Surprise? NY Times Backs Cellphones to Fight Virus Everywhere Except Israel - by Ira Stoll

The only thing missing is for the disease to spread to Palestinian-controlled Gaza or areas of the West Bank, or for that matter, in Israel itself, and the Times then to blame Netanyahu for failing to use cellphone data to prevent the spread. It’s a safe bet that whatever Netanyahu does with the coronavirus and cellphones, the Times will find a way to criticize him.

Ira Stoll..
Algemeiner..
24 March '20..

A New York Times news article from Israel is faulting Prime Minister Netanyahu for combating the coronavirus with measures similar to those the Times itself, in a different article published the same day, says experts recommend.

Here’s the side-by-side comparison. The Times article about Israel reports, “Mr. Netanyahu has resorted to emergency regulations to usher in increasingly draconian measures to combat the spread of the virus. Those included authorizing the Shin Bet internal security agency to use cellphone data to track citizens, without any parliamentary oversight.” The language­ — “resorted,” “draconian,” “without any parliamentary oversight” — makes it clear enough that the Times disapproves. Draco, a 7th century BCE Athenian lawgiver, favored the death penalty for anyone who stole a cabbage or an apple, according to Plutarch.

And here’s the front-page New York Times news article from the same day’s newspaper, under the introductory language, “There is a chance to stop the coronavirus … doing so takes intelligent, rapidly adaptive work by health officials. … What follows are the recommendations offered by the experts interviewed by the Times.”

The Times says, “Everyone who is infected in South Korea goes into isolation in government shelters, and phones and credit card data are used to trace their prior movements and find their contacts. Where they walked before they fell ill is broadcast to the cellphones of everyone who was nearby. Anyone even potentially exposed is quarantined at home; a GPS app tells the police if that person goes outside. The fine for doing so is $8,000. British researchers are trying to develop a similar tracking app, albeit one more palatable to citizens in Western democracies.”

The same Times article reports, “China’s strategy is quite intrusive: To use the subway in some cities, citizens must download an app that rates how great a health risk they are. South Korean apps tell users exactly where infected people have traveled.”

So when it’s South Korea, Britain, and China using cellphones to fight Covid-19, the Times basically cheers them on, describing them as expert-recommended. Yet when the Israeli prime minister, Netanyahu, does a version of the same thing, the Times casts shade. It’s a classic Times double standard.

(Continue to Full Column)

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

.

Evidently the New York Times Dreads Peace - by Jerold Auerbach

Rather than focus on the decades of Palestinian intransigence that have obstructed that possibility, they predictably (for the Times) blamed President Trump and Prime Minister Netanyahu for imposing their will on beleaguered Palestinians. President Mahmoud Abbas, they suggested, should “try to weather the storm” in the hope that Trump and Netanyahu will be defeated in forthcoming elections. That is also the Times’ endlessly reiterated hope.

Jerold Auerbach..
Algemeiner..
02 February '20..

When President Donald Trump’s peace plan was released, assuring Israel of sovereignty along the Jordan River, the security of settlements in Biblical Judea and Samaria, and the entirety of Jerusalem including the Old City under Israeli jurisdiction, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (and Israelis in general) had every reason to exult.

But The New York Times had every reason to lament. Reporter Megan Specia, a story editor based in New York with little evident familiarity with the Middle East, Israel, or Palestinians, reported on the plan and its deficiencies (January 29). Her conclusion, that the proposal “strongly favors Israeli priorities,” is indisputable, as is her perception that it is “a sharp departure from decades of American policy.”

Worst of all, as the Times has repeatedly complained, “is American recognition of Israel’s claim over the Jordan Valley and all Jewish settlements in the West Bank.” After all, she writes in an endlessly reiterated Times cliché, “Most of the world regards the settlements as illegal.” They have “steadily encroached” on land, by implication, that is Palestinian — unidentified by Specia as the Biblical homeland of the Jewish people.

In their familiar duet of complaints about Israel, Prime Minister Netanyahu and settlements, Jerusalem Bureau Chief David Halbfinger and his colleague Isabel Kershner sadly concluded that a viable Palestinian state is now “quickly slipping away.” Rather than focus on the decades of Palestinian intransigence that have obstructed that possibility, they predictably (for the Times) blamed President Trump and Prime Minister Netanyahu for imposing their will on beleaguered Palestinians. President Mahmoud Abbas, they suggested, should “try to weather the storm” in the hope that Trump and Netanyahu will be defeated in forthcoming elections. That is also the Times’ endlessly reiterated hope.

