Can You Imagine Anti-Israe​l Poison Pills in Two NYT Articles?

...No matter how much Israel does in pursuit of progress and peace, don't look to the Times to give it due credit.

Leo Rennert..
American Thinker..
11 December '13..

The Dec. 10 New York Times features two articles involving Israel that point to some positive developments, but also happen to be marred by gratuitous anti-Israel digs. No matter how much Israel does in pursuit of progress and peace, don't look to the Times to give it due credit.

The first article, by Jerusalem correspondent Isabel Kershner, carries a headline that reads: "A Rare Middle East Agreement, on Water -- Israel, Jordan and Palestinians to Build Red Sea-Dead Sea project." Kershner describes how the mammoth water conveyance system will channel water from the Red Sea into the Dead Sea. It also will provide badly needed new fresh water supplies through desalination.

"The water level in the Dead Sea, an ancient salt lake whose shores are the lowest dry places on the earth's surface, has been dropping by more than three feet a year, mainly because most of the water in the Jordan River, its main feeder, has been diverted by Israel, Jordan, or Syria for domestic use and irrigation," Kershner writes. "Very little now reaches the lake. Potash industries on either side of the lake have also had a detrimental impact."

So far, so good in diagnosing the problem the water project is supposed to remedy. But here comes the anti-Israel poison pill at the end of the same paragraph: "About 25 miles of the Dead Sea's shoreline lie in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and are claimed by the Palestinians as part of a future state."

It's a gratuitous slap at Israel with no relevance to the main point of the paragraph. Kershner's bias also shows when she refers to the "Israeli-occupied" West Bank. Israel doesn't "occupy" the West Bank, which would presume existence of a non-Israeli sovereign from which the West Bank has been taken. The last "sovereign" to rule over the West Bank was the Ottoman Empire and it's no longer around to claim sovereign ownership.

Therefore, the West Bank more accurately can and should be defined as "disputed" land -- "disputed" between Israel and the Palestinians. In fact, Israel and the Palestinians currently are engaged in trying to work out a peace deal that would establish a new sovereign over the West Bank. But the parties aren't there yet, notwithstanding Kershner's chutzpah in jumping the gun and intimating that Israel doesn't belong on those 25 miles of Dead Sea shoreline.

Peddling U.N. Propaganda about Palestinia​n Refugees at the NY Times

...Kershner, however, is not interested in real history. Instead, she join UNRWA in a transparent anti-Israel propaganda campaign to validate Palestinian victimhood at the expense of Israel's basic legal and historical right to its very existence.

Leo Rennert..
American Thiker..
30 November '13..

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency, whose sole task is to perpetuate the festering problem of Palestinian refugees, is mounting a traveling photo exhibit about their continuing plight. And the New York Times is only too pleased to help UNRWA peddle a grossly revisionist history of Palestinian refugees and their sad lot.

In its Nov. 29 edition, the Times devotes a four-column spread, including five heart-tugging photographs, to depict Palestinian refugees as victims of Israel's founding. Jerusalem correspondent Isabel Kershner tells readers that "about 700,000 Arabs fled or were expelled from their homes during the Arab-Israeli war over the foundation of Israel" in 1948. And, she adds, "hundreds of thousands more were later displaced by the Arab-Israeli war of 1967." ("Photographs Tell a History of Palestinians Unmoored -- Exhibit Traces Steps of Refugees Since 1948" page A6).

Nowhere in her article, however, does Kershner mention that there would have been no Palestinian refugee problem if the Arabs had accepted the 1947 U.N. two-state partition plan, calling for creation of an Arab state and a Jewish state. Israel accepted partition. Arabs rejected it and instead launched an all-out war against the nascent Jewish state with the avowed aim of destroying it.

Nor does Kershner mention that some 800,000 Jews who had lived for centuries in Arab lands were mercilessly persecuted by their host countries about the same time and forced to flee and become refugees as well. Jewish refugees numbered more than Palestinian refugees. But Jewish plight doesn't grab the New York Times as much.

