The New York Times blatant bias towards the Palestinian narrative was in stark display in articles reviewing the speeches given by the acting-President of the Palestinian Authority Mahmoud Abbas to a large audience of politicians in Ramallah on January 14, 2018, and of the one given by US Vice President Mike Pence to the Israeli Parliament on January 22, 2018.
Hiding Palestinian Violence
The Times article appeared on the top of page A8 accompanied by a color picture of Abbas. The article relayed Abbas’s speech with supporting commentary throughout the article. Only at the very end of the piece, did the Times offer any competing viewpoints.
During its supporting description of Abbas’s speech, the Times deliberately chose to portray Abbas as a man of peace and hope.
NYT: “Indeed, Mr. Abbas, who reaffirmed his commitment to non-violence and stopping terrorism, seemed to hold out hope of a return to negotiations – but with someone other than the United States leading the way.”
What did Abbas actually say during his remarks to his Arab audience?
Abbas: “We always and forever adhere to negotiations as the path to reach a political settlement with Israel. We don’t want war. We will not call for a military war with Israel. Whoever has [weapons] – go ahead and do it. I say this out in the open. If you have weapons, go ahead. I’m with you, and I will help you. Anyone who has weapons can go ahead. I don’t have weapons. I want the peaceful political path to reach a settlement.”
Not only did the Times chose to negate the remarks in which Abbas supported those who used terrorism, the paper opted to not give any clarification about why the United States has been accusing Abbas for supporting terrorism:
Abbas: “The Americans are always telling us that we must stop paying salaries to the families of the martyrs and the prisoners. We categorically reject this demand. Under no circumstances will we allow the families of the martyrs, the wounded, and the prisoners to be harmed. These are our children, our families. We are proud of them, and we will pay them before we pay the living.”
Why didn’t the paper use the Abbas statement to comment that Congress had voted on the Taylor Force Act to demand that the PA stop paying terrorist to kill Jews? Because if it did so, it would be shining a light on the despicable Palestinian action promoting murder?
In regards to reconciling with a terrorist group, the Times would add no color that the US designates Hamas as a terrorist group. It merely stated that “reunification” was a chance to bring the two physical Palestinian territories together, but it made no mention of incorporating the anti-Semitic terrorist group into a governing role in the Palestinian Authority:
NYT: “Addressing hundreds of P.L.O. members, Mr. Abbas urged the Council to emphasize unification talks aimed at bringing Hamas, the Islamic militant group that rules the Gaza Strip, into the Palestinian fold. ‘A state without Gaza is not possible,’ he said. ‘A state in Gaza is not possible.’”
Instead, the Times talked of Abbas as a man of hope, a man who continued to push for a two-state solution and peaceful coexistence with Israel:
NYT: “Mr. Abbas, 82, stopped well short of embracing an alternative to a two-state solution, the project around which he has built his career. The number of Israelis and Palestinians who hold out hope that such a solution can be achieved is dwindling, but Mr. Abbas said nothing about abandoning it.
“He also shied away from urging the kind of provocative acts, like ending the Palestinian Authority’s security cooperation with Israel or disbanding the authority itself, that could raise the costs of occupation for Israel and shake officials in Jerusalem and Washington.”
The Times did not clarify why so many people have become disillusioned with a peace based on a two-state solution, such as an intifada running from 2000 to 2005, and wars raging from Gaza in 2008, 2012 and 2014 killing thousands, even after Israel withdrew all civilians and military forces from Gaza in 2005.
When the Times opted to mention the vile screed of Abbas that the Jews have nothing to do with Israel, it did so at the very end of the article, with an introduction that let people dismiss the content, and with a conclusion that allowed the statement to stand.
NYT: “Testing his audience’s attention, Mr. Abbas also gave a lengthy history lecture reaching back to the 17th century, saying that Oliver Cromwell had first proposed shipping European Jews to the Holy Land, before tracing the beginning of Zionism to what he called the 19th-century journalist and activist Theodor Herzl’s efforts to ‘wipe out Palestinians from Palestine.’
“’This is a colonial enterprise that has nothing to do with Jewishness,’ Mr. Abbas said. ‘The Jews were used as a tool under the concept of the promised land – call it whatever you want. Everything has been made up.’
“Neither Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu nor Trump administration officials offered any immediate response.”
Did the Times attack this fake history? No. Did it call out Abbas’ rewriting of the entire Old Testament? No. Did it mention that Abbas also claimed that the Arab countries didn’t really evict a million Jews? No. Did it recount Abbas’s doctoral thesis on Holocaust denial? No. Did it mention that the United Nations has similarly been denying Jewish connection to Jerusalem? No.
