- Mondoweiss
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Mondoweiss URL mondoweiss.net Commercial? No Type of site News Website
BlogAvailable language(s) English Owner Philip Weiss
Adam HorowitzLaunched 2006 Revenue Not for profit Current status Active Mondoweiss is a news website devoted to covering American foreign policy in the Middle East, chiefly from a progressive Jewish perspective.[1] It was founded in 2006 by journalist and author Philip Weiss and is currently co-edited by Weiss and author/activist Adam Horowitz. Weiss and Horowitz state that they "maintain this blog because of 9/11, Iraq, Gaza, the Nakba, the struggling people of Israel and Palestine, and our Jewish background."[1]
Contents
Development and response
Mondoweiss originally began in 2006 as a blog for The New York Observer and was located at <mondoweiss.observer.com>. After leaving The New York Observer, Weiss moved the blog first to <philipweiss.org/mondoweiss> and then later to its current location at <mondoweiss.net>. In a March 2010 interview with The Link, the magazine published by Americans for Middle East Understanding, Weiss describes the evolution of Mondoweiss:
- In March 2006 I began writing a daily blog on The New York Observer website.[2]My editor, Peter Kaplan, encouraged me to write what was on my mind and it was his idea to call it Mondoweiss. Increasingly what was on my mind were "Jewish issues": the Iraq disaster and my Jewishness, Zionism, neo-conservatism, Israel, Palestine. For many reasons that I detail in "Blogging about Israel and Jewish identity raises Observer hackles" (The American Conservative, June 4 2007),[3] in the spring of 2007 I re-launched my own blog on my own website. It became a collaborative effort a year ago when Adam Horowitz joined Mondoweiss.[4]
In March 2007, Gary Kamiya of Salon.com argued that Mondoweiss offered " informed and passionate discussions" of what Weiss states are "delicate and controversial matters surrounding American Jewish identity and Israel." Kamiya also states that Weiss, "routinely skewers attempts by mainstream Jewish organizations and pundits to lay down the law on what is acceptable discourse."[5] A few years later in 2009, Michael Massing, in an article titled "The News About the Internet" for The New York Review of Books, noted that "Weiss is one of several friends I’ve seen flourish online after enduring years of frustration writing for magazines. With its unrelenting criticism of Israel, his site [Mondoweiss] has angered even some of his fellow doves, but it has given voice to a strain of opinion that in the past had few chances of being heard."[6] By February 2010, The Christian Science Monitor described Mondoweiss as a "popular" website. "[7] In September 2010, James Wolcott of Vanity Fair argued that Mondoweiss "is one of the most invaluable sites in the blogosphere, a blast of sanity and moral suasion against the prevailing demonization of anything and anyone perceived as anti-Israel."[8]
Criticism
Lee Smith, in the American Jewish online periodical Tablet Magazine, accused Phil Weiss, Stephen Walt, Glenn Greenwald, and Andrew Sullivan in July, 2010 of being part of an "anti-Israel blogosphere." He also suggests that they are "obsessed with Israel and the machinations of the U.S. Israel lobby"[9] and labels them "Jew-baiter[s]."[9]
Weiss responded to Smith by stating that "yesterday Tablet smeared me and several other bloggers as Jew-baiters."[10] Others have also responded to Smith's article. Harvard professor Stephen Walt, who is also mentioned by Smith, questions the article's premise by stating that "the first thing to observe about Smith's screed is that even though he accuses me and my fellow bloggers of being anti-Semites and 'Jew-baiters,' his article contains not a scintilla of evidence that Sullivan, Greenwald, Weiss, or I have written or said anything that is remotely anti-Semitic, much less that involves "Jew-baiting." There's an obvious reason for this omission: None of us has ever written or said anything that supports Smith's outrageous charges."[11] Journalist Max Blumenthal negated Smith's argument, commenting that he "read the piece twice and could not find any instances of 'Jew baiting' by Smith’s targets. Smith couldn’t either, so he instead highlighted a few screeds by semi-literate and mostly anonymous comment trolls."[12]
Further reading
- Adas, Jane. Mondoweiss: The Blog, The Link, Vol. 43, Issue 1, Americans for Middle East Understanding, March 2010.
See also
References
- ^ a b Philip Weiss and Adam Horowitz, About Mondoweiss, Mondoweiss blog.
- ^ MondoWeiss, Philip Weiss' former weblog (Observer Archives)
- ^ Philip Weiss, Blogging about Israel and Jewish identity raises Observer hackles, The American Conservative, June 4, 2007.
- ^ Jane Adas, Mondoweiss: The Blog, The Link, Vol. 43, Issue 1, March 2010.
- ^ [1] "Can American Jews unplug the Israel lobby?" Gary Kamiya, March 20, 2007, Salon.
- ^ [2] "The News About the Internet." Michael Massing, March 13, 2009, The New York Review of Books.
- ^ [3] "Peaceful Palestinian resistance is paying off: Forget rock-throwing teens. Growing peaceful Palestinian resistance could tip the conflict." Ben White, Feb 11, 2010, Christian Science Monitor.
- ^ Mondo Narco
- ^ a b [4]"Mainstreaming Hate; How media companies are using the Internet to make anti-Semitism respectable," Lee Smith, July 21, 2010, Tablet Magazine.
- ^ [5]"‘Tablet’ is mobbed up with neocons," Philip Weiss, July 22, 2010, Mondoweiss.
- ^ [6]"‘The problem with judging a blog by its commenters (updated)," Stephen Walt, July 21, 2010, Foreign Policy.
- ^ [7]"‘The Crazy Horse," Max Blumenthal, July 22, 2010, maxblumenthal.com.
External links
Categories:- Blogs about Jews and Judaism
- American political blogs
- Internet activism
- American political websites
- News websites
- Alternative journalism organizations
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