It seems that the anti-Zionist trend has reached an especially ugly peak. In the past week we have witnessed liberal American Jews who used their positions in the media to join the slamming party against the Jewish state, as if there was not enough disinformation, tokenism and hatred as it is.
The upscale New Yorker magazine held a special interview with Omer Bartov, an ex-Israeli scholar who would probably not be getting much attention unless he chose to march with the genocide crowd, which tries to frame Israel with the worst of crimes. This, while hundreds of thousands get slaughtered in Sudan, perish of starvation in Yemen, and get slaughtered by their own government in one weekend in Iran, and the world calmly moves on. What are the chances the magazine would grant a cover interview to military experts like John Spencer, who knows the laws of war and acknowledges the cynical information warfare against Israel? Or to one of the many scholars who have conducted studies that completely refute these allegations? Maybe they’re not fashionable enough for the New Yorker.
The magazine continued with yet another grave piece about the Israeli public opposing the ceasefire, with an opening that framed all Israelis as blood thirsty villains and allowed zero reference to anything that happened to Israelis before the current war: no October 7, no seven-front war orchestrated by Iran and its proxies, no vows to annihilate Israel or unprovoked missile attacks, no sirens or shelters or collective trauma or destroyed Israeli lives and homes, and of course - nothing about the Iranian regime murdering so many of its own.
Bias in the New Yorker and New York Times
The editor of the New Yorker is an intellectual Jew named David Remnik. He’s not a bad person, I assure you, but one should seriously doubt his capability to swim against the ugly current with integrity. It is so disheartening. At a time when Israel is continuously attacked, both physically and rhetorically, to the point that many don’t realize the basic facts about its situation, you would expect an intellectual Jew to allow another kind of voice into the anti-Israeli frenzy.
This new trending etiquette tends to keep a 10-mile distance from anything that might be labeled as Islamophobia but is extremely comfortable with obsessive criticism of Jewish Israelis and a frightening peak in antisemitism. That’s why we see zero criticism toward 22 autocratic Arab states which have nothing to do with human rights or other western values (excluding the UAE), and even toward Islamist extremism which aspires to rape, torture or dismember all Jews, preferably in Israel. Many have ignored basic facts for so long, that they may have actually forgotten that these facts do exist. With all due respect - you can’t call that intellect, morals or wisdom.
The New Yorker is not alone. Another popular Jew in the media has been flirting with the same narratives. Ezra Klein of the anti-Israel New York Times dedicated a whole episode of his podcast to Israel’s wrongdoings which create a “one-state reality,” while ignoring the reality around Israel. Don’t get me wrong - Israel’s current government is very questionable, both outside of Israel and within. It deserves to be criticized. But Israel as an idea cannot be sacrificed for this obsessive criticism. Joining the anti-Israeli trend instead of reminding the world that terror and Islamism do exist, is nothing but caving into the worst, murderous, genocidal ideas which have objected to Israel’s existence from the very beginning.
One can’t avoid thinking that Klein and Remnik prefer to ignore sentiments within the majority of current Palestinian society, in order to guard their own status by joining a fleeting progressive fantasy about Israel’s responsibility for everything that is negative. Klein’s liberalism includes over-tolerance toward provocative antisemites like Hasan Piker, who sympathizes with Hamas which is the complete opposite of liberalism, but will not risk losing some followers in order to set facts straight within a continuously radicalizing crowd that searches for more excuses to hate Israel. He pretends to analyze but minimizes half the facts because that’s what the followers desire at the moment. In the end it isn’t true intellect, it’s only a matter of supply and demand.
Liberal media has become infested with disproportionately criticizing Israel while ignoring the bad neighborhood Israel resides in. Our government deserves criticism, but the existence of Israel doesn’t and neither do all 10 million traumatized Israelis.
There has never been such a wide gap between reality on the ground and the news that is supposed to portray it accurately. That includes the popular myth about “Jews who control the media.” Many Jews who do manage to climb to powerful positions are afraid to lose their status and therefore use it to go with the flow, even if it means turning against their own. It’s disheartening because they do have knowledge of history, and they do know this has happened numerous times in the past. Focusing on immorality of Jews, and trying to force Jews to convert to beliefs that demanded them to hate their faith.
There’s a huge difference between supporting the current Israeli government (which I personally don’t) and supporting the Jewish state. It’s unsettling to see confused liberal Jews zigzagging between their identity and their peer group that has become too comfortable with antisemitism. Luckily for them, Israel will always mean a safe haven for any Jew who will feel persecuted anywhere, including them. Maybe someone should remind them that all governments are temporary, good and bad. No country’s existence depends on a government, and Israel should not be held to a different standard.