(Continue to Full Column)

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

.

Why doesn’t the New York Times want people to know the truth about Pal. Islamic Jihad? - CAMERA.org

Why did New York Times editors scrub a reference to the West’s view of Islamic Jihad as a terror organization?

CAMERA..
08 January '20..
Link: https://www.camera.org/article/camera-video-why-is-ny-times-downplaying-islamic-jihad/

Why did they later cast the murderous group as “nettlesome” and “unruly,” as if describing a stray tuft of hair and not terrorists responsible for targeting innocent men, women, and children at malls and on buses?



Why do Times reporters feel comfortable noting that a tiny but racist Israeli political party is “anti-Arab,” but not that Islamic Jihad is “anti-Jewish”? Why do they frequently suggest Israeli building in the West Bank is a violation of international law, but generally avoid saying the same about Islamic Jihad’s indiscriminate rockets fired into Israeli towns? And why do they pretend Islamic Jihad opposes the “occupation,” and not… “Israel’s existence”?

Why doesn’t the New York Times want people to know the truth about Islamic Jihad?

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

.

Who Would've Thought? NY Times, B'Tselem misinform on "Palestinians' in Jordan Valley - by Gilead Ini

...Whatever the exact percentage of off-limits land in the Jordan Valley, it seems clear that the figure is significantly less than 85 percent. And it should be equally clear to the New York Times that it is extremely misleading to cast restrictions that apply to both Palestinians and Israels as affecting Palestinians, specifically.

Gilead Ini..
CAMERA..
08 October '19..

The New York Times misinformed readers in two recent stories about Palestinians in the Jordan Valley — and although the newspaper promises to correct mistakes big and small, it has yet to correct its errors.

Access to Jordan Valley Land


In the first story, a Sept. 10 piece by Ben Hubbard, the paper erred about Palestinian access to the Jordan Valley, a stretch of land parallel to the Jordan River that runs along the West Bank’s eastern border. Citing the Israeli advocacy group B’Tselem, Hubbard told readers Palestinians are “barred from entering or using about 85 percent” of the Jordan Valley where it passes through the West Bank.

The claim that Palestinians are only able to enter 15 percent of the territory, though, is false.
Depending on where exactly one draws the boundaries of the Jordan Valley — there’s no single, official delineation of the territory — between seven and thirteen percent of the region is designated as Area A or Area B — the names given to West Bank territory in which civilian matters are administered by the Palestinian Authority, in line with peace agreements signed by Israel and the Palestinians.

Israeli communities and their lands, which sit within Area C, the third and largest portion of the West Bank, take up another roughly eight to fifteen percent of the Jordan Valley. The New York Times itself has frequently documented that Palestinians can enter these settlements. Indeed, on the very day Ben Hubbard’s piece was published, a separate Times story noted that that nearly all the male population of Fasayil, a Palestinian village in the Jordan Valley, are employed in the neighboring settlement of Tomer. Even if these agricultural workers needed to obtain security clearances from Israeli authorities, their daily presence in Tomer — along with the tens of thousands of Palestinians who enter settlements across the West Bank every day for work or health care — shows that Palestinians are not “barred from entering” settlement lands.

Between Area A, Area B, and the settlements, then, roughly 15 to 28 percent of Jordan Valley land is accessible to, and accessed by, Palestinians.

So what of the remainder of Jordan Valley land — Area C territory that isn’t attached to settlements?

(Continue to Full Post)

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

.

Surprised by NY Times’ Partisan Reporting on J Street's Birthright Alternative Tour? - by Emanuel Miller

J Street’s tours may or may not be worthy of coverage, but in publishing a piece devoid of context and piercing questions, the New York Times is acting as a shill for those who spend their time highlighting Israel’s every flaw.

Emanuel Miller..
Honest Reporting..
14 July '19..

Ever wondered how fringe organizations like IfNotNow and Breaking the Silence wield so much influence on the public discourse on Israel?

It’s not because these organizations are well-financed or organized, although that certainly helps. It’s because these organizations are set up primarily to create catchy, often-sensationalized media narratives about injustices which are packaged neatly for enthusiastic and ignorant journalists to write about. Oppression, segregation, colonialism, and collective punishment are the name of their game.

