Gay Rights Offends Time Magazine’s Image of Israel
May 15, 2011 16:07 by Simon Plosker
Sometimes the story choice itself conveys the prejudice of the writer and a media outlet that commissioned it for publication. How then to explain Time Magazine’s latest feature with the loaded headline:
Is Israel Using Gay Rights to Excuse Its Policy on Palestine?
Israel’s progressive and liberal policies towards its gay community are a natural outgrowth of its liberal democratic value system. Why shouldn’t Israel include this as part of its efforts to present itself to the world which tends to view the country solely through the lens of the Middle East conflict?
But as the headline and story choice imply, Israeli policies and their promotion to the outside world, particularly to gay communities outside of Israel, are merely a nefarious way to distract attention from Israeli policies relating to the Palestinians. According to Time:
The accusations stem from efforts over the past half-decade by the Israeli government to weave the country’s gay-friendly policies — including national hate-crime laws, employment protection for LGBT workers and openly gay military service — into its larger national-rebranding strategy, in the hopes of redirecting its global image away from politics, terrorism and the occupied territories. “The Israeli government and its propaganda organs … insist on advertising and exaggerating its recent record on LGBT rights … to fend off international condemnation of its violations of the rights of the Palestinian people,” says Joseph Massad, associate professor of modern Arab politics and intellectual history at Columbia University in New York City.
Time’s choice of Joseph Massad for comment on this is particularly bizarre given that Massad has been accused of homophobia by some gay organizations. Ernesto Pagano writes on interviewing Massad:
Homosexuals in the Arab world? They have been “invented” by the West. In his book Desiring Arabs, Joseph Massad, a Jordanian of Palestinian origin and an associate professor at Columbia University, attempts to follow the process through which the gay movement, born in the USA, has resulted in and tried to impose a homosexual identity on those Arabs who entertain relations with people of their own sex. A process that according to Massad, follows the tracks of western imperialism.
Massad also has a track record of promoting extremist viewpoints concerning Israel. Perhaps this fits entirely with Time’s agenda and apparent need to find radically anti-Israel quotes.
Apparently, an Israel that promotes progressive policies, in this case, gay-friendly ones, does not fit with the image of Israel that Time would prefer to you believe. And if such a positive image is the reality then better to attribute them to something far more sinister such as covering up for Israeli “crimes”.
Perhaps the journalist David Kaufman may have seen a very different side of things had he bothered to investigate the treatment of gays in the Palestinian territories and neighboring Middle East countries.
Time Magazine’s latest article follows a disturbing trend of anti-Israel bias that earned it the 2010 Dishonest Reporter Award for an article that questioned whether Israelis were interested in peace. In that case, the article’s content, imagery and nuances attempted to present an Israel that seems to exist in the minds of Time’s journalists and editors.
This is just the latest example of Time’s disdain for Israel as outlined in our In-Depth Analysis: No Time For Israel.
Please send your considered comments to letters@time.com
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Ethan
6:09 pm
May 15, 2011
Time magazine is so passe. They are desperate and soon to go out of business.
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Dave
6:40 pm
May 15, 2011
Time magazine has a long tradition of anti-Semitism and hostility towards Israel. The clearcut examples are so numerous as to defy any credible defense on thier behalf. I feel sorry for anyone who obtains their news from them. Unless they like a diet of propaganda.
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A.LIN
7:59 pm
May 15, 2011
NYT “RIP”
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Hillel Wallick
10:32 pm
May 15, 2011
NYT is The New York Times. This piece is about Time Magazine, a completely different publication.
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Michael
11:03 pm
May 15, 2011
Hillel: Doesn’t atter: The NYT should still drop dead!
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diane gottheil
6:36 pm
May 16, 2011
The April 11 issue had a particularly disgusting article by Joe Klein posing questions at the end concerning the “settlers,” and how they might violently disrupt what purports to be non-violent resistance movement among some Palestinians. The magazine is trash.
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BH
7:01 pm
May 16, 2011
This surprises no one,
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waterwillows
6:49 am
May 17, 2011
I don’t give a hoot about what the Time has got to say. Mostly it is a whole lot about nothing.
But I do give a hoot about what the L-rd has to say, because it is a matter of life and death.
Gay rights is about nothing much for building a nation. It can’t so much as build itself. So how does anyone expect this community to build anything? Gay rights is a waste of time and a full waste of effort. Fools indulge in this type of delusion.
The facts are simple. Israel needs to be strong in order to grow and prosper. Without the much needed and required Blessings from the L-rd, this effort is hampered and stunted. It there any point in offending or rebelling against the wisdom of the L-rd?
Come out from the delusions of the secular world. They are a pit and a trap to enfeeble yourself and the nation of Israel.
Stand with the L-rd. There is no other place worth standing for or with, if not by the L-rd’s Command. All else is a lie.
Hot debate. What do you think?
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Igrina
11:35 am
May 17, 2011
There is a well-known story about an old Jew, who was sitting and praying in a time of disaster, asking L-rd’s help. People came to him on a car, boat and helicopter, but he decline all the help, saying “L-rd will help me himself”. And he perished, and came for the L-rd’s face. And asked Him, why he, so good man, didn’t get His help? “But who,– answered the L-rd, — sent you this car, boat and helicopter?”
Do you need more reasons to defend yourself and your country?
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Daf
4:46 pm
May 17, 2011
I’m confused… I don’t understand what was so wrong about David Kaufman’s article.
He presents a point of view held by a number of groups in relation to the “occupation” – it is their argument which is simplistic and completely disengaged from the issues at hand.
Is Kaufman himself not Jewish and gay? I don’t see how his article has led H.R to herald that “Gay Rights Offends Time Magazine’s Image of Israel”. Am I missing something?
Hot debate. What do you think?
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Susan
7:00 am
May 19, 2011
You are missing the facts, that’s what you’re missing. Just because “a number of groups” holds this bizarre, Kafka-esque position doesn’t make it the true one – nor does his being Jewish & gay mean that he somehow can contradict what is actually known about Israel, or make the twisted logic of his article ring true. To even imply that Israel’s known openness & tolerance is somehow nothing but a trick to cover up imaginary crimes – you have to be crazy in the first place to come up with it. & TIME has shown itself to be very unbalanced where Israel is concerned – their article is just another example of it.
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David Ehrenstein
1:38 am
May 21, 2011
“Invented by the West”? You mean that all Morocco was straight until Paul and j]Jane Bowles moved there,seduced the natives and invited Brion Gysin, William Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg and Irving Rosenthal to help with their corrupt-o-rama?
Oh Prunella!
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Moshe Flam
8:53 pm
Jun 16, 2011
that Time would prefer to you believe
* typo, please correct
that Time would prefer you to believe.
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4:09 pm
Jul 12, 2011
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1:42 am
Aug 04, 2011
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9:38 am
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