The New Republic: Israel's "Most Articulate Friend in the U.S. Media"

By Nathan Jones

This magazine has reported in the past the story of Martin Peretz, who used inherited wealth to found Ramparts magazine. It became the voice of the "new left" of the 1960s. Everything was fair game for Ramparts except Israel, to which Peretz had a "passionate attachment."

A showdown came after Peretz ordered an article critical of Israel pulled out of an upcoming edition. Since Ramparts was conducted as a sort of journalistic commune, the staff voted to publish the article over the publisher's objections. Peretz reacted by selling Ramparts and buying The New Republic, an old and respected liberal magazine.

Now The New Republic is a big-budget operation with many "editors" whose chief function seems to be getting on television talk shows and thus publicizing the magazine. It has a major credibility problem, however. It's decidedly soft on Israel.

The magazine's selection of writers, and its treatment of subject matter, from trade with Japan to human rights in Africa, seems always to accommodate itself to the notorious ideological hang-up of its publisher. Staff members accept this as a problem that "goes with the territory" of a prestigious job with the magazine.

Peretz has turned his journalistic credibility problem into a fund-raising asset. A subscription appeal for The New Republic, signed by Martin Peretz and circulated to a list of subscribers to Jewish publications and members of Jewish organizations in 1993, begins: "Dear friend: If you're as concerned about the fate of Israel as I am, please read on. . ."

Reading on, one discovers that: "The New Republic is central to the ongoing political wars over the Middle East because it is the most articulate, knowledgeable and influential friend of Israel in the U.S. media. . .Of course some call us 'hysterical' on Israel. Others merely say we're 'obsessed' . . . There is a lot to be obsessed about. We know that malevolent forces abroad in the world, and in America too, mean Israel ill..."

Readers also learn from the Peretz letter that they can get 48 issues for $37.50. That's 78 cents a copy, which barely covers the postage but shows what a publisher with deep pockets and an "obsession" that appeals to a great many advertisers can do for a journal of opinion.

Finally, if recipients of Peretz's letter still don't get the point, Peretz adds a P.S.: "If you pay with your order, the owners of The New Republic will donate a sum equivalent to 20 percent of your remittance to the Jerusalem Foundation, established by Mayor Teddy Kollek, to help in the integration of Soviet immigrants into the life of Jerusalem."

That, by our arithmetic, means that Peretz is charging subscribers less than 63 cents for each copy of The New Republic. Could it be that willingness to take such a beating on each subscription has something to do with the magazine's self-assumed role as "the most articulate, knowledgeable and influential friend of Israel in the U.S. media"?

The United Jewish Appeal Subsidy

A substantial subsidy to the Jewish Week Inc. of New York from funds raised for charitable works in the United States and Israel by the United Jewish Appeal is being protested by competing New York weekly Jewish newspapers.

The Jewish weekly Forward complained in its Oct. 29 issue that "UJA-Federation has been maintaining its subsidy to The Jewish Week at $825,000 a year at a time when it has cut back its allocations to a number of needy charities in the New York region." In fact, UJA presently gives free subscriptions to The Jewish Week to New York metropolitan area contributors of more than $36 in the United Jewish Appeal's annual fund-raising campaign. It's one small illustration of how funds raised for charities in Israel often never leave the United States, but instead are plowed back into organizations and publications that coordinate efforts to lobby Congress for ever-increasing taxpayer aid to Israel.

Readership figures for the network of Jewish weeklies, most of them wholly or partially owned by local UJA Federations, show how effectively American Jewish communities are linked into coordinated fund-raising appeals, as well as kept informed about candidates for elective office who are friendly to Israel and facing tough election battles.

According to Forward, four Jewish weeklies in the metropolitan New York area have combined press runs of more than 250,000. They are the subsidized The Jewish Week, which reported average circulation of 105,688 in 1992 and 96,800 in 1993; the Jewish Press, targeted at Orthodox Jewish readers, with average circulation of 120,764 in 1992 and 141,770 in 1993; the Long Island Jewish World, with circulation of 26,043 in 1992 and 26,124 in 1993; and Forward, with 9,818 in 1992 and 11,360 in 1993.

