Ms Magazine rejects Israeli ad

Apparently, Ms. Magazine doesn't feel the same about female Israeli leaders that it does about those from other nations. Eugene Volokh reports how they have refused to run a rather innocuous ad that shows pictures three women with important jobs in the Israeli government: the President of the Supreme Court of Israel, the Vice Prime Minister and Minister for Foreign Affairs, and the Speaker of the Knesset with the simple tagline: This is Israel. Sounds rather innocuous, doesn't it? But Ms refused to run the ad. The American Jewish Congress couldn't get an answer from Ms. on the real reason why they wouldn't run the ad.

When Director of AJCongress’ Commission for Women’s Empowerment Harriet Kurlander tried to place the ad, she was told that publishing the ad “will set off a firestorm” and that “there are very strong opinions” on the subject − the subject presumably being whether or not one can say anything positive about Israel. Ms. Magazine publisher Eleanor Smeal failed to respond to a signed-for certified letter with a copy of the ad as well as numerous calls by Mr. Gordon over a period of weeks.

It seems that the feminists running Ms Magazine just don't want to run an ad celebrating successful women in Israeli politics. Maybe they don't like the unstated contrast to how women are treated in the rest of the region.

Mr. Gordon added, “What really amazes me is that just recently, in their Winter 2007 issue, Ms. ran a cover story with a picture of Congresswomen Nancy Pelosi with the heading in big letters: “This is What a Speaker Looks Like.” While Ms. has every reason to be proud of Speaker Pelosi and her accomplishments, as are we, the only discernable difference between Speaker Pelosi and Speaker Itzik apparently is that Speaker Pelosi is not Israeli.”

Mr. Gordon noted that while Israel was apparently too hot to handle, Ms. Magazine did not extend that taboo to Arab and Moslem women. “What is even more amazing is that, while refusing to publish a simple ad praising three very notable women, women who embody the ideal that Ms. Magazine seemingly espouses, Ms. has run a cover article in the Fall 2003 issue on Queen Noor of Jordan, has featured a number of articles on Muslim women, and even ran an article in the Winter 2004 issue entitled, ‘Images of Palestine,’ which discussed the Ramallah Film Festival and gave sympathetic reviews to films concerning ‘the liberation of South Lebanon’ from Israel as well as numerous films which portrayed terrorism as legitimate ‘revolutionary’ activity against Israel and miscast Israel’s activities to counter terrorism as ‘oppressive.’”

So what reason could Ms. have for thinking that this ad is so controversial? All it has are the pictures of the three women, an image of successful political leaders that Ms. should be happy to celebrate, but not if they're Israelis. I don't see why Israel would want to advertise in Ms. Magazine, but that is their choice. Ms. has made its choice and they have that right. But, in so doing, they have displayed their own anti-Israeli biases in a quite blatant fashion.