The New York Times has used the 2022 election year to celebrate left-wing extremists and denounce right-wing political loons. Lost in their “elevated” twisted mindset is that one feeds the other and both are dangerous.
For its Sunday magazine on October 23, 2022, The Times featured Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene. The cover story with large spread was entitled “The Problem of Marjorie Taylor Greene.” The paper was clear that in their opinion, her insanity is not only bad for the Republican party, but for the nation as well, as her brand of crazy becomes mainstreamed.
The same could not be said of the paper’s handling of another extremist, a member of the left-wing “squad”, Rep. Rashida Tlaib. In March 2022, weeks before the Democratic primary, she was featured in the Times’ Sunday section under “What Rashida Tlaib Represents.” Her story was portrayed as one of courage, referring to her as someone “who has risen from adverse circumstances to play a significant role in American politics, most notably bringing greater awareness to the ongoing conflict over Palestine.” She was hailed as a hero fighting for the underdog, while the paper minimized her noxious anti-Semitism. She was not flagged appropriately as a lunatic nor did the paper convey that her toxic viewpoints are harmfully infecting the Democratic Party.
To be clear, both of these women are vile anti-Semites. Greene calls out the supposed evils of George Soros, the “Rothschilds” and Jew lasers from space starting forest fires. Meanwhile, Tlaib says that Jews in Israel and the United States instigate racism to make a profit. Both are embarrassments to the United States and a threat to the safety of millions.
But the jaundiced media serves red meat to its hungry base, as the vileness becomes so commonplace that congress doesn’t bother to censure it anymore.
The cycle of depravity is in full swing. The election of one extreme feeds the election at the other end of the spectrum in another part of the country. The celebration of Tlaib on the cover section of the Times and her socialist comrade Rep. Ilhan Omar on MSNBC, feeds the extremists of the far right media to their viewers and voters. And vice versa.
We have both Republican and Democratic extremists. Christians and Muslims. Blacks and Whites. Male and Female.
All should be shunned. All should be driven from office and positions of influence.
Alas, decency is in short supply.
Instead, we abandon reality for an exciting fantasy. We’ve allowed the media and social media to manufacture worthy false gods of noble superheroes and evil super-villains supposedly fighting for us and our entertainment, like a script in a Marvel comic book universe. In this version, we get to be avatars in the fiction, with likes and retweets.
To our own crippling detriment.
The adrenaline is now our elixir and desired end-state, as peace and stability have become discarded as outdated fictions that never existed. Tragically, we are woefully watching the destruction of a great society, and rather than demand a sharp pivot to the center, we remain transfixed, scrolling our screens for more.
There are reported to be roughly 90 gay Palestinian Arabs who have moved to Israel and granted asylum as they fear for their lives from their homophobic Arab neighbors. Last week, one such man, Ahmad Abu Murkhiyeh, 25 years old, was beheaded and his body and torso were dumped near his home in Hebron. A video of the slaughter was taken and then circulated on Arab social media.
Arab sites like Al Jazeera and Wafa would not cover the event. The liberal media like MSNBC and The New York Times also remained silent on the story. Well, the Times finally got to it. Sort of.
The paper did not cover the brutal beheading of a homosexual on its cover page nor its World News section. It actually didn’t cover the story in its news section at all.
Only in the Opinion section, did it share the thoughts of its most conservative columnist, Bret Stephens, who wrote about “A Cruel Death In Hebron,” which a reader might think was possibly committed by an Israeli. In the article, Stephens not only took aim at Palestinian society which enables such heinous acts, but Palestinian supporters who ignore and whitewash the systemic evil and corruption.
That includes his own paper, which he politely/ politically omitted.
It’s actually even worse than Stephens points out. Liberal and Arab media not only ignore Palestinian Arab actions but exaggerate the actions of Israeli Jews. The Times posts articles about “settler violence” but fails to report that even by the jaundiced United Nations accounting, Palestinian Arab violence far surpasses that of “settlers.”
