{"id":4323,"date":"2008-05-19T06:36:27","date_gmt":"2008-05-19T13:36:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/?p=4323"},"modified":"2008-05-19T06:36:27","modified_gmt":"2008-05-19T13:36:27","slug":"media-heavies-question-pro-israel-moniker","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/2008\/05\/19\/media-heavies-question-pro-israel-moniker\/","title":{"rendered":"Media Heavies Question ‘Pro-Israel’ Moniker"},"content":{"rendered":"

I understand that the J Street Project<\/a>, which was launched officially only one month ago, is gathering supporters at a pretty good clip, and now its efforts to redefine what can be considered \u00e2\u20ac\u0153pro-Israel<\/a>\u00e2\u20ac\u009d appear to be making some headway, at least in the two of this country\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s most influential daily newspapers. Last week, Jeremy Ben-Ami, the group\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s founder and director, published a strong essay<\/a> in the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Outlook\u00e2\u20ac\u009d section of the Washington Post <\/em>entitled \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Myths on Who\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Really Pro-Israel.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d And Sunday\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Week in Review\u00e2\u20ac\u009d section in the New York Times <\/em>provided two offerings that raised precisely the same question, the first by Tom Friedman, entitled \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Obama and the Jews<\/a>\u00e2\u20ac\u009d, and a much more powerful piece<\/a> by Atlantic <\/em>correspondent and New Yorker <\/em>contributor Jeffrey Goldberg whose partiality toward Israel was made clear, among other things, by his service in its army. Goldberg\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s piece is a passionate indictment of the major national Jewish organizations, particularly the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations and AIPAC, essentially for confusing being pro-Israel with being pro-settlement, or, in his words:<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153So why won\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t American leaders push Israel [toward dismantling the settlements] publicly? Or, more to the point, why do presidential candidates dance so delicately around this question? The answer is obvious: the leadership of the organized American Jewish community has allowed the partisans of settlement to conflate support for the colonization of the West Bank with support for Israel itself. \u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153The people of AIPAC and the Conference of Presidents are well meaning, and their work in strengthening the overall relationship between America and Israel has ensured them a place in the world to come. But what\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s needed now is a radical rethinking of what it means to be pro-Israel.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

While, unfortunately, neither Goldberg, whose recent interview<\/a> of Barack Obama no doubt helped inspire his Times <\/em>op-ed, nor Friedman mentioned J Street in their articles, their arguments are entirely consistent with the new group\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s mission, and are indicative, I believe, of a growing ferment within the Jewish community over whether its Likud-leaning organized leadership is really promoting Israel\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s best interests and the chances of its long-term survival. (I think the growing media attention to key backers, such as Sheldon Adelson, of the Republican Jewish Coalition and Freedom\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Watch, is contributing to this ferment.)<\/p>\n

Now that both the Post <\/em>and the Times <\/em>have seen fit to publish essays that argue persuasively that the phrase \u00e2\u20ac\u0153pro-Israel\u00e2\u20ac\u009d that have reflexively attached to groups like AIPAC and the Conference of Presidents and even the far-right Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA), perhaps they will employ the phrase more judiciously in their news reporting. Or is that too much to hope for?<\/p>\n

<\/a>Visit Lobelog.com<\/a> for the latest news analysis and commentary from Inter Press News Service’s Washington bureau chief Jim Lobe.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I understand that the J Street Project, which was launched officially only one month ago, is gathering supporters at a pretty good clip, and now its efforts to redefine what can be considered \u00e2\u20ac\u0153pro-Israel\u00e2\u20ac\u009d appear to be making some headway, at least in the two of this country\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s most influential daily newspapers. Last week, Jeremy […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":49,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-4323","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"meta_box":{"disable_donate_message":"","custom_donate_message":"","subtitle":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4323","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/49"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4323"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4323\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4323"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4323"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4323"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=4323"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}