Clearly it is becoming more and more difficult to hold a “liberal” or “progressive” view about Israel. –Lilly
[The author of this online 972 magazine article regarding The Jerusalem Post and The New Yorker is Mairav Zonszein, a one-time assistant director of Meretz USA and a former director of the Union of Progressive Zionists (now J Street U).]
Jerusalem Post op-ed calls New Yorker editor ‘anti-Israel’
By publishing an op-ed whose sole purpose is to demonize the editor of The New Yorker, the Jerusalem Post is positioning itself in direct odds with liberal values – not to mention journalistic integrity.
The Jerusalem Post ran an op-ed yesterday (Monday) by a writer and attorney from Washington, D.C. explaining why he is canceling his 50-year subscription to the New Yorker magazine. The poorly-argued and belligerent article directly implicates the magazine’s editor of 14 years, David Remnick, for being “unabashedly anti-Israel,” and personally attacks him as being unfit for the job and its salary since his “only previous editorial experience was at his high school newspaper.”
I guess the writer did not want to mention Remnick’s Pulitzer Prize-winning book on the fall of the Soviet Union when he was still a Washington Post correspondent, or his award for excellence in journalism, or his Editor of the Year award from 2000.
Instead he claims that Remnick went on a “diatribe” against Israel in his March 12 “Talk of the Town” article because he merely pointed out what former Israeli prime ministers, American Jewish figures and the entire international community have already admitted: that Israel’s 45-year occupation is at odds with its democratic character, threatening it from within, and that if it does not change its policies it will become an apartheid state. …
He also attacks a Hendrick Hertzberg column from almost a year ago … for calling the prime minister “Netanyahoo.” However, the writer clearly did not actually read the short piece, since this was not Hertzberg’s term but rather a quote from Republican Senator Chuck Grassley, who tweeted that he was “waiting for Netanyahoo” in the House Chamber to address Congress. ….
…. This is not the first time the Jerusalem Post has aligned itself directly with a rightwing agenda or with belligerent acts aimed at silencing open dialogue about Israel, as was the case when one of its correspondents served as the mouthpiece for NGO Monitor’s attack on one of our donors, claiming we too are anti-Israel.
Especially considering a recent cartoon in the magazine showing Moses parting the Red Sea and some Israelites behind him commenting that they like him but just wish he could “be a little more pro-Israel,” I personally couldn’t be a happier subscriber.
Click here for Mairav’s complete article at the 972 magazine site.
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