Ignoring rampant Palestinian Arab violence and incitement while only reporting on Israeli actions paints a false narrative of one party attacking a helpless minority. It is as though the liberal media looks to Al Jazeera for permission on what it can report. Left wing media has essentially become a parrot of Palestinian propaganda that they sometimes “resort” to violence.
If the brutal beheading of a gay Palestinian man cannot be mentioned – let alone condemned – by liberals and Muslim “activists” while they decry any perceived problem committed by Israeli Jews, then the left wing and Arab media and communities have admitted their profound anti-Semitic bias. It is not news, but further evidence that anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism, and Jews must be guarded in the company they keep.
… for visiting countries on vacation that fund anti-Israel NGOs and condemn Israel at the United Nations;
… for not listening to kids’ recommendation to invest alongside Pelosi, and for listening to them about investing in crypto;
… for calling my uncle a crazy racist and my niece a lazy woke-tard;
… for still not having a proper name for my in-laws, after many years of being married;
… for not calling my parents enough, even when they remind me of that fact constantly;
… for pretending I’m preoccupied when my spouse asks for something I’m not interested in;
… for telling my spouse to change attire; for not listening to spouse’s recommendation on attire; for listening to spouse’s recommendation on dress; for being late to events because of attire;
for these sins and thoughts related to family, please pardon us
… for the arrogance of believing that people read my postings including annoying Wordle scores;
… for believing Shabbos calories don’t count;
… for thinking I’m younger than my age, and not living each day fully;
… for internalizing that living my best life means selfish overindulgence;
… for trying to do too much; for trying to do too little;
… for not spending more time with family, friends, community and You;
The New York Times decided to print the obituary of Yusuf al-Qaradawi, a fiery leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, an advocate for violence and vocal anti-Semite. The paper opted to use a balanced approach in covering his life saying some thought of him as “a moderate” while others considered him “an extremist.”
The Times did not offer any commentary about his anti-Semitism nor calls for a global jihad against the Jews.
New York Times obituary on fiery anti-Semite never discussed his Jew hatred.
In regards to this violent bigot’s views about Jews, all the Times would offer was “During the second Palestinian intifada, or uprising, in 2001, he declared that suicide bombings by Palestinians against Israelis were permissible.“
Were permissible? He actively encouraged a global jihad against the Jews, he didn’t simply say killing Jews was allowed during their Arab pogroms.
Here are his statements that the Times ignored:
Los Angeles Times, May 2001
“[Suicide bombings] are heroic martyrdom operations, and the heroes who carry them out … are driven by an overwhelming desire to cast terror and fear into the hearts of the oppressors.“
AFP, June 2001
“These martyr operations led by the Palestinian fighters against Israel spring from resistance and all Muslims who kill to defend their land, honor and religion are martyrs.”
Al Jazeera, January 2009:
“Allah lies in wait for [Jews], and He will not forsake [Islam]. He will not allow [Jews] to continue to spread corruption in the land. We wait for the revenge of Allah to descend upon them, and, Allah willing, it will be by our own hands…This is my message to the treacherous Jews, who have never adhered to what is right.“
“Oh Allah, take your enemies, the enemies of Islam. Oh Allah, take the Jews, the treacherous aggressors. Oh Allah, take this profligate, cunning, arrogant band of people. Oh Allah, they have spread much tyranny and corruption in the land. Pour Your wrath upon them.“
“Throughout history, Allah has imposed upon the [Jews] people who would punish them for their corruption. The last punishment was carried out by Hitler. By means of all the things he did to them – even though they [the Jews] exaggerated this issue – he [Hitler] managed to put them in their place. This was divine punishment for them.“
The Atlantic, February 2011
“The conquerors [of Palestine, the Jews] are those with the greatest enmity toward the believers [Muslims], and they are supported by the strongest state on earth – the USA, and by the world Jewish community.“
“The least the Muslim can do is to boycott the enemies’ goods.”
