Shmuel Rosner recently ended a 12-year association with Haaretz where he was most recently its U.S. correspondent. David Bloom reports that Rosner has landed right where he belonged all along: the right-wing Jerusalem Post. There his partisan, Aipac-oriented slant on the American Jewish community, U.S. politics and the U.S.-Israel relationship will find a warm reception.
For years, as I read Haaretz regularly and used its reports here (though almost never Rosner’s), I scratched my head and wondered what the newspaper’s editors found in him. What insight did he provide, what useful point of view? Yes, he was certainly right-wing in a paper not well-known for right wing columnists. But certainly, they should’ve been able to find a more balanced, less ideological & less twitty columnist to represent those points of view.
It only took 12 years, but finally Haaretz has been liberated and the Post is saddled with him. Now, if I can only figure out why the Post is willing to countenance the intelligent progressive views of its single liberal columnist, Larry Derfner. Maybe some day he’ll end up at Haaretz where he probably belongs.
On a separate note, I have to say after holding out great hopes, I’ve been disappointed with the work of Rosner’s Haaretz replacement, Natasha Mozgovaya (at least at the beginning of her tour). She seemed to be mostly regurgitating press releases rather than presenting a strong point of view.
I can understand why Commentary and the New Republic[an] would publish Rosner’s wit and wisdom, but Slate?
