jks
>From: "Nathan Newman" <nathan at newman.org>
>Reply-To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com
>To: <lbo-talk at lists.panix.com>
>Subject: Re: An Israeli Pundit Scorecard
>Date: Tue, 2 Apr 2002 12:57:36 -0500
>
>Not that the basic argument isn't true for the high-circulation newspapers,
>but the scorecard stacks the deck by including pundits from National
>Review,
>Frontpage, The New Republic, and other smaller circulation weeklies, while
>ignoring pundits from progressive magazines other than The Nation (and
>those
>got including only because the authors appear in other publications like
>Vanity Fair or the New York Press.) Commondreams.org has articles from a
>number of columnists who get decent syndication who criticize Israel.
>Throw
>in cartoonists like Tom Tomorrow and Ted Rail who get decent circulation
>and
>the punditocracy does shift a bit out of the down-the-line Israel support
>column.
>
>There is sometimes a tendency on the left to marginalize progressives in
>the
>media in order to overmake the point about the marginalization of
>progressive
>voices. The reality is bad enough without overdoing it.
>
>-- Nathan Newman
>
>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Doug Henwood" <dhenwood at panix.com>
>To: "lbo-talk" <lbo-talk at lists.panix.com>
>Sent: Tuesday, April 02, 2002 12:03 PM
>Subject: Fwd: An Israeli Pundit Scorecard
>
>
>An Israeli Pundit Scorecard
>
>Memo To: Washington Press Secretaries
>From: Jude Wanniski
>Re: Eric Alterman subdivides
>
>Eric Alterman, a pundit for the Nation, has as many friends in the
>national press corps as I do (very few). I suppose this is why he had
>little to lose in drawing up a scorecard of the Washington pundit
>class on how they divide on matters relating to Israel. There is a
>long list of knee-jerk supporters, who would not blanch if Ariel
>Sharon used daisy cutters on Yasir Arafat`s compound in Ramallah, and
>other lists of various biases. Alterman counts himself among the few
>"critical" supporters of Israel and lists only five gentlemen of the
>press who are "reflexively" anti-Israel. His stated reason for
>writing the list for MSNBC.com is to ask for help among his fellow
>pundits in asking Israel to STOP its escalation -- which was more or
>less my advice to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon yesterday. There are a
>few names on the list where I disagree with Eric, but I do agree with
>him that it is time for his best friends in the American press corps
>to tell Sharon that he has bad breath.
>
>* * * * *
>
>STEPPING BACK FROM the horrific headlines of the day, it is clear
>that the conflict over Israel/Palestine is all about competing
>narratives. Both sides inflict inhuman cruelties on one another. Both
>sides blame the other for forcing them to do so. The Israelis kill
>far more Palestinians than vice-versa, with far more deadly and
>effective weapons; but the Palestinians, unlike the Israelis,
>deliberately target innocents for murder. The Israelis say the
>conflict will end when the Palestinians renounce their commitment to
>terrorism and accept Israelís ìright to existence.î The Palestinians
>claim it will end when Israel ends its illegal occupation of
>Palestinian lands and compensates the millions of refugees it
>created, either by returning them to their homes or giving them the
>funds necessary to build new ones.
>
>TALE OF TWO STORIES
>In most of the world, it is the Palestinian narrative of a
>dispossessed people that dominates. In the United States, however,
>the narrative that dominates is Israelís: a democracy under constant
>siege. Europeans and other Palestinian partisans point to the fact
>that the Israel lobby in America is one of the strongest anywhere,
>and Jewish individuals and organizations give millions of dollars to
>political candidates in order to reward pro-Israel policies and
>punish those who support the Palestinians. Another reason, however,
>is the near-complete domination by pro-Israel partisans of the
>punditocracy discourse.
>
>Some Jewish groups in America like to harass news organizations like
>The Washington Post or National Public Radio for what they believe to
>be coverage insufficiently sympathetic to Israelís plight. But even
>Ariel Sharon and Benjamin Netanyahu would not be able to complain
>about the level of support their actions typically receive from the
>members of the punditocracy.
