Holding the line

Three crises marked the 30 months of my editorship of The Jerusalem Post (2002-2004).

There was the security crisis brought about by the second intifada and the campaign of suicide bombings that went with it, along with the war in Iraq and the global fight against al-Qaida.

There was an economic crisis in which investment and tourist dollars deserted Israel, the effects of which landed heavily on the Post’s revenue stream.

And there was a corporate crisis, as our then parent company, Hollinger International, was swept up in a corporate scandal that led to the jailing of its founders, Conrad Black and David Radler.

How did the Post perform during that time? Magnificently, I’d say.

Most newspapers are in the business of relating the news of their place. Merely by virtue of its location, the Post is always going to have some of the world’s most important stories to tell.

But the Post isn’t just another city paper. It is the bridge between Israel and the English-speaking world, a small paper with a global reputation and reach.

And it is a paper with a distinct moral calling – to wit, to tell the story of a civilization reclaiming its roots, a people standing up to its enemies and a democracy wrestling with itself.

That calling was put to the test during my time in Israel, when international efforts to isolate and demonize Israel reached fever pitch. This was a war not merely against the Jewish state but also, it often seemed, against truth itself – questions of fact, context and the historical record; the relationship of cause and effect; the distinction between perpetrator and victim.

In those years, the Post was virtually alone in the news business in furnishing an accurate picture of what the intifada was really about. No, it wasn’t a case of moderates falling victim to “extremists on both sides,” as the cliché of the times had it. It was the execution of Yasser Arafat’s squalid wager that Jews could be physically and morally bullied into surrender.

But the gambit failed. Facts remained stubborn things. Israel didn’t simply win the war on the ground. It turned the corner in the battle of ideas.

In no small part, that was due to the role played by The Jerusalem Post.

Thanks to truly brave reporting from journalists such as Khaled Abu Toameh (my proudest boast as editor-in-chief is to have brought him to the Post), Arafatism was exposed in all of its violence and corruption.

Thanks to editorials from writers such as Saul Singer (later of Start-up Nation fame), the Post championed the economic formulas that returned Israel to robust and sustained growth.

And thanks to the vigor of the editorial pages – I’m also proud to have brought on Sarah Honig and Larry Derfner as columnists – the Post gave voice to the diversity of Israeli opinion without yielding a single column inch to the bigotries of anti-Zionism.

All this was accomplished through the dedication, talent, initiative and chutzpah of editors and reporters who saw their jobs as a calling and rose consistently to the occasion. As I look back on my years in Israel, I am overwhelmed by a sense of gratitude for their efforts. I hope they have helped lay the foundations for the next 85 years of correct and courageous journalism from The Jerusalem Post.

The writer, a former editor-in-chief of The Jerusalem Post and winner of the 2013 Pulitzer Prize for Commentary, is an op-ed columnist for The New York Times.

How did the Post perform during that time? Magnificently, I’d say.