Abe Foxman: A One-Man Defamation League

By Eric Alterman, The Nation. Posted February 4, 2009.

What's more, the defamation of Moyers escalated further. Following Foxman's fusillade, New York Times neocon William Kristol inserted in a regular column -- yet another devoted as usual to the majesty of George W. Bush's leadership -- an attack on Moyers for allegedly "lambast[ing] Israel for what he called its 'state terrorism,' its 'waging war on an entire population' in Gaza." Like Foxman, Kristol also implied that Moyers was guilty of racism.

Again, read the text of Moyers's remarks. Neither Kristol nor Foxman notes his stated belief that "every nation has the right to defend its people. Israel is no exception, all the more so because Hamas would like to see every Jew in Israel dead," or his deep concern about the growth of "a radical stream of Islam [that] now seeks to eliminate Israel from the face of the earth." Yet despite the fact that Bill Moyers is, well, Bill Moyers, the Times editors not only allowed Kristol to deliberately distort and decontextualize his remarks; they would not allow Moyers to defend himself in his own words in response. After the PBS journalist submitted a letter to the editor, he was told, "We will not print that 'William Kristol distorts or misrepresents,' and the editors will not budge." They insisted that the letter be changed for publication to read, "I take strong exception to William Kristol's characterization," and they truncated much else.

This is pathetic and ridiculous. If one were to survey, say, 1,000 journalists or even 1,000 New York Times readers and ask them whether they were more likely to trust the judgment, honesty or bravery of Bill Moyers or of William Kristol, my guess is that the result would be a landslide victory in Moyers's favor that would dwarf that of Barack Obama's over John McCain. I'd even bet the same would be true in a private survey of Times editors. Yet publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. and editorial page editor Andrew Rosenthal -- rather than admit their colossal mistake in giving so prestigious and influential a perch to Kristol, who was at long last ushered off the page with his next column just one week later -- instead chose to empower his McCarthyite slanders against one of America's most distinguished patriots and practitioners of their profession.

Writing in the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz, the celebrated author and patriot David Grossman termed the Gaza operation "just one more way-station on a road paved with fire, violence and hatred," and added, "our conduct here in this region has, for a long time, been flawed, immoral and unwise."

When Foxman and Kristol have the guts to go after Grossman -- who, after all, lost his son two years ago in a war both men supported from the comfort of their armchairs -- then perhaps we might take seriously their complaints about the relatively moderate sentiments expressed by Moyers. Until then, I fear, we must chalk up their ideological fanaticism and their moral and intellectual confusion as yet another casualty of this endlessly destructive conflict.

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