>
>
>
>For reasons of religion, politics, history and genuine conviction,
>the punditocracy debate of the Middle East in America is dominated by
>people who cannot imagine criticizing Israel. The value of this
>legion to the Jewish state is, for better or worse, literally
>incalculable, particularly when push -- as it inevitably does in the
>Middle East -- comes to shove. Hereís a list I made in trying to
>measure the immeasurable.
>
>COLUMNISTS AND COMMENTATORS WHO CAN BE COUNTED UPON TO SUPPORT ISRAEL
>REFLEXIVELY AND WITHOUT QUALIFICATION:
>
>George Will, The Washington Post, Newsweek and ABC News
>William Safire, The New York Times
>A.M. Rosenthal, The New York Daily News, formerly Executive Editor of
>and later columnist for, The New York Times.
>Charles Krauthammer, The Washington Post, PBS, Time, and The Weekly
>Standard, formerly of the New Republic.
>Michael Kelly, The Washington Post, The Atlantic Monthly, National
>Journal, and MSNBC.com, formerly of The New Republic and The New
>Yorker.
>Lally Weymouth, The Washington Post and Newsweek
>Martin Peretz, The New Republic
>Daniel Pipes, The New York Post
>Andrea Peyser, The New York Post
>Dick Morris, The New York Post
>Lawrence Kaplan, The New Republic
>William Bennett, CNN
>William Kristol, The Washington Post, the Weekly Standard, Fox News,
>formerly of ABC News
>Robert Kagan, The Washington Post and The Weekly Standard
>Mortimer Zuckerman, US News and World Report (Zuckerman is also
>Chairman of Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish
>Organizations ).
>David Gelertner, The Weekly Standard
>John Podhoretz, The New York Post and The Weekly Standard
>Mona Charen, The Washington Times
>Morton Kondracke, Roll Call, Fox News, formerly of The McLaughlin
>Group, The New Republic and PBS
>Fred Barnes, The Weekly Standard, Fox News, formerly of The New
>Republic, The McLaughlin Group, and The Baltimore Sun
>Sid Zion, The New York Post, formerly of The New York Daily News
>Yossi Klein Halevi The New Republic
>Norman Podhoretz, Commentary,
>Jonah Goldberg, National Review and CNN
>Laura Ingraham, CNN, formerly of MSNBC and CBS News
>Jeff Jacoby, The Boston Globe
>Rich Lowry, National Review
>Andrew Sullivan, The New Republic
>Seth Lipsky, The Wall Street Journal and The New York Sun, formerly
>of the Jewish Forward
>Irving Kristol, The Public Interest and The Wall Street Journal Editorial
>Page
>Chris Matthews, MSNBC
>Allan Keyes, MSNBC, WorldNetDaily.com
>Brit Hume, Fox News
>John Leo, US News and World Report
>Robert Bartley, The Wall Street Journal Editorial Page
>John Fund, The Wall Street Journal OpinionJournal, formerly of The
>WSJournal Editorial Page
>Peggy Noonan, The Wall Street Journal Editorial Page
>Ben Wattenberg, The Washington Times, PBS
>Tony Snow, Washington Times and Fox News
>Lawrence Kudlow, National Review and CNBC
>Alan Dershowitz, Boston Herald, Washington Times
>David Horowitz, Frontpage.com
>Jacob Heilbrun, The Los Angeles Times
>Thomas Sowell, Washington Times
>Frank Gaffney Jr, Washington Times
>Emmett Tyrell, American Spectator and New York Sun
>Cal Thomas, Washington Times
>Oliver North, Washington Times and Fox News, formerly of MSNBC
>Michael Ledeen, Jewish World Review
>William F. Buckley, National Review
>Bill OíReilly, Fox News
>Paul Greenberg, Arkansas Democrat-Gazette,
>L. Brent Bozell, Washington Times
>Todd Lindberg, Washington Times
>Michael Barone, US News and World Report and The McLaughlin Group
