Berkeley Daily Planet and its anti-Semitic agenda : AZ IMC

Why did Berkeley Daily Planet run anti-Jewish column?
http://www.dpwatchdog.com/

The fallout from an opinion piece published in Berkeley's twice-weekly community newspaper has mushroomed well beyond the confines of the nation's first designated Nuclear-Free Zone.

And while it is not unusual for the Berkeley Daily Planet's executive editor and owner Becky O'Malley to publish controversial, far-flung opinion pieces and wacko reader responses, the decision to run a commentary headlined "Zionist Crimes in Lebanon" is being questioned by scores of critics.

The article, which appeared as commentary on the opinion pages of the newspaper's Aug. 8 edition, was more an attack on Jewish people than a logical argument against Israel's massive military response to the continuing rocket attacks from Hezbollah forces in Lebanon.

After reducing mainstream America's interests to stories about same-sex marriage and actor Mel Gibson's drunken driving arrest, author Kurosh Arianpour launched a historical assault against Jews.

"Let us go back to 539 B.C., when Cyrus the Great, King of Persia, went to Babylonia and liberated Jews. One can ask why Jews were enslaved by Babylonians. Also, one can ask why Jews had problems with Egyptians, with Jesus, with Europeans, and in modern times with Germans?" wrote Arianpour, a former Berkeley resident who is a student in India.

The newspaper's critics, and there are plenty of them, aren't too interested in Arianpour's historical view.

What more than two dozen rabbis and Jewish community groups and scores of Bay Area residents really want to know is why in the heck would the paper print such an inflammatory, hateful piece in a newspaper that makes its mark with stories about Berkeley land-use and City Hall politics? It's a reasonable question.

The Anti-Defamation League's Northern California chapter sent O'Malley a letter demanding a public apology for the article. It carries the signatures of more than a half-dozen elected officials from the East Bay, including the mayors of Oakland, Berkeley and Emeryville.

The letter described the author's words as "a racist attack on all people of Jewish descent when he asserted that Jews have been the cause of every tragedy that has befallen them -- from slavery in Egypt to the Holocaust.

"We are not surprised when hate-mongers make such statements or when neo-Nazi publications print them. Vulgar and hate-filled statements are written all the time -- editors choose whether or not to publish them. We were, however, surprised, to find them in a Berkeley 'community' newspaper since racism of any kind violates all that our city and region stands for," it read.

Jonathan Bernstein, the group's regional director, said that while the organization overlooks such screeds published on the Internet and in white supremacist publications, this time the message was being presented as valid commentary in a general-interest community newspaper.

"We have to look at who the message is reaching, and in this case it was reaching a lot of people -- and because of that, it was worthy of a response," Bernstein said. "We wanted to show that it was offensive to the entire community, not just the Jewish community, and I think we succeeded in doing that," he said.

Mission accomplished.

While there has been some discussion about a meeting to hash it out (O'Malley said she offered; an ADL representative said she refused), the 66-year-old former software developer believes she need not apologize for doing her job: presenting a diversity of ideas in a public forum to be discussed, criticized, condemned, whatever moves the newspapers readers.

That is the newspaper's forte, she said, and harks back to a time when newspapers were the primary forum for public debate.

"Putting things out in the light of day gives people who can make a counterargument the chance to respond in a straightforward way," O'Malley said. "Those kinds of things are said behind closed doors all the time."

As a matter of policy, the paper will not accept unsigned commentaries, pieces accusing private citizens of misdeeds or the use of unnecessarily obscene language. "Everything else is fair game, and we seldom turn anything away," she told me in an interview this week.

Whether you agree or disagree with her editorial policy -- and some readers do agree -- O'Malley has at least been consistent and even-handed in the publication of mean-spirited, racist comments in the paper, which circulates free and publishes about 22,000 copies for each edition.

"All kinds of racist nonsense gets printed in the Planet -- and for good reason -- since racist thinking pervades American culture," wrote Joanna Graham, a reader who defended O'Malley's decision. In the past three weeks, O'Malley has published several other letters on the subject, including one from a long list of rabbis and Jewish community leaders.

O'Malley herself didn't think much of the article either, but she said she made the decision to run it because it carried a different viewpoint that was worth airing in a public forum.

"It was a piece of crap, but it was representative of a lot of people around the world who make no distinctions between the foreign policy of Israel and the Jewish people of the world," she said. "I want to hear everyone's voice. It makes for a more interesting paper and a more social dialogue."

There are ways to discuss any issue in any nation in the world in the editorial pages of newspapers, but surrendering editorial judgment for the sake of stirring a heated public debate can backfire, as it did in this case. Instead of arguing the merits of a laughable article, people are questioning the judgment of an editor who would publish it.