“Receiving enemies in our own countries and visiting them in the occupied lands would remove such a psychological barrier that keeps us away from them, and would bridge the gap that keeps the desire for Jihad against them kindled in the hearts of the Ummah.”
“We believe that the battle between us and the Jews is coming … Such a battle is not driven by nationalistic causes; it is rather driven by religious incentives. This battle … is between Muslims and Jews… This battle will occur between the collective body of Muslims and the collective body of Jews.“
“It [is] obligatory upon every Muslim wherever he is to defend Jerusalem, and al-Aqsa Mosque. This is an obligation upon all Muslims to participate in defending Jerusalem with their souls, money, and all that they possess, otherwise a punishment from Allah shall descend on the whole nation.“
The New York Times recast a man who praised Hitler’s annihilation of European Jewry and sought a violent religious war of 1.8 billion Muslims against a paltry 15 million Jews, as simply a supporter of the second Palestinian “intifada.” It is a vile recasting of sickening Muslim jihadi anti-Semitism as supporting violent Palestinian national aspirations.
Shame on the Times anti-Semitism washing. #NoAntisemitismWashing
Brett Stephens is a right-of-center opinion writer for The New York Times. For the Times’ board and readership, he is probably viewed as a right-wing extremist from their far left vantage point. However, in the interest of appearing balanced, the paper gives him a platform to share his thoughts.
On September 21, 2022, Stephens lambasted the terrible failure of the Biden Administration’s handling of the border and immigration generally. He mocked the pathetic response of the dim-witted Vice President Kamala Harris to questions about the security of the border. He reviewed the statistics of the enormous spike of immigrant encounters at the United States’ southern border. He added a few pointed remarks:
“This was not an accident of policy. It was an intention.”
“This is political malpractice on multiple levels.”
“It undermines the case for the path to citizenship”
“a see-no-problem, admit-no-fault, disavow-the-consequences, and blame-the-last-guy border policy.”
“it makes a mockery of people like Vice President Kamala Harris and others making fools of themselves by trying to defend a visibly failed policy.”
“The crisis is a failure of liberalism, classic and contemporary. It calls into question the ability, or the willingness, of a Democratic president to solve a basic law-and-order issue”
Pretty scathing stuff. A full on assault of the Biden/Harris failure to secure the border and manage the influx of immigrants. Dereliction of duty, an abandonment of law-and-order.
One would imagine a headline for such a piece along the lines of “Biden And Harris Fail America – US Citizens And Immigrants”, or “Biden Administration Deliberately Refuses To Secure The Borders” or perhaps “Biden’s Political Malpractice Regarding The Border May Cost Him The Election”.
The Times would do no such thing.
Instead, the paper titled the hit piece with a rosy “The Border Crisis Could Still Be Biden’s Opportunity.” It was as if the left-wing outlet bemoaned that they had to run Stephen’s article, and hoped that readers would only read the headline, skip the actual article, and chant “Let’s Go Brandon,” but mean it as being supportive of Biden.
Is this the path to coexistence between right-and-left? Deliberately mislabeling opinions we don’t like rather than live with the dissonance?
The Grey Lady long ago moved away from its tagline “All The News That’s Fit To Print” to “All The Opinions Our Liberal Readers Want.” It now occasionally posts criticisms of Democrats, but paints it with lipstick hoping people won’t notice.
The “Women’s March” has a deep history of anti-Semitism of its own making. The New York Times touched upon some of those points in an article about “Russian troll factories” which “put a sustained effort into discrediting the movement by circulating damning, often fabricated narratives around Ms. [Linda] Sarsour.” The article focused on the fuel which amplified her extremist anti-Zionist views which rocked the message of the movement.
The article stated that fractures in society, distrust in institutions and Sarsour’s dabbling in anti-Semitism were already present, and that the Russian bots added fuel to the fire by exaggerating Sarsour’s statements on social media. The Times even touched upon the anti-Semitic charges against other members of the Women’s March movement who support the notorious anti-Semite Rev. Louis Farrakhan.
