Israel Matzav

Ron Dermer responds to Time

There was yet another hopelessly biased article against Israel in Time Magazine last week.

Ron Dermer, a senior adviser to Prime Minister Netanyahu, responds.

But your correspondent did not find it necessary to inform your readers of a few facts.

Oaths of allegiance are commonplace in most democratic countries, including the United States. Naturalized citizens in America swear an oath to its Constitution and to defend the country against "all enemies, foreign and domestic." Israel's proposed pledge would require naturalized citizens to swear an oath to Israel as a Jewish and democratic state, words taken directly from our Declaration of Independence.

Moreover, Great Britain, France, Germany, and Italy are just some of the many countries where citizenship can be stripped for various infractions that are defined as undermining "national interests." Are these European countries not democratic?

In the United States, Senator Joe Leiberman proposed a bill last year to "add joining a foreign terrorist organization or engaging in or supporting hostilities against the United States or its allies to the list of acts for which United States nationals would lose their nationality." Is American democracy threatened by such a bill?

As for questioning the legitimacy of foreign government funding of Israeli NGOs, mentioning America's Foreign Agent Registration Act (FARA) may have presented a more balanced picture.

FARA requires that any organization engaged in lobbying in the U.S. that receives money from foreign individuals, let alone foreign governments, must among other things register as a foreign agent with the Department of Justice and permit the Attorney General to inspect all of its activities.

It is hard to imagine any democratic country accepting foreign governments intervening in its domestic affairs by funding domestic groups engaged not merely in criticism of a particular government's policy but also attacking the very foundations of the State.

Read the whole thing.

Dermer does about as well as can be expected under the circumstances. But it's difficult to escape the sickening feeling that he - and I and all the other people who find ourselves constantly answering the international media's anti-Semitism - are fighting a holding action where we are continuing to be pushed back and are unable to push ahead. We're constantly on defense - never on offense. And those who are capable of going on offense - like Dermer's boss - are afraid to do it.

What could go wrong?

Labels: Binyamin Netanyahu, liberal media bias, Ron Dermer, Time Magazine

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 2:46 PM