The famously left-wing Media Matters for America now turns out to give political cover to Al-Jazeera, the most anti-Semitic and anti-American network in the Middle East. Worse yet, the Media Matters official who writes the worst anti-Semitic copy for Al-Jazeera is a Jew himself.

The Daily Caller exposes Media Matters

The Daily Caller has tracked Media Matters for years. Last month, Professor Alan Dershowitz at Harvard warned the man now holding office as President, Barack H. Obama, that if he does not shut-out Media Matters from the White House at once, he will lose the election.

I think if swing voters in the pro-Israel community had any idea how extreme Media Matters was on issues of Israel and supporters of Israel, they would regard Media Matters as another [Reverend Jeremiah] Wright.

Dershowitz went on to say that neo-Nazi websites regularly quoted Media Matters for some of their worst anti-Semitic and anti-Israel screeds. Example: Reporters Notebook, whose editor-in-chief has “questioned the narrative” of the Holocaust, often sends out copy that it has from Media Matters.

Last weekend, The Daily Caller revealed something else: Media Matters and Al-Jazeera (“The Peninsula”) have an active working relationship. Mr. M. J. Rosenberg, senior foreign-policy fellow for Media Matters, writes a regular column that Al-Jazeera runs.

Rosenberg also spoke at an Al-Jazeera forum in Doha, Emirate of Qatar, on May 22, 2010. The Daily Caller gave this summary:

Rosenberg praised Al-Jazeera as a “mainstream network,” bashed Fox News, suggested that the U.S. government intentionally bombed an Al-Jazeera bureau and expressed unreserved joy that President Obama was treating Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu so poorly.

And this excerpt:

When Netanyahu came to Washington, no president has ever treated an Israeli prime minister as coldly as Netanyahu was treated by Obama. Suddenly Israel today is, even though it gets what it wants to a certain extent, Israel is treated as another country, a foreign country, which makes it no different [from] all the other foreign countries. That is what Obama is trying to do: take Israel away from being the 51st state and make it a foreign country like Lebanon or France or any normal foreign country.

The poor treatment continued last year. In 2011, it consisted of:

• Having the White House ushers escort Netanyahu out the back door of the White House while he, Obama, had a private dinner with his family.
• Striking a tight-lipped pose at the next day’s “photo-op,” and openly sneering at Netanyahu, as if to say, “Jewwwwwww!” Or even “Kiiiikkkke!”

No President in history has ever treated a visiting head-of-state so rudely. To make matters worse, Obama said that Israel must retreat behind the 1949 Armistice Line (also known as “The 1967 Borders“), subject only to “agreed-upon swaps” of land.

Besides defending such rudeness, Rosenberg often peppers his copy with conspiracy theories. His favorite seems to be that the government of Israel is used to playing the United States government as if it were a puppet on strings.

What Al-Jazeera gains

The Al-Jazeera logo: the Arabic word Al-Jazeera, meaning "the peninsula," worked into a stylized drawing of a flame.

The Daily Caller quote Joel Mowbray, of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, on what Al-Jazeera would hope to gain by running Rosenberg’s copy or any other copy from Media Matters for America:

Here’s what Al-Jazeera probably does like — is if they can get less heat for anti-Semitic comments from having them come from a Jew.

In other words, Media Matters is covering for Al-Jazeera. M. J. Rosenberg says all the things that Al-Jazeera would like to say, but would rather not — because when they do, people dismiss it as coming from Arabs.

This is a prize example of taquiyya, which means: strategic lying. The lie in this case is to suggest that M. J. Rosenberg represents American Jews, when he represents no one but himself and his fellow travelers at Media Matters.

How the media is (not) reacting

Sadly, the American media are mostly silent on this news. Fox News Channel covered it, of course, because M. J. Rosenberg and Media Matters have always singled out Fox for particularly vicious slander. The only other outlets to touch the story are alternative outlets and Israeli outlets.

The second Israeli commentator linked above asks, “Why is American Jewry not listening?” To be fair, maybe American Jewry will start listening, if Alan Dershowitz is at all sincere, and has his way. But if they do not listen, then one possible reason might be that most of those who might be disposed to listen, have already made Aaliyah, that is, “gone up” to Israel and taken their places as citizens of that country. But not all of them have. And last year, an Israeli resident told this correspondent that “there will always be a remnant” of Jews in America.

More importantly, why aren’t even liberal Americans listening? As CNAV frequently asks: where is the outrage? Are such virulent anti-Semitic screeds up to liberal standards of etiquette? Can any American be proud that one holding office as President is as rude to a visiting head-of-state as Obama has consistently been to Benjamin Netanyahu?

CNAV does not expect better of an organization, i.e. Media Matters, that began life with a lie and goes hat in hand to George Soros for its operating budget. But the silence of other media outlets is as shameful to journalists everywhere as it is deafening.

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