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Abraham Foxman claims that [[John Mearsheimer]] and [[Stephen Walt]] repeat the media-control canard in a 2006 article they co-wrote (which was later expanded and published as the book ''[[The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy]]''). Foxman writes that Mearsheimer and Walt "either explicitly or by implication" embrace the assertion that Jews "control, or try to control, the press, the media … so as to stifle dissent."<ref> |
Abraham Foxman claims that [[John Mearsheimer]] and [[Stephen Walt]] repeat the media-control canard in a 2006 article they co-wrote (which was later expanded and published as the book ''[[The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy]]''). Foxman writes that Mearsheimer and Walt "either explicitly or by implication" embrace the assertion that Jews "control, or try to control, the press, the media … so as to stifle dissent."<ref> |
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*Foxman pp 70-71: "Mearsheimer and Walt can't resist toying with the notion that individuals with a pro-Israel agenda dominate the news media and manipulate its coverage to their advantage. The belief that Jews secretly control the mainstream press and use it as a medium for insidious propaganda has long been a staple of anti-Semitic fantasy. The mythical Learned Elders of Zion themselves boast of their power over the media in 'Protocol Number 2': 'Through the Press we have gained the power to influence while remaining ourselves in the shade'. And the same imaginary power was a constant theme of Henry Ford's rabidly anti-Semitic newspaper, the ''Dearbourn Independent''….. [Foxman then quotes Mearsheimer and Walt regarding New York Times bias]: '…former Timers executive editor Max Frankel acknowledged the impact his own pro-Israel attitude had on his editorial choices. In his words 'I was much more deeply devoted to Israel than I dared to assert'. He goes on: 'Fortified by my knowledge of Israel and my friendships there, I myself wrote most of our Middle East commentaries. As more Arab than Jewish readers recognized, I wrote them from a pro-Israel perspective'". |
*Foxman pp 70-71: "Mearsheimer and Walt can't resist toying with the notion that individuals with a pro-Israel agenda dominate the news media and manipulate its coverage to their advantage. The belief that Jews secretly control the mainstream press and use it as a medium for insidious propaganda has long been a staple of anti-Semitic fantasy. The mythical Learned Elders of Zion themselves boast of their power over the media in 'Protocol Number 2': 'Through the Press we have gained the power to influence while remaining ourselves in the shade'. And the same imaginary power was a constant theme of Henry Ford's rabidly anti-Semitic newspaper, the ''Dearbourn Independent''….. [Foxman then quotes Mearsheimer and Walt regarding New York Times bias]: '…former Timers executive editor Max Frankel acknowledged the impact his own pro-Israel attitude had on his editorial choices. In his words 'I was much more deeply devoted to Israel than I dared to assert'. He goes on: 'Fortified by my knowledge of Israel and my friendships there, I myself wrote most of our Middle East commentaries. As more Arab than Jewish readers recognized, I wrote them from a pro-Israel perspective'". |
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Revision as of 05:00, 28 October 2010
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The assertion that "Jews control the media" is an anti-Semitic canard, a false statement that is deliberately repeated in order to promote antisemitism. The canard has been documented by the Anti Defamation League, the Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting organization, Alan Dershowitz. The canard is also described by Abraham Foxman in his book The deadliest lies: the Israel lobby and the myth of Jewish control.
An early example of the canard appeared in the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, and was widely repeated in the early part of the twentieth century by the Dearborn Independent, a newspaper published by Henry Ford. Variations of the canard focus on different forms of media, including newspapers, Hollywood film industry, the music industry, and television.
The canard has been repeated in recent years by Louis Farrakhan, Richard Nixon, Ayatollah Khamenei, General George Brown, Hamas, Osama bin Laden, and William A. Donohue.[1] The canard continues to be widespread in the modern era. According to historian Robert Michael, in his book A Concise History of American Antisemitism, a 2002 poll showed that 48 million Americans believed that "Jews control the media."[2]
History
Goldwin Smith
British-Canadian journalist and historian Goldwin Smith wrote numerous antisemitic tracts, including articles in the 1890s that claimed that Jews controlled the European press and used the control to censor negative material about Jews.[3]
Protocols of the Elders of Zion
The ADL and the Simon Wiesenthal Center have documented an early occurrence of this canard in the the 1903 fraudulent book The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, in protocols two, twelve, and thirteen, which alleged Jewish plans to control the press, as part of a larger conspiracy to control the world.[4] The Protocols continue to be widely published throughout the world.[5]
Dearborn Independent
During the 1920's, the Dearborn Independent, a newspaper published by Henry Ford, published a series of articles asserting that Jews controlled the media, particularly the press and the movies.[6] Much of the material including the media-control canard, was based on the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, and was later re-published in book form as The International Jew.[7] In 1927, and again in 1942, Ford apologized to the American Jewish community for the harm done by his newspaper's campaign.[8]
The ADL reports that the International Jew continues to be published in United States by Liberty Bell Publications.[9]
Variations
Newspapers
A common form of the canard suggests that newspapers are controlled by Jews, particularly the major newspapers such as the New York Times or the Washington Post. In 1974, according to Rafael Medoff, only 3% of the newspapers in the United States were owned by Jews.[10]
Music industry
One form of the canard is that Jews control the music industry in the United States, and the canard sometimes asserts that they use their influence to promote immorality via the music.
An early example of the canard that focused on the music industry was the Dearborn Independent (and its follow-on book, The International Jew) which singled-out the music industry as one field that Jews controlled. [11]
The music industry has also been the focus of a form of the canard found in the Muslim world.[12]
Scholar Jeffrey Melnick documented an example of the canard, when Alain LeRoy Locke (1885-1954) and other members of the African-American community asserted that Jews control the music industry in the United States, and have used that control to unfairly exploit African-American musicians.[13]
Louis Farrakhan and other representatives of the Nation of Islam have repeated the canard, specifically singling-out control of the music industry which they allege is used to "corrupt Americans".[14]
Hollywood, film, and television
Another variation of the "Jews control the media" canard is that Jews control Hollywood's film and television industries with the goal of subverting American values,[15] favoring Jews for employment,[16] and portraying Christianity and African-Americans in a negative manner.[17]
Henry Ford publicized the canard widely in the early twentieth century via an editorial campaign in the 1920s published in the Dearborn Independent, which wrote: "The motion picture influence of the United States -- and Canada -- is exclusively under the control, moral and financial, of the Jewish manipulators of the public mind. (...) the American Public is as helpless against the films as it is against any other exaggerated expression of Jewish power."[18]
Scholar Steven Alan Carr has documented many instances of the canard in the Hollywood context, including statements by Donald Wildmon, Dolly Parton, William Cash, and Marlon Brando.[19]
ADL director Abraham Foxman criticized entertainer Dolly Parton for comments she made when responding to a question about why her planned television show about a gospel singer was never produced - Parton said "Everybody's afraid to touch anything that's religious because most of the people out there [in Hollywood] are Jewish, and it's a frightening thing for them to promote Christianity." Foxman described Parton's comments as "anti-semitic stereotyping".[20]
The ADL documented an instance of the canard in 1996, when Marlon Brando said ""Hollywood is run by Jews; it is owned by Jews" on the Larry King Live television show. The ADL called Brando's statement "outrageous and offensive" and that "Hollywood studios are owned and movies are made by men and women, some of whom are Jewish, many of whom are not. Those Jews who enter the movie industry have done so as individuals, not as representatives of their religious group or with an aim to act in some coordinated conspiratorial manner."[21]
William A. Donohue, president of the Catholic League, during an appearance on the Scarborough Country television show in 2004, said (while discussing the Mel Gibson movie The Passion of Christ): "Hollywood is controlled by secular Jews who hate Christianity in general and Catholicism in particular…. That's why they [Hollywood Jews] hate this movie. It's about Jesus Christ, and it's about truth."[22]
The ADL and Abraham Foxman describe a 1994 instance of the canard, when British Journalist William Cash wrote an article titled "Kings of the Deal" for the British magazine The Spectator. The article alleged that Jews dominated Hollywood and unfairly favored Jews for employment. The ADL called the article antisemitic, and ADL director Abraham Foxman responded to the article by saying that "those Jews who enter the movie industry have done so as individuals pursuing the American dream, not as representatives of their religious group".[23]
