In new book,
former envoy Michael Oren claims antagonism towards Benjamin Netanyahu akin to
historic hatred of Jews.
Israel’s former ambassador to the
United States, Michael Oren, claims that Jewish journalists are
largely responsible for American media’s anti-Israel coverage and the “double
standard” it applies in its coverage of the Jewish state. Oren also writes that
the antagonism towards Netanyahu shown by Jewish journalists such as Thomas
Friedman and Leon Wieseltier resembles historic hatred of Jews.
Oren’s new
book, “Ally" is due to be released early next week but is already
garnering headlines for its harsh condemnation of President Obama and his
policies towards Israel. But Obama isn’t Oren’s only target: he is also
critical of American Jewish liberals and their “religion” of Tikkun Olam, and
turns devastating when it comes to American journalists who are also Jews.
Oren
dismisses the claim that “Jews control the media” as an anti-Semitic canard,
but then proceeds to lend it credence by writing that it “reflects the
disproportionate number – relative to their share of the U.S. population – of
Jewish journalists.” He goes on to say that “the presence of so many Jews in
print and on screen rarely translates into support for Israel. The opposite is
often the case, as some American Jewish journalists flag their Jewishness as a
credential for criticizing Israel. ‘I’m Jewish,’ some even seem to say, ‘but
I’m not one of those Jews – the settlers, the rabbis, Israeli leaders, or the
soldiers of the IDF.’”
Because of
Jewish journalists, Oren claims, Israel is subjected to higher standards than
any other foreign country. He singles out the “malicious” op-ed page of the New
York Times “once revered as an interface of ideas, now sadly reduced to a
sounding board for only one, which often excluded Israel’s legitimacy”, but
says the paper is not alone. “The New Yorker and the New York Review of Books,
both Jewish-edited, rarely ran nonincriminating reports on Israeli affairs.”
Oren says
that he was particularly pained by articles critical of Israel in which “the
bylines were Jewish”. Pondering what could drive Jews to “nitpick” at
what he describes as their own “nation-state”, Oren claims that some “saw
assailing Israel as a career enhancer – the equivalent of Jewish man bites
Jewish dog – that saved several struggling pundits from obscurity.” Others he
compares to “upper class American Jews of German ancestry” and their historic
scorn for Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe “the Yiddish speaking rabble
who allegedly made all Jews look bad.” Still others, he writes, “largely
assimilated, resented Israel for further complicating their already conflicted
identity.”
Oren then
goes on to speculate whether the criticism of Israel by Jewish journalists does
not derive from feelings of insecurity and fear of anti-Semitism – which is why
“so many of them supported Obama, with his preference for soft power.” Oren
pooh-poohs the concept of Obama being the “first Jewish president”, writing
“that was true if being Jewish in America means recoiling from military power
territorialism, nationalism and a sense of tribe.”
At the same
time, Oren expresses wonder at the fact that American Jewish journalists are not
“impressed” by Benjamin Netanyahu’s resume which “reads more glowingly than
even the most sterling of the Obama administration’s CV’s.” He recounts a
conversation in which he accused Wieseltier of harboring “pathological hatred”
towards Netanyahu – and Wieseltier agreeing with him. “The antagonism sparked
by Netanyahu,” he continues, “resembled that traditionally triggered by Jews.
We were always the ultimate Other – communists in the view of capitalists and
capitalists in communist eyes, nationalists for the cosmopolitans and, for
jingoists, the International Jew. So too was Netanyahu declaimed as “reckless”
by White House sources, branded intransigent by the New York Times, yet Haaretz
faulted him for never taking a stand.”
