September 13, 2010
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Morton A. Klein
Phone: 212-481-1500
www.zoa.org/sitedocuments/pressrelease_view.asp?pressreleaseID=1931

Klein challenges author Vick / editor Stengel to a debate

The Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) has condemned TIME Magazine for
the anti-Semitic and misleading cover/article in its September 13, 2010
issue, falsely claiming Israel doesn't care about peace, while ignoring the
reality of Palestinians having repeatedly rejected every extraordinary peace
deal Israel has offered. Not only do they reject peace offers, they also
responded with terror and more incitement against Israel and Jews.

ZOA National President Morton A. Klein is publicly challenging the author,
Karl Vick, or the TIME Magazine Editor, Richard Stengel, to a public debate
on the subject of whether the Israelis or the Palestinians have shown little
interest in a peace deal.

The cover depicts a Star of David composed of daisies with the caption
contained within, 'Why Israel Doesn't Care About Peace.' The cover and the
article are a malicious depiction of Israelis as a people more interested in
making money and enjoying material pleasures than in concluding a peace
agreement with the Palestinians. To prove its bogus thesis, TIME Magazine
primarily relied on the words of two Israeli real estate agents, a left-wing
columnist, a left-wing academic and a few others, while totally ignoring
Palestinian Authority (PA) lack of interest in peace.

Karl Vick's article drives home the idea that Israelis are not interested in
peace repeatedly, even in the article's subtitle that includes the words,
"Israelis feels prosperous, secure - and disengaged from the peace process.
Is that wise?" The idea is insinuated in the article that the Israelis are
heedlessly ignoring dangers and that Mr. Vick's warning will be vindicated
when violence at some point in the future breaks out - whereas in fact
virtually all Israelis desperately want a real peace, but have
understandably lost faith in the possibility of one because they see the PA
daily fomenting violence and extremism in its schools, media, speeches and
sermons. They have also seen numerous past peace offers rejected by the
Palestinians. After striving for years, making concessions, offering almost
everything the Palestinians publicly claimed they wanted, only to receive
terrorism and hatred in return, it is like the case of the boy who cried
wolf - Israelis do not believe the stilted public statements directed to
them from the PA about wishing to live in peace. The PA has no credibility
with them.

Karl Vick also unsubtly introduces traditionally anti-Semitic stereotypes
about Jews being preoccupied with money at the cost of human virtues - "they're
otherwise engaged; they're making money, they're enjoying the rays of the
late summer" and preaches to the Israelis - "don't Israelis know that
finding peace with the Palestinians is the only way to guarantee their
happiness and prosperity?" The article shows picture after picture of
Israelis enjoying themselves in cafes and lying on sunny beaches (Karl Vick,
'The good Life and Its Dangers,'TIME Magazine, September 13, 2010).

ZOA National President Morton A. Klein said, "This anti-Semitic and
misleading cover and article plumbs new depths in TIME Magazine's
long-running, historic bigotry towards Israel. The ZOA demands an apology
and retraction of this story which ignores all the concessions Israel has
made to the Palestinians, including giving away half of Judea and Samaria,
all of Gaza and agreeing to the recent 10-month construction freeze.

"During this period, there have been no Palestinian concessions, no
fulfillment of its signed agreements to arrest terrorists, outlaw terrorist
groups and end incitement to hatred and murder against Israelis and, until
last week, a refusal to even negotiate. Meanwhile, the PA honors and lauds
terrorists. But Karl Vick dishonestly withheld all this from his readers.

"Palestinian polls indicate continuing Palestinian support for terrorism and
non-acceptance of Israel as a Jewish state. Palestinians have been
consistently polled supporting the so-called 'right of return' to Israel by
Palestinian refugees and their millions of descendents, something that would
turn Jews into a minority in their own country and end the Jewish state.

"Palestinian Authority leaders have publicly honored and glorified
terrorists who murder Jews, including last month holding a public
celebration of the 1978 coastal road massacre carried out by Fatah
terrorists led by Dalal Mughrabi, in which 37 Israelis, including a dozen
children, were murdered. The PA has also named two youth summer camps in
Mughrabi's honor. It has accused Israel and the U.S. of poisoning Yasser
Arafat.

"In recent weeks, senior PA officials have called for Israel's destruction
and demonized Israel, not for peace and conciliation. On the very day
negotiations between Israel and the PA commenced in Washington, D.C., the PA
ambassador to Iran said that the PA will continue its war on Israel until
'the complete eradication of the fabricated regime in due course'; another
PA Minister threatened war if Israel does not return to its 'owners'
Jerusalem, which he described as 'Palestinian . throughout history' while
another PA Minister honored the families of dead terrorists and accused
Israel of harvesting the organs of dead Palestinians.

"None of this found its way into Mr. Vick's article. It couldn't - had he
had the integrity to inform his readers of these issues, it would be
impossible to falsely state that the Israelis are a bunch of heedless
materialists who are unaccountably uninterested in making peace with
Palestinians. Mr. Vick would be forced to admit that Palestinians are not
interested in peace.

"Instead, Mr. Vick praises the PA for 'taking a serious stab at governance,
starting by professionalizing the security forces.' He even writes, in
reference to the murder of four Israelis by Hamas terrorists last week, that
PA forces, even before that terrorist assault, 'arrested more than 300 Hamas
activists.' What Mr. Vick didn't tell his readers is that the PA is in a
struggle with Hamas and therefore arrests Hamas members that are a threat to
the Fatah-controlled PA, not because Hamas murders Israelis. He also didn't
tell his readers that in January, when Fatah terrorists murdered an Israeli
in a similar roadside assault, the PA praised the terrorists as martyrs and
heroes while condemning their killing by Israeli forces and that Salam
Fayyad personally paid condolence calls on the terrorists' families.

"As Bret Stephens observes in the Wall Street Journal, 'Can the magazine
point to equally pointed cover stories about internal Palestinian affairs
and what, perchance, they mean for the peace process? I checked: It last did
so in April 2002 with a largely sympathetic portrait of Yasser Arafat 'All
Boxed In' by an invading Israeli army.'

"This wretched issue of TIME unfortunately partakes of a long anti-Israel
tradition that includes instructing readers in 1977 that then-Israeli Prime
Minister Menachem Begin's name is pronounced like 'Fagin,' the hideous,
villainous Jewish character in Charles Dickens' novel, Oliver Twist. TIME
Magazine also called Begin 'dangerous.'

"TIME Magazine and Mr. Vick will no doubt repudiate these criticisms. I
challenge Mr. Vick or Mr. Stengel to a public debate in which he will have
the opportunity to explain why at length."

"The ZOA supports CAMERA in its call for all supporters of Israel and fair
and honest journalism to contact TIME Magazine and explain their objections
to it and to express displeasure to TIME Magazine's advertisers about their
use of TIME Magazine. We therefore reproduce below CAMERA's detailed
suggestions and contact list."

www.zoa.org/sitedocuments/pressrelease_view.asp?pressreleaseID=1931