Palestinian Authority Fleeces new Palestinia​n City

...By any objective yardstick, it would seem that Palestinian obstacles, like shutting down promised financing, far outweigh a few bureaucratic snags from the Israeli side. But leave it to Kershner, the Times and its headline writers, the higher imperative remains to stick it to Israel, while hiding much bigger Palestinian obstacles in Rawabi's way.

Leo Rennert..
American Thinker..
11 August '13..

It's called Rawabi, an entirely new Palestinian city with an expected population of 40,000. It's located halfway between Jerusalem and Nablus. Its developers already have sold more than 600 apartments. But, no surprise, they've also encountered a few snags, especially from Mahmoud Abbas's Palestinian Authority.

But that's not the way the New York Times reports Rawabi's problems. In an Aug. 11 dispatch, Jerusalem correspondent Isabel Kershner instead turns the tables to make Israel the fall guy, although Rawabi's travails stem far more from obstacles created by the PA. To Kershner and the Times, objective reporting counts for very little. The more important thing is to engage in Israel bashing. Starting with a blame-Israel headline: "Birth of a Palestinian City Is Punctuated by Struggles -- Project Depends on Israeli Cooperation -- Cement has to be imported, and there is no port or airport." (Page 9)

Kershner starts off by asserting that Rawabi's future growth depends on the cooperation of Israel and she clearly doesn't think that Rawabi is getting it. There are issues, she writes, like water and getting permits. Also, the builders have to buy cement from Israel. Since there is no airport or port in PA-controlled territories in the West Bank, cement and other supplies have to be bought from Israel.

But such difficulties pale by comparison with far more serious challenges posed by Abbas and the PA. However, they are tucked away farther down in Kershner's piece, where fewer readers are apt to notice. Such as Rawabi attracting "almost no international financing despite the billions of dollars that donor nations have given to the Palestinian Authority" (Paragraph No. 20) Where, one wonders, did that money go?

Daunting - To stay on point when talking about Israel's PM

LOTL..
08 January '13..

One of the defining qualities of good reportage is the ability of the reporter to stay on point, known otherwise as staying on topic. But when writing about Israel, and all the more so,  PM Netanyahu, this can be a daunting task, an expectation doomed to failure from the start.

In last Sunday's NY Times a piece by Isabel Kershner, Israel Plans to Construct a Syrian Border Fence certainly started out on the right foot.

JERUSALEM — Israel announced Sunday that it was constructing a border fence along the length of its armistice line with Syria in the Golan Heights and that it was coordinating its intelligence with the United States in light of the deteriorating security situation in Syria.

In remarks at the start of the weekly cabinet meeting, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that the Syrian Army had moved away from the frontier and that jihadist forces had moved in.

“Therefore, we will defend this border against both infiltration and terrorism,” Mr. Netanyahu said, adding, “I also submit to the cabinet the fact that the Syrian regime is very unstable, that the question of chemical weapons here worries us.” He said that Israel was coordinating with the United States and others “so that we might be prepared for any scenario and possibility that could arise.”

Off to a good start as she addresses the what and why of the topic, but....

New York Times indicts Israeli society as steeped in 'racism, violence'

Leo Rennert..
American Thinker..
21 August '12..




Israel is grappling with a couple of horrific instances of Jews attacking Arabs.

Last Thursday, according to the Jerusalem police, a brawl, sparked by complaints of an Israeli girl that she was harassed by Arabs, mushroomed into a "lynching" assault on Palestinian youths that left one 17-year-old Arab temporarily unconscious. On the same day, a Palestinian taxi was fire-bombed in the West Bank, inflicting burns on its occupants.

Seven Israeli teenagers have been arrested in connection with the first incident. Prime Minister Netanyahu phoned Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas assuring him that perpetrators of such violence will be punished to the full extent of the law. As they obviously should be.

But are there broader lessons to be learned from these violent episodes? Are these just isolated incidents? Or do they reveal basic flaws in Israeli society?

The New York Times, which has a history of ignoring or downplaying Arab-on-Jews violence, leaves readers with no doubt about its own conclusions.