>Ann Coulter, Human Events,
>Linda Chavez, Creators Syndicate
>Cathy Young, Reason Magazine
>Uri Dan, New York Post
>Dr. Laura Schlessinger, morality maven
>Rush Limbaugh, radio host
>
>
>PUBLICATIONS THAT, FOR REASONS OF OWNER OR EDITORSHIP CAN BE COUNTED
>UPON TO SUPPORT ISRAEL REFLEXIVELY AND WITHOUT QUALIFICATION:
>
>The New Republic (Martin Peretz, Michael Steinhardt, Roger Hertog, Owners)
>Commentary (American Jewish Committee, Owner)
>US News and World Report (Mortimer Zuckerman, Owner)
>The New York Daily News (Mortimer Zuckerman, Owner)
>The New York Post (Rupert Murdoch, Owner)
>The Weekly Standard (Rupert Murdoch, Owner)
>The Wall Street Journal Editorial Page (Peter Kann, Editor)
>The Atlantic Monthly (Michael Kelly, Editor)
>
>COLUMNISTS LIKELY TO CRITICIZE BOTH ISRAEL AND THE PALESTINIANS, BUT
>VIEW THEMSELVES TO BE CRITICALLY SUPPORTERS OF ISRAEL, AND
>ULTIMATELY, WOULD SUPPORT ISRAELI SECURITY OVER PALESTINIAN RIGHTS:
>
>Thomas Friedman, The New York Times,
>Richard Cohen, The Washington Post and New York Daily News
>Avishai Margolit, The New York Review of Books
>David Remnick, The New Yorker
>Eric Alterman, The Nation and MSNBC.com
>The New York Times Editorial Board
>The Washington Post Editorial Board
>
>COLUMNISTS LIKELY TO BE REFLEXIVELY ANTI-ISRAEL AND/OR
>PRO-PALESTINIAN REGARDLESS OF CIRCUMSTANCE:
>Robert Novak, The Washington Post
>Pat Buchanan, WorldNetDaily.com, formerly of The Washington Times and CNN.
>Alexander Cockburn, The Nation and New York Press
>Christopher Hitchens, The Nation and Vanity Fair
>Edward Said, The Nation
>
>HOW FRIENDS CAN BEST HELP
>As can be seen from this list of lists, the entire anti-Israel
>contingent of the punditocracy does not add up to a single George
>Will or William Safire, much less a Wall Street Journal or US News.
>It remains to be seen whether unqualified support for all of Israelís
>actions is really in that tortured nationís best interest in the long
>run. Sometimes the bravest and most valuable advice a trusted friend
>can give is: ìSTOP.î Someone is going to have to stop first if this
>unending catastrophe is ever to end.
>
>Eric Alterman is a columnist for The Nation and a regular contributor
>to MSNBC.com.
>
>* * * * *
>
>P.S. A few quibbles. Peter Kann is not the editor of the WSJ but the
>publisher of Dow Jones, and he reflexively keeps his hands off the
>editorial page. Paul Gigot is the editor of the editpage and has
>inherited his knee-jerk from Bob Bartley. Tony Snow of FoxNews is
>thoughtful and balanced, especially compared to Brit Hume, a true
>"daisy cutter." Pat Buchanan is a critic, to be sure, but still
>considers himself a "lifelong Zionist." Missing from the knee-jerk
>list is Jeffrey Goldberg of the New Yorker, who has dual citizenship
>with Israel and has served in the Israeli army. His recent tract
>against Iraq was pure propaganda. Editor David Remnick does belong on
>the "good list" of critical supporters of Israel, but he let the
>Goldberg piece slip past him. For the most part though, it is a very
>accurate list of people who, as Alterman says, could never even
>imagine themselves criticizing Israel. In that sense, Bob Novak is
>the best friend the people of Israel have in our press corps.
>
>* * * * *
>
>
>All contents (c) 2000-2001 Polyconomics, Inc.
>
>IP Address of sender: Sent at: 4/2/2002 11:05:37 AM
>
>
>
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