Could one imagine the media outrage if Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, or Justice Alito refused to sing the American national anthem? One could envision media headlines worldwide for weeks – and naturally, the calls for them to step down.
Want to guess in which country a similar situation happened this week – a country always in the media – yet the media ignored the story? No, it wasn’t Britain or Australia.
One could not even imagine a British Court Judge - or an Australian one, for that matter - who happens to be an atheist, refusing to sing "God Save the Queen", could we?
But this week in the State of Israel, an Israeli Arab judge on the Israeli Supreme Court, Supreme Court Justice Salim Jubran, refused to sing the Israeli national anthem. After all, the song is about the Jews yearning for their national homeland, that one little piece of land in a sea of Arab countries. The song doesn't negate the presence of other nationalities, it just expresses the belief that Jews will one day be free in their land of Jerusalem and Zion.
And all the world media were quiet – quiet when a sitting Supreme Court Justice wouldn’t sing his country’s anthem.
They remained quiet when another Justice - Elyakim Rubinstein - supported him, saying the “refusal to sing the national anthem was a personal decision that was justified.” They remained quiet when the Deputy Prime Minister, Moshe Ya'alon, of the “conservative” (Likud) party also supported him. (Could one imagine “right-wing” Arab political parties supporting a minority?)
They remained quiet although in the Middle East, where there’s no other democracy, the Jewish state, constantly maligned for supposedly oppressing the Arabs, allows them to serve on the Supreme Court.
There are so many perversions in this story being ignored by the media – especially when one considers that if an Arab were to dare do such a thing in the Arab world they’d most likely be hanged.
In a region where religions other than Islam aren’t permitted, an Arab minority member sitting on the Jewish state’s Supreme Court – and that’s not a story? Want to talk about media bias? Yet another reason that Israel needs a proper Public Relations campaign.
Of course, reading the media and listening to the Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, I’d be reminded, as he said this week, that the Jews control the media, and “In 100 years, they control movies, television, recording, publishing, commerce, radio, they own it all.”
As much as I wish Farrakhan was telling the truth, clearly the media bias against Israel tells us another story.