Why is Israel an American obsession?

Posted on August 28, 2024 by Joe Weber

College students could have plenty of other places to worry about

In his cleverly titled book, “The Arc of a Covenant,” Wall Street Journal columnist Walter Russell Mead wrote of a special concern Americans have with Israel. As he put it: “The state of Israel is a speck on the map of the world; it occupies a continent in the American mind.”

Likewise, over a decade ago, in a Foreign Policy piece headlined “America’s Israel Obsession: Why are Americans so preoccupied with my country?,” Tel Aviv-based writer and editor Shmuel Rosner wrote : “The overrepresentation of Israel in the American public square is at times a headache and at times a cause for celebration.”

And, as so distressingly demonstrated by the anti-Israel demonstrations on campuses last spring, this “overrepresentation” is particularly acute at universities. “The State of Israel is an obsession of today’s university, a linchpin around which an extraordinary volume of discourse, pedagogy, and politics revolves,” scholar Rachel Fish wrote presciently in 2022 in a piece for Sapir headlined “Can the Academy be Saved from Anti-Zionism?”

So, as Kamala Harris and Donald Trump prepare for a debate likely to at least touch on the Israel-Gaza war, and as students gather on campuses anew – with some surely planning to mount a new round of disruption – it’s worth speculating on why so many conflicts generate far less of a storm in the U.S. Some have been far bloodier.

New York Times columnist Bret Stephens was helpful on the point in “Can We Be a Little Less Selective in Our Moral Outrage?”

Consider Sudan, Stephens writes. “In Sudan’s case, the humanitarian group Operation Broken Silence estimates that at least 65,000 people have died of violence or starvation since fighting broke out last year, and nearly 11 million people have been turned into refugees.”

And Ethiopia, he adds. “In Ethiopia, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed — possibly history’s least deserving recipient of a Nobel Peace Prize — first turned his guns on ethnic Tigrayans in one of the world’s bloodiest recent wars, with a death toll estimated as high as 600,000. Now the government is waging war against former allies in the Amhara region, even as the Biden administration last year lifted restrictions on aid owing to its abuse of human rights. How many college protests has this elicited?”

Moreover, what of the suffering of various peoples in other places? “There are also Rohingya in Myanmar, Uyghurs in China, Christians in Nigeria and ethnic minorities in Russia, to name a few,” Stephens notes.

In the face of such horrors, why should a war in a distant nation just a bit larger than New Jersey bring students and others out to march, pitch tents, occupy buildings and otherwise protest? Yes, the numbers of people killed in Gaza are high, even if the Hamas-reported total of 40,500 is inflated — with maybe 17,000 of the dead being combatants who were pledged to the destruction of Israel. But aren’t such figures dwarfed by those in other wars raging about the globe?

Where is the outrage for the other 109 or so wars the Geneva Academy says are now sullying the world? Why are there no demonstrations about the tens of thousands killed in the Russia-Ukraine war? Perhaps more than 150,000 have died so far in that grinding war, which is the result of an unjustified invasion. By contrast, of course, Israel’s actions in Gaza came in response to an invasion of its territory last Oct. 7 and the ensuing massacre and hostage-taking by Hamas and allied groups.

Deaths in war are awful. Civilian deaths, in particular, are horrific. And it’s especially repugnant in Gaza that Hamas treats the deaths of fellow Palestinians — innocents — as “necessary sacrifices.” The great moral tragedy for Israelis is that they’ve been drawn into pulling the triggers in Hamas’s murderous efforts against its own people.

Of course, the moral tragedy on U.S. campuses is that protestors aren’t massing to condemn Hamas. Really, is it not the instigator and true perpetrator here?

On or off campuses, Americans have a host of reasons for their intense focus on Israel. Experts cite the special relationship between the countries ever since Harry S. Truman became the first world leader to recognize Israel as a Jewish state in 1948, only 11 minutes after its creation. Many Christians in the U.S., moreover, have long been preoccupied with Israel, both with the Biblical nation and the modern one. And going back, at least, to President Jimmy Carter in the 1970s, American leaders have tried to broker peace between Israel and its neighbors. Also, the U.S. remains the leading foreign supplier of weapons to the country.

But there is something different about the attention Israel gets on campuses, especially regarding the Gaza bloodshed. First, Palestinians and Arabs generally have been building their presence on many campuses for decades, both among students and faculty.

At my graduate alma mater, Columbia, for instance, the Middle East Institute dates back to 1954. It has set itself apart with such centers as one for the Study of Muslim Societies and another for Palestine Studies. At best, a handful of faculty members associated with the MEI specialize in Israel studies, which is not surprising since the MEI has been funded well by Arab countries and interests. Indeed, Arab interests have been funding some schools quite well:

The Institute for Israel and Jewish Studies on Columbia’s campus is far smaller. But, to its credit, the university does also maintain a dual-degree program with Tel Aviv University. Protestors, of course, want to do away with that five-year-old effort as they try to crush Israel’s relationships with U.S. institutions.

