Philadelphia — More than two years into the latest round of Palestinian Arab violence aimed at destroying Israel, some American Jews are sick of it. An undercurrent of frustration with the current state of affairs is palpable in many Jewish intellectual and professional circles.
With hundreds of Jews dead and wounded in the terror campaign, Israel’s economy going down the tubes, calls for divestment from Israeli companies and boycotts of Israeli scholars on campuses, and an alarming rise in worldwide anti-Semitism, many American Jews are fed up.
But rather than expressing frustration at the Arab campaign, they are really angry about the pressure they feel to march in “lockstep” with the organized community in support of Israel.
A recent Jewish Telegraphic Agency dispatch from Washington quoted several anonymous sources in Congress, some of them Jewish, as being angry about being “intimidated” into supporting Israel’s government.
Other wire-service stories from college campuses have focused as much on how some students and faculty are as appalled at being asked to unapologetically support Israel during the current crises as they are about the atmosphere of intimidation against pro-Israel students at many colleges.
Some Jewish students are turned off by “stridently” pro-Israel messages from organizations aimed at helping Jews combat Arab propaganda. They claim a more ambivalent approach would be more to their liking.
Jewish journalists are not immune to this spirit. Many of us seem to view the revival of pro-Israel passion in our communities as an embarrassment. Many believe professional integrity requires us to stand aside from what they see as chauvinism and to adopt a more even-handed approach.
The last point is a sensitive one for Jewish journalists. As long as there have been Jewish community newspapers, a question has hung over them: Is Jewish journalism an oxymoron?
Many among the leadership of American Jewry have wanted newsletters filled with happy talk about communal organizations, not real Jewish journalism. All Jewish newspapers face pressure to suppress what is perceived as “negative” coverage of local institutions.
In particular, newspapers whose publishers happen to be Jewish federations (such as mine) are expected to avoid unfavorable coverage of the organization and its leading members.
But anyone who thinks this sort of thing is unique to Jewish papers is mistaken. Such pressures exist in the rest of journalism with special emphasis given to protecting the holdings of publishing empires (does anyone think Knight-Ridder newspapers cover their owners impartially?) and major advertisers.
On the subject of Israel, there has been much debate over how much dissent from whatever is the policy of the Israeli government of the day should be allowed. Some editors say they are pressured to preserve the illusion of a united front even when significant cracks exist in the facade.
To the extent that this has created a situation in which significant minorities have been silenced, it did Israel no service. Israeli politicians deserve to be scrutinized with the same critical eyes we use on American hacks. The realities of Israel should never be presented without a sprinkling of hard-headed journalistic cynicism.
But it is a perilous leap from there to the idea that Jewish journalists should be neutral about Israel. They have as much of a stake in its survival as any other Jew and should not be shy in saying so. Admitting this is no more a breach of professional ethics than the pro-American and anti-Al-Qaida slant of secular American journalists since Sept. 11, 2001.
And before we start grieving for the poor journalists who are supposedly being conscripted into a totalitarian Jewish propaganda machine, we should stop and see if our assumptions are valid.
An honest look at the secular and Jewish news media in this country should remind us that there is currently no great shortage of criticism of Israel, its current government and its institutions.
The days when American Jews thought and wrote as if all Israelis were as wise as David Ben-Gurion and as handsome as Paul Newman in the film of Leon Uris’ “Exodus” are gone. Decades of negative coverage of Israel in the secular press have helped create a Jewish community that often is more critical of Israel than non-Jews are.
Negative stereotypes about Israel and its policies abound. Few American Jews seem to have a grounding in the history of the conflict with the Arabs.
Peril for Israel
While, in some cases, local Jewish journalists and dissenters have been treated in a high-handed way by community leaders, does anyone really think that, say, a left-wing point of view on Israeli politics will cost someone their career in our overwhelmingly liberal Jewish world and the predominantly left-wing culture of American journalism?
Before we start weeping for the tender consciences of Jewish journalists who are being “pressured” to present Israel’s side of the story, remember another factor. It was one thing to dissect Israel when it seemed the peace process was succeeding. It is another to distance oneself from the plight of a country whose citizens now live under constant threat of terror from an implacable foe who has repeatedly rejected chances for peace.
Today, if there is any void in Middle Eastern coverage, it is stories about the plight of Israeli victims of terror, about the truth of Arab hate-education and Jew-hatred, and about the roots of the conflict that will remind readers that it didn’t begin when Israel won a defensive war in 1967 or Ariel Sharon walked on the Temple Mount in September 2000.
The real challenge for Jewish journalists is to step into that breach and give their audiences a side of the story often omitted or distorted elsewhere. Rather than whining about being asked to present a counter-point to a secular press that often stacks the deck against Israel, Jewish writers and editors need to realize this situation has created a need that it is their job to satisfy.
Much can be said about the shortcomings of the Jewish press and of Israeli society. But there are plenty of opportunities to write about Israel’s flaws and often precious little enthusiasm for defending it in a war forced upon it by a ruthless enemy.
To present the facts about Israel’s peril and the nature of its adversaries is not abandonment of journalistic integrity. Indeed, mustering the courage to present these unpopular truths is, perhaps, a sign of greater integrity than that exhibited by Israel’s perpetually self-martyred Jewish critics.
Jonathan S. Tobin is executive editor of the Jewish Exponent in Philadelphia.
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