Antisemitism Report 2009 - World Jewish Congress

At its core the internet is an ideal. I can arrange an online chat with a political scientist in South
Korea, create an email focus group amongst my constituents, even discuss Islamic revolutionary
theory with a student in Iran. But as with any movement or agent of change, an ideal can be
undermined by the ideology of its users. For me, a clear example is the partisan coverage of the
Israeli Palestinian conflict by some online magazines. This years output of two of these online
publications, Crikey.com and New Matilda.com, is profoundly disturbing.
Both have pretensions to non-partisan coverage. Crikey is run by a staff who claim journalistic
credentials in its mission statement to be fair and open. New Matilda similarly claims to provide nonpartisan
information and takes contributions, as it describes, from ―journalists, current and former
politicians, lawyers, critical and creative thinkers, bloggers, policy-wonks and satirists‖. Which is
just about everyone in this room - and a good percentage of those outside of it.
Whatever their stated aims, a careful analysis of their output over the first three months of this year
shows that when it comes to the coverage of the Israeli Palestinian conflict, Crikey and New Matilda
are in fact manifestly partisan. Both consistently adopt the Palestinian narrative, characterise Israel
as an oppressor, and ignore Israeli‘s legitimate security concerns. It is their right to criticize the only
free society in the Middle East but it is nonsense to claim they are not strongly biased.
Following the last Israeli elections, Crikey contributor Jeff Sparrow stated as fact that Israeli society
had moved sharply to the right, at the same time that that the centre-left Kadima party secured the
largest block vote and Likud‘s Netanyahu sought to broaden his coalition into a ruling government
whose final makeup included longtime advocates of peace with the Palestinians. In another article the
same contributor looked at the decision of the Israel‘s Central Elections Committee to ban the
participation of two nationalist Arab political parties in the elections, drawing odious parallels with
South Africa‘s apartheid regime - whilst ignoring the democratic Israeli institutions, not found
elsewhere in the Middle East, that a few days later saw the Supreme Court reverse that bureaucratic
decision. Similarly, New Matilda correspondent Ben White accuses Israel of apartheid control over
the Palestinians. He condemns outright the erection of a security fence without reference whatsoever
to it or the fact that it has lead to a 95% drop in homicide attacks on civilians in Israel or the fact that
it acts as a defensive measure against repeated terrorist attacks, or that the fence‘s route has always
been subject to negotiation and moderation by the Israeli Supreme Court as part of the peace process.
Another Crikey contributor, Guy Rundle, downplays the genocidal policies of Iran‘s President
Ahmedinajab to little more than populism, dismissing outright Israel‘s authentic fears of a nucleararmed
Iran, not to mention the apprehension of moderate Arab regimes at the prospect of an Iranian
regional hegemony.
New Matilda is even more strident in its partisanship. Of the 18 articles run by newmatilda.com in the
fist three months of this year concerning the Israeli Palestinian conflict, 17 presented a hardline
Palestinian narrative.
Some themes emerge. Polemicist Antony Lowewentein is but one of the correspondents to claim as
fact that Israel refuses to consider a two-State solution, despite the evidence of numerous peace
overtures, the consistent views of mainstream Israelis in favour of a consensus solution, and the
unprecedented territorial concessions offered by Israel at the 2000 Camp David Summit and later at
Taba, and indeed reoffered by Netanyahu‘s predecessor Ehud Olmert. Unmentioned is Hamas‘s
refusal to recognise Israeli existence, as is the barrier presented to any unified proposal by the
ongoing blood feud between the Fatah rulers of the West Bank and Hamas in Gaza.
Time and again these articles refer to Jews, or the Jewish State, but rarely Israel as a sovereign entity
. Paradoxically New Matilda contributor Michael Brull then complains that most Australian Jewish
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