While it’s not clear how many Arab Americans are enrolled in U.S. universities, their numbers are substantial enough to merit attention by researchers. In all, there are believed to be about 3.7 million Arab Americans in the U.S., compared with 7.5 million Jews. Moreover, there are substantial numbers of foreign students from the Middle East studying in U.S. schools.

Given such numbers, anti-Zionist and antisemitic groups such as Students for Justice in Palestine have found ready markets for supporters on some campuses. Elite schools such as Columbia, Harvard and Penn – which have notable Arab student populations – have dominated headlines. But activists set up encampments at more than 100 institutions last spring, as tallied by The Chronicle of Higher Education.

Outside Columbia University last spring; Source: Getty Images/NBC News

And let’s not discount antisemitism, which has been rising sharply in the U.S. College students swim in the same sea as all Americans, so some are sure to share the ugly sentiments of those around them.

Still, the campus activism against Israel may be louder and more visible than the real level of concern among students — the hostility may be more wide than deep. A survey last May found that only 8% of some 1,250 students polled took part in demonstrations. Moreover, those surveyed ranked the war as ninth among issues that concern them in a list headed by healthcare reform and educational funding and access.

In all, three surveys by Intelligent.com, Generation Lab/Axios, and Newsweek/College Pulse last spring found that roughly three in five students were on campuses where pro-Palestinian protests occurred. But the vast majority stayed away from the occupations.

Less encouragingly, a significant portion of students not participating were supportive of the protests, as reported by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression. According to the Intelligent.com survey, support among students for the protests ran as high as 65%.

The dawning academic year will test many things. How prepared are administrators to handle protests? Perhaps more important, how prepared are they to see to it that their students are more knowledgeable than many proved to be last year? Ignorance of the issues involved was astonishing among students, with many protestors unable to even identify which bodies of water they referred to in chanting “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.”

In her insightful work for Sapir, Fish offered some compelling optimism:

“Is it possible to change anti-Zionist ways of thinking in at least those institutions of higher education that claim to welcome critical thinking and value a true liberal arts approach?,” Fish wrote. “I believe so. But it will require faculty who have the moral courage to question the received wisdom, and senior administrators who believe that the university ought to be a marketplace of ideas rather than a place where students imbibe the ‘truths’ of an anti-Western, anti-Zionist monoculture. The greatest challenge of all will be to cultivate within students not only the critical thinking skills that will allow them to arrive at their own conclusions, but also the courage to risk the implication of those conclusions — the willingness not to fit in with the conventional wisdom, which is unsubtly backed up by a small but powerful cadre of students and faculty whose beliefs dominate university discourse today.”

Of course, she wrote that in 2022, well before the year of discontent that was the last academic year. Now, efforts to build a solid education, to provide true and complete information, seem more essential than ever.

“We are all Hamas, pig!”

Posted on August 15, 2024 by Joe Weber

Columbia faces a new year and the outlook isn’t good

Alma Mater; Source: Columbia SJP Facebook page

As the Vietnam War raged in 1968 and students occupying buildings at Columbia University set the tone for antiwar demonstrations across the country, some in the movement went a step further. “Bring the war home,” they demanded.

The idea: the Vietcong were in the right and the warmongering capitalist West needed to be brought down. These were not pacifists demanding an end to the bloodshed. These were would-be combatants, fifth columnists, taking a side.

Today, as some students and faculty celebrate the departure of Nemat “Minouche” Shafik as Columbia’s president and, presumably, plan new anti-Israel actions for the fall term, it seems they are determined to bring the Israel-Palestine war home. Consider the responses of a couple university groups suspended by the school in November 2023:

“After months of chanting ‘Minouche Shafik you can’t hide’ she finally got the memo,” the Columbia Students for Justice in Palestine group posted. “To be clear, any future president who does not pay heed to the Columbia student body’s overwhelming demand for divestment will end up exactly as President Shafik did.”

Nemat “Minouche” Shafik; source: Jewish Journal

And, lest anyone doubt the “Students for Justice” group’s intent, its motto is “Long live Hind’s Hall, long live the student intifada, glory to our martyrs. Fighting until divestment, liberation & return.” Hind’s Hall is what occupiers of a campus building renamed Hamilton Hall in honor of a six-year-old Palestinian girl killed in the Gaza War.

The BC/CU Jewish Voice for Peace chimed in: “The students of Columbia will never forget the sheer violence unleashed upon us by Minouche Shafik, and we will not be placated by her removal as the university’s repression of the pro-Palestinian student movement continues.”

But make no mistake, as the naïve or deluded folks in the latter group do: the pro-Hamas forces on campuses will target Jews. As they did last spring, these ‘68 wannabes will vilify Jews who support Israel’s right to exist and defend herself — something embattled students on Columbia’s campus know all too well.

“For us, attending Columbia was a deliberate choice to engage in complex and even uncomfortable discourse with a diverse group of curious and passionate thinkers like ourselves,” three Jewish student leaders at the university wrote in a letter to the Columbia Spectator in July. “Unfortunately, we have found that many of our peers and professors in the ‘Free Palestine’ movement do not believe we have a right to be here. We know this because protesters on campus chanted at us, ‘We don’t want no Zionists here,’ told us ‘You have no culture,’ and threatened us to ‘Go back to Europe.’”

And, to be clear, for these protestors there is no difference between antisemitism and anti-Zionism, no matter how much some claim that. Last spring, they tipped their hands with shouts such as “We are all Hamas, pig!” Hamas exists to displace and murder Jews, as it did on Oct. 7. Chants such as “Yahoodim, yahoodi, f*ck you” gave the groups and their supporters away, too.

Cas Holloway’s home; Source: Times of Israel, via ABC News

Just last week, the antisemites revealed themselves further by painting Nazi and Hamas symbols in red on a building in Brooklyn Heights where Columbia chief operating office Cas Holloway lives. As CBS News reported, the vandals also left a fake wanted poster with Holloway’s picture, accusing him of “crimes against Palestine, students and lack of morals.” Another poster said, “You signed off on police brutality. Now you want to expel us?”

Shafik isn’t the first casualty in pro-Palestinian efforts to bring the war home. At Harvard, Claudine Gay was felled in the wake of demonstrations there, and the University of Pennsylvania lost M. Elizabeth Magill as its chief after protests on its campus.

All three presidents were caught in a vise between politicians such as Rep. Elise Stefanik of New York, who thought them too soft on antisemitism, and faculty and others on their campuses who thought them too tough on protestors.

Stefanik, who had subjected several university heads to tough questioning in hearings about antisemitism on their campuses, crowed about Shafik’s departure and that of the others. “Three down, so many to go,” the GOP politician said.

Last April, Shafik twice asked New York City police to clear demonstrators from Columbia’s campus, drawing the ire of some faculty members. The Faculty of Arts and Sciences passed a vote of no confidence in her on May 16, after the Columbia chapter of the American Association of University Professors expressed concern about shared governance and academic freedom at the university, the Columbia Spectator reported. Less specifically, the University Senate in late April passed resolutions expressing concerns with administrative decision-making and disciplinary processes.

Recent events at Columbia’s Center for Palestine Studies

The roots of Columbia’s problems stretch deep into the university, which has been declining as a magnet for Jewish students. After peaking at about 40% of the student body in 1967, Columbia’s undergraduate Jewish population has shrunk to about 22.3%, according to Inside Higher Ed. The decline parallels the rise of Arabist studies at the university, which in 1954 established the Middle East Institute, a now-sprawling interdisciplinary group that has become a bastion of Arab scholars, including those at the Center for Palestine Studies. Funders to the MEI include the United Arab Emirates and Saudi sources. Students and faculty interested in Israel have no home at MEI, but instead have the far smaller Institute for Israel and Jewish Studies.

The antisemitic rot in some quarters of the university reached as high as four deans who, in puerile fashion, swapped disparaging text messages during a May forum about Jewish issues. The deans, responsible for undergraduate student affairs, sent biting messages as they reacted to speakers expressing concern about antisemitism during the two-hour event.

Text messengers, source: The Washington Free Beacon

As the New York Times reported, one dean suggested that a Jewish speaker was playing up concerns for fund-raising purposes. Another sent vomit emojis in reaction to the mention of a college newspaper opinion piece written by one of the school’s rabbis. Shafik in June suspended three of them — Susan Chang-Kim, Cristen Kromm and Matthew Patashnick — and they recently quit, though a fourth dean, Josef Sorett, apologized and remains dean of Columbia College. Sorett formerly headed the Department of Religion and has the protections of tenure.

Shafik, an Egyptian-born Muslim, British baroness, member of the House of Lords and trained economist who took the Columbia post in July 2023, found it impossible to thread the needle between the university’s competing interest groups. “I have tried to navigate a path that upholds academic principles and treats everyone with fairness and compassion,” she wrote in a resignation letter. “It has been distressing—for the community, for me as president and on a personal level—to find myself, colleagues, and students the subject of threats and abuse.”

In an environment that couldn’t be more polarized, she sought to forge a common approach — with the result that the campus is facing a year of uncertainty and likely tumult. The get-tough interests at Columbia may have been cheered by her recent proposals to empower university law enforcement by adding “peace officers” who could arrest students.

But, with just three weeks to go before the beginning of school, little has come of suggestions she offered in July that action was on the way to forestall problems in the coming year. The university senate is “reviewing the rules” that govern conduct in protests, Shafik said in a July 24 “Update for Our Community.” She added that Columbia officials were “working hard to put in place more mechanisms for community consultation, more clarity about our rules going forward, more training on discrimination issues for everyone (staff, faculty, and students), better capacity to handle incidents and complaints, and stronger internal engagement and communications.”

Other schools, such as Penn, have taken stronger measures such as banning camping on campus. That temporary move is due to be reviewed by faculty in the coming school year.

Dr. Katrina A. Armstrong, source: Columbia

To heal its woes as interim president, Columbia has turned to Dr. Katrina A. Armstrong, a primary care physician who is the chief executive officer of the Columbia University Irving Medical Center and dean of the faculties of health sciences. In a message of acceptance, she hit a few high notes, writing: “The habit of critical thinking and humility that gives birth to tolerance of contrary points of view is the most essential lesson taught in Columbia’s classrooms and the intellectual common ground that unifies the many scholarly pursuits found across our campuses.”

