RSS
New York Times ‘Investigation’ of Israel’s 2,000-Pound Bombs Shows Blatant Bias
Israeli soldiers inspect the entrance to what they say is a tunnel used by Hamas terrorists during a ground operation in a location given as Gaza, in this handout image released Nov. 9, 2023. Photo: Israel Defense Forces/Handout via REUTERS
A recurring theme in recent criticism of the New York Times by former longstanding employees such as James Bennet and Judith Miller has been that the newspaper has become more ideologically tilted to meet the demands of left-leaning staff and paying digital readers.
The anti-Israel slant goes along with that. One recent glaring example is a Times “visual investigation” that accuses Israel of using 2,000-pound bombs to attack civilians in Gaza. The mere use of the word “investigation” carries with it an implication that Israel is up to something sinister. Why publish an “investigation” if nothing wrong was done?
Let’s investigate some of the tactics the Times “investigation” uses to make Israel look guilty.
Subtly inaccurate translation by the Times distorts the reality. Early in the eight minute, 34 second video that is the “investigation,” the Times shows a man speaking excitedly in Arabic. The subtitles for English-speaking Times readers say, “Dead? Is she dead?” But the words the man is saying are “shaheeda, shaheeda?” That could be a proper name, but it also carries the meaning, “a martyr for the Islamic cause.” It might give Times readers a somewhat different impression about what is happening in Gaza if, instead of portraying the civilians as running around asking “Dead? Is she dead?” the civilians are asking “Martyr? Has she been martyred for the Islamic cause?” Arabic has other, more neutral words for death, but those aren’t the words the person in the video used.
The “investigation” claims, “When the war started, Israel completely sealed off Gaza’s borders.” That’s inaccurate. The war actually started on Oct. 7, when Hamas terrorists broke through Gaza’s borders into Israel and went on a killing, raping, and beheading spree. Israel eventually, along with Egypt, restored control over Gaza’s borders, but the Times frequently omits Egypt when talking about Gaza’s borders, as it does here. One possible reason for the omission is that it complicates the Times-favored narrative of blaming all of Gaza’s problems on Israel.
The “video investigation” format allows the Times to be more blatant in displaying its bias. Ominous sound effects play in the background while Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is speaking. The transcript gives more clues: “[somber music playing] [explosions and glass shattering].”
The Times uses a video clip of a scared looking child, presumably a Palestinian in Gaza, but it doesn’t say who the image is of or where and when the video was taken. There are unhappy children in Israel, too — their parents called up for reserve duty or killed fighting the Hamas terrorists, or their grandparents hustling them into shelters at the sounds of alerts for missiles or drones coming from Iran-backed terrorists. But the Times doesn’t show the Israeli children. This “visual investigation” doesn’t appear to be an attempt at a balanced look at the cost of armed conflict, but rather seems to be a prosecutorial-style indictment of only one side, Israel.
The policy goal is clear: to cut off Israel’s arms supply. “But the US has not stopped supplying weapons to Israel,” the Times narrator says at one point, implying that is what the US should do. A former Israeli diplomat, Lenny Ben-David, in an analysis for the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, writes that the Times focused its analysis “on the wrong bomb, a Mark-84,” rather than the bunkerbusting BLU-109. Ben-David also makes the connection to policy in Washington: “The consequences of the fraud are Members of Congress calling to cut military aid to Israel, encouraged by Israel detractors.”
Videos like the Times “visual investigation” are designed to be shared by Israel-haters on social media. For example, a Buffalo News cartoonist, Adam Zyglis, posted on social media about the Times 2,000-pound bomb investigation shortly before he posted his own cartoon of a sink with Star-of-David-shaped faucets leaking blood while US President Joe Biden rests in bed.
Adam Nagourney’s recent book The Times reports that in 1981, the newspaper’s executive editor, A.M. Rosenthal, complained to the publisher, Arthur Ochs Sulzberger, about a “harsh and denunciatory” editorial about Israel’s attack on an Iraqi nuclear reactor. The editor responsible for the editorial, Max Frankel, later called it one of his “major mistakes.” It was such a terrible editorial that people are still writing about it in books 42 years after it was published, when the Times is being published by Sulzberger’s grandson.
It may be that two generations from now people look back at Times coverage of this war, at the flawed and accusatory, harsh and denunciatory coverage such as the “visual investigation,” and see it, too, as a major mistake. At least Frankel had the decency, eventually, to admit it publicly.
Ira Stoll was managing editor of The Forward and North American editor of The Jerusalem Post. His media critique, a regular Algemeiner feature, can be found here.
The post New York Times ‘Investigation’ of Israel’s 2,000-Pound Bombs Shows Blatant Bias first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
Turkey Backing Syria’s Military and Has No Immediate Withdrawal Plans, Defense Minister Says
Turkish Defense Minister Yasar Guler takes part in a NATO Defense Ministers’ meeting at the Alliance’s headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, Oct. 12, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Johanna Geron
Turkey is training and advising Syria’s armed forces and helping improve its defenses, and has no immediate plans for the withdrawal or relocation of its troops stationed there, Defense Minister Yasar Guler told Reuters.
Turkey has emerged as a key foreign ally of Syria’s new government since rebels – some of them backed for years by Ankara – ousted former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in December to end his family’s five-decade rule.
It has promised to help rebuild neighboring Syria and facilitate the return of millions of Syrian civil war refugees, and played a key role last month getting US and European sanctions on Syria lifted.
