After we critiqued Christiane Amanpour’s God’s Warriors, columnist Larry Derfner responded with some choice words of his own against us and our colleagues at CAMERA. Derfner wrote:
What more do CAMERA, Honest Reporting.com and the rest of the “Israel advocates” want? I’ll tell you what they want: They want no criticism of Israel whatsoever, and this is their main beef against God’s Warriors – that it didn’t make clear that in Israel, unlike in the Muslim world, religious terrorists are the exception rather than the rule, that Israel, unlike the Muslim world, cracks down on its extremists.
THIS IS the “wild weed” theory that the Jewish Right has been promulgating for decades, and will promulgate for decades to come as instances of violence by Israeli fanatics continue. The “wild weed” theory is the brazen lie; if Israel was as intolerant of radical Jewish violence as the Jewish Right claims, why does such violence keep happening – against Palestinians, against Israeli soldiers, against leftist demonstrators who dare approach the settlements?
See HonestReporting editor Simon Plosker’s letter responding to Derfner:
Derfner contradicts himself by acknowledging the main thing CNN didn’t make clear: that in Israel, unlike in the Muslim world, religious terrorists are the exception rather than the rule. Why shouldn’t Israel advocacy organizations flag CNN on this?
Derfner’s attack echoes the flawed pseudo-academia of Walt and Mearsheimer, who claim their voices are being silenced by an “Israel Lobby” while branding anyone who speaks up for Israel intolerant and an enemy of open debate.
On the contrary, while Israel is certainly not infallible, the efforts of our subscribers and other Israel advocates ensure that media outlets’ letters pages and comment boxes are not the sole domain of the anti-Israel brigade.
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