In an above-the-fold, front-page article with a triple-deck headline, it cites these incidents as evidence that Israel has created a "poisoned political environment (that) has affected the moral compass of youths growing within it."

Rennert - NYT soft-pedals rocket barrages from Gaza on civilian targets in Israel

Leo Rennert..
American Thinker..
21 June '12..

Judging from New York Times coverage of the sharp escalation of rocket attacks on Israel by Gaza terrorists, it really wasn't a big deal at all -- and besides Hamas has accepted an Egyptian-brokered cease-fire that was bound to end the onslaught ("Hamas Military Wing Accepts a Cease-Fire - Deal Ends 3 Days of Violence With Israel" by Isabel Kershner, June 21, page 11).

Reality is starkly different from Kershner's roseate account. For one thing, the headline is flat wrong -- the so-called cease-fire didn't end. Gaza terrorists kept firing rockets.

Kershner, in her dispatch, bends over backwards to depict the incessant rocket barrages -- well over 100 -- as benign and inconsequential as possible.
Here's how she puts it:

"The confrontation remained relatively contained, with the Gaza groups firing mostly short-range rockets that did not reach southern Israel's major cities."

This sentence tells worlds about Kershner's determination to sanitize the terror war unleashed from Gaza. For one thing, why the benchmark that rocket fire from Gaza is OK as long as it spares major cities? What about smaller Israel towns and communities hit by rocket fire? Don't their residents matter?

Rennert - NYT spotlights Palestinian 'naqba,' ignores Jewish 'naqba' in Arab lands

Leo Rennert..
American Thinker..
15 May '12..

Each year, Palestinians commemorate with raucous protests their "Naqba" -- a presumed "catastrophe" due to the founding of Israel. One people celebrates its anniversary, the other hangs on to its sense of victimhood.

In its May 15 edition, the New York Times, takes due note of the Palestinian "Naqba," which occurred this year just as Palestinian prisoners ended a nearly-month-long hunger strike that sought more favorable treatment while in Israeli detention. Here's how Jerusalem correspondent Isabel Kershner puts it:

"The two sides had seemed intent on reaching a deal before Tuesday, when the Palestinians commemorate the "naqba," or catastrophe, on the anniversary of Israel's declaration of independence in 1948. The war that followed the declaration led to the flight or expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, and the day is traditionally observed with protest marches." ("Palestinians In Jails End Hunger Strike - Agreement to Improve Israeli Prisons Is Signed" page A4.)

There are two gross historical distortions in this single paragraph.

Fresnozionism - Palestinian incitement hits the big time

Fresnozionism.org
20 December '11

http://fresnozionism.org/2011/12/palestinian-incitement-hits-the-big-time/

One island of stability in a sea of change has been the continuous, vicious incitement to hate and murder Israelis and Jews that issues from every mouthpiece — schools, media, mosques, summer camps, textbooks, etc. — of the PLO (and I am not even talking about Hamas). Dore Gold tells us,

Formally, there are many clauses on incitement throughout the Oslo Agreements, especially the 1995 Interim Agreement. The parties are legally bound to abstain from incitement and hostile propaganda. They were supposed to foster “mutual understanding and tolerance.” The first phase of the 2003 Roadmap calls on “all Palestinian institutions to end incitement against Israel.” But in practice many of these clauses were dormant. Israeli governments put the greatest attention to the most politically explosive issues like borders and security. The most senior officials in the Prime Minister’s office were involved in those committees and not in the incitement committee. There were those who undoubtedly felt that if Israel complained about incitement, it would be perceived that it was looking for an excuse to get out of the peace process and not make any concessions.

But it ought to be a matter of the highest priority. “After all,” Gold asks, “what prepares a Palestinian terrorist to slit the throats of Israeli children and kill their parents in cold blood?”

Arafat and Abbas both promised to end it, and Abbas even announced that he had, but neither did. Although the PLO can make concessions to Israel when it sees an advantage, this seems to be something they will never concede, either because Palestinian honor demands it, or because indoctrinating the youth to create the next generation of murderers is too important.

