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New York Times Deplores Israeli Rhetoric While Denouncing Israeli Settlers as a ‘Cancer’
A taxi passes by in front of The New York Times head office, Feb. 7, 2013. Photo: Reuters / Carlo Allegri / File.
It’s a classic antisemitic double standard. When Israelis use heated rhetoric about Hamas, the New York Times raises alarm bells. But when American “progressives” call Jews “cancer,” the Times either ignores it or itself is among the perpetrators.
A “guest essay” in the Times by Omer Bartov, a professor of “Holocaust and genocide studies” at Brown University, denounced what he called “deeply alarming language,” statements that he said “indicate a genocidal intent.”
Bartov writes, “On Oct. 9, Israel’s defense minister, Yoav Gallant, said, ‘We are fighting human animals and we are acting accordingly,’ a statement indicating dehumanization, which has genocidal echoes. The next day, the head of the Israeli Army’s coordinator of government activities in the territories, Maj. Gen. Ghassan Alian, addressed the population of Gaza in Arabic: ‘Human animals must be treated as such.’”
Leave aside whether calling someone a “human animal,” rather than merely an animal or an inhuman animal, really does indicate “dehumanization.” And leave aside, too, that Alian is an Israeli Druze, which the Times doesn’t mention, perhaps because it complicates the narrative the newspaper is pushing of Jewish racism.
In addition to the “guest essay,” the Times mobilized its London bureau chief, Mark Landler, to catch up to the opinion piece by manufacturing an entire news article about what a headline called “Inflammatory Rhetoric From Israeli Leaders.”
Landler’s first example is that same “human animals” quote from Gallant that is mentioned in Bartov’s op-ed. Landler also faults a former Israeli prime minister, Naftali Bennett, for declaring, “We’re fighting Nazis.” Landler doesn’t mention that Israelis in Gaza discovered an Arabic-language copy of Hitler’s Mein Kampf in a children’s room in a civilian home in Gaza that was used as a Hamas headquarters. Landler also doesn’t mention that Hamas’ covenant aspires to kill all the Jews (“there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him.”)
The Times has also been quite assertive recently about denouncing Donald Trump’s rhetoric. One Times news article was about Donald Trump’s promise to “root out the communists, Marxists, fascists, and the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country.” That article reported, “The former president’s remarks drew criticism from some liberals and historians who pointed to echoes of dehumanizing rhetoric wielded by fascist dictators like Hitler and Benito Mussolini.” The Times followed up with a second news article, on the front page, reporting, “Mr. Trump used language that echoed authoritarian leaders who rose to power in Germany and Italy in the 1930s, degrading his political adversaries as ‘vermin’ who needed to be ‘rooted out.’”
Where does the double standard come in?
A Democratic congressman from Wisconsin, Mark Pocan, denounced a largely Jewish pro-Israel lobbying group, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, as “cancerous to democracy” and as “a cancerous presence on our democracy and politics in general.” The Times hasn’t reported on it. Instead, the Times quoted Pocan about AIPAC without mentioning his use of the cancer slur.
Times columnist Nicholas Kristof, who left the paper for a while in an attempt to run for governor of Oregon as a Democrat, recently called Israeli settlements and “violent settlers” a “cancer on the region.” (“It’s imperative that Israel freeze settlements and rein in violent settlers, for they are a cancer on the region,” was the precise sentence, which mixes the metaphor, because one reins in a horse, not a cancer.)
So long as the Times is on high-alert for “dehumanizing rhetoric” with “genocidal echoes,” why give a pass to language that compares Jews to cancer? Such language has a long and unfortunate history. The US Holocaust Memorial Museum’s collections include an “antisemitic propaganda flyer” acquired by a Jewish child in France between 1942 and 1945. It compares Jews to tuberculosis, syphilis, and cancer. A “fact sheet on the elements of antisemitic discourse,” prepared by Kenneth Marcus of the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, notes that “in Nazi Germany, Jewishness was often compared to a cancer.”
Susan Sontag, in her 1978 book Illness as Metaphor, writes, “Modern totalitarian movements, whether of the right or of the left, have been peculiarly — and revealingly — inclined to use disease imagery … European Jewry was repeatedly analogized to syphilis, and to a cancer that must be excised.” Sontag writes that using cancer as a metaphor “amount to saying, first of all, that the event or situation is unqualifiedly and unredeemably wicked. It enormously ups the ante.”