But the article made the anti-Semitism embedded in the Women’s March appear minor; a couple of discrete and misunderstood comments by the founders, which were inflamed by a foreign government. In doing so, it absolved the organization for repeatedly inciting Jew hatred.
That’s the wrong conclusion.
Just a few months after the large January 2017 march in Washington, D.C., the city of Chicago held a rally where Jewish marchers carrying a rainbow flag with the Jewish star in the middle were asked to leave because the organizers said they “repeatedly expressed support for Zionism.” One of the people who was asked to leave told the Windy City Times that she was made to feel that “as a Jew, I am not welcome here.”
In June 2019, the Washington, D.C. march followed suit and prohibited marchers from carrying flags with the Jewish star on it. Organizers said “The DC Dyke March is a pro-Muslim and pro-Palestinian space…We do ask that participants not bring pro-Israel paraphernalia in solidarity with our queer Palestinian friends.” Several Jewish groups including A Wider Bridge, Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Washington, and Zioness wrote a joint statement that “We come together to strongly condemn the leadership of the DC Dyke March for their decision to ban the Jewish Star of David on a pride flag and Israeli iconography.”
The repeated banning of Jewish pride at the marches stems from Linda Sarsour’s “activism,” as the Times calls it. She’s tweeted “Nothing is creepier than Zionism.” She equated the belief that Jews should be free of anti-Semitism as self-governing people in their ancestral home as the equivalent to being a Nazi, with “We will not be silenced by Blue Lives Matter, by white supremacists, by neo-Nazis, or right-wing Zionists.” She’s said that feminism and Zionism are incompatible.
Those are Sarsour’s words, repeated again and again, specifically meant to instill the discredited noxious “Zionism is Racism” libel into the fabric of the Women’s March movement.
The Times neglected to tell its readers that when Sarsour and her colleagues stepped down from their leadership positions of the organization, other anti-Semites took their place, like CAIR’s Zahara Billoo. She was in kindred spirit of Sarsour, having tweeted the grotesque “Israel is an apartheid, racist, terrorist state and it commits war crimes as a hobby.” An obvious choice to lead the Women’s March if it is hell bent on advancing anti-Semitism.
Billoo also offered this bit of advice for Muslims some time after leaving the Women’s March board, that Jews are the enemy: “Know your enemies, and I’m not going to sugar-coat that. They are your enemies. There are organizations and infrastructure out there who are working to harm you. Make no mistake of it. They would sell you down the line if they could, and they very often do behind your back. I mean the Zionist organizations, I mean the foreign policy organizations that say they’re not Zionists but want a two-state solution. I’m not a Palestinian myself but it’s my understanding that that is laughable. So know your enemies.” Billoo listed some of them: “We need to pay attention to the Anti-Defamation League. We need to pay attention to the Jewish Federation. We need to pay attention to the Zionist synagogues. We need to pay attention to the Hillel chapters on our campuses. Because just because they’re your friend today, doesn’t mean that they have your back when it comes to human rights. So oppose the vehement fascists but oppose the polite Zionists too. They are not your friends.“
It could very well be that Russia added some fuel to the Linda Sarsour story, but the anti-Semitic toxicity prevalent among the group’s founders was their own. The insidious jihad fomented by the alt-left activists was a deliberate feature of their own making. Russia may have helped fan the flames, but the inferno of hatred came from within the movement itself.
The New York Times printed a very long article about Hasidic schools in New York which took in roughly $1 billion of pubic money over the last few years, and claimed that they failed to provide a basic education on purpose. The Times mocked the terrible hiring practices at the schools and essentially urged the government to stop funding them until they improved their practices, as the paper released the article just two days before the New York State Board of Regents met on the matter.
A deeper review of the Times article shows that the paper may have reached the wrong conclusion – that the schools require MORE money to succeed, not less.