For the unacquainted, Birthright is a free trip to Israel sponsored in part by the Israeli government, and in part by private donors, to young men and women of Jewish heritage. The trip is largely apolitical, and endeavors to provide Jewish youth with an opportunity to connect with their roots, learn about the Jewish people, and visit a country with undeniable ties to their Judaism. Despite being as mainstream and apolitical as could be, the organization has come under fire from some who demand that it tackle Israel’s relationship with the Palestinians in greater detail, with the two aforementioned organizations hijacking multiple Birthright tours to score political points and make headlines in 2018.

One year later, another American Jewish organization catering to a left-leaning audience, the self-described “Pro-Israel, Pro-Peace” J Street, has launched its own version of the famous free trip to Israel. In keeping with J Street’s political agenda, this tour puts Israel’s actions vis-a-vis the Palestinians under the spotlight.

J Street has every right to its own tour of Israel, even if the move is provocative. New York Times Jerusalem bureau chief David Halbfinger, however, owes the public a better account of the tour than the one made in the July 10 edition the New York Times, entitled “Absorbing a Different Slice of a Jewish Birthright – An Unflinching View Of Israeli Occupation.”

(Continue to Full Post)

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

.

Where is a war crime not a war crime? In NY Times coverage of Hamas - by Gilead Ini

The paper makes a point of enlightening readers on international law — at least when it comes to Israeli actions

Gilead Ini..
CAMERA..
21 June '19..

A story in today’s New York Times refers to Hamas rocket fire into Israel and its imprisonment of two Israelis. But David Halbfinger, the newspaper’s Jerusalem bureau chief and author of today’s article, avoids telling readers that these are both violations of international law.

Writing about a press conference held by the head of Hamas yesterday, Halbfinger notes that the Hamas leader, Ismail Haniyeh, “ignored questions about whether Hamas, in launching rockets at Israel, fires them indiscriminately or intentionally at civilians, and whether it endangers its own civilian population by firing rockets from residential neighborhoods.”

Later, Halbfinger references “Israelis being held by Hamas in hopes of a prisoner swap — two soldiers believed to be dead and two civilians thought to be alive,” and explains that Haniyeh during the press conference “refused to say definitively whether the four are alive, a matter of intense interest in Israel.”

It is disingenuous for the New York Times to treat the question of Hamas’s targeting as if it were unanswered. And it is hypocritical for them to avoid explaining the international law implications of those rocket attacks. Haniyeh is free to “ignored questions” about who is being targeted with his rockets. But Halbfinger is certainly aware that those rockets are both indiscriminate and fired toward civilian centers — and that such rocket fire is a war crime.

(Continue to Full Post)

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

.

How One Sentence From a NY Times Letter About Birthright Israel Packs In Three Inaccuracies - by Ira Stoll

A Times defender might take the position that it is Asaf, rather than the Times itself, that is to blame for the inaccuracy. But surely the Times has at least some responsibility for the letters it chooses to publish. It receives many more letters than it prints, and it easily could have chosen not to publish this particular letter, or at least to edit it so that it is accurate. If the Times isn’t going to police the letters column at all, there’ll be no end to people sneaking false claims into the newspaper by that method — as seems to have happened here.

Ira Stoll..
Algemeiner..
18 June '19..

A front-page New York Times article earlier this month about Birthright Israel problematically echoed the “Zionism is racism” myth. Now the Times has compounded the error by publishing a letter to the editor that includes a false claim about the program.

The Times-published letter to the editor claims, inaccurately, “Birthright is funded mainly by Donald Trump’s biggest donor, Sheldon Adelson.”

Leave it to The New York Times to manage the extraordinary feat of packing three inaccuracies into a single 11-word sentence, but there it is.

First, the reference to “Sheldon Adelson” omits Dr. Miriam Adelson, Sheldon’s spouse and his partner in philanthropy. Ignoring a woman is often correctly defined as sexism. When The Algemeiner reported last year that Sheldon and Miriam Adelson had announced a $70 million gift to Birthright in honor of Israel’s 70th birthday, bringing their total contributions to Birthright to $410 million, we correctly identified both of them as the donors.

(Continue to Full Column)

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

.

