Great post! Your posts are very insightful. I am starting to really like your blog. I also like Yaacov L.’s blog which you mentioned as well, though he maybe a bit more right wing than I am on Israeli issues.

Phil Weiss is a mess. I used to go to his blog often (maybe 6 months ago) and comment and argue, but Mondoweiss just became so pathetic. I used to think he was just an over sensitive hard lefty, but I soon realized how dark his words and thoughts are. You clearly wrote down what I sensed about him. I know very little about Horowitz.

The commenters on Mondoweiss are obsessed with one issue. Though I must admit that they are acutely tuned in to Jewish discussions except that the misinterpret everything we say. They see everything in the world through their neo-nazi lense, their world view. The saddest thing is that Phil thinks about the same things neo-nazis think about – Jewish power. They project a sentiment onto the Jews – tribalism, where the Jews compete against whites and others for power. But it is really just neo-nazis who are tribal for no logical reason. Phil views Zionism as the tribalism the neo-nazis see. Zionism empowered Jews and because he sees it as an overall negative since the Palestinians suffered, he believes everything power related involving Jews is ill gotten. He doesn’t believe Jews should get power and influence usually afforded to citizens of democracies unless they use it to help the Palestinians which we, the Jews, took power from them. Because things aren’t perfect in Israel and everything seems in turmoil, while forgetting that things were much worse and could be worser, he believes Zionism is a mistake.

Blumenthal I hardly know as well. I thought he was just a left wing Jew who makes fun of right wing Jews on the issue of Israel. But he’s actually anti-Israel in the sense that he views Israel in one-dimension (like in “The Feeling the Hate in …” vids), he tries to represent Israel by interviewing a few bigoted Jews there.

Your blog is very interesting. You have lots here. I’m going to have to look around and see what else you’ve written about.

That’s a really good point about media bias. I tend to not be an expert about most things I read about in the news–so more often than not–the bias can fly over my head.

I think both the left and the right can be guilty of that kind of bias…and I really respect journalists who strive to fight that tendency in themselves.

I was caught by pleasant surprise recently when David Brancaccio (PBS’s NOW) did a 2-part series on the I/P conflict recently.

Did you happen to see it?

If not…a quick summary.

First they gave the Palestinian side–and the next week the Israeli side.

I was apprehensive it was going to be an indictment of Israel.

Interestingly they told it from the pov of “foot soldiers”–former Shaheedi and IDF reservists.

Maybe NOW had a slant that went over my head…but my impression was they let the subjects tell their story instead of asking loaded questions–and they interviewed people with different points of view.

It put a human face on the whole thing–and it wasn’t about “oppressor” and “oppressee.” That was my impression anyway…

It was probably the most balanced piece of reporting of this nature I’ve seen in awhile.

I think you’re dead on here about charges of anti-Semitism versus attention to journalistic standards, or the lack of them. We see already that anti-Semites and those merely unsympathetic to Israel easily turn that charge away as a McCarthyite smear. That same, defensive unwillingness to hear is present among many whites who are tired of hearing about racism against people of color and those who are tired (it’s such a burden, and it has continued for almost a second on the timeline of human life) of hearing about the Holocaust. Weiss and Horowitz, and Max Blumenthal too, think that because they go to “cover,” or “report” on, an event in the world, that makes them journalists. You rightly question their standards, because they appear to have none.

I raised this issue, from a somewhat different perspective, a few weeks ago, about the Honduran coup. As an informed non-expert on Honduras or Central America who likes neither coups nor Manuel Zelaya, I was seeking information to help me clarify my perspective on events. At this point, the traditional, mainstream news sources tend not to dig deep enough, early enough to be leading educators on stories that are not high profile. I pursued online news sources, some of whom, as it turns out, have been quite accurate in their reporting on the nature of the coup leaders (or golipistas, as the Spanish more succinctly puts it), but whom I distrusted and ceased to read because they were so unabashedly, even rancidly, biased. The people who read such sources regularly are those who are already ideologically sympathetic – so who is being informed and educated? This is all the product of post-modern and post-colonial theorizing that challenged the possibility of true (complete) objectivity, and so, via the slippery slope, has led to complete comfort in abandoning even the attempt at it.

Finally, if you comment again – and I hope you will – I hope you’ll call me Jay. (In fact, the rule around here, which I just conceived, is that once you’ve commented three times, it’s mandatory.)

I did find the analysis and read it in its entirety.

One thing I particularly appreciate is the concerns you raise from a journalistic standpoint. I hope you continue to do that.

It’s an important issue, in my opinion. One that I know has been of great concern to the profession as newspapers fall into decline and the Internet becomes a more popular news source.

The rigorous standards applied to investigative reporting, for example, seem to have fallen by the wayside.

I haven’t made journalism my lifetime career…but I did learn it in school and spent a good 10 years on and off doing newspaper reporting.

I had my wrists slapped for violating protocol–e.g., using only one source for a story, getting the story by phone instead of visiting relevant locales, not offering both sides of the story etc.

I made those mistakes early and never made the same mistake twice.

So I think what you are talking about is CRITICAL

The anti-semitic angle is equally as important…but it’s easy for denialists to dismiss us as emotional or subjective.

But they cannot say that when it comes to professionalism. Weiss calls himself a journalist–and I have to wonder whose standards he is abiding by.

Thanks for you insightful arguments on this.

I wasn’t able to access the archive you saved of Phil’s removed post.

That may be for the best. I’ve sworn off reading anything else by the author of “Phil Weiss: Diary of a self-absorbed shlub”

On the other hand…I am morbidly curious. If it’s not accessible–can you give us a quick summary of what it said?

thanks.

Look at how, after being expelled from several states by a man hailed as a war hero (Grant) and sent back to Europe to face Hitler, we are still chaffing under the Anglo-Phone regime. Sure things look rosey now but so did Weimar Germany and there’s all these Aryan militias. Look at the brilliant revolution our brethren have accomplished in Eretz Israel. They threw off gentile rule and became the majority population. Jews all over the world should be doing that.

Let’s set up our own Zionist state in the USA. How about NJ? Just a bunch of corruption there, anyway. They can live in NY or MA or wherever they hell they end up. And the Jews living there now, sure, but if any of them married cross bearers there’s going to be trouble. Can’t have intermarriage in a Zionist state.

Come on, how awesome is that? We’ll be the first ever double layered colonial settler state. We’ll colonize the colonists. Are you in?