And You Thought Begin Had It Tough

Naomi Klass Mauer has an interview with Shmuel Katz in this past week's Jewish Press.

One of the things that stand out is this exchange:

Sharon is suddenly the darling of the world media, whereas in the past they vilified him.

No one was ever vilified as much as Menachem Begin when he became prime minister. The media were calling him a terrorist and worse. Begin asked me to go to the U.S. to try to counter the negative image. Within 10 days of my arrival in America, the anti-Begin rhetoric died down. In my three weeks there I made 140 appearances. I went alone and addressed all of their questions.

At my meeting with Newsweek, I charged them with “intolerable and unacceptable words” about the new Israeli prime minister, words that they would not use to describe the head of any other ally. When I went to Washington, I had lunch with columnists. George Will had always been very positive about Israel, but he had written an article charging Begin with trying to set a theocratic tone to politics. I immediately neutralized this argument.

At the end of the luncheon, one of the correspondents from NBC asked me to walk with him in the garden. From his questions I understood that he was trying to understand what kind of people we were – we who had been part of the Irgun. After my meetings on that trip, all of these arguments just evaporated.

Israel has a big problem with disseminating information to explain its position. Our information ministry falls very short of the goal. Our young people do not know how to answer questions. Under those conditions, the left wing media are happy to put out whatever they wish. I would have a half dozen spokesmen in the U.S. at all times, to set the record straight.

Back then Shmuel Katz was a one-man hasbarah machine. Before the internet and blogs.

His approach apparently was to go straight to the media--Newsweek, NBC, etc. There is talk today of the need to do lecture tours--appearing on TV and radio as well as on college campuses. We have groups like Honest Reporting and CAMERA who take on the important job of responding to media bias.

But are there people who can make the case directly to the media, and are the media today willing to meet such people?

And don't forget that Katz was only speaking only about the US--not the world--media.

Of course, the politicians and journalists of today are not the same as back then, and the change may not have been for the best.

Peggy Noonan writes in a rare downbeat column:

Our elites, our educated and successful professionals, are the ones who are supposed to dig us out and lead us. I refer specifically to the elites of journalism and politics, the elites of the Hill and at Foggy Bottom and the agencies, the elites of our state capitals, the rich and accomplished and successful of Washington, and elsewhere. I have a nagging sense, and think I have accurately observed, that many of these people have made a separate peace. That they're living their lives and taking their pleasures and pursuing their agendas; that they're going forward each day with the knowledge, which they hold more securely and with greater reason than nonelites, that the wheels are off the trolley and the trolley's off the tracks, and with a conviction, a certainty, that there is nothing they can do about it.[emphasis added]

Phil Bowermaster at The Speculist responds to Noonan and tries to cheer her up:

First off, I must say that -- as a long-time reader and admirer -- I'm mystified by the significance you ascribe to these "elites" and their outlook on the future. What is so all-fired important about the disposition of journalists and politicians? Is this what you learned working for Ronald Reagan? Are these the people he would have looked to to save us from impending catastrophe?

I don't think so.

Our future has never been entirely in the hands of journalists and hack politicians in Washington. Luckily, it is even less so today than it was in the past. If these groups have made their "peace" with anything, it is probably with the fact that they simply don't matter as much as they used to, and that they aren't the ones shaping and determining the future.

The people who will determine the future are hard at work in the real world. Some of them may be classified as belonging to some sort of "elite;" but most of them do not. They work in business and in the public sector. They are educators, doctors, sales people, farmers, clergy, and, yes, even some journalists and politicians. They are scientists and engineers.

From an Israeli point of view of course, things are very much in the hands of the journalists and the politicians, and the issue of leadership--and the lack thereof--is an issue for Israel, both in terms of the US and at home.

Noonan thinks that the number and complexity facing an American president are beyond overwhelming. I wonder if she follows the news from Israel.

Richard Baehr of The American Thinker has a detailed essay about The growing threat to Israel based on a talk he gave:

...Western Europe's governments have already effectively abandoned Israel, much as they did Czechoslovakia in 1938. It is too much of a burden for them to defend Israel, what with their surging Muslim immigrant populations to appease with the bone of hostility to Israel. And of course since Israel is a close ally of the United States, Europe's envy of America and its power and world leadership works its way to the surface by confronting the US in the Middle East conflict, through support of the Palestinian side in international organizations, such as the UN.

Until the Lebanon campaign in 1982, the media and most of academia in America viewed Israel favorably, as an underdog, an island of Western civilization amidst a sea of regimes run by military thugs or royal autocrats. But things have definitely changed in these venues. While most Americans continue to support Israel overwhelmingly as compared to the Palestinians, the elites have largely switched sides, and many Americans are getting very tired of the conflict. Israel is portrayed in the media as the occupier, the aggressor, the army with tanks fighting children with stones. The shamefully biased coverage of the conflict by CNN and NPR and the three major broadcast networks, is carefully documented by groups such as CAMERA and Honest Reporting. [emphasis added]

Elites in the US. Elites in Israel. But where are the real leaders

Back to Shmuel Katz:

Is there anyone, in your opinion, capable of leading Israel today?

I don't see any. Unfortunately, competent and decent people, people with integrity, avoid going into politics. And then there is also the old story of American pressure which is usually at work. Very few politicians can resist that.

Bottom line, all we have going for us is what we have had all along.

Our Hishtadlus.

And Bitachon.

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