Jamie Kirchick writes on the refusal of a New
York Times-owned radio station to air a paid advertisement
condemning the rocket attacks against Israeli civilians in
Sderot:
David Harris, president of the American Jewish
Commitee, records a 60-second weekly radio spot broadcast on
stations across the country. He recently devoted one spot to the
situation in Sderot, which you can listen to
here. Amazingly, WQXR, a classical music station owned
by the New York Times, has refused to play the advertisement, even
though it has played AJC ads in the past.
The station's manager, apparently attempting to imitate his
contemporaries at NPR, wrote to Harris informing him that WQXR
would not air the advertisement because it might be construed as
“misleading, at least to the degree that
reasonable people might be troubled by the absence of any
acknowledgement of reciprocal Israeli military actions." So it's
"misleading" to condemn terrorist attacks on innocent people unless
one simultaneously acknowledges -- and thus equates -- Israeli
self-defense? "Reasonable people" are not "troubled" by the
"absence" of this comparison. Moral idiots are.
Obviously, the station has the right to air whatever ads it wants
(this is
not an example of censorship since
the government is not involved), but this is a disturbing
example of cowardice.
topics:
Military, Israel