The contrast between Israel’s ‘educating for peace‘ by replacing Zionist history with special ‘coexistence’ curricula, and the PA’s glorification of the worst terrorists has been stark.

Rennert - NY Times' selective coverage of Israel through a glass darkly

Leo Rennert
American Thinker
08 October '11

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2011/10/ny_times_selective_coverage_of_israel_through_a_glass_darkly.html

In its Oct. 7 edition, the New York Times runs a lengthy article by Jerusalem correspondent Isabel Kershner about an Arab village in Galilee that recently was the scene of an arson attack on its mosque. Kershner's piece, supplemented by two color photograhs and a map, is spread over the entire top half of a page. It starts out as an up-close and personal account of the villagers' understandable outrage at suspected Jewish extremists; but it soon becomes the peg for an all-out indictment of "decades of discrimination" against Arabs by the Jewish state. ("Ties Between Israel And Arab Allies Fray Over Mosque Burning" page A10).

Kershner goes so far as to charge Israel with "growing popular strains of racism" fueled by "right-leaning Israeli governments." As proof, she cites "incitement against Arabs" by a rabbi who urged Jewish residents of Safed not to sell homes to Arabs. And, in the same vein, she finds a villager who tells her that it would have been better if there "might not have been an Israel because now we feel like strangers here."

There's no question that the arson attack on the mosque was an outrageous act that shamed Israel -- and was so regarded by all its political leaders. Nor is there any question that Israeli Arabs have yet to attain full equality. But Kershner hides from Times readers great strides of progress and integration of Israel's Arab population -- an Arab sits on Israel's Surpeme Court, Israeli Arabs are represented in the Knesset by no fewer than three political parties, Arabs occupy top executive positions in hospitals, professional and business concerns, and other parts of Israel's society and economy.

The picture is not nearly as dark as Kershner paints it. Her reporting is marred by a conspicuous failure to present a complete account of pluses as well as minuses in complex inter-actions between Jews and Arabs in Israel, and between Israelis and Palestinians in the West Bank.

Fresnozionism - The failure of the liberal Jewish establishment, then and now

400 mostly Orthodox rabbis
march to the White House on
 October 6, 1943. Roosevelt avoided
meeting with them.

Fresnozionism.org
07 August '11

http://fresnozionism.org/2011/08/the-failure-of-the-liberal-jewish-establishment-then-and-now/

It’s well-known that the Roosevelt Administration did little to help European Jews during the Holocaust. Unfortunately, part of the blame falls on American Jewry, which was sharply divided about how to respond — a fact which caused good men in the government to hesitate, while it gave antisemites an excuse to resist.

The NY Times has published a piece by Isabel Kershner that may bring more attention to the shameful stupidity of the Jewish establishment during that period:

The Bergson group formed in 1940 when about 10 young Jews from Palestine and Europe came to the United States to open a fund-raising and propaganda operation for the Irgun, the right-wing Zionist militia. The group was organized by Hillel Kook, a charismatic Irgun leader who adopted the pseudonym Peter H. Bergson. [Samuel] Merlin was his right-hand man.

The group began by raising money for illegal Jewish immigration to what was then the British Mandate of Palestine and promoting the idea of an army composed of stateless and Palestinian Jews. But the mission abruptly changed in November 1942 after reports of the Nazi annihilation of two million European Jews emerged. Like earlier reports of the mass killing of Jews, the news barely made the inside pages of major American newspapers like The New York Times and The Washington Post.

The Bergsonites were appalled by what they saw as the indifference of the Roosevelt administration and the passivity of the Jewish establishment, which staunchly supported the administration and largely accepted its argument that the primary American military objective was to win the war, not to save European Jews. The group embarked on a provocative campaign to publicize the genocide and to lobby Congress to support the rescue of Jews, roaming the hallways of Capitol Hill and knocking on doors, displaying a degree of chutzpah that made the traditional, pro-Roosevelt Jewish establishment uncomfortable.