Sources
Muslim world
Repetitions of the canard are found in the Muslim world, sometimes focusing on the allegation that Jewish control of the media is utilized to support the state of Israel, and to prevent fair coverage of the Israeli-Palesintian conflict. Some Arab governments have endorsed the Protocols of the Elders of Zion (which contains the canard), including Presidents Gamal Abdel Nasser and Anwar Sadat of Egypt, one of the President Arifs of Iraq, King Faisal of Saudi Arabia, and Colonel Muammar al-Gaddafi of Libya, Hamas, and the education ministry of Saudi Arabia.[24]
Political scientist Matthias Küntzel describes an instance of the canard used by Osama bin Laden, in Bin Laden's "Letter to America", published after the September 11 attacks which explained the motives for the attacks, and put the much of the blame on Jews: "… the Jews have taken control of your economy, through which they have then taken control of your media, and now control all aspects of your life making you their servants and achieving their aims at your expense; precisely what Benjamin Franklin warned you against."[25]
Author Daniel Pipes describes a use of the canard by Iranian leader Ayatollah Khamenei, who called Jews the "ringleaders of the worlds's media" and said that Zionists run the "world's propaganda network".[26]
Hamas also alleged that "Jews control the world's … mass media."[27]
Scholar Efraim Karsh documents an instance of the canard employed by the Palestinian Authority's official newspaper Al-Hayat al-Jadida, which wrote that the control of the press was part of an organized plan to create and support the state of Israel, and that "the number of news agencies, newspapers, magazines, and TV networks under Jewish control demonstrates their overwhelming influence over the mass media."[28]
Historian Yvonne Haddad documented how some segments of Islamic society hold the view that Zionists control the media, and use it to promote "immorality and iniquity". [29]
African-American Community
Some African-Americans have repeated that canard that Jews control the media, and state that Jews sometimes portray African-Americans in an unfavorable light.[30]
The Anti-Defamation League has denounced Louis Farrakhan, leader of the Nation of Islam, for repeating the media-control canard,[31] citing a speech in which Farrakahn said "[d]o you know some of these satanic Jews have taken over BET?… The mind of Satan now is running the record industry, movie industry and television."[32]
Former New York City mayor Ed Koch and journalist J. J. Goldberg describe the use of the canard during a 1990 Los Angeles NAACP convention. They describe an instance when Legrand Clegg, founder of the Coalition Against Black Exploitation, a pressure group that lobbied against negative screen images of African-Americans, alleged that "the century-old problem of Jewish racism in Hollywood" denies blacks access to positions of power in the industry and portrays blacks in a derogatory manner. Clegg said: "If Jewish leaders can complain of black anti-Semitism, our leaders should certainly raise the issue of the century-old problem of Jewish racism in Hollywood.... we're concerned with Jewish producers who degrade the black image. It's a genuine concern. And when we bring it up, our statements are distorted and we're dragged through the press as anti-Semites." Koch writes that "the allegation by … Clegg that Hollywood is 'owned' by Jews is intended to encourage anti-Semitism."[33]
African-American journalist Norman Kelley has written that Jews, through domination of the music industry, have "stolen" from black artists, by exploiting Jazz, Blues, R&B, ragtime, and other black-originated musical forms.[34]
In 1991 at the Empire State Black Arts and Cultural Festival in New York Professor Leonard Jeffries said that Jews controlled the film industry, using it to paint a negative stereotype of blacks.[35]
Researcher Robin Coleman interviewed African Americans about television programming in the United States, and found that many African American television viewers considered portrayals of blacks on television to be demeaning, and several asserted that the problem arises because television is controlled by Jews.[36]
Edward Koch, in his book The Koch papers: My Fight Against Anti-Semitism, describes an instance of the canard spoken by African-American movie director Spike Lee. Koch writes that Lee "resurrected the old canard about Jewish control of Hollywood" in a 1990 interview with Chris Wallace.[37]
Politics
President Richard Nixon and minister Billy Graham discussed Jewish control of media in 1972, making statements captured on a White House tape recording, which was declassified in 2002. Nixon said to Graham that there is "a terrible Jewish clique" that "totally dominates the media", and Graham replied that the "stranglehold has got to be broken or the country's going down the drain."[38]
Charles E. Silberman and Rafael Medoff describe a usage of the canard by former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, general George Brown, who in 1974 said that Jews own "all the newspapers in the country".[39] Vincent Brook, commenting on Brown's remark, points out that, at that time, Jews owned only 8 percent of the newspapers in the United States.[40]
ADL director Nathan Perlmutter claimed that Jesse Jackson repeated the media-control canard, when Jackson blamed "Jewish domination of the media" for poor news coverage during Jackson's 1984 presidential campaign.[41]
White supremacists
Members of the White supremacist movement have often repeated the canard, sometimes asserting that Jewish control of the media is exerted to prevent the supremacists from publicizing their messages to mainstream America.
White supremacist George Lincoln Rockwell (1918-1967) asserted that Jewish control of the United States' press was a "paper curtain" which prevented him from publicizing his movement's goals.[42]
White supremacists Matthew F. Hale[43] and David Duke[44] assert that Jews control the media, and prevent supremacists from publicizing their philosophy.
Coverage of Israel
Some examples of the canard state that control of the media is used to promote the interests of the state of Israel, and to prevent publication of the Palestinian or Arab viewpoints in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Naomi Kramer describes speculation that frustration in the Muslim world stems from this apparent control of the media.[45]
Abraham Foxman, director of the ADL, wrote that former U.S. president Jimmy Carter repeated the media-control canard of "Jewish control of the media, Congress, and the U.S. government" when Carter wrote "because of powerful political, economic, and religious forces in the United States, Israeli government decisions are rarely questioned or condemned, voices from Jerusalem dominate our media, and most American citizens are unaware of circumstances in the occupied territories."[46] According to British journalist Robert Fisk, Carter asserted that Israeli lobbyists had produced among US editorial boards a 'reluctance to criticize the Israeli government'."[47]
The Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting media organization described an example of the canard that involved Israel, when Spiro Agnew, former vice-president of the United States said that American policy in the Middle East was "less even handed … All you have to do is look around and see who owns the networks, who owns the Washington Post, the New York Times. As you look around in the big news business, you see a heavy concentration of Jewish people."[48]
right|thumb|148px|Book by Mearsheimer and Walt Abraham Foxman claims that John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt repeat the media-control canard in a 2006 article they co-wrote (which was later expanded and published as the book The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy). Foxman writes that Mearsheimer and Walt "either explicitly or by implication" embrace the assertion that Jews "control, or try to control, the press, the media … so as to stifle dissent."[49]
In support of their allegation, Mearsheimer and Walt cite journalist Eric Alterman, who performed a study of American news commentators, and reported that he found sixty-one "columnists and commentators who can be counted on to support Israel reflexively and without qualification". Conversely, he found just five pundits who consistently criticize Israeli actions …".[50]
Author Alexander Cockburn describes an example of the canard repeated by journalist Jude Wanniski in a column Wanniski wrote in 2002, in which Wanniski asserted that "Jews dominate the news media when it comes to issues related to Israel". Cockburn, commenting on Wanniski's column, wrote "Obviously, Jews don't 'control' the media. All the same, Jewish families are proprietors of some of the most powerful newspapers in the country. Is it likely that this has no bearing on their coverage of the Middle East?"[51]
Analysis and commentary
The Anti-Defamation League has condemned allegations of Jewish control of Hollywood as anti-semitism. The ADL points out that virtually all major motion picture studios are publicly traded corporations, which are owned by a wide variety of shareholders. The ADL writes "the number of Jews involved in a particular field bears no relationship to 'Jewish power' or 'Jewish control' of that industry. ADL does not accept the notion that Jews in any field act in concert with other Jews similarly situated simply because they happen to be Jewish. To believe otherwise is to accept a conspiracy theory that is the anti-Semites' stock-in-trade and relegates Jews to a kind of second-class citizenship…. Moreover, it bears repeating that those Jews who involve themselves in the motion picture industry do so as individuals, not as representatives of their religious group or with an aim to act in some coordinated conspiratorial manner."
