WeeklySA_AdminOPINION: Former Israel diplomat Navi Tamir argues that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his extremist ministers are interested in painting justified criticism of their policies and actions in anti-Israeli colours…
By Nadav Tamir
I find it difficult to accept that many journalists in the mainstream media within Israel cannot distinguish between criticism of the government and criticism of the state.
Too many serious journalists describe the attitudes of countries or their citizens towards Israel by accepting face value the manipulative rhetoric spewed by the Israeli government and its spokespeople.
There are Israeli journalists who are extremely critical of the government in their coverage of the Israeli arena but treat similar foreign criticism as anti-Israeli, thus distorting the public’s perception of Israel’s status in the world. In doing so, they also damage their role of presenting reality and truth to the public.
Journalists are not supposed to be agents of advocacy. To the argument that this is how the media behaves in wartime, I will reply that this is how they perpetuate the war, since it is very convenient for an unpopular government to receive protection from mobilized media.
For example, let us examine the August 5 statement by Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who is also in charge of military defense in the West Bank “No one in the world will allow us to starve and thirst two million civilians, even though it may be just and moral until we return our abductees.”
The world that prevents Smotrich from “starving two million civilians” is pro-Israel and expects Israel to act as a liberal democracy and not as a terrorist organization or in the same way as countries like Russia or Iran.
The world that loudly criticizes the policies of Israel’s far-Right government is pro-Israel – just as most citizens of Israel who have lost faith in their government and its intentions are still lovers of Israel.
When Biden presses Israel to advance a deal to release hostages and end the war, he is doing so as someone who defines himself as a Zionist. When the United Kingdom lifts its objection to the issuance of an arrest warrant against Netanyahu, it is not its support for Israel that is undermined, but its willingness to accept the policies of Netanyahu and his government.
When countries issue arrest warrants against extremist settlers, it is not a step that harms their support for Israel or their relations with it, but rather a move designed to stop violent incidents against aid convoys and Palestinian civilians in which the Israeli enforcement system, operated under National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, has failed to respond.
Imposing restrictions on the export of goods produced in settlements is not anti-Israel, certainly not anti-semitic. On the contrary, it seeks to create the all-important distinction between the legitimate Israel within the “Green Line” [the borders of Israel after winning the 1948 War of Independence] and settlements which [many believe] violate international law.
Decisions made by foreign governments to recognise a Palestinian state are also not anti-Israel, even if they contradict the policies of the Netanyahu government.
Words create reality, which is why the separation between views and news in media ethics is so important and the determination of what is for or against Israel is just an opinion, not a fact.
Netanyahu and his extremist ministers are interested in painting justified criticism of their policies and actions in anti-Israeli colours but this is not the reality. Most of the Western governments that criticise Netanyahu or his government are supporters of Israel and its citizens.
Netanyahu and his partners seek to portray any criticism of them and any policy that seeks to prevent them from realising their war as anti-Israel or anti-semitic doctrine.
The Israeli media must stop cooperating with this right-wing narrative and instead must describe only facts.
There are indeed certain elements in the world that are against Israel, but the world as a majority is not against us.
Europe is not against us, the governments of the liberal Left are not against us. They are against our extremists; they are against a bad and dangerous government that has brought us to the greatest disaster in our history.
* The writer is J Street Israel’s executive director. He has served as an Israeli diplomat in Washington and Boston, and as a political adviser to the president of Israel. This opinion piece republished from Jerusalem Post
Comment
UNEMPLOYMENT LEADS TO POVERTY AND CRIME
Unemployment is a global dilemma which turned many individuals to violence and commitment of serious crimes to escape poverty thereby causing political instability in the affected countries. According to the Borgen magazine, an online initiative of the Borgen Project which is an influential and national campaign that advocates for the world’s poor, global unemployment was a very serious issue with the number of jobless individuals having reached 1,1 billion only in the ten most populous nations.
South Africa is among those countries that have experienced the high levels of unemployment especially amongst the youths since the global crises in 2008 when the country struggled with relatively low levels of economic growth.
The situation was exacerbated by the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic which not only claimed hundreds of lives but also caused many businesses to shut down resulting in more economic chaos and massive job losses. Since then, the government has been battling to recover and help create jobs but with little success.
This week the Quarterly Labour Force Survey by Statistics South Africa announced that the number of unemployed persons had increased by 330 000 to 8.2 million during the first quarter of 2024. This indicated that the number of employed persons increased by 22 000 to 16.7 million in the first quarter of 2024 compared to the fourth quarter of 2023.
Unemployment is a global issue which should be viewed in a very serious light because of its consequences which obviously result in poverty and lead to individuals turning to crime to make ends meet. The impact of unemployment also resulted in social exclusion, inequality and social instability. It has devastating effects where individuals even resort to committing suicide to evade the effects of what they view as a hopeless life.
It is a problem that should not only be on the government’s shoulders. The private business sector should also be involved in helping create jobs especially for the youths and graduates. All efforts must be made to curb this cycle before it becomes a burden for our future generations. It is a crisis that needs to be tackled as urgently as possible before the powder keg explodes.
As a democratic country, we should be concerned by reports that the unemployed rate among Blacks who have tertiary education had increased and about 15,4 percent of the unemployed graduates had majored in government or political studies. The Government of National Unity should place the unemployment issue on their top agenda and convene an urgent meeting of all the relevant stakeholders to address and come up with a solution to this time bomb. Parents take their children to school to graduate so they can find better jobs, earn good salaries to help them.
It is a shame that those graduates are today carrying placards daily and marching through the streets begging to be employed. We call on the authorities to hear their pleas and help them.
Our children, as the saying goes, are our only hope for the future but we are their only hope for their present and their future.
