Ira Stoll notes here that “a problem consistently afflicting New York Times coverage of Israel and the Middle East generally is a lack of long-term perspective and historical context”: “Where Are The Editors at The New York Times?,” by Ira Stoll, Algemeiner, November 16, 2022:
A couple of recent examples demonstrate the problem, which has slid into outright inaccuracies:
A post-Israeli-election dispatch by the Times’ error-prone Jerusalem bureau-chief, Patrick Kingsley, contends, “The waning of the left began in the 2000s, when a wave of Palestinian violence was interpreted by many Israelis as a rejection of efforts to peacefully resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.”
Actually, the “waning of the left” began after Golda Meir nearly lost the Yom Kippur War in 1973 and the Likud Party led by Menachem Begin won a victory in 1977. Begin had the backing of Mizrachi (“eastern,” as opposed to European) immigrants, and his victory marked the beginning of Israel’s turn away from socialism. The “waning of the left,” in other words, began in Israel well before the 2000s, but for whatever reason, the New York Times’ memory doesn’t go back that far.
The Kingsley dispatch has other problems, such as the claim that “voters abandoned Labor and Meretz for Mr. Lapid, despite his more centrist politics.” Instead of “despite,” the Times could have written “because of.” But the lack of historical context — or the absurdly foreshortened context that is provided — is the real issue.
The Israeli electorate wanted Lapid precisely because he was a “centrist”; they had had their fill of those leftists who were seen as too ready to surrender to Palestinian demands. That also explains why, in the 2022 election, the far-left Meretz Party was wiped out; it has 0 seats in the Knesset.
Similar flaws afflict another Times article, about the water supply in Jordan.
The Times reports:
There is one potential quick fix: buying more water from Israel, a pioneer in desalination techniques. Cooperation on water was an important element of the 1994 peace treaty between the two countries, and they signed a water-for-energy agreement at the United Nations climate conference in the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm el Sheikh on Tuesday.
Protests broke out in Amman last year when the plan, which was brokered by the United Arab Emirates and would involve Jordan sending solar energy to Israel in exchange for water, was first announced. An overreliance on Israel water is unpalatable to many Jordanians, who oppose the occupation of the Palestinian territories.
Jordanians “oppose the occupation of the Palestinian territories”? That’s comical. If by “Palestinian territories” the Times means the West Bank, why wasn’t that a problem from 1948 to 1967, when Jordan occupied those territories? Perhaps the Times, and the Jordanians, consider all of Israel to be “Palestinian territories” and thus oppose the existence of Israel as a Jewish state.That would explain why Jordan had no formal peace agreement with Israel even between 1948 and 1967 and in fact attacked Israel in 1948 and 1967. Some consider Jordan itself to be Palestinian territory occupied by the Hashemite monarchs, who are carpetbaggers from Saudi Arabia….
Jordan claimed the West Bank as its sovereign territory – not “Palestinian” nor “held in trust for the Palestinians” — from 1948 to 1967. Only two states in the entire world – Great Britain and Pakistan – recognized that claim. But no one called it “Palestinian territory” during that time. It was then, and remains, “disputed territory.”
The New York Times reporter on the Jordan article, Karen Zraick, is a board member of the Arab and Middle Eastern Journalists Association. That organization issued a statement urging news organizations to avoid the term “terrorism” or “terrorist” when writing about the September 11, 2001 attacks. It also publishes an absurd “media resource guide” on “Palestine/Israel” that is full of false claims and tendentiousness such as “Do not call Gaza ‘Hamas-controlled’” and “do not use the identifiers ‘Arab-Israeli’ or ‘Israeli-Arab”…instead use ‘Palestinian.’” The odd language in Zraick’s article about “occupation of the Palestinian territories” directly echoes language in the Arab and Middle Eastern Journalists Association media guide, which states, “Israel occupies Palestinian territory, and Palestinians—whether in the West Bank, Gaza or inside Israel—are subject to an unjust and unequal system.”…
The Times reporter, Karen Zraick, serves on the board of a group, the Arab and Middle Eastern Journalists Association (AMEJA), that issues a kind of “style guide” as to what terms ought to be used, and what ought to be avoided, in reporting on Israel, the Palestinians, Islamic terrorism, and the wider Middle East. The AMEJA has issued a statement declaring that journalists writing about the largest and most horrific terrorist attack in history, that which destroyed the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center, should avoid using the words “terrorist” and “terrorism.”
