The bias against Israel in the press, and especially the New York Times, has become so steady and predictable that it can be difficult to muster outrage. But that doesn’t mean the Times isn’t still trying to make waves. Indeed, since the paper flaunts, rather than attempts to disguise, its hostility to Israel, it can be easy to miss when the Times crosses yet another line. And the paper and its editors have done so again this weekend with its depraved magazine cover article cheerleading a new intifada against Israel.
As Jonathan wrote yesterday, the Times has chosen to greet President Obama’s trip to Israel with the magazine piece on the Palestinian settlement of Nabi Saleh and the story by Jodi Rudoren on the supposed injustice of allowing Jews to live in Jerusalem. Jonathan ably deconstructed the Rudoren piece and explained quite clearly why the author of the magazine piece, Ben Ehrenreich, who trumpets the nobility of anti-Zionism, lacks any credibility on the issue of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It can’t be argued that the Times didn’t know exactly what it was getting with Ehrenreich. And so it should be asked, instead, why the Times’s editors wanted a piece openly supportive of another intifada. After all, the article is crystal clear about its intentions. One key part comes late in the piece, when Ehrenreich writes:
That elite lives comfortably within the so-called “Ramallah bubble”: the bright and relatively carefree world of cafes, NGO salaries and imported goods that characterize life in the West Bank’s provisional capital. During the day, the clothing shops and fast-food franchises are filled. New high-rises are going up everywhere. “I didn’t lose my sister and my cousin and part of my life,” Bassem said, “for the sons of the ministers” to drive expensive cars.
Worse than any corruption, though, was the apparent normalcy. Settlements are visible on the neighboring hilltops, but there are no checkpoints inside Ramallah. The I.D.F. only occasionally enters the city, and usually only at night. Few Palestinians still work inside Israel, and not many can scrape a living from the fields. For the thousands of waiters, clerks, engineers, warehouse workers, mechanics and bureaucrats who spend their days in the city and return to their villages every evening, Ramallah — which has a full-time population of less than 100,000 — holds out the possibility of forgetting the occupation and pursuing a career, saving up for a car, sending the children to college.
But the checkpoints, the settlements and the soldiers are waiting just outside town, and the illusion of normalcy made Nabi Saleh’s task more difficult. If Palestinians believed they could live better by playing along, who would bother to fight?
That is an almost-perfect distillation of the choice before the Palestinians. On the one hand there is peace, prosperity, international integration, and political autonomy. On the other is armed struggle. As Ehrenreich notes, the “normal” life, the peaceful life, is “worse than any corruption.” Those are Ehrenreich’s words, and easy for him to say since he doesn’t have to stay there. But Bassem Tamimi, the subject of the story, confirms them. He says he didn’t struggle and fight and sacrifice for peace, for nice cars, for a college education for his children–for “normalcy” that is worse than any corruption.
But in fact the article pushes this line from the very beginning. The headline asks “Is This Where the Third Intifada Will Start?” Note the word “will.” There will be blood, says the Times; who will get the glory? Incitement is the only theme of the piece. Ehrenreich explains the origins of the Nabi Saleh-based protest movement, marching first in 2009. But, Ehrenreich laments, the “momentum has been hard to maintain.”
He and others like him are doing their part, though. The villagers march each Friday, “joined at times by equal numbers of journalists and Israeli and foreign activists.” It isn’t clear why journalists and activists merit separate categories here beside for the propagation of a silly illusion that perhaps assuages some of Ehrenreich’s guilt. The activists may speak words of peace, but they are, he writes, “young anarchists in black boots.” Ehrenreich notes that “a pilgrimage to Nabi Saleh has achieved a measure of cachet among young European activists, the way a stint with the Zapatistas did in Mexico in the 1990s.” It isn’t about the Palestinians; it’s never about the Palestinians. But Ehrenreich and the others make sure not to tell the Palestinians that as they shove the Tamimis into battle, stand back and take pictures, and then get on a plane and fly home.
Bassem Tamimi condemns the Oslo peace process that gave the Palestinian leadership authority but no real power, as he sees it. As a result, Bassem is paid by the Palestinian Authority to do nothing, so he can stay home and stay care of his ailing mother and still receive a paycheck. But that’s not what he wants. When talk turns to the first intifada, Ehrenreich tells us, Bassem “speaks of those years, as many Palestinians his age do, with something like nostalgia.” They miss the armed conflict. “If there is a third intifada,” Bassem tells Ehrenreich, “we want to be the ones who started it.”
Throughout the piece, Ehrenreich continually brings up the prospects of a new intifada. What are its chances? What will be the “spark”? Is the village ready? The villagers try to sell the line that they are nonviolent, but that doesn’t even convince Ehrenreich, who points out that in fact they throw grenades, Molotov cocktails, and rocks like the one that put a young child in critical condition last week. A more important point is that, as Ehrenreich notes, past intifadas have only escalated; no matter where or how they started, they quickly became more and more violent. There is no way the intifada Ehrenreich, the Times magazine, and the Palestinian villagers encourage will be nonviolent. So, again: why does the Times want an article like this? We probably don’t want to know the answer.
