James Besser, "Don’t Let Pro-Israel Extremists Sink Chuck Hagel": The New York Times Wages War Against Israel

The New York Times is waging a furious war to have Chuck Hagel approved as Obama's secretary of defense, and inasmuch as all's fair in love and war, the Times is ready to slime anyone who stands in his or its way.

Yesterday, Thomas Friedman sorted Hagel's opponents into two "baskets," the "disgusting" and the "philosophical" (see: http://jgcaesarea.blogspot.co.il/2012/12/thomas-friedman-give-chuck-chance.html). Needless to say, there was no mention by Uncle Tom that in 2006 Chuck Hagel was one of 12 Senators who wouldn't ask the EU to declare Hezbollah, Iran's surrogate in Lebanon, a terrorist organization. Hezbollah was responsible for the 1983 Beirut Barracks Bombing, which killed 241 American soldiers.

Today, in a frivolous Times guest op-ed entitled "Don’t Let Pro-Israel Extremists Sink Chuck Hagel" (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/27/opinion/dont-let-pro-israel-extremists-sink-chuck-hagel.html?_r=0), someone named James Besser, who, we are told by the Times "was the Washington correspondent for The Jewish Week from 1987 to 2011 and was a syndicated columnist for several Jewish newspapers," is also given a pulpit to advocate on behalf of Hagel. Referring to "fringe-driven politics that accounted for the Republican Party’s dramatic electoral losses" and the National Rifle Association’s "playing to zealots," Besser warns that "American Jewish leaders . . . increasingly tremble in the face of a small minority of zealots." Besser further states:

"Intimidated by pro-settler zealots, right-wing donors and those who liken the slightest criticism of Israeli policy to Israel-bashing (or even anti-Semitism), pro-Israel leaders are increasingly allowing the fringes of their movement to set the pro-Israel agenda in Washington.

. . . .

Support for the Jewish state remains strong among both parties on Capitol Hill and across the American electorate, and it won’t disappear anytime soon. But that support will wither if Aipac and other mainstream Jewish leaders don’t forcefully reject the zealots in their midst."

So, yesterday I was "disgusting," and today I am a "zealot," notwithstanding my support for a two-state solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict along the 1967 lines with necessary land swaps.

Time for another JG Caesarea challenge: Read Besser's guest op-ed again, and tell me what's missing. One . . . two . . . three. Sorry, time's up.

Of course there is no mention by Besser of Hagel's refusal to ask the EU to declare Hezbollah a terrorist organization, notwithstanding the 1983 Beirut Barracks Bombing; notwithstanding Hezbollah's kidnapping and murder by torture of William Francis Buckley in 1984; and notwithstanding Hezbollah's bombing of the Jewish community center building in Buenos Aires in 1994, which killed 85 people and injured hundreds.

For that matter, there is no discussion whatsoever by Besser of Hagel's outrageous comments concerning homosexuals, Armenian genocide and Iran. In his only reference to Iran, Besser alludes to Hagel's advocacy of "dialogue to thwart Iran’s nuclear ambitions." Hagel only supports dialogue? In fact, Hagel is apparently willing to tolerate an Iran armed with nuclear weapons. In his 2008 book, "America: Our Next Chapter," Hagel declares:

"[T]he genie of nuclear armaments is already out of the bottle, no matter what Iran does. In this imperfect world, sovereign nation-states possessing nuclear weapons capability (as opposed to stateless terrorist groups) will often respond with some degree of responsible, or at least sane, behavior. These governments, however hostile they may be toward us, have some appreciation of the horrific results of a nuclear war and the consequences they would suffer."

When it acquires its first nuclear weapon, Iran will "respond with some degree of responsible, or at least sane, behavior," and for that reason, the US and Israel should ignore almost daily declarations out of Iran, calling for Israel's annihilation? Given how Iran hangs homosexuals, stones to death women, and oppresses its Baha'i, Kurdish and Sunni minorities, I don't share Hagel's blithe optimism concerning Tehran's future conduct. Nor do the Saudis.

