Truth Addict: The Connection That Wasn't Made: Sterling, Kerry and Israeli Apartheid

“Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of the Donald Sterling scandal is . . .” began the New York Times’ piece by their editorial board on the Donald Sterling controversy in which the Los Angeles Clippers owner was recorded making racist comments.

But what the Editorial Board of “the paper of record” finds “most disturbing” differs from what this particular writer finds most disturbing.

For the NYT editors the “most disturbing aspect” is that no one in the NBA was surprised at Sterling’s comments. They had known about Sterling’s racism for a long time. And this is why the NYT wants to know: “Why Did the N.B.A. Long Tolerate Sterling?”

True and fair enough.

But, as usual, it is what is missing from the NYT piece that is more revealing than what is offered. While denouncing the tolerance of racism there is no mention of Israeli apartheid, which Sterling pointed to in defense of his racist opinions.

Donald Sterling: It's the world! You go to Israel, the blacks are just treated like dogs.

V. Stiviano: So do you have to treat them like that too?

DS: The white Jews, there's white Jews and black Jews, do you understand?

V: And are the black Jews less than the white Jews?

DS: A hundred percent, fifty, a hundred percent.

V: And is that right?

DS: It isn't a question—we don't evaluate what's right and wrong, we live in a society. We live in a culture. We have to live within that culture.

V: But shouldn't we take a stand for what's wrong? And be the change and the difference?

DS: I don't want to change the culture, because I can't. It's too big and too [unknown].

V: But you can change yourself.

DS: I don't want to change…

And while the racist policies of Israel is hardly limited to black Jews, at nearly the same time that Sterling made this comment another related item was in the news.

US Secretary of State John Kerry warned that if Israel did not make progress in a Middle East peace agreement then they would risk becoming an “apartheid state.” Of course, Palestinians, Arabs, and black Jews scoff at the notion of “becoming” an apartheid state. But no matter, the comment received immediate repudiation from influential Jewish groups that had Secretary Kerry apologizing for his remark, as the NYT covered in their article “Kerry Expresses Regret After Apartheid Remark.”

Read more