Monitor

Mindless Jew-hatred conveniently masquerading as mere criticism of Israel is not a new phenomenon by any means, but it’s been rising to heretofore unimaginable levels in Britain – to the point where a number of left-wing British Jews have begun publicly moving away from their ideological soul mates.

NBC’s “Saturday Night Live” has once again inspired dismay among at least some Jewish viewers who feel the line between simple bad taste and outright anti-Semitism was crossed on the Dec. 17 edition of the long-running show.

Tell Us Again About Liberal Patriotism - The date: Dec. 27. The setting: Neal Cavuto's Fox News program. Liberal commentator Ellen Ratner was chatting with Brenda Buttner, who was sitting in for Cavuto. The gist of the conversation, until Ratner briefly took off her mask of civility, was that President Bush appears almost impossible to beat in 2004.

Two years ago the Monitor, inspired by the political humorist P.J. O'Rourke, published an "Enemies List" of anti-Israel journalists. The column struck such a responsive chord, with readers nominating dozens of their own media enemies, that a couple of follow-ups to the original list soon appeared.

The interview with John Batchelor on the front page of this week's Jewish Press should clarify, for anyone who still doesn't get it, why Batchelor's show is thriving while many of talk radio's erstwhile Big Names suffer declining ratings.

It’s not exactly news that The New York Times editorial page detested Ronald Reagan. But who would have thought that seventeen years after the end of his presidency and nearly two years after his death the Times would still seek to denigrate Reagan’s legacy, on its news pages, in a manner that can only be described as petty and inappropriate?

When five-term Alabama congressman Earl Hilliard, widely considered one of Israel's most implacable foes on Capitol Hill, was defeated in a Democratic primary last June, the news was greeted with unconcealed glee by pro-Israel organizations and activists across the country - many of whom had worked hard to unseat him.

Shimon Peres was in America this week hawking his new biography. Written by veteran Labor-friendly journalist Michael Bar-Zohar, who served as Peres’s campaign chairman during the 1981 Knesset elections, the book (imaginatively titled Shimon Peres: The Biography) strives to present its subject as a sadly misunderstood and underappreciated Israeli hero.

We left off last week in the midst of the 1972 presidential campaign, one of the more interesting in terms of Jewish voting behavior. On one hand you had the incumbent, Republican Richard Nixon, whose relationship with Israel during his first term was quite solid; on the other you had his Democratic challenger, South Dakota Sen. George McGovern, a leading dove on Vietnam with a not especially inspiring record on Israel.

The winner of the Monitor’s fourth annual Henry Schwarzschild Award for most offensive comments by a Jew in the public spotlight is David Landau, editor of Haaretz, Israel’s leading left-wing daily. The prize is awarded to the person who, by his or her statements, displays contempt for the Jewish people, disregard for historical truth, a desire to sup at the table of Israel’s enemies, or who otherwise plays into the hands of the enemies of Jews and Israel.

Back in 1999 the Monitor, inspired by the political humorist P.J. O’Rourke, published an “Enemies List” of anti-Israel journalists. The column struck such a responsive chord, with readers nominating dozens of their own choices, that several follow-ups to the original list eventually appeared over the next couple of years.

Dave Love of Sunburst Kosher Tours had a look of unmistakable disgust on his face as he handed the Monitor a copy of Heeb magazine. "Can you believe this garbage?" he asked, referring both to the publication's content and some of the sponsors listed on its masthead.

The New York Times last week confirmed - yet again - what a decidedly unreliable news source it's become, particularly for readers old-fashioned enough to put a premium on careful and accurate reporting.

It takes a time like this for the full fury of Israel’s leftists to erupt in the face of their own country and government. While it’s true that, at least for now, Israel’s anti-Hamas offensive has garnered widespread domestic support, that’s hardly been the case among the country’s left-wing elite.

