Author: Jim Rissman

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In his 108th Capital Times column of the year, Associate Editor John Nichols pays homage to Jack Newfield and advocacy journalism. It appears that Nichols’ promotion of Russ Feingold is modeled on Newfield’s of Bobby Kennedy. Newfield was a “great fighter for civil liberties and human rights” who, sad to say, couldn’t tolerate criticism of Israel. He was “troubled by Dean’s recent suggestion that America ‘shouldn’t take sides’ between Palestinian terrorists and Israel…it suggested an amateurish foreign policy and insensitivity” (Newsday, Sept. 17, 2003).

The Newfield/Nichols credo is that only “lazy” journalists strive to be “fair and balanced.” Newfield “saw a world of heroes and villians” and realized that “the search for truth led, ultimately, to the point where the journalist had to take a side.” The goal is to “produce the rarest of all commodities: truth, and sometimes justice.”

That’s the ideal, for the reality consider the Capital Times’ stance when a proposal to sanction the Madison-Rafah Sister City Project was before the city council this summer. Obviously, Nichols avoided the subject in his column or there wouldn’t be a countdown. There was, however, a series of editorials.

The first suggests the proposal be expanded (i.e., balanced), to include an Israeli city as well. In the process it criticizes the tactics of Madison Jewish Coummunity Council director Steve Morrison.

The second calls for compromise in the battle between Morrison, who calls Rafah “a hotbed of terrorist activity against Israel and anti-Semitism” and the projects’ supporters, who want Madison “to show solidarity with Palestinians.”

The third, on the day of the vote, criticizes and praises both sides while enjoining the council to “tinker with the proposal” in order to find common ground.

The fourth praises both sides, notes that, while the proposal got a majority of the votes cast, it lost, and criticizes the mayor for not having tried to mediate.

Two weeks before the council vote, the International Court of Justice, speaking with upmost clarity, ruled 14-1 that Israel’s separation wall is illegal. Even the dissenting U.S. judge agreed that its “settlements in the Occupied Territories (including East Jerusalem) have been established in breach of international law.” The Capital Times didn’t mention the ICJ decision any more than it “took a side” on the proposal that was voted on by the Madison City Council.

A real eye-opener were letters to the editor from two pillars of the Madison arts scene. Both Sidran and Kadushin praise the Jewish Community Council for its dedication to local social justice, never mind how it carries out its mission “to affirm, support and strengthen our relationship with…the State of Israel.” Kadushin takes pride in the angst of some of the Rafah opponents, and then notes something “especially ironic”–right before the vote it was announced that the Goodman brothers had donated millions for a “public pool designed for the underprivileged.” Obliviously, he introduces real irony–a central point of Israel’s colonialism is to exert control over scarce water resources, the settlements’ swimming pools are a primary symbol of the occupation’s grotesqueness.

Israel’s occupation is fundamentally illegal and immoral, yet U.S. support for Israel is “immutable.” Thus, as Russ Feingold said on the senate floor in another context, “our power to lead, to persuade, and to inspire” is “squandered.” “This power will not convert the extremists…But it can thwart their plans by denying them new recruits…”

Ray McGovern may think it doesn’t take special courage “to tell it like it is,” but he’s not in John Nichols’ shoes. John doesn’t write a column and then move on to the next locale for the next gig, he stays put. Not only does he risk being called a name and losing circulation, he faces the decidedly unpleasant prospect of firmly and repeatedly telling proud and esteemed fellow “progressives” that there is a fundamental right and wrong; despite Palestinians’ acts of terrorism, they are fundamentally in the right; despite the Holocaust and Jews’ civil rights activism, Jewish state power in Israel backed by Jewish (and other) institutional power in the U.S. is fundamentally in the wrong; and finally, the longer the wrong is not righted, the likelier we will keep seeing our resources squandered and our freedoms curtailed in an endless “war on terror.”

If John’s not up to the task, it’s understandable, but then he should ease up on the “truth” and “justice.” And have the decency to see his streak through to the end, not mention “Israel” this year. That’s 108 columns down, two to go.

