PrintJune 14, 2009
WaPo headlines 'Zionist Perspective' in Bibi speech
Stop the presses!
Even before Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu began his long-awaited June 14 policy speech on Mideast peace, the Washington Post rushed out to warn readers that it wouldn't pass the paper's kosher test.
"Netanyahu's Speech to Inject Zionist Perspective," the headline blared.
Simply frightening to the Washington Post that an Israeli leader would go so far as to tilt a major foreign-policy address in a Zionist direction.
What next? An American president injecting Americanism in his speeches? What is the world coming to?
The shocker headline about a Zionist connection in Netanyahu's speech reflected Post correspondent Howard Schneider's report that "the setting will be part of the message" that Netanyahu would convey.
So let Post readers beware: Netanyahu was going to speak at Bar-Ilan University, "which was founded in 1955 to unite secular learning with religious Zionism."
That should clinch it. In the liberal, secular world of the Washington Post, anything smacking of religion is ipso facto suspect. But for the leader of the Jewish state to reflect both Judaism and Zionism, that's just going much too far.
Imagine Netanyahu going out of his way to permeate his remarks with a Zionist saga that dates back four millennia to Abraham. Tantamount, I suppose, to an American president invoking America's heritage starting with the Pilgrim fathers.
Never mind that the Post never worries about a "religious setting" when it writes about events at any number of Islamic universities. Never mind that President Obama, a political leader revered by the Post, just gave a commencement address in a hotbed of Catholicism -- Notre Dame University -- without the Post worrying that a religion-associated site would somehow color his message.
Only when an Israeli leader chooses a venue that epitomizes the historic essence of the Jewish state does the Post raise a red flag.
Talk about a double standard!
