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News :: Miscellaneous |
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MIND CONTROL AND AMERICAN JEWS |
Current rating: 0 |
by Mc Learne
(No verified email address) |
08 Aug 2002
Modified: 10 Aug 2002 |
>>>>This is hidden because it's DAN SPAM<<<<
The Israelis besiege the Church of Nativity, thousands of Palestinians
are led into Zionist concentration camps, while the discourse still concentrates
on 'right of Israel to self-defence'... The biggest act of wholesale terror
since 9/11 is being perpetrated, but the pundits still discuss 'the retail terror'... |
The present invasion into Holy Land and its perverse coverage in the
media provided sterling proof to suspisions of many: America's mind
became captive in the hands of Jewish supremacists. They formed a new
fearsome weapon of mind control by uniting media ownership with the
'punditocracy', as it is described by witty Eric Alterman of the Nation.
Prof. McDonald of California State University provides his well
researched findings on the extent of the media control. It is useful to
keep under hand, to terminate future arguments.
Jews who do not subscribe to the ideas of supremacy are being hunted and
persecuted. In such a way, the Jewish leadership tries to enforce the
blind obidience and loyalty within the community. Parents of Adam
Shapiro, a wonderful Jewish guy who worked in Ramallah, were hunted out
of New York, while ADL keeps spying on the liberal Jews. These feelings
are well described by Robert Leverant, while Jerry Levin, ex-Chief of
CNN, gives his remarks on the media witch-hunt on the non-abiding Jews.
Contents:
1. Eric Alterman on Jewish supremacist Punditocracy
2. Indymedia report on Jewish supremacists around Bush
3. ADL spies on liberal Jews in SF
4. Robert Leverant' s remarks
5. Jerry Levin's letter
6. Jews and the Media by Kevin McDonald
I
Intractable Foes,
Warring Narratives
By Eric Alterman
MSNBC Contributor
4-2-2
While much of the world sees Mideast conflict through Palestinian eyes,
in America, Israel's view prevails...
For reasons of religion, politics, history and genuine conviction the
punditocracy debate of the Middle East in America is dominated by people
who cannot imagine criticizing Israel.
Stepping back from the horrific headlines of the day, it is clear that
the conflict over Israel/Palestine is all about competing narratives. In
most of the world, it is the Palestinian narrative of a dispossessed
people that dominates. In the United States, however, the narrative that
dominates is Israel's: a democracy under constant siege. Europeans and
other Palestinian partisans point to the fact that the Israel lobby in America
is one of the strongest anywhere, and Jewish individuals and organizations
give millions of dollars to political candidates in order to reward
pro-Israel policies and punish those who support the Palestinians.
Another reason, however, is the near-complete domination by pro-Israel
partisans of the punditocracy discourse.
Some Jewish groups in America like to harass news organizations like The
Washington Post or National Public Radio for what they believe to be
coverage insufficiently sympathetic to Israel's plight. But even Ariel
Sharon and Benjamin Netanyahu would not be able to complain about the
level of support their actions typically receive from the members of the
punditocracy.
For reasons of religion, politics, history and genuine conviction the
punditocracy debate of the Middle East in America is dominated by people
who cannot imagine criticizing Israel. The value of this legion to the
Jewish state is, for better or worse, literally incalculable, particularly when
push - as it inevitably does in the Middle East - comes to shove. Here's
a list I made in trying to measure the immeasurable.
COLUMNISTS AND COMMENTATORS WHO CAN BE COUNTED UPON TO SUPPORT ISRAEL
REFLEXIVELY AND WITHOUT QUALIFICATION:
George Will, The Washington Post, Newsweek and ABC News William Safire,
The New York Times A.M. Rosenthal, The New York Daily News, formerly
Executive Editor of and later columnist for, The New York Times, Charles
Krauthammer, The Washington Post, PBS, Time, and The Weekly Standard, formerly of the
New Republic. Michael Kelly, The Washington Post, The Atlantic Monthly,
National Journal, and MSNBC.com, formerly of The New Republic and The New Yorker.