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Jack Newfield obits:

A Foe of Injustice (New York Sun)
Jack Newfield, Crusading Columnist (The Jewish Week)

Jack Newfield here, from the land beyond, beyond:

John sure does me proud, “And so he wrote, passionately, powerfully and with a faith in the potential of a word well chosen to change the world.” Oh, I feel so good, that’s tikkune.

Well, I’ve got to go and try to find Bobby.

Ufot:

Let’s see, I ask for gush and Feingold and I get gush and Feingold. I recall tikkun and Said’s eulogy and I get tikkun and Newfield’s eulogy. Newfield has his Bobby Kennedy and John has his Russ Feingold. Newfield’s as brainwashed as Feingold. The next thing you know it’s going to rain frogs.

John Nichols:

A UW girl’s gone and got herself arrested for filming Israeli soldiers beating up a Palestinian. Should I write about her on the 30th or the refuseniks like I did last year? I’ll have to talk it over with Ufot.

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John Nichols’ Capital Times column Tuesday is headlined Curtailing Christians in Occupied Iraq in the print edition. Bethlehem’s mayor and Jerusalem’s Latin patriarch have been speaking out, will Thursday bring Curtailing Christians in Occupied Palestine? We’ll know soon enough but for now, that’s 107 “Israel”less columns down, three to go.

Ideally, the holistic approach should be taken, the two occupations linked, as in Curtailing Reports in Occupied U.N. Yep, scratch one U.N. report.

John’s “Iraq” percentage is inching back up, he uses it for the 42nd time in those 107 columns, and in the process startles us with words we haven’t seen in the previous 41. “Baghdad?” “Mosul?” “Kirkuk?” You mean Iraq has cities where things actually happen? Should we prepare ourselves for “Najaf” and maybe even “Fallujah?”

“Lies” and “lying”; “claims” and “claiming”; “deceit, “deceiving,” “deceiver,” and “deceptive”; “spin”; “phantasy”; “discredited”: these are the words to be found in the brunt of the 41 “Iraq” columns. A journalism maven, John understands the message has to be hammered home again and again, the Bush administration is deceitful, deceitful, deceitful and must be voted out.

If a message has to be repeated for it to start sinking in, what practical difference does it make if John addresses the Israeli/Palestinian conflict before the end of the year? None, obviously, it’s the principle that counts.

Notes

John regresses re the Iraq sanctions, they’re not even “U.N”, they’re non-existent. “When Christians left during Saddam’s time, they tended to do so for economic reasons,” he writes. AFP reports that 700,000 have left since 1987, in part because of “crippling sanctions” (maintained throughout the Clinton years).

Should US-based churches boycott certain companies doing business with Israel? You can vote at the CSM website if you’re willing to risk offending the plucky little kingdom.

If John does trip up, it may be over Israeli soldiers urged to refuse orders.

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It’s Feingold for president! Having run his amazing senate speech as a Capital Time op-ed piece, John Nichols anoints him the 2008 standardbearer in Thursday’s column. “Absolute rejection of the war in Iraq and empire building” is to be the rallying cry.

As the dead horse is about to be beaten again, it’s fitting to recall the old Limelighters’ takeoff on the psychological western. “You’ve killed one hundred and forty men, old buddy, and now you want to settle down.” It turns out that the “Gunslinger” is not a bad cowpoke, just a sick one–he comes from a “broken home on the range.” I’d like to, indeed I do think that Russ Feingold’s deception isn’t willful.

How could someone who laments the “squandering” of “our power to lead, to persuade, and to inspire” and the “undermining” of “our ability to win…hearts and minds” have expressed solidarity with Israel after it wrought death and demolished the Palestinian infrastructure in the spring of 2002? He mentions the 9/11 Commission report, but ignores what it calls a “simple fact,” “American policy regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict” as well as “American actions in Iraq are dominant staples of popular commentary across the Arab and Muslim world.”

Citing the Pentagon’s Defense Science Board’s conclusion that “Muslims” hate us for our policies, “especially ‘what they see as one-sided support in favor of Israel and against Palestinian rights,'” David Hirst notes that the Bush adminstration “can never acknowledge the real nature of the [Arab-Israeli] problem, which is essentially one of decolonization.”

