Update: Recently released captured documents of Usama bin Ladin show the PA's ruling Fatah group offered money to al-Qaida to carry out terror attacks against Israel and was appearing to suggest that these two groups ally against Hamas. Obviously, this sensational but absolutely documented revelation has not prompted any change in U.S. policy toward Fatah and the Palestinian Authority.
With the arrival of Jodi Rudoren as correspondent, New York Times coverage of Israel and related issues has now gone to a new level of ridiculous bias, especially after a predecessor who really did try to be fair. What is most impressive about Rudoren’s record so far is that there is no attempt to give the faintest appearance of balance. She probably doesn’t understand what that concept means. And she certainly knows that the editors and ombudsman won’t hold her accountable.
We in Israel have grown used to media prejudice and, given our low
expectations, probably accept more of it without complaint than anyone
else in the world. Yet the following lead was the absolute last straw
for me, in an article entitled “Palestinians Go Hungry to Make Their
Voices Heard”:
This is not news coverage but revolutionary romanticism. And consider the implications:
--The
article does not tell us that they are in prison for a reason. These
are overwhelmingly people who have murdered or tried to murder civilians
during a period, by the way, when their supposed governmental
representative, the Palestinian Authority, was not at war with Israel.
--They
were in fact "burly young men...wielding automatic weapons" when thrown
into prison after trials. Most of them admit--indeed brag about--their
crimes and make it clear that they would continue such deeds if
released.
--Consequently, these people are NOT
heroes to Palestinians, a macho society generally, because they are
pitiful, gaunt, and starving but because they were heroes of an armed
struggle defined in genocidal terms.
--The
Palestinian Authority and Hamas holds these people as role models to
young people so that they will be inspired to grow up to kill more
Israelis.
--"Gaunt adults, wrists in chains" seems pulled from the nineteenth century novels of Victor Hugo.
--Remember,
these are the people still in prison because of the bloodiness of their
crimes after Israel has released hundreds of others in prisoner
exchanges or amnesties designed to indicate good will and promote
negotiations. They are still in jost ail not out of cruelty or even out
of a sense of justice and self-defense but because they generally are
the most merciless in
deliberately slaying those who are weak and helpless.
--The
author's goal is to make readers say, "Those horrible Israelis are so
mean and repressive, mistreating those poor people! We must do
something!" And it is to make Jewish readers to say, "We must distance
ourselves from this evil country (or government) that so betrays basic
Jewish principles of mercy and justice." The former call for pressuring
Israel in order to hurt it; the latter urge pressuring Israel for its
own good and talk about a crisis of Zionism in producing such a terrible
system.
In other words, this is not a news
article but a work of political propaganda that could have been
produced by a Palestinian public relations' firm or an American Jewish
group that acts as a Palestinian public relations firm. The purpose of
this article is not to report or explain what is happening but to elicit
sympathy and support for--shall
I say it? well, it happens to be true--terrorist murderers or would-be
murderers who were foiled despite their best efforts.
Let
me again add that there is nothing "liberal" or "conservative" about
these facts. Nothing at all. Pretending otherwise is another
propagandistic thought-control effort to get people to deny reality in
the guise of opposing horrible right-wingers. It comes from the type of
people who can ignore the persecution of Christians in Egypt, Iran,
Iraq, the Gaza Strip, and other places in the Middle East while
fabricating and highlighting claims that Israel is making Palestinian
Christians flee.
Recently, the Columbia
Journalism Review, a publication I revered in my youth, published an
article claiming that Israel had more journalists in prison per size of
population than any other country in the world. This was totally false
and the name of no actual journalist imprisoned was
mentioned because there are none. Meanwhile, next door, the Palestinian
Authority has been engaged in a public campaign of suppressing and
arresting journalists that has been ignored by the world.
To its credit, after considerable criticism, the Columbia Journalism Review apologized
for the article and criticized it. And do you know who wrote that
cogent response? An editor who had experienced real repression of
journalism in the home country, Iran.
At
times we seem to be living in the updated version of Ignazio Silone's
remark, "The final conflict will be between the Communists and the
ex-Communists." All to often, we cannot depend on Western-trained
intellectuals in positions of power who either buy into leftist ideology
or tremble in fear of being called racists or Islamophobes. This
highlights the importance of dissident Muslims and refugees from Middle
Eastern tyrannies who have some immunity on those two points.
Unfortunately, of course, they are outnumbered by the apologists and the
conscious radicals sowing disinformation.
As for the
Western world itself today, there seem to be two remaining groups:
those who believe whatever they are fed in this manner and those who are
so disgusted by such crimes against proper and honorable journalism who
respond by cancelling their subscriptions.
Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in
International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of
International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His
book, Israel: An Introduction, has just been published by Yale University
Press. Other recent books include The
Israel-Arab Reader (seventh
edition), The Long War for
Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley), and The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan). The website of the GLORIA Center and of his blog, Rubin Reports. His original articles are published at PJMedia.
Professor Barry Rubin, Director, Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center http://www.gloria-center.org
The Rubin Report blog http://rubinreports.blogspot.com/
He is a featured columnist at PJM http://pajamasmedia.com/barryrubin/.
Editor, Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal http://www.gloria-center.org
Editor Turkish Studies,http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/title~db=all~content=t713636933%22
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