Enforcing that tolerance and fostering critical thinking among students and faculty members duped by the pro-Hamas forces will be a tall order. Indeed, it will likely take years — and probably the removal of more than just a few antisemitic deans — to bring some sense to Columbia. This year, surely, will be a pivotal one.

Ugliness on Campus

Posted on January 23, 2024 by Joe Weber

A deeper look at the Israel-Hamas war protests

As we all know, many colleges erupted in protests and counterprotests following the October 7^th atrocities in Israel. Some universities in areas with substantial populations of Jews and Arabs, particularly Palestinians, slipped into violence from scuffles, thankfully minor in most cases. Members of both groups raised alarms about fearing to walk on the campuses or even attend classes because of the tensions and some people even sued about it.

While most schools seem to have settled down, as the war goes on and the new term wears on, it’s reasonable to expect still more unrest. Pro-Palestinian student groups, including reorganized unofficial ones that replaced those banned at some schools, were disrupting classes at Harvard as recently as last month. At best, we can hope the tactics of such groups remain peaceful.

As I’ve prepared for a Jan. 24 presentation about the campus reactions for the Federation of Jewish Men’s Clubs, I’ve been struck by a few key points about these protests. Let me share a few:

First, it is stunning that the pro-Palestine students refuse to condemn Hamas, both for the vile attacks of October and for the group’s heartless approach to the innocents of Gaza. Even women have turned a blind eye to the savagery targeting Jewish women. Hamas knew, of course, that it was inviting the retaliation it has gotten, seemingly unconcerned and willing to treat its own people as welcome cannon fodder.

Instead of protesting against the terrorists, the demonstrators seem to either ignore their monstrous actions and their perversions of Islam or to celebrate them. It’s one thing to stand up for one’s people — the innocents in Gaza caught in the crossfire — but it’s another to misplace the blame. It’s as if the demonstrators’ moral calculations are upside down. And we see absurdities such as LGBTQ community members defending Hamas, a group that would toss them from the highest buildings if they lived among them.

The moral inversion of these protestors is just as perverse as South Africa’s claim that Israel is guilty of genocide and its backwards arguments before the International Court of Justice. To argue that a nation defending itself against terrorism is intending to wipe out a couple million people even as the terrorists continue to hold that nation’s citizens hostage is obscene — especially when that nation, Israel, has repeatedly warned Gazans to leave Hamas-infested areas. Why is Hamas not on trial instead for its barbarism?

Second, I’m struck by how widespread the ignorance about the complex history of Israel-Palestine relations is, particularly among young people. When they chant “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” many don’t seem to realize that is a call for the eradication of Israel, that it is the ultimate in antisemitism. As a recent column in The Wall Street Journal noted, many of the students chanting this nowadays don’t even know what river or sea are being referred to.

In addition, ignorance about the Holocaust is extraordinary only 80 years after that monstrosity. One-fifth of U.S. citizens between the ages of 18 and 29 believe that the Holocaust is a myth, according to a poll by Economist/YouGov.

And, as the Israeli military has grown into one of the most powerful forces in the region, there’s also a peculiar underdog sympathy taking hold – one that affects Jews worldwide, not just in Israel. A Harvard-Harris poll in December reported that 44 percent of Americans ages 25 to 34, and a whopping 67 percent of those ages 18 to 24, agreed with the statement that “Jews as a class are oppressors.” By contrast, only 9 percent of Americans over 65 felt that way. This is concomitant with a rise in antisemitic incidents, including over 500 on campuses since early October.

Derek Penslar teaching about the Middle East, Source: Penslar via Inside Higher Ed

On the positive side, some schools have seen a surge in interest in courses dealing with the Middle East. Among these are Bard College, the University of Washington, and the University of Maryland. Even at Harvard, Derek Penslar, a professor of Jewish History, has seen substantial demand for a course he teaches, for instance. “The students who walk in my door are not necessarily the same ones as those who are in Harvard Yard screaming,” he told Inside Higher Ed. “More often than not, my students are curious, intelligent, and they usually do have a political view at one point or another. But they’re open-minded or else they wouldn’t bother taking my class.”

Third and finally, the problems on campuses are both short-term and long-term. In the coming few months, the challenges will be to allow for free speech — an essential part of a university experience — but also to assure student safety. Both Arab and Jewish students need to be able to feel physically safe and comfortable enough to have civil conversations inside and outside class. The war is ugly enough without bringing its effects here.

Longer-term, the challenge is for universities to teach more students — especially those most in need of knowledge — about the complexities of the Middle East and about the ugliness of antisemitism. One approach is to improve diversity, equity and inclusion programs to include mandatory sessions about Jewish and Arab history, much as they do now about Blacks and whites. After all, what is higher education about, if not education?

We’ll have a chance to look in depth at these issues in the upcoming FJMC webinar. It’s likely that this will be a sobering look, but an informative one, I hope.

Is Free Speech Really Free?

