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FINGER POINTING from page 29

Missing in Action

Philadelphia
ecently, while. listening to
the news on National
Public Radio, listeners
heard the announcer read-
ing the headlines
inadvertently sum
up the contradic-
tions and misper-
ceptions inherent
in the conven-
tional wisdom of
the day about the
Middle East.
Listeners were
JONATHAN S. told that a
Palestinian sui- "
TOBIN
cide-bomber had
Special
managed to mur-
Commentary
der two Israeli
soldiers with a
roadside bomb, then added, "Both
sides exchanged complaints about
cease-fire violations."
The brief summary of this terrible
story of how two Israelis were lured to
their deaths by a Palestinian Arab pre-
tending to need roadside assistance
was bad enough. But it was not
enough to shatter the frame of refer-
ence of the news writers or the editors
at NPR. No matter what the
Palestinians do, the best the Israelis
can hope for in the information war is
an "evenhanded" account that will see
the two sides as morally equivalent.
Events in the last year have shown
that this.mindset has proven to be vir-
tually invincible. If the Palestinians'
rejection last summer of former Israeli
Prime Minister Ehud Barak's ridicu-
lous offer of more than 90 percent of
the territories and half of Jerusalem
could not convince the media that the
Palestinians don't want peace, then
would anything? The Palestinian deci-
sion to follow up this move with a
decision to launch a low-level war of
attrition and terrorism against Israel
— the so-called al-Aqsa intifada —
didn't change it either.
The complaints of friends of Israel
about this situation have generally fall-
en on deaf ears in the media. That is
bad news for those of us who care
about the integrity of journalism. But
how much damage is it really doing to
Israel?
Critics of the media have pointed
out, with some justification, that
despite all of the garbage that is pub-

R

Jonathan S. Tobin is executive editor
of the Jewish Exponent in Philadelphia.
His e-mail address is
JSTOBINPA@aol.com

7/6

2001

30

lished or broadcast about Israel in this
country, the Jewish state's hold on
American public opinion has
remained relatively strong. Polls show
that most Americans support Israel.
Despite the affectionate coverage their
cause has generated from foreign jour-
nalists, the Arabs are handicapped by
Palestinian Authority leader Yasser
Arafat's well-earned reputation as a
bloodthirsty murderer and terrorist.
But what worries me most about, this
is not the effect the bad press has on
that ordinary, fair-minded American.
Most of our compatriots out in the
heartland are already skeptical about
the media. And many of them base
their support of Israel on factors that
have little to do with what is said on
All Things Considered or published in
the New York Times, and everything to
do with they've read in the Bible and
believe in their hearts to be just.

Jews Care About The Press

I've come to believe the real danger
that anti-Israel media bias poses is to
American Jewish opinion of Israel.
After all, the folks out in Kansas don't
care that much about what the New
York Times or even the Philadelphia
Inquirer, is saying. But many Jews are
still insecure enough to care about
what the media elites think of them.
And they care desperately about what
is written about Israel since, by exten-
sion, that affects their own image. So
if Israel is falsely portrayed as the
Goliath menacing the little Palestinian
David, then it makes many American
Jews feel like bad guys themselves.
And that, they do not like.
But rather than get mad about these
misperceptions, many of us have inter-
nalized them. The universalist element
of Judaism that calls upon us to care
about the downtrodden and to grieve
even at the deaths of our enemies has
led all too many Jews — Israelis and
Americans — to see the world from
the point of view of the Palestinians'
demands and not Israel's security or
Jewish rights.
How else do we explain the fact that
every time Israel is pushed to the wall
by an egregious act of Palestinian ter-
rorism — such as the lynching of two
Israeli soldiers or the bombing of a Tel
Aviv disco, which took the lives of 21
Israeli kids out for a night of fun —
Jews can be found to demonstrate
against Israel?
The left and the media may want to
change the subject to whether or not
Jewish settlements in Judea and

Samaria are illegal or an obstacle to
.peace. They are neither illegal nor an
obstacle, but this debate is irrelevant
to the reality of the Palestinian war.

A Costly Attitude

Of course, the demonstrators and oth-
ers like them throughout the country
don't represent anything more than a
marginal element. But when you
think about the feeble number of Jews
turning out for solidarity rallies for
Israel — not to mention how few
American Jews are traveling to Israel
these days — you realize that there is
a substantial portion of American
Jewry that is largely indifferent to
what is going on in Israel.
And when you consider that our
politicians look to American Jews —
and not to the more fervently pro-
Israel evangelical Christians — for
guidance about Israel, then you see
that a media-inspired distancing from
Israel by American Jews could be very
.
costly to Israel.
For the last decade, American Jews
have been told via the media and main-
stream Jewish groups that peace is upon
us, and that the Palestinians have
accepted the existence of Israel. The
drumbeat of media assaults on Israel has
bred an impatience about the Jewish
nation's inability to conclude peace in
even those American Jews who are not
the sort to preen about their supposed
moral rectitude — and exhibit it in
front of an Israeli consulate like the
"Jews United for Social Justice."
The point here isn't to say that Jews
shouldn't criticize Israel. Israel's gov-
ernments and its politicians are no
more worthy of adoration than their
American counterparts — and often
worthy of every bit of criticism we can
muster. But the crisis Israel currently
faces has created a situation that
makes the traditional left-right debate
about what Israel should do with the
territories irrelevant. Yet so long as
American Jews are still stuck on these
media-fed myths, mobilizing them is
going to be very difficult.
A strong American Jewish commu-
nity united in support of a belea-
guered Israel could have a massive
impact on the Bush administration
and Congress as they ponder whether
or not to pursue a strategy that will
mean pressure for more Israeli conces-
sions. Unfortunately, unless we can
shake off the current media-fed mias-
ma of Jewish complacency about
Israel, American Jews will not play
that crucial role. ❑

is to lose faith, but to stay is to expose
the children to . . . We didn't know
what. To leave is to reveal ourselves as
cowards, to give the children a role
model of cowardice. Are we risking their
lives for the sake of our pride? But to
leave would teach them to run. They'll
always remember our lack of faith. To
leave is responsible. To leave is irrespon-
sible. To stay is responsible. To stay is
irresponsible.
Casting its vast shadow over all this
was the Holocaust. It was never far
from our thoughts. Maybe that's what
we're doing, too — not getting out
while it's still possible. But then again,
nobody ever called Europe the
Promised Land. God never said, Lech
lecha, get thyself to Poland.
Now, on the checkout line, I
stepped onto this minefield. Where's

Making decisions
for other people's
children, I imagine,
must provide him
with a unique brand
of agony.

Esther? I haven't seen her around.
The woman's face underwent some
faint change. Esther's in Borough Park.
Oh, that's nice.
No, it's not. She's ashamed to show
her face in Jerusalem. She left right
before the war. She'd heard that as far
as gas was concerned, it wasn't ideal
they were on the ground floor, but
they bought bottled water, the canned
goods. Their gas masks were all set.
Then she actually started getting ill,
from the fear of something happening
to the children.

A Respected Decision

Nowadays, a decade later, Reform
Rabbi Eric Yoffie, head of the Union
of American Hebrew Congregations,
has been criticized for canceling his
organization's summer youth groups
to Israel during the present intifada
(Palestinian uprising). As the leader
of a major American organization, it
is said he should have demonstrated