Uncomfortable?

The establishment, led by Reform Rabbi Stephen S. Wise, fought Kook’s group tooth and nail. Writer Ben Hecht, recruited by Kook to stage a huge pageant in Madison Square Garden in March 1943 (“We will never die”) to raise awareness and embarrass the government into action, described one encounter:

Rennert - NY Times likens violent 'fly-in' agitators to Christian pilgrims in Bethlehem

Leo Rennert
American Thinker
09 July '11

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2011/07/_ny_times_likens_violent_fly-in_agitators_to_christian_pilgrims_in_bethlehem.html

Pro-Palestinian provocateurs throughout Europe planned a massive ''fly-in'' to Ben-Gurion Airport this week to engage in anti-Israel demonstrations upon arrival at the airport and thence to the West Bank to rally with Palestinian demonstrators.

But instead of hundreds of agitators managing to carry out these plans, only a handful made it through Israeli security. Most were barred from boarding their flights in Europe as a result of a blacklist of suspected rabble-rousers Israel sent to airlines with a request to deny them passage, while others were arrested at Ben-Gurion and now await deportation back to Europe.

A few, however, trickled through Israeli security and promptly hooked up with violent Palestinian demonstrators who clashed Saturday with Israeli security forces at two West Bank checkpoints. According to Israeli media, one of the clashes that involved the hurling of stones at IDF troops included "fly-in" participants, thus justifying earlier warnings by Prime Minister Netanyahu and other Israeli officials that Israel would not tolerate foreign "provocateurs" and "hoodlums" bent on entering the country to engage in public disorder.

Leftists in Israel and elsewhere, however, denounced Israel's security precautions as excessive and draconian -- a view also espoused by Jerusalem correspondent Isabel Kershner in a Saturday dispatch in the New York Times, "Israel Blocks Air Travelers to Palestinian Conference," July 9).

Determined to depict intruding agitators as peaceful visitors, Kershner stationed herself in Bethlehem (her dateline reads "Bethlehem, West Bank"), where she awaited the arrival of these supposedly harmless air travelers for a week-long program of "fellowship."

To underscore their supposedly peaceful bona fides, Kershner wrote in the second paragraph of her piece that, after all, "Israel has traditionally been welcoming of foreign tourists, including more than a million Christian pilgrims who visited this Palestinian city of the Nativity last year."

Imagine her disappointment that Israel didn't put out the welcome mat to these Gandhiesque "fly-in" pilgrims.

"There were persistent reports," Kershner informed Times readers," that the foreign visitors would try to create chaos and paralyze the airport, despite strenuous denials from the organizers of the campaign, who advocate nonviolence." Kershner thus was confident enough to give these agitators and their hosts a kosher, non-violent stamp of approval.

But no sooner did her dispatch make it into the New York Times than Israeli media reported Palestinian clashes with IDF units at West Bank protests, including one demonstration where some of these allegedly non-violent guests participated in stone-hurling attacks on IDF troops.

And here was Kershner stranded in Bethlehem where she placed a journalistic bet that the "fly-in" would proceed in a hallowed place guaranteed to assure that "all is calm, all is bright."

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The New York Times Goldstones Israel Again. Doubles the Number of Civilian Casualties in Gaza by Lenny Ben-David

Lenny Ben-David
I*Consult
12 April '11

http://lennybendavid.com/2011/04/new-york-times-goldstones-israel-again.html


 Late Breaking: See Ms. Kershner's response see below

There in the middle of a silly article about Justin Bieber's visit to Israel, The New York Times' Isabel Kershner goldstones Israel.

"Last Thursday, a 16-year-old Israeli boy was critically wounded by an antitank missile fired by Hamas militants at a school bus in [SIC] Gaza. That triggered days of intense exchanges of fire, during which 18 Palestinians, about half of them civilians, were killed."

So how much is "about half" of 18? How many dead civilians? Eight? Nine? Ten?

Actually, the real number of civilians killed is five. It's relatively easy to find out just by looking at Arab sources in English. And according to Arab sources, four were in close proximity to terrorists firing missiles at Israel.

