Tuesday, February 14, 2012

Roger Cohen, "The Dilemmas of Jewish Power": Sick

[Following my complaint by e-mail to Andrew Rosenthal, the Editorial Page Editor of The New York Times, the title of this op-ed was changed from "The Dilemmas of Jewish Power" to "The Dilemmas of Israeli Power." Rosenthal did not write back to me.]

In May 2009, The New York Times published an op-ed by Roger Cohen entitled "Obama in Netanyahu's Web" (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/28/opinion/28iht-edcohen.html). I quickly shot off an e-mail to a very senior editor of The Times:

"The Times should have given more thought to the title of Cohen's op-ed. As I tried to illustrate in my e-mail to Clark Hoyt, there is a long anti-Semitic history of depicting Jews as ugly voracious spiders. Netanyahu is no spider, and Obama is no butterfly. The title could only serve to inflame hatred."

The very senior editor replied:

"It was not a good headline, I agree. By the time this column gets to the times website it has already been published in the IHT [International Herald Tribune] on paper and online. This is not an excuse. It is an explanation. The headline should have been changes there [sic]."

Problem resolved? Not a chance.

Today, The New York Times published an op-ed by Roger Cohen entitled "The Dilemmas of Jewish Power" (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/14/opinion/cohen-the-dilemmas-of-jewish-power.html?ref=opinion). Does this title remind you of something? It should. In a 1935 speech to the Reichstag introducing the Nuremberg Laws, Hitler stated (http://www1.yadvashem.org/about_holocaust/documents/part1/doc35.html):

"The third [law] is an attempt to regulate by law [the Jewish] problem, which, should this attempt fail, must then be handed over by law to the National-Socialist Party for a final solution."

"Jewish dilemmas"? "Jewish problem"? They sound frighteningly alike.

Hitler, like most other anti-Semites, believed that the Jews wielded too much power. Note that Cohen's headline is not "The Dilemmas of Israeli Power," but rather "The Dilemmas of Jewish Power."

The hallucinatory content of Cohen's current op-ed? Extolling Peter Beinart’s book “The Crisis of Zionism,” Cohen writes:

"'We are being asked to perpetuate a narrative of victimhood that evades the central Jewish question of our age: the question of how to ethically wield Jewish power,' he [Beinhart] writes. That power, for 45 years now, has been exercised over millions of Palestinians who enjoy none of the rights of citizenship and all the humiliations of an occupied people."

Needless to say, no mention by Cohen that although Palestinian Authority President Abbas was elected to serve until January 2009, Abbas unilaterally extended his term for another year and continues in office long after the expiration of the new deadline for elections. Hamas also continues to rule Gaza without new elections. Nevertheless, Cohen would have us believe that only Israel is depriving the Palestinians of the rights of citizenship.

No mention by Cohen of the fact that Hamas leader Ismail Haniya met yesterday with Iran's Supreme Leader Khamenei (see: http://abna.ir/data.asp?lang=3&id=296236), and that both these men are calling for the extermination of Israel. Moreover, even Fatah refuses to accept the existence of Israel as a Jewish state.

Cohen writes:

"Blaming Palestinians — for disunity, for grandstanding, for seeking not the 1967 lines but Israel’s disappearance — is easy enough, although increasingly an exercise in misrepresentation of the major Palestinian shifts under Prime Minister Salam Fayyad."

No mention by Cohen that Hamas and Fatah are in unity talks and that one of Hamas's conditions is that Fayyad will not participate as a minister in any future Palestinian government (see: http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=395957).

We have come to expect these distortions and this hate provoking language from Roger ("Iran is not totalitarian") Cohen; my guess is that he can't help himself. The New York Times, on the other hand, has no excuse.

Sick.

13 comments:

  1. Oh, Jeffrey, I wanted to encourage you to comment on Cohen, just because I suspected I would have trouble reading the article itself - too painful. Now, I realize the I can't even read a comment - too painful because of the topic. So, I've just scanned it. It turns out that I can deal with non-Jewish antisemites (competently), but I can't deal with extreme "Jewish" antisemites and not because of lack of expertise. Roger Cohen, this American "Jewish" lady who goes on Iranian TV to denounce Jews and countless others are more than repulsive. It's painful for me to think that millions of decent human beings perished just because they were decent human beings, but some absolute garbage ...
    I am Jewish "Pascallian" agnostic and I despise these ... whatever ... with all my heart. When there is no conscience everything is possible (yes, it's a paraphrase)

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  2. Thank you for your comment. I have written to both Andrew Rosenthal and Art Brisbane concerning this horrific op-ed, and let's see if either is willing to comment.

    Jeffrey

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  3. Title has been toned down to "The Dilemmas of Israeli Power". They must have considered using the word "Zionists", but they feared they might be sued by Iran's Press TV for copyright infringement.

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  4. Thanks. I must have struck a nerve with Rosenthal.

    Jeffrey

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  5. "Thanks. I must have struck a nerve with Rosenthal"
    Frankly, Jeffrey, I doubt it. The guy doesn't have nerves nor other parts (brain? heart?) It was something else, probably materialistic.

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  6. The editorial department under Andy Rosenthal is just awful. Too bad his Dad, Abe isn't around. Jeffrey, keep up the good work. Maybe one day the Times will change for the better. I hope Israel is still around to see it.