In addition, Jews in Hollywood do not act as a cohesive force promoting any specific agenda. According to Neil Sandberg of the American Jewish Committee, "Jews function here [in Hollywood] not as an ethnic or cultural group, but as individuals answerable to banks and foreign and corporate sponsorship. These are business people, like anywhere else, trying to make a profit. They're not defending ethnic or cultural interests."[52]
In an essay headed "Who Says Jews Control Hollywood?" published in the February/March 1995 issue of Midstream magazine, Steven G. Kellman, a professor at the University of Texas in San Antonio, wrote: "Boosters and antisemites agree: Jews have been prominent and predominant in all phases of the [motion picture] business: production, distribution and exhibition." He noted that, at the time, "Of the 100 most powerful people in the industry according to a recent survey by Premiere, most, including the top 12, are Jewish," but observed, "Though individual Jews control Hollywood, Jewishness does not."[53]
Journalist J. J. Goldberg asserts that, although Jews occupy many leadership positions in Hollywood, they have never used those positions to exert control over the medium: "The combined weight of so many Jews in one of America's most lucrative and important industries gives the Jews of Hollywood a great deal of political power... the same could be said, to a much greater degree, of other industries with significant concentrations of Jews: Wall Street, New York real estate, or the garment industry. In each of those industries, Jews make up a significant bloc - an important minority on Wall Street, near majorities in clothing and commercial real estate - and have translated their clout into a visible presence on the political scene.... The common impression of Jewish power in Hollywood - the ability of the group to create a desired image through control of the medium - simply never materialized. The Jews who went to Hollywood were not interested."[54]
Film critic Neal Gabler's book An Empire of Their Own: How the Jews Invented Hollywood documents the role of Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe in the formative years of the Hollywood film industry. Gabler concludes that the drive of these immigrants to assimilate into America, and to fashion their own destiny, shaped the film industry, and the films that it produced. Gabler concludes that Jewish producers, in the early part of the twentieth century, did not use motion pictures to promote Jewish interests, and in fact there were very few roles for Jewish actors in that time. Gabler also gives examples where what he termed "East Coast Jews" encouraged Hollywood to promote Jewish goals, but Hollywood resisted. Gabler cites the 1950s House Committee on Unamerican Affairs, where many Jews were unfairly black-listed by Hollywood (because of their purported communist affiliations). In the epilog of his book, Gabler says that it is not until the 1980s that it became acceptable for Jewish characters to appear in feature films.[55]
References
- Alexander, Edward, The Jewish idea and its enemies: personalities, issues, events, Transaction Publishers, 1988
- Alterman, Eric, "Intractable Foes, Warring Narratives", MSNBC.com, March 28, 2002. online.
- Anti Defamation League, "Alleged Jewish 'Control' of the American Motion Picture Industry" (cited as "ADL report"), September 1999, online.
- Brook, Vincent, Something ain't kosher here: the rise of the "Jewish" sitcom, Rutgers University Press, 2003.
- Carr, Steven Alan, Hollywood and anti-semitism: a cultural history up to World War II, Cambridge University Press, 2001.
- Cash, William, "Kings of the Deal", The Spectator, 29 October 1994, p. 14-16.
- Cockburn, Alexander, The politics of anti-Semitism, AK Press, 2003.
- Davies, Alan T. (1992). Antisemitism in Canada: history and interpretation. Wilfrid Laurier Univ. Press. ISBN 0889202168.
- Dearborn publishing Co., The International Jew: Jewish activities in the United States, The Dearborn publishing Co., 1921.
- Foxman, Abraham H., The deadliest lies: the Israel lobby and the myth of Jewish control, Palgrave Macmillan, 2007.
- Gabler, Neal, An empire of their own: how the Jews invented Hollywood, Crown Publishers, 1988.
- Goldberg, J.J., Jewish power: inside the American Jewish establishment, Basic Books, 1997.
- Jacobs, Steven L., and Weitzman, Mark, Dismantling the big lie: the Protocols of the elders of Zion, KTAV Publishing House, Inc., 2003.
- Karsh, Efraim, Arafat's War: The Man and His Battle for Israeli Conquest, Grove Press, 2004
- Koch, Edward I., The Koch Papers: My Fight Against Anti-Semitism, Macmillan, 2009. Reprinting an article Koch originally published 10 August 1990 in the New York Post.
- Kramer, Naomi, Civil courage: a response to contemporary conflict and prejudice, Peter Lang, 2007
- Küntzel, Matthias, Jihad and Jew-hatred: Islamism, Nazism and the roots of 9/11, Telos Press Publishing, 2007
- Levy, Richard S., sAntisemitism: a historical encyclopedia of prejudice and persecution, Volume 2, ABC-CLIO, 2005
- Mearsheimer, John J., and Walt, Stephen M, The Israel lobby and U.S. foreign policy, Macmillan, 2007.
- Medoff, Rafael (2002). Jewish Americans and political participation: a reference handbook. ABC-CLIO. ISBN 1576073149.
- Melnick, Jeffrey Paul, A Right to Sing the Blues: African Americans, Jews, and American Popular Song, Harvard University Press, 2001.
- Michael, Robert, Dictionary of antisemitism from the earliest times to the present, Scarecrow Press, 2007.
- Miller, Mark Crispin, "The Jewish Media: The Lie That Won't Die", article for Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, "FAIR: The Jewish Media: The Lie That Won't Die".
- Silberman, Charles E., A Certain People: American Jews and Their Lives Today, Simon & Schuster, 1986.
- Singh, Robert (1997). The Farrakhan phenomenon: race, reaction, and the paranoid style in American politics. Georgetown University Press. ISBN 0878406581.
- Tulchinsky, Gerald, "Goldwin Smith: Victorian Canadian Antisemite", in Antisemitism in Canada: history and interpretation, Alan T. Davies (Ed), Wilfrid Laurier Univ. Press, 1992.
- Weinraub, Bernard. "The Talk of Hollywood; A Stereotype of Jews in Hollywood Is Revived",The New York Times, November 7, 1994, p. C11.
