The media, it has been asserted, are the main ally of the liberal-progressive
elite. It permits insulated cultural and academic circles to extend their
disconnected worldviews. Although often lacking true popular support, the
media employ powerful tools – agenda-setting, framing and shaping policies and,
perhaps not less important, influencing how those are packaged.
Thomas
Sowell, in his 1996 book,
The Vision of the Anointed, discusses what he
perceives as the driving forces that promote the liberal agenda, which includes
“the denigration and even demonizing” of persons “who present evidence that can
be used in contemporary culture wars.... Opponents must be shown to be not
merely mistaken but morally lacking.”
This approach was quite apparent in
the coverage of the ongoing (as we write) trip of American broadcast personality
Glenn Beck and his “Restoring Courage” campaign.
Ben Hartman, writing on
the website of
Atlantic Monthly, highlighted Beck’s analogy of
the tent demonstrators in Tel Aviv to communists and his questioning whether or
not they were being financed by some sort of international left-wing
organization. Well, we know for sure that extreme socialists are
involved.
A 12-year-old member of the “Socialist Struggle” grouplet
became an overnight sensation due to his rhetorical skills and was even a star
on the Channel 2 game show 1 vs. 100. It is a fact that the New Israel Fund – as
far- Left as one can be in the Jewish world, except perhaps for J Street –
actually did provide funds and training. In other words, Beck was basically
correct – but who cares?
Hartman asserted, without supplied proof, that “Beck’s
‘mega-events’ did not look to be especially popular or anticipated in Israel.”
He claimed that “the domestic attention received by Beck’s visit appeared to be
largely negative,” quoting former Yasser Arafat aide MK Ahmed Tibi (UAL-Ta’al).
He lamented that Beck didn’t fulfill the script dictated by the left wing at his
first event of the “Restoring Courage” week, which took place on Monday evening
in Caesarea: “Far more tent revival than political rally, Sunday’s event lacked
the sort of red meat anti- Obama or Muslim-baiting rhetoric that had made Beck
so popular among the American Christian right.”
In other words, the event
was very respectable, and poor Hartman could not really justify his
rantings.
Hartman was not alone. A member of the foreign press corps, Dan
Ephron, under the headline “Beck’s Holy Land Crusade,” also aligned himself with
the imposed “story line.” What was important was not Beck’s words, but that he
had been “denounced by critics who regard the former Fox News host as anti-
Semitic.” When you do not have facts to prove your assertion, you rely on
unnamed “critics” who state certain views and turn these into
“facts.” Ephron slips into the “help-your-Israel comrade” mode, quoting
Haaretz’s Bradley Burston, who had ridiculed the idea that Beck would be
“arriving from America to teach us the meaning of courage.”
This type of
spiteful writing was prevalent in the Israeli press. Tal Schneider writes in
Globes, perhaps picking up on a previous article with similar content and
predictions of dire consequences by Natasha Mozgovaya from
Haaretz: “It could be
that he repels the Israeli public since he does not speak Hebrew, or because the
Israelis and even the right-wingers among them are repelled by the extremist
views of a foreigner and Christian who preaches hate and extreme
racism.”
He then goes on to actually explain what these extremist views
are: “Beck is vehemently opposed to the establishment of a Palestinian State and
the division of Jerusalem, and he blames fundamentalist Islam for almost all the
woes of the world.”
Schneider, of course, knows what the Israeli public
thinks; after all, he is the Israeli public.
Interestingly MK Einat Wilf,
who is not a Likudnik but a former Labor Party member and currently part of the
Independence faction, made a point of coming to Beck’s Tuesday night
dinner. In an eloquent speech and excellent English, she described
herself as a liberal and an atheist. Yet she was “courageous enough” to be part
of the event, since she firmly believes that “if people stand with Israel, we
should stand with them.”
This should be contrasted with the opinions
expressed at
Ma’ariv’s NRG and
Yediot Aharonot’s Ynet websites, where Beck is
considered a serious danger to Israel. Ben Tyne warns that Israelis should not
side with Beck, since this puts them on one side of the political divide in
America. Jay Rosenberg calls upon his fellow Israelis not to become Beck’s
suckers. He argues that Beck is using Israel as a springboard for his US
comeback.
Dr. Michael Evans, a well-known writer and journalist in the
United States as well as one of the founders of the Christian Zionist movement,
who came especially for Beck’s “Restoring Courage” week, paints a somewhat
different picture. He notes that “you have a man according to the Gallup polls
last year who was more popular than the Pope, [former president] Bill Clinton
and [evangelical preacher Rev.] Billy Graham. A man does not come to Israel to
launch a network. There is hardly any media of this event in
America. This is a very smart media man. If he wanted to do anything for
his media enterprise, any man would have done it in America.”
“Restoring
Courage” brought some “balance” to Israel’s media. For the first time in a long
while, some leading rabbinical figures from Judea and Samaria were widely and
approvingly quoted on the Walla website for their religiously motivated
opposition to Beck’s visit.
Channel 2 actually had a three minute clip on
the visit in its nightly news show. The anchor, Ms. Haimovitz, took pains in her
introduction to remind the public that Beck had been fired from the right-wing
Fox News network and that his visit perturbed quite a few people in Israel. Beck
was called “ultra-right-wing” by reporter Ilan Lukacz, who made sure to
publicize in advance that Peace Now, which was not even cited as a left-wing
movement in the clip, would hold an anti-Beck demonstration. The report ended
with Haimovitz raising her eyebrows, letting all know what she thought about the
tour. One wonders whether Beck’s advisers did their homework before agreeing to
the interview with Lukacz.
Not all of the local media were
negative. The
Yisrael Hayom daily covered the events, providing a factual
description. Ya’acov Ahimeir largely defended Beck in an interview on the
Israel Broadcasting Authority’s Moreshet radio station. However, the
media generally did not give Beck the opportunity to present himself as he is.
It is thus only appropriate to end by allowing him to speak for
himself.
The following are some excerpts from his speech at the Tuesday
night dinner at Jerusalem’s Bible Lands Museum:
“We have spent 2,000 years at
each other’s throats, mainly us at your throat. It is time to stand and say,
‘Enough.’ It is time to return home to His throne and beg His forgiveness and
tell him unequivocally we will knock it off, we will stand arm in arm. The times
require it; it is not a human rights movement, it is a human responsibility
movement. If we do not recognize our responsibilities, we have no rights. This
is the beginning, there is no end until we all live in peace and we all respect
the Jewish people and their rights to live here in peace.”
Eli Pollak and
Yisrael Medad are, respectively, chairman and vice chairman of Israel’s Media
Watch. www.imw.org.il.