The NYTimes will only go so far in exposing divisions (and over-the-top tribalism) among Jews
Despite the well-known Jewish influence, the MSM in the US will often (surprisingly) take a pro-Palestinian tack regarding perhaps the most well-known of the perennial problems in the Mideast. Some of the media feel the need to present different viewpoints (if only to go through the motions?), employ left-wing journalists who are consistently pro-Israel, find fault with J Street but not demonize it, report on the involvement of (outlying) Jews in the BDS movement sympathetically, let the world know about the thoughts of a left-leaning Jew such as Max Blumenthal, and generally note divisions among the Jews.
To a point.
Let’s look at the New York Times, the Grey Lady, the Paper of Record…since that newspaper is Jewish-controlled, yet certainly has never shied away from printing news and opinion that would be considered “not-exactly-pro-Israel,” and on certain occasions has printed what could only be called “anti-Israel” content.
Jack Lew, the first shomer Shabbat Orthodox Jewish Treasury Secretary — indeed the highest-ranking Orthodox Jew in any administration so far — was recently called a “court Jew” by hecklers at a conference organized by The Jerusalem Post. Lew was attempting to defend the Obama administration’s ‘framework agreement’ with Iran that deals with that country’s nuclear energy and weapons aspirations.
So how does an outfit like the New York Times cover Treasury Secretary Lew being called a Hofjude by other Jews because he does not think in lock-step with them with regards to Israel? (According to at a reporter at Haaretz, the hyper-ethnocentric [or, ‘right-wing’] audience Lew ran into at the conference typifies Jews who feel Lew may be the least “treasonous” of the many court Jews in the Obama regime.)
The NYT deigns not to cover it. One would think that the Times would at least cover it as a local issue given that the meeting was in New York. Your humble author was unable to find any piece of any kind related to the incident, connected with the domain “nytimes.com”, after multiple Google searches. (It was covered by other left-leaning MSM shops such as CNN, The Daily Kos, WaPo, etc.)
Evidently, though the NYT will pontificate on divisions within just about every political party, racial, ethnic, business, academic, or other community one can imagine. But there is evidently a sort of “Jewish omerta” (‘shtil’?) when Likudniks and Jews even further to the right call the Treasury Secretary a “court Jew.” As we see over and over again with White advocates, the name calling (in the case of White advocates it’s labels like ‘racist’) functions not only to stifle debate, but to call out a member of the tribe as disloyal, to attempt to ostracize, shun, and make the target question his authentic ethnic identity.
Hyper-ethnocentric you say? Here’s the Haaretz summary of the atmosphere:
Barack Obama is stabbing Israel in the back, selling it down the river, throwing it under a bus. He is like Franklin Roosevelt abandoning the Jews, like Neville Chamberlain appeasing the Nazis. He sucks up to Muslims, kowtows to Arabs, hates Jews with a vengeance. As for his real birthplace and true religion, well, there’s no smoke without a fire.
Is there anything wrong with Jews debating with the Jewish-American Secretary of the Treasury about the merits of a treaty between the U.S. and Iran? Perhaps not, but it’s difficult to suppose that all those intense emotions have anything to do with the interests of the United States. Certainly such displays might cause some to wonder a bit about the age-old loyalty issue; probably best to avoid that one.
The funny part — well, perhaps not that funny — is that the Times has successfully portrayed itself as being ‘fair and balanced’ in reporting “all the news that’s fit to print.” To a point. But the image of Jews being as tribal in such an uncouth, impolite manner is apparently too much. The episode is made into a non-event by the Paper of Record.
The US public rarely sees any of that ‘dark side’ of Jewish ethnic politics, since the generally pro-Israel, often pro-Jewish right will certainly not cover it, either. The New York Times, epitome of Jewish-owned U.S. elite media, seems afraid to talk about the decidedly ‘un-intellectual’, street-fighting kind of tribal politics… at least when it involves Jews. One can find NYT essays on ugly racial divisions…including essays written by Jews…but stories about cracks in monolithic image of Jews as hyper-rational and anything but ethnocentric, especially by Jews, are as scarce as hen’s teeth.
The public has a right to a clear, honest picture of the culture and behavior of a tribe with disproportionate influence in the government, media, and academia. Ann Coulter laments in her latest book, ¡Adios America!, that the full picture of some cultures south of the border, which are giving us many new fellow residents, is censored by the media. A much more established and powerful group has its flaws whitewashed, and its internal fights hidden, all the time.
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