To: Brith Sholom Media Watch Subscribers
From: Jerry Verlin, Editor (jverlin1234@verizon.net)
Subj: Brith Sholom Media Watch Alert #759, 7/19/15
WHILE YOU STAND ON ONE LEG: A headline and quote just beneath it in this morning’s Inq can reasonably be read, I think, as quoting a leader among liberal American Jews accusing other American Jews as having “brought us the Iraq War.” Causing America to engage in a war is a gravely serious accusation indeed, and the headline and quote can also be read as accusing a broader group than Jews. But the so-headlined article’s text and the headline itself both dealt exclusively with Jews, and the Inq should not have run such a quote in such context.
This Week In The Inq: Suggestion that “Jews are Folks Who Brought Us the Iraq War” ???
I put three question marks at the end of that title of this week’s media watch because there are, perhaps, multiple interpretations that can be put on the headline and quote of a partisan’s comment that appeared directly beneath it in this morning’s Philly Inquirer (Inq).
On page A4 of this morning’s (7/19/15) Sunday Inq, the paper ran this headline, and this bold-faced quote directly beneath it, above a Washington Post article on the divided response of organized American Jews to the deal the U.S. and allies just made with the nascent Mideast nuclear power obsessed with the Jewish homeland’s destruction.
Lobbying fight over Iran
Jewish groups on both sides fund campaigns to sway lawmakers.
“It pits folks who brought us the Iraq War and whole neocon worldview versus the Obama worldview and the concept that we can confront enemies with diplomacy.”
Jeremy Ben-Ami, president of J Street, a liberal advocacy group
The Inq’s so-headlined article was about American Jews’ response to the Iran deal. And the Inq’s sub-headline began “Jewish groups …” Is it not likely that many Inq readers moving on to the immediate next sentence – “It pits folks who brought us the Iraq war ….” – would likewise associate the “folks” in those “folks who brought us the Iraq war” also particularly with Jews?
Such an association – “Jews brought us the Iraq war” – may not be what either the Inq or J Street intended. It depends, to borrow a phrase, on what the meaning of “it” is. If, by “It pits,” J Street and the Inq intended to reference the pitting against each other of everybody on both sides of the Iran deal, not just American Jews on both sides, then those “folks who brought us the Iraq War” (in contradistinction to those non-neocon wise folks who “can confront enemies with diplomacy”) are the entirety of those neocon folks, of which individual Jews are simply individual members.
If, on the other hand, “It pits” can reasonably be read as referencing the particular division among the particular folks – American Jews – of whom both the Inq’s so-headlined article and Inq sub-headline itself exclusively speak, then those neocon “folks who brought us the Iraq war,” in the eyes of many Inquirer readers, are those non-“Obama worldview” American Jews.
I think that many Inquirer readers reading “It pits folks who brought us the Iraq War” immediately after reading “Jewish groups on both sides …” will read, as the “folks who brought us the Iraq War” as being the American Jewish groups on one side of that Jewish debate.
Whomever J Street intended to accuse as being the “folks who brought us the Iraq War,” if it didn’t mean to finger particularly American Jews who don’t subscribe to its worldview, it shouldn’t have pointed such fingers while discussing specifically American Jewish debate on the Iran deal. And if the Inq didn’t intend to purvey a liberal American Jew as accusing other American Jews as having “brought us the Iraq War,” it shouldn’t have quoted “It pits folks who brought us the Iraq War” directly beneath its sub-headline “Jewish groups on both sides ….”
Few accusations can bring people lower in the esteem of other Americans than an incendiary unjust “you brought us” a long bloody war. Yet, that is how many readers may well read this morning’s Inq.
Regards,
Jerry