A grand newspaper or a political rag sheet?

Yisrael Medad
Green-Lined/JPost
11 July '10

I cannot even begin to grasp the embarrassment and shame some half-dozen New York Times reporters feel in the wake of their atrocious labor of disdain and professional sloppiness directed against the Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria.

Entitled "Tax-Exempt Funds Aid Settlements in West Bank", its authors (Jim Rutenberg, a former a correspondent in the paper's Washington bureau; Mike McIntire, an adjunct Assistant Professor at NYU and one of a group which merited a Pulitzer Prize in 1999; Ethan Bronner, New York Times Israel Bureau head, also a Pulitzer Prize winner who began his journalism career at Reuters 30 years ago, Isabel Kershner, currently New York Times Israel correspondent and formerly of The Jerusalem Report and Myra Noveck who, as it happens, is married to extreme left-winger and ideological opponent of Jewish residency beyond the Green Line, Gershom Gorenberg) purvey rumors, insinuate, hint, contradict themselves in self-correction, claim and then withdraw the accusation and generally botch a fairly simple topic. As Dr. Alex Safian of CAMERA writes, the story has "no news, no scoops, no revelations, few facts and plenty of errors and omissions."

The many critical of the story are probably snarling at the piece's blatant "proactive" negative attitude in relation to the article's focus subject, but the authors have been criticized before on topics unrelated to Israel. For example, Rutenberg had a run-in with Jay Rosen, a journalism professor at New York University, who mulled after his encounter with Rutenberg, "I was used to make a point Rutenberg wanted to make before he talked to me." By the way, Berkeley economics professor and former Clinton Administration official Brad Delong, reflected on Rutenberg's treatment of Rosen and observed "if the journalist is looking for a particular quote, figure out whether you want to be the person who gives that quote - and if not, get off the phone." If only reporters were obliged to reveal as much about themselves as they want their interviewees to do.

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NY Times Shocker: Colluding with Radical NGOs to Upstage White House Summit

The Gray Lady becomes a politicized vehicle for a campaign timed to cause maximum embarrassment and target pro-Israel advocacy groups.


Honest Reporting
Media Critiques
07 July '10

Only hours before Israeli PM Netanyahu's White House meeting with US President Obama, the New York Times published a major story "Tax-Exempt Funds Aid Settlements in West Bank".

The report stated that US Treasury tax breaks have helped West Bank settlers to receive $200 million in tax-free funding from American donors and that it is actually easier to fund settlement outposts that are illegal under Israeli law through the US than Israel due to differences in the law.

The report pinpointed at least 40 American groups that have raised over $200 million in tax-deductible gifts for Jewish settlers in the West Bank and eastern Jerusalem over the past decade.

Related: NY Times: Tax-Exempt Status Only for Groups That Agree with the Administration

The settlement enterprise is not a consensus issue even amongst Israel's supporters and we do not intend to address the issue here. However, we were suspicious of the timing of the release of this story. Did the New York Times deliberately set out to create a new bone of contention between Obama and Netanyahu to further strain relations?

Collusion by the NY Times?

More disturbingly, research by NGO Monitor and a number of bloggers reveals that the NY Times story is not the piece of investigative journalism that the paper would have you believe. In fact, the story bears an almost identical framework to a campaign launched by the radical left-wing Gush Shalom organization a full year ago.

In a confidential July 2009 memo, somewhat bizarrely publicly reproduced on an anti-Zionist blog site, Gush Shalom outlines a campaign that:

(Read full report)

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Barkan remains on Gush Shalom boycott list

Jacob Kanter
JPost
03 December 09

(To tell the truth, I stopped purchasing Barkan when they made their move. I was disgusted with their having caved in, and now the question remains, will they run again?)

Though Barkan winery recently vacated its factory in the Barkan industrial zone in the West Bank, Israeli peace organization Gush Shalom has decided to keep Israel's second largest winery on its list of companies whose products are made in the settlements, along with a call to boycott the winery.

Sa'ar Faraj, Barkan's legal adviser, wrote to Gush Shalom this week asking for the winery to be removed from the list, where it has appeared since the list's creation in 1995.

"I'd like to make it clear that Barkan does not produce materials in settlements whatsoever, nor does it purchase raw materials made in settlements," Faraj wrote. "Please make sure to remove Barkan from the list immediately."

In 2004, Barkan began moving their operations from Barkan to Hulda, a kibbutz within the pre-1967 borders.

Israeli-based beverage company Tempo, which owns Barkan winery, is partly owned by Dutch-based Heineken International. According to Gush Shalom, the Dutch government's opposition to Israeli settlements in the West Bank led Heineken to pressure Tempo to have Barkan move out of the West Bank.

The move has since been completed, but the company still operates three wineries within the Golan Heights, which Gush Shalom considers illegally occupied territory.

(Continue reading...)

Related: Boycott Revival?
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