Why Is Antisemitism Permitted in Online Comments "Moderated" by The Times? Open Letter No. 2 to Clark Hoyt, Public Editor of The New York Times

Dear Mr. Hoyt,

In my prior open letter to you, I asked why non-abusive, on-topic, online comments are censored by The Times. Now, I would like to ask why antisemitism has been permitted in online comments "moderated" by The Times.

On March 3, 2009 I sent you an e-mail, informing you that my online comment submission in response to Roger Cohen's March 1, 2009 op-ed, "Iran, the Jews and Germany", had been censored. I also sent you an example of another comment in response to that same op-ed, which was permitted to be posted by The Times' "moderators":

The general Jewish reaction to Cohen's article about Iran Jews demonstrates to a good extent that most recent, and presently overriding, Jewish "malady".

The term "malady" used here refers to two and only two things:

- Total unwillingness to see things any differently from their own perception

- Over sensitivity to any thing BUT complete, verbatim, repetition and duplication of their own outlook to things related to or "affecting them.

With Israel's establishment over the ruins of Palestine, the Palestinian people and Palestinian society, an act unparalleled in modern history, caused by that very act Israel, and the Jews in general, have come to expect total submission from ALL in the West in all matters related or affecting them.

The syndrome is understandable: having had their way in an unprecedented act of dislocation, dispossession, subjugation and sup plantation of one people by another "people" to the endless general support and acclamation of the West they are, rightly (?), puzzled if what are relatively other "minor" points related or affecting them are disputed or not echoing their own outlook as they should!

Israel in particular and most of the Jews in general have come to expect total kowtow and unflinching support to their outlook, perceptions and advocacies and, with Israel, designs and plans for the future.

What the world in general and the West in particular is witnessing now is the reversal of the Jewish "persecution" complex of yore into its perverted/inverted mirror image: Jewish "untouchability" complex.

This development is neither good to the world nor to the Jews. [Sic]

You did not answer this e-mail, and not surprisingly, antisemitism continued to appear in New York Times' online comments. In response to Roger Cohen's April 7, 2009 op-ed, "Turkey Wants U.S. 'Balance'", the following comment, for example, was posted:

There is no country called Israel, just the squatting of tribal criminals from the Eastern Bloc.

And in response to Cohen's April 15, 2009 op-ed, "Realpolitik for Iran", the following comment, which received many "Readers' Recommendations", was posted:

Israel was smart to place people in all areas of the US Govenment and Schools to make sure they were able to use the United States for their needs. . . . Over the pass 8 years Israel had control of US Policy and still today Law Makers are working for Israel not the American people. President Bush was behind every request Israel had even the Palestine (Shaoh) Holocaust attack. . . . Israel has broken the 1948 settlement deal ordered by the United Nations. Greed has taken over Israel as it is run by corrupt Leaders. [Sic]

My persistent protests were finally reviewed by a senior editor of The Times, and these and other comments were removed. Problem solved? No. In response to Cohen's May 28, 2009 op-ed, "Obama in Netanyahu's Web", the following comment was permitted to be posted:

Seeing the destruction and misery that the current Jewish Israeli population is capable of, and willing to commit, against poor and defenseless people leaves one to wonder what they would do had the Holocaust never taken place and there were twice as many of them as there are now. . . .

After additional e-mails, this comment was also ultimately removed.

Questions naturally arise: Who are these "moderators" who permit this antisemitic abuse? Are they the same persons responsible for "Editors' Selections"? Why was my initial e-mail to the Public Editor simply ignored? And why are these abusive comments particularly prevalent in response to Cohen's op-eds (I would like to discuss this issue in my third and final open letter to you)?

I have seen "abuse" approaching what I have delineated above, albeit of a different kind, in only one other instance, i.e. in response to Maureen Dowd's April 29, 2009 op-ed, "Vice's Secret Vices", where one comment stated:

I think writing about Dick Cheney is at bottom passe Maureen. If you can't get the balls to put a material bullet between his eyes,,go away. [Sic]

I dashed off another e-mail to an editor of The Times, and this comment was instantly removed. It is a pity that the antisemitic comments were not removed with the same alacrity.

My question to you, Mr. Hoyt, is why has the authorization and publication of this vile extremism in The Times' online comments, which I have painstakingly brought to your attention, not been examined in one of your columns? I would like to believe that such an examination needs to be done openly, candidly and urgently. I think such an examination takes precedence, for example, over "the logic of The Times' slow-to-change style manual", which was the subject of one of your recent columns.

Max Frankel, Pulitzer Prize Winner and former Executive Editor of The New York Times, wrote concerning The Times' coverage of the Holocaust (www.racematters.org/turningawayfromholocaust.htm):

AND then there was failure: none greater than the staggering, staining failure of The New York Times to depict Hitler's methodical extermination of the Jews of Europe as a horror beyond all other horrors in World War II - a Nazi war within the war crying out for illumination.
. . . .
Why, then, were the terrifying tales almost hidden in the back pages? Like most - though not all - American media, and most of official Washington, The Times drowned its reports about the fate of the Jews in the flood of wartime news. Its neglect was far from unique and its reach was not then fully national, but as the premier American source of wartime news, it surely influenced the judgment of other news purveyors.
. . . .
After the Nazi's slaughter of Jews was fully exposed at war's end, Iphigene Ochs Sulzberger, the influential daugher, wife and mother of Times publishers, changed her mind about the need for a Jewish state and helped her husband, Arthur Hays Sulzberger, accept the idea of Israel and befriend its leaders. Later, led by their son, Arthur Ochs Sulzberger, and their grandson Arthur Sulzberger Jr., The Times shed its sensitivity about its Jewish roots, allowed Jews to ascend to the editor's chair and warmly supported Israel in many editorials.

And to this day the failure of America's media to fasten upon Hitler's atrocities stirs the conscience of succeeding generations of reporters and editors. It has made them acute to ethnic barbarities in far-off places like Uganda, Rwanda, Bosnia and Kosovo. It leaves them obviously resolved that in the face of genocide, journalism shall not have failed in vain.

Given all of the above, I wonder how Mr. Frankel would react if he were to read the above online comments permitted by The Times' "moderators". I would also be curious to know Mr. Frankel's thoughts concerning the title of Roger Cohen's op-ed, "Obama in Netanyahu's Web".

Mr. Sulzberger did not respond to my request that The Times apologize for the title of Cohen's op-ed.

The years pass, but notwithstanding Mr. Frankel's optimism, nothing really changes.