The Times made its conclusion clear on the front page when it wrote “where other schools may be underperforming because of underfunding and mismanagement, these schools are different. They are failing by design.“
The article made it appear that the Jewish schools are actually OVERFUNDED, calling out “$1 Billion. Amount of government money collected in the past four years by Hasidic boys’ schools, even though they appear to be operating in violation of state laws guaranteeing students an adequate education.” It mocked the hiring practices of the schools, writing “Often, English teachers cannot speak the language fluently themselves. Many earn as little as $15 an hour. Some have been hired off Craigslist or ads on lamp posts.” The article added that the schools “mostly hire only Hasidic men as teachers, regardless of whether they know English. One former student said he once had a secular teacher who doubled as the school cook.“
The article made it appear that the schools are just pocketing the money, especially as it highlighted that one of the Hasidic school networks “controlled over $500 million in assets,” and showed a picture with accompanying text that one school building “takes up a city block.“
But a deeper dive of these observations paints the opposite picture.
Small Subsidies Per Yeshiva Child
The $1 billion sounds like a huge headline figure going out to failing private schools. The accompanying Times’ commentary spelling out that the sum covers four years is perhaps lost in the momentary shock. It equates to roughly $250 million per year used to support 50,000 boys, or roughly $5,000 per student per year. That figure covers transportation, food, child care and special ed classes, in addition to general education.
By way of comparison, New York City has an annual budget of $38 billion for 919,000 students (a steadily declining number that was over 1 million just two years ago). That’s over $41,000 per student. It’s a gap of more than $36,000 per child compared to yeshiva boys.
The article hinted about this enormous gap in a few spots without sharing the math.
It first attributed the basic fact as a defense offered by the Hasidic schools, making the small subsidy seem biased: “They [the Hasidic schools] denied some of the Times findings,… that the schools receive far less taxpayer money per pupil than public schools do.” The qualified speaker tainted the observation.
Only on the fourth page of the Times’ article did the Times state two critical facts clearly: “Hasidic boy’s yeshivas receive far less per pupil than public schools, and they charge tuition.” Public school students get more than 8 times the funding as these yeshiva boys, as detailed above. The fact that these private schools charge tuition needs further elaboration as well.
The boys’ schools don’t operate on a budget of $5,000 per student. Parents pay tuition as noted by the Times.
These ultra Orthodox families typically have very large families. For example, on the fifth page of the article, the Times mentioned a family with six children. It also mentioned Naftuli Moser who started an advocacy group to improve secular education in yeshivas. The Times did not write that Moser is one of 17 children.
Consider the tuition bills for these families. If the yeshivas charged like the public schools, six children with a funding gap of $36,000 each would mean a tuition bill of $216,000 per year for the family. For Moser’s family, the annual tuition bill would be $612,000!
Needless to say, these schools cannot operate with the generosity afforded to public school teachers backed by powerful teacher unions. The yeshivas need to hire teachers on a budget to match the incomes of these large Hasidic families. The overall school budget is a fraction of the $41,000 spent per pupil in public schools. The schools also make accommodations for parents who cannot afford full tuition for all of their kids, by having the fathers teach at the school, accounting for Yiddish-speakers teaching English as featured in the article.
And yes, teachers do double-duty, including teaching and acting as the school chef. It keeps the school budgets down and the tuitions more affordable.
Wealth Amidst The Poverty
The Times article made the Hasidic community appear to be sitting on hundreds of millions of dollars and then taking a billion dollars from the government. Much of the wealth in the Hasidic community revolves around real estate holdings in Brooklyn. Educating nearly 100,000 boys and girls – roughly 1/10th the size of New York City’s public school students – requires many buildings. The dense communities where the Hasidim live drive up demand and therefore the prices.
This is a community whose wealth – to the extent there is some – is mostly illiquid. It is in the very homes and schools they live in every day.
