Decision on Zionist Extremist Newspaper Leaves Both Sides Disgruntled

by John Dirlik

A decision by the Press Council of Quebec to criticize the Suburban of Montreal for two commentaries it published shortly after the 1994 Hebron massacre has disappointed both the newspaper and the initiator of the proceedings.

This writer filed a complaint against the fiercely Zionist Suburban for a Kahane-style article and an editorial which defended the slaughter of 29 Palestinians at the Ibrahim mosque by Israeli settler Baruch Goldstein.

Titled “Legitimization of War Criminals, Taboo on Transfer and Condemnation of Goldstein Rooted in Warped Morality,” the May 18 article by Dan Nimrod argued that Jews were afflicted with a curious malaise which makes them shy away from doing what is necessary, i.e. destroying their enemies. This psychological deficiency is apparently the result of centuries of living in exile, Nimrod wrote. “A close examination of the Jewish psyche,” the reader was informed, “will show that for historical reasons a large segment of the Jewish people has developed a critically low self-esteem bordering on masochism and culminating with a warped sense of morality.”

This “warped morality” explained the “incomprehensible” behavior of most Jews who failed to embrace the ideology of the late Rabbi Meir Kahane, Nimrod continued, adding that the proposal to expel the Palestinians from Israel was only “what normal people regard as a perfectly natural response—and remedy—to a cancerous tumor upon the body of a nation.” It was also this “warped morality” that prompted so many Jews to condemn the Hebron massacre—which in reality was a “pre-emptive strike” and “counter-pogrom,” Nimrod maintained.

This insidious virus had apparently infected the Labor government headed by the late Yitzhak Rabin—a “conspiratorial and collaborationist Hellenist government”—as demonstrated by its willingness to grant Palestinians self-rule under the Oslo accords, Nimrod wrote. After describing Arabs as “modern-day Amalekites”—the tribe that the biblical Israelis were instructed to exterminate down to the last child—the author ended his article with the chilling exhortation that the Labor peace plan “be undermined by all means [italics added] and at every juncture. And the more one exceeds in this patriotic duty, the more praiseworthy he is.”

The Suburban editorial, which appeared on March 2, 1994, was less explicit in its defense of Goldstein, but its message was similar. “While we do not defend Baruch Goldstein’s actions,” explained the Suburban, “we must try to understand what prompted an otherwise rational man to go as far as he did.” The editorial ended by describing Goldstein as a man who “loved Israel more than life itself.”

More than one and a half years after the complaint was filed, the Quebec Press Council admonished the Suburban for the Dan Nimrod article, which it said engaged in “militant political discourse under the guise of practicing journalism.” It also criticized the paper for “abusing its readership” by not clearly identifying the article as an opinion piece. Regarding the editorial, the Press Council censured the Suburban for what it called “abusive and extreme generalizations of Arabs.” (In its attempt to “understand” the motives for Baruch Goldstein’s massacre, the editorial had given as one of the reasons that the Jewish settlers were surrounded by “their murderous Arab neighbors.”)

Reacting to the Press Council decision, the Suburban owners announced they would appeal the judgment. Writer Dan Nimrod said he found the decision “contemptible” and charged that the Press Council was “insensitive and simply coldly indifferent toward the Jews and the Arab-Israeli conflict.” Nimrod had earlier accused the complainant of “taking advantage of Canadian hospitality” to foster Arab propaganda, and charged that “Mr. Dirlik distorts reality, rewrites history and fabricates situations to fuel his perennial anti-Israel hate campaign.”

A Post-Complaint Column

Shortly after the writer of this article made his complaint to the Press Council, Nimrod began writing a weekly column in the Suburban under the heading “The Arab-Israeli Conflict Without Bias or Prejudice.” His articles, however, contained statements ranging from the unabashedly racist “the difference between Jews and Arabs [is] barbarism and civilization,” to the amusingly pathetic, “the year 1967 [when Israel occupied Gaza, the Golan Heights, the West Bank and East Jerusalem] was not a year of occupation but a year of liberation for both Jews and Arabs.” Not content with spreading his Kahanist ideology in the pages of the Suburban, Nimrod bombarded the Press Council with letters containing pearls of wisdom such as “the only way to talk with Arabs is through the barrel of a gun.”

While the Suburban announced it would appeal the Press Council’s decision, this writer protested that the ruling did not go far enough. In a letter to the Council, it was pointed out that Mr. Nimrod had clearly and unambiguously defended the massacre of innocent worshipers, and that “this is not mere ‘militant political discourse’ but a sick and perverse support for a hideous act of savagery.”

The letter also asked for clarification of the Press Council’s ruling that the Suburban erred by not identifying Nimrod’s article as an opinion piece. “If, after an Arab terrorist had slaughtered 29 Jews in a synagogue, a Quebec newspaper had published an article justifying the massacre, would the Press Council merely admonish the paper for not identifying the piece as an opinion article?” this writer’s letter asked.

The Suburban’s announcement that it would appeal the Press Council decision was followed by a letter asking for an extension of the 30-day period allowed. The paper also asked for the “complete set of articles, rules, regulations or guidelines used in all of your judgments of editorial complaints,” as well as the names of the individual members serving on the Press Council’s panel.