Hate and The Daily Planet

I got a note today in my inbox about Berekeley, California's small-time local newspaper The Daily Planet.

In a nutshell, the note calls for people to read and sign a petition calling on the newspaper's publisher to "display integrity and responsibility to ensure that their pages are devoid of irresponsible misstatements of facts whose sole malicious intent is to besmirch Jews at large, the State of Israel, and individual citizens who decry the Daily Planet’s practices."

The petition also links to a website that can help you decide whether there is indeed something rotten with the newspaper. Although a few of the points raised on that website fail to move me as much as they move the site's editor, much of it is extremely damning. There is, for example, the following passage quoted from the Daily Planet that blames the Jews for antisemitism:

One should ask why anti-Semitism has persisted throughout the centuries. Let us go back to 539 BC, when Cyrus the Great, King of Persia, went to Babylonia and liberated Jews. One can ask why Jews were enslaved by Babylonians. Also, one can ask why Jews had problem with Egyptians, with Jesus, with Europeans, and in modern times with Germans? The answer, among other things, is their racist attitude that they are the 'Chosen People.' Because of this attitude, they do wrong to other people to the point that others turn against them, namely, become anti-Semite if you will.

I checked, and yes, the Daily Planet did indeed publish this on Aug. 8, 2006. I don't want to boost their google ranking by linking to it, but if you really want to read it at the source, go to berkeleydailyplanet (dot) com (slash) issue/2006-08-08/article/24823?headline=Commentary-Zionist-Crimes-in-Lebanon&status=301.

Below is the relevant portion of the email I received, which includes a link to the petition. It introduces

a new online petition statement decrying the weekly inclusion of extreme anti-Israel screeds in the Berkeley Daily Planet. As you may already be well aware, the Berkeley Daily Planet (which is supposed to be a locally focused community newspaper) has turned itself into an open sewer for bashing Israel in any form, Zionists and Zionism in all its guises and sometimes Jews quite nakedly.

The statement now being circulated under the auspices of the Israel Action Committee of East Bay claims:

WE ARE JEWS AND NON-JEWS AND

We abhor the deliberate and willful publication of anti-Semitic and other hateful rhetoric and screeds by the Berkeley Daily Planet.

We stand with the free speech rights of those who would criticize the Berkeley Daily Planet for its obsessive and one-sided campaign against the State of Israel.

We join these people in insisting that the publisher and editor of the Daily Planet display integrity and responsibility to ensure that their pages are devoid of irresponsible misstatements of facts whose sole malicious intent is to besmirch Jews at large, the State of Israel, and individual citizens who decry the Daily Planet’s practices.

http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/fight-anti-semitic-rhetoric-at-the-berkeley-daily-planet.html