US opinionators fazed by rise of Israeli right?

Normally, the opinionators of the NYT and other mainstream US media are quick to express their views of every small development in the Israeli-Arab arena. However, the resounding success won by the rightist parties in Tuesday’s general election in Israel left these nabobs uncharacteristically speechless.
What, no pronunciamento from the NYT editorial board today on this latest big development in the land they so love and admire? No word from liberal op-ed icons Nick Christof or Roger Cohen in their contributions today?
Over at the WaPo, similarly, no opinions are expressed. On Israel. Though the editors do take the opportunity to gin up a bit more hostility to Hugo Chavez, over the campaign he has launched to challenge his country’s Jewish citizens to “declare themselves” in opposition to Israel’s actions in Gaza.
So when can we hope that the WaPo will publicly take Israel’s new kingmaker, Avigdor Lieberman, to task for his many racist and bullying utterances against Palestinians and Arabs? When might we see the NYT’s editors calling out Leiberman as the thug he is, and calling forthrightly for using all elements of US power to secure an international-law-based “land for peace” settlement of the Israel-Palestine conflict?
I guess we’d have to wait a long time, in the case of these two venerable pillars of US opinion-making. They like to project an image of themselves as generally “liberal”. But whenever that conflicts with the bedrock support that their owners and lead editors all subscribe to, of any government at all in Israel, then it’s the (veneer of) liberalism that gives way.
I imagine that right now, the leading opinionators at both papers are desperately trying to figure out a way to express themselves on the latest developments in Israel that can somehow reconcile their now starkly competing desires to (a) appear “liberal” and (b) support Israel.
Note that in “opinionators” I am not referring here to known rightwing pro-Israeli op-ed writers like Charles Krauthammer, Bill Cristol, etc. They of course will find ways to explain how “reasonable” both Netanyahu and Lieberman are; and how it is that supporting those ghastly right and ultra-right pols will actually “serve America’s interests in the war on terror”, etc etc. What they write will be mildly interesting… But what I’m most interested in is how the influential people who actually run these and other powerful MSM outlets, and who like to project themselves as “liberal” but hate to criticize Israel publicly, will express them on the latest Israeli election results.
One meme I’m predicting: That the rise of Lieberman and and Netanyahu can somehow (like the suffering of Gaza’s people) all be blamed on Hamas…
For my part, I think that much more of the rise of bellophilia in Israel in general, and of the right and ultra-right parties in particular, can be attributed to many decades of US policies that have given ways too much indulgence to the bellophilic and settlerist sensibilities in the Israeli body politic, abandoning key international and domestic law principles along the way.
That’s what we now need to focus on turning round. And it starts with telling some long-muted truths about the disturbing development of a new fascism in Israel.

16 thoughts on “US opinionators fazed by rise of Israeli right?”

  1. One man enabled all this. George Bush.
    I used to think that Greenspan was the evilest man alive, that by enabling the Iraq war, presumably to further the interests of the Israeli right, he outdid the “Decider”.
    But I was wrong. Bush, that craven bully cheerleader, is the man. Look no further than Bush.

  2. “One meme I’m predicting: That the rise of Lieberman and and Netanyahu can somehow (like the suffering of Gaza’s people) all be blamed on Hamas…”
    Oh you bet. Lots of stuff about how the Palestinians, having rejected all the generous offers made to them, can hardly complain if despairing Israelis should now turn to a controversial strongman who promises them security etc etc. I bet our army of bloggers are working on it right now.

  3. “One meme I’m predicting: That the rise of Lieberman and and Netanyahu can somehow (like the suffering of Gaza’s people) all be blamed on Hamas…”
    Oh you bet. Lots of stuff about how the Palestinians, having rejected all the generous offers made to them, can hardly complain if despairing Israelis should now turn to a controversial strongman who promises them security etc etc. I bet our army of bloggers are working on it right now.

  4. oh, but of course, Helena, we surely can’t forget we’ll have Hamas being blamed on that all-purprose “eschatological” threat — e.g. Iran. No doubt our “pillars” were perplexed at all the recent “respect” talk coming out of Iran. (they wanted more “marg bar…” to change the subject)

  5. One meme I’m predicting: That the rise of Lieberman and and Netanyahu can somehow (like the suffering of Gaza’s people) all be blamed on Hamas…
    It’s all Hamas’ fault. If the democratically elected government of the Palestinian people, if the Palestinians themselves would just stop resisting… resistance is futile!… then there would be a real desolation in the Palestine that we could call peace. Or greater Israel.
    Hamas deserves all of our support. Aid to the Palestinians of Gaza is being held up as we write by UNWRA, Care and Oxfam because they’ve been told that would conflict with the bedrock support that their owners all subscribe to.
    We must make it plain that Abbas and al Fatah are the “Contras” redux in Palestine founded and run, to our great shame as a nation, by the same criminals who ran the “Contras” in Nicaragua and El Salvador nearly thirty years ago.
    We must stand up for the democratically elected government of Palestine and the Palestinians. To do otherwise is the mirror image of the Neoliberal-Neocon opinionators at the NYTimes and Washington Post.
    That’s what we now need to focus on turning round. And it starts with telling some long-muted truths about the US/UK/EU disturbing the development of democracy in Palestine and about the legitimacy of the democratically elected government of Palestine : Hamas.

