Mr. Murdoch, is the Bard Jew-hating bigot?

By Oh Young-jin

The other day, your respectable paper, the Wall Street Journal, ran an editorial entitled, “The Bigot Defense.”

It dealt first with Argentine President Cristina Kirchner’s visit to an elementary school, raising an issue over her suggestion that they should read “The Merchant of Venice” rather than “Romeo and Juliet,” which they were reading.

The Journal also quoted her as saying that the Shakespearean comedy would help them understand “vulture funds.” Then, the editorial crossed its Ts and dotted its Is by concluding Kirchner unveiled her deep-rooted anti-Semitic abuse targeting U.S. vulture fund Elliott Associate’s owner Paul Singer, who the editor said, “ happens to be Jewish.”

I know the Argentine President has been battling with Elliott, a leader of holdout creditors that pushed the South American nation into a default.

Still, the editorial failed to provide any reasonable grounds to support her alleged anti-Jewish streak.

It would be more understandable, if it pointed out that Shakespeare was a bigot since he used so much ink to give Shylock, the fictional Jewish loan shark in the classic, such a poor character.

Perhaps, the Journal wanted to be kinder to the mother (father) of all writers (not literally).

Without making any conclusion, I also want to recall the recent suicide of a prosecutor investigating the 1994 bombing of a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires. Reports had Kirchner cut a deal to let Iranian perpetrators off the hook. Nothing has been proven.

The Journal also claimed later in the same editorial that a similar vein of anti-Semitic bigotry is found in Korean media’s coverage of Singer’s effort to block Samsung’s inter-affiliate merger.

It quoted from an article by a little-known Internet newspaper, claiming that it represents the entire tone of the Korean media.

First, Israel is half way around the world from Korea.

Then, there have been no memorable conflicts that cause any lasting animosity between the two countries. As a matter of fact, the way the Journal described it leaves a bitter taste that it is trying to drive a wedge between the two friendly nations for some purpose.

Besides, we have our hands full with one traditional enemy to deal with.

Mr. Murdoch, I sincerely ask you to keep your editorial writers on a tighter leash to prevent them from portraying the world as a conflict pitting the Jews against the rest. It is not.

Oh Young-jin is chief editorial writer of The Korea Times. This column is only available online.