Posted on October 29, 2023 by Joe Weber

Taking stances can cost one a job

As anti-Israel forces on and off campuses continue to protest, some employers are launching counterprotests of their own – firing or refusing to hire those who go public with pro-Palestine stances. The trend reflects an unsettling truism about free speech: it may be anything but “free,” as speakers have to live with the consequences.

Take, for instance, the cases of two global law firms – New York-based Davis, Polk & Wardwell and Chicago-based Winston & Strawn. Davis Polk revoked job offers to three law students at Columbia and Harvard because they were leaders in student organizations that had backed letters blaming Israel for Hamas’s savage Oct. 7 attacks. Similarly, Winston & Strawn revoked an offer to an NYU student, the former president of the school’s University Bar Association, who had written a message to the group, saying “Israel bears full responsibility for this tremendous loss of life.”

Neil Barr, chair and managing partner of Davis Polk, told The New York Times that the firm did not want to employ anyone who endorsed the Hamas atrocities.

“The views expressed in certain of the statements signed by law school student organizations in recent days are in direct contravention of our firm’s value system,” the firm said in a statement. To ensure that “we continue to maintain a supportive and inclusive work environment, the student leaders responsible for signing on to these statements are no longer welcome in our firm.”

Davis Polk noted that in two of the cases, it was considering reversing course and hiring them because they said they had not endorsed the criticism of Israel. The letters blaming Israel for Hamas’s attack did not include individual names. It’s not clear what the law firm knew or didn’t know about the students, other than that they were leaders in the group or groups that backed the statements.

As for the NYU student who lost an offer at Winston & Strawn, that person has doubled down on the criticism of Israel. Ryna Workman, who appeared on ABC defending Palestine and criticizing Israel, was caught on camera covering up posters of Israelis kidnapped by Hamas with pro-Palestine signs. Appallingly, Workman repeatedly ducked questions about whether she – or “they” as Workman prefers – had any empathy for Israeli victims.

Workman was ousted by NYU law school Dean Troy McKenzie as head of the student bar association. Other members of the group had quickly distanced themselves from Workman, saying they mourned “the tremendous loss of human life,” while sidestepping any specific condemnation of Hamas. Subsequently, all members of the association quit, saying they feared for their safety, and the group disbanded.

As many American business leaders remain horrified by the Hamas atrocities, some say they will refuse to hire students who take stances similar to Workman’s. Some major Wall Street investors, including hedge fund chief William Ackman, have called on companies to blacklist members of groups that have taken pro-Hamas stances. Ackman, a Harvard graduate, also demanded that Harvard release the names of such students.

As reported by Forbes, Ackman tweeted that “a number of CEOs” approached him, asking for the student names to ensure “none of us inadvertently hire any of their members.” One CEO, Jonathan Neman of the healthy fast casual chain Sweetgreen, responded to Ackman’s post on X, saying he “would like to know so I know never to hire these people,” to which healthcare services company EasyHealth CEO David Duel responded: “Same.”

Still other outfits have canned those who refused to condemn Hamas or backed Palestinians. Artforum fired its top editor, David Velasco, after a call for a ceasefire, signed by thousands of artists, appeared on the publication’s website.

“We support Palestinian liberation and call for an end to the killing and harming of all civilians, an immediate ceasefire, the passage of humanitarian aid into Gaza, and the end of the complicity of our governing bodies in grave human rights violations and war crimes,” the letter said.

As reported by ARTNews, a sister publication, Artforum publishers Danielle McConnell and Kate Koza in a statement wrote, “On Thursday, October 19, an open letter regarding the crisis in the Middle East was shared on Artforum’s website and social platforms without our, or the requisite senior members of the editorial team’s, prior knowledge. This was not consistent with Artforum’s editorial process. Had the appropriate members of the editorial team been consulted, the letter would have been presented as a news item with the relevant context.”

Velasco was fired soon after high-profile dealers, artists, and other signed another letter that referred to “an uninformed letter signed by artists who do not represent the artistic community at large,” ARTNews reported. This new letter, titled “A United Call from the Art World: Advocating for Humanity,” referred to the Hamas attack, but not to Gazans caught up in the warfare.

For his part, Velasco, who had worked at the publication since 2005 and served as editor since 2017, was unrepentant in comments in The New York Times. “I have no regrets,” he told the paper. I’m disappointed that a magazine that has always stood for freedom of speech and the voices of artists has bent to outside pressure.”

As the Times reported, the initial letter was widely condemned, drawing responses by figures in the art world. On WhatsApp, campaigns were organized to dissuade advertisers from working with the magazine.

Similar actions are occurring at other media outlets. The board of the British-based biomedical and life sciences journal eLife fired editor-in-chief Michael Eisen, after he praised The Onion for a satirical post headlined “Dying Gazans Criticized For Not Using Last Words To Condemn Hamas.”

As reported by NBC News, Eisen, who is Jewish and has family in Israel, posted that he had been fired “for retweeting a @TheOnion piece that calls out indifference to the lives of Palestinian civilians,” he wrote on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter.