A list of the 18 dead can be found below and on the site of Muslim News. Next to the names, I identified them as "fighters" or "civilians." That determination is based on linked articles in the Muslim News, the Palestinian Maan News Agency or Human Rights Watch.



1. Mahmoud Al Manasra, 50, Al Shijaeyya. Civilian
2. Mohammad Al Mahmoum, 25, Rafah.  Fighter
3. Mosab Al Sufi, 18, Rafah.  Fighter
4. Saleh Al Tarabeen, 38, Rafah.  Fighter
5. Khaled Ad-Dabary, 23, Rafah.  Fighter
6. Mo’taz Abu Jame’, Khan Younis.  Fighter
7. Abdullah Al Qarra, Khan Younis.  Fighter
8. Nidal Qdeih, 21, Khan Younis.  Civilian
9. Najah Qdeih, 48, Khan Younis.  Civilian
10. Talal Abu Taha, 55, Khan Younis.  Civilian
11. Raed Shihada, 27, northern Gaza.  Fighter
12. Bilal Al ‘Ar’ir, 23, Al Shijaeyya.  Fighter
13. Mahmoud Al Jaro, 10, Al Shijaeyya.  Civilian
14. Ahmad Ghorab, northern Gaza.  Fighter
15. Mohammad Awaja, Rafah.  Fighter
16. Taiseer Abu Sneima, Rafah.  Fighter
17. Ahmad Al Zeitouniyya, northern Gaza.  Fighter
18. Zuheir Al Bir, Al Zeitoun neighborhood – Gaza.  Fighter

According to Human Rights Watch, "Kamal al-Manasra, a relative of Mahmoud Al Mansara (number 1), who lives next door, and Sami Harazen, said that about 3 p.m. they heard what sounded like a small rocket being launched from somewhere in or near the neighborhood.... 'Two minutes after the rocket, I heard a shell hit my uncle's [Mahmoud's] house,' said Kamal al-Manasra. 'My uncle and his son and brother went over to check on the house, and while they were returning another shell fell on my uncle and killed him.' Harazen gave a similar account, though he believed the Israeli response occurred less than one minute after the rocket launch."

In the case of Nidal (8) and Najah (9) Qdeih, Nidal's uncle Fayez Qdeiah told Human Rights Watch that "he heard three mortars fired by Palestinian armed groups from somewhere nearby."

Human Rights Watch also places another civilian next to a rocket-launching terrorist. "Residents of Shajaiya told Human Rights Watch that members of the armed wing of Islamic Jihad fired mortar rounds from a cemetery in the middle of the neighborhood.... Shortly after the mortar attack, at around 7 p.m., an Israeli strike hit the cemetery but caused no casualties, residents said. About 10 to 15 children from the area ran into the cemetery to look at the strike site. Five minutes later, residents said, a second strike hit the area, killing one of the children, Mahmoud Wael al-Jaro (13), and a member of Islamic Jihad named Bilal al-Areer (12).

View the rocket in the cemetery in this video released by the Israel Defense Forces.



Ms. Kershner should be encouraged to continue reporting on Justin Bieber. The intracacies of the Palestinian terrorist and propaganda war against Israel are beyond her grasp.

I am thankful for Ms. Kirshner's rapid response:

The school bus in Gaza was obviously an editing error, and I have asked for it to be corrected.

As for the civilian casualty figures, our reporting of the numbers has been based on the information provided by our correspondent in Gaza. I can already see a discrepancy in that your list has all the men killed in Rafah as fighters, whereas he identified three of four killed there on the first day as civilians collecting gravel near the old airport, if I remember rightly.  Anyway we have asked for a thorough check and hope to have results soon.

The Times' reliance on local Palestinian stringers and reporters is a serious problem for the western press in general.  During the second Intifada, it meant that many reports and dispatches were not factual, to say the least.  I responded to The New York Times correspondent:

The listing of the four Rafah men as “fighters” is based on this Maan news report. Notice the pictures of the military funerals, as well. It appears pretty conclusive. 

