Guardian UK: Rupert Murdoch and the Jews (His Twitter slip about the 'Jewish-owned press' ....)

[marmar]

Rupert Murdoch and the Jews
His Twitter slip about the 'Jewish-owned press' was revealing – of prejudice, paranoia and neoconism – and none of it is pretty

Michael Wolff
guardian.co.uk, Monday 19 November 2012 10.25 EST





Whoops.

Rupert Murdoch's unchaperoned tweeting was bound to get him into trouble. On Saturday, he slipped into an antisemitic usage: "Why is Jewish-owned press so consistently anti-Israel in every crisis?"

What Murdoch was doing was trying to channel the right wing's ardent support of Israel by challenging the left wing's more critical view of Israeli brinksmanship – particularly as Israel appears on the verge of another invasion of Gaza. In other words, or so Murdoch seemed to be close to saying, Jews are liberals, and so untrustworthy that they would even betray Israel.

From the biographer's point of view, this continues to be a curious and open-ended question: what does Murdoch really think about the Jews?

Murdoch's inopportune phrasing also goes to the larger question of the right's odd relationship to Israel, and its own feelings, more generally, about the Jews. Does being pro-Israel absolve you of your suspicion about Jews? Can you be an antisemite and still support Israel? (More provocatively: does Israel, in some sense, depend on the support of rightwing American antisemites?) .................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/nov/19/rupert-murdoch-jews-twitter

[Spider Jerusalem]

1. Answers to some of those questions:

Yes, you can be an anti-Semite and still "support" Israel; Israel depends to some extent on the support of right-wing American anti-Semites. Christian eschatology makes for strange bedfellows; the whole embrace of Israel by the American evangelical Christian right has to do with their interpretation of the Bible and the idea that the re-establishment of Israel is a sign of the coming End Times; their support of Israel is in part based on the unshakeable belief that there is a great tribulation in store for Israel after which the Jews will realise the error of their ways and convert en masse to Christianity. (Which is frankly pretty fucked up and anti-Semitic in subtext, if not overtly.)

[nadinbrzezinski]

2. I will be blunt

The American Right, and Murdoch need Israel to ensure the second coming and the last days. Yes, it is that ugly.