- \n
- The BDS Threat<\/b> (Roger Cohen, 2\/10\/14<\/a>)<\/li>\n
- Breakfast Before the MOOC <\/b>(Thomas Friedman, 4\/5\/14<\/a>)<\/li>\n
- Let It Bleed<\/b> (Roger Cohen, 6\/9\/14<\/a>)<\/li>\n
- The BDS Movement and Antisemitism on Campus<\/b> (Eric Alterman, 3\/26\/16<\/a>)<\/li>\n
- Netanyahu, Prime Minister of the State of Israel\/Palestine<\/b> (Thomas Friedman, 5\/25\/16<\/a>)<\/li>\n
- Does Feminism Have Room for Zionism? <\/b>(Emily Shire, 3\/7\/17<\/a>)<\/li>\n
- Why Israel Is Nothing Like Apartheid South<\/b> Africa<\/b> (Benjamin Pogrund, 3\/31\/17<\/a>)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
The most recent two examples, by Shire and Pogrund, offer up boilerplate critiques of Israel\u2019s critics. Bustle<\/b> politics editor Emily Shire, positioning herself as the true victim of the Palestinian issue because she is asked \u201cto sacrifice my Zionism for the sake of my feminism,\u201d lamented:<\/p>\n
\n
It is strange to see academic groups supporting the BDS movement, which stifles the free flow of knowledge. But regardless of your opinion on the BDS issue, it has nothing to do with feminism.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
The compartmentalization of leftist causes, like an ideological line-item veto, is reminiscent of an infamous 1967 New York Times<\/b> editorial (4\/7\/67<\/a>) scolding Martin Luther King for tieing the fight for civil rights at home to opposition to the war in Vietnam abroad:<\/p>\n
\n
This is a fusing of two public problems that are distinct and separate. By drawing them together, Dr. King has done a disservice to both. The moral issues in Vietnam are less clear-cut than he suggests; the political strategy of uniting the peace movement and the civil rights movement could very well be disastrous for both causes.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
Shire\u2019s argument, such as it was, was that feminism exists in isolation to all other causes\u2014most notably the subjugation of Palestinians.<\/p>\n
![\"New](\"http:\/\/fair.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/NYTIsraelApartheid.png\")
<\/a><\/p>\nBenjamin Pogrund (New York Times<\/strong>, 3\/31\/17<\/a>) argues that Israel isn’t like apartheid South Africa, in part because while “most Arabs are exempted from military service, thus losing veteran benefits…Druze Arabs are conscripted like Jews, and Bedouin can volunteer”\u2014as if doling out privileges based on ethnic distinctions weren’t a hallmark of apartheid.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Would this pro-Israel spin be followed by a strong pro-BDS voice? Perhaps by the Palestinian feminist Rasmea Yousef Odeh, whom Shire singles out for criticism? Nope. The Times<\/b> next opened up its opinion section to another anti-BDS voice, this time Benjamin Pogrund, dusting off an op-ed he\u2019s written at least five times<\/a> in as many years (emphasis added):<\/p>\n
\n
The occupation is an oppression. No rule over an unwilling and resistant people can be pleasant, and enforcement is harsh. But from my perspective, there is none of the institutionalized racism, the intentionality<\/b>, that underpinned apartheid in South Africa. So why does the BDS movement insist otherwise?<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
You see, the 50-year occupation of Palestine was an accident, so the West Bank\u2019s systematic ethnic segregation<\/a>, complete with separate roads<\/a> for Jews and Palestinians, somehow doesn\u2019t count as apartheid. Despite the fact that Israel\u2019s massive surge in settlement activity<\/a> in the past ten years belies the reluctant occupier mythology, Pogrund only briefly touches on this subject, calling the West Bank settlements \u201cammunition for critics\u201d\u2014an incredibly glib way of referring to evidence of institutionalized bad faith.<\/p>\n
As Dahlia Scheindlin (972<\/b>, 4\/3\/17<\/a>) noted in a rebuttal to Porgrund\u2019s piece, the word \u201cGaza\u201d doesn\u2019t appear once in the Times<\/b> op-ed. Erasing the 1.8 million Palestinians who live in what Noam Chomsky calls<\/a> the \u201cworld’s largest open-air prison\u201d when discussing the legal status of Palestinians is essential to fudging the definition of \u201capartheid.\u201d<\/p>\n
The New York Times<\/b> has run a letter to the editor by BDS co-founder Barghouti (3\/16\/17<\/a>) and provided him space in a \u201cRoom for Debate\u201d web-only feature (5\/11\/15<\/a>), but has not run an op-ed on the topic of BDS by him since his 2014 op-ed. In \u201cNetanyahu\u2019s Win Is Good for Palestine,\u201d the Times<\/b> gave op-ed space to BDS supporter Yousef Munayyer (3\/18\/15<\/a>), but not in the context of defending BDS.<\/p>\n
The Times<\/b> has also run op-eds by Eyal Press (1\/26\/17<\/a>), Kenneth Stern (12\/12\/16<\/a>) and Daniel Sieradski (6\/12\/16<\/a>) that were sympathetic to BDS on free speech grounds but did not, at least outwardly, support the movement as such. Indeed, Sieradski\u2019s op-ed went out of its way to note that the author himself does \u201cnot support a boycott that targets Israel as a whole.\u201d<\/p>\n
While principled free-speech arguments are welcomed, one would think the Times<\/b> could find at least one BDS supporter to write against increasing efforts to blackball the movement from public life.<\/p>\n
In the past month alone, the Times<\/b> has provided the most cherished op-ed space in US media for two Israel supporters to complain that the global community has been too tough on Israel and its scrappy band of defenders. Perhaps in the coming months, they could provide a little more balance and find someone who supports the BDS movement to write on the topic.<\/p>\n
\nAdam Johnson is a contributing analyst for FAIR.org<\/strong>.<\/em> You can find him on Twitter<\/strong> at @AdamJohnsonNYC<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n
You can send a message to the New York Times<\/strong> at letters@nytimes.com<\/a> (Twitter<\/strong>:@NYTimes<\/a>). Please remember that respectful communication is the most effective.<\/em><\/p>\n
This piece was reprinted by RINF Alternative News<\/a> with permission from FAIR<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The most important editorial space in the English-speaking world dedicates a lot of column inches to the topic of Israel, including the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, but hasn\u2019t provided any space to a pro-BDS voice on the topic in over three years. The last opinion column on the topic by a BDS supporter to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2521,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-302614","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/302614","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2521"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=302614"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/302614\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=302614"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=302614"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=302614"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
- Breakfast Before the MOOC <\/b>(Thomas Friedman, 4\/5\/14<\/a>)<\/li>\n