Bias in the media

The Iowa caucuses are tomorrow, and the candidates’ narratives about themselves and their ideals have already been mostly established. On the Media’s Brooke Gladstone and Paul Waldman, Senior Fellow at Media Matters for America, talk about how those narratives are made, why some stick and others don’t, and which ones really matter.

This segment from the Leonard Lopate Show (multiple audio options) is primarily about American, Presidential, electoral politics, but it deals with how there are always multiple, systemic biases in media. And how they're not always what people think. Though I have plenty of interest in American, Presidential, electoral politics, it's also worth relating this to the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. The idea that the media as a whole (or the majority of individual mainstream sources) are biased in a consistent direction is simplistic. It's not helpful to the debate to say that The New York Times, for example, is biased for or against Israel or the Palestinians. Used that way, the claim of bias becomes an excuse to ignore our own biases and to ignore too many facts.

Don't you dare!

I am not alone in my assessments of the Left online.

I never thought it would come to this. I was a fan, an admirer, I thought even a friend of Maryscott O'Connor. I was also one of the original posters at My Left Wing. No longer. But it's worse. If it were just a disagreement, I would go quietly. But My Left Wing has embraced the very ugliest edges of the left wing, going so far it meets itself at the other end. My Left Wing is an absolute hotbed of virulent anti-Semitism.

What's interesting is this:

In my own opinion.. it was prophylactic demands "don't call me an anti-Semite" to run cover for hatred.

It was someone making that demand who got me banned from Newsvine. Free speech for bigots, not for Jews. I think it's time we're unequivocal that the notion that Jews stifle debate is antisemitic. It contains within it a powerful mix of anti-Jewish myths and stereotypes and deliberately directs any debate to the character of a Jew, grounding all discussion in an ad hominem attack.

Jews are first seen as whining complainers. Often seems a relatively harmless stereotype, or at least if someone's complaining about the quality of a bagel, but it's the first basis for ignoring the actual content of whatever a Jew says. A more vile form is that Jews are manipulative schemers - or at least the ones involved in the debate are. In my experience, the modest antisemite will begin with the first claim. If I continue in insisting, "yeah, Holocaust Denial like that really is antisemitic," then the second claim comes out. The more insistent I am, the stronger -and more antisemitic- the excuse to ignore me.

Jews are seen as maliciously powerful, controlling the terms of discussion and creating great risks for others who even enter into the debate. Well, sometimes known antisemites should be discriminated against in hiring. Most people would agree that Jean-Marie Le Pen, for example, ought to be discriminated against in hiring for a journalist's position. But here the claim is that a random Jew like me can seriously affect someone's job prospects even when they're not antisemitic or saying anything antisemitic. That "even when" is always left implicit to prevent rebuttal - Le Pen would be allowed the same defense as anyone else.

Or even that a random Jew like me has great power to "criminalize debate" (I've heard that) with someone over in Europe where there are hate speech laws. The emphasis is that I'm the one taking action - never that someone's speech might be antisemitic in the first place, but that I create the situation by pointing that out. That I haven't been to Europe in decades, don't hold a seat in the EU parliament, etc. plays no role in describing my role in "criminalizing debate." That the other person might have said something genuinely antisemitic is beside the point.

In a recent New Yorker article about the antisemitic, French comedian, Dieudonné, a random bigot ("As if on cue") put it this way:

"Gentlemen, I just want to say that for the last hour you have been saying what so many of us feel in our bones but are afraid to say. There is a secret force occupying this land—it’s why I left for Quebec." The man had long, graying hair and was carrying an expensive-looking briefcase. When I asked him his name and profession, he said, "No, no, there are hidden cameras everywhere! They get it on tape and they can sue me, sue you, the new laws." As we left the café, Soral said, "Well, who knows who he was. Anyway, he’s gone to Canada—I know a lot of people who are leaving."

These are not a reasoned responses to the reasonable threat of being perceived (perhaps accurately) as a bigot but mendacious claims of Jewish power that lay all responsibility at the feet of Jews. The claim that Jews stifle debate, the righteous outrage of "Don't call me an antisemite," these are no more tangible than the claim of "a secret force occupying this land." This isn't debate, it's an insistence on antisemitic rules of debate that preclude anything at all from being considered antisemitic. These charges that Jews stifle debate seem relatively plain, and might be picked up easily by some who don't mean any harm, but they are plain dangerous.