The sloppy New York Times journalism gave a pass to Abbas’s #FakeHistory, and allowed its readership to question the very legitimacy of the Jewish State, just as the Palestinian narrative demands.
Hiding Pence’s Truth
On January 23, 2018 the Times covered the speech that Vice President Mike Pence delivered to the Israeli Knesset. The article would feature no picture of Pence standing in Israel’s capital of Jerusalem.
To begin, the Times did not begin to quote Pence until paragraph 9, compared to paragraph 2 in the Abbas story. The Times needed to lay the groundwork of how upset the Palestinians were to frame the article:
NYT: “Palestinians claim Jerusalem as their capital or believe it should be divided, with East Jerusalem becoming the capital of a Palestinian state.”
No Times clarification that Palestine is not yet a state.
NYT: “The international consensus, previously supported by the United States, has been that the city’s status can be determined only through negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians.”
The Times deliberately misled its readers that that the Trump administration had said the same.
NYT: “Arab lawmakers rose to their feet at the start of Mr. Pence’s speech in the Israeli Parliament and held up signs reading ‘Jerusalem is the capital of Palestine.’ Ushers pulled down the signs and escorted them out of the room, to the applause of others in the hall.“
The phrasing did not make clear that the standing ovation by the members of Knesset was in favor of expelling the Arabs and drowning out their protest.
NYT: “Mr. Trump has also threatened to shutter an office of the Palestine Liberation Organization in Washington and cut American donations to the United Nations agency that provides services for Palestinian refugees.“
Once again there was no detail that Trump was taking these moves because the Palestinians support terror and refuse to come to the negotiating table.
NYT: “That approach has been welcomed by many Israelis, while rankling with Palestinians, whose political and religious leaders have refused to meet Mr. Pence.“
The Times took its time to set up the article that everything that Pence had to say was objectionable and unwelcome. It did nothing of the sort to introduce the Abbas speech.
Throughout the Pence article, in paragraph after paragraph, the Times countered every statement with a Palestinian narrative, a complete reversal of the Abbas article a week earlier when a counter-opinion of the Israeli perspective was only given at the very end of the article, and then, only muted.
NYT: “We stand with Israel because we believe in right over wrong, in good over evil and in liberty over tyranny,” Mr. Pence said.
“Mr. Pence, an evangelical Christian, dotted his address with biblical references and spoke of the Jewish connection to Jerusalem in historical and religious terms.“
Correction: Pence’s initial remarks had to do with the broad connection between the United States and Israel, one of “shared values.” He spoke of George Washington, John Adams and Abraham Lincoln who supported the great contributions of Jews to America and the world, and their rights to live in the Holy Land.
Did the Times write that Abbas is an Arab Muslim when he belittled the Bible? Nope. But it decided to highlight Pence’s religion. It was a setup for the ‘messianic extremist’ comment by Saeb Erekat to come later in the article.
NYT: “He scarcely mentioned the Palestinians and did not refer to their history in the Holy Land, nor to their territorial claims.”
Did the Times write about the 3700-year history of the Jews in Jerusalem during the Abbas speech write-up? About the Jewish Temples? That Jews have been a majority in Jerusalem since the 1860s? No, why would it? The Times is part of the Palestinian propaganda machine.
NYT: “The Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, will not meet Mr. Pence. He has called Mr. Trump’s Jerusalem declaration ‘a slap in the face.’
“Saeb Erekat, the chief negotiator for the Palestinians, said that Mr. Pence’s ‘messianic discourse’ was ‘a gift to the extremists.’
“‘His message to the rest of the world is clear: violate international law & resolutions and the US will reward you,’ he said, according to his office’s Twitter account.”
Quite some airtime for the Palestinian point of view.
In the final paragraph, the Times opted to slam Pence yet again in another distortion of facts:
NYT: “Mr. Pence canceled his last planned trip to the Holy Land before Christmas after Christian Arab leaders declined to meet with him.“
No, Pence delayed his last trip to secure a vote on the GOP tax bill.
The Times gave a podium to a man that negated the history and rights of Jews in Israel and who supports terrorists both in language and money, printing 304 words of Abbas’s speech. It did not challenge a single word of his screed. Meanwhile, the paper took great pains to negate and belittle the US Vice President’s remarks, printing a mere 45 words of Pence’s speech.
Additional editions of #AllThePalestinianProgandaFitToPrint
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The Arguments over Jerusalem
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The Custodianship of a Child and Jerusalem
Palestinians agree that Israel rules all of Jerusalem, but the World Treats the City as Divided
What do you Recognize in the Palestinians?
The Palestinians aren’t “Resorting to Violence”; They are Murdering and Waging War
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