A troublesome series of reports in major “liberal” media outfits like the New York Times and BBC have shown a pattern of “blame the victim” uniquely when it comes to Jews and Israel.
Consider the BBC’s Nicky Campbell’s coverage of the kidnapping of three Israeli teenagers, Eyal Yifrach, Gilad Shaer and Naftali Frankel, in Judea & Samaria arguing that “Palestinians would say perhaps these people were in the West Bank illegally.” He then continued to discuss Arabs in Israeli jails to “give [the kidnapping] some perspective” as if the comments provided any justifications for the kidnapping of teenagers trying to get home from school. (I suppose Nicky would support Iraqis kidnapping his daughters because of the UK involvement in the Iraqi war.)
The New York Times followed on June 16 when it posed several questions regarding “the cavalier practice of hitchhiking” in the West Bank. Was the NYT suggesting that these boys were responsible for their own kidnapping?
The hitchhiking abduction coverage was not unique. The New York Times ran an editorial on 6/19/14 bemoaning that the New York Metropolitan Opera, “bowing to the wishes of Leon Klinghoffer’s daughters and other Jewish critics,” decided to not globally telecast an opera about the murder of a 69-year old American Jew by Palestinian terrorists. The Times thought that “the opera gives voice to all sides” as if the rationale of the murder of an elderly American confined to a wheelchair was worthy of serious consideration. The general manager of the Met, Peter Gelb, said that the composer “John Adams said that in composing ‘The Death of Klinghoffer’ he tried to understand the hijackers and their motivations, and to look for humanity in the terrorists.” Gelb and the Times have called the opera “a masterpiece”. I am considering the right term for the Met and the Times.
Somehow, these outlets believe that Jews bare at least partial responsibility for the crimes committed against them: Jews are not victims; they are vehicles to voice displeasure of the state of the Palestinian Arabs.
To illustrate and contrast the vileness of this targeting of Jews and Israel by these media outlets, consider the coverage of other crimes during this same time period.
The New York Times covered the sexual assaults of women in Egypt during the celebrations for new President Abdul Fattah al Sisi with appropriate disgust. It ran articles, editorials and op-eds that condemned the attacks. The Times did not run articles questioning why the women were out late among so many men. The paper did not suggest that the women were dressed inappropriately. It did not post articles by Egyptian clerics who describe the value of modesty for women and the inappropriateness of their being out among men. Because if the paper had done so, it would have served to validate the disgraceful attack and place blame on the victim.
Similarly when a young man, Elliot Rodger, went on a shooting rampage in California because he felt rejected by girls in his school, the papers did not post opinions that girls should be nicer to young men and consider their feelings. As is clearly obvious, doing so would be an insult to all of the innocent victims of the rampage.
The daughters of Leon Klinghoffer, Lisa and Ilsa, put it best in their letter to the editor of the New York Times on June 21: “Our 69 year-old father was singled out and killed by Palestinian terrorists on his wedding anniversary cruise in 1985 solely because he was Jewish. His memory is trivialized in an opera that rationalizes terrorism and tries to find moral equivalence between murderers and the murdered. Imagine if Mr. Adams had written an opera about the terrorists who carried out the 9/11 attacks, and sought to balance their worldview with that of those who perished in the twin towers. The outcry would be immediate and overwhelming. But ‘Klinghoffer’ is justified as ‘a work of art’ and an opportunity to ‘debate’ the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This is an outrage.”
The media’s blind spot for Jewish victims in its visual field have left Jews in the dark ages of history once again. The “progressives” are developing a new Blood Libel, in which every Jew has a hand soaked in the misfortune of Arabs. They have turned the State of Israel into a new blood matzah, conceived and living in sin. During the Dark Ages, Jews were accused of taking missing Christian children. At present, the progressive press blames Jews for their own missing and felled Jews – sacrifices that must be made to uphold the evil Jewish State.
Can anything right the “left”? If the Royal Ballet were to perform “The Untimely Fall of Lee Rigby” with beautiful arias about the sorrowful tale of Michael Adebolajo and Michael Adebowale, the two people who were sentenced to life in prison for Rigby’s murder, would the press react? Would the British press cheer the “work of art” and celebrate the “humanity in the terrorists” who hacked a soldier to death on the streets of England to avenge the killing of Muslims by British forces? The Klinghoffer daughters believe the “outcry would be immediate and overwhelming,” from the press and public. While I agree, I fear that it would not cause progressives to rethink their attitude towards Jews. The new Blood Libel has caught hold.
Related FirstOneThrough articles:
“Would the British press cheer the “work of art” and celebrate the “humanity in the terrorists” who hacked a soldier to death on the streets of England to avenge the killing of Muslims by British forces?”
From my observation of the BBC the answer would likely be YES.
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Nonsense – The British press would, in my opinion, find it an outrage and properly so. After all, the British soldier was one of their own. It would be a normal reaction. That same moral outrage is never extended to Jews – after all, we are “the killers of Christ” and therefore, always guilty. This false accusation has been so thoroughly absorbed by the gentiles, aided and abetted by the Church Fathers in competition with Judaism and to gain converts to the “faith”, that no amount of historical refutation and clarification will undo it after so many centuries. This negative attitude toward Jews/Israelis is so part of their thinking on every level of their minds that to eradicate it would mean having to come to terms with their own guilt. Throughout recorded history, it was always the Western countries who were the real “occupiers” of the Middle East countries and other places and peoples! It was the cruel Roman Empire that laid waste to the Jewish land of Judea, caused the dispersion and took Jews as slaves to Rome. Just like the Americans abducted the blacks in Africa and forcefully brought them to America as slaves.
To face these historical facts would entail having to admit a lot of guilt. It caused two thousand years of prejudice at best, and horrendous persecution at worst, leading eventually to the unspeakable Holocaust. How else can we explain that about 20 million illegals are estimated to have entered this country, whereas in 1939, a ship called St. Louis carrying about 900 German-Jewish refugees, families, running from Naziland to save their lives, were NOT ALLOWED to enter the USA, or Cuba,(they had an entry visa to Cuba for which they had paid $500. a person!)
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The NY Times & the BBC are viciously biased, to say the very least. And a Times editorial even praised the anti-Semitic “opera,” The Death of Klinghoffer.
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Great piece. The question is what can we do about this media imbalance?
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I spend a lot of time doing online activism. I make sure my FB friends are all aware of the antisemitic events going on around the world. It’s a start.
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Why are several major Jewish organizations not represented. I refer to The Anti Defamation League,B’nai Brith and Hillel. Actually i am not surprised about Hillel. Many Hillels have joined the leftist march against Israel. Bruce Sherman
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