But let's return to Besser's allegation that "zealots" are responsible for the opposition to Hagel's nomination. Remarkably, Besser fails to mention that even the uber-liberal Washington Post opposes the appointment of Hagel as Secretary of Defense (http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/chuck-hagel-is-not-right-for-defense-secretary/2012/12/18/07e03e20-493c-11e2-ad54-580638ede391_story.html):

"Mr. Hagel’s stated positions on critical issues, ranging from defense spending to Iran, fall well to the left of those pursued by Mr. Obama during his first term — and place him near the fringe of the Senate that would be asked to confirm him."

I thought that The New York Times and Andrew Rosenthal had hit rock bottom in their war against Israel when they published Sarah Schulman's "Israel and 'Pinkwashing'" (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/23/opinion/pinkwashing-and-israels-use-of-gays-as-a-messaging-tool.html?hp). Apparently, I was dead wrong.

BOYCOTT NEW YORK TIMES ADVERTISERS!

Since creating this blog, I have persistently warned of frightening anti-Semitic trends at The New York Times. As I have stated in the past, New York Times "moderators" have repeatedly posted the vilest expressions of anti-Semitism in online readers' comments, notwithstanding the purported policy of The Times that "Comments are moderated and generally will be posted if they are on-topic and not abusive" (see, for example: http://jgcaesarea.blogspot.com/2009/06/open-letter-no-2-to-clark-hoyt-public.html).

I have also noted the overwhelming number and preponderance of op-ed and editorial opinions hostile to Israel, which are fond of distorting facts and of focusing on occurrences that don't reflect reality in this country (see, most recently: http://jgcaesarea.blogspot.com/2011/11/new-york-times-and-israel-bashing-yes.html). As observed by a senior adviser to Netanyahu, Ron Dermer, in a letter (see below in its entirety) to The New York Times, in which he declines their offer to publish a contributor op-ed to be written by Netanyahu (http://www.jpost.com/DiplomacyAndPolitics/Article.aspx?id=249724), antagonism to Israel on the opinion pages of The New York Times has reached epic proportions:

"I discovered that during the last three months (September through November) you published 20 op-eds about Israel in the New York Times and International Herald Tribune. After dividing the op-eds into two categories, 'positive' and 'negative,' with 'negative' meaning an attack against the State of Israel or the policies of its democratically elected government, I found that 19 out of 20 columns were 'negative.'

The only "positive" piece was penned by Richard Goldstone (of the infamous Goldstone Report), in which he defended Israel against the slanderous charge of Apartheid. Yet your decision to publish that op-ed came a few months after your paper reportedly rejected Goldstone's previous submission. In that earlier piece, which was ultimately published in the Washington Post, the man who was quoted the world over for alleging that Israel had committed war crimes in Gaza, fundamentally changed his position."

Needless to say, the obsessive hostility to Israel of Roger Cohen, Nicholas Kristof, Thomas Friedman and Robert Mackey has become legendary.

After reading Sarah Schulman's recent New York Times contributor op-ed entitled "Israel and 'Pinkwashing'" (see: http://jgcaesarea.blogspot.com/2011/11/sarah-schulman-israel-and-pinkwashing.html), in which Israel is assailed for safeguarding gay rights allegedly in order to disguise abuse of Palestinian rights, I was of the opinion that The Times had reached a new journalistic nadir and wondered how even Andy Rosenthal and friends could publish this highly politicized tripe. However, the baseness of Schulman's opinion piece has now been surpassed by Thomas Friedman's "Newt, Mitt, Bibi and Vladimir" (see: http://jgcaesarea.blogspot.com/2011/12/thomas-friedman-newt-mitt-bibi-and.html), which, calling to mind the rabidly anti-Semitic "Protocols of the Elders of Zion," claims:

"I sure hope that Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, understands that the standing ovation he got in Congress this year was not for his politics. That ovation was bought and paid for by the Israel lobby."

