Ethan Bronner’s piece in the Times today on the likely prisoner-exchange deal for Gilad Shalit underscores the lack of diversity in the Times reporting staff. The article is written completely from an Israeli and Jewish perspective. It repeatedly refers to Palestinian prisoners–there are over 10,000–as "murderers" and "terrorists," when we all know that this number includes a great number of political prisoners, like Mohammad Othman.
Alon Liel, who spent 30 years as an Israeli diplomat, including as director-general of the Foreign Ministry and now lectures in international relations, said he knew of no other country whose foreign ministry included a division for rescuing its citizens facing difficulties abroad.
“We have a division for it and a budget for it,” he said. “It is not unusual for a senior diplomat to go 300 or 400 miles to a village where an Israeli has gotten lost or kidnapped or injured. A lot of other nations refer you to your insurance company.”
If the Times had a Palestinian correspondent based in Ramallah, would they have filed this kind of Israel-chauvinist rhetoric? Would we maybe hear about Othman’s case? If one of the Times correspondents were not married to an Israeli, would we be saved some of this propaganda?
A lot of other nations refer you to your insurance company.”
we send presidents!
But sociologists, politicians and religious scholars say that rescuing captives has deep Jewish and Israeli roots, and that the mix of familial intimacy here, a relentless and well conceived campaign by the family and a media culture in overdrive has placed Sergeant Shalit, a shy, bookish 23-year-old, at the heart of nearly every Israeli Jew.
does anyone recall those kidnapped soldiers in iraq after a Abeer’s murder? wasn’t the entire force looking for them? isn’t rescuing ones captives a human instinct? don’t palestinians missed their loved ones as much as jews?
this piece is garbage.
Besides, a country that gives a damn about its “boys in uniform” doesn’t risk their lives for political PR – as successive Israeli governments have done in Lebanon and Gaza. Hamas made the price for Shalit clear from the very beginning. Had Olmert or Netanyahu really cared, he would have been home ages ago. Shalit is just another pawn in Israel’s PR wars.
More to the point, has it crossed anyone else’s mind that one additional characteristic of many of the places that were bombed — police stations, prisons, hospitals, government buildings — they were all places that Hamas might plausibly have secured Schalit?
He’s more useful to Israel dead than alive, one would perceive. And the IDF seems to recognize that.
At least he’s a pawn, rather than nobody–like Rachel Corrie. Further, on every talk show any speaker concerning Iraq or Afghanistan, always first repeats how the American soldiers are the best citizens we have to offer; the truth is, nobody their own families and their peers give a crap about them at all, most especially our politicians. How many tours of combat duty should anyone have to shoulder? And not to mention their families.
This article was a really hateful example of Jewish Supremacism. I read it earlier in the day, and was just astounded (well, not really, knowing Bronner’s biases) at the one-sided nature of the article. As if no other culture wants to get back someone held hostage!
Bronner is a slimy propagandist.
Well, you know how it is, non-Jews are not very family-orientated; it’s there culture, you see. And the Pals are the worst; they love death more than life.
I’m not sure where you concluded “chauvenism” from the article.
Do us a favor and buy yourself a dictionary. Nobody has time to teach you the definition of every word you have to ignorantly put in quotes because of your apparent semantically-challenged nature.
You’re just a witless naif, RW.
I thought the Times article was most informative. Israelis are consumed with concern over a single one of their soldiers, yet the Israeli Jewish population was overwhelmingly in favor of their country’s military action that resulted in the deaths of maybe a thousand civilians, including hundreds younger than Shalit. Which is a bigger tragedy: a 23-year old soldier in captivity but good health versus hundreds of slaughtered non-combatant children?
Of course, Israelis are not alone in this ethno-centric calculation. As a nation, the US was far more concerned with the deaths of 58,000 of its troops than several million peasants and fisherman killed by their fellow troops. Placing a higher value on human beings who share the same passport or distant ancestors is a universal trait, but an unfortunate one; resistance to it would immeasurably aid the cause of genuine human progress.
As for the uncritical praise of the “unique” Israeli national consensus on Shalit, it reminds me of the nonsense one hears about the unique generosity and community spirit of Americans pulling together in the wake of a natural disaster, such as an earthquake, tornado or hurricane, as if people in other countries let their compatriots die slowly in the rubble rather than try frantically to save them. It’s always comforting to believe that one’s own people are of morally superior stock. That’s why everyone is so vulnerable to such tripe, and why the mass media indulges it.
I have to say I’m still not convinced by Phil that Bronner’s ethnicity/marriage has much to do with this. The Times editors could send intrepid reporters into the territories to interview families of the detainees expected to be released, or to cover the Othman story, or they could have gotten the same story as Bronner written by a gentile. There is an institutional bias which is far more important than the reporter’s outlook, which might be shaped by all sorts of influences. I’m sure the Times gets negative feedback from both sides all the time, and shifts its editorial viewpoint in response. Articles like this indicate that it is much more frightened of pro-Israel criticism than the other side. If the tide is turning, it’s going awfully slowly.
Finally, Phil’s closing three questions appear to be rhetorical, but I disagree with his presumed answers on each one. The Palestinian correspondent in Ramallah would not have been assigned this story, and would be told not to pursue Othman if he/she suggested it; and the same article could have been written by anyone.
“There is an institutional bias which is far more important than the reporter’s outlook, which might be shaped by all sorts of influences.”
I completely agree with this Chomskyan point, which is not made often enough on this blog.
“Placing a higher value on human beings who share the same passport or distant ancestors is a universal trait,”
News to me.
The New York Times is biased? This is either victory for Mondoweiss, or acknowledgement of Mondoweiss misrepresentation. Lets see how it gets spun.
link to thelede.blogs.nytimes.com
Of course it’s biased you moron. Read more Witty.
Here’s one study – a comparison of the Times and Haaretz:
link to belfercenter.ksg.harvard.edu
A major explanation for the failure of U.S. policies is the largely uninformed and uncritical mainstream and even elite media coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the United States.
Amen!
Wonderful. You find one blog entry squirreled away in one corner of the NYT site and that proves that their OVERWHELMING coverage of the Israeli perspective (Schalit! Rocket attacks! HAMAS HUMAN SHIELDS!) is counter-balanced. Congrats.
Idiot.
Also, did you notice the second video? “Here’s an brief example of an Israeli doing something atrocious and LOOK LOOK! Palestinian terrorist stabbing security guards! They’re terrorists!”
So a phony moral equivalence is your idea of of “fair and balanced,” huh. (And yes, I mean to apply that phrase to you in every implication.)
That article is supposed to be pro-Palestinian, or anti-Israel? It talks about two videos involving “spontaneous” Palestinian stabbing attacks, without giving the context of occupation and apartheid. Not knowing anything, I am sure that article would leave me with a negative impression of Palestinians vis-a-vis Israel. It certainly fits with Israel’s narrative of “sometimes we overreact, but the problem is that these people are violent and crazy.”
There are actually videos on youtube that address institutional practices. Like footage of white phosphorous burning in Gaza, or white phosphorous burn wounds on people, or Israeli soldiers using civilians as human shields. Did any videos of that nature get a mention on any NYT-sponsored fora?