Are We Sure Jews Control the Media?

The idea that the Jews control the media has been around for as long as the media. Maybe you’ve heard it from Oliver Stone, the wack-job director who said a Jewish cabal prevented him from making a movie he says would put Adolf Hitler (whom Stone has called an “easy scapegoat”) in the proper context. How about Kanye West? The rapper’s tirades over the years include accusing Jews of having “owned the black voice” through behind-the-scenes dominance of all that shows up on American television screens. Or perhaps you heard it from Northwestern University’s “Community for Human Rights,” which argued in a recent Instagram post that any sympathy for murdered Jews in news coverage is a product of “Zionist propaganda.”

Tell that to any Jew who’s watched TV over the past few days. MSNBC in particular has brought mouthpieces for Hamas on its airwaves since the terrorists attacked early Saturday morning. Saturday show host Ali Velshi, who came to the network from Qatari state-run outlet Al Jazeera, blamed the atrocities we’ve seen on Israeli policy and lied numerous times on the air, saying Gazans are unable to leave the high-density areas Israel is striking in response to the terror. Mehdi Hasan, who also joined MSNBC from Al Jazeera — and once referred to non-Muslims as “cattle,” “animals,” and “people of no intelligence” — did the same. Ayman Mohyeldin, an MSNBC commentator who, believe it or not, also used to work for Al Jazeera (spot the pattern?) argued that Israelis had it coming. This isn’t all. From National Review’s Haley Strack:

Andrew Mitchell, MSNBC’s chief foreign affairs correspondent, blamed Israel’s “most aggressive encroachment into the West Bank by this far-right coalition government, of any that we’ve seen,” for Hamas terrorism. The network aired Palestinian Oussama Jammal’s interview, in which he said that “provocations day after day, time after time,” were to blame for Hamas attacks, adding that, “the Netanyahu government is not willing to bring any peace to the region.” Another interviewee asked MSNBC, “what other choice did [Hamas] have?”

MSNBC’s coverage has been so bad that, when the Anti-Defamation League’s Jonathan Greenblatt — who typically avoids criticism of the Left — appeared on their network, he dressed them down, asking direct-to-camera, “Who’s writing the scripts?” 

It should not be lost on Jewish viewers that MSNBC seated Greenblatt next to Al Sharpton, who bears blame for inciting the Crown Heights riot in 1991, a pogrom in New York that resulted in the murder of Yankel Rosenbaum by a crowd of young black men chanting, “Let’s go get a Jew.” That’s who MSNBC thinks should be on its network.

NBC’s Nightly News celebrated rallies “in support of the larger Palestinian cause.” CNN’s Fareed Zakaria invited a Palestinian politician on the air to say that Hamas did not target civilians. The Washington Post wrote in an Instagram post that the murders, rapes, and kidnappings — the beheadings of babies — is a response to “the punishing blockade and occupation of Palestinians.” Washington Post columnist Karen Attiah liked a tweet asking, “What did y’all think decolonization meant? Vibes? Papers? Essays?” and which called people who are rightly disgusted by Hamas’s actions “losers.” Adam Elmahrek, a reporter for the Los Angeles Times, for that matter, said news reports of the beheadings are “lies and disinformation.” An employee of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation — a publicly funded organization — sent a company-wide email instructing reporters not to mention that Israel has not had a presence in Gaza since 2005 and not to refer to Hamas as a terrorist organization.

If Jews really do control the media, we’re doing a terrible job. But the way mainstream outlets have covered the indiscriminate murder of Israeli civilians is a pretty strong argument against that notion.