NY Times Editorial Vilifies Israel and Distorts the Views of Koch and Netanyahu
Today, the New York Times published an editorial on the special election in New York’s 9th congressional district, which was won by Republican Bob Turner. The district historically went Democratic.
In the editorial, the editors write that they fear Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will take the victory as a message that he can ignore President Obama’s plea that Israel makes compromises with the Palestinians. As they put it,
[W]e fear that Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, will read the election as yet another reason to ignore the president’s advice and refuse to make any compromises with the Palestinians, no matter how essential for Israel’s own security.
As expected, the paper’s editorial writers assume that all of the paper’s left-liberal constituency already believe that it is the Israeli prime minister, and not the Palestinians, who has refused to make compromises on behalf of peace. Therefore they can repeat this calumny without fear of rebuttal from their audience.
Next, they write the following paragraph, which was specifically addressed to former New York City Mayor Edward I. Koch, who had publicly endorsed and campaigned for Turner, rather than the Democratic candidate David Weprin:
Mr. Koch played a cynical game in urging special-election voters to choose the Republican as a rebuke to Mr. Obama for saying that Israel’s pre-1967 borders — with mutually agreed land swaps — should be the basis of any peace agreement. That has been the basis of every deal sought by American presidents for more than a decade.
This argument has been answered time and time again since President Obama first made it — when Netanyahu and Obama had a fairly cold White House meeting, and at his AIPAC speech last year. Again, the so-called paper of record counts on its readers not ever having read any of these rebuttals on the issue of where the 1949 borders were set at the time of Israel’s victory over the invading Arab armies.
The editors’ only criticism of the Palestinian leadership is that they “certainly waited too long to begin negotiations.” This is false, since they have never really agreed to participate in actual negotiations. Their demands are ones that Israel can never accept: the “right of return” and advance agreement on indefensible borders. Of course, to the Times’ editors, all blame belongs to Netanyahu alone, who, they say, “has been the most intractable, building settlements and blaming his inability to be more forthcoming on his conservative coalition.”
Netanyahu actually made his real position available to all yesterday. The Israeli PM said,
The only way for a Palestinian state to come to be is through negotiations. The PA’s decision (to appeal to the UNSC) could change tomorrow. I’ll be at the UN. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas will be at the UN. We could save the trip – Ramallah is only 10 minutes away. Direct negotiations are the simplest way to achieve peace. I hope that the Palestinians will eventually understand that there is no other alternative.
Referring to the PLO’s ambassador to the United States’ recent statement that any Palestinian state would have to be free of all Jews, Netanyahu added that he “regretted to hear a Palestinian official speak of Judenrein. It is a disgrace and I expect the Palestinian Authority to denounce the statement.” I think he will be waiting a long time to hear any denunciation of the ambassador’s view from Mahmoud Abbas, who privately says such much the same thing to his own constituency.
The 1949 borders were armistice lines, and no sooner had Egypt signed them, then they broke their promise to allow Israeli shipping in the Suez canal. Everyone in the Arab states knew that peace was not on the table, only a cease fire that stopped the Israelis from expanding yet further into “Arab” territory at the end of 1948. For more on this period see my short essay http://clarespark.com/2009/09/11/oil-politics-and-obamas-view-of-israeli-history/. Israel has never controlled US policy: quite the opposite, and I fear for her existence if we don’t have a big change in our government.
With regard to the last sentence of your blog post
Throughout, the State Department document, the desire for “stability” in the region is paramount. U.S. policy is clearly stated.
one wonders how, if this is still policy, they must be feeling after having helped kick Mubarak out of power.
One comes to the decision that from the beginning the oil policy was just an excuse to rid the world of the Jewish state.
Had America wished they could have forced an “equitable” solution on the region by not participating in maintaining the Arab Leagues “canon fodder”, the refugees in perpetuity.
One can only wonder at what the outcome would have been had Israel not been around to support the USA against Soviet hegemony in the region.
We have a Muslim in the White House who supports the expansionist Islamic agenda every chance he gets.
His policy does not have to make any sense to normal people. It’s all in the Qur’an.
This quote troubled me re: compromise: “no matter how essential for Israel’s own security.”
Including this line in an editorial should expose the moral bankruptcy of the NYT editorial board. It is at the very least tacit acceptance of terrorism and threats, and is likely full-on victim blaming.
AZ. if you wrapped fish in the times they’d rott befor you could get them home if you lived two blocks away. I quit reading the times years ago,
“Palestinian refugees will not become citizens of a new Palestinian state, according to Palestine’s ambassador to Lebanon.