The NY Times concealment of inconvenient facts in coverage of UN Gaza report - by Gilead Ini

The article’s substantive errors of omission tilt the scales to promote the idea of Israeli guilt and Palestinian innocence. The use of guns and explosives, the ultimate goal of demands for a “right of return,” and the UN Human Rights Council’s history of bias all matter. That, apparently, is why the New York Times didn’t include them in its report.

Gilead Ini..
CAMERA..
28 February '19..
Link: https://www.camera.org/article/new-york-times-united-nations-gaza-report/

In his story about an anti-Israel report commissioned by the United Nations Human Rights Council, New York Times correspondent Nick Cumming-Bruce substantively misleads readers about Palestinian demands for a “right of return,” ignores widespread international criticism of the UNHRC’s anti-Israel bias, and conceals accounts of gunfire and explosives used by rioters.

Return

When describing the purpose of Palestinian riots and protests on Gaza’s border with Israel, the Times states that

Palestinians sought an end to the economic blockade that has been choking off Gaza for more than a decade. They also wanted refugees and their descendants to be allowed to reclaim property in Israel, 70 years after thousands of Palestinians were displaced.

The border demonstrations were organized and held under the banner of the “The Great March of Return,” and the centrality of that demand has repeatedly been reiterated by Palestinian demonstrators and leaders. But the Times casts the return demand as secondary.

It’s worth recalling a Times story last April, by Jerusalem bureau chief David Halbfinger, that had completely ignored the primary purpose (and title) of the demonstrations, casting them as merely “a mass protest against Israel’s decades-long blockade of Gaza.” Only after CAMERA contacted the newspaper was the article was updated to acknowledge the “Palestinian claims of a right of return.”

Even when pointing out the Palestinian demand for a so-called “return,” the current article makes it appear innocuous. The goal is just to “reclaim property,” the newspaper tells readers. But even the anti-Israel UNHCR report acknowledges there is a much more sinister side to the to the demand for “return.” Per the report,

Israel opposes their return, arguing that “the influx of millions of Palestinians into the State of Israel would threaten the existence of Israel as a Jewish state, obliterating its basic identity as the homeland of the Jewish people and a refuge for persecuted Jews worldwide.”

This is clearly relevant. And of course, it isn’t only Israel that understands the demand that way. While serving as president of Egypt, Gamal Nasser openly acknowledged the purpose of “return”: “If the Arabs return to Israel, Israel will cease to exist.” Or as Barack Obama put it much more recently, “The right of return would extinguish Israel as a Jewish state, and that’s not an option.”

The Times essentially hides that the the Gaza riots were part of a call to eliminate Jewish national self-determination and wipe Israel off the map. Readers deserve to know this, and can’t properly understand the story otherwise.

Can You Imagine? NY Times Pushes Claim That Settlers Are to Blame for Europe’s Anti-Israel Stance - by Ira Stoll

...It could be that what really antagonizes the European Union most about Israel is expansion of West Bank settlements. But there are also other possible explanations. Perhaps the European Union is antagonized because Israel is an obstacle to trade with Iran. That trade is craved by European companies such as Total, the French oil and gas company that had a $4.8 billion deal with Tehran, a deal that a French court found Total bribed Iranian officials to obtain. Perhaps the European Union would be increasingly hostile to Israel regardless of the West Bank settlements, in part because Europe has a large, restive Muslim population that is hostile to Israel and that might be placated by Israel-bashing. Perhaps...

Ira Stoll..
Algemeiner..
22 February '19..

A New York Times news article about Israel’s relations with Poland concludes with a quote from an Israeli politician who — well, you can read the Times paragraphs for yourself:

While Mr. Netanyahu’s challengers in the coming election were quick to seize on his latest troubles, other critics took a longer view, saying they regretted his inability to curtail what antagonizes the European Union most about Israel: its steady expansion of settlements on the West Bank.

“If he were less beholden to the settlers,” said Einat Wilf, a former Israeli lawmaker from the Labor Party, “maybe he could get a few countries on our side that are not looking to be paid for in glossing over their World War II records.”

Far be it from me to disagree with Einat Wilf, who, unlike me, actually lives in Israel.

But this sure appears to be a fine example of the Times subtly shaping a story by choosing to give the final word to someone expressing a point of view that matches the newspaper’s own preconceptions, or at least those of its left-wing readers.