Lally Weymouth, The Washington Post and Newsweek Martin Peretz, The New
Republic, Daniel Pipes, The New York Post Andrea Peyser, The New York
Post Dick Morris, The New York Post Lawrence Kaplan, The New Republic William
Bennett, CNN William Kristol, The Washington Post, the Weekly Standard,
Fox News, formerly of ABC News Robert Kagan, The Washington Post and The
Weekly Standard, Mortimer Zuckerman, US News and World Report (Zuckerman is
also Chairman of Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish
Organizations). David Gelertner, The Weekly Standard John Podhoretz, The New York
Post and The Weekly Standard Mona Charen, The Washington Times Morton
Kondracke, Roll Call, Fox News formerly of The McLaughlin Group, The New Republic
and PBS Fred Barnes, The Weekly Standard, Fox News, formerly of The New
Republic, The McLaughlin Group, and The Baltimore Sun Sid Zion, The New
York Post, The New York Daily News, Yossi Klein Halevi The New Republic,
Sidney Zion, The New York Post, formerly of The New York Daily News Norman
Podhoretz, Commentary, Jonah Goldberg, National Review and CNN Laura
Ingraham, CNN, formerly of MSNBC and CBS News Jeff Jacoby, The Boston
Globe Rich Lowry, National Review Andrew Sullivan, The New Republic Seth
Lipsky, The Wall Street Journal and The New York Sun, formerly of the Jewish
Forward Irving Kristol, The Public Interest, The National Interest and The Wall
Street Journal Editorial Page Chris Matthews, MSNBC Allan Keyes, MSNBC,
WorldNetDaily.com Brit Hume, Fox News John Leo, US News and World Report
Robert Bartley, The Wall Street Journal Editorial Page John Fund, The
Wall Street Journal OpinionJournal, formerly of The Wall Street Journal
Editorial Page Peggy Noonan, The Wall Street Journal Editorial Page, Ben
Wattenberg, The Washington Times, PBS Tony Snow, Washington Times and Fox News
Lawrence Kudlow, National Review and CNBC Alan Dershowitz, Boston Herald,
Washington Times David Horowitz, Frontpage.com Jacob Heilbrun, The Los Angeles
Times Thomas Sowell, Washington Times Frank Gaffney Jr, Washington Times
Emmett Tyrell, American Spectator and New York Sun Cal Thomas, Washington Times
Oliver North, Washington Times and Fox News, formerly of MSNBC Michael
Ledeen, Jewish World Review William F. Buckley, National Review Bill
O'Reilly, Fox News Paul Greenberg, Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, L. Brent
Bozell, Washington Times Todd Lindberg, Washington Times Michael Barone,
US News and World Report and The McLaughlin Group Ann Coulter, Human
Events, Linda Chavez, Creators Syndicate Cathy Young, Reason Magazine Uri Dan,
New York Post Dr. Laura Schlessinger, morality maven Rush Limbaugh, radio
host
PUBLICATIONS THAT, FOR REASONS OF OWNER OR EDITORSHIP CAN BE COUNTED
UPON TO SUPPORT ISRAEL REFLEXIVELY AND WITHOUT QUALIFICATION:
The New Republic (Martin Peretz, Michael Steinhardt, Roger Hertog,
Owners) Commentary (American Jewish Committee, Owner) US News and World Report
(Mortimer Zuckerman, Owner) The New York Daily News (Mortimer Zuckerman,
Owner) The New York Post (Rupert Murdoch, Owner) The Weekly Standard
(Rupert Murdoch, Owner) The Wall Street Journal Editorial Page (Peter Kann,
Editor) The Atlantic Monthly (Michael Kelly, Editor)
COLUMNISTS LIKELY TO CRITICIZE BOTH ISRAEL AND THE PALESTINIANS, BUT
VIEW THEMSELVES TO BE CRITICALLY SUPPORTERS OF ISRAEL, AND ULTIMATELY, WOULD
SUPPORT ISRAELI SECURITY OVER PALESTINIAN RIGHTS:
Thomas Friedman, The New York Times, Richard Cohen, The Washington Post
and New York Daily News Avishai Margolit, The New York Review of Books David
Remnick, The New Yorker Eric Alterman, The Nation and MSNBC.com The New
York Times Editorial Board The Washington Post Editorial Board
COLUMNISTS LIKELY TO BE REFLEXIVELY ANTI-ISRAEL AND/OR PRO-PALESTINIAN
REGARDLESS OF CIRCUMSTANCE:
Robert Novak, The Washington Post Pat Buchanan, WorldNetDaily.com,
formerly of The Washington Times and CNN. Alexander Cockburn, The Nation and New
York Press Christopher Hitchens, The Nation and Vanity Fair Edward Said, The
Nation
HOW FRIENDS CAN BEST HELP
As can be seen from this list of lists, the entire anti-Israel
contingent of the punditocracy does not add up to a single George Will or William
Safire, much less a Wall Street Journal or US News. It remains to be seen
whether unqualified support for all of Israel's actions is really in that
tortured nation's best interest in the long run. Sometimes the bravest and most
valuable advice a trusted friend can give is: "STOP." Someone is going
to have to stop first if this unending catastrophe is ever to end.
Eric Alterman is a columnist for The Nation and a regular contributor to
MSNBC.com.
II
The men behind George Bush
(Indymedia report)
Meet the men behind George Bush - the men you believe and trust with
your life.