The ambassador unequivocally says that Palestinian refugees would not become citizens of the sought for U.N.-recognized Palestinian state, an issue that has been much discussed. “They are Palestinians, that’s their identity,” he says. “But … they are not automatically citizens.””
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Politics/2011/Sep-15/148791-interview-refugees-will-not-be-citizens-of-new-state.ashx#axzz1Y4IAXTkf
Maybe Bambi and NYT can spread some dopey-change.
In refusing to admit the stubborn Palestinian attitude, the paper seals its own obtuseness.
Dear Israel,
We real Americans are willing to make you a deal – if you guys find us Obama’s Indonesian passport, – we will give you Pollard, throw in a couple of hundred low-milage M1A1 tanks, and (if we can make it look like they started it) maybe sink Iran’s and/or Turkey’s Navy for you. We rarely get to really use our Navy – it would be a good training exercise for us.”
As a note, radical islamists have tried to kill me in several counties, in two different decades so I can relate.
Good Luck,
Your American Pal
hello. nobody can see disputes ending over Jerusalem. particular real estate may need a more international district, than national division. the religions can never agree to security concerns. even the ‘Nobel Peace Prize’ can not be trusted to protecting them all. God does not decide laws of man. perhaps His influence will provide a solution. Democrats in New York City send signals seen from Jerusalem. meaning not lost in translation is: home is what you make it. segregated neighborhoods bring conflicts home, where everyone belongs. live together, or kill each other- is so UN-American: we enjoy doing both. reality is no compromise of idealism- reality is the foundation. stop reading signals, and start building peace in neighborhoods living together.
tell it to the muslims
From my perspective, the NYT is not a good source of news. I usually look for alternate sources before giving much credence to their reporting. Because the information going is so unreliable, so are the opinions derived from it.
I have no respect at all for their editors. I question their grasp of reality simply because their reporting is so poor.
“the NYT is not a good source of news”
That must be the understatement of the year.
Ron et al. The Times is not a serious newspaper, and it is not a newspaper to be taken seriously. If the Eric Lichtblau hit piece on Darrel Issa has not convinced everyone of that, I don’t what will. (It is not for nothing that I have been saying loudly and clearly that the Times’ logo should be: All the fiction that fits our views, that’s what we print as news.)
I will also say that I must disagree with Mayor Koch’s assessment of the Times. He said in his letter: “I know the Times prides itself on a separation between news and editorials.” Maybe at one Times prided itself on that, but no longer. I remember in the 1960, Newsweek advertised that it separated fact from opinion. Today, I don’t think anybody in the LSM can tell the difference.
Or: “All the slant that fits.”
Walter Duranty. More than enough said.
“Hamas must accept the legitimacy of the state of Israel, and pledge in any peace settlement that it will accept Israel as a Jewish state.”
The PLO refuses to recognize or accept Israel as a Jewish state. Expecting Hamas will is hilarious. How about Hamas first agreeing it isn’t the job of the Muslims to exterminate the Jews before Judgement Day can come? (Hamas charter, article 7.)
Not allowing Koch the space to respond to the accusations against him is typical MO for that paper and others like it who dedicate their space wholly to political propaganda. Their public must not hear the other side, the opposite argument or anything that might cast any doubt on the accuracy of the information they get. That would be counter-prouctive if you’re running a propaganda operation. Today’s journalists believe their purpose is to change the world rather than report on it. Ideology and the desired political outcomes dictate the “facts”. Of course, ideology and political agenda have a legitimate place in an op-ed, but lying about the facts doesn’t. That littile distinction doesn’t matter to journalists anymore. Their public that base their opinions and decisions on such corrupt “reporting” will end up paying dearly, for you can’t base correct decisions on ignorance.
I remember a friend of mine told me he was sitting at a table in a restaurant in DC and at the next table was a WaPo journalist. He overheard the guy say something to the effect that, “of course I lie to my readers. They’re stupid and it’s up to me to tell them what to think.”
Since most people in this country go to college, why do the left think everyone is stupid?
I take religion more seriously than a lot of scholars do. To be frank, I think that most (though by no means all) work in the field that touches upon religious or theological issues is embarrassingly bad, including numerous unproven assumptions and analytical errors that would likely be called out were the scholars discussing something other than religion. I also think there’s a bit of projection at play for largely secular academics: they often see religion as a thin pretext for violent non-state actors precisely because they themselves don’t find religion to be a strong motivating force. But just as you can’t simply assume that groups like al-Qaeda don’t think strategically, you also cannot simply ignore their proclamations that hold religion to be a strong motivating factor. This is not to say that their claims should be taken at face value: but at the very least, we owe it to ourselves as scholars to consider the possibility that they might be true.