The newfound Turkish influence in Damascus has raised Israeli concerns and risked a standoff or worse in Syria between the regional powers.
In written answers to questions from Reuters, Guler said Turkey and Israel – which carried out its latest airstrikes on southern Syria late on Tuesday – are continuing de-confliction talks to avoid military accidents in the country.
Turkey‘s overall priority in Syria is preserving its territorial integrity and unity, and ridding it of terrorism, he said, adding Ankara was supporting Damascus in these efforts.
“We have started providing military training and consultancy services, while taking steps to increase Syria’s defense capacity,” Guler said, without elaborating on those steps.
Named to the post by President Tayyip Erdogan two years ago, Guler said it was too early to discuss possible withdrawal or relocation of the more than 20,000 Turkish troops in Syria.
Ankara controlled swathes of northern Syria and established dozens of bases there after several cross-border operations in recent years against Kurdish militants it deems terrorists.
This can “only be re-evaluated when Syria achieves peace and stability, when the threat of terrorism in the region is fully removed, when our border security is fully ensured, and when the honorable return of people who had to flee is done,” he said.
NATO member Turkey has accused Israel of undermining Syrian peace and rebuilding with its military operations there in recent months and, since late 2023, has also fiercely criticized Israel’s military campaign in Gaza.
But the two regional powers have been quietly working to establish a de-confliction mechanism in Syria.
Guler described the talks as “technical level meetings to establish a de-confliction mechanism to prevent unwanted events” or direct conflict, as well as “a communication and coordination structure.”
“Our efforts to form this line and make it fully operational continue. Yet it should not be forgotten that the de-confliction mechanism is not a normalization,” he told Reuters.
The post Turkey Backing Syria’s Military and Has No Immediate Withdrawal Plans, Defense Minister Says first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
Norway Lawmakers Oppose Blanket Ban by Wealth Fund on Companies in Gaza, West Bank
A view of new buildings around the Israeli settlement Talmon B near the Palestinian town of Mazraa Al-Qibleyeh near Ramallah, in the West Bank, Nov. 20, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Mohammed Torokman
Norway‘s parliament on Wednesday rejected a proposal to have the country’s $1.9 trillion sovereign wealth fund, the world’s largest, divest from all companies with activities in the Palestinian territories.
The minority Labour government has for months been resisting pressure from anti-Israel campaigners to instruct the fund to divest from all firms with ties to the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, and parliament had been expected to vote against.
“We have an established ethical regime for the fund,” Finance Minister Jens Stoltenberg told the chamber earlier in the day, during a debate on several aspects of the way the fund is run.
“We divest from the companies that contribute to Israel’s breach of international law, but we do not divest from all companies that are present on the ground.”
Lawmaker Ingrid Fiskaa from the small Socialist Left opposition party told the chamber: “Without Norwegian oil fund money, it would be more difficult for Israeli authorities to demolish the homes of Palestinian families.”
The United Nations’ special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories, Francesca Albanese, wrote to Stoltenberg to alert him to what she called the “structural entanglement of Israeli corporations … in the machinery of the occupation both in the West Bank, including east Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip, and the violence that sustains it.”
“International corporations benefiting from [the Norwegian fund‘s] investments are critical components of the infrastructure sustaining the economy of the occupation,” she wrote, in a letter dated May 20.
Stoltenberg replied that the government was “confident that the investments do not violate Norway‘s obligations under international law.”
He noted that the fund follows ethical guidelines set by parliament, and that compliance is monitored by a separate body.
That watchdog has over the past year recommended divestments from Israeli petrol station chain Paz and telecoms company Bezeq and is looking at more potential divestments in Israel.
The post Norway Lawmakers Oppose Blanket Ban by Wealth Fund on Companies in Gaza, West Bank first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
Washington Warns UK, France Against Recognizing Palestinian Statehood
Britain’s Foreign Secretary David Lammy leaves Downing Street, following the results of the election, in London, Britain, July 5, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Toby Melville
i24 News – The United States has warned the UK and France not to unilaterally recognize a Palestinian state at a UN conference scheduled for June 17 in New York, the Middle East Eye reported Tuesday.
France and Saudi Arabia will co-host this conference on the two-state solution, with Paris reportedly preparing to unilaterally recognize Palestine. France is also pressuring London to follow this path, according to sources from the British Foreign Office.
French media reports indicate that French authorities believe they have the agreement of the British government. Meanwhile, Arab states are encouraging this move, measuring the success of the conference by the recognitions obtained.
This initiative deeply divides Western allies. If France and the UK were to carry out this recognition, they would become the first G7 nations to take this step, causing a “political earthquake” according to observers, given their historical ties with Israel. The Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer threatened last week to annex parts of the West Bank if this recognition took place, according to a report in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz.
In the United Kingdom, Foreign Secretary David Lammy publicly opposes unilateral recognition, stating that London would only recognize a Palestinian state when we know that it is going to happen and that it is in view.
However, pressure is mounting within the Labour Party. MP Uma Kumaran, member of the Foreign Affairs Committee, said that the government was elected on a platform that promised to recognize Palestine as a step towards a just and lasting peace. Chris Doyle, director of the Council for Arab-British Understanding, believes that there is no legitimate reason for the United States to interfere in a sovereign decision of recognition, while highlighting the unpredictability of US President Donald Trump on this issue.
The post Washington Warns UK, France Against Recognizing Palestinian Statehood first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
You must be logged in to post a comment Login