"Tom Segev, an Israeli historian, told me that voters who chose Lapid 'decided to vote for nothing, a TV image, a kind of anti-Orthodox Likud lite.'
A ballot cast for nothingness is a curious choice in a nation surrounded by turmoil. Israelis — like the French with François Hollande — went for a Mr. Normal, but a better-looking one. Lapid, a former TV talk-show host and now the second most powerful politician in Israel after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, is reasonable. He wants everyone to pull their weight, especially the welfare-supported ultra-Orthodox who avoid the draft. He thinks talking to Palestinians is a good idea.
He is also a secular nationalist who made his campaign speech about diplomacy in Ariel, a large West Bank settlement. He is a man who leans right, the darling of the jeep-driving tycoons of start-up-nation Israel who worry more about the country’s battered image than its squeezed youth and middle class, the likes of Yoraan and Anda [a young Jewish immigrant couple with whom Cohen met]. His moderation is more aura than anything."
Well, let's give this some thought. A vote for Lapid was a "vote for nothing," because Tom Segev, a historian and journalist who writes a column for Israel's leftist Haaretz newspaper, told him so?
Why didn't Cohen trouble himself to interview Lapid?
Why didn't Cohen trouble himself to interview any of the other leaders of Lapid's new party, "Yesh Atid" ("There Is a Future")?
Why didn't Cohen trouble himself to learn more about "Yesh Atid" by at least looking at their website? Oops, I forgot: Cohen doesn't read Hebrew.
But wait! Yesh Atid also has an English website (http://en.yeshatid.org.il/team), where details are provided concerning the impressive and diverse backgrounds of its new members of parliament, who include many women, two Ethiopian Jews, and a former head of Israel's General Security Service.
Lapid's "moderation is more aura than anything"? Peculiar how Cohen doesn't mention that Yair Lapid is the son of Tommy Lapid, who headed Israel's secular-liberal "Shinui" ("Change") party from 1999–2006.
Bottom line: This op-ed is junk journalism to which Cohen's New York Times readership is addicted.
Yair Lapid is full of himself. He's truly a chip off the old block only he must have gotten his good looks from his mom's side of the family. I'm sure he an Thomas Friedman would get along wonderfully together. After their 'who hates Bibi more' chat, they could compare who used the words me, myself and I more often.
ReplyDeleteRoger Cohen would have enjoyed 'Jameel's' critical take on Yair Lapid but I guess he didn't pack enough Pepto-Bismol for a trip to visit a settler at the 'Muqata'.
http://muqata.blogspot.co.il/2013/01/critical-analysis-who-is-yair-lapid.html
"Why didn't Cohen trouble himself to learn more about "Yesh Atid" by looking at their website? Oops, I forgot: Cohen doesn't read Hebrew, but why should that prevent him from casting aspersions?"
ReplyDeleteImportant point. I am multilingual (English is my 7th language) and multicultural, and I always died from laughter when I hear Americans who don't know a single foreign language making pronouncements about other nations. "And how do you know that?"-I wonder.
So, Cohen babbles about Israel without knowing Hebrew. So, frankly, he can't even pretend that his "journalism" is journalism. But it doesn't matter to his "liberal" readers who of course don't know a single foreign language either. As long as he is antisemitic .... he is applauded, applauded.
What a world.
Even worse is that so many allegedly educated Americans can NOT distinguish between Opinion and Journalism. Admittedly, that line IS blurred at the NYT, but Obama's war on Fox is based on the same failure to notice the difference.
ReplyDeleteIronically, Roger Cohen could have written same about Yair Lapid just by watching Glick's LatmaTV. Ironic because I doubt any NYT employee would be allowed to acknowledge the existence of LatmaTV, and they are all too busy livestreaming Al Jazeera.
K2K
Anonymous (11:01)
ReplyDeleteOne word is missing from your comment - propaganda.
The problem is when propaganda pretends to be opinion. It's one thing to present one's opinion (hopefully honest and not opportunistic/political) about established facts. It's entirely different thing to manipulate facts, ignore facts, present the facts selectively, etc.
Back to our boys at the NYT. There is no opinion there, there is no journalism there, just pure propaganda PRETENDING to be something else.