A few weeks ago at a news conference in Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu remarked that Israel’s “two biggest enemies are Haaretz and the New York Times.” Neither of these two daily newspapers—one in Israel and the other in the U.S.—can do the type of damage you may be thinking about. Neither possesses operatives that own or know how to operate shoulder-held rocket launchers. Neither has ever fired a missile into southern, or for that matter any part, of Israel. Nor does either of these papers advocate violence in any way, shape, or form.
Still, the prime minister thought it wise to observe and articulate the fashion in which these newspapers both seek to damage the Jewish State on par with Israel’s greatest nemeses in the terrorist world and beyond.
Both newspapers share a proclivity to highlight in their pages the most sensational, exaggerated negative items that can project the worst and most critical aspects about Israel and for that matter about Jewish life in general anywhere in the world.
Does that mean that these papers have an anti-Jewish or, dare we say, anti-Semitic bent to them? Not at all. Both papers are Jewish-owned and are run and managed by many executives who are Jewish themselves. In the case of Haaretz, that is not exactly breaking news. In the matter of the New York Times, it is simultaneously news and an old story.
Both papers are committed to exposing and airing anything that smacks of hypocrisy so long as it can be associated with anything Jewish. Historically, the Jewish people have been the world’s victim; chased, tortured, and murdered by the worst madmen to ever seize control of countries over the years. From the inquisition, to pogroms, to the Holocaust, Jewish property has been pilfered and Jews attacked and nearly destroyed. So, wait a minute, wouldn’t it be both a fascinating and amazing story if we can show how Jews are the real oppressors, the real murderers and torturers, and that they have learned almost nothing from their own history? That’s right, that the victims are really the aggressors and have been claiming victimhood all this time as a ruse of some sort.
That’s what Haaretz and the Times do best. Newspapers love drama and they also hate a front-runner—anyone who is ahead of the rest of the pack. Israel has, against all odds, won wars it was supposed to lose. While the world’s economies have been floundering, Israel’s has been booming. There’s something wrong here—and the thing that is wrong is that there is something that is right in Israel. That’s why these newspapers in particular have taken it upon themselves to punch holes wherever possible in what we know as the miracle of Israel.
These and other mainstream newspapers play with our minds and wreak havoc with our emotions. The reason they float unsubstantiated rumors and draw flimsily based conclusions on the word of unreliable sources is not necessarily that they intentionally want to mislead or delude. They indulge in this kind of reporting and journalism because this is what they do. This is the nature of their business and how they attract the notice of the larger media as well as officialdom around the world.
Newspapers can do wonders, help people and situations, and promote personalities and events that deserve extensive coverage and attention. But they can also inflict considerable damage. The nature of our modern world, unfortunately, is that stories that expose the dark side of issues and people seem to generate greater interest and discussion than the ones that are positive and complimentary.
Let’s not neglect the fact that a great deal of the criticism aimed at Jews and Israel by these two newspapers is about religion, or more specifically the lack thereof. Both media outlets are traditionally and proudly liberal and what they call “humanistic.” They subscribe to the Obama position that he tried eloquently backtracking on in 2008 when he said some Pennsylvania voters “cling to guns or religion.” To these and other liberal media outlets, anything to do with religion usually and automatically will lead at some point to something corrupt, hypocritical, or even violent. The key to their message is that Jewish prayer and liturgy are filled with pleas to the Divine for peace. These and other liberal media want their readers to believe that elements of the Jewish community are anything but peace-loving—especially when it come to how they treat their Arab neighbors in the Middle East.
This is perhaps why at this juncture in the history of the world, with things so up in the air and as unstable as they are, for Israel’s sake it is probably the best thing for there to be a one-term president, whether Democrat or Republican. One-term presidents, once elected, almost immediately begin to run for a second term. In the current diplomatic climate and with the downward momentum of the de-legitimization effort of Israel at full throttle, Israel cannot afford a U.S. president with a background like Barack Obama’s in office for a second term.
The liberal media coupled with a liberal president is a potentially lethal combination for Jews and Israel. They tend to preach an open-mindedness along with what they call freedom that in reality is anything but real freedom. Just take a look at the liberation movements these media entities celebrated recently with the so-called Arab Spring. Take a good, close look; not too much freedom there.
In a way, their approach is reminiscent of the dramatic events in this week’s Torah portion when the story of the Jewish exodus from Egypt is recounted. The Jewish people, after over 200 years of slavery in Egypt, were on their way out. They were finally going to be free. After 210 years of sometimes intense Egyptian servitude, they were going to finally become the free, new and improved nation of Israel. But this week’s Torah reading hints to us that despite the exodus, 80% of the Jews in Egypt elected not to leave but rather to stay behind.
What exactly happened here and how did such a drastic and even shockingly extreme event occur? I saw a fantastic insight by Rabbi Yisrael Kaniel of Eretz Yisrael, who explains that the Jews were indeed leaving Egyptian slavery but they were on their way to Sinai where they would become servants once again—this time serving the King of Kings. That was, however, a problem, a hitch, if you will, for that 80% of the population that had lived in a religious vacuum for generations. No, no—they wanted complete and absolute freedom with no strings attached. They wanted the freedom of Tahrir Square that is promulgated by the left-wing media like Haaretz and the Times as the best thing to have occurred to the people of the Middle East in hundreds of years. It’s a nice story but nowhere near the truth.
The freedom that the people of Israel pursued in the aftermath of the Exodus was the freedom that means and includes being wrapped up in doing the will of our Creator. Modern-day distractions do not allow most to recognize this reality.
Interestingly, back in the 1970s and 80s, at the height of the Soviet Jewry movement, the clarion call was “Let My People Go.” The signs, banners, and placards were everywhere to be seen at many a demonstration in support of the freedom of Russian Jews. It was a beautiful thing except for the fact that the slogan only shares part of this very cogent biblical saying.
The complete phrase as recorded in the Torah reading of the last two weeks as stated by Moshe to Pharaoh was, “Let My people go, so that they may serve Me.” Perhaps the fear of the movement’s organizers was that if Soviet Jews were nudged and encouraged to leave the oppressiveness of Communism to a life as a Jew that serves G‑d Almighty, they might not have been interested and might have chosen to stay behind. One life of servitude was enough for them. It was a colossal life-altering mistake that was made by the 80% of the Jews who remained in Egypt and who ultimately perished. And the same mistake is being made in these contemporary times by those who follow the advice and instruction of the leftist liberal media that daily calls for absolute and total freedom from everything. It’s an invented, conjured up freedom that does not really exist.

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