Possible Solutions
Both the Times’ opening conclusion that Hasidic schools are neither underfunded nor mismanaged, and the timing of the article’s release before the Board of Regents meeting, had the desired impact of the city threatening to cut funding to the schools. As reviewed above, that is ill advised. Why take away transportation, food and other subsidies to a poor community already struggling?
More money needs to flow into the Hasidic school system, not less. That does not mean simply writing checks without accountability. The system needs to pivot to address the plain facts that yeshiva students are growing rapidly and now account for almost 10% of New York City students, as the public schools continue to shrink.
A few suggestions:
Bilingual Yiddish schools. New York City has 545 bilingual schools. They are mostly in Spanish, but also include French, Russian, Chinese, Bengali and Haitian-Creole. It is time to invest in distinct Yiddish schools in coordination with the Hasidic community. The schools would need to be segregated by gender and timed to allow for religious private school either in the morning or afternoon, switching off for different groups in the area to fully utilize the facilities.
Employ/ Pay Secular Teachers Directly. For those parents that do not want to use bilingual Yiddish schools, the city should pay for qualified secular teachers directly. As public school teachers are being retired due to the shrinking public school student body, reassign the teachers to teach secular subjects in these yeshivas.
Should the community fail to adopt these investments in secular education, punitive measures should be considered. However, immediately jumping to threaten poor Hasidic schools that get minimal funding is counterproductive and mean-spirited.
If we truly want all students to be educated and to succeed, we need to examine the situation honestly and invest appropriately. The New York Times and Board of Regents seemingly have chosen the opposite path, and acted abusively to a large impoverished minority. If it is simply a coincidence that these secular bodies opted to target ultra Orthodox Jews, I leave it to each reader to consider.
Much of the global media covered Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ disgusting comments while he was in Germany, as he tried to gain international support for his approach to dealing with Israel. Their coverage was quite different.
While standing alongside German Chancellor Olaf Schloz, a reporter asked Abbas if he would apologize to Israel for the Palestinian kidnapping and murder of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics, as Germany was set to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the event in a few weeks. Abbas ignored the question, and instead offered “From 1947 to the present day, Israel has committed 50 massacres in Palestinian villages and cities, in Deir Yassin, Tantura, Kafr Qasim and many others, 50 massacres, 50 Holocausts.“
The condemnations for the Palestinian leader’s trivialization of the Holocaust – in Germany of all places – in response to a question about Palestinian terrorism, and inverting Jewish victim to murderer, came from around the world. Some news organization opted to focus squarely on the Holocaust denial and rebukes, while other for-profit media companies decided to provide context.
Some of the background proffered was shocking and says much about the news organization’s biases, their readers and sponsors.
Basically all news groups focused on Abbas’ “50 Holocaust” statement and the condemnations. Almost all – including AP News and The Guardian – provided background that 6 million Jews were killed in the Holocaust, except for Axios, which delivers news in an abbreviated bullet point format. None of the major news outlets informed readers that Holocaust denial is illegal in Germany, as the country feels a moral duty to not obfuscate its historic crimes against humanity. Depending on when the story broke, the media reported on the “clarification” posted on Abbas’s political party’s website.
The 1972 Palestinian massacre of Israeli athletes, the focus of the question to Abbas, was only referred to as an “attack” by Axios and Reuters. Each declined to write that eleven athletes were murdered by Palestinian terrorists.
Very few media shops gave their readership color that Abbas has a long history of Holocaust denial, including writing his doctoral thesis on the idea that Zionists conspired with the Nazis to make life unbearable for European Jews to get the Jews to move to Palestine. Abbas falsely alleges – to this day – that Jews have neither history in, nor interest to move to Palestine, so Zionists worked with the German government to prod the Jews to move. Both CNN and The New York Times gave some color on Abbas’ history of anti-Semitism.
On the fringe, CNN, Reuters and The New York Times tried to explain Abbas’s revolting comments.
