[WCUSP] Washington Post Book Reviews Conflict of Interest

[KATHARLOW at aol.com]

Dear Friends,

We  thought you would want to see this excellent and extremely troubling 
piece by  Brian Hennessey. You may also wish to:

    1.  Forward this article to  others.  
    2.  Write  a letter to the editor:  letters at washpost.com   
    3.  Ask  Book World to print an apology. In the past it has printed such 
a statement  when the editor discovered a conflict of interest regarding its 
reviewer. (  
_http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/08/AR2006090801536.html_ 
(http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/08/AR2006090801536.html)   ). You can contact Book World at:


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Placing the Fox in Charge of the Hen  House
Washington Post Book Reviews on Israel 


Brian Hennessey
December 11,  2006


To review Jimmy Carter's book, Palestine Peace  Not Apartheid, the Washington 
Post chose a Jewish Israeli citizen who  willingly moved from his American 
birthplace to volunteer to become a soldier in  Israel, working as a prison 
guard at one of Israel's worst prisons, where  International and Israeli human 
rights organizations have documented a lack of  process, inhumane conditions and 
torture for the hundreds of Palestinians (many  women and children) who are 
held there indefinitely and without  charge.

It's possible to learn these facts about Jeffery Goldberg (which  should 
appear as a boxed editorial warning of conflict of interest) by reading a  
previous review of his prison memoir, Prisoners, that was positively  reviewed in the 
Post by Haim Watzman, who is also a Jewish Israeli citizen who  willingly 
moved from his American birthplace to volunteer to become a soldier in  Israel. 
In turn, Watzman's story is divulged in a Post review of his  memoir Lonely 
Soldier: The Memoir of an American in the Israeli Army that  was positively 
reviewed by Michael Oren in the Post. Need it be said that  Oren, too, is a Jewish 
Israeli citizen who willingly moved from his American  birthplace to volunteer 
to become a soldier in Israel? (It's probably worth  mentioning that serving 
in the armed forces of a foreign government is grounds  for loss of US 
citizenship . . . unless it's Israel's.)

All this is  relevant because, while Goldberg's negative review, “What Would 
Jimmy Do?” Dec  10, attempts (and largely fails) to ridicule Carter's 
constructive criticism of  Israel, Goldberg lets stand one of Carter's most 
controversial statements:  "because of powerful political, economic, and religious 
forces in the United  States, Israeli government decisions are rarely questioned or 
condemned, voices  from Jerusalem dominate in our media, and most American 
citizens are unaware of  circumstances in the occupied territories."

One can see why Goldberg  would perhaps let that pass without comment as it 
seems his review could only  endorse Carter's claim.

Just to use Carter's Apartheid analogy, is it  imaginable that a cabal of 
self-reviewing white Afrikaner government soldiers  would be used to review books 
about South Africa's brutal suppression of blacks  in the 80s?

_http://www.ifamericansknew.org/media/wpostbr.html_ 
(http://www.ifamericansknew.org/media/wpostbr.html) 

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