New York Times Embroiled in Anti-Semitism Spat
September 19, 2012 11:12 by Simon Plosker
The New York Times has become embroiled in a row over the use of anti-Semitic tropes following a column by Maureen Dowd focused on the role of neo-conservatives in the Republican election campaign. Dowd wrote (emphasis added):
Ryan was moving his mouth, but the voice was the neocon puppet master Dan Senor. The hawkish Romney adviser has been secunded to manage the running mate and graft a Manichaean worldview onto the foreign affairs neophyte.
The Politico website reports:
Dowd fairly observed that neither Mitt Romney nor Paul Ryan are experts in the field of foreign policy, but asserted their strategy was orchestrated by a “neocon puppet master” who was leading the neocon effort to “slither back” into power.
Such language, to say nothing of the questionable legitimacy of her claims, struck experts on American-Israeli relations as an inappropriate (though perhaps unintentional) appeal to anti-Semitic stereotypes, and especially offensive ahead of the first night of the Jewish New Year, Rosh Hashanah.
“Dowd’s use of anti-Semitic imagery is awful,” Steven A. Cook, a senior fellow for Middle Eastern studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, wrote on Twitter.
“Maureen may not know this, but she is peddling an old stereotype, that gentile leaders are dolts unable to resist the machinations and manipulations of clever and snake-like Jews,” Jeffrey Goldberg, the Atlantic columnist and leading journalist on Israeli issues, wrote.
“[A]mazing that apparently nobody sat her down and said, this is not OK,” Blake Hounshell, the managing editor of Foreign Policy magazine, tweeted.
On the right, The Weekly Standard’s Daniel Halper called it “outrageous,” while Commentary’s Jonathan Tobin described it as ”particularly creepy.”
“Dowd’s column marks yet another step down into the pit of hate-mongering that has become all too common at the Times,” Tobin wrote. “This is a tipping point that should alarm even the most stalwart liberal Jewish supporters of the president.”
It is irrelevant whether one sympathizes with Republicans or Democrats – the use of anti-Semitic tropes is unacceptable whatever one’s political beliefs. It is entirely possible and indeed probable that Maureen Dowd did not intend her comments to be viewed as anti-Semitic. Nonetheless, it is a disturbing sign, both that such language has entered the body politic and that the New York Times did not recognize the problem before Dowd was published.
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RSAmerica
10:20 pm
Sep 19, 2012
I don’t know what’s worse: the notion that Dowd and her kameraden at the Slimes are deaf and blind to the clear implications of her column, or the thought that the Slimes published her filth deliberately and knowingly. Odd how the regressives are so attuned to dog-whistles only they can hear, but deaf to the clangor of fire alarms.
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Abu Nudnik
3:30 pm
Sep 20, 2012
I’m Jewish, Zionist, pro-Romney/Ryan, think Obama’s presidency is a disaster but I don’t see the anti-Semitism here. They always say this or that person is a puppet… everywhere internationally… some say Obama is the puppet of Soros (is that anti-Greek or just stupid?). She’s wrong of course. Ryan is not a neophyte just because he didn’t sit on some committee that sucks your brains out, stir-fries them and hands them back to you with a bit of black bean sauce.
Hot debate. What do you think?
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Hillel Wallick
4:11 pm
Sep 20, 2012
Soros is a Hungarian-American Jew, not Greek.
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Robert Honeyman
4:07 pm
Sep 20, 2012
I’m Jewish, Zionist, pro-Obama, think Obama’s presidency is remarkable and I absolutely don’t see the anti-Semitism here.
(BTW, I have major gripes with Obama on economic policy and on early naivete so I’m not blinded by love.)
Your mission reminds me of the old saw: to a man with hammer, every problem looks like a nail. This is not the first time you folks have pulled out the burning cross (mixed metaphor, I know…) inappropriately. Please be more careful in the future.
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Maury
4:22 pm
Sep 20, 2012
As an Australian I may not get involved in American politics but I do read some of the quality journals that are referred to above and if the Council on Foreign Relations, FP and Atlantic say there is a unpleasant smell emanating from the The NYT I do not need to stick my nose into the nesprint to confirm whether the bouquet is off or not!
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Saul Grossman
4:27 pm
Sep 20, 2012
Whenever I see that word neocon,” my antenna goes up. It has evolved into a pejorative word for “Jew” as in “that-typical-lousy-Jewish-influence-on-real-Americans-trying-to-keep-this-country-safe- from-its-enemies” usage. Such anti-Semites as Pat Buchanan, Ron Paul, and Chris Matthews have all used that word, extensively, to describe their innermost feelings about Jews who dare to involve themselves, even marginally, in America’s foreign policy, particularly as it relates to Israel. Of course, Maureen Dowd telegraphed her punches when she described Dan Senor as a neocon. A quick bit of research using the Internet confirmed my suspicion that Dan Senor was, indeed (horrors!), a Jew.
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richard weingarten
4:29 pm
Sep 20, 2012
If I have ever seen a manufactured controversy, this is it. It is precisely this kind of tactic that gives we Jewish Americans a bad rep with some of our fellow citizens, not the sarcastic comments of a well known sharp toothed Times essayist. These self annointed neo Lions of Judah ought to be ashamed to raise a facially false claim of anti-Semitism in support of their favored candidates.
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jacob
4:29 pm
Sep 20, 2012
With all due respect to Mr. Honeyman opinion, allow me to dissent of your concept of OBAMA’s
presidency
In my humble opinion, I believe it will be registered in the REAL history books (not those
“doctored” by lefties used now) as worst than that of JIMMY WHO’s, which is a lot to say.
