanish expulsion.
The survivor generation included those uber Jews who would never assimilate and now are the only growth segment in America and are the core of republican Jews,
Jesus Christ’s primary opposition during his day was Jewish city state leaders that refused to hand over political and religious authority to some guy born in amongst sheep.
These days, sticking their cart to the Left’s star sounds very valuable and productive.
Ymarsakar — Jesus didn’t have any significant opposition from Jewish leaders because no one paid him any significant attention — he was just one of dozens of itinerent preachers roaming around Roman-occupied Judea performing prophetic-type miracles.
Nor was he preaching anything that hadn’t been said before, by the prophets and by his teachers at the school of Hillel. Besides which, Jewish leaders didn’t have any political power — the Romans were in control.
And he was executed by the Romans for sedition and treason — the sign said “Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews,” not “Jesus of Nazareth, upsetter of the religous and social order.”
I’m not excusing the role of the collaborationist puppet government here — Caiaphas said the same thing the Judenrats of Nazi-occupied Europe said: “better that we give them one man than they kill everybody.” Didn’t work in Judea, didn’t work in Poland.
Neo: Thanks, just ordered that Podhoretz book ( bought it used through your Amazon portal; don’t spend all that commission in one place, LOL!)
carl in atlanta:
Thanks!!
Those commissions add up.
Slowly, but they add up. Depending on the type of item, the commission are between 4 and 6 percent. Not insignificant, if enough people order through my portal.
If every reader did it, it would be even better! Of course, I’m somewhat remiss at reminding people.
Jesus didn’t have any significant opposition from Jewish leaders because no one paid him any significant attention – he was just one of dozens of itinerent preachers roaming around Roman-occupied Judea performing prophetic-type miracles.
He had significant opposition. All the various mobs against his door were instigated by the local political leaders. Whether they helped arrange things with Judas, isn’t necessary for this story.
Ymarsakar — as I said, I’m not holding any brief for the Roman puppet government.
To clarify, are you stating that the Jewish leaders of the various cities that tried to get rid of Christ were Roman loyalists more than Jewish loyalists?
Well, I’m saying a couple of things:
First, there’s almost nothing in Jewish literature about Jesus — a few lines about Christians in Josephus, a few lines in the Talmud. By comparison, there’s considerably more discussion of Bar Kochba, the leader of the Rebellion of 135, whom at least one prominent rabbi, Akiva, and perhaps more, DID think was the messiah. There’s much more attention and condemnation by the rabbis, and much discussion in Jewish literature, of Shabatei Zevi, who claimed to be the messiah in 1648. That’s what I meant by no significant attention from Jews.
Second, had Jesus claimed to be the son of God, that would have been blasphemy as far as Jews were concerned. The penalty for blasphemy is death by stoning. The alleged blasphemy would have been investigated, ruled upon, and if determined, the penalty imposed, by any independent Jewish authority. Which means, either Jesus never claimed to be the son of God, or there were no independent Jewish leaders, or both.