Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) president Morton Klein challenges TIME magazine’s managing editor to a debate over its cover story, “Why Israel Doesn’t Care About Peace.”
The TIME essay by Karl Vick depicted a Star of David and totally ignored the Palestinian Authority, which by all accounts outside of the Arab world has been steadfast in refusing any compromise on demands that include Israel's sovereignty over the Western Wall (Kotel), all of the Old City and opening the gates to several million foreign Arabs claiming Israel as home by ancestry.
After angry protests called TIME anti-Semitic and demanded an apology, a CNN blog stated, “Arutz Sheva… published an opinion piece [by Prof. Phyllis Chesler] on the TIME story calling it a ‘blood libel’ against Israel and evidence that the magazine and "countless other media in the Western world, can no longer be trusted to tell the truth." Vick's article drew sharp criticism from a wide spectrum of sources, including The Wall Street Journal’s Bret Stephens.
Klein called the article “wretched” and accused Vick of “falsely claiming Israel doesn’t care about peace, while ignoring the reality of Palestinians having repeatedly rejected every extraordinary peace deal Israel has offered. Not only do they reject peace offers, they also responded with terror and more incitement against Israel and Jews.”
He challenged Vick or TIME managing editor Richard Stengel to a “public debate on the subject of whether the Israelis or the Palestinians have shown little interest in a peace deal.” TIME has not responded, but the author stated on the CNN blog, the story was "meant to be provocative and intrigue. There is always debate and criticism of anything that challenges conventional wisdom. It was apparent to me that life here is really good and when security is good there is no urgency."
Klein charged, “The cover and the article are a malicious depiction of Israelis as a people more interested in making money and enjoying material pleasures than in concluding a peace agreement with the Palestinians. To prove its bogus thesis, TIME Magazine primarily relied on the words of two Israeli real estate agents, a left-wing columnist, a left-wing academic and a few others, while totally ignoring Palestinian Authority (PA) lack of interest in peace.”
Klein (pictured), in his challenge to a debate, said the journalist “unsubtly” introduced “traditionally anti-Semitic stereotypes about Jews being preoccupied with money at the cost of human virtues – ‘they’re otherwise engaged; they’re making money, they’re enjoying the rays of the late summer’ and preaches to the Israelis – ‘don’t Israelis know that finding peace with the Palestinians is the only way to guarantee their happiness and prosperity?’ The article shows picture after picture of Israelis enjoying themselves in cafes and lying on sunny beaches.
“This anti-Semitic and misleading cover and article plumbs new depths in TIME Magazine’s long-running, historic bigotry towards Israel. The ZOA demands an apology and retraction of this story which ignores all the concessions Israel has made to the Palestinians, including giving away half of Judea and Samaria, all of Gaza and agreeing to the recent 10-month construction freeze.
“During this period, there have been no Palestinian concessions, no fulfillment of its signed agreements to arrest terrorists, outlaw terrorist groups and end incitement to hatred and murder against Israelis and, until last week, a refusal to even negotiate. Meanwhile, the PA honors and lauds terrorists. But Karl Vick dishonestly withheld all this from his readers.
“On the very day negotiations between Israel and the PA commenced in Washington, D.C., the PA ambassador to Iran said that the PA will continue its war on Israel until ‘the complete eradication of the fabricated regime in due course’; another PA minister threatened war if Israel does not return to its ‘owners’ Jerusalem, which he described as ‘Palestinian … throughout history’ while another PA minister honored the families of dead terrorists and accused Israel of harvesting the organs of dead Palestinians.’
“Instead, Mr. Vick praises the PA for ‘taking a serious stab at governance, starting by professionalizing the security forces.’ ... He also didn’t tell his readers that in January, when Fatah terrorists murdered an Israeli in a similar roadside assault, the PA praised the terrorists as martyrs and heroes while condemning their killing by Israeli forces and that Salam Fayyad personally paid condolence calls on the terrorists’ families."