Hysteria of the Times

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The New York Sun

It is hard to recall a more sneering editorial in respect of Israel than that in the New York Times this morning accusing the Jewish state of “hysterical opposition” to the negotiations with Iran over its efforts to build an atomic bomb. It wants the Jews to shut up while Secretary of State Kerry, who betrayed his country during the Vietnam war, once again meets in secret negotiations an enemy, this time with a country that is building an atomic weapon while talking of its desire to wipe Israel off the face of the map.

The thing to remember is that there was a time when the New York Times was more newspapermanly. In 1938, it issued more than a dozen editorials in respect of Munich. They weren’t perfect; in hindsight one sees that Hitler made a fool of many great institutions. But the Times editorials on Munich were without the kind of condescension the Sulzberger family is taking today toward the intended target of the mullahs. And when the warnings were sounded, particularly in London, against the appeasement at Munich, it issued a famous editorial on democracy.

“When Mr. Chamberlain got home from Munich,” it began, “he was in a more embarrassing position than Signor Mussolini or Herr Hitler. The latter two did not have to answer questions. Mr. Chamberlain did. The two corporate potentates did not have to submit to criticism, inside their own countries. Mr. Chamberlain did. The difference is childishly simple. In Germany and Italy the people are responsible to their governments. In England the government is responsible to the people. In Germany and Italy the ruler can make no mistakes and do no wrong — it is treason to say that he can.”

The Times of 1938 made the point that in England, the ruler had to sit while his errors were pointed out. No allegations that Duff Cooper, the First Lord of the Admiralty who resigned in protest over Munich, was being “hysterical.” Yet the Times of 2013 hurls not a word, nor a pixel, at the Mullahs. Instead it belittles Israel and accuses it of hysteria. No paeans are heard from 8th Avenue to the only democracy among the front-line states. “What England does in the long run will be what the people will do.” The same can be said today about Israel.


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