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New York Times Campus ‘Middle-of-the-Road’ on Israel Is Actually Pretty Far Out
The New York Times building in New York City. Photo: Wikimedia Commons
“It Can Be Lonely to Have a Middle-of-the Road Opinion on the Middle East,” is the headline over a recent New York Times news article. “Some college students and faculty members are seeking space for nuanced perspectives on the Israel-Hamas war on deeply divided campuses,” a subheadline explains.
What examples does the Times offer up of “nuanced perspectives” and “middle-of-the road” opinion?
One person named in the Times article is a Columbia student named Aharon Dardik. The Times describes him as “a pacifist who spent his teen years with his family in the West Bank but who ultimately refused to serve in the army in Israel. He believes in working with Israelis and Palestinians toward collective liberation and a world not divided by ethnonationalist allegiances.”
A “world not divided by ethnonationalist allegiances” seems like an extremist utopian fantasy, not “nuanced” or “middle of the road.”
The Times doesn’t mention Dardik’s extreme description of Israel’s actions in Gaza as a “plausible genocide,” his praise of extreme anti-Israel congresswoman Ilhan Omar, or his support for gradually phasing out Columbia’s partnership with Tel Aviv University, all of which were mentioned in a piece about him in RealClearPolitics. The Times doesn’t mention that he was court-martialed by the Israel Defense Forces six times and spent about 4 months in an Israeli military prison, as Moment magazine has reported. It doesn’t report Dardik’s expression of support for the Columbia “encampment” and for the takeover of Hamilton Hall by anti-Israel protesters, which are also in the Moment account.
It all doesn’t sound too nuanced or middle of the road to me.
Another person named in the Times article is a professor at Swarthmore College, Sa’ed Atshan. The Times claims the professor “tries to make sure there is complexity in everything he teaches in his Contemporary Israel and Palestine class.” Atshan told NPR that he is a pacifist, and that “it’s difficult to be a pacifist in the U.S. where guns are so pervasive and a world where violence is so pervasive. In a world where the military industrial complex is transnational and has its tentacles everywhere we go.” The Philadelphia Inquirer has described him as a supporter of the movement to Boycott, Divest, and Sanction Israel, and as a proponent of a “one state solution” that would be an end to Israel as a Jewish state.
Another of the Times’s examples is Dov Waxman, a professor at UCLA who “wrote on social media that he supported the International Criminal Court’s request for an arrest warrant for Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, a position he said he took as a supporter of international law.”
These people don’t seem that “middle of the road” or “nuanced” to me. That the Times would describe them as such says more about the Times and its biases than about the realities of the situation on American college campuses.
It’s not even clear how “lonely” these characters are. The Times claims Dardik started a group at Columbia that has “over 100 members.” Waxman recently was invited to speak at a Harvard conference on antisemitism on campus, convened by Derek Penslar, who describes himself as “Head of Harvard’s Task Force on Combating Antisemitism and Anti-Israeli Bias.” There, according to an account in Harvard magazine, Waxman asserted that “the media often exaggerated campus antisemitism.” Atshan gathered support from a petition signed by 750 people, according to the Inquirer. They’re all getting adulatory press coverage from the New York Times describing them, not that accurately, as “middle of the road.”
Maybe they look like “middle of the road” from the vantage point of the New York Times newsroom. Not so, though, from the perspective of the Israeli or American public. The real loners are the Times editors, who persist in pushing a point of view about Israel that is far out of the mainstream. It may boost Times circulation on a few formerly elite college campuses, but it also explains a lot about the newspaper’s fading credibility.
Ira Stoll was managing editor of The Forward and North American editor of The Jerusalem Post. His media critique, a regular Algemeiner feature, can be found here.
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Israel to Issue 54,000 Call-Up Notices to Ultra-Orthodox Students
Haredi Jewish men look at the scene of an explosion at a bus stop in Jerusalem, Israel, on Nov. 23, 2022. Photo: Reuters/Ammar Awad
Israel’s military said it would issue 54,000 call-up notices to ultra-Orthodox Jewish seminary students following a Supreme Court ruling mandating their conscription and amid growing pressure from reservists stretched by extended deployments.
The Supreme Court ruling last year overturned a decades-old exemption for ultra-Orthodox students, a policy established when the community comprised a far smaller segment of the population than the 13 percent it represents today.
Military service is compulsory for most Israeli Jews from the age of 18, lasting 24-32 months, with additional reserve duty in subsequent years. Members of Israel’s 21 percent Arab population are mostly exempt, though some do serve.
A statement by the military spokesperson confirmed the orders on Sunday just as local media reported legislative efforts by two ultra-Orthodox parties in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition to craft a compromise.
The exemption issue has grown more contentious as Israel’s armed forces in recent years have faced strains from simultaneous engagements with Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, Houthis in Yemen, and Iran.
Ultra-Orthodox leaders in Netanyahu’s brittle coalition have voiced concerns that integrating seminary students into military units alongside secular Israelis, including women, could jeopardize their religious identity.
