John R. Cohn, M.D.: Media Watch: Context on Carter’s New ‘Friends’ Still Missing

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http://www.jewishexponent.com/article/16043/

While Jews around the world were preparing for Passover last month — a holiday that commemorates the liberation of the children of Israel from Egyptian slavery, and their 3,000-plus-year connection to the Land of Israel — former President Jimmy Carter was meeting with leaders of Hamas.

Article 11 of the Hamas charter declares, “The Islamic Resistance Movement believes that the land of Palestine… should not be squandered: it, or any part of it, should not be given up.” Lest readers sense any ambiguity, Hamas leaders have repeatedly declared they will not accept Israel’s existence.

The Hamas charter goes on to state, “Peaceful solutions and international conferences are in contradiction to the principles of the Islamic Resistance Movement.”

Hamas has been declared a terrorist organization by the United States. Hamas does not deny accusations of initiating violence against Israeli civilians. To the contrary, they take credit. Typical was the claim of “responsibility” for a Dimona suicide bombing in February of this year, which killed one Israeli and wounded 11 more.

Hamas-controlled Gaza became a platform for rocket attacks on Israel once all of Gaza’s Jews had left.

So how did The Philadelphia Inquirer handle coverage of a former American president setting off on his own self-declared diplomatic mission over the objections of his own government?

Consider the story leads.

On April 19, the Inquirer story on Page A3 began, “Former President Carter defied U.S. and Israeli warnings… “

The next day, the story began, “Defying U.S. and Israeli warnings, former President Jimmy Carter yesterday met again with the exiled leader of the militant Hamas group and his deputy.”

On April 21, readers had to get to the second paragraph before learning that Carter was “defying U.S. and Israeli warnings.”

Carter, according to the first story, “defended what he calls his personal peace mission. He says Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip, must be engaged in order to achieve peace between Israel and the Palestinians.”

Carter’s critics argue that such behavior brings peace no closer. In contrast to Egypt and Israel, which began negotiations for their peace agreement with a clear understanding that both nations would persist after the agreement was completed, Hamas refuses to accept Israel’s existence.

In that context, the visit by a former American president carries increased significance, offering legitimacy to a violent group that actively seeks Israel’s destruction. Don’t ask Israel’s supporters if that is accurate; listen to Hamas.

One Hamas leader was moved by Carter’s trip to declare, “Political isolation [of Hamas] by the American administration has begun to crumble.”

Another Hamas leader in a Gaza speech proclaimed, “The meetings with Carter were proof that Hamas was not a terrorist group but a national liberation movement.”

But Carter’s visit was presented by the Inquirer as an act of courageous defiance in search of peace — not an act of arrogant stupidity that also managed provide a veneer of legitimacy to a violent group.

Newspapers use “sidebars” to provide background when dealing with a complex story like this. The Inquirer ran a sidebar with its April 19 story.

That would have been a good opportunity to provide a history of Hamas’ acts of violence, maybe a list of their victims, and even a review of Hamas statements rejecting any possibility of peace with Israel.

Not for the Inquirer.

The paper’s sidebar addressed plans to build 100 new homes in two Israeli communities on the West Bank, in “territory sought by the Palestinians for their future state.”

Of course, for Hamas, the territory they seek for their future state is all of Israel. But don’t expect the Inquirer to point that out, either.

This column was written for the Israel Advocacy Task Force of the Israel Center of the Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia.

John R. Cohn, M.D.: Media Watch: Context on Carter’s New ‘Friends’ Still Missing

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AUTHOR

John R. Cohn

John R. Cohn, Thomas Jefferson University, SPME Board of Directors

John R. Cohn, M.D., is a physician at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital (TJUH), in Philadelphia, PA, where he is the chief of the adult allergy and immunology section and Professor of Medicine. He is the immediate past president of the medical staff at TJUH.

In his Israel advocacy work he is a prolific letter writer whose letters and columns have been published in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Jerusalem Post, the Philadelphia Daily News, the Philadelphia Inquirer, Haaretz, the Jewish Exponent, Lancet (an international medical journal based in the UK), and others. He was CAMERA’s “Letter Writer of the year” in 2003. He maintains a large email distribution of the original essays which he authors on various Israel-related topics.

He has spoken for numerous Jewish organizations, including Hadassah, the Philadelphia Jewish Federation and to a student group at Oxford University (UK). He and his wife were honored by Israel Bonds.

He wrote the monograph: “Advocating for Israel: A Resource Guide” for the 2010 CAMERA conference. It is valuable resource for all interested in maximizing their effectiveness in correcting the endless errors of fact and omission in our mainstream media. One piece of very valuable advice that he offers to other letter writers is: “Journalists and media are not our enemies, even those we don't agree with". Particularly for those of us in the academic community he urges a respectful and educational approach to journalists who have taken a wayward course.

In addition to the SPME board, Dr. Cohn is a member of a variety of professional and Jewish organizations, including serving on the boards of Hillel of Greater Philadelphia, the CAMERA regional advisory board, and Allergists for Israel (American allergists helping the Israeli allergist community). In the past he served on the board of the Philadelphia ADL. He participated in the 2010 CAMERA conference (“War by Other Means,” Boston University) where he led a panel with students on “Getting the Message Out,” and a break-out session called “Getting Published in the Mainstream Media.”

He is married, has three children and one grandchild. He belongs to two synagogues--he says with a chuckle, "So I always have one not to go to". He has been to Israel many times, including as a visiting professor at the Hadassah Medical Center in Jerusalem. His first trip was at age 10, when Jerusalem was still a divided city; and he remembers vividly standing before the Mandelbaum Gate, wondering why he could not go through it to the Old City on the other side.

He adroitly balances his wide-ranging volunteer activities on behalf of Israel with his broad and complex medical and teaching practice (including authoring numerous professional publications) while successfully maintaining good relations with a broad spectrum of Jewish community leaders and organizations -- no small feat.

Regarding his involvement with SPME, Dr. Cohn acknowledged first and foremost SPME’s Immediate Past President, Professor Ed Beck. Dr. Cohn has long perceived that under Professor Beck’s guidance, SPME has been doing an essential job on college campuses; so he was honored when Professor Beck invited him to join the board.

He finds it easy to support and be active in SPME because being a Jewish American and a supporter of Israel presents no conflict due to the congruence of both countries’ interests, policies and priorities. It is clear that Israel’s cause is not a parochial issue. It is a just cause and its advocacy is advocacy for justice.

For Dr. Cohn, the need for SPME is clear. The resources of those who speak out on behalf of Israel are dwarfed by the funding sources available to those who seek to denigrate Israel. Israel's supporters don’t have large oil fields to underwrite their work. And the campus is a critical arena for work today on behalf of Israel, because this generation’s students are next generation’s leaders.

For advancing SPME’s work in the future, he would like to see the continued development of academically sound analyses to counter the prevailing anti-Israel ideology of all too much academic research and teaching on campuses and in professional fields today. He points to Lancet’s creation of a “Lancet Palestinian Health Alliance,” which asserts that Israel is to blame for poor health care for Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The documented reality, however, is that life expectancy, infant mortality and other measures of health are better for Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza than in many of the countries so critical of Israel This is in large part thanks to Israel.

Dr. Cohn asserts that we need more research, analysis and publications to counteract such misleading allegations.


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