Sontag writes: “To describe a phenomenon as a cancer is an incitement to violence … It could be argued that the cancer metaphors are in themselves implicitly genocidal.”
Sontag notes that “the standard metaphor of Arab polemics — heard by Israelis on the radio every day for the last twenty years — is that Israel is ‘a cancer in the heart of the Arab world’ or ‘the cancer of the Middle East.’”
And Sontag adds, “The cancer metaphor is particularly crass. It is invariably an encouragement to simplify what is complex and an invitation to self-righteousness, if not to fanaticism.”
It’s sad to see coming from Kristof, who was identified in 2011 by the former mayor of New York, Ed Koch, as “truly an enemy of Israel.” If the Times is going to get into the business of raising alarms about Israeli rhetoric or about language with echoes of authoritarianism, it might want to be a little more careful about its own and about that of its allies on the left. Otherwise, the Times‘ concerns just look like unprincipled partisanship or Israel-bashing.
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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Ilhan Omar Slapped With Ethics Complaint From Conservative Watchdog Over Holding Rally With Ex-Somali PM
US Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) participates in a news conference, outside the US Capitol in Washington, DC, April 10, 2019. Photo: Reuters / Jim Bourg
US Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) has been slapped with an ethics complaint by the American Accountability Foundation (AAF), a conservative watchdog group, for holding an event with former Somali Prime Minister Hassan Ali Khaire.
Last weekend, Khaire took the stage with Omar in support of her reelection campaign. AAF argued Khaire’s presence at Omar’s campaign rally constituted a violation of the US Federal Election Campaign Act and demanded the congresswoman step down from office.
“We are deeply concerned by Ilhan Omar’s illegal campaign rally with the former prime minister of Somalia. Omar already has a long history of statements indicating her disdain for America and allegiance to Somalia, but this goes beyond statements,” the AAF wrote.
“Now her campaign has taken action to involve a foreign leader in an American election. She must resign immediately and return every dollar raised for her at this disgraceful rally,” the watchdog continued.
The organization argued Omar potentially committed two infractions against the Federal Election Campaign Act.
First, AAF alleged that the congresswoman “knowingly accepted former Somalia Prime Minister Hassan Ali Khaire’s services at her campaign events.” They asserted this action exceeded the “limited volunteer services permitted by a foreign national and involves impermissible decision-making.”
Second, the watchdog claimed that Khaire was possibly “compensated by a prohibited source.” The organization suggested that Ka Joog, a Minneapolis-based nonprofit that focuses on “empowering Somali American youth,” organized and funded Khaire’s trip to America. AAF argued that Omar likely “knowingly accepted a corporate contribution associated with Mr. Khaire’s travel and lodging costs” with the goal of boosting voter turnout among Minnesota’s Somali-American community.
During Omar’s campaign rally in Minnesota last weekend, Khaire gave an impassioned speech, urging the audience to vote for the congresswoman.
“Support her with your votes, tell your neighbors and friends, and anyone you know to come out and support Ilhan Omar,” Khaire said. “And knock on every door you can so that she can be re-elected.”
Khaire then added, “Ilhan’s interests aren’t those of Minnesota or the American people but those of Somalia.”
“No one is above the law — even members of the Squad” of far-left lawmakers in the US House, AAF president Thomas Jones wrote in a statement. “Not only were Khaire’s comments about Omar deeply disturbing, but the rally was also a blatant violation of US election laws. Omar must resign immediately and return every dollar raised by Khaire for her campaign.”
Omar’s campaign counsel David Mitrani denied that the congresswoman violated any elections laws.
“This ethics complaint is another attempt by the far-right to smear the congresswoman,” Mitrani told the New York Post.
“Congresswoman Omar’s campaign had absolutely no involvement in requesting, coordinating, or facilitating Mr Khaire’s appearance or his comments, and accordingly there was no violation of law,” he continued.
Khaire’s claim that Omar’s “interests” are with Somalia rather than the American people raised eyebrows, with critics pointing out that she has previously criticized the American Jewish community for supposedly maintaining “allegiance” to the government of Israel.
“I want to talk about the political influence in this country that says it is OK for people to push for allegiance to a foreign country,” Omar said during a 2019 speech in reference to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, a lobbying organization aimed at fostering a closer US-Israel relationship.