The military statement promised to ensure conditions that respect the ultra-Orthodox way of life and to develop additional programs to support their integration into the military. It said the notices would go out this month.
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Influential Far-Right Minister Lashes out at Netanyahu Over Gaza War Policy
Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich attends an inauguration event for Israel’s new light rail line for the Tel Aviv metropolitan area, in Petah Tikva, Israel, Aug. 17, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Amir Cohen
Israel’s far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich sharply criticized on Sunday a cabinet decision to allow some aid into Gaza as a “grave mistake” that he said would benefit the terrorist group Hamas.
Smotrich also accused Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of failing to ensure that Israel’s military is following government directives in prosecuting the war against Hamas in Gaza. He said he was considering his “next steps” but stopped short of explicitly threatening to quit the coalition.
Smotrich’s comments come a day before Netanyahu is due to hold talks in Washington with President Donald Trump on a US-backed proposal for a 60-day Gaza ceasefire.
“… the cabinet and the Prime Minister made a grave mistake yesterday in approving the entry of aid through a route that also benefits Hamas,” Smotrich said on X, arguing that the aid would ultimately reach the Islamist group and serve as “logistical support for the enemy during wartime”.
The Israeli government has not announced any changes to its aid policy in Gaza. Israeli media reported that the government had voted to allow additional aid to enter northern Gaza.
The prime minister’s office did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment. The military declined to comment.
Israel accuses Hamas of stealing aid for its own fighters or to sell to finance its operations, an accusation Hamas denies. Gaza is in the grip of a humanitarian catastrophe, with conditions threatening to push nearly a half a million people into famine within months, according to U.N. estimates.
Israel in May partially lifted a nearly three-month blockade on aid. Two Israeli officials said on June 27 the government had temporarily stopped aid from entering north Gaza.
PRESSURE
Public pressure in Israel is mounting on Netanyahu to secure a permanent ceasefire, a move opposed by some hardline members of his right-wing coalition. An Israeli team left for Qatar on Sunday for talks on a possible Gaza hostage and ceasefire deal.
Smotrich, who in January threatened to withdraw his Religious Zionism party from the government if Israel agreed to a complete end to the war before having achieved its objectives, did not mention the ceasefire in his criticism of Netanyahu.
The right-wing coalition holds a slim parliamentary majority, although some opposition lawmakers have offered to support the government from collapsing if a ceasefire is agreed.
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Australia Police Charge Man Over Alleged Arson on Melbourne Synagogue
Australia’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese speaks to the media during a press conference with New Zealand’s Prime Minister Christopher Luxon at the Australian Parliament House in Canberra, Australia, Aug. 16, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Tracey Nearmy
Australian police have charged a man in connection with an alleged arson attack on a Melbourne synagogue with worshippers in the building, the latest in a series of incidents targeting the nation’s Jewish community.
There were no injuries to the 20 people inside the East Melbourne Synagogue, who fled from the fire on Friday night. Firefighters extinguished the blaze in the capital of Victoria state.
Australia has experienced several antisemitic incidents since the start of the Israel-Gaza war in October 2023.
Counter-terrorism detectives late on Saturday arrested the 34-year-old resident of Sydney, capital of neighboring New South Wales, charging him with offenses including criminal damage by fire, police said.
“The man allegedly poured a flammable liquid on the front door of the building and set it on fire before fleeing the scene,” police said in a statement.
The suspect, whom the authorities declined to identify, was remanded in custody after his case was heard at Melbourne Magistrates Court on Sunday and no application was made for bail, the Australian Broadcasting Corp reported.
Authorities are investigating whether the synagogue fire was linked to a disturbance on Friday night at an Israeli restaurant in Melbourne, in which one person was arrested for hindering police.
The restaurant was extensively damaged, according to the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, an umbrella group for Australia’s Jews.
It said the fire at the synagogue, one of Melbourne’s oldest, was set as those inside sat down to Sabbath dinner.
Israeli President Isaac Herzog went on X to “condemn outright the vile arson attack targeting Jews in Melbourne’s historic and oldest synagogue on the Sabbath, and on an Israeli restaurant where people had come to enjoy a meal together”.
“This is not the first such attack in Australia in recent months. But it must be the last,” Herzog said.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu described the incidents as “severe hate crimes” that he viewed “with utmost gravity.” “The State of Israel will continue to stand alongside the Australian Jewish community,” Netanyahu said on X.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese late on Saturday described the alleged arson, which comes seven months after another synagogue in Melbourne was targeted by arsonists, as shocking and said those responsible should face the law’s full force.
“My Government will provide all necessary support toward this effort,” Albanese posted on X.
Homes, schools, synagogues and vehicles in Australia have been targeted by antisemitic vandalism and arson. The incidents included a fake plan by organized crime to attack a Sydney synagogue using a caravan of explosives in order to divert police resources, police said in March.
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