“I expressed my opinion, an opinion about the way that American institutions, especially universities, have been kind of not expressing equal concern for the deaths of Palestinians as they have Israelis, which I think is a moral mistake and a political mistake,” Eisen told NBC. “I don’t think that Israeli scientists should feel like the scientific community does not have their backs. The support has been very strong — I thought it was obvious. People don’t always express themselves well in these situations. I wish I made clear how I empathized with them, too.”

Similarly, PhillyVoice.com canned a sports reporter after he tweeted his “solidarity” with Palestine. The Philadelphia 76ers organization tweeted on X: “We stand with the people of Israel and join them in mourning the hundreds of innocent lives lost to terrorism at the hands of Hamas,” along with the hashtag #StandWithIsrael. As The Guardian reported, journalist Jackson Frank, who covered the team, responded: “This post sucks! Solidarity with Palestine always.”

And then there are the doxxing trucks. Operated by the group Accuracy in Media, these mobile billboards have shown up at campuses including Columbia, Harvard and Penn showcasing the faces of members of anti-Israel campus groups. The trucks are emblazoned with legends such as “Harvard’s Leading Antisemites.”

While AIM leader Adam Guillette argues the trucks merely “amplify” information, they have drawn heat as amounting to harassment. The Harvard Hillel Jewish center “strongly condemns any attempt to threaten and intimidate” students who signed the letter, Harvard’s student newspaper the Harvard Crimson reported. And the University of California Berkeley law school dean Erwin Chemerinsky called the truck “despicable,” the New York Times reported. Columbia University president Minouche Shafik issued a statement before the latest truck appeared on the university’s campus, saying some Columbia students “have been victims” of doxxing, calling it a “form of online harassment” that will “not be tolerated,” according to Forbes.

Some demonstrators at Drexel and Penn universities covered their faces and declined to speak publicly, saying they feared being targeted by university officials or losing financial aid, according to The Philadelphia Inquirer. Some noted the doxxing trucks and pointed to a man filming demonstrators on his phone. A Penn alumna at the rally complained, “The surveillance, harassment, and intimidate of these young people is like no other.”

In the academic world, few would dispute that the free exchange of ideas – even noxious ones – should be free of punishment. Students, especially, should be able to speak their views and debate without fear.

However, employers are also free to shun those whose views they find reprehensible. The world off campus is a lot harsher.

As the New York Times reported, in another social media post, hedge fund manager Ackman said he was “100% in support of free speech.” But, he added, “one should be prepared to stand up and be personally accountable for his or her views.”

When Journalists Write about Terrorists

Posted on October 24, 2023 by Joe Weber

What are the “rules of war” for media?

Alison Leigh Cowan, source: The New York Times

Alison Leigh Cowan, a veteran of BusinessWeek and The New York Times, puts the Times in the crosshairs this week for its coverage of Gaza. In an unsettling piece in Commentary, she cites a pair of “grave journalistic errors.” Noting she had spent 27 years as a reporter and editor at the paper, she observes that the outlet’s “brazen self-assuredness and moral blindness in moments like these is breaking my heart.”

The issues she raises are troubling ones for the Times, in particular, and for journalism in general.

First, Cowan blasts the paper for rehiring a freelance videographer, Soliman Hijjy, an admirer of Adolf Hitler. On Facebook, a few years ago, he had posted such messages as, “How great you are, Hitler.” As reported by National Review, he also posted a photo of himself in the Middle East with the caption: “In a state of harmony as Hitler was during the Holocaust.” That same year, the NR reported, he also said he was “in tune like Hitler during the Holocaust.”

For such sins, the Times had fired Hijjy a year ago. But, desperate for someone who could file material from Gaza, the paper turned to him again after the Hamas atrocities of Oct. 7 and it got what it asked for, sympathetic coverage from the Palestinian side. Hijjy’s work had been saluted in publications such as The Electronic Intifada, a Chicago-based outfit that has been described as a “cyberpropaganda” source for Palestinians. Presumably, the Times editors saw his pro-Palestinian work as balancing its other coverage.

Never mind that Hijjy was lambasted by Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, Gilad Erdan. Erdan derided the Times for spreading antisemitism through such hires: “The @nytimes has just rehired a NAZI. Let that sink in. Soliman Hijjy praises Hitler, and the NYT rehired him,” Erdan posted on X. “We all saw how the NYT immediately parroted Hamas’ lies regarding the al-Ahli hospital (which Hijjy contributed to) and still refuses to retract these fabrications.”

Indeed, the inaccurate Oct. 17 hospital explosion coverage — including the videographer’s efforts — reflects terribly on the Times and other media outlets influenced by it. It also draws Cowan’s fury and disappointment.

As she recounts, the Times issued an alert that day, citing the anything-but-independent Palestinian Health Ministry in Gaza in saying “an Israeli strike hit the Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza City, killing at least 200 Palestinians.” The paper repeatedly used the words “massacre” and “carnage,” Cowan noted.

The loaded language and mislaid blame helped fuel a furor in Arab world and undergirded Palestinian protests on campuses across the U.S. It sank a meeting between President Biden and Arab leaders.

Cowan criticizes the paper for updates larded with such potent terms. They characterized the “attack” as “staggering,” “horrific” and “devastating,” and a possible act of “genocide.” Hardly the neutral language the Times claims to prefer.

