What indie media is for
Editor's Note
When we received Sue Ferguson’s pitch for a feature on the growing international campaign to boycott Israel, we were excited. The story is timely and crucial, and Ferguson—a former senior writer at Maclean’s and current journalism instructor with a PhD in political science—is a pro who knows her stuff.
We were a bit nervous, too. The injustices perpetrated against Palestinians by the Israeli state are clear and well documented, but criticizing Israel is a delicate and tricky matter. (Just ask Jimmy Carter, who lost much of his credibility after publishing a book last year comparing the situation in the West Bank to apartheid South Africa.) But raising these questions is necessary, especially since there are so few media outlets willing to do so.
Before coming to This, Ferguson proposed an article on the growing Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel to two of Canada’s more progressive-minded mainstream publications: first The Walrus, then the Toronto Star. Met with initial enthusiasm from editors at each, the idea failed to go anywhere. The Walrus declined by saying, “Unfortunately, there wasn’t enough interest to proceed,” while the Star decided the issue was “kind of a hot potato,” and dropped it. (Torstar president and CEO Robert Prichard is on the board of the Heseg Foundation, the primary target of the Canadian BDS campaign.)
It was then that Ferguson came to us (taking a significant pay cut to do so), and we are very glad that she did. “Tear Down That Wall!” is a comprehensive report on growing global opposition to Israel, with an insightful analysis of the term “apartheid” used to describe what is happening there. We then built this Israel issue around our cover story, with each piece highlighting a different aspect of the conflict.
In “Birthrights (and Wrongs),” This contributor Peter Trainor looks at Israel from a personal perspective. He travelled there as part of the Birthright program, which provides all-expense-paid trips for Jewish youth from around the world, to deepen their connection to Israel. A pro-Palestinian activist, Trainor took the trip to try to better understand the “other side,” but left with more questions than answers.
Montreal writer Jesse Rosenfeld examines the relationship between Jewish Zionist leaders and the evangelical Christian right. Self-described Christian Zionists, who have a literal interpretation of the Bible, believe that the “return” of the world’s Jews to Biblical Israel is necessary to bring about the Second Coming of Christ and Armageddon, and have offered a great deal of financial and moral support to Israel. Rosenfeld critiques this alliance, arguing that it is not in Jews’ best interest to accept help from those whose religious beliefs are fundamentally anti-Semitic.
With his profile of the Freedom Theatre, Richard A. Johnson offers a tale of hope in a place where usually there is none: a West Bank refugee camp. And, in Encounters in Jersulaem, photographer Ethan Eisenberg captures public religious observances of Christians, Jews and Muslims in the divided city.
Our Israel coverage is not meant to be definitive, of course—it’s impossible to sum up one of the world’s most complicated and contentious challenges in 15 or 20 pages. But each of the stories brings something valuable to a discussion that, from reading mainstream media in Canada, you might otherwise think has only one side.
Jessica Johnston editor[at]thismagazine[dot]ca