CNN and Reuters essentially reprinted the Palestinian “clarification” statement which wrongfully stated that “Israeli forces” have been engaged in “massacres” of Palestinians since the “Nakba” of the founding of Israel. Reuters and The New York Times elected to write about recent battles between Palestinian Arabs and Israel that left many Arabs dead, as if somehow the slaughter of defenseless Jewish Germans by the Nazi government is akin to a war between two armed groups.
The New York Times went even further. It quoted a disgraced former Prime Minister from over a decade ago who served time in prison, who “welcomed” the Palestinian non-apology, making the matter seem like water-under-the-bridge. Such ridiculous editorializing could only happen at the anti-Zionist Times. Or maybe Qatari-owned al Jazeera.
The New York Times attempted to soften the vile Holocaust comments by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on August 18, 2022.
In case readers were not satisfied that Abbas was cleared of charges of anti-Semitism by four prime ministers ago-Ehud Olmert, the Times added a bunch of information that has absolutely nothing to do with the story. It wrote that Abbas has worked closely with Israeli security to prevent violence, and that “right-wing Israeli politicians” try to isolate and demonize Abbas, even though he helps keep the peace. If that doesn’t convince the reader to absolve Abbas, the Times added that Abbas is deeply unpopular among Palestinian Arabs anyway.
The New York Times has long peddled in anti-Israel editorializing. It has now added Holocaust denial-enablement to its revolting repertoire.
The New York Times used four journalists to cover the August 14 Arab terrorist attack on Israeli Jews in Jerusalem. The journalists reporting from Jerusalem, Seoul and Hong Kong (I have no idea why correspondents from thousands of miles away were needed) could not muster a clear and balanced report.
The article started with the usual anti-Israel bias with the headline “Eight Injured in Shooting in Jerusalem” which did not clearly label the attacker as an Arab Muslim nor the victims as Israeli and American Jews. While the article would eventually reveal that the attacker was a “Palestinian man”, it would never clearly state that the victims were all Jewish. Instead, the attack was crafted as between warring countries, continuing a trend of Palestinians and Israelis killed over the past few months.
Israeli security forces at the scene of a shooting attack outside Jerusalem Old City, August 14,2022. (photo: YONATAN SINDEL/FLASH90)
The Times then mentioned Silwan, the neighborhood from where the Arab terrorist came, as having tension “between its Palestinian residents and a small but growing number of Israeli settlers.” While the Palestinian Arabs and Israelis are both “residents”, the Times opted to use the biased Palestinian narrative to describe the Israelis.
At that point, the paper shifted squarely to religion:
“Sacred to both Jews and Muslims, the nearby Temple Mount houses the third-holiest mosque in Islam and was the location in antiquity of two ancient Jewish temples that remain important to Jewish identity.“
According to the Times, while the Temple Mount is “sacred to both Jews and Muslims”, the site is really more important to Islam, as it “houses the third-holiest mosque in Islam”. For Jews, the site is merely a talisman and “important to Jewish identity.”
That’s a deliberate insult to millions of Jews around the world. The Temple Mount is THE holiest location for Judaism.
Continuing the trend, the article mentioned that “Hamas, the Islamist militant group that runs the Gaza Strip” celebrated the attack, but did not quote Fatah, the party of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas cheering the shooting as well, posting on Facebook “Praise to the one whose rifle only speaks against his enemy. Long live our people’s unity and long live the free hero. Praise to the rifle muzzles, our people will fight the occupation with all kinds of resistance. Save your bullets and use them against the occupation, only the occupation!!”
Why did the paper opt to only refer to the “Islamist” political-terrorist group but not the secular political one which controls the presidency and Areas A and B? Does the Times believe that the conflict is a religious one or a political one? It pivoted back-and-forth in the article inelegantly.