According to the Detroit Jewish News, the opening salvo was fired in early July by columnist Steve K. Walz in the Jewish Press. He wrote that tax-deductible contributions for Israel "aren't necessarily supporting the new olim [settlers] in Israel. A sizable portion of those greenbacks stay right here."

Justifying his criticism, he asked whether the editors of the UJA-subsidized newspaper would "criticize the federation's leadership if they were found to be wasting donated money on questionable business ventures." While the Jewish Press suggested donors withhold their contributions to the UJA-Federation until it stopped subsidizing the Jewish Week Inc., the Jewish World suggested that contributors to the UJA be allowed to choose which Jewish newspaper they'll receive as a bonus for their contributions.

PLO-Subsidized Newspapers Close

While New York Jewish newspapers squabbled over subsidies, PLO-backed Arabic-language publications in East Jerusalem and the West Bank were quietly shutting down throughout 1993 for lack of financial support. First to go under was Al Shaub, which shut down in April 1993 after its staff walked out because it had not been paid for several months.

The daily Al Fajr closed three months later, leaving its staff members waiting for final paychecks. Raymonda Tawil (who was widely known as "the Palestinian La Pasionaria," after the fiery female orator of the Spanish Civil War, long before she became Yasser Arafat's mother-in-law in 1991) also has felt the squeeze. Her Palestine Press Service first laid off its correspondents in the occupied territories, and subsequently slashed its Jerusalem staff's salaries. The halt in PLO support for the press parallels reductions in PLO support for schools, hospitals and pensions for widows and orphans of PLO fighters. The austerity measures reflect the cutoff of support to Arafat from Saudi Arabia and other Gulf oil-producing countries following the PLO leader's reluctance to condemn Saddam Hussain's 1990 invasion of Kuwait.

Closures of PLO-supported Arabic media in Jerusalem leave the field open to An Nahar, a Jordanian-subsidized East Jerusalem daily; Al Quds, best known for its classified ads and social notes; and Al Hayat, a Saudi-owned London-published Arabic-language daily with circulation throughout Europe and the Middle East.

Israeli Court Restricts Publisher

U.S. publisher Martin Peretz must have been shocked at a decision earlier this year by Israeli Labor Court Judge Elisheva Barak in a case brought by a former employee of the Jerusalem Post. The daily newspaper was for a very long time Israel's premier English-language publication, giving visitors and English-speaking immigrants to Israel a newsy and charming introduction not only to the history and politics of the country, but also to its flora, fauna, cultural life and points of archeological interest.

Eventually the newspaper, whose political line roughly paralleled that of the leftist elements in Israel's Labor coalition, fell into severe financial straits. It was purchased in 1989.by Hollinger Inc., a Canadian newspaper chain whose Jewish owners embrace a right-wing line.

Thirty Jerusalem Post editors and reporters resigned in January 1990, some intending to set up a new English-language Israeli publication more in line with their newspaper's former policy. Joanna Yehiel, one of the resigning journalists, initiated a suit against the Post, claiming that the Hollinger-appointed publisher, retired Israeli army Colonel Yehuda Levy, had no journalistic experience and so harassed the editorial staff with "constant questions and instructions" that no "reasonable journalist" could work under such conditions.

An example cited was the incident that prompted the 1990 resignation of the previous editor, Erwin Frenkel. When Frenkel criticized Likud Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir in an editorial, Shamir responded that such criticism "undermines Israel's position" in the eyes of Diaspora Jews. Levy then ordered Frenkel to withdraw the editorial from the newspaper's weekly international edition.

Judge Barak's decision restricting the rights of publishers to dictate how their editors and reporters do their jobs got little support from other Israeli newspapers across the political spectrum. Amos Shocken, publisher of the liberal Tel Aviv daily Ha'aretz, declared that "if a publisher intervenes in the daily life of journalistic work, he de facto becomes the editor, and that is legitimate."