One of the more frightening aspects of the decline in civility we are seeing is the willingness of ordinary, not just moonbat, publications to publish anti—Semitic images and screeds. We saw where this leads 70 years ago in Germany.

The latest example is the free bi—weekly newspaper misleadingly titled the Berkeley Daily Planet. It used to be a five day a week freebie, but I believe it changed hands and switched to bi—weekly format. At about that time, it also veered to the left. It is handed out where I shop for veggies, and is in many street vending boxes, too.

Chip Johnson, a very sensible and talented columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle, today highlights a column from the Planet which I had managed to miss. Fact is, I stick to zoning dispute and other community stories and always skip the opinion pieces, which are usually from fairly unhinged leftists, ranting away.

Chip writes:

The article, which appeared as commentary on the opinion pages of the newspaper's Aug. 8 edition, was more an attack on Jewish people than a logical argument against Israel's massive military response to the continuing rocket attacks from Hezbollah forces in Lebanon.

After reducing mainstream America's interests to stories about same—sex marriage and actor Mel Gibson's drunken driving arrest, author Kurosh Arianpour launched a historical assault against Jews.

"Let us go back to 539 B.C., when Cyrus the Great, King of Persia, went to Babylonia and liberated Jews. One can ask why Jews were enslaved by Babylonians. Also, one can ask why Jews had problems with Egyptians, with Jesus, with Europeans, and in modern times with Germans?" wrote Arianpour, a former Berkeley resident who is a student in India.

The newspaper's critics, and there are plenty of them, aren't too interested in Arianpour's historical view.

What more than two dozen rabbis and Jewish community groups and scores of Bay Area residents really want to know is why in the heck would the paper print such an inflammatory, hateful piece in a newspaper that makes its mark with stories about Berkeley land—use and City Hall politics? It's a reasonable question.

I am a real hard—liner when it comes to vandalism. I am against it, passionately. So I am going to restrain a very powerful impulse that will surge through my mind and body every time I walk past a Daily Planet vending box. If thoughts alone could act on physical objects, they would implode into a ball of dense matter, a tiny mass that would be so heavy it would plummet through the earth's crust and melt in the core.

I will not be patronizing any of their advertisers. And I will be printing up Chip's column and talking to the manager at my greengrocer's.

Even its name is misleading- the Berkeley Daily Planet hasn't been a daily as long as I can remember. In the past I'd been known to pick it up occasionally, whenever I felt the need for a liberal dose of outrage and anti-Israel hate speech with my morning coffee and croissant. The lack of editorial control or constraint has been well documented, leading me to wonder if Becky O'Malley's business model is "I don't care what they say as long as they are talking about me".
As the paper grew more and more narcissistic (who can forget 8 articles in one issue devoted purely to ad hominem attacks on local critics?), many locals, myself included, have given up on it. The Berkeley Daily Planet is making the local Pennysaver seem like a journalistic triumph.

While its clearly too early to sound the death knell for the Daily Planet, its final days may be near. The Planet, in the time honored tradition of other free papers, has always been distributed via newsboxes scattered throughout Berkeley. They'll be phasing out this system and instead stocking their little fishwrap in "select" cafes in the future. If you feel the need to see Berkeley public opinion reflected as an obsession with Israel-bashing, then for a 2 dollar "donation" you can find the Planet at the following establishments (all Berkeley except as noted otherwise):

Nabolom Bakery 2708 Russell St
Mo’ Joe Cafè 2517 Sacramento St
The Vault Cafe and Restaurant 3250 Adeline St
The Berkeley Art Center 1275 Walnut St
Roxie Delicatessen, 2999 Shattuck Ave
Pegasus and Pendragon Bookstores, 1855 Solano Ave and 2349 Shattuck Ave
Local 123, 2049 San Pablo Ave
Jumpin Java, 6606 Shattuck Ave, Oakland
Sonoma Cafe 2131 Durant Ave
33 Revolutions Record Shop & Cafe´, 10086 San Pablo Avenue El Cerrito

Those of us who want a local paper responsive to the needs of the community urge you to talk to the owners of these fine establishments. It's time for an intervention. Tell them you want a real local paper- one that emphasizes informed discussion of local issues, and not a disproportionate focus on one issue that far too often devolves into hate speech. Tell them that by carrying the Planet, they are rewarding incompetence and lack of journalistic integrity.

We are NOT suggesting that you boycott these stores; actually, going in and buying a cup of coffee there will make your suggestion that much more valid (after all, you ARE a customer!). And, just as importantly, we condemn any type of theft of the paper-- even if you ARE desperate for lining for your hamster cage.

And consider signing the petition against hate speech in what used to be a newspaper that actually served the local community.

THE BERKELEY DAILY PLANET
Published on a weekly basis.
Distributed FREE
Worth every penny of it

The Berkeley Daily Planet is probably one of the worst excuses for journalism ever, run by a woman who imagines herself a writer of stature. Though that presumption is based on the flimsiest of pretexts. Lets face it, Becky O'Malley is a shoddy editor, a lousy editorialist, and pretentious in either role.
She is, in many ways, a typical Berkeleyite. Revolutionarily ignorant. Vainly so.

I used to read the Berkeley Daily Planet fairly regularly. Nowadays I read it at best sporadically, and only when I want to get my dander up.

Signable letter of outrage at the Berkeley Daily Planet's anti-Israel bias here:
http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/fight-anti-semitic-rhetoric-at-the-berkeley-daily-planet/signatures.html

Daily Planet Watchdog, which critiques the BDP here:
http://dpwatchdog.com/

Blog posting that excerpts the most egregious crap from the BDP here:
http://deathbynoodles.blogspot.com/2009/07/daily-planet-watchdog-and-bitter-bitch.html

And a posting about the BDP here:
http://atthebackofthehill.blogspot.com/2009/08/berkeley-daily-planet-hatreds-own.html

Given that the Berkeley Daily Planet is little more than an advertising freebie, and thus publishes what the advertisers will approve of, you can no doubt figure out what point of view rules in Berkeley. It is a tragedy that a place once known for intelligent discourse, innovation, and the free-speech movement, is now a pretentious middle-class burb, with little to boast of other than being in the forefront of comfortable arm-chair extremism.
The Berkeley Daily Planet perfectly evokes the stodginess and mental cowardice that has overtaken the left.
They are liberal only in their self-righteousness. Not in their intellectual processes.

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This is not germane to this issue, but it really highlights what Becky O'Malley is all about:

Berkeley Daily Planet Reporter Quits Over Paper’s "Lack of Journalistic Integrity"
By Will Harper
Wednesday, Sep. 24 2008 @ 10:54AM

http://blogs.sfweekly.com/thesnitch/2008/09/berkeley_daily_planet_reporter.php

Quote: Berkeley Daily Planet reporter Judith Scherr abruptly resigned from the paper last week after a dispute with editor and owner, Becky O’Malley, over journalistic ethics.
“After 2.5 years of being insulted, berated and lied to by the Daily Planet’s executive editor – and having my stories distorted by the deletion of quotes from persons Becky O’Malley hates and the addition of her nasty remarks about such people – I have left the Planet,” Scherr said in an email she sent to friends last Thursday.
----------------------CUT----------------------
“I could no longer be part of a newspaper with such a lack of journalistic integrity.”
End quote.

I never would've presumed journalistic integrity in the first place.
It is Berkeley, after all.

Becky O'Malley Kills Free Speech at the Berkeley Daily palnet

On reading the August 13, 2009 edition of the Berkeley Daily Planet, we were sorely tempted to give it our much-coveted Hate Free Award, that is, until we received a complaint from one of our readers. Now we don’t know what to do.

Here is the problem. In the August 6 edition featured a letter by Hassan Fouda quoting Israeli extremists who made clearly racist remarks about Arabs. No one can deny that there are Israeli extremists. Gratefully, they represent a very small proportion of Israeli society.

FM responded with the following letter:

I must take exception to Hassan Fouda's "Propaganda from Kensington" in the August 6th issue of the Daily Planet. It has always perplexed me that Israel is judged only by its worse representatives and that any obscure quote from an obscure figure from history, politics or popular culture can be turned into "evidence" of Israel's inherent immortality. The essence of prejudice is the moving from the specific to the general- and that is precisely what Mr. Fouda does, when he quotes extremists that have been widely condemned and rejected by Israeli society.

Should we be as quick to judge the people of Gaza, who have elected a government whose very charter includes this incitement to genocide? "The Day of Judgement will not come about until Muslims fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Muslims, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him."? Should we be as quick to judge the people of Gaza who have elected a government that categorically rejects peace "There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through Jihad. Initiatives, proposals and international conferences are all a waste of time and vain endeavors."?

I urge people of conscience and Mr. Fouda to look beyond the extremists on both sides, to reject those that reject compromise, and to embrace the true peacemakers on both sides of this conflict. This is the path of justice and of lasting peace.