The four journalists contributing to the story made a final pivot at the end of the article, writing “Israeli efforts to build archaeological and tourism attractions in Silwan, mostly celebrating the area’s ancient Jewish heritage, are perceived by Palestinians as a means of eroding Palestinian claims to the city.” This pivoted the conflict as neither political nor religious but a historical one. In this case, the Times seemed more comfortable pointing out that Jews have a much longer history in the region than the Arabs who first came more recently. Perhaps it does so, questioning whether history truly fuels the conflict, or is a talking point between the parties.
The Times is dancing around the political and religious nature of the Israeli-Arab conflict. While the anti-Zionist paper is comfortable making political arguments which make Israel look like the larger and more powerful political actor, it is loathe to point out that Israel has a much deeper religious claim to the land and Jerusalem. Perhaps the liberal media fears that too much information will educate readers about the profound logic of Israel retaining full control of the Old City of Jerusalem, in direct opposition of Palestinian political goals of seizing the site from the Jewish State.
If one were to be generous about the many flaws in journalism today, one could argue that the media model is so broken that the companies can no longer afford to hire enough or high quality reporters. As such, the papers simply do not do the homework required to properly educate today’s readership which already has access to tons of information online but may not be able to locate, assemble or analyze the copious volume of data.
FirstOneThrough has criticized the anti-Israel bias of The New York Times and its latest reporter on Israel, Patrick Kingsley (who is actually much better than past Times reporters), including just a few days ago regarding President Joe Biden’s visit to the Middle East. In his article “In First Visit As President, Biden Will Find Changed Middle East Political Scene.” Kingsley placed blame for the failure of peace between Israel and Palestinian Arabs squarely on the shoulders of Israeli action, absolving the Palestinian Authority of any criticism. One might assume that Kingsley was ignorant about the sentiments of Palestinian Arabs, the Palestinian Authority and Hamas, the political-terrorist group which governs Gaza. It would be both pathetic and generous to consider that the journalist covering Israel and the PA didn’t know that Palestinian Arabs poll themselves every three months.
Alas, there is a reason that many Zionists shun the New York paper and describe it as a pro-Palestinian propaganda rag, as revealed on July 16, 2022.
New York Times article on July 16, 2022, page A8, which highlights select data from Palestinian polls (five red boxes with associated questions from June 2022 PCPSR poll)
Kingsley clearly read the results of the June 2022 poll, as he cited the findings of six responses about the unhappiness of Palestinian Arabs. However, Kingsley refused to mention Palestinians preference for war against Jewish civilians and the rejection of a two state solution proposed by Biden, in other responses found throughout the poll.
While The New York Times cited some responses from a Palestinian poll about Arab unhappiness (such as Q49), it neglected to mention the various responses supporting violence (including Q47, Q48/5, Q51 and Q52, above)
Poll question 64 asked people in the West Bank and Gaza “Concerning armed attacks against Israeli civilians inside Israel, I….,” a question which should be labelled a war crime. Outrageously, 25% strongly support and 27% support the idea – a majority of those polled.
The response to Q52 had 56% of Palestinian Arabs supporting armed attacks by Arab lone wolves inside of Israel. The response to Q51 showed that 59% of Arabs think that the lone wolf attacks “contribute to the Palestinian Interest in ending the occupation.”
The responses to many questions show that a majority of Palestinian Arabs favor armed attacks against Jewish civilians and reject a two state solution (Q42 has 69% opposing two states and Q45 has 69% opposing negotiations with Israel). But Kingsley opted to not cite any of those findings.
Instead, the article titled “Biden Gives Palestinians Funding and Sympathy, But No Long-Term Plans” ended with a quote that Biden “empathized with Palestinian frustrations. ‘The Palestinian people are hurting now – you can just feel it, he said‘” echoing the statistics of Palestinian unhappiness but not their thirst for blood nor the destruction of Israel.
While Palestinians openly tell of their desire for the destruction of the Jewish State and the murder of Jews, the mainstream media and polite politicians only can see Arab “frustrations.” It’s absolution via calculated omission, and a lethal form of anti-Semitism.
First One Through 