Een nieuwe website van kritische joden in Engeland, JNews.
Voorzitter Antony Lerman laat weten dat er grote behoefte is aan een ‘betrokken joods perspectief’ op de kwestie Israel-Palestina, met nieuws dat niet blijft hangen in de bekende clichés. De situatie wordt steeds wanhopiger, zegt Lerman, en splijt ook de opinies in de joodse gemeenschappen in het westen.
On one side, we see the hardening of the view that Israel is singled out for grossly unfair treatment, expressed most starkly in the trashing of the Goldstone report and the character assassination of Goldstone himself—a proud Jew and a Zionist. The alacrity with which certain Israeli and Jewish circles willingly embraced this disgraceful attack is a sign of just how seriously under threat is the culture of reasoned and civil debate among Jews.
On the other side, critical Jewish voices have multiplied, especially since the attack on Gaza in December 2008, which exacerbated divisions within the Jewish community. And there are very clear signs of a deep disquiet among the middle ground of Jewish opinion in the UK as to the path Israel is following.
Despite this shift, the variety of Jewish opinion on the conflict is represented in neither the Jewish nor the general media. The strand of opinion which insists on the paramount need to assess the conflict and seek its resolution on the basis of a fundamental concern for human rights and social justice is, we feel, particularly underrepresented.
Of course, this approach is not, by any means, a uniquely Jewish one. But since Jews everywhere are uniquely affected by the conflict, together with Palestinians, we feel an urgent need to respond by emphasising more strongly than ever our support for the human rights-based approach, and by working to ensure that the media take far more cognisance of the need to report, examine and comment on the conflict from that perspective.
We believe that the strength of JNews, a British Jewish initiative, lies in its independence. JNews is not the creature of any organization. It opposes the occupation, but does not promote specific policies. Nevertheless, by acknowledging the importance of the media in influencing attitudes to the conflict, by eschewing the tendency of many pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian groups always to want to shoot the messenger even when negative coverage is justified, and by producing material of a high quality, we hope to be successful in persuading the media to make full use of what we provide.
Antony Lerman is the former Director of the Institute for Jewish Policy Research (JPR) in London. He is Chairman of JNews.
De nieuwe website: hier.
Met dank aan Jaap Hamburger van Een Ander Joods Geluid