The second way it informs my work might seem counterintuitive, but I find that I’m not forced to re-think my basic assumptions about issues I encounter in the field all that frequently. The reason for this relates to something that this spiritual journey instilled in the way I intellectually approach new problem sets. Now, this statement is counter-intuitive for an obvious reason: I changed religions a couple of times, a fact that on its face might make me seem flighty or prone to sudden shifts. But the spiritual progression that you outlined was a product of seeing something through a couple of different frames. Jesus had always been a compelling religious figure for me: my parents, though they didn’t believe in his divinity, had artwork of Jesus around the house when I was growing up, and I had a decent familiarity with the New Testament. One of the reasons I became Muslim was because my level of comfort with that faith’s explanation of Jesus was greater than my level of comfort with Christianity’s explanation. At that point, I saw religion through a specific, rather Western lens: I thought the purpose of religion was forging a relationship with God with which I felt comfortable. After I graduated from college, I worked for a Wahhabi charity, and the frame through which I viewed religion shifted: I came to see its purpose not as forging a relationship with God that made me comfortable, but as understanding and obeying God’s will. I came to accept some rather extreme conclusions about what my faith mandated within this paradigm. Obviously, I moved away from that, and have been a practicing Christian for more than a decade.
But one result of that rather circuitous religious journey is that I find, at this point in my life, that I intuitively examine a new problem set I encounter through multiple frames at the very outset. Similar to how I ended up seeing religion through several different paradigmatic lenses over the course of a few years, I now, when approaching a new problem, try to understand it through several different paradigmatic lenses before drawing any conclusions. This is not to say that I’m more thoughtful than other people in my field; just that I have a different approach than I would have without the experiences that you touch upon, and I think I am therefore more thoughtful than I would have been otherwise.
That’s a very perceptive comment. You’re right that many, if not most, secularists find it difficult to conceive the possibility of religion being a strong motivating force, just as they find it impossible to imagine that some people truly believe that death isn’t final and that if you blow yourself up for the sake of Allah your life will get a major upgrade. But even more interesting is your observation that Islam has a different concept of religion than Christianity. I find it almost impossible to explain to Western Christians that religion can be anything else than a personal relationship with god. Either they completely don’t understand that some other religions can be different, or they understand they are different, but claim they are not religions at all, but ideology cloaked as religion. It’s sort of a conceptual barrier I usually find impossible to cross.
Pnina – I am one of those who claim Islam is not a religions at all, “but ideology cloaked as religion.” When world conquest is the goal and all infidels are second class, how does Islam differ from Communism or Nazism?
It is irrelevant what the NYT thinks. What is important is what Americans think and at this point can anyone here say that Americans will defend Israel no matter what, or CAN defend Israel? I have been a defender of Israel for years on the internet, but sadly, I have to say this choir here doesn’t mean very much. The realities on the ground will decide the issues and in this battle Israel is losing.
Turkey will drop 3 billion in the Sinai to extract gas and continue to create the Iron triangle of Iran, Egypt and Turkey. You think there are no secret agreements as we put the X-band in Turkey? In this climate America can or will run to defend Israel? We lost a trillion in waste, fraud, and corruption in our ME wars and $200 million is what we gave for Iron Dome that can hardly stop Egypt, Turkey, Iran, Hizb’Allah and Hamas.
The 67 borders with mutual land swaps was the agreement. Don’t kind yourselves. That included security agreements making it possible. No, they were never worked out, but that was the general agreement. The settlers are not doing Israel any favor nor is Lieberman and the ethnonationalist theories settlers love as well as the Palestinians appear to be rejected by Netanhayu and all of his allies in the West.
What is Israel’s answer to Erdogan? Greece? Nuclear weapons? If Israelis learned anything about American politics they should have studied Bill Clinton. One co-opts your opponent’ positions, but Netanyahu sought to out flank Obama. So now he must guard every border and project credible force against every threat that encircles Israel. Will Europe, the Indians or Russia come to save Israel? How much waste and corruption Israel can’t afford get wasted every year? How united is Israel, how clever at the narrative game as the Right Wing laughs at it as inconsequential? How safe is that submarine cable or the ability to track US exports in the hands of adversaries?
So grand stands against the NYT doesn’t matter much. They’re just the NYT. Look at how hard it is to stop Palestinian Statehood even before the US election. And after the election?
So I suggest that Israel think outside their box. They must be bold and avoid theatrics. That would be as irrelevant as the NYT. And the NYT isn’t as lethal as Haaretz. The problem is that strategic innovation now will be misinterpreted as weakness. The weaker Israel seems or the more stubborn, the harder the effectiveness of bold ideas.