Thursday's Gaza dead laid to rest

Published Friday 08/04/2011 (updated) 09/04/2011 12:00

GAZA CITY (Ma'an) -- Thousands marched in Rafah, Khan Younis and Gaza City after Friday prayers, carrying the bodies of seven men killed by Israeli fire the day before. Six of the dead were Al-Qassam fighters, and a seventh a 50-year-old civilian. In Rafah, Al-Qassam members Saleh At-Tarabeen, 38, Mus’ab As-Sufi, 18, Mohammad Al-Mahmoum, 25, and Khaled Ad-Diyari, 33, were marched from the Abu Yousef An-Najjar Hospital in Rafah, toward their homes, and then to the Ash-Shuhda Cemetery for burial….

We are looking forward to the Times' "thorough check." 

* The Times corrected the location of the bus attack: "Last Thursday, a 16-year-old Israeli boy was critically wounded by an antitank missile fired by Hamas militants from Gaza at a school bus in Israel. That triggered days of intense exchanges of fire, during which 18 Palestinians, about half of them civilians, were killed."

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NY Times Defames Israel's Flotilla-Inquiry Commission

Leo Rennert
American Thinker
14 June '10

Israel has created an inquiry commission to probe all the circumstances of a deadly raid on a Turkish ship trying to breach the blockade of Gaza. But before the commission has even begun to do its work, the New York Times already has dismissed it as a worthless "farce" -- and in the paper's news section no less.

Any fair, impartial observer would wait until the commission performs its task and releases its findings. But not the New York Times, which in its superior wisdom already divines that the Israeli commission is a government tool to divert blame elsewhere. Never mind that the Obama White House already has expressed satisfaction with the formation of the commission and views its composition as being able to meet international requirements ''for a prompt, impartial, credible and transparent investigation." The Times knows better and uses its so-called news coverage to dismiss the commission as a rigged affair.

And how does the Times know that? By inserting in its June 14 article about the formation of the commission an attack on the panel by Haaretz, a daily far-left newspaper with limited circulation that consistently blackens Israel's actions and policies. ("Israel Names Panel to Examine Ship Raid" by Isabel Kershner, page A10).

Not surprisingly Haaretz, with its customary bias, published its slanderous accusations against the commission before the commission was even formed! So that ought to tell any fair-minded reporters something about its complete lack of credibility.

But not as far as the Times is concerned. Here is what Kershner filches from Haaretz to drive her poisonous stake into the commission's integrity:

"In an editorial published on Sunday (before four of the five commission members were even known), the liberal newspaper Haaretz said the government's efforts at investigating itself looked increasingly like a 'farce.'"

(Read full article)

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Media-backed Violence and Twisted History

Yisrael Medad
My Right Word
26 April '10

Isabel Kershner has a report in the New York Times on the Kach march through Ir David/Silwan:-

Israeli Rightists Stir Tensions in East Jerusalem

A small group of ultra-right-wing Israelis marched through a volatile neighborhood of East Jerusalem on Sunday, arousing passions over the future of the contested city as an American envoy wrapped up an inconclusive three-day visit aimed at getting peace talks under way.

I will return to that "arousing passions" in a moment but let me deal with another element in her story.

She writes (and the foreign desk editor approved for publication as we media monitors should know that many keyboards a story make) that the marchers proceeded:-

...through the Wadi Hilwe section of Silwan, a predominantly Arab neighborhood. Wadi Hilwe sits on what Jews believe to be the ruins of the biblical City of David, in the shadow of the Temple Mount, or the Noble Sanctuary, a site holy to both Muslims and Jews. In recent years a Jewish settler group has sponsored excavations in the area and acquired property that is now populated by hundreds of Jews.

Anyone who knows the area knows that Ms. Kershner (or Mrs. Hirsh Goodman) is really splitting geographical hairs on that. A "section" within a "neighborhood"? Sounds as if its another district of "Palestine".

