European Media Bias - Really?
Even Amnon Rubinstein, who is dean of the Faculty of Law at the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya and who takes not one, not two, but three opportunities in this piece to point out that he is a Leftist (once may be for ethos, twice may be for reinforcement, but three times is clearly just insecurity) - even he can't see his way to justifying the European press. He makes some of the usual arguments - well-meaning academic concern for the "Other," the need for an enemy to sell newspapers about, etc. What's interesting about this article is that he also discusses a third reason - the desire to equivocate between Israel and the Nazis - which you usually don't find on the Left. The reason Israeli Leftists rarely discuss this motive is because it amounts to an accusation of anti-Semitism, and it's gotta be uncomfortable to realize that the people that you go to cocktail parties with all the time might be anti-Semitic and not "anti-Zionist":
There is another enticement where Israel is concerned: The victims of the Nazis have become similar to Nazis, and the Palestinians have become similar to Jews. This in turn begets the comparison between separation fence and Warsaw Ghetto and Auschwitz, a comparison that raises to absurd levels the political correctness of the homogeneous European press.
Even Rubinstein can't bring himself to state the logical conclusion of this line of reasoning - the reason that Europeans have an interest in comparing Israel to the Nazi regime is so that they can convince themselves, in some sick way, that either the Holocaust wasn't all that unique (and so Europeans needn't feel too guilty) or that the Jews somehow deserved it because they're doing the same thing now (and so the Europeans needn't feel too guilty).
There is another enticement where Israel is concerned: The victims of the Nazis have become similar to Nazis, and the Palestinians have become similar to Jews. This in turn begets the comparison between separation fence and Warsaw Ghetto and Auschwitz, a comparison that raises to absurd levels the political correctness of the homogeneous European press.
Even Rubinstein can't bring himself to state the logical conclusion of this line of reasoning - the reason that Europeans have an interest in comparing Israel to the Nazi regime is so that they can convince themselves, in some sick way, that either the Holocaust wasn't all that unique (and so Europeans needn't feel too guilty) or that the Jews somehow deserved it because they're doing the same thing now (and so the Europeans needn't feel too guilty).
