News-Press Editorial

We take our concern for anti-Semitism very seriously. Readers of this newspaper know that over its 14 year history, it has sought to champion the causes of human rights, respect for diversity and social justice. Therefore, when we receive a letter like the one printed elsewhere on this page from a representative of the Jewish Community Council, it draws our immediate and focused concern. It comes to us over the signature of Howard Marks, a former City of Falls Church resident and friend of the News-Press. While introducing his letter to us, Mr. Marks includes a friendly greeting.

Likewise, we consider ourselves Mr. Marks' friend and friend of many among the Jewish community here and in many other places. Our owner-editor married a Jewish person and is particularly close to members of that person's family. Our owner's and this newspaper's core identities are so rooted in staunch opposition to discrimination of any kind, that any accusations of practicing it cut deeply.

The concern expressed in Mr. Marks' letter centers on a single word, "cabal." Insofar as it is perceived as "loaded" to any Jewish person, we regret its inadvertent use in that editorial, even though it is defined in Webster's Dictionary as having no hint of prejudice or discrimination. It should be noted that in his letter Mr. Marks did not extend his concern for the use of the term to any accusation of "anti-Semitism."

The phrase in the editorial containing the word, "cabal," spoke to an array of like-minded political motives behind the egregious and unsubstantiated charges against Rep. Jim Moran published in the Washington Post. Inclusive of the Post and Bush Republicans, the motives were identified as "pro-Sharon," or, it could have been phrased, "pro-Likud Party policy," as opposed to the Israeli Labor Party's policies that are closer to Moran's own.

The Post's highly-charged and unfair allegations against Moran were, themselves, prima facie evidence of this to us, being clearly aimed at removing him from office. They were so egregious that even the Post's own ombudsman, Michael Getler, agreed with the News-Press by writing in the Post last Saturday that "the Post was unfair in its recent coverage" of Moran. "What the Post violated," he wrote, "was a fundamental sense of fairness and common sense by airing and repeating this explosive, uncorroborated, unexplained – and denied – charge four days before an election."

Despite this, however, we do not expect the Post to relent. After all, it was the Post's top brass which editorialized that Moran was "unfit for office." Moreover, a Post representative told us earlier this week that since Moran's campaign distributed copies of our editorial at the polls on Election Day last week, allegations of anti-Semitism were slated to be reported by the Post and others of Moran's enemies to defame us in the course of a another unscrupulous attack against him. But unlike Moran, we're a business, and reserve all our legal options as needed under Virginia law for defamation harmful to our business.