But more importantly, many non-Jews also believe that the location is David's City and there are quite provable and firm scientific elements of evidence to that claim.

(Read full post)

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NYT Blames Israel For Palestinian Incitement

Leo Rennert
American Thinker
16 March '10

The Hurva Synagogue was the premier Jewish place of worship in Jerusalem's Old City in the 19th and early 20th Centuries -- until Jordanian troops destroyed it in 1948. On March 15, after several years of painstaking restoration, it came to life again -- an exact replica of the old Hurva.

In the week before its reopening, however, the Palestinian Authority unleashed a vicious conspiracy campaign that falsely claimed that reopening the Hurva was a prelude to Israel's intent to destroy Al-Aqsa Mosque on Temple Mount to make room for the Third Jewish Temple. Palestinian officials called on Arabs to rush into the Old City by the thousands to "defend" Al-Aqsa -- the usual rallying cry for violent riots and the unleashing of stone barrages from Temple Mount on Jewish worshippers below at the Western Wall. Israeli authorities had to deploy several thousand police to prevent what could have been a bloody conflagration.

So how did the New York Times report this latest inciteful provocation by the Palestinian side in violation of its obligations under the U.S. road map's requirement that Palestinians cease all anti-Israel incitement?

Answer: By putting the blame on Israel! Yes, it's all Israel's fault.

In a March 16 article headlined "Rebuilt Synagogue Is Caught In Disputes Over Jerusalem," Isabel Kershner's lead paragraph reads as follows:

"In what appeared to be a case of unfortunate timing, Israel officially inaugurated a rebuilt synagogue in Jerusalem's Old City on Monday, entangling what was intended to be a festive cultural event with the diplomatic row over new Israeli construction in the contested territory."

(Read full article)
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Of grievances and perceptions

Soccer Dad
14 March '10

Last week in an article about the eviction of two Arab families from the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood, Isabel Kershner of the New York Times summed it up:

For those who want to see a peaceful resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the eviction of the Ghawis has touched on two sensitive nerves: the fate of East Jerusalem, where Israel and the Palestinians vie for control, and the abiding grievances of Palestinian refugees from the 1948 war.

She mentioned two things: both sides are competing and the Palestinians have a grievance. In fact most of the article centers around the Palestinian claims and how even some Israelis support the Palestinian case. The history leaves out inconvenient details such as:

On April 13, 1948, a convoy of ambulances, armored buses, trucks loaded with food and medical equipment, and 105 doctors, nurses, medical students, Hebrew University personnel, and guards headed for Mt. Scopus. The convoy was ambushed in the middle of Sheikh Jarrah, the lead vehicle hit a mine, and gangs of armed Arabs attacked. Seventy-eight Jews were murdered, among them 20 women and Dr. Haim Yaski, the hospital director. In the following months the hospital and university ceased to function. After the Six-Day War, when the area was returned to Israel, a memorial was built in their honor in Sheikh Jarrah on the road leading to Mt. Scopus.

Compare Kershner's care in preserving the Palestinian narrative in the Sheikh Jarrah story to the way she handled the Israeli narrative in the case of honoring Dalal Mughrabi:

The woman being honored, Dalal Mughrabi, was the 19-year-old leader of a Palestinian squad that sailed from Lebanon and landed on a beach between Haifa and Tel Aviv. They killed an American photojournalist, hijacked a bus and commandeered another, embarking on a bloody rampage that left 38 Israeli civilians dead, 13 of them children, according to official Israeli figures. Ms. Mughrabi and several other attackers were killed.
To Israelis, hailing Ms. Mughrabi as a heroine and a martyr is an act that glorifies terrorism.

But, underscoring the chasm between Israeli and Palestinian perceptions, the Fatah representatives described Ms. Mughrabi as a courageous fighter who held a proud place in Palestinian history. Defiant, they insisted that they would not let Israel dictate the names of Palestinian streets and squares.

Note that here the dispute is reduced to a matter of perceptions, as if a "bloody rampage" that claims the lives of "38 Israeli civilians" isn't the very definition of terrorism.

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