May 15, 2008
Israel celebrated a very strange 60th birthday last week. On the one hand, there were congratulatory messages and visits (which are continuing this week) from worldwide heads of state recognizing the occasion. There were the memorial commemorations and the celebratory events throughout the country; the ubiquitous barbecues, the fireworks, and even skydiving acrobatics.
On the other hand, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad used the occasion to call Israel a “stinking corpse” on the way to its “annihilation.” Even within Israel itself, just at the moment of national celebration, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert found himself hanging on to his political life by a thread as he faced the most serious of the many challenges launched against him by the Israeli legal authorities over the past few months.
In between these extremes was a rather bittersweet sense that pervaded Israel’s Independence Day celebrations. This was visible in the heightened unease heard in many of the public statements and rabbinic sermons that marked American Jews’ celebration of the event. In many circles, there was an expression of genuine disquiet for Israel’s future and viability. Much of this concern was underscored by the nature of the general media’s treatment of this momentous moment in Jewish history.
While hardly an exhaustive review of national or world media, here’s a quick look at how the media portrayed this special birthday. The New York Times, as did the BBC World Service, chose this occasion to focus on the plight and problems facing the Israeli Arabs. Without in any way minimizing the legitimacy of many of the issues raised in these pieces, it seemed especially strange considering their timing.
Neither story seemed to be an immediately relevant one except to highlight the fact that Israeli Arabs recognize the occasion by commemorating the nakba (the tragedy). It would seem that Israel’s 60th birthday should have been treated either as a straight news story, or these leading news sources might have assessed the moment in a larger historical context.
An exceedingly alarmist view was projected by the banner cover “Is Israel Finished?” of the May issue of The Atlantic. Unlike the cataclysmic sounding cover, however, the inside title of Jeffrey Goldberg’s article was “Unforgiven.” In his piece, Goldberg presented a painful but very perceptive and acute picture of some of the major existential questions facing Israel after 60 years as expressed though the insights of some of Israel’s leading writers, particularly David Grossman.
In a Foreign Policy article titled simply “Think Again: Israel,” Gershon Gorenberg directly addressed what he deemed to be the seven essential questions facing Israel at 60. The cover of the magazine, however, blared out the title “The Israel Myth”; an unsuspecting reader might have been surprised by Gorenberg’s sober but respectful treatment of his subject.
On a political level, one of the most sensible pieces written on the anniversary appeared in The Economist. Demonstrating clarity while at the same time distributing blame all around, one of Britain’s leading magazines addressed the occasion with a balance that was totally absent in the BBC’s report. It fell only into a trap common to many newspapers and magazines when it titled the special report “The dysfunctional Jewish state,” projecting a clear pro-Palestinian bias that was absent in the article. (It was as if the old, anti-Israel position of The Economist was still being perpetuated by its headline writers.)
America’s largest national business television station, CNBC, chose the occasion to present a remarkable series of pieces which considered the robustness of the Israeli economy in the midst of a history of wars and terrorism. Their reporting explained far more than why much of the Israeli hi-tech industry had evolved out of military, defense, and security necessities. CNBC focused on the growth of the desalination industry, biomedical research, and generic drug manufacturing. The most remarkable picture presented was of the mattress company in Sderot which was continuing its production despite regular disruption from Kassam missiles being lobbed from Gaza by Hamas and other Palestinian militants.
Israel’s problems from without as well as within cannot be wished away. Israel’s blind defenders naively expect an uncritical media reception to whatever the Israeli government does or whatever Israel’s “wise men” believe the state should do. They assume that any word of criticism smacks of anti-Semitism.
Perhaps Israel’s 60th anniversary was no better or worse than Israel’s daily life or how Israel, for that matter, is treated by the press. Some might suggest it is part of Israel’s coming of age. Others note that the nature of all democracies is being the beneficiary and the victim of a free press.
Maybe it was not such a strange birthday for Israel after all!
Dr. Gilbert N. Kahn is a professor of political science at Kean University in Union.
- Comment: comments@njjewishnews.com
