New NY Times Jerusalem bureau chief's first column portrays Israel as repressive
For those of you who thought Jodi Rudoren was difficult, you may yet find yourself pining for her return. Meet Peter Baker, the New York Times' new Jerusalem bureau chief, whose first column is, to put it mildly, troubling.
Baker's first story went all over the map, mixing religion, politics and freedom of expression in a dishonest effort to portray Israel as a repressive society, and Culture Minister Miri Regev (who, as far as I know, is secular) as a religious fascist.
This is from the first link.
More substantively problematic was the incomplete and deceptive
framing of Minister Regev’s efforts related to taxpayer funding of
cultural events. Readers might assume her actions as characterized by
Baker compel Orwellian public expressions of fealty to the state.
But the "Loyalty in Culture" legislation seeks to remove public
funding for extreme anti-Israel projects. It permits a retroactive
reduction in the budget for "actions against the principles of the
state." Among these are cultural events that entail: "Denying the
existence of the State of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state;
incitement to racism, violence, and terror; support for an armed
struggle or terror act by a hostile country or terror organization
against the State of Israel; marking Independence Day as a day of
mourning; an act of vandalism or physical degradation that dishonors the
country’s flag or state emblem."
The Minister is calling for what she terms "freedom in funding" along
with freedom of expression. She and those who support passage of the
law believe Israel is free not to fund cultural events that promote
terror, incite racism, denigrate Independence Day and so on.
That makes perfect sense to this Republican. Let the Arabs mourn their 'naqba' all they want, but why does the State of Israel have to pay for it? The answer is, we shouldn't. And it's not like the Times doesn't know it.
In a related story from January 2016, another Times piece
cited criticism of Regev’s initiatives but, importantly, also provided a
balancing counter-voice. Reporter Steve Erlanger wrote:
"... Mr. Leibler, The Jerusalem Post columnist, defended Ms.
Regev and Mr. Bennett as trying to ‘restore a climate that nurtures love
of Israel and promotes pride in Jewish heritage’ after years when
‘far-leftists, postmodernists and even post-Zionists took over the
Education Ministry.’"
That’s a piece of information that readers deserve to have. Readers
must hope that going forward they will get some sense of the full
context – even if the reporter’s default viewpoint is to fault Israel.
If this is the foot on which Baker has chosen to get off, one has to wonder how much objectivity we can expect from him going forward.
Study: NY Times seven times more likely to criticize Israel than 'Palestinians'
A study done by CAMERA shows that the New York Times is seven times more likely to criticize Israel than to criticize the 'Palestinians' and twice as likely to publish opinion pieces that promote the 'Palestinian' narrative than the Israeli one.
The analysis, which examined staff columns and guest Op-Eds
during the year period from Oct. 5, 2013 through Oct. 4, 2014, considers
the 75 opinion pieces that focused on Israel or the Palestinians. Of
those, 31 were either predominantly critical of Israel or sympathetic to
Palestinians; 14 were either predominantly critical of Palestinians or
sympathetic to Israel; the remaining 30 did not predominantly criticize
or support one side over the other, although they often suggested a
moral equivalence between Israel and Hamas by criticizing both in
roughly equal measure.
(While moral equations between Israel, a liberal democracy, and
Hamas, an internationally designated terror organization, are often and
understandable viewed as anti-Israel, for the purpose of this study
articles that equate those two parties are considered neutral. However,
articles that equate Hamas and Israel while casting the Palestinian
Authority as the one reasonable, moderate party are categorized as
primarily sympathetic to Palestinians/critical of Israelis.)
As tensions rose in Israel and Gaza, the lopsidedness became
even more pronounced. From June 12, the day three Israeli teens were
kidnapped and killed, through Aug. 26, when Israel and Hamas reached a
cease-fire agreement, the newspaper published three times as many
opinion pieces predominantly critical of Israel or sympathetic to
Palestinians as those critical of Palestinians or sympathetic to Israel —
3 vs. 9.
In practice this means, for example, that after the murder of three
Israeli Jewish teens and the subsequent murder of an Arab teen, readers
were exposed to "A Mother's Fear in East Jerusalem," an emotional,
first-person account by an Arab mother about her worries about her son's
safety, which she used as a hook to argue that "the world must hold the
Israeli government accountable for its actions"; but those same readers
are left unexposed to the fears and feelings of Jewish mothers, even
though it is them and their sons who most often are targeted in acts of
murderous terrorism.
The discrepancy fits with the recent admission by a New York Times
opinion editor that the newspaper chooses to shy away from scrutiny of
Palestinians. Opinion editor Matt Seaton, who was commenting on Twitter
about his department's decision to publish three Op-Eds alleging Israeli
racism in three consecutive months, asserted that The Times does not intend to publish pieces about Palestinian racism until the Palestinians have a "sovereign state."
While none of this is shocking to anyone who follows the Times, the fact that studies like this one are nowhere to be found in the legacy media is mind-boggling.