Notes
- ^
- ADL report
- Miller (FAIR report)
- Goldberg, pp 279–304
- ^ Michael, Robert, A concise history of American antisemitism, Rowman & Littlefield, 2005, p 210
- ^
- Tulchinsky, Gerald, "Goldwin Smith: Victorian Canadian Antisemite", in Antisemitism in Canada: history and interpretation, Alan T. Davies (Ed), Wilfrid Laurier Univ. Press, 1992
- page 76:"An important feature of [Joseph] Laister's Judeophobia was his conviction that the Jews secretly exercised control or, at least, undue influence over much of the English press. .. Fully as worrisome was Jewish control over the news elsewhere as well… Obviously tutored by Laister, [Goldwin] Smith, in almost every article he composed on Jewish matters, alleged Jewish control over the press to explain why the real truth could not reach the public…. In July 1897, he informed the readers of the Weekly Sun that 'the Jews control the European press..'. [he wrote:] 'They seem to be behind the press everywhere, or at least be able to muzzle it'."
- ^
- Jacobs, pp 21-22, 34-38, 77-81, 82-83
- ADL report
- Forest, James J. F., Countering terrorism and insurgency in the 21st century: international perspectives. Lessons from the fight against terrorism, Greenwood Publishing Group, 2007, p 571
- ^ Jacobs, pp 1-20.
- ^
- ADL report: "The assertion that Jews 'control' Hollywood, the media, banking and finance, among other things, is an anti-Semitic canard which dates back more than 70 years to an anti-Jewish campaign waged in the 1920s by the Dearborn Independent, a long-defunct publication backed by the late industrialist Henry Ford."
- Carr, pp 82-90
- Levy, pp 163-164, article "Dearborn Independent and The International Jew"
- Dumenil, Lynn, The modern temper: American culture and society in the 1920s, Macmillan, 1995, p. 216:
- "Thus the Dearborn Independent, week after week, presented the Jewish conspiracy to destroy Christian civilization as Jews embarked on their relentless pursuit of power. And it presented a successful pursuit: Jews allegedly had already ascended to a dominant role in … the media."
- Representative quote from the Dearborn Independent: "The motion picture influence of the United States - and Canada - is exclusively under the control, moral and financial, of the Jewish manipulators of the public mind.... the picture business, on its commercial side, is Jewish through and through.... This ill-concealed propaganda of the Jewish movie picture control is also directed against non-Jewish religions. You never saw a Jewish rabbi depicted on the screen in any but a most honorable attitude. He is clothed with all the dignity of his office and he is made as impressive as can be. Christian clergymen, as any movie fan will readily recall, were subjected to all sorts of misrepresentation, from the comic to the criminal. Now, this attitude is distinctly Jewish. Like many unlabeled influences in our life, whose sources lead back to Jewish groups, the object is to break down as far as possible all respectful or considerate thought about the clergy." The Dearborn Independent, 19 February 1921
- Gabler, p 277:
- Gabler quotes the Dearborn Independent: "Jew-controlled not only in spots, not 50 percent merely, but entirely; with the natural consequences that now the world is in arms against the trivializing and demoralizing influences of that form of entertainment as presently managed.... As soon as the Jews gained control of the 'movies', we had a movie problem, the consequences of which are not yet visible. It is the genius of that race to create problems of a moral character in whatever business they achieve a majority."
- ^
- Goldstein, Eric L. (2006). The price of whiteness: Jews, race, and American identity. Princeton University Press. p. 122. ISBN 0691121052.
- "Ford charged the 'International Jew' with a string of intrigues, from bringing the United States into World War I, to manipulating American business and finance for their own ends, to corrupting Anglo-Saxon virtues through their control of Hollywood and the music industry."
- ADL report:
- "To the present day, anti-Semites have continued to allege that Jews are engaged in a conspiracy to "control" Hollywood. Indeed, the Dearborn Independent's anti-Jewish writings continue to be circulated by anti-Semitic entities such as Liberty Bell Publications under the title The International Jew: The World's Foremost Problem."
- ^ ADL report
- ^ ADL report:
- "To the present day, anti-Semites have continued to allege that Jews are engaged in a conspiracy to "control" Hollywood. Indeed, the Dearborn Independent's anti-Jewish writings continue to be circulated by anti-Semitic entities such as Liberty Bell Publications under the title The International Jew: The World's Foremost Problem."
- ^ Medoff, pp 61-62:
- "Jews actually came late to the world of American journalism…. By the time of General Brown's remark, Jews owned only an estimated 3 percent of America's newspapers. The fact that the most important of the daily newspapers, the New York Times, is Jewish-owned, has undoubtedly fed erroneous assumptions about the role of Jews in the media…. Moreover, the Jewish owners of the Times were intensely, almost obsessively, fearful of being perceived as 'too Jewish'. For many years, Times reporters with Jewish-sounding first names were ordered to use only their first initials in print … For many in the American Jewish community, the preposterousness of claims about Jewish control of the media is graphically demonstrated by the U.S. media's coverage of Middle East affairs, which in recent decades has been unfriendly toward Israel and sympathetic to the Palestinian Arab cause."
- ^ Marks, Steven Gary (2003). How Russia Shaped the Modern World: From Art to Anti-semitism, Ballet to Bolshevism. Princeton University Press. p. 173. ISBN 0691096848.
- "This [[[The International Jew]]] was a version of the Protocols [of the Elders of Zion] designed specifically for the American public…. With their [Jews] 'demonic shrewdness', they had acquired control over … the popular music industry."
- ^ Haddad, Yvonne Yazbeck, "Islam, Women and Revolution in Twentieth-Century Arab Thought", in Women, religion, and social change, Yvonne Yazbeck Haddad, Ellison Banks Findly (Eds), SUNY Press, 1985, p 291
- "Part of the Zionist manipulation of society, in this [Islamic] view, comes through Jewish control over various modes of entertainment, … They [Zionists] have control over the music industry, writing songs with explicit and frank invitations to immorality and iniquity."
- ^
- Melnick, Jeffrey Paul, A Right to Sing the Blues: African Americans, Jews, and American Popular Song, Harvard University Press, 2001, p 151:
- [The author is discussing Alain LeRoy Locke ]: "In case the full implications of Locke's position are not clear, we need only look at the specificity with which he named the debasers of African American music: 'One of the handicaps of Negro music today is that it is too popular. It is tarnished with commercialism and the dust of the marketplace. the very musicians who know the folkways of Negro music are the very ones who are in the commercial slavery to the Shylocks of Tin Pan Alley.' Not only were Jews responsible for perverting 'authentic' African American music by directly commercializing it themselves, but also their control of the music industry allowed them to obstruct the artistic labor of those African American composers who were able - by talent and inclination - to produce folk-based masterworks. Locke made explicit here one of the arguments held inside the anecdote about Irving Berlin's 'little colored boy': by denying African American artists the fruits of their labor in urban spaces, Jews had come to function as oppressors."
- Melnick is quoting Alain LeRoy Locke, The Negro and His Music, 1939, Arno press. p. 4.
- ^ Singh, Robert (1997). The Farrakhan phenomenon: race, reaction, and the paranoid style in American politics. Georgetown University Press. p. 165. ISBN 0878406581.
- "Thus, according to the Black Muslim, the United States is 'being made ripe for a take-over from without' through a Jewish plot to use Hollywood and the music industry to corrupt Americans through the 'sexual drive'."
- ^
- ADL report
- Carr, pp 68-80:
- Page 76: "An undated issue [during the 1920s] of the official publication of the Catholic Knights of Columbus claims that only 'foreign-born Jews of the lowest sort' who controlled the film industry would stoop to 'glorify crime and make heroes of seducers and heroines of prostitutes for a dollar'."
