As Expected, All the Anti-Israel News That Fits

...It’s little surprise that Hamas would attempt to produce new Pallywood productions designed to harm Israel’s reputation at a time when the group’s cynical decision to launch a war and to conduct terror operations should be undermining any foreign support for their cause. But it is shocking that professional journalists that take umbrage at even the slightest accusations of bias lobbed in their direction would decide to print a story that is nothing more than a Hamas press release.

Jonathan S. Tobin..
Commentary Magazine..
25 August '14..

Bashing the New York Times’s coverage of the Middle East is a full-time occupation for some, but today the grey lady published a story out of Gaza that had to make even its most loyal readers wince. In a summer when much of the press, and in particular the Times Jerusalem Bureau chief Jodi Rudoren, seemed to disgrace themselves by their lack of coverage of Hamas terror activities in Gaza, today’s piece marked a new low that is likely to reinforce the paper’s unfortunate reputation for anti-Israel bias.

The story concerns what the headline says was a teenager’s “ordeal as a captive of Israelis.” In it, 17-year-old Ahmed Jamal Abu Raida claims that he was captured by Israeli forces during the recent fighting in Gaza and then threatened, beaten, tortured, used as a human shield, and then forced to search for terror tunnels. But, as the article, which appears under the bylines of Times stringer Fares Akram and Rudoren, related, there are some problems with his story. Despite the detailed narrative provided by Abu Raida, he has no proof of any of it. The teenager couldn’t so much as show the Times correspondents a single bruise. Nor did his family take pictures of his terrible state when he was returned to them after his release from custody. They also say they disposed of the clothing he wore even though it might have bolstered his story or provided evidence that his story was true.

Oh, and one more thing about his family. Abu Raida is not your stereotypical poor Gazan kid. His father is, in fact, a high-ranking official in the Hamas government of Gaza.

Now it is entirely possible that a young Palestinian with close ties to Hamas who was captured in the area where terror tunnels were found had nothing to do with any terrorist activity and may have been roughly treated by Israeli soldiers. Indeed, the fact that Abu Raida was released after a relatively short time in Israeli hands indicated that the Israelis felt that he was not a combatant.

But the question here is not so much whether we believe the teenager has embellished the story of his time in Israeli hands to appear like a greater victim/hero in the eyes of his family and other Palestinians or if his allegations are a concerted attempt by his father’s colleagues to put forward another false smear of the nation they seek to destroy. The real question is why the publication that still deems itself America’s newspaper of record would choose to go to print with a story that it admits it cannot independently verify and whose source is, to put it mildly, not someone who could be considered an objective or reliable witness where Israel is concerned.

You don’t have to have to be an expert on the Middle East or an experienced journalist to understand the reason why Hamas and a pro-Palestinian NGO brought Abu Raida forward with his tale of wicked Israelis insulting Allah and threatening to let dogs tear him apart. After several weeks of Israelis pointing out that Hamas was using the population of Gaza as human shields, the terror group and its allies were desperate to come up with a counter story that would reverse the narrative and make it appear as if the Israel Defense Forces were using Palestinians in this manner.

The NY Times and "Zionist" Innuendo

GI..
CAMERA/Snapshots..
02 October '12..

A "Zionist" is nothing more than someone who supports Israel's right to exist as the national home of the Jewish people.

This means that, notwithstanding attempts by anti-Israel and anti-Jewish activists to redefine the term, virtually all American Jews, minus a few isolated but outspoken outliers, are Zionists.

So it was somewhat odd to read the second paragraph of the Sept. 27 New York Times story, "Republicans Intensify Drive to Win Over Jewish Voters":

... the Republican Jewish Coalition, backed mostly by the casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, a Zionist, has begun spending $6.5 million on an air-and-ground strategy to reach Jewish voters who may view Mr. Obama as unreliable on the question of Israel's security. Jewish voters, who generally vote for Democrats in big numbers, overwhelmingly supported Mr. Obama in 2008, giving him 78 percent of their vote, according to exit polls ...

Why did reporter Lizette Alvarez go out of her way to describe Adelson as a Zionist? It's certainly true that the Republican funder is a Zionist. But it's also certainly true that an "overwhelming" majority of Jews who supported Obama are likewise Zionists. A Luntz Global/CAMERA poll found that 94 percent of American Jews would consider it a "tragedy" if Israel "no longer existed tomorrow," and the poll's cross tabs reveal that 93.7 percent of Jews who voted for Obama feel this way.

