Congresswoman Ilhan Omar at an event for Hillary Clinton in 2016. Photo: Lorie Shaull via Wikicommons.
Could the intense and outraged reaction to Congresswoman Ilhan Omar’s tweet be the key to reforming The New York Times’ coverage of Israel and Jewish topics?
When Omar tweeted recently suggesting that Jewish campaign contributions had swayed America’s Middle East policy, nearly everyone seemed to agree she had crossed some important line.
Omar herself eventually said, “I unequivocally apologize,” though she did proceed in her next sentence to complain about the “problematic” role of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, which she likened to the National Rifle Association and the fossil fuel industry.
Yet the “anti-Semitic trope” for which Omar was widely condemned, the claim that American support for Israel is financially motivated — “it’s all about the Benjamins baby,” as Omar put it in a reference to the $100 bills featuring Benjamin Franklin’s portrait — is a consistent feature of New York Times news and opinion articles. Here are just a few recent examples.
The New York Times used to have a brand campaign promoting its help-wanted classified advertising, “I got my job through the New York Times.” In this case, Omar could have legitimately claimed, “I got my anti-Semitic tropes through the New York Times.” Perhaps if the Times news and opinion articles were greeted with the same waves of outrage that Omar’s tweet was, the newspaper would back off.
The different reaction may suggest that Omar is being singled out for severe criticism for some other reason. Or it may just be that the Times has been so bad on these issues for so long that at this point, no one other than perhaps me and my readers even expects the paper not to spread anti-Jewish myths. Perhaps, at this point, the Times has lost so much credibility that no one takes the paper at all seriously when it does spread such anti-Jewish myths. Either way, the Omar episode is an excellent opportunity for the pro-Israel community to consider revisiting its approach to the way the Times covers these issues.