- ^ ADL report
- ^
- Goldberg, pp 285–286,288–290
- Carr, p 68-74:
- page 74: "..those who espoused the Hollywood Question more often articulated their fears in terms of the threat that movies held for a Protestant America. Georgia Representative W. B. Upshaw, who had hoped that Hays would 'deliver' Hollywood from its Pharisees, testified that the movie 'monopoly' had 'nobody to blame but itself for arousing the militant decency of America'. Upshaw claimed that in endeavoring to regulate the film industry 'we are simply proposing to stand at the back door of our homes, our churches, and our schools and fight back the wolves of immorality, that are crouching to destroy the hope and strength of the Nation.'".
- ^
- ADL report, which quotes The International Jew, vol. II, p 118.
- See also Boswell, Parley (2007). Edith Wharton on Film. Southern Illinois University Press. pp. 79–81. ISBN 0809327570.
- ^ Carr, p 5:
- "Of course, the anti-Semitic charge of Jewish control is nothing new. Protestant reformers advocating federal censorship of the movies had begun to enunciate the charge shortly after World War I. Throughout the 1930s, the charge electrified the formation of such pressure groups as the Catholic League of Decency and, in the 1940s, the isolationist America First. More recently, the Reverend Donald Wildmon of the American Family Association wrote to Sidney J. Sheinberg, president of MCA/Universal. In protesting the 1988 film The Last Temptation of Christ, Wildmon asked Sheinberg, 'How many Christians are in the top positions at MCA/Universal?'. Dolly Parton explained her unsuccessful bid to launch a TV series about a country star turned gospel singer as having to face 'people [in Hollywood who] are Jewish. And it's a frightening thing for them to promote Christianity'. William Cash, correspondent to the conservative British magazine The Spectator, used [the book by Neal Gabler] An Empire of Their Own in 1994 to characterize a 'Jewish cabal' behind the '21st Century Entertainment Supherhighway'. Moreover, in April 1996, Marlon Brando blamed a Rodney-King style beating of Mexican migrant workers administered by the Riverside Police Department on cinematic stereotypes perpetrated by Hollywood Jews".
- For an example involving Bill O'Reilly, see Michael, p 399:
- "On Feb 26, 2004, on The O'Reilly Factor, a television program on the Fox News Network, during an interview with Mel Gibson in regard to the movie The Passion of the Christ, O'Reilly defended Gibson, saying: 'OK, it's a very, very difficult question. And I'm asking this question respectfully. Is it because … the major media in Hollywood and a lot of the secular press is controlled by Jewish people'?"
- ^
- Parton's comments in: Interview with Dolly Parton, Vogue magazine, January 1994
- Foxman's comments during an interview with WNBC, November 2003
- Carr, p 5:
- "Of course, the anti-Semitic charge of Jewish control is nothing new…. Dolly Parton explained her unsuccessful bid to launch a TV series about a country star turned gospel singer as having to face 'people [in Hollywood who] are Jewish. And it's a frightening thing for them to promote Christianity' ".
- See also: "The ADL's Definition of an Antisemite" in Catalyst, newsletter of the Catholic League, December 2003, online
- ^
- "ADL outraged by Marlon Brando's remarks on Jews in Hollywood", ADL press release, 8 April 1996, online
- Brando's comments on Larry King Live in April 1996: "Hollywood is run by Jews; it is owned by Jews, and they should have a greater sensitivity about the issue of — of people who are suffering. Because they've exploited — we have seen the — we have seen the Nigger and Greaseball, we've seen the Chink, we've seen the slit-eyed dangerous Jap, we have seen the wily Filipino, we've seen everything but we never saw the Kike. Because they knew perfectly well, that that
- In a 1979 interview in Playboy magazine in January 1979, Brando said: "You've seen every single race besmirched, but you never saw an [unfavorable] image of the kike because the Jews were ever so watchful for that—and rightly so. They never allowed it to be shown on screen.
- ^
- Michael, p 134s
- Michael cites MSNBC-TV transcript Scarborough Country, Dec. 8, 2004, online
- ^
- Carr, p 5:
- "Of course, the anti-Semitic charge of Jewish control is nothing new….. William Cash, correspondent to the conservative British magazine The Spectator, used [the book by Neal Gabler] An Empire of Their Own in 1994 to characterize a 'Jewish cabal' behind the '21st Century Entertainment Supherhighway'."
- Weinraub, Bernard. "The Talk of Hollywood; A Stereotype of Jews in Hollywood Is Revived",The New York Times, November 7, 1994, p. C11:
- "A British magazine has revived a stereotype of Hollywood from the early days in which a 'Jewish cabal' controls the entertainment industry. Movie executives here [Hollywood] who have seen the article in The Spectator are outraged…. The article, titled 'Kings of the Deal', which goes on to say that Jews have created an 'invidious and protective culture' that denies employment to non-Jews…. Although Jewish immigrants helped found Hollywood in the 1920's, and although most - but certainly not all - of the establishment has always been Jewish, Hollywood executives have traditionally gone out of their way to avoid making films with Jewish themes."
- ADL report:
- "Even a reputable British magazine in 1994 revived the stereotype of Hollywood in which an alleged 'Jewish cabal' controls the industry. The article, in The Spectator, authored by William Cash, a Hollywood correspondent for the conservative British newspaper The Daily Telegraph, contended that Jews have created an 'invidious and protective culture' that denies employment to non-Jews. The Anti-Defamation League expressed outrage at the article, saying that it raised the age-old canard of Jewish control and conspiracy and was reminiscent of classic anti-Semitic propaganda of the past hundred years. 'Those Jews who enter the movie industry have done so as individuals pursuing the American dream, not as representatives of their religious group' commented ADL director Abraham H. Foxman.".
- Cash, William, "Kings of the Deal", in The Spectator, 29 October, 1994, p 14-16. Some representative excerpts:
- "But in one respect at least this particular combination of talents, or 'talent combo', in the local argot, will start out on the right foot. Like the old mogul founders of the early studios and unlike most other failed build-your-own studio merchants they are Jewish.... The significance of this fact cannot be simply met by the inevitable shrieks of 'anti-Semitism'. A rare glimpse of the feudal power structure of Hollywood at work was given by the Wall Street Journal's front-page report of the new studio launch. Before any contracts could be signed, a private 'blessing' was required from 81-year-old Lew Wasserman, the long-time chairman of MCA (which owns Universal) and the last surviving Jewish Founder-builder of a studio. To quote the Journal, he is treated in Hollywood 'like a tribal chieftain'... it has long been a standing joke in L.A that the way to get on is to convert to Judaism. Simon Kelton, an Eton-and Oxford-educated screenwriter friend with whom I used to share a house, and who was short listed last year for the Samuel Goldwyn film-writing award, always stresses his Jewish 'ancestry' whenever he gets a chance in LA; something few had ever heard about before. "
- ^ Template:PDFlink at Anti-Defamation League
- ^
- Küntzel, p 130
- Küntzel quotes Bin Laden's "Letter to America"
- ^
- Pipes, Daniel, The Hidden Hand: Middle East Fears of Conspiracy, Palgrave Macmillan, 1998, p 152:
- "Speculations about Jewish control of the American press abound. Khamenei of Iran calls Zionists the 'ringleaders of the worlds's media' and says that Zionists run the 'world's propaganda network'. .. A tirade in The Pakistan Times explains what this means: 'The information media including publishing and book trade is its [Zionists Jewry's] leading instrument of deception, disinformation, hiding truth, confusing facts and yet conditioning the minds of the public and the policy makers to perceive things the way it wants'. That Zionists dominate the media means it is on the wrong side not just on the Arab-Israel conflict, but on every issue…. [a common conspiracy theory is that] Jews control the press by staffing and owning it. That Jews have a disproportionate presence in news rooms results not from personal predilection or skill but from a concerted Zionist effort that includes salary supplements from Jewish organizations."
