Oct 24, 2023
Journal Editor FIRED For Reposting Satirical Onion Article About Gaza Deaths
Michael Eisen, editor-in-chief of eLife, lost his job for retweeting an satire piece from The Onion about the devastation of Gaza civilian deaths.
- 12 minutes
The editor in chief of a prominent
open access journal known as eLife
says that he is now losing his job for
publicly endorsing satire.
Now, the satirical
article criticized people
[00:00:15]
dying in Gaza while not condemning Hamas.
Now, the name of this individual who
has lost his job is Michael Eisen.
In addition to running Elife,
he's also a geneticist assist at
the University of California, Berkeley.
And we should note that he
also happens to be Jewish.
[00:00:30]
Now, with that said,
the public anger began on October 13 when
Eisen reposted a satirical
article from the Onion,
which is well known to be a satirical
publication with the headline titled
Dying Gazans Criticized For
Not Using Last Words To Condemn Hamas.
[00:00:50]
And when he quote, tweeted that,
he said, the Onion speaks
with more courage, insight,
and moral clarity than the leaders of
every academic institution put together.
I wish there were an Onion University or
the Onion University.
Now, he didn't get fired from Berkeley,
right?
[00:01:07]
Like, I could see how Berkeley might not
appreciate how critical he is toward
academics, but no,
he got fired from a publication,
an open source publication called Elife.
And the satirical Onion piece, again,
it is satire said the following
[00:01:23]
instead of issuing a full throated
denunciation of the violent attacks by
Hamas that have left over 1300
Israelis dead, it's now 1400.
Dying woman holding her six year old son,
who had just been killed in a bombing,
is said to have doubled down by
telling her child she loved him.
[00:01:42]
Look, it's definitely dark humor
considering the context, but
it continues to say, according to reports,
such barbarism on the part of Palestinians
was on full display across the Gaza Strip,
where many men of fighting age could
not muster a single word of reproof for
[00:02:00]
Hamas's actions while
they coughed up blood.
Now, after that immediate backlash for
reposting the piece, Eisen clarified
what his position is, tweeting, every
sane person on earth is horrified and
traumatized by what Hamas did and
wants it to never happen again.
[00:02:18]
All the more so
as a Jew with Israeli family.
But I'm also horrified by
the collective punishment already
being meted out on Gazans and
the worst that is about to come.
The Onion is not making light
of the situation and nor am I.
[00:02:35]
These articles are using satire to
make a deadly serious point about
this horrific tragedy.
I mean, he is so on.
Like, he's so correct.
>> Speaker 2: How do you get fired for
that?
I mean, that's the most correct
analysis I've seen anywhere in media.
[00:02:51]
And so, hey, right wing,
where are you at cancel culture and
the guy's getting canceled for
his opinion,
an opinion that is shared by
the overwhelming majority of the country.
And he's absolutely right that Onion makes
a brilliant point through that satire,
which they often do,
where they're saying, like,
[00:03:07]
how are they supposed to condemn Hamas?
It's the same point I made on Piers Morgan
and I made earlier today on this show.
They don't get to vote.
Hamas ended elections.
How are those Palestinians on the verge of
death supposed to communicate that they're
not with Hamas anymore?
[00:03:24]
They can't.
And so it's an unmeetable standard.
And that is why the right wing barbaric
government of Netanyahu is now saying,
yeah, it's an impossible standard, so
we're going to keep on killing them so
[00:03:40]
that they can't ever meet that standard.
And here's a guy who has put aside
his own personal identity and
the fact that he is personally torn
by the trauma of what Hamas did,
and is looking beyond that and
is being a wonderful human being and
[00:03:59]
saying, yes, but
we shouldn't kill them either.
They're also not about Hamas,
but about the Palestinians.
They're innocent civilians.
Michael Eisen is an American hero.
I love this guy, right?
And it is indisputably.
Cancel culture.
[00:04:14]
Indisputably.
So, right wing,
did you ever care about cancel culture?
