Well, Since Time Asked About Us Last Week...

islamophobic_time_magazine_cover_8-20-10

Actual Time Cover

Last week, Time magazine asked “Is America Islamophobic?” That query was based on the majority of Americans’ rather sensible, some might even say remarkably nuanced take on the Ground Zero Mosque. Which essentially boils down to: yes, legally, the owners have every right to build it where they wish. Morally though, the current proposed location seems highly questionable, as we’re really squeamish about a mosque in a location that’s not just in close proximity to Ground Zero, but arguably part of it, given than debris from one of the airplanes used in the attack on the World Trade Center crashed through the building’s roof. And the churlish responses from its would-be builders to both other religions, and to other competing building proposals in the area aren’t helping much to make their case as responsible future neighbors.

But that was last week’s Time magazine cover story. For the cover story dated next week, but online now, it’s Israel’s turn in the magazine’s crosshairs. As Victor Davis Hanson wrote yesterday at the Corner, “the recent Time piece on Israel by a Karl Vick is probably the most anti-Semitic essay I have ever read in a mainstream publication:”

I know it’s commonplace to read in the latest issue of Time or Newsweek that Obama is a god, that Islamophobic Americans are collectively prejudiced against Muslims, that the response after 9/11 was overblown and unnecessary (over 30 subsequent terrorist plots have been foiled, and, for some reason, renditions, tribunals, Guantanamo, Predators, intercepts, etc., have all been embraced by the Obama administration), but the recent Time piece on Israel by a Karl Vick is probably the most anti-Semitic essay I have ever read in a mainstream publication.

Among Vick’s interviewees is Heli Itach, a modern-day Shylock who brags about the money to be made selling condos in Jerusalem (“‘Even when the Qassams fell, we continued to sell!’ says Heli Itach, slapping a palm on the office desk”). The accompanying photo shows carefree Israelis on the beach.

In fact, Vick argues, the Jews are so obsessed with making money that they don’t much care what happens in the future: “The truth is, Israelis are no longer preoccupied with the matter. They’re otherwise engaged; they’re making money; they’re enjoying the rays of late summer. A watching world may still define their country by the blood feud with the Arabs whose families used to live on this land and whether that conflict can be negotiated away, but Israelis say they have moved on.”

Read the whole thing — and then check out Scott Johnson of Power Line, and Rob Miller of Big Journalism, who it seems safe to say, agree with VDH’s sentiment to one degree or another.

Incidentally, since Time broached the question about America as a whole last week, it seems only fair to return the favor today.