A Nation that Cries Wolf
June 21st, 2001 by ktula
‘If Jews can’t criticize Israel for fear of being called “self-hating,” and if non-Jews can’t criticize Israel for fear of being called “anti-Semitic,” then Israel gets off scot-free.’
– Irena Klepfisz, a child survivor of the Holocaust and a poet.
A recent event reminded me of a story about the shephard boy who cries wolf. BBC’s flagship current affair program “Panorama” investigated the role played by Ariel Sharon, the recently elected Prime Minister of Israel, in the infamous massacre of thousands of Palestinian refugees in Sabra and Shatilla (Beirut) about 20 years ago. The broadcast of this program on June 17th generated a lot of criticism about the nature and the timing of the broadcast, including a comment made by the spokesman for the Israeli department for foreign affairs accusing the program and its producers as “anti-Semitic”.
No one likes being labelled as an anti-Semite. Being called an anti-Semite is probably one of the worst things that someone can ever be accused of, especially after the Jewish Holocaust during World War II, in which 6.5 million Jews were killed. True anti-Semites need to be labelled and condemned as such. The massacres of the millions of Jews in the Holocaust were the direct result of anti-Semitism activities went uncontrolled. Unfortunately, “anti-Semitism” is also a term being thrown around all too often nowadays. Whenever you see any reports or articles that are directed against Israel’s policies and activities in the stolen Palestinian land, cries of “anti-Semitism” always follow. The unbiased and balanced reports on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by journalists like Independent’s Robert Fisk have made him a target of criticism by numerous pro-Israel groups and the state of Israel. He has been falsely accused of being an “anti-Semite” and other despicable names. His crimes - guilty of reporting the truth about the conflict without sugar-coating it the way the Israeli government and its supporters wanted him to; guilty of his unbiased views on the sufferings of the Palestinians, made homeless by the ever-expanding Jewish settlements in the occupied territories.
Western journalists generally understand that any critical words about Israel’s policies are quite hazardous to their careers. Being associated with the term “anti-Semitic” is almost an instant end to a journalist’s career, especially here in the US. Is that the reason why the majority of the US media coverage are so biased toward Israel? Equally astounding is the fact that US media are practising the passive bias of omission. Just last week, survivors of the Sabra and Shatilla massacres filed a case against Sharon for war crimes in a Belgium court. According to the “Electronic Intifada”, a search on the terms “sharon, belgium” on Lexis-Nexis (a database of world news reporting) in the same week resulted in showing only one US-based media, the Star Tribune carrying the story. The fear of being slandered as “anti-Semites” must be so great that mainstream journalists are shying away from criticizing Israel. For the brave few who dare to tell the truth about Israel, they are maliciously libelled as “anti-Semites” or “anti-Jews”. Israel and pro-Israel groups have employed this time-proven method as a weapon to silence any critiques of its policies, instead of rebutting those critiques with cold hard facts.
Anti-Semitism exists in the real world, and like other forms of religious and racial bigotry, it should be condemned and resisted. But to use one’s fear of being labelled as an “anti-Semite” as a weapon to silence the truth will render the term meaningless, and will make efforts in combating the real anti-Semitic activities even harder. The continuation of such policy may eventually cause Israel and Jews all over the world to suffer the same fate as the boy who cries wolf.
ktula
Says
Richard Cohen of the Washington Post has a column on people throwing around the term “anti-semitism”, cheapening a fight against hatred.
Apr 30th, 2007 at 14:15