#740 Brith Sholom Media Watch Alert

To:       Brith Sholom Media Watch Subscribers
From:   Jerry Verlin, Editor  (jverlin1234@verizon.net)
Subj:    Brith Sholom Media Watch Alert #740, 3/8/15

WHILE YOU STAND ON ONE LEG:  All right, this was the week of “the speech.”  Did it cause American newspaper readers to have a clearer understanding of Israel’s concern that the impending deal will not prevent, but pave the path to nuclear weapons by the terror-fomenting state sworn to Israel’s destruction?  That’s the media-watch question.

 Also, the Inq and its sources took a couple quick shots this week at the Jewish state, which shouldn’t slink by unnoticed.

This Week In The Inq:  From a Media Watch Standpoint, Did It Work?  Yes

The media watch question is “Did Bibi succeed in getting across, not just to the American Congress, but to the American public through the American media his unquestioned belief, right or wrong, that the emerging Iran nuclear deal is a bad deal?”

Judging by the Philadelphia Inquirer (Inq), the not-especially-pro-Israel American city newspaper that’s the fixation of this pro-Israel media watch, the answer is “Yes.”

Philadelphia Inquirer, Wednesday, March 4, 2015, above the fold on A-1:

Netanyahu Tells Congress:

“This is a bad deal”

“Talks will enable Iran to get nuclear weapons, he says”

Accurate.  But, fear not, ye Gentle Readers who’ve been with me awhile, I’m not losing my bearings just yet.  I cite this astonishingly accurate Inq headline Wednesday, and the to-the-point Inq Washington Post news article it graced, in the context of what else the Inq printed over the past fortnight and this week on the view of the impending Iran nuclear deal by the one country both Israel and Iran regard as singled out by Iran for extinction.  Using the Inq as a measure, it took Bibi taking the flack to focus mainstream Western media focus on Israel’s grave specific concerns on the pending deal’s merits while the deal still remains an undone deal. The reporting did not forcefully detail Israel’s concerns.  It’s very unlikely American papers would have run headlines like the Inq ran this Wednesday had Bibi not effectively and eloquently addressed the American Congress on Tuesday.

Thursday, Feb 19 (A4), the Inq ran a Washington Post article it headlined

U.S. Chides Israel on Iran Talks

In blunt language, officials admitted keeping details from Israel, which they accused of not being truthful

That same day, the Inq ran a house foreign-affairs columnist Trudy Rubin article headlined

Worldview: Bibi, Boehner Playing Games

teeing off

Bibi Netanyahu wants to make sure President Obama doesn’t ink a nuclear deal with Tehran.  Any nuclear deal.

That was two weeks ago (chronicled for posterity in BSMW #738), but last week (BSMW #739) didn’t get any better.

That Wednesday’s Inq (2/25/15, A6) carried an AP “Around the World” squib quoting Isaac Herzog, Bibi’s looming Israeli election opponent, “calling Netanyahu’s speech next week to the U.S. Congress ‘a mistake,’” and stating that Herzog “asserted that there should be ‘no daylight’  [emphasis added] between Israel and the Obama administration [n.b., emphasis added] on an emerging deal to curb Iran’s nuclear program.”

Well, perhaps not exactly.  That Friday, Feb 27, Israeli p.m. candidate Herzog wrote an op-ed piece in the New York Times in which he wrote [I’m not making this up]:

I too am concerned about the possibility that American diplomats could be tempted to accept an insufficient guarantee of our safety….

Americans also need to understand another point about our boisterous democracy.  However deeply I disagree with Mr. Netanyahu on many issues – the peace process, settlement policy, social justice issues and [on the political wisdom of] his coming speech to Congress – on one thing there is no daylight between us [emphasis added]: Israel’s security…. No Israeli head of state will ever tolerate a nuclear Iran.

Especially on the Iranian nuclear threat, Israelis are one.  We know that the theocracy in Tehran combines hegemonic and nuclear ambitions that pose a strategic danger to our small nation.