It could be that what really antagonizes the European Union most about Israel is expansion of West Bank settlements. But there are also other possible explanations.

(Continue to Full Column)

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

.

Surprise? NY Times Food Section Joins the Boycott-Israel Movement - by Ira Stoll

...just the latest in a series of recent developments at the Times that has the paper moving in an extreme anti-Israel direction — a troubling trend that now appears to have spread even to the food section.

Ira Stoll..
Algemeiner..
05 February '19..

The New York Times, which favors trade with Iran and Cuba, has recently been throwing its institutional weight behind the movement to boycott, divest from, and sanction Israel.

The newspaper published an official Times staff editorial critical of steps to counter the BDS movement. The Times news columns issued a command that readers “celebrate” the election of a BDS-supporting congresswoman. On the op-ed page, one regular columnist, Michelle Alexander, praised a church pension fund’s boycott of five Israeli banks as act of “moral clarity” in the tradition of Martin Luther King Jr. Another regular Times columnist, Michelle Goldberg, insisted, “Anti-Zionism Isn’t the Same as Anti-Semitism.” Goldberg defended the BDS movement — “a movement of nonviolent resistance,” she called it, ignoring that it operates in parallel and alongside violent terrorism — in a Times podcast.

Now even the Times food section is getting into the BDS act.

(Continue to Full Column)

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

.

‘The New York Times’ latest anti-Israel smear - by Tamar Sternthal

Thus, in one respect, Alexander is right. There has been a “Silence on Palestine.” But far from being silent on Israel’s bad behavior, real or imagined, the Times has obsessively focused on it. Michelle Alexander’s 2,000-word plus op-ed is a continuation of the paper’s compulsive placement of Israel under a microscope. Sullivan’s spot on advice is just as much, if not more, relevant today: It’s time to break the silence on Palestinian bad behavior.

Tamar Sternthal..
JNS.org..
22 January '19..

Reflecting a total lack of self-awareness, the trite headline to Michelle Alexander’s 2,281-word op-ed, online on Sunday and in print on Jan. 19, in The New York Times says it all: “Time to Break the Silence on Palestine.” The notion that the Palestinian issue is ignored, that a “silence” currently surrounds it or has surrounded it in years past, and that pro-Israel advocates muzzle opposing views is a common canard of anti-Israel activists.

For example, veteran Haaretz columnist Gideon Levy, who regularly accuses Israel of war crimes and apartheid in the pages of his own newspaper and in international forums, recently charged that “it’s getting more and more difficult, more often than not, impossible” to publish articles critical of Israel in the mainstream press. But the facts say otherwise. At the Times, for instance, in the six months prior to Levy’s column, the paper published 10 opinion pieces showing explicit support of Israel in general or of a specific Israeli policy, presenting Israel in a positive light or defending it from criticism. In the same time period, the media outlet published 15 Times opinion pieces criticizing or condemning Israeli policies.

(Continue to Full Column)

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

.

Surprise? NY Times Abuses Martin Luther King’s Legacy to Attack Israel - by Simon Plosker

Ultimately, Michelle Alexander has sullied the legacy of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. with her assault on Israel, aided and abetted by the New York Times, which continues to up the ante in its efforts to single out Israel for crude special treatment.

Simon Plosker..
20 January '19..

At a time of increasing tension in the US surrounding identity politics and the antisemitism afflicting the Women’s March movement, trust the New York Times to add to the toxic mix just in time to commemorate Martin Luther King Day.

There’s something ironic in the NY Times’ headline given that the newspaper is one of Israel’s most strident critics, frequently publishing news and opinion pieces about Israel. Hardly much of a need to “Break the Silence on Palestine.”

It’s sad that Alexander looks to Martin Luther King as her justification for penning an op-ed of over 2,000 words attacking Israel. She writes:

if we are to honor King’s message and not merely the man, we must condemn Israel’s actions: unrelenting violations of international law, continued occupation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza, home demolitions and land confiscations. We must cry out at the treatment of Palestinians at checkpoints, the routine searches of their homes and restrictions on their movements, and the severely limited access to decent housing, schools, food, hospitals and water that many of them face.

(Continue to Full Post)

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

.

