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Jewish World Review
July 5, 2007
/ 19 Tamuz, 5767
Op-Ed Freebees for Hamas: Can Osama Be Far Behind?
By
Marvin Hier and Abraham Cooper
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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
It is not every day when one of the leaders of a terrorist organization can boast that his op-ed piece was printed simultaneously by the New York Times and the Washington Post. But that's exactly what happened on June 20, 2007, when Ahmed Yousef, a senior leader of Hamas, penned an essay defending his group's unilateral, bloody coup in Gaza.
In reaction to a firestorm of protest, The NYTimes' Public Editor, Clark Hoyt, defended his newspaper's position stating, "The point of the Op-Ed page is advocacy and reminding readers op-ed pages are for debate and if you get only one side, that's not debate." He quoted NYTimes editors as saying "that the takeover of Gaza was one of the most important stories of the week it was our opportunity to hear what Hamas had to say."
In 2007, it is difficult fathom the free pass provided to Hamas by the NYTimes and Washington Post. Does their logic mean that had Osama Bin Laden, who took responsibility for the murder of almost 3,000 people at the World Trade Center, would have penned an op-ed piece a week after 9/11 that either the would have published it?
Let's be clear: The issue has never been about giving ink to Hamas' views. Their statements and actions deserve real-time coverage by the media, just the way the statements and actions of a Hitler and Stalin deserved massive scrutiny and ongoing coverage by the newspapers of record in the world's most important democracy.
But back then, from the 1930s to 1950s the NYTimes failed miserably in its responsibilities to expose in real-time, the genocidal horrors of the Nazi Holocaust and Stalin's murderous purges and deportations of millions throughout his decades of iron rule in the USSR. Holocaust scholar Michael Berenbaum put it this way, "as the death toll grows, the headlines shrink." The July 2, 1942 headline "700,000 Victims," was posted Page Six detailing the murder over a half million Jews, including in mobile gas ovens. Page One was reserved for New York Governor Herbert Lehman's donation of his tennis shoes to the war effort. When on December 18, 1942, the NYT finally front-paged, a story on Hitler's Final Solution, entitled, "11 Allies Condemn Nazi War on Jews", The Washington Post printed the same story on Page Four, while The Los Angeles Times placed it on Page Ten.
As for the Soviet Union, Walter Durant, the New York Times longtime Moscow Bureau Chief, won a Pulitzer Prize for stories that effectively buried Ukraine's invisible victims under an avalanche of praise for Stalin's deadly policies.
And let us not forget that, like Hamas, Hitler also sought election through the democratic process. But once he took power he made it clear, just like Hamas, that his god was the bullet, not the ballot.
Do we really have to remind the gatekeepers of the media that there is a world of difference between quoting someone in a news story, be it Hitler or Bin Laden, and giving conferring the legitimacy of a byline in the nation's most respected newspapers. If the criteria is simply because it is an important story, then should have we expected bylines from the likes of Auschwitz's Dr. Joseph Mengele, or the Virginia Tech mass murderer posthumous last will and testament?
Yes, Newspapers have the right and responsibility to inform their readers about by dictators and despots. But they don't have the right to bestow credibility upon those dedicated to genocide.
Sadly today, the moral price we all pay when op-ed freebees are provided for terrorists seems lost even on those empowered to correct mistakes.
In his defense of the Hamas piece, Clark Hoyt, the New York Times' Public Editor admitted that a recent op-ed on Veganism, "hit much closer to home" than Hamas' record of targeted mass murder and maiming against thousands of unsuspecting, innocent civilians men, women and children - on busses, in shopping malls and in restaurants.Neither that record nor their current policy of tossing Arab opponents off of rooftops seems to make a dent in the editorial room.
Can Bin Laden be far behind?
Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in Washington and the media consider must-reading. Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.
Comment by clicking here.Rabbi Marvin Hier is the Dean and Founder of the Simon Wiesenthal Center. Rabbi Abraham Cooper is its Associate Dean.
© 2007, Simon Wiesenthal Center
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