Double Bind Antisemitism

Denial is buttressed by the claim that these accusations of anti-Semitism are themselves evidence of a Jewish conspiracy to silence critics of Israel and close down debate on the Middle East. That charge, of course, reanimates another traditional anti-Semitic theme - that of the Jew who whines about his sufferings less because he is really injured than because he hopes to draw some hidden advantage from complaining.

This post from Engage gives me reason to repost something that was on Newsvine. It's worth reading the comments from there, perhaps. As noted there, it was inspired by this post from Boycotted British Academic.
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The standard charge of the antisemite is that the Jews have too much power. How does a Jew go about confronting such a claim? By being powerless? By being actively discriminated against? By not fighting against bigotry, no matter how blatant? When the charge is that Jews are lousy athletes, that is a very different sort of claim that can be contested on fair ground. No Jew need tolerate further bigotry based on demonstration of their athletic prowess*. But how can Jews go about disproving the claim that the Jews are too powerful?

It's common to hear the antisemite, frothing at the mouth about Jewish power, combine their attack with a subtler charge. The Jews have power, so the bigot claims, over more than just the government - the Jew is charged with controlling the terms of debate. Beyond alleged control of the media (an antisemitic staple), the Jew leverages power to exclude opponents from debate. Some time ago, that charge might have looked like this:

I don't want to speak against the Jews, but when one reads the Jewish press, Jewish publications, and Jewish defence organs, one cannot escape the conclusion that in criticising them, one invites instant rebuke and disapproval. In doing so, you are either a reactionary, an obscurant, or a member of the Black Hundred. Having monopolised the press, they've become so arrogant as to believe that no one will dare level such an accusation against them

The quote is from the prosecutor of a Blood Libel trial in the Ukraine in 1903. The prosecutor, arguing that Jews murdered a Christian child for blood for ritual purposes, was far more than mildly antisemitic. And his charge that Jews supposedly monopolized the press created a double bind. How can one answer such a charge?

If someone points out the obvious - that this prosecutor is a bigot retelling hateful myths that have been around for far too long - then what happens? If the Jewish community doesn't fight the charge, then it gets taken for granted. But if the Jewish community is successful in fighting the charges leveled against it, then this prosecutor takes that success as proof that the Jews are powerful. This is a double bind.

Today, the prosecutor's charge is more likely to look like this:

No discussion of the Lobby would be complete without an examination of one of its most powerful weapons: the charge of anti-semitism. Anyone who criticises Israel’s actions or argues that pro-Israel groups have significant influence over US Middle Eastern policy – an influence AIPAC celebrates – stands a good chance of being labelled an anti-semite. Indeed, anyone who merely claims that there is an Israel Lobby runs the risk of being charged with anti-semitism, even though the Israeli media refer to America’s ‘Jewish Lobby’. In other words, the Lobby first boasts of its influence and then attacks anyone who calls attention to it. It’s a very effective tactic: anti-semitism is something no one wants to be accused of.

That, of course, is from Mearsheimer and Walt. It is substantively not different from the charge made by the prosecutor in 1903, and it's not substantively different from charges being made by numerous less visible attackers, even on the Vine. Most notably, it does not, in any way address whether the speech accused of being antisemitic is or isn't. In this particular case, few people have claimed that M&W are anything like the bigot that prosecutor was, but too many people have been pussyfooting around in their criticism of their thesis. That charge of Jewish power is as antisemitic as every other exaggeration of Jewish power.

"Jewish power" has been the central claim of antisemitism for probably a thousand years. Here is talk about Jewish power, and there's nothing to distinguish this talk of Jewish power with other talk of Jewish power. This is a double bind. If the Jewish community manages to survive this charge of Jewish power - through, for instance the numerous articles that demonstrate just how shoddy M&W's scholarship is - the antisemite takes this "victory for the Jews" as proof of Jewish power. Or, the Jewish community can leave bigotry uncontested.

That is the intention of the double bind. It is meant to give the attacked no way to respond.

[* The wording of that sentence was changed slightly from the original post for clarity.]