WHO'S RIGHT IN THE MIDEAST?
Anti-Semites in today's American media are not people who hate Jews; they're people Jews hate
BY KEN WARD

Ken Ward is opinion page editor of the Press Journal in Vero Beach, Fla. A Las Vegas resident from 1990-2002, he was a freelance columnist with the R-J and assistant managing editor at the Sun. E-mail him at kenricward@juno.com  Other stories by Ken Ward

Stationed a stone's throw from Palm Beach - one of the biggest Jewish enclaves in the world - it's a professional challenge to openly opine on the Mideast's intractable turmoil. In fact, few newspapers anywhere in the United States even attempt to counter the prevailing pro-Israel mantra. When a contrarian scribe manages to get ink, the reaction is as swift and brutal as another assault on Lebanon civilians.

Not surprisingly, important facts about the Middle East conflict are underreported by the press' heavy hitters. Or not reported at all.

As one Florida columnist, Charley Reese, pointed out about Lebanon, "The imbalance [in death and destruction] is so lopsided [in Israel's favor], one almost flinches at the use of the words 'on both sides.'" But in the age-old David-and-Goliath story line, Israel is always the underdog, always on the Lord's side.

Paul Craig Roberts, a Pensacola-based writer, has been intrepid in connecting the dots between Tel Aviv and Washington. The former Treasury official in the Reagan administration lays out how neoconservatives (a cabal of Jews, fundamentalist Christians and "reformed liberals," to use The New York Times' term) manipulate U.S. foreign policy against our own interests.

For these inconvenient truths, Reese and Roberts have earned the undying enmity of Jewish apologists, and, thus, they're persona non-grata in the respectable press. Their work appears in only a few smaller newspapers scattered around the country. Needless to say, neither has found a home in the Palm Beach Post.

By contrast, the roster of Israel's boosters reads like a who's who of columnists. To name a few: Charles Krauthammer, Jonah Goldberg, Paul Krugman, Thomas Friedman, Nicholas Kristof, Norman Podhoretz, Michael Kinsley, David Brooks, Mort Zuckerman, Marty Peretz, Bill Kristol, Lawrence Kaplan, Micky Kaus, David Horowitz, Paul Greenberg, Howard Fineman, Jeff Jacoby, Nat Hentoff, Norman Ornstein and Richard Cohen. (Note: All are Jewish, and considering that Jews constitute a mere 2 percent of the U.S. population, according to the American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise, that's pretty solid representation in the elite fraternity of high-brow punditry.)

For reinforcement, good gentiles like George Will, David Broder, Maureen Dowd, E.J. Dionne, etc., also are counted on to front for Jerusalem.

Of course, anyone who wanders off this Judeo-Christian reservation is subject to being labeled an "anti-Semite" or even a "Holocaust denier."

Joe Sobran, whose column appears in this magazine, has observed that an anti-Semite in today's America is not a person who hates Jews, but a person Jews hate. Sobran is another truth teller relegated to the wilderness of light syndication.

Space does not permit a listing of Jewish interests that own, manage and shape America's media (reams of data are available on the Internet), but suffice to say the "news" we get from the Mideast isn't exactly "fair and balanced." When the reportage on Fox and CNN is indistinguishable, it's clear that "liberals" and "conservatives" have morphed and merged. In carrying Israel's water, Bill O'Reilly is no different than Anderson Cooper. 

Now don't get me wrong; Israel has every right to protect its borders - like every other nation. The problem is that the Jewish state continues to occupy Palestinian territory, Lebanese territory and Syrian territory. There are geopolitical consequences for that.

As Reese notes, "Every war and conflict involving Israel since 1967 has been over the issue of Israeli occupation and the Israeli refusal to allow Palestinian refugees to return or even to file claims for lost property. It's strange that Jewish refugees from Europe in the 1930s and 1940s can file claims for lost property, but Palestinian refugees cannot."

The fact that many Palestinians are Christian is not highlighted in the mainstream media. Nor does anyone other than Reese dare to point out that "No nation on Earth has ignored more U.N. resolutions than Israel."

The ritualistic bashing of the United Nations and Europe resonates among American jingoists because uncooperative foreign leaders are portrayed as wimps in the "war on terror." But it doesn't take an anti-Semite to see how Israel is dragging America deeper into the Mideast morass. The tail is wagging the dog - and it's ironic, though hardly coincidental, that journalistic honors go to those who fail to fully tell that story. LW