The key to seeing the level of the Israeli lobby's influence on the
George Walker Bush (Bush Jr) Administration is in noting the
appointments of the following Israelis and pro-Israel Jewish advisors to
posts in the White House and other Executive Branch Positions:
Note: The Washington Institute for Near East Policy is the Israeli
lobby's "think tank."
Many of the Israeli lobby's "experts" come from this front group, like
Martin Indyk.
U.S. Jewish Government under President Bush:
Ari Fleischer
Official White House Spokesman for the Bush (Jr) Administration.
Prominent in the Jewish community, he reportedly holds Israeli
citizenship.
Richard Perle
One of Bush's Foreign Policy Advisors and chairman of the Pentagon's
Defense Policy Board.
He had worked as Bush's Jewish national security campaign advisor.
A very likely Israeli agent, Perle was expelled from Senator Henry
Jackson's office in the 1970's after the National Security Agency (NSA)
caught him passing Highly-Classified (National Security) documents to
the Israeli Embassy. He later worked for the Israeli weapons firm,
Soltam.
Paul Wolfowitz
Deputy Defense Secretary, Bush's Jewish foreign policy campaign advisor,
close associate of Israeli agent Richard Perle, and reportedly has close
ties to the Israeli military.
Douglas Feith
Under Secretary of Defense and Policy Advisor at the Pentagon.
He is a close associate of Perle and served as his Special Counsel.
Like Perle and the others, Feith is a pro-Israel extremist, who has
advocated anti-Arab policies in the past. He is closely associated with
the extremist group, the Zionist Organization of America, which even
attacks Jews that don't agree with its extremist views. Feith frequently
speaks at ZOA conferences. Feith runs a small law firm, Feith and Zell,
which only has one International office, in Israel. The majority of
their legal work is representing Israeli interests. His firm's own
website stated, prior to his appointment, that Feith "represents Israeli
Armaments Manufacturer." Feith basically represents the Israeli War
Machine.
Elliott Abrams
National Security Council Advisor.
He previously worked at Washington-based "Think Tank" Ethics and Public
Policy Center. During the Reagan Adminstration, Abrams was the Assistant
Secretary of State, handling, for the most part, Latin American affairs.
He played an important role in the Iran-Contra Scandal, which involved
illegally selling U.S. weapons to Iran to fight Iraq, and illegally
funding the contra rebels fighting to overthrow Nicaragua's Sandinista
government. He also actively deceived three congressional committees
about his involvement and thereby faced felony charges based on his
testimony. Abrams pled guilty in 1991 to two misdemeanors and was
sentenced to a year's probation and 100 hours of community service. A
year later, Bush Sr. granted Abrams a full pardon. He was one of the
more hawkish pro-Israel Jews in the Reagan Administration's State
Department.
Dov Zekheim
Under Secretary of Defense. He was Bush's Jewish foreign policy advisor
and reportedly holds Israeli citizenship.
Richard Haass
Director of Policy Planning at the State Department and Ambassador at
large.
He is also Director of National Security Programs and Senior Fellow at
the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). He was one of the more hawkish
pro-Israel Jews in the first Bush (Sr) Administration who sat on the
National Security Council, and who consistently advocates bombing Iraq.
Henry Kissinger
One of many Pentagon Advisors, Kissinger sits on the Pentagon's Defense
Policy Board.
For detailed information about Kissinger's evil past, read Seymour
Hersch's book. Kissinger had a part in the Watergate crimes, Southeast
Asia mass murders, Chile dictatorship and reaped investment profits in
Yugoslavia.
He consistently advocates bombing Iraq. Kissinger is the Ariel Sharon of
the U.S.
James Schlesinger
One of many Pentagon Advisors, Schlesinger also sits on the Pentagon's
Defense Policy Board and is another extremist pro-Israel advisor. He
consistently advocates bombing Iraq.
Robert Zoellick
U.S. Trade Representative, a cabinet-level position.
He is also one of the more hawkish pro-Israel Jews in the Bush (Jr)
Administration who advocated invading Iraq and occupying a portion of
the country in order to set up setting up a Vichy-style puppet
government. He consistently advocates bombing Iraq.
Marc Grossman
Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs.
He was Director General of the Foreign Service and Director of Human
Resources at the Department of State. Grossman is one of many of the
Jewish officials from the Clinton Administration that Bush has promoted
to higher posts.
Robert Satloff
U.S. National Security Council Advisor,
Satloff was the executive director of the Israeli lobby's "think tank,"
Washington Institute for Near East Policy. Many of the Israeli lobby's
"experts" come from this front group, like Martin Indyk.
Mel Sembler President of the Export-Import Bank of the United States.
