From: niepornt@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (David Marc Nieporent)
Subject: Re: israeli racism
Originator: news@nimaster
Organization: Princeton University
Distribution: talk
Date: Mon, 21 Dec 1992 09:26:05 GMT

In article <1992Dec20.1777.21345@channel1> "wayne mcguire" <wayne.mcguire@channel1.com> writes:

>If a recent former President of the U.S., like Ronald Reagan and
>George Bush, had made the following public remark, can you
>imagine the uproar?

>     Ronald Reagan said Jews "have no respect for human life....
>     They enjoy each murder. We are familiar with the Jews for
>     many centuries, from the closest of contacts. We know that
>     these people have no respect for human life. They really
>     like it, they desire it, they enjoy murder.

>It's extraordinary that someone who was just recently the highest
>elected official in Israel, Yitzhak Shamir, can make a similar
>statement about Arabs, with virtually no notice from the national
>media in the U.S.

>If the highest elected official of any other country in the
>Western democratic world, a group to which Israel claims to
>belong, had made such a statement, it would have been a huge
>media event. If Margaret Thatcher had made this kind of remark
>about the Irish, she would have been held accountable for it,
>particularly by the media, even though the provocation from
>particular Irish terrorists has been extreme (she has been a
>direct target of their terrorism).

Of course, this is a different case.  (1) Shamir is *not* the highest
elected official in Israel.  (2) Of *course* the media would give more
attention to something that an ex-president of the US said than something
the ex-head of Israel said.  Why is this a surprise?  (3) This is
hypothetical, you don't know that it would be true of Thatcher.  (4) Of
course, the IRA is much better at PR than the Arabs are.  When *they*
committ acts of terrorism, they do it in Britain.  They don't go around
hijacking *US* airplanes or *Italian* cruise ships and shooting *Americans.*

>But Israel is a different case. The media are giving Shamir a
>free ride, and are not asking tough and obvious questions about
>how deep the racism runs in Israeli society if its highest
>elected officials can make remarks like this with impunity in
>Israel. To probe too deeply into this question could undermine
>the whole foundation and rationale for American support of Israel.

With impunity?  What do you mean?  What should be done?  Should he be
punished?  And why do you keep deliberately confusing the issue by
calling Shamir a "highest elected official" when he isn't?

>Any remarks that can be construed as anti-Semitic, however, like
>Jesse Jackson's private comment about "Hymietown"--these become
>full-fledged media events. Jackson was hounded about his remark
>for years, as has been James Baker for his alleged indiscretion.
>(One has to emphasize ALLEGED in this case, since the source was Ed Koch.)

>Flaming double standards, anyone?

Right.  And, after all, when police beat up Rodney King, no one even
noticed.  It wasn't important.  No one cared.  No one called the police
racists.  Maxine Waters didn't call President Bush a racist.  Fritz
Hollings wasn't criticized for suggesting we drop an atomic bomb on Japan.

For that matter, Fred Malek didn't work on President Bush's campaign
this time around, right?  

The highest elected official in the United States, President Bush,
didn't say that atheists weren't citizens or patriots.   And the media
rushed right out to cover that.  

Really.  When people try and use one-sided media coverage to prove
double standards, what they usually prove is their own willingness to
ignore things which don't fit their theories.

-- 
David M. Nieporent   | Is it too early to start making predictions for 1993?
niepornt@phoenix.    | Probably, but that never stopped me before.
   princeton.edu     | ALE: Baltimore ALW: Chicago NLE: Montreal NLW: Atlanta
Baltimore Orioles 93 | AL MVP: Cal Ripken  AL Cy Young: Mike Mussina
Newsgroups: talk.politics.mideast,soc.culture.arabic,soc.culture.jewish