Of course, there are those like you who would reelect him just because of party’s loyalty, without giving a hoot about his past, his spitting in Israel’s face, his despise for Israel’s PM and his
partiality for Arabs in the Arab-Israeli “conflict” but then again, the time will come as happened in Germany, that all those first Germans and then Jews, got it in the neck
We Jews are at best TOLERATED, not loved…
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Stephen Miller
4:30 pm
Sep 20, 2012
What experience did our current President have in foreign affairs? And what has he done since coming into office accept for bowing before the King in Saudi Arabia and cow towing to the Muslim Brotherhood in Eqypt (this could go on forwever). When will America wake up!!!
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Gary Aigen
4:32 pm
Sep 20, 2012
Maureen Dowd is a satirist. She is a humorist. She always takes an abrasive tone and a pinch of hyperbole to illiustrate her point. That’s her shtick and she is among the best in the business. Give her a break. Stop taking yourselves so seriously. By the way the neocons dragged this country into a killing field in Iraq for purely selfish purposes. Why anyone, even Romney and Ryan would want to listen to their line of crap is beyond me. It certainly deserves to be spotlighted by Dowd and everyone else with a bully pulpit.
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Maury
4:40 pm
Sep 20, 2012
Sadaam Hussein was a pathological killer who should have been removed a long long time ago. That is Americas shame if it calls itself the worlds policeman (woman). The neocons – if they did in fact ‘drag’ America into a killing field should be thanked and not pilloried – or perhaps it is the profits you prefer without the engagement?
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Scott Dubowsky
4:42 pm
Sep 20, 2012
I am a Zionist American Jew and follow HonestReporting and appreciate what they do but this observation about Maureen Dowd is off the wall and reeks of an alternate political agenda. Anti-Semitic and anti- Israeli journalism and propaganda are the appropriate targets for this website. Once an alternate political agenda starts to seep through, the clarity and purpose of the website start to become obscured.
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Louis
4:43 pm
Sep 20, 2012
Although your observations are usually spot on, I think you are off the mark here and doing us a disservice. Maureen Dowd’s columns and writing style are usually strongly worded representations of her (usually) strong leftist views. The language quoted is normal Dowd-speak and to turn that into anti semitism, whether conscious or not just feeds into another stereotype-that of the knee jerk reaction of an organization that sees a Jew hater behind every bush.
HR is doing a fantastic job. This particular column is neither accurate nor helpful.
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jeb stuart
4:50 pm
Sep 20, 2012
What makes Paul an expert? What makes Obama an expert? Since taking office Obama got handed his hat by the Iraqi’s and al-Qadea has returned to its old haunts; American casualties have doubOur military and led in 3 and half years the Bush total for 8 years in Afghanistan. Obama has allied us with Islamists tried to negotiate with the Taliban a religious political Islamist group that practices crimes against humanity as do many Islamic states. In the face of Islamic terrorism Obama has chosen to be blind and reluctant to declare instances of either as little more than work place accidents. Paul is campaigning to release a Pakistani DR, Obama the Blind Sheik, that says it all..
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Myackie
4:51 pm
Sep 20, 2012
There is no such person a Maureen Dowd. She is a compilation of several writers.
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Gary Aigen
6:53 pm
Sep 20, 2012
Humor, I hope.
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Dave Friedman
4:54 pm
Sep 20, 2012
As a Jewish American and supporter of Israel (but not always Netanyahu policy), this anti-Semitic paranoia is growing old. Yes, there is Anti-Semitic rhetoric in many places and yes it should be called out. But this like too many other claims from HonestReporting just serves to trivialize the real issues we need to address.
Israel is a country with free speech and active political debate yet you make it appear to be a country that stifles debate if it doesn’t agree with Likud policy. Sometimes I think 95% of the Labor Party in Israel would be accused of being Anti-Semitic if they lived in Europe or America. Perhaps we need to be reminded of the children’s tale “The Boy who cried wolf”.
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jeb stuart
4:54 pm
Sep 20, 2012
What makes Paul an expert? What makes Obama an expert? Since taking office Obama got handed his hat by the Iraqi’s and al-Qadea has returned to its old haunts; In Afghanistan, under Obama, American casualties have doubled and in 3 and half years the Bush total for 8 years.. Obama has allied us with the Muslim Brotherhood tried to negotiate with the Taliban another political Islamist group that practices crimes against humanity as do many Islamic states. In the face of Islamic terrorism Obama has chosen to be blind and reluctant to declare instances of either as little more than work place accidents. Paul is campaigning to release a Pakistani DR, Obama the Blind Sheik, that says it all
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Don Ellis
4:54 pm
Sep 20, 2012
Get a grip. Referring to an advisor as a puppetmaster is not an anti-Semitic trope – at least one recognizable by most people. Somebody is really trying to stretch the point. This is not worth talking about.
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Don Ellis
5:03 pm
Sep 20, 2012
Get a grip. This is not anti-Semitism except by a stretch of the imagination such that the principal is unrecognizable.
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michael garfinkel
5:18 pm
Sep 20, 2012
Here’s the obvious truth:
Maureen Dowd is very smart, and she is a good.columnist. She is a Leftist.
Maureen Dowd does not employ anti-Jewish imagery “unintentionally.”
Maureen Dowd despises “Neo-cons,” as does the Left generally.
Neo-con = Jew, particularly on the Left.
The Times is norious for this kind of thing.
End of story.
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Dave Friedman
5:46 pm
Sep 20, 2012
Let me see if I got this right: Neo-Con = Jew to those of us on the left.
Jews have traditionally been Dem voters with the vast majority (80% give or take) supporting Obama in 2008 (http://pewresearch.org/pubs/1112/religion-vote-2008-election) putting them on the left. So by that logic all of us Jews on the left consider Jews to be Neo-Cons? Well I guess that makes as much sense as anything coming from the Neo-cons these days. Ah…what has happened to that Grand Ole’ Party? At least back in the day they made sense!
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