Enough! Most in the US who read this blog have long ago cancelled their subscriptions to The New York Times. It is now time to contact companies and organizations advertising in The Times and to demand in no uncertain terms that they cease advertising with The Times until anti-Semitism at The Times is extirpated, and until an apology is received from Andrew Rosenthal, editorial page editor of this befouled newspaper.

The Times is of course free to continue to serve as the mouthpiece of the new anti-Semitism, and it could well be that they have made a calculated decision that the radical left comprises their core market. However, those advertising with The Times should be made to know that there is a price for subsidizing racism.

Ron Dermer's important letter to The New York Times, published by The Jerusalem Post:

Dear Sasha,

I received your email requesting that Prime Minister Netanyahu submit an op-ed to the New York Times. Unfortunately, we must respectfully decline.

On matters relating to Israel, the op-ed page of the “paper of record” has failed to heed the late Senator Moynihan's admonition that everyone is entitled to their own opinion but that no one is entitled to their own facts.

A case in point was your decision last May to publish the following bit of historical revision by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas:

"It is important to note that the last time the question of Palestinian statehood took center stage at the General Assembly, the question posed to the international community was whether our homeland should be partitioned into two states. In November 1947, the General Assembly made its recommendation and answered in the affirmative. Shortly thereafter, Zionist forces expelled Palestinian Arabs to ensure a decisive Jewish majority in the future state of Israel, and Arab armies intervened. War and further expulsions ensued."

This paragraph effectively turns on its head an event within living memory in which the Palestinians rejected the UN partition plan accepted by the Jews and then joined five Arab states in launching a war to annihilate the embryonic Jewish state. It should not have made it past the most rudimentary fact-checking.

The opinions of some of your regular columnists regarding Israel are well known. They consistently distort the positions of our government and ignore the steps it has taken to advance peace. They cavalierly defame our country by suggesting that marginal phenomena condemned by Prime Minister Netanyahu and virtually every Israeli official somehow reflects government policy or Israeli society as a whole. Worse, one columnist even stooped to suggesting that the strong expressions of support for Prime Minister Netanyahu during his speech this year to Congress was "bought and paid for by the Israel lobby" rather than a reflection of the broad support for Israel among the American people.

Yet instead of trying to balance these views with a different opinion, it would seem as if the surest way to get an op-ed published in the New York Times these days, no matter how obscure the writer or the viewpoint, is to attack Israel. Even so, the recent piece on “Pinkwashing,” in which Israel is vilified for having the temerity to champion its record on gay-rights, set a new bar that will be hard for you to lower in the future.

Not to be accused of cherry-picking to prove a point, I discovered that during the last three months (September through November) you published 20 op-eds about Israel in the New York Times and International Herald Tribune. After dividing the op-eds into two categories, “positive” and “negative,” with “negative” meaning an attack against the State of Israel or the policies of its democratically elected government, I found that 19 out of 20 columns were “negative.”

The only "positive" piece was penned by Richard Goldstone (of the infamous Goldstone Report), in which he defended Israel against the slanderous charge of Apartheid. Yet your decision to publish that op-ed came a few months after your paper reportedly rejected Goldstone's previous submission. In that earlier piece, which was ultimately published in the Washington Post, the man who was quoted the world over for alleging that Israel had committed war crimes in Gaza, fundamentally changed his position. According to the New York Times op-ed page, that was apparently news unfit to print.

Your refusal to publish “positive” pieces about Israel apparently does not stem from a shortage of supply. It was brought to my attention that the Majority Leader and Minority Whip of the U.S. House of Representatives jointly submitted an op-ed to your paper in September opposing the Palestinian action at the United Nations and supporting the call of both Israel and the Obama administration for direct negotiations without preconditions. In an age of intense partisanship, one would have thought that strong bipartisan support for Israel on such a timely issue would have made your cut.

