“Is Anything Sacred?” was the title of a posta couple of days ago on The New Republic’s blog, The Plank. Thesubject: Publication of the note that Barack Obama placed in theWestern Wall when he visited last week. The daily Ma’ariv ran that“scoop,” and immediately found itself under intense criticism -- fromrabbis, talk-show hosts, and a lawyer who began organizing a consumerboycott of the paper -- for violating Obama’s privacy and Jewishreligious sensibilities.
But the Plank’s Zvika Krieger wasn’t aiming his question at Ma’ariv.He was asking if Obama considered anything sacred. For in responding tothe firestorm, a Ma’ariv spokesman had told various Israeli papers(English here, Hebrew here):“Barack Obama’s note was approved for publication in the internationalmedia even before he put [it] in the Kotel…” Krieger accepted thatstatement. A fairly early version of his post (via Google’s cache) said:
Obama may be above politicizing our troops, but if hiscampaign did approve the note for publication before he placed it, thenI guess he isn’t above politicizing religion.
Clever: A snarky reference to Obama’s canceled visit to wounded U.S.soldiers, casting doubts on his reasons for canceling, as prelude to astatement that the candidate was willing to trash Jewish sensitivitiesfor politics’ sakes. Truly, Obama had hit the trifecta: apostate Muslim with radical Christian preacherdesecrates Jewish holy sites. But by writing the story this way,Krieger actually doubled down on Ma’ariv’s failed journalisticjudgment. At least he has been doing a somewhat better job of backtracking.
Start here: Ma’ariv’s story from last Friday on the note is still available on line (in Hebrew). It explains how the paper got the note:
