Richard Cohen: British Journalists Are Anti-semitic

[MC David]

http://www.pmwatch.org/pmw/mediocrity/disp...sp?essayID=1413

PMWATCH - April 25, 2007 -- An opinion piece titled "Why Boycott Israel?" by Richard Cohen appeared yesterday in the Washington Post.

The piece –- typical of Richard Cohen when it comes to Israel -- uses the usual rhetorical tricks Israel-first apologists excel in playing: (1) blaming the Palestinian people for actions of the few (they are blamed for the kidnapping of the BBC’s Alan Johnston), (2) deflecting blame from Israel for Palestinian misery (“the misery of a Gazan or a West Banker is not solely Israel's doing”), (3) applauding Israel’s freedom of the press (“in almost all of the Arab world there is no such thing as freedom of the press. In Israel there not only is, but the press is as rambunctious as can be found anywhere”), and of course the chestnut-gem and end-all trump card, accusing Israel's critics of anti-Semitism:

The British journalists, like the academics before them, dare to
tread where an army of goons has gone before. If they do not
recognize the ember of anti-Semitism still glowing within them,
they ought to park themselves before a mirror and ask why, of all
the nations, they single out Israel for reprimand and obloquy.

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-
dyn/content/article/2007/04/23/AR2007042301451.html?hpid=opinionsbox1

Why Boycott Israel?
By Richard Cohen
Tuesday, April 24, 2007; A21

In Iran, the government overturned the convictions of six men who,
among other things, killed a young couple because they were walking
together in public. In China, local authorities seized about 60 women
and forcibly aborted their pregnancies. In Russia, the Putin
government expanded its control of the media. In Cuba . . . oh, well,
you already know. But what you may not know is that given such a vast
palette of injustice and depredations, the British National Union of
Journalists made a truly original move: It singled out Israel to
boycott.

The boycott, mind you, is not a journalistic one. Instead, it will
extend to lemons and melons and that sort of thing. The boycott was
issued as "a gesture of support for the Palestinian people," some of
whom, as it happens, abducted a BBC correspondent, Alan Johnston. One
group has claimed that it executed him, although no proof has been
offered. Suffice it to say the situation is dire.

What possessed the journalist union's board -- in a vote of 66 to 54 -
- to take such action? The question is worth posing because it
followed a similar vote last year by British academics (later
rescinded) to avoid, under pain of death or something, their Israeli
colleagues. And, more important, it is yet another bleat, in Europe
and in this country, from people and organizations that, for good
reasons and bad, have simply had it with Israel.

Why won't the pushy Jewish state shape up?

In some sense, it is a fair enough question. The wrongful and
counterproductive occupation of the West Bank is now in its 40th
year. Settlements continue to go up, and the government of Ehud
Olmert, weak and hapless, is unable or unwilling to contain them. The
government proved its incompetence in the Lebanon war of the summer
past, managing to enhance Hezbollah's standing and not managing to
retrieve the two captured soldiers in whose name the war was launched
in the first place. For Israel -- but really for Lebanese civilians
most of all -- the war was a disaster.

But Sudan kills by the score in Darfur and Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe
beats his opponents to a pulp, and in almost all of the Arab world
there is no such thing as freedom of the press. In Israel there not
only is, but the press is as rambunctious as can be found anywhere.

The British journalists say they are moved by the plight of the
Palestinian people, and they are right to be. But the misery of a
Gazan or a West Banker is not solely Israel's doing. The government
of Gaza is the political arm of a terrorist organization, and if the
West Bank is suffering -- and it is -- the cause is not only Israeli
land lust but also a morbid Israeli fear of terrorism. British
journalists would no doubt approve similar measures if London's city
buses had not once but repeatedly been blown to smithereens by
passengers with the exact fare and belts of explosives.

So what explains this fury at Israel -- and only at Israel? What
explains this need to denounce, to boycott? Some of it surely comes
from the uncritical support that Israel gets from the United States,
which to lefties all over the world is a vile state, maybe worthy --
if it were not for jeans, movies and hip-hop -- of a boycott itself.

Some of it no doubt reflects frustration from the efforts of Jewish
organizations to suffocate any criticism of Israel and to hurl the
epithet "anti-Semite" at anyone with an odd bent to his thinking. But
some of it, surely, is anti-Semitism itself, a rage at the impudent,
pushy Jew and this state created in the midst of the Arab world.
Forgotten, conveniently and appallingly, is history itself and the
reason for Israel's creation. This does not excuse injustice to
Palestinians, it merely explains. But it is an explanation so soaked
with the blood of Jews as to seem utterly concocted: It cannot be!
But it was.

The British journalists, like the academics before them, dare to
tread where an army of goons has gone before. If they do not
recognize the ember of anti-Semitism still glowing within them, they
ought to park themselves before a mirror and ask why, of all the
nations, they single out Israel for reprimand and obloquy. This
business of assigning to Jews a special burden, for seeing in them
more of mankind's bad qualities and less of its good, has a dark and
ugly pedigree: the Chosen People, again -- and again in the wrong way.

[harmonius]

I think Mr. Cohen-head like most Zionists is anti-everything that deviates from his/their world view.


MMM

[MC David]

He's also the husband of Paula Zahn (or should I say Paula Pawn :nuts:) who did that hit piece on Christopher Bollyn & others on CNN. & she called Rosie O'Donnell's comments about the science around the building 7 collapse hate speech.