  6. One meme I’m predicting: That the rise of Lieberman and and Netanyahu can somehow (like the suffering of Gaza’s people) all be blamed on Hamas…

    There’s probably an element of truth to that. By flinging rockets around indiscriminately, Hamas has made Israelis desperate. Those groups that didn’t respect Hamas’ ceasefires (e.g. Islamic Jihad) are probably more to blame.
    The converse is equally true though: by failing to emancipate the Palestinians, successive Israeli governments have made Palestinians desperate.
    Violence and hatred beget violence and hatred.
    (plus funding for Hamas during its infancy)

  8. If Lieberman (the one from Israel, not from CT) gets his way there, maybe people here in the US will also start asking for “no loyalty – no citizenship” from all the dual citizens in the government and in academia and media and business and and and… on the street… How individuals can learn from their mistakes, but nations cannot do

  9. Helena says:
    “For my part, I think that much more of the rise of bellophilia in Israel in general, and of the right and ultra-right parties in particular, can be attributed to many decades of US policies that have given ways too much indulgence to the bellophilic and settlerist sensibilities in the Israeli body politic, abandoning key international and domestic law principles along the way.”
    Really Helena? In that case to what do you attribute Kadima/Labor’s big win in early 2006? The one which was a referendum on the Gaza pullout and also endorsed the Kadima/Labor policy of unilaterally pulling out all the outpost West Bank settlements?
    Are you saying that that election was the result of Bush and Rice having cracked down on the bellophilia of the Israeli body politic, and their championship of key international and domestic law principles along the way?
    If not, then what WERE the reasons the Israeli body politic reduced Likud to a rump and ostensibly finished Netanyahu’s political career (for opposing the Gaza pullout) at that election?

  13. Vadim,
    I don’t see how these two reports are proving what you say. For those not understanding either German or French :
    1) that short piece in Le Monde is only an hwanabee humor and opinionated small piece, absolutely not a serious and balanced report of the kind usually read in Le Monde. Surely what the editorial board thinks about Venezuela.
    2) As for the piece in Der Spiegel, it’s only a very short piece reporting about protests against the new referendum; there is nothing new there : the US has been encouragin/paying the right wing parties, the one of the “well off” to oppose Chavez at all costs.. I don’t see how they support your say. It doesn’t include any serious analysis concerning the political situation in Venezuela.
    Conclusion : are you trying to fool people by throwing them dust in the eyes ? (aka referring them to texts that they don’t understand) alternatively, are you sure that you understand these foreign languages well enough to get what they say (or don’t say) ?
    (for what it is worth, I have two mother languages : French and German).

  14. Sorry,
    I missed a word in the above comment :
    It should read :
    1) That short piece in Le Monde is only an opinionated wanabee humorous small piece, absolutely not a serious and balanced report of the kind usually read in Le Monde.Surely not what the editorial board thinks about Venezuela.

  15. Christiane, I didn’t write in French or German, I wrote in English… what exactly is it you think I was trying to say with those posts? Of course you don’t need to speak either language as a native to get the point of these articles, whereas sarcasm is maybe a bit more difficult to pick up in written english. Maybe your English language reading skills aren’t as good as you think they are? 😉
    To clarify: ‘Mick’ was complaining about Zionist propaganda infiltrating the NY times’ news pages, and cited a NYT news piece on Venezuelan anti-semitism to prove his point. I facetiously cited Spiegel’s recent reporting (on a truly massive anti-Chavez protest) as evidence that perhaps its editorial board had been overtaken by Zionists, and the brief opinion piece by (Egyptian) Robert Sole in the pages of Le Monde as an analog to “Nick Christof [sic] and Roger Cohen’s” Zio-propagandizing.
    In answer to your question, I speak and read German every day at work, and French every day to everyone else as (like you) I live in a French-speaking city. In fact, we’re almost neighbors.

  16. Surely not what the editorial board thinks about Venezuela.
    Christiane its obvious you have absolutely no idea what the editorial board of Le Monde thinks of Mr. Chavez. Allow me please to enlighten you.
    Here is what the editorial board of Le Monde wrote about Hugo Chavez in November 2007:
    L’activisme déployé par M. Chavez sur la scène internationale, de l’Amérique latine au Moyen-Orient, de la Russie à la France, s’accompagne au Venezuela d’une évolution inquiétante vers un régime autoritaire. La gestion erratique des immenses ressources du pétrole, démultipliées par un prix du baril proche des 100 dollars, commence à nuire aux programmes sociaux qui ont valu au chef de l’Etat une solide popularité. L’absence d’investissements dans l’industrie pétrolière explique que Caracas peine à atteindre le quota fixé par l’Organisation des pays exportateurs de pétrole (OPEP), qui vient de tenir son sommet à Riyad. Le Venezuela en est réduit à vendre du brut et à importer pratiquement tout ce dont le pays a besoin.
    La concentration des pouvoirs au profit du président de la République, l’absence de dialogue avec l’opposition, la disqualification du mouvement étudiant, traité de “fasciste”, l’encouragement de bandes armées et l’embrigadement des réservistes, bref, la militarisation de la vie politique, s’accompagnent d’une corruption sans précédent. Celle-ci est favorisée par l’opacité des dépenses publiques et par la création de budgets parallèles, utilisés de manière discrétionnaire par la présidence de la République. Les liens entretenus par M. Chavez avec Fidel Castro et avec Mahmoud Ahmadinejad ne sont pas de nature à dissiper le flou autour du “socialisme du XXIe siècle” prôné par le président vénézuélien.
    Care to translate for the non-francophones in the audience, or should I do that for you? In short, the editorial board of Le Monde has been considerably more unkind to Hugo Chavez than Robert Sole (who is actually an editor himself, or were you unaware of this too?)
    My question is: if you are so inattentive to the political dialogue taking place in your own “mother tongue”, how can you possibly claim to understand the politics of the “New York Times,” much less the Venezuelan opposition??

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