The NY Times Trashes Israel Yet Again - by Mitchell Bard

...next door in Syria, thousands of civilians, many of them Palestinians and, undoubtedly, medical personnel, are slaughtered by Iranian, Russian, and Syrian troops. It would take a reporter one day to verify the killings there, rather than an army of investigative journalists. But where is that front-page story? And why aren’t this and other genocidal wars given the kind of publicity reserved only for Israel?

Mitchell Bard..
Algemeiner..
07 January '19..

Reading New York Times stories and op-eds about Jews and Israel reminds me of Ronald Reagan’s classic debate response to Jimmy Carter: “There you go again.” People often ask why the paper has such an animus, and while many reasons have been proffered, none completely explain the obsession with criticizing the Jewish people and their homeland.

During the 20th century, some people believed that the paper bent over backwards to show it was not biased in favor of Jews because of its Jewish ownership. This was one explanation given for its coverage of the Holocaust, which will forever be a stain on the newspaper’s reputation.

In more recent years, the paper has focused its ire on Israel. Again, there are a variety of explanations. One is that Jews are news and papers report primarily bad news; therefore, it is inevitable that coverage of Israel will be negative. Another is that the Palestinians are viewed as underdogs, and journalists like to view themselves as defenders of the persecuted. Yet another reason given is ignorance; most journalists don’t speak Arabic or Hebrew, don’t know the history of the region, and tend to believe that the record begins when they arrive on the scene.

Some journalists are hostile to Israel for personal reasons, whether it is because they’ve bought into Palestinian propaganda or actually believe Jews and Israel deserve blame. Then there is the unique case of Thomas Friedman, a brilliant writer whose professions of love for Israel lead him to color his reporting based on whether Israeli policy is consistent with what Prime Minister Friedman would do.

(Continue to Full Column)

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

.

The NY Times Incentivizes Hamas Violence - by Alan M. Dershowitz

...While Hamas is happy to boast openly about their fighters tearing at the border fences in Gaza and hiding behind civilians to evade Israeli soldiers—the New York Times makes no mention of this. Israeli soldiers are portrayed as faceless killing machines, without a single reference to the fire kites, terror tunnels, rockets or cross border explosive devices utilized by the Palestinians, or to the double war crime of Hamas targeting Israeli civilians by firing rockets from behind Palestinian civilians.

Alan M. Dershowitz..
Gatestone institute..
04 January '18..

In the Sunday New York Times — the most widely read issue of the week -- the lead story was about a young Israeli soldier whose bullet ricocheted off the ground and killed a young Palestinian medic who had admitted to being a human shield and who was videoed throwing a smoke bomb. The next day— in the less well-read Monday issue — the Times reported on the murder and torture committed at the hands Afghan troops affiliated with and trained by the American CIA. The piece opens with the troops shooting and burning an entire family including a three-year-old girl. The number of deaths associated with these units (who at times were mistaken for ISIS) could not be verified but accounts put them at hundreds in one month. Apparently, the Times's editors believe that the Israeli story, involving one soldier who shot one Palestinian under questionable circumstances, deserves wider coverage than deliberate massacres perpetrated by Afghan troops trained by the CIA.

The report's bias is clear from the introduction of the article and persists throughout the reporting. These reporters constantly characterized as "protesters," large groups of Palestinians that include violent Hamas fighters who carry weapons and maps of civilian targets. The Times's reporters portray the "protestors'" goals as "risking their lives to make a point" or "to break through the fence and return to their ancestral homes in what is now Israel." The goal of many of the Hamas fighters was, in actuality, to break through the fence and kidnap and kill Israeli civilians.

(Continue to Full Post)

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

.

Seven Problems With The NY Times Pro-BDS Editorial - by Ira Stoll

The Times has a longstanding, persistent problem with antisemitic reader comments. If you wonder why readers who express or hold antisemitic views would be attracted to a publication like the Times as readers, look no further than today’s editorial. A publication attracts the readers it deserves.

Ira Stoll..
Algemeiner..
20 December '18..

The New York Times publishes a staff editorial headlined, “Curbing Speech in the Name of Helping Israel,” with the subheadline, “A Senate bill aims to punish those who boycott Israel over its settlement policy.”