A Prominent Jewish Republican and Former National Finance Chairman of
the Republican National Committee. The Export-Import Bank facilitates
trade relationships between U.S. businesses and foreign countries,
specifically those with financial problems.
Joshua Bolten
Bush's Chief Policy Director, banker and former legislative aide.
Prominent in the Jewish community.
Steve Goldsmith
Senior Advisor to the President, and Bush's Jewish domestic policy
advisor.
He also serves as liaison in the White House Office of Faith-Based and
Community Initiatives (White House OFBCI) within the Executive Office of
the President. He was the former mayor of Indianapolis. He is also
friends with Israeli Jerusalem Mayor Ehud Olmert and often visits Israel
to coach mayors on privatization initiatives.
Daniel Saul Goldin
Head of NASA, National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
A leftover from the Clinton Administration, Golding is frequently
praised by the Israeli media as a friend of Israel.
Adam Goldman
White House's Special Liaison to the Jewish Community.
Joseph Gildenhorn
Bush Campaign's Special Liaison to the Jewish Community.
He was the DC finance chairman for the Bush campaign, as well as
campaign coordinator, and former ambassador to Switzerland.
Christopher Gersten
Former Executive Director of the Republican Jewish Coalition, husband of
Labor Secretary, Linda Chavez, and reportedly very pro-Israel. Their
children are being raised in the Jewish faith.
Mark Weinberger
Assistant Secretary of the Treasury.
Samuel Bodman
Deputy Secretary of Commerce.
He was the Chairman and CEO of Cabot Corporation in Boston,
Massachusetts.
Bonnie Cohen
Under Secretary of State for Management.
Ruth Davis
Director of Foreign Service Institute, who reports to the Office of
Under Secretary for Management. This Office is responsible for training
all Department of State staff (including ambassadors).
Lincoln Bloomfield
Assistant Secretary of State for Political Military Affairs.
Bush has hired these Israeli lobbyists to the highest positions in the
land, he has escalated the bombing of Iraq, and already sided with
Israel in killing Palestinian civilians.
III
Adversaries Penetrate ADL's Spying Operation
By Dan Evans San Francisco Examiner
4-1-2
Locked in a nondescript computer database, a shadowy operative named Roy
Bullock kept file upon file on liberal San Francisco Jews who disagreed
with Israeli policies.
The files included Social Security numbers, driver's license numbers,
addresses, phone numbers and group memberships. Some of the information
was sold to foreign governments, including Israeli and South African
intelligence groups.
Shockingly, Bullock was in the employ of a civil rights group whose
motto is "fighting anti-Semitism, bigotry and extremism": the
Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith. Numerous targets of the ADL --
who drew parallels to COINTELPRO, the FBI's tainted domestic
surveillance program -- say the profiling and covert activities continue
to this day.
Not only were liberal Jews a target, but information also was kept on
labor unions, pro-Palestinian organizations, anti-apartheid groups,
American Arabs and anti-Semites. After the Federal Bureau of
Investigation broke the case in 1993, a number of these targets filed
suit against the ADL. The last lawsuit was recently settled.
The settlement in February marked the first time any of the
organization's victims were allowed to speak out. Usually, the ADL
demands plaintiffs keep quiet as a condition of any settlement.
Without those constraints, victims Jeffrey Blankfort, Steve Zeltzer and
Anne Poirier are revealing the underbelly of an organization that
previously had successfully shielded itself from condemnation. They are
using the ADL's own spy as a fulcrum.
Bullock's relationship with Blankfort and Zeltzer began when he
infiltrated a pro-Palestinian group started by the two, both of whom are
Jewish. Once inside, Bullock collected and sold information about the
two men to the ADL and, possibly the Mossad, the foreign arm of Israeli
intelligence.
Although Bullock never met Poirier, he may have sold information on her
organization to the South African government. The woman, who lives in
Berkeley, ran a scholarship program for South African exiles in the
early 1990s. During the course of her lawsuit against the ADL, she
discovered the ADL's operative had sold confidential information to a
South African agent in San Francisco for $15,000.
Poirier had never done any work relating to the Middle East, and she was
astounded when she found out that the ADL had kept tabs on her. During
her nine-year court fight with the group, she found out more than she
needed to know about its operation, and now nothing much surprises her.
"They gathered information on anti-apartheid activities," she said,
"anyone the organization felt, by definition, would be against Israel
because they were too left-wing." For at least four decades, the ADL
continuously has tracked and spied on groups it considers not only a
threat to the Jewish community, but to the state of Israel.
Meet Mr. Spy
By his own admission, Bullock had been working off the books as a
fact-finder for the ADL since the mid-1960s. He would infiltrate not
only openly anti-Semitic groups, but also pro-Palestinian and
anti-apartheid organizations, usually under false pretenses. Bullock,
who is not Jewish, would then pass that information along to the ADL.