- ^
- Michael, p 198:
- "Hamas alleges that Jews control the world's … mass media"
- ^
- Karsh, p 95:
- "According to this account [published in Palestinian Authority's newspaper al-Hayat al-Jadida] ,… the Zionist movement recognized that unless it gained complete and unassailable control over the world media, the press in particular, its cherished goal of establishing a Jewish state would never come to fruition. After some initial setbacks, this goal has been achieved by the mid-twentieth century: [quoting from a a P.A. publication]: 'A glance at the number of news agencies, newspapers, magazines, and TV networks under Jewish control demonstrates their overwhelming influence over the mass media. They control several French and British newspapers, including the Times, …. In the United States [the Jews control] the New York Times, New York Post, Washington Post, the New Yorker magazine, Business Week, and so forth and so on. In France [they own] Nouveaux Cahiers, L'Express, Le Figaro, … … the also own a fair share of … ABC, NBC, CBS and many more are all controlled by Jews."
- ^
- Haddad, Yvonne Yazbeck, "Islam, Women and Revolution in Twentieth-Century Arab Thought", in Women, religion, and social change, Yvonne Yazbeck Haddad, Ellison Banks Findly (Eds), SUNY Press, 1985, p 291:
- "Part of the Zionist manipulation of society, in this [Islamic] view, comes through Jewish control over various modes of entertainment, … They [Zionists] have control over the music industry, writing songs with explicit and frank invitations to immorality and iniquity."
- ^ Goldberg, pp 285–286,288–290
- ^
- ^
- From a Farrakhan speech (“Justifiable Homicide: Black Youth in Peril, Part 3” ) at Mosque Maryam, 11 November 2007, quoted by ADL at [1] :
- “Do you know some of these satanic Jews have taken over BET?… Everything that we built, they have. The mind of Satan now is running the record industry, movie industry and television. And they make us look like we’re the murders; we look like we’re the gangsters, but we’re punk stuff.”
- From a Farrakhan speech (Saviours' Day Speech, Chicago, 29 Feb 2004) quoted by ADL at [2] :
- “See, you so called Jews – I’m not gonna give you the credit for being one of those that obey God. You portrayed us, you know what images do, that’s why you jumped on Mel Gibson. But you painted us, big lips, red eyes, kinky hair, you put in the movies like that. You mocked our characteristics and made us to hate God’s creation of us. You did that. Hollywood did that….You take our strongest, more courageous black minds, you think we don’t see you? And you put us in Hollywood. You give us television shows, and then we gotta bug our eyes.”
- ^
- Goldberg, pp 288–289
- Koch, pp 36-37
- Quart, Leonard, "Jews and Blacks in Hollywood", Dissent, Fall 1992. online
- "More than a year ago Legrand Clegg — president of a media watchdog organization, the Coalition Against Black Exploitation — was applauded at the NAACP convention in Los Angeles when he charged that "the century-old problem of Jewish racism in Hollywood" denies blacks access to positions of power in the industry."
- ^
- Norman Kelley "Notes on the political economy of black music", in R&B, rhythm and business: the political economy of Black music, Norman Kelley (Ed.), 2005, Akashic Books, p 12-14:
- "The history of black music has been a continuous replay of the uncontested and lucrative expropriation of black cultural forms by whites. This variegated structure of stealing developed through the minstrel shows of pre-Civil War America, to segregated black music as 'race music', to white composers copping black jazz styles, to white rockers covering black R&B songs, to publishers stealing copyrights, to the nonpayment of royalties due to black artists by record companies… This is the basis of the structure of stealing in which other national groups - principally Anglo-Saxons (slavery), Irish (minstrelsy), Jews (Hollywood, the record industry), and Italians (through mob influence) have participated…. Over the years, sniping about Jews 'controlling' the music business has obscured how blacks often ignored the 'cultural-capital' potential of blues, jazz, and R&B until it was too late…. "
- ^
- ""Our Sacred Mission", speech at the Empire State Black Arts and Cultural Festival in Albany, New York, July 20, 1991". Archived from the original on 2007-09-27.
- The Michael Eric Dyson reader By Michael Eric Dyson; p. 91
- Quart, Leonard, "Jews and Blacks in Hollywood", Dissent, Fall 1992. online
- "The charge of "Jewish racism" in both executive hiring and Hollywood movie images of blacks was more recently echoed in the race-baiting, reminiscent of anti-Semitic tracts like the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, of City College professor Leonard Jeffries, Jr. In a speech at the Empire State Black Arts and Cultural Festival in Albany he stated that "Russian Jewry had a particular control over the movies," and with "their financial partners—the Mafia—put together a financial system for the destruction of black people." The attacks were not only racist in nature but distorted the role played by Jews in Hollywood."
- ^
Coleman, Robin R. Means. African American viewers and the Black situation comedy: situating racial humor (Routledge 1998) (ISBN 978-0815331254), pp 244-245
- [The author surveyed a large number of African-Americans about portrayal of blacks on TV] "… some participants argued that European American control of the media is problematic, … A similar subtheme emerged where blame was placed not generically on White managers, but specifically on Jewish Americans. There is the belief that Jewish image makers are especially guilty of stereotyping Blacks. This was a common belief that crossed demographic strata, and which was greatly pondered before any participant ever encountered me. Donny [an interviewee] is particularly upset of the Jewish treatment of African Americans: [quoting Donny]: 'Its the Jew at that. The Jews control the media …. Jews basically control this country… See, Jews own the media, and that's how they perceive us, as big clowns. We can sing for them, we can dance for them.' Jasmine shares that she has long been troubled by Jewish control over Black images. She remarks here that Jews actively protest disagreeable mediated discourse, yet target African Americans with offensive stereotypes: [quoting Jasmine]: 'Jews control the media… they are White like everybody else and treat Blacks poorly.' Gale [another interviewee] also expressed her belief that 'White people, Jews control the media. We have no control'…. J.C [another interviewee] suggests that Jewish American control should be a lesson… 'Blacks don't control. Have you ever looked at the names at the end of a [TV] show? Goldstein, Westheimer, Stein - the names in the credits. Jews are in control. … All the owners are Jews. You can't blame them for being opportunistic.'"
- ^
- Koch, pp 35-36:
- Koch quotes Lee as responding to a question about movies by saying: "Because a large part of the people that run Hollywood are Jewish. I mean, that's a basic fact… I mean if it's your own business, you can do what you want. And when black people start owning our own businesses, running our schools, making our own movies, then we can do what the hell we want to do."
- ^
- Alterman, Eric, What liberal media?: the truth about bias and the news, Basic Books, 2003, p 2:
- ".. Richard Nixon … complained obsessively in private to the evangelist Billy Graham of 'a terrible Jewish clique' that 'totally dominates the media' and 'erodes our confidence, our strength'."
- For the source of the Nixon quotes, Alterman cites the Washington Post, March 1, 2002, p A02, and the Chicago Tribune, March 1, 2002.
- Brook, pp 59-60:
- "Nixon himself was busy insulting and slandering Jews …in a newspaper interview baldly declaring that 'the Jews in the U.S. control the entire information and propaganda machine, the large newspapers, the motion pictures, radio and television, and the big companies'".