The first problem is the subheadline’s reference to “those who boycott Israel over its settlement policy.” Boycotts of Jewish products in the Land of Israel have existed since 1945, before the Jewish state even existed. The idea that this boycott is about “settlement policy” is not founded in fact, since the boycott has existed for decades regardless of whether Israel did or didn’t occupy the West Bank and regardless of whether the Israeli government in power was expanding or limiting settlement activity.

The second problem is the editorial’s framing of the matter as a threat to freedom of speech. If the Times were a consistent defender of free speech, that’d be one thing. But on issue after issue — the right of a Christian business not to cover contraception as a health benefit, the right of a wedding cake bakery not to bake a cake for a gay marriage, the right of a wealthy donor or advocacy group to spend money on political advertising — the Times has been downright dismissive of free speech concerns, and of the argument that economic choices qualify as protected free speech. In fact, when it is gays or women being discriminated against, the Times has been downright dismissive of the argument that an economic choice qualifies as protected speech. Yet when it is Israeli Jews being discriminated against by the BDS movement, the Times editorialists all of a sudden become free speech absolutists. It’s a double standard.

Nor is it the only double standard in the piece, which brings us to the third problem.

(Continue to Full Column)

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

.

NY Times Supports the “Right” to BDS - by Daniel Pomerantz

...The New York Times is entitled to its opinion, as is the BDS movement. Yet no newspaper or journalist is entitled to mislead the public. The BDS movement is openly and proudly dedicated to the destruction of the world’s only Jewish state, and is attempting to do so by violating United States law. If The New York Times supports this, then its editorial board should say so: clearly and unambiguously.

Daniel Pomerantz..
Honest Reporting..
19 December '18..

Ranging from misleading to utterly wrong, the New York Times Editorial Board pushes the definition of “professional journalist” to its breaking point in its article defending the “rights” of BDS, the movement to bring Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions against the world’s only Jewish state.

Specifically, the New York Times criticizes H.R.1697 – a bill making its way through Congress that is known as “The Israel Anti-Boycott Act.”

BDS is not criticism

The editorial board repeats over and over that the BDS movement is about criticism – specifically criticism of Israeli settlements.

Three of the founders and heavyweight leaders of BDS disagree. They say loudly and proudly that the purpose of BDS is to destroy the world’s only Jewish state, in any borders whatsoever.

Omar Barghouti, founder, BDS:

Definitely most definitely we oppose a Jewish state in any part of Palestine.

(Separately he clarifies that “Palestine” means all of Israel.)

As’ad AbuKhalil, California State University Professor of Political Science, BDS leader and activist:

The real aim of BDS is to bring down the State of Israel…this should be stated as an unambiguous goal.

(Continue to Full Post)

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

.

Is Wissam Nasser a Terror Liability for the NY Times? Let's Consult the Guidelines. - by Vivian Bercovici

...Nasser’s post celebrated mass murder and, by direct association, Hamas, which is considered to be a terrorist organization in virtually all civilized nations. This is not nuanced stuff. On Friday evening, I asked the Times for comment on this clear and extreme ethical breach, eliciting this prompt reply: “This photographer is not a New York Times staff photographer (he has freelanced for us). His social media posts have no connection to the Times and do not adhere to our guidelines.” This statement, however, directly contravenes the Times’ ethical guidelines.

Screen-grab by Eylon Levy i24

Vivian Bercovici..
Commentary Magazine..
17 December '18..

Pulitzer-nominated Palestinian photojournalist, Wissam Nasser, has been an ongoing and frequent freelance contributor to the New York Times and other international media.

But last Friday, amid a particularly bloody streak of Israeli civilian and soldier murders by terrorists in the West Bank, Gaza-based Nasser seems to have lost his bearings.

On Sunday, December 9, three Hamas terrorists drove up to a hitchhiking spot just outside of Ofra settlement in the West Bank. It was early evening and, as is typical, young Israelis were clustered waiting for rides when they were sprayed with bullets. Seven were wounded, among them 21-year-old Shira Ish-Ran, who was 30 weeks pregnant with her first child. Her husband, Canadian-Israeli Amichai Ish-Ran, also wounded, was rushed with her to the Shaare Tzedek hospital trauma unit in Jerusalem. Shira was critical.

Physicians performed an emergency C-section on Shira and her premature son struggled to live for three days. He was laid to rest on Thursday evening, his parents unable to attend the gut-wrenching burial of their first born. His parents named him Amiad Yisrael, more or less translating to “my people endures,” hoping perhaps to imbue his tragically short life with a deeper meaning.