Again, people who support Israel's right to exist — including but not limited to the subset of people who think it would be a "tragedy" if it ceased to exist — are Zionists.

NY Times hits bottom, sticks

Fresnozionism.org
29 August '10

One would have thought that the New York Times could not possibly descend any lower, with regular columnists like Roger Cohen and Nicholas Kristoff — and then they strike the semi-solid layer of excrement at the bottom of the bubbling pool of filth in which they live and feed, and give a platform to Ali Abunimah.

Market forces will soon flush away this sh--ty little newspaper, as it well deserves. It can’t happen too soon.

Abunimah’s arguments are barely worth discussing. He draws an analogy between Hamas and Sinn Fein, suggesting that the initial refusal of the British to negotiate with the latter can be compared with Israel’s shunning of the former.

Of course Catholic nationalists did not intend to rid Northern Ireland of Protestants, nor did they believe that God commanded them to murder Protestants wherever they could be found. They did not believe that Ireland was a Catholic waqf and that the only solution to the presence of any Protestants on Irish soil was violent jihad (Hamas says all this and more about Jews and Israel).

It is one thing to enter negotiations with a group that has committed terrorist acts. It’s another entirely to talk to one that believes that it is their religious duty to kill you, all of you.

(Read full post)

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.
.

NY Times Defends Obama, Not U.S. Interests; Blames Israel, Not White House or Palestinians For All Problems

Barry Rubin
The Rubin Report
28 March '10

The New York Times has now crossed the line from being a grossly slanted newspaper in its Middle East coverage to being one so partisan, blinkered, and defensive as to lose its value altogether. I do not write this lightly and have no wish to exaggerate. But the newspaper’s editorial of March 26 is so mendacious, so made up to suit the political purposes of the Obama administration without any reference to the facts that it is a work of politically tailored fiction.

Basically, the themes or omissions are as follows:

--Israeli policy is the result of extreme right-wing politicians.

--Most Israelis support Obama rather than their own government.

--The U.S.-Israel agreement of last October never existed.

--The Palestinians don’t exist and one doesn’t need to mention their actions or the administration’s total catering to them.

--Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has done something so awful that it proves he doesn't want peace. What did he do? Precisely what he told the U.S. government he was going to do five months ago and which they then called a major step toward peace!

The goal is to portray the issue as not being Obama versus Israel but rather Obama plus the Israeli majority against a relatively small number of extremists who have hijacked the country.

If only such tactics were used against America’s enemies.

Unfortunately, it is necessary to discuss this editorial in detail. It begins:

(Read full post)

Related article: The New York Times, Obama, and Israel: A New Low for the Paper of Record
.

All the News Unfit to Print

Andrea Levin
CAMERA Media Analysis
18 March '10

What the New York Times chooses to cover in the Arab-Israeli conflict – and what it excludes – is a story in itself. The paper's silence, as of this writing, about an event that has rocked the Israeli media and public and triggered calls for government action once more raises serious questions about the paper's news judgment. After all, the Times reports on no other foreign nation as minutely as it does Israel, whether about negotiations, housing permits in Jerusalem, Israeli gravel-use in the West Bank or a Tel Aviv polygamist.

The story being ignored is the Im Tirtzu campaign to expose the New Israel Fund's connection to the defamatory Goldstone Report via its funding of groups that spurred the creation of and then contributed harsh commentary about Israel to the UN document. Originally founded as a student organization to counter anti-Zionist activity on campus, Im Tirtzu publicized revelations about the NIF-Goldstone ties in provocative ads across the country. The campaign began in January and has already prompted moves in the Knesset to intensify oversight of foreign political entities financing groups in Israel.

According to polls, the Israeli public by a significant margin opposes politically-based foreign funding of activity in Israel.

So why the silent treatment by the Times?

For starters, many of the very same NIF-supported NGO's under fire for allegedly helping fuel the Goldstone calumnies against Israel are also preferred news sources of the Times, quoted regularly as reliable critics of Israeli society. B'Tselem and Yesh Din, for instance, are favorites, together cited at least 25 times in the last two years, typically charging the Israel Defense Forces or other official bodies with misconduct, and sometimes prompting entire stories focused on the NGO charges.

(Read full critique)
.