The Times of Israel is far worse than Haaretz, the Forward or other anti-Israel sites operating under the guise of a Jewish identity because most people commonly assume that a publication calling itself the Times of Israel must be pro-Israel.
The Times of Israel isn’t. Its editor is left-wing. Its content varies from straight news coverage to anti-Israel propaganda. And that makes it confusing for casual readers. That’s why The Point’s policy is not to link to TOI. Haaretz and the Forward are at least reasonably up front about their views. TOI’s brand of anti-Israel fake news is deeply dishonest and misleading.
In their media column, Eli Pollak and Yisrael Medad note another of Times of Israel’s anti-Israel abuses.
IfNotNow has been in the news lately. Haaretz, of course, has lent sympathetic coverage, but it is very helpful if a reporter is basically a semi-member of the group. It would appear that part of the Times of Israel coverage is provided by Steven Davidson. On June 22, he covered the “engagement” of Birthright participants at JFK Airport in New York by members of IfNotNow. Other stories of his have focused on the theme of progressive Jewish millennials. He penned an “American Jew in Palestine” blog in 2014. After visiting Hebron, he wrote, “There was only one thought that reverberated in my mind: Lebensraum. This was how it would have looked like if the Nazis had succeeded, I thought… as a Jew, I began to cry.”
Times of Israel ran Davidson’s propaganda puff piece for If Not Now, an anti-Israel hate group with ties to J Street and JVP, without noting that its author had his own If Not Now ties. It belatedly appended a correction, “Editor’s note: This piece was updated on July 19, 2018 to note the writer’s previous participation in IfNotNow events.”
1. That should not have been an update. It’s a basic disclosure. And the tenor of Davidson’s hateful piece in support of an anti-Israel hate group should have raised that question from the beginning. Davidson was clearly writing as someone embedded in the group.
2. The real issue though is that TOI allowed an If Not Now linked activist to run a large puff piece on its site in support of that anti-Israel group. Adding a disclosure doesn’t solve that problem. Any media outlet with an ounce of integrity would never have run such a piece or pulled it if they had found out about it.
Times of Israel isn’t doing that. And that says everything about their standards and their agenda. And it’s another reminder of why you shouldn’t share Times of Israel links.
An openly anti-Israel site is one thing. A covertly anti-Israel site that relies on dishonesty is even worse.
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