Around the world, politicians of the so-called
liberal democracies, as well as those who are not as pretentious, are telling
the people that engage in the business of journalism, they better shape up or
they'll find themselves shipped out of their comfort zones one way or the
other.
Everyone has a reason to complain about what
journalists do to them, to the nation and to the world. And each seems to have
a valid reason to complain – which they do at times mildly, at other times
bitterly. It is that journalists fall on the spectrum of performance from the
very bad to the very good, and each has the potential to affect situations that
must be exposed and changed, but also affect situations that should be left
alone.
For this reason, the people that engage in the
purveyance of information –– be that news or opinions –– need to be graded for
the level of performance at which they normally operate. Because anyone can
make a mistake, the purpose of the grading will not be to punish those who make
honest mistakes. Rather, the purpose will be to alert the candidate that their
approach to creating and purveying information is faulty and detrimental to the
profession as well as to many of the things they touch.
The way to perform well when purveying
information, is to avoid saying the things that were proven time and again to
be false. A repeat performance by a candidate at peddling false information
despite numerous warnings to the effect that they are on the wrong track, would
earn the candidate the highest level of rebuke. It would be the Poodle Face
Award (PFA), given in recognition of the reality that you cannot reason with a
poodle that was trained to do one thing only; and keep doing it no matter the
consequences.
Ruth Wisse has doggedly proven herself to be of
that category, which is why our first PFA goes to her. She earned the honor
with her latest creation, an article that came under the title: “The Many Faces
of Jew-Hatred” and the subtitle: “Anti-Semitism is a politics of misdirected
blame. Today its most frequent target is the state of Israel.” The article was
published on November 1, 2018 in the Wall Street Journal. What follows is the
offending passage that earned Ruth Wisse the award:
“Assailing Israel deflected blame for domestic
flaws in Arab societies. It still does. It redirects grievances against the
Jews, inspiring national and religious fervor through opposition to a common enemy”.
The woman knows this is false because she was
rebuked on several occasions for spreading cowardly falsehoods to achieve
devious objectives. The truth is that the Arab leaders have been walking a
tight rope between an Arab street that calls for a hawkish stance against
Israel, and an America that is “pimping” for Israel, and willing to dish out
any incentive to mollify the Arab masses. The leaders know how much easier it
will be for them to govern if they were not constantly pressured by America to be
friendly to Israel. But as long as the occupation of Palestine was ongoing, the
opposition from the Arab street remained more powerful than any of America's
incentives.
To make sure that America will not, at long last,
do the right thing by going to the root cause of the problem and telling Israel
to get out of Palestine, Ruth Wisse and all those like her, have been spreading
the dishonest opinion that the Arab leaders are using Israel as an excuse to
cover up for their failings. In fact, it happened that Benny Avni was
publishing his latest column at the same time that Ruth Wisse was writing hers.
He had much to say on this subject, and Wisse would do well to read it before
barking another idiotic article.
Avni's column came under the title: “Oman could be
a sign of Middle East changes to come,” published on October 31, 2018 in the
New York Post. What follows is a condensed version of what Avni wrote:
“Oman's sultan welcomed Netanyahu to his palace in
Muscat. Omani TV beamed the event across the Arab world. This, despite decades
of refusal by Arab nations to even acknowledge Israel's existence. After Oslo,
Yitzhak Rabin also visited Oman. But relations were severed soon after, as
Israeli-Palestinian peace hopes diminished. Remaining ties turned deeply secretive.
While relations with Muslim leaders have been kept private, increasingly
they're now publicized and debated in the Arabic press and public forums.
Israel's improved standing may be the result of President Trump's plans for an
Israeli-Palestinian deal. Team Trump may have incentivized Oman to demonstrate
their new approach is alive and well”.
That is, Benny Avni has described a situation in
which –– far from pointing a finger at a shiny object called Israel –– the Arab
leaders did not even acknowledge the existence of Israel. That's because to the
Arab masses, Israel was the unmentionable pariah that's committing horror in
Palestine.
Instead of speaking this truth and hastening the
arrival of the moment when the cause of Jewish misery could be dealt with at
the roots, Wisse helped perpetuate that misery with her stance. And given that
Israel is one of the reasons why anti-Semitism is increasing around the world,
it must be said that Ruth Wisse has been one of the contributing agents to the
spread of modern anti-Semitism.