UPDATE
Thanks to letters from HonestReporting readers, the Watertown Daily Times admitted it made a mistake “publishing the letter as it was written and did not do a sufficient job in evaluating the claims it made.” Read more here.
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On November 7, the following letter appeared in both the Watertown Daily Times and the Carthage Republican Tribune, two local newspapers in upstate New York:
It is amazing how many coincidences I have seen these past years.
Maybe it’s because news coverage such as washed-up basketball players doing drugs at whore houses does not interest me.
Israeli intelligence insisted Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. None were found. But Saddam Hussein was killed.
The United States spent $1 trillion and sacrificed thousands of lives. That Saddam was the Israeli government’s No. 1 enemy was just coincidence.
Rebels were armed and started the massive chaos in Syria. Now the Europeans are paying a price. That Bashar Assad was the Israeli government’s No. 1 enemy is just another coincidence.
A Doctors without Borders hospital was attacked, and many doctors were killed, after numerous calls were made identifying who they were. That the world’s attention was focused there at the time the Israeli government was breaking agreements over an important Muslim holy site was just coincidence.
I guess looking at these events and seeing a familiar pattern of behavior makes me a bigot. These are all pure coincidence, and the Israeli government is and always has been the most innocent of victims, right?
That friends of today’s Israel spend so much money to manipulate American congressmen and senators to agree with their opinion is another coincidence.
If you think I have these all connected wrong, don’t tell anyone. But I have a real nice bridge for sale.
Jimmy Helmar
Canton
HonestReporting subscriber Dov Schwartz wrote to the editor of the Watertown Daily Times pointing out the undisguised bigotry and conspiracy theories in the letter, asking how it could have been published. The editor responded by quoting the thoughts of the editorial page editor:
Jimmy Helmar’s criticism was not directed toward Jews in general but rather the Israeli government in particular. And the points he made have been subject to rigorous scholarship and debate. A book titled “The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy,” written by John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, makes the same argument. So these are not wild conspiracy theories as Ben Schwartz claims. Jimmy Carter, a noted authority on the Middle East, has raised similar issues — and has been unfairly denounced as anti-Semitic for it. As provocative as it was, Mr. Helmar’s letter did not cross the line. And given that a rational defense to the letter’s points can be made, we should not reluctant to publish it.
Based on this, the newspaper decided to leave the letter unchanged in the belief that the topic of U.S. assistance to Israel is a legitimate issue for debate.
Indeed, there is nothing wrong with debating the U.S.-Israel relationship and the financial sums involved. Likewise, criticizing Israeli government policy is something that millions of Israeli citizens do every day.
But the letter has crossed the line. It diverges from legitimate criticism into outright anti-Semitism and goes way beyond the writings of Israel critics on this subject such as Walt and Mearsheimer.
As HonestReporting Managing Editor Simon Plosker says:
When somebody accuses Israel of being a hidden hand manipulating world events and news coverage, this is the sort of bigotry akin to Nazi sympathizers, white supremacist websites, and fans of the notorious forgery The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. That the editors of these two newspapers were either unable or unwilling to recognize the rantings of a conspiracy theorist and chose to publish this letter is highly disturbing.
Of course, freedom of speech is a fundamental value. Nonetheless, this does not mean that common sense is thrown out of the window and anything and everything, including offensive material and hate speech, needs to be published in a credible newspaper.
On November 10, HonestReporting wrote to the proprietors of the newspapers and copied in the editors, pointing out the above. We have not even received the courtesy of a reply.
As far as we can tell, no letters have been published by either paper taking issue with Helmar’s poisonous screed.
[sc:graybox ]Now it’s your turn – click here to send your considered comments to the proprietors and editors. While anger is an understandable reaction, we ask that you remain polite while impressing upon them just how inappropriate this letter is.