Feingold notes that majorities in the four predominantly Muslim countries included in a 2004 Pew survey “doubt the sincerity of the U.S. war on terrorism and say that it is an effort to control Mideast oil and dominate the world.” Majorities in three of the five non-Muslim states agree. Does Feingold? I don’t know, but if he is “rejecting empire building” here, he’s on shaky ground, he’s denying the U.S. a prerogative he’s afforded Israel.

He doesn’t mention the survey’s finding that majorities or near majorities in the four Muslim countries “also believe the anti-terrorism effort is driven by the desire of the U.S. to protect Israel” (the elephant). Nor does he mention the 2003 Pew which finds that “in 20 of 21 populations surveyed – Americans are the only exception – pluralities or majorities believe the United States favors Israel over the Palestinians too much. This opinion is shared in Israel…”

Acknowledging that the anointed one has a severe psychological problem, that he needs deprogramming, is not going to help the effort to provide “progressives” something to feel good about. Feingold doesn’t use the word “Israel,” so neither does Nichols. That’s 106 columns down, four to go.

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John Nichols: Feingold-for-president buzz growing

Ufot was right, I just couldn’t resist plugging Russ again! And I can’t believe I had never used the word gush before, why, it’s almost as lovely as tikkun.

It’s unlikely Russ will ever be President and I’ll be his Press Secretary, but progressives have little else to feel good about so I gush. And if I have to gloss over his cognitive dissonance, well, it’s for the greater good, progressives need uplifting. It’s too bad other states don’t have their own Feingold, ours will have to do.

What’s that, honey, the tofu is ready? Okay, got to run.

Best,
John Nichols

p.s. I won’t forget to use “Israel” in my December 30 Capital Times column like I did last year, anything for a good joke.

Proquest data base search results (through December 15):

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Searching for (au(john nichols) and so(capital times) and gush) AND PDN(>1/1/1994) did not find any documents. Try the following: snip

216 documents found for: (au(john nichols) and so(capital times) and feingold) AND PDN(>1/1/1994)

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“Progressive” bellwether John Nichols supports the right-to-vote amendment in Tuesday’s Capital Times, that’s 105 columns down, five to go and he’ll have made it through the year without using the word “Israel.” If that isn’t exciting enough, a new story line is developing–he hasn’t used “Iraq” since early November. “Iraq” used to be a staple, appearing in 40% of his columns. It could be that with the election over, he no longer feels the urgency to beat Bush over the head with it. In any case, having a streak within a streak like this is unprecedented in the annals of countdowns.

Young readers might be suprised to learn that some people found the Clinton administration’s Iraq policy–“economic sanctions constituting the most comprehensive state of siege ever imposed in modern history”–as intolerable as they have found Bush’s. Take, for example, Kathy Kelly, who in 1996 co-founded Voices in the Wilderness. Earlier this year, she “can’t help but wonder why the pictures of suffering Iraqi children never raised equivalent concern or indignation” as the Abu Ghraib photos. And last week, with the media obsessing over Kofi Annan and the Oil for Food program, she can’t help but ask “is there no columnist who will remind us that 500,000 children under age five died as the U.S. used the UN to wage economic warfare?”

In 1995, John Nichols named Kathy Kelly “woman of the year,” but now the Capital Times offers her no solace. Of course, Annan is defended, but the sanctions are “UN” and their effect is unmentioned. It’s Said all over again.

Speaking of hounded Secretary-Generals, Madeleine Albright and the Clinton administration waged “a singularly vicious and personal campaign” against Annan’s predecessor. Boutros Boutros-Ghali was the victim of “a wholesale and increasingly brutal assault.” His fate was sealed when he released a report undercutting Israel’s claim that its attack on a UN center in Qana, Lebanon, was an accident.

Wherever the point of departure, the trail always seems to lead back to 1996, the middle of the Clinton years. Half a million dead Iraqi children and the Qana massacre have been linked before, in a fatwa and an interview.

note:

Had Robert Fisk not been on the scene in Qana, there probably wouldn’t have been a UN report.