Sunday, July 25, 2010

Tap Dancing on the Third Rail

By Christopher Robbins

 

I fear for the future of my journalism career. Even now I feel the duct-tape of political correctness and editorial bias hampering my ability to tell the truth about what I see.

It is often said that social security is the third rail of American politics, by the same token Israel is the third rail of American journalism. Most Americans clearly see the need for social security reform but no politician would touch it – old, active voters depend on their monthly assistance, and middle-aged voters do not want to see the system they have paid into for most of their lives dismantled. Journalists, on the other hand, can’t write about the Israel-Palestinian issue in a clear and honest way because they are limited by a divided and hostile population.

A traditional pro-Israeli media elite has the power to hire and fire journalists based on the perceived slant of the stories written on the issue.  The majority Christian religious establishment in the US is also oriented toward Israel to protect the Judeo-Christian tradition.

Much of the younger generation has sympathy with the Palestinian cause. In the coming years the international news copy that my audiences will want will speak clearly on what has happened in the Palestinian territories and cannot be obfuscated by pro-Israeli rhetoric. As the Muslim world becomes more important to the future of our planet, young Americans will also need professional journalists to speak honestly and authoritatively about Islam, its sects and its politicization over the years.

Unfortunately it has progressed to the point where journalists can no longer say certain things about the Israel-Palestine tragedy. This means that the American electorate can not be accurately informed and cannot choose good senators and presidents for lack of information on foreign policy. We are shooting our democracy in the foot.

Just this month Octavia Nasser, a Lebanese-American foreign correspondent for CNN was fired from her job not for speaking bad of Israel but for speaking well of the late Ayatollah Syed Hussein Fadlallah in a comment on a blog. None of what she said strayed too far from the truth. She was fired for CNN for her comment.

Helen Thomas, the stalwart New York Times op-ed columnist who had become a fixture in the White House press corps was dismissed and forced into retirement after a 50-year career because of an off-the-cuff remark that strongly criticized Israel.

I am not writing to criticize Israel, though I understand there are plenty of valid criticisms I could come up with. I am writing to criticize the lack of open debate we can have about the state.

As a journalist I could easily be critical of Egypt’s wall keeping supplies out of the Gaza strip. I could write a story criticizing the conditions of the Palestinian refugees in Lebanon or criticizing the subtly racist policies of the Jordanian Hashemites or the Assads of Syria. In the United States these stories would be published with little debate.

But I could not be critical of Israel’s security barrier walling of the Palestinians into the West Bank, I could not point an accusing finger at the blockade and enforced misery of the Gaza strip and I could not call Israel’s ever expanding settlements on Palestinian territory into question without jeopardizing my career. I could even be branded an anti-semite when it is not even semitic or Jewish peoples that my stories would portray in a negative light but the behavior of a nation-state.

If journalists feel this much pressure from the pro-Israeli element in the United States, imagine what our politicians feel every day as they try to make the right foreign policy decisions for our future. How can men like George W. Bush and Barack Obama pretend to be capable as arbiters of Middle East peace when they can’t even guarantee that they are free from this influence? It is no wonder why the US have had trouble getting Arabs and Palestinians to the negotiating table, they have no reason at all to trust Americans.

I am about to sell myself into this hypocrisy – one in which I will undoubtedly have to speak with Arab leaders from as objective a position as plausible. My compromise with myself is that I will test this third rail whenever possible because my people deserve to know the truth about how their foreign aid dollars are spent. Perhaps someday the political climate will be one that an honest debate of the facts will be possible. Until then, American journalism is about as trustworthy as American politicians. Good night and good luck.

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