Wolf Blitzer’s Dual Role: Journalist and Advocate
These days, Wolf Blitzer is famous as a primetime anchor on CNN’s “The Situation Room.” Decades ago, however, when Blitzer was far less known, the founder and longtime director of the controversial America Israel Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC, said that he and Blitzer had “a very close and intimate friendship.” The pro-Israel lobbyist called Blitzer “one of my proteges.” The relationship apparently led Blitzer to, early in his career, work simultaneously as a journalist and an advocate doing what amounted to propaganda. By the standards of today’s journalism ethics, the two jobs would raise serious questions.
Blitzer’s Controversial Past
One of the jobs, during the 1970s, was as Washington correspondent for the Jerusalem Post, an independent newspaper in Israel. The other was editing publications that were joined at the hip with AIPAC. The Israeli government reportedly used Blitzer’s two hats to launch a stealth attack on Breira, an American Jewish group that had recently gained fame for criticizing Israel’s mistreatment of Palestinians; Breira folded soon after. One historian has linked its demise to AIPAC’s subsequent pressure to quash critical American discussion about Israeli policy. Blitzer’s dual roles suggest that he helped to stifle the conversation.
Response from CNN
Asked about the propriety of covering the Middle East during the 1970s as a reporter for independent media, and simultaneously working for a man famous as a leader of AIPAC and lobbyist for the Israeli government, CNN spokesperson Dylan-Rose Geerlings wrote in an email, “In the 1970s as a young journalist in his 20s, Wolf reported extensively on the Middle East. Wolf is very proud of his reporting from that time and throughout his long and distinguished career.”
Zvika Klein, the editor-in-chief of the Jerusalem Post, said, “The Jerusalem Post is now owned by a different company and the previous editor in chief whom I’ve asked had no recollection of this issue.”
Blitzer’s Role in AIPAC-Linked Publications
The two AIPAC-linked publications that Blitzer worked for were the weekly Near East Report and the occasional booklet “Myths and Facts: A Concise Record of the Arab-Israeli Conflict.” Both were started and run for years by Isaiah L. “Si” Kenen, a famous lobbyist and diplomat for Israel, and AIPAC’s founder and longtime director until he stepped down from its leadership in early 1975.
By the time Kenen retired from AIPAC, Blitzer had been working for two years for the Jerusalem Post. He was also associate editor at the Near East Report while Kenen was still publishing it. Meanwhile, AIPAC’s new executive director, Morris Amitay, was a contributing editor. And even after retiring from AIPAC, Kenen was still helping the group to distribute Near East Report to AIPAC’s thousands of members and to public officials.
Blitzer’s Controversial Publications
In 1976, Blitzer took over full editorship of the Near East Report. He would hold that post for two years. He also was editor of the 1976 “Myths and Facts” — also a Kenen product. Among the items that Blitzer’s edition listed as “myths”: “Acquisition of territory by force is inadmissible,” and “Israel has no right to hold on to the Golan Heights” — both propositions that run athwart of the premise of international law, and its specific application by the U.N. to the Arab–Israeli conflict.
Near East Report, still edited by Blitzer in 1977, ran a lengthy article defending the legality of the West Bank settlements. The latter claim implied tacit endorsement of the Zionist religious right’s goal to annex the territories that Israel had occupied in the 1967 Arab–Israeli war.
Blitzer’s Legacy
Blitzer left Near East Report at the end of 1977. Later, in 1985, he authored a book based on his Middle East journalism, “Between Washington to Jerusalem: A Reporter’s Notebook.” It opens with a veritable resume of the venues where he had worked or been published: from the Jerusalem Post to the New York Times to the Jewish Chronicle, and many more. But the book never mentions his AIPAC-related work. It does approvingly quote a former AIPAC functionary who called the organization “sexy.”
In conclusion, Wolf Blitzer’s early career raises questions about journalistic ethics and integrity. His dual role as a journalist and an advocate for AIPAC-linked publications blurs the lines between objective reporting and advocacy. This controversial past sheds light on how media figures navigate complex relationships with political organizations.