The AMEJA media guide instructs reporters not to describe Gaza as “Hamas-controlled,” even though Hamas has been in complete control of Gaza since 2007. “Hamas-controlled” makes Gaza sound…well, exactly as it is, in thrall to a terror group, and therefore AMEJA wants that epithet to be avoided. Mustn’t make the Gazans, under the thumb of a terror group, look bad.
According to the AMEJA media guide, “do not use the identifiers ‘Arab-Israeli’ or ‘Israeli-Arab”…instead use ‘Palestinian.’” Arab citizens of Israel are thus to be stripped of their proper identity – as Israeli Arabs or Arab Israelis – without their permission, because that identity suggests they are full citizens, with equal rights to Jews, in Israel. And for AMEJA, that understanding must be avoided. Those Israeli Arabs will, despite their own desires, be called “Palestinians.” And just how few Israeli Arabs want to be identified as “Palestinians” is suggested by a 2021 poll of Arabs in east Jerusalem. 93% of them said they would prefer to be governed by Israel rather than by the P.A. — that is, wanted to be considered Israeli Arabs rather than “Palestinians.”
The AMEJA media guide tells reporters that “Israel occupies Palestinian territory, and Palestinians—whether in the West Bank, Gaza or inside Israel—are subject to an unjust and unequal system.” And their duty is to convey AMEJA’s version of the Israel-Palestinian dispute, which might have been written in Ramallah by PA propagandists.
Zraick dutifully writes about the “occupation of Palestinian territories.” Such a tendentious phrase unilaterally assigns to the Palestinians what is still “disputed territory.” Israel claims that it has a right, rooted in the Palestine Mandate, to all of the West Bank, and a different claim, under UNSC Resolution 242, to those parts of the West Bank that the Jewish state needs if it is to have “secure [i.e. defensible] and recognized boundaries.” The only neutral way to describe the West Bank today is to call it “disputed territories.”
And note the latter part of the AMEJA phrase: “Israel occupies Palestinian territory, and Palestinians—whether in the West Bank, Gaza or inside Israel—are subject to an unjust and unequal system.”
That is false, and unacceptable, in several ways. First, as to people in Gaza being subject by Israel to “an unjust and unequal system.” There has not been a single Israeli in Gaza since 2005; the only “unjust and unequal system” that Gazans suffer from is that imposed by their own Hamas rulers, corrupt lords of misrule who help themselves to much of the foreign aid intended for the impoverished people of Gaza, and arrest any who dare to dissent from their cruel and despotic rule.
Second, in Israel, Arab citizens are not “subject to an unjust and unequal system.” They have exactly the same civil, religious, economic, and political rights as Jews. There is no apartheid. Arab Israelis serve on the Supreme Court, sit in the Knesset, go abroad as ambassadors. The head of Israel’s largest bank, the Bank Leumi, is an Arab. Arabs and Jews work in the same factories and offices, play on the same sports teams and in the same orchestras, attend universities together, are treated in the same hospitals by the same medical personnel. Only in one respect are they treated differently: Jews must, while Arabs may, serve in the military. A system that is neither unjust nor unequal.
In the West Bank, 90% of the Palestinians live in Areas A and B. In Area A they have complete control over their lives. In Area B, the PA controls education, health and the economy.
