Tikun Olam-תקון עולם: Make the World a Better Place

Over the past few days, I’ve had a dialogue of the deaf with Lisa Goldman, a Canadian-Israeli journalist who edits the Israel section of the Global Voices website. I’ve criticized the lack of diversity in Goldman’s choices of blogs she covers in her regular roundups of Israeli blogs. I’ve also criticized her narrow definition of what her section accepts. For example, this blog is not eligible because I am not Israeli, even though I blog about Israel every day.

Robert Rosenberg, who IS an Israeli and the author of Ariga.com a blog cum daily briefing on Israeli politics, informs me that his site is not considered eligible by Ms. Goldman because it is not a blog (or so she claims). [Correction: Though Goldman does not include Ariga in her roundup, Robert corrects my misinterpretation of something he wrote in a e-mail. She has never explictily explained to him why he is not included. I stand corrected.] The only thing Ariga.com lacks that other blogs have is a comment feature (and there are many blogs which turn off their comment feature, yet they’re still considered blogs). Interestingly, Goldman includes in her coverage Karen Alkalay-Gut’s website that calls itself a “diary” but is clearly not a conventional blog. The reason I raise Ariga as an example of Goldman’s narrow-mindedness is that Robert’s views of the Israeli-Arab conflict are similarly progressive to my own.

A search of Goldman’s roundups at the site turns up no mention of Aron Trauring’s Israel Peace Blog, another progressive voice among the Israeli blogging community. Ran Hacohen’s Letter from Israel at Antiwar.com also apparently doesn’t rate as a blog and so is deemed ineligible by Goldman.

I’ve already mentioned in my last post about Global Voices that there are no current Israeli-Arab bloggers featured there (though Goldman had recruited one who stopped writing). This means that Global Voices is not hearing from 20% of the Israeli population.

So who is she covering? In her current roundup she features Dutchblog Israel criticizing the British academic boycott of Israel. She calls him a “leftist” even though his position in the post in question can’t remotely be called leftist. I get the distinct impression that Goldman was pleased to feature a “leftist” who attacked the academic boycott. Next, she featured Olegirl who is “utterly disgusted” by the boycott. Hmm, do we start to see an ideological pattern here?

She also features a post from Treppenwitz about the story of a Palestinian girl suffering from cancer who was treated at an Israeli hospital. It seems the Palestinian minister of health refused to contribute toward the operation because Hamas does not wish to cooperate with such Israeli endeavors. The clear political motivation of the blog post was to stick it to Hamas and the (anti-Israel) world media for allegedly not covering the story:

Yet to these people [journalists] who drool over even the smallest news story the way a starving man drools over a steak, the willingness of the Palestinian Minister of Health… a Medical Doctor for whom politics should come second (if at all)… to let a little Palestinian girl die rather than cooperate with the Israelis, isn’t considered newsworthy.

And secondarily, he seeks to show how magnanimous Israel was to provide the medical treatment to begin with.

Goldman cites Sharvul for a non-political post and calls him “politically leftist.” After searching through his blog I could find hardly any material with overt political content except one post which criticized Israeli peace activists demonstrating outside chief of staff Dan Halutz’s home for calling him a “murderer.” Even if one agrees with his sentiment I’d hardly call it “politically leftist.”

To her credit, Goldman does feature one blog, which she again cites as “leftist” (what is it with the phrase that she uses it so much?), whose owner recounts her personal journey from a Land of Israel supporter to a human rights activist on behalf of the Palestinians. She also features a blog post by Karen Alkalay-Gut about a popular Israeli-Arab writer, one by a gay non-Israeli living in Israel about Gay Pride Day and one by a Lebanese tourist visiting Israel. I’m glad she included these posts (though only the first deals with the Israeli-Palestinian issue I’m raising here).

I have not yet heard from Global Voices editorial management about whether they see a need to expand the political voices in their Israel section. Goldman certainly doesn’t see a need as she dismissively ended our conversation about this saying she was merely writing to explain her position but not to listen to mine. She’s already spent too much time dealing with me as it was, etc.,etc. That’s why I call it a dialogue of the deaf. So unless and until anything changes at Global Voices, you’ll largely be hearing there but a single side of that critical conflict that hovers over Israel and Palestine (and the world) like a 900 lb. elephant. ‘Tis a pity.

I also want to make clear that while I am critical of the way Lisa Goldman is editing her section, I admire Global Voices’ mission overall and wish it only the best. My comments are meant to challenge the site to do better and are not meant at all destructively.