Best take so far on Blumen-journalism
Max Blumenthal has made a name for himself as a guerrilla videographer for the left, plunging into the centers of rightist activity and extracting embarrassing revelations of what he evidently believes is the rotten conservative core.
This works, at times. Confronting Anne Coulter at a conference of conservatives about how she could claim any status in critiquing the personal lives of public figures was brave and funny.
Other times, it's just mean and, frankly, stupid. He's made a career of getting religious conservatives to chat up their end-times beliefs, and then pretending that those beliefs are ambitions. This is dangerous, and would be (rightly) decried on the left if it were used against Muslims. In recent dispatches, I've noticed, the evangelicals are on to him and steer away from his leading questions about Armaggedon, instead insisting that their affection for Israel lies first and foremost in its status as a democracy.
He's been touring Israel and the Gaza Strip lately, posting his entries at Philip Weiss' blog. Here's his latest, featuring drunk American bochers in downtown Jerusalem waxing racist after President Obama's speech.
And here's how Blumenthal's collaborator, Joseph Dana, sums it up:
The question is why more journalists are not covering this story. All you have to do is walk the streets of Jerusalem and you will find dozens of people that harbor the same beliefs. As a resident of Jerusalem, I can say that the people represented in this video are not members of a fringe group or simply drunk college kids. These people reflect the sentiments shared by many people in this country and this city. These people and their families are the core of the opposition to meaningful peace between Israel and her neighbors. This is what Obama is up against.
Jerusalem is a city of 750,000 people, two thirds Jewish. These guys -- they're ubiquitous on the midrehov in the summer months, it's true -- are not even its permanent residents.*
The city is layered, complex, fraught - and so much more than this tripe. Please: Would Weiss post video extracting the worst of thug culture and claim it as representative of the African American experience? How grotesque.
Best take is from the Atlantic's Ta-Nehisi Coates:
For what it's worth, on a very visceral level, what I see is a bunch of drunk racist white kids, doing what I'd expect a bunch of drunk racist white kids to do. I don't really have "higher expectations" because of the particulars of the Jewish experience, anymore than I have "higher expectations" for Irish-Americans due to the oppresive immigrant experience of their ancestors. Nor, when it comes to, say, homophobia or nativism, do I have "higher expectations" for blacks because of segregation and Jim Crow. (Though I do have higher hopes, mostly because I'm black and I want us to represent.)
Oppression corrupts, just as often as it ennobles. Perhaps more often.(snip)
Man listen, hand me a fifth of Henny, a video camera, and an hour, and I'll show you Negroes claiming that God's messenger lives in a space-ship orbiting the earth.
Read the whole thing.
Max has some real talent. It's time for him to grow up and put it to good use.
*Best ever scene, witnessed about 15 years ago on a similar summer night: One skinny bocher lurching near another and screaming "Look at her again and I'll f*** your face up. I will. I'll f*** it up." Such pilpul!
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So what if it has a million views. What does that prove?
They are American kids. That is how fratboy yahoos talk. I guess one has to buy into the “chosen people” concept to find this surprising. I don’t.
Actually, I dont even believe in the concept of American Jews. We are Jewish Americans and so we act like our fellow Americans. Some good. Some bad.
It is not about Israel. They have their own racists. These kids weren’t them.
Who said it is about Israel? Did you read my comment? It is about American Jewish kids—and not all of them, of course—on various programs in Jerusalem.
This is not how fratboy yahoos talk. I teach at at state university which is a party school Every night fratboys get wasted, but if anybody spouted that stuff on camera they would be get disciplined for hate speech. What country do you live in, Michael?
And something else—I bet most of those guys don’t talk like that in the US. No, they come to Israel, where they feel cool about themselves, they can spout off because hey, nobody messes with Israel, right?
It’s not about Israel. It is about some Jewish kids who come to Israel, and what they allow themselves to do. In a climate of tribalism and racism (as you point out, Israel have their own racists—according to polls, a large percentage), they don’t mind about spouting off for a camera. Only one of them asked, “Is this going to be on National TV?”
I can bet that their parents would be more upset by them if they started taking off their shirts and pants then if they spouted racist talk.
That, Michael, is what fratboy yahoos do.
If you want to see what Israelis REALLY think, you should see this:
http://cgis.jpost.com/Blogs/aliyahmajor/entry/video_response_to_feeling_the
The problem with the video isn’t so much that he exposed racist drunk frat boys.
The problem is that its presented as representative of Israelis at large!
And WHY would the JTA post tha Video?
ONLY for One Reason:
To CREATE Animosity towards Israel and Jewish-Americans who SUPPORT ISRAEL & to create Friction between Israel & Left-Wing/Liberal/Progressive Jewish-American KOOL-AID Drinking MORONS!
Let’s see, when Mel Gibson got caught spouting off against Jews in a drunken rage, everyone said that booze makes the lips speak the truth, or some such thing. Now, some people would have us believe that these kids, drunk on whatever, weren’t speaking the truth as they saw it. Max Blumenthal may be a lot of things, but all he did was ask a question. He did not ply those people with booze so they’d say racist, horrible things about Obama. He just happened to ask a question. I am quite fearful that there is an utter disconnect between Israeli Jews and American Jews who think like these kids do and those of us who want to see Obama succeed in trying to bring peace to the MIddle East. If this is what he (and we) are up against, we are in deep gefilte fish.
Of course he had to fly 6000 miles to find drunken teenagers saying stupid things.
Don’t worry world. These kids will NOT be blowing themselves up on your buses and trains.
I really got the drift of the level of political awareness and cognizance of the group when Blumenthal asked the plump girl (with her large boobs apparently there as “wares for display") who Benjamin Netanyahu was and she couldn’t answer. Imagine sitting in the midrohov of Jerusalem and not knowing who the head of the government of Israel is and spouting off about the head of government and state of the U.S. as if she did. This video did Israel no favor displaying such a drunken mob who were not excited by a sheikh but a bottle.
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Jeremiah Haber
06/06/09 04:55 PM
Ron,
Now that Max’s “immature video” has been witnessed over 100,000 times in the last two days, maybe you can take a deep breath and think a bit.
Let’s assume that 90% of the viewers just stop at Max’s video. That leaves 10% who look into some of his other posts from Israel-Palestine, including his interviews with David Grossman, with members of Liberman’s party, with Israeli activists on the West Bank. That means that more people will get significant information about Israel because of the “immature video” in two days than read your blog in months.
Ron, you’re in denial Even Jeffrey Goldberg was disturbed by the behavior of the students, who were drunk more with the power of being a Jew in Jerusalem than the booze (and some of them didn’t sound drunk at all.
These are not just drunk kids. These are Jewish kids, orthodox kids, who are full of hate when drunk. If you were an orthodox educator, could you just dismiss that? Hey a lot of people beat their wives, why pick on the frummies who do?
Denial, denial, denial