About two months ago, Kim Levengrond Yehezkel, a 28-year old soon-to-be graduate of law school and the mother of a one-year-old boy, was working as an administrative assistant in a factory in Barkan, an industrial zone in the West Bank. A co-worker, 23-year-old Palestinian Ashraf Na’alwa, forced another employee to bind her hands before he murdered her and another colleague. A third who was wounded in the attack was recently released from hospital.

Coincidentally, on the day that baby Amiad Ish-Ran was buried, the Barkan terrorist and one of the Ofra terrorists were tracked down by the IDF and killed while avoiding arrest.

Nasser took the opportunity to post photos of three terrorists—including the two killed in Thursday, on his Instagram account with the following comment: “A sad morning that carries with it pride with the martyrs, and honor in resistance. ‘If you lost the way, follow the martyrs.’”

Posted as a “story”, the photos and text automatically delete in 24 hours. However, Eylon Levy, an investigative reporter with i24 news in Israel, screen-grabbed the fleeting post inciting to murder Jewish civilians, which was replayed in his report.

(Continue to Full Post)

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

.

Another ‘NY Times’ columnist needs a history lesson - by Stephen M. Flatow

The Michelle Goldbergs of this world would have us believe that today’s conflict consists of Israel having a state in historic Palestine and preventing the Arabs from having one if their own.

Stephen M. Flatow..
JNS.org..
11 December '18..

New York Times op-ed columnist Michelle Goldberg has stirred quite a hornet’s nest with her recent article declaring that anti-Zionism is not anti-Semitic. Others will wrestle with the anti-Zionism/anti-Semitism debate. I prefer to focus on one particular sentence that really goes to the heart of the issue—and which also reveals Goldberg’s gross ignorance of the basic history of the issue she is addressing.

According to Goldberg, Palestinian demands are reasonable, and it’s Israel that is being unfair because “the de facto policy of the Israeli government is that there should be only one state in historic Palestine.”

Ms. Goldberg is a journalist, and I don’t expect journalists to be historians. She has written books with titles such as The Means of Reproduction: Sex, Power, and the Future of the World, so I don’t expect her to be an expert on the Middle East either.

On the other hand, according to her New York Times bio, Goldberg has “reported from countries including Iraq [and] Egypt,” so it seems to me that she does have a basic responsibility to be acquainted with the major developments in the history of a part of the world she has covered.

But anybody who can write such a sentence as “the de facto policy of the Israeli government is that there should be only one state in historic Palestine” clearly has not fulfilled that basic responsibility.

So, I offer Ms. Goldstein a brief history lesson.

(Continue to Full Column)

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

.

The New York Times’ New Favorite Israel Talking Point - by Ira Stoll

...That’s not to say there’s no part of eastern Jerusalem that might eventually serve as some sort of Palestinian Arab capital. But the idea that that’s all the Palestinians have been waiting for, and that it’s Trump and Netanyahu who suddenly and recently made it impossible, is just not supported by the facts. The Times can repeat this claim as often as it wants to, but that doesn’t make it true.

Ira Stoll..
Algemeiner..
11 December '18..

The New York Times has a new favorite talking point about Israel.

The talking point has cropped up recently in almost identical terms in two places.

A December 7 opinion piece by Times columnist Michelle Goldberg, headlined “Anti-Zionism Isn’t the Same as Anti-Semitism; American Jews have nothing to fear from the new congressional critics of Israel,” includes the claim that “Now, however, Israel has foreclosed the possibility of two states, relentlessly expanding into the West Bank and signaling to the world that the Palestinians will never have a capital in East Jerusalem.”

A news article in New York Times print editions of December 7 includes the same claim, contending, “Palestinian officials were incensed by Mr. Trump’s decision last year to move the American Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, a move they feared could undermine their efforts to establish East Jerusalem as the capital of a future Palestinian state.”

The Goldberg piece is problematic for reasons I hope to get into some other time, but, for now, let’s stick with the nonsense about how turning “East Jerusalem” into “the capital of a future Palestinian state” was totally plausible until either Prime Minister Netanyahu or President Trump or the combination thereof supposedly scuttled the idea.

This is nonsense for at least four reasons.

(Continue to Full Column)

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

.