Tom Friedman won over some previously skeptical readers in the months following the 9/11 attacks by advocating a tough line against Islamic extremists and, to the dismay of his fellow liberals, supporting the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

Take your pick, because your guess is as good as the Monitor's: The Pooh-Bahs at CBS News are either (a) completely clueless or (b) utterly disinclined to dispel the widespread perception that the network, particularly its news operation, is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Democratic Party.

So Barack Obama, that much-heralded agent of change and ensign of hope, is desperately trying to come up with a believable explanation of what he knew and when he knew it – the what and when in this case referring to the anti-white, anti-U.S., anti-Israel invective spewed for decades by Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Obama’s longtime pastor and spiritual adviser, the cleric who presided at the Obamas’ wedding and baptized their children, the Afrocentric radical who bestowed an award on Louis Farrakhan, the man Obama refers to as “family” and compared to a beloved “old uncle” as recently as three weeks ago, before the media finally, belatedly, made an issue of their relationship.

Like a pig returning to his vomit, Mike Wallace came out of retirement last month to genuflect in the presence of Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadine-jad and then to spread the word that the man who’s denied the Holocaust and called for wiping Israel off the map is not really such a bad guy after all.

Though he had more than his share of detractors during and after his years as managing and then executive editor of The New York Times, can there be any doubt that the paper began its precipitous and still ongoing decline the moment A.M. Rosenthal was forced, by company policy, to retire in 1986 at age 65?

Surely any but the most obtuse regular visitors to this space will understand just how painful it is for the Monitor to extend even the slightest praise to "60 Minutes" hatchet man Mike Wallace.

So it appears the allegations - many of them made by former colleagues - were spot on after all. Jack Kelley, at one time USA Today's star reporter, had this rather unfortunate habit of fabricating events and, apparently, entire stories.

What really makes one wonder about the affinity felt by certain Jews for Grant was the welcome mat he put out for some of the country’s most pernicious anti-Semites.

It was a far-fetched scenario as recently as a year ago, but Al Gore is quietly making something of a political comeback. Moderate Democrats who despair that the early frontrunner for their party’s 2008 presidential nomination, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, is likely unelectable, can’t help remembering that Gore won half a million more votes than George W. Bush in 2000. Meanwhile, the party’s base voters, appreciably more to the left than the country at large and angry at what they perceive to be Clinton’s drift to the center, are looking for someone other than her to carry the anti-Bush, antiwar banner.

In "The Media and the Military," an article in the November issue of The Atlantic - arguably the best serious magazine in America today - Robert Kaplan writes of the great social and cultural divide that exists between the nation's elite journalists and its soldiers.

In the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attacks on America, Uri Avnery, the ancient icon of the Israeli Left, a bitter old fool who serves as living refutation of the belief that wisdom is an inevitable byproduct of old age, placed the blame squarely on the U.S. and its support of Israel.

Harry Danning died last week, and all The New York Times could muster was a dry, unbylined, six-paragraph obituary that somehow managed to overlook Danning's Jewishness - not a small thing when one considers that Danning played for the old New York Giants from 1933 to 1942, was selected four times to the National League All Star team, and until his death at age 93 had been the oldest living Jewish major leaguer.

Anyone who still doubts the mainstream media?s left-wing bias should study the coverage of last Saturday's anti-war rally in Washington. Even as jaded a media watcher as the Monitor finds it difficult to recall an event as outlandishly whitewashed, as outrageously skewed, as this one was by print and electronic journalists clearly sympathetic to the demonstrators.

Michael Kelly was a brilliant writer and editor who coincidentally happened to be an American patriot and a strong supporter of Israel - a combination not commonly found inthe circles in which he traveled.

Did Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon vow to burn Palestinian children and rape Arabic girls? Did former Israeli leader Menachem Begin refer to Palestinians as "two-legged beasts," and did another Israeli leader declare that all Arabs must be killed unless they are willing to live as slaves?

The responses are finally slowing to a trickle, but the columns on Israel's friends in the media certainly elicited plenty of feedback from readers. Here's a sampling, followed by the Monitor's very own Media Friends Top Ten list (as distinguished from the earlier two lists which reflected the votes of readers).