Time is now running against Israel and it was the lack of foresight that led down this road coupled with weak US policy and weaker Western economics. Israel must search its soul and will. Blaming the NYT or putting faith in district 9 is a waste of time. Had Israel been clever and gone back to the Clinton map, made greater gestures to expose Palestinian deceit on a scale large enough to be clear to the world, things might very well be politically different.
How dumb is Israel? Perhaps as dumb as our Congress who might very well default into a trillion dollar cut to the military. Now imagine what the enemies of Israel must think.
I certainly wouldn’t trust the Clintons any more than I’d trust Obama.
Hillary is in bed (literally!) with a Muslim Brotherhood mole.
You wrote:
It is irrelevant what the NYT thinks. What is important is what Americans think
No it is not irrelevant because they influence what Americans in power think. Those elites, academics and their Ivy League sheep.
The Times has been anti Jewish from the Second World War when the owners, converts from Judaism to the Episcopalian sect in line with their Anglican Brothers across the pond, hid the horrors perpetrated in Europe from Americans, as did the BBC, and onwards.
Their dislike for the Jewish state is on record and in many instances their tendentious reporting has provided incitement for foreign journalists to proceed alike.
Even Israeli media is given to regurgitating what the NYT offers up without question.
Cynic – I thought the owners were still “Jewish.” What is the source of your information that they converted to Christianity?
Cynic – I have in the last few days confirmed that you are correct. The current Sulzberger running the Times (into the ground) is Christian, not Jewish.
People like you drive me nuts. The onus is ALWAYS on Israel and never on a people for whom sneak attack is a national athem. Cease fire to them means reload. Treaty means rearm. Treachery is their definition of peace.
If Israel was smart they would just annex Judea and Samaria (no – it’s not the west bank. its land Jordan invaded)and let Gaza go to hell. Kick every arab out of the occupied territory back into Jordan and if their arab population gets uppity – expel them. I’m just a sick of this conflict as the next guy – but it’s the arabs fault – not Israel’s. Is there any doubt what will happen with any “peace” negotiations after the whole Gaza debacle?
What good is it to expose deceit to the complicit?
I think the Arab deceit shouls have been exposed by now if the world was ready to open its eyes.
- If all the Arabs wanted was the 1967 lines with land swaps why did they reject Barak’s proposal and Olmert’s proposal?
- Why do they demand to settle millions of Arabs INSIDE Israel in a final agreement?
- Why after Israel unilaterally withdrew from Gaza rocket and mortar fire into Israel increased 1000% and Hamas was elected?
- Why do the Pal-Arabs refuse to get back to negotiations and demand preconditions?
- Why when Netanyahu agreed to a 10 months settlement freeze (in existing settelements that were supposed to be part of the land swaps) as a precondition demanded by Abbas, Abbas still didn’t go back to the negotiations for 9 months and then agreed to meet only every 2 weeks for the remaining month?
- When the freeze expired Abbas demanded to extend it as a precondition for continuing the negotiations. Netanyahu said he will agree if the Pal-Arabs recognize Israel as a Jewish state. Abbas refused. Why?
- If the Arabs mean peace, why do the media and education system in the Arab states and many Muslim majority states disseminate extreme anti-Israel and anti-Jewish propaganda, including talks about annihilating Israel, exterminating the Jews, Nazi-style conspiracy theories and the like?
So what do you suggest as a final test? The Arabs say they won’t forego their demand to settle all the descendants of the 1948 Arab refugees inside Israel. That prevents the possibility of an agreement. Then a final test must be a unilateral withdrawal of Israel from Judea and Samaria without land swaps, that is evacuate all the settlements that were supposed to be included in the land swaps, expell all the Jews from east Jerusalem, give up the Temple Mount, the Western Wall and the Jewish Quarter. Why? Because an agreement can’t be reached due to the Arabs’ unreasonable demands, so only a unilateral withdrawal supposedly can put the Arabs’ intentions to the test in the eyes of the world. But if they’ll still attack Israel the world will justify them unless the very last Jew is expelled from east Jerusalem. Only if the status goes back to exactly the armistice lines of 1949 (when all Jews were expelled from east Jerusalem by the Jordanian army) will the world reject the Arab and Muslim pretexts for war, maybe not even then. Either way it’ll be too late for Israel.
The world simply isn’t willing to doubt their intentions.