Or is this not a convenient talking
point for you and you never meant it?
You just wanted to be a hypocrite and
shut down all voices opposed to you and
promote all voices on your side
no matter how hateful they were.
[00:04:32]
This guy's not hateful.
This guy's not anything.
This guy is having the most standard
opinion of all time, and yet
he gets canceled.
So, Ben Shapiro, where are you at?
>> Speaker 1: Well, I mean,
this is his Achilles heel for sure.
And when it comes to this issue,
all principles get thrown out the window.
[00:04:50]
>> Speaker 2: Of course,
if he ever had any principles.
>> Speaker 1: So with that said,
he tried to explain where his views stand,
why he decided to retweet
that with comment,
but some just weren't satisfied
with that explanation.
In fact, some Israeli academics and
researchers demanded that Eisen resign and
[00:05:09]
that colleagues stop submitting papers to
eLife as long as he remained in charge.
And so then he decides to put out a
statement on Twitter talking about what's
happening and how he is losing his job.
I have been informed that I'm being
replaced as the editor in chief of eLife
[00:05:25]
for retweeting the Onion piece that
calls out indifference to the lives of
Palestinian civilians.
And in a statement
announcing Eisen's removal,
the board of directors at eLife defended
their decision, arguing that Mike has
been given clear feedback from the board
that his approach to leadership,
[00:05:43]
communication, and social media has at key
times, been detrimental to the cohesion
of the community we are trying to build,
and hence to eLife's mission.
It is against this background
that a further incidence
of this behavior has contributed
to the board's decision.
[00:06:02]
>> Speaker 2: In other words,
we fired him because he dared
to disagree with our position.
Okay, just call it what it is.
That board is either obviously,
like, in favor of atrocities, and
they're saying, if you're not in favor
of atrocities, we will fire you,
[00:06:21]
because tell me that murdering,
killing, whatever you want to call it,
5000 civilians over 2000
children is not an atrocity.
Say that and you're basically confessing.
You're saying I'm a monster.
[00:06:36]
I don't care about killing children.
So that's what the board of directors
is saying, because they're saying,
if you dare disagree with those
atrocities, I don't care if you're Jewish,
I don't care if you got family in Israel,
I don't care about anything.
We will cancel you.
Be honest about it.
[00:06:51]
Be honest about it.
>> Speaker 1: It is interesting to
see this McCarthyism creep up again
because it makes me so
reminiscent of what happened in
the lead up to the 2003
preemptive war in Iraq, right?
[00:07:07]
Anyone who spoke out against it,
canceled, okay?
Silenced censored.
It happened in media,
it happened in the music industry with,
I think they call themselves the Chicks
now, instead of the Dixie Chicks.
Anyway, and now you see it happening
with people like Michael Eisen.
[00:07:24]
You go on Twitter and
you'll see all sorts of actors and
actresses saying that they've been
dropped by their management company.
Their management company doesn't want to
represent them anymore because they have
put out statements publicly in
support of Palestinian civilians.
It's so egregious disgusting.
[00:07:40]
>> Speaker 2: It's not even
protecting Jews in America.
First of all, he's Jewish.
But beyond that, when Kanye started saying
the most horrific anti Semitic stuff in
the world, there was like,
equivocation for a little while,
but Trump likes them, so, I don't know.
Political correctness says that maybe
a right wing was like, don't cancel Kanye.
[00:07:58]
Don't cancel him, okay?
Now, there were others that were
obviously consistent on that.
In that case, Ben Shapiro was perfectly
consistent that Kanye was terrible,
monster, anti-Semitic, etc.
Right?
But a lot of people were like,
questioning in the beginning, so
this isn't about protecting Jews.
[00:08:15]
Kanye was the most prominent anti-Semite
in my lifetime in America, right?
But now when a Jewish guy says,
can we not kill that many Palestinians,
all of a sudden everybody roars and
says, fire him, right?
[00:08:30]
Why, because he doesn't have
as much power as Kanye.