- Cockburn, pp 31-33
- ".. a new tape [recorded in 1972, declassified in 2002] revealing Graham, Nixon and Halderman palavering about Jewish domination of the media, with Graham invoking the 'stranglehold' exerted by Jews. On the account of James Warren in the Chicago Tribune, who has file excellent stories down the years on Nixon's tapes, the president raises a topic about which 'we can't talk … publicly', namely Jewish influence in Hollywood and the media. Nixon cites Paul Keyes, a political conservative … as telling him that 11 of the 12 writers are Jewish'. 'That right?' says Graham, prompting Nixon to claim that Life magazine, Newsweek, The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and others are 'totally dominated by the Jews'. Nixon says network TV anchors Howard K. Smith, David Brinkley, and Walter Cronkite are 'front men who may be of that persuasion' but that their writers are '95 percent Jewish'. 'This stranglehold has got to be broken or the country's going down the drain', the nation's best-known preacher declares…. After Graham's departure [from the room] Nixon says to [H. R.] Haldeman, "You know it was good we got this point about the Jews across'. 'It's a shocking point' Haldeman replies, 'Well', says Nixon, 'it's also, the Jews are irreligious, atheistic, immoral bunch of bastards'".
- For comments on Graham's apology, see Singer, David, American Jewish Year Book 2003, page 101-102.
- ^
- Medoff, p 61:
- "The Jewish community has focused on … anti-Semitic utterances by public figures … Hence the outcry over … the statement [in 1974] by the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General George Brown, that Jews control America's banks and newspapers… General George Brown's allegation that Jews control the American news media shed light on an often misunderstood topic. Jews actually came late to the world of American journalism…. After World War II, the rise of the television networks gave the media increased prestige, and Jews gradually became increasingly prominent as reporters and editors, although not necessarily as owners. By the time of General Brown's remark [1974], Jews owned only an estimated 3 percent of America's newspapers. The fact that the most important of the daily newspapers, the New York Times, is Jewish-owned, has undoubtedly fed erroneous assumptions about the role of Jews in the media…."
- ^
- Brook, p 60:
- "The most outrageous and widely publicized calumnies came the same year from the chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General George S. Brown, who casually remarked that not only did Jews only all the banks and newspapers in the country (Jews actually owned 3.1 and 8 percent, respectively) but Jewish influence in Congress was 'so strong you wouldn't believe it'".
- Silberman, p 149
- ^
- Barker, Lucius Jefferson, Our time has come: a delegate's diary of Jesse Jackson's 1984 presidential campaign, University of Illinois Press, 1988, pp 65-66:
- "[Pearlmutter said]: 'Many of [the Jewish community] remember that [Jesse Jackson] is the man who is sick and tired of hearing about the Holocaust and that he blamed 'Jewish domination of the media' for some of the news coverage that he has gotten'". [author is quoting Nathan Pearlmutter, director of the ADL].
- Brook, p 59
- "In the 1970s, black leader Jesse Jackson revived the canards both of Jewish control of the media and of Jewish control of the government …"
- Silberman, p 149:
- "...public figures as disparate as the Reverend Jesse Jackson and General George Brown, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, have attacked the Jewish 'control' of the press."
- ^
- Simonelli, Frederick, American fuehrer: George Lincoln Rockwell and the American Nazi Party, p 67
- Zatarain, Michael, David Duke, evolution of a Klansman, Pelican Publishing, 1990, p 116:
- "George Lincoln Rockwell was the best-known white racist of the 1960's… Rockwell also believed in the John Birch Society's concepts of a communist infiltration into America's government and news media. He theorized that Jews were at the heart of this conspiracy orchestrating what he labeled 'the liberal media'…. The theme Rockwell repeatedly stressed was Jewish media control. He consistently maintained in the Rockwell Report that the 'favorite tactic of the media was to blackout all opposing viewpoints'."
- ^
- Schroer, Todd J., "Issue and Identity Framing within the White Racialist Movement: Internet Dynamics", in The politics of social inequality, Betty A. Dobratz, Lisa K. Waldner, Tim Buzzell (Eds), Emerald Group Publishing, 2001, p 213,220:
- page 213: "For [Racialists], Whites frame issues in accordance with what they have been brainwashed to believe by Jewish controlled schools and mass media. Jews and to a lesser extent 'liberals' are considered to be in control of the mass media and the educational system of our country. Jewish control of the mass media is such a widely held belief among White Racialists that they often use terms such as 'jewspapers' or the 'the Jew tube' when talking of newspapers and television."
- page 220: "Most Racialists believe that if they can just get their message out to Whites, they can change or reframe the thinking and belief system of other whites. In general, Racialists would agree with Rev. Hale's statement (1997): 'We submit that if people knew what we knew, I mean if they knew the facts about Jewish media control for example…. I mean [Whites] need to understand that there is a conspiracy going on…. I mean the Jewish control of the Media, …"
- ^
- Foxman, p 81:
- "David Duke … was quick to endorse and praise Mearsheimer and Walt. Duke wrote: ' I have read the report … the task before us is to wrest control of … critical junctures of media from the Jewish extremist neocons that seek to lead us into what they expectantly call World War Four.'" page 81
- Levy, p 193:
- "[David] Duke draws his antisemitic theories from a variety of sources: … allegations of Jewish control of the media from Edward Fields and William Pierce."
- ^
- Kramer, p 308:
- " Many recent incidents illustrate one growing trend in Europe: traditional themes of antisemitic prejudice - … linking Jews with money and media .. - are used to describe Israel's actions …. An example of how antisemitic tropes creep into discourse on Israel is provided by an Op-Ed written by Jemima Khan in the November 2000 issue of The Guardian .. Khan's article … when it comes to the media coverage of the Middle East conflict she has to make an exception [to conspiracy theories] due to the 'influence of the Zionist lobby'. She then proceeds to remark, matter-of-factly, that Jews control much of the media and Hollywood in the United States, surmising that Jews conspire to distort information. … she blames [Muslim] extremism on the understandable rage Muslims must feel vis-a-vis American foreign policy (and American media coverage): if the Jews are in danger, it is because of their misdeeds and consorting in the shadows…. Interpreting such occurrences in the media coverage of the Middle East, many argue that Israel has become the collective Jew of the world".
- Kramer is citing: Khan, Jemima, "Telling the Truth about Israel", in The Guardian, 1 November 2000, p 30.
- For an opposing viewpoint, see Medoff, p 62:
- "For many in the American Jewish community, the preposterousness of claims about Jewish control of the media is graphically demonstrated by the U.S. media's coverage of Middle East affairs, which in recent decades has been unfriendly toward Israel and sympathetic to the Palestinian arab cause."
- ^
- Foxman, pp 70, 207, 81-82
- See also Dershowitz, p 30.
- Carter's statement is from Carter, Jimmy, Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid, Thorndike Press, , 2007, p 209.
- ^
- Fisk, Robert, The age of the warrior: selected essays, Nation Books, 2008, p 409:
- "The ex-president replied [to criticism of his book Peace not Apartheid] by mildly (and rightly) pointing out that Israeli lobbyists had produced among US editorial boards a 'reluctance to criticize the Israeli government'."
- ^
- Agnew made the comments in Newsweek magazine, Vol 87, 1976.