He received information about his targets from former San Francisco
Police Inspector Tom Gerard, who fled to the Philippines after being
indicted in 1994 for illegal use of a police computer. Gerard's current
whereabouts are unknown.
Bullock, who no longer does undercover work for the organization,
declined to be interviewed for this article.
Nobody could have known about the extent of Bullock's surveillance, if
police had not seized his computer database in April 1993. It contained
thousands of files on liberal Jewish San Franciscans, Arab-Americans,
anti-apartheid activists, anti-Semitic groups, and plain ol' white
racists.
On April 8, 1993, armed with this information, police in San Francisco
and Los Angeles searched the ADL offices in those two cities. In San
Francisco, roughly 10 banker's boxes of information -- 75 percent of
which officers said was illegally obtained -- were seized.
A majority of data in those boxes confirmed police suspicions that it
had come from Bullock's computer. On that computer was information on
9,876 people, including 1,394 driver's licenses. The files were divided
into five categories: "Pinko," "Right," Arabs," "Skins," and "ANC," the
last standing for African National Congress.
Bullock also told the FBI that he had information on various labor
groups. These groups included: the San Francisco Labor Council, the
Oakland Educators Association, the National Association for the
Advancement of Colored People, Irish Northern Aid, the International
Indian Treaty Council and the Asian Law Caucus.
Lawsuits galore
On April 18, 1993, 19 people who Bullock kept files on sued the ADL in
San Francisco Superior Court. Pete McCloskey, a former Republican
congressman from San Mateo County, was the group's attorney. His wife,
Helen, was one of the original plaintiffs.
On Feb. 22, 2002, the ADL settled with Blankfort, Zeltzer and Poirier.
What held up the process, said McCloskey, was his clients' refusal to
sign a confidentially agreement. The three felt they had been viciously
wronged, he said, and wanted to publicize that fact.
With the settlement, each of the three plaintiffs received about
$50,000. None of the three, or McCloskey, believes the ADL will stop
their spying ways. "It was settled partially out of fatigue," said the
attorney. "Everyone figured it might be best if we all just moved on."
Nine years later, McCloskey is still angry about the case and wants the
federal government to revoke the group's tax-exempt status.
Since they obviously are working in conjunction with the Israeli
government, he said, they should register as such. Referring to
themselves as an education group, said the attorney, is simply a sham.
E-mail Dan Evans at devans (at) sfexaminer.com
http://www.examiner.com/news/default.jsp?story=n.adl.0401w
----------
From: Robert Leverant
Thank you for speaking up, for speaking the soul's anguish, for being
gentle and direct, for cutting through the denial, the lies that we
American Jews have been fed and swallowed since childhood and echoed in
Sharon's ice hot words of hatred, so hollow yet so tragic, as you point
out, for the Palestinians, Israelis, and Jews worldwide. It's nice to
have some public company here in Sebastopol where I feel so isolated for
expressing the same views.
What is noticeably absent in the horror of perhaps the beginning of
WWIII is the voices of liberal Jews; those who stood up in solidarity
with the peoples of South Africa, Vietnam, Blacks and thereby
significantly helped move back the tides of unreason and governmental
savagery and societal indifference (the absence of we lamented in the
Holocaust). Where are the Jewish children of the Sixties? Have we
become brain dead and ethically numb? Are we so caught up in our
bourgeoisie BoboBobo lifestyles and the safety of our protective
coloration that we have forgotten who we are -- the Chosen People
whose task is to bear witness to suffering and injustice? Are we afraid
to question authority? it comes to Zionism?
Robert
Jerry Levin
To: CNN
I have just watched your Anchor woman interview Adam Shapiro "live" in
Ramallah. Adam, who is Jewish, is a member of the International
Solidarity movement, which is working to protect Palestinians from the
brutality of the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. But your
anchorwoman treated him like a freak, an anomaly, because he is Jewish.
She seemed to be more interested in finding out whether he was a
"practicing Jew," than in hearing what he had been seeing and trying to
do, and what he and others like him are trying to say. By asking whether
Adam is a "practicing Jew" the anchorwoman seemed to be wanting to know
whether or not he is a card carrying member of one of the branches of
the Jewish faith who practices it in a synagogue. I would have thought
by now that she and CNN's producers would have known that the question
is ambiguous and insulting, because to be a "practicing Jew" is not just
a matter of religious faith but also a matter of ethnic heritage.
Second she seemed to be implying by her question and tone (perhaps
unwittingly) that to be a practicing Jew means by definition that one
supports Israeli policy under all circumstances, and certainly where the
occupation is concerned.