He didn't make as much money for
other people as Kanye did, right.
So keep it real on that as well.
So, look, I think everyone in that
board of directors is a coward or
a terrible person and
they should all be fired.
How you, like cancel culture now?
[00:08:45]
>> Speaker 1: Well,
what's actually happening is, and
I want to end this story
on a positive note,
because there are wonderful people in
the country, wonderful people who decided,
no, I'm going to put my own livelihood at
risk and resign in solidarity with Eisen.
And that's what happened with Laura Urban,
[00:09:03]
a reviewing editor and
career advisor for Elife.
She announced that she is resigning,
and here's what her statement said.
Mike's dismissal for expressing his
personal views sets a dangerous precedent
for freedom of speech in
our academic community.
And it validates cyberbullying
as a successful and
[00:09:20]
legitimate tool to get scientists
with controversial opinions fired.
And she wasn't the only one.
Josh Dubnow, who is a Jewish
neurobiologist at Stony Brook University,
authored a petition urging
eLife not to censure Eisen.
[00:09:38]
He said the following the whole
academic enterprise we're engaged in
rests on the ability to have open
intellectual exchange about any topic and
express our views honestly.
Nothing he said was repugnant or hateful.
There shouldn't be consequences for
minority views in academia, and
[00:09:57]
as soon as we see that,
the whole thing will come crashing down.
I totally agree with him in that regard,
absolutely.
>> Speaker 2: They're all American heroes,
and we appreciate them for
sticking out for their colleague, for
sticking out for academic freedom,
sticking out for freedom of speech, and
sticking out for decency in humanity.
[00:10:13]
And so, look, as I see, I mean, this idea
that the Israeli researchers are demanding
that he be fired is just beyond absurd.
So just think about it.
I always use my own ethnic
background just for clarity.
And so, you know, I'm not being biased.
Imagine if Turkish researchers were like,
[00:10:30]
that Armenian said
something bad about Turks.
We demand that they be like, yeah,
take a long walk off a short Turkish
dock and see how that turns out for you.
>> Speaker 1: Actually,
I like that you use that example,
Jenk, because I don't know if you
remember this, but many years ago,
[00:10:49]
I had done some commentary
about the genocide on the show.
A Turkish gentleman did not like it.
Someone who has some sort of organization
or whatever he reaches out to you,
includes me in the email, and
essentially tries to get me fired for
what I had to say.
And remember how I responded?
[00:11:04]
>> Speaker 2: No, but
I could imagine [LAUGH]
>> Speaker 1: Yeah.
I did not respond politely, and
I laughed at the notion that Jenk would
fire me over speaking my mind on the show.
>> Speaker 2: Thank you,
I appreciate that.
And obviously, we don't do that,
we don't do cancel culture.
[00:11:22]
I know the right wing accuses of it,
but look at this.
The right wing doing cancel culture,
just like we told you.
We've shown you now dozens of
examples where the right wing loves
canceled culture.
But Israeli researchers wanted him fired.
I didn't know you had that
much legitimacy, so no, and
[00:11:40]
part of the reason why I would love
Michael Eisen is because he's looking at
it not as me, and how does it affect me?
He's looking at it as how
does it affect humanity?
Right?
And we're all human beings, whether you're
Turkish, Armenian, Israeli or Palestinian,
[00:11:56]
we're all the same.
We're all human.
And the more that people think like
Michael does, the better off we'll be.
And the quicker we'll get to peace and
the quicker we'll get to stopping
this senseless death and destruction.
So, thank Michael Eisen.
[00:12:12]
And look, I don't know if it can be
repaired, but that board of directors,
what they did was a travesty, and
they should obviously reverse this.
Now Playing (Clips)
Episode
Podcast
The Young Turks: October 24, 2023
Hosts: Cenk UygurAna Kasparian
- 21 minutes
- 9 minutes
- 19 minutes
- 9 minutes
- 12 minutes
- 10 minutes
- 12 minutes