- Miller (article in FAIR "Extra" newsletter, 1996):
- "The mass distrust of the alleged Hebraic cabal behind the media was first politically exploited at the highest levels by Richard Nixon, who sincerely hated that imaginary clique. He often raved to H.R. Haldeman about those "satanic Jews" atop the networks and the New York Times. Nixon's button-man in the campaign was his felonious understudy, Spiro Agnew, whose paranoid attack on the news media--"a tiny and closed fraternity of privileged men, elected by no one"--was tacitly anti-Semitic. His animus became much more explicit after Agnew's forcible retirement: 'All you have to do is look around and see who owns the networks, who owns the Washington Post, the New York Times," he declared in 1976. "As you look around in the big news business, you see a heavy concentration of Jewish people.' Agnew's assault on Big Media was both conceived and crafted by the young Pat Buchanan. Since then, Buchanan has ebulliently parlayed his media celebrity into a full-time political jihad against the media (among other targets), and has done so with a tang of anti-Semitism so pronounced that even William Buckley finally had to clear his throat."
- Silberman, p 149
- "Spiro Agnew complained that a 'Jewish Cabal' in control of the mass media was responsible for tilting American foreign policy toward Israel, and public figures as disparate as the Reverend Jesse Jackson and General George Brown, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, have attacked the Jewish 'control' of the press."
- Martin, Bernard, Movements and issues in American Judaism: an analysis and sourcebook of developments since 1945, Greenwood Press, 1978, p. 240:
- "… Spiro Agnew, once vice president of the United States, who stated that American policy in the Middle East was 'less even handed' because 'as you look around in the big-news business, you see a heavy concentration of Jewish people'".
- ^
- Foxman pp 70-71: "Mearsheimer and Walt can't resist toying with the notion that individuals with a pro-Israel agenda dominate the news media and manipulate its coverage to their advantage. The belief that Jews secretly control the mainstream press and use it as a medium for insidious propaganda has long been a staple of anti-Semitic fantasy. The mythical Learned Elders of Zion themselves boast of their power over the media in 'Protocol Number 2': 'Through the Press we have gained the power to influence while remaining ourselves in the shade'. And the same imaginary power was a constant theme of Henry Ford's rabidly anti-Semitic newspaper, the Dearbourn Independent….. [Foxman then quotes Mearsheimer and Walt regarding New York Times bias]: '…former Timers executive editor Max Frankel acknowledged the impact his own pro-Israel attitude had on his editorial choices. In his words 'I was much more deeply devoted to Israel than I dared to assert'. He goes on: 'Fortified by my knowledge of Israel and my friendships there, I myself wrote most of our Middle East commentaries. As more Arab than Jewish readers recognized, I wrote them from a pro-Israel perspective'".
- Foxman: pp 81-82: "What's disturbing is that 'The Israel Lobby' [book] does in fact espouse arguments and beliefs that are very closely aligned to those held by anti-Semites and racists of the David Duke variety. Either explicitly or by implication, the article embraces half a dozen of the most common and poisonous assertions that anti-Semites have long peddled: … that they [Jews] control, or try to control, the press, the media … so as to stifle dissent and prevent the world from understanding their true objectives."
- The passage from Mearsheimer and Walt that Foxman is critiquing is found in Mearsheimer, p 168-170:
- "Accordingly, key elements in the lobby strive to influence discourse about Israel in the media, think tanks, and academia, because these institutions are critical to shaping popular opinion. They promote efforts to portray Israel in a positive light and they go to considerable lengths to marginalize anyone who questions Israel's past or present conduct or seeks to cast doubt on the merits of unconditional U. S. backing. Pro-Israel forces are well aware that dominating discussions about the Jewish state is essential to their agenda. These efforts do not always succeed, of course, but are still remarkably effective…. A key part of preserving positive public attitudes toward Israel is to ensure that the mainstream media's coverage of Israel and the Middle East consistently favors Israel and does not call U.S. support into question in any way. While serious criticism of Israel occasionally reaches a large audience across the United States, the American media's coverage of Israel tends to be strongly biased in Israel's favor, especially when compared with news coverage in other democracies. This claim might sound to some like the old anti-Semitic accusation that 'Jews control the media'. It is anything but. There is no question that some Jewish Americans, such as Martin Peretz and Mortimer Zuckerman, user their positions in the media to advance their views on Israel and the Middle East. This behavior is legitimate and unsurprising, as all elites tend to use their privileged positions to advance their various interests. More to the point, however, there are certainly owners, publishers, editors, columnists, and reporters in the mainstream media who have no special feelings for Israel and would feel comfortable criticizing its policies as well as the United States-Israel relationship…. It is therefore wrong - and objectionable - to argue that Jews or pro-Israel forces 'control' the media and what they say about Israel…. The lobby's perspective on Israel is widely reflected in the mainstream media in part because a substantial number of American commentators who write about Israel are themselves pro-Israel…. The debate among Middle East pundits, wrote media critic Eric Alterman in 2002 is 'dominated by people who cannot imagine criticizing Israel'."
- ^
- Mearsheimer and Walt, "The Israel Lobby", in The domestic sources of American foreign policy: insights and evidence, Eugene R. Wittkopf, James M. McCormick (Eds), Rowman & Littlefield, 2008, p 91:
- "The Lobby doesn't want an open debate, of course, because that might lead Americans to question the level of support they provide. Accordingly, pro-Israel organizations work hard to influence the institutions that do most to shape popular opinion. The Lobby's perspective prevails in the mainstream media: the debate amount Middle Eastern pundits, the Journalist Eric Alterman writes is 'dominated by people who cannot imagine criticizing Israel'. He lists sixty-one 'columnists and commentators who can be counted on to support Israel reflexively and without qualification. Conversely, he found just five pundits who consistently criticize Israeli actions …"
- Mearsheimer and Walt cite data from: Alterman, Eric, "Intractable Foes, Warring Narratives", MSNBC.com, March 28, 2002.
- ^
- Wanniski, Jude, "Do Jews Control the Media: Memo to Mortimer Zuckerman", March 6, 2002, originally published on polyconomics.com. online; quote: "I actually do think Jews dominate the news media when it comes to issues related to Israel, and I think that fact was what Nixon had in mind when he concurred [with Rev. Billy Graham]".
- Cockburn, p 33:
- "It's supposedly the third rail in political and cultural life here even to have a discussion of Zionist influence in the media. Obviously, Jews don't 'control' the media. All the same, Jewish families are proprietors of some of the most powerful newspapers in the country. Is it likely that this has no bearing on their coverage of the Middle East? So it's reasonable to point out that Jewish families control the New York Times and Washington Post and to put it up for discussion whether this affects the editorial stance of both newspapers…. The economic and political commentator … Jude Wanniski remarked in his web newsletter at the time of the Graham uproar [2002] that even if Jews don't control the media overall, it is certainly true to say that they control discussion of Israel in the media here"
- See also Shamir, Israel, Our Lady of Sorrow: The Collected Essays from the Holy Land, Booksurge Llc, 2005, p 57.
- ^ Weinraub
- ^ Kellman's quote is from the ADL report
- ^
- Goldberg, pp 288-289.
- Goldberg also wrote: "Hollywood at the end of the twentieth century is still an industry with a pronounced ethnic tinge. Virtually all the senior executives at the major studios are Jews. Writers, producers, and to a lesser degree directors are disproportionately Jewish - one recent study showed the figure as high as 59 percent among top-grossing films.... The combined weight of so many Jews in one of America's most lucrative and important industries gives the Jews of Hollywood a great deal of political power. They are a major source of money for Democratic candidates. The industry's informal patriarch, MCA chairman Lew Wasserman, wields tremendous personal clout in state and national politics. So do Barbara Striesand, Norman Lear, and a handful of others. A few - very few - individual Jews in Hollywood have gotten involved directly in Jewish political issues: recording-industry executive Danny Goldberg in religious rights and civil liberties, actors Ron Silver and Richard Dreyfuss in Middle East politics."
- ^ Gabler