Disturbing Trends At Fox News
By: N. Richard Greenfield in the Jewish Press
“Fair and Balanced” is fast becoming more slogan than operating system at Fox News, and nowhere is this seen more clearly than in the way Israel is increasingly being treated and the extent to which anti-Semitism is tolerated as part of the cable channel’s conversation.
Here are a few examples:
? For some time, Fox has been using Michael Scheuer as a commentator. Bill O’Reilly is most responsible for this, but Judge Anthony Napolitano also made Scheuer a regular. This pompous “head of the Bin Laden Desk” at the CIA foams at the mouth whenever he can steer the conversation to Israel.
In his book Marching Toward Hell, Scheuer gives us that nasty bit of anti-Semitic trope that “the war in Iraq…was instigated by U.S. citizen Israel-firsters and their evangelical Christian allies.”
His subliminal theme is that Israel exerts undue influence on U.S. foreign policy through a network of powerful lobbies, organizations and large political donors. Scheuer is ever ready to blame Israel and by extension its American supporters for all that is wrong in the Middle East – and Fox gives him platform to do that.
? Before Scheuer, O’Reilly’s “stand up guy” was Al Sharpton, who in 1991 referred to Jews in Crown Heights as “diamond merchants” and in 1995 helped provoke an anti-Jewish riot in Harlem that resulted in several deaths at a Jewish-owned store Sharpton tagged as being run by “interlopers.”
? O’Reilly also harbors Marc Lamont Hill, an offbeat academic who defends the likes of the execrable Ward Churchill, fired from the University of Colorado because of his characterization of the victims of 9/11 as “little Eichmanns.” In defending Churchill, Hill gives hint to where his own feelings are. O’Reilly continues to keep him on.
? Another negative trendsetter is Sean Hannity, who has given new life to Pat Buchanan, a man with a long history of making remarks widely considered anti-Semitic; a man characterized by columnist Charles Krauthammer as “fanning hatred for Jews with his sly and not so sly allusions to Jewish power, Jewish influence, Jewish disloyalty” and by Alan A. Ryan, Jr., a former Justice Department prosecutor, as “the spokesman for Nazi war criminals in America.”
This is the same Buchanan who said “Capitol Hill is Israeli-occupied territory”; who first coined the term “amen corner” in reference to American Jews who support Israel; and who claimed that U.S. entry into conflict with Iraq was driven by Jewish neoconservatives solely for the benefit of Israel.
It’s the same Buchanan who wrote, “If you want to know ethnicity and power in the United States Senate, thirteen members of the Senate are Jewish folks who are from two percent of the population. That is where real power is at.”
The same Buchanan who said, “If [Elena] Kagan [President Obama’s nominee to the Supreme Court] is confirmed, Jews, who represent less than two percent of the U.S. population, will have thirty-three percent of the Supreme Court seats. Is this Democrats’ idea of diversity?”
His presence on Fox besmirches the network.
? Then there is the constant ignorance of Geraldo Rivera. One only has to spend a few seconds listening to his reporting from the “occupied territories,” as he calls them, to gauge the depth of his ignorance of the facts on the ground. Most recently he had a tete a tete with his “old and dear friend” Hanan Ashwari, the dependable propagandist for the Palestinian narrative. Geraldo regularly parrots that Palestinian narrative.
? Most recently, Bob Beckel, on “The Five,” appeared to be channeling Sharpton when he referred to a group of Israelis meeting with Mitt Romney as “diamond merchants.” Bob and Fox must know that the term used in that way is redolent with stereotype and prejudice.
None of this is casual stuff. Anti-Semitism creeps into media environments like Fox News in innocuous doses, but soon becomes ever-present and accepted.
In the early 1990s the courageous William F. Buckley would not allow the anti-Semitism of a senior editor named Joseph Sobran to contaminate National Review, the magazine Buckley had founded in 1955. Buckley also publicly castigated the aforementioned Buchanan for his statements on Jews and Israel. There seems to be no such compunction at Fox.
What Bill Buckley did was exhibit a moral courage that most of the media lack and that Fox is now losing. It takes courage to do the right thing and Fox doesn’t seem to have it as it starts its descent into that cauldron of opinion in the so-called middle where right and wrong are always relative and never absolute.
More’s the pity, for courage is what made Fox News what it is today. Not ego. Not brashness. Not relativity. Courage. Fox, which once led, is becoming a follower. The network’s decision-makers have to realize that the poison that is anti-Semitism needs be fully removed, not merely “balanced.”