Good piece except many of us do demand an answer to the NYT's continual incitement against the State of Israel. n nWithin a seven day period, the NYT gave space to a mediocre philosopher in order to argue that Israel has no right to exist; it then gave space to a former PLO spokesman ( without ever identifying Khalidi as such) to argue that the Palestinians have no agency to act since they are history's greatest victims; and an article which argued that the presence of Jews is so odious and an affront to all human decency that their very presence in Jerusalem will prevent peace from breaking out in the Middle East. n nYes, I want to know what is motivating this anti-Jewish venom- and it is anti-Jewish to deny Jews the right to live where they wish to live anywhere in the world and most especially in the State of Israel. n nGiven the history of the New York Times, the antisemitism of the Ochs/Sulzberger clan, the burying of the news of the murder of millions of European Jews, the efforts of the Sulzberger financed American Council for Judaism to prevent the State of Israel in coming into existence while millions of Jews were being murdered, the continual campaign of de-legitimization aimed at preventing Israel from acting in it's own self- defense, the continual denial of Muslim antisemitism, the continual publication of criticism of Israel by Jewish critics of Israel in order to bat away accusations of antisemitism, the refusal of the New York Times to run the retraction of the blood libel known as the Goldstone Report- all of this and more- demand an accounting of the owners, publisher and editorial page editor of the New York Times.
Bravo.
absolutely brilliant !!
Here's what's motivating the anti-Jewish venom at the New York Times – they hate the Jews! n nHere's what's motivating the anti-Jewish venom of the Jewish editors and writers at the Times – they hate the Jews! n nOf course, an accounting for this perfidy is long overdue, but, let's face it, there never will be an accounting. n nHenry Ford's "The Dearborn Independent", ran headlines like "Jewish Jazz – Moron Music – Becomes Our National Music", and worse, but was finally stopped by a concerted boycott of the Ford Motor Company. Similarly, therein lies a solution: a determined and concerted effort to boycot the New York Times Company, by an outraged Jewish community – that is, if such a community can still be brought into being.
Jews are their own worst enemy.
Why?
Because I think he assumed Ehrenreich was a Socialist Jew. I thought it was possible he was, also. But he is not.
What do you know of Ben Ehrenreich that others of us don't? Please share. n nThat "anti-Zionist" declaration of his that the LA Times published in 2009, more than 60 years after the UN recognized Israel as a sovereignty, was all about trying to delegitimize the Jewish state. It sounded no different from the Left's standard "new antisemitism." n n(Or were you not disputing that Ehrenreich is a person of the Left, but instead saying he ought not be counted a Jew?)
Oh no! He is definitely a horrible, repulsive person. But he isn't actually Jewish. Neither his mother or father are. His mother is also an antisemite, by the by.
You are only whetting my appetite for more. Must I search around for the details, that is if I can find them, or can you help out with more of them. n nIn that LA Times piece,Ehrenreich did allude to his Marxist Jewish grandparents, which I took to be an attempt at establishing his personal bona fides, you know the "As a Jew…" gambit. I did wonder whether the "Jew" thing went even one more generation after those grandparents, and I take it from what you say that it didn't. (Or did he opt out when it came to him? If his grandmother was indeed Jewish, albeit a Marxist, then at least the father had to be Halachically Jewish, and if it was the maternal grandmother, then his mother was/is not only Halachically Jewish, but she passed it along to Ben, no matter that they might wish it weren't so. And fact that the mother is according to you an antisemite certainly doesn't mean that she couldn't possibly be Jewish.)
Turns out, his mother is the daughter of two WASPs. n n His father is not Jewish either, but his father's father might be the Marxist he mentioned. Or not. I can't find any quotes from John Ehrenreich indicating any sort of Jewish influence or upbringing, religious, cultural, or otherwise. I can only conclude Ben Ehrenreich exaggerated his antecedents greatly to play the "I'm a Jew, too" gambit.
I don't know what you are relying upon, but I'm going largely by what Ehrenreich said in that LA Times piece: n n
n nDo I misunderstand him, was he not saying that at least 2 or his 4 grandparents were Jewish, and the repeated use of "us" isn't a claim to be Jewish himself? So, what is he, a Jewish antisemite or a non-Jewish antisemitic liar?
That is very odd. Because as I said, I researched his father and mother. His mother is a WASP. She was the daughter of Isabelle Oxley and Ben Howes Alexander from Butte, MT. No Jewishness there. And his father also has writings on the internet, not one of which mentions anything Jewish, even when the subject might allude to it. I think he might be a liar.
I thought after their experience of Jason Blair, the NYT had sworn off liars masquerading as reporters. n nSeriously, though, I would like to know whether in fact at least two his grandparents (and not his two grandfathers) were Jewish, and thus he has some basis, however tenuous (Jewish maternal grandmother) or dubious (Jewish paternal grandfather), for the "As a Jew…" intimations of "us." (I see no way around the "us" x 2 thing as a claim that he, Ben Ehrenreich, belongs to the "tribe.") Know any journalist types who might look into it?