“Accusing Jews of harboring dual loyalty has a long, violent, sordid history,” said Steve Hunegs, executive director of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Minnesota and the Dakotas, in response to Omar’s comments.
During her five-year stretch as a US representative, Omar has emerged as one of Israel’s fiercest critics, repeatedly accusing the Jewish state of enacting “apartheid” and “ethnic cleansing” against Palestinians. She has supported the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel, an initiative which seeks to economically punish and isolate the Jewish state as the first step toward its elimination.
The congresswoman came under fire after waiting a whole two days to comment on Hamas’ Oct. 7 slaughter of over 1200 people across southern Israel. Despite slow-walking a condemnation of Hamas’ atrocities, she was one of the first congresspeople to call for Israel to implement a “ceasefire” in the Gaza strip.
Omar enraged both Democratic and Republican lawmakers after she referred to Jewish college students as being either “pro-genocide or anti-genocide” while visiting Columbia University in April.
The post Ilhan Omar Slapped With Ethics Complaint From Conservative Watchdog Over Holding Rally With Ex-Somali PM first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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California Jury Convicts Neo-Nazi Who Brutally Murdered Gay Jewish Teenager
Samuel Woodward, recently convicted of the hate crime murder of 19-year-old Blaze Bernstein, a gay Jewish teenager from California. Photo: Orange County Sheriff’s Office
A jury in Orange County, California on Wednesday convicted a neo-Nazi of the hate-crime murder of a gay Jewish teenager he lured to the woods under the false pretense of a furtive hook-up.
According to court documents, Samuel Woodward — a member of the Neo-Nazi group the Atomwaffen Division — stabbed 19-year-old University of Pennsylvania student Blaze Bernstein over two dozen times in 2018 after pretending in a series of Tinder messages to be interested in a first-time homosexual encounter.
Bernstein was unaware of Woodward’s paranoiac and hateful far-right ideology, however. The now 26-year-old Woodward had withdrawn from college to join the Atomwaffen Division — whose members have been linked to several other murders, including a young man who killed his ex-girlfriend’s parents — idolized Adolf Hitler, and would spend hours on Grindr searching for gay men to humiliate and “ghost,” ceasing all contact with them after posing as a coquettish “bicurious” Catholic.
“I tell sodomites that I’m bi-curious, which makes them want to ‘convert’ me,” Woodward said in his diary quoted by The Los Angeles Times. “Get them hooked by acting coy, maybe then send them a pic or two, beat around the bus and pretend to tell them that I like them and then kabam, I either un-friend them or tell them they have been pranked, ha ha.”
In another entry, Woodward wrote, “They think they are going to get hate crimed [sic] and it scares the s— out of them.”
On the day of the killing, Woodward agreed to drive Bernstein to Borrego Park in Foothill Ranch, where he stabbed him as many as 30 times and buried him in a “shallow grave,” according to various reports. He never denied his guilt, but in court his attorneys resorted to blaming the crime on his being diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome and feeling conflicted about his sexuality, LA Times reported. As the trial progressed, his attorneys also made multiple attempts to decouple Woodward’s Nazism from the murder, arguing that it was not a hate crime and that no mention of his trove of fascist paraphernalia and antisemitic and homophobic views should be uttered in court.
“No verdict can bring back Blaze. He was an amazing human and humanitarian and a person we were greatly looking forward to having in our lives, seeing wondrous things from him as his young life unfolded” the family of the victim, who has been described by all who knew him as amiable and talented, said in a statement shared by ABC News. “From this funny, articulate, kind, intelligent, caring, and brilliant scientist, artist, writer, chef, and son, there will never be anyone quite like him. His gifts will never be realized or shared now.”
With Wednesday’s guilty verdict, Woodward may never be free again. He faces life in prison without parole at his sentencing on Oct. 25.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post California Jury Convicts Neo-Nazi Who Brutally Murdered Gay Jewish Teenager first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Opinion: The folly of pro-Palestinian protesters screaming at Jewish teenage girls playing softball in Surrey, B.C.
Did the protesters even realize who would be on the field when they showed up?
The post Opinion: The folly of pro-Palestinian protesters screaming at Jewish teenage girls playing softball in Surrey, B.C. appeared first on The Canadian Jewish News.