I was hoping I could begin this post with an opening like “Day 2 of this nonsense.” But I checked, and technically this is only the second time in three days that the New York Times has displayed spectacular bias against Israel, borne of something between poor judgment and a wholly absent sensitivity to Jewish sensibilities. Again it involves a spy case, again Scott Shane is the author, and again there are brief but pointed insinuations of American-Jewish collusion with Israel.
In contrast to Tuesday’s nonsense, though, there’s nothing particularly subtle about the bias on display. It’s simply a case of the Times throwing around an anti-Semitic dual loyalty accusation – which is also becoming kind of a thing in certain corners of the public sphere – with quite literally no justification. A White House scientist tried to sell classified data to an FBI agent posing as an Israeli spy, and he was arrested and duly convicted.
But the case as such never involved Israel, and the way you tell that is because it says so right there in the story. It was just a domestic sting:
The scientist, Stewart D. Nozette, 54, who worked at the White House in 1989-90 and helped lead the search for water on the moon, was not charged with spying for Israel…. The plea deal ends the espionage case against one of the highest-ranking American scientists ever charged with trying to spy for a foreign power…. The investigation did not allege that Israel or anyone acting on its behalf committed any offense, the Justice Department said.
So naturally, the Times’ headline for the story is “Ex-White House Scientist Pleads Guilty in Spy Case Tied to Israel,” because the natural way to describe a spy case that does not allege any ties to Israel is to say it’s tied to Israel. Now it’s true the convicted spy himself had once worked as a totally legal consultant for an Israeli firm until 2008. But that had precisely as much to do with the spy case as the fact he once attended MIT. And yet the Times’ headline didn’t say the spy case was tied to MIT, because that aspect of his past life wasn’t relevant to the spy case.
Of course, linking the case to MIT wouldn’t have injected a sensationalist century-old anti-Jewish canard – and an ever-popular anti-Israel theme – into public discourse. So that wouldn’t have been as exciting.
Honestly, what the hell is going on over there?