Pollution, once in the mix, spoils everything.
N. Richard Greenfield publishes the Jewish Ledger in Connecticut (www.jewishledger.com).
@ CuriousAmerican:I don not disagree with the basic idea of offering financial incentives to emigrate. I just dont see it working well unless it has the support and financing of major international institutions(UN & UNWRA) at least and preferably the arab natins also. It requires a paradigm shift in the thinking of the arabs and their leadership support. Offering it piecemeal from Israel only will be obstructed by the arabs. Perhaps the current turmoil will change perspectives there but I doubt it. My solution can be implemented unilaterally by Israel and relies solely on Israels military abilities and not on arab agrement. I think because it is considered so politically incorrect no one is willing to consider,or even imagine, it as a positive solution for the arabs also.
@ CuriousAmerican:by the way the C. Rice article you referenced mentioned that the latter emigration of muslim arabs had some struggles integrating although i dont see this as the obstacle to your solution.
@ Bernard Ross:
http://www.sodahead.com/united-states/is-barack-hussein-obama-a-muslim-new-questions-arise/question-2112877/
http://www.sodahead.com/united-states/obama-removes-jewelry-during-month-of-ramadan-but-hes-a-christian/question-2108507/
http://www.suntimes.com/news/politics/obama/2697802,CST-NWS-ring12.article
and another observation:
http://www.wnd.com/2012/07/was-barack-obama-married-in-college/?cat_orig=politics
Although Snoops said it false, but I found on more than on one occasion that Snoops was wrong (i don’t know intentionally or not, but their conclusion was incorrect)
@ CuriousAmerican:
You are anti Judaism, anti Jewishness and anti Jew. Look for other Lambs or goats. Yes goats are an alternative to Lambs for sacrifices and their blood must be paced on the alter. That would disqualify your J guy as being a legit sacrifice.
The Jewish G-d ha said through his prophets that he does not want sacrifices but sincere repentance and and sincere prayer.
@ CuriousAmerican:
You are anti Judaism, anti Jewishness and anti Jew. Look for other Lambs or goats. Yes goats are an alternative to Lambs for sacrifices and their blood must be paced on the alter. That would disqualify your J guy as being a legit sacrifice.
The Jewish G-d ha said through his prophets that he does not want sacrifices but sincere repentance and and sincere prayer.
@ CuriousAmerican:
That’s an obvious given ; so say what I stated is untrue.
@ CuriousAmerican:
“The truth will set you free” Then again? In your case, maybe not.
The truth will set everyone free; but what have you got to do with the truth?
I am not sure which article you are referencing, but if you mean Muslim Arab immigration to South America, most of them converted or intermarried into Christianity.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ig-y4lgnyNE This is a short 48 minute documentary on one family.
The woman only found out she had a Muslim ancestor when she was 15. She is part Spanish, Italian, Irish, and Shia Lebanese.
Islam cannot survive where it does NOT rule.
The trick is to not concentrate Muslims in any area.
@ CuriousAmerican:the Rice article was about lobbying for SA immigration, on your website, it was the last paragraph which mentioned that the earlier waves of Christians waere ok but the latest muslims had some struggles. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jan/24/condoleezza-rice-palestinian-refugees-south-america
“But unlike previous Palestinian arrivals – mostly Christians with education and money who chose to move – the refugees were blue-collar conservative Muslims and had struggled to integrate.”
@ CuriousAmerican:
and you definitely know how to do that…LOL Perhaps by a nuke?
If they came in with money, they could have assimilated easier.
I read another article where it was mentioned that the Christian Palestinians, being elite, in Chile got driven to cultural dances, while the new Muslim immigrants had to take 3 buses.
That will change over time.
http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=-wIfI2whjiM
I would like to thank Mr. Greenfield for pointing out this serious issue with Fox. I’m Canadian and when faced with choosing to watch news I was forced to choose between CNN and Fox. I was sick of CNN’s constant 1 sidedness when it came to supporting Obama as the messiah, bashing republicans, choosing palestinians over Israel, etc. so I chose Fox. Thankfully the last year saw a new Canadian news channel called Sun News TV which has some great shows like Charles Adler, Michael Coren and Ezra Levant. Of course I like to watch more than 1 news channel so I do hope that Fox stands courageous and drops its anti-Semitic angles and fast!