Then, too much later, came the corrections. A day after the blast, the paper added a correction to an update, saying: “An earlier version of this article described incorrectly a video filmed by a woman at the hospital after the blast. The hospital itself was not ruined; its parking lot was damaged most heavily in the blast.”

Subsequent reports in the Times and elsewhere carried the news that U.S. (and Israeli) authorities had determined that the “strike” at the hospital was in fact the effect of a misfired Islamic Jihad rocket. Because it relied on Hamas, the early reporting was simply wrong. Of course, the damage wrought by the poor reporting had been done and Hamas had enjoyed a propaganda boon.

After that, it took the newspaper six days to issue its wan mea culpa. It published an editor’s note on Oct. 23, saying it had relied too heavily on Hamas sources, and didn’t make it clear that its information was unverified – i.e., it had run material without knowing it was true or not, a cardinal sin in journalism. In language far more subdued than the terms used in the hospital explosion reports, the note said: “Times editors should have taken more care with the initial presentation, and been more explicit about what information could be verified.” No apology, no statement of regret.

It may be that journalists can’t be expected to avoid taking sides in a war. That’s especially the case when they report on atrocities such as the Oct. 7 horrors committed by Hamas in southern Israel – events that truly deserve to be called massacres. If they have hearts, they can’t avoid being appalled by the ugliness, as Graeme Wood of The Atlantic was when he viewed video of the attacks that originated with Hamas and was then screen for reporters by the Israel Defense Forces.

“The videos show pure, predatory sadism; no effort to spare those who pose no threat; and an eagerness to kill nearly matched by eagerness to disfigure the bodies of the victims,” Wood reported. “In several clips, the Hamas killers fire shots into the heads of people who are already dead. They count corpses, taking their time, and then shoot them again. Some of the clips I had not previously seen simply show the victims in a state of terror as they wait to be murdered, or covered with bits of their friends and loved ones as they are loaded into trucks and brought to Gaza as hostages.”

Were those videos propaganda by the IDF? Clearly, they didn’t originate with the Israelis and weren’t false. Certainly, such imagery reinforced the view that Israelis had been subjected to extraordinary viciousness. And certainly, the IDF released the assemblage of them – albeit only to journalists who were not allowed to record them with cameras – in hopes that the screening would engender support for the Israeli military actions to come.

But that’s not the same as the lies Hamas fomented over the hospital explosion. Tragically and disgustingly, the videos were genuine.

Journalists, especially those covering wars, need to walk fine lines. Thus, many avoid using terms such as “terrorist,” instead opting for the seemingly neutral “militants.” However, what should one reasonably call the Hamas “fighters” who conducted the Oct. 7 massacres? Clearly, those men murdered innocents and clearly they were using terror as their weapon of choice. Also, Hamas is regarded by the U.S. and other countries as a terrorist group.

Not surprisingly, the neutral language has drawn criticism. Rachael Thomas, a member of the Canadian Parliament, slammed the Canadian Broadcasting Company for failing to take sides against the horrors of Oct. 7 and for avoiding terms such as “terrorist.” Her demand for a review of the CBC’s coverage failed after some members argued – sensibly – that Parliament shouldn’t police what members of a free press do.

In fairness, war journalists have to be mindful of the language they use, as well as the stories they tell. Hamas, in particular, has a history of intimidating journalists who stray too far from their views of the conflict. The group’s tactics have in the past drawn condemnation from the Foreign Press Association. For their own safety, journalists have to strive toward neutrality, at least publicly.

Thomas Friedman, source: The New York Times

Even as many journalists develop sympathies, the best can be relied on to deliver true and accurate accounts and fair analysis. Journalist-turned-commentator Thomas Friedman supports Israel’s right to exist, for instance, but he also takes issue regularly with the country’s policies. Indeed, he fears that impending military action in Gaza by the IDF could backfire disastrously. And Bret Stephens lays the blame for the many deaths – recently and to come — squarely on the heads of Hamas, a conclusion that even Palestinian sympathizers would be hard-pressed to deny, if they are intellectually honest.

Both Friedman and Stephens offer their insights as columnists for The New York Times. Before becoming an opinion-writer, Friedman was a distinguished shoe-leather journalist covering the Mideast. For his part, before joining the Times, Stephens was a foreign affairs columnist and deputy editorial page editor at The Wall Street Journal, where he won the Pulitzer Prize for Commentary in 2013. From 2002 to 2004, he was editor-in-chief of The Jerusalem Post.

No Hitler-loving videographer could equal their work, of course.

Cowan acknowledges the good work of many war correspondents, but she also sagely warns about the dangers of swallowing inaccuracies any side might provide. “We all stand in the debt of courageous correspondents who pursue the most dangerous and searing wartime stories out there,” she writes. “But journalism’s warriors must stick to the facts and leave the making of propaganda to someone else.”

The Media and the Mideast

Posted on October 10, 2023 by Joe Weber

Journalists report on the horrors perpetrated by Hamas

Music festival attack aftermath, source: Wall Street Journal

It is so terribly difficult to write about the atrocities in Israel. For anyone who embraces idea of the Jewish homeland and her people, the horrors perpetrated by Hamas are beyond awful.