But I know there’s no use talking. If there was it would have had an effect by now. The course is set and all that’s left for me to do is to watch it unfold. I knew what will happen for years now – the Arabs together with the Left had beaten us on the chess board and there’s no move that can get us out of it – any move either way will be lethal. I can only watch it played out to the end. I don’t know if Israel will survive it or not. I know that at some point there will be plenty more rockets and missiles dropping on my head personally, that I will have to volunteer for some wartime civilain activity, such as in a hospital or in food distribution, and that if the Muslims succeed in conquering Israel I will put an end to my life before they’ll get to me. I try not to hate too much and avoid futile word exchange with people who can’t or won’t see reality for what it is, so I’ll have more time to enjoy my life and my country as every minute is precious.
Having available the NY Post, Pajamasmedia, worldnetdaily, Newsmax, CNSNews, Matt Drudge, IsraelNationalNews, the London Telegraph, Foxnews, RealClearPolitics, the Breitbart sites (Bigjournalism etc.) and a myriad of talkshows, local and national, there is no more need for the New York Slimes. Nor for the dishonest dinosaur networks CBS, ABC and NBC. Let the alte kakkers grow old in their bitter twistyness by themselves, we don’t need these outdated institutions anymore…
Wally, age 49
Auckland, New Zealand
I discontinued my subscription to the Times over five years ago. Articles like this remind me why.
Please see the New York editorials of May 18, 1939 (supporting the British White Paper closing Palestine to Jewish immigration) and June 14, 1939 (announcing that the days of “mass migration” to the United States were over.
These editorials, for me, ended the paper’s moral right to comment on Israel.
Certainly, they should give persons of conscience and good will pause in giving any consideration to the paper’s reports and comments on Israel.
Please note that the May 18, 1939 editorial was written six months after Kristallnacht, when the Nazis made clear that Jews within their brutal grasp were imperiled. The June 14, 1939 editorial was the third editorial the Times printed on the St. Louis tragedy. None of these editorials called on President Roosevelt to grant asylum tothe Jewish refugees on the St. Louis.
I would urge Pajamas Media to post the text of these editorials so that the public will note how callous The New York Times is to the plight of imperiled Jewry. These shameful editorials certainly come within the heading: All the News That Fit — to Be Disseminated.
If one doubted that the paper continues its hardline stand against imperiled Jewry — please note, further, that while the paper has recently lambasted Prime Minister Netanyahu, it could not find the editorial words to criticize Egypt for the assault on the Israeli embassy in Cairo.
While the GOP and right-wingers at the time were clamoring for help for the Jews.
If I remember correctly, FDR was a Democrat and the Congress was in the hands of the Democrats. The GOP at the time was irrelevant. And what did FDR and the Democrats do for the Jews of Europe? NOTHING!! So don’t give me BS about the GOP.
I consider Koch and anyone else who still shills for the farce called “two-state” a Traitor-jew and/or a fool.
I agree with lolly above- no more concessions, no more “negotiations” with liars -Kahane was right- expel the Muslims from Israel, they are a danger and threat, and do as they have done to JEWS in their nations, thrown them out without remorse or recompense . Why do twostaters accept ethnic cleansing of JEWS as Abbass vowed to do in their third state.
Gaza is occupied Israel- promised for peace not gained, so get it back- same for SINAI – Fakestinian non-refugees have a state named Jordan also stolen from mandated Israel
ENOUGH bs and lies enough theatre.
I am tired of the LIE imitiating truth and replacing it in the minds of the press, the UN, the WH admin and it’s imbecelic and communist fantards. Bibi should just keep saying NO- idiot traitors within ISarel should be divested of citizenship & deported, lucky not to be hanged for treason. They have no right to advocate suicidAL POLICIES FOR THE rest of Israel.
Time for deciding if ISarel to survive is long past- IT IS and WILL BE and NO Jerusalem is not negotiable- founded by DAVID it is a JEWISH city- and should be the capital of ISrael- USA should recongnize it as such or go to HELL.
So many people say they support Israel but their actions expose the LIE they mouth
“I consider Koch and anyone else who still shills for the farce called “two-state” a Traitor-jew and/or a fool.”
Finally, a position that brings together Jews from both the left and right under one umbrella!
Israel can NEVER permit a palestinian state as her neighbor. And she had best take out Irans’ nukes before Tel Aviv becomes another Hiroshima.
We must neutralize Pakistans nukes and North Korea’s or find ourselves on the losing end of WWIII.
But Barack Sharia Oscambo will not attack his moslem brothers, even in defense of the USA.Do we really have to put up with that sociopath for anther fifteen months?
It has long been looking for an article on Ron Radosh » NY Times Editorial Vilifies Israel and Distorts the Views of Koch and Netanyahu .