You need to know that there are hundreds of thousands of Jews, perhaps
millions, who regard "practicing" as meaning living up to the unique
moral and ethical precepts that are part of Jewish history, heritage,
and tradition--not just the religion. Practicing the Jewish faith is an
option not a requirement with respect to whether one is or is not
"practicing" Judaism. As a result, Adam and countless Jews are standing
with the Palestinians in order to help them to overcome the pain and
deprivation of Israel's brutal confiscatory occupation. Jews in America
who fit this profile don't like to see their fellow Jews treating
Palestinians like their own government, that is the United States
treated Native Americans during its westward expansion.
However, these "practicing Jews" have earned a "self-hating" label
because of their convictions.
Among those working on behalf of Palestinian's right to survive are
Rabbi Michael Lerner, founder of Tikkun, all the members of Israel based
Rabbis for Human Rights, Noam Chomsky, Ellen Siegel--the courageous
nurse who was working in a Palestinian hospital in Sabra and Chatilla in
1982 when Ariel Sharon's soldiers stood by and allowd the massacre of
unarmed children, women, and men, Jerome Siegel the founder of the
Jewish Peace Lobby (here in the United States), Ned Hanauer founder of
SEARCH for Peace in the Middle East, Mark Bruzonsky founder of the
Jewish Committee on the Middle East. And Jerry Levin--CNN's Bureau Chief
in Beirut, who was held hostage by the Hizballah in 1984-85--and who
these days is working with CPT (the Christian Peacemaker Teams) to
protect defenseless Palestinian children, women, and men from settler
rage and violence because the Israeli army won't.
Jerry Levin
Birmingham, Alabama 35205
JEWS AND THE MEDIA: SHAPING WAYS OF SEEING
By Kevin McDonald, California State University
By all accounts, ethnic Jews have a powerful influence in the American
media far larger than any other identifiable group. The extent of Jewish
ownership and influence on the popular media in the United States is
remarkable given the relatively small proportion of the population that
is Jewish.28 In a survey performed in the 1980s, 60 percent of a
representative sample of the movie elite were of Jewish background
(Powers et al. 1996, 79n13). Michael Medved (1996, 37) notes that it
makes no sense at all to try to deny the reality of Jewish power and
prominence in popular culture. Any list of the most influential
production executives at each of the major movie studios will produce a
heavy majority of recognizably Jewish names. This prominent Jewish role
is obvious to anyone who follows news reports from Tinsel Town or even
bothers to read the credits on major movies or television shows.
Media ownership is always in flux, but the following is a reasonably
accurate portrait of current media ownership in the United States by
ethnic Jews:
The largest media company in the world was recently formed by the
merger of America On Line and Time Warner. Gerald M. Levin, formerly the
head of Time Warner, is the Chief Executive Officer of the new
corporation. AOL-Time Warner has holdings in television (e.g., Home Box
Office, CNN, Turner Broadcasting), music (Warner Music), movies (Warner
Brothers Studio, Castle Rock Entertainment, and New Line Cinema), and
publishing (Time, Sports Illustrated, People, Fortune).
The second largest media company is the Walt Disney Company, headed by
Michael Eisner. Disney has holdings in movies (Walt Disney Motion
Pictures Group, under Walt Disney Studios, includes Walt Disney
Pictures, Touchstone Pictures, Hollywood Pictures, Caravan Pictures,
Miramax Films); television (Capital Cities/ABC [owner of the ABC
television network], Walt Disney Television, Touchstone Television,
Buena Vista Television, ESPN, Lifetime, A&E Television networks) and
cable networks with more than 100 million subscribers; radio (ABC Radio
Network with over 3,400 affiliates and ownership of 26 stations in major
cities); publishing (seven daily newspapers, Fairchild Publications
[Women? Wear Daily], and the Diversified Publishing Group).
The third largest media company is Viacom, Inc., headed by Sumner
Redstone, who is also Jewish. Viacom has holdings in movies (Paramount
Pictures); broadcasting (the CBS TV network; MTV [a particular focus of
criticism by cultural conservatives], VH-1, Nickelodeon, Showtime, the
National Network, Black Entertainment Television, 13 television
stations; programming for the three television networks); publishing
(Simon & Schuster, Scribner, The Free Press, and Pocket Books), video
rentals (Blockbuster); it is also involved in satellite broadcasting,
theme parks, and video games.
Another major media player is Edgar Bronfman, Jr., the son of Edgar
Bronfman, Sr., president of the World Jewish Congress and heir to the
Seagram distillery fortune. Until its merger with Vivendi, a French
Company, in December 2000, Bronfman headed Universal Studios, a major
movie production company, and the Universal Music Group, the world?
largest music company (including Polygram, Interscope Records,
Island/Def Jam, Motown, Geffen/DGC Records). After the merger, Bronfman
became the Executive Vice-Chairman of the new company, Vivendi
Universal, and the Bronfman family and related entities became the
largest shareholders in the company.29 Edgar Bronfman, Sr. is on the
Board of Directors of the new company.