So with all due respect to your prestigious paper, you will forgive us for declining your offer. We wouldn't want to be seen as "Bibiwashing" the op-ed page of the New York Times.

Sincerely,

Ron Dermer
Senior advisor to Prime Minister Netanyahu

Sarah Schulman, "Israel and 'Pinkwashing'": She Knows a Helluva Lot About Lesbianism but Little About Israel

Sarah Schulman, a professor of humanities at the College of Staten Island, City University of New York, who has written numerous novels and works of non-fiction concerning the gay communities in the US, has written a New York Times contributor op-ed entitled "Israel and 'Pinkwashing'" (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/23/opinion/pinkwashing-and-israels-use-of-gays-as-a-messaging-tool.html?hp). The theme of Schulman's opinion piece as described by the Times:

"Israel is promoting its gay rights advances internationally to make it seem modern, veiling its violations of Palestinians’ human rights."

Sculman tells us of "a nefarious phenomenon: the co-opting of white gay people by anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim political forces in Western Europe and Israel." A "nefarious phenomenon"? Given the title of Schulman's op-ed, I would have expected more details in her op-ed concerning Israel's violation of Palestinians' human rights, but try as I might, I could barely find them.

Schulman complains of Israeli checkpoints in the West Bank, but fails to observe that during Netanyahu's current term as prime minister, their number has been reduced over the past three years from 41 to 15, through which traffic flows freely.

Schulman speaks of "The growing global gay movement against the Israeli occupation," but nowhere mentions that Gaza was entirely evacuated by Israel, leading to more than 10,000 missiles, rockets and mortar shells being fired from Gaza at civilian targets in southern Israel. Needless to say, no mention of this "nefarious phenomenon" by Schulman.

Also, on the subject of "occupation," Schulman makes no mention of the offers by Israeli prime ministers Barak and Olmert to evacuate the West Bank with land swaps, and, in the instance of Olmert, with sharing of the holy sites in Jerusalem, which were refused by Arafat and later by Abbas.

Schulman writes:

"Pinkwashing not only manipulates the hard-won gains of Israel’s gay community, but it also ignores the existence of Palestinian gay-rights organizations. Homosexuality has been decriminalized in the West Bank since the 1950s, when anti-sodomy laws imposed under British colonial influence were removed from the Jordanian penal code, which Palestinians follow."

Fascinating. However, Schulman apparently does not understand that although homosexuality may have been decriminalized under the Jordanian penal code, this does not mean that gays are safe in either the West Bank or Gaza. As stated by Kathleen Peratis in an article entitled "For Gay Palestinians, Tel Aviv Is Mecca" (http://www.forward.com/articles/1125/), which is still highly relevant:

"Arab human rights organizations sometimes advocate for gay rights, but they do so sotto voce. In fact, the only country in the Middle East in which gay people may safely leave the closet is Israel. Which is why, for gay Palestinians, Tel Aviv is Mecca.

Gay Palestinian men flee to Israel because they are not safe in the West Bank and Gaza. They also have no place else to go.

'Israel is close and far at the same time,' says Haneen Maikey, a gay rights activist with Jerusalem Open House, one of the principal gay rights organizations in Israel. If the sexuality of a gay man in Palestine is exposed, his family might torture or kill him and the police will turn a blind eye."

Stranger still, Schulman entirely avoids the issue of "honor killings" directed against Palestinian women (see: http://jgcaesarea.blogspot.com/2010/10/honor-killing-mere-mile-away.html).

Moreover, Schulman doesn't even attempt to distinguish among the situations existing for gay Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank and Israel.

My advice to Schulman, who I'm certain is an expert concerning matters pertaining to the gay communities in the US, but obviously has limited information concerning Israel, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, is that she should stick to writing about things that she knows. Quite honestly, I'm a bit surprised that even Andy Rosenthal and friends would publish Schulman's highly politicized twaddle, but I suppose it's just another sign of the Times.