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    1. I've returned to respond to this comment. Sorry, but I hold parents responsible in part for their children.
      I am pondering now the following issue - who are the parents of Mondoweiss, Naomi Klein and countless other not entirely normal in my mind people. Yes, I believe that sense of ethics is not only wise, but also healthy. Some of them are "Red diaper" children, others are not and there is a newer generation - privileged, illiterate, arrogant, assertive and highly irritating. This what Sarah (22 year old graduate of Columbia U.) writes in a previously sensible magazine:
      "I have little doubt that I would prefer no state of Israel over the one designed by Avigdor Lieberman," "Critics were furious that Lapid would compare his grandmother, who died at Auschwitz with this Palestinian victim." [well, I am furious too - anon]
      "The critical Left always has a harder time proving patriotism than the uncritical Right" [an Orwellian pearl -anon]
      etc. etc. etc.
      For this quality writing Sarah was promoted by the editors of Dissent (!!!!) to the position of associate editor. At this moment, antisemitism seems to be the only requirement to be successful in "international" (read antisemitic) "cultural" world and Sarah seems to be fine, promoting HERSELF and Avenue J, attacking Israel, and manipulating, manipulating, manipulating .
      I think there is a book waiting to be written.

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  7. I see many of the commentators here REFUSE to deal with the CONTENT of Cohen's article! Instead of constant guilt-baiting and name-calling, why not deal with the serious issue of Israeli abuse of its power over Palestinians8?

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  8. Sorry, anonymous, Cohen's op-ed was of course written from London and bereft of CONTENT. Do you recall Cohen's series of op-eds concerning Iran ("Iran is not totalitarian") in 2009? There was not a word from Cohen about the stoning of women, the hanging of homosexuals, the persecution of Baha'is, the oppression of Kurds or the abuse of Sunni Muslims. Did you ever think to protest these sad happenings in Iran?

    I wonder if you also get worked up over the persecution of Kurds by Turkey or its war against journalists. Abuse of women in Turkey is also on the rise, including honor killings.

    Egypt: Do you give a damn about the ongoing murder of Christian Copts?

    Syria: Did you make a point of protesting when Hama was leveled? Do you care about the murder of civilians in Homs? Do you care about the persecution of Kurds in this country?

    The serious abuse of Palestinians by Israel? Why don't you ask Israeli Palestinians if they would be interested in having their villages annexed by the Palestinian Authority. Sorry, but they enjoy their own political parties and the same freedoms enjoyed by Jews in Israel. Go ahead, ask them as I have often done (including when I shared a hospital room in Israel with two Israeli Arabs) in the past: They wouldn't dream of giving up their economic prosperity and liberty.

    The Palestinians in the West Bank? As acknowledged by Abbas, life is good, and they are in no hurry to reach agreement on anything that could change the status quo. Living outside the region, you are probably unaware that most roadblocks have been eliminated and that the West Bank's economy is very strong. A pity you can't view the construction in Ramallah.

    Gaza? Almost every day rockets from Gaza fall on Israeli agricultural communities in the south. Do you care? The Hamas charter calls for the murder of all Jews (not just Israelis). Again, do you care? Instead, let's of course focus on Israeli "abuse" of its power, as Israel is threatened with annihilation from some 200,000 rockets and missiles in the arsenals of Iran, Syria, Hezbollah and Hamas.

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  9. Actually, some of commentators here dealt with Cohen in the past. Many times. Too many times. I was a very active commentator in NYT forums, until I gave up.
    Jeffrey responded to this anonymous so well.
    I usually just remind people that there are some two hundried countries in the world. In many of them people are boiled (checked Uzbekistan, for example), cooked and fried, children are sold in brothels, sweatshops and army, but our "liberals" bubble about ... the Palestinians.
    For those who don't know - double standards, singling out, overemphasis etc. are signs of bigotry, in this case antisemitism.
    I genuinely despise those who care only about ... their precious bank accounts, their precious bodies and ... the Palestinians. These are not only bigots, but also hypocrites.

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  10. Yes, it's amazing and yes, it's an antisemitic rag.
    Several months ago, I woke up in the middle of the night (as I often do) and went to my computer (as I often do). Lede was on the front page so I clicked ...
    Lede proudly declares commitment to NEWS everywhere all the time. The actual blogs were NOT news and not about anyone anywhere, but ... you guess it ... the typical British left attacks on Israel. Four out of 5 last blogs were attacks on Israel and contained NO NEWS.
    This was more than I could tolerate.

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  11. Bibi Netanyahu said it best- Israel's most dangerous enemy in the world is not Iran or Hamas, but the NYTimes.

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  12. BTW, I think we shouldn't see the change of title as positive and am correcting my earlier comment (I was chiming in and I shouldn't have been).
    The antisemites of today usually insist that "anti-Zionism" has nothing to do with antisemitism and I think that Rosenthal just violated the rule of the convenient left dogma and was corrected.
    Remember what they say: "We're against Zionism, not the Jews." It takes very little (a glass of vine, a particularly vicious program on Pacifica - the case of my ex-friend, etc.) to drop the "anti-Zionist" mask. Then you hear "To hell with Jews."
    I don't know how Rosenthal lost his mask, but I think I know why he put it back so fast.

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