Gentlemanly Antisemites

by By Franklin Littell

as appeared in his column "Lest We Forget" -- July 7, 1997

The newspapers and magazines in "Christendom," including its many-colored American variety, give constant evidence of "gentlemanly antisemitism" (Kulturantisemitismus). "Gentlemanly antisemitism" or "Kulturantisemitismus" is the unexamined anti-Jewish prejudice that expresses itself automatically, unreflectively, from imprinting that was done across centuries.

A typical illustration is a report from Jerusalem in The New York Times, dated July 1 and headed "Secret Meeting With Arab Imperils Israeli Cabinet."

At least the "report," actually an editorial, is signed ("Serge Schmemann"). Most newspapers no longer pretend to maintain the cornerstone of journalistic ethics: to distinguish between editorial items -- where opinionated judgments, as long as they are signed, have an open road -- and news items, which are to be as "objective" and antiseptic of bias as humanly possible. Traveling back and forth across the country to lecture, as I do, I pick up once great regional newspapers of all varieties and notice how journalistic standards have declined in the last half century.

Most of these newspapers editorialize relentlessly in their purported "reports." But part of the problem, for one concerned with antisemitism, is the fact that they depend upon news services that are ideologically corrupt. Associated Press is inclined to slant the news against Israel and against Jewish agencies, and Reuters is dependably antisemitic. Between the lack of training in basic journalistic ethics and the lack of reliably unprejudiced news services, the regional newspapers are generally purveyors of slanted items. The specialist in antisemitic propaganda will see the bias in a minute; by contrast, he who reads as he runs will think he is getting a fair gist of events.

The New York Times gets around the dilemma of a choice between balanced, carefully crafted reports and patently prejudiced items parading as "news" by having "news stories" signed. You may never have seen the name before, and you may never see it again, but doing things this way gives a certain credibility to what is written now that the basic canon of balanced and fair and objective reporting in increasingly hard to find -- even in the leading national newspaper. And of course publication in The New York Times gives a certain cachet to any "news report."

The article here referred to is a thinly disguised attack on Ariel Sharon, whom Prime Minister Netanyahu is supposedly favoring to the distress of Foreign Minister Levy. Among other negative identifications of Mr. Sharon is the statement that he was "widely reviled for the 1982 invasion of Lebanon."

Four paragraphs later the writer returns to the theme, calling Mr. Sharon "the military figure who led the disastrous invasion of Lebanon." There are of course varied opinions about the 1982 operation, including the opinion of bitter critics. However, on balance one could say that it was a necessary response to the Syrian incorporation of the Lebanon -- which Syria never recognized as an independent state since its founding -- that would have brought an aggressive military dictatorship to the border of Israel. One could say that given the military realities Israel could no longer tolerate Palestinian military staging centers so close to its northern border, especially when they were receiving arms, supplies and financial support from dictatorships that have never canceled their declarations of war against Israel.

One could note that some observers felt the only real failure on the democratic side came when Israel was forced by its "allies" (especially the USA) to withdraw.

But none of these interpretations is put on the record of a supposedly professional "news story." What we have, again, is an editorial masquerading as a piece of worthy news reporting. Again, we have a report about the Jewish state that is corrupted by negative, unexamined "gentlemanly" prejudice.

Whether in The New York Times or in the Keokuk Daily Rap, such a report flunks the basics in journalistic ethics.