Other major television companies owned by Jews include New World
Entertainment (owned by Ronald Perelman who also owns Revlon cosmetics),
and DreamWorks SKG (owned by film director Steven Spielberg, former
Disney Pictures chairman Jeffrey Katzenberg, and recording industry
mogul David Geffen). DreamWorks SKG produces movies, animated films,
television programs, and recorded music. Spielberg is also a Jewish
ethnic activist. After making Schindler? List, Spielberg established
Survivors of the Shoah Foundation with the aid of a grant from the U.S.
Congress. He also helped fund Professor Deborah Lipstadt? defense
against a libel suit brought by British military historian and Holocaust
revisionist David Irving.
In the world of print media, the Newhouse media empire owns 26 daily
newspapers, including several large and important ones, such as the
Cleveland Plain Dealer, the Newark Star-Ledger, and the New Orleans
Times-Picayune; Newhouse Broadcasting, consisting of 12 television
broadcasting stations and 87 cable-TV systems, including some of the
country? largest cable networks; the Sunday supplement Parade, with a
circulation of more than 22 million copies per week; some two dozen
major magazines, including the New Yorker, Vogue, Mademoiselle, Glamour,
Vanity Fair, Bride?, Gentlemen? Quarterly, Self, House & Garden, and
all the other magazines of the wholly owned Conde Nast group.
The newsmagazine, U.S. News & World Report, with a weekly circulation
of 2.3 million, is owned and published by Mortimer B. Zuckerman.
Zuckerman also owns New York? tabloid newspaper, the Daily News, the
sixth-largest paper in the country, and is the former owner of the
Atlantic Monthly. Zuckerman is a Jewish ethnic activist. Recently he was
named head of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish
Organizations, an umbrella organization for major Jewish organizations
in the U.S.30 Zuckerman? column in U.S. News and World Report regularly
defends Israel and has helped to rejuvenate the America-Israeli
Friendship League, of which he is president.31
Another Jewish activist with a prominent position in the U.S. media is
Martin Peretz, owner of The New Republic (TNR) since 1974. Throughout
his career Peretz has been devoted to Jewish causes, particularly
Israel. During the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, he told Henry Kissinger that
his dovishness stopped at the delicatessen door, and many among his
staff feared that all issues would be decided on the basis of what was
good for the Jews (Alterman 1992, 185, 186). Indeed, one editor was
instructed to obtain material from the Israeli embassy for use in TNR
editorials. It is not enough to say that TNR? owner is merely obsessed
with Israel; he says so himself. But more importantly, Peretz is
obsessed with Israel? critics, Israel? would-be critics, and people
who never heard of Israel, but might one day know someone who might
someday become a critic (Alterman 1992, 195).
The Wall Street Journal is the largest-circulation daily newspaper in
the U.S. It is owned by Dow Jones & Company, Inc., a New York
corporation that also publishes 24 other daily newspapers and the weekly
financial paper Barron?. The chairman and CEO of Dow Jones is Peter R.
Kann. Kann also holds the posts of chairman and publisher of the Wall
Street Journal.
The Sulzberger family owns the New York Times Co., which owns 33 other
newspapers, including the Boston Globe. It also owns twelve magazines
(including McCall? and Family Circle, each with a circulation of more
than 5 million), seven radio and TV broadcasting stations; a cable-TV
system; and three book publishing companies. The New York Times News
Service transmits news stories, features, and photographs from the New
York Times by wire to 506 other newspapers, news agencies, and
magazines.
Jewish ownership of the New York Times is particularly interesting
because it has been the most influential newspaper in the U.S. since the
start of the 20th century. As noted in a recent book on the Sulzberger
family (Tifft & Jones 1999), even at that time, there were several
Jewish-owned newspapers, including the New York World (controlled by
Joseph Pulitzer), the Chicago Times-Herald and Evening Post (controlled
by H. H. Kohlsaat), and the New York Post (controlled by the family of
Jacob Schiff). In 1896 Adolph Ochs purchased the New York Times with the
critical backing of several Jewish businessmen, including Isidor Straus
(co-owner of Macy? department stores) and Jacob Schiff (a successful
investment banker who was also a Jewish ethnic activist). Schiff and
other prominent Jews like . . . Straus had made it clear they wanted
Adolph to succeed because they believed he could be of great service to
the Jews generally?(Tifft & Jones 1999, 37?8). Ochs? father-in-law
was the influential Rabbi Stephen S. Wise, president of the AJCongress
and the World Jewish Congress and the founder of Reform Judaism in the
United States.