One hears echoes of the Gestapo in the maniacal, indiscriminate killings of hundreds at a music festival, in the raids on people’s houses all across the south, in the stealing of people from their children, in the stealing of children. In the rocket attacks, one hears the whistle of V-2s in London.

But even for non-Jews or those with no connection to Israel, the sheer monstrousness and inhumanity defies explanation. How could these terrorists be so heartless, so savage? Reared on hatred and propaganda, they acted like animals. And, as Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said of the severe and growing Israeli response, “We are fighting human animals and we are acting accordingly.”

Hamas officials not only bear the stain of killing hundreds in Israel but will now have blood on their hands for the noncombatant Palestinians killed or to be killed in response. As the organization’s leaders cower in bunkers and safe hiding places, they are in effect victimizing their own people.

Journalistically, covering all this has been a huge challenge. The counts of dead and wounded climbed almost by the hour in the first few days and surely will never be precise. It seems inevitable that the figures will rise over coming days, perhaps weeks. And conveying the ugliness without tipping into gory displays – the violence porn that is Hamas’s wont – is a difficult task.

Hamas flooded social media with gruesome images of killings and kidnappings, of dragging bodies of Jewish noncombatants through their streets. No doubt, in coming days it will fill the media with videos of hostages as the terrorists use them as bargaining chips or tools to demoralize Israelis. Their sadism seems to know no bounds; their sense of morality is nonexistent.

Meanwhile, Israelis desperate to learn the fates of such hostages are posting images of them in pleas for their safety. How can one not feel for such innocents?

Israelis kidnapped by Hamas, source: Yuval Cohen, Facebook

While most accounts so far reflect the revulsion most journalists seem to feel about the actions of these terrorists, it is likely that in coming days we will see efforts to be “balanced,” to attempt to be evenhanded. Journalists are trained, of course, to see all sides and to reflect all sides in their coverage, and that’s usually a good thing.

But this “bothsidesism” can be blind to the causes of news events and thus be misleading.

For instance, an editor at The Colorado Sun in an email to subscribers wrote: “… it’s hard not to ache for those in Israel and Palestine as we see footage of the increasing violence in the region. In this somber time as we mourn those who were killed, let’s get caught up on the Colorado news and hope for a quick resolution to the tragedy and horror half a world away.”

Aside from the saccharine sentiments and naivete revealed in hoping for a “quick resolution” to a problem over a century in the making, the “ache” for those in Israel and Palestine neatly masks the truth about who the aggressor here has been. And the reference to “increasing violence in the region” is a feeble way of making note of a mass murder by terrorists. The news outlet needs to tell it like it is, perhaps by reporting well on the reactions of Coloradans whose loved ones were killed or kidnapped by Hamas.

Yes, media must report the reactions of Palestinians, even of terrorist supporters. Yes, sympathy is appropriate in such accounts for noncombatant Gazans, many of whom have been and will now be killed thanks to the acts of the terrorists. But the perpetrators of these awful acts must be identified as the aggressors and their cruelty must be noted at each turn, even if only in the questioning of their sympathizers.

Philadelphia demonstration, source: The Philadelphia Inquirer

The Philadelphia Inquirer rightly gave prominence to the reactions of Jews to the monstrousness, even as it also covered Palestinian sympathizers. But it failed to probe and question the feelings of those sympathizers.

How could a couple hundred such sympathizers demonstrating for Palestine in Rittenhouse Square justify the murders of hundreds of innocents? Simply reporting their chants in favor of a Palestine “from the river to the sea” – a phrase used to deny Israel’s right to exist — and recording assertions by a spokesperson saying the demonstration “was about all oppressed people” was not enough. Why was she not pressed about the immorality of the attacks?

Straight and full reporting of the events will be criticized, although it’s essential. Heather Cox Richardson, a scholar and one of my favorite Substack commentators, did so in an Oct. 7 piece that simply recounted what had happened. She was criticized for that, writing in a more recent piece: “The volume of hate mail about last Saturday’s letter, pretty evenly divided between those accusing me of backing one side and those accusing me of backing the other, is about the highest I’ve ever received, but I was trying simply to present the verified events of Saturday alone, with a focus on how they affected the United States.”

As Israel moves against Gaza, the suffering of Gazans will be appropriately covered. And there will be analyses of the bloody history of both sides, including coverage of times when noncombatant Palestinians have been killed by Israeli soldiers as they sought to root out terrorists. That is reasonable, as one shows all sides.

However, a crucial distinction must be made. The killing of civilians is not Israeli policy. Tragically, they get in the way at times. Tragically, there are mistakes – usually owned up to by Israel.

The difference is that, for Hamas, murdering Israeli civilians is an end in itself. That is what the group is about, as it seeks to drive Jews from the land. There can be no more stark illustration of that than its actions at the music festival and in the terrorizing of people in their homes, something Jews, the media and the world should never forget as this sad story unfolds.

The Big Picture

Category Archives: Israel