In both Areas A and B, Israeli authorities have control of external security. Does that sound like Israel “occupies Palestinian territory”? Area C, where Israel continues to maintain extensive control, contains only about 10% of the Palestinian population in the West Bank.
The Times reporting on Israel and the Palestinians leaves much to be desired, as can be seen from the article above, which is only the latest installment in Ira Stoll’s running series on the defects in the paper’s coverage of the subject. For many more critiques of The Times by Ira Stoll, go here.
Here’s an idea for the Grey Lady: hire Stoll himself to wield the editorial pencil for all the reporting on Israel and the Palestinians. That might help steady the badly-listing ship of the Times’ coverage of the Middle East.
Steven Brizel says
The NYT has. terrible record with respect to whitewashing Communism Nazism ignoring the uniquely Jewish dimensions of the Holocaust and opposing Israel’s right to defense .It is an expensive pre Musk Twitter page
avi says
the NYT covered up the Shoah. they haven’t changed
Kasandra says
“Jordanians “oppose the occupation of the Palestinian territories”? That’s comical. If by “Palestinian territories” the Times means the West Bank, why wasn’t that a problem from 1948 to 1967, when Jordan occupied those territories? ” Absolutely correct. The answer is that the West simply refuses to understand the true nature of the “Israeli-Palestine conflict. Islam believes that all territory once taken by Islam remains a eternal endowement for the Islamic world (the Islamic waqf). Thus, they believe that, like Spain, Israel, having once been conquered by Islam, remains an Islamic territory. There never was a “Palestine.” There never were “Palestinians.” As many have pointed out the so-called Palestinians are culturally, linguistically, religiously no different than most of those in, e.g., Jordan and Syria. They are, instead, a myth created, mostly by the USSR, to be used as a wedge to reclaim all of Israel for Islam during a period when the Soviet Union was creating “wars of national liberation” all over the developing world for its own purposes.
Spurwing Plover says
The NYT’s covered up for Stalin, Hitler, the Viet Cong and Castro and this liberal rag is behind the 1619 project
Ron Grant says
“The New York Times and its Israel Problem.”
How about “Apartheid Israel and its NYT’s Problem.” Just sayin’.
Edward says
In “apartheid” Israel, Arabic is an official language, the most popular name for baby boys is Mohammed, they have Sharia courts, and a Palestinian (to use the NY Times terminology) was recently named the chief of Israel’s largest bank.
Here’s what one of South Africa’s top political leaders wrote:
“As a black South African under apartheid, I, among other things, could not vote, nor could I freely travel the landscape of South Africa….
Those who make the accusation expose their ignorance of what apartheid really is. Black, brown and white Jews and the Arab minority mingle freely in all public places, universities, restaurants, voting stations and public transportation. All people have the right to vote. The Arab minority has political parties, serves in the Israeli parliament (Knesset)… An Ethiopian Jew recently won the title of Miss Israel. None of the above was legally permissible in apartheid South Africa!…”
–The Rev. Kenneth Meshoe, leader of the African Christian Democratic Party (ACDP)
Edward says
The subhead asks, “Where are the editors at the New York Times?”
Opinion writer and editor Bari Weiss, a centrist Zionist, left the New York Times after harassment by colleagues.
“They have called me a Nazi and a racist,” she wrote in her resignation letter. A couple weeks earlier, publisher Arthur Sulzberger hired Charlotte Greensit as opinion page managing editor and associate editorial page editor. “Her previous post was at The Intercept, the radical left-wing outlet that is known, among other things, for its promotion of conspiracy theories aimed at the Jewish state,” Jonathan S. Tobin reported. “Greensit has personally tweeted defenses of the antisemitic statements by Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) and argued that Hamas was justified in seeking to invade Israel…”
This came a year after the Times published a cartoon of a blind yarmulke-wearing President Trump being led around by a dog with Prime Minister Netanyahu’s face, a combination of the Third Reich depiction of Jewish control and Islamic-extremist degradation of Jews as dogs.