PressEthic

The front page of today's New York Times is at once the most futuristic collection of ideas--North Korea is a nuclear power; Democrats have figured out how to use Iraq as an attack issue in election campaigns; High-tech voting machines have gone awry--and a reflection of astonishing backwardness. The article that hurtles the paper a few decades into history is "Israel Warriors Find Machismo Is Way of Past."

"For decades it was widely accepted that some of Israel's top military officers and government ministers considered sexual encounters with female employees a seigneurial right," reads the lead. The article goes on to report that Israel's president Moshe Katsav has been accused of raping two women and Israel's justice minister is on trial for kissing a woman against her will. It is fairly long, and after the jump it reads like a socio-historical apology for Israeli men's bad behavior. The author, Dina Kraft, does not attribute this analysis to any source:

The militarization of Israeli society that eventually followed in the wake of successive wars with Arab neighbors seemed to cement Israel's male-dominated character. And while that has not changed completely, the question of sexual harassment is getting real attention, especially in the army, which is the epicenter of such activity and the institution with the most influence on the society.

The article seems to make light of the actual charges brought against the two, very prominent officials mentioned at the beginning. Its scope widens into a discussion of general trends in Israeli society, framed by Kraft without much help from a scholar or another kind of expert. The writer's sloppiness raises questions about the favoritism and skewed interpretations of history implicit in the article's approach. Can there really be a one-sentence explanation for why Israeli men in high positions habitually mistreat their female staff? And was this behavior really "cemented" by "successive wars with Arab neighbors?"

Kraft's article appears on the front page of the Times, but it is not packaged as hard news. Given its flexible temporal nature, its placement is confusing. We don't live in Israel. It's significant to learn about a society struggling with such a massive issue, but this article sends a mixed message. On one hand, its location is far enough away that the shock of sexual harassment and rape charges against top members of the government is lessened. The charges themselves are also downplayed; they aren't part of the headline, which calls behavior associated with them simply "machismo." On the other hand, the article's length and prominence makes it a more important issue, at least in the eyes of the Times' editorial staff.

This highlights the Times' ambiguous, sometimes badly defined relationship to Israel as a concept, a country, a U.S. ally and the focus of world attention. The paper has been accused of biased reports on the country and the issues connected to it. This is another example. It is a story whose overall presentation is half-baked. It suggests some kind of definitive moral interpretation of the situation and the Times' relationship to it as an issue without sticking to a clear sense of priorities. Public scandals make good front page material, no matter what country they are shaking. In this case, however, the paper ought to have made a firmer decision that the sexual harassment cases were indeed shocking enough to become news. The story is too large and too soft for its prominent place in the paper.