When I opened up an email from a friend this morning and saw that Time magazine had decided to put an image of a Jewish star made of flowers on its latest cover with the words “Why Israel Doesn’t Care About Peace,” I could already feel myself getting angry.  The fact that someone could even write an article with such a title shows how blatantly ignorant they are of what life in Israel is actually like, where nearly everyone (including many Arabs and Druze) serve in the army, where rockets fall out of the sky killing innocent people in places like Sderot and Ashkelon, where every day there is the possibility of death. It would be fair to say that there are some in Israel who are opposed to the peace talks  - there are extremists on all sides – but to say that the nation itself is opposed to piece is ridiculous and borders on the surreal in my mind.

But, since I felt I should not just react to the cover, but read the actual article, I did so. I read the abridged version online, and my comments are in response to what the magazine decided to highlight on their website. On principle, I refuse to purchase a copy and support this kind of ignorant filth.

That being said Here are my thoughts on what I read on the site about what author Karl Vick has to say: The first thing I notice is the overall tone of the piece, which is deeply offensive – he opens with a description of Israeli realtors bragging about how much money they are making by selling apartments on land which was formerly occupied by Arabs. I am reluctant to accuse anyone of Anti-Semitism, but to me, there are certainly shades of it here in this scene which clearly paints Jews as money-grubbing opportunists, benefiting from Arab dispossession.

 Ironically, much of the land which would eventually become Israeli was legitimately purchased from Arab land owners in British Mandate Palestine, furthermore, I would also note that if Mr. Vick would like to see some of the real economic benefits of the creation of the state of Israel he should travel to any of the half-dozen neighboring Arab countries who stole the land and assets of the nearly 1 million Jews they kicked out in the period following the 1948 War of Independence, using the birth of Israel as an excuse to destroy Jewish communities that had existed in these Arab countries in some cases for more than a thousand years. But that is neither here nor there, for those who seek to demonize Israel and Jews, the history of the Middle East and the need to provide context is irrelevant.  Also, I do not wish tosuggest that there is parity here - merely to point out that if the author would like to explore economic opportunism vis-a-vis the creation of the state of Israel, he would be better off interviewing businessmen in Baghdad, Damascus and Cairo who directly benefited from their governments' decision to expel or allow the murder of the Jews that lived in their respective countries.

The second thing that caught my attention is when Mr. Vick says writes “Now observing 2½ years without a single suicide bombing on their territory, with the economy robust and with souls a trifle weary of having to handle big elemental thoughts, the Israeli public prefers to explore such satisfactions as might be available from the private sphere, in a land first imagined as a utopia.” This is a ridiculous statement for a number of reasons, not least of which that Israel has faced attack in other forms besides suicide bombs, including the murder last week of four Israelis in the West Bank in a Hamas-orchestrated shooting attack.

The fact that Time would publish such an article, highlight passages on their website which are offensive and incorrect and create a graphic depicting a Jewish star made of flowers for a piece maligning not just the state of Israel but I would say Jews as well, shows that Anti-Semitism is alive and well in America today.

I am sure that organizations such as the ADL will respond to this article and the decision of Time magazine to publish it, but in the interim we cannot, we must not, remain silent in the face of these  pernicious lies. Silence is the greatest ally of such hate and I believe it is incumbent upon all thinking members of society who can see this for what it is, yet another iteration of old prejudices and stereotypes dressed up in modern clothes and hiding behind the veil of politics, to speak out against this kind of ignorance and hate. In doing so, perhaps we can show the publishers of Time that the American public is not so ignorant as they have cynically supposed us to be.

-Daniel E. Levenson

Publisher and Editor-in-Chief

The New Vilna Review

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