And that week the Inq didn’t rest with, on Wednesday, combining Herzog calling Bibi’s U.S. Congress speech a “mistake” with him saying there should be “no daylight” between Israel and “the Obama administration” on the looming Iran deal.  The next day, Thursday (2/26/15, A6), the Inq ran an LA Times piece it headlined

Harsh Accusations Fly Over Netanyahu’s Visit

featuring an embedded color photo of a U.S. official, captioned

“I think it’s destructive of the fabric of the relationship.”

Susan Rice, national security advisor, on Netanyahu’s decision to address Congress.

Now, then, This Week, the week of the speech, In The Inq:

Monday, 3/2/15 (Washington Post), Inq page A1, Inq-headlined:

Netanyahu Visit Splits Israelis, Too

180 retired generals and former security officials foresee harm to U.S. Ties

Also Monday (A7), the Inq ran an AP piece headlined “Kerry Eases Tone on Netanyahu Visit,” which midway did quote “a Netanyahu advisor” that “Israel was well aware of the details of the emerging nuclear deal and they included Western compromises that were dangerous for Israel.”  But that is a far cry from a passionate presentation of his country’s concerns, point-by-point, by its leader in person, and media reporting directly what he warned.

Tuesday’s Inq (3/3/15, AP), top of A1:

Netanyahu Tries To Reassure U.S. on Eve of Speech

And (Inquirer Washington Bureau, A2):

Menendez Stirs Debate in Backing Speech

neither of which directly focused public attention on what Israel needed to get through to the American people:  This is a bad deal, enabling Iran to get nuclear weapons.

Wednesday’s front-page “Netanyahu Tells Congress:  ‘This is a bad deal,’ Talks will enable Iran to get nuclear weapons, he says” was accompanied by two inside articles, “Phila-area Lawmakers are Mostly Supportive” (Inquirer Washington Bureau, A11) and “Pelosi’s Temper Flares Over ‘Condescension’” (AP, A12), both focusing more on whether Bibi should have given the speech than on the gravity of Israel’s Iran-deal concerns that he addressed.

Thursday, alas, the snow storm deterred the deliveryman from favoring me with an Inq, but I did catch Ms. Rubin’s “Worldview,” unswayed by Israeli eloquence, on the matter.  She led:

Benjamin Netanyahu did a disservice to the U.S.-Israel alliance and the goal of preventing an Iranian bomb by his political grandstanding before Congress this week.

The way I see it is exactly the opposite.  It was Bibi speaking for Israel, the small country which Iran, per Bibi’s opponent, “combines hegemonic and nuclear ambitions that pose a strategic danger” to that small nation, ticking off to the American Congress the dangers to his country of the deal that he said, per the Washington Post on page 1 of Wednesday’s Inq, “doesn’t block Iran’s path to the bomb; it paves Iran’s path to the bomb,” that caused those words and their headline to appear on page 1 of Wednesday’s Inq and its ilk, for the American public to see.   Worth it, from the perspective of a media watch concerned that the American public get a fair portrayal of Israel and its concerns by the American media?  Even at the cost of ticking off the Inq’s “Worldview” columnist.

En Passant

Two further digs at Israel This Week In The Inq shouldn’t escape brief recognition.

Monday’s Inq Washington Post article, “Netanyahu Visit Splits Israelis Too” (Inq, Mon, 3/2/15, A1, 6), quoted a statement by Bibi’s Likud party referencing “Judea and Samaria.”  The Washington Post explained to readers: “Judea and Samaria are the biblical names for today’s West Bank.”  They are indeed the biblical names, but they were also the names that remained in use all through the centuries up to the mid-20th century, including until [Trans-]Jordan rechristened them, so to speak, “West Bank” in 1950, by 20th century ruling Turks and British, and by the U.N. itself in 1947:  “… the hill country of Samaria and Judea ….”

Saturday’s Inq (3/7/15, A3) headlined a Washington Post “Around the World” squib:  “Israel: Palestinian Driver Rams Into Troops [emphasis added] in Jerusalem.”  Sounds like a brave Palestinian Arab civilian courageously charging into a militarily-deployed platoon of fearsome Israeli soldiers, nu?   Well, not exactly.  These “troops,” per the BBC, were four “young border policewomen,” who patrol lines between Jewish and Arab-populated areas in Jerusalem, who were struck “as they stood on a sidewalk.”

Regards,
Jerry