I was wondering the same thing, and made the same assumptions. Then again, Jews were told in 2004 that we should vote for John Kerry because his paternal grandfather was a Jew who loved Jews and Judaism so much that he converted to Christianity and concealed his Jewish origins, and because John had a brother who fooled himself into thinking that he could become Jewish by converting in a reform ceremony that did not require him to accept any of Judaism's core beliefs or practices.
Was it just Kerry's paternal grandfather, who blew his brains out in a restroom at the Copley Plaza Hotel in Boston when he was financially ruined, or his paternal grandmother too? I thought both of them were Jews who sought to assimilate, though not sure of it. And don't know whether they converted or not, whether it matters or not. (Kerry didn't seek to make use of them or their memory in any way like Ehrenreich did those Marxist grandparents of his, who are the basis for his "as a Jew" pretense.) n nAs for Kerry's brother, I think he is of exceedingly little relevance, but I certainly don't hold it against him that his conversion wasn't one that would be recognized by the Orthodox rabbinate. At the risk of seeming flip, which I don't intend, I will say that for these purposes, whatever those are, it's the spirit that counts. And again, all decidedly different from Ehrenreich's pretentions for the purposes of speaking "as a Jew" to deny Israel's legitimacy. If Ehrenreich qualifies as even a quasi-Jew, or perhaps because he has tried to represent himself as one for those purposes, I think they ought to turn the flame higher because he will have earned greater torment as punishment. n n(You say that Kerry's brother was "not require(d)…to accept any of Judaism's core beliefs or practices." None of them?)
The real point, in fact the ONLY point here, is not that the NYTimes is doing what it's been doing for the last 75 years, i.e., taking a predictably anti-Jewish line in both its news and feature writing, but that by and large it's Jewish reporters and Jewish editors who are churning this twisted, dishonest stuff out! n nWhy are there so many Jewish Evil Sons and Daughters—hundreds of thousands of them worldwide? And it's a reasonable question, given that one doesn't see this phenomenon in the ranks of the Irish, the Italians, even the Hottentots! Why us? What is there about Jewish civilization that encourages this huge contingent of what are called "self-hating Jews," i.e., Jews who don't want to be Jewish, and so in a fit of rage (every few hours, it seems!) lash out at the Jewish people, and at Israel? n nAnd not only that. Most Evil Sons and Daughters are of the Left—and so they vent their spleen at Western civilization in general, while they idealize and idolize folks in "the Third World," minorities, gender-benders, etc. But when it comes to their own people—that's when the venom literally pours from their fangs. n nWhat are we doing that gives rise to this phenomenon? Why don't we do something about it? n nBlaming the publisher, editors and writers of the NYTimes and other liberal rags is, at best, a lame and ineffective way to focus our energies. Until we address the real issue here, i.e., that Jewish life is overflowing with malcontents and childish adults throwing vicious temper tantrums, we will do nothing to eliminate or even lessen the threat this "enemy within" poses to our people, and to Israel. n nWhat should we do about these miscreants? I'm sure each of us can come up with his/her own method for shutting them up. Doing nothing is not an option. Like terribly spoiled children, our Evil Sons and Daughters grow more enraged and more destructive each day we fail to set limits on them. We cannot let it go on this way. n nNo sane society would have allowed things to get this far. But we have. We are the ditherers and deniers "of record." In all of human history, no modern society has managed to learn virtually nothing from history, the way we Jews have. As a result, with us "Never Again" always turns into "Once Again." We seem drawn to tragedy and suffering, given how predictably we court both. The question is "why?" Who are we? Beyond all the self-advertisement of "holiness" and Nobel Prizes—who are we really?
You ask, "What should we do about these miscreants?," but offer no answer, saying only, "I'm sure each of us can come up with his/her own method for shutting them up." So please be specific with your prescription for dealing with the miscreants, which they so definitely are.
"What should we do about these miscreants? " nThe haggaddah suggest that we set his teeth on edge by saying [to the others present as if the wicked one were not even there] "See how he says 'you' [and not 'us'], excluding himself from the the community. Had he been there he would not have been redeemed." They place themselves among the 80% who preferred wallowing in the filth of Egyptian culture, even as slaves.
Maybe being the chosen people is an incomplete description. Maybe being the people chosen for self-destruction completes the picture.
Why does the NYTs want blood? It sells papers. And the NYTs is not doing well financially. What they are asking for is that the Palestinians shed their blood to rescue the NYTs. n nAm I being too cynical? Or not cynical enough?
Not cynical enough. They are also asking that the Palestinians shed Jewish blood. Lots of it, rh"l.
Ben Ehrenreich is obviously a German by his name alone. So, that leads me to believe he has n some issues with Jews. I am not a Jew but I do and will support the Jews in Israel. He sounds like a Nazi to me. These people after the collapse of the Nazi state have moved all over the world to ferment hatred for the Jewish people. These people are pure scum of the earth which will eventually be the destruction of all mankind. You best believe it. It may just be around the corner nbut you have to look a little closer than the tip of your nose !!!