The issue on Israel

Guess what Ms. Magazine, a feminist publication with a circulation of 110,000, cares about even more than celebrating successful professional women? Making sure the magazine doesn't give Israel credit for anything’s. Recently rejected an advertisement submitted by the American Jewish Congress to laud the achievements of three prominent women in Israel. Photographs of Tzipi Livni, the foreign minister; Doris Brinish, the Supreme Court president; and Dalai Itzik, the speaker of the Knesset, appeared above a boded text that read "This is Israel.” At first glance, it may be hard to understand the magazine's hostility to such an ad. After all, when Nancy Pelosi became speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, she was the cover girl for a Ms. article titled "This Is What a Speaker Looks Like." And Ms. regularly publishes profiles of prominent women in public life. A few years ago, it ran a cover story about Queen Moor of Jordan. In the wake of the AJC controversy, Ms. even announced that it plans to run a feature about Ms. Livni in a future issue. But while it is one thing to celebrate the foreign minister as a woman, it is an entirely different matter to celebrate what Ms. Living’s success says about her country.