FM

The problem is that high-minded free speech advocate, Becky O’Malley, deleted the words in bold print, and did so without the permission of the author. O’Malley was perfectly willing to print hate speech uttered by extremist Jews the week before, even though such people are on the extreme fringe of Israeli society and have the whole body of Israeli law stacked against them, but she deletes hate speech by Palestinians, even though that hate speech forms part of the very charter of the main Palestinian political party, Hamas, and is proudly displayed on Hamas’ own website. Moreover, this is the only known example of O’Malley editing a letter. What could have possessed her? We can only believe her hatred of Israel has trumped her alleged love of free speech. It is never a level playing field at the Berkeley Daily Planet.

A very strange incident indeed.

The Hidden Past of Elisabeth Warren Peters, aka, Becky O'Malley

Becky O’Malley describes herself as a “First Amendment absolutist.” We believe that there is an overwhelming amount of evidence that O’Malley is nothing of the sort. She routinely attacks others who express their First Amendment Rights, and not just in her newspaper, but also with threats of physical violence and lawsuits; she declines to publish some pro-Israel articles, while she edits others that she does print; and she declines to publish anything that she regards to be Islamophobic, anti-black or anti-gay (we are not suggesting that she should). Her First Amendment absolutism is very case specific. We believe that it merely shields an ongoing vendetta against Israel and Jews.
Elsewhere on this website we had speculated that perhaps O’Malley learned anti-Semitism as a child on her daddy’s knee. One reader took this to heart and set out to learn the circumstances of O’Malley’s upbringing.

Read more at:

http://www.dpwatchdog.com/bopast.html

BERKELEY DAILY PLANET

The BDP scrabbles for survival in that narrow hell halfway twixt advertising rag and vanity publication, and, attempting to boost sales, panders shamelessly to the ignorant gut-reaction bleeding hearts and campus anti-Semites in the burg of Berkeley. Under Becky O'Malley's leadership, the Berkeley Daily Planet has established a pattern of obsessive anti-Israel invective and vitriol. Which, in Berkeley, is ideologically mainstream and reflects a comfortably middle-class weltanschauung. Par for the course, and perfectly normal. In Berkeley.

RABBINIC UNANIMITY

The reasonable reaction to the anti-Semitism of the Berkeley Daily Planet is perhaps best expressed by a letter recently sent by the East Bay Council of Rabbis.

Quote:
"Those who have voiced their opposition to the Daily Planet’s coverage are entitled to speak and be heard. It is not accurate to label everyone who has disagreed with positions expressed in the Planet as militant right-wingers. "
[End quote]

I usually think of myself as a strident left-winger, in the classic liberal mold. But with the Berkeley Daily Planet's encouragement, I shall also try to think of myself as a militant right-winger. This may prove extremely difficult - I would far rather be an 'effeminate liberal' than a 'misogynist RW bastard', to quote two terms flung into the discourse on a comment-string recently.

[This post: http://dovbear.blogspot.com/2009/08/get-those-rw-conservative-idiots-fact.html On this blog: http://dovbear.blogspot.com/ This comment string: http://www.haloscan.com/comments/dovbear/1140363519463313055/ ]

The crux of the letter sent by East Bay Council of Rabbis is particularly germane:

Quote:
"At times criticism of Israeli government policies and actions has crossed over into classically anti-Semitic expression when it targets Jewishness itself as a blameworthy status—as did the Kurosh Arianpour commentary the Daily Planet printed some years back. Disseminating hate speech against any ethnic or religious group, while it may be constitutionally legal, is not acceptable when allowed to stand on its own in a community paper and given the appearance of reasonable discourse. Hate speech against any group is unacceptable; in the same vein we would expect that the Planet would refrain from printing racist or homophobic material. The claim of freedom of the press does not excuse journalists from meeting the standards of civil discourse. "
[End quote]

SOURCE: http://dpwatchdog.com/dpnuts.html

What the rabbis wrote really says it all. But, in case you want to go into further details, do please feel free to browse through the articles at the Berkeley Daily Planet Watchdog (http://dpwatchdog.com/). It's much better than actually wading through the miserable prose of the BDP itself.

[Consider this delightful comment about Becky O'Malley, for instance: "it has come time for her to seriously consider converting to Judaism. It would give her license for her obsession, and it might paradoxically help dissipate some of her inner psychological turmoil." ]

And please also sign this petition:
http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/fight-anti-semitic-rhetoric-at-the-berkeley-daily-planet/signatures.html

FYI: The Berkeley Daily Planet's editorial offices are at:

3023A Shattuck Avenue
Berkeley, CA 94705
Phone: (510) 841-5600
Fax: (510) 841-5695

Feel free to write them a letter, using very simple words, and remember to complement them on their fearlessness. They like that.

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Crossposted from: http://atthebackofthehill.blogspot.com/
This post: http://atthebackofthehill.blogspot.com/2009/08/berkeley-daily-planet-hatreds-own.html