The J Street Challenge - The Seductive Allure of Peace in our Time
Here's a trailer for a new movie that I know you're all going to want to watch. It's all about the 'pro-Israel, pro-peace' J Street, and the challenge they represent to the Jewish community. I have a few friends who are in this trailer.
The key to understanding the significance of this post is to maintain awareness that although Haaretz's English website gets a lot of traffic, its Hebrew newspaper and website are among the least read Israeli newspapers. I used to work in an Israeli government agency with a lot of Leftists, and we used to have to require companies to put legal notices in the newspapers. One of the Leftists once complained about the fact that companies were putting notices in Haredi newspapers. They were told by another Leftist to keep quiet, because the Haredi newspapers had higher circulation than Haaretz.
There’s Ha’aretz in Hebrew and then there’s Ha’aretz in English, and it’s not just language or circulation which sets them apart. (The Hebrew edition of Ha’aretz has a very low circulation in comparison to other Israeli newspapers; its influential English site is the go-to portal for Western journalists, policymakers, diplomats, and a vast public.)
Close reading of both print editions over the course of years has revealed an ongoing pattern. In preparation for the English edition, the Hebrew articles (most Ha’aretz stories are written first in Hebrew) are not merely translated – they’re often also whitewashed. In sometimes dramatic and sometimes subtle cases, time and again, information appearing in the Hebrew original concerning Palestinian militancy, violence and other Arab wrongdoing is downplayed or omitted entirely. In some instances, the English account is completely at odds with the original Hebrew.
For instance, on Jan. 11, 2011, Zvi Barel wrote in Hebrew about a plan by Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat to link the eviction of Jews residing in an illegal building in the neighborhood of Silwan to the eviction of Arabs also living in illegal buildings in the same neighborhood: “A house in which Jews live illegally will be exchanged for a house in which Palestinians live illegally.” (Emphasis added.) The Hebrew report was factually correct.
The English translator, however, whether intentionally or not, gave the sentence an entirely new – and false – meaning, rendering the “illegal” Palestinian house “entirely legal.” The English read: “A house in which Jews live illegally will be exchanged for a house in which Palestinians live entirely legally.” (Emphasis added.) Is this either an entirely innocent slip of the pen or perhaps subconscious editorializing on the translator's part? It's impossible to know, but the introduction of the word "entirely," which does not appear in the Hebrew original, suggests something perhaps more deliberate at play. (The English edition, online and print, was subsequently corrected after Presspectiva, CAMERA's Hebrew site, contacted editors. See "Presspectiva, CAMERA's Hebrew Site, Prompts Improvements," below.)
This case would be striking enough as a stand alone item, but unfortunately it is consistent with a clear trend, which CAMERA has begun to document on its blog (blog.camera.org) but which warrants an extensive published study.
The BBC revealed its complete disregard of its own Editorial Guidelines when it defended an egregiously one-sided and inaccurate documentary about Jerusalem.
This video investigates the flouting of these guidelines by Panorama and the disingenuous ruling of the BBC Trust's Editorial Standards Committee in support of the January 2010 segment.
Conference on persecuted Christians in the Middle East
I received this via email:
The Persecuted Church: Christian Believers in the Middle East -- March 12, 2011
Recent attacks against churches in Iraq and Egypt demonstrate that Christianity faces an uncertain future in the Middle East. More than a dozen church and human rights organizations are hosting a one-day conference to educate the general public about the ongoing threat to Christianity in the Middle East. The event, co-sponsored by the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA), will take place in Downers Grove, IL, on March 12, 2011.
Walid Phares, author of The Coming Revolution: Struggle for Freedom in the Middle East , will be the keynote speaker.
Representatives from Christian communities in Iraq and Egypt will speak about the day-to-day threats faced by Christian believers in the region. Activists serving the persecuted church in Muslim-majority countries will describe their efforts to promote human rights in the Middle East.
The event will take place at the Doubletree Guest Suites & Conference Center in Downers Grove at 2111 Butterfield Road, Downers Grove, IL. It will last from 9 a.m., to 4 p.m.
Advanced registration ($20) is required. To register, call 888 736-3672.
Journalists who wish to cover the event should contact Dexter Van Zile at (617) 789-3672 or dexter@camera.org
CONTACT: Dexter Van Zile of the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America, +1-617-789-3672, dexter@camera.org
SOURCE Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America
I suspect I know some people who will be interested in going.
I am an Orthodox Jew - some would even call me 'ultra-Orthodox.' Born in Boston, I was a corporate and securities attorney in New York City for seven years before making aliya to Israel in 1991 (I don't look it but I really am that old :-). I have been happily married to the same woman for thirty-five years, and we have eight children (bli ayin hara) ranging in age from 13 to 33 years and nine grandchildren. Four of our children are married! Before I started blogging I was a heavy contributor on a number of email lists and ran an email list called the Matzav from 2000-2004. You can contact me at: IsraelMatzav at gmail dot com
