Earlier this summer, when Helen Thomas said Jews should “get the hell out of Palestine” and return to Germany, among other places, The Washington Post’s Howard Kurtz appeared to share the widespread outrage. The nation’s most prominent media writer noted Thomas’s history of “spewing bias and bile,” and asked, “why wasn’t she reined in earlier?”
So you might have expected that Kurtz would again have been on the case when Martin Peretz, the editor in chief and long-time owner of The New Republic, blogged earlier this month that “Muslim life is cheap.” Peretz added: “I wonder whether I need honor these people and pretend that they are worthy of the privileges of the First Amendment which I have in my gut the sense that they will abuse.”
After all, with the country awash in ugly anti-Muslim sentiment, calling out this kind of bigotry is more important now than ever. And yesterday, Peretz, a former Harvard professor, was removed from the list of speakers at an upcoming university event. But, as far as we can tell, Kurtz hasn’t said a word about Peretz’s comments.
Do yourself a favor and click through.
Lemkin 