There are some exceptions to this pattern of media ownership, but even
in such cases ethnic Jews have a major managerial role.32 For example,
Rupert Murdoch? News Corporation owns Fox Television Network, 20th
Century Fox Films, Fox 2000, and the New York Post. However, Peter
Chernin is president and CEO of Fox Group, which includes all of News
Corporation? film, television, and publishing operations in the United
States. Murdoch is deeply philosemitic and deeply committed to Israel,
at least partly from a close relationship he developed early in his
career with Leonard Goldenson, who founded the American Broadcasting
Company. (Goldenson was a major figure in New York? Jewish
establishment and an outspoken supporter of Israel.) Murdoch?
publications have taken a strongly pro-Israel line, including The Weekly
Standard, the premier neo-conservative magazine, edited by William
Kristol.
Murdoch . . . as publisher and editor-in-chief of the New York Post, had
a large Jewish constituency, as he did to a lesser degree with New York
magazine and The Village Voice. Not only had the pre-Murdoch Post
readership been heavily Jewish, so, too, were the present Post
advertisers. Most of Murdoch? closest friends and business advisers
were wealthy, influential New York Jews intensely active in pro-Israel
causes. And he himself still retained a strong independent sympathy for
Israel, a personal identification with the Jewish state that went back
to his Oxford days. (Kiernan 1986, 261)
Murdoch also developed close relationships with several other prominent
Jewish figures in the New York establishment, including attorney Howard
Squadron, who was president of the AJCongress and head of the Council of
Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations, and investment banker Stanley
Schuman.
Another exception is NBC which is owned by General Electric. However,
the President of NBC is Andrew Lack and the President of NBC News is
Neal Shapiro, both of whom are Jewish. In addition, the Bertelsmann
publishing group is a Germany-based company that is the largest
publisher of trade books in the world and also owns magazines,
newspapers, and music. Most of Bertelsmann? influence is outside the
United States, although it recently purchased the Random House
Publishing Company.
Even granting the exceptions, it is clear that Jews enjoy a very
powerful position in U.S. media, a position that is far more powerful
than any other racial/ethnic group. The phenomenal concentration of
media power in Jewish hands becomes all the more extraordinary when one
notes that Jews constitute approximately 2.5% of the U.S. population. If
the Jewish percentage of the American media elite is estimated at 59%
(Lichter et al. 1983, 55)?robably an underestimate at the present time,
the degree of disproportionate representation may be calculated as
greater than 2000%. The likelihood that such an extraordinary disparity
could arise by chance is virtually nil.
****
The election of Ariel Sharon as Prime Minister of Israel provides
another study in contrast. There was a huge difference in the media
reaction to Sharon and the response to the situation in Austria when
J?rg Haider? Freedom Party won enough seats in parliament to have a
role in the Austrian government. Several countries, including Israel,
recalled their ambassadors in response to the election of Haider.
Politicians around the world condemned Austria and announced that they
would not tolerate Haider? participation in any Austrian government.
Trade embargoes against Austria were threatened. The cause of these
actions was that Haider had said that there had been many decent people
fighting on the German side during World War II, including some in the
SS. He had also said that some of Hitler? economic policies in the
1930s had made good sense. And he had called for a cutoff of immigration
into Austria. Haider apologized for these statements, but the electoral
success of his party resulted in the ostracism of Austria and a
continuous barrage of alarmist media attacks against him personally.
Contrast this with the treatment of Ariel Sharon? election as prime
minister of Israel in 2001. Sharon was Israel? Minister of Defense in
September 1982 during the slaughter of 700?000 Palestinians, including
women and children in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps just outside
Beirut, Lebanon. New York Times journalist Thomas Friedman saw groups of
young men in their twenties and thirties who had been lined up against
walls, tied by their hands and feet, and then mowed down gangland style.
36 Radio communications among Israeli military commanders were monitored
in which they talked about carrying out purging operations in the
refugee camps. While the actual killing was done by Lebanese Christians
supported by Israel, the Israeli army kept the camps sealed for two days
while the slaughter went on. The Kahan Commission, an Israeli commission
formed to investigate the incident, concluded that Sharon was indirectly
responsible for the massacre, and it went on to say that Sharon bears
personal responsibility.37
The reaction to the election of Sharon in the U.S. media has been
subdued to say the least. No trade embargoes were threatened, no
ambassadors were recalled. The Los Angeles Times dutifully printed a
column in which Sharon was portrayed as having learned from his
mistakes. 38 In June, 2001, Sharon was indicted as a war criminal in
Belgium on the basis of affidavits provided by survivors of the
slaughter. |
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