The Casual Smearing of a Conservative

The Casual Smearing of a Conservative

Seth Mandel

Anyone who follows the criticism of the “Israel Lobby” hears the constant refrain that the worst thing about these pro-Israel groups is that they supposedly seek to silence their critics, hurt them financially, and ruin their careers. Longtime Israel critic and former Media Matters staffer M.J. Rosenberg is one such complainant, who took the accusation far enough to compare the Jewish Federations of North America—a philanthropic group primarily concerned with getting food and medicine to Jews in need here and around the world—to the worst tendencies of Joe McCarthy.

But it turns out that Rosenberg is actually a full-throated supporter of using people’s political opinions to render them silenced and unemployed–as long as it’s not anyone Rosenberg is friends with. Rosenberg has initiated a movement to get the Guardian to fire new columnist Josh Treviño before Treviño’s first column appears. (The Guardian’s decision to hire Treviño in the first place was one of the smartest decisions the paper has made.) That is, Rosenberg disagrees with Treviño’s views (more on that in a moment), and would like to be responsible for doing to Treviño what he has always regarded as reprehensible and undemocratic (Rosenberg usually uses slightly less diplomatic language, of course). This morning, Rosenberg tweeted this:

PROTEST Guardian hiring of White Supremacist Josh Treviño. Email woman who hired him. janine.gibson@guardian.co.uk

Now, Treviño is Hispanic, a vocal supporter of Latino immigration to the U.S., a critic of anti-immigration politicians, and was recently vice president of communications at a free-market-oriented think tank, so it’s safe to say he has worked pretty hard make the conservative movement more—not less—open to and inclusive toward racial minorities. So the casual smear from Rosenberg is quite clearly the opposite of the truth. (Treviño’s only geographical bias, as anyone who follows him on Twitter is aware, is in favor of the great state of Texas.)

Rosenberg also tweeted this: “Treviño is every Jew’s nightmare.Protest to Guardian. Creepy white racist.” In fact, one of the reasons people like Rosenberg and some of his more viciously anti-Zionist allies in this crusade against Treviño—like Ali Abunimah, whose site has gleefully compared Jews to Nazis—is that Treviño is not only an admirer, though not a practitioner, of the Jewish faith, but he’s also a staunch, unapologetic defender of Israel. And here we get to the crux of the “fire Treviño” bandwagon.

Treviño was among the vast majority of Americans to stand up for Israel’s right of self-defense against the “flotilla” movement seeking to break Israel’s naval blockade of Gaza. Since the first such flotilla included a terrorist-funded boat full of armed extremists who tried to kill Israeli soldiers, Treviño was on fairly solid ground here—and most Americans felt the same way.

You can agree or disagree with Israel’s blockade—which even the United Nations declared was legal—but Treviño held a majority opinion (at least in the United States) and has nothing to apologize for. The totalitarian-minded mob that wants Treviño blacklisted for expressing conservative views on politics and broadly mainstream views on Israel has been gaining steam on Twitter and other social media platforms.

It is a movement that seeks to do harm to the Guardian and its reputation by bullying one of the most widely read newspapers in the world into submission. The Guardian, one hopes, will stand on principle even if they do not agree with all of Treviño’s views. That is the purpose of a free press in a free society. Based on the overall reaction to Treviño’s addition to the Guardian, the paper has already earned many new readers simply by signaling it would be a more inclusive newspaper with a wider range of opinion. As for Rosenberg and Co., they have finally unmasked themselves not as McCarthy’s foils, but as his heirs.


http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2012/08/16/the-casual-smearing-of-a-conservative-guardian/#more-802408